Police may be more prone to shooting black men and boys, compared to whites of the same, because of the perceived degree of threat that police officers have of black men and boys, and not because the officers are racist. It would be responsible for police officers to be aware of their biases and deal with them as best they can. — praxis

I don't see how this makes any difference. My response would be the same. Why would it not be responsible for black men and boys to be aware of their biases against cops?

Then how about answering both questions as separate items?

That falls under the category error argument I made. The only time that I see race being a factor in making a decision would be in a medical or biological context.

(1) Harryhindu posts in a thread regarding a prejudice or systemic injustice.
(2) Harryhindu attacks all narratives which affirm the relevance of the prejudice and the existence of systemic injustice by trying to beat them at their own game: the people highlighting said prejudice or systemic injustice are the real prejudiced people.

Move along people, move along. — fdrake

Then define "prejudiced".

Police may be more prone to shooting black men and boys, compared to whites of the same, because of the perceived degree of threat they have of them and not because the officers are racist. It would be responsible for police officers to be aware of their biases and deal with them as best they can. — praxis

So you're saying it's okay to view police as a perceived threat, but not to view someone being belligerent and refusing to obey orders (because they have this preconceived notion that police are a threat (and the orders are meant to keep both of them safe because the police officer is walking into a situation that he has no knowledge of who you are)) as a perceived threat? :brow:

You're the one not seeing things in an objective manner.

Class privilege denotes an individual or community member of the first (i.e. highest) quintile of net worth/income being free of the fear and/or adverse consequences (i.e. historically accumulated legacies) of (1) economic exploitation and (2) social discrimination. — 180 Proof

How about some real-life (no dragons or fairies) examples for once?

Racial-Color privilege - e.g. "white privilege" in rich western liberal republics - denotes an individual or community member of the prevailing racial color/ethnolinguistic majority being free of the fear and/or adverse consequences (i.e. historically accumulated legacies) of (1) racial color-profiling, policing & prosecution and (2) social de jure/de facto segregation & discrimination in housing, employment, education, healthcare, financial credit ... (i.e. public goods) — 180 Proof

Your solution is for the "prevailing racial color/ethnolinguistic" to experience (1) racial color-profiling, policing & prosecution and (2) social de jure/de facto segregation & discrimination in housing, employment, education, healthcare, financial credit ... (i.e. public goods) because you want employers, police, prosecution, etc. to give you special treatment as opposed to equal treatment, and when a certain group gets special treatment, then logically other groups are being treated unequally. Minorities are segregating themselves with BET, black colleges, etc.

My solution involves using logic. My solution involves recognizing our own biases and prejudices because we all have them, regardless of race, or economic background. It is only logical to recognize any biases you may have that aren't applicable to the decision you are making. In other words, it involves not making a category error - which is essentially what racism and sexism are. My solution involves ignoring race in situations where race isn't a logical factor. It is beholden upon all of us, not just the majority because there are members of the majority that aren't racist, to avoid making those category mistakes. Now, what percentage of the majority makes those category mistakes purposefully to say that it's systematic? Isn't that up to you to show?

Sure, insofar as other people are applying meaning to them. That would be independent of the meaning you're assigning. — Terrapin Station

So, how do I get at your meaning, if all I can get at is my own? If there are patterns of behavior that exist independent of, and prior to my application meaning, then isn't that saying those patterns are objective for anyone else to observe and come to the same conclusions? Why should it matter if the pattern of behavior is exhibited by a human being, ant, tree, planet, star or the entire universe?

Wtf? I'm asking you a question re why you'd think I'd not believe that there are objective processes. What's the answer to why you'd think I'd not believe that there are any objective processes?

Asking you a question isn't saying something. It's asking you a question. — Terrapin Station

Sure it is. Why would you ask the question if you didn't assume that I misinterpreted something you said?

Why would you even be concerned how I interpreted it? How do you know that how you interpreted my interpretation is accurate, if you only have your interpretation?

I explained this already. You didn't comment on it. — Terrapin Station

It's possible I missed it. Can you re-quote, please?

It's not literally the same. Again, I'm a nominalist. — Terrapin Station

It's either we're talking past each other when it comes to what we're pointing at when we say "the same", or "same" is meaningless.

Wait--Is there some reason to believe that I do not believe there are objective processes? — Terrapin Station

Wait, are you saying that your words have meaning independent of how I interpreted their meaning? Are you saying that I am wrong in how I interpreted the meaning of your words? How can that be if meaning is produced by how individuals think? I should be able to interpret your words how I mean them.

This is what we call a failure of communication, by the way. — Terrapin Station

Because you can't be consistent or acknowledge your inconsistencies. Failure to communicate would be the result of the world you think we live in. I'm asking how can we ever not fail to communicate given your claims.

If the information in the CDs is the same, then how is it that we would have different meanings for each CD? How would two people with the same information see things differently?

Because the whole gist of it is (subjective) experience. — Terrapin Station

How is it subjective when your experience is part of the world and is an effect and a cause of other things? What does that even mean to insert, "subjective" into this?

We don't have direct access to apples either. We are stuck in our own heads.

Through our senses (for input) and our motor skills (for output). — Terrapin Station

Both of which aren't conscious-like, so how does consciousness get input from the senses and produce output in our behavior?

First, literally, we must come to different meanings, because numerically distinct things can not be identical. That's just like saying that two copies of the "same" Beatles CD have to literally be different.

Like the copies of the Beatles CD, though, the meanings we come to could be as similar as those copies are. — Terrapin Station

LOL. How can there be a copy of anything? Doesn't that require an objective process? How can we even say that the copies are the similar? They are different CDs that contain the same information. So again, how does two separate entities acquire the same copy, and what does it even mean to say it is a copy if the meaning of "copy" and "difference" is up to the individual? Why would we agree that my CD is a copy of yours if meaning is different for both of us? You aren't addressing the important question of how different entities can acquire similar views of meaning if we are as different as you seem to imply. You actually seem to imply that we don't live in a shared world at all.

You can't literally type a meaning. You can only produce marks on a screen or paper or whatever. Those marks aren't literally meaning. They don't literally contain or encode etc. meaning, either. Meaning isn't a property that we can find in them. Meaning is a way that we think about them. — Terrapin Station

Then we would all come to different meanings. How is it that we don't? How do we communicate?

What purpose would anyone produce marks on screen for? Aren't the marks what you mean and could you mean anything without the idea preceding the act of producing marks on the screen?

If I were to ask what you mean, what would you do? Wouldn't you explain the relationship between your ideas and the scribbles - the way you used the scribbles, not someone else?

It depends on what you're referring to and how you're referring to it. The marks on the screen are objective, obviously. But they have no meaning objectively. You can refer to the marks on the screen as an explanation--that's a shorthand way of saying "These are the marks that I assign the sort of meaning to that I call an 'explanation'" — Terrapin Station

Sure they do have a objective meaning. You typed them, didn't you? If you didn't how did they get on the screen? So, the existence of your post means that you wrote it and submitted it. It also means that you understand English. Aren't your words a representation of your ideas in your head, and doesn't your ideas have causal power? The meaning of the scribbles is the relationship between the scribbles and the ideas in your head, which I assume aren't just more scribbles. Meaning is there, it just depends on where you look.

I just wrote: "if I were to give an explanation or definition (per what I consider that obviously)"

How would that be independent of anyone's view? — Terrapin Station

Where is your explanation or definition - only in your head, or is it out on the forum right now? When we point to your explanation, do we point to your head, or at the screen? Is the screen or your head existing independent of anyone's view of it?

If you correct people on what you said, you are implying that how you see things is correct and how others see them is wrong, which implies that there is a way things are independent of how others are thinking about it.

What makes you think you can correct others? What would that even mean?

I said that I actually didn't give an explanation or definition. — Terrapin Station

Right, you're saying what you did independent of what I thought you did. Is what you did really the case, independent of what I thought you did? It seems to me that you're correcting me - informing me of what really is the case, independent of anyone else's view. If you're not correcting me, then what are you doing - just letting us know what you think? So what? Why should I care what you think if what you think only works for you?

The actuality you provided wasn't in your head, it was on the forum. So you aren't supplying an explanation of what is in your head, but a state-of-affairs that exists on the forum - the actions that was an effect of what is in your head. So how can we talk about how each one of us sees things when we seem to agree on what we see and what we see produces effects in the real world that we can all talk about? What makes us agree if we have different views? How could anyone come to an agreement? Is it something about the world, or our views, and arent our views part of the world?

You're not thinking that I'm someone who says, "Everything is subjective" are you? — Terrapin Station

Did I say that, or use the word, "subjective" in my post that you replied to? Instead of putting words in my mouth, and wondering about things I didn't accuse you of, you should address the points and questions in my previous post.

I actually didn't give what I'd say is an explanation or definition etc. of either--I just mentioned a characteristic. I wouldn't say that a definition of "understanding" is at all a definition of "explanation" by the way. I'd agree that explanations have to involve understanding, though. — Terrapin Station

Now you are providing an actuality - what words mean independent of how anyone else interpreted what you said. You don't seem to realize that what you are saying is the way things are - either in your head, or outside of it. Is that really how things are in your head? In describing how things are in your head, you are explaining your understanding of how things are in your head. How do you know that you are right or wrong? How do you know that the scribbles on the screen actually represent what's in your head, and how would I know that?

Many libertarians (conservatives) — christian2017

:rofl:
Libertarians aren't conservatives. They are fiscally conservative, but socially liberal. That would be like someone saying, "Many libertarians (liberals)" because libertarians are socially liberal, while ignoring their other views that aren't liberal.

What a libertarian would want is for the government (whether it be a theocracy or authoritarian socialism) to get out of the decision between me and my employer about which days I can take off or not. If an employer wants to run their employees into the ground then they won't be able to keep their employees for very long, or be able to produce as well as employees that are able to take time off. It's a decision in which two consenting adults can come to, without someone coming in that has nothing to do with it, making decisions for us.

For example, if we could come up with a model that can faithfully simulate all natural phenomena, then that would satisfy the premise. — staticphoton

How would we ever know that we have simulated all natural phenomema?

It's a different question than asking if we could understand the model, isn't it?

Actually yes, because when the ideology starts from racism being central and an integral part how humans form social spheres, it is an inherent struggle. Equal treatment would be bad: it would just let those in power have all their 'white priviledge'. Equal treatment here is defined very narrowly. In my view this kind of reasoning don't make sense: on one hand you uphold something that you would want to destroy on the other hand. And then you get into the silly redefining of racism. It simply turns into a power game. — ssu

Equal treatment simply means treating people the same in a particular instance when the difference between people doesn't matter in that particular instance. It doesn't entail treating everyone the same all the time, in every instance. That would be illogical.

When you look at how structural discrimination is defined and the examples that are given, it's quite straight forward and easy to understand. It makes total sense. But when all these terms are used in the most excessive woke literature, all you get is a mush of confusion. And things get complicated. — ssu

Which examples were given? I can see what you're saying could happen in a unapologetic democracy, but the U.S. isn't an unapologetic democracy. It is a republic welfare state. Just look at how much money the U.S. spends on welfare programs compared to defense and law enforcement, and tell me where the structural discrimination is.

Another thing is that the other side only wants you to recognize race in particular instances that benefits them, not when it doesn't. Don't acknowledge race when a person is getting arrested, but we need to acknowledge race when hiring someone?

Another thing, these same people want minorities to be over-represented - as if they count for more than just 15% of the population, yet get their panties tied in a knot when the Electoral College over-represents states with low populations. :chin: This is an instance where they actually support a majority rule with the popular vote choosing a president! This is what seeing everything through the prism of politics and race does to you - it makes you inconsistent.

You’re beating up a strawman (180 judges that all white people are racist) to give the appearance of winning the debate?

I’ve recently taken an implicit association test on race and it showed some bias, but does this constitute racism? No, it’s just subconscious conditioning that I need to be aware of and deal with the best I can. I can also put effort into changing this conditioning in myself and in society. — praxis

It's not a strawman. I'm attacking 180's double-standard.
So, you're saying that prejudice exists in everyone? What about minorities? Do they have biases? If so, how do we determine who's bias is the problem in some situation like when a white cop interacts with a black person? Should cops be thinking about how the minority sees race and color as well - and about the minority's biases? Whose bias is the one causing the problem in this instance, when a minority black runs from a white cop because he thinks the cop is racist? How does he know the cop is racist? If I ran from a black cop, can I say that the black cop has the power and he's prejudiced, therefore he's racist? Does that make me prejudiced, or racist?

180 could have defended his statements himself. The fact that you're coming into our conversation near the end while disregarding everything else I have said, shows that you simply don't know what you're talking about.

No one treats everyone the same. We treat each other differently depending on many different conditions and circumstances. This includes mere appearance, histories, whatever subconscious cultural bias we may have, etc, etc.

To answer your question, yes. Treating everyone the same would indicate a lack of capacity to sense important differences among people and treat them accordingly. But I have to ask: why would anyone want to be disabled in this way, or rather, why would anyone be inclined to feign this lack of capacity? It's certainly not fair to treat everyone the same. Fairness can't be achieved by disregarding advantages and disadvantages. — praxis

This is a straw-man (since you don't seem to know what a real one looks like). Like I've said numerous times (that you somehow missed or are you cherry-picking), we should treat everyone the same when our differences don't matter. The only difference that matters when I'm being considered for a job is how qualified I am compared to the other applicants, not anything to do with my skin's color. Our differences in skin color comes in handy during medical or biological conversations. It's not about not acknowledging our differences at all. It is about acknowledging our differences when the differences really do matter, and not when they don't. People like you and 180 don't seem to understand that. Acknowledging differences in a case where the differences don't matter is a category error.

If "truth" is subjective then it seems logical to say 1. is the case. If there is no such thing as an "objective" truth, - only subjective ones, then your truth is understandable to you. If it's not understandable to you, then how can it be a "truth" for you? — Harry Hindu

I think this thread might be taking an unintended direction. I'm going to reword the premise of the OP:

If the blueprint of the universe was laid in front of humanity, would humanity be able to decipher and understand it.
#1: yes, we can figure it out.
#2: No, we are not evolved enough. maybe we never will be. — staticphoton

This doesn't make my statement invalid or off-topic. I'm asking clarification of what you mean by "understanding" and "figure it out".

Presumably an important part of consciousness is what things are like experientially to the bearer of the consciousness in question. — Terrapin Station

How is that an important part of consciousness? Important for what? What do we even mean by, "what things are like experientially to the bearer of the consciousness"? What is a bearer of consciousness and how can something be experientially to it? What does that even mean? I think we take many of these ideas and patterns of speaking for granted without really understanding what it is that we are saying.

So if we can't tackle that scientifically, we have a problem with devising scientific accounts of consciousness. We can just ignore it and not care about it, but then we're ignoring a big part of what we we're supposedly addressing. An alternate track--one that many have taken--is to try to deny that there is such a thing in the first place, or at least deny that it's any different than what things are like outside of consciousness. — Terrapin Station

The latter is what I would propose because if it's not the same, then how does consciousness and the world interact? What would the experience be about, and then how can things that aren't consciousness be about other things that aren't consciousness?

Yeah, on my view, understanding, and whether something counts as an explanation, are subjective--it depends on whether someone's curiosity, questions/issues, etc. have been satiated, and of course that depends on how they assign meaning, their experiences, their biases, and all sorts of things. — Terrapin Station

It seems to me that you are providing an objective explanation of what is "understanding" and "explanations" - one that is the case for everyone. So, is your explanation about explanations really how explanations are independent of my view of them, or do we each have our own view of what an explanation is? If so, then how can we even communicate?

Sometimes I've got to call ...

Bullshit. — 180 Proof

You forgot to call this one.

Paraphrasing the late great Albert Murray:

To fight dragons is heroic; to protest the existence of dragons is naïve. — 180 Proof

:rofl: If only we lived in a world where dragons actually did exist, or in a country where systematic racism did exist.

Likewise, to wit: Anti-racism, with critical force multiplier Anti-classism, is heroic; 'racial color-blindness' in the face of persistent (Class-privileging) Race/Color/Native-isms is naïve ("woke") at best, and at worst ... :fire: — 180 Proof

But you aren't practicing anti-racism. You are being racist to "fight" racism. So you're actually a bad guy that has deluded himself into believing he is the hero.

Power - Racial Prejudice = Racial Equality?
— Harry Hindu

Ok. I get it now, you're just trolling. Basta! — 180 Proof

Asking difficult questions isn't trolling.

It's underscoring a problem with developing a scientific account of mind. — Terrapin Station

Science is asking what the problem is. Again, what is what is useful in knowing what form the bat's consciousness takes? Are we trying to get at what the bat knows, or the form its knowledge takes, or what, and why?

1. There is nothing in the universe that can't be understood by human reasoning and logic. Even those problems for which we have not found solutions, we would be able to grasp and understand these solutions if they were somehow presented to us. Through logical thought and reasoning, there is nothing in the universe beyond the capacity of comprehension of the human mind.

2. There are aspects of the universe and its workings that are simply beyond the capability of human reasoning. We will continually formulate more sophisticated models to explain the universe, however if somehow the true universal laws were presented to us, it would be beyond our capability to decypher them. The fundamental workings of the universe will forever remain a mystery that the human mind is not capable of grasping. — staticphoton

I would like to know how we came to understand anything at all.

The first thing we need to clarify when we're answering this is just what is an explanation? Just what are the criteria for an explanation? Just what do explanations do? — Terrapin Station

It seems to me that an explanation is a declaration of understanding. What is "understanding"?




If "truth" is subjective then it seems logical to say 1. is the case. If there is no such thing as an "objective" truth, - only subjective ones, then your truth is understandable to you. If it's not understandable to you, then how can it be a "truth" for you?

The purpose is to underscore that if bats have conscious experiences--and presumably they do have some sorts of conscious experiences, then (a) those experiences are probably quite different from human conscious experiences (if for no other reason than they have some very different faculties than we do, such as an ability to employ echolocation with high precision during high-speed flight), and (b) it's not possible from a third-person perspective, a perspective which is the only one from which we can talk about bat consciousness (and bat brains if we're physicalists or "reductionists" as Nagel puts it in his paper), to know the properties of the conscious experiences of bats, from the bat's perspective, as the bat knows the same. — Terrapin Station

Right, but what is useful in knowing what form the bat's consciousness takes? Are we trying to get at what the bat knows, or the form its knowledge takes, or what, and why?

This ought to be evident, but some people simply are quite infatuated with the rhetoric that ignoring race simply means denial of racial problems and gives a veil to racism. It seems there's not much effort to understand your point here. — ssu

In other words, there are people that want special treatment, not equal treatment.

For what purpose should I notice one's skin color in a job interview? What does that tell me about how qualified for the job they are? As an employer, I am concerned about people's ability to do the job. What does skin color inform me about that? Nothing.

Now, if I wanted to know what kinds of diseases you might be more susceptible to, then your racial genetics will be useful to know.

Yes, Harry.
↪Harry Hindu That's right.

Now if you can put these ideas together in a coherent way,. you will have understood what we have been saying. — Banno

I did. The only coherent idea I get from your inconsistent posts is that you are inconsistent.

I have not claimed or implied anything about "genetics" anywhere on this thread. Read what I actually wrote to find out what I've said is "racist". As pointed out in a previous post, you only seem interested in responding to what you've read into what I wrote rather than to what I wrote - why is that, Harry? :shade: — 180 Proof

This is your first post in the thread:

In many public and most professional situations if one is a racial minority - member of an out-group or caste - one doesn't have the luxury of "racial color-blindness" because a racial minority's daily prospects, even life, more often than not depend on vigilance - one quickly, correctly, seeing how 'race & color' are seen (i.e. signified) by some members of the racial majority e.g. white cops (US) - and thereby conducting oneself accordingly. — 180 Proof

You're condoning the racial profiling of "white cops" as all possessing group-think - as if all white cops see race & color the same way - the way you do - because you are the one racially profiling people based on their "whiteness" - which is a genetic condition.

My working formula:
Prejudice (e.g. "racial"-color stereotypes/biases) +
Power (i.e. majority/over-Class) =
Racism (i.e. modes/strategies of discrimination against "racial" minority/under-Class) — 180 Proof

So,

Power - Racial Prejudice = Racial Equality?

Isn't that what we have now in the U.S. Isn't racial equality law? Where is the prejudice? I'm not saying that it doesn't exist. What I'm saying is that it doesn't exist on the scope that you claim it does - to the point where you get to be racist yourself and judge all whites - even those without power (and if you claim that then your formula becomes invalid) - as being racist. I actually don't see any instance where it is okay to be a hypocrite - to "fight" racism with racism.

I don't understand Nagel's question. Is he asking what it is to be the whole bat, or just it's brain, or what?
— Harry Hindu

The qualitative properties of the bat's experiences, from the bat's perspective. — Terrapin Station

What would be the point in asking such a question? What knowledge would we be getting that we couldn't acquire by thinking about it differently?

And why are we saying "what it's like" rather than "what it is" to be a bat? — Harry Hindu

Because they are different questions. The first is about consciousness, the second is about the definition of 'bat'. — bert1

I still don't see the need for the term, "like".
Then we should be saying "what it is to be a bat's consciousness" and "what it is to be a bat's body" which consciousness is just part of? Seems like an incoherent distinction to make.

This is the challenge to liberalism. In denying the significance of race, ethnicity, gender, disability, liberals deny aspects that are central to an individual's identity. — Banno

What is central to one's identity? Doesn't it differ from individual to individual? There are people who don't see their skin color as part of their identity - just as their eye color isn't part of their identity. Oh, and haven't you said that identities were social constructions, not something that an individuals can decide for themselves.... :roll: In your world, there is no such thing as an individual identity - only social ones.

Odd, that genetics is seen as relevant here. I guess it's a bias carried over from the predominance of Americans. — Banno

That's your's, unenlightened and 180's position - that genetics isn't just relevant, it's all that matters. You're saying ignoring genetics (skin color) is racist. I'm saying that we should be ignoring genetics - especially where genetics isn't a factor, or part of what it is that we are taking about. Genetics/race should have nothing to do with choosing someone for a job for instance, but you're saying it should - that I should choose someone for a job because they're black. Race/genetics should only be part of scientific conversations of biology and medicine.

Prove you have any intelligence. — unenlightened

Banno says so:

That's brilliant, Harry. So erudite. — Banno

(Even though it's the only thing Banno has gotten right in this thread)

I don't understand Nagel's question. Is he asking what it is to be the whole bat, or just it's brain, or what?

And why are we saying "what it's like" rather than "what it is" to be a bat?

Accuse me of being a racist and then tells me he loves me. That is essentially the logic you have displayed in this thread.

:roll:

It's not as I like. If it were we'd be having a reasonable conversation, but not having one is what you like.

but why ask me? You are accusing me of a bunch of stuff that I will not own. — Banno

I'm responding to things that you said in your posts. You don't own your posts?

You simply can't backup your claims with any real evidence or logic. It's just a bunch of nonsensical statements without any connection to reality.

Feel free to get reasonably run down by the band wagon of your choice. I like money because the nice people at Walmart collect it, and they give me stuff in exchange for it. People get killed because of their race rather often. That is a reasonable reason for taking it to be a real thing. That it has no basis in genetics is irrelevant. — unenlightened

BS. Prove that people get killed because of race often.

You're equating the frequency of people getting killed by race (and how do you know it's because of race, and what do you mean by "often"?) with the frequency that Walmart takes your money in exchange for stuff, which is just nonsensical. These are the arguments that you all are coming up with and it's pathetic. They're not even arguments. They're thinly veiled racist comments.

You go to jail if you if you take the stuff without giving Walmart money. You go to jail if you kill someone - anyone - regardless of race. What planet and/or what time did you come from?