What's truly sad about this response is that it won't even satisfy the intended clientele. By implying that only a biologist could define 'a woman,' she is conceding that the answer is related to material biological reality. It is not, then, a matter of felt or claimed or chosen identity. It's something about one's physical body.
This is the kind of absurdity that must eventually collapse, but it may well not collapse quickly enough to avoid putting this person -- woman? -- on the Supreme Court.
UPDATE: The Federalist points out that Judge Jackson has used the word "woman" extensively in her legal rulings.
Socrates got himself killed by talking to 'experts' who used terms that it turned out they couldn't define. My favorite of these dialogues is the Laches, on courage, but perhaps more to the point is Euthyphro. There the question is whether Euthyphro can define "piety," a serious matter because he is doing something many thought impious at the time -- bringing a suit for murder against his own aged father on the word of a slave. It turns out that his definitions could not hold up to inquiry, leaving him open to the charge that he was acting as if he had confident knowledge on a deadly subject he did not in fact understand.
Jackson evades the danger of being tested on her definition by refusing to give one, but her regular usage of the term implies that she is subject to the same critique. If you have regularly issued judgments on the subject of women, you are acting like you know what a woman is -- how else could you make any sort of reasoned judgment about them? Yet she claims to be unable to explain it, except that by implication it is a matter of biology. Indeed, she has testified under oath that she cannot define the word that has been the subject of so many of her judgments.
11 comments:
I guess she could escape from that paradox by claiming that all mental processes are reducible to biology, and hence psychology is a subset of biology...but doubt that she possesses that level of intellectual sophistication or subtlety.
If it is the case that all mental processes are reducible to biology, then it is also the case that all physical actions are likewise.
Proof: All physical actions are either mental processes or not. Mental processes are reducible to biology per hypothesis. Physical actions that are non-mental are clearer examples of biological actions than mental processes, which is why we have always attributed non-mental physical actions to the body but have traditionally imputed a non-physical 'mind' or 'soul' to govern mental actions. Thus, both mental and non-mental physical processes are reducible to biology on this model.
Therefore, all human activity is reducible to biology on this model.
If that is the case, though, shouldn't we be nominating biologists to the Supreme Court instead of judges? If she is not qualified to answer biological questions, and all questions of human action are reducible to biology, what precisely is she qualified to judge?
I thought Senator Blackburn missed a chance when, after Brown Jackson refused to define "woman," Blackburn didn't ask whether Brown Jackson considered herself a woman, and based on what criteria.
FOX News mischaracterizes Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson's response as a "refusal" to give the definition of "a woman." She did not refuse so much as she claimed an incapacity to define it, stating that she was not a biologist.
I disagree that FOX News mischaracterized Brown Jackson's response. Her response was a carefully done evasion of the question; her plea that she's not a biologist is her refusal to supply an answer that she is fully capable of providing. Brown Jackson didn't even claim she was unable to state an opinion on the matter (perhaps because of the growing plethora of conflicting case law on the matter and the likelihood of a case coming before her). She simply refused to answer.
Eric Hines
Grim...it gets better. Strict reductionism would also hold that all of biology can be reduced to physics. Hence, the only people who should be considered for the Supreme Court are physicists.
If the nominee or that person's supporters can't define "woman" then on what basis is the nominee the first Black "woman" to serve?
For that matter, how does the consensus define "Black" in such a fashion that Vice President Harris and former President Obama conform to the definition while Charlamagne tha God - or that radio personality's listeners who doubt Joe Biden's good faith -- "ain't Black". How do we define "Black" such that those who died while attacking Kyle Rittenhouse can be widely understood to be "Black"? Shaun King? Rachael Dolezal? Vijay Jojo Chokal-Ingam? I'm not a geneologist but ...
If Clarence Thomas comes back from his illness and reveals he has always, secretly, identified as woman, do we retro-actively change the record book to make the current nominee the SECOND Black Woman to hold a SCOTUS seat?
Strict reductionism would also hold that all of biology can be reduced to physics. Hence, the only people who should be considered for the Supreme Court are physicists.
It goes farther. Since all of physics comes down to quantum physics where a thing either is or is not, all of existence must be binary.
Eric Hines
In some quantum situations it makes sense to think of a particle being in a superposition of an infinite number of states. In others, you find a much more restricted set of available states--e.g. electron spin; up or down wrt your measurement axis.
Of course once you've measured the state you know it.
Of course once you've measured the state you know it.
Yep. I've looked, as have most of us, and the superposition resolves into one of its binary possibilities.
The Woke Ones are afraid to peek; that's why they think they have so many, e.g., gender possibilities.
Serious quantum question, and OT: We have a quantum particle and two observers in a position to measure the particle. One does, and the particle resolves. The other does not; is the particle still in a superposition for him?
Eric Hines
If they are measuring the same thing, they should get the same results. The particle is, after all, no longer in its original isolated state, but in a new state involved with the test apparatus.
If they're not measuring exactly the same thing, that's different. For example, if you're measuring the spin of electrons wrt the Z axis, if I do the same, I should get the same value. But if I'm measuring wrt the Y axis, the electron state for that direction will be a superposition until I measure it. (And doing that Y measurement would make the Z axis value ambiguous again.)
Thanks, but I wasn't clear in my question.
An unobserved particle is in a superposition, and two observers are in a position to observe. The two observers have nothing whatsoever to do with each other. One observer observes the particle, but the other observer does not observe it at all. The particle resolves for the one, but does it also, by the one's observation, resolve for the other, or is the particle now simultaneously resolved and in a superposition state?
Your answer above suggests that the particle would be, since apparently it can be simultaneously--relative to one observer--both resolved along one axis and still superpositioned along another axis. Or does one's measurement along the Y axis re-superposition the X-axis even though the other observer has measured that X-axis and so resolved it?
Thanks
Eric Hines
In the case I mentioned, a spin measurement along one axis leaves the other uncertain. The only possible values are +/- 1/2 for an electron (pesky binaries...), which is the reason this particular example works. If you were measuring x or y momentum the measurements wouldn't interfere, though as you know you can't measure both momentum and position along some axis without some irreducible uncertainty in their product.
A free electron zipping along is one thing--an electron that interacts with somebody's apparatus is another: the state is "electron+apparatus" state.
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