Path: utzoo!hoptoad!ihnp4!amdahl!ames!eos!agate!ig!uwmcsd1!uwvax!ai!gautier
From: gautier@ai.cs.wisc.edu (Jorge Gautier)
Newsgroups: alt.individualism
Subject: Re: Individualism - Reality or Myth?
Message-ID: <5539@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Date: 8 Apr 88 19:20:37 GMT
References: <779@udccvax1.acs.udel.EDU> <1081@PT.CS.CMU.EDU> <7705@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <4344@chinet.UUCP>
Sender: news@spool.cs.wisc.edu
Reply-To: gautier@ai.cs.wisc.edu (Jorge Gautier)
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 23

In article <4344@chinet.UUCP> prof@chinet.UUCP (The Professor) writes:
>Does anyone care to refute the idea that our
>individual selves ARE defined by the groups we belong to, by the environment
>and surroundings we grow up in, by the biological combinatory randomness that
>forms our genetics? ... ... ...

I do.  These "groups" that you mention are merely convenient abstractions
devised to help us in thinking about the complexities of existence.  To claim
that the "groups we belong to" define our selves is ridiculous.  At most
these "groups" will influence our selves, but never completely determine
them.

"Let's see, I belong to the group of brown-haired-animals, the group of
animals-with-freckles-on-their-face, the group of catholic-high-school-
alumni, the group of 23-year-olds, ...  Yeah, I guess the (infinite) sum
of all these groups defines my self.  How useful and enlightening."

Groups do not exist.  Individuals exist.
---
Jorge Gautier @ Wisconsin, gautier@cs.wisc.edu

"The fact that my internal arrangement differs from yours, doctor,
 pleases me without end."