There must be, that doesn't mean you can determine it beforehand, or that it's on me to determine it. — neomac

Yeah, you can't wash your hands of it so easily. It's your governments making the decisions, it's your job to hold them to account. It's just morally bankrupt to throw up your hands and say "it's not up to me" that's just basically inviting authoritarian rule.

you've been saying for a few pages that the use of the word cannot give us any reified object, but now you say that there is always a feeling of pain associated with the felicitous use of the word? — Luke

Yes, that's right. The 'feeling of pain' is not a reified object. It's a folk notion. It exists in that sense (like the category 'horses' exists), but there's no physical manifestation of it.

Then how could we ever learn to use the word? — Luke

By trying it out and it's having a useful and predictable effect.

According to Wittgenstein, linguistic meaning is all 2), and 1) is his beetle in the box: not a something, but not a nothing either.

This is probably why you find 1) scientifically uninteresting, but I find it philosophically interesting. — Luke

Yes. I find it philosophically interesting too. What I'm arguing against here is there being any kind of 'problem' with the fact that neuroscience (dealing with physically instantiated entities) cannot give a one-to-one correspondence account connecting these entities to the folk notions 'pain' and 'consciousness' (as well as 'feeling', 'it's like...', 'aware', etc).

It's not a problem because it's neither the task, nor expected of science to explain all such folk notions in terms of physically instantiated objects and their interactions.

Basically, because (2) is at least possible, there's no 'hard problem' of consciousness because neuroscience's failure to account for it in terms of one-to-one correspondence with physically instantiated objects may be simply because there is no such correspondence to be found.

it's difficult to get clear on your position. — Luke

I'll try and clarify...

All we have is that the word (sound) came out of my mouth (or was formed in my Broca's area, if not actually verbalised). Nothing else.

There's then two options...

1) there's some state of my brain or body which consistently is associated with that word, which is present every time I felicitously use it. We can call this state 'pain' too.

2) I use the word 'pain' for a variety of reasons which might change from day to day, depending on how I'm feeling, what is going on around me. My reasons might differ from yours. Some interocepted signal from my nociception circuits might be involved, but might not. There's no one-to-one correspondence with any state of my body or brain, there's no physical manifestation of the word 'pain'.

I'm arguing something like (2) for both 'pain' and 'consciousness'.

I don't follow why there cannot be a feeling of pain associated. — Luke

The quote was "... cannot not be a feeling of pain associated."

We're not doing well are we?

Ah! My apologies. I missed the last bit. I was answering affirmatively to...

Your "agreement" that people have pains seems to be no more than that people know how to use the word "pain" — Isaac

...the last bit ("that there is never any feeling of pain involved") doesn't make sense. There cannot not be a feeling 'pain' associated with the felicitous use of the word 'pain'. It's what the word means. The question here is not about whether people are using the folk notion felicitously. Of course they are. It's whether the folk notion refers to any object of science (or should).

You keep asking the equivalent of "when people say 'pain' do they mean pain?" That has no bearing on the question of the hard problem.

We're asking rather "is it odd that our use of the concept 'pain' doesn't have a physical referent. Is it a 'problem' for neuroscience?"

There is always a feeling of pain associated with the (felicitous use of the) word pain. — Isaac


In your previous post you said the opposite: — Luke

Did I, or did I not use the word 'pain' in the sentence "There is always a feeling of pain associated with the (felicitous use of the) word pain"?

If you agree with Wittgenstein's statement that when you have pain you cannot doubt that you have pain, then it doesn't make any sense to be wrong (or right) about it. — Luke

Of course it does, because the thing it makes no sense to doubt is that I'm in pain. The word. I couldn't possibly know I'm in pain unless someone had taught me the word.

If there is never any feeling of pain involved with people's expressions of pain, then in what sense do they have pain(s)? What is the difference between pain-behaviour with pain and pain-behaviour without pain? Or can there be no pretence of pain? — Luke

You keep using the word 'pain' in your discussion of pain. Obviously that whole discussion is going to be internally consistent. We're talking here about the extent to which it ought to match up to the objects of physical science (in this case brains). If you ask "do people have a pain when they say (truthfully) 'I have a pain?" then obviously the answer is yes. That's the definition of 'pain', it's felicitous use.

The question here is whether that use refers to an object of science (here neuroscience) and whether it's odd, in need of explanation, if it doesn't. Is it odd that we can't find a consistent brain function associated with our folk notion 'pain'?

So pressing the issue solely within our folk notions doesn't get us anywhere. Yes, they're pretty consistent internally. They've been around for thousands of years, it would indeed be odd if we found out they weren't.

Yet you admit there is never any feeling of pain involved with the use of the word "pain". — Luke

There is always a feeling of pain associated with the (felicitous use of the) word pain. It's the definition of the word. It has no bearing at all on whether there's an object of scientific enquiry that matches up with it. There need not be any physical manifestation associated with using the term.

The word 'pain' might be associated with some amorphous, family-resemblance collection of physical stimuli - ever-changing with cultural mores and linguistic convention. It might be hanging in space like the word 'ether'. It might be associated one-to-one with some brain state. There's nothing about its use that implies any of these options over any other.

why did you ignore my third question? — Mikie

I didn't have any disagreement with that.

Question 1 and 2 are ambiguous and rhetorical. — Mikie

Ah, I understand. Then it seems we don't really have a point of disagreement after all. Workers are not currently free to negotiate equally which is what leads to such clearly unfair distribution arrangements and the situation is clearly getting worse.

So, out of the solutions available, which do you favour? Minimum wage (effectively a legal lower threshold on the distribution arrangement), or Universal Basic Income (removes much of the coercion so that each party is more equal). Or do you have a third option you prefer?

If someone says they are in pain they are, if they are not lying, referring to a pain that they feel. — Janus

I don't think here is a sensible place to rehash Wittgenstein's arguments. Suffice to say a bland assertion that words do refer doesn't suffice as a counterargument to the claim that they don't.

You agreed that people have pains. — Luke

That's how we use the word. I'm separating out how we use a word from that which needs scientific explanation. I don't see any argument that us using a word somehow automatically means there's an object/event there in need of explanation. How are we always right? Are you claiming we have some kind of deep intuitive insight into the workings of the universe? I'm just not seeing the link.

I use the word 'pain' same as everyone else because I've been taught how to use it. One of the ways to use it is to say (of someone saying "ouch!") "he's in pain". Nothing in that use reifies 'pain'.

Your "agreement" that people have pains seems to be no more than that people know how to use the word "pain"; that there is never any feeling of pain involved. — Luke

That's right.

Is it not scientifically relevant to investigate mental events? — Luke

Investigate, yes. But it's not a problem for the science that it can't find anything which correlates to the folk notion. It's not its job to match everything up. Some things won't match. To suggest that everything will match up is to imply we already know all the fundamental objects of the universe somehow.

As far as I know, anomalous monism does not deny that there are mental events. — Luke

Nor am I.

Western countries didn't give Ukraine tens of billions in aid before Russia invaded because they did not think Russia would actually invade — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's not true. Some analysts thought Russia would invade. Others didn't. Western governments chose which analysts to base their policy on.

Likewise (even more so) with Ukraine's chances of achieving their objectives (with military aid). Some analysts think them reasonable, others think them very low. Western governments chose which analysts to believe.

Since we're not privvy to the full range of analysis, nor (most of us) qualified to assess its accuracy, our task, in holding our governments to account, is to analyse their reasons for those choices.

That's the analysis you're dodging by just blithely saying "no one", and "it's obvious".

It's never obvious and there are always dissenting voices, which means it's always a choice, and therefore there's always a reason for that choice.

I can't see how you square...

The Germans and French vocally disagreed with the US about the threat of war, and even top level US diplomats seemed skeptical about an actual war right up until the invasion. — Count Timothy von Icarus

...with...

Ukraine's long term survival didn't seem obvious until later in the spring of last year. — Count Timothy von Icarus

...?

It's not like literally every analyst thinks Ukraine are going to survive long-term now. Some do, some don't. Seems the same as before when some analysts thought there would be a war and some didn't.

You seem, if I'm reading you right, to be saying that it's obvious Western governments didn't prepare Ukraine for war before 2022 because only some (not all) analysts thought there'd be a war. Then you use exactly the same argument for why it's now obvious they do prepare Ukraine for war (some analysts, but not all, think they'll survive).

It seems hard to avoid the conclusion that Western governments pick and choose which analysts to believe depending on which support the policy they were rooting for anyway

When they didn't want to arm Ukraine, they listened to the ones saying there'd be no war. When they want to arm Ukraine, they listen to the ones saying Ukraine has a good chance of surviving and more weapons will work.

Yes, a word that is often defined as a feeling or sensation. — Luke

A word can't be defined as a thing. That's the whole point of Wittgenstein's argument against reference. We use the word pain, it does a job, it's not pointing at a thing.

You have agreed that it makes no sense for one to doubt that they are in pain. Therefore, are you arguing that people don't exist? Or that they don't have pains and doubts? Or that people are only words? — Luke

None. I'm a competent user of English, so I can agree that people have pains and doubts since I know how to use both of those words. Nothing in my use of the words commits me to the existence of some scientifically relevant entity to which they point. Words don't point at things.

you've already agreed that people have doubts and pains, and you've already agreed with Wittgenstein's statement that it makes no sense for a person to doubt they are in pain. So I don't see what your point is. — Luke

That none of that agreement brings an entity into existence to which those words must refer. Knowing how words are used is clearly not the same as knowing what sensible entities exist

You claim either that consciousness is nothing more than a human fiction, or else it's not a fiction but there's no need to explain it. In short, that human experiences are make believe and there's nothing more to consciousness but language use and other behaviour. On the other hand, you've recently told me you do not deny that people have pains, doubts, thoughts, etc, so it's unclear. — Luke

I'm not claiming to be an expert on the matter, but if there's something you don't understand about anomalous monism it might be more profitable to explore that first rather than assume I'm being unclear in my use of it. If you have a clear understanding of the notion, but my position remains unclear, then there'd be some matter to resolve, but as it stands I'm not seeing where your issue is with my holding those two positions. One is a matter of psychology, the other a matter of neuroscience. Anomalous monism clearly sets out how the two are not sharing the same ontology, so there'd be no reason to see any lack of clarity in those two positions.

The argument is completely nonsensical; all non-nuclear nations that might develop nuclear weapons would be for deterrence purposes, and mainly from the United States and not Russia or China or other neighbour's, they would not look at nuclear weapons as a means to expand their territory.

Thousands of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them are required to threaten the entire planet. — boethius

Agreed.

If Russia won any territory here, the only way one could invoke the threat of nuclear weapons as a factor would be in keeping US involvement at bay.

So the message, correctly, would be "getting intercontinental nuclear weapons will prevent the US from getting involved in your territorial and regional disputes".

Since the US has been responsible for the deaths of nearly half a million civilians in it's wars just since 9/11 https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians - that may prove to be a good thing.

(not that I'm claiming that message makes any more sense - just a reductio)

The only message which does make sense is, of course...

the major powers will reduce their nuclear stockpiles, lower nuclear tensions and be generally more reasonable, and in exchange the non-nuclear powers will not seek nuclear weapons. — boethius

... but any journalist who can, with a straight face, argue that the best way to reduce the risk of nuclear conflict is to provoke a nuclear power, has lost any right to be taken seriously.

... but then it's The Atlantic, so ...

No. It argues that "If nuclear threats or the actual use of nuclear weapons leads to the defeat of Ukraine..."

It offers no argument at all suggesting that "any means necessary" will prevent that eventuality.

Clearly some means might, other means might fail so catastrophically as to bring it about.

No one here wants war to escalate. The debate is about the best means to prevent that.

OK, I'm interested in the idea of a compassionate, caring individualist. There's over a million children in Yemen right now on the brink of starvation. The UN is delivering aid using about $2 billion of taxpayer's money. The collectivist, big government, strategy.

Given that the individualist cares about these starving children, what's the individualist strategy to prevent their suffering?

Sorry, but I see a very clear moral component between democracy and totalitarianism. — Mikie

Well then that's to do, not with the distribution, but the power of the participants to freely negotiate.

Coming up with a 'right' way to distribute profits just moves that power from a political authority to a moral one. It doesn't put that power back in the hands of the people who benefit from the deal thereby struck.

I'm arguing that there is no 'right' way to distribute the profits of a co-operative enterprise, but there is a right amount of freedom to negotiate. That freedom is brought about by removing the coercion, removing the imbalance in power between employer and employee. It's not brought about by deciding how profits ought to be distributed.

Because I’m not in favor of unjustified power, in this case corporate tyranny. — Mikie

It's not corporate tyranny if everyone freely agreed that to be the appropriate deal in that case. Your target is off. It's not the outcome that's at fault, it's the conditions of coercion which lead to such outcomes.

If everyone concerned had input into how profits were distributed, I’d have little problem with whatever was decided. — Mikie

Right. That's precisely what I've been saying. There's no profit distribution that's automatically right or wrong, it's about the degree of coercion, the power imbalance in those negotiations. If we removed that, a 90% split to investors could still be right, if that's what everyone freely agreed.

The only answer to the question...

(1) Should some of the 100 people get more of the total profit accumulated per year compared to others? If it's not equally distributed, who should get more -- and based on what criteria?

(2) If so, how much more? Should 60% of the pie go to this individual or group of individuals -- say 10 people? Or should it be more like 30%? What about 90%? — Mikie

... is "whatever arrangement the participants freely arrive at".

It is a description that shows the result of only considering "groups" of individuals and their opinions to adequately represent people living together in a particular society. All the different ways people work, judge themselves, mate, educate children, and govern themselves are not simply an aggregate of their opinions. — Paine

I've literally said that people could be grouped by any means (used dog owners as an example, if I recall). Owning a dog is not an opinion.

Opinions, by themselves, do not do anything. — Paine

We're not talking about what opinion 'do' so I don't see the relevance of this. we're talking about the moral weight one ought give the aggregated opinion of a certain grouping.

You present the absence of Ukrainian agency as a fact, authorizing the removal of their voice from any moral calculus. — Paine

Where? I'm arguing the exact opposite. That one could create any grouping at all and get an aggregated opinion. We could take into account the aggregated opinion of {all the people east of the Dnieper}, we could take into account the aggregated opinion of {all the people who've held a Ukrainian passport for more than 10 years}, or {all the people who own a Ukrainian flag}... I'm asking why we ought to take into account the opinion of your chosen grouping {anyone living within the current borders of Ukraine}.

You've not yet provided any reason at all why the aggregated opinion of that particular group matters to us more than the opinion of any other group.

You champion Mearsheimer's theory of International Relations as the best explanation of the events unfolding in Ukraine. You discount previous behavior by Russia as indicative of anything happening in this conflict. — Paine

Yes. What's that got to do with the argument here?

All of your 'moral' arguments are made upon the basis of what you have argued to be happening. — Paine

Some. Not all. Is that something you consider particularly unusual?

I would not be happy with drawing any very definite conclusion from that. It looks more than a bit undergraduate to me. — unenlightened

There's also PlosOne's rather poor record on peer review...

Nonetheless. I think an explanation without taking social influence into account is ridiculous. What's more worrying now is the distinct imbalance developing in favour of girls seeking to reject their birth sex in favour of the (let's face it) somewhat more socially promising, male form.

Westerners don't have any frame of reference for understanding what happened in the USSR. — frank

So...

I agree. — frank

Is of no use to anyone since you're a 'Westerner' and so "don't have any frame of reference for understanding what happened in the USSR".

Or are you the special one?

I'm wondering, is there an (implicit) argument against democracy ("majority dictatorship") here somewhere? — jorndoe

It's relevant only insofar as the majority decision in some place carries only a pragmatic weight, not a moral one. Majorities are not just automatically right. The 'right' course of action in Ukraine is not determined by consulting the Ukrainians and going with the majority. Gun laws in America are wrong, no matter what the majority say.

We're currently supporting Ukrainian fighting, even to the retaking of the Donbas and Crimea. That means we (the ones doing the support) have a moral decision to make as to whether that course of action is right. It's not just automatically right because a majority of Ukrainians want it. That would be patently absurd. Hence the 'agency' here is irrelevant. Since the US, UK etc are not bound by the enfranchised of Ukraine, we are under no obligation whatsoever to support the results of consulting that polity.

Even the Ukrainian government, technically, are elected representatives. They're supposed to represent the interests of the polity, not necessarily do exactly as they say. But we, other states, have absolutely no obligation at all to do what the polity in Ukraine says they want.

The word 'polity' does not mean a grouping by means of a shared property. — Paine

Yes, that's why I referred to any such grouping.

This atomizes the participation of each individual in their location to the point that they are not in a place. It is like a theater filled with a hundred Descartes who have nothing to do with the other Descartes sitting next to them. — Paine

I have no idea what this means, I'm afraid. Everyone is in a place, so we could include that place in our groupings. Let's say 'East of the Dnieper' is such a place. How does that change the moral weight given to the opinion of the people there?

nothing you have presented demonstrates that people actually live like that. — Paine

Nor does it need to. I'm making a moral argument. Moral arguments are about the way things ought to be, not about the way things are.

Then it is not only about the use of words; it is also about actually having pain — Luke

'Pain' is a word.

I'm not arguing that using a word necessarily implies the existence of anything. — Luke

Yet...

it follows that there are things/people which exist that can have pains and doubts (among other things). — Luke

...is a direct claim about existence resulting from the use of a word.

if to have a doubt is to have a lack of certainty with regards to some proposition, then there must be someone to doubt it. — Luke

Exactly. "If..." The existence is not given by the use.

It seems to me that you also equate "consciousness" with talk of the outer behaviour of bodies. — Luke

Does it? From which particular comments?

Is there any model aside from the social that can explain this increase? — unenlightened

Not really, but the question is whether the social change is allowing undiagnosed cases to come forward or actually creating cases.

The problem I have with the former option is...

a) it strikes me as an oddly functional cusp, just about accepted enough for people to come forward for treatment, but still so unaccepted that people really need treatment to avoid the massive trauma of remaining in their existing phenotype. Just fundamentally unlikely, but possible.

b) there is, without doubt a growing trend, young people in certain circles are very keen on the whole trans 'thing' - this would mean the effect is minimal, but it's mainly young people that are coming forward, so I find that hard to believe.

Ultimately, I think it's difficult not to see a strong social positive effect (as opposed to the removal of a retraining effect).

The seminal article is this one https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0202330 , but it's been much criticised.

The difference here is just the degree to which the specifics are left to speculation. — fdrake

Agreed, as to the difference, and also the significance of that difference. I suppose I'm less trusting of pharmaceuticals, we can agree to differ on this, it's resolution being perhaps outside the scope here.

What do you take as the campaign objectives of Mermaids? I don't have a good sense of a unified ideology for them, over and above making things easier for trans people. — fdrake

I don't really see much of an overarching campaign objective. They've run some harmless, even positively beneficial campaigns, but on gender-affirming medical treatment, they've been overstepping medical advice. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/transgender-lobby-group-mermaids-urges-puberty-blockers-for-12-year-olds-b96zqbh2k
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/sep/30/transgender-charity-mermaids-investigated-breast-binders-given-to-children
They were still promoting places like Mike Webber's clinic and GenderGP long after they were struck off for clinical malpractice prescribing puberty blockers to under 12s

External pressure from campaigners (including a group called Mermaids) and some parents made difficult clinical decisions more difficult, and in consequence there were staff who sometimes found detachment difficult. Accusations of transphobia and homophobia were made. — Ms. S. Appleby vs Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust

a number of GIDS staff have brought some concerns to my attention of late. Predictably, there are challenges regarding Mermaids, rogue medics and the political expectations of the national service. Perhaps more worrying are the manifestations of a number of splits within the team (not unusual) but I have been reported is quite potent: (a) team members feel they are coerced into not reporting safeguarding issues, and to do so is “trans phobic”; (b) lack of confidence in Children’s Social Care (c) an unhelpful development regarding the linking of the politics of sexuality and gender issues.

And on shutting down disagreement, they've been positively disgraceful, as we've discussed above.

I get the impression that, because your position applies to lots of medical interventions, the best consistent response for you is to bite the bullet that recognises the inconsistent and flawed treatment in society, mandate "it ought to be the case that more medical interventions should be strongly based on data from controlled studies", and claim in absence of such data, no intervention should be taken. Whenever benefits+uncertainty = costs + uncertainty, do nothing. — fdrake

Yes. I have taken similar stances on other pharmaceutical interventions. Full disclosure though, I'm writing most of this second hand. My wife has been campaigning to de-pathologise children's mental health issues for almost her entire career. I get an earful post-work and total submission to the cause is easiest (only slightly joking!). She's furious (and has been directly affected by the changes in approach) and would probably bite your head off, so I'm trying to see what arguments there are to temper such fury.

I think this would have more bite if it wasn't already granted that gender affirmation treatment is both a social and a bodily intervention. — fdrake

This sounds interesting, but I'm not following exactly, could you expand a bit? Are you suggesting that we could see gender affirming therapies as less problematic because they are more holistic already? That could well have legs.

I agree. What is especially frustrating is that Mermaids and trans rights groups are not problematising the discussion by themselves, the arguments you're giving really are used by people "out in the wild" as means of stymying the improvements of trans rights. In our context, we can discuss them with more leeway. Out in the wild, they're often treated as weapons, so it's no surprise that such moves are seen as attacks. — fdrake

Yeah, it's part of this move to divide everything into two opposing camps with each getting more vehemently opposed to the other. It's a really interesting phenomena because what seems to be happening is that the workings of the social media algorithms have become cultural, people replicate those AI objectives in settings outside of AI control, it's like the AI has become an influencer in our culture... Anyway, another topic...so many interesting threads to pull on here.

Like I asked unenlightened, how do you think trans people ought to be treated? — fdrake

Like anyone else, allowed to do what they like so long as it doesn't harm others and be free from overt coercion, especially during more vulnerable ages. It's not a privilege I think they currently enjoy form both sides.

I think the issues here are bigger than the minority group though. Trans people have a hard time. They'll continue to have a hard time if they're given access to treatments and also if they're given access to counselling, but (and I don't mean this to be insensitive), there's not many of them. The effect n society of the manner in which this debate is being conducted I think has far greater potential for harm than any movement in either direction on trans populations. If our culture cannot re-learn how to deal with differences of opinion without demonising or beatifying I think the devastating effect that failure has already had will only get worse.

The resources you asked for. I'm told these are comprehensive reviews.

https://journals.lww.com/co-psychiatry/Abstract/2015/11000/Gender_dysphoria_in_children_and_adolescents__a.6.aspx

https://jme.bmj.com/content/48/9/603.full

That’s a great article. Thanks for sharing! :up: — Luke

From the article...

For him the desire to reify the "psychological" is bound up with the view that all language is essentially referential in nature. It is linked with the idea that the primary function of words is to provide names for objects. It is also bound up with the notion that the essential aim of language is to effect a simple form of communication. The idea that when I tell you what is "going on inside me" I use words like "sharp pain" to pass on information to you. If you are acquainted with "sharp pains" yourself, if you know what kind of things those words designate, then by analogy you gain an insight into my situation. For Wittgenstein, this picture of how language operates generates (and supports) the idea of an "inner realm of mental events" which looks non-trivially like the "mental realm" conjured up by Descartes' philosophy of mind.

It is the name-object view of language and its attendant metaphysics that Wittgenstein challenges

Exactly the same as the challenge I'm using.

Why is "I doubt I'm in pain" nonsensical? — Luke

Because the word 'doubt' has no meaning in that context. Doubt is used when the data is lacking, but the data can't be lacking about pain because we treat the data as being already given. It's part of the definition.

Again, all this might not actually be the case (where by 'actually the case' I mean scientifically demonstrated in some way). It's just the way we declare things to be when we use the words that way.

If "the internal coherence of language" is about logic or logical necessity, then so is the use of the word "doubt". — Luke

It isn't. Necessity is a modal concept. That which must exist. The only way I can see it entering into logic is modally - if X then Y. So we could say "if the word doubt refers to a scientific object/event, then it implies there's a thinking subject also as a scientific object", but simply using the word doesn't cash out that modality.

Right, it's logically implied. — Luke

Indeed, as above. If there are 'whatsits' with 5 arms and 'thingamabobs' with 2 then it is logically implied that 'whatsits' have more arms. But since there might not be either, the existence of either and the truth of the statement "'whatsits' have more arms than 'thingamabobs'" is undecidable.

I agree that the use of a word does not necessarily imply the existence of something. But do you deny that people have pains, doubts, thoughts, etc? — Luke

No. Hence anomalous monism. I'm denying that our calling these entities into being with our language creates a necessity for science to explain them.

Consider the 'path of the stars through the heavens'. Such a folk notion is well understood and very few people would be confused by it. A thousand years ago, it would have been the only understanding of the night sky. But science cannot explain the path of stars through the heavens. There's no scientific explanation for their trajectory and momentum. The don't move. We do. Science showed that our folk notion was just wrong. It didn't explain the movement, it showed there was no such movement. Someone, nowadays asking "but how do the stars move across the sky, what propels them?" would never get an answer from science, which satisfied them.

I see no reason why our folk notions of our psychology should exist as scientific objects in need of explanation any more that the apparent propulsion of the stars stands in need of explanation.

It's like asking for a scientific explanation of "2", or of "horses (the category)". There isn't one, they're part of folk psychology, they don't necessarily need to be part of scientific ontology.

I think this would be a good topic for a thread. Don't have time to start one. — bert1

In my view, it's the essence of the confusion here. We use words 'consciousness', 'I', 'thinking', 'redness', 'experience'... And there's an expectation that the objects of science have to match up causally with those words.

I cannot see, nor have been yet presented with, any reason at all why they should. Human language can contain any word at all and those words can be used successfully without any necessity for there to be a scientific object or event matching that word.

As I gave the example of earlier, early scientists used to refer to 'ether' and each would know what the other meant. Their use of the word didn't create a necessity for science to explain what 'ether' was. It doesn't exist, there's no such thing.

It does not seem to be by definition that it makes no sense for me to doubt whether I am in pain. — Luke

In what way? I'm trying to get how a fact about reality is supposed to be implied by a fact about language. The word 'doubt' is used in such a way as makes "I doubt I'm in pain" nonsensical, makes "I doubt I'm thinking" garbage... But these are facts about the use of the word 'doubt', they're not about logical necessity.

If, for example, I declare that 'whatsits' have 5 arms and 'thingamabobs' have 2 it is logically implied that 'whatsits' have more arms. But this says nothing about the necessary existence of either.

If I use a word 'doubt' and it's sensible use requires also an 'I' to do the doubting, this likewise says nothing about the necessary existence of either.

I don't see the point you're making. Wittgenstein here seems to be supporting anomalous monism if anything. He's pointing out what it "makes sense" to say - the internal coherence of the language. Still nothing has been discovered. We did not possess two facts and thereby deduce a third.

He's saying that if one looks at the way 'doubt' is used, it would not make sense to say "I doubt I'm in pain".

He's not saying if one looks at the way 'doubt' is used one can thereby deduce the necessary existence of the subject of that doubt.

1) a physicalist monism (therefore keeping atheism safe from woo OR 2) an ontological dualism allowing for more traditional forms of Western theism OR 3) a non-physicalist monism (idealism), mysticism and the East? 4)? — Tom Storm

4) Anomalous Monism

Since thinking is only known to be practiced by (some) entities it is a plausible conclusion that wherever thinking is occuring there will be an entity doing it. — Janus

'Thinking' is not only known to be practised by these certain entities. we didn't discover 'thinking' and then look around for anything which had it. we made up the word 'thinking' as being 'that thing which these entities do'.

So we haven't discovered a truth of any sort. we just use a word a certain way and people know what to do with it when we do.

Se my response above. We declare there to be an "I" by using the term in the sentence "I doubt". We don't discover the truth therein.

"Implies" as in strongly suggest the truth of.
This should not be hard to understand. — Caldwell

I'm afraid incredulity isn't an argument.

Where do you think doubt comes from? — Caldwell

Doubt is quite a complex state of mind, I think, but it usually seems to come from a having less data about a future prediction, or assessment than you feel you ought to have. I don't know how that's relevant to the discussion though.

Let's talk normal language. — Caldwell

I am. Normal language is made up. We invented it. We didn't discover it. When we use a word 'doubt' in conversation, it work because the other language users all know how to respond to its use. so if the word 'doubt' is used to refer to the mental state of a thinking being, it has not 'implied' one exists. We have not 'discovered' that one must exist simply by using the word. we've declared that one exists by using the word.

The plain English of Russell's notation for "I am doubting" is (something like) "there exists a thing "I" such that it has the property of "doubting"". It declares that "I" exists. It doesn't 'discover' or 'imply' it.

Why? It’s like arguing there’s no answer to how we cut a pie. It depends on many things, and there’s not one ultimate answer that applies in all cases, but there are answers to be had. — Mikie

I didn't say there was no answer, I said there was no moral weight to it. There's no way it ought to be done. There are, of course, multiple ways it can be done.

I don’t think distributing 90% of profits to shareholders is fair, and I don’t think the undemocratic decision making process that leads to that distribution is fair either. — Mikie

So why not?

We've established that some people might contribute more than others, right? So we'd not expect an equal distribution. But we can't determine a fair distribution objectively either because it relies on the value of scarcity and risk, and those evaluations are subjective. The rewards for those things depend on how much we want them. So any cooperative scheme which distributes its profits according to the values the members have for scarcity and risk is going to have to arrive at a mutual agreement among the members, there isn't an objective one.

The problem we have these days is not the fact that arrangements are worked out without an objectively judged framework, it's that people are not freely taking part, they don't have a fair say in those arrangements, they're coerced into accepting terms they wouldn't otherwise.

Now, we could fix that by enforcing an arrangement they would be happy with, if they were more free to set terms, but why do that when we can instead remove the coercion and allow them to decide for themselves what terms they're happy with?

If one rejects any kind of "thinking alike" in forming polities — Paine

It's not that there's no polities. One could create any such grouping - {all dog owners} - for example. It's...

1) a border does not create such a grouping other than {all the people who live within that border}

...and following from (1)...

2) there's no.moral weight to any aggregation of views from those grouped by such means.

The aggregated views of {all the people who live within that border} has no meaning. It's just a random means of stratification unrelated to the opinion being aggregated.

As such, all this talk of Ukrainian agency and Ukrainian objectives is nothing but propaganda. There's no moral weight at all to the happenstance aggregate opinion of all the people who happen to be encompassed by an arbitrary spatial line.

To illustrate. If we did want to use the opinion of the people affected to influence our decision... Why aren't we asking those on the Russian side of the border? They'll definitely be affected.... Why are we asking people on the Western border of Ukraine (hundreds of miles away) but not just over that border... Why are we asking the rich Ukrainian businessmann (who arguably has the resources to weather most storms), but not the Yemeni child who might not live in Ukraine but will undoubtedly be more affected?

moving borders is quite rare these days in conflicts — ssu

Except...

1990 — Namibia gets independence from occupying South Africa.
1991, May 18 — Somaliland declares independence from Somalia but is not recognized by any other country.
1993, May 24 — Eritrea breaks off from Ethiopia.
1994, February 28 — Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands transferred by South Africa to Namibia.
2008, August 14 — Bakassi transferred to Cameroon by Nigeria
2011, July 9 — South Sudan formally obtains independence from the Republic of Sudan.

1990, May 22 — North Yemen unites with South Yemen. August 2 — Kuwait annexed by Iraq
1991, February 27 — Kuwait is liberated from Iraq; Saudi Arabian–Iraqi neutral zone is officially recognized as being disbanded, it had been de facto disbanded since 1981.
1994 — Under the Oslo Agreements, Israel transferred parts of the West Bank (Areas "A" and "B") and the majority of the Gaza Strip to the rule of the Palestinian National Authority.
1997, July 1 — Hong Kong transferred to China by the UK as a special administrative region.
1999, December 20 — Macau transferred to China by Portugal as a special administrative region.
2002, May 20 — East Timor gains independence 3 years after the end of its occupation by Indonesia.
2004 — Russia ceded Tarabarov Island and eastern part of Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island to China as part of permanent border demarcation.
2005, August — Israel dismantles its settlements in the Gush Katif region of the Gaza Strip, and the remainder of the Gaza Strip, most of which had already been transferred to Palestinian rule in 1994, becomes administered by the Palestinian Authority, until 2007 when the territory is seized by the military wing of Hamas in a violent coup d'état.
2005, Israel dismantles its settlements in the Northern Samaria region of the West Bank.
2015, June — The India–Bangladesh border is removed of most of its enclaves and exclaves.
2021, November — The Qatar-Saudi border was demarcated, giving Qatar access to the entirety of Khawr al Udayd[4]

1990 — East Germany unites with West Germany on October 3. Transnistria declares independence from the Moldavian SSR but is not recognised by any country.
1991 — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania restore their independence from Soviet occupation. With the complete dissolution of the Soviet Union, it is split up into a further 12 independent states, including the European states of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The independence of all the former Soviet republics is recognised by December 26 (except the Baltic states, which the Soviet Union recognized on September 6).[by whom?] Slovenia (June 25) including the former "zone B" of the Free Territory of Trieste, Croatia (June 25), and the Republic of Macedonia (September 8) all declare their independence from Yugoslavia. Croatia and Slovenia are formally recognized on January 15, 1992 and Macedonia in April 1993.
1992 — Bosnia and Herzegovina declares independence from Yugoslavia on March 1 and is formally recognised on April 6. A civil war breaks out, and as the result of the war, two largely autonomous entities are formed: Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska. The remaining of Yugoslavia becomes the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (renamed to Serbia and Montenegro in 2003).
1993, January 1 — Czechoslovakia is dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the "Velvet Divorce".
2003 — Lithuania's share of Lake Vištytis increases to about 383 ha (about 22% from 2.2%) from a new border treaty with Russia.[7]
2006, June 3 — The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro is dissolved; Montenegro and Serbia each become independent states.
2008, February 17 — Kosovo unilaterally declares independence from Serbia and is recognised by just over half (101 out of 193) of UN member states.
2014, March 18 — Russia annexes Crimea from Ukraine, following an internationally unrecognized plebiscite.
2016, November 28 — Belgium and the Netherlands swap land near Lanaye and Oost-Maarland over the discovery of a headless body several years prior, which the Belgian authorities could not access without crossing Dutch territory. The border has been straightened out and now runs down the centre of the Meuse River.[6] The change took effect on 1 January 2018.
2020 — While Nagorno-Karabakh remained an internationally recognised territory of Azerbaijan, the four UN Security Council resolutions, adopted in 1993 and demanding immediate withdrawal of the Armenian occupying forces from all occupied regions of Azerbaijan, remained unfulfilled until 2020. In 2020, a new war erupted in the region, which saw Azerbaijan retake control of most of southern Karabakh (Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Zangilan, Qubadli, Hadrut districts) and parts of north-eastern Karabakh (Talish, Madagiz). A trilateral ceasefire agreement signed on 10 November 2020, ended the war and forced Armenia to return control of all of the remaining territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh."

1999 — Panama Canal Zone returns from joint US–Panamanian control to Panamanian control. A previous important development was the 1979 change from US control to joint US–Panama control, with plans for full Panamanian sovereignty at some point after that.
2010 — The Netherlands Antilles is dissolved, as Curaçao and Sint Maarten become constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, while Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius become special municipalities of the Netherlands.
2022, June 14 — Hans Island is split between Canada and the Danish territory of Greenland.

1994 — The Republic of Palau is formed from the remainder of the Trust Territory of the Pacific, as an independent state associated with the U.S.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_border_changes_(1914%E2%80%93present)

...but apart from those 41 examples in the last 30 years, it's virtually never done.

This, I think, is "I(I) have a doubt (D)" in Russell's notation.

$\exists x(Ix \wedge \forall y(Iy \to y = x) \wedge Dx)$

I see the existence of 'I' being declared, not logically implied.

How do you render it such that it is logically implied?

I think possibly the counterargument being made here is that the distribution of profits doesn't have a moral component - in other words, there's no answer to "how ought the profits be distributed?"

A corporation ought be a voluntary arrangement of people and so ought to able to come up with whatever arrangements it wants regarding distribution. The problems only arise because having appropriated the means of production, those in control of the corporation can effectively mandate involvement. But then the fairer distribution of profits becomes an patch, a temporary solution to another problem. People, ought to be able to engage voluntarily in corporate ventures. The way we can do that is for those ventures to be required to provide fair compensation for the social and environmental resources they've used. the people not involved can then live freely, or get involved, as they wish, and the matter of profit distribution becomes irrelevant (if you don't like the arrangement on offer, walk away).

Obviously, getting there from here then becomes the most significant issue. We can't (outside of theory) just give everyone their acre. What we can do is demand enough tax to fully compensate for the losses and use it to fund a Universal Basic Income which would enable people to either voluntarily form corporations with whatever profit sharing arrangements they're happy with, or not.

Alternatively, a strict and generous minimum wage plus a system of environmental charges and fines for transgressions would do the same job, I think. Any distribution has to at least meet that lower standard and from then on can be whatever.

If you want to keep with current arrangements and then ask how corporations ought to distribute profits, I think that seems like the old moral paradox about how one ought to murder gently (assuming you know that one). You're really asking "given that corporations unjustly create conditions where people are forced into joint ventures with them, then how ought they justly distribute profits" which sounds like an odd question.

I'm asking if you had any doubts as to what I just said, then you were already demonstrating what you purported to deny. — Caldwell

What? If I have doubts that proves that having doubt implies a thinking being? How? What is the process of logical implication?

I was trying to figure out how your view of society worked. You declare the self-identification of persons as participants in a group to be meaningless in regard to the polity they find themselves within: — Paine

Where have I declared any such thing? This is pointless if you you're just going to make up stuff I said. If you ever feel like engaging with what I write by all means pick this back up, but I don't see the point in keep responding to stuff I haven't said. If something I've said is confusing, you can just ask. You don't have to guess.

Good, so we're agreed then that keeping borders where they are is neither a guarantor of peace, nor necessary to ensure it.