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| Thread: Good and Evil Terms transfered to Physics |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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JollyJoker
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posted November 20, 2013 09:05 AM |
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How can something be "objective" (as in "human nature"), if it's NOT quantifiable?
All this nonsense about "everyone wants to be happy" - all "relative conditions" in a "relative world".
For example - can you, as a human with a memory, self-reflection and conscious mind REALLY be happy in any objective, absolute way, if you know that "All things must Pass", as George Harrison phrased it? For that to happen you would have to able to momentarily "forget" all knowledge about ultimately "bad things", so happiness is basically a SUBJECTIVE and RELATIVE state of mind.
Conversely, people who believe in an afterlife - what IS that? A figment of the mind to be able to cope? A solid foundation, giving a sense of security and comfort? A different drug as, say, Heroin, but still a drug?
How can anyone objectively say what is good or bad for you, if no one knows what LIFE ITSELF actually is and is all about and what it leads to? If eventually everyone just dies, life will bring a lot of pain, sorrow and grief anyway - so what? If you can get wet every moment anyway, what's wrong with dipping your hand into the water voluntarily to check how it feels?
And why would Heroin be bad for you? Oxygen is bad for you as well, if you consume too much of it - isn't everything absolutely and completely dependent on "how much"?
So the question would always be:
HOW MUCH is actually good for you? SOME disease is good - you get through it and become more resistant. SOME fear is good for you, because it makes you just a bit cautious and not too reckless. But HOW much, that would seem to be an entirely subjective thing.
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DoubleDeck
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posted November 20, 2013 09:08 AM |
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Damn! This topic is complex 
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artu
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posted November 20, 2013 09:17 AM |
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idontcare said:
oh, sry for misunderstanding, i meant the REASON for not randomly shooting is evolution, and NOT the fact we are social animals.
The fact that we arent shooting randomly is what makes us social, not other way around.
IMO
But there are animals who dont live in groups and they kill their own kind randomly. That is, they dont kill because of territory or food. They instinctively kill anything that comes by. Anyway, the evolutionary roots of social behavior isn't something I specifically focused on but it all boils down to the same conclusion since being social and having numbers is an evolutionary trait to begin with.
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idontcare
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posted November 20, 2013 10:10 AM |
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JollyJoker said:
[skip]
HOW MUCH is actually good for you? SOME disease is good - you get through it and become more resistant. SOME fear is good for you, because it makes you just a bit cautious and not too reckless. But HOW much, that would seem to be an entirely subjective thing.
Hi, exactly thatway i come to with my thinking of 'level of (put in here your desired word)'
But now im kinda lost 
NEXT EXERCISE: prove God and disprove him in 1 sentence.
j/k
@artu: kinda OT, but can you please link to animals which kill eachother (without 'reason')
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DoubleDeck
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posted November 20, 2013 10:24 AM |
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God cannot exist because if he did, he would by definition be an absolute, and there are no absolutes...well, except that one I suppose!
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artu
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posted November 20, 2013 10:43 AM |
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Quote:
@artu: kinda OT, but can you please link to animals which kill eachother (without 'reason')
I don't know of a web site with such a theme or a list. It's not exactly a specific topic, but over the years I've read about and watched in many documentaries, animals that kill for no reason. Mostly rather primitive forms like some fish, spiders, snakes. They don't always kill what they can digest or rival males, they simply kill instinctively because things happen to be on their way.
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idontcare
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posted November 20, 2013 11:01 AM |
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maybe the reason why they are basic forms is, that they are not social(but not antisocial), which just "proves" my argument, that social animals are a product of evolution.
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artu
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posted November 20, 2013 11:18 AM |
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Edited by artu at 11:37, 20 Nov 2013.
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I haven't said they aren't. Think of cats, some some sub-species are social and they live in packs while other sub-species are loners. You can not be "anti-social" if you are not a social specie to begin with anyway. Anti-social behavior is the "norm" for a specie who lives and hunts alone, or to rephrase it better, such a concept does not exist to them. What I meant was, every culture in history has some type of normative moral conduct that labels some of the behavior anti-social and punishable. These vary from society to society, yet there are very basic stuff that are common to almost all of them such as "don't kill group members without a reason." The basics are the basics because we evolved from social animals not loners. Social interaction and protecting group interest is in the core of our species but not every specie.
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DoubleDeck
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posted November 20, 2013 12:58 PM |
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idontcare said:
maybe the reason why they are basic forms is, that they are not social(but not antisocial), which just "proves" my argument, that social animals are a product of evolution.
Social animals are the products of thinking that happens below the level of awareness...
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Stevie
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posted November 20, 2013 03:00 PM |
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Following God's will is good, and doing anything else but God's will is bad. It took me a while to find this out. God is the moral standard on which right or wrong is judged. Any other moral standard is relative and arbitrary, therefore no reason to obey it. If God made then He owns us and has the RIGHT to make the rules for us. Following His rules is good, not following them is bad, and that's all there is to it.
One day I was talking to a girl from USA on moral issues and because she taught morality is relative. It went like this: "So, according to you, rape, murder, stealing or lying are subjective and determined by society - Yes - So killing someone here and now in the USA would be wrong, but could be right two days later or on the other side of the globe - Yes - And you think that at rock bottom moral values come from humans, which arbitrarily decide what's good and what's bad - Yes - ... Was Hitler good?... killing the jews, slavs, negroes, the disabled, homosexuals? - ... Yes - Wha... why?! - Because they were inferior - Inferior? - Yes, and he got rid of them - On what standard were they deemed inferior? - They were less evolved - Subhumans? - Yes, he wanted an arian population - So killing less evolved humans not to mix with the arians was good... - Yes" ...and we continued debating. The point is that relativism leads to an inconsistent worldview. When right is wrong and wrong is right then you can say that there is no right or wrong at all. Everything is allowed under the appropriate circumstances.
By the way, can anyone tell me on what basis were the nazis found guilty at the Nuremberg Trial?
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artu
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posted November 20, 2013 03:39 PM |
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Saying moral norms derive from historical conditions and transform accordingly has nothing to do with saying they are completely arbitrary. It does not have to be black or white. Besides your alternative is ALSO cultural, which God, the Christian one? It's not just Hitler who punishes the Jews or homesexuals, it's also your religion. Abrahamic religions put membership before the deeds which is plain nepotism and a completely immoral perspective to begin with. And how about all the people that lived before monotheism during that little period of 190.000 years? What was their fault? The whole concept is so flawed and caricaturistic, it cant be taken seriously as an argument for any kind of ethical discussion.
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JollyJoker
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posted November 20, 2013 04:09 PM |
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Stevie said:
By the way, can anyone tell me on what basis were the nazis found guilty at the Nuremberg Trial?
What kind of a question is that?
The questions are:
a) What were they accused of and
b) who was found guilty of what
They were accused of
1.Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of a crime against peace
2.Planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace
3.War crimes
4.Crimes against humanity
and were found guilty or not guilty to various degrees and various points.
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artu
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posted November 20, 2013 04:17 PM |
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JJ, what do you think about the Stanley Kramer movie about the trials, do you think it was rather fair or do you think the perspective was too American? Is there any German movie you would recommend focusing on the trials?
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mvassilev
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posted November 20, 2013 05:06 PM |
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artu:
Actually, I observe how human nature hasn't changed in over a thousand years. For example, if you read Aristotle, you see much that hasn't changed. That is because humans are social animals - I don't know what you mean by the "because of ideals" part, the ideals are derived from human nature (among other things).
JJ:
Something can certainly be objective but not quantifiable. Suppose you see someone with an angry face, holding a sledgehammer and smashing stuff while growling, and it's clear he's not an actor. Is he angry? Certainly. How angry? Very angry? Is that a quantifiable description? No, but it's still true.Quote:
can you, as a human with a memory, self-reflection and conscious mind REALLY be happy in any objective, absolute way, if you know that "All things must Pass", as George Harrison phrased it? For that to happen you would have to able to momentarily "forget" all knowledge about ultimately "bad things"
Yes, of course you can be happy. Why wouldn't you? You don't have to forget anything. I know there are bad things in the world, and that my life will probably eventually end. That doesn't stop me from being happy. Why would it? I'm not sure what you're getting at.
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artu
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posted November 20, 2013 05:35 PM |
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Edited by artu at 18:14, 20 Nov 2013.
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You skip the (most important) part which is, wishing to be happy, getting angry or wanting to have friends are not moral norms but emotional conditions. Of course, you'll find that such basic conditions barely change. Yet, how we handle them and label them according to moral standards differ greatly. Aristotales or almost any other Ancient Greek philosopher, by today's standards, would be considered sexist, racist and elitist. We still value them because we evaluate them according to their time. (And there are many people who are unaware of that notion, accusing Plato of defending slavery etc etc.)
I use the word ideal in the technical (philosophical) sense. Your stance assumes an abstract humanity that is stripped of its social, historical and educational context. A generalization which is omnipresent all the time through out the history of mankind.
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mvassilev
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posted November 20, 2013 05:42 PM |
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Quote:
wishing to be happy, getting angry or wanting to have friends are not moral norms but emotional conditions.
They're both.
Yes, Aristotle was sexist and racist, so his understanding was incomplete, but there is still much in what he said that remains correct. He was influenced by his time, when equality for women was unheard of. But now we know more about the relations between happiness and different forms of social organization, so we're ahead of Aristotle. My point is that there's much that hasn't changed.
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JollyJoker
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posted November 20, 2013 05:56 PM |
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artu said:
JJ, what do you think about the Stanley Kramer movie about the trials, do you think it was rather fair or do you think the perspective was too American? Is there any German movie you would recommend focusing on the trials?
There is This one (although not German).
There also seems to be a French movie of 2006.
They are covered in This one.
I have no problems with Kramer's movie, on the contrary. I'm a relativist, and the victor is always right. Actually I applaud the trials because I welcome a world order where people who initiate wars and genocide are outlawed and put to trial.
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artu
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posted November 20, 2013 05:56 PM |
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Edited by artu at 18:08, 20 Nov 2013.
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Quote:
They are both
No, they are not. Moral norms are expected behavioral patterns not feelings. There are some schools of ethics that say these behaviors should be sincere and spontaneous to be moral and schools that claim the opposite, it's resisting the temptation that counts. But the feeling itself is not the norm.
So, I guess it is your philosophy that is not incomplete and we finally have the last piece of the puzzle, eh? That's nice to know.
@JJ
Quote:
I have no problems with Kramer's movie, on the contrary. I'm a relativist, and the victor is always right. Actually I applaud the trials because I welcome a world order where people who initiate wars and genocide are outlawed and put to trial.
I liked it, too. I wasn't suggesting the trials themselves were wrong. But I wondered if somebody from Germany may thought that the film portrayed the Americans too heroic. (I wouldn't say the victor is always right though, at least when enough time passes, but we've already discussed that).
I also watched the one with Alec Baldwin that you linked focusing on the major trials, but I think the Kramer movie is better. The character played by Burt Lancester has been put into the script with much better character depth than the other film's major Nazi figures.
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JollyJoker
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posted November 20, 2013 06:03 PM |
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mvassilev said:
JJ:
Something can certainly be objective but not quantifiable. Suppose you see someone with an angry face, holding a sledgehammer and smashing stuff while growling, and it's clear he's not an actor. Is he angry? Certainly. How angry? Very angry? Is that a quantifiable description? No, but it's still true.
It's not. You just believe it. It's not quantifiable, it's not objective, and you may be completely wrong ion your observation.
Quote:
Quote:
can you, as a human with a memory, self-reflection and conscious mind REALLY be happy in any objective, absolute way, if you know that "All things must Pass", as George Harrison phrased it? For that to happen you would have to able to momentarily "forget" all knowledge about ultimately "bad things"
Yes, of course you can be happy. Why wouldn't you? You don't have to forget anything. I know there are bad things in the world, and that my life will probably eventually end. That doesn't stop me from being happy. Why would it? I'm not sure what you're getting at.
I'm getting at you talking about SUBJECTIVE stuff. "Happy" is just a name for an emotional state that is completely relative (which you just acknowledged, since you said you can be happy even though you may not have any OBJECTIVE QUANTIFIABLE reason.
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mvassilev
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posted November 20, 2013 06:16 PM |
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Let me confirm this, in case I misunderstood something. You say that because anger isn't quantifiable, it's not an objective state?
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