Speak and write accurately in whatever language is important. Yet, I think this issue is not part of politics but philosophy of language and linguistics. — javi2541997

I didn't know about Spain.


This is indeed a dilemma. But the real point is not quite what it seems.

One side will say that what matters is successful communication. So if an utterance serves its purpose, it's OK. So that, for example,

"You must all stop making bang bang noises and away from here you need to go. I cannot hear the babies ticking in the mummy belly" — Sir2u

worked perfectly well. No problem.

But if you want to communicate effectively across

nearly 2 billion English speakers in the world — Sir2u

, it's a different story. That was what underlaid the emergence of RP (Received Pronunciation) in the BBC when it started. RP was never more than a dialect, but it was quite effective for its purpose. Nowadays RP is out, for social reasons. But the BBC and its various audiences seem to be managing with quite wide dialect variations. No doubt it is easier in this world of instant communication, which presumably has some effect in preventing, or slowing down, the variation of dialects.

An anecdote - long ago, I was visiting Sweden and, miraculously, bumped into someone who was also seriously learning Latin. (I spoke about six words of Swedish and he had no English.) We tried swopping quotations, and I realized, to my (naive) astonishment that Swedish people pronounce(d) Latin quite differently from English people. We could probably have sorted things out if we had had more time and writing things down, though limited, provided an alternative channel.

Wittgenstein has a quotation (which I'm too lazy to look up - sorry) about language being like a huge city, with the well-regulated but still individual suburbs and the confused maze of the inner, ancient, city. I think that works quite well.

Our collective knowledge has put together an impressive (I don't suppose it is exhaustive) array of explanations. It reveals that language is just as messy as life. Who knew? Certainly not philosophers. It should be compulsory reading on all introductory courses.

A partisan remark. This illustrates why I prefer to talk about specific bits of language, rather than language as such. Language games, with many structures, not Language, with a single structure.

I hope I didn't give the impression that I was dismissive of or unsympathetic to the problems of people learning a second (third...) language. I learnt Latin, Greek and (modern) French and have since picked up some German and Swedish. What I admire most is those rare people who seem able to acquire at least a basic knowledge of a language very quickly. People who are fluent in five languages, or who learn Hungarian for fun. (Now, that's a really difficult language, or so I'm told.)

There is a history of attempts to reform and regularize language. France and Sweden have had government regulation for more than 100 years. When Greece acquired independence from the Ottoman Empire, there was an move to revert to pure Greek, divested of all those pesky bits of Turkisn that had crept in. The result was two dialects, "purified" for use on formal, official occasions and "popular" for everyday life.

There's also a developing story of the break-up of English, which I confess I don't know much about. It will probably be rather like what happened to Latin in Western Europe.

As for "banning irregular verbs to crush the human spirit," that's just silly — Dawnstorm

On reflection, you're right. Sadly, they have plenty of other ways.

One thing that grates on my ears is the common misuse of the past participles in the past perfect, as in, "I have come home" versus the incorrect "I have came home." I used to hear that only among the uneducated, but it's everywhere now. A point could be made that these identifiers are irrelevant. — Hanover

I haven't come across that one.

There are things that bother me, also. Misuse of the apostrophe is one of current ones; it the apostrophe seems to be disappearing from the vernacular. I think that people get confused about it and so leave it out.

What it shows is how deeply the rules are ingrained and how disorienting it can be when they are broken. It's like walking down stairs and hitting the ground instead of another step (or conversely).

An observation. It seems that it is the most everyday, and most ancient parts, of language that acquire the most irregularities. New forms seem to conform much better to the rules.

Pinker says that there are 180 of these exceptions from regular forms, — javi2541997

Only 180? You surprise me.

Is there reason to believe MacBeth’s hallucination of a dagger and his perception of an actual dagger are not of the same nature, even though they come about by different means? — Patterner

It depends what you mean by "of the same nature". They are clearly radically different, since there's no dagger. But they are clearly similar because Macbeth is behaving as if there is a dagger in front of him. The question is whether the similarity can only be explained by positing something dagger-like in his head or mind. I know it seems mysterious. But if you approach the question in a different way, it will seem (as it has seemed to many philosophers) the best and only explanation possible. This is why philosophy is hard.

How I would put it is, the straight and the bent stick *share* the same appearance. If X looks like Y, then Y looks like X, it goes both ways. — goremand

Yes, of course it goes both ways. So I could easily see a bent stick in water as straight. The issue is that the phrase in italics and the phrase in bold seem to be equivalent, but actually suggest different models of what's going on. The italics phrase suggests that the illlusion must involve some thing called an appearance, and that's where the fault is. The bold phrase suggests something more like your way of putting it, that the illusion does not involve any thing except the stick.

hallucinations are blamed on the "faulty" perceptual or cognitive apparatus of the subject. — goremand

I doubt anyone would question that. The issue is what kind of fault it is. Perhaps the quick way of explaining it is that it is a question whether it is like an error in interpreting the data or like a faulty copy of a picture. I thought you were proposing the first alternative and rejecting the second.

I have to stop now, but since we started this exchange I've been thinking about it. Later on, I'll post a suggestion that might take us a bit further.

An observation - standard grammar was originally developed as a teaching aid in Alexandria at some point in the last few centuries BCE because lots of people were learning Greek as adults. It was designed (in accordance with a popular idea of education) as a collection of rules because rules could be taught and enforced in a fairly simple-minded way. (Language-learning nowadays is much more sophisticated.) It was, and remains, a codification of the habits of first-language speakers, who learn in completely different way. There are exceptions - Chomsky's transformation grammar was developed for the very different purpose of explaining why language is how it is. Logic and the philosophical sense of grammar are completely different enterprises.

The consequence is that what are rules for language learners are habits for first-language speakers, and that use and practice determine what the rules are. (The same applies, nowadays, to dictionaries, as I'm sure you are aware.)

Grammatical irregularities (which don't occur only in verbs) are a serious nuisance to learners. Sadly, use and practice pay little attention to their problems.

My first stab at an explanation of grammatical irregular verbs would suggest that where a general rule (like adding -ed to form a past tense) is applied, the verbs in most common use are likely to develop specific variants, whether from difficulties in pronunciation (of which your iced cream is an excellent example) or local and dialect variation or from the history of the word (adopted from another language - criterion and criteria and bacterium and bacteria are examples that I have noticed.)

Good examples are always hard to find on the spot, but the contraction of I will (and I shall) to I'll (and you'll, etc.) is one that comes to mind. The difference between it's (it is) and its (of it) is another annoying example. That one comes from the traditional genitive form which consisted of adding -es to a noun, which duly contracted to -s, but the standard contraction ('s) (the leg of the table or the table's leg), itself developed an irregularity for "it". Irregularity upon irregularity. The same rule and contraction produces his for he-es. There'll be a whole variety of explanations.

I don't think that Orwell was wrong to celebrate grammatical irregularities as the result of the resistance of human beings to regimentation. There have been many attempts to regularize language with different motivations and, let us say, mixed results.

I don’t understand what you mean by “we actually see internal images” or “ it doesn't make sense to suppose that we only see images when something's gone wrong.” — Patterner

Quite right. I shouldn't have allowed habitual forms of speech to take me over. But it illustrates how difficult it is to avoid misleading ways of putting things - especially when you're trying to demonstrate that certain ways of putting things are misleading. I'm sorry.

It follows that you are not on the wrong thread.

It is better (i.e. less misleading) to say that when we see an illusion of a bent stick in water we don't see an image of a bent stick, but we see a straight stick as bent. No image is required. I think this is what is saying. I also think that disposes of illusions.

I extended the discussion to hallucinations, dreams, etc. to register that there are other cases of getting things wrong that are less amenable to this kind of explanation. It is very hard to maintain that when Macbeth hallucinates his dagger he is misinterpreting something that he is really seeing. (Dreams are even more difficult, because we are asleep (i.e. unconscious) while we are dreaming.) The psychological explanation that Shakespeare expects us to adopt is that Macbeth is secretly guilty, but that doesn't help philosophically. I don't have a pat answer to that, so to avoid misleading you any further, I'll stop there, at least for the time being.

Does that help?

Has that question been answered in regards to when I see an actual object? I might suspect it would be the same answer, even if the source material is different. — Patterner

I think it has, in the second paragraph. My point there is that the idea of an internal image makes better sense in the context of an illusion or hallucination. The argument then is that if we actually see internal images when we see an illusion or hallucination, it doesn't make sense to suppose that we only see images when something's gone wrong.

Certainly, no part of my brain turns yellow and shapes itself like a rubber ducky if I see one floating in the water. — Patterner

Curiously enough, Aristotle has a theory quite close to that. But no-one takes it seriously any more.

But how was it achieved? — Patterner

It's a trick of language. Some people have a name for it - nominalization. This is the term used in grammar for the process of inventing a noun that corresponds to a verb. You'll remember that in grammar a noun is defined as the name of a person, place or thing. This true, but can be very misleading.

If I say a) "I'm going out for a walk", that may be grammatically like b) "I'm going out for a cucumber". So if you just look at the grammar, you will likely think that a walk must be an entity somewhat like a cucumber. But b) means I am going out to get a cucumber and bring it back but a) means I am going out to walk. A cucumber is an object, but a walk is something I do.

This is where talk of categories kicks in. A walk and a cucumber are both nouns, but in different categories. There is an entity that is named or picked out by "cucumber". There is no entity that is named or picked out by "walk".

Similarly, "bent stick" picks out an entity, but "illusion of a bent stick" doesn't. It is a nominalized version of "thought the stick was bent".

The main reason for insisting that this is the right way to look at it is this. If we suppose that some kind of picture is conjured up in my brain when I see a stick bent in water, we have to explain what the process of seeing it (the internal picture) is like. Then you will find yourself wanting to suggest that there's a picture of the picture in my head. You'll realize you are on the brink of an infinite regress, and so that there is something wrong. Positing the picture in my head doesn't explain seeing, much less my mistaken seeing. The story of the light getting bent as it passes through the water is all the explanation we need.

I hope that's helpful.

Excellent!

The next step is a standard move in philosophy. When we see something, there is something that we see - a table, a goal, etc. We can draw a diagram. (I wish I was more fluent with computers and could actually draw it, but you'll have to imagine it, or sit down and draw one.) There's a head on the left side of the page, facing towards the right side, and a table on the right side of the page; an arrow connects the eyes in the head with the table. In other words, seeing has an object and the person seeing the object is in a relationship to it; the two are entirely separate entities.

Now, the question is, when I see an illusion, what is the object that I see? The obvious answer is some kind of picture of a bent stick in my head. (The same argument applies to hallucinations, which is why I was going on about Macbeth, and it seems inescapable that the same model must apply to anything that I see.)

I maintain (and so do a lot of other philosophers) that this is a conjuring trick. But I don't want to go too fast, so I'll stop there for now to make sure you are not lost.

I'm sorry. I made an assumption and I was wrong. You're doing well.

Illusions exist, all right. They are perfectly objective. The tricky bit comes when we try to explain what they are. And this matters because of the grand question what the phenomena that we experience through our sense are, and how they relate to physics.

Useful background for this is this idea of a category mistake. See Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake

You need to go carefully here, because even though we say that illusions exist only in our consciousness, it's a metaphor. There's nothing wrong with that, until you try to make too much of it. Our consciousness isn't a place and doesn't have an inside or an outside. So the existence of illusions in our consciousness isn't like the existence of my lap-top in my house. Explaining the literal truth of the existence of illusions and other experiences complicated and difficult.

[

I am skeptical of phenomenal properties and argue that there is no "appearance of the phenomenal" (as opposed to the appearance being an illusion). — goremand

I agree with your point of view. But I'm inclined to be a bit more than sceptical of phenomenal properties, understood as a kind of screen or veil between us and reality. I think the idea is based on a naive realist view of language.

We sometimes think we see something that doesn't exist (as in Macbeth and his dagger). We say that Macbeth is hallucinating a dagger, which is correct. Anyone who isn't paying attention will be tempted to say that Macbeth is seeing a hallucinatory dagger. One can be forgiven, I suppose, for concluding that a hallucinatory dagger is an object like a dagger. But it isn't. It is a non-existent dagger and Macbeth is not seeing it. He is thinking that he is seeing it. If we insist that there must be something (some entity) that he is seeing, endless problems follow.

Illusions are a bit different. But there is the same temptation to think that we are seeing an illusion is an entity that we are seeing. But, as you say, an illusion is not an entity; it is a misunderstanding. There is a perfectly good explanation for making the mistake of thinking that the stick in water is bent and it is clear that there is no bent object of any kind involved (except possibly some light waves, which, strictly speaking are not bent, but refracted). The catch comes when we generalize. Physics explains to us what sound waves (or light waves or heat) are and how they explain our ability to see or hear feel what's going on around us. But then that old chestnut (!) about the tree falling in the forest arises and we feel we need to make a choice. Either the sound is there whether we hear it or not, or there is only a sound when we hear it. The choice is inappropriate, since we hear the sound when we interact with the sound waves. We can resolve the dilemma either way. It doesn't matter - unless one then wants to treat sounds as some mysterious entity between us and the tree.

Dennett's problem is that an illusion is only an illusion in the light of a description of reality and analysis of how things appear in terms of that description. He takes physics &co as not merely a description of reality, but as the description of reality. I call that a naive realist view of physics.

The idea that we perceive reality is often characterized as direct or naive realism. (I've never seen a view that one could characterize as indirect or sophisticated realism, which may be significant.) I'm sure you've noticed that I think there are naive views of some other things in circulation. I don't mean to be sarcastic, but characterizing a view from the outset as naive is hardly dispassionate.

It would be a mistake to cover all the ground in one go. I think that's enough for now.

To be able to flush out the deceiver as presenting a false identity, or the ignorant identity, we need to be able to look at something beyond the self-describing narrative as the true indicator of identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

H'm. I'm not sure that there is, or has to be, a "true" identity. Certainly, if you consider the multiple roles played by most people during their lives, it wouldn't be appropriate to insist that just one of them was the truth and the rest, in some sense, ancillary.

It's different with a sequence of narratives, and there is a temptation to treat what X accepts as X's life as primary or more important than other narratives. But consider Hitler's version of his own life and death with that of history. (He never accepted that he did anything wrong and blamed others for all the disasters.) Which is the truth?

Not all songs fade out, the best reach a harmonic resolution that completes and satisfies. Not all lives peter out incomplete; not all stories end in dots of unfinished business and regrets. — unenlightened

True. I didn't mean to imply that they all did, and most of them end with a harmonic resolution - completing and satisfying is not, I think, automatic. But my point was that the resolution doesn't just happen (although it may appear to). It is designed, constructed, not automatic.

A life that reaches a completion of some sort followed swiftly by death may well occur from time to time, but it certainly isn't automatic. I'm not sure that an incomplete life is necessarily ending in regret. I suspect that most lives end with unfinished business; life goes on until the end, and while life is on-going, business is on-going. There's bound to be unfinished business. Though, of course, opinions might differ about whether certain business is unfinished or not.

To stop and then start again, and to stop and never start again are two very different things. But when something just stops, how do we know which is which? — Metaphysician Undercover

We don't, not until the end of the story. Stopping is like dots at the end of the sentence, or the fading out of the music as the end of the song. You can't be sure that the story has ended - yet. And "yet" can be postponed indefinitely. There's a nice complication. Arguably, the end of a narrative is always, in a sense, arbitrary. Part of the art of the novelist/story-teller is providing an ending that is, somehow, satisfactory. (The same, of course, applies to beginnings) That's what makes a narrative artificial, in a sense. Is there, perhaps, an awkwardness about idea that narrative is identity. Not that it's wrong, exactly, but that our narratives and consequently our selves are constructed or adopted (like a role).

If identity was all in the narrative, then how would I distinguish one subject from another when you write in this thread, or another thread? Instead, I assign identity to the author, and look at any narrative as an activity of the author. This allows me to see unenlightened, with one identity, as the author of many narratives, instead of concluding that unenlightened has many identities, according to the many narratives. — Metaphysician Undercover

There's another complication here, (which I was about to trip over at the end of my last paragraph. unenlightened's link between narrative and identity focuses on the stories we tell ourselves. But other people tell their own stories, not only about themselves, but also about us. If our identity was entirely up to us, those stories would be irrelevant. But we are social (even if we are hermits). Worse than that, our very first identity is landed on us (or, as some would have it) we are "thrown" into our world, and we learn that identity and so learn what identity is. We adopt it for lack of choice; sometimes we rebel and seek to end that narrative and create our own. Others may go along with that, or may not.

I don't know how to articulate the next point properly, so I shall ask questions instead. What ensures that there is a single narrative throughout a biological life? What makes it impossible to live more than one narrative at a time? If the answer to those questions is Nothing, and a narrative defines a self, doesn't it follow that multiple narratives and multiple selves are possible? Apart from our legislation, what makes that conclusion paradoxical?

turn out to be mostly due to the need to fund research or push a certain theory. — I like sushi

Well, that's a point of view and it may be valid in some cases. But I think it is a bit unfair as a generalization. Presumably you accept that the science that can only be done in a community and a culture. The community may ignore ideas that turn out to be worth pursuing and may be mistaken, but there's no help for that.

In our culture, if you want to do serious work (as opposed to armchair speculation), you need to be recognized by the community and funded by someone. What's the point in having a brilliant idea if the community doesn't recognize it and no-one will fund the research that would prove it? You can sit on the side-lines and complain - perhaps rightly - or find some work that you can do. It's not ideal, but it is the way things are.

In short, compromise is not necessarily selling out. It is the price you pay for the support of your community - and you can't do serious work without that.

Philosophers can be much more independent than scientists. But it has to develop in the culture that the philosopher lives in and that will set the starting-point and although in theory philosophers can work in total isolation, I can't really imagine such reflection amounting to more than musings. To do serious philosophy (even for fun) without resources (books, etc.) and a community is not possible.

Philosophy only works with a delicate balance between disagreement (about issues) and agreement (about how to discuss them). With people who don't understand that, the only solution may be to walk away, unless one decides to take on a difficult (and often quite boring) negotiation.

It's not ideal, but it's the only game in town - unless you are very lucky or able to compromise.

I wrestle with this as well.

Everyone is on the spectrum, hence ‘spectrum’. — I like sushi

That's true, although the pedant in me hesitates over "everyone". But it seems that recognition of spectra of mental illness is quite widespread and accepted. Indeed, there seem to be fashions in this. ADHD, personality disorder, autism and Asperger's are all examples.

I'm inclined to generalize (which is always dangerous) and say that it is often useful to see mental illnesses (insofar as they can be defined) as over-development of one or another personality trait which is not abnormal.

I have two "buts".

1. That applies to certain "physical" conditions as well. For example, it is perfectly normal to carry some fat store. But obesity is a clinical condition. Yet it is not more than an over-development of something that is normal. Addictions are similar. Cancers are different, but not dissimilar. Apparently, all of us develop cancerous cells; they are usually dealt with by our immune system. The ones that become dangerous have escaped that process. And so on.

2. It is easy to forget that there are examples of conditions that used to be thought of as mental illness (or even moral turpitude) have turned out to be the result of physical issues. Indeed, don't we think that, in the end, there will be a physical basis for most mental illness?

The amount of misuses of quantum physics is already too many. — Darkneos

Yes, but as someone who has not been trained in any scientific subject, I have to be a bit more complicated about that. Scientists also have a tendency to lecture the rest of us on topics that they have no special knowledge of; it's very difficult to challenge them in the security of their specialisms. Yet, scientific knowledge has consequences and surely the rest of us need to have a say about that.

I'm not saying that you are wrong. (My own bugbear is the misuse of relativity theory.) But it seems to me that there is bound to be a contested area when it comes to the significance (and even, in some sense, the interpretation) of scientific theory. (It's a special case of the problem of specializations as silos. Specialization is very powerful, but has its problems.)

I can't deny something is really off about some of the users there. — Darkneos

I get that feeling from time to time and if it's known, that's different. But the attribution isn't just coming from a post.

It is possible that I'm a bit sensitive about mental illness. But I do mind that it gets thrown about in a casual way that bothers me. People don't talk about cancer in the same way, do they? I worry that there's a lack of recognition that mental illness is really illness.

You see how quickly his own logic falls apart which is why I think he's mentally ill. — Darkneos

Yes, I can see that. But I wouldn't move to a diagnosis of mental illness. Until they have been through some training, people are really not very good at logic. I have observed people who are clearly mentally ill whose logic is impeccable.

Specialisation is useless if such ‘specialisation’ lives in its own terminological frame wholly separate - or rather seemingly so - from more mundane matters. — I like sushi

Yes. That observation underpins the popularity of multi-disciplinary teams to pursue a project - particulatly a practical project. But the decision is a pragmatic one.

If we both see a dog in the street and one of us says ‘look at that dog’ we know what is meant. Objectivity in this sense in an object of understanding.

If you ask ‘what are you doing tomorrow?’ No one will fail to understand. What they can fail to understand are subtle inferences and reasons for asking/stating certain things. — I like sushi

I take it that you are identifying various reasons for communication failure, but not saying that there's always some hindrance to communication. That makes sense. Now all we have to do is to spot the hindrances when they apply and find a way round them. I would only add that it takes two to do that.

In a more general sense the primary question of philosophy (posed millennia ago) is ‘How should I live my life?’ — I like sushi

That's true and it is true also that it is still a live question for us. Whether the difference in context makes a difference is an interesting question. Also, does it follow from the primacy of that question millennia ago that it must be the primary question still? Or perhaps it may be primary for some people and not for others. Come to think of it, what makes it the primary question?

I am more or less for doing away with distinctions when they inhibit exploration. — I like sushi

I like the pragmatism about this. But does it follow that when distinctions encourage or even enable exploration, you are in favour? For example, I can distinguish between questions that I know the answer to and those that I don't know the answer to. Arguable, that distinction enables me to explore. Really, quite useful.

Which again sounds like Buddhism but that’s getting stuck at the “ultimate reality” and ignoring the “conventional” truth of reality. Or rather committing the mistake that thinking that something being conditional means it’s not real or doesn’t exist. — Darkneos

You're right. One might say that there is more than one reality, or that there is more than one level of reality, or that what is real depends on context, or that reality is subjective. I always want to insist that "real" is an adjective that distinguishes from "unreal" in all its many varieties. Either alternate is meaningless with a noun - what is it that is real or unreal? To put it another way "reality" is not an object or entity, but a property of objects and entities. I'll stop now, because it is very hard to capture the everyday use of the concept.

The idea that everything "just is" and nothing is very important is very helpful if you are anxious or confused and unhappy about it. I've taken refuge there myself from time to time. But if meaning is subjective, no-one else has to pay any attention.

I followed the link and read some of the posts. I picked out:- "In modern science ultimate reality is thought of as a place of no things, in other words, unmanifested energy, while apparent reality is a place of things/objects. Objects, however, are manifest energies, but I suspect they are dependent on the effects of energy on the biological subject's body. Seeing as we cannot escape our subjective consciousness, however, to date it is impossible to know."

I understand now much better what you were talking about. I should have done that in the first place.

It's surprisingly difficult to draw a line that would put serious or valuable philosophy on one side and BS on the other. Which is interesting. Our little demarcation problem. — Srap Tasmaner

That's the trouble with philosophy. It tips over quite easily and one can go over the edge and down a rabbit hole without realizing what's happened. Philosophy requires self-criticism, which is a difficult art at the best of times.

Unfortunately I'm not well versed enough in philosophy to call them on the BS. — Darkneos

I don't know how well versed you are in philosophy, but I think the problem is in the Dao De Jing. It is very appealing, but it is not really philosophy as we understand it - nor is it meant to be. It is better to think of it as poetry or rhetoric designed to promote a state of mind or attitude. And there's all the cross-cultural issues as well.

One might as well try to apply conceptual analysis to the "Jabberwocky" - though actually, there's an interesting point about nonsense and meaninglessness to be drawn from it. (It kind of escapes the distinction - never forget that Dodgson was a logician and so must have known what he was doing. (Nonsense was a thing at the time - compare Lear. I think that people wanted to escape from the age in which they lived.))

You ( ) got sucked into the trap. The ability to spot the trap and resist being sucked in is what I meant by "insulated". I claim some ability to do that, from bitter experience. That's why I restrained myself. You asked

And if you weren't restrained? — Darkneos

. The answer is, I've forgotten, and would rather not know.

If you don't want to listen to someone who just wants an audience, the best response is to walk away (or disappear in this medium). If enough people do that, they'll either go elsewhere or try something different.

Philosophy should be hospitable, but if it is a philosophical environment, philosophy's rules apply.

Perhaps we should be thinking about the time before definitions are in place. Except, how can we say anything at all - even articulate a definition - without some definitions, or at least mutual understanding, in place. Perhaps all we can say is that dialogue has to start with a mutual willingness to engage.

Oh! My mistake. Apologies.

Yes. I think it's important to be able to recognize the end of a chat. Then one can look forward to the next one.

This site is much saner and safer than the rest of the internet. — Srap Tasmaner

Quite so.

unfortunately the forum itself is not moderated, — Darkneos

This site is moderated. I wouldn't join anything that wasn't. There's a code of conduct (somewhere - I'm afraid I can't remember where). You can find out who the moderators are if you go to the members page (button in the banner at the top. and look for the "staff" button). If you get into trouble, you can send them a private message. There's a thread called "Bannings" where you can see something of what's going on.

Forgive me if you know all this already. But it seems possible that you don't.

It is true that this site has a very hospitable policy. The thing is, there's a dilemma here. It's about what philosophy is or should be. In one sense, philosophy is for everyone; everyone is involved with philosophy even if they aren't aware of it. If one restricts philosophy (for example, to what's academically respectable) one limits it and neglects much of its influence. That seems a bad idea to me.

By its nature, philosophy (in some sense) cannot exclude crazy ideas - for example, the brain in a vat, the evil demon and so on. It is better to at least try to confront them (gently, because it is easy to provoke a row, which is almost always counter-productive or frightens people away). There are no quick wins, though, because one of the tests is whether people are capable of admitting they are wrong, or at least taking a new idea seriously.

One learns who will actually discuss ideas and who simply wants to sound off and gather "followers".

I'm just a little worried that the damage might be done. — Darkneos

Yes, damage can be done. That can't be helped; it's in the nature of the enterprise. Philosophy seems like a safe space and in many ways it is - specially behind an avatar (I call it a pen-name). But, like a virus, it has its dangers. There's a kind of insulation needed, so that one doesn't end up obsessed with the evil demon or the absurdity or meaninglessness of life. I hesitate to say, not taking things too seriously, but it's like that.

You say that but if you take a look at my discussion with them in the threads where I replied it seemed like there wasn't any point to what they say. They're just asserting things and then when questioned attempt to refute me by saying what I am saying is a contradiction or paradox, even though every criticism could apply to them. — Darkneos

I recognize the problem. But would insisting on a definition help? Wouldn't those people ignore you anyway? One could try it, of course.

Part of the problem here is the difference between the intellectual structure of debate and debating in practice. A definition is needed as part of the intellectual structure of debate, but is not necessary in practice. In practice, all that's needed is agreement - not even a comprehensive agreement, but an agreement for present purposes.

From this message:-

I am simply pointing to the nature of contradiction in things, as well as absurdity, to practice 'unlearning' things.

There's an unstated programme behind this. For me, it is an example how careless generalization, not paying attention to complications, can generate ideas that I can't follow. (I'm being quite restrained here.)

You're right. That's remarkable. :smile:

But then, I suppose some people act as-if they believe they can ward-off death with prayers, or with accumulated positive Karma. — Gnomon

Quite so. There are two strands to those stories. Wishful thinking and control of the population. IMO. I've never found them particularly interesting or effective. After all, people often still fear death even if they believe in an after-life, and seldom show much relluctance to do what they believe will bring eternal punishment.

What did Marcus Aurelius say about death? — Gnomon

Yes, I'm very fond of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. It's hard to believe he could hold down his job and think like that.

In a way it's a problem of having too much information to wade through, rather than relying upon a social instinct of reciprocity, and getting lost. — Moliere

I agree that the ambiguous role of money as a medium of exchange - a measure of value (in a practical sense) - and as a good to be exchanged leads to all sorts of problems, which might be better avoided. And I agree that it is hard to see how money could be what it is without writing.

But there are advantages to the ability to plan and organize that you get from having writing. (Most of the earliest writing is mundane stuff like inventories and records.)

And there's a good case for saying that a lot of what we get up to is the result of (over-)elaboration of our thinking which depends at least on language and very likely on writing.

well if we are using two definitions then we’ll be arguing past each other. I would argue it is necessary because there are slippery folks out there who don’t clarify their position to hide behind the shield of being “taken of of context” or “misinterpreted” (cough Jordan Peterson cough). — Darkneos

I would argue one of the fundamentals of proper philosophical discussion is clear and unambiguous definitions. Clear definitions lead to clear arguments, and clear points of contention and debate. — Philosophim

Both of you are right, in principle. But in practice, it seems to me better to wait until specific and relevant differences about the definition of terms emerge. The search for a definition in the abstract can throw up irrelevant issues; resolving them is a waste of time.

On the question of definition, there is a problem that if you insist on a clear definition of terms as the beginning, you are quite likely to end up arguing about the definition and never getting to the substantial issue. Yet it is also true that disgreements can often be resolved or at least clarified by clarifying terms. So definitions can be useful. At the beginning of a discussion, they can serve as axioms, to be questioned later or on another occasion. During a discussion, they can be useful as a way of resolving merely linguistic issues. But they need to be treated as useful rather than necessary.

Before I get to the economy, some thoughts on the question what distinguishes humans from other animals. Each species of animal is similar to and different from every other species. It's not very exciting, philosophically speaking.

I suspect that even though other animals are perfectly aware that they are different from other animals, they don't care very much about that. It's not just that they can't (so far as we can tell) because they don't have a language like ours, but what they care about is whether the other animal is something to eat or be eaten by, whether there is competition for food and living space and so on. Cross-species friendships are not unknown.

The question has a long history. In some ways, of course, it is like the questions that other animals can ask an answer, but it seems to carry some weight for humans that it doesn't carry for other animals. I don't really know the answer, but I fear that it may carry the some unspoken weight:-

1 the weight of assuring us humans that we are superior in some moral sense to other animals (as shown by the fact that "animal" is used as a term of abuse in some contexts) and that the reason people sometimes feel that other animals are superior is because of their "innocence" (cf. children), which is ambiguous praise

2 the weight of justifying our dominance over other animals in the sense of justifying our abuse of them or at least our practices of treating them as means to our ends.

We don't think very much, do we, about the various ways that various animals are superior to humans? We think they are not important. That's telling. Like me feeling superior to you because of X, while failing to acknowledge that you are superior to me because of Y.

So I'm uneasy about this game we have got into. Still:-

It is true that animals don't have money and live in an ecology rather than an economy. Money is a key feature of economics; so is property. Neither can exist without the law.

But what makes money work is not the law, but people's confidence in it as a store of value. It doesn't matter whether the sea shells are fake or not. What matters is whether people are confident that they will be able to exchange them for "real" things, like food and shelter at some point in the future.

Don't think of money as value, think of it as a symbol - a claim - on resources. We don't value the empty promise to "pay the bearer"; we value the promise of being able to obtain the things we want and need.

I'm hopelessly idealistic because I think that every citizen has 1) a claim to a basic standard of food, shelter and other necessities irrespective of how "useful" they are and 2) a duty to contribute to the shared costs and labour of the social organization they live in. (And every human being has a right to be recognized as a citizen of some society/nation.)

I don't think those principles are left wing or right wing. They are principles of enlightened self-interest.

PS Of course, human beings are special in all sorts of ways. But I'm human and so inclined to pay special attention to them. My problem is that I don't understand what the significance is of the differences and similarities between humans and other animals.

I think if we could agree that there has to be a continuation of consciousness in some form for the narrative self to continue, and that consciousness can continue without the narrative when the tale is 'completed', and that this completion and continuation is very rare in this world, then that is all I would seek to defend as my belief here. — unenlightened

That seems like a good summary, but I worry about complications.

Ironically, emotional investment (cathexis) in one's own story may cause us to fear (pre-mourn) the end of the narrative & narrator. — Gnomon

There are cases where fear and pre-mourning may not happen, don't you think?
People who risk their lives sometimes seem, at least not to fear or pre-mourn their death. You might argue that's not really the case and some of them may be putting on a brave face; I wouldn't want to rule out the possibility in advance.
People who are dying slow agonizing deaths may welcome the end and even choose to walk before they are pushed, so to speak. There may well be fear there, but the mourning appears to be more for the process of dying than the death.
I guess you're saying that fear and pre-mourning are the usual, normal, default situation. Maybe.

That painful bummer in the middle of the story has been evaded by ancient sages in various ways : acceptance, denial, sequel in heaven, etc. — Gnomon

I agree that for most people that is the usual situation. It depends what you count as the end of the story, and maybe whether each person's story can consists of several episodes, link by continuing consciousness. There is an alternative:-

I think if we could agree that there has to be a continuation of consciousness in some form for the narrative self to continue, and that consciousness can continue without the narrative when the tale is 'completed', and that this completion and continuation is very rare in this world, then that is all I would seek to defend as my belief here. — unenlightened

But some would have us imitate the innocence of animals by living in the moment, and ceasing to explain & judge ourselves as protagonists in the Self-story. — Gnomon

I agree that the innocence of animals implies no judgement. But whether we can cease to explain and judge ourselves" only by imitate (acquiring?) the innocence of animals is another question.

But for humans, that would mean losing the most important thing in the world, Me. :smile: — Gnomon

I wanted to respond that of all the things in the world that you cling to, your self is the one thing you can't escape, for better or worse. But One can lose oneself in a number of ways. Temporary loss by absorption in some activity or spectacle. Episodic loss by multiple personality (though I admit that is a contested concept). Permanent loss by amnesia. Loss by life change, as in becoming a priest or a monk or other major change - would entering witness protection count?

There is much to be said for the narrative about the self-narrative (in one form or another). But isn't it a mistake to mistake it for the whole story? The many varieties of narrative and the many disruptions of narratives that get into self-narratives show that they cannot be the whole story.

One always stands outside the narrative to describe it, but it is always oneself one is describing so it is always a narrative self (or a log-book self) and one is never outside it — unenlightened

Yes. So one is always two selves. Or perhaps one self stands in two incompatible relationships to the narrative. Or perhaps there is no outside and no inside because that's a metaphor which is misleading in this context.

H'm. I need to go carefully here. Which way is straight ahead?

One cannot do philosophy and Zen at the same time, except perhaps in something like the manner of the early Wittgenstein. (The unanswered (and unasked) question is whether he continued that way in his later work. But that tells us nothing.)

If you do not answer, you go straight to hell, but if you answer you continue the fictional map. — unenlightened

If I go straight to hell, I continue the fictional map. Unless I'm already there.

I think it is unnecessary. — unenlightened

I'm not sure about that. What does "necessary" mean here? Some Western philosophers have propounded the answer that there is no self. Buddhism is quite clear about why it is necessary (and how it is not).

I can talk about narrative, though. Here's what bothers me.

What kind of narrative are we talking about here? Whose narrative are we talking about? (You said mine, but I can adopt someone else's and I will probably have more than one narrative about myself.)

Narratives are often disrupted. Sometimes someone else's narrative collides with mine. Sometimes I disrupt my own narrative, whether deliberately or accidentally. Sometimes "events" disrupt my narrative. We can modify our narrative or throw the old one out and make a new one. Whatever we say or do, there is always something "outside" our narrative and narratives are never permanent, even when we are dead. What are we to make of this?

I distinguish between a narrative and a log book. A log book is a series of dots. A narrative connects those dots. Is a log book a safe and satisfactory option?

If your map has no territory it is not a map. Or if it is a map, it is a fictional map and consequently not your narrative.

I'm tempted to suggest a Zen cure. Go for a walk, have a cup to tea and a good night's sleep. Or perhaps Hume's cure for scepticism would suit you better. According to him few days' living a normal life would sort you out, though he clearly preferred a game of billiards.

Modern philosophers still sometimes fall into the error of thinking that all there is, is language. They forget that language consistently, insistently, point "beyond" itself. There is no beyond, it is just that language exists in a world, which continually impinges on it. Your narrative is about something outside the narrative - you - and it is continually broken into and messed about by reality. That's what sits behind my nit picking. How about you are what disrupts your narrative?

I do take you seriously, but straightforward argument is not going to get you back to normality, is it?

Yes, I have been there. There is a life afterwards, when you get the right balance.

self fades in and fades out, but is always the same, except on the Dark side of the Moon. — unenlightened

Your account of a train of thought as we experience it is a good one. The saving grace is that a train does at least connect internally and can be connected externally. So it's different from the stream of consciousness. I like that.

Whether the self is always the same is a good question. Your account of the train of thought suggests not, doesn't it?

I'm not sure there's a good definition of the self, apart from whatever I recognize and/or assert (which may be inconsistent!).

awful evolutionary psychology is — Moliere

There's much I don't know about it, but, like many other people, I encountered sociobiology (E.O. Wilson) when it was fashionable. I live in liberal - even woke - circles. Do I need to say more? But I'm not assuming that that's all there is to evolutionary psychology; I do assume that it's not appropriate to speculate without a good understanding of the field and evidence.

they have rigid practices, but since they do not need enforcing then that's not an example of law. — Moliere

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I agree that ants and bees don't have enforcers, so don't have laws.

That's similar to law, but not quite the same — Moliere

Mammals do have a kind of enforcement, but they don't have legislation (partly, they can't have that because it requires writing). But there is at least one alternative. The Icelandic parliament used to appoint people to memorize the laws and recite them when the Thing (Parliament) met; I believe that was down to widespread illiteracy and the scarcity of writing materials. Anyway, what matters here is that somehow you have to ensure that everyone knows what the law is; writing, on stone or paper or whatever, is good. But if that's not practical, appointing a Memory person can fill the gap. I conclude that we have identified two things that are essential to human law - one is a means of enforcement and the other is a reliable source for what the law is.

Paradoxically, your narrative gives continuity even as it suggests discontinuity, of the approximate form - I am awake, then I sleep and then I am awake and then ... and that is my actual life. — unenlightened

That clarifies a good deal. Sleep and unconsciousness are not really interruptions, but part of a narrative - a cycle in the case of sleep, and an incident in the case of unconsciousness. Fair enough.

Still, it seems to me that when you speak of a narrative, you don't mean a log of my experiences, but something more structured with successes and failures and diversions and so on. Is there a reason why we can't find more than a single narrative in our lives?

I think if we could agree that there has to be a continuation of consciousness in some form for the narrative self to continue, and that consciousness can continue without the narrative when the tale is 'completed', and that this completion and continuation is very rare in this world, then that is all I would seek to defend as my belief here. — unenlightened

There's a lot here I agree with. Narratives are an important part of how we think of ourselves and the world around us. But aren't there complications? For example, biographies are actually constructed by a biographer who selects and arranges; often the unity of their narrative is broken up by themes and/or episodes. Perhaps a third person's narrative about me is not what you have in mind. But autobiographies are not reallly any different. In any case, I'm not sure that anything much unifies my actual life apart from the continuity of my consciousness (I'm being generous there, since sleep and unconsciousness are interruptions in some way.)

Perhaps you mean the narrative I construct as I go along, even though I may forget or abandon those drafts?

And actually I am hesitant to utilize evolutionary explanations for our emotional life, — Moliere

I think evolutionary explanations are useful from time to time. But to think they are THE explanation is to fall for the myth of origins (Derrida? or someone else?). We are equipped with ears, and their evolutionary usefulness is the best explanation (short of an account of the evolutionary process) that I can think of. But what we make of them is a different matter.

"Species" is not a hard category — Moliere

Yes. I once read "Origin of Species" all the way through. The biggest takeaway for me is that he spent vast amounts of time arguing that species are not hard and fast; he argues it every which way he can think of. It is the foundation of evolutionary theory. What's more (as Darwin points out) we mostly know it already. Evolution takes our practice of selective breeding and pushes it through centuries and millennia.

do dolphins have laws? — Moliere

I don't know enough about them. Bees and ants seem to have rigid practices which do not need enforcing. Mammals are more complicated and do seem to need to enforce the rules - which are made and enforced by the alpha dog/lion/chimp. Are they sufficiently like laws to count? I'm not sure whether it is important to give a definite answer. Perhaps noting the similarities and differences is enough.

Oh, and no joke -- I thought you were uncertain about the locution since it invokes various meanings, but your later post suggested that you were uncertain about the concepts, so I thought I was off-base. — Moliere

If you mean the concepts of "wary", "fear", "anxiety", you were right, not in the sense that I don't know what the words ordinarily mean, but in the sense that I was working out what to say about them in this philosophical context.

Hence, there was no blunder on your part. I couldn't see why you thought it was a blunder, which suggests something that you should have avoided. That back-and-to was, for me a normal part of the process.

Being an auto-didact is neither here nor there. I'm out of date. Hopefully, we're both learning. That's the point of the exercise.

Writing in the big sense is the cliche: Everything is text. Writing in the small sense is what we're doing to communicate as homo sapiens -- with words we usually recognize as writing. — Moliere

That makes sense. How far it interprets Derrida, I couldn't say. I read some of his earlier work carefully and thought it made sense, at least in the context of Wittgenstein. The later work lost me completely and I had other preoccupations, so I never read it carefully.

If you are a master of interpreting texts, everything is text. But isn't that like thinking that everything is a nail because you've got a hammer?

I have a prejudice against "what differentiates us from other animals". I'm constantly finding that proposed differentiations don't work. As in this case. A dog interprets certain of my behaviours as threatening and others as friendly - or so it seems to me. (They are also like a horse and not like a horse). Animals are both like humans and not like humans, in ways that slightly scramble our paradigm ideas of what a person is (i.e. a human being). So, philosophically at least, slightly confusing. Mammals are seem to be more like us that fish or insects, never mind bacteria and algae. Those living beings seem so alien that it is much harder to worry about what differentiates "us" from "them". Yet they are like us (and the mammals) in many ways - the fundamentals of being alive apply to them as well. (But what about whales and dolphins?)

Ah! Then another blunder on my part here. — Moliere

:smile: I'm going to take that as a joke.

I want to simultaneously maintain the distinction between Writing and writing — Moliere

I'm sorry. I haven't heard that distinction before. Could you explain, please?

I'm content with changing the locution from "wary" to something else — Moliere

I didn't mean to suggest that. On the contrary, I think that "wary" is perfect (as near as one ever gets, anyway).

Thus the rationale that we make for what plants do because the ones that didn't died out. — unenlightened

Yes. But that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it. After all, who else is going to make explanations and seek to understand?

Thanks for the link. I'll have a look.

By the way, I'm still thinking about "wary". It's not the same as fear or anxiety, not obviously an emotion or a mood, more like a policy. https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/wary defines it as "having or showing a close attentiveness to avoiding danger or trouble". The lists of synonyms and antonyms is interesting. No emotions or moods occur, yet clearly "fear" and "anxiety" are related.

Is "meh" a feeling? The feeling of not having a feeling? — unenlightened

That fits with my impression. But I'm not at all sure I've really understood it properly - which may be framing it wrongly. My impression includes the impression that it is as much a speech act as an emotion.

I could almost define anxiety as the fear of fear, but I wouldn't defend that if it doesn't fit. — unenlightened

That makes sense.

I think the standard distinction between anxiety and fear in academic discussion is that anxiety is said to be a mood, rather than an emotion. Part of the difference is supposed to be that anxiety doesn't necessarily have an object, whereas fear does. I tend to think of it a fear looking for an object. But that's not the whole story. If I'm anxious about rising prices, it's not the same as fearing them. Perhaps because the danger is a possibility/probability rather than real.

But the verbal dimension compounds this fear through the imagination. — Moliere

That seems perfectly true. But there's a big and difficult problem, compounded by the idea that emotions are introspectible, so that second/third parties have limited authority. Yet we do not accept first person reports as entirely authoritative. This ambiguity fuels the difficulty in understanding the rationality of emotions. The problem is particularly acute when we want to apply the framework of emotion where language is missing (yet the framework of action is at least partially applicable). I'm talking about what some people call embedded beliefs.

Shades of grey, on the border between categories. Partly empirical, partly conceptual. Hence difficult for philosophy. Nonetheless, important for understanding human beings.

The fear is still there, of course, otherwise the thrill wouldn't be there. — Moliere

Yes. It is convenient for understanding this that adrenaline supports both fight and flight. Hence the term "adrenaline junkie".