FistOfStone: i'm sorry for going on and on about the scientific world-picture thing ... it's clearly important to me, but it's at least equally clear that i'm caught in my own egocentric need for others to agree with me, the very same fault that i find in evangelical christians - i am no better ... i apologize, and i appreciate your patience
thewalkindude: No worries, my lack of response isn't so much that I don't want to, it's that I keep writing things out that keep seeming to completely miss the point or fail to get mine across, and delete them. I got on tonight with the plan to try my best to explain, but I'm sure it will be somewhat lacking. Here goes anyway though: I think that you're right that the world-picture idea is and will continue to be a point of contention, if only because I can't seem to understand how something so broad and hard to define could be very useful. I read and re-read your descriptions and explanations and find myself, still, at a complete loss...
I just can't understand the, for lack of a better word, rules that you're going by. The scientific picture is somehow fueling the transgender movement, when I see the transgender movement as almost wholly unscientific, based almost purely in emotion and perception, either through the trans person themselves and how they feel, or through empathy for those people. The only "scientific" things involved are the actual process of transitioning, and the soft science of psychology and social sciences (which I agree have plenty of problems, on both sides).
I see you mention the good that has come from well practiced and executed scientific pursuit, and their real world benefits, and how that can make people want to use science as a solution to everything. I agree with that, and that it causes problems (I'll even give that it may be much more wide-spread than I give it credit for), but I don't understand the part where you have to choose between science and "feelings", "superstition", "instinct", or "gut" on a binary, whole-personality level. creating this lense or picture. Each has its place, and people move between them depending on information and perception.... I feel like it's something changeable, and situational.
In the end, it seems like we're arguing in circles, and I'd rather move on to something else, but if there is anything important to you that I don' seem to be getting, and you want to try to get across in direct, simple terms that someone as uneducated and dense as I am could understand, I'm still happy to read your thoughts. Also, i wouldn't want to post something without reading your response, so feel free to do that as well- I'm not worried or mad, and there was definitely nothing to apologize for.
FistOfStone in reply to thewalkindude: uneducated and dense? i'm not any more educated than you are walk, i don't know much of anything outside of philosophy, and if anyone is dense, it's me ... but anyway, think of background plausibility ... i remember being in college, my "suitemate" (we shared a bathroom) was a first generation pakistinian-american, raised and practicing devout muslim ... one time he put a paper plate in a microwave in my dorm room, and the "plate" underneath it was spinning, but the paper plate was completely motionless, and it wasn't touching any of the sides of the microwave, it appeared to be almost hovering ... and the look in his eyes said "the supernatural is real! we're witnessing it right before our eyes!"
i couldn't believe he thought that ... but suppose that my roommate had then said to both of us "i have come preaching a new message: worship me or perish," and with a majestic twist of his hand the plate dropped by a visible inch or two and started spinning again ... i think my suitemate would have dropped to his knees and prayed to allah for protection from this evil spirit ... i would have looked at both of them with utter disbelief and wondered what the hell was even happening, was it a hoax? a practical joke?
i think my suitemate was halfway between the pre-modern and the modern world ... in dropping to his knees he would have at that moment let go of all his modernism ... but the people who wrote the bible or the quran i think would have also dismissed the "plate miracle" as a hoax, not because "there must be a reasonable explanation" but because such a thing was too insignificant, a prophet or a magician normally does something a little more spectacular, like turning a staff into a snake, predicting the future, walking on water ... to conclude that "the supernatural is real after all" would not have been a possible move for them, it was assumed, no one would have understood a miracle as proof of the supernatural but as proof of the message the wonder worker was preaching (aaron and his staff vs the magicians- who has more power?)
that was a different world ... i can't really understand what that was like, even if i try ... my suitemate and the look in his eyes is the closest i can come to it, but that's only halfway, and indirect
I just can't understand the, for lack of a better word, rules that you're going by. The scientific picture is somehow fueling the transgender movement, when I see the transgender movement as almost wholly unscientific, based almost purely in emotion and perception, either through the trans person themselves and how they feel, or through empathy for those people. The only "scientific" things involved are the actual process of transitioning, and the soft science of psychology and social sciences (which I agree have plenty of problems, on both sides).
I see you mention the good that has come from well practiced and executed scientific pursuit, and their real world benefits, and how that can make people want to use science as a solution to everything. I agree with that, and that it causes problems (I'll even give that it may be much more wide-spread than I give it credit for), but I don't understand the part where you have to choose between science and "feelings", "superstition", "instinct", or "gut" on a binary, whole-personality level. creating this lense or picture. Each has its place, and people move between them depending on information and perception.... I feel like it's something changeable, and situational.
In the end, it seems like we're arguing in circles, and I'd rather move on to something else, but if there is anything important to you that I don' seem to be getting, and you want to try to get across in direct, simple terms that someone as uneducated and dense as I am could understand, I'm still happy to read your thoughts. Also, i wouldn't want to post something without reading your response, so feel free to do that as well- I'm not worried or mad, and there was definitely nothing to apologize for.
i couldn't believe he thought that ... but suppose that my roommate had then said to both of us "i have come preaching a new message: worship me or perish," and with a majestic twist of his hand the plate dropped by a visible inch or two and started spinning again ... i think my suitemate would have dropped to his knees and prayed to allah for protection from this evil spirit ... i would have looked at both of them with utter disbelief and wondered what the hell was even happening, was it a hoax? a practical joke?
i think my suitemate was halfway between the pre-modern and the modern world ... in dropping to his knees he would have at that moment let go of all his modernism ... but the people who wrote the bible or the quran i think would have also dismissed the "plate miracle" as a hoax, not because "there must be a reasonable explanation" but because such a thing was too insignificant, a prophet or a magician normally does something a little more spectacular, like turning a staff into a snake, predicting the future, walking on water ... to conclude that "the supernatural is real after all" would not have been a possible move for them, it was assumed, no one would have understood a miracle as proof of the supernatural but as proof of the message the wonder worker was preaching (aaron and his staff vs the magicians- who has more power?)
that was a different world ... i can't really understand what that was like, even if i try ... my suitemate and the look in his eyes is the closest i can come to it, but that's only halfway, and indirect