• Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    One cannot seem to self-identify by the first criteria as a member of some category in the second definition because the second definition makes it clear such membership criteria are taught and imposed by culture, not determined freely by individuals. — Isaac

    Where do you think this dichotomy comes from? Between 'taught and imposed by culture' and 'determined freely by individuals'?
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    If gender is imposed on an individual, then how can an individual choose their own gender? — Harry Hindu

    How can I be part of this family I'm born into?
  • Spinoza's metaphysical nihilism
    God however is a being, or being i.e. not an objective ‘substance’ but a knowing being, is he not? — Wayfarer

    To a first approximation, God = substance in Spinoza. Not some agent.
  • Spinoza's metaphysical nihilism
    ↪bobobor


    I like that you are thinking about processes and the importance of time to them, but I don't like that you are leveraging a notion of time which you have not explicated, and a relation of time to events which you have not explicated. You have also not explicated how these themes relate to Spinoza's work through exegesis of his ideas. A greater interpretive weakness is that Spinoza frames discussions of physical time in terms of motion, extension and rest of bodies rather than an infinitely divisible time flow in which all bodies inhere as if they were separate from it. There's a hierarchy involved here.

    Motion (and rest) are something bodies do, bodies are something extension does, extension is something substance does. The discussion of motion and rest comes after.

    From The Ethics:

    PART 2 DEFINITION I. By body I mean a mode which expresses in a certain determinate manner the essence of God, in so far as he is considered as an extended thing. (See Pt. i., Prop. xxv., Coroll.)

    PART 2 PROP. II. Extension is an attribute of God, or God is an extended thing.

    PART 1 DEFINITION VI. By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite—that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality.

    God consists in infinite attributes of which one is extension and extension is expressed determinately in bodies. Bodies cause other bodies to do stuff, substance causes itself which does all stuff.

    An interesting line of inquiry for you might be how your idea of temporal parts relates to Spinoza's idea of duration.
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    ↪Artemis


    I'm glad it reminded you of something legitimately good.
  • Word of the day - Not to be mistaken for "Word de jour."
    ↪T Clark


    There's a SEP article on them. Other post I used sortals in is referencing type 2.
  • How to cope with only being me?
    I find it really reassuring to weaken identity mismatches to sortal equivalences. Sortals take stuff and group them, everything in the group counts as the referring word. So "red" is a sortal, it admits of loads of nuances 'under the hood' of red, but it's still 'red'.

    So what if a grain of sand may be the difference between a mound and a pile, they still count as mounds or piles.

    Invert the spectrum, map red to blue, what counts as red in public for me counts as red in public for you.
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    Trans people only seem to exist in western countries where a small fraction of parents raise their child as the opposite sex rather than in a gender-neutral environment — Harry Hindu

    No. The name 'transgender' might be new, but people who don't fit snugly in male and female archetypes for their culture and time period are not.

    You need to define gender in order to define transgenders and where they are. Is gender a feeling or is it a social construction? — Harry Hindu

    Define define. Define need. Define feeling. Define social construction. Only then will I be able to understand what you write, and I am responding in earnest. If this request seems ridiculous, wonder why such incredulity does not apply to yours. If you seriously don't know what gender is, here is the WHO's definition of it as it relates to social constructions.

    Gender refers to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men – such as norms, roles and relationships of and between groups of women and men. It varies from society to society and can be changed. While most people are born either male or female, they are taught appropriate norms and behaviours – including how they should interact with others of the same or opposite sex within households, communities and work places. When individuals or groups do not “fit” established gender norms they often face stigma, discriminatory practices or social exclusion – all of which adversely affect health. It is important to be sensitive to different identities that do not necessarily fit into binary male or female sex categories.

    And here's Google's definition of it:

    noun
    noun: gender; plural noun: genders
    1.
    either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. The term is also used more broadly to denote a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female.

    members of a particular gender considered as a group.

    the fact or condition of belonging to or identifying with a particular gender.

    And self-identity because, yeah... apparently necessary too:

    the perception or recognition of one's characteristics as a particular individual, especially in relation to social context.

    If you're still having trouble understanding what gender roughly is and how it relates to feelings and social contexts, cultures, identity, self identity and so on, re-read what I quoted here.

    Hope that helps.
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    ↪Harry Hindu


    Start thinking in terms where trans people actually exist and I'll respond in more detail.
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    I don't think it makes any sense to claim that a person looking for metaphysical accuracy is being prejudiced. Some might be, as you suggest, using it as a cover for their prejudice, but you cannot assume that a) all such questions are covers, and b) all true supporters won't question the metaphysics. — Artemis

    I certainly don't think you are prejudiced here! You've been nothing but earnest and exploratory. And I agree that it is important to care about accurately describing transgenderism. Otherwise I would probably not have done basic research about it.

    So the definition you present here basically comes down to the latter of my two suggestions earlier: gender is self-id and a social role. In which case, part of the reason trans-people would so desperately want to transition early would be to "pass" more easily and not be the subject of harrassment. — Artemis

    I think one of the best parts about the UN characterisation is that it highlights bodies as social objects, in the regard that they are not just passively immersed in roles and appearances, but roles and appearances play out in them.

    For a playful example, I identify as a mathematician. That I've worked in that role is part of it, part of it is a thinking style, part of it is a collection of analogies and codes and heuristics that I partake in, and some of it is being able to make my choices and thoughts and keystrokes/penstrokes align in the right way to make computers do stuff, students learn stuff, or for some other end. These aren't just floating ideas existing in some realm of abstraction; appearances of mathematical competence; I embody versions of them and carry them forth in my day to day life. My body can function as a mathematician, and I currently have that as a social role. Luckily I don't have to just do math.

    For a less playful example, I have dissociative disorder. That I've been diagnosed with it and treated for it is part of it, part of it is a thinking style, part of it is a collection of habits and bodily processes that I partake in, and some of it is that my thoughts and body movements align in the right way to... make me unable to move for hours at a time, unpredictably. These aren't just floating ideas existing in some realm of abstraction; appearances of diagnostic indicators formulated from case reports and clinical trials; I embody versions of them and carry them forth in my day to day life. My body can function as a person with dissociative disorder, and I currently have that as a social role. Luckily my social functions do not solely consist in partaking in clinical trials.

    Of course there are differences, but I could no more sever mathematical training from my mind than the dissociative disorder. Both atrophy when not exercised, though, and that's a good thing in the latter case and a sorry state of human stupidity in the former case.

    For a far more contentious example, I identify as a man, the sex I was born as. That I've been comfortable with the alignment of my birth sex and my gender identity is part of it, part of it is a thinking style, part of it is a collection of habits and bodily process that I partake in (socialisation!), and some of it is that my thoughts and body movements align in the right way to... make me perceive little to no difference between my gender identity and my biological sex. These aren't just floating ideas existing in some realm of abstraction; behavioural indicators correlating with physiology and expression in an anthropologist's notebook; I embody versions of them and carry them forth in my day to day life. My body can function as a man, and I currently have that as a social role. Luckily my social roles do not consist in being an archetype of masculinity.

    Of course there are differences, the latter is so fundamental to my being I find it difficult to give it a procedural description because I can't separate myself from it. I can't describe it indifferently as a separate function. My bits have social functions every bit a part of me as the bits themselves, that I don't feel much internal conflict between them and my self concept is difficult to express; distinctions in character are furnished with differences in function rather than identities in character, and I have no fucking clue what those identities consist in since I am them for the most part. I can't imagine how it would feel to feel differences in these bits and be bullied for it! I guess maybe it's something like discovering a body part by feeling it ache.

    Perhaps this is because I am insane, but I see the social roles and the body bits they concern as equally fundamental to the process of my gender identity and expression; it's not just me over here and the social world over there, I'm already over there and it's already over here. I'm differentiated from it but part of it. My gender is as much a process of inter-relation between bodies and social roles as it is the bodies and the roles which express the process. Such a 'social object' is a living, sensuous how rather than an inert insertion (oo-er) of whats into an independent medium. These processes are as much fleshy as legislative, like penstrokes branding dicks as M and M as rugged, or modes under different aspects playing out in the same substance. This seems far more amenable to me than " dick => man (behind the curtain) "

    There're lots of gender metaphysics, this lesbian Deleuze-Butler slash-fic buggery I just offered you is one. I think it's pretty consistent with the UN definition; it emphasises bodies, gender identities, sexes and gender expression as a connected whole of overlapping but distinct components that mediate between but are carried forth by the bodies (human, social) the account concerns.
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    Of course details like "what exactly is transgenderism" determine treatment. It's like the difference between how you'd treat someone with paranoia versus a victim of stalking. Or how you'd treat an obese person trying to lose weight versus an anorexic one. Or treating an ulcer versus Crohn's disease. All these things share symptoms, but are hugely different cases and therefore need different treatments. — Artemis

    I guess what I'm saying is we don't need metaphysical speculation for basic characterisation any more. If the UN has a definition of the term they use for assessing policy/treatment/rights, the basic characterisation of what "transexual' means is already well studied.

    Transgender (sometimes shortened to “trans”) is an umbrella term used to describe a wide range of identities whose appearance and characteristics are perceived as gender atypical —including transsexual people, cross-dressers (sometimes referred to as “transvestites”), and people who identify as third gender. Transwomen identify as women but were classified as males when they were born, transmen identify as men but were classified female when they were born, while other trans people don’t identify with the gender-binary at all. Some transgender people seek surgery or take hormones to bring their body into alignment with their gender identity; others do not. — UN

    There are accompanying definitions of gender identity and gender expression in the link.

    Gender identity reflects a deeply felt and experienced sense of one’s own gender. Everyone has a gender identity, which is part of their overall identity. A person’s gender identity is typically aligned with the sex assigned to them at birth. Transgender (sometimes shortened to “trans”) is an umbrella term used to describe people with a wide range of identities – including transsexual people, cross-dressers (sometimes referred to as “transvestites”), people who identify as third gender, and others whose appearance and characteristics are seen as gender atypical and whose sense of their own gender is different to the sex that they were assigned at birth. Trans women identify as women but were classified as males when they were born. Trans men identify as men but were classified female when they were born. Cisgender is a term used to describe people whose sense of their own gender is aligned with the sex that they were assigned at birth. Gender identity is distinct from sexual orientation and sex characteristics. — UN

    Gender expression is the way in which we express our gender through actions and appearance. Gender expression can be any combination of masculine, feminine and androgynous. For a lot of people, their gender expression goes along with the ideas that our societies deem to be appropriate for their gender. For other people it does not. People whose gender expression does not fit into society’s norms and expectations, such as men perceived as ‘feminine’ and women perceived as ‘masculine’ often face harsh sanctions, including physical, sexual and psychological violence and bullying. A person’s gender expression is not always linked to the person’s biological sex, gender identity or sexual orientation. — UN

    Sure, there'll probably be problems in it. But the basic groove the definitions follow is that:

    (1) Gender isn't reducible to birth sex, even though it usually aligns with it.
    (2) Gender is a social phenomenon whose archetypes are correlated with the sex of bodies.
    (3) The expression of gender is intimately bound up with norms of expression of its archetypes, as a social phenomenon relating to the expectations of appearance and actions, this is not surprising.

    There's also a resounding lack of 'gender dysphoria' in these basic characterisations, which is a virtue, for a similar reason to homosexuality no longer being a mental illness. For what I imagine is a related reason, the characterisations locate the site of social 'sanctions'; mental and physical abuse; as related to norms of gender expression and not gender identity; can be a man or woman or whatever without abuse for gender identity, you're gonna get abuse when the norms for gender expression are in friction with your gender expression. To wit; trans people aren't mentally ill a lot because they're trans, trans people are mentally ill a lot because society fucks them up.

    I'm not saying we should uncritically accept these basic characterisations, to my mind they seem very sensible and cover what seems relevant. What I will say is that I'm usually extremely suspicious that non-acceptance of something resembling this account in its major respects is rooted in a desire for metaphysical accuracy rather than ignorance or prejudice. Out in public it looks like fear of traps, on a philosophy forum it looks like a desire for linguistic or biological decorum, in private it looks like drooling over your dick while guiltwanking on pornhub (which I would link to, but one must have standards).
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    Actually, that's a really important, fundamental question before medicine should be practiced. — Artemis

    Seems pretty backwards to me. The only reason we're theorising about the metaphysics of transgenderism is because trans people are becoming more socially recognised and the treatments for them are developing. It's not like the metaphysical questions' a priori nature dictates treatment strategy or social experience; though the metaphysics that accompanies peoples' perceptions of trans (including self perception) is important.

    Especially when you have people like
    ↪Harry Hindu
    here who still believe there's no distinction between birth sex and gender, trans people be damned.
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    I think doctors offering transitions to underage persons are probably (in good faith) trying too quick to accommodate transpeople's desires. Which is understandable, but it might not actually be in the best interest of transpeople until we can solve a whole list of medical and metaphysical concerns first. — Artemis

    The metaphysical stuff is funny.

    Before trying to treat this person for gender dysphoria and attendant mental health difficulties, forming support and advocacy groups for them, and trying to fight for their social recognition, let us first decide if they actually exist!

    Of course they bloomin' do, the clinical questions; how best to treat this patient; are influenced by but are not reducible to questions like what is the aetiology of their condition; and those are influenced by but are not reducible to questions of what is a trans person. The influence goes both ways, of course, and if you want to study the metaphysics of transsexualism, you can learn a lot from studying trans people.
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    Can you explain what case you are making then? Cause imho your last post sounded like you did not have answers to those questions but would still endorse selectively allowing underage persons to take on the risk. — Artemis

    Are you under the impression that doctors do not extensively screen the appropriateness of and tailor hormone therapy (and surgical intervention) to gender non-conforming individuals? It's assessed on a case by case basis.
  • Feminism is Not Intersectional
    I still think "patriarchy" is a noun naming a non-existent phenomenon which is the Number One imaginary Bogeyman of feminists. — Bitter Crank

    It's not that bad is it? You abstract away the specifics of the mechanism and give it a label.

    Capitalism is a name for any socio-economic system in which goods are produced for monetary profit. There are lots of flavours united under one banner. Capitalism the number one imaginary Bogeyman of socialists and Marxists and communists.

    Patriarchy is a name for any socio-economic system that relatively disadvantages women. It's the number one Bogeyman of feminists.

    White supremacy is a name for any socio-economic system that relatively disadvantages non-whites. It's the number one Bogeyman of western anti-racists.

    All these imaginary foes that totally do not exist!

    Sarcasm aside, if you want to look at intersectionality, you'll probably see that the processes united under these labels all overlap and have sub-processes of relative autonomy; that idiot down the bar complaining about the pikeys isn't just doing so because of capitalism, and that executive in charge of performance review structure isn't just prejudiced because of racism or sexism. The sites of overlap are intersections.

    If you wanna look whether there are novel features in the intersections, you have to go and look. So trans people, trans in non-white communities in America get assaulted a lot more than trans in white communities. Why? Capitalism! Class! Base! Superstructure! Yeah right. More complicated than that.
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    I don't think there's a responsible, compassionate case to be made that we should try not to answer these very basic questions before proceeding with treatment that is possibly more dangerous than non-medical intervention. — Artemis

    Which is nice, because I'm absolutely not making that case, and neither are the doctors asking the questions!
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    Yes, I do. Because, why only often? Why not always? What is the percentage? Is there a way to tell ahead of time? And on what basis are they happier? Because they actually feel better in their own skin or because other people are nicer when they "pass"? And if the latter, should we be allowing kids to modify their bodies because other people are jerks? — Artemis

    Why often: there's a trend that trans people's wellbeing improves when they adopt the roles and bodies of the desired gender.

    Why not always: individual level variability - in addition to neurological and bodily variability, there's also socio-economic context and socialisation which vary strongly.

    What is the percentage that are effected positively: depends on the diagnostic intervention and target demographic, considering that trans people are often receiving mental health therapy in addition to other interventions, the causes of improvement are difficult to isolate (for this and other reasons).

    On what basis are they happier: self reports or other outcome indicators typical of long term cohort studies. This is tricky, since you can't isolate the hormone therapy from what causes it to be present, or the social context of the study participants. The relevant contrast there is trans people feel they must transition but cannot or have not, and trans people who feel they must transition and have. Considering no one would take life altering surgery lightly, people who have transitioned are a decent proxy for the latter, and the general non-transitioned (but possibly not non-binary/still sexual binary) population are an ok proxy for the first. If you look at this contrast case you see improvements in wellbeing from transitioning. Whether you see improvements in wellbeing from hormone therapy is a different test case, it seems like we do, though perhaps it's different for non-binary individuals.

    Is there a way to tell ahead of time; probably not in all cases, individual level variability is high; there will be heuristics that are applied contextually; like age, effect of treatment, severity of dysphoria. Treat the patient not the ailment applies well here. Diagnostic guidelines say as much too (and there's lots of screening for sex reassignment surgery and hormone therapy!)

    Because they actually feel better in their own skin or because other people are nicer when they "pass"?

    If it was required to trace the aetiology of any mental health effecting condition to general patterns in the population before administering any treatment, no treatment would ever be administered for mental health issues. There are screens in place - it's hard to get puberty blockers or hormone therapy. Especially hard for kids.
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    Like, if gender is based on self-id and not physical attributes, why is changing the physical of such importance as to outweigh possible health risks. — Artemis

    Do you really need to ask those questions when trans people often report that their suffering alleviates somewhat when they perform the role of the appropriate gender and take the appropriate hormones/surgery to modify their body? It'll be a case by case thing; people shouldn't be forced to transition, people who have gender dysphoria as kids should have puberty blockers available but not mandatory (case by case), people who want to transition should be able to (when the circumstances are appropriate and they are able to decide for themselves).
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    ↪Artemis


    Guess the application of puberty blockers comes down to the question; does the benefit of suspending puberty for this patient outweigh the possible risks of applying it? Same thing as usual, probably no blanket statement required.
  • Political Lesbianism as a Viable Option for Feminism
    I don't think behaving like a lesbian is that easy? I mean, it seems more feasible to replace men with good sex toys than for women to suddenly become attracted to each other when they weren't before. Strategic lesbianism?

    I mean, it would be pretty cool symbolically. At best I think it's a reactive strategy rather than a proactive one though; 'stop this specific thing which is bad' rather than 'reshape the world thusly'.

    This can be a viable form of feminism because it allows for the action of sex, which typically demonstrates men as aggressive and dominant and women to be subordinate and passive, to be removed from the sphere of heterosexual interactions. This, as a result, removes the disparity in the treatment of genders through sexual interaction

    This is really reductive though, all gender disparity in everything will be removed by turning select heterosexual women in committed relationships into sexual gatekeepers? Doubt it.
  • Bannings
    ↪Baden


    Bloody PC police, you can't even say that Islam is a paedophile human trafficking conspiracy being backed by the Clintons!
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    "Within a few months of beginning hormone therapy, you must assume that you will become permanently and irreversibly sterile. Some people may maintain a sperm count on hormone therapy, or have their sperm count return after stopping hormone therapy, but you must assume that won’t be the case for you." — Artemis

    Depends on the type IIRC. I don't think young kids are given the sterilising hormone therapy often, for obvious reasons.

    Edit: So yeah, the gender transition hormone therapy isn't reversible if it's pursued for a long time, and will eventually sterilise its recipient; but this isn't the usual course of hormone treatment for kids with gender dysphoria.
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    Yes, I believe that's reasonable. However, it's not necessarily what all trangender people want. Some advocate for allowing preteens to start medically transitioning before their natural hormones change them in directions they do not believe they want. I disagree with the whole concept, but I can understand their position. — Artemis

    Hormone therapy's reversible anyway. Easily so. This is the most common treatment, and is given long before the surgical procedure.
  • Study: Nearly four-fifths of ‘gender minority’ students have mental health issues
    Are people actually worried about this chain of association:

    (1) Acceptance of gender non-conformity.
    => (2) Parents accept gender non-conformity
    =>(3) Children interested in gender reassignment are encouraged to transition early.
    =>(4) Lifelong mental scarring.

    I mean, what even is this? (1=>2) makes sense, as general public perception changing is likely to change the perception of parents (since they're part of the public). But (2=>3) is a big step, a major medical intervention like gender reassignment will probably be seen like sterilisation, the procedure is not done until someone is of age. (3=>4) makes some amount of sense assuming gender reassignment was a bad idea for the kid and they were forced into it.

    Are people really imagining a world where progressive attitudes towards gender conformity reliably lead to forced gender reassignment in kids? This is Fox News death panel crap.

    I think the more enlightened attitude is to allow kids to wear whatever clothes or make up they like, and discuss gender and gender identity with them, in a way that's consistent with what we know about it; that most cases of gender identity issues resolve after adolescence without surgery, that gender dysphoria is unpleasant (even if diagnostically/etiologically problematic) but should not be used reductively to gainsay the psychological effects of marginalisation that trans and gender non-conforming people face.
  • Godel's Incompleteness Theorems vs Justified True Belief
    True things in a deductive system being unprovable.

    True things without justification.

    Kinda the same thing.
  • On The Format of Logical Arguments
    So, yes, knowledge must always be phrased as a modus ponens. — alcontali

    The sun will rise tomorrow.
  • How can you prove Newton's laws?
    What do you mean by that? Mathematical models proves that Newton's laws must be true? — TheMadFool

    ...

    Newton's laws being theorems from other assumptions doesn't mean they describe reality.
  • How can you prove Newton's laws?
    Can you prove they describe the world somehow without checking? No.

    Can you prove they are consequences of other math? Yes. I think you can get all the basic laws from Hamiltonian/Lagrangian mechanics.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    So you've changed the usual meaning of "identity politics." — frank

    What do you think the usual meaning is?
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    Assuming there is some politics of identity to mesh with? Where roles are established and accepted, there may be no politics of identity, not because there are no identities, but because there's no conflict over it. — frank

    There are identities that are differentially effected by political circumstances in any society there's... society... in; which is all of them. Whether organising along these lines (through common problems or community identity signifiers) is effective, or how it works, really depends on the circumstances doesn't it? So does how they're effected.

    Used to be the gays couldn't marry, were pathologised, hanged, discriminated against in the workplace... I mean, if you don't see that as different treatment for different people due to identity I haven't got a clue how to make you drink the kool aid here.

    Yazidis and Isis was another identity politics example. You know, racially motivated genocide is definitely identity politics.

    Does this really need explaining?
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    Anyway, the motivating picture in my responses to @Snakes Alive in the thread and its relation to the OP is as follows.

    If you wanna talk about the choices people make, you have to think about what choices are available to them. It's very rare that people can choose what choices are instantaneously available to them. You live within a lifestyle, lifestyles live within social circumstances. You can edit your lifestyle through personal choices, and it's a slow process, like learning or conflict or love, but you're not gonna edit your social circumstances through your personal choices. It's at the moment that your choices gain political clout, and you make choices to try for them to gain political clout, that you can begin to feel their chains on you.

    But those chains are also shackling your brothers and sisters, those you share your life with and probably don't even know their names and faces, just that they've got the same fucking problems and deal with the same shit as you in lots of ways. And how do you go about addressing that stuff? Political activity, organisation, theorising. By trying to be part of that rogue object that modifies its surroundings, or that point of light that illuminates the boundaries choices are made within.

    But you gotta take the surroundings as a conceptual given to theorise them and politically act for their transformation; have to know the bubble our choices are made in to burst it for some end. So you wanna do politics? Part of it is negotiating identities, but the sphere of political transformation is as broad as the sphere of human activity; infinite variation within our little tethers of human nature. Politics of distribution and access (even epistemic access/privilege) enmesh with politics of identity as soon as people act together, and we always do.

    The bubbles we make our choices in have a habit of resonating with each other, being formed as emergent corpuscles of whatever is driving our social order. You wanna change our social order? You may as well make a personal choice to pop a cloud with the freedom of your mind. This is like theta healing for society.

    Condemned to be free, yeah, condemned to live as dice cast by an invisible hand.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    ↪fdrake I'm in academia, so – I generally choose how much effort to spend on which projects, whether it's worth being a perfectionist or not, whether I should do something well or if doing it just OK is good enough, when to eat lunch and what to eat, what grades I give students, what positions I apply for in looking for new work, what I decide to research, whether I decide to continue researching something or drop it, what I read, what I write, whether I feel like being friendly to people or not, and so on. I have a lot of latitude in what I do personally, though there are a lot of constraints as well. — Snakes Alive

    So you don't choose the projects. They're tailored to current research interests of the institution and society at large, and ultimately what you can generate funding for or not.

    You don't choose whether to be a perfectionist or not, you tailor it to the needs of the project and your time constraints and your efficacy in the subject area. EG: it takes me much longer to develop a new math structure or methodology workflow than just to do some stupid data analysis contract work using canonical methods that people just want p-values from.

    You choose from the menu and what's available in the stores for lunch. I had chocolate humus recently, it was nice. Like a mousse.

    Your students' work quality constrains the grades you give them. Their background and circumstances and available effort at the time constrains their performance.

    What positions are available and fit your background - you don't choose that.

    Precisely what you decide to research? The specifics, maybe. See the first point. How you solve a technical or conceptual problem is an exercise of your capacities, and you can learn more, sure.

    Try dropping all your research projects and see if you've still got your job you love.

    What you read - still, what's available, what you have the background to understand, the required effort to learn something new in an adjacent field or a new perspective in your familiar one.

    You're having a terrible day, you won't feel like being friendly to people. Or you might be perverse and feel like being super duper nice because you're having a bad day. I do that.

    Your work life sounds very typical to me. I see about as much freedom in it as mine. I'mma go be free at the coffee machine some more and see if that changes how its grinder works.
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    Like what? When my hand is "not tipped by force or circumstance?" Sure. — Snakes Alive

    What choices do you make when you're at work?
  • If Not Identity Politics, Then What?
    Presumably, if they do it voluntarily, you aren't in control of them. — Snakes Alive

    Do people actually experience the choices they make like this? Honestly most of the time whenever I choose something my hand is tipped or forced by circumstance. Whether that's at work in how I choose to approach the problems I've got to solve (you can't choose how you have to work the coffee machine), in my personal life in how I deal with conflict, provide support and share in joy, my choices are carried along by circumstance and necessity. They're formed in an interplay of my capacities, responsibilities, and the broader social contexts they are embedded in.

    A lot of socialisation is learning what to do, and what you can do, voluntarily. Where is this choice outside of action and circumstance? Why would it ever occur? Nowhere, no reason.

    But 'no reason' is part of the point, right? No sufficient reason or cause, responsibility for choices made in that case. Sufficient reason or cause, responsibility diminished or annihilated. The nowhere is just as important. Such choices occurring nowhere and never means that the account of choice and freedom is more to do with context severed imagination, a fan fiction of the soul with the one true pairing of humanity and absolute freedom, but there aren't absolutes here. Not in this fucking muck.
  • My hero is trying to kill us all
    To understand a thing is to know the manner by which it might be destroyed. A fundamental understanding of the basic building-blocks of the Universe is essential, then, to the total destruction of everything.
  • Determinism vs. Predictability
    As usual, I think you know a lot more about this than I do. Reading more about chaos and complexity are high on my reading wish list. Any particular recommendations? — T Clark

    This (and the whole channel) is excellent for visualisations and doesn't skimp on the math.
  • Determinism vs. Predictability
    Maybe I don't understand or maybe I disagree. It is my understanding that chaotic systems are completely unpredictable given passage of sufficient time. Sufficient time is determined by a time scale which varies based on the system. — T Clark

    I think you're right, there are systemic reasons why chaotic systems are chaotic, even though (AFAIK) there isn't just 'one thing' which is chaos. Even if the system is sensitive to initial conditions, there has to be a reason for why it's sensitive to them.

    One of the things that makes a chaotic system chaotic is how it acts to disperse points away from themselves (called topological mixing); that there exist (sets of) states in the system which travel so far and so fast away from themselves (under the evolution of the system) that their trajectories never return to where they came from after an amount of time. This occurs when (and only when) there exists a state that can evolve arbitrarily close to any other state in the system. There are related notions for this that rely upon probability; if trajectories return in the above sense with probability zero, or if there exist points which go everywhere except collections of states with probability zero, the system will still be chaotic in some sense.

    Not all the points of a chaotic system have to have this property for the system to be chaotic. Only some of them do. The trajectory might get stuck somewhere in the state space, like falling down to the bottom of a hill and being unable to get back up its slopes again, and these 'somewheres' are called attractors. Attractors come equipped with sets of initial points that will eventually end up in them, and these are called basins.

    Generic points of chaotic systems usually do not belong to basins of attraction, most places in the state space don't lead to being stuck in a rut, so those points never end up getting stuck in a stable repeating pattern of behaviour. This most is why chaotic systems usually have divergent trajectories from small changes in initial conditions; introduced by measurement/instrumental error or limitations of computer precision in representing numbers; though precisely how quick nearby trajectories diverge from one another depends on the system and on the trajectory itself (discussed in the mathematics of the Lyapunov Exponent). The presence of chaos does not depend on the divergence rates, but how much it effects predictability does.

    In this regard, a chaotic system can be said to be more predictable (relative to others) when its trajectories diverge slower (than them). How quickly they diverge quantifies the predictability of a chaotic system without an appeal to uncertainty of the initial conditions (like measurement error), the uncertainty of the initial conditions is amplified over time into divergent patterns of behaviour within the measurement precision of the input.
  • Determinism vs. Predictability
    The idea of randomness kind of snuck into this discussion. It's not something I've thought enough about to be comfortable with my understanding. Your post is really helpful. I'm going to keep it to use as a reference in the future. I'll quote it to pound other posters into submission. — T Clark

    Mm, I was not entirely comfortable with my use of the ontological/epistemic distinction. I suppose what I wanted to emphazise was the necessity of an intervention by an agent, or at least another system, the interaction between which would alone give sense to any measure of randomness. Any 'epistemic' investigation would of course, be a subclass of this type of intervention, but you're right that the former would not exhaust what fixes the background against which randomness would appear. — StreetlightX

    I think the example of the light switch/light bulb system captures the definitions you gave in your opening posts. That is, determinism (or non-determinism) relates to the system itself while predictability relates to an agent's knowledge (or information about) the system. — Andrew M

    This is the salient distinction I was trying to tease out with fdrake. Putting it another way is to say that randomness is indeterminability. Ontological randomness would be ontological indeterminism, which is defined as microphysical events being not merely epistemically random, meaning they are not determined by anything at all, they simply happen without cause. — Janus

    So, for @frank and to contextualise the connections between what I've posted and the rest of the discussion. The thread's determinism and predictability. As @Andrew M and @T Clark have shown, a system can be deterministic but not predictable; the light switch with external random source, predictable but not deterministic; any system with little random variation.

    Then we have the subthread on epistemic vs ontological randomness. Epistemic randomness arises from epistemic uncertainty; how much do we know, how precise is our knowledge. This relates to degrees of predictability; how accurate and precise are our predictions using our knowledge. Whether a child is born with male or female sex is very unpredictable with no scans etc., whether the sun will rise tomorrow is very predictable.

    We can be in a state of great uncertainty with regard to the future of a deterministic system, like a chaotic one, purely due to our epistemic uncertainty concerning it; measurement precision of input variables and initial conditions. Allegedly there cannot be a state of ontological uncertainty with regard to the future of deterministic systems because (their future is not random because {their future states are completely specified by any input state}). So the chain of entailment goes:

    (1) No ontological uncertainty in deterministic systems because
    (2) Their future is not random because
    (3) Their future states are completely specified by any input state.

    We can agree with all of these things and still try to locate randomness within deterministic systems, as measures of the probability of their future states given a range of initial conditions. The equations that update climate models are deterministic, nevertheless they're run lots of times to produce "probability of rain tomorrow" and so on. The input variables (initial conditions) are changed slightly to see what happens. In this case, assuming that the climate is a deterministic process completely modelled by its updating equations, the randomness of the future arises from measurement uncertainty.

    The thread I was trying to pull on with my coin flipping example was to read the range of initial conditions back into the coin flipping process. With more detail there, we only have a finite degree of precision with how we apply force to the coin, what direction we send it in, and all the other dynamical variables required to completely specify its final state into Heads or Tails. Rather than this range of initial conditions arising from measurement uncertainty of a variable, it arises from bounds on the precision we can control our bodies with and the properties of the coin. The ratio of heads to tails produced in flipping a fixed coin repeated times relies upon the natural level of specification precision of its trajectory by our flipping actions, and how that is conditioned by the coin.

    Such randomness isn't just a result of epistemic uncertainty; our knowledge of the coin and our bodies helps us little to change how coin flipping works; but nor is it a-causal ontological indeterminism - the system is fully deterministic; once a trajectory is fixed, the coin will land as it would land from the start. But when we come to flip the coin, it does form a distribution of heads and tails; this must therefore arise from variation in our set up; in which initial conditions we propagate forward along their trajectories. Where those initial conditions vary is due to the variability in the behaviour of our body material in a process held as equivalent (coin flipping, "fixed background"), not in states of knowledge regarding the coin.

    Edit: I think it's more precise to say that there are features of the process (of coin flipping) which can be held as equivalent (heads or tails end states), from which we can calculate the set of initial conditions (a pre-image of heads and of tails) which yield each outcome. The proportion of the initial conditions which yield heads give its probability, the proportion which yield tails give its probability.
  • Determinism vs. Predictability
    A quick comment on some of the discussion here: a clean way to understand randomness is as equiprobability: if, given certain outcomes, the likeliness of each happening under repeated iterations is the same, then your system is random. There's no 'discrimination' as to the end result (no 'asymmetry that would favour some outcomes over others). — StreetlightX

    That's one flavour of randomness, though a biased coin flip is still random.

    One thing that follows from this understanding is that randomness can only be spoken of in relation to a fixed system. Something is random insofar one cannot choose, in advance, between fixed outcomes. So a coin toss is random because the two outcomes, head and tails, are fixed in advance, and what makes the toss random is the equiprobability of outcome. Conceptual problems creep in when this relation to fixity is lost: if the coin turns into an elephant, that's not random, that's nonsense. — StreetlightX

    I agree that something has to be 'fixed' in the background for 'randomness' to make sense, but this 'fixing' isn't necessarily epistemic (though it can also be that as well). In the case of a biased coin flip. If we flipped a biased coin 1000 times, the differences in flipping strategy each time provide different initial conditions (forces, rotations, locations) which are carried through by the deterministic (or functionally so, anyway) dynamical laws of coin flipping to final head or tail states. In this case I bet that the fixed background which allows the distribution to emerge is precisely the presence of those dynamical laws, the space of initial conditions, and the geometry of the coin (this coin will be develop along these flipping trajectories with these initial conditions).

    When we view this from the perspective of the outcome H-T-H or whatever, we can't retrofit back to the initial condition which generated the outcome, too much has been lost by the encoding. This encoding isn't merely epistemic though, the coin being able to land on either side and that it will get stuck in those states (through an impact or two with surfaces) is every bit as valid a property of coin flipping as the underlying deterministic laws which transform hand movements to head or tail.

    The probabilities of attaining head or tails emerge from whatever biases the coin, those biases in the coin propagate through the dynamics of coin flipping to biases in the proportion of outcomes.

    A further consequence of this is that randomness is an epistemic, and not ontological concept. If randomness is system-relative (defined only in relation to a fixed system), then no event 'in-itself' is either random or not-random. Instead, you need a distribution of (potential) events relative to a system in to qualify something or some event as random or not. But importantly, what counts and does not count as belonging to, or constituting a system, is itself relative to the kind of investigation one conducts. — StreetlightX

    Though I do definitely agree with this. It's important not to reduce reality to models of it, or to hypostatise models to reality. Good models are always more than just models though!

    Edit: if you want a Deleuze-inspired fuzz on it, randomness is a (there are others) virtual complement of actual outcomes and no less real for that. It's one way nature holds itself in suspense until it resolves (or realises) itself. Edit2: and this virtuality of randomness shows up in why it can be both a sensitivity to externality (unmodelled noise, disruptive perturbation) and a codification of immanent potentials (the distribution of coil flips, birth sex of babies etc)
  • My notes on the Definition of Mathematics.
    Are you trying to program a structure by attaching invariants? — alcontali

    Eh. Structure's a placeholder there. Generally they'll be algebraic flavour, a collection of objects and operations or relators between them.

    Saying that it is a "group" automatically attaches a set of invariants. If you add enough invariants to the structure, i.e. you may use up all your degrees of freedom, then indeed, at some point there will only be one candidate definition that fits the bill. It could, for example, leave only one K possible. You could obviously also over-specify and propose the structure of something that cannot possibly exist. — alcontali

    I mean something like the following construction. Let's say we've fixed a vocabulary of symbols and interpretations for all the things we're considering. Say you've got sets of axioms and sets of inference rules that allow you to derive consequences from the axiomatic systems. Let's imagine that we have a bunch of consequences we know we need to reproduced; like 1+1=2 or 'avoid Russell's paradox", or "greater temperature contrasts between medium and immersed object yield more rapid temperature exchange" or something like that.

    They're not really all the same thing, 1+1=2 is a specified theorem and a relation of formal objects, 'avoid Russel's paradox' is place a limitation on the space of theorems to avoid a nasty one, and 'greater temperature contrasts...' isn't even directed toward a mathematical object, it's trying to fit a bunch of mathematical objects to the world to describe a part of it.

    Regardless, let's say that our end result is the grand 'ole , the thing we wanna do implemented in a mathematical system. Let's just gloss over that the objects in need not be mathematical in nature; nature can shout NO to any model of it and formalisms can be wrongheaded or irrelevant. This is mostly setting up a flowchart rather than a mathematical argument. Anyway

    v4iysp7p13i119nn.png

    We find out what axiomatic systems give what conclusions, but notice that the conclusions that we desire are the motivating feature in this diagram. Allow after the red arrow to be interacted with other objects and goals, and you have a picture of mathematical progress.

    Pure formalism just gives you the black arrows, it does not give the sense of mathematical progress through the articulation and codification of ideas, just the dynamics of symbols, as if the ideas motivating them were completely irrelevant. Another way of putting it: formalism is just what we invent to get to where we need to go.
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