Define: God

[Farm Boy]

But, I view morality as an objective thing, something that we perceive and discover. Sure, parts of it are our subjective opinions, but they're subjective opinions that are trying to discover something that objectively exists. The parallels with health are strong. Health objectively exists. There are certain dimensions of health that seem to be at odds with each other (e.g., a normal person has to choose between a 200 lb bench press, the ability to run a 10 second 100m, or the ability to hike for hours), and morality can be that way too. The universe prevents us from being 'perfectly healthy', can't be done. And perfect morality cannot be achieved either. And, like the virus, objective morality doesn't care about your opinion. You can be right, you can be wrong. The moral standard exists regardless.

Well, I make no claims on understanding the comprehensive nature of salvation or damnation either. Heaven, Hell, and afterlife are pretty loose terms. They're better suited to a vibe, as you sometimes put it, than specifics.

But sure, the more we know the more objective morality seems. If we know eating the extra handful of berries means your sister has none and will now be hungry eating the berries now becomes a selfish or evil act instead of one which could be done in love if it was done in ignorance of the effects. The more we know the better we can love, our love can perhaps be more Godly, even. But it gets exponentially more difficult to walk the right path when it gets narrower and when it's less excusable for veering off.

None of us are going to have that complete picture. What we know and what outcomes we can predict with any sort of certainty is intensely variable by being, condition, time. I get the impression you see this incredible fractal reality of possible worlds diverging by the direction an unfathomable amount of forks different actors take, and that of all these paths there is a Golden one. One that's as perfect as can be. Perhaps that's God. Maybe we'll ascend there at some point. Maybe that point only can exist in the silence of the Alpha and the Omega of all things. The peace of stillness, or of unity. Maybe not.

I guess I see things more like... I don't have a good like, but let's go with I see things more like... a song. The song of all songs and with so very many different parts that cannot each hear the whole. You can only sing to your own capacity and from the melodies and harmonies you can perceive. And the song is God. Or it's God's song. Or maybe the distinction isn't really one. What one chooses to be, who you choose to be, from measure to measure is what matters. That's your part. And attempting to create intricate melodies and beauty with your skills and efforts is a hell of a lot more difficult than only providing the baseline beat from your heart.

Not sure if that's making any sense at all. It's half congealed gist from musings on a lot of topics but vaguely emanating from the allegory of the tree of knowledge and the call to be Christ like in love.

 

[Borachio]

None of us are going to have that complete picture. What we know and what outcomes we can predict with any sort of certainty is intensely variable by being, condition, time. I get the impression you see this incredible fractal reality of possible worlds diverging by the direction an unfathomable amount of forks different actors take, and that of all these paths there is a Golden one. One that's as perfect as can be. Perhaps that's God. Maybe we'll ascend there at some point. Maybe that point only can exist in the silence of the Alpha and the Omega of all things. The peace of stillness, or of unity. Maybe not.

I guess I see things more like... I don't have a good like, but let's go with I see things more like... a song. The song of all songs and with so very many different parts that cannot each hear the whole. You can only sing to your own capacity and from the melodies and harmonies you can perceive. And the song is God. Or it's God's song. Or maybe the distinction isn't really one. What one chooses to be, who you choose to be, from measure to measure is what matters. That's your part. And attempting to create intricate melodies and beauty with your skills and efforts is a hell of a lot more difficult than only providing the baseline beat from your heart.

No, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's nice, though. Visionary, even. I might read it again.

 

[Gary Childress]

Yeah, I'm describing physical fitness. It's tough to capture the je ne sais quoi of "health" in words. We recognize it when we see it. We know what causes it and we know what harms it. Me comparing 200 pushups to 50 chinups doesn't really capture the vibe, but I think it gets the gist across.

When I think of "health" I think of it in contrast to "sickness". I've heard immorality described as a "cancer" before. In a sense maybe it destroys a person's spirit (and perhaps by extension that of the community as well) or something to be immoral? But I sort of don't see the analogy of morality to physical fitness in the sense that people can be fit for different tasks. You provided the example of a person who is fit for running versus a person who is fit for weightlifting. They appear to be two different activities that involve two different sorts of specialization of muscles and body disposition. But I don't understand how morality is like that? Can you give some specific examples that would illustrate the analogy?

 

[El_Machinae]

We live in a universe of opportunity cost. That's what's happening with the two athletes of two different specializations. It's obvious that a 3rd dude who outlifts the weightlifter and out runs the runner is 'more fit'. But, such a person cannot exist, since specialization in one area impacts our potential in another area.

Morality has the same thing. We value people's right to continue living. We value people's right to not get beaten. But, if you see a man through the cross-hairs of your rifle who's beating his wife, you're forced to choose between these two rights. Now, that's a pretty severe case, but the gist is there. You're forced to choose between limiting his health and lessening her future pain ...

Now, just like with fitness, there's obviously superior possibility. The man does not want to beat his wife. But, in the real world, we're left with a decision where one 'good' comes at the cost of another 'good'.

But it gets exponentially more difficult to walk the right path when it gets narrower and when it's less excusable for veering off.

Kinda. The 'right path' exists whether you know about it or not with regards to outcomes. Now, in moral calculus, intent matters. The correct path becomes easier to migrate as you know more, but the excusability for failure is higher based on your ignorance.

I get the impression you see this incredible fractal reality of possible worlds diverging by the direction an unfathomable amount of forks different actors take, and that of all these paths there is a Golden one. One that's as perfect as can be.

Kinda. I mean, I see a huge fractal in our future. It's not infinitely fractal, but the future is (for our purposes) malleable based on our chosen actions. There's no Golden Path, but there are better paths and worse paths one can take. But each step along this path has its own fractal future, and then the wisdom/goodness of our next step depends upon what everyone else did.

Liken it to a game of Chess. Each turn you're forced to move, and the goal is to win. Each turn, you choose to make a move and it's either a good choice or bad choice. Your partner then makes a move. The wisdom of your next move will be based on what your partner did. So, there's no 'Golden Path' from the outset. There are certainly 'Golden Possibilities'. Some first moves aren't very good. And, your ability to make a good move (based on the current stage of the game) is heavily dependent upon your intelligence. Some turns there will be a 'best' move. Some turns there will be a variety of 'equally good' moves. Each turn there will be 'bad moves'. And, in many ways, you cannot judge the wisdom of a strategy until you're judged, objectively, by the outcome of the game.

 

[Gary Childress]

We live in a universe of opportunity cost. That's what's happening with the two athletes of two different specializations. It's obvious that a 3rd dude who outlifts the weightlifter and out runs the runner is 'more fit'. But, such a person cannot exist, since specialization in one area impacts our potential in another area.

Morality has the same thing. We value people's right to continue living. We value people's right to not get beaten. But, if you see a man through the cross-hairs of your rifle who's beating his wife, you're forced to choose between these two rights. Now, that's a pretty severe case, but the gist is there. You're forced to choose between limiting his health and lessening her future pain ...

Now, just like with fitness, there's obviously superior possibility. The man does not want to beat his wife. But, in the real world, we're left with a decision where one 'good' comes at the cost of another 'good'.

Hmm. I suppose there is some similarity there. I'll have to dwell a little more on it though.

 

[El_Machinae]

Yeah, the important point is that I think it's technically impossible to achieve a perfect morality. It's also impossible to draw a perfect circle. This fact, though, doesn't change the fact that the concept of 'a perfect circle' doesn't exist.

 

[Gary Childress]

Yeah, the important point is that I think it's technically impossible to achieve a perfect morality. It's also impossible to draw a perfect circle. This fact, though, doesn't change the fact that the concept of 'a perfect circle' doesn't exist.

That analogy I definitely understand.

My personal take on morality is maybe a bit Kantian and a little along the lines of trying to create a perfect two dimensional map of the surface of the Earth. The Earth might represent the true state of affairs "out there" in the world. The 2d map, say a Mercator Projection (for example) is our attempt to apply our own cognitive structures to that true state of affairs, or the world "in-itself". Our cognitive structures maybe fit the true state of affairs to some extent but there's just no way to make it fit perfectly because ultimately the world as it is "in-itself" wasn't designed by a human being (if it was "designed" at all).

Our concepts of morality just don't fit the world "in-itself" (particles of matter in motion) as well as we would like, and therefore a perfect moral interpretation of events is impossible. Sort of along the lines of the classic question of whether a tree falling when no one is around making a sound or not. If we define sound as that which the neurons in our brain produce in our conscious awareness, then I don't think a tree makes a "sound" when there is not a brain there to transform matter in motion into the sense qualia of "sound".

I think the same maybe applies for morality. I think it may be a quality that we humans apply to the world that doesn't exist in the world independently of our being in the world. It fits to some degree. We can exist pretty well on it most of the time but there are dilemmas, exceptions and things of that nature that maybe remind us that the world does not perfectly fit our notions of how things should be. It's not easy to be a perfect moral agent in a world that doesn't always give us clear cut moral choices.

 

[Farm Boy]

Liken it to a game of Chess. Each turn you're forced to move, and the goal is to win. Each turn, you choose to make a move and it's either a good choice or bad choice. Your partner then makes a move. The wisdom of your next move will be based on what your partner did. So, there's no 'Golden Path' from the outset. There are certainly 'Golden Possibilities'. Some first moves aren't very good. And, your ability to make a good move (based on the current stage of the game) is heavily dependent upon your intelligence. Some turns there will be a 'best' move. Some turns there will be a variety of 'equally good' moves. Each turn there will be 'bad moves'. And, in many ways, you cannot judge the wisdom of a strategy until you're judged, objectively, by the outcome of the game.

That's actually a good breakdown. The chess analogy allows me to hone in on the distinction I'm trying to make, since there's so much ground we share. The morality of chess assumes a winner and a loser with the superior and inferior moves you mentioned. The morality of song doesn't have a win condition. It has a beginning, movements, transitions, and ultimately an ending. Maybe there's another different song to come, maybe there isn't. But there's no checkmate. Along the way there is beauty, ugliness, wonder, and horror. It is what it is for as long as it is. As our ability to pick out more complex harmony increases the more intricate, or at least crafted, our own parts need to become to create something glorious instead of hideous.

 

[El_Machinae]

Oh, yeah, that's definitely where we split ways. I consider it the 'checkmate test' every time one of my decisions ends up influencing a sentient organism, including accounting for the butterfly effect. Were they harmed or helped? There's an objective, if technically unknowable, answer.

 

[timtofly]

Seems like a scale that would not be possible to build, then. And so we can discard it as a potential solution to the "how do you build a non-sentient judge of moral actions?" problem.

Causality exists in our universe, yes, and that's how things work. But that's not to say that it'd be possible to build such a non-sentient judge of moral actions. I mean, you could, I suppose, by making it respond with random answers - but then it wouldn't be very usable.

The thing with causality is that the reaction is always instantaneous. Something happens -> there is a reaction -> something else happens. Sure, sometimes there is a distance problem, so you don't see the result until later, but the reality of causality is that it wouldn't allow for the non-sentient judging of moral actions.

I mean, first of all morality is something sentient creatures (us) invented. It is not a property of the universe. Things happen in the universe based on how particles interact, and various laws, and none of them have anything to do with morality.

Why does morality and judgment have anything to do with the afterlife? If it is all man made concepts; where did humans get the expertise on the afterlife, especially if no one has ever experienced it. It all seems to just be a controlling mechanism. Arguing the concept without an entity that knows about the after life, seems rather pointless on the mere physical properties of the universe itself. Even if there is an after life, how we live in this one is a mute point if such a concept exist on human knowledge alone.

 

[Borachio]

Oh, yeah, that's definitely where we split ways. I consider it the 'checkmate test' every time one of my decisions ends up influencing a sentient organism, including accounting for the butterfly effect. Were they harmed or helped? There's an objective, if technically unknowable, answer.

Look at it this way: a game of chess is a time of play between two human beings.

Supposing it's between two players who habitually play each other.

One or the other must win, or it's a draw. But the quality of the play matters too, doesn't it? Both players could be playing equally well, and the result is a kind of discovery made by both of them.

Or one player might make an experimental move which turns out to lose the game, but deepens the knowledge of both players.

One day they may play aggressively, another day more passively.

Some games are over quickly, both in terms of moves and time. Others may last a long time.

 

[warpus]

And, like with our bodies, we can mostly tell which choices are moral and which are immoral.

Because you were born into a society with specific moral expectations and a moral framework existing due to many years of history and people in the past morphing and changing morality until it now is what it is. If you were born 100 years ago in Afghanistan, your moral compass would have been completely different. If you had been born 600 years ago in Poland, your moral would have been completely different. If you had been born 4,000 years ago in Egypt, your moral compass would have been completely different. If you had been born 2 million years ago on an alien planet .. well, you get the point.

I don't see any objective morality there - I see morality changing and morphing for each society on this planet, depending on many factors.

I mean, if morality was objective, we wouldn't need judges and legal systems - we could just ask the universe what the morality of an action is. We don't require a person deciding whether an apple falls of a tree or not - the universe decides that. You throw an apple and the apple falls down - there is no committee that gets together and decides what must happen to the apple. Why do we need people to decide what laws are going to exist? - Because morality is subjective - you need people to sit down and discuss these things - and make decisions.

This is more a disagreement about the nature of morality then, rather than anything else. You posit that a naturalistic universe is capable of producing objective morality for all sentient beings who live within. (If this is not your view please correct me, but I think I have it right).

My claim is simply that all the evidence points to the fact that morality is subjective, and that morality without sentient beings just wouldn't exist. You need beings to make moral decisions there in order for a moral framework to exist.

That's the crux of our disagreement about whether heaven and hell could exist without a sentient operator directing traffic. I don't think it'd be possible due to my views above. You think it'd be possible due to your views being the opposite of mine.

 

[warpus]

Who decides what is heavier and what is lighter in physical terms? Who decided that helium floating up in the air meant it was lighter?

The laws of the universe drive this traffic - no conscious conductor is required.

For morality you need one, since there is no universal answer to the question: "Is it moral to do X?". In some there might be, but in most it depends on the circumstances. Looking at all of human history, I'm not sure how it's possible to come to another conclusion.

 

[El_Machinae]

Because you were born into a society with specific moral expectations and a moral framework existing due to many years of history and people in the past morphing and changing morality until it now is what it is. If you were born 100 years ago in Afghanistan, your moral compass would have been completely different. If you had been born 600 years ago in Poland, your moral would have been completely different. If you had been born 4,000 years ago in Egypt, your moral compass would have been completely different. If you had been born 2 million years ago on an alien planet .. well, you get the point.

Those people also had incredibly different views regarding nutrition. It's entirely possible for a culture to be wrong.

I mean, if morality was objective, we wouldn't need judges and legal systems - we could just ask the universe what the morality of an action is.

That's exactly the point. The universe does tell us. You could have a panel of judges telling you that skinning Susie alive is perfectly okay. A panel of priests could declare their agreement.

Then, you go off and skin Susie and it still harms her. It harms her family's impression of you. It harms their impression of your family. It causes her and them to hate you, the judges, the priests.

Like your body becoming sick after eating a bad berry. It doesn't matter if you liked the taste, it still rebelled. Everyone involved in the moral exchange rebels, the culture becomes sicker, becomes worse. It doesn't even matter if you enjoyed skinning her, it's still worse.

The judges and the priests were wrong. They thought the berry was good for you. They thought that skinning Susie alive was okay. But they were wrong. Susie was harmed, the culture was harmed. You puked. Their moral perceptions were incorrect. Their subjective opinions meaned nothing. The universe ruled against them.

There's more pain, hate, anger, suffering, and mistrust than if the priests and judges hadn't been wrong. We asked the universe. Their subjective opinions mattered for crap all.

I think I know where the confusion is. What do you think morality is?
Is it something other than a code of behaviour between people that leads to the ability to thrive and prosper together?

Like nutrition is what allows you to be healthy, morality is what allows a culture to be healthy

 

[Farm Boy]

I can probably come up with situations where skinning somebody alive is a win as opposed to not skinning them. If enough players pound the drums of war the rhythm of the song is going to change. It might be, and probably will be, an ugly ass song. But anyone attempting to change it to something more beautiful is probably going to at least need to navigate the beat.

 

[Borachio]

The laws of the universe drive this traffic - no conscious conductor is required.

For morality you need one, since there is no universal answer to the question: "Is it moral to do X?". In some there might be, but in most it depends on the circumstances. Looking at all of human history, I'm not sure how it's possible to come to another conclusion.

Hmm. I'm not convinced. Is it ever moral to inflict pain and suffering on another sentient being just for the sake of it?

You're saying that nearly all morality is relativist?

Neither am I convinced that the laws of the universe are self-existent. They may be, for all I know, but to convince me that they are you must show that the laws of the universe can't possibly be otherwise than what they are. This isn't at all evident, since at the moment of the Big Bang, for example, I am told the laws of the universe no longer hold.

Anyway, Mr Boy, what's this situation where flaying someone is a win?

 

[warpus]

@ El_Machinae - You're still going to have to point to some sort of an objective source for morality for me to convince me.

With gravity you've already convinced me - there is objective gravity, and we can figure out what it is easily. Well, not *that* easily, but Newton figured it out, and then Einstein and others improved on those observations, theories, and formulas. There is an objective force called gravity, and we can see it in action by throwing an apple, launching a rocket into space, and so on. We know that there doesn't have to be a person behind the scenes telling the apple where to go - naturalistic & deterministic processes drive all that instead.

In the case of morality I have no choice but to disagree with you, because we don't even have a simple hypothesis about objective morality.. we don't have theories, formulas, calculations.. We have nothing other than the observation that morality changes over time, depending on various variables, the context, historical accidents, and so on.

Maybe this will help you understand my disagreement: pretend that newton and einstein haven't been born yet. We know nothing about gravity.. it might as well be magic. Is there some person behind the scenes deciding where things go, what attracts what, how fall apples fall, and so on? Who knows, nobody's been able to figure out an objective descriptor of gravity.. It might very well be subjective. Nobody knows. We have 0 information about an objective gravity.

In that case I would ask the same question: "Show me objective gravity. Show me that somebody doesn't need to be calling the shots. Until then, I'm going to have to assume that objective gravity doesn't exist and that you require a sentient operator calling the shots."

Then you might put on Newton's cap, figure out his formulas, and so on, do experimentation, and come back to me with an objective description of gravity. I'd look at it and say: "aha! So it is possible! I now agree with you that such a thing is possible, since you are presenting to me such a framework."

That's what I'd need to agree with you about morality - but as far as I know such a framework doesn't exist.. in my opinion because it'd be impossible to construct, due to the fact that (I believe that) moral frameworks are constructed by sentient entities like humans. If there were an alien race out there somewhere - can you imagine what their moral framework might be? It'd be likely completely different from what we have here in the west, at this time in human history.

And that's how I see morality - and think that history and evidence backs up my position - morality changes over time. I am not opposed to it being objective fully - but I'd need some evidence to see that this might be the case. So far every single piece of evidence I've seen points in the other direction. With gravity for example all signs point to an objective direction - if you keep throwing an apple the same way, it will always have the same trajectory.. roughly the same, anyway. That to me is a hint that gravity is objective.

This is a very interesting discussion, I wish I had moer time for it!

Hmm. I'm not convinced. Is it ever moral to inflict pain and suffering on another sentient being just for the sake of it?

Probably not, but that's one example where a moral weight of an action is not so difficult to figure out. Many people would agree that undue suffering is immoral. The complexity of morality and moral frameworks is best seen in the light of complex examples - not the simple ones.

So let's look at some more complicated examples. How about abortion? Is dropping a nuclear weapon on a city ever moral? Is firebombing a city ever moral? How about laws that make the possession of guns illegal? or restrictive in some way? Is it ever moral to keep someone in jail? To keep them in solitary confinement?

There are many moral issues that have no clear answers.. we struggle with them every day, as a society. And it's not because we're too stupid to figure out the moral laws that will give us all the answers - it's because there is no such thing and we need to formulate laws so that the least amount of pain occurs.. or whatever. Morality is a complex animal, you will never have a moral framework that everyone will agree with.

In many cases morality is a case of many discussions being held. Some people present one side, others present the other - and we try to come to some sort of a landing that will be the best answer for the most number of people involved. This is of course a very simplistic view of how moral views are formed, but morality comes out due to consensus (by various intelligent agents) rather than being the results of some objective law.

It would be amazing if morality was objective and we had a formula we could plug things into and get a "moral" or "not moral" answer as a result! But such a thing doesn't seem possible. There is just no indication in any sort of way that that's how things work.

Neither am I convinced that the laws of the universe are self-existent. They may be, for all I know, but to convince me that they are you must show that the laws of the universe can't possibly be otherwise than what they are. This isn't at all evident, since at the moment of the Big Bang, for example, I am told the laws of the universe no longer hold.

I think you're saying "What if there is a person deciding what happens with gravity behind the scenes, but we just don't know it yet?"

I admit that this is a possibility, but what I see so far is a framework that works without the need for such a person. You throw an apple - and you can use a formula to figure out where it falls. You can't do this with morality. In some cases you can, but in a lot of cases you just can't.

If that's not what you're saying, then I will have to blame that on me just waking up

I think I know where the confusion is. What do you think morality is?
Is it something other than a code of behaviour between people that leads to the ability to thrive and prosper together?

Sorry, I forgot to respond to this!

Morality to me is a set of actions, thoughts, and related things, that allow us to distinguish between "good" and "bad". I suppose a better way to word it is that it is a set of standards.

If we disagree what morality is as well, then yeah, that would cause us to disagree on a whole bunch of things here as well. But what else could morality be, other than a set of standards that allows us to quantify actions as "good" or "bad"?

 

[timtofly]

Morality does not change. Humans and their subjectivity changes. If you can convince humans to subject themselves to an unchanging objective morality, then you have overcome the changeability of human nature itself.

 

[El_Machinae]

I can probably come up with situations where skinning somebody alive is a win as opposed to not skinning them. If enough players pound the drums of war the rhythm of the song is going to change. It might be, and probably will be, an ugly ass song. But anyone attempting to change it to something more beautiful is probably going to at least need to navigate the beat.

Well, sure. First off, remember that I said a perfect morality is impossible due to the way our universe works. And, each scenario is going to be very situation specific.

I can think of situations where drinking a glass of water would improve your health in the long run. I can think of situations where drinking it would harm your health. The laws of nutrition remain objective, in the meantime.

@ El_Machinae - You're still going to have to point to some sort of an objective source for morality for me to convince me.

The 'source' comes from the fact that we're thinking, biological beings that can experience harms, ills, love, well-being, hate, etc. The judge is how these things that objectively exist turn out after a moral decision is made and acted upon.

Morality is the 'rules' for how people interact with sentient organisms (including other people). It's what allows a community to be healthy or sick. It's what allows a civilization to thrive or not. The important thing to remember is people can be wrong, but the relativists seem to think this means the inputs and outcomes of interactions don't objectively exist.

The better the society's morals evolve, the society becomes happier, healthier, more likely to thrive, more likely to survive. If this society makes a mistake in their moral calculus, it migrates away from this.

There are outputs to moral decisions. These outputs are real. Some can be measured, but many cannot be measured. It doesn't matter that you cannot measure them, this thriving or this suffering still exists.

We live in a universe where many interactions can occur that are perceived as a net benefit to any interacting-pair. This perception is a real thing. The better we are at approaching a proper morality, the more of these 'net win' interactions occur. If we make mistakes, participants suffer. Our imperfect universe means we can never have total success, but that doesn't really mean much.

This reminds me of the qualia discussion we're having in the other thread, it's akin to someone insisting that qualia don't objectively exist. Morality exists as the sum of outcomes between each individual reaction between each pair of sentients in the interaction. Hmmmn, that sentence captures the essence of my point, so I bolded it. Pairings can exist across time. No specific interaction only has a single pair of participants.

The outcome is utterly dependent upon the states of the two participants. Whether an action hurts, harms, helps, hinders, or nurtures the downstream sentient is utterly predictable if you have enough information. There's nothing subjective about it. No amount of wishing from the acting person can change the outcome of the interaction with regards to who he acted upon. I can have a panel of a billion judges, each declaring that skinning Susie will actually help her, that she'll thrive as a result. The entire society can have been wrong. The morality of the behaviour was never under their influence. Skinning Susie killed her. She gone. Her ability to thrive was taken away. And, the society is objectively less than it was as a result, it's less healthy.

If we disagree what morality is as well, then yeah, that would cause us to disagree on a whole bunch of things here as well. But what else could morality be, other than a set of standards that allows us to quantify actions as "good" or "bad"?

Yeah, that makes sense. But, remember, morality isn't just judging your own actions. You use your morality to judge my actions too. How you will judge my actions is utterly predictable, if one knows enough. And, this judgement objectively exists. At no point does my subjective opinion on what the outcome 'should be' influence whether you perceive my action as harming or helping you. Importantly, you can be wrong. You can think that an action harmed you, but actually helped you. Your morality detector is also imperfect. The outcome is written in the laws of physics according to the rules of psychology and biology. Whether I helped you or harmed you is an outcome that objectively exists. If you knew more, if you had more knowledge, your error would be diminished.

TL;DR In all cases, 'how to help' or 'how to hurt' becomes clearer with knowledge. And, knowing whether you've been helped or hurt also becomes clearer with knowledge. So, if each interaction has an objective outcome, then there exist objective rules for how the interaction should occur such that the person thrives, such that an action is 'good'. Importantly, anyone with enough information can tell, too. The objectively correct behaviour exists.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, sure. First off, remember that I said a perfect morality is impossible due to the way our universe works. And, each scenario is going to be very situation specific.

I can think of situations where drinking a glass of water would improve your health in the long run. I can think of situations where drinking it would harm your health. The laws of nutrition remain objective, in the meantime.

Well, yea. One needs to bear in mind I need to actually spend effort to come up with the non shared ground since it seems a relatively small target. I just know it's there because it wobbles our orbit from time to time. The earlier quoted ''as perfect as can be'' was supposed to work that in. I didn't signpost it very hard since the wording was also supposed to pay homage to the ''perfect circle.''

I guess that I'm just not sure that much of the beauty that is isn't itself contingent on the possibility that it could be anything but. I'm not sure perfection as perfect as it can be isn't already staring us full on the face daring us to perceive.