↪Fooloso4 On a larger scale, it's a deactivation of the DMN (default mode network). — praxis

There are many ways in which the DMN can be disrupted. Are all of them spiritual? If not then you still have not explained what it means for it to be a particular brain state, and nothing besides.

In addition there is the question of whether you are merely replacing one default mode with another. Are you emptying the room or just refurnishing it?

A disjunction is often positied between the physical and the spiritual. I think that this is a mistake. It is not the deactivation of one's default mode, is becomes one's default mode, a bifurcated mode. One that conceals ourselves from ourselves.

There are many ways in which the DMN can be disrupted. Are all of them spiritual? If not then you still have not explained what it means for it to be a particular brain state, and nothing besides. — Fooloso4

Deactivation of the DMN is a particular brain state, and as you say there are many ways in which the DMN can be disrupted. It could be deactivated unintentionally and quite naturally, or it could be deactivated intentionally and quite unnaturally in a laboratory setting. Whatever the case, the base experience is the same, though different people will undoubtedly respond to the state in varying ways.

If we both visited the Eiffel tower would our experience be the same? No. One of us might be upset at the time or the tower might remind us of a traumatic experience from the past and this would color our experience. One of us might think the tower was the most beautiful and magnificent thing they had ever seen and imbued it with all sorts of meaning. Metaphorically speaking, what I mean is that the tower is just the tower and nothing besides. It's not depressing. It's not beautiful. It's not boring or magnificent.

A disjunction is often positied between the physical and the spiritual. I think that this is a mistake.

I'm not a big fan of dualisms either, but they are useful. I think the world might be a better place if people focused more on the spiritual than the material.

From my perspective what some call God is not something separate from us, and it only appears that way because we are observing reality through a mechanism which operates by a process of conceptual division. It's not that we are separate from (enter your preferred term here) it's that we FEEL separate. That feeling is an illusion generated by thought, by the way it works. — Jake

So if we didn't FEEL separate it wouldn't matter if we perceived a separation, right? Or are you suggesting that there is something inherently wrong with being separate from (enter your preferred term here)?

Behaviorism seeks to gain predictive power about human behavior, not to comment on the existence or non-existence of minds. It's an approach to predicting behavior based on inputs and outputs. You're mistaking the point and implications of behaviorism as some kind of definitive statement about the underlying nature of minds, but it's just the opposite. — VagabondSpectre

From the 1930's through the 1960's, American psychology was dominated by behaviorism, whose more extreme proponents held that the mind is but a convenient fiction.... Dr. [B.F.] Skinner....argued that many of the words we use to describe what the mind does are simply metaphors whose origins reveal that they really refer to physical, not mental, phenomena.[\quote]

As I indicated, behaviorism has fallen into disfavor these days.

Cognitive science is broadly "the study of minds", so you must be conceiving of "mind" as something other than the thing cognitive science seeks to study. Are you talking about the hard problem of consciousness? — VagabondSpectre

I was using the term "cognitive science" as it is often used, to denote the study of human behavior through the lens of new technologies such as CAT, MNR, and PET scans. When I was a psychology major in the 1970s, we called it "cognitive psychology." "Psychology" became "science" as more hard science techniques joined the team. On this forum, many posters are not willing to recognize that CS is psychology at all. There is no "hard problem of consciousness." But that's another discussion.

The processes of the mind reflect the processes of the brain. — VagabondSpectre

Tell me how pain "reflects" electrical current running through living conductors. What does that mean? They have no traits in common that I can see. If you and I are watching basketball on TV, would you say that the television equipment is the same as the presentation of the game?

There's so much evidence for this that I can't fathom what you're trying to say. — VagabondSpectre

This is not a new argument. It's been around for hundreds of years. It is discussed often on the forum. For you to claim that you cannot fathom it is... well, I'm not sure what it is.

As I've said elsewhere, I think I may open another discussion on the general subject of the underlying assumptions and values of science without focusing on god. Maybe that will make it easier.

Not argument, just explanation. A tenet of Ignatian spirituality is to see God in all things. When one goes through the Spiritual Exercises, a large part of that process is the ability to become more aware of the presence of God in our every day lives. To those with a predisposition to feel so, this will sound very hokey. But to hundreds of thousands of jesuits that have done the exercises it is very real. They would say all of life is a spiritual experience if you train yourself to be aware of it. Who is to say that they are wrong, or deluded, or anything else, simply because though a different frame a reference one can not understand how such a thing could be. — Rank Amateur

If a person is willing "to see Zeus in all things"...Zeus will start to have meaning and become more and more a part of the individuals perceptions of the REALITY.

That is, in essence, aiding and abetting what may well be deception of self.

I was a practicing Catholic during earlier years...and I "saw" this god in all things. But I was kidding myself. A god may well exist, but I was putting my thumb on the scale big time.

Nothing wrong with guessing at least one god exists...and nothing wrong with guessing that you know the nature of that god because of "revelation" you deem accurate...

...but the bottom line is that it is all guessing. You are guessing the the "revelation" is accurate...and you are guessing that at least one god exists.

As I indicated, behaviorism has fallen into disfavor these days.

Behaviorism is not the assertion that the mind is a fiction, it is that we can understand behavior by treating people as black-boxes with inputs and outputs. (by "black-box" I mean that behaviorists were not concerned with how the brain actually works, but were instead concerned with how the mind behaved; they never looked inside the skull). Behaviorists referring to the "mind" as a convenient fiction needs this context to make sense; he wasn't saying that thoughts don't exist, he was saying that thinking machines can be understood by deducing things about the relationships between inputs and outputs. Even in the case where Skinner was really trying to make "mind" incoherent, it doesn't matter. His controversial contention is not an established product of science (as science in general is a mix of different fields, some of which are at odds with each-other, where overtime the more explanatory and predictive models are eventually identified and selected). Looking only at behavior as a means to predict it has its uses, but it quickly gave way to more comprehensive approaches.

I was using the term "cognitive science" as it is often used, to denote the study of human behavior through the lens of new technologies such as CAT, MNR, and PET scans. When I was a psychology major in the 1970s, we called it "cognitive psychology." "Psychology" became "science" as more hard science techniques joined the team. On this forum, many posters are not willing to recognize that CS is psychology at all. — T Clark

I've lost the context of your point then. Cognitive psychology/science doesn't asserting that "minds" don't exist. There may be some scientists making claims that vaguely amount to this, but I'm lauding the established fruits of science, not the beliefs and failures of any and every proponent of science. Some scientists contradict each other, especially when they're speaking about less proven models near the cutting-edge of scientific progress.

There is no "hard problem of consciousness." But that's another discussion. — T Clark

Are you really suggesting that the brain is not the seat of the mind? That if i damage your brain I won't also damage your mind?

Tell me what the hidden variable is. Where do you get the idea that "minds" come from anywhere other than nervous systems and neural networks? If I didn't know better I would say you're trying to get at "souls" or something.

Tell me how pain "reflects" electrical current running through living conductors. What does that mean? They have no traits in common that I can see. If you and I are watching basketball on TV, would you say that the television equipment is the same as the presentation of the game? — T Clark

I think you are indeed getting at the hard problem, why else would you want me to explain how subjective feeling can be produced by a physical system? Pain "reflects" what's happening in our brain because our brain has figured out that something has gone very wrong in the external world that demands immediate correction (our "intelligence" is meant to "reflect" things in the external world). We can prove this with elementary induction: every-time we injure our bodies, we feel pain, and when we consume pain-killers (which act on the mechanisms within our brain which play a role in the creation of "pain") we feel pain less.

If I surreptitiously dose you with a drug, your body and brain (and hence your mind) will react to it regardless of whether or not your mind is consciously aware that it has been drugged.

This is not a new argument. It's been around for hundreds of years. It is discussed often on the forum. For you to claim that you cannot fathom it is... well, I'm not sure what it is.

As I've said elsewhere, I think I may open another discussion on the general subject of the underlying assumptions and values of science without focusing on god. Maybe that will make it easier. — T Clark

I'm not focusing on god either though, we're talking about the merits of cognitive science. I'm saying that it approaches "minds" as if they are a thing that is produced by brains (not that "minds" are incoherent or non-existent), and you're saying that it somehow makes an empirical error by assuming that minds do not exist. (isn't the statement "minds do not exist" self refuting? A true logical "ouroboros"? (Considering cogito ergo sum and all).

It seems there is more than one tangential thread we could make. There's the values of science thread (whether or not, epistemologically, the philosophy of science is malformed), and there's also the "Is the mind the seat of the brain; do minds exist?" thread.

Let's earnestly try and eek out an agreement before we do so. Where do we disagree exactly: we differ on the nature of scientific inquiry in some meaningful way, or else we disagree about the epistemological implications of the results of our scientific inquiries; we also have an apparent disagreement about the relationship between minds and brains, and I'm hard-pressed to imagine how we must necessarily differ:

Do you remember learning about Phineas Gage? (the dude with the pipe through his frontal cortex). Do you believe that the alterations to his "mind" apparently caused by the physical damage to his brain were superficial or coincidental? We both agree that minds exist, and I point to the brain as the thing that generates it (and to changes in the brain correlating with changes in the mind as evidence), but what do you point to as the thing that generates it? Are you holding out judgement in case of some development that shows we're more than the contents of our flesh-sacks?

I don't understand where you're coming from, truly. I know that you perceive cognitive science (or science as a whole) as a profligate possibility-denier, but which possibility is it denying that you hold to be plausible (other than that minds exist in the first place, which I contend science does not deny)?

Let's earnestly try and eek out an agreement before we do so. — VagabondSpectre

I have been. I don't doubt that you have also. We've both been repeating the same arguments, going around in circles. In my experience, if posters haven't found common ground this far into a discussion, they won't. Then it's time to start over.

I think my understanding of reality falls somewhere between yours and those that focus on internal life, spirituality. Since my way of seeing things is probably less developed than yours, I guess it's my responsibility to explain myself better.

So if we didn't FEEL separate it wouldn't matter if we perceived a separation, right? — praxis

But we do feel separate, so I'm not sure of the point of this question.

Or are you suggesting that there is something inherently wrong with being separate from (enter your preferred term here)? — praxis

From my point of view, we aren't separate, a fact which anyone can confirm for themselves with this experiment. Hold your breath for 2 minutes. At the psychological level, almost everything we're thinking, feeling and saying is just content that is absorbed from our cultural surroundings and then regurgitated with our names attached.

As I understand it, the illusion that we are separate is part of the life/death cycle, giving us the will to live etc. It's not a matter of right or wrong, good or bad, it's just the nature of reality, like it or not.

The illusion that we are separate does lead to a great deal of suffering however, so it might be wise for us to try to learn how to manage that illusion to some degree.

From my point of view, we aren't separate, a fact which anyone can confirm for themselves with this experiment. Hold your breath for 2 minutes. At the psychological level, almost everything we're thinking, feeling and saying is just content that is absorbed from our cultural surroundings and then regurgitated with our names attached.

As I understand it, the illusion that we are separate is part of the life/death cycle, giving us the will to live etc. It's not a matter of right or wrong, good or bad, it's just the nature of reality, like it or not.

The illusion that we are separate does lead to a great deal of suffering however, so it might be wise for us to try to learn how to manage that illusion to some degree. — Jake

Bolding #1: Good wording.

Bolding #2: Good wording.

Bolding #3: Oh, my.

Are you saying that "the illusion" is for certain...or are you acknowledging that it is a supposition...an untestable hypothesis...a guess, if you will, about the REALITY?

Religion in practice covers intellectual territory that science can never tread upon, such as determining the starting moral values that individual humans should choose. Science is inherently more narrow minded because it has intentionally blinded itself to the immeasurable and unobservable; not to deny their existence, but instead to place focus on the measurable as the specific puzzle it seeks to solve.

Science has yet to generate any accepted moral oughts from a physical is, while religion has basically generated all of them from meta-physical is's. The very ontological nature of the "knowledge" that religion and spiritual interpretation seek to provide can be fundamentally different from the nature of the "knowledge" that science seeks to create/discover. Science wants physically descriptive and predictive power over the world of physically measurable observations (so if we can't measure it, we can't do science on it both by definition and in practice). Religious knowledge, under forced comparison, seeks to do a myriad of things. Sometimes it's meant to control or guide human objectives (as well as their decision making methods), and sometimes it's meant to describe eternal meta-physical (immeasurable) truth.

Consider what would happen to science and religion respectively if the laws of physics suddenly changed. We might have to throw most of our scientific models out the window and completely restart the process of scientific inquiry from the ground up, but how much religious "knowledge" would actually be affected?

P.S We can always be more earnest in our attempt to understand one another, and I'm legitimately trying harder to understand your position. I want to do more than just restate my position; I'm trying to restate it in a way that better exposes its arteries, both so that it might be easier to understand, and so that you have a better opportunity to attack them with arguments and evidence of your own. If my tentative materialist convictions really are as naive as you say, I want to know why.

Do you mean:

Bolding #1: From my point of view good wording.

Bolding #2: As I understand it, good wording.

Bolding #3: In my personal opinion, oh, my.

this is very much in line with what Rahner would call - "Anonymous Christianity"
worth looking into if you are interested. — Rank Amateur

I am looking in to it already, through my mentor Father RankAmateur. He's doing a good job.

I think Rahner would say the reason for the continual God debate, and the part of the human condition that seems to make us seek meaning - both stem from this pre apprehension. Without being to identify or even understand what it is, we are all aware something is there. — Rank Amateur

If God is in all things etc, then the "something" that is there is right in front of our faces in every moment of our lives, and not something hidden. And not something separate.

If we don't see this real thing it's probably because we aren't really observing reality at all, but instead our thoughts about reality. We seek meaning, to identify and understand. These things are abstractions, symbols, inventions of the human mind. The symbols aren't wrong or evil etc, they're just a very small affair. And because they are products of thought they impose a pattern of fantasy division on everything they touch, no matter which collection of symbols we prefer.

To the limited degree there is a solution it may be in "dying to be reborn". That is, setting aside an obsession with the little cardboard symbols of our own invention to focus instead on the infinitely larger reality/god/nature, whatever word one prefers.

As I think you will grasp, this is an essentially a-philosophical way of looking at this because it proposes that thought is not the path to direct experience of reality/god/nature, but rather a primary obstacle to that experience. Thinking about these things is much like spending one's time looking at the photos of one's friends on Facebook, instead of hanging out with those friends in real life. That is, choosing the symbolic over the real.

Fake Father Jake suggests that if WHATEVER IT IS is indeed real, we'd be wise to look for it in the real world instead of the symbolic realm. The practical question would seem to be, how to look?

If you can translate any of this in to Rahner-ism, please do.

P.S We can always be more earnest in our attempt to understand one another, and I'm legitimately trying harder to understand your position. I want to do more than just restate my position; I'm trying to restate it in a way that better exposes its arteries, both so that it might be easier to understand, and so that you have a better opportunity to attack them with arguments and evidence of your own. If my tentative materialist convictions really are as naive as you say, I want to know why. — VagabondSpectre

As I said, I think it's my responsibility as a turd in the swimming pool to express myself more clearly. I think I've gone as far as I can in this thread.

From my point of view, we aren't separate,... — Jake

Clearly, you are conceiving a separation. In addition to that, you're holding on to the idea that you aren't separate.

... a fact which anyone can confirm for themselves with this experiment. Hold your breath for 2 minutes.

Holding... Okay, I just held it for 2 minutes and seventeen seconds. What did I confirm???

At the psychological level, almost everything we're thinking, feeling and saying is just content that is absorbed from our cultural surroundings and then regurgitated with our names attached.

Including the notion that you're not separate from God or whatever.

As I understand it, the illusion that we are separate is part of the life/death cycle, giving us the will to live etc. It's not a matter of right or wrong, good or bad, it's just the nature of reality, like it or not.

How is the concept of this illusion not also an illusion?

The illusion that we are separate does lead to a great deal of suffering however, so it might be wise for us to try to learn how to manage that illusion to some degree.

Holding the intellection that the separation is an illusion effectively manages the illusion to some degree?

So if we didn't FEEL separate it wouldn't matter if we perceived a separation, right?
— praxis

But we do feel separate, so I'm not sure of the point of this question.

The point is to try coaxing you into explain what this feeling is. What does it mean to say that we feel separate? Why/how do we feel separate?

Are you saying that "the illusion" is for certain...or are you acknowledging that it is a supposition...an untestable hypothesis...a guess, if you will, about the REALITY? — Frank Apisa

I am not a god, if that is what you're asking. :smile: Seriously, of course this is a hopefully engaging theory and not a perfect proven truth.

I wouldn't call it an untestable hypothesis as anyone who is serious enough can test it for themselves by experimenting with managing the volume of thought.

This has already been done many times by many people over many centuries leading to many different flavored explanations. I'm not claiming the wording I choose is somehow superior to anyone else's explanations, it's just the best I can personally do at the moment. My hope is that my choice of words might occasionally succeed at engaging some number of readers who can't connect with other explanations of these phenomena, such as for example, those of a religious flavor. Whether that ever works is debatable, but this is what I know how to do, so I do it.

Getting back on point, I wouldn't suggest anyone simply accept what I'm saying. Even if one did agree completely, that would just be another pile of thought. Instead, if one is interested in any of this conduct your investigation, have your own experience, and if like me you simply have to explain what you find, explain it however you can.

In my view, the rational approach to this is to focus mostly on the experience itself. As example, if one is hungry the rational approach is to eat the food on the table. Explaining the food might come later, if ever.

As I said, I think it's my responsibility as a turd in the swimming pool to express myself more clearly. I think I've gone as far as I can in this thread. — T Clark

Very well. But for the record I'm still optimistic that we can both get something useful out of this exchange. Despite the mutual rib-shots (I do enjoy them), I think overall we've been sufficiently intellectually charitable and honest, and though I'm not that much closer to understanding the roots of your position, I'm still quite interested in it.

If you do happen to make a new thread on the subject, count me in.

Religion in practice covers intellectual territory that science can never tread upon, such as determining the starting moral values that individual humans should choose. Science is inherently more narrow minded because it has intentionally blinded itself to the immeasurable and unobservable; not to deny their existence, but instead to place focus on the measurable as the specific puzzle it seeks to solve. — VagabondSpectre

There are scientific theories about moral development and what constitutes moral intuition and reasoning. Also, the results of moral choices can be measured. Suffering can be measured.

As for religion being the arbiter of moral values, it proves to be remarkably moldable by those in the position to use it.

Clearly, you are conceiving a separation. In addition to that, you're holding on to the idea that you aren't separate. — praxis

Yes, good point. It's impossible to really discuss unity in language, because language is built of thought, and thought is built of division. Thus, any collection of words we might use pushes us immediately back in to the illusion of separation. This is a key weakness of this medium, and I don't have a solution for it other than to recognize this weakness and try to take vacations from it as needed.

Holding... Okay, I just held it for 2 minutes and seventeen seconds. What did I confirm??? — praxis

You are intimately connected to everything around you. The boundary line between "you" and "everything else" is nowhere near as neat and tidy as we typically assume.

ncluding the notion that you're not separate from God or whatever. — praxis

Yes, of course. However, one can develop one's own personal experience which is not dependent on the culture. But explanations of that experience will be incurably linked to that culture. Luckily, explanations can be discarded if desired.

Holding the intellection that the separation is an illusion effectively manages the illusion to some degree? — praxis

I would put it this way. The intellectual understanding is kind of like a highway sign that points to the next town. The sign can serve a practical purpose, but it is not that which it is pointing to. The traveler wishes to get to the town, not stand there staring at the sign.

There are scientific theories about moral development and what constitutes moral intuition and reasoning. Also, the results of moral choices can be measured. Suffering can be measured. — praxis

Descriptive theories, not normative theories. They may have indirect normative implications, but they cannot arbitrate human values. (we can describe moral reasoning with a scientific approach, but we cannot derive normative implications about what our starting moral suppositions or moral conclusions ought to be). To do that we need a starting value that is ultimately subjective to individual human minds.

As for religion being the arbiter of moral values, it proves to be remarkably moldable by those in the position to use it. — praxis

Absolutely, but I'm seeking to frame the boundaries of religious knowledge, not to broadly qualify it. That said, corrupt as most of all religions seem to be, some religious moral tenets are actually quite truthy from any reasonable perspective. We don't need Jesus for "treat others as they want to be treated" to make sense, but "Jesus" wasn't wrong...

Do you mean:

Bolding #1: From my point of view good wording.

Bolding #2: As I understand it, good wording.

Bolding #3: In my personal opinion, oh, my. — T Clark

Yes.

My question holds.

That said, corrupt as most of all religions seem to be, some religious moral tenets are actually quite truthy from any reasonable perspective. — VagabondSpectre

They are "truthy" (great word invention :smile: ) to the degree they comment usefully on the reality of the human condition.

Imho, advice like "treat others as they want to be treated' is not advice about what we should do for somebody else, but instead advice regarding what we can do for ourselves.

As example, we are made of thought, and thought operates by a process of division, thus we feel separate, alone, and isolated, which generates fear and all the rest that flows from fear.

When Jesus advises us to love I hear him suggesting we try to surrender the walls of the fantasy prison cell thought has erected. Die to the illusion of separation, and be reborn in the reality of unity with all things, including other people in this case.

This is revolutionary advice which can be quite difficult to implement because from our place inside the little fantasy prison cell we are afraid to surrender "me" and instead are typically instead attempting to make "me" as big as possible in reaction to the perception that we are very small, separate and vulnerable etc.

Many people come to religion in crisis when they've spent their lives earnestly trying to make "me" as big as possible and then discovered much to their horror that it doesn't accomplish the desired goal.

I am not a god, if that is what you're asking. :smile: Seriously, of course this is a hopefully engaging theory and not a perfect proven truth.

I wouldn't call it an untestable hypothesis as anyone who is serious enough can test it for themselves by experimenting with managing the volume of thought.

This has already been done many times by many people over many centuries leading to many different flavored explanations. I'm not claiming the wording I choose is somehow superior to anyone else's explanations, it's just the best I can personally do at the moment. My hope is that my choice of words might occasionally succeed at engaging some number of readers who can't connect with other explanations of these phenomena, such as for example, those of a religious flavor. Whether that ever works is debatable, but this is what I know how to do, so I do it.

Getting back on point, I wouldn't suggest anyone simply accept what I'm saying. Even if one did agree completely, that would just be another pile of thought. Instead, if one is interested in any of this conduct your investigation, have your own experience, and if like me you simply have to explain what you find, explain it however you can.

In my view, the rational approach to this is to focus mostly on the experience itself. As example, if one is hungry the rational approach is to eat the food on the table. Explaining the food might come later, if ever. — Jake

I engage in lots of introspection...have for a very long time.

I noticed the qualified wording, Jake, and then the tack change. Just was wondering.

Frankly, I am not sure I understand your thesis. I'll keep listening in and see if I catch on.

Imho, advice like "treat others as they want to be treated' is not advice about what we should do for somebody else, but instead advice regarding what we can do for ourselves. — Jake

And we're very greedy bastards indeed! We might not realize it, but cooperating instead of competing can lead individual success that is many orders of magnitude beyond what we could get if we were in strict competition and conflict.

Many people come to religion in crisis when they've spent their lives earnestly trying to make "me" as big as possible and then discovered much to their horror that it doesn't accomplish the desired goal. — Jake

It might be fair to say that everything we do is in the pursuit of pleasure and happiness (and in flight of pain or despair). For some people, religion is really an ultra convenient way for them to realize stable happiness. Whether or not they are empirically justified is of secondary concern to me. Religion is definitely not for me (and it doesn't seem to for you either) but we ought remember that our worldview might not be beneficial to everyone (in theory and in practice). Some people just don't work without what we perceive as grand superstitions.

Frankly, I am not sure I understand your thesis. — Frank Apisa

We are made of thought. Thought operates by a process of division. All else flows from that.

no need, I think Rahner would quite agree with all of that. Rahner's way at looking at some of that, is his point that we humans are both transcendental and bound to a physical world as well. We exist in the boundary between the physical and the metaphysical, and we belong to neither fully.

It might be fair to say that everything we do is in the pursuit of pleasure and happiness (and in flight of pain or despair). — VagabondSpectre

Yes. And the source of these pursuits is the perception that reality is divided between "me" and "everything else".

Religion is definitely not for me (and it doesn't seem to for you either) but we ought remember that our worldview might not be beneficial to everyone (in theory and in practice) — VagabondSpectre

Yes, agreed. In my experience this worldview is not accessible to most people, and thus not useful.

Some people just don't work without what we perceive as grand superstitions. — VagabondSpectre

It's a complex picture. God claims may be superstitions, but love is not, and the two are often woven tightly together.

I think Rahner would quite agree with all of that. — Rank Amateur

But, but, but if Rahner is going to keep agreeing with me, how will I write my glorious sermons???? :smile:

how about we both stop writing sermons, I will go water my plants, and enjoy their beauty. Contemplate supper, a thought worth the time. Look forward to an evening with my wife. I think maybe I'll go experience the rest of the day, instead of trying to think deep thoughts about the rest of the day here

Descriptive theories, not normative theories. They may have indirect normative implications, but they cannot arbitrate human values. (we can describe moral reasoning with a scientific approach, but we cannot derive normative implications about what our starting moral suppositions or moral conclusions ought to be). To do that we need a starting value that is ultimately subjective to individual human minds. — VagabondSpectre

Happiness and suffering are subjective but highly intuitive, as well as measurable by various means. Any reason these can’t these be held as base values and science given the authority to develop normative ethics? Maybe our moral intuitions are not based in suffering/happiness or human flourishing. Maybe they’re based in something much more primitive and irrational, and no amount of reason, training, or discipline can override them. Maybe all we can do is tell stories to each other and watch as we ruin the world for ourselves.

Any reason these can’t these be held as base values and science given the authority to develop normative ethics? — praxis

Relative to our agreement on those starting values, we can and should use science to assist our decision making, but it will only hold "true" relative to those agreed upon values.

The realm of debate regarding normative starting points is much more lousy with variation than mere human happiness. We are able to carry on in practice because there are nearly universally agreeable values, but exceptions and objections stick out like sore thumbs in philosophical debate.