Awww. lol. Yup. That's a common one for me. Spelling has always been a weak point for me.

Why?

I've drawn from more examples than gender to elucidate interiority. And I've noted a few times how people both bond over identities (so they are shared, though not by everyone) and can know what others feel based upon sharing experiences through words.

Gender is just another faucet of the interior which, treated in a consistent manner, is included.

I've also directly answered the question "How do we know?" to demonstrate the logic of interiority two times now. The answer to "How?" doesn't change whether we are talking about gender identity or some other aspect of identity.

I'd say we just happen to disagree. Which is different from missing the point, I think.

That is an odd turn of phrase. I don't sit back and observe myself being male. Yet the notion that I experience being male implies something like that.

I don't experience being a man.

Being a man is not something that happens to me, in the way I experience a film or a pain.

I know when I am feeling pain and when I am not; when I am attending a film and when I am not. But I can have no idea of what it would feel like to not be a man. similarly, I cannot have any idea of what it might feel like to be a woman.

That's a superficial argument, but it goes much deeper than that. Suppose a woman imagines herself with a penis, testicles, extra testosterone and whatever. She claims that she feels like a man... But how could we tell she was right? How could we tell that what she felt was really what it feels like to be a man?

It simply can't be done. There is nothing it feels like to be a man.

One does not experience one's gender. Perhaps one lives it. — Banno

I don't think that living it differs much from feeling it. I don't think learning about yourself is like sitting back, taking inventory, and reporting on what you find. But I do have certain feelings, all the same, and they aren't shared by everyone -- but they are shared by some.

I believe you when you say you don't experience being a man. I also believe my coworkers who say they are such and such -- be it man or woman or something else. You and they are trustworthy people who I've had conversations with before, and I have no reason to think you are lying. This is how we can tell whether or not someone else is speaking the truth. This is the only method that I know of. In a sense you could look at the statements that people say of themselves as the data. To question them is like questioning "How do we know the ruler is really telling me this paper is 10 inches in length?" -- because the ruler says so.

In particular, for myself, while gender doesn't play a central role to my interior experience, depression does. And those are far from shared experiences at all. Not everyone has depression. But those who do "get it" -- and those who don't can only imagine, just like I can only imagine what it feels like to be transgender.

Well, it kind of goes hand-in-hand with my whole joy-in-hopelessness thing, but I suppose that in spite of the feeling part of what I mean by "getting used to it" is that you just carry on the best you can. And you really and truly just get over it, and celebrate when things go well, mourn losses, but you stop agonizing over it. The agony wasn't helping out with the whole alienation thing in the first place.

So politics matter, and I still vote because that's where people are at -- it's where people's heads are at when doing politics. And in politics, however bad it gets, it can always get worse -- things are always relatively bad or good, depending on the circumstances.

I surely don't mean to promote hopelessness and alienation to make people do less. Rather, though things feel alienating and hopeless, you can just accept it and keep on going -- I don't like to bullshit people. Doing nothing always brings you nothing, so giving up isn't the right answer if you really care about political outcomes.

There's a long part of the discussion that looks for a coherent definition of gender; specifically on that does not include the term "gender" in the definition. Unsuccessfully. — Banno

Unsuccessfully only on the terms of universality. In that part of the discussion she posits that it's possible that some people have such and such and some people do not. She goes on to say that this is denied.

I am inclined to say that gender identity is a part of one's interior experience of their own identity. So it's only natural that I wouldn't be able to sense someone else's. I would say someone is in error for claiming to know Rebecca's interior experience -- that she must have a gender identity. And it seems to me an error to demand universal, necessary, and sufficient conditions for making the claim on one's own identity too.

As for how we know if someone else has one, then listening, trust, and sharing within a relationship is all that it takes. And as you say that is all public. So there isn't even a conflict between this notion of what is public and someone knowing their self through what is private, or interior.

I am inclined to say that the interior is not wholly private, in the usual sense of public/private when talking about the beetle in the box. This is why I mentioned things like people bonding over identities, or knowing what someone else feels through words alone -- knowing that someone has experienced what you have. But it is private in the sense that there are not any conditions of evidence outside of taking someone's word on it if you do not have that experience.

Sometimes we just don't have the same experience of the world or our self. That's simple enough, I think.

The issue is with folk who say their gender is determined by private introspection. As if we each had a gender in a box, and only we could see what was in the box... er, so to speak.

In the end I think the argument leads us to deny that genitals have a wider role in determining one's social position. Claiming that one has an inherent female or inherent male gender is in that sense anti-feminist. One's genitalia have made a difference to one's role in society. They ought not. Nor should a private sensation of gender preference. — Banno

I don't think that claiming one has this experience leads to the the implication that they ought to be in a certain role within society. I'd say that this highlights nicely the difference between gender, and identity -- whereas gender is this set of social expectations, and in a classical patriarchal society it goes from biology to mentality to role.

But accepting that others feel a certain way does not mean we need to be committed to the notion that one's sex, gender, or identity should predicate role. In fact, given the divergence between sex, gender, identity, and social ability it seems to me that accepting these things would lead to an easy inference that social role should not be determined by any of these things.

Who pretended he had no talent? That's an extreme that hasn't been stated.

And I have no idea if I do, in fact, despise his politics or ideology. He's said a few things that I disagree with, and that's about the extent of it. News articles only provide so much information, and not knowing the guy or having seen or talked to him it's fair to say that it's hard to form an opinion.

From what is presented here, though, I don't know why I'd bother with him.

Ummm... nothing really. It's hard to give a good evaluation of someone without knowing much about them. And two articles later I'm not sure it's worth the effort. :D

I bet I'd disagree with him. but... meh?

If so, why? What thoughts and feelings arise from that? — 0 thru 9

Mostly by design. The mixture of the party system and first past the post elections and the amount of political clout money has and the socio-economic class that people in power belong to. Probably some other stuff too.

You get used to it. It's like a natural disaster. You can prepare for the worst, lean on the people you know and trust, and wait and see what happens.

My point is, if the gravitational constant could only be what it is, and the weak force could only be what it is, and the strong force could only be what its, and on and on for a bunch of other constraints could only be what they are. And if any of those was even marginally different. Life could not exist. That sure sounds like they were designed for that purpose to me. — Rank Amateur

To me it just looks like a fact, because I see no reason to believe they could have been otherwise -- in a physical sense.

I see no difference is saying things are as the are because they were designed as such , or there was no other alternatives. You are just moving the question up one level - why are there no other alternatives.

Well, strictly speaking I'm only posting another possibility. Strictly speaking I don't think you can rule out a designer. In a looser sense I have my beliefs and find them reasonable enough, but I can acknowledge others -- on those same looser standards -- as being reasonable enough with different conclusions.

For this particular possibility the reason the constants don't vary is because they are constant. It's just a simple fact, in the same manner that Washington DC is the capital of the United States in 2018 doesn't vary, or that when you mix yellow with red paint you get green orange (EDIT: lol. Temporarily forgot the actual fact. Sorry) paint. There may be more to explain than that -- Washington DC became the capital because of such and such history, or red and yellow paint make green orange paint because they absord such and such frequencies in the visible light spectrum -- but that explanation doesn't change the very basic fact that the gravitational constant, that the capital of the United States, and that the color combination of paints are what they are.

I suppose I should say that I don't think every fact has an explanation, either. I don't think the entirity of everything that exists has some kind of cohesive explanation. It could, but it doesn't need to. Sometimes a fact is just a fact.


To reiterate, I'm saying this is a possibility. It's one that I find more congenial than positing extra-planar beings choosing what the physical constants are, but I merely find it congenial and know that even an extra-planar being is possible, and can recognize why others might find it so even if I do not.

It could also be possible -- to give the other two examples I said -- that there is a multiverse engine creating universes, and that there is some other physical theory we do not yet know (just as we did not yet know how color worked at one point, though we still knew what color combinations would bring about which colors).

The thought experiment using the deck of cards, is firstly about the order of the deck of cards. When one observes something that seems ordered, and given options as to how such order came to happen between design and randomness most would view design more likely. FTA proposes the that the universe is ordered for embodied, sentient beings like us to exist. — Rank Amateur

Right. But it does so on the basis of your next sentence:

Even vary minor differences in many different criteria ( all of these are easily looked up) would make it impossible for beings like us to exist.

But what if a difference, however minor, isn't possible at all? How do we infer that these minor differences could have been the case?

Conceptually, sure. I can conceive of them being different.

But physically?

When facing such an ordered system FTA proposed design and the most probable hypothesis as to why.

I am not sure what the difference is between your point that there may have been no other options for all these varied criteria than there is than, it was designed. Sounds like a round about way of saying the same thing.

To me it's just like stating a fact. So it is physically possible that Washington, DC is not the capital of the United States. But it is not possible in reality (earmarked to a certain time) -- it is a simple fact.

A bit more abstractly, it is metaphysically possible that the gravitational constant could differ, where all other laws and constants of the universe remain the same. But it may not be physically possible, earmarked to the universe we happen to inhabit. It could just be a simple fact that has no major significance, since it could not have been otherwise.

If it could not have been otherwise, then there's no need to posit that someone made it that way. It's just the way things are.

Not at all. Nor should we just accept any thought experiment just because someone thinks it sounds good.

Let's take the gravitational constant. 6.67408 × 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2 -- I'm not certain at all what the units would be analogous to in a deck of cards, but the specific number would be analogous to an individual card. So we happened to draw, in the creation of the universe (assuming the deck metaphor) 6.67408 × 10-11 m3 kg-1 s-2 when we drew our gravity constant card.

But what are the other cards? What is the possible domain over which we're figuring this probability?

If the possible domain for the gravity constant is only one card, then it is a 100 percent probability that we'd draw that card -- it'd just be a constant, as I've been saying, and evaluating its probability wouldn't mean anything at all.

But if it could be otherwise, then what else could it be? If it can't be otherwise, then there is nothing improbable about the gravity constant being what it is.

If they are not identical, then might they have some relevant features that differ when evaluating their probability?

Do you think that a deck of cards is identical to the constants of physical theory?

I'd pick 1.

:D

I'd say that neither is any more a waste of time than arguing itself.

Plus science is all about arguing over facts. It's not like it's all just settled. There are arguments, not doctrines.

2. in order for beings like us to exist those values, along with other criteria have to be
near exactly what they are - if any were changed appreciably - we would not exist.
3. the probability of all possible combinations of events needed for all of this criteria to
exist is incredibly unlikely - on the order of 52! or more — Rank Amateur

What is factual about them?

In order for us to know 2 we'd have to run an experiment. So we'd start a universe with different values and see what came up (if that were possible to do). 2 follows if we accept all of current scientific statements as true, and then decide to treat some constants as variables to see what might happen in a universe that is remarkably similar to ours, but with a few changes.

But it's just a prediction, not a fact. We'd have to actually see that happening to say "This is fact"


And 3 depends upon treating those same constants as variables, too. But if they don't vary then there isn't a range of possible values for the constants to be. It's kind of hokey, from my viewpoint. I mean, shoot, the number line is infinite, so we might as well say that the probability of a constant is 0 (giving the event an infinitely great improbability, sans someone putting it there), given that it's just a single point on an infinite line.

My understanding of the argument goes:
1. sentient, moral agent beings like us exist.
2. in order for beings like us to exist those values, along with other criteria have to be
near exactly what they are - if any were changed appreciably - we would not exist.
3. the probability of all possible combinations of events needed for all of this criteria to
exist is incredibly unlikely - on the order of 52! or more. — Rank Amateur

Heh. Well, we had a different understanding then.

I'd say that your 2 is at least uncertain, and is what I was speaking to before. If the values were just constants then they wouldn't change. There isn't a physical possibility that they differ.

And I'd say that your paper tries to address 3 by talking about epistemic probability. But I'd just say that such probability caches out as plausibility. We can evaluate whether something is likely or not, but the likelihood we'll come up with depends on our priors.

Which hypothesis for these facts is most probable.

1. This system was designed as such to support 1. therefor there is in some way a designer
2. As improbable as it is these were all just random events that allowed 1.
3. There are an infinite number of universes or conditions that are in existence, making the odds that one like ours exist highly probable.

I don't think there's a reasonable way to evaluate them. Not really, anyways. One can sound good to someone and so they'll adopt it. We can make some argument -- about the probability space, for instance -- that makes it seem like we are really, really, really certain of a probability.

But all three are congruent with the facts, at present. So it's not on an evidential basis that we could decide such a probability. We may make arguments, but these would in turn just appeal to our intuitions. Those intuitions would already play a part in what way we believe in the first place, hence my thinking that it just depends upon what we believe.

There's no reason to close inquiry to any of the three, as far as I'm concerned.

yet again - you are trying to change the "what is" That is not an argument against FTA. You are in effects saying "ok lets just say the facts were different" Changing, the facts is not an argument. — Rank Amateur

Hrm? I'm granting the facts. What you're quoting is a rephrasing of the argument. So we have the facts from the SEP article:

The strength of gravity
The strength of the strong nuclear force
The difference between the masses of the two lightest quarks
The strength of the weak force
The cosmological constant
The global cosmic energy density is close to ro sub c.
The relative amplitude Q of density fluctuations
The initial entropy of the universe


I'm not changing these.

The argument goes -- at least if I'm reading any of this right -- that these are really specific values that could have been different, but weren't. The values that they are support life -- and there are very few such values that would support life. So the best explanation for these specific values is that there is a designer who chose them.

I'm giving alternate explanations. One is that there simply isn't one -- that constants are facts, and there isn't anything special about them. Adding a designer is just messy. You might as well add a designer to explain why the spring constant of a spring is just so. Or you could just accept that the spring constant is exactly as it is, and there's nothing special about it (even though only a very specific spring constant would support this particular mechanism)

Another is the multiverse theory. And another would be something more fundamental, that things ended up just and so because of some physical reason that is hitherto unknown.

Let's take this:

It has been mathematically calculated that, back at one second, the universe's expansion energy and the opposing gravitational energy must have differed by less than one part in 10 to the power 15 (one part in a million billion). If it was different at all (in either direction) then there would be no galaxies, no stars, and so no planets. — Antony Latham

So it could have differed in one direction or another direction, hypothetically speaking. But it didn't. Why didn't it?


One explanation is that there was a designer who intervened in the formation of the universe to ensure that life could arise within it.

Another is that it didn't differ, and there's nothing terribly controversial about accepting a fact as a fact -- it just happened that way.

Another is that there's a multiplicity of universes being spit out by some universe-engine, and so given infinite time we would eventually pop out of it.

Another might be that there's some reason for the specific ratio that we haven't discovered. Perhaps gravity acts in a particular way because of [x].


**
The fact is the ratio between expansion and gravitational energy. The prediction is that with a difference then there would be no galaxies, no stars, and no planets. But the latter is not a fact -- we simply do not know what would have happened had it been otherwise. We'd have to run an experiment.

It's something that follows ceteris peribus. -- given such and such set of propositions, this is what would happen. It's reasonable enough to speculate, but we'd only know the fact of the prediction if we generated a universe with a different ratio.

We don't know what would happen if things were different than they were. There is no fact to the matter. We can make guesses and evaluate said guesses in terms of what seems right, sure. And I'd contend that's exactly what we're doing in positing the above 4 possible explanations of the fact.

I disagree - as per the deck of cards experiment. There is little doubt that design is the most probable answer for the FTA. — Rank Amateur

There is little doubt for you.

It's worth noting that there's a difference between the arrangement of a deck of cards, and existence. The constants in physics are artifacts of our knowledge. Vary them while keeping everything else constant and what you'd predict would differ from what you'd predict while maintaining the exact same theoretical setup.

That's saying basically the same thing, without the numbers to make it look as if these particular constants are a wonder. The constants are constant, so there's no need to think of them as if they landed precisely where they needed to in order for life to flourish. They didn't land at all. They're just the number they happen to be.

Could they be different? Possibly. But it is also possible that they could not be different. They could after all take after their name, and be. . . constant. The evidence doesn't decide one way or the other -- evidentially both are possible.

A better analogy for the deck of cards and the FTA, on this interpretation, would be: Why are there exactly 52 cards? Couldn't there be 60 cards? Well, the answer to that is because that is what makes a standard deck of cards. You could add in more cards, but this is just the way things are.

It's a type of teleological argument, or argument from design. Among other examples probably the best-known are those having to do with biological design (e.g. Paley's watch analogy). And like with other teleological arguments, it seems to have a lot of intuitive appeal with some people, and yet when the argument is viewed skeptically, it turns out surprisingly hard to even give it a rigorous formulation, and few even try. — SophistiCat

And even given a rigorous formulation it seems to me that all one would have to do is change or challenge one proposition to obtain the desired conclusion.

The argument bottoms out in what feels right to the person hearing or giving the argument. I would say I agree with you in saying that the constants don't need explanation, per se -- why would they? Does the Ideal Gas Law need to explain its use of a constant?

Adding a constant is a common tactic in making an equation "work" -- even if its not viewed as some kind of fundamental equation, just something that helps to predict a dataset right now.

Maybe because its cosmology there is a feeling that there needs to be some kind of fundamental explanation for why things are just so, and not otherwise. It seems more fundamental than, say, Hook's law.

There is no doubt that designer is the most logical answer to the FTA. The primary reason that there is any debate at all on that point is driven by a predisposition on many that the probability of God/supernatural designer is near zero. — Rank Amateur

This is half of what I believe. I'd just add that the primary reason there is any debate is that the predisposition for different persons is either for or against the proposition -- and the plausibility of these arguments has mostly to do with this belief rather than whatever rational merits the arguments claim to have.

It's the conclusion that matters, not the process of reasoning.

Is it, though? Another version of the teleological argument argued that while evolution is true, there had to be an initial designer to put together the RNA just-so to make evolution happen. There is a "gap" of sorts where the majority of what we observe is explainable by purely physical and mechanical descriptions, except for one moment where something requires divine intervention.

This just seems to push the "gap" back in time. And if we come up with some kind of theory of the constants which explains them in purely physical terms I imagine the "gap" will get pushed further back.

There's always some first-cause which a theist will find satisfactory, and an atheist will not. The plausibility of these arguments comes down to what we already believe.

Here I am more interested in what an FTA proponent can actually do with the physical premise, which we can take as given for the purpose of the discussion. Is "fine-tuning for life" in need of explanation? (The answer is not as uncontroversial as it might seem.) And are theistic explanations best suited for the job? — SophistiCat

I guess I don't see much difference between FTA and other forms of the teleological argument -- is that an unfair characterization, in your view?

Nicomachean Ethics -- Aristotle

Meditations -- Marcus Aurelius

Not as direct as those two, but this website (surprisingly named epicurus.net !) offers a selection of works from Epicurus -- in that same vein, if you want a complete text, there is On the Nature of Things by Lucretius, a later Epicurean.


They don't all agree with one another, but their main interest lies in living a good life.

Then you have rejected the notion of gender identity as Rebecca sets it out, and we are pretty much in agreement. That's fine — Banno

I suppose I take it that she draws a lot more from said rejection than I do, though. The details of the rejection seem important to me, which is why I felt like I needed to say more than just that.

Though for you this is just an illustrative example, I think.

Hmm. At one stage Rebecca points out that it would be far simpler to refer to one's genitals than a brain scan to determine one's gender. I have to agree with her that gender is not completely performative. It's not just a social construct, because there are observable physical differences between men and women. But the social superstructure built on the basis of these differences is absurd. One's genitals ought play no part in one's income, for example - yet the evidence shows that it does. — Banno

Even more simple would be to ask, and determine if the person is trustworthy or not. Gender, so I'd put it, is a possible aspect of identity. Identity has both a personal and social side -- so the radical feminist distinction between sex and gender points out that the physical facts determine sex, whereas the social performance, expectations, rules, and roles create gender. So the physical facts and differences between men and women don't have a bearing on gender. I think I could go along with that. The part I'd say is more complicated is on the side of identity. Where I certainly agree is that sex, and gender, should not result in income disparity or generally speaking in discrimination or violence -- which evidence shows sex and gender to result in both.

The part I disagree on is with respect to personal identification.

Now I could say, "I am irascible" -- I am talking about a part of my identity in so doing. The sentence "I am irascible" is truth-apt. You can determine whether I am or not irascible not really from my stating so, checking a part of my body, doing a brain scan, or anything like that -- far better to simply take is as true and see where it goes. If you find that my disposition in action doesn't match up, you might start to question the statement. But if I find me becoming angry at many slights you'd say that I know something about myself.

There is that internal part, where I have a deep feeling about my personality, and there are outward expressions of what I feel deeply about myself. And however that plays out, within our relationship with one another, will allow you to determine whether such is true or false.

So we might have a person who says "I am femme" -- expressing her gender identity. She responds to feminine pronouns, associates parts of her identity with feminity, and even bonds with other femme persons over said identity. There are feelings associated with the identity that are shared, as well as other aspects. But how they know such is the case is simply by being such. How we might know such is the case is if we have a relationship with them, they are trustworthy, and their outward expressions confirm what they say about themself through time. It is an assymetric relationship -- we might have reason to call such into question, but our reasons for justification are based upon what someone else tells us, feels, and is. They have priority in marking that boundary.

Attempting to find out what would be a bit more congenial to your taste's @creativesoul --

I think awareness through time is doing most of the work in making the concept of lying to oneself coherent, for me. Just as I can flip my awareness in a moment from the thoughts I am having to my fingers, to my memories, to my feelings it seems to me that a flip in awareness could happen from two halves of myself. So where I do agree with you is that the part of myself that is lying could not misrepresent their own thoughts and trick themselves -- there is a need for some kind of a division for trickery to be successful on this model, because you have to be aware of the trick if you're setting out to trick someone. Like a three card monte player knows how to replace a card without someone observing, they couldn't do so to themselves.

So I'm tracking with you on that. For me the flip in awareness is what's important -- so at one point we are aware of the trick, and at the other point we are not. For something like three card monte, where we have concrete points of reference in our literal hands this would be pretty extreme, though maybe possible. But for something a bit more abstract, like knowledge of myself, it doesn't seem so extreme to me because we aren't perfectly transparent to ourselves.

Since we aren't perfectly transparent to ourselves it actually becomes rather easy to lie to ourselves because the trick lies in what is actually a very plausible belief: "I am not transparent to myself" -- so if I come across something that I'd term inconvenient for myself, all I need do is remind myself that I am not transparent to myself and suddenly what was inconvenient becomes questionable.


That's why it makes sense for me, at least. Where in this line of reasoning does something just balk as unnacceptable to you? My guess is you'd just say this is not lying. But if I both believe P and ~P -- because I did, after all, come across something inconvenient -- then that seems to fit perfectly with the notion of lying, or tricking myself. In fact it seems like in order for me to intentional trick myself I would have to believe both, since to be intentional about the lie I'd have to believe P and want myself to believe ~P, then convince myself of ~P -- without changing the original belief.

Whereas to be mistaken would just be to believe something that is false, or to believe something that is true but for bad reasons.

Also to note -- I think that the politics of gender abolition are simpler. But they are too simple -- I think the facts forced me to reconsider another way. My intuitions are more in alignment with the notion that there is nothing it is like to be a man or woman, that gender is performative. But I think I was wrong.

So she has three things that she thinks gender identity must have:

Universality: It needs to be a phenomena that all persons have.
Stability: It needs to be a relatively fixed or essential property.
Independence: It must be independent of both sex-body, and upbringing.

And she argues how these cannot all hold. So the original claim is something that cannot be true, on pain of incoherence.


She does offer some mid-way concessions. She even seems to believe that we all have individual access to ourselves -- I cannot know what it is like to be someone else, but I can know what it is like to be me. On that basis I cannot know what it is like to be a man, because I do not share experiences with other men. She also seems fine with the notion of preference for artifacts associated with words. She's mostly concerned with the claim she introduces.

But why would interiority need any of these things to make sense? There is the fact that people do bond over identities -- so men bond over man-like experiences, and women do the same. Rebecca can very well be a woman and not feel like there is some bond there. There is nothing contradictory in this. Experience is very particular. But we can know what someone is talking about, and know what they mean, and know they have experienced such-and-such when they give an outward expression of such. This is especially so over time. So one claim all by itself is just one claim. But sharing an experience comes down to a relationship -- it comes down to what a person is like over time.

We can come to know another through a relationship, through sharing. We do so by listening, which can only happen if we trust them.

I don't think it works quite like that, in most cases. One needs a bit of psychology here.There is 'what I am', and there is 'what I think I am' (my self image), and the latter is an aspect of the former. But inevitably, I think that what I am is what I think I am. So self- preservation becomes a matter of preserving the image. — unenlightened

That's fair. I can get along with that -- I haven't really been thinking in terms of plausibility, psychology, or facts as much as just getting a basic and easy to recognize theory of lying-to-oneself across to @creativesoul

Suppose I look at myself from a position of ignorance. It comes naturally, from this realisation that I am not who I think I am. Then I see there is the self-image I have, but I give it less importance, because it is incomplete at best. So I am ready to discover myself anew. Perhaps, after all I am not the wise philosopher I think I am; perhaps I am not the nice balanced social being I think I am. I will find out as I go - I will learn about myself in my relationship to the world, but it will always be learning, never knowing. This is too frightening for me as long as I still think I am what I think I am, and it seems that to change my image is to die.

So for yourself 'lying to yourself' is much more subtle, really. It's almost like an approach to the world and the self -- whereas in one case we must be something we are not, or we believe we are this exact thing and it's a hill to die on, and in the other case we recognize that we are not this set of beliefs about ourself and are open to learning more -- it is exciting to change the image in the face of new information, rather than a death-threat.

Yes, one can be wrong about one's gender identity.

Further, I'd say Rebecca does not necessarily have a gender identity. Why go so far as to call it a universal phenomena? For her the only reason to do so is for political purposes -- that without the three main characteristics she is arguing against then there is no reason to give gender identity legal or political weight, that doing so undermines what trans activists are asking for.

That's why it seems to me that her aim is mainly political.

Being wrong is not equivalent to lying. Being wrong about oneself is not equivalent to lying to oneself.

The notion of 'self'-deception is nonsense. I've already adequately argued for that without subsequent valid criticism. — creativesoul

Have you? It seems to me that you've just declared it nonsense. (EDIT: I should note here I believe you're sincere, I'm just telling you my impression is all) You do so on the basis of saying that we can classify any intentional act of misrepresenting belief to oneself as something other than lying, because we haven't given the necessary and sufficient conditions that are up to your standard.

But is that an argument? We have given criteria that marks simple error from self-deception. You've just said "OK, sure that's necessary, but not good enough" -- but then we do in fact have a means for distinguishing the two, and so what exactly is nonsensical here?

Yeah, I kind of felt like that, though she does address that too. If you modify the claim then she's just not talking to people like that, and believes that in so modifying the claim you undermine any reason why to offer said protections. So to her the claim is necessary in order to justify legal protections.

That's what I'm not so sure about. We do, after all, offer legal protections to religious identities.

Because you can intentionally tell yourself a lie, and then become unaware of said action. I'd say I agree with @unenlightened's examples above -- we can have an image we want to conform to, realize we are not like the image, and then tell ourselves "But really, deep down inside, I am like that image" and then have our awareness flip such that we are no longer aware that we intentionally deceived ourselves.

Alright, finished it. I don't exactly agree with what she's saying. But to answer her question of "Why" it seems enough to me -- from the strictly legal perspective -- that discrimination occurs.

So, for instance, if one is Muslim -- meaning they have a deeply held feeling of being Muslim, and they outwardly express such sentiments -- then we can tell well enough what a Muslim is for legal purposes. And if violence or workplace discrimination takes place based on said identity then we have a reason why to offer legal protections for said identity.

I change to Muslim here because she likens transgender identity to religious identity.


To me it seems less that she is interested in interiority as much as she is interested in the legal protections afforded to personal claims on identity. It's a question of political philosophy more than it is a question of mind or metaphysics or epistemology. yes?

Still listening to it. 25 minutes in.

Sure. Listening now.

All individuals possess an innate essential gender that is independent of both their biological sex and the gender they were raised as, and this innate essential gender is the sole definition of gender that should be recognized for social, political, and legal purposes.

Seems at odds with anything I'm saying, but I'm listening.

Sure. I can go with that. That's why I thought a dimension of time was necessary, as well as some way of explaining how we shift from one part of the mind to another -- like having an awareness that shifts.

But if we can be in self-contradiction, then we can also be in self-contradiction about our beliefs. So we might just ignore it, which is something like what I believe @jkg20 is saying. But we can also form a further belief, a belief that the two are not in self-contradiction. So we can believe that "A and B do not contradict" as well as believe that "A and B do contradict" -- since we can believe contradictory things.

Do you?

Is there a thing that it is like to be Molie?

How would you tell? Since you can't know what it is like to be a bat, how can you differentiate what it is like to be Molie? — Banno

Have you ever felt like you were not yourself? Or perhaps you felt you were not true to yourself. Surely if you know yourself, then you do know what it is like to be yourself.

I'm not sure there is a thing that it is like to be myself. But there is a what it is like to by myself. The "it" is a little more generic, and needn't be an actual thing. It's not like there is a chair which it is like to be myself.

It seems to me that you can tell what something is like by two means -- being it, or feeling it.

That is, the whole what it is like to be... is logically fraught.

I'm not so sure here. But it's not necessarily the greatest thing ever, either. It's just a common frame of reference, a decent enough way of talking about interiority.

Your feeling of what it is like to be you changes without your noticing. Then it cannot be part of what it is to be you; and not what makes you who you are...

Because how you feel might change continually. — Banno

Not to me, but worth noting for myself at least. I don't think I'm arguing for essence in the above. That's a side issue. That we change doesn't bother me -- of course we do. We aren't static beings, after all.