Next is Descartes' reasoning for why he could be wrong about whether the hand in front of him is his hand:

What a brilliant piece of reasoning! As if I were not a man who sleeps at night and often has all the same experiences while asleep as madmen do when awake – indeed sometimes even more improbable ones. Often in my dreams I am convinced of just such familiar events – that I am sitting by the fire in my dressing-gown – when in fact I am lying undressed in bed! Yet right now my eyes are certainly wide open when I look at this piece of paper; I shake my head and it isn’t asleep; when I rub one hand against the other, I do it deliberately and know what I am doing. This wouldn’t all happen with such clarity to someone asleep.

"Indeed! As if I didn’t remember other occasions when I have been tricked by exactly similar thoughts while asleep! As I think about this more carefully, I realize that there is never any reliable way of distinguishing being awake from being asleep.

"This discovery makes me feel dizzy, which itself reinforces the notion that I may be asleep! Suppose then that I am dreaming – it isn’t true that I, with my eyes open, am moving my head and stretching out my hands. Suppose, indeed that I don’t even have hands or any body at all." — Descartes, First Meditation

So don't really have to be a madman to doubt that your hand is really yours. You could be asleep right now. There doesn't appear to be any criteria for determining if what's happening to you now is a dream or reality. But then, dreams imply a world that's been copied by the mind:

Still, it has to be admitted that the visions that come in sleep are like paintings: they must have been made as copies of real things; so at least these general kinds of things – eyes, head, hands and the body as a whole – must be real and not imaginary. For even when painters try to depict sirens and satyrs with the most extraordinary bodies, they simply jumble up the limbs of different kinds of real animals, rather than inventing natures that are entirely new. If they do succeed in thinking up something completely fictitious and unreal – not remotely like anything ever seen before – at least the colours used in the picture must be real. Similarly, although these general kinds of things – eyes, head, hands and so on – could be imaginary, there is no denying that certain even simpler and more universal kinds of things are real. These are the elements out of which we make all our mental images of things – the true and also the false ones.

These simpler and more universal kinds include body, and extension; the shape of extended things; their quantity, size and number; the places things can be in, the time through which they can last, and so on.

So it seems reasonable to conclude that physics, astronomy, medicine, and all other sciences dealing with things that have complex structures are doubtful; while arithmetic, geometry and other studies of the simplest and most general things – whether they really exist in nature or not – contain something certain and indubitable. For whether I am awake or asleep, two plus three makes five, and a square has only four sides. It seems impossible to suspect that such obvious truths might be false. — Descartes, First Meditation

So our doubts continue to develop. Now what seems indubitable is that two plus three makes five. How could that be wrong?

:up:

We can suppress them (the senses) to an extent. But it's the intellect which calls the shot when it comes to making truth claims, on this latter part, Descartes is quite right. — Manuel

But when we ask the world questions, like: is that a star I sense? Or an airplane? We want the world to speak, not our own intellects. All the human truth teller is doing is repeating what the world has said. The intellect is just supposed to aid us in hearing the world correctly, right?

Your nagging is unwanted, Frank. Grow a pair. — NOS4A2

So you choose to be like all the rest. No integrity. You stand for nothing. Jeese.

You supported the system back when he'd never been convicted of anything. Now you're saying he was convicted because he's Trump. Have a little integrity, please.

I am not decided on the issue. I certainly have rationalist sympathies, but am unclear if it’s an issue of senses misleading or us mis-judging the senses. We see something in the sky, could be a plane or a star. We decide that it’s a star, tomorrow we find out it was actually a plane. In the process of *judgment* do the senses play a part or not? It’s hard to say. Maybe we can’t seperate them as much as we think. Maybe we can. — Manuel

Phenomenologically, it seems like the self and the world are two poles of sensation. if you look out the window, notice how you frame the experience as a connection between sensor and sensed. The two imply one another and they're inextricable. Descartes is asking if we can break this structure. Can we do it by flat out denying one pole, that is the sensed?

The reference to personal betrayal is interesting here. A loss of trust questioning the good faith of the interlocutor. The relationship is in peril before the trial has begun. The setting reminds me of Dante who discovers he is lost "midway through life's journey." The failure to find one's way threatens madness. — Paine

:up:

But an interesting point that avoids this set of questions is the claim that, over time, culture became more important to human evolution than genes. Culture represents a way to encode information about the enviornment that is able to shift with enviornmental changes much more rapidly than genetic evolution. — Count Timothy von Icarus

All fascinating! Do you think that what we call religion is one of ways we carry information about the environment without having to physically adapt? I'm thinking of priests whose jobs were to hold the secrets to appeasing the gods, signaling when it's time to plant, and received wisdom about medicine.

If this was true, then to the extent that philosophy creates a vantage point on religion, it's maybe a reaction to an increased pace of change where religion isn't evolving fast enough.

It would be nice to do more reforms BEFORE things go to shit... — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think it's possible that the human species won't hang together long term. I think it will branch, with some branches retaining technology and others reverting to a stone age existence. An H.G. Wells sort of thing.

We ask the world questions with our senses. We listen more closely, peer with squinted eyes. We feel for texture. Is that a falling star or an airplane? The world answers.

I figured assigning deception to the senses was just a turn of phrase. You're saying there's more to it?

It’s important to keep in mind the history here, Descartes was breaking up with Scholastic thought and laying the foundations for modern science, this includes focusing on simplifying things, not attemtpting to explain everything all at once. Great thread. — Manuel

Absolutely. He goes a step at a time.

He starts with this:

The things I believe to be true were learned through the senses.
But there have been times when the senses deceived me.
Therefore, it is wise not to completely trust any of the things I believe.

In a Christian framework, one is expected to offer complete trust to the sayings of the Church. Descartes says that since we learned these sayings through our senses, and our senses can deceive us, it isn't wise to offer complete trust.

Antony, what would you conclude the object of his project is?
— frank

Of course we’re just getting started, so conclusions are premature. — Antony Nickles

I'm glad you're coming to it with an open mind.

Continuing the first meditation:

"Whatever I have accepted until now as most true has come to me through my senses. But occasionally I have found that they have deceived me, and it is unwise to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.

"Yet although the senses sometimes deceive us about objects that are very small or distant, that doesn’t apply to my belief that I am here, sitting by the fire, wearing a winter dressing-gown, holding this piece of paper in my hands, and so on. It seems to be quite impossible to doubt beliefs like these, which come from the senses.

"Another example: how can I doubt that these hands or this whole body are mine? To doubt such things I would have to liken myself to brain-damaged madmen who are convinced they are kings when really they are paupers, or say they are dressed in purple when they are naked, or that they are pumpkins, or made of glass. Such people are insane, and I would be thought equally mad if I modelled myself on them."

So he's saying that he realizes that the senses can deceive us, but there are some propositions which seem impossible to doubt without claiming insanity. How can I doubt that these are my hands?

Studies of extant hunter gatherers and forensic anthropology converge on incredibly high homicide rates for humans in a "state of nature," at around 2,000 per 100,000. This is 44.5 times higher than the highest nations today, higher than the total death tolls of many major wars. However, a homicide rate of 1.8-2% isn't particularly at odds with what we see for the species from which we descended, so perhaps it isn't that surprising. Slavery, rape, and cannibalism are ubiquitous in human history and only slowly became anathema.https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19758 — Count Timothy von Icarus

One of the theories for why we have twice as many female ancestors as male is that ancient warfare was the norm. It seems like the remains of ancient humans they find are always covered in brutal injuries. Life was tough.

Biology also suggests this progress may be taking place. Modern humans retain far more juvenile features into adulthood than their pre-agricultural ancestors. Human beings appear to have undergone a process akin to domestication over time. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I thought all the members of the homo genus display neoteny. Did it progress even more in our species?

I greatly admire Dorothy Day, and find her writings of great value, particularly: The Long Loneliness (autobiography), Loaves and Fishes (about the Catholic Worker Movement), The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, and All the Way to Heaven is Heaven: selected letters of Dorothy Day. She was a pretty tough woman. She will probably be sainted someday--over her dead body! "Don't make me a saint -- I don't want to be dismissed that easily."

She modeled what following Christ means in the 20th (21st) century. — BC

She was amazing!

Note that the word is questioning, not combating. You can question X without being anti-X, just as, for example, Adorno and Horkheimer questioned enlightenment without being anti-enlightenment.

That’s not to say it’s necessarily bad or unphilosophical to be anti-X. Nietzsche and Marx went further than polite questioning, and I regard their thought as extremely philosophically interesting. So there’s a spectrum of intensity and motivatedness in criticism, but it’s just criticism as such that I was emphasizing in the OP. — Jamal

Speaking of Nietzsche, I think he'd say your approach shows that you're from a Christian culture where a premium is placed on revealing truths. Christianity was originally about questioning Pharisaic Judaism, especially the emphasis it placed on ritual over the well-being of real people. Protestantism was a re-enactment of Christianity's beginnings, where the prevailing wisdom was called into question.

I didn't say anything about people loving their traditions, troll. — praxis

Goodness. Somehow I managed to get your goat. :razz:

So your point was that religions make people dependent on religious traditions.

A religion is a set of traditions.

Religions endure because people love their traditions. Not sure which part of the earth you're from that you didn't know this. :grin:

How does that demonstrate independent thought or action from within that tradition? — praxis

I don't think it does. It shows that this statement:

religion is hellbent on making human beings as dependent as possible, — praxis

is not always true. Dorothy Day represented the Catholic Church. She worked to liberate minorities. Minorities are human beings. So she wasn't trying to make human beings as dependent as possible. She was trying to help them become independent.

Planet Earth. Why is that significant? — praxis

I was just curious. If it's Top Secret, that's fine. I don't have that clearance.

Generally speaking, a good exemplar would think and/or act in a way that demonstrates independence. If you're suggesting that fighting for women's suffrage somehow defied the church, then you appear to be wrong. — praxis

She's the representative of religion here. She worked to help emancipate minorities.

Could you answer my question though? When did you first hear of Dorothy Day? Just curious.

That doesn't make sense. — praxis

That's weird. It does to me.

Hardly seems at odds with the church in any way. Can you explain? — praxis

She wasn't at odds with the Church, so she serves as an example of how

religion is hellbent on making human beings as dependent as possible, necessarily limiting their moral development and any other sort of development that would result in more independent thought and action — praxis

isn't always true.

Dorothy Day

Real question: where did you first learn about Dorothy Day?

And religion is hellbent on making human beings as dependent as possible, necessarily limiting their moral development and any other sort of development that would result in more independent thought and action. — praxis

That's not always true.

Do you think women would be alarmed to see the person in Michaels picture, walk into a female toilet in the hot summertime with his top off, because he has a vagina? — universeness

I couldn't care less.

Or 3) let people use the toilets they're most comfortable using. — Michael

With your magic wand. Awesome.

Why are chromosomes relevant? How would we even know what someone's chromosomes are? We don't DNA test people before letting them use the toilet. — Michael

You have two choices:

1. You can accept that this is a question that will have to be answered at local levels.

2. You can work to establish that a trans person's rights are being violated if they can't use the toilet of their choice. Now you have a crime that's being committed and you can protest it, and work to get it changed.

I don't think much is accomplished by just asking why chromosomes are relevant. Do you?

And what about people who are neither XX nor XY? Or someone with XY gonadal dysgenesis, who although has XY chromosomes, has a defective SRY gene on their Y chromosome and so who's outward appearance is that of the typical XX person? — Michael

Ahhhh! You got me!!!

If you're a trans person who goes to work in Saudi Arabia, you will be very careful about using facilities in such a way that it doesn't bother anyone. For instance, you'll stay in the American compound. If the Saudi authorities find out you used the wrong restroom, they'll fucking kill you.

Local sentiment wins. Yay!!!!!

He has XX chromosomes. — Michael

Then in a society that requires people who have XX chromosomes to use the women's toilet, yes he can use the women's toilet.

It's a question, not a point. — Michael

In a society that doesn't allow people with XY chromosomes to use the women's toilet, yes, he'd have to pee somewhere else. :up:

So if it's just a matter of born biology, does this trans man have to use women's toilets? — Michael

For the life of me, I can't discern your point.

Generalizing even further, philosophy is—or is part of—enlightenment, a means by which humans are freed from domination, whether by nature, myth, religion, governments, whatever it happens to be:

Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, has always aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters.
— Adorno & Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment — Jamal

I think Russell claimed that philosophy started as a counterpoint to mystery religions and snake oil salesmen. But that kind of reaction has to be rooted in a larger story that's being played out in society.

If you study art history, it's all going to be about how art was expressing the social events of the time. Probably the same with philosophy.

I notice that I'm driven by a need to puncture the image of the brave subversive philosopher by saying "You couldn't have achieved any of that if society hadn't been ready for it." I'm sure they were brave, though.

Women's spaces and identities are for biological women. If a trans woman is in a womens toilets, or prison or sports they are no longer single sex areas. No one can or has changed sex so you are giving away women's rights and spaces for no reason. (And gaslighting them in the process) — Andrew4Handel

I don't think anybody's really being gaslighted. We live in a diverse society. There are going to be people who can't accept trans and non-binary people, but for the most part, the American society has made room for them (except cases where they don't know where to pee.)

I would never sexually or physically assault a woman so should I be allowed to use the womens toilets? — Andrew4Handel

This is something that would have to be worked out at the local level. There are places where women really aren't going to care. Believe it or not, women, especially the ones who have given birth, don't really have a lot of body-shame.

If we don't let trans people go to the bathroom I'm guessing a few cases of peeing on the floor or explosive diarrhea on the sidewalk should bring the locals around. :razz:

earlier confused gay men with internalised homophobia have removed their penis and testicles because of this ideology and now live with deep regret. — Andrew4Handel

That's something they'll have to work out with a psychologist. Society in general can't be held responsible for the terrible challenges certain individuals face.

That was a warning not an assurance it was about to happen. The warning if heeded assures it won't happen. But leaving that aside, your passive aggressive "contributions" aren't helpful or welcome. — Baden

OK. Although it wasn't at all passive aggressive. It was all entirely genuine.

Except that didn't happen. — Baden

Yea, fdrake said that.

No, don't say fuck us, just come up with some reasonable arguments instead of ranting. You've done that bit already. — Baden

I guess. It's just that after you've been assured you're about to be banned, you might be more inclined to say fuck you.

People are misrepresenting other people's concerns on this so it is pointless having a discussion based on false premises. — Andrew4Handel

Don't worry about it. There are plenty of people in the world who are able to listen to you without bias. If you can't find that here, just say "fuck them" and move on.

It really appears to me that you're misreading him. He's saying that there are angry people on both sides. He has a very personal stake in the issue, and has complained that his interlocutors are refusing to listen to his concerns. I don't see the problem with listening to him.

It might help to examine the assumptions and conclusions he makes as he goes along.

“ I should also withhold it from ones that are not completely certain and indubitable.”

His criteria to assent to a truth is certainty and absence of doubt. Of course his ideal is a mathematical certainty. Wittgenstein later will show that this requirement is why philosophy overlooks our ordinary criteria for every different thing we do. — Antony Nickles

So let's look at the opening lines one more time.

"Some years ago I was struck by how many false things I had believed, and by how doubtful was the structure of beliefs that I had based on them. I realized that if I wanted to establish anything in the sciences that was stable and likely to last, I needed – just once in my life – to demolish everything completely and start again from the foundations. It looked like an enormous task, and I decided to wait until I was old enough to be sure that there was nothing to be gained from putting it off any longer. I have now delayed it for so long that I have no excuse for going on planning to do it rather than getting to work. So today I have set all my worries aside and arranged for myself a clear stretch of free time. I am here quite alone, and at last I will devote myself, sincerely and without holding back, to demolishing my opinions." — frank

Anthony, what would you conclude the object of his project is? Is it to withhold assigning truth to anything that isn't certain in the way the conclusion of a mathematical proof is? Or is he putting aside his certainty for the sake of reexamining foundations? What do you think?

No, but I think that conservatives think that the line between protecting trans rights and promoting trans lifestyles is blurred. Of course their unofficial spokespeople rarely manage to say anything about the subject without sounding like a-holes. — Baden

:up:

A more accurate analogy might be that for the U.S. establishment to publically espouse the virtues of Islam, including in media, schools, and society generally would virtually guarantee more converts to Islam — Baden

But that would be a violation of the first amendment. I don't think any government agencies are actually advising people to become trans, are they? Protecting their rights might make them come out of the closet, but I don't think it inspires people to make that kind of change. Is that what the conservative is arguing?

To not want diversity for the sake of diversity or change for the sake of change is just part of the conservative mindset. Liberals sometimes neglect to recognize their own ideological commitments here in order to paint opposition to them as bigotry. — Baden

Well, the first amendment protects everybody. If a conservative is disturbed by trans people, it's their right to speak up and let that be known. If liberals want to cry "bigot" they can do that as well.

Yes... but let's recognize they don't operate in an ideological vacuum. (Let me emphasise again, I'm being devil's advocate here to a degree.) — Baden

I understand that. I don't know of an ideal solution to the problems of young people who want to transition. I wish I did.

Ok, to steel man this, I think a conservative would say that opening up more space for what anyone can be can't be separated from enforcing what some people will be.

(Active social engineering dressed up as passive social accommodation.) — Baden

Affirming your right to be a Muslim is tantamount to forcing people to be Muslims? :chin:

Maybe it would help to know that Native Americans had transexuals, although they obviously didn't have hormone therapy or surgery. But apparently members of either sex could transition to the social role of the opposing sex. As for the surgery and hormones, what would be wrong with allowing that to work it's way out naturally? If it's really something good for people, that will become apparent. If it's a danger to them or society, that also will be revealed?

Another way to state their case is that there is a kind of ethical retrojection going on here. Liberals are fostering the grounds for a problem for which the solution is its own problem from a conservative point of view. — Baden

If anything, the woke outrage is a sideshow. For the most part, trans people do have rights. Large corporations in the US spray diversity education upon their employees to make sure they have fashion forward images. It's good for the bottom line, which means the ship has already sailed. All that's left is to worry over what children in Florida are taught about pronouns and the sensitive, but fairly rare problem of minors.

On the specific point of suicide and mental illness, they might claim utilitarian grounds that overall these tendencies may increase with availability of treatment according to a relative rather than absolute sense of deprivation. — Baden

I guess that's why I favor state patient advocates and psychologists. Let them figure it out.

I think what conservatives fear is some kind of cultural shift that becomes self-fulfilling in that it leads rather than follows science. — Baden

That's an amazing insight. You're saying conservatives aren't just being assholes, but they have a legitimate concern.

But when it comes to minors, I think we're all stumped about irreversible interventions. I think we'd all like minors to wait until they're older. The concern that's been raised is that we know they become suicidal and they do commit suicide. If it means saving a person's life to allow gender reassignment? I'd say the answer is obvious.

What would a conservative say?

Seems to me there's a legitimate debate over what to do with minors, if anything, to best help them navigate their sexual identity — Baden

A lot of states have patient advocates for minors. I would leave the question with them and psychologists. Like with abortion, there may be cases where a person has to travel to get a surgical intervention.