You mean select arguments that are easy targets and dodge them when you're faced with evidence that opposes your world-view? — Pseudonym

Yes. You learn to expect that from Wayfarer.

Science isn't suppose to address what is moral. Morality is subjective. Science gets at the objective. Science can explain why we have morals, but it doesn't explain what is moral - other than it is subjective and related to our goals at any given moment which we can all share or not share at any given moment.

A particular wavelength of light enters the eye and is modeled by our mental activity (brain) as the color red.

We should also consider that the brain is not just a model, but a process itself.

Whenever we look deeper at things, we find that they are composed of the interaction of smaller things, like atoms are composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons. The brain is an interaction of neurons. Neurons are the interactions of molecules, and molecules the interaction of atoms, etc. It's all process.

You sound dangerously like this discussion is going to a rather transphobic direction, but anyway: — BlueBanana

Strange that it isn't consisered anorexia phobic when we tell an anorexic that they aren't fat.

You sound dangerously close to committing an ad hominem fallacy.

There is no phobia or dislike of trans people, anymore there is any phobia or dislike of anorexics. There is simply the desire to get at the root of the problem, just like we do with anorexia.

I don't think his claim was that he was ethnically a native american, but just culturally. — BlueBanana

He never made that distinction.

Whether one is obese is determined by physical facts, gender is not. — BlueBanana

I was talking about anorexia. It is a neurological condition where they believe that they are fat and that drives their behavior of forcing themselves to vomit and engaging in excessive exercise. This is no different than someone believing that they are a woman in a man's body and that drives their behavior dressing like one and performing sex changes.

In the natural world one's behavior is determined by one's sex. There exists sexual dimorphism throughout nature. And the differences in physiology lead to differences in Behavior. Because females in most species have to use the most time and energy to rear the young they are more choosy and picking their mates. Seahorse males are the ones that carry Young and become choosy when picking a mate.

It's about the sociocultural gender roles, or one's inner/subconscious or conscious desires to identify with a certain set of them even if one doesn't make the conscious decision to express those desires. — BlueBanana

It's about how you were raised most likely, as that can have serious consequences on your inner/subconscious or conscious desires to identify with a particular group.

How does a man even know what it is like to feel like a woman to say that they are actually a woman in a man's body, and vice versa?

Those are defined by her self-identity, by who she feels she is. — BlueBanana

Yes I agree that she realized that was who she is — Cavacava

Can't people be wrong in identifying themselves? Can't people misinterpret their mental states? I gave the example of the Italian-American believing that he was a Native American. Does their belief make them what they are, or does your physical relationship (his genetic relationship with his family) with others make you what you are?

What about anorexia? People with anorexia believe that they are overweight an engage in physical activities to counter that belief. We see anorexia as a disorder and treat it as such. How is this any different from someone that believes that they are a woman in a man's body?

What does it even mean to feel like a woman in a man's body? Are they saying that their soul is female and they are in a male body? Are we talking about souls being placed in the wrong body, a mental illness, or what? If we can't get at what it is that we are actually talking about, then we simply don't know what it is that we are talking about.

There also seems to be confusion between being transgender and transsexual. If someone engages in changing their physical body (hormone replacement, removing the penis, etc.), they are changing their sex, not their gender. If they don't change their body, rather they change the way they behave (like what they wear), then that would be transgender (changing behaviors as opposed to changing your body). So, Cavacava, your friend would be a transsexual, not a transgender, so your example doesn't apply to gender.

I am also not sure if Bohr meant indirect observation as well. If I were forced to guess I would bet he was thinking in terms of Schrodinger's Cat as in making a direct observation as to whether the cat is alive or dead which cannot be done unless you make a direct observation That is why I used the word "directly". — MTravers

Why would it be an either/or with the cat being either dead or alive? Why would the "cat" not exist in an infinite number of states until we look at it? Why could it not change into a dog inside the box when we look at it?

There must be some universal determining factor that precedes our observations.

Ok, explain your thoughts. — BlueBanana

You would have thought that he would have done so by now, if he really could. :wink:

I have found that many people on these forums tend to engage in ad hominem attacks and/or become more and more vague when they realize that what they've been saying is just wrong.

You need to learn how to use words to express what you mean in a coherent way.

Then you need to learn how to use metaphors. Why would you use a term that implies that you don't have choice as a metaphor for the sense that you do?

Okay, then there is no choice. Thank you.

So, transgenders have a choice in what they are, or the way they interpret what they are? It seems to me that society determines how they interpret what they are. Are they mentally ill, or really a woman in a man's body (whatever that means)?. Do we seek medical help for them or reinforce their belief in being a woman in a man's body (whatever that means)?

No. The model is the brain. What you experience is a process - mental activity. When you look at others' mental activity, you experience a model of it, which is a brain. The brain does not create models. The brain itself is a model of mental activity. Mental activity creates the model of the brain and all of it's interconnecting neurons.

As I said the word 'Gender' has multiple senses. — Cavacava

I was responding to this line of yours:

We have no choice of biological state but we can choose social roles. — Cavacava

None of your multiple senses of "gender" can be chosen.

Scientism is about claiming that science is the answer to all our questions, a proposition that is palpable nonsense. The use of science should be restricted to scientific topics - LIKE climate change and the risks and benefits of vaccination. — andrewk

If you plan on actually answering all questions, each method of answering cannot contradict another. All knowledge must be integrated into a consistent whole. That whole would be science.

This reminds me of the "Crying Native American" PSA, where the Native American cries as a result of seeing pollution everywhere. The actor wasn't really a Native American, but an Italian-American and he never admitted that he was anything other than a Native American. He lived with them lived as one of them and took on their causes. Did that make him a Native American?

Well, that was the point in asking those questions.

Social roles are things like sons, daughters, students, teachers, etc. How can someone choose their social role when it is a physical relationship with others? How is gender a social role if it can't be chosen, rather it is a physical relationship?

Consciousness is not an illusion. It is a model - a representation.

This means what we see is a model of what is there.

This means that the brains we see are models of the mental processes "out there" - outside of the model. The model is the brain we see, not the real thing that the model represents. What a brain represents is mental processes. Everything is a process, not a thing, like a brain. Things are the models we experience.

Einstein should have asked Bohr how he can prove atoms exist because no one had ever seen an atom. We infer their existence by the effects they have on the things we do see.

We can prove the moon's existence without looking at it by pointing to the tides. What causes the tides on Earth, if not the moon?

To be honest, the impression I get from your posts, is that you have no understanding of philosophy as such. Everything you write is straight out of pop science. That’s why I don’t bother with most of your posts, a practice that I will forthwith return to. — Wayfarer

I understand philosophy all to well (at least the kind used here on these forums by many of the posters, like yourself and SX). It is the act of being artful with words, not a logical use of words.

But it is futile having these debates with you as you are only ever capable of looking through your spectacles, and never at them — Wayfarer

You'd think that me asking what reasoning is is asking what the spectacles are. What are the spectacles, Wayfarer?

I guess I’ll just have to live with that, Harry. — Wayfarer

That's your problem. You don't want to change or learn anything. You just want to keep beleiving what you believe.

What is learning? What learns? What does it mean to learn something useful as opposed to something not useful? What is useful knowledge as opposed to unuseful knowledge?

What else can perform faulty reasoning except organisms? What is faulty reasoning?

Your excuse in not answering the questions is pathetic. That is how you always take your way out of a question you just can't answer without being contradictory. Its getting old.

Computers are not organisms. I asked if they can reason. You are making up shit in order to avoid answering tough questions.

I have learned to not expect any meaningful answers to tough questions from you. I ask simply to show others that you can't answer them.

Any organism that is able to perceive its environment in more detail can use its energy more efficiently in finding ofood — Harry Hindu


Right - any organism. And that is a biological observation. It is not a justification of reason. Biology has nothing specific to say about that. — Wayfarer

What else can reason besides organisms? Computers?

What is reasoning?

So until Harry Hindu or someone else sets forth the alternatives that I haven't thought of... — unenlightened

Re-read my posts.

And the fact that the Universe did then develop in such a way to give rise to stars>matter>life, is the subject of the well-known anthropic cosmological argument. The fact that some physicists promote the idea of a 'multiverse' to avoid that very implication speaks volumes in my opinion. — Wayfarer

I don't know of any reputable physicists who claim that the universe purposely developed to give rise to life. Why isn't life everywhere, or any other place than Earth for that matter? Who knows what kind of varying and interesting molecular interactions there are throughout the universe over its history?

'Completing the metaphysical project' assumes that a biological intelligence, which has evolved as a consequence of adaptive necessity, is able to arrive at some general conception of truth or reason, which may be entirely unconnected with it. I don't see any scientific reason for that assumption. (As explored in an old essay by Tom Wolfe.) — Wayfarer

Was this a truth statement? If we can't get arrive at some general conception of truth or reason, then how is that you arrived at this idea that we can't? Your statement defeats itself.

It seems to me that survival would be the perfect catalyst for determining the truth (truth being the degree by which your model of the world is accurate). Any organism that is able to perceive its environment in more detail can use its energy more efficiently in finding food and mates.

Accordingly, I think I have only two options left; either some version of incarnation of soul from a spiritual realm, or some version of emergence from particular structures of matter and energy - so far at least, universally structures of living matter. — unenlightened

This is the either/or fallacy. There are more options. You are just ignoring them because they don't fit the presumptions you've made in this thread.

The theory of evolution seems to speak for the latter option, but my approach here is to leave that question open for the moment, and just look at what I can see and anyone can see, and try to describe it as carefully as I can. — unenlightened

Right. So we ignore certain facts in order to leave open a question that shouldn't be asked in the first place because it is nonsensical.

These senses of truth are not in contradiction, because they bear on different domains, or rather, they attempt to respond to different questions (It is an accurate description vs. Is the law otherwise than stated?). — StreetlightX

Right. So it comes down to asking the right questions to get the right explanation. Philosophy is rife with asking the wrong questions.

F=ma always works when trying to get at the relationship between force mass and acceleration. The formula is used in every NASA mission - most of which are successful. The letters are merely variables for numbers that change in every instance but the relationship always stays the same.

What is ironic is that the people making claims that laws and rules are untrue are themselves trying to establish laws and rules that are true by simply stating and objective facts as if they are true for everyone - that rules and laws are untrue.

Time for a quick recap. I started with an analogy of brain to mirror, and mind to reflected virtual image, thereby suggesting that looking for mind in the substance of brain is a bit like looking for the reflected image behind the mirror. Doomed to disappointment, that is. — unenlightened

You admit that there is a brain. Whose brain?
You admit that there is a mind. Whose mind? Where is it relative to other minds?

As I have said before, there is no image in the mirror when no one is looking at the mirror. There is just a reflective surface reflecting light. The image is only in the mind - formed as a representation of the reflected light. The image is the representation.

But here's a problem; I am not present to you. Everything I present to you in the previous paragraph is not me, but the model of me that forms part of the model of the world I am offering for you to use as you wish or chuck in the bin. So I am inscribing on this model, 'the model is not the world, the word is not the thing, I am not my post'. Lest I be accused of nonsense. — unenlightened

But the model is part of you. No one is saying that you are a post. You are a human being writing a post. Human beings have brains/minds. Brains are the model/representation of minds.

Because laws - natural or otherwise - are, at best, limits on action, they specify the bounds within which action takes place. While nothing can 'violate' the laws (this is what lends them their universality), there is no sense in which the laws are always applicable. — StreetlightX

Laws are models of the way things are. If there are limits in the laws, then that is a representation of the limits in nature.

The philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright explains this idea best: "Covering-law theorists tend to think that nature is well-regulated; in the extreme, that there is a law to cover every case. I do not. I imagine that natural objects are much like people in societies. Their behaviour is constrained by some specific laws and by a handful of general principles, but it is not determined in detail, even statistically. What happens on most occasions is dictated by no law at all.... God may have written just a few laws and grown tired." (Cartwright, How The Laws of Physics Lie). — StreetlightX

So people don't have any reason for what they do outside of some specific laws and a handful of general principles? Nonsense.

Their behavior is constrained by the shape and size of their body and the scope of their memory. What happens in every occasion is dictated by the causes that came before any said occasion. We just haven't explained every natural causal force and its related effect - so it can seem like there aren't any laws for certain occasions. We just haven't gotten around to explaining every causal relationship. Be patient.

if you hope that I live in a world of my own then you are hoping for your non-existence as a real person outside of my world. Are you a real person or only an imagined one?

Outside of yours - just like yours is to mine - which is to say in my head.

The question should be, if we are not in our heads then why does it appear that we are?

The imagined tree is, let's say for the moment, some compound of memory, language, concepts, stuff going on in the brain anyway, that does not directly relate to what's going on in the world, where I am sitting in my chair typing on the laptop. — unenlightened

More nonsense. Brains, and what they think about, are part of the world. Imagined trees can be a causal influence on the rest of the world as much as a real tree can have on the mind. From my perspective the contents of your brain/mind are just as external to me as the tree in the forest.

The contents of the mind are not reflections rather they are representations.

Well that is a common way of understanding things, that I am questioning. I am saying that there is no inner world, no mind in which images appear. 'Seeing an image' - tree reflected in water is more or less identical to 'seeing a tree' and these seeings occur not in the mind but out there in the world where the tree and the water are; they are what brains do. The mind is a virtual 'behind the mirror' world where nothing happens because it does not exist, just as nothing happens in the mirror world, it merely reflects the happening of the real world. — unenlightened

This is a great example of a "philosopher" who has let his imagination run away with him.

Seeing only occurs in a brain/mind. Not "out there". Seeing is the act of interpreting information in light. The interpreting doesn't happen until after the light enters the eye.

Seeing a reflection of a tree is not the same as seeing a tree. For one, the reflection is always in reverse. How is it that I can read your posts if our brain/minds were seeing everything in reverse? We make distinctions between reflections and non-reflections all the time. You're saying that everything is a reflection and we can't seem to make that distinction between a reflection and a non-reflection because all we experience is a reflection. If everything we experience is a reflection of the world, then what is it when we look in to a mirror?

If we're too ignorant to make choices in govt. then we are too ignorant to vote for others that do.

The only thing "out there" is light reflecting off of, or being absorbed by, various surfaces. The image in the mirror appears only in the mind. It is the mind's interpretation of the wavelengths of light that reaches its connecting eye that creates the image in the mind.

Why is it that when I move closer to the mirror, eventually the only thing I can see are my eyes looking back at me?

So a brain is somewhat like the polished surface of a mirror, and consciousness is like a reflection that appears to have its source inside one's head, but is not physically there, but physically out in the world. And whenever consciousness looks at consciousness, it creates a bizarre fractal complexity that it cannot get to the bottom of. — unenlightened

Where are other minds in relation to your mirror? Do we each have our own mirror?

I've used a similar analogy of a video camera looking back at the monitor it is connected to that creates a video feedback loop. Think of the video camera as one's attention, or focus. Whatever it looks at is what appears clear and focused on the monitor. When it looks back at the monitor - the contents of consciousness - you get a infinite regress of monitor images. In Douglass Hofstadter''s book, "I am a Strange Loop", he uses the same analogy.

No. Meaning resides in the relationship between cause and effect -which is to say that meaning can reside externally to minds. Minds merely try to get at and simulate that relationship in order to make predictions. What someone means when they write or speak, is what they intend to say. Other minds try to get at the intent (the cause) when reading or listening to their words (the effect).

Numbers exist because they can establish causal relationships. Numbers can cause us to do different things.

This reply is just one giant circular argument.

In the link that Michael provided on the first page of this thread - and that you agreed with - also explains exactly what it was I've been trying to tell you for several posts now. If you scroll down to the section, "Philosophical problems with material conditional", it explains how the implications aren't completely translatable to a native language.

Outside of mathematics, it is a matter of some controversy as to whether the truth function for material implication provides an adequate treatment of conditional statements in a natural language such as English, i.e., indicative conditionals and counterfactual conditionals. An indicative conditional is a sentence in the indicative mood with a conditional clause attached. A counterfactual conditional is a false-to-fact sentence in the subjunctive mood. That is to say, critics argue that in some non-mathematical cases, the truth value of a compound statement, "if p then q", is not adequately determined by the truth values of p and q. Examples of non-truth-functional statements include: "q because p", "p before q" and "it is possible that p" — Wikipedia

It is not surprising that a rigorously defined truth-functional operator does not correspond exactly to all notions of implication or otherwise expressed by 'if ... then ...' sentences in natural languages. For an overview of some of the various analyses, formal and informal, of conditionals, see the "References" section below. Relevance logic attempts to capture these alternate concepts of implication that material implication glosses over. — Wikipedia

Relevance logic, also called relevant logic, is a kind of non-classical logic requiring the antecedent and consequent of implications to be relevantly related. — Wikipedia

Your "research" seems to be cherry-picked.

If I were still in teaching and some arsehole told me to carry a gun, I'd tell them where to stick it. Militarising schools is not the solution to gun violence, less guns is. Someone please tell the children who run America that. — Baden

Less guns in schools actually is one of the problems. Gun-free zones are where these kinds of attacks take place, which is why you have to wait for the police (more guns) to show up to handle the problem.

I don't see you arguing for less guns in banks. Has there ever been a problem there? Then why would you think having armed guards in schools a problem? We don't arm the bank tellers and so I'm not agreeing with arming teachers. I'm just saying to have trained guards at schools.

Now, there are at least two ways to read the Constitution - or any document. — tim wood

There is one way to interpret the Constitution - by looking up the quotes of the founding fathers (the authors of the document) that relate to and explain their own reasoning behind the 2nd Amendment.

“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.” - George Washington First Annual Address, to both House of Congress, January 8, 1790

"I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787

"What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms."
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
- Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759