It's not an ambiguity. It's Polysemy. It's not that the meaning is unclear, but that there are multiple uses.

And that you are choosing to prioritise one of those uses over others, calling that choice "rational" by way of an excuse, yet without providing any argument or evidence.

Sorry, but the gap is far too great. — hypericin

What gap? It's the smell of coffee.

If you want phenomenology, there is no gap between my smelling that and my smelling coffee. That's the point. What there might be is a gap between my smelling coffee and my choosing the word "coffee" for what I smell.

What is a smell if not a quale? — hypericin

...and that's the very question I asked, way, way back. If qual are just smells and colours, why bother? Why not just talk about smells and colours?

There is language without conveyed personal or social context, and when that happens we default to the context of the language, such as English. — Philosophim

This amounts to special pleading - deliberately ignoring those aspects that are unfavourable to your argument.

There is always a personal or social context.

No, I am observing that one sense is what is rationally interpreted in English and culture as of today. — Philosophim

How to make sense of this.

You admit that the gendered version is also "one sense (that) is rationally interpreted in English and culture as of today", yet insist on the primacy of the sexed version.

And yet don't seem to see this as problematic.

You can when language is stated without context. — Philosophim

There is no language without context.

Is there a problem with clarifying the phrase so there is no ambiguity or confusion? — Philosophim

But this is not what you are doing. You are choosing one sense over the other.

...there is a context that this can be true when 'men' unmodified refers to the gender of adult human men. But it is not rationally what someone would hold to be true read alone without further context. — Philosophim

There can be no "what someone would hold to be true read alone without further context". Language is always embedded in life.

You are simply giving primacy to one context - the biological one.

Seems to me you are playing on various differing uses of "world" here. The use of "world" in modal logic is clearly set out in the formal systems that use it. It need not be the same use as that found in describing the world of TPF.

Perhaps this suffices to describe what my brain does. I'm not generally aware, unless I'm struggling to identify an odor. — hypericin

it is unlikely that there is a table of any sort in your brain. More likely that there are neural paths that activate when there is coffee in the air.

The qualia I experience still matches my "table", even in the implausible scenario both are drifting. — hypericin

Yep. But the qual plays no role. You want an explanation that goes odour→qual→table →coffee when one that goes odour→coffee will suffice.

Suppose that everyone had a box with something in it which we call a “beetle”. No one can ever look into anyone else’s box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. But what if these people’s word “beetle” had a use nonetheless? If so, it would not be as the name of a thing. The thing in the box doesn’t belong to the language-game at all; not even as a Something: for the box might even be empty. a No, one can ‘divide through’ by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is. — §293

While qualia themselves are momentary, the cognitive machinery which produces them must be stable enough to allow for recognition through time. — hypericin

Yep. Same for smell, which unlike a qual has temporal continuity. That is, your qualia become smells in order to be of any use.

Banno said we stipulate which world is the actual world. — Metaphysician Undercover

Banno said we are int he actual world. He also said that we can stipulate that we are talking about the actual world - a bit of semantics. We do not get to stipulate that we are in the actual world.

You are playing on the difference between the metaphysical truth that we are in the actual world, and the semantic truth that we can stipulate whatever possible world we want. That failure to recognise the difference between semantics and metaphysics runs right through the confusion you show here.

Yes, there is an interpretation of 'a trans woman is a woman' that is true. — Philosophim

Cool. Which was to be shown.

...for English and general culture, it is most rational to read 'woman' unmodified to refer to 'sex', and not gender. — Philosophim

This appears contrary to

We'd agreed that "woman" might be considered to to mean "female adult human", or it might be "one who adopts a certain social role". — Banno

Which you accepted. That is, you are giving an unjustified primacy to one interpretation. "Rational" just names a prejudice here.

You are missing the point. You cannot stipulate which possible world is actual. That's not a decision that we can make. We can only recognize the status of the actual world. — Ludwig V

yep.

A god logician will understand that they can only know what it is possible to know.

For instance, I make use of qualia when I identify the smell of coffee. If I didn't recognize that particular subjective olfactory experience as coffee, I couldn't make the identification. That there is coffee in the air is revealed to me by the quale of coffee aroma. — hypericin

So you "have" a qual, and you run down a table of qualia and match it to the qual you previously identified as "coffee".

I just smell coffee.

Suppose that your qual for coffee changes over time, and your table of qualia also changes to match. You still run down the table to identify the qual, yet it is a completely different qual.

What role did your qual play here?


But further, a qual is supposedly a here, now sensation. However the existence of the table implies the qual for coffee stays the same over time, that the qual you have now is the same as the one you had previously. Qualia are supposed to explain how we recognize things, but the recognition depends on stability, which qualia, as momentary sensations, cannot guarantee.

Not sure I understand.

By definition, the actual world is the one we are in. Is that what you are asking?

Or are you asking for proof that you are in the actual world? What could that look like?

The world we are in is not a stipulated world — Metaphysician Undercover

This is a metaphysical point. The other assumptions are semantic.

Speaking semantically, the actual world can be stipulated. Which is just to say we can talk about the actual world as one of the possible words.

But the fact is, we do make use of them. — hypericin

Where do we make use of qualia - outside of philosophy fora?

Your argument seems to be: Our "cognitive makeup" is coherent; the only way it could be coherent is if there are qualia; therefore there are qualia. A transcendental argument, with all the problems thereof. The core complaint is that it is on obvious that the only way to make sense here is by using qualia.

Again, it is not at all apparent how qualia keep the game stable. As Wittgenstein showed, even if the qualia change, the game can still be played.

Always get rid of the idea of the private object in this way: assume that it constantly changes, but that you do not notice the change because your memory constantly deceives you. — Wittgenstein, Philosophical investigations, Anscombe translation p. 207

It's translated in exactly the same way in the G. E. M. Anscombe, P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schultep edition. p218, §214

It is a subjective experience in that we cannot quantify the experience, or transfer the knowledge of it to someone else. — Patterner

But we have colour tables that allow us to do just that at the paint shop.

we cannot know that what you experience as red is the same as what I experience as red — Patterner

...and this makes no difference. The qual - the private experiences - do not have a place at the paint shop.

Drifting qualia is your idea, not mine. I — hypericin

Yep. Well, Wittgenstein's. I'm just parroting him.

Your qual change over time but you do not notice, yet the language game continues unchanged. Therefore the qual are irrelevant to the language game.

You identify the smell as just another version of the chemical. — hypericin

No, I suggested that the smell might be another description of the chemical. Not unlike the way you suggest the smell is a different symbol for the chemical.

You stipulate that you are talking about the actual world, and this means that the world you are talking about is a possible world, it is stipulated. By your own words, the actual world is "not stipulated". — Metaphysician Undercover

We are in the actual world. Metaphysics.

We might stipulate that we want to talk about the actual world, and not some other possibel world. Semantics.

You are mixing the two.


If you stipulate that the world which Branson's wife did not die, is the actual world, you would be mistaken.

It is theoretically possible that all of our private symbols vary over our lifetimes without our noticing. But for this to work, our memories have to vary in lockstep. If they do not, then not only would we notice, but the symbols would become useless. If what we remember as coffee yesterday smells like bacon today, then the symbol does not communicate anything. — hypericin

Yep. So much the worse for that semiotics.

Any semiotic theory that starts from inner signs is already lost. If its coherence requires the “lockstep variation” story, then the right conclusion is not that the lockstep story is possible, but that the basic picture is wrong. If the private-symbol model requires “lockstep drifting qualia” just to keep meaning afloat, then abandon the model. Meaning doesn’t live there anyway.

If the smell were the chemical, an alien could analyze the chemical and derive the correct subjective smell. — hypericin

On the presumption that there is such a thing as "the correct subjective smell", which is the very point at issue.

you are left with the actual world being possible — SophistiCat

Yep. That is what Meta has been denying.

And yes, the actual world is different from all the other possible worlds - it is actual! — SophistiCat

Yep. That's not a logical or semantic difference, it's a metaphysical difference.

Remember, I told you how "actually known" is distinct from "possibly known", incompatible because the two are contradictory? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yep. I pointed out that you are mistaken. If you actually know something, then it is by that very fact possible for you to know it.

Possible worlds are stipulated.
The actual world is not stipulated.
Therefore the actual world is not a possible world. — Metaphysician Undercover

:gasp: Cute. This shows your error nicely. Semantically, we can of corse stipulate that we are talking about the actual world - one in which Branson's wife is dead. Metaphysically, the actual world is the one we are in. Your neat syllogism mixes the two.

If the actual world is one of the possible worlds, then it ought to be deducible from modal logic. — Metaphysician Undercover

No. It can be included in modal logic, but the logic alone does not tell us which possible world is the actual world.

If people did not experience colors — Patterner

But people do experience colours. The problem is that some folk want now to talk about ineffable private experiences of colour, instead of yellow.

It's this new, philosophical sophistry of "qualia" that is being questioned.

"The aroma of coffee" does not reference a particular public reaction to it. — noAxioms

To be clear, that was not what was claimed.

It is a reference to an indexical private thing, and no particular private thing since the subject is missing, but the language usage works due to a presumption that the private thing referenced is similar from one human context to the next. — noAxioms

If you and I both smell coffee, it cannot be a reference to an indexical private thing, since we both smell it. Your qualia is not my qualia, by definition. The presumption is not of a reference to a private thing, but to the very public smell of coffee. We hypostatise that, if you like.

Qualia here are again irrelevant.

"The cold mountain is to the left" you labeled an indexical despite it not being dependent on who says it. — noAxioms

Well, yes it is. If we face each other, then if it is to my left, it is not to your left. It matter who says it. That's why it is called indexical.

If it was not private, if it was quantifiable and able to be studied, the way the molecules and noses are, we would know whether or not your experience of red and my experience of read was the same thing. — Patterner

Notice that we manage to name the smell of coffee and the shade of red in the paint shop, despite supposedly not being confident that your smell of coffee and your sensation of red has anything in common with mine?

How's that work, then. The qualia are again irrelevant here.

What fixes the meaning of “coffee smell” or “red” are the public practices, not any supposed private qualitative object.

So the fact that we can name and coordinate these things is not evidence for qualia — it’s evidence we don’t need them.


As for the mysticism, not my cup of tea.

I don't understand. We agreed, I'd thought, that there need not be a single fundamental definition for a word, but that we might look to how a word is used in order to make sense of it's meaning. We'd agreed that "woman" might be considered to to mean "female adult human", or it might be "one who adopts a certain social role". In your OP you claimed that "a trans woman is a woman" is false, on the grounds that a trans woman is not an adult human female. But if we understand "woman" as being used as "one who adopts a certain social role", then "A trans woman is a woman" is equivalent to "A trans woman adopts a certain social role" and is true.

So contrary to the OP, there is an interpretation of "a trans woman is a woman" that is true.

Now those here who are maintaining that this is not so are insisting that there is only one legitimate meaning for "woman". As Michael put it, they are insisting that chiroptera aren’t bats because they’re not metal clubs.

Your position appears inconsistent.

Do you think men fighting rather than women is a 'gender role' that has nothing to do with biology? It is clearly a biological difference we are talking about here that groups men as fighters and women as non-fighters. — I like sushi

Women fight.

Arguing that trans men aren’t men because they don’t have XY chromosomes is as confused as arguing that chiroptera aren’t bats because they’re not metal clubs. — Michael

Nice.

So you are suggesting two distinct stipulated worlds, one in which Branson's wife died and one in which Branson's wife did not. I have no problem with this, those are two possible worlds.

The question is how do we get to an actual world? — Metaphysician Undercover

You are already in the actual world, Meta.

True in model M is a bit of semantics, but true in the actual world is a bit of metaphysics. You are confusing the two. The semantics is built within the actual world.

While semantics talks about many possible worlds, metaphysics tells us that only one is the actual world - the one that is fixed by empirical facts. The actual world is one in which Branson's wife died.

You seem to think that somehow the actual word ought be deducible form a modal logic. That's a profound confusion of semantics and metaphysics. While logic and semantics constrain what can be inferred, it's looking around that tells us how things are. Modal logic does not identify the actual world.
It presupposes it.

Men have penises and testicles (that produce their genetically unique sperm). Men have xy chromosomes. Women have uteruses and ovaries (that produce their genetically unique eggs). Women have XX chromosomes. — BC

Well, no, not all of them do.

Can I ask what you make of the post from ? It was the trigger for my involvement in this thread.

That simple fact that women give birth to children is not intrinsic to what it means to be a woman. — I like sushi

Yep.

My point was that over all human history (regardless of whether you use the specific term 'woman') people with breasts and people with penises are generally divided socially into reasonably clear cut groups. — I like sushi

Nuh. That's projecting a tidy modern anatomical binary backward over extremely diverse cultures. Social categories weren’t determined by breasts or penises; they were determined by the role-structures of a community. The biology is incidental to the social grouping, not constitutive of it.

Well, not literally. — I like sushi

Yes, literally. If "woman" is seen as a gendered role rather than merely a sex role, the trans women are women.

The discussion over the last few days was to there not being one essential meaning to "woman". On this @Philosophim and I eventually found agreement. Do we go over that again?

The etymology was in response to your "

Sexual activity (society) with reproduction leads to the existence of the term woman in the first place. — I like sushi

You didn't evidence that, so I spent a bit of time checking, and presented the result. Your assertion was not supported.

Interesting comment about historicism. The idea that women are historically bound to certain biological interpretations of that term sounds historicist...?

More than half of new articles on the internet are being written by AI – is human writing headed for extinction?

This article mentions an essay by Umberto Echo - “Apocalyptic and Integrated”.

In it, Eco draws a contrast between two attitudes toward mass media. There are the “apocalyptics” who fear cultural degradation and moral collapse. Then there are the “integrated” who champion new media technologies as a democratizing force for culture.

Back then, Eco was writing about the proliferation of TV and radio. Today, you’ll often see similar reactions to AI.

Yet Eco argued that both positions were too extreme. It isn’t helpful, he wrote, to see new media as either a dire threat or a miracle. Instead, he urged readers to look at how people and communities use these new tools, what risks and opportunities they create, and how they shape – and sometimes reinforce – power structures.

It's the froth that is written by AI.


(If anyone has an English translation of "Apocalípticos e Integrados", I'd be grateful.)

To be sure, the argument here was that there are multiple ways to use "woman", all of them well founded; and that "A trans woman is a woman" is true in several of them. And this is all that is needed to show the issue with the OP.

I have not said that "woman" is purely a gendered term. I have pointed out that that is one way to use it.

It is impossible to follow up on the claim that the term 'woman' is not inexcractibly(sic.) linked to female and sexual reproduction — I like sushi

Post-menopausal women are women. Infertile women are women. A woman does not cease to be a women by having a hysterectomy. Women have chromosomal or gonadal variations. And trans women in many social, legal, and linguistic practices are women. Demonstrably, the term “woman” is coherently used in ways that do not involve reproductive function.

You have to be really careful when reading what I have said above. — I like sushi

Ok. SO I won't hold it against you, yet. But I'm not much impressed.

Etymologically, it's a combination of wif and man, the need for the addition of "man" showing how "man" was neutral - "person". Wif might be from a PIE term for pudenda,(*ghwibh-) hence "pudenda-person", or "*weip", to wrap, a reference to face scarves - "wrapped-person". All a bit uncertain. So it's not clear that it originally has a sexual tone.

Cheers.

But that doesn't even begin to address how those physical things don't only release ions when photons of one particular range of wavelengths hit the retina, but experience redness, and don't only act on themselves in feedback loops, but are aware of their own existence. — Patterner

You say what now?

We got us a homunculus? Somewhere inside the feedback loops of neurons there's a tiny “observer” that experiences redness and smells coffee?

The aroma is the qualia, — Patterner

Then it's not novel, and not private. It's just smell. taste, colour...



Seems your argument is that physics explains behaviour, but that given such an explanation, there seems to be something left over: the private “what it’s like.” Therefore, there must be irreducible qualia.

Note the gap. It's not unlike the "and this we all call god" at the end of Anselm's arguments.

Perhaps that “something left over” is an illusion of language and introspection, and since all evidence comes from publicly observable criteria, no extra metaphysical object is needed.

Or, my preference, the smell of coffee just is those chemicals, under a different description.



But either way, you are now a long way from that private, ineffable sensation.

I am providing rational argument for why it is. — Philosophim

I don't see an argument. I see you asserting it.

Here's the contrary again: there is a reasonable interpretation of "trans women are women" that is true.

It is the interpretation that "woman" is a gender role, adopted, grown in to, and not simply consequent on one's biological sex.

And, in some jurisdictions, this is enough for "a trans woman is a woman" to be taken as legally binding.

And so it goes.

This contradicts your edict.

So here's the thing: the use contradicts your stipulation.

No, I'm asserting that as language is used today, 'woman' unmodified is interpreted to mean a person's sex, not their gender. — Philosophim

Yes - that's what I said. You are insisting on the one interpretation.

Both. We coordinated on the basis of internal sensations. That is part of the mechanism. Lacking this, you might say "I smell coffee", I might say "I smell bacon", one would be as groundless as the next. — hypericin

But here, the only basis you have for positing an internal sensation is the public response; and that has been learned and fostered over time, so that "I smell bacon" is an inappropriate response to the smell of coffee. Again, what is being posited as private is quite clearly pubic - the smell of coffee, not bacon.

What more, exactly, is there to "identifying my internal, private sensation as coffee" than is found in "I smell coffee"
— Banno

Nothing. One just makes explicit what is already contained in the other. — hypericin

Then we have no need for qualia, since we already have "smell of coffee".

How can this system function without the private symbol? — hypericin

Wrong question. The right question is to explain why the functioning system requires a private symbol.

Notice how the sensation has now become a symbol.

So let's play that game, after Wittgenstein. Suppose that your qual of coffee changes over time, but you do not notice; so that the way coffee smells for you now is utterly different to how it smelt to you as a child.

Now, what is it that is the same now as it was when you were a child? Well, it's not the qual, since that has changed. It's the language and behaviour around the smell of coffee that has stayed the same

The system functions entirely without the consistent private symbol. It is not required.

But your "rigorous way to talk about it" assigns truth to the talk not the actual world, and it provides no principles to even support the reality of an actual world. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's pretty hopelessly confused. As is the rest of that post.

The best way to think of possible worlds is not as imagined, but as stipulated. We can consider the possible world in which we did not know Bransons wife had died, and consider the consequences thereof - such as that I would not be using it in this example. That's quite sensible.

And, to add to your confusion, we make such stipulations in the actual word... As indeed, I just did.

The difference with the actual world is that it is not stipulated. It's already there.

You continue to muddle semantics and ontology, and blame logic for your own muddle.