To cut a long story short, the likelihood of black swans is dramatically underestimated pretty much everywhere in security calculations, through the abuse of the Gaussian probability distribution which is simply not applicable to the likelihood of black-swan events. — alcontali

I don't think they really care, often. I don't mean they necessarily consciously know and decide not to weigh the consequences, though I do think this is true in many individual cases. I mean, that they don't care and this affects safety issues in a wide range of fields, because this not caring skews, unconsciously or not, how they weigh threats, what they consider possible threats, how much they listen to dissenters and whisteblowers, what they will consider as causal and so on. IOW for egotistical reasons they end up very far away from the precautionary principle with regularity. And now this is no longer a local issue. They will play fast and loose with the planet as a whole. Even Fukushima is local - though less local than many realize - compared to the 'matches' these children are playing with now.

What level of power removes criminal responsibility for you? — Isaac

Honestly, I don't know. I have been hopping sides of the fence in the thread and I am not sure what my position is on hate speech, nor do I have a worked out policy. I think I would distinguish between people saying stuff and people giving orders to people they have power over. IOW even if I had laws against hate speech in a more general way, I would still have a significant distinction between someone with authority over someone else ordering them to do something and someone saying something to fellow citizens. I think these are qualitatively different situations.

Only once in power. The point is to minimise the risk of them getting there in the first place. — Isaac

That seems like a different kind of issue. And unless we get really deep into our hate laws hermeneutics, they'll just use code, get in and do stuff.

Oh, jeez, yeah.

Any type of language use can be misused. I'd need to see a reason to eliminate any particular type of usage. There is no reason a person cannot challenge a rhetorical question or a metaphor or even statements. Statements or assertions can certainly be misused. They can be false or nonsensical. We could try to eliminate rhetoric in general, consider it all manipulative. So, just exchange data, somehow. But I don't think we can eliminate rhetoric from language. And dead metaphors, which our languages are saturated with simply cannot be eliminated.

I think the best thing to do is when teaching about arguments and language use to tell people that rhetorical questions may be misleading. They carry the implication of 'this is obvious' but it may not be. Language is riddled with implicit assertions, including rhetorical questions. Just as metaphors imply that there is something useful to be gained by consider X the same as Y in some way, but it may not be true.

Let the buyer (listener) beware!

However, this sounds prescriptive and evangelically dogmatic. — Amity

Well, I was looking for a way to present rhetorical questions to Zion in ways he might be more open to, given his quoting from the NT.

I'm awaiting the benefits side of the cost-benefits analysis that would counter-balance allowing war crimes to go unpunished and psychopathic dictators to be allowed to order torture and murder with absolute impunity. — Baden

I would think that ordering torture and other war crimes are not merely speech acts, but the use of power. I can see why they might be good examples to test how pure free speech advocates think about cause, but most free speech advocates see that as criminal or potentially so. Our free speech laws or changes in them are not going to do anything about psychopathic dictators however. They would be making their own laws.

I do not desire to get the job of hosing cold water on yet another Fukushima. Have you ever seen footage of how the naked nuclear cores keep glowing in the open air over there in tsunami land? What a bunch of idiots! — alcontali

I couldn't find, despite going back through the discussion, the reason you brought up Fukishima, but since you did I must add the following: this was no Chernobyl. But that I mean, some accident the responsibility for which one can fob off on communism. Apart from Japan being utterly first world and capitalist, the reactors were US corporation made. And the engineers who built, installed, helped with maintenance and so on, had to have known before, during and after installation, the location of the site, the seismic history of Japan, including tsunamis and how that might relate to future accidents. I have not heard any come forward and say they warned the Japanese government or how their security and safety protocols included concern for tsumanis and why they are not also culpable. IOW while it happened 'over there' for the 'West' it is also a Western accident to the core, puns intended.

One can only wonder what global-level accidents are coming around AI, nano-tech and gm products. And while you are in SE asia, this does not mean you are safe from whatevery games the US, China and Russia play with us all.

Stress is the difference between what we
Expect to happen and what does happen,
Especially when we put our needs ahead
Of other, oft resulting in needless anger. — PoeticUniverse

Tell that to a rape victim or an abused child.

If we don’t accept the unacceptable,
Then we lower our level of consciousness
Our response will mirror their uptightness — PoeticUniverse

I notice that we are always supposed to accept what is outside us, but when it comes to emotions we label negative, we are not supposed to accept them. The hypocrisy of the various buddhisms, taking that term both literally and then also metaphorically to include other belief systems with the same, old judgments.

When this is pointed out, often one is told, oh but they do accept what is inside. They accept it by detaching it, not allowing it expression. This is not love or compassion as would be clear if we treated babies or lovers this way.

or it isn't.

When we say something is possible, in these kinds of situations, it can have two meanings which often get conflated.

One is a factual understanding: It is possible to have the light switch on 'on' or on 'off'. Those are real possibilities, which we can in fact test. There can be all sorts of this type of possibility.

The other possibility has to do with our limited knowledge: it means, more of less, for all we know X is possible. Or 'we cannot rule out X' given our limited knowledge.

I think saying Time being a circular path is possible is of the latter kind of assertion. IOW it may not be possible, in the first sense at all. But perhaps, for all we know it might be the case. The nature of reality might utterly rule out this 'possibility'. And some might be able to make a case we already know that.

A few more examples:

Isaiah 44:19 where he says:

"Shall I bow down to a block of wood?"

In Romans 6:1, Paul asks:

"Shall we sin to our heart's content and see how far we can exploit the grace of God?"

In Genesis 39:9 the question Joseph asked Potiphar’s wife is rhetorical, intended to express the horror of sinning against God. Joseph says, “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” This is not a question asking for information. Joseph is speaking to Potiphar’s wife, who is tempting him to commit adultery with her. He is saying, “I most certainly will not do such a great wickedness and sin against God!”

Mark 3:23 says, “How can Satan cast out Satan?” This is the rhetorical question which means “Satan certainly does not cast his own demons out!”

Matthew 7:3 reads, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” This is using a rhetorical question to say, “You should judge your own greater faults before you judge your brother’s minor faults.”

Some rhetorical questions are used to indicate a command or exhortation. For example, Mark 14:6 says, “Why trouble ye her?” This is a way of saying, “Stop troubling her!” Romans 14:10 says, “Why dost thou set at nought thy brother?” This is a way of using a rhetorical question to say, “You should not set at nought your brother!”

Sometimes rhetorical questions are used to indicate the start of a new subject or to introduce some new aspect about the same subject. For example, Matthew 11;16 says, “But whereunto shall I liken this generation?” This is a way of saying, “I will tell you what this generation is like” (and then going on to say what it is like). Another example is Matthew 12:48 where Jesus says, “Who is my mother? And who are my brethren?” These rhetorical questions mean, “I will tell you who my mother is and who my brethren are.” (Then he tells them who they are). John 13:12 reads, “Know ye what I have done to you?” This is a rhetorical question meaning, “I will tell you the meaning of what I have done to you.” In Mark 13:2 Jesus says, “Seest thou these great buildings?” Jesus is using a rhetorical question to say, “I will tell you something about the great buildings you are seeing.” In Matthew 11:7 Jesus says, “What went ye out into the wilderness to see?” (This was spoken about John the Baptist.) This rhetorical question means, “I will tell you about this person you went into the wilderness to see.”

Rhetorical questions are often used to prohibit an action. We read in I Corinthians 6:16, “What? Know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body?” In this verse, the rhetorical question is used to condemn an action and prohibit it from taking place. Paul says in I Corinthians 3:5, “Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed?” Paul is using a rhetorical question to belittle and prohibit the factious attitude of putting one servant of God above another. In Matthew 3:14 we read, “But John forbade him saying, “I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?” John is using a rhetorical question to show a polite disapproval but not an absolute refusal to do what the Lord wanted him to do. Mark 4:41 says, “And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Here the rhetorical question is possibly used to show surprise and astonishment, but it could also be a real question.

Luke 11:12 reads, “Or if he shall ask as egg, will he offer him a scorpion?”

Luke 16:11 says, “If therefore ye have not been faithful…who will commit to your trust the true riches?” This rhetorical question means, “If you have not been faithful, no one will commit the true riches to your trust!”

I got these primarily from two sources....

https://blog.logos.com/2016/10/quickly-find-every-rhetorical-question-bible/
https://michaeljeshurun.wordpress.com/tag/rhetorical-questions-in-the-bible/
this second one is especially good since it categorises the different uses of rhetorical questions. IOW it catologues the benefits. And there are many benefits to this rhetorical device. So, one can then weigh the benefits against possible problems. It seems to me the writers of the Bible have implicitly come down on the side saying that the benefits outweigh the problems.

The risk of a poorly formed (ie: fake) rhetorical question, is that the hearer who does not arrive at the same conclusion as the speaker, is compelled (and entitled) to interject and detract from the speaker's statement (and, subsequent authority to speak).
— Serving Zion

I still don't understand the threat of rhetorical questions. I see you citing the NT above. The Bible uses metaphorical language, which also can lead to confusion. And Jesus even uses rhetorical questions:

In Mark 8:17-18, Jesus asked his followers: "Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear?"

As Jesus joined questions together without giving pause for an answer, his listeners were rendered thoughtfully speechless.

This technique can be used effectively in discussion groups to powerfully reinforce a point.

Someone could have jumped in and interrupted, thinking Jesus wanted an answer to these questions.

I still don't see what the risk is. It is assumed, it seems to me, in this thread, that since someone might misunderstand a rhetorical question and take it as a real one, we should never use rhetorical questions. But the same thing could be said for analogies - which are also in the Bible - and metaphors which could lead to confusions and people interrupting to challenge what they are taking as literal. Language use always risks some confusion. But we seem to have decided that rhetorical tools and tropes give us more options and we want that. Not all of us, but most of us. Those who don't like rhetorical questions can of course refrain from using them and get upset when they feel mislead by them. But unless they rarely communicate, they are themselves also risking miscommunication on many occasions, when they communicate.

I think we can deal with these moments of confusion, when a rhetorical question is not being used well or an audience member mis-classifies it as a direct question. The confusion will be worked out. The only problem would come in if people were not forgiving about these small moments of confusion, which are the inevitable product of language use.

Which one of you, when his son asks for a fish, will give him a stone?”

He's not expecting any of them to say 'I would'. I think that's a good idea.

If salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?

We're just animals trying hard not to be animals. The one thing that we have, our intellect, reveals to us that there really is no point in being an animal, at least in terms of some basic instincts. — TheMadFool

There certainly is a faction that thinks this, but it's a silly conclusion. Why throw away tools or facets of ourselves (emotions, desires) that have aided us and also, well, are us, for so long. Neuroscientists found that if the emotional portions of the brain are damaged, we reason less well, especially around social things, but not just there. Emotions are motivators and social bond makers. That we can reason gives us something extra. So, we have something extra, that's no reason to get rid of what we have in common with
other
animals.

We could get rid of our eyes because we have reason, but that would be dumb. To me getting rid of emotions is dumb.

We are successful because we are social mammals, which entails emotions.

Beyond that it is getting rid of part of me. Why would I want to do that?

Being as integrated as possible, now that seems like a worthy goal. Getting reason and emotions to work well together and so on.

'Too emotional' is a contextless rule. How do we measure the correct amount of emotion? Well, likely with all the random judgments handed down through generations, affecting parenting and communal tongue clucking.

I disagree. The usual stats don't reflect facts accurately. Evil needs more weight age than good. I mean a hundred charities can't balance one murder. We see that in the courts - no matter how good you are if you kill someone you go to jail. — TheMadFool

Unless you're rich.

He doesn't really have any answers, and what he has revealed about his vision of how society should be is ludicrously impractical, chaotic, and dystopian. He is just an opinionated and outspoken ideologue. — S

One irony is that people who are for the censorship of hate speech spend time telling each other negative things about him. IOW not just Terrapin's arguments, but him as a person. I may have missed it, but the guy who is most protective of free speech (T) has mainly or entirely avoided insulting or ad homming those on the other side of the fence.

But that's a separate issue. It's as if you don't need to justify since he hasn't. If he has asserted it comes from other processes or sources, sure, he needs to justify that. But that doesn't take away your onus. Now you both need to justify.
— Coben

Apparently you and I have different understandings of what it means to justify something. Here are some from the web:

to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable
to defend or uphold as warranted or well-grounded
to show or prove that it is reasonable or necessary.

It seems clear to me that justification doesn't have to mean absolute certainty. That's not possible. There will always be uncertainty. I would go further. I think the level of justification required varies from situation to situation based on the consequences of being wrong. If people will die if I get things wrong, I need much stronger justification than I will if I'll fail to convince someone on a philosophical forum. — T Clark

This all arose from your statement.

I guess I would turn it around. What is the evidence that mental processes come from anywhere other than biological processes?
— T Clark

he is asking you for more information about your position and instead of going into that, you 'turn it around'. That's not really relevant. It is as if his response to this request would somehow fill in for his request. But since you both could have faulty positions on the issue or faulty reasoning it is beside the point in the context of his questioning.

I never said anythign about absolute certainty or certainty.

Again, picking on me behind my back. Boo hoo. And again, misrepresenting what I said. Everybody hates me except Isaac. I didn't say anything about the consensus of science. — T Clark

Isaac, or whoever it was, the person I was responding to, did say something in that vein. I was responding to the way he framed your response in a post aimed at him and his post.

As I've claimed, I believe I am justified in saying there is credible scientific work being done to establish a biological basis for mental processes. I can understand that philosophy may have a role in judging whether the conclusions of that work are adequately justified. Other than that, what role does philosophy have in the process?

And now you are entering this particular exchange and making it seem like that's a stopping point.
— Coben

Oddly enough, I welcome Isaac's input. — T Clark

It's odd that you welcome someone's input who is defending your position?

Just because he suggests we may be at a stopping point, that doesn't mean you have to stop.

Yes, I know. I hope I didn't come off as a victim, but rather as someone critical of what he seemed to be suggesting.

Here's the original post I jumped into as a third party...

You don't know that.
— khaled

It is my understanding of how things are based on 1) a limited amount of specific reading on the subject and 2) my underlying belief in the way things work. What we see in the world is what we get. There aren't any places where secret knowledge is hidden.

I would like to see those theories.
— khaled

I'm not the right one to have a detailed discussion of the state of cognitive science. If you want to know more, you'll have to do some research.

Like for example: that biological processes are necessary for mental ones.
— khaled

I guess I would turn it around. What is the evidence that mental processes come from anywhere other than biological processes?

Upon third read, now, it seems less cagey then when I first read it. But what got me into it was: he says you don't know that and I felt like that was a simple thing to acknowledge. You do present quite honestly where your understanding, as you put it, comes from. And kudos. It was a very honest, for philosophy forums and probably discussion forums in general, way of describing your justification. However I think it sidestepped the direct response to him saying 'you don't know that' though it is in a sense implicit.

IN the middle of this honest response you say that you are not the person to have a detailed discussion of cognitive science. To me this also felt evasive. That was not what he asked for. He asked to see those theories. This is a request to see the theories - writing by experts that convinced you - or research - that you did read in your limited reading. He's asking to see what your sources are.

You said :

They have developed theories about how mental processes in general and consciousness specifically develop from biological processes.

His question is not odd after reading that. It makes sense to ask you. Your response makes it seem like he was asking for you to walk him through cognitive science in relation to consciousness. He wasn't. He wanted to know what you based your conclusion about theories on.

Your response raises, for me, begins to raise the question of why you believe what you believe. If you're not the right person to show him on whose work you are basing your ideas, why would you trust your on conclusion and call it an understanding.

Isaac came in not to much later and gave me an utterly strawman situation where someone denies, when presented with the research by scientists, something that has overwhelming consensus in the scientific community. But that's not what happened here. What Khaled got was that you've read some stuff and it is your impression that the scientific community has concluded something.

You appreciate what Isaac contributed, but to me he reframed the issues in a way that made it seem like something else happened. Something which might have happened if you'd answered his question.

Of course, maybe you don't remember, don't want to spend the energy trying to find out who it was you read, etc. But that would have been a real answer. You reframed his question to make it into something else, which affects my posts, and affects Isaac's posts.

As far as philosophers engaging in these issues, that's a complicated issue and this post is huge. I am going to leave this here because it involves four people and has strained my mind to it's limits. Context is everything and, even if you still think my posts were off or unfair, I hope perhaps you got a sense of what I was reacting to.

Take care, see you in here elsewhere.

The risk of a poorly formed (ie: fake) rhetorical question, is that the hearer who does not arrive at the same conclusion as the speaker, is compelled (and entitled) to interject and detract from the speaker's statement (and, subsequent authority to speak). — Serving Zion

I did address this and other issues, not just the Shakespeare, in the previous post. (It was actually Browning and I fixed that error).

It seems like you are saying that there is this risk of interruption and this outweighs any benefit of using rhetorical questions. How did you weigh the risks/benefits? What do you think about the potential problems of metaphors and other tropes? People might interrupt a speaker who uses a metaphor: but you're husband could not have been a lion, they are another species, someone might call out. But we take that risk because we want to have a diversity of rhetorical tools. Do you really find the risk something we just have to avoid? On what grounds?

It is when you say "It's cool that it sounds like a question, but it's not.", that you appear to be saying that though being framed as a question, the expectation is that it does not invite the hearer to respond. That is a most common use of rhetorical questions. — Serving Zion

I guess to me it's similar to a trope. Like my husband is a lion. Well we know he's not actually a lion. We could look at the grammar and the verb and decide this is a misuse of language. It has the exact same structure as sentences we use all the time literally - my husband is a butcher - but here it is wrong. But the person is not lying.

IOW we had a base function for this kind of assertion, a literal one, but we extended it to, in context, perform other functions.

I think rhetorical questions are a bit like this. It is in question form but it is not calling for an answer because the answer is obvious. It does not indicate a lack of knowledge. Its function is to elicit something the speaker considers true and uses the question form to get the person to call up the answer for themselves.

Yes, that is the problem, essentially. A civilised dialogue provides turns for each party to speak. A question is, by nature, an invitation for the other party to speak. But a rhetorical question does not intend to provide that invitation, because as you have said, it is not a question, it is a statement. — Serving Zion

But that doesn't mean you don't get to speak. It just means that the person is not using the question to have to answer it. But of course you can speak in response. If you think what they think is a rhetorical question actually has an answer that is not the one they consider so obvious. Or you could disagree with its application. Or you could jump back into the previous parts of the issue and comment there.

Shakespeare uses non-rhetorical questions in his poems. Is it for fear to wet a widow’s eye

That thou consumest thyself in single life? It is not doing something immoral to people listening to the poem if he starts with that question that he does not expect and answer to from you. yes, if I read this someone in the audience might try to answer. But now we know that rhetorical and other uses of question formats exist and we can undertand that we are not always being asked a question with the purpose of getting an answer.

A question, you say, is by nautre and invitation for the other person to speak. Well, not always. We humans have expanded our uses of the question. Just as we have expanded literal use to metaphorical.

We also developed irony, which can mean that what is said, in context, actually implies the opposite.

We have introduced parody. Where it seems like we are asserting what the person we are making fun of is asserting, but actually we are making fun of their ideas.

We have expanded our use of our language. Of course sometimes this leads to confusion. But language cannot be a perfect tool The question is, for me, has expanding the uses of language been useful. I think so.

That is what the essential problem is, in what I have found.

The example I gave from James 4:12 explains that although the question is rhetorical, it is not confounded by a hearer interjecting to answer it, because the fundamental principle of the rhetorical question, is that it "must lead to a single robust conclusion, and that must agree with the speaker's expectation" - and the example from Charlie Brown did not do that, so therefore it confounded the speaker. Therefore, the rhetorical question in the Charlie Brown cartoon is not truly valid as a rhetorical question, because there is a valid answer to it that the speaker did not expect. He fell victim to that "risk" I have mentioned. — Serving Zion

Of course there can be poor uses of any rhetorical tool. I don't think that means the tool is invalid in general.

Analogies are often quite misleading. But sometimes they are very useful and they match the way we sometimes thing and further help to generate ideas and understanding.

It is certainly good if we use language well. And if the choices we make reflect good thinking.

A conjecture in science is the same way. It can be dismissed without evidence, that doesn’t mean it is automatically false or insignificant. Notice the quote says CAN be dismissed without evidence not MUST be dismissed due to lack of evidence — khaled

And here we get into the meaning of CAN and then the human use of this razor. I think it's a poor razor because it can often be good to explore what might be entailed by an axiom. If you had a research team and one proposed an axiom: there is much intelligent life on other planets in the galaxy. And wanted to use this as a starting point for, let's say, we dont' see evidence, yet, of that. To work with that axiom and then have a discussion. Then one of the other scientists says. I CAN dismiss that assumption without evidence and I am and won't participate, they are blocking something. Might be a dead, might not be, but that person is using a contextless heuristic just justify behavior that can be counterproductive. The DISMISS is also so often taken to mean, decide is false. That perfhaps in not the fault of the razor, but I've seen it used that way enough to think this razor is a blunt and problematic heuristic at least as worded.

Now we could say that dismissive scientist in my above example is using the razor poorly. Or perhaps we could find an example where we would agree it is a poor use, but still think that since it says CAN it's fine. One can. But the problem for me is that I think the razor reinforces a tendency to think that there are two options, agree or disagree, accept or dismiss, rather than includling be agnostic (here I mean this broadly or metaphorically as not deciding (yet)) or take on for the sake of argument or thought experiment or 'see where this is going'.

It seems to me it gets used in a lot of situations where one actually means something like 'I have no reason to be convinced'. As if a final treatise had been handed in and found wanting, rather than that an unfolding discussion was taking place. This may be a failing of humans rather than the razor, but then it seems to me the razor's meant to be used by humans and I am not sure it is helping. Perhaps it would work pefectly well with the sapient lizard species on Kepler 452b, but I am not sure it is helping us here with we terrestrial primates.

I do not have a dog in this fight, but it seems like Quod grātīs asseritur, grātīs negātur is valid. I can claim there is intelligent life on 23 planets, but I make this claim without evidence. — Bitter Crank

There is at least one missing assumption here.
First, just to be anally clear. I think you mean I should not make this claim without evidence. Since one clearly can. Further I think it is implicit that you also mean, one should not make this claim and expect that anyone has a good reason to take you seriously or believe you.

Here's why I think you are wrong. The processes through which we come to knowledge include all sorts of thought experiments. The specificity of the claim you are using as an example is problematic, but let's say you assert, as part of some research team:

There is intelligent life on many planets in the galaxy.

You want the group to take this on as a workign assumption. This can be useful. You assume this, then ask questions, for example. Why don't we see their tv shows or other things that indicate they are there. Then we can come up with proposed solutions that still fit the assumption.

Scientists and other experts and regular people make assumptions all the time, because it can lead to fruitful lines of thinking. Einstein did this and it was decades before some of his conclusions were confirmed empirically.

There is no reason to dismiss claims that do not have evidence.

However it would be silly for people to assume you should believe their claims if there is no evidence.

That I get. Someone tells you they know God exists or they know that there is life on other planets, well, they can't expect you to be convinced. There is no need to dismiss them however.

I don't know where you found anything in my post that says you can't challenge the use of rhetorical questions. I disagree with you on the issue. I tried to explain why I disagree, well or not being another issue. People are likely to disagree with you fairly often in philosophical forums, with anyone that is, not you in particular. Those who want to silence other people are pretty clear about that. But with the others who disagree you are adding meaning in that isn't there.

Your post seems like a rhetorical declarative sentence: you asked no question, but you're expecting an answer. — Relativist

Was he?

Languge is for us and we get to use it how we collectively like and even, often, how we individually like. It's cool that it sounds like a question, but it's not. That is making the point in a different way that via statements, since it is, essentially a statemen in question form. There is no one to give us a ticket for breaking a supposed rule. We get to play with the forms we have created and it's great we do. If some guy kept trying rhetorical questions and did them clearly, but no one understood, well, that would be too bad. But we generally do understand and so it's fine. It's our language.

Generally I agree. Of course one need not accept someone else's axiom, but there's not reason to reject it. It's simply a bad heuristic.

I meant it as your hair was not on fire. So, the person is lying. If you believe, well that ought to be a strong reaction. If you don't then there ought to be an interpersonal reaction/judgment with at least some emotional charge. I'd be annoyed with that person, for example.

It gets used broadly now in philosophical discussions. So even if the original was aimed at one issue, it is used in general.

All the razor is doing is saying: sure you can start with this axiom, or this one, or that one, as long as there’s no evidence for them they’re all equally worthless. — khaled

That would be a very bad conclusion or rule. The evidence of the usefulness or accuracy of the axiom might come much later on, after the axiom is assumed for the sake of argument/investigation. Sure, having a hypothesis, in science say, that seems to have some evidence for it is a good starting point. But there is no reason oan a Tuesday, to decide that Tuesday, well that axiom or that assumption has no evidence, so let's throw it out.

Here's a definition: "Axiom definition, a self-evident truth that requires no proof." — tim wood

One person's self-evident truth is to another person an assumption without evidence. Axioms are assumed to be true for sake of argument, for example. And you have axioms in geometry that are assumed, and interestingly some axioms in Euclidian geometry, if accepted as correct, might have stopped non-euclidean geometry, which has practical applications in physics.

Just to be clear I used the phrase 'whether you believe it or not' with the 'it' referring to the assertion, in the hypothetical scenario, that your hair was on fire. IOW if you believe them this will affect your brain and you and likely visible behavior. If you don't believe that your hair is on fire this will also have effects. You might think that person is stupid or annoying, for example. If they presented this very seriously, that your hair was on fire, I think that would impact how you related to them, how you felt in the next few minutes and so on. Exactly how you would react, I don't know. That you would react is some way, I feel quite certain of.

Well, I certainly think that's possible, that one can know more about what is going on in another person than they do, but here I just mean that that sentence will lead to effects. First there will be your experience of the message.

In order to parse lyrics/vocals semantically when I listen to music, I have to make an effort to focus on that aspect. — Terrapin Station

Yeah, that's in a welter of stimuli. Someone walks up to you in a not noisy corrider and says 'excuse me' pauses 'your hair is on fire' You might not believe them but you are going to get that sentence and that sentence will affect you, whether you believe it or not, though the effects will be different.

When the elephant thing first came up, — Terrapin Station

And it wasn't your post, I don't think, I was responding to in relation to the elephant. Perhaps I would have responded the same way. I just don't by this act of choosing to contruct meaning when exposed to people saying stuff. Certainly in some moods and when focused on something else, etc., sure. One might have to choose to shift focus. But in general I don't think it's a good model for what happens. If one wants to stay with that model, I can see what it might entail.

I would also then want to investigate the idea that everyone has free will. It seems to me there are degrees of free will, if there is free will.

I think I even used the driving analogy - heck it might be more or less the same thing - myself a few posts ago.

After you've done it a bit, though, you no longer need to think about it to do it. That doesn't imply that it's not something you're doing. — Terrapin Station

The beginning of this tangent was about someone making a choice to construct the image blue elephant if someone said it. I thought this was far fetched that one chooses to make the image, though I agree that one does that. Some part of the organism does that, in most fairly easy to make images, unconsciously. Since S said he didn't see images, I shifted to meaning. That people say sentences to us does not lead us to make the choice to discern each word and pull out a meaning from the sentence. We do that. But I wouldn't say it is a choice and certainly not a conscious choice, most of the time. Now this is a very tiny slice of interaction. So far we are a long way from hate speech causing violence. But since he was drawing a line at such a fundamental level, I decided to probe and question that.

I think this is relevent to the debate because, for example, there have been all sorts of experiments done using priming. Exposing people to all sorts of stimuli: colors, temperature changes, words, stories
before they do a task or have an interaction with other people changes how that group will perform against control groups. And in predictable ways. IOW there is a statistical influence at a non-conscious level on how we treat other people (and how well we do on tests, for example). A bit like the experiment where they primed teachers, though it's more than priming, selecting two similar groups of students and telling the teachers one was a group of weak students, the others good students and the latter not only were evaluated as better by the teachers but performed better. Though, again, statistically.

I see what you’re saying.

I suppose the issue I have is the so-called effect of the words, when clearly the effect—hearing, constructing meaning, decoding sounds—has only me as it’s cause. Once the sound or word enters my domain, so to speak, it is under the control of my processes whether automatic or not. — NOS4A2

Sure, and thanks for working with what I am saying and nuancing your responses. I mean, this should be the rule, but it's actually rather rare. Like, well, we're having a conversation. Yeah, I get that. I would not want to say that what happens next is purely caused by the other person. But if we spread out their speech act to a large group, let's say kids.

So, a camp counselor tells some extremely scary ghost stories to the kids and 4% have horrible nightmares, I think we might consider it reasonable for parents to ask the camp to have an policy against that kind of story telling. Each child's mind/brain does, yes, become causal in what it does with the stories that arise in their minds when the storyteller tells the story. But, then coming at it from another angle, parents might not want their suseptible kids to have bad experiences and other parents are upset that their kids are being woken up by the screaming of the suseptible kids.

Now this is kids, so maybe that seems unfair in the context of hate speech which is usually about speech acts between adults, though not always. But at root we are dealing with X contributing to more cases of Y. If we don't like Y, well it's a reasonable option to consider stopping or limiting X.

Of course this depends on other effects of limiting X and how well we can show that X leads to more cases of Y.

But at the root level of causes it can make sense to make certain policy decisions, despite the truth of what you are saying: that your brain and mind work with the stimulus and create meaning (or images or emotion, etc.)

You are here applying a binomial distinction to a continuous variable. Justification is not a property of propositions, it is a state of mind of those hearing them. The fact that T Clark finds the existence of scientific conclusions about consciousness to be sufficient to justify his position and Khaled doesn't, does not make T Clark's position unjustified, simply not justified to Khaled's satisfaction. — Isaac

No, it wasn't justified in T Clark's own estimation. He told Khaled that if he wanted answers he would need to talk to someone else. Which means that he cannot justify his own conclusions to himself. Further he responded to Khaled's saying 'you can't know that' when he said that. It would have been easy for him to say, that's right, I don't. It's my guess. But he tried to make it sound like the science was out there and some other person could justify it for Khaled. But this included a self-estimation that he himself could not justify it.

Consider a person who believed the entire scientific community were lizardmen from Mars and lied continuously. We could present such a person with absolutely unequivocal scientific evidence of some proposition and yet they would remain unconvinced. Does that make our position unjustified? — Isaac

This is utterly strawman.

Given the very complex nature of most modern scientific investigations, and the fact that we cannot all become experts in every field, it is a perfectly rational justification to say that scientists have concluded such and such and rest your case there. — Isaac

That't not a case. And until I find scientists presenting what consciousness is and the mechanism for its appearance, I don't see why I should take another lay person's conclusion that we know the source of consciousness and that it is limited to X or caused by X and that science shows this. Especially when this lay person is saying they haven't read much and that they think someone else would be the right person to help someone draw a conclusion. Well, how did he draw a conclusion he feels strongly about enough to not agree he does not know? Why does he trust his own conclusion, if he does not think someone else should trust it?

If we are to discuss matters whose conditions rely on scientific facts, we either simply trust that what a critical mass of scientists say is at least plausible, no matter how confusing their conclusions may seem to us, or we become experts in that field ourselves. I don't see any alternative. — Isaac

It's a philosophy forum. We are discussing ideas and from perspectives that sometimes scientists are not the only ones equiped to look at, and often also do not have the philosophical tools to see their own assumptions. Up into the 70s in consensus science it was taboo to talk about animals as having consciousness, intentions, emotions, and so on. While lay people like pet owners and animal trainers knew animals had these things. There were paradigmatic limitations within science then. It was actually professionally dangerous to start talking about animals as experiencers. Nevertheless rational non-scientists could mount arguments- which are now part of scientific consensus-about animals that were at that time and before taboo in science.

I don't see how a philosophy forum benefits from people saying 'consensus science believes X' conversation over. And this would be a lay person analyzing science, and in the specfiic case of T. Clark above, saying that he can't remember that much and hasn't read that much.

Really? we should stop the discussion there?

And again, he said this without admitting that he didn't know. What a simple thing to say? You can't no this? No, you're right Khaled, it is my impression from what I read, though it was not a broad reading of the relevent research.

And now you are entering this particular exchange and making it seem like that's a stopping point.

↪T Clark
Unless I have misunderstood him, he does believe that mental processes come from other than merely biological processes.
— T Clark

I don't. I contend with saying I have no idea what they come from. — khaled

Which, then, does not entail you have some position to demonstate. You are skeptical about his position.

Unless I have misunderstood him, he does believe that mental processes come from other than merely biological processes. If that's true, he should provide the evidence. If I'm wrong about what he believes, let him tell us so. — T Clark

But that's a separate issue. It's as if you don't need to justify since he hasn't. If he has asserted it comes from other processes or sources, sure, he needs to justify that. But that doesn't take away your onus. Now you both need to justify.

You don't know that.
— khaled

It is my understanding of how things are based on 1) a limited amount of specific reading on the subject and 2) my underlying belief in the way things work. What we see in the world is what we get. There aren't any places where secret knowledge is hidden. — T Clark

That's more than intuition and less than specific evidence. It's the best I can do right now and I'm comfortable standing behind it. — T Clark

The conclusions are intuitive, even if they are in reaction to some evidence you have read, and interpreted the way you have.

But my point was you had judged yourself the wrong person to show why these are good conclusions. Your own estimation and in response to him saying you don't know that. I think that's a fair statement on his part giving what you said in response and what you say here. You don't know that. You do not consider yourself someone who can make the position clear and demonstrable. Your estimation. You think it, sure. It's your opinion.

and see above... he does not have the position you are arguing. He has not gained some onus to demonstate his position.

So long as thinking ( also hearing, understanding, interpreting, “telling that story” etc.) is an act performed by me, I see no reason to dispute that. Without the rules of grammar or lexicon or even a shared language, however, we would not think about apes if we heard the word “ape”. — NOS4A2

Sure, but I thought the whole idea was that you choose to make meanings. That someone saying 'the ape is on the loose' has no affect on you unless you choose to construct a meaning. I am disagreeing and saying that it immediately has effects on you before you can choose to make that sentence have meaning. This is going back to the blue elephant. Perhaps you do not have a visual response to language, but you have a meaning response to language.

I am not saying that you are an empty vessel. Sure, of course, you know language. That's not the issue. It is not a skill or knowledge issue. It has to do with you not deciding to decode sounds. It happens automatically.

I guess I would turn it around. What is the evidence that mental processes come from anywhere other than biological processes? — T Clark

If he presents the hypothesis that they do then he needs to demonstrate that, but he was asking you for evidence of your hypothesis.

I would like to see those theories.
— khaled

I'm not the right one to have a detailed discussion of the state of cognitive science. If you want to know more, you'll have to do some research. — T Clark

If you know you're not the right person to show him your conclusions are correct, what's makes you think your conclusions are correct yourself.

Now don't get me wrong, basing conclusions on intuition is something we all do, but I think that needs to be up front.

After four or more levels of neurons (Damasio?), consciousness forms. — PoeticUniverse

How did they test this?
How did they measure consciousness and rule it out where there are three layers`? or anywhere.

Well, if someone starts talking to you about apes you will now be performing the act of thinking about apes. And the meanings of hte sentences will be part of the thoughts. Those particular sentences are not in there already, they will be constructed, though unconsciously, as they tell that story. The individual words and the rules of grammar are in there, but not that story.

Maybe it’s me; I don’t see images unless I’m dreaming. My thinking process resembles an inner language as opposed to an inner picture book. — NOS4A2

Fine. I thought about that issue also. But still, to read something and to choose to construct the meanings of the words as they arrive would be, jeez, like threading needles or something. A kid learning to read must do it that way, just as a new driver has to think right foot here, shift there, check mirror, but after a while they can plan what to say to their boss and the body just handles the movements. If I am reading a science fiction book or an article on something new in physics (for lay people) or someone is telling me a ghost story, even if it involves new ideas, I don't choose to construct the meanings. This happens automatically, except in those fairly rare occasions that I must struggle to make sense of something, not just becaue it is new, but because it is odd or hard to imagine. But even novel ideas most of the time they just arise in my mind. I don't have to choose. And I certainly don't say no. I want to not have meaning arise in my mind, I have to close the book or look away.

If someone is telling me a story and I don't want to listen, I would have to work very, very hard to block out the story and all the meanings. I'd probably have to chant internally or count backwards fast from 100, just create a huge amount of noise to signal to stop my mind from generating meaning automatically.

And if you throw a ball at my head, I duck. In fact learning certain things like dance or how to stay in character I have to fight very hard to get out of habitual movements and reactions.