cartoons these days.....wtf

[esoter1c]

Man thinking he knows what is good is evil.

[kir mokum]

Originally Posted by wishbone

not being an ass or sarcastic, and in no way am i all that knowledgeable with philosophy, but what morality is brought from physics, biology, and ecology?

unfortunately that morality isn't printed in a concise format like the ten commandments so it would take me a while to articulate it. there is quite definitely a morality defined within nature. i think the best i can do is call part of it the "laws of limited competition" although it extends way out beyond what is implied by that. there are also the laws of our interconnectivity which govern most morality and reinforce the laws of limited competition.

Originally Posted by wishbone

Can that even be considered morality?

why not? it's written within the very laws that govern our lives and the lives of everything living. unlike the laws in holy books they are actually universal and immutable.

Originally Posted by wishbone

Would people argue that what's found through nature is "God's morality"? (go with the possibility of God's existence to argue that one).

possibly, but generally those who subscribe to a god generally also subscribe to laws that are anathema to natural laws and life itself, so generally speaking god's laws are not natures laws.


esoter1c: i think you and i are probably the only ones in this conversation that understand the story of the fall and what happened when we ate from the tree of knowledge.


here's a little quote i quite enjoy:

Originally Posted by Frank Lloyd Wright

I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.

So why did the cow have to die?

[laska]

Front page headline: this isn't a children's show.

[wishbone]

Originally Posted by kir mokum

unfortunately that morality isn't printed in a concise format like the ten commandments so it would take me a while to articulate it. there is quite definitely a morality defined within nature. i think the best i can do is call part of it the "laws of limited competition" although it extends way out beyond what is implied by that. there are also the laws of our interconnectivity which govern most morality and reinforce the laws of limited competition.

I still would like an example of nature's "morality". I understand there are the basic laws within which the world exists, I just have trouble attaching the words of morality to them as I feel morality is completely a construct of intelligent design (human, god, whatnot).

Originally Posted by kir mokum

possibly, but generally those who subscribe to a god generally also subscribe to laws that are anathema to natural laws and life itself, so generally speaking god's laws are not natures laws.

If God created everything, and is all knowing, how are the laws created within nature not of his own then, since he created nature? (Yes, I had to look up anathema, lol biblical word).

Originally Posted by kir mokum

esoter1c: i think you and i are probably the only ones in this conversation that understand the story of the fall and what happened when we ate from the tree of knowledge.

so elaborate on the fall of man from your stance, don't just say "i get it, he gets it, that's it" 8)

[kir mokum]

Originally Posted by wishbone

I still would like an example of nature's "morality". I understand there are the basic laws within which the world exists, I just have trouble attaching the words of morality to them as I feel morality is completely a construct of intelligent design (human, god, whatnot).

i don't quite understand how morality and intelligent design are intertwined. morality is a code of conduct. so unless one views life as invalid the morality i (and others, i hope) find in nature and proven through sciences is a code of conduct that promotes life. and don't confuse life with high population. life requires an ebb and flow and also multiplicity. the laws handed down through holy books promote homogeneity and continual growth (which produces a positive feedback loop) both of which are anti-life and can in no way be sustained. all sciences will tell you that. want proof of the promotion of homogeneity and continual growth? look at the medical industry. sounds like a strange example but the medical industry is predicated solely on the destruction of life for the benefit of one species which inherently promotes homogeneity and perpetual growth. john livingston referred to the medical industry as having a "total war on nature".

i'm going to have to get back to you with an example that i can articulate in a way i'm happy with. all i can come up with right now are seemingly innocent sayings which have implications that no one bothers to examine like "you are what you eat" or statements on the interconnectivity and interdependence of all life and the survival of the self and the species is dependent of the survival of all species (approximately). i think i would do better in conversation than on a public rave forum as, like i said, these laws aren't articulated in a nice little list that we're taught from birth.

hmm, maybe think about things like the nash equilibrium or evolutionarily stable strategies. but those don't quite explain what i mean in of themselves.

Originally Posted by wishbone

If God created everything, and is all knowing, how are the laws created within nature not of his own then, since he created nature? (Yes, I had to look up anathema, lol biblical word).

it's not my problem to answer that as i don't believe in god or his laws and his laws are counter to nature's/reality's/science's laws. i think one of the many reasons why biblical interpretation has been pulled further and further back into abstraction and metaphor is because sciences keep making it more and more difficult for rational people to accept what it says in a literal sense. most thinking religious people these days don't believe in an actual or quasi-physical heaven and hell.


i think anathema is a great word and i love using it, but yeah, i wouldn't expect very many people to just know what it means.

Originally Posted by wishbone

so elaborate on the fall of man from your stance, don't just say "i get it, he gets it, that's it" 8)

the reason why god didn't want "man" to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil was not because man couldn't wield that knowledge or because it would dethrone him or whatever. it was because if "man" ate the fruit he would think he had that knowledge (the knowledge of what is good and what is evil) and act as if he had that knowledge (the knowledge of the gods/god) even though that knowledge can only stay in the realm of the gods/god. it was a warning tale told about the people who, i think, would become the israelites that the proto-israelites would eventually absorb into there oral then written traditions which ultimately became our current culture. approximately anyway.


not really the best explanation but i think it's the best i can do right now. it might help if you think of the characters in the story of the fall as tribes or communities that came together and begat new tribes or communities. my interpretation of these stories leads me to believe that the "cain" character is a description of an emerging culture that would ultimately become our own and i would attribute the "mark of cain" to pale skin. but i need to do some more research on that.

i believe this because it's the best explanation i've heard and because of occam's razor. it puts the story back into reality and in a historical context.

and i have a feeling that esoter1c is on the same page as me not because i know him, as i most certainly don't, but because of the kinds of things he posts i'm pretty sure we have a similar background in reading material/media/interests/perspectives.


that's all i have for tonight. sorry if that doesn't quite answer your questions but they're pretty big questions and in conversation i have commonly spent many many hours to days discussing such subjects as there is a lot to discuss and, i feel, a lot of misinformation, ignored information, and unexamined information that has to be eased into the discussion as my ideas are usually a pretty radical departure from how most people view the world around them. especially since most people don't even think about it at all.

[wishbone]

karma given. skimmed, read a bit, i'll edit this tomorrow with a response hopefully....ie: things like the nash equilibrium, at least to me, are still based on 'cold hard facts' and just analyzed....i still see morality as existing not at the root of the world I think you see it as...although maybe I should? lol.

Don't think I'm judging you or eso or anyone. I like being told i'm wrong with reason, and i really don't know much about philosophy beyond what i try and front on here :p So I'm really using this as a learning/brain bashing exercise :) Thanks for all the effort you put into your posts.

[kir mokum]

so far this is a discussion. i don't think we've gotten to "wrong" or "right" yet. judge me all you want, that's your prerogative. and again, i can't speak for esoter1c. he can speak for himself.

[decypher]

I think what you are trying to do is advance the argument that there is a morality in reason through the altar of science? The idea that reason alone through science is what answers all questions about right and wrong. This goes against the type of morality people find in the metaphysical or personal experience. In my opinion you can't get morality purely from method of science, it's syncretic.

I don't subscribe to this because as you can see throughout the Modern era that science and technology isn't the whole answer to human progress. All the atrocities are testament to this. Some people believed that with each new advent of technology that they were advancing some sort of moral cause for humanity. This was the sort of industrial idealism that came full force with the harsh realizations of the real world which spawned all the good cynical ideas we enjoy today.

The methods of science don't completely answer all the questions and it does not offer everyone the opportunity to rationalize these ideas to adjust their morality. Not everyone has access to the facts. A whole wealth of IPE considerations need to be looked at to see how privileges are dispersed.

The adjusting of morality comes through the combination of experience and reason but even reason is experienced through our senses so in reality it's all experience tainted by our position.

[kir mokum]

you have completely misread what i was trying to say. i do not pray at the "alter of science". science is a tool. a method. the morality that i'm talking about does not come from science. science reinforces and explains in different terms what is already there.

and please do not confuse science and technology.

not surprisingly, i have been misunderstood.

[kir mokum]

btw, the show is "The Adventures of Mark Twain" and i think it's pretty bad ass so far.

[decypher]

Calm down buddy I'm not talking about you when I say the "altar of science." We're talking abstract ideas here and so I was trying to understand what you were articulating above in order to contribute to this debate. I could barely understand what you were writing after the first bit.

did you not say:

"personally i think morality is relative and objective. there is objective morality that are universal and immutable which are defined by, well, physics, biology, and ecology but there are also relative morality defined by culture. people, specifically civilized people, tend to ignore the universal morality and try to replace them with their relative and cultural morality."

So essentially you are saying that there is a universal morality through those sciences and you were also saying that people get their morality through culture or experience as I framed it. Your argument was then that most people, "specifically civilized people" put aside this rational morality in place of an experienced based form of morality.

I never said morality came from science, you did when you said:

"objective morality that are universal and immutable which are defined by, well, physics, biology, and ecology." How can you believe in a universal morality through scientific method but then in a relative morality of human experience? All I was saying was that, how can science describe a morality of right and wrong? It’s a process of rationalization and experience that gives people their moral systems. I used the optimism of technology and science to better humanity as being the example of this type of universal morality you suggested. Maybe you just misunderstood me? Sciences like physics and such do not define morality.

Also, please don’t lecture me on the difference between science and technology. Perhaps you just don’t see the connection between the two? A lot of science is geared towards creating new technologies and products. Scientific principles went into creating modern technologies that changed the way we communicated and experience the world, and that affects our morality. Why do you think all these industrial geniuses were completely intertwined in the political economy of industries? Science -> Corporation-> technology -> money.

[decypher]

Cliff notes,

Mokum said that science defined morality by mistake, we misunderstood each other and now we are in agreement but still arguing. The end.

[kir mokum]

nobody is upset here.

Originally Posted by decypher

So essentially you are saying that there is a universal morality through those sciences and you were also saying that people get their morality through culture or experience as I framed it. Your argument was then that most people, "specifically civilized people" put aside this rational morality in place of an experienced based form of morality.

not quite but i think it's close enough. i think i may take issue with the "experiences" part. not sure though.

Originally Posted by decypher

I never said morality came from science, you did when you said:

"objective morality that are universal and immutable which are defined by, well, physics, biology, and ecology." How can you believe in a universal morality through scientific method but then in a relative morality of human experience? All I was saying was that, how can science describe a morality of right and wrong? It’s a process of rationalization and experience that gives people their moral systems. I used the optimism of technology and science to better humanity as being the example of this type of universal morality you suggested. Maybe you just misunderstood me? Sciences like physics and such do not define morality.

1. i never said morality came from science. i said it's been defined and described by science much like gravity is. id didn't say "defined" by mistake, but i realize now that it could be read quite differently then i intended.

2. i fail to see how an objectivist and a relativist morality are mutually exclusive. one is defined by the laws of nature and enforced by nature (usually seen as the effects of natural selection) and the other is defined by man and enforced by man through law or social structure. like i said before, morality is a code of conduct.

3. right and wrong are relative and are used by the relativist morality created and imposed by culture (see my interpretation of the story of the fall). the objective morality i'm talking about would probably be best divided by "works" and "doesn't work". is a lion catching an antelope right or wrong?

4. the "optimisim of technology" has nothing to do with what i'm talking about at all and i would argue is driven and motivated by the relativist morality and the delusion that we can somehow escape nature, human nature, and the reality we live.

Originally Posted by decypher

Also, please don’t lecture me on the difference between science and technology. Perhaps you just don’t see the connection between the two? A lot of science is geared towards creating new technologies and products. Scientific principles went into creating modern technologies that changed the way we communicated and experience the world, and that affects our morality. Why do you think all these industrial geniuses were completely intertwined in the political economy of industries? Science -> Corporation-> technology -> money.

science is a method. a system. used to describe the world around us. the scientific method is used to advance technology, which is the application of ideas. they're arguable not mutually inclusive, not that it matters.

again: science is used to describe the world. the objective morality that i'm talking about existed independent of scientific method and humans. science can create it in as much as it can create evolution. technology, products, economies, corporations, etc. have nothing to do with what i'm talking about. they're an expression of the relativist morality.

[kir mokum]

i'm sorry this all sounds so vague. it's a very hard thing for me to describe to people i don't know especially since we're kind of dealing with it with very little common references.