No one believes this, that I know of. My point is that the horrific beliefs that I described are the end result of moral relativism. I have never met someone who would embrace the ideas I posed however. — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

But if no one believes in this purely hypothetical "moral relativism," then (I keep coming back to this question) what is the point of railing against it? It seems that the real objective is a bait-and-switch. To wit:

My intent with this argument was to point out that because moral relativism claims morality as an invention of humanity, almost no human, at least that I know of, would be ok with the morality that moral relativism represents. — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

The thesis that morality is the invention of humanity is not tantamount to the preposterous beliefs that you attribute to "true moral relativists." At least you haven't made that argument, you merely insinuated it.

This is an excerpt from another writing I did — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

PS-I understand that you are not claiming that morality is just a method for the weak to hold back the strong, but I hope this example illustrates my point. — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

Well, it illustrates some point, just not the one that you set out to prove. It is directed against moral nihilism, rather than the modest and morally-neutral thesis that morality is a human artefact.

As to why I point out the outrageous beliefs of true moral relativists, is to point out to those who claim to believe in it without giving it much thought, where their supposed worldview gets them. — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

And who would those people be? I mean, who would be the people who actually believe all the stuff you say they believe? Your mistake, I think, is in ascribing so many attributes to "true moral relativists" that hardly anyone would recognize themselves in your characterization. And that makes the whole project into an exercise in futility.

It would be better to target a more realistic position for your criticism, like you did here:

1. Moral relativism claims that there is no independent moral standard.
2. Judgements of value cannot be made without an independent standard.
3. Actions have value.
4. Therefore moral relativism is false. — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

Now, "Moral relativism claims that there is no independent moral standard" is something that we could possibly work with - if it can be made clear what you mean by independent standard. Independent of what any people believe? As if it was woven into the fabric of the universe - or the mind of God?

But how does (2) follow? You give examples of broad trends and commonalities in moral beliefs, but how does that show that they stem from some mind-independent standards? What you describe is perfectly consistent with morality being a product (or byproduct) of human nature and history. Why would we need to appeal to anything beyond that to explain these facts?

Couldn't you maintain all physical laws within two worlds such as gravity and electromagnetism but have it so that one is capable of consciousness while the other isn't? — Yun Jae Jung

Not if you adhere to at least a very modest type of physicalism: supervenience physicalism.

I'm saying if you could imagine a situation like this, it shows that physical laws alone can't break down the emergence of consciousness. — Yun Jae Jung

I don't understand what you mean by physical laws breaking down the emergence of consciousness. And I don't see how imagining what some people can imagine proves whatever it is that you are trying to prove (some non-naturalist conception of consciousness, which you seem to equate with free will). I get that you are trying to do something similar to Chalmers' argument for phenomenal consciousness, but I confess that I never bought his argument either.

Imagine that there are two distinct worlds that share the same physical laws but are different in that consciousness can emerge from one but not the other. — Yun Jae Jung

Well, you lost all physicalists right here (and a good deal of others who wouldn't even describe themselves as physicalists).

As consciousness is not physical in nature, it is not entirely bound to physical elements — Yun Jae Jung

That's another way of putting your initial assumption. So you have concluded exactly what you assumed at the start. How is that a proof?

It's the simplest possible form argument. If A believes in the possibility of x, a fortiori, A acknowledges the possibility of y. — Pantagruel

And you are saying that Dennett both believes that God is possible and denies the same? Show me, I am not taking your word for it.

And in any case, as you said, this is a trivial argument. Was it worth starting a thread for it?

I don't need to summarize his argument if his own beliefs demonstrate the contrary — Pantagruel

Contrary of what?

I don't follow Dennett — Pantagruel

So you are just making shit up.

This is a worthless OP.

Dan Dennett is known for his "no good reasons for believing" in God argument. — Pantagruel

I haven't heard of it.

However I also do not "actively disbelieve" in the possibility of God, in abstracto. — Pantagruel

Though like I said, I am not familiar with Dennett's argument, this doesn't sound remotely like your 5-word summary of it.

As previously stated, moral relativism is — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

Previously stated - where?

You are right that it's hard to imagine someone actually holding all the outrageous beliefs that you attribute to "true moral relativists." But then why do you waste so much effort beating on this strawman? And why do you insist on calling it "true moral relativism?" If anything, the closest thing that comes to mind is moral nihilism.

Most moral relativists, as stated above, are really absolutists — Fides Quaerens Intellectum

There's that "as stated above" again. Is this a cut-and-paste from somewhere?

Well, it's an awkward question, but, what in fact is probability? — denis yamunaque

It's a very legitimate question that has received plenty of attention from mathematicians (who invented the concept) and philosophers. Have a read: Interpretations of Probability

Now why would I not want Her to exist? :pray:

Belonging is never up to 'you', it's always a social matter. — unenlightened

Only if we are talking about social belonging, and even then it's true only of some groups, some of the time, but not all groups all of the time.

But I was talking about belonging to a category, not necessarily a social one. One can be a thief by virtue of stealing. One can be a kind person by virtue of having a kind character. (Now, some will argue that what character you have is not really up to you, but that's a different argument that I won't address here.) These are examples where being who you are is up to your decisions or your character. Appraising people by placing them in such categories is fairly uncontroversial. To complete the pattern, contrast that with categories that have little or no dependence on one's decisions or character, and you will find most of the things that you and I hold as unsuitable for judging a person's worth in that list: race, ethnicity, gender, age, health, disability, sexual orientation - and yes, nationality.

Because "races" are notionally physical demarcations, racism involves an an instant process of stigmatization and potential dehumanization based on arbitrary and immutable characteristics in a way that nationalism doesn't. — Baden

I am not sure about that. Race boundaries aren't so clear-cut (which is why there is no true race science, only pseudo-science); ethnic boundaries - even less so. National identification, in theory, is much easier: either you are a citizen or you are not; either you are from here or you are not. There are, of course, edge cases, but they are fewer.

In practice, of course, race, ethnicity, religion and nationality are often entangled in a messy way. A minority race, ethnicity or religion can make you an outsider in your own country, even to the point that your loyalties are suspect. In extreme cases, e.g. Rohingya in Burma/Myanmar, you can be denied citizenship.

What unites these identification categories is that belonging is, by and large, not up to you. It cannot be credited to or blamed on your character or your decisions. We are born into these categories, and changing them is difficult, if not impossible. (And even if you succeed in nominally transitioning from one group to another, e.g. by immigrating, it is still a question of whether you will ever fully identify with your new group and be fully accepted by it.)

I believe it probably really did happen this way, however, am amazed most scientists fail to see the mystery of it. — Joe0082

So how do things which are clearly and obviously not possible, given a material universe, happen anyway? — Joe0082

Why do you believe that "it probably really did happen this way" if you also think that it's "impossible" and that it's all a "mystery?" Who are the mysterians that initiated you into the secrets of the universe? Not scientists, apparently, since they don't know what they are talking about. Then who?

Probably because countries around the world tend to be conceived of as nation states, not as race states. — baker

Still not answering the question. Yes, countries are not races and nationalism is not the same as racism, but we knew that already. The question is: why is one good and the other bad?

You could say: "just because," and leave it at that, and that would be a legitimate answer. But then you have nothing more to say on the topic. If you think you do have something to say, then you need to tell us what it is that makes racism objectionable and nationalism unobjectionable - other than them not being the same, that is.

Aw, you have such a cute coat of arms!

"Make white people great again" is a ridiculous statement, but if someone were to say. e.g. "Make France great again" I don't see what's offensive about that. — BitconnectCarlos

Well, you are just reiterating the received wisdom that @unenlightened is questioning. And the question is normative, not anthropological. Racism is just as easy to explain in anthropological terms as nationalism (at least at the just-so story level). But how is it that racism is less acceptable than nationalism or ethnocentrism, when they are so similar?

When you see the Spanish flag you think about that bigot who hates gay people — javi2541997

When you see the Spanish flag you think: "Hm, whose flag is that?" :joke:

I don't really get the point of the poll. On the one hand, "ethical hedonism" is mentioned at the start, which refers to a metaethical position that I don't really understand (but I confess I don't know much about it). But the poll questions don't seem to be about metaethics - or are they? Taken at face value, the questions seem to be about personal ethical beliefs.

"Do you think that whether things feel good or bad to people is morally relevant at all?" Well, I believe that hurting people is usually bad, and pleasing is often good, so yeah? What else could I say?

Determinism: the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will. — ToothyMaw

That's an odd way of defining determinism: it is more like a conclusion or an intermediate result. Determinism in this context is usually assumed to be causal determinism, which means that the state of the world at any given time, together with causal laws, fixes everything that happens at all other times, before or after. Conjoined with the belief that the past is fixed, this implies that the future is fixed by the past.

This should not be confused with epiphenomenalism, which says that if A fully accounts for B, then nothing else accounts for B. Here "accounts for" can mean being a prior cause, but it can also stand for any other type of explanation. For example, an epiphenomenalist might say that brain activity fully accounts for the decisions that we make. This is not a causal account, in the strict sense, because decisions on this account do not occur as a subsequent result of brain activity - they are brain activity. Epiphenomenalism is equally compatible with causal determinism and indeterminism. The epiphenomenalist in the above example would say that human action is not determined by human will (since it is already determined by brain activity), but she may allow that brain activity could be indeterministic.

Why does it contradict our common experience? — Tombob

I went to some pains to explain why.

Besides, the idea of time and space relating to (1) contradicts scientific facts. — Tombob

No, it doesn't. Our best cosmology hasn't delivered a verdict on whether the past is infinite, and it likely never will have a definitive answer to that question.

I was talking about time: "Imagine a growing number with an infinite past, that has been increasing each second of its existence." The concept implies physical impossibility, thus existing as an abstracticality, while our reality is existing as physical. — Tombob

Just because you managed to contrive a nonsensical model of an infinite past doesn't mean that you have proven a physical impossibility. I went to some pains to explain that, too.

To assume space-time cannot be caused, is to assume (1). — Tombob

No, to assume that space-time cannot be caused is to use the word "cause" in its usual sense. Causation is something that happens in space-time. But there is no implication from here to the topology of space-time.

While I am recognizing (2) as a possibility, I see it as highly unlikely. Where everything happens for a reason, it would be intuitively reasonable to assume space-time happened for a reason. — Tombob

"Reason" and "cause" are not synonymous. "Reason" is a much broader and vaguer notion. Even then, the proposition that everything happens for a reason is controversial, especially if you take it to its logical limit. I for one don't believe it.

And you seem to be dropping something essential, that has a commonly understood meaning; Big Bang. — Tombob

Huh? When did I do that? I didn't even mention Big Bang. Are you, by any chance, under the impression that Big Bang is your fantastical "infinite state"? It's nothing like that (not that there could be anything like that).

That is why I exclude 1. — Tombob

If you agreed with what you quoted, you wouldn't have excluded (1) for the reason that you gave:

I exclude 1 considering physical measurements would not be possible in such circumstances. Why? Because physical measurements need a starting point, which 1 lacks. — Tombob

That's what I've been objecting to, because it's manifestly false, it contradicts our common experience.

Imagine a growing number with an infinite past — Tombob

I can't imagine such a thing: numbers don't have a past. And we aren't talking about numbers, we are talking about time. True, we use numbers and other mathematical concepts to model time, but it is up to us how we do that; physical time doesn't come with numbers already attached. If you run into difficulties while modeling time, that may just mean that you are doing it wrong.

Here is a model of an imaginary eternal process that doesn't seem to run into any such difficulties, one familiar to any elementary algebra student:



Let's say that the horizontal axis measures time in some units, and the vertical axis measures some physical property. Time in this model extends indefinitely into the past and into the future. There is a zero, but it is nothing other than our choice of a reference point for the coordinate system: it has no physical meaning. If you ask: "What time is it now?" the answer will depend on this conventional choice of the reference frame. Nevertheless, change is happening here and time passes. Indeed, if we could measure the physical property pictured, it could serve as a handy clock by which we could measure the passage of time.

Can you break down and furtherly explain the last sentence?

Could an explanation of the cause of time and space be that it exists as its own cause? — Tombob

Our usual idea of causation is tied up with space and time: causation occurs in space-time, with causes preceding their effects. Therefore, causation outside of space-time makes no sense. Nor does it make sense to ask what caused space-time itself: it is not something that can be caused.

You can instead ask about causes of events, states or entities in space and time. But if you ask what caused something right at the beginning of time (if time has a beginning), then the answer will have to be that it doesn't have a cause, because there is nothing preceding it.

If you want to appeal to some unusual concept of causation, one that does not apply to events, states or entities in space and time, then you will have to develop that concept first and convince us that it is real. We may take familiar causation for granted within the context of a discussion, but you cannot expect us to take for granted something unfamiliar, just because you decided to call it "causation."

It would be immaterial, seeing as it exists with no regard to time and space. But I have no real explanation how or why it gives rise to time and space, other than its setting makes it possible. — Tombob

Well then it's not an explanation, but something pretending to be an explanation. If we drop everything that doesn't have a commonly understood meaning, then all that is left is a placeholder where an explanation is supposed to be. Giving it a name, such as "infinite state," doesn't legitimize it as an explanation.

What's funny here, is one of my themes is — schopenhauer1

Even if it was funny the first time, after countless repetitions it no longer is. I don't understand why the mods allow this sort of thing here.

What the fuck? How many of these copycat antinatalist topics are you going to start? There is no philosophical content here. This is ideological spam.

An existential beginning is required to be able to measure time. — Tombob

And yet here we are, measuring time all the time (as it were) with no regard to any such existential beginning. So this can't be true. All we need to measure anything is a measuring device (a clock in this case).

If time and space would have an infinite past, motion would be impossible, and its state would be unchangeable. — Tombob

I don't see how this follows.

It means that time and space came into being without a cause. — Tombob

Well, what would it mean for time and space to be the effect of a cause? We usually assume that causes precede effects, and that requires time to be already in place. No time - no causality. So if you are talking about the beginning of all time, rather than just the beginning of an age, then it must perforce be uncaused.

By infinite state I mean something that is existing with an infinite past. A framework that allows time and space, and everything in it to exist. It is immaterial, as physicality cannot have an infinite past. — Tombob

You lost me here. Something "immaterial" - that apparently exists within some sort of immaterial (?) time - somehow (?) gives rise to the physical time? This is "language on holiday," I am afraid. You just said some words, waved your hands, and made like you've solved the problem. But what have you solved? Where's the solution?

1) Time and space has been in motion without a starting point. — Tombob

I guess by this you just mean that the past is infinite.

a) I exclude 1 considering physical measurements would not be possible in such circumstances. Why? Because physical measurements need a starting point, which 1 lacks. — Tombob

The objection doesn't make a lot of sense. We choose the starting points for our measurements to be whatever we want, and the overall extent of time and space has no bearing on that - demonstrably so, because in no instance (other than traditional creation stories and such) do our measurements reference an absolute beginning of time and space.

And even if there was such a difficulty, that would not be a good metaphysical argument, unless you think that time and space have no mind-independent existence whatsoever. Reality doesn't care about our convenience.

2) Time and space came into existence by chance. — Tombob

b) I see 2 as a possibility, but unlikely, as it contradicts the fundamental observations of cause and effect in the universe. — Tombob

I don't know what either the thesis or the response even mean.

3) Time and space emerged through an infinite state. — Tombob

c) 3 is based on cause and effect. If everything is based on cause and effect, it ultimately leads to something that has its own cause of exstience; an infinite state. — Tombob

Ditto. I have no idea what you mean by "infinite state."

If everything originates from an infinite state: everything that has existed, exists and will exist has always existed. — Tombob

I don't know how that follows (since I don't know what "infinite state" is), but taken at face value, this is absurd.

This leads to the universe being deterministic. — Tombob

OK, now I don't even know what you mean by "deterministic." Since you constantly refer to "cause and effect" I took you to mean causal determinism, i.e. the idea that given the state of the world at some point (or slice) in time, everything that happens before and after is determined by causal laws. This notion of determinism is timeless, i.e. it does not depend on whether we are talking about something that has happened, is happening or will happen.

Like we describe how gravity works but not understand why it is like that. — The0warrior

To describe gravity is to make it more intelligible - to understand it. In describing it we acquire an understanding of some of the whys and the hows.

It is a mistake to think of understanding as some unique final state of knowledge, so that we will understand the world only when we attain that state of knowledge, and until then we "do not have understand it at all," as @javi2541997 put it. There are many valid degrees and ways of understanding. It depends not only on what we can, but on what we want to know.

Speaking of physics, there are many subjects within this discipline, and each can have a number of theories and approaches and techniques, and each of those brings its own understanding of its subject. Again, it is a mistake to think that only a hypothetical "theory of everything" (TOE) can bring true understanding of the workings of the universe. We already understand a lot from all the descriptions/theories that we have. A TOE, if such is even possible in principle (and that is an open question), would add another layer of understanding, but it wouldn't subsume the understanding brought to us by other theories. (Note that I said a TOE, not the TOE, because it doesn't even have to be unique.)

Is there a difference between understanding and describing? We describe something in order to make it intelligible.

Yes. I've made your argument many times. Usually I am ineffective in getting the point across. It comes up a lot in discussions about the multiverse. — T Clark

It's a bad argument, because it blithely presumes probabilities in the absence of any context. It's cargo cult math.

I don't agree with the idea that nothing exists is non-sensical or meaningless for the following reason.
If we're to ever give a satisfying answer (satisfying, at least in my opinion) to the question, we have to accept the idea that there might have been nothing and then figure out how there can be something now. — Roger

So, we must presume that the question makes sense, because otherwise we couldn't find a satisfactory answer to the question. Well, yeah. One can't find a satisfying answer to a nonsensical question. But what would be more satisfying? Massaging the terms until the question becomes trivial? For example, let's just say that "nothing" is the same as "everything" - Boom! Done! Is this really a satisfying exercise? Even if you stretch it over two paragraphs?

The very premise of this exercise is utterly clueless. Physics equations don't prove, much less disprove the assumptions that were built into them.

Wavelength equals Planck's constant divided by mass and velocity, which can be written as w=dmt/mv.

If we cancel mass, then translate the remaining variables into meters and seconds for the sake of demonstration, we get w=meters*second/(meters/second). This translates into seconds squared, which I'll call time (t) squared. — Enrique

LOL. So you got the wrong units for length, right in step 2. This is where one would go back to look for the mistake, but no, you forge ahead...

Everyone thinks their beliefs are reasonable and everyone has differing beliefs (on this site and elsewhere). So by definition some of these beliefs would be unreasonable. — khaled

One quibble here: What is reasonable for one to believe depends (uncontroversially) on one's epistemic situation. For example, it is reasonable for you to believe that you know where you are right now, whereas for me it is not.

This is one of those bad old philosophical questions that should be dissolved with analysis. There is neither right nor wrong answer, because the question makes little sense and answering it makes not a wit of difference to anything.

(By the way, if you put an extra space between paragraphs, your posts will look less like an unappealing wall of text.)

In cold water?

Yeah, people ought to tag their responses with tags like "derail," "derail, but worth reading," "crap post in every respect, don't bother reading," etc. so that we can quickly filter out what we don't want to read :D

I actually agree with you about the intuition. If we're not moving, how do we start moving? It's a bit of a mystery actually, I'm not sure what physicists say about this. Well I guess I do know. If we're a steel ball in Newton's cradle, or we're a ball on a pool table, we start moving when we get smacked by another ball that transfers its momentum to us. But how does our velocity go instantaneously from zero to nonzero? The Newtonian physics works out, but not the intuition. — fishfry

Collision is a notoriously messy scenario - both physically and mathematically. Better to think of a ball in Newton's cradle at its highest point: at that point it is instantaneously at rest, then it starts moving again. Voila, motion from rest. Or easier still, just pick up that ball, gently release your grip and let it fall to the ground. Same deal, and we even know pretty exactly what its acceleration is when it starts moving. This doesn't seem so unintuitive to me.

I remember struggling with the concept of acceleration when it was first introduced - in middle school, I guess. It started making sense after a while. But some people just can't come to grips with such abstract concepts. Most of them have the good sense to leave it alone and apply themselves to something they are better at. Those who can't leave it alone become lifetime cranks, like MU. Or philosophers :)

I was just trying to answer the first thing you were saying, is that bad? — Franz Liszt

Replying to one sentence taken out of context (only to repeat what you already said several times) is pointless and misleading. If you are not interested in a conversation, then don't bother responding.

The argument, which is very badly put by the OP, is that if you seek to *explain* reason in terms of naturalism or evolutionary development, then this devalues the sovereignty of reason. Reason is sovereign because it is capable of revealing truths, not on account of it being the outcome of physical causation or evolutionary adaptation, which is a near-universal assumption. — Wayfarer

No, that's not the OP argument, that's just one of your favorite refrains. The OP denies that reason can be explained in terms of naturalism. He says that if naturalism is true, then we can't have confidence in our ability to reason, which in turn undermines all our beliefs, including beliefs about science and logic. Therefore, our ability to reason has to be put into the explanation "by hand" - God's hand.

This is a species of a skeptical argument, articulated among others (though without the non sequitur conclusion) by Darwin himself. A more elaborate version was later put forward by Plantinga (EAAN).

You can’t conclude anything from a paradox

This is quite literally my entire point. The person who says that we are just a bunch of chemicals is making a claim that leads to a paradox. — Franz Liszt

I guess you didn't read anything after this sentence.

How do we know that our logical thoughts would actually show any truth in this universe? The answer, if we are just a bunch of chemicals, is that we can’t. — Franz Liszt

That's not at all obvious.

If you say ‘science and logic are illusions’ then you’ve come to that conclusion using logic (and likely science as well) which is absurd!
I feel the only way to escape this paradox is to say that we are designed by some higher truth in the universe. — Franz Liszt

You can't conclude anything from a paradox. As you yourself just acknowledged, you have undermined your own reasoning. Any further conclusion that you make on the basis of invalid reasoning will be invalid.

I feel the only way to escape this paradox is to say that we are designed by some higher truth in the universe.
This goes against my instincts, but from a philosophical standpoint, science and logic are kind of dependent on this to be true — Franz Liszt

You want to say that science and logic depend on the reliability of our cognitive abilities. I would object that you implicitly assume said reliability whenever you embark on any cognitive task, such as putting together this argument. You can't withhold this assumption without undermining your argument.

But let's grant your requirement for the sake of an argument. Why is supernatural design the only answer to this requirement? If you are a product of design, it is still an open question whether you were designed with reliable cognitive abilities or not. So you have to assume that you are a product of design, and that you were designed for reliable cognitive abilities. But as long as you are helping yourself to assumptions, wouldn't it be more parsimonious to assume just that our cognitive abilities are reliable?

I can point you to a comprehensive SEP survey of compatibilism. There was so much to cover there that a supplement was made just for the most recent developments.

I don't agree that freedom is compatible with determinism; I've heard plenty of people claim it is so and yet they are never able to explain how it could be. — Janus

Why not learn more about compatibilist arguments then? Your position is what is sometimes referred to as classical incompatibilism - classical because of its long history, going back to antiquity, but especially vigorously debated over the last century or so, when compatibilism rose in prominence.