serious-discussion

[subtle magnet]

It is quite precise

As precise as induction

[restive elbow]

Your God condemns people to hell, a place of eternal fire and suffering, simply for not sharing the same beliefs. I’d rather not worship a being like that. Have you even read the Qur’an yourself?

[last rose]

there are two main definitions

the broad one and the narrow one

[brittle jasper]

What is going on

[last rose]

I think it's a badly overloaded term

[subtle magnet]

Just like induction. There's a strong one and a weak one lol

[rocky shuttle]

serious discussions

[pallid roost]

Vro taking it from here 💀

Gl man

[brittle jasper]

I don't think talking about condemnation is even discussion

[restive elbow]

meh I'll be fine

[last rose]

well, no, everyone knows 'weak' induction is just called induction

[brittle jasper]

There's more room to talk about Saladin's exploits than there is to talk about theology and doctrine of the different religions

[last rose]

there's no confusion there I hope

[pallid roost]

Of course you will, nothing really happens anyway.

[subtle magnet]

#serious-discussion message

[brittle jasper]

Well the thing is, being right on the Internet is really important

[last rose]

maybe one could argue that in modern philosophy, the most common working definition is the broad one i.e. atheism is the absence of belief in God(s)

[subtle magnet]

Well I'd say then we can do the same with atheism. There's atheism and weak atheism for that matter.

[subtle magnet]

And that's good enough imho.

[pallid roost]

Great for brainstorming too

[spring vortex]

absense of belief in any supernatural power would be broader.

[pallid roost]

See overall it's just an emotional problem + learning mindset, okeeeey?

Else why would one try to replicate it so many times to validate it?

[last rose]

so until there’s a consensus on its definition, atheism remains a conceptually overloaded term which sparks silly-ish debates like are babies atheist

[last rose]

what do you mean/why did you bring this up

[flint fog]

"Say: O My servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair of the mercy of Allah. Indeed, Allah forgives all sins. Indeed, it is He who is the Forgiving, the Merciful."
— Surah Az-Zumar (39:53)
"My mercy encompasses all things."
— Surah Al-A'raf (7:156)

[vernal silo]

Hello chat what's the subject today

[subtle magnet]

Aiyo. Just drop preaching your bs man.

[flint fog]

I am responding

[last rose]

my mercy prevails over my wrath

[restive elbow]

what the fuck is this

[subtle magnet]

If you have an argument, use your brain to give a reason instead of quoting bs.

[flint fog]

I am not debating with you

[tall marsh]

The Quran

[vernal silo]

To be fair this is prevalent in basically all monotheistic religions, among others lol

The Qur'an isn't really special in that regard. The truth is most muslims, and people of faith in general, are not fundamentalists

[flint fog]

Verse from Qur'an

[spring vortex]

idk i feel believing in any non-deity-like power, for example the wind is also theistic, well because people tend to give human shape to any supernatural power they can conceive.

[pallid roost]

Man, really hope you guys have a job, gotta spend money on medical supplies against headache after this hahaha

[tall marsh]

bro go study

[subtle magnet]

Babies are atheist. They don't have the neurological capacity to properly form beliefs

[flint fog]

Multitasking

[subtle magnet]

Vacuous atheists

[restive elbow]

We’re both atheists, you could say we’re essentially arguing from the same perspective

[vernal silo]

Babies are not atheists, as they lack the capacity to actively reject belief, which is what atheism is

If you have no concept of God or religion you can't be an atheist

[last rose]

see but if you define atheism as 'strong' atheism then this doesn't hold

[flint fog]

I'm refuting you

"And your Lord does not wrong anyone."
— Surah Al-Kahf (18:49)
"We never punish until We have sent a messenger."
— Surah Al-Isra (17:15)

[vernal silo]

They're also not theists. Idk if there's a label for "neutral"

[vernal silo]

Quoting verses is not a form of refutation

[subtle magnet]

You're not debating at all. You're preaching.

[restive elbow]

all religious people are lowk

[flint fog]

I'm sending verses as she says that Allah will send all people to hell

"Allah does not wrong the people at all, but it is the people who are wronging themselves."
— Surah Yunus (10:44)

[subtle magnet]

They're vacuously atheist.

[flint fog]

"There is no compulsion in religion. The right way has been distinguished from the wrong."
— Surah Al-Baqarah (2:256

[subtle magnet]

Contradiction

[flint fog]

Hell is the consequence of rejecting truth after it has been clearly presented, combined with deeds and choices, not merely holding a different opinion. You could also point out that the Qur'an repeatedly emphasizes that only Allah knows who truly deserves punishment, humans aren't in a position to make that call about others.

[last rose]

again this depends on how you define definition

which is my point

[restive elbow]

For once, actually listen to what the other person is saying and think critically, if you’re capable of it, instead of quoting some bs to construct an argument

[last rose]

there's no consensus on the definition

[tall marsh]

''You have your way, and I have my Way'' 109:6

[next schooner]

lol what is going on here

[flint fog]

I'm not quoting bs, be respectful

[tall marsh]

a lot

[rocky shuttle]

serious discussions about religion

[dense ravine]

Arguments

[next schooner]

this does not appear to me to be a particularly civil discussion of religion

[dense ravine]

I’ve just been watching in amusement at this point

I tried to keep it more civil earlier

[restive elbow]

True, because something like 1 + 1 = 2 is universally agreed upon

[subtle magnet]

A lack of faith in god(s) is a good enough definition so long as it is clear what god(s) is (are).

[tall marsh]

I am inclined to believe

[subtle magnet]

Not in Z_2

[restive elbow]

[rocky shuttle]

(0 is still in the same equivalence class as 2)

[last rose]

historically and traditionally atheism has been used to mean the claim that God does not exist

[undone imp]

Dam everytime I open this there some shit going on

[last rose]

the point is the term atheism is currently overloaded

[dense ravine]

I tried to argue that the creation of the universe wasn’t a good thing under utilitarian morality and this is where we ended up

[brittle jasper]

utilitarian morality is bad

[subtle magnet]

That's a Eurocentric philosophy

[dense ravine]

Arguably

[next schooner]

I should have hoped this was obvious but just in case it is not: this channel is not for attacking other people's religious beliefs nor for attempting to convert people to your religious beliefs

[subtle magnet]

Mainly Abrahamic really. Not really a point of contention in Hellenistic philosophy.

[misty lark]

Y’all arguing so bad the owner gotta step in

[next schooner]

Nah I was just poking my head in to see how this channel was getting on

[dense ravine]

Fair enough

[brittle jasper]

Do we really need that many strong arguments if a morality theory itself is bad though? I think one critical error (i.e. justice) is more than sufficient to not have it be a central belief

[last rose]

sure but I'm not exactly arguing about its scope

[umbral ocean]

Argument is how science progresses.

[flint fog]

We were having some serious civil discussion but then randoms jumped in

[umbral ocean]

Ancient greek philosophers insulted each other a lot 🤷‍♂️

[brittle jasper]

I am so serious, I can't post images in here

[umbral ocean]

So did Jung and Freud

[subtle magnet]

To the point of murder

[dense ravine]

It was meant to show an incompatibility between two schools of thought

[vernal silo]

Not from my experience

[misty lark]

Ew freud

[dense ravine]

Not infringe on anyone’s religious beliefs

[umbral ocean]

Great scientific minds have often killed each other

[subtle magnet]

https://tenor.com/view/queen-freddie-mercury-mama-ooh-rock-gif-13914271913266081277

[last rose]

I suppose instead of saying historically and traditionally I should say

in modern western philosophy of religion, atheism has often been used to mean the claim that God does not exist, particularly in debates about the Abrahamic conception of God
should that be satisfactory

[misty lark]

Lmao

[subtle magnet]

Yep

[subtle magnet]

Aye. That is definitely true.

[next schooner]

Idk about that specifically per se. Both the early Christians and Hellenists were throwing the Greek term ἀθεότης (atheotes) or the Latin atheos at each other for fuckin aaaages

[vernal silo]

Right, if you consider "atheism" as simply the "lack of belief", but I'm not sure if that's how people tend to define it

Usually people refer to atheists as those who actively reject the premise of the existence of a deity

[umbral ocean]

Nah, I have a different philosophy about God.

[dense ravine]

I think the only ideologies that are valid are those that are completely self-consistent

[next schooner]

Good luck proving that

[dense ravine]

Fair enough

[last rose]

the former is becoming more common in modern philosophy I think

[vernal silo]

What's wrong with Freud?

[brittle jasper]

Under every sense of atheism presented so far it does seem like babies are still atheist

[umbral ocean]

I agree with this. Often most atheists are just people who don't identify with a religion 🤷‍♂️

[dense ravine]

Mathematical systems are hard to prove contradiction free

[misty lark]

He said all boys are sexually into their mom

[slate sedge]

Wow this is interesting I don’t understand none of this

[restive elbow]

Almost every religious person is a fundamentalist, they subject themselves to a specific set of morals and ideas. I don’t understand what your point is

[dense ravine]

But finding a contradiction should be evidence that something is wrong rightB

[next schooner]

Indeed it seems you have created a definition wherein the only valid ideologies are non-constructable

[thorn wren]

To be fair I don't think the distinction between "atheist", "agnostic", "irreligious" really matters for most day to day things

[next schooner]

which is kinda funny

[vernal silo]

Impossible, actually. Any system capable enough for basic arithmetic can't prove its consistency

[dense ravine]

No

[subtle magnet]

Well. That's the public opinion of what atheism is and that is shaped by the fact that a vast majority is not openly atheist outside of places where it's kinda the law.

[last rose]

philosophy doesn't really matter for most day to day things

[dense ravine]

Ohh Godels incompleteness theorem

[misty lark]

Anyway, as a confirmed atheist. I don’t believe that a god exist. That’s what most atheists believe

[dense ravine]

Yeah I actually didn’t think about that

[next schooner]

What's a confirmed atheist

[vernal silo]

Well he's not condoning such sexual acts lol he's just theorizing the psychosexual nature of people

[umbral ocean]

I think that any discussions about God are pointless. Atheists can only claim to be logically rational and theists can only reason inductively to nonsense. Nothing meaningful can ever be concluded. It's just better to put the full stop at "Religion is personal".

[misty lark]

Idk I’m just atheist

[thorn wren]

This is true

[dense ravine]

What do you mean non-constructable?

[misty lark]

Still a weird thought

[last rose]

were you an 'unconfirmed' atheist before this?

[umbral ocean]

It is highly unlikely that God as represented by humanity in any form exists.

[thorn wren]

I mean there are meaningful discussions about religion however they required you to admit the statement "my goal is not to convert people to my religion or convince them their religion is wrong" which most people are unwilling to do

[next schooner]

I'm just riffing on the Godel thing

[misty lark]

That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying I don’t believe in a god. Other people can believe what they want

[subtle magnet]

Theism while often correlated with religion doesn't have to do with religion.

[thorn wren]

perhaps the phraising I want is "academic theological discussion can be fruitful"

[subtle magnet]

You can be irreligious and still hold the position of the existence of some supreme power.

[misty lark]

I wish I was religious honestly

[umbral ocean]

Maybe Atheists should learn that certain religious practices have quite a lot of benefits even from a scientific perspective and theists should learn to question things

[last rose]

why

[umbral ocean]

I just wanted to use something as an umbrella term for religious people 😅

[misty lark]

The certainty what happens after death

[umbral ocean]

I mean believe as a word itself drives it away from science. Faith is belief without proof by definition 🤷‍♂️

[next schooner]

Theists can only reason inductively to nonsense
Okay this is both extremely biased and just patently false. Do you know what the word "inductively" means? Have you heard of e.g. the Ontological or Kalam Cosmological Arguments? Whether or not you agree with them, they are strictly deductive in nature.

[dense ravine]

I am aware, but I am now curious as to how that might actually apply to ideological theories not just mathematical systems

[subtle magnet]

Most Buddhist sects and Jains will come after you for shit like that lol /s

[misty lark]

Stop thinking your belief is surpirior

[brittle jasper]

I think most participants here don't have the knowledge to debate most of this
Also I'm not that sure if I want to watch theological debate here. I'd probably rather watch paint dry

[umbral ocean]

Cosmic fine tuning is an inductive argument.

[umbral ocean]

Yes. No one should.

[next schooner]

Yes. There are inductive arguments also. However you said, specifically, quote:

Theists can only reason inductively to nonsense

[subtle magnet]

Part of science operates that way too my friend.

[dense ravine]

I mean but we still need a set of universal axioms to reason deductively

Like you know, the world is real

Follows consistent rules

Other people have conciousness

Uh, these are unprovable but serve as a good basis for constructing beliefs right?

[next schooner]

Many loud atheists do not really seem to appreciate that there is no reason as to why the "traditional" atheist naturalist worldview should be considered the default and that all other ontologies and epistemologies need to prove themselves within a naturalist framework

[subtle magnet]

Depends on how you define consistency. A lot of the theoretical underpinnings of quantum phenomena tends to break many philosophical notions of consistency

[next schooner]

Which is rather amusing

[subtle magnet]

We don't know how to define consciousness so, not necessarily.

[umbral ocean]

Yeah. I feel you have to assume God exists as an axiom and reason deductively from there. Hence, I feel most rational scientific arguments in support of God are inductive.

[dense ravine]

True, I guess I mean that the assumption is that the human brain is even possible of comprehending the universe

[umbral ocean]

Because it is the framework that has served humanity the best so far, in all fields.

[dense ravine]

That we can ever hope to fully understand it

That a human theory can actually be a ‘theory of everything’

[subtle magnet]

And that is arguably an anthropocentric assumption.

[thorn wren]

I always just felt like being a true atheist just requires some level of ego. Like how can you conclusively decide that a god doesn't exist. At least with religions you can claim to have 'felt the presence of god' or whatever, but atheism, you can't prove non existence in this case while existence is theoretically provable.

[dense ravine]

I agree

[umbral ocean]

Kant's philosophy was something similar, right?

[next schooner]

So your epistemology is based on some kind of utility argument? Are you a strict instrumentalist?

[dense ravine]

Absurd universe philosophy makes it hard to reason though

[umbral ocean]

BECAUSE NO ONE EVER CAN PROVE A NEGATIVE. THAT'S WHY IT'S INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY.

[last rose]

one could be an agnostic atheist

[dense ravine]

If the universe is unable to be understood fundamentally then what is the point of trying?

[subtle magnet]

Atheism is strongly correlated with some very large genocides in communist regimes might I remind you.

[next schooner]

oh fuckin hell

[thorn wren]

Yeah I mean I identify with agnosticism for this reason. That'as why I said "true atheist" when maybe "strict atheist" is more what I meant

[sharp sage]

claiming any subjective opinion requires ego, no?

[vernal silo]

This statement is meaningless as any metaphysical possibility statistically has a probability of 0 since the state space is infinite

[umbral ocean]

Not necessarily. This framework often solves most problems. Hence, it is strongly recommended. If you feel another logical framework proves it better, go for it

[next schooner]

aight if you can't discuss atheism or theology without your conversation's limiting point being "but X caused more genocide!!!!!!!!!!!" then, politely, shut the fuck up

[dense ravine]

I mean, I think therefore I am, basic deductive theory, the assumption is that other people feel the same

[sharp sage]

this assumes 1 divided by \Aleph_1 is 0 i think

[vernal silo]

Sure but his work on many fields of thought were profound nonetheless

[bright condor]

everyone should be agnostic
agnosticism deals with knowledge
and it hasn't been proven either way

[next schooner]

not how measure theory works

[subtle magnet]

But what do we mean by think? Do we understand how thought works for say, a dog? Or something with no central nervous system.

[dense ravine]

That’s where I fall

[sharp sage]

how does measure theory work then miss owner

[umbral ocean]

All of humanity likes power. All of humanity does fucked up shit when in power.

[sharp sage]

oh wait i have the false role

-# i expect to get unfalsed rn

[dense ravine]

Idk, but I feel that addressing conciousness in other humans is the most immediate concern

Otherwise we get philosophical zombies

[thorn wren]

But why do you admit this as a principle into your reasoning system?
The justice system works with "innocent until proven guilty" as a matter of practicality. Without it, we'd have to arrest people accused of things and then they're unable to do work or live their life unless they prove to some burden their innocent.

However, when contemplating if the universe has a creator or deities exist and what not, you no longer have that same matter of practicality. Quite frankly it doesn't matter if I ever decide I believe the claims of any religion. Hence, I choose to go with the rigor level of "I will not believe any side of the debate unless they can give me a complete rigorous proof they're correct"

[next schooner]

That's far too big a question for me to possibly answer except to say go find some introductory material on measure theory (or a formal presentation of probability theory, which would suffice in this case)

[umbral ocean]

Nah. Like someone else said, if you are arguing agnosticism is logical, then you have to prove that the current logical system is correct, which are all axioms. So, someone would ask, if you are believing things to be true without proof, why can't you accept God?

[sharp sage]

hmmm ok i will get back to it later.

[subtle magnet]

I don't see how not being able address said consciousness leads to this.

[last rose]

we still rationally reject things all the time without proof like unicorns, invisible dragons, twesus because of lack of evidence.. often proving absolute non-existence is virtually impossible

[umbral ocean]

I just replied to someone otherwise lol. Check that

[dense ravine]

Humans who aren’t conscious but act and appear conscious

[thorn wren]

but twesus has literally spoken to you

[next schooner]

speak for yourself

[last rose]

forgive me dear lancey

[sharp sage]

hi

my disciple

[dense ravine]

I personally agree with Occam’s Razor in cases of unprovable things

[sharp sage]

awww.

[dense ravine]

Although I guess the definition of what is simpler is entirely subjective

[sharp sage]

turns out i am a heretic.

[umbral ocean]

It's just that the scientific framework is based on Axioms. All axioms have always been assumed because of necessity. So, I think we will accept God's existence as an axiom if it becomes utterly impossible otherwise.

[dense ravine]

Is the Axiom of god is like the Axiom of choice

[umbral ocean]

That's how I would include faith in my line of reasoning. It has to be impossible otherwise. That's why arguments for religion are often "I felt God".

[bright condor]

there's no problem with not knowing

[dense ravine]

You can construct valid systems both with and without it

[sharp sage]

what? accept something as an axiom bcz its impossible otherwise? dont you need axioms to prove impossibility!?

[umbral ocean]

Yes, it's equivalent to whether or not you choose it for your scientific framework. So, I decided to be a purist and not take it.

[sharp sage]

we did probably.

[torn talon]

It is entirely possible that our axioms are false and that the universe does not work the way we predict it to work. This actually only further exemplifies the requirement for god.

[next schooner]

this is uhhhhhhhhhh sloppy to say the leasst

[umbral ocean]

Then it requires better axioms.

[dense ravine]

So God is an axiom

[sharp sage]

"the system might be incomplete therefore i can pull a new one out of my ass and claim it is necessary" is what you are claiming eh?

[next schooner]

you're conflating axioms, presuppositions, and theological conclusions in a way that's just not really coherent

[thorn wren]

Axioms aren't really assumed because of necessity, they're assumed because, at least in mathematics, they lead to a theory that behaves the most the way mathematicians believe the theory should behave and lets them make the arguments they want to make. Science doesn't contain axioms, everything ultimately orginates from experiments.

And I think this leads to the difference between us, in that my response is we don't need to assume either god exists, or assume god does not exist (what is meant by atheism), whereas for some reason you believe we need to pick one or the other

[torn talon]

You are not wrong for saying so

[umbral ocean]

Like Backstreet Boys would say... Tell me why.

[bright condor]

[something that we don't know happened] ... stuff that follows

[umbral ocean]

Okay, even by that logic, we would need some observations which are inexplicable without God, and God will always be science's last resort

[torn talon]

I mean, techincally almost every T.O.E is correct until further tested but I digress

[next schooner]

Because you don't really seem to be talking about axioms in any strict sense, you're just using it as a loose stand-in for "somthing important one may need to assume"

[thorn wren]

You don't really answer my question of "does it matter if we know or don't know god exists". Why do we need to assume either way?

[sharp sage]

twin there are virtually infinite explainations for any arbitrary phenomena, why single out god specifically?

[next schooner]

If "it" (idk what 'it' is) becomes 'utterly impossible' without the existence of God then that does not mean that "God Exists" somehow becomes an axiom

[dense ravine]

Ideologies often determine a lot about how people act, so if someone constructs a system of morality around their beliefs then the existence of god does matter

[umbral ocean]

Einstein did it. Einstein assumed Spinoza's God was real. He argued a lot of his theories as "how God set the rules of the universe"

It is possible

[bright condor]

possible doesn't mean its true

[torn talon]

Not every explanation is correct is it, I mean the thing is.... The existence of god solves everything even if you dont actually know how the universe came into being. You can just correctly state - it just is, we might now know but it wasn't created out of thin air

[umbral ocean]

Because God is the laziest. Because when you claim something as "God's will", the human curiosity ends. That's how it has been historically.

[torn talon]

You dont need to default to that, God answers the why, we can still figure out the how

[next schooner]

Einstein said he believed in Spinoza's God but none of his work took this as an axiom

[thorn wren]

Like this is essentially why I have become incredibly apathetic to the concept of religions having truth values, and instead think most value of religions is exploring what they say about the human experience as literary texts or philosophies. They're often valuable commentaries on the values people hold.

Given their general policy of inaction so far, it does not seem to really impact my life at all if God exists, or if they don't exist, so I don't care about the question.

[umbral ocean]

Heck, even Bruno was strictly religious. He was Abrahamic. He argued that his God is infinite and his creation of the universe should be infinite too. He was still shunned.

[sharp sage]

i could also claim "cheese on the moon did it", the problem is you could cook up N didit arguments for virtually any N too

[dense ravine]

I feel like science doesn’t need god as an axiom, but morality does

[torn talon]

It allows us to figure out how the universe works instead of debating why it exists which we cant completely know can we

[thorn wren]

Why? How does the existence of God affect morality?

[sharp sage]

oh so it is a tool to make ppl shut up, that makes total sense

[dense ravine]

If you determine your actions based on the existence of an afterlife

[umbral ocean]

I believe that's what religion is. You believe in God. You don't need proof. It's faith. It's an assumption that it's true.

[next schooner]

morality does not require god as an axiom

[umbral ocean]

Often has been.

[thorn wren]

If you do something solely because it'll get you a reward is that actually a moral thing to do?

[dense ravine]

No, but you can choose to include it or not, you can pick other unprovable assumptions as well for constructing your own religious model of the universe

As long as they are consistent

[subtle magnet]

Well. People do zone out while doing stuff and sometimes can actively continue to do said stuff while zoned out.

[sharp sage]

maybe

[umbral ocean]

I often say this to my friends. We don't even know how our assholes distinguish between farts and shit. We aren't really qualified to discuss the creator of the universe as humans.

[dense ravine]

If a contradiction is found in an ideology it is invalid, and must be adjusted

[thorn wren]

This isn't really a valuable contribution to the conversation

[torn talon]

I think the problem is that, most people think they are right to choose what is good and what is bad, I mean why would smth that does not even know how or why the universe was created, decide what is right and what is wrong. It just does not make sense, who are we to choose what is correct, did we create the universe?

[next schooner]

you're really making the word "consistent" do a lot of heavy lifting lmao

[subtle magnet]

I'm not claiming that zoning out is lack of consciousness but lacking a definition, one could claim it.

[thorn wren]

Okay but your parent created you, are they right to decide what is moral for you to do?

[umbral ocean]

Just saying, that's my original point. Discussing God is pointless. I'm just saying, you agree with me and whatever we discuss will be pointless lmao

[thorn wren]

like I don't see how a divine creator is any more qualified to comment on morality than the person living next door to me

[dense ravine]

Fair, but I mean like if your religious model of the universe contradicts observations then it needs changing

[umbral ocean]

Even if a creator exists, they have done a terrible job.

[subtle magnet]

If people didn't discuss it, almost nobody would be atheist today.

[umbral ocean]

What sort of circular argument for religious conversion is this? 😭😭

[next schooner]

Idk insofar as the only job function implied by "creator" is that they create i'd say they did a pretty banging job. there do be a LOT of things

[subtle magnet]

How is this circular or for religious conversion?

[umbral ocean]

But yes, I see your point. We need these discussions, politically for peace among religions.

[dense ravine]

I argue that the existence of god can influence peoples thinking and actions a lot and so it is important to discuss

[subtle magnet]

It is based on historical evidence

[torn talon]

really, if they created me can they create me a second time or a third time or create an infinite number of people, dont think so right, they did not create me , god did

[umbral ocean]

I was just being reductive lol.

[umbral ocean]

How so?

[thorn wren]

That doesn't seem reasonable? This seems to imply that one should be able to indefinitely flawlessly repeat everything they do, do you expect that an artist can perfectly copy any work they create?

[umbral ocean]

Morality and religion are often not that correlated unless it's cultural.

[umbral ocean]

It's weird to claim God did all that lol.

[subtle magnet]

Go study probability. Then genetics. Goodbye.

[torn talon]

no i mean if they wanted to , they could right, yet not a single parent out o maybe 100 billion people decided to do so

[thorn wren]

Okay but I don't see how being able to create infintely many copies of me means I should care about your hot takes on morality

[torn talon]

Basically, a creator can choose to create smth or not. But if they cant choose, are they really a creator

[subtle magnet]

I mean, technically they didn't. They just performed an act which could lead to your birth with probability close to 0.

[dense ravine]

An atheistic society often operates differently than a religious one. Christian societies often criticize sexual deviancy, atheists not so much. Is this an objective moral wrong though?

[thorn wren]

Like I think my main issue with religious morality is it seems to assume "might makes right" as an axiom, which I disagree with

[torn talon]

I am not forcing you to accep what i am saying, you are free to do you, i am just giving you another paradigm, you can accept it or not

If u disagree with me, its up to you

[umbral ocean]

Yeah, it's often cultural. So many female scientists have suffered because of age old customs.

[torn talon]

I am noone to push a viewpoint

[dense ravine]

Deviancy as in views on Gays, LGBTQ+, polygamy, etc

[torn talon]

That's why i started with "I think" not "it is

[subtle magnet]

Plenty of atheists can be sexist for absolutely no reason.

[umbral ocean]

Religious societies must learn from their past.

[dense ravine]

Agreed, so the existence of god influences culture in very tangible ways

[umbral ocean]

Religion can coexist with science if you don't become a fanatic about it.

[dense ravine]

So therefore the discussion about the existence of god is an important discussion

[umbral ocean]

Not necessarily. People in power always exploit those at the bottom. Religion was the way some people who ruined society gained power. If it wasn't religion, it would be something else.

[idle steppe]

Galileo pissed off the church just because he was doing science

[dense ravine]

Because if there is a god and his will is to sanctify the body then it makes sense to criticize these people. If not then we shouldn’t do so.

[teal edge]

idk I'd say nowadays it's kind of different because the role of religion has shifted completely since then

[umbral ocean]

I mean. 400 years ago. I talked about Bruno too. Women doing science were just burnt alive lmao. It's getting better. Newton was also a staunch Catholic a few hundred years later. Huygens too.

[teal edge]

we just don't live in a religion-centrist world anymore, or one that pretends to be

well to be fair this is mostly about the west

[idle steppe]

We are so self centered for thinking god even cares about us when there are 200 billion galaxies and 1
200 billion stars per galaxy and 1-2 planets per star system.

[dense ravine]

Religion has influenced human thinking for a long time, ensuring that religious beliefs are consistent with what is beneficial to humanity might be a good thing

[teal edge]

but you can't do that

[dense ravine]

Throughout history, it has been a way to justify war

[teal edge]

because that's not how religion is supposed to work

[umbral ocean]

Okay. Now, you have convinced me. This is something I agree with. I said this earlier too. God is like the lazy way out. Science is hard. Claiming it's God is not.

[teal edge]

it is but it's also not supposed to

religion morphs uncontrollably but the point of it is that it doesn't

[umbral ocean]

More people are curious under atheistic societies, true. It will have an impact.

[idle steppe]

Have you heard of the spanish inquisition?

[dense ravine]

Yes

[teal edge]

that's the whole point in believing in something eternal vs believing in something that's uncertain and constantly changing

[dense ravine]

Well then we have the argument against religion

[subtle magnet]

Not if the religion holds and imposes dogmatic views about things for which we have concrete evidence otherwise.

[vernal silo]

Despite my secularism or even atheism, I will stand by the fact that I believe religious belief is not inherently irrational

[dense ravine]

If religion hinders human society by sorting us into competing buckets then it can be useful to help spread change

[idle steppe]

The bible says that all homosexuals should be put to death

[teal edge]

Yeah, that's why I feel like it's collectively time to move on as the generations go, because Religion doesn't need to benefit mankind anymore. This doesn't have to be an ontological argument, it's even just utilitarian

[vernal silo]

Most people of faith are not fundamentalists. I don't get what's so hard about that

[umbral ocean]

Yeah, I would include it under being a fanatic. You can be religious, but you have to know that you are human first. It's not just your right but your duty to question things.

[idle steppe]

I personally think homosexuals deserve to live, idk about you tho

[subtle magnet]

Simple thought experiment. Restart human civilization from a blank slate. Something looking a lot like religion will definitely emerge from it.

[dense ravine]

Rather than abolish religion, ensuring that religions change to reflect more liberal/utilitarian sentiments might be a good thing

[next schooner]

No, it doesn't

[vernal silo]

I believe so

[dense ravine]

I think it depends on interpretation

[next schooner]

It does indeed

[idle steppe]

Leviticus 20 13?

[vernal silo]

Yes, it does

But that isn't an issue imo since most Christians are not fundamentalists. Idk how many times I have to state this

[teal edge]

okay but that's bullshit

you can always chuck any bad thing up to "interpretation"

thats what's so infuriating

[dense ravine]

Exactly, fundamentalism is broken

[subtle magnet]

I hold a rather extremist view on this tbf. So I'm gonna avoid it.

[next schooner]

No, it doesn't

[dense ravine]

Religions must be able to change to accommodate for new evidence

[vernal silo]

Leviticus 20:13 ESV

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.

[umbral ocean]

It does. For example, religion preaches gratitude based prayer everyday (all of them do). That has a lot of mental health benefits. Christianity basically invented therapy by confessions (in spirit and vision. Execution leaves a lot to be desired). God is a form of therapy to a lot of individuals.

[thorn wren]

I mean the old testatement is also not really taken to be binding morality verses by most modern christians, as those are laws under the old covenant, so leviticus is not a good spot to cite

[umbral ocean]

I just want the existence of God to be one of those long unsolved scientific problems. Like P vs NP. Let both sides fight and advance science together

That's the dream.

[teal edge]

but all of these things are not being offered exclusively by religion, especially nowadays. I'm not calling for global atheism now, I'm saying that the surge of atheism is unsurprising because the things that used to be Religion-exclusive really aren't anymore

[umbral ocean]

Religion is often free 😭

[vernal silo]

Look at Mamdani for example

He's a Muslim. Oh no! Religion of death and oppression and whatnot

Yet he's one of the most progressive and liberal politicians in the past century

Religion is not inherently the bad part, it's how people use it

If you were to debate the morality of religion or object to the claims of religious belief, it's important to seperate the people from the belief

[dense ravine]

Like I said, I have a few views, I believe in utilitarianism to an extent and when trying to reconcile it with Christianity I was confronted with some uncomfortable things that I needed help processing

[umbral ocean]

It's the only thing a lot of people have access to

[idle steppe]

Why do we think we're so special?

[next schooner]

Yes - this passage prescribes death for male same-sex intercourse under ancient Israelite law. "The Bible" does not speak with a flat simple voice, and Leviticus should be understood as being one legal text within the Torah within the context of ancient covenant law. The concept of "homosexuality" also didn't really exist back then but that's a little too nit-picky for even me. Regardless, the applicability of that law and its relevance is - suffice it to say - very hotly debated. So yeah, saying that "The Bible says all homosexuals should be put to death" is only true if you're willing to be super fuckin reductive about it

[subtle magnet]

Because we are statistically narcissistic lol

[idle steppe]

Yeah but the religion book pushes some people to commit atrocities

[dense ravine]

Like why did god create a universe with creatures capable of suffering, does this mean god is not good? Wouldn’t it have been better to not make the universe at all?

[teal edge]

You don't need religion to teach a kid to be grateful for things and to talk about their feelings. Religion sometimes if anything becomes a prerogative for therapy for many people (me included)

[dense ravine]

To an extent this mimics antinatalism, why bring a child who has the capacity to suffer into the world

[vernal silo]

Homosexuality was recorded far before any modern monotheistic religion, with records of same-sex marriage and cohabitation being notes since Ancient Mesopotamia

The abolishment of homosexuality was a pretty radical change under Christian/Israelite law

[umbral ocean]

I would agree. Einstein believed in God but wasn't religious. Newton was staunchly religious. Maxwell's beliefs are still debated. Markov was a staunch atheist. All of them advanced science and humanity.

[teal edge]

It's just such a heavy framework that I hope it's like universally agreed upon that it shouldnt be seeded in kids that know nothing about the real world

[next schooner]

"homosexuality" is a modern term that did not exist in ancient mesopotamia

[umbral ocean]

I am not saying you need religion. I am saying we can't just switch it off. We need to improve society to gradually phase it away. That's what we have done so far if you think about it

[subtle magnet]

I mean Gilgamesh and Enkidu are the gayest couple in an epic if I have ever seen one.

[teal edge]

Well of course, ya thats also what im arguing 😭

[vernal silo]

Yes, the term did not exist, but acts of homosexuality is ancient history

[umbral ocean]

Glad we agree.

[dense ravine]

Yes, reinterpret religious texts with a modern lense

[vernal silo]

Agreed

[subtle magnet]

To abandon religion in today's world entirely would not be possible without mass genocide tbf.

[umbral ocean]

Oh. Ew no. I have seen people do it with my religion. Mostly propagates more false beliefs.

[next schooner]

I am not denying that things which we now label as homosexual occurred in the ancient world. They obviously did. I am saying that homosexuality as we conceive of it today did not exist back then

[subtle magnet]

Which one would that be, might I ask?

[umbral ocean]

Also, Cal Newport talked about how decoding the Talmud as an exercise is so mentally tough that it trains young Jewish minds a lot. Hence, those people's high intellectual capabilities.

[vernal silo]

Well, sure

The act of sleeping with another man was common and recognized (common in the sense it was normalized)

Given the statues of Christian law, that verse is a radical change

[dense ravine]

Well, I mean how else do you cope. The alternative is fundamentalism, which we have determined to be harmful to humanity due to its reductive and reactionary views that harm people who don’t conform to outdated ideas.

[umbral ocean]

Hinduism. Born into that. Also, I eat cows. Don't worry.

[subtle magnet]

I had a feeling lol

[next schooner]

Anyway, this is a matter of semantics. But one should be wary of taking modern, abstract, identity-based concepts such as "homosexuality" and applying them to the pre-modern world (or indeed really any non-western culture)

[dense ravine]

McDonald’s?

[vernal silo]

Agreed I suppose

[subtle magnet]

Nah. They're not allowed to serve beef in India (unless they don't live in India anymore)

[umbral ocean]

Keep religion and science separate. Advance science to the point that God is actually relevant and then discuss it. Till then, believe in whatever you want to.

[next schooner]

I mean, it's pretty fucking important if you want to actually understand ancient cultures. Like, the Romans were "homosexual" as fuck, but to view Roman sexual and romantic relationships through a modern lens completely obscures how the Romans themselves conceptualised of 'homosexual' acts and activities

[umbral ocean]

I lied lmao. It was from a bar.

[dense ravine]

But since religion often dictates how people act and think, then we need to have the discussions

[subtle magnet]

Science very much is already at that point. There are questions that the scientific method may not have any answers to mostly due to the impractical nature of experiments that we might need to do to answer them.

[next schooner]

The first thing you gotta do if you wanna learn about or speak about anthropology is examine all of your own sociocultural constructions and then chuck em out the fuckin window

(unless you're specifically comparing those things in which case you are allowed to go get them back again from outside)

[dense ravine]

Like ancient intercrural sex?

[next schooner]

That's... not quite what I'm talking about.

[thorn wren]

I hope that was worth having to wait 30s before your next message

[umbral ocean]

Which experiment are you thinking of? Sounds interesting.

[sharp sage]

what.
update: this is meta discussy now apparently

[next schooner]

Many theories of quantum gravity and the like require high-energy regimes which are so hysterically outside the bounds of anything that has ever existed since the big bang iteself to, like, "directly" observe

[dense ravine]

The relationship between quantum mechanics, classical determinism, and free will

[flat karma]

Homosexuality is seen in other living beings as well

[sharp sage]

what have you done

[flat karma]

Ok

[dense ravine]

The point of quantum wavefunction collapse is a highly debated philosophical question with applications in theory

[next schooner]

jfc can you not just use google

[sharp sage]

wouldnt this invite slowmode evasion?
like this
oh nvm it doesnt matter
you told me in meta discussy some time ago

[dense ravine]

like does it happen at measurement? after the wavefunction reaches a quantum-classical threshold?

[thorn wren]

I mean the point is that like for instance the concept of "sexual orientation" traditionally has not existed. Idk how to explain this without getting a lot more nsfw than I'd like to get, but for instance, traditional views on this were more concerned with who held the power in relationships, which is a bit more nuanced than the gender of participants, and what was instead frowned upon was giving power over you to people 'beneath you or equal to you'

[sharp sage]

do we have a permanent 30s slowmode now or what

[subtle magnet]

I mean anything pertaining to near-Planck length accurate measurements. Many cosmological experiments probing the origins and end of the Universe. Dark matter probes. Experiments to characterise the conditions for the emergence of life. Experimental meaning of measurements in quantum theory lol.

[dense ravine]

Slow mode probably invites longer more thought out responses so it is probably a good thing

[sharp sage]

yes.

[subtle magnet]

Touchy topic lol.

[dense ravine]

It is interesting to think about though, because there are also interpretations like many worlds where there is never a collapse at all, and the wavefunction just continues entangling with more particles until it essentially spreads out in a bubble at the speed of light, splitting the universe along the way, yet we only conciously experience one branch

It kinda leads into quantum immortality where like we can only experience branches we exist in, which is a bit of an obvious statement, but the conclusion is that we are here because we haven’t died yet

[subtle magnet]

#serious-discussion message

This is precisely why I replied to @umbral ocean saying part of science also operates this way.

[dense ravine]

And for like free will, perhaps the conscious mind, in choosing a branch to follow, exerts some control at a quantum level in order to manipulate you into acting different ways

[subtle magnet]

Most people believe in a certain interpretation of a theory, or choose a model that conveniences them (or the community at large acc to them) in some way when the empirical evidence just isn't enough to demarcate.

[regal dome]

help in determinants

[idle steppe]

Wtf is quantum immortality?

[dense ravine]

Although that would be a cool power for Sci-Fi magic, imagine like being able to will the universe into behaving a certain way at a subatomic level. Kinda like you do in dreams but more difficult. If you can imagine how to manipulate all the atoms in the object to change it, you could cause the spontaneous reversal in entropy.

[subtle magnet]

It's a philosophical thought experiment related to quantum suicide

[dense ravine]

The idea that you only exist in branches you are in, and the mind not existing is a paradox, therefore you will always find yourself in a branch you are in, therefore you will never die

[idle steppe]

free will isnt a physics question.

[dense ravine]

Become Schrödinger cat and see if you survive

[subtle magnet]

It very much can be. Statistical independence for choosing the settings in Bell tests presupposes free will.

[subtle magnet]

This is something that interpretations like superdeterminism reject.

[sterile fable]

Anyone here does algo trading

[dense ravine]

Wrong, it totally is, classical determinism questioned this a long time ago. Newton discovering that the universe operates off of rules led to a rise in deism. The idea that god set the universe in motion like a clockwork machine where everything is determined by the initial condition, all actions, everything.

[idle steppe]

To me, this isnt interesting to think about because we cant ever calculate physics exactly, and quantum mechanics turns into classical mechanics when looking at macro scales

[dense ravine]

Well, it’s not like we know the initial conditions, but that doesn’t mean they are there. Quantum phenomena actually challenge determinism.

[subtle magnet]

There literally was a Nobel Prize awarded for showing macro scale quantum tunneling.

[idle steppe]

I love physics but can u explain why this is important or interesting to think about?

[timid zenith]

But also who knows? Maybe in like 200 years we will be able to calculate physics exactly and quantum mechanics will somehow be overthrown

[idle steppe]

They werent talking about free will though

[dense ravine]

If you can predict the future of a ball in motion given an initial conditions, that lends itself to the idea of being able to predict the future given everything’s initial conditions, which questions free will

[idle steppe]

Physics isnt that easy bro

[subtle magnet]

Built into the very idea of a Bell test, which was also awarded the prize.

[hushed rivet]

My QM prof told us that there were theories of QM that weren't probabilistic, but they were at the same time non local

And as we can't really know the quantum state of stuff on Jupiter, they're kinda useless

[dense ravine]

Laplace's demon is a 19th-century thought experiment proposing that if a super-intelligence knew the precise position and momentum of every atom in the universe, along with all physical laws, it could calculate any future or past state. Proposed by Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1814, it represents the pinnacle of classical physical determinism, implying that future events are predetermined.

[subtle magnet]

And if you tell me entanglement and tunneling are different things and so we shouldn't pit them together, then you're wrong because it's the same framework that predicts both.

[dense ravine]

Is it bad that I learned about this stuff from Rascal Does not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai?

[idle steppe]

Yeah in 1814

[subtle magnet]

Idk how that last statement is relevant really, but yes, there are formulations that are inherently non local like Bohmian Mechanics.

[timid zenith]

You can get warned for joking around in this chat, please don't.

[dense ravine]

Yeah still relevant today

[subtle magnet]

More or less what superdeterminism seems to be an extension of.

[dense ravine]

Actually if you guys like this kind of stuff I would recommend it, there’s a bit of handwaving and there are some anime-isms about it but it’s a really enjoyable watch

[idle steppe]

Its just impossible to calculate what happens inside a human body exactly with the laws of physics

[subtle magnet]

Proof of impossibility?

[timid zenith]

LMAO I learned about everything that has to do with philosophy from "THE GOOD PLACE" on netflix. 9/10 watch.

[subtle magnet]

That's mostly philosophy of ethics and morality

[timid zenith]

Yes correct. Which is most of the philosophy that I care about honestly. It still introduced to me to the world of philosophy which now I'm learning more and more ideas about.

[dense ravine]

Sure, it’s a hypothetical, just because it’s hard to get the exact initial conditions doesnt mean that if that information isn’t known it isn’t possible to hypothetically predict and therefore remove free will

[idle steppe]

We cant even solve the EOM of a pendulum exactly how are we gonna calculate an avogadros number of complex organic chemical reactions with the laws of physics?

[subtle magnet]

Define exact.

[dense ravine]

If the universe is a computer running a crazy computation always guaranteed to get the same output, you dont have free will

[timid zenith]

Comptibilism still allows for free will under that, though many people don't seem to like it

[dense ravine]

Explain?

[idle steppe]

Exact means its a neat elementary function that we know how to calculate the values of. The solution to the EOM of a pendulum is non elementary

[subtle magnet]

Imho you're grossly confusing mathematical models of physical phenomena with physics itself.

[next schooner]

Could be a platonist

[dense ravine]

Actually a funny quirk about quantum mechanics is that I do wonder if quantum field theory is actually a result of like even smaller objects interacting, like the fields themselves are combinations of even smaller objects that collectively act as a field, like water having properties

[idle steppe]

Have you heard of chaos theory? Sensitivity to initial conditions

We cant measure anything exactly, and a small change in initial conditions can blow up in chaotic systems

[timid zenith]

"Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent. "
Pretty much compatibilism would be any belief of free will that has a definition of free will that does not contradict(?) Determinism.

[dense ravine]

Yeah, the universe knows the initial conditions, it will calculate it accurately, we might not be able to know that future but that doesn’t mean it isn’t predetermined

[next schooner]

congrats you're on your way to becoming a string theorist

unfortunately you're like 30 years too late for the party

[pearl oyster]

Aren't you ? What's your position

[subtle magnet]

Yes and how's that relevant?

[next schooner]

I generally consider myself a pretty strict instrumentalist

[timid zenith]

I honestly love that

[idle steppe]

We just cant know anything for 100% certainty, so we cant calculate what a human being will do exactly

[subtle magnet]

Even in supposed non chaotic systems, we cannot measure anything exactly. Only upto floating point precision. Infinity is not something that is physically real.

[dense ravine]

Oh that’s crazy, I’ve always seen string theory as like some esoteric stuff with like Riemann manifolds and stuff and compacted space, but saying it like that makes a bit more sense, it is an attempt to further reduce things by looking at an underlying system of even smaller objects interacting to produce larger events

[subtle magnet]

We can know a lot of things with 100% certainty on the contrary. If I toss a coin with two faces and it falls face first, it must either show heads or tails.

[idle steppe]

Thats not what i meant and u know it but whatever

[next schooner]

Which is to say, I do not believe e.g. that the statement "1 + 1 = 2" (if anyone says a fuckin thing about Z2 i WILL ban you from this channel) can be assigned any kind of truth value outside of whatever logical formalism you construct to make the statement

[subtle magnet]

A Quantum Field is vaguely speaking a set of interacting harmonic oscillators.

[dense ravine]

No, quantum fluctuations cause a false vacuum decay that consumes everything before the coin hits the table

[sharp sage]

string concatenation:

[rocky shuttle]

[subtle magnet]

Not the point. You are confused between mathematical reality and physical reality. We use one to model the other by making idealisations. The math is a model for physical reality and not what physical reality is.

[pearl oyster]

So you're saying that statement is true only as a consequence of the choice of initial axioms and rules of inference (logic)

[sharp sage]

probably

[subtle magnet]

Then my statement would still be vacuously true.

[next schooner]

yes

[idle steppe]

To me it just sounds like @dense ravine has read WAY too many pop-sci books

[dense ravine]

I agree, physical reality can be deterministic (no free will) with out necessitating the ability to compute or even understand how to compute that future.

[pearl oyster]

What true statements would you say aren't true for the same reason, that is what other way exists in order to call statements as true

[dense ravine]

Ain’t even gonna deny, that and YouTube

[idle steppe]

If i 100% feel like i have full control over everything i do why should i care if the laws of physics technically predicted what i was gonna do?

[idle steppe]

I graduated from pop-sci pretty quickly lol

[subtle magnet]

Can be not is

[next schooner]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this question but, put simply, my view is that "true" and "false" simply do not exist outside the context of a construction which contains these values

[sharp sage]

"will that feels free is good enough" - kursgezagt probably

[timid zenith]

I see. Ive heard some non-cognitivist arguments similar to this.

[dense ravine]

Because if you commit a crime and end up in jail how is it fair if your actions were predetermined by the universe, a lot of human law assumes free will.

[subtle magnet]

Ehh. Idk what you are agreeing to tbf. I didn't claim that.

[idle steppe]

Would you wanna live in a world where crime goes completely unpunished?

[next schooner]

non-cognitivism, iirc, says that statements about morality cannot be true or false yeah

But I wouldn't say I'm a non-cognitivist

[dense ravine]

No, but the rationality of responsibility for your actions would need adjustment

[next schooner]

I am not enormously interested in, like, ethical philosophy all that much

[dense ravine]

I was saying I agree, then stated my own thoughts in addition to my agreement

[subtle magnet]

Yes. Better yet. A lawless world, where crime is a mere concept.

[dense ravine]

I was originally going to use committing sin and going to hell as an example of unfairness if the universe is deterministic, but this channel has seen enough religious debate for the day

[idle steppe]

So ur saying that u wouldnt wanna live in a world where crime goes unpunished but at the same time to reduce punishment for crimes just because the "universe" determined peoples actions?

[timid zenith]

Actually I made an argument against this just yesterday!

1. People have the capacity to learn even under free will, even if that learning is determined
2. If you do not punish someone who has committed an immoral act, they are less likely to have learned (obviously) and will have a higher chance of committing an immoral act in the future
   2.1 if as a consequence of you not punishing someone for an immoral act more immoral acts are done on people, then that non-punishment was immoral
   2.2 if as a consequence of YOU not punishing someone who has committed an immoral act, theh commit an immoral act again, then that increases the odds that ANOTHER PERSON punishes that "someone" who is committing an immoral act, and thus putting them through a higher chance for future pain by not punishing them
   Conclusion, it's immoral to not punish people for immoral acts even under determinism (ill be honest point 2.2 is worded badly though I wrote this quickly)

[idle steppe]

Yeah dont let this guy be a politician/law maker lmao

[next schooner]

because you ending up in jail was predetermined

[dense ravine]

I agree with all of your points there

[timid zenith]

So, you agree that people should be punished (like jail) even under determinism? Though I will say, with this framework you can still have immoral punishment(s), like the prison systems of the US!

[dense ravine]

Yes, I actually had thought of some of those arguments but couldn’t figure out how to phrase them (point 2)

[timid zenith]

Damn. Why did I write so much if I could've made such a simple argument.

[thorn wren]

The answer to this is instead of viewing imprisonment as a moral judgement against someone you should view it as a method of population control

[lime fractal]

Why is there discussion and then serious discussion

[pearl oyster]

You wrote this as an example of the instrumentalist view but I don't really see how this is opposing to the Platonist view, 1+1=2 exists, and is true, in this realm of axiomatic set theory and so this is a discovered truth

[timid zenith]

That's okay. Id say even my phrasing was mediocre at best. I've only been debating people in random philosophy stuff for like... 2 weeks?

[thorn wren]

#changelog

[idle steppe]

Yeah prison serves to keep dangerous people away and/or rehabilitate

[dense ravine]

Yeah, people who commit crimes are more likely to commit them again in the future and if you want to prioritize security and safety as a society that is important

[flint fog]

Can those not escape jails and harm others again

[thorn wren]

The point I'm making I guess is if you view the existence of a justice system as something that a society constructs to manage how often certain actions occur, then instead of viewing it as "if someone gets imprisoned for committing murder and free will doesn't exist that's unfair" you can instead adopt the lens "imprisoning people who commit murder has been effective at decreasing the number of murders committed and I think that's desirable, so hence it is a good system to have in place"

[dense ravine]

Back to topic, even though we may not be able to model the physics of the universe perfectly it may still be deterministic, just following rules we don’t/can’t understand

Therefore the concept of Laplace’s demon is important and evaluating the potential for free will within current scientific theories is also important.

[neat lintel]

but quantum physics

[timid zenith]

But I still think discussion of the morality of it is important because cutting the limbs off of every murderer would also be quite affective at decreasing murder rates

[dense ravine]

Exactly #serious-discussion message

[glass peak]

Would it?

[flint fog]

Saudi arabia is an example

[timid zenith]

Yeah. I think so. Or rather, if it was, would it suddenly be okay to cut the arms off of murderers?

[dense ravine]

Cut the balls off of rapists?

[glass peak]

Deterrents like the death penalty do not work, there’s no evidence of that.

The fundamental issue with lines of thinking like that is that most crime is not caused by some scheming evil master mind serial killer, most of these things happen because people are poor. This can be in many ways, due to people ending up selling drugs, or in gangs, but also because it leads to more troubled up bringings, which ca cause problems with like emotional regulation

[glass peak]

No

[heavy pagoda]

there' some statistic about the vast majority of crime being caused by a small number of repeat offenders

[dense ravine]

It has been shown to reduce aggression just like it does for domestic animals

[heavy pagoda]

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3969807/

[glass peak]

You can’t just group all crime together meaningfully like that, and it’s also not all that helpful to talk about this abstractly because it’ll vary a lot from country to country, especially when there’s places like the US which focuses so heavily on punishment over rehabilitation and is so intensely stigmatised against ex prisoners

[sharp sage]

isnt that cruel and unusual punishment? Plus what happened already happened, and we can stop them from continuing to do such actions by yk, prison?

[dense ravine]

Many poor people crimes aren’t deterred by the death penalty though. It’s mostly jail

[next schooner]

Yes, quite right, I was oversimplifying. If you know what instrumentalism already is then I won't try and clarify beyond saying that i am an instrumentalist

[subtle magnet]

You can leave yourselves outside the door xD

[glass peak]

Again, things like this don’t work, because most sexual assault is committed by people the victim know, and in children this is usually family members. All this does is make it even harder for victims to report the crime

[heavy pagoda]

something which i am against is the death penalty for e.g. pedophilia and rape

[sharp sage]

extend it to every crime then.

[glass peak]

There is genuinely no conclusive evidence that harsher punishments, including the death penalty, actually work to reducing crime, and in many cases it has the opposite of the intended effect

[heavy pagoda]

because if the punishment for these things becomes the same as the punishment for murder that just incentivises perptrators to murder their victims

[next schooner]

The more accurate statement would be more along the lines of, "the statement 1 + 1 = 2 is a consequence internal to a given formalism and is not some discovered truth about abstract objects"

[subtle magnet]

Pedophilia isn't really a crime per say. It's a psychiatric disorder. Acting upon it is definitely a crime tho and should be treated with impunity.

[heavy pagoda]

okay i mean acting on it here

[sharp sage]

if they are going to murder them, they are going to murder them anyways, plus no matter whatever you do you get punished and death sentence vs life in jail isnt really considered while you are committing a crime yk?

[next schooner]

okay now that's a fuckin contentious statement to say the least lmao

[heavy pagoda]

i mean you can argue that criminal compulsion is a psychatric order in and of itself

[subtle magnet]

Put criminals into free grunt work under tight supervision.

[inland raft]

1+1=2 is simply an a priori statement

[glass peak]

Pretty hard argument to win

[sharp sage]

uhh you cant be punished for your thoughts?

[heavy pagoda]

so i dont really buy this argument that much because of reductio ad absurdum

[glass peak]

This is what the US does, I don’t think incentivising a slave class is really all that helpful

[next schooner]

huh what does that have to do with anything i said

[subtle magnet]

How so?

[sharp sage]

nvm it was a misunderstanding.

[heavy pagoda]

i dont think there's anything contentious about that that person said

[subtle magnet]

The insanity plea in various forms exists in most legal systems to deal with exactly this kind of argument.

[next schooner]

yes, but this doesn't have anything to do with realism/instrumentalism/whatever

[storm dagger]

hi someone ping me to context of whatever is going on rn pla

[subtle magnet]

Serious discussion

[storm dagger]

uh....

[sharp sage]

on this, should thoughtcrime even be punished? most people (including me and apperantly every reasonable government) think no .Like you haven't done anything that affects people
(please dont ridicule me)

[neat lintel]

i mean I'm adverse to punishment in general so I'd say it shouldn't be punished

[heavy pagoda]

i can see the argument that even if a person hasnt done anything per se, if the authorities believe there is a large chance they will harm someone in the near future that miht be sufficient cause for action - although this is not quite the same as thoughtcrime

[sharp sage]

isnt this minority report all over again

[subtle magnet]

That would lead to deaths among many young children and teenagers given how vindictive some of their thoughts tend to be lol

[subtle magnet]

You should consider watching Psycho Pass lol

[next schooner]

the statement "paedophilia is a psychiatric disorder" is just kinda inaccurate since much of the literature distinguishes between paedophilic 'interest' and 'disorder'. The DSM-5 does this, for example, and making this distinction or not is itself pretty controversial

the controversy is around whether such attractions automatically constitute a disorder irrespective of impairment or behaviour etc

[storm dagger]

action should be in control ig... cant take high measures on basis of SUSPICION.. beceoz if once done, it would give authorities to do anything on basis on SUSPICION

[heavy pagoda]

okay there surely needs to be some sort of probable cause here

like suppose that a person is doing things that are not illegal, but that indicate there is a high chance that something illegal is going to happen

[sharp sage]

without even considering abuse potential thoughtcrime punishment as a concept is pretty dubious tbh

[neat lintel]

like what 'google has data says you think wrong', probably how things alrady work ...

[next schooner]

Indeed, the DSM-5 quite explicitly states that somebody with paedophilic interest does not have a mental disorder

Which as I am sure you can imagine can be pretty controversial

[subtle magnet]

That is just weird

[sharp sage]

pre-emptive measures as in holding the suspicious person in a containment cell or what?

[heavy pagoda]

sure

[next schooner]

Behold! Controversy!

[heavy pagoda]

or putting them under surveilance or whatever

[pearl oyster]

What I was trying to say is that i don't find "statements are true only because of context" and "true statements already exist and are discovered" as opposing/contradictory/incompatible views

[storm dagger]

investigate. keep the person in extreme restriction..?

[sharp sage]

mf you are basically punishing someone for things they havent done yet, and wouldnt this just incentivize them to do it sooner? There surely must be better ways of preventing probable crimes than this?

[neat lintel]

arguably the world is in a surveilance state, and we are witnessing thought crime being punished already no?

[heavy pagoda]

so for example, i think someone that is known to have pedophilic interest/urges, which is not illegal, should probably not allowed to be a teacher, even if they have not acted on it

[sharp sage]

its called a background check duh.

[heavy pagoda]

on account of P(Acts on urges | has urges, has access to children) being unacceptably high

[next schooner]

Once you're digging down this deep into the matter you really gotta start having pretty strict definitions of words like "context" and "exist" yadda yadda

[dull socket]

this made me remember that survey which showed that teachers are more likely known to be into these things

[neat lintel]

i'm curious if that survey was world wide or just in north america where the standard is incredibly low

[sharp sage]

isnt this biased, as teachers are closer to kids and therefore more likely to be discovered/acting on it about being into these things

[next schooner]

Like, I'd say they're pretty plainly incompatible if "discovered truth" means that this truth exists independently of the framework in which it is stated - "true only because of context" means that the framework constructs the truth.

Idk what you're quite trying to get at exactly but if it's statements from me related to instrumentalism that are unequivocally irreconcilable with platonism then like sure i guess i can do that

otherwise i'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make

[neat lintel]

is your instrumentalism unfalsifiable like marxism or freudian / adlerian psychology

[next schooner]

uhhhhhh

[flint fog]

Communism vs capitalism, which one is better

[neat lintel]

I don't know what instrumentalism is, if that isn't obvious

[next schooner]

i see

[dull socket]

that does make sense but i think it was an online scam which involved giving personal information including job so random sample
that being said it might be fake i dont remember correctly

[sharp sage]

oh well

[next schooner]

instrumentalism is generally thought of as a philosophy of science which is probably most easily explained by explaining its polar opposite, realism, which posits that science is fundamentally about discovering literal objective truths about reality

instrumentalism opposes this view

asking whether it is "falsifiable" or not feels kinda like a nonsequitur

[neat lintel]

I'm on board with instrumentalism I think ...

[next schooner]

in the philosophy of mathematics, scientific realism is kinda replaced with some variety of platonism or some such

[neat lintel]

Seems to me both (realisms / antirealism) are unfalsifiable but that is missing the point

[next schooner]

i don't think falsifiability in the Popperian sense is at all well-defined for something like scientific realism

[pearl oyster]

Yes so that is what I was originally trying to get at which is how do you even say something is true without there being a context
I will try to give an analogy, we would often say that a computer was invented but we had to discover the logic gates the circuits the transistors the computation model the Boolean algebra, or you could say there were too invented but what they were made of and how would they fit together was discovered if not directly by theory then by trial and error, we discovered the computer it couldn't have existed if the laws of physics never allowed it to be, we can't invent arbitrary things, the only part of invention that we do is to choose the direction of where we should look for our discovery, otherwise there seems to be no dichotomy

[next schooner]

"how do you even say something is true without there being a context" sounds like u might be some sorta instrumentalist m8

that's one of the questions on the diagnosis

[pearl oyster]

The structure of knowledge, for us atleast seems to be in a way that there can't be any truth without a premise

[neat lintel]

ok so a realist would say 'look at this model you think you can do better, that this isn't always true?'
and an instrumentalist would say, 'just wait'
but certainly some theories are closer than others (and with time they get closer to the truth)

[next schooner]

Ah - well this is the key distinction - "closer to the truth" assumes that there is a truth to get closer to in the first place

The instrumentalist position is that there is no truth to get closer to

[neat lintel]

how about 'closer to reality', haha it is iterative. This is kind of interesting, do you have any recommended reading

[next schooner]

This is perhaps a little too... absolute to be representative of instrumentalism in general

It's better to think in terms of models and what a model actually is

Is a model of physics an approximation of the true underlying reality of physics? Or is it just a useful tool (instrument, if you will)?

Realists answer say the former. Instrumentalists say the latter.

[neat lintel]

The old models aren't representing reality, but no one knows whether we can model reality, but we have gotten closer

[next schooner]

That's a fundamentally realist viewpoint

[neat lintel]

I'm not commited to either one, just keeping the discussion going

[next schooner]

I see

Well if you're interested in the general ideas then the argument over whether mathematics is invented or discovered is very similar

Or read anything about Platonism, since this is like, the OG realist philosophy of mathematics

(though it is important to point out that you can be a realist and not a platonist)

[storm dagger]

people say communism doesnt work in reality because its economics doesnt make sense. i wanna read about it

[flint fog]

I think communism without corruption and if properly implemented can do good

But practically communism can't be implemented without corruption

[storm dagger]

why.

[flint fog]

like the USSR, which collapsed under its own weight

[neat lintel]

probably I lean anarcho commuist, but I barely know what that is ...

[flint fog]

We have seen many examples like these where communism led to the demise of the country

[storm dagger]

once it didnt work. so it wont woek ever

[dire sandal]

Definitely more than once

[neat lintel]

everyday acts of community are winning all the time without notice

[dire sandal]

Most recognize that its primarily the hierarchical structure of government that causes corruption hence why people lean anarcho

[storm dagger]

cuba and vietnam are doing decent ig

[dire sandal]

I mean communism isnt just as simple as community or whatever u mean

[brittle jasper]

Both of those are not really that communist AFAIK if treating it as an economic system

[storm dagger]

as in

[brittle jasper]

As the very basic economic theory, communism does not entail dictatorship or autocracy

[dire sandal]

Family member married someone from Cuba and ive heard quite the opposite

[storm dagger]

would like to hear

[dire sandal]

Thats anecdotal though, I suppose

[storm dagger]

true but are majority wanting the one party only to rule... if yes isnt it finr..?

[storm dagger]

didnt get u

[neat lintel]

how about everyday acts of anarchism are winning instead then 😛

[dire sandal]

In the economics sense, their main complaints were about the incredibly insufficient distribution of rations, the low supply of pharmacies to which citizens have access, and the long waits that citizens must experience for gasoline despite the seemingly cheap pricing

[dire sandal]

Considering that the world just became globalized politically even after anarchist movements idrk about this

[neat lintel]

people organize on their own, consider this server. people wait for the bus in line without rules ... eh fair point it is a shame

[dire sandal]

This server making actual political differences??? All ive seen for the long time ive been here is people whining and doomering in discussion

[neat lintel]

Ah, maybe you just gave an example of what you wish not to see

[dire sandal]

As far as I can tell the world has been in a state of fear and sadness since at least 1880

[neat lintel]

ah maybe earlier than that ...

[dire sandal]

Yes 1880 is generous

[old oak]

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

[dire sandal]

I wasnt implying that all times before 1880 were pleasant

If anything there would have been a brief 5 year period of semi-not-really-peace in the reconstruction era

[storm dagger]

And what are the reasons for these which they suspect...

[dire sandal]

Idk

[flint fog]

from the beginning

[ionic wraith]

Well this took no time

[dull socket]

what is even happening atp

[ionic wraith]

[storm dagger]

my grandma suspects that some 3rd person is secretly causing world war 3 and becoz in news they showed mysterious silloute so she thinks he is black in colour

[maiden panther]

'block in colour'

[next schooner]

This is such a stressful image I cannot imagine having constant notifications about the news

[storm dagger]

u understood no 😑

[maiden panther]

I thought it was supposed to be some kind of symbolism or transferred epithet.

[maiden panther]

I agree. Hearing constant notification sounds, constantly staring at your phone, like you're on a leash, seeing those cortisol-elevating news, that over-exaggerates and sensationalizes, it is bad for health.

[next schooner]

It is certainly bad for my health to be constantly hit with all the continuously generated bad news

[maiden panther]

I wished the news spread some more positive messages. It is negativity that sells and spreads unfortunately.

It is so easy to cry and wallow over terrible evils.

[next schooner]

my brain is more than capable of generating loads of things to be really fuckin stressed about for no reason, i don't need a newsfeed thrown in the mix

[wise jetty]

yes
also, hey, slowmode, epic

[maiden panther]

Like, the news probably hasn't covered this:

Two marsupial species thought to have been extinct for 6,000 years, the pygmy long-fingered possum
and ring-tailed glider, were recently found alive in West Papua's remote rainforest.

[neat lintel]

no news is good news

[lavish cosmos]

no news is real news

[ionic wraith]

[maiden panther]

What more is that the brain always overestimates the things going around us, making us stressed for no reason. Stress is supposed to be in an evolutionary standpoint a protective mechanism, which alerts us of danger. However, these dangers that social media portrays often does it to exploit our biology.

Our stress mechanisms are adapted for stone age, not for modern society and its exploitive nature.

If one merely realizes that these problems eventually fade away given time, then much of our stress can be alleviated. Being happy in such circumstances is the ultimate rebellion. As Camus said, we must imagine Sisyphus happy.

[lavish cosmos]

More input than processing

[next schooner]

It probably has, it just gets buried under the far more clickable "BREAKING NEWS: WAR!!!!" kinda news

[ionic wraith]

I have stress when I eat pasta

[maiden panther]

The human mind prioritizes what appears to it as more urgent and more severe. Again, I told you, being popular by spreading negativity, and conspiracies is easy.
Being popular by promoting collaboration and assuming the best in everyone is the shortest way to be called 'naive.'

[maiden panther]

Pasta trauma is real. Any food, which I do not like, tastes bitter.
E.g. Pasta Tomatos. I don't know why.

[fickle jolt]

is someone free? id like to be taught continuity and differentiability plz 😭 for like 30minsd

[empty mirage]

girl speaks . They also recently discovered ways to make self repairing solar panel materials https://buildreview.org/self-repairing-solar-panel/

[thorn wren]

Guidelines on Discussion of Religion

Respectful discussions of religion/theology in #serious-discussion are acceptable, but proselytising (in other words, attempting to convert people) or invalidating another person’s faith is not. So specifically, you should not be trying to prove that a specific religion is true, or that a specific religion is false. Note that we also prohibit proselytising atheism. Instead, academic discussions about religions that go beyond "this is the true religion" or "this is why your religion is false" are what we are permitting in this channel.

For example, the following things are not permitted (non-exhaustive):

• "God is not real and you are stupid for believing so"
• "God is real, my religion is the only true one; please repent so that your soul can be saved."

Failure to comply with these guidelines will result in your blacklisting from this channel. Likewise, if you see a user violating these rules please ping <@&268886789983436800> so that we may handle the situation.

[empty mirage]

there are some real interesting research on perovskite materials

But no ones talks about it properly

[maiden panther]

Not everyone is into chemistry ig. I personally dread it.

[empty mirage]

No this is rather something that should be in the news no "WE MADE REGENERATING SOLAR PANEL MATERIALS!"

[maiden panther]

Now, this. We must teach the scientists how to get the spotlight. Otherwise, war, war, war, and the never-ending siren would never end (ig that's the point).

[empty mirage]

I think that was ratgirl's point

[maiden panther]

Like: "Like, Grand Unified Theory of Math solved.... It can fix your entire life."
(as an alternative title to "Proof of the Geometric Langlands Conjecture")

[empty mirage]

That would be misleading.

[maiden panther]

That's why we don't do it. I myself cannot draft sensationalist titles.

[vocal prairie]

Th happened here

Also ||CSAM|| is bad

[misty lark]

What is the topic?

[subtle magnet]

Pop science and science communication still cares about clickbaity headlines on far reaching things because they're poorly funded. Materials science on the other hand, very heavily funded. No need for PR stunts.

That said, I do hope some science communicators start actively covering all kinds of stuff without bias. All these podcasters just get ppl to talk about things that the average "science enthusiast" is just jerking off to rather than meaningfully contributing to early students.

[sharp sage]

Emdash role v2 it is

[undone imp]

rip atheists

[twin pasture]

hey chat did you know God is not real and you are stupid for believing so

[maiden panther]

But, God is me.

[storm dagger]

hi lol

[cedar shore]

apparently you arent real, how do you feel about that?

[storm dagger]

☹️ i m sad

[maiden panther]

If Wittgenstein said "The limits of my language are the limits of my world," and if god is the limit of the world, thus god is the limit of my language.

[dire sandal]

Religious owned with facts and logic

[twin pasture]

therefore i am ❤️‍🩹

[maiden panther]

Add "i think" before this.

[crystal tapir]

Wdym, I'm literally here?

[storm dagger]

i am quoting this and writing god for every limit evaluation problem from now onwards

[maiden panther]

Peak! No professor can deduct for this.

[crystal tapir]

Anyways, I think this is not allowed.

[graceful tundra]

i mean we cant prove it nor disprove it so who cares just live life

[maiden panther]

If they do, just go to court, claiming that were vindicative towards 'personal beliefs.'

[neat lintel]

idk the way people talk about ai it's like they believe in a new god

[graceful tundra]

its the same way you cant prove if im eating a sandwhich or pizza in my room right now, you'll never know so you cant automatically decide im eating a pizza thats why humanism>atheism imo

[cedar shore]

that one oklahoma essay:

[maiden panther]

If one cannot know, just make one up, and chill with it. Existentialism is a humanism.
(Well, that's the title of one of my favorite essays that I did not write)

[neat lintel]

it's kind of interesting the notion of blind faith

but i'm critical of blind faith because people can say anything is done in blind faith and it is hard to deny it

[ionic wraith]

The working class has gotten to the point of figuring “might as well destroy the means of production if we ain’t gonna benefit from it”

[rapid valve]

@bright hill there you go

[neat lintel]

like you have to assume a lot of context in order to say something is blind faith. not sure if that makes sense

[maiden panther]

That is the idea which Sartre criticizes in his essay. He says that when you make a Projet, you choose not only for yourself, but for all of humanity. So, when you want to designate the meaning of life, or choose an answer to a difficult problem, you will make it up, but you must carry the responsibility of it, as if you are representing humanity

[neat lintel]

interesting, but to claim others are acting in blind faith you have to have blind faith yourself that you even undertsand their thoughts at all.

[ionic wraith]

The meaning of life for me is making a Chipotle-style pasta bowl place

[verbal quest]

set fire to rainforests in Brazil to stick it to Amazon

[storm dagger]

asking meaning of life to me is same as a person getting hit by bullet asking who shot the bullet, why they shot it,etc instead of receing help

[ionic wraith]

[ionic wraith]

U seem like a smart well read cookie

[maiden panther]

Existential Angst summarized in a nutshell. Anyways, empathy is a hard thing. Sartre famously declared "Hell is other people." Although I don't believe it (much like Emmanuel Levinas who argued against it). However, the point is, making up something does not have to be blind faith. It depends on definitions. In a world that is absurd, with no logic to anything happening, the best act is a rebellion. Being happy in a world that is absurd. If you call it blind faith, then you are right. This is what Camus means by absurdism. However, I do make another distinction. Existentialism and Absurdism are not the same.
(I am not a philosopher)

[maiden panther]

But..., I eat other cookies. How terrible must I be to eat my own kind.
Anyways, most of my reads are light novels.

[neat lintel]

I have an example of what I think is blind faith, I'm curious your thoughts

So sarte gives the example of the women on the date (this is criticized), first of all do you think this is blind faith? then I'll go with my example

[ionic wraith]

📖 🧠 ⬆️

[undone imp]

@modulators

[neat lintel]

My example is a women before a date. A women seems like she is interested in a man by approaching him repeatedly. She sits with him and says 'hello' to him. The man gives the women his phone number but the next day she ignores him and pretends not to see him instead of sitting with him.

Is the man acting in bad faith for assuming the women is interested? is the women acting in bad faith for 'pretending', or is this not applicable to bad faith

[maiden panther]

It's not blind faith. Sartre termed it mauvaise foi (bad faith). The situation is:
A woman is on a date. The man pays her a compliment that has clear sexual undertones. He then takes her hand. Instead of acknowledging his desire (which would force her to decide if she likes him or not), she treats the compliment as if it’s purely about her personality. When he holds her hand, she doesn't pull away, but she also doesn't squeeze back. She leaves it there like a "limp object," pretending she is just a mind engaged in deep conversation while her hand is just a "thing".

This is bad faith imo, because she is LYING to herself to avoid making a choice, to avoid anguish.
However, this is criticized by feminist philosophers (like his wife Simone Du Beauvoir) who pointed out the societal expectations of women to behave a certain way.

The criticism does not deny that the girl was acting in bad faith. Rather, it criticizes the male-centric viewpoint of Sartre.

[neat lintel]

why would someone after repeatedly approaching someone else stop approaching them and ignore them after receiving their phone number? maybe they just don't know what they want

[maiden panther]

There are levels to it. Human motivation does not arise from one area. Common sense does not dictate the best or even the most plausible event.

[neat lintel]

the person giving the phone number is like 'I see that you want to approach me and say hello' if that is true then 'I am giving you the freedom to say hello whenever with the phone number'.

and the person receiving the phone number is like 'I dont want that freedom' this situation is fascinating to me hahaha

[maiden panther]

It deals with the plurality of meaning, with the instance of 'freedom'

[neat lintel]

I don't follow that, maybe you mean that freedom can mean so many different things

[maiden panther]

Plurality means multitude.
Whereas one can interpret freedom in a positive light, Sartre depicts it in a negative light. In his essay, he writes "Men are condemned to be free."

[torn talon]

doesn't freedom mean oil

[neat lintel]

Right I see now, so in this sense the person giving the phone number is burdening the receiver with the capabilitiy to say hello whenever and all the other garbage associated with receiving someones phone number

[maiden panther]

It means democracy.

[torn talon]

ok srry

[maiden panther]

Yeah that's how Sartre sees it. Freedom as a burden.

[quick beacon]

Freedom is not synonymous with democracy.

[glossy marlin]

freedom means indirect pretend democracy

[torn talon]

Yeah, its like its deonotative meaning?

[maiden panther]

I know. It was a joke on certain American tendencies,

[gaunt marlin]

ok

[ocean harbor]

god is real and you're stupid if you don't believe it

[torn talon]

@twin pasture Ever heard of this thing called "religion"?

Also, you are free to provide your opinions, just dont call someone stupid or insult them

[glossy marlin]

-# we call christianity belief, not knowledge

[shadow palm]

It's a joke

[misty lark]

Y’all have never heard of sarcasm and it shoooows

[ocean harbor]

ik

[ionic wraith]

I love that even if the Democrats take back the presidency, they’ll likely not reverse Trump’s policy on making gender on passports AGAB-based and I’ll be stuck with a male passport for the rest of my life (unless I change citizenship, likely Singapore)

Singapore allows gender change but after SRS

But that’s better than the U.S.

[open nimbus]

dont expect much from a stem discord server

[cloud rover]

Genuine question - British passports by default specifically have a section for the passport bearer's sex, not their gender - is/was that ever the case in the US?

Wait the US one apparently does too; any mention of "gender" on a passport seems to be relatively new in comparison?

[glossy marlin]

yeah, most first world countries are better than the US afaik

[cloud rover]

That's barely even a low bar at this rate

[heavy pagoda]

i dont even get what the argument for having sex on your passport is

[teal edge]

I don't even get what the argument for having a passport is

I'm glad you don't have to do all that bullshit in the schengen zone

[glossy marlin]

-# I´m pretty sure almost everything relied on gender until like one to two hundred years ago

[last rose]

in 1980 ICAO released released a blueprint called document 9303 which created the universal standard for machine readable passports.. the ICAO standard strictly mandated a field labeled Sex allowing for the codes M, F, or X (unspecified).. prior to this (most?) passports did not include a field for sex or gender whatsoever..

[vernal silo]

Wittgenstein was so fucking based

[ancient lance]

Huh,this is a thing?

[sharp sage]

Update it then

[vernal silo]

Security reasons I'd guess

[ancient lance]

I'd think it's rooted in the states desire to convert everythingt to numbers

[last rose]

well even if ~24 of the 36 members of ICAO council members agree, countries can just file a difference to opt out so..

[heavy pagoda]

sex isnt a number

[ancient lance]

the number of people..., not sex itself.

And I really meant clasify, etc

[sharp sage]

M->1
F->2
X->3

[heavy pagoda]

what is the security reason beyond needing your sex to be on there? your passport can accurately identify you without it, and women and men have equal legal status anyway

[ancient lance]

Also, that's not true everywhere. In India women, have additional legal protection

[vernal silo]

I assume there could be issues with identity fraud or other related edge cases

[last rose]

I mean like when interpol is looking for a criminal missing person or something something they rely on massive databases and sex filter can immediately cut search results in half d

[vernal silo]

True, actually

[heavy pagoda]

i mean you can present as a different gender than whatever your biological sex is (for whatever definition of those words you adopt)

to me this is would be something like having hair colour on your passport when you can just dye your hair

[sharp sage]

As cooly said, database reasons—

[vernal silo]

As @last rose pointed out it might actually make as a good filter for databases

[dull socket]

but then that wont make sense if a person likes to keep changing their gender

[sharp sage]

I mean an extra gender field would suffice no?

[vernal silo]

Category Y: They change it too much idfk man

[sharp sage]

Category Y: I can't be bothered to enter their gender for some reason so here is a placeholder

[vernal silo]

Actually officially it's sex, not gender

[dull socket]

it should be since you cant change that

[vernal silo]

So Im pretty sure you cant change it since it's about your biological sex

[sharp sage]

Twin i know, thats why its called a gender field not a sex field

[vernal silo]

Why is slo-mode 30 seconds tf is this

I wonder if there were any issues with identification of a transgendered person if their biological sex on the passport doesn't match

I guess the passport does have photos and names and other identifiers too tbf

[glossy marlin]

there´s the "birthing persons" debate, there´s all kinds of discrimination against intersex people, etc., "biological sex" is really hard to define or use, especially in a way that would not harm millions of people.
some countries make the sex field about assigned gender, some allow changing it as they all should

[glossy marlin]

yeah, not uncommon, changing it is a relatively long process and can cost hundreds to thousands of bucks, and that mismatch can cause confusion and actual problems with work, doctors, etc.

[vernal silo]

Meh, not really

XX = Biological female

XY = Biological male

Defects may classify differently

[glossy marlin]

"defects"

[vernal silo]

Well yes, they're abnormalities in the biology of a person, that's not meant to be an insult

For example intersex people. I'm not insulting them by calling it a defect since their sex status is objectively a biological abnormality

[glossy marlin]

it has been a thing for thousands of years.
most intersex people function perfectly fine and only have their conditions discovered during fertility testing or such, some people find it during ultrasounds or see symptoms like gynecomastia.
anything harmful is possible but incredibly rare.

[vernal silo]

I never said it wasn't a thing or was harmful

But it is out of the biological norm, ergo a defect, don't get why it's an issue calling it that

[glossy marlin]

there are differences in chromosomes, hormones, physiology, etc., all hard to classify. a good amount of men are XX and a lot more women than you´d think are XY.

[vernal silo]

Im not too well versed in biology but is the latter not considered intersex?

[glossy marlin]

"defect" implies "broken", "flawed", etc.

[vernal silo]

Well that's not what I'm meaning to imply

[glossy marlin]

yeah, XX male and XY female are intersex and your classification would not work with that

[vernal silo]

Well, yes, hence why I said that those rarer cases can be classified in some other manner

"Intersex" as an umbrella term feels a bit too vague so I wonder how that'd work

[glossy marlin]

then don´t use "defect" or such to describe all those people.
like I said, it´s hard to define and use "biological sex" in a way that wouldn´t hurt millions.

[vernal silo]

Is "defect" really seen as an insult?

[slow pier]

I would care to weigh in, sex is not even biologically just XX and XY but a suite of characteristics like chromosomes, primary and secondary sexual character, etc, much more. So, saying that biologically only two of the sexes are "the norm" is imo not a very good argument because you can easily have mixing and matching there.

This means sex is non-binary

[glossy marlin]

and there are of course all the nonbinary and trans people out there who want to change it, maybe to something outside the made up binary.

[glossy marlin]

yes, it is.

[vernal silo]

My apologies then

[rapid valve]

Ngo's say there are 9600 palestinian prisoners

That's quite a bit ngl

[vernal silo]

I'm distinguishing one's gender vs one's biological sex

Mixing those up gets messy

E.g. a transfem

Gender --> Female
Biological sex --> Male

(in the simplified case)

[glossy marlin]

-# saying a trans woman has some inherent maleness?

[vernal silo]

?? Girl

[sharp sage]

So discussing "biological sex" is inherently bad?

[vernal silo]

No need to twist the narrative lol

[rapid valve]

The thing is that people always fail to define biological sex so my interpretation is that it doesn't exist

[vernal silo]

Again I don't see what's particularly wrong with the XX and XY chromosome pair differentiation

[sharp sage]

I wonder if it is just due to social pressure against defining such a concept?

[glossy marlin]

yeah, girl and only girl. the biggest difference is usually the primary sex characteristics and chromosomes and those should be referred to as nothing but primary sex characteristics and chromosomes

[vernal silo]

We're only speaking biology

[sharp sage]

Oh slowmode is 10s now

[sharp sage]

How about phenotypes?

[rapid valve]

Everything we atribut eto men and women are societal, things like chromosome go against our intuition in some cases. So it's just the same definition as gender but worse because some cases don't make sense

[vernal silo]

Yes, and a transfem, biologically speaking (in the simplified case, as I mentioned) have XY chromosome pairs

I'm not invalidating their gender as a female, I'm simply pointing out their biological categorization

And how one distinguishes that in official documents like passports and shit

[pallid roost]

I didn't know there are troubles defining male/female in biological contexts.

[sharp sage]

Well, certain variances exist, for example sex chromosome mutations, hormonal imbalances, ....

[glossy marlin]

well, it doesn´t work. there´s X, Y, YY, XXY, XXX, etc., people can have exactly the chromosomes you´d expect of the other "biological sex", etc., the only thing you can really see and the average person would ever use would be some secondary sex characteristics and presentation.

[rapid valve]

Many people have 3 chromosomes or even 4 or some develop female or male characteristics after despite the having the non adsociated chromosomes

[vernal silo]

Well yes but those cases are rare

Females with the XY pair for example are thrown under the umbrella term "intersex"

Which is why I'm wondering how one can handle these cases

[pallid roost]

Are they discussing regarding environmental features?

[sharp sage]

Wtf does that even mean

[rapid valve]

There seems to be other factors and chromosomes are correlated but not really a good definition

Whereas identity just always works

[pallid roost]

Cuz I see 'phenotypes,' though that's my oversimplification

[vernal silo]

Well yes biology is complicated but there is probably a way to functionally group them

[pallid roost]

Unless, they're just starting with chromosomes all over again

[sharp sage]

I feel like a combination of karyotyping and phenotyping should work, or we just massively expand the biological sex category beyond m/f

[rapid valve]

The point im trying to make is that "biological sex" coincides with gender in most cases, and in the rare cases it doesn't , gender fits intuition the most

So gende is just better

[sharp sage]

Yes

[cedar shore]

better for what purpose

[rapid valve]

Everything

[verbal quest]

[rapid valve]

As i said it's the same but more relevant

[vernal silo]

Right but gender is a societal thing. As I've mentioned earlier, transfems while being female (tend to) be biologically "male"

I just dont see how one can cleanly categorize the latter

[cedar shore]

more relevant to what

[pallid roost]

Like appearance, on physio growth, presence of reproductive organs specially, hormonal levels, vice versa?

[glossy marlin]

it honestly shouldn´t be distinguished. a woman is a woman. medicine should talk about individual features.
fun fact, medicine not talking about individual features is part of why a lot of trans people don´t want to see gynecologists or such and many people don´t know much.

[vernal silo]

Because again cases with biological abnormalities exist

[glossy marlin]

the categorization that functions is "this person wants to be that, they are that"

[vernal silo]

That's an institutional issue, not a scientific one

[pallid roost]

This sounds more like social one tho

[vernal silo]

Again, sex doesn't function the same as gender

[pallid roost]

Which has now overstepped onto sexual orientation

[glossy marlin]

you also see a bit of it in science

[sharp sage]

Well what i think is that "sex" is a giant plane with males on one side and females on the other and variances as being in the middle, above or below the plane

[sharp sage]

Maybe this analogy suck idk

[rapid valve]

You try to find a scientific base to sexes, but in reality, it's our idea of gender that was copied on biology to fit scoietal structures. It's like biology was used to justify racism despite no scientific meaning behind that. Im not saying you're racist but i think you're making a mistake.

[vernal silo]

The latter being social, in which case I am with you in the sense that tranfem or transmales are true females and males (by gender), respectively

[heavy pagoda]

sex is like

[rapid valve]

Genders preceed sexes

[heavy pagoda]

sex surely has at least 10 dimensions

[rapid valve]

Not the opposite

[unborn meteor]

oh no why are we doing this

[heavy pagoda]

but like there are two clear cluster points

[magic python]

DO I GET TO TALK HERE

[pallid roost]

Yeah you kinda got it right, reason for variance is mostly social interpretation tho, not even on say, household roles/practices

[unborn meteor]

<@&268886789983436800>

[glossy marlin]

"sex" is a hundred-dimensional state space and every person occupies some blurry blob of values.

[rapid valve]

And i don't put them on the same level indépendantly

[vernal silo]

I agree but pragmatically speaking this is extremely inconvenient for legal stuff

[sharp sage]

I agree with that tbh, a better version of my analogy probably

[pallid roost]

Just the way they look and show capability in performing generally

[vernal silo]

Dawg what 😭😭

What did I even say

[pallid roost]

Could be as stereotypical as 'male lift things', 'female clean things'
But today's (hopefully) not as this black/white.

[magic python]

Biologically male doesn't really mean anything. The best you can get is gender assigned at birth, which is just appearances

[rapid valve]

No, just ask your patients if they have a dick, all that justification has the only benefit of avoiding this simple question.

[sharp sage]

True.

[pallid roost]

oh

[glossy marlin]

legal stuff should be based on gender or characteristics, there isn´t a neat thing like sex and it could not be used well.

[vernal silo]

Nowadays I don't think this is the common notion

At least I really hope not

[magic python]

It literally is in many parts of the world last time I checked

[sharp sage]

Normalize this lmfao

[heavy pagoda]

i mean it does mean something

[vernal silo]

The conversation started out in the context of passports and other legal documents, not medicine (WHICH I AGREE WITH YOU ON THAT PART, BTW, I WANNA MAKE THAT CLEAR 😭 )

[pallid roost]

Ohh xD

[heavy pagoda]

like biological sex, even if not binary, has two clear naturally occuring cluster poitns

[magic python]

Not anything useful is what I mean. Sex is JUST physical appearance at birth.

[rapid valve]

Gender mentions on passports are useless

[heavy pagoda]

plus chromsomes plus genitalia and so on

[magic python]

Passports don't even need gender, let alone gender assigned at birth imo

[heavy pagoda]

and a whole range of other identifiable features

[pallid roost]

Still mostly physio, so far. Ig?

[glossy marlin]

oh also. clit too big at birth? boy. dick too small? girl. met with grs. so yeah that´s also pretty much useless.

[magic python]

Actually sex isn't determined based on chromosones and the genitalia is what they see. It's not based on what it is, it's based on the size

[vernal silo]

Possibly, but I'm guessing it's used for organizational reasons in databases and such

[glass peak]

This doesnt seem like transphobia to me, so far it seems like things are remaining respectful, but please do let us know if anytihng crosses the line. This is naturally a contentious topic, and we of course do not tollerate transphobia in any capacity.

[sharp sage]

"This cuts down database search space in half" - @last rose

[magic python]

And then they change later in life

[pallid roost]

Tho rare case exists where scans revealed male organ (trying to protrude) from inside but look female outside (vulva) - forgot terms for this.

[heavy pagoda]

i mean these determinations typically coincide 1 to 1 with chromosomes except in exceptional cases

so you could probably replace 'AGAB' with 'chomomsomal type' or something and it wouldnt really matter

[sharp sage]

Technical term is karyotype btw

[magic python]

Maybe they should set it to gender expression. Gender itself is literally useless because someone can just lie. I don't think people at airports are asking "what's your gender"

[heavy pagoda]

like the precise method used to assign gender at birth kind of isnt the issue here

like you could use any marker thats sufficiently well correlated with karyotype and you would produce roughly the same results

[magic python]

I'm just saying, XX46 DSD is quite common, so are other chromosomal abnormalities

[unborn meteor]

why would you ever want to do that

[glossy marlin]

you couldn´t.
millions of people would be affected in various ways.

[magic python]

You can't tell gender by looking, and you can't ask someone for it if it's an identifier if it's trivial to lie about.

[vernal silo]

In most developed parts of the world male and female rights are settling down, are they not?

Of course there are still issues but I doubt they're as extreme as "women make sandwiches, men make money"

[sharp sage]

#serious-discussion message

[heavy pagoda]

i mean millions of people would possibly be assigned a different gender so it would matter in that sense

[unborn meteor]

then you can use actual gender

[heavy pagoda]

even so thats kind of a contentious point

[magic python]

Religious views where women should be subservient are still quite common.

[unborn meteor]

not fake gender, we should call agab "fake gender" now

[glossy marlin]

they already have like a hundred data points on most people and gender / presentation could be used just as well.

[sharp sage]

Fair enough

[pallid roost]

Well it's different enough to know it's more on male than female or so, most cases, minus fashionable makeups and hormonal fluctuations that change their characteristics

Else system won't be implemented to 'roughly estimate' it

[rapid valve]

Yeah given the number of humans on earth, making 4587 genders would be more optimized for a hashing table than 2

[verbal quest]

"now seating enby amab mixed race from the midwest cutomers at gate 3"

[unborn meteor]

me when i define my gender to be independent of ZFC

[sharp sage]

Ah yes

[magic python]

And then the whole "men can't have bad mental health"

[sharp sage]

Something something stereotypes

First day of serious discussy and it is going well eh

[magic python]

Indeed

[sharp sage]

Race is another pile of bullshit—

[magic python]

Gender assigned at birth is ONLY useful I medical scenarios imo, and even then, not all the time.

[glass peak]

While legal issues are generally settled in the west* (generally is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, and the US is regressing fast), the issues around the patriarchy are still very much real, and make women and mens lives harder, sexisim is by no means a solved issue

[rapid valve]

Sorry i forgot this is serioussy now

[magic python]

Infact, gender is also really useful there, especially if someone is transitioning.

[vernal silo]

Fair point

Another issue is identification for stuff like police proceedings

Often in situations like crime a person can't know what the perpetrator identifies as

So police use "male" or "female" as identifiers (e.g. "suspect is male, 6'0, medium build, etc.")

Although in these cases I'm guessing it's more about general body types rather than precise identification so it's less of an issue

[glossy marlin]

yeah, not very often as far as I know.

[deep mango]

Part of me being a man is having bad mental health. Its one of my proudest masculine traits

[rapid valve]

But i don't wanna help the police.

[sharp sage]

Rather niche

[magic python]

In this case that is good as an identifier because it doesn't fucking matter if it's wrong. It's asking for appearance

[rapid valve]

Case closed

[vernal silo]

That's a different discussion lol

[vernal silo]

Yeah, exactly. Fair point

[sharp sage]

Congrats you angered millions of people

[magic python]

Plus they can literally class it as masculine feminine and androgynous

[glossy marlin]

yep. "suspect looks masculine"

[magic python]

No gender needed

[sharp sage]

but it is longer and i dont wanna type