Can natural science provide an ethics?

Science has effectively scrubbed meaning from the universe by showing us how arbitrary, sequential and cause and effect everything is. If anything science has made ethics meaningless or obsolete, whichever you prefer.
 
Science has effectively scrubbed meaning from the universe by showing us how arbitrary, sequential and cause and effect everything is.

Not really - the fundamental building blocks of the universe seem to not follow causality (as we understand it) at all.
 
It differs little how the exact mechanism works, it is still out of our control. The conscious I or self is always behind the decisions the brain makes. It's the brain that works everything. And the brain is subject to our more mundane physical laws. If you do not really possess choice, why bother with ethics? The collective unconsciousness is only striving to optimize behaviors so we may sooner build machines that will possess (to a degree) what we lack. The self in control or self-moving soul that is, in more generous spiritual terms if you will.
 
That seems to be true for the brain, but you were talking about the universe at large initially. And the universe, at the (as far as we can tell) basic quantum level, does not at all behave according to causality (as we understand it anyway).
 
Yes, you got me to clarify my position. Which was important I suppose.
 
Causality is totally dependent on frame of reference.
 
Yes, you got me to clarify my position. Which was important I suppose.

There are people out there who say that the "key" to the brain is that it performs some of its task on the quantum level.. some people seem to think that this is what helps make it "special" - since it's able to bypass causality.

I don't quite buy that, but it's something to think about... maybe.
 
There are people out there who say that the "key" to the brain is that it performs some of its task on the quantum level.. some people seem to think that this is what helps make it "special" - since it's able to bypass causality.

I don't quite buy that, but it's something to think about... maybe.

Those are the same sort of people who attribute quantum effects with magical properties. Even if the brain received interrupts (to borrow from CS) from QM, We or I is still not in control. The (self)conscious observer is simply informed of course changes.
 
I read an interesting book a long time ago - The Quantum Brain. From what I remember it made a point of separating out science from hypotheticals. So it made for a good reading, because it didn't seem "kooky" - or that the author had any agenda, other than presenting a bunch of facts, and his ideas.

There seems to have been more "thought" in this "field" in the last 2 decades, but it's hard to figure out what's legit and what isn't, at first glance anyway.
 
You really need to go in hard and deep into neuroscience and cognitive psychology to realize how seriously mistaken our perception of reality and self is. A bunch of magnets strapped to the head can shut down your sense of right and wrong and you wouldn't be able to tell if boning your sister was different from helping the poor. Humanity in it's current format is on the way out. That's for sure. You could say we are living in the last few good days. That's something.
 
If you do not really possess choice, why bother with ethics?
If we really do not possess choice, how could we avoid ethics? Or maybe I should ask, how could we not "bother with ethics"?

You seem to posit "no choice", and then, using the word "why", imply that we do have a choice. How can this be?
 
Really? I've been pretty shallow up to now, huh?

I wouldn't say that that was deep, myself. But it was me what thunk it up, after all.
 
If we really do not possess choice, how could we avoid ethics? Or maybe I should ask, how could we not "bother with ethics"?

You seem to posit "no choice", and then, using the word "why", imply that we do have a choice. How can this be?

It's a dream man. If you realize you're dreaming, you can make...a choice. ;)
 
Maybe. There are some signs that digital physics, might in fact be a real thing. Or the real thing. This thread is just a barrel of mind benders. Quick, someone post a Keanu.
 
Really? I've been pretty shallow up to now, huh?

Heh, no not at all. It's just what you said seemed simple on the surface - but had a lot of meat on the inside - to think about and ponder. I can appreciate that sort of complexity in such a simple statement. It seemed like a very worthy observation. Not that it means that you never make worthy observations, just that this one particularly struck me as very interesting.
 
Well, thank you, Mr Soup. You've made my day!

I like simple statements which contain some "meat", very much myself, too.
 
There's something to be said that our minds can be self-recursive to the point of psychosis. If we are nothing more than biomechanisms responding to inputs, then maybe suicide is like definitive proof of man's victory over nature.
 
Hmm. I'm not so sure. My brain seems to be self-limiting as far as recursion goes: it can go to about three levels in and then it just goes "Pfft! Can't be bothered!" and I give up. I can see that recursion can be infinite, though. But that's a bit different.

Wouldn't it be bizarre if you could give your brain a recursive algorithm and it just kept processing till you ran out of memory? Just like a computer.
 
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