Edit: Maybe you were just referring to my metaphorical use. In which case, yes, gotcha (literal use also predominant in the corpus). — Baden

I don't mind the metaphorical use, although Governor Gerry might.

It's both a verb and a noun. Results here though https://www.english-corpora.org/coca/ do suggest you yanks predominantly use it as a noun. — Baden

Americans use it as both a noun and a verb, but I've never heard it used to refer to anything other than establishing inequitable voting districts. The word comes from here in Massachusetts. You seem to be using it to mean a kind of generic screwing around to misrepresent things.

I couldn't get access to the link you provided without registering.

Do You know of anything that is good or beneficial about hate speech? — Pattern-chaser

There is something good and beneficial about not restricting what people say. There is something good and beneficial about letting people decide whether what they say is good and beneficial rather than authorizing the government to do it.

gerrymandered — Baden

I've never seen that word used that way. Not a complaint. Maybe I'll use it too. That's how language changes.

Race like gender or even nationality is a strong dividing factor how we categorize intentionally or unintentionally people. And since we do have and use these categorizations, it does have an effect. — ssu

I agree with that.

I think I'm done here. — Judaka

Makes sense to me.

Wait a minute, people aren't red and yellow black and white randomly. People inherit the characteristics of their racial group (or mixed racial group), such as skin coloration and a zillion genetic traits from their biological parents. To paraphrase a George Carlin skit: — Bitter Crank

I wasn't trying to open up the question of whether or not race has a physical, genetic basis, although I recognize that the way I wrote it did just that. What I was trying to do was show that the social basis of race is what matters. White people defined black people as black and treated them differently because of that. That makes race real.

As I said, sorry that I confused things.

Let me restate my question. Do you think that a properly functioning brain, in all its biological aspects, can exist without manifesting a mind? — simeonz

I don't know and I don't see why it matters.

Yes, but if I were a materialist, I would claim that the the mind is not perceived first hand (such as by itself), but is merely attested to by the brain. And the brain does not always attest to externalities. Sometimes it purports intuitions and emotions. A materialist would then argue, the mind is simply a shared sentiment or concept. — simeonz

Either I don't understand this, I don't agree with it, or both.

Yes, but the TV is still a system of leds, liquid crystals, capacitors, antennas, electromagnetic events, etc. The image is an aspect of the end result as seen by the viewer, which is one facet produced by underlying processes. — simeonz

If you really don't think that a television set is different from the image produced on the set, you and I are too far apart to have a fruitful discussion.

My stance is that mental states are identical to physical brain states. — Terrapin Station

So, the light from my flashlight is identical with the flashlight.

I watched the linked interview and really enjoyed it. The way they described it, Schopenhauer's view of the world has a lot in common with mine. I guess it's the other way around. I tried to read some of his works previously and found it pretty impenetrable. The interview, on the other hand, was very clear and accessible.

If you've read any of my writing, you've seen I'm pretty lazy - what I call a "seems to me" philosopher. I'll watch some more of the interviews and try Schopenhauer again. Thanks for the reference.

So you are essentially conceding that my approach is more practical - in that you have said that a racially focused solution is not the way to go. — Judaka

I've been saying that throughout this discussion.

What are the benefits to your "ideology" — Judaka

It's two separate issues - How things are. What we do about them. What are the benefits of knowing how things are? 1) Knowing the truth is good in and of itself. 2) Facing the unpleasant truth is good for the soul. 3) Understanding how things got the way they are may make it easier for people to change their attitudes 4) Knowing how things got the way they are has implications for who should be held primarily responsible for making things better.

To say that the mind is distinct from the brain, to me at least, infers that the brain can manifest without a mind, or that the mind can exist separate from its physical embodiment. Otherwise, I feel that they will be simply co-extent. — simeonz

Well, clearly the brain can exist without the mind. People die or sink into a permanent vegetative state. The mind is gone, but the brain continues. As for the mind existing without the brain - life cannot exist without chemical processes. Do you think life is just chemistry. Can you tell the difference between chemistry and biology? If not, I doubt you and I will be able to discuss this subject very productively.

That is why I used the term "common-sense" previously. I meant, that albeit privately experienced, the mind is a widely observed phenomenon. But I still struggle to find the scientific value of this statement. — simeonz

"The mind is a widely observed phenomenon" says everything that needs to be said. Everything is "a widely observed phenomenon." That's how they come to exist for the observers.

But since the facets are related, you might be talking about picture quality, but mean leaked capacitor. How do you differentiate? Unless you can switch the program broadcast or change the TV. But, for the analogical mind-body case, I think this is the real problem, that it cannot be done. — simeonz

Sorry - but a leaked capacitor is (I imagine) a piece of metal with goo all over it. Poor color quality is a term applied to an image of something when the color of the image doesn't match the color of the original. They're completely different things. Is an iron bar something different from 10E +24 iron atoms? "Hey, please hand me 10E +24 iron atoms."

I disagree. Science studies the apparent reality that our senses and perception delivers pictures of. Philosophically, we have no way to know if those pictures (using vision as a synecdoche for all the senses) are of Objective Reality, or if they relate at all to Objective Reality, in any meaningful way. The nature of Objective Reality is not something science can even approach, without getting burnt! :wink: — Pattern-chaser

Actually, I agree with you, but science does study the shadows of objective reality on the cave walls.

I see what you're saying, and I sympathise. But human languages are what they are, and these things arise from time to time. We don't actually disagree, I don't think, except on the actual labels we use to describe these things. — Pattern-chaser

I don't disagree with you here either, but I don't think you can have a useful discussion of metaphysics without also discussing epistemology (stamps feet).

Like psychology, an important and significant area of learning, deformed by the attempts of its own practitioners to define it as a science. Maybe to obtain grants for their research? I don't know. But a subject that studies human personality, and the like, cannot function if its only tools are logical, rigid and scientific. — Pattern-chaser

Now you're opening a new can of worms. Thems fiten words.

Some other time, I guess.

I'm sorry if my vocabulary proves confusing, but just remember that when I write metaphysics, I'm referring to that branch of philosophy that considers truth, beauty, the nature of Objective Reality, and so on. Some of these things impinge upon science peripherally, but none of them are central to science. Those (the things central to science) are covered by (what I call) the philosophy of science. — Pattern-chaser

You and I have gone back and forth on this a bit. As I see it, much of what makes up the philosophy of science is epistemology. Science is fundamentally knowledge of what's what, of objective reality if you will. The scientific method is a way of knowing - ways of knowing. For me, separating epistemology from metaphysics is artificial and misleading.

I despise racists and people who believe in racial histories. — Judaka

Then I guess you despise me.

Also, it isn't to say that you're justified to be using racial histories and racial prejudice because it existed historically - something you should condemn not emulate? — Judaka

When push comes to shove, what matters is what works best to make things better. As I've acknowledged, I've come to believe that may be focusing on class rather than race. Of course, I guess class doesn't really exist either. Do you despise me for that too? Let's say "wealth" then.

I don't think I'm more compassionate than you, I just think you are mislead by your ideology.

I think I probably understand your general sentiment, as a practical matter, but I am unclear about some of the details. Do you mean that the mind is co-extent with any collection of animated brain tissue? If the mind is always incidental with a brain, is it distinct from the brain? What about animal brain, or a brain with a handicap, or an electrical circuit? — simeonz

It's clear to me that the mind is different from the brain. I guess I'd say "obvious," although I acknowledge that what's obvious to one person isn't to another. When I talk about the brain, I use words like "neuron," "cortex," and "cerebellum." When I talk about the mind, I use words like "understand," "love," and "perceive." The metaphor I often use is of a television. When I talk about the television device, I talk about LEDs, antennas, and speakers. When I talk about the program I'm watching on the TV, I talk about the sound quality, the colors, the images, and I guess even the basketball game I'm watching.

Does that seem obvious to you?

You are saying that the mind is common sense, I suppose. This would be fine if the definition of the term "mind" was technical - as in a collection of empirical facts. But whose facts are those - are they the facts perceived by the very mind that they define? — simeonz

I think I probably wasn't clear. We know the mind - what it is and how it works - the same way we know other things, by observing the world, in this case, primarily the behavior of other people, including their words. We also know it from the inside, from our own personal experience. Then, those two get combined as we imaginatively come to understand that other people have internal experiences that are similar to ours.

Is that common sense? I wouldn't have called it that but maybe you would.

Are you sure this was invented by Europeans? By this I mean the dehumanization of other people. I would consider racism an universal phenomenon and easily you can have the phenomenon appearing in older cultures. As far as I remember ancient history, people were extremely xenophobic. And being afraid of the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Persians or the Romans would be a sound thing if you would be living next to them, actually. — ssu

That's why I wrote "in this context." I also wrote:

you can have rules for people based on their race. We've had them ever since one group of people met another group. — T Clark

Your way of thinking perpetuates racism, it is racist really, you can't have separate rules for people based on their race, — Judaka

Oh, no... Judaka thinks I'm a racist. Boo hoo. And, of course you can have rules for people based on their race. We've had them ever since one group of people met another group. It's too bad that's true, I guess, but it is what it is. As I've said previously, thems that runs things no longer find it convenient or useful, so let's get rid of it.

And no, I don't think that applies to you. I think you sincerely believe what you've said in a principled way. And you're not really wrong in theory except that it ignores 400; maybe 10,000; years of history.

But this actually is totally in line with the illogical way racists define things. So called "White" people who are racist are naturally racist to others that at first would be thought to be "white". Racists in Europe do not at all use a term like "Caucasian" and only later have started to mimick the American racist rhetoric, which has this hilarious idea of universal "whiteness". Just start from thinking how many groups of now considered "white" people in the US were untermenschen in the eyes of the Third Reich. But of course, something built of xenophobia, fear and hatred of the other and the hubris of oneself doesn't have to be logical. — ssu

It's true, and also irrelevant, that race has no anatomical or genetic basis. That it's an artificial construct. Fact is, race in this context was invented by Europeans, white people, as a way to put other people in their place, to dehumanize them so they could be exploited. Now it's no longer convenient or useful to those in power to discuss race. To claim it doesn't exist would be funny except for the fact that it's not funny at all.

I know, I just think it makes you look more and more dogmatic as you keep going, but I guess you don't see it that way? — leo

You are correct. I don't see it that way.

On the other hand, now is probably a good time for me to stop. I'll give you the last word if you'd like it.

I think agree, although there's a huge cost (literally) letting neo-nazis marching down streets and shouting hatred. Tax-payers are left with the bill for all the police protection. Why should tax payers have to pay for all the security needed to protect the neo-nazis, especially when they entice people to attack them? If they want extra protection from the police, more than ordinary citizens, perhaps they should pay for some of it. I'm also not so happy about them disrupting the peace. — Purple Pond

The "huge cost" you are talking about are incurred no matter who's doing the talking and what they're saying. Who paid for the police costs for the Woman's March the day before President Trump's inauguration?

I know, all you see is "dark matter exists, so everything you say against that is wrong, ergo you're wrong, ergo you don't know what you are talking about". — leo

I don't see it that way. I can keep this up all day.

Which is such a bizzarre idea. All their conclusions are based on, well, experience. Or, they are based on direct intuition. Either way, since they would still have to experience the intuition and be aware of it, ALL their conclusions are fruit of a poison tree. — Coben

I think they mean something different when they say "exist" than I, and apparently you, do.

I don't see it that way. And, yes, I am being passive-aggressive.

Never look down on those who don't read, or are not as literate as you. To be able to be well read is to be privileged - the time needed, the ability to disengage from life and it's necessities: these things are what reading need, and many do not have the opportunity, or are not in an environment that enables such opportunity, and is an indictment on our social and cultural organization, not on individuals. — StreetlightX

I'm also a reader. It is a part of who I am, part of how I think of myself.

I agree with much of what you say about non-readers, but I think there's more to it than lack of opportunity. Some people are just not readers. Their minds don't work that way, they're not very verbal. I don't think musically, visually, or spatially very much or very well. People who do can do amazing things that I can't. I can do things they can't. Some people can think empathetically, some can't. Our minds are made up differently.

My daughter has always been a reader like me, but my two sons never were. Then, when they reached their late teens, early twenties, they started. It was great. Now we can have long interesting discussions. Buying gifts is so much easier.

I find it sad that you don't realize I speak on this subject knowledgeably, and that you don't realize your impression that I do not know what I am talking about stems from your own lack of understanding on this subject. — leo

I don't see it that way.

Depends. For example, on the philosophy forum, which is a privately owned forum, no. If a neo-nazi is in his own home, he can say whatever he wants, as long as it's not commands to hurt anyone. — Purple Pond

I think it's important to make the distinction between what is allowed by society and what is allowed by the government. The term "freedom of speech" as most often used, and as I''m using it here, applies to prevention of government restrictions on speech. In my view, a neo-Nazi should not be restricted by the government from speaking his vile thoughts not just in private, but in public. As you indicated, there are some restrictions on this.

In the past, the forum has had active members who could speak to difficult scientific subjects knowledgeably. That has been missing for a while. I hope you will hang around.

I believe you just gave a lecture on how it's wrong not to view things racially or else we've forgotten about centuries of racism. — Judaka

You express your opinion, I give a lecture. Our society "views things racially." People in power "view things racially.

"Let's be fair now" I mean who's "us" and what do you mean "now"? Also, who are the "people in power"? — Judaka

People in power - Those who don't get arrested when they drive down the street. Those who aren't treated with suspicion wherever they go. Those who aren't sent to prison as a matter of routine. Those who are the beneficiaries of hundreds of years of preferential treatment. Those who don't remember having to ride in the back of the bus.

But no, Marin Luther King also expressed colorblindness. It was easy for him to say it as well, not because of his race, but because it was rational and ethical. — NOS4A2

King said - I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

He expressed a dream of colorblindness, knowing, I assume, it wouldn't happen for a long time. It still hasn't happened and it won't until people recognize how things are.

Of course people were treated differently because of their skin color. They were classified into racial groups, and treated as all alike, so much so that they were considered and treated as sub-human. It’s pseudoscience. So why utilize their system of categorization? You can’t eliminate racism by evoking it. — NOS4A2

"People were treated differently." "They were classified in to racial groups. "They were considered and treated as sub-human."

"You can’t eliminate racism by evoking it." You can't create an equitable and honorable society without recognizing and acknowledging it.

I hadn't heard the term "eliminative materialism" so I looked in Wikipedia:

Eliminative materialism (also called eliminativism) is the claim that people's common-sense understanding of the mind (or folk psychology) is false and that certain classes of mental states that most people believe in do not exist.....Some supporters of eliminativism argue that no coherent neural basis will be found for many everyday psychological concepts such as belief or desire....Eliminativists argue that modern belief in the existence of mental phenomena is analogous to the ancient belief in obsolete theories such as the geocentric model of the universe.

I don't believe in the mind, I experience it and observe its effects in the behavior of myself and other people. Eliminative materialism sounds like a regurgitation of behaviorism. It's like saying life doesn't exist, just chemistry and associated electrical activity. Come to think of it, some people believe that.

I can study belief and desire and, based on the results of that study, predict human behavior. What else does it take to exist?

it’s meaningless as a matter of definition. Why? Because positivism starts with the axiom that ‘metaphysical propositions are meaningless’. — Wayfarer

If I say "This centants is speld rite in stantert inglitch," that don't make it so.

which is a metaphysical viewpoint. — Coben

Yes, although to be fair, he has defined "metaphysics" differently that we have.

I've been thinking about this more. I think you asked the wrong question. The right one is "Is discussing metaphysics useful." The answer is "yes, very useful."

Nobody chose to be born white or black but you choose to judge them based on whether they're white or black. There's a difference between a racist and what you are but honestly, you live in the same neighbourhood. — Judaka

I don't judge people by whether they are black or white. I'm white and I don't feel guilty about it. I try not to judge people at all, with variable success. I do try to hold white people, especially affluent white people, accountable if they won't see racial conditions as they are in the US today.

People should probably deal with what's going on now. Folks from 100 years ago (and often much more recent) are not typically around any longer, regardless of what side anyone was on back then. — Terrapin Station

That's very convenient. Let's be fair now that fairness helps the people in power. Same as it ever was. It also ignores the on-going treatment of black people.

Most of this sort of talk--"white privilege, " "male privilege," etc. seems to rest on unfalsifiable claims . . . when it even bothers to make any clear claims about anything that would be empirically establishable in the first place. So it's not at all scientific. — Terrapin Station

This is not a scientific discussion. The rules of justification are not the same.

These kind of things lead to extremely bureaucratic 'racial' hierarchies, you know. A blossoming of racial purity, in a totally perverse and weird way. — ssu

That wasn't really seen as a problem for the past 400 years. It's only been a problem since white people have started to be held accountable. Which doesn't mean I don't agree with you from a practical point of view.

I've been playing both sides of the net in this discussion. It angers me how facilely white people can shrug off 400 years of brutality. At the same time, as I've said, I don't really think race-based policy will work. It will never pass and, if it were to, the Supreme Court would kick it out. I also think it would increase resentment against black people.