cynicist
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Posts posted by cynicist
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How do you answer this:
If you were to suddenly to appear on earth without prior knowledge of anything and the first thing you see is a human next to a computer (and let's say that you miraculously have a high level of intelligence and reasoning skills). Which would you be more likely to say had an intelligent creator: The less complex computer or the more complex human?
There's no historical context here, no passage of time at all. I would say it's just as likely in this situation that they popped into existence the same time as me. We only approach the explanations that we have (scientifically) because of our knowledge of how things changed over time.
Is it reasonable to declare that a human being in all it's complexities exists by chance while entropy sits confused? Matter continues ever more disorganized. But what is this opposite force that has made me to become unimaginably organized? And with something we call a mind, no less.
Perhaps you are biased by your perception. You say entropy sits confused, but aren't we also part of that entropy? You say that matter is disorganized relative to us, but look at the planet that supports our life. We have large bodies of water, rocks, dirt, all sitting on top of a thin crust with a molten core. We have an atmosphere with air that we can breathe while surrounded by empty space. Seems to me that a lot of organization took place before life here was even possible.
If you come across a written screenplay of Hamlet, do you assume that a team of monkeys have been strumming on typewriters for billions of years? Or do you say that Shakespeare must have passed by? And then of course, how did I hit the jackpot a million times and end up here.
In my mind, there is no logical explanation for my existence. Yet, here I am. Paradox, no?
Occam's Razor is useful, but you can't compare something we know to be possible (a human existing and writing a screenplay) with an all powerful creator being. I also marvel at the odds of our existence, but I don't then leap forward and claim something that is even less likely!
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Hey xelent, could you re-phrase that, or give me an example. I don't quiet get what you're saying.
He means that being able to empathize with others allows you to see more easily when they are not empathizing with you. The same phenomenon occurs when trying to figure out whether someone has technical expertise in something like computers: It's far easier when you yourself are technically competent.
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I don't agree with the vague messages i can't stand it ! I don't think its a test.
I don't mean it's an intentional test on the girl's part, I mean that's how I perceive it now since she never attempted any deeper conversation.
Yeah I didnt use this picture for the dating site i had about pictures some that other people took. I had better pictures, i usually style my hair when its longer this is a recent picture when i just got a buzz cut.
You remind me of Alessandro Juliani in your profile photo. I'm a huge fan of his acting work.
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Right: The power of free and unencumbered action that is a permanent and essential attribute of all humans.
How's that.
Dsayers, I apologize, I didn't see the other thread or I would have posted there. What section is it under?
If it's a permanent attribute then how can a right be given or taken away? What would be the point in protecting them if they could not be violated? I'm telling you, it's hard!
(though please keep them coming if you like, the closest I could get was 'a legal construct') -
Try to define what a right is exactly. If you can come up with a good definition I'd love to hear it. (I've tried, it's not as easy as it sounds)
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Mhm, but just because you believe that "the attempt to murder/rape, if it is required for someone to achieve their goal, is right (i.e. logically correct)" does not imply that you want to be raped or murdered. It only means that you acknowledge that, logically, they must rape/murder to achieve their goal, and so they must attempt rape/murder to have any chance of succeeding in their goal. (But obviously you do not have to care about the success of their goal. There is absolutely nothing logically binding about a person having to achieve their goal, just because they have a goal. It is not a failure or a contradiction for them to not be successful, or not even try to achieve their goal.)
That's not a moral theory. The goal of a moral theory is always the same: to be good. If I put forth the theory that murder is morally good, that means for everyone and at all times. (not for me in a particular situation) The logic test in UPB is the universalization, not a rationalization of the action.
I get what you are saying now. You mean that (example) for the goal of avoiding prison, it would be logical to murder a witness who is testifying against you. And then you're saying that because everyone can do it (or say it) that it can be universalized. Perfectly logical but it's a misunderstanding of morality and what UPB is testing for. (See the end of my post for where I think you are going wrong)
So if Joker wants to murder Batman, Batman acknowledges the logical necessity that Joker kill him for Joker to achieve his goals. But Batman does not put Joker's goals ahead of his own goals, since that would be ridiculous and illogical. So Batman's goal is to kill Joker to save innocent lives (himself included). Now, both Joker and Batman can accept (and follow) the moral theory that "the attempt to murder/rape, if it is required for someone to achieve their goal, is right (i.e. logically correct)". And while they are accepting and following that, they obviously are attempting to achieve their own goals.
So here, both Batman and Joker would have the same goal of being good, though they might differ on what is required to achieve that goal. Batman would say that not murdering is good, and Joker might say murdering is good. Now when you try to universalize those theories (meaning apply them to everyone at all times), only one of them works.
This statement is logically flawed, since inaction (not raping) cannot have any moral content, since morality only deals with behaviour. Non-action is not a behaviour. (The opposite of "rape is a moral good" would be "rape is a moral evil".)
What is the opposite of raping as an action? It would have to be not raping, logically; It can have moral content because it is possible to not rape someone, and morality is concerned with what actions (and lack thereof) are possible. Morality applies where choice is available. Comas, death, insanity, or some cognitive impairment are obvious examples of where it isn't.
This would be an incorrectly-formed theory, since it is lacking a tie to a goal, and it implies that doing anything other than murder would make you evil, since it is too vague. (Does it mean you must murder once a day? All day? Whenever the opportunity arrises? It is unclear.) So that theory cannot even be put through the UPB tests, or at least it is not useful for it to be, since it is incoherent.
This is where you are making the mistake. I want to be clear here and say that I didn't understand this either at first, and also assumed it was vague/silly because it couldn't possibly mean what it sounds like it means, but it does. Let me unpack it here.
So if I say for example, "In order to be a good person you must murder", then clearly that's not achievable for everyone since some people are required to resist, and so it can't be moral.
The goal is to be a good person, and murder is how you fulfill that goal. You are exactly correct when you suggest that the implication of this statement is that any other action besides murder would be morally evil. That's why it fails, because it is an impossible thing to achieve. Even ignoring the resist bit I mentioned above, you would eventually get tired and stop or run out of people to kill. Lest you stare at my post in bewilderment at this point, thinking that I have lost my sanity, let me quote from UPB: (Though I fear that you will consider UPB to also be crazy after this lol)
If murder is morally good, then clearly refraining from murder is immoral. Thus the only chance that Boband Doug have to be moral is in the instant that they simultaneously murder each other. Physically, thisis impossible of course – if they both stand and grip each other’s throats, they will never succumb tostrangulation at exactly the same moment. If Bob dies first, his grip on Doug’s throat will loosen, thuscondemning Doug to the status of immorality until such time as he can find another victim. Because Bobdies first – and thus cannot continue to try murdering Doug – Bob’s death renders him more immoralthan Doug’s murder.Intuitively, we fully recognize the insanity of the moral proposition that murder is good. Logically, weknow that the proposition is incorrect because if it is true, it is impossible for two men in a room to bothbe moral at the same time. Morality, like health, cannot be considered a mere “snapshot,” but must be aprocess, or a continuum. The UPB framework confirms that Bob cannot be “evil” while he is stranglingDoug, and then achieve the pinnacle of moral virtue the moment that he kills Doug – and then revertimmediately back to a state of evil. Moral propositions must be universal, and independent of time andplace. The proposition that murder is moral fails this requirement at every level, and so is not valid.If murder were morally good, then it would also be the case that a man stranded on a desert islandwould be morally evil for as long as he lived there, since he would have no victims to kill. A man in acoma would also be evil, as would a sleeping man, or a man on the operating table. A torturer would bean evil man as long as he continued to torture – but then would become a good man in the moment thathis victim died at his hand.We can thus see that the proposition that “murder is good” is not only instinctively bizarre, but alsologically impossible.The other objections that applied to the proposition “rape is good” also apply here. Murder cannot bemorally neutral, since morally neutral judgments or actions cannot be forcibly inflicted upon another,and murder by definition is forcibly inflicted upon another.There is also a basic contradiction involved in any universal justification for the act of murder, just asthere was in the act of rape. If Bob tries to strangle Doug, but Doug resists, how could Bob rationallyjustify his actions according to UPB?Sorry for the length of that quote, but I wanted you to be sure I wasn't quoting anything out of context. What you considered to be an incorrectly-formed theory is exactly what Stefan is talking about here. (I see a few errors in his examples but not in the important parts)
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Yeah I know exactly what you mean, though it's tough in this area because we're still pretty far from these ideas being mainstream. If I had the desire or skill to code I would probably be working on something bitcoin related. Maybe in the short term you can focus on something that promotes self-reliance or stronger communities. I think both of those are key in promoting freedom and peace. Sorry I can't be more specific, I'll post again if I think of something.
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I would say 90 percent of them seen my profile and deleted the message. The rest messaged me back but where really vauage and i couldn't keep a straight conversation with them. There was no connection it felt like they where not interested.
Yeah I tried online dating as well. Okcupid in particular. I had the same experience of vague responses, one girl kept sending me one word answers including smiley faces and so on, so I ended up carrying the whole conversation on my shoulders. I didn't realize it at the time, but now I look back and see that almost like a test. This girl was checking to see if I would respond in a way that she was familiar and comfortable with. (Is this guy ok with cutesy short messages that lack depth?) When you are feeling confused or distracted or just plain uncomfortable, I think that is a good sign that something weird is going on.
On reflection, online dating seems counter intuitive. The point of it is to connect with people that share your interests but it doesn't really work because that stuff isn't that important. Whether someone likes the same music or books as you do says little about their actual personality. You can get some information based on what they write in their profile or the kinds of messages they send you, but you get so much more in person.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
The odds are not spectacular in terms of finding a non-religious, philosophically-interested, psychology-interested, attractive, healthy woman who also happens to be available. But they do exist. You just have to expect that it is going to take a lot more effort to find one and interest one. Don't be discouraged!
No kidding, I don't like to think about it lol. (not that the odds are much better for you women)
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@cynicist: I view definition 2 as just a positive example of definition 1. Denoting a neutral nature explicates the capacity both for positive and negative occurrences. Would you agree?
Yeah it's just that you said "attachment doesn't denote attitude", which depends on your definition of attachment. Bleh it doesn't matter though, I thought you and mpah were arguing about different definitions but I was mistaken, judging by a second look at the conversation.
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This is kinda like saying we are not slaves because we dont give 100% of the product of our labor to others under threat... well, if we can ask "what percentage of taxation makes you free?" Then we ought to ask "what percentage of peaceful associations can be outlawed in any society that labels itself free?" And follow up with"if we are not free, what are we?"
No it's not kind of like saying, that's exactly what I'm saying. We're not free, sure, but we aren't slaves either. Maybe another word should be made up for what exists at the moment, but 'wage slavery' is clearly an attempt at manipulation through language. It riles people up because the word 'slavery' is so emotion-laden in American culture. I actually had to correct my post above because I said they don't understand what they are saying, but obviously on reflection, I recognize that it's done on purpose.
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Actually, you can universalize it. The mistake is in assuming that both people in the room must be successful in their goal in order to uphold the moral theory, when that is not true.
The moral theory of "it is morally right to assault a person" is upheld and successfully completed, no matter what happens in the room (even if neither person attempts to assault the other), because it is the theory that is tested, not the action.
Ok now I see where the issue is. UPB says that achieving it must be possible in order to uphold the moral theory, not successful. The simple reason that rape and murder fail the morally good test is because in order for a rape or murder to occur, the other person has to not want these things to happen. Otherwise it would be consensual sex and I dunno, assisted suicide.
So the question is "can this theory be universalized?" and the answer is "yes, because if anyone does assault someone, it can be considered right". The theory does not require everyone to attempt assault or be successful in assault to satisfy the theory's universalizability.
All that matters is that the theory can be applied to everyone without exception.
It's not about whether it can be considered right to assault someone (anyone can label any action as "good"). It's about whether or not it can be applied (meaning put to practical use, not theoretically) universally. It can't be applied to everyone if it's not possible. So if I say for example, "In order to be a good person you must murder", then clearly that's not achievable for everyone since some people are required to resist, and so it can't be moral (it fails the prerequisite of being possible, which is what UPB tests for). Similarly, if someone is in a coma they are unable to satisfy that condition, because it's impossible to be 'good' in their case. They can't be evil either, because morality requires choice and they are incapacitated.
It's strange to me because you said the same thing in your last sentence, but as far as I can tell you are contradicting what you said earlier. (unless you just meant you could label murder as good, but that's not what universalization means in the context of UPB)
I just wanted to take a second and commend your writing and reasoning skills. I value good communication and so far everything that you've posted has been very clear and concise to me. I also upvoted some of your negative posts because much as I disagree with what you are saying (and dislike nihilism), you aren't trolling.
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incorrect... its true that man has to deal with reality, we have to eat and produce, etc. To me it becomes slavery to other men when jobs and production do not materialize because other men keep them from happening and use force to push materials where they want them instead of where demand satisfaction would take them.
Isn't it a matter of degree? Losing choice in jobs is terrible but slavery is about having zero choice because someone is claiming to own you. Trying to call those situations comparable is ludicrous. I can understand and even agree with the sentiment of the people who talk about it, but using the phrase "wage slavery" instantly turns me off to their arguments because it's manipulative.
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Ah, but attachment is the main category and love, lust, and companionship are sub categories. That latter is contained within the former.
Yeah I can see that, various different types of the same thing.
To me love is specifically the response to someone being a good person, lust is just a biological response to someone's physical features, and companionship (ie friendship) is just two people with mutual affection towards each other. It's interesting how they work together. You can lust after a friend, but liking someone is a prerequisite for loving them. You can be friends without love, or desire someone sexually without either.
Can this be so? Attachment and love require large amounts of time, companionship has less of a time requirement and lust requires almost no time. Additionally, love, lust, and companionship are inherently positive while attachment doesn't denote attitude. I had nothing to do with my mother for the last ~10 years of her life. However, I think of her to this day as a result of my attachment to her that came from having overlapping lives for a quarter of a century.
That's a language problem. Attachment is used more than one way: 1) To denote a feeling which binds one to something 2) To describe a sympathetic or loyal connection to another person.
You can blame psychology for the second one, it was used specifically for child > parent relationships. You are thinking of the neutral definition.
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If UPB tests moral theories, then test this one: "It is right to use force if it is necessary to satisfy the chosen goal."
Not only is that an objectively true statement, but it satisfies universality.
That sounds like a language manipulation to me. Right has the dual meaning of good/correct, but only one of those is a moral statement. If you are saying morally good/right then the argument is refuted in UPB.
What do you mean by "moral justification"? Have you departed from "logical justification" or not? If not, then I have already given my logical justification in the form of goal satisfaction.
My justification is my goal that requires assault, whatever that may be. For example, if some creepy guy kidnaps my children and tells me that I won't get them back until I assault a police officer... then I'd assault a police officer. If my goal was something different, for example, like I enjoy assaulting people, then that also would be valid if my goal is to have enjoyment.
If you don't take this as a valid justification for such actions, then tell me what you take as a valid justification for self-defence? I hope you will see that self-defence is just another action to satisfy a goal. And goals are freely chosen.
The issue here is that while those are indeed logical justifications, they cannot be put forward as logical moral theories. I can't say that my goal to assault people is both enjoyable AND morally good, since I can't universalize it. Quoting from UPB:
Two men in a room cannot be both morally good at the same time, since one of them must be initiatingviolence against the other, and the other must be resisting it – since if he is not resisting it, it is bydefinition not violence, as in the case of the surgeon we discussed above. Thus virtue can only be enabledby resisting virtue, and two men in the same circumstances cannot both be moral at the same time, andso on – all of which are violations of UPB.I seriously wish I could meet an undamaged/healed woman of that level of intellect and expression.
/signed
It's sad that even the desire to discuss these things is so rare.
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Of course, there's no reason to think that the employer/employee model will be the dominant one in a free society. I personally believe the dominant model is likely to be one wherein everybody is a contractor and people hire a bunch of contractors to complete their projects.
What's the difference? I mean besides the fact that contract work is more temporary. If you are talking about the downtrodden mentality of most people (worker drones), that has more to do with fucked up families than it does with the government. I agree that I would like to see labor in general be more fluid. I've never understood working for the same company for 5+ years, sounds like a prison sentence... only more boring.
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For simplicities sake (and also cause the odds of having a prodcutive debate in writing tends to go to zero if the timeframe is just big enough), Can you tell me what you mean with "murder" and "evil"? Maybe it either makes more sense then what I mean, or I can exaplin it in a way that's appropriate to how you approach thoses concepts.
Murder is premeditated killing. Evil is a state of incongruence with the standards of morality.
I apologize if I'm mistaken but it seems like you are under the same premise that labmath brought up earlier in the thread:
If what you are saying is true, then the only problem i am having is in understanding how you go from the descriptive claim of self ownership to making value judgement. In my experience, value judgement is internal and descriptive claim is external. To give an example, we can verify if someone did something, i.e I built a car, but whether that is moral or immoral is internal since it is value we assign to the action.
In this quote he says value judgments are internal and descriptive claims are external. However, having morality or being morally good as a value (values are subjective) is not the same as claiming something to be morally good or evil. (morality is objective, so this can't be an opinion)
Does this clear anything up or am I mistaken? (if I am then again, I apologize)
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For the same reason I care about somebody getting beaten up in an alley, or being accused of misconduct by an anonymous source, or any other number of tragedies or injustices. Because I have some sense of justice or fair play, and also because I either know, or can imagine, how it feels to be victimized by hidden faces that can't be confronted. I try to stand up against such abuse when I notice it, not just because of personal feelings, but also as a matter of honor.
How can anybody not care?
Lol that's all hyperbole? You could take it more seriously then, since now I'm not even sure what you're talking about. It would be nice if people posted explanations, but to some degree that defeats the purpose of the rating system if you didn't want to get into an in depth discussion or argument over the reasons.
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I have seen some people that demonize inflation by saying that the prices rise and that makes it worse in their lives. My question is:"Doesn't supply/demand leads to prices to stabilize since if prices rise, than people buy less and businesses lower the price again so the people buy enough to keep the business running?"
It's not about prices rising, it's about the value of your currency being diluted, the price change is just a side effect of that. If a business didn't raise their prices they would need to cut costs somehow or their profit margin would be affected. (and if prices go up across an entire industry, do you think people are just going to stop buying things that they need?)
Imagine a game of monopoly where you found a second set of bank notes from another monopoly set and kept it for yourself (printing). Say the total amount all players had started at $1k and now it's $2k total. After doubling the amount in circulation, each bill is worth half as much as it used to be. If the price of properties was $100 a piece before you added the money, and players are aware that you just halved what their money was worth, they would double the price of their properties to $200 to compensate. The point of this manipulation is to spend the money you printed before other people realize what's going on and adjust their prices, thereby avoiding the correction and making out like a thieving bandit.
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Cynicist, I am not sure you make a distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge. philosophical claims emerge from the a priori knowledge and scientific claims emerge from a posteriori knowledge. In my experience, a priori knowledge is true by definition, or by assumption. If it is true by definition then it cannot be falsified, but if it is true by assumption, if you can prove the assumption is false, then the conclusion is false. The difficulty i am having with grasping libertarian philosophy is that i am not sure if it is true by definition or by assumption.
It's true by definition, a priori. Its negation is self-contradictory. If I argue that human beings are not in control of their actions, then I'm not responsible for my argument, and you are not responsible for yours, but in that case it would make no sense to make an argument at all. If I suggest that I have no control over my actions, then I can't choose a preferred state like truth over falsehood. (therefore the argument self-detonates)
I see what you mean, but I don't agree. First of all, unless we have a basis that "I should have the right to control my body" there can be no moral claims. (I don't know why you brought up "I should control my body" though). And you don't get that just from the claim "I control my body". Control is needed but not sufficient for making the moral claim (else, any living thing would have a moral claim to not being killed).
I brought up "I should control my body" for two reasons. One is because "I should have the right to control my body" and "I control my body" don't really mean the same thing. When I talk about controlling your body, I'm talking about having responsibility for your actions. Rights are supposed to be about what others, namely the government, cannot restrict you from doing. The other reason is because rights don't actually exist. I know I know, but if you sit down and actually try to define what they are, you will have quite a challenge on your hands. (I've tried, closest I can get is a legal construct)
Also, I never argued control was sufficient for a moral claim, merely required.
And "murder" itself is only a possibility after you accepted that one should have the right to his or her own body, else you'd simply call it "killing" and not "murder". "Murder is evil" is really just shorthand for "I should have the right to control my body and therefore you shouldn't kill me (or don't have the right to kill me) and I'm justified in fighting back".
You say "the right to my body", I say "self-ownership". Potatoes, potatoes. In addition, you changed my descriptive claim to a prescriptive one. They have different meanings. When I say "Murder is evil" that doesn't contain any shoulds, it doesn't say how people ought to act on that information.
So I don't see how you can make a descirptive claim that is moral.
How is the claim "Murder is evil" either not descriptive or not moral?
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Maybe there's more to the idea of "descriptive" that I'm aware of. But aren't descriptive claims things like "A cat is mammal with whiskers" and the like?
As I understand it, if one says "I control my body" then that's a description of reality. When one says "I should have the right to control my body" then that's a moral claim not a descirptive one.
No, that's exactly right. A descriptive claim is a statement of what is and a prescriptive claim is a statement of what should be. However, the only reason morality is possible is because the claim is descriptive. You have to be in control of your body and therefore responsible for your actions otherwise right and wrong can't be applied to them. If you change "I control my body" to "I should control my body" morality ceases to exist.
You also may be going under the assumption that all moral claims must be prescriptive, but that's not the case:
"I should do X in order to be a good person" is an example of a (prescriptive) moral claim. "Murder is evil" is an example of a (descriptive) moral claim.
Does that make sense?
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I know I've experienced lust. I know I've experienced friendship. Too me, love is just the combination of the two. Isn't it that simple? Am I missing something?
dsayers, correct me if I'm wrong, but are saying that the word love cannot be used to describe a healthy parent-child relationship? Is it something different all together?
Samuels, do you love your dog?
ROFL I can follow the line of thinking there. It's like love = lust + friendship. I love my dog, therefore... wait a sec no, abort, ABORT!
But yeah you are correct, they exist independently of each other. People use the word love many different ways but if you are going by Stefs definition (involuntary response to virtue) then it can't apply to animals since they can't be virtuous. In that case, endearment or affection are better words to describe how we feel about our pets. I like my cat because he can be funny and that makes me happy. I think that taking care of them also makes us care more about them, just from the knowledge that they would be pretty helpless in the wild. Maybe their dependency triggers an attachment similar to the one we feel for children.
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If what you are saying is true, then the only problem i am having is in understanding how you go from the descriptive claim of self ownership to making value judgement. In my experience, value judgement is internal and descriptive claim is external. To give an example, we can verify if someone did something, i.e I built a car, but whether that is moral or immoral is internal since it is value we assign to the action.
Morality is not subjective. Think of it this way: I can't say whether you should go South or not, but I can certainly tell you which direction is South.
(To be more clear, whether something is moral or not is descriptive. If I say building a car is evil, I'm not saying you should be evil or that you should build a car, I'm making a statement which describes your action in moral terms)
just fyi, I'm an anarchist and I don't mean that
(or as labmath has pointed out, if you use it as a description, then there's no moral claim to it.)What do you mean? If it's not descriptive then there can be no moral claim.
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A beautiful instrumental (piano) piece by Oskar Schuster
My brief e-mail discussion with Yale professor Shelly Kagan concerning suicide
in Philosophy
Posted
I wonder what your views are on it. I think it's an interesting and complicated issue for sure. Personally, I accept the idea of my body as my property and that I can do whatever I wish with it, however, I'm conflicted when it comes to suicide. Killing yourself is the ending of all decision making, which can make sense to me in cases of extreme physical pain where there are no good alternatives, but when it comes to psychological pain I'm not as certain.
I had suicidal feelings during my teenage years but I'm very happy that I did not pursue that, because the pain I experienced has lessened significantly since then. I obviously think it's irrational to kill yourself in those circumstances because your feelings can change. And we can't make the argument that killing yourself is rational in general or we wouldn't be here. So my conclusion is that it's heavily dependent on the specifics of the situation.
Preventing a suicide through force on the basis that an individual is in an irrational state where they can't make that decision can be made into a self-defense argument I think. People are just afraid that you can label anyone as incapable and justify any use of force that way but I don't think that's the case because we're talking about suicide in particular.
I wanted to talk about the e-mail in particular but lost interest when I read that Shelly doesn't consider one's life/body to be owned by them. At that point you can justify anything.