I won't be responding to any more of your or Pattern-chaser's post. You are both unreasonable and have a problem with constantly committing ad hominem attacks. You aren't worth my time. — Harry Hindu

If you post hate-speech, expect appropriate responses. I have treated you with respect and courtesy, although I have agreed with little that you have posted. You, on the other hand, have posted stuff that is hateful and intolerant.

Triple Goddesses occur in many religious belief systems, some long-predating the Christian Trinity. The concept doesn't seem unusual or novel. :chin:

If you think that it's acceptable to interpret an infant that is helplessly dying a slow painful death from whooping cough in his or her loving mother's arms as a gift, then there's something wrong with you. — Sapientia

The God I worship is the God of humans and Bordetella pertussis, and everything else too.

Your God is your problem. :roll:

However fancy the long arrangements of words the theologians come up with, they disappear in a puff of shame when watching a mother helplessly holding her infant that is dying a slow painful death from whooping cough. — andrewk

If you are grass, a rabbit is a curse inflicted by an Evil God.
If you are a wolf, rabbits are a gift from a Good God.

Is God only the God of Humans?

Just because we don't have a name for the other shades of Blue doesn't mean we can't see them. — SteveKlinko
No indeed, but it does mean we can't distinguish the different shades; we see them all as 'blue' - the same shade of blue - while our Russian counterparts see different colours (all of them shades of blue, of course). :up: — Pattern-chaser


You are saying we can't verbalize the difference but we do see the difference? — SteveKlinko

No, I'm saying we don't see the difference, although we could learn to - maybe only as children? :chin: - just as the Russians did. N.B. I don't know this as fact, but believe it to be so. :up:

If I am told to picture 'blue,' the first thing that comes to mind... What will it be? Why? — Blue Lux

First, let's be clear that I'm guessing, as we all are. These are not things for which clear and complete knowledge exists, as far as I know. :up:

If you are told to picture blue, you will picture ... blue. All the associations with blue that you hold in your memory/mind, not just an abstract blob of colour, or something. :wink: So you will 'see' something sad (blue), perhaps the moon, which can also be blue (well, sort of), something that has the colour blue, and so on. Why? Because that's how our minds work. [ I think. :wink: ]

That's my guess, anyway. :chin:

Firstly, please don't presume to lecture me on the importance of perception, okay? I know more than most how perception is effectually godlike in power where it concerns us humans. — Lucid

I have found that what people actually know is inversely proportional to what they claim to know ... but maybe you're the exception that proves the rule? :chin:

Finally, you said "... and this is part of what our brains and minds do to enable us to perceive the world."

LOL. If you're going to lecture of the difference between conscious awareness and perception. You really should be a lot more careful of your usage of the word perception :) — Lucid

I think I wrote what I intended to write. :chin: Maybe I'm staring at a huge stupidity, and failing to see it?

I am not looking for answers or wisdom because I already have them, I mean ALL THE ANSWERS, and I'm not a loony here, it's just the truth. — Daorley Downy

Then, with all due respect and courtesy, why would anyone here bother to engage with you? You, knowing everything already, are not open to discussion or new ideas. Why would you be? You are already fully informed. So why are you here? This forum is for discussion, isn't it? :chin:

Just because we don't have a name for the other shades of Blue doesn't mean we can't see them. — SteveKlinko

No indeed, but it does mean we can't distinguish the different shades; we see them all as 'blue' - the same shade of blue - while our Russian counterparts see different colours (all of them shades of blue, of course). :up:

So in my view, the thing which distinguishes Neural light and consciousness light, is the act of perception, by consciousness itself. I agree there is some extra processing her but I think it's embellishment more than anything, building up a picture using the composite given by the brain, with imagination — Lucid

Perception precedes consciousness/awareness; it takes place wholly outside conscious awareness. And I think perhaps it's a great deal more than embellishment. The data from our senses are interpreted and integrated into our internal world views, and so on, and then presented, complete, to our conscious minds.

If you look into the details of human vision, you will immediately see how there's so much more to perception than we think. Because perception takes place outside our awareness, we tend to minimise its complexity. But our eyes give us only four ( :gasp: ) snap-shots per second, mostly in low-res monochrome, with a higher-res colour area in the middle, the latter occupying the same area in our fields of vision as a full moon viewed from Earth. It takes a great deal more than embellishment to make this seem like full-motion hi-res colour video, and this is part of what our brains and minds do to enable us to perceive the world. It astonishes me that we can see at all. :smile:

Allowing individuals to be rewarded for effort has worked well... — frank

Indeed it has, but it's the extreme that is the problem. Looked at in isolation, most of us would agree that, if you work twice as hard as me, you 'deserve' twice the reward. This is moderated when you also consider the limited size of the pool from which these rewards are drawn, but it still seems fair, which is something that matters a lot to many animals, humans included.

But the problem is when the richest person in the world owns around a million million dollars, while the poorest of us own less than one dollar. Now the extremes and the inequality are laid bare. There is not enough wealth in the world for everyone to have a trillion dollars, so we must redistribute what there is. Perhaps not to the point where everyone has exactly the same number of dollars, but so that the gap between the richest and the poorest is seen by most to be fair.

The status quo is not fair, whatever else it is. It must change.

A man can never bring an infant to term. A woman cannot fertilize herself. — Harry Hindu

Actually, medical 'science' is able to bring about both of these things. <shudder>

↪Pattern-chaser
What do we do in the case of schizophrenics and anorexics? We try to change the mind because that is where we know the problem is located. — Harry Hindu

But in the case of a simple mismatch, as we have here, the source of the problem is unclear. It could be either. Schizophrenics and anorexics cannot be cured by addressing the body, otherwise I'm sure we'd give it a go. It isn't even clear that gender dysphoria can be directly compared with conditions like schizophrenia. Would you compare psoriasis with diabetes, and maybe try to treat them both in the same way? No, you would consider the suggestion to be nonsense, quite rightly. :up: Your problem is, well, your problem. Intolerance, bigotry and hate are your problems, and you should not be looking at trans folk to find their source.... :fear:

Some cultures don't have a good naming convention for Color but it does not mean that they can't see Colors. — SteveKlinko

Well that's not entirely true. Russian people, who have one or more extra words to describe blue are able to see different shades of blue that you or I would see as being identical. So cultural "naming conventions" can mean that we see colours in different ways. In my example, Russians see two or more shades or colours while you and I see only one.

"How do you really know that the body is wrong and your mind is right? Could it not be possible that it is the other way around?" — Harry Hindu

Yes, of course it could. But, in purely practical terms, we cannot (i.e. we don't know how) change the mind to suit the body, but we can change the body to approximately match the mind. But these are details. The issue at hand is the mismatch between mind and body, not which one of them is 'wrong'. :roll:

Generally speaking, I don't like computer analogies, applied to humans. But in this case, a computer-related vocabulary makes explanation much easier. :up:

First, humans have hardware, even if it is called wetware in this context. :smile: The part of the software that engages directly with the wetware is usually called firmware. If you consider that men and women have a few different appendages, you will realise that their firmware must be a little bit different. Different drivers for male and female genitalia, if you will. But not just that. Women live their lives more 'saturated' with active biochemicals than men, and this also requires differences in the firmware. And there are other differences too that must be accounted-for by the firmware. The end result is that we have wetware differences between men and women, and corresponding firmware differences too.

If a human with a penis has firmware that is usually found in someone with other fitments, there is a mismatch. I do not submit this as an explanation, but as an analogy or metaphor, as a help to understand how a human could be a man (say) in the body of a woman. I.e. female wetware + male firmware. In the context of my computer-based analogy, this explanation makes perfect sense. I can't guarantee the sense transfers to human men and women, but it feels like it could; maybe it does. :chin:

I told you, a work of music, or art. It must be a sign because it has meaning, as is evident from the emotions which it arouses. — Metaphysician Undercover

Emotions are not meanings in the intellectual sense... — Dfpolis

No, they aren't. But when humans encounter or consider meanings which they find to be significant, they become emotionally attached to them. So the presence of these emotions is evidence that the humans involved have recognised meaning. OK? :chin:

↪Tyler
Why is there a need to explain and 'establish' our experience when it is already established, say NOW when I am seeing the screen of my phone, and I am translating my own meaning of words, and I am using as the most absolute reference knowable, my own experience? SteveKlinko @BrianW@Pattern-chaser — Blue Lux

Why is there a need? Well, in absolute terms, there is no need. But we are humans, and we like to know things, and understand them too, if we can :wink:. Mostly, we can't, but we try anyway. So the need is our human aspiration to know and understand. Nothing more than that.

Your poisonous words are difficult to respond to. I refer to someone's choice of personal address, and you respond by referring to someone who has delusions, but is offered gender reassignment surgery anyway, for the sake of profit. Then you accuse me of encouraging this? :rage: [People with delusions are not offered surgery in civilised countries.] That's a lot of venom to fit into so few words. Why not just say you feel hatred for non-cis humans? :vomit:

I never have understood what people mean when they speak of being objective. — Anthony

I think most of us pick this up from context. But never mind. :wink: I wonder if it's the way you're choosing to look at it? Because I can't make sense of this at all:

If to be objective connotes existing apart from an observation...objectiveness is non existent. — Anthony

Can you pick this apart for me? You seem to say that existence depends on being observed. So if you look at me, I exist, but when you blink ... I disappear? :chin:

If it causes no harm to others, it shouldn't matter that X is biologically male or female but identifies otherwise. — Ciceronianus the White

That is the whole issue, encapsulated. :up: :smile: Whatever gender I identify as, it does you no harm, so please respect my preference and address me as I ask. I'll do the same for you. There. Sorted. :up:

I am confused. First you agree that reductionism cannot properly investigate something whose function is primarily related to the connections between its components:

I think I mostly understand your point, and agree that it cannot be explained by only reductionism. — Tyler

Then you ignore this, and repeat your previous (unjustified) assertion:

If all the portions are explained, and then further more, the connections of the portions are explained, to overlap all portions, then the overview of the entire combination of the concept can be put together like a puzzle. — Tyler

But how will you explain the connections when you have used a reductionist approach? Let's just remind ourselves, again, how reductionism works. Divide and conquer. The components are disconnected - and further disassembled themselves, if necessary - until the remaining fragments are simple enough to be analysed and understood in isolation. Where significant functionality lies in the connections, it is necessarily lost in the reductive dismembering!

Please explain how "the connections of the portions are explained", when those connections were ignored and destroyed by your reductionist approach. :chin:

[T]his brings me back to my point that humans have experiences lacking in conscious awareness. I think this point is relevant because, if humans have those simpler experiences, and if it's agreed that those simpler experiences are explainable, then the gap is not large between the explanation of those simpler experiences and more complex experiences, involving conscious awareness. — Tyler

First, it is not clear to me that "experiences lacking in conscious awareness" are "simpler". Do you offer any justification for this assumption? [I do not challenge your assumption, but I point out that it is one, and wonder if you can justify what you have claimed? :chin: ]

"if it's agreed that those simpler experiences are explainable" - again, this has not been established. You have asserted so, but offered no justification. Please explain these 'simpler' experiences, in terms of neural activity. You keep asserting that these explanations can be provided, so please do. I look forward to reading them, and learning. :chin: :wink:

We just have to explain the experiences, starting from simple, as they increase in degree of conscious awareness. — Tyler

Go on then....

I think I just feel the need for two levels of the word objective — Christoffer

And I understand why you think so. But I'm still bothered, not specifically by you, but by our (i.e. humans) general tendency to use vocabulary that, er, enhances the confidence we have in the things we (think we) know. We express our educated guesses - and this is what they are - using words like "objective", "certain", "definite". And we use euphemisms like probability, so that our guesses will sound like they're better founded than a more truthful "guess" might imply. We even say "is", which does not allow for any uncertainty, instead of (for example) "seems". Our need for certainty is clearly a deep-seated thing with us humans! :wink:

If you're interested in this, there's a lot of stuff on the net. I especially like this quote, from an article about E-prime: "Take the phrase, "My brother is lazy." It seems clear, but Korzybski and Bourland would say it deceives: it implies certainty and objectivity, when in reality it expresses an opinion." Here's the full article.

Yes, I quibble about such things quite a lot. :wink: But I'm not just nit-picking. :up: The terms we use frame what we say. Pollsters know that the answer to a poll depends largely on how the question is phrased. Simply using a more confident selection of words makes our subject matter appear more credible and reliable. Unjustifiably, IMO.

However practical objectivity is what I consider the definition to use in direct opposition to subjectivity... — Christoffer

I also wonder about your use of the term "subjectivity". I wonder what you mean by it? And most of all, I wonder why you say several times that subjectivity must be opposed, expressing it in a way that says any sane and reasonable person would agree without a second thought.

We subjectivists meet in dark and secluded caverns, as we must, away from decent people. And some of us worship the Unholy Binary - Eris and Cthulhu - but do we really deserve this type of treatment? :wink: What have we done to you? :smile: Seriously: what do you mean by "subectivist"?

Bach's cello suite #6. Fun. :smile:

...and yet it's difficult to discuss this when you think passive and active are more or less synonymous. :joke:

The left side of the brain processes data using a schema similar to logic; 2-D cause and affect. The right brain uses a different schema that is more spatial. — wellwisher

You say this like it's accepted wisdom, tested and proven over millennia. But it looks to me like an unjustified assertion, an implication of knowledge that we don't possess. I think there is a great deal more to human brains than you have considered here. And that's before we make the move from brains to minds.... :wink:

...I view objectivity through the lens of humans using that word to describe absolute truth outside of our perception, but reachable by a scientific method, since we've reached truths that can be considered objective truths... — Christoffer

One problem with a 'diluted' definition of objectivity is that you can say we have reached objective truth via science, and you mean that we have reached a conclusion which is fairly reliable and consistent, to the point that we can usefully use it to predict some aspect of the behaviour of the world. But someone else hears you, and understands from your words that science provides Objective access to Objective Reality. Of course, the latter is simply wrong. But your milder definition encourages this misunderstanding. I think this worries me more than any other part of the ages-old debate over objectivity. :chin:

However, we need to settle at a certain point on the less than 100% objectivity. — Damir Ibrisimovic

We do? Why is that, do you think? Is a mild definition of objectivity really that useful, when it helps to convince us that there are certainties, when (from an exclusively and typically human point of view) there are few or none? I do see where you're coming from, but I wonder if we are accepting approximations that hide stuff that (maybe) ought to be more, er, visible? :chin:

You think that a rock, which cannot act, therefore does not exist? — Pattern-chaser

No, rocks scatter light, gravitate, resist imposed forces, etc., so thy exist. — Dfpolis

But they don't act! Rock are passive; actions are, er, active. :wink: :chin:

That's why I defined the scientific process as the closest we humans have got to being truly objective and that form of objectivity should be considered a true definition of the word. Otherwise we open up to defining anything, any knowledge that we have, as subjective and that's a slippery slope down to denying facts in science. — Christoffer

Yes, I see what you're getting at. :smile: :up: On the one hand, it is convenient and useful to know things that are consistent and reliable about the world. This is an unbiased view of the world. That's the mildest definition of objective that I can think of. And yet the other end of the spectrum has its attractions too. The hard-Objectivity that considers things that are absolutely certain, because they correspond exactly to Objective Reality. When we consider such things, we realise, as you implied in what you wrote, that there is little or nothing that humans can know with that absolute degree of certainty. Thinking along these lines teaches us something useful, I think, which is that the world, as we experience it, is an uncertain place. There is no certainty, for practical purposes.

So I have sympathy with what you're saying, but I also note that it is a sort of fudge, a sort of denial of uncertainty. Maybe because it's more comfortable? :chin:

the concept of objectivity is not defined as 100% pure objectivity as in, there isn't a subject mind around to interpret it, but instead a definition of what we see as proven facts outside of our concept and interpretations of it. — Christoffer

I disagree with this ... but my disagreement is unimportant. You mean something much less objective than I do when I use the term. I'm a (so-called) subjectivist because of my understanding of, and respect for, the concept of objectivity. [That, and the realisation that there is almost nothing 'objective' that a human can know. ] We have a semantic disagreement here, centring on the term "objective". That's OK, but let's leave it there? There's many interesting hours can be spent discussing objectivity, but semantic differences aren't part of that. :wink: :up: :smile:

All of these descriptions become a subject interpretation of the fact (the painting of a flower). But the sum of all those interpretations is the objective viewpoint. I.e a single person cannot hold a purely objective opinion or viewpoint, but a collective can... — Christoffer

I don't even need to type anything, as I typed it all just a few short minutes ago:

You suggest that consensus, where we all agree, but we could all be wrong, is the same as objective, which offers a sort of guarantee that something is correct, and accurately reflects reality? — Pattern-chaser

:smile:

it can be hard to get to the real "bone" of Zen philosophy and separate it from the Buddhist rituals, which don't interest me so much — ScottVal

The problem is that "Zen" is "Zen Buddhism", so it's a bit difficult to filter out the "Buddhism" bit. :wink: Zen is a mixture of Buddhism and Taoism. Maybe looking at Taoism might interest you more? :chin:

"Laws causing the regularity of nature is identical with the regularity of nature being caused by laws." — Dfpolis

"No it isn't. In one case, the laws are the master and nature follows them; in the other, nature is the master, and the laws follow it. The latter is the truth. The former is sciencist dogma, and wrong." — Pattern-chaser


Of course it is. If A is doing B, necessarily, B is being done by A. There is no question here of master and disciple, only of different ways of stating the same reality. — Dfpolis

First, you do realise, don't you, that "A is doing B" and "B is being done by A" are identical, and probably not what you meant to say? If you reverse the A and the B, and you reverse the sense of the verb, the net result is unchanged.

What you actually said, translated to use letters, as you seem to prefer, is: "A causing B is identical with B being caused by A", which is obviously true, and which I missed the first time I read it. Sorry. :blush: But what you said is not, I suspect, the observation you intended to make.

Your observation states that, in both cases, A is the cause, and B is what is caused. So there is no contrast, no distinction to be drawn. You miss my point entirely, it seems. :chin:

Nature behaves as it does because it cannot do otherwise. There is no volition or intention on nature's part. And there are no rules or laws that cause nature to act as it does. It does what it does because it is what it is. There is no evidence of cause or purpose*, only of behaviour.

Over the past centuries, we have observed that two separated masses attract one another. We label this phenomenon "gravity". We have tested this observation again and again, and we have always found it to be so. In time, we created a mathematical model of this behaviour, and we called it the "law of gravity". We tested this law, and found it to be a good model, a good description of how nature behaves. And we have since used this law with success.

But nowhere is there any evidence for this law governing or controlling nature. This law is not the magical spell that lies behind gravity, and causes it to act as it does. If it was, we would be able to observe the law itself, out there in nature, and we can't because it isn't there. Gravity is there.

So, to be clear, I assert that gravity is the master; the law of gravity models and describes this master. If there is any contradiction between the two, which one is wrong? The law of gravity. Gravity itself is part of reality, the ultimate reference, and cannot be wrong.

* - I'm assuming we don't wish to consider God's input into all this, in this particular discussion? :wink: :smile:

It just is, and it does what it does without the need for any sort of support or guidance. No laws. No luck. Just reality, being real. — Pattern-chaser

Of course, it is metaphysically impossible for nature to "just be" without a concomitant cause. — Dfpolis

Our discussion seems unconnected with whether nature has a cause. :chin:

Because an infallible sign of existence is the ability to act. — Dfpolis

You think that a rock, which cannot act, therefore does not exist?

What about Global Warming? We have very large scientific consensus - and yet we have large non-scientific views denying that Global Warming exists... — Damir Ibrisimovic

You suggest that consensus, where we all agree, but we could all be wrong, is the same as objective, which offers a sort of guarantee that something is correct, and accurately reflects reality?

It really is nothing more than a matter of different interpretations of the ambit of a term. — Janus

I don't think so. It's about whether science and its laws control reality, or describe it. It's about whether reality is human-independent, which is why it's significant, and not a trivial matter of semantics.

It's about whether the law-of-gravity is:

• a curve-fitted mathematical model of gravity, or
• a magical incantation that underlies, powers, governs and controls gravity.

The underlying analogy is that as civil laws order social behavior, so laws of nature order natural behavior — Dfpolis

No, the analogy is that, as civil laws order behaviour, natural behaviour orders human laws. :up:

When you say that "Matter behaves in particular ways which are regular," you are admitting the existence of laws of nature -- unless you go on to say that the observed regularity is purely fortuitous. — Dfpolis

No, there is no admission of laws, and no fortuity either. Nature doesn't need either. It just is, and it does what it does without the need for any sort of support or guidance. No laws. No luck. Just reality, being real.

Laws causing the regularity of nature is identical with the regularity of nature being caused by laws. — Dfpolis

No it isn't. In one case, the laws are the master and nature follows them; in the other, nature is the master, and the laws follow it. The latter is the truth. The former is sciencist dogma, and wrong. As you have phrased it, it's the difference between cause and effect; they aren't interchangeable, as you seem to think they are.

What ideas presented in the novel seem most relevant to you, both personally and regarding any current world situations that may be applicable? — 0 thru 9

Have you ever seen Sauron and Trump together in the same room? Saruman and Boris Johnson?

That's what I call 'relevant'. :wink: