Strutting one's funky Atheist stuff.

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

I said no such thing. To the contrary, I said expressly “Vlad has got it into his head that…” etc (Reply 145). I have no idea therefore why you’re complaining that I tried to ascribe Vlad’s position to you – I didn’t. 

You’re still not getting it. It’s an absolute gap if you want to demonstrate absolute moral positions. Trying to bridge it is a fool’s errand – that’s why I said that even with some pieces of the jig-saw that suggest a daffodil, the picture could nonetheless be a fire engine. Having some of the jig-saw says nothing at all about bridging the gap, and it’d help the exchange if you’d stop straw manning me about this.

We do nonetheless need a workable morality if we’re to co-exist – if not by the application of reason to do that job, what would you propose instead?

Since it is an absolute gap, reason doesn't help. Morality is opinion. There is no difference between tarot and reason in the gap.

Whatever Vlad thinks is irrelevant to that point and our discussion.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

Since it is an absolute gap, reason doesn't help.

It doesn’t help bridge that gap. I just told you that, and I’ve said nothing different from that previously.

Morality is opinion. There is no difference between tarot and reason in the gap.

And bears do their business in the woods. You’re straw manning again.

The point though is that societies need functional moral codes and that not all opinions about what they should be are equal – for that purpose, my opinion that murdering my neighbour for his car is ok is less defensible than your opinion that it isn’t. 

Whatever Vlad thinks is irrelevant to that point and our discussion.

Perhaps, but I still didn’t ascribe his position to you – which is what you accused me of.

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

It doesn’t help bridge that gap. I just told you that, and I’ve said nothing different from that previously.

And bears do their business in the woods. You’re straw manning again.

The point though is that societies need functional moral codes and that not all opinions about what they should be are equal – for that purpose, my opinion that murdering my neighbour for his car is ok is less defensible than your opinion that it isn’t. 

Perhaps, but I still didn’t ascribe his position to you – which is what you accused me of.

Why are not all opinions equal? Why is rationality better than the tarot?

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

Why are not all opinions equal? Why is rationality better than the tarot?

Because, to take the example of a neighbour with a nice car, if we decided the moral rightness of killing him for it by drawing tarot cards societies would cease to function, or at least would function hugely less efficiently than they do with reason-justified moral principles. Bridging the ought/is gap that's required for moral certainty has nothing to do with that.       

PS Are we agreed that I didn’t accuse you of holding Vlad’s position (idiotically or otherwise) by the way?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

NS,

Because, to take the example of a neighbour with a nice car, if we decided the moral rightness of killing him for it by drawing tarot cards societies would cease to function, or at least would function hugely less efficiently than they do with reason-justified moral principles. Bridging the ought/is gap that's required for moral certainty has nothing to do with that.       

PS Are we agreed that I didn’t accuse you of holding Vlad’s position (idiotically or otherwise) by the way?

I confess to knowing near to nothing about tarot so it would interest me to hear your knowledge.
Secondly might it be possible for you to outline the path of reason to the conclusion say Slavery is a bad thing without any leaps of belief or appeal to emotions or anything else but reason.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

I confess to knowing near to nothing about tarot so it would interest me to hear your knowledge.

Very funny.

Secondly might it be possible for you to outline the path of reason to the conclusion say Slavery is a bad thing without any leaps of belief or appeal to emotions or anything else but reason.

Of course, but only if you’ll do something for me first: outline your path of reason that explains why you think people ought to consider Vermeer’s "View of Delft" to be great art and the poster of the girl on the tennis court scratching her backside to be not great art without any leaps of belief or appeal to emotions or anything else but reason.

Fair enough?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Very funny.

Of course, but only if you’ll do something for me first: outline your path of reason that explains why you think people ought to consider Vermeer’s "View of Delft" to be great art and the poster of the girl on the tennis court scratching her backside to be not great art without any leaps of belief or appeal to emotions or anything else but reason.

Fair enough?

No you are comparing apples and oranges. I declare myself ignorant of the work involved and I am not promoting reason as a route through to the answer.

You though have declared that reason is very much part of morality so what I ask from you should be no problem.

[Nearly Sane]

No you are comparing apples and oranges. I declare myself ignorant of the work involved and I am not promoting reason as a route through to the answer.

You though have declared that reason is very much part of morality so what I ask from you should be no problem.

So how do you determine your morality?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

No you are comparing apples and oranges.

I’m absolutely not – I’m comparing Granny Smiths with Golden Delicious. That’s the point – morality is, if not an off-shoot of aesthetics, then a first cousin (as are various other codified group opinions, like language). You look at a picture for example and, at an instinctive level, you find it to be appealing or not. When asked why you think one painting to be great art and another trite moreover you can make arguments that justify your gut feel (or sometimes that contradict it).

Now consider morality. You might find the sight of, say, someone being attacked in the street to be instinctively abhorrent – the “yuk” response – and that’s enough for a quick “that’s immoral” judgment. When asked why street attacks are immoral moreover you could produce various arguments to justify your instinct about that. Sometimes though there could be an argument that causes you to override your instinct – say because the attacker was a policeman rugby tackling someone heading toward a school with a loaded gun.   

Can you see now that aesthetics and morality are functionally the same thing, albeit with different objects? They’re a mix of the instinctive and (sometimes) the reasoned to justify or override the instinct.   

I declare myself ignorant of the work involved and I am not promoting reason as a route through to the answer.

And yet in practice you’re forced to do just that. You might for example think the late Beethoven Quartets to be great art – they move you instinctively in a profound way, and (assuming you know anything about them) if asked you could justify that judgement with arguments about their composition. On the other hand, you (presumably) wouldn’t feel the same way about the Birdie Song and, if asked why not, you could support that opinion too with arguments about the derivative and uninteresting composition etc.

As I assume you don’t think there’s a big book of deity-inspired rules about what is and isn’t good art or music to tell you what to dis/like, if you couldn’t support your instincts about these things with arguments then that’s all you’d have – instincts.

And the problem with that would be that would be that the only rational response from someone who didn’t happen to share those instincts would be a “so what”. When you have reason at your back though, then you can say “I think you ought to agree with me that murder is wrong/Beethoven was a great composer, and here’s why.” Note though that in neither case would there be an argument for objective truth, so there's no question of claiming to bridge the ought/is gap that such a claim would require. 

You though have declared that reason is very much part of morality so what I ask from you should be no problem.

I have and it isn’t for the reasons I just set out. Nor though should it be a problem for you either if you think I ought to share your conviction that the Birdie Song is a magnificent work of art.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

So how do you determine your morality?

He thinks he can look it up in a book, which even leaving aside that idea’s basic bonkersness is weird for lots of reasons. Here are just a few right off the bat:

1. There are countless moral questions the book’s authors never thought of, so great swathes of moral debate are missing from his instruction manual.

2. In practice he follows some of the rules and ignores others (at least I hope he does as, say, killing your neighbour for gathering kindling on the sabbath is illegal in most countries). This means that he must exercise judgements on a case-by case-basis about all sorts of rules in his “holy” book. How does he do that I wonder except for thinking about them to reason his way through the menu?

3. If he had never had access to this book is he suggesting that he’d have gone about raping and pillaging for lack of a moral manual? I assume not, but then why wouldn’t he have done if ever the whim had taken his fancy, and why for that matter aren’t people who think different manuals with different moral rules are correct or that none are exhibiting horrendous levels of moral turpitude even though little old Vlad is doing the right thing?

It’s all very odd.     

[Walt Zingmatilder]

So how do you determine your morality?

Situations and notions present themselves and I perceive them as having a moral dimension unlike our colleague BHS I see these as requiring a distinctive moral solution either in terms of thought or action. Sometimes I perceive the correct moral solution as going against my taste which I am forced to overcome or continue with my taste yet feeling uneasy with that because the moral equation has not as it were been made.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Situations and notions present themselves and I perceive them as having a moral dimension unlike our colleague BHS I see these as requiring a distinctive moral solution either in terms of thought or action…

If your response is “in terms of thought” then there’s reasoning involved, and how in any case could you carry out an action with no thought to precede it? Are your thoughts and actions on moral questions random and inconsistent, or is there some underlying reasoning process to enable you to act at least somewhat consistently?     

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

If your response is “in terms of thought” then there’s reasoning involved, and how in any case could you carry out an action with no thought to precede it? Are your thoughts and actions on moral questions random and inconsistent, or is there some underlying reasoning process to enable you to act at least somewhat consistently?   

There is thought in mathematics but any reasoning derives from the mathematical reasoning the same with morality. Moral reasoning not found in mathematical reasoning. I am a bit dubious about some all purpose tool called reasoning.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

There is thought in mathematics but any reasoning derives from the mathematical reasoning the same with morality. Moral reasoning not found in mathematical reasoning. I am a bit dubious about some all purpose tool called reasoning.

Complete gibberish. When urges, impulses, instinctual responses arise from your subconscious either you act merely according to which one happened first or you think about it. And unless you’ve had your prefrontal cortex removed, here’s what it does for you:

“This brain region has been implicated in executive functions, such as planning, decision making, short-term memory, personality expression, moderating social behavior and controlling certain aspects of speech and language.[3][4] The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals.[5]

Executive function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social "control" (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially unacceptable outcomes).”

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_cortex)

When you say, “I do this” or “I do that” what you actually mean is that your prefrontal cortex is doing its job, and that job requires reasoning to “differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best” etc.

I should warn you that you’re about to look very silly very quickly here.   

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Complete gibberish. When urges, impulses, instinctual responses arise from your subconscious either you act merely according to which one happened first or you think about it. And unless you’ve had your prefrontal cortex removed, here’s what it does for you:

“This brain region has been implicated in executive functions, such as planning, decision making, short-term memory, personality expression, moderating social behavior and controlling certain aspects of speech and language.[3][4] The basic activity of this brain region is considered to be orchestration of thoughts and actions in accordance with internal goals.[5]

Executive function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social "control" (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially unacceptable outcomes).”

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefrontal_cortex)

When you say, “I do this” or “I do that” what you actually mean is that your prefrontal cortex is doing its job, and that job requires reasoning to “differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best” etc.

I should warn you that you’re about to look very silly very quickly here.

It's no use presenting a scientific description to explain morality because as we know science does not do morality.

You are deriving your notion of an all purpose tool called reasoning, again making the term morality or moralising redundant, from a scientific anatomical and neurological description. It doesn't work.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

It's no use presenting a scientific description to explain morality because as we know science does not do morality.

Even by your standards that’s a pretty epic body swerve. I wasn’t trying to “explain morality because as we know science does not do morality” at all – I was just demolishing your pretty bizarre claim that you decide on moral issues apparently without thinking about your decisions. 

You are deriving your notion of an all purpose tool called reasoning, again making the term morality or moralising redundant, from a scientific anatomical and neurological description. It doesn't work.

That’s because it’s not true. Either you think about which responses to moral questions to take or you don’t. And the only way it could be the latter would be if you didn’t have a prefrontal cortex.

As for your other mistake, of course I’m not making the term “moral” redundant, any more than lecturers on fine art course make the term “art” redundant. I set some of this out for you a few posts ago by the way when you made your apples and oranges mistake.     

[jeremyp]

Broadly, My definition is this. (I have emboldened the statement relevent to the point of your definition being a ''long way'' from the Christian god.)

Nicene Creed
We believe in one God,
the Father, the almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is,
seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us men and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
by the power of the Holy Spirit
he became incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the father.
He will come again in glory
to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

The bit you made bold is really the minimal definition of God. The Christian god is such more than that. In fact most religions seem to have a god that fits the bold part of your definition.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

Even by your standards that’s a pretty epic body swerve. I wasn’t trying to “explain morality because as we know science does not do morality” at all – I was just demolishing your pretty bizarre claim that you decide on moral issues apparently without thinking about your decisions. 

That’s because it’s not true. Either you think about which responses to moral questions to take or you don’t. And the only way it could be the latter would be if you didn’t have a prefrontal cortex.

As for your other mistake, of course I’m not making the term “moral” redundant, any more than lecturers on fine art course make the term “art” redundant. I set some of this out for you a few posts ago by the way when you made your apples and oranges mistake.   

Your scientific description of the neurology of the prefrontal cortex was very reminiscent of the description of the report of the injuries of Phineas Gage who presented a major leap in the understanding of the function of the Brain after a tamping rod used for explosives went through the front of the skull. It was reported that Gage went from being a humble peaceable man to being uncouth and a social embarrasment because of the lack of control of his behaviour.

Here is the rub though, one does not have to be injured to be uncouth and asocial embarrasment. Also any report of Gage in the strictly moral sense was not derived from the neuroscientific observations.

In other words to lump moralising, doing maths or percieving patterns, and working out say, what it is you are seeing is oversimplification. In other words, there is no all encompassing single tool of 'reasoning' going on. Such a view is also probably nearer to the science where the brain is divided into sections of specific activity handling differing categories of stimulus.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The bit you made bold is really the minimal definition of God. The Christian god is such more than that. In fact most religions seem to have a god that fits the bold part of your definition.

Yes and simulated universe theory also has a maker of all that is seen and unseen in the universe too.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Your scientific description of the neurology of the prefrontal cortex was very reminiscent of the description of the report of the injuries of Phineas Gage who presented a major leap in the understanding of the function of the Brain after a tamping rod used for explosives went through the front of the skull. It was reported that Gage went from being a humble peaceable man to being uncouth and a social embarrasment because of the lack of control of his behaviour.

Here is the rub though, one does not have to be injured to be uncouth and asocial embarrasment. Also any report of Gage in the strictly moral sense was not derived from the neuroscientific observations.

Leaving aside that irrelevance, which is it: do you think about the moral decisions you make, or don’t you? If it’s the latter your choices would be random and inconsistent; if it’s the former then you’re reasoning your way to moral positions. There is no third option.

In other words to lump moralising, doing maths or percieving patterns, and working out say, what it is you are seeing is oversimplification. In other words, there is no all encompassing single tool of 'reasoning' going on. Such a view is also probably nearer to the science where the brain is divided into sections of specific activity handling differing categories of stimulus.

Wrong again. Do you or do you not think about your moral choices? If the answer is that you do, then what is that thinking except the application of reason?

Note that I still make no comments about arriving at (supposed) objective moral truths. All I’m suggesting you do (as we all do) when confronted with a moral question is to reason your way to an answers to the best of your ability.

Oh, and funnily enough moral philosophy does that too when it addresses normative and practical ethics – and when it does do that guess what? Yep, “morality” conceptually doesn’t vanish a puff of smoke at all despite your somewhat bizarre claim that reason dispenses with the “moral” part.

Apart from that though…         

[bluehillside Retd.]

Vlad,

Yes and simulated universe theory also has a maker of all that is seen and unseen in the universe too.

But not necessarily an “uncaused” one, which is the central tenet of your conjecture “God”. It’d help if you stopped trying to ram that square peg into a round hole. 

[Nearly Sane]

Vlad,

But not necessarily an “uncaused” one, which is the central tenet of your conjecture “God”. It’d help if you stopped trying to ram that square peg into a round hole.

It could also be designed by a committee. Today is one of those days where it feels like it. Polytheism then, apparently.

[bluehillside Retd.]

NS,

It could also be designed by a committee. Today is one of those days where it feels like it. Polytheism then.

Yes, that’s as good a speculation as any about what a designer/simulator could be. Vlad though is trying to force “therefore an uncaused cause” into the SU conjecture when it doesn’t require it. Mind you, an “uncaused committee” could be fun to think about     

[Nearly Sane]

NS,

Yes, that’s as good a speculation as any about what a designer/simulator could be. Vlad though is trying to force “therefore an uncaused cause” into the SU conjecture when it doesn’t require it. Mind you, an “uncaused committee” could be fun to think about 

Oh, I've been on a few of those. Also uncaused effectless committees.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Vlad,

But not necessarily an “uncaused” one, which is the central tenet of your conjecture “God”. It’d help if you stopped trying to ram that square peg into a round hole.

Your merely putting my argument but in another way.
Not necessarily an uncaused one but also not necessarily a caused one either.