Morality and Intelligence

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Nick_A
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Re: Morality and Intelligence

Post by Nick_A »

We know that intelligence is usually defined by the ability to think logically and remember facts. Morality is a term usually defined by some sort of religious beliefs. We can prove facts but cannot prove morality. As a result we have become intellectually intelligent and emotionally ignorant. This puts us in a dangerous position because we have become able to do a great many things but lacking emotional intelligence we don’t know what to do other than what gratifies superficial drives. We know how to become intellectually intelligent but as a whole we do not know what it requires to become emotionally intelligent and even less to know what it is.

Those like F4 and Impetus are dedicated to and blinded by literal reason. So nothing I may say or copy will register with those with this mindset so I’m directing this post to anyone lurking who senses there is something more than secularism, atheism, and secularized religion, pop psychology, and New Age which answers the deeper questions we have. I’d like to give you a link to another other side which values wholeness over fragmentation in order to become open to and experience the human condition. If you are open to this link and what I copied from it, I do wish you the best because many will be against you. My guess is that in fifty years if we survive that long, it will become more common understanding. Emotional intelligence will catch up to intellectual intelligence and society as a whole will be guided more by objective conscience than indoctrinated morality. Machines will serve man rather than Man serving machines and being controlled by them psychologically as it is now.

http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/Reviews/NicolescuReview.htm
After reading Nicolescu's Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity, it is hard to imagine how any thinking person could retreat to the old, safe, comfortable conceptual framework. Taking a series of ideas that would be extremely thought-provoking even when considered one by one, the Romanian quantum physicist Basarab Nicolescu weaves them together in a stunning vision, this manifesto of the twenty-first century, so that they emerge as a shimmering, profoundly radical whole.

Nicolescu’s raison d’être is to help develop people’s consciousness by means of showing them how to approach things in terms of what he calls “transdisciplinarity.” He seeks to address head on the problem of fragmentation that plagues contemporary life. Nicolescu maintains that binary logic, the logic underlying most all of our social, economic, and political institutions, is not sufficient to encompass or address all human situations. His thinking aids in the unification of the scientific culture and the sacred, something which increasing numbers of persons, will find to be an enormous help, among them wholistic health practitioners seeking to promote the understanding of illness as something arising from the interwoven fabric—body, plus mind, plus spirit—that constitutes the whole human being, and academics frustrated by the increasing pressure to produce only so-called “value-free” material.

Transdisciplinarity “concerns that which is at once between the disciplines, across the different disciplines, and beyond all discipline,” and its aim is the unity of knowledge together with the unity of our being: “Its goal is the understanding of the present world, of which one of the imperatives is the unity of knowledge.” (44) Nicolescu points out the danger of self-destruction caused by modernism and increased technologization and offers alternative ways of approaching them, using a transdisciplinary approach that propels us beyond the either/or thinking that gave rise to the antagonisms that produced the problems in the first place. The logic of the included middle permits “this duality [to be] transgressed by the open unity that encompasses both the universe and the human being.” (56). Thus, approaching problems in a transdisciplinary way enables one to move beyond dichotomized thinking, into the space that lies beyond.

Nicolescu calls on us to rethink everything in terms of what quantum physics has shown us about the nature of the universe. Besides offering an alternative to thinking exclusively in terms of binary logic, and showing how the idea of the logic of the included middle can afford hitherto unimagined possibilities, he also introduces us to the idea that Reality is not something that exists on only one level, but on many, and maintains that only transdisciplinarity can deal with the dynamics engendered by the action of several levels of Reality at once. It is for this reason that transdisciplinarity is radically distinct from multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity, although it is often confused with both. Moreover, because of the fact that reality has more than a single level, binary logic, the logic that one uses to cross a street and avoid being hit by a truck, cannot possibly be applied to all of the levels. It simply does not work. Nicolescu explains it is only the logic of the included middle that can be adequate for complex situations, like those we must confront in the educational, political, social, religious and cultural arenas. As he writes, “The transdisciplinary viewpoint allows us to consider a multidimensional Reality, structured by multiple levels replacing the single-level, one-dimensional reality of classical thought.” (49)………………………..
Man would like to be an egoist and cannot. This is the most striking characteristic of his wretchedness and the source of his greatness." Simone Weil....Gravity and Grace
Fooloso4
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Re: Morality and Intelligence

Post by Fooloso4 »

Nick_A:
I’m directing this post to anyone lurking who senses there is something more than secularism, atheism, and secularized religion, pop psychology, and New Age which answers the deeper questions we have.
You confirm what I said in my last post:
Someone not familiar with his spiel might think there is something to it, and so, there is still some value in challenging him while he carries on in blissful ignorance imaging he might save a soul or two.


The problem is that you clearly do not understand the work of Basarab Nicolescu. This was made readily apparent in the Futility of Reason topic. It is one thing to suggest to anyone “who senses there is something more” to read the quoted and linked material, but it is quite another when you go attempt to tie it together what you do not understand with other things you do not understand as if it were all actually connected and representative of something other than your own misinformed views.
Spectrum
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Re: Morality and Intelligence

Post by Spectrum »

Life is a like a symphony of different separate interdependent faculties that must align with each other within various constraints to synergize and optimize for the well being of the individual and therefrom the collective.

Morality and intelligence are merely two parallel and interdependent faculties of the mind. When morality is aligned with intelligence we have moral intelligence, just like emotional intelligence [EQ], spiritual intelligence [SQ], mathematical & linguistic intelligence [IQ] and other intelligences. Note Gardner's concept of multiple intelligences.

All humans are born with some degree of basic moral intelligence that need further development, note.
Morality is not just something that people learn, argues Yale psychologist Paul Bloom: It is something we are all born with. At birth, babies are endowed with compassion, with empathy, with the beginnings of a sense of fairness. It is from these beginnings, he argues in his new book Just Babies, that adults develop their sense of right and wrong, their desire to do good — and, at times, their capacity to do terrible things.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... of-babies/
Towards the greater complexity of the subject of morality, moral intelligence is insufficient, what we need are the other additional faculties, i.e.

1. Ethical intelligence
2. Conscience faculty
3. Wisdom - philosophy proper
4. Spiritual intelligence
5. Emotional intelligence

The above are the main faculties that are essential to ensure each human's acts are optimally 'good' but there are other [less critical] faculties which are needed to add refinement.
Not-a-theist. Religion is a critical necessity for humanity now, but not the FUTURE.
Iapetus
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Re: Morality and Intelligence

Post by Iapetus »

Reply to Nick_A:
Reply to Impetus
I didn’t pick you up on this last time but please try to get my name right. It is Iapetus.

I am not vaguely interested in being married to you. I agree that it would probably be suicidal.

I know what qi is and I understand about yin and yang. I am not interested in discussing them because they are not relevant to my first post.
The third and vertical direction of reason threatens the imagination of secularism and atheism which believes that human meaning and purpose is discovered and felt through the duality of literal thought. This mistake assures that our species continues to turn in circles following the cycles of life including war and peace. The third and vertical direction of thought is what supplies the objective human perception of meaning. The article describes the logic of the law of the included middle and introduces the verticality of this third force. It is up to us to verify it through efforts to “know thyself,” to have the experience of oneself. Once you have the vertical experience it all becomes clear.
This does not, as far as I can see, represent comprehensible English. After a longish paragraph I still have no idea what, precisely, you mean by, “The third and vertical direction of reason”. I still don’t know what you intend, in this context, by ‘vertical’. I don’t know why or how it threatens the imagination. I don’t know how any of that relates to turning in circles. The article makes no mention of, or even alludes to, ‘the verticality of the third force’. How ‘know thyself’ is relevant to this is anybody’s guess. My concept of a vertical experience might involve a ride on a helter skelter or a hot air balloon but, beyond that, I have no idea what you mean. It is nonsense.

My first post related to logic. That provides a link with the theme of the thread. You seem to want to avoid talking about it. Yet it was you who quoted the article from The Edge, the theme of which was formal dualist logic and a suggested amendment. This involved consideration of the ‘excluded middle’ and a possible ‘included middle’.

You have demonstrated that you do not understand the fundamental arguments presented in this article. I had to explain to you that the duality was represented as A/not A. You admit to this:
Quite true. I just used classic examples of positive and negative.
Yes, thus missing the point entirely.
If you want to say that male is no hemaphrdite, A is still not A for the logic of the excluded middle. T in the law of the included middle becomes the quality of being in which A and not A exist as one.
I still don’t think you get it. What you have written this time is, again, difficult to grasp. But the included middle is a separate issue from the duality. It is related to an amendment. The duality is A/not A. Something is either male or not male. If it is not male then it may be female. Or hermaphrodite. Or transgender. Or it might multiply through parthenogenesis. It might be a virus. But Not Male. Male/not male. There is no middle because of the form in which the formal logic is expressed. If you want to talk about male and female ‘classic examples’, then that has nothing whatsoever to do with an excluded middle.

The ‘included middle’, as explained in the article, concerns what we have learned through observations of quantum states. This proposes that an object may exist in separate states simultaneously, of existence or non-existence. Thus, in addition to A/not A, we may have to consider neither/both. Out of Heisenberg’s interpretation of this idea, we gain the Uncertainty Principle. Nothing you have written suggests to me that you understand any of this. What does seem apparent to me is that you are looking to find any excuse to squeeze in references to ‘verticality’, ‘third forces’ and anything else you want to dream up without any consideration of how that relates to the article or to principles of logical reason.

So, to return to my original question:

What is it about a position in relation to logical reasoning which would make it poison for 'the secularists and atheists'?

You still haven’t answered this. I am asking about the process of logical reasoning, which you clearly don’t understand. So, given your own lack of understanding, I would like to know what it is about ‘secularists and atheists’ which leads you to assume that the process is ‘poison’ for them.
Belindi
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Re: Morality and Intelligence

Post by Belindi »

Iapetus, I really think that you could play along with Nick's metaphor of high, higher, highest. It's a common enough image to examine what Nick intends by it.

-- Updated April 6th, 2017, 6:08 am to add the following --

Nick implies that "literal thought" is inferior to mystical inspiration.
Nick_A
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Re: Morality and Intelligence

Post by Nick_A »

Belindi wrote:Iapetus, I really think that you could play along with Nick's metaphor of high, higher, highest. It's a common enough image to examine what Nick intends by it.

-- Updated April 6th, 2017, 6:08 am to add the following --

Nick implies that "literal thought" is inferior to mystical inspiration.
Perhaps you believe that a saw is inferior to a hammer. That is OK As you know we create our own realities and if that is your reality it is your truth and welcome in multicultural dialogue.
Man would like to be an egoist and cannot. This is the most striking characteristic of his wretchedness and the source of his greatness." Simone Weil....Gravity and Grace
Fooloso4
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Re: Morality and Intelligence

Post by Fooloso4 »

Nick_A:
That is OK As you know we create our own realities …
And this is the problem, isn’t it? You have created your own reality and assume that this is the whole of it, at least as far as you are concerned. But in order to maintain the illusion it is necessary to keep your eyes closed and to keep talking so as to drown out whatever might threaten the reality you have created.

It is ironic that you proffer this claim but insist on the existence of an “objective consciousness”, etc. In the reality you have created you imagine you are in the process of transcending this reality, whereas in reality, you are sinking further and further into the fantasy you have created that you think you are escaping.

We are born into a world that is not of our own making and in some ways might not be to our liking. The desire to escape this reality is the source of the reality you create, and your image of ascent. In one sense, it is a success in so far as you have created a reality of your own, but in another it is not, for you do not desire to be alone. There is a nagging worry that the imagined ascent is really a descent, and so you seek confirmation. You want others to join you, to assure you that the reality you have created is real.
Nick_A
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Re: Morality and Intelligence

Post by Nick_A »

F4

"does there exist in man a natural attraction to truth and to the struggle for truth that is stronger than the natural attraction to pleasure?" Jacob Needleman

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." -George Orwell

Yes, to consciously ascend in order to objectively and impartially experience the human condition is repulsive for you as an academic. What could be worse than those like Simone Weil who devote their lives to the conscious experience of reality at the expense of pleasure? As an academic you are obligated to oppose such individualistic thinking which opposes the whims of the Great Beast and academic snobbishness.

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” ~ attributed to Einstein

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/18/intuitive-mind/

A perfect description of your mindset. You have forgotten the gift and glorify the servant while hating those who have remembered it. Regardless of if it is Simone, Einstein, Dr. Nicolescu, or Prof. Needleman, you must oppose them to support academic secularism. You would be happier if Plotinus would have been burned at the stake for his support of levels of reality. Such speculation is deplorable considering that people should be arguing about secular concerns such as abortions, gender rights, and racism as real philosophy.

You will promote that which strives to create spiritually dead kids and I support those who strive to allow them to live as young human beings. It is our difference.
Man would like to be an egoist and cannot. This is the most striking characteristic of his wretchedness and the source of his greatness." Simone Weil....Gravity and Grace
Iapetus
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Re: Morality and Intelligence

Post by Iapetus »

Reply to Nick_A:
Iapetus:
"What is it about a position in relation to logical reasoning which would make it poison for 'the secularists and atheists'"?

You still haven’t answered this. I am asking about the process of logical reasoning, which you clearly don’t understand. So, given your own lack of understanding, I would like to know what it is about ‘secularists and atheists’ which leads you to assume that the process is ‘poison’ for them.
So are you interested in providing an explanation or do you hope to let it slip by? What I think I have learned at the moment is that you understand very little about logical reasoning, even when it is you who brought up the topic. Your level of understanding seems to be so weak that you think you can insert your own irrelevant agenda without explanation. Strange though you may think it, this is not difficult to spot and it doesn’t seem to impress many.

If you choose not to answer the question then, as far as I am concerned, that is tantamount to accepting that you picked on ‘secularists and atheists’ out of sheer prejudice because you have no justification. In which case, I would feel that you are not worthy of continuing discussion.
Fooloso4
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Re: Morality and Intelligence

Post by Fooloso4 »

Nick_A:
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." -George Orwell
Quite apt, given the man who is now the president of the United States. Only we need to be careful not to be deceived into thinking that the deceit has become universal. To do so would be the victory of deceit. Telling the truth has not become a revolutionary act, and for someone to pose as a revolutionary because he or she opposes the view of others is itself a deceit. Such opposition does not confer truth on one’s opinions.

Once again, the problem I am pointing to has nothing to do with the authors you mention but with your misrepresentation of them through selective quotation, putting names together as if they are in agreement when they are not, and with your attempt to appropriate them as if they actually represent your views and you accurately represent theirs.
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” ~ attributed to Einstein
Although you now say “attributed to Einstein” I had previously pointed out to you that Einstein did not actually say this. Now if you assume that deceit is universal then might assume that this deceit is acceptable, but it is not.

Here are some things Einstein did say including where he said them so that anyone who wishes to can verify both the statement and the context:
“The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.”

Albert Einstein, Science, Philosophy, and Religion, A 1934 Symposium published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941; from Einstein's Out of My Later Years, Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1970, pp. 29-30.
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

Albert Einstein, in a letter March 24, 1954; from Albert Einstein the Human Side, Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, eds., Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1981, p. 43.
“The religious feeling engendered by experiencing the logical comprehensibility of profound interrelations is of a somewhat different sort from the feeling that one usually calls religious. It is more a feeling of awe at the scheme that is manifested in the material universe. It does not lead us to take the step of fashioning a god-like being in our own image-a personage who makes demands of us and who takes an interest in us as individuals. There is in this neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being. For this reason, people of our type see in morality a purely human matter, albeit the most important in the human sphere.”

Albert Einstein, letter to a Rabbi in Chicago; from Albert Einstein the Human Side, Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, eds., Princeton University Press, 1981, pp. 69-70.
When he says “through striving after rational knowledge”, “the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it”, “the logical comprehensibility of profound interrelations”, “a feeling of awe at the scheme that is manifested in the material universe”, “There is in this neither a will nor a goal, nor a must, but only sheer being”, he is not claiming that the rational mind is a faithful servant or that the intuitive mind is a sacred gift. He is affirming the power of rational thought and scientific inquiry to as the proper tools for understanding the universe.

With regard to intuition he says:
But this point of view by no means embraces the whole of the actual process ; for it slurs over the important part played by intuition and deductive thought in the development of an exact science. As soon as a science has emerged from its initial stages, theoretical advances are no longer achieved merely by a process of arrangement. Guided by empirical data, the investigator rather develops a system of thought which, in general, is built up logically from a small number of fundamental assumptions, the so-called axioms. We call such a system of thought a theory. The theory finds the justification for its existence in the fact that it correlates a large number of single observations, and it is just here that the " truth " of the theory lies.

“Relativity”, appendix lll
Intuition according to Einstein does not stand as the authority that reason must serve. Intuition must be put to the test. It does not stand on its own. It does not originate outside the inquiring mind. It does not reveal higher truths. It is to be trusted only to the extent that one should follow up on an intuition, but there is no telling in advance whether it will turn out to be true or false.

-- Updated April 6th, 2017, 12:58 pm to add the following --

Einstein was all the things you oppose - a secular, progressive, academic. And although he did not at first fit in the academic world, when he did find a home within it, it was the academic world rather than him that changed. This is how academia works at its best.
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Felix
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Re: Morality and Intelligence

Post by Felix »

That quote falsely attributed to Einstein is not too far afield from statements he actually made, especially the sentence below I have italicized.

“Our age is proud of the progress it has made in man’s intellectual development. The search and striving for truth and knowledge is one of the highest of man’s qualities - though often the pride is most loudly voiced by those who strive the least. And certainly we should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve; and it is not fastidious in its choices of a leader. This characteristic is reflected in the qualities of its priests, the intellectuals. The intellect has a sharp eye for methods and tools, but is blind to ends and values. So it is no wonder that this fatal blindness is handed from old to young and today involves a whole generation.” - Albert Einstein in Out of My Later Years

"The supreme task of the physicist is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction. There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them." - Albert Einstein in Principles of Research
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
Fooloso4
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Re: Morality and Intelligence

Post by Fooloso4 »

Felix:
That quote falsely attributed to Einstein is not too far afield from statements he actually made, especially the sentence below I have italicized.
What Einstein meant by intuition has nothing to do with the kind of magic or mysticism that some attribute to him. Einstein’s use follows Kant’s. Intuitions are representations of objects given in sensation or pure a priori intuitions such as that of space and time.
Nick_A
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Re: Morality and Intelligence

Post by Nick_A »

Iapetus:
"What is it about a position in relation to logical reasoning which would make it poison for 'the secularists and atheists'"?

You still haven’t answered this. I am asking about the process of logical reasoning, which you clearly don’t understand. So, given your own lack of understanding, I would like to know what it is about ‘secularists and atheists’ which leads you to assume that the process is ‘poison’ for them.
I really don’t know what to write that I haven’t already written. Secularism and atheism must restrict existence to one level of reality. Levels of reality require a source for the verticality within which these levels have their existence. As soon as this idea expressed by those like Plotinus and his description of levels of reality are taken seriously, they could no longer be secularists or atheists. Consequently all sensible explanations for levels of reality are poison for secularists and atheists.

F4
Intuition according to Einstein does not stand as the authority that reason must serve. Intuition must be put to the test. It does not stand on its own. It does not originate outside the inquiring mind. It does not reveal higher truths. It is to be trusted only to the extent that one should follow up on an intuition, but there is no telling in advance whether it will turn out to be true or false.
As pointed out before, the servant serves the gift. It isn’t one or the other. They are not in opposition any more than science and the essence of religion. They are complimentary. You just are unable to understand these things. For some reason you believe you understand what those like Einstein, simone, Jacob Needleman and Basrb nicolescu have written. You haven’t a clue. You are too busy fighting windmills


Simone Weil wrote:
"We are living in times which have no precedent, and in our present situation universality, which could formerly be implicit, has to be fully explicit. It has to permeate our language and the whole of our way of life.

"Today it is not nearly enough merely to be a saint, but we must have the saintliness demanded by the present moment, a new saintliness, itself also without precedent. "

Maritian said this, but he only enumerated the aspects of saintliness of former days, which for the time being at least, have become out of date. He did not feel all the miraculous newness which the saintliness of today must contain in compensation.

"A new type of sanctity is indeed a fresh spring, an invention. If all is kept in proportion and if the order of each thing is preserved, it is almost equivalent to a new revelation of the universe and of human destiny. It is the exposure of a large portion of truth and beauty hitherto concealed under a thick layer of dust. More genius is needed than was needed by Archimedes to invent mechanics and physics. A new saintliness is a still more marvellous invention.

"Only a kind of perversity can oblige God’s friends to deprive themselves of having genius, since to receive it in superabundance they only need to ask their Father for it in Christ’s name.
"Such a petition is legitimate, today at any rate, because it is necessary. I think that under this or any equivalent form it is the first thing we have to ask for now, we have to ask for it daily, hourly, as a famished child constantly asks for bread. The world needs saints who have genius, just as a plague-stricken town needs doctors. Where there is a need there is also an obligation."
- Simone Weil, from ‘Last Thoughts', 1942
This “saintliness blends science with meaning.

Felix added the same idea from Einstein:

“Our age is proud of the progress it has made in man’s intellectual development. The search and striving for truth and knowledge is one of the highest of man’s qualities - though often the pride is most loudly voiced by those who strive the least. And certainly we should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve; and it is not fastidious in its choices of a leader. This characteristic is reflected in the qualities of its priests, the intellectuals. The intellect has a sharp eye for methods and tools, but is blind to ends and values. So it is no wonder that this fatal blindness is handed from old to young and today involves a whole generation.” - Albert Einstein in Out of My Later Years

"The supreme task of the physicist is to arrive at those universal elementary laws from which the cosmos can be built up by pure deduction. There is no logical path to these laws; only intuition, resting on sympathetic understanding of experience, can reach them." - Albert Einstein in Principles of Research
Science knows the tools and but is blind to values. It amazes me how you can be so blind to such obvious assertions. But it is your way. If you even understood in the slightest it would be obvious to you that it deals directly with the topic of the thread. We are blind to values and our emotional intelligence is so weak that we are open to obvious moral indoctrination that only serves the whims of secularism

I am grateful to be living at the beginning of a collective awareness of the natural unity of intellect and objective meaning which defines an objectively intelligent human being. As a secular academic you will hate it. Enjoy your hatred.
Man would like to be an egoist and cannot. This is the most striking characteristic of his wretchedness and the source of his greatness." Simone Weil....Gravity and Grace
Fooloso4
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Re: Morality and Intelligence

Post by Fooloso4 »

Nick_A:
As pointed out before, the servant serves the gift.
As pointed out before, the quote was falsely attributed.
It isn’t one or the other.
According to the quote reason serves the intuitive mind. It says nothing about it also being the other way.
They are complimentary.


I think you mean complementary, but complementary does not mean of equal status. To serve does mean to be subordinate to.
For some reason you believe you understand what those like Einstein, simone, Jacob Needleman and Basrb nicolescu have written.


And here you do exactly what I criticized you for doing. You lump them together as if the were also saying the same thing. Hint: one of these things is not like the others.
Science knows the tools and but is blind to values. It amazes me how you can be so blind to such obvious assertions.
It amazes me (not really) how often you accuse me of being blind to the very thing I have alreadt emphasized. In response to you in another thread I said:
Religion, according to Einstein, deals with values, goals, and meaning. It is the source of “the aspiration toward truth and understanding”. One might object that the aspiration toward truth and understanding is rightfully part of science, but he defines science narrowly as the methodology by which our desire to know becomes more than blind stumbling … (Is Faith a Good Way to Believe #161)
What Einstein meant by religion is entirely secular. You know this. I have pointed this out to you more than once. I have provided direct quotes to show that to be the case. Just because he spoke of religion does not mean that he shared Weil’s views on religion. Einstein’s faith was in a rational world that could be understood by reason. As quoted above, he did not believe in a personal God, and as he said elsewhere, as you know, he thought such ideas childish. And yet you pretend that he are Simone Weil are in agreement on religion and science.
I am grateful to be living at the beginning of a collective awareness of the natural unity of intellect and objective meaning which defines an objectively intelligent human being.
That is an assumption. One you cannot support except by seriously distorting what Einstein and others have said. You start with the assumption and alter the evidence to fit.
As a secular academic you will hate it. Enjoy your hatred.
Speaking out against misrepresentation and deceit is not hatred and has nothing to do with secularism. It does have something to do with preventing the possibility the "collective awareness" you look forward to. This helps explain your opposition to education and experts. They provide the evidence and skills needed to prevent the leveling of intellectual and spiritual differences you call elevation. it is a kind of moral imperative. Because when real difference is made to appear the same it is a giant leap toward totalitarianism, and with the destruction of education, and secular and pluralistic values, to be replaced by a religion indoctrination posing as "the natural unity of intellect and objective meaning" a step toward a totalitarian theocracy.
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TY91
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Re: Morality and Intelligence

Post by TY91 »

I don't think one can generalise regarding any potential link between intelligence and morality.
There are many definitions of "intelligence" but what springs to my mind is for example someone who has a particularly high intellect yet chooses to use that for non-ethical means.
Then on the other side perhaps another person may be highly intelligent but also have a strong emotional aspect alongside that which causes them to be acutely aware of the morality of their actions (a highly tuned social conscience perhaps?).
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2024 Philosophy Books of the Month

Launchpad Republic: America's Entrepreneurial Edge and Why It Matters

Launchpad Republic: America's Entrepreneurial Edge and Why It Matters
by Howard Wolk
July 2024

Quest: Finding Freddie: Reflections from the Other Side

Quest: Finding Freddie: Reflections from the Other Side
by Thomas Richard Spradlin
June 2024

Neither Safe Nor Effective

Neither Safe Nor Effective
by Dr. Colleen Huber
May 2024

Now or Never

Now or Never
by Mary Wasche
April 2024

Meditations

Meditations
by Marcus Aurelius
March 2024

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes

Beyond the Golden Door: Seeing the American Dream Through an Immigrant's Eyes
by Ali Master
February 2024

The In-Between: Life in the Micro

The In-Between: Life in the Micro
by Christian Espinosa
January 2024

2023 Philosophy Books of the Month

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise

Entanglement - Quantum and Otherwise
by John K Danenbarger
January 2023

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul

Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness

Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023

The Unfakeable Code®

The Unfakeable Code®
by Tony Jeton Selimi
April 2023

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
by Alan Watts
May 2023

Killing Abel

Killing Abel
by Michael Tieman
June 2023

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead

Reconfigurement: Reconfiguring Your Life at Any Stage and Planning Ahead
by E. Alan Fleischauer
July 2023

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough

First Survivor: The Impossible Childhood Cancer Breakthrough
by Mark Unger
August 2023

Predictably Irrational

Predictably Irrational
by Dan Ariely
September 2023

Artwords

Artwords
by Beatriz M. Robles
November 2023

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope

Fireproof Happiness: Extinguishing Anxiety & Igniting Hope
by Dr. Randy Ross
December 2023

2022 Philosophy Books of the Month

Emotional Intelligence At Work

Emotional Intelligence At Work
by Richard M Contino & Penelope J Holt
January 2022

Free Will, Do You Have It?

Free Will, Do You Have It?
by Albertus Kral
February 2022

My Enemy in Vietnam

My Enemy in Vietnam
by Billy Springer
March 2022

2X2 on the Ark

2X2 on the Ark
by Mary J Giuffra, PhD
April 2022

The Maestro Monologue

The Maestro Monologue
by Rob White
May 2022

What Makes America Great

What Makes America Great
by Bob Dowell
June 2022

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!

The Truth Is Beyond Belief!
by Jerry Durr
July 2022

Living in Color

Living in Color
by Mike Murphy
August 2022 (tentative)

The Not So Great American Novel

The Not So Great American Novel
by James E Doucette
September 2022

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches

Mary Jane Whiteley Coggeshall, Hicksite Quaker, Iowa/National Suffragette And Her Speeches
by John N. (Jake) Ferris
October 2022

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All

In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All
by Eckhart Aurelius Hughes
November 2022

The Smartest Person in the Room: The Root Cause and New Solution for Cybersecurity

The Smartest Person in the Room
by Christian Espinosa
December 2022

2021 Philosophy Books of the Month

The Biblical Clock: The Untold Secrets Linking the Universe and Humanity with God's Plan

The Biblical Clock
by Daniel Friedmann
March 2021

Wilderness Cry: A Scientific and Philosophical Approach to Understanding God and the Universe

Wilderness Cry
by Dr. Hilary L Hunt M.D.
April 2021

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute: Tools To Spark Your Dream And Ignite Your Follow-Through

Fear Not, Dream Big, & Execute
by Jeff Meyer
May 2021

Surviving the Business of Healthcare: Knowledge is Power

Surviving the Business of Healthcare
by Barbara Galutia Regis M.S. PA-C
June 2021

Winning the War on Cancer: The Epic Journey Towards a Natural Cure

Winning the War on Cancer
by Sylvie Beljanski
July 2021

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream

Defining Moments of a Free Man from a Black Stream
by Dr Frank L Douglas
August 2021

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts

If Life Stinks, Get Your Head Outta Your Buts
by Mark L. Wdowiak
September 2021

The Preppers Medical Handbook

The Preppers Medical Handbook
by Dr. William W Forgey M.D.
October 2021

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress: A Practical Guide

Natural Relief for Anxiety and Stress
by Dr. Gustavo Kinrys, MD
November 2021

Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir

Dream For Peace
by Dr. Ghoulem Berrah
December 2021