Life and mind depend on the emergence of codes. The information processing possibilities of genes, neurons, words and numbers. So how do codes “just emerge” from more complex physics?

Biology starts where a molecule can be a message. Is that simply “more physics”. A property of matter that simply follows from a continuing continuum of complexity?

Or is it something a little more novel? — apokrisis

Can you ask in simpler terms exactly what your objection was?

One thing I can give you any amount of evidence for, is that we do not have 'a unified vision of existence'. If we did, we would be able to tackle our problems - poverty, climate change, overpopulation, pollution, and ongoing intractable global human conflict. — unenlightened

I don't see what that has to do here.

In view of our failures in this regard, it seems somewhat pessimistic to call us 'the apex of consciousness'; I think we have a long way to go yet. — unenlightened

We're still at the top of the animal kingdom, just as we were at the dawn of civilization when we learned to light fire.

The problem with modal moral quandaries generally is that one can always make them impossible to solve. — Banno

There lies the true excellence of humankind. And solving those problems and coming up with a principial solution is the price you pay for the privilege of humanship.

he'll be in a paradox. The same as this one. Because as a deontologist, he cannot put 3 above 1 nor vice versa.

I don't mean to be rude but that reduces people to numbers, something consequentialists do.

understood. Thank you for your time.

Morality, as I understand it, is a contingent code of conduct. — Tom Storm

That's ethics.

Not keen on thought experiments, they seem too abstract and disconnected from real-life situations to be useful to me. — Tom Storm

Understood. Thank you for your time.

Philosophy leads to doctrines or principles. Principles are more important than practicality. It sets the standard for our actions.

When you break the principles, be it secular or religious, you get an estimation of how deviant your actions have become. You feel bad when you go so far. Even though you're not following the principles line by line, it's working as a compass. But when there is no principle, you'll have no direction. You'll have no restraint. You'll have nothing to shape your life. Be it personal moral codes or societal. Much like law and order.

Morality is an abstract concept that, alongside psychology, is a physical construct made by hormonal and neural activities. — Copernicus

No one seems to agree or comment on it.

I don’t think that has anything general to say about the two moral options — T Clark

It does... In terms of deontological individualism.

One thing you haven’t taken into account is liability. When I choose, I take on liability for the consequences. It might not be unreasonable for me to make no choice at all as a way of protecting myself from that liability. — T Clark

It is not about practical reasoning. If you were given a choice, a hypothetical scenario, or should I say, imperative, what is your preferable choice?

the author of your notes — Astorre

I don't understand. I wrote my notes.

you did so in a seemingly patronizing/insulting manner. — ProtagoranSocratist

I apologize if you felt that way, that was my informal way of saying "if you have read it carefully, then you should already know what I'm talking about."

not "must" — ProtagoranSocratist

real life moral and ethical decisions are complex, laden with fear, laden with shame, laden with politics. — ProtagoranSocratist

Principles don't bother with practicalities.

What if they're absolutely identical entities, with nothing distinguishable among them?

And I actually changed the scenario, if you had read it carefully.

Next time we might try removing the utilitarian options and asking the same question. — NOS4A2

You can't.

Yes. The future is unknown. One cannot know if his choices result in direct harm until that time comes. One can only do his best to avoid inflicting that harm or protect others from it. In your scenario, his only option is to try to stop the train or remove the people from the track. — NOS4A2

We're talking preference here, not capability.

Just asking.

Tricks are deception.

True (Dark) Magics are done by finding the bugs in the system and capitalizing on them.

Miracles happen when something beyond the system/program is observed from within the system.

What do you personally follow? Consequential or categorical morality?

who gets to write it?

@Astorre@Tom Storm@Banno@Outlander@ChatteringMonkey@I like sushi@83nt0n thoughts?

Was expected.

You couldn't provide a viable solution either.

Why not support my argument of a minarchist state with no constitution, then?

I used them as a reference. Do you have any answer to the initial question?

we're discussing the rightful authorship from idealistic/principial grounds. The components of the constitution is not in question here.

Isn't this far too generic? — Outlander

You're right, principles can have subjective value. But doctrines are universally codified. You can choose to follow them or make something out of it (upon which it becomes a new doctrine).

Such as communism → socialism, nihilism → absurdism, etc.

I wonder if our fascination with questions that don't matter has ever been given serious study. But now I think of it, that may not matter either. — Ciceronianus

Principles are more important than practicality. It sets the standard for our actions.

When you break the principles, be it secular or religious, you get an estimation of how deviant your actions have become. You feel bad when you go so far. Even though you're not following the principles line by line, it's working as a compass. But when there is no principle, you'll have no direction. You'll have no restraint. You'll have nothing to shape your life. Be it personal moral codes or societal. Much like law and order.

Isn't legitimacy only a thing if there is already an established (legal) order? Or what do you take the word to mean? — ChatteringMonkey

take it as "logical or acceptable in principle".

There is doctrine, there is hypothesis, then there is fantasy.

I'm touching on doctrine here.

Can you point out where in my argument you found a flaw and counter it by quoting it?

It puts you in jail.

Suggest a solution on who should write the constitution?

I'm talking consequences here.

I'm talking about the world you and I live in.

unless you live in a world with no formal law or government or police, i don't know what you're talking about.

we act as our conscience dictates not the laws of the land. — I like sushi

but jail/police doesn't follow your conscience.

but there are laws and that makes you a criminal.

I see. I'd love your counterarguments against minarchism.

No Constitution seems to be the only answer.

I presented the options with counterarguments to see if any of you can come up with an alternative.

The mandate of heaven — ChatteringMonkey

Theocracy? What if the people are secular and prefer free will?