I’m expressing incomprehension, not disapproval. I’m genuinely puzzled. If I were trying to express disapproval I would have phrased the pixie dust sentence with “It’s like they think there is a … or … or something.”
Am I not allowed to use the the phrase “can’t even begin to imagine” even when I spent the rest of the comment trying to imagine and failing utterly?
In my experience with colloquial English—mostly in the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii, and Florida—”I can’t even begin to imagine [justification for other person’s behavior or belief]” expresses disapproval. Specifically, it expresses the belief that the behavior or belief is not justified, and that the person under discussion is either disingenuous or working with an unusually flawed epistemic strategy.
The phrase may have different connotations for you, but if I were trying to express incomprehension safely I’d choose a different phrase. Maybe something like “Although seemingly intelligent, rational people disagree, anticipating being one and only one particular future self when other future selves exist sounds incoherent.”
I don’t see how calling it incoherent is any less disapproving. And I expect the problem is not the particular phase I used, but the level of incomprehension expressed, otherwise you would have suggested some actual expression of incomprehension, wouldn’t you? What I want to express is that I have no explanation for the presence of the apparent belief and unsuccessfully searched for possible justifications without finding anything that looked promising at any stage. Calling it incoherent would imply that I expect a psychological explanation instead of a justification to be the cause of the belief. I don’t have that expectation.
I meant for my suggestion to denotationally express the same thing as what you said. But the connotations of “I can’t even begin to imagine...” are different from the connotations of ”...sounds incoherent.”
In contexts more familiar to you, ”...sounds incoherent” may express more disapproval; but in the colloquial English I’m familiar with, it’s the more neutral phrase.
I’m expressing incomprehension, not disapproval. I’m genuinely puzzled. If I were trying to express disapproval I would have phrased the pixie dust sentence with “It’s like they think there is a … or … or something.”
Am I not allowed to use the the phrase “can’t even begin to imagine” even when I spent the rest of the comment trying to imagine and failing utterly?
In my experience with colloquial English—mostly in the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii, and Florida—”I can’t even begin to imagine [justification for other person’s behavior or belief]” expresses disapproval. Specifically, it expresses the belief that the behavior or belief is not justified, and that the person under discussion is either disingenuous or working with an unusually flawed epistemic strategy.
The phrase may have different connotations for you, but if I were trying to express incomprehension safely I’d choose a different phrase. Maybe something like “Although seemingly intelligent, rational people disagree, anticipating being one and only one particular future self when other future selves exist sounds incoherent.”
I don’t see how calling it incoherent is any less disapproving. And I expect the problem is not the particular phase I used, but the level of incomprehension expressed, otherwise you would have suggested some actual expression of incomprehension, wouldn’t you? What I want to express is that I have no explanation for the presence of the apparent belief and unsuccessfully searched for possible justifications without finding anything that looked promising at any stage. Calling it incoherent would imply that I expect a psychological explanation instead of a justification to be the cause of the belief. I don’t have that expectation.
I meant for my suggestion to denotationally express the same thing as what you said. But the connotations of “I can’t even begin to imagine...” are different from the connotations of ”...sounds incoherent.”
In contexts more familiar to you, ”...sounds incoherent” may express more disapproval; but in the colloquial English I’m familiar with, it’s the more neutral phrase.