:flower: :flower: :flower:

Heyyyy man. Can't we all just get along, mannnn.

It's so lame.

drugs will always retard the development of a well functioning society or community. — Wallows

Viz. hippies

Read more closely and you mayg realize that what I mean by "serf's perspective" is the opposite of direct democracy, which would be "Serfs Up!" — TheSageOfMainStreet

I read as closely as humanly possible. But what you said was quite vague and wide open for interpretation. Don't forget to adequately explain your position and define the relevent terms, or you may not get your point across as intended.

My use of "serf's perspective" is a condemnation of those who surrender their political identity because others, who impose a republic on them, force them, by devious methods of thought control, into lacking the confidence to assert their will. — TheSageOfMainStreet

What would it look like for such slaves to assert their will in this scenario?

I think it would resemble direct representation. In the Nietzschean sense, democracy, whether direct or representative, is a consequence of the slave revolt.

Those who preach the scare stories of "mob rule" and "tyranny of the majority" want to impose snob rule and the tyranny of a self-appointed vanguard. — TheSageOfMainStreet

Well if they are imposing their morality on anyone else, even if it is a morality of individualism, it is still an attempt toward a slave morality; I can only apply the morality of the individual to myself if I wish to avoid transfiguring it into a slave morality. Otherwise I am positing a teleological contradiction.

I have independently concluded that all republics are elitist, decadent, and insulting to their own citizens. — TheSageOfMainStreet

Indeed.

Evolution ISN'T dog eat dog.

Interspecies rivarly is generally where things get violent (dog vs rabbit, jaguar vs ape, etc.) — YuZhonglu

Of course violence occurs within species. That is one of the mechanisms through which selection occurs.

Do an experiment. Put a bunch of dogs together, starve them for a week (like nature frequently does to its creatures), afterwards throw a T-bone into the mix and watch how violent those pups treat each other.

Then, let's agree. We can make no empirical claims, which means we cannot talk about morality in empirical terms. So what's the big deal?

My point in this tangent is that I was wondering what the evidence was for "At a physical level, morality is not a unified concept yet free-will seems to be" — Terrapin Station

What evidence is there that this is not the case? This question is much more important.

But isn't the vicarious sense of victory when "your" team wins a continuation of this primitive negation, through substitution, of self-identity? More important, doesn't representative government satisfy that serf's perspective? — TheSageOfMainStreet

Yes, at face value it would seem to be analogous.

Direct democracy does satisfy the serf's perspective in the strictest sense. I would say that it is paradoxical, in that it begins on the premise that everyone has equal right to individual opinion, yet such a right makes everyone essentially unequal. And, to go further, democracy proceeds to reconcile this pardox (to negate the right to individual opinion) by governing through mass consensus.

So...what's your point?

Then why did you ask me to? You are very confused.

So you deny that neurobiology can tell us anything about the source of morals.

If you do not explain your position, that is the necessary conclusion tha we must arrive at.


I don't care one way or another, but, I'm not so sure you even know what your position is. I think you are just flapping ass cheeks, and you seem to enjoy the smell of your own farts.

What do you mean an aesthetic assessment?

Of course we can work to condition ourselves for various objectives but since we’re talking about morality we might assume that I was referring to the morality relevant sort. — praxis

The conditioning of ethical behavior doesn't sit well. Conditioning seems to detract from the immediate responsibility that quintilessentialy defines ethical existence. Responsibility implies risking something by committing myself to a specific set of moral principles. It means that it is highly plausible that in the last moment, I can do the wrong thing and betray my principles. On the other hand, if it is the system of conditioning that is ehtically responsible for me, then if I am properly conditioned, it is impossible for me to do the wrong thing in the last moment; and if I don't do the right thing at all, then I haven't been properly conditioned, and it is still the system of conditioning that is ehtically responsible for my wrongdoing.

You do not understand how science works, do you?

Everything you have posted recently screams: "I reject everything involved in the process by which scientific methodology establishes facts about the material world."

I cant necessarily disagree with that sentiment.

Oh dear, another believer of truth. Might as well believe in God.

Jesus christ!!!

Of course it was given in the article, do you understand what the purpose of a bibliography is?

Then you would agree that biology has shit to say about morality. Otherwise you are just contradicting yourself for masterbatory purposes.

Say what? I was asking you what the evidence was for something that was claimed. — Terrapin Station

Yes, it was claimed in a peer reviewed publication regarding a study on the relation of neuro biology to ethics. Are you stupid or just plain booty?

So we could say that there's a generally agreed-upon definition in the community. — Terrapin Station

The scientific community is not some accidental product of the universe, it is an institution governed by strict regulations, which through it's very own agency establishes criteria of standards and practices that could, at any time, be overthrown, if it were scientifically applicable.

So first, what's the evidence that that's the case for "free will" but not for "morality"? — Terrapin Station

Its only evidence if your criteria for explaining morality is in terms of biology, and not, say, in terms of philosophy.

It is nothing you said that convinced me of your point, but the fact that you did not reference science once. :up:

I simply have the impression that, in general, atheist belief tends to rely entirely on scientific explanations for anything and everything.

In my opinion, it would be something that is generally agreed upon within the scientific community. Given that conventional scientific methodology directly investigates the material aspect of reality, it has merit in defining its subject matter as such. Yet, because its criterion confines itself to such strict measures, it is restricted insofar as what it can adequately explain, such as the metaphysical.

But this does not necessarily rule out the existence of any metaphysical realities (*which are more likely to be multiversal than any physical reality, pardon the digression). Hence, the ethical, although it may stem from biology, cannot be adequately explained in terms of biology.

Atheists generally make the same mistake as the classic empiricist, they are intellectially comitted to the law of contradiction, to the point that they become inured and lost in understanding and reflection.

We can consciously endeavor to condition ourselves so that our responses or subconscious predictions are of a desirable quality. At least in that way we are responsible. — praxis

Your are mistaking responsibility for recognition.
What you are talking about is an aesthetic assessment, the part about "conditioning" is only a matter of self interest, it has nothing to do with the ethical. The ethical only gains relevance in proportion to how conscious an individual is in relation to his endeavor; and sufficient consciousness of one's personal responsibility to endeavor, qua. conscience, is a necessary (but not sufficient) component of ethical existence.

Even if moral thought and feeling is mediated and elaborated by human cultures and languages, those latter have their sources in biology. But it doesn't not follow from this that you can directly justify any moral stance by appealing to what is or has been the case in human evolution, or in other words by appealing to what is thought to be merely "natural". — Janus

In other words, although morality stems from biology, biology cannot adequately explain morality, without going further into an unscientific (scientifically untestable) dimension of reality. Scientific investigation marks the pinnacle of aesthetic assessment, but it is unable to access certain factors which are essential to ethical existence.

I think that, considered through the lens of certain perspectives, individuals may be seen to stand alone from the collective. One such perspective is Christianity, the faith wherein we stand naked before God, to whom the faithful find their ultimate responsibility belongs. — Janus

Excellent point. It is important we never forget that we are only discussing a perspective, and not some final or absolute truth

Nevertheless, the relation of religion to the ethical would make for an interesting topic. But, unfortunately, I don't think enough of the members here on TPF are able to traverse perspectives as seamlessly as those like Janus the bifrontal.

Also, let's not forget that Kant and the subsequent phenomenological perspective has contributed much to the notion of individuality, but done so methodologically and scientifically, rather than through the cultivation of faith.

I don't believe that individuals "in essence, stand alone from the group". — Janus

Rhetorically speaking, to identify with individuality is antithetical to group identity. Nevertheless, as it stands, whenever two or more individuals relate, they constitute a virtual society and infect each other with culture. You would have to live in the mountains, with the wolves and hawks, if you were to stand alone in the strictest sense.

Once an indivdual becomes aware of the possibility of such a choice, she may choose to act contrary to the tribe or more be more circumspect and conform. I think it also depends on the gravity of the action that is being considered. — Janus

The so-called "free world" is built on that attitude of the right to individual opinion.

We can also consider the weight of the decision to alienate one's self from the group tradition as resulting from a personal conviction of ethical responsibility. Such a thing can be extremely counterintuitive in relation to the natural instinct toward group preservation.

I don't think "choosing the latter" is the doorway to the ethical sphere, I think that threshold has already been traversed with the lucid realization of the actual possibility of choice. — Janus

I can agree with that, the group morality is just as much a matter of ethical judgement as individual morality. But, I might add that choosing the latter would immerse one deeper into ethical existence, since responsibility becomes acutely focused on the individual rather than diffusely on a collective.

Do you think that aesthetic judgments are deterministic? — Terrapin Station

I would say that free will plays a large part in aesthetic assessment and the production of human artifice. In aesthetic assessment, the free will corresponds to intellect and creativity.

The ethical is a qualitatively different mode of existence. As the article says, "at a physical level, morality is not a unified concept yet free-will seems to be". So it does not meet the sufficient criterion for scientific investigation, and must be explained through another discipline (the article assigns the task to the humanities).

Caprice: a sudden and unaccountable change of mood or behavior. (Meaning not a conscious choice, hence no responsibility.)

That is what the caption from my last post confirms. By the way, that quote is taken from a preeminent study on neuro-biology. It says it all

Cortical and limbic interactions in the development of self-regulation and free-will

[. . .]Each of these acts is termed “immoral,” but at a physical level, morality is not a unified concept yet free-will seems to be. With conscious free-will and its bearing on legal and moral responsibility, we normally excuse people whose acts are not caused by their conscious choices, such as sleepwalkers who murder and those with neoplasms who have committed crimes.

Surprisingly, recent research suggests that conscious choice plays a smaller role in our actions than most people assume. In particular, it often comes after brain activity that initiates bodily movements, and many researchers conclude that the conscious choice does not cause the movement (cf. Melillo and Leisman, 2009a,b). That conclusion raises the disturbing questions of whether and how we can ever really be responsible for anything. Known for a while is the necessity to automate as much as possible which arises from the need to reduce information overload on the nervous system due to its relatively limited capacity for instantaneous information processing (Leisman, 1976; Melillo and Leisman, 2009a,b). This is precisely the reason why we neither look nor need to do so when walking down a flight of stairs. The issue of responsibility is both scientific and moral. Freedom exists within a deterministic universe. Our knowledge surrounding consciousness is incomplete, and it may ultimately transpire that brain activity does not cause conscious decision-making or vice versa, but rather a variety of cognitive processes occurring almost simultaneously (Leisman and Melillo, 2012).

:up: nice analysis

As I understand the postmodern trend, it's always moving on to something else...never resolving anything

I feel it necessary to introduce the notion that existence is irrational. There is no necessary correspondence between my immediate existence and our concepts. Conception (thinking) is qualitatively removed from actual existence, only serving to mediate it as a rational form, to represent it as idea. It can be pointed out here, that my simply talking about existence here, is nothing more than speculation here, and only serves to draw away from actual existing here. You would experience existing more directly in a sense deprivation chamber, than you ever could through a conceptual expression. Nevertheless, immediate existence is naturally appropriated into understanding through creative reasoning, and it is only by superimposing rational concepts upon existence that it takes on a logical aspect. But that logical aspect is confined to the realm of the ideal, it has no concrete reality, and any communication of the idea is mere speculation, all an approximation of truth (qua. existence).

If we are to assess what is primary in regard to existence, it is obvious that subjectivity comes into contact with it well before any objectivity (i.e. speculative truth) can be extracted from it.

And we can't find an adequate identification, because that would require an adequate explanation of what what and where they are.

If nothing else, we inherit a specific, historically embedded morality from the society into which we are born, we which must take into account.

and no matter what we do, they're fundamentally "caprice." — Terrapin Station

If true, then there is no room for individual responsibility in regards to the ethical.

explaining them more broadly is a more advanced topic that we shouldn't move on to until we've mastered the basics, and no matter what we do, — Terrapin Station

That is a matter of opinion whether or not knowledge proceeds from the universal to the particular, or the reverse. I would surmise it is a combination of both, and it would be an error to be committed to proceeding only one way.

The processes that amount to moral judgments/preferences occur in brains, and only in brains. — Terrapin Station

The processes of ethical judgement do indeed occur in the mind, but the source of morals cannot be adequately explained if we ignore the context (influences, preconditions, etc.) in which ethical judgments are formed. If we exclude the context in which moral judgements are formed, they cannot be explained as anything but caprice - qua. more of an aesthetic assessment.

the fact that consciousness is created by a bunch of cells — Anirudh Sharma

How is that necessary? It is equally possible that the "bunch of cells" is merely a conceptual fabrication created by conscioussness.

I had no intentions of shocking, but I'm glad I did.

The data is data. How we feel about us irrelevant. That’s all I was saying. The aim of the scientist is to approach the data free of emotional bias. — I like sushi

Science provides only analytical data. The interpretation of what that data means is not science, it is speculation. Speculation is necessary for forming new hypotheses and theories that further scientific investigation, but it cannot be consider a scientific fact until it is sufficiently tested, in which case, it is no longer speculation.

Because scientific analysis requires empirical verification, it becomes necessary to reduce its subject matter to that which is objectively quantifiable, and ignore anything that is not. This makes the sphere of metaphysical subjectivity (consciousness, intellect, emotion) inaccessible. Either that, or else the entire category of subjectivity has to be redefined into terms of objectivity. So it is correct to say emotion is redundant insofar as it pertains to scientific facts.

Yet, just because subjectivity can be considered scientifically irrelevent, does not mean it has no importance elsewhere. I might argue that emotional existence is of supreme importance for the individual subject who directly experiences it, even more important than any degree of knowledge he can obtain through scientific investigation.

I think we agree on this point.

When I light a match, the chemicals on the end are the source of the flame — DingoJones

Less causes

It's not just the chemicals at the end of the match, but processes, too, and the chemical changes that happen due to those processes. That is the source of the flame. — Terrapin Station

More causes

Very interesting. I'm gonna have to research it a little more.

Why does a cause have to be identical to what it causes? This makes no sense me, what is the utility of thinking about it that way? — DingoJones

I agree, it is a foolish mistake that is commonly made by seemingly intelligent people.