How do you feel about inter-species…

[Ahriman he/him]

I get that, I just find it odd that fiction in general so often wants me to see all nonhuman beings as people and not as something fundamentally different and alien. If all these things are just humans with different bodies that's much less interesting to me. Spren and singers and kandra become less compelling to me the more human they seem. And I'm not saying interspecies romance shouldn't ever be acceptable, I just find it odd when questioning it isn't treated as reasonable.

[CtrlAltDepressed]

2 minutes ago, Ahriman said:

And I'm not saying interspecies romance shouldn't ever be acceptable, I just find it odd when questioning it isn't treated as reasonable.

I think because to a lot of people, there isn't anything to think about. 

• Can they willingly consent?
• Are they cute? 

That is the thought process of a majority of people when seeing this in media. It's kind of human nature. We did this to other humanoid species in our past and there is no doubt in my mind that if we encountered a humanoid sapient alien species that it would not take long at all for people to start dating them. 

 

6 minutes ago, Ahriman said:

humans with different bodies that's much less interesting to me

Unfortunately Brandon is a human that has only ever talked to humans. He has no idea what an actual alien would be like, no one does, so the best we can do is make them human. Even in Star Trek, where there are very inhuman species, they are all still very human in a lot of ways. Needing community, mental stimulation, love of art, intense emotions. 

 

I think its good that you are thinking critically about this, and I dont want to imply that we should just accept every relationship we see as good, inter species or not. You have to evaluate on an individual level. Like Hoid and Jasnah - both humans - but anyone could have said that its weird a 10,000+ year old guy is dating a 30 year old. Looking at the relationship itself, Rlain and Renarin make a lot of sense to me. 

 

There are other relationships that might not make sense to me, but wether they do or dont wont be based on what species they are or what they look like. It will be based on wether the relationship is beneficial for both parties. If thats the case, nothing else really matters. 

[Ahriman he/him]

2 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

I think because to a lot of people, there isn't anything to think about. 

• Can they willingly consent?
• Are they cute? 

That is the thought process of a majority of people when seeing this in media. It's kind of human nature. We did this to other humanoid species in our past and there is no doubt in my mind that if we encountered a humanoid sapient alien species that it would not take long at all for people to start dating them.

That seems very odd (alien?) to me, but you're probably right.

4 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

Unfortunately Brandon is a human that has only ever talked to humans. He has no idea what an actual alien would be like, no one does, so the best we can do is make them human. Even in Star Trek, where there are very inhuman species, they are all still very human in a lot of ways. Needing community, mental stimulation, love of art, intense emotions.

Is that the best we can do? Obviously we can't realistically figure out what a nonhuman intelligence would be like, whether or not such a thing exists, but to me the whole point of having nonhuman beings is to have things that are, on a fundamental level, not human. Maybe some writers have tried this and I haven't seen their work, but I'd like to see science fiction or fantasy where there's something you truly can't form the kind of relationship with that you could with another human, something that just can't be understood or fully seen eye to eye with. I get that's not what Sanderson is doing, I'm just always a bit disappointed when the interesting, strange alien creatures all end up acting like regular people with a new paint job.

[MagicMaggot]

12 minutes ago, Ahriman said:

I just find it odd that fiction in general so often wants me to see all nonhuman beings as people and not as something fundamentally different and alien.

Nothing odd about it. If we can't relate to alien characters, we can't understand their motives, and if we can't understand their motives, everything they do in the plot will just feel randomly assigned by the author, which usually isn't satisfying to the reader. That's why if we don't just want the aliens to be a force of nature, we, being humans, have to start with the human default, and introduce just enough differences that they feel suitably different, but not enough that they go beyond our understanding. That's not an easy balance to strike, and the same thing won't work for every reader. 

[Ahriman he/him]

Just now, MagicMaggot said:

Nothing odd about it. If we can't relate to alien characters, we can't understand their motives, and if we can't understand their motives, everything they do in the plot will just feel randomly assigned by the author, which usually isn't satisfying to the reader. That's why if we don't just want the aliens to be a force of nature, we, being humans, have to start with the human default, and introduce just enough differences that they feel suitably different, but not enough that they go beyond our understanding. That's not an easy balance to strike, and the same thing won't work for every reader. 

I don't know that I've ever related to a human character either. Relating to characters isn't something I look for very often.

[MagicMaggot]

1 minute ago, Ahriman said:

I don't know that I've ever related to a human character either.

If you understood their motives, you have related enough to them to understand my argument.

Edited January 10, 2025 by MagicMaggot

[Ahriman he/him]

2 minutes ago, MagicMaggot said:

If you understood their motives, you have related enough to them to understand my argument.

I'd thought we were having a conversation rather than an argument or debate, but I see what you mean. I honestly would sometimes prefer to have characters so alien I couldn't understand their motives.

[MagicMaggot]

Just now, Ahriman said:

I honestly would sometimes prefer to have characters so alien I couldn't understand their motives.

I personally couldn't really imagine how that would be written into a story. Maybe stories like that are out there, but I'm trying to imagine how you would write something like this, if you aren't starting from your own human way of thinking and abstracting from there, and I'm just coming up blank. I can't really think of any examples. Do you have anything specific in mind? 

[Ahriman he/him]

Just now, MagicMaggot said:

I personally couldn't really imagine how that would be written into a story. Maybe stories like that are out there, but I'm trying to imagine how you would write something like this, if you aren't starting from your own human way of thinking and abstracting from there, and I'm just coming up blank. I can't really think of any examples. Do you have anything specific in mind? 

Unfortunately no, or I'd be writing it myself. I'm sure if a writer sat down for long enough they could at least lay out a set of patterns or instincts for them to follow. Or maybe replace some human instincts and behavioural patterns with insect ones, so suddenly life becomes cheap since everyone lays thousands of eggs, or fathers get their heads bitten off, or birth is always fatal for the parent but still desired. I think it would also be easier not to make them major characters, or at least not characters interacted with terribly often.

Adrian Tchaikovsky did something like that in his Final Architecture books, where there was a race that was so hard to follow that even with translators it wasn't entirely clear what they were saying, or if they could understand human concepts. I don't remember how that went in the long run. We've gotten very off topic here though, sorry about all that.

[RedBlue]

17 minutes ago, Ahriman said:

I honestly would sometimes prefer to have characters so alien I couldn't understand their motives.

 

11 minutes ago, MagicMaggot said:

I personally couldn't really imagine how that would be written into a story. Maybe stories like that are out there, but I'm trying to imagine how you would write something like this, if you aren't starting from your own human way of thinking and abstracting from there, and I'm just coming up blank. I can't really think of any examples. Do you have anything specific in mind? 

There’s a very good visual novel called Slay the Princess which focuses on the relationship between two very, very non-human characters. It’s in the realm of fantasy rather than sci-fi, so not ‘aliens’ in the traditional sense, but I did come away from it thinking ‘wow, that was a kinda-sorta love story that does not remotely mesh with human psychology.’

Edited January 10, 2025 by RedBlue
SPAG

[Ahriman he/him]

4 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

 

There’s a very good visual novel called Slay the Princess which focuses on the relationship between two very, very non-human characters. It’s in the realm of fantasy rather than sci-fi, so not ‘aliens’ in the traditional sense, but I did come away from it thinking ‘wow, that was a kinda-sorta love story that does not remotely mesh with human psychology.’

You, my friend, have just determined how I'll be spending my weekend. I looked that up on Steam and I like all those tags.

[RedBlue]

4 minutes ago, Ahriman said:

You, my friend, have just determined how I'll be spending my weekend. I looked that up on Steam and I like all those tags.

You’re very welcome! 

[bmcclure7]

1 hour ago, Ahriman said:

I get that, I just find it odd that fiction in general so often wants me to see all nonhuman beings as people and not as something fundamentally different and alien. If all these things are just humans with different bodies that's much less interesting to me. Spren and singers and kandra become less compelling to me the more human they seem. And I'm not saying interspecies romance shouldn't ever be acceptable, I just find it odd when questioning it isn't treated as reasonable.

I get this. It’s not like I want every story to be like this. I appreciate stuff like Star Wars and Star Trek where the aliens are just funny looking humans. But I also appreciate Warhammer 40k or similar stories where the aliens are fundamentally non-human. 

1 hour ago, Ahriman said:

That seems very odd (alien?) to me, but you're probably right.

Is that the best we can do? Obviously we can't realistically figure out what a nonhuman intelligence would be like, whether or not such a thing exists, but to me the whole point of having nonhuman beings is to have things that are, on a fundamental level, not human. Maybe some writers have tried this and I haven't seen their work, but I'd like to see science fiction or fantasy where there's something you truly can't form the kind of relationship with that you could with another human, something that just can't be understood or fully seen eye to eye with. I get that's not what Sanderson is doing, I'm just always a bit disappointed when the interesting, strange alien creatures all end up acting like regular people with a new paint job.

I would recommend you Warhammer 40k or frieren, Children of time. All of theses feature non-humans that actually are non-human some very non-human others are similar to us but different in key aspects. 

[alder24]

20 hours ago, christianrapper said:

Full Cosmere spoilers: How do you guys feel about inter-species dating? This is NOT about gay relationships so please don’t comment about that. I am definitely not about to get into that. I don’t know how I feel about humans dating listeners. No, that’s not racist. Humans dating other sapient species isn’t relatable to anything in the real world. It’s not like you dating an Asian, black person, white person, or anyone else outside of whatever race you are. It would be like you dating a sapient ape. Now just imagine yourself kissing a sapient ape for a quick second. You can’t tell me that didn’t make you feel sick. How would you feel about being physical with someone like a listener. I am not talking about you as some omniscient reader who knows everyone’s thoughts and feelings. I mean the you now with your current hangups and that can only go by the way that characters look. I am not going to lie. If preventing a godlike being from waging war on humanity depended on me dating a sapient ape or shelled being then you guys better prepare for war because that’s not happening. Heck, if preventing a war depended on me marrying a Thaylen, you guys might be in trouble. Imagine Wax. He was dating a shape shifter and didn’t even know it. Dating in the Cosmere could definitely be tricky. You can find yourself unknowingly dating a spren or something and not even know it.

Personally, I don’t think I would be physically attracted to a Singer (all this carapace, forms and spikes are not for me), but Singers have a very human-like appearance - they look just like humans with patterns on the skin and sometimes have some shell. They aren’t that different so I can fully understand that someone might be attracted physically to them.

But physical attraction is not everything, there is a person inside this body with their own personality, feelings and thoughts and all of this is almost exactly the same as what humans have. So while I might not fall in love with a Singer's body, I definitely might fall in love with a person, who happens to be a Singer.

But I understand you, I draw the line at Sleepless - I can’t stand the thought that they are made out of thousands of spider-like creatures. That’s just a nightmare. Some people have kinks, some have aversions, having both is fine and there is a wider range of them in Cosmere. But just because I wouldn’t date a Sleepless, it doesn’t mean that I’m opposed to seeing Sleepless date in Cosmere - Masaka or Nikli are quite likeable, cute even and I totally fine with seeing them consensually date a non-Sleepless who loves them for who they are, despite that Sleepless literally can have butterflies inside of their stomach. 

But what’s wrong with Thaylens?? You know they can always cut their eyebrows short like Mraize does it?

 

10 hours ago, Shaukan-son-Hasweth said:

The dating a Kandra thing was a little more icky to me. Because you're in some ways dating a corpse.

Rust, I've never thought about it that way! 

[Returned he/him]

4 hours ago, christianrapper said:

So here’s the question. If you were on Roshar could you see yourself kissing a war form listene?

What possible relevance can this question have? If someone answers "yes" because they're fine with it, what response can you have besides repeating that you think it's gross? Aside from you thinking it's gross (which, again, is perfectly valid), do you have any rationale at all for why it would be bad? Additionally, why have you ignored the questions about why you wouldn't date a Thaylen or what about the Renarin/Rlain pairing is a hard no for you even while you state that you're ambivalent about general human/singer relationships?

If you need an answer to the quoted question, sure, I could see it. I don't find the descriptions of warforms to be all that attractive, but the same is true about various human appearances and aesthetic choices-- I could kiss a human woman whose personal style I find unappealing, it wouldn't be in some way inherently wrong to do it. What about a human woman with a great cosplay of a singer in warform?

I don't see anything fundamentally wrong about it, and that would be true even if I, personally, absolutely didn't want to do it. Wrong for me, perhaps, but not consequently wrong for everyone everywhere ever, automatically. What you've laid out in this thread is essentially the same as saying that (hypothetical example) because you think pizza is disgusting, eating pizza is wrong and you don't understand how anyone could ever do it and therefore no one ever should.

 

1 hour ago, MagicMaggot said:

I personally couldn't really imagine how that would be written into a story. Maybe stories like that are out there, but I'm trying to imagine how you would write something like this, if you aren't starting from your own human way of thinking and abstracting from there, and I'm just coming up blank. I can't really think of any examples. Do you have anything specific in mind? 

I can recommend the Beyond series by Vinge (A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky, and there is a third that I haven't read yet), the third and fourth Rama books (Garden of Rama and Rama Revealed) by Lee, as well as (hesitantly) the Gap Cycle books by Donaldson. All have some pretty interesting alien characters and groups with some of what you describe. There are commonalities between humans and aliens in the first two groups of books which are recognizable and allow for meaningful interactions but also some fundamental alien-ness that makes them somewhat unknowable.

I really liked all of them, though the Gap Cycle has some elements that make me hesitant to recommend them fully (as with all Donaldson books). But one of the Gap Cycle books (I forget which) has an epigraph/in-world mini-essay about trying to understand the alien psychology that is among the best truly alien representations I've eve read.

Edited January 10, 2025 by Returned

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, Ahriman said:

Obviously we can't realistically figure out what a nonhuman intelligence would be like, whether or not such a thing exists, but to me the whole point of having nonhuman beings is to have things that are, on a fundamental level, not human. Maybe some writers have tried this and I haven't seen their work, but I'd like to see science fiction or fantasy where there's something you truly can't form the kind of relationship with that you could with another human, something that just can't be understood or fully seen eye to eye with.

Most stories like this (Contact, Project: Hail Mary, etc. - even parts of Enderverse) do not have a Romance arc at all - they are more about people trying to understand something that is so different. Usually in an attempt to understand motives or achieve a method of communication. Good stories, but the "can a human have a romantic relationship" question usuallly never comes up, because that is not what the story is about.

Minor Spoilers:

Spoiler

Such as Speaker for the Dead (Spoilers):

Spoiler

Andrew trying to understand the lifecycle of the "piggies."

or P:HM (spoilers)

Spoiler

Grace and Team trying to understand the first extra-solar life they encounter at the beginning and (more spoilers)

Spoiler

Later when Grace tries to understand, communicate and work with Rocky

 

 

Hope that helps

[coolsnow7]

20 hours ago, christianrapper said:

Full Cosmere spoilers: How do you guys feel about inter-species dating? This is NOT about gay relationships so please don’t comment about that. I am definitely not about to get into that. I don’t know how I feel about humans dating listeners. No, that’s not racist. Humans dating other sapient species isn’t relatable to anything in the real world. It’s not like you dating an Asian, black person, white person, or anyone else outside of whatever race you are. It would be like you dating a sapient ape. Now just imagine yourself kissing a sapient ape for a quick second. You can’t tell me that didn’t make you feel sick. How would you feel about being physical with someone like a listener. I am not talking about you as some omniscient reader who knows everyone’s thoughts and feelings. I mean the you now with your current hangups and that can only go by the way that characters look. I am not going to lie. If preventing a godlike being from waging war on humanity depended on me dating a sapient ape or shelled being then you guys better prepare for war because that’s not happening. Heck, if preventing a war depended on me marrying a Thaylen, you guys might be in trouble. Imagine Wax. He was dating a shape shifter and didn’t even know it. Dating in the Cosmere could definitely be tricky. You can find yourself unknowingly dating a spren or something and not even know it.

Without dismissing the question, the answer depends entirely - not almost entirely, fully 100% entirely - on the details of the premises, which you (and Brandon for the most part) have left open.

Say, in real life, some wormhole opened up to a different galaxy’s Earth 2 where there was another species that looked, acted, functioned etc. identically to humans, complete with identical genetic makeups, except for one small detail (let’s say, they have a second appendix). Clearly they’re a different species. And yet I don’t think, if our civilizations started blending, anyone would be uncomfortable with humans getting together with them.

By contrast, say we found some pre-Neanderthal evolutionary ancestors frozen in ice somewhere such that we could thaw them out and bring them back to life. They’d be quite substantially different - much lower IQ, significantly different biology and physical appearance, certainly no cultural background etc. On some level you have a stronger argument that they’re the same species as us than the Earth 2 people. And yet, someone trying to bang this 2 million+ old genetic ancestor would be correctly viewed as some combination of abusive, bestial, and masturbatory.

Point being, how I - or really, anyone - will react is largely an open question at this point, because Brandon has yet to fill in most of these details.

To actually answer the question:

Interestingly, as far as humans<>Singers goes, my own intuition is resolved based on the fact that (according to WoB regarding the Horneaters) apparently humans and Singers can reproduce. I imagine this could sound controversial because it might imply that the boundary between acceptable love/sex/relationship and unacceptable is whether the participants can reproduce together, which is obviously false (because then every pair of grandparents over 55 would have to get divorced.) But to me it feels like a reasonable line to draw with respect to different species, whether that’s logically coherent or not. I think there are Cosmere questions regarding how two different species evolving in entirely different contexts wind up converging to sufficiently similar genetic makeup such that they can reproduce, and those questions probably get answered by a combination of “good moves in design space” and “lol Adonaldium bro”. 

That said, I also found the human<>Direform romance in WaT deeply implausible. How is anyone human going to be physically attracted to a Direform? Did this guy do some epic Soothing+Rioting on himself so that he could convince himself to find a Direform beautiful? Whatever, not my problem.

Edited January 10, 2025 by coolsnow7

[christianrapper]

10 minutes ago, Returned said:

What possible relevance can this question have? If someone answers "yes" because they're fine with it, what response can you have besides repeating that you think it's gross? Aside from you thinking it's gross (which, again, is perfectly valid), do you have any rationale at all for why it would be bad? Additionally, why have you ignored the questions about why you wouldn't date a Thaylen or what about the Renarin/Rlain pairing is a hard no for you even while you state that you're unsure about general human/singer relationships?

If you need an answer to the quoted question, sure, I could see it. I don't find the descriptions of warforms to be all that attractive, but the same is true about various human appearances and aesthetic choices-- I could kiss a human woman whose personal style I find unappealing, it wouldn't be in some way inherently wrong to do it. I don't see anything fundamentally wrong about it, and that would be true even if I, personally, absolutely didn't want to do it. What you've laid out in this thread is essentially the same as saying that (hypothetical example) because you think pizza is disgusting, eating pizza is wrong and you don't understand how anyone could ever do it.

 

Sorry I can't quote you directly, @MagicMaggot (I'd posted before I saw your comment), but I can recommend the Beyond series by Vinge (A Fire Upon the Deep and A Deepness in the Sky), the third and fourth Rama books (Garden of Rama and Rama Revealed) by Lee, as well as (hesitantly) the Gap Cycle books by Donaldson. All have some pretty interesting alien characters and groups with some of what you describe. There are commonalities between humans and aliens in the first two groups of books which are recognizable and allow for meaningful interactions but also some fundamental alien-ness that makes them somewhat unknowable. I really liked all of them, though the Gap Cycle has some elements that make me hesitant to recommend them fully (as with all Donaldson books).

 

2 hours ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

I think because to a lot of people, there isn't anything to think about. 

• Can they willingly consent?
• Are they cute? 

That is the thought process of a majority of people when seeing this in media. It's kind of human nature. We did this to other humanoid species in our past and there is no doubt in my mind that if we encountered a humanoid sapient alien species that it would not take long at all for people to start dating them. 

 

Unfortunately Brandon is a human that has only ever talked to humans. He has no idea what an actual alien would be like, no one does, so the best we can do is make them human. Even in Star Trek, where there are very inhuman species, they are all still very human in a lot of ways. Needing community, mental stimulation, love of art, intense emotions. 

 

I think its good that you are thinking critically about this, and I dont want to imply that we should just accept every relationship we see as good, inter species or not. You have to evaluate on an individual level. Like Hoid and Jasnah - both humans - but anyone could have said that its weird a 10,000+ year old guy is dating a 30 year old. Looking at the relationship itself, Rlain and Renarin make a lot of sense to me. 

 

There are other relationships that might not make sense to me, but wether they do or dont wont be based on what species they are or what they look like. It will be based on wether the relationship is beneficial for both parties. If thats the case, nothing else really matters. 

Not really. Ii wasn’t going to respond like that However, I am going to change it to dating a listener. I was trying to get people to envision what all entails with actually dating a listener so that I would get a thorough answer. My bad. I took that question too far. It sounds kind of creepy when it’s quoted back.

[CtrlAltDepressed]

18 minutes ago, Returned said:

Sorry I can't quote you directly, @MagicMaggot (I'd posted before I saw your comment),

You can copy a quote from a new submission and then paste in into your edit. Its a bit wonky but it works.

 

Steps:

highlight desired section

hit quote selection

click on quote box that appears in new submission

ctrl + c (or equivalent)

close new submission and open edit post

ctrl + v (or equivalent)

 

you should now have a quoted section that you can add to an edit

[coolsnow7]

21 minutes ago, Returned said:

What possible relevance can this question have? If someone answers "yes" because they're fine with it, what response can you have besides repeating that you think it's gross?

I think it’s a reasonable enough question. This is a large part of how philosophy as a discipline functions: via “intuition pumps”. And the underlying philosophical question isn’t wrong either: bestiality is pretty much universally proscribed across 21st century humans with no exceptions for “an extra smart gorilla or whale”, so wondering whether a Singer falls within the line or outside it is a legitimate question.

[Returned he/him]

21 minutes ago, CtrlAltDepressed said:

You can copy a quote from a new submission and then paste in into your edit. Its a bit wonky but it works.

Awesome, thank you so much!

22 minutes ago, christianrapper said:

However, I am going to change it to dating a listener.

I'm not sure, honestly. The cultural differences seem to me like something I could handle but I feel like I'm not imagining the impact of a being whose central identity persists but has such strongly changeable features due to their changing forms. Like, how much physical affection would she be interested in outside of mateform? Would it be enough for me, or conversely would it be too much for me when she was in mateform? How fair or reasonable would it be for me to prefer some forms but not others, and would my preference for some forms be fair to expect her to consider when choosing what she would take and when, and how well could I handle forms I didn't like as much if she chose them for extended periods?

I have to imagine that there would be enough variation among individual singers that some relationships would be more workable than others (not unlike with humans), but I don't know if a relationship with a singer could provide the degree of consistency and stability I would want while also satisfying the singer's desires and needs (in the general case).

15 minutes ago, coolsnow7 said:

I think it’s a reasonable enough question. This is a large part of how philosophy as a discipline functions: via “intuition pumps”. And the underlying philosophical question isn’t wrong either: bestiality is pretty much universally proscribed across 21st century humans with no exceptions for “an extra smart gorilla or whale”, so wondering whether a Singer falls within the line or outside it is a legitimate question.

Again, the "extra smart gorilla" category is, essentially, what humans are. If singers are every bit as smart as humans, and are not only capable of but inherently exhibit the abstract reasoning and conceptual capacity for understanding what a romantic relationship is, are capable of agreeing or disagreeing with entering one, and choose to do so, that's the line. If someone disagrees with that line they can express one they think is better and explain why. Philosophy is largely about logic and argumentation.

But so far in this thread no one against the idea has presented criteria for assessing the question of whether or not it is fundamentally OK for a human to be romantically involved with a singer outside of their own personal aversion to it, or at least none that don't have pretty strong implications for human-human relationships. Again, it's fine to feel that way, but it's not addressing the question. People can ask any questions they like, it's not wrong to do so. "I, personally, don't like it" with no rationale behind it doesn't contribute much as an answer or approach to this question, though.

Edited January 10, 2025 by Returned

[coolsnow7]

15 minutes ago, Returned said:

Again, the "extra smart gorilla" category is, essentially, what humans are.

And what I am noting is that no one in real life planet Earth says “well if you happen to run into a gorilla with an IQ of 75 we won’t judge you if you claim to marry them”. So we do draw lines based on species differentiation. Where and how we draw those lines is a legitimate question. That doesn’t mean they’re drawn maximally - by the same token, the idea of “miscegenation” is, let us say, outdated. 

15 minutes ago, Returned said:

But so far in this thread no one against the idea has presented any criteria for assessing the question of whether or not it is fundamentally OK for a human to be romantically involved with a singer outside of their own personal aversion to it.

Yes this is how intuition pumps work. You can always bite the bullet and say “I’d have no aversion”. Dennett coined the phrase intuition pump in the first place, and it came about from him doing this a lot in debates about consciousness: every time someone would show up and say “well what about this thought experiment” he would go “yes I think that would be as conscious as a human”. 

In a lot of ways philosophy is just an exercise in trying to make our intuitions cohere. But the option of just ditching most intuitions is always available. And it’s a valid one: “men shouldn’t be romantically involved with other men” was a very widely held intuition for a long time, as was “adult men should pursue preteen boys for sex”.

Edited January 10, 2025 by coolsnow7

[Returned he/him]

1 minute ago, coolsnow7 said:

And what I am noting is that no one in real life planet Earth says “well if you happen to run into a gorilla with an IQ of 75 we won’t judge you if you marry them”. So we do draw lines based on species differentiation. Where and how we draw those lines is a legitimate question. That doesn’t mean they’re drawn maximally - by the same token, the idea of “miscegenation” is, let us say, outdated. 

Provided that people would be OK with a human-human pairing between a human with the same IQ, which isn't obviously the case (there are levels where such a pairing would not be accepted, so it's not a species-ist argument). A gorilla with an IQ of 115 seems like a more reasonable analogy in any case, and I've never seen the question addressed. Which suits me fine, since as far as I know all non-human animals lack that capacity so the question isn't one that would actually come up.

I have consistently said that personal feelings about the question are perfectly acceptable, and have engaged with the question as well (implying its validity). What I have noted is that a person's arbitrary, personal feeling should not be sufficient to answer the question for everyone, fundamentally. "The line should be drawn where I happen to feel like it should be" is not an answer to the question, though an explanation of why the line should be there might be.

The arguments against miscegenation are not "outdated", they were incorrect outside of an arbitrarily pursued social ordering which was, itself, not an argument about why it was fundamentally wrong. But the OP has requested that we not take the thread in that direction, so it would probably be best not to drag it that way.

[coolsnow7]

3 minutes ago, Returned said:

not be sufficient to answer the question for everyone, fundamentally.

Who was claiming otherwise?

[Returned he/him]

3 minutes ago, coolsnow7 said:

Who was claiming otherwise?

That's fundamentally what these express:

Quote

Now just imagine yourself dating a sapient ape for a quick second. You can’t tell me that didn’t make you feel sick.

Quote

You can’t say that doesn’t make your skin crawl. That “love is love” phrase isn’t applicable to dating outside of your species.

The person who wrote these has said it's not a good representation of their position, so we don't need to harp on them, but that is what they mean as written. They present a personal feeling (valid), assert that everyone feels the same (not valid), and there isn't much else supporting opposition to the idea. There were a couple of arguments advanced, which I addressed upthread as being nonspecific to a human-nonhuman relationship, but those responses did not garner attention.