Humans are more important.
— Patterner

For humans, humans are more important than cats.
For cats, cats are more important than mice.
For mice, mice are more important than cockroaches
For cockroaches, cockroaches are more important than bed bugs.

Philosophically, is it right that one part of nature is more important than another part of nature? — RussellA

Yes, it is. It's a judgement call, and that is my judgement.

That's why the difference between being able to judge and not being able to judge is more philosophically important than the difference between the electron and the Higgs Boson.
— Patterner

That means that philosophical questions about the nature of time, space and the Universe are less important than philosophical questions about the human mind.

Is it right that humans consider themselves more important than the world in which they live? — RussellA

Yes, it is. Humans are more important. In some bizarre scenario in which a human is about to be killed, some glorious natural wonder is about to be destroyed, and I can only prevent one, I'm saving the human. It's not even a close call. I will say, "Damn! What a shame! That was very pretty!"

If the second thing in danger is a star, it's still not a close call.

I anticipate many tweaks to the scenario, and have already written out answers to what I think are the more likely ones. But I wanted to just say this much in this post.

↪Patterner Maybe. But end of the day, the burning of Romans is still not a functional response to the hypothetical conflict between the hypothetical Christians and the hypothetical LGBT. — ENOAH

There doesn't seem to be a conflict between the two groups in your scenario. The LGBT people are pointing out that certain verses are evil, and should not be part of a religion based around an all-loving deity. A good response to their action would be, "You're right. Those verses are wrong, and should have been removed long ago." Anyone who has a problem with what they do is the party in the wrong. Worrying about offending them is much like worrying about offending some pre-Civil War Americans by burning copies of state laws that allow slavery. Sure, they got mad. But it was still the right thing to do.

A very good philosophical question. The philosophy of particle physics is an academic topic. — RussellA

That's why the difference between being able to judge and not being able to judge is more philosophically important than the difference between the electron and the Higgs Boson. The former is about how we should behave, treat each other, and respond to how we are treated by others. The latter is about the physical nature of primary particles. Unless we come to realize primary particles are conscious entities, we don't need to concern ourselves with flinging them into each other at extreme speeds in order to smash them to pieces the way we concern ourselves with doing the same to people.

If the LBGT community called upon its members to burn copies of Paul's letter to the Roman's, I don't see how that could be seen as not offensive to the millions of Christians who might cherish that scripture, and have no ill regard for LGBT community; and I don't see how burning Romans would advance their cause. — ENOAH

Maybe those who have no ill regard for the LGBT community should reconsider their cherishement of certain verses of Paul's Letter to the Romans. Maybe the offense taken by the LGBT community over the verses that call their love shameful is more legitimate than the offense taken by Christians who cherish those verses when those verses are burned.

Yes, something having the ability to judge, such as a human, is different to something that doesn't have the ability to judge, such as a tree, but how can this be argued to be of special importance, if no more than a natural expression of nature.

Why is the difference between being able to judge and not being able to judge more philosophically important than the difference between the electron and the Higgs Bosun? — RussellA

There is a philosophical difference between being able to judge and not being able to judge. Is there a philosophical difference between the electron and the Higgs Boson?

What was the name of the bosun on the good ship 'higgs'? — Janus

Nicely done! :grin:

I haven't read too much of this thread. But I've seen a lot of wrong ideas. Try to imagine being on fire. All the time. Jumping in water doesn't help. Rolling on the ground doesn't help. Nothing nothing nothing helps, and the burning goes on and on and on. If being dead is the only thing that will stop the burning, eventually, that's going to be your solution.

"Look at all the things you have to live for" is crap when you're on fire. So is "That's the coward's way out" and "You're going to hurt a lot of people if you kill yourself." It is all meaningless compared to the burning.

Obviously, burning is not a perfect analogy for mental illness. But it gets the point across of how constant mental illness is. And between physical and mental pain, mental is worse. How many of us have had something like a broken bone, bad burn, horribly painful illness, or serious cut that took weeks or months to heal? How much do we suffer from it now? How many of us were emotionally abused, even as adults; excluded by classmates when we were children; made to live in fear? Does all that go away as soon as the emotional abuser is gone? Or does it live with people for the rest of their lives?

Let's say, as a child, a parent caused you great physical pain at times, but always made it seem like an accident, always told you they loved you, and that they were so happy you were their child. Or, let's say they never caused you any physical pain whatsoever, but made it clear that they wish you had never been born, and wish you were not their child. In which scenario will you turn out happier, with better mental health?

Our minds are where it all happens. Some people's minds hurt, constantly, unbearably. Telling them to suck it up, or look at the goods things, or think of others, is not going to help them. Ever. When someone commits suicide, think of how long they were in excruciating pain before they finally stopped enduring it for others, or in the hope that it would end.

A momentary irritation on my part with reading a thread mired in confusion. I'm not really a great burner of books, or even threads. — unenlightened

Spoilsport

Yes, it is. Which means my idea was wrong.

It happens all the time. It was the defining characteristic of American law for a very long time. Many will argue that it still is, and they have a case.

Just this one thread? SPS (Smarty-Pants Syndrome) is everywhere. The whole site could be given a fresh start. It would be good for all. We all need to learn to let go of attachments, even to our own words. Too much ego.

Moral Relativism rather than Moral Absolutism. — RussellA

Certainly, morality is relative. But I'm suggesting there's a common reason for all morality. All have the same goal, but have different, even opposing, ideas about how the goal should be achieved.

Do you dump your partner or stay with her until she is ready for separation? — MoK

You absolutely do not stay with her until she is ready for separation. That would often mean you will never be allowed to go. Sometimes because she is manipulative and controlling. Sometimes because she innocently will never be emotionally able to let you go. Sometimes because staying with her, being kind, understanding, and patient will it make her more attracted to you.

Regardless of the reason she will noy let you go, her need to have you remain with her does booty overrule your need to find happiness elsewhere. It is wrong to insist you stay with her.

Everyone knows it's a risk to love someone. Everyone knows you might be hurt. Few people go through life without having their heart broken.

Sometimes people do things intuitively because it makes sense at the time. Sometimes these acts are intuitive, such as giving up a well paid job or starting to take a particular drug. It may not be possible to put their reasons into words, other than the feeling that it is the right thing to do. — RussellA

I think people often act out of things like fear and low self-esteem. The things they do do not make sense, but are done to punish themselves, or sabotage their future.

Moral codes can be described but not justified. — RussellA

Perhaps moral codes are all rooted in what gives the individual the best chance of continued life and prosperity. The Nazis thought their best chance was to kill everyone not like themselves. The American enslavers amassed wealth by brutalizing others. Many believe the best chance for anyone is to makes things better for everyone, so you won't need to kill or steal from me in order to survive and prosper yourself.

I can't think of anything good that results from burning it. I can think of bad that comes of it. The stabbing is a good example.

We are leaps and bounds above any other species of this planet.
— Patterner

No, we're not. You're not above a shark. Not when you swim under it. — Arcane Sandwich

I hadn't expected anyone to take what I said to mean above in relation to Earth's gravitational pull. But if that's the example you want to use, the vastly overwhelming majority of humans are above the vastly overwhelming majority of sharks at all times. You would do better to use probably most any flying species.

The point I'm trying to get it, is that while it's true, of course, that h.sapiens evolved from simian forbears, during the course of evolution, a threshold was crossed which makes humans very different from other species. But every time I say that, the response is, hey, caledonian crows can count! What makes you think we're so special? Which is what I'm saying is the 'blind spot'. — Wayfarer

"Different" is certainly an understatement. We are leaps and bounds above any other species of this planet.

No one owns The Philosophy Forum. — Arcane Sandwich

Someone created the site by purchasing the domain name and setting up the operating system. Someone, maybe the same person, pays every year for the domain name. Someone, maybe one or more people in addition to whoever pays for the domain name, has the power to shut it down, and even delete every post.

Bill Clinton is an excellent example. Who in the world is being watched more closely, and has less reason to think they can get away with anything, than the POTUS? Who has more important things to do than the POTUS? And he was married, to boot. But there he was, having his fun with Monica.

I agree with the idea that people of like mind should be allowed to discuss something in depth, to explore it fully, without having to justify the premise every several posts. Exploring nuances, discussing why one solution or other failed, and hypothesizing courses of action, is a far cry from preaching to the choir or being in an echo chamber. Of course, it's easy enough to ignore posts of someone or other who you know is going to argue against the premise. But someone new to the thread might not want to wade through it all, and just leave.

But, you can only get such a setting in your own home/on your own site. Don't invite the denier to your house when you and those who agree want to discuss it. Or find/create a site geared toward your views.

I have a personal moral code precisely because some things make sense and some things don't. — RussellA

Yet people do things that do not make sense all the time. Indeed, things that are very bad for them, things that ruin their lives, and even things that kill them. We say some of these people are addicts, and that addiction is a disorder or disease. Does everyone who does things that don't make sense have a disorder?

↪Wayfarer

You're right about everything.
— Patterner

Well, if that's the case, then why are people so dismissive towards his idealism? — Arcane Sandwich

Well, I didn't mean everything everything. I meant the things he had said in his last couple posts. Factually accurate, but I think a different interpretation applies.

My proto-consciousness views are also generally dismissed, so I don't put much stock in someone's ideas being dismissed.

P1 Assume that within nature there is no objective judgment of good and evil
P2 Humans are part of nature
P3 Each individual's judgment as to what is good or evil is particular to them and is subjective
C1 As between different individuals there may be a range of judgments as to what is good or evil, it is not possible to determine an objective judgment of what is good or evil.
C2 Within nature, whilst there may be a range of judgments as to what is good or evil, there can be no objective judgment of what is good or evil. — RussellA

I believe this is the accurate option.

In conclusion, within nature there may be an objective judgement of what is good or evil, but humans are not aware of it. The fact that humans are part of nature and make subjective judgments as to what is good or evil does not mean that within nature there is an objective judgment of what is good or evil. — RussellA

I agree. I never said there is an objective judgement of what is good and evil. In fact, I suggested there is no such thing as objective judgement. Judgement is subjective.

You're right about everything. But I think it all needs to be viewed and/or labeled differently. Humans evolved in the universe, through the laws of physics. That makes us natural beings. How could anything that came about through the natural processes of the universe not be natural?

The fact that we manufacture things that the laws of physics would never manufacture without us doesn't mean we, or our consciousness, or teleology, isn't natural. It means the laws off physics aren't the be-all and end-all of what is natural.

It's possible that consciousness like ours already exists elsewhere inn the universe. It's possible it will pop up more asked now throughout there universe. And all the conscious beings will manufacture more and more things that would not exist if the laws of physics were the only thing at play. Will we say the universe is no longer natural when >50% of the universe is either conscious or things manufacturers by conscious beings?

Humans make subjective not objective judgements. — RussellA

Subjective judgement might be redundant. What is an objective judgement?

In nature there are no judgements. — RussellA

Humans are natural. Humans judge good and evil. Therefore, nature judges good and evil. The fact that not every cc in the universe judges good and evil doesn't mean nature doesn't judge good and evil. Just as, while every cc in the universe is not involved with fusion reaction, stars are.

A judgement is not about a certainty. — RussellA

It can be for a specific action in a specific setting.


Certainly, what we judge to be good and evil can be different in different circumstances. It's subjective. The fact that killing a human in Scenario A is judged to be good, but killing a human in Scenario B is judged to be evil, does not not mean it is not good in A.

Humans are a part of nature, and as nature has no objective judgement neither do humans. — RussellA

Humans have subjective judgement. Which, again, is the only kind there is. And humans are a part of nature. Subjective judgement is a part of nature.

Humans are a part of nature and not separate to it. Particular features of human existence, such as self-awareness, ability to judge, being intellectual rather than instinctive and having a morality may be explained as natural expressions of nature. Nature is using the agency of the human to express these particular features, rather than being expressed by a human existing separately to a world in which they have evolved. — RussellA

You understand exactly.

That humans are self-aware is not evidence that humans are separate to nature. If humans are a part of nature rather than separate to it, then it may be argued that it is the case that nature is self-aware through the agency of the human. Human self-awareness is the mechanism by which nature is self-aware. — RussellA

Very well put.

That humans are self-aware is not evidence that humans are separate to nature.

That humans are self-aware is not evidence that humans are separate to nature.

That humans have free-will is not evidence that humans are separate to nature. — RussellA

Nothing can conceivably be evidence that humans are separate to nature. The fish is part of the aquarium. The snail is part of the aquarium. The gravel is part of the aquarium. The water is part of the aquarium. Humans are part of nature.

We cannot not be part of nature. However, we have qualities that, to our knowledge, no other part of nature has. I don't think it's out of line to judge us. Especially since some of those qualities are what gives us the concept of judgement. We, alone, can judge. And we do, and always will. In how many species does the male kill offspring that are not his own? I have no problem passing judgement on a human male that goes around killing babies.

If anything made by a human is a natural object, then everything is a natural object. We usually differentiate between natural and human-made. Humans make things that would not exist if not for humans. In Incomplete Nature, Terrence Deacon writes:

This exemplifies only one among billions of unprecedented and inconceivably large improbabilities associated with the presence of our species. We could just as easily have made the same point by describing a modern technological artifact, like the computer that I type on to write these sentences. This device was fashioned from materials gathered from all parts of the globe, each made unnaturally pure, and combined with other precisely purified and shaped materials in just the right way so that it could control the flow of electrons from region to region within its vast maze of metallic channels. No non-cognitive spontaneous physical process anywhere in the universe could have produced such a vastly improbable combination of materials, much less millions of nearly identical replicas in just a few short years of one another. These sorts of commonplace human examples typify the radical discontinuity separating the physics of the spontaneously probable from the deviant probabilities that organisms and minds introduce into the world. — Terrence Deacon

In Demon in the Machine, Paul Davies writes:

When the solar system formed, a small fraction of its initial chemical inventory included the element plutonium. Because the longest-lived isotope of plutonium has a half-life of about 81 million years, virtually all the primordial plutonium has now decayed. But in 1940 plutonium reappeared on Earth as a result of experiments in nuclear physics; there are now estimated to be a thousand tonnes of it. Without life, the sudden rise of terrestrial plutonium would be utterly inexplicable. There is no plausible non-living pathway from a 4.5-billion-year-old dead planet to one with deposits of plutonium. — Paul Davies

But does that make human-made things unnatural? Wouldn't that makes humans unnatural? Nothing in the universe can be unnatural. Intelligence, consciousness, teleology... All are natural. All are natural parts of the universe.

Still, there's value in differentiating natural and human-made.

I agree with you. I'm just playing Physicalist's Advocate.

1. Clean up the dog poo.
2. Avoid stepping on the dog poo but not clean it up.
3. Step on the dog poo. — Truth Seeker

4. Step on it and clean it up.

↪MoK You say "How could we have a single thought, knowing that all that exists is matter and forces?" As if you know of some other way to have a single thought. — flannel jesus

My interpretation of MoK's sentence is that, if what we call thought is the interaction of matter and forces, then it is not different than the freezing of water, the foam that results from mixing vinegar and baking soda, an avalanche, a supernova, the growth of a tree, the path of the planets around the sun, ChatGPT, and literally everything else that ever happens anywhere.

From the agential perspective, the sort of action that took place is intelligible in light of the agent's aims, beliefs and reasons. — Pierre-Normand

But if the agent's aims, beliefs and reasons are nothing other than the resolution of an incalculable number of interacting physical events, then it is just physical interactions.

Could anyone have made a different choice in the past than the ones they made? — Truth Seeker

I see people talking about going back in time and doing things differently. I assumed your question, to phrase it in the present, is: Given multiple options that are, in the physical sense, equally possible (for example, I am equally able to press the Netflix or Disney buttons on my remote, and I am equally able to buy the chocolate or caramel ice creams), is it possible that I might choose either? Or is only one possible, due to the hideously complex interactions of particles and structures taking place within my brain, which is really all anything amounts to, regardless of words like consciousness, perception, and memory, and which can and will work out to only one possible resolution?

I say the former. Either because that is the correct answer, or the hideously complex interactions of particles and structures taking place within my brain, which is really all anything amounts to, regardless of words like consciousness, perception, and memory, can and do work out to only that one possible resolution, every time I consider the question.

Schopenhauer has the wrong approach to happiness.

There is no way to happiness - happiness is the way.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.

-Margaret Lee Runbeck

A fool is “happy” when his cravings are satisfied. A warrior is happy without reason.

-Dan Millman's Way of the Peaceful Warrior

Pleasures conceived in the world of the senses have a beginning and an end and give birth to misery, Arjuna. The wise do not look for happiness in them. But those who overcome the impulses of lust and anger which arise in the body are made whole and live in joy. They find their joy, their rest, and their light completely within themselves.

-Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita

In the true order of things one does not do something in order to be happy - one is happy and, hence, does something. One does not do some things in order to be compassionate, one is compassionate and, hence, acts in a certain way. The soul’s decision precedes the body’s action in a highly conscious person. Only an unconscious person attempts to produce a state of the soul through something the body is doing.

-Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations With God

Oh, ho, listen, Man, and we'll tell you everything! Do you hear the waves whispering the secret? We know you know, Man. The secret of life is just sheer joy, and joy is everywhere. Joy is what we were made for. It is in the rush of the nighttime surf and in the beach rocks and in the salt and the air and in the water we breathe and deep, deep within the blood. And the sifting ocean sands and the wriggling silverfish and the hooded greens of the shallows and the purple deeps and in the oyster's crusty shell and the pink reefs and even in the muck of the ocean's floor, joy, joy, joy!

-David Zindell's Neverness

"Quentin, I think the oak is shedding," said Pat.

Possible Quentin thoughts:
"Pat thinks the oak is shedding."
"I think Pat thinks the oak is shedding."
"Pat said that Pat thinks the oak is shedding."
"I think Pat said that Pat thinks the oak is shedding."

There are any number of examples of continuous sound being heard, then a new sound is heard at the same time. The new doesn't whether from silence.

Even if there is absolute silence, then a sound, the silence is not the cause of the sound. And the sound isn't usually generated in response to the silence.

I studied comparative religion, and one of the major authors in that field is Mircea Eliade — Wayfarer

Not relevant, I just happen to know he has a book called Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Which I have not read.

Carry on.

I gotcha.

When I see the word "think" on the screen I hear the sound "think" in my mind. After many repetitions, in Hume's terms, this sets up a constant conjunction between seeing the word "think" and hearing the word "think". Thereafter, when I see the word "think" I instinctively hear the word "think", and when I hear the word "think" I instinctively see the word "think". — RussellA

What about people who don't see or hear words in their head?

And wouldn't "reflexively hear/see the word" be better? But how is it different after many repetitions from the initial time, when, upon seeing the word, you heard it in your mind? What has changed after the many repetitions?

I don't know how to answer the question, because I don't know the difference between the way I can think and the way I think. If there are different ways a person can think, do we each choose different ways at different times? Or do we each have just one that, for whatever reason, we settled on, perhaps very early in life?

My focus has been on things and types of things we think about, not the way we think. Thinking about an object, say, a boulder on a hill, and thinking about what that boulder might do in the future, say, roll down the hill, are different kinds of thoughts. Thinking about that boulder landing on me leads to thinking about my mortality, which is yet another kind of thought. Thinking about these different kinds of thoughts Is a fourth kind of thought. At least it seems this way to me.

But I don't know that I'm not thinking these different kinds of thoughts in the same way. If they are different ways of thinking, I guess they are the thingd that might answer your question? But what are those ways?

You say things like this:

Sure he thinks in ways he could not before. — Harry Hindu

As I have said, learning anything can play a role in your ability to think in ways you did not before. Language is not special in this regard. — Harry Hindu

Yet you say things like this:

Language does not make us think in ways that we already could not. — Harry Hindu

How are these things not contradictory?