this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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Is "food" a social construct? (lemm.ee)
submitted 4 months ago by TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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Hear me out. There's nothing innate to an object that makes it "food". It's an attribute we give to certain things that meet certain qualities, i.e. being digestible, nutritious, perhaps tasty or satisfying in some way, etc. We could really ingest just about anything, but we call the stuff that's edible "food". Does that make it a social construct?

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[–] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Our naming and classification of things is all socially constructed. So yes, our categorization of edible things as food is a social construct, but our physical need to fuel our bodies with something digestible is not.

i love you

But also, using it that way makes existence a social construct, so it depends on how rigid you want to be.

Explain. (warning lemmings may get mad)

[–] JeSuisUnHombre@lemm.ee 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

We define what existence is. We have all collectively agreed that being here in the perceptible world means that something exists. We could choose to include the imaginary in its definition and then would be able to say that dragons and wizards exist. We could also choose to say something has to be present in 4 dimensions to exist, in which case we'd not be able to say that anything exists.

A social construct is simply an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society which includes the dictionary itself. I'd also say that these definitions are often useful at allowing us to communicate and cooperate with one another, but that doesn't mean we didn't make up the idea.

[–] TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Excellent! So what's underneath all this, then? Can something be both real and a social construct? What things aren't social constructs?

[–] JeSuisUnHombre@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

If the thing in question is changed, and the only part of us that can directly affect is our opinion, then I would call that a social construction.