I accept that we rely on various mental or perceptual functions for various things, like seeing and understanding, and obviously we would need to be there to begin with. — S

Right, and meaning is another one of those things.

We simply disagree on whether meaning is one of those things. So your challenge would be to point to the objective properties that are meaning.

If we treat quantum fluctuations (and any other similar natural processes) as part of space which is part of the universe then there really is nothing to cause the universe - except the start of time - so that must be the cause of the universe. — Devans99

There can't be anything to cause the universe, because that necessarily implies that something exists prior to the universe. But that can't be, because that existent thing would be (part of) the universe then.

So again, either the universe acausally began or something always existed. Those are the only two options logically.

If it appeared non-causally, IE some natural stochastic process, — Devans99

It can't appear from some natural stochastic process. That would be something. Hence, the natural stochastic process would be part of (or the whole of) the universe at that point.

Something can't 'always' exist; to exist something has to come into being first — Devans99

"Always existed" logically means that it never came into being.

All this goes for whatever we posit existing, including gods.

nor do I think that it's located nowhere, I think that it's a category error. — S

If you think that it doesn't have a location, then you think that it's located nowhere. The only way to think that it's not located nowhere is to think that it has a location. "It's located nowhere" is another way of saying "It doesn't have a location."

I reject your position because, firstly, it seems completely inappropriate to assume that there must be a location from the outset — S

The idea of extant things with no location is incoherent.

a fact located nearby me at all times whilst I'm alive. — S

Why are you saying "a fact located nearby me"?

The fact is located at you. It's the fact that you're breathing and metabolizing etc. You have a location. Your breathing has a location. Your metabolism and cell division etc. have a location.

Facts are states of affairs. Ways that the world is. There's a state of affairs that you exist, that you're breathing, etc. Those states of affairs have a location.

Are you thinking of "fact" linguistically? In other words, some people call true propositions "facts." I don't use "fact" that way (a la analytic philosophy, stemming from Russell, Wittgenstein, etc.) If you're asking me about "true propositions," my ontology of that is very different than what I'm saying about facts.

The word "rock" means the solid mineral material forming part of the surface of the Earth and other similar planets, exposed on the surface or underlying the soil, — S

That's a definition, not a meaning. They're not the same thing. Objectively, the definition is just marks on paper, or activated pixels on a computer screen (or whatever particular thing we might be referring to). Meaning is a mental activity, a way that we think about things like marks on paper, sounds that other people make, and so on.

"Definition" is a handy term for the marks on paper, the text strings, etc.

I'm a realist on things like rocks. I'm an antirealist on things like meaning.

There are things that at least creatures with brains do, mental things--"mental" being a property of those brains functioning in particular ways, where those phenomena only occur in brains functioning in those ways (or perhaps in some other materials functioning in particular ways, too--but we're not aware of any mental activity outside of brains yet). Not everything is just a brain functioning mentally, but some things are. Not everything that brains do when they're functioning mentally is identical to some other phenomenon in the world, either (which is what some people who seem to want to insist everything is objective seem to believe). If we (and other creatures with similar brains) were to disappear, those sorts of phenomena would disappear. Just like if planets were to disappear, then phenomena unique to planets--like plate tectonics, for example--would disappear.

'can get something from nothing' - quantum fluctuations — Devans99

"Quantum fluctuations" can't be both quantum fluctuations and nothing. Quantum fluctuations are something. If they exist, then they're part of the universe, and explaining the origins of the universe would have to involve explaining where quantum fluctuations come from.

So either whatever exists suddenly appeared, non-causally, or something has always existed. There's no way around that.

What it is for anything to be better or worse is for an individual to come to that judgment about the thing in question, a judgment based on their preferences, their tastes, their desires, their goals. Things are better or worse to someone.

Given that, yes, many people judge that some people are better, in whatever context, than others.

It's not something anyone can be wrong or right about. We're just talking about persons' individual feelings/dispositions.

That fact that you're alive is located wherever you are, as (long as) you continue to breathe, metabolize, undergo cell division, etc. How in the world would you think that fact is located nowhere or everywhere or whatever you think?

We evaluate the hypothetical from our personal perspective. If you value life then you will also perceive that Joe's action was wrong. Whether you perceived correctly or not depends on whether life is valuable. — Andrew M

Us evaluating something and us valuing something, our personal perspectives, our perceptions, etc. aren't properties of the action itself. If the moral property is a property of the action itself, it has to be in the action itself whether anyone evaluates or values anything at all.

Is that your disposition? — creativesoul

No. It matches what the world is like extramentally. Namely, no matter where you look, moral properties only occur in persons' heads.

Yes. Just like other true statements, a moral statement is true if it corresponds to fact/states of affairs/what has happened. — creativesoul

And any evidence at all of the moral properties we're corresponding to?

I think it's explained as well as anything is explained. The resistance to that stems from inconsistent, incomplete and/or unanalyzed views of just what it is that explanations are (and are not), just what explanations do/don't do, just how they do it, etc.

It's not a discussion I'd get into in any depth until my fellow discussants are ready to set forth their explanation criteria in a plausible manner (so that the criteria work for many different things re what that person intuitively considers explained versus unexplained).

If what I've said counts as that, then yes. I buy that if we all went extinct right now, then language would still have meaning, and I don't buy that it makes sense to ask where that meaning would be, as though it has a location. Likewise with facts. It would still be the case that there are planets, and I don't buy that it makes sense to ask where what's the case is located.

This seeking a location for everything, to me, is peculiar, like seeking what colour time is, or seeking what kind of beliefs rocks have, because this simply must apply to everything without exception. I think you'll inevitably end up grasping at straws.

I can point to locations of related stuff, like written language and planets, but not to a location of linguistic meaning or facts about planets. — S

It seems equally weird to me that it wouldn't seem obvious that facts are located wherever the things they're "facts of" are located.

Do you buy the notion of real (non-mental) abstracts?

So, where is what's the case located? Where are facts located? That seems like nonsense to me. If you're going to say that it's in our head or something, then I think that that's a seriously flawed position. Even if we all went extinct tomorrow, this or that would be the case. There would still be facts. For example, it would be the case that there are planets. That would be a fact, even if there was no one around to grasp that fact. — S

Facts refer to some set of physical phenomena, so wherever the phenomena in question are located. Locations can be complex, scattered, non-contiguous, etc.--for example, the fact that there are multiple mountains on Earth isn't one contiguous location; it obtains in the locations of all the mountains. Nevertheless, those are locations.

OK but then they are unnatural events for the time periods for which there is zero probability of occurring. — Devans99

So they're natural and then change to unnatural?

And what do they have to do with agency?

I was never under the impression that you were only talking about the Big Bang, by the way. I thought you were talking about any arbitrary event. I thought the Big Bang was just an example.

At any rate, there could very well be a zero probability that a Big Bang would occur after the one which did occur. It could need particular conditions that will never obtain again, despite infinite time.

I'd just say that there's not much more to knowing the meaning than exactly what's said — Moliere

If what's said is the meaning then you'd say that meaning is a property of sound waves for example?

Where is the time? I can show you a clock, if that helps, but that only displays the time. — S

In my view nothing exists without a location, including time. Time is located at every change or motion in the universe.

You believe that some things exist without a location then?

I don't buy that there are any real abstracts.

C and B both start with a 50% (correction) probability so they are both natural. — Devans99

But they have finite time periods in which there's a zero probability of them occuring.

If the universe I described were to begin that way and last for an infinite time, B and C would only have a very narrow window of occuring, and they'd occur just once.

But I'd also say that you and I know the meaning of all the sentences we have thus far used in spite of that. — Moliere

Well, "knowing the meaning" refers to the fact that we're making associations for the words, phrases, sentences, etc., with an implication of understanding, so that everything is going along coherently (in our views) in context of the overall conversation.

So yeah, keeping in mind that that's what it is, we agree.

No, of course it's not the same. Language doesn't just involve meaning, but it does involve meaning (at least at some stage).

So how do we go from this activity -- which I'd say is common to many cognitive systems, which is evidenced by Pavlov's dog -- to knowing English? — Moliere

So conventionally, you know English in an individual's estimation if you can coherently (to the person judging) formulate sentences (usually we require many different sentences in many different contexts) utilizing words conventionally (at least per some subpopulation) named "English."

It doesn't become anything other than what it already is: a language rule. This means that. — S

Where is the language rule?

The associative act. That's different than the scribbles.

For example, take a universe where we have just one particle that can radioactively decay to two different subsequent particles (and that particle can do the same, etc.)

So at T1 we have particle A.

At T2, A decays to either B or C.
If A decays to B, C is no longer possible, and vice versa.

At T3, if B, it decays to either D or E. If C, it decays to either F or G.

=========================================================

What can we say about the above in terms of probability?

At T1, there's a 50% probability that A will decay to either B or C.

If A decays to B at T2, there's a zero probability that we can have C in the universe in the finite time period from T2 to T3. And there is also a zero probability that we can have C from T3 to T4, and so on. C was only a 50% probability at T1.

Likewise, B was a 50% probability at T1, a 100% probability at T2, and a zero probability from T3 to T4 and so on.

So, per your definitions, both C and B are unnatural.

Now, the question is, what do C and B have to do with agency?

Well, both x and y can be anything, really. You can make the associations between scribbles on paper and other scribbles you'd make on paper, or a sign (as in a literal sign) and and action, or whatever.

As for R, that's the associative act, which you can't "specify" in words or anything, because it's not words. It's the activity of making an association, which is inherently mental. We can't make that into something else.

If the definition of "unnatural" is "zero probability in some finite time," what does that have to do with agency of any sort?

The difference is whether our utterances are "matching" some state of affairs or not. If they're simply expressions of dispositions, feelings, etc., it's not an issue of matching something else, or "getting it correct."

Presumably, Plato would say that God isn't a person, per se. So comments about whether there can be an "ideal righteous person" don't apply to him. God would rather be, or at least exemplify, the ideal.

The simple fact is that when taxation is so high, people simply avoid income, postpone any selling of any property that doesn't have to be sold. Better yet, hold it in cash or simply take the money abroad. — ssu

That's part of why the answer is to instead reward people based on the extent to which they help other people/provide the things that other people want.

The way the system is set up, as you're describing, is that you wind up with less for yourself the more you help others (via your tax dollars). If we instead make it that the way you get more for yourself, more scarce resources, is by doing more to help others, then you have an incentive rather than a disincentive to help.

the conception of an objective principle, insofar as it is obligatory for a will, — Mww

How would an objective principle (ignoring for a moment how there could be objective principles) be obligatory for a will?

I'm going to try to avoid asking questions about everything you type, but you type a lot of stuff that seems rather dubious and/or inscrutable to me like that.

One thing that objectivists always overlook, by the way, is this.

Let's say that Joe murdering Bill by shooting him in the head with a gun somehow has a stamp of disapproval embedded in it. It's somehow some sort of property of the action of Joe shooting Bill in the head--just like the velocity of the bullet is a property of that--that "you shouldn't do this action."

Well, what bearing would that have on anyone feeling that they should do that action or not? Objectivists need an additional objective fact to the effect of "One should aim to match the objective stamps of approval/disapproval."

What would that additional objective fact be a property of?

And we'd probably need something like an infinite regress of that. We establish "One should aim to match the objective stamps of approval" as objective, and Joe says, "So what? I don't agree with that objective suggestion. I don't want to bother with objective stamps of approval, and in my view my feeling trumps the objective suggestion."

So then we'd need "One should aim to conform to the fact that one should aim to match the objective stamps of approval" and so on.

Joe wouldn't be getting anything wrong there. He agrees that there was an objective stamp of disapproval on his action and that it's an objective fact (of whatever mysterious thing it would be an objective fact of ) that one should aim to match the objective stamps of approval/disapproval. He just doesn't care. He'd rather act as he desires. So he's not getting anything wrong, he's not incorrect about anything, he's just behaving otherwise.

So even if there were objective moral properties, they wouldn't do any good (except for people who haven't bothered to analyze that there's no particular reason for them to conform to the objective stamps of approval/disapproval, and who just unthinkingly or out of blind obedience conform.)

The reason this problem appears here, by the way, is that even if there are objective evaluative assessments, there are still subjective evaluative assessments, too, and any particular subject need not care about the objective assessment over their own assessment.

Missed this. Perhaps you might use the tool a bit more.

Of course standards of moral judgement stem from us. It's in the word "judgement" that this happens. It's something moral judgements have in common with all other beliefs.

Judging that the cat is on the mat and that it is not good to kick puppies are pretty much the same, varying in content rather than in kind. And of course I'm making a comparison using my own standard of judgement... as if anyone could use some else's standard of judgement.

The notion of objective morality is about as useful as a bottomless bucket.As is the notion of subjective morality. — Banno

I didn't pay much attention to Banno saying that (or I missed it altogether). He's conflating different senses of "judgment" there. Just like people sometimes conflate different senses of "opinion," a la "What's your opinion of x--did you like it?" and "Physicist Ben Salabim's opinion on the quantum hall effect is _____" Those two uses of "opinion" aren't at all the same thing.

When we're talking about morality, we're talking about an evaluative assessment--some stamp of approval or disapproval, some expression a la "recommended" or "not recommended," and so on. That's not at all what we're talking about when we're talking about someone's belief or lack of the same about where animals are situated or not in the world. (a la "The cat is on the mat.")

We could claim that the world itself, not just us thinking about it and stating our preferences, has stamps of approval or disapproval, properties of "recommended" or not, or any other evaluative assessments like that embedded in it somehow, attached to various facts, actions, etc. but we'd have to provide evidence of this.

imperative objective action — Mww

What is "imperative objective action"?

Also, if the exact way that we're figuring out any probabiilty statement, with relation to arbitrary finite time periods, isn't important, wouldn't you have to conclude that every event is non-natural?

After all, you don't have a tree popping up in your lawn every millisecond. So that would have to be non-natural on your view. Which would make the whole natural/non-natural distinction moot in the first place.

By the way, probability isn't the same thing as whether something actually happens.

Which is one reason why it's important to nail down just how we're figuring out the probability for anything, just how there's merit to any particular probability statement.

Lack of evidence is pretty conclusive evidence that the Big Bang is not a natural occurrence. — Devans99

Which brings us back to the unanswered question of "Why would you be associating 'zero probability in some finite time periods' with god? That couldn't be more arbitrary."

I often like to focus on asides, so that's what this is, but it struck me as very odd re this:

I see it as a shared goal that you and your partner are constantly striving to work towards. — Gord

That you'd see goals and striving as having nothing to do with emotions.

If I were king, we'd not have an economy based on money in any manner similar to what we have now.

There could still be the equivalent of billionaires in my economy--people with access to a huge amount of very scarce resources, but the only way anyone would be able to get there is via some stroke of ingenuity that made life much much easier for the rest of us, so that, say, everyone has more than adequate shelter, food, health care, education, etc. and no one has to do much work for it.

In a nutshell, when I'm king, the competition is based on helping other people out/making their lives easier/better. The more you can do that, the more access to scarce resources you get.

As I've already discussed, the action itself is wrong — Andrew M

Right. That's the claim.

The challenge is for us to provide any evidence of that claim.

We can't provide evidence of that by talking about language per se, because the action itself isn't language. We need to talk about the action itself and its properties. If the action itself has moral properties somehow, we should be able to in some manner point to those moral properties, provide some evidence of them, etc.

Or else we'd need to otherwise justify our belief that the action itself has moral properties. That justification couldn't be that it's a common belief or a common way to behave (for example, linguistically). That's not at all sufficient (not to mention that any argument to the effect of "P is a common belief, therefore P" is the argumentum ad populum fallacy). Belief or behavior, no matter how common, can't be evidence that something (not itself the very same belief or behavior) is a particular way, because belief can easily be wrong, misconceived, etc., with behavior that reflects as much (and social influences go into particular beliefs/behavior becoming common, etc.)

Good, so let's talk about the action itself and whether the action itself is wrong.

If we say something about language per se, we're getting off track, because the action itself isn't language.