Sam's contention is that non-verbal beliefs are not propositional, on the assumption that propositions are are verbal statements, and so pre-verbal beliefs are not propositions. — Fooloso4

We must understand how a term or symbol is being used in order to understand how it is being used to represent a state of affairs. The same term can be used in the representation of different states of affairs. — Fooloso4

And a symbol can be a scribble, picture, or behavior to represent the belief of the one writing scribbles, drawing pictures and behaving in certain ways. Propositions are those effects (written scribbles, drawn pictures and behaviors) that we observe that we then use to get at the causes of these effects - which is the beliefs of the one causing the scribbles, pictures and their body to move in certain ways, which can include making sounds with your mouth.

You're not making sense Harry. To doubt a certainty is contradiction. The fact that you are doubting it means that it is not a certainty. To doubt is to be uncertain. To be certain of something is to be free of doubt concerning it. — Metaphysician Undercover

How do you know that you are doubting anything? Can you be certain that you are doubting? As I have said before certainty and doubt go hand-in-hand. It seems to me that you cannot doubt without the certainty that you are doubting. If you doubt that you are doubting, then you are doing something. What are you doing if not exhibiting a certainty of what you are doing whether it be doubting or not?

I don't see why you believe that it is required to have certainty prior to having uncertainty (doubt). Obviously human beings are evolving creatures, and human knowledge has come into existence as have human beings. Therefore, if certainty is knowledge, as you propose, uncertainty is prior to certainty, as the form of animalistic belief prior to knowledge. It makes no sense to say that uncertainty (doubt) requires an underlying certainty, or else knowledge would have to come into existence from some form of certainty which is prior to knowledge. But this undermines your proposition that knowledge and certainty are the same thing. — Metaphysician Undercover

I can see that we may be more likely to doubt knowledge coming from others than we are in doubting our own knowledge. This is why we have rules of logic about pleading to popularity and authority. In using these rules of logic, are we doubting the propositions of others or becoming more certain that what they are saying is wrong and you are right?

We must understand how a term or symbol is being used in order to understand how it is being used to represent a state of affairs. The same term can be used in the representation of different states of affairs.

The proposition: 'it is raining' is not used only to convey meteorological information. It can be an expression of exasperation or pleasure or surprise. — Fooloso4

You missed my point which was that we use scribbles to convey information about states-of-affairs that are not just another use of scribbles, to others that are not aware of said states-of-affairs. Using scribbles to convey meteorological information or mental information is not useful if the other person is already aware of the meteorological or mental states. So it appears that while we use things, it doesn't necessarily mean that we accomplished our goal (that it was useful). We are simply wasting our time and energy using scribbles to inform others of what they already know.

If use is the scale by which we judge metaphysical factors, then it seems to me that the scales would be epistemological in nature, as in existing in our minds only and not the way the world is actually divided.
— Harry Hindu

I think that's true too. — T Clark

Why should you represent reality into the physics-chemistry-biology-cosmology division in the first place?
— EugeneW

As I indicated in my OP, I think that's a metaphysical division. It's useful, so we use it. — T Clark

Wait, I thought you agreed that the division of these scales was epistemological, not metaphysical. So physics, chemistry, biology and cosmology are merely epistemological explanations of scales that only exist in our minds, and not real in any sense in the world beyond our minds. So I fail to see how they are useful if they are not representative of what is the case outside of our minds.

You seem content to remain in the bubble of your mind - to live only in the map, and not in the territory while at the same time implying that you are talking about states of affairs outside of your mind. When talking about the world, I'm not interested, not do I find it useful, to talk about your epistemological states. You seem to be confusing epistemology and metaphysics.

How does this fit into your military metaphor? You talk about constraints from above. How do the feedback loops constrain the chemistry? Are the products of the enzymes the soldiers? So chemicals evolve into structures that control how they behave. — T Clark

Above what? If the scales are epistemological then there is no metaphysical above or below. We are simply talking about the same thing from different views. In other words we are confusing the map with the territory. The constraints from above or below are only figments of our imagination, ie explanations that are useful, but not representative of anything real in any sense outside of our minds. Constraints would only come from the sides - meaning things on the same "scale" (there would only be one scale, so the term becomes meaningless when describing the world outside of your mind) as the thing we are talking about. This is akin to natural selection where forces on the same scale constrain other forces on the same scale, like how predators constrain the evolution of prey and vice versa.

I would just add

For the PRC Taiwan is basically the last remnants of the Civil War where the Kuomingtang retreated. It would be like if during the US Civil War the Confederacy would not have surrendered, but had retreated to present Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands and held high their flags on those islands to this day. — ssu

That's weird that you put it that way because I see China as more like the Confederacy and Taiwan as more like the North. After all, China is the one segregating their population by means of the type of treatment the various groups receive, with some of the treatment bordering on genocide. China sees the capitalism and freedom that makes up the Taiwanese society as a threat to the Communist party, just as Russia sees the same type of representational, western-leaning societal engineering going on in Ukraine as a threat to the One-Party regime in Russia.

There is the problem of how the information Putin had about the kind of resistance he would go up against in Ukraine was inaccurate and China may be wondering the same thing about Taiwan, and the longer it takes for Russia to conquer Ukraine may inspire more in Taiwan to more fervently resist any invasion by China. It is to early to tell. I'm hoping for a rebellion in Russia given the declining economy, government crackdown on media sources and the death of many thousand Russian sons in a senseless war against their Ukrainian cousins.

I am not dismissing the importance of habitual behaviour, or the role of certainty. What I am saying is that it must be the case that uncertainty, doubt, is necessarily more basic or fundamental than certainty. This is due to the fallibility of certainty. Since a living being can still be wrong, even in instances when that individual has the attitude of certainty, then there must be a mechanism whereby we doubt even the most basic certitudes, or else we'd all die from our mistakes. Some of us do not doubt our fundamental certitudes, and some of us die from our mistakes. Some of us do doubt our fundamental habits and certitudes, and since this trait often saves us, it is selected for in evolution.

The conclusion therefore, is that the beliefs are fundamentally not certainties, because the living being who holds a belief is conditioned through instinct and genetics, to naturally doubt the belief. This is an evolutionarily beneficial trait which has been selected for. So positing something like hinge propositions, as fundamental beliefs which are somehow beyond doubt, is simply an incorrect representation. The evolutionary process has ensured that beliefs do not actually exist in this way. The propensity to doubt, is fundamental to, and inherent within all belief. The condition of certainty, I suggest, is added to the belief afterward, therefore not fundamental to belief. It is layered on, as an attitude toward belief, not actually part of the belief. — Metaphysician Undercover

I disagree. If doubt were fundamental then what would you be doubting if not some certainty? It seems that in order to doubt you must have some certainty to doubt prior to doubting it.

Personally, it don't like the terms being used to explain what you are trying to explain. I think of certainty and knowledge as the same thing. And I think of knowledge as a set of instructions that we go by. These instructions are dynamic - capable of being updated with new (sensory) information. In other words, knowledge can change with new information.

The instructions we use aren't much different than instructions in a computer language. Given some goal, reference the instructions we have for attaining that goal. If we don't have instructions then acquire them through learning (observe someone with the same goal and how they do it or trying instructions that we already have that are used for similar tasks and observe the results and then modify as needed and try again).

Doubt stems from our knowledge (certainty) that the world is complex and changes constantly and that we acquire new information by the use of our senses, and that any set of instructions may need to be updated, given new information.

Can you find the section you are referring to? He rejects the idea that meaning is a picture or representation of reality, in favor of the idea that meaning is determined by use. But the issue here is about the relationship between beliefs and propositions. Sam's contention is that non-verbal beliefs are not propositional, on the assumption that propositions are are verbal statements, and so pre-verbal beliefs are not propositions. — Fooloso4

If meaning is determined by use, then something is used to accomplish some goal. What is being used if not our representation (knowledge) of reality, and what is the goal? In using propositions we are using scribbles and sounds, or pictures, to communicate (represent) some state-of-affairs that isn't the use of scribbles and sounds, or pictures to others that we believe do not possess the same knowledge (representation) of reality that we do.

In telling someone it is raining, we only do so because we believe the person we are using a proposition with isn't aware that it is raining. If we believed they already knew it was raining, then what use would it be in telling them?

I’ve seen people knocked out, but never a brain knocked out. People are far more than brains. — NOS4A2

Yeah, but how do you explain the difference between someone being knocked out and someone being awake? Where is the difference? You might point the person's behavior, but I can act like I'm knocked out so how do you tell the difference between someone acting like they are knocked out and someone who is actually knocked out? And how would the person that goes from being awake, to knocked out to awake again describe the difference, and would there be a discrepancy between the two descriptions (yours and theirs), and if so why? If we can act, or lie with our actions, then there must be some difference between our behaviors and what we are presently aware (conscious) of.

“Consciousness” is a silly concept, anyways. Nothing called “consciousness” moves from one area to another, so saying that it “comes from” the brain is nonsensical. Neither is it “produced” by the brain, as if the brain was a qualia factory. — NOS4A2

I agree with everything except the notion that consciousness is a silly concept. How do you explain dreams, or the fact that I can act in some way that is contrary to my present knowledge?

In defining consciousness as a silly concept then you are defining empiricism and observable evidence as silly concepts because the only way we know the world is via consciousness. It is the only thing we have any proof of, but that isn't to say that is the only thing that exists, nor does it imply that consciousness is fundamental. It's only implication is that it exists. I think, therefore I am.

When you think, how do you know that you are thinking? What form does your thinking take - entangled electrified neurons or entangled colors, shapes, feelings and sounds? Why would your thinking take the form of electrified neurons from my view but take the shape of colors, shapes, sounds, feelings etc. from your view? How would we know that we're talking about the same thing?

That’s where the hierarchy of scale comes in. It represents an artificial division of the universe into manageable pieces. The division is made based on the usefulness of the distinctions made at each scale. As I’ve written many times, usefulness, rather than truth, is the measure by which we judge metaphysical factors. Metaphysical questions can not be answered empirically. To me, the hierarchy of scale is a metaphysical entity. By that standard, I choose the level on the hierarchy most useful in describing and understanding a particular phenomenon in a particular situation. — T Clark

Any knowledge we glean from other scales than the one we find ourselves living in are only useful in the scale we find ourselves living in. We only use states at other scales to explain the behavior of objects on the scale we live in - hence the issue of trying to integrate QM with classical physics. We are trying to use the behavior of objects at the quantum scale to explain and predict the behavior of macro-scale objects.

If use is the scale by which we judge metaphysical factors, then it seems to me that the scales would be epistemological in nature, as in existing in our minds only and not the way the world is actually divided.

When using a microscope to look at a drop of blood and viewing red blood cells, aren't we still looking at the drop of blood - just from a different view (at a smaller scale)? The world is only divided into scales when we take different views of the same thing.

Any attempt to define consciousness as some sort of illusion just pulls the rug out from under all the empirical "evidence" one has for the existence brains.

There are numerous well-known theories that explain that the way we perceive the world is "inaccurate", or not the way the world is. The theory that color only exists in our minds, and not in the world is one of those theories. What does that say about how we perceive brains? How do we get any "accurate" information about the world to survive for any length of time if we can only access our consciousness and consciousness isn't suppose to be an accurate representation of reality?

I think that we do get accurate information about the world via consciousness, but there are many who confuse the map with the territory. The territory is process. The map is static models of processes - hence brains are confused to be the real thing (the map (static models)) and minds (the territory (process)) are relegated to the status of illusions or as subordinate to the static model. It's as if scientists are forgetting about the very nature of observation itself and the role it plays in how we think about things.

Do you have an example of integrated information in the brain?
— EugeneW

No. — Garrett Travers

Consciousness is integrated sensory information - where information from the eyes, ears, nose, skin, etc. all come together to produce the model of the world we experience.

Yep, that's exactly my point. And it is the brain doing so, as far the evidence is concerned. You have something that suggest otherwise, present it. I'm not here to discuss opinions. — Garrett Travers

The only evidence anyone has is of consciousness itself. Any evidence you have of brains is by means of consciousness/integrated sensory information/empiricism. So is it brains that produce consciousness or consciousness that produce brains? And that is only part of the question. The other part of the question is how does one "produce" the other? What exactly is meant by "produce" in this context?

Here's an example of what I am saying. We can represent the certainty as the basis for the habitual activity. I know that the act X will have the outcome of Y, so act X for the purpose of Y becomes habituated, and I tend to proceed with very little doubt. The light turns green, I walk across the street, for instance.

However, before I cross the street I glance around to see if anyone is running the red. This is "the check", which is a manifestation of the fundamental uncertainty. The check has to be more fundamental than the certainty, in order that it might at any time overrule the certainty. The habit can be broken. If the check is allowed to be overruled by the certainty, then eventually I will step in front of an errant vehicle.

One might model the certainty as more fundamental than the uncertainty, as is the case when hinge propositions are modeled as free from the tendency to doubt, but this is a false model. It is proven false, because those who do not perform the check get the Darwin award, and this trait of relinquishing the check, is not maintained. So the uncertainty of the check is supported by evolution, and its overruling the certainty of habit, as a more fundamental aspect of living beings is verified in this way. And the check as an uncertainty based activity cannot be modeled as a habit because it is different (habit being similar) in every field of activity yet common to them all. — Metaphysician Undercover

I get what you're saying but I think that it can be argued that habitual behavior has also been selected as a trait conductive to surviving. For me, it is one of those yin/yang relationships. Certainty has no meaning without doubt.

Right, the reason for posting here is to submit my ideas to the criticisms of others. My ideas are forever evolving, because of my uncertainty, and the role that others play in changing my mind.
— Metaphysician Undercover

To state something as a proposition, is to make a proposal. It does not imply 'I am certain of what I wrote'. This is your misinterpretation, derived from, (and a very good demonstration of), that faulty notion that actions are based in certainty. That you interpret my proposal as an indication that I am certain of the truth of what I write, shows that you are committed to this faulty way of understanding. I write in my habitual way, but this does not mean that I am not ready, willing, and actively looking for reasons, to break the habit if necessary. I walk across the street right after the light turns green, and it appears like I am certain in that act, if you do not notice the more subtle act of me looking around before crossing. In the case of writing, the more subtle act occurs within my mind, as thinking, so it's even more difficult to notice. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right. So here on a philosophy forum, discussing topics that are on the fringes of human knowledge, there would be a higher degree of playing devil's advocate - in proposing ideas that you don't necessarily believe but would like to see if there are any rebuttals to. The forum does have it's fair share of fundamentalists that you find in the religious and political discussions where what people say, they really mean, or "know" is true. And then there is the every-day-talk where most of what people say, they believe because we talk about each other, the events of the day, the world, etc.

One topic that denizens of TPF seem to be under the impression that empirical research has left the door open for the discussion of philosophers to "speculate" about. This would be the topic of consciousness, and the nature of its presence here on Earth, and in the human race. — Garrett Travers

No. It's actually that you have completely ignored the very nature of empiricism and how the way things are observed influences how we think about brains and their accompanying conscious. You seemed assert that brains and consciousness exists without having ever seen them, but only heard about them.

In the other thread I mentioned that neuroscience an QM need work together to provide a better explanation of consciousness, but you called that unscientific and woo mysticism, and then continued to berate others, so excuse me if I don't think you're intellectually honest enough to engage in this type of conversation.

What you, many others in this thread, and Wittgenstein himself, fail to recognize, is that doubt and uncertainty is what underlies human actions, as inherent within them, essential to them, and impossible to remove. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then you typing and submitting your post is evidence of your underlying uncertainty? You seem certain of what you say, but if your admitting that your certainty of what you are saying is an illusion and that you know its an illusion I would have expected a lot less of telling others what they fail to realize (as if they are wrong and you are right) and more humility on your part. Are you certain that certainty is just an illusion?

Ask yourself: why is the above laughable rationalization more important to me than being friendly and somewhat accomodating to transsexuals? Why don't I want to be friendly and somewhat accomodating to transsexuals?

You don't care if all the transsexuals think you're a dick - and they do. They do and that's fine with you. — ZzzoneiroCosm

It seems to me that you are more concerned about what people that you don't know and have never met, and probably never will, think of you.

The fact that you and Hanover dismiss my example is just evidence of what I am saying - that you easily dismiss the claims of anyone that says that they are something that they aren't except if it were sex. How do you and Hanover know that my claim is "not to be taken seriously, but are meant as mockery and are contemptuous."? How do you know a trans-gender person isn't doing the same - mocking social roles in a society where it is a law to wear clothes and that we have agreed that certain sexes behave in certain ways so that we can tell who is who when playing mating games?

What would gender be in a society where there are no clothes, or social roles expected by the sexes?

The critical difference between your example and that of a transsexual is that your claims of dysphoria are in bad faith. In fact, they're not meant to be taken seriously, but are meant as mockery and are contemptuous.

So, there's that. — Hanover

No. It's an example of a slippery slope. Your faith in transgender's claims are what is being questioned here. It is very possible that some of them make their claims for attention. Some people crave attention and don't necessarily care whether it is good or bad attention - just that they are getting attention (many celebrities come to mind). This isn't to say that there might be some that actually have a condition that they can't help, just like anyone with delusions. What I'm saying is that we're going about addressing the problem the wrong way, like reinforcing the ideas a person with anorexia has by agreeing with them that they do look fat and should loose more weight.

Is a schizophrenic mocking and being contemptuous when making claims stemming from their delusions? How do you know that I'm not delusional or schizophrenic? You'd be mocking a person with a biological condition that they can't help.

I could have used a host of other examples as a slippery slope. People can identify as another race, or even species. Again, what makes sex so special?

Transsexuals are dysphoric, meaning they're at unease with their physical state of being because their mental state tends to the feminine, and so they attempt to bring alignment of their mind and their body. There is (again) a critical distinction to be made. They are not delusional, but are dysphoric. If they were delusional, a man might actually think he was indistinct from a woman and then go about calling himself what he clearly was not. That would be like if you thought yourself a Sith, the problem wouldn't be a dysphoria, but it would be a delusion, meaning you had lost touch with reality.

To the extent there is actually a person out there who is dysphoric and so intimately identifies as a Sith that he insists upon being referred that way, then you might have an analogous situation, but the thing is, that's not really a thing. It's just the joke you wanted to tell, and so you told it. — Hanover

How would a person of one sex know what the mental state of the other sex is like? You seem to be confusing the wide variety of behaviors of humans with specific behaviors of the sexes. Men can behave in feminine ways but still be men. Not only that, but how did they come to believe that their mental states are the opposite sex? Were their brains transplanted at birth like MIchael and Joshs believes? Or were they raised by parents that wanted a child of the opposite sex so they raised their child as if they were the opposite sex? In other words, are the causes biological or cultural?

Are you kidding me? If I were to snap my fingers and change your gender-related brain dynamics, you would be astonished at the huge variety of ways in which your perceptual-affective style of processing your world , including but far exceeding sexual attraction, would change in an instant. You would still be you, but a significant aspect of your personality would undergo a shift. — Joshs

Who is kidding who here? How does this answer my question? Both you and Michael seem to be saying that trans-genders had brain transplants at birth. Are you both conspiracy theorists?

Yet you accepted that someone who is XX male is male and so clearly it's false to say that "in humans, XY is male, XX female". It may be that incidentally 99.9% of men have XY chromosomes, but given that there are men who don't have XY chromosomes it follows that having XY (or XX) chromosomes isn't a measure of biological sex. It certainly may influence biological sex, but the reality of genetics is that other things can influence it as well, even if they don't occur as often.

There are people who have XX chromosomes (which you admit is possible for men), that have high levels of testosterone and low levels of estrogen, do not have breasts, and do have facial hair. What determines whether or not such a person is a man or a woman? Does it depend on them having a penis and testes? What if they lost them in an accident? — Michael

YOU were the one that used the term "male" to refer to someone with XX chromosomes:

Would you refer to someone with XX male syndrome using "he" or "she" (or both or neither)? — Michael

Why did you use the term "male" if ONLY having XX or XY makes one a female or male? It's a combination of these attributes and not necessarily all of them, but most of them, that one possesses that makes one a female or male. Since YOU were the one to label someone with XX chromosomes as "male", what would YOU refer to them as?

People are born with abnormalities. Some people can be born with extra fingers, or missing fingers, or born with a tail, etc. All of these cases are very rare. They are outliers. This is not to say that they don't deserve the same rights as everyone else. It is only to make the observation that these cases are uncommon or rare. We don't then create new categories of hands with or without 10 fingers, or categories of people with or without tails. We're only trying to do that with sex. Why? What makes sex so special? Who is it that is really concerned about what is in who's pants here? It seems that the left are the ones with a fetish for sex.

An easy way to think about it; if your brain were transplanted into a body with breasts, a vagina, a womb, ovaries, etc., would you identify as a man or a woman? I'd still identify as a man. — Michael

Is that what transpeople are saying - that their brain was transplanted into another body?

There are a few problems with your example, not to mention how outlandish it is and your use of Wikipedia to support your claims.

You seem to be missing the part of how hormones affect the processes of the brain and is why some trans-people take hormone treatments so that they're brain operates more like the opposite sex. So I find it hard to believe that you would still identify as a man if you had estrogen in your system and you observed your body as that of a woman. Have there been any studies that show that trans-people have the body of one sex and the brain of another? If that were the case, then why would trans-people need hormone treatments to feel more like the opposite sex if they already felt like the opposite sex?

Not only that but this flies in the face of your example above because now you're saying that having breasts, vagina, womb and ovaries is a body of a woman, while your brain is a man. You seem to be adding a characteristic to what makes one a man or a woman - the structure and functioning of the brain.

And in your example, you have memories of being a man. Transgenders don't have prior memories of being one sex that conflict with their actual sex. They claim to have always had these feelings. So you seem to be saying that doctors transplanted their brains just after birth.

Sex is distinct from gender, which can refer to either social roles based on the sex of a person (gender role) or personal identification of one's own gender based on an internal awareness (gender identity).[1][2][3][4] While in ordinary speech, the terms sex and gender are often used interchangeably,[5][6] most contemporary social scientists,[7][8][9] behavioral scientists and biologists,[10][11] many legal systems and government bodies,[12] and intergovernmental agencies such as the WHO[13] make a distinction between gender and sex. — Wikipedia

The two types of gender described above are contradictory. One describes a social construction, which is an agreement between two or more people to fulfill expectations of the others in the group by abiding by the roles that were agreed on (wearing a dress if you're a woman and wearing pants if you're a man). Because we have to wear clothes, we need ways to identify the sex of others when performing mating games.

This is the complete opposite of a personal feeling - one that isn't agreed upon with the rest of the group when playing mating games. Not only that, but they are identifying as the opposite sex, not a different sex than the two we know. So they are reinforcing binary gender roles by stating that wearing a dress makes you a woman or wearing pants makes you a man. If gender neutrality is the goal, this is not how we reach it. The goal is realized when we stop expecting women to wear dresses and men to wear pants. Men can wear dresses and still be men. Wearing a dress doesn't make you a woman. That would be sexist and abandoning the goal of realizing gender neutrality.

But appearances are changeable, and so a man that wants to look like a woman can do that and she can call herself "she" and her friends can do that as well, and you can cross your arms and refuse, and they can call you a dick and you can say "fine," and they can say "fine" back. That's where this goes. I'm just wondering why that's your preference. — Hanover

Well, yeah. Free speech and all that. Your rights to do what you want stop at infringing on my rights to do what I want. We've all been called names we don't identify with. Get over it.

And I can dress like a Dark Sith Lord and demand that you address me as "My master". What is so special about sex/gender that people can identify as a sex they are not, but identifying as something else you are not, well that's just crazy?

So it's one's physical appearance that determines whether or not one is a man or a woman (rather than one's genes)? — Michael

Like I've said twice in this thread:

Biological sex is based on a combination of traits:

- chromosomes (in humans, XY is male, XX female)
- genitals (penis vs. vagina)
- gonads (testes vs. ovaries)
- hormones (males have higher relative levels of testosterone than women, while women have higher levels of estrogen)
- secondary sex characteristics that aren’t connected with the reproductive system but distinguish the sexes, and usually appear at puberty (breasts, facial hair, size of larynx, subcutaneous fat, etc.)

Using genitals and gonads alone, more than 99.9% of people fall into two non-overlapping classes—male and female—and the other traits almost always occur with these.
You seem to be focused on the XX chromosomes and not the rest of the characteristics.

You said that pronouns refer to sex. In modern usage pronouns refer (also) to gender. — Michael

The problem is that you haven't defined gender in such a way that makes it useful to use if it's not related to sex. What is gender if not sex? And why do trans genders attempt to change their physiology if gender doesn't have to do with physiology?

When pronouns, "he" and " her" are a reference to one's sex, not gender - whatever that is if it's not the same as sex.
— Harry Hindu

According to who or what?

How we actually use language determines what words mean and pronoun-usage in the modern age is more complex than it may have been historically.
— Michael
You say "complex", I say "confused". — Harry Hindu

How is it that "gender" became part of a discussion on changing "sex" if they aren't both related or the same thing?

1. If you dont experience other people's mental states then how do you know about them? What form does your knowledge of other people's mental states take?
— Harry Hindu
I don't know about them. Other people have to tell me about them. Same as everyone. — Garrett Travers

If you don't know about mental states, then doesn't that pull the rug out from under your arguments? How can you talk about something that you don't know?

I am not confined to my experience of my brain. Like I said, I don't experience my brain. I experience a sensory model of the world. I experience brains when looking at other people's mental states.
— Harry Hindu

This is mystical woo. You only ever experience what your brain produces for you as experience. Absolutely nothing else, ever. This sensory model of the world is actually data accrued and organized by the brain it recieved from the world. And no, you don't look at other people's mental states, that would be telepathic. What you experience is the presence of other humans WITH mental states just like yours, but to which each is exclusively bound to, respectively.

Experience: practical contact with and observation of facts or events.

This is not something applicable between mental states. This is the sensory data recieved by the brain to create that model of the world of yours. — Garrett Travers

Now I'm disappointed. I thought you were going to provide some links to the research of how brains produce mental states. Instead I get an ad hominem. Please don't let my name fool you into thinking that I'm a mystical woo person.

What is "you" and where is "you" relative to your brain?

The issue here is that you can't seem to explain how a physical brain produces mental states, or even clarify what you mean by such a statement. You aren't even sure that mental states exist because you claim to not know about mental states, yet assert that they are produced by the brain. In what way are they produced?

If you only experience what your brain produces for you to experience, doesn't that mean other people's brains? How do you get at the states of the world via what your brain produces (mental states)?

Personally, I think it is wrong to imply causality to brain and mental states, as in they are produced. Instead, it's more helpful to think of brains and mental states as the same thing - just from different views (one is viewed and the other is the view - viewing the view, or thinking about thinking, or knowing that you know are sensory feedback loops (cartesian theatres).

I believe the answers will come from an amalgam of neurosicence, quantum physics and process philosophy. QM needs to get it's grip on explaining the observer effect.

This person is intersex, as it says on the wiki. People with abnormal or mixed-sex characteristics/traits have always been "intersex". Intersex is uncommon and a fact. Just like male and female. There are males, females and then intersex. This is the only time the 'they/them' pronoun makes any form of sense outside of arbitrary made-up identities. I respect the intersex and they must be protected. The other arbitrary trivial identities are just that. — Cobra

Intersex people do not have an equal amount of male and female characteristics. They have mostly one or the other, therefore they would fall into one of two clusters I mentioned in my post to Michael.

Would you refer to someone with XX male syndrome using "he" or "she" (or both or neither)? — Michael

Easy. Male = he/him

When pronouns, "he" and " her" are a reference to one's sex, not gender - whatever that is if it's not the same as sex.
— Harry Hindu

According to who or what?

How we actually use language determines what words mean and pronoun-usage in the modern age is more complex than it may have been historically. — Michael

You say "complex", I say "confused".

That you are paying undue attention to the contents of other folk's underwear is terse, but right on point. It's not your business. — Banno

So... ask. — Banno

Exactly. So it is our business in certain contexts and it's not really that it isnt our business in other contexts. It's just that we don't care in other contexts because it's irrelevant.

Another situation it is relevant, besides mating, is in sports.

What determines someone to be a man or a woman? — Michael

Biological sex is based on a combination of traits:

- chromosomes (in humans, XY is male, XX female)
- genitals (penis vs. vagina)
- gonads (testes vs. ovaries)
- hormones (males have higher relative levels of testosterone than women, while women have higher levels of estrogen)
- secondary sex characteristics that aren’t connected with the reproductive system but distinguish the sexes, and usually appear at puberty (breasts, facial hair, size of larynx, subcutaneous fat, etc.)

Using genitals and gonads alone, more than 99.9% of people fall into two non-overlapping classes—male and female—and the other traits almost always occur with these. If you did a principal components analysis using the combination of all five traits, you’d find two widely separated clusters with very few people in between. Those clusters are biological realities, just as horses and donkeys are biological realities, even though they can produce hybrids (sterile mules) that fall morphologically in between. — Harry Hindu

When pronouns, "he" and " her" are a reference to one's sex, not gender - whatever that is if it's not the same as sex.

The rules we abide by for having the sexes behave a certain way is so that we can identify the sexes in a society where it is a rule that you wear clothes in public.

I have read many papers on the topic, but none of them address the question I asked you. If you could direct me to some paper that does, I'd be grateful.

Even with that said, it seems like you're missing my point or are a p-zombie.

1. If you dont experience other people's mental states then how do you know about them? What form does your knowledge of other people's mental states take?

2. I am not confined to my experience of my brain. Like I said, I don't experience my brain. I experience a sensory model of the world. I experience brains when looking at other people's mental states.

Maybe it would help if you define "experience".

That you are paying undue attention to the contents of other folk's underwear is terse, but right on point. It's not your business. — Banno

It is our business when asking someone out on a date. Straights, lesbians and gays each deserve the right to know what sex they're bringing home with them. If we didn't live in a society where it was law to wear clothes, it wouldn't be an issue.

All states, short of illnesses of certain types, are produced by the brain. Mental states are a result of neural activity in association with chemicals that are part of the intrinsic function of the brain. — Garrett Travers

You seem to be talking about causation where the brain causes mental states. How exactly does a physical brain produce the mental state of visual depth? When I view the world, I don't experience the neural signals and chemical interactions inside of my brain that I see when looking at other people's mental states. I experience a sensory model of the world. So any good theory needs to explain how it is that I experience my mental states so differently than I experience other people's mental states (as brains).

How do I know that I can't comprehend God? — Zebeden

Because "God", the word, hasn't been defined in a consistent and objective way. Many people use the scribble, "God", to point to many different things. When the way one comprehends "God" is dependent primarily upon how and where you were raised, then asking others that were raised differently to comprehend "God" the way you do would be a futile endeavor. You might as well just keep it to yourself or join a group (religion) that comprehends "God" the way you do (preach to the choir).

Propositions are existentially dependent upon naming and descriptive practices. The same is not true of all belief. — creativesoul

What is naming and descriptive practices if not the use of symbols to refer to things that are not symbols (or else you'd have an infinite regress of readers never getting at what you're naming and describing)‽

What is the redness and shape of the apple if not a description of how ripe the apple is and its location relative to you?

Just as scribbles are not the thing they are about, colors and shapes in the mind are not what the thing being observed is (naive vs indirect realism; observation vs thing being observed; map vs territory). Maps are propositions about the territory made with lines and shapes, no different than if you just typed scribbles (lines and shapes) describing objects and their location in the territory.

It seems contradictory to assert that black scribbles mean things, but red apples don't mean anything. So a red apple is just as propositional and descriptive as a string of black scribbles.

Beliefs are dependent upon observations as a preliminary justification for some belief.

The third: Reality can not make mistakes. The concept of a mistake does not exist within reality, it only exists within human perspective. In order for a mistake to be made there must first be an agreed upon correct outcome to an event, and considering that reality (Meaning the world in which we exist) exists outside of human consciousness and it's ability to assign correct and incorrect, this would mean that any event that happens within reality is not a mistake. — vanzhandz

This is pretty much what I've thought and proposed on this forum too. When people claim that life or humans are an "accident", they are asserting that the universe has goals and the existence of life or humans weren't part of its goals.

To me this is just a complicated way of saying that by creating meaning for the decisions you make in life you are doing exactly what a human meant to do. — vanzhandz

But what do you mean by "meaning"? How can meaning be created as an illusion or as something real and does the distinction make sense? Humans create all sorts of things and even meaning as an illusion has causal power. It makes humans do things and create things in reality which means that meaning is just as real as everything else. If humans and there minds are part of reality, then meaning is part of reality.

Personally, I think meaning, as a relationship between cause and effect, is something apprehended, and not created, by minds.

Hypocrisy is our collective default state. — Bitter Crank

Only in 1984. Hopefully we will never come to that, but it appears that is where we are headed.

We could have an Asian trans-gender person; we could have an indigenous gay person, we could have a pissed off incel of whatever extraction. One barrier to having these types is that the supremes are usually selected from the cohort of experienced federal judges. There are not many Asian trans-gender, gay indigenous, pissed off Incel judges to start with, even fewer who are experienced. Maybe n=zero in that category.

Hence, have patience.

But were I appointing judges, I would not start with a transgendered person. The status of "transgender" is too unsettled at this point. — Bitter Crank

Fair points made on the trans- options, but ....

If you want someone sensitive to the issues inherent in cases concerning race and gender, a black woman would be the best person. — Bitter Crank

I was specifically asking why, if there were available Asian trans-women as viable options, why a black woman is the best person as someone that is sensitive to the issues inherent in cases concerning race or gender. You made it sound as if black women hold some special vantage point on the matter. But if you're saying that blacks are the only minority that we a viable pool to choose from then that makes more sense.

Saying that the Holocaust was not about racism, but man's inhumanity to man, is a relatively 'weak' statement, but not false. The Nazis were racist, but they used the term in a somewhat different way than it is used contemporarily. Up to the earlier part of the 20th century, some people still used race the way we use 'ethnicity', so the race of Frenchmen, the race of jews, the race of Englishmen, the race of Slavs. The term 'race' also distinguished between Africans, Asians, Europeans, and Indigenous Americans, which is its primary meaning now.

The holocaust is the example par excellence of inhumanity, and goes downhill from there.

What makes Whoopi Goldberg's statement relatively weak, is that 'man's inhumanity to man' is used to describe everything from really, really rude behavior to acts which are an abomination (like the holocaust was). — Bitter Crank

Well said.

I thought that she would bring up the question of whether being a Jew is religious or a race. This could have then opened up a conversation on the topic. In Whoopie's apology she effectively said that Jews are a race because the Nazis said so. The Nazis said that Aryan is a race, too. I didn't know that we were suppose to take something as true because the Nazis said so.

So Whoopie was suspended for questioning something the Nazis said. I didn't know that the producers on the View were Nazi sympathizers.

I have no love for Whoopie because she often has no clue what she's saying or how to defend it properly. I do have a love for her right to talk herself into a hole, though.

In any discussion of the mind the concept of dualism is unavoidable, as you say yourself: "We all know that the world has an effect on the mind and the mind affects the world", instantly setting up a dualism between the world and the mind. — RussellA

My point was that the mind is no different than everything else in that everything is both the effect of causes and the cause of subsequent effects. The mind is not special or unique in this regard. What you described wouldn't be dualism as every thing (not just minds) has a causal relationship between it and the world (natural selection). So no, what I said is not dualism and you misinterpreted what I said.

The SEP article concludes with the line: "While it is true that eliminative materialism depends upon the development of a radical scientific theory of the mind, radical theorizing about the mind may itself rest upon our taking seriously the possibility that our common sense perspective may be profoundly mistaken" — RussellA

I can't disagree here. It's not my position to deny the existence of mind or world. I just think that the way we understand the relationship between them is "profoundly mistaken".

When observing an apple, our mental representation of the apple must always be incomplete, in that we may only be looking at one or two sides, we may not be looking inside the apple, we may not be smelling the apple, etc. As our representation must inevitable always be incomplete, we can never represent the apple as you say "as it is".

The fact that any representation can never be complete does not mean that such representation is radically wrong, all we need is that such a representation is "good enough" for our present purposes. — RussellA

That's the thing though - is skepticism about what something is as opposed to how useful it is for our purposes warranted? Since we have different senses informing us of the same thing (the smell, taste and color of the apple informs us that it is ripe), is there anything else to an apple other than its ripeness? Why wouldn't our different senses inform us of other aspects of the apple if there were any? It seems to me that perceiving things more as how they actually are would provide an evolutionary advantage.

Between two objects in the world A and B we observe a spatial relationship - object A is to the right of object B. Because we observe a spatial relationship between A and B, it does not follow that in the world there is a something that exists between objects A and B independent of and in addition to the space between them, a thing called a "spatial relation" which exists as much as objects A and B.

Similarly, between two objects in the world A and B we observe a causal relationship - object A hits a stationary object B and object B moves. Because we observe a causal relationship between A and B, it does not follow that in the world there is a something that exists between objects A and B independent of and in addition to the interaction between them, a thing called a "causal relation" which exists as much as objects A and B. — RussellA

If these relations did not exist ontologically, then what reason would there be for us perceiving them?

I think that you are confusing the spatial relation as it is in the world with how it is perceived. If I were standing on the other side of A and B I would say that A is to the left of B. We wouldn't be disagreeing if we both understood that what we are talking about is our observation of the spatial relation, not just the spatial relation. Parallax is a concept in science that seems to account for the existence of observers and their locations in space in relation to the objects being observed. We are able to pinpoint the location of objects by incorporating different viewpoints in space, and in accounting for the location of the viewpoints and then canceling them out, we are able to more accurately measure the distance between one object and another.

Why would we observe a causal relation if it isn't there ontologically in some form? I think that you may be confusing the map with the territory here.

For us to apply our reasoning and judgements, it is sufficient that spatial and causal relationships exist in our mind — RussellA

What is the relation between other minds if they are separate?

To deny that relations have an ontological existence in the external world is not to deny that time, space, matter and forces don't exist. Why should the existence of an object in the external world depend on its being in an ontological relationship with something else ? — RussellA

Time, space, matter and forces are the quantified mental representations of the analog relations that exist ontologically. What something is is a relationship between prior causes and what it effects. That's what your mind is, too - an accumulation of long-term memories and a working memory model of the world as it was a fraction of a second ago.

Being an Indirect Realist, I believe the external world exists, but I don't know for certain. Isn't everyone a solipsist to some degree ? — RussellA

Not me. Why would a solipsist have experiences of an "external" world if one didn't exist? How could that happen?

If the mind and everything else, such as a table, are the same type of thing, are tables conscious ? — RussellA

No, they are relations.

I assume because my mind is conscious, but my stomach isn't. — RussellA

What does that mean - "conscious"?

Yes, as you say, "you can feel all sides of the apple even though you can't see all sides of the apple".

Because you cannot see the relationships on all sides of the apple, yet can feel the relationships on all sides of the apple, these missing relations must have originated in the mind, not the world. — RussellA

No, it's because you're using different sensory organs to apprehend the relationship. This is confusing the map (the way something is apprehended) with the territory (what is apprehended). Both senses are informing you of the same thing - the shape of the apple, not different things. How they are apprehended is different, but they refer to the same thing as both confirm what the other is showing to be the case.

I don't know for certain that proto-consciousness is fundamental in the world, and even if it is, it is still beyond my understanding, but it is the least implausible explanation that I have come across.

Yes, it would follow that if I believed in panpsychism this would lead me to concluding that relations ontologically exist in the external world, which is why I tend to protopanpsychism which doesn't require such a conclusion. — RussellA

None of this explains what "consciousness" or "proto-consciousness" is.

A white man identifying as a black woman? Cute. — TiredThinker

I don't think "cute" is the appropriate term here. "Insane" works me.

Why not an Asian trans-gender woman?
— Harry Hindu

Because she is a man, and has no insight into the plight of the North American Black peoples.

I mean she might have SOME insight, but no insight resulting from personal experience. That makes a HUGE difference. — god must be atheist

I can't tell if you're being silly or serious. At least you didn't butcher my question like Bitter did.

Why not an Asian
— Harry Hindu

All I good time. Have patience. — Bitter Crank

That's not what I asked nor does your reply answer my question as I stated it before you butchered it in your quoting of me.

But this is typical of how politics warps the mind in the same way that religion does. It turns it's constituents into hypocrites.

That'd be the last nail in the coffin of eliminativism, a most bizarre fancy... :-) Well done! — Olivier5

Yes, I should have written: "relations do exist, but in the mind, not in the external world". I agree that the mind is part of the world, having evolved in synergy with the world, possibly over a period of 800 million years. — RussellA

I figured that is what you would respond with but other minds are just as external to mine as tables and and trees are. I don't like using terms like "external" and "internal" because it seems to divide the world into two (dualism) unnecessarily. We all know that the world has an effect on the mind and the mind affects the world.

Steve French is misusing the term eliminativism (it seems to me).
Steve French relates eliminativism to objects in the world, such as tables. However, in philosophy, eliminativism is a theory about the nature of the mind, not about the nature of the external world. — RussellA

Not neccessarily.
"In principle, anyone denying the existence of some type of thing is an eliminativist with regard to that type of thing. Thus, there have been a number of eliminativists about different aspects of human nature in the history of philosophy. For example, hard determinists like Holbach (1770) are eliminativists with regard to free will because they claim there is no dimension of human psychology that corresponds to our commonsense notion of freedom. Similarly, by denying that there is an ego or persisting subject of experience, Hume (1739) was arguably an eliminativist about the self. Reductive materialists can be viewed as eliminativists with respect to an immaterial soul."
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/#BriHis

Where do relations exist, if they do exist.
For me, there is a mysterious difference between the mind and "external world", in that, although I believe that relations don't have an ontological existence in the external world, I do believe that relations have an ontological existence in the mind. — RussellA

Then it seems that if the relations in our mind don't represent the world as it is then our understanding of the world is radically wrong.

If current conditions are not related to past conditions or to future conditions then causation (a type of relation) is false so all of our reasons for believing things would be wrong. There would be no justification for anything and the basis for ethics and politics would be false. There would be no ontological existence to perception as a relation between perceiver and perceived. In denying that relations have an ontological existence then you are implying that solipsism is the case.

Mind is a relationship that apprehends other relationships. In rejecting dualistic notions of reality, I believe that minds and everything else are the same type of thing, which I identify as relationships, processes, or information. I'm a kind of process philosopher.

How is the "internal" contents of ypur mind different than the internal contents of say, your stomach?

As regards the mind of the observer, I know that I am conscious. I know that I have a unity of consciousness, in that what I perceive is a single experience. John Raymond Smythies described the binding problem as "How is the representation of information built up in the neural networks that there is one single object 'out there' and not a mere collection of separate shapes, colours and movements? I can only conclude, from my personal experience, that relations do have an ontological existence in my mind, such that when I perceive an apple, I perceive the whole apple and not just a set of disparate parts.

IE, relations do exist, but in the mind, not in the external world. — RussellA

Visually, you only perceive one side of the apple. In visual perception, the world appears located relative to the eyes, but we know the world is not located relative to the eyes. The 'single object' of experience, as you put it, is an information model of the world relative to the body that incorporates data from all senses at once. This produces a kind of fault-tolerance where the data from one sense is used to confirm the data reported by another sense. Your friend that you are next to and talking to, visually, audibly, and tactilely appear in the same location. You can perceive the whole apple tactilely, but not visually. The shape of the apple tactilely (you can feel all sides of the apple even though you can't see all sides of the apple) coincides with the shape of the apple visually in rotating the apple around to view all the sides.

Reductionism and eliminativism
Slightly back-tracking, I am reductionist as regards the "external world" and non-eliminativist as regards the mind. I feel that I can justify my belief in being a reductionist as regards the external world, but the binding problem is my only justification for my belief in non-eliminativism as regards the mind. My understanding of the unity of consciousness is as much as a goldfish's understanding of the allegories in The Old Man and The Sea.

IE, I would still argue that being a reductionist as regards the external world is a justified true belief. — RussellA

This is a problem because other minds are external to yours.

How can the mind be part of the world
The question is how to equate being reductionist about the external world and non-eliminativist about the mind. My answer is panprotopsychism, in that a proto-consciousness is fundamental and ubiquitous in the world. This allows the mind to be part of the world, as well as allowing monism whilst avoiding the problems of dualism. Using an analogy (not an explanation), as the property of movement cannot be observed in a single permanent magnet, but only in a system of permanent magnets alongside each other, the property of consciousness cannot be observed in the physicalism of the external world, but only in a system of neurons having a particular arrangement within the brain.

IE, still keeping within physicalism and monism, the mind as a system has properties, such as consciousness, not observable in its individual parts, analogous to the property of movement in a system of permanent magnets not being observable in an individual permanent magnet, one of several examples of the weak emergence of new properties. — RussellA

Thinking of consciousness as a type of working memory where the dynamic states of the world can be represented. Without working memory, the world would appear as static images, like photographs vs. videos.

I don't know what a proto-consciousness would be like. I prefer to use the terms, "information" or "relations" as identifying the fundamental nature of reality. In asserting that proto-consciousness is fundamental in the world, and that relations only exist in the mind, are you not admitting that relations exist in the external world?

IE, relations do exist, but in the mind, not the world. — RussellA

Is not the mind part of the world?

If you want someone sensitive to the issues inherent in cases concerning race and gender, a black woman would be the best person. — Bitter Crank

Why not an Asian trans-gender woman?