I'm fine with the possibility of an objective morality existing just haven't found proof yet — khaled

As it happens, I'm not fine with objective morality existing, but the main point is the end of your sentence. When it comes to being objective about things, there is no proof that is accessible to humans, nor will there ever be. So we need a way to continue without proof. Personally, I don't think nihilism is the way. I think accepting uncertainty, and learning to deal with it honestly and openly, is the way. But that's just me. :smile:

Inaccessible and non-existent are two quite different things. :chin: — Pattern-chaser

Yes the belief is that it is non-existent or if it existent that it is inaccessible. There has been no proof that an objective value/knowledge/morality exists and so claiming that they do not should be rational in the same way that I can say "The flying spaghetti monster doesn't exist". Obviously, it COULD exist but since there is no proof people would just say it doesn't — khaled

"People" might do this, but I would choose not to. That may be because I'm autistic, but it may also be because I don't like to knowingly tell lies, even this sort of lie. If it COULD exist, then - IMO, and bearing in mind that this is a philosophy discussion forum - we should not say that it DOESN'T. [Nor should we say that it DOES, of course! :smile: ] We should tell the truth, and express what we do know, which is that WE DON'T KNOW. This is honest and correct, so it is unlikely to mislead us in our future reasoning, eh? :up:

I mean to say that adopting my "beliefs" will save the world. I'm not asking - I'm telling. — karl stone

I've always found One Truthers scary. :scream: Discussion is pointless. :fear: Shame. :roll: — Pattern-chaser

I'm not a "one truther." — karl stone

Then why are you 'telling, not asking', as you say? :chin: You are not open to comments that don't support your preferred course. You are not open to anything that doesn't support your preferred course. Is this not your One Truth, alternatives to which you will not discuss or consider? That's how it looks.

Okay Pattern, tell me - what happens when enough people don't sign up for your approach? — karl stone

Nothing. This is a discussion forum. I'm not out to convert anyone to a radical course. This topic asks how to save the world, and I (and others) have offered alternatives that you seem unwilling to consider. So tell me, what happens when enough people don't sign up for your approach? Nothing, I imagine...? :chin:

Or killing everyone! — karl stone

I note just one last time: no-one has suggested killing. Except you. The human race could be got rid of, if that is our aim, by simply preventing us breeding. There is no need/call for piles of bodies. Straw man. :roll:

I mean to say that adopting my "beliefs" will save the world. I'm not asking - I'm telling. — karl stone

I've always found One Truthers scary. :scream: Discussion is pointless. :fear: Shame. :roll:

The belief that an objective value/knowledge/morality is non existent — khaled

Inaccessible and non-existent are two quite different things. :chin:

Subjectivity is quite solipsistic — Andrew4Handel

Not in my view it ain't. :wink: Solipsism is one of the many viewpoints that could glory (?) in the label "subjective", but it doesn't work the other way around, I don't think.

Since out of nothing, nothing comes... — LD Saunders

Oh really? I understand our latest formulation of the big bang as something emerging from nothing, if 'quantum foam' is nothing.... :chin:

There's a fair amount of unravelling to do here. This topic asks "How to save the world?". The question that sits just before that one is: WHY does the world need saving? And I don't think that answer to that one is contentious, or one that anyone here would argue with: humans are the problem. — Pattern-chaser


I'd argue against it. It's too simplistic. It implies we have no choice but to destroy the environment, but that's not so. The reason we have had such a detrimental impact on the environment is because our relationship to science is wrong, as explained above. — karl stone

You'd argue against it .. by pointing out that, while it's actually true, and you aren't and can't argue against it, it's all our fault for not treating science correctly. :chin: Is that it? :chin:

VHEMT, for example, ask people not to breed, they don't recommend mass extermination. Nor do I. — Pattern-chaser

So, besides not eating meat, cycling to work, wearing my overcoat indoors - now you're telling me my kids are a problem. I say this without malice - but fuck you. Live your life as you choose - and bon voyage, but don't tell me that I'm not worthy of existence - because I fucking well am. — karl stone

I'm neither telling nor asking you to do anything at all. Why do you think I am? :chin:

I especially didn't tell you that you are not worthy of existence. I think you are worthy of existence, but I've been wrong before....

I have observed that humans are the cause of the world's problems - which we are, sadly :fear: - and that one way to sure most of the world's problems would be to get rid of us. [N.B. getting rid of us is most easily achieved by stopping us from breeding, not by killing us all. As you say, this is impractical.] But that's not the only possible solution, and it's not one that I personally recommend. But you have created a thread asking how to save the world. Some things that would save the world provoke anger and insults from you. Why is this? Do you mean to ask how the world might be saved if we all stick to your beliefs?

Talking with anyone about anything is a social activity. So philosophy, when it is discussed with others, is one too. The argument that social skills will enhance your 'social-philosophy' seems convincing. But you can indulge in philosophy anyway. It's just that social skills could help. :up:

Solar/hydrogen is the best all round solution.
— karl stone

That, or fewer people? :chin: If there were no humans none of the issues we're discussing would have become problematic, would they? So focus clearly on the elephant in this topic: humans are the problem. The topic asks "how to save the world?", and there is an obvious answer.... :gasp: — Pattern-chaser


If that's what you truly believe - kill yourself! You are the only person on earth you have a right to say shouldn't exist. No? Hypocrite! — karl stone

There's a fair amount of unravelling to do here. This topic asks "How to save the world?". The question that sits just before that one is: WHY does the world need saving? And I don't think that answer to that one is contentious, or one that anyone here would argue with: humans are the problem.

No-one mention killing anyone, although that is certainly one possibility. VHEMT, for example, ask people not to breed, they don't recommend mass extermination. Nor do I. Oh, and please don't ask me questions, then answer them yourself. As straw-man attacks go, I suppose it's efficient, but it's usually considered necessary/appropriate for your correspondent(s) to make their own mistakes, not for you to make them on their behalf, and then debunk them! :razz:

Well seven or eight thousand million of us does seem like too many, don't you think? As the rest of the world - and the remains of its living population - sees us, we are a plague species; a catastrophe for the world and all the creatures in it. If we can't learn to share the world with the other creatures that live here, there seems little point in discussing a hydrogen-powered future. :chin:

VHEMT

Solar/hydrogen is the best all round solution. — karl stone

That, or fewer people? :chin: If there were no humans none of the issues we're discussing would have become problematic, would they? So focus clearly on the elephant in this topic: humans are the problem. The topic asks "how to save the world?", and there is an obvious answer.... :gasp:

The person I was responding to was making the case that even mathematical logic has an inherent normative component to it. Really all I was saying is that there are different senses to "logic" and the norms for correct reasoning is only one sense, it doesn't subsume the others.

I don't think FOPL really captures the intuitive reasoning we're drawn to either, I don't [think] any logic does. That's why people get tripped up by things like the material implication paradoxes or find "ex falso quodlibet" strange, because they don't map onto how we actually reason. FOPL is really, I think, about capturing a certain type of mathematical reasoning, as that was explicitly why Frege created it. — MindForged

Well that about captures what I might've said, only better, so I don't need to bother. :smile: :up:

In order for God to become omniscient he had to overcome philosophical skepticism. Presumably the same philosophical problems of skepticism that apply to us also apply to a supposedly omniscient god. How does God know he's not a brain in vat? How does God know there is an external world? How can God know that there are other minds? How does god justify the presupposition that the future will resemble the past? I mean does the problem of induction not apply to God? — Purple Pond

Why do we - particularly the atheists among us - continue to challenge God and religion by bringing them into a scientific/objective world? God and religion have little or nothing to do with that world. Is this just another God-bashing fest, or is there really a point to it? Atheistic schadenfreude, or something constructive? :chin:

Well, what is logic? If you have 1 smartphone and you get 2 more smartphones, you now have 3 smartphones! That's logic. — Limitless Science

I don't want to be awkward, dismissive or negative, but that's arithmetic, my friend, not logic. :chin:

If your plan is based on "more is inevitable", it isn't a viable plan. We live in an environment with limited and dwindling resources. More is not an option. :chin:

My beef with you is - this is my thread, and thus far you haven't discussed my ideas at all. You keep putting the same idea forward again and again - and ignoring the massive flaws with it, which I've pointed out. Not least, that more is inevitable. — karl stone

We are on a helter-skelter. Jake is concerned about the pit filled with sharpened stakes that we reach when we get to the bottom, and you are observing - probably quite correctly - that we humans are just sliding on down, shouting "faster, faster!". Faster is inevitable! :chin: Yeah, right. :roll:

More is inevitable! — karl stone

Then humans will be extinct within a century or so. :cry: Planetary resources are dwindling. Less is inevitable! You can't have more (say) fresh water if there is no more fresh water to be had. Or if not water then food, clothing, shelter, fuel (of whatever sort) ... or air. :chin: :fear:

Had science been adopted by the Church from 1630 - and pursued, and integrated into philosophy, politics, economics and society on an ongoing basis, individuals would be much more rational. — karl stone

[My emphasis]

Wow! How would this have come to pass, do you think? :chin:

To even apply that logic programmatically, one is going to be using a computer operating with a two-valued logic. What I'm saying is that it's not really an interval of truth values, it's more of a formal trick since in the semantics of fuzzy logic those values disappear, leaving only truth and falsity. — MindForged

Yes. Fuzzy logic was, as I understand it, a means of programming a more flexible arrangement than two-valued logic, using what is available, which is binary logic. It's a way of allowing a computer to reflect real-world conditions that don't really match the computer's inherent abilities. It's a practical compromise.

Yes, I think perhaps the main problem with religion is humans.... :confused:

Stated aims... — karl stone

Then it is difficult to see how you can achieve the stated aims of this thread.... :chin:

"A person who is sensible enough to admit that they have no fu*#i*g clue what is going on in the universe.
Contrary to both a Theist (someone who sits in Church thinking they have shit figured out) and an Atheist (someone who sits at Starbucks thinking they have shit figured out)" — TWI

Yes, that's a good one. :smile: And, just for clarity, that puts me in a Church, which I find a little uncomfortable. I could go with a druid grove, if such are available options? :wink:

Braking is a terrible idea. Slow down, have less? I think NOT! — karl stone

Then it is difficult to see how you can achieve the apparent aims of this thread.... :chin:

Because a post-scarcity society has never existed. — Marchesk

I think you should consider greed to be the reason for this? :chin:

It's a very important argument, but it's a very difficult one to address. You choose to see it as humans continuing to dominate and use our ecosystem exclusively for our own purposes, merely trying to do so with greater efficiency. I see this approach as incomplete, at best. I'm not doodling, I'm frightened. I will be OK (I'm 63 years old), but I suspect my grand-daughter will experience hardship, maybe much worse, in her lifetime.

This is a problem we've been aware of for many years. We just can't help ourselves. We can't stop just taking more and more and more.... There's a brick wall ahead, and we should be braking. But we're still accelerating. In some instances, our acceleration is still increasing! Doodling? I hope not. Terrified? Yes, frankly. :fear:

Einstein said something like "atheism is no belief at all" but I disagree, it is a belief in the non existence of God. — TWI

No, it's not-belief - or non-belief - in the existence of God. Derail here - sorry! :yikes: - but the difference is important. Not being persuaded of the existence of X, and being persuaded of the non-existence of X are very different things. The former is agnostic; the second draws a firm conclusion.

There can be no illusion of an X if there has never been an X. — creativesoul

Unicorn? :razz:

[Kunstler] predicted this would inevitably lead to mass starvation. He was wrong. — karl stone

He was? There have been many mass starvation events in my lifetime, although none of them took place in my own country. <relief> Scarcity of food and water are causing more problems all the time.... :chin:

Dare to hope. — karl stone

A good 'mission statement', provided we are not relying only on hope. :chin: If we hope, but carry on as we have been, well, nothing will change, and hope will achieve nothing? By all means hope, but let's hope that the constructive efforts we make will result in worthwhile change? :wink:

I am understanding these 'subjectivities' as human experiences, or interactions with the world we live in. — Pattern-chaser

I'm loathe to talk about subjectivities in terms of 'experiences', which reeks of a mentalistic vocabulary that I'd prefer to be expunged if at all possible. — StreetlightX

"Experience" is one of those annoying terms we use to mean different but related things. If I witness an event, the event itself can be described as my 'experience'. So can the sensation I have while witnessing the event, and so can my thoughts and feelings that result from witnessing the event. :rage:

You seem to be focussing strongly away from the 'experiencer', on the real world events that resulted in the 'experience'. But I'm still having problems seeing what 'subjectivities' are, and Google has not proved to be my friend in this. :fear:

4. 'Objects' of physiological sensory perception are external to thought/belief. — creativesoul

Do you have an argument to support p4? — Michael

I thought there was such an argument, but (having just tried to describe it), I find I was mistaken. :yikes: The solipsist argument cannot be refuted or disproven. :wink: As long as this is the case, I don't think there can be an argument to support point #4. :chin:

If we want point #4, I think we must declare it as an axiom (assumption; guess).

No one anywhere in philosophy proper has drawn and maintained the distinction between thinking about thought and belief and thought and belief. — creativesoul

No? Thoughts/beliefs are what everyone has, but thinking about thoughts and beliefs is called "philosophy", no? :chin:

Why am I me? Why am I not the person next to me? — JohnLocke

Luck; a dice roll; random chance? :chin:

But maybe not existing is different than being dead. — Marchesk


What would that difference be? — Bitter Crank

That you did exist, as opposed to never having existed. If you did exist, you left a mark, an effect, on the world. You left the world in a different state than it would have been in if you hadn't been there. Not existing, or never having existed, is very different from being dead.

I am understanding these 'subjectivities' as human experiences, or interactions with the world we live in. "Subject" seems to be used in the sense that we studied subjects at school, meaning topics. I'm right so far, yes? :chin:

Of Objectivity:

Suffice it to say that your definition is superb, but unusable (by humans) and impractical for that reason. It has no value to humans because it describes a reference that is (and must remain) unavailable for comparison. A yardstick that cannot be used to measure things.... — Pattern-chaser

It's a conceptual yard-stick e.g., ethics/morality, whose value is symbolic and only manifests in practical reality according to our understanding and consequent application of it. — BrianW

So when I ask you "Am I a brain in a vat?", hoping to take advantage of your apparent access to Objective Reality, you're going to ... refer to your concept of what OR is, and let me know what you think the Objective answer to my question might be? No, I'm sorry, it doesn't work like that. The only piece of Objective knowledge you own - the only piece you ever can or will own - is that Objective Reality exists. You can say nothing more about OR than that. Your "conceptual yardstick" is an attempt to justify some sort of access to OR, when you have none. None. :up:

Objective knowledge is not subject to doubt or challenge; it has only one possible truth value. Please do not pretend to Objectivity, hoping to lend to your outpourings the infallible authority of Objectivity. Your outpourings have no more authority than mine or anyone else's. Sorry. There is no Objectivity for a human; none at all. [Apart from OR actually existing.]