THEORY: Are commands to believe infelicitous

> *laugh* Indeed we do. Hail Eris! ;-)
Eeek. No, no. My life is chaotic enough without the aid of Eris.

> I should add another clause, actually... I don't think it's
ethical in
> *either* case.
IMO, whether or not it is ethical isn't something for debate here
unless that influences a conculture and through that the language(s)
of that conculture.

> In the case of most people, because you shouldn't ask them what
> they're not capable of. (You could potentially ask them to develop
> that capability, though...)
Okay, so there can be a temporal limit where infelicitous become
felicitous.

> You can ask someone to change their behaviour, but to change core
> elements like thought processes is overstepping the bounds of what
can
> reasonably be requested short of an extreme imbalance of power or
> obligation. I wouldn't be opposed to a persuasive argument,
though -
> just to command.
Yet societies do this all the time. E.g. telling persons that they
must believe in a particular god or view of that god; telling Gays
that they must be straight; telling citizens that they must believe
in justness of this or that war. And these aren't instances of
persuasive argument, but are backed up by anything from
ostracization to making a person's life hell-on-earth to death.

> If that is indeed what you meant, then it seems your position is
> somewhere between the position I took earlier (on the one hand),
> and
> the position Joseph B. took earlier (on the other hand): in that,
> contra me and with Joseph, there are cases where this command is
Maybe. Does it remain so excluding the ethical aspect? IMO, much of
the difference between Tom's and my positions are in the ability to
alter perception: whether the ability should be viewed as a bug or a
feature (if one must polarize it), and whether the ability is rare
or something that anyone can do given time and reason to do so. And
this is rooted in the original question of the patient's volition in
responding commands involving the verb "believe", "see"
(perceive), "understand". IMO, Tom seeks to understand the blurry
intersection between the command and the volition. Or so it seems to
my befuddled mind.

> felicitous; but, with me and not-so-much-with-Joseph, these cases
> do not form a majority, but rather a very small minority.
Even though Sai says himself that he can do it?

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