UPB, objective?

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

The idea that physics wont break down in the future is as inductive as any other. There are no self-evident axioms of science, just axioms science elects not to challenge.  

Whether this is true or not what has it got to do with UPB? 

that's not a solution to the proscribed action for the owner. It's a practical way out and the one any sane person would take if they could...but let's easily amend the hypothetical: the owner doesn't want the person to trespass, but the window could open if he wants it.  Glass is quite strong and would not break from the dangling persons kicks. 

 

 

 

Again , just enough details to describe a scenario but not enough to apply ethics. What contracts does the owner have? Don't they accept that emergencies happen? Don't they expect others to reciprocate? How where they able to rent or buy a house that allowed this kind of extremely harsh behavior? What kind of implicit or explicit norms exist where they live? To what degree are both parties responsible for the event? What justification is the owner using for their actions? A million questions.

The fact that you're able to amend the hypothetical shows it has no solid connection to any real event that could ever happen. 

[Will Torbald]

Whether this is true or not what has it got to do with UPB?

 

The same old "your logic is true now, but maybe later it can change, therefore I get to be immoral all I want because science".

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

The same old "your logic is true now, but maybe later it can change, therefore I get to be immoral all I want because science".

These kind of epistemological rug-pullers pop up all the time. The pattern I see is that they will argue that nothing can be self-evident or that logic can't be trusted (because paraconsistent quantum Godel's Theorem woo, woo) but expect others to hold the premises of their argument as self-evident and their logic as trust-worthy. 

[labmath2]

Here is a funny moral situation.

A man with IQ 146 thinks people should be free to murder anyone with IQ two standard deviation or below him. Is it UPB compliant?

 

Again the fundamental difficulty that exists with UPB is with the notion of preferability. Outside of the three laws of logic, that is the only addition UPB seems to add. So, whose preference matter, why does it matter, and when does it matter?

[bugzysegal]

Whether this is true or not what has it got to do with UPB? 

 

 

 

Again , just enough details to describe a scenario but not enough to apply ethics. What contracts does the owner have? Don't they accept that emergencies happen? Don't they expect others to reciprocate? How where they able to rent or buy a house that allowed this kind of extremely harsh behavior? What kind of implicit or explicit norms exist where they live? To what degree are both parties responsible for the event? What justification is the owner using for their actions? A million questions.

The fact that you're able to amend the hypothetical shows it has no solid connection to any real event that could ever happ

To your first point, we are arguing by analogy. Science, like ethics cannot support its own foundations. 

Your final conclusion makes no sense whatsoever. I can amend a hypothetical, because it's hypothetical. None of your questions have any baring on an ethical theory that revolves solely around voluntarism. You're not giving any real threatening arguments to contradict the notion that these are problems for voluntarism. Let's just say that the owner doesn't want to open the window/let him break it. Your ethical theory says this is not immoral. Problematic.  The two doctor situations I gave you are real and you've been silent about them. 

These kind of epistemological rug-pullers pop up all the time. The pattern I see is that they will argue that nothing can be self-evident or that logic can't be trusted (because paraconsistent quantum Godel's Theorem woo, woo) but expect others to hold the premises of their argument as self-evident and their logic as trust-worthy. 

Thank you for marginalizing me. That is really helpful, I guess it doesn't matter anyway.  Hume's master argument against causation is what spurred Immanuel Kant to "awaken from his dogmatic slumber." It goes like this.

In the past, the future has resembled the past. Therefore, in the future, the future will resemble the past.  There is a missing premise, therefore the previous argument is invalid and causation cannot be deductively proven. I'm sure you have heard the same thing with swans and whatnot. You might sum it up by the sentiment "everything's inductive."

[Frosty]

The problem with this hyper skepticism is that you're conflating theory with observation. In no point in the future will we observe objects falling up without a change in the actual force of gravity without the universe being destroyed. What can happen is that a new theory explaining gravity will arise, but it will not contradict what we have already proven given general relativity. It will simply expand it, not contradict it.

 

I'm not conflating theory with observation, I'm simply saying that theories are only good to explain observations as long as you don't have a conflicting observation, and we can't observe everything all the time especially if it hasn't occurred yet or is outside of our ability to observe. Theories based on observation and evidence from experiment are as reliable inversely proportionally to the amount of tests we've done to falsify them and failed, the more tests we do to try and disprove the theory the more become convinced they're accurate, but it's never conclusively proved.

 

I don't really think the term hyper skepticism is very helpful, it's still just regular skepticism but you just have to acknowledge the degree to which you're unsure of something, it's perfectly valid to hold a belief that something is true but acknowledge that your belief is not absolute but sits on some kind of scale that you're extremely confident it's true but it'd be intellectually dishonest to suggest it's absolutely true. The great thing about science is that usually the degree to which you're certain about something is actually part of the process, acknowledging that you've measured something to a given degree of accuracy.

[Will Torbald]

Here is a funny moral situation.

A man with IQ 146 thinks people should be free to murder anyone with IQ two standard deviation or below him. Is it UPB compliant?

 

Again the fundamental difficulty that exists with UPB is with the notion of preferability. Outside of the three laws of logic, that is the only addition UPB seems to add. So, whose preference matter, why does it matter, and when does it matter?

 

Haha! How funny! No! It's murder.

 

 

I'm not conflating theory with observation, I'm simply saying that theories are only good to explain observations as long as you don't have a conflicting observation, and we can't observe everything all the time especially if it hasn't occurred yet or is outside of our ability to observe. Theories based on observation and evidence from experiment are as reliable inversely proportionally to the amount of tests we've done to falsify them and failed, the more tests we do to try and disprove the theory the more become convinced they're accurate, but it's never conclusively proved.

 

I don't really think the term hyper skepticism is very helpful, it's still just regular skepticism but you just have to acknowledge the degree to which you're unsure of something, it's perfectly valid to hold a belief that something is true but acknowledge that your belief is not absolute but sits on some kind of scale that you're extremely confident it's true but it'd be intellectually dishonest to suggest it's absolutely true. The great thing about science is that usually the degree to which you're certain about something is actually part of the process, acknowledging that you've measured something to a given degree of accuracy.

 

The skepticism of science is not useful in ethical debates. Absolutes in philosophy do exist.

 

Thank you for marginalizing me. That is really helpful, I guess it doesn't matter anyway.  Hume's master argument against causation is what spurred Immanuel Kant to "awaken from his dogmatic slumber." It goes like this.

In the past, the future has resembled the past. Therefore, in the future, the future will resemble the past.  There is a missing premise, therefore the previous argument is invalid and causation cannot be deductively proven. I'm sure you have heard the same thing with swans and whatnot. You might sum it up by the sentiment "everything's inductive."

 

You're still expecting us to believe you at face value and with absolute certainty of reason.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

To your first point, we are arguing by analogy. Science, like ethics cannot support its own foundations. 

Your final conclusion makes no sense whatsoever. I can amend a hypothetical, because it's hypothetical. None of your questions have any baring on an ethical theory that revolves solely around voluntarism. You're not giving any real threatening arguments to contradict the notion that these are problems for voluntarism. Let's just say that the owner doesn't want to open the window/let him break it. Your ethical theory says this is not immoral. Problematic.  The two doctor situations I gave you are real and you've been silent about them. 

 

What has science supporting it's own foundations got to do with UPB?  All you did was state your opinions about scientific foundations. Are you saying this is analogous to UPB? 

 

My final conclusion does make sense. I didn't say you couldn't amend the hypothetical, I said it was a scenario that will not happen. The people in the scenario are just 2 dimensional characters without history or context. My ethical theory does not say it's not immoral to refuse to open the window. Your caricature of my ethical theory which you don't understand says that.

There's an argument that says such owners implicitly accept such emergency situations as a condition of living among people and as such have accepted an implicit contract to give aid if possible in these situations. IOW, if you're going to live with us then we expect you to help out in such dire life or death situations, especially when it costs you little or nothing.

Baldly stating "problematic" is not an argument. Why's it problematic? Because feelings? Because "Oh what a meany that guy is"?

HOW is it problematic? What does problematic even mean? That you have a problem with it?

Make an argument.

 

 

Thank you for marginalizing me. That is really helpful, I guess it doesn't matter anyway.  Hume's master argument against causation is what spurred Immanuel Kant to "awaken from his dogmatic slumber." It goes like this.

In the past, the future has resembled the past. Therefore, in the future, the future will resemble the past.  There is a missing premise, therefore the previous argument is invalid and causation cannot be deductively proven. I'm sure you have heard the same thing with swans and whatnot. You might sum it up by the sentiment "everything's inductive."

 

I'm stating a fact. Do you think you are the first person to present flag-pole scenarios and radical skepticism as it they're some slam-dunk rebuttal? There have been hundreds or thousands of you and you all generally follow the same pattern. 

 

 

 Hume's master argument against causation is what spurred Immanuel Kant to "awaken from his dogmatic slumber." It goes like this.

In the past, the future has resembled the past. Therefore, in the future, the future will resemble the past.  There is a missing premise, therefore the previous argument is invalid and causation cannot be deductively proven. I'm sure you have heard the same thing with swans and whatnot. You might sum it up by the sentiment "everything's inductive."

 

Yeah sure, the universe could turn into a glass of penguin inside a square-circle made from jokes. Wtf are you going on about? What's your argument? That UPB is not objective or wrong because you can imagine causality changing? That would also apply to your arguments so they would be equally wrong. Every rule you implicitly or explicitly put forward also applies to you and your argument. 

[bugzysegal]

Seriously? I got downvoted on my last post? I merely restated my contention along with providing a historical example of empirical skepticism. That's balls. 

[SamuelS]

Perhaps you should read the forum guidelines and Google the term "passive aggressive."

 

Thank you for marginalizing me. That is really helpful, I guess it doesn't matter anyway.

Doesn't sound like a mere restatement of your contention.

 

I'm not an admin or anything to be clear, just reading the thread and pointing things out.

 

 

If you can conceive of a reality in which somebody's preference is the opposite of their preference in the same moment, you'll have an argument that has something to do w UPB, until then you're just pissing in the wind.

[bugzysegal]

Perhaps you should read the forum guidelines and Google the term "passive aggressive."

 

Doesn't sound like a mere restatement of your contention.

 

I'm not an admin or anything to be clear, just reading the thread and pointing things out.

 

 

If you can conceive of a reality in which somebody's preference is the opposite of their preference in the same moment, you'll have an argument that has something to do w UPB, until then you're just pissing in the wind.

I was incensed. You were being dismissive. If you don't think so, fine.  Modal arguments are not my forte, but for this I don't think I need to be a master logician. A doctor is an unconscious person's only chance at survival and they operate. Does that person (or their estate if they don't survive) owe that doctor payment for their services and materials? Social contract theorists have no problem saying yes whereas voluntarism does. Some doctor is a persons only immediate chance of survival.  That person asks for the doctors standard contract in that situation and the doctor is aware of the severity of the situation.  Voluntarism allows for the doctor to decline without penalty.  Social contract theorists might require compensation to that person or the surviving family. These cases are not hypothetical.  They happened. Case 1 (Cotnam v. Wisdom) Case 2 (Nobel v. Williamson) EDIT: This was actually aimed at Teabagger but we have since resolved it. But the questions still stand.

[bugzysegal]

In advance, that post was aimed at teabagger.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

Here is a funny moral situation.

A man with IQ 146 thinks people should be free to murder anyone with IQ two standard deviation or below him. Is it UPB compliant?

 

Again the fundamental difficulty that exists with UPB is with the notion of preferability. Outside of the three laws of logic, that is the only addition UPB seems to add. So, whose preference matter, why does it matter, and when does it matter?

If it's murder then by definition it is not "UPB compliant". The moral justifications that underlie our actions need to be logically consistent in order to be valid. One necessary component of logical consistency is universality. Murder cannot be universal, therefore any moral justification for it cannot be valid. If it's not valid it's wrong. So murder is wrong.

you can prefer to murder but you will be wrong. That preference cannot be universal. 

In advance, that post was aimed at teabagger.

I just up-voted you to counteract it. 

[bugzysegal]

If it's murder then by definition it is not "UPB compliant". The moral justifications that underlie our actions need to be logically consistent in order to be valid. One necessary component of logical consistency is universality. Murder cannot be universal, therefore any moral justification for it cannot be valid. If it's not valid it's wrong. So murder is wrong.

you can prefer to murder but you will be wrong. That preference cannot be universal. 

I just up-voted you to counteract it. 

Murder is classified, in that it is the killing of the class of people who it would be unjust to kill. I think this person you are arguing with is placing emphasis on unjust and asking "how can we be sure anyone's definition of 'unjust' isn't arbitrary, or that everyone's isn't arbitrary?" What of the prescription "You ought to murder any blue eyed person, whenever you come across one."  Such a prescription is not impossible to uphold at all times is it? I may vaguely remember this from UPB, but not how it was hashed out.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

Murder is classified, in that it is the killing of the class of people who it would be unjust to kill. I think this person you are arguing with is placing emphasis on unjust and asking "how can we be sure anyone's definition of 'unjust' isn't arbitrary, or that everyone's isn't arbitrary?" What of the prescription "You ought to murder any blue eyed person, whenever you come across one."  Such a prescription is not impossible to uphold at all times is it? I may vaguely remember this from UPB, but not how it was hashed out.

Murder is killing someone agianst their will for reasons other than defense. That's what it actually is in reality. That can be observed. 

If anyone wishes to define it as something arbitrary then I can define their claim as arbitrary. 

 

"You ought to murder any blue eye person, whenever you come across on" fails right away. What if you are a blue-eyed person? You can't murder yourself. It would just be suicide. There's no moral distinction between a blue or or any other color eyed person so the moral prescription is arbitrary. It's breaks with universality and so cannot be valid. It's wrong.

[bugzysegal]

Murder is killing someone agianst their will for reasons other than defense. That's what it actually is in reality. That can be observed.

If anyone wishes to define it as something arbitrary then I can define their claim as arbitrary.

 

"You ought to murder any blue eye person, whenever you come across on" fails right away. What if you are a blue-eyed person? You can't murder yourself. It would just be suicide. There's no moral distinction between a blue or or any other color eyed person so the moral prescription is arbitrary. It's breaks with universality and so cannot be valid. It's wrong.

Saying there is no moral distinction assumes what people fit into the moral class. So someone who is a lethal threat to you may be among the class of people who it is ok to kill, but this assumes acceptance of the following: rights to act extend no further than they impinge on anothers right to be free from force. A violation of those limits allows a forcefull response. This reflects our intuitions, but is it based on some further reasoning?

[bugzysegal]

Oh also, "whenever you come accross one" refers to your action to all other people, and by its wording excludes the self.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

Case 1 (Cotnam v. Wisdom) Case 2 (Nobel v. Williamson)

Okay then let's use the exact details of that case and not an abstraction you claim to have derived from it.

Saying there is no moral distinction assumes what people fit into the moral class. So someone who is a lethal threat to you may be among the class of people who it is ok to kill, but this assumes acceptance of the following: rights to act extend no further than they impinge on anothers right to be free from force. A violation of those limits allows a forcefull response. This reflects our intuitions, but is it based on some further reasoning?

Well that would be self-defense which is not murder. Murder requires the initiation of force.

If there is some moral distinction between people of different eye color that what is it? 

Saying there is no moral distinction assumes what people fit into the moral class. So someone who is a lethal threat to you may be among the class of people who it is ok to kill, but this assumes acceptance of the following: rights to act extend no further than they impinge on anothers right to be free from force. A violation of those limits allows a forcefull response. This reflects our intuitions, but is it based on some further reasoning?

Well that would be self-defense which is not murder. Murder requires the initiation of force.

If there is some moral distinction between people of different eye color that what is it? 

Saying there is no moral distinction assumes what people fit into the moral class. So someone who is a lethal threat to you may be among the class of people who it is ok to kill, but this assumes acceptance of the following: rights to act extend no further than they impinge on anothers right to be free from force. A violation of those limits allows a forcefull response. This reflects our intuitions, but is it based on some further reasoning?

 

Saying there is no moral distinction assumes what people fit into the moral class. So someone who is a lethal threat to you may be among the class of people who it is ok to kill, but this assumes acceptance of the following: rights to act extend no further than they impinge on anothers right to be free from force. A violation of those limits allows a forcefull response. This reflects our intuitions, but is it based on some further reasoning?

Well that would be self-defense which is not murder. Murder requires the initiation of force.

If there is some moral distinction between people of different eye color that what is it?

Saying there is no moral distinction assumes what people fit into the moral class. So someone who is a lethal threat to you may be among the class of people who it is ok to kill, but this assumes acceptance of the following: rights to act extend no further than they impinge on anothers right to be free from force. A violation of those limits allows a forcefull response. This reflects our intuitions, but is it based on some further reasoning?

 

Saying there is no moral distinction assumes what people fit into the moral class. So someone who is a lethal threat to you may be among the class of people who it is ok to kill, but this assumes acceptance of the following: rights to act extend no further than they impinge on anothers right to be free from force. A violation of those limits allows a forcefull response. This reflects our intuitions, but is it based on some further reasoning?

Well that would be self-defense which is not murder. Murder requires the initiation of force.

If there is some moral distinction between people of different eye color that what is it?

Saying there is no moral distinction assumes what people fit into the moral class. So someone who is a lethal threat to you may be among the class of people who it is ok to kill, but this assumes acceptance of the following: rights to act extend no further than they impinge on anothers right to be free from force. A violation of those limits allows a forcefull response. This reflects our intuitions, but is it based on some further reasoning?

 

Saying there is no moral distinction assumes what people fit into the moral class. So someone who is a lethal threat to you may be among the class of people who it is ok to kill, but this assumes acceptance of the following: rights to act extend no further than they impinge on anothers right to be free from force. A violation of those limits allows a forcefull response. This reflects our intuitions, but is it based on some further reasoning?

Well that would be self-defense which is not murder. Murder requires the initiation of force.

If there is some moral distinction between people of different eye color that what is it?

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

Saying there is no moral distinction assumes what people fit into the moral class. So someone who is a lethal threat to you may be among the class of people who it is ok to kill, but this assumes acceptance of the following: rights to act extend no further than they impinge on anothers right to be free from force. A violation of those limits allows a forcefull response. This reflects our intuitions, but is it based on some further reasoning?

 

Well that would be self-defense which is not murder. Murder requires the initiation of force.

If there is some moral distinction between people of different eye color that what is it? 

[bugzysegal]

Well that would be self-defense which is not murder. Murder requires the initiation of force.

If there is some moral distinction between people of different eye color that what is it? 

My point is that there is no reason there couldn't be such a moral edict, not that there is such a difference. So basically "there must be a moral distinction between types of things, for a moral prescription to distinguish differential treatment" is itself not self-evident.  You can take it as axiomatic, but axioms are not necessarily true....That's not to take away from its possible usefulness, but we don't have to grant it. Also I'm just jumping in this debate since it seems thats where the current is taking us.  If you have some answers for problems with voluntarism...I'd be especially keen to hear those.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

My point is that there is no reason there couldn't be such a moral edict, not that there is such a difference. So basically "there must be a moral distinction between types of things, for a moral prescription to distinguish differential treatment" is itself not self-evident.  You can take it as axiomatic, but axioms are not necessarily true....That's not to take away from its possible usefulness, but we don't have to grant it. Also I'm just jumping in this debate since it seems thats where the current is taking us.  If you have some answers for problems with voluntarism...I'd be especially keen to hear those.

Of course there could be such an edict but it's still wrong. 

If you're going to to apply different ethical rules to people (like different eye color) then you need to show why those differences are morally relevant, otherwise the the ethic is arbitrary and wrong. I'm not taking it as axiomatic. The ethical rule would be not logically consistent; ergo wrong. It's not an act of faith to assume a rule needs to be logically consistent. 

Usefulness is irrelevant. This is about what is true and valid. 

What problems with voluntarism? If you have a argument that shows we wrong then clearly state the argument. Otherwise you need to concede we are correct. 

[bugzysegal]

What has science supporting it's own foundations got to do with UPB?  All you did was state your opinions about scientific foundations. Are you saying this is analogous to UPB? 

 

My final conclusion does make sense. I didn't say you couldn't amend the hypothetical, I said it was a scenario that will not happen. The people in the scenario are just 2 dimensional characters without history or context. My ethical theory does not say it's not immoral to refuse to open the window. Your caricature of my ethical theory which you don't understand says that.

There's an argument that says such owners implicitly accept such emergency situations as a condition of living among people and as such have accepted an implicit contract to give aid if possible in these situations. IOW, if you're going to live with us then we expect you to help out in such dire life or death situations, especially when it costs you little or nothing.

Baldly stating "problematic" is not an argument. Why's it problematic? Because feelings? Because "Oh what a meany that guy is"?

HOW is it problematic? What does problematic even mean? That you have a problem with it?

Make an argument.

 

 

 

I'm stating a fact. Do you think you are the first person to present flag-pole scenarios and radical skepticism as it they're some slam-dunk rebuttal? There have been hundreds or thousands of you and you all generally follow the same pattern. 

 

 

 

Yeah sure, the universe could turn into a glass of penguin inside a square-circle made from jokes. Wtf are you going on about? What's your argument? That UPB is not objective or wrong because you can imagine causality changing? That would also apply to your arguments so they would be equally wrong. Every rule you implicitly or explicitly put forward also applies to you and your argument

My arguments are inductive...or more precisely questioning the foundations of deduction. Foudational philosophy works like so...axioms + deductions =philosophy. This jabs at that middle part. it's reasoning, but not of the deductive kind.  It's just pointing out that when we reason deductively, we take causality for granted. You can add this into your list of axioms, but that means you've abandoned trying to justify your use of deductive arguments. 

Of course there could be such an edict but it's still wrong. 

If you're going to to apply different ethical rules to people (like different eye color) then you need to show why those differences are morally relevant, otherwise the the ethic is arbitrary and wrong. I'm not taking it as axiomatic. The ethical rule would be not logically consistent; ergo wrong. It's not an act of faith to assume a rule needs to be logically consistent. 

Usefulness is irrelevant. This is about what is true and valid. 

What problems with voluntarism? If you have a argument that shows we wrong then clearly state the argument. Otherwise you need to concede we are correct. 

I can't find the posts, don't know if they are under review, but whatever. I'll restate analogous examples that are real world. There is a person seeking to contract with a doctor, who has no other recourse because they are in need of immediate medical attention and this is the only doctor within an area that would be able to help in time. (Nobel v. Williamson)The doctor (who is aware of these circumstances)  when only held responsible under voluntarism, can be in no way held morally culpable for refusing to take the contract. Social contract theory says that doctor could say that the doctor should be obligated to act and that the patient (or estate if that person dies) should be able to recover damages. (Cotnam v. Wisdom) A doctor preforms a sophisticated surgery on someone who is unconscious, without someone who represents their estate asking him to do so. Voluntarism says that person(or the estate if they die) who receives medical attention is under no obligation to pay the doctor for their materials and services. Again the majority of people find this extremely problematic and think that the doctor should receive payment, with social contract theory being the background of their reasoning.  If you don't think these are a problem, consider that they are foundation to the biggest debates in legal contract reasoning. Oh, and guess what, freedom of contract is by no means a new concept. Sure you can defer to the principles despite intuitions, but that seems a bit overzealous.

Oh and to provide further context...the doctor in Nobel. v Williamson had treated this person for years, but there was no explicit term in any contract or verbal agreement stating that there would be continued service.  For whatever reason, the doctor didn't treat that person. Maybe the guy eyed up his wife....no idea.  The motivation is irrelevant so long as it's not contractual.

[Guest Gee]

Actually the only laws of classical physics that seem to be without exception are those of gravitation, if I remember correctly that is.  Even the speed of light changes with enough gravity. If we are talking about fundamental forces acting uniformly, most have exceptions under extreme circumstances (problems that some scientists postulate may never be solvable).  I think one example is what happens to information that goes into a black hole.

Funny that you should mention this.  When I was scrounging for applications of paraconsistent logic, apparently some philosophers of science think it may be useful to explain wave-particle duality. 

The idea that physics wont break down in the future is as inductive as any other. There are no self-evident axioms of science, just axioms science elects not to challenge.

 

The speed of light is invariant (Google for a source).

 

Different fundament forces dominate over different ranges and energies. They do not break down, they simply become so small as to be meaningless and so are omitted for ease of use. (Google again).

 

As to my statement of fundamental symmetry:

 

Scientists working with ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment), a heavy-ion detector on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) ring, have made precise measurements of particle mass and electric charge that confirm the existence of a fundamental symmetry in nature. The investigators include Brazilian researchers affiliated with the University of São Paulo (USP) and the University of Campinas (UNICAMP).

 

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-09-fundamental-symmetry-nature.html#jCp

 

From this fundimental symmetry laws of physics are derived (See Nothers theorem for great examples).

 

From this fundimental symmetry comes time invariance and from time invariance comes the consistency of physical laws.

 

More formally,

 

Fundimental symmetry implies time invariance.

Time invariance implies consistent physical laws.

 

As fundimental symmetry is valid so time invariance is valid so the consistence of physical law is valid.

[labmath2]

If it's murder then by definition it is not "UPB compliant". The moral justifications that underlie our actions need to be logically consistent in order to be valid. One necessary component of logical consistency is universality. Murder cannot be universal, therefore any moral justification for it cannot be valid. If it's not valid it's wrong. So murder is wrong.

you can prefer to murder but you will be wrong. That preference cannot be universal. 

 

I started a thread to address this point in particular, but since its lost in limbo, might as well discuss it here. The question about preferences is one about categories that matter. In our society, people get treated differently based on species, race, gender, emotional state, mental state, disease (mental), IQ (below 80), occupation, relation, nationality, e.t.c. UPB does not explicitly show why any categorization is wrong. Going back to the eye color example, an edict that states killing of blue eyed persons has no moral content is wrong because its arbitrary, not because it can't be universalized (stated otherwise, their preference to live counts as much as a chicken's preference to live). Now going by what Stefan said in my call in show, capacity for language matters in determining if UPB applies or not. I also imagine we do not apply the same standards to children or mentally deficient people. The problem lies in the fact that people accept categories such as government, for which different rules apply in the same way they accept limitations on children's culpability or behavior. 

 

When i ask whose preference matter, why does it matter and when does it matter, i am trying to pin down which categories count and which do not and why. 

 

Simple case, for killing, we only check the preference of the victim to see if it is moral. If the victim prefers it, its assisted suicide, if he does not, its murder. The perpetrators preference is irrelevant. The victims preference matter because the action infringes on his person and he is a UPB relevant actor. His preference matters anytime someone else's action infringes on his person or property.

 

When the same exercise is done for government, you get really weird answers. Preference of government officials matter more than the citizens. The government officials preference matters more because of the powers invested in him by the citizens. The government official's preferences always matter more than the citizens.

Granted i don't think even the most avid statists like those answers, they accept it to be true because they see government as a special category that is superior to the citizen. How can we disavow them of this natural tendency to ascribe moral relevance to arbitrary categories?

[SamuelS]

...the majority of people find this extremely problematic and think that the doctor should receive payment, with social contract theory being the background of their reasoning.

Bandwagon fallacies and social contract theory have nothing to do w UPB...social contract theory breaks universality, unless everyone can charge everyone for everything at which point it becomes meaningless as we all furiously send out bills cancelling those we've received.

 

Do you even have a position to defend, or is the mere fact that "arguments could be made" enough to sustain you?

[bugzysegal]

Bandwagon fallacies and social contract theory have nothing to do w UPB...social contract theory breaks universality, unless everyone can charge everyone for everything at which point it becomes meaningless as we all furiously send out bills cancelling those we've received.

 

Do you even have a position to defend, or is the mere fact that "arguments could be made" enough to sustain you?

 

The speed of light is invariant (Google for a source).

 

Different fundament forces dominate over different ranges and energies. They do not break down, they simply become so small as to be meaningless and so are omitted for ease of use. (Google again).

 

As to my statement of fundamental symmetry:

 

Scientists working with ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment), a heavy-ion detector on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) ring, have made precise measurements of particle mass and electric charge that confirm the existence of a fundamental symmetry in nature. The investigators include Brazilian researchers affiliated with the University of São Paulo (USP) and the University of Campinas (UNICAMP).

 

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-09-fundamental-symmetry-nature.html#jCp

 

From this fundimental symmetry laws of physics are derived (See Nothers theorem for great examples).

 

From this fundimental symmetry comes time invariance and from time invariance comes the consistency of physical laws.

 

More formally,

 

Fundimental symmetry implies time invariance.

Time invariance implies consistent physical laws.

 

As fundimental symmetry is valid so time invariance is valid so the consistence of physical law is valid.

Scientists have stopped light.  Lights speed is invariant in a vacuum. There are no perfect vacuums, not even space. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2380028/Scientists-stop-light-completely-record-breaking-MINUTE-trapping-inside-crystal.html

[bugzysegal]

Bandwagon fallacies and social contract theory have nothing to do w UPB...social contract theory breaks universality, unless everyone can charge everyone for everything at which point it becomes meaningless as we all furiously send out bills cancelling those we've received.

 

Do you even have a position to defend, or is the mere fact that "arguments could be made" enough to sustain you?

Intuitions are all that inform your selection of your axioms(i.e. universalizeability). A justification of an axiom is non-sense, because it is the foundation.  To dig deeper than a foundation is non-nonsensical. Stop trying to universalize. Life is contextual and so there is a uniqueness that informs every situation. I'm not saying "we all think x; therefore x" What I am saying is that UPB is mistaken and that a great number of people (many of who are smarter than you, I, or Stefan and who have put more productive effort into considering these things) also think so. This should be disconcerting, not an argument in and of itself. Trying to define ethics is the first mistake. Fitting "universal" into that definition is the second one. The rest is dominoes. The idea that a doctor who offers contracts to the public has an obligation which extends beyond his freedom to contract, is something that lays outside the domain of voluntarism and property rights, but is still moral. I'll rescind the "social contract theory" because I'm not actually very familiar with it and suspect it might be fascist. Anyway on Utilitarian grounds, (Utilitarianism is not UPB, it is a competing ethical framework) life has intrinsic value. If it's not obvious, consider walking by a baby drowning in a puddle.  There is no one else around.  Are you obligated to turn over the baby? Why? If you feel the pull to say yes there is an obligation, but retreat to voluntarism or property rights, you have messed up.This intrinsic value is paramount in the decision making in these cases. The best course of action is weighing the consequences subverting one's autonomy for the sake of saving a life.

The speed of light is invariant (Google for a source).

 

Different fundament forces dominate over different ranges and energies. They do not break down, they simply become so small as to be meaningless and so are omitted for ease of use. (Google again).

 

As to my statement of fundamental symmetry:

 

Scientists working with ALICE (A Large Ion Collider Experiment), a heavy-ion detector on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) ring, have made precise measurements of particle mass and electric charge that confirm the existence of a fundamental symmetry in nature. The investigators include Brazilian researchers affiliated with the University of São Paulo (USP) and the University of Campinas (UNICAMP).

 

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-09-fundamental-symmetry-nature.html#jCp

 

From this fundimental symmetry laws of physics are derived (See Nothers theorem for great examples).

 

From this fundimental symmetry comes time invariance and from time invariance comes the consistency of physical laws.

 

More formally,

 

Fundimental symmetry implies time invariance.

Time invariance implies consistent physical laws.

 

As fundimental symmetry is valid so time invariance is valid so the consistence of physical law is valid.

Aside from the example I gave in a post that's being reviewed, there is the example of planck temperatures. This is where conditions are so hot that the fundamental forces (or more precisely the equations which predict their behavior) break down. "At temperatures greater than or equal to T_P, current physical theory breaks down because we lack a theory of quantum gravity.^[2]" 

[Guest Gee]

Aside from the example I gave in a post that's being reviewed, there is the example of planck temperatures. This is where conditions are so hot that the fundamental forces (or more precisely the equations which predict their behavior) break down. "At temperatures greater than or equal to T_P, current physical theory breaks down because we lack a theory of quantum gravity.^[2]" 

 

~Researchers from The University of Western Australia and Humboldt University of Berlin have completed testing that has effectively measured the spatial consistency of the speed of light with a precision ten times greater than ever before.

 

The stringent testing also confirmed a core component of Einstein's theory of Relativity known as 'Lorentz symmetry,' which predicts that the speed of light is the same in all directions.

 

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-09-greater-precision.html#jCp

 

To say a law breaks down is a misnomer. What is really being said is that at high temperatures (recall temperature is proportional to energy thus at high energies) the laws that describe the behaviour under consideration no longer fully describes the observed behaviour. From this we conclude that the behaviour under consideration must be dominated by some as yet unknown phenomenon.  

 

In your example said unknown would be the effect upon behaviour as a function of quantum gravity.

[bugzysegal]

~Researchers from The University of Western Australia and Humboldt University of Berlin have completed testing that has effectively measured the spatial consistency of the speed of light with a precision ten times greater than ever before.

 

The stringent testing also confirmed a core component of Einstein's theory of Relativity known as 'Lorentz symmetry,' which predicts that the speed of light is the same in all directions.

 

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-09-greater-precision.html#jCp

 

To say a law breaks down is a misnomer. What is really being said is that at high temperatures (recall temperature is proportional to energy thus at high energies) the laws that describe the behaviour under consideration no longer fully describes the observed behaviour. From this we conclude that the behaviour under consideration must be dominated by some as yet unknown phenomenon.  

 

In your example said unknown would be the effect upon behaviour as a function of quantum gravity.

True. That's why I described it as the equations falling short. But I think the point is that nothing can be taken as fundamentally true. We have no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes right? Today its quantum gravity, tomorrow its super string theory.

[Guest Gee]

True. That's why I described it as the equations falling short. But I think the point is that nothing can be taken as fundamentally true. We have no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes right? Today its quantum gravity, tomorrow its super string theory.

 

Nothing can be taken as fundamentally true except for the statement that nothing can be taken as fundamentally true, right?

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

My arguments are inductive...or more precisely questioning the foundations of deduction. Foudational philosophy works like so...axioms + deductions =philosophy. This jabs at that middle part. it's reasoning, but not of the deductive kind.  It's just pointing out that when we reason deductively, we take causality for granted. You can add this into your list of axioms, but that means you've abandoned trying to justify your use of deductive arguments. 

 

I do not know what argument you are making (other than some "we can't prove our axioms so everything that follows is faith, blah blah, blah..." argument) or what it's got to do with UPB being objective. Are you saying UPB is not objective because nothing is? 

 

 

I can't find the posts, don't know if they are under review, but whatever. I'll restate analogous examples that are real world. There is a person seeking to contract with a doctor, who has no other recourse because they are in need of immediate medical attention and this is the only doctor within an area that would be able to help in time. (Nobel v. Williamson)The doctor (who is a ...

I can't really respond to this because you are using a caricature of voluntarism. Your categorizations of what would happen under these broad abstract scenarios is not necessarily true. 

Again simply referring to a case in real life and then presenting it as an abstract scenario is not valid because the detail required to apply ethics do not exist in it.

If you have an argument that UPB or voluntarist ethics are wrong could please just present that?

[bugzysegal]

Nothing can be taken as fundamentally true except for the statement that nothing can be taken as fundamentally true, right?

Well, we may one day discover a workable Theory of Everything. I don't believe we will because of Godel's theorum, but I don't know if you can rule it out.

I do not know what argument you are making (other than some "we can't prove our axioms so everything that follows is faith, blah blah, blah..." argument) or what it's got to do with UPB being objective. Are you saying UPB is not objective because nothing is? 

 

 

I can't really respond to this because you are using a caricature of voluntarism. Your categorizations of what would happen under these broad abstract scenarios is not necessarily true. 

Again simply referring to a case in real life and then presenting it as an abstract scenario is not valid because the detail required to apply ethics do not exist in it.

If you have an argument that UPB or voluntarist ethics are wrong could please just present that?

For the first part, "objectivity" as describing something grounded in things deeper than the behaviors, traditions, customs, and practices of a culture, like pointing to some truer truth, is mistaken. That is, there is no value added to saying it's objectively true that 2+2=4. If that means anything, then it is objectively true that those red delicious shiny things(imagine I had an apple in my hand) = apples. When you say well sure they are both objectively true because they point to some true about some fundamental true state of affairs about reality, I would ask then is the word "this" or "that" or "pain" less objective?

 

For the second part...what details would you like? I can give you the full fact set of the case, or make up ones.  I'm not sure how it's relevant, but I'll still give you what you ask.

[bugzysegal]

As a final comment on a thread that will likely die off here, I want to note that I've never been willfully misleading or vague. I have read every single post and to the best of my ability responded in accordance with what I believe is the appropriate answer from the Wittgensteinian perspective. If I was hostile at times, I apologize, but not once has my dissent been met with open arms. This is disheartening. 

[bugzysegal]

I haven't had the whole thread but...

 

 

 

You're welcome to call back in with any UPB questions though...

I will be calling back! I was apologizing as far as my candor turned people away from the arguments and further embittered them to me. It is really tough defending attacks from all sides and I have the tendency when undertaking an avalanche of criticism and get hot headed. I have to mindful of the fact that alien ideas are treated like intruders and that the whole point was to open the flood gates for criticism.

 

In short I don't think anger, on this occasion, was a reasonable response. This is distinguishable from my continuous effort to respond to each post without being vague or misleading. 

 

I also think there was unnecessary hostility leveled my way in certain instances.