h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

At any point in time, an animal (dead, alive, or in suspended animation) is a physical object. The life processes animating its body are chemical reactions within that physical object which transform it from the animal at time T to the animal at time T+1.
In one simplistic sense you may *need* the chemical reactions to exist in order to declare the animal 'alive', but short of cooling to cryogenic temperatures, there are going to be some chemical reactions happening which are pretty much determined by the previous physical state of the body at the previous instant of time. A transcendent being looking at an animal at an instant of time could prfesumably infer whether it was alive or dead without having to see the actual processes happening. Life is a=what happens to animals over time, at least, until they die.
In practice, I'm not sure if plants generally absorb many amino acids from outside, but even if they do, those amino acids aren't really any more 'animal' than the carbon dioxide that an animal breathes out is. There is no property of 'animalness' that can cling to simple molecules that differentiates them from the same ones manufactured chemically in a plant (or in a chemical plant), barring maybe isotope ratios if we're getting really deep.

As far as life and death are concerned, we're back at the continuum again. It isn't hard to give a definition of human life that for practical purposes excludes all imaginable dead humans (and some live ones). It isn't hard to give a definition of dead humans that excludes all living ones (and some dead ones).


Just because there may be some people harder to categorise doesn't mean that categories aren't meaningful, just that they are not comprehensive and 100% precise. Outside mathematics, very few things actually are. People who can't live with indeterminacy might find that a problem. Personally, I don't. I doubt many people really lie awake at night wondering how many gay fantasies (which he never actually acts on) one bloke might have before becoming other than straight.

*Even* if sexuality is essentially determined at any point in time by the physical organisation of the brain at that time, then yes, it *is* still possible for it to alter over time if that physical organisation is sufficiently plastic (or maybe if some external agency such as surgery, drugs or blunt force trauma intervenes in the appropriate fashion).
Clearly the issue is blurrier than that anyway - if some people's desires are not limited to a single sex, then especially if their expression of sexuality is constrained by variable social attitudes, *or* they are simply more concerned about other quailities of their potential partners than their sex, they may appear to have a different sexuality over time if judged purely on their behaviour. However, if you could ask them in an unthreatening way, I suspect most would agree that the underlying flexibility was there much of the time, and that they were moving within a pre-existing personally broad range.

In many ways it's a moot point, since the most likely discriminators probably don't give a rat's ass whether someone is bisexual or gay anyway.

Wow... I actually just read this whole conversation from beginning to end.

I want to point out - homosexuality has been a part of human society since the ancient Greeks, possibly before... there have been studies done (which I can't cite right now, but gimme some time) that show that certain animals (ie: penguins) who form life-long relationships have homosexual relationships with the homo penguins sometimes adopt orphan penguins etc...

Also: I just want to reiterate what I am sure most gay/bi people have said at some point during their coming out process. If I could CHOOSE to be straight, don't you think I would? Don't you think that maybe if I could choose the EASIER, more acceptable, way I would?

all over...

>>"Wow... I actually just read this whole conversation from beginning to end."

Oh dear, I *am* sorry. I do get carried away sometimes.

Well I didn't want to miss anything... next time I'll just skip a few pages... thoroughness be darned... like an old sock...

I wouldn't skip pages, it always leads to badness, like attacking somebody for a viewpoint they don't actually hold, a point they made perfectly clear in a page you missed. This is something I can be really bad for doing.

Would people even bother to question their sexuality if there weren't very rigid social constraints and opinions in place regarding what is considered 'correct' sexuality (ie heterosexuality)?

Otherwise people would simply be sexual beings. Unless, perhaps, if some chose to never have sex. Though again, in the case of Catholic priests and nuns, this seems to be more a denial of their sexuality rather than being asexual.

As tasterainbows pointed out: <> It seems the only choice would be to accept who they are or accept being what they are told is 'acceptable', which is not who they are.

What irks is that all social rules regarding human sexuality stem from religious dogma. Given the multi-cultural societies that most of us live in does it seem fair that, for example, a homosexual atheist should have to live by such rules?


az

>>does it seem fair that, for example, a homosexual atheist should have to live by such rules?<<
No it's not fair, but then again we don't have to live by the rules, I choose not to most of the time. The point I made about my Christian friend was quite an isolated example, usually I don't bother trying to fit in with others beliefs, I just follow my own moral compass. It's not easy, but the more people who do it, the easier it will become
Iago

But to be fair, religious dogma is sometimes simply the result of absorbing pre-existing prejudice from society and then giving it a veneer of divine respectability.

Even in an unprejudiced society, rough categories for other people can be useful, even if much of the time they are only intermediates or proxies for the more personally important category 'potential partner'.

Maybe if everyone was telepathic and could tell instantly whether anyone else was potentially interested in them or not, (whether from general orientation, availability, or more specifc criteria of attractiveness) then categories would indeed be less useful at a local level.

<>

I hate to generalize but most of my gay friends have serious 'gay-dar' happening and seem to know this. Whereas I don't have a clue.


az

At any point in time, an animal (dead, alive, or in suspended animation) is a physical object. The life processes animating its body are chemical reactions within that physical object which transform it from the animal at time T to the animal at time T+1.



Close but no cigar the chemical reactios *are part* of the animal. Life is a constant transformation nothing stands still. The story of the universe is one of *transformation* (which rather fittingly is the name of a chain of shops that sell clothes normally only made big enough for one gender in sizes big enough for people of the other gender).

"There is no property of 'animalness' that can cling to simple molecules that differentiates them from the same ones manufactured chemically in a plant (or in a chemical plant), barring maybe isotope ratios if we're getting really deep.

Fine I agree with this but vegetarians are only vegetarians in their own heads then as they are willing to eat molecules rearanged by decompostion and plant growth as long as they are not in the previous animal form when they hit the plate.

In the same way we accept people as this or that defeniton in our heads because they are donig things in a way we have defined as being near to a hetero or whatever norm but truly sex just like the carbon cycle is a big old mixed up bunch of interconnectedness.

"Even* if sexuality is essentially determined at any point in time by the physical organisation of the brain at that time, then yes, it *is* still possible for it to alter over time if that physical organisation is sufficiently plastic (or maybe if some external agency such as surgery, drugs or blunt force trauma intervenes in the appropriate fashion).

It doesnt even take that much you lock people up in a same gender environment for a abit and see how many "straight" people have a (how can I put this) a road to OZ conversion Whatsmore sexuality is plastic thats why it changes over time look at child developement for examples of how people change and change differently under pretty much the same conditions.

Clearly the issue is blurrier than that anyway - if some people's desires are not limited to a single sex, then especially if their expression of sexuality is constrained by variable social attitudes, *or* they are simply more concerned about other quailities of their potential partners than their sex, they may appear to have a different sexuality over time if judged purely on their behaviour. However, if you could ask them in an unthreatening way, I suspect most would agree that the underlying flexibility was there much of the time, and that they were moving within a pre-existing personally broad range.

Isnt that what Ive been trying to say to you


In many ways it's a moot point, since the most likely discriminators probably don't give a rat's ass whether someone is bisexual or gay anyway.

Yet you still want to use terminology invented by people who want to draw artificial lines between simply so that they can call names after, treat unfairly and kill people on the other side of the line.

We are all the same we just do slightly different things at times that we are seperate is an illusion created b those with an interest in making us believe we something to fear from "others".

one love

I heard a rumor (yes I am a rumor-monger) that Christianity did not always look down on homosexuality as much as it does now. I believe the current person to blame (also a blame-shifter am I) is St. Augustine. In his Confessions, he wrote on his homosexual experiences a young man and how it was wrong because he valued his lover above God.

Also, having been raised Catholic and having a recovered-Catholic view of the world, I believe that God made me gay. I'm sure it had nothing to do with any pills my mom may have taken while pregnant. And as for the gene theory - well, I'm looking desperately to find a gay relative, but I have yet to find one. Maybe my great-aunt, though she's dead so I cannot ask.

I have done a bit of reading and, while I have heard mention of the supposed tolerance for homosexuality in the early Christian Church, it doesn't seem to be supported in the literature. Not that I am saying it wasn't. Just that, even very liberal schoilars have said they haven't seen supporting material, despite one (I'd have to find the author) who has writtin an article on it, but not offered too much in the way of evidence.

Certainly, in Ancient Greece, it was common, and even encouraged, for men to have relations with both sexes and for young boys to be taken under the wing of an older man, ostensibly for guidance and mentoring. How prevalent it was that there was something more involved depends on the scholars writing on the subject. However, for a time in Greece's history, it was frowned on for men to be exclusive, whether with men or with women. Women, on the other hand (at least socially respectible women) were expected to remain chaste, and exclusively heterosexual.

My professor of Ancient History also said that women were not supposed to drink wine (or alcohol, period) and it was necessary when a woman outside the home to greet her relations, when she met them on the street, with a kiss, so that they could tell if she had alcohol on her breath.

>>Fine I agree with this but vegetarians are only vegetarians in their own heads then as they are willing to eat molecules rearanged by decompostion and plant growth as long as they are not in the previous animal form when they hit the plate.<<

Does that mean that after eating herbs from the cemetery I am now a cannibal?

I'm enjoying the interconnectedness theme in your posts, blicky

I'm a vegetarian who occasionaly eats meat for medical reasons. My reasons for being vegetarian are complex and I don't usually bother trying to explain them to people. But I am still vegetatian despite the occasional ingestion of meat.

For me my vegetarianism isn't solely defined by a simple concept such as the absence of meat. It's a mix of health, spiritual, ethical, social etc choices and needs. But to put it on a simple level, I eat vegetarian most of the time, which isn't the meat and 3 veg minus the meat. Vegetarian meals and diet are usually something quite different to carnivores, and I would continue to eat them even if I brought meat back into my diet permanently.

While I think there are limits to the analogy, I think likewise that there are people who's sexual identity isn't solely defined by the absence or presence of certain kinds of sex. I know lesbians who occasionally sleep with men, and they certainly don't consider themselves bisexual. Contrary to popular belief being lesbian isn't defined by the absence of sex with men, it's defined by the loving of women.


blicky, I get what you are saying about the conituum thing and why the need for labels. I still think it is ok for people to identify as being homosexual though, especially because this has been so important politically.

I dislike the term bisexual as applied to anyone who has an attraction to either of the 2 main genders. I have no problem with people who identify as bisexual, and it seems to me that like being gay or lesbian this is more than just a definition of technical sex i.e. it is an *identity* with quite specific meanings. I just don't think that it can be a generic term applied from the outside.


One thing I have been thinking about over the last days worth of reading this thread, is how much experiences of love affect all this. I was thinking about how love and sex and what that means differ amongst genders as well as individuals, and how this impacts on sexual identity.

eg I wonder if part of the reason that some people find the idea of male homosexuality difficult is because we are in a society where loving affection between men is not visible. Whereas women are able to be physically affectionate with each other much more visibly irrespective of their sexuality.

"I wonder if part of the reason that some people find the idea of male homosexuality difficult is because we are in a society where loving affection between men is not visible. Whereas women are able to be physically affectionate with each other much more visibly irrespective of their sexuality."

Good point.

I always wonder why people get so bent out of shape at two men (or women) holding hands, but don't have a problem with blatant heterosexuality in public places -- practically having sex in stores, etc. (or actually, judging from the number caught canoodling aon the couches when Chapters had couches...).

I agree with kea - I am a lesbian who occasionally sleeps with men and I do not consider myself bisexual at all.

I actually don't think I consider myself a lesbian either. The best term anyone has come up with is pansexual. I am attracted to people based on many many factors the least of which is gender. This sounds kind of simplistic and idealistic, but it tends to be true regardless. I have loved, and do love, several men (in a sexual way), but my great love is women. And were I to choose to ever sleep with ONLY one gender ever again it would be female. But I am certainly not bisexual.

And I also have noticed that is far more socially acceptable for women to be gay than for men. If two men even hug in public, people look at the all askance...

Isn't it amazing what you find when you're blundering through h2g2?

I can honestly say (in reply to the first post, I don't have time to read the whole thread, sorry)

I've been pregnant.
I have a gay daughter.
I never took any medication when I was pregnant. Or imbibed. Or smoked.

I've never taken slimming tablets in my whole life!

Whatever next?!?

For the record, mothers don't love their children any less just because they're gay. Well, I don't. Obviously I can't speak for all mothers.

I just thought! I *do* have mercury fillings in my teeth, which was touted for a while to explain my younger son's autism. Maybe this contributed to my daughter's sexual orientation? (except she has an older & younger sibling who definately aren't gay)

There is always there tendancy for people to mis-interpret "is a cause of," as "is the primary cause of," or "is the only (=necessary and sufficient) cause of" etc.

Genetics, like most things in life, is very complicated, widely misunderstood and most certainly not black & white.

"Atomic tomatoes are not the only fruit"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/badscience/story/0,12980,1374213,00.html

"Ben Goldacre names the winners of the 2004 Bad Science awards - the gongs nobody wants"



I think the 'slimming pill' homophobes should have at least received a dishonorable mention.

az

<>

Or even to interpret "there is a statistical correlation between X and Y" as "X causes Y". Anybody who does this without further investigation or argument is immediately eligible for a Bad Science Award.

Noggin

*still off-topic*
>>"Close but no cigar the chemical reactios *are part* of the animal. Life is a constant transformation nothing stands still. The story of the universe is one of *transformation* (which rather fittingly is the name of a chain of shops that sell clothes normally only made big enough for one gender in sizes big enough for people of the other gender)."

I'd argue that an animal is essentially physical object. Chemical reactions are an ongoing consequence of its existence at the previous instant, and in that sense are a property of the animal, but I'd argue that they are a property secondary to that of the physical presence of the animal, since they are determined by the interaction of that physical presence with the wider world over time. If time stopped, or the animal was instantly cryo-cooled, it would still be an animal.

The chemical reactions define the process of change (life) which *happens to* the animal over time.

Chemically speaking, an oak table changes over the centuries, but those changes are a *consequence* of the table being made of oak and the laws of physics, not part of what it means for something be an oak table, except to the extent that someone is interested to know what *will happen to* their table, not whether their table *is* a table.