Yes it is. It leads to an infinite regress which is impossible, so it's incoherent. At least Eternalism is logically possible. — Devans99

as I've explained to you time and again, stuff either exists always or there was a start to it, and there's no way around that, despite both being counterintuitive.

is it wrong to argue that a is not a because one a is on the left side of the copula and the other a is on the right side, and having different properties they are clearly not identical. — jlrinc

That would be confusing use with mention.

If you're not familiar with the use/mention distinction, here are a couple easy examples:

"Dogs" has four letters. Dogs have no letters.

The "mention" is marked off by quotation marks above. The "use" isn't. "Mention" concerns the expression as an expression. "Use" is what the expression is about. It's what the expression "points to," the referent of it.

Another example, courtesy of Wikipedia's page on the distinction (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinction):

Use: Cheese is derived from milk.
Mention: 'Cheese' is derived from the Old English word ċēse.

So when you talk about one A being on the left and the other on the right, you're talking about the mention.

But the principle of identity isn't about anything in the mention sense. It's about the use sense. In the use sense, there aren't two different As. We're simply required to write or say it that way a la a mention.

Moral agency requires thinking about thought/belief. — creativesoul

Because?

(Mww seemed to suggest the equivalent of a "true metal" argument--is that what you'd shoot for here?)

No, it isn't, because as I've explained to you time and again, stuff either exists always or there was a start to it, and there's no way around that, despite both being counterintuitive.

That's not the problem with eternalism. The problem with eternalism is that it's incoherent with respect to what time is ontologically, and it doesn't get rid of what time is ontologically a la presentism anyway--it merely pushes the same exact thing to phenomenal experience, while unjustifiably positing additional nonsense--ontological notions that are incoherent in general, time-oriented or not--that presentism doesn't invoke.

I would not say I'm 100% sure of my position but there seems to be more evidence in favour of eternalism. — Devans99

I think the very notion of eternalism is completely incoherent, so I wouldn't say that. :yum:

What unites us? The fact that we're the same species, and we're a species that survives more easily when we interact with/cooperate with each other.

↪Terrapin Station

Yeah, I don't know what you disagree with or what post you're referring to, is this a comedy routine? — Judaka

You said, "I don't think I even gave any evidence in your quote."

Right. You gave supposed evidence after that, when it was questioned by someone else. That was what I was referring to.

Morality. All humans follow one after (mostly)adopting their first world-view via language acquisition. — creativesoul

In my view it doesn't at all depend on language-acquisition. A baby, from the start, is going to be okay versus not be okay with some things that you do to it, and that's all that morality is--those sorts of dispositions. It takes a bit more time/development for the baby to extend those reactions to behavior not directly involving itself--in other words, it takes a bit more time for empathy to develop, but it doesn't take very long, and it certainly precedes language acquisition.

Why are human emotional responses so frequently characterised as mere preferences? Why can't they be, in the context of morality, profound and heartfelt passionate dispositions? — ChrisH

Exactly. There's a weird bias against things that are mental phenomena, where the bias has it that something is far less valuable, worthwhile, worth talking about, etc. if that's the case.

Given how important love is to most of humanity, you'd expect this bias to lead to people claiming that love can't be just a mental phenomenon--and maybe some folks do claim that, I don't know.

And you will never admit you are inconsistent — Janus

If I were both asserting and denying the same P, sure I would.

What's the P I'm both asserting and denying? This is the second time I'm asking you.

, and that's precisely why it is obvious that, contra your one-dimensional view, 'life and death' moral dispositions are not anything like mere personal preferences. — Janus

What in the world would the argument be for this claim:

Iff moral stance M is prevalent to at least r extent (I don't know just how prevalent it has to be in your view, hence the variable), then moral stance M is not anything like a mere personal preference.

?

and the relevant question is 'on what basis could one think that some interpersonal behaviors are "more significant than etiquette"?' — Janus

Why would that be a mystery? It's a matter of personal judgment--an individual considers x more significant/important than y.

he dishonestly uses any strategy to avoid admitting that his position is inconsistent, — Janus

Can you simply state some P that I'm both asserting and denying?

An example is that Terrapin will counter any argument that appeals to the prevalence of shared values on the most central moral issues (murder, rape, torture, theft and so on) with the objection that the almost universally cross-culturally prevalent attitudes that condemn those is merely a matter of those attitudes being more "popular", which basically gives them no more inter-subjective weight than personal culinary preferences. — Janus

The argument that some P is correct (or "more correct" or whatever you might like to say) because it's more prevalent is the argumentum ad populum fallacy.

Maybe you personally put a lot more weight on something because it's more prevalent, and you're not claiming that the prevalence has anything to do with it being correct, so that it's just a pledge to conformity, essentially, and that's fine. But not everyone is so rah rah conformity. If you want to jump off of a bridge just because everyone else is, be my guest.

And yet when I say that from the perspective of someone who is morally neutral, who is amoral, assuming moral relativism, all moral stances are equal, and that there is thus no inter-subjective rational warrant to prefer one stance over the other, he claims that no one is in fact morally neutral and that this is demonstrated by statistics involving studying "hundreds, even thousands" of people. — Janus

Right, no one is in fact morally neutral, but I said:

"A hypothetical person with no preferences would indeed not be able to find a reason to prefer one moral stance over the other, no matter what the person were to look at. The very idea of that doesn't make any sense. We'd be wondering if a person who has no preferences in domain D might gain preferences in domain D as an implication or upshot of examining some set of facts (such as the fact that J prefers m, K prefers n, etc.), or the fact that A causes B. They wouldn't, because no set of facts implies any preference. That's just the point. So it's an argument in favor of the relativist position, not an argument against it.

"The person might develop preferences based on simple exposure to something they weren't previously familiar with (if John never heard jazz before and then starts listening to a lot of jazz, he might develop (or learn he had) preferences for some of it), but that's a factor of how their brain works, and then it would turn out that it's not true that the person has no preferences after all."

I don't know if you bothered to read that reply to you.

Even if it were accepted that those statistics are accurate and that they reflect what is the case with billions of people, his own position should dismiss it on the basis that it is an appeal to populism. — Janus

I wasn't saying that anything was correct/incorrect because it was popular/prevalent. I wasn't saying anything about conforming to what's popular/prevalent. I merely said that it's a contingent fact that there are no conscious morally neutral people. If that weren't a fact that would be fine. But we can't find any conscious morally neutral people when we look for them.

Because there is no objective (on his view of objectivity) reason why people should not be morally neutral, — Janus

Correct. The fact that there are no conscious morally neutral people has zero implication for what should be the case. It's just contingently the case.

life and death is profoundly important to almost all of us, and that is the "objective" element of commonality — Janus

Commonality has nothing to do with whether something is objective.

And commonality has no normative weight except for people who happen to be rah rah conformity.

But you can’t bite the apple and tell someone it tastes both good and bad at the same time. In order to communicate your view of the taste of the apple you have to use adjectives with some degree of objective meaning. If we have widely varied subjective views on goodness or badness as it relates to apple taste we can’t effectively communicate. Your view of the apple is now meaningless to me. — Rank Amateur

Alternate views of what communication is/how it works are possible, but it would be a huge tangent to get into.

Why would anyone care about such a judgement ? — Rank Amateur

It seems odd to me to ask why someone would care about how they think about things, how they conceptualize things, their feelings, their perceptions, etc. It shouldn't be a surprise that people care about themselves.

you just agreed a sec ago that good cant equal bad, and right cant equal wrong on a specific issue - that means they have objective meaning. — Rank Amateur

I said "If someone uses the terms in anything like the conventional senses, which we can assume, then sure, if they feel that x is good they're not going to feel that x is bad, and if they feel that x is right they're not going to feel that x is wrong."

That doesn't imply "objective meaning." I dont believe there is any such thing. I think that's as much of a category error as "objective morality."

so then there has to be a near objective understanding of good or bad or right and wrong - for all these subjective judgments to have any meaning. — Rank Amateur

On my view neither understanding nor meaning are objective, so obviously I'm going to have a problem with this part.

Ah--I'll read what you just pasted above, although I might need to do it in a bit (I need to run out)

Was it this:

If morality came from the individual, then there would be no need for socialization.

Socialization ensures the smooth working of society.

Society is the necessary conclusion of social creatures with shared linguistic meaning and communication.

Followed by:

Society has the goal of survival and flourishing of the community.

In order for this survival and flourishing, moral laws must be formed.

Moral laws are also grounded in moral feeling.

That moral feeling has as its basis the avoidance of pain.

Moral laws dissuade the inflicting of pain, which also helps to ensure the survival and flourishing of society.

If moral laws didn’t exist, then society would not have lasted this long.

Society has lasted.

Hence, MORAL LAWS EXIST.

We'd have to go over that piece by piece.

The first premise seems kind of arbitrary to me. How are you figuring "If morality came from the individual, then there would be no need for socialization" to start?

would you also agree there is some line, in regard to any issue where they are dichotomous. Good cant ever equal bad, and right can not equal wrong about the same issue. — Rank Amateur

If someone uses the terms in anything like the conventional senses, which we can assume, then sure, if they feel that x is good they're not going to feel that x is bad, and if they feel that x is right they're not going to feel that x is wrong.

I have, a few times, in a few forms. but once again- other than in a smoke filled dorm room - near unanimity of a particular view would clearly cause a problem with a view they all reached that conclusion independently and it was just an amazing coincidence - — Rank Amateur

Ah--yeah, I addressed that, but aside from that, do you think that relativism/subjectivism vs objectivism somehow amounts to saying that people arrive at stances arbitrarily, so that it's like rolling dice and it would just have to be a coincidence that they have the same stance?

Too bad we don't have post #s here, but can you give me at least a small text string that I can identify the post by? That way I can quickly search for it.

I don't quite understand the way you worded that, but if you're just saying that moral judgments are judgments that interpersonal behavior (that one considers more significant than etiquette) is morally good bad, right or wrong, etc., that's fine, yes.

The objective standard is the duty to do no harm (arising from the instinctive avoidance of pain and the finding of oneself in a cooperative society where people depend on others for wants, needs, and survival). — Noah Te Stroete

How do you go from the instinctive avoidance of pain (which I don't actually agree is a fact as anything that simple, but we can ignore that for now) and the cooperative society fact to "one has a duty to do not harm"? That would need to be supported.

You could try just telling me what the percentage of people with some stance has to do with relative/subjective vs objective morality in your view.

Yeah sorry, I don't know what the "the post above" refers to. — Judaka

The post of yours that I quoted in that reply.

was kind of a big clue — Rank Amateur

How is that a big clue? The two things don't have anything to do with each other. How in the world would I know just how common some relatively unusual stance might be? That has no impact on being able to guess that there might be some people with that stance.

if you don't think that if 99% of the people in the world could hold the same moral view and it not be relative to a discussion of relative - vs objective morality - we will just have to disagree — Rank Amateur

How would it have anything to do with "relative vs objective morality" unless you were doing what I noted before that you objective to--my pet peeve, re the apparent assumption that it goes without saying that the popularity of something has some significance for its normative merit.

is there some pragmatic difference between 99% of the world having the same moral view about some action and a high degree of moral objectivity about that action ? — Rank Amateur

Yes, of course. The pragmatic difference is that the two are two completely different things. Agreement, commonality has nothing whatsoever to do with objectivity.

Of course you can guess, we all can guess - just asking for your honest guess. — Rank Amateur

Why would you assume I'm not giving you my honest guess?

And, at least to me it would be a relevant point if 99% of the world held the same moral judgement on some specific issue. — Rank Amateur

Relevant to what? (Other than itself)

Right, don't worry that you don't understand the concept of incoherence, just double down and keep arguing.

Can we move some mountains down there, too, while we're at it?

And maybe a huge outdoor air conditioner?

So was flying on 1900 and we landed on the moon in 1969... — Filipe

The notion of flying was never incoherent, lol.

I have known people who become very upset when other people are ignorant or unintelligent . . . But I've never understood that reaction. My reaction to it tends to be more between amusement and wanting to try to help those folks. I understand that other folks' ignorance or lack of intelligence might make various things more difficult for me, but it's just like not having Superman powers makes various things more difficult for me than they'd be if I were to have Superman powers. It's not as if I get upset that I don't have Superman powers.

I'm not offendable.

I should be offended at someone saying something that's not true, or at a propensity for people to believe things that aren't true, to believe things on bad epistemic grounds, etc. because?

I mean, if I should be offended at things that aren't true or things that are believed on bad epistemic grounds then I should be offended by religious belief and a whole bunch of other stuff. But I'm not offended by religious belief. I'm not offendable. If you believe things that aren't true, or if you believe things on bad epistemic grounds that's ultimately your problem.

Did you know that time runs at different speeds in different circumstances? Do most forum members know that? Do most citizens know that?

If you answered no to any of these questions, there's your proof that we don't know what we're talking about. — Jake

You were using "we" to refer to "some individuals but not us collectively"? In other words, a way to say "you peons contra me and the other in-crowd people like me"?

Exactly. For people who can be offended, it's worth analyzing why one has that reaction.

Do they expect everyone to like them? Why would they expect that?

Or why is it so important to them that others only say things that they also believe are true?

Or do they think that the insult has some truth to it, and they're having a difficult time being honest with themselves and/or towards others for some reason?

The point is that insofar as we're focusing on what we're referring to in practical, observable, experiential, phenomenal terms, it doesn't follow that (the most likely answer may be that) we have no idea what we're talking about.

It just underscores that the idea of time travel is incoherent.

Criticizing artworks for a lack of realism is a pet peeve of mine. I call it the "realism fetish."

I'm more perplexed by why anyone is ever offended.

But the world appears to follow logical (if not intuitive) rules; hence all the progress in science has been possible. I see no reason why the start of time should disobey basic logic... what you call 'counterintuitiveness' is actually contrary to logic IMO (and the world is logical). — Devans99

I have no idea what you'd think logic is if you think this has anything to do with logic. At any rate, logic, ontologically, is a way of thinking about relations.

What is mathematical about an expanding universe needing a start point? It makes perfect sense just as a logical argument. And we know from experiments that time slows in the presence of gravity; so time starting at the Big Bang (=maximum gravity) is not unbelievable, — Devans99

For example, the big bang involving "maximum gravity" is really about us playing with mathematics. It's a consequence of our mathematical constructions.