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How "normal" do you think you are?

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KharBevNor:
On a scale of



to



 I am

KvP:

--- Quote from: jhocking on 05 Jul 2008, 08:20 ---I was about to contribute another thought to this time debate but then it occurred to me, y'know this is waaaay off-topic.

--- End quote ---
fatty doesn't seem to mind! I think this is one of those threads that just goes where it goes.

Anywho, getting slightly back on the original topic, there's been a lot of antipathy towards the term "normal", and while that's merited in a larger sense (in that people too often use "abnormal" in a pejorative sense, implying that difference is a vice) it has some meaning to us. "Abnormal" simply ought to mean "not terribly common". For example, it seems like most people (I use "seems" because you never really know) do not suffer from any sort of clinical depression. They'll get sad or grieve, and that in general happens to all of us. But someone, myself for example, who will periodically experience a very strong, debilitating and seemingly causeless sadness can be considered "abnormal" because that's not something that a majority of people experience. Many do, however, so perhaps that is not as good of an example as I could've used.

In many ways I don't think I'm normal. I certainly perceive things differently than others that I meet. Some things I have trouble perceiving at all. But honestly, I don't think that should matter. Again, "abnormal" is often used as a pejorative when it shouldn't be. The thing is when people talk about what's "normal" they mean it in a normative way (fuck, the words even have the same root), meaning that something that is "normal" is the way it ought to be, and you can see how even speaking of normality in terms of people is problematic. When I see someone talk about how "normal" people are I think it speaks to their simple-mindedness, or their inability to handle diversity. Establishing a "normal" in regards to people is an implicit wish for people to adhere to that standard and a denial that people are as complicated as they are. But I don't think anybody's not guilty of this. (which makes it "normal") most people are put on edge when they see a group of youngsters in similar dress out in the street. We like things to be simple and easy to understand. A person who dresses like a gangbanger probably shouldn't be trusted to hold your purse. A person who acts like a dick on the internet is, in fact, a dick. A person who says stupid things on occasion is, in fact, an idiot. It's never really that simple, people are complicated and can't be easily categorized, but it makes us feel safer to assume that we have all the relevant information to make judgment calls on others. Standards are meaningless outside of our use for them in snap judgments. The sin of it isn't in making assumptions about others but holding too closely to those assumptions and not having the will to change the way you think about someone.

If anything, people ought to be evaluated in terms of their functionality. We'd have less problems with eccentrics and more problems with alcoholics and liars, even though alcoholics and liars are decidedly more common than eccentrics.

As for how well-adjusted I am, not very. I don't think I've ever really felt comfortable in my skin. And as for how I compare to my friends, birds of a feather of all that. Being not terribly socially inclined I tend to gravitate towards those who have similar mannerisms and interests to myself. Only recently has this not been the case.

Scandanavian War Machine:
none of us are all that special because somewhere out there in the universe there are infinite copies of us all, both identical and in infinite variations.

IT'S SCIENCE.

axerton:

--- Quote from: Dimmukane on 03 Jul 2008, 09:12 ---So your concept of time is kinda like how math only works because we assume we're using the correct system of numbers?

--- End quote ---

actually no, if the human race had been born with six fingers on each hand instead of five, therefor likely having a 12 base number system (ie, 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,X,Y, - repeating rather than just zero to nine repeating) the math would still work the same it's just we'd have different names for numbers, but 10 x 10 would still equal 100, it's just that there version of 100 would translate to our 144.

Also I'm going to add to the "I don't believe in time thing."  I when it was explained I remembered that I used to have a very similar theory though I titled it 'there is no such thing as the correct time' which stemmed from very similar thinking - this  was when I was about 12, then I realised that yes, yes there is a correct time down to the second, because humanity created time measurement and you can't get too much more correct than if you invented it in the first place. Saying you don't believe in time measurement is similarly flawed, that's like saying you don't believe in tv or indie rock, humanity created them so on some level they exist.

Moving away from semantics onto not liking the world being ruled by the division of time, there's a reason for this, we are a social species and if we didn't have this way of dividing up and putting a name on exact moments then we would spend a whole lot of time waiting or causing people to wait, we would be far less productive.

Yes, maybe our thinking is affected by the way we view time, but the way we think is even more heavily affected by the language we speak and it's only  the truly abnormal (hey almost dragging this thing toward the actual point of the original discussion) who don't think in a language, so they can think of things that most of us can't because our mind is limited by the walls set up by our language, people like this are often considered true geniuses - I believe Einstein was one example.

if you can follow my train of thought in this post - well done, cos to be honest, I've forgotten the question.

ViolentDove:
Time is the thing that stops everything from happening all at once. Clearly, things aren't happening all at once, and I kind of like it. So I'm pretty ok with time.

Also, not all measurements of time are arbitrary as someone said. Most living things have an inbuilt time measurement system consisting of various well-regulated biological processes (called circadian rhythms). 

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