When you say Canada, you do not mean the land,
— Coben

People say "Canada" and refer to the land all the time. When I say "I'm going to Canada," I'm saying that I'm going to a particular physical location on the Earth. I could give you that physical location by GPS coordinates, by latitude and longitude, etc.

That's not the only thing that people can refer to by "Canada," but it's ridiculous to say that people don't commonly refer to physical locations, land, etc. by the names of countries, cities, towns, etc. — Terrapin Station

That's all you focused on in that post of mine? Yes, perhaps I should have written, you don't just mean the land. Ief you'd responded to, or perhaps read, the rest of the post you would see what I was getting at. The point is not what people are referring to, but as in the fucking context of the OP, the ontology of the abstractions. Yes, pantheists are referring to the universe when they say God, but does God exist. Does divine right? What was Texas during the war between Mexico and the US over that land? Did Texas exist? But lovely chance to remake a point made several times and ignore anything that might be interesting or tricky, oh outrages for no use person..

I meant 'not particularly protected'

Actually, this is more about freedom of movement than speech — Brett

It's taking away a freedom of movement based on speech. IN that sense it would, if it is true, go againt the principles of the US, if not the law. These are not citizens, so they are particularly protected before they visit. They home countries provide or do not provide the right to free speech. But if people are being forced to reveal their correspondence (more or less) and being denied entrance for opinions - rahter than say, terrorist activity or encouraging terorrist activity- then it is offensive. And it would go against basic ideas of both rights to privacy and rights to free speech. Legal or not, and I have no idea if it is, it would go against the spirit of the constitution and democracy, etc

There was a moment in history when all those trees and mountains and rivers... existed, but "Canada" did not exist. And an hour later nothing has changed except that all those trees and hills and rivers ... were part of "Canada", which just had been created by 'fiat'. And since that moment Canada exists in the minds of all those who share this belief — Matias

I get what you are saying, and I do not think it is the same as salt, though even salt brings up similar issues, just not as clearly, because when you say Salt you mean the physical thing. When you say Canada, you do not mean the land, what you actually mean is a bunch of patterns of human behavior based on memes entailed by the meme Canada. All humans die of a plague, Canada is gone, while salt still lives on in our salt shakers. So it is not a thing in the way salt is.

Now most people either accept 'canada' as real or they live far enough away so that it doesn't matter. The issue you are bringing up is perhaps better highlighted where there is more disagreement about the abstraction. I am sure on some Native Canadian reservations 'canada' seems more a kind of delusion of Eurpeans who have the power to make other pretend canada is real. But I would think there are even better examples. Like those islands that are contested by Russia and Japan. The Japanese say they are part of Japan, the Russians that they are part of Russia. Then you have the actual physical landscape.

Was the divine right of kings real? Well, it functioned as well as the concept of canada. It seemed real. It lead to consequences, people acted as if it was real. Was it?

Things that are no longer real when people do not think they are are not the same as salt. At least they shouldn't be to most realists.

Others might push this further to include things like salt, but even realists should acknowledge that canada is a quasi thing or less.

This is not a trick question. — Matias

God exists but Canada doesn't. I've driven past those 'border signs'. Everyone speaks English, they have McDonald's and they drive the same cars. I went into several restaurants in Toronto and asked for Canadian Cuisine. I pretended to have a non-US accent, in case they were in on the whole pretense that there is a Canada. The shit they brought me I could have gotten in any diner in New Hampshire. And yeah, like Alaska would really be separated from the US by a different country...what are we cro-magnons?

I find it hard to refute... — rickyk95

That's because you don't exist.

If you say something is good you are attributing quality/qualities to it. You are saying what it is.
— Coben

Some people might mistakenly believe that's what they're doing, but there are no objective qualities in that vein. Saying that something is good is really a result of liking it (at least liking the aspects that one feels are good). Thinking that "That is good" is attributing properties to the item in question is simply an example of psychological projection. — Terrapin Station

You're making the argument that when people say something is good, what is really happening is that they like it but they are objectifying their likes. Fine. I get that position. But that isn't what most people mean when they say something is good. They may be wrong, you may be right. Perhaps they are objectifying their likes and dislikes. But most people think that some things are inherently good or bad.

I was responding to someone who did not like being judged for his tastes. I asked him or her to see if....I repeat IF....IF they too judged other people for considering some things good that do not seem so to him or her.

He was taking the stance, similar to yours, that really its just a taste issue. I asked a question....

a question...

to see if somewhere in there he also had an objective set of aesthetic values also. That he or she might find that he judges people wrong for liking this or that piece of modern art or speed metal or someone nailing themselves to a volvo as performance art. That while he/she focuses on being judged, perhaps he also things some things just plain are bad or good.

He or she may not. But it was, again, a question.

Perhaps he/she (and perhaps you) never do this, never react to other people's choices and think 'but that is shit, that's bad'. Fine. That person can say that. You can say that.

If you met a romantic partner and she or he loved telly tubbies as art. Maybe you would just think, hm, I don't like that stuff, she/he does. Perhaps you might think woh, that's weird, that stuff is not good, not for adults anyway. It's worth exploring I think.

But sure, you might never think that anyone is wrong. That it is all taste. That's a pretty strong philosophical position, much like the one that says there are not objective values.

But note the context of his or her post that I responded to. Even if it is true that it is all taste, there still might be reasons to teach children certain classive works rather than showing them Michal Bay films.

I said judge them as not good. Which is different from saying you dislike them.
— Coben

No it isn't. What are you claiming the difference is? — Terrapin Station

If you say something is good you are attributing quality/qualities to it. You are saying what it is.

If you say you like something that's about what happens when you experience it.

If someone says Hamlet is bad or good, well, that could lead to a discussion of the play and someone could argue against that evaluation.

If you dislike something I can't argue that you do. And certainly not with a stranger. Because you know if you like it or not.

Elitists think that there are right and wrong judgments, they think that people who make right judgments are superior to people who make wrong judgments, they think that there's something deficient or flawed with people who make wrong judgments, and they have a lot of attitude about all of this. — Terrapin Station

And I preceded that with looking down on people for their tastes. I also asked if that was the case. Did you look down on those with certain tastes in the arts? Do you think certain art is not good? You took one piece, without the context that makes that question precisely about how one views one's likes and dislikes as better than other people? If I had said if you like some art more than other art than you are elitists, your response would make sense.

Elitism isn't about judgments per se--it's not about liking/disliking things, or what specific things one likes or dislikes. Elitism is about one's attitude and beliefs about those judgments and the people who make judgments. Elitists think that there are right and wrong judgments, they think that people who make right judgments are superior to people who make wrong judgments, they think that there's something deficient or flawed with people who make wrong judgments, and they have a lot of attitude about all of this. — Terrapin Station

I said judge them as not good. Which is different from saying you dislike them. And precisely as you say, once you judge something as not good, rather than simply something you do not like, then you are, to that extent an elitest. If you judge those who like looking at vomitart or even art films as being silly for liking those things, this extends the elitism.

The "fittest" will be American, then. They practice this sort of thing, all the time, in case someone tries to take their gun-toys away from them. — Pattern-chaser

Actually the fittest in the US, like other places, in the sense of those with power, real power, have other people who carry guns to protect them.

By "strong," I mean creative individuals with ambition and determination. By rewarding such individuals with wealth and power, society in general becomes leaner and fitter. — frank

One other question I have around this is the people who rise to the top now often get there by damaging themselves, making themselves less human. Not in all fields, but in the business world where real power to transform society generally lies. I also don't see much creativity in that class, though ambition and determination - in those not born into dynasties - are certainly qualities they have. World class musicians have those two qualities and so did Hitler.

It seems a given in educated circles that Shakespeare and DaVinci created "better" art than, lets say, Michael Bay (makes movies that many would consider "low brow" like Transformers or Armageddon). Is there even a little justification for this? — ZhouBoTong

Well, you liked Armageddon - which I took some pleasure in, I mean Steve Buscemi...- but you might find yourself looking down on someone who thought vomit was art or soap operas. You might not. But it's worth a look, because if you find that you also would judge some things as not every good, then you are like the
elitists, but with a different taste, at the very least.

However, once convinced of their superiority, the elites are happy to force their tastes on the rest of us (I never learned anything about Michael Bay movies in school) and they even have the audacity to suggest I am wrong when I say "I like x better than y". Why are we teaching opinions in school? I appreciate the discussion of opinion in school but there should only be judgement of the justification, not the opinion itself. — ZhouBoTong

I'm pretty radical when it comes to education, so I dislike forcing anyone to learn certain things or pushing aesthetic issues - and I think this even backfires. I've had to overcome resistence to certain classics because they were forced on me. So the dynamic I can be critical of also, but here's a difference between Michael Bay and, say, The Brother's Karamazov.

The former work can entertain, and heck you might even learn something about fathers or nobleness or whatever. But there is a limit to what you can learn. From a work like dostoyevsky's there are actions parts, there is a kind of thriller or mystery AND there is a whole wealth of other stuff. Michael Bay films don't have much new to offer over the previous Michael Bay or some other skilled but shallow director (shallow at least to the extent he is a director, he might be the deepest guy in the world other wise.) I can't see any point to choosing to show children a Michael Bay film. They will find that stuff on their own. Many of the classic works continue to give you something the more you dive into it. Dive into Michael Bay and you reach pixels. Classic works, most of them, changed the range of ways we can think about life, ourselves, relationships, meaning and more. And these options got sucked up directly and indirectly by the culture. They increase possibilities and insights. Amazingly, they can often still do this even centuries later. Transformers is not offering anything new.

Which does not mean I am against Bay films. I love and enjoy all sorts of media and from what some would call low to high art. But from the latter I often can get things beyond the enjoyment and it can be worth the struggle. And the skills used to get more are useful in other contexts. I am sure I could come up with a way to base a lesson on Transformers, though I might as well use Homer. But the possibility that students would turn to more challenging works in their lives and have the tools to do this well, makes many of the classics much better choices. This is all done in a fucked up manner by most schools, but I get why they choose certain works and not others. Because they offer more.

Bay's got nothing (that he is showing through his films) that shows he has a deeper understanding of anything related to human relations, psychology, the nature of the world, what the good is, how to come fully alive, whatever. He's not in Kubrick's league, let alone Shakespeare.

Why not learn from the best?

Here's something a bit peripheral ... https://humanparts.medium.com/the-danger-in-fake-positivity-and-spiritual-bypassing-c202040b8dd3?fbclid=IwAR3-R-geVAiM9-jahx94XAaZXPN4TgQtE4Vfnua8CcP-CWtdWzsglfmv9ms — unenlightened

For me that's central. In today's anti-emotional climate, with psychotropics and can do smiles as the rule, not judging the so-called negative emotions is an option everyone should at least be aware of.

here was a temple dedicated to Pan in what became Caesarea.....,

I'm not sure why we are bringing up Pan, that's not what the pan in patheism is about.

By "strong," I mean creative individuals with ambition and determination. By rewarding such individuals with wealth and power, society in general becomes leaner and fitter. — frank

I don't know what this means, in practical terms, even with the title's laissez faire.

Opposition to this view is essentially an anti-life ethic which promotes mercy and pity over greatness. — frank

Well, part of what makes us great is that we are also empathetic creatures. We are social mammals that have always taken care of each other - to vary degrees and to varying degrees of what we consider us - and this has always been part of what made us the apex carnivores on the planet. So this second quote is presuming that the life in us is more like the life in insects and some reptiles where there is generally a colder more of what we would call a psychopathic or at least sociopathic base for even intraspecies, even intratribal or familial relations. The very qualities you call mercy and pity are part of what we are as social mammals.

If bathrooms have sex, then surely there must be baby bathrooms somewhere? — unenlightened

NOt sure if this is a joke, but in case it wasn't what public place would you send your other sex child into a rest room alone in?

Well, my point was that we segregate for adults and older children but not very small children. So the child is to be looked at as sexless or entirely non sexualized? — Mness

Less sexualized, not a physical threat, in need of a chaperone.

And since very few people are attracted to young children a man should feel nothing if a little girl sees him urinating as compared to a grown woman — Mness

I am not telling people how they should feel. That some people are attracted to young children should not matter since the child will use a stall, if anything, so they will not be viewed more than they would have outside in the corridor. Perhaps someone will get a kick since it is a rest room, but again the need for and presence of the chaperone makes it a best solution and reduces risk of the child ever experiencing something bad or even sensing it.

The adult may be getting turned on by being in the other restroom but the child is likely in no way doing the same — Mness

I think it is very unlikely a child would be turned on in a rest room accompanied by one of their parents. A teenager might be.

These all involve someone in the wrong restroom but the first two examples would be a violation of privacy while the second two are not. — Mness

The kids are in the world of sex yet - hopefully. So the way they would look at the adults is less likely to be in ways that would make them uncomfortable. Further there is a need. In some places, say Grand Central Station, you want to be in the bathroom with your child. For the child's protection. So the least intrusive pattern is for the adult to go to their designated bathroom with their child. It ain't perfect and I would guess some would be less than thrilled to be pissing in a urinal when a father came in with his little girl. But it's the best solution. And I haven't heard any big todoes about it either.

The problem with those crying about "Western" science being colonial, oppressive, against minorities and other cultures and obviously dominated by the white patriarchy (and so on), is that in their fury about science being a tool of political power, they really do believe it to be as a tool of political power and that it ought to be used as such. The agenda is that it has to be used...this time by them. — ssu

I think it is more complex than that.

Where others would see the abuse of the term science or referring to science when the issue doesn't have anything to do with science just as a minor issue, just like Thomas Kuhn was annoyed when George Bush Sr used Kuhn's term "a new paradigm" to portray GOP tax policies, the people worried about science being "Western" see it differently. Those who genuinely believe in "Western" science having to be decolonized believe it's not about just the misuse of the scientific method, they believe science is inherently a political tool of power and not much else. — ssu

It seemed like the quotes in the op were related to science in academia as part of the education. I am not saying some of the complainees are not wanting to throw the whole thing out, but I think you are simplifying the issue.

Let's bring it down to what this is all about: getting new academic positions and openings. In the end "decolonizing science" will really apply to those who get the new 'decolonized' positions. Where others usually would treat job enrollment and equal opportunity as a separate issue from the actual science, that is not the case here. If you will have a "decolonized" science program, you think it will be run by your typical white males that you find in science programs today? — ssu

This is essentially an ad hom.

, lets look at where the discussion of decolonization of science has taken place. Has it taken place in China? Because China would be the obvious place for this discussion to be taking place as it has a very long tradition of non-Western science. It isn't, at least that I'm aware of, because everybody there is, well, basically Chinese. And Japan we can dismiss by saying it hasn't been a colony (even if it was occupied after WW2). Even if Japanese surely aren't European and do have an own non-Western culture, they haven't at all been insisting that the science they do would be Japanese, not Western. — ssu

In both those countries you will find what in the West would be considered outside of science, inside the research, or overlapping with the science. It is openly assumed, by many, in those scientific communities that what in the West is consider the only epistemologically justifiable method of gaining knowledge, as one amongst a number. If you look at actual practices and the history of science in the West it is actually more diverse than these debates would lead one to think. But in the East this is more openly acknowledged.

There are some more obvious examples than the circle. One due to Bertrand Russel: a brick wall might be very heavy, although none of the bricks on their own are heavy. — PossibleAaran

Isn't that going in the other direction, wholes having qualities parts do not?

I come in at 5 on the test. A great book that deals with this in relation to drug abuse is
https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Scream-Opposite-Addiction-Connection/dp/1620408910
Chasing the Scream, which goes into the connection between drug abuse and childhood trauma and also the racist intentions of the original drug war and the failure so of the current conception of, treatment of and legal reaction to drug abuse. It also offers wonderful solutions to drug addiction. Luckily I never got addicted to any drug. Food, fantasy, to some degree sex I had issues with. The interesting thing is that I think my childhood experiences helped me to see society more clearly than most people and to have a healthy skepticism. But I was also lucky (and perhaps skilled) because I extended my social connections well and also adopted some mentors.

I argue that parts can have properties that the wholes which they form with other parts lack. — Troodon Roar

I think so also. A ball is not a bowl. I cannot scoop water with it. Ions are volitile in ways that they are not when in combination, in molecules. The molecules, often, lack this volatility and ability to combine. Many many atoms have properties that are no longer present when in combination with other atoms. A head can roll well, but connected to a body not so well. I would think that there are fairly slight inclines where a head will roll continuously and endlessly but a body will sooner or later stop its motion with a clump of limbs or coming lenghtwise.

The normative statement and agenda is quite obvious from the definition of Indigenous knowledge "emphasizing living in harmony with Mother Earth for the purpose of survival". It's obvious that the scientific method is willfully misunderstood and simply viewed basically as a tool of political power. — ssu

Or, for example, the teaching of the scientific method in the specific academia includes patterns that are similar to colonial patterns, where not scientifically arrived at conclusions are use do dismiss the products and ways of thinking of other cultures. IOW it is not just a tool of political power, but that it can be used as one also.

So math or chemistry being hard means that you aren't comfortable with the identity taught to you. And of course the answer is non-Eurocentric science, Indigenous science or knowledge, that differs from the Eurocentric science according to the view of the authors the following way: — ssu

That some people would use this groups arguments as an excuse to avoid the hardness or to avoid being graded rigorously in these subjects is certainly possible and likely has already happened. But that is not what they are saying. It need not, and I doubt it is, what is really going on, period, when they argue this. I think even philosophers coming into science departments will be told that their methods are not meaningful or important, science eradicated the use of philosophy. This may not be said right out, but can be experienced indirectly. I've seen it happen both explicitly and implicitly in academic contexts.

Terms like "canonical knowledge" and "values" of science are strange as the scientific method seeks to be first and foremost to be objective. And if learning science, physics, chemistry or math, that is referred as "behaving like a scientist", is hard, Aikenhead and Elliot have a view on why this is: — ssu

The scientific method doesn't seek, people seek. So while the scientific method may well be neutral, say, the scientists or the facultly may have expectations beyond the scientific method. They may make claims, for example, that the scientific method (and implicitly the current ((or even, often, past, models of science are the correct views of reality, and any other view is mere superstition or irrational in some other way))). I've experienced science presented this way, and note these beliefs are not only beyond presenting the scientific method as a tool, they are also not conclusions based on the scientific method. I am not saying I agree with all the conclusions of the poeple whose positions you are critical of. I see no problem with presenting the tools and methods of chemistry, for example. People are free to add these tools and methods and models to their own or not. They could just study literature if they are not interested in all that. I do think, however, that subcultures can promote ideas that go beyond the actual tools they are presenting to their members and we can't always judge the subculture by looking at the tools.

Seriously, though, it depends on the kind of physicalism we are talking about. Regarding the OP ↪Dusty of Sky I doubt many physicalists, or any sensible physicalist, would claim that nothing exists except "concrete objects in a material world" since elementary particles are not, according to current physical theory, any such thing; they are fields or waves or intensities in a field. On that conception of the physical, why could ideas, equations or theories not also be such? — Janus

They ought to, then, give up the term physicalism with its baggage. What gets called physical has been extended to include thigns that would not have been considered physical earlier in history - by materialists,say. Anything that is considered real, will be called physical, so the term has no meaning. It gets even worse if one considers equations real, because there is no way to observe them and there is not even a hypothesis about what they are made of. They are transcendent.

I am not sure what to say when you claim plants have similar intelligence to man. Signs of intelligence include communication, society, technology, none of which plants demonstrate. — Devans99

Actually plants clearly do communication - just google that and only focus on the scientific research. They do colloborate which would be a simple form of society. I don't see why technology need be a sign of intelligence. The higher mammals other than us tend not to, dolphins don't - except on rare occasions. Plants are not motile in the same ways animals are, so tool use is precludes, but again look up Plant intelligence again focusing just on the scientific research. There is larger and larger amounts of evidence each year that decision-making, intelligence and awareness are likely traits of plants. We just have a 'it must be a lot like us' bias that has kept us from considering this. Not that long ago scientists thought animals were not conscious, while laymen of varoius kinds knew they were.

This is the dualist's quandary: How does the conscious affect the body and vice versa. I don't think this should lead us to wonder whether rocks have a conscious. This is the flip side of the solipsist who wonders whether he's the only conscious being in the universe, where one wonders if everything has a conscious, including rocks. Both positions seems to involve a waste of thought. — Hanover

When we, at least in the past, in Western societies, granted consciousness we granted it along the lines of function, behavior. But we have no reason to assume that behavior and consciousness are tied together. Whatever consciousness rocks might have, rocks have very little behavior. Perhaps they have a kind of sleepy slow presence to themselves. Right now scientists are beginning to think that plants are conscious, despite lacking nervous systems. They make choices, who intelligence, solve problems, communicate, and have nervous system like reactions to stimulation - of course this all might happen with no experiencer if your default is that consciousness is the radial exception, which was how animal consciousness was rule out, within science, but not elsewhere, for so long. One need no be a dualist to think that what is, varies along a spectrum, and at one end of that spectrum or as one facet of what gets called matter is consciousness. The problem with materialism or physicalism is that matter isn't what we thought it was. We have extended the category matter now to things without mass, to fields, to 'things' in superposition, and this is not just at the microlevels. Some theists hang onto the dualism, without realizing that what now gets called matter includes things like neutrinos that are passing in their trillions trhough the earth as we speak. And the psychicalists keep using what they should realize is a dead metaphor that should be buried by calling themselves physicalists or saying that all is matter, since the set has expanded and this really just means 'stuff we think is real regardless of the properties.' But I think there is a desire to distinguish themselves from the theists, especially the Abrahamic ones, so this term gets used as if it carries a specific meaning.

Why do you think a nervous system is necessary for consciousness?
— bert1

Because alteration of an organism's nervous system predictably affects its consciousness.
— Hanover

If we tweak a car's engine it will affect its motion. This does not mean that things in motion are dependent on combustion engines. The consciousness in humans may be created by, be a side effect of, nervous systems. Or it may be that the nervous system affects or is a vehicle for human consciousness (and other animals). Right now we don't know. We can't measure consciousness. So we measure behavior and functions. And we have had a long bias to assume consciousness to be present only in things like us. In fact up into the early 70s it was taboo in science to talk about animal consciousness (or emotions, intention, etc.). But we don't know.

I have experienced that I did something that I considered simply rational. Say arguing an interpretation of a piece of literature, then later realized that what motivated me was not my 'simply being rational' about the contents of the novel, but rather that I identified with the main character and did not like interpretations of that character that were negative. I had an unconscious desire - one I did not want to notice (given the nature of the main character and my discomfort around the issues) - to argue another interpretation. My conscious mind could only regard this, at the time, as me just wanting to get at the best interpretation. Later, after facing some of my own issues, I realized what was really going on, and why I had had extra emotions in that discussion. I have experienced this kind of thing in all sorts of relationship discussions, where desires and desires not to notice these desires were not conscious at the time, but definitely present.