I am comparing different mental disorders, and pointing out the fact that because transgenders suffer from some kind of mental disorder, they should be treated as such. — Emptyheady

How do we treat someone as if they have a mental disorder?

What perscriptions do you offer?

If you catch a man dressing up as a woman, do you have them committed?

We are dealing with a mental disorder, like anorexia. Not Yolanda from yoga lessons. — Emptyheady

Anorexia has objectively unhealthy ramifications on physical health, and that's the only reason really you can say that we ought to necessarily intervene in the life of an anorexic individual. But because transgender individuals are not necessarily inflicting any bodily harm upon themselves whatsoever, what necessary right do you have to intervene?

Anorexia is defined as a disorder where people perceive that they are not skinny enough and continue losing weight to the point of risking their nutritional and bodily health. The disorder is only recognizable when people begin to compromise their own health by not eating enough, and we only intervene because they're harming themselves.

At what point does transitioning into the opposite gender become objectively harmful?

When do we get the right to intervene and what exactly gives it to us?

The fact that transgenderism is listed as a mental disorder?

If it was not listed as a disorder in the DSM would we not have the right to intervene?

Let me explain what I mean with the word indulge. Their mental capacity is defective regarding judgements relevant to their own mental disorder. Therefore, another person with good judgement has the right to (and I would even say "ought to") intervene and override some important decisions that the person with mental disorder wishes to make -- a paternalistic approach. Suicide, starvation and surgery that permanently affect your life are what I consider important decisions. Decisions that someone with a mental disorder cannot make and no one should co-operate (i.e. indulge) as if that person has good judgement. — Emptyheady

In the 50's our society used this line of reasoning to castrate homosexuals. We thought that since homosexuality was as bad as chopping off limbs and death by starvation, we went to heinous lengths to try and end it.

So when an individual tells their psychiatrist that they want to transition, the psychiatrist should be issuing a hard "no" in every case, right?

Or are you just saying that since transitioning genders is an impactful decision, we should not let anyone make that decision alone?

None of this is controversial, since there are already laws in place that override your autonomy. For example, you cannot just go to the surgeon and ask him/her to cut off your legs without any medical reasons. That surgeon has to refuse it by law, if he/she does not that surgeon will risk some serious lawsuits. You can consider those laws as paternalistic, but they are there to protect vulnerable people who are either temporarily or permanently incapable of making good judgements. Interestingly enough, those laws are there even for people who do not suffer from a mental disorder. People who do suffer from a mental disorder have to live an even more restrictive life. It is simply evil to indulge them in their mental disorder. — Emptyheady

So when doctors perform sex change operations on individuals who have, with outside assistance, decided to transition, they are comitting an evil act?

Clarify what it is you're saying...

By not indulging in their disorder. Like anorexic -- which someone else exampled here -- do not indulge them by telling them: "you are right, you are fat, stop eating". No, she is starving and needs to eat healthily. The dangers of her conditions should be clear, she in danger of dying. — Emptyheady

You're comparing death by starvation to "behaving as the opposite gender". Obviously nutritional health is more cut and dried than psychological health; your comparison is poor.

Strawman. Nice of you to squeeze the words "all universally sound medical advice," which I never claimed. Given that we are dealing with someone who is obviously suffering from some kind of mental disorder, we can't indulge that person. For the same reason you do not indulge a suicidal person. But instead save them. The person in the video says: "I just want to die." According to you, you should indulge him. — Emptyheady

Who are we dealing with? ALL transgender people? We should never indulge anyone with a mental disorder, and transgenderism is a disorder, therefore never indulge any transgender people? What exactly is the straw man? That you're talking about all transgender people or just that your opinion might have been an attempt at medical advice in the first place?

It's pretty hilarious though that you would accuse me of misrepresenting your position (a strawman) and then go onto accuse me of advocating death by starvation or suicide.

Is transitioning actually analogous to suicide?

How your Leftists mind can twist this is impressive. I will leave that to Haidt to explain. It may be just the tendencies of the Left to virtue signalling. — Emptyheady

Did you know that accusing someone of virtue signaling is exactly the same kind of argument as virtue signaling? "I have virtue, therefore my arguments are correct" and "I virtue-signaled, therefore my arguments are incorrect.". They're both fallacious appeals to character that fail to address the relevant argument

What was the virtue to which I was signaling my allegiance by the way?

And I am not making things up, it is officially recognised as a mental disorder:

"The terms transsexualism, dual-role transvestism, gender identity disorder in adolescents or adults and gender identity disorder not otherwise specified are listed as such in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases (ICD) or the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) under codes F64.0, F64.1, 302.85 and 302.6 respectively." — Emptyheady

Kindly correct the flaws in the following representation of your argument:

P.1: Mental disorders should not be indulged
P.2 Transgenderism is a mental disorder
C.1: We should never indulge transgenderism

Indeed I did read it, well parts of it anyway...

This is the bit that led me to question it's methodological robustness:

Over four months, our research team fielded its 70 question survey through direct contacts with more than 800 transgender-led or transgender-serving community-based organizations throughout the United States. We also contacted possible participants through 150 active online community listservs. The vast majority of respondents took the survey on-line, through a URL established at Pennsylvania State University.

Additionally, we distributed 2,000 paper surveys to organizations serving hard-to-reach populations – including rural, homeless, and low-income transgender and gender non-conforming people conducting phone follow-ups over three months. With only $3,000 in dedicated funding for outreach, we paid stipends to workers in homeless shelters, legal aid clinics, mobile health clinics, and other service settings to host “survey parties” to encourage respondents whose economic vulnerability, housing insecurity, or literacy level might pose particular barriers to participation. This effort resulted in the inclusion of 500 paper surveys in the final sample.

While over 7,000 people completed online and paper surveys, the final study sample includes 6,450 valid respondents from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Our geographic distribution mirrors that of the general U.S. population.

I'm no statistician myself, but it seems like there is no clear method of sampling whatsoever, and I could not find anything detailing how they discriminated the raw data to ensure that their sample is a representative cross section of all transgender individuals.

But this was not my main criticism of the 41% statistic. My main criticism is that suicide is known to be caused by things like poverty and social isolation/ostracization, which in many contemporary social settings are direct results of "transitioning". Until a tranny is said to "pass" (believably pass for the gender they are trying to conform to) everyone knows that they are different, which leads to social difficulties of many kinds, while the actual cost of transitioning is high (possibly with no upper limit) which makes them at a greater risk of poverty. The point is that being transgender does not in and of itself make an individual 41% likely to have attempted suicide at least once, it has also largely (and perhaps primarily) to do with the accompanying difficulties and social ills which are typical of the average transgender experience in the western world. The study in question acknowledges this several times...

I'm sure right now you're thinking: "Oh this bleeding heart liberal is just making this argument to be PC and deny reality", but I urge you actually consider the position you're taking. You're saying that because the statistics of transgendered lives paints a bleak picture, that this therefore gives us easy and instant knowledge and insight into the true nature of the phenomenon behind these statistical realities.

Saying (essentially) that transgenderism is an intolerable disease because of statistical disparities is just like your average social justice warrior saying that western society is a white supremacist system because of statistical disparities between races. Yet still you inherently presume understanding of the gambit of psychological causes which mechanistically lead to the statistical realities of transgenders, just like how the average social justice warrior presumes that psychologically white males carry out oppression because of privilege preserving angry bigotry inherent to their culture/society/biology.

I know why you're trying to take no bull shit, as it were, and it's somewhat praiseworthy in the current cultural zietgiest where unsophisticated rhetoric is the most commonly accepted unit of intellectual currency, but you need to make sure that you don't tend toward symmetry with your opponents. It might be the easy route, but if you want to raise the standards of debate in the long run you will have failed.

The truth as I see it is that gender dysphoria is probably discomforting or even painful. Gender identity disorders surely are not desirable if pain and suffering or a deprivation of happiness accompany them, but when someone does turn up with a gender identity disorder (and they inevitably do and have done throughout history), what should we do to help them?

Should we not tolerate their their condition in the sense that we use therapy to repress their disordered feelings and thoughts? Should we forbid or hospitalize them from attempting to transition if transitioning in any form increases risks of unhappiness or self harm?

I wonder whether or not the risks of transitioning, even accounting for the poverty and social problems it causes, are not still outweighed by the harm that we might cause by preventing people from attempting to do so.

Surely everyone who gets it in their head that they want to be a different gender should not be instantly taken at their word and given a box of hormone pills, but evidently there are some for whom the decision to transition is the result of lengthy contemplation and exploration of alternatives. Transsexuals can in fact successfully transition, with or without an actual operation, and so I remain thoroughly convinced that your suggestion that their dangerous ailment should never be indulged is not at all universally sound medical advice.

We don't have that many examples of successful transsexuals from history (yet there are still many good examples) probably because the most successful transsexuals went completely undetected, as do thousands upon thousands in the modern world.

To give a bit of clarification on that 41% number, while the methodology of the study I'm guessing you've cited (linked by EmptyHeady?) was not so robust in the it was an almost wholly uncontrolled method of sampling with a smallish sample size to begin with (they had a small budget and it's probably hard to gather statistical data on a socially rare phenomenon), but casting that aside for the moment, the study itself concluded that the link between GID and suicide has much to do with the social and economic ramifications of transitioning rather than the disorder itself.

A staggering 41% of respondents reported attempting suicide compared to 1.6% of the general population, with unemployment, low income, and sexual and physical assault raising the risk factors significantly...

The National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH) reports that most suicide attempts are signs of extreme distress, with risk factors including precipitating events such as job loss, economic crises, and loss of functioning. Given that respondents in this study reported loss in nearly every major life area, from employment to housing to family life, the suicide statistics reported here cry out for further research on the connection between the consequences of bias in the lives of transgender and gender non-conforming people and suicide attempts.

Easy. The delusion is the belief that you are a man when you were born a woman, not that you have a penis when you have a vagina. — Harry Hindu

You're conflating belief with desire. All transsexuals desire to become the opposite gender (in whichever capacity that is possible), but they don't all "believe they are the opposite gender".

You have to establish something about the desire to live life as the opposite gender, but instead you've just presumed that all transsexuals hold beliefs which contradict biology.

Having a vagina is what causes them stress. It flies in the face of the reality they built for themselves, which is why they have a "sex-change". — Harry Hindu

If having a vagina is what caused pre-op FTM trannies stress, then getting rid of the vagina altogether would solve their problem right?

No. It's their lack of a penis which causes them "stress", not the presence of their vagina. There's a difference between cutting off an unwanted body part and modifying a body-part into something more desirable.

This is no different than a man who believes his arm doesn't belong to him, and cuts it off. Like I said before, people with delusions can behave normally but when it comes to their delusion, they seem crazy, like attempting to cut off your arm, or having a "sex-change". — Harry Hindu

Obviously cutting off an arm is going to leave someone physically disabled, but giving them a sex change is only going to prevent them from having children (presuming they were not already incapable), so in order to really make your comparison work, you're going to have to equate the ability to have children with having two functional arms..

It's blatantly a false comparison. People have elective surgeries to tie/snip their various reproductive tubes all the time. So is a vasectomy is analogous to cutting off one's arm? Is taking birth control or wearing a condom is analogous to tying one's arm behind one's back? Is it the result of somatic delusion?

Are people who choose to never reproduce suffering from a somatic delusion?

There are three functions of human genitalia: Reproduction, pleasure, and pissing. Reproduction is the only function lost during a sex change, which is also the only function lost during a vasectomy. Considering that nobody has a prehensile penis and it's not true that in home country, PUSSY grab YOU!, comparing a sex change to the cutting off of limbs is decidedly less apt than comparing it to a simple vasectomy or tubal ligation procedure. Even cutting off your baby toe would be less apt of a comparison because toes help with grip and balance while penises and vaginas do not.

When a transgender says that their outside doesn't match their inside, ask them how they know the problem isn't on the inside. Question them about what it is on the inside that is different. — Harry Hindu

Did you once meet a transgender person who communicated their condition in terms of "insides" and "outsides"?

Sure, there are transgender folk out their who are downright lousy with delusions of the somatic variety, but I contend that there are transgender folk out there who are not. Not all trannies hold any or all of the example delusional beliefs that you've presented.

Do they believe in souls and is it the soul that is different than the body. If the say no, then what else could it be other than a mental problem? My point about souls is that they either believe they are a soul in the wrong body, or they have a mental problem. What other reason could you use to account for their belief and behavior when it comes to their delusion? — Harry Hindu

This deserves some sort of "false dichotomy" of the year award. A false dilemma (or a "false-dichotomy") is a fallacy where two possibilities are presented as if one of them must be true when in reality neither of them might be true or there are unstated alternatives to the two possibilities presented. So you've basically said "either souls exist or I'm right that all transgender people hold delusional beliefs". But (and this might be just some crazy hypothesis but) what if both souls didn't exist and there are some transgender people who don't hold delusional beliefs about the way their biology works? Is that really so hard to imagine?


The desire to transition toward the opposite gender is not a belief, it's a desire. If you want to describe that desire as in and of itself "a mental problem", then please explain on what grounds it is problematic. Problematic for reproduction? For the species? Have you been reading this thread? O.0?

It seems to me that too many people go straight to the ethics and politics of transgenderism, when we need to first address the cause of transgenderism. — Harry Hindu

Well back on page #3 I wrote a very lengthy post exploring some evolution-endowed genetic, epigenetic, and hormonal mechanisms which give rise, in rare cases, to individual biology predisposed towards characteristics of the opposite gender. While it is arguable that psychological development can be wholly responsible for leading an individual to a state of "desiring to live as the opposite gender", it is highly probable that in many cases hormonal predisposition is a significant contributing factor in psychological development. I'm not saying that the endocrine system causes direct or specific thoughts, but the vast array of reasons that an individual may have for wanting to be the opposite gender can be indirectly contributed to by hormones via things like physical development. You're not really exploring the possible causes if "mis-gendered souls" are the only alternative to somatic delusions that you can come come up with.

In my opinion people go straight to the ethics of transgenderism as a means to condemn it, including by describing the cause as mental illness (or in this case, the irrational belief that one's body is somehow broken). If you want to understand why I'm trying to separate morality and ethics from having unorthodox desires just read the title of the thread. While some transgender individuals might hold delusions about "their insides" (whatever it is they might actually mean by such a vague statement), not all transgender people do because somatic delusion is not the fundamental cause of all cases of transgenderism; wanting to be the opposite gender is.

Consider this hypothetical: There is a machine you can enter and inside a button you can press which will instantly change your DNA and your body to the opposite gender but leaving your mind un-altered. If someone went in and pressed the button because they wanted to, would you say that they necessarily wanted to as the result of a somatic delusion?

"People with delusional disorder often can continue to socialize and function normally, apart from the subject of their delusion, and generally do not behave in an obviously odd or bizarre manner."

Delusional people can function normally but when you question them about their delusion, they cease to be reasonable. The become incorrigible. This is a symptom of a delusion - of rejecting reality and replacing it with your own.

I am questing the validity of their claim which you don't seem to have a problem with questioning my claims, or the claims of the religious which are also delusional, but aren't consistent in questioning transgenders. This is what I mean by being inconsistent. — Harry Hindu

The problem I see is you have only described delusions that might apply to some but not all transgender people. You wield your position as if it applies to all of them, but as I have been continuously pointing out all of the example delusions you have put forward are in no way a necessary part of transgender psychology.

For instance "believing you have a penis" when you actually have a vagina is a delusion. But what about transsexuals who know they have a vagina, and then have a surgical operation to create an artificial penis?. Afterward they know they don't have a "real" penis, but they know they have something that approximates one, and that fits well with their desire to live out life as a male.

Where is the delusion?

I'm not entirely interested in ferreting out all available somatic delusions for analysis. When it comes to souls, I don't believe in them, but if you're going to try and argue that wanting to be the opposite gender is necessarily a somatic delusion, I'll happily start pointing out what else might be a somatic delusion in order to force perspective.

Got any proof whatsoever of that?

I won't hold my breath.

They believe that their body doesn't match their "inside". They believe that they were born in the "wrong" body. In other words, they believe something is wrong with their body when there isn't anything wrong. This is a somatic delusion. People with somatic delusions are incorrigible and absolutely convinced that the delusion is real. So when you question them about their delusion, as if they could be wrong, they get easily offended - you know, just like those religious types. — Harry Hindu

As far as I can tell they desire to have a body of the opposite gender. That they might say they were born in the "wrong body" has more to do with their personal preferences than any possible "somatic delusions". They simply make a choice about what makes them happy.

.

Just think about it for a second without getting caught up in the politics and ethics of it. These people believe that they have a soul or spirit that is somehow imbued with either masculinity or femininity that is opposite of their body's masculinity or femininity. Do souls or spirits have a quality of masculinity or femininity about them, and can souls be placed in the wrong body? — Harry Hindu

Do you actually think the soul exists? I would call that a somatic delusion.

Most transsexuals (the one's i've met) don't offer up completely retarded explanations along the lines of souls or insides and outsides or any of the like to explain why they are transgender. They will tell you that they are happier living as the opposite gender. and that's their founding reasoning.

Are you really questioning "delusions"? Or are you just questioning a lifestyle choice that you don't fancy?

What happens when you tell them that they have a vagina when they believe they have a penis? — Harry Hindu

What if they're post-op?

Buckle up buckeroos...

Ok, that is a good point I have to concede that reproduction is not the be all and end all in our CURRENT society. But I also belief we should all be multiplying at the faster rate possible so that we can create more geniuses per 100,000 stupid people. Geniuses advanced our society and make life better. Thanks edison, einstein etc. — intrapersona

More people more problems. You're presuming that as our maximum number of geniuses grows out ability to take care of all the extra idiot by-products will not proportionally scale together, or unfavorably for Einstein's odds. There might be a limit to how many morons an army of Einsteins can actually manage.

Yes but it says nothing about the principle that is occurring here. It is delusional thinking to claim you are something you are not and we all saw what christianity amounted to over the last couple thousand years. — intrapersona

I don't exactly see the necessary delusion anywhere. The trannies that I know have no delusions about their genitals or their chromosomes. What they do have is a strong desire to live out life as the opposite of their biological gender, for whatever actual or perceived reasons. They don't actually delude themselves...

I did read that and found now evidence to conclude that transgenderism is somehow beneficial in terms of genetic variation.

Do you have any examples of how what some call aberration can eventually turn out to be indispensable innovation in the past in humans or other animals? — intrapersona

Strictly speaking we don't have a full grasp of genetics and psychology yet so we more or less only have bits and pieces of the full story, and with that said, here are some of those bits:

Epigenetics is the study of how genes express themselves differently in different environments, presumably in an adaptive capacity, which helps us understand variance in the same organism across different environments (It is the way in which environmental factors affect how genes react and causes changes to individual organisms). When a fetus is first created it's genetic code will forever (we think) be static, but the possible ways that these genes can "express themselves" can be better understood by considering what they do in all possible environments and how the results can differ. Endocrinology is the study of "the endocrine system", (our internal (and sometimes external) hormone network and how it works) which in the pre-natal environment (the womb) happens to play an integral role in the "masculinization" of male fetuses. The amount of testosterone present in a prenatal environment can vary depending on a host of factors such as the pre-existing level of testosterone present (naturally per the mother or due to previous pregnancies) and so provides a mechanism by which "masculinity" can vary in intensity, which by a very easy stretch has a great deal to do with an individuals resulting sexual preferences. A history of pregnancy with males for instance predisposes individual mothers toward an ability to produce more testosterone during pregnancy (making each subsequent male fetus more "masculine") which acts as a kind of genetic dice roll that contributes to the distribution curve describing "average masculinity of offspring" across large breeding groups.

Whatever the mechanisms, we know that variance in phenotypes exists inherently in human populations. It's easy to surmise that variance in masculinity plays a role in how successful a given population of humans will be. Given possible environmental factors such as constant warfare, having large men is going to be a good trait, but on an island with limited space and nobody but your own tribe to fight, being very masculine or large might actually be detrimental. In the war-inducing landscape the big masculine men would survive more often and gain more social status for their contributions, and in turn get to mate more often and pass on their extra masculine genes, thereby raising the average masculinity of future generations (sliding the distribution curve more toward "masculine offspring"). In the converse landscape large men will have a harder time surviving in times of hardship due to greater nourishment requirements, and if "aggression" does after-all have something to do with masculinity, this could have a deleterious effect on the masculinity of the group through loss of the masculine genes in unnecessary conflict, being out-reproduced by lovers instead of fighters (fighting might not actually earn you anything beneficial to your reproductive success if the risk is too high and people can just as easily (or more successfully) reproduce without fighting).

This phenomenon can very starkly be seen in what are known as "tournament species" and "pair-bonding species", which are two terms used to describe animals with completely opposing mating strategies. Tournament species have males that compete (hence "tournament") for female mates. Deer and lions are two good examples of tournament species which very blatantly compete for control over mating rights (albeit one more violently than the other). Meanwhile pair-bonding species are generally monogamous and often mate for life (hence "pair" and "bonding"). One of the most notable consistent differences between pair bonding species and tournament species is that tournament species have very high degrees of "sexual dimorphism" (the degree to which males and females of a particular species have different characteristics) and pair bonding species have very low degrees of sexual dimorphism (males and females being basically identical apart from genitalia). Crows are a notable example; you can't sex a crow at a distance. Gibbons are a kind of ape which has a pair-bonding social structure, mates for life, and has almost no sexual dimorphic traits, if any.

Bringing this all back to relevancy, humans do have sexually dimorphic traits, but they exist in varying degrees of intensity and across a very broad spectrum which evidently spreads so far that it sometimes crosses the actual "gender norm" line of typically male and female characteristics. That is to say, some males are very "tournament" oriented in that they are much bigger and much stronger (along with other "masculine" characteristics), and other males are no bigger or stronger or "masculine" (aside from genitalia and chromosomes) than an average female, and yet still some (an even less number) males are so non-"masculine" that they by all other metrics possess more typically female traits than male ones (including hormonally). Women too exist across a scale from extremely petite and feminine to very very masculine indeed. We're not hard pressed at all to find examples of manly women and unmanly men.

In tournament species like deer all males have antlers, and in lions all males have manes. This is genetically rigid because their social structures and the selective forces acting on reproduction are rigid. Without antlers the male deer will be killed or maimed by another male if they try to acquire a mate. Male lions will have their necks punctured or broken if they don't have a massive tuft of incredibly thick fur to protect it from other lions. These are the selective forces that ensure each new generation will be selected for these specific (and other) traits. Pair-bonding species on the other hand select for something perhaps describable as "proximity to the ideal parent". Tournament specie fathers generally do no child rearing at all (they are concerned with getting it in and leaving the mother to take care of the rest), but pair-bonding males essentially need to earn their reproductive success by being good child-rearers, which generally means being the same as the mother and working as a team. Sexual dimorphism serves less of a purpose when both parents need to be ideally equipped for mostly the same tasks (child rearing) while the males of tournament species are selected for being equipped to environmental forces which act uniquely upon males ("the tournament").

Now, tying this all together into a relevant and tidy package, humans categorically defy being placed toward either end of the spectrum of "tournament species" and "pair-bonding species" in every way. Sexual dimorphism exists in many individual humans, but in many it is absent; genetically speaking humans have the capacity to have a great deal of sexually dimorphic traits, and almost none at all. Our social structures are likewise highly variable; we have had monogamous cultures, tournament style cultures, and everything in-between. Unlike deer and lions our environment is constantly changing or at least highly varied (often changed by humans themselves) and so it is fortuitous that our social structures can be highly variable in order to better adapt to a wider variety of possible future environments (thanks evolution!).

Overtime, the degrees of "sexually dimorphic genes" inherently present within a local gene-pool could go up or down depending on what selective forces happen to be acting upon the individuals and social structures of that group (which can favor greater and lesser degrees of dimorphism). Largely via the endocrine system (such as the epigenetic process of pre-natal testosterone changing the level of masculinity of developing fetuses), natural degrees of deviation from average levels of masculinity occur within certain margins in human populations, and when a certain deviation occurs enough times, and happens to be a reproductively successful deviation (even potentially at the expense of one's own reproduction but to the benefit of the reproduction of one's group with whom one shares genes), then that specific degree or average level of masculinity will become more prevalent or "the norm" in that gene-pool.

From an evolutionary perspective people who are outliers in terms of the "average male" and the "average female" (being a completely non-masculine male or a completely masculine female) are the results of unlikely genetic and epigenetic dice-rolls but who no less by virtue of being born have been given evolution's consent to see if what they've got is something that works as a part of mankind's ongoing need to adapt to changing circumstances and evolution's constant search for useful innovation. I've left it mostly unsaid up until now but obviously someone's level of "masculinity" can obviously have dramatic effects on their psychology in terms of their sexual and "identity" preferences. Someone is not "born transgender" per se, but instead they are born with a predisposition toward a phenotype which is more rare than others (the masculine woman and the feminine man) which in and of itself can go on to influence their behavior in ways which we rarely encounter and find so flabbergastingly confusing and counter-intuitive. We can sit on the high ground of the distribution curve and say things like "that extreme outlier (in behavior or appearance) over there is deluded/unhealthy/not-normal/disordered/freakish/diseased/horrific/aberrant/comedic/psychotic/absurd/(you get the idea), but in reality all that statement necessarily amounts to is "they are different". "Different" is not the same as "un-healthy". "Different" is a necessary feature of evolutionary progress.

Deer antlers are not the product of deities metaphorically banging their heads together in order come up with the design for "a normal healthy deer", they're the product of deer ancestors actually banging their heads together, over and over again, inter-generationally, until the deer ancestors with weak heads survived and mated less often, or the deer ancestors with strong heads survived and mated more often. At some point "head strength" as a function of gene expression likely crossed a threshold thanks to lucky mutation (an accident, for lack of a better word) and actual small and rudimentary bone protrusions emerged on some skulls which turned out to be wildly successful in a world where headbutting is an important skill, for obvious reasons. From there on a new selection process takes over which favors larger antlers with more pointy bits over smaller ones until you have something not unlike the deer antler of today in all it's once aberrant but enduringly absurd glory. The lions mane has a similar story. So does the eyeball. So does everything else that has evolved. At one point it was all something new; something inherently different and inherently risky, but also fundamentally necessary for "evolutionary progress" to occur.

Maybe transgender and some other sexual and identity based deviances won't turn out to be evolutionarily advantageous adaptations, but positing a strong argument toward that end is made quite difficult by the fact that the extraordinary dynamism of human culture makes predicting future selective forces too difficult to do even if we could predict the complex ramifications that they may eventually have. Furthermore the mere consistent presence of deviant individuals in society and the extant genetic/epigenetic/horomonal mechanisms which facilitate their existence suggests that there are some possible environments or circumstances where these deviancies are beneficial from an evolutionary perspective. The fact that the human (and male human) anus is capable (yes I'm being serious) of producing pleasure from being penetrated (uhh... it's not what you think!) suggests to an extremely high degree that homosexuality is so substantially beneficial of an adaptation to have in one's arsenal (honestly!) that the good god Darwin has seen fit to outfit us all with a fully functioning standard issue multi-purpose rectum for reasons relating inexorably to our reproductive success as a species.

So you see, trannies are indeed an extreme deviation from the norm but still can represent a normal expression of what makes apes so great: adaptability; versatility; variance. Maybe they drew the short developmental straw and are relegated to be a kind of cultural/genetic astronaut in search of new habitable space in as yet unsettled niches. I don't pity them so long as they are happy.

Also, I would like to say I agree with you that when a transgender has already made their decision then it would cause them suffering to force them not to live their life out as a transgender but... that is because the issue should be resolved before it starts. Prevention is better than cure. It is like a fungal growth of which the treatment is painful, to let it grow isn't the solution. — intrapersona

How can we cure what we don't understand? We can socially engineer our new generations into having prejudice against trannies and thereby reduce the likelihood that any among them will turn out to be one, but I wonder if in doing so we would not be somehow arbitrarily limiting the possible happiness and freedom of individuals who for whatever reason do not conform to the prevailing norm and are otherwise doing no harm. If you propose that we should do something like regulate everyone's hormones as a preventative measure then you're taking evolution into your own hands and playing a dangerous game; one day we might need the gays! The dude who invented the computer was gay after all... What if Einstein was also gay?

Mind=Blown

[END CREDITS]

It is completely against our survival in evolutionary terms... and is completely backward to procreation as a species. — intrapersona

Actually there are all sorts of ways in which transgender people can benefit the species. First of all, it's important to consider that human beings don't need to be baby machines in order to contribute to society which is itself a fundamental bedrock of modern child-rearing. Individuals whose normal sexual functioning is compromised for whatever reason, be it atypical psychology or a physically damaged/incomplete set of reproductive organs, are not actually hindering the human race or it's future by failing to pass on their genes. In fact, it would be best if the very healthiest among us were the only ones to reproduce to ensure that the next generation has as healthy a gene pool as possible.

Strictly speaking it doesn't really matter how many MTF trannies there are because a couple virile men could pitch in and shoulder their share of the reproductive burden; only FTM transsexuals would actually be a throttling or limiting factor on the maximum number of babies that we ought to churn out

Genetically speaking, the ability for variation to occur is a necessity for evolution to occur. What some call aberration can eventually turn out to be indispensable innovation. Having a high variance in sex and gender identity inherent in a gene pool may be a reflection of a healthy ability for individuals and groups to adapt to the pressures of changing cultures and environments. See the following paragraph for examples.

and looks like an aberrant disorder of the mind that serves no purpose... — intrapersona

For someone who cannot otherwise be "happy" (in the long run for static psychological reasons, not a child's whim as some parents seem to think is the same thing), that's the only purpose that it needs to serve. If by being happy they can become a more productive member of society, then it will have been worth it to let them live out life as the gender of their choosing, presuming that we have moral or ethical purchase on their personal decisions in the first place.

Beyond that though, there are all kinds of social situations where "gender bending" fits right in; stress relief. When groups of men are on their own for extended periods of time, such as in prison, while on long hunting trips, and during extended war, transsexuals or individuals who can easily transition into a typically feminine role, would eventually become quite popular indeed... In our tree-dwelling evolutionary history we were most likely some kind of pan-sexual gender bending nymphomaniacs at some point who took every opportunity possible to have sex just for the stress relief that it can provide. Bonobos (a great ape) notably are up to this behavior all day long and in the reality of their social structures it serves a useful purpose.

Whether instances of transgenderism are just accidental but necessary evolutionary spandrels which appear as anomalies in population groups (due to how gender and genetics (or the psychology of gender) works), or is an actually load bearing part of our evolutionary history of genetic adaptation and resulting adaptability, I cannot say, but what I can say is that since nobody has a moral obligation to birth or sire 2.6 children and a dog, it doesn't really matter what gender people choose live as. If that's required for their happiness, then I would argue we're morally obligated not to interfere with them unless they are causing some kind of actual harm.

For if everyone was a transgender and/or gay that would mean no one would have babies (assuming IVF does not exist). Even if such a world did exist with IVF included and boys looked like girls and girls looked like boys... it would be incredibly weird and look more like something out of a freakish absurd comedy-horror film. — intrapersona

I know right? If we forced every boy to become a girl and every girl to become a boy, we would be living in a very silly world indeed. Very very silly. This world would be marked by two things: It's silliness, and it's complete dedication to forcing children to swap genders. For the sequel we could have a wheel-of-gender-fortune that includes that list of 32 new genders and spin that at the birth of every child.

For real though: the baby train is not under threat; we will not all be transgender one day; developmental variance is a function of the way evolution allows us to adapt as individuals and as groups over the long run; living in confusion or depression is less mentally healthy than being happy and transgender.

What possible reasons are left with which you could argue for the condemnation of the decision to transition between genders?

Skepticism cannot be completely defeated until we are in possession of absolutely certain knowledge of some kind, by definition.

Until then, skepticism cannot be defeated but it can be mitigated. You could doubt that if you drop a T.V on your foot that you would experience pain, or even doubt that pain is real. Alternatively if you've ever accidentally performed a similar experiment perhaps making certain presumptions about the world won't seem so problematic or ttuth=compromising after all.

Pain is real enough... The force of gravity is very reliable... Et cetra...

I like most of what you said, but where does quality of life come into play. Couldn't it be morally right for the mother to abort if the life of the mother and the life of the fetus were subject to more suffering as a result of the child being born? — MonfortS26

Regarding quality of life for the fetus, being aborted is usually interpreted to be a universal negative from their end. There may be extreme cases providing exceptions to this, but generally any life is taken as better than no life at all.

When it comes to the mother, indeed her future suffering can and should be considered, but given that adoption is readily available as an alternative to rearing one's own children, post-natal suffering may not be a relevant moral consideration in today's world..

Peter singer (IIRC) made an argument to explain the morality of infanticide where in the "old world" a fairly strong argument from necessity can be made. If there is nobody else willing to care for a child that otherwise cannot be cared for (given resource scarcity), then for the survival of the rest of the family it could be argued that laying your baby on a hill is of practical necessity. The severity of the "quality of life" to others is relevant here to the strength of this as a moral defense, and in a contemporary landscape post-natal "abortion" surely is unjustifiable, but these are the same moral lines which could be used by the mother to justify abortion simply because she does not want to ensure the pre-natal suffering. As I said before the closer to a full term pregnancy a woman gets, the less suffering she would be avoiding by terminating the pregnancy, and therefore it's strength as a moral defense is lessened.

Edit: spelling and grammer was left un-proof read in error

Interesting question, which for me has yielded less than fully satisfactory answers.

If we're extending moral consideration to other beings because they are "alive" or "feel" or are "sentient", then perhaps even the lower forms of life are worthy of some moral consideration. We almost unanimously agree that torturing an animal is morally wrong, and many of us would qualify that on the basis of unnecessary harm being morally unjustifiable. Even a beetle doesn't like being kicked down a road; to do so contains some small degree or variation of the immorality that we would ascribe to unnecessarily harming or destroying a human.

It's easy to agree on things like "unnecessary harm" (I.E sadistic torture), even in the case of a beetle in my opinion, but what is less obvious in some cases is whether or not harm or slaughter can be considered necessary or "justified".

Ancient man ate meat often out of necessity as the fat and protein (and it's preservability with salt and low temperature) was either the best opportunity for nourishment in the environment (applicable to a jungle setting) or a necessity for survival (such as during a long winter). As our ability to sustain ourselves on animal-harm-free diets on a wide-spread scale continues to develop, I would argue that there is some moral onus for us to begin to attempt to do so. With that said, a fully nourishing vegan diet can be well out of the average budget range of many middle and lower class families and individuals even in the first world. Furthermore it is questionable whether or not a switch to completely non-animal based agriculture would be economically feasible.

In short, we raise animals and slaughter them because of a prevailing desire to survive which we casually and almost unanimously float as a moral necessity. The act of terminating a fetus could be for the survival of the mother given possible complications, and on the same moral grounds that we essentially use to continue eating meat could be used to terminate even a late term pregnancy (given acceptable levels of seriousness in complication). If there are no complications then the moral argument for abortion must look elsewhere for justification. During the first term of pregnancy, many would argue that a fetus is not yet even a sentient being (cannot "feel") and as such would not even be extended the same moral considerations that we would extend a beetle. Once the fetus is said to be "sentient" we could freely extend the "don't harm it unnecessarily" consideration that is commonly extended to many animals. However all pregnancies carry inherent risks of complication and even death to pregnant women. What degree of risk of death inherently justifies a pregnant woman's decision to abort a pregnancy I cannot say, but most people will eventually cave in to the acceptability of even late term abortion as the risk of death for the mother approaches 100% if no abortion is performed. Beyond this point, a woman's unwillingness to endure the pains of a pregnancy is used by some as a defense of second and third term abortions. In this instance what seems clear is that the further into the pregnancy a woman is, the less suffering she has left to endure before the pregnancy reaches it's natural conclusion, and therefore the weaker the defense is in and of itself. Pain and suffering can be subjective though so it's persistently murky moral territory as always.

The comparison I would like to draw between mass slaughter and consumption of animals and abortion is that both exist on a spectrum of moral guilt-worthiness, where the suffering and risk of death that we incur by abstaining from them (what approaches "necessity") serve as the factors which mitigate, and in extreme cases seem to completely dissolve, that degree of moral guilt.

I must confess I'm having a hard time understanding the logic that you're using.

"Self" in the traditional sense (our discrete thoughts and experiences) is not the same as as the expanded definition of "self" (where it basically becomes "the source of everything") per some forms of solipsism. The connection between "self" and the "not-self" that we casually experience, per solipsism, is to do with the nature of the "not-self" being fundamentally different than the nature of the "self" (I.E, I am a mind that exists and you are just an impermanent illusion governed by my subconscious. Or, I am a brain in a vat but you are just fabricated electrical signals stimulating my brain and interpreted by me as another person).

Even a full blown metaphysical solipsist would not define other people as their own "self", they would merely say that other people have no fundamental or permanent existence akin to their own. This hard form of solipsism entails the presumption that nothing has permanent or tangible existence beyond what can be found within one's own ongoing experiences, but I do not see how or why linguistically referring to "not self", even in a metaphysically solipsistic existence, would actually create any logical issues of self-reference.

So from my perspective, as a realist, skepticism isn't useless, but for a skeptical alternative to be worth consideration, there need to be reasons beyond possibility that it might be true. Thus, if someone suggests "We might be brains in vats," the first thing I think is, "Okay, but why would we believe that?" There would need to be reasons to believe it--some sort of evidence, primarily, beyond the mere possibility of it, otherwise it's not worth bothering with. — Terrapin Station

I'm totally with you there. I don't hold solipsism as a belief nor would I advocate that anyone should. As a skeptical tool the fact that it could be true is used as a quick and dirty way to establish some degree of doubt (albeit a very small degree) to contrast against and weaken some notions of "complete/objective certainty". It's useless outside of an obscure and rather inconsequential lesson in epistemological limitations, and yet many find it an enduringly interesting thought experiment.

Oh my...

"Post-truth": Post-truth politics (also called post-factual politics) is a political culture in which debate is framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the details of policy.

I hadn't heard this yet, but I really wasn't very far off! The intellect thins while the drama thickens...

I found something I wrote in my reply box around the time that you posted the thread but for whatever reason I decided not to post it (That happens to me a lot when it comes to the topic of contemporary "social justice"). Re-reading it I don't think it will twist too many knickers. Maybe I have the master of knicker twisters to thank for that, El Trump, in some very dark sort of way...

Here it is:

I've seen this sort of thing occurring more and more for the last several years.

It's a flabbergasting contradiction for we men: We live in a time when women are in appearance and behavior more sexy and sexualized than ever before, while men are simultaneously being judged more and more harshly for being attracted to women and expressing it in any way not fit for daytime T.V., even if it's harmless and private speech. I'm kind of sick of the hypocrisy to be honest, but that's modern western culture for you; an insecure tit-monger who hides it's inexhaustible lust with an over-compensated sense of self-righteous purity.

No I'm not complaining about or asking "why can't men get away with sexual harassment anymore?", I'm complaining that somewhere in our pursuit of equality between the sexes, we completely missed the part about holding one-another to the same ethical standards, at least when it comes to anything sex related. Men have always lived in a world where hurt feelings are one's own problem; something to be dealt with personally. But now somehow, especially in regards to sex, feelings are suddenly the be all and end all of social interaction. Consider the following interaction:

Man: "Hi, want to fuck?"
Woman: "No."
Man: "Well fuck you then bitch."

By most measures of "feeling", this interaction seems to constitute an example of sexual harassment. If a cop was standing right next to them, we might expect them to do something in response.

Now imagine the same interaction with reversed gender roles...

It's no longer sexual harassment, or at least the "feels harmful" kind, according to my "feelings"...

This is precisely the kind of shoddy moral intuition that is making it's way into contemporary western "thought", especially in universities, on social media, and many other platforms where preserving reputation is a first priority. Somewhere along the line we confused the human desire to be free from negative or offensive feelings with a moral obligation to never do or say anything anyone might find offensive. You can find this sort of rhetoric everywhere now; "micro-aggression" was coined to describe how individual hurt feelings amounts to the mass systemic oppression of X,Y, or Z group of people. "Safe spaces" are strictly about protecting people's feelings from the slings and arrows of emotional confrontation.

Some male Harvard Soccer students wrote some stuff about some female Harvard soccer students on a google doc that was apparently publicly accessible since 2012, but not publicly known until very recently...

It's Harvard right? We ought to expect them to have the highest standards! Hence the punitive measures taken against the team. We simply cannot tolerate young and inexperienced students exploring their sexuality in such a way that might indirectly lead to hurt feelings one day, lest the facade of purity fall down. In reality everyone is in a scramble because of the irrationally amplified gravitas of some "hurt feelings" which may or may not have resulted from a group of teenagers daring to apply a numeric label to the sexual attractiveness of some of their female counterparts (people who they are biologically wired to be attracted to).

"Feel" is the word of 2016...

So as a skeptical tool, if we assume solipsism, we have no skepticism whatsoever. We'd be certain of everything, and there would be no mind/other stuff cleavage, which wouldn't be solipsism after all. — Terrapin Station

Keep in mind I'm saying we should not give consideration to solipsism beyond the hypothetical; we should not assume it.

You say that if solipsism were true we would have no reason to wonder about relationships between experienced phenomena or degrees of certainty. Why? I understand that we have to live in a real world, but solipsism might not so much about establishing that direct experiences are unreal (to the point that we need not address them?) so much as an explanation of the source of all experienced phenomenon (and by extension a description of their underlying true nature). From within one possible experience of solipsism, what is perceivably one's own "mind" could be limited such that it simulates what we now experience as "the other" even though it if is somehow generated by or subject to deeper aspects of one's own mind (i.e subconsciousness?).

Your arguments completely ruin the utility of solipsism as a functional worldview, and I completely agree with that conclusion, but in my view a solipsist would disagree that we would have no skepticism, or be certain of everything. In their view understanding what they falsely perceive as "the other" by whatever means of inquiry available would be seen as the process of discovering more about their own mind.

I submit the following questions: "Are you certain you're not a brain in a vat à la Decartes? If so how? If not, presuming that you are in fact a brain in a vat, could you ever be certain of that, if anything? Would skepticism be useless from your perspective? Skepticism could in fact be what leads you to currently surmise that you are a brain in a vat in the first place, could it not?".

solipsism can't be made any sense of outside of a context of a realist picture of the world--which is how you presented your scenarios, but by framing it in those contexts, one necessarily undermines solipsism. If either ontological or epistemological solipsism are true, then that realist picture of what the world is like shouldn't make sense--because in both cases (ontological and epistemological solipsism) you can't know that realist picture. If any brand of solipsism is true, one can't know minds versus other sorts of things in the first place. — Terrapin Station

I understand what you mean by saying that a realist framework (i.e "the other" pragmatically and semantically exists (per prevailing perception)) is required for us to categorize and interact successfully (pragmatically) with the phenomena within the realm of our experiences. But even if hard solipsism were true there might still be consistency in our experiences, whatever they may be. As such, from our perspective of limited understanding, a realist framework could be entirely useful and perhaps the only way we can make sense of the world, but it could still be a misrepresentation of what is objectively real (as some here in this thread would gladly contend).

The fact that we have to inexorably conduct our affairs from within the construct and confines of what we all axiomatically accept to be "real" means that for an idea or understanding to have any utility it must refer to "real" things, but this is an issue only with utility, not "external objective truth" (or lack thereof). This may inductively undermine solipsism on many levels (aside from outright negating it's utility), but it does not deductively establish solipsism to be an impossibility, which is the only tired point I've really been defending.

Solipsism can be used as a skeptical tool - a hypothetical - to paint limits on the knowability of objective truth, especially as it relates to varying degrees of certainty. It's not a useful worldview outside of this context and I'm not suggesting anyone ought to wield it as an actual position, but I'm contending that we cannot actually discount many varieties of solipsism as certainly false.

I don't understand why "makes sense" from a human perspective is is presumed to be an inherent quality of "objective reality"...

Furthermore, the scenarios do seem to "make sense" to me. Are you suggesting that the world cannot be such that I am not something with continuous existence beyond your perceptions of me?

There are more than a few variations of solipsism, and not all of them reduce "the other" into incoherence.

A kind of hard solipsism would be "Only my mind exists and the other people and things I perceive are created by my mind, and have no continuous or necessary existence beyond my perceptions of them".

With this kind of solipsism there is no guarantee that a fundamental way to "make sense" of how "minds" work is available in the first place. Living pragmatically would be greatly hindered by going around and treating "the other" as if it's existence is dependent on one's own mind (i.e "not real"), but the fact that we would be left in a very confusing situation (having no obvious or necessary way to determine how or why we experience what we experience) does not negate it as a possibility. It would change nothing from the perspective of a pragmatist, but this also gives no necessary indication that hard solipsism definitely is not the case.

A weaker form of solipsism posits that the only thing we can be certain of are the goings-on of our own mind, and points out that the realist approach involves several presumptions that cannot be proven or falsified. This kind of solipsism most closely tracks with the main question of this thread. It is in essence strong skepticism applied to the nature (or "truth") of our perceptions, which reduces what is "certain" to something like Descartes "cogito ergo sum" or something not dissimilar.

Out of the hard solipsist position stems a rather useless worldview, but out of the weaker version of solipsism stems several positions that do in fact have some merit. Descartes was right to apply skepticism for the sake of applying skepticism (in pursuit of something unquestionable; something certain), and out of it came a very sensical hierarchy of epistemological foundations. Our own existence is not questionable (per Decartes), but our senses and perceptions are highly fallible and so must be questioned and tested using apriori reasoning and confirmation and re-confirmation (for precision and accuracy) of actual empirical evidence.

The possibility that we might be a brain in a vat is enough to provide some doubt that the "the objective world is subjective" (or at least arbitrary in the sense that it may not reflect the "external world" of the scientist). This is is not a useful position to wield, but confronting it can be a useful exercise which forces us to improve as best we can the epistemic foundations that we base what we call "knowledge" on.

Does it seem likely to you that we will continue in the direction of de-gobalization or not? — Bitter Crank

Short of massive and prolonged global recession, I don't think the world will continue heading toward de-globalization or more isolationism.

One thing I recall about the brexit vote is that it was largely the older demographics that voted to leave the EU (something reflected in the demographics of Trump's voters). What this tells me is that the elders of the millennials have very different political/economic views, and also perhaps that they are more politically engaged (at least in their willingness to vote).

If Brexit and (the Trump presidency from the American perspective) goes very smoothly, perhaps the values which drove the older generations to get out and vote could be imprinted on the existing youth. If not, then I would predict that Britain will eventually seek to re-enter the EU with the hope of restoring economic growth.

The Civil War was not just about ending slavery; it was also about denying states the prerogative of leaving the union (California secessionists, take note). — Bitter Crank

As far as I understand it, the succession from the union was indeed first and foremost about preventing central - or northern - authority from being exercised on the lower states given that the north had been growing much faster, and with the addition of Minnesota and Oregon in 58 and 59, basically had tipped the balance of power in congress.

In a letter to Horace Greeley in the midst of the civil war, before the emancipation proclamation, (although he would have been working on it) Lincoln wrote the following:

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views. — Lincoln

Kinda reminiscent of modern political maneuvering if you ask me. The north wanted to keep the south in the fold, freeing the slaves was just something that helped to achieve that.

It would have to be a hell of a lot more protest for this to have any chance. But let's say the electors could be motivated to vote Hillary in instead. How do you suppose the Trump supports would respond to that? What would the Republican Party do? What of all the red states? How would their governments respond? — Marchesk

I don't know. I would probably feel angry personally if I was American, as if hoodwinked, but some people would be happy surely. It could lead to some crazy shit, for better or for worse.

Their would no longer be any smooth transition of power, of that I can guarantee you. There's a reason why the losing party is gracious in defeat and talks of working together, even if that doesn't actually happen. There's a reason why none of the Democratic leaders are joining in the protests, or encouraging them, or asking the electors to vote other than who their state chose. — Marchesk

Yea I do get that, but I would not put it beyond either party to try and make a move if enough unrest was there to help it fly.

So let's say the electoral college does this, and the country doesn't go down in flames. What happens the next presidential election? Now a precedent has been set. The electors can defy the states and vote in someone else. How will people feel about voting then? — Marchesk

Well the electors would be committing party suicide I reckon. I'm not exactly sure where they all come from but I do know that they are in part chosen for their loyalty and reliability in voting for who they're told to vote for; their career as an elector would be over for certain being replaced by new electors. A new degree of precedent would be there for sure, but to be honest it could also lead to some serious reform down the road (the electoral college is certainly a peculiar beast to say the least).

Since the fall of Sanders I've been morbidly hoping for Trump to win as a kind of last ditch way of throwing a spanner into works of the current political establishment in hopes of somehow enabling electoral and other forms of political reform. Now that he's elected I find myself speculating about how such reform could come about.

One way would be for Trump to get impeached in a year or two. The willingness might be there by then, and conceivably congress could try to take action against any executive orders contravening or obfuscating their role in the political process. If pence then takes over he would pretty much be in janitor mode (congress having flexed it's arm) and the following election would be approached with such apprehension and resentment that serious reform or even independent reform candidates would have more of a shot than ever before. If Trump were to be usurped via faithless electors though, admittedly I could not even guess at what the short or long term ramifications might be. I know I would have even less faith in the system that I do now... I still like to wonder what else could be changed as a result...

From a logical standpoint the subjective world necessarily entails an objective world.

If we cannot be certain of one then by definition we cannot have certainty about the other.

A true solipsist would be an epistemological nihilist and assert that we could be sure of nothing at all.
And that statement itself would be something about which we could not be sure of.

This is why you cannot have any epistemological foundation with nihilism or solipsism.
The assertion "All things are uncertain" is itself an uncertain claim that regresses infinitely before it can ever reach a true or false conclusion. — m-theory

I'm not exactly sure why solipsism is impossible as you describe it.

As far as I can tell you say that "not-self" would be incoherent if solipsism were true, and since "not-self" is coherent, solipsism must be untrue.

I also do not understand why being uncertain that "not-self" exists means we must also be uncertain that "self" exists.

I understand why something like "an orange" cannot be coherently defined unless we can say "not an orange", but in solipsism "self" is construed to represent the fundamental source of everything that exists. It becomes a matter of equivocation to argue that since we casually experience "not-self" solipsism results in incoherency because "self" under solipsism refers to the fundamental source of everything, not the way we interpret our casual experiences.

Perhaps I should amend my hard position though; the thing we are most certain of, aside from perhaps our own existence (cogito ergo sum), is our overall prevailing lack of certainty.

P.S, I'm somewhat less than enamored with solipsism as a hypothesis of any merit or utility than you might think, however since I cannot deliver a proof that it solipsism is certainly not the case, I admit that I cannot fully defeat it.

You guys ever hear of "faithless electors"?

As far as I understand it, the actual electoral college votes around December 13th or something. The popular vote of Nov 8th determines electoral college votes based on the assumption that the electors will carry out the will of their state based on only a pledge.

The vote is anonymous for at least some states, and while some states have laws designed to circumvent the possibility of a faithless elector, this can in fact happen and in theory could change the results of an election...

So I'm wondering... What are the chances of the "protesting" that is going on right now challenging the faith of enough electors? Wouldn't that beat all?

Join me or a few brief moments on a journey into a mind so saturated with the ideas and ideals which have driven the creation of this thread that it beggars belief. The depths of intellectual depravity which you are about to consume have been excavated, for your pleasure, from the darkest and most ideologically charged corners of the internet. Keep your metaphysical hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times , and please be considerate and put your third eye on vibrate. This ride's a doozey!

"Codename: "Mungus"

On the heels of her brush with internet fate, the now well known advocate of extreme social justice, Zarna Joshi, has taken to youtube in order spread awareness of exactly how patriarchy makes her feel...

The following is a condensed but un-exaggerated account of one of those videos...

Part 1: Surrounded by Patriarchy...

[TRIGGER WARNING]

May contain mentions of sexual harassment, assault, rape, violence, gun violence, murder, imprisonment, historical trauma, abuse, and suicide...

~ Hard Transition ~

The illness of patriarchy doesn't infect just men; in fact some women are infected with patriarchy. These women ridicule me. 71% Of women blame rape victims for being raped but only 57% of men blame rape victims for being raped; that's called "internalized patriarchy"

~ Hard Transition ~

Patriarchy is what created: racism, colonialism, capitalism, classism, and of course sexism.

~ Hard Transition ~

Somebody called me a "pre-menstrual hysterical third wave feminist dothead retard who went full mental on a white man". And they called me unintelligent too.

~ Hard Transition ~

I'm not white, so that gives me a right to talk about my non-white experience, but many other non-white people and also some marginalized and possibly white people like queer, trans, and non-gender conforming people might have their own actual ideas and opinions about this stuff, so I want to apologize in advance for saying something that you might not agree with or that might not apply to your particular marginalized group.

[VISUAL] - Text reads: Queer YOUTH 3x more likely to attempt suicide than Hetero youth - Image: On screen are two circles, one is labeled Queer, and the other is labeled Hetero. The radius of the Queer circle is three times (3x) the radius of the Hetero circle, giving it 9 times the surface area which visually misrepresents the text data by nearly a full order of magnitude.

~ Hard Transition ~

People ridicule me on the internet some more, and I just want to say how hard ridicule makes it to express my true feelings.

~ Hard Transition ~

Men who sexually harass women and subject women of color to racial slurs cannot understand why these women will not then date them; it's because of something called "White Male Fragility". Western men have been fooled by the system into believing that if they do not sexually harass or abuse anyone, or discriminate or use insensitive terms against people based on race or gender, then they are therefore somehow "now sexist" or "not racist". This is not true

ALL WHITE PEOPLE ARE RACIST, AND ALL MEN ARE SEXIST, as ensured by the system of power that we live in because it's a system that profits from the marginalization of people of color and non-males. And so they ridicule me in order to retain their power structure just as they have done to women and people of color for centuries.

~ Hard Transition ~

People call me sexist and racist against whites and males and ask why I hate them...

Men make more money...

[VISUAL] Cites numbers of a gender "pay gap" for women of varying ethnicities as compared to white men ranging from 54% for hispanic women to 90% for asian women.

Men take their privilege without question and live in affluence while doing nothing to help women while denying that they profit from sexist oppression.

~ Hard Transition ~

I was sexually harassed while filming a man who told me that his name was "hugh mungus" and one mainstream media outlet posted the video on the internet, without my permission, (I originally uploaded the video to my Facebook in order to provide evidence of my harassment and to issue a call to arms to rise up against Hugh and his institutional powers of sexism), and they had the nerve to ask "Do you consider this video to depict sexual harassment?". This lead to people ridiculing me. This is what patriarchy does; it causes people to attack the victim because they are vulnerable, which protects their system of power, which is male sexual dominance.

~ Hard Transition ~

People accused me of overreacting on the internet, but also some people issued rape and death threats against me. My physical safety is on the line, and that should be an indicator as to whether or not I am right.

~ Hard Transition ~

Their main complaint was that I raised my voice; they thought I was crazy. Really they just wanted me to shut up because that's what a patriarchial society wants, and we have a long history of confining women to mental asylums because men thought they were too loud.

These same men rape and murder women because they cannot deal with emotions, so that's why they got angry about when I was making noise about my sexual harassment; men don't care about my safety.

~ Hard Transition ~

Men call my accent sexy but my voice annoying. Dick jokes bother me. Men stone women, burn them at the stake, beat them, and rape them, and sell them into sexual slavery, and that's why dick jokes bother me.

Men think that it's not rape if you're married, and that sexual harassment can only happen in formal workplace environments.

~ Hard Transition ~

Dear sister-women and queer and trans siblings. Even the most minute and anonymous transgression against you on the internet will not be tolerated. Permitting tiny injustices like being called a cunt is what leads to larger horrors like the rape and violence that we all know so well. We have to dismantle our own internalized patriarchy, we need to change the world.

We must demand an end to rape culture.

~ Hard Transition ~

We must encourage men to dismantle patriarchy because patriarchy hurts men too by making them fragile and unable to reveal their feelings, which is why they do physical and sexual violence against women.

With courage and dignity, we can do this!
.....
[Part 2: "Internalized Oppression" - Coming Soon...]

[END]

It might seem like I've embellished this, and so if you would like to review the original material for accuracy, here it is (Cringe warning: click at your own risk :D )

Well The Great Whatever, (Can I call you TGW?), the reason that I use the term "feminist" to describe myself is because the traditional academic feminist position was simply egalitarianism extended to women. First wave feminists fought and won the right to speak, among other things, before and after the civil war. They paved the way for the suffragettes, who won formal political rights, among other things, in the early part of the 20th century. Second wave feminism won many economic and social rights that still women lacked. Our being told as children to "treat people equally" was the result of good work which they have been contributing to since the 60's. I don't disagree with any of that, do you disagree with any of that TGW? I thought that it then made sense to refer to myself as a feminist when queried on the subject matter... So I thought...

Whatever brand of feminism you do in fact subscribe to, if it is inherently opposed to my own then I would find it a very easy moral step to rebuke it. Short of any substance on that matter whatsoever, please see the following post for a riveting exposition of the brand of reasoning which in this thread I am presently engaged in dismantling. Enjoy!

While I don't think this means that we are doomed to be a racist society, I think it does mean that we must be cautious for racial bias, in ourselves and others. Powerful organizations, such as the police, the symbol of law and order in our society must be carefully monitored, or we not like the consequences. — Cavacava

In the complex system of today's national and global societies, racism certainly continues to play a role in influencing the outcomes of many individual events, and by most reckoning surely has an impact on the statistical trends that we find worrisome. A thorough understanding of the magnitude of this impact however is extraordinarily difficult to grapple with for a host of reasons (complexity, controversy, etc..).

It is definitely important that we closely monitor our institutions for the range of errors we know from history such constructs are want to commit, not least among them discrimination based on race, but we would be remiss to only focus on our social institutions themselves as a means to explain social disparities of any kind between demographics.

For instance, violence and incarceration being inflicted on an individual by police is something which disproportionately affects black men when compared with white men. In order to understand why this is the case, one approach would be to hypothesize that unfair or arbitrary discrimination based on race is the "main or major contributing factor" leading to this disparity (specifically, the thing that when eliminated also eliminates the prevalence of the disparity). We could (and should) closely monitor the police for acts of arbitrary discrimination based on race in order to force accountability and reduce discrimination (and other malpractices), thereby eliminating the statistical disparity of who violence is applied to by the police. However, if racist discrimination from police officers is not in reality the sole or even the main contributing factor which creates this disparity, then no amount of transparency and accountability, nor the height of any standard on the part of the police will actually succeed in eliminating the disparity itself.

I'm not trying to argue against more oversight of the police per se, rather I'm trying to show that there is an upper limit on the efficiency and the difference that more and more oversight can make toward reducing the statistical disparity of police use of violence used against black men. If we assume that police racism is the singular cause behind force being used against black men, then the other fundamental factors which contribute to the statistical disparity will remain obscured and unchanged while we would continue to place more and more suspicion of innate responsibility and blame for these statistically disproportionate outcomes broadly upon the police force as a whole which we would inexorably come to understand as thoroughly racist. At some point, spending more and more money on improving police quality will do less and less to alter crime trends and the accompanying results. We're perhaps not yet even near such a state but I would argue that we may currently be at a point where divesting our attention to a broader scope than just "police racism" is required if we're going to improve the efficiency with which we can actually reduce the statistical disparity or reduce the problem of widespread police use of force as a whole.

Great post BC!

I'm concerned that the greater economic realities at hand that contribute to many white and black communities' cyclical poverty might be too difficult for society to isolate and address or even to overcome if they can indeed be isolated.

According to Bernie et al, (I've never seen actual numbers myself) the middle class is currently shrinking. That correlates with what I've been seen first hand and given the undeniable reality (whose numbers I HAVE seen) that more and more of the newly created wealth flows to the existing economic elite (which may or may not influence the shrinking of the middle class and the growth of poverty) it's really not surprising.

In a world where upward economic mobility is by default unlikely (below a certain wealth threshold), even if we could suddenly solve the culture of crime and the other exacerbating and cyclical forces, we would still require some sort of drastic change in the economic landscape of the west in order to see change in the future prospects of poor communities.

A stronger economy would be one possible landscape change; Reaganomically speaking if there are enough scraps to go around a lot of the raw realities facing the poor could be addressed, although relative poverty could still come with some deleterious effects. Another possible landscape change would basically be a reorganizing of the tax structure such that the middle and lower economic classes receive more benefits or shoulder less burden. The classical dilemma with this approach is of course whether or not over-taxation will cause economic stagnation in the overall economy to the point that it winds up costing more than the wealth being redistributed in the first place. In order to actually make state welfare or state mandated wealth distribution actually work (state funding of universities to make them free for students, for example) I am of the opinion that it would require nothing short of fundamental and sweeping economic changes to the current landscape of American business and industry in addition to the necessarily cultural adaptations that would need to accompany them.

A minimalist welfare system can function as a safety net for those who trickle downward, as it were. In an economic landscape where there is adequate chance of upward economic mobility, wealth redistribution of this kind only needs to act as a temporary charity until people do that boot-strap-self-hoisting thing. But in an economic landscape where unless you're already at the minimum required economic status then you're on the way down, state welfare will inevitably function as a permanent means of existence for the masses trapped at the bottom. If the economic world we live in is the latter, and I do believe it is, then the current form of taxation and entitlement programs needs to be re-arranged and amplified such that the basic standard of living for those requiring these programs is actually something above that invisible equitable minimum required to stay afloat.

That's the whole point though, what we see as "the sun rising" is not a true external reality. You keep insisting that it is, refusing to face the reality of the situation. The sun does not rise, despite the fact that we see the sun rising. — Metaphysician Undercover

I've clarified more times than I care to count that the term "sunrise" as I have employed it should be taken to mean strictly: "The sun's visibility was obstructed by the Earth, then not obstructed".

You keep saying the sun doesn't rise like it's somehow going to convince me that the visibility of the sun has nothing to do with "external reality". I'm not talking about the sun "rising", I'm talking about it's visibility; your argument applies only to the straw-man of geocentrism that you feel the term "sunrise" necessarily entails, which even if it were the case I have already clarified my own position.

What science has demonstrated very clearly to us, is that we do not perceive the external reality the way that it truly is. We do not perceive molecules, or atoms, or sub-atomic particles. Sure, you might argue that we taste and smell molecules, but we don't, we taste tastes, and smell smells. Let's face the facts, the way that we perceive things is not the way that they are, according to what science tells us. — Metaphysician Undercover

But we do perceive atoms, and molecules, and heliocentrism too. We perceive them through processes of observation, prediction, and experimentation; induction. If we could not (or "do not") perceive atoms, why do you think they exist, how did we ever find out about them?

If you can only perceive that the sun moves through the sky, why do you think it does not? "Perceptions" can extend beyond raw and uninterpreted sensory data you know...

Taste and smell are abstract, sure, but they still might indirectly perceive something real. Taste buds on your tongue react in specific ways to specific molecules that come into contact with them. The way something tastes may in fact contain some real data about the thing being tasted; taste has some degree of consistency within individuals and between them which indicates the phenomenon of taste is not completely random in addition to being abstract. Eyeballs react to light, presumably real light which emanates from real things. When light bounces off of something and then enters our eyes we can recognize a change in the light (via the eyeball mechanism) which we presume reflects data contained in the object reflecting the light. "Redness" might be an abstract visual experience, but we're pretty damn sure that red light is a certain portion of the complete light spectrum, and that when full spectrum light bounces off an object and we see red, that this means the surface of that object is absorbing all visible light except for the red part which gets reflected.

Science is inevitably based in perception, so when you say "Science tells us that the way we perceive things is not anything like the way they really are", what you're really saying is "Our perceptions tell us that our perceptions are wrong", which is merely to say "I doubt perceptions". However, falsifying one perception with another more refined perception (the act and product of science?) can never be used to deductively falsify the whole of perception and experience altogether because using the supposed truth of perception ("science tells us") to establish the falsehood of all perceptions ("our perceptions are nothing like the way the external world is") is an invalid argument where it's conclusion contradicts it's premise. If perceptions can never be anything like the external world, then science (based in perception) can never rationally be used to come in and provide evidence or proof that our perceptions are nothing like the external world.

It's not predictive power which makes me prefer heliocentrism. As I explained, prediction is based in recognizing consistencies, and geocentrism had great predictive power as well. What heliocentrism gives us is the capacity to understand many inconsistencies. The reason why I believe that heliocentrism is still false is that there are many inconsistencies which persist. There are inconsistencies in our understandings of space, time, electromagnetism, and such things. Further, when I go outside in the morning, I can feel the sun touch me with its warmth. And as much as our sense perceptions may be inaccurate, touch, as a fundamental feeling, is fairly reliable. So I do not believe that there is space between the sun and myself. Just like we talk about space between you and I, I know there is not space there, there is air, I can feel it on my face, and the air is the earth's atmosphere, part of the earth. Likewise, we talk about space being between us and the sun, but that's not space, it's the sun's atmosphere, or field or something. So just like I am within the earth, being in its atmosphere, I am also within the sun, being within its field, or some such thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

Long story short you appeal to heliocentrism to falsify geocentrism because it has more predictive power. Why you believe heliocentrism is false is completely beyond me. Do you believe the sun even exists?

Yes, this is the point I was trying to make, our minds could be creating all the consistency which we observe. In this case, the consistency would not be within "it", the thing being observed, it would be within the mind only. The thing being observed would be totally inconsistent, but the mind is making it appear to be consistent. Do you believe that this is possible? — Metaphysician Undercover

It is possible although it seems unlikely. This is what I meant by "We cannot defeat solipsism".

This might be true, but do you not see a big difference between "there is consistency in the thing being observed", and, "there is no consistency in the thing being observed, but my mind is creating the appearance of consistency"? — Metaphysician Undercover

I see the difference but if my mind is creating extreme amounts of consistency then pragmatically I ought to behave accordingly (I.E: not dropping T.Vs on my foot).

So this is the problem I was referring to earlier. The observations become more consistent, the predictions become more reliable, but the misunderstanding remains. The problem is that the misunderstanding becomes stronger and stronger, because the reliability of the predictions creates the illusion that there is no misunderstanding, that all is understood. Then we do not bother to doubt this, what is perceived as an understanding but is really a misunderstanding, because the predictions are so reliable, that we don't even think that it might be a misunderstanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

As the predictions get stronger, the model gets more useful (generally) this is not contestable.

If predictive power plateaus, maybe this is because a theory is beginning to closely approximate whatever aspect of the external world it presupposes to model; maybe it has reached maximum predictive power. OR, maybe the theory has a fundamental flaw within it which inherently bottlenecks it's precision or accuracy. All of our current scientific theories might be entirely wrong, but the likelihood that of all our scientific theories none of them reflect anything fundamentally true, if however incomplete, about the external world, seems extremely low. Furthermore, when a new theory eclipses and makes obsolete an old one, this gives us even stronger inductive reasoning that the new theory contains some or more real data about the external world; it has greater predictive power and greater explanatory power; more useful.

We cannot yet say anything certain except this very sentence.

You're worried that we're basing everything off of fundamental misunderstandings, and that's fine, maybe we are, but you're also presuming (at least by your language) that this is in fact the case; that everything we believe and perceive is nothing like the way the external world is... This can be based on a weak inductive argument at best, and even if it were true would seem like useless knowledge when contrasted with traditional science. Yet you then you go even further: When I use Plato's allegory of the cave and begin talking about the shadows on the wall (which is a metaphor for our perceptions and how they not directly derived from the external world and hence amorphous and fallible), you even questioned those, claiming that even the things my perceptions are based on have nothing to do with the way the external world actually works. By your logic, "the external world" has infinite layers of complexity such that no matter how much we refine our perceptions we can not get any closer whatsoever to getting our hands on any real data about any real universe. No actual ultimate truth can possibly exist in such a universe.

1.) Am I making a mistake by purchasing a form of media that objectifies women?

A moral mistake? No. Presuming pornography is not inherently immoral, the only mistake you could potentially make is having purchased a game which does not cater to your sexual orientation.

2.) Should the objectification of women be outlawed?

Yes and we should incarcerate Beyoncé for being the incorrigible sex pirate that she is (she pilfers the female figure). Obviously, no, we should not outlaw Beyoncé.

3.) Is this objectification the result of the oft-quoted "Patriarchy"?

If it's fair to say that scantly clad women in The Witcher 3 is due to "patriarchy" then it must also be fair to say that dildos and vibrators are a direct result of "matriarchy". So, no.

4.) Are women alright with this objectification, and does this have any importance to the debate?

Some women are, some women aren't, but the outcome of the debate should not depend on the genitalia of whomever gives the first or final nod or head-shake.

The issue can be otherwise phrased like this: If a woman wants to objectify herself for profit, is it alright for another person to forbid and prevent her from doing so (up to and including incarceration) because they don't want her to be able to do so or think it is wrong?

If a man creates a fictional woman, and then sexually objectifies it, is it O.K for other people to forbid and obstruct him from doing so? If so, on what grounds? The fictional person is being exploited? The fictional genitalia resembles the genetalia of some real women, thereby giving them proprietary rights over the female form?

I think not.

P.S. See: Sex-positive and sex-negative feminism. (think: free love vs the temperance movement)

You forgot : plump, chump, schlump and stump!

In order to form any notion of self there must exist a not self distinct and independent from that self.

If in reality there were no such distinction then you would lapse into an ill defined infinite regress of self referencing self ad infinitum. — m-theory

What if the things which I perceive of as "not-self" are actually just works of fiction from my subconscious with no actual continuous existence beyond me imagining myself interacting with them or my subconscious mind temporarily simulating them in my conscious experience?

In this case it would still be coherent to say "not-self" and solipsism hold true.

That is what I've been arguing is really the case, the real external world isn't anything like the way that we perceive, and describe it. That is evident from the example which we've already discussed, "the sun rises". The description refers to what we perceive, but we now know that what we perceive is not anything like what is really the case. We could extend this to our understanding of substance in general, molecules and atoms etc., what we perceive is completely different from what is really the case. Since this extreme difference exists, between how we perceive, and describe, the external world, and what we've determined is really the case, it may just as well be a brain in the vat scenario. We still haven't gotten beyond analyzing the impulses, understanding them well enough, to the point of determining the necessity for a "powerful scientist" sending us these impulses. — Metaphysician Undercover

The brain in a vat scenario is useful to show that it could be the case that the sun (let alone sunrise), molecules, and atoms do not reflect or represent a true external reality, but it does not prove it to be the case.

I disagree that the term "sunrise" makes it evident that the real external world isn't anything like the way we perceive or describe it. People concluding geocentrism as a result of observing the obscured and then not obscured visibility of the sun at a particular point on the visible horizon shows how sometimes perception CAN be misleading, but nothing we have yet discovered through reason or science suggests that the observation or experience we colloquially refer to as "sunrise" is an illusion, or a farce, or inherently not reflecting of a true external reality. Further astronomical discoveries beyond "I can see the sun" (sunrise) have enhanced our understanding of the phenomenon, not invalidated the phenomenon itself or shown to be not real. Knowing the orbit and rotation and wobble of the earth can allow us to predict with approximate certainty exactly when and where sunrise will occur (throughout the past and into the foreseeable future). A round rotating Earth and a heliocentric model necessitates that sunrise occur (unless the axis of rotation were pointing directly at the sun at all times).

What is evident from the apparent falsity of geocentrism is that our perceptions can be falliable, but this does not mean that there might be some truth or objectivity contained in our perceptions. Take the heliocentric model for instance, do you think that whatever the sun is (or atoms, or gravity, or time, etc...) that if we were able to get down to "the true external world" that there would not be some fundamental "first principle" which gives rise to the corresponding phenomenon we experience on our end? Yes we could be a brain in a vat, and our perceptions necessarily deceptive, but we also might not be a brain in a vat, and whatever creates the sun (and sunrise, and everything), might be indirectly perceptible through observation, experiment, and induction.

You're willing to say that geocentrism is clearly false because heliocentrism has greater explanatory or predictive power (it's supporting evidence), so what makes you then so quick to assert that heliocentrism is equally as false?

You want to assume that consistency in observations implies necessarily that there is consistency in the external world. So let's start with a real skeptic's position, let's assume that it is possible that there is no scientist at all, absolutely nothing external, just a mind, and the mind itself is producing all the images of perception.

Notice that I introduce this premise as a possibility. This is to counter your assumption that consistency in observation necessarily implies consistency in the thing observed. If we allow that the mind itself is capable of creating, and this is what is implied by the concept of free will, that the mind can create without the necessity for external causation, then it is possible that the observed consistency is completely created by the mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not saying it "necessarily implies" consistency, but instead "infers via induction", but really there's several points caught up in this statement.

First and foremost I'm asserting that "reliable and useful predictive power" can be found through inductive ("cumulative") arguments which are at their base founded on verifiable or repeatable observations. Basing models on reliable phenomenon (i.e: repeatable; having a pattern) is a way to approximate or simulate the strength of "objective truth". Objective truth hypothetically would be 100% reliable and always remain 100% consistent. Given that we can never be certain what we know "objectively reflects the true external world", inductive logic in this form serves as a pragmatic alternative to seeking out more "truth". Even though it is "approximate truth" rather than "objective truth" we can still make inductively gathered truths stronger and stronger through additional experimental rigor and through the expansion of more and more congruent explanatory and predictive models in order to simulate or approximate as best we can the consistency that we imagine objective truth ought to have.

The above position is thoroughly defensible, but what is slightly less defensible (as is directly derived from the above position) is the second position that seems to be getting caught up in our discussion: whether or not our perceptions can or do contain some semblance of information that can be said to "be something like the true external world" (as opposed to your position "it is evident the true external world is nothing like our perceptions"). While using induction to come to highly reliable and consistent explanations simulates some of the power we reckon an "objectively true explanation" might have (consistency and reliability), we can never use it to be absolutely certain it's "truth" may never one day be shown to be inconsistent or inaccurate, like geocentrism.

It is possible that the body of science is on a path toward closing in on or approximating actual universal first principles, but it is also possible that the first principles science might be closing in on are just the deceptive or abstract rules of an evil scientist's simulation. Either way my point is quite simply that induction, especially with respect to the scientific method and it's current body of knowledge, can produce "truths" so reliable that for practical reasons we might behave as if they are objectively true.

This is the point which I've been attempting to bring to your attention. If we allow the principles of free will, we allow that the mind itself creates without external cause. So when we proceed to analyze consistency in observations, we need to be able to distinguish which aspects of that consistency are created by the mind, and which aspects are proper to the thing being observed. — Metaphysician Undercover

Even if my mind creates everything I experience, there can still be consistency in my observations. Whether or not my perception of something (a shadow I mistake for a person for instance) is actually a perception created by my mind might not alter the fact that I consistently observe or perceive it. Even though I may totally misunderstand what something is, I can still observe it (and misunderstand it) consistently. If past observations (despite a prevailing misunderstanding) are more and more consistent, the predictions of future observations (despite the same prevailing misunderstanding) become inductively stronger and stronger. Even if solipsism is true, some observations I make of the fictitious world I create for myself have peculiar consistency with one another, which leads me to guess that either I imagine things with consistency or there is some underlying mechanism which generates that consistency. In either case the observations themselves have consistency.

You think pragmatism sets us straight, but that is not the case at all. Pragmatism is what inclines us to create consistencies, and in creating these consistencies the real inconsistencies are hidden. By loosing track of the real inconsistencies through the claim of consistency, misunderstanding thrives. — Metaphysician Undercover

Science constantly improves by reducing the inherent "inconsistency" or inaccuracy of explanatory gap in it's various interwoven models. This is why you are so confident that geocentrism masks inherent inconsistency and generates a false model by focusing too much on overt consistency; heliocentrism came along and provided more accuracy and even in a more simplified format. The reason why science works is because it sheds obsolete models for one's which better account for apparent inconsistencies in the explanatory and predictive power of existing models, thus "approximating" "reliable truth".

It might all be my imagination, but cumulative induction and the scientific method in general works.

I disagree. We can be certain that solipsism is not the case. Solipsism leads to an ill defined infinite regress that would not allow you to form any conclusions about the existence of anything (including yourself).

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Self-Recursion.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_regress

That is to say that if the term self is not distinct and mutually exclusive of the term not self, then there is no conclusion that you can draw whatsoever.

This meany by definition the terms self and not self are independent of one another.

People don't seem to understand that we would not be able to make any sense out of anything if solipsism was true.

This is just a consequence of logic.

If you could only reference/access yourself (solipsism) then you would be stuck in an infinite loop of trying to define self by referring to self, by referring to self, by referring to self...ad infinitum.

But if a not self exists (objective reality), you can break the infinite cycle by reference self as that which is distinct from not self. — m-theory

In my mind, (heh),The problem of an ill defined infinite regress inherent in solipsism makes it more difficult for us to make sense of things or to be certain of them, but the dilemma of solipsism is not that it has much (if any) merit as a hypothetical model, it's rather that many of it's variations cannot be fully falsified or discounted as a possibility. When it comes to "things of which we are certain", I do not count the statement "solipsism is not true" to be among them.

What I see people argue is this...
"The only thing we experience is our perceptions, therefor basis of our reality of is our perception."

That is fine if that is how you want to define terms but it is essentially a bare assertion about semantics and not an argument that demonstrates a point.

I say we have access to our subjective information which is nothing but objective information that has been processed by our brains. — m-theory

Consider the brain in a vat scenario. A powerful scientist could be feeding impulses from a simulation into your brain in exactly the same way as if your brain was in a skull, rendering you unable to determine if the world you perceive actually extends beyond your potentially simulated or deceptive perceptions.

This isn't exactly full blown solipsism, but it establishes a primitive case which can cast some (albeit minimal) doubt on whether or not our perceptions even indirectly reflect an external or objective world.

Skepticism can really do away with a lot if it is applied to the extreme, but luckily pragmatism regularly steps in and sets us straight.

I realize that this is not particularly interesting to think about, but the debate is really about semantics and is not that interesting in the first place.

I truly don't understand how people believe there is some profound philosophical dilemma here?!?
:-| — m-theory

That's quite alright, your point is well on topic.

Solipsism is not really a profound philosophical dilemma, but it is a proper hard dilemma none the less. Whether or not I (you) live in a solipsistic world in the end would change nothing of consequence as far as our perceptions are concerned, so I (you) don't have any reason to waste much time trying to validate or falsify it.

The thread questions "objectivity". You seem to think that consistency in observation is synonymous with "objective". I've demonstrated that consistency in observation does not imply "truth". My claim is that since it doesn't imply truth, we should not consider this to be objectivity. — Metaphysician Undercover

You know very well at this point what I think; consistency in observation gives rise to an inductive argument that is the basis for the whole of science. I have never said this amounts to "objective truth", I've been going well out of my way to define it thusly:

" I'm pointing at consistency in the behavior of the shadows and you are saying broadly "you can never be certain of shadows", but I never said that we could be certain, I said that the more consistently these shadows behave the more confident we can be in predicting the future behavior of said shadows. "

"Repeatable observations of reliable phenomenon assist in producing models which allow us to reliably predict various aspects of said phenomenon. It's not objective truth; it's reliable and useful truth; that's science. "

"It's the fact that things appear to remain consistent which persuades us that whatever we uncover about them through repeatable experimentation (predictions) and observation (regardless of whether that knowledge is objective certainty or not), is worth knowing." — Vagabond

Now, you have provided no principle whereby we can proceed logically from consistency in observation to your claim of observable consistency. Do you see the difference? We have as evidence, consistency in observation. Consistency is a property of the observations, the descriptions, that's my point. How do you proceed to the conclusion that consistency is a property of the object, to claim "observable consistency"? — Metaphysician Undercover

It does not actually matter whether or not consistency is a property of the object because as long as the observations themselves remain consistent then reliable predictions of future observations can possibly be based upon them. If I never have direct access to real things (instead only faulty and subjective observations) then why would I bother trying to say anything about the "real thing" in the first place? Maybe I'm just predicting future observations?

Science deals with the empirically accessible world and as such necessarily flows through "subjective observations".

The op deals with a difference between objectivity and subjectivity. Is it your claim now, that there is no such thing as objectivity? I think there is objectivity, but truth is essential to it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Here's the first thing I stated on page 1:

"There's no proof against solipsism; perhaps the thing of which we are most certain of is actually our own prevailing lack of absolute certainty." — vagabond

I'm not trying to substantiate science as ultimate and objective truth, I provided an answer but then I decided to provide more by answering the question: "If we have no direct access ultimate and objective truth, what is the next best thing we can access, or, how can we gain useful knowledge?

OK, so how do we determine whether the superficial induction based conclusions are true or not? Let's take the sun rising example. Your claim was that no person would deny that the sun rises, and therefore it is true. I deny it, and have explained how it is clearly false. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well, you denied an interpretation of "sunrise" which I have expressly identified as an incorrect interpretation of the position I originaly articulated. I never said that we live in a geocentric solar system, or that the earth remains motionless while the sun moves in order to create the day/night cycle. What I clarified my position to be was that "the sun appears over the horizon or appears to move across the sky. The word appears is how at first I tried to make it clear that I was referring to a phenomenon of "relative perspective" which occurs when a human is standing on the surface of the earth. The fact that the sun appears over the horizon does not contradict the earth's rotation, it is caused by it.

Yes you have defeated geocentrism, but you have not defeated "sunrise as an observable phenomenon" (as caused by the earth's rotation). How do you prove an observation? You can't. You can record it or make a similar observation in order to increase the inductive strength of an individual observation, but the observation itself must on some level just be accepted for what it is until contradictory observations come along. Knowing the rotational speed and axis of planets in conjunction with their orbits around a star allows us to predict "sunrise" (when the sun would appear over the horizon at a given geographical point) without ever having been there; the observations agree with the model you say contradicts them.

Yes, it clearly does falsify the actual meaning of that statement. The sun is the subject. It is engaged in the activity of rising, according to the meaning of the statement. But clearly the sun is not involved in any such activity, the earth is the proper subject here, engaged in the activity of spinning. The sun rising is a false description of what is occurring. Why do you not accept the reality, that this is a false description? You want to give to "the sun rises", a metaphorical meaning, and claim that there is "truth" in this metaphorical meaning. But you haven't explained how there is truth in metaphor. — Metaphysician Undercover

Well it's not metaphorical, it is a statement of perspective "from this perspective, the sun becomes visible at A time and at Y vector". It's an observation and repeatability is the source of it's strength.

You're missing the point. What is consistent is the observations, the descriptions. You conclude that the shadows are behaving consistently because there is consistency in the descriptions. But that's not the case, the consistency is in the observations, the descriptions, not in the shadows being observed. Perhaps it's like the sun rising, the shadows are not doing anything at all, the human mind is active, making it appear like the shadows are active. Isn't this what eternalism says? — Metaphysician Undercover

So now I cannot even observe the shadows!?!

Woah, bro... This is cave-ception:

"Imagine that you are in a dark cave and under physical restraints which force you to only ever be facing a single wall. A fire is lit behind you which casts shadows upon the wall in-front of you. You are also blindfolded, and so while you cannot see the shadows, all you can do is grope the wall in front of you, feeling for warmer and colder spots which might indicate where the firelight, or a shadow, has recently been lingering.

It's the warm and cold spots man; they're consistent. Every time I drop what I can only faultily describe as what I subjectively observe to be a "television" on my "foot", I am overwhelmed with a very particular feeling which happens to have a peculiarly rigid correlation with what I can only faultily describe to be what I subjectively observe as "significant damage to my physical body"....

we can see the shadows; that's the point of the metaphor.

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To summarize my intention in this thread, I sought to provide a useful alternative to objective certainly after having contested that we do not currently possess very much objective certainty, if any. One of the qualities we would expect objective truth to have is complete reliability (because it is true and unchanging or true at the time). The entire goal of the scientific method is to seek the most fundamentally reliable descriptions and models of phenomenon (those with explanatory or predictive power) that it can find as a way of attempting to either A: simulate or approximate or approach "objective truth", or B: produce reliable and useful "truth" (not the same thing, but still a very useful kind of truth none too less).

I never said that we can never access objective truth, or even that we can never be certain of it, just that right now we're certain of almost nothing. Science provides a useful answer to how we can improve what we "know", despite a lack of absolute certainty, by testing models against the consistency of our observations, experiments, and experiences. Science is limited by what we can empirically experience. That's a fact. Do you propose an alternative route which can certainly deliver us closer to absolute truth, or dare I say, upon it?

Just out of curiosity, do you work directly or indirectly for Jill Stein, her party, or her campaign?

If a hypothesis cannot generate or be used to assist in generating any testable predictions then we are unable to test it by observing the outcomes of experiments; it cannot be falsified.

So if we have a given hypothesis which cannot generate any predictions whatsoever, it will never be scientifically reinforced through experimental confirmation. If a hypothesis does generate predictions, but we are (as yet) unable to test those predictions (due to being unable to control the required experiment, or to observe the results), then at that time a given hypothesis likewise cannot be considered scientifically reinforced/accurate/valid/confirmed/tested/etc...

Keep in mind that when experimental results agree with our modeled predictions we do not instantly take the predictive hypothesis to be "confirmed", instead we ascribe it a degree of confidence; confidence in predictive power; reliable predictive power. The more accurately and reliably a model can make successful predictions, the more confidence points we give it. When a hypothetical model results in incorrect predictions, we do not instantly throw it out (we check to make sure we conducted the experiment and recorded the results correctly) and then we try to modify the model (especially if the model has some predictive power to begin with) but if a model continues to generate inaccurate predictions, then we consider it falsified.

So what does this mean for some of the more esoteric hypothetical models of the quantum world?

Well, let's start with the double slit test; the wave-life function of quantum particles enable them to interact with possible versions of themselves when unobserved (forgive me Einstein, I know not what I say!). Even though we're not yet where we want to be with our grasp of how or why this happens, we still are able to set up meticulously regulated experiments in order to see if this model holds true (the wave pattern it creates after interacting with itself). So long as this model remains unfalsified through experimentation and so long as it's predictions remain true, it is "scientific" simply by virtue of being the most predictively reliable, and as yet unfalsified, explanation we have (remember the changing or relative "standards" of science and it's various fields). The model itself is going to be modified (perhaps greatly) in the future in order to expand it's predictive power and then to refine the reliability and accuracy of those predictions, but for now it's a part of one of the best quantum models we have. It might turn out to be totally wrong one day, sure, but that's always a risk inherent in science. There's no ultimate certainty, only degrees of confidence in reliability; science is a wager.

When it comes to some other hypotheses, like the many worlds interpretation of QM phenomenon, we are not yet and may never be able to use it to make any predictions or run any experiments to see if it holds true with what is observable. That's why the wave function description of quantum mechanics is said to be scientific while the MWI and many other hypotheses are not; experiments, predictions, and observable results..