Yes, I am somewhat familiar in passing with Lakoff's idea of metaphor. Something to think about for sure! I'd have to look to see how deep the studies are on it though. However, aren't some of the metaphors pretty complex in and of itself? Are the metaphors supposed to reduce to very primitive ones?

I observe something in the world that is round, but the Nominalist and Conceptualist would argue that roundness doesn't exist in the world, only in the mind. They would say that what I actually observe is one particular instantiation of roundness. In fact, nothing in the world can be exactly round, the most would be an approximation of roundness. — RussellA

Indeed, I'd agree with this mainly. How could it be that judgements such as "round" exist outside an interpretation of such? The thing just "is". How can properties be said to be instantiated in the object and not the mind? The ball has the potential to be actualized as round I guess. Properties need some sort of interpretant, so it seems that (only theoretically) a ball exists (as an event of some sort in space/time), and that (only in potentiality) it can have properties.

I will throw this out there, Speculative Realist, Graham Harman had an interesting idea of "vicarious properties" and "withdrawness". That is to say, humans really do "see" a small portion of the essence of an object, but that the object is always withdrawn or "hidden" besides the vicarious properties of objects it interacts with. This goes for human-object or object-object interactions. However, the idea of "vicarious properties" (properties that objects can share or relate to other objects with) seems a bit ad hoc. I don't know his theory well enough though. If there are any Speculative Realists in the house, please provide some more details.

Moral intuitions are personal; their existence does not depend on what other people believe. And moral intuitions are as diverse and contradictory as the cultural moral norms that shape them. So no, “X is a moral intuition because most people believe X” is false. — Mark S

Oh I get it and basically agree, but I present it because it is a common defense in arguments about morality to couch one's own morals with ad populum armor "You see my view is correct because it is representative of what most people think". Usually it starts out like, "Your idea is ridiculous, most people...". And of course, how can most people be wrong :roll:. Please read that with sarcasm.

I see conventional morality as a social phenomenon - it's imposed by a community, not by an individual - and not to shut down arguments but to control behavior. Otherwise, as I noted, I think we are in agreement. — T Clark

Ok, but this thread is about using the appeals to popularity as an indicator of whether something is a moral intuition: “X is a moral intuition because most people believe X". When and how do we determine if this is in fact true or just being used as an ad populum fallacy of justification (X must be a deeper moral intuition or truth, most people believe it!).

It seems clear that popularity doesn't make a moral choice right. If it did then mass killing all people aged over 40 because the majority of people are in favor of it would make this justifiable moral action. But at the same time, morality does seem to revolve around what most people think is appropriate behaviour - community standards, etc. What is the difference between a community standard which holds gay people are an abomination, or one which holds children should be protected from harm?

What makes one value seemingly immutable and another transitory or negotiable? — Tom Storm

Really good questions! I think this is a matter of just more empirical studies on cross-cultural societies and psychological experiments. However, intuition alone is simply a foundation perhaps, and not "morality qua morality" itself. That becomes hard to determine as to "what" is the locus of proper ethics. If it is the individual, the moral intuitions start looking like a sort of deontological ethics of "rights" and treating the individual with "dignity". If you determine the locus to be an aggregate, it starts looking more consequential or utilitarian. Certainly one would think "Justice" and "Empathy" could be a thing in both deontological and utilitarian contexts,

I agree with you on this. I don't think really moral behaviors are matters of convention. By "really moral" I mean behavior that reflects our common humanity and capacity for empathy. As I see it, "conventional morality" is a form of social control meant to enforce homogeneity and the smooth running of society. It's a police function. — T Clark

Conventional morality, if taken to mean "what most people believe" can be a form of social control in that it can be used to shut down arguments because it's meant to be presented as an indicator of what is truly moral (because most people believe it). If the argument doesn't go beyond this, it is simply a tool to advance ones preference that other views should not be considered. And mind you, because no other deeper analysis is usually made in these arguments, it isn't necessarily that the outside view is "wrong" because it is not moral, but simply because it is not the current norm. It very heavily relies on the evidence of "most people believe X" to be the case that X is true. Of course, if scrutinized for instances the other side might do many summersaults to get out of it such as "appeals to grey" (X happened in history, but no one really believed X).

I can't think of a situation where it is a valid statement, but maybe you can change my mind. — Tzeentch

It's hard to really. I think a lot of this comes down to thinking in terms of armchair evolutionary psychology. We think that if a particular belief at a particular time is held by so many, it must be an indication of a deeper psychological mechanism in humans. This faulty thinking is even more tempting if the belief persists over many eras of history.

If I had to define moral behavior on the fly, its defining charateristic seems that it is always linked to contributing to the genuine long-term well-being of all its participants.

Sometimes the two coincide, i.e. a behavior that contributes to long-term well-being is also believed my most people to indeed to be moral, but the "most people" part would not carry much relevance. — Tzeentch

I'm more of the understanding that a moral indicator is easiest to determine when you are doing something that is against your preference. Now mind you, I don't think that just because you are doing something against your preference, you are thus doing something moral, rather, it is simply a stronger indicator when this does happen. For example, if you really like to eat meat, but you believe eating meat is wrong for X reasons, then when you don't eat meat, you are doing something contrary to your initial preference. Again, this doesn't mean the ethic of not eating meat is thus right, but it might indicate that you are doing something for at least what you perceive to be a moral reason rather than a general preference.

Moral intuition thus might be a sense of self-domestication whereby if your preference is incongruent with an ethic, then it is an indicator of "acting out of morality". However, this is more contingencies then essential nature of what is moral by intuition. But perhaps it still has relevance for the content too, because maybe we generally "all" or "most" have built in notions of "fairness" (justice) or "empathy", but it is the temperance of these with our self-interest that is how the intuition becomes manifested as "morality".

Made some edits above.

If one were to accept that child-having is immoral, then refraining from it isn't necessarily a moral deed, but rather neutral, in the same way as for example 'not stealing' is. You probably wouldn't consider someone a moral person simply for 'not stealing'. — Tzeentch

@NOS4A2

:up:

The sad reality is that there are plenty of individuals to whom this may apply.

We simply don't know who they will be before they've lived out their lives, and that's essentially the gamble that a parent takes. — Tzeentch

I think this is the strongest argument for many people, because it is a prevalent belief (in everyday ethics, not politics) to think in terms of probabilities and not in terms of "rights" or "not treating people as a means to an end". But, though I 100% agree with the gambling argument (you don't know the outcome of that which you will cause for another), it's important to remember the deontological aspect- that you are playing with other people's lives. That is to say, YOU (the potential parent) will be imposing your will onto something that ANOTHER person will incur (rather permanently, and until they die). This is not a light decision, even though the evolutionary mechanism for its cause makes it so easy to bring about.

Bringing this back to the OP regarding burdens, is it ever okay to burden someone if you think you are doing good either by
a) from the burden itself (e.g. character building/ struggle overcoming), or
b) the burden is simply collateral damage for an intended good (happy experiences of life).

My proposal was that only if it is necessary is it ever justified. And necessary was defined as mitigating a greater harm with a lesser harm for that person who is being so imposed upon. This seems appropriate if we believe in the following:

a) individuals are the locus of ethics (not some vague notions of society or utility). That is not to say people aren't shaped by society, or that the two aren't linked, or that doing well by society cannot increase the individuals' well-being, but rather that experiences only ever happen at the individual level. There are no (as far as I know outside the Borg in Star Trek :smile:) trans-experiential experiences (mind you that should not be read as "no interpersonal exchanges" or there is no "theory of mind", there is a difference!). When I am suffering, it is "I" who will suffer. That is to say, there is something about the dignity of a person that is being overlooked when causing them suffering for whatever reason, if it is unnecessary.

b) It is believed that people should not be used as a means. (This one is tricky because there is a misconception that because the parent is intending to create a child so that it can have good experiences, that this negates that the child is being merely used in any way. However, it would seem that principles of non-harm and autonomy are always being violated by such intentions, and thus is self-defeating. The goal is brought about by questionable means that did not need to be brought about in the first place)

Metaphor? Can you explain? Do you mean simply that it is an ambiguous concept (ironically) :smile:?

Yeah, it is tricky defining concepts. One can argue as you seem to that qualia and forms (like roundness) are indeed concepts. But someone else might argue that these are proto-concepts. They are materials with which the concepts are created. Concepts are one step beyond, whereby there is a recognition of an object. The primitive might be something like, "Our brains perceive roundness". That THIS object is round, seems to be closer to the more "indexed" (or "tokenized") notion of a concept. Or perhaps just the recognition, "All balls are round" too. Abstractions and instantations.

Edit: Just riffing on my own idea.. There is an intermediary now that I think of it.. Ball-round is just an immediate understanding where "this ball" doesn't matter, just the immediate recognition. Thus in a sentence, "This ball is round" it is immediate that this is analytic upon no reflection. It is simply an externalization of the internal.

I totally agree. I understand certain primitive concepts as innate, such as the colour red, pain , etc. We then use these primitive concepts to build complex concepts based on our observations of the world, such as governments, mountains, etc. — RussellA

:up:

Without the foundation of primitive concepts, the building of complex concepts would fall down. — RussellA

Yes, I just think it goes back to what counts as a "concept". Are primitive concepts concepts, or are they just primitive epistemological tools? I know this sounds a bit pedantic but might have implications for language. That is to say, "recognizing red" and the "concept of red" could be two different things (even as a primitive concept), no? For example, red might need to be embedded with other things like "green (or any other color)", or associated with "red object" for the primitive a priori phenomena to be a concept that "red" has "aboutness" in some tokenized, discrete, "mind-object".

From that SEP article, the reference to Quine " Rather, there is simply no such thing as that to which our words refer."

Is pretty much my own encapsulation of why "Bachelor' is so problematic as a referent. As @Janus pointed out, just exactly "what" is marriage? The convention is imprecise really. Is it the ceremony? Is it the signing of a document? Is it the belief of others that the person is married? Is it what the people who are getting married believe? And on and on.

I think Kripke tries to sidestep this problem with his "all possible worlds" notion. Clever, but as we are seeing, possibly problematic. Certainly it seems so for "bachelor", but even for his more prototypical example of a Proper Name, it could get a bit dicey as to if the name really holds. I guess Kripke would say something like, "Even if John were completely replaced (Ship of Theseus), because there is no substance but rather, it is causally linked to something, it remains a rigid designator to the reference (read that as something akin to an "open set" that is causally linked to something)."

Kripke also runs into the problem that in order for his "modal logic" to work, he needs the concept of causality to be necessary and not contingent (very Kantian actually). But in all possible worlds, does this have to hold true in reality? I guess to Kripke, this point doesn't matter because the necessity of human understanding itself needs causality for all possible worlds (that is my interpretation at least).

I see my brother enter the room and immediately leave the room. There is no doubt in my mind that I have seen my brother enter and leave the room.

There is no doubt in my mind that the person entering and leaving the room are identical.

I would suppose that the brain's ability to know that it is the same object that moves through space and time is an innate mechanism that has developed over 3.7 billion years of evolution, rather than something that needs to be learnt.

After all, when we see a snooker ball roll over a snooker table, we don't think that every second the old snooker ball disappears and a new snooker ball appears. We know without doubt that it is the same snooker ball. We know without doubt the nature of identity. — RussellA

Yeah, the inferotemporal (IT) cortex has been demonstrated to be linked to object recognition (though the feature of "what" is being recognized to distinguish objects is still inconclusive).

Surely, this kind of distinguishing plays a role in how objects are given discrete identities that are the "tokenized sets" that might comprise concepts.

My point being that, the very fact of such mechanisms discounts convention-only theories of language acquisition. That is to say, if language relies on concepts, and concepts rely on specific brain regions devoted to things like object identity, then there is a clear path back to innate mechanisms necessary for language. This doesn't mean that behaviors don't take place, but to grab a certain @apokrisis common idea, there is the "downward causation" of the animal behavior acting upon the innate mechanisms of the brain, creating a semiotic feedback loop of sorts whereby both are necessary for this process of language, including the a priori mechanisms that may be needed to recognize meanings in concepts. However, I do understand that identification of objects and the meaning of objects are two different things. "That a ball is a ball" is one thing. That a ball is a round object and all other embedded ideas with it, is another. This needs some a posteriori knowledge, but the fact that things get "embedded" in a network of concepts is itself probably a mechanism. Certainly connectionist models of brain organization can (and do) account for this modelling on small scales. Thus, nativists and empiricists are both right.

You act as if you think what Buddhists mean by suffering and what you do are the same thing, but they're not. I'm certainly not any kind of expert in Buddhist beliefs, but I know they aren't talking about the suffering of getting up in the morning and going to work - the everyday stuff you use as the basis for your argument people should not have children. I find it hard to believe Buddhists are anti-natalists. Maybe somebody can set me straight. — T Clark

So you are doing your own motte-and-bailey here. You cannot explain to me what my understanding of Buddhism is so you provide vague notions of "going to work". Buddhism, like any religion/belief has a long set of beliefs, ideas, and "family resemblances". For me to explicate ALL of them to you is unreasonable. If you care to look at my profile, I have a rough outline of the differences between "Eastern" and "Western" ideas of suffering. But your mischaracterization of my understanding, besides being uncharitable, and an thinly veiled ad hom, is but a strawman and for what purpose? How is pointing out that "mindfulness" and Buddhist meditation techniques (as shorn from its Buddhist roots) has taken out some core elements, for its usefulness and advantage, not an example of exactly the argument of the OP? Where I believe I was right on target, your outburst against me is but a stinking red herring, stemming from who knows what perceived sleight you took my point as.

The name is unimportant so long as you get what you want... meaning is use. — Banno

Agreed as far as importance. Not sure if intended name has any real meaning if no one uses it. Not sure how causal link theory would respond other than the misheard name is part of the causal link. If no name is heard at all then perhaps a new baptism?

On the other hand if I just uttered that sentence you might have no idea what I am referring to, and only a supplementary description (or in this case maybe clue-based guessing) would inform you of what "Peter" refers to in this context. — Janus

Indeed, if a name is stated and no one else knows it’s referent, not sure. It’s still is a rigid designator I guess but weakly rigid. Ha

A mistake that’s apt for post on meaning and reference.

The word works, despite there never having been a baptism.

So on tow acounts, the causal chain theory does not seem to apply here. — Banno

I think I agree. What does TOW mean? Theory of Worlds?


Haha oh you mean two I think. In that case I agree.

I agree, but that a person was baptized with a particular name entails that the name refers to that person seems to be a somewhat trivial truth; a truism. I don't see it as telling us anything much. — Janus

Yeah. Something about baptizing an object provides a causal link between name and object. You don’t need a description, just this link to make the name refer to a given object or referent.

The problem there is, as you point out, that the defining descriptions cannot be adequately disambiguated. — Janus

Agreed here but…

The problem with names for persons and places is that more than one may have the same name, and that is where descriptions may need to come in to determine who is being referred to. — Janus

Though I agree often a description is needed to differentiate people with same name, that the name is referring to that particular person is still the case. Mind you, even if the name itself changed over time, there is still a causal link.

I do think there is a case for rigid designators for specific objects and entities though. There is a causal link of a name and a person that transfers so that that person is designated by that name in all possible worlds. But as to statements about conventions, harder to prove as the very entity itself is unclear and relies on contingencies.

Yes, I understand that there are possible nuances, and that's why I brought it up; it shows that the statement "a bachelor is an unmarried man" is not analytic, because it is not definitively and unambiguously true.

So, you say a bachelor is a man not living in a relationship with another person. I take it you mean a sexual relationship, because surely a man could have housemates and still be counted a bachelor? But then what if the man has sex with his housemate? Does he then cease to be a bachelor? Or as I said before what if a man lives with his sexual partner three or four days a week? — Janus

Yes these are points I was trying to present between the difference of the statement X is not not X and bachelors are unmarried males.

One is conventional and relies on a ton of contingencies, including definitions of marriage, being a precise thing, and people meeting that criteria. The other is defined by the way logic just operates. One can be prone to change and one, seemingly at least cannot. Someone might say something like “unmarried males is simply not a good enough rigid designator, in all possible worlds.” However, that begs the question: “Would there ever be a designator that would be good enough for a convention-based statement with ambiguous contingencies?

Not sure what you’re getting at. Suffering and death doesn’t occur if not born. Again doesn’t matter how you define that. It’s slowly moving the argument to when life starts which doesn’t need to be established for it being true that someone is born but there can be a counterfactual where this is not the case. In, fact, death and suffering result directly from the imposition of birth. It’s a main feature of this imposition.

Which act is the imposition, then? — NOS4A2

Being born is the imposition. Doesn’t matter how you define it’s origin.

It can’t be conception because there as yet no human being to impose upon. It cannot be in gestation because the child is being nurtured and nourished in a life-sustaining environment, without which is suffering and death. Should the mother worry about his consent as he dines on her placenta? Is it the cutting of the umbilical cord? It goes away naturally anyways. Breast feeding? Diaper changing? Imagine the child’s well-being if we didn’t do any of the above. — NOS4A2

Red herring. The argument doesn’t revolve around when the person is said to exist, just that it occurs.

I think you'd like Tomasello's view here:

Also, mind you, to not throw stones in glass houses. Many people are pretty disgusted with views like Marxism. I've written pretty extensively about the ad populum fallacy, and I know you know this fallacy is pervasive with a lot of ideas that people are knee-jerk hostile towards.

And it's not so simple as "this view is ultra violent" (it's not). Or that it is ultra-difficult (it's not). Or that it targets a particular group (it doesn't, it's universal). It's simply against people's conventional preferences. It's like eating meat, etc. But I am done with this tangent. Just needed that on the record.

All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; and third, it is accepted as self-evident. — Schopenhauer

Somewhere between 1 and 2.

It’s like that, and that’s the way it is. — Jamal

It’s like that only if that situation is brought about, no? I’m not a fan of is making a contingency into an inevitability. Can’t one both provide the minor solutions to alleviate the problems that occur from the decision and call for not creating the problem in the first place? Why not the latter?

:up: Indeed. We are all thrown into something given, not of our own.

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under circumstances of their own choosing, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.

My interests lie in this intractable injustice of the unwanted given. No one’s interested in that one because the change needed for it is not causing a major preference that people hold.

We can be revolutionary, but not too revolutionary.

I think this just shows a lack of understanding of what Buddhists mean by suffering. It's something different than the way you generally define it. — T Clark

How do you know that I don't know how Buddhists "define" it? Explain please.

It doesn’t have to be.

Also, there are many forms of what we call capitalism. I’m not arguing about that. The answer to my question isn’t simply caked into the system. It’s a very specific and fairly recent way of transferring wealth to shareholders, and it’s worth understanding. — Mikie

Sure, it's not mutually exclusive. It could be worth understanding, but my point is all systems are unfair to an extent that (unlike other animals) we are self-reflecting creatures that can dislike (and yet still must be a part of) any X system. Your version of a good system, might be different than mine. I might not like any system, in fact. And, it may be unfair that we are self-reflecting animals that are put into any system at all. That is indeed caked in. This is unlike any othe animals, where this isn't even a problem.

The problem I see with any economic discussion is that we pretend like people have no agency.

"I don't like capitalism" is a value.

I am born into a society that has capitalism, is a descriptive statement.

The value as compared with the "throwness" or "situatedness" of the societal context I am brought into is at odds. The harm is entailed with not with the system, but with being brought into the system at all.

Humans are not like other animals. A chimp, gorilla, elephant, dolphin doesn't say, "I am born into this system of survival, and I don't like it".

Where do the profits go? Why am I being exploited? This is unfair. It's already in the equation from the start- prior to even being a part of capitalism or any political economic system.

Meditation and mindfulness practices have gained popularity in recent times due to their reported benefits, such as reduced stress, increased focus, and enhanced well-being. When we engage in these practices, we are not necessarily seeking profound truths about the universe, but rather utilizing them as tools to optimize our mental and emotional states. This approach aligns with the idea that our primary motivation lies in extracting advantages from our experiences. — Raef Kandil

I love this observation :lol:. The shearing of Buddhist notions of life being suffering from the practices of mindfulness.

Ha, well, I was referring to his statement here:

Words are related and I fear you are being far too liberal with their use to suit your means - the folly of ‘debate’ (which I have strong dislike forbeing nothing other than a political weapon used to bend people to your will). — I like sushi

He is trying to invalidate the whole category of "debate" as simply "bending people to your will", the exact point this debate is making against child-having. I thought that was amusing in its irony.

And yes, people tend to lack a good answer, so don't want to deal with the implications, as it's depressing. It's also basically being too honest. It is something people rather not have said out loud.

Primitive innate concepts such as the colour red is one thing, but Chomsky weirdly argued for more complex innate concepts such as carburettors, Knowing that a carburettor is a device for mixing air and fuel means knowing the analytic fact that a carburettor is a device. — RussellA

Well there is a difference between:
carburetor is a device for mixing air and fuel and
carburettor is a device

No?

Objects have properties seems pretty embedded, no?

Also, is identity ever proposed as an innate mechanism? "This is that" is that learned or is that just a priori a part of human cognition? Mind you, I don't mean the content of the logic, just that kind of identity logic. If that is the case, I-language and analyticity can have a connection. If not, then it is just the way E-languages operate once labels are in place. That is to say, it is all convention, all the way down. But again, my whole theme here is that even "convention" or "habits" or anything that is processed through our brains, is still processed by some mechanism.

Just like your quote of mine from direct/indirect.. Whether something is direct/sensory only or indirect/representation, the brain is doing something.

Hence the dog might understand that it's master will take it for a walk, but not that its master will take it for a walk next Tuesday. — Banno

I just saw this. Yes agree, compositionality (merge). But it brings up an interesting understanding of differences of concepts based not just on syntactic merging of novel complex phrases, but the very ability to abstract. The term "Tuesday" for example is full of abstractions of various types.

Measurement and Counting and Pattern-Recognition: The 7 day week comes from the Babylonians dividing the month up from 28 days of the lunar cycle into 4 parts. The Romans renamed the days after their gods. The Germanic tribes like the Angles and Saxons took the Roman gods overlayed their own gods on top. For example, "Tiu" is their god of war, which corresponded with the Roman "Mars" (Martes still retains this in Spanish and Romance languages for example).

Ordinality: That there is something first, second, third, etc. Tuesday is the third day of the 7 day week.

Pragmatics: It is used to indicate a whole host of things. Not only what is happening on those days in a particular time, space, for particular people, but that it often indicates subtler cultural markers such as being associated with a workday as opposed to a non-work day (in general cases).

Images: The word Tuesday, the memory of an event of Tuesday, a color, person, image of something associated with the day, the embeddedness with other concepts like Monday, week, future, past.

Displacement of Time: That there is a present, future, and a past where this day may fall.



All these things and more are in place in humans and not animals.

I see a main argument here between the empiricists and nativists.

Nativists: There are epistemological tools in the brain that allow for separate modules like "measuring/counting/ordinality".

Empiricists: This is all based on general learning. But what does this mean? This too relies on a brain mechanism (things such as working, episodic, and long term memory, long-term potentiation, etc.). So where is this dividing line?

Is it really a dividing line between computationalism and connectionism in modern day parlance?

Anyways, going back to the dog and Tuesday, it is more than compositionality, these mental abilities (I just called it "abstraction" but that can be a misplacement of a more specific concept) that make it so complex. If I-language only refers to basically syntax (merge/compositionality) and not semantics, then indeed this would not have much to inform analyticity.

@RusselA you may be interested.

Motte: The climate is changing. Something should be done. We're not climate change deniers! — Mikie

A lot of times the target is moved. I am not sure if that is Motte-and-Bailey but I think this is...

"There are too many guns to try to get rid of any or put restrictions now. it's too late."

"But each time there are specific cases where purchasing X firearms was due to the circumstance that could have restricted that person's access."

"Well, it's a right, so it doesn't matter anyway. What can you do?"

The target went from a consequentialist argument "It's useless to try because it will not be effective" to a deontological one about rights, "It's simply built into the Constitution so what can you do?".

It could be simply a red herring fallacy. Intentionally diverting the argument to a different one.

What do you think? Is it helpful and does it do anything that other informal fallacy concepts don't already do? — Jamal

Another fallacy similar to the motte-and-bailey I've seen is "unreasonable request for proof".

There are well-established facts let's say (the Earth evolves around the Sun, etc.). Let's say the claim is that "most people" cannot be used as a defense because it is an appeal to popularity fallacy. For example, "most people" throughout history have had different notions as to whether slavery is an acceptable practice (almost all empires, tribes, early modern states, thought this acceptable etc). Thus, appealing to notions of what's popular would be wrong as a basis for morality.

However, the other person claims that this is not the case, and that a majority of people indeed did think this practice was wrong. Now, the levels of proof are raised to a much harder level. The interlocutor has to defend the premise that people viewed slavery differently throughout history by searching many examples of historical texts for primary and secondary sources just to show the established fact that people had different notions of the practice of slavery over time. The interlocutor has stalled the debate with unreasonable proof.

I would assume Hume takes certain abilities as innate natural instincts, such as hearing, seeing, feeling, loving, hating, desiring and willing. It would follow that rather than learning the instinct of loving and hating from the world, we project our instincts of loving and hating onto the world. — RussellA

Ah, Hume is more Kantian at second glance here.

Hume's argument was that concepts like causation are not inherent in the world but rather are products of our thought patterns or "habits of thought." However, if Hume's philosophy relies so heavily on a priori reasoning, why did Kant feel the need to refute him? Kant disagreed with Hume's claim that all knowledge comes solely from sensory experience and the constant connection between these experiences. However, it should be noted that Hume's theory essentially describes the process of inference, which relies on a mechanism within the brain. This indicates that some sort of innate mechanism is necessary for his theory, though it may be less modular than the theories of Kant and Chomsky. Nonetheless, the exact nature of this mechanism remains unclear.

Who is this "I" if not a reification? It is the socially constructed objectification of the quality of "you-ness" that arises as a necessity of semiosis. — apokrisis

Why does socially constructed change the fact that there is a sensation any more than the rods and cones? Causation doesn’t equal ontological identity. So it’s the same Cartesian theater trick at a different level. How is this semiotics equivalent to an experience of sensation. Map and terrain. You know the argument. The terrain is matter not experience and the map is semiosis, but where’s the experiential aspect? It doesn’t add up even if you mention top down causation of social construction. It’s just more map but also a bit of consequent on the premise, etc. the feedback mechanism of higher and lower skips the part to be described. social construction needs minds that can sense already in the equation.

Also, information isn’t necessarily experiential just computational. You’d have to prove this information can be identical to experience.