Atheist "identity"

Oh noez, someone is trying to steal my label!

What the fuck are you on about? You get that there is no one definition for any word, right Brx? That humans define what they are talking about, given context, given participants, etc. and that no one has any right to say to any other speaker "keep your hands off my words".

course, nebs comment was much better. ;-)

Ah, but No True Scotsman...

No true Scotsman has ever said those words, or they wouldn't be a true scotsman, therefore by teh face of it's own fallacy, there being no true scots, to every have said that there are true scots, the No True Scotsman fails on its own petard. (? right term?)

And with that, I must find myself some haggas for xmas. oh dear and all....

"Hoist by its own petard." But yes, there are no true Scotsman because "Scotsman" is a social construction. Logic refuted!

That paragraph is headache inducing.

I sense a disturbance in the irony meters. A really big one.

Jelp mi ma bran hust erxpladed.

It's as if millions of voices of trolls cried out, and then were suddenly silenced.

“”What the fuck are you on about? You get that there is no one definition for any word, right Brx? That humans define what they are talking about, given context, given participants, etc. and that no one has any right to say to any other speaker "keep your hands off my words".

Here's a thought.

You think we're all speaking "English" right now? Well, you do some language-y stuff so I assume yes.

But....

You then say we all have our own definitions based on context and ideas and, even though you disagree with Yudkowsky, you know we have our own connotations brought up by words. I mean, you dismiss some of it as mental masturbation but the whole "sneaking in connotations" post is exactly what you mean by your "pyramid" example.

So, we all have our own thoughts based on what words on used. It might differ between Alice and Bob. Some of it overlaps, some of it clashes. Overlap = good, we're talking the same thing. Clash = we disagree and get confused and have our own mini-HCM inside our own head.

So... the fact we're all speaking "English" is really an illusion caused by the fact we have more overlap than not. We both speak English, even natively, but it doesn't mean that when I say "pyramid" it conjures identical images (I've already said I think of the sport from Battlestar Galactica.). But it does mean we have more overlap than clash.

Or am I still on a different page to everyone else?

But you've coopted a term and given it new meaning. I can't just say "I'm an atheist" anymore because people will think I spend my free time ragging on religion because of people like you and douchebags like Richard Dawkins.

Make up a new word, please. I'm tired of saying "I don't have a religion," and having to say "I don't believe in God"- because that last one I inevitably have to append with "or any deities or supernatural forces" because it doesn't express the fact that I'm an atheist.

How about you make up your own word.

"Asshole."

It may not mean what "atheist," but it does mean "Brxbrx."

Who's the asshole, me, or the guy who's following me around and flaming me?

Out of context, the latter. With context, the former.

It's less me following you around and more me shamelessly spamming myself across every possible conversation :-) And what's the most common entry point in every conversation? You are.

Are you saying that I spam myself across every conversation? Because I don't. There is quite a large number of ongoing conversations on this wiki that I have not made myself a part of, for a number of reasons:

1. No clue what they're talking about
2. Don't care about what they're talking about
3. The conversation involves people I loathe
4. The conversation is obviously personal (though they probably shouldn't be doing it in public)
5. I have nothing to add- no jokes, no nods
6. I'm not there to notice it

Go look at the Saloon Bar, the number one hub for conversation on this wiki. Tell me how often I interject there.

A poor choice of words on my part. To rephrase: you're a relatively common entry point for conversations I wouldn't otherwise have legitimate reasons for joining.

I was here first, as were many others. Atheism in and of itself means lack of religion, or of gods if you want to be finicky with the roots. Giving it more meaning than that is crapping on people.

Point to the part where I say "atheism = ...."

If you actually read and understood, my entire point is to move beyond unproductive labeling, which includes "atheist". Sorry, did I not spell this out in words short enough for you?

Okay, I'll admit it: I skimmed through your post. But reading through walls of text is pathologically difficult for me. I figured that you making an identity for yourself as an atheist would mean positing atheism as whatever it is you are.

The opposite, actually.

Alrighty then.

Again, what the fuck are you on about Brx? "atheism means lack of religion" (well, actually, not at all. most buddhists are atheists), or gods... and anything beyond is BS"

since when do words mean "what I say they mean, so there?" Does aweful really mean "filled with awe" any more? does voir dire really mean "truth saying"? Is a chef really the chief?

@adk, Again, I go back to being a linguist and not really a philosophier, but I don't see that language works in this seemingly mysterious way you seem to be describing. When I say context defines things, or say that we have statistical frames working in our little heads, I'm not saying that milk can mean "dog". It means milk. to you, that may include powdered milk, and to me, maybe not, but the brain haddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddoiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii=jmkkkkkkles

I'm trying hard to avoid text walls, but evidently failing.

"Milk" probably wouldn't represent the same thing as "dog" - at least, it's very unlikely to. The cluster of four-legged, furry, barking objects in the real world called "dog" probably doesn't have much overlap with the cluster of wet, white liquidy stuff called "milk". I agree it's about knowing the audience because communication is a two-way process. We're both members of RationalWiki, we've both written things on skepticism and debunking, we read the same stuff on WIGO. The chances are that if I said "I'm an atheist" to you we'd know what we're talking about. This is fine, and we don't clash.

It is about what you infer from context, but that requires you to A) recognise the context and B) know precisely what you're implying, and what others are inferring. If you can't do this then... well you will clash and fail.

But I think there's one other important bit of context; what you intend to do with your statement. The other person you're talking to is important, and knowing what they're inferring from you is vital, but I think your actual intention is even more crucial to getting the idea across.

"I'm an atheist" is fine if you want to join an Atheist Society just because you're looking for somewhere to chat and hang out, or if you want someone to direct you to books like The God Delusion. It is not, however, very useful if you want to say something like "as atheists we should..." I think is a little more important because I don't think it is "written on their faces" when someone isn't actually inferring the same thing as you. If everyone agrees on their standard of evidence and logic then surely they would agree, A therefore B should be agreed upon by everyone, if half the people think A therefore Not B, then where is the problem - in the logic or in what A is?

You are generally better at saying what I was thinking. what you intend to do is critical. It's why loaded language exists. The intent of the speaker is to create images, create associations, and knowingly create false impressions. It's not a failure on the part of language or of the speaker. Sadly, it's actually a success.

Again, I have had philo classes over the course of my life, but am not really skilled in being a philosopher - in thinking that way. I think about language as a functional tool, not as a hindrance to communication. I generally assume that most people own their ideas, and the attempts to communicate them are usually successes. even if what they are trying to communicate includes being intentionally manipulative.

I also approach this having taught classes for years, on somewhat complex ideas about language and religion. at no time in those classes did i have to say "ok, you are confused about the word religion, so I need to use a different word". I walked in, explained my position, then expanded. So again, the idea that language or particular words hinder real understanding or indepth exploration of whatever topic you wish to explore seems counter intuitive to everything I've seen or done.

Are you going to have problems when talking about atheism with a die-hard christian fundi? Yes. But I disagree that the fail point (or fix point) is teh word choice. It is the willingness of the other party to use agreed upon meanings. And in that context, it does not matter if you choose different words or not - if he or she chooses not to hear you, they simply will not hear you.

The word choice is only the failure point if it fails to conjure up the intended images for someone else. Whether it be a single word, or a longer phrase. I don't think it's a problem with a piece language (or symbolism) or the person using it. Where I think the problem is the translation between the two.

Totally context:

Someone I follow on FB was asked on one of those anonymous question things: "what is the most adult thing you've ever done?" The fact is that she's an alternative model... so you can kind of see where that could lead.

Yes, but that is a fallacy or *intention* of the writer. Written communication, where you do not know the audience you will find, is more laden with potholes than spoken or "one to one" communication with an instant audience that cannot change without your awareness. (video also makes this one-on-one communication problematic. as does the modern invention of editing out the context and leaving only naked words).

When you tweet or facebook, you are not really communicating the way our language evolved. so yes, you do need new rules. But I still think those rules come secondary to the fact that some audience members do not want to know, do not care to know what you mean only what they want you to mean.

“”But I still think those rules come secondary to the fact that some audience members do not want to know, do not care to know what you mean only what they want you to mean.

QFT.

But, the trick is to give them no choice in how they interpret you. Hence you have to be aware of what they think and adapt to it.

So if someone says "you can't prove prayer with science", and won't listen no matter how many times you describe what science is, break it down into something else and make them follow you.

Uh-oh, this is starting to sound like linguistic qualia.

sorry, that was a cat. she does not speak language.

Ok, ADK, when you say something that might be ambiguous, your mind knows that, and you know to feed different clues to the listener OR fuck with them, as your brain wants. When I talk to you about atheist, I don't worry that you don't know what I mean. When I talk to my boss about atheism, i'm pretty specific in what I'm trying to convey. So knowing your audience, should tell you if you need to find new terms, or if you need modifiers. You really don't even have to worry about it, cause it will be (in most cases) written right on their faces.

Granted, you do offer examples where it fails, and where people spend hours trying to pin point exactly where navy begins and blue grey ends.