Consciousness is different — Patterner

So is the mind or emotion. Or dark matter and dark energy. Or quantum mechanics. Each is on its own league and level of difficulty.

it's just a statement of belief. It's not an argument or evidence for that belief — Patterner

I don't think we need empirical lab test before statement in philosophy. Philosophy is argumentative proposition.

The laws of physics are what is stated by physicists according to their understanding. — Metaphysician Undercover

Absolutely not. Math (formula) is a language — a human creation.

Laws of physics means the nature of the universe. It can be uniform or disorganized.

If ultimately, the universe is chaotic, then that is its nature.

...and?

Why not? It seems plausible that some rights are more important than others. — 83nt0n

How so? If you bring it down to numbers then you're a utilitarianist.

Sometimes, the consequences are just more important than rights — 83nt0n

That's literally the core of utilitarianism.

Yes, why not? — 83nt0n

Then what is the solution?

I would probably feel more guilty killing three people than one. — 83nt0n

There you go. Numbers.

I am in favor of moving toward pluralistic ethics. — 83nt0n

I see. I also think situational (contextual) morality is the way to go, except it has the most basic philosophical/legal flaw (who concludes and judges the affairs as rightful of wrongful?), the same reason why we have codified laws above court's scope for contextual judgement.

So your argument, that we are all physical beings is based on what you are hoping physics will discover some day. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course not. Laws are laws whether we understand them or not.

not the premise of the argument.

part of the natural process.

depends on perspective.

The origin of biological entities of all types (from bacteria to humans) is not the Big Bang, but something well after it, where for some reason chemicals yielded life, and, and for some reason, it did it once and never again. — Hanover

What is your suggestion on that?

If we leave theistic views aside, I'd say it's a complex process that we're too early to understand. The same way the universe came into being or formed planets and oceans and lives.

What is commonly known as quantum uncertainty, is an uncertainty which is caused by the objects in question not following the laws of physics. — Metaphysician Undercover

Everything follows the law of physics. We're just a few decades or centuries away from understanding them.

He is forced to kill. — hypericin

The key point here is not the action itself, but the preference (even "choice" isn't the right word).

What about simply being compelled to kill someone? — hypericin

That is a completely different scenario because we're trying to contrast again consequentialism here.

We haven't reached that level of sentience/sapience yet to crack that. Don't think we will.

I'm too trifling to understand how the universe works.

If this is true, then you are trying to say we are superior to ourself - superior to the universe. You thereby recreate the division you deny. — unenlightened

Because the universe is not uniform. The sun and the moon aren't the same, nor are the elephants and the fungus. Each is on its own level and game.

Your claim of superiority entails a separation. This separation contradicts the other claim of a unified vision. — unenlightened

What separation?

If each neuron disobeys physical law, which seems to be the case as quantum physics describes activities which disobey physical law, obeying laws of probability instead, then this is evidence against physicalism. — Metaphysician Undercover

Can you elaborate?

So physics did not organise this new situation and evolution did. Thus your simple complexity thesis has a sudden hole in it. — apokrisis

How is evolution separate from physique?

Evolution rather than emergence. — apokrisis

Evolution happens in the body, the source of them all.

At the most basic level, codes don’t break the rules of physics — they emerge from them. Every “code” is just a structured pattern of energy inside a physical system, one that starts to matter when it gains some functional or survival value.

For example, the genetic code (A–T–G–C) is just chemistry, but evolution selected the combinations that could store and replicate information. The neural code shows up when electrochemical signals start representing external conditions that affect survival. Language and math are cultural versions of the same thing — symbolic systems for storing and sharing useful information between minds.

So, codes appear when matter begins organizing itself around information that has consequences. It’s not new physics — just a new level of order emerging out of the old one.

Claude Shannon called information “a difference that makes a difference,” and Gregory Bateson took that even further. In living systems, physical differences — chemical, electrical, mechanical — begin to make a difference for survival. That’s when information becomes meaningful.

It’s a feedback loop: physical interactions → self-organization → representation → communication → meaning. That loop is how physics turns into biology — when raw matter starts to carry and respond to information about itself.

Emergence isn’t magic; it’s novelty with continuity. Each higher level follows the same physical laws but introduces new behaviors that the lower level alone can’t produce. An atom doesn’t have “purpose.” But a cell made of atoms does — it acts to keep itself alive. The key difference lies in the informational architecture, not the physics underneath it. So life and mind aren’t exceptions to physical law — they’re extensions of it. The universe, in a way, learning how to encode itself.

If biology starts at the point where “a molecule can be a message,” then that’s the threshold where matter becomes reflexive — where it starts encoding its own persistence. At some level of complexity, the universe learns to remember, anticipate, and eventually, to think.

So yes, codes absolutely emerge from physics — but not as trivial side effects. They’re what happens when physics folds back on itself: when the universe begins to process information… and in us, realizes that it does.

In short, codes aren’t supernatural — they’re emergent designs within physics. They’re configurations of matter that gain meaning and purpose through self-organization. Life and mind are simply physics that learned how to remember, and matter that learned how to mean.

If you do not see the contradiction — unenlightened

I actually can't. Help in pointing out?

'we' at the top do not seem to be unified with the animal kingdom as long as we are obsessed with 'our' dominance of 'them'. — unenlightened

Well, our sapience is a tangible proof of our excellence above the rest of the earthly creatures.

Life and mind depend on the emergence of codes. The information processing possibilities of genes, neurons, words and numbers. So how do codes “just emerge” from more complex physics?

Biology starts where a molecule can be a message. Is that simply “more physics”. A property of matter that simply follows from a continuing continuum of complexity?

Or is it something a little more novel? — apokrisis

Can you ask in simpler terms exactly what your objection was?

One thing I can give you any amount of evidence for, is that we do not have 'a unified vision of existence'. If we did, we would be able to tackle our problems - poverty, climate change, overpopulation, pollution, and ongoing intractable global human conflict. — unenlightened

I don't see what that has to do here.

In view of our failures in this regard, it seems somewhat pessimistic to call us 'the apex of consciousness'; I think we have a long way to go yet. — unenlightened

We're still at the top of the animal kingdom, just as we were at the dawn of civilization when we learned to light fire.

The problem with modal moral quandaries generally is that one can always make them impossible to solve. — Banno

There lies the true excellence of humankind. And solving those problems and coming up with a principial solution is the price you pay for the privilege of humanship.

he'll be in a paradox. The same as this one. Because as a deontologist, he cannot put 3 above 1 nor vice versa.

I don't mean to be rude but that reduces people to numbers, something consequentialists do.

understood. Thank you for your time.

Morality, as I understand it, is a contingent code of conduct. — Tom Storm

That's ethics.

Not keen on thought experiments, they seem too abstract and disconnected from real-life situations to be useful to me. — Tom Storm

Understood. Thank you for your time.

Philosophy leads to doctrines or principles. Principles are more important than practicality. It sets the standard for our actions.

When you break the principles, be it secular or religious, you get an estimation of how deviant your actions have become. You feel bad when you go so far. Even though you're not following the principles line by line, it's working as a compass. But when there is no principle, you'll have no direction. You'll have no restraint. You'll have nothing to shape your life. Be it personal moral codes or societal. Much like law and order.

Morality is an abstract concept that, alongside psychology, is a physical construct made by hormonal and neural activities. — Copernicus

No one seems to agree or comment on it.

I don’t think that has anything general to say about the two moral options — T Clark

It does... In terms of deontological individualism.

One thing you haven’t taken into account is liability. When I choose, I take on liability for the consequences. It might not be unreasonable for me to make no choice at all as a way of protecting myself from that liability. — T Clark

It is not about practical reasoning. If you were given a choice, a hypothetical scenario, or should I say, imperative, what is your preferable choice?

the author of your notes — Astorre

I don't understand. I wrote my notes.

you did so in a seemingly patronizing/insulting manner. — ProtagoranSocratist

I apologize if you felt that way, that was my informal way of saying "if you have read it carefully, then you should already know what I'm talking about."

not "must" — ProtagoranSocratist

real life moral and ethical decisions are complex, laden with fear, laden with shame, laden with politics. — ProtagoranSocratist

Principles don't bother with practicalities.

What if they're absolutely identical entities, with nothing distinguishable among them?

And I actually changed the scenario, if you had read it carefully.

Next time we might try removing the utilitarian options and asking the same question. — NOS4A2

You can't.

Yes. The future is unknown. One cannot know if his choices result in direct harm until that time comes. One can only do his best to avoid inflicting that harm or protect others from it. In your scenario, his only option is to try to stop the train or remove the people from the track. — NOS4A2

We're talking preference here, not capability.

Just asking.

Tricks are deception.

True (Dark) Magics are done by finding the bugs in the system and capitalizing on them.

Miracles happen when something beyond the system/program is observed from within the system.

What do you personally follow? Consequential or categorical morality?

who gets to write it?