Referring to someone by the pronouns of their choosing is the respectful course of action, but there's no law that says I have to be respectful. I will in fact happily use he, she, or they when asked, but I will not use quay/xey/zey or any other made up pronoun. I won't use made up pronouns because I refuse to accept an obligation to learn and remember an ever growing list of made-up words that are required to secure the emotions of people who have been trained to have an emotional breakdown when they don't get their way (if being referred to as quay is required for your happiness, I actually think you may need to be committed to a mental institution). — VagabondSpectre
I could be wrong, but I think that it is safe to say that words--as in everyday, ho-hum exchanges, not just the exchange of ideas in political and scholarly contexts--can be very harmful and do a lot of psychological damage. If we acknowledge that words can damage a psyche and cause a lot of suffering just like pollution can damage lungs and cause a lot of suffering, that completely changes the nature of the issue. It takes us from what people do or do not like / approve of to what does or does not harm people and cause avoidable suffering. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
Say, for instance, and it happened, I`m leaving the gym floor by the stairs but my punching the air, I`d managed a personal best time, causes a girl to have a panic attack,, and from this time on I`m accused of being a pervert and potential paedophile, thus compromising my safety. Is this not to be considered criminal? — celebritydiscodave
I have made clear that I believe that conflating stereotypes and social roles is a fallacy. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
Again, race is socially/culturally constructed based on arbitrary characteristics. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
Somebody then suggested that races--white, black, Native American, etc.--are roles just like man and woman are roles, and I showed how that is false. Nothing more, nothing less. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
The point I tried to make is that race is not biological — WISDOMfromPO-MO
Living up to stereotypes is not acting in a role. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
I know if I am or am not being a man--I am or am not opening doors for women; I am or am not being a protector and provider; I am or am not sexually active. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
I think that your preferences should remain isolated from such discussions for this reason, because it can easily be interpreted as suggesting how women ought to be — TimeLine
I have chosen - independent and irrespective of religious or social determinants - to voice my own decision to not have sex until I fall in love and so am waiting to find the right person I am compatible with, but there is no morality there, nothing that makes me 'pure' or better than other women who choose to be promiscuous. — TimeLine
What would be the point if I were to say that I prefer men who exhibit strength by showing kindness and friendship over those that exhibit strength physically because the latter is brute and lacks intelligence? None. — TimeLine
None of this tells me how I know if I am or am not playing this "white" role well or who would be a good role model for me.
I do not believe that the social role of "white" exists. A white person might be more likely to have a role like master and less likely to have a role like servant, but that doesn't make "white" a role. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
I know if I am or am not being a man--I am or am not opening doors for women; I am or am not being a protector and provider; I am or am not sexually active. — WISDOMfromPO-MO
So what if I say that "for existence to exist it must have not existed before?"... and for existence I mean a state that allows for things to exist. — Daniel
I am not a fan of being told what to think. Personally, I think Reality is the greatest thing I can think of. Whether or not that includes a god remains to be seen, but I lean towards no. — Uneducated Pleb
biological sexes don't contradict the gender theory — BlueBanana
Can one distinguish between bodily gender(genitalia, facial hair, bone structure, etc) and psychological gender( cognitive-affective processing differences correlated with masculinized va feminized behaviors )? — Joshs
And I just don't think many people --- even the most vitriolic atheists --- would want to accept that conclusion. — czahar
While respecting their persons, I do not believe that a person can become the opposite sex, however. One can play the role, dress the role, think the role, and so forth, but biology trumps gender theory. A transsexual woman is a man who has taken hormones which produce feminization of the male body. A transsexual man is a woman who has taken hormones which produce masculinization of the female body. Stop the hormones, and the body reverts to its normal state.
We can distinguish between treatments that lend an air of verisimilitude to a desired gender change and an impossible gender change. My view will be hotly rejected by most transsexuals. Some will brand me as transphobic, misogynist, hateful, violent, and so forth. This is to be expected. We live in a period when extremes of ideology demand acceptance, and refusal to accept leads to denunciations.
Still and all, transsexuals are persons, and I'll continue to grant them respect as persons. I don't have agree with anyone's ideology. — Bitter Crank
Just adding 'man' or 'dude' in the middle of a sentence, even as emphasis, will make him flinch visibly. A client called him 'sir' about a dozen times in a call the other night and he had tears in his eyes. — Akanthinos
You have to understand the degree of danger. In the U.S, a trans person is 14 times more likely to be murdered than a non-trans person. — Akanthinos
Most likely, though it's hard to say. We can look back on great thinkers from cultures past and wonder why things have changed so much--why most people don't ask those questions anymore--but it's probably safe to assume that most people back then weren't concerned with those questions, either. It's probably just human nature; most of us are too concerned with what we are biologically programmed to be concerned with, while only a select few have the propensity for questioning these things. Or rather, for entertaining these sorts of questions. In my experience, most people just find them to be pointless. Even many philosophers can be far too pragmatic, in my opinion. Where's the fun in that?Indicative of the zeitgeist we live in? — Noble Dust
Please explain how Zeno's paradox is solved. — TheMadFool
Unbunch your panties a little. — apokrisis
If you are going to talk about this "you" who decides to push the button, you have to have a proper theory of what constitutes this you. Your hand-waving approach is not good enough for philosophy and science. — apokrisis
Yeah. But minus the hand-waving — apokrisis
Yeah, nah. If you are talking about this mysterious self that runs the show, according to folk psychology, then the full story has to bring in the several levels of semiosis or code. — apokrisis
So yes. There is the DNA and its evolutionary history. But then there is the neural code and the brain's developmental history. And with humans, our linguistic code and its cultural evolutionary history. — apokrisis
So if physicalism is just about "hardware", then there is a problem. And the computational analogy is a way to show that the physics of matter doesn't get to control everything. There is also the physics of information.
So yes. The program determines its own next physical state. The hardware doesn't. Unless the circuits start misbehaving due to stray cosmic rays or something. — apokrisis
So now you want to complain about introducing the philosophy that motivates the common conceptions? Are you in the right place? — apokrisis
Yeah. So now let's again talk about this mysterious "you" you keep wanting to introduce into the scientific or natural philosophy account. — apokrisis
Sure, the formal and final cause of a "program" do come from outside it. It has to be written with a certain design that serves a certain purpose.
The program itself is simply a pattern of material/effective causal entailment. A set of instructions that maps one physical machine state to its next. — apokrisis
So that is why computers are only a weak analogy for the neuroscience. It is information processing without the designer or intender. — apokrisis
Actual neuroscience needs to account for that other bit of the puzzle. How and why does the nervous system "write its own meaningful programs"? — apokrisis
To use the computer analogy, does the hardware determine its own next physical state or is it the software that determines that? — apokrisis
Philosophy of mind is dogged by these kinds of basic folk psychology misconceptions. — apokrisis
But the freewill deal is the fear that our decisions might be physically deterministic. So as soon as you view the brain in information processing terms, that issue is already dead. — apokrisis