I think that's a bad analogy, because those terms are defined strictly in physics, whereas you couldn't get all philosophers to agree on what a fact is. Thus it is essential to the philosophical enterprise here to pay attention to conventional use, to unearth what "fact" might mean in specific contexts, and to pick and choose between these uses in specific fields of philosophical enquiry relevant to those contexts, e.g., facts vs. truth in epistemology, or facts vs. values in ethics. But even in these restricted domains, of course, there is also a lack of agreement, and so it goes.

He preferred poodles to women.

I'm not saying it's not physical, although I do believe this to be a category error. I'm saying that unlike flying it's not uncontroversial to say that it is physical. There is room for the p-zombie argument precisely because we don't know how to account for consciousness.

Generally, I think that when we talk about the mind or about consciousness we are referring to the same thing people referred to back when it didn't occur to anyone to equate it with brain states. Physicalism purports to account for something that we already talked about.

Too confusing. Physically identical flying pigs are uncontroversially inconceivable. It is a contradiction, since by flying we just mean, and have always meant, something physical. This is not the case with consciousness and the mind.

Back where we started.

But Michael is right, and you have failed to get your point across.

I take your point to be that one would only affirm that p-zombies are conceivable if one believes that physicalism is false. I'm sympathetic to this, but you have not properly argued for it.

Michael is defending the classic p-zombie argument, which is not question-begging without further analysis to reveal hidden premises, because the conceivability of p-zombies does not obviously, or on the face of it necessarily, rest on a denial of physicalism.

But it's true that the notion of conceivability in Chalmers' argument is a bit troublesome. It positively invites the charge of begging the question, because it is so easy to confuse "We can conceive x", with "I believe there could be an x", where the latter obviously rests on one's philosophical commitments.

But the relevant notion of conceivability is something more like logical possibility. So, roughly, you may find it difficult to conceive of flying pigs if you are deeply familiar with evolutionary history, and yet the thought is not a contradictory one, and thus flying pigs are conceivable in the relevant sense.

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that you're not obviously right.

Well like I say, that's where things get interesting. (Y)

Hello and welcome @dclements. I'm here 8-)

In case you don't know, we set up this forum specifically for PF members when it was sold back in 2015. Many of us suspected things wouldn't turn out well over there.

So does that make truth relativistic? One can believe something; but, it may actually not be true. — Question

This speaks for truth not being relative. Something is true whether you believe it or not.

And what BC sees as the relativity of truth is just the ambiguity of his example statements.

1 gallon of H2O weighs 8 pounds always and everywhere is true — Bitter Crank

But it's not, and adding the word "here" shows that you know it. On the other hand, "1 gallon of H2O weighs 8 pounds always and everywhere on Earth" is true. There is no case for the relativity of truth here, unless you just mean that a statement can turn out to be either true or false depending on how clear it is, or depending on your interpretation. Interpretations are relative, but interpretations are implicit reformulations--which is where things get interesting.

Yes, it's not a "being" (in the sense you're using, viz., having an inner life). That's a stipulation of the thought experiment.

Oh yes I most certainly do, but there is some entertainment to be had in saying why. But I am still at a loss why so much ink is spilled over the question. — Wayfarer

Well, the primary use of the concept of p-zombies is an argument against physicalist theories of mind. If p-zombies are logically possible then consciousness is not identical to brain-states. So the argument goes (roughly).

Thanks. Been meaning to read them myself.

what do you think of it?

From your perspective, in terms of your first person experiences with her ... You literally cannot, in-principle discover whether your wife is a p-zombie or not. — dukkha

This is the point of the thought experiment.

According to physicalism, subjectivity must be a software feature. — tom

I don't think physicalism entails functionalism or the computational theory of mind, although they're compatible.

So what's your stance here? That we are not emotionally manipulated in ways that are not good for us? Because if it's just that we are not "mere puppets", I'm sure we all agree. — Baden

I'm not sure I have a stance on that, though I feel like I want to question your statement. I was talking about ideology, or about the changes in political ideas that I believe importantly frame these debates, rather than directly addressing the OP or your own points. Thus many of the positions that I imputed to my opponents might be exaggerations or simplifications that don't accurately represent the positions to be found in this discussion. Still, I thought my post was kind of relevant. It's what I'm interested in, at least.

I have great distaste for this frolicking over material conditions. — Agustino

I know, and I'm not interested.

Sorry, kind of.

Where that's done well, a movie can work and be a healthy engagement. It rarely is. Maybe Cronenberg. — Baden

Much as I like his movies, "healthy" is not a word that springs immediately to mind.

Like csal, I'm a bit suspicious of all this anti-consumerist talk. I'm going to ramble on and see what happens. I'm not sure how relevant it'll be.

...Marxist conspiracy theorist who hates business... — Baden

Talking of Marx, let's see what he said. For him, the multiplication of needs is a saving grace of capitalism:

Each capitalist does demand that his workers should save, but only his own, because they stand towards him as workers; but by no means the remaining world of workers, for these stand towards him as consumers. In spite of all ‘pious’ speeches he therefore searches for means to spur them on to consumption, to give his wares new charms, to inspire them with new needs by constant chatter etc.It is precisely this side of the relation of capital and labour which is an essential civilizing moment, and on which the historic justification, but also the contemporary power of capital rests. — Marx, Grundrisse

Also for Marx, the concept of artificial need is a bourgeois fiction:

Artificial need is what the economist calls, firstly, the needs which arise out of the social existence of the individual; secondly those which do not flow from his naked existence as a natural object. This shows the inner, desperate poverty which forms the basis of bourgeois wealth and of its science. — Marx

But since the seventies the critique of capitalism has taken on a different flavour, so that affluence and economic growth have become the target as much as poverty and scarcity used to be. You know how the story goes: advertising, Hollywood, and the Superbowl turn us from citizens or political agents into mere consumers, diverted from worthy activities and political struggle by pointless products and entertainments, which leave us always dissatisfied, when we could be satisfied with what we've got (materially).

So is there a justification for this change in the Leftist position? The traumatized Marxism of the Frankfurt School and the New Left is probably key here, but I don't want to go into that myself. Generally speaking, maybe we can just accept that while Marx wrote in a time of the immiseration of the industrial working class, today's Left operates in a time of abundance, notwithstanding the widening inequality of the last few decades. And whereas Marx optimistically imagined new needs as culturally enriching, today's consumerism is criticized as a cultural impoverishment.

To the tune of Micheal Jackson's Smooth Criminal:

Woke up this morning, need my paper, gonna jump in my car,
Down the shops on the corner, gonna drive there, I know it's not far,
My house is always heated, got no jumpers, I left all my lights on,
Dishwashers running, and so's the dryer, all my stuffs on standby,

Annie are you walking, Annie are you walking, No I'm driving baby x 4
Annie are you walking, won't you tell us that your walking?
Can't you see me through the window that I'm driving, that I'm driving my car
Won't you think about walking to the shops, or down your local?
Are you all crazy, I've got an off-road, I can drive anywhere!
Annie are you walking, Annie are you walking, No I'm driving baby x 3
You've been hit by, you've been struck by a climate criminal!

I never buy local, all my stuff comes from places real far,
I never recycle, I go on cheap flights, been on 20 so far,

Go to Chorus — Bristol anti-consumerist carol singers

https://earthfirst.org.uk/actionreports/node/736

Although this is environmentally focused, I think we can agree that this attitude is a big part of current Leftist thinking too (Naomi Klein, anti-globalization, etc).

Let's take the example of cheap flights, mentioned in the song. "Cheap flights", at least in the UK, is middle-class code for loutish working-class lads and lassies heading to the Costa del Sol to get drunk and have a lot of sex. But this is a stereotype. In Marx's time my forebears were poor uneducated rural labourers, and maybe some of them were recent arrivals in the cities, where they went to find work (it's mostly the upper class that can trace their ancestry with any certainty, so I can't be sure). It's unlikely they ever set foot outside Britain and Ireland. But here I am now in sunny Spain, having been to several countries in several continents, writing about politics and philosophy even though I haven't studied them in a university. I would never have been able to travel without cheap flights, and I would never have been able to read Kant without leisure. I'm pretty sure this is a cultural as well as a material enrichment, and it was made possible by capitalism.

What is the limit beyond which we should not have gone? When is abundance too much? At what point is the creation of new needs corrupting? Is an anti-consumerist going to say that while, okay, washing machines, despite being an artificial or false need, may have been genuinely liberating, iPhones, imported foreign food, cheap travel, and off-road cars are not? How do you separate the good from the bad here? Is it more than a matter of taste? Or is a washing machine a basic need, while an off-road car is a false one? How does that work? Who decides which is which?

I admit this is impressionistic and emotional, but--something about it just stinks. The critique of consumer culture and the influence of corporations appears to be often motivated by a contempt for the masses, or at least a superior paternalism, not to mention a snobbish distaste. (And it's pretty mainstream. Baden mentioned Hollywood and how much he hates it. But Hollywood is full of anti-corporate sentiment, and is now firmly seated on the green anti-consumerist bandwagon.)

There is a simplistic sanctimoniousness in the suggestion that we are mere puppets of the advertisers, and for me it's reminiscent of my heritage of Presbyterian sobriety. But come to think of it, this kind of Protestant puritanism is actually a real thread in the development of radical thought, from the English Revolution onwards, so maybe it's not quite true to describe anti-consumerism as a regrettable reversal--it's been in the Left the whole time. It's just that this is not the Leftist tradition that I have sympathy with. It hates capitalism for the good it has done, not only the bad.

But wait. Did I just hypocritically denounce Leftist snobbery after having held myself up as an exemplar of the culturally enriched in contrast to the loutish working-class lads and lassies on the Costa del Sol? Not quite, I don't think. I've been on holidays like that myself. That's the point about stereotypes and caricatures: they are unfair generalizations. Thanks to cheap flights, people--non-rich people--travel now for all sorts of reasons.

The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr together with a fragmentary Biography of Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler on Random Sheets of Waste Paper by E. T. A. Hoffmann

Hi Rachel and welcome to TPF.

I don't have any links to the relevant studies, but there is evidence in psychology suggesting that stating publicly what you're going to do makes it less likely that you will do it, and also that positive thinking doesn't work, at least for some people. Your friend could be making things hard for himself.

Aside from that, if your friend's social media posts are anything like the ones I see on Facebook, then there isn't anything very philosophical in them, even if he includes quotations from famous philosophers. It sounds like your friend might be uncritical of himself and dismissive of the criticism of others. This is very unphilosophical.

I like to be realistic, so I would agree with you that the steps towards a goal don't just magically transpire without a lot of work. I find positivity of the kind you describe humourless and dishonest, and that has brought me into conflict with people like your friend. It's not much to do with philosophy--more to do with the fashions of self-help, the law of attraction and all that stuff.

Is sex as idolized elsewhere as in the West? I don't know about is, but it certainly was. The sculptures below are in India, on a temple built around 930-950 CE. I think there are many others like them.

I noticed in the navigation bar that there was a response to one of my posts, and when I opened the mentions drop-down I saw it was from you, saying "Excellent post, I largely agree." I was deeply shocked for a moment, but then deeply relieved when I clicked through to the discussion to see that you had actually said it to someone else. :D

Sex is often a requirement in modern relationships because most people, in my experience at least, are in fact mortified at the thought of having true intimacy with someone because it means that they must expose the worst in them, which forces them to expose themselves to themselves, as well, often for the first time. — Heister Eggcart

You're saying that many people want to avoid intimacy, therefore sex is a requirement in modern relationships? Do you mean sexual or romantic relationships? I'm pretty sure that sex has been essential to a very large portion of human relationships for a very long time. And you assume, without any justification, that sex is not a part of being intimate with someone, but is rather a way of avoiding intimacy. As I think this goes against the experience of most people--certainly my own--I think you have to properly explain what you mean.

I'm open to the idea that there might be a new and increasingly widespread way of relating to people sexually that excludes intimacy--a kind of relationship that we might call pornographical, both because it is primarily objectifying and also because pornography increasingly shapes our sexualities--but this is a long way from saying that sex per se is an avoidance of intimacy.

This is one reason why successful marriages in the West have rapidly deteriorated because spouses realize too late that they do not know who really is next to them when they go to bed each night.

This is simply not credible. Do you think that when divorce was taboo and women were subjected to the authority of the husband, "true intimacy" flourished? Do you think that when marriage was more openly and uncontroversially about property and status, couples really got to know each other? Do you not realize that it's only recently that romantic love has become the primary reason for getting married?

Modern relationships have gone about creating a culture that overemphasizes the gruff physicality of the body, and therefore of sex, as being the foundation for the growth of a relationship between two people. No one gives a hot damn about virtue, only whether you like fleshy dicks or plastic dicks, if you like it in the butt, in the mouth, or in the nose, whether you like black hair over blonde hair, tan skin instead of pale skin - honesty, though? Attentiveness, understanding, compassion? Meh.

This demonstrates prudishness and little else. You do realize that attentiveness, understanding, and compassion, along with gruff physicality, are often essential to good sex?

(Y)

I'm not going to get into a detailed debate over it, — Maw

I personally wouldn't mind, but as you haven't made any clear or detailed criticisms except for the profile pics, preferring just to express your dislike, I guess that's that.

jamalrob, freerepublic.com is an example of great forum design — Michael

Yikes.

Totally forgot about Clients from Hell. I used to read it all the time. And don't get me wrong: I've had some horrible clients myself, and I have complained about them very vigorously. Part of the problem might be precisely the fact that we are not professionals in the strict sense that Agustino is using; some clients think it's okay to treat web designers and developers disrespectfully, in a way that they would probably not treat their lawyer.

I hope not. I don't even have an IT GCSE. — Michael

Yes, it'll be back to school for most of us.

I saw enough evidence to suggest that Landru could never get tired of saying "conservative meme". He must be saying it somewhere else.

It's because it's a young profession, and maybe also because nobody (usually) dies or goes to jail if things go wrong. Some people think we should be moving to full professionalization, with a professional body and mandatory qualifications. Mature professions need the educational and regulatory paraphernalia to ensure those claiming to be a certain kind of professional can actually do the job.

I want to agree with you, but what you're talking about is maybe just a different kind of professionalization anyway. To "demonstrate the capacity to do it" for the surgeon cannot just be a portfolio of past successful operations, because the next operation is the one that could expose the gaping hole in his knowledge.

Did some programming at university but mostly self-taught.

Could be a mild case of it, I'm an audio engineer, but I was more referring to anechoic chambers where supposedly you can hear the sound of your nervous system because it's so quiet :-O may very well just be bullshit! I think I heard that in a music course in college...which doesn't mean it's not bullshit... — Noble Dust

I did wonder if that's what you meant, because I'd heard the story that John Cage tells about one of his inspirations for creating 4'33":

"It was after I got to Boston that I went into the anechoic chamber at Harvard University. Anybody who knows me knows this story. I am constantly telling it. Anyway, in that silent room, I heard two sounds, one high and one low. Afterward I asked the engineer in charge why, if the room was so silent, I had heard two sounds. He said, 'Describe them.' I did. He said, 'The high one was your nervous system in operation. The low one was your blood in circulation.' "

But according to others this is impossible, and he could have just been hearing tinnitus.

When I became a developer I vowed I would never become one of those guys who complained to other developers about "the users", treating them as the enemy. So I'll just acknowledge what you say while resisting the temptation to join in. :D

Personally, I think the layout is very bland, and there is also a lot of unused space. — Maw

In my opinion, to say the design is bland is largely a misguided criticism with regard to a web design that exists to optimize the reading of text. And there is no such thing as unused space in a web design, but certain people may, for whatever reason, prefer all or most of the screen space to be filled. This is quite an unusual preference in my experience, aside from clients who want to stuff everything "above the fold". One major problem with the old design was that you had to scan a long way across the screen to read; the importance of limiting line length/characters per line has been recognized for a long time by typographers.

I'm not being defensive: it's not my design and there are several things I would change about it. But when people say they dislike a design it's now second-nature for me as a web developer to find out if there is anything of substance in the complaint so that I can see if I can do something about it, or if it's just people moaning about something unfamiliar or expressing their odd tastes.

But design is a kind of engineering and is certainly not simply a matter of taste. Although we don't have much scope to change things on this software platform, I do want to know what works and doesn't work. PlushForums has been professionally designed to optimize the user-experience, but it's not perfect.

Anyway I'll get off my high horse now.

Wouldn't mind user profile pics being bigger either, but all that is just my 2 cents. — Maw

If you ever want to see a bigger version of anyone's profile image you can click on it to view the profile. And like I say, you can make everything bigger as I do by zooming in.

Yes, that's come up a few times.

In any case, a lack of features has nothing to do with the layout.

The old forums layout was more of a standard internet forum layout, so it was simply easier to navigate. This layout is pretty unusual to me. — Maw

So it's about ease of navigation? Anything in particular? I much prefer this one in almost every way, once it's zoomed to 125% at least.

A traditional forum has more options — Emptyheady

Such as?

Good decision. I think it was the Carcass gig that did it for me.

It's called tinnitus and it affects 10-15% of people. I used to go to heavy metal concerts and I was used to the ringing in my ears afterwards. Usually it would fade away after a day or two, but one time it didn't fade away completely, and I've had it ever since.

If not more appropriate, then preferable or usual. — Sapientia

More preferable, I suppose, for the people who prefer it. Even if "spelled" is less common than "spelt" in British English, it is common enough that it is not unconventional or non-standard. Similarly, "-ize" endings have become less common in British English but are still treated as standard British English by the Oxford and Collins dictionaries, in which "-ize" spellings appear first (see Oxford spelling).

As you can tell, I'm not letting this one go. X-)

And while I really dislike this forums layout — Maw

Same here — Emptyheady

What don't you like about it?