I think most normal people who use the word “angry” do so in a way that’s consistent with my most recent comment—i.e., a claim about the territory, not their own map, and not about the angry person’s map.
This is how everyone uses adjectives all the time. For example, if somebody says “This rock is metamorphic”, they are making a claim about the territory, not a claim about their own map (i.e., “I believe that this rock is metamorphic” would be a different claim), and certainly not a claim about the rock’s map (because rocks don’t have maps).
By the same token, I claim that it is possible for Person X to say “This person / dog / baby is angry”, and intend it in a similar way: a claim about the territory, not about their own map, and not about the person / dog / baby’s map.
That’s my claim. You can respond in either of two ways:
You can say “Person X is just being confused and incoherent.” I’m arguing against that. I think Person X is making a legitimate meaningful claim about the territory, and the claim is ultimately related (among other things) to not-directly-observable latent variables involving the hypothalamic and brainstem state variables of the person / dog / baby (I was calling it “florp”), and these latent variables have easily-observable (probabilistic) implications on various things like ‘probability of punching someone’ and ‘probability of laughing’.
Alternatively, you can say “Person X is saying something sensible, but really they shouldn’t be using the word ‘angry’ for what they’re saying. That’s not what the word ‘angry’ means. ‘Angry’ is short for ‘the anger concept’ which must by definition be part of some world-model, like all concepts. Person X should make up a new different word, rather than misusing the word ‘angry’ which already means something different.” Now, I’m trying to not directly get in an argument about that, because those kinds of arguments (“what does a word really mean?”) are annoying and often pointless. Or at any rate, we should have that terminology argument last, after we agree about everything else. So I was temporarily conceding this bullet-point for the sake of furthering this discussion, by making up silly terms like “florp”. But at the very least, I think you have to admit that Person X is not a “straw-vulcan” per your comment. They are using emotion words like “angry” in a very normal, common-sense way, in the normal situations where that concept is useful.
I think most normal people who use the word “angry” do so in a way that’s consistent with my most recent comment—i.e., a claim about the territory, not their own map, and not about the angry person’s map.
This is how everyone uses adjectives all the time. For example, if somebody says “This rock is metamorphic”, they are making a claim about the territory, not a claim about their own map (i.e., “I believe that this rock is metamorphic” would be a different claim), and certainly not a claim about the rock’s map (because rocks don’t have maps).
By the same token, I claim that it is possible for Person X to say “This person / dog / baby is angry”, and intend it in a similar way: a claim about the territory, not about their own map, and not about the person / dog / baby’s map.
That’s my claim. You can respond in either of two ways:
You can say “Person X is just being confused and incoherent.” I’m arguing against that. I think Person X is making a legitimate meaningful claim about the territory, and the claim is ultimately related (among other things) to not-directly-observable latent variables involving the hypothalamic and brainstem state variables of the person / dog / baby (I was calling it “florp”), and these latent variables have easily-observable (probabilistic) implications on various things like ‘probability of punching someone’ and ‘probability of laughing’.
Alternatively, you can say “Person X is saying something sensible, but really they shouldn’t be using the word ‘angry’ for what they’re saying. That’s not what the word ‘angry’ means. ‘Angry’ is short for ‘the anger concept’ which must by definition be part of some world-model, like all concepts. Person X should make up a new different word, rather than misusing the word ‘angry’ which already means something different.” Now, I’m trying to not directly get in an argument about that, because those kinds of arguments (“what does a word really mean?”) are annoying and often pointless. Or at any rate, we should have that terminology argument last, after we agree about everything else. So I was temporarily conceding this bullet-point for the sake of furthering this discussion, by making up silly terms like “florp”. But at the very least, I think you have to admit that Person X is not a “straw-vulcan” per your comment. They are using emotion words like “angry” in a very normal, common-sense way, in the normal situations where that concept is useful.