I'll concede your empirical claims: senses come before concepts and socialization in humans is necessary for survival. Concepts being linguistic is not an empirical claim, but a philosophical one, and likely one that demands strained definitions. — Hanover

Fair enough. The ontology of concepts is thorny.

I often grasp issues and then spend some amount of time trying to precisely articulate them. — Hanover

My claim regarded early cognitive and linguistic development. You've already developed beyond that stage, so you have a linguistic and conceptual background that provides an explanatory basis for your articulations. Newborns don't. So, your personal experience isn't necessarily relevant.

What is the empirical evidence for this assertion? I'd think a dog understands what is his and what is not, which means he knows himself from the other and he has no langauge to say "get away from my food" other than his bark and bite, which is langauge in a broad sense I guess. — Hanover

To get the claim straight, I don't deny all forms of self-awareness in animals. Some (not dogs though) pass the mirror test. What I deny is a self-construction, a self-consciousness, that is an ability to conceptualise a self, that, for example, one can imagine taking different courses of action etc. As for the self only making sense in context of the other, I consider that be a matter of definition. I can't make any sense of the idea of a self without an other any more than I can make sense of "North" without "South". The concepts are semantically interdependent.

Going nuts isn't the same as losing one's sense of self. — Hanover

Maybe I should have said "losing one's mind". If you lose your mind, you're not yourself are you? In fact, we even say of people that "they're not themselves" when they're suffering from relatively mild cases of mental illness. To put some more bones on this, there have been actual scientific experiments putting people through the "ultimate torture" described in the OP and they've had to be stopped very quickly due to the participants suffering severe hallucinations and other reality-distorting effects. As our sense of self is strongly correlated with and arguably completely dependent on our sense of reality, I consider that to be strong evidence of dissolution of the self due to social deprivation.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140514-how-extreme-isolation-warps-minds

"... the most alarming effects were the hallucinations. They would start with points of light, lines or shapes, eventually evolving into bizarre scenes, such as squirrels marching with sacks over their shoulders or processions of eyeglasses filing down a street. They had no control over what they saw: one man saw only dogs; another, babies.

Some of them experienced sound hallucinations as well: a music box or a choir, for instance. Others imagined sensations of touch: one man had the sense he had been hit in the arm by pellets fired from guns. Another, reaching out to touch a doorknob, felt an electric shock.

When they emerged from the experiment they found it hard to shake this altered sense of reality, convinced that the whole room was in motion, or that objects were constantly changing shape and size.

...

The researchers had hoped to observe their subjects over several weeks, but the trial was cut short because they became too distressed to carry on. Few lasted beyond two days, and none as long as a week."

suggesting the dissolution of the self when someone is removed from society? — Hanover

That one re the OP (the other is true too though).

Also, don't you think a newborn has a sense of self prior to his having any conception of society? — Hanover

A "sense" of self vs a "conception" of society is an asymmetric comparison. Developmentally, senses come before conceptions by definition as concepts are linguistic. Anyhow, a sense of self can't develop without some form of social contact. In fact, babies just die without social contact (even for newborn monkeys, experiments have shown that social contact is prioritised above food, for example). So, the way I see it, following Vygotsky, the social world the child experiences happening around it becomes gradually internalised and that becomes the basis of the self and self-consciousness. The child internalises interpersonal interactions, which gradually become intrapersonal self-relations.

And what is meant precisely of "social"? — Hanover

Contact with others.

If I'm raised by a pack of wolves, can they give me a sense of self? — Hanover

Not in the sense we understand it. But you might conceivably live at least.

What if I raise a dog? Can her sense of self come from a non-dog? — Hanover

I guess, but again, it wouldn't be a "self" as we understand it. Our world, including much of our self-relation, is defined linguistically. A dog can't have the concept of self.

Can the "other" be a tree, where my society of trees offers me an sense of self? — Hanover

No. Although I recommend a long-term experiment involving you and the local maples to fully verify this.

I'm not saying that a person born alone won't be terribly confused and likely incapable of survival, but I wonder if he wouldn't know of his own independent self. — Hanover

What would there be to know? The self only makes sense in the context of the other. For a start, no other, no language, no self concept. So, you're left with some kind of awareness maybe but no construction of the self.

Once I was in New Orleans and I paid $2 to see a wild scantily clad Cajun woman, supposedly captured in the bayou, maybe raised by gators. She seemed unstable from her mannerisms, but, at the same time looked no different than an average college girl with a really terrible solution to paying her rent. I think she had a sense of self, but maybe a diminished sense of self worth, likely from the way the gators treated her. — Hanover

You should probably write a paper on that. Maybe use toilet paper, so that when your study gets rejected you still have some use for it.

We didn't really get to why the self would dissolve without any social contact. Usually, it's simply put that people go nuts. But that sort of amounts to the same thing.

You've concluded I know nothing about the Middle East because I didn't ask you what you meant about something? You're an odd one. And I'm pretty sure everyone involved in the conversation understands that Iran has been inciting sectarian violence there. You'll need to come up with more than that if you want to contribute something to the discussion. And leave the silly face-saving ad-homs at home. They're not remotely credible.

And sorry if I hurt your feelings. Let's be friends again and show the US and Iran a good example. :love:

Just to clarify my argument by the way. My claim here is that the American action is likely to lead to more violence and death in the region, including on the American side with a small but significant risk of a full-scale war, and for that reason was undesirable. My claim is not that the general didn't deserve to be killed or wasn't involved in sponsoring attacks on American forces etc.

You don't give the impression of someone with anything much to contribute @frank. You'll just have to own that until you actually say something other than the word "Shiite".

Fuck yeeeeah!

Your contribution has been a few rhetorical questions, a maths brain fart, and a poor attempt at sarcasm. Analysis, no.

What's next? They hate our freedom? Fucking hell...

that doesn't change the fact that we have diametrically opposed interests in the middle east. — BitconnectCarlos

What are these, specifically, and why do they require you to get into an armed conflict with each other as opposed to finding some kind of mutually less destructive accommodation? I really don't think you know what you're talking about. But please prove me wrong.

he genuinely hates us — BitconnectCarlos

Why?

and has been hating us for decades — BitconnectCarlos

Which is why he helped you fight the Taliban?

It makes sense to ramp up the aggression — BitconnectCarlos

No, it doesn't. You're not thinking. Try the analogy again. Try to think about not fucking yourself up just to get to fuck the other guy up. Or bite the bullet and admit you don't really care about how many people get killed, you care about being made to look bad by a country you consider inferior.

@ssu Funnily enough, I read recently that Trump was losing support among Evangelicals and the religious in general and was concerned to shore that up. Maybe he cussed too much or something. Anyway, I like the angle. Something adroitly fucked up about it.

Yes, that's what I want. I want us to release all the prisoners. Cool we got to the bottom of our disagreement anyhow.

For students of bad rhetoric, unsupported argument, vacuity, and cliche, please see the above. Or try the "America fuck yeah" video in the Iran thread.

Yeah, I know that. I hadn't thought about the Evangelical angle though. Interesting one.

You make the argument on a case-by-case basis looking at other factors besides the propensity for lies. And you have to do that with every politician. You may as well just presume they are all willing to lie when it suits them.

@BitconnectCarlos

Here's another analogy.

A: Check out this guy sticking pins in us.
B: What shall we do about it?
A: Well, we can't just let him get away with it forever. He'll just keep doing it.
B: I guess.
A: How about we cut his fingers off?
B: I don't know if that's such a good idea. His buddies are just likely to come and stick even more pins in us. They might even decide to cut our fingers off. What should we do then?
A: Um, I don't know. Cut their heads off?
B: Er...

The route to less violence is de-escalation. The US is doing the opposite right now.

An alternative:

A: Check out this guy sticking pins in us.
B: Why is he doing that and how can we get him to stop without getting hurt ourselves?
A: Good question...

It would only take the minutest step back from hyperbole to concede the point. Even if Trump is 99.9% a sham, he would still be capable of believing in a given policy of his. If you can't accept that, let's just agree to differ.

If your concern is people not dying then my claim is you can't consistently support this move.

If you're going to reduce yourself to the absurd claim that Trump is not capable of believing in any policy of his because he's a liar, you'll find yourself on the same level of political confusion as those who believe he's an absolutely honest dealer. Again, you need more.

A good way not to start a war would be not to assassinate the heads of foreign armies. You can punish your enemies in more subtle ways than that. It's like if I go up and punch someone in the face and then claim I don't want a fight, it's not going to fly is it?

Because he's a serial liar doesn't mean he's not capable of having a policy he actually believes in. He said he wants a wall and he actually does want a wall. If I say he wants a wall, you're going to laugh and claim he doesn't because he's a liar? You need more than that.

That's what Trump ran against (and until very recently has been his official line). See.

No one wants a war, but given these facts:

-The general was behind hundreds of american deaths in iraq.
-He was behind the recent embassy attack. — BitconnectCarlos

No one wants a war that could potentially kill hundreds of thousands but given that hundreds have been killed, we should have one. No, your position is incoherent.

Not impossible but he has support on this from folks he doesn't normally get much support from, e.g. John Bolton and US intelligence chiefs. It seems to me his Syria withdrawal was much purer Trump i.e. knee-jerk.

Absolutely. I'd need some time to come up with a coherent theory on that though.



I doubt it's that simple.



Ok.

You do sarcasm better than you do maths. Not much better though. Moving on...

It's not just about them being weak or strong though, it's also about the extent to which they are likely to facilitate or oppose your interests. It wasn't long ago that Iran was helping America to fight ISIS in Syria and Soleimani, specifically, aided the Americans in their initial attacks against the Taliban after 9/11. Enemies can become friends when faced with greater enemies. That option is out the window re Iran right now.

American ruling class might gain due to its ruling classes's interests being aligned with the Saudis and Israelis. — fdrake

Not perfectly though. I can't plot a positive economic or strategic outcome to this for the US ruling classes that beats sticking with the Iran deal and encouraging progressive forces in the country. Maybe I lack a sufficiently Machiavellian imagination or something. Anyone here see a war being good for the US?

No idea why we had to go through that btw @frank. The point stands whether the odds vary slightly or not.

-120 right now. — frank

OK, let's use that figure, which is 55% x Netanyahu's 45% = 24.75%, which is less than 25%. Which is what I said.

Trump has about a 50% chance of winning (slightly less according to predictit.org). Equally so for Netanyahu. I'll leave you to do the rest of the maths yourself.

https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/3698/Who-will-win-the-2020-US-presidential-election
https://www.predictit.org/markets/detail/6238/Will-Benjamin-Netanyahu-be-prime-minister-of-Israel-on-Dec-31,-2020

Vegas odds of both Netanyahu and Trump being in power by this time next year are less than 25%. If Israel is going to get its long-held wish of castrating its greatest enemy in the region, its best chance is now. And conflict with Iran could be particularly useful to Netanyahu who's got yet another crucial election coming up in March. What I'm not really seeing is the strategic upside for the US in starting yet another hopeless war in the Middle East. And the electoral payoff for Trump personally is questionable at best. But Netanyahu is the only leader in the region (and beyond) offering unequivocal vocal support for the attack. Because he's the one who stands to gain most from what could follow. Hence the "look to Israel" comment. I guess more will emerge in the coming days about the US's specific motivations here, but I don't expect solid evidence of any imminent threat that would make it legal under international law and more likely to garner support from other American allies.

Which leads me to question what role you think the USA would play if Israel is attacked? — ArguingWAristotleTiff

It depends on the specifics of the attack. But if it gets to Israel being directly attacked, you can be sure the US will already be embroiled in a wider conflict with Iran.

It puts the Ayatollah in a tough sport. Fight back and be demolished. Or do nothing and lose your credibility. — NOS4A2

You said it buddy!

The blood-soaked career of a terrorist commander has ended. — NOS4A2

Trump is dead?

The dictionary is ample evidence for a simple point. — Wayfarer

You're barking up the wrong tree here.

"Meaning of being in English

being
noun [ C or U ]
UK /ˈbiː.ɪŋ/ US /ˈbiː.ɪŋ/

C2
a person or thing that exists:"

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/being

And:

"In philosophy, being means the material or immaterial existence of a thing. Anything that exists is being. Ontology is the branch of philosophy that studies being. Being is a concept encompassing objective and subjective features of reality and existence."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Being

Why would we not be content in a dark room with ourselves? — Brett

There is no "ourselves" without others. That's where we get ourselves from. The self is a social phenomenon. Remove the social and you remove the self.

If there is a war, look to Israel. Couldn't be better timing for Netanyahu.

Like kill an American contractor and dance threateningly around the US Embassy in Baghdad? — frank

I expect it will amount to more than that, unfortunately. Not that killing any American isn't a serious act. But I expect Iran to gamble on American weakness rather than strength considering the recent firing of chief Iran hawk John Bolton, the expressed wish to get out of the Middle East, the retreat from Syria, Trump's servile relationship with Putin, the lack of support from American allies, and the general lack of coherence in policy. Why do you think Iran would bet on American strength and bow down?

The action was the equivalent of Iran assassinating Colin Powell at the height of his popularity. They are not going to "sit down and shut up". They have enough surrogates in the region to do plenty of damage and they will. The question is will the US then escalate into a full scale war (which they would have no hope of winning, which they can't afford, and which mother Russia would not like at all). My guess is there will be some tit for tat and then a return to low level hostilities as before. In any case, this will be a good test of Putin's hold over Trump.

And that.