I don’t think I need the meaning to “arise in my mind”. I already know the meaning. The meaning is already there. They are not put there or otherwise coaxed into my mind by your words. — NOS4A2

The meaning is not in your consciousness. You not thinking about it before. And further what you are implying is that if you read any text and there is any new idea at all, you must choose consciously to let that new idea or image come into your mind or it will not. Me, when I read and if someone describes something or shouts something and its new, I can get new images automatically in my mind. It can even happen with conversations I am not focusing on but I am in the same room as. Suddenly I realize they just said 'albino bat' and I see the image and understand the phrase and wonder what the heck the context is for that novel to me phrase. Suddenly I am aware someone said albino bat, which would likely be accompanied by an image I did not choose to construct, and 100% a meaning for that phrase I did not decide to construct. I have an unconscious mind doing all sorts of stuff.

And what are the criteria you use to decide whether to let a novel phrase or novel image arise in your mind when you decide to make the image or not? Like someone says 'inverted ice cream truck' and you spend a moment deciding whether to picture that or not? That seems extremely inefficient, if possible.

If I could decide somehow to make all such instances a moment of choice, where I weigh making the image or not in my mind, I would not. It would make reading, listening, communicating slower and for no good reason. Someone repeatedly keeps saying things like 'bamboo shoot trhough the iris', ok, I might tune them out, focus elsewhere, but in general I let my unconscious mind generate images and meanings and don't waste time deciding to understand or see.

I don’t see it. I wouldn’t imagine a blue elephant just because you told me to. I would have to choose to do so. — NOS4A2

So, while you are reading my words here in this sentence you are choosing to have the meanings of these words arise in your mind. And if I mentioned brain or horse, unless you chose have the meaning of those words arise in your mind, those meanings would not appear there.

The point I perhaps ineffectively was making was that as humans, in situ, finding out for ourselves must always be doubted if we believe in determinism. Since we may be determined to think our conclusions are correct. I was not arguing that I shouldn't just accept your authority.

Or it just seems that way and you are utterly determined to think it is so and to base this on utterly determined memories and utterly determined qualia such as the quale '[feeling] I have analyzed this correctly'.

There's certainly no reason that an utterly determined process couldn't be right. But a person who thinks their conclusions are utterly determined would always have to consider that the sense that those conclusions are right is utterly determined and not because they are.

Yes, so there is but ontology; so long metaphysics;all is physical. — PoeticUniverse

My bold added, that portion being a metaphysical assertion.

I will not argue that there could have been a Christian God even before Christianity came about, but unless humans were aware of His presence before the onset of Christianity (which is impossible to determine, but again very unlikely) — Maureen

There was certainly theism before Christianity, since Christianity flowed out of Judaism. We know from shamanic and indigenous cultures that people have experiences of beings that seem equivalent to God (along with other entities). I see little reason to believe that belief in God arose in the recent history Christianity began in.

If those who wrote religious texts claimed to have experienced God sensorily, that is no different than them suddenly claiming that there is a being that exists which they decided to call God (or whatever name you want to apply), then writing texts over a period of time about this being and things that He supposedly did. But how does any of this make it any more likely that the being exists? — Maureen

It doesn't make it more likely that it exists for you, but it might make it more rational for them to believe. Their beliefs could be based on their experiences and then also on the practices seeming to help or bring them closer to experiences they prefer and were promised or that seem to or actually do solve emotional and spiritual problems for them. Thus making their religious experiences a foundation for their deepening or continued belief.

For you not experiencing any of this, it doesn't really provide any basis.

In general, to experience something by sight is to prove that it exists, — Maureen

That's really not the case. Much of what we consider real is via inference.

but God cannot be experienced in this manner, or any other manner for that matter. I.E. God cannot be heard, touched, smelled, etc. so by this logic no human could truly have experienced God sensorily in spite of their claims. — Maureen

Well, they claim different, and that via long term practices on can experience God, including sensorily.

Can you help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

So when the religious people enact homophobic speech or worse, or control women, or do any of a number of things that one might consider evil, it is really good?

Rather, shouldn’t we defend divisiveness as a natural feature of democracy? — NOS4A2

Agreed, but currently the divisiveness is extremely binary. No nuance. Any quibbling over either sides political correctness and you are evil and leading us to the end of the country, the race, the planet, civilization.....

A healthy country will have differing, even strongly differing opinions. Divisive implies to me that part of the intent is to divide. That there is an urge not simply to push things in the direction one wants, but an urge to divide, make the divisions extreme, just as an end in itself.

And I think some people are benefitting from this and setting it in motion. And then there are many others who are triggered in flocks.

as always, shifting the issue.
re:tolerant

Absolutely. That is the best way to be.

Absolutely. That is the best way to be. Right? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Absolutely. Hence insulting their intelligence, amongst other things, might be best avoided. Right?

Gnosis has little to do with my opinion on the supernatural. Rejecting the supernatural is just adult common sense.

You are trying hard to brand me. Forget it. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

If the intolerance disappears, it'll be really easy to stop noting it. And then you'll fit that description of Gnostics you said you had no problem with. And it is relevent of course, since part of your well justified concern about certain religious people is their intolerance.

So you think that the social contract does not increase freedoms also? And that having time to do things other than scrape by means only those activities that immediately come to mind when one hears the word 'leisure'? Slavery then could be called a social contract. For me time beyond scraping by includes political activity social activity, parenting and a host of other things than drinking bear and watching football or smoking a cigar on a yacht.

It would be practically impossible to ban anger, so that's not even worth bringing up as an attempt at producing a counterexample. — S

You gotta read more dystopias. I think anger and emotions in general are being slowly banned. It'll take a while though, psychotropics are only so effective. But look how far they've come in diagnosing pretty much any so called negative emotion as part of a syndrome or other pathology.

I'm sure they'll find something that would 'help' to put in the water.

Who gives a shit about foreign radicals? How about the US where child abuse is encouraged in the form of ignorant parents instilling lies in their children. — I like sushi

Yes, I remember public schooling also and the other parents also. The truths we were taught. What was considered normal. The great deadening of the heart, that's now been tranfered over to treatments with psychotopics and social media. Religous people can be very blunt and spastic with their mindtrashing. And secular people can be so much subtler and all Versailles about it.

Headdress? Why care? Are innocent minds being destroyed by institutional stupidity/ignorance? Yes, and it is NOT due to the influx of foreign religious ideas but due to the paranoia, hypocrisy, megalomania and willful disregard to rational fact-based analysis.

Yes, the neo-liberals and neo-cons have been trying these last five decades.

I'm suggesting that better cultural dialogue will result in that fundamentalist Muslims become less fundamentalist.

As an Anarchist, I was kind of hoping that with the Arab Spring that people in the region would just abandon Islam altogether and start some sort of Anarchist insurrection, but that never quite panned out. — thewonder

No, it even reinforced the power of Islam in some ways/places.

I guess I do think that you should respect a certain degree of cultural difference. — thewonder

Me too. I am trying on an interventionist hat, here,now. I am tired of what kids are put through. And Islam can hardly demand tolerance of cultural differences, not these days. And it is a very intolerant religion.

I think that the ban hinders dialogue — thewonder

Maybe.

Imposing the ban only substantiates that Muslims are persecuted by the West, in my opinion. Some other methods need to be taken to effect a better situation for women in Muslim society. The West should also have a much different approach to Islam in general. — thewonder

Sure, the biggest thing that could be done would be to stop messing around with the Arab nations under the guise of noble or self-protective bs, the whole regime change monstrous Project for a New Century long term plan they have been carrying out. That would be the place to start.

To me, it is a simplistic solution that fails to address the real problems at hand. Better cultural dialogue will do better to undo intransigent fundamentalisms than somewhat offensive limitations imposed upon the expressions of one's faith such as the ban on the hijab. — thewonder

I gotta keep saying it: it's not an expression of their faith. It's not in the Koran and people who are not Muslim will wear them. Better cultural dialogue can happen at the same time.

As society becomes more open to Islam, Islam will become more open to society. — thewonder

I don't think Islam (or fundamentalist Christianity, for example) really work with society. Or better put, not with one I want to live in. I don't think neo-conservatism does either, don't get me wrong, and they had a hat on their kids, I'd ban it from schools also.

I don't think overly simplistic solutions like imposing bans on styles of dress will do anything to help matters. — thewonder

One thing it would do is say to the child that we, as a society, have a problem with what your parents wanted to do. And we have other laws that are like this. The parents will likely discuss this with the child, from their point of view, and I would guess most children would then be curious about the motivation on the other side. And that it is not just a few people who have this other view. I don't feel certain this is the right move, but I do see potential benefits.

I took it seriously. I mean, we both had outlet solutions.

I was just about to suggest we brainstorm other ways to minimize violence. I'd allow people to express their feelings. It's interesting that free speech is often the topic with it's implicit focus on content. We have so pathologized emotions and we walk around hiding them, pretending we don't have them, choosing the ones most acceptable in a given situation, medicating them away, pathologizing other people for having (strong) emotions
and through all sorts of social, professional, governmental, court related, employer
punishments
made expressing emotions, heck, just in the form of sound and tears or whatever
a de facto crime in all sorts of contexts. There is no freedom to emote. That's the corner I'd start working. I think if we stop punishing, both through legal, illegal, social and policy/regulation methods, the expression of emotions, we will not get people jumping to violence so quickly.

Sure. It's damn hard to draw anything like a scientific conclusion, I would say. Me, I go often by intuition, toss in some rational analysis, if I can, for things like this. I remember high school where a bit of gossip if spread could get you treated badly. There's that study where teachers are told that group X of students is high quality and another is low quality and they experience the two equivalent groups as being this. There are the prisoner studies, where college students were split into two groups and one played prisoners and the other guards and the whole thing had to be stopped, even when everyone knew it was arbritrary groupings. I notice how people in workplaces will mistreat certain people if a rumour goes around about them. I notice the way I have reacted when people have said bad things about subgroups in communities I been in, not racial ones, but social circles. And there's more, both consciously connected and likely I am influenced in other ways. I believe it. I think hate speech probably does lead to a change in hate crimes, indifference, polarization, discrimination and othet things I consider negative. I can't prove this. I don't expect you to believe me and the floppy way my mind reaches conclusions. Maybe I'm great at it. Maybe not. I don't have a peer reviewed paper in here and not even a decently organized article. I could go at it with a pick ax myself if I wanted to. But there it is. I think so. I think a lot of people are looking for something to hate. I think they are primed by their natures, by stress, and there will be statistical effects.

I think it's even harder than that, though I think the correlation can be much higher. But that's the problem. How do you eliminate which came first issues? We don't have discrete events, I don't think, where we can track an exposed and a control groups. All we can do, I think, it note increases in hate speech and see if this is followed by hate crimes. But, that might simply be the natural cycle. People hate, they talk, they act.

I think it's different when there is a systematic use of hate speech, by a government and much of the media. Though that's not the kind of experiment one caed upn run.

There have been psychological experiments where people/children have been told another group is bad or problematic and then they end up treating them worse. I suspect that skeptics will not find this convincing enough.

Oh, you did mention 'if' the numbers are small. If they are not, then some people are going to take it seriously.

I would also, then, add in other potential results. Like how other people not directly involved in the violence react to the violence. If there were significant changes in sympathy for victims, or victim blaming or indifference or justifying the violence in other ways, I think that should matter. It doesn't have to just be the violent acts, especially if we are dealing with something systematic.

If there's a correlation between hate speech and nonviolence so that 4,999 out of 5,000 people exposed to hate speech are not violent, then why can't we conclude that hate speech causes nonviolence? I thought that significant correlations were supposed to suggest causality, no? — Terrapin Station

The actual experiment - not an easy one to either set up or perform using surveys and interviews - would be better if it compared groups of people who have been exposed to groups not exposed. So, even if most people exposed did not commit violence, if there was an increase in violence by those exposed we now have a correlation between exposure to hate speech and increased numbers of violent acts. Or we get another result. I haven't heard anyone argue that listening to hate speech, even regularly, lead to the majority of people committing acts of violence (against those besmirched or demonized by the hate speech). I think most on that side of the debate think that it increases the number of violent attacks. I suppose if there is a systematic hate speech propaganda system in place: we can all come up with historical examples: then some would argue that a majority would commit acts of violence or to approve or not disapprove of them. But in general I don't think they are expecting a hate speaker at a rally leading to 51% of the audience committing hate crimes.

We search for 'God', high and low, here and there,
Far and wide—He's said to be ev'ry where;
But no omens are found: quasars abound;
So, He hides out or He's truly nowhere. — PoeticUniverse

how did you search?

I don't think that banning them in schools is a good idea. It is a religous choice. — thewonder

But it isn't. Again, the Koran actually only says appropriate clothing. It is a regional choice or cultural choice. And schools tend to have rules about appropriate clothing themselves. Thouhg I have no problem banning wearing religious items either, it just isn't one. Of course one can argue about where the gray area is or where the boundary is. We wouldn't allow footbinding or hair shirts. So there will a a limit. Most schools will limit skin exposure and provocative women's clothes. Why should one worldview be protected and not all?

By the way, I can trivially trick you into saying things in the presence of Muslims that guarantees that they will slaughter you like a dog. Islam is a tool, my friend; and a very powerful one. — alcontali

It seems to turn, in your mind, people into violent automatons, and this is something you enjoy. I think your ancestors would not have respected you.

Sure, yes, I get your position on that, I believe. I meant more in general. You want fewer laws. I think it is tricky for you, given your position on cause and what we must be able to demonstrate to use that word, to demonstrate that fewer laws causes a better society or more laws causes problems X and Y. So that's why I jumped to deontology, skipping the consequentialist problem.

Damn, and here I thought I was so clever. In any case, I assume you get what I am circling around. In your outlook cause is restricted compared to other outlooks, especially when it comes the phenomena causing humans to X. It seems to me this makes it hard to say whether public policy A causes to negative or positive effects T or Zed, since people would often be free to not be affected in those ways. So I am feeling around as to how you justify, if you do, why less is better. I can see where you could say fewer laws is something you like, but how you might get to fewer laws is better I am not sure.

I wouldn't pass a law banning head scarves. I might banning them in schools for children. I might not. But I don't care much about it being there. There are actual problems out there that I would rather focus on. It's an outward sign of something really rather horrendus. I don't think it is necessarily effective, and yes, it might be overreaching. On the other hand the ones most affects, nah, I don't really care. It's not in the Koran which simply says appropriate attire, so no religious freedom is being impinged upon. And the ideas about women swirling around this freedom to choose one's clothes is pretty pernicious. And it has little to do with freedom to choose one's clothing and more to do with women being man's property.

Oh, good. I'm glad you wouldn't. So, you are tolerant of people with supernatural beliefs as long as they treat other people well?

Like some might argue that...
Is belief in the supernatural an intelligent person’s game?
given that it implies you think belief in the supernatural means one is not intelligent
is not tolerant of people who believe differently that you do and doesn't fit that list the other posted regarding the qualities of Gnostics.

No. It's purely a matter of a lot of laws being about stuff that I think government has no business intruding on. For example, "saggy pants laws," or laws about whether you can sublet a property you own, or whether you can operate it as an Airbnb. — Terrapin Station

So, we could say you reach your political position (of legal parsimony) as a deontologist not as a consquentialist. (?)

No worries and my don't make me chase you down is not cranky. I am trying to put my cards on the table all the time because I think this is interesting. I assume you know, more or less, where I am going most of the time - despite whatever free will I might have - so if you can jump a step or two please do.

Better is always in someone's opinion. "Better for people in general" is ambiguous because of that. I think it's better with respect to people in general. People in general might not have that opinion (as a consensus or whatever).

Less laws is better because most laws, in my opinion, infringe upon behavior they shouldn't infringe on. — Terrapin Station

Don't make me chase you down. Is there are argument somewhere in there that says that more laws cause bad things and could you run through the causal chain if there is one?

That the effects of these causes would be that things are worse for us. Not just correlation and not just based on your preferences but I suppose either on ours in general or the states we would be in would be objectively worse.

Thank goodness one does not have to choose between the idiocy of the West or the idiocy of Islam.

But you seem to have little to worry about since it will all deterministically rebalance.

I'm not sure what you're thinking here. People will have preferences for approaches to government. You can prefer fewer laws. — Terrapin Station

Right, but it's a political level discussion. In most cases when people argue for a political level option in policy, they will argue that Policy A is good becasue it causes X and Y and Policy B or not having policy A is bad because it causes Z and Ä. But for you, given your very strict sense of what can be called a cause, such things are very hard to demonstrate. IOW I was raising the issue of whether it is good or better to have few laws to see if you would justify this in terms of causes and effects. Even in a single person demonstrating that something causes a specific effect is hard because we are so complicated entities. To demonstrate net effects at a societal level is even more complicated. You responded that it was a preference. Which steps to the side of causes and effects. Now perhaps if pressed you would say you prefer it because having more laws causes X. I think that would be tough to demonstrate, most of the those potential Xs.

Better for people in general? and/or 'is having less laws better in the sense that more laws cause a net gain in worse effects?'

Sure. So far you are wonderfully consistent. most people like to be able to say their way is better, not as a preference. I almost ended by previous post by saying 'unless you say ''I like it that way, like I like chocolate and beach front property'' and I do not make the claim it is better.'

Yeah, that's all part of being a minarchist libertarian--we're characterized by wanting to minimize laws.

I've often said that politicians should be given bonuses for smartly eliminating laws, not creating more of them. The way things are set up now, there's an incentive for creating more and more laws--otherwise constituencies think that the people they elected are "not doing anything." — Terrapin Station

But it would be very hard to argue, for you I mean, that there is a problem with more laws. That these cause problems. It would be such a hard scientific experiment to set up,where we limit the variable and compare the outcome of two very similar societies, one with more laws and one with less, the latter having a parsimony attitude the former thinking laws are proactive.

I think it would be hard to even show correlation, let alone cause.

FAir enough.

I've had this argument a number of times on the internet and I think there are some problematic assumptions in your position. That transition will not be instantaneous and there will be people in law enforcement and the military who will be wary about what is happening and skeptical that whatever martial law measures are justified. An armed population slows down the transition and also will led to more civilian deaths as pockets and individuals resist. EVeyr time law enforcement and soldiers kill civilians it will raise questions and doubts and will cause people to shift sides. It will also affect people high up, iow people in commande of regiments or troops or a tank here or a plane there. I cannot prove that this delay, extra violence, longer resistence will be enough, but it leaves open a door. And we have seen just how effective asymmetrical warfare can be in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam and here the people being killed were not the fellow citizens of the invading force. Suddnely the resistence to fascism will not fall along left/right lines and this will include the reactions of people in the military and law enforcement. You mention the types of force the US gov has at its disposal. Absolutely. But then, it can't use a lot of that or it will deal with even more resistance. Any delays allow for more information to come out to counter official justifications for the martial law. They are not going to announce themselves as fascists, they will have a story. And that story will be vulnerable the longer the take over is held off. The greater the resistance and violence dealing with the resistance, the more problematic the transition is for those in power. They will have to watch their generals and police chiefs and National guard leaders very carefully, becaues given the nature of the US, there will be resistance or an openness to sympathizing with the resistance and civilian casualities will up the ante odan all that. We've seen again and again that the most powerful military in the world can get messed over by much more poorly armed guerilla style resistance. The reasons the US has been restrained in using certain military measures will only be stronger against US citizens, who can also blend in better. As I said, I can't prove this would win the day, which would mean that the coup or oligarchy shift to more open control policy loses support over time and fails. But I think it increases the chances and I know for sure that any government moving in that direction would prefer a population that is as well armed as, say Britains over the US's.

This is just an aside, but an interesting thing about New York City (and the immediately surrounding areas) is that a lot of roads--not highways, but streets in the city, are really rough/uneven, and the city is in no hurry to fix most of them, I think because it provides a "natural deterrent" to racing down city streets--it will tear the shit out of your car. Kind of sucks for trying to bike on those streets, though. — Terrapin Station

Yes, I recently saw a short doc on a solution to a dangerous part of town for pedestrians was to eliminate all signs and lights. Drivers got nervous and slowed down, and they have stayed slowed down. Eveyrone has to negotiate all their interactions, eye contact, checking around, no one entitled by clear rules. The number of deaths and accidents radically decreased. Me, I'd keep cars out of Manhattan and give the handicapped tiny little tricycle car-lings. That might strike a libertarian as taking away freedom, but I don't think people would actually be less free and I'd be freer.

If there were a claim of a consent violation, part of what we'd investigate is whether the person was even capable of consenting. (And this goes for adults, too.) — Terrapin Station

It's hard for me to imagine this not leading to a lot more children who much later realize they were traumatized having sex 'willingly'.