Adaptive habits.

NB: Wisdom is, I suspect, mastery over (any or some, many or all) maladaptive habits of judgment and conduct. Thus, we fools only seek ("love") wisdom but are never wise ourselves. :fire: — 180 Proof

I think that the idea of adaptive habits may actually be an an abstraction of the virtues as opposed to something that something the virtues may be reduced to. Or perhaps it is both.

Then someone who knows that fighting 10 men attacking a bank alone is reckless, that doing nothing is cowardly, and that calling the police is the right mean is courageous, even if he does not call the police out of fear ? What I'm trying to say is, sometimes, knowing is not enough to start doing. I can very well know that ghosts don't exist, yet continue being scared of them at night.

I think that to defend the "wisdom is the greatest of all virtues" thesis, there is a seeming gap between knowing the right thing and doing the right thing that needs to be explained in a way that reduces all good actions to wisdom.

The Greek term translated as virtue is arete. It means the excellence of a thing. Human excellence is the realization of human potential. Someone who has attained human excellence is wise. — Fooloso4

:up:

Someone who lacks courage has not realized or actualized her potential but this does not mean that courage is the same as human excellence or virtue. In fact, an excess of courage can lead to rashness or even ruthlessness. — Fooloso4

I think that "courage" may actually refer to the golden mean between rashness and cowardice as opposed to referring to what is measured by "rashness" and "cowardice. What is measured is willpower. A lack of it is called cowardice, an overabundance of it is called rashness, and a right amount of it is called courage. By using the terms in this way, courage becomes a part of human excellence, just as wisdom is. So perhaps the whole issue is just a matter of arbitrary definitions.

:up:

However, it seems to me that the issue is not yet solved. A link between virtue and wisdom has definitely been established, but the strength of the link still seems unknown, as the possibility of virtue being equivalent to moral knowledge still has not been ruled out.

I think resemblance is a sensation. I sense x to resemble y. There is a resemblance sensation experienced when I sense or think about x and y. And by hypothesis, in order for that sensation of resemblance to be of actual resemblance, it would need to resemble it (otherwise I would not be perceiving it). — Bartricks

Ok I see.

And only a sensation can resemble a sensation (a truth of reason) — Bartricks

This point seems to come back often. Is there any way for someone to accept it other than viewing it as "a truth of reason" ?

Imagine an air traffic controller looking at flashes of light on a circular screen and lots of numbers. Is the air traffic controller perceiving the planes he has so much information about and whose behaviour he can predict and direct? No. The air traffic controller is acquiring lots of true beliefs about some planes, but he is not perceiving them.
Or perhaps a better example might be a pilot. Pilots do not have to look out the window to fly the plane and navigate the landscape, as they have enough information from their instruments. But when the pilot is looking at the instruments they are not perceiving the landscape (unlike when they look through the window at it).

There is clearly a difference then between acquiring one's awareness via means that in no way resemble what one is becoming aware of and via means that do. And it is in the latter case that we can be said to be 'perceiving'. Or at least, that a necessary condition for perception has been met (resemblance isn't sufficient). — Bartricks

Ok I agree with with this. But still, I'm not sure of what is meant exactly by "perceiving". I'm also not sure of how this is related to the thesis that the world is made up of sensations.

it was self-evident to reason that a sensation can only resemble another sensation. Sounds are like sounds, smells like smells, textures like textures and so on. — Bartricks

It seems that the argument you are presenting comes back quite often to the notion of a sensation resembling something. What does it mean exactly to say that a sensation resembles another ?

Next he held that it was also self-evident that sensations are essentially sensed. That is, they cannot exist unsensed.

Next, sensations are always and everywhere sensed by a mind of some kind. For any sensation, there is a sensor, and the sensor is a mind. — Bartricks

(Don't take this part as a serious objection, just consider it like a fun philosophical and maybe intellectual exercise, or else it will just complicate the whole issue even more by bringing in another issue):
Unless you're a Platonist. A Platonic response to this would be that the Form of sensation exists independently of sensations and their sensors and is a sensation by itself. Therefore, there is at least one sensation (the Form of sensation) that exists independently of a sensor. Unless you're one of those Platonists that think that the Forms are just ideas in the mind of God. But then again, Platonism is also idealism.

First, he noted that our sensations can only be said to be giving us some awareness of an external world if they in some way resemble it. If our sensations in no way resemble the world they're supposed to be telling us about, how do they give us any awareness of it? — Bartricks

Let's imagine for some time that there is a world with observers in it. That world is made up of a ridiculously high amount of extremely small particles. The observers of that world themselves are composed of a bunch of extremely small particles, and when taken as a whole, one observer is far larger than the smallest possible particle. Yet, the observers perceive this external world as made up of a bunch of objects, all approximately their scale, with some being larger than them, but not too large, and some being smaller than them, but not too small.

Their perception of their world then is quite different from the reality of it being a bunch of small particles. But strangely enough, even with this very inaccurate perception, they still manage to predict the behavior of the world around them with extreme precision. Are they aware of their world, despite it not being like their perception at all, or are they unaware of it ?

As I said, philosophy wants to go to the roots, to the universal, but in this research philosophy cannot avoid to see that actually it is limited, because it is made by humans. This means that the very concept of universal is stupid: how can we, little microscopic, biased creatures of this universe pretend to get in our mind such a pretentious concept as “universal”? Whenever we think of the concept of universal, we are conditioned by our DNA, time, body, culture, epoch, geography, so, how can we think that what we are thinking is really universal? We humans are ridiculous in this pretence. — Angelo Cannata

Fair enough. But perhaps then that the universal is not really some objective world. Perhaps it is the shared patterns in human experience then.

Or, perhaps even more to the point, is there a method whereby it is possible to determine if the existence of my consciousness and the existence of the world it experiences are always necessarily codependent and interconnected, or if one can exist independently of and unconnected to the other? — charles ferraro

To test that, one would have to take a completely objective point of view, free of subjectivity, and from which one could observe the world and its subjects. But such a point of view is illogical, a point of view implies subjectivity, and subjectivity must be completely absent for the test to be effective, so it is impossible to verify it.

That is, if we assume that logic is relevant in this case. One could make the argument that given that we don’t know to what extent one’s mind constructs one’s experience, it is possible that logic is simply another result of the mind constructing our experience and so logic may actually not dictate the way the world as it truly is if there is such a world. If logic does not dictate the way the world works, then the test of the view from nowhere is possible.

But then again, one cannot know whether logic dictates the way the world as it truly is (if there is such a world) works without taking a view from nowhere. We’ve just come full circle back to the position of uncertainty we were at, and the options are the same as before. It seems then that there is a sort of loop where no matter what position you start with or which way you go, you end up at a place of uncertainty about every single possibility. So even skepticism of skepticism about the existence of an objective world is possible, and it can only be countered with more skepticism, and it goes on and on for infinity.

We experience the outer world directly rather than indirectly, like through some subjective Cartesian theater. We don’t experience “consciousness” or “subjective experience”; we experience independent things. If we pick up a rock, for example, there is nothing between us and the rock, and therefor nothing prohibiting us from confirming its independence. It seems to me the idealist has yet to prove what this prohibition is. — NOS4A2

One can’t know whether or not there is something between them and the rock. The only way to know that would be to take a view from nowhere, which is impossible as a view implies subjectivity. The mind could just be constructing an impression of a rock. Even assuming the existence of an objective material world, research had found that there is a lot of processing in the brain between raw sensory data and the world as we experience it. So either way, there is something between one’s experience and a possible objective material world.

Consider them as synonyms of unclear. — Angelo Cannata

Alright then. But I think it's the concepts being unclear which makes them more universal than other concepts and as such more useful for understanding the universal, which, at least according to you, is the object of study of philosophy.

But at the same time, I think that what those concepts refer to are the only things which can be considered universal. Therefore, perhaps philosophy can best be defined as the study of the relationships between universal concepts and their referents.

It all hinges on the meaning of the word "external" as used in the OP question, doesn't it? External in what sense, external to what? And precisely how is it external to the what? — charles ferraro

Actually, I think I chose the wrong words to express the issue. The word "internal" implies that there is some "external", and vice versa. So perhaps the question should be separated into two distinct questions: "Is there a world existing independently of the mind ?", and if the answer is yes, "Can that world be entirely reduced to matter and energy ?".

But we can watch others directly interact with things, and so need not assume that this is untrue of ourselves. — NOS4A2

What do you mean exactly by "directly interact" ?

But the cogito is NOT a view of idealism. Descartes is a dualist. — L'éléphant

:up:

Don't you exist independently of other conscious beings? — Luke

I don't know. I don't think I can know either.

Since those conscious beings each have material bodies, then there is something material which exists independently of you: other people. Otherwise, do you assume that we are each free-floating consciousnesses without material bodies? — Luke

I don't assume it, but I don't deny it either.

So, I would like to "hear" your own position on your own subject "Is there an external material world?" — Alkis Piskas

I have no idea at all. I don't think we can ever know for sure. I think the only way we can compare the different answers is how practical they are for other human activities like science and engineering.

philosophy wants to get the roots, the total, the ultimate, the general, the universal. The problem is that philosophy gets the ultimate by using the primitive instruments I said before. — Angelo Cannata

:up:

The result is that we would define the universe by saying, for example, that it must be necessarily “a shouting banana on a chair”, or a “guitar shouting to a banana”. Why are these example ridiculous? It is because they try to define something extremely wide, great, extended, general, which is the universe, by extremely specific words like the ones I used. We don’t realize how ridiculous is to talk about “material”, “external”, “exists”, and so on, because we think that those concepts are wide, great, general, so that they are appropriate to talk about the universe. Once we realize that those great concepts are actually extremely rough, unclear, local, limited, then we can understand how ridiculous is to talk about “external material world”. — Angelo Cannata

I agree that those concepts are quite unclear, but I do not understand what do you mean by them being rough, local and limited. Also, what does it mean to say that they are wide, great and/or general ?

when we talk about such big things, like “space”, “time” and so on, we are actually moving inside the cage of our mental categories — Angelo Cannata

:up:

Don’t confuse science and materialism. Science assumes materialism for practical reasons, it’s when it becomes a philosophical ideology that it is problematical. There are many scientists who don’t hold to it. — Wayfarer

:up:

This is why I believe that a thoroughly scientifically-aware form of idealism is the philosophy of the future. Materialism in its classical sense - the idea that the Universe consists of inanimate lumps of matter and undirected energy which somehow give rise to life - will be consigned to history. — Wayfarer

I’m not quite sure of what to think of the last sentence. The way I see it, the fact that science, which assumes materialism, has itself proved that the world as we experience it is a mental construction, does seem to deal quite a blow to materialism.

But at the same time, I don’t think materialism as you defined it will ever be consigned to history. We can’t perceive the world without or mental processes getting in the way, so we can’t ever truly know what the universe is made of. Best we can do is use sensory data, which is an imperfect source of knowledge, but still the best source of knowledge about the universe. So I think materialism could instead be viewed as the best explanation for the different patterns in the human experience. Not a description of the world, but an explanation based off our experience of it.

how can minds arise from mindless matter? — RogueAI

That's a question to discuss for another time I believe.



So, If I understand well, idealism is the view that the nature of reality as we know it is all grounded in the human mind ?

The dinosaurs were conscious, but they were not philosophers. By their fossils we can know that they existed, independent of us. Independent of human consciousness ever coming into existence on earth. Because we are not imagining the fossils, they are remnants of a former time in the universe — TheArchitectOfTheGods

I can’t help but resist the temptation to play the skeptic’s game and ask: How can we know that certain fossils come from dinosaurs? How can we know that the entire world to have started to exist 5 minutes ago and for those fossils to be objects created with it since the beginning?

Humans are highly sociable, they live in a shared world of concepts, language, culture, and so on. — Wayfarer

I 100% agree. But I don’t understand how this defends idealism from the argument I’ve presented.

I think quantum field theory has pretty much made a hash of the position because try as them might, they've never found any actual material. — noAxioms

I’m gonna hold back from commenting on this for now as I don’t have much quantum physics knowledge.

he wasn't pushing idealism, and it doesn't seem to refute materialism in any way — noAxioms

Indeed, it doesn’t actually refute materialism. It only makes idealism more intuitive by making the existence of a mind the only 100% sure fact. If the only thing you can be sure of is that there is mind, would it not make more sense to posit that all the world is made of that ? This line of reasoning seems to be about simplicity. A is more probable than A&B. The entire world being made of mind (which is the only sure thing) is more likely than there being mind and matter at the same time. At least according to this argument.

You might object by saying that the entire world being made of matter only too is just as likely. But then again remember that the only sure thing is mind, and so that the existence of matter is less likely than the existence of mind.

guess my vocabulary needs some update. What’s the difference between the two ?

And virtue may best be defined as excellence of character. So giving a list of virtues implies giving a list of characteristics our character must have.

Looking back on the thread, I realize that the two questions of the OP are actually linked to each other in such a way that answering one leads to answering the other, if the ethical theory is to be applicable in real world situations. So virtue ethics does indeed seem to be necessary for an ethical theory. I feel lazy for having only read all of it 9 months later, but better late than never, I guess.

we are to apply what we believe to be our moral standards, apply these principles in our daily life. — Marvin Katz

I agree. Either there is some higher power setting moral standards, or we are all left to live by our own standards in a world full of other people like us. Because we don't know which one is for sure, and even if we could, it would be impossible to convince everyone to believe the true proposition, best we can do is assume that we are all stuck in a world full of people who we have to negotiate with and respect.

Please explain this sentence, hard to understand. — Jackson

Sorry for being late to answer. Anyway, it means that virtue ethics tries to tell us how our general personality must be.

I mentioned what he said. Who told you that I agree with that also? He is a damn great thinker indeed. One of the greatest for me,who will still influence human thinking after hundreds of years. That doesn't mean he couldn't also be arrogant at the same time. — dimosthenis9

Guess I jumped to a conclusion with no evidence and ended up misunderstanding. Sorry.

"People can't understand me cause I m 1000years ahead" he said. So yeah,if we take that literally, there are many more years left yet I guess — dimosthenis9

such a great thinker — dimosthenis9

You say he is such a great thinker, yet you say he is still centuries ahead of us. How could you evaluate his thinking and find out he is great if you think you can't understand him ? Or perhaps do you consider yourself another "1000 years ahead of y'all" type of guy ?

As others have already said, they don’t differ much from what we could call the old atheists. What’s different about them is that they actively attempt to propagate atheism and reduce the influence of theism in the public sphere, instead of just making closed communities like the Epicureans.

By doing what they do, they encourage the public to think seriously about the ideas and arguments they present, which is a good thing.

Yes, especially if it is done on the individual giver's terms. I myself never give, nor ask for largesse that is not well supported in the reason category. None of what we have discussed is anti- Objectivist. — Garrett Travers

Well, then we agree on everything. But still, I wonder how all of what we discussed is linked with reason, as you use the word very often.

Adults have developed brains, so it wouldn't make them insensitive to actual sex acts to minors. However teens with brains that are still developing in general are more likely to become insensitive to them as a result of watching depictions of them. So maybe the best solution would just be to make it so that people under the age of adulthood cannot access it; maybe through some age verification process.

But then again , such a solution will bring concerns about privacy, so it's complicated.

The definition of sophistry used in the OP is a little vague. What is meant exactly by an "opinion of things" ?

Wellbeing: the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy. — Garrett Travers

Then if someone makes some material sacrifice, it is almost always the case that they do so only because doing so brings them more comfort and/or happiness than letting their friend become homeless, so giving is not a real sacrifice in the majority of cases.

if your friend valued you, they probably wouldn't be asking for money in such circumstances. — Garrett Travers

It’s also possible that my friend does value me, but does not value me more than having a roof over their head. Values are not either/or, they come in degrees.

It's ethically neutral to give, it is not ethically neutral to give in ay your own expense of well-being, — Garrett Travers

What do you mean exactly by wellbeing?

But, one should never sacrifice their rent for their friend's circumstances, not unless the giving didn't constitute a sacrifice for some reason. — Garrett Travers

What if one considers one’s rent as important, but at the same time also considers their friends’ wellbeing as more important? It is still a sacrifice, but it is done in the name of some greater good.

Knowledge and education. Which is why the pursuit of both is ethically valenced, and willful ignorance is evil. It's not always going to be clear, but one learns along the way. — Garrett Travers

I agree, but by itself, that knowledge does not create any true normative proposition. For example, knowing that one is allergic to chocolate is not enough to form the proposition that one mustn’t eat chocolate. For that proposition to be formed we need the proposition that allergenic reactions are to be avoided. So we need some value judgments with that knowledge.

Yes. The only reason a collective would claim right to something as a general good, would be because it is of good to each individual, or the maximal number of individuals. Meaning, even if one wants to stray from the baseline standard of ethics, they simply cannot, any more than they can see throught the eyes of someone else. — Garrett Travers

What about when we perceive some action as a general good for another person while we wouldn’t see it that way for ourselves? For example, a person who doesn’t like pizza buys some pizza for her friend. That doesn’t constitute a good to her, but it does to her friend. In this case it seems compassion is at play instead of rational selfish motives.

Any perceived gain. However, a rational approach, as implied by 'rational selfishness,' would have one consider that not all perceived gains are actual gains, and to be sure that analysis is present. — Garrett Travers

How do we distinguish between actual gains and false gains ?

Applying the ethical standard of rationally selfish benefit to a collective of individuals, is still individual benefit as decided and recieved by those individuals that comprise the collective, and is also still distributed by individuals to them, individually. — Garrett Travers

If I understand well, your claim is that a benefit to a collective of individuals also constitutes a benefit to the members of the collective ?

Also, what do you mean exactly by “benefit” ?

the collective of individuals it attempts to be applied to, which is the same concept that requires individual benefit in a net way — Garrett Travers

Could you please clarify?

Reason is the faculty by which we generate concepts and form conclusions in accordance with sensory data — Garrett Travers

I guess my objections to your premises have been properly addressed with this definition then.

If individual humans are the source of moral reasoning, then individual benefit is the standard for moral action. — Garrett Travers

A skeptic could answer by saying that though morality is discovered through human reason, the principle one discovers through moral reasoning is that you must play your pre-determined role in society. In that case, you accept the premise yet you deny the conclusion.

It has to be private to avoid an infinite regress of observers observing observers — lorenzo sleakes

Let us assume that consciousness is not private. It is very much possible for one person A to observe the consciousness of person B without having their own consciousness observed. Being observable is not equal to being observed.

Now if consciousness is merely a by-product of physical processes then it cannot ever have any independent effect back to the physical world and therefore it cannot be detected or measured in any way — lorenzo sleakes

If consciousness is merely a by-product of physical processes, then it becomes meaningless to say that it cannot have an independent effect back to the physical world, because the chain of cause and effect has never stepped out of the physical world.

There are other ways to detect or measure an object than observing its effects. If an object is an effect of another object or process, then it can be detected indirectly by detecting its cause. And if you have a complete description of how changes in the cause impact the object that is being studied, then you can easily make descriptions of the object without ever observing it.

P1. if humans are generated by natural processes with reason (logic, rationality, conceptual faculty) being their means of survival. — Garrett Travers

Humans have other means of survival, such as cooperation. But I do not know whether you are implying that logic, rationality and conceptual activity are the ONLY means of survival. Maybe you meant they are some of the means of survival. (Side note: You used rationality, a synonym of reason, to define reason)

it is only through this conceptual faculty of reason that humans are capable of living a life according to the values he/she develops with said faculty — Garrett Travers

Values don't necessarily come from the use of reason. They can come from emotions for example. And we can live a live in accordance with our values without the use of reason. (Side note: What do you mean by "conceptual faculty of reason" ?).

People follow their values for reasons other than reason. Plenty of people believe killing is wrong, and don't commit murder due to some fear of a god or the law, not directly because of their values.

then the only moral system of society is one in which each human is free to pursue their own values to live and achieve their own goals — Garrett Travers

I don't see how this follows from your premises. Let us assume that humans survive only through reason, and that they create and follow their values with reason. A sceptic could argue that values developed with reason are unreliable, and that values must come from some religious text. They could then proceed to the conclusion that reason is dangerous when applied to morality, that we must prevent people from forming their values rationally and that we must put in place a totalitarian government ensuring that people abide to the rules of the religious text and do not apply reason to their values. Therefore, by assuming that he is right we do not deny your premises yet we can deny your conclusion, and as such your argument is invalid.