Reality starts at conception

What people consider to be absolute fact has changed over time. The process by which people construct that reality changes overtime as well. Extemporal and metaphysical explanations were more popular in the past to explain causation. In the modern context, most people take a material approach to reality. This means that there is one thing that is being either interpreted or experienced by different viewers. Reality in this context is a shared but disjointed experience. The construction of what is real then becomes a battle for what is real not for the individual but the collective.

Absolutism in material experience

Facts or axioms inform the material experience. For the materialist, their base set becomes and inarguable set of pillars that constructs a larger reality. This set depends entirely on the individual’s personal moral and epistemic codes. The result is a rigid and finite construct that should universally acceptable to any person. When that construction is challenged it is a direct challenge to reality as a whole.

The real fallacy

The viewer is then the constructor of an external object. The real, as something that is experienced or observed, is at the discretion of the viewer. Stop gaps, for individuals, exist within objective criteria and reproducibility. If a thing is inarguable between groups or provable by repetition it is absolutely true. The bedrock of this truth becomes the foundation for future truths.

The problem

Sometimes the methodology or thought process is informed by falsehoods. The simplest example of this is truths informed by falsities. A good portion of Freud's ideas about the mind are a good example of this. His cognitive archetypes and ideas on early development have been exercised from the discipline, but his ideas on the unconscious mind and parts of the brain have been instrumental.

The result

Reality becomes informed by inarguable tenants. Metaphysical and extemporal constructions give access to unknown knowns. The “what if” and “maybe” questions that a purely material approach fails to grasp. Reality just at the grasp of the viewer exists within this realm. People have a limited set of tools to view reality, and those tools can be tricked. Researchers mitigate limits in observation with technology and process. As people rely more on external sources to solve more complex questions society will need to accept that material reality is out of both individual and human hands. 

The real: gender and sex conceptions in reality

What is the real?
The real is the tangible and unchangeable truth of reality. It is not interpretive or perceptive, and remains consistent between viewers.

What are gender and sex?
The answer to that question depends entirely on the speaker. The most accepted answer is that sex is the biological existence and gender is the practice of societal roles and behaviors. The two extremes between these two points would be biological sex and gender essentialism. For proponents of biological sex, gender is a fabrication and all gender roles are informed by biology. Gender essentialists argue that sex is a fabrication and that gender/sex differences are performative. Other camps operate in-between the two theories, preferring a mix that supports specific modules.

How the real and sex/gender arguments come together?

The argument of is around gender and sex is complex in its implications. The first dichotomy is the selection of preference in gender or sex. Sex based arguments favor biology while gender based arguments favor societal impact (essentially a nature vs nurture argument). The second split relates to the feminine and the masculine. What traits are associated with which sex/gender construction, and how many of those traits have larger societal impacts? What it means to be a specific identity and how an individual became/is that identity is the end result of an inquiry into sex and gender.

Why is the gender/sex argument so contentious in relation to the real?

The way one person “is” affects everyone else, in that an” answer to the question of gender/sex cannot be intrinsic in it outcomes. If the world is one way, in the construction of the real, for a group then it is that way for everybody. For example, if sex is completely biological then societal impact doesn’t inform behavior. Likewise, if sex is nonexistent and societally constructed there is no naturalized state.

How to interact with someone that has a different set of morals?

Moral relativism…

There is a whole audience of people, who just by seeing the two words together, has an entire set of premises around the topic. I’m not saying that genocide can be right or that you should move somewhere that fits your moral code. As an exercise, moral relativism is the best way to bridge gaps between opposing/differing moral groups.

What is moral relativism?

More relativism is the judging of morality from a varied standpoint. This means to judge the morality of a person or place by a set of conditional and internal components. Moral relativists argue that things are not simply right and wrong and that what is right to one set of morals may be wrong to another. There are three schools,

Descriptive- There are fundamental differences in moral systems
Meta-ethical- These fundamental differences are the result of condition and we should learn to accept them
Normative- While these differences matter, failing to adhere to one’s own moral code or causing harm can be questioned

Most modern relativists fall into the normative school. The fields of history, psychology, sociology and anthropology all heavily rely on it as well when judging the past or outgroups.

What moral relativism is not?

The first thing moral relativism is not is conditional morality. That there are actions that are right in certain circumstances that are wrong in others. An example would be; “Is it okay to hurt someone who is trying to hurt you”. A relativist examines the morals of the two-people involved. If the two were Jainist monks, then the act is morally compromising. If its two wrestlers getting paid to fight, then there has been no breach in eithers moral code.

Moral relativism isn’t a slippery slope to amoralism. If there is no universal moral code, then anything can become permissible. The genocide is morally correct to those who commit line of thought stems from this argument. The thought process assumes dominant status and focuses on one-sided moral arguments within groups. The argument also ignores the universal tenants of many moral codes such as do no harm. The second is that  

As a mindset what is moral relativism useful for?

Moral relativism is more of a mental exercise in empathy then a finite moral standpoint. Most people that are moral relativists have another set of morals attached to them. Relativism in this sense serves as a bridge between different moral groups. Like moral groupings already practice relativism with ease, it is in extremes that the exercise is useful. (For example: Atheists and Christians, the right and left, or individualist and collectivists.) The reason more people do not practice moral relativism is that it requires understanding and respecting somebody else standpoint as being thought out and logical. If the person you don’t like has a set of morals that are wrong, you can ignore them. If their morals come from a place that is personally thought and practiced, then part of knowing/interacting with that person becomes understanding their morality.

Carthage: An object outside of itself

An object is itself until perceived. Perceived objects are themselves and their projected image. The projected image is given new definition when communicated. Thus, anything perceived or communicated is itself but still a distortion.

What “is” Carthage?It is currently a bunch of rocks.

What “was” Carthage?
This is the more interesting question. In what context the question is asked determines the answer.

To the people of Carthage, it was home. A bustling port city that in its prime hosted over a million people. An intricate canal system, multistory apartment complexes, and a free running sewer system were present in Carthage. Carthage was the naval power of the Mediterranean for over two hundred years and the center of trade for large portions of the ancient world. It was also an ancient metropolis at the center of the arts, culture, and trade. To its neighbors it was either an integral trade partner, or a vicious enemy.

To the Romans, Carthage was an enemy to be slain. “Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam” or “Futhermore, I propose Carthage must be destroyed” was a call by Roman senator Cato for the immediate destruction of the city. Cato argued that Carthage could simply not exist if Rome was to thrive. Carthage’s naval superiority threatened Rome’s shores and its material success meant allies that might aid them against the Romans. It took three Punic wars, but Carthage was leveled to the ground.  

So, Carthage “was” a place and now it “is” a rock?
In the simplest terms, yes. An object is not solely defined by its physical space in our memories, it is also defined by how it is perceived. 

Historian Michael Ignatieff describes social memory as the history that we tell outside of written documents. To Ignatieff, “Memory is a struggle over power and who gets to decide the future”. The morality and identities that exist within a society draw from this memory. So how do/did people see Carthage?

So how has Carthage been remembered, or what does/did Carthage represent?
To the Romans Carthage was either a sign of their past glory, or the ruin of a once great foe. For many, mentally walking through the wastes of Carthage was enough to subdue fears of a waning empire. Others fled to Carthage as a place of mourning or shame. Gaius Marius, upon his defeat by Sullah, was said to have sat amongst the ruins of Carthage. Velleius Paterculus describes the following scene, “There Marius, as he gazed upon Carthage, and Carthage as she beheld Marius, might well have offered consolation the one to the other.”

Still for many historians the fall of Carthage was a record of Roman brutality. Roman general Scipio went to great length to level and sack the city. Street cleaners were active for 6 days in leveling buildings and slaying their inhabitants in assembly line fashion. 50,000 Carthaginians were spared and sold into slavery. To historians that focus on this aspect of Carthage, it is the tragedy of its destruction. This image is not the totality of Carthage thought.

Carthage existed for hundreds of years before its destruction. Not all historians buy into the image of Carthage as the historic victim. Carthage was a direct descendent of the sea faring Phoenicians. There is significant evidence of fire being used for the ritual disposal of bodies in both cultures. Many historians use the presence of infant bodies to suggest child sacrifice. Slavery and violent war practices were also present with the Carthaginians. In this light Carthage was either a city of monsters or merely a place that ended.

So what is Carthage really?
The simplest answer is: It is some rocks, was a place, and represents something different depending on which person you ask. The only certainty for Carthage is that it is a place that always “was”, but will never “be” again.

How much can really be found in the JFK file dump?

There’s a lot of pages.
This one seems like a given, but there are a couple thousand pages being sorted through. Every conversation, visitor, where JFK went for breakfast, and even the color of people’s shoes is going to be in the reports. Not all the information is directly related to the assassination. A good portion of the report is things classified because of the names of people/places attached to them, and have nothing to do with the assassination of JFK.

The process of picking this stuff apart takes a long time.
People are searching for inconsistencies within the major narrative of the assassination and new elements to the case revealed in the unreleased reports. This requires a very delicate approach, and with the amount of data that has been released, it is going to take years to come up with any sort of meaningful counter narrative. While there may be new elements to the case, like the FBI knew about Lee Harvey Oswald to a degree before the shooting, that doesn’t make the whole event a government conspiracy.

The people collecting and interpreting the data start with a set of their own conclusions. Perspective bias and argument from ignorance are going to rule the minds of the people who research into the reports. Most are looking for a new world order, a mafia hit, or lizard people. Any minute discrepancy is not something to be accounted for by further research, but proof that their theory is correct. If there aren’t any discrepancies to be found, then the lack of evidence is evidence in and of itself.

That does not mean there is nothing to be learned from the reports. The information released will fill in some of the gaps in relation to the overall narrative of what happened to JFK. The questions of “How much knowledge did the FBI have about Lee Harvey Oswald?” and “What was done right after the shooting?” are already starting to be answered. When historians, analysts, and even amateur hobbyists take their time and go through the report something meaningful will be found. It just probably won’t be the sign of the beast, a political assassination, or that JFK never really died in the first place.  

What a video essay is and why there should be more of them.

What is a video essay?

A video essay is an essay read allowed that is aided with some video component in order to convey a specific message or thought. The speaker is usually on script, and the video component is supplementary to the overall point the author is making. There are two typical approaches to the method. The first is to have the video relate to specific points a person is making as they speak. The demonstration of that point is done in real time with little description of what is being described past the points the author makes as the image appears. The second is to go over an entire concept and then demonstrate it through video. Both methods are valid and selection between the two depends entirely on the author's preference and complexity of the points being made.

Why there should be more of them?
The video essay takes the best components from both of its mediums and forms a more complete byproduct. By reading from a script, the author is directed and is prevented from endlessly rambling on about a topic. There are clear points made and the demonstration of those points is handled visually. The video component allows the author to provide the viewer with simultaneous visual demonstration of points.

Why aren't there more video essay on the web? 

The simple answer is most of them are too long winded or complicated to get views. The example above, from Nerdwriter, is from a significantly successful maker of video essays. His videos tend to be less than 10 minutes in length and only address one point at a time. Other video essayists tend to speak for long periods of time and use looped footage as a place holder for related video content. The end result is being simultaneously bored by the author's speech and overstimulated by the visuals.

Video essayists to check out:
Nerdwriter
Every Frame a Painting

Kurzgesagt

What does it mean to "think"?

What do you mean by think?
There are actively two components at the root level of what people mean when they say "think". The first is the active verb, to think. The definition of this "think" usually boils down to: the development of a particular set of ideas or beliefs. The second is the scientific definition, or the set of chemical reactions that fire synapses and neurons. While it is impossible in function to divorce the two, in practicality the first one is the one that most people reference when they reference "thinking" a certain way.

"Thinking" in the first context is the process we actively engage with. Why someone has a specific belief, why they like certain things, how they live their day to day life, and how they see the world are in large part due to this "think". The second usage of "think" is involuntary. To ask a person why they thought in the scientific fashion is the same as asking why they poop or breath.

How does someone think?
There is usually some base to the way in which a person "thinks". For some people, it is worldview. Their outlook, goals, and morality all fit into this one framework. For others, it is a personal philosophy that takes on the totality of their lives. Do not harm, do unto others, and live in the moment are a few common ones. For the rest it is an objective goal that makes up the totality of their reality.  Subsistence, a better/specific job, or just being a better person can be the goal of these individuals. This is not to say that their lives involve less "thinking", it is just to say that their thoughts are focused in reaching that specific goal.

How does one think "X"? 
"X" can be anything from thinking better, to differently, to more complexly. The philosophical schools of epistemology, logic, reason, and rationality all have to do with the ways in which people think. In education you have theory in relation to personal philosophy, praxis, and pedagogy. The only wrong answer to "X" is correctly. While there are innumerable thoughts that can be wrong, there is usually something correct in the process that creates those thoughts. By adjusting, and not discarding thought processes, a person can become a more complete "thinker".