Define: God

[warpus]

Uhh guys, an atheist is by definition someone who doesn't believe that God exists.

Why would someone who doesn't believe that God exists object to God existing? Uhmm.. I'm stumped!

 

[Kyriakos]

If god is defined as a chair you now sit on, then by definition god exists*

*although would still not be saved from idealism, cause nothing can be.

 

[El_Machinae]

I'm with you on utilitarianism. But it still takes some assumptions, even ignoring aggregation.

1. Human life matters
2. The quality of human life matters

Sentient life, but yes. It requires that assumption. If you insist upon that assumption, though, then you run into all weird things. "Healthiness" doesn't exist, for example.

It's a bit circular, but sentient life always cares about the quality of sentient life. The quality of life matters as long as there's sentient life. Who says? Well, every sentient thing that exists. It's universally true. As soon as you have sentience, you the concept of 'good'. As soon as you have actors capable of moral actions, you have morality.

Take subjective thing:
Say its a result of the makeup of the brain, which is physical.
Now it's objective.

Objective/Subjective is somewhat meaningless, I think, if you believe that all thought originates from physical processes (as I do).

What's happening is that the subjective thing operates according to objective laws. But no, there are still subjective and objective things.

Take, for example, the experience 'tasty'. It's completely subjective thing. There is no possible viewpoint from which to say I'm wrong or right about whether I think something is tasty. Sure, whether I find something tasty operates according to objective laws, but it remains subjective. The objective truth is determined by the subjective truth.

'Harm' is separate. Whether something harmed someone is independent of their perspective, except insofar than their perspective is a factor (but, here, their perspective operates according to objective laws (e.g, giving a flower to someone who likes flowers is better than giving her a spider, objectively)). In fact, the more objective a viewpoint you get, the easier it is to determine if harm was caused. The in toto answer will be shaken out by the universe.

The morality then kicks in because the action was due to a decision made. This means that the action (and its result) can be compared to all other possible actions, and then sorted. And, since morality is civilizational, one person's decisions are affected by everyone else's decisions (as well as their constraints). Moralities can then be judged by how they sum as they're applied universally, as the number of actors increase.

I always go back to 'the circle'. Is the circle mathematical concept subjective or objective? Is pi subjective because some people thought it was 22/7? Is it impossible to compare the 'circleness' of two objects?

If people want to say circles are a human creation, then sure. I can see that, and I can agree that so is morality. But, if I then asked "what is morality?" and you said "it's the rules we follow in order to determine whether what we're making is circular or not"

Circles were created by people, but they came out of evolved heuristics that well-predate the first calculation of pi. Obviously morality is vastly more multi-dimensional.

 

[Kyriakos]

Sentient life, but yes. It requires that assumption. If you insist upon that assumption, though, then you run into all weird things. "Healthiness" doesn't exist, for example.

It's a bit circular, but sentient life always cares about the quality of sentient life. The quality of life matters as long as there's sentient life. Who says? Well, every sentient thing that exists. It's universally true. As soon as you have sentience, you have goodness. As soon as you have actors capable of moral actions, you have morality.


What's happening is that the subjective thing operates according to objective laws. But no, there are still subjective and objective things.

Take, for example, the experience 'tasty'. It's completely subjective thing. There is no possible viewpoint from which to say I'm wrong or right about whether I think something is tasty. Sure, whether I find something tasty operates according to objective laws, but it remains subjective. The objective truth is determined by the subjective truth.

'Harm' is separate. Whether something harmed someone is independent of their perspective, except insofar than their perspective is a factor (but, here, their perspective operates according to objective laws (e.g, giving a flower to someone who likes flowers is better than giving her a spider, objectively)). In fact, the more objective a viewpoint you get, the easier it is to determine if harm was caused. The in toto answer will be shaken out by the universe.

The morality then kicks in because the action was due to a decision made. This means that the action (and its result) can be compared to all other possible actions, and then sorted. And, since morality is civilizational, one person's decisions are affected by everyone else's decisions (as well as their constraints).

I always go back to 'the circle'. Is the circle mathematical concept subjective or objective? Is pi subjective because some people thought it was 22/7? Is it impossible to compare the 'circleness' of two objects?

If people want to say circles are a human creation, then sure. I can see that, and I can agree that so is morality. But, if I then asked "what is morality?" and you said "it's the rules we follow in order to determine whether what we're making is circular or not"

Circles were created by people, but they came out of evolved heuristics that well-predate the first calculation of pi. Obviously morality is vastly more multi-dimensional.

Re circles, according to Plato:

1) Circles are ideal forms (ie they don't exist in the material world)
2) Circles are perfectly defined ideas, or pure axiom-based core math types -original term is Eidos=type- (a circular periphery is the sum of positions for which it is true that they all have equal distance to a point termed the center of the bounded form by that periphery).
3) Circles are communicable ideas in a finite number of steps (contrary to more abstract types, eg a human face).
4) Circles are simpler (this just connotes how they manifest in our given plane of examining them as identifiable forms) ideas than more abstract ones, cause they are bounded by planes and volumes and other dimensions deemed out of fundamental axioms, unlike more chaotic/abstract ideas of objects or states.

Furthermore a circle (or the pleonasm 'perfect circle') is obviously not the same as something approaching a circular shape in some degree. Any 3d modelling program will let you use circular shapes and their expansions in following dimension, but it goes without saying that the program there limited the decimals of pi after some point.

-

Basically math objects/types of this kind are what allows humans to have defined systems of viewing phenomena, ie communicable ones. The communication will break down after some level (if i say 'circle' you will know what shape i mean, but this does not mean i mentally sense it in an identical manner as you do) but the basic communication ability there allows us to have a taught 'science'. Axiom-based systems are inherently bounded by their axioms (a nice example is our issues with infinity and the single point).

In the end it seems highly likely that humans beings project their own mental goings-on in whatever mental ability they have to form ideas of anything. A circle is one thing, but what you sense it as is likely hugely more significant from your overall mental world (which remains almost entirely nonconscious at any given moment).

 

[El_Machinae]

You know, maybe I should just change tack. We're dealing with people. Whether you think there's some objective standard or not, I think it's true that all modern human moral codes can be sorted and judged and some are superior to others. And this is mainly true because nearly all of them depend upon axioms that are objectively true or objectively false.

 

[Kyriakos]

FWIW i was focusing on circles as an actual object, not as tied to your main claim about ethics/morality

As for ethics i am of the view that it can realistically be claimed that the 'natural' state of a human is to wish to be/remain in a pleasant mentality, and therefore the related ethic would be surely bounded by that. So a 'natural' or life-affirming or whatever other term one chooses such morality will not include notably self-destructive or other-people-destructive urges or views.
Anyway, that is very general of course, cause there is no realistic way to 'calculate' if person X would be 'better off' in a slightly different progression of his emotional/thinking states than he is now. As usual with such things we can mostly just note differences between cases nearing the extreme opposites. Eg if someone kills himself, well, it stands to reason that his mentality was not really that good for him to begin with.

 

[Smote]

In regards to circles and tastiness, I don't see why the argument fails.

The brain has a certain configuration such that it perceives some tastes as tasty. Thus, it's objectively tasty. The brain has a certain configuration that creates the concept of a circle, to the brain. Thus the idea of a circle objectively exists as encoded by the brain.

I think whether you find something tasty or not is entirely dependent on your brain, but that doesn't mean its subjective, since your brain has an objective reality to it.

Your argument is identical to Sam Harris's from The Moral Landscape, yes?

 

[El_Machinae]

I was certainly influenced, yes. I remember it happening, even. But I've held the position that some morals are superior to others (objectively), and that outcomes also objectively existed.

His major input what that "good" and "bad" were definable in that they existed as common qualia. That, after enough Fourier Transforms to give proper perspective, most people were talking the same thing.

It allows us to look at someone's moral framework and say "hey, no, you're wrong about your conclusions", and actually be trying to discern an objective standard.

But, yes, both the concepts of circles and 'tastiness' exist according to objective laws. Fully agree. They're just distinguished in that tastiness's truth is entirely subjective. The subjective reality is the objective reality. There're no human fallibility concerns, where one's imperfect senses can cause the subjective opinion to be objectively wrong.

 

[Smote]

You could call the concept of a circle entirely subjective too. It only exists as an idea in your brain, just like tastiness. I don't see how they are distinguished, other than that taste is an idea mostly based on a sense, and that a circle is an idea based on reason.

There are still fallibility concerns to taste. One might be in a bad mood while trying a new food and declare it disgusting. But it really has nothing to do with the food. It's just the person's bad attitude. The taste of the food might actually be decent to them, it's just that they didn't approach it with an open mind. They might change their mind later. They might also just be full at the time, so the food doesn't taste good because it makes them feel sick. So there's still human fallibility concerns, though not because of imperfect tastebuds. We're in agreement there. The senses are what they are.

I'm in agreement with you, as far as judging some morals superior to others based on an objective standard.

 

[El_Machinae]

Yes, sure. I mean, if we want to call 'circleness' subjective (then I can see how we might wanna), then it's subjective.

But, then how do you treat that?
"The 22/7 pi-ers were correct, for them. But not for us. Who can really say what pi is?" and "Well, it's just your opinion that tree trunks are more circular than vinyl records"

It seems a rather silly tack to take. But yeah, I acknowledge that the conception is subjective, that the conception objectively exists, and that it results from objective laws.

Blech, I think this is the abyss Nietzsche warns about

 

[Smote]

Obama in regards to Sony pulling The Interview due to North Korean hacker threats:

Or even worse, imagine if producers and distributors and others start engaging in self-censorship because they don't want to offend the sensibilities of somebody whose sensibilities probably need to be offended. So that's not who we are; that's not what America is about.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-...ny-not-acceptable-state-conduct-fbi-says.html

The same thing could be said about criticizing Islam.

 

[Smote]

Yes, sure. I mean, if we want to call 'circleness' subjective (then I can see how we might wanna), then it's subjective.

But, then how do you treat that?
"The 22/7 pi-ers were correct, for them. But not for us. Who can really say what pi is?" and "Well, it's just your opinion that tree trunks are more circular than vinyl records"

It seems a rather silly tack to take. But yeah, I acknowledge that the conception is subjective, that the conception objectively exists, and that it results from objective laws.

Blech, I think this is the abyss Nietzsche warns about

Haha. I actually had a teacher that thought Pi = 22/7. I had to teach her that it didn't by showing her the value of pi and of 22/7 on the calculator.

So they might have their own personal idea of Pi, but it might not match up with actual Pi. Their idea is an idea that exists objectively, and they are correct in that what they say matches their idea, but whether their idea matches the proper abstract idea of a mathematical circle is a different question.

I called circles "entirely subjective" before, because they don't exist apart from the brain, but there is a specific idea of a proper mathematical circle which might not match your individual idea of a circle, if you have some strange idea that insists on Pi=22/7 and Pi = the ratio between circumference and diameter.

I didn't mean that a standard idea of a circle didn't exist, shared by many people, just that circles are something that only exists inside people's heads, like taste.

It is annoyingly complicated to properly convey ideas when subtleties and nuances are important. I usually mess it up. It's probably something that comes with age.

 

[Kyriakos]

Circles can be termed subjective as an idea, yes, cause ultimately nothing we sense/think is mind-dependent as we sense/think of it. On the other hand the focus was on them being ideas which one can communicate in a finite (and even small) number of steps. It is not like you will honestly think of a cube if i ask you to think of a circle.

This is not at all so for more 'abstract' ideas. If i say "tall" you may also think of something/someone tall to you, but obviously you won't think of an exact image. If i say "Sunny", again you won't have an exact, equal image in mind. Even if i refer to the star Polaris and you know of its angle next to the celestial north pole, you won't have the same utterly bounded image in mind, despite the latter also being identified to a large degree through geometric ideas (but not entirely)

 

[Smote]

What color is a circle? How big is it? Are you thinking of a top down view? What is the width of the edges of a circle? Is it drawn on something or just sort of floating in space? What color is that space?

There's plenty of variation in how people imagine circles as well. It just might not be a perfect match for the ideal mathematical circle, which may not be visualizable, if only because of edge width.

 

[Borachio]

Red. About yay big. Top down (sometimes on the skew). About 1% of the diameter. Both (as you wish really - I can do both OK). Black nah! it's colourless really, the outline is black.

But I can do it otherwise. You only have to ask me to.

 

[Kyriakos]

What color is a circle? How big is it? Are you thinking of a top down view? What is the width of the edges of a circle? Is it drawn on something or just sort of floating in space? What color is that space?

There's plenty of variation in how people imagine circles as well. It just might not be a perfect match for the ideal mathematical circle, which may not be visualizable, if only because of edge width.

The idea of a circle is a periphery that bounds the 2d shape, while each part of said periphery is equally distant to a center. Try drawing not a circle, but a human; what you drew is not the archetype nor the sole idea of a human, but merely some likeness to shapes tied to a human. With a circle you have the sole idea of a circle, due to that idea being produced in finite number of steps by set axioms in math