Why ending a life is morally neutral

[Perfection]

I didn't say that objective reality was subject to agreement. I said that truth is. If everyone agreed that the world was flat, and you started saying that it was round, would that somehow be "the truth"?

Yes.

By the way, the world is shaped, roughly, like an oblate spheroid. Everyone agrees on that.

That's a type of round.

Here's what bugs me Tim, we should be able to talk about objective reality. We should be able evaluate our beliefs as to how they correspond with objective reality. As I see it the idea of Truth is the right concept for the job. If you feel Truth is better used to describe agreement, then how do you propose we talk about how well our beliefs correspond with objective reality?

 

[timtofly]

Polls are a type of agreement, but I kind see how everything liberal is out of sorts in the US. They hold to agreement "truth". Now that agreement has been denied them, they have no truth.

I would rather stick with objective truth and be wrong. At least I know I am wrong. Seems those with agreement truth are just nothing, depending on the whim of the month. Or half century, it may span a few generations.

About the only good thing with agreements is you can make up everything as you go, even the rules.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Yes.

That's a type of round.

Here's what bugs me Tim, we should be able to talk about objective reality. We should be able evaluate our beliefs as to how they correspond with objective reality. As I see it the idea of Truth is the right concept for the job. If you feel Truth is better used to describe agreement, then how do you propose we talk about how well our beliefs correspond with objective reality?

Beliefs also have nothing to do with objective reality. The reality of objects does not care what you believe. There is also no difference made in objective reality if you talk about it until you are blue in the face. For example that object you brought up earlier that you called a box and provided some size details about...the only really useful thing to be said about that object would be "here's a box" and that's only useful if the person you are talking to actually needed a box. Things that need to be talked about, like truth and beliefs, they don't have any objective existence. They exist in agreement, in language.

 

[Perfection]

Beliefs also have nothing to do with objective reality.

Aren't beliefs about objective reality? If I believe there's a box, I believe it's "out there" in objective reality. I may be mistaken of course, but objective reality is still what my belief is about.

The reality of objects does not care what you believe.

Sure, I don't believe otherwise.

There is also no difference made in objective reality if you talk about it until you are blue in the face. For example that object you brought up earlier that you called a box and provided some size details about...the only really useful thing to be said about that object would be "here's a box" and that's only useful if the person you are talking to actually needed a box.

Why isn't the dimensional data useful? It determines what you can fit in the box.

Things that need to be talked about, like truth and beliefs, they don't have any objective existence. They exist in agreement, in language.

If I'm asking for a box, I'm not asking for a truth or a belief, I'm asking for a real existent object that really exists in real objective reality. That seems to me something with objective existence that needs to be talked about.


It seems to me that you're treating beliefs as if they were merely some language game. Certainly there is a language game aspect, but the point of beliefs is that to describe the nature of objective reality. Otherwise, what's the point of having them?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Why isn't the dimensional data useful? It determines what you can fit in the box.

No, the reality of the box determines what you can fit in the box. The dimensional data has no effect on the box or what you are putting in it.

If I'm asking for a box, I'm not asking for a truth or a belief, I'm asking for a real existent object that really exists in real objective reality. That seems to me something with objective existence that needs to be talked about.

Note that the only way you could introduce this "what needs to be talked about" into discussion was by starting it with "if I'm asking for a box," which you aren't. We aren't even talking about a box. There is nothing here with any objective reality at all.

IF...

we were both looking...

(note that objective reality is interacted with not by talking)

for a box to fit our stuff in...

by the time you reached agreement with whoever had your box about how to measure it...

(inches, centimeters? LxHxW, or WxLxH...wait, my TV is measured on the diagonal! what precision, will give or take half an inch do, or should I be more careful? is your tape calibrated? how reliable are you? do you have actual experience using a tape?)

I will have taken the objectively real box and stuffed my objectively real junk in it to see if it really fit or not. That's how objective reality works.

All the agreements, all the language, all the measurements and truths and beliefs...none of them even exist in objective reality. They have no impact there, and objective reality has no interest in them.

 

[warpus]

Before we even get to a legal framework, you have to have a majority agree on the moral aspect of an idea.

Legality and morality don't necessarily always have to play nice together. In many cases they don't.

 

[Perfection]

So what the heck point is there for any of us to talk about anything? If it's all some useless talking completely divorced from reality?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So what the heck point is there for any of us to talk about anything? If it's all some useless talking completely divorced from reality?

Because you and I and everyone who uses language is far more than the objective reality meatbags that we occupy.

 

[timtofly]

Because you and I and everyone who uses language is far more than the objective reality meatbags that we occupy.

That is not the point of the thread.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

That is not the point of the thread.

But it is why I haven't bothered responding to you until now

 

[Perfection]

So when I tell someone where the nearest grocery store is that's about some transcendent human property instead of the location of an object in physical reality?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So when I tell someone where the nearest grocery store is that's about some transcendent human property instead of the location of an object in physical reality?

not transcendent at all...it's just gaining their agreement

 

[Perfection]

Isn't it also giving them information that's useful in navigating physical reality?

I don't tell someone where the grocery store is just so that we agree. I tell them that so that they know how to go to the grocery store.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Isn't it also giving them information that's useful in navigating physical reality?

I don't tell someone where the grocery store is just so that we agree. I tell them that so that they know how to go to the grocery store.

When I give people directions it is to be recognized as a source of interpretation of objective reality beyond their own ability. For what I say to be useful to them they have to agree that I am indeed such a source. I enjoy that, but the store is still wherever it was before they asked.

 

[Perfection]

When I give people directions it is to be recognized as a source of interpretation of objective reality beyond their own ability. For what I say to be useful to them they have to agree that I am indeed such a source. I enjoy that, but the store is still wherever it was before they asked.

So (at least some) beliefs are interpretations of objective reality then?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

So (at least some) beliefs are interpretations of objective reality then?

no, but descriptions are...that's what makes description the most trivial use of language

 

[Perfection]

no, but descriptions are...that's what makes description the most trivial use of language

when I'm describing the location of the store am I not describing a belief of mine?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

when I'm describing the location of the store am I not describing a belief of mine?

does your valuation of your beliefs really extend all the way down to the location of a store?

 

[timtofly]

But it is why I haven't bothered responding to you until now

Here I thought the lack of response was because you did not agree with me.

However the majority of people only value the objective reality, so your currency is rejected on the basis of your lack of agreement on your own terms. That is what I was trying to avoid.

However in the overall scheme of things a person who commits suicide has no value objectively or subjectivity to offer. Despite the irrelevant emotions the act may engender, it was the value of the person and not the act. Those who place blame or moral responsibility are just plain wrong on all accounts. That is a human conception that has no grounds in reality.

The point there is any moral value attached at all, is because of the off topic point you are espousing.

 

[Perfection]

does your valuation of your beliefs really extend all the way down to the location of a store?

Absolutely.

If I didn't know where stores are I'd have a hard time getting stuff.

It's important to me that my beliefs regarding store locations are true.