Sure, that's a valid point; there are different kinds of definitions after all, and being unanalyzable in the sense Moore is talking about isn't necessarily the same as being indefinable in some other sense (for instance, as you say, delineating it from other things, giving examples, and so forth).

:up: I'll take a look

Scientific American has an article... titled "The Hippies Were Right: It's All about Vibrations, Man! — Metaphysician Undercover

:lol: That's good, I like that.

What do you think about whether it's right or wrong and why? — Shawn

Heh, way to put me on the spot. :wink:

Its been a while since I read any Principia Ethica, I'd have to think about it a bit (and probably do some reading) to say what I object to about Moore's view, specifically. But generally speaking, I tend to be sort of suspicious of realist meta-ethical views (and I think Moore's account certainly qualifies as such), and land more in the subjectivist, emotivist, non-cognitivist camp.

(That said, I think there's something nifty and fun about Moore's argument here- and same for his "proof" of external objects, i.e. the "here is a hand" argument- regardless of whether its sound or not; he was a rather clever chap)

I will say, though, that I enjoy the hell out of Spotify (which I use on my computer); being able to listen to pretty much any music you can think of without having to find and pay for particular CDs is pretty awesome (especially live albums or rare releases). I've discovered a lot of bands and musicians that I probably otherwise would never have heard of or had a chance to listen to.

And then when I find something I like, I'll often then go and buy the CD version. But there's no way I'm giving up on my CD collection, I've been curating that sucker for ~30 years at this point!

Seems all the more complex since good as a simple is defined by circular definitions. Again we have this relational stuff arising out of a simple. — Shawn

But I think that's Moore's contention: good can't be defined by or analyzed in terms of any other properties, good is a simple, sort of an atomic unit or fundamental building block of moral language and reasoning. Whether Moore is right about this is, of course, a different story.

Good and interesting topic/question, . My initial instinct is to say that of course you're under no moral obligation to e.g. "produce beautiful paintings" if you have no wish to do so; your time is your own, as long as you're not hurting anyone else then I don't think you've done anything morally wrong.

On the other hand, as a lover of the arts (music and literature are my jam, but there's nothing wrong with the visual arts) and a Nietzschean of sorts in terms of how I look at humanity's existential priority list (I suppose you could call it): the aesthetic experience and aesthetic value are, imo, some of (if not THE) highest and most valuable things humans can aspire to, and the closest things to redeeming the viciousness, suffering, and absurdity of the world and the human experience.

So if someone has the capacity to create great art, I sort of want to say that they should or ought to do so, in some sense; the world and humanity would be better off if they did, and worse off if they did not .. but not in the same sense or to the same degree that one ought not to commit murder, or ought to help or intervene to prevent harm that is in your capacity to prevent. So its not quite a moral obligation, but isn't quite not a moral obligation, either. Is there such a thing as an aesthetic obligation?

Don't let history get in the way of your ranting scientistic ideology. — unenlightened

He says, while ignoring the relevant history. Pot, meet kettle. :roll:

(and as always, bogus accusations of "scientism" are a reliable indicator that someone's argument has fallen apart and that they're now grasping at straws... so thanks for that)

Meanwhile in reality, the APA's decision was based on (and explicitly cited) scientific studies on the subject, particularly the extensive "Kinsey Reports", i.e. "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" (1948), and "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" (1953), as well as Hooker 1957 ("The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual"), Ford and Beach 1951 ("Patterns of Sexual Behavior"), and others (the list of citations for the APA task force report on the subject is seriously like 30 pages long).

So homosexuality was declassified as a mental illness due to a compelling body of evidence showing homosexuality to be a normal, natural, and healthy variation of human sexuality... not because of some conspiracy among liberal psychiatrists or pressure from a woke mob of LGBTQ activists or whatever other fanciful nonsense you've talked yourself into.

(The irony is that homosexuality's original classification as a mental illness was due primarily to social and cultural biases and presuppositions in the absence of really any relevant empirical support, and was only changed in the face of an overwhelming and growing body of empirical counter-evidence).

That Apollo pulls the sun on his chariot or Eros causes desire through arrows isn’t really what was abandoned. Mostly because it never really existed in the sense we think— but even if it did, these “supernatural” phenomena continued on well after Thales. — Mikie

Well sure, no one ever said otherwise- the claim isn't that the presocratic philosophers extinguished or eliminated all religious or supernatural understandings of the natural world and its causal mechanisms, I'm saying that their project of investigating the world via reason and intellect and argument and explaining things in terms of physical principles or mechanisms represented an alternative to religious/supernatural understandings of the world, and which ultimately laid some important groundwork for and led to our western philosophic and scientific traditions. But unless you give me some positive argument or explanation as to why this account is unconvincing or inaccurate, I'm not sure what else to say except to agree to disagree.

(I also can't help but point out, for what it's worth- and don't take this as a fallacious appeal to authority, as that's not the intention- that none of this is considered controversial in scholarly circles, as in the SEP quote above the scholarly consensus is that the presocratic Greeks were "certainly" physicists, meteorologists, psychologists, etc... in addition to being philosophers, theologians, and ethicists. They were proto-scientists, just as they were proto-logicians and proto-theologians, and all the rest)

They were important in the development of nearly everything in the West. Including Christianity. Should we call them proto-Christians? (Many have made that claim too.) — Mikie

Absolutely they were, no disagreement on that point. As for "proto-Christians", that strikes me as a bit of a stretch, but I did just call them "proto-theologians" in the comment I just posted before reading this reply so its not that far off the mark.

I think the understanding of the world changed. I don’t think the characterization of going from “religious terms” (here apparently equated with superstitions on par with Santa Claus) to naturalistic ones (and hence proto-science) is accurate. I think that’s a story that’s been perpetuated without evidence, and gone mostly unquestioned. — Mikie

Right, and they were at least partially responsible for this change (although I imagine its a bit of a chicken/egg situation). And I'm not equating religious or mythological understanding with "superstitions on par with Santa Claus"- I don't think that's a useful characterization, at the very least its over-simplistic to the point of inaccuracy.

But I also don't see how one can deny that the presocratic Greek philosophers were engaging in an intellectual and rationalistic endeavor that contrasted significantly with traditional religious understandings of the world, that their methods and their areas of interest bear some important similarities with what we now understand as natural science, or that their work was influential and important for the subsequent development of science (and philosophy, and logic, and ethics, and theology, and so on). This is the dominant understanding of the presocratics legacy (as quite adequately expressed in the above SEP quote), because its what the evidence supports, and that evidence is primarily our ancient sources themselves.

The gods were as natural to the Greeks as what we currently call natural, in my view. But who exactly fo you have in mind? Democritus? Thales? Parmenides? — Mikie

Sure, there's some truth to that, but like I said, the difference was that they weren't invoking gods or spirits as causes for natural phenomena for the most part. They were interested in physical causes and explanations, as in the pursuit of the material principle or fundamental physical constituents we see with Thales, Anaximenes, Anaxagoras, and the atomists Democratus and Leucippus. I'm not sure how one can miss or deny the parallel between this project, and the similarly ontological reductionist theories of modern particle physics.

So again, the sense in which they were proto-scientists (though they weren't just proto-scientists, but also proto-logicians and proto-ethicists and proto-theologians and so on) is:

- the attempt to understand the world through rational investigation and critical reflection, as opposed to appealing to religious myths
- the attempt to understand the physical constitution and causal mechanisms of the physical world
- the influence and continuity between these endeavors and later philosophy/science

And since they say it better than I could, I'll quote the SEP passage on the legacy of the presocratics, which emphasizes their role as "proto-scientists":

The range of Presocratic thought shows that the first philosophers were not merely physicists (although they were certainly that). Their interests extended to religious and ethical thought, the nature of perception and understanding, mathematics, meteorology, the nature of explanation, and the roles of matter, form, causal mechanisms, and structure in the world. Almost all the Presocratics seemed to have something to say about embryology, and fragments of Diogenes and Empedocles show a keen interest in the structures of the body; the overlap between ancient philosophy and ancient medicine is of growing interest to scholars of early Greek thought (Longrigg 1963, van der Eijk 2008). Recent discoveries, such as the Derveni Papyrus, show that interest in and knowledge of the early philosophers was not necessarily limited to a small audience of rationalistic intellectuals. They passed on many of what later became the basic concerns of philosophy to Plato and Aristotle, and ultimately to the whole tradition of Western philosophical thought.

- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/presocratics/#PreLeg

:fire: :strong:

The G.O.A.T. (seriously, it may be the best album ever). I had to re-burn myself a new copy just the other day because the one I had was so scratched and beaten up from use (I still live in the stone age and use CDs/CD players almost exclusively).

OP is referring to Moore's "open question" argument. More background:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-question_argument
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moore-moral/

His main argument against their view was what has come to be known as the “open-question argument,” though he actually stated in two slightly different ways. Consider a particular naturalist claim, such as that “x is good” is equivalent to “x is pleasant” or “x is pleasure.”If this claim were true, he argued, the judgement “Pleasure is good” would be equivalent to “Pleasure is pleasure,” yet surely someone who asserts the former means to express more than that uninformative tautology. Alternatively, if this naturalist claim were true, “x is pleasant but x is not good” would be self-contradictory. Once it was established that x is pleasant, the question whether it is good would then be closed, or not worth considering, whereas, he argued, it remains open. The same argument can be mounted against any other naturalist proposal: even if we have determined that something is what we desire to desire or is more evolved, the question whether it is good remains open, in the sense of not being settled by the meaning of the word “good".

- "Moore's Moral Philosophy", SEP

Every one of the early Greeks were religious— all believed in the gods and spoke of such, all were educated in Homer. — Mikie

Most of them were at any rate. But they generally didn't invoke gods or spirits as (intellectually/rationally impenetrable) causes or explanations in their capacity as natural philosophers, but looked for natural or physical causes or explanations, or for those who still did invoke gods, to subject them to rational scrutiny and argumentation, abandoning mythology and religious tradition in favor of something closer to what we would now call philosophy or natural science.

But you're certainly right that they weren't just proto-scientists, they were sort of generalists or jacks-of-all-trades, since science, philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, religion, mythology, and so on were sort of all bundled together and indistinct from one another at that point. But what people generally mean- at least what I mean- when they talk of the presocratics as primitive or proto-scientists is this introduction of a rationalistic method for investigating the physical world, and the influence and continuity between these early investigations and the later emergence/development of philosophy and science as distinct domains.

The other notable thing, which I believe is what 180 is highlighting, is this development of breaking away from understanding the world primarily in religious terms, and even in some instances of providing explicit critique of existing religious traditions or ideas. They were thus providing an alternative way of looking at the world that would eventually develop into what we now recognize as science, naturalism, atheism, and so forth. Certainly, they weren't scientists in the ordinary, contemporary sense of the term, but they were important and influential in the eventual development of these intellectual traditions (and so hence the characterization as "proto-science")..

The narrative that these men were essentially primitive scientists is unconvincing. — Mikie

Can you say how/why it is unconvincing? I find it close to undeniable, in at least a couple important senses: the presocratic Greek philosophers were not only interested in philosophical topics, but also in ones we would now characterize as belonging to the empirical sciences- many/most of them were attempting to explain physical phenomena in terms of natural causes and material constituents, rather than theistic/religious ones, and in particular the pursuit to identify the material principle or fundamental constituent of the physical world (water for Thales, air for Anaximenes, etc) in the same sort of ontologically reductionist sense that e.g. particle physics attempts to identify the fundamental material constituents of reality in contemporary science.

And, importantly, they sought to do this by applying the intellect and critical reasoning, rather than appealing to religious myth or tradition (and some of them explicitly criticized religious/theistic thinking).

So, the rational investigation of the natural world via the application of the critical intellect, with explanations in terms of natural causes and material principles rather than gods or spirits. How is that not proto-science? Not to mention the line of influence and continuity that can be traced from these early philosophical and proto-scientific endeavors, through Aristotle and beyond (up to/including most of western philosophy and even modern science)?

... the universe might not have "come to be" at all but rather eternally transforms (e.g. A. Guth) from one 'configuration of physical constants' into another (e.g. R. Penrose's 'conformal cyclic universes') whereby, occasionally, sentient metacognitive agents evolve and interpret their universes in perspectival terms (e.g. a personified fluke aka "creator").

When asked, Smith, the most reasonable answer, it seems to me, is "All that we know is that the observable universe is here and that we can only measure the age of its currently observable state to be about 13.81 billion years old; that's all we know so far, anything else today – chance or creator – is fiction." — 180 Proof

:100: :fire:



I think 180 cut to the heart of it; asking what caused the creation, beginning, or origin of the universe when we have not actually established that there ever was a creation, beginning, or origin of the universe is putting the cart before the horse (all we know with any confidence is that the universe was in an extremely hot and dense state some 13.8 billion years ago- what, if anything, preceded that is not known or understood).

And of course its fun to speculate and imagine, beyond what can currently be established, just so long as we're clear that's what we're doing

And don't get me wrong, modal realism is certainly an interesting position... just not a particularly widely held one (as far as I can tell, at any rate).

In hindsight, at least in the Western tradition, philosophy concerns – began with – critiques of religion (i.e. magical thinking) which, in effect, makes space for non-religious narratives and the defeasible, critical reasoning that underwrites the natural (& historical) sciences. — 180 Proof

Or, at a minimum, as the exploration of alternatives to religious modes of understanding, emphasizing the intellect and critical reasoning, giving us the proto-philosophy and proto-science of e.g. Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, the Eleatic Monists, the Greek atomists, etc. (and of course Plato, Aristotle, and eventually all of subsequent western philosophy as we now know and recognize it)

I've always been of the mind that its relatively safe to call things that quack and waddle "ducks".

And the suggestion that the declassification of homosexuality and/or gender dysophoria as mental illnesses was done on the basis of "social mores" or political agendas and not evidence or valid scientific/medical considerations (nevermind the extensive body of evidence/medical studies cited as the basis for those decisions) lands pretty comfortably in conspiracy theory territory, in my estimation... and especially when this is suggested on the basis of no evidence whatsoever, and in the absence of any relevant expertise.

This is the sort of nonsense you expect from vaccine "skeptics" or flat earthers, not people interested in philosophy, and not least because its simply lazy.

... Christ almightly! Does everything one doesn't personally agree with have to be a 'conspiracy theory' these days? — Isaac

No. Only actual conspiracy theories.

What's lazy is dividing every position into one of the two ready-made media-friendly tribes on every issue instead of actually reading what people are saying.

Agreed. But also, lazy conspiracy theories are lazy.

Ichika Nito:

guy really likes to work that whammy bar, I love it

Checking him out right now, pretty sure I've seen/heard him before (his hair looks familiar).

Speaking of Youtube guitar players, ever watched any Ichika Nito? Guy is a monster, especially with tapping. And I honestly think that Youtube is a major reason why we're seeing such amazing guitar players at such young ages- Youtube is an incredible learning resource for musicians, I'm super jealous that we didn't have anything like it when I was growing up.

How can you endorse anyone getting a phalloplasty — Andrew4Handel

Its pretty straightforward, tbh: gender dysphoria is by all accounts quite miserable, hence the increased rate of e.g. depression, suicide, etc, and gender-affirming surgery is both relatively safe as far as major surgery goes and has a strong positive effect on mental health. And in any case, if gender-affirming surgery scares you so much, there's an easy solution: don't have any.

My question for you is, why do you care so much about what other people are doing, especially if they find it helpful? Why are you obsessed with this particular type of surgery? I don't hear you going on about plastic surgery or other medical interventions that carry similar amounts of risk, so what is it that makes you so worried about this particular type of surgery and not any others? It couldn't have anything to do with your obvious prejudice towards trans people/transexuality, could it?

So you're saying that major surgery carries the risk of complication... what a shocking discovery!

This changes everything! :lol:

I did: I highlighted why what you said was not only wrong, but deeply silly. But then, you sort of already know that it was, right? And so hence your evasiveness and refusal to answer my question: you backed yourself into a corner, and now you want to take your ball and go home.

I mean, who would've thought that pushing lazy anti-intellectual conspiracy theories and parroting anti-trans talking points without actually thinking about what you were saying would not end well? :roll:

A kinda modal realism begins to take shape ... everything exists (in some possible world). — Agent Smith

Well, no, not unless one is already a modal realist: simply saying "there is a possible world such that X" doesn't commit one to any ontological realist position wrt possible worlds, for most people (i.e. who are not modal realists) possible-world semantics is just a different way to talk about modality and conceptualize logical space.

If you're not a modal realist, "there is a possible world where Santa Claus exists" only asserts that Santa Claus existing is not a logical impossibility- "Santa Claus exists" does not imply a contradiction, and so it is logically possible (and if X is logically possible, and we're using possible-worlds talk, then we say that "there is a possible world such that X"). It doesn't imply the existence of some other world- only the absence of contradiction/logical impossibility- unless you're already committed to a modal realist interpretation of possible-world talk.

Steve Vai is awesome, love that guy. And I agree with him, the level of guitar talent out there right now, esp in the prog rock/prog metal, fusion, math rock, etc. genres is insane- Tobin Abasi, Tim Henson, Yvette Young, some insanely talented musicians out there, and most of these people are all really young too.

Had you heard that Polyphia + Steve Vai song already? If not I strongly recommend it, some awesome (awesome, awesome, awesome) guitar playing in that song, and Steve plays an awesome whammy-bar solo (because Steve Vai is awesome, obviously). If you like guitar, you'll love "Ego Death".

:up: Yeah that's awesome, sounds like some classic (60s-70s) fusion- doesn't get any better than that, imo. Love that bass solo.

I can think of a few guitarists who could challenge the "best electric guitarist in the world" bit, though.. but no question this guy can play. If you like insane axe-playing, you should check out the video I posted in the other music thread a week or two ago- Polyphia featuring Steve Vai, an absolutely loaded lineup playing one of the best guitar pieces I've heard in a long time ("Ego Death").

So... no compelling contrary evidence, then? Maybe next time I guess, eh?

Since only 8% regret transitioning, transitioning is a good thing. — Benkei

Yeah I'm not sure this is even seriously in debate anymore; the positive effect on mental health outcomes, of both surgical and non-surgical gender-affirming medical interventions, is substantial. And as far as surgical interventions go, all major surgeries carry risk, and gender-affirming surgery is no exception... but as far as major surgery goes, they are quite safe.

I think the class 'mental illness' is a social construct, as I already said. This means that there is no fact of the matter such that anything is or is not a mental illness, and one has or does not have anything identifiable like a virus or a wound. — unenlightened

Are we sure that's how it works? Isn't it rather that "the fact of the matter" is a matter of social convention rather than, say, a fact of nature? Adulthood is also something of a social construct, since how/when one qualifies as an adult has varied pretty significantly over time and from place to place, but in a given time/place there is still some "fact of the matter" as to when you are an adult according to the social conventions of that time and place: the fact of the matter is just whatever that community has decided it to be.

Or, to use Banno's favorite example, the rules of the game of chess are purely socially stipulated, but there still is some fact of the matter as to how each piece can move... its just a fact that is socially determined. And so similarly with mental illness as a social construct. So, that difficulty out of the way, you can now answer my question as to whether you think declassifying homosexuality and gender dysphoria as mental illnesses was a mistake, right?

In general, I think the identification of any person as mentally ill is unhelpful. — unenlightened

You know who its really helpful for? People with a mental illness. I suspect it is pretty difficult to get treatment for a mental illness, without being diagnosed as a person with a mental illness.

Your restraint is impressive! And you win... Another Charles Mingus video!

Mingus Sextet- Take the A Train

I just invented a fictional character named Billy-Bob Butterybuns. His existence is not logically impossible, like a married bachelor or round square, it does not entail any contradiction... but I did just invent him.

So, does Billy-Bob Butterybuns exist? Can we justifiably say that Billy-Bob Butterybuns doesn't exist, or no? (and if not, why not?)

So we can't say/believe that something doesn't exist unless its existence is literally a logical impossibility?

Are we sure that's a reasonable standard? :chin:

I agree wholeheartedly- for instance, the moral certainty that trans people are wrong and bad, and/or that gender dysphoria is not a legitimate medical condition- despite all the evidence and expert consensus to the contrary- can be quite dangerous.

You know what else is dangerous? Ignorance- especially of the willful variety- and bigotry (the post-hoc rationalization of bigotry isn't all that swell, either). And especially dangerous to trans people, who are many times more likely to be the victim of a crime than cis people, and at least partially due to the prevalence of the sort of rhetoric on display here.

But back to the matter at hand: do you think the decision to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness was a mistake? Should it still be classified as a mental illness, in your view? And was declassifying gender dysphoria as a mental illness also a mistake?

Attempts to remove it from mental health manuals are political — Andrew4Handel

Nah, medical/scientific. Sorry if you're salty about it, but that's life. Gender dysphoria isn't considered a mental health condition.

If it is not a mental health condition then
why the need for the long term ingestion of harmful cross sex hormones (For example testosterone often causes vaginal atrophy in the women taking it.) — Andrew4Handel

They're not harmful, nor are they irreversible, and I'm not sure where it says that "if X involves hormones X must be a mental health condition" anyways- care to fill me in here?

Facial feminisation surgeries that can lead to permanent facial numbness. Tracheal shave that can give men permanent speech disabilities. — Andrew4Handel

Ok, and? All forms of surgeries, and most non-surgical medical interventions as well, carry potential risks.

And the belief that some flaccid arm flesh hanging between your leg is the equivalent of a penis. — Andrew4Handel

Your naked disgust at trans people or gender-affirming surgery isn't relevant or appropriate, so you should probably ease off the throttle a bit with this kind of nakedly transphobic rhetoric.

So, out of curiosity, since the decision to declassify homosexuality as a mental illness was (apparently) based on social mores and not evidence, would you say it was therefore an erroneous decision?

In your informed medical opinion, should homosexuality still be classified as a mental illness?

And what about gender dysphoria- I suppose that was also done on the basis of social mores and not evidence?

This is not a fact of nature, it's a social construct. this is demonstrated by the fact that you already pointed out that what is and isn't a mental health condition changes from time to time, not in the light of evidence, but in the light of changing social mores. — unenlightened

Again with putting words in my mouth: "not in the light of evidence, but in the light of changing social mores"? When did I say that? Homosexuality was declassified as a mental illness from the DSM due to the overwhelming weight of the evidence, if that was what you were attempting to refer to.

And the notion that medical professionals are currently changing these sorts of classifications willy-nilly based on social mores or political agendas is well into nutty conspiracy theory territory (and, needless to say, is completely baseless)... I don't remember you being much of a conspiracy theory fan, un, but people's interests change so whatever floats your boat I suppose.

If your position is simply 'everything we're told is true' then you're not responding to the arguments you're simply not engaging. — Isaac

It isn't (I've said nothing even remotely to that effect, as I suspect you know perfectly well), and there's no serious argument to engage here, just a lot of prejudice and misinformation/ignorance trying (and failing) to masquerade as a totally-not-ridiculous discussion topic.

It used to be considered such by the very medical professionals whose current opinion you're now treating as gospel. — Isaac

Where did I say anything about treating stuff as gospel? Its not that great to keep attributing fictitious claims and quotes to people you're trying to have a discussion with; maybe stick to the things I actually said?

And "medical evidence/expertise has been mistaken in the past, therefore this particular piece of medical evidence/expertise is mistaken" isn't much of an argument either. If the weight of the empirical evidence and the unanimous consensus of the medical profession considers something to be or not be a medical opinion, I'm inclined to accept that as provisionally true lacking any compelling evidence to the contrary.

And you don't have any compelling evidence to the contrary, do you? :roll: