But it's not. A trans person behaving like that is 'woke'. And specifically, it's 'woke' because it was a cynical attempt at identity politics for sales point percentage by Bud Light. It has (almost) nothing to do with the simple fact that Dylan is trans and advertising beer. I wouldn't be surprised to find out we've been advertised to by trans people for beer in the past. I, and anyone I know, simply don't care about that. Its the surrounding ideological problems.

o is it the case that anyone that isn't white, male, Christian needs to hide? — Mijin

I have no idea where this has come from. This is the kind of response that definitely Fire and I, perhaps others, find infuriatingly out of step and possibly a form of 'gotcha' we need to ignore. No one has said, intimated or even vaguely referred to anything of this kind, including both the AE and Bud campaigns.

I think perhaps you're missing a few tricks. We can explain everything we currently know without fairies. NDEs, specifically, are a world away from requiring fairies. Unless by 'fairies' you just mean unexplained phenomena. Perhaps, but I still think you're giving it more than it's worth.

Yes, but sort of at a higher level than seems we're on. I mean to say that you can't give a criteria for the 'self' to being 'self-same' isn't quite available. Whereas, the initial piece of art (in our exchange, Guernica) is exactly that piece of art, without having to establish any criteria beyond that it is itself (being painted by x at time y etc..)

I can't see that your further comments then make sense: I could not point to a 'fake self' and support my pointing. I could do so with a piece of art, given I was actually capable of spotting fakes (or, had some evidence of provenance showing it was not the original). It doesn't seem available to the one claiming 'fake self' to do so.

the replica would not know he wasn't me — Patterner

I find it quite exciting that we actually do not know whether this would obtain.

But he wouldn't be. — Patterner

I certainly agree - but humour me - is your take that there's a set of interlocking criteria (these atoms, at this time, in this configuration) that cause someone to be 'you'? Obviously, I take there is only one shot/possible 'you' in this, just asking in that form to get clear response.

Between a fake piece of art and a self? Not at all. If that was an impression I gave, I apologise. That is wrong-headed and doesn't support what I'm saying at all.

My point is that a 'self' is not comparable to a piece of art, because there's an absolute limit to what's called the original piece.

I agree, but we do not entertain the idea of fairies beyond stoned bonfire chats (which are great, do not get me wrong. I love delving into speculative stuff. But here on TPF that's not the bag, imo).

I assume you mean if I don't know.

Becauase there is absolutely no reason to entertain all comers. I will entertain theories with something (even a lick) of indication they might be true. Fairy stories do not fall into this category.

You have devolved into someone not worth exchanging with. That's a shame, as some months back you were consistently contributing well across multiple areas of the forum.

Take care of yourself.

Yes, in a manner of speaking. I think you can successfully convey thought, but its incidental to two, separate, sets of similar-enough internal dictionaries looking up the same words in the same context. But hte thought itself cannot leave the mind. I would like to hear how if you do disagree..

But that is a desire to avoid (as you noted) our ongoing responsibility for (and to) what we say, which also creates the philosophical fantasy that one puts their meaning into words, and the rest is only interpretation and what we “read into them”, say, “take” offense at. — Antony Nickles

But that is factually true. You cannot 'get' anything from my words which aren't already in your mind. It isn't possible, on current knowledge. There is absolutely nothing in 'trying to offend' which includes the other person's offence. It just isn't there... There's a stark difference between things which can offend, and offence.

here is no single way of categorizing things as real or not. It depends on what kind of thing you are talking about. — Ludwig V

I still don't think you'll get a particularly clear criteria unless its contextually baked in. I think conceptually, its really hard to say one way or the other on any example.

I cannot say I am surprised at how quickly you got off the boat. A shame, because it is quite obviously a silly line of thinking.

Absolutely not. This is evidenced by the fact that non-white, gay, trans, weird people do things constantly, in all contexts and we only ever hear anything about it when its preachy, invasive, irritating or obviously performative. The issue, for many, is that any time one of these group do something vaguely noteworthy, they are praised as some kind of supernatural Hero. Literally:

Its grotesque football-passing, virtue signally nonsense. Those of us who notice call it out. It didn't used to be like this.

I've answered it multiple times. It's a shame you can't read simple sentences and also don't know anything about the law despite pretending to. — boethius

I see you immediately devolve into insults and ad hominems. Interesting.

I am telling you that you have said nothing that answers the question: What suffering am I undergoing in the scenario i gave you.

You haven't answered this. THe rest is not much my problem.

You may not suffer if you don't care about your privacy, but this would cause suffering to most people knowing that I have their private personal information when I shouldn't.

As I've stated already multiple times, the suffering also requires becoming aware of the invasion of privacy. — boethius

And now you seek to sneak in answers you refused to give previously. Gotcha.

Here's the 'something extra' i, multple times, noted was required. You now accept it. Great!

I wouldn't speak for them. I reject it. I just don't know if its actually false. Thats all i can say, I think.

Would you accept the "treatment"? — hypericin

This is a weird one. I would want this for my loved ones, if they could accept the clone. Otherwise, I wouldn't accept it.

By posing this question you are importing the notion that there is a metaphysical, persistent self that may or may not persist. — hypericin

Not at all. The answer can, squarely, be "none". Which is my answer, in the event. I see why it looks that way though.

But there are no underlying facts to support these beliefs, since there is no metaphysical, persistent self. — hypericin

So you say.

In any case, you've ignored hte issue. You listed these 'facts' in a particular context. It seems that was unintended. All good mate :)

These aren't comparable at all, imo.

A piece of art exists under certain descriptions, as a factual object. Guernica, the one painted by Picasso in 1927 is what it is. There is 'criteria'. It is that object. I don't understand any controversy or question here.

Any other Guernica might be indistinguishable, and if one is convinced of the deception, the effect is the same. The object isn't all that important - belief about it is. I merely pointing out there is an objecting "this piece of art by this person" which creates the cache. Not the object itself

You're identifying the wrong problem.

The problem is that those who did respond jumped to 'Nazi'. "Overt eugenics". "white supremacy".

No one has overblown either side of this one, as far as I'm concerned. I am also extremely reticent to believe a poll about offense to an ad campaign - how embarrassing to hit Yes even if you are.

Totally fair. If you have somewhere, I can send it directly to you.

I think you're identifying a different issue (but a good one to discuss, for sure).

The problem with my position, when objected to, is not the separation of thought and meaning - but words and meaning.

I can hope you interpret me correctly. I cannot ensure it (probably because of the incommensurability of thought). All i can do is retrieve words and sentences (utterances) which reflect, as far as I'm concerned, what I mean to say - once these leave my mouth, the meaning is lost until it reaches your mind, and you interpret it against the 'meanings' you have in your internal dictionary for those words and sentences (utterances). This is why you can fail to make someone laugh, or get offended. My meaning might be "disgusting black freak", but because I used words for which that interpretation is esoteric, I fail to offend person A.

I do not think thought and meaning can quite come apart, but they can be... stretched... from one another.

That might be true, but I did specify structure. The structures (and their structure, if you see what I mean) is essentially identical between us. Your biography, unless it includes injury, shouldn't alter that.

We share a 'direct of best fit' type of organ-based perception. We are aware that others can have aberrant structure or detail within this system. So those people don't share the same system, and they don't see what we report to be Red.

We don't always report the same thing, either.

Structure of our perceptual system is what we share. When that isn't shared

Edit: Sorry mate, I hit submit by accident way before I was ready. Not trying to be sneaky or anything.

Sure, but they are wrong. — Banno

According to you (and me, to be clear). And we've been there. In any case my point is that ignoring them is how you get invaded by barbarians. So, i agree with what you've said at the top there (but subjectively), but I don't think waving it away as 'wrong' is going to help anyone. I find it lazy and somewhat irresponsible. If its so reprehensible, we should probably be aware and even possibly activated by its globally significant presence and more particularly the small incremental attempts to move these sorts of thinking into Western societes in the name of inclusion or religious tolerance.

Ill reply to the below comment on it's own to avoid the ridiculousness of chronologically out of place discussion.

These rely on our reports of what they do to our perceptual system though. No instrument detects the 'red' humans do (and some humans don't, even on the same 'sense data'). The descriptions of frequencies as colors is a tertiary categorisation, i think. Primarily, we have an actual wavelength and the measure troughs and peaks, as esesntially a physical description.
We then have 'light' as a descriptor of varying intensity and other things (speed, concentration etc..). We then, third, name the experience 'red' (in certain contexts). These are tenuous relationships to the word red.

I also understand that in optics, frequencies are not considered colors. They are considered causes of colors. They are considered a physical property of light which our brain interprets to be color x. Other animals may have totally different phenomenal experiences of the same wavelength (it seems we know they do).

"The Role of Human Perception
It's important to remember that color is a psychological and physiological phenomenon, not a fundamental physical property of light itself. Light waves have frequencies and wavelengths, but they don't have color until they are processed by the human eye and brain. Our eyes contain specialized cells called cones that are sensitive to different ranges of frequencies. When a mix of frequencies enters our eyes, our brain interprets the signals from these cones to create the perception of a particular color. This is why mixing different colored lights (additive mixing) or pigments (subtractive mixing) produces different results."

This can go awry, showing that color is a phenomenal experience. Calling frequencies colors is mere convenience for the lay-person.

Pretttttty much. But its a bit trickier than just that, because we must have an internal 'meaning' to utterances (at least their parts) before we can even entertain an utterance. But our internal meaning can be wrong, so clearly is not coming from the person uttering x unless it is an explanation of the parts of some other utterance.

I would say intent and thought can be given - but their actual meaning and relevance is up to the hearer (well not 'up to' but reliant on).

The discussion stemmed from talk of what is 'real'. Some hold these views (possibly, most). We cannot ignore it. I find your response above emotionally satisfying, but essentially unhelpful and lazy. It happens and we should grapple with it (I think, obvs lol - do what you wish). I think this came directly from the idea that some religious will argue that Heaven is empirically real. The argument would run similar to that round hte fact that I have never seen x but rely on reports of it. I should do the same with their reports of Heaven. I rejected that this is a good way to determine real, but that it is clearly showing us that there is no universal acceptance of how to categorise things as real or unreal.

Ok, you're right that "honour lkillings" are an exception. — Janus

I am not sure these are 'exceptions'. I rather think the Western, Enlightened model is the exception. That may lead to digression, so I'll just note that disagreement.

as though it must have been their fault and they are now forever defiled. — Janus

This is a particularly pernicious thing which only recently changed, even in the West. Marital rape was legal until like the 90s.

motivated by dogmatic religious views which effectively dehumanize them. — Janus

I agree, but that is considered a morally astute and respectable way of dealing with such things. *sigh*.

they understand that their faith is for themselves and should never be inflicted on others — Janus

This seems to me, a personal impulse and not institutional thing - the most wild of our religion offenders tend to have broken with orthodoxy and instead look to the scripts themselves. The 'old testament' types, that is (or, the Wahabis). Another issue is that the increasing, and somewhat aggressive attitude of religious immigrants is that the society into which they go should accommodate their beliefs - this, to me, being a matter of taking advantage of religious freedom (or misunderstanding it, i guess).

But if you allow that different wavelengths of light reflected from things are colours then they would be thought to exist independently of percipients. — Janus

I think they are used in both ways, but the answer to "What is red" is never a frequency. Largely because that's an unsupportable answer... Describing an experience is fine, but that's not something that 'red' can be, in this context. It is the weird stipulations of philosophy that has us calling a bundle of seemingly un-causally-related facts about perception, the world and our bodies "red" (notice, I need not enter into the discussion about perception for this oddity to become clear).

100% repulsive, both in reasoning and action. Utterly barbaric.

I see no reason to - so I want a reason to. We are here. All else is here. That's all I can find..

This wasn't for me, but I read it and I have thoughts.

I think the problem is so much simpler than the chapter illustrates (and it seems most intuitions capture). If there is a 'perfect fake' of lets say Guernica, the only difference we should be able to note between the original and this fake is that it is not the original. It was not painted by Picasso, at time X and is unique In context - it is obviously just as unique as the original in principle).
Someone purchasing Guernica for say $100millionUSD, they aren't buying a painting, per se. They are buying a biography of a painting which was commissioned in 1937, painted that year, displayed in the Pavilion, it's statement against Franco etc.. etc.. etc.. all the wya up it arriving on the auctioneers stage.

It can be made impossible to know this. But it is intuitively almost universal, from what I've seen, that one, if they knew, would be mortified by their purchase. I think the same fits with the Teletransporter. If a repllica knew they were a replica, they would spiral into a crisis. If their friends knew they were a replica, they would likely find it canny, and reject.

Again, I don't see the problem? Why would we assume there's purpose to anything?

That said, you may be interested in one of my profs work

I'm not moved by it, but if you're wanting to maintain some form of purpose or fundamental meaning to existence/the universe, he's good some good ideas. I just don't see why we would be pushing for it, if we can't see it already.

I think most people are against rape, murder, child abuse etc — Janus

I have to say, I'm not so sure. Billions in communities outside the West see, for instance. Honour killings as a requirement, morally. All but the victim will agree. Just an example, but its these things I'm speaking out (while trying not to target religious thinking). This may ultimately not be all that important, though.

all others to be of their kind―humankind unbounded by religious bigotry and cultural antipathies — Janus

I agree. But even within communities who see each other as 'kin', horrifically violent actions take place with support of the law, and one's family, all the time. The femicides in China/Japan, the constant and unbearable mutilation, rape and murder of women in both Muslim and Hindu societies, the belief among certain sects of immigrants that these notions should be important to the West among other things tell me we could probably count more people OK with rape and murder than not, on a principle level. We would, obviously, disagree with them - but there are billions, as I understand. The death penalty for apostacy or atheism in seven countries seems to speak to this also... I do hope I am just a little over-alert to this, but I fear I am actually under playing it. We in the West tend to assume people share our moral outlooks, when that's probably one of the biggest areas of global disagreement and disharmony. We cannot co-exist with countries that deny women education, for instance, and still be 'moral' by our own lights.

I don't deny that there are sociopaths, those lacking in normal human empathy, who don't have a problem with violent crimes. — Janus

Unfortunately, I think a quote from Sam Harris bears repeating: There are good, and there are bad people. Good people do good things. Bad people do bad things. But to get a good person to do bad things, you need religion. Ah fuck, now I'm just bashing religion. Perhaps I shouldn't be so reticent. It is poison.

which cannot be empirically determined — Janus

We see it among that which can be, though. I'm unsure its particularly reasonable to presume everyone accepts "empirical evidence" as actual evidence. Those of us who understand what you're saying will do, but plenty (perhaps most) do not. They are skeptical of 'evidence' unless it agrees with their feelings. You and I would want to jettison this, and assess it against the claim, rather htan our feelings. I suggest this is far more common, and far more obvious than you are allowing here.

Yes,...but are symbols of numbers) — Janus

Nothing to quibble with here. I guess I just don't understand why the response I get isn't satisfactory. I don't know that anyone claims numbers exist outside examples of number. Or that colours exist outside examples of color (though, perhaps Banno would).

I don't see how. That meaning lives within your head - this is the basis for misunderstanding, right? You react badly to something I thought was clear, and we have an impasse. There are two reasons I can reject the thesis, fairly readily:

People get offended where no offense was intended, or reasonably interpretable from the utterance; and
Intentions to cause offense routinely fail.

This shows a relationship between two things, which must, on both ends, co-operate, for someone to be reasonably offended. But it also shows that offense is not in the utterances.

I'd be interested if it isn't too theoretical. — Tom Storm

Ok, here you go. Nothing amazing but explains in more detail why I think the things I do, hereabouts mentioned.

On your further comments, I think you're describing (and it sounds like you see this too) what people do in the face of certain speech/activity. This doesn't tell me about what those aspects of speech are, or how they operate. Again, a failure to offend seems to put paid to the idea that you can offer one offense in an utterance. You can goad someone into becoming offended, sure, and as noted, we should avoid that. But this doesn't tell me anything about the utterance, I don't think. If you substitute offense for humour, it should be pretty clear that only internal expectations can create the result of an utterance.

This is the origin of the meme of life as a kind of cosmic fluke. — Wayfarer

I don't see that this is a problem. If you weren't suggesting so, sorry. It seems so..

I admit, I do not know what you are asking, really. But on its face, no. It isn't. It can't be.

Well, it's not though. It is not possible for my actions to be offense, or to be offended. The offense exists solely, and inarguably, in your reaction. This is why transitive offense is a nonsense too, but that's another issue. I don't mean to be rude here - but this is an empirical matter. I cannot give offense. It is not open to me. I cannot package your emotions and send them over to you. Not possible.

Your point is taken, that we should be mindful how we interact with people, and I agree. But being impolite is not causing offense. it is being impolite. Being offended is its own genus and arena of thought, to my mind. I recently wrote a short essay on this topic with focus on slurs if you have any interest. It is incomplete as I was too ambitious - but i still got a 92 lol

but the idea that something is real if it's genuine and not real if it's a fake is robust — J

I think that's true, but uses of genuine and fake are various. I know you've taken my point, I just want to be clear that these concepts are not as cut-and-dried as they may seem to all.

I see you continue to refuse to answer the simple question posed. OK then. That is a shame.

You made the claim. Stop answering with questions, and answer the one posed to you. Nothing in your responses gives me any reason to think you have an answer to this.

What have i suffered? This requires an actual answer, not continuous prevarication. My claim is it is nothing. I cannot prove a negative. You must convince me that you receiving information out of my personal email account results, prima facie, in my suffering.

A: You receive some clandestine information about me.
B: Nothing else has happened, as I gave this scenario and I am telling you this.
C: Where's the suffering ??

You do not have an answer it seems. Have a go! Your answer is restricted to responding to this scenario. If you move beyond this scenario, you are not answering the question/challenge.

You state, without qualification that C should be my suffering. Where is it?

You made a claim. I've challenged it. You are not answering hte challenge. So be it.

Further, I didn't say that. You claimed it about me. I asked a specific question you are refusing to answer.

In the scenario I gave you, what suffering have I endured?

The actual problem is in figuring out which persistent self(s) exist. — Mijin

If at all... It may be that (as with further fact types) there is no perdurance occurring in the machines output.

You could answer the question, please good sir, instead of prevaricating.

In the scenario i just gave you, what have i suffered, without something more? It's nothing, isn't it?

I cleverly avoided this fate by never growing up. — praxis

:lol: Nice. All too telling (not about you, to be clear)..

Offense is not given. So yes, it does as that does not obtain.

At every moment, you experience things: sensations from the world, and sensations from yourself. These are facts of experience. — hypericin

You outlined facts about the teletransporter and said they obtained in those terms. If that wasn't the claim, i suggest that was incredibly unclear. But fair enough. I don't argue with the above.

one still experiences, still maintains a self concept, — hypericin

I do not think this is correct, and explains some of what I see as dead-ends in your discussion.
The facts are that you(a) walk into the machine, and someone(b) walks about. Someone experiences. The point is to figure whether you think "still" even applies to (b). Or whether the same "one" applies to (a) and (b).
Within the way the experiment is written, that someone does have the same autobiographical sense as the one who walked into the machine - that's already a given, and not something we are supposed to ascertain. The point is is sort out whether that matters. Parfit says yes. I say no for the same reasons you have outlined: MY mind stops having those experiences, even if a mind doesn't. The fact that someone thinks they are me doesn't mean they are. I gave a possible example of why that could be the case (the atom identity issue) which was unsatisfactory. I agree, it was just to point out that you can solve the issue by saying that person cannot be you for physical reasons, and ignore the mind part. But again, I also find that unsatisfactory.

The point of all this is to say that I think you've slightly misunderstood the thought experiment becuase you're not addressing certain aspects which are written in. Maybe the branch-line case is a better one for your purposes.. seems so to me.

I have just realised I've addressed much of this to Mijin, recalling their posts in kind with yours. Sorry about that - points remain, but you can ignore references to things "you" have said before.

The comic: The answer the Devil gives is not satisfactory and does not answer my potential response, despite my not being satisfied with it myself. Unless we have reason to think that each time we sleep, we are disassembled and reassembled, its a totally misconceived response, changing nothing about the intuitions involved.
The man is utterly perplexingly stupid to me, and is making wild moral miscalculations. More importantly (and demonstrably) the comic seems to ignore the biggest issue people have: "he" is not a given on the other side of the machine. There is no guaranteed "me". There is just someone, and our job in the thought is to decide what we think of that. Not whether we disagree with it. If the psychological relation is enough, that's fine. If it's not, we have work to do. I think this is fundamentally being misunderstood by a lot of people. Parfit just gives an answer I don't like, but runs the same avenues to get there as I have.

Invasion of privacy in itself causes suffering under Western jurisprudence and I would also argue just as a fact regardless of what our legal system says about it.

Which is why invasion of privacy is a crime. Of course, the suffering is once the victim knows about it. — boethius

I've asked what suffering. You've not answered.

You receive information from my personal email account (clandestine, we assume). What have I suffered ? I shall short-cut this.

I haven't. Something more is required. Most Western Law even requires harm or damage to be established before a conviction or punishment will be metered out.

But it's not really defesnible since 'emprical' refers to the shared world of phenomena. — Janus

This is where I think the problem lies. They will say "I have direct knowledge of this, as do other Christians" (or whatever sect). You and I would largely reject this, but we also do not know their phenomenal experiences. Maybe they have... (this is unserious, but hopefully illustrates).

Admittedly some of the "agreement" may be lip service only. — Janus

Yeah. Even then, I think there are some good reasons to reject this position (meaning, it seems more people are serious about it). There are, on many reliable accounts, billions who do not find rape, murder, child abuse etc.. objectionable, when posited by a religious doctrine (or, rather, required by it). I suggest this is probably more prevalent than most in the West want to accept (and here we also need take into account the types within the West who perhaps feel these ways. We have enough abusers around for whom the Law is not a deterrent it seems).

but if we allow that philosophers in general are among the smartest people — Janus

If this is just a claim to an average, I think it's empirically true. I do not think your next claim follows. Among the 'smartest' people, you're likely to get more disagreement as each can bring more nuance and see different things in the same sets of data (or, different relations). I don't think this has much to do with feeling, though I am not suggesting we can avoid feelings when deciding on theories, for instance. But assessing theories is the job of the minds which can move beyond feelings into "whether or not the feelings are reasonable" type of assessments. Plenty of people appear to be incapable of this. But we may simply have different expectations here. I'm unsure there's an answer.

So when asked as to where the numbers and universals are to be found if somewhere other than in human thought, no answer is forthcoming. — Janus

Huh. I've had several give me what I think is a satisfactory answer. Something like:

"real" in relation to Universals obtains in their examples. The same as "red" which is obviously real, "three" can exist in the same way: In three things. Red exists in red things. I don't see a problem?

This is important. "Real" is perfectly clear and useful in most contexts, because we know how to use it. — J

I think this is an assumption based on a curse of knowledge type thing. What is 'real' is hotly debated socially (if you have a diverse social group, anyway). That's my experience, and my experience in the online world too. I think more and more people think "metaphysically" when assessing 'the real' these days. Not very good fundamental education anymore.