The fact remains that the dress appears differently to different people. The same stimulus triggers different, even conflicting, private experiences, and it is these private experiences that directly inform our understanding (hence why people use different words to describe that they see). — Michael

This is not a fact, it's completely unsupported conjecture. Where is your evidence?

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/iraq-war-us-invasion-anniversary-2023/673343/

Oh, apparently they were all great.

Next up: George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Barack Obama, and other war criminals/international terrorists. — Mikie

Yes. I can hear the Atlantic-reading champagne Liberals clamouring for those crimes to be prosecuted...

... any minute now ...

... just waiting ...

A majority want gun control. In some instances a vast majority, including republicans. So they’re really not winning— not with their arguments anyway. — Mikie

From Pew...

Roughly half of Americans (53%) favor stricter gun laws, a decline since 2019, according to the Center’s April 2021 survey. Smaller shares say these laws are about right (32%) or should be less strict (14%). The share of Americans who say gun laws should be stricter has decreased from 60% in September 2019. — https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/13/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/

... I don't call that 'not winning'. And this is just 'stricter laws'. With most gun deaths being handguns, we need a lot more than 'stricter laws'.

They win by buying off politicians and through gerrymandering and through stocking the courts, etc. — Mikie

Indeed. So what chance do you think the "we need stricter laws" campaign has? The consistent refusal to widen out the debate just leads every campaign to butt its head up against this brick wall. You're arguing here to keep a debate on-focus to a solution that you've just admitted will never work because no matter how much support it has, the government are corrupt and won't pass it.

So what's the focus for?

This thesis is implausible; how could culture determine whether I or anyone else would class something as red or as purple or orange when it comes to edge cases? — Janus

I know! Crazy isn't it!

That anyone might think a thing you can't personally understand could actually be the case! Implausible....

First person conclusions are what science is built on. As in every theory and hypothesis was someone's original individual first person conclusion or suspicion about reality that then was proven consistent for others too. — Benj96

True. The underlined bit being what's now happening.

They're both correct. Distinction can be at any stage from input, through processing or perception, to output or response.

The input (wavelengths) can be the same and the output can be different (reaching for colours words like green, red, brown or grey)
Or the input can be different and the response can be the same. Two people looking at two separate shades of yellow and saying yellow. — Benj96

Yes, but nowhere in there is this mysterious 'experience of red' that keeps being mentioned.

My experiences aren't self-evidence of gravity, but they are self-evidence of my experiences. That's common sense. — Michael

Ah!, well. If it's 'common sense' that settles it. To think... the amount of money my university has spent on research only to have wasted it all since you can just tell what's going on in your brain by having a bit of think about it...

On this thread, however, it’s avoiding the issue of gun control. — Mikie

I don't see how. I see it like this...

1. There's a need for gun control so we campaign for it saying things like "the only difference between the US and other countries is gun law - hence that's what needs to change"

2. The NRA come up with "Ah! It's also to do with mental health, if we address that we don't need to give up our rights"

The question, on the issue of gun control, is what we do next.

You say "tell 'em they're just NRA shills trying to derail the debate". Well how's that working out? Gun ownership doubled last year.

So our response, is exactly on the issue of gun control, it's not avoiding it, it's the main issue because its our opponent's main argument and they're currently winning.

My different experiences are self-evident. — Michael

You haven't answered...

Why would your personal conclusions about the function of your brain (or mind, even) be treated with any more authority that your first person feelings about gravity, or electromagnetism, or evolution? — Isaac

You know this how? — Isaac


Evolution of colour vision in mammals — Michael

Exactly. By their responses. Not their private experiences.

On the grounds that babies and non-human animals and illiterate deaf mutes raised by wolves in the jungle can see colours. — Michael

You know this how?

First-person empirical evidence. — Michael

Why would your personal conclusions about the function of your brain (or mind, even) be treated with any more authority that your first person feelings about gravity, or electromagnetism, or evolution?

I think that that's an extraordinary claim, inconsistent with common sense, and that the burden is on you to prove it, not on me to disprove it. — Michael

That's not the claim I'm making. That we can distinguish is not in question. What the distinction consists in is.

You want to say that distinction consists in different 'experiences'.

I'm claiming there's no evidence for that. All there's evidence for is that the distinction consists in a different response, of which 'reaching for the word 'red'' is an example specific to 'red'.

This is nonsense. You might as well say "you don't see five different colours; you see five different things. That they are all 'colours' is something you were taught in the culture you grew up in".

Or maybe "you don't see; you [something]. That it is 'seeing' is something you were taught in the culture you grew up in".

Or maybe "you don't get taught in a culture you grew up in; that it is 'being taught in the culture you grew up in' is ... [unintelligible rubbish]". — Michael

Yes, that's right. Of course nothing would get said that way, but just like we can use language to talk about language, we can also use it to talk about its limits.

Again, you seem to fail to understand the use-mention distinction. — Michael

It's not failure to understand, it's a disagreement over its applicability. For something to exist it need not have a name, but it does need boundaries, it needs to be distinguished from it's surroundings. The edges need to be relevant. Our language (and our culture) define those edges. It's not the assignation of the token 'red', it's the definition of there being something there to warrant a token. That is (largely) a cultural decision, not a biological one.

But this isn't the main point. The main point is that seeing colours has nothing to do with "reaching" for some word or other. — Michael

I'm quite aware of your point, what I'm waiting for is any grounds for asserting it.

We have consciousness. We're not just input-output machines. I have a first person experience when I'm sitting still, in silence, watching and hearing and feeling the things going on around me. I don't need to say, or think, "I'm in pain" to be in pain. I just feel it. — Michael

On what grounds?

That you feel like you have? Have you never been wrong about what you 'feel like' is going on?

it’s mostly disingenuous when the topic is gun control. — Mikie

It might well be 'mostly' disingenuous. It's not about the dismissal (God knows I can't preach about being summarily dismissive of stupid positions!), it's about the position that is being dismissed. If the NRA want to talk about the Second Amendment, or individual rights, or the threat from Government, then there's a solid counter to those arguments. They can indeed be summarily dismissed, but look what's happened here, on this thread.... Dozens of posts shooting down @NOS4A2's absurd John Wayne impression (like shooting fish in a barrel), but all there is on the 'Deaths of despair' as you call them, is a phobic caricaturing in the hope that the issue will go away.

Reasonable concerns have to be addressed reasonably, no matter what their source (or even motivation) because anything less robs the whole issue of it's ground in human compassion and makes it look more like a spat among football fans as to whose team has the best goalkeeper.

I can see five different reds here. — Michael

No. You can see five different colours there. That they are all shades of 'red' is something you were taught by the culture you grew up in. different cultures have different groupings and distinctions.

I don't "reach" for five different words to describe what I see. — Michael

Of course you do. You'd say "a slightly darker shade of red than the one to it's left" or something like that. Those are words. But it needn't be words, it might be some other response. You might think of post boxes (if you're English), or buses. You might feel slightly on edge (red does that sometimes - again, cultural). There's no unifying thing that's 'the experience of red', it just is all these responses, nothing else on top of them.

At least, that's the way it is until we discover some 'red' neural cluster which can fire on it's own in response to red light.

That I see five different reds has nothing to do with language — Michael

Of course it does. 'Red' is what categorises them as all being in the same group and not five different colours entirely.

... everything to do with the raw subjective quality of my experience. — Michael

This is just completely unsupported conjecture. There's nothing to suggest we have an 'experience of red'.

We have sensory inputs, we have behavioural responses, we have post hoc self reports. That's it. Anything else is stuff you (or others) have just made up. A story.

The experimenters seem to think so, given that they explicitly say "color is in the perceiver, not the physical stimulus" and "color is a perceptual construct that arises from neural processing" and "the present study ... examine[d] how subjective color experience is represented at each stage of the human ventral visual pathway". — Michael

Again, none of those comments say that 'red' is in the brain. They're talking about colour (in this case, the neural responses associated with subjective states). 'Red' is a specific category, it is not synonymous with the mere activity of differentiation of colour.

What the experimenters are saying is that differentiation in colour is constructed from neural processes, not a faithful rendering of chromatic variation at the retina.

They are not saying that this neural construction is divided such as to represent 'red', or any other specific colour.

They are not saying that this neural construction is unaffected by culture, learning, and language, they don't even mention the factors associated with the construction of priors in these regions.

It mentions "colour percepts" and "colour perception" and "colour experience" and "colour we see". — Michael

It 'mentioning' those things is not sufficient to carry your argument. You need to understand what the paper is showing, its a technical subject. You can't just scan through it, find a few choice phrases and claim it proves your point.

It proves the location, within the ventral stream, of differential stimulation in neural clusters correlated with post V1 (non-retinal) signals.

It doesn't prove we 'experience red', or that 'red' is correlated with some neural state.

This task aimed to exclude the involvement of higher cognitive processes, such as color naming, as it did not require any explicit judgment of the chromaticity of the stimulus.


Seeing red isn't "reaching" for the word "red". — Michael

The experiment tested the differential stimulation of the V4 and V01 regions. It found their activity was correlated with switches in sensory feedback suppression (classic switch rivalry), not changes in retinal chromatic stimulus.

It doesn't even mention seeing 'red'.

The section you quote is eliminating the possibility of yhr differentiation taking place in higher cortices (ie of V4 and V01 being faithful to retinal chromatic stimuli, but distinctions invoked later.

What the experiment shows is that V4 and V01 regions have differential responses unrelated to chromatic stimuli, but related to post V1 processing, further in the ventral stream.

It doesn't show that those differentiations are hard wired, or disconnected from cultural, environmental and linguistic influence. It doesn't even go into the construction of the priors which cause the differentiation, it simply locates them.

The two claims of your I dispute are...

seeing the colour red isn't just "reaching" for the word "red", — Michael

there is literally [something] in the brain ... that corresponds to 'seeing red' — Michael

In what way does the experiment support those claims?

That seeing the colour red isn't just "reaching" for the word "red", and that colour is "in the head", not a property of external world objects.

That "there is literally [something] in the brain ... that corresponds to 'seeing red'". — Michael

In what way do you think the experiment supports that conclusion?

What is it you think that experiment is demonstrating which contradicts what I've said?

Learning that the tongue contains gustatory cells that respond to the chemicals in food, and that sugar tastes sweet because of its hydrogen bonds, doesn't change the taste of sugar. And learning the name of this animal doesn't change how it looks. — Michael

Well, for a start both those claims are demonstrably false. learning new things about an object changes the priors our lower hierarchy cortices use to process sensory inputs which changes the resultant responses, including post hoc construction of the 'experience'. This has been demonstrated over an over again in the literature.

But notwithstanding that, the claim isn't that you'll see it differently, the claim is about seeing 'red'. 'Red' is a cultural division of a continuous colour spectrum. No one can see 'red' who doesn't know that category. they just see. Light stimulates the retina and the brain responds. That response can be of almost any type depending on priors (and to a small extent 'hard-wiring'). None of that response answers to 'seeing red'. there is literally nothing in the brain (and people have looked really hard) that corresponds to 'seeing red'.

All we have neurologically is photons hitting retinas and behavioural responses in a constant cycle. they differ between people and there's no grounds at all for identifying any of those responses as being 'seeing red'.

Yes, which is why I dedicated an entire thread to it here. — Mikie

From that thread...

Suicides, drug overdoses, mass shootings. They call these “deaths of despair.”

People talk about mental health, and that’s true. It is indeed about mental health.

What’s also true is the widespread production and availability of opiates and guns. — Mikie

Literally the first thing you say.

So - in a discussion about the state of the nation's mental health (in the broad sense), you think it's fine to immediately remind everyone that the availability of guns is also a very big factor.

So why, in a discussion about gun control, is it not OK to remind everyone that mental health (in the broad sense) is also a major factor.

This is essentially the problem with modern politics in a nutshell. the only reason you don't want to talk about mental health is because that what the NRA (the baddies) talk about so that means you mustn't.

Just like if Trump says it a Lab leak, it must not be. If the Republicans oppose a war, the left have to be for it. If the right are opposed to lockdowns (for their own selfish reasons) then lockdowns must be our saviour...

We've got to get out of this stupid knee-jerk polemicism. Yes, the NRA use the mental health angle. Of course they do, they're going to use anything which promotes their agenda, they're not going to only select those things which are false (because they're the bad guys and bad guys always lie). Some things they say are going to be perfectly valid because they're not morons (evil, perhaps - but not stupid).

It's no good avoiding ground simply because they've taken it, it just makes your arguments look weak, like you can't concede even a millimetre of your opponent's arguments lest that millimetre is enough to destroy yours. But it won't be.

since other countries don’t have the mass shootings we do, despite the same problems with “mental health,” we should be emphasizing that. — Mikie

I agree, but the means by which it is emphasised matters. simply making the claims you've made about the US's outlier status are solid and no doubt effective. Insinuating that anyone talking about mental health is associated with NRA "talking points" just makes you look weak and doesn't help the argument at all.

Yet I need a name for the cause of my perception of a tree. My solution is to give the cause the same name as the effect. — RussellA

Who told you what the name of the effect was?

People can see red even if they don't have a language to describe colour. — Michael

This is just an assertion. People respond to colour. That's not the same as them seeing 'red' unless you concede that 'red' is indeed a wavelength of light and so a person without language would still see red. You want to have your cake and eat it. If 'red' ids a private sensation, then you can't use third party observation to judge other people must be seeing it.

I can smell so many different things and yet I don't have words to describe each kind of smell. There's no thinking involved in this. I don't think, "it's smell X" or "it's smell Y". I just smell. — Michael

Again, you respond to the olfactory sensations, that doesn't mean you smell this smell or that smell (like rigid components but without a name yet). You just respond. You might even post hoc think one smell was like another you smelt yesterday (but still with no name) but there's no way of knowing if that's even correct.

What a young child means when they say that an apple is red is exactly what I mean when I say that an apple is red — Michael

Again, this is just assertion. It's almost certainly untrue. The full 'meaning' of red for you is very unlikely to be the same as the child's partly because of your increased knowledge. You have a lot more connection to those sensory inputs than a child does.

it's certainly not the case that when I see that the apple is red (but say nothing) that I am thinking anything about quantum mechanics. I'm just seeing. — Michael

This one I can literally disprove in an instant (well you'd have to get into an fMRI). Under no circumstances are you 'just seeing'. It's not been recorded, ever. The closest we've ever got is showing blank swatches of colour (no objects, no context) and even then dozens of other areas are consistently associated with different colours (including, of course, language centres).

The "grounds" that support what seems to you are the "grounds" that seem to you to be such. — Janus

Yep. I was asking what those grounds actually are, in this case. I'm aware they will only ever be those grounds which 'seem to one to be grounds' but I haven't had any such grounds yet.

Saying "it seems to me" only tells me that there exist such grounds (in a rational person), it doesn't tell me what they are.

To argue it’s because we have a greater rate of mental health issues is factually incorrect. — Mikie

No one is arguing that, as far as I can tell. People are just raising the perfectly legitimate issue that having kids (or adults) who are pushed to the point of committing mass murder is a big societal issue. especially if (as you say) only 4% seem have diagnosed mental health issues. That means we're accepting living in a world where 96% of people who massacre innocent children are apparently fine, normal, upstanding human beings (who just erroneously have access to guns).

Of course if we removed their weapons the world would be a safe place and it goes without saying that I'm in favour of very strong gun control (like we have in England - virtually no mass shootings).

But the pro-gun lobby aren't denying the US's unique status in gun-violence, so pointing it out doesn't progress the debate.

There is, however, a very serious societal problem if that large a number of people are pushed that often to mass murder. It's not necessarily a problem unique to the US, but that doesn't make it not a problem.

The thing is, I don't think the two are unrelated and I think it harms the anti-gun campaign to keep brushing it aside. The gun lobby not only need people to be allowed to own guns, they need them to actively want guns. and they need them to want guns with a strong passion. So the mental health (and societal) issues which lead to the desire for mass shooting (regardless of ability) are a key tool in the gun lobby's arsenal.

They don't want this issue addressed because it would reduce demand for their products even if they were legal. You're aiding that agenda by sweeping the issue aside.

What they are calling "a contradictory unconscious real belief" I am calling "knowledge." — Dfpolis

Right. Your terminology is bizarre. You're referring to the fact that people can simultaneously hold contradictory beliefs and that one of those beliefs may turn out to be true (and the other false)?

That is a really heterodox use of the word "knowledge" in the psychological sense you were using it. when we use the word "knowledge" we're typically referring to self-aware knowledge (beliefs we have sufficient confidence in). You're transporting what I suspect might be a philosophical definition (I couldn't be sure as I'm not a philosopher), into a psychological phenomena (I am a psychologist).

What there's no evidence for (though I'm sure there are theorists who are working on the hypothesis) is having two contradictory beliefs - at contradictory confidence levels.

Risk-reward behaviour is not illogical, nor irrational because it is affected by values. If I believe (with low confidence) that there is a million pounds inside a box and also hold the contradictory belief (but with high confidence - what we might call knowledge) that there is a trap in the box, it is not irrational for me to act on the low confidence belief. It depends on how much I value a million pounds and how high a tolerance for risk I have.

Unless the second belief is held with absolute 100% confidence, then it is not necessarily irrational to act on the contradictory, low confidence belief if one has a high tolerance of risk and values highly the outcome if that second belief turns out (against the odds) to be true.

I only claimed that acting on a belief was a sign of commitment — Dfpolis

Yes, but without support. Beliefs are not these rigid binomial settings you seem to think they are. I don't either believe or not believe most things, I hold some things to be true with a high degree of confidence and their opposites to be false with a high degree of confidence. I am absolutely 100% certain of a few fundamental things. The crowd numbers at Donald Trump's inauguration is not one of them. If you are 100% certain of such things, it is you who are the unusual case and your assumption that others are just like you is what is causing this confusion.

I saw the picture of his crowd next to the picture of Obama's crowd. You could pettifog with various objections, but that is a rational basis for my conclusion on crowd size. — Dfpolis

Having a rational basis is necessary but not sufficient. There are several theories which have an equally rational basis, As Quine (and others) have expounded on, most theories are underdetermined.

It is paranoid behavior unless one has specific sound reasons for distrusting. — Dfpolis

Exactly. Your 'sound reasons' are not the same as other people's 'sound reasons'.

You are creating a diversion instead of addressing my point that no rational follower of D.T. could fail to notice many of his lies. — Dfpolis

It's not a point. It's just a declaration without evidence. On what grounds could "no rational follower of D.T. ... fail to notice many of his lies."? That you think they're lies? That the New York Times says so? People do not do primary research. they trust others, and different people trust different others.

The point is that this type of behavior occurs, and it is useful to reflect upon it. — Dfpolis

Without demonstrating it in any given case you can't claim it occurs.

"No ground"? In that case, you have a long way to go. It seems clear to me that many of our perceptions have specific, enduring sources, and that specificity grounds our property concepts. — Dfpolis

Since when does "it seems to me" constitute grounds?

Do you mean that ants might not have evolved? Or that we might not have noticed that ants are organic unities, and so might not have formed the concept <ant>? — Dfpolis

It's not a matter of 'noticing' that ants are organic unities. Again, you're begging the question. what I'm asking you to demonstrate is the grounds for believing that ants are in fact organic unities absent of our declaring them to be.

We call it "an ant" because it has the objective capacity to elicit our concept <ant> — Dfpolis

In what sense is that a property of the ant (absent of humans)?

You can build furniture out of the something in the world that has caused me to perceive a tree — RussellA

What could we call that thing...? If only there was a word for the thing in the world which I can make furniture out of, climb, get fruit from, paint the image of, sit under the shade of....

.... We really need a word for thing.

I suggest "tree(a)", what with the word "tree" already having been taken and all.

There's more to experience than just rational thought. Seeing and feeling and tasting aren't just cases of thinking. — Michael

Why not?

But what does it mean to think that apples are red? — Michael

It means that I'll reach for the word "red" if asked to describe the colour.

You suggested before that to be red is to have a surface that reflects light with a wavelength of 700nm, so to think that apples are red is to think that apples have a surface that reflects light with a wavelength of 700nm? — Michael

Yes, that's right.

How does that make sense given that people saw, and thought, that apples were red long before they even had the concept of electromagnetic radiation? — Michael

The meanings of words change. Before there was a scientific test for what we should call "red" it would have been more a community decision - to be 'red' was simply to be a member of that group of things decreed to be 'red', but nowadays, I suspect people will defer to the scientific measurement.

You "reaching" for the word "red" to describe apples isn't just something that happens in a vacuum. — Michael

I didn't say it happened in a vacuum. there are all sorts of other cognitive activities resultant from seeing an apple, but none of them have anything to do with 'red'. 'Red' is a word, so it is resultant of activity in my language centres.

And presumably you're not a p-zombie that just mindlessly responds to stimulation by spouting out words. — Michael

The concept of p-zombies makes no sense, so I can't answer this question. You might as well say "presumably you're not a robot with no Elan Vitale?". I don't consider it part of serious conversation to invoke made-up forces which are completely undetectable.

According to Do blind people dream in visual images?, yes. — RussellA

So I can make furniture out of what blind people are seeing?

You don't think that apples appear to be red? — Michael

I don't think there's such a thing as a 'red appearance'. Apples appearing red, just means that I think apples are red. My estimate is that they're red. I'll reach for the word "red" to describe them...etc. There's no separate thing 'the appearance of red' with which we might mistake the property of the apple.

it would be fallacious to conflate redness in this sense with a red appearance. — Michael

It would indeed since a 'red appearance' is utter nonsense.

It's a mistake to then project this coloured appearance onto the external world. — Michael

That's what I'm enquiring about. Why is it a mistake? If an object can have the property 'reflects light with a wavelength of 700nm' why can't we call that property "red"?

I meant specifically that things aren't as they appear to ordinary human perception — Michael

You're assuming that things can only rightly be one way. Is that an assumption you can justify? Can an apple not be both red and 'reflective of 400nm wavelengths'?

a blind man can see. — RussellA

But can they see trees?

I see trees in my dreams... I see trees in my hallucinations. — RussellA

Do you?

Leaves fall from trees in autumn. Do leaves fall from what you see in your dreams and hallucinations?

I can build furniture out of fallen trees. Can I build furniture out of what you see in your dreams and hallucinations?

And what could "I thought I saw a tree, but I was wrong" possibly mean in your world?

How could one ever be mistaken about what one sees?

I think modern science has proven that things aren't as they appear. — Michael

Surely things must appear to the scientists to be the way they now report them to be; otherwise why are they reporting them to be that way?

Things are not as they once appeared.

I am saying that I directly see a tree, though the tree I see is an indirect representation, image or model of something that exists in the actual world — RussellA

So, for you, the eyes are not involved in seeing. A blind man can see?

the possibility that Trump may have convinced even himself (self-deluded) is all that I need to show that knowledge is not a species of belief. In that case, he may well have seen the pictures comparing his to the Obama inauguration crowds, found them so distasteful that he put them out of his mind, and comforted himself with the belief that his was crowd was bigger. — Dfpolis

Again, this begs the question. If you assume the possibility, you are not investigating it, you're simply declaring it.

Our willingness to act on p is what I am calling commitment to the truth of p or believing p. It is different from knowing it is the case that p. We can know p, but lack the confidence to commit to the truth of p, and act on it. — Dfpolis

There's obviously a difference between mere belief and actual knowledge, but that difference is not sufficient to justify a claim that people believe something despite knowing its opposite.

The points (as yet unaddressed) are that;

1) people acting as if p is not an indicator that they believe p, it is an indicator that they believe acting as if p is in their best interests. It might be in their best interests because they believe p is the case, but it might be in their best interests because it benefits them in some way that people see them act as if p, or that there's some peripheral benefit to acting as if p.

2) (and I'm having to say this a worryingly increasing number of times lately) stuff you believe is true is not necessarily true. Just because you personally believe Trump didn't have the largest crowds, doesn't mean he didn't. you didn't personally count them, you didn't personally see them. You are told and shown the evidence by others. It is perfectly rational behaviour to not trust those others and so not believe the evidence they are presenting. I could, for example, imagine all the news footage was doctored by CGI. Believing implausible things is not the same as believing something you know to be false.

I would suggest that with over 13,000 lies in office, it is virtually impossible to follow Trump and not to know he routinely lies. — Dfpolis

Case in point. who told you he told over 13,000 lies? Did you count them yourself? Did you investigate the truth in each case? No. You simply believed what you were told. Other people do not believe what you believe. Other people do not trust the sources you trust.

If there is one case in which a rational actor knows p is false and acts based on the belief that p is true, by the modus tollens, knowledge is not a species of belief. — Dfpolis

Yes, but without begging the question, you've yet to demonstrate that there is any such actor.

Donald could never commit to his crowd size being less than that of an African American. He would see it as being utterly demeaning and so impossible. — Dfpolis

That may well be true, but you haven't demonstrated that he, at the same time, knows it to be true that his crowds were smaller.

The entirely of the heterogeneous soup of data states that the hypothesise as being external to our system. — Isaac

This is not a sentence. — Dfpolis

My apologies, it should read "The entirely of the heterogeneous soup of data states that we hypothesise as being external to our system"

I'm arguing that there is no ground for saying that external objects (with properties consistent to that object) exist outside of our definition of them. There is ground for saying that sufficient heterogeneity exists (otherwise we'd have to assume that our astonishing consistency in object recognition was a mere coincidence), but there's no grounds for assuming that it could not have been otherwise.

Like the constellation Orion. It definitely is in the shape of a man with a belt and a bow. We're not making that up. But it is also in the shape of dozens of other things we've chosen to ignore.

So, the sham'ful annexations aren't imperialist because NATO is that dire existential threat to Russia. NATO is imperialist because other definitions. — jorndoe

If you actually read what I've written, we could have a discussion about it. If you don't want to discuss what I've written, just don't respond.

To me political propaganda consists in an activity focused on mobilising people typically through evaluative/emotional arguments or direct solicitation into doing some political action wrt politicians or policies or the collectivity — neomac

Well, the dictionary has...

propaganda
noun [ U ]
mainly disapproving
uk
/ˌprɒp.əˈɡæn.də/ us
/ˌprɑː.pəˈɡæn.də/
C2
information, ideas, opinions, or images, often only giving one part of an argument, that are broadcast, published, or in some other way spread with the intention of influencing people's opinions — https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/propaganda

... so pretty much the definition comes down to intent, and one-sidedness. Neither intent, nor one-sidedness can be proven, they are opinions. As such, you cannot play your Dr Spock routine on it. Not only do I think your arguments are one-sided and intended to influence, but I think you dismiss the arguments of others on exactly those grounds (that they have missed some 'other side', and that they are intended to influence.

But your semantic pedantry doesn't progress the argument. It doesn't matter what we call it. the point of my comment that you are responding to is that your personal biases, beliefs, and goals colour the narratives that you use to understand events. Just like everyone else. The idea that anyone can form some kind of 'position from nowhere' is absurd.

That means the questions we can sensibly analyse are 1) why you choose the narrative you do, and 2) is your chosen narrative overwhelmed by evidence to the contrary - ie is it unsustainable.

That's what I'm trying to get you to see so that we can actually engage in productive discussion. all the while you're thinking this is some kind of chess game we'll get nowhere, because if it's a chess game, it's one in which we do not agree on the rules.

I don’t participate in this forum to mobilise people into taking politician accountable or save people’s lives or fix the world, I’m here just to engage in rational scrutiny. — neomac

Look, you can't reasonably expect a situation where you are allowed to wax lyrical about my intentions, regardless of what I actually say about them, and then expect to be able to just declare what yours are and have them taken as gospel. Either our motives are open topics for debate, or they aren't. In the latter case, stop speculating on mine. In the former case, you've got to give me more than just your say so as evidence.

if you want to meaningfully talk about being “biased”, “cognitive failings” and “unexamined narrative”, you yourself must have an idea of how to establish “biased” vs “unbiased”, “cognitive success” vs “cognitive failures“ and “unexamined narratives” vs “examined narratives”, and be able to illustrate such distinctions over concrete cases in a way that is sharable and reusable. — neomac

Of course. I don't see how that's not possible.

A biased view is one where one's conclusion is affected by factors other than those habits which have a track record of reaching truth (typically 'rational thinking'). Unless you're super-human, I can say with certainty that your thinking will be biased because everybody's is. We all engage in thinking practices which include factors other than those we can identify as being associated with a significantly increased chance of arriving at the truth of the matter.

Cognitive success is likewise a set of algorithms or heuristics which are demonstrably more likely to arrive at the truth of the matter than otherwise.

Examined narratives are those narratives where someone is aware that the frame through which they view events is one of many equally possible frames and that other frames will yield other equally valid positions. An unexamined narrative, such as yours, is one where the person thinks there's is the only (or the only 'true') way of looking at things and so their version of reality is better, or more 'real' than others'.

What is the “unexamined narrative” in all what I said? — neomac

Your world-view. The things you take to be foundational. The beliefs at the centre of your web. whether you follow Collingwood, or Quine, or some other version, We all have to believe some things on faith. We can't 'rationally' work out the universe from first principles. We just believe some things to be the case without argument and build from there. Accepting that is an 'examined narrative' It's the best you can get since you've no grounds to go further. Denying that such foundational beliefs exists and maintaining that one is 'rational to the core' is an 'unexamined narrative'.

the fact that within both the mainstream and the independent media there is room for competing views. — neomac

A classic example of what I was just referring to. This is not a 'fact'. That the earth is round is a 'fact'. That 1+1=2 is a 'fact'. Things you happen to really strongly believe are not 'facts'. Look at the wording here. You've used the term "competing views", but what you determine to be "competing views" depends on that unexamined world-view of yours. If you are embedded in the modern political system, then support for (in America, say) the Democrats becomes a "competing view" with support for the Republicans. Outside of that particular world-view, however, things look different. How many anarchist news-pieces are published in mainstream media? How many communist opinions? How many radical ecologist perspectives? How many Nazi positions? How many UFO/5G/Lizardmen conspiracies?

If you unquestioningly accept the current Overton window as 'reality' then of course, the mainstream newspapers show a diverse range of competing opinions. But that's an unexamined narrative. There's no rational reason at all for thinking our current window of acceptability is the 'real' one.

I have some difficulty to imagine mainstream media which are not “in the thrall of” governments and corporate interests — neomac

It's quite simple.

Before Clinton’s radical legislation passed into law, approximately 50 companies controlled 90 percent of the media and entertainment industries; as of 2022, only five or six conglomerates control the same market share. With overlapping membership on corporate boards of directors and interconglomerate coordination and joint ventures, just a handful of giant corporations dominate everything from book and magazine publishing, to radio and cable and network TV, to movie studios, music companies, theme parks, and sports teams. In command of these goliaths is a small cadre of billionaires and multimillionaires12 who exert near-total control over today’s global media landscape. — https://www.currentaffairs.org/2023/03/how-deregulation-created-a-corporate-media-nightmare

the bitter truth (whatever it is) is definitely worth to bipartisanly cover up, as long as possible, during war time. — neomac

... if you have faith in the good-will of your government. another unexamined assumption.

The existence of battles indicates a belief in the state you describe. It doesn't prove the truth of it. — Isaac


And what would prove the truth of that to you? Can you state it clearly? Can you offer concrete examples of what such proof might look like? Because if you can’t, you are making a meaningless objection to me. — neomac

Why is an objection meaningless if it shows your view can't be proven, but your original view (the one which can't be proven) was apparently meaningful enough to make?

I ignored such arguments not because “they just don't fit you preferred narrative” but for a very compelling reason: they are pointless objections. Here is why: wanting to “argue only against those agencies over which we have some responsibility” is part of YOUR (& others’) militant attitude and YOUR goal (& others’) of offering arguments to mobilise people accordingly. But I’m not militant nor I’m here to help you, I’m here to rationally scrutinise views on this war including related assumptions — neomac

What you're here do do has no bearing on the fact that you ascribed to me a view which is not one I hold.

your militant choice is perfectly compatible with the idea that: “ultimately all evil comes exclusively/predominantly/primarily from one single root (the US) and for one single motivational factor (it’s all about money for a bunch of American plutocrats)”. — neomac

So? Your view is 'compatible' with the idea that you're a closet Nazi and are working undercover to gain influence before converting people to right-wing extremism by PM". A view being merely 'compatible' with some crazed notion is not sufficient grounds to accuse someone of holding it.

But why is that blow against US hegemony/imperialism desirable or the lesser evil? Because ultimately all evil comes exclusively/predominantly/primarily from one single root (the US). And why is that? As you summarised your militant views about this war: “Seeing this crisis as an inevitable result of capitalist imperialism lends support to the fight against capitalist imperialism, which is a good thing.” — neomac

... another good example of your biases. You present this as if it were a rational argument, but you jump from a weighing exercise (US hegemony vs authoritarian regimes - in terms of harms) to "all evil comes exclusively/predominantly/primarily from one single root". All evil.

This is because whilst weighing merits of two competing forces, you have very weak ground to stand on. The US's record on immiseration speaks for itself. Only by painting it as some 'irrational, militant hyperbole' can you hope to win ground.

In other words, you are deliberately distorting the presentation of the argument to suit your preferred political position. Propaganda, in other words.

Oh you don't see this war and the Russo-Georgian war of 2008 etc. as a tragedy? — ssu

Straw man. You said...

if only Russia would have had leaders that accepted that the empire was lost and the states given independence weren't coming back, it would have all the tools to continue with the "modern" approach to imperialism. — ssu

...that is the quote I was responding to.

Russia's border wars are a tragedy. It would have been better had they not had them. It would not have been better had they adopted "the tools to continue with the "modern" approach to imperialism". The modern approach to imperialism demonstrably kills and immiserates more people than Russia's current old-school method.

the actions of the US have far more reach than the actions of Russia. The US has had a real trainwreck of a policy in the Middle-East for sure, which has brought death and misery there even if there would be instability and wars even without an active US there. Yet the policy failure is obvious: first from CENTO (Iran, Iraq and Pakistan as allies with Saudi-Arabia) to "Twin pillars" (Saudi-Arabia and Iran as US allies), then to "Dual containment" (of Iran and Iraq) and now troops on the ground still fighting the "War on Terror", which Americans have forgotten about. But that's another topic we could discuss. — ssu

It's not "another topic". It's this topic because the US are instrumental in the current strategy for the resolution of the conflict (the strategy you support). If the US has had an effect on the countries it has interfered with that was worse than if they'd left well alone, that is strong evidence for the theory that they ought leave Ukraine well alone too (or, better, change tactics and help out in a positive way).

You keep wanting to focus only on one party to this crisis. Ignoring Ukraine, ignoring the US, ignoring Europe.

Yes, Russia's actions are tragic and will cause a lot of misery. But your fundamental error is that you assume that the mere tragedy of an action is sufficient to justify any response designed to mitigate it, and that's clearly false.

We have to compare the tragedy of continued war with the tragedy of our options to end it. Continued war (and Russian control of Dombas, Crimea) will be a tragedy. But avoiding that tragedy by flooding the world's top black market arms dealer with untraceable weapons, destroying an economy and making it servile to US and European banks, devastating global food and fertiliser supplies, increasing US dominance of the energy markets, and risking nuclear war... are more tragic.

Hence we must find another way of minimising the tragedy of Russian land-grabbing.