As a general point, it is neither moral nor immoral to break the law. — Pattern-chaser

But this is just a claim. To be true it must be the case there is no overlap between the two concepts, of law and morality. And of course there is. — tim wood

Of course there is. Morality is personal. Laws, properly drafted, are communal; social. Laws, at their best, reflect the consensus morality of the community. But to break the law - our communal average morality - simply leads to a communal punishment of some kind; to break our own personal moral code is to do wrong. And that's the difference between them.

While there are very many acts that are both illegal and immoral, the two remain distinct.

number is real, but transcendent in respect to the physical — Wayfarer

I do not argue against transcendence, but I wonder where it exists, outside of our minds? And I wonder if my answer is "nowhere"?

in order to map and understand what is 'out there' - creating the map, that you say is 'mistaken for the territory' - maths itself has proven indispensable. And maths, furthermore, enables science to predict and discover things which could never be known by observation alone. — Wayfarer

Maths is indispensable because it's a good and well-crafted tool. It's useful. Also in its predictive power, as you say. For those without satnavs, (real physical) maps are equally indispensable, except for those that are navigating a landscape they know pretty well. Maps are good and useful things, and there's no shame in being the map, not the territory. But a motorway is not a blue line on a paper base. A motorway is a real road, and the blue line on the map is a partial representation of a motorway, drawn for the purpose of aiding navigation. And so it does. The map is a valuable thing. It does not contain actual motorways, but suffers no loss of value as a result.

So I think it's not feasible to argue that the relationship between mathematics and nature is merely fortuitous. — Wayfarer

No, not fortuitous. We created maths to be what it is, to do what it does. We made this valuable mapping tool on purpose. It wasn't just luck or random chance.

there is exists this very simple "object" [...] and a map, or plan [...] made of all possible mathematical objects that can be built. — Mephist

And where does this map exist? Where is the 'place' where this map is stored and retained, ready for later use? The only thing I know of that can store an idea is a conscious mind. Perhaps there is some other container that can also achieve this, but what and where is it, this store?

What do you mean by saying humans didn't always have it? What state of homo (whatever) was not conscious? — Unseen

I meant to say that we humans have not always had what we call our conscious minds. Before that, we had minds, of course, but were mainly instinctive, like most other animals. The development of our conscious minds took place somewhere between being slime moulds and reaching the pinnacle of apehood.

There is nothing upon which anyone can do other than to blindly guess if there are any gods or not. — Frank Apisa


That's not correct though. We can base our assertions on evidence, rationality, etc. — Terrapin Station

"We can" - "we are able to". Yes, mostly, or at least often, we are. But often we are not. Rationality is not something we always can, or do, do. ... Perhaps especially when we're thinking about God?

Personally, I use "believe" to describe anything I think is true. I use "know" to describe things that I'm a lot more sure about. But this seems to be a personal convention, even though (in philosophy forums) there is a clear need for these two terms, or two that offer the same semantic functionality.

Your wish to describe wild guesses as wild guesses is commendable; admirable. But your insistence that you don't do believing leads only to confusion, I think, as it isn't 100% clear what you mean by that. Whoever said communication was easy? :wink:

They are not my "beliefs", mostly because I do not do "believing." — Frank Apisa

Then what word (label) do you use to describe the things you think you know?

↪Noah Te Stroete Wtf are you doing on this forum? — Nicholas Ferreira

Philosophy?

“1”, “+”, “=“, and “2” have specific meanings by convention. So, “1+1=2” is a tautology. It has to be true given the meanings of the terms used. There is nothing to prove. — Noah Te Stroete

Yes, once we have accepted the axioms and theorems of set theory, number theory and arithmetic, we find that "1 + 1 = 2" is defined to be true. It cannot but be true.

some people - me - think there is an ineliminable increment of immorality in breaking the law, which translates to, it is immoral to break the law. And pretty much everyone else mocks that position. — tim wood

As a general point, it is neither moral nor immoral to break the law. But sadly, the reasoning behind this is trivial. A criminal breaks the law; her actions are illegal. A bad person does what is morally wrong; her actions are immoral. Of course, some actions will be immoral, some illegal, some both, and some neither. But there is no intrinsic connection between something being illegal and something being immoral.

You could start by demonstrating how it is not immoral to consume illegal drugs - and the question is not of degree of immorality, but that it is not immoral in any way at all. This invitation to you. — tim wood

I'm afraid I can't answer your question, but not because I'm avoiding it. For a start, your question seems to assume that there is a shared and agreed knowledge of what is and is not immoral, in the general sense. I don't think there is. Immorality is not objective, in the sense of impartial. To determine whether or not something is [im]moral is a subjective value judgement, and one thing that a subjective value judgement is not is impartial. So I could give you an answer that is true/correct to/for me, but the opposite for you.

Secondly, if you don't want to focus on whether it is immoral simply to break a law, then why do you ask "Is it immoral to do illegal drugs"? Why not ask instead if it is immoral to do drugs? Or, if you want to zoom in more, to the drugs in question, why not list the drugs of interest? For all illegal drugs are different, and your question might be answered 'yes' for one drug, but 'no' for another.

Maybe this illustrates why other correspondents have disagreed with you so strongly?

And pretty much everyone else mocks that position. — tim wood

I'd like to focus on how humans developed [...] minimal amounts of reliance on internal drives, automatic functions, etc. — schopenhauer1

They did? When was this? I do not suggest we don't do these things, or that we don't do lots of other things too. But I do wonder if we still do a lot more things instinctively than perhaps we assume?

Because it is not a controversial claim to presume a bird and a human have different cognitive frameworks — schopenhauer1

But controversy follows immediately after any attempt to describe or define these differences! :chin:

please consider and answer the question of the OP — tim wood

I just looked back, to the topic title: "Is it immoral to do illegal drugs?" A little thought leads me to the (simplistic?) conclusion that this is easy. If (illegal) drugs do harm, then it would seem immoral to 'do' them. If not, then not. Is there really more to be said to answer the specific question asked in the OP?

I'm interested in why you think it is immoral to break the law, this seems controversial. — dePonySum

Isn't it illegal to break the law, but immoral to break a moral code?

It would seem that the learning is done in the brain, not the consciousness. The brain selectively passes along stuff to the consciousness. — Unseen

The brain is physical, while consciousness is not. Confusing the two will only lead to confusion, I suspect. For this to make sense, you need first to describe the relationship between brain and consciousness, so that we can see what you mean. This would derail this thread, of course, as we detour into the fraught realm of explaining consciousness.

Perhaps it would be easier to bypass that particular burden, and say instead "It would seem that the learning is done in the mind, not the consciousness"?

Consciousness doesn't require an explanation because no knowledge is possible at all without it. — luckswallowsall

Are you saying that no knowledge is possible without consciousness, or am I misreading your words?

It appears we could get by with what I'm calling the pre-conscious alone. — Unseen

Before the appearance of consciousness in humans (for it has not always been there), it seems we must have got by with what we had before. :up:

Causeless effects are not possible because if an effect has no cause it's by definition not an effect. — luckswallowsall

Yes, yes, OK. :smile: So the question should properly be: can/do spontaneous events occur, or can/do events occur spontaneously? :chin:

And yet a human without language - and thus without reason - can and does learn that touching fire causes pain. [...] No language required. — creativesoul

But the learning you describe relies on memory, the memory that fire gave rise to pain in the past, and therefore might do so again, if we get close enough to the flames.So what is it that our memory stores, in this example? I suggest it is words, or some functional equivalent. Something that allows us to describe fire and the pain of burns, so that when we recall the memory, we can make sense of it. So I think language, in some sense, is required for memory to work. :chin:

So, science makes predictions that work - no contest there. But that can be accomodated in terms of instrumentalism, without presuming anything about what 'actually exists in reality'. So, I'd just be mindful of the implications of presuming 'what exists' on that basis. There are still many open questions. — Wayfarer

Nicely put. :up:

Sure people my say we learn it from a deity but some of them (if they were really) don't seem to care about human life. — hachit

...and maybe some deities care about all life. Maybe their purpose is to nurture life, not to nurture humans at the expense of all other life? Wouldn't that make more sense? :chin:

But this topic asks whether maths is invented or discovered. To believe that maths was discovered is to mistake the map for the territory. For maths is a mapping tool. It helps us understand the universe, in some ways, and that is admirable. But it wasn't discovered, it was invented, just like real, literal maps made of printed paper. There's no shame in that. :smile: — Pattern-chaser

Well, my idea is that there is a "map" that exists in some kind of Platonic world that is taken as a model by nature. Parts of this map are taken as a blueprint from nature to build real things and even human beings. The real things are not perfect as the map, but tend to resemble to them in a high degree. Maybe there are even parts of nature that don't follow any map, but the ones that follow the map are the ones that we may be able to understand. — Mephist

I cannot help but admire your ambition. :smile: You have renamed our map as a plan, something made beforehand to describe what will be made, instead of something created later, to help navigate. So now you have reversed the roles of the map and the territory, suggesting that we actually have the plan and the territory. [ I.e. where the plan is the master/reference, and the territory is a secondary copy. ]

And so, regrettably, I feel compelled to ask the difficult question: where is this "Platonic world", where the plans for the Universe are stored until they are needed? For if the map/plan exists, and this Platonic world is where it exists, then where is this Platonic world? Your surmise seems to rest upon your having an answer to this question, doesn't it? :wink: :chin:

Ah! Emigration. :up:

Colombus started mass immigration into Europe?

the fact that all events have causes is deductive. — Dusty of Sky

Not axiomatic? :chin:

Yes, some bits of maths are interesting, and most of it is useful too. But this topic asks whether maths is invented or discovered. To believe that maths was discovered is to mistake the map for the territory. [ It also avoids the rather obvious criticism that there is nowhere in the real universe that we can point to and say "there's maths" or "Oh, look, there's a sine wave". ] For maths is a mapping tool. It helps us understand the universe, in some ways, and that is admirable. But it wasn't discovered, it was invented, just like real, literal maps made of printed paper. There's no shame in that. :smile:

So my idea is that the axiomatization of mathematical ideas is invented, but our axiomatizations are based on some underlying objective facts of nature that are discovered. And the distinction of what is real from what is invented could be based on a definition of this kind (is it possible to make this definition more precise?) — Mephist

No, I think it's already just a little too precise. I think it should be something like this:

The axiomatization of mathematical ideas is invented, but our axiomatizations are based on some many underlying objective facts observations of nature that are discovered.

Well we do seem to need some degree of understanding of human and animal cognition, as you ask us to...

...compare the cardinal to a human. What are the major differences in cognition that both use to survive? — schopenhauer1

The simple answer to that is: I don't have a clue. I think that may extend, to we don't have a clue? What do you know of bird cognition? I know almost nothing. And of human cognition? Not much more. To compare the two on this basis seems fraught with problems.

What does it mean cognitively, for the point of view of a cardinal to survive "instinctually" versus a human who is driven through cultural learning? — schopenhauer1

What is it like to be a bat? Is this the intended purpose of your topic, to consider or revisit Nagel's views?

As we look at animal cognition, we see all kinds of similarities to humans, similarities that we humans didn't expect. It would be foolish to state that all animals have the same levels of consciousness/sentience/etc, but I think it may also be foolish to presume our uniqueness, when observation seems to show otherwise. :chin:

Consciousness is helpless to do anything. All of our actual thinking (assessing, planning, reacting) goes on in the preconsciousness before we even become aware of it. — Unseen

If consciousness was "helpless to do anything", there would be nothing it could do. So it would, in effect, not exist. Since there is something there (that we label "consciousness"), I must label your comment as 'exaggeration'. :wink: As we learn more about the process by which we perceive things, we are coming to understand how sensory data are dealt with. In visual data, processing begins in the eye, and with the optic nerve, so that some processing has already taken place by the time the data reaches the brain itself. And then lots of stuff happens, in the rest-of-the-mind*, resulting in us perceiving something.

* - We conventionally split the mind into conscious and unconscious. But without clarification, it might appear that the two are equal partners. Not so. The unconscious mind is that part of our minds which is not the conscious part, which is most of it. The conscious mind is a small, later, addition. So rather than refer to the 'unconscious mind', and make it sound like something equal in size and effect to the conscious mind, I say 'rest-of-the-mind' to convey what is actually meant.

So you are quite right (AFAIK) to observe that much processing takes place outside of the conscious mind, but I think it's worth stipulating that all of that processing is distributed throughout the brain and its 'peripheral devices'. When the clever parts of our minds are done, the resulting information is passed to the conscious mind. By that time, as you say, much has already been done, outside of our awareness.

The US is a collection of individuals united only by their greed, and their hatred of being told what to do. There is no understanding of co-operative behaviour, or its benefits. In such a country, anything can happen.

do you think that in order to write a good entry book, which is philosophical in nature, that one would have to have done a substantial amount of reading first? — Aidan buk

Entry to what?

Writing anything down will make clear to you if there are areas you don't understand well enough. So the exercise is beneficial anyway. Good luck!

The problem is that you have no way to assess the likelihood that there is a genuine case — Janus

I think this is the core of our problems, in this topic, and in many others too. We insist - and why not? :smile: - on discussing matters that aren't cut and dried. There isn't as much evidence as we would like. There are lots of unknowns, and some of them are difficult or impossible to overcome. That's life. We need to get past these obstructions, perhaps by getting better at handling these uncertain matters?

Scientist currently believe that genes and the molecular structure of the brain are what creates consciousness, because there is no proven account of anything else. That's how science works. — NKBJ

I rather think that science has no belief about "what creates consciousness", as there is (as yet) insufficient evidence to reach a conclusion. There are plenty of theories, and plenty of work going on to extend, and maybe even justify, these theories. That is how science works.

So, surely we must conclude that anything we believe possible - not probable or likely, only possible - remains so until more evidence clarifies matters? — Pattern-chaser

Logically and epistemologically speaking, yes. I am holding open the possibility that at least some things which we cannot prove to be impossible, actually are impossible simply due to the nature of things, in other words that at least some things may simply be ontologically or physically impossible. This seems obvious to me, and I am genuinely perplexed that others seem to be having difficulties with it, even though no one seems to be able to explain what the problem is. — Janus

I'm sorry, I can't be bothered to decipher the nuances of types-of-impossibility. Our position here is simple, and I think it can be expressed clearly:

We begin with a list of possibilities, many with little or no accompanying evidence. When we discover that one of them is impossible, we strike it from the list. The concepts remaining in the list are possible, as far as we know, and as far as the evidence takes us. The arrival of new evidence will (obviously) be followed by whatever reassessments are necessary and appropriate.

Doesn't that about cover it? :chin: :smile:

Philosophy shouldn't be in the business of "solving ethical problems" anyway, as there are no normative facts about ethical stances.

What's "best" for anything is subjective. — Terrapin Station

So philosophy shouldn't trouble its little head about subjective things? :chin:

Happy mother's day! :100: :party: :flower: — Wallows

Sorry, I didn't know Americans celebrate Mother's Day today. :blush: We all did that months ago! :smile:

Is there still some hefty amount of sexism in the field of philosophy despite ethics as care being a strong argument being proposed by feminist philosophers? — Wallows

Yes, but it's not just in philosophy that we can see this. :up:

Thank you, I think. :up: Mother's Day? :chin: