Does this sound like a palatable scenario to you? — Joshs

Hard to tell. Habermaas is one of the least-clear writers I've come across. In principle though, yes, that's fine and preferable.

It’s not irrational to reject another’s perspective, no. — praxis

The question was more to do with whether or not you genuinely held that view. I find it to be irrational, so I thought you were highlighting something you didn't hold to be hte case. All good.

I want to say that causality is not physical because causality is a principle and principles are not physical. — Leontiskos

That makes sense to me - and makes sense of many intuitions. I think properly, though, the word would simply be a description of a physical process (once fully understood). Currently, it seems to be as you say for lack of an actual descriptive grounding.

it does not follow that distance belongs to the same genus as points, lines, and curves — Leontiskos

You're right, it doesn't. But they cannot be left out of the discussion, lest you end up with merely overlapping geometric elements and no shape at all. The distance creates what we're observing as a 'curve' for eg.

One reason we know this is because distance is infinitely divisible whereas physical objects are not infinitely divisible. — Leontiskos

That seems superficial: distance exists as a relation. The space which the distance describes is physical and reduces quite well into the standard theory. The distance is a ratio of sorts between the the position of the points and the next-considered points. The space which creates that ratio is fully real, in a physical sense. There is no distance without a physical medium. I do not htink it right to consider "distance" as some kind of property in and of itself. "the space between" is probably better.

Likewise, we could say that kinetic energy is transferred from one ball to another, and given that kinetic energy is physical this is a physical phenomenon. — Leontiskos

It is, though. It describes the transfer of particles. The cause for your question has been ascertained in physical terms. What, exactly, causes those particles to move from one object to another, i'm unsure of but I understand it breaks down to physical forces we understand pretty well. If I am wrong, we have more to discuss, definitely.

I would again say that "energy" is a highly theoretical entity, and is not obviously physical. — Leontiskos

I cannot see another avenue to explore, even, so I have to reject this. It begins with light, i suppose, as fundamental. IT just goes upwards from there in terms of density. I am not a physicist, though. I'm not quite sure what gaps you're seeing in the descriptions above. You may have something with gravity, but (unknown to you, clearly) i've always been skeptical about gravity (not in a Bryce Mitchell kind of way, but in terms of "nah, you guys don't know what's going on at all").

I am saying that the proposition that causation is necessarily physical ought to be a conclusion rather than an assumption — Leontiskos

With this, I definitely agree. I am not entirely convinced against substance dualism, so I need to accept this line.

he very fact that we can talk about causation without committing ourselves to physicalism — Leontiskos

We can also talk about things in totally incoherent terms elsewhere (if that's hte case, I mean). That we can talk about causation without being committed to physical looks to me more like a lack of knowledge. It was a thousand years before we stopped thinking a giant guy dragged the sun across the sky. Or before we dropped the assumption that the Lord interferes, non-physically, in people's deliberative endeavours (changing hearts).

It at least seems fairly clear that energy is of a different genus than the two billiard balls. — Leontiskos

I am unsure this is reasonable. Sufficiently dense energy is physical matter, no? They are the same stuff on that account. ice/water/steam.

The energy is not physical; it is potential. — Leontiskos

Again, I don't think this is true. With all of that information (and some more whcih I assume you would allow) a correctly-trained physicist could give you the exact amount of force/distance/heat/noise etc... that car could make. It doesn't seem to me many of these objections are, in fact, theoretical.

That has nothing much to do with me. What I'm telling you is they are not synonymous (which is an empirical fact. Wokists do not play out hte tenets of legitimate critical theory. They play dress-up to justify shitty, incoherent moral points of view (on my view)). You can say that you think their actions are justified under CRT and Ill say no, they expressly are not. I'm not personally interested in that debate because it is clear to anyone who has a clue about CRT that things like BLM (2019-2021 type of BLM action, anyhow) were not part of the agenda. We don't need some theoretical approach to notice this. I assume you've read the basic texts. There is no debate here.

If, on the other hand, you are saying that the basis for what's called wokism is something legitimate, so we should trying to tease out what that is - yes, but that has nothing to do with understanding those wokist actors. To be clear about the type of things I'm talking about - Tiffany Henyard, Patrice Collours, Stacey Clarke, Corrine Brown, Tania Fernandes Anderson (i sincerely cannot find examples of males doing this same thing. If I had seen/found egs, I'd have balanced this list). These people are corrupt and justify a lot of their behaviour with recourse to the tenets of CRT - and no, not explicitly: that's sort of my point. I don't think you can say people who do not know CRT are carrying out urges based on those underlying theoretical considerations. The chances many of these people (beside maybe Collours) are particularly aware of CRT beyond the ways in whicih is emotionally agrees with them is very low.

Rather, your unwillingness to to employ CT expresses your anti-wokeness. — praxis

Is this to note an irrational position? This does seem to be a line towed by the Woke. It isn't reasonable, imo.

Another rejection is in limiting what counts as “rational” “argumentation”. — Antony Nickles

Perhaps. I am happy with my use of irrational. I think I outlined it? If it not, its to do with goal-oriented behaviour. If you have the information to know your action will not achieve (or, is unlikely to achieve) your current goal, but you carry it out anyway (without some special condition) this is irrational. I can't quite understand how we can use it in other ways without, as you, i presume, are getting at, falling into total subjectivity. Luckily, I need not comment on whether your goal is rational (because this would be hte latter).

I don’t think it is valuing one opinion over another, but valuing one person over another. — Antony Nickles

That's a lot worse, and less capable of a rational basis in my view.

We are not at this point judging their evidence in the decision but their value at the table. — Antony Nickles

Furthering my position above. If you are judging someone's worth based on either:

1. their claims;
2. your perception of them

I can't get on that train. If it's something else, please outline.

It is not the account of their lives that is valuable, it is their having lived in the context, been affected by the current criteria/practices, etc. — Antony Nickles

Where is the value going? If we don't actually care about the account they're giving, I cannot care about who they are. Because I can't possibly know.
The fact that people go through things isn't valuable at all, as best I can tell.

the interests and needs of young trans wasn’t in the cultural awareness — Antony Nickles

I think it's more accurate to say these "needs" weren't actually an issue. We treated body dysmorphia as it appears - a mental aberration. This isn't to deny that 'trans people' exist. But it is to deny that there is any legitimate basis for the claims made by trans people about themselves.
I would temper this, because different claims get made, but the ideas that one can change sex, or is born in the wrong body (one of these has to be true for the position to cohere) seem empirically dead wrong. The idea there is no sex binary, while auxilliary, is another reason I wont temper that claim ( it is roughly, universal among discussions of the fact of trans people). These are all of them banal and incorrect.

What if that theory appreciates, as Antony appears to, that ‘rationality’ can’t be separated from what’s being dichotomously treated as merely “feeling -based’ and emotional? — Joshs

This may be a reason why it can't be done. This is a cop-out and a dismissal of that which rationality points towards: Decisions made in accordance with reason and logic. These aren't superficial or subjective metrics. You can reject them as premises of rationality but then i suggest you're the new Sisyphus.

If this isn't how you view rationality, that's fine, but it explains my position at least. Unfortunately, and again, with the utmost respect, the rest of this post reads to me like standard prevaricative, deconstructionist discourse which has never helped anyone understand anything (it results in a series of questions that can't be answered, and generally run into each other). If i'm not getting something, I apologize. But it just can't be responded to in a way other than "What are you even talking about?" so I guess I'll just eat that and assume I don't get it.

Almost entirely as expected. A non-engagement.

You have experiences. Either argue against that, or argue that you don't know about them. IF you do know about them, qualia obtain in the very knowing.

I'm not against IP rights.

They don't sound sufficiently similar to get me to take up the case, even. I wouldn't have had the client back for a second discussion. Cat Stevens is a dick. Also, for full disclosure: He didn't win.
They settled. An extremely bad settlement borne out of Stevens having more, and more expensive lawyers.

Additionally, Coyne's response to this was the weakest, most blithering apology for a non-event I've seen in popular music.

Oh, i fully agree. I'm just putting forth what I think will prevent Banno from interacting with it sufficiently, and where I think that may be able to be overcome.

wokists who may or may not have made that claim), because critical theorists are realists, not radical relativists. — Joshs

I think you may be missing a trick wihch is implicit in all our comments here... These are not synonymous. At all.

Lewis or Pierce? If Lewis, Banno rejects the premise of what he was doing. There is no sense data. The only thing i see saving this, for the purpose of discussion with Banno, is that Lewis expressly noted that the "red" is still an objective physical property, and so "redness" does obtain in that domain.
Many anti-realists posit that it doesn't. I understand the discomfort with that. But Lewis just wanted to discus hte Given, rather than the investigated, part of 'red' (or, whatever). He assesses that you can be wrong, in that a qualia could appear as x, but the object causing it is actually y. This might help move it from "I don't get it" to "here's why that makes no sense".

think about them, consider whether I should bother responding, and do so according to my own whim and fancy. — NOS4A2

This happens prior to your whim and fancy. You can't read them without thought. That's a direct cause of activity in your brain and consequently, your relevant decision making. Additionally, your following thoughts and decisions are at the whim of all your prior thoughts and decisions (though, this one, I understand you will reject and I wont press it. But it is physically true, in some neurological sense - and thats ignoring Libet).

This is fun.

:up: Yeah. I think that's quite important though. Bad faith is the most common currency at the present time (maybe, always).

So I think that if we read such people according to their own hermeneutic, then we also come to the conclusion that their philosophy is a power grab driven by primarily emotional factors. — Leontiskos

Seems to me to be true, empirically. That is to say, not a comment on Joshs' position. There may well be underlying reasons that support that type of behaviour without it being a power-grab.

However, like Terence McKenna once said "There wasn't much Stalin could do about Stalinism once it got going".

Probably a lot of ground-team type personalities reject current "woke" but still stand ten-toes deep on the original concept. Which I think its "correct" morally.

I see that plenty of objections are being ignored. Such is life...

What is at stake is a kind of relation between heat and water, and I don't see how such a relation could be construed as physical. — Leontiskos

The transfer of certain particles from heated air (or metal, i guess) into the water, ramping up the potential kinetic energy in the water until it cannot contain the energy, and must "boil" to let off heat which it cannot contain.
That seems a physical causation train. Is that not what you're looking for? Given the Davis quote and your response, I have to say there seems a trapdoor:

One could give a completely detailed and accurate account of the collision without any reference to energy whatsoever. — Paul Davies

No, they couldn't. Without explaining what's happened at the moment of impact, we have no reason to think that a collision would cause movement, descriptively (we obviously do practically). Explaining what's happened at the moment of impact would be something of the form of my (likely inaccurate) description of heat causing water to boil.

Δ-temperature caused the water to freeze. — Leontiskos

No, I don't think that's right. Δ-temperatured air (sic) causes water to freeze. The air, when in contact with the water reduces the energy in the water to the point that its constituents cannot move rapidly enough to remain fluid. These are all physical. Temperature is a way to notate the complicated relationship between mass and energy, right? Can't see the gap, myself, which you are trying to fill. But I also don't see the explanation I'm looking for either...

I mean, if causation were physical then Hume would have just pointed to it. — Leontiskos

Not if he was insufficiently resourced to do so. It may be that Hume didn't understand the transfer of energy sufficiently to understand that there are some non-trivial and non-variable ways in which that energy transfer occurs (and temperature seems to be one.. the ratios of mass/energy retention would act as a "cause" in this sense - that could, i suppose, be called non-physical but I presume you see how that's misleading and not what you're after).

To be clear, none of this is particularly intended to support a physicalist account of causation. As noted, I don't understand how it occurs. But it seems to me we can get much further on the physicalist account than you're allowing. I would suggest some of Kim and Chalmers chats about causation in the mind/brain complex could be instructive as they are extremely detailed and minute.

But energy is not physical. It is a property of physical systems. — Leontiskos

Which obtains, solely, in a physical, measurable domain. The premise seems wrong in this light... It is physical. We just can't grok quite how to describe that tension adequately.

if one remains at the surface level of ‘things wokists do that annoy us’, the baby is nothing but these arbitrary and wrongheaded actions — Joshs

I, again, am wholly convinced you're trying to have a different discussion, and save the term from what is clearly a current actuality under its banner. I do, fully agree with this, though:

There are legitimate points to be made from all different perspectives and directions. — Fire Ologist

The issue is that plenty of points on the 'woke' side are clearly illegitimate and I think that's what's being discussed. Even if we (those of us who are clearly critical) were to accept the underlying basis for "woke" as it was throughout the 70s and 80s, we can still make all of the criticisms we're currently making. That there's some coherent underlying idea doesn't change anything about these critiques. We're talking about what is/is happening - not what should be/be happening.

The responsibility to make that effort is each of our duty as moral agents, as citizens of a democracy, even the work of philosophy. — Antony Nickles

I do not thikn I agree there's any responsibility to interrogate prima facie irrational positions in hopes to find something interesting to the other person. But i understand that there's a moral/co-operative dimension to this which I agree with.

The fact that they are “underlying” is because we have not yet made the effort to look past our own criteria and (perhaps also unexamined) interests to see theirs, treat them with the respect of being able to be different but equally able to be considered once understood. — Antony Nickles

The seems to be hte exact opposite of what, in practice, occurs. I do not (almost ever) see rejections of calls for parity, equity, inclusion etc.. on emotional grounds.
I see the reverse constantly, in the face of rational argumentation.

The other problem is this(anecdote):

I have spent years trying to get rational, well-grounding and intelligible responses from the 'woke' about why they do what they do, or want what they want.

"injustice makes me feel bad" seems to be the bedrock of 90% of these people's thinking. I spent years (a decade maybe) in that exact headspace: My feelings matter. They are reasonable. They are important. Others need to take me seriously.

I then realised that was horsecrap. No one needs to take me seriously. No one has to respect my positions.No one needs to even hear my positions. If the urges are to be heard/seen etc.. then they are misguided. If they are to ameliorate ones emotional distress, they are misguided. If there are, in some sense, to do with a high-level discussion of justice, then they are misguided. Anecdote, definitely. But I have since then, approached the 'woke' with extreme sympathy because of my journey, as it were. I have never been met with reasonable discourse or sympathetic interlocutors. They notice I am not the same as them, and its over, in terms of respect. Its higihly ironic, hypocritical and gives the distinct impression the "underlying urges" are as irrational as the manifestations (wholly reasonable and expectable that they would be).

reform of wokist excesses can take place within the bounds of these philosophical ground — Joshs

They can't, it appears. Theory isn't particularly of any moment here. Those frameworks are what drives the more ridiculous of the manifestations some would critique (like a lot of University administration behaviour around DEI). I think it might a "You just don't understand" to take this line, myself. We are not ignorant to this and the surrounding development of thought - we just reject that this saves anything, i'd say.

This is to put the responsibility on them to meet our (society’s) requirements and criteria — Antony Nickles

Yes, and that is because we actually do understand

interests and reasons — Antony Nickles

by speaking to these people and reviewing what they cite as influences. This can easily be done, and regularly is done by critics. It is not a reflection of reality to suggest we don't understand their motivations, desires or needs. That is special pleading of a kind.

If we grasp at something like this with our terms for judgment, we only see what we want. — Antony Nickles

I disagree. You might. But besides this, I see no problem. That's their problem at this point of the journey. If they refuse to become either explicit, rational and intelligible, I can't do anything with that. I can only do something with what I am given. This isn't to dismiss the point you've actually made - it may well be hte crux of the tension. I just don't see this as at all incumbent on my or my "side" as it were.

It is not a matter of being a metric (a criteria for accuracy—which is judged differently), but an expert as a valued source of evidence of what matters, perspective on our current criteria. — Antony Nickles

I can't make heads or tails of this. It is a metric for valuing those opinions. And the metric is amorphous, indefinable and obviously impossible to arbitrate in that lane (lived experience). There is no way to value an opinion over another outside of actual expertise, as you then go on to outline. A "legal opinion" is not a personal opinion.

I believe the claim is that in certain situations (as I discussed), it matters to have input from someone who has lived through something. — Antony Nickles

Yes, i understand the claim. I largely reject it. It is almost entirely impossible to give a reasonable, helpful account of osmething one lived through because we cannot extract ourselves from the effects we are experiencing. People experience things so radically differently, there's simply no way to choose which opinions can be called "important" and to what end. I think.

Was it unconscious disdain for their own consumer demographic by an enlightened and awoken upper leadership? — Fire Ologist

Yet, a company like Jaguar has conscious disdain for their consumer demographic and reduced their sales by 90%. Because no one likes the product. No one wants a can of Bud with a clear male dressed as a woman(i'm happy to call Dylan she, I'm just making the point). That's odd, irrelevant and off-putting, even if you're fine with transwomen. Dylan, particularly, appears to be a mentally ill narcissist. Nothing to do with cisnormativity. That type of claim (made by praxis, not you) is tantamount to saying "the reason I need to support my position is the one which is true". But given praxis wasn't in the boycott group, that seems a little off. Someone in the boycott group can easily give explicit reasons, and they mostly amount to the above (when asked by me, or what i've seen online, anyway).

Those who want to utterly downplay and de-prioritize them (from the right) should not get away with it. — Fire Ologist

They don't. They say they are not the problems the Woke present them to us as. Is racism extant? Yep. Is it systemic?? Almost certainly not. The law doesn't allow it. Yet, any perceived disparity will be held up as an example of it. We can play that game in the reverse, and support hte idea that hte USA is highly sexist against Men, for instance.

I'm going to give praxis' challenge a go from the post below also:

I would say that the only "woke" way of looking at this is that there's a tension in language, and that the cis-normative men were threatened by a feminine spokesperson, and particularly a male who is so feminine, she's a woman, representing them. That discomfort must be borne of homophobia and transphobia because there aren't other rational reasons (or, alternately, they are all what's called "dog whistles").

Just so you're aware, this is what I was told. Not what I am imagining.

I see some, what I take to be, confusion in the direction of how these things work, so forgive if something seems out of step...

There are physical facts that are simple enough to be modelled by an equation — flannel jesus

I do not think causation is one, though. Predictability obtains, sure, but no explanations can be found. We can model effects from causes, but we can't model mechanisms sufficiently low-level to explain the causation. So I take your point that these are separate considerations, but..

We can predict, with 100% certainty, that a conscious thought will alter the body (or, vice verse.. we can't know, or even know if its' a reasonable question at this stage). That we cannot explain this doesn't seem to do much. We can't explain (properly) why momentum of body+another body = movement (inter alia) ). I entirely accept that these are things we can objectively model and that this sets them apart from what I'm suggesting. But I do not think the framework for understanding how to react to these facts changes. We know this thing happens, and we can't access even the right realm to figure out why (i presume you would nneed to not be a human mind to do this). Similar with physical causation, you'd need to be askance from it to explain it fully from without.

The issue for me here, and this goes direct to Kim i guess, is that we need not then fall into a "physicalism of a kind" to explain the oddities which physicalism proper doesn't seem to grasp fully.
We could just as well say well, the mind interacts with the body because that's how it is. We can't explain it, but we have literally endless evidence.

worthy of being taken seriously — Antony Nickles

It's this part that I think falters. For the person who rejects your moral position, you wont be taken seriously. There are plenty of 'woke' 'commands' (land acknowledgements, pronoun use etc..) which are routinely not taken seriously on expressly moral grounds. Again, i'm not saying anything moral about the two possible outcomes, but I'm trying to show that most 'moral' positions cannot be made to be sensible to others who don't intuitively get the point of the moral claim being made.

I think you may be using “irrational” as in something like unpredictable, but also claim reasons are “irrational” when maybe they are just not understood. — Antony Nickles

I see that this is something I've not accounted for, but I wasn't using it that way. When i say 'irrational' I mean not something "the right-thinking person" would actually engage in (vigilante justice is a good example here, where there's good self-interest and perhaps even community interest, but it is irrational to put one in the position of potentially facing life in prison for front-footing the law). Rationality would be something where you've assessed your goal and made a good faith deliberation about what might get you to your goal. This speaks, again, to the inability to legitimize one's moral positions to others. Some would say vigilante justice is 100% rational and its worth a life in prison to, say, remove ten child predators from the world. I can't understand that, but I don't call it irrational, once I know the person's position. I have no place to judge it that way, unless their actions expressly forego achieving their goal.

Analogously, everyone can have an opinion, but there are actual reasons we prioritize their value. — Antony Nickles

I agree, but our reasons are incoherent (when read acorss several avenues of application). We do not accept that 'lived experience' is a good metric for an accurate appraisal of anything, until it comes to how one has been victimized. But this may be the most skew-able reactionary device in the human mind. Over-reacting, post-hoc rationalization among other things seem to make this type of data-crunching immune to being helpful.

I pause here to make a carve-out for what's called Epistemic Injustice. In those cases, the lived experience and the reportage thereof is all we could possibly use to move ourselves forward in the sense wanted by the one reporting. This isn't the same as taking D'3'Vyon (de-tray-vee-on) at his word when he claims he found a noose on his school desk and that's why he robbed a store and punched a pregnant woman (or whatever - many such stories) and requires much more of, I think, what you're getting at. The former concept (i.e policy considerations, or instantiating social norms) doesn't seem to accept this type of assessment without falling into totally irrational nonsense in fairly short-order.

The final thought there, is that "valuing" opinions is insane, on a policy level, unless we're talking expertise. Life Experience is not expertise, in any sense, to my mind. Maybe there's a disconnect there.

There is no equal opportunity or equal productivity or equal pay - these are specific particular, diverse conditions that will never be equalized, and it is to the detriment of all of us to pretend otherwise. — Fire Ologist

This is the nail being struck, I think. The wishful thinking about wanting to remove disparities has been, and I think will continue to be, wholly destructive. People do different shit. Grow up.

You've done much more which I commend in the post below this one (not all, but I don't want this reply to go on and on).

Its been at least a year, and that's just since i've been here. I'll take a crack.

If "qualia" is a collective noun for "red", "loud" and so on, then I've no great problem with it. That seems ot be how it is used in the research named in the OP. — Banno

So far so good... That's one use (but much research is equivocal as to whether they mean an intangible entity of mind (i.e the "liking" aspect of your Hanover sentence used between this i've quoted post, and my reply) which no one would argue with. This could easily be reduced to describing a class of shades, though. "red' being a collective for anything from deep, crimson red to some kind of off-pink. Not anything about sensations. That could simply be a deeper consideration in the use of hte words. Anyway... generally, yep. That's fine.

If it is a name for an otherwise private sensation, then I can't see how to make sense of of it. — Banno

"otherwise" than..? A hotch-potch catch-all for we-really-know-not-what? That nit-pick aside, I'm unsure what's insensible. We all "sense" red as it were, and discuss our sensations. If we label that collective pool of agreed sensations "red" then we're doing something different than your first, accepted, use of the word 'red'. And it is clearly sensible. We can think about it, then chat about it and compare notes. We just cannot know ever, if when we say "I see what you mean" we actually do. An unfortunate reality of other minds existing, i suppose.

That is how it is used by some philosophers. — Banno

Yes, certainly. I think all that those philosophers are doing is noticing the difference in use I did earlier in this reply.

U1: A collective noun for all that humans report that they perceive as red (this being hte spectrum of shade/hue etc..)
U2: The various perceptions of red (this being not a spectrum, but a pool of closely-related reports (though, some will not be that closely related, tbf).

Colorblindness for instance matters to the first, not the second. "Where most see red, you see green" is not a discussion about sensations. The correlated qualia occur when taking U2 seriously, whether or not they fit into the labels used for U1. But if the correlated quale does not obtain in U2 terms, then that subject can't discuss it in U1 terms.

I just can't understand what you can't make sense of. Trying to layout how it makes sense...

So by, "Making guns scarce," one actually means, "Making guns scarce for one group while making them readily available for another group. — Leontiskos

I don't think too many people would shy away from this. It's the underlying justification and detail that makes people squirm.

Who holds the guns? You can name several classes that, prima facie, seem up for the job (as OP did, i think).
IN reality, they are all humans. Back to square 1. I'm unsure this is the biggest problem with modern political sophistry, but it is probably hte one popular discourse trips up on hte most (and why most discourse turns into yelling matches).

Morality can be rational, but there is absolutely no non-telelogical way to make it 'legitimate'. I think this is the majority of the problem people are having - substituting something rational for something irrational in order to legitimize moral behaviours (in this case, obviously we're going to be referring rationally immoral behaviour, say violently attacking ICE agents who are, at the time, doing nothing). The irrational substrate of the supporting framework for such behaviour is what's driving much of 'woke' moral discourse. This is irrational. If you then say "lived experience is the only true source of information one can rely on" we get a corner in which irrational behaviour is hte only justifiable behaviour (this is rather simplified, to be sure).

That said, I'm not standing behind that - it just explains, I think, what's being unseen in the exchange above this.

This said, i think the most intuitive problem is that, generally, the 'woke' claim that morality is rational, but relative. If so, they have absolutely no place to make moral commands of others, even in their own culture. That is to say: one ought not throw stones once one denounces stone-throwing.

I find it hard to understand causation, properly, in physical terms. I've been reading a bit of Kim lately and "near enough" seems the best level of explanation we can get for causation of any kind, really. Practically, there are inarguables: heat causes X, speed causes X and so on.. But how? *sigh*.

I'm not sure what you're talking about/referring to/wanting to clarify. So, maybe something below will help lol.

Only my first couple of lines were aimed at you, personally and are pretty banal. Besides that, my comments are general (though, I have edited in a response directly to you at the bottom). The bulk is, on reflection, a pretty clear attempt at understanding what in your thinking seems bogus to those of us on the other side. Wanting clear, simple descriptions of difficult circumstances of existence(sight, emotion, interaction) seems a good reason as any to go in those directions. That's all. Descriptions can be wrong, so simply, intuitive descriptions don't seem to give reason to assent to theories that rely on those descriptions (and in very large part eg "..the damn thing goes up.." )

The final, edited-in responses to you seem clear enough. Can't see what you're not getting there.. Your post hoping that it (the post itself) clarifies why you're skeptical on qualia doesn't, in fact, clarify why you're hesitant about qualia. I give reasons for that being so. I tried to find a connection in your post, and traversed a couple that didn't seem to do anything..

Yes, I agree with that. I think that's possibly where you and I have fallen out on this topic previously. We don't agree on what's also going on there. There's reportage happening, and I think we disagree on what's being reported.

Regarding Chalmers and the couple of notes above, its clear that Qualia is the Hard Problem (or, explanation thereof). I think what's happening is similar to with Austin(with sense-data) - we want to ignore the Hard part, instead opting for descriptions that don't require them. That is often hard (i.,e you need to be truly clever to make sense) and takes some seriously doing in terms of getting others on board (from outside, it looks a little like hiding the ball, but I know that's not the intent, or the claimed result). But simpler descriptions with less room for disagreement or error are generally preferable so those two outcomes (i.e removing Qualia ala Dennett and removing sense-data ala Austin) are totally reasonable, and almost certainly preferable intellectually speaking. If the case is that consciousness is somehow magical, we're kind of fucked, intellectually, in understand much of anything from there.

The problem is descriptions can be wrong. In these two cases, there seems no adjudicator. So I think what Outland is asking might be the correct way to go about theorizing on this subject.

Compare: What is it like to be in love? Well, it's not any one thing. In a very real sense there is not a thing it is like to be in love. — Banno

Hmm interesting. I'm unsure this says much about the premise there though. I'd say "What it's like to be..." something is a bundle of sensations which cohere, in some way - rather than a specific state that can be distilled into a direct description. "What it's like to be in love" for Amadeus Diamond is, presumably, quite qualitatively different to "What it's like for Sir Bannock to be in love". I don't think that tells us anything besides our qualia differ, and have common features. Its common for several, unrelated films to include explosions, but they occur very different depending on the whole of the preceding detail.

This is all to say: Its not clear to me how that post (or, from memory, related comments elsewhere) supports hesitancy around Qualia. Not that there aren't good reasons, It's just not clear to me how this does it for you.

Embarrassingly just picked up Spinozas Ethics

My basic objection is that if they are private experiences then they are unavailable for discussion, and if they are available for discussion then they seem to be just what we ordinarily talk about using words like "red" and "loud".

So not of much use. — Banno

I'm not really making an argument here, but comment (and on the two parts of the above quote separately).

If qualia are private experiences, we can still talk about them. It is a total non-sequitur to suggest otherwise. Pain is a private sensation, differing almost universallly between subjects. But we discuss it ad nauseum. Usually to our detriment (this comes into play in a moment..). We can discuss our private experiences. That qualia is the category in which these occur (presuming they are 'some-thing'). Doesn't seem to change this. We can discuss pain the abstract too. What's the difference with catch-all qualia (as opposed to more specific internal sensations) that you're seeing to preclude us from discussing it (if private)?

If qualia are available for discussion, it just means someone brought up their internal sensations. Approximation is a pretty nifty tool.

But that's all we get. Approximation. Might even be quite close approximation, but ultimately, qualia is not helpful for understanding consciousness. It is helpful for presenting which questions are(might be?) apt for exploration. Facts are no one has solved these problems, so on we go..

One of their best.



I'm-a gonna go,
Gonna load my shot gun
Point that barrel right where it hurts
Ain't no telling where I'll go after;
Might not be better but it can't get worse

And I could tell you but you can't imagine,
The first breath on the edge of this chasm (sometimes "After nothing happens)
You ain't cried like that since you come out your mother
Only thing holding back the great hereafter

Is bad primers
With good timing

I'm-a gonna go,
Gonna load my.....

Random. Big fan - saw them in a little club here a few years back.

Please try to say something relevant instead of drive-by emotional outbursts, lest ye be hypocrite #1 :)

Hmm. Having read several of the more substantial responses, I think I am further pushed into my position: Guns are necessary to level the field, whether between or intra-species. This seems enough.

Control, though, is tricky for one reason only: The enforcement of gun control requires gun use. I'm unsure I need to explain why that's tricky.

Very much enjoying most comments here.

The only thing I'd say is that it seems to me we're still in the middle of all this. We're not really past, or prior to 'peak' anything. Things are just moving as they always have, in hte face of both the increase in technology (this could mean reporting, live-streaming, accessibility issues, presentation issues, networking issues, misinformation... anything technologically-driven that relates to our topic) and in turn, the increase in leisure (as mentioned earlier in the thread).

These both lead to people capable of doing things out of boredom and becoming convinced it's meaningful. This, it seems, hasn't peaked.

So, I have three points. Please take hte first one gently, as I conclude somewhat different to how this reads (also, ignore the bolds until the conclusion which references them):

1. I think much of the above is self-involved wittering in the style of the Continentals, and I do not think you will be surprised by my position; HOWEVER;
2. You are not wrong. This, for example:

rejects the Kuhnian implication of critical theoretic approaches to objective truth — Joshs

and

languaged concepts hook up to objective truths which transcend cultural dynamics — Joshs

I think are true, regardless of Kuhn (though, obviously one of the best to articulate it). I think you're simply over-playing the hand this gives you, I guess. Not a massive objection but I think it means our approach to what Doyle is saying will necessarily come apart.

I suggest that Doyle’s rejection of this crucial philosophical underpinning of wokism motivates his rejection of it. — Joshs

To some degree that's going to be unavoidable: If we do not believe language creates structures "in the world" then we cannot assent to an ideology which takes this as fundamentally inarguable (which it is - Iand thats the main problem I have with Wokists. There is no discussion to be had. Its a brick wall. Contrary to their fundamental positions). I think Doyle is grokking this and it is almost impossible to see from inside the bubble. From, i expect, your perspective, these are simply "the way things are" type of statements you're making. I don't take them as such when considering them. They are arguable.

he would still find it wanting in comparison with his non-relativistic liberalism — Joshs

That is also, possibly, true, but something peculiar to Doyle and his own outlook - not his reasoning and research skills. I think I, too, would probably want to critique many views and beliefs thought of in this category despite not being asked to participate (which is what wokists do, generally usually with threats) the way I used to critique Vera constantly. Not because she wanted me to believe what she did, but because much of what she had to say was patently irrational, historically inaccurate or incoherent within her own worldview. These aren't critiques of a category, per se, but critiques of bad thinking. I suggest this is what Doyle is doing, but his current purpose is firmly embedded in taking to task the bolded items above as they appear to be features of those carrying the Woke ideology currentrly

what would that process entail in a shop? — Lael

It would be a database. The US is woefully inadequate when it comes to record keeping, particularly cross-state and cross-department, it seems. I don't know the inner workings, but not having gun owners who had mental health issues on a register is insane. Gun dealers should be licensed and given access to a database through which any potential buyer must be screened for several things,mental health being one (or at least, reported mental health issues). It wont be perfect, and wont catch "after the fact" mental health issues, but nothing would. So there's that...

Though, this brings up a pretty nuance point I am not sure where I fall on: Veterans with guns. I am unsure that's a safe proposition for some of them. But surely, more htan most, veterans are capable of handling guns in the absence of mental illness. Tough one.

LMAO. Ooof. Luckily I'm Irish. But i did find the FOTC pretty funny. Banana balls is still one of the funniest insults i've heard.

pontificating about subjects where you have no credibility and where your opinion doesn't matter, no matter how self-satisfied it makes you feel. — T Clark

Wow. Dude, what the fuck side of hte bed did you wake up on.

Well I do imagine that Trump and his followers are anti-woke because I hear them say so. — unenlightened

A fair point, but from their perspective woke is expressly not what you say it is. That's sort of the issue - the two groups are either seeing, or pretending to see 'woke' as capturing different behaviours. I, personally, think neither side has this chess move open to them.
Woke is a cultural phenomenon which has superseded an older cultural phenomenon under the same name. I think its possible OP's response to me lays out what that is, in it's current form (and thus, by inference, pretty self-defeating).

Otherwise, yes, it's grey and greyer. I can only give perspectives and note where facts come apart from them, as best I can tell.

that are felt by many as totalitarian, repressive or McCarhyesque. I’m interested in your knowledge of the underlying philosohies that these practices are drawn from. You see, the practices can change and become much less repressive without significantly altering the underlying worldview that generates them. — Joshs

I agree wholeheartedly with both of these positions. As noted, I used to claim Woke as it used to be a useful catch-all for some genuinely helpful social activities that did not harm anyone, basically. Now, as noted in a previous post, those activities are both self-defeating, and dangerous in a lot of cases on my view (and, the wider view from outside the bubble that 'woke' is intended to capture).

I’m interested in your knowledge of the underlying philosohies that these practices are drawn from. — Joshs

This is a rather tricky question. If you me Crenshaw et al.. stemming from Marxist thinking, then yes. I am versed (though, some time ago now - don't ask me to cite lol) in what those 'structures' are. This is not what 'woke' captures.
If you mean the actual underlying philosophy held by those currently in the bubble? Largely white man bad, minority good, disparity = bigotry, oppression=social status. This explains most of the hypocrisy, ignorance and self-aggrandizing we see (and no, this is not an over-simplification. The only thing I am missing is the wording those people use to justify it - which is identity and emotion. There is no further argument made by hte group in question - it seems perhaps not hte group you want to defend). A prime example is Karmelo Anthony. We've seen a decidedly woke response to a cold-blooded murder by an emotional dysregulated dickhead. But, it's white people's fault, he's black so can't be racist, and should have been given more money on go fund me.

To be sure, these beliefs and behaviours exist in a certain group. That is the group Doyle is talking about. Setting yourself aside, and still claiming ot be 'woke' seems incoherent.

The fundamental philosophical insights guiding it are here to stay, and will become accepted by the mainstream within the next 50 years. — Joshs

It is not possible to know this. It is also contrary to the actual reality which is that the underlying tenets are rejected by almost all structures and authorities once hte harms are made obvious. Happy to revisit in 50 years.

This critique has no clue what the underlying philosophies are talking about, and just sees wokists as bossy moralistic people who want to act like dictators. — Joshs

Once again, obviously not true and a weird trick to avoid accepting third party critique. If your position, as noted here, amounts to "only we can critique ourselves" then that's absurd. If this is just to sa yyou have seen a critique outside the bubble which you agree with, then that stands exactly in line with my entire response. You will not be emotionally capable of doing so if you claim to be woke.

it wouldn’t take me very long to demonstrate that he never even attempts to analyze the underlying philosophy — Joshs

For for it. Review his entire output on this topic, including books, podcasts, lengthy posts and articles. I'm not going to claim to hav ea citation to hand, but he has explicitly spoken about the Marxist, and then Frankfurtian bases through Critical Theory and on into CRT - running that through the milieu of the 60s-70s civil rights activations and then making his conclusions from there. He is not an idiot. I do recall him going relatively deep into this in The New Puritans.

It seems you've rejected his position without knowing it. Odd.

Absolutely. Not just that, when they are reached out to, it tends to be condescending. And condescending to people who work manual labour for decades is probably not a good move.

As long as women exists, guns will have a (in my opinion) virtuous purpose. As long as stronger, less-scrupulous people exist (relative to the bulk of people) guns will have a virtuous purpose.

I live in a country with next-to-no gun violence. It works because it's small, generally close-knit, and sparsely populated. But the gangs who do run with guns are such a ridiculous threat to others that It seems clear keeping guns from those who must protect themselves from violent criminals may not be the best move. Luckily, we're early enough in our journey to this type of violence that we can still curtail the illegal gun use currently, so I don't see that manifesting, just noting it works here because its small.

Somewhere like the US, it is incumbent on a family with children or anyone vulnerable counted among, to protect their own. Education, responsible use and decent training are needed in pretty much a social overhaul that, as OP says, is probably a pipe-dream. The gun violence among urban populations is astounding, and not something legislation is going to deal with. Obviously.

I think gun control, like many modern causes, uses good intentions to mask bad ideas. — MrLiminal

Bingo.

he doesn’t understand the basic philosophical grounding for them and ends up throwing out the baby with the bathwater. — Joshs

This is patently untrue. I think its more likely this stems from those who share views not noticing what it looks like from the outside. For instance. many will claim that "woke" is:

Wokism is giving a fuck about someone else's difficulties in a complex society. — unenlightened

This is exactly what I'm talking about. This is obviously, to anyone who has the patience to pay attention, untrue and an explicitly rejection of almost everything that 'woke' (in Doyle's sense - which is not something one would actively claim, obviously) encompasses. Most 'woke' behaviour, in the relevant sense, is destructive, narcissistic and clearly illogical not to mention hypocritical, historically ignorant among other things. I imagine what unenlightened wants to say is that this is what 'woke' should be and roughly, I agree. It even used to be that. I used to be actively, proudly 'woke'. But it is simply not true to claim that anymore. I can't, in good conscience, claim the area of ideology that has harmed almost everyone I know constantly for years, has caused more civil unrest than any competing ideology over the last two decades and has supported murder, street-level violence, clear and disgusting crimes if carried out by someone sufficiently 'marginalized', attacks on civil servants and the general acceptance of incredibly distrusting and discriminatory personal beliefs. It borders on McCarthyism except more people are being hurt.

Almost all 'woke' academia has a whiff of performance art to it. Look at this disaster of a paper I was just alerted to. The abstract reads like a Dr Seuss paragraph:

"The parasite, in blurring the distinctions between active subjects and passive environments, poses a problem for western epistemology. By thinking the parasite, I try to re-member precolonial Māori discourses of what being means. Helped by new materialist thought, what I uncover is an oblique and ecological model of relations in which nothing is quite separable from anything else. Through the parasite, this paper explores posthuman pasts and futures, and gestures towards the potential for a radical revision of how we understand ourselves as subjects."

As it turns out, I've interacted with this writer several times over the years. She is not capable of explaining what she writes effectively, or answering questions that pose any challenge, whatsoever, to her view points. She is also unable to understand simple concepts like "crime" (she is a strict abolitionist about prisons). Confused, buzz-word-laden work like this is a perfect exemplar of why 'woke' is so incapable of upholding either it's own tenets or those which are considered, generally, to be the 'morally correct' ways of being: non-discrimination, non-hypocrisy, honestly and accountability.

I think probably people who see themselves as part of 'woke' will be unable to accept the facts about its manifestations and so will clamour about how Woke represents something they are comfortable copping to. By way of example, the idea that half the country is racist usually isn't accepted despite indirect claims of the same. Like "Trump lovers are racist". This is acceptable to the Wokist as 'trump' has to be ipso facto bad-causing, in any association he is found. Ignoring that this condemns half the country, incl much of the productive (in terms of industry) population.

Another is the claim that 'nobody is illegal'. Well, they literally are, if they've entered the country illegal. The 'woke' wont acknowledge things like illegals committing crimes, and then being removed, is actually fine. They also routinely attribute to their enemy that which their allies have done. Obama's walk-through of his detention centres are being touted as Trump-era offerings. This is a lie, and one they buy. Then when confronted, claim "Oh well Trump is worse" because it avoids the embarrassment of being entirely wrong, over-emotional and incapable of conversing with the other side effectively. If any of this seems untrue, or you need examples please do ask. There are thousands out there. I'm being purposefully high-level in my descriptions.

I add a final note that its probably not going to be accurate that you understand "wokism" over professionals writing about it. You are claiming so, it seems, so worth noting that this is extremely unlikely. It will also be unlikely that I understand better than many, but I am certainly able to see merits and failings on many levels. The above is just what I'm currently feeling about this particular thing.

T Clark below, I think, is saying this more succinctly. I just attacked many more aspects of the playing field.

(it was a statement, nonetheless, my man). And is that a position you take, or was the conclusion just part of conversation?

Not all paintings, then, are pictures. — Banno

An interesting statement. I am bent to think every painting is a picture, as ever 'image' is a picture. Of what, is an interesting thought.

This flies in the face of almost all of your responses, which are exactly in line with that description. I'll leave you to it.

Ah, you're a much more patient person than I.