Life is not a debate - UPB assumptions

[Will Torbald]

If you accept the premises, the conclusions follow necessarily. That is the basis of all rational argument. In all UPB debates, the defense side invokes the premises of debate and declares that from the assumptions, the plaintiff must have already accepted the outcome. However, the problem of applicability of the initial assumptions isn't solved. Why would we apply the rules of debate to life at large? Debate is debate, chess is chess, tennis is tennis. If someone wanted to skip ahead in line over the chess rule that whites go before blacks, we'd think he's a little mental. If someone wanted to justify abolishing the state because the rules of debate say so, we'd think he's a philosopher instead.

 

I fully acknowledge that right now I am using the assumptions of UPB for the sake of debate and argument. What I also realize is that I can also live without most of them and do just as well. And you might say "so what, so is the scientific method, but that doesn't mean that it isn't true" - but no one is saying that you are immoral if you're not scientific. Scienstists don't go into churches to condemn the priests for talking about miracles. I also know that debate is a practice, not a reality. You go into the tennis court, you sit at the chess table, you talk at the debate square. But all those events are on/off bubbles that people turn in order to achieve a goal. If morality is for something, it's not to win a game, but for life. And life is not about truth, nor about winning, or being right, or being objective. The universe couldn't care less about those things. Life has existed without knowing any of those things, and will continue long after humans become extinct. This sounds fatalistic or nihilistic, perhaps, but this isn't an attempt to justify moral nihilism. Nor am I am a moral nihilist, just someone who questions why a moral system must insist on asserting that their rules must be universal when they are particular like the ones for chess or tennis are.

 

If you wanted to live in this world with any sense of rationality, the assumptions: "We both exist" and "The senses have capacity for accuracy" are enough for all living forms. Language has a capacity for meaning is enough to initiate discourse and communication - good for human life. "Correction requires universal preferences" is a bit complicated. I would say it requires mutually agreed preference, as in to say that if you have agreed to debate, you also have agreed to be corrected. Yet in life people most certainly hate being corrected, nor do they want to change their opinions, so here we start seeing the deviation from the assumptions required for living and the ones taken for debating. No one needs corrections in their life, and the history of the world and religions show that sometimes the most succesful lives resist correction against all odds.

 

"An objective methodology exists for separating truth from falsehood" - I think this forces the conclusion since truth and falsehood are already objective claims to begin with. They include objectivity in their essence, so to speak. Maybe it's just meant to be redundant on purpose. Might as well be called "truth and falsehood exist" - but the following assumption "Truth is better than falsehood" doesn't really follow necessarily from any logical conclussion. It is only something agreed for a debate, yet life doesn't need it. I know you don't go around Christmas telling children that Santa doesn't exist because you're not a jerk - but you will insist that I have agreed that Truth Is Better Than Falsehood in this debate and in all the world for all past and future - so I hope next Christmas you start a worldwide campaign against Santa since you also agree that it is False, so you must fight against it. But no, it is just a debate rule in order to declare somebody the winner of it. I wouldn't really hold you accountable for your debate assumption in life because I know life is not a debate. Do you, though? Peaceful debating is the best way to resolve disputes - or the debate is good assumption, since we're debating we must agree that it is good, otherwise we wouldn't do it. But so what? Why must I, in life, choose the best way at all? Maybe I prefer the least complicated one. Would that be wrong? Why? Maybe the best way isn't available and force is. Life is messy like that.

 

"Individuals are responsible for their actions" - isn't that an entire separate moral debate? This is assuming the conclusion of the most important challenge in all of moral philosophy, and here it's just a given assumption because we are debating. The crux is proving that someone is responsible, not assuming it. And for the sake of the debate, sure, I can totally assume you are a responsible being in sentience of your mind - but I don't need to assume that outside of it. There are many degrees of determinism and kinds of determinism that are scientifically valid considerations that the premise of UPB being a scientific approach to ethics looks thin next to them. Even in a perfectly healthy looking person, how do you know his brain isn't hardwired for the decisions and preferences he takes? Or that he or she lacks a neurological structure for self control that others have? Or that even when it looks like self control, they lack a function to begin agressions? Someone would look very righteous and moral, but then they can't even think mordbidly. Would that be a good person if he's incapable of wrong? I don't like bringing even physical determinism since that would involve quantum mechanics and parallel universes, and I know those ideas are kind of unpopular in these debates. But for such a big assumption to make for the sake of debate, the justification of taking that into life at large is missing big time. The only thing done is saying that assuming the rules of debate must somehow imply that they are also rules you must follow at all times everywhere under all circumstances.

 

Why?

 

-Epilogue

 

If you agree with me, then you probably realized that UPB isn't really derived from the observed and experienced requirements for life, but a position wholely assumed through initial preferences that are taken for the sake of forcing the conclusions they demand. In this sense, I would admit that the moral rules of UPB apply only during a debate, but not outside of it since UPB doesn't justify keeping those assumptions in life at large. The night is a jungle, and the assumptions you make about it shape the lenses you use to see the world. In one lense, something is moral. In another, it's immoral. But now what? If you still agree with me, you would say "but which moral system is the right one?" and I have my own thoughts about it, but that's not the point, and it would be for another thread. But if you were driving on a mountain, and I told you that the road you took leads to a precipice - would you stop, or would you tell me that you wouldn't turn back unless I told you what the right way to go is? I don't know for sure, but that's not as important as not falling off the mountain.

 

Like any good scientific/rational proposition, I also include falsifiability. For me to be wrong, I would only need evidence that the assumptions of debate, and UPB, must be taken for life. That they are not optional assumptions, but that they have to be taken at all. If you say that they have to be taken in order to be moral, you are begging the question since you are defining morality through the conclusions of the assumptions, and that's just cheating. That which is moral or immoral changes sides when you switch to other systems, so why is this system necessary to assume in contrast to others?

[Anuojat]

"Why would we apply the rules of debate to life at large?"

 

Do mean to say why should we? "Would" seems to indicate a question for motivation which is all but induvidual. Some people clearly dont and are thus hyprocrites.

[Will Torbald]

"Why would we apply the rules of debate to life at large?"

 

Do mean to say why should we? "Would" seems to indicate a question for motivation which is all but induvidual. Some people clearly dont and are thus hyprocrites.

 

It's not hypocritical to make assumptions for the sake of debate knowing that they are not assumptions required for life, nor are they proven statements to be taken seriously from a scientific point of view. I adressed this.

[Anuojat]

It's not hypocritical to make assumptions for the sake of debate knowing that they are not assumptions required for life, nor are they proven statements to be taken seriously from a scientific point of view. I adressed this.

1. Ok but that wasnt my main question though.

 

2. I feel like this is weaseling out of responceability, just my feeling that youre trying to validate being hyporcrite somehow, maybe i am completely off and worried for no good reason but this is how i feel. I think theres fear there too.

 

And so what do YOU think being hypocritical would mean? I think we may differ on the understanding of that word along with my fear.

Perhaps i feel fear because i dont understand what you define as hypocracy.

[Will Torbald]

1. Ok but that wasnt my main question though.

 

2. I feel like this is weaseling out of responceability, just my feeling that youre trying to validate being hyporcrite somehow, maybe i am completely off and worried for no good reason but this is how i feel. I think theres fear there too.

 

And so what do YOU think being hypocritical would mean? I think we may differ on the understanding of that word along with my fear.

Perhaps i feel fear because i dont understand what you define as hypocracy.

 

1- I think making a distinction between would we/should we is trivial. The intention of the question remains the same. I'll rewrite it without those two words so that you may understand it better: Why are you demanding me to take the assumptions required for a debate into life at large when it isn't a debate? Debate is a bubble in time, an artificial construct required to elucidate philosophical questions. It's not been shown why those rules have to be applied in a non-debate environment. 

 

2- My definition is the standard definition. I don't want to deviate the subject into that area. I don't know what you are afraid of.

[Nathan Metric]

If you accept the premises, the conclusions follow necessarily. That is the basis of all rational argument. In all UPB debates, the defense side invokes the premises of debate and declares that from the assumptions, the plaintiff must have already accepted the outcome. However, the problem of applicability of the initial assumptions isn't solved. Why would we apply the rules of debate to life at large? Debate is debate, chess is chess, tennis is tennis. If someone wanted to skip ahead in line over the chess rule that whites go before blacks, we'd think he's a little mental. If someone wanted to justify abolishing the state because the rules of debate say so, we'd think he's a philosopher instead.

 

Debates are about logic. About the truth. Are you expecting us to believe when it comes to life at large it doesn't matter if you act illogically? That is total nonsense. The reason we care about logic is because we care about truth and the reason we care about the truth is because we care about avoiding pain. The quickest way to experience pain is to not care about the truth. Anyone who denies the meaning of their own pain is full of crap. Empirically speaking that is simply how people act. They treat their pain as the most meaningful thing in their lives.

 

 

I fully acknowledge that right now I am using the assumptions of UPB for the sake of debate and argument. What I also realize is that I can also live without most of them and do just as well. And you might say "so what, so is the scientific method, but that doesn't mean that it isn't true" - but no one is saying that you are immoral if you're not scientific. Scienstists don't go into churches to condemn the priests for talking about miracles. I also know that debate is a practice, not a reality. You go into the tennis court, you sit at the chess table, you talk at the debate square. But all those events are on/off bubbles that people turn in order to achieve a goal. If morality is for something, it's not to win a game, but for life. And life is not about truth, nor about winning, or being right, or being objective. The universe couldn't care less about those things. Life has existed without knowing any of those things, and will continue long after humans become extinct. This sounds fatalistic or nihilistic, perhaps, but this isn't an attempt to justify moral nihilism. Nor am I am a moral nihilist, just someone who questions why a moral system must insist on asserting that their rules must be universal when they are particular like the ones for chess or tennis are.

Couples of things

 

1)I call BS when you say you live without the application of most of the UPB rules. The breaking of moral rules is a more immediate threat to your health than anything. It can take a long time for a disease to kill you, but one driver who is driving his car in an immoral fashion will kill you in an instant. This idea that ethics has nothing to do with a healthy life is total nonsense. It is not even wrong....it is literally the exact opposite of the truth.

2)When a scientists calls someone else unscientific they actually are in fact calling them immoral. If being unscientific wasn't immoral calling people unscientific would have no meaning whatsoever.

3)Ethics is for our well-being Not fulfilling the wishes of the universe.

 

If you wanted to live in this world with any sense of rationality, the assumptions: "We both exist" and "The senses have capacity for accuracy" are enough for all living forms. Language has a capacity for meaning is enough to initiate discourse and communication - good for human life. "Correction requires universal preferences" is a bit complicated. I would say it requires mutually agreed preference, as in to say that if you have agreed to debate, you also have agreed to be corrected. Yet in life people most certainly hate being corrected, nor do they want to change their opinions, so here we start seeing the deviation from the assumptions required for living and the ones taken for debating. No one needs corrections in their life, and the history of the world and religions show that sometimes the most succesful lives resist correction against all odds.

 

If you wanna get truly metaphysical nobody "needs" to do anything except obey the natural laws of the universe. That is irrelevant. Nobody is talking about what you need to do, but rather about what you should do. You cannot argue that one ought to be illogical because a)acting illogically leads to pain and anyone who denies their own pain is full of crap and b)it is a completely meaningless statement.

 

"An objective methodology exists for separating truth from falsehood" - I think this forces the conclusion since truth and falsehood are already objective claims to begin with. They include objectivity in their essence, so to speak. Maybe it's just meant to be redundant on purpose. Might as well be called "truth and falsehood exist" - but the following assumption "Truth is better than falsehood" doesn't really follow necessarily from any logical conclusion. It is only something agreed for a debate, yet life doesn't need it. I know you don't go around Christmas telling children that Santa doesn't exist because you're not a jerk - but you will insist that I have agreed that Truth Is Better Than Falsehood in this debate and in all the world for all past and future - so I hope next Christmas you start a worldwide campaign against Santa since you also agree that it is False, so you must fight against it. But no, it is just a debate rule in order to declare somebody the winner of it. I wouldn't really hold you accountable for your debate assumption in life because I know life is not a debate. Do you, though? Peaceful debating is the best way to resolve disputes - or the debate is good assumption, since we're debating we must agree that it is good, otherwise we wouldn't do it. But so what? Why must I, in life, choose the best way at all? Maybe I prefer the least complicated one. Would that be wrong? Why? Maybe the best way isn't available and force is. Life is messy like that.

"Truth is better than falsehood" is an axiom in the same way the Law of Identity is an axiom. Anyone you make an argument against something either you're making a truth claim on the assumption that one ought to adhere to the truth or you're just spouting meaningless opinions.

 

Let me give one more reason the ethics of debate ought to be ethics of life. See we do not just live life automatically. We live by choice. When we live we have to live in a particular manner. You have to move somewhere. You have to be somebody. You have to work at a particular job or particular jobs. You have to marry a particular person. You have to look at something in particular. If you're  going to college there is an infinity of fields you can study. Without a value structure you don't even know what you are supposed to study.

 

We care about ethics because we care about having a value structure. Without a value structure the human being just becomes paralyzed. The first value is the value of pain. People can deny the truth, deny that they think, deny objective morality, they can even deny objective reality, but nobody ever denies their own suffering. We do not like pain so therefore we value logic. Now if logic is a value then that means systems of beliefs that are logical are preferable to ones that are illogical. So thus we arrive at the idea of "truth is better than falsehood".

 

 

"Individuals are responsible for their actions" - isn't that an entire separate moral debate? This is assuming the conclusion of the most important challenge in all of moral philosophy, and here it's just a given assumption because we are debating. The crux is proving that someone is responsible, not assuming it. And for the sake of the debate, sure, I can totally assume you are a responsible being in sentience of your mind - but I don't need to assume that outside of it. There are many degrees of determinism and kinds of determinism that are scientifically valid considerations that the premise of UPB being a scientific approach to ethics looks thin next to them. Even in a perfectly healthy looking person, how do you know his brain isn't hardwired for the decisions and preferences he takes? Or that he or she lacks a neurological structure for self control that others have? Or that even when it looks like self control, they lack a function to begin agressions? Someone would look very righteous and moral, but then they can't even think mordbidly. Would that be a good person if he's incapable of wrong? I don't like bringing even physical determinism since that would involve quantum mechanics and parallel universes, and I know those ideas are kind of unpopular in these debates. But for such a big assumption to make for the sake of debate, the justification of taking that into life at large is missing big time. The only thing done is saying that assuming the rules of debate must somehow imply that they are also rules you must follow at all times everywhere under all circumstances.

 

Why?

 

 

If you believe people are responsible for their actions in a debate then why wouldn't they be responsible for their actions for life at large? That is intellectual cheating. Humans are not like rocks falling down a hill. They are capable of programing themselves and being programmed by others. That's free will.

If we are to believe that the ethics of argumentation have nothing to do with the ethics of life then we must believe that one can live virtuously without knowing what the truth is. That is a completely insane belief.

 

 

 

Like any good scientific/rational proposition, I also include falsifiability. For me to be wrong, I would only need evidence that the assumptions of debate, and UPB, must be taken for life. That they are not optional assumptions, but that they have to be taken at all. If you say that they have to be taken in order to be moral, you are begging the question since you are defining morality through the conclusions of the assumptions, and that's just cheating. That which is moral or immoral changes sides when you switch to other systems, so why is this system necessary to assume in contrast to others?

 

Ethics is not about what you "have" to do but about what you should do. You are very confused about the nature of ethics. Yes, there is nothing "necessary" about following UPB. Nobody has said such a thing. If however you want to be ethical, if you want to live a meaningful life, if you care about your own health and the health of Western civilization then you better damn well behave ethically and spread around the concept of universal ethics.

[Anuojat]

1- I think making a distinction between would we/should we is trivial. The intention of the question remains the same. I'll rewrite it without those two words so that you may understand it better: Why are you demanding me to take the assumptions required for a debate into life at large when it isn't a debate? Debate is a bubble in time, an artificial construct required to elucidate philosophical questions. It's not been shown why those rules have to be applied in a non-debate environment. 

 

2- My definition is the standard definition. I don't want to deviate the subject into that area. I don't know what you are afraid of.

1. How is a debate an artificial construct seperate from rest of our lives? Do you stop using principles and acting accoring to them outside of debates?

 

Actions without words are still assertions of ones values and principles, i dont see anythign disconnecting debate from the rest of our lives. If i say in debate that "yes reason and evidence and logic hold sway and i must assume X, Y and Z" and then i go away into rest of my day and steal and lie and manipulate people in non-debates then i am a Hypocrite. Now if you NEVER debate that might get you off the hook but even then you are asserting propert right, self ownership and Consistency as principles BY YOUR ACTIONS.

 

I dont know what defination of Hypocrite you are using and so i asked, if you dont want to delve into that, thats your choice but i think this is the source of the disagreement.

 

Defination is waht philosofy should start with, as Stef say and i agree with him.

[Will Torbald]

1. How is a debate an artificial construct seperate from rest of our lives? Do you stop using principles and acting accoring to them outside of debates?

 

Actions without words are still assertions of ones values and principles, i dont see anythign disconnecting debate from the rest of our lives. If i say in debate that "yes reason and evidence and logic hold sway and i must assume X, Y and Z" and then i go away into rest of my day and steal and lie and manipulate people in non-debates then i am a Hypocrite. Now if you NEVER debate that might get you off the hook but even then you are asserting propert right, self ownership and Consistency as principles BY YOUR ACTIONS.

 

I dont know what defination of Hypocrite you are using and so i asked, if you dont want to delve into that, thats your choice but i think this is the source of the disagreement.

 

Defination is waht philosofy should start with, as Stef say and i agree with him.

 

This line of thinking, the "actions are assertions of the principles" is not something I concur with. Property rights, self ownership, consistency, these are all descriptions of something only from a particular point of view - but that point of view is one that hasn't been resolved through proof, only assumed initially by choice. One trick you use is to say "well, aren't you moving your body? then you agree with property rights checkmate lol" and that is nonsense. Even Stefan made a video about how the whole concept of "rights" is not philosophically accurate. Nor is it materially evident. It is accurate to say instead that the principles you project onto my actions exist only in your projections, not in my actions.

 

On the debate side, you made two comments "i dont see anythign disconnecting debate from the rest of our lives" and "Do you stop using principles and acting accoring to them outside of debates?" - and well, they're not arguments. In one you express disbelief, and in the other a rhetorical question. It is up to you to make positive claims backed by positive evidence that life and debate are one in the same - and that argument must be exclusive to debate, otherwise I could use it for, say videogame/life continuum where I could claim that the rules of Grand Theft Auto apply in the real world too.

 

As I see it, the projection of principles and the idea of a debate/life continuum are linked together from on tying force: the inability to separate game from reality. We don't live in a world with rules. All the rules are projected from our minds into the world, including the rules of debate. They are only assumptions taken to participate in a mental sport. Tennis is a ball sport. Chess is a board sport. But we don't have tennis/life continuum, or chess/life continuum.

Debates are about logic. About the truth. Are you expecting us to believe when it comes to life at large it doesn't matter if you act illogically? That is total nonsense. The reason we care about logic is because we care about truth and the reason we care about the truth is because we care about avoiding pain. The quickest way to experience pain is to not care about the truth. Anyone who denies the meaning of their own pain is full of crap. Empirically speaking that is simply how people act. They treat their pain as the most meaningful thing in their lives.

 

 

Couples of things

 

1)I call BS when you say you live without the application of most of the UPB rules. The breaking of moral rules is a more immediate threat to your health than anything. It can take a long time for a disease to kill you, but one driver who is driving his car in an immoral fashion will kill you in an instant. This idea that ethics has nothing to do with a healthy life is total nonsense. It is not even wrong....it is literally the exact opposite of the truth.

2)When a scientists calls someone else unscientific they actually are in fact calling them immoral. If being unscientific wasn't immoral calling people unscientific would have no meaning whatsoever.

3)Ethics is for our well-being Not fulfilling the wishes of the universe.

 

 

If you wanna get truly metaphysical nobody "needs" to do anything except obey the natural laws of the universe. That is irrelevant. Nobody is talking about what you need to do, but rather about what you should do. You cannot argue that one ought to be illogical because a)acting illogically leads to pain and anyone who denies their own pain is full of crap and b)it is a completely meaningless statement.

 

"Truth is better than falsehood" is an axiom in the same way the Law of Identity is an axiom. Anyone you make an argument against something either you're making a truth claim on the assumption that one ought to adhere to the truth or you're just spouting meaningless opinions.

 

Let me give one more reason the ethics of debate ought to be ethics of life. See we do not just live life automatically. We live by choice. When we live we have to live in a particular manner. You have to move somewhere. You have to be somebody. You have to work at a particular job or particular jobs. You have to marry a particular person. You have to look at something in particular. If you're  going to college there is an infinity of fields you can study. Without a value structure you don't even know what you are supposed to study.

 

We care about ethics because we care about having a value structure. Without a value structure the human being just becomes paralyzed. The first value is the value of pain. People can deny the truth, deny that they think, deny objective morality, they can even deny objective reality, but nobody ever denies their own suffering. We do not like pain so therefore we value logic. Now if logic is a value then that means systems of beliefs that are logical are preferable to ones that are illogical. So thus we arrive at the idea of "truth is better than falsehood".

 

 

If you believe people are responsible for their actions in a debate then why wouldn't they be responsible for their actions for life at large? That is intellectual cheating. Humans are not like rocks falling down a hill. They are capable of programing themselves and being programmed by others. That's free will.

If we are to believe that the ethics of argumentation have nothing to do with the ethics of life then we must believe that one can live virtuously without knowing what the truth is. That is a completely insane belief.

 

 

 

Ethics is not about what you "have" to do but about what you should do. You are very confused about the nature of ethics. Yes, there is nothing "necessary" about following UPB. Nobody has said such a thing. If however you want to be ethical, if you want to live a meaningful life, if you care about your own health and the health of Western civilization then you better damn well behave ethically and spread around the concept of universal ethics.

 

Oh boy, you don't get it. I said that this isn't an argument against morality/ethics. It is only an argument against UPB as a system of morality/ethics. I do not invalidate any moral argumentation or ethical behavior in any way whatsoever. You are equating UPB with Morality as if they were one and the same thing. UPB is only one invented way of thinking about ethics, not ethics itself. And I stress the "invented" part because UPB uses initial assumptions that are forcefully chosen without justification outside of a debate - the crux of my argument in the first place. It was not "discovered". In the last part you made the argument that I said people would make, that you have to follow UPB in order to be moral, and I explained how that is a bad argument. "Use my system of ethics or you're immoral according to my system of ethics" is the same thing religions do, and it's sophistry. Also, "have to do" and "should do" are the same thing.

[Anuojat]

This line of thinking, the "actions are assertions of the principles" is not something I concur with. Property rights, self ownership, consistency, these are all descriptions of something only from a particular point of view - but that point of view is one that hasn't been resolved through proof, only assumed initially by choice. One trick you use is to say "well, aren't you moving your body? then you agree with property rights checkmate lol" and that is nonsense. Even Stefan made a video about how the whole concept of "rights" is not philosophically accurate. Nor is it materially evident. It is accurate to say instead that the principles you project onto my actions exist only in your projections, not in my actions.

Why dont you concur? I am confused what do you mean by "particular point of wiew" Propert rights are derived from self ownership and consistency. Both of which are axiomatic to being human and to existing in reality. If you do not accept these as axioms then we cant go further to debate or let alone tlaka bout anothing orr ather it would be pointless.

On the debate side, you made two comments "i dont see anythign disconnecting debate from the rest of our lives" and "Do you stop using principles and acting accoring to them outside of debates?" - and well, they're not arguments. In one you express disbelief, and in the other a rhetorical question. It is up to you to make positive claims backed by positive evidence that life and debate are one in the same - and that argument must be exclusive to debate, otherwise I could use it for, say videogame/life continuum where I could claim that the rules of Grand Theft Auto apply in the real world too.

But the rules of those games are subjectively deprived from human social consensus and from making rules up. Logic and Self ownership are (among other axioms and principles) are derived from REALITY form matter and energy. From the consistent behavior of matter and energy.

As I see it, the projection of principles and the idea of a debate/life continuum are linked together from on tying force: the inability to separate game from reality. We don't live in a world with rules. All the rules are projected from our minds into the world, including the rules of debate. They are only assumptions taken to participate in a mental sport. Tennis is a ball sport. Chess is a board sport. But we don't have tennis/life continuum, or chess/life continuum.

 

[Will Torbald]

 

 

Why dont you concur? I am confused what do you mean by "particular point of wiew" Propert rights are derived from self ownership and consistency. Both of which are axiomatic to being human and to existing in reality. If you do not accept these as axioms then we cant go further to debate or let alone tlaka bout anothing orr ather it would be pointless.

 

 

But the rules of those games are subjectively deprived from human social consensus and from making rules up. Logic and Self ownership are (among other axioms and principles) are derived from REALITY form matter and energy. From the consistent behavior of matter and energy.

 

 

 

 

1- Here again you are making the same pattern that I am arguing against. The assumptions of property rights are taken for a debate, but aren't necessary outside of it. The concept of self ownership presumes dualism. It presumes there is a you different from your body that owns the body. In reality, outside of those assumptions and from a monist perspective, you are the body itself. If you wanted to say that you own your body because you are the body, you can say that a coffee mug owns itself because it is the coffee mug and nobody can own mugs because they own themselves. A robot with a sufficiently advanced AI would own itself because it can move on its own. Is that a self owned being with property rights too? No, it's a machine. We are nothing but the body, and we can own other things through our actions, but to be anally retentive about an assumption of debate to make it mean the same in the real world is another example of game/life continuum that I talked in the last part - the one you didn't comment about. I wonder why you don't want to even adress it. We can keep debating because I make those assumptions as a requirement for debate, but I don't need to continue making them outside of it.

 

2- "deprived from human social consensus" - what does that even mean? Aren't the rules of chess a social construct, mutually agreed upon? They evolved through time from earlier versions. If we wanted we could play chess under different rules too. There's someone who invented "Chess 2" with the same board and pieces. Logic is something we assume to be philosophical about life, but life can function perfectly well without logic. There is no demand from life to treat it as if it were a logical debate - still doesn't falsify my argument. I made a clear statement at the end of how you can prove me wrong. All you've done is assert the claim over and over.

[Anuojat]

1- Here again you are making the same pattern that I am arguing against. The assumptions of property rights are taken for a debate, but aren't necessary outside of it. The concept of self ownership presumes dualism. It presumes there is a you different from your body that owns the body. In reality, outside of those assumptions and from a monist perspective, you are the body itself. If you wanted to say that you own your body because you are the body, you can say that a coffee mug owns itself because it is the coffee mug and nobody can own mugs because they own themselves. A robot with a sufficiently advanced AI would own itself because it can move on its own. Is that a self owned being with property rights too? No, it's a machine. We are nothing but the body, and we can own other things through our actions, but to be anally retentive about an assumption of debate to make it mean the same in the real world is another example of game/life continuum that I talked in the last part - the one you didn't comment about. I wonder why you don't want to even adress it. We can keep debating because I make those assumptions as a requirement for debate, but I don't need to continue making them outside of it.

 

2- "deprived from human social consensus" - what does that even mean? Aren't the rules of chess a social construct, mutually agreed upon? They evolved through time from earlier versions. If we wanted we could play chess under different rules too. There's someone who invented "Chess 2" with the same board and pieces. Logic is something we assume to be philosophical about life, but life can function perfectly well without logic. There is no demand from life to treat it as if it were a logical debate - still doesn't falsify my argument. I made a clear statement at the end of how you can prove me wrong. All you've done is assert the claim over and over.

1. I control my fingers "I" control my legs. The legs nor fingers control me, the "I" here is the individual mind and person both of which are deprived from the brain. The brain doesnt "own" or control anything by itself rather the emergent property of the brain known as the mind/counciousness does. A coffee mug doesnt have such a thin, a coffee mug doesnt posses free will. A sufficiently developed AI would or rather could have self ownership if it had all the characteristics of a self.

 

If you mean by not adressing the "All the rules are projected from our minds into the world, including the rules of debate." Then i have to say i did: Logic and Self ownership are (among other axioms and principles) are derived from REALITY form matter and energy. From the consistent behavior of matter and energy.

 

We do not project these rules outward from our minds (initially), rather reality provides them to us trough our senses. A rock falls down and we see it, we understand that matter falls to (is attracted by) larger matter. All matter and energy behaves consistently thus we understand and accept the axiom of consistency. We further accept and validate this to be true trough continued testing of our senses and ideas. Ect.

 

2. ...that is exactly the same thign you just said there in differant way. Again we do not assume logic, logic is inherently derived from consistency of matter and energy as i said before. This means that the 3 laws of logic arent merely true and valid for debates they are true regardless if humans (or any sentient or debateable beings) existed.

 

I am feeling bit frutrated now partly due either one of us not clicking or because we are using differant definations and just dont know it. Either way do you feel this is becoming waste of time? Would ou rather talk about this in call and see if that would work better? (I myself naturyll think it might be useful and solve this.)

[Will Torbald]

1. I control my fingers "I" control my legs. The legs nor fingers control me, the "I" here is the individual mind and person both of which are deprived from the brain. The brain doesnt "own" or control anything by itself rather the emergent property of the brain known as the mind/counciousness does. A coffee mug doesnt have such a thin, a coffee mug doesnt posses free will. A sufficiently developed AI would or rather could have self ownership if it had all the characteristics of a self.

 

If you mean by not adressing the "All the rules are projected from our minds into the world, including the rules of debate." Then i have to say i did: Logic and Self ownership are (among other axioms and principles) are derived from REALITY form matter and energy. From the consistent behavior of matter and energy.

 

We do not project these rules outward from our minds (initially), rather reality provides them to us trough our senses. A rock falls down and we see it, we understand that matter falls to (is attracted by) larger matter. All matter and energy behaves consistently thus we understand and accept the axiom of consistency. We further accept and validate this to be true trough continued testing of our senses and ideas. Ect.

 

2. ...that is exactly the same thign you just said there in differant way. Again we do not assume logic, logic is inherently derived from consistency of matter and energy as i said before. This means that the 3 laws of logic arent merely true and valid for debates they are true regardless if humans (or any sentient or debateable beings) existed.

 

I am feeling bit frutrated now partly due either one of us not clicking or because we are using differant definations and just dont know it. Either way do you feel this is becoming waste of time? Would ou rather talk about this in call and see if that would work better? (I myself naturyll think it might be useful and solve this.)

 

1- There are the rules of nature, in the area of physics, which we call the laws of physics. When I said that the world doesn't have rules I meant that the world doesn't tell you how to live your life in any moralistic sense. There is no stone tablet that tells you how to organize society, the correct way to be a parent, or whether homosexuality is a good thing or not. When you conflate the logic of philosophy with the rules we project onto ourselves in order to have a debate, that's where we find confusion. I don't mean to say that logic can't be derived (I think you meant derived, not deprived) from the world, but that logic isn't a rule. It's only a way of thinking. Incidentally, the consistency of matter is only an effect we experience at this level, but on the quantum level we would not follow the same rules of logic. Matter, at the most fundamental level, isn't "logical" in the way we are familiar with. This means that logic is only a system of thought, not a fundamental aspect of the universe, since the universe has a realm in which logic ceases to accurately explain the universe.

 

2- By "behaving logically" I mean that in life, whatever we have decided is logical behavior is not relevant to life's purposes. From the most brutally sincere point of view, illogical behavior is how we have evolved and survived for millions of years, and we still continue not being logical beings. Insisting that we must is only an assertion. UPB wants to be logical and judges you accordingly - but only if you believe in the assumptions. Which are not selected logically, but pragmatically.

 

3- The consistency argument you're making, if I understand it correctly, is this: Matter is consistent. Logic is consistent. We are debating. We must consistently apply the rules of debate when we're not debating in order to be consistent. We must be consistent. Therefore, you must assume the premises of debate when we're not debating, otherwise we're not consistent.

 

My rebuttal is this: If we were playing chess, should we also consistently apply the rules of chess outside of it? If you are so insistent on applying debate rules to the world, why aren't you telling children that Santa Claus isn't real? Why aren't you interrupting Mass at church since they are not being logical? I thought you wanted to be consistent? - the answer: because you also already do not treat life as if it were a debate.

 

-

 

I don't think this has become a waste of time. I can relate to your frustration, but it's been productive for me at least. I wouldn't want to call without ironing out the argument, or having a clever member of the forum making me notice something I didn't. I mean, it's a really basic refutation "Life is not a debate" and it almost seems silly that someone would have overlooked it. I wonder why, if it's so simple, people still insist on it?

[Anuojat]

1- There are the rules of nature, in the area of physics, which we call the laws of physics. When I said that the world doesn't have rules I meant that the world doesn't tell you how to live your life in any moralistic sense. There is no stone tablet that tells you how to organize society, the correct way to be a parent, or whether homosexuality is a good thing or not. When you conflate the logic of philosophy with the rules we project onto ourselves in order to have a debate, that's where we find confusion. I don't mean to say that logic can't be derived (I think you meant derived, not deprived) from the world, but that logic isn't a rule. It's only a way of thinking. Incidentally, the consistency of matter is only an effect we experience at this level, but on the quantum level we would not follow the same rules of logic. Matter, at the most fundamental level, isn't "logical" in the way we are familiar with. This means that logic is only a system of thought, not a fundamental aspect of the universe, since the universe has a realm in which logic ceases to accurately explain the universe.

 

2- By "behaving logically" I mean that in life, whatever we have decided is logical behavior is not relevant to life's purposes. From the most brutally sincere point of view, illogical behavior is how we have evolved and survived for millions of years, and we still continue not being logical beings. Insisting that we must is only an assertion. UPB wants to be logical and judges you accordingly - but only if you believe in the assumptions. Which are not selected logically, but pragmatically.

 

3- The consistency argument you're making, if I understand it correctly, is this: Matter is consistent. Logic is consistent. We are debating. We must consistently apply the rules of debate when we're not debating in order to be consistent. We must be consistent. Therefore, you must assume the premises of debate when we're not debating, otherwise we're not consistent.

 

My rebuttal is this: If we were playing chess, should we also consistently apply the rules of chess outside of it? If you are so insistent on applying debate rules to the world, why aren't you telling children that Santa Claus isn't real? Why aren't you interrupting Mass at church since they are not being logical? I thought you wanted to be consistent? - the answer: because you also already do not treat life as if it were a debate.

 

-

 

I don't think this has become a waste of time. I can relate to your frustration, but it's been productive for me at least. I wouldn't want to call without ironing out the argument, or having a clever member of the forum making me notice something I didn't. I mean, it's a really basic refutation "Life is not a debate" and it almost seems silly that someone would have overlooked it. I wonder why, if it's so simple, people still insist on it?

 

1. Wait so does this then all come down to an "IF". If you want to parent well then you should do or use B? Because i do agree with that. (As for quantum mechanics since i presume neither of us are experts in that field debatin gwhether logicl applies to it or not or explain things in it or not wouldnt be fruitful)

 

2. Wait what? We havent evolved logically or evolved with the capacity to use logic? Also humans arent logical? Ofcourse we are, for example if you believe that God (and perhaos heaven and hell) exists it make logical sense to pray to him and go to church. The assumption there is incorrect but behavior logically follows. Now if we were turly illogical you would see humans genuinely believing in God but not attending churches or praying or various other things that such God requires.

 

3.+Rebuttal responce: Matter and energy are consistent, we are composed of matter and energy thus in order for us to live we must accept and act according to logic. Apple is apple A is A. Things arent inconsistent so accepting they arent is basis for eatin right things or eating at all. If you are hungry you eat food. You dont try to eat rocks. You use your own arms and dont ry to use someone elses, when you eat an apple you dont feel nor think youre feeding someone else. Thus you accept and act accordingly to self ownership.To refuse self ownership would be to try to eat an apple with someone elses mouth.

 

So the reason why i dont go to churches and tell that theyre wrong? Reason i dont tell children (not my own) that santa isint real? Because it is not required for life to be honest or confrontational. What is required for life is Exersicing self ownership and using logic. Its perfectly logcial for me from refraining from doing thses things because theyre detrimental for me and even to spread of rational thought and scinetific method. If nto detrimental thena tleast waste of time. Chess is not debate, it is a game. Debate is not a game.

 

Now i also assert that even if you prefer not to live you must still exersice self ownership and logic. ONLY if you want nothing at all... no wait still got to exercise self ownership and logic. This is the... "implicit" agreement with self ownership and logic which stefan talks about in UPB. By living and acting you are asserting all thses axioms.

 

I rest my case, and if you have further objection id much rather debated in video or audio form. I grow tired of texting.

[Will Torbald]

1. Wait so does this then all come down to an "IF". If you want to parent well then you should do or use B? Because i do agree with that. (As for quantum mechanics since i presume neither of us are experts in that field debatin gwhether logicl applies to it or not or explain things in it or not wouldnt be fruitful)

 

2. Wait what? We havent evolved logically or evolved with the capacity to use logic? Also humans arent logical? Ofcourse we are, for example if you believe that God (and perhaos heaven and hell) exists it make logical sense to pray to him and go to church. The assumption there is incorrect but behavior logically follows. Now if we were turly illogical you would see humans genuinely believing in God but not attending churches or praying or various other things that such God requires.

 

3.+Rebuttal responce: Matter and energy are consistent, we are composed of matter and energy thus in order for us to live we must accept and act according to logic. Apple is apple A is A. Things arent inconsistent so accepting they arent is basis for eatin right things or eating at all. If you are hungry you eat food. You dont try to eat rocks. You use your own arms and dont ry to use someone elses, when you eat an apple you dont feel nor think youre feeding someone else. Thus you accept and act accordingly to self ownership.To refuse self ownership would be to try to eat an apple with someone elses mouth.

 

So the reason why i dont go to churches and tell that theyre wrong? Reason i dont tell children (not my own) that santa isint real? Because it is not required for life to be honest or confrontational. What is required for life is Exersicing self ownership and using logic. Its perfectly logcial for me from refraining from doing thses things because theyre detrimental for me and even to spread of rational thought and scinetific method. If nto detrimental thena tleast waste of time. Chess is not debate, it is a game. Debate is not a game.

 

Now i also assert that even if you prefer not to live you must still exersice self ownership and logic. ONLY if you want nothing at all... no wait still got to exercise self ownership and logic. This is the... "implicit" agreement with self ownership and logic which stefan talks about in UPB. By living and acting you are asserting all thses axioms.

 

I rest my case, and if you have further objection id much rather debated in video or audio form. I grow tired of texting.

 

What you call "exercise self ownership" is just "moving". What you call "logic" is just "thinking". When a lion moves to catch a prey, are you saying the lion is exercising self ownership of his paws? This is a philosophical language that has no meaning in the real world. To live I have to move to get something to eat. That's all you're really saying, and none of this is morally relevant. I don't know why you bring god as an example of how humans are logical given how gods are illogical all the way down. It's instead an example of how humans live illogically perfectly fine. - Life doesn't require you to be honest or confrontational, yet that is what debate asks of you - So when you don't like the rules of debate you can dismiss them, but when you do think they are benefitial to your purposes, then life is a debate again. That is not consistent.

[Anuojat]

What you call "exercise self ownership" is just "moving". What you call "logic" is just "thinking". When a lion moves to catch a prey, are you saying the lion is exercising self ownership of his paws? This is a philosophical language that has no meaning in the real world. To live I have to move to get something to eat. That's all you're really saying, and none of this is morally relevant. I don't know why you bring god as an example of how humans are logical given how gods are illogical all the way down. It's instead an example of how humans live illogically perfectly fine. - Life doesn't require you to be honest or confrontational, yet that is what debate asks of you - So when you don't like the rules of debate you can dismiss them, but when you do think they are benefitial to your purposes, then life is a debate again. That is not consistent.

 

I was going to answer your question but then realized this isitn fruitful for me anymore. I dont think i can change your mind on this or explain it any better.

 

And i also see you have now twisted or heavily misunderstood what i was saying about the belief in god and about honesty and confrontation. Either way i do not feel like continuing this discussion anymore.

[Will Torbald]

Quote: "I was going to answer your question but then realized this isitn fruitful for me anymore. I dont think i can change your mind on this or explain it any better.

 

And i also see you have now twisted or heavily misunderstood what i was saying about the belief in god and about honesty and confrontation. Either way i do not feel like continuing this discussion anymore."

 

This isn't an effort to keep you on the discussion, but a way to clear up the dust and tie lose ends on my part.

 

What I find telling is the part where you say "I don't think I change your mind". I don't think this is productive mindset to have for the purposes of philosophy. If we want to know the truth, and what's right or wrong, working together is a way to help each other - not to change each other. I was not frustrated I didn't change your mind because I didn't expect to do it. I wanted to have other people see this theory because I think it is a massive hole in something that is central to the ideas propagated by FDR. Stefan has always said that if he's wrong, he'd like to know. If I'm wrong in this theory, I too want to know. But what I got so far is arguments that are only repeating what I said wasn't right (the debate/life continuum is unjustified) or reiterations of unsubstantiated projections made (if you move, you accept property rights). I said that the point of accepting all those ideas are in order to contextualize a debate, but that outside of it they have no jurisdiction.

 

I made a clear challenge for falsification, and /no one/ has attempted to make one direct argument for it. The thread has many views, and I can assume that people either don't know what I'm talking about, or they know, but have no answer. Either way it's embarrassing. 

 

Lastly, taking an argument apart is what debate does. You thought that by making a case about how people believing in god and acting religiously as an example of logical behavior, you would've been able to counter me. Well, assuming a premise out of nothing (god exists) and following the consequences to it's conclusions isn't logical - the reason for this is that simply assuming premises doesn't make you a philosopher. The real meat and bones of logic is justifying and proving your initial assumptions the most you can possibly can. Some assumptions like "the world is real and I am not dreaming" are 'necessary' but other more complex assumptions like "people are responsible for their actions" are so complicated and actually falsifiable propositions that assuming them without evidence, and only for the sake of convenience for debate, is on the level of assuming that the Abrahamic deity is real for the pragmatism and commodity of having an easy moral guide in the form of the bible and the church - and many people do that. Some smart people even, confessing quite honestly, that believing in god gives them moral comfort. So what? It's still illogical to assume a premise out of thin air for no necessary purpose.  

[neeeel]

 

 

Why dont you concur? I am confused what do you mean by "particular point of wiew" Propert rights are derived from self ownership and consistency. Both of which are axiomatic to being human and to existing in reality.

 

 

 

Property rights do not exist anywhere in reality. They are a concept. Self ownership does not exist anywhere in reality. It is a concept

 

 

1. I control my fingers "I" control my legs. The legs nor fingers control me, the "I" here is the individual mind and person both of which are deprived from the brain. The brain doesnt "own" or control anything by itself rather the emergent property of the brain known as the mind/counciousness does. A coffee mug doesnt have such a thin, a coffee mug doesnt posses free will. A sufficiently developed AI would or rather could have self ownership if it had all the characteristics of a self.

 

 

how can mind own anything? How can mind own the body? How does that work? 

 

What does it mean for the person to be derived from the brain?

 

 

What is required for life is Exersicing self ownership and using logic. 

 

 

Nope. Lots of things live that exercise neither self ownership or logic.

[Nathan Metric]

Oh boy, you don't get it. I said that this isn't an argument against morality/ethics. It is only an argument against UPB as a system of morality/ethics. I do not invalidate any moral argumentation or ethical behavior in any way whatsoever. You are equating UPB with Morality as if they were one and the same thing. UPB is only one invented way of thinking about ethics, not ethics itself. And I stress the "invented" part because UPB uses initial assumptions that are forcefully chosen without justification outside of a debate - the crux of my argument in the first place. It was not "discovered". In the last part you made the argument that I said people would make, that you have to follow UPB in order to be moral, and I explained how that is a bad argument. "Use my system of ethics or you're immoral according to my system of ethics" is the same thing religions do, and it's sophistry. Also, "have to do" and "should do" are the same thing.

The methodology of UPB is "invented" as you say. So what? The scientific method was invented. Is the scientific method arbitrary? No it isn't. So you have no point whatsoever. It doesn't matter whether UPB was invented or discovered. What matters is whether it is logical.

 

If you think the ethics of argumentation have nothing to do with virtue you must believe one can act virtuously without knowledge of the truth. That is completely insane dude. It almost doesn't even deserve a response.

How do we know what the truth is other than by figuring out what we can logically argue for? How can we figure out what ethics is without figuring out what we can logically argue for? You must be expecting us to believe that one can consistently act morally without philosophy; without possession of the truth and you must expect us to believe there is such a thing as a universal moral rule that does not need to be argued for. That is insane. The only way we know a moral rule genuinely is universal is if you can make an argument that it is and the only way a string of words counts as an argument is if it adheres to the rules of debate. Most importantly the rule of Truth is Better than Falsehood.

 

And no, "have to do" and "should do" are not the same thing. "Have to do" = what is necessary. "Should do" = what you have to do to be virtuous.

 

Property rights do not exist anywhere in reality. They are a concept. Self ownership does not exist anywhere in reality. It is a concept

 

If self-ownership doesn't exist in reality then why are you talking to people as though they do have self-ownership?

Nope. Lots of things live that exercise neither self ownership or logic.

Yeah because you see humans are vegetables right?

[Will Torbald]

The methodology of UPB is "invented" as you say. So what? The scientific method was invented. Is the scientific method arbitrary? No it isn't. So you have no point whatsoever. It doesn't matter whether UPB was invented or discovered. What matters is whether it is logical.

 

If you think the ethics of argumentation have nothing to do with virtue you must believe one can act virtuously without knowledge of the truth. That is completely insane dude. It almost doesn't even deserve a response.

How do we know what the truth is other than by figuring out what we can logically argue for? How can we figure out what ethics is without figuring out what we can logically argue for? You must be expecting us to believe that one can consistently act morally without philosophy; without possession of the truth and you must expect us to believe there is such a thing as a universal moral rule that does not need to be argued for. That is insane. The only way we know a moral rule genuinely is universal is if you can make an argument that it is and the only way a string of words counts as an argument is if it adheres to the rules of debate. Most importantly the rule of Truth is Better than Falsehood.

 

And no, "have to do" and "should do" are not the same thing. "Have to do" = what is necessary. "Should do" = what you have to do to be virtuous.

 

First of all, I'd like to make a tangential comment about your rhetorical skills. I like how you mix argument and rhetoric with good rhythm almost mixing both to make them seem as one. It's fun to read. Almost like a shrink too, since apparently I am insane now.

 

Now then, on the comparison with the scientific method- So what? The difference is that the scientific method also tells you why it is necessary to use if you want to provide empirical knowledge, testable premises, reliable conclusions, experimental data - the whole enchilada. It tells you why its premises (simple ones like an objective world, sense data, and a consistent universe in time) are taken, but no more premises than necessary are made. UPB on the other hand mixes necessary assumptions with conclussion-forcing assumptions. The kind of assumptions you would need in order to get just the right end result, but that upon examination those assumptions have not shown to be necessary nor justified. So I ask, what is UPB necessary for? It is clear what the SM is for. But here there is a circular logic loop: What is UPB for? To be virtuous, as you say. How is virtue defined as? As following UPB. This is evidently a problem. All I can tell is that UPB is necessary for debate. I don't know for what much else, as in, adopting UPB would be an aesthetic choice - not a moral, nor necessary one. You adopt it outside of debate because you want to, or like to, or perhaps can't see the difference between life and a debate like another person admitted.

 

Truth is better than falsehood - FOR A DEBATE is what I would add. FOR LIFE, THE WORLD, SOCIETY AT LARGE, THE BIG PICTURE - It's not. And morality, if it's for anything, it's for life. For those things. Ethics are particular rules of conduct in a particular moment. The ethics of debate. The ethics of olympian fencing. The ethics of fancy dinners at a restaurant. These are understood to be particulars, and well defined for the situation. The idea that the particular ethics of debate must deterministically follow into the ethics of life, moral principles, has not been justified. That's what I asked for. Why would you do it? And please, without circular reasoning this time.

 

"The only way we know a moral rule genuinely is universal is if you can make an argument that it is and the only way a string of words counts as an argument is if it adheres to the rules of debate."

 

The problem with this is that all arguments are contingent on the premises, and those premises must be falsifiable to begin with. When you make your argument for your moral rule - and validate it with the premises of debate you are forgetting that the premises of debate are not the premises of reality. Debate is not the real world. Let me say that again. Debate is not the real world. Before I argued with someone who thought debate = life. Now I am arguing with something who thinks debate = reality. No. Debates have premises that contextualize it, but can't be justified as true or necessary. For example, you make the assumption that I am not insane when you argue with me, because if you didn't, you'd be arguing with someone incapable of understanding or making sense of your logic. So it would be pointless. Maybe I really am insane in the real world, in reality, but for the sake of debate you asume I am not. This is the thing. What we assume for the sake of convenience is not what defines reality. Truly "universal" moral rules must live in reality, not in a debate.

 

To wrap this up back to the scientific method, for UPB to be truly at the standard of science, it would not make any assumption beyond the assumptions of the scientific method - with which we define a standard reality base. Fewer assumptions like the three I mentioned earlier would run into solipsistic problems, so we must make them in order to contextualize reality. But UPB makes a gajillion more assumptions than that, overcomplicating things to the point where saying that it is attempting to force a conclussion (say, an anarchist agenda perhaps, maybe) isn't out of the realm of possibility.

[Nathan Metric]

1- There are the rules of nature, in the area of physics, which we call the laws of physics. When I said that the world doesn't have rules I meant that the world doesn't tell you how to live your life in any moralistic sense. There is no stone tablet that tells you how to organize society, the correct way to be a parent, or whether homosexuality is a good thing or not. When you conflate the logic of philosophy with the rules we project onto ourselves in order to have a debate, that's where we find confusion. I don't mean to say that logic can't be derived (I think you meant derived, not deprived) from the world, but that logic isn't a rule. It's only a way of thinking. Incidentally, the consistency of matter is only an effect we experience at this level, but on the quantum level we would not follow the same rules of logic. Matter, at the most fundamental level, isn't "logical" in the way we are familiar with. This means that logic is only a system of thought, not a fundamental aspect of the universe, since the universe has a realm in which logic ceases to accurately explain the universe.

This entire paragraph is meaningless unless we believe in the Law of Identity as a universal law. 

 

 

2- By "behaving logically" I mean that in life, whatever we have decided is logical behavior is not relevant to life's purposes. From the most brutally sincere point of view, illogical behavior is how we have evolved and survived for millions of years, and we still continue not being logical beings. Insisting that we must is only an assertion. UPB wants to be logical and judges you accordingly - but only if you believe in the assumptions. Which are not selected logically, but pragmatically.

1) How could logical behaviors not be relevant to life's purposes? How do you hunt prey without logic? How do you grow crops without logic? How do create a civilization without logic? Humans are not vegetables. They do not live to the extent they are illogical but to the extent they are logical.

 

2) So what if we evolved to do some illogical things. So what? That's an appeal to nature fallacy.

 

3)Nobody said you "must" be logical. 

 

4)What premises of UPB are "assumptions"

 

5)How do you know Stefan is Machiavellian?

 

 

3- The consistency argument you're making, if I understand it correctly, is this: Matter is consistent. Logic is consistent. We are debating. We must consistently apply the rules of debate when we're not debating in order to be consistent. We must be consistent. Therefore, you must assume the premises of debate when we're not debating, otherwise we're not consistent.

 

Well yeah consistency is good if that consistency has to do with us acting logically. Because logic is obviously better than illogic don't you know? Now try proving to the world that illogic is better than logic without using logic. Please entertain us.

 

My rebuttal is this: If we were playing chess, should we also consistently apply the rules of chess outside of it? If you are so insistent on applying debate rules to the world, why aren't you telling children that Santa Claus isn't real? Why aren't you interrupting Mass at church since they are not being logical? I thought you wanted to be consistent? - the answer: because you also already do not treat life as if it were a debate.

He isn't saying consistency is automatically good. He is saying being consistently logical is good.

 

You don't eat rocks on the basis that they might be something other than a rock or that it might be better to believe in the falsehood that it is better to eat rocks than food.  No, you believe the rock is a rock, the food is food and you believe it is better to adhere to the actual biological demands of your body than bogus demands.

 

The reason we do not undermine the belief in Santa Claus is because a)it is not harmful for a child to believe in Santa Claus and b)it is obnoxious to do so too early. If you value your family and friends (which you should) you don't do obnoxious things. You don't get in the way of harmless fun. There is nothing illogical about having fun. Quite the contrary, having fun is part of our nature and acting according to one's nature is logical.

And the reason we don't interrupt a church mass is because that is a violation of the right to private property. Our concern for the truth leads us to believe in the virtue of a rational civilization and the virtue of applying universal ethical rules for rational beings to follow. We do not interrupt a church because we don't care about logic. Quite the opposite. We don't interrupt then precisely because we care about acting logically.

[Nathan Metric]

Now then, on the comparison with the scientific method- So what? The difference is that the scientific method also tells you why it is necessary to use if you want to provide empirical knowledge, testable premises, reliable conclusions, experimental data - the whole enchilada. It tells you why its premises (simple ones like an objective world, sense data, and a consistent universe in time) are taken, but no more premises than necessary are made. UPB on the other hand mixes necessary assumptions with conclussion-forcing assumptions.

Stefan said he wanted to create a rational basis for secular ethics. Is that wrong?

 

UPB forces a conclusion. So what? An argument is a relationship between data and a conclusion. If a string or words doesn't force a conclusion it isn't even an argument. I guess you want Stefan to write a completely meaningless book that doesn't force a conclusion. LOL

 

 

The kind of assumptions you would need in order to get just the right end result, but that upon examination those assumptions have not shown to be necessary nor justified.

Like what? Which "assumptions" need further argument?

 

 

So I ask, what is UPB necessary for? It is clear what the SM is for. But here there is a circular logic loop: What is UPB for? To be virtuous, as you say. How is virtue defined as? As following UPB. This is evidently a problem. All I can tell is that UPB is necessary for debate. I don't know for what much else, as in, adopting UPB would be an aesthetic choice - not a moral, nor necessary one. You adopt it outside of debate because you want to, or like to, or perhaps can't see the difference between life and a debate like another person admitted.

Virtue is what one should do regardless of their subjective opinion at any time at any position. UPB is how we figure out what we should do. There. No Circle.

 

 If you think acting logically = a subjective preference then I think you are a bit confused about what this word "subjective" means. For something to be subjective it must be arbitrary. There is nothing arbitrary or illogical about acting logically. If you are acting logically then you are logical. Period.

 

Truth is better than falsehood - FOR A DEBATE is what I would add. FOR LIFE, THE WORLD, SOCIETY AT LARGE, THE BIG PICTURE - It's not. And morality, if it's for anything, it's for life. For those things. Ethics are particular rules of conduct in a particular moment. The ethics of debate. The ethics of olympian fencing. The ethics of fancy dinners at a restaurant. These are understood to be particulars, and well defined for the situation. The idea that the particular ethics of debate must deterministically follow into the ethics of life, moral principles, has not been justified. That's what I asked for. Why would you do it? And please, without circular reasoning this time.

 

Um no. Not just for debate. For life. You live to the extent you act logically. You avoid pain to the extent you act logically. If you are thinking about entering a neighborhood you are not going to want a police department that acts on the basis that falsehood is better than truth or that correction does not require universal preferences.

 

How do you know what the ethics of life are without debate? If you can't argue for your ethical views then they must be BS.

 

The problem with this is that all arguments are contingent on the premises, and those premises must be falsifiable to begin with.

 

Not if they are epistemological premises.

 

When you make your argument for your moral rule - and validate it with the premises of debate you are forgetting that the premises of debate are not the premises of reality.

"We both exist" is a claim about reality.

"The senses have capacity for accuracy" is an epistemological claim.

"LANGUAGE HAS THE CAPACITY FOR MEANING" is a claim about the reality of human language.

"CORRECTION REQUIRES UNIVERSAL PREFERENCES" is an epistemological claim.

"An objective methodology for determining truth from falsehood exists" is an epistemological claim.

"Truth is better than falsehood" is an axiomatic moral rule

"Peaceful debate is the best way to solve disputes" is an axiomatic moral rule.

"Individuals are responsible for their actions" is a claim about reality.

 

So no. There is nothing about the premises of UPB that are intended to be merely arbitrary rules of debate.

 

 For example, you make the assumption that I am not insane when you argue with me, because if you didn't, you'd be arguing with someone incapable of understanding or making sense of your logic. So it would be pointless. Maybe I really am insane in the real world, in reality, but for the sake of debate you asume I am not. This is the thing. What we assume for the sake of convenience is not what defines reality. Truly "universal" moral rules must live in reality, not in a debate.

1) I do in fact think you are insane. Anyone who questions the virtue of being logical in day to day life is literally the definition of insane. I don't think I'm going to convince you UPB is valid, but I do think I can convince other people that UPB is valid.

2)What premises of UPB are "assumptions"

 

 

To wrap this up back to the scientific method, for UPB to be truly at the standard of science, it would not make any assumption beyond the assumptions of the scientific method - with which we define a standard reality base. Fewer assumptions like the three I mentioned earlier would run into solipsistic problems, so we must make them in order to contextualize reality. But UPB makes a gajillion more assumptions than that, overcomplicating things to the point where saying that it is attempting to force a conclussion (say, an anarchist agenda perhaps, maybe) isn't out of the realm of possibility.

 

I do not agree that scientific truth is the highest form of truth. The conclusions of science are never absolute. They can only ever amount to be probable truths. Not absolute truths. The Rules of Logic however are absolute. They transcend science. So too are certain fundamental epistemological claims. They too transcend the scientific method. The scientific method has no philosophical grounding without epistemology.

Science starts with the premise that truth is objective. This premise is justified by appeal to logical consistency (any argument against the objectivity of truth is self-contradictory)

UPB does something similar. It starts with the premise that universal moral rules exists. It justifies this premise by appeal to logical consistency and develops the methodology from there. You can't argue against UPB without exploiting UPB.

 

As far as I can tell, UPB is equally as valid as science. The way it justifies itself is similar to way we justify science.

 

Prove that UPB makes too many "assumptions"

Prove that UPB "over complicates" things.

 

if you are trying to make a "rational case for secular ethics" then obviously it is going to justify anarchism. That is because all statism revolves around moral relativism.

[neeeel]

 

 

If self-ownership doesn't exist in reality then why are you talking to people as though they do have self-ownership?

 

 

This is exactly the point of the OP, as far as I understand it. "The assumptions of [self ownership] are taken for a debate, but aren't necessary outside of it. ". Do you agree that it would be perfectly possible for self ownership to not exist, and I would still engage on this forum? 

 

Its totally possible for God to not exist, and people to continue to go to church. That is, the belief about god in no way proves or disproves the existence of god. I suppose if someone didnt claim to believe in god, but still went to church, you could accuse them of hypocrisy, but that STILL in no way proves or disproves the existence of god. 

 

Yeah because you see humans are vegetables right?

 

 

Yeah, because you see, thats exactly what I said, right?

 

his claim was 

 

What is required for life is Exersicing self ownership and using logic. 

 

 

which is blatently untrue. I said nothing about humans being vegetables

[Will Torbald]

This entire paragraph is meaningless unless we believe in the Law of Identity as a universal law. 

 

True, but it doesn't make the LoI a reality of the universe. Not in quantum physics is it realized, as things change and mutate according to probabilities in time where A = A is true now, but after some time A changed into B on its own (see atomic decay, neutrino mutations). The laws of logic are analogous to classical physics, in which things flow deterministically. The universe works probabilistically in the quantum realm. So that means logic is only a framework, a way of thinking, not a real fundamental aspect of the universe. Even then, just because we would choose to believe it, it doesn't mean it is necessary to believe it for life.

 

1) How could logical behaviors not be relevant to life's purposes? How do you hunt prey without logic? How do you grow crops without logic? How do create a civilization without logic? Humans are not vegetables. They do not live to the extent they are illogical but to the extent they are logical.

 

Assuming premises out of thin air in order to force a conclussion isn't logical. I adressed this earlier. Just because you are following syllogisms it doesn't mean you are justifying them to begin with.

 

2) So what if we evolved to do some illogical things. So what? That's an appeal to nature fallacy.

 

We didn't just evolve to do some illogical things. We evolved completely without logic whatsoever. Instinct, survival, reproduction - not logic. The argument is that life doesn't need rational behavior, and that demanding rational behavior needs justification, not assumptions.

 

3)Nobody said you "must" be logical. 

 

That's exactly what UPB is asking you to do. It says that UPB is logical, therefore you must do UPB. Stefan was asked this recently, why should anyone behave according to UPB, and he just said "because it is correct".

 

4)What premises of UPB are "assumptions"

 

All of them. Some are necessary assumptions for objectivity - the other are assumptions that force a moral conclussion. It's like you didn't read my opening post at all. I am not against making assumptions at all, since some are necessary.

 

5)How do you know Stefan is Machiavellian?

 

Loaded question. The pragmatism I referred to is the pragmatism of the assumptions taken for the sake of debate - that's pragmatic, not empirical.

 

Well yeah consistency is good if that consistency has to do with us acting logically. Because logic is obviously better than illogic don't you know? Now try proving to the world that illogic is better than logic without using logic. Please entertain us.

 

Now you are the one telling me I must be logical.  My argument is not against logic, it is against the use of premises of a particular action, debate, into the general life at large.

 

He isn't saying consistency is automatically good. He is saying being consistently logical is good.

 

Same thing, reworded.

 

You don't eat rocks on the basis that they might be something other than a rock or that it might be better to believe in the falsehood that it is better to eat rocks than food.  No, you believe the rock is a rock, the food is food and you believe it is better to adhere to the actual biological demands of your body than bogus demands.

 

True, but morally irrelevant.

 

The reason we do not undermine the belief in Santa Claus is because a)it is not harmful for a child to believe in Santa Claus and b)it is obnoxious to do so too early. If you value your family and friends (which you should) you don't do obnoxious things. You don't get in the way of harmless fun. There is nothing illogical about having fun. Quite the contrary, having fun is part of our nature and acting according to one's nature is logical.

And the reason we don't interrupt a church mass is because that is a violation of the right to private property. Our concern for the truth leads us to believe in the virtue of a rational civilization and the virtue of applying universal ethical rules for rational beings to follow. We do not interrupt a church because we don't care about logic. Quite the opposite. We don't interrupt then precisely because we care about acting logically.

 

Fun and logic are different things. Fun is alogical, not antilogical. I never said you shouldn't be alogical. Your argument here is a strawman. My purpose with the example of the church and santa is to show that you already behave differently during a debate and general life, yet you want a theory that treats them both as if they were the same - like wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

 

Wew lad.

 

 

Stefan said he wanted to create a rational basis for secular ethics. Is that wrong?

 

No, he just used an irrational method to select his initial assumptions in order to force a conclussion that he liked. I think that's a rational mistake. Like assuming the rules of tennis, and continue assuming the rules after the game is over. Does he sleep with a tennis racket, too?

 

UPB forces a conclusion. So what? An argument is a relationship between data and a conclusion. If a string or words doesn't force a conclusion it isn't even an argument. I guess you want Stefan to write a completely meaningless book that doesn't force a conclusion. LOL

 

You're conflating the idea that the premises lead to a conclusion with the action of forcing the premises to lead to a desired conclusion in the first place. Very dishonest to do. When I say UPB forces a conclusion I use force to mean "unjustified assumptions" - where the assumptions are justified for a debate, but not for a not-debate.

 

Like what? Which "assumptions" need further argument?

 

Not argument, justification for life, not for debate.

 

 

Virtue is what one should do regardless of their subjective opinion at any time at any position. UPB is how we figure out what we should do. There. No Circle.

 

This doesn't define what virtue is without UPB. When you say that UPB tells you what you should do, you're saying that virtue is defined by UPB. Therefore, UPB = Virtue. It's still a circle. "Use my system that defines virtue in order to be virtuous otherwise your're not virtuous" is the same as saying "Follow my religion that defines salvation in order to obtain salvation otherwise you won't be saved from hell" - you're not defining virtue/salvation without the system you are selling me. This is a trick.

 

 If you think acting logically = a subjective preference then I think you are a bit confused about what this word "subjective" means. For something to be subjective it must be arbitrary. There is nothing arbitrary or illogical about acting logically. If you are acting logically then you are logical. Period.

 

Tautology. Whatever.

 

Um no. Not just for debate. For life. You live to the extent you act logically. You avoid pain to the extent you act logically. If you are thinking about entering a neighborhood you are not going to want a police department that acts on the basis that falsehood is better than truth or that correction does not require universal preferences.

 

Logic isn't just following a syllogism. I said this before, and you still think that following premises is enough to be rational. Update your intellect.

 

How do you know what the ethics of life are without debate? If you can't argue for your ethical views then they must be BS.

 

No, you use debate to figure out the ethics of life. Then you step out of the debate knowing that you used the platform in order to think about life. Then you step into life, charged with the clarity gained from the debate, knowing it isn't a debate.

 

Not if they are epistemological premises.

 

"We both exist" is a claim about reality.

"The senses have capacity for accuracy" is an epistemological claim.

"LANGUAGE HAS THE CAPACITY FOR MEANING" is a claim about the reality of human language.

 

I said these three are necessary for human life. Read well before.

 

"CORRECTION REQUIRES UNIVERSAL PREFERENCES" is an epistemological claim.

 

I explained why it's a mutual assumption, not a universal reality. The rest of the universe, outside of our debate, doesn't care about corrections.

 

"An objective methodology for determining truth from falsehood exists" is an epistemological claim.

 

This assumes epistemological nihilism isn't correct. Life can function well with epistemological nihilism, so this is something we ascribe only for a debate.

 

"Truth is better than falsehood" is an axiomatic moral rule

 

It's not moral nor is it a rule - they are assumptions and premises.

 

"Peaceful debate is the best way to solve disputes" is an axiomatic moral rule.

 

Same as above. In the real world, some debates are futile. People will debate anything, even if they're wrong. Sometimes using force to stop wrong debates is better than wasting people's time. Saying that "peaceful debate" is better is only for the purposes of this particular debate, not all debates, and certainly not true for life in general.

 

"Individuals are responsible for their actions" is a claim about reality.

 

An unsubstantiated claim, which is falsifiable, totally not necessary for life - it is subject to its own debates just for it. To assume it for the practicality of intellectual exercise doesn't void its significance as a testable claim about people. In other words, assuming that the world is real is necessary because it can't be tested, so it can only be assumed. Assuming responsibility for individuals is not on the same level, as it is a falsifiable claim. I find this assumption to be one of the leading "forced" premises of UPB.

 

So no. There is nothing about the premises of UPB that are intended to be merely arbitrary rules of debate.

 

Arbitrary is a strawman here. I never claimed subjectivity, nor arbitrariness within the context of debate. Nor am I arguing against their use within a debate. Are you even reading what I write properly? Read my posts a few times before writing back. Take your time. I can wait.

 

1) I do in fact think you are insane. Anyone who questions the virtue of being logical in day to day life is literally the definition of insane. I don't think I'm going to convince you UPB is valid, but I do think I can convince other people that UPB is valid.

2)What premises of UPB are "assumptions"

 

No you don't think I am insane. An insane person can't think rationally, so you'd also be insane to argue with me. You are using an emotionally charged intimidation tactic to try to get me emotional as well and cloud my judgment. It won't work on me.

 

I do not agree that scientific truth is the highest form of truth. The conclusions of science are never absolute. They can only ever amount to be probable truths. Not absolute truths. The Rules of Logic however are absolute. They transcend science. So too are certain fundamental epistemological claims. They too transcend the scientific method. The scientific method has no philosophical grounding without epistemology.

 

Logic is not absolute as I argued earlier since the universe, at a fundamental level, doesn't follow the rules of logic. Also, logic is derived from the empirical examination of the world at a classical-physics level, which means that scientific/empirical truths supercede logical truths since logic is the son of science, not backwards.

 

Science starts with the premise that truth is objective. This premise is justified by appeal to logical consistency (any argument against the objectivity of truth is self-contradictory)

UPB does something similar. It starts with the premise that universal moral rules exists. It justifies this premise by appeal to logical consistency and develops the methodology from there. You can't argue against UPB without exploiting UPB.

 

You can't start with the premise that universal moral rules exist because "universal moral rules" are a conclussion, presumably, of a string of justified premises. It would be like starting a race beyond the finish line and declaring yourself the winner. "I'm going to prove universal morality exists. First, assuming universal moral rules exist..." is nonsense. For the record, I don't think the actual UPB book does this mistake, but that your interpretation of it is wrong. But if you were to show me how UPB assumes morality exists with a citation, I will accept that.

 

As far as I can tell, UPB is equally as valid as science. The way it justifies itself is similar to way we justify science.

 

Prove that UPB makes too many "assumptions"

Prove that UPB "over complicates" things.

 

That's just what I did.

 

if you are trying to make a "rational case for secular ethics" then obviously it is going to justify anarchism. That is because all statism revolves around moral relativism.

 

You can't assume your conclusions and call yourself honest afterwards.

 

[Nathan Metric]

This is exactly the point of the OP, as far as I understand it. "The assumptions of [self ownership] are taken for a debate, but aren't necessary outside of it. ". Do you agree that it would be perfectly possible for self ownership to not exist, and I would still engage on this forum?

 No because truth = what you can logically argue for and you can't argue against the concept of self-ownership. You expect me to believe there is such a thing as a truth you can't argue for?

 

 

Its totally possible for God to not exist, and people to continue to go to church. That is, the belief about god in no way proves or disproves the existence of god. I suppose if someone didnt claim to believe in god, but still went to church, you could accuse them of hypocrisy, but that STILL in no way proves or disproves the existence of god.

Not sure what you're point is. The form of my argument isn't Neeel is a hypocrite therefore I'm right the form of the argument is all arguments against self-ownership are self-contradictory.

 

 

Yeah, because you see, thats exactly what I said, right?

 

his claim was 

 

 

which is blatently untrue. I said nothing about humans being vegetables

Let's quote what you actually said "Nope. Lots of things live that exercise neither self ownership or logic."

 

That's implying that what is necessary for other life forms = what is necessary for humans. Plants do not need to exercise self-ownership or logic to live. So what? That means absolutely nothing. We are not talking about life generally speaking but human life. Human life requires action. Action requires that the person believes

a)that they are responsible for themselves

and

b)that it is good for them to exercise ownership over their body

 

But it's not mere action that the human lives, but action that allows them to fulfill the biological demands of their body. You cannot fulfill the biological demands of your body without exploiting logic.

[Will Torbald]

 No because truth = what you can logically argue for and you can't argue against the concept of self-ownership. You expect me to believe there is such a thing as a truth you can't argue for?

 

 

Not sure what you're point is. The form of my argument isn't Neeel is a hypocrite therefore I'm right the form of the argument is all arguments against self-ownership are self-contradictory.

 

 

Let's quote what you actually said "Nope. Lots of things live that exercise neither self ownership or logic."

 

That's implying that what is necessary for other life forms = what is necessary for humans. Plants do not need to exercise self-ownership or logic to live. So what? That means absolutely nothing. We are not talking about life generally speaking but human life. Human life requires action. Action requires that the person believes

a)that they are responsible for themselves

and

b)that it is good for them to exercise ownership over their body

 

But it's not mere action that the human lives, but action that allows them to fulfill the biological demands of their body. You cannot fulfill the biological demands of your body without exploiting logic.

 

The premise in case is "people are responsible for their actions" - which is not a premise of equal meaning to self ownership. When, for example, someone kills another person, we can ask of this event "Was this person insane? Was this person under drugs? Was this person in a blind rage that numbed its cognitive skills so intensely that it couldn't avoid killing?" These questions are relevant to the state of the mind of the person that would impare his ability to decide and exercise self control over his emotions and aggressive impulses - We don't ask "Was this person in self ownership of the hand that pulled the trigger?

 

The sophist trick here is to say that because the hand was attached to the arm that was attached to the body that has a brain then obviously and axiomagically the person was responsible and morally culpable for the killing. But nobody does that. Except when autistic-type libertarians say that assuming responsibility for your words during a debate as a premise is the same as believing that everything people do is their fault, therefore objective morality, therefore the killer is culpable.

 

These are two completely different and separate concepts that are being conflated to justify the nonsensical phrase "you can't argue against self ownership" as a means of determining that because we agree to assume responsibility for our arguments in a debate - then during real life then everyone is always morally liable for their actions.

[neeeel]

 No because truth = what you can logically argue for and you can't argue against the concept of self-ownership. You expect me to believe there is such a thing as a truth you can't argue for?

 

 

of course I can. I can say "self ownership doesnt exist".

You are assuming self ownership in order to prove self ownership, which is circular reasoning. You are stating, if you argue against self ownership, you use self ownership to do that. But its perfectly possible to argue against self ownership, and for self ownership not to exist. For example, if I was a robot, I could argue against self ownership, and self ownership wouldnt apply to me( the robot)

 

 

 

Not sure what you're point is. The form of my argument isn't Neeel is a hypocrite therefore I'm right the form of the argument is all arguments against self-ownership are self-contradictory.

 

 

they are only contradictory if self ownership actually exists, and we humans have self ownership.

 

 

 

 

 

Let's quote what you actually said "Nope. Lots of things live that exercise neither self ownership or logic."

 

 

That's implying that what is necessary for other life forms = what is necessary for humans. Plants do not need to exercise self-ownership or logic to live. So what? That means absolutely nothing. We are not talking about life generally speaking but human life. Human life requires action. Action requires that the person believes

a)that they are responsible for themselves

and

b)that it is good for them to exercise ownership over their body

 

But it's not mere action that the human lives, but action that allows them to fulfill the biological demands of their body. You cannot fulfill the biological demands of your body without exploiting logic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lets quote the quote i was responding to which was

 

 

What is required for life is Exersicing self ownership and using logic. 

 

 

To show that is false, all I have to do is show that some things that are alive, or have life, do not exercise self ownership or use logic.

He may have meant "human life", but thats not what he said.

Also, humans dont exercise self ownership or use logic every second of the day. So, for a large portion of the time they are alive, humans are neither exercising self ownership or using logic.

 

The fact that people believe they are wielding self ownership is irrelevant as to whether it exists or not.

 

Not sure what you're point is. The form of my argument isn't Neeel is a hypocrite therefore I'm right the form of the argument is all arguments against self-ownership are self-contradictory.

[Nathan Metric]

"True, but it doesn't make the LoI a reality of the universe. Not in quantum physics is it realized, as things change and mutate according to probabilities in time where A = A is true now, but after some time A changed into B on its own (see atomic decay, neutrino mutations). The laws of logic are analogous to classical physics, in which things flow deterministically. The universe works probabilistically in the quantum realm. So that means logic is only a framework, a way of thinking, not a real fundamental aspect of the universe. Even then, just because we would choose to believe it, it doesn't mean it is necessary to believe it for life.

 

Couple things.

 

1) This paragraph is completely meaningless unless I believe the Law of Identity is a universal rule. Any argument against the Law of Identity is meaningless unless your words mean what you intend them to mean and not what you do not intend them to mean.

 

2)  Even if it were true that the universe deals in probability that is a claim of identity. The universe IS probable and not deterministic. In order for the Law of Identity to be bunk the universe would have to be both probabilistic and deterministic at the same time. That is nonsense. Quantum mechanics is either one or the other.

 

3) "Probability" is something people invoke for things they don't understand. What is more believable? The Law of Identity is arbitrary or our knowledge of the quantum level is incomplete? I think it is way more believable that our scientific understanding of things is incomplete than the idea that logic is a fabrication of our minds. Belief that our scientific understanding is somehow complete is ironically a very unscientific way of thinking.

 

4) You claim that Laws of logic are analogous to classical physical laws. How do you know that? How do you know one theory = a "law" and other theories are not "laws"? How do you know some theories are valid and some are not valid? What is your concept of proof and disproof?

 

In order to claim that the Laws of Logic are equally as valid as the physical laws of universe (which by the way I think is a diminishing of their validity) that is presupposing you actually have a methodology of truth in the first place. How can you have a methodology of truth without an epistemological foundation and how can you separate a valid epistemological foundation from an invalid epistemological foundation without appealing to the Rules of Logic as though they are they absolute and transcendent?

 

To put it simply the form of your argument contradicts the content of the argument.

 

“Assuming premises out of thin air in order to force a conclusion isn't logical. I addressed this earlier. Just because you are following syllogisms it doesn't mean you are justifying them to begin with.”

 

Oh really? You really want me to explain to you why you need logic to hunt prey? You really want me to explain to you why you need logic to grow crops or construct a shelter? Seriously man? I think you’re just trying to waste my time.

 

“We didn't just evolve to do some illogical things. We evolved completely without logic whatsoever. Instinct, survival, reproduction - not logic. The argument is that life doesn't need rational behavior, and that demanding rational behavior needs justification, not assumptions.”

 

There is no such thing as “instinct” unless the animals assumes things are what they are and not what they are not.

You do not survive without treating threats as threats and not as non-threats. You do not survive treating food as non-food.

You do not reproduce unless you believe the opposite sex really is the opposite sex and not the same sex as you.

All of those things you listed we evolved to do require logic.

Also, “I demand that you justify demanding people to be rational” is a completely insane demand. It is so obviously self-contradictory you have to be a fool to not notice it.

 

“That's exactly what UPB is asking you to do. It says that UPB is logical, therefore you must do UPB. Stefan was asked this recently, why should anyone behave according to UPB, and he just said "because it is correct".”

 

No it says that you should be logical. There is no iron law of the universe that forces you to be logical. You can choose to be logical or you can choose to be illogical. So saying we “must” be logical is just bad metaphysics.

 

“All of them. Some are necessary assumptions for objectivity - the other are assumptions that force a moral conclussion. It's like you didn't read my opening post at all. I am not against making assumptions at all, since some are necessary.”

 

So what do you want UPB to do? You want it to not force a conclusion at all? So you want it to be completely meaningless then?

There is no such thing as a “necessary” assumption. An assumption by definition is arbitrary.

 

 

"Loaded question. The pragmatism I referred to is the pragmatism of the assumptions taken for the sake of debate - that's pragmatic, not empirical. "

 

You said two things. A) Stefan has an agenda he wants UPB to fulfill and b) he selects his "assumptions" pragmatically and not logically. That is implying that Stefan and his book are manipulative and self-serving.

 

 

'Now you are the one telling me I must be logical.  My argument is not against logic, it is against the use of premises of a particular action, debate, into the general life at large. "

 

First of all, I’m not saying you “must” be logical. I’m saying you ought to be logical.

Second, if you are arguing against the universality of the premises of UPB you are essentially arguing against the virtue of being logical in day to day life. If you want to be logical in day to day life; if you want to possess the truth in day to day life you must universally apply the premises of UPB and the conclusions of UPB in your day to day life.

 

“True, but morally irrelevant.”

 

Oh so you are admitting that one lives to the extent they are logical? Great!

 

“Fun and logic are different things. Fun is alogical, not antilogical. I never said you shouldn't be alogical. Your argument here is a strawman. My purpose with the example of the church and santa is to show that you already behave differently during a debate and general life, yet you want a theory that treats them both as if they were the same - like wanting to have your cake and eat it too.”

 

Well you can call it whatever you want. I have logical reasons for not being obnoxious toward Christmas time and I have logical reasons for not violating the property rights of Christians.

A logical person values preserving rational civilization

Which means he values reproducing rational civilization.

Which means he values family life.

Which means he values not being obnoxious.

So therefore I do have a logical reason to not refute Santa Clause in front of children at too young an age.

 

A logical person values preserving rational civilization.

Which means he believes in the virtue of having universal codes of ethics

Which means he believes in the virtue of respecting private property rights.

So therefore a logical person does not interrupt a church gathering.

 

“No, he just used an irrational method to select his initial assumptions in order to force a conclusion that he liked. I think that's a rational mistake. Like assuming the rules of tennis, and continue assuming the rules after the game is over. Does he sleep with a tennis racket, too?”

 

The difference is you can live without treating life as a game a tennis awhile you cannot live awhile disregarding logic and the tools (rules of debate) necessary for the pursuit of truth. The quickest way to pain is to not care about the truth.

 

 

“You're conflating the idea that the premises lead to a conclusion with the action of forcing the premises to lead to a desired conclusion in the first place. Very dishonest to do. When I say UPB forces a conclusion I use force to mean "unjustified assumptions" - where the assumptions are justified for a debate, but not for a not-debate.

 

Then just say the premises are arbitrary. Don’t say they “force a conclusion”. There is nothing wrong with forcing a conclusion. The whole point of an argument is to persuade your opponent to adopt a certain conclusion that you prefer them to adopt.

 

 

“This doesn't define what virtue is without UPB. When you say that UPB tells you what you should do, you're saying that virtue is defined by UPB. Therefore, UPB = Virtue. It's still a circle. "Use my system that defines virtue in order to be virtuous otherwise your're not virtuous" is the same as saying "Follow my religion that defines salvation in order to obtain salvation otherwise you won't be saved from hell" - you're not defining virtue/salvation without the system you are selling me. This is a trick.”

 

First of all, UPB did not invent the concept of virtue. The concept of virtue as what you universally and unconditionally ought to do goes back WAY before Stefan was even born. It’s not like nobody has ever attempted to do what Stefan has done. What people typically mean by virtue in the meta-ethical sense is what one ought to do regardless of opinion, time or place. It doesn’t matter whether the moralist philosopher is Mill, Kant, Spinoza, Locke, Rand, etc. All of them have the same meta-ethical concept of virtue. They just disagree on what ethical rules lead one to virtue. UPB is not synonymous with virtue. The most you can say is that using UPB is virtuous, but that’s not equivalent to saying UPB literally is virtue as a noun.

 

Second, UPB is meant to provide a methodology for achieving virtue. Now if you ask why we should be virtuous at all you must understand you are going outside the scope of Stefan’s book. A person who wants to commit evil intentionally is someone you are probably not going to convince to be ethical no matter what you do. Ethics isn’t about convincing evil people to be good, but to give people of good will the tools to identify evil in the world and achieve virtue.

 

Perhaps Stefan should write a book explaining why one should be ethical in the first place. I think there is an argument there to be made even if it might be 99% ineffectual. Even if it made a 1% difference it would be worth it because that would have a huge effect on the life of those 1%. I’ll tell you right now that I use to be a malevolent evil person myself who was trying to brainwash people into nihilism for what I thought was my self-interest. Stefan in a debate with a Max Stirner person “How Not to Fight Evil” was the final stroke that convinced me to abandon my evil ways.

 

“Logic isn't just following a syllogism. I said this before, and you still think that following premises is enough to be rational. Update your intellect.”

 

A rational person is someone who takes their duty to the truth seriously. Now if you are going to take your duty to the truth seriously then clearly you ought to apply the rules of debate to life generally speaking because the rules of debate = the rules you need to follow in order to come toward the truth.

 

“No, you use debate to figure out the ethics of life. Then you step out of the debate knowing that you used the platform in order to think about life. Then you step into life, charged with the clarity gained from the debate, knowing it isn't a debate.”

 

Nonsense.

First of all, moral rules are not universally binding unless the rational principles used to justify them are universal to begin with.

Second, are you okay with a police department arresting you and torturing you to “confess” to your crimes on the basis that falsehood is better than truth? I doubt it. Are you okay with sitting down at a corporate board meeting on the premise that language does not have capacity for meaning? I doubt it.  Are you okay playing a football game where the referee believes correction does not require universal preferences? I doubt it.

 

“I explained why it's a mutual assumption, not a universal reality. The rest of the universe, outside of our debate, doesn't care about corrections.”

 

First of all, so what if the universe doesn’t care about corrections? So what? You’re smart enough to know nobody is talking about fulfilling the wishes of the universe, but about figuring out what the truth is. Humans do not live to the extent they are irrational, but to the extent they are rational.

Second. If two people think I am correct that does not mean I am actually correct. I am only correct if I am actually adhering to reality. Truth is not intersubjective. It transcends the intersubjective.

 

“This assumes epistemological nihilism isn't correct. Life can function well with epistemological nihilism, so this is something we ascribe only for a debate.”

 

First, epistemological nihilism is self-contradictory because epistemological nihilism itself makes epistemological claims all of which are equally as unjustified (by its own logic) as the epistemological claims it wants to undermine. So it is complete nonsense from start to finish.

Second, yes primitive life forms do not need a theory of knowledge in order to live. However, if you want to get to higher levels of existence you need science and there is no such thing as the scientific method without an epistemological foundation. So I call BS on this claim of yours that we do not need epistemological in day to day life. We wouldn’t even be have computers without an epistemological foundation.

 

“It's not moral nor is it a rule - they are assumptions and premises.”

 

LOLOLOL. Completely meaningless statement. Is that supposed to be a truth claim or something? Am I supposed to respect what you say and change my behavior because what you say is the truth?

 

“Same as above. In the real world, some debates are futile. People will debate anything, even if they're wrong. Sometimes using force to stop wrong debates is better than wasting people's time. Saying that "peaceful debate" is better is only for the purposes of this particular debate, not all debates, and certainly not true for life in general.”

 

Not true for life in general? Oh really. You expect me to believe when you are in a dispute with someone you are more likely to use violence against them instead of debate them? I call BS on that. If that were true you would be in prison right now.

 

 If you care about living or you care about ethics you must care about the truth. How are you supposed to arrive at the truth unless you first accept that peaceful debate is better than force? Only an insane person thinks he can arrive at the truth by forcing people to agree with him and bend to his every will.

 

Now there are times where you have to respond to violent disputes with violence. Yes, but why? The reason we do so is isn’t because we believe peaceful debate isn’t the best way to resolve disputes. It is precisely because we believe peaceful debate is better than force that we used force against such people.  If we didn’t use force against those people we wouldn’t be able to encourage people to use debate instead of coercion in order to resolve disputes. Does that make sense?

 

“An unsubstantiated claim, which is falsifiable, totally not necessary for life - it is subject to its own debates just for it. To assume it for the practicality of intellectual exercise doesn't void its significance as a testable claim about people. In other words, assuming that the world is real is necessary because it can't be tested, so it can only be assumed. Assuming responsibility for individuals is not on the same level, as it is a falsifiable claim. I find this assumption to be one of the leading "forced" premises of UPB.”

 

How do you falsify self-ownership without both a) using self-ownership and b) applying self-ownership? You cannot assume the validity of something in order to prove it doesn’t exist.

If you are going to debate someone you have to believe 4 things.

1) You believe you are responsible for your behavior. If you didn’t think you were responsible for your behavior you would have told me already “These words are not really what I believe”.

2) You’re assuming you have a right to use your body. If you genuinely thought you had no right to use your own mouth you wouldn’t be using it.

3) You believe I am responsible for my behavior. You don’t argue with rocks falling down a hill.

4) You believe I have a right to manipulate my body. It makes no sense to try to correct people unless you believe they have a moral right to manipulate their bodies to be in accordance with your wisdom.

 

“The world is real” is not an assumption. It is a logically consistent claim.

I do not “assume” self-ownership. I justify self-ownership by appeal to logical consistency. Also, can you imagine a police department that doesn’t believe in self-ownership? LOL

 

“Arbitrary is a strawman here. I never claimed subjectivity, nor arbitrariness within the context of debate. Nor am I arguing against their use within a debate. Are you even reading what I write properly? Read my posts a few times before writing back. Take your time. I can wait.”

 

You do not understand. I mean arbitrary in the sense that the rules of football or chess are arbitrary. There is no moral significance to the rules of football or chess. They are arbitrary inventions.

I do not agree that the rules of debate are morally equivalent to the rules of football or chess.  I believe they are essential to human life itself. That you should apply the rules of debate to life itself.

 

“No you don't think I am insane. An insane person can't think rationally, so you'd also be insane to argue with me. You are using an emotionally charged intimidation tactic to try to get me emotional as well and cloud my judgment. It won't work on me.”

 

LOLOOLOL. Okay whatever. Tell me what I actually think. If this were a private two person dialogue you would have a point, but this isn’t a two person dialogue. This is a public forum on the internet. I do not absolutely have to convince you. I can convince other people that you are wrong.

 

Journalists do this all the time. They engage irrational people in public often on camera. It doesn’t actually matter whether they can persuade the person they are interviewing. What matters is whether they can persuade the larger audience. Would it be better if I could persuade you? Yes, but I kinda doubt that is going to happen. I’m getting to the point where I am realize that I basically have to refute your entire philosophy on life and when I get to that point I start to get bored.

 

“Logic is not absolute as I argued earlier since the universe, at a fundamental level, doesn't follow the rules of logic. Also, logic is derived from the empirical examination of the world at a classical-physics level, which means that scientific/empirical truths supercede logical truths since logic is the son of science, not backwards.”

 

Wrong. There is no such thing as the scientific method without an epistemological foundation and you cannot separate a valid epistemological foundation from an invalid one without appealing to logic consistency as though the rules of logic are absolute and transcendent.

 

“You can't start with the premise that universal moral rules exist because "universal moral rules" are a conclusion, presumably, of a string of justified premises. It would be like starting a race beyond the finish line and declaring yourself the winner. "I'm going to prove universal morality exists. First, assuming universal moral rules exist..." is nonsense. For the record, I don't think the actual UPB book does this mistake, but that your interpretation of it is wrong. But if you were to show me how UPB assumes morality exists with a citation, I will accept that.”

 

No no no

First of all, “Universal moral rules exists” is not the final conclusion. The final conclusion is the non-aggression principle.

Second, Stefan does not “assume” universal moral rules exist. He justifies this claim by appeal to logical consistency.

Page 37-42

Debate is how we find the truth and there is no way to argue against the existence of universal moral rules without contradicting yourself. From there he then develops his methodology. There is no point in developing a methodology of truth unless a) the truth exists and b) truth has a definite nature. Same with morality. You don’t write a treatise on morality unless universally binding rules exist. If you can’t even get THAT far why bother?

 

“"You can't assume your conclusions and call yourself honest afterwards.”

 

It is the logical implication of any universal ethical system that the government is evil. The government can only exist because of the breaking of universal ethical rules. It has to have a set of rules that applies to itself and a one that applies to everyone else. Call it forced or whatever. There is no way around this.

The premise in case is "people are responsible for their actions" - which is not a premise of equal meaning to self ownership.

 

Wrong. They are two ways of saying the same thing.

 

 

When, for example, someone kills another person, we can ask of this event "Was this person insane? Was this person under drugs? Was this person in a blind rage that numbed its cognitive skills so intensely that it couldn't avoid killing?"

Yet he is still punished or placed in a mental asylum as though he is responsible in some sense. Saying that different types of people and different behaviors deserve different treatment =/= a denial of self-ownership.

 

 

We don't ask "Was this person in self ownership of the hand that pulled the trigger?

What? No no no. The point of those questions is to figure out what type of punishment/rehabilitation the person deserves. There is no denial of self-ownership.

 

The sophist trick here is to say that because the hand was attached to the arm that was attached to the body that has a brain then obviously and axiomagically the person was responsible and morally culpable for the killing. But nobody does that. Except when autistic-type libertarians say that assuming responsibility for your words during a debate as a premise is the same as believing that everything people do is their fault, therefore objective morality, therefore the killer is culpable.

 

If your arm presses the trigger that kills someone you are responsible for killing them Period. Just because different criminals get qualitatively and quantitively different types of punishment or perhaps no punishment at all based on the circumstances of the scene doesn't mean there is some denial of self-ownership.

 

 

These are two completely different and separate concepts that are being conflated to justify the nonsensical phrase "you can't argue against self ownership" as a means of determining that because we agree to assume responsibility for our arguments in a debate - then during real life then everyone is always morally liable for their actions.

Nonsense. If you can't argue for a position in a debate then it must be BS in real life. Something that is true in a debate does not magically become untrue in real life.

 

Let's say I kill a person in self-defense. There are two layers to the discussion. 1)Did I actually kill in self-defense which is a factual question and 2)what should my punishment/rehabilitation for this behavior be which is a moral question. Even if I had a mental disorder or I was under the influence I would still be responsible for my crime if I did a crime. I just wouldn't be treated the same as a normal criminal.

 

Everyone is morally liable for their actions. They just don't deserve the same treatment.

[Will Torbald]

Everyone is morally liable for their actions. They just don't deserve the same treatment.

 

This is so wrong I don't even want to deal with the eveything said before. I think you have severe issues with the concept of morality itself if you believe this. Not even worth going back and forth with the rest.

 

The challenge is simple: Prove that life and debate are continuous and one in the same. I show how the assumptions of debate are not necessary for life - and all you do is insist and repeat that they are. Also, the proof has to be exclusive for debate, and not every other situation that has rules and premises (like chess or tennis).

 

The rebuttal of "you can't debate without accepting the premises of debate" is wrong because the premises are only taken in order to contextualize the debate - not to prove that the premises are true. It could be very real and true that determinism and not free will is how the world works, yet we pretend free will is real in order to debate because we haven't proved it is.

[Nathan Metric]

The challenge is simple: Prove that life and debate are continuous and one in the same. I show how the assumptions of debate are not necessary for life - and all you do is insist and repeat that they are. Also, the proof has to be exclusive for debate, and not every other situation that has rules and premises (like chess or tennis).

I'm not saying life and debate are the same. I'm saying what is good for life is the same as what is good for debate. You do not avoid pain by not caring about the truth and the ethics of debate is how we figure out the truth.

 

 

 

The rebuttal of "you can't debate without accepting the premises of debate" is wrong because the premises are only taken in order to contextualize the debate - not to prove that the premises are true. It could be very real and true that determinism and not free will is how the world works, yet we pretend free will is real in order to debate because we haven't proved it is.

 

No no no no no. Entering a debate is not about playing a game and having fun. it is about the truth. The premises of debate are not arbitrary like the rules of tennis or soccer, but are basic rational principles you need to hold in order to pursue the truth.

 

Truth = what we can logically argue for. Anything you can't argue for we ought to not consider as the truth. If you have to assume free will exists in order to logically argue for anything then free will must exist period.

[Rventurelli]

That is my main problem with Libertarianism: too many things are taken for granted, too many assumptions. People that get sucked into this intellectual dark hole tend to confuse theory with reality.

Theory, like universal preferable behaviour, supply and demand and whatever, are simplifications of reality. They are not reality per se. The reason being that what is logic and what is right not necessarily will always produce the same results. Also, we communicate through language and language is imperfect, we lack the words and concepts to explain many things and sentiments.

The best quote about this subject (theory not being the same as reality), come in my opinion from Napoléon Bonaparte: "There is no perfect battle -- the theory is only a line in which we trace curves."

A theory is almost always better than no theory, because having no theory, or assumptions, we have chaos and cannot engage in a debate, make plans or understand to a certain extent our own actions and thoughts. In poetry, there are fixed formats and rules to write it well, there are rules to play chess well, there are principles and suggestions in the art of war -- guess what? You can write poetry without rhyming, without fixed formats and can still be pretty and have music to it. You can ignore rules like developing your pieces and making a castle as quick as you can in chess if you are good enough and still be a great chess player. You can ignore the rational rules of tactics and strategy in war and that can make you unpredictable and therefore can be used as an advantage. Have you ever see the drunk style of fighting? If you have not been drunk many times before it is devastating being unable to predict it.

A good example for me of a theory that most Libertarians take for granted but is not necessarily true is the idea that if you practice 100 thousand hours of something you are better than 90 percent of the people doing that activity. While it does make sense, and it might apply to a big number of people, perhaps the majority of them if they have enough IQ, it is a theory, so it is imperfect, it can help us understand things but is not an absolute truth: my mother drives for longer than that and still sucks at driving to the point that it is scary being in a car with her driving and a mystery how she has not totaled more cars than she actually did. It is possible to multiply this examples ad infinitum, and I bet anyone reading this can think of examples in their own personal lives about things that they tried for many, many, many hours to learn, have done consistently throughout their lives and are still average or less than average doing it.

[Will Torbald]

I'm not saying life and debate are the same. I'm saying what is good for life is the same as what is good for debate. You do not avoid pain by not caring about the truth and the ethics of debate is how we figure out the truth.

 

No no no no no. Entering a debate is not about playing a game and having fun. it is about the truth. The premises of debate are not arbitrary like the rules of tennis or soccer, but are basic rational principles you need to hold in order to pursue the truth.

 

Truth = what we can logically argue for. Anything you can't argue for we ought to not consider as the truth. If you have to assume free will exists in order to logically argue for anything then free will must exist period.

 

1- Pain isn't bad for life. Science is how the truth is known, not debate. Saying that what is good for life is the same as what is good for debate is the same as saying that there is a life/debate continuum - it has not escaped the rebuttal. Also, that is still a claim, not a proof.

 

2- The truth isn't known through debate. The premises of tennis and soccer are not arbitrary, they are necessary for the game. The premises of debate are not arbitrary, they are necessary for debate. The issue is that they are not necessary for life. The only premises needed for the truth are the premises of the scientific method, and UPB uses many more premises beyond those, premises which are ideological - not scienfitic.

 

3- That definition is a rationalistic view of truth, and the problem is that any logical argument that doesn't include scientific knowledge is limited by the the unwarranted assumptions made in the premise stage of the argument. Therefore, if you only include "logically argue for" in your definition, you could technically debate anything is true in any case for any ideology and religion and come up with a "truth" because your premises will always be chosen by your desire for the outcome. UPB wants to be as good as the scientific method, but for morality. It can't be as good if it doesn't only make the assumptions of the SM, and no more than that. Your only standard is aetherial ungrounded logic, without any scientific requirement. Good for you, but not for the theory as a system of ethics that presents itself as scientific, objective, and universal.

[Rventurelli]

1- Pain isn't bad for life. Science is how the truth is known, not debate. Saying that what is good for life is the same as what is good for debate is the same as saying that there is a life/debate continuum - it has not escaped the rebuttal. Also, that is still a claim, not a proof.

 

2- The truth isn't known through debate. The premises of tennis and soccer are not arbitrary, they are necessary for the game. The premises of debate are not arbitrary, they are necessary for debate. The issue is that they are not necessary for life. The only premises needed for the truth are the premises of the scientific method, and UPB uses many more premises beyond those, premises which are ideological - not scienfitic.

 

3- That definition is a rationalistic view of truth, and the problem is that any logical argument that doesn't include scientific knowledge is limited by the the unwarranted assumptions made in the premise stage of the argument. Therefore, if you only include "logically argue for" in your definition, you could technically debate anything is true in any case for any ideology and religion and come up with a "truth" because your premises will always be chosen by your desire for the outcome. UPB wants to be as good as the scientific method, but for morality. It can't be as good if it doesn't only make the assumptions of the SM, and no more than that. Your only standard is aetherial ungrounded logic, without any scientific requirement. Good for you, but not for the theory as a system of ethics that presents itself as scientific, objective, and universal.

I- As Nietzsche would say: what does not kill me makes me stronger. Pain, conflict, adversity and challenges are what make us change, move forward evolve as human beings instead of just being content with how things are and therefore stagnant.

 

II- The debate can aid two people who are honestly looking for the truth to find it, but of course, there is no guarantee that this will actually happen.

 

III- Agreed 102 percent with a two percent margin of error.

[Nathan Metric]

1- Pain isn't bad for life. Science is how the truth is known, not debate. Saying that what is good for life is the same as what is good for debate is the same as saying that there is a life/debate continuum - it has not escaped the rebuttal. Also, that is still a claim, not a proof.

 

2- The truth isn't known through debate. The premises of tennis and soccer are not arbitrary, they are necessary for the game. The premises of debate are not arbitrary, they are necessary for debate. The issue is that they are not necessary for life. The only premises needed for the truth are the premises of the scientific method, and UPB uses many more premises beyond those, premises which are ideological - not scienfitic.

 

3- That definition is a rationalistic view of truth, and the problem is that any logical argument that doesn't include scientific knowledge is limited by the the unwarranted assumptions made in the premise stage of the argument. Therefore, if you only include "logically argue for" in your definition, you could technically debate anything is true in any case for any ideology and religion and come up with a "truth" because your premises will always be chosen by your desire for the outcome. UPB wants to be as good as the scientific method, but for morality. It can't be as good if it doesn't only make the assumptions of the SM, and no more than that. Your only standard is aetherial ungrounded logic, without any scientific requirement. Good for you, but not for the theory as a system of ethics that presents itself as scientific, objective, and universal.

 

1) Pain is the signal for dangers to your health so yes actually pain IS bad for your life. Pain is the one form of meaning you can't deny. You body involuntarily reacts to pain. Anyone who denies their own pain is full of crap and anyone who claims knowledge of the truth has nothing to do with avoiding pain is even more full of crap.

Science = a form of debate. The rational principles that are the premise of debate are also principles that apply to science. 

 

2)What? Of course truth is known through debate. There is no such thing as a truth you can't argue for.

 

The premises of tennis and soccer are arbitrary in the sense that we can make them whatever the hell we want them to be. You cannot however make the principles of debate whatever you want because the point of debating isn't merely to have a debate....the point of debate is to find the truth.

 

Pain = signals for bad health and truth is how you avoid pain so therefore the rational principles of debate ought to be applied to life itself.

 

3)Straw man argument. If you make a scientific claim about reality you need supporting evidence. I don't know where you get this idea I'm some kind of non-empirical rationalist. If you say "the evidence supports X" you are making an argument. Sorry, but science is still a type of debate.

 

You also need to realize that an ethical claim =/= a scientific claim. How you judge an ethical claim is not equivalent to how you judge a scientific claim.

You can ignore the rational rules of tactics and strategy in war and that can make you unpredictable and therefore can be used as an advantage

 

Nonsense. "All warfare is based on deception" -Sun Tzu There is no such thing as a predictable tactician.

[Rventurelli]

Nonsense. "All warfare is based on deception" -Sun Tzu There is no such thing as a predictable tactician.

 

Not an argument. You only made a quote of an authority.

 

Of course there are predictable tacticians and strategists. That is part of what differentiates good ones from bad ones, although again, not necessarily. Erwin Rommel was a "trickster", he was an unpredictable general Feldmarschall, while Walther von Model was probably a better general, specialized in defensive warfare. He was much more conventional in the way he dealt with war, however, the determination and superb discipline made him extremely effective nonetheless.

 

Go back to the trench warfare in World War I -- is there anything more predictable than the Western Front in that war?

[Will Torbald]

1) Pain is the signal for dangers to your health so yes actually pain IS bad for your life. Pain is the one form of meaning you can't deny. You body involuntarily reacts to pain. Anyone who denies their own pain is full of crap and anyone who claims knowledge of the truth has nothing to do with avoiding pain is even more full of crap.

Science = a form of debate. The rational principles that are the premise of debate are also principles that apply to science. 

 

2)What? Of course truth is known through debate. There is no such thing as a truth you can't argue for.

 

The premises of tennis and soccer are arbitrary in the sense that we can make them whatever the hell we want them to be. You cannot however make the principles of debate whatever you want because the point of debating isn't merely to have a debate....the point of debate is to find the truth.

 

Pain = signals for bad health and truth is how you avoid pain so therefore the rational principles of debate ought to be applied to life itself.

 

3)Straw man argument. If you make a scientific claim about reality you need supporting evidence. I don't know where you get this idea I'm some kind of non-empirical rationalist. If you say "the evidence supports X" you are making an argument. Sorry, but science is still a type of debate.

 

You also need to realize that an ethical claim =/= a scientific claim. How you judge an ethical claim is not equivalent to how you judge a scientific claim.

Nonsense. "All warfare is based on deception" -Sun Tzu There is no such thing as a predictable tactician.

 

Everything here is wrong. I'm certain more discerning spectators know why, but I'll detail it anyway.

 

1) Pain, by being a signal of harm, is a good thing for life to have. Also, life doesn't avoid pain. It avoids the cause of the pain, but only if it is harmful. Life depends on things that are painful, nonetheless - like childbirth, or the first time having sex, or going to the dentist.

1.1) To say that science "is a type of debate" or that it has "the same premises" is foolish, for the premises of debate are a mix or rational and empirical claims - and science doesn't make empirical assumptions, only rational ones. All the empirical evidence is part of the process that comes afterwards. The rational claims that "we exist" can't be tested, which is why they are necessary. Premises of debate like "people can change their mind" are empirical claims, and actual brain experiments have been done (guess what, brains are pretty deterministic actually).

 

2) Conclusions are reached through debate, not truth. The truth is only reached through evidence in the case of empirical claims, and of rational proof in case of logical claims. However, we are dealing with world-level claims when dealing with morality. Empirical claims subject to evidence, not argument. If you change the rules of tennis and chess arbitrarily, they cease to be tennis or chess. The rules define the game, to begin with, even if they can altered slightly.

 

3) "Truth is reached through debate" is what a rationalist would say, not an empiricist. If you say "evidence is debate" then you are conflating argumentation with science. Words have definitions, and only sophists mix them together to confound meanings. I was saying that UPB wants to be a science-level system, not me. I'm not the one "who needs to understand" but tell that to Stefan instead.

 

-

 

Still

No

Argument

That

Falsifies

My

Case