Kevin Beal

Your maturity and humility is killing me. Really, I'm clutching my heart spread across the floor gasping for air, in the dark, without you to comfort me. But at least I'm not without hope! haha. Well yes, but I can't really throw stones. I'm guilty of speaking authoritatively (without meeting my own standards for justification) as well sometimes. I try not to give conclusions without argument about things which are not obvious or implied by a mutually accepted premise, but it happens sometimes. It can be an emotional experience debating moral issues, and it's very tempting to do it, as it would be to anyone with an emotional investment in any moral question, but it's not always justified and it's something that I need to work on. I can't reasonably hold people to standards that I'm not meeting myself. Not that I think I'm wrong. I stand behind the core of what I said from the beginning of the thread. I've only become increasingly cemented in that belief. I didn't know that the other threads had existed until earlier today. I didn't know that lots of people had discussed 7+ pages of this question. I didn't know that there was already a conversation going that had already escalated and the same people ended up in this thread. I didn't know what I was walking into. I hate these kinds of subjects. Determinism, the topic, is against the board's guidelines and I know first hand why that is. It's one of these topics that reason and evidence have nothing to do with. It's triggering, crazy making and it's a moral issue that let's you see another side of people. Transgender and transexuality, it seems, is doomed similarly. I've seen it happen on Facebook, too. I have my beliefs as to why this is the case, but I'm biased, of course.

I was wrong, Idealism comes out of Plato.

I suspect these things, yes. That's the entire point of me bringing it up. Thank you! I guess you kind of sort of finally called me a bigot. Honestly, that is refreshing. And no, this is not the truth. This is actually the exact opposite of the truth. I insist on talking about a single point that you have yet to actually address. Your original post was a response to mine, meaning it's supposed to be an actual response to the content of what I'm saying. I make a case as to why I think transexualism is tragic and maybe even a genetic disease, and you don't really respond to that. You responded to my choice of words. ("You can't say 'disease' you bigot!"). You said that homosexuality used to be considered a disease and that you can't imagine how anything gender related could be a disease, but all that really amounts to is an argument from incredulity (i.e. "I don't understand how something could be true, therefore it's not true"). A bigot, as you rightfully point out, is a person who insists on believing something despite the available evidence (i.e. willfully ignorant). I provide a case to back up my claim and it's like it had never even been written. Projection maybe? I keep trying to get you to address the point about it being a disease, how I actually came to this conclusion, and you either imply that I'm bigoted or turn into a cloud of subjectivity, telling me that needing corrective surgery is as healthy as not needing corrective surgery. Maybe you think that's an actual response, but it's really really not. I would genuinely like to hear a response to that at some point, but if you think I'm being dishonest and that I'm a bigot, then I don't see what point there would be for you to continue. It would just be masochism continuing to deal with a liar and transphobe like me. And to be clear, this is your rule that we have to respond to the content of people's arguments or else that makes you a bigot. I'm simply holding up a mirror for you. I don't think you can see it. On my side, this was all very conscious, because I don't want to pretend like something was addressed when it actually wasn't. I honestly could care less if I'm offending people's mythologies. If I'm wrong then that's one thing. (And thank you for the corrections!) The last thing I want to be is wrong and offensive at the same time.

I do all of my web development on linux servers, and use android. Linux is a very fine OS

I am not any kind of expert on the history of philosophy and someone more familiar is more than welcome to correct me where I've made factual (or logical) errors. But this is my account regarding your questions. Duality describes any two opposing things. Dualism is the philosophical position, coming from religion, that says that the mind and the body are two separate things. The mental and the physical are said to be of two separate realms, one spiritual and one of the physical world our bodies exist in. The philosopher René Descartes is that guy who said "I think, therefore I am" and is like the guy responsible for dualism in western philosophy. He was absolutely insane, scary kind of crazy when it came to a lot of things, absolute madness. He supposed that they were separate because of what essentially is an argument from incredulity (i.e. "I can't imagine how it could be, therefore it's not"). He said that he can't be sure that the external objective world exists because a Cartesian Demon could be manipulating his perceptions, causing him to perceive a world which is not real, and he would never know the difference. So he went about trying to figure out what he could know for certain while accepting that he could not be certain that his perception of reality was not all completely illusory. What he determined was that even if you accept this, you still have to accept the existence of your own consciousness. He took that to mean that the spiritual takes primacy over physical existence in determining truth from falsehood. (i.e. God's will is supreme even if my eyes show a clear absence of gods). But you don't experience the action figure behaving in extraordinary acrobatic ways. That's what makes imagination different from experience. Imagining myself getting blown by a supermodel isn't me experiencing oral sex from anyone, right? I completely misunderstood you, if what you meant was that metaphysics is imagination or hallucinations when you said: If you didn't mean that it's imagination or hallucinations, but perception itself that is a simulation that we experience, then I have to refer to my previous post where I outline the categorical error in hitting a hitting. If you meant that imagination and hallucinations are simulations, then I guess that's possible. I don't know enough to say.

But that's not for you to decide. That's for the people you are communicating an idea to to decide. And I remain confused despite your conviction that it was clear, for the reasons I stated. Am I being unclear about my confusion?

I'm genuinely confused. You say that you aren't accusing me of bigotry but then say that I'm saying bigoted things. I know that it's not politically correct to say that transexuality is tragic and a disease. I said as much several times. So, in your analogy, I'm saying "nigger" and knowing it's offensive, so that would mean that you are calling me a bigot no matter how you spin it, right? I mean, if you are calling me a bigot but refuse to own up to calling me a bigot, then that's pretty shitty, isn't it? At least give me "yes, I'm saying you're being bigoted". I don't understand how I'm promoting cultural norms or how that leads to bigotry, but one thing at a time, I suppose...

This is what I meant by being accused of bigotry. Does this not strike you as inconsistent?

Well, what is it? Google seems to only show results for transgender itself being a 3rd gender, but this doesn't make any sense to me since it implies both sexes, not a new sex (trans = transition). If you mean "gender" in the queer theory sense, then that was not what I meant. When I was talking about a 3rd gender, I misspoke. I was hinting at the binary nature of sexual identity, suggesting that transgender implies this binary and in talking about transgender, we are really talking about sex, and not gender (in the queer theory sense of the word). So to appeal to all the new genders people have created labels for is beside the point of what is happening for transgender people. I made this point to bring people's attention to the conclusion of the article you linked. I read the whole article. There were parts that were above my head talking about brain structures, but as far as I can tell, save for some incorrect terminology, my account of transexualism is correct: The stories used as reference in the article about transexuals are, to me, tragic. So, if you are including me in the number of the ignorant, then ignorant about what, exactly?

Does this mean that you think I'm an asshole? (Yes or no) If you just say that you're an anarchist, I could see how some ignorant people might think you were a "contrarian", but I wouldn't find it worth bringing up because I don't agree and I know it's just ignorance. But you felt this was a necessary point to bring up, suggesting that you agree in some sense that I'm an asshole.

I don't know what it would mean to experience something at the subconscious level, I don't know what you mean by "uploading", and I don't understand why the fact that perception is limited would change anything about the fact that we experience things directly (rather than an interpretation of events "modeled" in the brain). You said that there is a simulation of reality in the brain. This would mean that what we experience is the simulation rather than reality directly. Otherwise, what would be the point of the simulation? Believing that we experience a "model" of reality in our minds rather than reality directly is called "idealism", and also in the video being referred to as the "argument from science" since many prominent scientists have made the same claim. It is often argued that if we see an illusion then we can't distinguish it from the real objects, therefor we must be experiences the same thing in both (the "model" in the brain). The reason this is false is because it confuses two different senses of "aware of": "I am aware of my hand" and "I am aware of my perception of the hand". The object being perceived and the actual sensual experience of perceiving it. Confusing these two things leads to the erroneous conclusion of idealism when it says that what we are aware of is the "model", rather than events as they are. But what is that "model"? It's the actual visual (audial, touch, etc) experience itself, not at object to be perceived. Saying the "model" is the object perceived is a categorical error. It's equivalent to me hitting a desk with my hand, and me arguing that I'm not hitting the desk, but rather, I'm hitting the hitting. It makes no sense, and is why I keep putting "model" in quotes. "Model" wrongly implies that it is an object to be perceived rather than the perception itself. Does that help?

No. At least not the only reason. I don't think you are retaining any of what I'm saying. And actually, I think this is a pretty big lack of empathy on your part, if you don't mind me saying. That the problem is simply other people's judgments? No! Have you ever talked to a transgender person who felt the intense desire to go through the surgery? Or felt so pained that they wanted to cut off their own genitals? How confusing must all of that be, regardless of what any other person thinks? But let's not talk about any of that! (And you haven't despite repeated prompting to do so)

Isn't the whole point of a men's or women's group that it's strictly for members of that sex? If there was a woman listening in in the background to a men's group call I was in, I would hesitate to generalize, and I would filter what I was saying.

I resent that I'm portrayed as contributing to bigotry for saying that the following is a tragedy and a disease: A person who received one sex's sex hormones during the formation of their sex organs and then the other sex's sex hormones during the formation of the part of their brain responsible for sexual identity. This often accompanied by a lifelong agonizing sense that the sex of their body is wrong. So agonizing in fact as to lead them to sexual reassignment and hormone treatments lasting years and costing them a great deal of money. That in addition to actual bigotry, they have to deal with great deal of confusion, sustained body discomfort and mental anguish. If you don't like the words "tragedy" or "disease", then call it whatever you want. It's not like the distinction changes what I'm saying. And it's me that is fixated on words? I don't think so. This pedantry is really irritating. Am I absolutely insane or do you seriously not understand the point I'm making? I don't hate or fear transgender people. I feel sorry for them for what must be incredibly difficult. And the only thing I'm allowed to be sorry for is the bigotry. If I'm sorry for the situation itself, I'm like this enormous asshole. My empathy is really just bigotry. It's crazy making trying to talk about this stuff with people! It's like I'm saying, I really hate it when people do X, and then that's exactly what I get in response to that! Aargh

That's funny, because that's definitely not what John Searle would say. John Searle would be annoyed in fact that you'd used his video to support this conclusion. He would not say that we generate a simulation in our minds. Is a microscope a simulation of closer viewing? (Don't be put off by the 2 hour view time, he gets into it at the beginning) Metaphysics is how we answer what is knowledge, what is real, and what ought we do (epistemology, ontology and ethics). Science is the application of the scientific method, which is itself a philosophical principle developed through work in these 3 areas in metaphysics.

According to Josh, it's not about clarity, but about normalizing transgender, like it's as trivial as the kind of music you like. You even equate it to just another dog breed implying it's similarly trivial. I don't hate a "term". And even if I did, so what? What do you care if I hate a term? I have no idea what you mean by "misguided". What I hate is that if I say that transgender is a tragedy, then it makes me out to be a complete asshole, and that the way people talk about it isn't honest. I hate that people are as afraid as they are to talk candidly about it. I hate that people are encouraged to take offense at conversations like this one. You said you'd understand if it were about manipulation, and if the purpose is to frame transgender as trivial, and it turns out that it's not trivial at all, despite it being obviously non trivial, then yea, that's manipulative. So, logically, you should have a problem with it as I do.

He used to post more often (he has a higher post count than any other person). He was welcoming every new user to the boards for a while. And I'm sure he is busy, but if he wanted to post on the boards more, I'm sure he'd make time to do that. I don't know what his priorities are, and can't speak for him, though. This is a list of threads he's posted in here.

Lol. Sorry. That was confusing. Stef posted that at the beginning of the year in response to someone accusing him of lacking integrity. I simply quoted what he wrote before because it contained relevant information. I don't know if Stef has seen this thread or if he would say something different now, I just thought it was useful information. Sorry for the confusion!

Are there transgender people who believe they are born in a male or female body but identify as a third gender? Not that I've ever heard. When people are talking about transgender, they are referring to being in the opposite sexed body. They are saying clearly that they have a female brain in a male body (or vice versa), in binary terms. Because of a rare genetic condition, their brain produces the sex hormones of the opposite sex. Transgender people have reported to me that it's incredibly painful psychologically to be put through that torture, and require years of hormone treatments and even sexual reassignment surgeries. Clearly sexual reassignment surgeries and hormone treatments do not exist in nature. I wonder how much help it is to suggest that this is as healthy as being "cisgender". I somehow doubt this helps anyone. It's subjectivism applied to health.

Well, that's a binary proposition. There's really not much in between. But what actually constitutes a transgendered person? Typically, transgender is used to describe people whose gendered identity does not match the body they were born with. But feminists and the like are very eager to say that gender is not binary. Transgender as a classification implies a binary gender, because it's wrongly assigned. Gender is supposed to be a social construct as well which would make transgender something which is not physiological, but from what I've seen brain scans of transgendered people tend to show brains with opposite sex traits. Not actually the brain of the opposite sex, but more specifically in the part of the brain spraying out sex hormones. I think, by any account, this would be considered a genetically diseased brain if it involved any other part of the brain. Pumping out prolactin instead of dopamine, or serotonin instead of adrenaline, could get you in serious trouble. Many people have issues dealing with gender identity. I don't know how much of it is neurological, and probably nobody does. But it affects many more people than strictly "transgendered" people. Trans implies "with gender identity issues", and cis implies "without gender identity issues", when I'm not convinced that's the most philosophical distinction. What about a term describing people whose sex hormones are painful enough to warrant surgery, and those whose sex hormones don't leave them wanting a gender reassignment surgery? Well, because then that would beg the question about it being a disease or not. When we're talking about a disease it's not exactly equivalent to gay vs straight. And I don't know if it is a disease or not. I'm not even close to educated enough to make that determination, but hey, that's why I'm bringing it up! Also, I'm not so sure I want the labels "atheist" or "anarchist". They only exist to distinguish ourselves from mystics. We don't have a word for "a-fairyist", for example. What if "cisgender" is the same?

Hi Derek! Welcome to the boards I'm really glad you are gaining so much clarity and feeling motivated. And I'm sorry about the isolation You've piqued my curiosity; what kind of philosophical art might you create?

Well, like the example I gave before where a guy declines to confront his past abuser because it's too anxiety provoking, but instead of actually saying that it provokes his anxiety, he pretends that it's all about virtue (i.e. "forgive and forget"). Or the guy who is too anxious to ask a girl out, and instead of being honest with himself about the anxiety, he makes up some story about her being too much of this or that, pretending to himself that his inaction is just him acting wisely to avoiding being with a woman ostensibly below his "healthy" standards. Or the mother who defends her husband's violent behavior toward their children by making up some story that he can't control it and she's just being compassionate, rather than cowardly enabling him out of anxiety or whatever secondary gains she's benefitting from. Or college girl initially wants to major in engineering, but when she starts to get overwhelmed with what's all entailed and the high standards you have to meet to get a degree in engineering, drops out of that major citing reasons other than her anxiety around failure. Maybe that the patriarchy is conspiring against women in engineering to keep women out, and she's standing against an evil institution.

I would modify your definition slightly to say that values are preferences that are more than neutral and have some kind of objective basis concerning behavior. Preferring health to ill health being a good example. "I value writing this program using a programming language over randomly hitting keys with my face" is a very different than saying "I value The Beatles over the Rolling Stones". And that might not be the best example, since the Beatles are clearly objectively better in every respect, but I think you get the distinction I'm making Murder is not evil because a person has died, or even that one person is responsible for that death. Murder is evil, well, because violence is justified to prevent it, but murder is not UPB (i.e. not logically consistent / universalizable) because it appeals to a standard that it violates. That is, murder as part of a moral theory or justification is self detonating. Similarly, cowardice is an appeal to virtue, but is dishonest (honesty being the first virtue). Honesty is to virtue as the law of identity is to logic. But because cowardice is not simply fear, but actually an appeal to virtue, it's logically self detonating, by definition. If you say that values are simply preferences in the way that preferring chocolate to vanilla is a preference, then there is no logical inconsistency in saying that the coward is simply acting with their preference to avoid the truth and call that avoidance a virtue. That is not how I mean it, though. It's Nietzsche's formula for happiness: logic = virtue = happiness Honesty leads to courage which leads ultimately to sustained feelings of self worth and self efficacy. Cowardice chops the legs off right at the beginning.

I think it depends on what exactly the discomfort is. Is it an inner critic shaming you with suggestions that you are immature for being angry? Is it a fear of your own anger and what you might do in your anger? Is it a guilt for being angry? Also, you didn't mention anyone around you. Are there people in your life who are assholes or passive aggressive or in deep denial? Also, have you heard these podcasts? FDR363 The Joy of Anger Part 1 http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_363_The_Joy_Of_Anger_Part_1.mp3 FDR364 The Joy of Anger Part 2 http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_364_The_Joy_Of_Anger_Part_2.mp3 FDR530 Anger Management http://media.freedomainradio.com/feed/FDR_530_Anger_Management.mp3