User Controls
Posts by Obbe
-
2019-01-07 at 9:53 PM UTC in We are a specific mart of the universe
-
2019-01-07 at 7:27 PM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
Originally posted by Lanny Because "truth value" is the term you use when you want to talk about a proposition's status as true or false:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_value
Like if you guys didn't understand what that meant you should have just said so, it would save us some time.
I'm going to assume that's an answer in the positive.
So the question is why? We have a framework for physical investigation. We "imagine" it in some sense, but it basically deals with what we find in the world. Why could we not have a similar moral framework in which we go out into the world and discover moral truths empirically? What is it about moral propositions that you think there's no possible way we could find their justification out in the world when we can justify "imagined" ideas like electrons by looking at the world, even though we can never directly observe them?
I may never directly "see" an electron, but electrons have an objective effect on our reality. If two different people measure the electrical properties of a circuit they will observe the exact same objective measurements. If someone doesn't "accept" the electrical theory behind their measurements and does something wrong we can see how wrong they really are when their electrical system won't work the way they expect it to. Electricity isn't a matter of opinion.
Morality on the other hand is a matter of opinion. Morality is about things like good and bad which are not found anywhere outside of your imagination. There is no way to objectively measure the amount goodness or badness we imagine specific actions have. If everyone were to agree to share the same moral theory we would all imagine the same moral conclusions, but even if we did that wouldn't tell us anything about the real world. When two people with different moral frameworks reach two different moral conclusions about a specific action there is no way for us to measure who if either of them is objectively correct.
So the question now is why do you believe morality is not a matter of opinion? Why do you believe it is anything more than a figment of our imaginations? -
2019-01-05 at 12:47 AM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
Originally posted by Lanny I tried but no dice.
Can you see it now?
Originally posted by Obbe That is my answer specific to the question you asked me: you have not demonstrated any moral system exists beyond imagination. Your moral conclusions might logically follow your moral framework, but your moral framework is something you are imagining and so your conclusions are only regarding your imagined framework and tell us nothing about reality. If you imagine all cows are moral agents, and if you imagine killing moral agents is always immoral, the logical conclusion of that is that you imagine killing cows is always immoral. This doesn't tell us anything about reality though, it only tells us the logical conclusion of imagining that cows are moral agents while also imagining that killing moral agents is always immoral.
That should answer your question. -
2019-01-04 at 10:42 PM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
Originally posted by Lanny It's true, I haven't attempted to justify that any moral system exists beyond imagination yet, because I'd like to make sure we understand eachother when we talk about things like "moral systems", "moral obligations" and "moral facts" as the definitions of these terms will be very important any any justification of them I might give.
In particular, it seems like you've taken a position that moral statements are, by definition, mere statements of opinion. Is that the case?
You didn't ask any questions in the post I was responding to.
I think if you re-read the post you are responding to, you might find the answer to that question. -
2019-01-04 at 10:40 PM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
Originally posted by
^ Looks like he's not the only one, so why don't you just take your hypocritical fail-ass out of the thread, stop harassing and chasing users off the site, and then go fuck yourself?
The oversocialized man has feelings of inferiority so ingrained that he cannot conceive of himself as individually strong and valuable. Hence the collectivism of the oversocialized man. He can feel strong only as a member of a large organization or a mass movement with which he identifies himself. He may claim that his activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principles, but compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for moralist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of moralist behavior; so is the drive for power. -
2019-01-04 at 10:33 PM UTC in We are a specific mart of the universeThere is no "you" and there never was. "You" are the interaction of a variety of systems and process that are constantly changing with no center, you know what they say... plus ça change.
-
2019-01-04 at 10:24 PM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
Originally posted by Lanny That wasn't what I asked you. Could you please re-read the post you were responding to and answer specifically the question I posed.
That is my answer specific to the question you asked me: you have not demonstrated any moral system exists beyond imagination. Your moral conclusions might logically follow your moral framework, but your moral framework is something you are imagining and so your conclusions are only regarding your imagined framework and tell us nothing about reality. If you imagine all cows are moral agents, and if you imagine killing moral agents is always immoral, the logical conclusion of that is that you imagine killing cows is always immoral. This doesn't tell us anything about reality though, it only tells us the logical conclusion of imagining that cows are moral agents while also imagining that killing moral agents is always immoral. -
2019-01-04 at 12:44 PM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
Originally posted by MORALLY SUPERIOR BEING III: The Quest for 911 Truth I don't know what those things are (some Phillip K Dick shit?) but if all observers wind up coming to the same conclusion then it does tell us something about reality.
The universe consists of both information and stuff, and both of those components follow rules.
Even aliens will have prime numbers and number theory. That's why we say that things in mathematics are discovered, vs being invented.
Aliens will presumably have thought about morality too, though they will surely reject the style of weirdo post-Christian universalist morality Lanny and Zanick are trying to push, or the entitled confused Muslim morality Loing is trying to push.
Did I just "discover" that all Chulas get glomped, or did I just imagine that up? -
2019-01-04 at 11:59 AM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
Originally posted by Loing In my moral system, you can make axiomatic statements that would apply to any possible moral agent of any sort, by logical necessity. Could you call that an objective moral truth?
Logical consequences of your imaginary system are logical consequences of your imaginary system. Your imaginary system doesn't tell us anything about the world beyond your imagination.
Originally posted by Lanny My moral framework in particular, or all moral frameworks? If you deny the existence of factual moral statements as a category then that's a pretty strong position I think you'll need a better defense of than "moral frameworks are imaginary because I say so".
You haven't demonstrated any moral system that exists beyond imagination. Moral frameworks aren't imaginary "because I say so," moral frameworks are imaginary because they are imagined.
Originally posted by MORALLY SUPERIOR BEING III: The Quest for 911 Truth Maths is a set of rules and logic, and doesn't need to have anything to do with material things, as in pure mathematics. The universe has logical rules that exist by themselves and are objectively true, and they don't need to be obvious, related to material things, or even testable to be true.
If all Chulas are Ubik, and all Ubik gets glomped, will all Chulas get glomped? The logical consequence of this scenario is imaginary and tells us nothing about reality. -
2019-01-04 at 12:33 AM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
Originally posted by Lanny No, I'm not doing that, I think you have misunderstood what I'm saying quite badly. There are many moral statements, clearly. Some or none of them may be facts. Whether any moral statement is true, or any particular statement is true, is a fact, not a mere matter of opinion.
Numbers are not "observable" in any physical sense, but presumably you'd agree with statements like "7 is a prime number". Physical observability has never been necessary condition for statements having truth values.
Some moral statements will be logically consistent with your moral framework, and some will not be. Whether other people actually agree with your moral framework is a matter of opinion. Your moral framework exists only within your imagination and doesn't tell us anything about objective reality. -
2019-01-02 at 10:32 PM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
Originally posted by MORALLY SUPERIOR BEING III: The Quest for 911 Truth I think Lanny conceives of morality as a branch of logic, more or less the same as mathematics. In the same way as you can have a logical fact you can have a mathematical fact, and a moral fact. Why is that approach wrong?
What is logical is not always what is true, and math is not reality it is an approximation of reality. Moral statements are nonmaterial and do not appear to be accessible to empirical investigation. Moral statements cannot be observed in the same way as material facts (which are objective), so it seems odd to count them in the same category.
I've seen no reason to treat morality as something objective. The system will compel us to act the way it wants us to act and whether we think our actions are moral or immoral doesn't really matter, in the same way that it doesn't really matter if we think our actions are freely willed or not. -
2019-01-02 at 7:54 PM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
Originally posted by Lanny I've never suggested doing as much. Maybe you should reread the post you quoted.
You are labelling moral statements as "moral facts", and go on to say these "moral facts" have either a positive or negative "truth value". I don't agree with using the word fact in this way; a fact is true or it is not a fact at all. -
2019-01-02 at 4:16 PM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
Originally posted by Lanny To summarize: I take issue with claims like "what is right(moral facts) is a matter of opinion" which you seem to champion here. This is a misunderstanding of what is meant by "right" or "moral facts". You can understand what is meant by the term without holding there are any true moral facts. By analogy, somebody might say "facts about phlogiston are a matter of opinion" and this would be a similar misunderstanding. Presumably we agree that there is no true positive fact as to the color of phlogiston, since it doesn't exist, but we can pretty easily say there is a truth value to statements like "phlogiston is green" or "phlogiston exists".
I don't ask that you agree that any particular moral fact is true, but there is no point trying to justify a particular moral fact (i.e. that we that shouldn't eat meat) if you refuse to acknowledge what the term "moral fact" signifies in any such justification.
I don't agree with labelling moral conclusions as "moral facts". I don't agree with labelling both true or false statements as "fact"; rather, a fact is true or it is not a fact at all. If Ubik does not exist it doesn't make sense to label the statement "Ubik is red" as a fact. Rather the statement "Ubik is red" is an expression of how the speaker imagines Ubik. It is their imagination, their opinion.
Statements like "X is immoral" are also not facts. The statement "X is immoral" may be consistent with the speakers moral framework, or not, but as long as morality is just something people imagine it has nothing to do with facts. -
2019-01-01 at 1:11 AM UTC in ATTN: OBBE
-
2019-01-01 at 1:04 AM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
-
2019-01-01 at 12:35 AM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
-
2018-12-31 at 6:13 PM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
Originally posted by Loing There is no objective reason to deliver pizza, but on the basis of the fact that we do deliver pizza, we can come to factual conclusions on all sorts of aspects of reality.
Our desires are literally empirical data about the world, and we can model them in terms of how they interact. You can do this however you want. Categorical imperative, social contract, game theory… But if you can accept the data and the premises, you cannot reject the conclusions. To not grasp this is just a basic failure of understanding. It's literally no different than any hard science endeavour either, at its most basic level. That's how we can see an 8% neutron excess on a graph and make a strong claim about finding a fundamental particle of the universe.
And you can build from axioms that would apply to any normal, able bodied, mentally sound agent, from their perspective.
For example, the basic right to life. If someone wants to keep doing things at all, they want to stay alive. We can take that as an axiom, and draw conclusions based on that in a wheelchair variety of different models.
No there's no inherent meaning to it. That is not a thing. But it has meaning to us, the same way anything else does.
I don't believe I ever disputed that. -
2018-12-31 at 6:12 PM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
Originally posted by Lanny These are questions that need to be addressed empirically, I'm not committed to an answer one way or another and am willing to change my position based on new evidence. As best I can tell bee hives probably don't have hedonic faculties, although they do have some very interesting emergent behaviors so I wouldn't rule it out entirely. Bees don't seem to really possess the required faculties to ask questions like "is it morally permissible to sting such and such". I think most humans have the intellectual capacity to engage in moral reasoning, and most do at least sometimes, although I suppose I can imagine people so strongly conditioned by a program of religious indoctrination that they can at least partially be excused for their conduct that follows from that.
No. Firstly this isn't really a "shitlib" phenomenon. Second you can think it's not OK to strike your child without letting them wreak havoc in restaurants, it turns out there's more ways to make a child behave in socially acceptable ways than inflicting physical pain on them. Lastly, and this is the only point that's actually relevant to the topic, it's wholly possible to say something isn't at fault but still take "punitive" action against it. We don't ascribe moral agency to earthquakes, but we still construct buildings to withstand them. Likewise I don't think a child has full moral agency, but that doesn't mean I don't think they should be above punishment or that we shouldn't do what we can to mitigate their undesirable behavior. They're just not morally accountable for their actions.
You don't have to be a moral realist to understand what is meant by the term "moral obligation" in the title of this thread.
No, but I think I would need to be a moral realist to agree with what you mean by that term. -
2018-12-29 at 5:16 PM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
Originally posted by Loing Unfortunately, you have unsuccessfully tried to lie about what I said, which was "should he take the most efficient route?", which not at all involves questioning the very enterprise of delivering pizza.
That's a completely different level of description, that is entertained because we presume to have made the necessary assumptions before that point to get to where we are discussing a delivery route. We have already taken it as given that the customer ordered a pizza, they form an agreement to exchange money for food (BUT IS MONEY REAL?!?!) with the business, they make the food, and now they must consider the path they ought to take to take to the customer's house. I mean, I literally just explained this to you. This is no different than the assumptions we take to get to the abstraction layers that, say, neuroscience operates at. We just observe phenomena.
The "ought" is an observation of which assumption we start with in order to connect our "is"es. And that assumption is also an "is", but but to study that is, you have to make a further set of assumptions of "ought". You're not going to escape this problem.
If you just took the time to read up on Hume with a clear mind, you'd see how amazingly dumb you're being right now.
Moral frameworks simply model the interaction of these assumptions. There's some axioms that have no inherent fact but are seemingly true for us to have certain discussion.
You appear to agree that there is no reason to believe people should deliver pizza. You are simply saying that if someone has a goal in their mind, some actions will achieve their goal better than other actions, which is not something I have ever disputed. None of this seems to support the idea that moral facts exist beyond your imagination. -
2018-12-29 at 4:15 PM UTC in We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
Originally posted by Loing No, broadly speaking people eat meat because they eat meat. But that's not a very useful description of anything. There are many levels of description. At the level of particle physics, there is no description of "people". It is utterly retarded that you do not understand this. There is no interpretation of physics at the granular level that has any vocabulary relevant to people, society, the universe. And that's not necessarily because of the laws of physics at their base layers, but larger organizational structures, for example the topology of the space in which these abstract mathematical operations take place, and it's not clear where that fits in or if it even does fit in clearly with with what we can principally investigate scientifically (since that's just how we model these phenomena).
In terms of the science factuals, we don't even have the principle abstraction layers between chemistry and biology, for example. And who knows the sort of possibility spaces operate between those abstraction layers, just due to interlevel dynamics? For example relativity + QM plays a part in GPS technology, to make a classical scale effect, a human scale effect.
So we make discrete layers of description. We have biology without guy understanding the intermediate abstraction layers every time. How does the angular position. Of the moon affect growth patterns for bacterial moss? Who knows, let's find out. The science of biological organisms in their environment, biology.
I don't know if you have hard autism or some other mental block that makes you completely incapable of changing your mind to anything outside the first and only book you've ever read, but I really wish I could get through it and get you to understand. The whole point of the entire endeavour of naturalistic inquiry is to resolve the world of human existence with an objective explanatory picture of the universe.
People deliver pizzas because people deliver pizzas. Maybe some of these people want to deliver pizza. Maybe some of these people feel compelled to deliver pizza. There is no reason to believe anyone should deliver pizza. Maybe you believe people "should" deliver pizza and maybe you believe that is a moral fact, but we have no reason to agree with you.
