Yeah, I agree with this.

At that, I don't have any problem with the idea of someone being transgender, but I have no problem with the idea of someone thinking that they're really a dragon or a toaster or whatever. I'm not necessarily going to call them a dragon or toaster, but I don't have any problem with people thinking that. — Terrapin Station

Sure, but like religion, they are trying to use the government to push their ideology and make it a crime to say certain things. That is when it crosses the line.

The social acceptance of new pronouns has never just been about the feelings of people involved. That's part of it, though. Enough of a part of it to inspire people to join political movements; being misgendered really matters to people darlings. But the people in those movements are campaigning for social recognition, to perturb norms to be more inclusive, in order to end discrimination against them for something as arbitrary as not fitting into how people think of gender, which does indeed have measureable social effects.

Gender nonconformity often leads to bullying and social exclusion; it leads to mental health disorders, it leads to workplace discrimination and hiring discrimination, it affects long term life outcomes pretty much everywhere. But it doesn't always, why? Why don't these people just "buck up" and accept their lot and work with it? Thing is, they already are. In some communities, gender nonconformity is a life or death matter. And that matters, because people's arbitrary social expectations should not inspire mistreatment of any demographic. This is the "we're all created equal"; but who we are is always to a greater or lesser degree in contrast with societal expectations. They shoulder all this while working like you do. Could you stand the same burden? I doubt it, we'd crumple like the sensitive little flowers we are.

Think of a societal expectation as a norm of interpretation; a prediction of someone's behaviour; they are also of course moral standards; if you do not behave consistently with society's norms, you will face social costs. Whether this is socially excluding the tomboy, beating the shit out of a guy at school for being "gay" because he seems feminine, or a trans woman losing a loving relationship just because "they're really a man".

This latter point, necessarily dichotomising people into genders and the normative consequences that entails based on sex is usually something which is presented as a consequence of a reactionary belief system, but should really be seen as a premise rooted in avoidance of punishment for society's norms shifting underneath them. It is a transference mechanism to avoid that vaunted conservative sense of social responsibility even applying to shifting their worldview. If these people cared about truth, they would fess up to their obvious mistakes in public. "This threatens society" <=> "This threatens me". It is a self defending response to something which, if they would only be more logical and observant, could be challenged; and a more informed, inclusive worldview would result. Alas, it is not. These people would burn the world and harm those in it because it does not satisfy their expectations; they are triggered by the fact that they are involved in systems of suppression and subjugation. But they will never thematise their response as emotionally driven; reason for them here is little more than an identity signifier and a defense mechanism. It's just tribalism expressing itself through stupidly motivated arguments, fisking condescension, and a total inability to consistently argue the same points.

Then there's the equal under the law stuff; hiring policies are written to be gender neutral, for example, but this does not imply that hiring is gender unprejudiced (see the article "Discriminating Systems" for a thorough data driven treatment of the issue). When even fucking Google and Facebook know that gender archetypes negatively impact their talent acquisition, one wonders why it is so difficult for people on the internet right to think in these terms.

Underneath all this is a state of prelapsarian (white, almost always male) bliss, a garden of Eden absent from politics that classifies anything which would perturb the current social order as political; as inappropriate state or community interventions; but the forces which to benefit of the people I'm criticising maintain the present social order and their place in it. Inappropriate political action is just that which does not maintain my "rightful" (pfft, entitled buggers) place in things. This is only sustainable by a blinkering of perspective away from systemic issues; which is funny, as political leaders have to be able to think like that about social issues. Think structurally, not personally, and allow suffering to speak.

The apoplectic resistance any systemic critique encounters by the internet right stems from an obvious failure of thought which absolves them from a guilty conscience; don't worry, mummy's already made the bad things go away, they don't exist because they're logically impossible. But you, dear reader, need not feel guilty. Just try and be better in what limited ways you can! And it's hard!

So this is ultimately why internet reactionaries are drawn like flies to the same topics. They don't need to have a consistent worldview to defend themselves; it's a a panic response expressing itself through white nerd rage. You don't need to panic, the world will be better eventually since you're wrong.

It ain't the left who're triggered, darlings.

Yeah, definitely. You know I'm against any speech laws.

Are you going to tell me what you accept as plausible evidence of unconscious mental content? — Terrapin Station

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6977/unconscious-mental-phenomena-evidence-for-and-against

So if you don't actually know any empirical support for it that you accept, it's probably worth examining why you believe in it so firmly.

I feel like I've been here before, but this is a pernicious myth. It is not feelings which are determining truth at any point. One's feelings are just one sense of what's happening.

We might say they are the means by which one knows their sex or gender. Any time we understand something we have a similar sort of feeling, that specfic meanings are of certain things or events.

Like these many other situations, what makes a gender or sex true is not a fact someone feels it, but a truth of sex or gender itself about the particualr person in question. We are bound to recognise trans people not because they feel a certain way, but instead because it is true they have a particualr idenity.

When we misgender a person, we are telling a falsehood about their idenity. We are claiming their idenity is something which it is not.

So if you don't actually know any empirical support for it that you accept, it's probably worth examining why you believe in it so firmly. — Terrapin Station

I started a thread on the subject so you can get a broader look at a range of opinions. So far the consensus is that your question doesn't make sense.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6977/unconscious-mental-phenomena-evidence-for-and-against

The evidence is overwhelming. I'm just not interested in pursuing what I consider a disingenuous line of questioning.

I started a thread on the subject so you can get a broader look at a range of opinions. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I don't know what's difficult to understand about me asking YOU what YOU accept as plausible evidence of unconscious mental content, but apparently it's difficult to understand.

So far the consensus is that your question doesn't make sense. — ZzzoneiroCosm

You said that you accept that there's unconscious mental content. If you think the idea of that doesn't make sense, then it wouldn't make sense to say that there is such a thing. If you think it makes sense and you think there is such a thing as unconscious mental content, then presumably you could tell me what YOU accept as plausible evidence of it.

It's a simple question. I'm sick of playing these sorts of stupid games online where someone can't answer a simple question.

How am I going to have an interesting/worthwhile conversation with you when you can't even answer a simple question about what you accept as support as something that you said you buy? I've got a play a game trying to get you to answer the question. It's like trying to take a journey with someone and they want to play a game to get their shoe on first.

The unconscious mind (or the unconscious) consists of the processes in the mind which occur automatically and are not available to introspection, and include thought processes, memories, interests, and motivations.[1]

Even though these processes exist well under the surface of conscious awareness, they are theorized to exert an impact on behavior. The term was coined by the 18th-century German Romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge.[2][3]

Empirical evidence suggests that unconscious phenomena include repressed feelings, automatic skills, subliminal perceptions, and automatic reactions,[1] and possibly also complexes, hidden phobias, and desires.

The concept was popularized by the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. In psychoanalytic theory, unconscious processes are understood to be directly represented in dreams, as well as in slips of the tongue and jokes.

Thus the unconscious mind can be seen as the source of dreams and automatic thoughts (those that appear without any apparent cause), the repository of forgotten memories (that may still be accessible to consciousness at some later time), and the locus of implicit knowledge (the things that we have learned so well that we do them without thinking).

It has been argued that consciousness is influenced by other parts of the mind. These include unconsciousness as a personal habit, being unaware, and intuition. Phenomena related to semi-consciousness include awakening, implicit memory, subliminal messages, trances, hypnagogia, and hypnosis. While sleep, sleepwalking, dreaming, delirium, and comas may signal the presence of unconscious processes, these processes are seen as symptoms rather than the unconscious mind itself.

Some critics have doubted the existence of the unconscious.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_mind

How am I going to have an interesting/worthwhile conversation with you... — Terrapin Station

I'm not interested in debating the existence of unconscious mental content so you're not "going to have an interesting/worthwhile conversation with [me]" on this subject.

If you think the idea of that doesn't make sense, then it wouldn't make sense to say that there is such a thing. — Terrapin Station

I didn't say the idea of unconscious mental content doesn't make sense. I said the consensus on the thread I created (so far) is that your question doesn't make sense.

Your question is: What is the empirical evidence for unconscious mental content?

I don't agree that your question doesn't make sense. As I've said a number of times: I'm not interested in having a debate about the existence of unconscious mental content. It seems really, really silly to me.

I'm sick of playing these sorts of stupid games online... — Terrapin Station

I recommend you stop playing them.

So is the reason you accept it just because many people accept it?

I'm here to argue about kindness and its connection to the pronoun debate.

So then why, when I said, "I don't buy unconscious mental content, by the way," did you quote that and start responding to it instead of arguing about kindness and its connection to the pronoun debate?

So then why, when I said, "I don't buy unconscious mental content, by the way," did you quote that and start responding to it instead of arguing about kindness and its connection to the pronoun debate? — Terrapin Station

Just an aside.

I gave you my opinion: If you don't believe in unconscious mental content, you likely haven't read very deeply in psychology and have likely expended very little effort in analyzing your own mind.

I'm not interested in defending my position. Unconscious mental content is widely accepted and in my opinion isn't worth defending. If you don't believe in these things, you have your reasons. But I'm not interested in your reasons.

If you don't believe in unconscious mental content, you likely haven't read very deeply in psychology and have likely expended very little effort in analyzing your own mind. — ZzzoneiroCosm

The irony here is amusing.

The irony here is amusing. — Terrapin Station

If you'd like to defend your naysay vis-a-vis a phenomenon almost universally accepted in modern psychology, I'm listening.

For example: If an obscure memory of trick-or-treating with my mom as a child blipped into consciousness three days ago on Halloween, 2019, in what sense was this memory, prior to its arising, conscious?

If (as you say) you don't believe in unconscious mental content, then all mental content must be, at all times, conscious. In what sense was an obscure memory of trick-or-treating with my mom as a child conscious when there was no consciousness of it? In short, how can what was unconscious be said to be conscious?

These are the kinds of ludicrosities your position gives rise to.

Again from the wiki page: The Unconscious Mind.

The unconscious mind (or the unconscious) consists of the processes in the mind which occur automatically and are not available to introspection, and include thought processes, memories, interests, and motivations.

A preemption: A wide variety of memories "are not available to introspection" but rather blip into consciousness by way of an unknown mechanism and impetus. See Proust et al for details.

So then why, when I said, "I don't buy unconscious mental content, by the way," did you quote that and start responding to it instead of arguing about kindness and its connection to the pronoun debate? — Terrapin Station

Also I felt it was important to assert (having a passion for psychology) that although you have no criteria, visible in consciousness, for the application of kindness, you certainly have unconscious criteria. There is in every case some methodology - of which you confess unconsciousness - arbitrating your choice to be kind or to be unkind.

If an obscure memory of trick-or-treating with my mom as a child blipped into consciousness three days ago on Halloween, 2019, in what sense was this memory, prior to its arising, conscious? — ZzzoneiroCosm

What would be the reason to believe that prior to it "blipping into your consciousness," it exists as the memory--with just the same qualities it has when you're aware of it--with the only difference being that you're not aware of it? It's making an analogy to something like a paper in a folder in a filing cabinet, where you can then open the filing cabinet, pull out the paper and look at it. What's the justification for analogies like that, though? It's not as if it's the case for all phenomena that it always exists more or less the same, just it's often hiding.

For example, take a car alarm. Is it always going off, just most of the time it's going off in hiding? And then it blips wholesale into something no longer in hiding? Or is the car alarm something that only sounds when it's in a particular dynamic state, and when it's silent, it simply has the potential to be in that state (because the of structure of the materials, and the possible states it can be in as a result of those materials and structures), but it's not actually in that state (in hiding)?

When we misgender a person, we are telling a falsehood about their idenity. We are claiming their idenity is something which it is not.

I just want to get a grasp on this point. Is this falsehood about their identity false because only they can determine their identity, and therefor what is true or false about it?

I feel like I've been here before, but this is a pernicious myth. It is not feelings which are determining truth at any point. One's feelings are just one sense of what's happening. — TheWillowOfDarkness

You feel like you've been here before because you say the same thing in every similar thread and when I respond to it, you ignore it and then repeat yourself in the next thread.

We might say they are the means by which one knows their sex or gender. Any time we understand something we have a similar sort of feeling, that specfic meanings are of certain things or events.

Like these many other situations, what makes a gender or sex true is not a fact someone feels it, but a truth of sex or gender itself about the particualr person in question. We are bound to recognise trans people not because they feel a certain way, but instead because it is true they have a particualr idenity.

When we misgender a person, we are telling a falsehood about their idenity. We are claiming their idenity is something which it is not. — TheWillowOfDarkness

And I already pointed out that people's own identities about themselves can be wrong. Some people are delusional. Some people think that they are a special creation of some god. Telling them that they aren't is no different than telling a man who thinks he's a woman that he isn't. I can't make him believe that. He has to come to that realization himself, but he can't make me use words that don't represent my identity. I am a man - a human male. His declaration of being a woman makes my (and everyone else who identifies the same), use of the word, "man" and "woman" incoherent.

but he can't make me use words that don't represent my identity. I am a man - a human male. — Harry Hindu

I guess your identity comes directly from your dick. That fits. Although for most people, there's this thing called society that gets in between dangly bits and their identity-forming powers.

with just the same qualities it has when you're aware of it--with the only difference being that you're not aware of it? — Terrapin Station

From your statement it appears you do believe in unconscious mental content. But you have a question about the form it takes.

Its form is unknown. It's safe to say it isn't like a filing cabinet. It may be more like a digital file stored on a hard drive. But, again, its form is unknown. (I certainly never asserted my memory exists in identical form in its conscious and unconscious states.)

Analogies are always imprecise.

From your statement it appears you do believe in unconscious mental content. — ZzzoneiroCosm

???

What gives you that impression exactly? The bit you're quoting? That's a characterization of the belief that I'm saying has no justification.

What gives you that impression exactly? — Terrapin Station

You accept that a memory can blip into consciousness.

Would anyone be opposed to just being referred to as X?

“Oh hey, Davina is come to the party”
“Oh cool, is X going to be bringing a friend?”
“No, I’m meeting X beforehand and we are going together”

And I already pointed out that people's own identities about themselves can be wrong. Some people are delusional. Some people think that they are a special creation of some god. Telling them that they aren't is no different than telling a man who thinks he's a woman that he isn't. — Harry Hindu

Is it? For example, a transwoman's belief that she is a woman is not really like a delusional belief: It is an inherent aspect of the person that believes it and it comes from a psychological/neurological difference from the others that it is a core aspect of it -it is not simply someone believing an extraordinary thing later in life (and it is also based around a more defensible claim, i.e. their gender is different).
In your example, them believing they are a special creation of some god (assuming it is not an unrelated insult at religions and it is about a person who believes they were created by god in a particularly very special fashion) is not a core aspect of the person- it would not have been that way if the culture was different, they would have believed something extraordinary instead. But the transwoman would have still believed only that and, if she was allowed to transition, would not have gone back to being a man after some consideration. If you fed into a delusional person's beliefs, they would have only grown more unstable and not more stable. That is not what we observe with trans people unless discrimination is involved.

He has to come to that realization himself, but he can't make me use words that don't represent my identity. I am a man - a human male. His declaration of being a woman makes my (and everyone else who identifies the same), use of the word, "man" and "woman" incoherent. — Harry Hindu

That's mainly because you (and everyone else who identifiesthe same) equate being a man with having certain genitals and being a woman with having another set of genitals. Of course, from that perspective, that person will be a "man"-but a man that dresses like a woman, sounds like a woman, literally has boobs and the curves of a woman, has a generally feminine body and prefers to be on the girl side of things nonetheless.

I would say that a social perspective of gender ("gender as a social construct") can more accurately represent those kinds of situtations than a simple biological definition.