• Insect Consciousness
    what would it be like to be a bee?Wayfarer

    Life would be sweet.
  • What is a "Woman"
    The grounding point is that sensing another body provides the potential for sexual arousal. We can do things to that body, like put clothes on it, to either raise or lower the level of potential, but we cannot remove that potential in any absolute way.Metaphysician Undercover

    Thus far I agree, but in general, the way we 'put clothes on' the body or rather socialise a dress code with legal sanctions, does as a matter of fact serve to raise the level of potential arousal. 'In olden days a glimpse of stocking...'

    To give a very simple, direct example, it used to be, and to an extent still is, a 'normal' behaviour in the workplace for men to give the arse of a good looking woman a friendly slap, as a signal of sexual desire and appreciation, (and also dominance). The clothes make such uninvited intimacy possible. Such behaviour in a nudist camp, or to a nude model in art class, would be unthinkable.

    Clothes make the porn industry possible, and allow in men in particular to form a fantasy of the female body which women are then pressured to try to conform with. Example, again is the fashion for shaving pubic hair which has arisen and been popularised by the need of the porn film make to give an ever more clear and intimate view of actual penetration - not something I would spend much time trying to get a view of myself while actually having sex. But folks conform to the fantasy created by the (strictly virtual) breaking of the taboo against nudity.

    Familiarity with the reality of the varied manifestation of the human figure, would reduce the power of fantasy, to intrude into normal interactions.

    I will simply note that taboo is essentially a religious form of socialisation that works to intensify feeling towards its object and imbue it with "spiritual"power. That is how it invariably works, and this society worships sex.
  • Insect Consciousness
    That's rather interesting. But any slugs found eating my bean plants are still going in the salt bucket. Don't say I didn't warn you!
  • Ukraine Crisis
    t it was quite unclear if it was stoppable before they marched into central Moscow,Count Timothy von Icarus

    Well it looked unstoppable from my armchair. But then it stopped. I think I'll shut up now for a bit and see what happens next.

    as a matter of principle, I feel it's wise to assume people's who's job is to deceive you ... may actually succeed in doing so from time to time.boethius

    Yeah, and people whose job is to inform you honestly, too, I fear.

    "Look, we made this model of a horse extra big, so you can't drag it into your city, so don't even try, even though we put wheels on it to make you try. And we've given up and gone home anyway, honest."
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Team reality did predict it:boethius

    Well kudos for that! It did all look theatrical at times for sure, but shooting your own helicopters down is a bit extravagant unless Prigozhin suddenly turns up in the West telling stories to intelligence agencies or some such. Or am I missing something?
  • Donald Trump (All General Trump Conversations Here)
    Have you guys considered providing your leaders with a secretary or some such, to keep their papers in good order for them?
  • What is a "Woman"
    I don't think so,Metaphysician Undercover

    Well change your mind, because you are wrong.

    Foremost in interest to psychologists is the basis of the body taboo. Is it a fundamental human trait, as many have maintained—inherited, or at least an inevitable consequence of man's social life? There is, for example, the curious relation of the nausea response to nystagmus and vertigo—an apparently native or early acquired association between remotely connected phenomena. Is the shame response to one's own nudity, or the shock response to the sight of nudity, a primitive response-pattern of this sort?

    No one who has been through an experience of social nudity in favorable and proper circumstances will hesitate to answer this in the negative. In some cases the taboo and its customary responses slough off at once. On questioning the men stopping at Klingberg I found that for some the maladjustment lasted only a few minutes, for others it persisted during the first day—after that social nudity seemed perfectly natural and the power of the taboo was entirely broken.
    https://www.all-about-psychology.com/social-nudism.html (1933 article)

    There remains to consider the effect of social nudity on intersex attitudes and relations. The American writers already cited are agreed that nakedness, properly pursued, is no stimulant to eroticism and has no deleterious effects on sex morality. Miss Gay mentions the case of a young man and woman, obviously in love, who kept constant company during the daytime in the park without flirting and without his ever so much as touching her body—while in the evening, when they were clothed, he would often fondle her (2, p. 56). The Merrills' description of the behavior of young men and women in the Koch School gymnasium at Hamburg points to the same conclusion (3, pp. 135—143). (The subject is treated more fully in a recent work, L. C. Royer, Let's go naked (Trans, fr. French), New York, Brentano's, 1932, pp. 192. This volume, which appeared since the present article was sent to press, describes the author's experiences in several nudist resorts in Germany).
    ibid.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    I take American right wing militia types seriously.BC

    Fair enough, you're a lot closer to them than I.

    Our Russia predictions differ, but we agree that one or the other will have to go and fairly quick-smart.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Yeah, just a guess, but the tripartite negotiation would have been easier ...its a detail.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    the Wagner Group had a lot more hardware than the Proud Boys could dream of, but in both cases, an attack on the center of power occurred.BC

    I'd say you're comparing kids playing cowboys and Indians with a proper re-enactment of the October revolution.
    ———————————————————————————————
    My guess is that Putin fled to Belarus, and that made the storming of Moscow unproductive of a quick regime change. But it looks like Prigozhin comes out more popular and stronger, and there will be a slower change. Putin may not come back to Moscow. Once you've been chased out of the Kremlin, there's no way to look like the strong man that Russia admires.
  • What is a "Woman"
    The reason i find it bizarre is because it is quite clear to me that nakedness becomes sexualised by being made taboo, not the other way round. As any naturist can attest. Your complacent ignorance is a bit shocking to me frankly, considering the amount of philosophical exposition undertaken in the matter.

    A personal account: https://kriswilliams.medium.com/de-sexualizing-nudity-2e5673d7ae25
  • Ukraine Crisis
    The coup was stoppable…but likely would have ruined Rostov and weakened Russia internally even more.ssu

    I don't see what troops would have attacked Rostov, and I even less see how such an attack would have stopped the tanks rolling into red square and offing Putin.

    Military coups do not usually end in a negotiated settlement before any blood is spilt. I can only guess that they are keeping Putin on as a puppet leader for a while, but he is no longer in charge. It certainly looked as though he was caught with his trousers round his ankles and no one to wipe his arse for him.
  • Does ethics apply to thoughts?
    I believe morality reveals itself in the act alone, whether it is impelled by thought or instinct or self-concern.NOS4A2

    I think you are wrong. Take the act of firing a gun. Right or wrong?

    Obviously you need some circumstances, ok: the act of pointing a gun at a person and firing. Right or wrong?

    I'd say you need more. I'd like to know the reason for pointing a gun at someone and firing. But this is a matter of the mind;

    reason (a) a reasonable belief that the person was about to slaughter some kids with a machete.
    reason (b) a reasonable belief that the person's tie colour clashed with their socks.

    Both, or either of the beliefs could be true, but I think we can pick out which one justifies (attempted) homicide with some confidence. Of course if no machete was found at the scene, and/or no children, and/or tie and socks were a matching shade of grey, then the claimed beliefs would not seem reasonable. Call CSI.

    Edit: I forgot to tell you the consequences; they seem to have a lesser importance, perhaps the general generic consequence of firing a gun at someone being liable to cause harm is sufficient in most cases, though there was that thing with someone getting shot on a film set a while back.
  • The beginning and ending of self
    Happy to adopt that as the theme tune of the thread. Says it all without the confusion of so much words.

    Overhead the albatross
    Hangs motionless upon the air
    And deep beneath the rolling waves
    In labyrinths of coral caves
    The echo of a distant time
    Comes willowing across the sand
    And everything is green and submarine
    And no one showed us to the land
    And no one knows the where's or why's
    But something stirs and something tries
    And starts to climb toward the light
    Strangers passing in the street
    By chance, two separate glances meet
    And I am you and what I see is me
    And do I take you by the hand
    And lead you through the land
    And help me understand the best I can?
    And no one calls us to move on
    And no one forces down our eyes
    No one speaks and no one tries
    No one flies around the sun
    Cloudless everyday
    You fall upon my waking eyes
    Inviting and inciting me to rise
    And through the window in the wall
    Come streaming in on sunlight wings
    A million bright ambassadors of morning
    And no one sings me lullabies
    And no one makes me close my eyes
    So I throw the windows wide
    And call to you across the sky

    And no one sings me lullabies, and no one makes me close my eyes.
    So I throw the windows wide and call to you across the sky. Happy to echo that.
  • The beginning and ending of self
    What kind of narrative are we talking about here? Whose narrative are we talking about? (You said mine, but I can adopt someone else's and I will probably have more than one narrative about myself.)

    Narratives are often disrupted. Sometimes someone else's narrative collides with mine. Sometimes I disrupt my own narrative, whether deliberately or accidentally. Sometimes "events" disrupt my narrative. We can modify our narrative or throw the old one out and make a new one. Whatever we say or do, there is always something "outside" our narrative and narratives are never permanent, even when we are dead. What are we to make of this?

    I distinguish between a narrative and a log book. A log book is a series of dots. A narrative connects those dots. Is a log book a safe and satisfactory option?
    Ludwig V

    That is your narrative, and this is mine, and they both derive from a shared language and culture and are personalised, edited, and brought into contrast and comparison here. or perhaps it is a log book, I don't know the difference. One always stands outside the narrative to describe it, but it is always oneself one is describing so it is always a narrative self (or a log-book self) and one is never outside it

    I underline the contradiction here to make clear that there is something wrong with the narrative of "I", whoever is the centre of attention.
  • Ukraine Crisis
    I confess to being totally baffled. An unstoppable coup that suddenly stops, a civil war averted without hardly a shot fired - it looks like an elaborate theatre, but for what audience? and with what intention?

    What next, pundits?
  • The beginning and ending of self
    I'm tempted to suggest a Zen cure. Go for a walk, have a cup to tea and a good night's sleep.Ludwig V

    You misunderstand. I say "I" and you offer me respite, but it is mere distraction. I have spent many days crafting this thread and the previous one that laid the groundwork for it, and the zen is built into the laying out of the problem. And here it is again: —

    If your map has no territory it is not a map. Or if it is a map, it is a fictional map and consequently not your narrative.Ludwig V

    Take this as a universal truth. Now, who are you? If you do not answer, you go straight to hell, but if you answer you continue the fictional map.

    Now I don't expect any sartori to result for anyone, but I am interested in the philosophy and psychology of identification, and I think this process of identification is what humans do that creates the self as an artefact or 'sprite' of the psyche, with all the suffering and trouble that results. I think it is unnecessary. So I will at least lay out and face the problem as best I can, and when a cup of tea is appropriate, I can make a cup of tea as well.
  • The beginning and ending of self
    Whether the self is always the same is a good question. Your account of the train of thought suggests not, doesn't it?Ludwig V

    I'm not certain; I am inconsistent and my account of myself changes.
    But that is the account of myself, which is entirely self-consistent. At this point I am in a postmodern nightmare where the narrative is all there is and that is all the truth there is because that is the narrative and that's all there is. As if the map is all there is of the territory - which makes the self a fiction from start to finish, and yet a persistent one if not always consistent..
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Russian security forces were seen taking positions in southern Moscow, according to photos published by Russian business newspaper Vedomosti.

    The images published by the paper showed Russian security forces in body armor and equipped with automatic weapons taking up a position near a highway linking Moscow with southern Russia.

    https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-06-24-23/index.html

    What security forces are these, I wonder, are they a match for experienced front line troops with a grudge?
  • Ukraine Crisis
    Wagner troops arrive at Lipetsk, major airbase and about 4 hours by road from Moscow

    https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1672583840337100800?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet


    At the moment the other side is making strong denunciations, but they'll need something a bit more persuasive to stop Wagner group marching straight into Moscow and mopping up the very small looking defending force.
  • The beginning and ending of self
    Still, it seems to me that when you speak of a narrative, you don't mean a log of my experiences, but something more structured with successes and failures and diversions and so on. Is there a reason why we can't find more than a single narrative in our lives?Ludwig V

    If there is more than one narrative, one has intrusive thoughts and maybe starts hearing voices. "There's someone in my head, but it's not me."

    It happens...

    In a sense this whole thread, my contributions at any rate, are my ongoing narrative self exposed for the world's entertainment. The train of thought runs on and eventually runs into the sand, and another train of thought sets off and then another train reflects on these trains and integrates them into a new train. Any train can reconnected to any other train with the word 'and'. Think child typical narratives — I got up and I had breakfast and mummy took me to school and teacher was boring and we had fish-fingers I hit Jimmy because he said I smelled and...

    I wrote all that and then... self fades in and fades out, but is always the same, except on the Dark side of the Moon.
  • Does ethics apply to thoughts?
    It seems to me that there is always a mental aspect, a behavioural aspect, and a consequential aspect to moral judgements.

    “it’s the thought that counts”NOS4A2
    But "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

    Every platitude has a contradictory platitude, so that together they say nothing, and are thus never untrue.

    If one unintentionally kills another, it is manslaughter not murder, so intentions count in law, but actions and consequences also count. If one intends to kill but fails, that is attempted murder.

    The thought police are very tolerant of mere ideation that has no discernible behavioural expression, for the simple reason that they find it impossible to detect. But as soon as one shares those thoughts, it is liable to become conspiracy. Until then one's thoughts are subject only to one's own moral judgement.
  • Masculinity
    Masculinity is entitlement - ask any incel. Men define, and women opine. Blah blah Blah. A man is the one on on top, the missionary in the missionary position, the speaker not the listener, the author of authority, God Himfuckingself. The possessor of all property, of women, children, slaves, language itself, and all virtue.

    Masculinity is the philosopher king, knowing best and condescending to do it to the lucky, lucky, world.
  • What is a "Woman"
    I don't know if I'd find it arousing to shower next to an attractive woman who I was not otherwise involved with. It would be very uncomfortable though. Like very. Especially if it was like a neighbor or something, or like the neighbor's 19 year old daughter. In fact, I feel like I need to go wash my hands after typing this.Hanover

    Sounds terrifying.

    You're saying that the reason we have separate changing rooms is because men are frightened they might get aroused? Really? Bizarre.
  • The beginning and ending of self
    Perhaps a third person's narrative about me is not what you have in mind.Ludwig V

    It isn't. WhatI have in mind is this sort of thing:

    I'm not sure that anything much unifies my actual life apart from the continuity of my consciousness (I'm being generous there, since sleep and unconsciousness are interruptions in some way.)Ludwig V

    Paradoxically, your narrative gives continuity even as it suggests discontinuity, of the approximate form - I am awake, then I sleep and then I am awake and then ... and that is my actual life.

    Sorry to be personal, but in this topic personal is clarity, I hope and think.
  • What is a "Woman"
    Isn't the basis for having separate gym lockers right now in part hetero-erotic fear?Hanover

    You'd have to spell that out before i could assent to it. I don't know what you mean by hetero-erotic fear.

    I am familiar with people being called faggot and beaten up as if gays are a huge threat. Does this happen to straights where you live? I haven't seen any signs of fear of being or being thought to heterosexual.
  • What is a "Woman"
    that fear isn't based in facts.
    — Moliere

    My contention is: it isn't a fear at all; it's a pretense and part of the mask behind which systemic misogyny lurks.
    Vera Mont

    My feeling is that it is a species of homo-erotic fear. If a man dresses as a woman, a 'hetero' man might 'accidentally' be attracted to him. Best beat them up to make them ugly, and disprove any slur of homosexual feelings.

    And misogyny.
  • Masculinity
    Ask a woman. Ask Science Fiction. Don't ask the dicks round here, they'll start talking about their genitals and how they can lay bricks with them.

    A "female man" is a woman with a man's mind, her body and soul still female.[2] Joanna's metaphorical transformation refers to her decision to seek equality by rejecting women's dependence on men and mirrors the journeys made by the other three protagonists.

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

    Or if you prefer your critique less angry, The Left Hand of Darkness.

    On Gethen, the permanently male Genly Ai is an oddity, and is seen as a "pervert" by the natives; according to reviewers, this is Le Guin's way of gently critiquing masculinity. — wiki
  • The beginning and ending of self
    I've seen a spirit before, so I think my experience contradicts what is being posited here.Changeling

    Right, I see. I think I could accommodate the story continuing after death, it is a commonplace of some Eastern traditions that the soul evolves over many lives, for example. But I wouldn't say that the story finishes on death, but rather stops - mid-sentence as it were in most cases. If there is a chance after death to continue to a proper completion -"and they all lived happily ever after", that would be wonderful, but I have no experience or expertise in any other realm but this world so far as i can remember, so my story has to stop at death for now. If I discover that death is not the end, I'll endeavour to appear as a spirit and let you know.

    I think if we could agree that there has to be a continuation of consciousness in some form for the narrative self to continue, and that consciousness can continue without the narrative when the tale is 'completed', and that this completion and continuation is very rare in this world, then that is all I would seek to defend as my belief here.
  • The beginning and ending of self
    You know this story, right?

    All of the organs are deciding who should be in charge:

    "I should be in charge," said the brain , "I run all the body's systems, without me nothing would happen."

    "I should be in charge," said the heart , "I circulate oxygen and nutrients all over."

    "No! I should be in charge," said the stomach, "I process the food that gives us energy."

    "I should be in charge," said the legs, "without me the body couldn't go anywhere."

    "I should be in charge," said the eyes, "I allow the body to see where it goes." "I should be in charge," said the anus, "I am responsible for waste removal."

    All of the other body parts laughed at the anus and insulted him. So he shut down. Within a few days, the brain had a terrible headache, the stomach was bloated, the legs got wobbly, the eyes got watery, and the heart pumped toxic blood. They all decided that the anus should be the boss.

    What is the moral of the story? Even though everybody else does all of the work the asshole is usually in charge./quote]
  • The beginning and ending of self
    Huh? What's that got to do with the price of fish?
  • What is a "Woman"
    Right now? Well, ok then, pass the Zoom link. :fire:Baden

    "Dispense with", I said, not "transgress".

    Everyone would be able to participate in a league of their peers, and nobody would be paid astronomical sums to play games in deadly, life-threatening earnest.Vera Mont

    Play games just for fun? It'll never catch on.

    You are left without a team, which is where women will be left if forced to compete with men.Hanover

    God forbid that any woman should suffer my miserable fate!
  • What is a "Woman"
    On locker rooms, I don't know. Hadn't honestly thought about it until it came up in this thread. It is tough because any basic rule you apply seems like it could put someone in a position of being in the wrong exposed genitalia environment. Therefore, as Banno suggested, maybe more partitions or something. In sports, hormone testing is the way to go, I guess. As for medical treatment of kids, there has to be major safeguards in place. There's a high suicide risk for trans kids so it's about trying to mitigate potential mental health problems in the least invasive way possible. I'm no expert on that. Maybe e. g. @frank knows more (at least I think he's in the health industry).Baden

    Try not to panic chaps, pregnancy rarely results from eye contact with genitalia. Being as how we are all so enlightened and scientific these days, why not let's dispense with the taboo on nudity altogether? The fig-leaf thing was a mistake anyway, and it was a long time ago, now. As to sports, I find I am discriminated against because I am a wimpy spastic weakling. Why isn't there a category for me?
  • Atheist Dogma.
    adrenaline supports both fight and flight. Hence the term "adrenaline junkie".Ludwig V

    Exactly. The adrenaline junkie fights the urge to flight and wins, and that becomes their 'habit'.

    Anxiety of death, in particular, seems to me to require verbalization since we never experience death. The bird is wary of being eaten, and the evolutionary story would say this is because animals which are wary tend to reproduce more, but the bird is not anxious about the end of their existence. They cannot hoard to fight off the inevitable impending death. That requires planning.Moliere

    It was all going so well, until the last sentence, and I thought, first of squirrels hoarding their nuts, and then of The ant and the grasshopper. One might suggest that even plants hoard sunlight as sugars and other carbohydrates in seeds or bulbs. In this case the evolution of DNA informed by consistent long term environmental pressures does the 'planning' - " Make hay while the sun shines, and make seed (or bulb, or tuber) when it starts to shine less." Thus the rationale that we make for what plants do because the ones that didn't died out. We understand:- plants just grow and make seed.
  • What is a "Woman"
    And why am I now being accused of not being a sexual deviant? Have you not read the shit I've posted in the Shoutbox? Ten years of trying to establish a reputation down the drain with this thread I guess.Hanover

    Yup, your hetero-normal conventionality has been totally exposed.
  • Atheist Dogma.
    I don't know which thread is your other thread.Ludwig V

    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14393/the-beginning-and-ending-of-self/p1

    Isn't there a third possibility? Neither positive nor negative, i.e. irrelevant to me.Ludwig V

    Sure. :up: :down: :meh:

    Is "meh" a feeling? The feeling of not having a feeling?

    Anxious people will tend to avoid rock-climbing, won't they?Ludwig V

    Yes, whereas rock-climbers seek out and confront fear and thereby avoid anxiety. (Perhaps.) I could almost define anxiety as the fear of fear, but I wouldn't defend that if it doesn't fit.
  • What is a "Woman"
    It's interesting that no one ever raises the issue of female to trans-male. No one seems to care and perhaps this says something about attitudes to women more generally.Tom Storm

    I blame the patriarchy.

    Because property, status, name and title are passed down the male line, and because patrilineal is not self evident the way matrilineal is, Men require to control the sexuality of women. Are you bored with this yet, I do keep saying it?

    Rape and the fear of rape is an important part of the control of women's sexual freedom, along with body shaming.

    Or is "modesty" a proxy for some other problem, unaddressed?
    — Banno

    You have no idea about the darkness that lies within.
    Hanover

    The threat of sexual deviance is a threat to the deepest fabric of society, the basis of property and privilege, and heritage itself, including nationality ethnicity etc. The male fear is that another man might have sex with my woman and my child not be mine. Even the women's toilets are not safe, and we must patrol them!

    There is no issue with a female to trans male individual for the same reason that female prostitutes are no threat – we don't care who the father of their child is. Wives and daughters have to be controlled though.
  • Atheist Dogma.


    Interesting discussion guys, and not off topic at all. It connects this thread neatly to my follow-up thread. It is my working definition of life that to be alive is to give a fuck. Thus a virus is an uncaring replicator, not alive, whereas a bacterium actively absorbs food and ejects waste and 'knows the difference'. See Bateson's 'difference that makes a difference'.

    Attraction/ repulsion is the beginning of emotion as judgement that arises out of sensory discrimination. And this primary division persists in every feeling and every judgement being positive or negative. but as senses multiply, and discrimination becomes more nuanced, feeling and judgement become matters of reasoning and calculation and conflicts can arise.

    Anyway, I would suggest that animals are wary, not anxious. I think anxiety is very much verbal in origin.
    Birds have to be constantly wary of cats, and other birds, whereas anxiety always seems to arise in a place of safety, the dis-ease of armchair philosophers rather than rock-climbing philosophers. But that story of the difference between animal and human is fleshed out in the other thread in more detail.
  • The beginning and ending of self
    I'll just demonstrate this time. I'll stop the narrative, and the real self with its real identity will live on.Metaphysician Undercover

    I would have been impressed if you had stopped, and that would have been a demonstration, but unfortunately you didn't. What I have presented here is the logic of Zen.

    The real me escapes the narrative.
    — Metaphysician Undercover

    Of course it does! All this is only a story! there's nothing real about it. But when you tell me about the real me and how it escapes - that's just a story too. So have you escaped the narrative, or are you still in a different narrative?
    unenlightened

    What you needed to do was put your slippers on your head and walk out, or post a flower emoji, anything that would communicate without continuing the narrative, but you continued the narrative.
  • The Conservation of Information and The Scandal of Deduction
    There is a (contested) claim in physics that information cannot be created or destroyed.Count Timothy von Icarus

    That seems like a very odd claim. My understanding is that entropy equates to disorder, and disorder increases (in this universe). This immediately results in information increasing, because order implies compressibility. So a claim that information does not increase over time amounts to the denial of thermodynamics. That is not 'a claim in physics'!

    Following on to the relation to deduction, one might say that the axioms of a theory are the compressed form of every deduction that follows from them, but one cannot read the compressed file without decompressing it first. Thus the initial conditions of a deterministic universe 'contain' all the information of every moment of its evolution, and time is the running decompression algorithm that 'expands' the initial equation.