all is energy, frequencies, and vibrations, why do we assume that objects unlike color and sound really exist? — boagie

They are invisible and inaudible, because they exist beyond our bodily sensibility. However, they can be felt or measured and read by the means of the instruments. — Corvus

I don't know if anyone has already made this point, but this reminds me of Descartes's. "I think, therefore, I am." He uses something non-physical, such as thoughts, to prove something physical, himself. Therefore, even if he is mistaken in what he thinks he is (he may not realize that he is a brain in a vat), he cannot be mistaken in thinking that he exists, in whatever form. Maybe this could apply to any object because we can only see objects due to them reflecting light, so we can use a non physical thing, light, to prove a physical thing, the object. We can still say that maybe we can misinterpret what the object looks like, if we are colour blind, or are not seeing it properly for some reason, but we cannot deny it exists at all. For us to see anything, light must reflect off a physical object. Even if you are in the desert and seeing a mirage, what you see is still the result of light waves being reflected off physical things, if only air particles. I think this makes sense….

If morality is doing what one thinks is best for oneself in the moment, and everyone always does what they think best for themselves in the moment, then immorality and moral error are impossible, as is moral success. — Leontiskos

Wouldn't that mean that everyone is morally successful, since everyone does what they think is best for themselves? And even if, in the future, they realize that what they did was not best for themselves, this still would not mean they were immoral because, at the time, they thought they were doing what was best for themselves, and, from the future viewpoint, they would/could not do it again if they believed it was not in their best interests. Also, couldn't people keep making mistakes, believing that they were acting in their best interests, where in fact, they were not, and they were just unable to learn from their mistakes? In this case, they would still not be acting immorally. This only works though, if you believe it is impossible for people to think self destructively, or in a way that is not in their own best interests. If you thought otherwise, would there be a way of arguing for the existence of immorality? Maybe, but I think it would be tricky.

Why be moral?"
Because, if you live within a society, it is in your best/self interest, in isolation morality is meaningless. — boagie

I was just wondering, why does taking everyone else out of the picture mean that morality, or acting in your 'best self interest', no longer applies?

I’m not sure if it is about getting it right or wrong, but more about the motives for the actions. In other words, morality is doing what you think is best for you. This implies that mistakes are not immoral. Wouldn’t immorality be doing something even though you know, or think, it is not best for you? This is what I am doubting. Is this possible?

Thanks for the advice. Yes, I see what you mean about a quote within a quote.

Just thinking though...

The idea is essentially that even on a strict consequentialism moral error is possible — Leontiskos

But is moral error, or just error, the same as immorality in the sense I was mentioning? I guess I could kill someone in error, or I could kill someone thinking it was a moral thing to do, but afterwards realize that I was wrong. But if being moral is about doing what is best for you, then making an error is not trying to not be moral, and therefore, it cannot be immoral, can it?

The point here is that "moral" and "immoral" are not univocal terms. They mean different things on different moral theories — Leontiskos

I'm just trying to figure out if there is such a thing as immorality. If being moral means doing what is good and best for you, and by extension, that is good for others, then being immoral would mean not doing what is best for you. I'm not sure I'm convinced that this exists or is possible.

BTW, sorry if I made a mistake with the quoting thing on my last comment. It was unintentional; I'm just getting used to the site.

Either eating meat is immoral or it isn't.
— Michael

True. — Leontiskos

I've been thinking... What if you were stranded—with your sibling— on a desert island, which has limited meat sources, and the only other source of edible food is eggs, and your sibling is allergic to eggs. Now you hate eggs, but are not allergic to them, but really want that meat. Yes, I know this is a rather convoluted example, but it is all I can come up with at the moment with my streaming cold. I’m sure I could come up with lots of other better examples without my ‘cold head’. (Anyone is welcome to join in with a better example! )

Okay, so with this example, the practical consequences of you eating meat are that your sibling will eventually die, either of starvation or anaphylactic shock.

But, I hear you say, eventually all the meat, and eggs, will run out anyway, so both of you will die of starvation. And anyway, why does any of this even matter at all if people were, for example, all generally immoral? Because, from my view, being immoral doesn’t seem to benefit me, or the person being immorally wrong, in the long run. If the person ate the eggs and saved the meat for their sibling, then they may both survive long enough to get off the island. The meat eater could use their raft building skills, and the egg eater could deploy their knowledge of distress signalling, using the mirror they found in their pocket. Lol

Okay, so, say one of those people believed it was immoral to eat the meat or the eggs, but they could save their sibling with their raft building skills, which their sibling was useless at, and, the other sibling knew without a shadow of a doubt that their sibling would drown if they even tried to build a raft to get out of there. Then, to my mind, it would be immoral NOT to eat the meat, survive and help the sibling. You may say it is my 'belief' that it is immoral not to eat the meat, or to eat it, but, if morality is linked to survival, then eating the meat means that both myself and my sibling survive, and hence, are moral.

The point is though, there are soooo many grey areas. This is just one, admittedly very specific, and quite unlikely, example. Give me time—and take away my cold— and I’m pretty sure I could come up with more.

I've been thinking... if morality can be defined as doing the good or right thing, I believe it means ultimately doing the good and right thing for yourself—although it may appear that you are doing it for the benefit of someone else. As a private teacher/tutor, I get immense satisfaction when I know that I have helped someone to pass their exams, and hence, possibly made their chances of a better future more likely. I have often thought that this is rather selfish, although that seems contradictory in itself. So, I am selfish because I am helping others for selfish reasons, but in the process, others get helped. Everyone is a winner. But it doesn’t work the other way around. If I knew I could help, and I didn’t, then I wouldn’t feel happy, and they wouldn’t get the help. Everyone is a loser.

Now, you may say that I am just being,

pragmatic to behave in ways that society believes is moral. — Michael

and that this is what gives me a good feeling when I help others. However, I benefit in a whole lot of other ways too. The more I help others, the more I get recommended, and the more my business grows. This means I can earn more money (although, I am terrible at increasing my fees. I have actually been asked before by a parent if I would please put my prices up. Oops, did I just shoot down my own argument? Hmm, not necessarily, by keeping my fees low, I get more customers, or customers believe that I am not only concerned with money, so they trust me more to have the best interests at heart for their children. Oooh, I am more cunning than I thought!)

Okay, of course, there are always exceptions too, such as, people don’t always see the long-term benefits, or else, they act on impulsive emotions; we have all at once probably been guilty of ‘cutting our noses off to spite our faces.” Or, there could be a whole lot of other reasons why people do not act morally, but I believe that, while they may appear to benefit in the short term, in the long run, they do not. Therefore, those who are wise, level-headed and do not have self-destructive tendencies, lean towards behaving morally. The moral facts are that we survive better, in the long run, by behaving morally.

In addition, I believe that morality is not so much to do with rules set out by society (although these do exist), it comes from within us, as a way of maximizing our chances of survival. Therefore, the ‘rules’ tend to be set and followed by the individual, depending on the circumstances, and the rules set out generally by society are simply to strengthen all of our chances of survival. These rules manifest in both laws and expected/accepted forms of behaviour.

This becomes problematic, however, because it is so difficult for societies to speak for every individual situation, and this is most probably when the individual makes up their own mind what is moral or not. For example, many people would think it not immoral to kill a baby that was suffering horrifically and had no chance of survival, to sit back and watch it suffer, be torn apart, tortured etc. But many societies cannot condone baby killing because of the ‘grey’ areas, and the times when people could abuse such rules/laws etc.

Gosh, I appear to have rabbited on an awful lot! I hope this makes at least some sense, isn’t just repeating what someone else has already said, and does refer to the original post to some extent… but I have a streaming cold, and my brain is a little fuzzy. I cannot sleep though, not at all, hence all the ‘rabbiting’ I’m doing.

Well, I was born not far from Birmingham, but when I tell people this, they are usually surprised because I have lost my Brummie accent. I think I do occasionally come out with the odd local phrase or word, but I guess that has more to do with dialect. I have lived in Wales, Greece, Cyprus, and just recently returned from 2 years in Victoria, Canada. I have found myself acquiring accents and dialects in all those places, and losing them once leaving, although I still currently find myself saying, "Can I get..." instead of, "Can I have..." and "super" instead of 'really' etc. from my time spent in Canada.

When I lived in Greece, there were so many UK tourists and expats living there that a hybrid language developed, locally referred to as 'Gringlish'. Greek people would speak English, but keep
some Greek grammar structures, and the UK people would speak in the same way to be understood better. It wasn't uncommon to hear people say something like, "Open the TV" instead of "Turn on the TV" or "You are good?" instead of "Are you good/well?" And I learnt that one of the most commonly used international words "Ok" came from the Greek "όλα καλά", meaning, "All good", which is often delivered as a question. There were also many misunderstandings, such as locals mixing up the similar sounding words, "Kitchen" and "Chicken". I'm sure you can imagine my surprise when I was searching for an apartment to rent, and I was told that there was one available with a very big chicken in it! The mind boggles!

But something I always found odd was that I only consciously learnt a few basic Greek words, such as 'Hello', 'Goodbye' and 'How are you?", and I did learn the Greek alphabet, so that I could read Greek, but as for the rest of it, I have no idea how I know it. It kind of seeped into my mind without me realizing. Greek people are very vocal though, and I would hear them all the time from my apartment, calling out to each other. Maybe that helped with me acquiring Greek. But I even think in Greek, and I do not translate from English to Greek, as I had imagined people would do, as there are some words that simply have no English translation, such as 'ορίστε' or 'έτσι'. I just found myself using them in the same situations as I heard other people use them in.

What accent have you got, and what experiences of accents/languages have you had?

Glaswegian, for sure. I had a friend from Glasgow. I rarely understand a word he said. Even my husband is from South Yorkshire, and when we visit all his family, his accent gets much stronger. Then I have that awkward situation where there are limited times you can say, "sorry", "pardon" etc and I end up just agreeing to something, and then worrying exactly what I just agreed to! I guess I'll never know. That knowledge will be forever lost, floating around in the universe somewhere. Maybe something or someone will find it one day and have a laugh at my expense!

I find the British accent cool. — Corvus

Which British accent? There are rather a lot! His is RP, but he was born in Monmouthshire. I wonder if he ever had a Welsh twang? I'd have to say I like a Geordie accent, and a liverpool accent is full of character, as well as a Black Country/Brummie twang. RP kind of grates on me if it's overdone. It seems so pretentious. I also really love the sing song nature of a South Welsh accent. It's actually almost impossible for me to say which I like best though.

Good advice. Thank you.

Language is a tool to communicate for foremost purpose. — Corvus

Yes, since through language, early humans were able to evolve and survive better by communicating more effectively.
But… I’ve been thinking, and there lies the problem.
When I think, I always use language to do so (I believe this may be overlapping with another recent post about internal dialogue, which astounded me when I first considered the possibility that not all people have internal dialogue) I cannot seem to think of anything at all without it materializing as words and sentences in my mind. Now I am trying to do it, and all I can hear is, “Now I am trying to do it.” But more than that, when I am trying to understand something, or work something out, I do so only by thinking in language. Therefore, it seems to be the only way I can successfully understand the world. Even if I see an orange, for example, when I look at it, I think, “orange.” Of course, this can develop, and I can think of a whole load of complex things about the orange if I want to, and also, the orange doesn't have to be there. But whatever I think about, the words pop into my brain first to enable me to think about it. Therefore, the thoughts seem to have more power than the orange itself, since they can be more complex than it, and they seem to take over. (Oh, wait! Can thoughts of an orange be more powerful than the orange itself? I guess that is another whole debate)
Not only that, having been thinking about this recently, and trying it out, I’ve realized that, when I try to suppress the inner dialogue— which I cannot 100% successfully do—I begin to ‘see’ the thing I am thinking about. I see it vaguely, perhaps because I am distracted by the whole language thing, but I see it like when I can picture something in my head, like my previous house, or my old school, or something like that. Am I totally weird or something? I hope this happens to other people too.
Anyway, so this led me to thinking, what if the foremost purpose of language is for people to make sense of the world by thinking things, and communication is a secondary benefit? What if, in caveman/women times (sorry, anthropologists would be tutting and shaking their heads at me now, but you know what I mean) in order to make sense of their world, people had their own inner dialogues, their own unique languages, and then began to communicate by amalgamating all the languages into a common one, in that particular tribe or group of people anyway?
And then I wonder, is that basically what we have done by adopting English, since English is an amalgamation of a whole lot of different languages?
I really hope I haven’t broken any rules in this post by the way :/ Please excuse me if I have, as I am new to this site.
Am I allowed to say all this without referring to a philosopher? I guess that rationalists would say that language is innate. This seems to support the possibility that people may be capable of developing their own internal ‘languages’, enabling them to interpret the world, until they become able to amalgamate them with the most commonly used languages around them.
Or… this could all be a total lot of nonsense. But… it’s a thought… which has probably been thought and said before at some point, I’m sure.

If, however, this whole idea is true, it would make the concept of one language being better than another a nonsense, since there would be far too many to make a decision. In addition, there seems to be far too much mixing of languages to pull one out and name it superior. Those who would say that English is superior may have problems with the French, for example, who could pipe up and say, "Wait! But your language cannot be the best, since our language is mixed into yours."
Although, I guess you may be able to say that one language, such as English, is the best mixer of languages. But then you'd get those languages that are mixed into French piping up and saying, "Wait..." And it goes on...

PS Sorry about the massive long post! My brain seems to have been working overtime!