That you're even addressing it as "an assumption" is telling. So, I haven't really thought it through, and you're full of valuable insight with the potential to turn my world around? Nah, I don't think so. You're not full of insight, you're full of spin. You're not really questioning it, as though you have an open mind, as though this could go either way and warrants exploration. This is just another attack. It's more of the same. It's boring and predictable.

Yeah, well, seeing the same old shit over and again can sort of make that happen. Sorry, but you've long since worn away most of my patience.

You interpreted it a bit differently? No shit.

Idiots and psychopaths? Yeah right. It's just a common reproach to people who complain too much instead of trying to help themselves.

You posted this on a public forum, with an audience, knowingly. Who else are you complaining to, if not to us? Yourself?

Images of people standing in a circle with angry faces and torches... from the word "us"?

You're always so full of skewed hyperbole. It's a joke.

Where are you getting that information from? It's false. The Director-General of the BBC is appointed by the BBC Board, not the Secretary of State for Culture. And note that Ofcom is an independent regulatory body.

No, it’s a fact. He’s actually filed bankruptcy for his casinos several times. — NOS4A2

Ok. It's just that it seemed as though you were suggesting something more than that: perhaps that I should be more sceptical about the casino thing.

BBC is a state-run news agency. That alone warrants skepticism. — NOS4A2

No, the state doesn't run it, the Director-General of the BBC does. It's an independently run, but publicly funded, news organisation.

It's nothing like KCNA, for example. They couldn't be further apart.

Just like a cisgender role claiming the absurdity that a woman with short hair and pants is not a woman or less of a woman, the trans version ignores the fact that women come in all shapes and sizes. — TheWillowOfDarkness

That's simply not true, it's merely biased speculation on your part. It's illogical to jump from the fact that a transgender woman - or someone who has a desire to become one - wants to transform themselves to reflect a more traditionally feminine image, to the conclusion that therefore they ignore the fact that women come in all shapes and sizes.

Intuitively I would think that a transgender woman would want very much to fit in with societal gender roles. That would sort of be the whole point. Again, I'm talking about something where I don't have much experience.
— T Clark

This still seems right to me. If a man is going through all the difficulties it requires to become and be accepted as a women, it just seems to me she would want to be considered a woman as typically defined in society at large. That's my intuition. More than that, it's what I feel when I try to place myself in their shoes. Yes, of course, it is a bit presumptuous for me to think I can do that, but it's disrespectful for me not to try. — T Clark

It's not far off, and I'll just come out and say that, yes, that's based on my own experience of having had these sort of thoughts and feelings ever since I was a child, to varying degrees over the years.

Do you treat the news with the same skepticism? Because I did not inform you about the casino. — NOS4A2

The level of my scepticism depends on the source. I can't remember where I heard the casino thing, to be honest. Why? Do you dispute it? Do you have a credible source which refutes it?

To give you some idea, I'm the least sceptical with a news organisation like BBC News, and I'm most sceptical with an absolute joke like the propaganda machine thinly veiled under the guise of a news organisation that is Fox News.

Of course you do not know. That’s not my fault. — NOS4A2

I'm not blaming you for the fact that I don't care enough to explore in depth the business career of Donald Trump. But it is your fault if you're not willing or able to actually defend your own remarks about his alleged success in that regard.

But I do apologize for accusing you for suppression. — NOS4A2

Well thanks.

And there is nothing wrong with dismissing counterfactuals. — NOS4A2

Yes there is. There's only nothing wrong with someone doing that if they have a good enough reason for doing so.

In my first post I explained clearly the difference between "the correct" and "a correct" and stated that I disagreed with your use of "the correct". — ChrisH

Well, that makes no sense, unless you disregard the implied circumstance he had in mind and insert your own, but then your criticism wouldn't apply to his point, because you wouldn't be talking about the same thing. It's not difficult to imagine a circumstance where there are multiple correct answers, and where a chair being the thing you sit on is just one of many, but that has no bearing whatsoever on his point, because it's clear to me that that's not at all what he had in mind.

I do find it rather silly that some people in this discussion apparently feel the need to point out, as though we are oblivious of the fact, that, say, "chair" can also mean the person in charge of a meeting, or idiosyncratically anything you want it to, and that these meanings can still be correct in a sense. That is simply missing the point.

I do, however, think that he's nitpicking and missing the point. — Magnus Anderson

He is.

"This is the meaning you should go by if you want us to have a meaningful conversation about chairs without you being a pain in the arse by making up your own meaning"
— S

Which of course is already putting social pressure on them. If they don't use the meaning you're calling "correct," they're being a pain in the ass. — Terrapin Station

First off, I notice that you quoted me out of context. But yes it is (if expressed), and yes they are.

Or are you going to claim that "pain in the ass" is only descriptive, too? — Terrapin Station

Doesn't even matter. Like I said, the original statement we were talking about isn't even prescriptive (Magnus Anderson is right about that), and the phrase you're quoting there was taken from a potential accompanying thought rather than from the statement itself, although I can't stop you reading things into the original statement if you're set on doing so.

Let's say I expressed myself in a way that wasn't the best. — Magnus Anderson

You expressed yourself just fine, and far from coming across as defensive, you conceded too readily in my opinion. Those who are jumping in to criticise you just failed to fill in the blanks correctly. If they had've done so, then they would've realised that this point which they raised about "the" vs. "a" simply doesn't apply here. It is a correct meaning, but more importantly it's the correct meaning given the circumstance you had in mind. There is only one correct answer in this hypothetical situation, in spite of the fact that there are multiple definitions for the word. That there are multiple definitions for the word is of no relevance in relation to the point you were making.

The correct answer to the question "Is 2 + 2 = 4?" is "Yes". What's prescriptive about that? — Magnus Anderson

Nothing, and I take that to be a true analogy, given the implicit context of what you're saying about correct meaning. But why would it even be a problem if it was prescriptive to some extent? I can conceive how there might well be some accompanying thought along the lines of, "This is the meaning you should go by if you want us to have a meaningful conversation about chairs without you being a pain in the arse by making up your own meaning". Is it a serious problem to think like that rather than to pretend that nothing's the matter, and to humour the other person? No. I think that it's only a problem for people like Terrapin, and I've never met anyone who shares his peculiar gripe here. So I think that it's fairly safe to say that this is a Terrapin problem, not a real problem.

So what? There's nothing wrong with that. As you said to me last night, that's your problem. It isn't a problem for the rest of us. The rest of us do not have a chip on the shoulder about this.

That's true. Maybe I can correct myself by saying that's one of several correct meanings of the word? — Magnus Anderson

Or that it's the correct meaning in the appropriate circumstance, that being the typical circumstance of referring to the familiar item of furniture we use to sit on, namely a chair.

I don't think that you've anything to correct. I think he just misinterpreted you.

I'd take issue with your claim that you've given "the correct meaning". It's 'a' meaning but not the only one in current use. — ChrisH

And I'd take issue with your interpretation of what he meant. I don't think that he meant that it's the only one in current use at all. I think he meant something along the lines that that's what it generally means in typical circumstances. I think that it's quite uncharitable to assume that he was unaware that oftentimes a word carries a number of definitions.

(Notice also how I didn't use a single Latin word to express myself.) — Magnus Anderson

:up:

Goofy kludges. Interesting choice of words. I like it. :grin:

your big 4K TV — PoeticUniverse

I wish.

This looks like it would be good to watch on acid.

It's rhetorical, because (in my opinion) obviously you should realize that other people have no obligation to cater to you when they don't have a problem with something but you do. Why shouldn't you just as well cater to them? — Terrapin Station

I don't care whether it was rhetorical. I answered it anyway, because I'm bored. And I never suggested that you have any obligation to cater to me. That's come from your own imagination. Whether you follow my suggestion or not is for you to decide. I'm simply expressing my thoughts on the matter. That's what we do here, remember?

Because you have a problem with it? That's your problem.

I'm not about to change something I'm fine with just because other people have a problem with it. — Terrapin Station

Pah! Then why even ask me that in the first place? I don't care whether you actually take on board my suggestions, but you asked me what you're supposed to do about it, so obviously I told you what I think.

Okay... what am I supposed to do about it? — Terrapin Station

Well, obviously, I would suggest a different approach, for starters. I think that any account of ethics which is so radical as to be unreflective of how people tend to talk and think and feel when actually engaging in ethics is destined to fail.

When you express an ethical judgement which contradicts what I strongly feel is right, then it's natural for me to react by thinking that you're mistaken. And that's not just how it is for me, it's how it is for everyone.

So that shouldn't be scrapped as somehow inapplicable, but rather explained in a way which works. There is correct and incorrect, in a sense.

Which I of course do not see as a problem. — Terrapin Station

And I of course see that as a problem in itself, in addition to all of your other problems.

I see the norms more as an ancillary ending place. — Terrapin Station

Yes, and look where that's gotten you: a position that is counterintuitive. A position that myself and others find unacceptable. An implausible minority position.

Wait, you're saying that ethics is also determined by norms? — Terrapin Station

I'm saying that that's a sensible starting place, so my understanding of ethics takes into consideration norms.

What do you think - should organisations promoting deceitfulness (think for example Ashley Madison which aims to be a dating website for people already in commited relationships, guaranteeing to keep the identity of their members secret) be outlawed, and people engaged in such activities punished by law? — Agustino

No, certainly not, as I'm from a modern, secular, liberal nation, not a draconian, religious, authoritarian nation, and that's exactly how it should be, and how it should remain. The state has no business forcing it's way into such private matters, based no doubt on your twisted Christian beliefs about fidelity, punishment, and the like. The further away people like you are from the legislature, or any influential role in parliament, the better!

I am not surprised to see another characteristically appalling suggestion from Agustino, even though he posts nothing like the rate at which he used to.

(Turns out this discussion is 4 years old, excepting my comment here and the one above it).

How, in your view, can someone be mistaken about whether something is unethical? — Terrapin Station

Because that's just how ethics functions. Neither of us are extraterrestrials recently landed on this planet. We both know what ethical discourse looks like, what it involves, what it's based upon, at least on a basic level.

"That's unethical", "No it isn't, it's perfectly acceptable", "You're wrong about that", "Says who?", "Says me!".

That's what it looks like. People make moral judgements, feel certain ways about matters relating to ethics, agree and disagree, tell each other they're in the right or that they're wrong.

All of the meta-ethical details, all of the various meta-ethical interpretations, have no immediate relevance here. It doesn't mean that I can't tell you that you're mistaken. But I suspect that that's what you're getting at. Though regardless, that's what ethics is, that's the norm, and if you do it any other way, then you're basically doing it wrong, just like with all this nonsense from you about there being no correct or incorrect use of a concept in a context which very clearly (to everyone else, at least) indicates just that.

I can't be wrong about whether something is unethical. (Of course, I can't be right, either. Right and wrong don't apply here.) — Terrapin Station

And you're mistaken about that, as well.

Re the other part, in other words, it didn't seem to me like you were asking me to explain my view with the goal of better understanding it for the sake of understanding it. — Terrapin Station

Your personal impression of what seems to be my motivate in that regard is entirely irrelevant. And let's be clear that that's all it is: a personal impression, or how it seems to you. Not fact, not truth, not knowledge.

The bottom line is that you should have had the decency to answer. I granted you that decency throughout, at least until you reneged on the quid pro quo relationship I expect of interlocutors.

I don't agree that there's any context within which concepts are correct. — Terrapin Station

Fine, don't agree, but you've been shown extensively and definitively to be wrong on that point.

I don't see anything unethical about any utterances. — Terrapin Station

Which is an extreme position which I, along with the vast majority, would reject. But whether you talk about it as an utterance or as a behaviour (it's both) it only shows poor judgement on your part to fail to see why it's unethical.

You were asking me to explain my view, to aid your understanding of it, and I didn't explain it to you? — Terrapin Station

No, clearly I did not think that you did so, or at least not adequately, otherwise I wouldn't have asked you the question in the first place, and I wouldn't have kept on asking you it multiple times afterwards when you wilfully decided to evade answering it.

And at this point, I've totally lost interest, and I gave up attempting to have a productive discussion with you on that topic a number of hours ago.

Arthur Schopenhauer claimed that the human brain (the understanding) spontaneously constructed perceptual objects by applying (a) the pure “a priori” intuitions of space and time and (b) the transcendental principle of cause and effect to the body’s subjective “under the skin” sensations.

I consider this claim to be valid and to have been a significant advance over Kant’s epistemology.

However, neither Schopenhauer, nor Kant, ever attempted to explain where the body’s subjective sensations came from in the first place; i.e., what the nature of their originating source might have been prior to the brain’s construction of the perceptual objects out of them.

Schopenhauer did provide an explanation for the originating source of perceptual objects; viz., the brain’s activity, but he did not provide an explanation for the originating source of the bodily sensations that comprised those perceptual objects. Nor did he try to determine if the originating source which preceded the body’s sensations bore any resemblance to the constructed perceptual objects which succeeded the body’s sensations.

In other words, I submit that the perceptual objects (which are after-the-fact constructions of the causes of the given sensations by the brain) are merely “purported” causes of the sensations because we can never be certain that the brain’s spontaneously constructed perceptual objects actually coincide with the “real” cause(s) of the subjective sensations, which cause(s) would necessarily have “predated” the brain’s act of spontaneous construction.

What's your opinion? — charles ferraro

Fast forward to present day neuroscience and find your answer. — I like sushi

That's actually probably all the refutation needed on Terrapin. Unless he can pull something else out, we should probably move on. — Baden

What next? Tables?

Why would God bother with you or me? — Pattern-chaser

Didn't he create us, in his own image no less? Or... which God are you even talking about? The made up one, right? Ah, but which made up one? Your own made up one, or one that was made earlier?

Here's the simplest way to put it:

"What's a chair? Is it that thing you sit on?"

"That's correct".

End of discussion.

Simplification is good. :up:

Conceptualization is not a relationship between concept and subject, but it is the act of forming a mental model, the concept itself. The mental model or picture is not correct or incorrect in itself, but is correct or incorrect in its relation to the objects of perception or cognition. :lol: — Noah Te Stroete

My head hurts, even from your watered down attempt at translating what I said. I can't say whether you're right or wrong in your translation, because I have no bloody idea what I originally wrote meant, but if it sounds good, I'll take the credit. :lol:

I don't know. Why don't we try this?

On the idea of the concept of the idea of the correctness of concepts, not as concepts, but as the object of perception:

Cognition in itself, or rather the manifestation whereby a cognition translates through the mechanism of conceptualisation, to a subject, the content of a judgement, is not itself the result of the relationship between concept and subject, but rather falls under the purview of the very possibility of judgement itself. It therefore follows that correctness does not, and cannot, apply to the concept as a concept, but only to the concept as an object of perception.

Now, what did I mean by that?