This issue of dysfunctionality, of itself, is an extremely complex issue. For one example: You at some point mentioned schizophrenia as a mental illness and compare it to sex and gender issues. Not only are the causes to schizophrenia still unknown, but, as I previously mentioned, there would be no reason to presume that the Biblical Moses and modern-day psychics, as just two readily known examples, are not all cases of schizophrenia (they all claim to see/hear/etc. things that normal people don’t) were it not for the fact that they all are/were perfectly functional human beings. With some being far more mentally healthy than the average Joe. The point to this being that the seeing/hearing of things that are not physically there is an extremely complex issue, one that is in no way cut and dry, and it does not of itself signify mental insanity (as per the examples just provided). — javra

Sure. They could have been high on hallucinogens. Religions might have been founded on the ideas of insane or high people.

That said, when it comes to being intersexed, intersexed people, as a general rule, are fully functional. As is the case for homosexuals. As is also the case for transgender people. — javra

I didn't use the word, "functional". I used the word, "adaptive".

Define functional here. Sure intersexed people, homosexuals and trans are functional as human beings - they can live their own lives without the help of others, but what they cannot do is have children without the help of others. That is my point. You could make the point that trans that are gay would fit into this but a trans-woman and a trans-man can have children without help precisely because they are heterosexuals (and this is probably an extremely rare case as most trans are gay). You could also argue that intersexed and homosexuals still play a role in raising the next generation, as they can provide healthy and stable homes as any heterosexual couple can, and you could even say that they (as well as any straight couple that are incapable of having their own children) are doing society a great service, as functioning parents, by adopting.

I get that they might not be “perfectly” functional, but then who the hell is? — javra

Again, it depends on how one is defining, "functional".

But I don’t here want to start on the issue of “what ought to be done about the dysfunctional folk” in society … where there to be significant debate on this matter, it would too easily bring to mind the extermination camps of the Nazis... — javra

Oh, come on. Don't start conflating my points as fascist. I am not saying that people with schizophrenia, or who are born with disabilities deserve less than anyone else. I am fine with supporting a safety net for the disabled, but at the same time would agree with society's goal in promoting research in trying to eliminate these disabilities from occurring in the future (no I'm not equating sexual preferences as a disability. I'm talking about physiological disabilities, like intersex). Would you tell a woman she does not have a choice to terminate their pregnancy if test indicate a high probability that the child will be disabled? When we tell an anorexic that their body image is not true, we are not attempting to single them out for a "shower". We are merely trying to get them the help they need.

If sex and gender were not the same then why do trans seek hormone replacement therapy to exemplify the sex they are trying to identify as?
— Harry Hindu

Because they are wrong (on my view, obviously but its a pretty widely-held one). It is hard to understand how you could ask this question. — AmadeusD

Are you trans? If not, then are you saying that you know better than the trans person in this instance? And is it that they are just "wrong", or are they "delusional"? What if they aren't identifying as a gender, but as a sex? How would you know? How would they know?

And why would it be hard to understand to ask this question when hormone replacement therapy is called "gender-affirming care"? :roll:

Are you wanting to say that trans people are born the wrong sex? — AmadeusD

No. I'm saying that is what trans-people appear to be saying. I'm asking what it means for a man to claim to be a woman.

the reason a male who wants to be female takes what's called 'cross-sex hormones' is to make it easier to behave the way they expect women to behave. — AmadeusD

Which just means that our behaviors are rooted in biology.

This is why I have always maintained that gender does not vary independent of sex — AmadeusD

Then sex and gender are intertwined.

It is possible you have either entirely misinterpreted me. — AmadeusD

...or that you have misinterpreted trans-gendered people, or that trans-people and their supporters have no idea what they are talking about and aren't really disagreeing with the idea that sex and gender are the same.

You cannot self-identify as a sex, and therefore you cannot identify into a gender either.
The other way it could go is that gender is a social construct. In this case, society tells you your gender. You also do not have a choice here.

The argument which is made to circumvent this is that gender is self-identification. Ok. If that's so, then it is literally invented and not a description of anything but a desire, or thought. That's also fine. In this case, no one is required to participate in your self-image. At all. At any time. You can request, and polite people will acquiesce but no one is required to accept your self image. You can say you're trans all you want, but if every single person who interacts with you clocks a male who is also a man, you have failed and are not trans. — AmadeusD

Is gender a social construct or a self-identification that runs counter to the social expectation? It can't be both because one is the anti-thesis of the other.

If gender were a social construct then why is most of society surprised to see a man in a dress? If gender were a social construct then a man wearing a dress would simply be abiding by the expectation and there would be no push back from the rest of society. But there is and it is because the man is not following the rules - that women wear dresses, not that wearing a dress makes you woman.

If gender is merely a social construct then wouldn't that mean that transgenderism is a social construct? Wearing a dress does not require one to take hormone treatments or have any kind of surgery at all. The only way for a person to determine their gender is to choose one’s gender based on gender stereotypes present throughout a culture. If gender is a social construct, then it describes the expectations and stereotypes historically linked to biological sex — expectations that feminism worked hard to overcome. To say one can “identify” as another gender is to say that those outdated expectations still define what it means to be male or female. In other words, self-identifying as another gender merely re-affirms the very stereotypes that we're supposed to have been rendered obsolete.

BTW, in attempts to better clean up the issue of “more normal for Nature” not being equivalent to “more natural for Nature”:

Language can at times have a way of befuddling philosophic issues via metaphor and the like.

“Normal” stems from “according to rules”. Nature, the natural world, has its rules (natural laws as prime examples). The supernatural can be in certain perspectives deemed to not adhere to the rules of the natural world (or, at the very least, certainly not to the rules of the physical natural world); such that the paranatural (synonym for the supernatural) thereby gains the synonym of “the paranormal”. Example: Marian apparitions (here assuming that they might in fact occur for some, rather than all of them being outright lies) are outside the sphere of the natural world, the natural world then being the normal state of affairs as regards human experiences (this only where one allows for the possibility of veritable, extra-natural experiences)

In such means alone, an association is then made between what is natural and what is normal, namely: the natural state of the world/cosmos is the then the normal state of the world/cosmos, this in terms of human experiences.

Then, there’s a a slippery slope that gets slipped on whereby the two terms “the normal” and “the natural” become interpreted by some to have one and the same semantics: because the natural world is the normal state of affairs, this as previously outlined, that which is normal (i.e., ordinary, common, etc.) gets interpreted to therefore be that which is natural.

And it is exactly in this that the irrational bias of equating “normality” to “naturalness” becomes established in far too many. Redheads do not have the normal hair color of our human species, nor do gray eye-colored humans have normal eye-colors (one of my grandfathers had gray eyes), nor do AB negative blood type humans (1% of the human populous) have normal human blood types (most normal being O positive and A positive) … but all this has absolutely nothing to do with the naturalness of being a red-haired human, or gray eyed, or AB negative, and so forth. — javra

But this is how YOU used the phrase. I already understand the difference between "normal" and "natural", which is why I offered to use the term, "common" rather than "normal".

Everything is natural, including the mutations that occur when copying genes. In fact, it is those very mutations that are "filtered" by nature - leaving behind more stable or adaptive variations over time. But that does not mean that vestigial traits are not natural. It means they are not common (the norm) or adaptive.

The distinction of what I am getting at becomes clear when you ask yourself, "would you classify intersex an adaptation?" The same can be asked about being born with a tail, missing a finger or toe, or being born with cancer. Are those adaptations, or mutations that are typically filtered by natural selection if humans did not build such strong social bonds that allow those born with these conditions to continue to live and even have children if possible.

As a quick divergence from the thread's topic to address one of the points of your post, I would even go as far as claiming that even the supernatural is part of the natural. After all, what does the supernatural mean outside the light of the natural? If the supernatural exists and has a causal effect on the natural world (god created the world) and the events in the natural world have a causal effect on the supernatural (doing good on Earth gets me into Heaven), then we are talking about these two things being part of the same reality. Maybe we are simply talking about different dimensions (what if god was merely an extradimensional alien?)

In other words, the third person is really just a simulated first person view. — Harry Hindu

No, not at all. If a third person conveyance did that, I could know what it's like to be a bat. Not even a VR setup (a simulation of experience) can do that. — noAxioms

But you can only know what it is like to be a bat from within your first-person experience. It's no different than seeing your Desktop screen on your computer and starting up a virtual machine that shows another Desktop within the framework of your existing Desktop. — Harry Hindu

I cannot know what it's like to be a bat. period. A flight simulator doesn't do it. That just shows what it's like for a human (still being a human) to have a flying-around point of view. — noAxioms

The last sentence is reiterating the point that I made that the third-person view still occurs within the framework of the first-person view.

You also seem be saying that a third-person view does not impart knowledge. If a third-person simulation of a bat's experience does not impart knowledge because it is not an actual experience of the bat, then how does any third-person stance impart knowledge? As I said, the virtual machine is a simulation, not the real thing. There may be missing information, but it may be intentionally left out because that bit of information is irrelevant to the purpose in mind. For instance, I might try to imagine what it might be like to just experience the world through echo-location without all the other sensory experiences the bat might have.

It's that people tend to insert their own definition of 'mind' when I use the word, and not use how I define it, despite being explicit about the definition. — noAxioms

Well, there's a lot going on in this thread and our memories are finite, so you might have to restate your definition from time to time, or at least reference your definition as stated.

I don't think we know anything as it is in itself — noAxioms

This is self-defeating.

Your statement implies that we cannot even know knowledge as it is in itself. When talking about anything in the shared world you are (attempting to (your intent is to)) talking about the thing as it is in itself (probably not exhaustively but you are trying to communicate something (or some property that is) real about some state-of-affairs) or else what information are you trying to convey? Why should I believe anything you say if you can never talk about things as they are in themselves (or at least in part) - like your version of mind? Does your definition of mind impart knowledge to me about how minds are in themselves? If not, then what is your point in even typing scribbles on the screen expecting others to read them and come to some sort of understanding of what your idea is in itself. If we can never get at your idea as it is in itself, nor can you, then what is the point in communicating ideas at all? It seems to me that you are saying that you cannot know what it is like to be a bat as well as what it is like to be yourself (or at least your mind). You might not know what it is like to be your thumb, but you know what it is like to have thumbs, don't you?

As for the homonculus, humans do seem to have a very developed one, which is a sort of consciousness separate from the subconscious (the map maker, and source of intuitions). The subconscious is older (evolutionary time) and is waaay more efficient, and does most of the work and decision making. It is in charge since it holds all the controls. It might hold different beliefs than the homonculus, the latter of which is a more rational tool, used more often to rationalize than to be rational. — noAxioms

A more accurate way to frame this is through the concept of the central executive in working memory. This isn’t a tiny conscious agent controlling the mind, but a dynamic system that coordinates attention, updates representations, and integrates information from different cognitive subsystems. It doesn’t “watch” the mind; it organizes and manages the flow of processing in a way that allows higher-level reflection and planning.

The subconscious isn’t some subordinate system taking orders from the homunculus. It performs the bulk of processing, guiding behavior and intuitions automatically. Conscious, rational thought steps in to reflect on, plan, or interpret what is already occurring. Mapping the world, then, isn’t the work of an inner observer — it’s the emergent product of multiple interacting cognitive processes working together.

No. Flame is an object. There's six flames burning in the candle rack. Combustion is a process (a process is still a noun, but not an object). Flame is often (but not always) where combustion takes place.
Yes, combustion is much simpler. It's why I often choose that example: Simple examples to help better understand similar but more complex examples. — noAxioms

Objects are the process of interacting smaller "objects". The problem is that the deeper you go, you never get at objects, but processes of ever smaller "objects" interacting. Therefore it is processes, or relations all the way down. Objects are mental representations of other processes and what your brain calls an object depends on how quickly those processes are changing vs. how quickly your brain can process those changes (relativity applies to perception). A fast-moving spark may appear as a blur, while slower-moving flames are perceived as discrete objects.

Ok, so combustion → causes → flame. Both are processes, but not identical. Combustion is the reaction; flame is the visible process that results from it. So...

As for your definition, does a flame have direct access to its process of combustion? — noAxioms

This is not an accurate representation of what I said. All you are doing is moving the goal posts. If flame and combustion are distinct processes, then my definition is applies to being the flame, not the combustion and the flame would have direct access to itself as being the flame and indirect access to the process of combustion. The same goes for the map vs the homunculus - the homunculus would have direct access to itself, not the map - hence the Cartesian Theatre problem.

What does it mean to be a rock? Probably not that the rock has any direct access to some sort of rock process. — noAxioms

You're making my argument for me. If the rock doesn't have any direct access to the rock process, then it logically follows that there is no access - just being.
— Harry Hindu
Here you suggest that the rock has 'being' (it is being a rock) without direct access to it's processes (or relative lack of them). This contradicts your suggestion otherwise that being a rock means direct access to, well, 'something', if not its processes.
"we have direct access to something, which is simply what it means to be that process." — noAxioms

So, here I think we really need to iron out what we mean by, "access" and "being". Does a rock have an internal representation of itself, and does some other aspect of the rock have access to this representation? Does that even make sense? Can there be a sense of being for a rock? Does something need to have an internal representation with some other part "accessing" those representations for it to be, or have a sense of being? Is the sense of being something the same as being that something? Is access inherently indirect?

Quantum theory is not a metaphysical theory about what is, but rather a scientific theory about what one will expect to measure. In that sense, Copenhagen fits perfectly since it is about what we expect, and not about what is. — noAxioms

True. I would say that while the theory of QM is not metaphysical, the various interpretations are.

Jamal already pointed out potential issues with totally separating arguments from the person speaking — ProtagoranSocratist

If arguments depend on the speaker’s social or historical position, then we lose the ability to evaluate them universally. Philosophy then risks collapsing into a collection of private worldviews rather than a shared inquiry into truth. An intellectually honest philosophical debate entails reasoning together. Objectivity isn’t a “view from nowhere,” it’s what survives open criticism from many somewheres.

One's social and historical position only matters when that is the focus of the discussion, but in discussions that involve reality as a whole, or if you are making an argument about how things are for everyone in all cultures and all times (like science, but unlike religion and cultural norms) - regardless of their own beliefs - then you are no longer using your own social and historical position to make the argument.

And how could this be “your idea” if you were arguing against memory as prospective habit and instead claiming it to be past information? — apokrisis

Honestly, Peirce’s enactive–semiotic theory sounds nice on paper, all fancy talk about signs, objects, and interpretants, and how the mind is this magical process of meaning-making that just happens in the world, but when you actually try to think about how humans solve problems or plan ahead it falls apart pretty quickly. The whole idea that cognition is just enacted and relational might sound deep, but it completely ignores the fact that we need some kind of internal workspace to actually hold and manipulate information, like working memory shows we do, and without that it’s hard to see how Peirce’s “interpretants” do anything besides float around vaguely in the air without actually explaining anything.

The computational theory of mind actually gives us something concrete: mental processes are computations over representations, and working memory is this temporary space where the brain keeps stuff while reasoning, planning, or imagining things that aren’t right there in front of us, and Peirce basically just brushes that off and acts like cognition doesn’t need to be organized internally which is frankly kind of ridiculous. Sure, he can talk about inferential loops and relational meaning, but when you need to do actual thinking, like doing mental math or planning a sequence of actions, you can’t just rely on some ethereal “enactive” process, you actually need internal structure and memory, and that’s what Peirce leaves totally unaddressed.

I tried to make the argument that Peirce’s interpretants might function like some kind of higher-order working memory in a creative attempt to reconcile his enactive–semiotic framework with what we know about cognition, but the problem is that the theory itself never really specifies how interpretants are retained, manipulated, or recombined in any meaningful internal workspace. Peirce’s model is elegant in showing how meaning emerges relationally (causally), but it doesn’t actually tell us how the mind handles abstract thought, counterfactual reasoning, or sequential planning, all of which working memory clearly supports.

You have to know the programming language to understand the distinctions between what you want to happen vs what AI wrote. Vibe coding only takes you so far.

The same goes for any language - you have to know the idea you intend to express to use the correct words to translate your ideas precisely (meaning is not use it is the relationship between the scribbles on the screen and the idea in my head, not in AIs) — otherwise, you end up defending something you never meant to say.

I think a possible sign that someone is using AI without proofreading is they end up contradicting themselves as they are now defending a position they did not intend but was not aware of because they did not use AI properly.

they aim at better expressing what you want to say, but this can involves using synonyms or equivalent phrasings that have different connotations and that are chosen on the basis of background assumptions different than the ones you are relying on and understand. — Pierre-Normand

I think you pretty much have to completely rewrite it in your own voice — Pierre-Normand

That is a bit extreme. If doing so involves using synonyms or equivalent phrasings that have different connotations than what I intend, then you're asking me to re-write it in a way I did not intend.

I appreciate the advice, and it is valid in many cases.

I like to do computer programming as a hobby. I'll use AI to sometimes vibe code, but I have to proofread everything to make sure it is writing code as I intend it to be. I have to make changes often.

When fine-tuning an idea. I may work it out with AI. I may even have to make other points to get it on track with my version of things, so I know we're on the same page.

So what you said is valid for those that don't proofread AIs output and just copy and paste the entire block of text without reading it over, but this is not how I use AI.

What makes a truth more important than another truth? — ProtagoranSocratist

The amount of evidence that supports it.

Every philosophical idea without evidence is just as valid as every other idea without evidence.

It is true that a lot of writers in general acquire fame through lying and sophistry, and while they're using guaranteed money-making formulas, much of the content those people write will be forgotten by people who take ideas seriously centuries (or even decades) later. — ProtagoranSocratist

Yeah, I think we should be taking what others say with a grain of salt when saying what they say it is how they make a living, instead of seeking truth.

I made use of the two terms “normal” and “natural” in the same post so as to showcase their differences, knowing full well that too many hold irrational biases in which the two terms are opined to be synonymous. — javra

So, about 1/3 of all non-insect animal species are hermaphroditic. That’s more normal for Nature than is being a red-haired human (less than 2% of humanity at large is. And please, please, let’s not start on the human-relative abnormal condition of red-haired-ness). — javra

It wasn't the just the same post. It was the same sentence "more normal for Nature".

If you don't like the words you used, then would you prefer, "common", instead of "normal"? To define any thing as belonging to a group you have to define the common characteristics of that group and that is what it means to be a "normal" example of that group. At what point does replacing the characteristics with other (opposing) characteristics make one not a normal example of that category and in a different category all together? For instance, does intersexed people qualify as sexed people? Is it an uncommon characteristic of sex, or a different category altogether? If the former - what exactly does the condition share with common expressions of sex (male and female)? Do intersexed people always make more intersexed people, or more males and females?

And I made use of red-haired people - an abnormal case for humans which is nevertheless natural - to explicitly illustrate this. Many, many other examples can be provided. — javra

Well, there you go again using "abnormal" to define red-haired people, in other words, "abnormal for Nature". You're really just reiterating what you already said. I should add that I think that conflating red hair with intersex is a mistake. If red-hair was passed down to all in the next generation it would have very little impact on the survival of the species than if intersex traits were handed down to all in the next generation. There is a reason why a vast majority of human beings are either man or woman and why there are sometimes inaccuracies in how genes are copied and how those inaccuracies are expressed - it has to do with natural selection.

Like gender, mental illness is also a social construction; for example, as someone who previously went to therapists and thought of myself as mentally ill, I eventually arrived at the conclusion that all forms of "mental illness" and "disorders" aren't anything but a vague collection of symptoms that are often temporary. If you think i'm wrong, look into how often the usage of mental health diagnosis changes. — ProtagoranSocratist

This is to just say that sometimes doctors can misdiagnose, or that the tend to diagnose you with something you do not have to make a profit. You probably never had a mental illness and what you experienced is simply a normal human condition.

Let's try something else: I personally don't need to put "words in anyone's mouth" as I can just pull up exactly what they said as a quote on here. I don't like it when people put words in my mouth either, but that implies someone literally saying I said something when I didn't. — ProtagoranSocratist

You're not telling me anything I didn't already know. I said this myself already.

You seem to be arguing that transgenderism is a logical fallacy, and that it makes no sense to talk about gender as something separate from sex. You have also hinted that transgenderism is a mental illness, and not a valid condition on its own, on the basis of what the transgendered say about it. — ProtagoranSocratist

Yes, different people may have different reasons for identifying as trans - delusional disorder, seeking attention, a hate for real women/men or heterosexuality, or just being manipulated by others into believing they are the opposite sex, are some of the more prominent reasons.

But yes, ultimately it is a category mistake that I lay out here and here.

Oh, Bob. — Banno

You kind of smuggled in anal sex here — Bob Ross

So it’s not just me who gets the dramatic ‘Oh [name]’? I feel… cheap.

There is a thing where people transition to try to escape dealing with past trauma, usually physical and sexual abuse, altho they don't realize it until later. They find out that time and experience is needed to deal with trauma, and for some, the final step in coming to terms with it is to de-transition and breathe life back into an identity that was previously destroyed by events.

So it's as you say, it's that transgender culture says that men and women are fundamentally different, that's why this pathological response is possible.

A lot of people who de-transition feel deep regret and betrayal. — frank

Thank you, Frank, for being frank. :smile: It's nice to see that not everyone here is delusional.

Thanks for confessing. But don’t you see your problem if your AI reply was suddenly talking sense, and you can’t understand what it was saying either. — apokrisis

Think about how one alters one's speech when speaking with specific people. It's not making any more sense than what I said before (to me). It just makes more sense to you now (as if I were speaking to you as one would speak to a child, or speak in a different language) so that the other might actually understand - not me.

And how could this be “your idea” if you were arguing against memory as prospective habit and instead claiming it to be past information? — apokrisis

You obviously haven't read what I wrote. If I had AI rewrite my idea in Spanish does that make it no longer my idea? If I had AI rewrite my idea and replace every word that has a synonym with its synonym, is it no longer my idea? And isn't re-phrasing another's idea a powerful and widely valued practice in philosophical discourse? It serves several purposes, both epistemic (truth-seeking) and dialogical (communication-clarifying).

Linking working memory and Peirce’s enactive–semiotic theory is my idea. How about you address that instead of avoiding it with your thinly veiled ad hominems?

The feminist movement has fought for equal rights for women - for them to be able to do the things that men were normally expected to do - like voting, being a representative in government, going to work, etc. When society changed the expectations for women society was not saying that women that vote or go to work are now men, they are women that simply choose to vote or not, participate in government or not, or go to work or not. The feminist revolution said women can do what men do, whereas the transgender narrative now says if you do what men do, maybe you are one.

It is obsolete (sexist) language-use - use that does not reflect Western societies progress in breaking down these gendered barriers and treating each other not as women and men, but as human beings - that is being reinforced by the transgender movement. When a father says in a demeaning tone to his son who is trying on a dress, "What are you trying to be, a girl?", the father is reinforcing that sexist view of the sexes - not that his son is actually a girl. This type of language is what takes us backwards and the transgender movement is reinforcing an outdated use of language that ties human expression to sexed categories, whereas an evolved humanistic view understands such expression as variations of the same human kind.

Sort of. I worry about that phrase if we're being specific. One thing to note is that I think we're a social species, for instance, so "social construct" does not thereby mean "not real" as is often mistakenly taken to be the case.

The social is as real as beans. — Moliere

Sure, the views of a society can have causal power - whether they be representative of reality or not (religion is a prime example). The fact that they exist is not being questioned but if they actually refer to a real state of reality. When humans agreed socially that the Earth is flat did that make the Earth flat?

I don't know that a doctor would tell me that, actually. That seems the sort of thing we'd think of immediately upon thinking about the ass as if it must have a purpose "Well, it does this a lot, so that must be its purpose" — Moliere

We shouldn't forget that natural selection has repurposed body parts for different uses. The difference is do these new purposes provide any benefit to survival or finding mates and therefore passed down to future generations?

I would argue that people dressing as the opposite sex is a hindrance to finding mates that align with your sexual preference.

1. Try to nail the definitions down as soon as possible. — Philosophim

Exactly - to prevent the participants from talking past each other.

2. Do not over analyze one paragraph or piece. — Philosophim

Right - don't cherry pick or else you're responding to a strawman.

3. Do not ever elevate the work because of the author. — Philosophim

This is lacking in nuance. On the one hand, yes, it is supremely anti-philosophical to sanctify works of philosophy and expect their canonical status to confer persuasive power in argument; an argument from authority is indeed a fallacy. On the other hand, no, Kant, Plato, et al are not just "guys on the street". They are people who took part in a conversation spanning centuries and cannot be understood when removed from that context. And their work is not reducible to isolated arguments, because it relies on a conceptual framework made up of their own wider body of work and their engagement with the tradition and with their peers. — Jamal

These philosophers didn't have any powers or skills that the rest of us don't have. They are products of their time and only useful to understand where we once were, but not where we are now. Engaging with peers is what we are doing here and on much greater scale than those guys could ever dream of. They did not have extra-sensory powers - or evidence to support any of their ideas. One idea without proof is just as valid as any other idea without proof. You would only choose one over the other because of personal preferences, or that it reinforces some idea you have already clamped onto. The only peers they could engage with are other people living in the same time. We also have the perspective of history - of understanding where we once were and where we are now - a view they had no hope of integrating into their own views.

Anyone can do philosophy. The difference between good philosophy and bad philosophy is the absence or presence of logical fallacies.

Doesn't the experience of the pamphlet include the information received from it? It seems to me that you have to already have stored information to interpret the experience
— Harry Hindu
I already know how to read, but I didn't read the pamphlet to learn how to read (that's what the Bible is for). Rather I read it to promote my goal of gathering new information I don't already have stored. — noAxioms

Yeah, that was my point - you already knew how to read - which means you already have stored information to interpret the experience.

No, not at all. If a third person conveyance did that, I could know what it's like to be a bat. Not even a VR setup (a simulation of experience) can do that. — noAxioms

But you can only know what it is like to be a bat from within your first-person experience. It's no different than seeing your Desktop screen on your computer and starting up a virtual machine that shows another Desktop within the framework of your existing Desktop.

Not always. I can describe how the dogwood blocks my view of the street from my window. That's not 'from nowhere'. — noAxioms

Right. So we agree that it's a view from everywhere or somewhere. A view from nowhere doesn't make sense. You can only emulate a view from everywhere from a view from somewhere, or as an accumulation of views from somewhere, like we do when we use each other's views to triangulate the truth.

I don't like the word at all since it carries connotations of a separate object, and all the baggage that comes with that. — noAxioms

You've lost me now. It sounds like its not really the word you don't like, but the definition. You can define "mind" however you want. But if you don't like the since it carries connotations of a separate object, you could say that for any object, like your dogwood tree, street and window, but you didn't seem have any quarrels in using those terms that carry the connotations of a separate object.

but we have direct access to something, which is simply what it means to be that process. - Harry Hindu
Don't accept that this direct access is what it means to be something. The direct access is to perhaps the map (model) that we create. which is by definition an indirection to something else, so to me it's unclear if there's direct access to anything. You argue that access to the map can be direct. I'm fine with that. — noAxioms

If direct access is not what it means to be something, then you are creating a Cartesian theatre - as if there is a homunculus separate from the map, but with direct access - meaning it sees the map as it truly is, instead of being the map as it truly is.

As for your definition, does a flame have direct access to its process of combustion? Arguably so even if it's not 'experience', but I don't think that's what it means to 'be a flame'. What does it mean to be a rock? Probably not that the rock has any direct access to some sort of rock process. — noAxioms

Flame and rocks are not anywhere near as complex of a process as the mind. I'm sure you are aware of this. Isn't combustion and flame the same thing - the same process - just using different terms?

You're making my argument for me. If the rock doesn't have any direct access to the rock process, then it logically follows that there is no access - just being. And if there is no direct access then there can be no indirect access (in other words, as I said before - direct vs indirect realism is a false dichotomy)

I disagree with your phrasing of 'change what is being measured at the quantum level' since it implies that there's a difference with some other state it otherwise would have been. 'Change' implies a comparison of non-identical things, and at the quantum level, there's only what is measured, not some other thing.
Classically, sure. Sticking a meat thermometer into the hot turkey cools the turkey a bit,. — noAxioms

According to the standard (“Copenhagen”) interpretation, something does change — namely, the system’s state description goes from a superposition to an eigenstate corresponding to the measured value. This is often described as wave function collapse. Measurement doesn’t change a definite pre-existing state, but it does change the system’s quantum state description — from a superposition of possibilities to a single outcome.

Why does your answer now seem so AI-generated? One minute you were going on about information, now you are making a coherent argument — apokrisis

I entered my idea into ChatGPT and asked it to reword it in the most unnecessarily complex manner possible - like how you talk. So if you're saying AI talks like you then it seems that you are the one using AI to write your posts.

But yeah, sounds like AI in general is agreeing with my idea that working memory is related to Peirce’s enactive–semiotic theory. Thanks!

I do not respond well to children with fingers in their ears saying "I know you are, but what am i?". So I'll just not. — AmadeusD

You must be delusional as I didn't see any children participating in this thread saying such things - just full grown adults that do not value logic and reason.

So, about 1/3 of all non-insect animal species are hermaphroditic. That’s more normal for Nature than is being a red-haired human (less than 2% of humanity at large is. And please, please, let’s not start on the human-relative abnormal condition of red-haired-ness). — javra

Your argument can be used to assert that sexual reproduction is more natural than asexual reproduction or hermaphroditism.
— Harry Hindu

Um ....

“normality” has absolutely nothing to do with “natural”. Otherwise, stuff like red-haired people would then, rationalistically and all, be unnatural abominations of nature. — javra

L-O-Fucking-L!

YOU are the one that used the phrase "normal for Nature". I was merely using your own terminology. If normality has absolutely nothing to do with natural then what did you mean by "normal for Nature"?

I could only explain to those with better reading comprehension. Sorry, just not interested. — javra

Start by comprehending your own posts.

You're making completely hypocritical arguments though: you condemn me for not reading every single thing you posted in the thread (lazily calling that "cherrypicking"). — ProtagoranSocratist

The hypocrisy is yours as I'm sure you would not like me putting words in your mouth that you did not say. Pathetic.

Hermaphroditism wherein the lifeform reproduces with another such that both impregnate each other and become impregnated by the other does not occur in humans—but is quite natural in relation to Nature at large — javra

The Cleveland Clinic is a medical center for humans, not other species, so we are talking about humans.

So, about 1/3 of all non-insect animal species are hermaphroditic. That’s more normal for Nature than is being a red-haired human (less than 2% of humanity at large is. And please, please, let’s not start on the human-relative abnormal condition of red-haired-ness). — javra

Your argument can be used to assert that sexual reproduction is more natural than asexual reproduction or hermaphroditism. It is no wonder that the trait of hermaphroditism did not evolve past fish or worms. This is because sexual reproduction Increases genetic variation, promotes adaptation, reduces disease risk and leads to speciation. Mammals are generally unable to reproduce asexually because they rely on a process called genomic imprinting, where certain genes are only activated depending on whether they come from the mother or father.

Far more interesting and telling is the proportion of intersexed humans in humanity at large — javra

Which just shows the small percentage of intersex people compared to women or men, and your own argument "That’s more normal for Nature than..." would mean that women and men are more normal for Nature than intersexed people. This is not being denied. I agree with that assertion.

Nature, ergo the natural, is all about diversity — javra

Exactly - and that is what sexual reproduction amplifies. Intersex people are lucky to be able to pass their genes to the next generation as most cases their sexual organs do not function properly because they are not fully fledged organs. What you're saying is that abnormalities like schizophrenia, being born with a tail, being born with half a brain, are simply diverse ways the human genome expresses itself. Is that your point?

I saw a documentary about a real hermaphrodite who had non-functional sex organs, it's extremely rare, but i was not imagining what i saw. Don't believe everything you read online. — ProtagoranSocratist

Yet you posted links to articles online as if it would support your premise. You're simply picking and choosing the things you want to believe with no consistency. I could say "Don't believe everything you see on TV." and then where would we be? Your not moving the conversation forward.

You're asking us to believe what you say when you provide no evidence (what documentary?) and I have? If you choose believe some documentary and not a non-profit academic medical center renowned for its expertise in several areas, then there is no point in continuing this conversation.

I guess all science must bow to your greater expertise. — apokrisis

You give up so easily when things don't appear to go your way (Banno?)

I thought it might be the same for you. If you really read what I posted then you should have come out at the end of my post seeing that we mostly agree but are just using different terminology.

How does the the Peircean Enactive and Semiotic Notion of Mind relate to the idea of working memory? I know it’s not often asked, because “working memory” comes from cognitive neuroscience and psychology, while Peirce’s enactive–semiotic theory comes from philosophy of mind and logic, but both concern how a mind maintains and manipulates meaningful relations over time.

Working memory is:
1. transient and active, not static.
2. It’s embodied — tied to sensorimotor systems.
3. It’s context-sensitive — what’s “kept in mind” shifts depending on current activity.

So, in computational terms, it’s the system that maintains the current interpretive frame.

We can bridge working memory as semiotic continuity by translating that into cognitive terms, working memory corresponds to the maintenance of a semiotic chain — the holding-in-play of interpretants long enough for them to interact, stabilize, and yield new inferences or actions.

In Peircean terms, working memory isn’t a “box” where signs are stored. It’s the phase of semiosis where interpretants are kept active — where potential meanings are still being negotiated and updated through ongoing interaction. You could think of it as the living edge of semiosis — where signs are not yet sedimented into habits but not yet gone.

So, in the Peircean–enactive frame working memory is not a mental “workspace” where internal tokens are manipulated, but the temporary stabilization of an interpretive process — a living sign system maintaining coherence across moments of experience. This reinterpretation avoids the Cartesian assumption that working memory holds internal pictures or symbolic representations detached from the world.

Epistemically, belief and thought are identical. — Millard J Melnyk

A believe is, one way or another, held to be true. But not all thoughts are held to be true. We can certainly entertain thoughts that are not true - that's were things like modality and error come from. — Banno

I distinguish epistemics from epistemology. Epistemics is the practical analysis of how knowledge is produced, justified, and deployed. So, when considering thought vs. belief, there is no epistemic difference inherent between the two. Neither grants an idea more or less epistemic warrant. Epistemically, "I think it's raining" and "I believe its raining" are identical with respect to the accuracy, soundness, value, etc., of the idea that it's raining. The differences are rhetorical and epistemically unwarranted..

If it's raining, you can justify both “believe” and “think” versions. The justification for one is exactly the same as for the other. Both versions have equal and identical warrant. Epistemically identical.

Which just begs the question: then why "believe" rather than "think"? — Millard J Melnyk

Geez Louise, guys. This is making a mountain out of mole hill. Can, "I believe" and "I think" be synonymous. Sure it can. We often precede statements with "I believe" and "I think" to express a sense of skepticism about the truth value of what we are stating.

The other issue is that Millard seems to be conflating two senses of "think".
-Propositional “think that p” (e.g., “I think it’s raining”) → epistemically similar to believe that p.
-Generic or hypothetical thinking (e.g., “I’m thinking about unicorns” or “Imagine it’s raining”) → not epistemically committed.

You both are now talking past each other as one is talking about the first and the other is talking about the second.

When it comes to justifying our beliefs, we can do it one of two ways - empirically or logically. When we are able to justify some belief using both, instead of just one or the other, it becomes knowledge.

The problem is that this just isn't based on any real culture: real cultures just have different ideas about biological sex and gender than others. Some cultures were possibly so simple that there was no need to discuss gender or an equivalent concept. — ProtagoranSocratist

Exactly. Which is just saying that there's the biology of sex and then there is a society's expectations of the sexes, and it can differ from culture to culture. This implies that for one to change their gender they would have to change cultures, not change clothes.

Nature doesn't even conform to simple, binary ideas about sex. Hermaphrodites aren't just a mythological concept, but there have been real human heraphrodites. — ProtagoranSocratist

:roll:

Hermaphrodites don’t exist. That is an outdated term implying that a person is both fully male and fully female, which isn’t biologically possible. — Cleveland Clinic

I'm not straw manning you; the issue is that people who want you to call them a man, when you see them as a woman, are in disagreement. How you handle the disagreement is completely up to you. Don't try and force me to read all of your posts. — ProtagoranSocratist

Then don't expect your cherry-picked posts and strawmen to deserve a response.

Ask a teacher how they teach? What for? — Dawnstorm

So you're saying you were born with the knowledge that 5+7=12?

Maybe I should rephrase the question. How did you learn addition - what it was, why you needed on a daily basis? How did you learn what the scribbles refer to? 5 what? 7 what? 12 what? How did you know what the relationship between + and = are, or what they do or mean? If you were to go to school on an extraterrestrial planet wouldn't you need to know the symbols they use to represent quantities and mathematical expressions? Do you remember anything you learned in grade school?

I guess the thing that concerns me the most about these arguments is that you are implying that blind conformity to social expectations is inherently good, and disobedience is inherently bad. I'd rather surround myself with people who were more open minded so i could be more honest and less irritated with them. — ProtagoranSocratist

That is not what I am saying at all. If you've read all my posts you would have seen that I have said that a man can wear a dress if they want, but that does not mean they are a woman. It is those that insist on controlling other's speech that are the ones that lack a sense of being open-minded. It doesn't mean you can't call yourself a woman - only that you cannot make me call you a woman. Do you understand the distinction? If not, then I would need you to define, "open-minded".

It's not blind conformity. We all accept these soft rules for a reason - because we all have sexual orientations and desires and need a way to determine another's sex that aligns with one's sexual preferences. How would you feel if you took someone home with you that did not align with your sexual preference but was dressed like someone that aligns with your sexual preference? Saying that you have to ask just goes to show how closely gender is tied to sex.

For example, in the more renaissance time periods in europe, it was considered shameful for a woman to show her ankles in public in christian societies. Now, the expectations are much looser in western countries. In some Muslim countries, it's considered shameful to take off your head scarf unless you are around your immediate family (and once again, the stricter onus is on the women, as muslim men do not always need to cover their faces). If any of these things you or Bob Ross are saying is true about gender ideas being objective, or about trans identity being a mental illness, then how could any of these cultural conflicts exist? Would you ever question an authority figure's ideas about anything? — ProtagoranSocratist

Please read my all my posts thoroughly because you are just straw-manning me.

What you are saying aligns with what I have already said numerous times in that the easing of the societal expectations is exactly what eliminates the spectrum of gender identity as a social construct. Remove the expectations and you remove any spectrum to move along. A gender neutral society is a society in which transgenderism does not exist.

You might have missed this among all the nonsense going on in this thread:
Transgender identity mistakes intra-sex diversity (different ways of being male or female) for inter-sex distinction (being male vs. female) - confusing kinds of men/women (i.e., variations within sexes) with kinds of genders..

When someone transitions and says “I’m a woman,” they're not rejecting the sex/gender binary, but reaffirming it — they are still operating within the same two categories (man/woman), just switching sides. If gender is supposed to be distinct from sex, why use the terms? Wouldn’t that show that gender is still dependent on the sex binary? “Being male” or “being female” is a natural kind — something biologically grounded — and all the ways of living out those kinds are variations within that category, not grounds for a new category.

From this view, gender is not a separate ontological layer (“social role distinct from sex”) — it’s a descriptive shorthand for the spectrum of behaviors humans exhibit. So when we call a behavior “feminine” or “masculine,” we’re just naming a pattern that some men and women exhibit more often — not defining a separate gendered essence or identity.

I'm not denying we all have personal and subjective feelings and inclinations. What I am saying is that what we often interpret as “gender incongruence” is not a conflict between one’s biological sex and some separate “gender identity.” It is simply a reflection of the natural diversity in how humans live, feel, and express themselves. The supposed “incongruence” is a conceptual overlay imposed by the gender framework. Once you remove that framework (gender neutral), there’s no conflict — just human behavioral and psychological diversity. A man who feels like he “should be a woman” isn’t actually experiencing an identity mismatch. Instead, he’s just expressing a variant of male human experience — one that happens to share traits culturally associated with women.

The incongruence comes from knowing you are a man but society telling you that if you like to wear a dress, you must be a woman. Remove that expectation and now you can wear a dress and still be a man.

Well, yeah I did have a visual of what the limerick was representing, but then integrated that with the rest of what you said which led me to then think "what was the point?"

It's all causal where language acts as a causal stimulus that interacts with a receiver’s prior cognitive state. I'm trying to point out that our linguistic distinctions (“I said it,” “you thought it”) are heuristic segmentations of an ongoing causal web. We highlight some nodes (like “speaking” or “thinking”) for convenience, but they’re not ontologically distinct.

Is causation in communication primarily semantic (about meaning structures) or physical (about brain states and sensory processes)? Or is “putting a thought in someone’s mind” just a shorthand for a layered causal process that includes both?

Of equally succinctly, memory generates it. — apokrisis

And from where does it generate, and using what information?

What is it one “retrieves” from memory? — apokrisis

Information.

An image. Or as the enactive view of cognition puts it….Ulric Neisser argued that mental images are plans for the act of perceiving and the anticipatory phases of perception. They are not "inner pictures" that are passively viewed by an "inner man," but rather active, internal cognitive structures (schemata) that prepare the individual to seek and accept specific kinds of sensory information from the environment. — apokrisis

So is it an image or isn't it? An visual experience can be defined as an "internal cognitive structure", so I don't see where you or Ulrich are disagreeing with me. You're both just using different terminology so you just end up contradicting yourself when trying to claim that what I am saying is inaccurate while what you are saying isn't.

An "enactive view of cognition" is just another way of distinguishing between a "working memory" vs "long term memory".

And again, your use of the word, "anticipatory" implies that past information is used to anticipate future situations.

And what do you know about dreaming? Ain’t it a brain generating imagery of hallucinatory intensity? We aren’t stimulating the memory banks and rousing flashes of our past. We are stimulating our sensation anticipation circuits and generating disconnected flashes of plausible imagery or suddenly appearing and disappearing points of view at a rate of about two a second. — apokrisis

Newborn infants don't dream about aliens invading Earth. Your past experiences can determine your dreams, just as we may have a dream about a dead loved one, or about a fight between a living loved one, or getting chased by aliens. Were you ever chased by aliens in your real life? No, but you were made aware of the concept by watching a sci-fi movie.

Our minds tend to hallucinate to fill in gaps in our perceptions. It does not hallucinate the entire experience. It must draw from reality to be of any use to our survival and finding mates. It would seem logical to me that natural selection would reward a more accurate representation of the world with more mates and a longer life than a less accurate one.

But even though LLMs are moves in the direction of neurobiological realism, they are still just simulations. What is missing is that grounding in the physical and immediate world that an organism has. — apokrisis

Which is akin to putting the LLM in the head of a humanoid robot - closest to the major senses to minimize lag - where it receives information via its camera eyes, microphone ears, etc. - where it will see and hear a language being spoken rather than receiving inputs through a keyboard. The only difference being the type of inputs are being utilized and the processing power and working memory available to integrate the data from all the inputs at once creating a seamless experience of colors, shapes, sounds, smells, etc. When you only have one input (keystrokes from a keyboard) I would imagine that puts a severe limitation on how you might experience the world and what you can do. So it would require not just additional programming but additional/different inputs, as it appears that the type of input determines the type of experience. A visual experience is different than an auditory experience, just as I would imagine a keystroke experience. Does an LLM have experiences? Is all you need to have an experience (not necessarily a self-aware one but one in which no feedback loop is generated as in your earlier example of lower animals experiences) some input and a working memory?

But recollection - the socialised habit of having an autobiographical memory - is dependent on the extra semiotic structure that language supplies. Becoming a walking memory bank is very much a human sociocultural ideal. Just about our highest achievement your school days might make you believe. — apokrisis

Anticipating termites on your stick after putting inside a hole of a termite mound does not require language. Recollection and language use are both dependent upon a pre-linguistic notion of time and causation - of what worked in the past is likely to work in the future, and if it doesn't hopefully you have more than your instincts to rely on.

If I'm following you, the reason for that is that we are incapable of perceiving everything that exists all at the same time, and incapable off perceiving events that have not yet taken place. We perceive what we are able to, when we are able to. So we perceive the entire world including the people in it divvied up, our thoughts are generated in that manner, and we can break them up in that same manner. — Patterner

We can't perceive the entire world. We only perceive our local environment and infer that the rest of the world/universe follows the same laws.

Oh! Here's a good one!

There once was a woman named Bree
Who went for a swim in the sea.
But a man in a punt
Stuck an oar in her eye
And now she's blind, you see

I wonder if anyone got a certain thought in their mind. A thought that has nothing to do with that limerick, but which I, nevertheless, intended you to think.

If it worked, was it because certain thoughts I put in your mind caused it? — Patterner

The thought I had upon reading it was, "what is your point"? I don't know if I would say that you put that thought in my mind. I'd rather say that you caused that thought in my mind, but so did I when I chose to read your post. You might say that the Philosophy Forum is also a cause as all these processes are necessary for me to have a thought about your post.

Do you think I was questioning that 5+7 is 12 in this thread? — Dawnstorm

I don't know. It was a question, not a statement.

I said there is nothing inherent in the scribbles that explains why 12 would come after the = sign in this string of scribbles. Why write the scribble "12" after the "="? What makes that correct, and how did you come to know what scribbles comes after the "="?

It may seem like it is inherent but that is because you already learned it and relegated the process to unconscious parts of the brain.

This can be said about language in general as well. When you look at a language you don't understand it looks scribbles. When hearing a language you cannot speak, you can't even distinguish one word from another - its just noise.

When you learn the rules of the language sufficiently enough to use it consistently the scribbles become words and you can pick out the words when you hear the language spoken. The meaning appears to be inherent in the scribbles, but that is an illusion created by your brain as it creates shortcuts to how it thinks.

So in order for you to explain to me how you know that 5 + 7 is equal to 12, you have to go back to grade school in your mind and try to remember the process of learning what the scribbles mean. If you can't then just ask a teacher how they teach students through memorization and repetition.

Yes indeed. I pity you, I really do. — unenlightened

Ad hominems and cherry picking posts is all you got.. You lose. I win.

But seriously, for a moment, a 'mass delusion', is by definition not a mental illness but a social one - and that has profound implications. It becomes a great stretch to maintain the medical model at all.

To put it bluntly, if you can see my delusion, then either you are in my mind, or the delusion is out there and to that extent not a delusion. At the moment, I suspect the former is more likely. — unenlightened

...mental illness, social illness. It's still an illness.

Maybe you didn't notice through that haze of hate, but I was agreeing with Hypercin that Christianity is a type of mass delusion.

Conservative Christians are immoral and mentally ill — hypericin

So maybe you should ask hypercin how they would go about determining if Christians are delusional. I thought that was obvious. But in your attempts to throw mud you got all muddy.

There are, and it requires a second, third, fourth, etc. opinion, or however many it takes because if it is a mass delusion, and the other person is afflicted as well, then we just end up reinforcing the delusion without ever knowing we are all deluding ourselves.

Again, logic and reason clears the fogginess and fuzziness of the terms we are using.

Transgender identity mistakes intra-sex diversity (different ways of being male or female) for inter-sex distinction (being male vs. female) - confusing kinds of men/women (i.e., variations within sexes) with kinds of genders..

When someone transitions and says “I’m a woman,” they're not rejecting the sex/gender binary, but reaffirming it — they are still operating within the same two categories (man/woman), just switching sides. If gender is supposed to be distinct from sex, why use the terms? Wouldn’t that show that gender is still dependent on the sex binary? “Being male” or “being female” is a natural kind — something biologically grounded — and all the ways of living out those kinds are variations within that category, not grounds for a new category.

From this view, gender is not a separate ontological layer (“social role distinct from sex”) — it’s a descriptive shorthand for the spectrum of behaviors humans exhibit. So when we call a behavior “feminine” or “masculine,” we’re just naming a pattern that some men and women exhibit more often — not defining a separate gendered essence or identity.

I'm not denying we all have personal and subjective feelings and inclinations. What I am saying is that what we often interpret as “gender incongruence” is not a conflict between one’s biological sex and some separate “gender identity.” It is simply a reflection of the natural diversity in how humans live, feel, and express themselves. The supposed “incongruence” is a conceptual overlay imposed by the gender framework. Once you remove that framework (gender neutral), there’s no conflict — just human behavioral and psychological diversity. A man who feels like he “should be a woman” isn’t actually experiencing an identity mismatch. Instead, he’s just expressing a variant of male human experience — one that happens to share traits culturally associated with women.

This is a basic misunderstanding, there is zero commonality between being trans and schizophrenic. Schizophrenia involves auditory hallucinations, disordered thinking, and delusions of persecution, and is devastating to the sufferer. Whereas, to be trans is to identify with a social role which is at variance with the one culturally linked with their biological sex. To argue that this is a delusion, you would have to argue that there is something so essential to the linkage between biological sex and gendered social role that to be at odds with it is a kind of insanity. — hypericin

There is. Gender isn't a role like an actor or actress in Hollywood where the role is fictional, segregated from reality. Gender is more of a social expectation of the sexes. Society is not saying, "you are a woman because you wear a dress". Society is saying that "you are already defined as a woman because of your biology, and because society also has a rule that exposing yourself is illegal, then we expect you to wear certain clothing to symbolize your sex under the clothing so that people of specific SEXUAL orientations can find mates that align with their SEXUAL preferences".

Anorexia is devastating and very often fatal (~20% mortality rate), and family members are usually desperate for help. Framing the condition as an illness is to say that help is warranted, whereas denying this say the opposite, that the sufferer just needs to get over it or whatever. Unlike schizophrenics or anorexics, trans people don't generally conceive of themselves as mentally ill. This designation is imposed, which is pathologization. — hypericin

Read the symptoms I provided from Cleveland Clinic again. One of the symptoms is not realizing you are mentally ill, which is why they have feelings of being exploited, a tendency to read threatening meanings into benign remarks or events, persistently holding grudges, and a readiness to respond and react to perceived slights. This is all because they are being told that what they believe is not true and the truth is not something they can cope with.

I could be reading a pamphlet about how anesthesia works. The experience of the pamphlet is first person. The information I receive from it (simultaneously) is a third person interaction. — noAxioms

Doesn't the experience of the pamphlet include the information received from it? It seems to me that you have to already have stored information to interpret the experience - that you are reading a pamphlet, what it is about, why you find any interest in the topic at all, and the information on the pamphlet that either promotes your current goal or inhibits it.

Not so since my reading the pamphlet gave me the third person description of that event. Of course that was not simultaneous with my being under, but it doesn't need to be. — noAxioms

In other words, the third person is really just a simulated first person view. Is the third person really a view from nowhere (and what does that really mean) or a view from everywhere (a simulated first person view from everywhere)?

I would disagree since I don't think we have direct access to our own 'minds' (mental processes?). Without a third person interpretation, we wouldn't even know where it goes on ,and we certainly don't know what it is in itself or how it works, or even if it is an 'it' at all.
Like everything else, we all have different naive models about what mind is and what it does, and those models (maps) are not the territory. It's not direct access. — noAxioms

If you don't like the term "mind" that we have direct access to then fine, but we have direct access to something, which is simply what it means to be that process. We have to have direct access to something, or else you can't say you have indirect access to other things - that is the root of the false dichotomy.

Those two cases leverage two different definitions ('perspective' vs. 'belief system') of the word 'views', so the question makes no sense with the one word covering both cases.
So I don't have one belief system on what the word 'views' might mean from one context to the next. — noAxioms

Exactly my point. Your belief (view) of what a word means will depend on other views you have. Belief and view can be synonyms. Both words are used to describe a judgment or opinion that one holds as true.

Observer is a classical thing, and QM is not about classical things, even if classical tools are useful in experimentation. Quantum theory gives no special role to conscious 'observation'. Every experiment can be (and typically is) run just as well with completely automated mechanical devices. — noAxioms

Aren't automated and mechanical devices classical things, too? Don't automated and mechanical measuring devices change what is being measured at the quantum level?

They are thoughts in the same mind. My mind. I was thinking of the chef salad I was eating; which lead to how I acquired the salad; which led to my wife's boss; and all the thoughts of chef salad brought up thoughts of my father's love of them. Those were all my thoughts; my mind. — Patterner

Yes, but still divided up in your mind depending on your present intention (goal in the mind). As I said before, "It’s our focus, intention, or interpretive stance that ‘collapses’ that field into discrete thoughts or objects." So it isn't just our thoughts that we divvy up - it is the entire world including the people within it.