I didn't realize he was a thorough platonist. So you are as well? The image on the mirror is the sharable sense?

I was thinking about meaning today. I have a problem with the concept of a sign. It's supposed to be a signifier/signified combo. I don't think an isolated sign has any meaning, though. I think it has to appear in a complete thought (a complete sentence?) in order to be meaningful. Could be off topic?

I have loads to say about that one suggestive little change to Frege's account, but I'm curious to see what other people think first. — Srap Tasmaner

My mind was blown the first time I came across a person who even considered the notion that an idea might be somehow owned by the stuff in an individual's skull. And Frege was part of the discussion... it was about abstract objects like numbers.

How would Frege's view fit with a platonic account?

(Y)

It's this kind of thing:

:)

Dude. You'd never heard of Gloria Steinem?

Yes. Really.

From a compatibilist perspective, Anthony Kenny, Freewill and Responsibility, is a favorite of mine, and it is written in an engaging style. From an incompatibilist perspective, Michael Ayers, The Refutation of Determinism is hard to beat but it is both difficult and hard to find (though there might be cheap second hand copies available). You will easily find papers by Michael Smith or Kadri Vihvelin online. (See for instance Vihvelin, Free Will Demystified: A Dispositional Account). Erasmus Mayr's Understanding Human Agency is excellent but not cheap. Also quite relevant, and excellent, are two papers by Don Levi: Determinism as a Thesis about the State of the World from Moment to Moment and The Trouble with Harry (this last one is available online and is especially relevant to the principle of alternative possibilities). — Pierre-Normand

Thanks dude!

Yea, but you can follow Gloria Steinem and about 10 other awesome feminist groups on Twitter. Ahhhhh.....

Do you have any reading recommendations on that topic?

I was also interested in first-person data, subjective experience... is there a compatibilist perspective that considers that kind of thing?

Stop talking when the holy dude answers your question about hell by cupping his hands together and saying that religion is about loving another person.

I didn't mean that Wosret would intentionally employ assholes if he was the Emperor of All.

You'll probably employ a certain number of assholes though. You can't keep track of them all.

Cool. Where does so-called first person data fit into their analysis, or does it? I'm thinking of Searle wiggling his finger as proof of will. I think he'd agree the evidence he's witnessing is subjective.

Hmm. Confusing. I think compatibilism is an off-road to nowhere. I'm a contradictionalist. :)

For sure, this is a common way to be a determinist. In his book The Refutation of Determinism, Michael Ayers (London: Methuen, 1968) calls this sort of determinism actualism. Actualism, as applied to human and natural powers (e.g. the powers of objects) yields the denial that objects (or humans) have unactualized powers. But the sort of conditional analysis of dispositions and abilities proposed by the new dispositionalists show that actualism isn't the only option. (And their view was anticipated by Michael Ayers although he isn't, himself, a compatibilist or a determinist) — Pierre-Normand

But I'm not getting how the dispositionalist is offering an option. Determinists don't disagree that talk of logical possibility is valuable.

Would you want someone to ask such a thing about you in particular? — Agustino

OMG. Why didn't I think of putting my name in the thread title instead of hers? Oh well.. doesn't matter now.

In order to adapt this sort of analysis of powers (or dispositions) to the problem of free will, you may have to identify the 'triggering condition' of the agent's practical abilities with some feature of this agent's rational will. In that case, the agent who choses to steal a book didn't actualize her power from refraining to do so. This doesn't show that she didn't have the power from refraining to do so, anymore than a sugar cube remaining dry shows that it isn't soluble. — Pierre-Normand

A determinist like Schopenhauer simply notes that apriori every event can only have one outcome. If the outcome of a die roll is that the 5 is face up, it is not possible that the 2 is also face up.

Talk of the "power of the die roll to produce a 2 face up" is an analysis of logical possiblity.

I thought you were talking about that scene from Innocents Abroad where they were standing around looking at Christopher Columbus' signature. That was hilarious.

Yes. I know what you mean. What some people in the emergency department are thinking about the dude with little charcoal stumps for hands and feet is that if he survives and wakes up and starts talking, we'll all discover why it would occur to somebody to douse him in gasoline and throw a match. People get jaded by their experiences. The whole population just becomes one giant loudmouth jerk that somebody needs to sedate.

At one time I would have said it was about recognizing the humanity of various kinds of people... not really about kindness.

It could be rolled back. Sure. It just takes the right set of circumstances. There is sexism sleeping under the leaves waiting to sprout. I think what I learned from this thread is that there's no point in fighting that.

So if Harry were to argue for intensional definitions, would he be arguing against Witt? Or just talking past him?

So he was promoting semantic externalism?

There's ideas and there's ideas. When you use the phrase "my grandmother," I can understand you without experiencing the memories you do when you say "my grandmother." And a good thing, because I cannot experience your memories. So there's something else that I can and do get, if I understand you, and that other something is the meaning of the words you speak. — Srap Tasmaner

Witt was arguing against the idea that communication involves some communion of memories?

Maybe it would help if you explained what viewpoint Witt was trying to counter with "meaning is use."

Thanks. I was sort of trying to discuss the massive changes that took place in the 20th with BC.

Over here, there's a Hulu TV show that's caught a lot of attention. It's an episodic production of Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. It's about a future where all those changes have been washed away by a biological disaster. Somebody was saying that the show is hitting a nerve because of Trump.

I think it's true that immigrants are sometimes more conservative than their home societies were. I can think of a couple of examples of that.

To mean what they meant is to say that you share their same intentions. — Harry Hindu

It's to say you're willing to assert the same proposition. If John says "Two is a prime number," we'd have to look to context to understand why John is saying this. Does he intend to correct someone else? Is he teaching math?

If you repeat that two is a prime number, you may do so without the same purpose as John, but you're still asserting the same proposition.

I'm going to try to develop that physical awareness.

So when the release happens, do you become aware of what it's associated with?

Oh, so don't fight nature. Let things go as they will. That makes sense.

How do you force a release? Meditating? Yoga?

It's the intent to harm, and lower you on the status pole that matters, and isn't merely an intent, but these behaviors are used amazingly effectively, and result in the same kinds of destruction to the victim. — Wosret

So what do you do about it when someone comes along who's being really effective at this sort of thing... so much so that people you've known for years side with the malignant person over you?

Delve deeper? Try to see what psychic stuff it's related to?

I think some of the worst violence is emotional. There usually has to be a bond of love to begin with for that kind of violence to happen. But with that bond in place, another person can totally fuck you over from the inside. It doesn't leave any outward scars. It can leave you struggling to find perspective.

That's a dimension of the Catholic priest abuse thing... the emotional violence. Maybe bringing the truth to the light of day doesn't fix the offender. It might keep somebody else safe from the offender though.

It's attempted emotional violence with a smile on their face. — Wosret

'The Devil is not defeated with violence, but with laughter.' -- could have been a Nietzsche quote... who knows?

Just laugh at them back. I had this weird situation once where an obscene phone caller kept calling me (I was young). I was shocked at first, but on one occasion he called and caught me in a goofy mood. I burst out laughing at his ridiculous speech and he never called me back.

When the toxic person arrives, do they poison the environment, or are they subtly knocked down, retaliated against, and put into their rightful place? What's done about them when identified as the enemy? — Wosret

In the nursing home? It would just be a sort of banishment. Whatever the toxic person is dealing with: they'll have to deal with it on their on. Say the toxic woman was sexually abused by her father and she had to deal with him over the weekend and it sucked emotionally and she would feel better if she could talk about it to other women. She's stuck with it though. Nobody will talk to her if she has a history of being a jerk.

But if the girls were young, just remember that young people try out stuff. They aren't always expressing their true emotions. If you can, just overlook it?

Neither. It just shows that your telepathy skills suck. For a lot of people in the late 20th, it's like the ghost of the patriarchy was around.. maybe from childhood observations. But the real world was chaotic when it came to gender roles, family structure, etc. Sometimes a lot of energy would go into trying to deal with that chaos. One imagines past generations weren't burdened so much with that?

I'm Gen-X. It just occurred to me that the gap between my experience and yours might be a barrier to communication about it. Anyway.. I wasn't talking about anthropology. The OP wasn't either. If he had been, he wouldn't have abandoned this thread to waltz around this forum randomly congratulating and complimenting posters.

You answered my question as if you're a consulting anthropologist.

Like I said, I don't actually know that. You'll have to fill me in. — Wosret

I can tell you about AT&T. Everybody I worked with was male. The environment was consciously patterned after the US military (which, like Napoleon, adopted the Prussian military organizational scheme.)

This visual came to me one time. All the men were like giant grapes. Normally, they'd be plump, but occasionally big Meany would pass by and suck the juice out of everybody in his path leaving a trail of dried out raisins. I perceive that we do that a lot on this forum (some more than others.) When it happens, I think in the back of my mind that the sucker probably had all his grape juice sucked out by some other Big Meany... maybe his boss, maybe life in general?

A female dominated environment is a nursing home. I worked in one for a while. One huge difference is that there's no purpose to a nursing home the way there is to a business like AT&T. There's no goal. The job is finished when the patient is dead, but we're not trying to accomplish that.. you know? We're just doing the same things people have been doing since there have been people... wiping butts, feeding people who can't feed themselves, over and over.

One odd feature of that environment is a sort of emotional cloud that develops. Everybody contributes to the cloud and everybody partakes of it. Probably the fact that after a while everybody's menstrual cycle is happening at the same time is a factor. The "female ethics" is in that cloud. If you're feeling like a raisin, that cloud will support you... without much reasoning or goal to it. It's just what people have been doing since there have been people. Whatever is going on with you.. other people can feel it.

Does that make sense? If a really toxic person shows up, either environment has its own kind of immune system. But then... some people are so toxic that they're actually lethal.

I came along when there were prescribed roles. Maybe you swore you'd never step into that sitcom, but due to the power of archetypes or whatever, you did it unconsciously... And the fun continues.

You didn't deal with that kind of shit too much, did you?

Well what is female ethics then?