Obviously, morally significant behavior has actual effects on people's lives, in fact that is what defines it. — Janus

You're not claiming that people's lives do not have a mental component, presumably. So how is this evidence of moral significance being extramental?

All human interpersonal behavior is morally significant, — Janus

If it's extramentally morally significant, what's the evidence of that?

Moral behavior is not brain activity, and does not merely involve brain activity, although brain activity may be considered to play a part. — Janus

Behavior isn't just brain activity (it does require it, and brain activity is a part of it, but not the whole story).

Whether any behavior is moral or not is a phenomenon--a type of judgment--that only occurs in brains.

You could offer evidence otherwise if you want to argue that. Offer evidence that the judgment whether any behavior is moral (or alternately re the conceptual application of some behavior having to do with morality rather than something else) can occur outside of brains. I'll look at the evidence in question if you want to suggest something.

So, you're not suggesting that it or they should be of any significance to me? — Janus

I'd prefer that it would be, sure. "Shoulds" are our preferences with respect to how things could be contra alternatives.

Sure, so you're prescribing a shared normative protocol? — Janus

I'm giving my opinion, based on my preferences.

We? — Janus

Aren't there a number of people participating in threads here?

Most people would agree that Shakespeare was an infinitely better storyteller and writer than Michael Bay. There's a fair consensus that shakespeare was an exceptional writer/artist, only a tiny percentage of people would say Michael Bay was as good, better, or even an artist at all. — Olly

This is true, but there's no implication to it. It simply tells us a fact about what most people would say.

communicates something important effectively, that resonates with people for a very long time. Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Beethoven... all these people made "high art". Their work has a timelessness to it, that resonates with people across all time, that survives and stays as strong as it was when first created. Most "popular" or "low" art fades away after a few decades or less. It was not created with the talent or vision, and therefore does not possess, the ability to remain relevant and survive after it ceases being new and exciting, because it was made more to be new and exciting than it was to achieve artistic status. — Olly

How are you separating out the social aspects of this--for example, the fact that many people are swayed by consensuses, that they conform to norms, etc., while ignoring a lot of stuff that doesn't have popular support simply for that reason, versus how people would react to works if we could expose them to works in complete isolation of others' opinions, knowledge of popular support or a lack of it, etc.?

The tyranny of the bleeding obvious! — Janus

I'm not sure I understand this comment, but if we want to talk about something else, we should ask a more specific, precise question. Like maybe we want to talk about all of the things that influence moral stances. If so, we should ask about that in so many words.

It was just a side note, expressing a feeling and not an ontology. — praxis

But it's my whole point here. The source of morals is an ontological issue. Morals are only found in biology, because it's a phenomenon that doesn't occur outside of brain activity.

The source of morals cannot be found in human biology, therefore the belief that it can is rubbish. — praxis

Morals have to be found in biology, because they can't occur elsewhere. To occur elsewhere, we'd need meaning, preferences, etc. to be able to occur elsewhere, but they don't occur elsewhere. They're brain phenomena.

Re S's question re the analogy, I'd have to read back through a number of posts. In longer threads like this, where people are posting a lot of long replies, I don't read most of what people are writing--on purpose, because I think that it's problematic that we type so much and gloss over so many issues so quickly.

Concepts are abstractions from what I've appropriated in my immediate existence, which are communicated via referential signifiers, not necessarily words. — Merkwurdichliebe

Can abstractions occur outside of our minds? I don't think they can.

So if concepts are abstractions, they can't be transferred from one person to another in any literal sense.

Still unclear how you mean this. A non-mental phenomenon can directly cause mental phenomenon, creating sensory data for example. In the same way an outside source, ie words from a book, can in-still values into our minds. That doesnt have to mean the value exists outside or minds, just that the source does. — DingoJones

If A causes B, it doesn't imply that A is identical to B, does it?

And if A is not identical to B, then A or, whatever makes A obtain, isn't literally the source of B, because we only have B elsewhere. How does it make sense to say that A is the source of B when A isn't itself B?

This kind of dualistic view is difficult for me to appreciate. It feels artificial and not particularly useful. — praxis

That kind of "dualistic" view is what the world is like. What's your alternate ontology?

the relative value and narrative that order concept, — praxis

That phrase I can't figure out unfortunately.

Again, culture can influence values, but you can't actually be given values from something outside of yourself. Values/valuing anything is a mental phenomenon.

Regardless, you can't coherently think both thoughts at the same time. Right? — YuZhonglu

I don't think it works to just plow over someone saying that in fact they can think both sentences at the same time.

Even if you can't do that, and I'm not sure if I can or not, maybe some people can. So we'd need something better than simply asserting/reasserting that no one is capable of something (mental that we can't directly observe if we're not the person in question).

Which distinction, and where is the analysis? — Banno

You've got to be kidding me. I had just quoted you saying "The point is the difference between equity and fairness" (along with one other short sentence).

But what is the teacher going to present --a set of words a la a set of sounds or text marks? Is that what concepts are?

The point is that you can't literally be given concepts via social means.

You believe we can be given concepts. So I'm giving you a chance to support that view (against the objections that I'll forward as we go along).

The general term for the process is learning. But I suppose you could also say conditioning. — praxis

Let's get more specific, though. How does someone literally learn a concept?

How these feelings are interpreted in different circumstances conforms to a conceptual framework, a framework imparted to us by our culture. — praxis

How would you say that culture can impart a conceptual framework? How would you be able to literally acquire concepts from someone else?

Ok. A lot of nominalists would say it doesnt refer to anything, thus nominalism is song anti-realism.

You're saying... uh, I'm not actually sure what you're saying — frank

"It doesn't refer to anything" would make no sense. And that's not at all suggested by nominalism.

It refers to whatever an individual has in mind when they think about it. But when we're talking about extramental stuff in this regard (we wouldn't have to be talking about extramental stuff--we could be talking about a concept, for example), we're going to be talking about some set of particulars--such as the studio recording, from a particular CD (or whatever--maybe vinyl instead, or a stream, some combo of all of that, etc.), which the individual is familiar with via the occasions when they've listened to it.

An upshot of this is that if they have in mind a "real abstract," rather than whatever set of particulars, then the individual is mistaken about the sorts of things that can obtain in the extramental world, and the referent is going to instead be some set of extramental and mental particulars that led to (or that amount to) the belief in the real abstract.

What's the referent? — frank

It's going to be some particular or particulars, with spatiotemporal locations, related to what the person has in mind, including what their concept is. (And it's possible for it to be the same as their concept.)

So, for example, one person might primarily be referring to a studio recording, someone else might have both a studio recording and a set of live performances in mind, etc.

On your home page, you mention that you are a NYC guy.

Most people from NYC know the Frying Pan. It is probably the most famous watering hole in the town during the summer months...a former lightship moor against a pier that juts out into the Hudson River at 26th Street. — Frank Apisa

Ah--no, I'm not familiar with it. I'm not much of a bar person.

I said about morality being essentially a social phenomenon — TheMadFool

It's about social interaction, and social interaction influences it, but the social realm can't literally have moral stances, because we can't have moral stances in lieu of meaning, in lieu of behavioral preferences, etc. And those things only obtain as mental phenomena. There is no social mind.

You didn't answer the question. People frequently speak of songs as singular things. If I speak of the song Sunset, to what do I refer? — frank

I did answer it, though. Let's explain the answer to you, although you're asking in a slightly different way there. Are you asking what the person has in mind, or what the referent is?

No idea at the moment what that's a reference to (the "Frying Pan").

I think you will find that you do probability calculations all the time. Should I get on that plane? The last one did not crash. That sort of thing. You can use probability for anything - look at the vast range of things you can bet on. — Devans99

I think of things in probabilistic terms only in a frequentist context, as I described above.

It seems clear from your statement that if I speak of the song Sunset as something singular, you would think I'm talking about the idea of the song. Is that correct? — frank

When you speak of something, you're going to have your concept or idea of it in mind, sure.

Either the answer is "YES"...without that qualifier... — Frank Apisa

It's not just yes or no, because we're not just talking about one thing/one aspect.

For instance...are there any gods involved in the REALITY...or are there none? — Frank Apisa

The whole way this conversation started was with my response to this.

No. Obviously there are no gods. The entire idea of gods is as absurd as anything you can imagine.

Are you actually saying you DO KNOW the true nature of the REALITY of existence? — Frank Apisa

Yes. Many aspects of it.

We ''automatically'' treat family, friends and anybody we bond with in a good way. — TheMadFool

I'd (unfortunately) guess that most families wouldn't actually agree with that.

So...do you...or anyone you know...KNOW the true nature of the REALITY of existence? — Frank Apisa

Via observations and reasoning basically.

(I don't want to answer more than one thing at a time, because I want to focus on stuff so that we make progress with it.)

So how many songs is Sunrise? More than one? — frank

In a discussion where we're getting down to the nuts and bolts of this stuff, then, we'd have to clarify in just what sense or context we're asking that question.

If we're talking about the idea of the song, the abstraction or concept of it--which is what we'd usually be talking about, it's usually going to be just one. ("Usually" because in this sense, the issue is how an individual is thinking about it. (It's not unusual for individuals to say something like, "There are two song x's--I consider the version where they reharmonized the chorus and changed the time signature and melody of the verses to be a different song"--in any event, we're talking about their personal concept/idea of the song(s) in this sense.))

If we're instead talking about the referent(s) per se, then we're talking about however many things are being counted as that one song (ideationally/conceptually) re the performances, documents, etc. Each occurrence would have to be counted.

Are you saying that Sunrise is a potentially infinite number of songs? That doesn't sound right. — frank

How it sounds to you is irrelevant to what's the case ontologically, especially if you buy realism re univerals/types to any extent, as well as if you're not used to analyzing things in this way, etc.

In any event, what makes something "one song" is how an individual thinks about it. Abstractions are mental acts. (And mental acts have specific spatiotemporal locations.)

In terms of what any song is extramentally, it's many different things, each with its own (set of) spatiotemporal location(s).

By the way, here's the only way that I think it makes some sense to do probabilities (aside from 1(00) and 0):

We have some phenomena that we can observe, where it doesn't seem to ridiculous to call multiple instances "the same phenomenon" (it's never going to be literally the same because of nominalism), and on those multiple instances, there are good reasons to assume that we know most of the variables and most are being controlled. We also need reasons to believe that our sample size wasn't ridiculously small compared to the total number of occurrences of the phenomena in question. So then we observe how often x occurred versus didn't occur, and we use induction to guess that a similar pattern might continue.

Note that I think the above still has some serious problems re its ontological grounding. It's still often difficult to take it as much more than a guess. But that is the ONLY way that I consider any sort of probability calculation "legitimate."

Everything else is balderdash.

0%

Tell ya what...I will acknowledge something else: My guess is that NOBODY on the planet knows the true nature of the REALITY of existence. In fact, my guess is that NOBODY in history...nobody who has ever lived...has known the true nature of the REALITY of existence. — Frank Apisa

Right. So what would be interesting to me is to figure out why you would say this.

It's not literally/in terms of logical identity just "one song."

I'm a nominalist, by the way. I don't buy that there are any real/extramental/objective abstracts at all. I'm also a physicalist.

The spatiotemporal location is everywhere/every time that it's performed, as well as everywhere/everytime that it's documented in some manner, including vinyl, tape, CDs, digital computer memory, digital transmission, etc. So it's a complex set of locations.

Yes. A fortiori because everything is spatiotemporal.