A question I would like to clear up is this. Does the Universe and the physical laws of physics happen because of math of QM or does the mathematics of QM just describe the behavior? — Mike

If it’s of help, another way of asking this: Is nature the language of maths or are maths a language of nature.

Science can’t answer this one. Neither can mathematics. But I like your question. Either answer, though, can result in quantity holding limitations upon what can be.

Myself, I’m of the opinion that maths are one of the many languages of nature. Nature’s Logos as some used to call it. Stated otherwise, I don’t uphold that maths are foundational to reality. For a more down to earth example, maths can quantify and measure music so that computers can produce music, but the vibe/soul/meaning/etc. of music (often resultant of indistinguishable variations that together harmonize into an expressive whole) can never be mathematically identified, even in principle. This, however, isn’t to say that others won't boisterously laugh at what I've just said via their opposite convictions. I agree with Rich, though: the issue is one of metaphysics.

OK, before we go down the terrorism route, by some of the argument so far presented all acts of altruism then belong to the DSM (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).

That soldier who jumped on a grenade to save his fellows? An insane moron! I, on the other hand, shall live the good, virtuous life by waiting for one of those crazies to jump on the grenade before we all explode.

That guy that ran into a burning building to save another’s life at risk of his own … an insane moron!
A list can be built but it will get repetitive.

You’ll notice that this same “insanity gene” for altruism is found in many species of social animals … from meerkats, to canids, to porpoises, to primates. But it takes humankind to have discovered the truth: caring for another at expense of one’s own life in times of peril is an abomination of ethics by definition.

darth, excuse my sarcasm to a well intending OP. It’s just that the mindset I’ve just expressed is proliferating in my neck of the woods, and I’m adverse to it.

On the other hand, for those that get sickened by anything that they can call “theistic belief”: there’s a science that is in part devoted to explaining why an individual’s life is less valuable then the group to which the individual belongs: e.g., kin selection plays a part in this explanation, although it cannot account for altruism toward strangers (among other things).

In sum, no, the preservation of one’s own physical life is not an invariant determination of what is virtuous. And even to a non-base hedonist, there can be pleasure in having helped another at the detriment of one’s own life.

Not really. It makes possibility prior to actuality. And if you then give pure possibility a name like Apeiron, you seem to be pointing to a quality - and saying I count just one of these.

That's why Plotinus did call his version "the one". The quality was named after its quantity, is seeming it's most essential characteristic to him - the undivided that logically must stand at the end of a trail of divisions. — apokrisis

But now we’re addressing different species of thought, regardless of how analogous they might be in their structures.

The One is termed so due to being a perfect unity of being. You know, here we could revel in labels all we want. A rose is still a rose by any other name. The One, as clearly presented by Plotinus, was unlimited quality. Being unlimited, it was non-quantity. For instance, a different label for “The One” was “The Good”. This qualitative property, however, currently doesn’t seem to fit into you’re system’s modeling of the Apeiron.

Trust me, I’d really like to discover that I’m wrong about this just affirmed belief of mine—such that the Apeiron can also be equated with “the good”.

But it does mean that we can treat the Apeiron as a quality which we know how to quantify. — apokrisis

I’m for now presuming we’re on the same page in this regard: It’s there because we can point to it as abstraction via use of our reasoning as a pointing instrument. It’s that, and not other than that which it is. It therefore holds discernable identity. To us.

The apparent disagreement resides in this:

You seem to want to say it is known because some of its properties are known. Among these being that quality and quantity emerge from it.

I disagree by upholding that what the Apeiron is can only be unknowable, even when specified mathematically by the system of metaphysics you uphold. Again, within your system, the Apeiron is utterly other than what we are as existent beings. This though we are all, in some way, aspects of the Apeiron. It is, and is for the reasons given qualitatively different from any quality we can be aware of. Because it is non-quantity, however, no quantitative resemblance between it and that which is resultant of it can be made.

These conclusion, again, makes quality metaphysically prior to quantity.

Measurement is experience. But it grows in rational sophistication as we go from the firstness of naming some brute quality - exclaiming "I see red" - to the thirdness of some habit like reading numbers off the dial of an instrument. — apokrisis

In referent to this and to other previous comments concerning quantity and quality:

I agree that quantity and quality co-occur with domains of space and time—by which I here intend realms of distance and duration. And what you say of aesthetics to me makes sense; otherwise we’d be lost in opinions of faith where anything goes.

I would first like to be clear by emphasizing the aforementioned: imo, quality and quantity is not an either-or dichotomy but a necessary conjunction of anything that holds duration and closeness/furtherance. This in some ways can be comparable to the dyad of up and down.

Yet there remains for me the issue of metaphysical priority. I’d like to import into the conversation what you’ve termed the apeiron. If the apeiron is perfect symmetry, then it—in and of itself--would by definition be a non-quantity. It would thereby also be immeasurable. Despite this, it would yet be qualitatively different than anything non-symmetrical. As I understand it, to the extent that symmetry occurs within space and time, this same non-quantitative quality would also be present within realms of existence.

There may be disagreements with the aforementioned. If, however, there’s general agreement:

There then occur some aspects of existence that remain immeasurable. At the very least, the proposed finale which you term the apeiron would itself be something which holds presence (not to be confused with the presence held by physical objects) while not being quantifiable in and of itself.

I address all this in my belief that quality holds metaphysical priority over quantity--and therefore that some quality is immeasurable. But, as I’ve previously emphasized, this is not arguing that quantity’s importance is diminished within realms of space and time. It’s akin to arguing that meaning is primary to language, though its due to language that we can entertain the meanings which we entertain.

No… The experiential content of my present sensations is incorrigible. — lambda

I’m on board with this position. Although one has to grant that once it is turned into a proposition—rather than it being direct experience—it can then become corrigible, depending on the proposition held and its expression. It’s when our evolved ape-minds then start pricking and poking at the whys and hows.

For instance, the issue of direct experience gets tricky when we start to appraise our sensations of agency via narrative. Our sensation of agency easily translates into our holding of some top-down causal ability over our own bodies and, for example, in how we interact with others.

This to me is the zenith of conflict between our sensations and our cognitions of which metaphysical reality is true relative to what is ontic: our sensation of having freewill verses our mainstream conceptual constructs that no such thing is possible. Unless I’m wrong, it where the “illusion” motif stems from as regards what we experience.

As far as I’m aware, moral relativism is the view that moral values are hierarchical rather than absolute — Robert Lockhart

There is nothing contradictory between a hierarchy of morals and there being an invariant, objective good. Most everything else in your comments is then superfluous to the issue. It can all go hand in hand with the reality of an objective good.

Think of it this way, to say that “might makes right” is not the correct description of metaphysical reality is not to deny that power-games are an integral staple of existence. But that’s rather obvious, isn’t it?

The same way I think we have a tendency to perceive our feeling as being about neutral when we are confortable, negative when we feel more suffering and positif when we feel less suffering. — Raphi

Here’s a different hypothesis: we suffer when we don’t get out way.

In accordance with the word’s etymology, to suffer is to carry (a load), to be burdened by something. From this vantage, physical pain is different from suffering: e.g. a marathon runner in physical pain while about to be first at the finish line will not be unhappy but happy; his/her burden of physical exhaustion will be very outflanked by his/her getting his/her way, so to speak.

Thus interpreted, for suffering to occur then mandates a different baseline property of the psyche: the expectation of things turning out the way we plan, anticipate, intend, or desire—and the being pleased by (pleasure of) this outcome. In other words, to be lucky or fortunate, or to have happenstance be on your side: to be happy and thereby feel happy. In this view, the issue becomes converse to that which you’ve hypothesized. For there can be no suffering without a baseline impetus for happiness (as just addressed).

This isn’t to deny the complexity of the human psyche: conscious and unconscious desires/expectations fluidly converge, as one example. But if we’re talking about the pith of what is foundational to life, I’ll go with the impetus for happiness (however evolved or unevolved it might be relative to our human experience of it).

On the surface, it seems implausible that a consciousness could only experience different variation of suffering, but you have to take for account that our brain is also, according to me, really good to entertain illusions, making itself believe that life is more than just suffering. — Raphi

This reminds me of another glass-is-half-empty dictum: life, from the moment of birth, is a process of dying. As there’s something odd about this perceptive—it gives you the intuitive feeling that there’s a contradiction there somewhere—so too with the perspective that the baseline of life is suffering. I’m not a merry-go-lucky optimist, by the way. More a realist of sorts.

I wonder if it is clear that possession is founded on and an increment of detachment? — unenlightened

Didn’t at the time have anything significant to add to this. But I don’t want it to slip by without complementing it some.

There’s a vast difference in belongingness (yes, it’s a word) between that which is owned and that which one adheres into. Pets make for an easy example: “my pet” can be something owned like any other disposable commodity with no intrinsic value to yourself (a possession; something you are sovereign over while detached from) or can be a being that one in some psychological way adheres into as a fellow being: something far harder to philosophically describe but typically addressed in terms of “love”. Less comfortable is human romantic relations; but the same dynamics always apply: e.g., degrees of having the other as a trophy-prizes one is detached from and flaunts to others for social capital (a possession), for example, verse degrees of having the other person as someone you adhere into as a self (a wholly different kind of belonging than that of possession; here, when the other suffers, you suffer). Both are still addressed by “my girlfriend/boyfriend” or “my wife/husband”. (And yes, for us more aged folk, sometimes as “my pet”.)

I’m very much in agreement with you that possession results due to detachment from the other … and that detachment results in a lack of caring.

I wouldn't say that wondering how the golden rule could even exist at all "standing on its own" would be tangential to the issue of whether it stands on its own, but okay. — Terrapin Station

Regarding this and a few subsequent comments, when addressed biologically, the sense of fairness would be something inherited through genotype. The reason I’m avoiding questions such as “where would it be located” is because it’s located in psychological (and not strictly physiological) phenotype. And this is a hefty topic, not too much unlike asking, “where is that emotion located?” (e.g., to dichotomize between conscious and unconscious locations would be a misplaced dichotomy).

Aside from my comments above, this argument doesn't hold water. Say that a sense of fairness is unconscious, that it's innately part of our biological makeup. Well, there can be an individual who has physiological abnormalities so that they have no such unconscious sense as part of that individual's biological makeup. Thus, the sense of fairness is still relative to individuals. It's present in the individuals who have it, and not present otherwise. — Terrapin Station

Genetic abnormalities do complicate matters, granted, and in this view the issue is no longer white & black on either side. But say there is a person birthed devoid of capacity to sense physiological pain. I still would say that this capacity is nevertheless a universal human trait. You can argue that it isn’t. At the end of the day, though, do you perpetually question whether the individually person next to you is so endowed with this capacity?

It can get complicated in other ways as well: one can lose all sense of empathy as an adult due to horrendous experiences as a child; preadolescent bullies most always have a bad time at home, though most still hold onto some empathy.

Yet the same question can be brought up: do we as agents originate the reality of the Golden Rule individually and communally in manners in which the Golden Rule could fully vanish among the morality of people were all people to so will?

Ability to accomplish what? And you're obviously equivocating here, as you were talking about power in the context of governments and societies and "might is right." — Terrapin Station

Anything. Just checked, this definition is accordant to definition 1.1 on Wiktionary--“ability to affect or influence”--as well as definition 1.2: “control or coercion” [emphasis on the “or”].

No equivocation on my part. Moral relativism addresses morality which is due to individual(s)’ ability to affect, influence, control, or coerce others (in this case, regarding that which is moral) – hence, ethics which is there due to power.

Then: the might (a term synonymous with power) to affect, influence, control, or coerce others makes right. More briefly: might makes right.
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edit:

Even if you were to argue that it's impossible to have a human with abnormal physiology, so that they have no sense of fairness, and necessarily, all humans have the sense, it would still be relative to humans, since it's not a part of rocks, say. — Terrapin Station

Yes, as I’ve already stated. It would then be a human universal.

No--how could it "stand on its own" where it's "indifferent" to what people think etc. about it? How could it even exist at all in that case? Where would it be located? What would it be a property of? — Terrapin Station

All valid questions, but tangential to whether or not the Golden Rule stands on its own or is a product of agency so willing it to be (see below). Let’s not sidetrack the main issue.

That's not "indifferent" to what anyone thinks, however. Stalinism would be declared "corrupt" due to comparison to the Golden Rule to someone who feels that the golden rule is a normative basis for ethical judgment. So that's dependent on what someone thinks. — Terrapin Station

One does not need to have a formalized theory of the Golden Rule for it to be innately present, such as instincts are. To say otherwise would be to say that there can be no sense of fairness devoid of there being cognition of what fairness implies. A child playing in the school yard doesn’t need to know what the abstract concept of fairness is—to have thought of fairness—in order to sense that it is unfair to be bullied or to bully, for example.

Some social lesser animals have a sense of fairness, aka the Golden Rule, and they don’t hold it due to thought concerning what the concept of fairness entails.

So no. Feeling something is not equivalent to thinking something. Nothing new in this. Do we will those basic feelings of fairness into being? … is the question here addressed to moral relativists. This is contrasted to those basic feeling of fairness being part of our inherent biological makeup as humans, which would make the foundations of ethics no longer morally relative.

<sigh> No, that doesn't work, because moral relativism doesn't amount to saying that moral judgments "originate with power." — Terrapin Station

< gees > power is ability to accomplish; it is therefore what agency entails; moral relativism requires agency to originate that which is ethical—for, otherwise, that which is ethical would be in manners independent of/indifferent of what agency wills; therefore, if it isn’t originated by agency/power it isn’t encapsulated by moral relativism. < can we stop with the sighs and such; rational arguments welcomed >

So it neither originates with a social decree nor is it independent of what various people have to say about it. — Terrapin Station

I’ll take a leap and proclaim we’re using “independent of” in different ways. You understand it in terms of “severed from” and I understand it in terms of “indifferent to”. Hence, for me, the Golden Rule isn’t severed from people but is stands in ways indifferent to people’s rationalized opinions.

If it doesn’t originate with power so willing it as a right—which shouldn’t be confused with powers defending it against corruption or the like—then doesn’t it stand on its own as a right in manners indifferent to what people may will, say, or think about it?

In more concrete terms, Gandhi defended the Golden Rule; Stalinism went against it even while mimicking its motto of comradeship. Was the Golden Rule then unethical during Stalinism? If so, then it too originates with the dictums of power—and, again, I here disagree. However, if Stalinism can be declared corrupt only due to comparison to the Golden Rule (and its implications), then the Golden Rule, again, stands regardless of what authority wills—be it authority of individuals or of the masses.

In short, if it doesn’t originate with power, then the Golden Rule isn’t an aspect of moral relativism.

But do you understand that no one is saying that it's right because of mass appeal or because of legislation? — Terrapin Station

Hold on there, the Golden Rule is either there due to some power(s) so decreeing it to be right or, else, it stands on its own regardless of what various powers have to say about it. You can argue that it’s relative to human nature, but then it would no longer be an issue of moral relativism. This because it becomes again conjoined to the issue of objective universals.

By the way, I’m not denying that many go with the flow of whatever is popular for the sake of their own immediate stability of being. This conversation though concerns whether there is anything objective about ethics.

The answer to that is obvious--you just stipulated that it IS the legislatively morally entrenched stance of that culture, and anyone--moral relativist or not, would agree. — Terrapin Station

OK, I’ll put myself in the little lonely ostracized corner of disagreement. The Golden Rule isn’t right because of its mass appeal, nor because of legislation—nor, for that matter, because some person sitting on top clouds has decreed it so. Thank you for the answer, though.

No, I meant the dictum to be a descriptive aspect of what is, not a prescription of what ought to be. Although, given the variety of characters in the world, it is doubtlessly that some will come to interpret it in prescriptive ways for themselves and their own cohorts. (Regardless of our objections to their so doing. Social Darwinism as an example taken from history of prescription derived from description.)

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Regarding laws, hypothesize a government’s well established law that people will be publically decapitated if they in any way speak out against the laws of the government.

Were this government to be so endowed with authoritarian power so as to overtake the entire world, this law would become global, as would the mores that go along with it.

This now hypothesized global law would then become ethical to any moral relativist embedded within such global governance?

A question asked in good faith to moral relativists in general [not to say that my other questions weren’t asked in good faith]:

One reason I'm adverse to moral relativism is that it appears to inevitably results in the dictum of might makes right—be this the force of an individual or the force of the masses (slavery can come to mind).

Is there any way that moral relativism can remain consistent without resulting in right/good/ethical being that which is willed by the whims of power?

I also don't even really know what that would amount to claiming. Something about unconscious minds or something? — Terrapin Station

Maybe it the slippery slope toward an acknowledgement of universals. No, it would be addressing what to us are conscious states of being.

[...] but it wouldn't be objective if objectivity refers to the complement of mental phenomena. — Terrapin Station

Yea, this is framed in terms of a dichotomy between objects and subjects. We take the former to necessarily be objective the latter to necessarily be subjective. But one can start asking why physical objects are objective, why are they judged to pertain to the category of “objectivity”? Isn’t it because they ontically are regardless of what anyone has to say about it?

[We could confound this even further with questions of why commonsense has it that “I” is a pronoun for a subject and “me” is a pronoun for an object. It’s a complex issue for me—not dispelled by assertions that commonsense is nonsensical.]

Just trying to support my own previously mentioned case that elements of subjectivity can objectively occur in manners applicable to all sentience. Though I’m well aware of the potential for befuddlement. As for me, I’ll let it rest on this thread.

[...] It didn't become apparent until that last post that your earlier "I'm thinking of objective in the sense . . . " was maybe meant to say that only judgments and opinions, and not other sorts of mental phenomena--despite your "etc."--are subjective, so that sentience in general wouldn't be necessarily subjective. [...] — Terrapin Station

To me we’re still talking past each other some, but so it goes with some debates.

I agree that sentience consists of subjectivity, by the way. The etc. still stands. Don’t know if this will make a difference: my contention was that some properties of subjectivity can be ontically determinate properties of all subjects all the time … and, thereby, can be universals of subjectivity that occur regardless of what anyone has to say about them. I am not giving this as a proven case-in-point but as a hypothetical example: e.g., all subjects perpetually have the attribute of a capacity to sense psychological pain and pleasure. If this were to be ontically so regardless of what anyone might say about it, then it would be a universal to all sentience that objectively is. … Even though it fully pertains to processes (and/or states) of subjectivity. Here I’m thinking in terms of objective data concerning the ontic reality of subjectivity which, as data, is addressed in the third/forth-person--rather than, for example, what subjectively occurs in the first-person.

Hope this is better understood, but further debate on this proposal (which I at this point presume would still plentifully occur) becomes one of metaphysics and epistemology, not ethics or metaethics.

Wait--you were talking about ice cream flavors being morally good or bad?? — Terrapin Station

No. That’s you talking.

I, again, intended to address the metaethics of good and bad--not ethics. What is good and what is bad, in manners that encapsulate both morality and amoral actions, is not at all easy to define in the abstract independently of context—and is of itself different from ethics. Again, meta-ethics.

I could ask things like, “How is “yay” a moral judgment rather than a guttural preference, regardless of what’s addressed?” but I won’t start in so doing.

Subjectivity is basically "the realm of the mental," so that would include sentience in general. However, even if you were excluding sentience in general, morality necessarily involves judgments.

Re rocks, it's important not to conflate the perception of them with what the perception is of. With moral judgments, there's no evidence of anything external or any reason to believe that we're talking about perception in the first place. — Terrapin Station

We previously agreed on what “objective” signifies. Now its being willfully ignored. Also appears you’ve overlooked most of what I wrote.

Never once brought up perception. The point was that you judge rocks to be objective, and yet they’re still so despite you holding a subjective judgment about them. What you address is, in addition, a strawman: I brought up the issue regarding objective properties of sentience … not in regards to particular moral judgments. Two very different things. But I don’t like being overly repetitive about what I previously wrote.

I wouldn't say it does if it has nothing to do with ethics. There's a commonality, I suppose, in that we're talking about preferences, but gustatory preferences are very different in quality than feelings about interpersonal behavior. — Terrapin Station

I looked up “ethics” on Wikipedia to validate my assumptions; SEP doesn’t have a generalized entry. They there define it in terms of right and wrong conduct. In my brief glance at the entry I didn’t find a necessity for ethics to be about interpersonal behavior. Most, btw, would have an easy time affirming that it is wrong/bad/unethical for a person to choose to ingest razorblades—an awful example when taken seriously, I grant (my apologies for having brought it up)—this having to do with what a living being should and should not do to themselves.

As to debate about what is denoted by ethics, I’ll defer to Wikipedia for now.

Right, but talking about something where everyone is making the same judgment isn't addressing something that's independent of judgment. — Terrapin Station

I find this to be the main element that you’re either not accepting or not understanding.

Is there anything ontic about sentience that is there independently of ideas, opinions, or judgments? If there is, it is objectively there: whether or not one has ideas, opinions, or judgments about it. Just like rocks right in front of oneself: they're objective, even though one has judgments about them.

Validating what this might be is another story altogether. Validating what is ontically present to all sentience all the time is yet another--but, if this can be validated, then one can get from what is to what ought to be. All I'm here saying is that it holds potential to be demonstrated.

Wait--why are you talking about ice cream flavors being good or bad? That has nothing to do with ethics. — Terrapin Station

It addresses the metaethics of what good/bad entails, without which no morality/immorality could be purported.

"Now we're approaching an objective value" is completely arbitrary there, unless you're equating "objective" with "agreement." Objectivity doesn't have anything to do with agreement. — Terrapin Station

I’m thinking of objective in the sense of that which is independent of opinion, judgement, etc.

If the argument I previously made were to be extended, there is an onus to evidence that there are universal properties to all sentience that occur objectively—as the term has just been addressed by me. One example would be that all sentient being sense things. Note how this couldn’t be accomplished experientially but would need to be justified rationally. Here, however, the argument is made with importance given to an implicitly affirmed, self-evident property of sentience: maybe it can be worded as, “life lives its life to the fullest capacity given the limitations it encounters”.

If “life is to be lived to the fullest” were to be an objective property intrinsic to all life, then one could establish what is objectively good and bad based on this … not on the principle of agreement but on a metaphysical principle of being entailed by that which is objective. To try to put together both our semantics: that which is objectively present to all subjectivity.

In this manner, ought could be cogently derived from is. That which best satisfies the objectively intrinsic property X ubiquitously present to all sentience then becomes equivalent to an objective good. Again, not due to accord but due to the "is" entailing the "ought".

"Objective" refers to it not being a mental phenomenon. — Terrapin Station

I prefer the definition of "independent of opinion, judgment, etc." Is this something you'd disagree with?

I'm a moral relativist. More specifically, I'm a subjectivist/noncognitivist/basically an emotivist on morality/ethics. In other words, I believe that moral stances are simply ways that individuals "feel" about interpersonal behavior. A la emotivism, it's more or less "yaying" or "booing" behavior. — Terrapin Station

Here’s an argument for objective ethics that doesn’t depend on universals. As example: the goodness of ice-cream flavors.

To whom will the flavors be good or bad? To the individual(s) in question. In this sense, it’s all relative to individual beings. But …

You’ve got chocolate v. vanilla. OK, this is up in the air as an yay/boo issue.

Now, you’ve also got sand-mixed-in-with-ice-cream flavors and flavors that are not sand-mixed-in-with-ice-cream. More will hold a boo for the first then the second. So we’re approaching an objective yay/boo value, but we’re not there yet.

Last on this list, there’s the razorblades-and-nails-and-boric-acid taste verse the non-what-was-just-stated taste (for clarity, where each taste carries through its promise of lethality or non-lethality). Here, at last, we’ve encountered a universal boo for the first flavor—and an objective bad—and a universal yay for the second—an objective good. For the sake of argument, those that might prefer the lethal ice-cream taste are no more (because its lethal); hence, again, resulting in the ubiquitous, objective “boo” for lethal ice-cream.

This same overall principle can be applied to most anything. Orwellian government is to me bad because it takes away from my life as a social being--a personal boo. If Orwellian government could be inferentially shown to be detrimental for all in the long run as an objective fact, then Orwellian government will likewise be evidenced to be an objective bad. And this because its yay/boo value is no longer relative to individuals but, instead, becomes relative to that which is universal to all individuals in an objective way.

So, out of curiosity, how would you argue that razorblades-and-nails-and-boric-acid ice-cream is not an objectively bad type of ice-cream?

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Edit: OK, I've just been struck by the hypocrisy in my post. Oops. Objective good/bad would be a universal good/bad. Though maybe a slippery slope toward the metaphysical universal of good/bad, the argument I’ve just outlined—I still believe—does not need to be associated with metaphysical universals by physicalists. (let me know if I’m wrong on this)

Reads like propaganda/an advertisement to me. — Terrapin Station

I've gotta say, I so far have the same impression. Gave it another go all the same.

You have not taken the time to directly answer my previous given, generalized question through philosophical argumentation. I’ll be more specific in this post. In due respect to philosophical debate, please take the time to properly answer the questions that ensue; I will not feel obliged to reply otherwise.

he granted them deduction once we agree to a specific faith narrative in light of the arguments he provided aiming to attest logicality of the quran. — dan1

The deduction is one of conditionality. If conditions p are true then consequent q will also be true. Reexpressed via the different argument of certainty, if set of conditions p is inferentially certain then consequent q will also be inferentially certain.

The issue I’m addressing in reference to the quote is that the antecedent p is not sufficiently justified to be accepted as inferentially certain by all—atheists and non-atheists alike—thereby not justifying the consequent that "God is" as inferentially certain.

The deduction you’ve addressed is different from something along the lines of:
P1. It is raining outside—this where rain consists of drops of water from above us that land on the ground.
P2. Water is wet.
C: The ground is wet outside.

Here, P1 – P2 can all be experientially justified to be—this by one and all. This then makes the deductive conclusion inferentially sound. [edit: or not, depending on the truth of the premises]

Again, for the deduction to be sound all premises must also be true—or, from the vantage of a different form of argument, certain.

Here is one example from the many premises in the second post used to arrive at the intended conclusion:

‘The Principle of Flawless Prose’ which shows incomparable structure of linguistic and rhetorical devices beyond the concoction of man;

Yet the same can be proclaimed of any other text taken to be holly … as well as for the poetry of some secular folk, etc. What then sufficiently justifies this to be true of the Quran? Merely stating it to be so will be insufficient, for it will then only be a matter of opinion.

Argued from the vantage of certainty, why is it inferentially certain that a) the "Principle of Flawless Prose" is real and b), if (a) can be sufficiently justified, why does the principle apply to the Quran in manners that do not apply to other texts?

Please provide another example from the second post if you believe it to be more appropriate, and justify why all atheists and theists of other denominations should find it either true or certain.

Spewing off random thoughts, never got that whole detachment doctrine of Buddhism, which is a belief that upholds love to be a good thing. Love is a form of attachment, regardless of what one loves—even if we’re only talking in abstract terms. Must be something lost in translation between East and West.

Always liked Sting’s, “If you love someone, set them free” (I forget the song title). Which I bring up to try to illustrate that love, to me, is nevertheless a form of attachment different than that of ego (possession, etc.).

Have to ask. How then do you explain children’s love for aging parents?

Love is merely a means of fooling the human brain into reproducing. — intrapersona

Too narrow a definition. What of parental love? Fraternal? These too can lean toward possession/dominion or not.

Besides, in the sexual type, there’s the proverbial whamo-over-the-head-with-a-club of cavemen verses the mutual-this-and-that version; both types of guy can utter the words of love to partners. Furthermore, both versions can result in reproduction; and both can result in the father sticking around for the new brain (though the new brain’s mother typically gets treated differently by each). Then there the whamo-over-the-head guy that mimics the mutual-this-and-that guy but isn’t (players I think these guys are called; fakes to be more clear about it). So there’s something to be said about the difference between possessiveness in relations—replete with emotions that lead to offspring—and what is intended by the term love, which sometimes leads to no offspring at all.

Which isn’t to say that I can’t emphasize with the given quote.

Well, for the record, I also distinctly recall people sporting Obama-the-Hitler posters shortly after the time of his election. Some, in so terming Obama, were bothered by the “socialization of health care”—even though the single-payer system never even made it to the table. They weren’t Democrats. Many seem to be the same that currently support Trump, together with things such as him being justified in not knowing what “alt-right” groups signify and intend.

I say, back to lottery elections … what democracy ought to be! That way we begin to once again hold civic care rather than shrugging our shoulders over what the next-door neighbor claims to be true [just mentioned statement about lottery elections should not be taken seriously in a verbatim manner … although I am tempted to vote for it if anybody manages to put it on the ballot]

1. What possible questions can be posed to 'the argument from likelihood'? — dan1

Let us frame it this way (not barring disagreements on so doing): there are two justifiable alternatives to the existence of God: a) God is, b) God isn’t. Then:

What makes one alternative more likely than the other?

... this addressed in manners that will be satisfactory to all, atheists and theists (of all faiths and paths) included.

2. I think the author makes it clear that the "overtones" of 1 religion is in now way intended to imply that claimants to that faith are in any way superior; since judging the nature of belief is a different matter. Therefore he seems to be assessing the matter of humanity impartially from logic alone i feel — dan1

It was a long post, and though I myself didn't pick up on this while reading it over, I’m glad to know you endorse this interpretation. Its seems the most reasonable approach to take.

3. Can you provide actual critique of this piece — dan1

The most pivotal critique I can currently think of is the question which was first mentioned in this current post.

4. so far you've made good points but i feel you need to be more to the point — dan1

Thanks. Will do my best.

Some themes stood out:

1. The equivocation between philosophical skepticism (which, in truth, has taken varied forms) and that of modern-day skepticism as disbelief. The first is not a doctrine of disbelief. It, instead, is a doctrine—sometimes acknowledgedly expressed in seemingly self-contradictory manners—that a certain form of certainty, what may be termed absolute inferential certainty, is not attainable. (This, to me, is only shorthand for saying that though absolute inferential certainty might be possible, no one has yet demonstrated any instantiation of it and, for justified reasons, in all likelihood never will.) However philosophical skepticism is worded, though, if the proof is in the pudding, so to speak, one will find few schools of philosophical skepticism that upheld a satisfaction with disbelief toward any addressed topic, much less one that upheld a ubiquitous disbelief in all topics. [Debate can result as to what was meant when some schools affirmed the ideal of “suspension of belief/judgement”—but this can easily be interpreted as upholding an open-mind toward topics guided by empirical evidence and reasoning.] Hume is very much included in this tradition of philosophical-skepticism-founded systems-of-belief concerning what is (rather than an upholding of disbelief as is connoted by modern-day semantics of skepticism).

2. Equivocations between various types of certainty. For example, we all hold intuitive certainties and we all know that these are vastly different from out inferential certainties. Inferential certainties themselves come in various types and strengths. Though, I grant that a satisfactory categorization of certainties has so far been lacking. Nevertheless, it is only what some hold as the holy grail of absolute-inferential-certainty that philosophical skepticism traditionally disavows—this holy grail being all too often implicitly upheld culturally as being the only type of true knowledge (this presumption of what “true knowledge” is being something that skeptics such as Socrates/Plato and Hume would in all likelihood disagree with, imo: again, confer with their body of work as concerns knowledge of what is). And it can be readily argued that common sense is a product not of inferential certainties but of communally held intuitive certainties … at least some intuitive certainties being comprised by what Hume termed instincts—Hume relied upon instinct to far greater extents than any of his contemporaries.

3. The erroneous assumption that philosophical skepticism has emerged as a reaction to the belief in god—this rather than due to intentions to be closer to that which is (maybe all too ironically for some) objectively true … at least as concerns epistemology. Socrates/Plato serves as one example of what can, at least by modern standards, be termed a theistic philosophical skeptic (albeit not an Abrahamic theist). And, as the second post points out, neither does Hume uphold a disbelief in divinity of itself—rather, he argues against certain interpretations common to his own times.

4. The erroneous association of skepticism to a disbelief in realism. Again, if the proof is in the pudding, Hume, for one example, in no way disavowed realism; and, for that matter, neither did Socrates/Plato, nor did the academic skeptics which followed (these being of the Platonic Academy).

5. As to the overtones of one Abrahamic religious tradition having an upper hand over the other two, it can be noteworthy that all three, at least in certain schools of each, will uphold that the true God is ineffable; i.e., that although the true God is, it (in due respect to those that are reverent, “He”) cannot be cognized by us as form (though “He”, too, is form). This is the hundredth name of Allah; this is the G-d or Judaism; and can at the very least be found in the Christian “apophatic theology” as means of comprehending God, more common to Eastern Christianity (God is, and is not [limited by] anything that one can ascribe to God’s being). In so being, all three religious traditions can then be interpreted to refer to the same ineffable given—though through different customs, traditions, practices … through different forms/ideas of cognition. All three traditions, in this light, are then on equal footing. (But yes, in saying this I also acknowledge the more dogmatic beliefs of what God is as form … which can likewise be found in all three traditions, though here they stand in contradiction.)

That stated, the likelihood approach to a conviction in God which has been outlined in the second post would not, in and of itself, be a sufficient means of attaining inferential certainty (even if not absolute) in the presence of God. All of the principles mentioned for the argument from likelihood can be questioned by some … and this because they’re not sufficiently justified.

But, yes, philosophical skepticism isn’t the easiest philosophical approach to work with.

Wait--but you're just noting that goodness is an idea that multiple people have. What would be the evidence that it's not simply a mental phenomenon--that it's simply a way that brains function? — Terrapin Station

Hey, as I mentioned initially, I don’t have high hopes of me being convincing. This, by the way, due to goodness being here evidenced experientially—and not through rational(ist) justifications (whatever these might be).

I use goodness as example, rather than maths, because it isn’t applicable only to some beings’ awareness. It’s ubiquitous to anything sentient—human or otherwise--while yet superseding all particular sentient beings. For example, hypothesize there being a superlative god (for the philosophizing of it) and good will supersede even this being as a universal. If an ameba in any way senses attraction and repulsion, it too will hold innate awareness of good—no brains are required for a sentient being to be innately aware of it. Like quantity, “good” is a property, or form, that is both imbedded into and apart from any individual being’s mind—or, at least, so the argument would go.

But I fold my cards for today. (May it be a good new year for all.)

Is "lol" a subjective fact or an objective truth, and how would one tell the difference? — Bitter Crank

It could be both if the expression wasn’t a willfully given deception: the emotion expressed is an event of the world pertaining to aspects of mind—therefore a subjective fact—while the expression of the emotion “lol” corresponds to an objective, momentary state of being (that of finding something funny—no matter what anyone’s opinion concerning it might be), thereby also making the proposition expressed an objective truth.

Then again … eh, why not?

As concerns modern culture, I’d narrow it down to justified belief contrasted with unjustified faith … though I much prefer BC’s answer.

You're explaining what you take a universal to be here. You're not showing evidence that there are real (extramental) universals. — Terrapin Station

To provide evidence for extramental givens requires rational justification for the particular given addressed being extramental. Yet, I’m so far not finding a difference between such justification as it applies to universals and such justification as it applies to physical objects. (And yes, I’m arguing for extramental givens.)

So, if multiple unrelated organisms hold awareness of good, then it seems safe to presume it justified that awareness of good, or of the beneficial, is not a given culturally transmitted from one organism to another (unlike mores and morals). The disparity between ameba and humans may be too extreme, so one can merely think of the disparity between great apes and humans. Like our awareness of a physical rock as object, awareness of good is an awareness of a particular object that is independent of other minds and invariantly present in all minds: all minds are aware of good as a given object, though this awareness is not gained culturally; just as all minds concerned will be aware of the same physical rock perceived, though this awareness is not gained culturally. (Rather than the example of good, the same can be stated of awareness of circles—though awareness of circles is more restrained to our sapient minds.) Therefore, though the physical rock is a phenomenal object and goodness is non-phenomenal object, the same justification here applies to both these objects of awareness being extramental.

What form of justification would one propose for a physical rock being extramental (say, rather than a mirage) that does not simultaneously also justify universals being extramental?

Nothing in your post I disagree with, and thank you for it.

So if we ask, do geometric forms, scientific laws, and so on, exist, the answer is not obvious; they don't exist as phenomena, although geometric forms can clearly be represented phenomenally. And, even if number is 'the representation of quantity', it is still something that can only be grasped by an intelligence capable of counting. So what intrigues me, is that these are in some sense 'independent of any mind' i.e. they exist independently of anyone thinking about them, but they're still only perceptible to a mind. I think that is very near the meaning of 'objective idealism'. — Wayfarer

This underlined part got me thinking. Other than universals being non-phenomenal, the same could also be said of any physical, phenomenal given. And the greater the sapience of the species, the more cognizance it holds regarding that of which it is aware—again, as applies both to universals and to the realities of the physical world (e.g., though amebas could be innately aware of quantity--say in terms of rudimentary quantity concerning prey or predator--they certainly aren't aware of numbers and their relations). So, I view these attributes underlined within the quote as only part of the picture. Some would say that universals hold constraints upon particulars; else stated, that there is a top-down causation imposed upon particulars by universals. And I’m in agreement with this view. But that might be another story altogether.

Somehow, the more experiential universals (such as that of the good) are easier for me to contemplate, relatively speaking. In thinking of how maths and nature intersect—like fractals in plants—the notions become … well, no longer all that accessible. I know, I’m in long waiting list to have these things finally become easily intelligible, but I'm still somewhere there in that line.

Nominalism can be falsified: simply show evidence for a real universal.

Of course that's not so simple as there are no real universals, but if there were, one would just have to show evidence of one, and that would falsify nominalism. — Terrapin Station

I admit I’ve little hope of succeeding, but I’ll give it a try:

The innate notion of good--i.e., of what is beneficial--is, I argue, a universal. By this shouldn’t be interpreted concrete examples of what is good—be these either presumed relative to context or independent of context. Nor do I intend issues regarding good for whom. Instead, I merely intend that the innate awareness of what is beneficial is universal and stands apart from any sentience in and of itself: good is a property that can be divorced from the properties of an individual sentient being. Yes, what is good to you is not always likewise good to me (sometimes), yet despite this there is yet the universal awareness of there being something which we cognize and label “good”. For one extreme example, ameba won’t cognize the concept of good but will yet be endowed with awareness of what is good, i.e. beneficial.

In what manner would you then disagree with good being a universal?

Sometime before that I had been struck by an epiphany of sorts, which was that natural numbers are different to phenomenal objects in two principle ways: they are not composed of parts, and they don't begin and end in time. (Later I realised that strictly speaking, this describes prime numbers.) I wondered if this was something that was understood in philosophy, and found that it was characteristic of the Pythagorean-Platonic attitude. I learned that the Platonism generally had the understanding that this enabled the mathematician to grasp a higher order of truth. — Wayfarer

My own affinity to universals stems from belief in those that are, at least to some extent, experiential: the Good, the Aesthetic, etc. (all of which in more ancient philosophies tend to be different facets of the same given—or else different facets derived from the same given). I’m still fumbling, through this affinity, with mathematical universals. In this respect:

I’m very comfortable with the universals of rudimentary geometric figures, but I don’t take these to be numbers. Numbers, on the other hand, to me are cognitive models, or representations, of quantity. Geometric points then seem to naturally be the core root of all mathematical universals: via multiplicity of geometric points one attains quantity (numbers) and geometric forms, dimensions, etc. Yet geometric points as well are a human model, or construct. This leads me to believe that they too represent some universal that is independent of human models—such as, for example, can be stated of quantity and its relations being independent of human models.

I’d much appreciate your comments on this perspective. Disagreements are always welcomed.

If we frame things in terms of substance(s), for the purpose of my comments let it be hypothesized that substance is equivalent to information—such that information is what endows anything with any type of form.

[This isn’t something I full-heartedly endorse—potential givens such as Nirvana could, for example, signify information-devoid substance … and I lean toward such presence-endowed (aka existent in the wide sense) given entailed by the concept of Nirvana. Nevertheless, both mind and matter can arguably be reduced to information.]

To run through the list:

Substance dualism then posits that two ontically unrelated types of information co-occur, with most of this view presuming that they also causally interact. This is a no-go for many. So that leaves substance monism as the feasible alternative.

Physicalism then holds that all information is physical; idealism that all information is mental. Both are easy to conceptualize; but—as I’ve discovered through my own trials and errors—the connotations that most assign to idealism can lead to quite a lot of shenanigans; on the other hand, to claim that the universal of a perfect circle, for example, is itself physical information runs against a common set of intuitions held by many, physicalists and non-physicalists alike.

Neural monism comes into play by affirming that what we take to be mind-stuff and material-stuff reduce to (or else are both equivalent to) a neutral type of information—a neutral type of information that in some way holds a duality of property but not of substance: some of it unfolds as mind and some of it unfolds as matter, though it as substance is the same stuff. And in this sense, objects in this view are neither an aspect of mind nor of matter. I haven’t read Russel on this, but I so far don’t think he—or any other neutral monist—would assert that there is no difference between our sensations/intuitions of what is of the mind and what is of matter. The difficulty here is that the mechanisms or means by which this property duality unfolds is anybody’s guess. (I wouldn't say boring so much as not yet comprehensible.) And without some understanding of these metaphysical mechanisms, the notion of neutral monism can easily become a bunch of mumbo-jumbo to many (mumbo-jumbo can also be read as “bullshit”).

That’s why I believe neutral monism hasn’t been in favor historically. Though I’m glad to discover that interest in it is still held by some scholars.

What gives art (literature, poetry, religious texts, visual art, music, etc.) its power over the human soul? Clearly, art never helped man to survive, except in a very abstract kind of way. It's more likely that we live in order to create art, rather than create art in order to live. [...] — Agustino

I disagree with this view.

Say you’re down emotionally. You put on a record that resonates with you. You now, after listening to the music, are again functional. This, I argue, is survival at work—and in a very down to Earth, non-abstract way. OK, I’m being overly laconic with this, but for this and other similar reasons I’ve never agreed with the dictum that art does not help humankind survive, i.e. that it holds no evolutionary function.

When you are true to the art you like, art will give you sustenance in the form of energy, hope, nerve, and strength, to list just a few conditions of a human’s being which are generally required for survival and health.

To address the possible argument that art severs survival only in a very abstract way, so too do language and maps only serve human survival in very abstract ways. Yet no one claims that language and cognitive models are not evolutionarily functional attributes that directly assist our survival. We don’t live to communicate or read maps nearly as much as we communicate and read maps in order to live. As with language and cognitive models, I argue that so too with art … just as long as you’re true to it; just as long as you’re being authentic about what moves you. Otherwise art becomes the emperor’s new clothes, and here its assistance in survival perishes.

In thinking of art in the broad sense you’ve specified, even rhetoric is a form of art, as is the art of storytelling over a campfire. High art may not be necessary for survival for the vast majority of humans. But the ability to convey truths through art that could not be conveyed through ordinary language, and the ability to relate to such expressions of truth, is—I strongly feel—nearly as important to human survival/health as is the air we breathe.

I grant that what I've stated isn't necessarily convincing, but I wouldn't mind exploring the reasons for the quoted premise.