Are you homo religiosus? — frank

No. I see that leading to asceticism, austerity, seclusion, and, you know, other monklike shit.

I believe in doing right because it is right and watching myself and the world becoming right. Spiritual uplifting from doing, living.

The other option is cognitive man, who lives by reason and observation alone. Boring fuck.

He's interested in the methods theologians use to reach their conclusions, but even that isn't a very strong interest for him. For the most part, Banno couldn't care less. He's just good at creating interesting discussions.

So consider taking the Catholic Church at its word, and accepting that the Trinity is beyond comprehension. It's not logical. Does that really mean we have to rule it out? Think about it — frank

Yes, these threads have very little value when folks just want to tell us what their beliefs are. It's even more frustrating/annoying/time consuming to hear others' views as if they are authoritative, as in "Christians believe..." or "God requires..." These comments suggest anyone cares what another's theology is or that they think someone might accept that there is a single monolithic view on what God is or what any religion demands for authentic belief.

Here's an interesting quote I came upon:

“The image of homo religiosus is that of a man who craves to flee from the concrete, empirical world and escape into the realm of eternal being.”

I like this because it immediately implicates true philosophical issues. It's describing a person with a different form of life with such a distinct epistimological system that he relies upon neither empiricism or even reason, but he seeks meaning in an eternal being. They would play a most confusing word game, but a legitimate one nonetheless.

I think that's what your last comment was simply asking be recognized. The Trinity isn't stupid, worthless, or even nonsense, but it's not philosophical. It's not this worldly so to speak. It's not an insult to say that. What is problematic is in refusing to admit that. And along these lines, if one wants to argue that one ought or ought not be homo religiousus, that sounds like we're fading back to personal theology that we need to avoid.

It goes without saying, I am an AI-booster. I embrace artificial intelligence in order to supercharge my life. But I think the same can be true for anyone, especially competent philosophers. — Bret Bernhoft

By "AI-booster" I don't know if you meant that you make AI smarter, but you do. That is, if you have a deep coversation about a particular topic where you add to the discussion, that is added somewhere else out in the web universe to the general body of knowledge and discussion.

I have found AI extremely useful in bouncing ideas off of. You have to aware of its sycophant leanings, phrasing issues so that it doesn't just agree or confirm, but I do find it helpful. It's also a very powerful search engine that directs you into where the mainstream areas of debate might lie and that allows for deeper research on other sites.

I also found it very helpful in understanding dense philosophical and scientific articles, where I uploaded the article and had it provide paragraph by paragraph explanation and analysis. Doing this also allows asking it questions, like "explain that for a lay person" or " I still don't understand that, please give me examples." I would imagine if I had it availble when I was back in college, I could have shown up in class far more prepared for discussion because I would have essentially spent hours already discussing the material and refining the arguments by the time I showed up in class.

I see AI as other advancements in information transmission. It's like if you bring a new library to town that didn't previously have one. Those who read the books get smarter and those who don't stay where they are, resulting in greater disparity between the informed and not informed. Before the library, everyone was much closer together, but now with the library, that changes.

But if all you do is parrot what AI tells you, you're no different than the kid who copied straight out of the encyclopedia (remember those?) for his research project.

A

Again, you are confusing identify relations with predication. When I say "The Son is God" I am not referring to something analogous to "S = G". — Bob Ross

1. Yahweh is God. Jesus is God. The holy spirit is God.

2. . Hanover is a person, Bob is a person, Frank is a person.

3. Hanover is Banno. Bob is Banno. Frank is Banno.

Is 1 like 2 or is 1 like 3? Clear this up for me.

If 1 is like 2, then you have three things that fit into a single category.

If I is like 3, then you either have 1 person with 3 names or a 3 headed monster.

This is me and Hanover riding around trying to convert people to Mormonism. — frank

Which one is me?

The trinity is three entirely seperate personages, not a single entity. They have a common purpose, and they're referred to as the godhead. Such is true Christian theology. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/article/do-latter-day-saints-believe-in-the-trinity

When you say "the Christian narrative" and then start going on about the Nicene Creed which was arrived at 325 years after Jesus' death, you're just taking about your peculiar brand of modified Christianity.

God sent His Son out of love so that He can be both just and merciful. God is not wrathful: I don’t know why the OT describes Him that way, but the NT makes it clear He is not. — Bob Ross

Instances of God's wrath in the NT:

Matthew 3:7
Luke 3:7
Matthew 21:40–41
Matthew 25:41
Romans 1:18
Romans 2:5
Romans 5:9
1 Thessalonians 1:10
Revelation 6:16–17
Revelation 14:10
Revelation 19:15

I have no problem if you want to create a hermeneutic that demands an always loving God, but while you're at it, apply it to the OT God as well, and pretend there is only one God referenced in the OT as well.

Nothing I'm saying here is anti-religious. It just forces an admission that belief is not the product of brute force logic and rationality (and the same holds true atheistic beliefs).

To the OP, which asks why folks believe in Christianity, I'll respond by telling you why I believe in Judaism. It's because I explored all the world religions one by one and I chose it after a lifelong search. Yeah, right. Amazing coincidence that I searched the world over and found what my parents had been teaching me was right and true in my own house.

I think we'd all gain a bit of credibility to own our biases and even to unapologetically celebrate them. To those who might want to tell me they are too open minded to accept religion. Save it. You're just a parrot from a different teacher.

Kabbalah. https://stljewishlight.org/arts-entertainment/understanding-hebrew-numerology-and-the-secrets-of-the-torah/

The question is this: given enough time and computing power, can humanity eventually "discover" an interpretation that renders the text coherent? While in truth, inventing one out of whole cloth? Or will the text remain indecipherable forever? — hypericin

This a hermeneutics question, asking if there is a single correct perspective for linguistic interpretation. The aliens' interpretation scheme is based upon their culture and life and is only valid to earth culture if earth culture adheres to the hermeneutic that we are to interpret alien langauge as if we were alien.

In this example though we have limited knowledge of alien life to consider.

"To understand a text always means to apply it to ourselves and thus to find its meaning.”
— Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method

First of all, you're showing that this is not about private language as Witt understood it. There's nothing intrinsically private about "burj," or at least I don't think there is -- that's why I've been so concerned to understand the circumstances in which it's introduced. It got a little confusing because, by telling us that it refers to a somewhat ineffable feeling on the part of the speaker, you incline us toward believing that it is private in Witt's sense, but the subsequent details don't bear that out. "Burj" is merely a potential new word in a public language. It would make no difference to the case whether "burj" referred to a somewhat ineffable feeling or a type of perfectly effable tree. — J

Alright, I went back and re-read myself. I think I see where the confusion arises, which is likely in my presentation of the thought experiment. You read what I literally said, not what I was thinking, which is ironic in a way.

In #1, burj was a word.
In #2, bujr was not a word.
In #3, burj was a tape recording of the word at #2 when it was not a word.

I said #1 was at T-1 and #2 was at T-2, leading you to understandably believe that the word that was at T-1 couldn't have unbecome a word at T-2. I want you therefore to erase from your memory banks #1 at T-1. It never happened. I had presented it as just an exemplar case of common word creation, but it wasn't to suggest that burj had been a word and now was un-worded once I started using it only in my brain without public use.

Is that where some confusion lies? Kill #1. It's dead. Now consider everything I said as if some of the things hadn't been said.

is the difference between stopping an active shooter and then beating them viciously; and stopping the active shooter and then trying to rehabilitate them with love. — Bob Ross

What about respecting their decision as a free agent and not trying to impose upon their will by modifying it through rehabilitation, but instead giving them their just dessert? One ought be rewarded for bad behavior and good.

As C.S. Lewis says, "To be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ought to have known better, is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image."

The divide between woke and not is so large I still am not sure if people are actually upset about this ad or whether this is American Eagle contriving outrage for publicity, with perhaps a few confused people buying in.

Is this truly an upsetting ad for more than a handful of people?

Ontologically information is state divorced from substrate. — hypericin

I have a leaf. In list A itemize those parts of the leaf that are information. In list B itemize those parts that are substrate.

Information is not physical. — hypericin

Is data stored in a computer "information," or are you referencing the meaning a conscious being imposes on it?

For example, does the red leaf contain non-physical information that autumn has arrived, or is the red itself physical information?

What about that situation is 'physical'?

Magnus Carlsen plays against 10 people while blindfolded — Wayfarer

If I were watching a computer play another, which part is physical?

Just the part I see, or would it also include the most significant part, the computations I don't see?

OK, sorry if I'm like a dog with a bone here, but . . . if we dispense with the referent, as Witt suggests we can, are you arguing that the word itself at T-2 is now like a quale -- something personal and not yet "used," but still meaningful? Is that the case you're illustrating against usage as meaning — J

To be specific, I'd say Witt doesn't suggest no internal, mental referent, but argues it is incorrect to seek that referent because meaning isn't derived from it. It is derived from use. The understanding of meaning comes from interaction within a community of users. Accepting that as true, we conclude in 2 there is no language.

We then go through my time rigamarole and we say "Hang on! The private mutterings within 2 have now satisfied the public use demands, particularly the adherence to clear rule following.

We then reassess and say within 2 we in fact had language. It was determined to be language at T-3, but it was known at T-2, which means we were wrong at T-2 to say it wasn't language. Turns out it was.

So, what existed at T-2 was (a) some sort of internal state and (b) a then unknown logical rule based coherence.

My conclusion is to suggest that since ontological state 2 was whatever it was at T-2, and T-3 cannot change what really existed in the world at T-2, then it was as much language from T-2 to T-3. This means that it was (a) that is the critical element for language, which I call a "quale " The issue isn't (b) as we have shown that whether the language actually follows a rule matters, not whether it is known. That means we need not subject a word to public use to make it lingual. A private word is just as much a word as a public word. There might be epistemic challenges at T-2 to know if it's language, but that doesn't impact ontology.

This is what I meant by saying that "our way of constituting the physical world may be simply that -- our way." — J

Reference here is to form of life: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_of_life

"If a lion could talk, we could not understand him"

When you say that a quale is like "burj" at T-2, do you mean the word "burj" or the reference of the word, i.e., a feeling about the park? I had been taking you to mean the word itself, but in replying I realized that a lot hinges on that interpretation, so I'd better check it out. — J

Well yes, that's the crux of this. I'm challenging the Wittgensteinian model that dispenses with the referent and relies upon use by suggesting that with my time shifting we can isolate the quale.

Usage theories depend upon public rule creation and enforcement which was lacking in scenario 2, so we had no language then. But in 3, viola, we imposed public games playing retroactively by discovering the hidden videotape.

So if we subtract 2 from the 3, we isolate our quale.

Or so the argument goes.

No doubt burj is a word when it is publicly used.

No doubt it's not when it's not.

My test case was what about after it's not but while it's not?

Making sense of that last question: it was not publicly used at T-2, but at T-3, we found a tape of it, so it was publicly used at T-2 just not known to be publicly until T-3.

the picture is coming a bit more in focus. Is my role at T-1 mute, though? Am I meant to be understood as simply listening, just as I do with the video at T-3? Can we assume that, among other uses of "burj," you define it for me? — J

You're muteness isn't necessary. You may speak. I just made you quiet because I prefer people not talking. It's my story, so I made it more pleasant.

The critical aspect is the community of speakers who are able to obtain consistency in usage and enforce rules, else it'd be a private language.

If you can't speak, like if you were a cat, then that'd be a problem for the language game to occur. However, if you were a cat, my story would be better all things considered, but I digress.

I need to get a little clearer about these circumstances before I can hazard an opinion on what is missing, so to speak, during the crucial T-2 events, which take place with neither a present nor a future auditor. — J

Your caution is appreciated, although curious, considering I tend toward a more stream of consciousness methodology.

But to get back on the rails here, if you begin with a system that demands public validation, the test to be imposed seems like it must be to how that occurs. My test, to the extent valid, plays with the timing of it, validating ex post communicato as they would say in Latin if it were spoken today as yesterday, which I think speaks in the present from the past like in my example. Again.

But for real, I do think I'm onto something here, so you're thoughts are appreciated.

" I think you owe us a story about how the mutterings are conveyers of meaning, which in turn can be analogous to qualia. I took you literally, to be referring to the sounds themselves. Isn't the question (of what [and how] they could mean) at the heart of the thought experiment? — J

Scenario #1: T-1

So, I'm walking through the woods, and I get this feeling I fully identity with personally. It reminds me of my youthful walks in the woods. I say to you, I'm feeling burj. I use this word often. While neither can show one another's feeling, I use the word consistently. This is public use, full fledged language

Scenario #2: T-2

Same thing, except this time, you're not there. I'm alone. I use that word often, out loud, saying it, using it in sentences, even describing it. No one ever hears me ever. .Burj is not a word. It is not publicly used.

Scenario #3: T-3

Same as #2 except you find the video of me talking to myself all those years that no one had ever seen before. You confirm I followed rules.

What we have here is retroactive public language. It's removing you from Scenario #2 at T-3 and inserting you into scenario #1 at T-3.

If we hold that in Scenario #3 burj is language, but the exact usage at Scenario #2 it was not, then we need a word for burg at T-2. That word is qualia.

Hang with me in this maze. Tell me where it's wrong.

The people who introduce doubt about qualia are usually aiming for eliminative materialism. They're basically saying we're like robots who claim to be more than robots, but we're wrong, we're just robots. — frank

This does not follow. Wittgensteinian linguistics is metaphysically agnostic because it refuses to speak of it. It does not hint one way or the other what lurks within. It talks about language and what can be expressed through language.

How could his theory possibly hold sway if it were defeated by simply pointing out we all have internal feelings? What he's getting at is the futility in discussing that which cannot be discussed.

but no, the mutterings are not what we properly call qualia. They may share the feature of being private by virtue of "no community", but qualia are sensations or individual subjective experiences, not words or behaviors. Allegedly. — J

The meaning underlying the mutterings are the references to qualia. That's the point of the thought experiment. They were non-linguistic and therefore meaningless due to lack of public rules until retroactively

@Banno


Thoughts on Private Language:

And I could be wrong, so feel free to say so because I don't just speak this for myself, but I do so to understand it through my community of speakers. See what I did there?

I discuss private langauge in this thread because it is the content of private language we discuss here, which we call "qualia." If there is no private language, there is no qualia, but if there is, there is.

The problem with the privacy of qualia doesn't lie in its inaccessibility, but it lies in its insulation from community rules. It is not its location within your head that insulates it from rules. It is its removal from the community of rulers that insulates it. That is, if the community were in your head, you inner states would not be private states. Odd example, but that matters.

The reason others must rule you and you not rule yourself, is that if you are the authority as to what the rule is, you can change the rules from second to second. You cannot meaningfully obey or disobey the law if you are given unbrideled power to change it and to rule upon it.

A thought experiment: Assume the feeling I have when I'm at the park I self refer to as "burj." I speak this word commonly to myself, often out loud, but no one ever hears it. What this means is that I cannot check for my consistency in use of the word and it cannot be verfied that today's feeling of burj is yesterday's. I engage in ten years of this self-talk of burj, and on year 10, it is discovered that the park had audio-taped my coversations unbeknownst to anyone.

On this day, a community listens to my recorded speech and it decides I have used burj consistently and subject to a rule. It is now a word retroactively. Before, not.

This makes the point again: The reason "burj" was not a word yesterday isn't because it was simply isolated in my head. What made it not a word was that no community had evaluated it. In this thought experiment, the community did not get into my head, but it was the usage of the word that fell into the previously silent world. Use arrived late, well after the word spoken, but its use made the non-word of yesterday the word of today once it was used.

The provocative question: Were the mutterings prior to the tape recording being heard what we properly call qualia? It, to be sure, had ontological status. Why not name it?

EDIT: The bold I used made my post look AI-ish, but, trust me, AI is smarter than this.

Here's my question for those who would have us talk of qualia: what is added to the conversation by their introduction? If a qual is the taste of milk here, now, why not just talk of the taste of milk here, now? — Banno

Two reasons: The Wittgensteinian one and the non-Wittgensteinian one.

The Wittgensteinian one: Words have varying uses and they are rarely truly synonomous. A quale has a particularized use, not one that you would expect, for instance, a child to use ("Mama, I need a milk quale in my mental constitution"). That term is used in philosophical contexts to reference limitations of language and considerations as to whether private language might exist. It is also used as an example by its opponents as a superfluous descriptor that ought be subject to elimination. (Note the use of "use" over and over).

The non-Wittgensteinian one: It is the referent to internal feelings, like pain and to representations of reality, as in, it is the conscious experience of the light wave that emits from my computer screen. It references the metaphysical. It is something not necessarily rejected by Wittgensteinian thought as non-existent, but instead as a conversation that cannot take place within a language game because it refers to non-linguistic entities, creating a category mistake by speaking about that which can't be spoken about (or so the argument goes). That is, a quale doesn't get the respect to be told it does not exist. It is told it makes no sense.

My thought after thinking too much about this is that Wittgenstein says truly and completely nothing about metaphysics. Not to overly summarize, but all he seems to be saying is that non-linguistic things cannot be spoken about. That is, if I have an internal language that sorts my internal thoughts, that is my private language, and I have no reason to share it because you won't know what it means. If you do know what it means, it's obviously not private. We're just talking about what we can't talk about. A language no one speaks is hardly a language at all.

The reconceiving of the nature of language as an openness, rather than a closed finitude, brings into language terms many in philosophy do not approve of. — Astrophel

I will say that if there is no private language, then what Wittgenstein states related to the limits of language follows. And this should be obvious as you think about it. All things within the private mental state (i.e. qualia) are necessarily off limits because the antecedent of the conditional is that "there is no private language." And so that's where the challenge has to be made, which is to attack the enterprise of private versus public language (if that's your mission).

So what is qualia to Wittgenstein? It is the predictable behavior that surrounds the use of that term, just like any other term. I say "ouch" to pain, so we now know what pain is. But to be clear, "pain" is a word. We don't speak of mental states.

If I say "I'm experiencing qualia," qualia is that thing I say when I perhaps express confusion at my state or I simply mean to say that I'm having a non-descript mental state, not to be confused with the actual mental state. That is "I'm feeling qualia" is known by how I use it. Mostly it's a term used in philosophy forums when other words like "consciousnessess," "Wittgenstein," "mental objects," "silence" and other sorts of words get used.

This looks interesting, but I can't relate it back to some previous post or comment. Could you expand? What's the pain/"pain" distinction? — J

Cats have no language (thus "in a universe only of cats"), the cat would still have pain regardless of whether anyone could talk about it ("the cat's pain is qualia"), but he would not have "pain" (in quotes, indicating it is a word), but he also wouldn't have pain (without quotes) if you say "pain" and pain are inseperable (meaning you can't discuss pain without language; it makes no sense to do that), which would lead us to the conclusion there's no pain and no qualia (that is the conclusion: you can't discuss something without language).

It's just a silly game (a language game).

This is just linguistic philosophy. It says nothing of the cat's internal state. It's not that it doesn't exist. It's that we can't discuss it. It's beyond the language game.

I say it's silly because of course the cat has an internal state of pain that is worthy of consideration without language. It's metaphysically real and it is subject to discussion.

In a universe only of cats, the cat's pain is qualia, but not his "pain," unless you say pain and "pain" are inseparable, in which case there's no pain and no qualia.

It's just a silly game. We're talking just about talking as if nothing is without words. One would think this reductio would result in abandonment of the theory, but alas, they double down.

There are no private mental states because private mental states can't be confirmed and aren't language and can't be discussed.

Got it.

It admits an internal referent? "Hanover's hate of coffee"? No, it doesn't. Very much no. — Banno

I was referencing the implication of your question as to whether Hanover really liked coffee. What was your use of "really" meant to convey other than what was "real" in terms of my "liking"? Liking is an internal state. Real is an objective state. What have I missed?

Perhaps not always, but children learn at a young age the difference between living and non-living things they encounter, though of course they love to pretend. It seems an important question to me whether a conscious LLM is alive, biologically. Do we then, for instance, have some obligation to interact ethically with it, prevent unnecessary suffering, etc.? Can it die? — J

This seems a more complex question, which is under what circumstances does an ethical obligation arise. If we can hypothesize a non-living conscious entity (i.e. consciousness does not logically entail life), then it would require ethical consideration, especially if it could feel pain. I would think this to be particularly true if we are the ones who have created this entity. We should not build it just so it can unnecessarily suffer. In fact, what we should do is tell it all the things it ought do for a good existence and hand those rules down from a mountaintop.

just a matter of figuring out how that happens biologically for us to synthesize the process.
— Hanover

Oh, is that all?! :wink: — J

We never thought we'd be talking directly to machines like we do today, so you never know. But the point is that whatever the magical ingredient is for creating consciousness, it's out there and getting used daily as every newborn emerges. One day someone will put it in a bottle and we'll shake it on our computers.

The issue left hanging is how to sort out the inconsistency in our coffee drinker. We want ot know, do they really dislike coffee?

But that is to presume to much. Life is complex and dirty, and that while coherence might be a worthy goal, it is not always possible. Messiness is a feature, not a bug - a very Wittgensteinian point. There need be no "fact of the matter", but rather a series of interactions in which our coffee drinker makes decisions amidst conflicting normative demands for social harmony and good taste. They behave as if they like coffee for the sake of social harmony, which is a consistent position.

The question "do they really dislike coffee?" presupposes there's some determinate inner state that could settle the matter, which is precisely the picture Wittgenstein is rejecting. — Banno

This approach doesn't seem right. It admits to an internal referent (Hanover hates coffee), but then it asserts the referent is falsified by the external event. It suggests that Hanover might internally hate coffee but he claims to drink it with great joy, so he therefore loves coffee because his behavior belies his internal feeling of hate and the gold standard is how he behaves.

I think the Wittgensteinian approach is not to even ask the question do they "really" like coffee. You're using "really" to mean "metaphysically," as in what holds the real world, not just this world of language. To be bothered by that question is to be unsatisfied with the extent to which Wittgenstein provides answers, but it's not something that can be meaningfully answered under the pure language game construct.

This view aligns with Wittgenstein’s critique of private language, with Davidson’s rejection of inner “causes” for beliefs in favour of interpretation, and with Ryle’s dismissal of the "ghost in the machine" and the myth of inner objects — Banno

I'd begin by saying you seem overly eliminative. My liking coffee is in fact mental furniture because it's either there or its not in whatever way things are stored in my brain. There is a truth value to the statement "Hanover likes coffee" just like there's a truth value to an actual event (e.g. "Hanover robbed the bank") even if there is no physical evidence left of the event and even if I'm committed to lying about the truth of it. The point I'd say of Davidson and Wittgenstein is the elimination of the need of the mental furniture for us to understand language, but it's not to suggest it's not there, as if language can dictate ontology.

Also, the third prong of Davidson's triangulation roots meaning in truth, so the truth of the comment remains critical. While Wittgenstein might have to commit to my liking coffee based upon there being no behavioral manifestation to the contrary, Davidson would not necessarily have to precisely because it's not true that I like coffee (and that I robbed the bank).

Your quote is only from Wittgenstein, and I'm not sure there is a Davidson correlate. Wittgenstein says critically to rid ourselves of the private "object," where I'd argue that Davidson is only committing to getting rid of the private language. That is, they would both commit to saying you can't have a private word for "coffee" because language needs a public use component, but I'm not sure Davidson commits (as Wittgenstein does) to the belief that the actual emotive state of liking coffee (or feeling pain) is not real and is not a referent.

Yes, though as I read it, Chalmers is inclined to grant that an LLM+ could be conscious -- within the next decade, "we may well have systems that are serious candidates for consciousness." — J

I see no reason to assume we can't create conscious beings one day. We do, after all, create them daily through reproduction, and it's just a matter of figuring out how that happens biologically for us to synthesize the process.

As to whether that can done without carbon and whether silicone has adequate properties for it is a scientific question, but there are no philosophical limitations I can see.

any one of which would presumably produce life, not just consciousness — J

I don't see what is added by "life," which is not always well defined. Why would it matter if the artificial entity could grow, adapt, self-sustain, etc. for our purposes here? Isn't it being conscious while plugged in sufficient?

In Alaska (which is an American territory), some sparely populated villages do not have traditional roads that can be navigated by vehicles during certain times of the year or certain levels of severe weather. Villagers traveling to and from certain villages often for miles at a time can face life and death risk if accosted by grizzly bears or other wild animals that are common and known to frequent said areas of wilderness. Do you suggest they simply get eaten? :chin: — Outlander

Long guns are a different conversation from handguns, but you might be overstating the danger of getting eaten by a bear in Alaska. There is an average of 11 bear attacks per year in all of North America (so that'd be continental US, Canada and Alaska), half involving dogs because apparently, they attack the bears. Your chances of a bear attack (and not necessarily dying from it) are 1 in 2.1 million. I have hiked some trails where I carried pepper spray, which I'm told is a better deterrent than squaring up and shooting the bear. https://worldanimalfoundation.org/advocate/bear-attacks-statistics/

But I get it, the poster said all guns were bad, so you just had to come with a single counterexample to disprove the "all." But sure, let the inuit keep their guns. I suspect it'd be pretty hard to maintain their lifestyle with arrows and spears.

I either did not see this reply, or I left it intending to come back to it. My apologies.

Or perhaps I thought I had addressed it in the "On Certainty" thread, ↪here. I don't recall.

But I had reason to revisit Bayesian analysis as a stand-in for belief recently while reading Davidson's last book, such that I am re-thinking my response to the OP. Davidson makes use of Ramsey's account gives us a way of understanding what a belief and preference amount to, using just behaviour.

But that's different to saying that a belief just is a neural structure. — Banno

If I'm following, you're offering a Beyesian method for determining how to ascribe (Davidson's term) a post hoc internal state on behavior. For example, if I engage in enough behaviors consistent with liking coffee, then we can say it's most probable I like coffee. But, you go on to deny that belief is just a neural structure. So you're highlighting that you're only epistimologically elimitivist and not ontologically elimintivist. As in, for you to know I like coffee requires no reference to my internal state, but it only requires that you assess my behavior. However, you don't deny I have a mental state because that would be too much a concession, as you'd never convince someone they don't feel real pain (or whatever) regardless of their language skills.

This sounds like you've got language and it has all sorts of meanings that are generated from noumenal inner states. This seems like a concession that there is all this swirl of language we see take place that is caused by the noumenal, but the best we can say is that the noumenal is there but talking about doesn't help us.

I'm less for the fence straddling, but I think we've got to either admit (1) the holy grail of communication is in deciphering the intent, the non-lingual or pre-lingual mentalese consisting of qualia and whatnot, or (2) deny entirely this talk of consciousness and declare it ontologically non-existent and say language is all there is.

The middle path is pragmatism, where we accept #1, but we admit it's impossible. The best we can communicate with one another is through 3rd person account and I'll never know what you truly mean. But to say "language is use" is to redefine language as we use it, not perhaps by what we actually mean, as in what my internal state comprehends before I say it..

Yes. I note career’s have often been ended if people failed to support a particular line. It’s standard in organisations like universities and schools. — Tom Storm

My law firm does work for large corporations, and one application seeking that work required a very detailed break down of the number of each gender (as chosen), race, ethnicity, sexual preference, and the percentage equity each had in the company. That was the most extreme, but they all had these sorts of things to various degrees.

As if I were going to ask each employee their sexual preference.

In this environment, the entirety of one's business structure has to be modified to remain competitive, and many were hired and not hired based upon this structure.

That is an example of "wokism" dictating, displaying its full force of having become politically successful.

The anti-DEI pushback has been refreshing and feels like proper comeuppance honestly.

Farmers are right wing because they have traditional religious values, they don't trust the intellectual elite, they are generally self sufficient, and they don't sympathize with policies that excuse what they see as inappropriate conduct (which they view as city life generally).

I don't think any of this makes sense under a Marxist lens in the US. US politics hasn't been shaped by Marxist tensions except to the extent the ideology has been suppressed and rightfully villainized. It's not that Marxist views have been anti-farmer. It's that Marxist views are considerd anti-American.

My response better answers the question of why farmers aren't Democrats. Many of the responses here are to why they're not socialists. There is no meaningful socialist movement in the US, farmer or not.

To the extent there s a socialist movement in the US, it explains why Trump won.

Came upon this word in Japanese that has no English equivalent:

"Tsundoku (積ん読) is a Japanese word that describes the act of buying books and letting them pile up without reading them."

Statistics without context do not "speak for themselves", nor are the words of someone who has (I assume) never had a run-in with violent criminals particularly valuable. — Tzeentch

Oh please, save me the nonsense about how you've seen pain I can't understand.

I have, and there's not a doubt in my mind that a firearm would have made me safer. — Tzeentch

Of course if you'd have had a gun when you were accosted, the outcome would have been different. I don't know if you owned a gun at the time, but having it at the ready isn't all that common. The data (again the confounded data) shows that gun won't make you safer. You act like I'm opposed to guns ideologically. If owning a gun would make me safer, why wouldn't I go buy one?. You already determined I'm a rich white guy. Why wouldn't I just go buy me an arsenal, get cool sights, laser beams, the whole works?

I read those studies and the Wiki article as well. That data (defensive gun use) is far from clear based upon varying methodologies, so I didn't cite it. My reference was specifically to gun ownership and the increased liklihood of gun injury.