[MD] Virtually meaningful?

[Arlo Bensinger]

[Marsha]
It seems you are using these words as if the world had 
adopted a MOQ convention.  The world has not!

[Arlo]
When I am speaking with an audience where I don't assume people to 
"know" I am speaking as best I can using MOQ understands, then I 
certainly re-prose my language to make my points using other words. 
I've come to see a convention commonly used here is to "scarequote" 
words when they are meant to refer to "non-MOQ" or "SOM" views. So 
when I say, for example, that is the only "me" you will ever know, I 
am highlighting that I am using the word outside the MOQ context. 
When I say, that is not real to me, I am assuming the _me_ in this 
sentence is understood in a MOQ way.

What is "me", you ask? I agree with you. A collection of 
ever-changing, fluid patterns. But I go further. I say this 
ever-changing, fluid ball of patterns has a plurality of "faces", and 
that these "faces" are (1) contextually dependent and (2) processes 
of social negotiation and NOT some fixed "thing".

What is "real", you ask? I'd say, what I believe it to be at the 
moment you ask the question, while knowing that this too is in flux 
(sometimes greatly and sometimes not so much). We certainly seek 
"external corroboration" or "continuity" as markers of "reality", but 
these are conventions, nothing more. Right now, right here, the "real 
Marsha" for me the Marsha that exists between us at this singular 
point in time. It may be different than the "real Marsha" I knew last 
year, and it will likely be different from the "real Marsha" I will 
know a year from now. Maybe external things will change my vision of 
the "real Marsha", maybe you'll convince me of something that will 
change this, or maybe I'll just start to see you in a way "Marsha" 
does not intend. The point is, I use "real" here in scare quotes, 
because there is (in my MOQish opinion) no real Marsha that exists 
independently of the active social process of this context, just as 
for your daughter there is no real Marsha that exists independently 
of her context.

[Marsha]
Remember my understanding of the self is that it is an ever-changing, 
collection of overlapping, interrelated, inorganic, biological, 
social and intellectual, static patterns of value.  It doesn't really 
exist as an entity.  It is like a flowing river...

[Arlo]
Which is exactly my point. Asking whether "Mark" or "Juliet" is 
"real" and which is "pretend" is a question missing the mark (pun 
intended). The "reality" would be the identity negotiated socially 
between those involved in that context. And so both are "real", but 
both are also "pretend" in as much as they are both faces and not 
independent realities of their own.

[Marsha]
But, when I am having a discussion, I expect the conventional person 
I'm talking with will use the best conventional truth they can 
muster.  In other words, if SA turned out to be a woman, I would 
think she deliberately lied.

[Arlo]
See here, let me ask you this. What if SA turned out to have the 
biological body of a male, but truly, truly felt she was a woman 
trapped in a male body. What if "Heather" is the person she truly, 
truly identifies with. What if here in cyberspace she is allowed and 
able to interact socially AS SHE FEELS SHE IS, without the 
encumberence or stigma or burden of feeling unconnected with her 
biological form. Would you still feel as if Heather lied? Why should 
she feel as if her biological body is important to you? Indeed, what 
difference does it make to you?

So let me ask further. What if you found out that Heather was at one 
time a biological male but several years ago underwent a sex change 
operation. Would you still feel lied to? If not, then I can really 
only see how you are saying that the reality of Heather's gender is 
based on the current biological state of her body, and NOT on the 
gender she really, really feels she is.

To clarify, if she feels like a woman but has not yet had the 
operation, she would be lying. But once she has the operation she 
would be telling the truth. Is that correct? But throughout this 
transition, the "Heather" that exists as a "self" has not changed one 
bit, has it? Or does altering the body also alter the self?

[Marsha]
And I would have to wonder what other lies were constructed.  Of 
course, there could be extraordinary circumstances making every word 
she wrote true to the letter, but, to me, it would still smell like deception.

[Arlo]
We disagree here. For me, the biological reality of her corporeal 
host means nothing. The SA I know, whether male or female in body, is 
the SA I care about and respect. And her/his words to me are not 
impacted by the constraints of her/his bodily form. Unless, as I 
said, my goal was mating. Then this would have consequential value to 
me. But otherwise, I accept the "Heather" or "Nick" or "SA" as s/her 
presents her/hiselft here.