It would be a contradiction because it would mean a thing was present without its meaning. My computer cannot exist prior to expressing the meaning of that computer. No doubt many things have existed before my computer, but they are not the something which is my computer.

The meaning of an a existing thing is always expressed when it exists. The existence of my computer cannot preceed being that computer.

P is X, the subject state, whatever that might be.

It has plenty to do with it-- this is what "bad faith" is about. People deny their responsibility by claiming to measure who people must be. The "measurement" of "It's my nature. I necessarily cannot do anything else" is Sartre's major target.

The point is measurement problems are incohrent because one does not achieve knowledge by relying on a set of associated properties.

To understand a state, one has to grasp the thing that exists. "Essence" is not a description or measurement of anything. It's just someone pretending to know what something must be.

Sartre does focus on human and their decision making and relationships. My point was about the logical structure of what he's trying to say-- what "existence preceeds essence" is getting at. His "freedom" is a forerunner of radical contingency, limited more or less to human actions and idenities.

Humans are no doubt special in that they have particular awareness and self-direction.

Choice is sort of a reflection of radical contingency. In having choice, humans are not bound to any predetermined outcome. Their acts have to make what happens.

Such suggestions aren't exactly trival though, for many different idenities extend beyond a singular moment. One may, for example, suggest a possible world where I sprout gills. The property of "no gills" is not actually necessary to me, a human, at all. There are many such changes I might undergo which are thought impossible by "what properties Willow must necesarily have."

The notion of "essence" is incoherent, but Kripke's approach only leads to people asserting it under the guise of what's necessary to a thing-- e.g. "I'm human, so I can't possibly have gills at any time."

Sartre's point is "essence" is entirely incohrent. There are no properties which necessary belong to anything. Not only does it not make sense to pose something without its necessary properties, but the idea of necessary properties within existence is itself entirely mistaken.

Rather than trivial, suggesting something might be other than properties associated with it, picks out a possible outcome.

Existence always has power over "essence"-- my properties can always change because they are an expression of my existence, rather than a rule of what I necesarily am. "Existence before essence" means that presence (whatever it might be) has primacy over associated properties (essence).

What defines a thing is not a notion of what properties are necesarily to it, but rather its existence.

More like separate. Existential quantification (something exists, a meaning is used-- e.g. Banno is a waiter) is different to logical quantification (a necessary truth-- e.g. Banno is necessarily a waiter and will be no matter what happens in the world).

They cannot be substituted. The essentialist cannot be correct. I can't say: "Banno is, by nature, necessarily a waiter." Since Banno is a state of the world, it takes an existential quantification ( "Banno is a waiter" ) to make it so.

No matter how absurd it is to me that Banno could be something other than a waiter, it's true.

Not really. That reading is all too empirical, as if "existence before essence" was suggesting something existed before the use of its meaning-- an obvious contradiction.

The statement is really about logic. It's not describing states of the world (e.g. the state was "nothing" until someone gave it a meaning), but rather identifying what we can say with logic. It's pointing out we can't use a concept or or idea to determine what the world must be.

We can't just say, for example, that "Humans are necessarily kind. It's always their nature." Or: "There Banno. He's necessarily a waiter by his nature." In any case, the mere logical idea is not enough to define that use of meaning.

The world has to do it. Humans are only kind when they are kind. Banno is only a waiter when he is a waiter. In the world, no use of meaning is necessary. It has to be performed by the world (existence). Therefore, the world (existence) must be in any performance of meaning. Mere logic alone ( "Banno is necessarily a waiter" ) has no performer and so cannot be a use of meaning.

Sartre is on about a little bit more than just arbitrariness of meaning. He's pointing out that in our notions of "essence," we mistake an assigned meaning for who someone is and how they are capable. To think of it only in terms of "meaning" is all too throwaway. It not merely "meaning" that's at stake, but who and what we think people are, and it's relationship to logic. Not only is "meaning" to be "made," but it means our understanding go things cannot just be given "by nature." The world has do do some work.

Worldly meaning cannot be expressed simply by logic floating in the aether- no use of meaning (or language) can be so regardless of the world. Existence (the world) precedes essence (used meaning). One cannot go, as the essentialists do, from meaning (e.g. "human nature," "savage," "male," "female," etc., etc.-- essences) to a particular use in world (e.g. "humans who are necessarily X by nature" ).

[The proper name] designates the same thing in all possible worlds. — StreetlightX

In an important sense, this is true. Each proper name refers to one specific thing in any possible world. By using a name, we can talk about a thing in any world we might imagine. We can, for example, talk about the Mandarin speaking Obama in our own world. He might even converse with "our" Obama.

The issue is that it is frequently misread as a question of "essence." Instead of recognising each individual thing named in all possible worlds, people treat it as a question of a single thing with the same property in any world. Even you did this above. Supposedly, the property of "Obamaness" makes these those people same, as if anyone called "Obama" was the same person in any possible world, rather than altogether different people who happened to be named "Obama" or have some other similarity.

If I may, one way to think about this is to consider what allows you to speak of two worlds with different Obamas in the first place. Kripke's point is that your very ability to speak of two different Obamas, has, as it's prerequisite, the ability to think of an entity designated Obama of whom 'can speak mandarin' can be predicated of (or not) in the first place. That is, you wouldn't even understand what it means to speak of 'two different Obamas' had you not already had some idea of a 'an Obama' which can be in some way different in two different worlds to begin with. Otherwise it wouldn't be two different Obamas, it would be two different people altogether. You wouldn't be able to speak of 'different Obamas'. This is why a proper name is a rigid designator: it designates the same thing in all possible worlds. — StreetlightX

The problem is Kripke approach confuses the rigidity of designator for the thing. The two Obamas are not the same thing at all. They are two different people. No doubt people know what it means to be an "Obama," but there is not a single Obama in all possible worlds.

In any case, "Obama" refers to a specific person entirely themselves and unique to their world. They are always two different people altogether. Here "Obamaness" only signifies a similarity in meaning between two all together different people-- it is not actually a proper name and rigid designator.

Proper names are rigid designators, by they aren't defined by the presence of a property ("Obamaness")."Obama" is a precise designator of an individual in each case. There are two (or more) Obamas, each given in themselves, designated by their own "Obama," not several people who are the same thing defined by the property of "Obamaness."

The trouble with these approaches is it gets logical backwards. Logic is viewed as a transcendent from which anything else springs. To be "logical," supposedly, is to be derived from some rule, to be a necessitated by something else. Logic is mistaken as a foundation of knowledge.

Logic is actually an expression. It's intuitive and creative. Not a rule that necessitates or means of knowing regardless of anything else, but an expression all of its own, found nowhere and defined by nothing else. Every logical truth is born from nowhere and dies all on its own. Logic reasoning functions not by determining rules, but in understanding expressions themselves.

In this respect, it is far more powerful (or weaker, depending on what you are looking for) than an arbiter. Rather than a force which commands, it is an expression of the living. Logic is "undoubtable" because it is always an expression itself. Commanders can be defied. Each moment, itself, cannot be.

I don't think so. The philosophy you are talking about is characterised by the intersection of both scholastic concern and the intelligible. For them philosophy is not merely ethics (that's a position of heretical post-modernism), but an intersection of ethics and worldly truth which cannot possibility be denied. Without God, the world is unintelligible. God is necessarily so regardless of what happens.

It's world in which the intelligible is the highest order and it's necessarily bound with the only possible outcome: the presence of God, a practice of religious philosophy and particular cultural tradition. Rather than merely being about how one ought to live, it's about how people must think an act, what the world can only be, without falling into the unintelligible and so being impossible.

In terms of the unintelligible, it is an utter rejection. The outcome which can never be is a believer finding the world to be unintelligible. No matter what, the world will always meet the expectation and specification of their tradition.

That's the problem though: the definition of "mental illness" is not practical. It a nebulous allusion to failure. What is the failure? Is what's called "mental illness" even a failure at all? No doubt you want to help people, and I more or less agree with what you say there (with the addition that "mental illness" is a concept of how people ought to act that emerged out of our language concepts), but you still respect the (oppressive) idea of "mental illness" as a concept of someone nature.

Fuck the definitions indeed, particularly "mental illness." Who needs that second order notion of being handicapped to distract them? If something is wrong, why not just describe that and tackle it head on? What does saying that one is "mentally ill," as opposed just describing behaviours actually add to the picture?

In terms of behaviour, there is no image to replace in this context. You were only ever talking about theory. With respect to mental illness (or rather, how people ought to think and behave), you never defined a problem. You began with this nebulous image of "mental illness" that needs to be fixed and imagined the image of "mental strength as it's solution." But what was wrong? Who was acting in a way they shouldn't? What behaviour needs to be fixed?

You have neither spoken about any such issue or offered any practical advice. From the beginning, this thread has been all theory, not an identification of a behavioural problem and a suggestion of a partial solution, but (supposedly) an instance of knowledge or explanation to any problem-- you say: "lack of mental strength" just as the lazy psychiatrist might say "brain chemistry and drugs."

With respect to practical advice, we can't even approach the subject until we start talking in terms of specific behaviours. This thread has never been about doing anything useful in this respect. It's all about the theory which gets used to define how people respond to the mentally ill.

Who talked of scapegoating? The point was what works and what doesn't work, there's no scapegoating here. — Agustino

You didn't talk about it, but your argument entails it. Take, for example, the several people I know who've had successful experiences with therapy. If we worked by your system, they ought have never started seeing a physiologist. If they weren't managing on their own, you would have chastised them for lacking "mental strength" and just demanded the understand it (how?). You would (in your ideal world) deny what worked for them (since it's supposedly ineffective-- just a racket of scam artist taking their money) and prescribe them "mental strength." Their health would be a scapegoat to the application of your preferred method of treatment.

Yes I said that in the OP as short form - as I said, instead of repeating the sentence and changing capacity with incapacity, I just wrote that. — Agustino

Ah well, the problem is that implies that capacity/incapacity are working on the same axis, are in opposition.

Mental illness (some incapacity--failure) and mental strength (some capacity--success) does work as a discintion. But the trouble is it still lacks definition. What is the behaviour that needs to be changed? What behaviour is successful? The contradiction may be resolved; the mentally ill (failing) may respond with mental strength (success) in the future, but that says nothing of practical value about anyone's behaviour.

I think that very failure of the image of "mental illness" vs "mental strength" is the point.

What practical relevance does saying have "mental strength" have to anyone? It's nothing more than an imagined image. As a claimed solution, it really offers nothing more than any other response. One might go to a Monastery, believe everything their psychiatrist says or collect their new age crystals.

The image of "mental strength" has more to do with opposing particular types of responses (e.g. the cost, drugs of psychiatry, how psychiatry doesn't allow a person to be better on their own, etc., etc.), then it does for defining a practical outcome of mental illness.

What I meant as opposite is this: mental illness is incapacity - mental strength is capacity - NOT lack of incapacity —

Which is not what you said in the OP.

Definition of Mental Strength: The exact opposite of mental illness. — Agustino

And yes, this knowledge does make us better people. Not necessarily because we can magically solve mental illness, but rather because we don't fall into the trap of confusing an image (e.g. "mental strength") for a solution and then punishing people for whom it doesn't work. It means we don't scapegoat people for failing to get better by our preferred method (and it will mean we don't deny them the opportunity to get better by some other means we happen to despise).

In the context of the individual, it makes our understanding sharper too. A person who goes it on their own actually describes behaviours which ought to be changed, rather than considering a nebulous notion of "mental illness" which requires some yet to be understood solution. I think there may be something of a practical effect here.

If one knows behaviours they ought to change, they can direct themselves towards achieving that. Well, some people can at least. It certainly gives more to go on than saying: "I'm mentally ill and need to be fixed."

MU is trying to allude to the contradiction in you definitions. If mental strength is defined in opposition to mental illness-- an absence of incapacity-- it cannot be the response to present mental illness. In this case, it's impossible for someone to have mental strength and also a mental illness.

This is why "mental strength" has no apparent practical definition. In the terms of you definitions, it is not a response to mental illness, some action taken to deal with a present mental illness, but a description of being in a state without mental illness.

Comment: The definitions allow the classification of all possible conditions of the mind as either being mental illness or being mental strength. — Agustino

You definitions preclude this because it would require that a condition of mind could be both a mental illness (incapacity) and mental strength (absence of incapacity).

Note: your direction is more or less correct, "mental illness" is a classification of ethics, a way of saying a particular way of thinking ought to exist. Rather than a description of a state of mind, it's a judgment about what sort of mind ought to belong.

This, however, amounts to an absence of standard in judging the presence of mental illness. In any case, we are relying on a ethic defined in-itself, rather than the presence of a mind.

In this respect, "mental illness" is revealed to be more rhetorical than anything else. It's a form a naturalistic fallacy. Instead of being honest about what at stake, a thought, behaviour or action which ought not exist, we equate what's wrong with the mere presence of body and thought. In terms of the individual, it's sort of a denial of responsibility. Rather than describe actions or states which ought not be (e.g. lack of motivation, despair, etc., etc.-- depression), someone is just said to be "mentally ill." It's nothing more than an image used to position where someone goes in an order-- e.g. the sorts of people who ought or ought not be, the sorts of people who need treatment or medication, etc.,etc.

Which renders this supposed conundrum incoherent. Since the difference is known, there is no "what if the world was illusion?" question to ask.

Then, once we choose to forget the difference, it has no relevance to our knowledge. It no longer makes sense to challenge the world as it appears. Since it's impossible for us to tell the difference, we can't use the "what if the world's illusion" argument to direct us to recognising the "real world" over the machine. The truth that such doubt seeks to defend is closed to us.

The experiment supposes it's impossible to distinguish between the machine and " real life," but for the question to have any force requires that very distinction.

If I am to care about "real life" over the machine, I must be able to tell the difference or else I have nothing to seek.The premise of the question: "Do you know the world you experience is real?" relies on being able to distinguish "real life" from the machine.

Let's say Neo did not understand the difference between the Matrix and the world outside. If that were the case, there is no "real life" for him to seek. He couldn't pick it out to prefer it to the Matrix.

We can certainly make the decision to forget the distinction between the machine and "the real world," but it requires we know about it in the first place.

Metaphysically, they are still thinking in theist, religious or spiritual terms. The question supposes meaning, worth and ethics have to be placed there by some presence or force.

For the atheist/materialist, the question simply doesn't make sense. Since God an expression of the world, meaning, ethics and worth are already of the world, by its very definition.

Nietzsche was wrong. Stuck within the terms of the theist, religious or spiritual which sought to overcome, he failed to realise the key atheistic/materialistic point: not only can we make it on our own, but it's all we ever do.

Oh no, I'm well aware that it assigns superiority. That's like post-structuralism 101. That's why I specified strongman oppression-- the oppression of the Western culture you despise is not made on those terms.

The lesbian black female doesn't seek to subdue white men beneath her greatness. She only denies they are greater than her and acts as part of a social movement which prevents the white male from asserting he is greater than everyone else. Power isn't about individual superiority anymore. It's about how society relates to the individual.

You are wrong about race, gender and sexuality, etc. They've always been used to assign superiority. The modern equality movements are a reaction to this, to the superiority of men of women in culture, to heterosexuals over gay people, to the virgin over the person who's had multiple partners, white people over black people etc.,etc. In this respect, post-modernism seek to level these out, not bring in a new category of things which have never been relevant to superiority.

Yes I dislike this, because it's seeking to make all of us equally low. You seem to like to be made equally low with everyone else. I don't share such a sensibility, and my soul is revolted at such a totalitarian tendency of bringing down the greatness in some men. — Agustino

Which is my point. The oppression of inequality is what you desire most of all, to be the great man who gets more than anyone else, rather than a man who is content being great within themselves. To avoid strongman oppression, where you are valued above others for your greatness, is utterly revolting to you. For you to be great, you simply must crush others beneath your boot. Living with the greatness others is something you cannot stand. To you, it means no-one can be great.

I don't assign a negative value to birth, so I'm not an antinatalist. — Heister Eggcart

That's what makes your position incoherent. Without a negative value to birth, it makes no sense to deny potential children existence, for any reason. To argue someone ought not exist becasue of the suffering which will occur during their life is to place a negative value on their birth.

Nope. Me, myself, and I think life is worth living because of love. The child I may bring into existence may not agree. — Heister Eggcart

What if they were to agree though? How can you make the decision to deny them that opportunity? This is why you are assigning a negative value to their birth. On the off change they won't find life worth living, you decide they will not be at all. What justifies this decision on your part?

Certainly, not the fact they don't care because they aren't alive yet. That's just a naturalistic fallacy that someone failing to care what you do makes it okay. This is what I mean about denying your responsibility. You try to pass off your denial of life to the child as if it was an act without significance to what happens in the world.

You've essentially just said that non-existing entities deserve to exist. Okay, why do you say that? If every unborn child deserves to exist, then I should expect to see you with lots and lots and lots and lots of kids running around...no? Why not? — Heister Eggcart

The point is made on the idea that love redeems a life of suffering. If that is true, without qualification (e.g. without a negative value assumed to birth, limitation to your own experience), then the non-existence of a child is no reason to deny them a life containing love. Their suffering soul be fine because love would be their to make life worth living anyway.

Also, this is lazy rhetoric. If I held the above position, I wouldn't necessarily have acted morally myself. Even if we assume I meet other criteria which might be critical to having a child (e.g. that I have a willing partner), I might have failed to meet this standard of having children. You cannot expect such an ethical argument to be false just because someone hasn't lived up to it. That's a category error-- the confusion of how someone acts with the significance of a moral position.

"Hypocrisy" is a logical fallacy. Just because someone doesn't do what they say people ought to, it doesn't mean the moral argument they are making is wrong. If a serial killer tells you not to kill people at random, their argument is still right, even if they might be constantly violating that ethical precept constantly.

You are fond of the strongman oppression because it's that which you miss in Western values-- the ability to assign a person's superiority over other people. When I say "The Conquer," I don't just mean it literally. I'm referring to your desire to say someone has the authority over everyone else-- be it in sainthood, philosophy, music or poetry. In Western culture, what you miss is the ability of the individual to proclaim they are better than anyone else.

Sure, the West might respect great poets, philosophers, musicians, saints or even literal conquers, but then they turn around and give the same or even greater adoration just about anyone-- the postmodern collapse of "low" and "high" art and culture, into something where more or less what the individual cares about matters. They don't have a standard to which everyone must aspire. Individual expressions of authority, which place one person higher than another (regardless of field), at the expense of the lower, are no longer allowed. You miss this ability to express power in culture. Internally, it is a society without a literal or metaphorical Conquer.

Not quite, materialism and atheism are sometimes used as political challenges (e.g. Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, etc al. ), as some politics, culture and law is tied to religious or spirtual beliefs in some circumstances (e.g. the legal and cultural opposition to homosexually) but that's a lazy analysis of what materialism and atheism say.

Materialism and atheism are about metaphysics. They deny is the power of the infinite over the finite. Our world is not formed and constrained by God, but rather expresses God. The critics who accused Spinoza's philosophy of amounting to atheism were right, only the extent may have sometimes have been misunderstood.

Spinoza philosophy doesn't just deny the presence of God, either in our world or another world, but identifies it is impossible. The infinte (Real) can never be finite states (the illusions of time) of the world, else we commit the mistake of disrespecting God, of proclaiming our finite world amounts to the infinte.

It's the understanding existence is given itself, rather than by logical forms or images. Rather than an ethical justification, it's a metaphysic which is utterly alien to the theist or spirtualitualust.One in which meaning is an expression of existence, as opposed to something that needs to be granted by an outside image.

Agustino is most fond of oppression. What annoys him about modern culture is, above all, it's permissiveness. People get to act how they want without sanction or risk of sanction from others-- no outright protection from others expressing power over them.

For Agustino, the "great man" is the one who takes what, who expresses his authority over the world or in opposition to someone else-- The Conquer. In this respect, his opposition to modem culture is in someways more about the how than any particular immoral act itself. What irks him the most about modern culture is its rejection of the strongman and respect for his authority.

The trouble is it's misleading. You make it sound like the child has acted to avoid suffering while also living. In truth, it's not that the child avoided suffering, but that a suffering child was prevented by denying them existence.

What you are saying here is more an excuse to deny the responsibility for this act. If love makes life worth living, then we ought to give thus child existence so they can experience. Non-existence cannot be used to deny others what they deserve. It's a path which lets the powerful get away with anything and then calls it moral-- "That poor man, he doesn't exist with money or resources, so no-one needs to help him out." The absence of moral outcome cannot be used to deny a moral outcome someone else deserves.

No doubt an anti-natalist postion is possible, but that works no the basis existence cannot be redeemed-- not even love is important or wonderful enough to overcome the pains of suffering. Thus, the argument goes, an attempt to bring new life into the world is unethical. It doesn't work by redeeming the non-existence, but rather holding existence is beyond both redemption and justice-- no-one deserves to be brought into the suffering of life.

SX and Aaron R have given the answer to the question you were asking. I would add that all of the responses you list are, in some sense, true.

1. is correct. The parts of the world we perceive are as we perceive them.

2. is correct. Our observations and measurements of the world represent the world as it acts (this is really 1. repeated in the context of the practice of science).

3. is correct. Existing states express mathematical forms all the time.

4. is correct. Anything we know is, by definition, related to anything else (identity, difference) and cannot be known any other way.

5. is correct, in a sense. When one knows something, it is a representation in in a state of their experience, not the the thing they know about itself. In this sense, everything is unknowable, not because it cannot be known, but rather because it never knowledge-- a state known is never the state of knowledge.

6. is also correct. This is 4. stated in a different way. Since we are a difference, everything is in relation to us, so nothing can be said to be "independent" of us.

Not true, you've been railing against the "progressives' all over the place. You scoff at the notion of a world which is run on their principles. You no less argue people ought to follow your identity than trans people or anyone supporting them. You've said people ought to live and think like you countless times on this board-- witness your exclamation of glory that people in the West were finally waking up to the scourge of "progressivism," which would end our culture obsession with permissiveness. You give bucketloads of shit to what people think. You aren't sitting back and saying: "Ehh, it's fine. People can value and think whatever suits them."

Dont worry, The Willow of DARKNESS will bring his shadow around soon and tell you how these transexuals you cite are more suicidal after surgery because of folks like you, who don't approve of their real identity — Agustino

Well, it's is a factor. But Emptyheaded's argument is a pretty good reflection of the problem of seeing it in terms of a "mental illness." It fools us into thinking trans identity is something we give a magic pill to cure.

Medical transition is misread as something that meant to make everyone's lives fantastic. It's not. At best, it is imperfect. Is it any surprise that some people who desperately feel they ought to have a different body sometimes aren't satisfied with a (comparatively) poor copy of what they envision? Or that any satisfaction derived from transition doesn't necessarily amount to a cure to any or all mental illness someone has? Emptyheaded thinks he is showing the foolishness of trans identity, but all he's doing is showing the mistake of thinking of it as a mental illness to be cured and the ignorant expectation this raises.

That's, well, pretty bigoted.

You aren't wrong about people wishing not to be trans. Some trans people say exactly that. Sex/gender dysphoria is a horrible experience.

The problem is you take it to be a question of being a capable human, rather than avoiding something that's horrible. Just because a trans person has a horrible experience of dysphoria, it doesn't necessarily means they are incapable of task or less fit to survive. To experience something horrible doesn't mean you are some how useless and unfit for anything else.

Because it impacts on their lives. What you think defines actions and culture which has a negative impact on them. You do not respect them as people who ought to exist. Instead of being viewed as people who ought to exist, you think them an error of the world, some state which ought to be different because it defies a perfect nature (i.e. not delusional).

And yes, they do see you concerned about your identity: your entire attack on the "progressives" is exactly that. You regularly scoff at the notion that anyone would make the demand that you abandon your particular identity-- "How dare the West demand people give their love of strongman leaders, traditions, etc., etc."

They want to make everyone else accept and approve of their way of life, and they find their joy in disturbing and upsetting public order. Hence they deserve to be restrained, quite possibly put in jail, because they simply disturb and affect other people's lives negatively. We need to respect each other in society. These people, through such disgusting and uncivilised protests, disrespect everyone else in their society. — Agustino

This means you have a problem with their identity. Part of the point is other ought to recognise trans identity as legitimate (i.e. someone is not delusional for being trans) and someone expressing it is no less valuable than a cisgender person.

Trans identity inherently disrupts our present public order. It destroys out ability to ground social position on the sexed body. Earlier in the thread, some were talking of the sex/gender split, as if each concept didn't have anything to do with each other. This is a red-herring employed to maintain the essential relationship between sexual biology and identity. By boxing off trans identity as about only the "mind," questions about the identity of the body are put to rest. Trans identity is allowed to be without disputing what the body means for identity.

But trans identity is also about understanding of the body in relation to identity. For people who fit the "born in the wrong body" narrative, for example, the body is sort of important. It forms part of their identity (the body the ought to have, the body they feel), which they express and want recognised. A respect for being identified as part of a sex category (people with an identity with a particular body) is at stake.

Accepting trans identity means blowing-up our essential understanding of sex and gender categories. It means we can't just look at a body and know which sex/gender category someone belongs to. Sure, we might know the body, but this doesn't tell us someone's identity. Social organisation dependent on the sexed body collapses. If we can't tell whether someone with a vagina belongs to the category of "male" or "female," we can't assign them to a "male" of "female" role on the basis of their body. As a concept, understanding and acceptance of trans identity destroys a major pillar of (current) public order and (for many people) identity (essential sex/gender and its ability to assign social roles).

Missing the point-- giving you the Queen's body and throne are acts of empirical possession. Souls are not such a possession. They are regardless of it. Even if we don't give you the Queen's body or throne, your is so. The necessity of meaning is not a pass to get anything and everything. That is, as always, is a question of ethics.

And that's what the aversion to trans identity (as opposed to any actions such as surgery) amounts to. It's an ethical position trans identity ought not exist, rather than identification of delusion, mental illness or self harm.

That's why, for example, people like yourself attack trans identity, as opposed to medical procedures which carry expense an risk. You don't say: "Trans people are great, but they ought to avoid the expense an risk of medial procedures relating to bodily transition." Rather, you attack their very identity. They (supposedly) think "nonsense" about themselves and are deeply unethical for making social transition (e.g. being someone with certain clothes and appearance, pronouns, etc.,etc.). Most of all, they are the embodiment of evil for wanting people like you to recognise their identity.

The argument isn't about empirical form. A soul is more a logical expression, an understanding of who someone is and how they mean. More or less the point is there is something about a person which cannot be verified by looking of an object in the world. Sure people often say they "exist," but it really means something closes to "meaning with presence."

"Soul" has a lot of baggage, but it's a pretty good reflection of what's at stake here. It's not a question of the body as an existing state, but of identity and how bodies are understood.

In this respect, I would argue "souls" are necessary. When I look out into the world, am I aware of the lives and meaning of more than the bodies in front of me. There is a inner life, a logical expression, which is concurrent with the body-- something of everyone which speaks to me, regardless of whether a person is aware of it, which shows their meaning.

Speaking of (empirical) verification is a category error, an attempt to understand something which is not the body as the body. How do I expect you to understand this? The way anyone does: to respect the necessity of meaning. One is convinced in experiencing the logical expression of identity. Without that, one is stuck in the loop of reducing people to the presence of their empire bodies.

What do you think my point is? It's exactly that: disagreement; the mystic's understanding is incoherent. Of course I don't understand as the mystic does. If I understood like the mystic, I would think it's true that contentmentmust be made thinking the concept of "mystery" and living the practices connected to it.

Despite understanding what the mystic thinks and how the mystical is important to them, I certainly don't understand as they do. I think their account of meaning is (descriptively) mistaken. My realisation of being's mystery and its profundity is only hypothetical. I can think like a mystic, but it's only ever pretend. I know what they argue, what they think is important, but I do not live it.

Here your accusation doesn't make sense because whether I know what the mystic thinks doesn't make a difference to my point. I could be ignorant of what they thought, just consider mystics "monstrous madmen," and my lack of living the mystic philosophy would be just as strong.

The only way your accusation makes sense is if you expectation of "making a serious attempt to understand" would result in me holding mystics had a coherent postion. It's quite literally to consider the point I'm making to be impossible, as if somoeone couldn't seriously consider mystical thought and come away with a conclusion it was incoherent.

That's the issue. The mind is not so much an obstacle as an irrelevance. Quiet sanctuary is achived by many. Anyone can do it. All it takes is living the moment rather than theorising about what logic, description or concept amounts to your existence.

The mystic tells a falsehood: that respect for being and noumenon is given by abandoning thought and saying the (conceptual!!!) "mystery" formed them. Rather than quieting of the mind, it is the mind yelling at the top of its lungs, demanding that respect for being and the noumenon requires this concept of mystety (which is what makes the mystic profound over everyone else).

No doubt in living, the mystic achievies contentment, as do many others, but that's not the issue. It's understanding of contentment which the mystic gets wrong. It sees them demand contentment is a matter of realising that being is given by concept of "mystery."

It's what the mystic attempts, yes. But they fail. They are left with the "unknowable" transcendent which partakes in making the self (being, nomoumen).

It's an approximate representation of being and nomoumen, but it still views being and nomoumen as something to know about, some sort of presence which acts. The mystic does not stand up and say: "being and nomoumen are themsleves, and there is nothing more to know about them."

Rather, the mystic treats being and nomoumen as the defintion or cause of something else. In addition to being and noumenon, they are also the "mystery" of how someone exists or means-- an action and conceptual knowledge which cannot cohrently be attributed to being and noumenon. The mystic is too empirically and concerned with putting our meaning into conceptual terms. They will not let being and noumenon stand on their own.

This is why I said you were only partially right. Nietzsche and PM don't deny the "spiritual," they just understand it's a fiction expressed by the world. A transcendent realm, whether understood as "subjective" or " objective," is incoherent. In any case, it is not a realm outside that makes one's "spiritually," it's a person themselves.

"Truth"and "fiction" aren't being used in the usual sense, but as a distinction between the universal/transcendent and expression of the finite/immanent. The "Death of God" is the displine of metaphysics understanding it's niether a universal or transcendence which defines us.

It runs far deeper than "scientism." Scientism treats the natural world as God and science is its worship. In Nietzsche's terms, it is a slave morality, much like Christianity. The Death of God breaks the metaphysical tie of the world to reason. Our world is not constrained by logic, to any one particular outcome which "makes sense," but possibly does (basically) anything. Reason no longer guarantees states of existence.

Rather than empirical facts (including the presence of believers; the Death if God doesn't mean no-one believes in God), Nietzsche and PM are dealing in something else: the distinction between logic and the world.

God is dead not because gods have been shown to be impossible by our empirical observation. Such " supermen in the sky" are entirely possible. It is the metaphysical God which is dead. No matter what someone might propose, it's the world which does existence, which expresses the spirtual. The presence of metaphysical God is logically impossible .

In a sense, Nietzsche and PM's focus is quite close to "objective" in the old sense of the world. What they are describing is the logical truth that logic does not give existence. It's a truth of reason, not the empirical, much like claims of metaphysical God. It's a truth known only by "intuition," rather than one also involving observation. What defines the philosophy of Nietzsche and PM is actually that they give more than empirical facts. Indeed, it sort of the entire point.

So you say... yet by your own admission, a justification hasn't been found and is, by the plurality of truths of the living, impossible. (e.g it makes no more sense to say I live for happiness than it does my little toe).

And the world remains full of humour, beauty, love and life anyway.

The idea they must be justified is a self-flagellating illusion, an instance where our own minds take us to deny ourselves and the world around us.

Not quite, order is just fictional, an expression of the finite world, which emerges and passes, rather than eternal. In this respect, John isn't entirely wrong. People florush with these fictions all the time. Out of the chaos emerges the dedicated scientist, beliver, philosoper, artist, football fan, mystic, etc., etc. The nihilism of Nietzsche is really an illusion, only seen by those who think meaning is given by an eternal order.

I'm saying the very idea of purpose considers life unsatisfactory. The satisfied don't merely have no need to look for purpose, they don't live for a purpose at all. For them, there is just living.

To think in terms of living for a purpose is to consider life meaningless. As if life was nothing, with meaning only to be found in escaping it to some notion of purpose.

Why life? There is no reason or purpose to it. One just lives. No-one gets a choice in the matter. Life expresses meaning, whether it be the joy of fulfilment or the despair of the illusion of meaningless. It laughs in the face of purpose or reason, existing without then, despite their protests it's impossible.

The issue is, in a sense, about the abstractions.

Conflict isn't playing out in terms of policy. What's at stake isn't, for example, the enacting of one particular racist policy or not. The Left isn't just saying: "We ought not lock-up and deport illegal immigrants because it's racist." They are concerned about an underlying identity that sees us even pose such racist policies in the first place.

In their everyday lives, a lot of the people the Left is criticising get along fine with people of many different ethnicities. For many, it's only when the abstraction of American identity becomes involved that the issues come out. When discussion of our identity that impacts our reaction to people we don't know occurs, it becomes all about the importance and superiority of white people.

People who point out an advantage white men have are suddenly "vilifying white men" for pointing out out a state of society and/or claiming it is unjust. The moment the abstraction "white man" comes-up, the importance and superiority of the white man casts aside any other consideration.

If I point out that a Trump voter has supported a racist party and platform, and so has an identity bound-up with that racism, I'm supposing lying. Supposedly, I'm unfairly stereotyping white working class Trump supporter, as if I failed to understand they are not racists but rather concerned with something else (the economic degradation of their communities under the modern neo-liberal economy). In this situation, my truthful statement about Trump supporters is misunderstood as a self-serving lie based on my irrational prejudice.

Another example is the reaction to some Leftist's protests against the election of Trump. The white working class are given a free pass to approve a racist, sexist and heterosexist values and platform as a protest against economic degradation, yet the moment minority groups and their allies put in a protests about the values and platform of who's been elected, they are just sore losers without who have no reason to be concerned. In the abstraction of identity, white people view themselves as the only ones who matter, who are the ones to whom America belongs. It's this the Left is targeting, not just people who'd like to lynch anyone in their town who's not white.