You responded to the calling someone immoral for speech acts as if this would meant you didn't want them to express themselves. But it doesn't entail that. As I argued above. — Coben

The way it entails that is that morality is about preferences. Preferences are things we want to be the case, no?

But shouldn't the truth, by virtue of being the truth, exert some power of its own? We can only reside in fiction for so long, right? — frank

I didn't read through every post since I last addressed frank, but for anyone, did we ever sort through just what we're using "truth" to refer to? That's necessary to sort out before we try to answer a question like this.

I get the impression that "truth" is being used as a term for states of affairs, or in other words, "the way things happen to be," including independently of persons (assuming one thinks realism has any merit). We at least need to think about what we're using the term to refer to.

His passion was not what ultimately got him banned. It was the "fuck you... ban me" bit. — Baden

It's pretty childish to ban someone over that, though, especially given the comments he'd made after that. (Which isn't to say that that wasn't a childish response from S, but that doesn't justify a childish banning in response.)

But I'm not in favor of banning anyone unless they're spamming in the sense of flooding the board with threads or posts that aren't at all conversational.

Since atheists reject the very principle of unexplained belief, — alcontali

Say what?

By the way, you're also not even understanding this sentence: "The 'there is no free will' crowd always wants to appeal to it being a standard view or implication of the sciences that there is no free will."

I'm not going to explain, over a message board, how to read, especially not to someone with a personality like yours. But not only that. If I wanted to try despite the personality issues, I'd still not bother because you don't have the necessary tools when it comes to reasoning. It would help if you'd work on the personality, though.

I posted a quote from an article describing the standard view of neuroscience as being that quantum indeterminacy has no effect on brain processes, which can be treated a classical objects. You said that had nothing to do with it. My quote certainly represented the view of 'the sciences' with regards to quantum indeterminacy and free-will, so the only other option to explain its supposed irrelevancy would be if you were not talking about the discoveries of quantum mechanics, but instead some other scientific advance from the mid 1800s which supports free-will. — Isaac

I already addressed this. If your reading comprehension didn't suck you'd know that.

It's weird you don't see that it is question begging to insist that a category error has been committed when an argument has been provided that proves, beyond all reasonable doubt, that for something to be morally valuable is for it to be being valued by Reason. — Bartricks

You didn't at all understand my post. The category error occurs in saying that a person, overall, can be morally valuable or not.

Also that's not what begging the question is.

If you're really interested in this stuff, learn about it. You don't have to admit ignorance about anything but at least quietly, to yourself, read a bit about stuff that people bring up that you don't understand. The more you read about it the more it will start to make sense. This is also not to suggest that it will lead to your views, your conclusions changing, so there's no need to be afraid of that.

See the OP for an answer. — Bartricks

The issue is if you're positing reason as a platonic form. In that case it's not mental. It's a real abstract whatever-the-heck-platonic-forms-are-supposed-to-be-ontologically.

Reconciliation with mortality would mean perceiving it, in the context of understanding everything that it represents, as nonetheless representing a meaningful as opposed to merely an accidental or logically inevitable conclusion of life. — Robert Lockhart

In my view there are a lot of problems with this including that "everything that x represents" is every way every single individual has ever thought about x . . . which obviously isn't possible to know.

Also, I don't buy the dichotomy you're setting up between meaning and accident.

I mean what else is there? That's all I got from your "force" statement.. That's a bit vague. — schopenhauer1

Let's say that we can show that x is causal to y, in the sense of x forcing y. If S does x to R, so that y results in R, I wouldn't necessarily say that x isn't morally problematic just because R can remove himself from S doing x.

In the case of speech and mental states in someone else, one of the problems is that we can't show causality in the force sense.

My views about this are not just based on someone being able to remove themselves from a situation. Hence why I said "I don't put much stock in 'emotional harm' for a number of different reasons including . . . " and then I listed a few different things. And even that's not an exhaustive list (which "including" should indicate to you).

Re the other part, I'm just explaining that R considering y "harm" isn't sufficient for me to think there's any moral problem with x. And neither is that S intended to produce y in R. Offensive speech is an example of that.

Ah, I guess "reconciliation with mentality" was a typo , then.

Someone being mean to another person, whether it matters to me or not, can be immoral because the intent is to harm them. — schopenhauer1

I've mentioned this many times, but I don't hinge any ethical view on "harm" unqualified. It's too vague. Many things that many people might consider harm I don't think are any problem at all. An example is offensive speech. Someone might consider being offended by speech harm, but as I said, I think it's their problem. I have to problem with the person who offended and who intended to offend them. In fact, I think it's a good thing to offend the offendable.

Your position seems to be that as long as someone can get away from the mean person, it is not immoral, is that about right? — schopenhauer1

Lol, no, that's not my position. That would be very misleading to say. But it's fine to say that one reason I don't have a problem with "emotional harm" is because in most situations, you can just tell the person off yorself, or you can just not deal with that person. It would be misleading to characterize that as the sole reason or as sufficient in itself, though.

At any rate, insofar as I understand what you wrote in your two points, though, it looks like we agree on those.

Its called the identity theory of truth. A proposition is identical to a fact. The late Russell tried to drop propositions in favor of beliefs, but it's generally accepted that that doesnt work. — frank

I don't understand. Are you denying that in the Philosophy of Logical Atomism Russell forwarded a view that "fact" and "truth" are different and that that was and continues to be hugely influential on analytic philosophy?

And what does this have to do with me trying to clarify the senses of terms we're using, which you keep not really addressing?

Forced to hear the comment? So are you claiming a sort of consequentialism whereby an act is only as moral as to what the outcome of the act has done? Intent or the behavior itself is something you don't look at in terms of moral issues? — schopenhauer1

Force in terms of forcing an outcome. That's the sense of causality I care about.

I consider intent, but not intent alone. I don't consider any thoughts immoral, only certain actions. Intent does matter for those actions, but intent absent the actions, and absent forced outcomes, doesn't matter to me.

Also, even if we do look at solely consequences, there may be issues of shared resources. — schopenhauer1

Not sure what you'd be talking about there with respect to offensive speech.

You don't seem to put any stock in emotional abuse. — schopenhauer1

Yeah, I don't put much stock in it for a number of different reasons including:

(1) causality issues, where what I'm concerned with there is force (and being able to demonstrate force)
(2) the subjectivity of it, including but not limited to the fact that it's impossible to confirm anyone's report (because we can't observe anyone else's mind)
(3) the fact that in most situations, the "victim" can just tell the person they're having a problem with to get lost, they can just stop associating with them, etc. The only exception is when we're talking about kids.

The term doesn't conventionally refer to something other than the dictionary definition, though.

If you want to make a claim about atheists often having such and such additional view that's fine, although one should probably be able to point at enough examples of it to justify "often"

you can validly reconcile yourself with the prospect of your mentality. — Robert Lockhart

Say what? What in the world is "validly reconciling oneself with the prospect of one's mentality"?

Offending has many shades here.. Is this friends clearly teasing each other, something understood in its context, or is this outright being mean to be mean? — schopenhauer1

There is no intentional offense that I'd consider immoral. When someone is offended I see it as their problem, not the offender's problem.

Atheism doesn't have an aim. It's simply a term for a lack of belief in a deity.

If it's inescapable it's futile to oppose it. One has to learn how to be at peace with it.

but I'm not going to play "guess what the fuck Terrapin is talking about" — Isaac

There's no need to guess. Learn how to read. Your reading comprehension sucks. You demonstrate that repeatedly.

An asshole whose intent is to routinely try to emotionally denigrate or hurt someone would be immoral. It is purposely trying to harm a person. — schopenhauer1

That's not my view. For example, I don't think there's anything immoral about intentionally offending someone.

Yes he did. — frank

Yes he did what?

I don't know if you were answering yes or no to the first question. Per Russell, who was one of the primary influences of this being the standard view in analytic philosophy, truth and facts (facts being states of affairs) are definitely NOT the same thing.

The standard view gets weird (for us nominalists) re positing real abstracts, or at least seeming to without wanting to directly confront it, when it comes to propositions, truth, etc., but that's a different issue.

The reason I was asking was because a lot of people (colloquially especially, which carries over to boards like this) seem to use "truth" so it's the same as "states of affairs." (I don't want to say "the same as facts," because it's common to colloquially use "fact" oddly, too.) If we use "truth" in its standard analytic phil sense where it's a property of propositions, I'm not sure the question asked in the first post of the thread makes sense.

Yeah, exactly.

because it is a widely held view among a large proportion of modern scientists that the elements involved in brain activity are large enough to be treated as classical objects, — Isaac

By the way, that strong determinism hasn't been the consensus view in the sciences for over 150 years isn't just about quantum mechanics. One only thinks that when one gains all of one's knowledge about this stuff from message boards.

"All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth." -- Somebody other than Nietzsche

But shouldn't the truth, by virtue of being the truth, exert some power of its own? We can only reside in fiction for so long, right?

Or not? Maybe we're always in a fictional world even when the shit hits the fan.

To what extent does truth have power? — frank

Are we using "truth" as another term for "states of affairs" ("the way things are") here?

And how are we defining "power"? "Power" talk, outside of physics contexts, always seems very fuzzy to me.

The Rushkoff stuff you're quoting seems kind of hyperbolic, sensationalized, overwrought, flowery to me, but at any rate, I like weed. :cool:

I'd rather just say that I like weed than claim that it's a chemical messsiah that can stop time. :joke:

Weed, shrooms and some other things can be very valuable in giving one alternate perspectives.

specifically that they consider causal determinism with regards to decision-making capacities in the brain to be the standard scientific consensus — Isaac

Nope. Not what I said. And yet you even quoted it.

This time put squarely, I can tell you what's really gobbledygooky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equations_in_quantum_mechanics

A pretty load, huh?

Can you justify that? Or somebody told you? I know there's 'probability'... — lepriçok

Maybe it's a language issue. I still don't know what you're saying. Why are you asking "can you justify that" for example?

Asshole implies this also, though according to you, to a lesser degree. — Coben

With assholes, I just don't want to hang out with them . . . well, at least if they're not consistently assholes. That doesn't imply that I have a problem with people being assholes to other people. Some people enjoy hanging out with assholes. (And even I can enjoy it in certain contexts--for example, the schtick of some comedians is that they're an asshole, and I can enjoy that in that context. I'm a big fan of comedy, including stand-up. There are very few stand-up comedians that I don't enjoy.)

Here are a couple similar examples that might be easier to understand: I also don't want to hang out with:

* People who are regularly, negatively judgmental, including in the manner of criticism. For example, someone who is really finnicky about music, or films, etc. and who negatively criticizes most music or films--people who agree with Sturgeon's law, basically. Of course, people do this towards other people too--always finding some fault or other. Some people, however, really like/admire this personality trait in others. They think it's a positive trait in the guise of that person being "discerning." Maybe they like commiserating with those folks because they're frequently negatively judgmental, too. For my tastes, though, I don't like hanging out with people who are often negatively judgmental. But I don't think it's immoral to be negatively judgmental on a consistent basis.

* People who are hyper . . . because that's just not my disposition and it tends to stress me out. There certainly isn't anything immoral about people being hyper though. Obviously some people prefer being hyper and prefer being around others who are. Similarly, I'm not a "dog person." Dogs seem hyper to me. I'm a cat person. I'd never have a dog as a pet. But I don't think that dogs are immoral.

* People who want to argue all the time. I actually hate arguing. People arguing all the time strike me as similar to people who are often negatively judgmental. But obviously lots of people like arguing frequently--look what happens on this board, for example. My goal here is never to argue, though, which is one reason that I get annoyed when people keep responding to me in an argumentative frame of mind. So offline, I'd never hang out with someone who wants to argue all the time. Do I think it's immoral though? No. Not at all.

So that's what "asshole" is like to me, too, or in general, "people being mean" via speech.

And just anticipating this response, it's not just because other people want to be around some of the stuff I'm talking about that I'd say it's not immoral. The vast majority of people, including me, wouldn't want, say, a brown recluse spider as a pet, or wouldn't want to hang out with someone who only showers once per year but who goes to the gym every day, etc. but I don't think those things are immoral.

Maybe I'm still not understanding your point, because "ad hoc" seems, to me, to be a wonderful modality (?) to adopt. — Blurrosier

The idea of "ad hoc" is that one is just making any shit up, as needed as a discussion continues, in order to "support a point"/be right.

I'm inclined to believe that, at most, the essence of such a relation (oppressor/oppressed?) may be fixed in its nature, but the circumstantially-dictated attributes are surely liable to change, are they not? — Blurrosier

The idea is that, for example, "needless suffering" and "oppressor/oppressed" are different ideas. If we state that our concern is for one, but then we switch to the other when we're analyzing a policy we've stated, it suggests that we're simply ad hoc arguing for our preference and not actually basing it on any sort of principle after all.

Oh dear. Its never not about you and your ideas is it? Read my post and tell me where my response has anything whatsoever to do with what your crazy ideas are or are not about. — Isaac

What a dumb response. You quoted me and responded as if you were disagreeing with what I said. But your comment didn't actually address what I said.

simply put the structure is 1(entire reality 2(our knowledge, constructs and suppositions)). For 1 - it is my 'meta', for 2 - your reductionist materialism. If 1 and 2 is 100%, — lepriçok

Again huh? That doesn't seem "simply put." It seems like pretty gobbledygooky with a bunch of assumptions (including re just what I'm claiming) that aren't justifiable.

If one starts to introduce all of those additional qualifications, they'd need to be supported, and we could just suggest that one state the full policy, with all of the qualifications, right off the bat, instead of modifying it every time we point out a problem with it.

That's because it completely is the standard view of the sciences, when it comes to brain function. — Isaac

If only that were what I was referring to (for one).

Also, if only the idea were just about quantum mechanics.

Yet another moronic response from you that demonstrates an inability to read/comprehend what you're reading very well.

Since money/ownership is a mythical cultural construct. Folks should be combating the cultural construct, not bowing to it while claiming to be trying to buck it.

Somehow, I suspect my version will not garner such enthusiastic support. — unenlightened

Well, first we've got to figure out what we're even referring to by folks claiming to be trying to buck some concept of money.

OK, so now we know that they can still express themselves, even if I or we judge them immoral. So, again, why is it harder for them to express themselves if I call them immoral rather than asshole or mean or bad or say this is someone to avoid. — Coben

I don't think it's harder for them to express themselves if you call them immoral. I had said that I don't consider any speech to be immoral, and said that part of why I don't consider any speech is immoral is that I prefer people to express themselves as they feel like expressing themselves. If I prefer that, then I'm not going to think that someone expressing themselves as they feel is immoral, because "immoral" denotes things that I do not prefer, and to a particular degree of significance.

Huh? :razz:

Every claim there seems very confused and/or incoherent to me.