First off – the term “ad hominem” refers to an argument. An insult is an insult, not an ad hominem attack. — T Clark

The ad hominem is using the insult as a reason to not accept the argument being made as a valid argument. So why cast an insult as a response to an argument being made if it's not an attempt to invalidate the argument that they made?

You're confusing simply casting insults at people with casting insults at people as a response to an argument that they made. As such, insults of any kind simply don't belong on a philosophy forum.

You need a court to change your name on legal documents, but you’re free to change your name in everyday life just by telling people that that’s your name. Pretty sure that’s the same with gender. — Michael

Proper nouns and common nouns are apples and oranges when it comes the ease of changing the nouns that are used to point to things. Common nouns are what we are talking about in this thread and this is addressed in my prior post that was a reply to you, but instead of addressing that, you'd rather grab at the low hanging fruit of another's post? :sad:

Probably, because people interpret the lack of empathy for transgender folk as a willingness to hurt others for some type of self-gratification. Which is morally wrong. To answer your question directly; it's invalid argument because it equates some ones identity as being as significant as an internet insult. Which it isn't. — Cheshire

Casting insults at anyone is exercising a lack of empathy. Your distinction between calling people names for which they aren't doesn't make any sense. Again, your making sex/gender out to be some special case that should be protected against mis-identification. Why?

Your repeating a false equiveillance, but using an extreme example. It is a dishonest argument and you know it, because it's ridiculous. — Cheshire

It was once considered ridiculous to claim the be a woman when you were born a man. That's the point you don't seem to get. What makes identifiying as a Dark Lord of the Sith less plausible than identifying as a woman when you aren't?

And back to you are the victim here. All I hear is I'm threatened by these people and I want them to suffer so I feel better about myself. I've never felt threaten or burdened by transgender people so I don't understand why you do. To me they seem like an easy target and you have got something driving you to take shots at them. Am I missing something here? — Cheshire

I'm not wanting anyone to suffer. Talk about mis-judging people... Look in the mirror.

I'm asking questions that no one is willing to ask. Questioning people's deep-seated assumptions about themselves and the world can often make them feel offended, but their feelings and emotional attachments to their assumptions shouldn't prevent people from asking honest questions.

It's the same reason you ask some one their name; instead of give them one. You aren't really in a position to say what is justified to alleviate other people's suffering. You treat people like the gender they appear to be all day long. It takes zero effort on your part to allow some else to live their life the way they choose. Have you ever spoken with or known anyone that's transgender? If your only knowledge is the adverse reaction to their personal medical needs, then your over looking quite a bit.

What if I don't approve of your lifestyle? What right do I have to judge it? — Cheshire

People are given their name when they are born, and if you want to change it you have to get it approved by a court.

Why does sex/gender get special treatment when it comes to being able to control other's speech? I don't identify as a racist or an idiot, but I am called these names on this forum. Why are we not raising hell to stop everyone from calling people names for which they do not identify with and are offensive? What makes sex/gender so special?

What if I identify as a Dark Lord of the Sith and expect you to address me as "My Master" and get my feelings hurt if you don't comply? Again, what makes sex/gender so special in this regard?

The other side could use the same argument and ask why you are judging them for exercising their right to speak freely.

I can sort of understand that objection, but I don't think that that's Harry's objection. His objection seems to be that his definition of "woman" is the correct one, and so people who use the word differently are incorrect and even delusional. — Michael

Not that it's the "correct" one, but the consistent, non-sexist one.

Imagine that we are surrounded by dogs and cats. Imagine that I point to a cat and say, "cat". I point to a dog and say "dog". Then I point to another cat and say, "dog" and at another dog and say, "cat". Now, imagine your confusion as you attempt to understand the similarities and differences I am trying to draw your attention to.

My definition of "man" and "woman" is so narrow that it excludes many behaviors that most people associate with men and women, like wearing dresses, make-up and long hair as opposed to wearing pants and not wearing make-up and having short hair. These are not behaviors that are dependent upon one's sex and would therefore be sexist to expect one sex or the other to adhere to those expectations.

Systemic sexism exists as those behavioral expectations that cultures have of each of the sexes. Those expectations are not what makes one a man or a woman. Biology determines what makes one a man or a woman. So when a trans-person declares that they are a man or a woman because they engage in those behaviors that their culture expects of men or women, they are reinforcing the systemic sexism that exists. You can still wear pants and be a woman and wear a dress and be a man.

I can't seem to do any work with my thought about Aphrodite. I mean my thought about Aphrodite can't seem to deflect even a single air molecule off its path let alone do anything else physical. — TheMadFool

Then you typing this post about your thought of Aphrodite isnt a physical action? What about the statues and paintings of Aphrodite? Those were not produced by physical actions? How can one produce a statue or hit keys on a keyboard spelling out Aphrodite without first having the thought of Aphrodite?

Sex is a compound attribute.

Chromosomal sex is not the entirety of sex. There’s also hormonal sex and anatomical sex. If anything, anatomical sex is the original referent of the word, from before we knew anything about hormones or chromosomes. And there are some people naturally born with a chromosomal sex that differs from their hormonal or anatomical sex (women AFAB but with XY chromosomes), and everyone has always referred to them by their anatomical sex (as we usually don’t know anything but anatomical sex about anyone).

Hormonal and genital sex can be changed already, and it’s only a matter of time before chromosomal sex can be changed too (hello CRISPR). — Pfhorrest

Biological sex is based on a combination of traits:

- chromosomes (in humans, XY is male, XX female)
- genitals (penis vs. vagina)
- gonads (testes vs. ovaries)
- hormones (males have higher relative levels of testosterone than women, while women have higher levels of estrogen)
- secondary sex characteristics that aren’t connected with the reproductive system but distinguish the sexes, and usually appear at puberty (breasts, facial hair, size of larynx, subcutaneous fat, etc.)

Using genitals and gonads alone, more than 99.9% of people fall into two non-overlapping classes—male and female—and the other traits almost always occur with these. If you did a principal components analysis using the combination of all five traits, you’d find two widely separated clusters with very few people in between. Those clusters are biological realities, just as horses and donkeys are biological realities, even though they can produce hybrids (sterile mules) that fall morphologically in between.

If sex were purely a social construct, sexual selection wouldn’t work: males would look identical to females. That difference itself suggests that there’s a biological reality to sex, and that this biological reality—the correlation of chromosomal constitution with reproductive traits and with secondary sexual traits—is what has caused both behavioral and morphological differences between the sexes. If sex were purely a social construct, then male deer wouldn’t have antlers, male peacocks wouldn’t have long tails, human females wouldn’t have breasts, etc.

"Woman" and "female" are words and can be redefined any time standard usage changes. If enough people accept people born as biological males who identify themselves as females as women, then they will be. — T Clark

When enough people defined the Earth as flat, did that make the Earth flat? When enough people use the word, "god", does that make god exist? The words you decide to use does not make it so. It just makes it the words you use. If not, then there would never be such things as lies and mass delusions.

So you can't answer the question: "What you mean by "objective" and "subjective"." I'm merely asking you to define the terms you are using. Asking to define the terms you are using is a very common question to ask on a philosophy forum. Asking questions is an effort to understand what you are actually saying. Not answering them is not making an effort. Just so you know.

It's not an ad hominem if it's a statement of fact. Your reply, as usual, was a misrepresentation of what I said and a personal attack as well. It, like your latest, doesn't deserve my time because arguing with an idiot etc. Etc. — Benkei

Hilarious. Go back and look at my reply and you will see that there are no ad hominems - only questioning your crazy assertions. But that is expected from you - that any questioning of your assertions is a personal attack because you are deeply emotionally invested in your assertions. Why, Benkei, are you so emotionally invested in diversity in America when your own country lacks the diversity that exists in America? Keep posting your unfounded claims about race relations in America (where you don't live) and I will be there to personally attack you with questions. :roll:

BS. They are an oppressed minority regardless of any lies the majority tells itself about those they oppress, and regardless of any anecdote (Obama?) they can point to. — James Riley

Blah, blah blah. In other words anything that is said that contradicts your assumptions just isn't true and you don't have to prove it. What does systemic racism look like in America? What would the absence of systemic racism look like in America if not an elected black person as President? Sounds like there is no end to systemic racism so what is the point?

They aren't saying all whites are racists any more than they are saying all blacks are racists. Sure, everyone is racist, even if subliminally, blacks included, — James Riley

Wait...what? They aren't saying that all whites are racist, but you are? Who is "they" and why are you contradicting them? Which is it? Are we all racists or not? Are you a racist? If so, why should we be listening to you? What have you done to offset your racism?

When you ASSume you are making an ass or yourself, not me. I never said or even implied "that because some whites are racist, they all are." It's just the racists themselves, and their enablers, who want to move on without having done the hard work. The first step is to admit you have a problem, Harry. Then and only then can the hard work begin. All whites benefit from systemic racism, even those who are not racists. — James Riley

But you said everyone is a racist, including blacks. If you are claiming that even blacks are racist, then BLM is racist! You whole post is riddled with contradictions and you're telling me to stay focused? Puh-leeeze.

Are you denying the current consequences and vestiges leftover from the days of American slavery? — creativesoul

This is like asking if I deny the existence of god without having defined god. What consequences and vestiges are you taking about? Surely these consequences existed for 40-50 years after the Civil War, but 150-160 years after the Civil War? How long do the consequences of any racism in the history of the world last? At what point in history did the consequences and vestiges of white oppression in human history cease to exist? At what point does the consequences of what the Germans did to the Jews cease to exist?

h, the idiot speaks again by calling anti-racism racism. That skit is getting old. — Benkei

Ah. More ad hominems. That skit is getting old.

Stop attacking me and attack my argument. Why are you so concerned with what happens in the U.S. when you have such a lack of diversity in your own backyard? If the more white you are means the more racist and privileged you are, your pale white skin means your're the worst of them. :rofl:

Because it's a tone-deaf dog whistle used by morons who couldn't read a room if their lives depended on it. No one said only BLM. They said BLM. They said BLM because blacks are an oppressed minority. Once whites become a minority, are enslaved, have all their property stripped away from them, their families torn apart, a war fought to free them, their former owners reinstated to their black privilege after the war, are subjected to Chad Crow, lynching's, burnings, beatings, ghettos, voter suppression, white-on-white violence due to lack of opportunity brought on by black privilege, then we can talk about WLM. But in the mean time, to paraphrase a meme, you don't walk across the street and interrupt the fire fighters while they are fighting a fire in your neighbor's house and say "Hey, what about my house? All houses matter!" — James Riley

They are not an oppressed minority when they have held the reigns of power in the very system that is defined as being systemically racist.

And what about all the other countries in this world with worse records than the U.S.? What is all this focus on the U.S. when the utter lack of any diversity in Western Europe and Asia is itself systemic racism?

You speak as if whites are the only race in the world that has never experienced oppression in history. Your whole speal just reaks of a lack of perspective.

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

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries/

All lives may matter but only an idiot would say that in the midst of a conversation about some lives. That's how "All Lives Matter" is an opposing view to BLM. It's a dummy interrupting a conversation with an irrelevant truth. "BLM!" "Really? How about them Broncos! Did you see that rain last night?" — James Riley

It's that the some lives' message is that everyone that is white, or wears a cop uniform is racist. It's an accusation that all whites are racist and need to be told that black lives matter, when it is already assumed by most that all lives matter. If all lives matter is already assumed to be the case, then why even say, some lives matter? You're simply assuming that because some whites are racist, they all are. THAT is racism in a nutshell.

I think you're confused. Your argument here is that subjective experience is proof that subjective experiences are objects. — Kenosha Kid

I'm asking a question, using your examples. You can clear up the confusion if you weren't trying so hard to be obtuse. Again, I'm asking what you mean by "objective" and "subjective". You're using the terms, not me. We don't have to use faces and apples as examples. We could also use racism and democracy as examples, which aren't objects but we can talk about them like we talk about experiences and perspectives. So, I'm waiting for you to clear up the confusion by simply answering my questions.

While you're at it maybe you could explain what you mean by "direct/indirect" as well, and what and where the "you" is in relation to your perspectives and experiences.

So within a week from each other a yearbook was cancelled because it had an article about BLM but not its "opposing" views, blue lives matter and all lives matter and in Florida critical race theory was prohibited in school.

These are the same people who cry "cancel culture" every other day right? :chin: — Benkei

Here we go again. Another Western European crying about how things are in America, when the country they live in is less diverse and has more whites in positions of privilege percentage-wise than the country they are whining about. What are you doing to fight white privilege in your own country, Benkei?

How is All Lives Matter an opposing view to BLM? It includes the idea that black lives matter, not opposing it, but doesn't make a distinction about race or skin color, like racists do.

Funny how BLM got all bent out of shape when others asserted that All Lives Matter, but when Asian Lives Matter and Jewish Lives Matter started, no one said a word. So it turns out that not only black lives matter, but others do as well. Leaving out certain people because of the color of their skin, as if their lives don't matter, is racist, period. It's the very idea that BLM is supposedly fighting against. It's fighting racism with racism.

I still don't understand how the fact that we all have points of view is subjective rather than objective, when you are making the case for how it is for all humans. What makes some fact objective? What makes some fact subjective? If the changes you talk about cause changes in other places (ie if you switched minds with Biden, Biden and your bodies' would not behave the same). There is a difference in the effect the mind would have on the body because a different mind is in the body.

If what you are saying is the case whether anyone from any point of view agrees or is aware of it or not, then does that not make it an objective fact?

I don't think we even need to use the word consciousness to poke some serious holes in materialism. For example, if scientists come up with a theory of consciousness and claim that some machine is conscious, instead of worrying about what consciousness means, we can just ask the scientists, "Is it capable of feeling anything, like pain or pleasure?" If the scientists say "yes", then they are still on the hook for proving that that machine can feel pain, and then we're back to the verification problem. People can throw up language barriers to questions like "Are you conscious?", but if they try to do so for something like "are you in pain?" it's not going to work. We all know what is meant by "are you in pain?"

For example, Kenosha Kid thinks it's possible for consciousness to arise from different substrates, like rocks or ice cream cones (I think he used that example). So, instead of getting bogged down in questions like, "How could a collection of x produce consciousness?", we can ask "how could a collection of x feel pain?" The same absurdity arises (e.g., a collection of rocks feeling pain), there's the same explanatory gap and hard problem (e.g., how could a bunch of rocks feel pain? How does that work?) and we don't even have to mention consciousness. — RogueAI

All you are doing is moving the goal posts. Now we need to define pain. What if I defined pain as being informed that you are damaged. Can a machine be informed that it is damaged to then take action repair the damage? What form does the information take? What form does the information "damage to the body" take in you, if not pain? Feelings, visuals, smells, tastes, sounds, etc. all take forms which are all different due to the different sensory organs that are used to acquire the information. You can be informed that you are injured visually as well. Both vision and pain inform you of the same state-of-affairs, but in different forms.

How would you detect consciousness in a machine, even in principle? How would you go about determining that a substrate other than neurons can generate the sensation of pain? I think this is, in principle, impossible to verify. — RogueAI

LIke I said. We first need to define what it is that we are looking for. If I define consciousness as a sensory information structure in memory, does this include machines with memory and sensory devices as having consciousness?

I'm sympathetic, and I think things are easier if we ditch physicalism altogether, but physicalism's central claim is that there is this non-conscious stuff that exists external to us and that it either causes consciousness or is consciousness. I don't think there's a problem understanding what physicalists mean when they say that. It's a pretty straightforward theory: mindless stuff exists and everything is made of it and it causes all phenomena. That's easy to understand. I happen to to think it's wrong, but I don't think there's a meaning problem there. — RogueAI

Again, they are using the terms consciousness and non-conscious as if they know the relationship between consciousness and non-conscious stuff (ie the relationship between brains and minds). How does a non-conscious thing cause consciousness? How does something cause it's opposite? That is a serious problem. It's like asserting that something comes from nothing, or that good can come from evil acts.

In monistic idealism, there is only one cosmic mind, and we are dissociated aspects of it (think dissosciative identity disorder, which used to be multiple personality disorder). So, would my feet be conscious? There's an assumption there that there are these things separate from us called "feet", and that they might be conscious. I don't think anything is separate. I think that separation is an illusion. There's only one thing that is conscious: the one mind. Our own focuses of awareness are, as I said, dissociated aspects of this one cosmic mind. — RogueAI

Why would there be dissociated aspects of one mind? Are you saying solipsism is the case and we don't know that our minds really aren't conscious in and of themselves, rather there is only one consciousness - this cosmic mind?

It seems simpler to just say everything is information, or processes.

I am privy to experiencing Halle Berry's face. Nothing in that experience suggests a particular neuron firing in my brain. So, no, I do not have access to the objective reality underlying my experiences.

By analogy, when I see an apple, I don't see the full apple. I cannot see the reverse side, or the inside. It's not that the objective reality of the apple is missing my experience of it, rather than my experiencing it is an incomplete and particular perspective. — Kenosha Kid

In other words, you have "direct" access to your experience of Halle Berry's face and your perspective of apples. In other words, your experiences and perspectives are part of "objective" reality. If not, then how can you talk about your experiences and perspectives like you can talk about faces and apples?

So I'm confused as to your use of "direct" and "objective". You have direct access to your experiences and perspectives and your experiences and perspectives are part of the objective world.

Like I said, if you can't explain the relationship between your experiences and perspectives and what they are about, then how do you even hope to explain the things your perspective and experiences are about, or of?

Do you really have no idea what someone is talking about when they ask "are you conscious"? You're not able to grok that sentence? — RogueAI

I have an idea what someone might mean, but then that idea falls apart when subjected to logic and reason. The same goes for the word, "god". People use the word without a clear understanding of what it is that they are talking about. We need a definition in order to understand what each other are talking about so that we are not talking past each other.

You can't tell, you can only assume. Since we're all built the same way, there's been no problem assuming we're all conscious, but when computers get more sophisticated, and people start claiming things other than brains are conscious, the impossibility of verifying external consciousnesses is going to become a big problem. — RogueAI

Only because we've learned to associate consciousness with behaviors and haven't come up with an explanation of consciousness that allows us to detect consciousness more directly.

Can you unpack "view from nowhere"? Do you mean a god's eye view of your internal mental states? — RogueAI

Yes, something like that.

Suppose we have an unconscious machine that knows all the physical facts about our universe. From that information, could it figure out that this thing called "consciousness" exists? — RogueAI

I don't know what "physical" means, much less a physical fact. How about just facts, or information? I think it would be easier to figure out what consciousness is without the false dichotomy of "physical" and "mental".

Nothing. Consciousness, mind, and ideas are all there is. Idealism makes everything so much easier. — RogueAI

I'm not so sure. Are you saying that my feet are conscious like my brain? Are you saying that molecules, as well as the atoms they are composed of, and then the quarks that the atoms are composed of, have points of view? What is a point of view, if not a structure of information?

As I said to Judaka, this is a very outdated way of looking at science. Phenomenology is an important matter in modern physics. When someone says "a photon is a click in a photo detector," they are not talking about photons as they appear to the photon detector but how we experience the photon detector's behaviour. All scientific measurement is really a human measurement of a measuring instrument. This isn't problematic: it's been a couple of hundred years since scientists thought they had direct access to objective reality. — Kenosha Kid

Strange. If you don't have "direct access" to "objective" reality then are you saying that you have indirect access to your own experiences? Are your experiences part of "objective" reality? It seems to me that you have "direct" access to some part of reality - namely your own mind - or else how can you ever claim that you have experiences with any certainty, much less that they are even about something else that isn't an experience. How does that even happen?

And if we can't adequately explain the part of reality that we have direct access to, or how it relates with the rest of reality, then how can you assert that we know so much about what we access indirectly?

Vision isn't your only sense. You have the power to smell and taste. Using all if your senses it is simple to differentiate water from vodka.
— Harry Hindu

That would be my way to discern water from vodka. It's a terrible way to discern water from ethylene glycol.

Worth thinking about what smelling and tasting the unknown clear liquid entails. These are extremely sensitive chemical analysers that can usually uniquely identify most naturally occurring things. — Kenosha Kid

:roll:
You completely missed the point.

If you can't discern the difference between water and vodka visually, but can only do so by smell or taste, then is the world is as it appears visually, or as it smells or tastes? If we could ask a bat or a dog, what would they say? Does a brain exist how we see it, smell it, or taste it? I think we are confusing the way it appears to a particular sense with the way it actually is. This reminds me of how we have a difficult time discerning the difference of light being particles or waves. Maybe it depends on the sense (measuring device) being used.

But science doesn't proceed prima facile, it proceeds on the basis of evidence. If the model that has electricity and magnetism as two sides of the same coin is better at predicting results of experiments than the one that holds them as two distinct phenomena, proceed with the former. — Kenosha Kid

But the evidence only appears a certain way depending on what sensory device you are using to observe the evidence. I think that we are forgetting that any time we mention evidence, we are mentioning some conscious experience of some evidence, not evidence as it exists apart from our experience of it, or the way it appears to some sensory apparatus.

As I said above, "a clear liquid" does not discern water from vodka, and might leave me in the pitiful situation of having accidentally drunk water. — Kenosha Kid

Vision isn't your only sense. You have the power to smell and taste. Using all if your senses it is simple to differentiate water from vodka.

So what is consciousness like when not be observed by any sensory apparatus ie. when it's not being measured?

Are you conscious? Is your significant(s) other conscious? To not draw this out, I'll answer for you: yes, and yes.

Now, did we need a precise definition of consciousness to answer those questions? No. Did those questions and answers make sense to you and me? Yes. I know what you mean when you say you're conscious and vice-versa. — RogueAI

Are you fibberfab? Is your significant other fibberfab? How can you answer those questions without knowing what fibberfab is or is not?

You can say that you are conscious, but what makes you conscious? How can you tell if others are conscious when you can't observe their consciousness, only their actions? Are actions conscious? If not then what is conscious and how can you tell?

Also, establishing the need for a scientific definition of consciousness is not the same as defining it. — Kenosha Kid

Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, the scientific definition can't contradict other definitions, or else scientists and laymen would be talking about different things.

We can talk about water as it appears from consciousness as a clear liquid, or as a combination of hydrogen and oxygen molecules as it appears from a view from nowhere. We're talking about the same thing but from different perspectives, but not contradicting ones.

Can we do the same thing with consciousness? Can you talk about how consciousness appears from consciousness and as it appears from a view from nowhere? Your consciousness appears as a physical brain that drives various actions from my conscious perspective, which is not how my consciousness appears to me so how do I know if you or I are actually conscious or not? What is concsciousness like from a view from nowhere?

Not so with physical states and mental states. They are obviously ontologically different things.
— RogueAI
If so, then how do 'mental states' interact with 'physical states' without a shared (causal) ontology? — 180 Proof

The problem here is the dualistic assumption that there two incompatible states.

What is the difference between physical and mental? We know mind exists and only know brains exist by way of the mind. So which came first in the causal process? It seems to me that brains are the form the information/knowledge of other minds takes in our own mind. Brains are how our minds model other minds.

Why is my mind and not my brain observable from my end, but only my brain and not my mind observable from your end?

I love the place except for ungrateful cunts. — Benkei

I love the place except for the dicks with delusions of grandeur that believe that us cunts should be grateful to them.

Did you read the links I gave? I'm not completely sure about this but to be fair to irrationalism, rationalism hasn't much to show for its roughly 2 millennia old reign. In some circles, that would be considered a monumental failure, no? — TheMadFool

Again, I'm asking for specifics. It seems that irrationality has been the dominant form of thought for most of human existence. In what areas has rationality failed where irrationality has succeded? Rationality includes the idea that you might not be right, and that you can only be right after making all possible mistakes. Have we made all possible mistakes? If not, then how has rationality failed?

Just the tip of the iceberg of threads on philosophical "progress." — TheMadFool

What about scientific progress? Has the progress of ethics been based on irrationality (racism) or rationality (inclusiveness - and understanding that we are all human beings of equal worth)?

I guess some philosophers simply gave up on rationality in utter frustration and wanted to try something new à la alternative medicine which has a similar reason for its popularity which is failure of allopathic treatment regimes and that "something new" is irrationalism. — TheMadFool

Seems to me that these "philosophers" are just impatient and want to declare that they have the answers without having had to work at it.

What needs to be explained is how the passage of time seems to change depending on our mental state. Is the passage of time a mental state, or independent of mental states? What is the difference between change and time?

Those are very interesting questions and something I have wondered in an attempt to understand ideas like panpsychism.

I like to think of consciousness as a form of integrated information. Frame-of-reference is information as location relative to another location. When information about location relative to another location is not part of the system, can the system be defined as being conscious?

Well, that's the catch isn't it? Rationalism recommends irrationalism, if not everywhere, at least in some areas where millennia of rational inquiry has nothing to show for it. Just saying. — TheMadFool

What areas are you talking about, specifically? Why would rationalism/irrationalism work in some areas and not others? What makes these areas different in why one works and the other doesn't?

My focus was on the over-abundance of religious and political discussions on this forum - both of which are rife with irrationality and emotional outbursts, not unlike what you see all over FB and Twitter.

Try defending Irrationalism without using rationality.

What is even more ironic are those that use rationality in religious discussions abandon it in political discussionsand vice versa.

Define, "power", as it seems like we are now talking past each other.

Actually it is, from a legal standpoint, although the rights are not identical to an actual person. In any case, the president’s or CEO’s can be individualists, can’t they? — praxis

Then from a "legal standpoint" of corporations being individuals, these groups would engage in competition? Do you even remember what you said from one post to the next?

CEO's are individuals that have acquired their power not through their work alone. Kind of like how the children of politicians acquired their power through no work of their own. End dynastic politics.

Not even close. To be "Libertarian" today is to be essentially a corporatist. The term is almost the opposite of what it once meant -- as is true for most political terminology in the United States.

"Government should leave us alone" and "support free markets." That's at the core of neoliberalism through and through. Translation: Big Government is bad, so reduce it. It's no solution, it's the problem. What IS the solution? Private business -- privatize everything, take it out of the public ("Big Government") sphere and put it into the hands of private power, which is unaccountable to the public.

No honest business person believes in free markets. It's a fantasy. They value socialism and big government more than anyone -- they simply believe the government should serve them. Subsidies, bailouts, tax cuts, deregulation, etc.

Capitalism cannot survive without state intervention. Never has in any developed country. — Xtrix

Groups hijack certain terms to make them more appealing to others. Just look at how the terms, "liberal" and "progressive" have been hijacked by the left as sheep's clothes for their authoritarianism and maintaining the status quo.

It's up to us level-headed folk to educate these numbskulls what the terms really do mean. I mean, all you have to do is look up the word, "Libertarian" in the dictionary and see that is makes no mention of corporatist. You can even look up the synonym for corporatist and still see no reference to Libertarianism. So it seems that you aren't even close.

Count yourself as one of the lucky ones.

Any philosophy forum that doesn't incorporate logic is a failed philosophy forum. When you can't differentiate the content of your site with what we see on FB and Twitter, what's the point?

The lack of organization comes from the fact that both political parties are inconsistent and hypocritical. They adopt opposing view points. The left asserts that they are all about "choice" in one domain, but then deny choice in other domains. This is because both parties have both liberal and authoritarian tendencies. What about a party that has only liberal tendencies? Well, that would be the Libertarian party.

So individualist are in favor of antitrust laws? I thought y’all was all about FREEDOM!! — praxis

What does freedom entail to the individualist? How does the state of realized individualist freedom look in practice? — Echarmion

The right to bodily autonomy, the right to self-determination, freedom of speech, among other things.

A state that protects those essential freedoms, and nothing else. — Tzeentch

This is almost right. We seem to have forgotten that a company or corporation is not an individual and therefore doesn't possess rights as an individual.

Freedom is threatened when one individual or group possess to much power. Corporate monopolies are just as much a threat to individual rights as government monopolies.

I said there may be the implication that an individualist wants to secure their power by eliminating the competition — praxis

That isn't what you said. EIther way, it doesn't follow.

Actually if there's any implication along this line it's that the Individualist wants to desimate the competition in order to secure their position of power. — praxis

All you are doing now is repeating yourself without providing any evidence for what you are saying. All you have to do is read your own words here and in other threads, and look at history to understand that groups are just as competitive as individuals.

Groups are not only competitive against each other, but against individuals. Just go back and read your statements about racial injustice, sexism, transphobia, etc. You are simply ignoring the fact that just as there are multiple individuals, there are multiple groups, and as such they can either compete or cooperate with other individuals or groups.

But why was there an over-abundance of government control? What made Communists believe that they could design a system that could overcome the dysfunctionality that always manifests in group behavior? — synthesis

The over-abundance of government control was necessary because you have to forcibly take property and rights from legitimate owners and individuals to disperse among the population and limit opposing ideas.

Religion usurps the political, the ultimate authority being God, not the government. The American Founding Fathers well-understood this necessity. God is used as an ideal giver of moral guidance because if you allow government (people) to assume the same role, then you are depending on the frailty of man-made morality (motivated by our unlimited desires). Gather more than two ambitious human beings in the same room and you will find only the creativity of their rationalizations outdoing the deviousness of the plots and plans to enslave the rest. — synthesis

Which god are we talking about - the one who's punishment for thinking differently is to be cast into fire for eternity? Doesn't sound like a moral god to me.

Man thinks way too highly of his limited intellect. Although his cognitive shortcomings are obvious in all spheres, nowhere is it more glaringly obvious then in the political where lying, cheating, and stealing are on full display. — synthesis

In no other sphere other than religion does man think so highly of his intellect as if he knows the true nature of god and what it intends, much less whether one even exists or not.

People should be begging for a higher power to knock man off his poorly constructed pedestal and rightly take his place back on the ground along with the rest of the species who seems to fair considerably better as they appear to not over-think it in the least. — synthesis

I don't know which men you are talking about other than the religious and political elite, which in those cases, yes, they need to be knocked off their poorly constructed pedestals.

Just thinking out loud here, but reading this thread, and thinking about individualism, it strikes me as, somehow, inherently masculine. When I think of women reading and thinking about this, I envision a lot of eye-rolling. :roll: — James Riley

Sexist. :roll:

They are free, and in fact every eligible citizen receives a free sticker just for participating. Why lottery? In attempt to remove the incentive for power seeking. There’s no point of investing in power seeking if power is randomly given. — praxis

I can understand the benefits of a lottery system as a means of dispersing power and the limiting the incentive for seeking it, but we have to know who created the lottery system and administers it so that it can't be manipulated to a particular group's or individual's benefit.

I tried to describe the difference as succinctly as possible. You apparently disagree, offering the rationale that everyone both competes and cooperates.

Maybe it has to do with competition vs cooperation as it relates specifically to power distribution in society. The individualist wants to win the game and the collectivist wants to play the game indefinitely and where ‘everyone’s a winner!’, essentially. In real life this plays out as collectivists supporting collective power, such as workers unions, and individualists supporting capital free enterprise and its concentrations of power. — praxis

I already showed how groups compete against other groups. It seems to me that you are implying that there should be only one group and no competition, which is no different than everyone thinking the same way and the existence of only one party with no dissent or competing ideas. Just think about your argument and how that might equate to one race, country, religion, etc. eliminating all competition from other groups. Isn't that what we saw in Germany in the mid 20th century? Diversity of groups is just as important as a diversity of individuals.

After reading this:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/28/first-time-ever-there-are-fewer-registered-republicans-than-independents/%3foutputType=amp

It seems that more Republicans are willing to abandon the group when they can't beat the theocrats, or at least steer the party away from those authoritarian tendencies that control the party, as opposed to Democrats. But then what would you expect from a mostly collectivist mentality? Collectivists inherently look to the group to make the decisions because making decisions is hard and then there's the personal responsibility that goes along with it that can be scary enough to prevent any decision on personal level being made. And because they inherently believe that popularity and numbers equates to truth, they are emotionally attached to the idea that others should think the same way, or else their emotional state is at risk.

In my hypothetical society autocrats are appointed by lottery. Kinda rando but eminently egalitarian. — praxis

Why by lottery and not by free elections? Who created and is administering this lottery?

If they live in society they really have no choice but to be mostly cooperative. — praxis

Tell that to the people who resist an run from police because they've been told society and its enforcers are racists.

Tell that to the growing number of no-political-party-affiliation voters.

Not sure how saying that someone may want to behave in a particular way means they can only behave in that way. — praxis

You're the one that used a single word to describe individualists, as if the two terms were essentially conflated, when you only need to take a second to see how that is just as much a property of collectives as it is individuals.

Cooperation does require compatible values and goals, no getting around that. I imagine the same holds true for individualists who cooperate with each other. — praxis

Exactly. So at this point we seem to be saying the same thing.

What can I do to address my own cultural bias?
First of all identify what your culture is and how you were brought up.
Then seperate them into two groups of needs and not needed (wants) for your wellbeing/ survival.
Now question yourself as to why those things are put in those two groups from an unbiased perspective or reflection of self.
You may very well discover hidden biases that are some of your habits/judgements.

If you feel up to it you can share what you found, or if you think there is a flaw in this post let me know. — Tiberiusmoon

This is a fairly accurate description of how I became an atheist after being raised as a Christian in a mostly Christian community/country.

I think the first step in the process is the willingness to understand that you might be wrong and that to search for the truth wherever it leads, despite any emotional attachments you have to your beliefs and biases. The next step was to study the other cultures/religions to understand what they believe and why. I see logic as the path to truth and since none of the religions practiced logic, religion was placed in the "not needed" category.

The same goes for politics. I was once a Democrat and then a Republican. Now I'm an independent that has no need for political parties which I also have learned abandon the use of logic. I have now grouped both politics and religions into the "Group-think" category as something that I just don't need for my wel-being or survival.

The issue is that many people look at being part of a culture, religion or political party, which entails not questioning what the group says or does, as necessary for their well-being and survival. Some people need to be told how to live their lives or to tell others how to live theirs for their own well-being.