It's not anything like mental content when unconscious. Hence there isn't unconscious mental content.

Mental content is phenomena such as thoughts, desires, ideas, concepts, propositional attitudes, etc.

It's just like the car alarm (as a particular sort of sound) is not anything like that sound when the alarm is not going off. It's not that the sound is present but just hidden.

Do you accept that an obscure memory ("not available to introspection") can blip into consciousness? — ZzzoneiroCosm

You can suddenly have a memory. There is nothing like a memory, with the same qualities that you're aware of when you're aware of a memory, that's present in your mind that you're just not aware of at other times however.

I asked a question about the scenario as you presented it and asked for the justification for characterizing it that way.

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.

Neither cranks nor bigheaded jerks will survive the return of Jesus, though it seems at least one horsee will. My return, of course, only added to their number. Well, not the number of horses. — Ciceronianus the White

An appropriately crank-like response. ;-)

So why would it be noteworthy that people you're making up share the model you're making up? It's more curious that some people you're making up--like me--think that you're a philosophical mess.

A high percentage of new members who actually post something seem to be cranks.

Most of the long-term regulars can be really dickish and annoying, exacerbated by inflated egos. That includes the mods just as well as the rest of us. Sometimes the newbies join in this just as readily.

We need to figure out how to attract new, active members who aren't cranks, and we need to figure out how to not be such bigheaded jerks.

Luckily most of my models are shared with my interlocutors — Isaac

Your "interlocutors" are part of your model, no?

I'm getting at the fact that Isaac believes that things like primates and qualities they have are a mental model of his own devising. If he's going to claim to believe that, he can't start talking about primates like he believes there really such things and he can observe them.

"Sacred" is usually a religious idea. If you think that anything is sacred, you believe that a god exists. So someone who thinks that life is sacred (a typical definition of sacred is "connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration"), then sure, you're going to think that it has intrinsic value, either imbued by god(s) or simply arising as part of god-nature or something like that.

We could try to nail down a non-religious sense of "sacred," though.

To clarify, I think non-linguistic primates have a sense of fairness, — Isaac

You mean that you have a model where there are non-linguistic primates and they have a sense of fairness, but it's strictly something you've constructed. Objectively, you don't believe there are things with properties that make them primates or make them have a sense of fairness or anything like that. You should always be clear that you're simply talking about models that you've constructed, and this reply is part of your model that you've constructed in your view, too.

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)?

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.

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

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.

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.

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

If want people to change the words they use around certain people because of their feelings, then you should be applying that rule to everyone, not just those whose political ideology you support. — Harry Hindu

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.

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

Some mental contents, at any point in time, are unconscious — ZzzoneiroCosm

Which again is a claim that I don't at all agree with. I said that from the start. What do you accept as plausible evidence of it?

It sounds like you're just not a very kind person. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Different people will have different assessments about that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I know that at this moment not everything in your mind is conscious to you. It would be difficult (if not absurd) to argue with that. — ZzzoneiroCosm

I wasn't asking you to rephrase your claim. I was asking you to justify it epistemically.

Democrats need to worry about running someone who can beat Trump, and they should have more or less have figured this out by now, as the election is only a year away. They need someone who isn't too old, who is charismatic, who is fairly moderate politically, with no (potential) big scandals or controversies in their background.

I don't hold everyone to the same standards, no. I adjust my expectations and assessments based on capabilities, history, context and so on.

If you "don't buy unconscious mental content" then, yes, I know your mind better than you do. — ZzzoneiroCosm

And the way you know that is?

Do you only show kindness to people who have earned your respect? — ZzzoneiroCosm

Right, so when I say there's no set criteria for it, really, that's what I mean. So no. And I don't necessarily show kindness in particular ways to people who have earned my respect, either. It depends on the situation, really, the way I feel at that moment, what's being asked, what's being interpreted as kindness--all sorts of things.

It's inaccurate to say there's no criteria. — ZzzoneiroCosm

Um, you asked me what kind of kindess I value. There's not really any set criteria for the kindness I value. On what grounds can you say that it's not accurate to say that there's no set criteria for the kindness I value? You're claiming to know my mind better than I do?

I don't buy unconscious mental content, by the way.

Is there a situation in which you would designate a transgendered person by his or her pronoun of preference just to be kind? — ZzzoneiroCosm

Sure, if the person is a friend/has earned my respect, etc., then it's likely though not guaranteed that I'd do it.

There's not some set of criteria for it, really. It's just whatever I feel is warranted.

Those who care care because it's kind to care. Do you value kindness? — ZzzoneiroCosm

Not to the extent that one thinks that it involves catering to something just because someone wants you to, no.

I don't agree with the theory of forms, but there's a simple reason that the third man argument doesn't work: the property of "good" is itself good, of course, but on the platonic view, the property can't be lumped together with things that aren't the property but that have the property. The property "has" the property in question due to identity (hence putting "has" in quotation marks). Trying to lump the property together with things that have the property is making a sort of type mistake (a la the theory of types).

Again, I don't actually agree with platonic analysis here, but the third man argument is a pretty simple type error with respect to the Plato's theory of forms.

For example:

" Something can explain the goodness of a particular thing if and only if the thing explaining the goodness has an understanding of "the thing that it is explaining"'s inner workings."

What do explaining and having an understanding have to do with the theory of forms or the third man argument? The theory of forms and the third man argument are about ontology/metaphysics, not about explaining and understanding things.

I was asking you. After establishing interest, he takes it home. End of story? — Mww

Probably most people would put it in their garden, or on a shelf or something like that. (I'm not sure what we're getting at here.)

I'm stumped why you're talking about explaining and understanding in the context of the theory of forms and the third man argument.

I suppose one can just look at something and not consider anything about it. But what if it interests him? — Mww

What about that? So, say, for example, that one sees a rock that one is really attracted to--say something like a rock of pink granite, so one picks it up to take it home.

Necessary in the sense that it doesn't make sense to say that there's something with no properties/characteristics.

And observing those doesn't imply that one is making a comparison to something else.

All “likes” as characteristics/properties/qualities are themselves comparisons. — Mww

No, they're not.

"Compares to the effect they have on him"? What would that even mean?

But I understand what you mean: I observe a ZR1 and recognize it is like a Yugo. — Mww

Not "like" as a comparison. "Like" as in characteristics/properties/qualities.

Minimising variance is a well-supported principle of self-organising systems. A large proportion of neuroscience, and significant sectors of biology are now based on the idea that systems aim to minimise variance as a means of maintaining equilibrium steady state, so unless you have anything substantive to counter that theory with contrary empirical data, — Isaac

You're not talking about empirical data. You don't believe you have access to empirical data. You're talking about a model that you constructed (just like you're constructing the model of "my reply"). The fact that your personal model makes the "minimizing variance" model common doesn't make it non-arbitrary. Trust me, as this is your model talking to you.

Hmmm, yeah, I suppose. Observation tells me that, but use of “modeling” makes explicit I wish to know of. Observation in itself, tells me nothing of the world except it is not nothing. — Mww

I don't really understand "makes explicit I wish to know of."

Observation shows you what things are like, properties they have, patterns that occur, etc. It tells you all sorts of things.

It just means on a whim, without a system or reason. — Isaac

As when deciding to go with "minimizing variance" for a metric.