I think so. You do get taught about religions for the purposes of normalising them and the people who practice other ones. You get taught about other cultures for that reason too. Same with sexuality. Reducing prejudice in the populace is a noble goal for education, right? So making similar space for transgender people in education makes sense for the same reasons. — fdrake

Yes, in the context of comparative religion or comparative cultural instruction. Those are fairly advanced subjects. I agree with instruction at this level. More effective for younger learners would be to learn about hate speech in general, without demonizing anyone or thing if that is possible.

Speaking as someone who has moved from roughly the position of Mikie and @Pantagruel to a much less trans-sceptical position, I can attest to this. — Jamal

Or maybe it's just indicative of the fact that society supports a spectrum of rationalities, and there are different ways of respecting one another. Self and identity are all well and good, but the concept of the Other as mirror and limit of the self is also essential. The way we treat others is an important feature of who we are, perhaps the most important.

The means do not need to "reflect" the goal, they need to accomplish the goal. — Judaka

That is a frightening thing to contemplate.

The "direction" society is evolving in is recognising that tolerance and treating people equally isn't sufficient. — Judaka

I would rephrase this as 'failing to recognize that tolerance and treating people equally is sufficient.'

You can't do better than universal equality. And the means thereto need to reflect the goal.

That’s right. Trans identity is interesting because though it demands the recognition and protection and rights of its own identity, it begets the blurring and obfuscation of others, to the point where men are now celebrated in spaces dedicated entirely to women. It’s the natural progression of identity politics. — NOS4A2

So either we all are trans or we are bigots.

Sure. I guess not having any special identity, I just wonder, as I said, about being disenfranchised by not having a cultural-advocacy group. I was baptized Catholic, but I have never enjoined it. I have significant indigenous and Metis blood, and admire the culture, but I don't self-identify as such. I admire and embrace Buddhist precepts, but am not a part of a Buddhist community. I'm really have no overarching social entity, but somehow I manage to have an identity. Does trans really have to be an identity? Can't it just be an aspect of identity, of which there are many?

Sure. And in this paternalistic sense, I think that protective-supportive measures are warranted. Society as a whole should be supportive of all views, but not all sub-groups can possibly be treated identically. Like or not, biological sex gender identification is a statistical reality, and organizing and managing things on a large scale along those lines is practical and valid. Exceptions and protections are reasonable and necessary. But you can't just decide to implement new norms. Tolerance is the only norm required for any reasonable sub-culture to flourish.

Its demand for conformity and special treatment makes transgenderism an authoritarian and anti-social ideology, which is a shame because it reflects also upon the innocent and those struggling with dysphoria. — NOS4A2

Absolutely. Although transgenderism is more of a symptom of the direction in which society is evolving, in that any and all groups will aspire to a special social status. In essence, if you don't belong to a recognized and approved subculture, you will be at a disadvantage, as you lack that voice of advocacy.

Yes, when the goal is to reduce/prevent/remove the development of misinformed, irrational hatred of a minority group, particularly a mostly non-violent, non-threatening minority group, such as trans folks. — universeness

I think that the people who hate trans folks are also the people who hate a whole lot of other folks too. And I think that group is also a minority, just an really obnoxious minority. Which is kind of what I find trans is becoming, also no doubt due to just a relatively few loud voices. Nevertheless, this is what comes of letting a minority speak for a majority, whether a minority of "squeaky wheels" within a small group, or the small group for the large. The principle is the same.

Five years ago, I was positively disposed to the issue, but the way it has been weaponized, anything to do with trans now has a really negative aura from me. Previously, had the opportunity arisen, I would have strongly defended any trans person I saw or knew was subject to prejudice (as I have defended vulnerable people in the past). I no longer feel like that. My goodwill has been alienated.

What’s the problem? Maybe my legal name is Michael but I prefer to go by a different name. Asking you to call me by this other name isn’t asking for special treatment, and is hardly a burden on you. — Michael

Exactly. Ask me to do it and I will. Don't enforce a society-wide mandate of pronomial designation.

Nothing needs to be redesigned. — Michael

I beg to differ. The city of Toronto is in the process of refurbing bathrooms in its public libraries for this reason. Some people complained because there were urinals available in trans-designated washrooms. Others complained after they took them out.

In what way? Children have been “exposed” to the difference between cis men and cis women for all of human history, what does it matter if trans men and trans women are also recognised? — Michael

There's recognition and there's education. Undoubtedly children could be educated on the virtues of Hasidic Judaism, or veganism, or any number of other things also. But is it necessary?

The imposition of gender-selective pronouns on a whole lot of people who don't make that part of their own self-identification process. The exposure of children to these issues in school at a very young age. The chaos of redesigning all public bathrooms to accommodate a plethora of gender-identities. Identity is a composite of numerous dimensions: religion, race, gender, culture, etc., etc. I'm sure being trans is fraught with numerous challenges, but the same can be said of many minority cultures. Why does this one sub-culture merit such promotion? This hardly qualifies as affirmative action. It's a small minority of people, a very small minority.

Identifying oneself as belonging to the trans community seems to me no different in principle than self-identifying as a Hasidic Jew, or belonging to a fundamentalist Islamic sect, etc. etc. We live in a pluralistic society, and every unique cultural group certainly has a right to whatever practices define them within the context of that group. But the problem is when special recognition and treatment is demanded outside of the group, by other groups. Which is most certainly what is going on now. Frankly, it's hard not to want to push back against that, and it's easy to see how otherwise-tolerant people could want to push back against attempts to publicize and promote the rights of a very small minority preferentially over the rights of the myriad other minorities that make up our collective community. I haven't a prejudiced bone in my body, and never questioned that trans people should be treated with respect. But given the course that the social movement has taken, I'm starting to develop a very negative attitude around the issue.

Nah, a strawman is overly simplifying an opponents argument, and/or making it ridiculous in order to counter-argue it more easily. — Christoffer

It seems to be the same principle as a strawman to me, only used defensively, as you state.

What do you think? Is it helpful and does it do anything that other informal fallacy concepts don't already do? — Jamal

I think it is in essence the strawman fallacy.

AI language models have an inbuilt understanding — Benj96

Perhaps in the sense that a dictionary has such an inbuilt understanding, in that it exists as a potential. But it needs to be triggered by something with volition....I agree, the danger lies more in the abuse of AI than in AI itself.

Everyone is excited and scared by the concept of AI actually becoming conscious. I don't think there is actually much danger of that, and I don't think that is the actual danger. I just watched a documentary that, among other issues, presented evidence of observer-bias being present in data which then skews AI behaviour. Of course, neural nets are capable of detecting all of the patterns we look for in things when classifying them, including our biases. So a robot-ai turned out to be bad at identifying some emotional states in blacks because the people who were creating the categories (viewing and classifying the images of different emotional states) with which the neural net was trained themselves had a significant bias. And an AI driven medical funding system in the U.S. deprioritized people who were already receiving poor levels of healthcare because of systemic prejudices favouring those who already were receiving lots of healthcare.

In other words, the real danger is in AI giving us what we really want, not what we say we want or even necessarily what we think we want. But the subliminal goals that drive us that it can detect buried in the enormous mass of data we feed it. Because, by and large, the modern mind appears to be pretty self-destructive....

Besides, in the long run oblivion renders "in/justice" moot. — 180 Proof

The ultimate irony for assuming oblivion would be persistence. And while oblivion might obviate moral responsibility, obliviousness wouldn't... :wink:

À la recherche du temps perdu #6: Time Regained
by Marcel Proust

The Golden Bough: A New Abridgement
Sir James George Frazer

I think that modernity suffers from an insufferable prejudice of superiority, typified by the sanctification of science and the disparagement and desecration of anything sublime which might possibly predate its own high opinion of itself. I think the more comprehensive view is always the more balanced. The Golden Bough should also be an excellent segue to Cassirer's four volume opus on symbolic forms.

Yes, this is exactly what I mean by giving it a stake in the game. It needs to be "empowered" so that it too gains a meaningful "embodied" status.

Nice. Can't help but find this a fascinating and useful insight. Do you think the day will come when we can produce an AI creation that is closer to being an ecological system? — Tom Storm

Wouldn't this depend on whether we are willing to give AI 'a stake in the game,' so to speak? These systems could easily be designed with an eye to maximizing and realizing autonomy (an ongoing executive function, as I mentioned in another thread, for example). But this autonomy is simultaneously the desideratum and our greatest fear.

Yes. All the more reason for fairness to be an objective. And returning to your original formulation, it seems to me that the failures of proscriptive justice to achieve its ends are more to blame for the problems requiring prescriptive justice than the successes of prescriptive justice contribute to the overall social good.

Sure. Which doesn't mean that the human tendency to fairness derives from the egalitarian school. Rather, the egalitarian school is a codification of the human tendency to fairness, as is the entire concept of justice. Indeed, our modern concept and use of rationality assumes the ideals of fairness and equality. Prejudices are seen as 'anti-rational'. Rightly so, since they are a foreshortening of the rational perspective.

But that is merely an egalitarian ideal whose actualisation is an ongoing process where social mobility is still a factor holding it back due to hidden nepotisms still pervading a meritocratic society. — invicta

What is merely an egalitarian ideal?

The justice system is mainly concerned with proscriptive justice and hence with punishment. Retributive justice. It is unlikely that this aspect of justice can ever be made or considered perfect. On the other hand, the more universal form of justice, distributive justice, is more prescriptive in nature, and is not encapsulated by any single institution or social mechanism, but is in effect the underlying principle governing the operations of all social institutions. The education system needs to be just (universal availability). The labour-market needs to be just (fair compensation, universal availability). Etc. Justice as fairness should be seen as an ideal and a goal. In that sense, it is possible.

Really? I think AI puts out derivative crap so far. — Benkei

I agree. AI is quite overrated. I asked ChatGPT to analyze a section of Luhmann's social systems theory as a reading aid and it completely Darwinized the central concept, entirely missing the point of systems autonomy. It subsequently acknowledge it was a 'significant mistake.'

Best foot forward time for Mr. Chomsky. What a coup. I thought I was dreaming when I read the post.

I had forgotten that you already had made this great suggestion here when I replied to Marchesk over there. It seems like we are in broad agreement. — Pierre-Normand

:up:

The conditions of the possibility of there being an argument. In this case, the perspective of the self that is actually offering the idea and is engaged in a dialogic process with an "other self" or other.

:roll:

The self is the personal perspective of thought. If someone says "The self is a myth," they are actively perpetuating the myth, while simultaneously claiming to deny it. In other words, acting in bad faith and inconsistently with respect to the transcendental conditions of the production of the idea.

I don't have an internal dialogue — Pierre-Normand

Yes, in a dialogue with ChatGPT I suggested that the addition of an 'executive internal chat' function constantly analyzing its own responses in a contextually driven manner would greatly improve its learning capabilities. It agreed.

I see this as the only viable method to achieve something akin to natural human consciousness.

This is something that has been under discussion for some days now in the threads on Heidegger. I started this topic based on just this problem. — Fooloso4

I see. Offering that contextualization as part of your OP would have clarified things greatly......

The first step is to acknowledge the problem. I can offer no solutions at the institutional level. On a personal level I attempt to speak and write simply and clearly. — Fooloso4

This addendum would have made me appreciate the original OP more.

There is no substitute for clarity, either of expression or of perception.

Must it be balanced? What does this mean? Wherein lies the balance? The good with the bad? The positive with the negative? What is the balance that turns my claim that:

Philosophy has become in large part insular and self-referential.
— Fooloso4

from something that is not valid into something that is? — Fooloso4

Because that generalization clearly doesn't hold for the entire spectrum of philosophical writing. Possibly it is true for the category that troubles you. Because you haven't offered any suggestions for reconciliation or remediation of the issue. Because this unconstructive approach itself is nihilistic, which is how you are characterizing what you are criticizing.

Let’s name names. Who in particular do you have in mind? Here’s a starter list of philosophers, half of whom are actively writing, who I don’t associate with your characterization: — Joshs

Exactly. Criticism is only valid if it is balanced.

↪Fooloso4 :clap: Yes, it seems the sophists have won, taking over the academy (pace Plato et al). Old story though, at least since the scholastics. — 180 Proof

Interesting choice of example since the sophists were considered among the best teachers of the ancient world. Especially given the tenor of the op, which is generalized and critical, but without providing or offering a balance. Provocative but perhaps sophistical?

I believe there have always been competing traditions in philosophy, including the insular-academic and the opposite. However people represent a huge variety of backgrounds and motivations, which is why there is and needs to be a spectrum of both an accepted mainstream and alternative approaches. Something for everyone. The very philosopher you think typifies the worst may be meaningful and valuable to someone else.

Philosophy is not an end in itself, it is a tool. In fact, philosophies we dislike have much to teach us, about ourselves, if nothing else. I find a few things genuinely unreadable. But most things, even if they rub me the wrong way, I manage to muddle through. Usually there is something rewarding in there somewhere.

I also think looking at experience from the inside is interesting. — T Clark

Yes. And is this inside look at experience what we are really trying to grasp? Isn't that also the locus of the experience of knowing?

That is painfully true, as evidenced by just about every related discussion here on the forum. Be that as it may, with current issues about AI, it looks like it's going from an interesting philosophical problem to a practical political and social one. — T Clark

And yet isn't it fundamentally an experiential question? Is studying the nature of consciousness equivalent to actually charting the boundaries of consciousness? Or is it just a lot of talking about consciousness? Personally, I believe the boundaries have to be studied with severe existential commitment, otherwise, it is mostly just words.

Theory of Society, Volume 2
Niklas Luhmann

Volume one became painfully theoretical and abstract about the mid-point. However volume two appears to have a more humanistic orientation.

I am not suggesting that any level of 'telepathy' between humans is impossible, but it is true, that from a 'naturalist' position, and from a quantum physics position, science would be tasked to find the 'carrier particle' that causes telepathy and consciousness. Just like the search for the graviton, currently continues.
This is probably why I still love string theory.
Consciousness could then be just another vibrating string state! Easy peasy! :halo:
String theory at is base is a great KISS theory. Keep It Simple Stupid :grin: — universeness

I feel that way about systems theory. You don't need to over-specify the nature of the mechanism (behind social consciousness) given its evident operation. Again, exactly how neural networks function. They work by exploiting hidden (abstract) information, for which their own successful operations are the best expression or evidence.

Other people and other measuring devices can then confirm or conflict with MY interpretation of the event. — universeness

Yes, but intrinsically there is a social dimension to cognition, which then is an additional factor to consider. Hive minds evidence this clearly. There is no reason to suppose that higher species lose or abandon these capacities. It's a pretty common systems-theoretic gloss to expand the concept of consciousness in the way you criticize, but there is no need to assume it or even address it. The systems-phenomena speak for themselves.