The horror! The horror!

What I want to address is the following: I'm talking to all these very knowledgable people and they are blythely telling me that my mind is physical, and that my morality is subjective, and that I have no free will, and I am wondering if tney understand the philosophical implications of what they are saying.They don't seem to understand that what they are saying is that we are mindless robots, living meaningless lives. I hope they understand that, and I hope they understand that they cannot with any consistency be insisting on moral imperatives of any sort.I do not want to hear about your relative moralities, because, logically, they do not work. Anybody who looks at the question honestly will realize that. I do not want to hear that somehow our lives are meaningful if we are nothing but physical processes.Therefore, we should all be nihilists--like me.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-15-2005 01:17 AMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-15-2005 01:25 AMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-15-2005 01:27 AMThis message has been edited by robinrohan, 01-15-2005 01:32 AM

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

morality is nothing more than behavior perceived by each individual to be mutually beneficial to the individual and the people near to the individual. sociopaths are unable to perceive the mutual benefit (or to consider it, so it comes to the same result) and thus behave in 'immoral' ways.it is the basic behavior pattern of anarchy at it's most rawest most honest form. every person decides whether to comply with their perceived code of morality or not.in it's most covert form it is covered over by layers of convention of thought and imbued with supposed extra meaning from some supernatural source or other. this can help some people to behave in more consistent patterns, but it is unable to adjust to changing social situations and ultimately fails in the long run.and where does "no free will" come from? not in a world with chaos prevalent from little things like bird do on the car window to big things like earthquakes at the bottom of the ocean. and anarchy is nothing but the full implementation of free will ...heh.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Biblical morality is subjective to the Ten Commandments. Fundamentalistic Biblical morality, foundational on the Ten Commandments, seems to be what works best, when you look around the world and look at history.

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In Jehovah God's Universe, time, energy and boundless space had no beginning and will have no ending. The universe, by and through him, is, has always been and forever will be intelligently designed, changed and managed by his providence. buzsaw

1. Free will, unsubjected to the Biblical Ten Commandments tends towards anarchy, bloodshed, poverty and destruction. History attests to that.2. Free agents are free as to whether to subject themselves to the Ten Commandments.This message has been edited by buzsaw, 01-15-2005 17:17 AM

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In Jehovah God's Universe, time, energy and boundless space had no beginning and will have no ending. The universe, by and through him, is, has always been and forever will be intelligently designed, changed and managed by his providence. buzsaw

Not sure if you are talking to me or not. I'm very knowledgeable... check. I think the mind is physical... check. (The word I use is "emergent".) I think morality is subjective... check. (I put it thus; morality is a human concern, but it is not wholly subjective in the sense of being chosen randomly. What works morally is constrained by our human nature. Some things lead to cohesion and good will and well being; others don't. The choice to value cohesion and good will and well being is a human choice; but we do have a natural propensity to value others, which is emergent from out physical biology.)But I do think we have free will. This depends on what you mean by the term. My position seems to be close to Compatibilist philosophy. The link goes to an introduction from the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy.In any case, the answer to your question is roughly "yes". I have a reasonable notion of the philosophical implications of what I am saying. Not a good start. You are setting as a premise of discussion that you are correct, and reflecting on why others fail to recognize your insights. It's a burden you'll have to live with, unless you make a far better attempt to deal with views you do not share.No, I am not saying we are mindless robots. Saying that the mind is physical is not the same as saying there is no mind. Your connection with "meaning" is unclear.One can make objective observations relating to morality, but one cannot make a comprehensive objective account of all moral principles. OK, you don't want to hear it. Then why are you posting in a discussion board?For the record "Therefore" would read better if it followed from some kind of actual argument; not a mishmash of blanket assertions and explicit refusal to even listen to any alternatives.Cheers -- Sylas

Would those be the Exodus 20/Rudy Roy Moore set or the Exodus 34/Ark of the Covenant set?

heh. exactly the sort of closed minded approach that is not able to change according to need as I noted.tell me again how the ten commandments say it is immoral to abuse children? history has shown? sorry, history has refuted. the "history" of religious imposed morality has been one of repression.history has shown that morallity is rationally derived from first principals and must be universal and not subject to bias or personal beliefs to be valid.It is subjective in the sense that each person derives their own version, whether they base it on real principles or borrow it from some other source: they decide what they are going to live by.It is not subjective in the sense that there are fundamental principles that apply and that can be logically derived.I'll take anarchy over theocracy any day of the week and twice on sunday.thanks.This message has been edited by RAZD, 01-15-2005 18:31 AM

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Personally, I think free will is a non-issue.Usually it is given as a strict alternative to determinism (as you seem to suggest), however when you include chaos in the mix then there is no {{one or the other}} (false) dichotomy.Usually it is only applied to humans as well, but all creatures, big and small, make decisions in their lives, that are based on their personal best {view\interest} even if that decision is {hungry, must eat}.The only fetters on will are the self imposed ones based on ones beliefs and rational thinking.

No; I am a form of compatibilist. I say that free will and determinism are compatible. In fact, free will (as I understand the term) requires some degree of determinism, for choices to be determined by your own wills and desires.I am also a materialist; I consider that my wills and desires exist as emergent phenomena from my physical makeup; but they are mine nevertheless. The physical laws of natural things are what enables life and will to exist. They are the means by which I have a will and by which my will relates to my actions and choices.Cheers -- Sylas

buzsaw writes:

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Biblical morality is subjective to the Ten Commandments. Fundamentalistic Biblical morality, foundational on the Ten Commandments, seems to be what works best, when you look around the world and look at history.

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(*snort!*)Can you give me an example of a single society that was ever founded upon "fundemantalistic biblical morality, foundational on the Ten Commandments"? The only one we can seem to find would be the supposed tribes of Israel written about in the Bible, but they didn't last very long. The Roman Empire, the Greek Empire, the Phonecians, Japanese, Chinese, Aztecs, Mayans, all of these and more have lasted much, much longer than Israel did.And even in the modern era, where are these "Ten Commandments" societies? Even here in the US, we don't follow them. The first four are all about how to worship god and the very first, explicitly listed right granted to the people in our Constitution indicates that that is a load of crap. You get to worship any god you want or even none if you so choose.Honor thy father and mother? Why? There's no crime in giving your parents the finger. Sometimes they need to be told just what pains in the asses they are (Mary Cheney? Are you listening?)Thou shalt not kill? Well, actually, you can. And the state will do it for you and not consider it cruel or unusual, even if you do it to the mentally ill or to those who committed their crime while underage.Adultery? Well, it's grounds for divorce, and there are some states that still make it a crime, but it isn't really handled that way.Stealing? Well, that sorta depends on how one defines "stealing." "Emminent domain" is pretty much stealing, but we don't complain about it too much unless it happens to you.Bearing false witness? You mean like "We know where the weapons of mass destruction are"?Thou shalt not covet? You mean like "Manifest Destiny"?My word...it seems like the US made itself what it was by deliberately breaking pretty much every commandment. But, we've only been around for a couple hundred years. We're kids.So do, please, tell us. Where are these "Ten Commandments" societies? I can't find any.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

robinrohan writes:

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Therefore, we should all be nihilists

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Oh, hell...not another "atheism = nihilism" thread.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

I looked at that and felt that it wasn't quite enough for me.There are elements that are determinisitic in the universe, and there are elements that are chaotic, where the result is unknowable until it happens. I also feel that one of those chaotic elements is the ability of life to decide certain behavior modes, not just free will for humans, but unfettered will for all life.the fact that person A decides to blow himself up at the bus station is deterministic from his freely made decision. the fact that person B happens to be in the bus station at the time is chaotic, even though dependent on his freely made decision. the fact that person B is blown up is neither due to his free will nor to determinism.but we could be arguing different sides of the same coin.enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

Although the universe is not deterministic, as far as we can tell, this is not connected with chaos. Deterministic behaviour can give rise to chaos and unpredictabilty just fine. Chaos is to do with such things as sensitivity to intial conditions. You can't know the result of a chaotic process in advance simply because you would need to know the initial conditions to infinite accuracy. That would hold even in a fully deterministic physics.My position is that predictability and freedom are orthogonal concepts.My thought experiment on this. Imagine three persons in a shopping mall, who see an item they desire but cannot afford. They have an opportunity to lift the item without detection.

• One person is completely amoral. I know they want it, and I know they will take it.
• One person is highly principled. I know that they are trustworthy, disciplined and reliable. I know they will not take it.
• One person is superficially principled, but unstable; subject to whims and fancies. What they do might depend on whether they had a fight with their boyfriend, or whether they are depressed about the weather, or whether they got their medication this morning. I have no idea what they will do.

The third person has the least freedom, by the way I think of freedom. They are blown about by circumstance and easily manipulated. They probably regret their actions in many cases.The two people I predict are free, but I know them well enough to be confident of what their free and unconstrained choice will be; even without being particularly omniscient. My knowledge does not constrain them; their actions are effectively constrained only by their own choices; this is freedom.Concerns that I cannot know for sure miss the point; freedom is not about how predictable you are. The least predictable, in this scenario, is the least free. The freedom of the others contributes to their predictability.Cheers -- Sylas

quote:

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What I want to address is the following: I'm talking to all these very knowledgable people and they are blythely telling me that my mind is physical, and that my morality is subjective, and that I have no free will, and I am wondering if tney understand the philosophical implications of what they are saying.

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They don't seem to understand that what they are saying is that we are mindless robots, living meaningless lives.

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...which is your personal opinion, nothing more.

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I hope they understand that, and I hope they understand that they cannot with any consistency be insisting on moral imperatives of any sort.

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Yet somehow, I and many others manage to live lives doing just that.

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I do not want to hear about your relative moralities, because, logically, they do not work. Anybody who looks at the question honestly will realize that. I do not want to hear that somehow our lives are meaningful if we are nothing but physical processes.

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Your narrow mindedness and prejudices shouldn't be given the weight of logical argument.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 01-15-2005 22:11 AM