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

Can a person ever be concidered normal? Isnt it the general concencus that people are sapsoed to be difernt? and in being difernt they are normal , but if anyone is (like myself) ever truely difernt there scorned. so what does this say of the world?

Hi,
I think it says that the world and the people in it are pretty bright.
If you think that people vary from the "normal" in accordance with the basic statistical normal curve, and they do this in feature as different as their height, intellegence, and legth of thumb. Then if you realise that other people can see and judge this. It makes them pretty wonderful.
OK they might often use the information for immature and irrational labelling that cause pain and offence. But that is simply a matter of education.
There is a lot of hope.
Tonytalk

ist it normal for a person to be difernt thoug? isnt that what being human is alla bout?

Yes, it is NORMAL to be different.
The "NORMAL" height for human males is about six foot in old money, but few people would doubt the NORMALLITY of a six foot four man or a five foot nine man. As height gets nearer and nearer to the extremes, then genuine judgements about NORMALLITY start to kick in.
What is important for any trait is the RANGE of vallues acceptible within the NORMAL label.
For example - colour of eyes. Grey, through deep blue, brown, and green, are all seen as NORMAL. Pink eyes depends perhaps on whether you are talking about charactor or physical illness. But we would all consider silver eyes as NOT NORMAL.
We really should not use the word unless we are sure that everyone affected by the description agrees with the definition AND is listening from the same standpoint.
It is actually not a very useful word at all.
TT

i agree compleatly

Isn't normality, or normalcy a genetic heritage to the pack? People shun the Other in an attempt to establish their own position within the pack, and thus to ensure their genetic material is passed on.

Hi Thelo,
Yes, true BUT.
Humans have the ability to look beyond (or distort) the pack values.
This brings into play everything from art and philosophy to politics and mass hysteria.
This, I believe, makes the concept of normalcy even less useful.
TT

But if the concept of normalcy isn't useful, what concept can replace it that is?

Oh Gord, you would go and ask that question, worse than my grandchildren. One of th problems with cyber debate is that you get more cynics and knockers than you get constructivists.

But back to the question. Why should we replace the concept of normalcy with anything. It is just possible that the ability to accept a wide range of pack values is a survival trait. It helps to biuld up a large gene pool and if an "experimental" or "not quite" gene is surrounded by a diverse layer of friendly genes, it would be more likely to survive until its survival traits are tested to the full.

OK, you gave me the cyber headache, how about a cyber asperin.
TT