But here I'll repeat the quote:

4. Misuses and temptations

Austin would highlight several philosophical temptations:

[1] Reification — Treating “the normal” as a property things have, rather than a judgement relative to a practice.
[2]Illicit normativity — Smuggling ought into is under cover of medical or statistical language.
[3]False objectivity — Speaking as though “normal” names a natural kind rather than a shifting standard.
[4]Category drift — Moving from “statistically normal” to “functionally proper” to “morally acceptable” without noticing the slide.
— Banno

And note that these are ubiquitous in the responses so far. The discussion of "normal" hasn't yet begun. — Banno

Are any of these concerns peculiar to the word "normal," or are we using "normal" here just as an exemplar term to show the limitations of language generally and how error might creep in?

Would the word "book" or "run" work equally well here. What I would say about the term "normal" that makes it useful for the analysis is perhaps all of its obscured connotations that reveal when usage is analyzed. That is, when we say something is normal (following my numbers above), ) (1) we might be pointing at something concrete with in its nature (that is a normal apple in that it is red, round, etc.), or (2) it might be referencing statistical consistency (that is a normal apple in that varies minimally from the average), or (3) that it references something definitionally and analytically (all apples are red, that object is not red, therefore that is not an apple), or (4) that it references something moral (an apple is good because it provided Adam knowledge of good and evil).

I point this out to make the larger point that we can decide if our objective here is simply to offer a comprehensive dictionary where we consider as many contextual variations of the term "normal" and provide that for consideration or whether to take the more abstract question and ask how we define anything and whether there is a challenge the word "normal" provides that other terms do not.

Maybe the term "normal" with all its connotations provides us with a better diagnostic tool to show how usage and meaning are tied together, which might be lost with the words run and book, just because those don't have as many subtelties. But maybe they do and we've just not thought those through.

It's possible that you're describing the special reaction humans have to other humans. — AmadeusD

Reaction is all we can gauge, which is just to say that if meaning is use, then that's how we define the word. The lack of referent isn't critical because it's not the referent that determines the meaning necessarily. This isn't to suggest that an infant cannot have a metaphysical component that elevates its value. It just doesn't speak to it and it accepts the inability to speak directly to it, but that has to do with language and definitions and not metaphysics. I'm not denying the value of the infant because we can't point to that specialness and I'm not suggesting that the specialness is dictated by the word. I'm just saying that when you point out that specialness doesn't exist because it can't be identified that you're creating the category error or mixing language with metaphysics.

But you're just reaching at this point. You're pretending that it makes sense to talk about infants born without brains, as if human beings could live without a brain. You've fallen into a form of eristic. If someone without a brain comes out of the womb then it would not be valued in the way you say all babies are valued, because we do not value dead things equally with living things. — Leontiskos

Surely you can envision there being an infant born today who will not have the capacity for higher thought of any type.

In this case you both think the question of whether something is "special" is arbitrary and generally undecidable in any serious way. Hanover says, "I say babies are special, and you can't gainsay this because the whole question is arbitrary and undecidable." — Leontiskos

I do think it's knowable in a serious way. I think human worth is infinite, regardless of the utility of the human, as a matter of belief. That you think faith based reasoning isn't serious just exposes your bias. You can't derive meaning from logic or empirical evidence. That's not to say you can't arrive at reasons to explain why your faith might be, but even if you can't arrive at those reasons doesn't negate it.

But that's not true, is it? You do have a capacity to learn Spanish, and you know it. Pretending you don't isn't to the point. — Leontiskos

It's not pretending. It's stipulating. I lack the capacity to learn nuclear physics. That is true.

What this means is that the infant has a potency to learn Spanish, but that potency is being impeded by an impediment, namely deafness. — Leontiskos

An infant born without a brain lacks any ability to learn Spanish ever. To say he has the potential to learn Spanish if he has a brain inserted and that is simply an impediment is to say the same of trees. If only the tree had a brain, it could speak Spanish.

For example, common opinion deems it much more permissible to kill an unborn baby if it has certain disabilities, such as Down syndrome. Similarly, if the impediment in question is more easily removable, then the baby is deemed more "special." For example, a baby with the impediment of a heart problem that can be fixed by modern science is deemed more "special" than a baby with the impediment of Down syndrome. — Leontiskos

No, I hold that the murder of a Down's Syndrome child is just as much murder as murdering one without that disability. And so does the law.

But anyway, I thought there was more confusion here than there was. You truly didn't follow my counterexamples. The reason I reject your claim that human specialness is linked to the complex intellectual capacities found in human adults is becuase many humans lack those characteristics, both currently and in the future.

Your premise is invalid, "If an individual never ends up possessing X, then that individual did not have a potency for X." You have a potency to play jazz music whether or not you ever actually do. — Leontiskos

I don't follow. In my example, I said I had no capacity to learn Spanish. I therefore lack that potency. I just can't do it. It's not within my ability. It'd be like teaching a pig to sing.

A talent scout for NASA may have a goal of building rockets. They will seek out individuals with a capacity for rocket-building, not merely individuals who can currently build rockets. It would make no sense to object to their choice by saying, "But this person you picked can't currently build rockets, so it was a bad choice. They lack the specialness or value you are seeking." ...Nor would it make sense to claim that only individuals who have built a rocket have the capacity to build rockets. — Leontiskos

Some infants lack the capacity to ever develop.

No, I certainly don't. Put Hume out of your head for a moment. A human infant does not grow into a human adult because this has happened in the past. A human infant grows into a human adult because of their telos; because their natural manner of growth has the term of human adulthood. If God made a human infant it would still naturally grow into a human adult, even if this had never happened in the past. — Leontiskos

No, that is what is infants usually do. I'm talking about an infant named Bob and Bob's brain is malformed, he has cancer throughout his body, and he has every other imaginable problem that will absolutely interfere with any ability for him to grow into an adult. That infant has infinite worth and to kill him would be murder. His abilility, potential, capacity is to never have any of the things a fully capable adult will have.

I am saying that a human is special because they have the ability to speak Spanish, whether or not they currently exercise that ability. I think a thing can be special in virtue of potencies that it does not currently possess; you do not. You refuse to talk about a potency that the individual does not currently possess. That's the difference. — Leontiskos

You're not saying "I think a thing can be special in virtue of potencies that it does not currently possess." You're saying a thing can be special in virtue of potencies it will never possess but that those like it likely will possess. If speaking Spanish makes something special, then I am special if I can one day speak Spanish. My counter is suppose I can never learn Spanish. I have no such capacity. Can I still be special just because most humans can learn Spanish?

Nope. "Human babies naturally grow into human adults," does not come to, "The specialness of human babies derives from ancestry." — Leontiskos

You use "naturally" here to mean "usually" and usually means what other infants have done in the past, which is known by how their descendants have done. Infants are special because adults are special and infants usually turn into adults. What of those that we know never will? That doesn't matter to you. It does to me.

Just for the fact that my kin is special, so am I.
— Hanover

No, that's not even close. — Leontiskos

Why?

I did no such thing, And i outright reject the notion that humans are special. I asked you for your evaluation with reasons. You have not done so — AmadeusD

This searches for a metaphysical distinction that can't be spoken, yet usage clearly dictates you're in error. What follows the murder of a person (police, investigation, trial, prison, etc) differs substantially from what follows the breaking of a glass (sweeping the shards away). You say there is nothing underlying special about the person, yet he's treated as so special. What do propose could be referred to prove the specialness exists outside our use of the term? If there is nothing that can be pointed to, then you're not saying humans are not special, but that "special" has no meaning. If that is the case, then why do I know what you mean when I say humans are special and glasses aren't.

Tell me what you need to see for specialness to be proven, not just that you don't have proof. I tend to think there is nothing there you want pointed at.

That means that my statement that people are special in a metaphysical way isn't vacuous, but that it exists yet can't be referenced.

Norms are derived
— Hanover

No. The significant differences between humans and other animals are not merely "derived" or "social constructs." Why not live in reality for a few minutes? — Leontiskos

I referenced norms, not differences. Holding the door for the person behind me is a norm where I live, but not so up north. That's socially derived. If you're saying that people have hands and dogs have paws, I think we're in agreement, but surely you couldn't have thought I didn't know that.

I'm not sure where this "moral worth" is coming from? Do you take "special" to mean "having moral worth"? And surely "moral" is another undefinable Moorean term, no? — Leontiskos

We're talking past each other if you've missed this. I have all along consistently said that ability does not equate to worth. If all you're saying is that "special" means "different," then this conversation amounts to just itemizing the differences between two things. I already said that in my reference to what an anthropologist might note, all of which I'd agree with. "Special" connotes a positive attribute, which is why we're asking why a person is special. If special just means different, then we can say what is so special about cars versus trucks or whatever. Is that what we're talking about?

What I mean by special includes the concept of norm governed behavior surrounding the thing. That is, we can break a glass, but not kill a person. The specialness of the person demands it be treated differently and the social response to the behavior shows how the thing is considered.

I'm not sure where this "moral worth" is coming from? Do you take "special" to mean "having moral worth"? And surely "moral" is another undefinable Moorean term, no? — Leontiskos

I've been pretty openly attaching your specialness to moral worth. That's now been clarified. To the extent you were talking about something different, now you know.

Again, this is a rather silly denial of final causality. If you don't understand that human babies naturally grow into human adults, then I'm not sure what to tell you. — Leontiskos

Do you think I have difficulty in understanding that most infants grow to adults or that every adult was once an infant? Probably not, which means you must not be understanding me. I can take blame for not being clear, but I don't think you can believe that to be a reasonable interpretation of what I've said.

What I'm saying is that what makes a person special or not is what that person has within him that makes him special. It's a specific attribute of the entity. Your position is that the specialness derives from ancestory. That is, because human consciousness is "special," all humans are special even if a particular example of a human is not. For example, if being able to run an ultra-marathon is unique to humans, and I believe that makes them special, I am special even though I can barely run a 5k. Just for the fact that my kin is special, so am I. That's a tenable position I suppose if that's how you want to define special, but that's not how I define it. I require something inherent within the actual entity to designate it special.

My position isn't fully accepted within modern society? Is that supposed to be a rebuttal? Is yours? I am continually amazed at how bad the reasoning on TPF is. — Leontiskos

If you provide a definition of a term (here "special"), the test for its accuracy is by application to examples. My point was that your definition does not hold when applied.

The people saying, "It's so because we decreed it," are precisely the generation that is laughed at by the next after they abandon the arbitrary decrees. It's painful to watch the older generations justify their obsolescence. — Leontiskos

Regardless of generation, there will be axioms, first principles we adhere to. That is required, and we can root them in whatever we want, some strained logical rationale as you are attempting, in the eternal, or just declare them so. The centering of humanity as the object of moral worth doesn't strike me as a fleeting moral principle. If it is, I really don't think your specialness theory is going to save mankind.

You've introduced this new concept of "moral worth" into the conversation as if it was there all along, and you will doubtless confess that you have no idea what you mean by that term. *Sigh* — Leontiskos

Let's look at use. I break a glass: I sweep it up. I murder a man: sirens, helicopters, dogs, questions, evidence gathered, lab tests, prosecutors, judges, juries, etc. Why are people "special"? Why isn't the dead guy just swept up? You can pretend it has nothing to do with their moral worth, but you'd be wrong.

I don't think it's a euphemism exactly, although maybe some use it that way. It's supposed to be a broader category than autism, to include ADHD, dyslexia, hyperlexia, savantism etc. — bert1

But all of those conditions refer to conditions that are generally thought of disadvantageous, where you could make an argument that Einstein was neurodivergent or someone who was particularly creative would be as well. Something can be said regarding people in this forum in terms of the thought processes being significantly (in a statistical sense) deviating from the norm. It just depends upon what aspect of one's neural processing you're looking at.

But it's hard to think of medical concept of disability that is normatively neutral. If you just define 'disability' as statistical outliers without making a judgement, then gingers are disabled. — bert1

I guess the issue is that the word "normal" is not normatively neutral, but it designates someone who is appropriate in some respect.

All of these misuses occur in the medical model of disability. — Banno

Words like "abnormal", "strange," and "deviant" contain negative connotations, but for our purposes we need a word that avoids that so that we can discuss those that simply diverge from the way most are. The term "neuro-divergent" is a word that has become euphamistic for autistic, and so despite it being a euphamism, it has picked up a connotation of someone who thinks differently in a way that challenges them socially. However, I heard someone insist that gifted children be considered neuro-divergent, which is not a typical use of that word, but it makes sense, given those children do think differently than their classmates. This just points out the difficulty in creating language truly intended to be neutral. We might just be inherently judgmental creatures and so purely neutral language offers us little use.

The response from Hegelians is the ongoing dialectic. But all this amounts to is our acknowledging that our responses are never compete, that the task and the discussion are ongoing. — Banno

I've found myself less and less dialectical of late. It arises out of my theological bent, where I feel the need to leave science in the lab and religion in the chapel, without any real need to figure out how they can mesh to a higher truth, but instead to give them each their time. It's like visiting divorced parents. You care for them both, you visit them both, but you don't put them in the same room.

The deeper problem here is that you're just appealing to your Moorean meta-ethic where 'good' (or 'special') is undefinable and therefore, if admitted, also mystical and esoteric. So you think that it must be impossible to explain why babies are special (or why anything at all is good), and that if someone does this then they must have said something wrong (hence trying to misconstrue what I've said counterfactually into something that is merely contingent and therefore less plausible). It also follows from this that "you can say whatever you want" (because everyone's claims about the 'good' and also the 'special' are basically unjustifiable anyway). — Leontiskos

It's really not that complex. I'm simply pointing out that your definition of specialness isn't valid because it doesn't work when you evaluate specific examples.

Why we think human beings are special (which seems to refer to a "personhood" definition) can't be determined by some speculative historical analysis nor some post hac explanation. Norms are derived (whether they be moral, legal, basic manners, accepted social protocol) through complex social interaction over thousands of years, not necessarily reducible to a single guiding principle and not even necessarily consistent at any given time given the large amount of individuals involved and time that has transpired.

Of course an anthropologist can examine homo sapiens and describe their language skills, tool using skills, ability to plan for the future, learning abilities, etc. and point out how we're different from the other animals both in degree and type. You can't then use those observations and just declare that we must have created our moral systems based upon that. That is, just because we are different in ability doesn't mean that was the cause of our belief in our moral worth.

The reason you can't is because there are infants that don't have any advanced ability, plenty of cultures historically have held that slaves, women, and certain ethnicities are not of "special" status, and many cultures do not accept Enlightenment principles that "all men are created equally."

You also have no explanation for how embryoes work into your definition, being forced to declare it "silly" that some might not hold embryoes the same value as adults even though they have the potential to become adults. That is, your position isn't even fully accepted within modern society.

So, if I look at the here and now and ask why it is that infants are special, it's because we decree it so. It is a rule that governs our society regardless of where it came from. You can argue the origin of that rule came from certain principles and I can argue it came from God, but all that is an aside because mine is unprovable and yours is empirically invalid. I take mine as more valid because it doesn't pretend to be empirically derivable, but it is clearly axiomatic. It is axiomatic thelogically and secularly. Secularly, it is a principle upon which we have built our society, and enforced it as a non-debatable norm. Kantian dignity and secular humanism demand this principle as do Enlightenment principles of equality, historically responsive to tyranny and hierachical classism. You're just pretending to know why we've ended up where we are and have offered an overly reductive basis, as if we can explain all assignment of moral worth upon humanity to the fact that human ability is greater so we therefore assign humans higher moral worth.

As I've said, the facts are not with you. Humans have always had greater ability, but they've not always considered all humans of greater moral worth, and there are even some now that in the animal rights arena that challenge whether any humans have greater moral worth than other animals.

Oh, it definitely is. I should know: I'm the one who wrote it. Even in a grammatical sense the sentence is a counterfactual. You're starting to sound like Michael. — Leontiskos

Here's the quote:

And yet an infant does none of the things you itemize, but it's still special. What makes it more special is that its worth is not tied to what it does, but what it is.
— Hanover

You:

What it is is precisely something that will grow to be able to do those things. — Leontiskos

You're telling me an infant is special because it grow to do those things. But what of those that don't?

That's a counterfactual claim. I am talking about a world where babies never mature into human adults. — Leontiskos

No, it's not a counterfactual and not a strawman. You provided criteria for personhood (specialness), which if it can be shown certain humans don't possess, then you must either (1) admit humans are not special, or (2) admit your criteria are wrong.

Infants do not possess the criteria you itemized for specialness. You then said that since they will one day have that criteria, then that potential is sufficient for calling them special.

My point is not that there is a possible world where no infant grows up, so the counterfactual/hypothetical world disproves your position, but it's that right this second in this very world there are infants born that we know will never mature, never have any significant mental or physical capacity, and never do any of the things you claimed made humans special.

So why hold those beings of no current or future meaningful ability or utility special?

I took your concern to be disability ought be considered an interplay of person upon environment, focusing more upon the deficiencies in the environment than the person. Under this model, we view the environment needing modification and correcting, leaving challenges to dignity of the person undisturbed. This requires we recalibrate the conceptual, pointing to the deficient environment, not the person.

"Normal" talk seemed to smuggle back in judgment of the person, endangering calling some people abnormal and then figuring out what needed be done to normalize them.

That then led us to ask "what is it to be "normal" anyway?" I think that's a tangential rabbit hole to go down. As long as we don't attribute worth to normality, the issue of normality remains only a statistical consideration for the engineer who wants to build a sidewalk ramp as accommodating to as many as possible.

We can recognize that our definition of disability is imperfect where it speaks only of environmental deficiency and not of human deficiency, and we can insist upon such a definition without being disosant just because our goal isn't definitional perfection. Our goal is promotion of Enlightenment happiness. How we refer to people and how we think of people matters in how we treat people, and so if the achievement of better "doing" is served, that is sufficient whether we've sorted out the dozens of varieties of normalness.

Then you are committed to the claim that if human babies did not ever grow into human adults they would have the same value as they do given the current state of affairs, which is absurd. — Leontiskos

What gives human babies inherent value is their current status as humans, not that the majority of human babies go on to be adults or even that the expectation is that they will be adults.

It's not absurd to attribute humanity to babies unconditionally, refusing to accept your criteria that personhoid requires certain abilities either immediately or eventually.

Your position also demands that an embryo is a fully protected person, having the fully expected eventual attributes of a person. That is a position you can take, but its opposite can't be waved away as absurd. Your position is also inconsistent with traditional right to life positions in that it grants person status to embryos, not because of what they are, but what most embryos have the potential to be, even if we know this particular one may never be.

I also don't know what you make of the mentally incompetent person, who lacks your personhoid criteria and who will never achieve it, having personhood perhaps because his brothers and sisters had it.

What it is is precisely something that will grow to be able to do those things. — Leontiskos

Unless it won't, yet it still will have the same value.

The best way to determine the meaning of "normal" is to evaluate its use over as many contexts as possible and statistically determine its most common usage.

Fortunately, ChatGPT already does that for us.

Stay weird my friends.

I don't know of any other species which uses language, composes poetry, mathematizes the physical universe, develops vehicles to fly around within the atmosphere and even beyond, develops traditions which last for thousands of years and span civilizational epochs, and worships God. If humans aren't special then I don't know what is. — Leontiskos

And yet an infant does none of the things you itemize, but it's still special. What makes it more special is that its worth is not tied to what it does, but what it is.

Is this such a bad thing? — Banno

No, but I wasn't arguing it was a bad thing as much as I was saying we were agreeing with the happiness principle.

This said, I actually agree with Banno on the restriction on enforced surgery. I think consent is fundamental. — AmadeusD

All of this implies the disabilities we are referencing don't affect one's ability to give consent. Intellectual and psychiatric disabilities raise entirely different questions.

Why? No one is ever average... — Banno

If we are to consider disability a spectrum, with no one fully disabled and no one fully abled, but all of us at some point on the spectrum, then it would logically hold that we capture as many people along the line to allow them as full a life as possible, limited by our resources. That is, there is a bell curve of abilities, with most of us grouped in the middle (with me being an outliar of brilliance, a sage of the ages), and so we build a world that attempts to accomodate as much of that bell as we can, moving out to the extremes as much as we can. Those societal accomodations would flatten the curve, offering everyone closer to equal opportunity, leaving as few outside as possible.

I appreciate the generosity principle you identify in characterizing disability in terms of society's ability to accomodate as opposed to referencing the limitations inherent in the individual when compared to others, but I'd leave it at that, which is that the chararacterization is presented in order to provide respect and acceptance. If pressed though, I wouldn't be willing to then start suggesting there really aren't important physical differences that can be chararacterized as being less advantageous just because that position loses credibility in not recognizing certain truth.

Where we do agree is that human worth is not diminished by ability, and so I am in favor of doing whatever is required to keep that clarified, which includes creating a language that preserves that dignity and in modifying the landscape so that it is more universally navigable.

A bit more than personal preferences. — Banno

I'm not trying to over-simplify and can't disagree with Nussbaum's wish list of available capabilities, but I still abstract out the fundamental principle sounds something along the lines of advancing Enlightenment rights for the "pursuit of happiness."

So there is something a bit more sophisticated here than "happiness". — Banno

Happiness principles aren't unsophisticated. Given the centrality of the concept to Utilitarianism and the role it plays, 1000s of pages have been written trying to explain what happiness is.

But the quibble seems to be the way we wish to portray the same thing, less so the substance.

If they don't want an implant, I won't make 'em have one. — Banno

That is what I was agreeing with and suggesting your comments implied otherwise. You argued the maximization of happiness wasn't a proper objective but instead said maximizing benefit was the objective. While I suppose we could have talked past each other, I read "maximizing benefit" as something that could be measured by some observable criteria, whereas happiness is determined just by asking the person what makes him happy.

So, if you're saying maximizing benefit simply meaning maximizing personal preferences, then the distinction with that and happiness collapses for all practical purposes.

Anatomy tells the story. Analytic philosophy has never even been in the game. — apokrisis

Absolutely agree. They are different categories. It would be absurd if Wittgenstein weighed in on the neurological underpinnings of thought.

I'd ask you sort that out or we just talk past each other. You cannot offer empirical evidence that defeats Wittgenstein"s claims not because he's some God who can't be wrong, subject to worship and cult leader status, but because he's not making an empirical claim.

Notice the absence here of "tacitly admitting their former state was wanting" ? instead we look towards maximising benefit - but not in terms of happiness so much as of capability. It's not worth that has increased, but capacity - they can do more things — Banno

But how would you justify a cochlear implant in someone feeling full fulfillment within the deaf community, having no desire to leave its comfort? Would you feel justified in insisting upon it even should the person feel overall greater unhappiness for having been pulled into the general world of the hearing?

Measuring "doing more" isn't just in counting new abilities, but in the value the person receives from them. If the person enjoyed that special comraderie of the deaf community, that thing will be lost, and it might have received great weight from him in terms of personal value not gained from hearing.

Consider SRS, for example.

A counterpoint to consider. I met a gentleman who was deaf from birth, now in his middle years. His parent refused to provide any remediation, including contact with other deaf people, in the belief that this would build his ability to adapt to "normal" hearing society and so position him well for a good life. However the result was that although he could not fit in well with the hearing, he also could not fit in with the deaf community, and so found himself isolated.

The attempt by his parents to maximise his opportunity had the exact opposite result. — Banno

I know of a person exactly like this, and it was and remains tragic just due to his social isolation. He did go on to get a cochlear implant, but he still has significant limitations understanding, likely from the limited language skills he obtained prior to receiving it.

The question of the cochlear implant raises is another one as well, which is whether one ought provide a cochlear implant if available. To do so requires a belief that normalization is better than allowing the person remain within the close knit and proud sub-culture the deaf have created. That is, it touches upon your question about whether being normal is the goal. It seems intuitive though to increase one's ability to interact with the world by providing hearing where it was previously lacking. The final rule therefore likely being that one ought do what increases the overall happiness of the individual even if it means tacitly admitting their former state was wanting from the state you are moving them to.

In any event, I draw a rigid distinction between ability and worth, with infinite worth taken as a given, undiminishable and not measurable by ability. That is, to suggest the worth of the deaf person has increased when he has been given the ability to hear is offensive. His worth is not to be measured in terms of the things he can do.

I rather agree with Wittgenstein, that language is a vehicle of thought, not a reflection of thoughts happening elsewhere. — hypericin

This suggests thought is language, words traveling throughout our brain, which is a metaphysical claim, arguing about what the internal thing going on in our head is. That would not be consistent with Wittgenstein, but a better phrasing would be that thinking is shown through use, namely language.

That said, when I think verbally, I don't think in the compressed manner that you suggest — hypericin

This points out the problem with ascribing a metaphysical claim to Wittgenstein because here we're now being baited into a conversation about how different people might think. Witt can't answer that question. He's not a scientist or linguist. He's only saying that whatever the mystery in your head is, it's not something we can speak of, but what we can know about it and talk about is the linguistic expression.

I dont recognize anything you've said. — AmadeusD

I guess we're at an impasse, not understanding what one another are saying. Alas.

. But they are objectively not special in any sense other than a theological one. — AmadeusD

To the extent this suggests some sort of objective basis for the determination of value in the sense there are agreed upon criteria that can be measured in some empirical sense, this strikes me as a category error. Value is not measured that way. If you don't see it as a category error, but you insist no distinction between value based judgments and empirically measurable ones, then it's just question begging, assuming what you've set out to prove, which is there is no difference between value judgments and empirical ones, placing within the premise your conclusion: humans are not special.

I am very much against this binary scheme, and I like the philosophers who have challenged it. Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, Foucault, and Adorno. Generally, 20th century scepticism towards reason, and its inclusion of the body, saved philosophy from becoming a complete idiot. — Jamal

And don't forget Rabbi Shneur Zalman's Tanya, Hasidic mysticism, pre-20th Century. The idea that our animalistic side is base or evil is not a universal religious doctrine.

Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin, who is said to have wept near the time of his death and explained:

"In the World to Come, I will no longer be able to put on tefillin or perform a mitzvah. Only in this world is that possible — and that is why I weep as I prepare to leave it."

Heaven is lesser because you can't carry out good acts without a body. A different perspective.

They are the largest surplus resource we have. They are not special. — AmadeusD

This is the Lounge so I can say whatever I want. Not only are babies each special, but so is every child of God, regardless of age, and you are as well, each of us with a divine soul of infinite worth, regardless of whether you agree or not. We are not born into sin, but perfection.

My view is unapologetically theistic, but it's no different than what a secular humanist would say, minus the holy talk.

I just wonder how other areas of thought might be different if we did. — Patterner

We count to 60 and say we have 1 minute, then we count 60 of those and we say we have an hour. We divide circles in 360 degrees. And of course outside the US, there are 100 degrees between freezing water and boiling water, but not in the US. There are all sorts of ways of doing it, mostly just convention. Maybe it changes our brain structure, but I doubt it. That's why I have no idea what it means for it to be 50 degrees celcius but I do know what 50 degrees Farenheit feels like.

My third thought is another question. Why do we use Base 10? Doesn't it make more sense to go to the next value after you have used up all your fingers? I hold up fingers for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, then my friend holds up one finger for 11. Although I guess I should rewrite that. My tenth finger could be *. Then we would write:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, *, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 1*, 20, 21... — Patterner

Typically, you move to letters when your base extends past 10, like in hexadecimal: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,A,B,C,D,E,F,10... The base one uses is dependant upon the purpose, where hex is used in computer applications.

We use 60 for minutes and hours.
12 for clocks

I'm sure there are others.

Shadows on the Hudson by Isaac Bashevis Singer.

If night is the period before sunrise, then yes, you can. Look to the East. I'd allow Wittgenstein into the lab, in the hope of helping Pinker get his conceptual foundations in order. — Banno

Well, my analogy means to be forced, meaning if the morning star is defined as that in the morning, it can't exist not in the morning. No need to stare at the sky in the morning hoping to catch a lazy evening star that forgot to go inside. It's not subject to empirical disproof.

When I was a kid, I was hopelessly confused when night was, given that I was told a day was 24 hours. Then I learned night was part of day, but then I didn't have a word for the time the sun was up. How could that be day if it lasted less than 24 hours?

Then this: "God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day." Day starts in the evening?

I define "tolerance" as how much disagreeable activity someone will put up with. It's not a particularly kind gesture to tell someone you'll tolerate them, but it's not as bad as rejecting and not as good as accepting. It's somewhere in between. .

To say I "tolerate" homosexualty, for example, means I'd rather it not be, but I'll endure it.

With that understanding, does the right put up with more behavior it finds objectionable than the left? Maybe, but that might just speak to changes from conservative values to more liberal ones and the right having to accept the existence of what they disagree with.

So then the next question: Is the left more embracing of (not just tolerant of) change than the right? I'd think so, which is why the word "conserve" attaches to the right and "progress" attaches to the left.

One embraces change, the other less so. Who is more tolerant of each other? It seems there's sufficient polarization to say neither are terribly tolerant of one another to the extent they're each willing to peacefully endure one another.

There is also a question unasked, and that is whether tolerance is a virtue? Ought we let our neighbors who don't adhere to our moral interpretations endure our silence, or must we speak. up?

I suspect I don't disagree, which is most disagreeable. But I'm not confident that I understood what you said, so I may be wrong. — Banno

You have to tell me what you disagree with.

To restate, where P is a private language: ¬◊P.

Pinker cannot show us an example of P. One can't locate the morning star at night because it by definition is present only during the day. That's not to say nothing is there.

If there were enough interest, we might try a discussion on ChatGPT to see what happens. — Banno

I'm interested in participating, but is the suggestion that we all appear in real time and go back and forth with a discussion, or can it be adaptable to our format where we post at our leisure? I'd rather the latter only because conversational debate is very different than posting in terms of the thought and research going into each post.

Also, if it's live, the world generally operates on US Eastern Standard Time.

The insight is that private language is an all black penguin where a penguin is defined as requiring some white. You search forever for the all black penguin and you quibble over whether it has some white here or there, not realizing you don't engage in a synthetic inquiry when the inquiry was analytic all along.

"Bans are permanent and non-negotiable." — Outlander

That's true, and I don't want to suggest a change in the text of the rules so people might think there are simple ways back, but there are imaginable scenarios where things can be reconsidered, which is just an admission sometimes further review is warranted.

My point is that this case isn't such an extraordinary instance because it's all so speculative that the person even wants back or regrets his request.

No, because that's proof they're treating the root issue by avoiding the problem by using their own willpower. — Outlander

Maybe @Michael was compelled by the same powerful forces that @ProtagoranSocratist was when he asked to be banned and he couldn't stop himself from banning him, and here you go blaming Michael for what he could not control. And maybe I'm just doing the same with whatever I'm saying, and then your responses aren't to be blamed either because you're just being immovable you.

Or maybe we just take things at face value. He wanted banning, he asked for banning, and he got banning. We're not impossible to reach out to, so if he pleads temporary insanity and wants to return, we can consider it then. At this point, defenses are being made for him that he hasn't even claimed himself. It's possible he's happy not being here.

Perhaps not.

I keep coming back to language being inherently social. It follows that an explanation solely in terms of an individual's brain or cognition or whatever must be insufficient.

So that part of what you suggest must be correct. — Banno

I'm just a category police here, trying to keep the philosopher captive in his study and the scientist in his lab.

When Wittgenstein says language can't be private, he's not a sociologist, neurologist, or anthropologist. His view isn't dependent upon whether humans are lone predators or highly social. That is, language would theoretically exist on the day the last man stood before the world ended (and the sound would be a whimper).

This is because to attend to a feeling with a describable symbol marks it language, regardless of whether the confirmation of the symbol is by human or inanimate means.

If the validity of Wittgenstein is science dependant, he loses, even if scientificly correct, because he would then be speaking of the world of beetles and not words.

Empirical refutation or confirmation is therefore impossible.