(Chuckles to self)
Ehhhhh......Mr. Potatohead. That’s just me being really confused. It’s your experiment, so the onus is on me to grasp the intent of it, what’s supposed to be demonstrated by it. After I give my understanding the best I can, if you don’t come back with “THAT’S what I’m talking about, Willis!!!!” Then I got nothing.

I hate it when I got nothing.

Cool. If god is no less real the Johnson’s stone, then we’ll at least get to see what he looks like, the reality of a stone being common to everybody.

Cooler. The end of organized differential religions. “Praise be to stone” has no more import than “Amen to stone” when all there is to work with is a reality no less so than stone.

“The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” tacitly presupposes a third party observer outside the parameters of the thought experiment constructed from moving trains and stationary platforms. So it is possible to view your experiment from both inside as participant and outside as mere observer. It seems to me, therefore, to say one perspective is irrelevant defeats the experiment.

But I will admit to stamping your experiment with my thought, so we have, like, one of those toys where the head goes on upside down and a foot faces backwards....Mr. Potatohead on acid.

Not that moral utterances are really beliefs about something else (something external to the individual in question) anyway, and they're not true or false. — Terrapin Station

Agreed.

but re the above, (logically problematic) contradictions — Terrapin Station

I’m the above. The directly above anyway. Would you re-write the part about logically problematic and relate it to something specific in the above you’re talking about?

Remember....I’m a reductionist. Your parameters are all humans have disappeared. I am human so I’ve disappeared. If I’ve disappeared, even if I exist someplace else, I really can’t say anything with certainty about where I disappeared from. It makes sense to think of things a certain way, that rocks still exist and meanings maintain, but consistency is not the same as certainty.

The problem with the argument, taken from a myriad of manufactured moral dilemmas:

When person A says "X is immoral" they are stating their belief. When person B says "X is moral" they are stating theirs. The two contradict one another.

So what?

That's never been a problem. It's a problem if one claims that "X is immoral" is both true(relative to person A's belief) and false(relative to person B's). — creativesoul

If I am the one who claims, and I claim it is immoral for the Engineer Tom (person B) to maintain the Empire Cascade’s speed (behavior X) approaching Lady Jane (person A) tied to the tracks up ahead, while Boris waits in the bushes for Dudley to rush to the rescue. Poor ol’ Lady Jane certainly believes it truly immoral that Tom refuses to slow down. But Tom, on the other hand, with a train full of passengers trailing behind and a 7% grade he absolutely must ascend or he will roll backwards and wind up in the river, truly believes it sucks to be Lady Jane for sure, but he isn’t about to scatter 14 cars and 67.5 people over 1/2 mile of river bed for her, so he truly believes my claim is false, that is, it is not immoral to maintain speed.

It is clear my claim for X being immoral is true relative to one ground of belief and false relative to another.
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Behaviors, all and sundry X’s, are not moral or immoral; the agent is, in determining what such X’s will be. Behavior is an effect of one agent whose morality is the cause, and an affect on another whose morality is impressed. The possible difference in value arises strictly from the subjectivity of each.

The only possible contradiction will arise when I derive congruent moral *and* immoral judgements simultaneously, which is quite impossible. But never from making a claim of morality *or* immorality with respect to observation of a determination I did not myself make.

When one says “X is immoral” he is not stating his belief. He is stating a conclusion from the fact he must know what is moral given necessarily from his own constitution, which makes explicit he must know the negation of it as well.

Leave off the adverb qualifying dependent. Thoughts and belief don’t “exist”; they are merely names given to participants in a strictly human mental procedure. Being subjective is dependent upon thought/belief.

End of the day.

I’m not going to do that. I trust you are smart enough, and I know I am, to conform to established meanings in terminology so oft-used.

That being said, I’m pretty sure our interpretations of “moral” is way too far apart to warrant a sophisticated dialogue. Not to mention, I might be even more of a subjective relativist than S (sorry, S), so there wouldn’t be much new going on anyway.

You’re engaged in a philosophical dialectic. If you don’t understand the terms of common use within the context of that dialectic, you shouldn’t be here.

Ok, if you say so.

To me, it looks like the goalposts are now clear out in the parking lot.

Morality is subjective, the consequence of morality, which is not in itself morality, is objective.

Dichotomy both absolutely necessary, and philosophically preserved.

You know, Hume, 1740, insists our morality is based on emotion not reason. Slave of the passions and all that. Kant 1788, on the other hand....what else....insists the opposite.

But I will grant emotive moral statements are better than empty ones.

Then I revert to epistemic ignorance, with respect to what would be the case for objective reality or continuance of meaning if all humans were to disappear.

I know people attribute their morality to what they believe. I know I have no such inclination, because belief, while subjectively sufficient, has no objective validity, which is exactly what morality demands.

I made a comment somewhere about moral feelings, because no one seems to attribute any important, or even relevance, to them. I’m not sure about reducible to, but they have to be accounted for somehow because they can be said to exist in a moral system. Feelings are not cognitions but only responses to them and then only varying degrees of pain or pleasure. We can’t have our morality predicated on pain or pleasure.

First you presented carne asada as the subject, beef as the predicate. Now you present beef as the subject and carne asada as the object, and treat it with equitable argumentative value.

It doesn’t have that.

Bingo.

Carne Asada can be conceptually reducible no further than beef; morality can indeed be conceptually reduced further than mere belief.

Acceptable/unacceptable behavior needs be no further reducible than to civil norms; morality must be reduced further than mere civil norms.

Ok, I get it. Shoot an object into space, it goes on and on and on, ad infinitum, never interrupted, never examined. The meaning of it and all it’s parts conforms to the conceptions of its creators.

What’s the point? The end game?

I see an issue, in the construction of the argument. I don’t think belief has anything to do with morality to begin with. To say as much is to say a false morality is possible if derived from a false belief, which just doesn’t make any sense to me.

Pretty much, yeah.

‘Course, you might have a syllogistic bombshell in your back pocket, just waiting and baiting for the right time, in which case I’ll be as surprised as the next guy, and you’ll have earned your “attaboy!!”.

In the meantime.......

OK.

S has got you by the short hairs.

Here I was, thinking we were moving on.

Ok, then I would answer the second question as the first: the meaning, in the sense I assume you are talking about, would be retained, because there is nothing given sufficient to remove it, but that meaning must remain unknowable.

Going beyond this, we must inevitably be presented with the paradox of retaining meaning that has no meaning, which is inescapable whenever humans disappear but human meaning is sometime thereafter presented as being in question. To ask if a thing retains its meaning presupposes an event where the question is examined but makes no allowance for who is asking.

Getting closer?

Half of it is epistemological, yes, in that there is present to our conscious attention a method known to be an artifact of communication with its intrinsic information. It is still required that the information, which would be supposed as concepts given in pictographic representation, would have to correspond to current concepts but with quite distinct representations, while attempting to retain the meaning of the original.

So, yes, meaning, re: the OP, is predetermined by the original English language rule, and may eventually be translatable to a non-English language, which is rather obvious, of course, as long as such translation uses the same perception/conception correspondence system, which is a product of mental exercise, hence rational, hence of idealistic theory.

But for the other half we’re right back where we started: if humans disappear, the information remains but is untranslatable by an intelligence that may not know how English attains to its meanings. In other words, we can translate ancient Egyptian into English, French, Swahili....whatever, because both are developed by humans, but both English and Egyptian meanings would be inaccessible to some rationality that doesn’t use a perception/conception correspondence system for its meanings. It follows logically that that of which the meaning is unknowable is therefore meaningless, which is the same as having no meaning, which is the same as concluding the transfer of information becomes impossible.

Am I properly addressing your concern?

I would explain hieroglyphics by saying the author of them, even if a different culture, is still the same kind of intelligence as I am now. They rationalize in their way as I in mine, merely with distinct conventions. It follows that I should decipher their writing, hence their meanings, given enough information. With an entirely separate kind of rationality, that information would not be available.

What say you?

Man, you’re asking for answers I think would be impossible to give. I’m a reductive epistemologist, insofar as there should still be a rock without intelligent observers, following Einstein’s metaphysical rationale, because sentience is not a necessary condition for existence. More than that, re: is there still a rock, I am not equipped to know with any certainty whatsoever. Best I could do is......probably, and.....why would I care?

At the same time I classify myself as a transcendental idealist insofar as my reason is absolutely paramount, and while I am permitted by it to speculate all I want, I have to beware of contradicting myself. If I am the intelligence that assigns meaning, and then allow meaning to obtain without me assigning it, I have right then contradicted myself. As for the question on meaning then, I must say meaning would not hold outside the intelligence that assigned it originally.

I maintain not that you are irrational, but the argument requires irrational answers if such answers claim a measure of affirmative truth.

Part 1 is the problematic idealism of Descartes, which allows the empirical reality of physical objects, such as rocks. Part 2 is the dogmatic idealism of Berkeley, which allows for nothing but that which arises out of mind alone, such as rocks and meanings. Both have been sufficiently refuted by German Idealism of the late 18th century. But such philosophical refutation is not thereby unqualified support for realism in and of itself.

Is the rock still there is the same as is the light stay on in the fridge when the door is closed. There’s no reason to suppose it does, given the mechanics of the system, but no way to directly, or without some kind of material support, make a non-contradictory affirmation of truth about the light. With respect to the tautological analytic “to be is to be”, while it may well be sufficient to deflect a contradiction, it does nothing to provide an existential truth, for its predicate conceptions are always empty, equivalent to saying, “all rocks are”.

To list a set of properties or conditions conceived as belonging to an object does not confer meaning to it, but only the means to identify it, and the more conceptions and conditions the greater the precision of the identity. It follows that another intelligence, if it assigns conceptions and conditions at all, may still identify some common object but under its own correspondence system.

It seems to me, that in the event that some intelligence formulating a rational system goes defunct in totality, anything to do with that intelligence immediately becomes irrelevant. In the event of an intelligence going defunct in totality, then for that defunct intelligence to proffer scenarios with respect to itself, is irrational.

Well said. Especially Aristotle’s contributions.

I don’t mind; everybody’s philosophy stands a good chance of being dubious or inscrutable to somebody.

Morality involves either action a posteriori or reason a priori. If he chooses to act at all, one usually doesn’t act unless he already knows what the act should be. If he is to explain in general how he is to act, he must use propositions to communicate his reasoning. Such propositions take the form of synthetic subject/predicate construction, re: if this is the case then I must do that because of this. In order to conceive his “must do” he must have a principle to base it on; he cannot conceive it reasonable, and his will cannot be obliged to determine, to shoot Bill because Pam hit a patch of ice and wrecked Bobby’s Mustang, when the moral situation requiring an objective principle has to do with, say, “...it is ok for people in the world to steal, kill and maim in order to increase personal wealth...” Here, in order to satisfy conceiving the objective principle “increasing personal wealth” in general, requires reason to formulate the imperative “do whatever it takes, such as stealing” which the will has determined as necessary to satisfy the obligation to increase personal wealth pursuant to a moral disposition saying “it’s ok for people....”

It’s philosophy, man. Ain’t nothing etched in stone, but just has to be self-consistent and non-contradictory. It’s agreeableness is nice, but not required.

Objective action is somewhat redundant, I know, but I used it in juxtaposition to the subjective principle. Sorry for the complication.

In case you already figured that out, and to answer the question, the conception of an objective principle, insofar as it is obligatory for a will, is called a command of reason, and the form of the command is called an imperative, either thought a priori and put forth in a propositional conclusion pursuant to a philosophy, or, exemplified in the world as an act pursuant to a sense of moral worth.

All imperatives indicate the relation of a freely determinate will to its necessary consequence, but humans, being....er.....all too human, may still find a way to disregard their own imperatives.

If for some arbitrary rational agency, “Let X be do whatever it takes to acquire wealth” is a principle governing the determinate will, and

assassinating, stealing, and torturing others — creativesoul

then becomes the imperative sufficient to accommodate that principle and serve as a volition determined by it, with “... as long as it makes (me) wealthy” as its end. Whether or not the world would be a better place is not deducible from that moral argument.

For some other arbitrary rational agency who knows it is possible to acquire even great wealth from doing X in the form of simply buying a lottery ticket, or doing X in the form of simply being alive and present as the sole beneficiary of an estate of unknown Aunt Betty in Tupelo, at the same time knows, irrespective of actually doing either of those things, anything to do with bodily harm or otherwise criminal activity does not serve as justifiable moral worth. A different sense of moral worthiness is therefore all that’s required in order to qualify the conclusion as merely possible, that “the world would not be a better place” given under the auspices of the imperative demanding bodily harm and otherwise criminal activity in order to acquire great wealth.

There is no room for belief; all sense of moral worth is the result of imperative objective action in compliance to a subjective principle. If one thinks conventional philosophy says belief has no objective validity, and if moral philosophy mandates objective validity in the form of consequential action, then it follows necessarily that belief has no place in moral philosophy.
There is no room for agreement; obviously, herein, there isn’t anything to agree on. Where there is tacit moral agreement there is harmonious community, and even if such harmonious community is comprised of those who steal, etc., in order to make themselves wealthy, they are indubitably soon met with an altogether non-harmonious condition with which their contradictory moral worthiness will be forced to reconcile.
There is no room for truth in the conclusion “the world would not be a better place” in the current moral argument, for the excruciatingly simple reason no such condition of the world is determinable by an imperative in itself. One may think it as possibility, even assign a probability to it, but he has not the means to determine the truth of it.

Pretty coherent to me, and quite acceptable. And there ya go. You’d probably find something to fill in the disparate behavioral blanks, to demonstrate how the morally worthy/unworthy dualism arises, if you altered your dialectical priorities.
—————-

Maybe, dunno. I’m not a child psychologist and I sure as hell don’t remember the formation of my first worldview. Doesn’t matter though; I know moral philosophy is adequate explanation for differential moral agency.

It doesn’t miss the point; it is the point. Mine anyway.

To say that the same behavior is both moral/immoral, and have instances wherein such behavior is objectified in disparate happenstance, is the perfect reason for even having moral philosophy in the first place.

In our case, the world would not be a better place — creativesoul

....is correct from the point of view of whomsoever should hold congruent judgement. This does nothing to explain or justify the morality of those in opposition to it, whose categorical imperative obviously differs and from which they necessarily judge themselves as not wrong.

Cool. I was hoping that was the case.

So.....

Correct. They’re doing it objectively in the world, so it stands to reason they are being forced with wealth as the prize, equally objective, or their individual subjective moral dispositions facilitate determinations the consequences of which are such actions. Big deal...been that way since folks left the singular campfire for the multiple grass huts.
————-

I never said it was.,

Sure they are, as far as I’m concerned.

That sort of empirically predicated maxim of mine alone, could never suffice as ground for a categorical imperative, so....no. The rest of the world may think differently.

Damned if I know. I don’t even know if the world would be a better place if I did X.