Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse.

it looks ambiguous — Astorre

Rabbi Kushner is a Conservative (capital C) rabbi, not an Orthodox one, making his views more liberal and less mystical. It's like asking what the Christian view on homosexuality is and listening to an Anglican and then a Southern Baptist. It'd be inconsistent.

If you want like a very specific halachik position on something to do with the soul that a rosh Yeshiva would endorse, i can give you that, but expect significant variation if compared to Conservative Judaism, a 19th century development.

And, particularly within more liberalized traditions, they permit variance of thought among leadership and congregants, with Reform considering inclusiveness of beliefs (even very open to mixed marriages and Christian congregants) a central tenant.

The reason I suggest to you the Litvak view is that they're convinced they represent true historical auththentic immutable Judaism. Of course, many think otherwise.

Thus, as far as I could tell from the cited articles, there is no mention of the life (or any kind of existence) of a separate soul after death, until the resurrection of the entire body. — Astorre

No, that's not the Jewish position.The position on it has changed over time, but that's not been the position for probably 1500 + years. https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/immortality-belief-in-a-bodiless-existence/

There are also different traditions within Judaism on the issue. It's like asking what do Christians think about X. It might depend upon whether I want to know what 1st Century Catholics thought or what modern day Presbyterians think.

Hasidic traditions delve deeper into the mystical and have more developed views of the soul than Litvak legally focused traditions. For example, the Chabad Hasids believe this : https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3194/jewish/What-Is-a-Soul-Neshamah.htm

The animal soul/spiritual soul is the focus of the Tanya, a religious writings specific to that group.

Much of this has to do with Jewish history as much as theology. Biblical Judaism was temple based, with sacrifices on the alter, priestly classes, and what you read in the text. Rabbincal Judaism as it emerged since 70 common era (the destruction of the second temple where the temple mound currently is in Jerusalem) is very different, and with migrations to different parts of Europe, interaction with other cultures, it's changed over time. In fact, the past 100 years has seen major changes with WW2, mass migrations to the US and Israel, the growth and significance of Yeshiva (seminary) focus, political influence, secularized and liberal strands develoing , etc. I mean a Reform Jew might not even admit to a meaningfully real god and might sound atheist. There's just lots of ground to cover.

If you're trying to arrive at what we'd call the traditional Orthodox Yeshiva oriented tradition (black hats and beards, but not the long sideburns), then I can give you that position, but I'd need to look it up to be sure I got the nuance correct.

Good people can do bad things, and good people can become bad people. People aren't born evil and bad people can return to goodness. None of this suggests being born into sin. In fact, none of what I say makes reference to God or religion, but just asserts you are the creator of your moral standing.

Where i will push toward religion is to say you are always of infinite moral worth, but that is aligned with humanism as well.

Here is a very rough draft of one approach Ithat might encourage religious people to consider what science can tell them about morality as cooperation.

To avoid misunderstandings, remember that morality as cooperation describes what morality 'is' which is in science's domain, not what morality ought to be - moral philosophy's normal focus. — Mark S

I have little interest in converting anyone (unless their morality really is despicable). My interest is in presenting morality as cooperation in ways that anyone might find helpful. — Mark S

I do think you wish to convert the religious to a very different way of thinking, specifically from a revealed morality to a naturalistic one. The former references revelation from a divine authority through scripture or other means believed to identify God's will versus the latter which references locating morality from reason alone. While those finding truth through revelation don't concede the irrationality of their views, an inability to locate the rationale isn't fatal to them, nor is it fatal to them that the revealed truth challenge their rationality.

Persuading a truly religion person away from religion would require identifying their drivers for being religious, which you are assuming is a desire for a morality consistent with reason. I would suppose that plays a minor role in most religious people's lives. The sense of community, meaning, certainty, comfort,ritual, etc play more critical roles.

From what it appears, people typically leave religion because they were misplaced into religion in the first place and never truly religious (as when kids grow up and develop their own views that just don't fit their personality) or religion failing them by not providing a sense of community, comfort etc (as when rejected for sexual preference, abusive leaders, etc).

I trust fully in the benevolent intent of your objective, just as I do with the young men on bicycles providing me their religious literature, but the two aren't terribly different. I would also suppose that those most easy to convert will be those in emotional need, needing saving from a harsh reality, either one devoid of meaning or one overly oppressive.

The growth of non-religious thinking is organically growing, and those adherents already reject the views you oppose, but I just truly question whether direct efforts to logically persuade a religious person to secularism would be at all effective.

And I am absolutely convinced you don't wish to convert anyone as a matter of principle and likely bristle at my suggestion that that is what you seek to do because you've said iit a number of times. But understand that is how you will be perceived, and ask yourself if you don't truly hope to change someone who relies on revelation to rely on reason.

I have looked at it, and I'll go through it closer, but, take a look at these and see what you think:

https://aish.com/to-life-2/
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1127503/jewish/The-Resurrection-Process.htm
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/332555/jewish/Maimonides-13-Principles-of-Faith.htm
(look particularly at #13).

To the extent you're asking for a comprehensive account of what the afterlife is to Jews and how the body/soul are composed, realize that account will vary from biblical times, to rabinnical times, to medieval times, to current time, notwithstanding variations between hasidim, Litvish, modern orthodox, and the liberal forms, like conservative and reform. It's complex and varied, but rarely as central as it is to Christianity, largely because most of the effort is spent on halacha, or the understanding of the law that governs the day to day. It's a very much this worldly religion, but the moshiach (messiah) still plays an important role, although he has yet to come (and he bears no resemblance to Jesus).

This must be a very interesting topic to study. Can you recommend some literature on Judaism for someone raised in the Christian paradigm (something descriptive and more scholarly)? — Astorre

Take a look at: https://jps.org/books/unbinding-isaac/

It offers a comprehensive discussion of Kierkegaard from the Jewish perspective, showing where it diverges from Jewish views, and introducing other Jewish theologians along the way you could follow up on.

I'm particular, he discusses Joseph Soloveitchik, a towering figure in modern Jewish Orthodoxy who was sympathetic to Kierkegaard"s position more than others. Not sure how deep you want to get into it, but Soloveitchik's "Lonely Man of Faith" and "Halachik Man" offer deep commentary. I suggest him because he is "modern" relying more upon Western philosophy far more than his ultra orthodox (haredi).counterparts.

If you want to appreciate what absolute optimistic positivity looks like, the very readable "Positivity Bias" on the Hasidic Rabbi (the Rebbe) Menachem Schneerson: The idea that humans are born into sin in need of salvation could not be more foreign to this concept, but instead it speaks of a divine soul, nothing wretched about it.

https://store.kehotonline.com/mobile/prodinfo.asp?number=ERE-POSIB

But as to where to start, Koller's book is directly on point to this thread.

Therefore, God created morality as cooperation. What do you think? Any chance? . — Mark S

Given that they are more adept than your upstart group, I think should you enter their church for the purposes of saving them, more of you will become Christian than Christians will become you.

My paper, like science, is silent on the big-ought questions in moral philosophy that I understand you to be concerned with — Mark S

This was the topic of most of our first posts, but it's a bit unraveled now. You have an agenda, which is to convert those who deny your modern secularism into the fold by showing them the light and way of your Reason, which you state is rooted in a historical analysis of human moral evolution. That is, you do in fact have a solid understanding of the "big oughts," as they are all derivable by scientifically excluding all current moral rules that show historically problematic origins.

That is, why not just tell us what morals can withstand your scientific analysis and etch them on tablets to clear this all up? That way you can preach from the tablets and invite the skeptical to visit with you on Sunday so they can then dig deeper into understanding the Reasoning behind your Rules.

Better yet, write a book that explains all the logic behind all your rules and call it, I don't know, "Guide for the Perplexed."

Someone beat you to it almost 1,000 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guide_for_the_Perplexed

So you see my point, and maybe I carried on too long with it, but that might be the response from your potential converts.

[

Your comment suggested how I might improve my abstract. Here is the updated version. I hope it is clearer. — Mark S

Let me ask a couple more questions with your helpful clarifications:

Do you assume that people of all stripes will submit to scientific explanations for the origins of morals as opposed to some holding they are of divine origin? That is, wouldn't the people of scientific, secular leanings already reject anti-homosexual moral codes and not need persuading, yet the ones who hold firm to them will reject your scientific worldview and will remain firm?

If someone accepts the parting of a sea as an actual event, do you think a course in hydrology will change their mind?

And now I do get what you're saying on another matter, and I think my misunderstanding was based upon my failure to appreciate your very strong Enlightenment leanings. You assume as a given (and I don't mean to be presumptuous, so feel free to correct me) that morality is a naturalistic outgrowth of reason so all reasonable people will reject moral rules with immoral origins. This excludes those people who disagree and insist a realism to morality without human existence at all. That is, even if homosexuality can be shown to have been prohibited in the past for some horrible reason, those who believe it absolutely wrong will just see that horrible reason an unfortunate aside but that it still should have been prohibited for the correct reason, which is that it stands in that place of absolute wrong.

T-sentence: "p" is true if and only if p.

As definitions of truth go, this is The One.
— Banno

As I read T-sentence, it invokes the bi-conditional; the two terms support each other in identity.

A=A pictures the bi-conditional in all of its beautiful simplicity. — ucarr

This is garbled to me. The word "invokes" is confusing. Does it mean entail, imply, reminds me of, or what? I don't know what it means for two terms to offer support for one another in identity. Are you saying (p <-> p) = (p=p)?

Is your use of the word "picture" an allusion to Wittgenstein and you're suggesting it's his position that the two bi-conditionals are identical?

I do not claim that the protection of fetuses is shameful. What is shameful is the exploitation of women by norms such as "abortion anytime after conception is immoral" (which holds that the moral worth of a fertilized egg cell and a woman are similar) to benefit political and religious elites gaining and holding on to power and as an ethnic marker strategy. — Mark S

I don't think I'm following. What moral rule are you presenting that leads to the conclusion that it's wrong to subjugate woman in order to promote political and religious elites? I'm not suggesting you're wrong. I'm just trying to understand how you've arrived at that. Was it through a scientific means because, as you've noted, "

Explaining why cultural moral norms exist is entirely in the domain of science. — Mark S

It would seem if we live in a culture where homosexuality is absolutely forbidden, we can then use science to understand why that is, but then you suggest that the "moral norm" we've identified isn't moral at all.

Science helps determine instrumental oughts of the form "If your goal is X, then science says you ought (instrumental) to do Y." Instrumental oughts of the usual kind in science are the only kind of oughts I am claiming. They have nothing to do with the naturalistic fallacy. — Mark S

So, if I want to have a society that promotes only traditional man/woman marriages, then scientifically I ought forbid homosexuality, correct? And through cooperation we can acheive that goal, correct?

Am I correct that you are not presenting a moral theory? You're just saying that the most pragmatic way to implement a goal is through scientific analysis and methodology, regardless of whether we're seeking to build a house or seeking to institute our agreed upon social norms?

There is a growing scientific consensus that the primary reason cultural moralities exist is that they solve cooperation problems. — Mark S

How do you define "culture" here? Is there an American morality at variance from the one in Madagascar? Or is the human culture throughout all time and place, leaving us with just a single absolute morality?

There is a growing scientific consensus that the primary reason cultural moralities exist is that they solve cooperation problems. — Mark S

Cooperation isn't always a goal, so the lack of cooperation may not be a problem. The idea of universal equal sharing of resources would not necessarily yield greater results for all of humanity. Those nations currently not fully cooperating (the entirety of the West, for example) find themselves with far more technological advancements (including many life-saving ones) that would not exist if everyone were treated equally in the co-op you describe.

Why is cooperation the highest goal of morality? Why not reward things like sacrifice, altruism, purity, or other things?

Case studies include “homosexuality is evil” and “abortion any time after conception is wrong”. Revealing the shameful origins of these two norms in exploitation of outgroups to increase the benefits of cooperation for ingroups could help groups decide if they will be enforced. — Mark S

How are we defining "ingroup"? If I'm from the US, am I an ingroup of the Americas, and so I should be protected from the outside nations that might wish to impose their will on me? Does this not create a justification for xenophobia? But if I'm an ingroup homosexual, I should be a protected ingroup, now offering a justification for civil rights. How do I know when to use this system since it might yield very different sorts of results?

Why is the protection of fetuses shameful? What principle do you rely upon to arrive at any conclusion that involves entities that cannot cooperate, like fetuses (some aged 1 week, some 8 months), the mentally incompetent, or animals? Is shame a punishment mechanism exerted on the non-compliant or is it a self imposed thing that arises through the conscience? If we have a conscience, why don't we just rely upon that?


But, coming back to your opening line:

There is a growing scientific consensus that the primary reason cultural moralities exist is that they solve cooperation problems. — Mark S

How isn't this this a textbook naturalistic fallacy. Just because something "is" does not mean that is how it "ought" to be. It's a category error - conflating the descriptive (this is how things are) with the normative (this is how thing ought to be).

Have you read Brave New World? — unenlightened

As far as you and my high school teacher are concerned, I did. You might be throwing the baby out with the bath water with your complete rejection of psychiatry. Maybe you've got a personal story there.

A schizophrenic would be suited to a career in shamanism, communication with the dead, or some other blue sky thinking - fine art? — unenlightened

Shamans impose themselves on others though, burning smoky sagebush and spitting magic liquid. I find them as annoying as you find psychologists.

But, sure, to the extent we can find jobs for the schizophrenic, let's do that. Many end up on the street, institutionalized, or heavy burdens on their family. To the extent there might be a cure or at least a way to mitigate the behavior to help them function in society, it ought be pursued.

Other parties (their gain or loss or neutral outcome) are never my driving force for action. — Copernicus

Your use of "my" in that sentence makes your statement irrelevant. If you change it to "the," you'd be wrong. If you argue that an act is selfish if it is performed out of a desire to be a good person, you would also be wrong. "Selfless" does not mean the person receives no benefit from the act. Words are defined by usage, not by literally putting the words "self" and "less" together and then claiming it must mean an act where the person performing it receives no benefit whatsover.

Do you argue that your translation expresses trivial facts? — ucarr

Less than I argue, I just seek clarity from you. You started a thread about truth, and such threads tend to be interesting, so I was trying to figure out what you were saying.

Well the immediate alternative is a social model. Rather than that you have got the imaginary pathogen of depression leading to the wrong chemicals in your brain, we would start from the idea that you are manifesting symptoms of a dysfunctional social matrix, such that you are being blamed for something that you have no control over, perhaps, or some other toxic relationship. — unenlightened

I do think any method that is effective should be tried, and it might be that much unhappiness arises from dysfunctional social situations. But what of those that are well beyond that, like the schizophrenic, extreme cases of borderline, suicidal, seriously addicted. I don't feel any particular need to protect the psychiatric industry, but I'm not so willing to throw it out for all people if it has proven successes.

But this is evasive because I asked very specific questions and you didn't provide answers. I didn't ask the questions in a way with the intent to force you into an untenable position, but I asked them the way I did because I honestly am seeking clarity that I truly find lacking in your posts.

For example, this statement:

As we navigate what we call reality, we see things and strive to understand them as a mirroring of ourselves, albeit disguised as the other. — ucarr

I interpret it this way: "When I walk around my house, I try to understand the things I see as being like me but dressed up like my wife."

I think that's a fair reading, making the abstract descriptions concrete.

I'm sure you didn't mean that though. A common rule of thumb for writers is that you can never blame your reader for misunderstanding, but you have to blame yourself for not being clear.

Clever words can trick one into thinking that what one is saying is profound, when it is actually superficial. — Banno

Yeah, you see I re-wrote what he wrote into what I thought it was saying.

To speak of mental health, and mental illness is to subscribe to a medical model of mind and behaviour. — unenlightened

Nobody must question the medical model, because it is a scientific model. Scientists are objective and therefore mentally healthy. — unenlightened

There are those that have benefitted under the medical model, which would mean that the medical model should not rejected entirely. But accepting your position that the medical model ought be subject to question and not accepted uncritically, what alternative do you propose for those suffering psychologically.

And math does a good job of measuring and systematizing our seeing of cats. Truth, being an emergent property of the mind, is more abstract cognition than empirical experience, except that when a map leads you to your presupposed destination, your sense of reality and well being are gratified. So, the measuring and systematizing ride atop the assumption of our shared existence. We both know that when a brutal beast comes charging towards us, we don't assume our senses are projecting a mirage really a part of ourselves.

Even if our cognition is a closed system unreal beyond itself, its local reality is worthy of "as if" engagement. — ucarr

And so I'll translate this line by line:

We can measure cats mathematically. Truth is a creation of the mind and it's a concept, not a direct experience. You are happy when a map takes you to the right place. The measuring of something helps us understand it to make us believe we both live in the same reality. If an animal attacks us, we don't take a moment to decide if it's real.

Even if I am the only person in existence, I still act like other people exist.

Ok, now that I've translated it, tell me which of these things must necessarily exist for there to be a cat on the mat:
1. A mind, 2. a cat, 3. a mat.

My next questions:
If there is no mind, can there still be a cat?
What has to happen for a mind to perceive a cat? Does there have to be a cat to make the mind see the cat, or do just sometimes minds see cats and then we pretend there are cats, even though there aren't?

Our existence must be assumed axiomatically. — ucarr

I'm not suggesting we challenge our own existence. We're talking about the cat. We don't just assume the cat exists. We have to see him first.

More to the point, no examination of truth, including the possibility of truth's existence, can proceed without the unexamined assumption of a rational examiner. — ucarr

So you withdraw your previous response that said an examiner was required for the statement about the cat to be true?

Let's suppose the cat's position on the mat lies within the range-domain of an objectively established Cartesian Coordinate system; it is a defined neighborhood within the borough of Brooklyn in New York. If an investigator can write an equation that plots an ordered pair valid with respect to the existential cat_mat, such that it maps to them, then by this means the truth of the statement can be established. — ucarr

If I suppose the cat is in a specific place in New York, then why does an investigator have to appear and write down his coordinates for the cat to exist? Does the potential cat await patiently on the mat for the final equation to be written down by the investigator before the cat actually exists?

I feel like what we're getting at is that "the cat is on the mat" is true if it correlates with reality.

"The cat is on the mat." Is that true?

This is the kind of analysis I would expect from Karoline Leavitt. — Mikie

Science doesn't dictate action. It provides data from which to decide what is valued. That's always the case. Let's remove the question from climate change and just ask if we should produce trains. If each train results in X deaths, then we know that by not producing Y number of trains, we'll have XY less deaths. Certainly if one of my family members is destined for a train death, I'd like for there not to be deathtrains out there.

Inspired by Kierkegaard's ideas:

Faith is neither knowledge nor conviction. It is a leap into the void, without guarantees. Faith is risk, trepidation, and loneliness. Оtherwise there would be no sacramental act, but simply conviction. Faith is not knowledge, for if a person simply knows, they have no doubt. Faith is, on the one hand, imperfect certainty, on the other, intention, and, on the third, a constant feeling of uncertainty. Any attempt to convey the content of the concept of "Faith," in my opinion, seems speculative, because it is a feeling that becomes a judgment when expressed in words . — Astorre

You provide a very Kierkegaardian and therefore Christian view of faith. To the extent you're an adherent of that and want to make sense of that, I can understand your OP. My only thought is that what you say of faith is not universally accepted as true within the Abrahamic traditions. In particular, faith is not a lonely, individualistic venture necessarily, but Judaism sees it as communal. Celibacy, isolation, living as a monk are all very counter to that tradition. A Jew needs a minyan to pray.

The idea that you have to have doubt in order to have faith is also not universally accepted as true. Trust in God and belief in God are different things and both can be absolute without jeoparizing their legitimacy.

The preacher sacrifices himself for others: He risks being misunderstood, rejected, despised he sacrifices himself, like Abraham. But Abraham's sacrifice isn't public. Abraham doesn't prove, explain, or teach. He simply acts contrary. — Astorre

This is the most bizzare part of the Kierkegaardian analysis, where the suggestion is that Abraham sacrificed himself. He didn't sacrifice himself, he attempted to sacrifice Isaac, meaning Isaac was the intended and almost victim. Zero consideration is placed upon what happened happened to Isaac. Kierkegaard then describes how Abraham then accepted Isaac back in love, when the text describes Abraham leaving with his two servants without Isaac and never speaking with Isaac again. The act wasn't private, it was in the presence of the two servants. The only indication that he loved Isaac was in a strange passage from before the attempted sacrifice. Genesis 12:2 states:

"Then God said, 'Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.'”

It's strange because Isaac wasn't Abraham's only son. Ishmael was his other son. And the text indicates he cared for Ishmael as well (prior to casting him off), " The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son [Ishmael]". Genesis 21:11. God told Abraham not be distressed because Ishmael would also be given a nation, which means that Abraham had to know that Isaac would not be killed because his anscestory was to be given a nation.

Thematic to the behavior of Abraham is his surrender of his children, first with Ishmael and second with Isaac who he attempts to sacrifice and then never communicates with again as far as the text suggests.

Thematic to the Hebrew bible generally is the covenental relationship between the Hebrews and God, where God promises them he will protect them and give them a nation great and strong if they adhere to his rules. When they do as he wishes, they get reward. When not, punishment. This is to say, "faith" in the context of the Hebrew bible is faith in the word of God, not in the existence of God. That is, when God says cross the Jordan and I will keep you safe, hesitation will be seen as distrust in the protection God says he will provide you, not in whether God actually exists. The complaints by the Hebrews in the desert were of the form "why did you free us from Egypt just to have us die of starvation?," not "I wonder if there really is a god." How could they have thought that? They saw the 10 plagues, the partiing of the sea, manna from heaven, water from rocks, etc. They didn't need faith. They had empirical evidence. As did Abraham. God told him that his 90 year old wife would give birth and that happened.

It's only through imposing an anachronistic definition of faith onto the biblical narrative that we can arrive at the absurdity of Abraham's actions.

I just don't see the binding of Isaac as saying what Kierkegaard needs it to say.

This project will kill over 400 Europeans. — Banno

Why limit your death analysis to climate change issues and not conduct it every time you build a car or road? People rarely die in open fields, but then you build a road and folks start get getting killed.

The solution wouldn't be the elimination of roads and cars, but in increased safety measures. Life is a dangerous venture, so we create seat belts and airbags. If it gets too hot, maybe we need more air conditioners.

Are you commenting to me or Copernicus? I — T Clark

I'm talking to myself. Butt out.

Does anybody else want to vomit all over frank? This is the day for it. — frank

I mean you said my comments were ban worthy and when asked why you double downed but didn't clarify, and you wonder why no love? Anyway consider it hugged out, so now I can get back to my carrying on and on about social ontology, which is really all I'm trying to sort out.

Correct me if I'm wrong in your intent, but I think you're trying to convey that no matter the label of a man or woman society chooses, your existence doesn't change. There is no 'real man' as a definition apart from social construction, there is only the existence of an individual no matter what society labels them. — Philosophim

If I'm following, your approach is one of conventionalism, just trying to find the conventional use of the term without regard to the social implications attached because you think those implications ought be irrelevant. That is, there's an obvious difference between cis and trans men, so why blur that distinction with a single term of "man."? The answer you suggest for why people blur that distinction is for improper political purposes to advance an agenda, without regard to just objectively providing conventional use of words. It should just be about grammar you submit.

What I'm getting at is that social rules have ontological impact. Money isn't just paper due to the fact we (society) attribute meaning to it and that meaning attributed to it is real. A dollar bill is intrinsically different than a counterfeit due to what we make it.

The same holds true for all entities in a society. This means that society can (without violating a holy decree) ascribe the necessary requirements to a biological male and a biological female such that both are really, truly both men. That would require a different set of gender rules than what were traditionally used, but if we anchor gender in psychological belief and ground it in people who have that belief, then we have real men and women.

But as I said, I don't suggest society has changed its anchoring to the extent the left thinks it has, nor do I argue there's a particular need for it, nor do I concede there's an altruistic, non-agenda based reason for it, which I do think aligns with your comments. I remain skeptical in that regard because this appears as much a left/right power struggle as much as anything to me, particularly in light of the microscopic sized populations directly impacted.

If also add that if we change our anchoring of gender, we're not required to leave remnants, but the entirety of the entity can be recategorized. This means that just because we once allowed women as once defined to compete athletically with other women, that doesn't mean that social norm must remain immutable. We would simply have sport divided not upon gender, but upon biology, if that distinction is felt by society as needing to be preserved post definitional revolution.

But, to the point, a beaver pelt can be money if anchored by societal rules to make it so, and it literally changes what that beaver pelt is. And a Confederate dollar lost its meaning as currency once the Union prevailed. And from there draws the analogy.

EDIT: I think this tracks Searle's views on social constructs as well as Epstein's (the Ant Trap) more so with its claim of ontological realism arising from social designations. I point this out for those who might have a better understanding of me of that.

If transwomen are women or transmen are men just because of cultural or habitual identity, does carrying a gun or shooting down schools make a Norwegian an American, or does loving KFC chicken make a caucasian man an African American, regardless of ethnicity or nationality?
— Copernicus

Worst. Argument. Ever. — T Clark

Social realism holds that a social fact (like money) gains its meaning through social acceptance (referred to as "anchoring") and the existence of certain metaphysical facts (referred to as "grounding"). So money has value because it is anchored in laws, rules, beliefs, and other culturally relativistic ways and it is then anchored in an actual thing, like paper and ink.

What this means is that the entirety of that dollar bill's value and meaning is dependant upon social rules and then those rules are designated to an actual thing.

Your question asks "what anchors a man?" by pointing out it can be anything and then you provide absurd suggestions. You are correct in the sense that society could make "man" mean whatever we want, but not correct in the sense that social facts are anchored only in whim and in constant flux to eliminate any stable meaning at all. As with money, it's value and how it works could change, but society has imposed laws, customs, and other mechanisms to stabilize it. Money today can be expected to be money tomorrow, but not be unchanged forever.

But (big but), when it does change it's anchoring, expect massive social fallout during the transition (pun intended).

The debate then becomes what do we ground "manness" to? Do we ground it only upon biological entities of certain makeup, or do we ground it upon certain entities of psychological makeup? That is the debate, but keep in mind that it is your anchoring that determines your grounding, but no one suggests the grounded entity metaphysically changes based upon what it is anchored to it.

Where this differs from a pure social constructivism is that it holds gender real. That is, a man isn't just a social construct or linguistic tool, but a real thing under certain conditions.

It also denies essentialism, that man is a natural fixed entity.

But don't misunderstand any of this to suggest a winner in the transsexual debate because this is purely abstract philosophizing. If you hold that what is a man is socially anchored in the ability to impregnate a woman, having certain legal documents, and having certain genitalia
and you ground those traits to only XY humans, then you have a real man only under those criteria.

By the same token, you have a real female if your anchoring relies only upon psychological belief of the person. However, for that anchoring to count, social acceptance of that anchor must exist (which is absent in your counter examples). But, should being an American one day be socially determined by gun ownership, then that will one day be so.

So, the question becomes whether gender anchoring is changing, and the answer is that it is for some but not others. That is a social battle, with lines on both sides, seen as a matter of civil rights by some (comparing it to a time when all ethnicities weren't thought fully "human") and by others as a clear, obvious historical designation being altered only to satisfy personal psychological issues.

But, to the point of social realism, whatever the anchors and whatever the grounding, the man or woman is a real man or real woman at the conclusion.

Heh, we used to have a moderator who warned he would ban anyone who said what you just said, as if that was hate speech or something. I guess times have changed. — frank

I think you're just misreading my comment and not keeping it contextualized. My comment was responsive to yours, which started off with the word "really" as if to imply you were offering a moment of true objectivity. I pointed out your comment included certain assumptions, namely of a third gender, which was specifically the topic of debate.

I offered no opinion on the subject other than to say that you offered an opinion on the subject, which may or may not itself be correct, which means your use of the word "really" did nothing other than to assert you could see it more clearly where others couldn't.

Then you suggested we've banned people for such commentary, resulting in whatever just followed, which really is not helpful, considering it incorrectly asserts inconsistency on the mod team and sends the message to others, to the extent they listen to you, that we will not tolerate any opinion that even subtly questions mainstream liberal progressive views on trassexual speech or categories.

Perhaps we'd need to redefine the word. — Copernicus

We have a perfectly useful word. Acts from kindness are referred to as "selfless," and it is not a prerequisite that an act to be moral that it not offer any benefit to the one who does it.

If you need a word to describe an act that offers no benefit to an actor, maybe "unintentional", "accident", or "mistake" will work.

In a way, you could frame the OP as a simple critique of the modern mammalian brain. — Outlander

No, that would still suggest the OP said something about the world, which it doesn't. It just asserts an incorrect definition.

Give me a hypothetical example of a selfless act. That you can't clarifies you're saying nothing about the world. If nothing qualifies due to logical impossibility, you're saying nothing about the world.

The best example might be that I trip over a carpet and accidentally fall on a guy and stop him from shooting an innocent guy I didn't care about. That is, unintentional accidents might qualify under this strained definition, but no one uses the term selfless to describe unintentional accidents.

Really, a transwoman is a transwoman. — frank

To be fully objective, it's a biological man who identifies and presents as a biologucal woman. Your definition suggests a third gender. Mine is silent to that because that is disputed.

And what we actually do is use the word "man" to refer also to transmen. — Michael

Well, that's the debate. 'We" don't use it consistently. Some don't call transmen "men," but some do. We speak different languages in that regard. Then the question becomes who's right, which changes the debate into one of prescriptive and not descriptive language, moving from allowing varying usages to requiring certain usages.

Should someone call a trasman a woman or a transman, the objection isn't simply one of misuse (like if I called a spider an insect and not an arachnid), but it's one of ethical impropriety.

Philosophy has long divided human action into the “selfish” and the “selfless.”
Yet such a distinction may be more linguistic than real. Every deliberate human act is born from an internal desire — whether that desire seeks pleasure, avoids pain, fulfills duty, or maintains identity. — Copernicus

Philosophy didn't create the distinction you're referencing. . You're attempting to use philosophy to eliminate a distinction.

If all acts are selfish in all possible worlds, you've created a definitional truth, which means you needn't go through an empirical analysis of various acts to determine which are selfish and which aren't. You've just created a tautology.

The point here is that we call acts from empathy selfless and those that result in gain but injure others selfish. The terms mean very different things. If you have arrived at a definition that collapses the distinction, you've not arrived at a new profound truth (i.e. that there is personal benefit in kindness to others so such kindness is selfush), but instead you've just mis-defined a term.

Everyone knows there can be personal benefit when you benefit others. That doesn't make it selfish.

Had Zizek posted that here without us knowing it him, he'd be ridiculed relentlessly.

What is your suggestion on that?

If we leave theistic views aside, I'd say it's a complex process that we're too early to understand. The same way the universe came into being or formed planets and oceans and lives. — Copernicus

If you only provide two options: physicalist and theistic and you jettison theism, then physicalism by necessity.

From the first single-celled organisms, life has evolved mechanisms to process information about its surroundings. Bacteria move toward nutrients (chemotaxis) and away from toxins; while simple, these are proto-cognitive behaviors—rudimentary information processing loops. — Copernicus

None of this explains abiogenesis, which is how chemicals turned into living entities. Evolution describes how life transforms over time, but not how life begins. While there is evidence suggestive of chemicals moving toward biological systems, there is no direct empirical observation (lab created, fossil evidence, or otherwise) of chemistry becoming biology. The origin of biological entities of all types (from bacteria to humans) is not the Big Bang, but something well after it, where for some reason chemicals yielded life, and, and for some reason, it did it once and never again.

If you want to discuss pre-biological "evolution," you're not going to be looking at how biological systems moved from bacteria to complex beings, but how chemicals interacted over time to change into biology, but that's not what we call "evolution" and it creates a host of issues that cannot be answered through looking at the fossil record.

I think we can say there's most likely a physical explanation that can be given for the origin of life, but that's really speculation, as we've never seen examples of chemicals turning into life forms.