Social constructs are real and they matter

[cardgame]

Just so long as you remember to include the turtles upon which the elephant stands on.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Just so long as you remember to include the turtles upon which the elephant stands on.

Assuming I'm catching the correct reference, there is only one turtle.

 

[Birdjaguar]

But surely the sun is simply a material reality?

Perhaps not to the Aztecs.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Those two statement are not logically related *smug face*

I think that just because things "don't really" have a beginning and an end, that doesn't necessarily mean that they don't exist outside of social constructs.

The atoms in the sun are having a bit of a party - they are bonding, and doing other things. They are not just randomly floating through space - there is a definite "thing" there, whether there is a clear edge to it or not.

Nothing TF said is very contentious IMO, you people just insist on reading contentious things into it. For what reason I don't know. I suppose because it is an extremely broad phenomena which makes it uncomfortable to handle.

Language is a social construct. So words will always be social constructs in one way or another. However, I admit that this can be a bit pedantic.

 

[warpus]

"You people" - the posters named warpus who post on this forum?

I'm the only one, eh, you can stop addressing me as "you people". The two people you quoted - that's the same dude - me.

If you excuse us, we are now going for lunch.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

But I can still see you!

 

[Borachio]

Assuming I'm catching the correct reference, there is only one turtle.

I agree. But then, assuming I'm catching the correct reference too, there are four elephants, standing on the one turtle. The one, very big, turtle.


But there's another possible reference.

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"
—Hawking, 1988

 

[warpus]

God is the unturtled turtle

 

[Gori the Grey]

^Brilliant. I wish I'd thought of that. I can only add: the unmoved (slow) mover.

 

[Domen]

And where is the spherical turtle in all of this?:

 

[Borachio]

The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks
Which practically conceal its sex.
I think it clever of the turtle
In such a fix to be so fertile.

Ogden Nash.