In political theory 'democracy' is defined differently by different academics - there are some very interesting ways to conceive of democracy, and each would place different modern states into the 'democracy' category. But there is no consensus agreement. I would say that the closest thing to a consensus that academics have is that we often strive for democracy, and we are always exploring and improving the concept, but that the ideal of a democracy always seems to be around the corner. With each step, though, we are hopefully becoming more and more democratic.

I think that my biggest issue is that it is a little simplistic to imagine that a NOTA vote is a vote against all legislation. As it stands currently, this is not analogous to how representatives behave. Representatives do not always vote in parliaments/assemblies in accordance with their constituents, and this is not always seen as problematic, especially where representatives take on a more 'trustee' representative role and advocate for their constituents' interests without necessarily adhering to their preferred policies. Moreover, sometimes representatives are in a position to inform and educate their constituents. Where representatives are members of parties, electoral lines can become blurrier. In addition, in almost no cases will the majority of voters for a representative have their preferences on issues and legislation align completely with the interests and legislative preferences of a representative.

So the biggest issue here is that representatives are not exact proxies for legislation, and that considering a NOTA vote as a vote against all proposed legislation is therefore not necessarily representative of a NOTA vote.

In a scenario where more than 50% of the legislature is unoccupied, the issue is more serious than NOTA can rectify - NOTA will not necessarily incentivise more responsive representatives. In fact, parties may be motivated to push for NOTA outcomes in various electorates as a type of disenfranchisement. Think about parties who are happy for the government to stall while they push rhetoric. Mainstream parties may be happy to have minor parties swallowed up by NOTA and encourage such.

It sounds like perhaps what you should be aiming for is a system that enables positively, rather than incentivises negatively, more responsive representatives.

Your response didn't really answer my question. NOTA functions for single-member seats, but I am curious if it could function for multi-member seats. Single-member seats are, in my opinion, flawed.

Saying that a "no" vote on any legislation "aligns with the will of the electorate" is also problematic. Representatives are a collection of fixed outcomes on issues - they are the conduit for ongoing engagement with a constituency. This is completely lost with an empty seat: there is simply no representation at all.

Personally, I am against single-member electorates, where constituents choose only one member to fro the electorate to represent them in parliament (or whatever assembly). Single-member electorates produce the largest amount of vote wastage, because many people will be left without a first-preference representative from the available selection.

NOTA, I think, would only function well in a single-member electorate - I;m open to hearing how it could be formulated differently for a multi-member electorate.

In Australia, parties are granted funding based upon their percentage of the vote, so a vote for a party who will almost certainly lose in an electorate can still benefit that party more than refusing to vote, especially if they also have candidates in other electorates.

If Heaven is a paradise free from suffering and humans have free will in Heaven, then free will on Earth and the possibility of causing suffering and sin and being damned is completely unnecessary. Either humans do not have free will in Heaven, or God is not maximally good and loving by creating the possibility of damnation as a consequence of free will.

Interestingly, you ignored the majority of things that I said you were already ignoring, so it is not a surprise that your last posts got us nowhere.

It's not just about addressing. The terms 'woman' and 'him/her' are not used solely for addressing people. They are terms within a community of language speakers used for all sorts of purposes. For whom are the 'women' s' toilets set aside, those who are physiologically women, or those who think they're women? At whom is a positive discrimination programme requiring 50% women applicants aimed at, those who are physiologically women, or those who think they're women? Which group of people is women's studies investigating, for whom do women's rights campaign, who may join a women's support group, who is included in "women and children first", who is being referenced by the expression "women were traditionally oppressed", who are biblical and other religious texts referring to when they mention 'women', at whom should the WHO aim it's excellent women's health initiative? — Pseudonym

What an intractable issue! If only there were some field like intersectional feminism that didn't treat all women as identical, and then this type of categorisation wouldn't be a problem. We can only hope, I guess.

Both you and Willow seem to have this bizarre concept that if you state something is the case that's the end of the debate on the matter, if I still disagree I must have not read you clearly enough.

I disagree with your argument that it doesn't mean they are exclusive, for the reasons given. — Pseudonym

You know that you and I both gave reasons, right? We didn't just state something and demand it was true. But I did critique your implications from the trans claim and for exclusivity, and I did give reasons for my position, and I've never really seen a response except for you to repeat yourself. So I think that this is probably as far as we'll get in this part of the discussion.

You keep repeating these assertions as if they were arguments. I provided a seven point argument in logic with which you disputed only one point (which I later provided a counter argument to). — Pseudonym

I don't really think you provided a logical argument, but you did present it that way. But at the heart of it, you just stuck to a premise about exclusivity that you seem to feel strongly about. Your counter-argument was critiqued, if you look back.

I think it a bit of an odd numbers game to say that I disputed only one point - I critique the foundational point. This isn't a numbers game.

I'm not discussing the claims of intersex people, so why bring it up? — Pseudonym

Because it is relevant to the discussion of whether gender categories are exclusive.

Yes, trans people (and those who agree with them) use the term as they wish, others use the term as they wish. — Pseudonym

I'll admit that I've not seen this in our discussion, but maybe you stated it much earlier. I'm interested then, given the proposal I formulated for speaker-oriented and addressee-oriented addressing, why you think one is better than the other. Obviously I've given my reasoning regarding not treating people like objects. I note you made an objection, but your objection didn't propose that one was preferable to the other. What's the reason for adopting speaker-oriented addressing over addressee-oriented addressing?

No, I don't agree with your premise that identity is defined by the person to whom it refers — Pseudonym

I'm not sure I said that.

What logical argument have you got which takes you (in logical steps, without further bare assertion) for interpreting the meaning of the claim "I am a woman", as referring only to non-exclusory membership criteria? — Pseudonym

Your argument requires a premise that only admit exclusivity - and ignores non-binary and spectrum concepts of gender. You just throw these out the window. You throw these out the window despite the existence of intersex people, who are clearly non-binary.

You just throw out the claims of trans people, who make the claim that although they have characteristics normally found in one category, have other characteristics of people in the other category - i.e. a claim that the categories are non-exclusive - and then you turn around and say that somehow this claim implies exclusivity!

You start with the premise that these claims are wrong, because you start with the premise of exclusivity. I know you don't think you do, but my critique has been trying to show you that, in fact, you do. You throw out all of these things. You even seem to throw out the claims that not all women feel the same about what it means to be a woman.

You start with the premise that none of this is true - so of course you are going to conclude that it is not true. And then you turn around and say, "Let's be logical and philosophical about this."

You seem to have appealed to delusion, to some logic that can't possibly accept non-binary gender concepts, you ask for compromise regarding relative harms but one that has to prefer treating trans without respect if that's what we wish, and then you say, "but I made a 7-step argument" and "everyone who disagrees with me isn't listening"!

I am convinced, at this point, that your philosophy on this issue is a rationalisation for how you already feel.

I am willing to be convinced otherwise.

What premises have I applied which ignore trans claims? — Pseudonym

Oh my god.

Where in any of that is there anything about the addressee's respect for the speaker? — Pseudonym

When they address the speaker.

So what have you given up from your original position that people should be addressed by the terms they prefer? You do know what compromise means? — Pseudonym

Why do you think that people need to give things up in order to sort things out? Anyway, if people disagree on definitions, address-oriented addressing means that both will compromise when addressing the other.

I said that membership of a set is mutually exclusive on the basis that being labelled as a member of the opposite set is offensive. — Pseudonym

That doesn't mean that they are exclusive. I literally just wrote on this. I can't believe how much you are complaining that I don't listen when this discussion has already taken place and you have somehow ignored it.

Did you reply about intersex people and gender identity yet? Did you show your principles of compromise? Did you respond regarding your concept of what is more harmful in terms of denying identity? You bang on about these last two as though these are of critical importance, but I think you only ask them of other people and don't provide any responses yourself. That hardly seems good faith to me.

It is traditionally held that whatever the membership criteria are for the group {women}, they are mutually exclusive to the group {men} (like swimming and non-swimming. Without even having to examine the nature of the membership criteria, we can tell that the trans claim involves this kind of mutual exclusivity because the whole reason for asking people to use a particular term of address is the upset it causes to have the alternative used. It is implied then, that choosing "woman" as the correct term, automatically makes "man" the incorrect one. — Pseudonym

I don't agree that it is implied that the sets are mutually exclusive from the trans claim. In fact, the claim requires that they are not, as I pointed out earlier. Just because someone identifies as a woman does not mean that they have no qualities associated with the set {men}. In fact, in many instances people who make claims that they are a woman have a penis, so this categorically cannot be part of the claim. Drawing the implication that you continue to draw ignores a fundamental part of the trans claim, so I am sceptical that you fully understand the claim if you argue otherwise. I can see that if you start with the premise that the sets must be mutually exclusive then you can state that the claim is illogical, but I cannot see how in good faith you think that this is implied by the claim. Conversely, suggesting that the sets are mutually exclusive excludes non-binary and spectrum concepts of gender, intersex people, trans people, men who feel feminine and women who feel masculine, and perhaps even groups of women or men who believe that they do not feel like each other.

For some, the names "Bill" and "William" are relatively interchangeable and they do not mind being referred to as either. For others, "Bill" and "William" are distinct and they wish to be correctly addressed by the one that they prefer. But this does not mean that they believe that this is the case for all Bills or Williams. I think it is incorrect to suggest that preferring a certain type of address implies that the sets are necessarily mutually exclusive. I think it is even more incorrect to suggest that the level of offence taken is associated with whether the sets are mutually exclusive or not rather than whether the person addressing them is respectful.

Once you've grasped what I mean above, I hope the fact that offence is reasonable in some situations and unreasonable in others is simple enough to be obvious. — Pseudonym

No, sorry.

We are definitely talking about changing the universal meaning of the word 'woman', no doubt about that. — Pseudonym

I mean, we're not. That is abundantly clear from the different and distinct uses that we have currently in discussions of various sorts.

I've presented an argument in fairly logical rational steps showing that the trans use of the term 'woman' is inconsistent and incoherent — Pseudonym

No you haven't, you have, at every turn, applied your own premises that ignore a fundamental part of trans claims - including the variety of trans claims (e.g. binary, non-binary, spectrum concepts of gender).

If you have a counter argument for any of the points I laid out, that's what I'd be interested to hear. — Pseudonym

You have a very good chance if you go back through my posts to see this - I've repeated it several times, including in this post. At this point I cannot tell if you are receptive to what other people write, because I don't believe you've ever responded to this content in my posts. This is, in fact, quite infuriating.

I think it's about all of them. Language use dictates and expresses a great deal (some would say all) of what we feel about the world and ourselves, including our identity. So language use is inherently tied to relative harms. I'm, broadly speaking, an ethical naturalist, so relative harms are intrinsically tied to how we treat each other (we should try to minimise relative harms). Where our desired treatment clashes, there needs to be some method of seeking compromise, and I believe that method should be rational thought. — Pseudonym

Well, I put forward a suggestion regarding treating each other and the basic principle behind it. I haven't seen an argument from you regarding relative harms that suggests one set of harms is greater than the other, so I really don't know where you stand here.

we come back to the (I think false) idea that respect is only one way, that respect constitutes only adhering to the way the addressee wants to hear a word, and not the way the speaker wants to use a word. — Pseudonym

I've never said that respect is one way. I've said that how we treat (and address) people can either respect their interiority/subjectivity/identity or treat them as objects (i.e. defined and categorised by the addresser regardless of the interiority/subjectivity/identity of the addressee). I've made an argument that addressee-oriented addressing preserves self-respect because it preserves that speakers can address themselves (either explicitly and externally or self-reflectively and internally) according to the concepts that they feel are appropriate.

You have asked several times for "compromise" - but I don't know what you mean by that because all I have seen, generally, is a defense for feminists who feel that "woman" has a strict categorisation and arguments that trans claims are incoherent, which does not look like understanding or compromise at all. I think I've done a better idea of proposing a compromise.

If it is possible to be both a man and a woman, then it would be the case that claiming to be a woman would not (on its own) constitute a claim that such features as were being used to support such a claim could not also be the features of a man. But anyone who really genuinely believes that would have no cause to claim either and no cause to take offense if either term were used. — Pseudonym

I am trying to grasp the grammar of your first sentence as clearly as possible, and I am having a little difficulty. I think this is unfortunate, because this seems like an important statement. Is there another way to phrase it that might help me out more?

It does make me wonder what you think of intersex people who claim male or female gender identity?

I am surprised at the claim that no offence should logically be taken - you rejected that idea for feminists who claim that addressing trans people compromises or threatens their own gender identity.

Remember, taking offence (or any other strong emotional response) without rational cause is one of the psychological definitions of a delusion. — Pseudonym

I strongly feel that you should leave this part out of your arguments for the moment - this is a whole nother can of worms to debate whether this technically constitutes a delusion or not. The DSM does not consider gender dysphoria, for example, a delusion. What it does do it start to sound like some sort of attack against trans people, which I think is going to cloud your argument.

The problem, for me, arises when one group tries to tell the other it's using the word 'wrong' and must change — Pseudonym

This is why my argument engaged with respect in forms of address and not the universal application of words. None of these words are unique in their variability across times and places and people.

or when one group has an inconsistent definition that it is impossible to use. — Pseudonym

Again, when related to forms of address, there are two consistent ways to apply this. We need not sort out the ultimate definitions of the words. Earlier you spoke about "relative harms", which is the type of subject I began engaging you with, and I proposed a framework where interiority, subjectivity and identity were respected in forms of address (and you could extend this to treatment in general). I've no particular concern to determine if there is truly cohesive, universally acceptable use of any of these words. I don't think either group uses them generally inconsistently or incoherently, though they certainly do not agree with each other. And I think that any strict definition is going to land someone in a logical quagmire where some level of coherency falls apart when using strict definitions to make claims.

Is this discussion about language? Or relative harms? How to treat each other? Or whether trans people are delusional?

1. Any statement which begins "I am a..." is a statement which claims membership of a set. — Pseudonym

I'm not 100% sure about this, but it might be determined by how you define sets. One alternative is the idea of a family resemblance, in which

things which could be thought to be connected by one essential common feature may in fact be connected by a series of overlapping similarities, where no one feature is common to all of the things.

2. Sets must exclude something in order to be meaningful. — Pseudonym

This relates to (1).

3. Words must have public meanings in order to be useful in discourse. — Pseudonym

True. But again, whether these public meanings are very strict or more fuzzy/family resemblance style definitions will affect the argument.

4. From 1), the term "woman" in common language is the name of a set since it is used in a sentence of the form "I am a..." and all such sentences are declarations of set membership. — Pseudonym

Again, I can see where you are coming from, but as you note, this relates to claim (1).

5. From 2), the expression "I am a woman" must be making an exclusory claim about the membership criteria of the set {women} because all sets must have exclusory criteria in order to be meaningful and the claim "I am a woman" is logically identical to the claim "I am not a man" since the sets are mutually exclusive. — Pseudonym

This is contested depending upon which conceptual framework of gender you subscribe to - there are binary, non-binary, and spectrum-based concepts of gender and sex,

6. From 3), the term "woman" being a word, must have a public definition in order to be of use in discourse, since without a public meaning it conveys no information. — Pseudonym

I mean, sure - but just as with a whole host of words, there is not one set definition is usage that all speakers agree upon at any one time. Language is constantly in evolution. There can be agreed upon meanings in certain circumstances that are strict (e.g. legal or academic definitions) but outside of that it is a bit fuzzy. I've seen a very elongated argument regarding whether a hotdog classifies as a sandwich or not, and a poll in which about half of respondents thought it was.

7. From 5) and 6) the statement "I am a woman" makes a public claim about the membership criteria of the set {men} and likewise the statement "I am a man" makes a public claim about the membership criteria of the set {women}. — Pseudonym

So I think you might follow where I disagree about this strict set membership concept that you set up early in point (1).

What is wrong with the definition of it that I provided in my last post. "it is proper courtesy for you to address me as a man because I feel like a man"? — Pseudonym

The problematic definition you have been arguing - or, at least, the continued problematic claim that you have been drawing from this - is that there is a connection between outward sex characteristics and/or chromosomes and how one feels inherent in the claim. You have repeated this several times. If you have withdrawn this and I missed it, I apologise. If you have not, then let me refresh you on the problem: if someone with XY chromosomes and a penis claims that they feel like a woman, it is inherent in this claim that these chromosomes and outward sex characteristics are not necessarily correlated with how people feel about their gender. If they did, then the claim would be impossible to make in the first place. So any part of your argument that attributes this to the transgender claim is incorrect.

So how are people's wishes not a psychological feature? — Pseudonym

Oh, I see - if that is way you are perceiving it, then yes, this is the way I am suggesting to address people.

Why have you changed the word "woman" to the word "she" — Pseudonym

I didn't know we were stuck on one over the other. We were talking about forms of address - that was the part of my post you were responding to when you mentioned the private language argument. I don't normally address anyone as "woman". But you can rephrase it - saying, "This woman is an idiot" doesn't say something about all women.

Of course if you say, "Women are idiots" you are going to be talking about all women - but the same is true of you say, "All Bills are idiots" about Bills.

If "not all women feel the same" as you claim. Then how can someone 'feel like a woman'? — Pseudonym

You think someone can only feel some way if there is a strict categorisation?

Anyway, I'm going to read what I think is your more thorough post and treat it as a bit of a reset, maybe.

I'm making an argument about what is logically implied by trans claims. — Pseudonym

Except, as has been pointed out, your argument is incompatible with trans claims. So it doesn't seem to be based on trans claims at all. Yet you persist with it, apparently in good faith.

No, the point is that the midwife is using a term based on physiological features which, later on in life, you like us to use based solely on psychological features. Why on earth would you want to go through this rigmarole rather than just have two different words? — Pseudonym

The only problem I can see is determining which definition to restrict the existing words to (this may or may not be a similar debate to whether gay marriage is 'marriage'). But at the moment we don't have two different words, and I don't see that being problematic either.

No, the point is that the midwife is using a term based on physiological features which, later on in life, you like us to use based solely on psychological features. — Pseudonym

No. This is a continual confusion of sex and gender. I'm not advocating people use physiological or psychological features, I'm advocating that people address others according to their own wishes on the subject, regardless of whether they even consider a distinction between the two.

Yes, only this time I'm asking you for some evidence to back it up (a request you have conveniently ignored). You're making an empirical claim here. That the word was used a certain way hundreds of years ago. — Pseudonym

Because you have provided so much evidence that the term was only applied to outward secondary sex characteristics historically? At least if you are going to ask for evidence you would think that you would also provide some information on the historical use of the term. Or is your assertion some sort of 'common sense'? Sex and gender were typically fused before feminist critique, especially that of the 1950s and 60s. There is a lot of literature on this critique.

It is more morally complex because a category name implies other members of that category, a non-category name carries no such implication. I can say "bill is an idiot" and be referring only to a particular person called Bill. This is because although there are other people called Bill, Bill is not a category, the other people are called Bill entirely incidentally. There's is no equivalent with the term "woman" I can't say anything of women without implying that the same applies to all women. — Pseudonym

Yes you can. Not all women feel the same. Not all women are the same. This is fundamentally, and trivially, true.

To use your example, if I say "she is an idiot", I am not calling all women idiots.

...after the analysis you've put in so far the best you've got is "if you don't agree with me you must not be trying hard enough"? — Pseudonym

I mean, you're really not representing trans claims accurately at all. No matter what I've said to you, you've gone back to the same set of misinformation regarding trans claims. How do you expect to have a genuinely engaging discussion about it?

So if a girl (who thinks she is a boy) is addressed as "girl", that would be fine because 'girl' is a sex distinguishing term? — Pseudonym

I'm not sure babies have such complex thoughts that they can clearly communicate to a midwife (which is the context of this statement).

Are you suggesting it's not true that the word "woman" was not, in the past, used to describe those people with particular physiological characteristics? — Pseudonym

I feel that there is a clear decision here to ignore the things said in posts - you've heard my answer on this twice now. I don't know why, given this repetition, and the repeated inaccurate formulation of trans claims, we are expecting to get anywhere.

A personal name is not a category. People called Bill are not claiming to be similar to other people called Bill. They're not claiming, based on private feelings to be part of the set {all people called Bill}, the only criteria for membership of the set {all people called Bill} is being called Bill. — Pseudonym

This doesn't present to me why it would be more difficult or more morally complex to learn someone's gender from them than it is to learn their name, however. This is a pity, because I thought this area might be one where we get some traction.

Words are based (insofar as possible) on features available to everyone, because words belong to everyone. It's not that physiological features have primacy because they're more important than how you feel. It's that physiological features have primacy because they are most available to everyone and language is a communal thing. — Pseudonym

As though we haven't been able to have some sort of discussion regarding what people feel like or who they are? This is another treat people like objects when completely unnecessary. I mean, the point of language is communication, so we might as well accept the utility of communication with other people in regards to their terms of address.

The trans claim is implicitly that there is a connection between chromosomes and gender identity. — Pseudonym

No. This is a fundamental misunderstanding. If this is really the basis of your claims, then you are not doing the listening (or the reflection) that you are asking of others.

If there were no connection, than a man (who feels like a woman) could still be called a man (based on his chromosomes) because there's nothing 'not man-like' about the way he's feeling. — Pseudonym

Only if feeling is external. It's not. You are actually begging the question here - this conclusion of yours is only possible is you necessitate a connection between chromosomes and feeling in the first place.

That a person thinking and feeling that way can't be a 'Man' they must be a 'woman', because that's one of the ways 'women' think and feel, not one of the ways 'men' think and feel. — Pseudonym

You say this as if other people have to label people - what we are talking about is people telling us their authentic feelings. They are not saying, "I can't be called a man because men don't think this way." They are saying, "I feel like a woman."

The word 'Woman' was used to describe those people with particular physiological characteristics. That's just an historical fact without any judgement value. — Pseudonym

This is another fundamental misunderstanding - perhaps you did not read my post, or you haven't looked at the history of sex-gender terms and thinking?

Men who have these thoughts/feelings that they call 'like a woman' have requested that they be labelled by the term currently used as the default label for anyone with breasts and a vagina. — Pseudonym

Not to be nit-picky, but just to point out the fuzziness of these sets - not all people with breasts have a vagina, and not all people with XX chromosomes have either or both.

but I'm pretty sure that there was no sense in which "woman" was used to describe anyone other than a person with (at least some of) the physiological characteristics associated with two x chromosomes until maybe forty or fifty years ago? — Pseudonym

It was also associated with the female gender identity, and when complex situations arose people had difficulty expressing them. But that does not mean that it did not exist. It also does not mean that outward sex characteristics is the "true" etymology of the word and gender identity or gender roles is the "false" etymology. At some point in history these two concepts were critically reviewed and conceived of to be more separate than initially conceived. At this point we could have split up language more thoroughly (as Banno attempts to do in his posts, even if just for some clarity in this thread), but generally we did not.

When a midwife says "it's a girl" she's not doing a psych analysis. — Pseudonym

But she may not be making a commentary on gender as much as on sex.

Yes, the claim that some feminists are making (that their identity is being undermined by people claiming to 'feel like a woman') requires that the category "women" be defined. But so does that claim "I feel like a woman". There must be something it is like to be a woman in order for someone to feel it. It may not be a tightly defined thing — Pseudonym

My argument was that compromising one's own identity by addressing others requires strict categorisation. But two women, with breasts and vaginas and XX chromosomes that they've had since birth and both of whom feel like women can feel completely differently to each other - and yet still feel like women. So I don't think strict categorisation cannot be the case.

A private language simply doesn't make any sense, how would you know if you were using the terms correctly? — Pseudonym

The same way you learn someone's name. How is this harder, or more morally complex, than that?

Secondly, I am using sex, male, female; as distinct from gender, man, woman. — Banno

Ah - this is the bit I was missing. Carry on.

A person with specifiable physical characteristics is considered male. But this does not imply that they ought be treated as a man, regardless of their own disposition.

And contrawise, a person who wishes to be treated as a woman, may (must?) still be counted as male because of their physical characteristics. — Banno

Why does the physiology have primacy? Or are you restricting the latter part of this claim - the "counting" - to certain medical issues?

So I just want to try and clarify and cover what I believe to be your argument without this quoting back and forth, which sometimes gets me confused about whether we have sufficiently covered the ground we were aiming for or got stuck responding to particulars.

Some points we have covered

1 - The trans claim is not that there is a definitive or necessary connection between chromosomes and gender-identity. The trans claim is not that there is a definitive or necessary connection between outward appearance and gender-identity. If it were, the claim would insinuate that there are no trans people - a self-defeating claim. I think we might both agree on this issue - I am not sure.

2 - The use of gendered language predates critical interrogation of the distinctions between sex, gender identity, gender roles, and the like. There is not one true, physiological etymology or definition of "woman" and "man" in use over the past few hundred years - this word is bound up in the fusing of sex, gender identity and gender roles. Thus, the word today is the child of this "de-fusing". The claim that it historically denoted physical appearance and that this is the "true, correct" or "objective" use of the term is a little blind to the history of sex and gender (and falls foul of the etymological fallacy anyway). I think we might be able to both agree on this - but perhaps we are not there yet.

3 - Here, I think, is the point of divergence between us, so perhaps this is the point to interrogate the most in any further discussion we might have. We might call this the "other-treatment" and "self-treatment" issue.

I am going to try and be a little pedantic about this to see where it goes.

Theorising about addressing people

We have a speaker S and an addressee A. Both have some conceptual framework of identity, f(S) and f(A).

Where S follows f(A) when addressing A, they are acknowledging the interiority and self-identity of A in their address.

Where S follows f(S) when addressing A, they are not.

Now to see if there are any issues here. First, is whether the use of f(A) by S denies the interiority and self-identity of S. There are a few potential answers:

(a) Yes it does, because any utterance is a universal application of a framework and therefore S is also addressing S with the same framework.
(b) No it doesn't, because such a framework is oriented toward the addressee and does not necessarily apply universally. For example, even if S uses f(A) to address A, they use f(S) to address themselves (even just internally).

A second question is whether the use of f(S) by S denies the interiority and self-identity of A.

(c) Yes it does, because S is applying an identity to A that A does not identify as.
(d) No it doesn't, because A is mistaken about their own identity.

Obviously there are some objections to some of these. To (a) the objection is that we don't apply such frameworks universally already. The only way this would hold is if gender is a special exception. To (d) the objection is that A has special access to knowledge about themselves. This is two-pronged objection - first, that we believe people who make authentic statements about their identity, and two, that objective comparison of internal identities is impossible. That is, two women cannot sufficiently check if they both "feel like a woman" and, indeed, there are fundamental differences in the way that women "feel like women" (or if such a thing exists). I have more trouble finding objections for (b) and (c), so maybe this is where you can step in.

I feel that if we accept (a), then we might end up multiplying the number of people whose interiority we ignore. For example, a person who feels that gender is a social construct and that gendered forms of address are therefore inaccurate or generally misleading might want to address every as "xhe", which, I have no doubt, would make a lot of people feel that they had been addressed inappropriately and their subjectivity, interiority and identity ignored or denied.

Frameworks of address

I suggest that we can formulate two types of address framework: speaker-oriented and addressee-oriented. Speaker-oriented addressing would address each person by the framework of the speaker regardless of the interiority of the addressee. Addressee-oriented addressing would address each person by the framework of the addressee.

In speaker-oriented addressing the speaker always addresses themselves with consideration of their interiority, but without consideration of others interiority. Neither the speaker nor the addressee have a guarantee that they will be addressed in a manner that they feel is appropriate.

In addressee-oriented addressing, the addressee is addressed in a manner reflective and respectful of their interiority, including the speaker, who will also address themselves appropriately. Speakers and addressees will always be addressed in a manner they feel is appropriate, both externally and internally.

Claims of strict categorisation

I think that the biggest objection to addressee-oriented addressing is if (a), the universal application of frameworks through addressing another, holds somehow.

I think that you have expressed that some feminists feel that applying the word "woman" to someone outside of their conceptual categorisation of "woman" is compromising, or inappropriate to, their identity as women. I think that to make such a claim requires a strict categorisation of "woman". It also requires a protective approach to that categorisation. Such a strict categorisation requires a conceptualisation of (i) how it feels to be a woman, (ii) the experiences and circumstances of women, (iii) the treatment of women, or some combination of more than one. The reason that categorisation needs to be strict is that there is a resistance to permitting new members to the category (in some cases, as you note, the chromosomes you were born with and not even the sexual organs that you currently have - very strict!).

However, it is clear that not all women feel this way. A clear case is the set of female academic feminists who believe that gender is not associated with sex organs, or that there are more than two genders. The same case can be made for women (including, again, many female academic feminists) who do not share the circumstances, feelings, experiences or history that other academic feminists relate to this categorisation.

If we are to be strict about this, then, what do we call women who do not believe that they share the same qualities as required by this category? Do we call them something other than women? In either case, this strict categorisation produces the same problems - people who are addressed by other incorrectly, either in the circumstance of people who identify as women who would not be addressed as women (in this case, a group of female academic feminists) or a dissolution of the strict category of experiences/history, dissolves the basis for this objection (that people are telling "real" women that they feel like them because there is a general way women feel).

But I'm not hung up on primacy. It's just that at the moment "woman" is used to describe them too and some of them are upset about the association with a certain group of feelings. — Pseudonym

I'm saying that people should be free to apply whatever primacy they feel comfortable with (which freedom includes freedom from undue social pressure). — Pseudonym

I know that you feel that I am just saying "no, you're wrong" to you, but this is, I think, the core of your argument, and I believe it to be wrong. I believe it to be wrong on the grounds of respecting the interiority of others without compromising your own - or if you want to put it in terms of harm, that treating people like objects is inherently harmful. You put the harm in the treatment of others potentially on par with the harm of compromising your own identity through language-use. But my argument, as I have put it forward, is that nothing actually changes in the treatment of oneself, so this perspective is flawed. Yes, people hold the position, but people hold incorrect positions all the time - I believe you accuse me of this.

We don't make concessions to neo-Nazis who want a purely white state, as an example, because their feelings about their own identity. We judge them on their treatment of others. You accept that marriage equality is good progress because it expands equal, respectful treatment to others even if it makes people feel less secure about their own identity. This respectful treatment takes into account the interiority of others. However, you feel that there are special conditions for gender (or, perhaps, by calling people by the name their parents gave them) that gives these groups who ask to treat people as objects more credence. I am not sure why. You can point to as many "some feminists" as you want, but that doesn't mean their argument is any better.

We are all different, the only way you could address the inhabitant of a body alone is to have a different term for each person. — Pseudonym

You could use whatever term they feel is appropriate.

The solution to this problem you're advising seems to be just "put up with it". — Pseudonym

Of course not. Just because I don't think that there is a completely valid argument here does not mean that I would say to people, "Put up with it."

It doesn't make much difference to the argument if there is one thing it's like to be a woman or several things. The point is that it is a limited group. If it was not a limited group (and so neither was being a man) then there would be no problem with calling anyone a man no matter what they feel like because any set of feelings would be entirely consistent with either term. — Pseudonym

I think you are very much too hung up on categorisation of a certain sort here. Unless you can drop into the interiority of each person, how would you ever know? Authentic expression is the best tool we have for how someone is feeling. Obviously there are many strains of feminism that reject utterly such strict categorisation, but it seems that you, personally, don't subscribe to this when making an argument, even though much of your point about avoiding primacy is avoiding taking particular sides to resolve the issue. I think you are having your cake and eating it too.

I have to go, but I will respond to one more point when I have time.

Yet you think someone who is confident in their identity will be upset by how they are addressed. — Pseudonym

This is true of all types of people - this is in no way exclusive to trans people. The principle of respecting other people's interiority is that we respect them in the way we address and treat them. This doesn't mean we compromise the way in which we treat ourselves.

The word "marriage" used to mean (to some) — Pseudonym

To some. Is that the point that we were talking about earlier? I don't think so.

In the case of the word "woman" however, I'm more persuaded by the feminist argument that its current use causes less harm than an expansion/alterations might. — Pseudonym

I feel like I haven't heard the actual argument that you find convincing - just that you know that there is such an argument.

I never have said that there is some connection between chromosomes and feeling. — Pseudonym

Nor did I say you did - I said that you claimed trans people made such a claim. To wit:

This is, however, the opposite of what is being claimed by the conflation of the term "woman". What this conflation implies is that there are some properties of having two X chromosomes which are intrinsically shared by those who feel like something they would describe as a woman. — Pseudonym

I would be very surprised to find out that the definition of "woman" popped into existence when humans discovered chromosomes and was not in use beforehand. If it was in use beforehand, then this definition you are supplying is a cherry-picked one for the purposes of your position. Why are you so focussed on chromosomes?

The harm is if you (as an obvious man) told me (a woman, (for the sake of this example)) that you feel sufficiently like me and everyone else with my biological sex to be addressed in the same way because we're basing terms of address on feelings not observed facts. — Pseudonym

I'm again not sure where you're getting your sense of these concepts from. Why would I have to "feel like you"? And why would the gendered term of address necessarily be based upon "observed facts"?

I feel like this argument is based upon some assumptions that need some real criticism:

(a) chromosomes are some fundamental component of gender or gendered words (such as "woman"). Criticism: Gender is separate, and the language-use of gendered words predates chromosomes - there is no primacy to the chromosomal definition as some etymological or factual truth.
(b) observable physiology has primacy over gender identity in forms of address. Criticism: If we consider that we are addressing a person (say, the inhabitant of a body) and not the body, then this seems odd.
(c) there is only one way to "feel like a woman", which means that any use of gendered words implies the addressees necessarily feel the same as each other. Criticism: there is more than one way to feel like a woman. We admit as such when we talk about "trends" and look at the varied cultural mediation across not only the present, but also the past.

This is what I feel is drawn out from your writing - how far off am I?

Why have you cherry-picked this one property of terms used as an insult and argued against it as if it were the only property I ascribe? — Pseudonym

I didn't say it was the only property you ascribed, but I thought you made it sound like a necessary property, as you have repeated:

If there's no alternative how can the person using the term possibly be accused of doing so with the intent to insult. — Pseudonym

I don't think it needs to be part of the definition. Anyone can invent any category of people and make an insulting term for them, without regard to whether it is necessary to have such a category - it need not be an alternative term to a proper category. But this part of the conversation is getting pedantic and beside the point - let's stick to the interesting stuff.

How are you so sure on this? The way we use language defines us. As I said in an earlier post, many intelligent thinkers have concluded that it is not even possible to have advanced thought like identity and personhood without language, so it's completely unwarranted for you to simply assert that it has no impact on defining the user. Words 'mean' something, that's their whole point. That means they 'mean' something to the speaker, not just the listener. — Pseudonym

I don't think that someone who is confident in their identity is going to be confused about who they are by how they address someone else.

Gay marriage does affect straight marriage. It means that 'marriage' no longer refers to an act of union under God between a man and a woman. — Pseudonym

It didn't mean that beforehand. And your description contains absolutely no change in straight marriage. A man and a woman who were in a union under God before gay marriage are still a man and a woman in a union under God after gay marriage - unless one of them changed sex or gender or the change in definition literally obliterated God.

So why are they asking that a term previously used to describe {people who, by appearances, were born with two X chromosomes} now also describe {people who have a feeling they describe as being "like a woman"}. If they're not making a claim that the two are the same, then why would they want to use the same word to describe both. — Pseudonym

I want to point out that there are two different points here, and they are somewhat distinct. There is the original point about the connection between feeling and chromosomes, and now there is a second point about language.

As to the first point, the claim is not that chromosomes have a connection to the feeling. Such a claim, as I have said, is counter to the claims people with one set of chromosomes may feel the way that people with another set of chromosomes may feel. Clearly, then, the premise is that chromosomes and gender identity are distinct, and many of the problematic arguments you are raising become, as you note in this quoted text above, language issues.

Historically, sex and gender have been considered by many cultures as fused, and so one set of words only have persisted in language. This is also the state now. However, every day we are faced with words that have multiple, related or interrelated meanings, and yet we do just fine, so I don't think that this is primarily a language issue for you.

If I asked you to refer to me as "he" or "she" - would you need to check out my physiology before you felt it appropriate to use the term?

This might have to do with a backlash against globalism/neoliberalism in response to the financial crisis.

This all seems a little too abstract to me. What split are you talking about? What are the examples?

The point of labelling it an insult is to point out that it is an alternative term for a group already defined. — Pseudonym

That's a strange, narrow way to think about insults - usually insults are used when they are going to be taken negatively by the recipient, not just because they are "alternative".

If you're not sure how to quantify harms, then how have you reached the conclusion that people ought to be called by their preferred term? If you've not derived the 'ought' from minimising harm, where have you got it from? — Pseudonym

There's a difference between "relative harm" (as you have framed it) and other principles regarding harm. I've definitely suggested that treating others as having interiority avoids certain principles of harm. What I haven't done is compare the relative amounts of harm.

Yes, and you seem to have ignored my arguments that insisting on the agreement (by language use) that there is such a thing as something it 'feels like' to be woman is equally imposing properties of personhood on someone born a women who may not wish to have herself defined that way. — Pseudonym

If a woman calls someone a "she", in no way does it define the speaker. This is akin to the argument that gay marriage somehow substantively affects straight marriage, even though none of the qualities of the marriage have changed at all. Moreover, respect of address doesn't even imply that the speaker has to agree that it is not some other category.

I don't understand what you are saying here at all. I may have got the terminology wrong. By 'trans man' in the quote you cited I meant someone who is born a man but has a feeling they would describe as 'like woman'. Is that the wrong way round. If so, my apologies, please re-read the section with whatever the correct term is. — Pseudonym

The point is this - male-to-females do not say that

the sets {those born with two x chromosomes} and {those who have a feeling they would describe as "like a woman"} are the same — Pseudonym

You need to throw out this line of thinking and this assertion. Transgender people are specifically suggesting that chromosomes and gender-identity are not correlated in such a way. If they were, no one could be transgender! Your basis for the claims of transgender people is one that is incompatible with the fundamental point of their claims. In fact, their claim is specifically the opposite.

You and I have different definitions of discourse. Mine involves a to-and-fro analysis of arguments. — Pseudonym

You don't think people have provided an analysis of your arguments?

No, we assess the harms that such a worldview might cause and come to some appropriate social consensus on their expression. So can you point to the assessment that's being carried out here of the harms? Because all I read is an assertion that trans people must be called by their preferred terms, not a discussion about the relative harms. No-one has written a single word in answer to the issue I raised about the meaning of the term 'woman' to some feminists and the harm that taking away that meaning might cause them.

Calling someone a "nigger" is actively designed to insult them. It's not a noun passively describing a group — Pseudonym

I just want to try and unpick some of the context of the argument here. If Mary prefers to be called Molly, you assert that there are potentially people who might find it crucially important to their world-view to call someone by the name that their parents have given them. I suggested that this was not a universal argument, as do not accept that it is universally appropriate to call someone "nigger" (or "bitch" or anything else). I think that part of your counterpoint here is that these terms might be "actively designed to insult" - but I can't help but note that this is a value-judgement that may not be shared by those using them, who might believe them appropriate terms. So I'm not convinced that this response is on target. It ignores, too, the fact that if someone addresses someone by a term that they know will cause upset or distress, then they are actively insulting them. So in either case, this does not seem to be a valid argument.

In terms of harms - this has definitely been raised. But perhaps no one has quantified the harm of being called by an inappropriate pronoun compared to the harm of "taking away" the definition of a word for some groups of feminists. (Not, of course, that the definition of a word can be "taken away" - if there is nonsense in this thread, this is it.) I am not sure how you would go about quantifying that harm. Would you add up the number of feminists who adhere to this definition and compare it to the number of people who do not, or what? Within feminist academia there is disagreement on this, so it hardly seems as if, at least on a level of theory, we are suggesting that we close off this set of terms to a strict set of definitions on the grounds of harm, lest we shut down the potential for discussion on this very issue.

I did raise the harm of denying personhood and interiority and treating people as objects - I may not have described this as a harm (which I hope has not confused you) because it seems self-evident to me that this is a harm.

What trans men (for example) are asking is that the same term applied to people born with two x chromosomes is applied to people who feel a way they would describe as "like a woman". It is exactly "an assertion that who they is totally defined by us and not by them". It is an assertion that the sets {those born with two x chromosomes} and {those who have a feeling they would describe as "like a woman"} are the same, or similar enough to share the same defining term and most importantly, are so similar that they do not even need their own individual defining terms. How is that not imposing a definition on who women are? It is literally saying that all people born with two x chromosomes are in some significant way the same as all people who have a feeling they would describe as "like a woman". — Pseudonym

I assume by trans-man you mean male-to-female? Of course this is nonsense - such a suggestion obliterates the logical possibility of female-to-male. And that is only within a narrow scope that is causes such problems; any theory of non-binary genders beyond this is also rendered impossible by your argument. And yet, of course, you recognise that these claims exist (thus our participation in this thread). So I think you would have to note that this formulation is wrong.

I don't understand the point you're making here. — Pseudonym

I'm simply saying that an appeal to discourse as a resolution is redundant, because that is what we are participating in. I am hoping you are not asserting that each and every time we encounter a trans person in the world we need to start the discourse afresh.

One might consider it crucially important to one's world-view that proper names are bestowed by parents, not the person themselves. In that case, it would be imposing on that person's world-view for Mary to demand of them that they now refer to her as Molly. — Pseudonym

Sure, and it might be part of someone's worldview that black people are lesser than white people, should fulfil an appropriate role in society as slaves, and should be addressed as "nigger" - but we don't always accede to the worldviews of others. I think that your line of thinking justifies all sorts of hateful or bigoted forms of address, whether that was your intention or not.

There are cases of forms of address that are inappropriate, and there are also cases where it is wildly inaccurate, and there are other cases that are neither. Picking them apart is a big part of the question we're discussing. But it is not as simple as saying, "Here is an example of a worldview that justifies x" because not all arguments are on the same footing here.

Part of this question might be about respect for others - both in a general, politeness sense, as well as more fundamental empathetic sense. When we treat others as objects, we can treat them exactly how we perceive them with an ignorance of their personhood - an assertion that who they is totally defined by us and not by them, and that our interiority is superior to theirs, so that our definitions of who they are is total. When we treat others as objects, then, we can justify referring to them any way we please that suits our worldview. But when we treat others as people, we are compelled to take into account their own interiority, and the smallest acknowledgement of that is respect for how they wish to be treated in forms of address.

I feel like there is a "slippery slope" here somewhere that you are angling towards, where we might have to acknowledge other types of claims apart from gender? And that perhaps we will not be able to reasonably assess the authenticity or potential future harm of all these claims?

Maybe by discussion, maybe by some compromise. What it wouldn't be resolved by is making it an act of violent bigotry against Mary simply to have (and wish to express in one's language) the world-view that names should be given by parents. — Pseudonym

I think this confuses the type of discussion we are having now with the practicalities of everyday life - we expect that murder is wrong without requiring that assailant and victim have a philosophical discussion and some sort of compromise first, but we are fully accepting of philosophical discussions such as this one here to occur regarding the justification of murder in various circumstances.

Perhaps Mary would have an issue if John preferred to call her Molly. Or Mark. I think in these circumstances that it is definitely the case that Mary's self-identification is preferred. There does not seem to be a philosophical issue with people changing their name.

I guess part of the question is whether personal pronouns refer to individual people, categories of people, general sets of people, or something else. I guess if you want to talk to someone as if they are an object, then it does not matter what their perspective is on the matter and you can call them according to whatever term you prefer. But if you intend to speak to someone as a subject or a person, should you not take this fundamental part of dialogue - their perspective of who they are - into account?

I can't say that I am convinced by what I understand of this argument.

Time implies change from state to state - for the sake of this discussion, let us accept this as uncontroversial.

We can track these changes by their relation to other states - again, for the sake of this discussion, let us accept this as uncontroversial. Let us call these reference states.

'Entropy' or 'decay' is then change from a state more alike to a reference state of 'order' to a state more like the reference state of 'disorder'. We need not specially define these reference states to have a general idea of what we mean - hopefully we are following each other here. While some may have a negative connotation with the reference state of disorder, I believe that your argument is that there is no moral judgement made upon this reference state. It is the intentional striving, or lack thereof, away from this reference state that is important. Your argument, then, as I follow it, suggests that God cannot have an intentional striving away from this reference state without removing (for want of a better word) time.

I think that there are two problems here - one immediate problem and a general problem.

The immediate problem is that no one is truly asking of God that all decay be prevented, just certain types of decay. All human growth requires entropy, so there are innumerable examples of decay related to bringing order and growth to human life. It is not necessary, therefore, for any human to suffer a painful, terminal illness because time requires decay, because obviously there are humans who do not suffer this particular type of decay and time still marches on. Decay as a necessary outcome of time in general does not imply decay as suffering is necessary. (This is to say nothing of the argument that decay requires suffering, which is not a point you have established.)

The general problem is that a reference state of disorder as such need exist at all, or be a state that is progressed towards. In a divinely designed universe, why cannot there be a series of differently order referenced states that are progressed towards, not of which fit the general condition of 'disorder' or some similarly negatively conceived of state, so that the onwards marching of time does not require decay? That is, a progress from utopia to utopia. Or, alternatively, could not disorder be the ultimate starting state, so that the progress of time continually moved towards order and decay is a theoretical concept only?

My main point is that when imagining the universe, we are often stuck imagining that some of the conditions that exist are necessary. I think it is a failure of the imagination in regards to a divine being to imagine that some of these trappings are necessary, and I propose to you that the concept of decay being necessary for time is not a necessary constraint, but one that you have derived from the particulars of our universe, and not one that is required for any possible universe, of which God could presumably create any.

Yes, I have heard of entropy. But there is a difference in pointing out a law of thermodynamics, which is an observation of how the universe is, and looking at whether this is a necessity in a divinely designed universe. I am curious as to why you think that this is a necessity in a divinely designed universe. Because if it is not, then the creation of such a universe certainly places the responsibility on God for children dying of slow and painful diseases.

I'm confused by all of this.

There are people with particular physiologies.

There are people who are comfortable with their physiologies, and people who are not, who authentically believe that they would be more comfortable with a different physiology (and this is often borne out).

There are cultural associations to certain physiologies - types of dress, behavioural expectations, manners of speech, jobs, etc.

There are people who are comfortable with these associations and conform to them, people are identify with against the common associations, and people who believe the associations are arbitrary.

What's the normative claim here? How do we get to 'right' and 'wrong' and 'delusion'?

Secondly that's not "Evil", that's corrupted data. Which is an inevitability for beings who inhabit a temporal structure. — Lucid

I really don't know where premises like these come from.

Before you were talking about whether the question is significant or meaningful, now you are stating that it is "un-grounded". — Metaphysician Undercover

I haven't changed my tune. I asked how we get to these types of questions and I enquired about the backstory of each of the concepts, which I suggested had so many possible formulations and abstractions that there is no clear starting point except general creativity, which, I suggested, was akin to writing fiction.

We only got on to this particular type of question treating meaning and significance in a certain way because you mentioned "interest", which was not where I started, and something I consistently challenged as relevant.

I found it wildly speculative, as I said, and uninteresting. — Metaphysician Undercover

I have to admit that given our recent conversation I am surprised by this. When talking about God and timelessness and eternity, your interest was enough to make a question meaningful, and you were generally resistant to providing some groundedness, preferring, instead, to say that questions are like poetry to which we bring our own meaning. My quest for some grounding on this question was met with the idea that I had a prejudice against finding meaning in it.

And now here I see that you are uninterested in this particular hypothesis because it is "wildly speculative". Do you think you might have two different sets of standards that you apply depending on whether the argument relates to God?

This is an interesting line of thought, then. So democracy takes place in the moral climate of the country it is implemented in. This explains many things, such as segregation. So apart from seeing democracy as right or wrong, it is simply a vehicle to mirror the common view. — FreeEmotion

Well, this isn't quite what I was saying. Democracy is a framework about how to have a debate. Sometimes people suggest this framework must contain certain necessary principles (for example, freedom of speech),and some of these conceptions would say that segregation is undemocratic. So, again, we would have different people raising different ideas about what is democratic. Some of these conceptions would certainly allow for segregation. But I think less and less conceptions allow for this - political equality is often a cornerstone of democratic participation, and segregation violates this.

I tell my students not to use the dictionary. Dahl, Estlund, Habermas - there are better places to review comprehensive conceptions of democracy.

I feel like we got closer - but not quite there. I don't think that someone finding something interesting makes it meaningful in a philosophical sense; the reason interest has come up is because you've linked the two together and I was trying to follow the chain to explain my position. However, you've certainly centred whether this question is meaningful around whether it is interesting which does nothing to counter my position that this question is completely un-grounded.

Whatever you give me will be from your mind - I don't see why that means some ideas cannot be more or less abstract than others.

I'm interested in this idea that "existence in time" is deterministic. But I wasn't really trying to get your specific thoughts in particular, I was trying to understand how this line of questioning flourishes and whether there is some more rigorous basis for it, and I'm not going to get that from your personal interpretation. In fact, that it consists of personal interpretations based upon interest was sort of my point when I proposed that this question is a type of nonsense. That is not to say that the individual questions that people bring to this discussion wouldn't be well thought-out, mind.

Well, I haven't figured out how to delete a duplicated comment.

Can democracy be separated from morality? — FreeEmotion

Personally, I don't think so. Politics discusses moral issues, and how to discuss and resolve those issues - a type of meta-ethics, maybe - is where conceptions of democracy live.

A great difficulty in determining how to answer moral questions is if there is anything that is mandatory (e.g. inclusiveness? what about inclusiveness of terrible ideas?) and anything that needs to be excluded outright (or, for e.g. if there are certain rights that need to be protected). But people already disagree on these framework issues.

Now do you not agree with me? If I am interested, then the question is meaningful, and therefore significant. — Metaphysician Undercover

This whole time I've been trying to understand why it is meaningful. Is it interesting to you simply because it is interesting to you? Or is there something more... And is there likely some meaning that many people share, or are you just intent arguing that, "Well, angslan asked Devan99 and people in general how this question came about, and the answer is that it is meaningful to Metaphysican Undercover." I mean, that would be something pretty interesting if Devan99 wrote it out because it was meaningful just to you...

Because my initial criticism was about how grounded this question was in something non-abstract, but the answer appears to be, well, it is meaningful to Metaphysician Undercover for some vague reason...

So let me get this straight. You do not see the significance of the question concerning the relationship between existence and time, and so you are asking me to explain to you the significance. — Metaphysician Undercover"

If you go back a few posts, you'll see me break down my questioning of the significance - I gave quite a few specific questions, which never got answered except for, "I think it's significant", which, I will admit, didn't seem like a very compelling answer. I was also looking, if you recall, to see if there was some general answer, rather than for your specific perspective (initially I didn't address you at all, if you recall). There is a difference between "Metaphysican Undercover finds this question significant because..." and "If someone poses this question, there is general agreement that it refers to a certain framework..."

Oh, it seems like you have forgotten the disrespect in your approach to the question. You didn't simply ask a relevant question, you made a comparison, making fun of the question. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't know that I was "making fun of the question" as much as I was having fun. But I have asked you relevant questions, and, each time, your response isn't to try an engage me in how to answer the question, but to proclaim that you are interested, and that your interest is sufficient explanation of the question's meaningfulness. You would think by now that some further explanation of time, god, existence, the relationship between them, the history that led to this question, whether Devan99 and you and others are working from common conceptions and so forth would have arisen. But instead you have become rather defensive and said, "Well, angslan, if you don't get it you must not be interested" and interpreted this to mean that I am disrespectful not the question (which you have claimed in your last post) but to your interest in it (which you have claimed in the posts prior), as well as that I am prejudiced against finding meaning in it, or that I recognise meaning in it and stubbornly refuse to acknowledge it, and of being 'unreasonable'. Perhaps if you really feel that I have been disrespectful to your interest in the question, you might consider whether you have been disrespectful to me by assigning me all sorts of motivations. It is a pretty bizarre response to accuse me of disinterest and disrespect of you rather than aiming for some further clarification. Look at all the energy we've expended! I think I remember why I stopped posting here.

You seem to be turned off by some "backstory". — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not turned off by some backstory - I am asking what the backstory is. So far, I've had no answer.

I interpret this as a dislike for the significance which I apprehend as pertaining to the question — Metaphysician Undercover

You're all about interpreting! It is not that I dislike the significance which you apprehend as pertaining to the question, I am asking what makes it significant. But if your MO is to supply your own significance and interpretation, then I guess that explains why if I say or ask something, your response does not necessarily directly relate.

If you had proper respect for the interest I have in the question, you would have simply agreed with me, that it is something which I have interest in, but you have no interest in, instead of trying to argue that the subject is meaningless. If you do have interest in it, as you have said, then you would only contradict yourself to argue that it is meaningless. — Metaphysician Undercover

What on earth? You act as if you are the only person to whom this question is addressed and the authority on what it means and how it is significant. I am not "arguing with you". I asked what I consider to be a relevant question regarding the significance of this question and I suggest that this is linked to the foundations of the question. Apparently exploring this is being disrespectful and arguing, as though being in philosophical discussion and disagreement is something reserved for other forums.