Indeed that is the argument, I think, Wittgenstein is making - that there is indeed no such thing as a private language. — PuerAzaelis

Then it seems to be a trivial argument.

How are we defining "language" anyway?

I don't know about you (you may be an internet bot or p-zombie), but the contents of my own mind, in which words are only a small portion, inform me of the state of the world, which includes my own body. Colors and sounds and smells and feelings are themselves the "words" of a "language" informing me of the ripeness of apples, the relative proximity of moving cars, what is for dinner, and the state of my empty stomach. Is that a "private language" between the world and I?

The Private Language Argument for Five Year Olds: words are only of use if more than one person uses them. — Banno

If more than one person used them, then how does the language qualify as being "private"? So there is no such thing as a "private" language?

Events would be mental snapshots, or categories, of the continuous flow causation. Minds break up the analog signal of the world into binary bits that are meaningful to our goals. The separation/discontinuity only exists in our minds.

Yeah, Thing is, I'm making the same point I have been making for years. — Banno

This thread doesnt contain what you've said for years - only what you've said recently, which is inconsistent.

Maybe that's the problem, Banno. You been saying the same thing for years, so you must think that there's nothing else for you to learn and that you know everything.

Neither — Banno

:up:
Excellent, Banno. You're more tin-headed than most but eventually make your way to seeing that I was correct all along.

I wonder if folk just have a hard time accepting how bare being true is. It's this bareness, this lack of anything more, that is shown by the T-sentence.

If you believe something, then you believe that it is true. You can't belief it and yet think it false. — Banno

Wait, I thought that:

Well, given that we know it, it follows that it is true. — Banno

So which is it? Does knowing it or believing it make it true, and where does certainty fall? Is it possible to believe or know something that isn't true? If not, then why do humans frequently make the "mistake" of stating that they believe or know something and then find out later that it wasn't true? Why do we often find out after making the claim whether or not our knowledge was true or not? Maybe we were getting ahead of our selves and claim to possess knowledge when we didn't have proper justification. That may be the problem - that most people use "know" to casually - often meaning a belief or hypothesis rather than real knowledge. When someone claims to know something, is their knowledge evidence, or proof, that their claim is true? Is their claim that they have knowledge evidence, or proof, that they possess knowledge? Do you possess knowledge just by claiming that you do?

They don’t. Instinct is innate and automatic, cognition is developed and reactive. — Mww

Like walking, riding a bike and driving a car - after you've practiced enough these things are automatic and innate.

Ok, no problem. Everyone is entitled to his own seemings. — Mww

I was reflecting on your seemings, not mine.

Only actual antirealist position I can think of is outright nihilism, and from what I understand of that, no, minds and bodies (not even ones own) exist. — noAxioms

lol, so anti-realism defeats itself by rejecting it's own existence as a belief? A non-existent nihilist? :lol:

I personally have found 'existence of an objective reality' to be a meaningless concept, and hence see no reason to assert it, which is a little different than actively denying it, so I'm not sure if I qualify as an antirealist. — noAxioms

What do you mean by, "'existence of an objective reality" to say that it is meaningless?

I am pretty sure we all know people who are certain on almost no grounds at all. But the main point is that certainty is a term referring to a feeling, a quale. Knowledge is a term refering to a belief that one decides is likely to be true due to certain criteria. Sometimes, for example, we just can't face the idea that something is not true. Sometimes we can even admit this. I am certain she is cheating on me but I have no evidence. I trust my gut. — Coben

It seems like you're saying that one can be certain without any reasons or evidence for what they are certain about. That isn't how I or anyone else uses the term, "certainty". Now that I know that is how you are using the term, then I am going to expect you to provide evidence because now I can't be certain that what you are "certain" of is true. To be certain means that you put forth some mental effort to parse some bit of information for logical and empirical consistency before you say that you are certain of something. To say that you "know" is to say that you have good evidence, or justification for something but there could possibly be other explanations that you aren't aware of yet. It is a way of saying that you have a set of rules for explaining or interpreting something and those rules are amendable.

A priori is a relational determination in the human complementary cognitive system. It is merely in juxtaposition to a posteriori, the latter given from sensibility, the former absent sensibility. But absent sensibility itself has two conditions, absent immediate sensibility, or, that of which perception and its representations are not present at the time of cognition, and, absent any sensibility whatsoever in any time of cognition. — Mww

I'm not quite sure at what you're getting at here. Where would instincts fall into this explanation? Are instincts a form of knowledge? Does a newborn baby "know" how to root and grasp? Are these a priori or posteriori? Is there any sensibility for them in those actions?

It also seems to me that to know that you possess a priori or posteriori knowledge would require some kind of feeling or sensibility for you to make that claim. What does a priori knowledge feel like compared to a posteriori and how do you tell the difference if not by some kind of empirical sense? What form does a posteriori or priori knowledge take for you to even refer to it with those scribbles, "a priori" and "a posteriori", which are themselves something that we can see (or hear if those scribbles were spoken)?

I personally have found 'existence of an objective reality' to be a meaningless concept, and hence see no reason to assert it, which is a little different than actively denying it, so I'm not sure if I qualify as an antirealist. — noAxioms

What would the phrases, "living under a rock", or "living in a bubble" mean for an anti-realist?

Are there other minds, or other bodies? Why do we perceive other minds as other bodies?

Certainty is a measure of your conviction that you are right. You might be an idiot. Knowledge is presumably a rigorously arrived at belief. — Coben

I dont see how one can be certain without having rigorously arrived at their state of certainty. Without having done that, they would be misusing the term, certainty.

Nor need an antirealist deny that there is a physical world. It is open to them to say that if we talk as if there is a physical world, then by that very fact there is indeed a physical world. — Banno

What does "talking" mean if there isnt a medium that carries this information (that there is something called a physical world that contains cats) between minds?

I understand 'antirealism' to mean that it useless to talk about the term 'reality' except in cases where consensenus is being sought as to 'what is the case'. Scientific paradigms are examples of where that consensus operates regarding successful prediction and control of events, and it is 'experienced events' which replace 'physical reality' for the antirealist. The traditional dichotomies like subjective/objective or mental/physical are misleading in understanding 'antirealism' because they are predicated on lay concepts of an observer independent reality. Such dichotomies are considered futile by philosophical pragmatists. — fresco

In other words, anti-realism logically leads to solipsism. Where is this consensus taking place if not in the real world with real human beings? "Consensus" is a term lacking any meaning for an anti-realist.

This thread is confusing what we think with how we think.

Does a newborn baby know what an unmarried man or a bachelor is? If not then how can all unmarried men are bachelors be a priori knowledge? Unmarried men are bachelors is a defining statement. It defines what bachelor is and the statement is only useful when explaining to someone else who doesn't know what a bachelor is, is, like to a child.

Unmarried men is what our thoughts can be about, and require experience, while the logic of non-contradiction is how we think and arrive at truth.

Time and space are not objects of thought, but are how we think. When we objectify time in space we are making a category error. Time and space are what separate unmarried men from married men. An unmarried man cannot occupy the same time and space as a married man (the logic of noncontradiction). You might say time in space is how we distinguish one mental category from another.

Yeah, thanks. I've learned quite a lot from that. It seems that there's an inherent idea that, at least, one of the differences between knowledge and information is based on some kind of judgement with respect to its significance to us, e.g. desirable/undesirable, valuable/useless, etc. — BrianW

At any given moment you possess information/knowledge that is useful and not useful for some goal.

While you possess information/knowledge that...

Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon. — tim wood

this information/knowledge is only useful when you need it - like when you're taking a history exam, and useless in all other instances. So, is your long term memory composed of information or knowledge?

Maybe the problem is the terms themselves, facts, truth, knowledge.

Maybe we should dispense with their use for the moment and talk about states-of-affairs and aboutness instead.

Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon. — tim wood

Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon was a state-of-affairs. You typing those words is another state-of-affairs that is about the prior state-of-affairs, and then there is the state-of-affairs that is the relationship between the prior and latter state-of-affairs - of how much the latter accurately signifies, or is about, the prior. I can say, "Tim Wood said "Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon."" and that would be another state-of-affairs about the latter state-of-affairs, and we can keep doing this forever - of talking about some other state-of-affairs, which can include the uttering or typing of statements.

Now, what terms do we use to refer to the prior state-of-affairs, the latter state-of-affairs (statements about the prior state-of-affairs) and the relationship between the two?

...and here is Harry in a knutshell. Isn't it glorious to see the rich variety of thinking that is displayed in the forums?

Harry knows things that are not true. — Banno

Isn't it glorious to see all the rich varieties of side-stepping a direct question on these forums?

Well, given that we know it, it follows that it is true.

But I don't think that you asked the question you meant to ask. — Banno

Harry, have a read at this:

Certainty

Do you think that this article is adequately summed up by your Merriam-Webster definition?

What, in the article, do you find to disagree with?

Are you at all perturbed by my pointing out that on your account you know things that are not true? — Banno

What I get from both Merriam-Webster's definition and the article you provided is that IF certainty and knowledge are not the same thing, then certainty is the carrier of truth, not knowledge. Certainty has a stronger quality of truth than knowledge. So you can't say that if "you know it then it is true" if you are implying that "certainty" and "knowledge" are distinct AND that certainty has a stronger connection with truth than knowledge does, according to the definition and the article. If you are certain, then it is true. If you know it, then it is justified yet you can still have doubts, or be open-minded to alternative possibilities that haven't been provided yet. True wisdom is often equated to knowing that you know nothing.

Compare:
"He is certain there is a Santa, but of course that's not true"

with

"He knows there is a Santa, but of course that's not true".

All I am doing here is pointing to how the words are used; I'm not setting out which things are true, believed or known. — Banno

Seems that both words are used the same way, and therefore mean the same thing (if meaning is just use and all that) — Harry Hindu

..and this is why I don't pay much attention to your posts. — Banno

This is why I don't expect much of a response when I point out the failure of your arguments.

So the above two sentences are not using "certain" and "knows" the same way? What do you mean by "use" if not that the words are occupying the same space among the same string of scribbles and in the same context?

The problem is not that they are misusing the word - of course the word might be used in that way. The problem is that they fail to take into account an important distinction. In this case, Harry ignores the distinction between believing, which can be either true or false, and knowing, which by definition must be true. — Banno

And like I already said in the post your cherry-picked and failed to respond to: How can we be certain that what we know is the truth? How does anyone know that some claim is the truth? We make claims all the time about our knowledge without having any proof that what we claim is true. We only have justification for our beliefs that qualify as knowledge. Without justification, it is simply a belief. How do we determine what qualifies as proper justification? - Logic.

Your qualification of truth for knowledge is unattainable, therefore "know" would could never be used correctly and would therefore be a useless word.

It seems to me that "certain" would be a stronger assertion of truth that knowledge would be. Take the Merriam-Webster definition of "certain" as an example:

known or proved to be true : INDISPUTABLE
it is certain that we exist — Merriam-Webster

So, "knowing" would be more like I said: a justified belief, whereas "certainty" is something that is often unattainable (mostly when it comes to external truths - truths that humans didn't create themselves - like how and why did the universe come to exist), hence the existence of philosophy and skepticism.

But one cannot know stuff that is not true.

Compare:
"He is certain there is a Santa, but of course that's not true"

with

"He knows there is a Santa, but of course that's not true".

All I am doing here is pointing to how the words are used; I'm not setting out which things are true, believed or known. — Banno

Seems that both words are used the same way, and therefore mean the same thing (if meaning is just use and all that)

Now, are we talking about the state of someone's belief, or the state-of-affairs that the belief is about? Could it be possible that a person could be confused about both? Is it possible to be confused about whether or not you actually know, or are certain of anything?

If we associate truth with knowledge then people misuse the terms a lot. They claim to know when they don't. In order to know that someone actually knows would require that a second party know, but then how would we know that they know if it possible to be wrong when claiming that one knows? When, how, and who knows when some belief is true?

If we just equated knowledge with JTB, and severed knowledge from truth, then we wouldn't have the problem of people using the term incorrectly. Knowledge doesn't require truth, only justification. Then people only misuse the term when they don't have any justification for what they are claiming they know.

Another thing that we need to think about is different kinds of knowledge. No, I'm not talking about knowing how and knowing that. We've already shown that they are the same. What I'm talking about is information made by humans as opposed to natural information. Take the information that Donald Trump is president and the information that the Sun will die in 5 billion years. The former is information, or meaning, created by humans. The latter isn't. The truth in the latter lies in the actual state of affairs that is the Sun in 5 billion years while the truth of the former lies in the minds of humans as something that humans arbitrarily made up. Humans created the truth of who is president at any particular moment, but nature is the one that created the conditions, or the truth, of the Sun in 5 billion years. It is much easier to know the truth of who is the president of the U.S. than it is to know when the Sun will die.

You're not paying attention to what I'm saying and you post is incoherent. Let's slow down a bit and start from scratch.

Does anybody these days still think everything is matter or everything is mind? Doesn’t seem all that logical to me. That is not to say dualists don’t still walk the Earth, but I rather think they are of the mind and matter kind, not one or the other. — Mww

Anyone who thinks that everything is matter, mind or information would be a monist.

If you think there is both matter and mind, then you'd be a dualist.

If you think that there is both matter and mind, then you have to explain how matter and mind interact.

If you think that that everything is matter or mind, or information then you don't have to explain how different substances interact. The same substance interacts through causation. If you are a dualist, then you have a problem explaining causation.

So, if they are of the mind AND matter kind, then they are a dualist. If they are of the mind OR matter OR information kind, then they are a monist - get it?

And the metaphysician is at no more loss to explain the interaction between mind and matter than the hard scientist, so as long as they are equal in their ignorance, no harm is done in theorizing about it. Which has been done for millennia, and even if nothing substantial has come from it, nothing particularly detrimental has either. — Mww

Well sure, if the hard scientist and the metaphysician is a dualist, then they are at a loss to explan the interaction between matter and mind. Ignorance is the harm. Socrates said that knowledge is the greatest good and ignorance is the greatest evil. It basically comes down to whether or not you believe that reality is composed of one substance or more than one. Then you need to explain how different substances interact.

Take visual depth as an example. What is your visual depth composed of - neurons, atoms, mind, information, etc.? When I experience visual depth, I don't experience matter (neurons, atoms). I experience a feeling of being informed. Visual depth informs me of how the world is arranged relative to the location of my eyes.

Does visual depth exist outside of minds? Does a tree have visual depth? Probably not because it doesn't have eyes, but is there a mind-like state-of-affairs that is what it is to be the tree? Or is the tree made of matter and there is no mind-like substance of the tree? If the latter, then how does the matter of the tree interact with the matter of the mind for you to claim that you experience a tree? When we say that we "experience" are we not really saying that we are informed?

Is there a reference-able standing theory in support of the notion that information is everything? — Mww

Why do so many people on this forum plead to some authority? Was there a reference-able standing theory when Darwin proposed his theory of natural selection? No, his theory was the basis of a new idea that had no reference-able prior theories. It was based on his own observations of nature over several years. Instead of worrying about what some other human (who is in no better a situation than you or I in figuring out the relationship between mind and matter) thinks, focus on what I am saying.

Logic isn't to blame because most arguments tend to cite learned thinkers and the arguments that follow are good ones. So, in a very simplistic sense, the problem lies with the premises, the initial assumptions, the starting point of our reasoning. — TheMadFool

Life is not a contradiction.

Citing learned thinkers is a logical fallacy called pleading to authority.

The problem generally lies in some emotional attachment to what is being argued.

Most irreconcilable differences occur in the domains of ethics, politics and religion because these are the domains of subjectivity being portrayed as if they were objective.

Ok, so everything is information. What does that do for us? What are we to do with that information? Is it sufficient from the fact everything is information, that no metaphysical arguments remain? — Mww

What does saying everything is "matter", or everything is "mind" do for us? It gives us a name to use to refer to the substance of reality so that we may communicate the idea of the substance of reality. It solves the problems of dualism - primarily the problem where dualists are unable to answer the question of how matter and mind interact.

To say that everything is "matter" is to say that consciousness is just an arrangement of matter, but there seems to be a difference in what matter is (at least the way we perceive matter) and what mind is. How do we really know what matter is like independent of perceiving it? For example, we perceive matter as solid, but are told by scientists that it is mostly empty space.

To say that everything is "mind" is to engage in anthropomorphic projections. Saying that reality is "mind-like" is a little better, but still hints at anthropomorphism. "Information" seems to be a better term to use to refer to the substance of reality.

The 'information' approach is still a little vague. If you could define what you mean by it, that would help me. If it's the stuff of information theory, then your theory sounds like a mathematical ontology. — jjAmEs

I'm talking about your mind - it's substance and arrangement. Your mind is an arrangement of information. Now, how does matter (if matter is not an arrangement of information, but of atoms) interact with that?

The problem isn't trying to think how mind can arise from matter. The problem is thinking of the world as two different things - matter and mind. Everything is information. There is no need to explain how information arises from information. If you think that matter is something that exists and is directly opposed to mind and it's nature, then that is the problem. In all of these explanations, I have yet to see anyone explain how two opposing properties - matter and mind - interact.

If Alice says, "My tooth hurts" (first-person) and Bob says, "Alice's tooth hurts" (third-person), then both are describing exactly the same thing - Alice's toothache. However neither Alice's nor Bob's description of her pain is the pain itself. — Andrew M

Is Bob really speaking in the "third-person"? Isn't Bob speaking from his own perspective ("Alice" instead of "I" as having the toothache)? Is Bob talking about his perspective or about Alice's tooth? Is Bob and Alice's perspectives an objective state of affairs (they are real and exist in the world) that we can talk about just like we can talk about apples and trees? Both Alice and Bob are saying the same thing (objective) "subjectively". How about the "subjective" experience of hearing the sounds from Alice's mouth, "My tooth hurts."?

How can Bob acquire objective information subjectively?

Does "Alice's tooth hurts" exhaust the pain Alice feels? If we know that Alice's tooth hurts, what new information would the experience of the pain Alice experiences provide someone else about Alice's state that Alice couldn't just state with words?

When Alice falls asleep does her tooth still hurt? Why or why not? Where does the pain go if the problem is still there and we can predict that Alice will experience her tooth hurting when she wakes up?

What's funny is the response of so-called quality posters on this forum to racial topics on this forum. It's like Jekyll and Hyde with the sudden rash of insults and ad hominems dominating (and is often the only content of their entire post) their responses.

It's just like the responses you see of the fundamentally religious and the transgenders - these verbal attacks and insults you get when you question their view of the world. It's sad to see intelligent people act this way.

If you don't want to take on what I said about evolutionary psychology and kin selection, then fine. Any other response is missing the point of that.

Do you really think natural selection would promote non-jogger genes in the pool of a hunter-gatherer society?

Today, most of the societies are not hunter-gatherer, so non-joggers can get by just fine by doing other things that enable them to pass on their genes - like writing computer programs.

You don't see fat cats in nature. You see fat cats in the homes of humans who overfeed their cats without making them exercise. Those fat cats can still pass on their genes. In the wild, there are no fat cats. Hmmmm.

Necessary conditions aren't always explanatory. Legs don't explain why people like jogging and the ability to notice differences doesn't explain why racism exists. You're looking for an explanation at the wrong level. But if you want to continue to do so, I suggest the rest of us bow out now and just let you. — Baden

It looks like you're explaining things at the wrong level. Sure humans have legs, but they also have brains. Both of which were designed by natural selection. Some brains like to make their legs run, some don't. I'm guessing there are evolutionary advantages for those that like to run over those that don't. Joggers stay fit, non-joggers don't. Those that stay fit have a higher chance to pass their genes down to the next generation. Brains and their minds and how those brains establish preferences for other particular humans (kin selection), or for running over not running, are products of natural selection (evolutionary psychology).

I get what you mean. It's not just a question of whether differences exist or not. It's also about whether people deem the difference to be, as you said, significant. I fully agree with this and fdrake's video post clearly demonstrates that race is an arbitrary concept with the caveat that it only looks like that based on genotype and not phenotype. The video clearly reveals the basis of racism as based on phenotype (external, physical appearance) and then demonstrates that these physical differences don't have a counterpart in genotype based on which all races are more similar than different. Clearly, racism is not a socio-political phenomenon as you claim: I've never heard a racist ask for social status or political affiliation before they start being racist. — TheMadFool

This whole thread is forgetting the concept of kin selection.

Kin selection is the evolutionary strategy that favours the reproductive success of an organism's relatives, even at a cost to the organism's own survival and reproduction.

In other words, favoring those that share your genes is an evolutionary strategy. It is a strategy by natural selection to encourage the appearance of difference groups (mutation and genetic drift) for competition between different groups. Without differences, natural selection has nothing to select against or for.

Thousands of years ago, the world wasn't as homogenous as it is today. While humans evolved from a certain stock stemming out of Africa, they spread across the globe - encompassing different environments. Like every other species that spreads out and becomes separated from the original strain, they change differently over time. These differences allow natural selection to encourage competition between the strains, and even other species. If there were no differences, then natural selection would have nothing to select for or against. It's just that not enough time has passed to make the different strains of humans incompatible to procreate. Once human populations became homogenous we began mixing up our genes into the same pool again, whereas prior, we have separate pools. These pools are what your genealogy tests show that your ancestors are from.

So just like many evolutionary strategies, like the male strategy to be promiscuous, cultures try to either inhibit or promote (as in the case of kin selection) these evolutionary strategies we've been designed with.

Racism is a category error in that some culture have instilled the idea that other races are even more different than what their genetic differences represent - like blacks are criminals and whites are racist. This doesn't mean that we aren't different. It's just that our difference weren't enough to make us separate in the eyes of natural selection.

But then humans are part of the selective process of natural selection. Just as predators are selective pressures on their prey, humans can select other humans, while weeding out others.

Like I said, our gene pools weren't separated long enough in evolutionary time to become distinct species. Several thousand years is just a blink of an eye to natural selection. That is why when the world became homogenous, we didn't have a problem mixing our genes back together.

I'm not interested in having a biology vs. culture debate. The claim in the OP is that the mere fact of being able to recognize difference implies that racism is 'primal'. That's an incredibly dumb inference for reasons I pointed out. — StreetlightX

Like I said, you can't make rules for the differences if the differences didn't exist prior to the rules.

You need to recognize differences before making rules for them. The rules would not exist if we couldn't recognize the differences first.

Still have no idea what you're on about. — StreetlightX

This doesn't follow at all, and it also happens to have the effect of attempting to naturalize racism, rather than recognizing it for the political phenomenon that it is. What matters is not difference simipliciter - there are as many differences between me and my daughter as there are between me and my other-raced friend - but differences deemeed significant or relevant in one way and not another. It's somewhat embarrasing that this needs to be said. — StreetlightX

You're the one that doesn't know what they are talking about. Your daughter shares 50% of your genes compared others of a different race in which you share less. If this wasn't the case, then those genealogy commercials are a load of shit. How can they determine where your ancestors are from if we all share the same amount of similarities and differences?

Kin selection is the evolutionary strategy that favours the reproductive success of an organism's relatives, even at a cost to the organism's own survival and reproduction. Kin altruism can look like altruistic behaviour whose evolution is driven by kin selection.

Sure, culture plays a roll, but like I've said in the gender discussions, cultures can't make make rules for the differences if the differences didn't exist in reality. The problem is that cultures are placing people in boxes for which their skin color or sex parts don't apply. They are category errors. The problem is making these differences cultural rather than biological. In other words the differences should only matter in biological/medical contexts, not cultural/political contexts.

Even something as basic as levels of aggression isn't encoded to a degree that can meaningfully override culture. — Baden

If only this were true, we'd have no one in prison for violent crimes like rape or murder.

Sure. But let's say for sake of argument, since I don't know what to think about all this, that black people feel like the white people want them to act white and lose their identity in order to be accepted. — Marchesk

But that is what I'm saying. What does it mean to act white or black when there is already diversity of actions and needs and wants within those groups themselves?

To be more precise, the explanation was that majority populations for things like race, gender and orientation have had the power to oppress the other groups, and setup society to benefit the majority more so than others. However, the majority tends to not recognize how things continue to be that way, so it can be uncomfortable for the majority to confront the accounts of lived experience of discrimination form the groups not in power. — Marchesk

The majority doesnt necessarily oppress the minority. A constitutional republic, like in the U.S., is designed to protect the minority from majority oppression, unlike a full-blown democracy. There are plenty of blacks in positions of power (police officers, judges, etc.,) that could change my life for the worse they wanted to.

Minority groups can have power over the majority.

Power has nothing to do with majority vs minority. It simply has to do with the resources and skills you have at your disposal vs what others may or may not have.

We can already see how the minorities of both race and gender have the power to frame whites as evil oppressors. The minorities are dictating the grounds of these conversations. When you have the majority walking on eggshells in order to not appear as bigots, then the minority has successfully gained power over the majority. The minority has Supremacy over the majority's free speech.

The stated goal is to move toward an equal society with no groups in power.

But our focus is to be race. — Marchesk

That all depends on how we group, or categorize, people. What do blacks want that would be different than what whites want? Don't we all want freedom and happiness? If we all want the same thing then why are we separating ourselves into different groups as if we want different things? It shouldn't matter what color the other person's skin is. It would only matter what our goals as human beings are.

The two presenters spoke of causing harm during the workshop. Someone mentioned how we need to be careful not to create a safe space for the oppressors. The goal of the presenters in doing these workshops is to demolish white supremacy, the patriarchy and any other social structures that create inequality. By "white supremacy", they mean whiteness. — Marchesk

Does supremacy = majority? Were they aware that there are simply more whites than blacks and that it would be logical that more whites would be in positions of power than blacks? There is simply a larger pool of potential workers that are white and trying to hire an equal number of blacks would be difficult and misrepresenting the local population. What exactly are they advocating? Genocide?

I wonder if China and African countries hold these types of meetings in their workplaces. Americans are so stupid.

Interest is judged by what is, not by what might not have been. It would be irrational to hold an interest in falsified theoretics of long-dead natural philosophers, but it isn’t irrational to hold an interest in theories metaphysicians create that empirical science cannot conclusively address. Don’t have to live and die by it to be interested in it. — Mww

Interest is determined by your goals. What is interesting depends on the present goal in the mind. The only interest in knowing about the claims of long-dead philosophers is to know how far we've come since.

Can that really correlate to the predictions of cognitive neuroscience, if that paradigm has to with physical mechanics, but philosophy has to do only with simple human rational capabilities?

Don’t get me wrong. Science in general is both fascinating and quite useful. But I, a stand-alone thinking subject, am more concerned with what my mind does for my directly, however abstract that may be, than I am with what my brain does for my indirectly. — Mww

Is it really indirect? How would you know? This seems to assume dualism.

That implies something atemporal must very probably exist in order to be the cause of time. — Devans99

Unchanging causing change is as incoherent as something coming from nothing.

Then I imagine the atemporal thing (God) off to the side (not on the plane) and a mapping between the atemporal thing and each point in the plane. Then the atemporal thing can express itself in spacetime without being part of spacetime. — Devans99

See? You can't escape talking about God relative to the universe. You are implying space-time encompassing God and your universe, as God is located relative to the universe and expresses itself in time.

But then if you think about all the universes in the multiverse, all the multiverses in reality and all of the different possible realities that might exist, it seems impossible that we would ever understand them all - so things with a drastically different nature very probably exist - including atemporal things. — Devans99

They exist only as imaginings in the human mind in this particular universe.

Time enables change. Time is not change. If time was change then time would flow faster in the presence of change, yet SR indicates time slows down in the presence of change. — Devans99

I dont know what you're talking about. Maybe you're talking about realtive change. There is more or less change in one area relative to another.

No, I'm not. I'm simply asking you a direct question that you should be asking yourself, but you are unwilling. I'm asking it because it I need to know if you're a human being, bot, or p-zombie.

What form does the thought, All bachelors are unmarried, take in your mind? How do you know when you are thinking it and when you aren't?

If there is at least one long-dead philosopher who would hold with his claims given what is known today, then if he was interesting then, he would seem to be just as interesting now. Why would such long-dead philosopher give a crap about the claims neuroscientists and biologist are beginning to make, when his philosophy is not affected by them? — Mww

But we can't know if they would say something differently. It would be more interesting to know what current philosophers think.

The fundamentally religious don't give a crap what scientists say either, but they are both talking about the same thing - how the universe and humans came to be. Philosophers of mind and knowledge are talking about the same thing neurologists are talking about so that is the reason they should both concern themselves of what each other are talking about. There must be a reason why you wouldn't because you should probably be knowledgable of what people who study the brain are saying when they can make predictions about what you experience when parts of the brain are abnormal.

Makes no difference to me personally, as a regular ol’ human being, that one part of my brain communicates with another such that I feel good or bad about something, or whatever else happens behind the curtain between my ears. Actually, I couldn’t possible care any less about it. That a certain neural pathway is triggered by a certain activation potential invokes not the slightest interest in me at all, when it occurs to me it’s time to go check the mailbox. — Mww

Of course you shouldn't be concerned about it normally. Only when discussing the mind-body relationship on a philosophy forum, or when you receive brain damage.

Well, yeah. Causes are also effects of prior "causes". It's effects all the way down. It's all information. Maybe trying to separate causes from their effects is the problem. Information is the relationship between causes and their effects. It's a relationship, not two separate things - causes and their effects.