User talk:Goethean/Human1

Around ten different versions for the lead section of Human
Feel free to insert new Alternatives anywhere in any order that makes comparison of the alternatives easier for us.

One alternative

 * According to the natural and social sciences, human beings are bipedal primates, classified as Homo sapiens (Latin for "knowing man") and distinguished, as the name suggests, by their unique development of language, culture, society, and technology. They belong to the family of great apes, but differ from their relatives in their ability to engage in abstract reasoning, their use of language and speech, and their erect body carriage, which frees the upper limbs for manipulating objects. As a consequence of these traits, human beings engage in extensive tool use, and have developed complex social structures comprised of many cooperating and competing groups, nation states, and institutions, distinguished from one another by their different aims and ritual practices. The self-consciousness of human beings, their resultant curious and introspective nature, and their dominance over other animals, have given rise to a series of narratives intended to explain the development and nature of the species.


 * Either in opposition to, or in complement to the above scientific description, some of the major world religions consider human beings to be:
 * created in the image of a supreme being (Judaism, Christianity, Islam)
 * illusion or Emptiness (Mahayana Buddhism, including Zen)
 * a manifestation or individuation of the ineffable, nondual, ultimate reality (Hinduism, Taoism, New Age, and some forms of Buddhism), and/or
 * a series of seven wheels or energy nodes, the stopping or relaxing of which will result in union with ultimate reality (Hindu chakra theory).

[Text on chakras in italics is optional.]

Another alternative
Humans define themselves variously in biological, spiritual, and social terms. According to the natural and social sciences, human beings are bipedal primates, classified as Homo sapiens (Latin for "knowing man") and distinguished, as the name suggests, by their unique development of language, culture, society, and technology. Spiritual people define themselves using various concepts such as 1) soul with a relation to a supreme being, 2) emptiness surrounded by illusion, 3) manifestation of the ineffable, or 4) energy nodes such as chakras.

Other alternatives
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Suggestions for an Actual consensus process with objective measures of "consensus"
This is a scratchpad area. Feel free to insert, delete, or update anywhere in any order that will help us understand and develop a real solution.

Statement of the problem
Currently, the word "consensus" is used to justify bullying tactics to enforce a particular point-of-view that has no reality of consensus--because over half of the Wikipedia editors of the Human page, for example, repeatedly try to change what is called "consensus."

How can we develop a Actual consensus process that has an objective measure for consensus that we agree is a reasonable means for assessing "consensus"?

One idea

 * If there are ten spiritual expert editors and ten materialist expert editors, and if each editor has the possibility of voting 1) for or 2) against each of twenty alternative first paragraphs of the Human page, and if a vote for counts as +1 and if a vote against counts as -1, then an extreme spiritual paragraph would get +10 for consensus evaluation from the spiritual editors and -10 for consensus evaluation from the materialist editors or a total "consensus evaluation" of zero--meaning zero consensus.
 * In constrast, a perfect consensus paragraph would get +10 votes from the spiritual editors and +10 votes from the materialist editors for a total "consensus evaluation" of 20 or 100%.
 * A medium-consensus paragraph that partially represented a consensus somewhere between "zero consensus" and "perfect consensus" might get votes like the following
 * Spiritual editor evaluations
 * For: 6 votes evaluates to +6
 * Neutral: 3 votes evaluates to 0
 * Against: 1 vote evaluates to -1
 * Sub-total for spiritual editor evaluations = +5
 * Materialist editor evaluations
 * For: 6 votes evaluates to +6
 * Neutral: 3 votes evaluates to 0
 * Against: 1 vote evaluates to -1
 * Sub-total for spiritual editor evaluations = +5
 * Total consensus evaluation = +10 or 50% -- Note that only two editors voted against it.
 * The "Total consensus evaluation" of 50% would reasonably reflect that the "medium consensus" paragraph is 1) only half as good as the "perfect consensus" paragraph but is 2) better than any version of "zero consensus" paragraph.
 * The above process is superior to the current Wikipedia process because the above process would properly register the reality that over half of the active editors think that the current lead section of the Human page is fatally flawed and would vote "against it" giving it a negative "consensus evaluation" whereas there are other Alternatives that many people would vote neutral about and so would bring the "okay" alternatives to the foreground.
 * Any such process for objectively measuring "consensus" would succeed to the degree that the participants thought that the alternative getting the highest "consensus evaluation" really was the best representative of consensus.

Another idea
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Discussion
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