So, I just got the word today, that I get to go from three month checkups after treatment for prostate cancer, to six month check ups. Is it kosher for me to bring up experience with hormone therapy in the Masculinity thread?

I can write paragraphs about this but I doubt anyone wants to read that. — Srap Tasmaner

I'd be very interested. Although I've never put much effort into becoming good at chess, and I'm not sure I would understand it very comprehensively.

I take as an indicator of comprehension, the ability to simplify and explain. — Hanover

Thanks for the substantive response.

I'm not surprised that you, as an attorney, see things that way. However an understanding of Broca's aphasia shows thing are not that simple. Another thing to consider is Srap's comment:

Chess provides a clear example, as usual: there's a saying among masters that the move you want to play is the right move, even if it seems impossible. This is intuition... — Srap Tasmaner

A chess master's intuition would seem by definition to be something that the CM can't put into words, and yet it is demonstrable that the CM's intuition must in some regard be comprehension, even if it not a comprehension that the CM can express linguistically.

In my case, I do much of my electronic design by mentally modelling designs in the form of 'pictures' in my head. It is often the case that I can see why designs will or won't work, but it would take a lot of effort to translate the dynamic model I am picturing in my mind into language. Ability to comprehend is separate issue from being able to express what is comprehended verbally. Fortunately electronic designs can be communicated in the form of schematic diagrams, that others with the right knowledge base can develop their own comprehension of.

To simplify, it must be a story because stories are what happens in real life. — Hanover

But that's simplistic. Vastly more happens in real life than has ever been put into a story. Can you really disagree?

The complicator keeps it abstract without the ability to fully explain it, either because he's just poor at anticipating what his audience doesn't understand, or more commonly, he doesn't fully understand what he's talking about

I think it is pretty natural for most people to interpret the thinking of others, in terms of the experience of thinking that they themselves have. However, most people don't have a very fine grained understanding of what their particular constellation of cognitive strengths and weaknesses are, and how that constellation of cognitive strengths and weaknesses shapes the way they go through life. So most people are inclined to jump to simplistic conclusions about the thinking of people whose constellation differs significantly from their own. It may be the case for you, that if you are unable to explain something you don't understand it. It might even be the case that such is true for most of the people you encounter, but it certainly isn't universally true.

Being autistic, it is definitely the case that I can be poor at anticipating what other people will and won't understand, at least until I've gotten to know the person somewhat.

I'd urge you to watch the movie Temple Grandin, as a means of developing a more informed perspective.

The hedgehog and the fox? — Srap Tasmaner

I've had the opportunity to look into it more and it seems very insightful, although I haven't read enough of by the Russian authors discussed, to have a very deep understanding. The notion of a fox who thinks he should be a hedgehog certainly resonates.

One of my favourites is Galapagos and the other is Cat's Cradle. — Vera Mont

Cat's Cradle is what my book group is planning to read prior to our museum trip. I've read it, but I think I was 14 or 15 at the time, so I expect to get a lot out of rereading it.

I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I just happened upon Brain size predicts learning abilities in bees.

Among other things. Why? — Vera Mont

I get the impression that you might appreciate Vonnegut's thinking.

Which might not have occurred to me, except someone in my science fiction book group recently suggested a group field trip to the Kurt Vonnegut museum. I haven't read anything by Vonnegut in a long time, other than the short story Harrison Bergeron which I reread occasionally.

'Where you live' is in your brain's model of reality, which is generated in part based on the light that hit your retina (on the order of 100 milliseconds) earlier.

do dolphins have laws? — Moliere

I don't know, but it seems orcas don't object to their kids being juvenile delinquents.

We were suddenly surprised by what felt like a bad wave from the side,” he said of the recent incident. “That happened twice, and the second time we realized that we had two orcas underneath the boat, biting the rudder off. They were two juveniles, and the adults were cruising around, and it seemed to me like they were monitoring that action.

Makes me mad as a hornet. — Hanover

He said waspishly.

:up:

Are you a Vonnegut fan?

:up:

One problem with this survey is that modern realism is itself an outgrowth of Kantian Transcendental Idealism. — Joshs

We all stand on the shoulders of giants. I'm not seeing how that's a problem.

Kantian Transcendental Idealism is an outgrowth of Christianity. Do you think that people shouldn't outgrow Christianity?

Philosophy isn't satisfied with this and seeks to find arguments to establish that realism is naïve and untenable. I don't have a philosophical view on this. — Tom Storm

This forum might give the impression that idealism is more popular among philosophers than it actually is. The Philpapers survey says:

External world: idealism, skepticism, or non-skeptical realism?
Accept or lean toward: non-skeptical realism 760 / 931 (81.6%)
Other 86 / 931 (9.2%)
Accept or lean toward: skepticism 45 / 931 (4.8%)
Accept or lean toward: idealism 40 / 931 (4.3%)

Why does the amount of neurons matter? If consciousness is an emergent property, shouldn't it emerge when there are a million neurons present? — RogueAI

Neuron count plays a role in determining how much information processing capability a brain has, although synapse count would likely be a better indicator. See here.

The differences are more superficial than the similarities. — Vera Mont

Honeybee brains have ~960,000 neurons.
Human brains have ~100,000,000,000 neurons.
That does not seem like a superficial difference to me.

When I was working as an engineer, I had this image that came to me when I was starting a new project. My head had a hole in the top with a funnel. I would pour all the information - text, figures, maps, tables - in at the top of my head. Then I would wait for a while and it would organize it in my head. — T Clark

:up:

Have you read Harry Frankfurt's On Bullshit?

A relevant passage:

It is clear that what makes Fourth of July oration humbug is not fundamentally that the speaker regards his statements as false. Rather, just as Black’s account suggests, the orator intends these statements to convey a certain impression of himself. He is not trying to deceive anyone concerning American history. What he cares about is what people think of him. He wants them to think of him as a patriot, as someone who has deep thoughts and feelings about the origins and the mission of our country, who appreciates the importance of religion, who is sensitive to the greatness of our history, whose pride in that history is combined with humility before God, and so on.

[Emphasis added.]

Too much pseudo-intellectualism.

You haven't understood the topic.

Limited time, energy and patience. — Amity

Yep.

At work it's boneheaded. I save the stoneheaded mistakes for the forum.

Interesting. I have no technical expertise in any area, nor do I have much interest in math or science. Does this 'force' me into the simplisticator corner? How much of this is almost a necessary function of one's education, employment or even neurodiversity?

Is there a third option? — Tom Storm

I think taking the idea of sims and coms (thanks 0 thru 9) too seriously would be... ...wait for it... ...simplistic. I suspect it is a matter of all three.

I think all of us are both sims and coms, in ways that vary idiosyncratically. I don't think technical expertise specifically has much to do with it. I do think having real expertise in some way has something to do with it. Maybe having expertise, in dealing with some aspect of how things work in the world specifically, but for all I know, being expert at bonsai or dealing with human BS, is as effective as being an autistic electrical engineer.

I think having expertise can counteract the impact that the Dunning-Kruger effect has on us. Having a field of investigation where we know what we are talking about might make us more aware of when we don't know what we are talking about and at least a bit better at avoiding putting our foot in our mouths.

Perhaps of similar value, is having greater cognizance of when other people don't know what they are talking about. The knowledge of science aspect does play an important role in this case.

On complex matters, I often prefer a suspension of judgement. I'm pretty keen on the answer, 'I don't know' and would prefer it if more people pursued this and just got on with their lives. — Tom Storm

:up: :up: :up:

I don't know how many times I've explained to Christians that I'm perfectly fine with not knowing things, and admitting as much. I guess one thing about engineering for me, that has given me a real appreciation for people who can show me that I'm wrong, is design reviews. These days I go into design reviews hoping that the others on the review team will look super critically at a design I'm presenting, and spot any boneheaded mistakes I've made.*

When I was forum shopping recently I noted your shoshin as a very appealing aspect to this forum.

On matters like QM speculation, the nature of consciousness, etc, the notion of uncertainty is more significant to me (as a skeptic) than trying to force answers. Many of us hold highly complex explanations about matters we are not really qualified to understand. Perhaps this view is just a passive form of simplistication? — Tom Storm

I will leave those considerations of the koan to you. I don't know.

* There are limits. :rage: :wink:

And BTW, I'm a bit stoned, and suspect that was awfully disorganized and stream of consciousness, but I'm a bit stoned.

They are all individuals - except that one silly hemlock. — Vera Mont

:rofl: :up:

Another great Lem novel is Memoirs Found in a Bathtub. — Noble Dust

I love many of Lem's short stories. I think I enjoyed The Cyberiad the most, of what I've read.

First off, did you see my edit?

Secondly... Thank you for being so patient, with me trying to get away without laying my worldview out in much detail. (So to speak.)

I can see I would need to start a new thread to fill in the details, and while I might be up for that, it would be a sciency explanation of how I see humans as existing within a system, and most affectingly, within a system of their fellow humans and the universe at large.

It would help motivate me to take on such a project, if I had confidence it wasn't going to feel like a waste of my time. So how interested are you?

In case it makes a difference, this youtube video conveys some of my views and ethics. However, I recommend waiting until you've got ten minutes to relax and I recommend closing your eyes and letting your mind draw it's own picture while listening.

Awesome! Thank you!

I've only glanced at the wikipedia page, but that is something I definitely want to read.

:pray:

You think mutual and consensual love-making has such power?

How does anyone reinforce behaviour of a concept or thing?
Especially when it isn't one thing but a complexity of things. — Amity

Yes, sex is a powerful reward. Being deeply in love with the other is an awesome bonus on top, but not necessary to sex being rewarding for men. (And I've been so deeply in love that I couldn't imagine wanting to have sex with anyone else, but I had to get over it.)

I don't know what you mean by "behaviour of a concept or thing". Would a tendency for aggressive behavior be a thing?

Behavioral reinforcement.

Edit to add: ...and 'evolutionary success'.

If it coincided with doing whatever the fuck they wanted, they would be exceedingly happy, no? — Amity

Good point! :up:

Something, inspired by what you said, that I want to toss into the thread (and then run away)... :wink:

At least some women reward men for being aggressive with flirtation and/or sex. Should women therefore be considered responsible for 'the patriarchy'?

Funny... As an engineer I saw my primary job as taking the multiplicity of the universe and simplifying it so it could be used to make decisions. I might have hundreds of data points related to the presence, depth, and concentration of chemical contaminants in soil. I had to turn that data into a line on the drawings that showed where we had to excavate soil to remediate the site. — T Clark

:up:

Right. There are many different sorts of tasks involved in getting engineering projects done. I design high accuracy electronic measurement instrumentation. So I was only talking about what I do as an engineer. Not what engineers do in a general way.

So, at the last, 'Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.' You can't get simpler than that. — mcdoodle

But you can point out that it is simplistic. :wink:

Interesting response! :up:

I haven't read through the Tractacus, but what you said reminded me of the Zen saying, "Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; After one gains insight through the teachings of a master, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; After enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters are waters."

Please explain how "even the slightest movement of the head or offset in distance between observers can cause the three-dimensional universes to have differing content." And how can this purported difference in content cause a difference in simultaneity of months?
— T Clark

I didn't claim the universe was three dimensional, nor did I claim multiple universes. Even the slightest angle results in an arbitrarily large separation at large distances since X sin(a) for a very small angle a can still be a large value if X is large enough. Likewise even a tiny change in reference frames results in a large (months) change in the 3D plane of simultaneity at a sufficiently large distances. — noAxioms

Things like slight angles of the head and difference in position aren't particularly relevant to the special relativity scenario under consideration. The key thing to consider is the difference in the velocity of the two 'observers', and particularly the component of velocity in the direction of Andromeda. (If the two observers were moving past each other in a direction perpendicular to the direction to Andromeda, they would be viewing the same point in Andromeda's history.)

I'd like to have it explained. — Vera Mont

And I'd like to be more suited to explaining. You saying that you would like to have it explained reminds me of being in high school, where a friend asked me every morning, "What do you know?" Every morning my autistic brain would take him literally, and start working on trying to formulate an answer, despite me consciously knowing that my friend wasn't actually seeking an answer to the question he had asked.

So it's a little overwhelming for me to try to explain, and I know that whatever I write in attempting an explanation is going to be grossly simplistic and to me feel wholly inadequate. But with that preface out of the way...

Of great relevance is the monkeysphere.

Many fundamentalist Christians live in rural communities and are satisfied that Fox news is giving them an adequate view of the world, outside what they experience daily. They are substantially uninformed about, and fairly indifferent to, other communities. So while they know African-American gospel music exists, it isn't part of the insular world they are happily living in. Therefore they are largely indifferent to such music.

Edit: Link fixed.

...the thing most notable about bigots is that they're never indifferent - even to things that have no affect whatever on them. — Vera Mont

Doubts are understandable when you don't have the experience needed to have a nuanced view on the matter. The reality though, is a lot more nuanced than what you suggest.

Battling "Patriarchy" is a war against the distorted shadows on the wall of the academic cave. Success or failure will have no consequences. — BC

:up:

Battling ignorance on the other hand...

What, then, do American fundamentalists make of Afro-American gospel music? — Vera Mont

I'd think it largely depends on the race of the believers. It's said, that the most segregated time in America is Sunday mornings. So for white believers the answer might be, "Nothing much."

The implication is that despite one’s actions (or lack thereof) one state of mind is morally superior to another, even if a moral state of mind is biologically and measurably indistinct from an immoral or amoral state of mind. — NOS4A2

This is a bit tangential, since it isn't immoral to have antisocial personality disorder, but...

Identifying individuals with antisocial personality disorder using resting-state FMRI

I mean what it's defined as in dictionaries, reference books eh. — Baden

The Merriam-Webster dictionary says:

patriarchy
1
: social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line
broadly : control by men of a disproportionately large share of power
2
: a society or institution organized according to the principles or practices of patriarchy
For 20 years the country was ruled as a patriarchy.

I would guess from your last response that the second definition is not what you meant. However, unless I'm interpreting you incorrectly, the first definition doesn't sound to me like a good fit with what you mean either. Sure there are families which are patriarchial in the first sense, and larger societal groups that advocate for patriarchy in the first sense. However, there are lots of families, if not the majority, who don't fit the first sense of patriarchy in many nations.

So it isn't obvious to me how the dictionary definition helps all that much in understanding your view.

I'm curious as to how you conceive of patriarchy.

The relevance is that there are reasons to think that our species evolved with differences in physical attributes between the sexes, including instincts, which result in societies naturally tending towards 'patriarchy'.

So when you ask:

So, a social system based on competition for status and material resources... ...is not a patriarchy? — Baden

...I wonder what you think competition for status and material resources are based on, and what you mean by "patriarchy". Is patriarchy something that would require genetic engineering and eugenics to eliminate, or a conspiracy by people in power that might be eliminated by social engineering, or...?