Just to be clear. I talked about the situation where someone is sexually harrassed by a boss. TS talked about how in his system, if I am remembering right, it would be easy for her to switch jobs. IOW the problem that he could continue being a real ass is easily solved, given the economic system present. IOW consequentialists complaining about certain problematic effects of total free speech are perhaps not seeing the whole picture of what TS wants to move towards.

Isn’t it experience itself that is an abstraction? Whether the external object affects the brain and the corresponding state of the brain at that time represents the object, or, the external object affects the mind and the corresponding state of the mind at that time represents the object......the representation is nonetheless an abstraction of the object. — Mww

I can imagine that model being useful, but that's in terms of contents. The most concrete thing is experiencing, since that is what we base all other understanding on. If we take a specific object, a tree for example, that word gets its meaning from your experiencing. Everything is abstracted from this experiencing. We come up with the idea of a tree out there. I am not saying we make the tree. But for us, the base we touch and know what 'solid' or 'rough' means via is experiencing.

Hence, the theory of eliminative materialism, which claims certain brain conditions, such as consciousness, are either impossible or nonsense. — Mww

I think the strong position of eliminative materialism is absurd.

Or are you guys trying to argue that neuroscience can't really study the brain at all?
— Isaac

Or perhaps that neuroscience can't really study the mind at all? :chin:

No, not "at all". But I can see difficulties.... — Pattern-chaser

Which is why, for example, it was considered irrational in science to think animals had consciousness and were not, more or less, compicated machines. This was the position in science up until the 70s. And I think one could argue it was because animals couldn't disagree. They couldn't say 'hej it's damn boring in this cage'.

first reaction: I am not sure it is abstract objects science impeded in approaching. In fact, I would say there is nothing more concrete than experience. Note: I see the impediment. I am focusing on the word 'abstraction.' (and with the proviso that right now my experience is more concrete, for me, than anything else, But my experience is not so concrete for you. But it's not abstract for me.

One issue I've been thinking of when discussing this kind of issue - one that affects and is affect by complicated phenomena (humans, for example - is that we are talking about one part of society deeply interconnected with others. (you may not think they should be thought of in this context, but bear with me....) You are arguing for absolute free speech, but you also have a set of other values, how you want society to be in other ways. What your opponents often do is - at least from what I have seen - imagine current society with this one change. IOW things are as they are, but now we have none of the current limits on free speech, and there are many. At one point with me, you responded to one of my concerns - regarding an employee - that in your 'system' she would have the ability to change jobs, presumably more easily, in general, than people can here, since you mentioned another change or direction you would want society to move in.

My point being that in addition to any values you differ with your opponents around, you may be doing two quite different things when you discuss things. They change one thing or one issue and then imagining this society as it is now with this one change. You, it seems to me, are imagining a range of choices that may have effects that would ameliorate their concerns, to some degree, perhaps next to nothing, perhaps significantly.

Might it be worthwhile to present the broader context? (I know, you don't like complicated posts presenting a range of ideas, but perhaps what I am saying is a factor in the debate, even if you never want to do what I am suggesting)

I don't rule it out, but I think that is where we are today, what you say. A phenomenologist looking at a rock would never have figured out what geological processes led to it being as it is with the components it has. That's sort of the opposite problem.

Consciousness is a metaphysical invention of philosophy. — Mww

I am not sure what you mean here. I assume you don't mean that philosophy invented the awareness and presumably animals experience. But I am not sure what you do mean.

Yes, and we can. With the addition that we ask the experiencers what they just experienced and they report it to us — Isaac

Which is not the case in any other research of any other object of research. And in no other research can the culture, upbringing, self-knowledge, language use, introspective ability of the subject affect the data IN ADDITION to the how the thinking of the research(s) might affect the data. We do not play telephone via another person with any other object of research. We look at the heart of a person and we do not have to think that perhaps the way their parents treated them or that they grew up in Malawi is affecting what we see in the microscope. Nor with the sun.

I know what sort of feeling I would describe as a sharp pain in my back, I'm going to work on the presumption that's what they're feeling, otherwise language stops working altogether if we go around having our own private meanings for words". — Isaac

This is a false dilemma. Either we accept it or language stops working. When in fact we are dealing with degrees of distortion or, in fact, possibly use of the same words for different experiences, that are regularly experienced differently. They smell something quite different when they smell coffee, but since there is consistancy on boht sides, the use of the phrase smell of coffee works, except when one person thinks their dog smells like the coffee after the dog gets wet. And we get a hint they might be having quite different qualia. And that happens. God knows how much it happens with emotions.

No other objects of study do we play this kind of telephone game with. Where even the motives and concerns of the one with the consciousness being studied might affect their honesty, consciously or otherwise. Along with all the other filters mentioned above.



You almost acknowledge the difference....

No, it's no different (or at least, not different enough to justify the claims being made here) — Isaac

I don't care about their claims. It seems to me here you are indicating motive not to accept any difference since this might encourage 'them'.


.

It's no different to the presumptions about shared meaning I have to make when I speak with my fellow sun observer about his measurements. — Isaac

Of course it is different. You didn't both have to wonder if the sun is withholding information, if the sun means the same thing either or both of you would mean by it. You don't have to wonder if the sun's culture being the same as yours, as opposed the Alpha Centauri's culture, is leading you to make false generalizations about minds, when in fact it is only certain minds. You don't have to wonder if when the Sun says coffee - see above.

You do not have a broad set of new factors to consider that are not like any other factors in any other scientific exploration.

Geologists don't have to wonder about the motives of mica.


It seems like I am getting caught in the crossfire between those you see as conclusing things without foundation and you who it seems to me wants to say it is just like everything else. It may be to some objective observer, but for us in situ, it is a different kind of object of study because the access is mediated by other people. And I know stuff about my consciousness or awareness that you cannot know, even if I use words to describe it. Even if I do this well and honestly. There will be a huge asterisk next to what goes through your mind as being the same as what went through mine.

I sense motives. I could be wrong. But I sense in this interaction a very strong motive, perhaps connected to the hand-wringing you see in others, to have no difference. Just as you see strong motive to see different in those with agenda in the other direction.

I have to say I am getting tired of this, which means I am getting tired of internet philosophical discussions. They feel part, always, of ongoing culture wars with little curiosity.

I'm gonna leave this here. There are still a few places in these forums where people actually explore.

Yes, and we can. With the addition that we ask the experiencers what they just experienced and they report it to us. Which is exactly what happens in neuroscience. They say "I felt a sharp pain in my back" and we think "I know what sort of feeling I would describe as a sharp pain in my back, I'm going to work on the presumption that's what they're feeling, otherwise language stops working altogether if we go around having our own private meanings for words". — Isaac

And then we have to wonder how much is lost in the translation, but sure, we do that. Then we have a much harder time with animals. OK, what I notice in the way you frame the issue above is. You say we can ask, which is true, and then you talk about what we assume - we tend to assume that what they say is something we can understand via thinking of what it would mean if we say it.' And they you say if we don't work with that presumption language stops working altogether. That's a false dichotomy. It might be wrong to varying degrees regarding various experiences. We do not deal with that kind of individual to individual various and mediation through language with any other study of a scientific object or phenomenon.

Yes he can, you can tell him, in words, what you're aware of, and, presuming he understands the words and has experienced something he too would use those words to describe, then he now knows what you do (or close enough to it to yield useful investigative results). — Isaac

that is not the same access. And with most phenomena we are not going qualia to language to qualia. That is a difference.

No, it's no different (or at least, not different enough to justify the claims being made here). — Isaac

It's different. I don't really care about the othe claims.

To investigate your consciousness, I ask you what you are experiencing (in response to my various test environments) and then, when you tell, I presume, from our joint experience of the world, that I know what the words mean (at least well enough to be getting on with). I do this with a few thousand people to average out any idiosyncratic language use and I have me some useful scientific knowledge about consciousness. — Isaac

And with other phenomena, regarding stars, we do not have the stars ability to introspect involved. We have no individual experiential past/culture on the part of the test subject that affects interpretations, use of language.

This means that there is an extra layer, at the very least, of a different kind. We do not have to worry about the cultural biases of a star.

Because our data is mediated by another consciousness, not just our own. We are playing that children's game with it: telephone.

This does not mean that we cannot study it or come to great conclusions.

But it means that in this way it is not like other phenomena.

This does not prove there is a God or dualism. But it is a difference.

But I maintain that they can see all this — Isaac

This can be tested. People look at other people and see if they can tell what they are experiencing. The experiencers think about different things, get prodded, out of sight, by a needle and so on. And we can see if they can see these things.

I feel like we must be talking at cross purposes here. We can't see the qualia, to put it one way, that others experience. Sometimes we can see their emotional state, but often not. I can't see if they are thinking about their third grade teacher or an avacado. Etc.

no hand-wringing consternation whatsoever — Isaac

I don't have any hand-wringing consternation regarding consciousness. I don't think we know why it occurs, why there is this facet to at least certain matter. But I haven't expressed any particular emotional reaction to this.

So why is consciousness any different? — Isaac

Different from what? From the Sun`?

And if it is so different, what is it about philosophy which suddenly makes it able to investigate, to talk about these things without running into exactly the same problem? — Isaac

It seems to me philosophy can talk about the science related to the sun, if there were some specific conclusion that, for example, the induction did not really support or if there were paradigmatic issues that a philosopher thought was skewing some conclusion or precluding something unnecessarily.

One uniqueness to consciousness in relation to science is: let's say we compare it to the study of the Sun. No one is priviledged. We could all use telescopes, we could all be trained to go through the experimental procedures - yes, intelligence might play a role in understanding how scientists got from A to hypothesis C and then texting X....

But basically a wide variety of people each have the same access to studying the sun and moving towards conclusions.

With my consciousness, what I am aware of, I have both advantages and perhaps disadvantages. A scientist studying my consciousness, what I am aware of moment to moment cannot have the same access I do. If we are both scientists and what we want to study is my consciousness, we have quite different access to it.

If we are both astronomers, we can both study our sun and have precisely the same access to more data in the exact same ways. There is no phenomenon - in any case, that we are aware of now - that would make that study different for either one of us. We can trade off the same tools, computer programs and so on.

But if we decide to study my consciousness, what I experience, it is not the same.

Yes, we could each study our own consciousnesses, now again on even ground. But there is not parallel contrast with stars. This is my star and I can study it in ways you cannot.

Note: I am not saying that the access I have to my consciousness means I will be right in my conclusions (all the time). It might make me reach false ontological conclusions. But it sure gives me a radical advantage over someone else when studying what I am aware of now, and now, and now......And it also gives me an advantage regarding what these experiences are like.

If the Sun is conscious, well, then it would have a different access to one facet of itself than the astronomers.

OK, sounds like I agree. There are so many gnosticisms, that perhaps such things do not apply to some of them, but otherwise, same page.

Third parties can see the stuff happening. In the same way you can see the sun. — Isaac

I specifically mentioned the third parties seeing things happening and contrasted this with the first person awareness. They can't see the taste of the apple, my hand from that angle, what I feel like when I see my aging hand, the way I am partly thinking of what happened at the job, while also thinking the apple is a bit sour and so on. I mean, I'm sure you know this.

As far as 'spooky', well if its spooky from physics, that came from Einstein who was not talking about woo-woo merchants but the conclusions of other physicists, conclusions that still seem to be the case, or are at least considered to be the case by many physicists, despite their no doubt incredibly deep respect for Einstein. And please don't take my pointing this out to mean that qm proves new age beliefs. But they do sure shake up common sense and we don't know what the implications are.

I probably agree, but what do you mean?

'logos' means a lot of things. It can even mean Jesus.

No history book offers supernatural and unlikely creatures like talking serpents and donkeys. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

No, but many history book makes a genocide disappear. A negative hallucination. And many a history book hallucinates the absence of the horrible aspects of an economic system. There is no reason to priorities positive hallucinations over negative hallucinations....

Also known as scotomization. Both terms are used to denote the failure to perceive an object or stimulus that is present in the extracorporeal world and lies within the subject's range of perception. The term negative hallucination is used in opposition to the term *positive hallucination, which denotes the perception of an object or stimulus that lacks an appropriate source in the extracorporeal world.

Historians stay in the real world while the religious hide behind a supernatural shield. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Well, some do, though even those only to a certain degree.

A historian will argue his points with facts while the religious argue their points without facts. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

A historian will posit certain things, their evidence may or may not be good and their facts may or may not be facts. And religious people have written history books and many religious people use facts in their arguments and descriptions.

Religions also praise and adore a genocidal character while historians tend to think such characters are moral monsters. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Monsters are often heroes in histories. There have been some trends in the West to challenge monsters, but the history of history is plagued by the sanctification of monsters.

I agree with the historians — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Historians don't agree with each other so this may be hard to do. Howard Zinn or Thomas E. Woods. You'll have a very hard time agreeing with both of them on a host of issues.

Historians do tend to use different methods than religious people, when the texts in question are history books and scripture.

But then that makes sense, since they have quite different purposes, with some overlap.

Yes, and oddly I think this is something they share with many people supposedly on the other side of the divide. Very mentally focused, detached intellectual types, technocrats and others. One group thinks it'll be great only when the body is finally shed, and the other group is busy trying to create technologies to replace bodies to 'improve' them.

And both groups have incredible problems with emotions.

It may be spooky, I don't know what people mean by that here. I just wasn't saying it was spooky.

but there is more that can only be appreciated by doing it: — Pattern-chaser

I would say that there's more that is experienced that cannot be seen. 'More' as in more than what can be seen.

OK, but none of that is 'spooky' stuff. Me being aware of the fact that my taste receptors have just started neural chain reaction is no less a sensory stimuli response than the apple tasting. Its just the stimuli I'm sensing is my brain working. — Isaac

I've come in the middle. I don't know what 'spooky' means or doesn't mean. There is something that third parties cannot see happening. They can see all sorts of chemical reactions. They can't see that awareness. I am not claiming that is spooky.

me being aware that all that's going on — Isaac

That's the 'part'. Someone watching you eat the apple, say. They would be aware of other things, like some guy eating an apple. But not the taste of the apple. So, all the stuff the third party might guess at, if they've had the same experiences, but wouldn't experience. Sure, you and they might see your hand move, but from a different angle.

And someone watching the guy watching you....

You didn't respond to anything I wrote. You did not explain what rational intuitions are, which you also called rational appearances,and you also refer as like a sense. Your example, here, is a poor one for two main reasons: 1) it is not, for example, an intution, rational or otherwise that lets me know that the second deduction is false. There is intuition involved, but not only that. 2) We have an abstract deduction, with no real world content in your example, when the issues deals with an extremely complicated concept that is supposed to describe something an extremely complicated organism (us) 'has', and that other things do not have, and given all the issues I raised in the post you ignored. Issues that make your question incoherent and your term, which even you can't keep a single label for, meaningless.

Now we could go an have a discussion about that, but since you cannot be bothered to even respond to what I write, and now for the second time in a row, and simply repeat your posiition,

I will not read what you write and will, therefore, also not respond anymore to any of your posts.

I know you are sure you are right. I knew that already. And I know that in general this 'being sure' is so much easier when one repeats one's assertions and ignores what other people say. It's just, I'm not interested in being a part of that.

Take care.

Interesting. I definitely agree about the Malick. Just wanted to throw in the homage to Mohammed Ali, when he begins to exercise in the pool Ali in pretended he trained boxing in a pool and that this made him even better. So, he's comparing himself to a legend, but also to a legend who was great at self-promotion. Someone who was actually creative in and of himself - not just someone who could hire a team to present him. So, one question is in alluding to Ali, is that a wink? Does he realize it could be taken as 'Hey, I'm just playing with this Malick stuff, like one of my heroes.' My guess is not, that he means this video flat, no irony, but I don't know the guy or whatever team pulled this video off.

like if Antonio brown didn't have the talent and publicity and connection he did, is this in essence really that different than how a school shooter thinks? — csalisbury

I suppose it could be so, but narcissism is the norm now, not just the aberration. We are supposed to pose and vogue and self-promote and self-brand via social media. He may not be narcissitic irl. And the shooter may not have been narcissitic either, just 'that's what you do, nowadays' You front. You pose. Self-righteous is probably going to be a facet of the rage that makes you go somewhere and shoot many people, but narcissism may be more a symptom of the times.

Why, when we admit the existence and operation of the universe long before human (or any terrestrial beings) existence? — BrianW

Those who do admit that. Well, you'll need to tease out a complete argument for why this means there wouldn't be a god. I mean, what's time to a God? Not presuming i know the answer to that, by the way.

Why, when we refuse to conclusively accept the logical possibility of highly intelligent life outside our planet's perimeters? — BrianW

I am not sure we refuse to do that. Some of we do, but many of we don't.

Why, when we inevitably strip God off of every vestige that makes us 'beings'? — BrianW

I'd need to see the reasons why this make it odd that we, those of we who do, believe in God. And many have or had God or gods wihg many vestiges of human nature?

Why, when the reality of our existence does not alter no matter the augmentation of the narrative? — BrianW

I am not sure what this means, but just guessing here at the meaning....how would we know it hasn't altered?

It's more like if you steal that wallet it won't be you who enjoys the fruits of that theft. Death is not the quintessense of impermanence, there is no death in Buddism, since there is nothing to die.

What do you make of Zeno's paradoxes? Zeno of Elea was a student of Parmenides and his paradoxes are supposed to demonstrate his teacher's position that change is an illusion — TheMadFool

I like Zeno's paradoxes. I am not convinced there is no motion. Perhaps it's a quantized universe. The fractions add up to one. Those are two rebuttals.

I suppose there really is a true contradiction between Parmenides and Heraclitus and that makes it odd why you would want to "come into their defense". — TheMadFool

Either one or both. Though potentially both. IOW there could be third positions that deny both. Such as 'really there is a degree of change and a degree of things staying the same' which actually is probably what most people believe. And since that position goes against both of their positions, if someone had defended that ontology, the mixed one, both Heraclitus and Paremendies are being denied.

You're welcome. (if you'd said either Parminides or Heraclitis was wrong I would likely have come in to their defense).

There were likely indigenous people who understood the connection between predator mammals and prey animals, and again, I'd want their knowledge over either of those guys in many situations. Further both of them can be wrong, and what would Darwin say to Parminides about the changes necessary to get to diverse mammals?

Another way to look at it is the both the sculptor and the geologist would be able to perceive the marble block changing into a statue but only the geologist would know that despite the transformation in shape the marble is still marble — TheMadFool

I am pretty sure the sculptor would know it was the same stuff. The geologist would have, in a certain way, more information about what that stuff is. Though the sculptor would know it better in other ways. But I don't think sculptor would think he changed the substance, just the form of the substance.

On the other hand a sculptor, despite requiring great talent and years of practice, is unfortunately more "ignorant" of the world — TheMadFool

I disagree. I think we are talking about two kinds of knowledge and I can't see where the skills to make a portion into what one intends is not a knowledge of the world. And I'd much rather be friends with a local hunter gatherer over an ecologist if society collapses, precisely because the former has more (useful) knowledge of the world.

I suppose I am quite Deweyian when it comes to knowledge and education for that matter.

I can't see where everything changes, however, since I don't think it could be noticed. So something is remaining the same, at least long enough to contrast and compare. Everything remaining the same, it seems to me, requires a Maya. Pretty much a dualism between appearnce and reality. Not just epistemologically, but ontologically.

Oh you need to spend more time on a philosophy forum (although on second thought...). — StreetlightX

Did I say something disrespectful to you? Or am I misreading the parethetical?

Anyway, it just strikes me that alot of the the circle-jerk of mutual-agreement going on in this thread is a apology for condescension. — StreetlightX

It seems to me there has been quite a bit of disagreement in the thread. I see no mention in your of the specific example of Janus' clarification of Mww's post, I mentioned, or the false dilemma I was responding to in your post.

And sure, many people are in a torpor, including in philosophy forums. I don't see that entails one assumes the role of waking people up from that. I don't see many good examples, in my long history with philosophy forums of people being woken up by dense posts. Doesn't mean I haven't appreciated some very dense posts, it's more like I don't know what you're on about. In any case, it seems you just repeated your position, instead of responding to my post. I am sure you have been successful waking people up out of their torpors by insulting them for no reason and not responding to their posts. But many of us may lack the miraculous grace that surrounds your posts.

Oh, and circle jerk was a really nice addition. I suddenly realized something about Kant I never got before.

Amazingly my experience in philosophy forums had led to encounters with people who can't really respond to other people's posts but see other people's posts as a chance to repeat their assertions and attitude.

You'll pardon me if I ignore you from here on out. Must be my love of torpor.

I guess I see not reason to assume, when writing generally to people in a philosophy forum, that one should assume they are in a torpor. And if we look at Janus' version, one page back of Mww's post, it is not a post for a child. I think it takes steps to give context and concrete examples to make a very abstract post clearer to educated adults. IOW if I read you post it seems like there are two options: dumb down or take on a role as waking people up, no compromises. Though compromise can even sound pejorative. Communication is meant to reach people, usually.

Thanks.
I guess there seem like other possibilities. I don't think Janus' clarification was a dumbed down post. IOW there's no need to apologize, but you have the option of reaching perhaps more people without dumbing down. Or not. That's up in the air. But it seems like a possibility. Of course the appeal of this depends on your goals.

I responded by saying, amongst other things, that it is not a coherent category. it covers all sorts of phenomena, some rational, some not, some intuitions, some appearances, some what people say, but don't actually believe - and also believe to varying degrees sometimes also believing the opposite. It covers intuitions by people with and without expertise. It covers things built into cultures that can ONLY be thought by many people because they are limited from considering anything else. It covers observations that are trained into existence via parenting and implicit assumptions in texts, films, commercials, dead metaphors. It includes conclusions reached via so many different epistemologies or lacks thereof, that it is basically meaningless. You said at some point it was like a sense. So we have sense, appearance, and intuitions. And even your three categories don't cover the ground remotely. The ways people arrive at their folk beliefs vary radically and only some of the warrent the use of 'rational' in them. And, just to add, I do not reject non-rational processes, but you are batching these also under the term 'rational appearances or intuitions' without even seeming to think that the hundreds of epistemologies and differences matter in the least. There is no reason to assume these are rational, which should include some kind of reasoning. And just to doubly emphasize: I do think intuition can be heartily useful, however it is black boxed as far as rationality. It is precisely not a rational process, at least, not one we have access to the rationality of. Or we would call it reasoning. Rational intuition is an oxymoron. And for the third time, this does not mean someone cannot possess a great intuition, and be right often. Most experts have very useful intuitions. But it is precisely a non-rational process. People tend to see 'rational' as good. But it's actually a neutral descriptive term about process. Intuitions precisely do not have a rational process or it wouldn't be intuition. They tend to come as a whole, no deduction and no induction we can point to. Perhaps in the unconscious they are rational. But we don't have access to that. And that's fine. They can be great, but they ain't rational and there's nothting wrong with being non-rational. We are built to have a couple of processes for forming conclusions. And also some of us are vastly better at both reasoning and intuition. I absolutely do not take a poll to find out what the default position should be and who bears the onus. Most people have their beliefs, like the one in question, jammed into them before they are remotely rational or have developed good intuitions, if they ever do. I honestly don't care what their assumptions are. They are unskilled in both rationality and intuition and often in relation to sensing. The term covers a meaningless diconnected batch of processes, mainly the result of impressions drummed into people. I get my defaults elsewhere. And there are other problems, which I took up in the other post, about what we know about the appeal of free will - except when it doesn't, which brought me to the contradictory messages people who supposedly believe in free will send off. Or the emotions and how they are triggered by the specifics around determinism and free will. And....well, it's back there in the previous post. Even more than what I fleshed out here. To me you are asking an incoherent question: something like don't you think all the possible ways people arrive, often unconsciously, about what they say they believe is probative?

It has nothing to do with premise one. I think it is clear that this came out of premise two. That's what lead to our discussion of rational appearances, which I now see you are calling rational intuitions. And it is not 'in' the premise, it is in your justification, when asked, for why we should take that premise as true. I could dig in those words that you wrote in premise two forever and not find rational appearances or rational intuitions being presented as part of your epistemology. But when we went into, in further discussion, your reasoning, that is what we hit.

So are you denying the probative force of rational intuitions? — Bartricks

I don't think what you are calling rational is rational, or perhaps better put, some of what you are categorizing as rational intutions is rational some is not. And I see this when people talk about what they believe. For example, they often say they believe X, but act like they do not or even believe the opposite. I also see people saying that X is true for all sorts of reasons, sometimes having nothing to do at all with rational or intuition - for example, cultural habits. They grew up in the assumption, for example. Others can come from language, where paradigmatic ideas are built in, in dead metaphors for example.

In a way we are having the empicist vs rationalist argument, but I am not a pure empiricist. i am also a rationalist. I just don't see people using the same faculty in their various rationalist or habitual conclusions. And I don't believe their official stories about themselves and the world just because they say that is what they believe.

s

But my claim is not about beliefs. No premise of my argument mentioned beliefs. The claim, is NOT that if enough people believe something that will make it true. That's obviously fallacious (and the fallacy in question involves confusing a belief with its object and has nothing to do with numbers - one commits the same basic fallacy if one thinks that believing something will make it true). — Bartricks

To me those are quite different ideas. One is that believing in something CAUSES it to become true. The other that a good heuristic for deciding something is true is if many people believe it.

I did explain how I use the term belief. It is any conclusion about the world via whatever epistemological process: deduction, intuition, popularity, science, religion, common sense. It is neither a negative nor a postive term, just a category. If someone thinks we should treat idea A as true, they believe A is true.

The claim is that if the reason of most people represents a proposition - p - to be true, then other things being equal that is good evidence that p is true. — Bartricks

I see most people sending out mixed messages about their free will. Sometimes they talk about themselves as free, sometimes as being forced by their emotions, their situation. Yes, when people sum up, they often do sum up in favor of free will, but there is tremendous evidence that the idea of not having free will is unpleasant. IOW that it is not a reasoned conclusion, but a preferred for
emotional reasons conclusion. So when thinking of the whole category, that's who they think, but embedded in life they indicate both beliefs. And then we have tremendous evidence that all events are caused. And people also, themselves, refer to causes. I wanted to do that because and they refer to antecedent events and feelings and urges and needs in themselves that led to choice A.

All attempts to argue for anything - so all appeals to evidence - are ultimately appeals to rational appearances.

Anyone who rejects my premise on the grounds that rational appearances have no probative force will - by hypothesis - be rejecting it on no rational basis or being inconsistent. — Bartricks

Then there are differences between rational appearances OR we must always agree with the majority and there is no difference between belief that is knowledge and belief that is not. I cannot see in practical terms how your rational appearances differs from popular ideas.

Re your other points - no premise in my argument implies that the world is flat (or that it is flat if enough people believe it to be) — Bartricks

And I never said that anything in your posts had to do with a flat earth. However lots of people went by rational appearances that it was. I was showing what might be entailed by your argument. Here for example you could show why people believing the earth is flat does not count as a rational appearance.

Did you just decide you have free will? Or does your reason represent you to have it? — Bartricks

Or is it an illusory byproduct?

So, now we have a clarification accepted by Mww

Which means we can see if it could have been clearer from the beginning. Note that Janus' explanation is longer.

Mww's paragraph has 90 words and 396 letters.
Janus' clarification has 79 words and 404 letters.

Approximately equal length.

Do S and riclauer find Janus' explanation clear? Clearer?

Since they are about the same length, does this mean, if it is clearer, that the original was problematic?

One immediate difference is an example in the clarification. Another is that the clarification mentions Kant. Allowing one to put the argument in a context. Should these, ideally, have been there in Mww's post?. It seems like Mww effectively communicated to Janus what he meant. What obligation is there to people who might not have realized Kant was implicit? Perhaps this was clear in context back there that he was working with Kant's ideas. Did S miss that?

A lot of the classic philosophers get pretty dense, with their own coined terms, use of different languages, their own idiosyncratic uses of words. Is that OK? If so, why would it not be OK here?
Do we think that here it is more a lay forum, so it would be good to assume less about the other's abilities? Or would this be least skilled dumbing down?

I only meant in relation to S's example. I am absolutely sure there are cases of what you mean going on here and in other forums. That's why I think the cases are important. Not to prove you right or wrong, but to see what our criteria are and what we think of specific examples. And sometimes we may not, as a group or as individuals, be able to weigh in for sure on a specific post. This one S quoted in is not one I am sure of. I don't think it is particularly jargony or obfuscating, but rather too dense with abstractions. But I'm not sure. I wish he'd tried to clarify what he meant. That process might help us decide.

I think there are some assumptions in the OP here. Such as: it was the only purpose, efficiency was necessary or wanted, there cannot be reasons for having an infinite or extremely large universe around this origin point, a variety of creations haven't been tried, perhaps for motives we don't know and perhaps others.

IOW it seemed assumed that God wanted to create humans only in the most parsimonious way possible, for him, and had no other goals or motives that make the way in unfolded a good or the best one.

Yes, it was like threading needles, many, without my reading glasses. Though easier then Derrida.

The username under the quote is a link to the discussion. — S

Thanks. I've read it a few times. I wonder if it might be a failure to communicate well rather than obfuscatory discourse. Now, those are not mutually exclusive terms, but I say this because for me the words he uses and not problematic in and of themselves - iow given my comfort level with the terms. It doesn't strike me, now, as

when communication bogs down when one party decides to deliberately complicate their language — rlclauer

Now it might be that. He's talking about motive and I can't be sure of that.

In any case it strikes me as someone stringing together too many abstractions, but fairly non-jargony ones, sort of forgetting that it's hard to follow.

I checked ahead in the thread and he does not clarify. So perhaps we'll never know.

I am not particularly disagreeing with you, just saying I think it might be another kind of problematic communication than riclauer meant. We can see what he says.

Could you edit in a link to the context. And it did make me laugh and my eyelids got heavy reading it. I think the hypen in the middle of correctness might be considered a warning sign.