Switch to an anticipatory-processing architecture that lives in the world in real time. — apokrisis

Doesn't it do this with auto-pilot airplanes and self-driven vehicles? ChatGpt isn't a good example of this because it has no inputs other than a person typing or speaking to it, but there are examples of AI receiving data directly from the world. For example, an airplane could receive data of a distant storm and divert or change altitudes

For the simple reason that machines are not biological, they do not have similar structures, components, parts, or what have you, to any organism, let alone humans. If they do not have similar structures, they do not act in similar ways to humans. — NOS4A2

I don't see how you arrive at the second sentence from the first.

In the Shoutbox, the conversations was of water pumps. If I have a pump that operates off of suction versus one off an impeller, but both move the same quanity of water at the same rate, why can't I describe them similarly as water pumps, concerning myself only with the relevant result of the pumps' behavior, which is the pumping out of water. Why must their output be declared of different types and categories simply because their unseen parts perform the intermediate tasks very differently?

Also, given that we have no idea how it is that human cognition occurs, but all we know is that somehow it arises as the final behavior of brains, what provides us the ability to know that the physical acts leading to cognition within two different human's brains are at all alike? That seems speculative, and I would assume correct only to a point given the variations from one person to the next.

From the neurocognitive view, understanding means anticipation. Forming the right expectations. So if not meaning as demonstrated by use, then meaning demonstrated by preparedness.

I hear “apple”, I get ready to react accordingly. My attention is oriented in that particular direction. — apokrisis

I think this is compatible with meaning is use as long as you're describing public manifestations. If preparedness is a qualitative state it's not compatible, but if preparedness is standing, staring, moving or doing something in a particular way then it would be compatible.

"the [non-existent] present king of France," is a referent to an idea in your head. — Harry Hindu

Under this understanding, then so is the cat. That is, the cat is out there, the image is in here, and the reference is to the image in your head. And that is your metaphysical account, but that's not Wittgenstein's because his isn't a metaphysical acccount. His is a grammatical account, describing how language operates within our forms of life, and that attempts to use language to explain the metaphysical misunderstand the role of language.

If you want to refer to mental objects and qualia and whatnot, you're not forbidden from it, but I'd think he'd just assert that "qualia" is however you use the word. Your position seems to be that the utterance of any word creates a referent.

"Public usage" as in using scribbles to point to objects and events in the world. If you are not pointing to anything with your scribbles that do not ultimately resolve down to things that are not scribbles (as in the case of "freedom" and "aboutness"), then it no longer qualifies as "public usage". It is "private usage". — Harry Hindu

Usage of the term is public behavior. To the extent you argue I can't appeal to what is in your head when you say "freedom," you are correct. What I can appeal to is how you use the term in a public way, which is really the heart of the beetle argument.. We cannot see the beetle, we cannot confirm whether we both speak of the same beetle, and no amount of talking about the beetle will assist us in that regard. It is for that reason, we concern ourselves with the use of the term "beetle" and not the beetle itself.

Understanding is no more internal than eating. It depends on some biological processes that happen under the skin, among other things that don't, but this doesn't license your appeals to the internal that you make with reference to perception and meaning. Synaptic transmission is no more meaningful than peristalsis.

I came, I chimed, I conquered. — Jamal

Perhaps this is just a case of omphaloskepsis, or perhaps I just used that word in response to your use of the word peristalsis, so that I could use a more obscure word than you.

Do you think my post missed a subtlety or was incorrect in a way that yours clarified? I'm really trying to understand it and Wittgenstein's writing style isn't always helpfully clear.

It would seem to me that in order for one to understand the word, "cat" that they have an internal representation of the relationship between the scribble, "cat" and an image of the animal, cat. If they never used the scribble, "cat" but retained this mental relationship between the scribble and the animal, could it not be said they understand the word, "cat" even if they never used it themselves but have watched others use it to refer to the animal? I don't need to necessarily use the words to understand their use. — Harry Hindu

I'm not disputing that you learned some words through watching an interaction with its referent. What I am disputing is that you didn't learn the word "freedom," "aboutness," "the [non-existent] present king of France," or "omphaloskepsis" by having had a referent pointed out to you. But, what Wittgenstein is saying (as I don't want to say "I am saying" because I'm not fully adopting anything right now) is that you always have public usage available to determine meaning, and if you don't, you don't have meaning. When you point to the cat, it is not the cat, nor the pointing, that defines the cat, but it is your ability to use that term in a consistent manner within the language you are using. To the extent the pointing is a way to communicate about cats, then that is a move within a practice (meaning it's its use). But understand, this says nothing of the cat in some metaphysical way, not because there isn't such a thing, but because the theory specifically avoids such conversation as impossible.

Exactly. It merely "uses" the scribble, "understanding" in certain patterns with other scribbles. That is the issue with meaning-is-use - the scribbles don't refer to anything. — Harry Hindu

That might be an overstatement. Words can refer to things. "Apple" can in fact mean the very apple we know, but that's only if that's how it's used. My push back on "understanding" was that I don't think it necesssary that for the word to be used in a consistent manner within the game that it be understood.

The Wittgensteinian approach (and I could be very wrong here, so please anyone chime in) does not suggest there is not an internally recognized understanding of the word when the user uses it, but it only suggests that whatever that is is beyond what can be addressed in language. That would mean that whatever "understanding’" is amounts to our public criteria for it .

So I don't understand how a proponent of the idea that meaning is use in language can say the AI does not understand when it is using the words. — Harry Hindu

I don't think a meaning is use theory references understanding.

So, I think the appropriate question to ask, if one wants to do so, is: Should what's being considered be legal rights? — Ciceronianus

But this is just to prescribe an idiosyncratic language around rights that isn't generally how we speak.

If a society legally permits men to subjugate women, we say women's rights are being violated, which says two things (1) we think something inherent in women being human is violated by this law and (2) we think there ought be a remedy for this violation.

We say we believe the law of that land is morally wrong, that morally wrong laws should not stand, and that women are owed the morally right law.

From this we say women's rights are being violated in that society. We refer to the law that ought to be as natural law and the law passed by society as positive law. The two might be in conflict as they are in that society.

But then where could we disagree except over terminology? Is it just that you don't think natural law deserves the descriptor "law" but instead it should be referred to as "moral dictates," where "dictate" is carefully used so as not to say "law"? And so when you say you deny there is natural law, you just mean you deny that what we both call X (which is defined as "that which no person morally ought be deprived") can be called "law." If that is the distinction, is that not pedantic?

If not pedantic, then I suppose it's based in the fear that should we call what ought be the law "natural law" then that might suggest the legal authority could enforce what ought be as opposed to what is and then we'd be faced with the uncertainty with regard to enforcement.

This concern is valid, but just pragmatic, designed to protect our peculiar form of government where we divide the moral from the required (i.e. the church from the state), but it says nothing of what the "law" ontologically is. It just says how we must politically treat it to make our non-theocratic system work.

But at the crux of this, and where I think the positivist position incorrect, is the idea that legal enforcement doesn't allow general notions of morality to creep in. While your positivist might argue the law is just what it says it is, morality is smuggled in constantly. And I'm not sure that's a bad thing.

If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and acts like a duck it might still not be a duck I suppose is the argument. We then have to figure out how we know a duck from not a duck. So, let's say we were talking online and you had some thoughts I was a bot, you can't just telephone me because I might have a voice bot set up. You can't just look at a video of me talking because I could fake that too. So, you'd need to come see me, but not from across the room, but up close and personal. We've not spent time trying to make believable robots, but I suspect that would be the next level, and then maybe we'd require an MRI to show I actually had a brain (spoiler alert! I don't) and was therefore human.

Then let's say I come up with a way to make the MRI image as I need it to further fake me, we're still left arguing the Chinese language analogy.

I think my answer is that AI has no soul and that's not why it's not a person. I'm satisfied going mystical.

A good article on AI debating humans. Pardon the old technology and the splatter from my stir fry.

Similarly, I have pointed out that if we don't understand why there is a difference between AI and humans, a rule against AI cannot stand. — Leontiskos

I don't agree with that. My point was that we can refuse to allow AI simply because we prefer humans and even if we just believe the worth of humanly created statements holy and sacred. We don't have to protect the rights of AI and we can be as unapologetically anthropocentric and technophobic as we want to be. I've got no problem with that.

We quote Wittgenstein, not ChatGPT, because Wittgenstein is a human being, motivated to express his original insights, to say and write things that were meaningful, and to take part in a conversation (philosophy), and who has since taken his place in a tradition of discourse. The result is a legacy with a stable place in the culture, shared by everyone, and one that can be interpreted, because—since it was produced by a conscious and motivated agent—we know that he meant something. — Jamal

I thought about this, and maybe there's not a good answer. Your argument gives a nod to the form of life comments by Wittgenstein, suggesting we don't share in a language game with AI because it's the proverbial lion, as if because AI does not act within our culture, traditions, etc (as you reference), we're really not speaking with it, and so we shouldn't quote it.

But then I'm not sure AI is a lion, but more an echo chamber of human behavior, that while it lacks any form of life whatsoever, we are interacting with it at some real level and therefore forming rules for its discourse, suggesting a seperate language game forms with it. But I do realize that the language game is one sided because AI has no form of life, but is a mimic and all it knows and all it does is parasitic, pulling all it knows from us.

But then again, maybe not. Maybe it forms "original" thoughts from the mass of data is assesses. It seems reasonable an algorithim can arrive at a new thought emergent from what pre-exists.

But I do agree that no one suggests Wittgenstein is the model of clarity.

In other words, why are we not truly talking with AI? Is the mystical consciousness required for language? Isn't the point of "meaning is use" that no the metaphysical underpinning in necessary for true language interaction? And if we then suggest that a shared mental state of some sort is ultimately required for language (thus interpreting "form of life" as that mental state) don't we violate the whole Wittgensteinian project by trying to smuggle in mental metaphysics in the back door?

As long as AI echoes us sufficiently, its usage reflects the same form of life and it speaks with us just as our mama does. And so it goes.

I think where I'm landing is at the unfortunate conclusion that if meaning is use (and that seems a prevailing view), then AI is fully language and what we do with AI is true communication, which means relegating AI comments to red headed stepchild status seems unwarranted as a logical conclusion. Why we might relegate it relates just to personal choice. We mistreat gingers due to prejudice against them, not because they are lesser. But AI doesn't have rights like gingers, so we can do whatever we want with it.

I thinnk.

Here's an article that addresses the issues we're dealing with:

https://nfhs.org/stories/the-role-of-ai-in-debate-ethics-research-and-responsible-use

It's from a national association for high schools related to debate rules, which seems close enough to what we do. The point being that we might take some time to look at how other similar organizations have dealt with these same issues so as to not try and reinvent the wheel.

For the AI afficionado AI is to be treated like a black box, like a Ouija board or a Magic 8-Ball. They become impatient with those who ask the question, "How does it work?" They interrupt, exclaiming, "But look at what it can do!" — Leontiskos

The Ouija board is a strained analogy because Ouija boards don't work. If they reliably provided accurate answers, I'd be hard pressed not to use them, unless you could convince me of the dangers of dabbling in the black arts.

This is the unwritten answer to the question, "Why should we treat something as if it were something that it is not?" "Why should we lie to ourselves in this way?" The answer is, "Because it will give us great power. No more need be said." — Leontiskos

I think we're overthinking it (imagine that). The question really is "what do we want to do"? We needn't self justify our preferences. If we don't want to debate the ChatGpt p-zombie, then we don't have to. We have the right to ban people, so why can't we ban zombies? Just add to the rules: All posters must have a soul. No golems.

We just need to write our rules in a way that protects AI's private use and requires its public use be filtered sufficiently through the poster that it reflects the ideas of the poster.

They eat us and then they eat reality. — Baden

You just re-wrote a modern day Frankenstein.

So, guys, I loaded this thread into AI for the solution to our quandary. Aside from the irony, who wants to know what it says?

If so, why? If not, why not? Who will admit that if I don't share what it says will do it on their own? Why would you do it in private, but not public? Shame? Feels like cheating? Curious as to what AI says about public versus private use? Why are you curious? Will you now ask AI why that distinction matters?

Will you follow AI's guidance in how to use AI while still preserving whatever it feels like were losing?

Do you feel like it's better that it arrived at its conclusions after reading our feedback? Will you take pride in seeing that your contributions are reflected in its conclusions?

Feels like we need to matter, right?

In celebration of the 10th anniversary, I have committed myself to having sex with 10 supermodels. Slow going so far, but I won't let you guys down.

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?