• Disability
    ↪Banno
    i maintain that you are confused between a definition and a model.

    The definition of 'disability' in terms of things people can't do (or unable to do if you see a distinction) is independent of the models. You can't be disabled if you can do anything without help. This is descriptive. The models embody values that the definition doesn't.

    Regarding my training, i have only been trained by disabled people themselves, who freely and happily say they can't do things.
  • Infinity
    Either that or there is one continuous blob
  • Paradise is not Lost
    Are revolutions doomed to fail? Will their perpetrators -- like Lucifer -- inevitably wish to replace the king instead of abolishing the kingdom? Can heaven be a utopia if it is ruled by a dictator? Shouldn't freedom be mandatory for utopias? — Ecurb

    I'm not sure, i'd just like to point out that we can, and have, replaced rule by a king/Queen/oligarchy with the rule of law subject to democratic alteration. We perhaps haven't done it very well, and it's massively under attack at the moment, but it can be improved. First step to improving the robustness is to get rid of first part the post, perhaps.
  • Disability
    A person needs support to achieve some outcome if, as things stand, they are unable to achieve the goal on their own. — Banno

    OK, we agree. I see no great difference between 'unable' and 'can't'.
  • Disability
    I'm interested in when you think someone needs support. I think it's when they can't do something that they want or need to do without that support. Which is a functional test and involves the word 'can't' which you seem to object to (although I have never met a disabled person who objects to the use of this word). So I'm interested in an alternative approach. It might help me a lot with my work if I've been getting this wrong.
  • Disability
    I'm not sure. We seem to broadly agree, but you said my thinking is medical model, and that I delimit people by saying they can't do things, and you seemed to suggest these were bad. Also, you're not answering my questions very often.
  • Disability
    ↪Banno
    Some people certainly do.
  • Disability
    Under what circumstances might someone need support? — bert1
  • Disability
    Under what circumstances might someone need support?
  • Disability
    ↪Banno
    Good point, I agree. She wants to go kayaking..

    So let's continue with your approach. She looks on the internet to find a kayaking club. She can do that because she can type and read and understand the words on the screen. Then she phones up the club and arranges a first lesson. Cool! Still no need for support.
  • Disability
    So if I've understood, the method you propose is that incapacity is identified first, then support is implemented, and capability appears only as a downstream effect. — Banno

    Practically speaking, that's what happens, yes. It would be odd to put in place supports before one identified a need for them, no?

    EDIT: Consider Sadie. She can dance, climb, is really good at maths, loves painting, and has a job at the local supermarket that she does really well. What support does she need?
  • Disability
    This is somewhat tone deaf. It depends on making a hard distinction between the disabled and abled. — Banno

    Well OK, I was just going for conceptual simplicity, but sure, the more disabled someone is in a particular context, the more help they probably need, the less disabled they are, the less help. Now we have a continuum. Is that OK?

    Autonomy is not the absence of the need for support. — Banno

    I know. Often autonomy is only achievable with a great deal of support. That's the point I was making. Wasn't that clear?

    Again, what is more important: what they can't do; or what they might do? — Banno

    Again, I reject the distinction. Would you like to try a different sentence perhaps, if there is a point you are making that you think I am not grasping?
  • Disability
    Does it help achieve autonomy? — Banno

    Yes, it is essential - it's the concept of disability. If someone isn't disabled, they don't need help. We have to able to recognise disability for what it is in order to be able to help. Regarding autonomy specifically, a person cannot make decisions if they do not understand information relevant to that decision, or if they cannot weigh the pros and cons of an option, or if they can't remember relevant information, or if they can't communicate their decision. If they could do all of these things, they would have autonomy and not need support with these functions. By recognising that they can't do these things on their own, we are in a position to put support in place that enables them to do these things and to gain some control over their lives.

    what is more important: what they can't do; or what they might do? — Banno

    Again I reject this opposition. A disabled person who can't do x might be able to with help. Not being able to do it is important to recognise so help can be put in place.

    EDIT: I should probably add there is of course a danger in focusing on what someone can't do - there is the risk of talking someone into being more disabled than they are. People sometimes talk themselves into being more disabled than they are, and you can get into a bit of a negative spiral. That can happen with any kind of negative self-concept I suppose. There is also the converse trap - denying real disability. This can lead to self-hatred, self-blame, 'if only I tired harder', isolation and frustration. I see more of this latter trap than the former.
  • Disability
    ...and why is it so important to do whatever "P" is? And for whom is it important? — Banno

    'P' is the person, not the action. x is the action. It's important for P. Much of my work is helping autistic people do the things they want to do, but can't do without help. They make the decisions, but they depend on me to carry them out much of the time. It is well established in the autistic community I am a part of that autonomy is much more important than independence, indeed the two are often in tension.
  • Disability
    Well, no. The list of things they can't do is not the same as the list of things they are capable of doing. — Banno

    Okay, P wants to do x, but they can't without help. P can do x with help. x is the same in both instances. The difference is not in P. The difference is not in x. The difference is in the presence of help.
  • Disability
    what they can't do; or what they might do? — Banno

    They're both the same. An inert autistic person can't get off the sofa. That 'can't' is real, and reality is important. However they might get off the sofa with help. So they both can't do it (without help), and might do it (with help). Relevantly, they want to do it. But motivation isn't enough to overcome their inertia. So they use me to supply them with the initiative. How have I delimited them in this account? It seems to me that I have helped.
  • Disability
    ↪Banno
    Please try. I really don't get it, and this is important to me. How am I delimiting someone? It's very distressing to think that I am. I work with autistic people all the time.
  • Disability
    ↪Banno
    Can you spell out the problem with that? Does it capture people who are not disabled, and leave out people who are?

    Let's consider an example: inertia. Many autistic people have extreme difficulty in getting started with something, or changing from one activity to another without external help. Most people don't have this problem most of the time and can get themselves to do stuff without external help. It seems to me that this person, without help, is disabled, and they are disabled because they can't do something that most other people can do most of the time.
  • Disability
    So the next step is to see if you can find something that P cannot do, that would not seem to count as a disability in our offhand use of the term - flying, writing a great novel, putting their foot behind their head. — Banno

    Sure, to capture typical usage, we need to add some standard of typicality or normality, so that the disability is noteworthy, or in need of some kind of adaptation or intervention or whatever. As you say, I wouldn't normally characterise my inability to fly as a 'disability', even though I am unable to do it. But while it would be eccentric to characterise my inability (as a human) to fly as a disability, it would not be incorrect. Especially if I were a bird, where most birds can fly most of the time. So, I'll modify the definition to:

    P is disabled in relation to task x if and only if P cannot do x, and x is a task most people can do most of the time.
  • Disability
    Is there a coherent way to define disability at all? — Banno

    Yes. P is disabled in relation to task x if and only if P cannot do x.

    Are we disagreeing about anything?
  • Disability
    ↪Banno
    I do think there is a difference between a straightforward concept of disability (or definition of 'disability') which is model-neutral, and the various 'models' of disability. The concept of disability is simple - someone can't do something, usually in comparison to others who can. The elephant can't get up the tree in comparison to the monkey who can. This is true whether you place the cause of that inability within the individual or within the environment. The elephant can't get up the tree because it has the wrong kind of body (medical), vs the elephant can't get up the tree because there are no concrete steps next to it (social), vs we shouldn't be expecting the elephant to get up the tree in the first place (capabilities model? But what if it wants to, on an equal basis with the monkey?) The models are approaches/attitudes to disability, suggestive of where the problem exists, and the appropriate way to respond to disability.

    The distinction between definition and model is important. It is really important for a disabled person to be able to say "I can't do that, that's what being disabled means, that is our starting point" without that prejudicing the response from others. Sometimes a disabled person will want a pill or a prosthetic limb to fix the disability (medical). Sometimes they will want reasonable adjustments to their environment (social). Sometimes they will want to do something else instead that they can do, and challenge any absences of such opportunities in society (capabilities).

    Here's a social model definition from PWDA — Banno

    This is not a definition of 'disability'. It's a description of the social model of disability. It's the difference between theory and definition. The sun is that yellow disc in the sky up there (definition). It goes round the Earth (theory). The Earth goes round it (theory).
  • Disability
    ↪Banno
    We may just have different concepts, I'm sure we agree on the ethics. Are any of the animals disabled in this scenario?

    EDIT: I think the definition of disability is the same under the medical and social model, but maybe I'm just wrong. For me, P is disabled in relation to x if P can't do x. If that's not the definition, what is? The difference for me comes where we place the problem. Mr Medical must actually have a concept of the social model in order to even assent to the proposition that any of the animals are disabled, because only in the context of the task is a disability even possible. The difference comes in the solution/blame. Mr Medical says the animals are the wrong shape to climb the tree, and he tries to alter them, or to write them off as hopeless. Mr Social puts some concrete blocks for the elephant to climb, and a long sloping water run for the fish to swim up.
  • Disability
    ↪Banno
    Ah, I disagree. On strictly the medical model, none of them are disabled. They are all perfect specimens.

    Only on the social model are they disabled. They are disabled because of the social environment - the requirement to perform a task without any alterations to the environment.
  • Disability
    Instead of asking all to climb the tree, we might ask what each would require in order to be able to pick the fruit. — Banno

    OK, so to spell it out, in that cartoon, only two of the animals will be able to get up the tree. Five of them are disabled, no?
  • Michel Bitbol: The Primacy of Consciousness
    Any other theory is just a matter of wishful thinking. — Questioner

    Another expert psychologist on the forum! What causes materialism? Too much breast milk?
  • Michel Bitbol: The Primacy of Consciousness
    Where else is consciousness found? — Questioner

    Rubber bands and rocks
  • Absolute Presuppositions of Science
    Is this about presuppositions of science, or of scientists? I'm not sure the former makes any sense. The latter is an empirical question only answerable by a survey, no?
  • Michel Bitbol: The Primacy of Consciousness
    “incontrovertible premise that consciousness comes about from the action of the brain.” — Questioner

    It's not though. Correlation is, famously, not causation. It might be evidence of causation, but you need an argument.
  • Michel Bitbol: The Primacy of Consciousness
    I don’t think so. The primacy of consciousness claims that consciousness has metaphysical primacy over existence. I take the opposite point-of-view, that existence comes first. A brain must structurally develop before any consciousness can arise from it. — Questioner

    That's indeed arguable, but that does not address @Wayfarer's point. The point is that there is nothing pre-existing the first experience according to his view - time does not exist yet, there can be no prior (temporal) conditions. Once the first experience happens, that creates time and all the temporal preconditions (development of a brain etc) for that experience. It's all done in a one-er, if you see what I mean. The experience depends on the brain, but the brain depends on the experience, but temporal order isn't an issue because time doesn't exist before the experience. So the appallingly offensive bootstrapping is perhaps permissible. I don't buy it, but you need to grasp the argument before dismissing it.

    If the issue is ontological dependence rather than temporal, that's not as problematic. That can be circular, as one does not need to precede the other, they can be mutually helpful. I'll give you a foot up at the same (non-)time that you give me a foot up, and then we both find we have climbed the wall.
  • Michel Bitbol: The Primacy of Consciousness
    And does not that consciousness emerge as the function of neurological processes? — Questioner

    I don't think so, although interestingly your view is compatible with the kind of mind-primacy that @Wayfarer has been talking about in this thread.
  • Michel Bitbol: The Primacy of Consciousness
    "And yet", he goes on, "the existence of this whole world remains ever dependent upon the first eye that opened, even if it were that of an insect. For such an eye is a necessary condition of the possibility of knowledge, and the whole world exists only in and for knowledge, and without it is not even thinkable. The world is entirely idea, and as such demands the knowing subject as the supporter of its existence." Of course that goes against the grain of 'the inborn realism which arises from the original disposition of the intellect'. I've had many long (and mainly fruitless) arguments about this point on the forum, contested by those who are adamant that the world is there, external, outside of us, and ideas internal, in the mind, subjective. This long course of time itself, filled with innumerable changes, through which matter rose from form to form till at last the first percipient creature appeared,—this whole time itself is only thinkable in the identity of a consciousness whose succession of ideas, whose form of knowing it is, and apart from which, it loses all meaning and is nothing at all."

    At this point, 99% of people will object: “But we know that the world existed before there were any sentient beings.” My reply is that “before” is a mental construct. Fossils are not mental constructs, nor is the geological record. But pastness is not something contained in those rocks. It is a form under which they are understood. Outside that form—outside a temporal framework supplied by consciousness—the fossils do not say “earlier,” “later,” or “before” at all. They simply are.     — Wayfarer

    This is interesting, and perhaps coherent. But my mind recoils at the offensive apparent bootstrappyness of it. Some idealists avoid this bootstrapping - Berkeley by invoking God as the prior cause, Sprigge with panpsychism providing consciousness at the start.

    From the bit you quoted, the ontological foundation for everything is the first experience, which then creates the temporal causal order that is the precondition of its own ability to experience. Don't you find that offensive? If someone said that in a pub, they'd get a slap. Adding God or panpsychism makes it much easier to swallow, no?

    EDIT: I'm grateful for you bringing it up though, I hadn't thought about idealism quite in these terms before.
  • Michel Bitbol: The Primacy of Consciousness
    No doubt everyone has a purpose here, even if it is only entertainment, or an interest in exploring ideas in order to decide which ones seem the more plausible or a desire to find out what is true or whatever. — Janus

    It's a pet niggle of mine - accusing people of purposes, biases etc derails discussions. But complaining about it doesn't help, so I should probably shut up.
  • Michel Bitbol: The Primacy of Consciousness
    Are you mocking me, sir? — Questioner

    Only a little, your position is that of the majority I suspect. Emergentists, it seems to me, often use many more obscure words to say exactly what you refreshingly did in two: 'consciousness happens'. How does it happen exactly? is the question, and Why there? Not that the OP is offering a theory of the generation of consciousness, nor does it seem to be asserting a temporal priority to consciousness, nor is there a position on where consciousness is in the world. Not sure if an ontological priority is asserted, or if it is just epistemelogical or methodological priority. Perhaps it's bollockological priority. I'm not a scholar of historical phenomenology I'm afraid.
  • Michel Bitbol: The Primacy of Consciousness
    consciousness happens — Questioner

    If only I'd thought of that!
  • Michel Bitbol: The Primacy of Consciousness
    ↪Wayfarer
    Is there a particular question you'd like to focus on from the OP?
  • Michel Bitbol: The Primacy of Consciousness
    Where are the thoughts going on in your mind to me? — T Clark

    I really like this question. One big advantage of a materialist reductive account, say some kind of functionalism, is that it can clearly answer this question. The thoughts going on in @Wayfarer's mind are literally within his physical skull, because they just are some subset of his brain function. The more dualistic one's view is, the more work one has to do to come up with a plausible answer.
  • Michel Bitbol: The Primacy of Consciousness
    Why not be honest about what you believe and what your actual agenda is? — Janus

    Everyone on this forum has an agenda, one can feel it behind posts. One can also hallucinate motive, and I think that also happens frequently. Luckily, such agendas and motives are all philosophically irrelevant, so we don't have to talk about them. Likewise, everyone on this forum says what they do because they are mentally ill in some way or another, luckily, that is philosophically irrelevant, so we don't have to talk about that either. Everyone on this forum is weak and wants a safe comforting worldview to make them feel better. Luckily this is philosophically irrelevant so we don't have to talk about it.
  • Michel Bitbol: The Primacy of Consciousness
    My criticism was going to Wayfarer's assessment of phenomenology. Phenomenology is a philosophical approach, not a position on the nature of consciousness. But I did note your sneer. Merry Christmas. — frank

    It wasn't my intention to sneer at all, and I may have misunderstood your point.
  • Michel Bitbol: The Primacy of Consciousness
    Okay, but if we know of no consciousness which is not accompanied by material conditions, it follows that we cannot really have a grasp of the possibility, even though we can of course say it is logically not impossible. So, the question becomes 'What significance could such a vague possibility have". — Janus

    Your original claim was that the existence of consciousness (or absence of it) depends on material conditions. That makes material conditions ontologically prior. That's not the same claim as saying that wherever there is consciousness, there are also material conditions. In the latter case, neither consciousness nor material conditions is ontologically prior - they always occur together.
  • Michel Bitbol: The Primacy of Consciousness
    We know of no consciousness which is not accompanied by material conditions. — Janus

    That's likely true, but that's different from the existential claim:

    consciousness is determined by material conditions — Janus

    It is arguable, in fact it seems unarguably true, that the type or content of consciousness is determined by the material conditions it is conscious of. — Janus

    Yes, I think I agree with that.
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