Why only religious beliefs? Lets throw in all beliefs, including scientific ones. — Tzeentch

It's about the belief that does not have evidence or logical rational arguments behind them. If you have a scientific hypothesis, its never promoted as any kind of truth or doctrine and requires evidence or rational logic in order to become a theory.

If your assertion is that there are scientific "beliefs" that exist in any similar way to religious or other spiritual ones and do not have the demand on them to be proven, falsified, tested etc. then I'd like to hear such examples. Because the critical difference here is that if you say that a hypothesis is a "belief" according to the argument above, you are essentially saying that religious or other kinds of belief that don't care for evidence or rational explanation is the same as how scientists treat hypotheses. However, scientists never act on a hypothesis, they know its unproven, they know they need to be careful with hypotheses. Religion or other spiritual belief do not, as pointed out in premise 2.

If you are going to equal scientific hypotheses and religious/spiritual/other beliefs that don't care for evidence at all, you would need to write out that counter-argument a bit more. It's not enough to just write "scientific belief" since that feels awfully like an argument fallacy.

What does that amount to in practical terms, exactly? "Different points of energy distribution"? — Terrapin Station

Essentially I mean that we think we travel in time, but we are generally traveling between different levels of energy distribution under entropy. If I heat up water, let it cool down and then travel back to when it was hot, my initial concept is that of traveling to another time, but essentially I traveled to when the energy was high in that water. If energy and mass create time as it's "byproduct" then we are generally traveling along the causality of energy distribution.

I'm no physicist so how this relates to other aspects like quantum particles, fields (like the Higgs field) etc. I don't know at this time, but if the concept of time is that its the byproduct of mass, energy and gravity we don't really have time as a concept by its own, but as the resulted effects of the causality of all those things. If we view time instead as how mass, energy and gravity works, there might be clues to what that means for the idea of time travel.

At the moment we can only look at the facts that exist in general relativity, special relativity and quantum mechanics. Though, incompatible with each other, these are all we have as a foundation for thinking about time travel.

Causality has to do with energy and motion and time seem to be the result of this distribution of energy. Time travel is essentially traveling between different points of energy distribution which represents itself as different times.

The thing is that A and B-theory, most of the philosophy of time does not take into account theoretical physics as much as it should. Causality is too solid a concept for there to be any solution to the grandfather paradox. X causes Y because of the distribution of energy, not time itself. If you change the distribution of energy, changing the trajectory of particles, mass etc. because you kill your own grandfather before your parent was conceived, you have changed the possibility of energy to be distributed into your existence.

But the thing is that all of this is so hard to conceptualize without a unification theory. The most logical conclusions out of the actual physics about time makes for the moment a hard case for causality and relativity for observers.


One interesting thought experiment is the one about communication through large distances of space. In the game series Mass Effect, humanity has expanded throughout the galaxy through ancient found devices which enables FTL travel to fixed points around the galaxy. But this would mean that if you travel to the other side of the galaxy, you essentially travel back in time relative to the position you came from. If looking back at the location you came from, it would probably be millions of light years ago. Essentially you would be able to find a spot in the galaxy in which, when traveled to, you will arrive at the exact moment when light from the position you came from shows you starting your travel to where you are. - But the interesting thing happens when we take their means of communication into consideration. They use quantum entanglement communication, meaning that they entangle a particle at both ends of the communication and communicate through interacting with that particle. This means that they can exist in vastly relative positions in spacetime, but they have a fixed point for their communication.

This means that everyone in the galaxy experience a specific position in spacetime as their "present", but no one can observe that time from the position they are in. Communication is instant, FTL travel is instant, so the arrow of time for all the inhabitants of the galaxy is specific, not relative. It is only relative when trying to observe from a specific position.

How do all the inhabitants of the galaxy then relate to general relativity and time travel? They should all be relative to each other but their experience is not. What happens when they experience time dilation through gravitational variations at their specific location? Can you quantum entangle communicate between two points in vast distance from each other, while still be able to exist within gravitational pull that dilate time?

Essentially, can you entangle a particle at a place that is vastly slower in time relative to our own? What happens if you do?

Art needs to be a creation with intended communication of something.
It then needs to be combined with a receiver (viewer) of that communication.
The communicated message goes through interpretation by the receiver and the combined event between the communicator and receiver through that art is how I define what art is in its most fundamental form.

Therefore, a thing cannot create art since it lacks the intention of saying something with it. People often say that beauty in nature is art, but that is not art, beauty is not art, nature is not art. Art is intentional.

So when we talk about an A.I that creates something, first we must define if this A.I truly has the intelligence or is just an algorithm simulating intelligence.

Does it understand that it creates something intentionally for interpretations by receivers? In the case of current A.I:s no, not even close. These AI systems are algorithmic synthetic intelligences. I often say that people lump together too much under "AI", which leads to confusion as to what AI truly is. I define any current AI as SI, synthetic intelligence or ALi, Algorithmic Intelligences. They have no self-awareness but can be programmed (in the future) to act so close to the illusion of human intellect that we will be fooled by it. For day to day life, these SI and ALi:s will function as companion "apps" and smart-things as they act in science fiction films. But they will never be able to think freely for themselves in the way we think about true intelligence.

True AI happens when the intelligence is self-aware, capable of independent actions and act out its own will based on desires. A true AI that evolves without human-like parameters will never be able to communicate with us since it acts within its own realm. It would be like trying to communicate with super-advanced aliens. But if an AI is programmed to develop a human intellect and capable of acting out emotion-like responses and have human-like desires and fears, it will be able to communicate with us.

At that stage, it will be able to create in the sense we view art. It will be able to create with an intention of something beyond just telling us straight up about something. They will understand the importance of interpretation by the receiver, in this case, us other humans.

But that leads to the question, or rather a conclusion; if the created art demands an AI to have an intellect and intelligence that resembles us, humans, it would essentially just be another "human being" who creates art. A new individual, not by flesh but by silicon, but with the same kind of desires and emotions as we have.

This is essentially the argument I have worked out about why human art can never be replaced by any machine or another being that do not function in the same way as we humans do. Art as we define it, exists within our realm of not only understanding facts and knowledge, but emotion, desires and fears. We cannot apply that to something that lacks those human elements without the resulting creation being as empty as when someone says "everything is art". Essentially my opinion on this conclusion is that people who look at these produced images and say it is art, essentially are the same who say that everything is art, which in my opinion makes the word "art" meaningless. The specific computers making this imagery presented at TED are just algorithms, they know nothing of what they themselves are doing. It would be like me throwing a hand grenade into a room filled with paint cans and say that the hand grenade painted the art on the walls, not my act of throwing the hand grenade in there. The logic fails completely.

What would you think would make the system work better. — hachit

Resource-based economy has some merits, but mostly it's a very utopian idea that has big flaws in a society larger than a large tribe.

I think that basic income is a good way to create a baseline in order to help society and economy from becoming too segregated to a point of collapse. I also think that the basic functions in society should be totally free (tax-based); like infrastructure, electric charging for electric cars, electricity in general, internet, health-care, dental care, care for the sick and old, mental health care, construction of new homes aligned with population growth, research and science, school and high education (including the ability for older people to educate themselves for free in order to change occupation). And culture funding. All these are tax-based with a tax rate that is increasing for higher incomes. The rest of the market is a free market.

Problems arise with things like military funding and the global economy. The biggest problem we have are problematic political nations in the world which makes it hard to even develop past the current forms of economic and political systems. If all were to the standard of democracy, without corruption it would be easy to develop a better, advanced and improved system. So most of the improved ideas are utopian until we reach a better balance globally. Essentially, there's to much bullshit in the world today for a new system to actually work. Until there's a political and economic balance globally, we would probably need the capitalistic engine to run, since it still works great at pushing developed countries out of poverty. Capitalism is a great "pusher" for nations with problems to prosper, but it's generally a problem for stability without creating high-level corruption.

Most people handle different systems like a final system that won't change over time. This is a radical naive view of how systems exist in society. Systems change according to the culture in which they exist. Capitalism change through trials and errors. In Sweden, there's arguably a "socialist capitalism", in which basic functions of society acts within a socialist method, while the market is still free outside of it or even in collaboration with it. It's an evolution of pure capitalism and pure socialism.

The biggest problem we face is that the automation of industries will render most of the population unemployed, while those with higher intellectual skills, jobs and education will continue within their fields. The economic crash due to this evolution/revolution will probably be bigger than both the 30's crash, the 90's and 08's crash and it will feed into the demand of a new system that is better for all.

The closest we have to a solution is the basic income system. Research has pointed out that things like general intelligence decreases within poverty, making segregation worsen by the consequences of itself. So those that are poor have less ability to pull themselves out of that situation. If we face mass-unemployment because of automation, we will face massive poverty in which we can see a downfall of society. Basic income reduces the effects of this process and gives time for the unemployed and poor to catch up, educate and get jobs of higher complexity, which cannot easily be replaced by automation.

The conclusion is that a political and economic system needs to be a synthesis of previous ideas, none of the current ones works together with the probable development of society we face in the future.

In essence, we need to stop judging down on some political systems, stop promoting other political systems and we need to evolve the systems that exist.

This is the well-known generate and test strategy of AI, which I discuss in my paper. — Dfpolis

Yes, I worked out methods for A.I researchers on this as well, so I'm familiar with the process in A.I research.

The problem is that physics tells us that there are no random processes except possibly quantum measurement. That means that before the advent of intelligent life, the evolution of the cosmos and its biological species was completely deterministic (as is the design program you cite). The generate and test strategy only works because the range of acceptable designs is implicit in the preprogrammed test criteria. So, there is no question of having ends, there is only a question of how those ends are encoded.

As for the simulation argument, it has many logical flaws. One of the most glaring is that whether or not the universe will evolve life depends on the precise values of its physical constants. The chance of a simulation having the right combination is minuscule (cf. the physics behind the fine-tuning argument.) — Dfpolis

I'm aware of the flaws because I'm not anyone who accepts either simulation or ontological arguments as logical reasoning for their conclusions, only that there is a conclusion we don't know the specifics about. What I was referring to is that if I were to play devil's advocate with the idea of a god, it would in that case, most probably, be one who has no idea of our existence.

The generate and test strategy is an example of one process being more efficient and the other inferior. However, a set of mass which are flying through the cosmos will at the end of its journey have the form that is most optimal for a journey through cosmos, if not coming across any obstacles. The problem is however if you view things to have an end with a purpose. In the case of the drone design, that design is for the purpose of flying through the air that has the density, humidity, and temperature of a basic range for habitable conditions on earth. As soon as things change, the design needs to be changed.

In the "devils-advocate" scenario I had, if there was a god with the specific intention of our design, then that would mean evolutionary changes work better to create the optimal human design, not creating us from a pre-set of design, only out of what our function would be. However, because I do not believe in god since there is no evidence for there to be, the problem even with this optimal way of creating humans is that we are still evolving. The argument is then that we might not even be the final form that a god set out to do, but a form still in change. Maybe millions of years from now, our biology has evolved into what the final form is. Either way, we, as we are now, are not the final form and not intended because we are still evolving. This means that even if there was a god aware of us, we would essentially just be the seed this god is waiting to be what that god intended.

But, the optimal function of a system or object can still reach its optimal form within the system it exists within at the moment. That, however, doesn't mean it has reached its final form. The final form is heat death, meaning, the function and identity of everything is nothing. The final form as a final goal is irrelevant when taking universal entropy into consideration since that would mean that the final form has the purpose of being nothing. The evolving state of an object or system is happening within the system it is existing in, outside of that, it does not exist within the parameters of our universal laws of physics.

This is a faith claim, the truth of which is, at best, unclear. — Dfpolis

It's a devils-advocate claim, I have no reason to claim it true. It's for the point of my argument. I recommend that you try and understand the conclusion drawn from my entire text instead of deconstructing singular sentences, that is not how the text should be read.

On what assumptions? Please note that I see evolution as an excellent and well-founded scientific theory. My question if why it would be illogical for God to choose other means to effect His ends? This seems like the kind of a priori reasoning that is antithetical to empirical science. — Dfpolis

I refer to the most logical conclusion of it. If a god has the all-power knowledge to create at an instant, knowing what is the optimal form of anything, that god would have created that form directly and not allow for evolutionary processes both in biology, energy and through other matter in the universe. So the logic is that evolution is what was intended. Then, if our research in engineering come to the conclusion that iteration-based evolutionary processes are superior in order to design a form for a specific purpose than it is to try and figure out an optimal design with our intellect, then how would that not apply to a higher intelligence? If combining the logic between these two, then if the god didn't choose to design everything to its final form directly and iteration-based evolutionary creation is better for creating a final form, then on the scale which a god could have the power to create, we are reasonably more likely to be in such a process, but have not reached our final form. It's the more logical conclusion, if we were to accept there to be a god at all.

Sound arguments demonstrating the existence of God do so on the basis of His concurrent, ongoing operation within the universe --on His immanence rather than on His transcendence. — Dfpolis

There are no sound arguments for god in the first place. If there were, we would have proven God to exist. What I refer to in my argument is that if there was a god, it would most likely be something else than what people want that god to be. And that god would probably be outside of our universe and have no knowledge of our existence, or is still waiting for our final form. If someone could present a sound argument for the existence of God and that god's "ongoing operation" within our universe, that doesn't fall flat with fallacies and lack of logic in its reasoning, then I welcome it. But people seem to be too biased in their own faith and will only argue within their realm of comfort.

So far, there are a lot of teapots floating around the sun. A new one every time someone makes a flawed argument about the existence of god.

find this attitude troubling, for it is unscientific. A scientific mindset requires openness to the data of experience -- to what is given -- not being closed to possibilities a priori. — Dfpolis

Openness is not the same as being skeptical of the answers given or the observations made. To be skeptical is more scientific than any other way of thinking. Just being "open" means you are never critical and if not, you never try and test your own ideas. Most people are open, but just don't care to test their own knowledge. I think you misunderstand what I meant about being skeptical. In relation to the existence of God, I will never accept the existence of a god if we can't prove it. If there's one thing that is unscientific, its to allow things to exist according to fantasies of what we want to exist, just because there aren't clear answers telling us otherwise. This is exactly why there are so many teapots in space.

So, the fact that a bulk of a pyramid's substance is not in its capstone is an argument that the capstone is not intentionally placed? — Dfpolis

I see no relation with this example since I was talking about the massive scale of the universe compared to our existence. If we were the point of the universe, by a creator, there's a big lack of logic in creating that scale of the universe just to have us in it. Had we existed a few billion years later, then we would not even see stars and galaxies since the expansion would make light sources too far away from each other. Which means that we wouldn't even be able to measure the scale and be isolated in a dark corner of the universe. You compare that scale to the foundation of a pyramid. If you add nearly an infinite scale to that foundation, then it would show just how irrational that shape would be. Intentionally placing a near infinite foundation of the pyramid would make the shape of the pyramid no longer visible as a pyramid and the whole idea of a pyramid with a tip, high point would become absurd. So the example of the intention becomes mathematically absurd. It would more likely be the almost infinite shape of the foundation that was the purpose and the tip an evolutionary result. If the shape was allowed for it. However, the example of the pyramid becomes absurd in relation to what I said.

I do not think that seeing God as relevant to human existence requires a grandiose self image. First, data-based arguments show that God continually maintains our existence. Thus, it is merely acknowledging truth to see ourselves as utterly dependent on God. Second, as human self-realization can only occur under laws of nature maintained by God, any successful human ethics must be based on an adequate understanding of that reality. It is not that God makes up arbitrary laws for us to follow, but that God has authored our entire ontology — Dfpolis

Historians, anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists all point to how gods, God, religion and so on, formed based upon an inability to explain the world around us at the time we couldn't explain through facts and science. It took us to the 20th century to truly be able to explain the world through the methods we came up with. The concept of a God is a descendant from times when we couldn't explain things in any other way. Because religion created institutions that have been in power in some form or another throughout human history, up until now, it's easy to see how people still try and argue for the existence of God. But it's irrational, illogical, unsupported by evidence and in psychology, it's easy to see how the concept of no purpose or external meaning to our lives frightens us into holding on to a belief that gives us purpose and meaning. But that doesn't mean it's the truth.

No data-based arguments show anything that prove God in any way. Sloppy logic in all these arguments that does not work when deconstructed. There have never been a working argument in favor of a god, ever. Try and find one that is rock solid in its logic and reasoning. Even the closest to such a logical argument does not conclude with anything related to God at all which just becomes an assumption and conclusion made before the argument, not after it.

Your view would seem to require a God Who cannot but attend to a single species -- so that attending to us would occupy God's entire attention and make us the center of reality. Mine sees God as capable of more than such tunnel vision and concern. In short, you have constructed and rejected a straw man. — Dfpolis

I argue around God within the concept and ideas that humanity invented about this God. I have argued about what would be the most logical conclusion with that concept, playing a devils-advocate to the idea that a God exists. But you cannot call it strawman when you use your own belief of a God within your argument. Your belief is irrelevant, unfounded, unsupported by evidence, have no rational argument attached to it. To call my breakdown of the concept of God within the realm of science to be a strawman because it doesn't include your personal perception of the concept of God is seriously flawed as an argument.

Again, this only applies to your straw man god, not to the infinite and omniscient God of classical theism. — Dfpolis

It applies to the most logical conclusion based on what we know in science. The theistic concept of the classical God has changed over and over every time science proved something to be something else than what that religious belief thought at the time. The classical kind of God as a concept fails, over and over, the more we know about humanity, nature and the universe. So my thought experiment here was about the most logical form of a god within our knowledge about the universe, not religious fantasies.

You method seems to be to replace the God whose existence has been proven by Aristotle, Ibn Sina, the Buddhist Logicians and Aquinas with one that virtually no one believes in, but which you can easily reject. — Dfpolis

What proof? There are no proof of any God or Gods. All those arguments fail in their conclusion or assume the conclusion to be true before the argument is done, or they draw unfounded assumptions out of a conclusion that has no relation to the concept of a god.

Philosophers before we established scientific methods, worked within the belief of those times and within the history of science, there was a lot of progress shut down by the church if they couldn't apply the science onto the religious concepts at that time.

I can easily reject any concepts of god through a proper philosophical deconstruction of those arguments. Which has been done by many philosophers throughout history. But it's convenient to ignore them in order to support your already established beliefs, right? Isn't that a biased point of view?

Only religious apologists with a cognitive bias to their beliefs, accept illogical and irrational arguments filled with fallacies. I can accept that old philosophers had trouble with their biased conclusions, but that's because we didn't have the methods to falsify and cross-check our findings or proper dialectic methods with logic and rationality. No philosopher today would accept flaws in logic when reasoning, so no philosopher today can accept arguments for god which features flawed conclusions or assumptions that lack links to that conclusion.

If you have a rock solid argument for the existence of God, go ahead and present it.

If "God" then he wouldn't be omniscient. Is it that he's just tinkering around with toys? — TheMadFool

Can you explain the motivations of a higher being? It's like explaining how dimensions we cannot perceive looks, feels and behaves like, on a perceptive level. I'm a constant skeptic so I would never accept the idea that there is a god even outside our universe, but as we don't know anything of what's outside our universal bubble we cannot know and perhaps its irrelevant to us since everything that is us and this universe probably breaks down and "existence" as a concept might even be wildly inferior to whatever is outside of everything.

In general, logic still points to there being a physical reaction or change that made the big bang since the mathematical statistics points to dead matter being the majority of our universe and organic matter or thinking creatures/beings to be in so low quantity that it's illogical that its likely there to be an intentional creation and more of a reaction.

Even then, if we view the outside as a "lab" and "god" as a scientist who conducts an experiment, our universe might be one particle in a test tube that "blink" in and out of existence within a fraction of that god's framework of time. Our existence being of such low relevance that he doesn't even know about there being a chance of us existing at all. This concept is why I reject any notion that God has any link or guidance towards us humans because it's a self-indulgent, narcissistic delusion of grandeur about ourselves and our meaning to the universe. Any logical reasoning about our existence points to the universe being dead cold in caring for us. If the sun explodes we're gone and the universe doesn't care, just like there might have been another planet in the universe which featured life and prospering beauty (per our sense) that was swallowed up by its own sun. If we, humans, believe there to be any god who knows about us and guides us, the most logical conclusion to that, based on all that we know about the universe and also about psychology, is that we are delusional, narcissistic and self-indulgent in our sense of meaning. If there was a god, he logically and statistically wouldn't know about us, at all and he wouldn't care. We are on our own and that is the most optimistic view about the existence of a god that I can rationally give outside of the more logical conclusion of it being a physics-based event without an intentional cause.

Also, to an evolutionary paradigm, teleology is redundant isn't it? I don't know how to say this but imagine a world with certain rules and we're in it. It's to be expected that our form and function would be shaped by the rules in that world. It would ''appear" as though we were designed for that particular world. Yet, there is no purpose or teleology as such. Just an inevitable result of constraints (laws/rules) shaping matter and energy. I guess I'm saying evolution would be indistinguishable from teleology. If so, Ockham's razor would have us accept simple mechanistic evolution over teleology. — TheMadFool

What final static form does a liquid have that never becomes solid or gas?
Nothing around us, within us, outside of us have a static form, we are like liquid, always changing and with that physical change, we also have a change in function. Energy moves into new energy until depleted and therefore it has no final form but so dispersed into heat-death that time essentially stops. If that is the final form, it has no function and is nothing.

Therefore teleology essentially ends up in arguing against itself, the final form has no existential reason or function, it has lost any essential existential meaning by the time it reaches its final form. So the function, existence and meaning only exists in processes of change so there is no finality and when finality happens, there is nothing.

Imagine two worlds of fish and water, A and B. World B has a God but world A doesn't. World A corresponds to only mechanism and world B corresponds to teleology.

In world A, random mutations in genes colliding with the environment would be able to produce streamlined bodies for fish.

In world B, God would purposefully make fish bodies streamlined.

To an observer from outside the two worlds would appear indistinguishable but, in the absence of knowledge about God's existence or non existence, the observer would choose the simpler theory and say mechanism, not teleology. — TheMadFool

Except you ignore biological evidence for evolutionary changes within cells, DNA and genes. If you only look at the physical form, you would assume mechanism due to Ockham's razor, but the evidence is far deeper than just an observation of form.

I also have the argument that evolutionary changes are the optimal form to create complex perfection in my counter-argument to intelligent design. Modern engineering is moving over to iteration-based development in which we abandon trying to figure out the optimal design for something in favor of evolutionary processes.

Have you seen the design for common drones?


Its form wasn't designed by a human or by a computer, it was designed by evolutionary methods. They couldn't create the optimal form for weight balance, wind turbulence etc. so they programmed the physics of its function and let a computer test them on a form over and over, just like evolution. The end result was the above design, something no one can claim to be a designer of. Because the design was evolutionary, based on the physics of our world.

If applied to the idea that a God designed things, it actually makes no sense for something to be designed directly for its function. If a God was to design the world, it would be like ourselves trying to design something with an advanced optimal function. Specific design fails, but evolutionary design optimizes itself without a designer. If there was a God, that god would most likely just have "started the universe", the simulation argument. We haven't been specifically created, we would be the result of the evolution of the universe. In that case, our known universe, in which our laws of physics etc. exist, would be its own and the existence of a God is irrelevant to us because we are most likely irrelevant to that god. We are the unintentional bacteria that evolved on the lab sample, oblivious to our existence but also our existence invisible to the scientist.

The logic here is that the most optimal way of creating something is through the process of evolution, rather than specific design and because of this, it's illogical that a God would specifically design something over letting it evolve itself. If a god is a higher intelligence, it would then not choose the less intelligent choice of creation. If there was a god, it would exist outside of this universe and wouldn't care for the internals of this universe. Therefore the internals of our universe, everything within our realm of physics is its own thing; with its own rules, detached from any type of other realms, dimensions, and gods. We have no reason to view our existence as deliberate or in connection with anything else, we are on our own.

But science was already very sophisticated by the time of Kant, and proved to be a reliable way of obtaining useful knowledge about the world. — darthbarracuda

I'm not saying he was wrong or that the methodology wasn't advanced enough for serious science. I'm saying that science is a field which builds on top of itself in order to progress. Previous findings get adjusted or changed depending on new evidence and proven theories get mixed together with new ones into a synthesis. Hypotheses clash until they are proven into theories and strange observations lay the foundation for tomorrows struggle for evidence.

All of this leads up to the best possible answers about the world there is and that time is usually the current present time. So, my point was that in order to view his ideas with rational eyes we need to view them in the context of all the knowledge we have today.

Before our modern methods of science, before Popper and alike, science lacked in its methodology.

Although the original Kantian metaphysics does indeed suffer from certain anachronisms in light of newer developments in science and mathematics, the general idea behind Kantian philosophy remains viable to this day. — darthbarracuda

Agreed. The problem though is that many thinkers/philosophers take a lot of previous philosophy and scientific methodology as truths instead of parts of a general overview of the history of science. We use what works, but need to apply it to our modern understandings. One thing that I find lacking with the people who try to create hypotheses and arguments based on ideas before the 20th century is the lack of things like falsifiability and understanding of logical reasoning. Not saying Kant's ideas aren't working, just that the logic and falsifiability methods came long after him and could help improve upon his ideas. The solution to combine older ideas with new ones is using them through the methods of modern times.

My opinion is that desired properties of cream as presented (fixing anything that easily) would have destroyed human life long before a business cabal would've put a quash on it. That destruction might have taken the form of everyone evaporating into light (which could as well be a metaphor for death: a radical change from state A as a known state to state Z an unknown state). — Nils Loc

I think this part brings up the question of: if you had the chance to evolve beyond the existence of being human in an instant, would you do so? Some people choose to do it, but some indulge in the pleasures of being human. If you had the option between becoming evolved past humanity, or have all the pleasures of life infinitely, which path would you choose? I think the metaphor is more about infinite knowledge, the infinite perfection of yourself, in which you become so perfected in everything that there's no reason to have any values left as a human; you "leave humanity".

There is a lot in that video that is hard to parse (to go from metaphor to whatever the manifold formal arguments and well worn questions might entail). Pick an aspect, write an essay, then argue points. You have to do it in the standardized way or else no one is interested. — Nils Loc

I've rarely seen standardized arguments in first posts on this forum. In this case, however, I was more interested in a dissection of the philosophical themes presented in this piece. So it's less about an argument and more an invitation to discussion.

However, if I had to pick one thing, it's mainly the "cream" aspect of it.
If there was something that could "fix everything", what would the consequences for humanity be?

The parameters of this "cream" are:
1. It isn't anything in itself, it cannot be anything without anything else.
2. It improves everything, wherever it's applied. The improvements seem contextual to the will of the one being improved.
3. If you descent and cover yourself fully, you will improve yourself to the point where a human is evolved to its maximum form.
4. It can replicate food and resources infinitely, even itself.

Your conclusion is that it's the end of humanity because everyone would choose to evolve past humanity. I argue that there are far too many who love life as it is, who are too scared or find the pleasures you can have in this life more important.

I would say that the conclusion would be that we lose humanity, even if we are still human. If we didn't have any differences between us, if we didn't have age, ugliness etc. we would essentially lose anything that makes life worth living. We need the pain and suffering in order to be human, without it, we have no struggle, no development, no ambition and so on. We essentially just become "nothing", an existence beyond not having universal meaning, we have no meaning in our own minds, but would still value life because "cream" would make us feel it has value. But is this "cream"-induced sense of value true?

Is our sense of meaning and value in a meaningless world/universe as much of an illusion as something induced by this "cream? Like if you have a pill that would give you a sense of meaning in your life, how is that different from if you invent a meaning to your life when there isn't any external meaning at all? Where is the illusion of meaning and where is the actual meaning?

Edit: Cream could likely be a metaphor for any technological application that radically alters the total system and the necessary politics required to conserve or progress a desirable type of life (family, community, nation, world) using some kind of cost and benefit analysis. — Nils Loc

In the realm of my thoughts too. If we had the technology to almost divinely improve our lives, how would our world change?

"If you are going to allow technologies into the market place that destroy people's jobs, it is your responsibility to find a way of replacing those jobs, or compensating those people." This is a line from Brian Cox on Joe Rogan's podcast talking about the social and economic costs of replacing middle class jobs with AI technologies. Worth thinking about. — Nils Loc

This is actually one of the biggest things we are facing... which has little to no discussion within politics, unfortunately. We will have a massive unemployment-wave around the globe because of advanced automation and it could even lead to war-like scenarios. More likely than not we will see an exponential development when the cocktail-effect of many technological fields kicks in and develops tech together.

It will no longer be a question of class by the economy, but by competence and intellect. If you have a job which automation cannot easily replace you will be able to rise above others. But how would the rest of society act, the unemployed?

I'm thinking about the master/slave argument, but this time, it's the opposite. The master is the competent and the slaves are incompetent. It might create a super-class difference that would be much harder to integrate into a society for both that it may as well be what the film Elysium shows, in which the highest classes in society even leave earth entirely.

Does our relationship with science smell a lot like a religion? Yes, it certainly does. The one true way leading us to the promised land, typically believed without questioning based on reference to authority etc. — Jake

If this is how you think scientists think about science, you don't have much insight into scientific research. Do you think that scientists don't tread carefully forward? That they don't have ethics? And do you think that all scientists in the world blindly follow science in the religious way you describe? People and scientists trust science because of the facts it provides, because of the technology it develops and invents, because of the improvements for people's lives.

There's no promised land, it's the process of science that proves it's own worth. Religion does nothing, science has done everything for the quality of life that we have and the knowledge about the world and universe we now know. To put trust in science is to put trust in a method that produces facts humanity can live by, not fairy tales and delusions that corrupt mankind. To say that science "smell lot like religion" is pure nonsense in my opinion and totally ignorant of what science actually is.

There's a lot of distrust against science, scientists and the scientific community on this forum. I don't know if it's because of religious apologists who try to push their agenda or if a lot of people have a problem with scientific facts and intentionally try to discredit it in order to try and validate their own incoherent arguments, but most of the time when I read criticism of science it just comes across as heavily uninformed and misinformed.

your basis and the basis of every moral system starts with an axiom, a definition of what the purpose of morality is. — DingoJones

In this sense, absolutely, there needs to be a definition of what morality is about. But how can you even use or discuss a concept that isn't defined? I'm using the definitions of the concept "morality" to be the common definition of the word and concept. That is the baseline, textbook explanation on what morality is. Above that is how we use morality, how it is applied to humanity, to ourselves and as a concept for society as guidelines to good/bad behavior.

This is where I put all other axioms into perspective. Terrapin's point, as I understood it, is as you say, based on how you feel. But the problem I have with this is that feelings and emotions are corruptible, which means you can only create subjective morals. If morality as a concept should have any value whatsoever it has to be outside of the subjective, something applicable to everyone, without demanding corrupted ideas.

Isn't then the only way, to find the common denominators within humanity and have a concept of morality that is applicable to everyone regardless of if our society change? Earlier we had religious doctrines that set out direct moral rules to follow, but it doesn't take much time to put those strict rules into situations where they break down. So what is common between all people? Our biology, psychology and sociology predict there are common denominators between us all. Boiling these down to shorter concepts, we end up with well-being and harm as positive and negative denominators.

Therefore, I fail to see how this idea is subjective? It's a deduction of the common denominators around humans and a method to calculate good and bad choices out of the value these gives. At least I see it as the most objective method we can have, all others are corruptible or breaks down as soon as we externalize them from ourselves as subjective entities.

Strict defined moral rules, emotion-based morality, Kant's categorical imperatives, utilitarianism or even total nihilism, all have problems since they are too strict in their definitions. They are not able to fit the situations you're facing when making moral choices. In order to make room for variables, but still never turn negatives into positives (as a nihilist), we use the common denominators we have between all people and that should be the foundation for calculating a moral choice.

In essence, I can't see how emotional-based morality, that is breaking apart as soon as you have someone with corrupted emotions, is even on the same level to a rational calculation of a moral choice based on common denominators for all humans. The former is so subjective that it's irrelevant to even use it within the concept of morality, the second is applicable to all humans.

The former is like: "would you do A or B?" -"B, because I feel like it".
That's not morality, that's just behavior.

Second is like: "would you do this thing?" -"What is the end result and consequences for my choice? Will I gain a form of well-being or be harmed? Which choice between A and B create well-being for me and the ones affected by my choice? B is only my own gain, A is a small gain for me and other people. But B might give me means to help those who gain from A. Does B equal a consequence that makes them gain more well-being in the long run? Yes, my choice is B."

Of course, it requires much more thought, but it's also much more balanced, there's a rational reason that isn't based on strict rules about the choice, but about how to think about the choice. It's vastly superior since other forms focus on strict rules for the morality itself, not a method of figuring out. It's not corruptible as a system compared to the others, since there's nothing to corrupt.

I suppose it depends on what you define as emotion based, but any number of ethical systems that operate from a rational or logical basis are just as legitimate as yours is. Anything you must consistently reference in order to determine what is right and wrong. Any moral system with a system of measuement, like the 12” ruler in my analogy. — DingoJones

Emotionally based is to base your morality on "feeling something is wrong", as the title describes. It's a very corruptible morality definition.

Kant had his categorical imperatives, but they can become so strict that they aren't able to form according to each situation. I still haven't seen anyone stress test my method, so I cannot say it's more or less valid than any other rational method. The difference though, is that the moral choices can change according to the situation. Killing can be good or bad but never corrupted because the parameters of common understanding of well-being and harm steer it in the direction of the common good for both the choice-maker and others.

This is what he endeavors to do in “The Moral Landscape”. His argument is very similar, you may find it a good read. — DingoJones

I might read it then :smile:

It forms the basis of your method, if you removed them, what basis would you have left? — DingoJones

Yes, and assessing what is well-being is part of the initial "advanced" version of the calculation. But removing aspects of the method in order to invalidate it is like removing anything to define it as not what it is. Remove the trunk and the branches of a tree, what do you have left? If you remove anything at all from morality, what is then, morality? If morality is supposed to be actions of good or bad, then calculating good morals and good actions need to be connected to what we humans perceive as good or bad. Anything else would mean to ignore the very foundation of what morality is supposed to be about and in doing so, it becomes nothing. We can argue what well-being and harm really means, we could deconstruct the words and their meaning to pieces, but their definitions are pretty much straight forward in our language. If you do something to gain well-being in someone else, while you at the same time gain some well-being, that is a foundation for good moral choices. It's fundamental. If you take away the aspect of "good" from morality you don't have any morality left as a concept since there isn't anything "good" that balance against something. It just becomes nothing.

What then is morality? How do you define morality outside of these concepts?

No, rather I would argue that harm and well being are their own ends and not the basis of morality at all. — DingoJones

That isn't what I proposed though. I said they are parameters within the method that is used to define moral choices.

You’ve read Sam Harris I take it? You are trying to paint a moral landscape? — DingoJones

I know of Sam Harris and some of his thoughts, but this method is myself trying to deduce a working method out of a moral base that isn't emotional and free from religious doctrine.

There are other perfectly legit things morality can mean. — DingoJones

Such as? Outside of religious ones and emotional ones I really want to know what people define it as further. I argue that religious morality and emotional-based morality are flawed and cannot be used to define morality since they become such an undefined mess.

In what more ways do you define morality without it becoming "whatever you want it to be"?

I'm not saying all science is bad, just that people treat it more like a religion. — bogdan9310

Only those who do not know what science is or what the scientific process and its methods are would treat it like a religion. On both sides, those who criticize it and those who believe too strongly in it. It is what it is and it's the best way for us to arrive at new knowledge detached from human corruption. It's the closest we have to arrive at "truths".

Science also features discovery and exploration that can end up creating new fields. Philosophy is not the only thing that "creates" new fields, it can happen organically.

Yes, but earlier I divided the method into one which carefully defines well-being before you calculate how that well-being is being applied to the situation in order to calculate the choice.

The more simple and practical method is one which acts upon the standard definition of well-being and harm that we have. But it doesn't make the final moral choice calculated by the method, simple, it just uses these as parameters so that it's impossible to make moral choices into whatever feels right or whatever you want it to be. Assessing the well-being of someone is done through the other points in the method, by using psychology and sociology as rational and by the facts as possible or within the current knowledge at the moment. That means that the definition of well-being is being calculated by such means, not by an emotional value of what well-being is.

Would you argue that the definition of harm and well-being as they are defined as concepts in our society is wrong? In what other ways can you define these concepts? Do they ever become so differently defined that they cannot be used in my method?

Yeah, wasn't really arguing against, just wanted to try and clarify my point of view on the subject of morality. I don't say my method is tested, done and finished, but I do think there is a way to create a method to calculate good and bad morals in order to guard morality against human corruption.

I think what people are getting at is that you decide the basis for morality, for you its suffering/harm, for emotional reasons and not objective ones. — DingoJones

No, for me it's a calculated choice about others and my own well-being. I do not define it by suffering/harm without calculation about in what way it is harmful or cause suffering. It's not an emotional value choice for me. I take the common, standard definition of well-being and harm and use it for the calculation of the moral value of a choice. I don't apply my emotions to that calculation, only the common standard definitions of harm and well-being and measuring in what way harm and well-being apply to the situation. I can assess if someone is harmed without any emotional value.

I don't call my morality objective I say the method is a way to calculate objectively, outside of my emotional and subjective experience. There are no objective moral values in the method. You can argue in favor of killing someone being a good moral choice if the deduction of that choice shows it to be the best moral route. Objectiveness, in this method, is about it being detached from our subjective moral opinions and be able to apply the method for all people, even the emotionally corrupted.

Try using the method on any moral situation, can you assess good moral choices with it? If not, we need to adjust its parameters. The method itself doesn't create solid and strict moral rules, it is a calculation for what is the optimal good moral based on our understanding of harm and well-being. How to assess harm and well-being is done out of our knowledge in psychology and sociology, so it's not even about opinion in that assessment.

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The problem with defining moral by emotion and feelings is that the rulebook goes out the window and morality, good and bad morals cease to exist since they can't be defined. If morality is whatever you feel like it to be, then there's no point in even labeling it as moral. My coffee cup is morality because I feel like my morals measure by the amount of coffee in my coffee cup, therefore my coffee cup is my morality. It's an absurd conclusion.

The second is to have strict moral doctrines, like in religion. The problem here is that the only reason to act well is that of divine reward. I'd say that humans should be capable to act well without a false authority invented for that control and it's needed when God and religion go out the window. You cannot tell an atheist to act according to religious doctrines. While some doctrines teach good morals to be killing in the name of God, stoning people and whatever. It's a corrupted way of defining morals since people in power can change the doctrines over time, it's not universal for us as humans.

So we are unable to define morals based on emotions because they are unable to apply to anything but the subjective individual and we cannot define morals based on religious doctrines since they can be corrupted. That leaves morals being undefinable. Still, we value things that act as baseline definers for morality. All people, in any society, can, for the most part, define harm and well-being. So instead of trying to define morality as something fluid and subjective maxim or some strict doctrine, let it be fluid, but based on strict parameters. This way, morality can change according to the situation, but you always calculate the level of harm and well-being, trying to maximize it to both yourself and others.

Is this method flawed? What moral choices can't be calculated with this method? Instead of people saying the method doesn't work I haven't seen any examples of testing it to conclude that it's flawed, only opinions on it being so based on personal definitions of morality.

The basics are this:
- Morality based on emotions can be corrupted and render morality undefined and without any form.
- Morality based on strict set out doctrines can be corrupted and render morality undefined and without any form while being used as a control mechanism for people in power.
- General morality can therefore not be defined by humans, as it then becomes corrupted, it needs to be defined by something else.
- Definitions on "harm" and on "well-being" are generally existing within all societies.
- Morality calculated through a solid method of defining each situations well-being and harm measurements is a way of detaching our emotions and our strict doctrines on morals from morality to assess a more general idea about good and bad morals in each situation.
- The moral choice can change, but the method's parameters cannot and that keeps the calculation from forming corrupted moral values like what happens with religious and emotional morality assessments.

Without defining good and bad morals, why even have the concept of morality? It's a concept without meaning if it isn't able to be defined outside of whatever we feel like it to be.

An option for who? Let's say for you. That depends. How do you feel about it? It would be lose-lose for you, I think. You either concede to the emotional foundation in ethical judgement, in which case yes, it's an option; or you implausibly deny any associated feelings of relevance, and at the same time tacitly admit that it is just an empty formula, which isn't what I consider to even fit the category of morality, meaning that no, it's not an option. — S

So it's not able to act as a moral guide in order for us to, as close as possible, conclude in what we generally define good morals as objectively as possible? Either we try and define a moral that works for all or we abandon morality as a concept altogether. I don't see any reason to try and define morality without any parameters. The desire to maximize well-being for the self and others combined is as close to a general good moral we can get and that method assesses that for any moral choice. You seem to miss that the assessment of well-being is for the self and others combined. That's the key because otherwise it's either giving up well-being for either yourself or others in any given choice. To maximize it for both pushes you towards a balanced moral choice. The things you bring up are already addressed in that argument. I don't see anything that really breaks the method, only your judgment of it because you are of the opinion it is impossible, but the method itself is still solid.

No, that doesn't follow. That's the same error that Andrew is making. Fallibility isn't sufficient reason for rejection. That argument is untenable. But feel free to try a different argument. — S

The point is that you cannot base morals on feelings since there are people who are so corrupted in their emotional life that what you consider good morals, they consider bad and vice versa. So you cannot measure morality based on emotional responses of events. The argument for using emotions to define morality is flawed from the beginning so that needs to be a solid argument first.

Again, the problem is twofold: 1) it's not plausible that it's disconnected from emotions, and 2) even if it is disconnected from emotions, then it doesn't come under morality in any way that makes sense — S

These points are not counter arguments since you define morality based on emotions and you assume that conclusion to be true before you present the premises above. In my argument, I argue that emotions are feedback on the choices we make, but assessing what is morally good or bad can only be assessed through a common parameter between all humans. I.e well-being. Emotions are detached from assessing what is well-being, you can deduce those things through that method, make the choice and let emotions enter after that.

Why is emotion necessary in order to make a moral choice? What happens if you have a mental health issue that means you lack empathy. How do you make good moral choices in any given situation? If you can't feel empathy or normal emotions, you can still calculate what is good for others. You could understand that a hug generates higher dopamine and because of this, heightens the feeling of well-being.

I really don't see how your argument is more valid when you assume your conclusion true before making the argument. I don't define morality to be based on emotions since the argument about corrupted emotions makes it impossible to scale morality based on it. Well-being is scalable as a measurement that you can base moral choices on, even for those who have corrupted emotions.

That only makes sense in the hidden context where they already feel that serious harm is wrong. Whatever you say, you can always go back a step until you can't go back any further, and that's where it ends in the emotional foundation. — S

It doesn't have to. You can deduce a conclusion that harm is the opposite of well-being by the very definitions of those words. If you have your own idea that the harm you do is for their well-being and test that idea against common standard definitions, you would come to the conclusion that you are wrong and that the harm you do is morally wrong. You are talking about emotional guesswork, but if you use something like the method I brought up, then you are calculating the choice outside of your emotional spectra and personal definitions. What are the common standard definitions of harm and well-being? Are you saying you are unable to calculate a choice of what is morally good or morally bad when you test the choice against harm and well-being? If you kill someone, is that morally good or bad? What maximizes well-being for both you and others combined? You can't calculate that into an answer about whether killing is good or bad? Doesn't matter what you feel, you cannot argue it isn't harmful to the one you kill, therefore it's morally bad. If you add more parameters to the situation, it gets more complex, but you can still assess where the choice end up between good or bad morality.

That is, if you agree that morality can be assessed outside of emotions, which I argue you can.

So the problem is it actually wrong to murder someone or does it just feel wrong? — Andrew4Handel

Murder for selfish pleasure or personal gain...
Does it maximize well-being for you and others combined?

By the common standard definition of well-being, no.

Therefore, murder in this situation is morally bad.

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Murder or rather, killing someone to save others.
Does it maximize well-being for you and others combined?

By the common standard definition of well-being, yes, it maximizes the well-being. Not doing it is to let others die and fill yourself with the guilt of that consequence.

Therefore, killing someone in this situation is morally good.


Can there be dire consequences outside of this, yes, but the assessment of the situation defines the morality of you, not if you can predict the future or not.

I think you can deduce what is good for your physical body but not necessarily what is a good action or purpose. I think physical health can be fairly uncontroversial but as to what we should do with our lives I don't see answers. — Andrew4Handel

Look at the method I provided. You mean it's impossible to find out if an action is good or bad with that? Well-being is not only about physical health. If you find the method I wrote isn't working, please point out where the flaws are.

You just go with what you feel and think is right at the time. There's no other option. — S

Look at the method above, isn't that an option? Feelings can be corrupted and therefore, if you base morals on it, you essentially throw all moral values out the window. There's no point to define morals at all. The method above is my attempt to define a moral scale that isn't connected to emotions but still generate what we would consider good morals by the common definition.

People have been killed in terrible ways or died in slavery and there has been no justice. It is rather futile moralizing about an event like this when there is no hope of justice. Religious moralities have offered an afterlife justice of some sort or karma. But if you don't believe in this or objective morality then lots have people have suffered with no recompense, recognition or hope. — Andrew4Handel

Calculate the maximized well-being for yourself and everyone else. The result might not be obvious, but I consider that "good morals". Justice has nothing to do with morals since justice is an invention out of emotional responses to an immoral act, so morals comes first, justice is another question entirely, but what you choose to do with that justice is a moral choice and can be assessed.

My first post in this thread.

1. Do what is positive for the well-being of yourself and others combined.
2. Morality is an evolving process and each situation must be assessed carefully according to point 1.
3. Assessing what is morally good needs to involve current knowledge about human psychology, sociology, and knowledge about human well-being for the individual and larger groups. — Christoffer

Adjustments to that list of points:

1. Do what is positive for the assessed well-being of yourself and others combined.
2. What is well-being need to be assessed according to each situation.
3. Assessing what is morally good needs to involve current knowledge about human psychology, sociology and common/advanced definitions about human well-being for the individual and larger groups.
4. If the consequence of the choice isn't within the assessed parameters of well-being even though the choice was carefully defined to the best possible assessment of well-being, the choice is still good (the one assessing the choice cannot see the future).
5. Neither can the assessed choice be considered morally bad if unforeseen consequences occur later on. But the assessed choice need to take everything possible into consideration to the best ability of the one making the choice.
6. The choice is about maximizing the assessed well-being.

If we are to find an objective method to calculate a morally good choice, this is as close as I can get at the moment. If you take into consideration, psychology, sociology, common definitions of well-being but also advanced forms, like a relief of pain by death; take into consideration further consequences, how it affect society, larger groups and yourself at the same time. Then you can end up at a choice that tries to maximize the assessed well-being and in doing so make a morally good choice.

But at the same time, we have common definitions of well-being. We do not harm, kill or inflict pain on people and call that "well-being". So the above is the detailed argument for situations like my allegory about aliens. But we can simplify it to standard definitions of well-being, as it is defined by a dictonary: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/wellbeing
We can argue details about this definition, but in order for the method to be practical we can distill it down to:

1. Do what is positive for the well-being of yourself and the group combined.
2. Assess the well-being according to current knowledge about human psychology, sociology and standard definition of well-being.
3. If the choice is made with careful consideration of point 2 with the intention of point 1, it is considered a morally good choice at the time the choice was made to the best of your ability.

This is a practical method in our society, even if our society shifts. But this simplification is based on the standard and common definition of "well-being". What is and what is not well-being is in this regard academic, not practical. Moral choices based on emotion does not work since emotions can be corrupted. A person might feel good about killing others, but considering that "good morals" based on his emotions is flawed.

Yes, you could argue a nihilistic point of view and say that there are no moral values what so ever. But if good and bad morals should be defined, this method defines it outside of emotion and feelings, focusing on assessing well-being to the best of the choice-makers ability. If good morals are about maximizing well-being in yourself and others combined and bad morals are the opposite, this method can calculate the difference between them without feelings or emotions involved.

An objective method to assess whose "good morals"? — Terrapin Station

Presented earlier. I've explained it on earlier pages.

I'm saying that nothing, objectively is well-being. If you want to focus on the brain chemistry factors re a feeling of well-being, that's fine, but (a) that still isn't objective (because we're talking about a mental state, which makes it subjective by definition), and (b) there's no objective fact that creating the brain states in question are preferential to not creating them. — Terrapin Station

This is the reason you don't seem to understand the method in the first place. What is and what isn't well-being is what is being assessed by the method and through that assessing the moral choice. Well-being has its definition and I have not said anything about it being objective. I've said an objective method to assess good morals, not objective well-being. That's why I ask you to look at the method I presented, since your whole argument is based on a misunderstanding of the method, therefore, your argument becomes a non-argument against the method.

You're ignoring the point I'm making. — Terrapin Station

Your argument is flawed since you have written it out of the notion that well-being has objective parameters on humans when my method is about assessing the well-being. So you have initially ignored the entire method and argument I've made and so there are no points for me to care for when your argument is flawed in the first place. You are arguing about things I haven't even presented. My method is about assessing the well-being not that well-being is objective in itself.

A hypothetical person who has "zero empathy" can follow someone else's guidelines, sure. And those guidelines will count as "good morals" to people who agree with those preferences. They'll count as "bad morals" to people who disagree with those preferences. — Terrapin Station

Have you even looked at the points in the guideline? I want you to make an argument for how they are "bad morals" in any rational sense.

If they have no emotions or feelings whatsoever, the they have no reason to choose not starting a war and being killed or anything else. They have to have preferences to make those sorts of choices. — Terrapin Station

You are nitpicking the allegory again. Must I do entire worldbuilding on this in order for you to understand the actual point? I can easily say a reason, they are like plants, they have no emotions but they do choices through survival programming. War equals death to their species, hence to survive they need to adapt. They have no emotion to this, they must simply do it. So the choice is still made without emotion or feelings.

You can deduce that food is necessary to survive. You can't deduce that survival is good or better than not surviving, because that's not a fact. That's a preference that people can have. — Terrapin Station

You miss that the deduction was about well-being. Are you saying "not surviving" is well-being? Because of this you need to first explain what well-being is and define it as something other than what its actual definition is. If you don't agree with that definition, then we can just give up and just throw language out of the window and stop even having a dialectic. You are making nonsense out of the argument.

You are also making your own interpretation of my argument before counter-arguing, this is a fallacy.
The rest of your argument is out of this misinterpretation of the deduction argument I presented.

"Survival is well-being" isn't a fact. It's a preference. It's a way that people feel, where they would rather than one set of facts obtains (survival) than another set (a lack of survival). — Terrapin Station

What is your definition of well-being for a person? Please provide the definition in order to support your argument. Well-being is what it is, it's not a preference. Well-being has a clear definition and that definition is a fact of what well-being is.

The emotional value is that you prefer raising their dopamine levels to the alternative. — Terrapin Station

Why are you ignoring the point I'm making? I provided a moral method to use in order to be morally good. The method is detached from feelings and emotions. Using the method you can assess choices through the well-being of people. The choice is to follow the moral method and guideline. You are making an argument that is totally ignoring the entire purpose of ethics philosophy. So your argument becomes a non-argument. If the question is "how can we assess good morals", then your points of emotions becomes invalid. If a person that has zero empathy is told to follow this moral guideline in order to function according to good morals in society, he can do it without having empathy. Then, because of this, the choice of raising dopamine levels has nothing to do with emotions, the choice is to follow the moral guideline, that's the first choice and that choice is made out of the necessity of having good morals in our society. If there is no reason to have good morals in society, then you can throw ethics philosophy out the window since it's irrelevant to you and it's irrelevant to assess morality at all.

So what is your point? That we can't have good morals without emotions? So far I've not seen a solid argument for that. You are intentionally misunderstanding the entire method in order to make your point.

Why would they do that over the alternative(s)? — Terrapin Station

An irrelevant point to the allegory. Invent a reason, like, they need to stay on our planet but will be killed if they start a war with us. So they have to live with us and function in society like if they were people. But since they have no emotion or feelings like us, they need a method to assess good moral values.

What you are doing now is ignoring the actual argument and nitpicking irrelevant things instead of actually focusing on the argument at hand.

I asked you to look into the method and provide a counter argument for why it can't be used without emotion and feelings. So far you have not done that.

Let's say aliens came down and assessed the well-being of our species. With the method I presented, they would be able to act with good morals, even if they didn't even have any feelings whatsoever. They could use these guidelines to act like good people, even though they don't have any feelings or emotional reasons to do so.

No. What I mean is that if your ideas about morality include methods that are general to everyone, then it's not true that there are people in the world who you don't care about (in that respect). — Terrapin Station

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. It doesn't matter if I care or don't care, the moral system is still an objective assessment of what is good for people. If I lacked all empathy I could still deduce that food is good for a person in order for him to survive. Therefore, giving food to this person if he is hungry is a good moral choice, even if I don't feel anything in doing so. I follow the guideline of creating well-being without any feelings whatsoever. Therefore, this moral method is working for everyone, detached from feelings and emotions involved.

You're ignoring that "this fact rather than that is 'well-being'" IS a way that you feel. It's a preference you have. Objectively, there are no preferences for any facts (or counterfactuals) versus any other facts (or counterfactuals) — Terrapin Station

Are you saying that giving food to someone who is hungry so that he survives isn't a choice for the well-being of that person? In what way does emotion have anything to do with this? Well-being isn't emotional, it's what is good for a person, it has no emotional value.

I could boil it down even further and talk about dopamine in our brain. If dopamine makes people feel good and well-being as a concept has an essential ingredient with "feeling good". Then a hug, which has been scientifically confirmed to raise dopamine levels in the brain, is a choice I can make for increasing the well-being of that person without even have any emotional value linked to that choice. I deduced the well-being aspect of that person through their dopamine-levels without it having anything to do with my feelings of that choice.

I think you are grasping at nihilistic straws here and I don't think you are actually looking at the method I presented. Can you please do so?

Because Kant didn't write his philosophical ideas based on modern understanding of science. Therefore, I would argue that while his ideas might be interesting and thought-provoking, they are flawed because they lack all knowledge that came after him.

If there are people in the world who you don't care about, then your moral views are not going to be about them. — Terrapin Station

Do you mean that ideas about moral should not include methods that are general to everyone? Then you are essentially saying that we don't need moral guidelines, we don't need morals. I say that we can have a moral system that includes everyone, even those that lack empathy.

that would only be a credo that you feel. It's nothing like an objective fact. — Terrapin Station

You are ignoring the method I presented. The one that has nothing to do with feelings, but assessing the well-being for all, including the self. That is objective for humans. Are you saying that this method doesn't work, please make an argument against the method so that we can evolve it, otherwise you are just saying an opinion, not doing an ethics-dialectic.

You don't just have emotions/feelings about yourself. — Terrapin Station

That's not the point, the point is that there are people in the world that you might not even care about who is affected by your moral choices, therefore morality isn't about emotions and feelings. It can also be corrupted if you are a person who has mental health issues which makes you unable to feel normal emotions and empathy. Morality then, must be applicable to all people, even those with lack of empathy.

I think that most who think about this in this way don't have enough insight into how molecular science works or how cellular biology works. It's a non-argument for me.

Is it that the deeper you think the more the chances of insanity?

Is there such a thing as dangerous knowledge?

Are we better off not knowing some things? — TheMadFool

This is close to the fiction of cosmic horror, but no, I don't think so.

I think that the further away from the truth you are the more shocking the truth is for you. If someone has a mental meltdown because of knowledge, it's because they weren't even close to the knowledge in the first place and the distance between their understanding and the truth is what created the trauma.

No, there's no such thing as dangerous knowledge, there's only danger in indoctrination into the illusion that becomes the danger to the truth when revealed. The knowledge itself is not the danger, it's the human stupidity that is.

You can, but what you're explaining is about your feelings. It wouldn't make any sense to deduce what's good for you where the deduction results in something that you're indifferent towards, that makes you feel bad in the long run, etc. — Terrapin Station

Point being; can you deduce what creates the most well-being for the self and others in a situation? I argue that you can, based on my list of points. Morality has nothing to do with your emotions since morality is not about you, it's about well-being for you and within your relation to others combined.

What does it mean for a rule to be 'objective in it's intention"? — Echarmion

In that it follows something that is general for all people regardless of culture or situation. Well-being for someone else and the self, combined, does not have any change between cultures and different lives. What is good for the self and others is another assessment, but the moral intention is good if it is out of the well-being of others and the self. The other points on my list address the risks of when ideas about what is good come from a culture of, for example, "murder" being good for someone.

Making moral decisions is about using moral reasoning. Trying to find rules which can be applied consistently to all cases, like the scientific theory looks for theories that are consistent with all observations. — Echarmion

And moral reasoning is what I mean when I say moral thinking compared to acting in the context of a specific event.

And I provided such points that can act consistently in all cases. If you like, please test them out or expand, this is a theory in progress not a final solution for me.

Anyways as to the topic of "objective morality", I think it's just a misnomer. Or perhaps a case of asking the wrong question. The point of morality is, after all, not to provide information on some object. It's to provide practical rules. — Echarmion

Practical rules that are objective in their intention of the well-being of all humans (and maybe beyond).

Isn't what someone thinks is good for them based on feelings? — Andrew4Handel

No, you can deduce what is good for you. I can deduce that the death of my father put me in a terrible position mentally, but I have grown as a person to handle life more confidently and with better emotional balance because of it, therefore, it was an event that was good for me personally, even if that sounds bad. (This wasn't an example of moral, but of a deduction of what is good for me and what is attached to feelings.

The problem is that moral philosophy has failed to reach a consensus about morality or resolve moral issues. Materialism or the scientific don't appear to leave room for moral or value claims. — Andrew4Handel

This is because of two things; ethics philosophy ignoring science (psychology and sociology) and that you can't quantify specific moral events within that science. What you can do is to use science to create a foundation that can be applied to most if not all moral questions. This means you can create a foundation of morals that are based on a moral method of thinking, not specific acts to do in certain situations that are contextual. Many ethics questions in philosophy concentrate on specific events that get detached from a central moral method and focus on behavior and ideas about those single events.

Another aspect to take into consideration is that the current understanding of the human psyche within psychology and sociology is rather new, only a few decades, if at all decades. You talk about not reaching consensus about morals from philosophical dialectics and ideas from times when we didn't even know enough about how the human psyche and social interaction actually works. While we have a lot of scientific research left on the human mind, we have come a long way even measured within the last ten years. To form a moral philosophy at this time is vastly more rational than trying to pitch ideas that have been outdated for many decades and centuries.

Ideas outside of materialistic nature are unscientific and narcissistic compared to the rational notion that we are not special beings. We can define our perception through idealistic views, but we as beings aren't detached from the universe we are in and nothing points to it in any rational way. Therefore, the more we know of how things work around us, the better we can create methods that work rather than guesses and fantasies.

The result of the scientific progress in psychology and sociology can be witnessed in how we treat mental health issues, in how we can predict behavior and so on. To not be able to utilize this science to find a foundation for a more scientific and objective moral method of living is to ignore the progress we've had the last hundred years and that wasn't clear to those who've done moral philosophy through the centuries.

So now thinkers are resorting to the idea we should just go with our feelings of what is appropriate or harmful.

I think reason can be a useful tool and moralizing but it does not seem to resolve moral disputes. — Andrew4Handel

If the person who goes by their feelings are suffering from mental health problems, or if they were raised with questionable means and because of it becomes a murderer, I think that is argument enough for "feelings" not being any good measure of moral behavior whatsoever.

As I've described earlier:

1. Do what is positive for the well-being of yourself and others combined.
2. Morality is an evolving process and each situation must be assessed carefully according to point 1.
3. Assessing what is morally good needs to involve current knowledge about human psychology, sociology, and knowledge about human well-being for the individual and larger groups. — Christoffer

Is a far better baseline for assessing what is a good moral choice in a situation and if it fails it's not because of bad morality but because of a human error in assessing the situation. But the moral assessment will still be good; the intention was good. Moral behavior cannot access knowledge about the future, therefore a person cannot demand morals to be a perfect reflection of the result of behavior, only how to think within the behavior at the moment.

I'd like to hear someone expanding or trying to test my points above, I'd like a dialectic on those points because it's still a vague description, at the moment, of my moral theories in the works.