This is in conflict with women's rights and dignity such as not undressing in front of a male bodied person in a changing room and not being physically intimately examined by a male bodied person etc. — Andrew4Handel

I actually would prefer individual dressing rooms for everyone. I go to the gym and some people just walk around naked, like they'll get around to putting on their clothes after they check their phone or do whatever. I mean good God man, can we have a little decency?

Some things you just can't unsee.

I would bring one universe the way it was 100 years before this Armageddon and live there.

Oh, and a backpack big enough to carry it.

And a girl to flirt with. I don't want to know what will happen with that. It's more fun to find out.

But I guess there might have been the girl and the backpack in the universe already. I'm not sure exactly.

It's like asking how much power a CEO should have. It's dependent upon the needs of the organization.

It seems Catholics want some sense of divinity to emanate from their leader, so democratizing his powers, setting checks and balances, and having strict oversight aren't what they want because that might overly humanize him.

To the extent I could impose my views, I'd want someone who exercises transparently, is fully accountable, and must answer to those he affects. Those modern views likely won't prevail upon that ancient organization though.

A good Wiki article on the status of detransitioning studies:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detransition#:~:text=Frequency%20estimates%20for%20detransition%20and,to%20as%20many%20as%208%25.

That much is evident. Others can, hence the discussion — Isaac

So there's debate as to whether transexual surgeries are harmful. Who gets to decide?

In a prior Covid vaccination thread you argued that due to uncertainties in vaccine effectiveness and the right for the individual to determine his own risks and benefits, the person directly affected had full authority to decide.

My view is that the best evidence ought be used and have less a problem imposing rational views on the irrational even if it reduces their autonomy

So, if you can show me that X is a public health hazard, I think it may need to be removed from the market, despite some still wanting to take the risk.

Are we in agreement regarding about the allowance of public mandates and prohibitions?

He should granted the right on the grounds of self-ownership alone, but self-surgery is dangerous. So should he be provided with a professional to do it for him, and a setting in which to do it? I don’t think so. — NOS4A2

Why does the patient have the right to self ownership to do aa he wishes, but the doctor doesn't have the right to self-ownerhip to do as he wants as long as there is mutual consent?

isn’t clear whether these kinds of surgeries are life-saving or cosmetic. The symptoms are often centered around beliefs and desires. The desire to have a vagina or no arm is just that, a desire. The belief that a man is a woman is just that, a belief. Worse, such surgeries hinder proper bodily function, and as such arguably make one worse off. This is why such surgeries should be relegated to the cosmetic type where access depends on whether you can find it in the market. — NOS4A2

So you're in favor of facial feminization, breast implants, buttock implants, and liposuction, but hold your single objection to modifications to the penis?

There's a lot in your post, and it's clearly personal to you, which I do understand.

The question of whether regret is a common response to sexual reassignment surgery is an empirical question best addressed by statistically verifiable data, none of which you have. You just know of a handful of unfortunate examples. You can keep repeating them, but they hold no significant persuasive value for anyone who wants a scientific perspective.

Your personal health, sexual, emotional, and spiritual trauma are real, significant, defining, and challenging. Whether intentional or not, they are distracting to the issues at hand and they serve as a deterrent to objective debate for fear of offending you after you have discussed your vulnerabilities.

As to the impact you report on the gay community, even should I take that as fully correct, it is an aside. If there are members in the trans community that are bullying, attacking, misleading, and ostracizing, then they ought to stop, but that doesn't address whether society ought accept transsexuality.

As to a thorough evaluation of the empirical data, from the gay community, skeptical of transsexual medical treatment, see:

https://www.genderhq.org/trans-youth-suicide-statistics-kill-themselves-manipulate-parents

I point out this website because I do think it presents some reasonable areas of debate from the medical perspective and it comes from a critical perspective from the gay community.

That is, it makes your argument by addressing the science. Whether it ultimately is succesful will take some amount of sorting through.

This is just a tad suspect. It is a mental health condition. Alien limb syndrome is not treated by surgery, and generally it seems that to treat psychological conditions with surgery is suspect, at the least. One might better compare such surgical interventions more with cosmetic surgery than knee surgery or the like. — unenlightened

Reasoning by analogy is helpful in sorting things out, but it does provide great latitude in the conclusions we can reach by drawing upon distinctions. It gives rise to an entire legal industry, where we can creatively argue why precedent does or does not apply.

So, if a man wishes his penis removed, should he be granted that right, and, if so, should the same right be afforded the man who no longer wants his right arm?

Are penises enough like arms that the same rule applies? Does the fact that sexual expression/ gender representation is affected by one and not the other change our response? Or, is it a matter of pragmatics, that those wanting arm removal are rare enough that we don't care to evaluate it, but if it became something a considerable enough people really want, we should consider allowing it?

And the FGM is another issue. Are today's transsexuals evidence of a diseased society where natural biology is rejected and unknowing victims are volunteering for it (as some women might opt for FGM)?

So where do we go from here? I say like we always do, just with ad hoc responses to issues that arise without regard for pure logical consistency. In the case of transexuality, if option A is to be born as and live as a male but wish yourself female and option B is to live as a female but be born as a male, and deal with the negative social and physical issues, yet overall B was for you a happier life. I can't see not providing for B.

Why I won't do that for FGM or arm removal? Because I do make rules based upon principle alone, but I deal with specific issues and arrive at what works. But, if you want me to creatively arrive at a distinguishing fact that makes the analogy inapt, I suppose I could.

Proof by case analysis is not something I just invented, it is widely used. — PhilosophyRunner

1. You stated you can't know T because it doesn't exist.
2. You stated you can't know T and it does exist.
I asked under #2 how you knew T existed.
You said you had a justified belief T existed under #2.
I asked what that justification was under #2.
You said you didn't know because under #1 you already told me T didn't exist.

You used 1 to support 2, yet they're contradictory.

If my rendition of this is incorrect, then tell me specifically what your justified belief is in knowing truth independent of your justifications exists as assumed in #2.

If you don't have one, then we can move beyond this and discuss the ramifications of metaphysical subjectivism, namely how it slips into idealism and solipsism. It's the position that Descartes started with.

If, however, you do believe truth does exist independent of justification, then you'll have to explain why it is irrelevant when we execute the wrong person.

Taken together, CASE 1 and CASE 2 have covered every possibility and show that I am not guilty of murder. — PhilosophyRunner

And yet you'd be found guilty because to argue that you didn't shoot the gun but if you did it was in self defense assumes both X and not X and that impossibility would result in the rejection of everything you say.

disagree. I can structure an argument such as as follows:

I will show X

1) If Y is not true ... Then X
2) If Y is true ... Then X

Therefore X

If I do the above, I do not need to show Y is true. — PhilosophyRunner

No, you're arguing contradictory claims in the alternative simultaneously, and it's incoherent.

Consider:

(1) I am not guilty of murder because I did not shoot the gun.

(2) I am not guilty of murder because I shot the victim in self defense.

That is, whether I shot him or not, I am not guilty of murder.

Under #1, I should be expected to give all sorts of details about what I was doing other than shooting the victim.

Under #2, I should be expected to describe in detail how I shot the victim

What you can't do, which you do in fact do, is refuse to provide the details under #2 by telling me you don't know how you shot him in self-defense because under #1 you already indicated you didn't shoot the him. You can't jump back and forth in your competing arguments.

This is to say, if (1) you're going to argue there is no truth, you have to describe what that universe looks like.

If (2) you're going to argue there is truth, but it doesn't matter, you have to explain what it is and why it doesn't matter, but you can't just refer to your contradictory argument in the alternative (in #1) where you made an entirely different claim that truth doesn't exist.

So, do you argue #2, and if you do, what is your justification that there is truth? And you cannot refer to argument #1 to deny you assert the existence of truth because in #2 (that is now being discussed) you assert truth does exist.

So in either worldview, I assert that the T in JTB should be dispensed with, and replaced with more justification. — PhilosophyRunner

You've got to pick a position and you can't toggle back and forth between them because the conversation won't be coherent.

Either you believe there is a truth or you don't.

If you do, you must, per your own stated method, offer your justification for it. Once you do, your problem will be in ignoring it.

If you don't, you must explain how subjectivism offers a meaningful view of the world.

I am arguing against the T in JBT. That is the T that we have been referring to here. — PhilosophyRunner

Initially, you were arguing against the necessity of the T for a belief to be referred to as knowledge,. You didn't explicitly say there was no truth.

Is that what you're saying? We should dispense with the T because there is no T?

Knowledge is epistemology, yet JTB attempts to define it in terms of metaphysics. — PhilosophyRunner

Knowledge is knowledge of something, and it necessarily implicates the metaphysical. As noted above, if your position disregards an independent anchor of reality for knowledge, that doesn't disregard metaphysics. It just substitutes one metaphysical position for the other.

This truth is what T in JTB refers to (as far as I understand - I am not an expert on the matter). So really you should be asking proponents of JTB that question. — PhilosophyRunner

What you said earlier was:

My argument is that I cant directly "know" Metaphysical truth. That is absolute, objective truth. That is what is true regardless of what I think, regardless of what you think, regardless of what anyone thinks. — PhilosophyRunner

That is to say, you previously asserted your justification for your belief in what "True" means.

Now you relent, and say you don't know what truth means, and by this, you mean you haven't an adequate justification to assert a belief in what it means and so I should ask someone who might know better.

That's why I asked how you knew there was a truth, to which you said:

because I have justification and I believe it. — PhilosophyRunner

But now you don't.

If you don't know whether there is a truth, then, as I said, that's a different matter.

That's metaphysical subjectivism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjectivism#:~:text=Metaphysical%20subjectivism%20is%20the%20theory,that%20is%20reality%20(idealism).

because I have justification and I believe it. — PhilosophyRunner

What is your justification that there is a truth independent of personal justification? Why do you believe there is an ultimately correct view of the world? What leads you to think that if you've led a life only experiencing best guesses?

My argument is that I cant directly "know" Metaphysical truth. — PhilosophyRunner

How do you know this?

Because there is good justification, I have great confidence in this, but it is not direct access to metaphysical truth. — PhilosophyRunner

As I stated previously, knowledge is adequately justified belief. As to what JTB is...I guess I think it's meaningless, or at least useless. That's a position I've been pretty consistent about throughout my brilliant philosophical career here on the forum. — T Clark

Your argument here is that you can't "know" truth because you lack a justification you've arrived at truth, which is to acknowledge the significance of truth and JTB.

If, however, you claim there is no truth, that is a different matter.

I disagree. — T Clark

Then we need a new term.

I say Ptolmey didn't know the earth to be in the center of the universe.

You say he knew it.

We both agree he was wrong.

What is the term you'd prefer to designate JTB if not "knowledge"? Let us use the word "tnow" for that.

Ptolmey didn't tnow the earth to be the center of the universe, although he thought it. We in agreement now?

Does this resolve the issue, or is there something bigger at play?

Your example is very consequential, thus a higher burden of justification is needed to claim something as knowledge. — PhilosophyRunner

That's exactly why I must insist upon at arriving at further justifications to substantiate my knowledge the election was stolen, else I'll have to submit to the authority of my nemesis.

This seems to celebrate confirmation bias as opposed to starting from the notion that there is a truth.

allows us to make decisions in the face of uncertainty. That includes most decisions. In a related fashion, it allows us some control over the risks of decisions we make. — T Clark

I've not suggested you must possess the truth to make decisions. I'm saying that Ptolmey didn't know the earth was in the center of the universe, regardless of how helpful that belief might have been to him.

The situational component of what is needed for practical knowledge is a good point. — PhilosophyRunner

That allows us to ignore any inconvenient truth. If the election were not stolen, then I must accept rule by my opponents, and I'd prefer not to, so I arrive at my knowledge, with all my justifications, without regard for truth.

If I believe the sun rises based upon my observations, yet another knows that to be false based upon their greater knowledge of the solar system, if we accept that K=JB and not K=JTB, then we both can be said to know opposite things. If we then ask whose knowledge is superior, I would suspect we'd say the one whose belief corresponds to the way things are. This would mean truth is the critical element in describing knowledge, or at least the sort of knowledge worth knowing.

As to pragmatism, should we choose to dispense with what actually is as the meaning of truth, but to instead suggest we choose our beliefs based upon what best resolves our problems, then placement of the earth in the center of the universe works better for those here on earth who need that fact for the added significance of humanity. That is, they would know the earth to be in the center of the universe, even though it's not. Those interested in space travel can think of the earth and sun however they may need to, and they'll know otherwise.

The point here is that dispensing with the T element dispenses with a meaningful K. That truth is evasive is just the truth about truth, and ignoring it doesn't resolve any issue.

I think you at least have to have a common origin for all the possible versions of you. Like could you have been born female? — frank

A replica of me, but for being female, would still be a Hanover, I think.

It's a ship of Theseus sort of question. Which board is essential to maintain identity? A transsexual would not claim loss of essential identity upon change of gender. Interestingly, they'd claim not just maintenance of identity upon transition, but would claim that the removal of those boards (so to speak) was their way of purifying their identity.

Your example was a loaded one, so perhaps another example would work better.

What I can say is that there is but one world with a Hanover where Hanover is defined as the one living in this world, and it would do you no good to search for Hanovers in other worlds because each one you find will not be a Hanover by definition.

There are no worlds with all white penguins where penguins are defined as being partially black. If you drop the necessity of identifying them as partially black, there will be white ones in some possible world.

But this is obvious and not interesting, so where have I missed something?

For the most part, we do have some essential properties in mind when we talk about hypotheticals. — frank

I look at it more as if there are a handful of typically associated properties attached to the object and if a certain number are present, it's considered the object.

It's like a medical syndrome. If you have 5 of 8 symptoms, you have ADHD, but no one is essential. Sort of like that. That dispenses with the essence problem. I'd argue I've described what is meant by the family resemblance.

Imagine Lois travels to an alternate universe where Superman landed in Mexico instead of Iowa. He was raised by the Cortez family and they named him Julio.

So what makes this guy Superman? — frank

Let us suppose he can leap tall buildings in a single bound, that should be enough to claim he's a superman. To be sure, he's not the Superman of we've defined the Superman as the single entity in our world.

But such are definitional decisions. We could define Julio as Superman if we so wished.

If a bachelor is an unmarried man, they can exist anywhere, but the bachelor, if defined as only that one, can exist but one place.

What have I missed?

This seems the answer implicit in the phrase "identity and necessity." That which we identify and define as a specific entity, by necessity is that specific thing, existing in but one world. To allow it in other worlds, eliminates its identity.

In the search for a married bachelor, no matter how many worlds are searched, one will never be found.

In the search for a Superman who isn't a Clark Kent, one will never be found iff Superman is defined as Clark Kent.

Such are the consequences of identity and necessity.

Yet language rarely works that way. Another world's Superman can have all the properties as our world yet not be Clark Kent, yet we'd call them the same things.

So what makes Superman be Superman, if not for his being also Clark Kent? Which properties are accidental versus essential? Which properties of primary versus secondary? Does this get us anywhere, or do we just end back up at meaning is use, and admit that the entire hypothetical construct of prescribing meaning to words (e.g. Clark Kent = Superman) doesn't exist in our linguistic world and that's what caused this whole quandary in the first place?

Many atheists I know have had church weddings, — Tom Storm

I consider myself theistic, but was married in a courthouse the first time and in a secular ceremony the second time.

My issue with religion is that it unfortunately offers an opportunity to separate people by drawing firm lines in the sand as to what is demanded of one another in terms of belief and custom. As religiosity increases, who can sit with you at the table often shrinks. The same holds true in other contexts, political divisions being the polarization du jour.

It seems to me that if your religion requires exclusion, you heard the sermon, but maybe missed the message.

I'm also having similar problems with Pr(E). Since we know so little about aliens and the odds of abiogenesis, I can't justify anything for Pr(E) other than .5. — RogueAI

Let E = "there has been no indisputable contact with advanced aliens so far" — RogueAI

I don't get this. There is a 100% chance that we've had indisputable contact with aliens. For each item of evidence, it is disputed.

I'm assuming that the probability of contact increases with time]. — Agent Smith

You're assumption is twofold: (1) there are aliens and (2) the probability of contact with them increases with time.

Once you've assumed #1, you've got your proof of aliens, with or without contact.

Consider these 2 questions:

1. What is the likelihood we'll send a man to Mars in 10 years?

2. What is the likelihood we'll find bigfoot in 10 years?

#1 is something we can compute because it doesn't assume an unsupportable fact. There are men, spacecraft, and Mars.

#2 is asking the chances that something occur for something that may not even exist.

Yes, and I think it's equally true that much is assumed of the theistic view, in that it somehow requires adherence to a particular religious doctrine.

The pure argument here, so to speak, between the atheist and the theist is a simple statement the one has faith in the belief in God and the other denies God's existence. That is not, or course how such arguments typically occur. They typically present as one ridiculing Creationism and the other ridiculing evolution or something similar.

While it's logically possible one may be an atheist and believe the world followed a 6 day course to come into being (so long as it's not attributable to God) and it's logically possible to be a theist and believe all morals are subjective human creations (so long as God still exists) such positions rarely correlate.

What this means is that the diversity of theistic and atheistic positions that flow from the described respective foundational requirements can be vast, and it is for that reason one side or the other is constantly screaming strawman at the other because it was assumed incorrectly by one or the other that they held a typically correlated view.

Yes. That was my point in the whole exchange - Now that we can block whole categories, anti-religious people can avoid the whole problem rather than whining and growling over religious threads — T Clark

I'm not in favor of encouraging those who disagree with a topic to avoid that topic so as to allow those in agreement to hold their conversations in peace. If you advocate a position in a philosophy forum, there should be an expectation you'll receive vigorous disagreement.

In fact, if someone finds it insulting to be challenged as to their religious beliefs, then it would make better sense for that person to avoid those topics.

Realizing that the logical proofs for the existence of God fail isn't bigotry. It's just true.

I saw them as a helpful way to learn the basic structure of syllogisms and to locate errors within them during my introductory philosophy classes, but if you walked away from that thinking God had been proven (or disproven) by the sheer force of logic alone, I think you missed something.

, you're taking the time element too literally — Shawn

I'm not sure I am. If the argument is that time corrupts meaning due to whatever social, personal, or whatever changes occur, it's correct to assume some degree of change during any expanse of time, which is to invoke an ineffabilty to some degree between what is said and what is meant.

Time, (i.e. intervening events), is just one corrupting influence, as if think limited communicative skills in first place would be the primary one.

Isn't it true that meaning persists over time and everything else that happens in the meantime is separate and distinct from what language itself has to convey? — Shawn

Since everything occurs in time, asking whether something occurs in time is superfluous. The question "does meaning persist over time" is the same question as "does meaning exist." Exist being to persist in the now.

That is, if meaning doesn't persist over time without identifying how long must transpire, there'd be a loss of meaning in the milliseconds after the words left your mouth. We don't need to go all the way back to Plato just to impose the element of time into the equation.

Suppose one night curled up in bed alone, at your darkest most despondent hour, you're visited by the Greek God Eros. She offers you one her greatest gifts - the ability to intuitively know of Love, what it is, where it lies and how it manifests. — Benj96

I realize we've concluded that Eros is a little boy, but in your rendition I am visited in my bedroom by some angelic goddess offering me love.

I so thought this was going to go in a different direction.

But to answer the question, I would choose to offer the world love and peace as I slipped into obscurity because I am all about helping others. My humility and compassion for others knows no bounds.

:chin:

This may well be the case. Just looking for a good account of fiction as a repository of 'truth'. Throughout this I've been mulling over that Camus' quote about fiction being the lie through which we tell the truth. — Tom Storm

I had actually considered Camus when I was considering examples of truth through fiction. He in particular presented his philosophy through fiction. I would think if you read his works and just took them as interesting (yet odd) tales of events unfolding, you'd have missed the better part of what he was trying to say.

I do not believe in any of this superstitious nonsense, but I do have a hamsa hanging in my kitchen window to keep out the evil eye. I do this because I'm not fucking crazy. I don't want no evil eye bullshit in my house.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamsa

Actually, I'm not making claims, I'm posing questions based on how I recall my experiences. You'll note I didn't say fiction does not teach us anything, I said I can't think of anything fiction has taught me. — Tom Storm

I thought you were suggesting that I extrapolate from your experience what you felt to be the limitation of fictional writings.

Not sure I was making an objection. I was asking a question. I am wondering what kinds of truth fiction holds. I am still unclear. — Tom Storm

As in my To Kill a Mockingbird example, it holds the truth of the destructiveness of racism. Does it not? We speak in hypotheticals all the time in order to make a point, none of which are actually true. Such is the substance of all thought experiments.

Take Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

Would it be necessary that there actually have been that experiment to have actually occurred for that to offer you any meaning or understanding?

Great lengths? Good heavens, I thought we were just having a conversation about one small aspect of how fiction works on the back of 'philosophy being fiction.' — Tom Storm

I didn't mean "great lengths" in some pejorative sense as if you were just droning on and on stubbornly refusing to budge. What I meant was that the claim that fiction holds no truth cannot be sustained without (it seems to me) rearranging what counts as knowledge and what provides a better understanding of the world.

It strikes me as a hyper-empiricist epistemological system where only through either direct observation or through a closely regulated non-fictional literalism (where only basic facts are shared) can knowledge be gained. The suggestion that there is this bright line between fiction and non-fiction really doesn't hold true, because the line between fiction and non-fiction grows more blurred the more interpretive or explanatory it becomes.

For example, I might describe how Rosa Parks refused the back of the bus, but to understand why it matters might require some greater contextualizing, which would open the possibility for presenting the plight in a fictional context to better understand the implications.

I'm not sure I would commit to calling such experiences truths as such. What they are, I can't say. Profound experiences? — Tom Storm

Racism being bad is either true or false. The empirical conclusions obtained by experience are either true or false. I'm not just referencing the emotional experience.

I guess where I was heading is that I can't think of anything new I have learned by reading fiction — Tom Storm

Assuming what you say is true (that fiction cannot teach new facts, but only reaffirm what is known), how does thar defeat your initial objection that fiction didn't hold truth?

You're just making claims about how learning occurs. Are you making a claim about how you specifically learn here or how everyone does?

In any event, I think you're going to great lengths to sustain a dubious claim about the information provided through fiction. To say that To Kill a Mockingbird gave you no new insight into the injustice of racism, but reading a true article about Rosa Parks (for example) did, seems a hard argument to make.

A bigger example is religious literature. It's why claims regarding their literal inaccuracies are insignificant to all except literalists.

It could in fact be true, for example, that not slaving away every day to build and create new things in our lives but to actually spend some time enjoying the fruits of our labor leads to a more fulfilled life.

Agree or disagree, but that might be true.

I can say it that way, or I can give you a tale about the world being created in 6 days, with the 7th set aside for rest, and then command you to keep it holy.

Truth through fiction.