Yes, that mapping works, but the process would be more like modeling your string of emojis after an interpretation that says "Dogs are Cute" - although it could be done this way too, I suppose. Furthermore, if that string of emojis were to actually express, say, that "all four-legged animals that bark are cute" in emojis, then we have pretty much successfully executed what I have described and can proceed with more mappings if we so desire.

I hate to frustrate you, but I'm just not following you here. Maybe eli5? — hypericin

Think Maw is just considering translation from an insufficient sample of text with known (incontrovertible) meaning.
— Nils Loc

But the core premise is that there is no meaning at all in the text. — hypericin

@Nils Loc basically has it. I am suggesting we use a string that is incontrovertible in meaning (yet meaningful independent of any meaning we might assign to the codex) to scaffold interpretations. To start, we would need to find a string that is both incontrovertible in meaning and can model the codex. By "model the codex" I mean for the string and the codex to exist such that they are arranged in an identical combination of characters (whatever they might actually look like or represent for each). Then, if this string is both incontrovertible in meaning and the content of a particular interpretation of the codex hinges on the content of this string being absolutely confirmed in reality, much like a common proposition might be considered to be true, then this interpretation is potentially making a coherent statement about reality by virtue of being both semantically and materially meaningful.

This would work because there is a sort of interface between the meaning of the string and that of the codex that gives an interpretation an indisputable meaning in a virtual sense. I don't know if that qualifies as real incontrovertibility, though.

so all that says is that, other than the guru, there can't be 2 non brown non blue eyed people. So? There can still be 1. — flannel jesus

It appears that that is the one possibility I left out, of course. And I doubt I could account for it with the approach I took. Whatever.

so can you phrase it better now? Because I still don't get what reasoning you're offering. — flannel jesus

Alright. If a brown-eyed islander reasons that it is true that they have neither brown nor blue eyes, and a blue-eyed islander also reasons in parallel that they have neither brown nor blue eyes, then from the point of view of a brown-eyed islander, there would be 98 brown-eyed islanders and one with non-blue or brown eyes and from the point of view of a blue-eyed islander there would be 98 blue-eyed islanders and one with non-blue or brown eyes. We know that this cannot be the case, however, because in the problem it is stipulated that both blue-eyed and brown-eyed islanders know that there are at least 99 islanders of each eye color.

Next: if there were two or more islanders that had neither blue nor brown eyes, then there would have to be 98 or less people with either brown or blue eyes instead of 99 (other than the guru), and any islander could see that that is not the case.
— ToothyMaw

I don't get this paragraph. There's a green eyed person, and everyone who doesn't have green eyes sees her. — flannel jesus

I'm only considering the reasoning of brown or blue-eyed people about potentially blue-eyed or brown-eyed people.

As such, what I'm saying there is that there would be a group of islanders that would be part of the whole but would also not have brown or blue eyes, which would mean there being less than 99 of either blue or brown (disregarding the guru). Any given brown-eyed person or blue-eyed person would see this is not true and rule out the corresponding possibility that there are at least two (relevant) islanders with non-brown or blue eyes. The guru doesn't really have to factor into this part, although I understand your concern. I could have phrased it better.

there's steps in there that you didn't really explain — flannel jesus

Like what? Maybe I can explain it. If you are confused about the discussion of possible considerations/deductions being measured against each other, it comes from this:

Any given brown-eyed person must consider that:

- They could be the 101st blue-eyed person
- They could have neither blue nor brown eyes
- They are the hundredth brown-eyed person

Any given blue-eyed person must consider that:

- They could be the hundredth blue-eyed person
- They are neither blue nor brown-eyed
- They are the 101st brown-eyed person — ToothyMaw

Is it really that crappy of a solution?

Here’s my solution:

From the point of view of any given blue-eyed person on the island they must be either the 101st brown-eyed person, the 100th blue-eyed person, or neither blue nor brown-eyed. From the point of view of any given brown-eyed person, they must be either the 100th blue-eyed or 101st brown-eyed person, or neither blue nor brown-eyed.

If any given islander realizes that it is actually a 100/100 split brown/blue (the guru not being included in that count) they will deduce that they must be either the 100th blue-eyed person or 100th brown-eyed person because they see 99 people with the eye color that corresponds to their own; they must be the hundredth for everything to add up. Therefore, everyone but the guru would leave the island on the first night.

I will now show why this is the ultimate outcome:

We can assume that everyone deduces everything in the first paragraph of this solution and thus they can check their own possible deductions/considerations against everything the other islanders could deduce. Any given brown-eyed person must consider that:

- They could be the 101st blue-eyed person
- They could have neither blue nor brown eyes
- They are the hundredth brown-eyed person

Any given blue-eyed person must consider that:

- They could be the hundredth blue-eyed person
- They are neither blue nor brown-eyed
- They are the 101st brown-eyed person

From here we check each possible deduction/consideration against the other: a given brown-eyed person cannot correctly reason themselves to be the 101st blue-eyed person if a blue-eyed person reasons that they are the hundredth blue-eyed person because, given the guru is not blue-eyed, that would add up to 202 people on the island. The same goes for the reverse. So those possibilities can be thrown out.

Next: if there were two or more islanders that had neither blue nor brown eyes, then there would have to be 98 or less people with either brown or blue eyes instead of 99 (other than the guru), and any islander could see that that is not the case.

We are then left with the possibility of a brown eyed-person reasoning that they are the 101st blue-eyed person or a blue-eyed person reasoning they are the 101st brown-eyed person while the other has neither blue nor brown eyes. Any given islander can see that this is clearly not the case because they are not seeing anyone with eyes that are not brown or blue (other than the guru).

Thus, we are left only with the possibility of it being a 100/100 split between brown and blue, and, deducing this, the islanders all leave on the first night and the guru stays behind. I guess forever.

"Incontrovertible" seems far from a rigorous, objective term. It is a "know it when I see it" kind of thing. At one end are completely coherent novels, or the musings of an alien Aristotle. At the other end is gibberish. But between them is a whole hazy spectrum of material that kind of makes sense, if you squint hard enough, make ample allowances for alien references and ways of thinking, and don't pay too much attention to all the contradictions. I suspect that something along these lines would be the best case scenario. Here, one person's "incontrovertible" is another's "horseshit". — hypericin

I came up with a semi-rigorous way of defining incontrovertibility: if a translation can be modeled by a one-dimensional string or series of strings that do have an incontrovertible meaning, and the linguistic content of the translation would be correct only in the case that the content of that one-dimensional string is 100% correct or realized, then it could be an incontrovertible interpretation. Other interpretations would have probabilities of being correct associated with the likelihood of the one-dimensional strings modelling them being correct or realized both generally and with reference to modeling the text itself in a coherent way.

The method behind finding these translations is beyond me.

So, to make it as clear as possible, that means that only an incontrovertible meaning has a 100% chance of being the correct meaning, and every other interpretation has a chance of being correct that aligns with a probability assigned according to how close it is to being incontrovertible.

I suppose the one that is most likely would have to be the one that gets the closest to being incontrovertible. Every meaning imposed on the codex could be measured against this standard - the limiting case. It would be like funneling everything towards a limit and seeing how close the interpretations get to that limit.

It would be kind of like stipulating: "only really big masses can balance this scale" and then measuring various masses on a scale until we find one that gets the closest to balancing the scale and then saying that that mass qualifies as being the closest to being really big.

That is to say that if we could, across the distribution of meanings the codex could take on, narrow down the likelihoods of certain interpretations over others, there is probably one that is most likely
— ToothyMaw

The likelihood of arriving at one meaning might be a consequence of how difficult it is to make the codex coherent though. If you had the set of all possible meanings, which might be numerically staggering, what exactly would help you to pick the "one that is most likely"? — Nils Loc

We could just do rote textual analysis by a reader, I guess. Although, that is hardly feasible given the potential multitudes of valid meanings, so I guess we would need some sort of efficient process or algorithm or something. I'll get back to you on that.

So yes, given enough time and computing power, a meaning can be imposed on the codex, I think.
— ToothyMaw

Couldn't it be possible that there are actually hundreds to billions of variations of meaning that can be imposed on the codex that satisfy the level of coherence hypericin/humanity is looking for. If this was known to be the likelihood, the meaning of any can be disputed within/against that set of all possibilities. What exactly makes the manufactured meaning of the text incontrovertible? Are we assuming only one meaning can fit the codex? — Nils Loc

Like I said in an earlier post:

I would say that any endeavor to interpret the text in a meaningful way probably has to assume that the codex could theoretically have a discoverable, incontrovertible meaning, even if it cannot possibly be truly identified - because it is the limiting case.

Thus, even if we cannot say there is definitely an incontrovertible meaning, I would say that we can approach it from a probabilistic standpoint that might get us close to virtual incontrovertibility. That is to say that if we could, across the distribution of meanings the codex could take on, narrow down the likelihoods of certain interpretations over others, there is probably one that is most likely, although I don't know to what degree, or what degree to which it would have to be the case to be considered the correct interpretation. — ToothyMaw

Humanity must assume that the codex has a single, incontrovertible meaning. What throws me off is when you say that we can start with a single string that can have that meaning. — hypericin

Where did I say that? I suppose that my method would, ideally, approach creating a single string of meaning if it were applied over and over again, but I don't think we start with that translation or that it would be absolutely incontrovertible. Furthermore, it could arise out of analysis of the coherence of various possible translations.

if there is a kernel of meaning insofar as a certain combination of the characters could have an incontrovertible meaning
— ToothyMaw

But what possible combination of characters could have an incontrovertible meaning, given that there is in fact no meaning at all to the codex? — hypericin

I see what you are saying, but I'm mostly laying out what conditions would be necessary for an interpretation to be incontrovertible; I'm not saying that that such a kernel of meaning exists without prosecution of the problem. Actually, to humanity, this kernel of meaning exists in a sense de facto, even if it must be doubted. Even further, I would say that any endeavor to interpret the text in a meaningful way probably has to assume that the codex could theoretically have a discoverable, incontrovertible meaning, even if it cannot possibly be truly identified - because it is the limiting case.

Thus, even if we cannot say there is definitely an incontrovertible meaning, I would say that we can approach it from a probabilistic standpoint that might get us close to virtual incontrovertibility. That is to say that if we could, across the distribution of meanings the codex could take on, narrow down the likelihoods of certain interpretations over others, there is probably one that is most likely, although I don't know to what degree, or what degree to which it would have to be the case to be considered the correct interpretation.

In theory, any medium with enough measurable variance can encode any message, with more variance needed to capture more complexity. — Count Timothy von Icarus

While I think that this is true, we are talking about imposing an incontrovertible meaning on this particular alien text. That means that out of the infinitude of possible messages a given text written in the (statistically simulated) alien language could convey, we have to limit our analysis (at least initially) to deriving a meaning for this one specifically. Or maybe we could use it as a basis for a more complex analysis, although I'm not entirely confident in the method I have proposed.

I don't follow what you are proposing. What is a "valid one dimensional strong of meaning"? — hypericin

By "one-dimensional string of meaning" that I mean a combination of characters that has a function or a meaning insofar as a one-dimensional string of characters can. That is, for example, things like lock combinations, a series of inputs into a particular algorithm, etc. In the context of the codex, valid one-dimensional strings of meaning would be those strings that model something more complex in terms of fragments from the codex (although imperfectly), and it's pretty open-ended what their function and meaning could be predicated on. However, since we are specifically concerned with the content of a written "language", they would be at least partially predicated on written content.

The thread isn't really about creating something indecipherable, but that's pretty cool, too.

Now, meaning already becomes quite constrained. There are only so many values we can assign to A and B such that the string makes sense (for instance, it might be instructions to enter a code to a lock where there are two options ). Now consider the codex. 512 pages of words appearing with some probability distribution, and phrases in some probability distribution. But with no underlying semantic content. By page 5 the constraints are already bad, by 512 they are crushing. Can ANY meaning at all be imposed on this thing? It it just not clear to me. — hypericin

Right. If we consider avenues of meaning corresponding to one-dimensional strings of information, such as what might unlock a certain combination lock, we can impose meaning somewhat easily on the codex - we just need a corresponding lock or something that will accept the codex as a raw input. However, since you suggest that the codex appears to be written in a language due to probabilistic distributions of characters and phrases, we are inclined to consider different meanings.

Indeed, this is what I proposed in my last comment: if there is a kernel of meaning insofar as a certain combination of the characters could have an incontrovertible meaning, then the kernel of meaning must manifest in the specific combination of characters and phrases we see in the codex. It being a one-dimensional combination/string would simplify this. But it would be incredibly unlikely that this raw input is useful, I think. Alternatively, we could consider it the way you have laid out - as a piece of written communication in a language, which is more difficult to parse.

Therefore, I think that if we could determine if when fragments from the codex are treated as one dimensional strings they derange in predictable patterns - that is to say they are only useful up to a point when tested for being a model for a more a more straightforward, transparent meaning - then we know that somewhere in there is a statement conveying meaning that subsumes the demands of the corresponding, meaningful one-dimensional string it is being tested to model up to that point.

Think of the combination ABBAB. If we were to say that ABBAB in alien characters means “always eat the pizza crust first, except on Wednesdays”, and ABBABA corresponds to an alphabetical combination lock’s code, they agree up to the last B in the truncated code. However, if “always eat the pizza crust first, except on Wednesdays and Thursdays” is then evaluated in alien characters because that is the fragment being considered from the codex, and it changes the actual string from ABBAB to ABBABC, then we know that there is disagreement between the lock’s code and the meaning of the sentence in words.

This allows us to guess at the meaning of fragments of the codex by logging the valid one-dimensional strings of meaning and then guessing at their potential meaning as written pieces of communication by substituting alien characters with (perhaps arbitrarily assigned) meanings until the agreement with those one-dimensional strings terminates and then repeat the process.

This would require a probabilistic character generator that could differentiate between and calculate both semi-correct but incomplete one-dimensional strings and phrases and fragments of written language, but I think that could be created given the work the Aliens put into the prank.

So yes, given enough time and computing power, a meaning can be imposed on the codex, I think.

Any interpretation at all is too permissive, only our alien expectations is too restrictive. What I am asking is, can a incontrovertible message be derived (and in doing so, likely a language)? — hypericin

It seems to me there must be a kernel of meaning, or perhaps some arbitrary carry-over from the aliens’ actual means of written expression, to the codex, for there to be some sort of incontrovertible message to be derived in the codex. That is to say, that across all possible combinations of the arbitrarily created, “meaningless” characters that could be created according to the potentially spurious linguistic rules, there is a particular kernel of meaning that needs to manifest in just the right combination of characters to create an incontrovertible message - the combination we see in the codex. From there we could perhaps extrapolate some sort of language? I’m not sure.

This kernel of meaning might not even originate with the creation of the codex, but rather be related to the openness of all the possible, valid combinations of the alien characters as a sort of commonly occurring connection arising from some emergent meta-rules.

The question is this: given enough time and computing power, can humanity eventually "discover" an interpretation that renders the text coherent? While in truth, inventing one out of whole cloth? Or will the text remain indecipherable forever? — hypericin

Are we talking about any interpretation at all? Or specifically one that would comport with what we might expect intelligent aliens (who have decided to communicate with us) to have to say to us?

I think there are small enough intervals of time such that nothing has changed in your brain to make you feel any different than the moment before. Even then, the argument would be that this is simply a new moment with a new you who is, in every consciously relevant way, the same as the old you. — flannel jesus

I mention it because if one were able to be fully transported within one of these intervals (such that identity is invariant or nothing happens in the brain), then we have a phenomenon distinct from the flow of change in identity due to it being "conventional and constructed" because identity considered as such is invariably related to the passage of time. Thus, I think we would have to consider whether or not being transported in itself would result in loss of identity in a way that common experience doesn't quite entail - even if we generally accept the idea of identity the two of you put forward.

I actually think there's an argument for consciousness NEVER being continuous, period. Like even just you, now, not being transported. There's an argument that the you that is experiencing the middle of this sentence now is a different you than the one experiencing the end of the sentence now. That continuity of experience is equally illusory in a way, all the time. — flannel jesus

We all go through an imperfect transporter, literally every moment of our lives. Your body is not physically identical to itself from one moment to another: it evolves continuously in time. And yet, we customarily consider our personal identity to be invariant, at least over reasonably short stretches of time. — SophistiCat

Both of you make really good points, but I'm not sure if the transporter issue is totally resolved by this. Do the two of you think that a shrunken down interval of time could exist such that the mental processes responsible for our continuity of identity could be totally invariant over that interval?

That occurred to me too, actually. Getting bonked on the head with a rock could be substituted for a transporter (for that part of the problem).

Today, yes, if someone has brain damage we can talk about the degree to which that person's personality and other attributes have been preserved. It's the same person, it's just arbitrary how much we consider that person to have the same qualities as before.

However, in the transporter scenario, there's a binary that we've introduced: either you've survived the process -- whether with brain damage or not -- or it's simply lights out. And there seems no basis for the universe to choose where to set such a line, nor for us to ever know where it is. It's not a refutation of the transporter working per se, it's just showing that there are a number of absurd entailments — Mijin

Okay, well I think this is different from your claims in the OP. I thought you were claiming that because the continuous measure X doesn't present a clear line at which one can be considered to have survived or not, we cannot set a line at which one can be considered to have survived at all.

Okay, tell me what you think is wrong with this answer just to make sure that we are on the same page: we might be able to introduce some sort of criteria for determining if someone could be considered to have survived based on the survival of brain function as a result of a certain X. If they pass a cognitive test at a certain X after being transported, then we can say that at that particular X, the person that was transported survived. Thus, it is no longer arbitrary (at least in terms of small differences in X not corresponding to meaningful differences in brain functioning) given we can determine how much someone must be the same after being transported to be considered to have survived.

I think that this resolves the question of drawing a line at which we can say someone survived transportation, even if it entails some amount of arbitrariness.

Now here's the problem: there has to be a line somewhere between transported or not. Because, while "degree of difference" might be a continuous measure, whether you survive or not is binary (surviving in a imperfect state still counts as surviving).
And it seems impossible, in principle, to ever know where that line is, as that line makes no measurable difference to objective reality. And it's also totally arbitrary in terms of physical laws; why would the universe decree that, say, X=12,371 means being transported with brain damage and X=12,372 means you just die at the source? — Mijin

I think that while X is a continuous measure, what is left of brain function after being transported doesn't physically function such that a difference of one missing atom will correspond to a meaningful difference in considering whether or not one has survived. That is to say that the brain probably functions in terms of structures and stuff that would exist at something like (potentially knowable) thresholds and not so much according to small changes in X. If one's brain functions could be determined after going through the transporter, even independently of knowing X, and they are more or less the same as they were before the transportation, then I'd say that they have "survived". You could, of course, ask at what capacity of one's original brain function one would need to be after being transported to be considered to have survived, and I would say we are on more solid ground with that than with worrying about a measure like X.

Sorry if that's kind of a boring answer to it.

Okay, then how would a body behave in the absence of this freely choosing soul?
— ToothyMaw

That's up to people who think we have souls to argue. But it stands to reason that they'd have to say bodies would do something different without souls - otherwise, souls wouldn't make a difference. — flannel jesus

So you don't think the existence of free will would matter if it were manifested by a soul? Really? Can a proponent of free will really ever point to the behavior of anyone and say for sure that that person's actions are different from what they would have been had they lacked free will?

Unless I'm mistaken, it is on you at this point to explain why free will wouldn't matter so long as it doesn't manifest in the form of matter not behaving like normal matter in the brain. Also: I don't actually think we have souls.

If we were to choose one course of action over another according to the will of said soul, would it truly be causing matter to behave in a way that it otherwise would not have?
— ToothyMaw

If it weren't, then it seems you could remove the soul and expect a person's body to behave the same way. — flannel jesus

Okay, then how would a body behave in the absence of this freely choosing soul? Is there a single pre-determined route we each would take through reality that our souls, if they existed, would allow us to deviate from? Or would one's path be a function of the existence of many possible choices, given one can choose from them freely? This possibility of matter behaving "otherwise" seems empty to me, as the only two scenarios we appear to be considering now would be that in one case we have free will, and in the other we do not. As an aside: do you think that if we had free will and it was taken away, our justifications for ideas of agency, for instance, should remain the same?

There's one way scientifically to discover souls exist, and that is to discover some significant physical behaviour inside of a brain that cannot be explained by matter behaving like normal matter. If all matter in the universe behaves like normal matter, then human behaviour by extension would have to be a consequence of matter behaving like matter.

The hypothesis that there's a soul, however, is the hypothesis (it seems to me) that some non matter "mind/soul" thing is reaching into the universe and changing something about the behaviour of matter, making it do one thing when it otherwise would have done another thing. — flannel jesus

That's really interesting, and I think you might be right. But let's say we have souls separate from the brain (a possibility suggested in the OP) that can still act on the brain, and that are endowed with the ability to select courses of action freely. If we were to choose one course of action over another according to the will of said soul, would it truly be causing matter to behave in a way that it otherwise would not have? I would say not necessarily, given multiple possible choices could have been freely made at a particular juncture.

However, if the very mechanism by which the soul acts on the brain in itself causes matter to not behave like matter as a means of effecting a soul's will - even given multiple choices could be made - then I think you would be correct.

Welcome to the forum, by the way.

If there is such a thing as a "soul," where did it come from? Did God or any other diety create it? — Null Noir

It seems to me the only way immaterial souls could be confirmed to exist for certain is if a revealed God has bequeathed us with them. Otherwise, we would have to discover the existence of souls with science or something, and that sounds unlikely, or least difficult, to me.

Question 2: If there is a "soul" inside your body, is it seperate from you or is it the same as you? In other words, who is in control of the body? Is it like a "Player vs. Vessel" situation as we see in the games created by Toby Fox (Undertale and Deltarune)? "Are you truly in control of yourself?" is the question I am trying to ask, I suppose. And let's say hypothetically, that Christianity is true, would that mean that You would go to Heaven, or "you," the soul? Since those are two separate things. — Null Noir

I feel like if God has given us souls, he would have worked some free will magic into it, even if we are not wholly, physically identified with said souls. That being said, there could be deterministic mechanisms in a soul, too, I think. Thus, the issue of whether or not one is truly in control of oneself goes deeper than just the question of the existence of souls and whether or not they encompass our entire being (that is to say, including the body). If Christianity were specifically right, then we should listen to the relevant theologians on the matter - and I am no theologian.

Question 3: If the soul is seperate from the body, why even bother to be a good person? You wouldn't even go to Heaven, your SOUL would. Would you even bother to be a good person? — Null Noir

God could just load our souls with our entire psychological being seamlessly upon death and, given he has given us the ability to choose freely according to our wills, the choices we make would indeed matter in terms of avoiding hell. Honestly, this would be a trifle for an omnipotent God.

Question 4: If the soul and the body are one and the same, how would that even work? Is it something akin to "you are the soul piloting a human body" type situation, like some spiritual people say? — Null Noir

I suppose so, but that seems to imply that the soul is physically housed in, or connected to, the body or brain in some way.

I think a common traditional mistake of both proponents and critics of the idea of AGI, is the Cartesian presumption that humans are closed systems of meaning with concrete boundaries; they have both tended to presume that the concept of "meaningful" human behaviour is reducible to the idea of a killer algorithm passing some sort of a priori definable universal test, such as a Turing test, where their disagreement is centered around whether any algorithm can pass such a test rather than whether or not this conception of intelligence is valid. — sime

Given that we know the Turing Test, for example, only measures a subset of both human and intelligent behavior, I don't think anyone (here) is saying that there is some sort of a priori "universal" test that requires the complete distillation of the breadth of human behavior and the ways we create meaning in the form of an algorithm for said algorithm to pass such a test. As such, we wouldn't be testing for "meaningful" human behavior - what you say is equated to a killer algorithm - but rather behavior that humans are likely to engage in that is considered intelligent, which could be organized according to a factual criterion. Passing just shows that the machine or algorithm can exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to that of a human, not that it is equivalent to a human in all of the cognitive capacities that might inform behavior. That's it. We can have a robust idea of intelligence and what constitutes meaningful behavior and still find a use for something like the Turing Test.

The example of attempting to prevent a sickness from spreading by decapitating kittens, while perhaps valid with respect to the proposition that all kittens should be decapitated, has no parallel among phrenologists, for example; to be a phrenologist is to engage in harmful, pseudoscientific bullshit for the purposes of rationalizing white on black racism no matter how you cut it. No phrenologist has ever claimed that a certain dimple or feature associated by the phrenologist with people of color somehow indicated some positive trait relative to the white man. This is to say that there are some positions that cannot be rationally or morally justified in a larger context by digging deeper into motives or whatever you might do in moving beyond the material position because there are only a few plausible reasons for adopting that position. In light of this, I don’t think that we need to litigate every single seemingly odious and/or controversial assertion or position to find out some sort of deeper, justified reasoning. Racists, for instance, are often stupid or misinformed and, quite predictably, parrot certain talking points, bits of pseudoscience, or misinformation/disinformation such that they can be easily identified. I don’t think you have refuted that some positions cannot be explained except by explicitly racist, bigoted, etc. reasoning or appeals to pseudoscience or other notable falsehoods, and, thus, sometimes one is justified in classifying someone merely based on their professed "material positions" - be that as a bigot or a misinformed person or both. So no, I don’t grant that we must always go beyond the material position - or at least not in the way you propose.

I mean, a material position, as you define it, could carry just about any content, as the only condition you seem to put on it is that it is a proposition that one adheres to. It could contain an entire antisemitic conspiracy theory of whatever variety one might imagine - if that is what someone is putting out there. We don’t need to go beyond such a statement to justify writing them off as an antisemite, as they are saying something explicitly antisemitic; at least some of the statements people are concerned with deeming evil put out there by other people are not nearly as opaque as what KK says. I think that answers SQ1.

Overall, I think you are conflating people that can be dismissed with those that should not be on the basis that people should limit their use of moral language when faced with a certain amount of uncertainty - which is somewhat reasonable. My problem with that is that you have not addressed anything about the relevant thresholds for dismissal or the specific cases in which the material position implies or explicitly states bigotry or something else morally undesirable.

When one side condones or mitigates the deliberate murder of innocents, I tune out and ignore them.
— BitconnectCarlos

Okay, but why? The OP is asking, "Why?"

If someone is downplaying or supporting the intentional targeting of civilians, that person is wicked.
— BitconnectCarlos

Okay, but why should wicked people be tuned out and ignored? Is it supposed to be self-evident, such that no real explanation is possible? — Leontiskos

Isn't that it is recognized as a war crime enough? Aren't war crimes pretty much as universally understood to be bad as anything else? Are you saying we need to provide moral facts in support of our stances such that we believe we can justifiably dismiss terrorists? If that is the case, then I'm not sure anyone can dismiss anyone on any grounds.

I'm going to keep going.

Beyond mythology, perhaps this could be interpreted in a purely physical sense, as the difference between determinism and freedom. — Arcane Sandwich

This post is directed at compatibilists mostly. When I use the term "free" in the following post, I just mean being able to do as one wishes uninfluenced by external factors. I am not making a metaphysical claim about libertarian free will in the premises of the following argument unless stated otherwise.

Taking into account my last post: if one positions at one end of a continuum “totally free” (metaphysical libertarianism) and the other “determined” (determinism), then we might have a way of measuring whether or not all of our actions, when summed, represent a value corresponding to having sufficiently free will. That is, if one grants that the sum of all of one’s decisions is either more or less determined, or more or less free, and that every action carries with it a degree of either freeness or that of being determined. Thus, if we would just agree on a bounded region on the continuum corresponding to having sufficiently free will, we could measure if people can be considered to have free will.

The application of this system would need informing from neuroscience and other sciences; there would be factors like “belief” to take into account - which, if sufficiently entrenched independently of one’s will, might be considered to determine actions in the way that being physically coerced might (although I could be wrong on that). There would also be clear applications of psychology, sociology, etc.

But the point is this: if we all agree on what level of determinedness or freeness constitutes having free will, we can, through science and an application of an alignment system, measure it. That is to say, this could resolve the issue of free will if those who believe in it would just agree on a region on the continuum that constitutes enough of a lack of determinedness of our actions such as to constitute having free will.

No apology required, friend. I afford you every right every right to call me dense, naive, or whatever else suits your fancy. I guess we can postpone the conversation until other people can handle it. — NOS4A2

Yeah, I'm sure you do, but having a right to do something doesn't make it a good thing to do. Thus, I apologized.

These are my thoughts on it:

I think we are justified in hypothesizing a continuum between lawful and chaotic, because many actions one might take in D&D could have values that reflect contributions to one's alignment that scale with the magnitude of the consequences of the actions or the degree to which the actions inherently represent one’s alignment. That just seems to suggest a continuum to me. But the existence of such a continuum requires some elaborating on if one desires to simply label a character "neutral" as it were:

If we do indeed surmise that there is a continuum between lawfulness and chaos, then it seems that there must be a bounded region on this continuum that consists of neutrality that the neutral character fits into through their actions. If that were not the case, we couldn’t always treat "neutral" as a discrete term describing a character when applying the system of alignment; a character would just be between lawful and chaotic and thus only more or less neutral. Furthermore, if we hypothesize that every action has a corresponding lawful or chaotic value, and the totality of one's actions is either more or less lawful or more or less chaotic, then on this continuum there must be an indicator delineating lawfulness from chaos for any given combination of actions (or so I think). Thus, we can sum these actions (lawfulness corresponding to positive values and chaos corresponding to negative, or vice versa) to represent a sort of neutrality value measured around the indicator. This neutrality value would have to exist within the bounded region representing neutrality on the continuum for the character in question to be truly metaphysically neutral.

Thus, if there is a continuum between, say, allowing one’s decisions to be totally controlled by strict ideology and not being controlled by ideology at all, and one were actually inclined to try to apply some sort of alignment system, there might be some calculable bounded region that corresponds to a happy middle ground we could label "neutral" or "reasonable" or something. This could apply to other things too. But I’ll just see what everyone thinks of what I just wrote before continuing.

No need to get so personal among total strangers. — Arcane Sandwich

Fair enough. Sorry, @NOS4A2. I could've said what I wanted to without the insults. I hope we can continue to be on good enough terms to have productive conversations still.

It isn't true that sacrificing someone's freedom can be justified for The Greater Good, and for two simples reasons. You do not know what The Greater Good is nor how to attain it. — NOS4A2

NOS, if we don't do what is necessary to protect the environment no one will even be around to enjoy the freedoms you claim to have in mind for humanity. Either we do what we have to, or no one has any freedoms. Should I say it in a different way? The Greater Good means doing what it takes to maintain a society that affords the people in it at least some freedoms, even if it means that some must be restricted.

You are being dense.

Furthermore, I don't see a fundamental difference between not allowing people to have bazookas and curtailing our freedoms in some small ways (such as imposing certain laws to reduce pollution) for the continuance of a society in which people are free to live comfortably. Why don't you argue for people to have the right to possess and shoot bazookas, NOS?

I want neither an Islamic nor environmentalist caliphate to govern my life, is what I'm saying. — NOS4A2

First off, that doesn't address the point I was making. Second, if you are not aware that your life is already governed in many ways by far more sinister and predatory entities than environmentalists, you are naive.

You speak of curtailing another's freedoms as if it's something you do every other Tuesday. Is this common behavior for you? Or is it a sort of fantasy you have? — NOS4A2

I'm going to forego the sardonic responses that come to mind when I read this.

Since you can both predict the end of our species and
provide the means to prevent it, what are the answers? — NOS4A2

That is at least partially an easy question to answer, but mostly irrelevant to our discussion. What I, some random person on a forum, thinks we ought to do, doesn't matter. What does matter is that it is true that sacrifices of freedom can be justified for the greater good. That is, if one isn't so conspiracy-minded that one believes that people who want to protect the environment are equivalent to Jihadis. Sure, the latent potential to control and transgress rights is there even with environmentalism, I guess, but it would be really dumb to think that those two groups - jihadis and environmentalists - are comparable in terms of their goals, the degree to which they (might) want to stifle freedoms, and how they would go about it. In fact, it would be moronic.

I’m not ok with the end of life on Earth. I just believe you’re more likely to bring it about before any of your bogeymen, and you’ll make our remaining time here more miserable while doing so. — NOS4A2

Okay, so let's unpack that. You appear to be saying that a worldwide Islamic caliphate is less likely to make life on Earth difficult to maintain than if we curtailed a few freedoms for everyone and protected the environment (that is, if the curtailment of freedoms were necessary to do so). Or you are saying that jihadis cause less destruction in pursuing their radical, violent agenda than people who want to protect the environment who might try to legislate some changes in the way we live. Or you could be saying both. You don't see any problems with either of those statements?

I prefer to let justice be done though the heavens fall, myself. — NOS4A2

Then you are okay with the end of organized life on Earth because you think no one has the right to transgress your rights unless you transgress theirs, and every person who has ever claimed to believe in a greater good is a swindler. Got it.

There are groups of people who have a lot of power that push for profits through the destruction of the environment to our detriment and without regard for suffering or the existential threat the destruction poses. It seems to me that the corporations, billionaires, and lobbyists in question are transgressing our rights to maintain our ways of living. If that is true, are we not justified in resisting forcefully?

edit: by forceful I mean taking preventative measures that might include restricting freedoms - economic or personal. I don't mean violence.