Of course. I did make that clear in there, the part about it not being specifically about me. I brought it down to a me you level, just to make it concrete. People often think as if they have a bird's eye view. But we don't, we're in situ. So, here I have someone saying we - note that, we - can't know anything about the OR. — Coben

My responses on this subject all come back to the same point - this is a metaphysical argument. It's not right or wrong, it's a question of which approach is most useful and productive in a particular situation. @Pattern-chaser' indicated we do not have access to OR. That, again, is a metaphysical statement. It's one I happen to agree with, by which I mean it find it the most useful way of thinking about things in situations where I am trying to understand the world.

But beyond that, here he is talking about OR based on whatever his epistemology is. He goes so far as to say they can't approach OR at all. How could one even state an opinion? How could one compare one model of the OR with any other. — Coben

Again - a metaphysical statement. Yes, exactly - it's "based on whatever his epistemology is." That's the point. At least that's my point.

Same problem. Mr. Baggott just talked about OR and said 'never'. This position is not consistant because it contains a model of the OR that he is happily using to say 'never'. No qualifying, no possibility that this model is incorrect. Perception subjects objects. That's the way things are. And implicit in this is 'no action at a distance' or 'no intermingling at a distance', iow that causes must move through media so all experience must be filtered and interpreted and indirect. — Coben

My interpretation of Baggott's opinion is that the "reality principle" as he's related it is the most useful and productive approach for scientists. Here's what he says"

Just because I can’t perceive or measure reality as it really is doesn’t mean that reality has ceased to exist. As American science-fiction writer Philip K. Dick once observed: ‘Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.’

And this is indeed the bargain we make. Although we don’t always openly acknowledge it upfront, ‘reality-in-itself’ is a metaphysical concept. The reality that we attempt to study is inherently an empirical reality deduced from our studies of the shadows. It is the reality of observation, measurement and perception, of things-as-they-appear and of things-as-they-are-measured. As German physicist Werner Heisenberg once claimed: ‘… we have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself but nature exposed to our method of questioning’.

In my own thinking, I take it a step further, although I'm not sure it really matters practically. I say objective reality doesn't exist. What's the difference between "X is a metaphysical concept" and "X doesn't really exist?" Not sure.

If an effect has multiple causes, as in the case of the flip of a coin. There can be multiple questions raised to examine the behavior. — Wittgenstein

If something is completely unpredictable, does it still make sense to say it is caused. Isn't cause inextricably tied up with prediction? It may be possible to model and predict a coin flip or build a machine that can flip a coin with near perfect uniformity, but how about 1,000 flips using 1,000 random coins flipped by 1,000 random people?

OK, it seems you are not denying causation, but instead you are emphasizing the impossibility of prediction except in the simplest mechanical cases. I would certainly agree with that! — Janus

I think you can see from my posts that I am uncertain about my footing on this issue, so I'm not sure if I am headed in your direction or not. It feels intuitively to me that in some, many, most? cases unraveling cause is not possible even in theory. It's not just a case of being ignorant. Part of that feeling is a conviction that sufficiently complex systems, even those that are theoretically "caused," could not be unraveled with the fastest supercomputer operating for the life of the universe. There is a point, isn't there, where "completely outside the scope of human possibility" turns into "not possible even in theory." Seems to me there is.

It's interesting that complex systems such as for example the weather may be more or less accurately modeled and reasonably reliable and accurate short terms predictions made; but that is only possible on account of being able to model systems on powerful computers. — Janus

That's a timely point. We're on vacation at the beach. The weather's been nice, but there have been a few days where the weather forecasts have been very inaccurate. That doesn't really undermine your point, but is "statistically deterministic" really what people mean when they say that something is caused?

I would agree with treating anyone how they like to be treated. I'm not sure why that entails believing them about their self-id. — Artemis

I agree with you at least to this extent - I think the whole transgender thing can be really dangerous to vulnerable young people. I met a girl - she was 16 at the time - who wanted to be treated as a boy. She was obsessed with manga and a specific male character. She also was extremely depressed - lost. She had serious psychological problems which her mother treated using Reiki and aromatherapy.

You would identify as a woman and want to be regarded as such, but not necessarily to live out the role of a woman in a negative sense. You would want to create a new way of life as a woman. — thewonder

That seems very unlikely to me. Intuitively I would think that a transgender woman would want very much to fit in with societal gender roles. That would sort of be the whole point. Again, I'm talking about something where I don't have much experience.

I'm not going to explain that being queer is not the same thing as being a homosexual again. — thewonder

So, given that definition, I'll restate the comment I was referring to:

People who reject current gender roles want to create new gender roles.

Seems more like they want there to be no gender roles which, as I said, ain't going to happen until eggs are fertilized in vitro and placed in artificial uteruses and then raised by non-gendered robots. It might be easiest if we get rid of all the men and fertilize the women's eggs using modified cells from other women.

Isn't that the real beef - it's heterosexual men who are the problem. Let's bad mouth them until we can come up with a final technological solution.

Well, her (eir?), declaration seems to be against that there are roles at all. — thewonder

Well, no matter what she declares, there are and likely always be gender roles. Men have penises that they put in women's vaginas. The man ejaculates into the woman's vagina and the sperm enters the woman's uterus where it ....Well, let's leave it at that. If you need more detail, I'm sure @Bitter Crank or @s can do a better job explaining it than I can.

I assume that most queer people want to create new gender roles. — thewonder

If by "queer" you mean "homosexual," this is not true at all in my experience. Perhaps others with more can shed light on this.

I'm sure that relationship that transgendered people have to their chosen sex is somewhat tenuous. I — thewonder

That also seems very unlikely to me. I have little specific knowledge and I'm interested in what more informed people will tell us.

all of the baggage of being female — thewonder

That, along with all the other baggage women carry and all the baggage men carry, is known as "life." That doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't try to make it more humane, but in the mean time, the solution is to suck it up. Which is kind of a masculine thing to say.

It seems I'm not understanding your thinking here; would you deny, for example, that influenza can be caused by a virus, or that if I jumped off a cliff and died my death could have been caused by impacting the ground? — Janus

The causation you write about is similar to what I wrote about in my previous post:

When I say that stuff happens, I mostly mean human scale stuff. That's what humans experience in their lives. So - the cue ball is hit toward the 5 ball, which hits the 8 ball, which then goes into the pocket. The player causes the cue ball to go toward the 5 ball which causes the 8 ball to go into the pocket. It's when you get away from such simple situations and scales that causation becomes less clear. — T Clark

As I said, it seems to me things get a lot less clear when we talk about more complex situations. I can flip a coin 1,000 times and the results will come out close to 50/50, but I can't predict exactly. That's probably caused by a lot of unknown factors which are difficult or impossible to predict. Of course there's the weight and balance of the coin and the geometry and force of my hand and thumb, but then there are lots of other factors like wind resistance, me hiccuping or sneezing, differences in the force of my thumb, etc. etc. The chain of causation is too complex to track and, seems to me it will ultimately become impossible even in theory. Many of the phenomena in the world behave under the same kind of probability systems except much more complex. There is also complex behavior related to chaos and complexity theories and emergence. In complex situations, very small or infinitesimal differences in actions lead to large differences in effects, i.e. the butterfly effect.

I don't even want to bring up uncertainty associated with quantum mechanics, since that seems different in kind than the others.

The notion of efficient causation is the idea of one thing directly acting upon another, it generally involves the concept of force. — Janus

When I talk about cause and the fact that I don't think it exists, I think I'm talking about efficient cause. It seems to me the other three modes of causation are just metaphorical. Maybe I can be talked out of that.

Biology, animal behavior and to an even greater degree human behavior, cannot be understood comprehensively in terms of efficient causation. — Janus

If I thought that efficient cause were the most effective concept for dealing with physical phenomena, I don't know why anything more would be required for biology, animal or human behavior, consciousness, or any other "higher" level phenomenon.

This is over my head. I suspect I’m not the only one confused about it, though. — Noah Te Stroete

As I indicated, It's over my head too. I just have an intuition that causation is not needed to explain how things happen. I'm not using that as evidence or making any claims. I need to spend more time thinking about it.

I have yet to hear or read an explanation by anyone that maps out the metaphysics of transgenderism.
What is a "true woman"?
What does it mean to "feel" like one?
What about you can be "in the wrong body"? — Artemis

Simple - if a man were to tell me he feels like a woman, considers himself one, and would like to be treated like one, I would respond "ok." What more do we need to know.

As we've kind of measured, there may be trillions of tiny changes in tiny constituents every second, although the semblances containing them, such as the sun or a tree or a rock last very long. Perhaps events happen, which we take as stuff, and the laws of nature underlie.

It appears that there is such a continual transitioning of the 'World' that not anything in particular can remain the same, even for an instant, or the instant is incredibly short. To me, this indicates something very energetic. It's hard to specify. — PoeticUniverse

When I say that stuff happens, I mostly mean human scale stuff. That's what humans experience in their lives. So - the cue ball is hit toward the 5 ball, which hits the 8 ball, which then goes into the pocket. The player causes the cue ball to go toward the 5 ball which causes the 8 ball to go into the pocket. It's when you get away from such simple situations and scales that causation becomes less clear.

I don't think that all transgendered people fall prey to the trappings of traditional gender roles. — thewonder

This is way outside my experience, but it seems to me that biological men who feel as if they're women and who want to live as women in their societies would see living in accordance with society's gender roles as a benchmark to show that they are truly women. I can't imagine that many would see the world through the eyes of Gender Nihilism. Living in accordance with gender roles would be one of their primary goals, wishes, dreams. Am I wrong about that?

Or just the one big effect of the Big Bang continuing? Our local cause and effect analysis has to draw a boundary, as a cutting off? — PoeticUniverse

I think stuff just happens and "cause" is just an overlay we superimpose on the world. As I indicated, I haven't gotten it figured out yet.

The idea of ontological indeterminacy is confusing. I'm not a determinist and can accept that nature is, or at least may be, at bottom indeterministic, but I have no clear idea what that would means, beyond saying that microscopic probabilities average out to produce macroscopic causal determinations. — Janus

I've been thinking a bit about what it means for something to be caused and whether it makes sense to think of things that way. Right now, I come down on the side that it doesn't make sense to think things are caused, although I can't really give a satisfactory reason yet.

The parallel postulate is more a stipulation than an axiom. Parallel straight lines are defined as being non-convergent. Non-Euclidean geometries do not "contradict" Euclidean geometry; they are contexts in which the axioms of Euclidean geometry simply do not apply. — Janus

I agree. The fact that parallel lines never cross is part of the definition of parallel lines, not an assumption or restriction imposed on them.

As to causation; it is axiomatic just because events cannot be understood non-causally. — Janus

On the other hand, I don't agree with this. Or am I being inconsistent? Maybe knowing causes is part of the definition of "understanding." Now I'm confused.

However, there is nothing in the meaning of feminism or black power advocation which precludes males or whites, nor should there be in the case of feminism especially, which is all about gender equality. — S

Don't agree. You don't have to be a feminist to believe in gender equality. For a man to call himself a feminist is to try to coopt for himself whatever power and authority comes with that word. A lot of times it's also a way of avoiding personal guilt for gender conditions. Just the same for race.

Au contraire! I have posited that what being "queer" means is that you generally accept something along the lines of that gender is performative and that sexuality is fluid as per Queer Theory. This does not necessarily imply that a person has to be a homosexual in order to be queer. — thewonder

No, I'm saying a person has to be a homosexual to be queer. Using that word differently based on your own political preferences or desire to be included with the cool guys is, as I said, disrespectful and creepy.

They aren't fringe beliefs in this regard, though. Being "queer" is not synonymous with being "homosexual". "Homosexuals" are just often called "queers" in a pejorative sense. Queer Theory can be summarized as being a radical reconceptualization of sexuality and gender. It is related to Gay and Lesbian Studies, but is not synonymous with them. — thewonder

Sorry, you can't be queer if you're not a homosexual. And you can't be a feminist if you are a man. And you can't be a black power advocate if you're white. You can be a white, straight, man who tries to be sympathetic and respectful of black, gay, and female people, but it's disrespectful and creepy to claim more than that.

Oh my goodness. This is a problem of people caring too much. I often include female friends when I say "guys", as that has clearly at some point taken on a gender neutral meaning, and those taking offence are taking it too literally and being too easily offended. — S

Living here in the northeast US, referring to mixed groups of men and women is common. I've never seen a woman being offended by that, although I tend to hang around with a rough and tumble group of people. I have known women who are creeped out when someone will say "guys and gals."

In the south, they say "you'all" which is good, but I never feel right saying it.

This brings to mind something from the old "National Lampoon" back in the 1970s - the term they used was "vagino-Americans." I still laugh whenever I hear that.

Some thoughts.

A few years ago, I read a book by psychiatrist Stephen Mitchell. I'd heard that it was really a good book. In the preface, he indicated that he would vary the use of the third person singular when referring to people - sometimes he would use "he" and sometimes "she." I remember being annoyed and I almost didn't read the book. When I did, though, I found that the varied use of he and she made a big difference in how I thought about what he wrote. It felt like his ideas had opened up and become more three dimensional, inclusive. I started picturing women in the situations he described as well as men. It was eye-opening.

Since then, I've tried to use the same approach, although I have not been consistent. I won't use "he or she" or "he/she." It breaks the flow of the words and sounds stupid. Sometimes I'll use "it," e.g. when I'm referring to a construction contractor.

My sister's eldest child is a male who identifies himself as non-gendered. If he identified himself as a woman, I would have no problem saying "she." General principle - call people what they want to be called. But I have a hard time calling a person "they." It bothers me a lot. Makes talking about them difficult. I find myself using his name rather than using a pronoun, although that can sound goofy after a while. I call him "my sister's eldest child" rather than my nephew. I avoid the issue to the extent I can. when I'm around them because I love them both and have no desire to show disrespect. I would never say this to my former nephew, but I think it to myself - transgender people make up 0.3% of the US population. That comes to about a million people. I don't know what proportion of those consider themselves male, female, or ungendered. My point - I bothers me that we should change a major part of our language for such a small group.

There's a wonderful set of books by Anne Leckie - Ancillary Sword, Ancillary Justice, and Ancillary Mercy. It takes place in the far future in a culture where there are no distinctions based on gender. Leckie handles that by using all female pronouns - everyone is she. Grown up people are women. When they need to refer to men, they are called women with penises.

I would say scientists do not agree in the least that they are merely drawing conclusions about sense data, nor would they think that the scope of science is related to that. He disagrees, I get that. And if someone was saying to him Science paints every increasing accurate pictures of objective reality, he has a case to be made. But that's a different situation.

Here he is saying that one cannot know, one has no way of knowing and.....

The nature of Objective Reality is not something science can even approach,
I think that's a very hard position to defend, because he will need to show why science can't reach OR and this will require him to explain the nature of OR and scientists to show the latter cannot approach the former. Fruit of the poisoned tree and all that. — Coben

I bugged out of this discussion a few days ago. I thought I had said everything I had to say. I wish I hadn't. You and @Pattern-chaser have taken it somewhere interesting and are dealing with issues I've thought a lot about.

To start, I think you are being a bit unfair to Pattern-Chaser. Or are you just joking around. He's said this explicitly - when he says you cannot know anything directly about OR, he's not talking about you, he's making a metaphysical statement about what can be known and what can not be. It's not a matter of fact, it's a matter of opinion, a statement about how it is useful to think about things.

Also - it's a very mainstream position. Here's a quote from a book " @Wayfarer posted the reference a few days ago:

The Reality Principle. Reality is a metaphysical concept, and as such it is beyond the reach of science. Reality consists of things-in-themselves of which we can never hope to gain knowledge. Instead, we have to content ourselves with knowledge of empirical reality, of things-as-they-appear or things-as-they-are-measured. Nevertheless, scientific realists assume that reality (and its entities) exists objectively and independently of perception or measurement. They believe that reality is rational, predictable and accessible to human reason. Baggott, Jim. Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth (p. 8). Pegasus Books. Kindle Edition.

Schopenhauer talked about this stuff back in the early 1800s. Here's what the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says:

This precipitates a position that characterizes the inner aspect of things, as far as we can describe it, as Will. Hence, Schopenhauer regards the world as a whole as having two sides: the world is Will and the world is representation. The world as Will (“for us”, as he sometimes qualifies it) is the world as it is in itself, which is a unity, and the world as representation is the world of appearances, of our ideas, or of objects, which is a diversity.

He compared his understanding with that of eastern religions - Buddhism and Hinduism. His idea of "will" was similar to eastern ideas that the world as we know it is an illusion and that underlying reality is undifferentiated and unknowable. I think of "will" as being like the "Tao," although nothing I've read indicates Schopenhauer read Lao Tzu.

Again - this is all metaphysics. My point isn't that your way of seeing things is wrong, only that the other way of seeing things is useful, meaningful, and mainstream.

You write like someone who values the freedom to speak hatefully toward others. — Pattern-chaser


Yes, and that's definitely the case.
— Terrapin Station

Then I have nothing further to say to you. — Pattern-chaser

I value the freedom for others to speak hatefully towards others.

Yet I would argue that the racial debate in the media is copied likely in the Netherlands as it is done here in Finland from the US. This happens because the media is quite global. It becomes then a bit strange especially here in a country where 98% - 99% are white and the state has no colonial history whatsoever to hear arguments that are straight from the US discourse. — ssu

In my contributions to this thread, I've tried to make it clear that my opinions apply only to the US. I have made no judgments about anywhere else.

No, they're dealing with AR, which could be objective reality, but we have no way of knowing. Frustrating, isn't it? :wink:

Different scientists might, to varying degrees, agree with parts of this, but they all think they are modeling actual reality, out there.
— Coben

Yes, that's what they "think", but it's just wishful thinking. An assumption, maybe even glorified by ascension to axiomhood (if that's a word), but not fact. Or, to be properly accurate: we cannot know it (to objective standards) to be factual. — Pattern-chaser

I'm assuming you agree that the whole AR vs. OR distinction you are making is a metaphysical one and not a matter of fact. If so, then you and I agree it is more useful to recognize that the only reality we have access to is AR, but it's not true or false.

Dreams are concepts that need to be worked for if one wishes to achieve it. And I intend to do what I can to work towards that dream. How does one work towards a dream such as Martin Luther King's? By practicing it in one's own life. In other words, practice what you preach. — Waya

Let's leave it at that for now. I think we've painted ourselves into a corner. Next time we pick this up maybe we'll be able to carry it further.

In what matter have I misappropriated his beliefs? Quite sure he advocated for actual equality for all, which is the same mission I have. Not playing the victim card, but rather value people as people instead of skin or DNA. — Waya

I'm not an expert on King and what he believed, but I'll take him at his word - equality was, and is, a dream. You know - "I have a dream." A dream for the future, not a reality for 1963 or 2019.

Ignorance of white privilege does not make one racist. — creativesoul

If you're writing about the things I've said, I never called anyone racist. I never do. I don't find racism to be a useful concept. It also sets off a bunch of emotional and defensive responses that obscure the discussion. I try to accept the good will of people in these types of discussions to the extent I can.

Willful ignorance. — creativesoul

Mine or someone else's?

Suit yourself. I do not believe I misquoted him. Until you give me something to actually work with, please refrain from merely insulting my person. — Waya

You didn't misquote him, you misappropriated his beliefs. And no, I didn't "insult your person." I didn't say anything bad about you. I said something about what you wrote. I'm allowed to do that.

Some of the black people's actions increased racism though. — Waya

White people are not given any more privilege than any other human in most places currently. It is more that society has been playing with the minds of black people making them feel like some kind of victim. S — Waya

I can't think of any response to this. I'm just shaking my head.

It will create more racism, and in fact, already has. We too should dream, as Martin Luther King did, of a day when we won't be considered for the color of our skin, but for who we are. — Waya

I'm sure you're a nice person, trying to do what you think is right, but it makes me sick to my stomach to see you quote that man who gave his life for us. You should be ashamed.

I think maybe you missed something here Sushi? You referred to 'petty squabbles of skin tones'.
T Clark's response was along the lines of, 'you mean petty squabbles like slavery, etc?' which implied that he thought, that you were saying, that issues like slavery and disenfranchisement were 'petty squabbles'. — ZhouBoTong

I'm 67 years old. I have friends who had to ride in the back of a bus. I graduated from high school in a town in southern Virginia in 1969, which is the year it became legal for black and white people to marry there.

I think @I like sushi knows what I was trying to say. I just have a really different perspective on it than he/she does. That ignorance of or indifference to history infuriates me.

That's not to say that there's no value in reading philosophy and reading other things for doing philosophy, of course. But one shouldn't think that one can't proceed if one isn't that well-read, and one shouldn't think something like, "I'm just going to wait until I've read enough to start doing it myself." For many things, "waiting until you're prepared" to do it is just a means of perpetual procrastination, so that you'd never actually do the activity in question, because there's always more preparation that one could do. — Terrapin Station

I don't read a lot of philosophy, but when I do, I've found that the writing that helps me most is something I can fit into my current understanding. It adds credibility to what I already think and also expands and extends it. It also changes it and sometimes sets me off in a new direction.

The point I'm trying to make is that there has to be something there to start with. In my experience, philosophy won't give you what you need unless you've already put something on the table.

Are you playing devil’s advocate or making an attempt to mock me? Funny response either way. Thanks for reinforcing my point better than I ever could — I like sushi

I'm comfortable that others understood what I was saying, even if you didn't.

There are a few who definitely won't be dead soon enough for my satisfaction. — Bitter Crank

Hey, I thought you liked me.

it doesn’t make sense to me to measure my life against what others have and don’t have, about what is ‘fair’ and ‘unfair’. I’m here and that is my singular ‘privilege’ and with such ‘privilege’ comes a substantially greater weight of responsibility to myself and others that makes petty squabbles of skin tones, languages spoken and culinary preferences so mind-bogglingly unimportant it almost makes me hysterical. — I like sushi

Yes, petty squabbles such as slavery, disenfranchisement, violence, police brutality, inequitable court systems, generalized suspicion and distrust, job and housing discrimination, etc.

The only thing standing between the wealthy and poverty is wealth — TogetherTurtle

From a Steve Martin Saturday Night Live monologue:

You.. can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You say.. “Steve.. how can I be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes?” First.. get a million dollars.

I agree that a lot of wrongs have been done to a lot of people by various governments at various times, but that's life. Life isn't fair. — Waya

The government, society has a responsibility to address the consequences of it's past and present actions. "Tough toenails" is not a very satisfactory response.

Again, I would agree that those needless injustices should be compensated for, except that it would be people like you and me indirectly paying for it, which would just cause more hardship for everyone. — Waya

As a wise man once said "But that's life. Life isn't fair."

I personally haven't done anything to a black person that would harm them in any manner. Why do I owe them anything? A lot of others are the same way, what is the point? During the War between the states, a lot of white people died to liberate black people just the same. Why do we owe them anything 200 years later? — Waya

Some reasons:

• It's not 200 years ago, it's happening every day. Do you really believe that the brutality shown to black people went away with emancipation?
• I don't know you, so I don't know your particular situation, but white people as a class are given benefits not given to black people as a class. In this thread, we've designated that as "white privilege."
• Anyway, it's not any privilege given to white people that's the biggest deal, it's the handicap given to blacks.
• As members of our society, citizens of our country, we share responsibility for the actions of our nation.
• This isn't a question of whether you "personally haven't done anything to a black person that would harm them." It's whether our society, country, government has and should deal with the consequences of those actions.
• Even if society weren't responsible for the negative consequences, there is benefit to addressing the issue in a constructive way.

I am specifically talking about the United States. I'll let others speak for other countries.

You do and you'll be sharing a small, damp, hot, mold and vermin-infested cell with Baden. He's being charged by the Anglo-Saxon Gestapo with felony misappropriation, unauthorized use of a term with a very solid and specific meaning***, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. — Bitter Crank

@Baden is an Irishman living in Southeast Asia. Not much chance of extradition. I, on the other hand, am duly chastened and beg forgiveness and mercy.