Do you think the fizzling might be somewhat a consequence of excessive politesse on your part? — wonderer1

I suspect other members might have a very different impression of my tendency to politesse...

I suspect that as a psychology professor you have insight into the topic of the OP that you haven't brought up in the thread. (And I understand there may well be ethical standards for someone in your position, and abiding by such standards requires limiting what you say.)

Thoughts? — wonderer1

Yeah... I'm fully retired now, so I can say what I like really, and I tend to do so without too much restraint. But I've never had the sense that there's much interest. People don't like psychology as rule. I think there's something immediately offensive about someone claiming to know how you think. I'm more keen to just learn how different people respond to interrogation, that's my wheelhouse really (one of them, anyway). How people defend and attack beliefs in a social context - the rules of engagement, the tactics, the impacts... that sort of thing. It's a rare thing that a thread addresses this directly as this one has, but really, there's more meat to found on the ones that are talking about something else.

But also, @Srap Tasmaner has probably heard my 'insight' on these matters to the point of fatigue and I fear if I use the word 'narrative' one more time in any post I might well inspire physical damage.

That said, if you have a specific question, I'm happy to risk it, but fair warning, the answer will be about narratives and won't mention Freud once, unless in place of an expletive.

Right. Thanks for the numbers. So in about 17 months we've had nearly 100,000 dead, 6.3 million refugees, $143 billion in damage, wheat and fertiliser production almost causing the starvation of another 10-15 million... and what have we got. Ukraine are nearly half way to wearing down Russian ability to cause more damage.

So after another 100,000 dead and nearly $300 billion in debt they maybe equalise...?

How many thousands of lives and billions in damages is defeating Washington's ego worth? — neomac

Not that many. This isn't some unknown quantity we might as well toss a coin over.

We know how many are dying as a result of this war, we know with some certainty that it will be a long process even if Ukraine can ever win. It's definitely in the hundreds of thousands of lives, and the billions of damages. No doubt there.

We also know quite well how many more are dying in Russia because of their more authoritarian direction than in Ukraine. We know how many more die on Russia's borders with it's militarism is not restrained. It's in the low thousands of lives and the low millions in damages.

It's not to the penny accounting, but it's just dishonest to present it as if we just don't know. We do know. We can see how many have died in the occupation of Crimea, we have a very good idea of what appeasement brings, and we have a very good idea of the costs of war, and of the likely length of time those costs are going to have to be endured for.

This isn't a calculation anyone would be making blind. A decision has been made to cost at least tenfold as many lives and a thousandfold as much economic indebtedness simply in order to profit from the chaos.

I'm gonna put my commie hat on. — fdrake

You mean you ever took it off! It's the gulag for you m'boy.

I get the impression that you are reading that this disunity is the left's problem, whereas it's likely society's. Capital's always going to be doing that thing where any identity division is exacerbated, monetised, coopted in an attempt to create and maintain markets. This ultimately isn't a good or a bad thing, it is just a thing that happens. — fdrake

I was with you up to the last. Surely it is a bad thing? Are we saying that the exacerbation of disunity in order to make a fast buck is morally neutral? That doesn't seem quite right.

The Revolution needs people like you to remind The Left that global oriented politics is necessary. — fdrake

That's very kind of you to say so. I might reply to The Revolution that if needs people like me it might want to refrain from sacking us, banning us, labelling us as bigoted anti-[insert minority here], and generally making us feel like we've denied the Holocaust every time we raise the smallest concern about direction. Just a suggestion, of course, it's not my place to tell The Revolution how to run its business!

the cry toward heightened awareness of international issues also can serve as a means of blocking emancipatory struggles in left movements in the political north - see big disputes in orgs about class first postures. — fdrake

Yes I grant that some care is needed. Dialogue, rather than competition. I'm also aware that an emancipated north is much much more likely to engage in poverty reduction than one still under the yoke of various forms of (albeit minor) oppression. Getting our own house in order has merit. My concern is less with the actual focus, more with the way that focus is used. Were I to have confidence in these first-world emancipatory movements actually looking to win, I might be more able to back the idea of some mutuality or even, as I say, getting our own house in order before we try and 'change the world'.

So it's not the focus necessarily on its own that bothers me. It's the means by which that focus is maintained, the superficiality of it all, the 'buy the t-shirt' ease with which one can become a part (from someone who's looked more than a few police horses in the snout, I'm not complaining from an ivory tower). I mean - this more of metaphorical value than the main issue, but blue hair? Not exactly environmentally friendly is it? Remember the Extinction Rebellion t-shirt fiasco? And trans campaigns...? Equal pay for women (but not better pay for seamstresses)? Stamp out sexual harassment in the work place (but no mention of the increasing sex migrant atrocities)?

It's like they're not even trying. Really, really obvious intersectionalities are being missed again and again which just adds to this feeling of glib superficiality to these campaigns. Are we so numb now to poverty that the below poverty line pay for the (majority women) in clothing sweatshops didn't even cross the minds of the campaigners boisterously complaining that some offensively overpaid female TV celebrity wasn't quite as offensively overpaid as her male counterpart? I'm not even asking for a "don't forget the starving children!" announcement attached to every campaign - this was literally a campaign about women's pay, for Christ's sake. The same was true of Black Lives Matter (apart from lives of the majority black children producing your fashion items apparently which, it turns out, don't matter quite so much as trainers do).

So yes, you're right about these things being able to run alongside, and probably they should do. But alongside means something, it's not a universal solvent, that just excuses any and all campaigning strategies. We can't absolve every choice as "at least something's happening", some 'somethings' are worse than nothing. They suck the oxygen.

Neither intersectionality, or what you're espousing, have any concrete doctrinal or practical commitments. They're not even organisational principles. They're barely even informative theory for on the ground politics. They sit at least three degrees of organisational abstraction above moving bodies into the right places at the right times. They're means of forming/criticising means of perceiving means of organising norms of praxis, and let's not pretend they're anything but. — fdrake

I think you're partially right here. I can agree that the academic literature and practice doesn't really inform actual politics, and in that sense my ire is not really directed at academics. That said (and explaining the 'partially') there's not a bright line between the two on account of the very human fact that the people involved in each institution often overlap. The political organisations and the academics. I don't know how much that's still true, but in my day there was very strong union support among the social sciences departments (to the point of parody), but even in the anti-road protests which I was heavily involved with, there was an uncomfortable academic fringe alongside the crusties. And we certainly brought our theoretical commitments to those campaigns (certainly the union activism and tax protests, less so the anti-road stuff 'cos we were a bit scared of the crusties!). I've no idea what is happening in trans, feminist or any other minority on-the-ground action these days, but I'd be surprised if it was radically different.

The perceived proliferation of identities results from a systemic fragmentation of identity and a partitioning of social space, as should be evident from it being widespread over the political north. The fact that this fragmentation creates a posture in left politics, an identity politics, is as much a reflection of the underlying fragmentation as it is a way that civil liberty destabilises stultifying identities - if they can be monetised somehow, and they will, that serves to make them more accessible. — fdrake

Yes. I think that's true, but I don't think the monetisation is the only motive. There was, albeit in it's infancy, quite a serious move after the 2008 crash to push back against the whole system of money, and some of this is a response to that, a diversion - look anywhere but here... Warring tribes are not only monetisable, they're also weak. And that, I think, matters more. The rainbow t-shirts aren't that much of cash cow. It's meaningful opposition that's the biggest worry, division prevents that.

On the ground, a tankie and a blue hair can put their differences aside and get a disabled access ramp for a town hall. Or disrupt government through a well placed protest for a day. — fdrake

They can, but they won't. The folk getting disabled access ramps for the town hall are probably the local council these days - and that's part of the problem. With a lot of the local, human-level stuff, we've won already. We don't need to protest to get disabled ramps, it's illegal not to provide them. We don't need to protest to get equal pay, a court summons will do the job. Hell we don't need to disrupt government much since they hardly run the country any more, having handed the job over to Black Rock. What we need to do is disrupt money - capital, debt, crisis profiteering. To do that we need solidarity.

Their ability to bomb Ukraine has decreased quite dramatically, in part thanks to the weapons supplied, so yes, there is definitely improvement there. — Jabberwock

Has it? In what way?

It is your claim that Ukraine would be less destroyed if the weapons were not supplied, so it is on you to provide a realistic and likely scenario how would that happen. — Jabberwock

Negotiate and provide concessions, or seek more powerful alliances willing to fight alongside and use them as leverage.

If an enemy throws stones, throwing stones back is not a viable strategy if they have more stones.

I treat the Russians as if they wanted to occupy Ukraine, because I have no reason to think 'Putin would have just carpet bombed Ukraine for sport', him being an oligarch and all. — Jabberwock

That just doesn't make any sense. Simply being an oligarch isn't in the least bit sufficient to justify a theory that he'll want to militarily occupy any neighbouring country. It's ridiculous. The vast majority of the world's oligarchs do not behave that way.

you overlook the fact that Russia has neutered itself militarily even more. — Jabberwock

I don't 'overlook' it. I disagree with it. Tanks are not the be all and end all of military power and they're about the only major hardware that's capturable, so of course they're going to be used as the measure if that's the story you want to tell. What about artillery? What about air support? What about nuclear weapons?

is obvious from most of the campaign, with any reasonable resistance Russians are incapable of gaining ground without destroying it completely, so they would do just that. — Jabberwock

It isn't obvious at all since you have no counterfactual against which to compare it.

I think it's only the national 'peoples' of the world, talking to each other intensely over a medium such as this internet, that will eventually nurture more global consensus on an issue. — universeness

That's a lovely sentiment. Kind of seems to be doing the opposite just now though doesn't it?

Then we will all compel national politicians to do what we want them to do or else! they may seriously face national/international and even global, tick tick tick tick boom movements that will tear their political systems apart if they don't do what the people want them to do. — universeness

Yes. Vive la révolution!

Assuming you are good at keeping stats. — neomac

Yes. Assuming that.

Russians were stopped — Jabberwock

They evidently weren't. Last I checked they were still bombing the crap out of Ukraine. I don't call that stopped. Imparting motive is a very easy way of declaring victory. Here...

"I've totally trounced you in this this little exchange because you wanted me to stop posting and I haven't. So you lose"

See how easy it is to declare victory simply by imparting some motive on your opponent which you've carefully selected to show just that.

Treat the Russians as if they wanted to occupy Ukraine and sure, they've been stopped. Treat them as if they wanted to destroy Ukraine, to render it militarily neutered, then in what way have they been stopped? They're cracking on with that objective virtually unhindered. Every new billion in debt Ukraine gets to fund its defence is a step nearer that goal.

What gives you the reason to think that without weapons Ukraine would be less destroyed? — Jabberwock

Because I don't see anything in his history to give reason to believe the Putin would have just carpet bombed Ukraine for sport. He's clearly an oligarch, everything he's done thus far had been in the pursuit of money and power. Physically destroying Ukraine gets him neither unless Ukraine is a threat, either financially, politically, or militarily.

Someone with alien hand syndrome might not deem his hand (or other body part) to be an aspect of himself. For this and other reasons, I still find you explanation of what the "I" references to be uninformative. — javra

So? Then the hand is not part of his body, for him. How is that difficult? We'd disagree (he and I), and I were his doctor I'd treat his hand as if it were part of his body. But there's no fact of the matter beyond what we construct to be the case. We term 'body' as being just that collection of parts which we deem it is. God hasn't declared "... and this shall you call a 'body'!" we made it up.

Experience, including that which is empirical, is directly present to conscious awareness. — javra

So you keep declaring. To label something 'experience' is already to use a word in our common language which is already to have a social construction. Words are not given to us by God, we make them up collectively.

Your position simply reifies artefacts of language and then thinks it significant that we can't find them empirically. We couldn't find 'elan vital' either. Didn't stop us having a word for it.

I was just pointing out that his track record of prediciting offensive failures was not that good. — Jabberwock

No. You were selecting to do so to someone predicting the failure of Ukrainian offensives, but ignoring anyone predicting the failure of Russian action. Given the overwhelming quantity of posts here doing the latter and very few posts doing the former, it's hard to see how that could be without aim.

Russians have invaded Ukraine, Ukraine needs weapons to defend itself. — Jabberwock

Only if it has more chance of winning that defence than it does of being destroyed by it. Otherwise to provide weapons (alone) is monstrous.

What 'marketing campaign' are you talking about? — Jabberwock

See above. Convincing people that Ukraine has a chance of 'winning' is the main method by which continued drip-feed sales of weapons are justified (making the arms manufacturers an unrivalled fortune). Since Ukraine is actually being destroyed (economically, but also literally), it takes quite the major advertising effort to keep this illusion up. Hence the massive social media campaign, of which your posts (wittingly or not) form part.

There's nothing controversial about that. — frank

You and @Wayfarer disagree on some matter. Are you suggesting that it's somehow impossible that you're wrong. Has your narcissism really gone that far? If not, then it is not necessarily a matter of you 'bringing to light where he's misunderstood', but equally a matter of finding where you have misunderstood. Hence it is equally useful for you to point out which passage you think supports your conjecture as it is for Wayfarer to do so.

That is what you wrote ten months ago:

The failed Kherson offensive signaled that Ukraine was, as many had feared, no longer capable of conducting offensive operations - which would mean they had all but lost the war. — Tzeentch


That is, you have declared the Kherson offensive as failed (and Ukraine as losing the war) a bit prematurely, haven't you? — Jabberwock

Odd that you jump on this but not the wall-to-wall assessments of Russia's supposed immanent failure, incompetence, and collapse we've had since last year, none of which have yet materialised.

Nice justification for the continued weapons marketing campaign though, but I'm sure that's just coincidence.

If he needs help discovering what Chalmers' meant by the "hard problem," I'll be happy to point him toward helpful resources. — frank

First, he doesn't need 'help'. You and he disagree. He's at the very least your epistemic peer, so if you disagree it is as likely you are wrong (and in need of 'help') as it is he is.

Secondly, if you were an acknowledged, qualified Chalmers expert, maybe we'd hear what you have to say first and ask for help second, but you're not. You're just an ordinary lay party. So if you think someone is wrong, have the courtesy of assuming you'll need to support that first. It's not rocket science.

This statement claims that "I" refers to both a body and to a unit of that body, this at the same time and in the same respect - thereby making a whole equivalent to a part of that whole. If you uphold this logical contradiction, it is incoherent. If you don't than your quoted statement is erroneous or, at best, very misleading; in which case, please clarify it. — javra

The collection {things I like} is made up of anything I deem to be a member of it. It's nothing more than those things, it's not those things + the collection of those things. The collection {my body} is similarly made up of those components I deem to be part of it. It's not a thing in addition to that collection.

As to the first sentence, it reads as though making the claim that I have no experiences which I can then address. Which is sheer fallacy. I do have experiences, and it is these that I'm addressing. As to the second sentence, it is equivocating the way my total mind works with the way my conscious experience works. Where it to instead read, "The evidence you think you're presenting of the way your conscious experience unfolds is not direct evidence" it would be nonsensical. — javra

The point is that you are conflating the already given with the constructed. Unless we live in some weird matrix-like hallucinatory trance, we appear to find our constructions (the things we think of as real) to be constrained in some way, not everything works. Yet also there are competing theories which all seem to work equally well, right now. different people believe different things to be the case and they seem to get on with life quite happily nonetheless, right?

So there's two categories here. The things we construct, and the causes or constraints on those constructions.

Investigating those causes just inevitably means investigating further constructions, we can't escape that. So for any of this to make any sense we determine the field which we're holding to be constructed and the field which we're holding to be causal. For example, we might ask why people behave the way they do. Here the behaviours (words like 'giving', 'fighting', 'hiding') are the constructions and something like the endocrine system would be the constraints. Btu if we're actually examining the endocrine system, then things like 'progesterone' are the constructions and we look to molecular forces as the constraints.

When you talk about your experiences, they are the constructions. something caused you to feel that way. If we investigate your experiences we look to the causes, not the constructions. you're treating your experiences as causes, as something we can use as base facts to investigate some construction. But there is no construction above that. your experiences are the end of the process, they're what we talk about, the objects of our language. They're not facts which we can use to discover something about the next level up, and they're certainly not something sacred, immune to analysis in terms of constructions lower down the hierarchy we postulate as being casual.

How then do you distinguish behaviors - such as that of imagining a table - that are voluntary (which means consciously willed) from those that are involuntary (which means not consciously willed). — javra

We tell ourselves a story about the causes of what just happened based primarily on interocepted states. Sometimes a story involving 'willing' will be most useful. Other times a story involving 'involuntary' will. Both are constructions, when looked at at this level of analysis.

@Wayfarer's posts are always well supported by citations (to the point of being infamous for it!). If you're going to accuse someone of misrepresentation, at least have the basic courtesy to do so with the same level of textual support with which the original claim was given. You're not a prophet.

it would be great to have a philosophical zombie sherpa help you climb Everest because it wouldn’t matter if they fell off. — Wayfarer

Ha!

Now that's an interesting question (fair warning - I'm about to dissect a perfectly innocent joke...). It would matter to me because I'd be bothered if I wasn't bothered (if that makes sense!).

I've always had this with the whole 'would you switch off an android which asks you not to' trope. I wouldn't. But not because of the android, but because of what I'd have to do by way of suppressing my own empathy in order to do it.

I'd get to know the philosophical zombie whilst he was helping me climb, I'd want to be bothered if he fell off. I'd be scared, if we lived in a world of philosophical zombies, of becoming the sort of person who wasn't bothered.

Not sure if that sentiment tells us anything useful about philosophical zombies... but there it is anyway.

to what purpose? — Janus

A crate of wine, I think, was the goal, if I recall correctly.

you know the position you're interpreting him to have is idiotic, and you're pushing that interpretation despite being explicitly and repeatedly corrected. — Judaka

... and what you're doing now, with me, is...?

has already given you a plausible alternative interpretation. I've also explained my approach. Yet here you are persisting with an interpretation of my questioning which, without even knowing anything about me, determines that I'm some kind of ... I don't even know what possible motivation you think I could have for doing what you accuse me here of doing... but "idiotic" would cover it, and you've certainly been "explicitly and repeatedly corrected ".

Depends on the answer you want. Are you happy with the one I've given? Does that progress consciousness studies somehow?

"What is it like to climb Everest?" is a perfectly normal question if you accept the answer as "It was really good fun, but a bit cold".

If you want something involving philosophical zombies, your question makes no sense.

That's not my callousness
...
Surely you are acquainted with the attitude I've laid out from your time as an activist? — Moliere

I'm not suggesting you agree with dismissing images of suffering that way. I'm saying that the exact same arguments can be made against modern identity politics, yet aren't. That fact that they aren't (whereas this world-weary shoulder shrug at the mention of poverty is common), is a significant fact - a matter in need of explanation.

I gave the example of a trans person (very hot topic right now). They're worth about a million dollars to a pharmaceutical company transitioning. Not worth a penny just wearing a dress and make-up. You don't think that gives the pharmaceutical company a huge financial interest in promoting this aspect of trans rights? Of course it does. But even mentioning this is absolutely toxic. It would be sufficient to have your work removed from publication, if not you banned for transphobia. Yet here you are casually making exactly the same type of comment about the charitable sector making money from exploitation of suffering, to absolutely no rebuke. Why is that?

I think it's naive in the extreme to ignore (in answering that question), the fact that most trans people are wealthy middle class westerners who, when it comes down to it, would rather keep their money than give it to the poor suffering children so heartlessly exploited by those mean NGOs.

The issue here is that this intersectionality works against the poor. It means that when Helen Mirren says what she says, instead of being horrified by her disgusting display of greed when others are starving, we actually sympathise with her as a victim of oppression. She gets a free pass on the gross property theft, because she's a woman, talking about 'women's rights'

Likewise with these other identity groups. They're acting as exculpatory devices, not progress but a means of stagnation.

"Feeling guilty about your luxury town house whilst others are homeless? No problem, as long as you're not a white male (bad luck if you are) you too can be a victim, then you don't need to do anything about the poor because everyone has to do something about your plight - poor you"

Again, if this is nothing but conspiratorial whinging, then simply point to the identity politics based campaign that has actually helped the poorest in our world. I'm all ears, ready to shown my error. Honestly, I mean it. I'm in this for the same reasons as you, I just want to get behind campaigns that actually work, but I see zero evidence that these do anything more than mildly benefit the already wealthy whilst sucking oxygen from any campaign actually trying to address poverty.

Women and trans people are included in the working class and proletariat. — Moliere

Yes, but their problems are different and not addressed by the campaigns supposed to represent them. Proletariat women and proletariat trans-folk have their relative oppression to deal with but more pressing is the lack of shelter, or enough money to buy food. The fact that some bourgeois Hollywood actress can now enjoy her million dollar photo shoot without fear of sexual harassment doesn't put food on the table. Try walking into an Indian clothing sweatshop and see if the (undoubtedly male) owners have been affected by the social approbation generated by the #MeToo movement. Tell you what might help there though. Is if the fucking actress we're all so concerned about would stop buying the Louis Vuitton clothing she's currently prancing about in on the cover of Vogue.

Again, it's simply naive to think that this is coincidence. That the only campaigns which receive any air time (from the bought and paid for conglomerate media) are the ones which have zero impact on the ever greedy consumer machine. "Equal pay for women, equal bathroom rights for trans,... Anything you like... just DON'T STOP BUYING!"

any workplace organizing I've done frequently runs into problems of both gender and race. So in practical terms it's required if one wants to do something about class, such as form a union or pull off a strike, because these identities will be utilized to divide your group otherwise. — Moliere

Exactly. Utilized by whom? Not the owning classes, they don't even need to get involved. As in...

The reason the left is weak isn't because we're different. It's because thems who own are good at divide-and-conquer. — Moliere

... just isn't true.

It wasn't the owning classes that split feminism over trans issues. It was trans campaigners who did that.

Suzanne Moore wasn't chased out of the Guardian by the CEO of Goldman Sachs, she was chased out by her fellow left-wing writers.

Kathleen Stock wasn't pelted with eggs by the Proud Boys. She was pelted with eggs by other left-wing activists who disagreed with her about trans issues.

Russell Brand (bless him!) wasn't vilified after his Jeremy Paxman interview by the Right-wing press. He was vilified by other left-wing voices (feminists) who objected to his use of the word 'bird'.

The progressive Vinay Prasad hasn't been hounded for his views about children's education during covid by Fox News. He was hounded by other progressives because they disagreed with him about masking policy.

Jeremy Corbyn wasn't kicked out of the Labour Party by the Koch empire. He was kicked out by other members of the Labour Party who disagreed with him about Israel.

The owning classes are, thus far, just leaning back in their leather-backed club chairs watching their opposition eat itself, they don't even need to lift a finger.

What to do about it given the attitudes of most people, though? — Moliere

Simple. Stop giving mass air time to trivial campaigns (don't stop the campaigns though, obviously), stop treating every difference of opinion over strategy as if it were defecting to the Nazis, and start campaigning on the stuff that really matters as a priority.

So you deem the "I" addressed to be identical to you as body. And yet, the imagined table is only an aspect of your bodily processes, specifically of certain aspects of your CNS - the very same CNS from which this "I" results (at least as its typically understood; such that the I is one of many functioning process of the body - along with a multitude of unconscious processes of mind - but is not the body itself). But then in deeming this "I" identical to you as body there is grave incoherence in terms of what is being referenced in the expression, "Things I imagine". — javra

Why? I'm not seeing any incoherence. The imagined table is, in this context, a facon de parler. It's objectified by our language. The fact that we can talk about it doesn't make it real in the sense of there being some laws governing it that investigation could discover. The 'laws' of language are a joint construction between you, I, and all the other language users. At the level of 'governing laws' the imagined table is just some goings on in my brain, but we don't talk that way, so in our jointly constructed world the imagined table becomes a thing. We bring it into existence by making it the object of a sentence. You're trying to take these mutually constructed objects and pretend there's something to 'discover' there, but there's nothing there, we made all this stuff up to have this conversation.

Given this incoherence, again, in which way then do you deem what you refer to as "I" to be in any way different from the imagined table? (To emphasize: Both are functions of your body — javra

They are not both 'functions' of my body. 'I' refers to me, my body, whatever I deem to be part of that unit. The imagined table refers to either a story element created by some part of my brain, or the activity of that part of my brain, depending on which frame of reference you want to discuss it at. Those are two different things.

OK, so when one intends to imagine a table, you take it that one consciously holds awareness of all the table's imagined properties instantaneously to so intending, aka willing. — javra

No I take 'willing' to be a post hoc construction of the working memory after the event of imagining the table. As I said to you (part of the "word-salad" you decided was beyond you to understand), you are not here dealing with your experiences. The evidence you think you're presenting of the way your mind works is not direct evidence. You are working with your recollections of experiences which happened seconds ago. Those recollections are already constructed, they are filtered, they are biased, they are culturally influenced - same as any recollections are. The 'facts' you're supposedly working with here are already interpreted.

Do you know what it's like to be you? — RogueAI

It's alright. Got a bit more boring lately as I've finally had to give up work completely, but I live in a nice place, so I'm OK. Thanks for asking though.

Consider these examples: — Tzeentch

I'm not seeing outcome making a difference in either example. In both it seems to be intention that matters.

I think we're using different ideas of what persuasion entails. It seems persuasion to you means the act of changing another's mind. — Tzeentch

Yes. Does persuade mean something else to you?

I'd appreciate you come to your point. — Tzeentch

It's not a point, it's a question. You agreed that there were these strong similarities between persuading someone of a theorem and persuading them of a moral, only the latter is problematic. I'm asking what you see as being the difference. You said above that it was something to do with the idea of "obviously" needing to teach a child. It's obvious to me that a child needs teaching but that's because I care about their well-being and have zero problem getting involved in the affairs of others, but that would be immoral to you, so I'm wondering why it is obvious to you.

Who cares about people discussing things and sharing their opinions, where "agreeing to disagree" is always a viable option, and there's no stigma attached to any views? That's utterly benign.

Without a doubt, what's being referred to here, are... — Judaka

In my view, requiring (and enforcing) basic moral standards in a community is benign, so how can you expect me to use what's benign as a guide to the charitable interpretation of @Tzeentch's posts? @Tzeentch presents here (and has presented) a very heterodox view of morality (which is partly what makes it so interesting to explore), but its absurd to suggest that, when faced with such an unusual view, I should shy away from any line of questioning which implies an unorthodox belief. Far from it. I'm fully expecting an unorthodox belief. When intelligent people arrive at unorthodox conclusions, it's very often because of an unorthodox foundational belief.

Do you by this expression intend that the "I" is different from the things it imagines? — javra

Different how? I imagine a table, that's different to the chair I imagine (one's smaller than the other). The 'I' is different in that sense. I'm referring to me, my body. I'm not a table.

one could for example will to visually imagine X without being visually aware of the visual properties of the given X so willed — javra

I don't think that's possible, but I'm willing to suspend that disbelief if it helps

LadGPT — Srap Tasmaner

I'm saved.

If only I'd have had this when I was a teenager, I wouldn't have had to become a fucking psychology professor to get any social currency. I could have been a builder...

Does this in any way make sense to you? — javra

Yes.

If so, how would you linguistically express the difference between me as as that which is constantly taking in, or processing, imagined information of various types vs. those imagined givens that are disparate relative to each other? — javra

'Me', 'myself', 'I'

'Things I imagine'

Brilliant. I thought I recognised it (but obviously didn't get the reference initially). Very convincing though, you've clearly been practising.

Immoral acts depend first and foremost on the intention — Tzeentch

I've not heard you rate the two elements before (but I may be misremembering). Intention and effect are necessary but intention is 'first and foremost'. That complicates any judgement a little. How does this 'first and foremost' cash out in terms of moral judgement, for you? If a person really strongly intended a good thing, but a bad thing occurred, is that moral because their intentions is 'first and foremost'? The element of weighting adds a new dimension to my understanding of your moral system.

I don't know why you'd have to be persuaded if you didn't feel very strongly about left or right. I would say "Right" and you would shrug your shoulders and right we went! — Tzeentch

Then I'm persuaded. Otherwise we'd go left.

obviously a child needs to be taught things — Tzeentch

Why? Why meddle?

I'm not sure why you're turning this into something I'm trying to do, all of a sudden. :chin: — Tzeentch

Not my intention (which matters, yes?)

The question doesn't make sense. I don't 'picture that which I imagine' I just imagine. Imagining something involves a picture, it doesn't make sense to talk about a picture of it, that would entail a picture of a picture.

Did you see that ludicrous display last night? — Srap Tasmaner

No, but my first-person-instatiated-point-of-view saw it. I was out.

As far as this conversation being over, as you wish. — javra

You responded to a several hundred word post fully citing each quote by declaring the whole thing 'word salad' and you have the audacity to complain about me not answering your questions.

And no, the conversation is not over. I never wished any such thing. Feel free to respond any time you can penetrate my byzantine locution.

for the most part your reply for me enters into word-salad territory — javra

Uh huh...

from the perspective of oneself as a conscious awareness, these could either be described as one’s total self’s cognitive but non-first-person instantiations of awareness (if “cognitive” is here meant to address a total mind) or, alternatively, as one’s total self’s non-cognitive first-person instantiations of awareness — javra

.... Dressing anyone?

And that experience isn't evidence because...? — Isaac


Where did I claim it isn't? — javra

You said...

is not (consciously) inferred by me from evidence - but, instead, is knowledge of direct experience. — javra

I never stated that we do. Please read more carefully. — javra

Well then you don't see things 'as a percept' You see things. I see a table, I see a chair. I don't see them as percepts, I see them as objects in the world.

Such as "I know the keyboard I'm typing on is black" (not because I've inferred it to so be, but because I've seen it to so be) — javra

But you have inferred it to be black. You senses have picked up all sorts of cues and you've inferred from those cues that the keyboard is black (as opposed to grey but in shadow, or green but in the dark, or translucent but reflecting a black object...)

The 'mind's eye' is just a made up term at the moment. — Isaac


https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mind%27s_eye

Its not a made up term. — javra

Does something about making up a term prevent it from appearing in wiktionary?

I am here avoiding ontological inferences but am addressing direct experience. — javra

You're not. Let's get this clear. You're addressing, at best, your memory of experiences you have seconds ago, filtered through you cultural expectations and values, the terms of the language community, the biases and objectives of this argument... There's nothing 'direct' about what you're doing with your experiences by talking about them here.

It is, again, a falsifiable proposition — javra

It's not falsifiable unless you explain what it is we're looking for. Else my equally falsifiable proposition "there's an invisible jabberwocky above your head". Shall we engage in serious discussion about that proposition?

You are equivocating an experience with reports of the experience. — javra

No. You said "I term my seeing an imagined table with my mind’s eye". Other than you declaring it to be so, we have no evidence of it actually being so.

Are you yet claiming there's no such thing? Or, else, that a cognitive first-person point of view can't see (i.e., visually cognize) anything? — javra

The latter. A 'point of view' isn't the sort of thing that can see. People see. 'points of view' don't. They don't do anything. No-one talks like that. We don't say "Oh, Bob, what did your point of view see on telly last night?", "Did your point of view see the match last yesterday?"

The impetus is on you to falsify this (fallible) knowledge claim which, as of yet, remains substantiated both by evidence (no one here has so far seen a mind's eye) — javra

... same with jabberwockies...

Sometimes that changes people's minds, but the form such interactions take matters, which is why I make the distinction. — Tzeentch

I agree, but it clashes with your idea the morality is about intent plus effect. If the effect is to persuade then the action isn't moral. But then...

I have shared my view on what constitutes a moral act, not on what constitutes an immoral act, and I believe the two don't function exactly the same. — Tzeentch

...you have indeed, and I'd forgotten. So these acts of persuasion are not immoral, but not moral either. So ought we do them or not? Recall, this conversation started with...

it avoids the common pitfall of using notions of morality as a means to meddle in the affairs of others — Tzeentch

...so in what way 'pitfall'? If not immoral, then acceptable (but not actually moral). Doesn't seem much of a pitfall. Just a consequence with not value attached. I 'moralise', people are influenced (but I didn't intend that) - no 'pitfall' at all that I can see.

The act of persuading someone is typified by a strong belief that one's own belief is better than the other's, no? — Tzeentch

No, I don't agree. If you and I were carrying a large object through the woods and reach a fork in the road. I think we ought go left and you right, I needn't have any strong conviction about left, nor you right, but we can clearly only go one way, so we must decide I must persuade you, or you I.

Most aspects of community living are like that. We're a co-operative species and we do most things together as shared enterprises, so we can't all be pulling in different directions. We needn't hold our beliefs dogmatically, but we do have to somehow decide which way to go if we're working together on something. that involves persuasion.

I don't think you can respect my views while simultaneously believing them to be categorically wrong. — Tzeentch

Odd. There are loads of views I respect but thing are wrong (I don't see any need for 'categorically' here). A view I respect is one that's been arrived at rationally and with care for others (where appropriate). There are lots of those and they don't all seem right to me, some seem wrong.

There isn't necessarily a distinction, and the same thing applies (though, in subjects that teach tools rather than views it seems less relevant). The nature and shape of the student-teacher relationship therefore is of great importance, because it too implies a non-horizontal relationship. — Tzeentch

But 'of great importance' is a different kettle of fish entirely to 'pitfalls'. If we ought avoid moralising to children because of the potential pitfalls of meddling, the we ought avoid educating them for the same reason. We might meddle in another's ignorance. What's the difference? Why 'pitfalls' vs 'of great importance'?

I wouldn't have these types of conversations with people who cannot push back against my ideas.

So yes, such things should be taken into account. — Tzeentch

I wasn't necessarily speaking about being able to push back so much as the subconscious effects of your posts. You present a very unique standpoint, and repeat it with conviction. That might feasibly subconsciously cause me to doubt my own position. If subconscious effects have to now be taken into account, your posts become a lot more risky.

I can't help feeling all of this is a very long winded post-hoc way round the fact that your posts are fine because you have good intentions. You're not trying to hurt people and you're not trying to use them for your own gain, so it's fine that you post the way you do. doesn't that just seem simpler?

Aren't they all deniable on any grounds? — Moliere

Possibly, but if so, then an argument about oppression isn't complete without an argument as to why this and not that form should be heard.

In this age pictures of the suffering are utilized primarily to manipulate us. Someone is making a buck somewhere with the images of the suffering -- be it state departments, NGO's, or private charities. — Moliere

Again, its odd that you can say this so blithely about children, but not see exactly the same with women (and trans, and people of colour, and the disabled, etc). If images of suffering can be abused to make a buck, then what does that tell us about the campaign for trans acceptance, for example (worth about a million dollars per unit to the pharmaceuticals for a lifetime of hormone therapy)? Are you equally prepared to water down their message with such words of caution?

the proof of intersectionality, that capital and patriarchy interlink, is in the fights which won by overcoming barriers. — Moliere

But they're absolutely self-evidently not. As I said to @fdrake earlier. Women's rights have leapt forward, trans rights even faster. Yet we've just had the largest single transfer of wealth ever, are living through the highest levels of wealth disparity there's ever been and 50 million children face starvation in a world of BigMacs and Sushi. It is abundantly clear that intersectionality has not linked with fights against poverty. It's done fuck all. The rights of those identities in the fight have generally been improved and the rights of the remaining poor have been ignored completely.

The recent campaigns for women's rights has benefited mostly middle class women (less sexual harassment at work, higher pay). Its done fuck all for Afghan women whose lives have deteriorated thanks to the fickle warmongering of the US.

The campaign for trans rights have benefited middle class Westerners, who now can express themselves with less fear of reprisal. Trans Yemeni's aren't any less hungry though.

The recent crap about white privilege has maybe improved job prospects and education opportunities for middle class people of colour. It's done fuck all for the massive 'people of colour' community in Sudan who still find themselves on the brink of starvation.

If you can point to a single example where any of these campaigns have helped the poor be less poor, I'm all ears, otherwise it sounds like wishful thinking at best, apologetics at worst.

I'm not trying to persuade you, or anyone on TPF. My purpose here is testing my views, and looking for interesting insights that I may have failed to recognize. — Tzeentch

Yes, but intent is not enough. You sell yourself short. You do persuade. and unless you've been living in a cave for your adult life, you'll know that when you present arguments as you do here, they sometimes persuade. So morally, you're engaging in an activity which you know full well is likely to meddle in the lives of the people involved by persuading them of things. You can't really claim naivety as an excuse, your intentions need to be measured by the likely outcomes.

If there is truly no intention to meddle, this belongs to the realm of tragedy and ignorance. — Tzeentch

Sure. But immoral. That's your claim. A moral action is good in both intent and outcome. Intent alone isn't enough. so any act of conversation which actually does persuade someone (even if you intended it not to) is immoral because it's had the effect of meddling in their affairs.

Horizontal dialogue, for example, which is characterized by respect for the other's view point. — Tzeentch

I'm not seeing the link here. You said earlier that non-horizontal dialogue was one which assumes...

the correctness of one's own position and the incorrectness of the other's — Tzeentch

... I can't quite see how that's linked to respect. I can respect you and still think you're wrong, I hope.

One example would be how many moral 'lessons' take place when one is still a child - when one's brain isn't fully developed and one doesn't really possess the tools to give any pushback to the ideas that are being presented. — Tzeentch

Not involuntary though. And would this be exactly the same for teaching a child maths. they don't have the acumen to argue against that either, so you're meddling in their current ignorance. If you show a child how gravity attracts objects equally as opposed to by size (which many naively believe) you're meddling in their affairs by persuading them (by use of experiment) of a belief that's other than the one they would otherwise have held.

How is teaching a child morals different from teaching them language, or maths, or history, or biology...?

Another could be how people are repeatedly exposed to moral messages, in the news, in media, in commercials, etc. A lot of this may even take place subconsciously. I would argue that the nature of those things isn't exactly voluntary. — Tzeentch

But people can tun off the TV, no? If we're concerned about the subconscious, then your posts here have more to worry about than their general persuasiveness. There's a whole slew of subconscious messages they might be conveying. Again taking intent and effect.

When people voluntarily join in the exercise of sharing and discussing views, this is of course not meddling. — Tzeentch

I think we can agree here, but as above I'm not convinced that most moral language doesn't actually crop up under these circumstances.

How dare you! As I said - I've got my mojo working...*.

* way too old-fashioned a reference for our younger readers.

That I am right now looking at the keyboard I'm typing on is knowledge that is not (consciously) inferred by me from evidence - but, instead, is knowledge of direct experience. — javra

And that experience isn't evidence because...?

I might be hallucinating, be a brain in a vat, etc. but my knowledge of seeing what I am seeing as a percept at the current moment remains utterly unaltered by these and all other possible stipulations. — javra

One does not 'see' percepts though. A percept is the result of seeing, you don't then 'see' it, otherwise what results form that process? Another percept? A percept of a percept?

empirical data - i.e., data obtained via the physiological senses - are one aspect of experience-based knowledge — javra

I'm struggling to think of an example where I obtain knowledge directly from my senses without any inference. Perhaps you could provide one?

Its about inferences not being empirical data, or empirical information if one prefers. — javra

What difference would that make, even if I were to agree?

one cannot see the minds eye because it has no look whatsoever. See below. — javra

But we're discussing the question of whether it does or not (have a look), you can't use, as a point in that discussion, the 'fact' that it doesn't. that's not a fact, it's your opinion and we're exploring the differences between it and mine. The 'mind's eye' is just a made up term at the moment. You're trying to establish it's a real thing (but not material), I'm trying to establish the opposite (not real, but if it were anything it would be in the brain). So you're begging the question by just keep dogmatically asserting what the 'mind's eye' is (and isn't) without argument.

we are discussing whether or not the mind’s eye can be in any way empirically observed. — javra

We're not. You've declared the mind's eye to be the sort of thing that cannot be empirically observed. That's not a discussion it's a lecture. A discussion would accept that we don't currently now and look for mutually agreed evidence either way.

When I visually imagine a table, I see the table from one singular perspective (rather than, say, from 12 different perspectives simultaneously). — javra

No, you don't. You see several perspectives, you see aspects of the table that are behind and shaded, aspects that are out of focus, or moving. Part of the process of 'seeing' involves inferring these details.

In keeping with common language, this visual perception of an imagined table I then term my seeing an imagined table with my mind’s eye. So I experimentally know in non-inferential manners that my mind’s eye is singular. — javra

What? You say it's singular, so therefore you know it's singular? That doesn't make any sense, and I know it doesn't make any sense because I just said it doesn't.

I am not seeing the perfectly singular, cognitive perspective which sees a spatially-extended table in its imagination — javra

Of course you aren't. There's no such thing. A 'cognitive perspective' can't 'see' anything. 'Seeing ' is something whole bodies do (whole brains at the very least). It's not something 'cognitive perspectives' do - whatever the hell they are.

I am claiming that the mind's eye cannot be empirically observed in principle. — javra

Yes, and we're all waiting for an actual argument to back up that claim that isn't self-referential.

Persuasion seems to assume the correctness of one's own position and the incorrectness of the other's, which in itself seems to imply non-horizontal dialogue. — Tzeentch

Same for an argument here though, no? The argument...

Persuasion seems to assume the correctness of one's own position and the incorrectness of the other's, which in itself seems to imply non-horizontal dialogue. — Tzeentch

... seems to be trying to persuade me of a position you think is right. Is that then unethical?

I may think something along those lines (and of course here on this forum, I write down what I think), — Tzeentch

That seems a very weak distinction. In the example I gave I could simply be 'thinking' the man greedy and happening to vocalise what I think.

the meddling only happens when there's an unwelcome effort to influence someone. — Tzeentch

How would you know it was unwelcome in advance? What kind of action do you think people ought take to ensure their efforts are not unwelcome?

I wouldn't accuse you or anyone else of meddling just because they post their thoughts on a forum. — Tzeentch

That's the kind if distinction I'm trying to clarify. I'm not yet seeing the difference you're trying to get at between a forum like this and any other normal conversation. Any and all moral declarations attempting to influence others will take place during some voluntary conversation. It's an extremely rare event that someone is physically forced to listen to someone else.

Perhaps we take two positions and see where they diverge...

I think people ought give away their excess wealth to charity (assume for now some objective measure of 'excess', say food, shelter etc)

You think people ought not meddle in the affairs of others.

As it stands these both seem of the same kind right now - ideas about how other people ought act.

I see a wealthy person and say "it's really greedy of you to keep all your wealth, children are starving!"

You see a meddling person (for example me, in the above situation) and say "you didn't ought meddle in that man's affairs, it's up to him what to do with his money, morality is about personal virtue, not imposing on others" (or something like that).

Assume all people involved are on a forum, voluntarily.

Are we still both on a par? Have I crossed a line yet in my intervention which you haven't crossed in yours?