One's own choices often aren't really good or bad. If I choose to key my own car, that isn't good or bad, it just is. These choices certainly aren't "the ideal". What is important is the ABILITY of persons to understand and make their own choices. Their freedom. That is what needs protecting. Since most choices of my own choices don't protect that freedom or violate it, they are generally fairly neutral actions. — Dan

If such choices, "one's own" are generally not good choices, then why seek to protect that ability. I think it's incorrect to say that these choices are not the ideal, according to your principles. If protecting the ability to make such choices is the standard whereby other choices are judged as good or bad, than this type of choice is named as the ideal choice, the one which all others are measured against in relation to their capacity to enable that type. If this wasn't the case, then you could simply posit as your principle, "to protect the ability to make good choices". But you didn't propose "good choices" as your ideal, you proposed "choices which are one's own". So you talk about protecting the ability to make that type of choice, rather than the ability to make good choices

This is where the inconsistency lies hidden. You want to protect freedom, because you think that it has some value. However, freedom allows for both good and bad acts, and what you really want out of personal freedom is good acts. So valuing freedom is inherently inconsistent with valuing good acts because freedom allows bad acts As a sort of compromise to "freedom" you posit a "type of freedom", which is the freedom to make one's own choices. This is a type of choice which is generally neutral, removed from good and bad. But, like I already explained, this is not a type of freedom at all.

It's a highly compromised, restricted sense of "freedom", specifically formulated so as to make it appear like there is a type of freedom, which the protection of, would be consistent with the desire for good acts. In other words, if true freedom was what your principle sought to protect, this would not be consistent with cultivating good acts, because freedom allows for bad acts. So you posit a false freedom, the freedom to make one's own choices, which is not any type of freedom at all, because it consists of a very restricted, narrow and limited, range of choices. Then you state that one's own choices are neutral choices, to ensure that protecting one's own choices would not result in bad choices, in which case this ability ought not be protected. Therefore you end up with an extremely contrived sense of "freedom" which you are seeking to protect, the freedom to make choices which are neither bad nor good, i.e. choices which are morally irrelevant.

To support your enterprise, you need to produce some solid principles as to why the ability to make morally neutral choices ought to be protected at all. And, if this is supposed to be a form of freedom, what kind of freedom is it really. Is it the freedom from moral principles? If we all made only this type of choice, then we wouldn't have to concern ourselves with good or bad anymore. Is this the ideal?

Again, I'm very happy to discuss why I think the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices is the best measure of value we have available, but I really want to make sure you have understood what that is first. — Dan

Go right ahead, I really want to know how you justify what I believe to be a false freedom. This is what it's all about. You have specifically designed what you call a "type of freedom", the freedom to make choices which belong to oneself, in an effort to make the value of "freedom" consistent with the value of morality. Now I would like to see you justify the value which you assign to this "type of freedom"

...which is what I was doing in suggesting that we look at how other animals make decisions. If how animals make decisions is similar to how humans make decisions then that can shed some light on the human condition. This is why we use animals as test subjects to get at some aspect of the human condition without harming humans. — Harry Hindu

But we still don't know how animals make choices. And, it's doubtful that selections made by other animals can even qualify as decisions. To choose, and to decide, have very different meanings.

It is you that is ignoring my request for you to explain what you mean by free will. — Harry Hindu

I answered this. It's the capacity to make choices. Some say it's free will, others do not. That there is not agreement on this indicates that we do not understand it.

If free will simply entails making decisions and I have shown that computers can make decisions does that mean computers have free will? You either agree that it does and we can then settle the case as one of where you use different words than I do to explain the same process, or disagree and you would have to come up with a better explanation as to what free will is. The ball is in your court. — Harry Hindu

Computers do not make decisions. To decide is to come to a resolution as the result of consideration. Computers are incapable of consideration. Computers do not even choose, they simply follow algorithms. To choose is to select from a multitude of options. There are no options for a computer, it must follow its rules. Even a so-called random number generator is a case of following a set of rules, and not a true choice

It appears like you just like to throw words around willy nilly, pretending that you can argue logically by giving the same word different meanings. That's known as equivocation. You can say that a computer "decides" if you want, and we say that a human being "decides", but obviously what is referred to by that word in each of these two cases, is completely different. So to say that the computer's activity is relevant to what we are discussing, would be equivocation.

The capacity to choose isn't just a human condition. Other animals make choices too. — Harry Hindu

You're still make irrelevant comments. The fact that human beings are animals is an essential aspect of the human condition. So, presenting the fact that other animals make choices, as do human beings, does nothing to suggest that this is not a part of the human condition. Neither does the fact that human beings make machines which also appear to be making choices.

Logically, you will always make the same choice given the same set of circumstances and the same set of options, just like a computer. And just like a computer, you choices can become predictable. — Harry Hindu

I believe this proposition is fundamentally flawed. There is no such thing as two distinct instances of "the same set of circumstances". That is a fundamental aspect of reality, and also of the human condition, ensured by the nature of time. Any set of circumstance is unique, and not repeatable as "the same". Do you disagree with this?

So the question isn't, "do we have the capacity to choose". It's "do we have the capacity to choose freely", whatever that means. Hopefully you can enlighten me. — Harry Hindu

You seem to be willfully ignoring what I am saying. We do not understand the capacity to choose. Therefore we do not understand the human condition. In order to understand the human condition we need to first understand the capacity to choose. "We" includes I. Therefore I cannot "enlighten" you on this matter.

There isn't two scales or value systems. The thing which makes any action good or bad is the extent to which is protects or violates the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices.

...

I'm happy to answer why this is the best measure of moral value (though I think it is covered in the primer), but I'd like to make sure we have pinned down the misunderstanding you seem to be having with the measure of value first. — Dan

Take this principle, "the extent to which it protects or violates the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices". We have to justify it by saying why understanding and making there own choices is something which ought to be protected. This means that we need to place that principle "the ability to understand and make their own choices" in relation to other potential first principles, and scale it as the most valuable, in order to justify it as "the best measure of moral value".

Now the problem is that "the good acts", which are acts that protect another's or a multitude of others' ability to make their own choices, are not derived from a person's own choices. Since these good acts are ones which come from choices which are not one's own choices, it appears like this is contrary to the chosen principle, that protecting the ability to make their own choices is "the best measure of moral value".

So this is the way that it looks to me. You have two distinct types of choices, those which are one's own, and those which are not. The two produce a dichotomy. There is a scale for evaluating the one type, those which are not, as to bad or good. That scale is based in the assumption that the other type is valuable. The problem is that the two are dichotomous, "one's own", and "not one's own". And, since the primary category labeled "one's own" is the basis for scaling the acts of the other category as to bad or good, then no matter how good an act which is not one's own gets on the scale, it can never reach the level of one's own act. We will always have to say that one's own choice will trump any moral value of good or bad, assigned to an act which is not one's own.

The important thing to acknowledge is that there is a dichotomy produced by the principle "the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices". This principle turns making one's own choices into an ideal, in relation to the other category which is judged for good and bad. "One's own choices" is the highest goal, a sort of perfection, and it is set off from the other choices which are not one's own, in a special ideal category, as distinct, and incompatible with, the other choices, not one's own, which are judged for degrees of goodness.

It is my opinion, that you need to dissolve this dichotomy. The principle which sets the high (good) or low (bad) of the scale needs to relate to something within the scale, instead of something which the scale cannot provide for, because the dichotomy. For example, in a temperature scale, the boiling point of water, the freezing point of water, are "ideals" which the scale is modeled on, but they relate to points within the scale. So for instance, suppose we class all free choices together, including one's own and not one's own, in one class, as free choices, and scale them as to bad or good. Notice, we cannot say that as the choices get closer and closer to being totally one's own, they get better and better. This indicates that "the ability to make their own choices" is not an acceptable principle to scale good and bad. It is not a valid ideal. Therefore, I can conclude that you have arbitrarily placed that principle as an ideal, and the dichotomy which it creates between the acts which fulfill the criteria of that principle, and the acts which are judged for goodness, are incompatible. And, unless you dissolve this dichotomy you will always have inconsistency in your ethics.

You're still not making any sense. Let's assume that there is a whole lot of people, and each one has the capacity to make one's own choices, and so we value each such capacity as one. The capacity to make a choice which does not belong to the person is given a value of zero. Doesn't this imply that making a choice which does not belong to you, has no value? The capacity to make such a choice is not at all something to be protected, it has no value.

Now, you say that making a choice which does not belong to you can be good. How do you value this designation of "good"? It cannot be that it is valuable because it protects the capacity of others to make their own choices, because no matter how many things with the value of one that you add up, it still cannot remove the value of zero from the choice which does not belong to the person. So you base that value of good in some supposedly objective moral principles.

This is why Amadeus and I have both told you that you have two distinct value scales. And I believe that the two are incompatible. The primary scale of value, as stated by you, is the value of one's ability to make one's own choices. The secondary scale of value is the scale which we assign to choices that do not belong to the person. This is the scale of good and bad, and it's based on moral principles.

If the secondary scale, the one that applies to choices which do not belong to the person, is the one for good and bad, then what is the primary scale based in? What is the reason for protecting one's capacity to make one's own choices? "Good choices" are in the category of choices which do not belong to the person, so how is there any reason to protect choices which do belong to the person? Do you see what I mean? There appears to be no reason why the capacity to make one's own choices ought to be protected. This appears to be just an arbitrary designation by you. You could have chosen the capacity to eat, or the capacity to breathe, or to walk, or to sleep, or to grow, etc.. Why choose "the ability to understand and make their own choices" as the thing which needs to be protected. What value system do you apply, to give this type of activity the highest position?

You're assuming that free will is part of the human condition. I'm saying that it likely isn't. — Harry Hindu

What you believe about "free will" is irrelevant. We do have the capacity to choose, and we all know and accept this. Some call this 'free will", if you want to just call it "the capacity to choose", that's fine. Whatever, way that you describe it, or try to understand it, it's part of the human condition which we need to understand in order to adequately understand the human condition. The fact that some people say we have free will, and others do not, is very strong evidence that the human condition is not understood, and we need to know the truth about this matter before it will be understood.

The fact that something is commonly said does not necessarily imply that what is said is a fact. — Harry Hindu

That is exactly the point I am making. We need to know the truth about these things before we can claim to have an understanding of the human condition. If we knew the truth about free will, then we'd have a much better basis for a claim about understanding the human condition. Since we do not know the truth about this, we cannot claim to have an understanding of the human condition.

I doubt it's possible. We communicate much more than mathematical ideas. If we tried using math to talk about any of those things, it would no longer be math. It would be numbers, equations, etc., representing things. Just another language. 1 stands for me. 27 stands for eat. 4,534 stands for apple.
1 + 27 + 4,534 = I eat apple.
There's no math in that. Yeah, I just did that in five minutes. But would we find a solution if we spent a thousand years trying? I doubt it. And I assume it's been tried by plenty of mathematicians over the centuries. I can't imagine a way of actually doing math that also means things we want to discuss. — Patterner

I think this is where the op goes astray. Information is what is represented by symbols, and "mathematical" is a type of information. Mathematical symbols have corresponding with them, mathematical information. But not all symbols are mathematical symbols, nor is all information mathematical information.

"Identity" is what a particular (individual) thing is said to have. So when a symbol represents a particular thing, this is a special type of information in which identity is assumed. So the information represented with "that apple is mine", is not mathematical information.

The principal difference between these two types of information seems to be that the same mathematical information is freely applied in a wide variety of situations, in a universal way, and to a multitude of different things, while identity information is by its nature restricted in application, to particular things.

Dreams and hallucinations are existentially dependent upon veridical perception. — creativesoul

That is an unwarranted assumption. It is quite possible, and even likely I would say, that dreams are prior to sense perception.

It is the measure of moral value, the goodness or badness of this choice is precisely because of how it affects persons' ability to understand and make their own choices. Just like if the person shot a lion that was about to eat someone, it isn't that shooting lions is intrinsically valuable it is good because it protects the ability to understand and make their own decisions of the person who is about to be eaten. This isn't contradictory, it's consequentialism. — Dan

The problem is that the choice being made does not belong to the person making it. It is not one's own choice. It is a choice concerning the life of another. Therefore, by your principle, goodness or badness is irrelevant because these are concerned with the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices, and this is a different type of choice. It is a choice which is not one's own.

Having a true understanding of the human condition would come first and from that extrapolate whether our actions are free or determined. — Harry Hindu

No, that doesn't make any sense. Obviously, having a true understanding of the human condition requires knowing about free will, as a part of the human condition.

I don't want to steer to far off-topic but what is meant by "free" in "free will"? — Harry Hindu

What is meant by it, is irrelevant to this point. Since it is commonly said that human beings have free will, then we need to know what is being referred to in order to understand the human condition, of which free will is said to be a part of.

Color experience requires both, colorful things(things capable of being seen as colorful by a creature so capable) and a creature so capable. — creativesoul

This doesn't affect the point I made. "Things capable of being seen as colourful by a creature so capable" is really a meaningless statement. Different creatures could see different things as colourful. And when you consider that absolutely anything could be seen as colourful, you will start to understand that the "thing capable of being seen" is not even necessary for the experience of colour. That's what Descartes demonstrated in his "evil demon" thought experiment, which is now commonly presented as "brain in a vat". The reality of dreams and hallucinations demonstrates that your stated condition is really not required.

Things capable of being seen as red are those with physical surfaces reflecting the appropriate wavelengths of the visible spectrum. A capable creature is one capable of detecting and/or distinguishing those wavelengths. — creativesoul

That's only by your definition of "seeing red". But that definition is clearly debatable, so who knows what range of experiences could be known by other creatures as "seeing red".

They are inherently capable of being seen as red by a creature so capable. They do not look red unless they are capable of being seen as red by a creature so capable and they're being looked at. — creativesoul

This is really very meaningless. It's like saying that a good act is one capable of being seen as good by a creature so capable. Notice, you take something purely subjective, a creature's capacity for discernment, and create the illusion that the discernment "red" is a property of the thing, rather than being the judgement produced by the subject.

You do this by saying that the thing itself is "inherently capable of being seen as red". However, if you think about this statement, we could say it about anything. Anything in the universe, whatsoever, has the capacity to been seen as red, by a creature which is capable of seeing it as red. And so the statement is completely meaningless.

You say that the ability to make "one's own" choices is the measure of moral value. Then, you want to allow that a person making choices which are not one's own, also has moral value. This is contradictory.

From Plato's Allegory of the Cave.
After exiting the cave, and "seeing the light", the philosopher returns to the cave, with the intent of teaching others what has been revealed to him.

[Socrates] Imagine once more, I said, such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?

[Glaucon] To be sure, he said.

[Socrates] And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death.

[Glaucon] No question, he said.

[Socrates] This entire allegory, I said, you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed.

It's been moral value all along. What is morally valuable (or rather what is the measure of moral value) is persons' ability to understand and make their own choices. It isn't about whether you value your ability to do so or not, or whether that provides some value to your life, the claim is that the extent to which that ability is violated or restricted determines the goodness or badness of the consequences of some action (and therefore the morality of that action). — Dan

OK, so let's call this premise #1, a person's capacity to make one's own choices is what defines "morally valuable". That is the premise which lays out the measurement scheme for "moral value". We can say that a person's ability to make choices which belong to them defines "moral value", and moral valuation is a judgement as to the degree that this ability is enabled

Now, you want to allow a second premise, that a person's choices which are not one's own choices (as per your examples), are also morally valuable. Do you see that the two proposed premises are inconsistent? We cannot say, without contradiction, that the measure of moral value is a person's ability to make one's own choices, and also say that the person's ability to make choices which are not one's own choices also has moral value. The latter, premise #2, the person's ability to make choices which do not belong to them, has already been excluded from the possibility of having any moral value, by premise #1.

In a deterministic universe, we all do what we naturally do. All acts feel natural and intended. — Harry Hindu

A true understanding does not simply consist of "things are as they are".

I don't understand why we would need to escape determinism, or why free will is necessary. — Harry Hindu

To have a true understanding of the human condition.

What makes causality and determinism necessarily materialistic? My thoughts naturally lead to other thoughts. Certain experiences are prerequisites for certain thoughts. It seems to me that my thoughts can "bump into" other thoughts and create novel thoughts. New thoughts are an amalgam of prior thoughts and experiences. It seems to me that causality and determinism could be just as immaterial as material. — Harry Hindu

OK then, just take "materialism" out of that post, and replace it with "determinism", if it offends you.

The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.

The next step, I believe, after freeing oneself from naive realism, is to free oneself from materialism altogether, and understand that the so-called "effects of the stone upon himself" are not properly called "effects" at all. The percept is a freely constructed creation of the living being, rather than the effects of a causal chain. This understanding enables the reality of the concept of free will. The living being's motivational aspects, which are very much involved in all neurological activity, and appear to allow the being to act with a view toward the future, (understood in its most simple form as the will to survive), cannot be understood as the product of causal chains. This is what science reveals to us, through its inability to understand such aspects in determinist terms.

I think the problem might be that you are thinking of things having "moral value to you" or "to me", but that isn't the case. — Dan

Your example is of a choice which an individual must make. And, your principle is that what is valued and protected is the individual's capacity to understand and make one's own choices. How do you introduce this other sense of "value", "moral value" which is neither a value to me in my decision making, nor to you in your decision making?

You've been saying that my ability to choose is protected, and valuable, as well as that of others. Now you are claiming another type of value, "moral value". This is an indication of what I've been telling you, you have to distinct scales of evaluation.

I didn't say it wasn't a restriction. It is a type of freedom, specifically one restricted to only those choices that belong to a person. — Dan

How can you say it isn't a restriction to freedom, and then proceed to say that it is a freedom which is restricted to...? Don't you see this as explicit contradiction?

I say that a person's ability to understand and make their own choices (which I have always maintained are the choices that belong to them) is the measure of moral value, the thing that determines whether the consequences of an action are good or bad. — Dan

But now you are saying that moral value is independent from anyone's choices. If it's independent from the choices people make, then on what principles do you value a person's ability to choose? This would just be a random choice as something to be chosen as valuable. If the ability to choose, the ability to make my own choices, is not a value to me, and not a value to anyone else, then how can you claim that it is something valuable? You're making no sense at all now. You are proposing values which are not valuable to anyone. How can you even call them "values"?

No, it doesn't. I seriously do not think you are taking enough time to read these replies. I am directly, stringently addressing this point in each reply and you seem to miss it entirely. I have given you several inarguable examples of why pain is not always unpleasant and further that this isn't part of it's nature. If you reject this, fine, but you need to actually tell me why all the examples and reasons are wrong. You have not. The quote you used directly contradicts your position by my existing in this discussion. You can't be missing that, can you? You're replying, after all, to someone who does not always experience unpleasantness along with pain. — AmadeusD

What you are insisting in this discussion, that pain does not necessarily involve unpleasantness, simply indicates that you and I have a different understanding of the what the word "pain" means.

You keep referring to examples you have given of pain without unpleasantness, but I can't find any such examples. All I see is assertions.

In order that we can discuss our difference in opinion as to what "pain" refers to, you need to provide for me a definition, or some examples. Tell me what sort of sensation is "pain", if it is not an unpleasant sensation as the dictionary defines it. Or, is it not a sensation at all? Is pain a bunch of neurological processes? If so, then what distinguishes the neurological process called "pain" from other instances of the sense of touch?

Pain does not require unpleasantness to obtain. It simply doesn't. I don't know why you're claiming this against empirical evidence of millions of humans experiencing pain without unpleasantness - and in fact, experiencing pleasure from pain. This is just... why are you trying to simply erase a load of facts about other people's experience, including mine? Are you trying to say I'm lying? — AmadeusD

Again, you are simply insisting there is empirical evidence from millions of humans, and saying that I am denying it, without providing any such evidence. The fact that in many cases, pleasure comes from pain, does not prove that pain is not unpleasant. Plato covered this very thoroughly, because at his time there was a believe that pleasure was nothing but a relief from pain This would imply that all pleasure comes from pain, and pain is a necessary requirement for pleasure. as the pleasure comes from the relief which is actually the pain ending.

But Plato demonstrated how there is pleasure which does not require pain. What this indicates is that "pain" is not a proper opposite to pleasure. However, it does not demonstrate that pain does not consist of unpleasantness. Unpleasantness may still be posited as the proper opposite to pleasure, and since there are unpleasant feelings which are not pain, pleasure may be derived as a relief from these feelings rather than from a relief from pain.

Pain is a sensation directed at the host attending to an injury. — AmadeusD

Oh good, here's a sort of definition. It's not adequate though, for two very important reasons. First, 'the sensation of an injury' does not suffice because there are many internal pains like headache, stomachache, commonly called "pains" which are not due to injury. Second there are many instances when "the host attending to an injury" does not involve pain. If we look at natural healing, the first and most obvious is coma. Also, in the natural process of healing a wound there is always much time with no pain, and often an itch (which is not pain) develops. Further, there are unnatural instances, when the injury does not cause pain, such as the use of painkillers. They are called "painkillers", not "host attending to an injury killers", because they do not prevent the host from attending to the injury. In other words, it should be very clear to you now, that there is no specific sensation associated with "attending to an injury", so this would make a very faulty definition of pain.

It's a tricky thing. I absolutely, almost sexually, enjoy the pain of scalding water on the tops of my hands, my inner thighs, behind my shoulders and right on my hip bones (to the point that i had very midly burned myself many times in pursuit of it (opportunistic pursuit, to be sure)). It is definitely pain. But it is definitely not unpleasant. Its a tool telling me to stop fucking running scalding water on myself lmao. EVENTUALLY this can get unpleasant - as, when my skin starts melting, my brain kicks it up a few notches. Fair, too. I'm not exactly the most caring about my own body in this way. I self harmed for years. another notch on this club. — AmadeusD

Finally, an example for me to look at. What you are doing with this example, is taking your faulty definition of pain, "the host attending to an injury", and saying, 'I have had injury before, without unpleasantness, therefore pain, which is the sensation of the host attending to an injury does not require unpleasantness. I think we've all experienced injury without pain. Sometimes, I'll accidentally cut myself without even noticing it, until I see blood. So all your example really does, is prove that your definition is wrong. We can, and do, have injury without pain, and your example is a demonstration of this this. So this is just more evidence that there is no specific sensation which can be defined as the host attending to an injury, as injury causes many different sensations, crossing all sorts of boundaries.

I just like pointing out how the semiotic approach goes further in emphasising that our model of the world is also the model of "ourselves in the world". — apokrisis

I don't think this is really the case, and that is why this sort of discussion goes on forever. Our model of the world is one put together through the scientific method of experimentation and observation. The model of ourselves in the world is based in principles of moral philosophy, because it must include intention motivation, politics and other human interactions. These two types of models are very far apart.

Clearly, as between you and I, there is not a 1:1 match between pain and "unpleasantness". — AmadeusD

For sure, there are many types of unpleasantness, and not every one is pain. "Unpleasant" is the wider concept. So not all unpleasantness is pain, but all pain involves unpleasantness.

Pain (i.e a sensation that indicates injury - physical, or mental (but mental is awhole different discussion I think)) doesn't, inherently, mean displeasure. Maybe that's clearer? — AmadeusD

No, not any clearer at all. I think you misunderstood what I meant when I said that unpleasantness inheres within the definition of pain. "Inheres" means existing within something, as an essential property. What this means is that pain implies unpleasantness, because one cannot have pain without unpleasantness. But the inverse is not implied, unpleasantness does not imply pain, because there is unpleasantness which does not involve pain, so pain does not inhere within the definition of unpleasantness.

Perhaps you need to maintain my position (that pain is mental) to support the idea that pain is inherently unpleasant, as clearly, to the injury part (i.e the "physical" aspect of pain) this is patently not hte case. — AmadeusD

We are not talking about the physical aspect of pain. We are talking about pain. I went through this already. There is understood to be a sensory aspect of pain and an affective aspect of pain. You want to focus on the sensory aspect, but just because there is a sensory aspect does not mean that the affective aspect is not a real, and necessary part of pain. Have you not researched those two aspects yet?

No, everything you just said is incorrect. There aren't two systems of value at all. I think you have gotten very much the wrong end of the stick again, but somehow it's an entirely different end than you had before. I'm starting to wonder what shape this stick is. Let me try to explain again. — Dan

I don't know Dan, you presented me with the stick. I tried both ends, and still get it wrong, maybe it's time to go sideways.

What is of moral value is the ability of persons to understand and make their own choices. The extent to which this is protected or restricted/violated determines whether some set of consequences is good or bad. For example, if I steal your car, then i have restricted your ability to understand and make choices regarding your car, which you own, so this is bad. If I save your life from an alligator, I have protected your ability to choose whether you want to live, so this is good. — Dan

Now we're right back to the original problem. I think the stick is circular, we've gone right around the bend, and we're back at the beginning What is of moral value to me, is to make my own choices, my free choice. But that includes the possibility of choosing to steal your car, or throw you to the alligators. When I told you this, you wanted to restrict this value, to choices which "belong" to me, meaning concerning what is mine. So that is how you define "one's own choice".

But this means choosing to save you from the alligators has no value to me, because it is not a choice which belongs to me. Now you include others, and say that their ability to make their own choices is also to be protected, and, " The extent to which this is protected or restricted/violated determines whether some set of consequences is good or bad." But this still does not provide me with the principle require to save you from the alligators. What gives me the right to make a choice which does not belong to me? Making such choices is not protected, and if you move to protect them, I may choose to throw you to the alligators instead.

Do you see what I mean? My freedom to choose what belongs to me is protected. But for me to choose to protect someone else's freedom to choose what belongs to them, this is not a protected choice. However, it is necessary for me to make choices which do not belong to me, in order for me to do morally good deeds. So that restriction, the restriction which limits my protected choices to those which belong to me, must be bad itself. And now we're right back to the beginning, where protecting one's freedom of choice meant protecting ones right to choose anything.

We can't have it both ways. If restricting one's freedom, to only choices which belong to the person, is good, then we cannot base good and bad on whether or not a persons freedom is restricted. You first assumed that this was not a restriction, just a type of freedom, but when I pressed you, you recognized that it really is a restriction. Now, since it is a restriction, and it is a good restriction, we cannot base moral good and bad on whether freedom is restricted.

You ought to see the vicious circle you put us into. First you say that a person's freedom to make one's own choices is good. Then you say "one's own" means concerning only their own body and property. Then you want to allow that saving someone from the alligators, a choice which is not one's own choice, is also good, so you allow that making a choice which does not belong to the person is also good, so long as it protects another's ability to make own's own choice. But this circling back has undermined your primary principle, because we now we have to allow that making a choice which is not one's own choice, is also good, and might even be better than making one's own choice. Therefore we must conclude that the primary premise, that a person's ability to make one's own choices is what needs to be protected is faulty. We need to premise instead, that one's ability to make choices, whether the choices belong to them or not, needs to be protected, if we want to proceed with consequentialism.

Yes, the person's ability to make this decision is not inherently valuable. However, the value is in the choices that belong to the people who may lose their sight/life. Again, to compare to another form of consequentialism. The decision whether to flip the switch in the trolley problem isn't valuable according to utilitarianism. The world wouldn't be missing out on any value were you not able to make that decision because no one was on the tracks in the first place. Rather, the value is in the lives of the people being saved. Likewise, the value here is not in your ability to make a decision regarding other people's freedom, it is in those people's freedom. — Dan

I think I now see what's going on, thanks to @AmadeusD. You have two distinct value systems. One is "moral value" based in consequentialism, and the other is the value of a person's ability to understand and make their own decisions. The problem is, as I've been saying from the beginning of the thread, that these two, consequentialism based principles, and freedom based principles, are "incompatible". But now that we have progressed toward looking at these principles in terms of "values", the better word might be "incommensurable". So, we have the situation where the value of one cannot be measured by the same scale as the value of the other, and this indicates the the two are categorically different.

To put this in perspective, with your example, let's consider that all people have freedom to understand and make there own decisions. And, any individual can scale and value the decisions which one makes. That is how a person decides, through some priority system. Also, since everyone has such freedom, and one's own system for deciding, we need a scale of value to relate one person's freedom and decisions to another person's. These two are very different, how I value and scale my own freedom and decisions, and how I relate two or more people's freedom and decisions.

Let's call the latter, relating a number of peoples freedom and decisions, to each other, as "moral" value. The reason I got so confused was that you were saying that the former, the value of one's freedom to make one's own decisions constituted "moral relevance". So let's give this value a different name. I propose we call this "intellectual value". So the value of a person's ability to understand and make ones own decisions, is called "intellectual value", and the value of one person's decisions in relation to others is called "moral value".

Would you agree that it might be helpful if we look at things under these distinct terms, so that I don't get confused? Then in your example, each person involved has one's own intellectual value, and the question you are asking does not concern the intellectual value of one person, the person in the position of making that choice, but it concerns moral value, which is a relationship of the intellectual values of all the people involved.

No. No it's not. I have given plenty of examples which violate this definition. It is inapt. Pain is not inherently unpleasant. If that were the case, the examples i've given would not obtain. I think what you meant to discuss is discomfort. I tried to lead you here... Discomfort is inherently uncomfortable. Pain is not. — AmadeusD

Huh. I think that's a very strange thing to say. Unpleasantness is exactly what "pain" indicates to me. It refers to a wide range of unpleasant feelings, just like the dictionary states. What does "pain" mean to you? Does it simply mean the sensation of touch? Are all touches painful to you, or do you have a way to distinguish a painful feeling from a not painful feeling?

Again, I have been saying that decisions which belong to other people are valuable all along. What I have been saying is not valuable is one person's ability to make choices which don't belong to them. — Dan

Isn't this what the example is, a person faced with making a choice which does not belong to that person, because it concerns the lives of others? And isn't this what you say is not valuable?

The decision between one happening and the other is morally important because it leads to bad consequences, not for the person making the choice, but for other people. — Dan

Yes, for the person making the choice, the choice does not concern this person's life, or eyesight, so the choice does not belong to the person who is making the choice. Therefore by the principle stated above, this choice is not valuable.

By "value scale" do you mean any moral principles at all, or do you mean something else? Those two definitely are relevant, as both make the application of moral principles relevant. That isn't what consequentialism is and there isn't really a conflict there. — Dan

I mean any type of value judgement, from moral to numerical. The thing to be judged must first be categorized to determine what sort of scale is applicable. So for example, are we judging temperature, weight, volume, etc..

In the case of your example, the person is faced with making a choice concerning the life and eyes of others, so that choice does not belong to that person. Therefore, as you say it is not morally valuable. However, I suggest that perhaps there is another type of scale by which it could be judged.

Can you perhaps lay out which two aspects you're referring to, in terms of the scientific understanding? — AmadeusD

I told you already. The two aspects are known scientifically as the sensory aspect of pain and the affective aspect of pain. If you research those to names you'll find plenty of information.

Though pain undeniably has a discriminatory aspect, what makes it special is its affective-motivational quality of hurting.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149763408001188

Not really, but I think pain from sensory input and pain with no sensory input are the same thing from different sources. The experience is the same. — AmadeusD

I was talking about the unpleasantness of pain. This is what makes it so that we cannot say that pain is simply sensory. Did you not read my example of sweetness? The taste of "sweet" is not defined as a pleasant or enjoyable taste, and sweet is simply a sensory experience. But if "sweet" was defined as a pleasant sensory experience, then it would be in the same category as "pain" which is defined as unpleasant.

This does not seem true to me. — AmadeusD

The definition of pain in my OED is: "1a the range of unpleasant bodily sensations produced by illness or by harmful physical contact, etc.."

Notice, "unpleasant" is the defining aspect of pain, sensations which are unpleasant. If you do not acknowledge this, then you and I will always be talking about different ideas when using the word "pain". And we' will be forever talking past each other in any discussion like this because I will refuse to accept the contradictory idea of pain which is not unpleasant.

Here there's the possibility of a descent into a kind of degenerative recursiveness, the artist viewing their relationship with their subject matter through the eyes of their audience viewing the artist's relationship with their subject matter etc, a kind of hall of mirrors effect that distances the artist from the source of their art. — Baden

I wouldn't call it a hall of mirrors, but more like a relation of reciprocation. Each back and forth comes with a change. That change ought to be increased knowledge.

In my mind, the solution is that for this type of "knowing" to work it should be purely intuitive and incidental rather than purposeful and deliberative. — Baden

In some ways I would agree with this. However, if we start with the assumption that "pure art" is solely a relationship between the artist and the medium, allowing that the only purpose which the artist proceeds with is to please oneself through experimentation with the medium, we are bound to encounter boredom. So I think that even within what might be called "pure art", there is the desire to please others. This is a base inclination which the artist may block, to avoid manipulation, but it still inheres as a source of inspiration. And, I think that this becomes a very critical and difficult balance for many artists, the balance between the desire to please oneself and the desire to please others. It has many facets. At the base level, the desire to please others may provide for manipulation, while the desire to please oneself may lead into a creative rut, but the reciprocation effect may mix this all up, with the influence of other interests, so that for example, the desire to please others may be replaced with a desire to make money, which is fundamentally a desire to please oneself, but in relation to interests other than the art. And this in turn could lead to the creative rut.

That entirely depends on the legal system. The same decision that may be a non-issue in one jurisdiction will result in a lengthy prison sentence in another jurisdiction. That is why jurisdiction shopping is such an important tool. — Tarskian

The problem with this point of view is that it assumes to know the type of legal action which will be applied, before hand. This implies that the person doing jurisdiction shopping intends wrongdoing from the beginning. However, you present the issue as if it is honest mistakes that would be made, which would bring about unwanted legal action, and these would be completely accidental.

The two are inconsistent. If a person going about one's life in a normal way, brings about unwanted legal action against oneself, due to honest mistake, and completely accidental circumstances, then that person would have no way to know in advance what sort of jurisdiction to shop for, being completely unaware of what sort of misadventure one might wander into. If the person is doing jurisdiction shopping, then they know what type of so-called "mistakes" they will be engaging in, and they plan to find somewhere that they can get away with these mistakes without legal ramifications.

Since you seem to be very focused on jurisdiction shopping, instead of focusing on limiting risk through understanding, care, and temperance, as the appropriate means for avoiding unwanted legal action, it appears like you are actively promoting intentional wrongdoing.

I don't agree that a pure medium can provide coherency where none comes from the artist's connection with their subject matter. — Baden

Some don't apprehend the coherency, others do. This is why ideas are fundamentally subjective, some see meaning where others do not, and this serves in the creation of ideas.

Incoherency in that respect to me must always be only apparent incoherency if it's to remain art. Otherwise, there's no way to distinguish random sounds from art. — Baden

Yes, I think that is exactly the point. The incoherency must be considered as 'it's incoherent to me, but maybe someone else can grasp the coherency'. Now, we can allow a blurring of the boundary between the aspects of coherency added (intentionally) by the artist, and those provided already by the medium. The artist may intentionally add things which may appear to some as incoherency within the medium. In Aristotelian words, accidentals are proper to the material aspect, but even the accidents have some form, so they are fundamentally intelligible. Then the basic intelligibility of the medium, which to many would appear unintelligible, can be mixed with the intelligibility of the form added by the artist. The skilled surrealist will completely hide the boundary between form provided by the intention of the artist, and form provided as inherent in the matter of the medium.

This can be called "understanding the medium" and in this way the artist knows the matter of the medium better than the scientist knows that matter, through observation and apprehension of how the accidental coherencies can mix with the intentional coherencies within a newly created object. The scientific observations are limited to judgements of consistent/not consistent with the theory. But the artist is not confined to those restrictions and can consider the raw perceptual response of human beings,

We can understood this allegorically as a sort of harmony which is not included in the applied theory of harmony. Take the example of music. The beat is given by a combination of the tempo and the time signature. This provides a formula for frequency, call it beats per minute. The musical notes also provide a formula for frequency, call it Hertz, or cycles per second. In theory, we could apply theories of harmony, and experiment to see how these frequencies sync up in harmony. But I don't think there is any such theory, only the experimentation by artists as to which beats harmonize better with which keys. Further, in a similar way the artist can cross boundaries between distinct media, to experiment with completely unknown coherencies. The wavelengths of colour for example, are actually frequencies, which may display harmonic properties with specific tones.

Those are just examples of how the artist is free to experiment with hidden coherencies undisclosed by theory. Of course the expression here is a sort of theory, so it defeats the purpose, because what I am talking about is coherencies which are truly unknown, hidden from all theory. However, it is given as an example of how it is possible that experimentation in abstract art, can expose through the observation of human response, coherencies which are completely hidden and unknown. Theory must be derived from somewhere.

Art to me is what results from a special connection between artist and world that the listener, reader, viewer etc can access through a given medium. But the connection is the origin of the art not the medium — Baden

Yes, that connection is the origin of the art, but we must consider the priority of the medium. The connection between the artist and the world is a very special type of relation in which the artist has a unique understanding of the medium, or media. The uniqueness of that understanding is displayed by the uniqueness of the art. However, I do believe we can apply some generalizations. To begin with, that unique understanding is a type of understanding of the response of the audience (listener, reader, viewer, etc.) to the medium. So the first principle is that the audience is not responding to the work of the artist, rather they are responding to the effects of the medium. The artist then designs an effective way to deliver the medium. So what you describe as "a special connection between artist and world", is better described as the artist's understanding of the connection between the audience and the world. What a good artist knows, is how to present (give) the world to the audience. That is why true art is best known as an act of unconditional love.

You cannot just take the initiative to try something, no matter how minor or innocuous, and hope that things will go alright because even though your attempt was undoubtedly expected, it may not be well received, and any such failed attempt is already potentially a serious legal matter. — Tarskian

So a person should avoid ever trying anything new in one's life if one doesn't want the potential for a serious legal matter? Don't even go out the door, it's simply not worth the risk. How could you ever find that land of milk and honey, where you can do whatever you want and not worry about legal consequences, if you're so afraid to do anything that you can't even leave your house?

What I have found to be useful for more automatic drawing by myself is music. This can allow for a degree of altered consciousness for accessing the imagination, almost as lucid dreaming. The ideal would be to incorporate dream images but it can be difficult to remember the details but I would like to experiment with this more. The process of this, like dream journaling may lead to greater coherency of one's own inner symbolic narratives. — Jack Cummins

I've heard musicians talk about how dreams inspire composition. But I think it's the opposite of leading to greater coherency. There is something very appealing about incoherency, and the incoherency in dreams provides fodder. Notice how you say that some artists get very abstract "to the point of incoherency". The point of incoherency is a boundary which can be pushed, and the further you push the boundary the more you rely on the underlying coherency of the medium itself (which I spoke of in the last post). So the aspects of the work, provided by the artist's creative mind, might be totally incoherent, but some form of coherency, enough to keep the work interesting, is provided simply by the medium. So for example, some very experimental rock and roll, which is totally distortion and weird effects. The artist provides little in the way of coherent music, relying instead on the sounds produced by the various special effects equipment.

It's the same in business. If I suspect that a business deal will lead to a court case, I won't do it or I will do it with someone else, or possibly in another jurisdiction. — Tarskian

Why would you suspect that dating would lead to a court case, unless you were planning on doing something wrong on that date?

Part of the approach draws upon Freud's understanding of the unconscious and one aspect of this is the idea of automatic drawing and writing. This does involve the generation of ideas and symbols. Of course, this does relate to the whole tradition of fantasy and the unconscious, including James Joyce's idea of the 'stream of consciousness' and the writings of WB Yeats, including his ' A Vision'. — Jack Cummins

There is a fun experiment which one can do as an artist. You take a blank canvas, an array of colours, and proceed to produce a painting, without any specific vision, no intent, goal, or plan. The artist can produce a very beautiful masterpiece in this way, simply forming things as one goes, in a method of pure spontaneity. Depending on how the artist's mind works, the piece produced may display a total lack of coherency, or great coherency, and this judgement might vary according to various observers. This is a significant demonstration concerning the nature of "coherency", which is the basic feature of an idea.

This produces the question of where, and what, is coherency. We tend to see coherency in a collection of symbols, but that is supposed to be a representation of the coherency within the mind. But the coherency in the mind is represented by the pattern in the collection of symbols. So we can look at one individual symbol, one particular aspect of the work, and ask whether there is coherency within the individual unit or aspect. If there is, and this coherency came from within the mind, then it would be need to be represented by distinct parts being related. But we've already found the fundamental aspect, the unit, as the symbol. And to be a unit it must have coherency. Therefore we need to conclude that there is coherency which inheres within the symbol itself. This is what we observe as natural beauty, the coherency which inheres within the medium as having a symbolic nature of its own. The paint has beauty even without the work of the artist.

The capacity to uphold a "no" is the most significant moral challenge that there is. It is called "will power", and if we all had it we could make our vises disappear into thin air, and we'd float to heaven as angels. You are recommending four nos which means quadruple the effort of what most of us have difficulty doing once.

But in the fine print, you are not really insisting on nos, you are suggesting that we go off somewhere else, and do it where no one is looking. What kind of life is that, a life of deception?

The choice to continue using one's own eyes, or to continue living, are both valuable, and we are faced with a choice between protecting one or the other. — Dan

That's not true though. The choice is not about one's own eyes, or one's own life, That's why the choice does not belong to the person, it's about what belongs to others.

Your second point is again, completely misunderstanding everything I have said up until this point. I do wonder whether it is intentional. First, me explaining how I was using morally relevant in a specific context and pointing out that it is not the same way you were using it in your objection is quite the opposite of equivocation. Second, and more importantly, you are conflating the measure of value and the moral decision. Again,it is as if you are claiming that a utilitarian shouldn't care about a decision (no matter how important) if it doesn't make them happy. That is beside the point. — Dan

We are not talking about utilitarian principles, we are talking about the principles you have presented in your freedom consequentialism primer. You very explicitly stated that a person only has freedom to make decisions which belong to the person. This did not make sense to me, so when I questioned this principle, you said that a person is actually free to make those decisions concerning things not belonging to oneself, but such decisions are not morally relevant, they have no moral value, and therefore this is not the type of freedom that you are interested in protecting.

Now, you've turned everything around, and you seem to be arguing that decisions which do not belong to the person, decisions about the belongings of others, do have moral relevance, and ought to be valued, so that certain decisions would be valued over others. I'm sorry to have to bring this to your attention, but you just do not have the principles required to answer the question of the example. In fact, your principles actually exclude the possibility of there being an answer. You have explicitly excluded moral value from choices not concerning what belongs to the decision maker.

There are other people in the world. In this case, it the freedom of the people whose eyesight and/or life is in the balance that is important, but the decision is important because it leads to one of them being protected or not. — Dan

I can't believe you are actually saying this now. You have very clearly stated that decisions which do not belong to oneself have no moral value, and are therefore excluded from the type of freedom of choice which is relevant. Now you are trying to say that this type of decision can be important. I think you need to go back to the drawing board And please take my advice. You need to allow that choices which do not "belong" to the person are morally valuable, morally relevant, and also constitute a part of a person's freedom of choice which needs to be protected.

First, determining that it has no inherent moral value requires evaluation using moral principles. — Dan

This is not true at all. Prior to evaluating something through the use of a value scale, we must judge the type of scale which is applicable. This is a different sort of judgement, a judgement of category, and once the category is decided, the scale which is suited to the category can be applied. So the judgement that something has no inherent moral value is a judgement that the moral scale is not applicable, it is not a judgement derived from the application of a moral scale. When the scale is applied, what is returned is a value, unless it is found out that the scale is not applicable. But when the scale is found to be not applicable, this cannot be said to be an application of the scale.

Second, it might have instrumental value. Third, it might have disvalue. — Dan

These two do not seem relevant.

Fourth, under most consequentialist theories, moral decisions don't themselves have inherent value, but they can still be evaluated inasmuch as they lead to consequences which have moral value (this isn't really the same as having instrumental value in terms of being able to make the decision being instrumentally valuable). — Dan

This is the issue with consequentialism which I brought up, way back. This issue points to the incompatibility between a freedom based morality and a consequence based morality. One bases its principles in the act of choosing, while the other bases its principles in the observed effects of choices. The act of choosing is a view toward the future, while observations of effects is a view of the past. We cannot say that they are two sides of the same coin because neither can account for the reality of the present, and this is what keeps the two as incompatible.

Also, there is a lot of moral value at issue here, specifically value of persons to decide whether they want to continue seeing/living that we are deciding between. — Dan

Again, you repeat the same falsity, the misrepresentation. It is not a question of do I want to continue seeing and living, it is a question of deciding whether others ought to continue seeing and living. And by your stated principles this is a very big difference. The former is a question which belongs to a person, and the latter does not belong to the person. By your principles, the latter has no moral value and is not morally relevant.

You seem to keep getting caught on words that you insist I am using in ways that I'm just not. In this case, the person's choice between people dying and people losing their eyesight isn't something that belongs to the person making it, so them being able to make that choice is not inherently valuable. — Dan

OK, the choice is not the type of choice which ought to be protected, nor is it inherently valuable, so why care about it? The example is a ruse. You are asking how to evaluate a choice which inherently has no value. That's illogical.

If they weren't able to make that choice (say, because no one's sight or life was in danger) then that wouldn't be a bad thing. But none of that means they can't or shouldn't make it or that such a choice is not morally relevant in the sense that you are using the term. — Dan

We cannot switch to my sense of "morally relevant", that would be equivocation. If we adhere to your principles, the choice has no moral value, it need not be protected, therefore we do not care about it. The person can choose to do anything in that situation, or even nothing, and it really does not matter to us. We would be wasting our time considering this example, thinking about a choice which by the conditions of your principles, has no value. Likewise, if a person was actually in that situation, they could choose whatever they want, even nothing, because the options cannot be evaluated from moral principles, inherently having no moral value.

If you want to create a system for evaluating this type of choice, you need to propose other principles, and a completely different system. That's what I mean when I said that you have made morality prior to freedom, by using moral principles to determine "free choices", now you want another system posterior to freedom to judge choices which have now been excluded from the class of "free choices". But we cannot use "morally relevant" here, or any of those terms, "rights" etc., which have been used in the system of prior logic, because then there would be ambiguity and equivocation.

I meant that their ability to understand and make that choice did not have inherent moral value, — Dan

See what I mean? If the choice has no inherent moral value, then we cannot evaluate it using moral principles. Moral principles apply to situations which have moral value. Now that you've removed the moral value from that type of situation, if you want a system for evaluating it, we need a system other than a moral system. What should we propose?

Let me ask you this. How does that choice, in your example "belong" to the person in the example? The choice which belongs to the person, is one which concerns what belongs to the person. But the choice in the example concerns the life and sight of other people. Therefore by your principles the person in the example is not free to make that choice.

This is the problem of basing freedom in choices which belong to the individual. You say that this restricts freedom to choices which are morally relevant, but in reality it does the opposite. By already restricting "freedom" through the application of moral principles, such that a free choice is a correct choice by those principles (a choice which belongs to the person), you have placed "moral relevance" as logically prior to freedom. Now you want to apply a second level of moral relevance as posterior to your defined sense of "freedom" which is already restricted by a moral principle.

However, your primary restriction, which restricts a free choice to one which belongs to the person, disallows any real moral relevance for such a "free" choice. "Moral relevance" refers to choices which one makes concerning others, and the property of others (should I steal your car?). But you've already excluded the possibility of any moral relevance from any free choice by defining a free choice as "a choice of what to do with something that belongs to that person, specifically their mind, body, and property". Now, by the terms of your conditions, a person is not free to make a choice concerning the life or sight of others. And your example is of a choice which the person is not free to make.

Not only that, but colour is far more complicated than your simple description. Our eyes are never receiving one simple wavelength of radiation from an object. there is always a mixture to be discerned. Mixing is the art of the artist. A red object is not simply an object emitting or reflecting light photons only at some specific point between 650 and 700 nanometers. And the dress is a fine example of the problems we may encounter dealing with the mixing of radiation.

Take a look around your field of vision, and notice all the different colours, flowers are great and may make you wonder how evolution produced such an array of beauty, The human eye is capable of discerning millions of different colours, and this is not a matter of there being an infinite number of points between 400 and 700 on the number line, it is a matter of mixing. On top of all that mixing of photons with different wavelengths (if "photons with different wavelengths" makes any logical sense), there is the matter of non-mixing, the boundaries we see.

At the edge of each object there is a boundary, and there is background radiation, foreground radiation, radiation coming from the right and from the left, with an endless number of boundaries in a common field of vision. The capacity to perceive boundaries is the most fascinating aspect of the sense of vision. Because we can discern such a huge number of differences in the various mixtures, a slight change to that mixture is evident as a boundary. The boundaries give us the impression of objects. But what exactly is a boundary? A non-dimensional point of difference? A one-dimensional line of difference? A two-dimensional angle, or three-dimensional corner of difference? Of course it's not an angle or corner at all, it's curved in some way. And what lies behind that boundary, to the inside of the object, where light doesn't seem to be able to penetrate?

I really think this discussion would go smoother if you read more of the primer I wrote to begin with. — Dan

I have made it through to the end of the primer now.

The issue is with deciding how to balance different people's freedom to do different things against each other. — Dan

I don't understand how this could be an issue. You have already claimed to restrict "freedom" to those choices which belong to the person. If the choice involves doing something "against" another, how could that choice belong to the person?

Perhaps I misunderstand, but a person making a decision must use one's own thoughts, therefore one's own principles (whether they are common principles or not), so a person can only make one's own choice, and if another influences that choice, we'd have to question whether the choice made, truly belongs to the person. So we really cannot balance one person's freedom in relation to another's because freedom only relates to choice which belong to oneself. Don't you think so?

I'm not sure what you mean by finding either strength or weakness in belonging or how we would find that. Also, I'm not sure why how often people's freedom is restricted would determine the extent to which that choice belongs to them. — Dan

The problem here is that you have introduced me to this concept, of a choice which "belongs" to a person. It is entirely new to me, and you have really not made it very clear. For example, what exactly are the criteria which determines that the choice belongs to the person? Because you haven't provided me with clear meaning on that concept, I'm sort of playing a guessing game as to what constitutes a choice that belongs to the person.