Referring to someone by the pronouns of their choosing is the respectful course of action, but there's no law that says I have to be respectful. I will in fact happily use he, she, or they when asked, but I will not use quay/xey/zey or any other made up pronoun. I won't use made up pronouns because I refuse to accept an obligation to learn and remember an ever growing list of made-up words that are required to secure the emotions of people who have been trained to have an emotional breakdown when they don't get their way (if being referred to as quay is required for your happiness, I actually think you may need to be committed to a mental institution). — VagabondSpectre

Very well said.

You don't seem to understand the way arguments work. You had made a claim which you were arguing for. Other people, myself included, presented valid criticisms--problems with your argument. Instead of responding to these criticisms, you dismissed them without reason. Saying that you disagree with somebody or something is meaningless unless you provide legitimate criticisms. This is why we didn't get anywhere last time, and why I said I didn't want to try again. You think that disagreement without reason is enough, and so there is no way to have a productive discussion with you. You just keep asserting your own beliefs, and disregarding any counterpoints because you simply disagree with them, without any reason other than they go against your currently held beliefs. It's very similar to religious fundamentalism, which is ironic considering the subject of the discussion we're referencing.

I'm not going to continue this conversation, though. It's far off topic from the current discussion, and as I said already it's futile anyway.

You're essentially making the same argument you made for restricting freedom of religion a few weeks ago, which isn't surprising since it's a similar issue, but I don't really want to get into this again since the last discussion was anything but productive. You have made clear what you believe, which is essentially that it is your (and everyone's) responsibility to do whatever you can to restrict the freedom of others to prevent them from doing things you see as wrong or harmful. I and others have tried to explain to you what the problems are with this way of thinking, but you are very set in it and don't seem to even consider the counter-arguments, so I see no point in making another attempt.

Roke is absolutely right, your argument is based on two very incorrect assumptions: that you know what all other people believe without them telling you, and that the things you believe are morally right and wrong are absolute or "correct" and un-debatable. These are the exact same mistakes that lead to all of the stupid and ridiculous political fighting between the left wing and the right wing in the United States. Everybody thinks that what they believe is "right", what their opponents believe is "wrong", and that they know what other people believe based on very little evidence. The lack of discussion because of these attitudes has been--and continues to be--extremely detrimental to society.

I could be wrong, but I think that it is safe to say that words--as in everyday, ho-hum exchanges, not just the exchange of ideas in political and scholarly contexts--can be very harmful and do a lot of psychological damage. If we acknowledge that words can damage a psyche and cause a lot of suffering just like pollution can damage lungs and cause a lot of suffering, that completely changes the nature of the issue. It takes us from what people do or do not like / approve of to what does or does not harm people and cause avoidable suffering. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Words have absolutely zero inherent power to cause anybody harm or suffering. Words are nothing but verbal representations of thoughts. Can you hurt someone with your thoughts?

When you verbalize your thoughts, you are essentially giving them to whoever is listening to do with as they please. Can that person take your thoughts/words and inflict pain or psychological damage on himself? Sure, but you aren't responsible for how another person uses your thoughts/words. If you give a person a hammer and they slam it down on their own hand, breaking it, are you responsible for their broken hand? Of course not.

"Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him."
- Epictetus

I legitimately have no idea what you're on about or why you are being so hostile and insulting towards me. Is English your first language? If not, I'm assuming that's why you seem to have misunderstood me so severely. Nowhere did I say or even imply that you were lying, I was simply trying to clarify what you were actually saying because your manner of speaking (or typing, I guess) is quite difficult to understand.

Say, for instance, and it happened, I`m leaving the gym floor by the stairs but my punching the air, I`d managed a personal best time, causes a girl to have a panic attack,, and from this time on I`m accused of being a pervert and potential paedophile, thus compromising my safety. Is this not to be considered criminal? — celebritydiscodave

Wait, what? So you were punching the air and a girl had a panic attack, and because of this incident you are now accused of being a pervert and a pedophile? Is the implication supposed to be that this girl spread lies about you assaulting her? Because that has nothing to do with the topic of this discussion. That would be slander, which is spoken defamation. Not a criminal offense, but you can legally bring a lawsuit against the person. This discussion is about whether people do or should have a legal right to simply not be offended. In your example, you can legally sue her because she spread lies about you, not because what she said was offensive to you. There's a huge difference.

I have made clear that I believe that conflating stereotypes and social roles is a fallacy. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Yes, and as I said that is absolutely all you have made clear: that you believe it. You have presented zero support for this belief of yours.

Again, race is socially/culturally constructed based on arbitrary characteristics. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

Racial classification is not based on arbitrary characteristics; it's based on biological clustering of physiological traits within geographic populations. You apparently have a very poor understanding of what race actually is.

Well the first question to ask would be: do you believe in objective morality?

The fact that you won't acknowledge that the "acts" you listed are stereotypes does not mean I created a straw man. I think you're being intellectually dishonest in an attempt to avoid facing the problem with what you originally claimed.

Somebody then suggested that races--white, black, Native American, etc.--are roles just like man and woman are roles, and I showed how that is false. Nothing more, nothing less. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

You haven't shown anything. You have provided zero evidence for your claim other than "because I say so".

I'd also like to make clear that my claim was that gender roles are based on stereotypes--no different than racial roles/stereotypes--and you have yet to show why gender stereotypes are different from racial stereotypes in any significant way, which was your original claim.

The point I tried to make is that race is not biological — WISDOMfromPO-MO

If race is not biological, why are children born the same race as their parents? How can we find our racial ancestry by looking at our DNA? How can forensic scientists tell what race a person is based on their blood?

What is Good?

And so humble, too.

Men get raped in prison regardless of whether or not they look like women, so I really don't see the relevance.

Living up to stereotypes is not acting in a role. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I never said it was, you did--that's been my point this whole time.

I know if I am or am not being a man--I am or am not opening doors for women; I am or am not being a protector and provider; I am or am not sexually active. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

You listed some stereotypes, claiming that doing them would mean you are "acting in the role of man".

These "roles" you speak of are just stereotypes. I don't open doors for women, I am not a protector or a provider, I am not sexually active. According to you, I am not a man because I don't do these stereotypical "male" things. And yet despite not doing any of them, I am a man. It's almost as if being a man means nothing more than having a Y chromosome, just as being white means nothing more than having a certain skin tone....anything beyond that is a stereotype.

I think that your preferences should remain isolated from such discussions for this reason, because it can easily be interpreted as suggesting how women ought to be — TimeLine

So I shouldn't share my opinions because it's possible someone might misinterpret my words and become offended? That's ridiculous.

I have chosen - independent and irrespective of religious or social determinants - to voice my own decision to not have sex until I fall in love and so am waiting to find the right person I am compatible with, but there is no morality there, nothing that makes me 'pure' or better than other women who choose to be promiscuous. — TimeLine

Of course there isn't; I never claimed anything of the sort. I never even implied it. The fact that a few of you took what little I said and made such huge leaps and assumptions about my meaning says a lot about you, not me.

What would be the point if I were to say that I prefer men who exhibit strength by showing kindness and friendship over those that exhibit strength physically because the latter is brute and lacks intelligence? None. — TimeLine

You are more than welcome to say that whenever and wherever you want to. There is absolutely nothing wrong with sharing personal tastes in romantic partners (or anything else, for that matter). If a person gets offended by something like that, that's their own fault. You're reinforcing one of the biggest problems in our society today, which is that everybody feels they have the right not to be offended. You don't. Nobody does. And for the record, what you said is much more "offensive" than what I said. You're insulting someone's intelligence, while all I did was comment about different personality types and compatibility. Like I said, anything you took from what I said beyond that was your own responsibility, not mine. It would be like if I were to accuse you of saying you think men who lift weights are all idiots. Clearly, that's not what you said. I would be twisting your words and reading into them something that you didn't actually say. This is exactly the same as what you have done.

None of this tells me how I know if I am or am not playing this "white" role well or who would be a good role model for me.

I do not believe that the social role of "white" exists. A white person might be more likely to have a role like master and less likely to have a role like servant, but that doesn't make "white" a role. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

So you want me to tell you what white stereotypes are? I recommend Chappelle's Show, Key and Peele, or any standup special of any black comedian ever. There are plenty of comedians of other races, as well, who have spoken about things that are "white" or that white people do. It's most often discussed in comedy because talking about racial stereotypes in a serious manner makes people so uncomfortable, but I think you're being dishonest if you claim they don't exist, or that they're somehow different from gender stereotypes. They clearly aren't, and I don't understand how you can't see that.

Here's a skit from Chappelle's Show that illustrates it quite well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX5MHNvjw7o

I know if I am or am not being a man--I am or am not opening doors for women; I am or am not being a protector and provider; I am or am not sexually active. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

But these things are also stereotypes, so you're sort of shooting yourself in the foot.

The truth is that these "roles" you're talking about are all based on stereotypes, whether they're gender roles or race roles or whatever the case may be. So, you can either say that these roles are legitimate or that they're not, but you can't cherry pick.

So what if I say that "for existence to exist it must have not existed before?"... and for existence I mean a state that allows for things to exist. — Daniel

None of that makes sense, though. The definition of "state" is "the particular condition that someone or something is in at a specific time." There has to be an object for the state to be a condition of, so if nothing exists there are no states because there are no objects to be in states. You're still looking at nothingness or non-existence as if it is the same as "something" or existence.

What I said in my original comment really covers this, though. If time is dependent on objects, then when there are no objects there is no time, meaning there is no such thing as "before" the universe, meaning there was never a time where there was nothingness or non-existence. The universe has always existed.

Are you saying transgender people walk slower than cisgender people?! That kind of bigotry will not be tolerated here.

I am not a fan of being told what to think. Personally, I think Reality is the greatest thing I can think of. Whether or not that includes a god remains to be seen, but I lean towards no. — Uneducated Pleb

Just a note: I don't know if this is how Harjas meant it, but traditionally the "God is the greatest thing we can think of" premise doesn't mean we can't think of anything greater than God, it means that whatever the greatest thing is that we can think of, we will define as God.

Based on the first law of thermodynamics (energy cannot be created or destroyed) and the fact that matter and energy are the same thing, it follows that the only "thing" that exists is the universe--composed of all of the energy within it that makes up literally everything. Nothing else actually "comes into existence" within our universe, the energy/matter just shifts and changes form. So, the only thing your question really applies to is the universe itself--did it come into existence or has it "always" just existed? I lean heavily towards the Reductionism view of time, which means that time does not exist independently of the events that occur in time. In other words, if there is no matter/energy, there is no time. This means that before the universe existed, there was no time. The beginning of time was the beginning of the universe, which is another way of saying that the universe has "always" existed.

TL;DR : No.

I think that we can only make moral judgements on violence in hindsight. Violence is only moral if it is preventing something even worse, but we cannot know for certain how things will work out until the future comes.

Although I suppose the intended purpose of the violence should be factored it, as well. So, maybe violence can be moral as long as the person committing it is doing it with the intention of preventing something worse, even if they fail.

I don't believe in objective morality, though, which is why I don't have a hard position on this.

Is this an actual scientific theory, though? I thought the way you said it made it sound like it was, but I hadn't heard of it.

biological sexes don't contradict the gender theory — BlueBanana

What is the gender theory?

It appears to me as if we agree completely. I think you're saying the same thing I was saying, just in a different way.
There are certain traits which society has deemed male, and others female, but there are no objectively male or female personality traits or "psychologies" or whatever. While we may generally see certain traits in certain genders, there are also varying levels of cross-over, and this is what causes problems. We have decided that certain traits are distinctly female, even though they do appear in men (although more rarely). If a male possesses some of these traits, he's just seen as slightly feminine or "metrosexual". If he possesses too many of these traits, he will have trouble reconciling his male body with what societal norms which have been programmed into his brain tell him can only be female traits. As a side note, I really don't think these things have anything to do with sexual orientation. Some straight men are very feminine, some gay men are very masculine. This is also evidenced by the fact that not all transgender people are heterosexual or homosexual; there is a mix.

Anyway, as I said I think we do agree. And I definitely agree with your last sentence about stereotyping, and the hypocrisy of the transgender issue in regards to feminism (or just anti-sexism). The whole idea of being transgender seems inherently sexist, to me.

Those things are all emergent from your biological sex, though. I thought you were referring to a male/female psychology separate from one's biology. Or maybe you're saying that a literal male brain could form in an otherwise female body?

Regardless, if these things you describe are all so well-documented then we should be able to prove them through studying transgender people's brains, right? Why has't that been done to settle the debate?

Can one distinguish between bodily gender(genitalia, facial hair, bone structure, etc) and psychological gender( cognitive-affective processing differences correlated with masculinized va feminized behaviors )? — Joshs

Is psychological gender even a coherent concept? I'm no psychologist, but it doesn't make sense to me that there could be such a thing as "psychologically feminine" or "psychologically masculine". That would essentially mean that there are uniquely male personalities and uniquely female personalities. As far I know there isn't any actual support for this notion.

I won't try to convince anybody of this because it's just the opinion I have based on my own reasoning, but it seems to me that a man feeling as though he is a woman or vice versa is caused mainly by societal norms and the pressure put on individuals to be a certain way based on their gender. If a young boy wants to play with dolls or wear dresses, he is told directly--as well as indirectly and (constantly) subliminally--that those are things that girls do. I truly believe that if we didn't have these set gender roles, transgender people wouldn't exist. There would just be men who wear makeup, wear "women's" clothes, have long hair, etc., and women who wear "male" clothing, have short hair, etc. And they would be fine with being called their biological gender. The only reason this isn't the case is because these societal gender roles are so deeply ingrained in our psychology, that when a boy liked makeup and dresses etc. he thinks that this means he cannot be a boy and he must be a girl. This is the root of their psychological distress, these incompatible "realities" which they try their hardest to make peace between, and yet no matter what they do they cannot.

I'll say again, though, this is all just my own speculation. It makes sense to me that this is the case, but I know it's not a clear-cut issue.

I am quite a fan of science, so that's fine with me. I'll definitely check him out; it sounds very interesting.

And I just don't think many people --- even the most vitriolic atheists --- would want to accept that conclusion. — czahar

I wouldn't be so sure about that; I could absolutely see the more "fundamentalist" atheists agreeing with that conclusion. The anti-theists.

While respecting their persons, I do not believe that a person can become the opposite sex, however. One can play the role, dress the role, think the role, and so forth, but biology trumps gender theory. A transsexual woman is a man who has taken hormones which produce feminization of the male body. A transsexual man is a woman who has taken hormones which produce masculinization of the female body. Stop the hormones, and the body reverts to its normal state.

We can distinguish between treatments that lend an air of verisimilitude to a desired gender change and an impossible gender change. My view will be hotly rejected by most transsexuals. Some will brand me as transphobic, misogynist, hateful, violent, and so forth. This is to be expected. We live in a period when extremes of ideology demand acceptance, and refusal to accept leads to denunciations.

Still and all, transsexuals are persons, and I'll continue to grant them respect as persons. I don't have agree with anyone's ideology. — Bitter Crank

I could not agree more with everything you said. I have only known a few transgender women and one transgender man, but I always used the pronouns they preferred. I think that's just common courtesy. But I really wish we could be more honest about the reality of things, and acknowledge the fact that transgender people in general are in serious need of help. The suicide rate is alarmingly high, and when I read things like this...

Just adding 'man' or 'dude' in the middle of a sentence, even as emphasis, will make him flinch visibly. A client called him 'sir' about a dozen times in a call the other night and he had tears in his eyes. — Akanthinos

...it makes me so sad knowing that instead of truly helping these people, we're going along with their delusion. Some of you may think I'm horrible for calling it that, but believing you are a male when you are in fact a female (or vice versa) is, by definition, a delusion. And there is clearly a lot of psychological harm done to the individual due to this inconsistency. I have a male friend with a voice that is higher than usual for a man, and he has been called "ma'am" during phone conversations very often throughout his entire life. It doesn't cause him to flinch or bring him to tears; reacting in such a way to something so insignificant would be a sign of real psychological problems. I'm not saying all trans people have these issues, two of the few I've known didn't care when people got their pronouns wrong. But we can't ignore the statistics on suicide and depression. I feel nothing but love for transgender people, and I understand how difficult their lives are, which is why it seriously pains me to see how society is handling the issue. And because the violence, murder, suicide, and depression rates all continue to rise, clearly our approach isn't working.

Also, for the record, this...

You have to understand the degree of danger. In the U.S, a trans person is 14 times more likely to be murdered than a non-trans person. — Akanthinos

...is incorrect. I don't know where you got that number, but I've checked many sources and they all clearly show that the overall trans murder rate in the U.S. is lower than the cisgender murder rate. However, a subset of trans people--specifically black and latino transfeminine individuals--do have a higher murder rate than cisgenders. But it's still nowhere near 14 times higher.

As for the actual topic of the discussion, no, I do not believe using the wrong pronoun constitutes violence. That's as absurd as claiming you can rape a woman by looking at her. We can say it is abuse to use the wrong pronoun, but not violence. We've gotten far too wishy-washy with language as of late, and I honestly worry about the ramifications.

Also, I appreciate you sharing your discussion, I'll look it over soon when I have more time--it sounds very interesting.

Never heard of him; what has he written?


Essentially, yes, though without the condition of the larger "thing" or world being just like ours, or some variation thereof. So it wouldn't be giant aliens playing marbles with our galaxy, it would be something we cannot even conceive of because it is as far above us as we are above the components inside cells.

Indicative of the zeitgeist we live in? — Noble Dust

Most likely, though it's hard to say. We can look back on great thinkers from cultures past and wonder why things have changed so much--why most people don't ask those questions anymore--but it's probably safe to assume that most people back then weren't concerned with those questions, either. It's probably just human nature; most of us are too concerned with what we are biologically programmed to be concerned with, while only a select few have the propensity for questioning these things. Or rather, for entertaining these sorts of questions. In my experience, most people just find them to be pointless. Even many philosophers can be far too pragmatic, in my opinion. Where's the fun in that?

If we're talking about Achilles and the Tortoise, the solution is simple. An infinite number of points can still add up to a finite distance. Just as you can divide a square in to an infinite number of smaller squares, and yet the sum of the area of all of them will still be the area of the original square, which is finite.

Please explain how Zeno's paradox is solved. — TheMadFool

Apologies if this has been covered already, but which paradox are you referring to? There are many.

Unbunch your panties a little. — apokrisis

I'm familiar with the technique of demeaning someone in order to make yourself look more reasonable. Frankly, it's immature, so I suggest you reconsider next time.

If you are going to talk about this "you" who decides to push the button, you have to have a proper theory of what constitutes this you. Your hand-waving approach is not good enough for philosophy and science. — apokrisis

I can't believe you're still doing it. Do you know how many times you have used the word "you" or a variation on it during our discussion? Just in that paragraph, you used it three times not in reference to my "you". Have I once demanded that you "provide me with a proper theory of what constitutes this you"? No. Because both you and I know what the other means when we use it, and if you honestly don't know what I have been referring to every time I say "you", then you have far deeper issues that I can't help you with.
This has become ridiculous, and I'm very close to ending this conversation since you're either purposefully being uncooperative or you're genuinely just this difficult to converse with. I'm not sure which it is.

Yeah. But minus the hand-waving — apokrisis

Show me where my hand-waving was.

Yeah, nah. If you are talking about this mysterious self that runs the show, according to folk psychology, then the full story has to bring in the several levels of semiosis or code. — apokrisis

I'm going to ignore this because I have already made it painfully clear that that is not what I'm talking about.

So yes. There is the DNA and its evolutionary history. But then there is the neural code and the brain's developmental history. And with humans, our linguistic code and its cultural evolutionary history. — apokrisis

So you're agreeing with me? These are the things that determine our decisions?

So if physicalism is just about "hardware", then there is a problem. And the computational analogy is a way to show that the physics of matter doesn't get to control everything. There is also the physics of information.

So yes. The program determines its own next physical state. The hardware doesn't. Unless the circuits start misbehaving due to stray cosmic rays or something. — apokrisis

Yes, this is just restating part of what I was saying.

So now you want to complain about introducing the philosophy that motivates the common conceptions? Are you in the right place? — apokrisis

I'm saying that you are being unnecessarily difficult when it comes to something so simple, and it's distracting from the actual discussion. You are making unwarranted assumptions about what I mean by a very common-sense term. This...

Yeah. So now let's again talk about this mysterious "you" you keep wanting to introduce into the scientific or natural philosophy account. — apokrisis

...is exactly what I mean. You act as if it is implicit when I say "your brain", "your DNA", "your decisions", etc. that "your" is referring to some mystical immortal consciousness or something. It is not. You're making that leap on your own for no good reason.

"You" is in reference to your person. Your self, comprised of your body and everything in it. This isn't something I should have to explain.

Sure, the formal and final cause of a "program" do come from outside it. It has to be written with a certain design that serves a certain purpose.

The program itself is simply a pattern of material/effective causal entailment. A set of instructions that maps one physical machine state to its next. — apokrisis

Again, this is all just restating what I already said.

So that is why computers are only a weak analogy for the neuroscience. It is information processing without the designer or intender. — apokrisis

Is the "it" here referencing computers or the brain?

Actual neuroscience needs to account for that other bit of the puzzle. How and why does the nervous system "write its own meaningful programs"? — apokrisis

DNA, as I already stated, is the origin of these "programs". Your DNA determines the "code" for your brain and how it processes things. And what wrote this code into your DNA? Nature. Evolution.

So where is the missing piece?

To bring things back to my original point: how does any of this "kill" determinism? In this model, your decisions are determined by the "program" your brain is running. The "code" for this program is determined by your DNA. All of the information in your DNA is determined by nature through the process of evolution.

To use the computer analogy, does the hardware determine its own next physical state or is it the software that determines that? — apokrisis

I'm not sure what you mean by "next physical state", but the "program" in my example would clearly be the software in yours.

Philosophy of mind is dogged by these kinds of basic folk psychology misconceptions. — apokrisis

It's not a "folk psychology misconception", it's just how we talk about these things. It has to do with language, that's all. I think you're the one getting dogged by being nit-picky about language.

Using the computer analogy, if you're running a program on some hardware, that program has to be pre-written to follow certain parameters and do certain things, and everything it does is a result of the program's code. Even if you bring artificial intelligence into it, a program that can learn, it still does everything it does based on the initial code you wrote. Every "decision" it makes is a direct result of following this code. It is all determined by the code (as well as other environmental/outside factors).

I agree, that approach does resolve the problem quite well.

But the freewill deal is the fear that our decisions might be physically deterministic. So as soon as you view the brain in information processing terms, that issue is already dead. — apokrisis

Why?
The reasoning is that the "program" your brain runs to process information and make decisions is determined by nature, through your DNA. From the moment you are conceived, this program determines everything about how your brain develops (as well as the rest of your body, of course). Obviously there are all kinds of environmental factors that affect this, as well, but you don't have control over those either so they are irrelevant. Point being, if your brain's processing and decision making are a product of this program, they do what they do automatically, meaning none of your decisions are true decisions because you could not possibly make a different decision than the one you make.

That is an interesting question, indeed. I think it's probably possible to believe in something you don't understand. Many people believe in gravity without actually understanding it. But I suppose that's really believing in a representation of something, and not the thing itself.
You may be right; on its face it doesn't seem possible, though it would probably require more discussion of what "belief" actually is.