Philosophy Now Forum

Skepdick wrote: ↑Tue Mar 28, 2023 4:01 pm Any implication you read into "this is not my right body" is your own projection given your own (mis)understanding.

You're quite wrong. In fact my position comes in part from discussions with transpeople. This isn't some abstract conceptualizing on my part. And many of them also notice this contradiction in leftist positions.

Stop. Breathe. Resist philosophising at all costs.

People are running on all sorts philosophical positions. This happens with free will and determinism. They ahve mixed ontologies and generally do not realize this. They don't look at/feel the cognitive dissonance involved or the contraditions. But here in a philosophy forum it is just peachy to do so.

The person isn't making a claim of any sort - they are simply using whatever language at their disposal to express discomfort, frustration, limitation.

That's your interpretation. And a very limited one since it hardly explains gender reassignment surgery and hormone treatments.

That's literally why it's called dysphoria.

You should read about dysphoria.
Because for the transperson there is a very clear judgment about their body as opposed to who they are. They have a very clear distinction between the self and their bodies, one that no monist can have.
I love that I am not supposed to use philosophical terms or philosophize on this issue and you come in with with a greek, very abstract term, from psychology. You're not listening to what they are saying and somehow think 'dysphoria' is problematic for my position. It's not. It fits perfectly with my position.
A trans person is not saying 'I have feeling and urges that don't fit with the role society gives people born with the biological sex I was born with'. At least, that is not all they are saying. They are saying that their body does not fit their self. So, unlike a physicalist, they do not identify with their bodies. Their body does not fit their self. (those who want hormone treatments and surgery, that is).

To physicalist your body is your self, period. Of course, a physicalist can experience discomfort with their body, etc. But it is the self, there is no other and there is no possible other to view the body as not fitting them.

And in case you missed it, I support transpeople getting these treatments. Though I am very wary of letting children decide that they need hormone blockers and surgery, which is what many woke people suggest and this actually does lead to children deciding and parents supporting, since the child knows. For example, the child is able to determine that their dysphoria has nothing to do with being gay or 'not fitting traditional ideas of what a girl or boy is like personality-wise, interest-wise. No, the child, and often these are very young children, not even teenagers, KNOW, that they are not gay or just gay, they have the wrong biological sex for their gender and need medical intervetions to give them the body that fits their self.

Newsflash: people express philosophies and philosophical models in real life without realizing it.

And here we are in a philoophy forum and, well, I am breathing and I will philosophize and look at those models and notice contraditions.

And I am sorry Sculptor but in generaly I find that you are a rational, respectful poster when people agree with you. But when they don't you go ad hom - as you did here, though gently and by implication - I'm not relaxed enough and should breath or I wouldn't reach these conclusions - and insulting and labelling. So, I'll focus on people who can actually discuss this.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:40 am

That's literally why it's called dysphoria.

You should read about dysphoria.
Because for the transperson there is a very clear judgment about their body as opposed to who they are. They have a very clear distinction between the self and their bodies, one that no monist can have.

I don't think that's the case at all. I've literally provided you a monist account - the idea that you could have, in some way, a female brain - and further challenged you to show me why a female soul can produce the trans experience but a female-like brain cannot.

I think you're reading very, very far into things unjustifiably. Earlier you said that you don't think believing in a soul is required to accept the trans experience, but now you're apparently saying "no monist" can account for this trans experience - so, I think you've got a contradiction to clear up there. Do you need to believe in a soul to accept this sort of trans experience or not?

I think it's pretty easy to distinguish between the body and the self for a monist - all you have to do is think of your body as the physical parts of you that aren't your brain. When trans people have problems with their body, they're usually in fact talking about parts of their body that are not their brain.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:40 am You're quite wrong. In fact it comes in part from discussions with transpeople. This isn't some abstract conceptualizing on my part. And some of them also notice this contradiction in leftist positions.

The fact that you (collectively) "notice contradictions" is all the evidence I need that I am right. Contradictions are abstract and logical artefacts. Logic is abstract/conceptual.

You are still analysing language. That's the wrong tool for the job.

Language is part of the systemic problem. It strongly encourages a certain mode of thinking, which (when left unchecked or unmanaged) actively causes harm.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:40 am People are running on all sorts philosophical positions. This happens with free will and determinism. They ahve mixed ontologies and generally do not realize this.

Isn't it peculiar that the person who uses the vocabulary of "philosophical positions", "free will, "determinism" and "ontologies" realizes this?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:40 am They don't look at/feel the cognitive dissonance involved or the contraditions. But here in a philosophy forum it is just peachy to do so.

Philosophy doesn't even know its elbow from its ass. There's nothing interesting about contradictions in a world that's constantly changing. Plato pointed this out and nobody paid attention.

A contradiction is the instant in time where A transitions to not-A; or where not-A transitions to A.

A boy becomes a non-boy.
A non-husband becomes a husband.
A non-hungry person becomes a hungry person.

It's all some variation of Sorites paradox, but ultimately it's all down to the discrete/categorical nature of language and thought in a non-categorical universe.

The very expression "instant in time" makes us think in reductionist terms. A point! Separate and discrete from all other points.
But reality isn't like that at all. There are no "points" in time. It's just a smooth, continuous flow.

It's worth noting that this mode of thinking is far more familiar and practiced in Eastern Philosophy than in Western Philosophy, so you should ponder whether there's a bias there you are unaware of.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:40 am That's your interpretation. And a very limited one since it hardly explains gender reassignment surgery and hormone treatments.

What is there to explain? Doctors change stuff about your body/hormones so that your profile is closer to that of what's commonly referred to as "the opposite sex".

It doesn't mean that "man" and "woman" are categorical.
It means that they are fuzzy/fluid notions with great ontological overlap. Fluid statistical clustering.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:40 am Because for the transperson there is a very clear judgment about their body as opposed to who they are.

That's still Sorite's paradox applied to identity! How much of you can I remove and still leave you in tact?

A finger? An arm? A leg? A kidney? Parts of your brain? Hhalf of your memories? Any one of your memories?

From your perspective where do "you" end? Where does not-you begin? This is the stupidity of categorical reasoning. Reality is not discrete - language makes it so.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:40 am They have a very clear distinction between the self and their bodies, one that no monist can have.

Show me a monist and I'll show you a solipsist. If you think yourself a monist then you can't allow for an ontological category of not-you to exist.
Because the categories of you; and not-you makes you a dualist.

All of these conceptual problems arise when you attempt to chop up reality! Every time you discretise the continuum you end up with fencepost errors!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-by-one_error

So literally everything in Philosophy amounts to fighting over categorization schemes. How to divvy up the universe.
Or is that how to divvy up the multiverse?

Oh, right. There's no denotational difference between the universe and the multiiverse. It's just a matter of where we draw the (arbitrary) boundaries!

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:40 am I love that I am not supposed to use philosophical terms or philosophize on this issue and you come in with with a greek, very abstract term, from psychology. You're not listening to what they are saying and somehow think 'dysphoria' is problematic for my position. It's not. It fits perfectly with my position.

Fuck your "position". Fuck my "position". You are STILL trying to frame this in the vocabulary of philosophy.

That's half the problem. You are already part of "the system" which encourages categorical thought and non-contradiction
Those things are socially non-negotiable to you - they are dogma. So you play enforcer.

And then you wonder why the freedom of thought absolutists who refuse to be subjected to your authority hate you.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:40 am A trans person is not saying 'I have feeling and urges that don't fit with the role society gives people born with the biological sex I was born with'. At least, that is not all they are saying. They are saying that their body does not fit their self. So, unlike a physicalist, they do not identify with their bodies. Their body does not fit their self. (those who want hormone treatments and surgery, that is).

Q.E.D It doesn't matter WHAT they are saying. Physicalism. Mentalism. Or whatever other isms - they are all the same. Distinctions without a difference. They are structurally equivalent and they lie about it. Dualism is monism. Monism is dualism. Physicalism is non-physicalism.

They could just as well have said "I don't feel comfortable in my own skin." Is that an ontological statement? Can you read anything about "fundamental categories". Or "distinctions between self and body.

You are trapped in Plato's cave still - the prison of categorical thinking.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:40 am To physicalist your body is your self, period.

So when you cut your fingernails; or your hair. Or when you excrete urine and faeces you are losing a part of yourself? If you suffer an amputation you have lost yourself?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:40 am Of course, a physicalist can experience discomfort with their body, etc. But it is the self, there is no other and there is no possible other to view the body as not fitting them.

So nothing about their situation can be changed so that the experience of discomfort disappears?!?

Wow! What a dead-end defeatist philosophy!

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:40 am And in case you missed it, I support transpeople getting these treatments.

That's just lip service. You also (tacitly) support the system which attacks their "claims" as "illogical and contradictory".

Trying to frame the discussion about the "contradictions" in their language while they are seeking medical assistance makes you an immoral ass.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 6:40 am Newsflash: people express philosophies and philosophical models in real life without realizing it.

Newsflash. They don't. Most people have absolutely no idea what a philosophy is and philosophers can't tell us.

That's just you framing other people's self-expression in the vocabulary that is most familiar to you. I imagine you've spent a lot of time thinking and talking in those terms.

I only got involved with Philosophy in my early 30s. I had zero exposure to it before then.
My background was 25 years of applied Mathematics/Computer science (e.g engineering)


People express Computations and Computational models in real life without even realizing it. (but the Computer Scientist realizes it).
People express Mathematics and Mathematical models in real life without even realizing it. (but the Mathematician realizes it).
People express philosophies and philosophical models in real life without realizing it. (but the Philosopher realizes it).

Same shit - different day. Some highly introspective sub-culture locked themselves in a room for a century and came up with words to describe how they think. And then they thought they had uncovered universal truth, not realizing that other people came up with different descriptions of the same thing.

It's the same old problem with description. Is my explicit rejection of Philosophy itself a philosophy or not? And you have yourself two camps.

Camp 1: My rejection of philosophy is still a philosophy. So I am still a philosopher, even if I reject it.
Camp 2: My rejection of philosophy is not a philosophy. So I am no longer a philosopher, because I reject it.

So am I a philosopher or not? You all can fight it out - meanwhile I'll use either nomenclature whenever is more suitable.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 8:05 am I don't think that's the case at all. I've literally provided you a monist account - the idea that you could have, in some way, a female brain - and further challenged you to show me why a female soul can produce the trans experience but a female-like brain cannot.

And I responded specifically to that . I don't think you responded to the points I made there.

I think you're reading very, very far into things unjustifiably. Earlier you said that you don't think believing in a soul is required to accept the trans experience, but now you're apparently saying "no monist" can account for this trans experience - so, I think you've got a contradiction to clear up there. Do you need to believe in a soul to accept this sort of trans experience or not?

Nope. I don't think a monist physicalist account holds. Whatever does, does not have to have 'souls' or at least I don't assume that at all. I think that's one possible way it could be explained.

I think it's pretty easy to distinguish between the body and the self for a monist - all you have to do is think of your body as the physical parts of you that aren't your brain.

again, I argued against this position earlier. I'm not going to repeat that. I'll add one thing however. You change the hormonal system, you change the brain, and not a little. But my argument does not rest on that point.

When trans people have problems with their body, they're usually in fact talking about parts of their body that are not their brain.

Ibid

I wonder if either side has ever talked to people pre and post op.

What does dualist mean to you, if not a "soul", or putting the mind somewhere other than the physical brain?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:30 am What does dualist mean to you, if not a "soul", or putting the mind somewhere other than the physical brain?

What does "physical" mean to you?

Suppose that we are all mistaken an the brain (and even the universe!) aren't physical? What would be different about the brain; or the universe except the way we think and talk about it?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:30 am What does dualist mean to you, if not a "soul", or putting the mind somewhere other than the physical brain?

I already argued against your defense of a monist interpretation of transpersons sense of themselves - those that want hormone treatments and
surgery. If you've got a model that works, let me know. I do think it needs to be dualist, given what I have heard trans people say themselves about their experience of their bodies and selves and then given what they do/want done, so that they feel better, which does involve changes to the brain also. I explained earlier why I thought your model does not work.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:36 am

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:30 am What does dualist mean to you, if not a "soul", or putting the mind somewhere other than the physical brain?

I already argued against your defense of a monist interpretation of transpersons sense of themselves - those that want hormone treatments and
surgery.

Okay, but the fact that you have argued against something doesn't directly answer the question I asked.

You've also made lots of posts in this thread, which one should I be referring back to for those arguments? Which page should I look at?

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:38 am

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:36 am

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:30 am What does dualist mean to you, if not a "soul", or putting the mind somewhere other than the physical brain?

I already argued against your defense of a monist interpretation of transpersons sense of themselves - those that want hormone treatments and
surgery.

Okay, but the fact that you have argued against something doesn't directly answer the question I asked.

No, but it's respectful, and I think makes sense, to have you respond to the points I already made, which are relevant to the question you asked.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:41 am

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:38 am

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:36 am I already argued against your defense of a monist interpretation of transpersons sense of themselves - those that want hormone treatments and
surgery.

Okay, but the fact that you have argued against something doesn't directly answer the question I asked.

No, but it's respectful, and I think makes sense, to have you respond to the points I already made, which are relevant to the question you asked.

this is precisely the sort of philosophical nonsense that happens while people are just asking "Where should I pee?"; or "What can I do to make these feelings go away?"

Philosophy is basically whataboutism.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:41 am

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:38 am

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:36 am I already argued against your defense of a monist interpretation of transpersons sense of themselves - those that want hormone treatments and
surgery.

Okay, but the fact that you have argued against something doesn't directly answer the question I asked.

No, but it's respectful, and I think makes sense, to have you respond to the points I already made, which are relevant to the question you asked.

I've asked for the page so I can go read it again. Do you know where I can find it?

Is it this one?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Mar 27, 2023 1:04 pm

You don't need a soul to account for this though. There could just be, as I said, female or female-like neurologies that end up in a male skull.

I don't think that's enough. OK, you have female-like neurologies, why would that mean your penis needs to go. IOW you have this particular body that has elements of both sexes. A more female than average set of neuronal patterns and a male body. That's what you are. You are that. In any physicalist (monism), you are then someone with that batch of endocrinal ratios (testosterone to progestone to estrogen) that brain, those genitals and so on. Why would any of that need to change?

What we would find out then, it that some people are hermaphroditic in that way. That there is greater fuzziness, the sets overlap more.

But the trans process says - these neuronal patterns, if we find them, indicate what the whole body should be like. The penis is not right, but those neurons are correct, so we use hormonal blockers against X, we surgically remove Y, we add hormone X, and perhaps do a range of consmetic surgery also. Those neuronal patterns are correct, but the endocrine system is wrong. I don't think that holds.

Note: I would let people do this, even if I were a physicalist, but I think it's confused.

However I believe adults get to make decisions based on many confusions.

I would probably want some oversight of the doctors who facilitate these kinds of changes, but I want that now anyway.

On some of the lips I've seen alone I'd want to remove some surgeons liscences.

Yeah, I'm on the fence about the ethics of hormone blockers. That will definitely get me labelled a transphobe by some people on the left - either you support everything they support or you're a literal Nazi, haha, no room for nuance with the ultra-woke

It's with kids I have my main concerns. Adults are a different category.

I don't see that there's much to respond to. "I don't think that holds". That's just an expression of your opinion, as far as I can tell, not any sort of compelling reason to convince someone else that they should also not think it holds.

What are you implying with your dualism if not a soul? I would like to understand that more.

Flannel Jesus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 29, 2023 9:39 am You've also made lots of posts in this thread, which one should I be referring back to for those arguments? Which page should I look at?

OK, I did your work for you. I say this is your work because I already responded to points you now raise again and seemed to generally accept before. It's the following post where you say it was fair enough in general.
viewtopic.php?p=631964#p631964
Now demonstrate that female to male trans brains are more male than butch lesbians who identify as female. And is it the whole brain that is male or part of it. Gay brains are more like - with a stress on MORE like, rather than the same as - the opposite sex brains. And yet they identify as their biological sex.
Tell me how changing hormone levels with testosterone and estrogen are not changing brains.
Explain why trans people have a binary view. Not, I have some aspect of maleness some of femaleness, but because my brain has some tendencies toward the opposite sex, I AM that sex period and so my body should be changed as much as possible to fit those tendencies in my brain and not others.

To me you've just slid in a new dualism. Brains vs. bodies. These separate systems. But it's one system.

I could see if trans people did as some non-binary people did and said they were neither male nor female.

But the moment you identify with one sex, period, and need to change your body to fit that sex, there's a problem for physicalists.

How could a body not be, in total, the perfect expression of their self?

How could they possibly know that they need to have a vagina and be penetrated in this vagina, rather than have a penis and pentrate a vagina. (yes, sex is more complicated and trans to men people may engage in many other things. But they know that these genitals are not theirs, because their brains are male???? That only points to even more intimacy between the brain and body than your model holds. Somehow this brain knows what kind of genitals it needs to express itself and feel itself in the world?