Zoesthesia & Therianthropy

(Today 15:28)gillman Wrote:  I have interesting thoughts about this, because I do see the appeal in a term that talks about the baseline experience of nonhuman feelings. When reading the definition, I immediately thought about the term "noema" and the role it has within the environment of past lives, xenomemories, and xenotrauma. Noema gives us the ability to have a term that describes a specific experience without having it tied to a strict spirituality/psychology binary.

My main issue is that zoesthesia is looking to be tired directly to therianthropy when I think it might be better applied to the alterhuman community as a whole. We have many terms (regardless of how you may feel about them) that are trying to really articulate the same experience of being Other. We call these things general "alterhuman experiences" or "alterhuman feelings" already, but it can be hard to have a shorthand for these things that does not imply a specific identity. I know many who dislike being associated with alterhuamsn, nonhumans, therian, or otherkin but who still seek to separate themselves from common notions of humanity. A neutral term to describe those experiences that is separate from any standard or identity may be well received. Something that implies an experience as opposed to an identity. I know plenty of orthohumans who have "nonhuman experiences," such as brief phantom sensations, that could then easily be described as little moments of zoesthesia.

I see what you're trying to get at, I just think it needs to be expanded a bit to actually have a use. Otherwise it will just devolve into another term that is really just the same as therian. If this was to be expanded, I do think it could go for a name change, just to make it a bit more neutral. I definitely can feel the lexical gap you are looking to fill in, I just think it'd need some refinement before really being of much use. My thoughts here aren't fully fleshed out, but I did want to comment ono it before I forgot. I may come back to add some more later :^]

Because the root "zoe" means animal or life, and in a literal sense it can mean "life perception/feeling" (similar to qualia), I think the definition can be expanded in a way that includes all alterhumans without referring to any specific community. "Allosthesia" achieves the same thing in a different way, but so far there are people who don't like either term because they "sound like" other things. I will say, so far the poll on Tumblr has 85 votes, 78% saying "I'd use it!" With that in mind, zoesthesia can mean: "The subjective experience of traits, instincts, urges, memories, and etc. that may lead to an identity based on a species, concept, or form of consciousness not typical of one's biological species."

I think it is important to separate identity from experience, especially when identity can arise from the interpretations of one's experiences. Those interpretations and beliefs are not infallible - and they can be the target of bad actors. There will always be an explanatory gap between the words we use and the raw experiences we have. I want a term that makes belief and interpretation secondary or removes it from the picture. There are countless wars over belief and identity, but experience? It's just what you experience. It is what it is. A term like this might have less potential to trigger individuals who take offense to others identifying differently from them. Therianthropy technically achieves this already, but "therian" will continue to be stomped into the ground by people who don't like that you're different. "I am a therian" sounds ego-based and "I experience zoesthesia" feels neutral. Both are valid in theory, but if it depends on who you're talking to, these statements may have wildly different results.

(Today 17:40)Baumarius Wrote:  Because the root "zoe" means animal or life, and in a literal sense it can mean "life perception/feeling" (similar to qualia), I think the definition can be expanded in a way that includes all alterhumans without referring to any specific community. "Allosthesia" achieves the same thing in a different way, but so far there are people who don't like either term because they "sound like" other things. I will say, so far the poll on Tumblr has 85 votes, 78% saying "I'd use it!" With that in mind, zoesthesia can mean: "The subjective experience of traits, instincts, urges, memories, and etc. that may lead to an identity based on a species, concept, or form of consciousness not typical of one's biological species."

I think it is important to separate identity from experience, especially when identity can arise from the interpretations of one's experiences. Those interpretations and beliefs are not infallible - and they can be the target of bad actors. There will always be an explanatory gap between the words we use and the raw experiences we have. I want a term that makes belief and interpretation secondary or removes it from the picture. There are countless wars over belief and identity, but experience? It's just what you experience. It is what it is. A term like this might have less potential to trigger individuals who take offense to others identifying differently from them. Therianthropy technically achieves this already, but "therian" will continue to be stomped into the ground by people who don't like that you're different. "I am a therian" sounds ego-based and "I experience zoesthesia" feels neutral. Both are valid in theory, but if it depends on who you're talking to, these statements may have wildly different results.

Ah! Thank you for that, I must have missed that it was zoe and not zoo. I got very little sleep last night, forgive me ;]

Honestly, I do think I agree with you much more now that I'm more awake. It'd be a decent word to have in my back pocket, especially when we start getting into the weed with what we experience vs. what we identify with. I've spend months trying to articulate my own experience with what we would call full zoesthesia sans identity. I've been calling it plenanima (zoesthesia + identity) and pencorpus (zoesthesia - identity) for maybe six months now, and it's been a struggle to try and communicate how I can be something without wanting to identify as it. I think my case is pretty uncommon, I haven't run into others who have experienced the same thing, but having a word like zoesthesia would make that whole process significantly easier.

I do wonder how much this would impact the definition of things like therianthrope if implemented on a large scale. If we begin to include zoesthesia into the definition for things like theriantrhope and otherkin, we'll have to be a bit more careful about how we navigate the nuances between these two groups. It would simplify things, for sure, but I wonder how it would impact the perception of the communities and their separate histories/cultures. Of course, that's already a topic that I don't think anyone agrees on, but food for thought!

(Today 18:19)gillman Wrote:  I do wonder how much this would impact the definition of things like therianthrope if implemented on a large scale. If we begin to include zoesthesia into the definition for things like theriantrhope and otherkin, we'll have to be a bit more careful about how we navigate the nuances between these two groups. It would simplify things, for sure, but I wonder how it would impact the perception of the communities and their separate histories/cultures. Of course, that's already a topic that I don't think anyone agrees on, but food for thought!

Maybe the differences between them are based in the ego, rather than experience, too. Maybe there only needs to be one primary term. As I said on Tumblr, linguistics matter. Zoesthesia's similarity to existing psychological terms such as synesthesia is a boon. If people start using this, it has the potential to outcompete all of them. I'm in favor of something that does not signify association with existing communities or terminology, does not exclude any of them, and sounds like it could be taken seriously by researchers.

This is difficult to consider for many. I think that if this discussion does not happen, people will continue to try putting out this global wildfire with a bucket. It keeps coming up because this problem won't go away. I believe this is part of a solution. But again, not everyone needs to agree with me. If enough people take a liking to it, this future may be inevitable.

Part 2 of that solution is translation and localization on a global scale. You can't translate therianthropy directly into Chinese - it means "orcification." Therian means "orcs." The closest version of it means "animalhuman," which is hilarious to them. As I continue to work on my translations, "therianthropy" feels more and more like what "pineapple" did to "ananas."

@Baumarius A bit off topic, but I'm actually curious as to how therians in China view themselves/the community, and how they're defining it :0