thoughts on "metaphor" 

People tend to think that something being "metaphorical" (like furry/kin identity, or mysticism stuff, or lots of other things) makes it less real.

That's kind of deeply missing the point. Our brains are *entirely* metaphorical. Our perception of the world passes through billions of years of evolutionary processing and filtering, and is only tenuously connected to a deeper fundamental truth. Approximations are all we have.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt But do we need mysticism when we can instead search for real knowledge?
Math may just be a metaphor, but it is an unbelievably consistent one, wheras mysticism is incredibly inconsistent.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom Scientific rationalism is a really, really useful tool for certain kinds of knowledge production. When it comes to say, medicine or moon missions, it'll be what I use.

But it cannot produce all knowledge. By saying "only knowledge produced via my means is real", scientific rationalism discards massive and important parts of human experience.

I used to be a rationalist (see "post-skeptic" in my bio) so I do understand where you're coming from.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt If it can't be verified, it is not knowledge, it is speculation at best. Tbh my very mean opinion is that you want to believe in something plainly because it is comforting. "Want to" might not be the right expression, more like "your brain is trying to fill in something whether you consciously like it or not".
That doesn't make you a bad person, it's probably what most people do, but it's not something I appreciate. Then again, my brain is also weird.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom point of curiosity: why come at me with that? You could probably guess that I've heard those arguments before. Hell, I've *made* those arguments before.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt I'm just stating my beliefs on the subject. I mean, we are talking about _your_ beliefs.
So, I'm curious, what do you mean by "knowledge" and "important part of the human expirience"? What convinced you to give up total rationalism?

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom So, first off, how familiar are you with the concept of qualia? That's kind of the basis for a lot of my framework, here.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom Oh, and have you heard of the Mary the Color Scientist thought experiment? If you're unfamiliar with either of those, the wikipedia summaries are good enough for the point I'm trying to make.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt I checked the Mary experiment and IMO... it's a pointless question. We cannot know what it'd be like to know everything about neuroscience and even a neuroscientist is subject to their own brain.

The problem with these experiments is that they ignore too much. Humans with brains capable of understanding the entire workings of other brains would think and feel very differently to us.

So far I think the notion of qualia is pointless. 😐

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom Heh, all right. If you think the notion of qualia is pointless, then that basically stops cold the rest of the argument. I think we're coming from places different enough that I don't know how to reach across the gap.

Take care :)

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt It seems so, I thought being a "post-skeptic" meant you originally had a similar enough viewpoint and could explain the logical steps from there.

Well, you still seem cool. Take care u 2.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom So, I've thought about it some more, and I think I have another way of explaining things that might make sense, if you're willing to re-engage :)

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom Cool :)
So, have you ever been to a really good live music performance? Was that a valuable experience?

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom Ugh, sorry I missed this earlier. Hope it's okay for this conversation to be asynchronous; I'm going to bed soon.

Anyway.

So, if you saw a really good show, would that experience still be valuable even if the band was regarded by almost everyone else as not very good?

To take it a step further, if you were alone with a friend and they played a really beautiful improvisational composition -- never to be heard again -- would that have value?

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom If yes, the value of that experience has nothing to do with consensus opinion, or repeatability, or predictive power about your future actions, right?

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt Well, not necessarily, in the first case it's more like:
"I have this subjective opinion that goes against the consensus, that might mean I'm wrong and I should re-evaluate it just in case."

Both have value but they don't override rational thinking.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom The value isn't a function of a rational evaluation though, right? Like, if you went to a rock show that you thought was great, but most people in the audience quietly thought was meh, you still would have had an amazing time, yeah? The subjective experience is what makes it worthwhile.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom Cards on the table here: me being trans *greatly* informs my thought processes on the value of subjective experience, and was one of the first really important steps in my movement away from strict rationality.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom At this point, it's six years since I started transition. I've read piles and piles of text about gender theory -- everything from dense academic literature to microblog shitposts.

*And I still have no idea what gender is*. Really. Genuinely. I have no idea what it means to "feel like a woman". But, I viscerally and manifestly did, and had to act upon that.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom There might very well be a reductionist explanation for why people experience a sense of there own gender, but for me any explanation was and continues to be utterly irrelevant.

There's no objective tests for whether someone is trans -- people have tried and failed to create them. What mattered is how I felt. Ultimately, that was the *only* thing that mattered.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt TBH I'm still not convinced but I get what you mean.
My interpretation:
people are ultimately selfish and subjective, but rationality is the best long term strategy to achieve large scale subjective success.
Now, what someone's brain considers a "good" input will vary, I personally consider a more rational brain a better brain.
The problem arises when one has to implement rationality with/against irrational people.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt When discussing rationality I think it makes perfect sense to distance ourselves from the subjective and for me, distancing myself (even temporarily) from my subjective feelings has been my best strategy for self improvement.
That's pretty much why I don't think "qualia" as some mystical, atomic thing makes sense, brains are brains.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt While trying to build one's worldview from "only I surely exist" is an interesting philosophical thought experiment, it makes no practical sense. An axiom system that is not focused on real world gain is pointless.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom Where is the "real world gain" in a good rock show, though?

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt Art teaches us and connects us, both are important for survival. There is always a rational reason behind things if you look hard enough.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom Maybe I phrased that last question wrong. When you decide to go to a show, when you're having a good time at the show, is the good time you're having the result of a deliberate rational value calculation, or a because right at that moment music *feels good* emotionally?

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom meaning can exist on multiple levels of abstraction.

Me (hypothetically) pushing someone off a cliff can be accurately described as "oxidizing sugars converted into kinetic energy to move a 80-kilogram mass at half a meter pet second", but that's not generally the causal layer we as people actually find relevant, right? What we would probably care about is a causal process on the level of human thoughts and agency, not physics and chemistry, yeah?

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom it's not that thinking about the process in purely on physical, reductive terms is *incorrect* in that case, but it doesn't actually provide an explanation in any sense we actually care about.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom So when you have a good time at a show, while that might potentially be explicable in terms of suvival probabilities and evolutionary development, that's not the explanatory level that's necessary actually useful or interesting right then in the moment?

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom I guess to summarize: I think that feelings matter to people.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt I agree with p much all of the above, because yeah, feelings matter, obviously.
But. We should not accept them as atomic.
The "pushing person off" is not a very good example imo (not in that form at least), because does not mention the motivation. The question is not "how do we describe murder?", but "what was the motivation and did it really solve anything?".

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt And it's exactly the "meaning on multiple levels" thing I'm about. I agree that the physical interpretation is not an important one.
Game theory however, is important.
A classic example is the movie plotline where a character can either follow their anger and avenge someone, thus continuing the chain of violence, or choose to endure.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt Emotions need to be overridden quite often, so while ultimately it is emotional fulfillment we seek, we should always remember that they are not ultimate.
We usually call emotions "instincts" when talking about animals and assume they are entirely different. They are not, both are an evolutionary means to and end, the main difference is that we can override our emotions for long term individual gain.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt Eg.: it makes sense to be sad when someone dies, it ensures that humans will try to avoid feeling that way and in turn try to keep others alive.
It makes sense for the species.
Being so depressed you can't function does not make sense.

Idk, it's complicated. My point is: feelings=instincts, instincts: good for the species but are messy in individual cases and can be substituted by more rational thinking.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt So yea, it's ugh, complicated. The reason why I think qualia is useless is becase it is an oversimplification.
Think of emotions as evolutionary artifacts, bits of programming that ensure humans can survive without needing to think too much. They work in the majority of cases.
Rationality should always be there to supervise them when they don't work.
Basically, game theory > philosophy.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom Okay. Yeah, I don't think I'll be able to communicate any further than I already have.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom I will confess that I'm pretty annoyed you didn't even acknowledge the part where listening to subjective experience played an irreplaceable role in my life.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt Honestly I can't really say much about that part, mostly because I consider gender stuff an entirely different topic and this is already a long thread.
But.... ok let's get into it. So IMO gender should not matter, not as much as it currently does. There should not be "gender", just "personality".

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt To give some perspective of me as well:
I used to have lots of mental issues as a kid and pretty much the only way to overcome them was to distance myself and analyse whether my actions and feelings made sense.
And they did not, so I changed and now I'm a more or less functioning person with some weird personality quirks.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt I also had thoughts about how much better it'd be to be a girl, but I overcame that mostly by just not caring about what I am.

So, the cold impersonal part:
I think gender as a feeling is absolutely ancillary and falls within the "leftover program" category. It made sense when hunting-gathering, it makes increasingly less sense in the modern world.

If an individual can't get around it, they are free to deal with it however they want to.

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thoughts on "metaphor" 

@starkatt Anyways, I'm sorry to be such an impersonal dick, I had to spend the better half of my teen years basically hacking past my instincts and feelings, so to me distancing myself from them is a natural thing and it works. Pretty much my every thought about myself is "what emotions do I need to suppress so I can satisfy other emotions".
I've also accepted that I'm just slowly decaying meat.
And oddly enough I'm happy with myself, however cynical all that may seem.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom I feel like I know this story. Let me know if this sounds right. If it doesn't, I apologize:

The world has always felt arbitrary and unfair to you. People are following rules that didn't make sense, guided by feelings that you can't easily understand.

When you tried to express your emotions, or acted in a way that didn't meet their invisible rules, you were censured. You learned that the safest thing was to not try and act on your own agency.

thoughts on "metaphor" 

@grainloom You realized that people *are* following rulesets, even if the rules are invisible to them. You realized that if you wanted to survive, you had to learn and internalize those rulesets, and try not to run afoul of them.

The same thing seems to apply to the world at large. Things feel aribtrary and unfair, but hey, those are the *rules*, and it can't be helped. The only winning move is to understand the rules as well as possible.

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