Furthermore, if there is any such obligation to do good, how do we go about determining which good actions are the "most" obligatory, for example giving money to a charity vs working at a local soup kitchen? It seems like if it is obligatory to do certain good things, even within your means, then you're almost a slave to the world around you.

So, what is the answer then? What should be the goal of a moral system? What is the grounding for the moral system, and if we aren't obligated to do good deeds, why — Jerry

There is a social contract. Living in a society obligates us to respect the social contract. That's why there's morality and the law. I wouldn't want to live in a world where people aren't obligated to help the victim of a kidnapper or rapist. Or a parent beating the child to death, literally. Or a spouse torturing the other.

A world where people aren't sure of the value of ethics and morals is a scary world. If a person walking along the sidewalk at the crack of dawn noticed a sinkhole big enough to swallow a car, he ought to warn the oncoming driver that there's a sinkhole waiting at the bottom of the slope. Stop the driver, for Christ's sake.

I didn't read the book, but the OP is fulfilling to read. Again, what an insight!

Yes, it is quite amazingly tedious and repetitive. Yes, it is cold, joyless and repugnant. But it turns out these are the things that make it so memorable and, at least in retrospect, stimulating. — Jamal

I get this. When I'm repulsed at something, it lingers in my mind like.. not as a tumor (a nice metaphor)...but like a grime that needs to be cleansed. I choose what I read now. And it's mostly non-fiction.

So as he says, it’s a cautionary tale. However, I do suspect that this is a post-hoc rationalization of what was at the time a more purely artistic effort. That is, his words from 1995, twenty years after he wrote the novel, amount to an interpretation, with no more or less legitimacy than the interpretations of critics and appreciative readers. — Jamal

If I had read the book, I would use the word "misrepresentation". Probably. Maybe now he wants to be legit, so now he calls it a cautionary tale.

Have you seen David Lynch's Mulholland Drive by chance? Despite a lot of surreal disjunction of scenes and characters, we are still able to piece together a explanation of what might be going on that makes the film deeply satisfying, meaningful. — Nils Loc

Yes, I've seen the movie. And your comment about it is on point.

I disagree. Consciousness requires storage - namely memory. Without memory, our sense of self, of place, of time, of coherent chronology, breaks down. As one with dementia experiences as their brains architecture breaks down due to disease.

If we had no memory (storage), we would not be able to revisit mentally the past, and thus contextually would not be aware that the present moment is indeed the present because we cannot retrieve anything beyond it historically. And lastly we could not anticipate a future because we don't have a past, nor present. So why expect a future? — Benj96

I understand the sentimental value you attach to memory. Memory is a very important part of consciousness. But memory and consciousness are not interchangeable. Amnesia is one condition which allows a human being to be conscious but lacking memory. In another thread some time ago, I mentioned that there are perceptions we experience that are not temporal.

"Not temporal" in the sense that memory is not needed for us to experience, objectively, a thing. Brightness is one of those. If a light flashes on you, it doesn't matter which rock or cloud you grew up in, you will experience brightness, and you will know what brightness is (though you might not have a word for it).

That passage you quoted was the starting point. He was trying to make a case -- notice his use of the word "youth" -- of the way he understood things. The one I provided is him returning back to his point -- that God did not originate from his mind, but rather external to his mind. He was arguing for the existence of God, but first he must make a case that all the other things in his mind, too, are external to him.

Look at it this way, if you have a lot of ideas in your mind, one of them is the existence of god, and others are the existence of other humans, and rocks, and things, how are you going to argue that your idea of god is objective? By making a statement that god is external to you.

Could consciousness be a form of energy like the rest? — Benj96

No. We can't harvest or store consciousness like the energy. There is no storage for consciousness. Consciousness is a live streaming.

I am not saying that philosophy is an illegitimate practice. — Bob Ross

What are you saying then?

With the proverbial "heart". It seems to be perfectly possible to live a good life without any self-reflection or philosophical contemplation. You just "follow your heart". — baker

I disagree. The one that uses the heart also uses the intellect.

The problem is that the senses often give us confusing and misleading information, i.e. they deceive us. For example, it looks to me, like there is nothing between me and the far wall of the room, but I know there is air in between. Logic has figured out that air is a substance even though it is unseen. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, this is a misrepresentation of metaphysics such as Descartes's meditation. It's not the senses that mislead you, it's the thought that ideas come out of nothing. No one is deceiving us. The world out there does not deceive.

Well, he kinda did. At the beginning of his meditations, he said something along the lines that he had hitherto held many false opinions purely because he'd swallowed the accepted wisdom. This is why he had to go back to square one, as it were, and put aside everything he thought he had known, starting with the self-evident 'cogito ergo sum'. — Wayfarer

No. Read below:

And the longer and the more carefully that I investigate these
matters, the more clearly and distinctly do I recognize their truth. But
what am I to conclude from it all in the end? It is this, that if the
objective reality of any one of my ideas is of such a nature as clearly to
make me recognize that it is not in me either formally or eminently, and
that consequently I cannot myself be the cause of it, it follows of
necessity that I am not alone in the world, but that there is another being
which exists, or which is the cause of this idea. On the other hand, had
no such an idea existed in me, I should have had no sufficient argument
to convince me of the existence of any being beyond myself; for I have
made very careful investigation everywhere and up to the present time
have been able to find no other ground. — Descartes

He is arguing for causation! You are not the cause of your own ideas of the world -- meaning, you did not just "imagine" falsely that there are things out there that make you see colors, trees, and sky. There really are colors, trees, and sky.

Now picture the same scene — but from no point of view. Imagine that you are perceiving such a scence from every possible point within it, and also around it. Then also subtract from all these perspectives, any sense of temporal continuity — any sense of memory of the moment just past, and expectation of the one about to come. Having done that, describe the same scene. — Wayfarer

First of all, thank you for starting this thread and writing the OP as you have done. I was trying to get comments in this thread https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14673/is-maths-embedded-in-the-universe-/p2
because of the reality sans observer that was brought up in yet another thread. But it seems no one wanted to respond to that problem.
As I have said previously, and before I even read your essay, it is a much different reality because now there's no more privileged vantage point from which everything is seen or experience. But of course someone here, and in other threads, had raised the problem of "we can't or shouldn't even be discussing such problem because we are the observers!"
And to that I say, we come up with a hypothesis. With hypothesis, we enjoy the freedom of the imagination -- we're not making a conclusion yet, but we're exploring the what-if. Like the quantum physics -- I hope they have not made that final analysis.

To me, how would the world be without the sentient observers? The world on a coordinate plane, a flat two-dimensional reality.

This gives rise to a kind of cognitive disorientation which underlies many current philosophical conundrums. — Wayfarer

With this I disagree. I object to the cognitive disorientation and I object to the following comment as well:

What the ancients, like Plato, demonstrated is that the senses deceive, and we ought to trust the mind with logic, over the senses, as capable of producing a more reliable and accurate "world". — Metaphysician Undercover

What does that even mean?

With our sense-perception, we can't help but view the world the way we do. Only the silly observers would not use the mind, the common sense, and logic to think about the world. How does one perceive without logic?
Descartes, for one, never claimed that humans are being deceived. He brought it up as a thought experiment. (You can correct me here if you like).

But can a story with surrealistic characters be thought provoking?
To me it’s like saying you had a revelation about a philosophical topic by reading a Disney story… You could understand the ideas of the author better, but how can it be thought provoking if you can’t stay in the story and think deeply about the characters, about how they would react in the world the author described? — Skalidris

For this question alone, no. To me, surrealism is an ambient atmosphere -- there needs to be the development of the characters themselves in order for it to be thought provoking.

If in the story, there are a lot of birches (presented as regular birches) growing underground without any light, it's illogical if the author never explains how they do photosynthesis. Similarly, if a character is presented as a healthy human being, then later in the story is completely distorted, if that distortion is never explained, it's illogical given the premises. But if the premises are that the character is completely crazy (or not a human being), then, even if the reader can't make sense of their behavior, it can be considered logical. — Skalidris

Yes, this is a very astute comment. I will give an example of the movie Lamb (2021) by the director Valdimar Jóhannsson ( Icelandic). There is no book, I'm afraid. But a screenplay co-written by the director. This is a horror genre. In the movie there is the hybrid of lamb (or ram) born in the barn of a couple who owns and runs the farm. (The baby lamb has a father which is revealed later in the story. The father is also a hybrid of human)
But for the meantime, the couple took care of the baby like she's their own -- with a head of a lamb and body of human.
I'm not gonna tell the whole story, but my point of bringing this up is, the director very skillfully just started the story with no explanation of how the hybrid came to existence. You're just gonna have to accept that piece of the story. And as you keep watching, the story just makes you want to continue watching and find out what happens in the end. The director makes you forget about that question, or he makes your forget about your gripe that there's no explanation how they came about, he only wants to make you curious about what happens next and what happens in the end.

Going back to what I said about plausibility. Here,

Whether unexplained underground birch trees strike the reader as delightful or stupid depends on the skills of the author and the experience and attitude of the reader. — Jamal

I believe this is very true. (In this case, I am using a film, instead of a book).
The plausibility lies in the relationship between the characters -- there is continuity and consistency in what happens in the end. The fact that one couldn't fault the hybrid father for what he's done is, to me, enough to fulfill this quality.

In the sense that I defined it in the OP, I don't think we need metaphysics to expose errors in our reasoning: we can do so without making ontological claims. — Bob Ross

There is no other task that makes us think in a way that does not involve memorization of equation, procedure, or statistics than metaphysics. Philosophical discussions is natural to humans.

I have not read anything from Ken Liu, but your OP makes sense.

You don’t just suddenly drop everything you believe in for the opposite, unless you have mood disorders. And then going back to a grey zone just seems pseudo philosophical in the sense of “oh but nothing is black and white”. — Skalidris

In the end, when people read stories, do they want to be comforted in their opinions or do they want to learn something through a story that makes sense? — Skalidris

Yes, good observation. One of the things I learned about fiction is that it is not an invitation to implausibility. A former professor would say that plausibility is what connects us to the characters, no matter how outlandish they are.
I've watched a few movies where the director "cheats" on the characters just to move the story along. For example, just as when you get to know the hero -- very rational, intelligent, and courageous -- he, all of a sudden drops common sense and walks into the trap of a killer he's trying to catch and gets killed himself.

There’s more to metaphysics than just imagination it also includes reasoning not based upon experience but using deduction thereof such as found in math. It also includes tautologies which again are aspects of reason. — simplyG

I was going to say this until I scrolled down to your comment.


Metaphysics also exposes the error in our thinking. So, while that does not count as "knowledge", it makes us examine, or even discover, how we think ordinarily about reality, or the carelessness of how we think, or what we take for granted as true.

It seems to me like this is partially right, and partially missing something. Sans some interpretation of consciousness where mind does not emerge from or interact closely with nature, it would seem to me that our descriptive languages have a close causal relationship with nature. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is a good starting point for a new thread because I was trying to discuss with @schopenhauer1 in the Kit Fine thread about what is existence without an observer.

So, I will respond to my comment that " without an observer, the world is a two-dimensional existence". And I know this will take a lot of argument but just as a start, I say that because without an observer (without us), there's no more vantage point at which we view the reality or the world. Think about "no point of view", but only the universe. All points of location can just be two-dimension.

So maybe a thought experiment about what would go away if sentient observers disappear.

I wish to explore this because we have come up with many mathematical formula that describe how the universe operates from the famous formula such as e=mc2 which has practical applications to many others.
Or is maths completely independent of the physical universe and it just so happens that some mathematics is good at describing some aspects of the physical universe and in fact supersedes it? — simplyG

Math was created within a closed system. Think of a language written in symbols. We came up with math because we need to describe the physical world predictably and reliably. We could have come up with a whole different numbering system than the one we have now.

I feel that your question is similar to saying that the periodic table of elements has always been embedded in the universe waiting to be discovered.

What is existence without an observer? What’s the relation of observer with thevworld. These kind of things. — schopenhauer1

"Stuff" is what exists without an observer. Actually, reality would be reduced to two-dimensional world without an observer. Do you agree?

I am not saying that the world doesn't exist without an observer (necessarily), but the explanation of what that is (ontologically). — schopenhauer1

Meaning what?

All of them? — Vera Mont

No! Are you serious? Nietzsche was wrong.

People who quote their favourite dead philosopher as if he had the final truth of everything. — Vera Mont

Maybe they do.

In other words, where is the "incorrect formulation" stemming from, and why do you think it implies a "why"? — schopenhauer1

You are combining both the questions about whether the world exists (or whether there is existence) and how do we know that the world exists.

"How is it that the world exists without an observer". Asking this question entails that existence depends on our knowledge (the observer).

Tell me, are you asking "how do we know the world exists?"

Referring to pure fiction, like Orwellian Newspeak, as though it were something real. — praxis

Yes, and other similar pieces.

Another annoyance -- referring to "War and Peace" whenever one means "lengthy" without ever having read the book. It's fucking 1,400 pages, written by Tolstoy!

"Oh, he wrote me a war and peace email just to explain the procedure".

Don't do this or I might as well quiz you on the novel.

(I did not read the book)

But anyways, to the broader point, much of philosophy revolves around how it is that the world exists without an observer, or sometimes formulated as a human observer. — schopenhauer1

This is an incorrect formulation of the ontology-epistemology question, which I've seen quite often. With the "How is it that the world exists" you really mean to ask "how is it that we know that there's anything that exists. Very different questions.

Your question, as you posted it here, is about the "why" does the world exist. Epistemology deals with our knowledge of existence. Which one are you asking?

When you act do you know you are acting, or are you not sure whether you are acting? — Leontiskos

So, if one is doubting whether they're acting, then the doubting itself is an act that they're not sure of. This has a funny consequence -- I'm not sure I'm walking, but I'm also not sure that I'm not sure I'm walking, and I really can't be sure at all of anything, which means there is one thing I know non-mediately: that I don't know anything. So, there IS ONE THING I know for sure!!
:sweat:

The continuation of this argument is -- so if there is one thing one knows non-mediately, surely there could other things one can know non-mediately. Why is there only one thing that occupies a special place of knowing non-mediately? Is it because one is trying to win an argument? Is it because one hasn't put a lot of thought into this argument and does not know how to end it?

To everyone in the thread it is accepted that we know our own actions in a more immediate way than we know others' actions, — Leontiskos

We know our actions in a direct way -- no input from the outside world. If I walked over to the kitchen, I knew it without waiting for an object to hit my eyes. My action is within me. My being is within me. A ball is outside of me, I can perceive it. I can perceive its qualities. If I lay down and imagine aliens, only I could know I am imagining. The act of imagining is not something that I perceive like I am perceiving a tree. In fact, compared to the perception of a tree, my imagination can take many forms; whereas a tree is a tree is a tree. Seven billion people could confirm that a pine tree is a pine tree.

:up:

It's valid because "action is mediated" is not our argument. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It's valid because of the form of the argument.

Although, I am aware that mathematicians generally prefer direct proofs over the reductio, because a reductio lacks fecundity, it cannot be used to set up new proofs as easily. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Proof by contradiction works in math -- and it was built as a mathematical argument.
We can't use the argument by contradiction here because.....

It's a containment relationship that fails to obtain. Or we can define it through membership. Action is not in the set of "things known mediately," while "all appearances" are members of that set. Thus, on pain of contradiction, action cannot be a member of the set of appearances as this would entail that it is an element in the set of things that are know mediately (which is rejected in P2). — Count Timothy von Icarus

...there's not a containment relationship that exists in the argument. "Setting a set of things" itself is part of theory of action, which is about critical judgment -- see Kant's theory of action. If you notice, the argument provided includes that critical judgment on judgment about appearances:

If anything is an appearance it is known mediately,
The individual knows that he (or she) acts non-mediately
Thus, action cannot be an appearance.

So, action is a universal set, which can also be a urelement, in ZF theory. (Now I'm matching your proof by contradiction for lack of a better communication alternative. If we're gonna be wayward, let us, at least, be consistently wayward).

agree that depressed people are not happy, but I don't believe they have an accurate assessment of life. When they suggest there is no meaning to life and no reason for our existence, they are wrong and that's what makes them so unhappy. — Hanover

So, depressed people have a clearer perception of reality than most of us, and they are more "prepared" for tragic events than the overall. Oh, come on... why is depression the main cause of suicide then? :roll: — javi2541997

nteresting. In my experience people with depression are just as likely to get things wrong but the tendency is towards catastrophic underestimation and negative inferences rather than Panglossian overestimation. — Tom Storm

I have no objection to the above comments. I did not read the scientific study to support that article. I also find that glorifying the dark perception of life by depressed people is biased -- serious looks do not entail deep meaning.

Regret and sentimentality come from not believing one has a purpose that is constantly being fulfilled. If we accept that the driver for our acts aren't the causes that precede them but are for the purposes we are to fulfill, then it's hard to find a reason to focus on yesterday and try to run backwards in time and away from our intended destination. — Hanover

Because we have adopted the meaning of "purpose" as something that's got to be grand. Anything less than grand is just existing. And existing is easy to do. Rocks exist. People can't picture themselves serving a purpose if they make a minimum wage and cannot pay the rent. Or if fuel price increases and everyone is bothered by it. How can we think of the grand purpose in life if we're annoyed at the pump?

We could thus set this up as a proof by contradiction by assuming our premises and assuming that "action IS appearance." This results in a contradiction where action both is and is not a member of the set of "things known mediately," — Count Timothy von Icarus

Except that we can't do it that way. Remember the OP's question is "IS it both valid and sound?"
If "action is appearance" (by proof of contradiction) then you're setting up an absurd argument before you could finish. That's why it's important to know that that argument is coming from Kant because 1) external objects can only be known mediately and 2) humans have freedom of the will.

Action is not an external thing -- it's coming from you.

If one is in a coma or has a brain injury that they cannot act based on their will, then they cannot argue that they know they're acting non-mediately.

Here is an article about "depressive realism" -- a term I just found out about:

What Is Depressive Realism?
Depressive realism is a psychological term describing the tendency of people with depression to have a more accurate assessment and perception of reality than those without depression. While people without depression tend to overestimate their successes, capabilities, and control over the world around them, people with depression generally have a more realistic view.

Depressive realism is based on an overall tendency among depressed people to focus on negative aspects of reality. Because the world can be a difficult, unpredictable place, and because it is likely that bad events will happen at some point in life, depressive realists may be more prepared for those eventualities than people who overestimate their control and capability. — Arlin Cuncic, Very Well Mind

Here's a link to the article:

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-depressive-realism-6891266

This is the social butterfly's view on life, who surrounds themselves with as many friends as possible. Do social butterflies live especially meaningful lives? This has not been my impression. — hypericin

I believe the field of psychology, or at least in the study of personalities, acknowledges that the pensive, quiet people (who often find life to be "not happy") are the ones who have a more accurate assessment of life. Not a good finding coming from this field -- but there you go.

I'd say, do not dwell in the past no matter how beautiful or successful the past was. Keep it off your mind. Take care of what you have now. You can't be with your past anymore -- it's gone. Love the one you're with. This, coming from my own experience of dealing with all sorts of people.

:up:

Modus tollens logic is of the form "If A, then B. Not A. Therefore, not B." — Alkis Piskas

Check again.

If anything is an appearance it is known mediately,
The individual knows that he (or she) acts non-mediately
Thus, action cannot be an appearance. — KantDane21 — ItIsWhatItIs

Valid and sound.

Questions like, should this footage elicit a change in beliefs at all? — flannel jesus

No. It doesn't make me change my mind. If there are evidence of alien life forms, and they've reached the Earth, and caught on camera, then they should be here. Man-made space debris fall on Earth in minute particles undetectable by our existing technology. If you found something at the bottom of the ocean that's "strange", most likely it's our own space debris.

If there are other life forms, and they're too far away to reach the Earth, then all we have are speculations.

do I have the right, as the egregious perpetrator, to keep my kidneys if I do not consent to giving them to the victim? — Bob Ross

Yes. You do.

Here's a good specimen of humans that might be of interest in relation to the OP:
Search for Robert Tulloch and James Parker murder of two professors.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/the-apocalypse-of-adolescence/302449/

I just like to use examples that prima facie aren't about abortion so that the conversation doesn't derail into begging the question and to try and latch onto intuitions one may have outside of abortion talk which are pertinent to it. — Bob Ross

I understand. You are right to call out statements such as "a woman has autonomy over her body" carte blanche. Abortion is one of those situations where there is a lot of gray areas -- she can have an abortion, but she cannot use drugs while pregnant. The hazard for women who birth live babies is that the moment the baby is born, that baby is a whole person with a whole bunch of rights given to them, such that if she harms them in any way, it is criminal automatically.

Although, of course, if a woman does not feel like taking care of that baby, she can make it known legally and give up the baby. She has the right to reject the newborn baby.

She has been doing this from infancy, in spite of all attempts by her caregivers and teachers to modify the behaviour? — Vera Mont

From the sound of it, she developed this not as a child, but as a teen.

There's a basic flaw in the assumptions of this thread; actions are what are good or bad, not people, and not genes. — Banno

So, we can eliminate people and let actions happen? lol.

Her ‘dark side’, her ‘evil’ and manipulations are how her behaviors appear to us when we fail to see the world through her eyes , and instead try to force our perspective on her. — Joshs

You can say all the right things, but suffice it to say that her employer and colleagues had always been supportive of her. That did not stop her from taking advantage of them. Like I said, I haven't talked about the really serious issues. But I will no longer talk about it. I just used it as an example that you could stumble upon people who are just truly evil even if no one has harmed them.

I disagree: why would she have that sort of absolute right to bodily autonomy? — Bob Ross

In certain states in the US, a woman does not have a full autonomy over her body. An example is, if she was pregnant and a drug user, it is criminal.

In addition to genetic mental conditions — Outlander

In my previous posts I avoided saying the "mental conditions" because I don't want to turn this into a mental health issues. When the OP asked if good and evil are born or nurtured, my response is they are born (nature). And we only turn to nurture to modify bad behaviors (and foster good ones). So, continuing on, the reason why I don't want to bring in the emotional or mental health issues is because most people have those conditions, short term or long term. There are many bipolar individuals who are not evil, let alone mean, for example. So, I hope this is clear.

I'm talking about people who have good command of their emotions and mental conditions but whose constitution-- the whole of their personhood-- predisposed them to be bad.

I'm very interested in this topic because I'm currently observing an individual who I shared an office with recently and whom I got to know closely for over a year. I have moved to another office now, but to continue with this point: this individual is just your ordinary person who has held her job for a long time. I believe it's only me who got to know her dark side, though. Not even the boss knows her well, at least not what I've discovered. I won't go into the deep dark secrets, but the example I'd use is she revels in "playing tricks" on others: manipulation, compulsive lies, and dramas to get her "wins" no matter how small that is.

I would find it hard to believe for the simple reason as it could be argued then that people should be imprisoned or stripped of rights from birth because they are fundamentally bad. — Benj96

You must not have heard the joke about the thought police. No, we don't imprison people just cause they were born bad. We wait until there's evidence. There was a research done on some murderers whose ancestors were once murderers as well. Generations of families did not wipe out the traces of evil in them.

But we don't have to go to the most heinous criminals. Just your everyday functioning, employed sociopaths will do as an observational experiment.

Some people are predisposed to sociopathic behavior because they have it in them something similar to what gets them high. Some people have the alcoholic predisposition, some phobic predisposition.

Is stealing a loaf of bread to feed your hungry children a good thing or a bad thing? — Agree-to-Disagree

I thought we're talking about the evil here? Obviously, we can ignore those.