Not even necessarily that, what if someone had a religion not to express anger?
I never said that he was going to punch him in the face directly. It's just that when anger starts infringing on one's clear-thoughts, violence could occur. And again, religion IS by definition, a set of beliefs that multiple people share and it defines their humanity. And what are morals? Beliefs of what is right or wrong to the individual.
So we have confirmed that there is not a cause-effect relationship or correlation with feelings induced by emotions and physical actions. Perhaps emotions effect feelings which effect the brain, but the brain doesn't cause emotions to happen at will, emotions are not the result of you consciously thinking them to happen, so there still seems to be room for a dualism. Perhaps, thoughts change the pattern, matter follows the pattern, matter creates a new pattern front a new arrangement, the mind responds to the new pattern, indefinitely. Anyway, if you're a physicalist, don't walk into any teleportation devices.
Now it's somewhat about the line between physical reality. Also, there's no contradiction if you actually read the whole post, because a pattern can still arise. Matter can fallow what we see as a pattern, but a pattern itself doesn't apply any amount of newtons to anything to make it move. I honestly don't think my claim is 100% right, but I do think that it is at least mostly right, some things by nature are not physical and exist, just not physically in the way that they are tangible, measurable or quantifiable, which means we cannot determine that they are physical, like imagines you imagine in your brain. Is imagining a random set of morals really so different than imagining the images or words that everyone (except Taylor the physicalist) agrees doesn't exist?
But would they really be all that random? I don't think so, just because you can't have morals that are 'blue' or 'unicorns' mostly because of what they are. They do have to follow their own previously set definitions as to what they are. They have to be what you believe is a 'correct way' to act in a situation.
That doesn't really address how they are different than images in one's imagination.
The feeling of something such as happiness or anger has no physical effect on reality, but the process by which a chemical is released into the blood to induce a certain pattern. The exact act of how a feeling is consciously "felt" isn't really defined.
Please... don't make this a 'what if' discussion. As those are just completely circular, and I could just say 'What if this argument is stupid', or 'what if morality is not the judgement of right or wrong, but instead, ice cream with a ****-tail cherry on top?'? It really doesn't add that much to the discussion... besides, in my example it made him angry, didn't it?
I can't accurately answer if it "made" him angry, as we've already established there is no direct cause-effect relation with emotions and actions. Someone has the feeling of anger, but they still have a choice in how to act. At most, it is the decision that would have to have an effect if you assume a component of the mind is physical.
So you're claiming that the fact that it's technically possible for the physical arrangement off matter implied by an image in one's imagination to by chance occur is evidence that all things you imagine physically manifest themselves?
I'm not saying that just because you thought them, they are manifested, but because there are just so many ways that particles could be arranged, why not? It may not be directly due to your thoughts direct intervention.
Because coincidence and randomness means inherently that there is no direct correlation between an specific action and the outcome. If I roll a die and happen to be thinking of the number 6 while the die comes up 6, does that magically mean the die will always come up whatever number I think, whenever I think because I think it? No, because otherwise it's not actually random, and we define a die roll as being random, aside from the fact that we haven't really observed thoughts to have any effect on physical processes outside out body anyway.
Well what I'm saying that beliefs and morals are one in the same, that if you believe something is right, then that is your own belief in the matter. However, what you're describing, such as not killing one another sounds more like instinct rather than morals. It is possible however, that our 'instincts' evolved farther and became morals... never thought of that before... It's just as well possible, and is pretty logically sound, as well...
For that to work though, you'd need to first separate beliefs from natural actions that already exist. For instance, helping people is already natural, you don't need to believe in anything to have the natural social capacity to help someone, and then you'd actually have to show that it was the result of genes so show that it is effected by the process of evolution, which doesn't seem like it's going to happen. Instead I think it's more about social capacities and being nice vs being mean. People don't want to be around mean people, so it would make sense that community based survival would favor nicer people who have better social capacities and is probably why violent psychopaths make up less than 10% of the population. Although if you look at religious figures like for instance Jeesus or Siddartha, they ended up giving things up and sacrificing their time to help other people even though they didn't need to and gained or accepted little to no benefit, and then there's people like Ghandi and Chavez who went on hunger strikes that almost killed them to help gain people rights even though they in theory could have chosen to take advantage of the situation of economics to help themselves especially considering Ghandi was experienced with legal matters and Siddhartha was born rich, Jesus was even crucified because of his support which doesn't seem like it helped them survive, so I'm not sure exactly how evolution would have had a lot to do with those scenarios.
I disagree: The question is really if being technologically advanced is more moral than being nice to people. This thread is about ethics.
And--again--IDK.
You are corrrect in pointing out this thread is about morals, but I can see advantages to both. Being technologically advanced is good, but being nice is also good because it makes it easier to subsume other cultures. Look at Eisenstein fleeing Germany for American as an example.
Let's abstract A and B into "effective but cruel" and "ineffective but kind" and set aside the specific conditions from my previous example.
A and B move into an environment. A develops a way to survive in the current environment and chooses to let B die off because they enjoy watching them die. You are suggesting that A is the more moral society because their ability to survive is greater. Even theoretically Society A has a greater ability to survive.
Except, we've seen that being kind has inherent advantaged to it. Again the Eisenstein fleeing Germany for American example. You could very easily see a mass migration of people from 'A' to 'B,' and the people from "A" would bring the better parts of their society with them. This is why places like North Korea//East Germany can only survive by making sure people can't leave, and that's been proven to not be a winning strategy.
Now, I'm not saying one is definitely better than the other. And, I'm sure you can hypothetically construct a sufficiently crappy nice society and a sufficiently awesome mean one. But, at that point I'm sure I'm not the only one that would declare the mean one "better." And--to me--things like "good" and "better" are kinda synonymous (and the dictionary agrees).
I agree that societies evolve and even that morals evolve, anything that is able to change and is subject to selective pressures will evolve. Where I disagree is how effective is as a way to decide on morality. Inevitably future societies will disagree with us on morality but that is a trivial statement that doesn't tell us anything about what is moral.
Well, this is were it gets a little metaphysical. I pretty much buy into Robert Wright's theory that this evolution is going somewhere. That is to say, certain general concepts are always bad for humans, like--for example--indiscriminately murdering one another.
He claims if we look at the history of the evolution of morals, there does seem to be a "path." That it's not a random, there is a direction to it. Somethings work, and something don't.
The morals of a society have a direct impact in the behaviors of that society.
But you can still easily act in a way that is not dependent on morals as well as change morals at any given time. Is farming dependent on morals? Is saying "hello" dependent on morals? Is crafting a piece of furniture or even art dependent on morals? Is even music solely dependent on morals? The bulk of behaviors are not dependent on morals or any sort of set system of organized beliefs themselves.
Sure. A person in a society might not always act according to the morals of said society, but those morals represent the behaviors the society thinks members "should" display.
Sure. A person in a society might not always act according to the morals of said society, but those morals represent the behaviors the society thinks members "should" display.
So you are equating a moral to a desire? If so, don't snails have the same level of morals as humans because they desire that others not harm them?
Morals are a set of actions you should/ought perform. "The right thing to do" and all that. You should do bad and you shouldn't do good. "Indefinables" from the is-ought page:
"Indefinables are concepts so global that they cannot be defined; rather, in a sense, they themselves, and the objects to which they refer, define our reality and our ideas. Their meanings cannot be stated in a true definition, but their meanings can be referred to instead by being placed with their incomplete definitions in self-evident statements, the truth of which can be tested by whether or not it is impossible to think the opposite without a contradiction."[1]
"Good" should be done because it's good. "Bad" shouldn't be done because it's bad. Self-evident.
What you--or a society--takes to be its morals (its definition of "good" and "bad" behaviors) dictate action. It doesn't define it, as you point out, but it certainly guilds it.
Morals are a set of actions you should/ought perform. "The right thing to do" and all that. You should do bad and you shouldn't do good. "Indefinables" from the is-ought page:
"Indefinables are concepts so global that they cannot be defined; rather, in a sense, they themselves, and the objects to which they refer, define our reality and our ideas. Their meanings cannot be stated in a true definition, but their meanings can be referred to instead by being placed with their incomplete definitions in self-evident statements, the truth of which can be tested by whether or not it is impossible to think the opposite without a contradiction."[1]
"Good" should be done because it's good. "Bad" shouldn't be done because it's bad. Self-evident.
What you--or a society--takes to be its morals (its definition of "good" and "bad" behaviors) dictate action. It doesn't define it, as you point out, but it certainly guilds it.
But all you're doing is using an axiom to prove itself and then stating a tautology. It is a moral that suggests what should be done, but there is no component of the known physics of the universe forcing you to choose what you define as good or even to ever define anything at all, nor does physics itself define what morals are. Do bacteria have morals because they automatically react to avoid toxins and other harmful bacteria?
But all you're doing is using an axiom to prove itself and then stating a tautology.
"Good" being good is a circular argument, not an axiomatic argument. But, yes, that's what's being done.
You keep throwing the Münchhausen Trilemma in my face like it's something I'm meant to recoil from or something I've not addressed time and time again on this thread. (Pro tip: I have)
It is a moral that suggests what should be done, but there is no component of the known physics of the universe forcing you to choose what you define as good or even to ever define anything at all, nor does physics itself define what morals are. Do bacteria have morals because they automatically react to avoid toxins and other harmful bacteria?
I'm sorry if you feel I wasn't exhaustive enough in my explanation. However, I don't think going another 5 pages will provide the solution you seem to be looking for (and I would maintain the solution to the Trilemma you seem to be wrestling with doesn't exist; at any rate--if it does--I certainly don't possess it).
I think we better just agree to disagree at this point. Please give your closing statements.
But all you're doing is using an axiom to prove itself and then stating a tautology.
"Good" being good is a circular argument, not an axiomatic argument. But, yes, that's what's being done.
You keep throwing the Münchhausen Trilemma in my face like it's something I'm meant to recoil from or something I've not addressed time and time again on this thread. (Pro tip: I have)
Because you are trying to equate a system of morals with a system of logic and then equate logic with physical reality and therefore equate morals with physical reality by rejecting any dualism. Morals aren't even logical, all you do is assume something is what you arbitrarily define as good or bad.
You lead with this 5 pages ago[/URL], and I already did my best to answer it over the course of those 5 pages.
And if I remember correctly you tried to assume every possible thing physically exists, taking on a physical stance, which isn't right, and then tried to use neurology to show that a concept or an idea is purely physical, which you didn't show. Seeing as how bacteria can react to things without being known to have any thoughts, there are obviously behaviors you are using for your basis which are in no way affiliated with morals.
I think we better just agree to disagree at this point. Please give your closing statements.
There's not really a need for any of that if you just stop assuming every possible thing has to be physically based in physical reality. Some things do not physically exist. As you already agreed with, the image of something you imagine does not make that thing that you imagine the image of physically exist in reality, the same is true of laws or the "good" and "bad" that you imagine.
I did not--and never would--agree "Some things do not physically exist" since--as I've stated many times--I'm a physicalist.
At this point it's painfully obvious you're not even really reading what I'm writing. You've overlooked just about everything I've said about math, science, and its relation to logic; you've--apparently--conveniently forgotten about the scientific field of descriptive evolutionary ethics; and you keep assuming everyone is a dualist.
Now--I really mean it--make your closing arguments. This is the last post I plan on making addressing you... At least until you learn to sing a new tune; this one simply is boring.
I did not--and never would--agree "Some things do not physically exist" since--as I've stated many times--I'm a physicalist.
At this point it's painfully obvious you're not even really reading what I'm writing. You've overlooked just about everything I've said about math, science, and its relation to logic; you've--apparently--conveniently forgotten about the scientific field of descriptive evolutionary ethics; and you keep assuming everyone is a dualist.
Now--I really mean it--make your closing arguments. This is the last post I plan on making addressing you... At least until you learn to sing a new tune; this one simply is boring.
So you agree what I imagine forces itself to physically exist? So if I imagine a purple unicorn, a purple unicorn now physically exists because I imagined it? Or maybe what you imagine is not a part of physical reality. You are also not providing proof or really even evidence that dualism doesn't exist. Or, let's say 1+1=2. Does 1+1=2 exist? Wait, 1+1=2 is a correlation, it being true is irregardless of the existence of time and space, so how could 1+1=2 still be true without physical reality, no time, no space? It simply exists outside of physical reality. I don't assume everyone is a dualist, I simply see things that are evidence that dualism exists and therefore assume that if someone is not creating a purely hypothetical situation, that they would accept that dualism is not disproved unless they can prove otherwise or possess an amount of evidence to be granted a high likelihood that dualism doesn't exist under the premises of what is defined as being evident and thus not use "dualism doesn't exist" as a basis for a scientific argument. The concept is no different than assuming that someone else accepts that gravity exists, unless they are stating a purely hypothetical situation (and thus not scientific) of gravity not existing, or saying "well I have all this evidence that says gravity is just a figment of our imagination".
It is not predetermined what one defines as right or wrong, just somewhat how their body reacts and perceive things a certain way that causes an emotional response which effects their mental state and that is what is being studied, because often times humans imagine morals based off of their experiences, so if they perceive experiences a certain way, there is a chance they will discover a certain idea which still doesn't guarantee they will define anything as "good" or "bad". But, as I said more than once, there is no component of physics stopping someone from perceiving something such as pain or death as a "good" thing or acting in a manner contradictory to their own morals and then changing morals. This proves there is no universal "good" or "bad", just as there is no universal time, it is not 4:00pm in the universe, and thus there is no basis to assume that genes will predetermine the morals that someone will have, a clone of someone may by chance develop any number of the infinite possible morals. What if it was genetics that someone wanted to die? Would you then at least accept that physically, science hasn't defined that the morals you presented are in fact not universal and are purely a relative construct? (hint: manic depression). Even in this scenario, the given person never stated that dying was good, it is simply that they happen to be experiencing a state of extreme sadness caused by a chemical imbalance. Similarly, someone can happen to be experiencing a state of happiness after a certain action was performed, and so then consciously associate that action with happiness when initially it was just an automatic response. They could then come up with the notion that "if I do this, it will make me happy", and still not define anything as good or bad. A person may just as easily say "huh, it looks like this helps me survive" without defining any part of their survival or item as being good or bad. As I said, separate morals from the actions that are already naturally inherent first.
So we have confirmed that there is not a cause-effect relationship or correlation with feelings induced by emotions and physical actions. Perhaps emotions effect feelings which effect the brain, but the brain doesn't cause emotions to happen at will, emotions are not the result of you consciously thinking them to happen, so there still seems to be room for a dualism. Perhaps, thoughts change the pattern, matter follows the pattern, matter creates a new pattern front a new arrangement, the mind responds to the new pattern, indefinitely. Anyway, if you're a physicalist, don't walk into any teleportation devices.
That doesn't really address how they are different than images in one's imagination.
I can't accurately answer if it "made" him angry, as we've already established there is no direct cause-effect relation with emotions and actions. Someone has the feeling of anger, but they still have a choice in how to act. At most, it is the decision that would have to have an effect if you assume a component of the mind is physical.
Because coincidence and randomness means inherently that there is no direct correlation between an specific action and the outcome. If I roll a die and happen to be thinking of the number 6 while the die comes up 6, does that magically mean the die will always come up whatever number I think, whenever I think because I think it? No, because otherwise it's not actually random, and we define a die roll as being random, aside from the fact that we haven't really observed thoughts to have any effect on physical processes outside out body anyway.
For that to work though, you'd need to first separate beliefs from natural actions that already exist. For instance, helping people is already natural, you don't need to believe in anything to have the natural social capacity to help someone, and then you'd actually have to show that it was the result of genes so show that it is effected by the process of evolution, which doesn't seem like it's going to happen. Instead I think it's more about social capacities and being nice vs being mean. People don't want to be around mean people, so it would make sense that community based survival would favor nicer people who have better social capacities and is probably why violent psychopaths make up less than 10% of the population. Although if you look at religious figures like for instance Jeesus or Siddartha, they ended up giving things up and sacrificing their time to help other people even though they didn't need to and gained or accepted little to no benefit, and then there's people like Ghandi and Chavez who went on hunger strikes that almost killed them to help gain people rights even though they in theory could have chosen to take advantage of the situation of economics to help themselves especially considering Ghandi was experienced with legal matters and Siddhartha was born rich, Jesus was even crucified because of his support which doesn't seem like it helped them survive, so I'm not sure exactly how evolution would have had a lot to do with those scenarios.
I quoted your entire reply to me.
I'm not sure why you think outcompeting other things that want your niche is disadvantageous (and thus immoral in Taylor's proposed system).
You are corrrect in pointing out this thread is about morals, but I can see advantages to both. Being technologically advanced is good, but being nice is also good because it makes it easier to subsume other cultures. Look at Eisenstein fleeing Germany for American as an example.
Agree.
Except, we've seen that being kind has inherent advantaged to it. Again the Eisenstein fleeing Germany for American example. You could very easily see a mass migration of people from 'A' to 'B,' and the people from "A" would bring the better parts of their society with them. This is why places like North Korea//East Germany can only survive by making sure people can't leave, and that's been proven to not be a winning strategy.
Now, I'm not saying one is definitely better than the other. And, I'm sure you can hypothetically construct a sufficiently crappy nice society and a sufficiently awesome mean one. But, at that point I'm sure I'm not the only one that would declare the mean one "better." And--to me--things like "good" and "better" are kinda synonymous (and the dictionary agrees).
Death is kinda "bad." If your 'nice' society is facilitating the death of its people... well, I certainly wouldn't want to live there.
Agreed.
Well, this is were it gets a little metaphysical. I pretty much buy into Robert Wright's theory that this evolution is going somewhere. That is to say, certain general concepts are always bad for humans, like--for example--indiscriminately murdering one another.
He claims if we look at the history of the evolution of morals, there does seem to be a "path." That it's not a random, there is a direction to it. Somethings work, and something don't.
But you can still easily act in a way that is not dependent on morals as well as change morals at any given time. Is farming dependent on morals? Is saying "hello" dependent on morals? Is crafting a piece of furniture or even art dependent on morals? Is even music solely dependent on morals? The bulk of behaviors are not dependent on morals or any sort of set system of organized beliefs themselves.
So you are equating a moral to a desire? If so, don't snails have the same level of morals as humans because they desire that others not harm them?
"Indefinables are concepts so global that they cannot be defined; rather, in a sense, they themselves, and the objects to which they refer, define our reality and our ideas. Their meanings cannot be stated in a true definition, but their meanings can be referred to instead by being placed with their incomplete definitions in self-evident statements, the truth of which can be tested by whether or not it is impossible to think the opposite without a contradiction."[1]
"Good" should be done because it's good. "Bad" shouldn't be done because it's bad. Self-evident.
What you--or a society--takes to be its morals (its definition of "good" and "bad" behaviors) dictate action. It doesn't define it, as you point out, but it certainly guilds it.
But all you're doing is using an axiom to prove itself and then stating a tautology. It is a moral that suggests what should be done, but there is no component of the known physics of the universe forcing you to choose what you define as good or even to ever define anything at all, nor does physics itself define what morals are. Do bacteria have morals because they automatically react to avoid toxins and other harmful bacteria?
You keep throwing the Münchhausen Trilemma in my face like it's something I'm meant to recoil from or something I've not addressed time and time again on this thread. (Pro tip: I have)You lead with this 5 pages ago, and I already did my best to answer it over the course of those 5 pages.
I'm sorry if you feel I wasn't exhaustive enough in my explanation. However, I don't think going another 5 pages will provide the solution you seem to be looking for (and I would maintain the solution to the Trilemma you seem to be wrestling with doesn't exist; at any rate--if it does--I certainly don't possess it).
I think we better just agree to disagree at this point. Please give your closing statements.
Because you are trying to equate a system of morals with a system of logic and then equate logic with physical reality and therefore equate morals with physical reality by rejecting any dualism. Morals aren't even logical, all you do is assume something is what you arbitrarily define as good or bad.
And if I remember correctly you tried to assume every possible thing physically exists, taking on a physical stance, which isn't right, and then tried to use neurology to show that a concept or an idea is purely physical, which you didn't show. Seeing as how bacteria can react to things without being known to have any thoughts, there are obviously behaviors you are using for your basis which are in no way affiliated with morals.
There's not really a need for any of that if you just stop assuming every possible thing has to be physically based in physical reality. Some things do not physically exist. As you already agreed with, the image of something you imagine does not make that thing that you imagine the image of physically exist in reality, the same is true of laws or the "good" and "bad" that you imagine.
At this point it's painfully obvious you're not even really reading what I'm writing. You've overlooked just about everything I've said about math, science, and its relation to logic; you've--apparently--conveniently forgotten about the scientific field of descriptive evolutionary ethics; and you keep assuming everyone is a dualist.
Now--I really mean it--make your closing arguments. This is the last post I plan on making addressing you... At least until you learn to sing a new tune; this one simply is boring.
So you agree what I imagine forces itself to physically exist? So if I imagine a purple unicorn, a purple unicorn now physically exists because I imagined it? Or maybe what you imagine is not a part of physical reality. You are also not providing proof or really even evidence that dualism doesn't exist. Or, let's say 1+1=2. Does 1+1=2 exist? Wait, 1+1=2 is a correlation, it being true is irregardless of the existence of time and space, so how could 1+1=2 still be true without physical reality, no time, no space? It simply exists outside of physical reality. I don't assume everyone is a dualist, I simply see things that are evidence that dualism exists and therefore assume that if someone is not creating a purely hypothetical situation, that they would accept that dualism is not disproved unless they can prove otherwise or possess an amount of evidence to be granted a high likelihood that dualism doesn't exist under the premises of what is defined as being evident and thus not use "dualism doesn't exist" as a basis for a scientific argument. The concept is no different than assuming that someone else accepts that gravity exists, unless they are stating a purely hypothetical situation (and thus not scientific) of gravity not existing, or saying "well I have all this evidence that says gravity is just a figment of our imagination".
It is not predetermined what one defines as right or wrong, just somewhat how their body reacts and perceive things a certain way that causes an emotional response which effects their mental state and that is what is being studied, because often times humans imagine morals based off of their experiences, so if they perceive experiences a certain way, there is a chance they will discover a certain idea which still doesn't guarantee they will define anything as "good" or "bad". But, as I said more than once, there is no component of physics stopping someone from perceiving something such as pain or death as a "good" thing or acting in a manner contradictory to their own morals and then changing morals. This proves there is no universal "good" or "bad", just as there is no universal time, it is not 4:00pm in the universe, and thus there is no basis to assume that genes will predetermine the morals that someone will have, a clone of someone may by chance develop any number of the infinite possible morals. What if it was genetics that someone wanted to die? Would you then at least accept that physically, science hasn't defined that the morals you presented are in fact not universal and are purely a relative construct? (hint: manic depression). Even in this scenario, the given person never stated that dying was good, it is simply that they happen to be experiencing a state of extreme sadness caused by a chemical imbalance. Similarly, someone can happen to be experiencing a state of happiness after a certain action was performed, and so then consciously associate that action with happiness when initially it was just an automatic response. They could then come up with the notion that "if I do this, it will make me happy", and still not define anything as good or bad. A person may just as easily say "huh, it looks like this helps me survive" without defining any part of their survival or item as being good or bad. As I said, separate morals from the actions that are already naturally inherent first.