Is morality objective or subjective?

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Terrapin Station
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

Post by Terrapin Station »

popeye1945 wrote: February 8th, 2021, 11:29 am Peter, The mind is not physical, mind is a function, which preforces the function of reaction to the physical world.
So there's an example of something that I think isn't coherent: the notion of nonphysical existents.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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Terrapin Station wrote: February 8th, 2021, 11:34 am
popeye1945 wrote: February 8th, 2021, 11:29 am Peter, The mind is not physical, mind is a function, which preforces the function of reaction to the physical world.
So there's an example of something that I think isn't coherent: the notion of nonphysical existents.
Terrapin, We all know what an automobile is, it function is motion and comfort/transportation. Another example thinking, a function, a process of the brain, no physicality. A feeling.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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popeye1945 wrote: February 8th, 2021, 12:41 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: February 8th, 2021, 11:34 am
popeye1945 wrote: February 8th, 2021, 11:29 am Peter, The mind is not physical, mind is a function, which preforces the function of reaction to the physical world.
So there's an example of something that I think isn't coherent: the notion of nonphysical existents.
Terrapin, We all know what an automobile is, it function is motion and comfort/transportation. Another example thinking, a function, a process of the brain, no physicality. A feeling.
Say what? You're thinking that automobiles aren't physical? :?

And brain processes are physical obviously.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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You're not thinking that processes in general aren't physical, are you? That would be weird. You know that physics deals with processes all the time, right?
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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Terrapin Station wrote: February 8th, 2021, 12:58 pm You're not thinking that processes in general aren't physical, are you? That would be weird. You know that physics deals with processes all the time, right?
Terrapin, The brain is physical, the mind is not. The function of a car makes it move, is motion, not the object, but the actual movement physical. Is a thought physical? tangable.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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popeye1945 wrote: February 6th, 2021, 11:28 am
Belindi wrote: February 6th, 2021, 5:44 am
popeye1945 wrote: February 5th, 2021, 4:02 pm Belinda, Yes all those things/peoples are part of the given physical world as object.
But "the given physical world" is incorrect; the world as I know it is mental/physical.

Meanings are both mental and physical in their separable aspects. The mental/physical world as I know it is not forever fixed and static but evolves. Not only do species evolve but also meanings evolve. The world I know is a world in transit in its physical and its mental aspects. Meaning cannot pertain to isolated individual persons.
Hi Belinda, My understanding is yes, meanings are both physical and mental, in the sense that subject and object can never be separated, they either stand or fall together, these are not separable aspects. You need to expand upon this idea that meanings are evolving, and just how they are in transit. Also, how meaning cannot pertain to an isolated individual, as in one conscious subject.
Meanings are in transit because in a relative world you and me are never the same entity as other entities, and we are never the same entity compared with the entity each of us was yesterday(Heraclitus). If we were the same entity if there were no differentiation / relativity/ measurement then it follows there would be no I/thou. Under such a condition there would be no world as we know it but only a sort of a Garden of Eden where nothing ever changed eternal stasis where relativity is not.

How meanings are in transit among humans is mainly the socio-cultural track not the genetic track.

Meaning can pertain to an isolated individual only if that individual depends for meaning entirely on their memory . This has been done for instance by people who have been kept in solitary confinement and who have memories that afford them months or years of fruitful contemplation.I doubt if there has ever been some infant who has thrived and never been exposed to others.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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popeye1945 wrote: February 9th, 2021, 1:10 am
Terrapin Station wrote: February 8th, 2021, 12:58 pm You're not thinking that processes in general aren't physical, are you? That would be weird. You know that physics deals with processes all the time, right?
Terrapin, The brain is physical, the mind is not.
No. The whole notion of nonphysical existents is incoherent. The mind is physical. It's identical to a subset of brain function (that seems to hinge on brain structure and materials).
The function of a car makes it move, is motion, not the object, but the actual movement physical.
The above is a mess grammatically, but it seems like you're realizing that automobiles are physical things? (And that processes at least can be physical?)
Is a thought physical? tangable.
Yes, obviously thoughts are physical.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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Terrapin Station wrote: February 9th, 2021, 10:05 am Yes, obviously thoughts are physical.
Then, can you describe an attribute of physical things that attaches to your thoughts? When I have a thought, what is its location, volume, mass, speed, color, smell...? What does my thought become when I am no longer experiencing it? Don't physical things change into new things or convert to energy when rather than vanishing without a trace?

If not, are there physical things outside my mind that also have none of these attributes? If "experincers" are the only thing immune to laws that apply to physical things, why does it make sense to consider them physical? Aren't we simply trying to impose the limits of our understanding on reality?
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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chewybrian wrote: February 9th, 2021, 10:54 am Then, can you describe an attribute of physical things that attaches to your thoughts? When I have a thought, what is its location, volume, mass, speed, color, smell...? What does my thought become when I am no longer experiencing it? Don't physical things change into new things or convert to energy when rather than vanishing without a trace?
Let me just confirm first whether you're not thinking of "physical" as denoting an "object"--basically in the "lump of matter" sense, rather than referring to processes, relations, etc. just as well.

For example, you're not going to argue that a running (driving, let's say) automobile is not physical, are you? If you agree that it's physical, how do we answer what the running (driving) of the automobile's volume is? Or its mass?
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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I'm asking, by the way, because unless you're going to argue that the "running" (that is, the operational functions) of an automobile isn't physical, which would be a pretty bizarre thing to claim, I honestly have no idea how to answer what the volume or mass of the operational functions would be . . . that seems like a nonsensical question, no? So not everything physical has volume, mass, etc. That's rather characteristic of substances/matter, but physical things aren't limited to substances/matter, of course. (I mean, just crack a physics textbook.)

We can say that the running of the automobile has a location--it's located where the car is at a given time, obviously. And we could specify a lot of the parts involved. We can do that with thoughts, too--they're located at a persons' brain, obviously, and we can specify neurons, etc.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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Likewise, by the way, with things like color, smell, etc. Maybe you want to take the bizarre tactic of claiming that single protons, say, aren't physical, but if you'd not resort to such a bizarre stance for rhetorical purposes (sort of a kinder way of alluding to some pretty trollish proselytizing ;-), surely you'd realize that single protons don't have color or taste to us--even though in this case we ARE talking about matter, yet single protons are still physical existents.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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Terrapin Station wrote: February 9th, 2021, 1:51 pm Likewise, by the way, with things like color, smell, etc. Maybe you want to take the bizarre tactic of claiming that single protons, say, aren't physical, but if you'd not resort to such a bizarre stance for rhetorical purposes (sort of a kinder way of alluding to some pretty trollish proselytizing ;-), surely you'd realize that single protons don't have color or taste to us--even though in this case we ARE talking about matter, yet single protons are still physical existents.
I don't know if you are avoiding or not seeing my questions, so I will try to be clearer.

What physical thing has no (at least theoretical) observable or measurable property? I might argue that a ray of sunlight has no mass, but I can definitely define its speed, so I would say it is still physical. A quick search says that protons do indeed have a mass. In some manner, I can define a location or mass or speed or some measurable attribute for anything I claim to be physical (or, in theory I could if the thing to be measured is too far away or too small or some such thing). I did not say, am not saying, that all physical things all have each of these properties. I am only saying that they all have at least one. To me, a thought can not be measured in any such way, and therefore arguably has no physical presence.

The running car has no experience of running. Physical processes are simply playing out through the car. But, I can have an experience of seeing that the car is running or of riding in the car. This experience is as real as the car itself, yet does not seem to share the same properties. Certainly there are physical properties correlated with thought, but the thought itself defies measurement.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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chewybrian wrote: February 9th, 2021, 2:09 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: February 9th, 2021, 1:51 pm Likewise, by the way, with things like color, smell, etc. Maybe you want to take the bizarre tactic of claiming that single protons, say, aren't physical, but if you'd not resort to such a bizarre stance for rhetorical purposes (sort of a kinder way of alluding to some pretty trollish proselytizing ;-), surely you'd realize that single protons don't have color or taste to us--even though in this case we ARE talking about matter, yet single protons are still physical existents.
I don't know if you are avoiding or not seeing my questions, so I will try to be clearer.

What physical thing has no (at least theoretical) observable or measurable property? I might argue that a ray of sunlight has no mass, but I can definitely define its speed, so I would say it is still physical. A quick search says that protons do indeed have a mass. In some manner, I can define a location or mass or speed or some measurable attribute for anything I claim to be physical (or, in theory I could if the thing to be measured is too far away or too small or some such thing). I did not say, am not saying, that all physical things all have each of these properties. I am only saying that they all have at least one. To me, a thought can not be measured in any such way, and therefore arguably has no physical presence.

The running car has no experience of running. Physical processes are simply playing out through the car. But, I can have an experience of seeing that the car is running or of riding in the car. This experience is as real as the car itself, yet does not seem to share the same properties. Certainly there are physical properties correlated with thought, but the thought itself defies measurement.
So as I mentioned earlier, we know the location of thoughts--individual brains.

And we can image mental content (such as thoughts):
https://boston.applysci.com/2018/09/bra ... -thoughts/

We can measure mental the electrochemical properties of mental content:
https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/br ... g_measure/

We can map structural pathways and measure temporal aspects of mental content:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 083549.htm

And so on.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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Oops re the superfluous "mental" in the second example there.
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Re: Is morality objective or subjective?

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Terrapin Station wrote: February 9th, 2021, 6:23 pm
chewybrian wrote: February 9th, 2021, 2:09 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: February 9th, 2021, 1:51 pm Likewise, by the way, with things like color, smell, etc. Maybe you want to take the bizarre tactic of claiming that single protons, say, aren't physical, but if you'd not resort to such a bizarre stance for rhetorical purposes (sort of a kinder way of alluding to some pretty trollish proselytizing ;-), surely you'd realize that single protons don't have color or taste to us--even though in this case we ARE talking about matter, yet single protons are still physical existents.
I don't know if you are avoiding or not seeing my questions, so I will try to be clearer.

What physical thing has no (at least theoretical) observable or measurable property? I might argue that a ray of sunlight has no mass, but I can definitely define its speed, so I would say it is still physical. A quick search says that protons do indeed have a mass. In some manner, I can define a location or mass or speed or some measurable attribute for anything I claim to be physical (or, in theory I could if the thing to be measured is too far away or too small or some such thing). I did not say, am not saying, that all physical things all have each of these properties. I am only saying that they all have at least one. To me, a thought can not be measured in any such way, and therefore arguably has no physical presence.

The running car has no experience of running. Physical processes are simply playing out through the car. But, I can have an experience of seeing that the car is running or of riding in the car. This experience is as real as the car itself, yet does not seem to share the same properties. Certainly there are physical properties correlated with thought, but the thought itself defies measurement.
So as I mentioned earlier, we know the location of thoughts--individual brains.

And we can image mental content (such as thoughts):
https://boston.applysci.com/2018/09/bra ... -thoughts/

We can measure mental the electrochemical properties of mental content:
https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/br ... g_measure/

We can map structural pathways and measure temporal aspects of mental content:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 083549.htm

And so on.
There is a correlation between thoughts and physical activity in the brain. But, the thought itself has no physical presence. The thought "I should buy a boat", can't be shown or defined in the way you would define or identify any physical thing. You didn't even try, but only point to the correlation and presume that the thought itself must be physical because physical processes play out as the thought occurs.

To keep the car analogy going, the brain activity is the combustion, the moving of the valves and pistons and the turning of the drive shaft and the wheels. In the case of the car, "the car is running" is a description of the effects of the processes at work, but it isn't really a thing in and of itself. You would not say (or at least I would not say) that the "runningness" of the car was a physical thing, but rather an effect.

Would you then put yourself in this same category of an effect of physical processes that is not really a thing in and of itself? I would say that our thoughts are not a physical thing and neither is the "runningness" of the car. However, I don't think the "runningness" could be said to be a thing at all, yet our thoughts are real and have consequences.

You might object that the fact that the car was running could produce further effects in the world, but not in the same way. It is only running as an effect of other causes. Further, the fact that the ignition was on would produce only the effects that were predictable based on what gear the transmission was in, and the terrain and other objects around, and so on. But, my having a thought can produce all kinds of effects both seen and unseen on myself and the world. Consciousness is a square peg that you are trying to jam in a round hole by insisting it must be the same as other things when it clearly is not.

The only way I can be free is that meaning must be chosen by me, not imposed from the outside. This is the only circumstance in which I could truly be free. It is clear in every waking moment that I am free, therefore I must conclude that I am not a victim of circumstance, and my will, choices, opinions and such are at least partly my own. It stretches and tears apart my ability to speculate when I am asked to believe that physical processes resulted in my belief and impression that I am free, and that the world is playing along with my impression at every turn, even though it is all a lie. In place of that tortured idea, I choose to continue to believe that I am free, consistent with my experience, and to admit that our understanding of the world and ourselves is incomplete. In other words, I am free, even if I don't understand the mechanics behind it. (And mechanics may turn out to be exactly the wrong word to describe it).
"If determinism holds, then past events have conspired to cause me to hold this view--it is out of my control. Either I am right about free will, or it is not my fault that I am wrong."
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