Proving Morality

[Mountaineer]

So again, in what do you place your faith for that foundation, or what is the foundation, from which you are determining correct, etc.?

... Mountaineer

My ability to perceive reality and use reason to figure out what is correct.

I'm not hung up on it. I'm just saying we are exactly the same. Everyone is. We are all acting on our beliefs. That doesn't mean we are all right all the time though.

I suppose we are different in that I am relying on myself to perceive reality and use my own reason and I think you are relying on others (the writers of the bible, pastors, friends, people throughout history etc.). You are relying on their beliefs and perceptions and decisions about what is correct and having faith that they are correct. It is not faith in God it is faith in other men's ideas about God. To me that seems irrationale.

K,

1. I'd say you are partially correct about me.  I do listen to and try to understand (different words than relying on) others.  The major point of divergence would be that I believe (can't prove) the Scriptures are the human written inerrant Word of God (see note below for more on that), taken in context, and contains exactly what God wishes us to know but not all we want to know, and that it is all that we need to know for salvation, which is God's will for man.  So, I'm relying on God - not man - and my faith is in the promises of God, not man.

2. My understanding of how you answered my question is that your faith is in your own internal ability, and reason is your tool of preference to determine correctness. 

3. Am I correct re. point 2?  If so, why do you have that particular faith instead of some other, and where did your ability come from, or said another way: Why do you have that supreme level of confidence in your ability?  (I'm asking this for a reason.  The reason is relative to your purpose in this thread - proving morality.  I'm not trying to be snarky.)

Note:  Luther said the following in the Large Catechism: "We know that God does not lie. My neighbor and I - in short, all men - may err and deceive, but God's Word cannot err" ( LC IV, 57). Again he states in the Large Catechism, "If you cannot feel the need, therefore, at least believe the Scriptures. They will not lie to you, and they know your flesh better than you yourself do" (LC V, 76). Luther's view on this question is summarized by the Lutheran Cyclopedia as follows: "Scripture remained [Luther's] sole authority. Though many things in the Bible puzzled and amazed him, he admitted no error in its original MSS. At the same time he emphasized the human part in its writing."

... Mountaineer

[Kshartle]

So again, in what do you place your faith for that foundation, or what is the foundation, from which you are determining correct, etc.?

... Mountaineer

My ability to perceive reality and use reason to figure out what is correct.

I'm not hung up on it. I'm just saying we are exactly the same. Everyone is. We are all acting on our beliefs. That doesn't mean we are all right all the time though.

I suppose we are different in that I am relying on myself to perceive reality and use my own reason and I think you are relying on others (the writers of the bible, pastors, friends, people throughout history etc.). You are relying on their beliefs and perceptions and decisions about what is correct and having faith that they are correct. It is not faith in God it is faith in other men's ideas about God. To me that seems irrationale.

K,

1. I'd say you are partially correct about me.  I do listen to and try to understand (different words than relying on) others.  The major point of divergence would be that I believe (can't prove) the Scriptures are the human written inerrant Word of God (see note below for more on that), taken in context, and contains exactly what God wishes us to know but not all we want to know, and that it is all that we need to know for salvation, which is God's will for man.  So, I'm relying on God - not man - and my faith is in the promises of God, not man.

2. My understanding of how you answered my question is that your faith is in your own internal ability, and reason is your tool of preference to determine correctness. 

3. Am I correct re. point 2?  If so, why do you have that particular faith instead of some other, and where did your ability come from, or said another way: Why do you have that supreme level of confidence in your ability?  (I'm asking this for a reason.  The reason is relative to your purpose in this thread - proving morality.  I'm not trying to be snarky.)

Note:  Luther said the following in the Large Catechism: "We know that God does not lie. My neighbor and I - in short, all men - may err and deceive, but God's Word cannot err" ( LC IV, 57). Again he states in the Large Catechism, "If you cannot feel the need, therefore, at least believe the Scriptures. They will not lie to you, and they know your flesh better than you yourself do" (LC V, 76). Luther's view on this question is summarized by the Lutheran Cyclopedia as follows: "Scripture remained [Luther's] sole authority. Though many things in the Bible puzzled and amazed him, he admitted no error in its original MSS. At the same time he emphasized the human part in its writing."

... Mountaineer

I answered this in detail and the page didn't load. 

I'll try again. I hate re-writing.

[Mountaineer]

K,

Ugh!  I was having trouble logging on to the server a few minutes ago too.  Your case is especially frustrating after you have written something and it disappears into cyberspace.

... Mountaineer

[Pointedstick]

I like to do a "select all" (ctrl-a or command-a) then "copy" (ctrl-c or command-c) right before hitting post just in case such a thing happens.

[Kshartle]

This is especially dissapointing since I managed to type the entire meaning of life and now I can't remember it.

[Kshartle]

2. My understanding of how you answered my question is that your faith is in your own internal ability, and reason is your tool of preference to determine correctness. 

3. Am I correct re. point 2?  If so, why do you have that particular faith instead of some other, and where did your ability come from, or said another way: Why do you have that supreme level of confidence in your ability?  (I'm asking this for a reason.  The reason is relative to your purpose in this thread - proving morality.  I'm not trying to be snarky.)

Yes.

I have faith in my own ability to perceive reality and use reason to guide my decisions because I am certain of it. You must believe in something, it's impossible to not. I choose to believe in myself because I can prove myself to myself. My eyes might deceive me, my ears, other people, but since I must believe something it makes logical sense to believe my own thoughts. I am certain of them. I'm not certain they are correct, so I always quesiton them.....but the questioning is the process of my thinking and reasoning. I can't separate that out and trust my reasoning to guide my decisions just some of the time. I don't have any idea how that would be possible for me.

Where does it come from? I don't know. I'm not an expert in biology. I really don't know. It might have it's genesis in some other more intelligent being that wrote the programming for us (God).

In addition to studying the nature of the decision making process in my efforts to develop into a successful trader.......I'm studying the nature of beliefs. There are beleifs I think that are required to be successful in trading and I have to figure out how to cement these beliefs in my brain even though they conflict with other beliefs. I have to turn some on and some off. I think this is possible. I might share something on it although I don't think it's part of this thread.

[Kshartle]

I really think what this is going to come down to, K, is that you're going to have to prove a "preferred-state" to build your assertion of self-ownership on top of, since this seems to be a necessary aspect of ALL decisions, moral or not.

And from what I can tell, this is really friggin' difficult, or, dare I say, impossible .

prefer  -  1.To choose or be in the habit of choosing as more desirable or as having more value.

Consistency is preferable to inconsistency since the argument "we should consistently prefer inconsistency is a fail.

Truth is preferable to Falsehood since the argument "it's true that it's better to be false than true" is another impossibility.

Those statements are obviously false do you agree? If they are false then the opposite is true and demonstrates that preferred states are provable. Consistency and truth as they relate to reality are preferred.

[Xan]

That being said.....the idea that decisions can be proven wrong but not proven correct could imply the existance only of immoral actions and by default everything else would be moral but there would be no duty neccessarily to do anything other than a duty to not do what is immoral.

I would think that any system of "morality" which includes no duties, even for example of parents to children, is in fact NOT a system of morality.

[Mountaineer]

I really think what this is going to come down to, K, is that you're going to have to prove a "preferred-state" to build your assertion of self-ownership on top of, since this seems to be a necessary aspect of ALL decisions, moral or not.

And from what I can tell, this is really friggin' difficult, or, dare I say, impossible .

prefer  -  1.To choose or be in the habit of choosing as more desirable or as having more value.

Consistency is preferable to inconsistency since the argument "we should consistently prefer inconsistency is a fail.

Truth is preferable to Falsehood since the argument "it's true that it's better to be false than true" is another impossibility.

Those statements are obviously false do you agree? If they are false then the opposite is true and demonstrates that preferred states are provable. Consistency and truth as they relate to reality are preferred.

From the deep dark recesses of my mind I seem to remember the statement "you can't prove a negative".  Is this relevant?

The word "prefer" seems to be in a grey area .. is that what you intended?  Today I prefer coffee, tomorrow I may or may not prefer tea even though they may or may not have identical value to me at any given instant of time.

Also, I don't know if you are looking for proof or acceptance of your statements, but I know that I do not always prefer consistency as it relates to reality.  I would get really tired of eating only liver and onions for the rest of my life.  There are many other areas of life where I consistently prefer inconsistency, for example vacation location.

... Mountaineer

[Kshartle]

I really think what this is going to come down to, K, is that you're going to have to prove a "preferred-state" to build your assertion of self-ownership on top of, since this seems to be a necessary aspect of ALL decisions, moral or not.

And from what I can tell, this is really friggin' difficult, or, dare I say, impossible .

prefer  -  1.To choose or be in the habit of choosing as more desirable or as having more value.

Consistency is preferable to inconsistency since the argument "we should consistently prefer inconsistency is a fail.

Truth is preferable to Falsehood since the argument "it's true that it's better to be false than true" is another impossibility.

Those statements are obviously false do you agree? If they are false then the opposite is true and demonstrates that preferred states are provable. Consistency and truth as they relate to reality are preferred.

From the deep dark recesses of my mind I seem to remember the statement "you can't prove a negative".  Is this relevant?

The word "prefer" seems to be in a grey area .. is that what you intended?  Today I prefer coffee, tomorrow I may or may not prefer tea even though they may or may not have identical value to me at any given instant of time.

Also, I don't know if you are looking for proof or acceptance of your statements, but I know that I do not always prefer consistency as it relates to reality.  I would get really tired of eating only liver and onions for the rest of my life.  There are many other areas of life where I consistently prefer inconsistency, for example vacation location.

... Mountaineer

This is a misunderstanding. I hope it's a failing on my part to convey and not a deliberate one on your part.

Of course I would not argue that your opinion should never change or we should always have the same opinion. When I refer to consitency it's with regards to objective reality which is consistent not contradicting. You can't run forwards and backwards at the same time. I can't enjoy music after I'm dead. The physical properties of the world prevent these contradictions from existing and so clearly any statement epressing them is false.......and a statement that contradicts itself is false because objective truth is consistent.

Therefore truth is "universally preferable" to falsehood. It is not subject or opinion based. You can't claim that a falsehood has more value than the truth because the statement alone is you trying to prove that it's true and correct and I should therefore accept that falsehood is better. That's like you typing a message to me that says "KSHARTLE doesn't understand English". Obviously you think I do if you're typing a message to me in English.

Please can we get off all this opinion nonsense? Your opinions about reality don't change reality. If you don't agree with that I wish you guys would have said so sooner since it was one the first things I brought up.

[Kshartle]

I apologize if that sounded tense but honestly......going through ten pages defining the term "correct" and establishing that we should do what is correct is unbearable.

This stuff is not as complex as it's being made out to.

I'm fine with a challenge to any statement as long as there is a real challenge to it......not a complete disection of every nuance in every word that falls into the definition of a word or synonym for a word in the original premise.

If I say something like......."Something is correct if it is true and consistent with reality"........and anyone disagrees can they actually point out where they disagree rather than......we need to define something, correct, true, consistent, reality etc. When I say we I actually mean me. It's always "you need to define it all". Tiresome.

If you dissagree please point out where and have a basis for dissagreement please. This would mean arguing that something is not correct if....or not neccessarly correct if......

That type of disagreement would be helpful to move us along.

[Kshartle]

Imagine if I said I was going to prove that its possible to get from New York to San Francisco. You said "It's impossible. I have no basis for this belief, but I'm certain it's impossible and I will argue with you until you agree that it's impossible."

Then I make the statements "Cars enable travelling at a much faster pace than going on foot" and "I know how to operate a car".

The retort (possibly in good faith) is, "how can you know that cars even exist, how can you be certain you're the one actually traveling rather than the Earth moving, what do you mean by faster, what if the car is broken, what if you're Usain Bolt, how do you know you can operate the car can you explain how the transmission system works etc. etc."

This is not productive debate. I am inclined to believe it's honest although since some people repeat in every other post "there's no way you can prove how to get from New York to San Fran it's impossible" I am certain some of it is just exhausting needling in the hopes I will be so sick of explaing every word in the english language and every concept in every premise that I will just stop. Of course then it will clearly be because I'm not able to prove my claim. Or now someone can say since I didn't explain how the transmission works in perfect detail they can't be certain I know how to operate the car and their doubt means it's a fact I didn't prove my case.

Exhausting.

Therefore.....if you disagree then please point out where and actually be able to make a case for why what i am saying is wrong.

Please and thank you.

[Xan]

Your example about cars and traveling is grounded in a certain reality, and a certain set of assumptions.

Your claims about morality have no such ground.  You're trying to establish the ground.  So you really do need to define every concept.  You can't just say "in accordance with reality" and expect anybody to know what that means.

Yes, it is exhausting.  It's the task you've set for yourself.  It's exhausting because it's impossible!

[Mountaineer]

Therefore truth is "universally preferable" to falsehood. It is not subject or opinion based. You can't claim that a falsehood has more value than the truth because the statement alone is you trying to prove that it's true and correct and I should therefore accept that falsehood is better. That's like you typing a message to me that says "KSHARTLE doesn't understand English". Obviously you think I do if you're typing a message to me in English.

Please can we get off all this opinion nonsense? Your opinions about reality don't change reality. If you don't agree with that I wish you guys would have said so sooner since it was one the first things I brought up.

K,

So, let us assume that reality is I have an 8 year old child who was just diagnosed with a terminal illness that will likely cause his death within one month and there is no known drug available that will significantly mitigate his pain which will begin one week prior to death. 

Therefore, according to your statement above, when the child asks what the doctor said, telling the child the truth about his impending and likely very painful death is always the universally preferred option - right?  Please discuss falsehood by omission and comission when you answer.

... Mountaineer

[Mountaineer]

You can't run forwards and backwards at the same time. I can't enjoy music after I'm dead. The physical properties of the world prevent these contradictions from existing and so clearly any statement epressing them is false.......and a statement that contradicts itself is false because objective truth is consistent.

Before you pose the above as an absolute, you may wish to read about Schrodinger's cat, and then propose boundary conditions for your premises.

You will have to Google "Schrodinger's Cat" and read the wiki article, or others; I've tried to include the link but it is not working.

This is about time:
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/d5d3dc850933

My point is, as others have stated, you are assuming you have an ironclad argument that is "true" because you believe it and/or think your premises or human observed reality prove it  (my opinion, not necessairly a fact regardless of how many people agree with your understanding); humans could not observe X-Rays prior to their discovery even though the X-Rays, or whatever they really are, existed.  There is much about this universe that is unknown at this point in time (and for what it is worth, time is just a human construct and not necessairly an absolute fact assuming you will accept my statement based upon our current understanding of Newtonian and quantum physics).  Just because you don't know about it (yet?), does not mean it is not true - go back to the very first premise you proposed (sorry for the use of all the negatives).

My personal opinion is since you are the source of your faith (logic and reason) rather than some external foundational source (if I understood your previous statement about that correctly) and humans are not inerrant, most anything you attempt to "prove" about a somewhat nebulous concept (such as NAP, self-ownership, morality, right and wrong) is suspect and not absolute.

... Mountaineer

[Kshartle]

You can't run forwards and backwards at the same time. I can't enjoy music after I'm dead. The physical properties of the world prevent these contradictions from existing and so clearly any statement epressing them is false.......and a statement that contradicts itself is false because objective truth is consistent.

Before you pose the above as an absolute, you may wish to read about Schrodinger's cat, and then propose boundary conditions for your premises.

You will have to Google "Schrodinger's Cat" and read the wiki article, or others; I've tried to include the link but it is not working.

This is about time:
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/d5d3dc850933

My point is, as others have stated, you are assuming you have an ironclad argument that is "true" because you believe it and/or think your premises or human observed reality prove it  (my opinion, not necessairly a fact regardless of how many people agree with your understanding); humans could not observe X-Rays prior to their discovery even though the X-Rays, or whatever they really are, existed.  There is much about this universe that is unknown at this point in time (and for what it is worth, time is just a human construct and not necessairly an absolute fact assuming you will accept my statement based upon our current understanding of Newtonian and quantum physics).  Just because you don't know about it (yet?), does not mean it is not true - go back to the very first premise you proposed (sorry for the use of all the negatives).

My personal opinion is since you are the source of your faith (logic and reason) rather than some external foundational source (if I understood your previous statement about that correctly) and humans are not inerrant, most anything you attempt to "prove" about a somewhat nebulous concept (such as NAP, self-ownership, morality, right and wrong) is suspect and not absolute.

... Mountaineer

Mountaineer do you believe that anything is true apart from God which you say can't be proven? I honestly, nicely and sincerely must say I don't understand what you're trying to covey to me.

Is anything true and is it possible to prove anything?

[Xan]

Proving things is only possible with a basis of assumptions that the parties agree on.  There is no such thing as a proof with no assumptions.

[doodle]

Read page 1,2,3 and the suspense was killing me....so I cheated and jumped straight to page 19 to find the final answer.....what a let down :-)......guess the writers and editors decided to leave room for another season

[Stewardship]

... guess the writers and editors decided to leave room for another season

Another 10 20+ pages of premise formulation fail with no one getting schooled?  Yech...  I'd rather invest my life savings in blockbuster stock.

[Pointedstick]

doodle! How is your house going?! That thread is much more interesting than this mess.

[Mountaineer]

Proving things is only possible with a basis of assumptions that the parties agree on.  There is no such thing as a proof with no assumptions.

K,

This is pretty much what I'm trying to convey.  What Xan is saying is why I think it is so important to have an external source of "finality"; it is probably much easier to have a commonly held external source for people to agree with than just saying, I unconditionally accept what ever Kshartle says as absolute truth (I'm saying that because you said you are your own source of logic and reason which implies to me that in order for us to agree on your proof I would have to submit to your logic and reason instead of any other source.)

... Mountaineer

[Mountaineer]

logic is the use  of valid reasoning in some activity, as long as we are in agreement about the rules of logic (they are well tested and agreed on) we don't need to "accept what ever Kshartle says as absolute truth" or "have a commonly held external source for people to agree".. we agree on the logic and reason and if his arguments conform to those rules and meet those standards we can accept them, if not we can use them to dispute the argument...

an external source is not required to agree on those rules, the source of those rules are a function of the nature of grammar and language,  it doesn't matter if you believe your ability to reason logically comes from god or is beamed into your head by a space ship, the ability to reason logically is used to test the premises and assumptions and determine if they are proven in accordance with the rules.

I don't mean to be obstinate, but are not the rules of logic themselves an external source to the people that are using them?  And, as a followup, why should I pick the rules of logic to deal with a "moral" type issue when morals are not necessarily logical?  It seems the rules of logic would apply to cognitive activity, not experential (e.g. learning to walk) or revelation (e.g. learning about God) for gaining knowledge.  All I'm saying is one should pick the correct tool for the job at hand and it seems "illogical" to me to pick logic to deal with proving morals.  However, as I said before, I'm very willing to let Kshartle give it a go.  I am just asking all these questions to try to learn.  Since my formal training is science and engineering, I'm probably extremely anal about picking at things for understanding and completeness ... that is just the way my brain functions.  An engineer cannot aford to take much about the physical world for granted and not get people hurt, and since we are dealing with the physical world on this thread, not the spiritual, it seems we need to dot every I and cross every T along the road never before traveled to prove morality by Kshartle who stated his faith is in himself and reason is his tool of preference.

... Mountaineer

[Mountaineer]

well most of us don't pick logical proof as the source of moral convictions ...but kshartle has.. so we are watching him try to use them to "prove morality/NAP/ property' so for the sake of this exercise logic is the set of rules being used, and logic has some high standards that need to be met so picking at them for understanding and completeness is not only fine.. it is expected.. it seems to me demanding god or a belief in god be placed ahead of the rules of logic is jumping the gun, if the argument fails, then making the argument for religion as a source of morals makes sense. requiring god or a belief in god ahead of the argument just makes the argument impossible or confusing since it requires faith in something that is unprovable...

Simon,

Thanks.  Got you!

... Mountaineer

[Mountaineer]

Kshartle,

Interesting article re. "reality" that might help you form your premises.

... Mountaineer

Dark matter and spiritual matter?
April 2, 2014 By Gene Veith

Our increasingly weird science now affirms that there is a reality that we cannot see, feel, or perceive in any way.  And yet it makes up 85% of the universe, which it basically holds together.  What does that remind you of?
Please note that I am not asserting an equivalence of dark matter and the spiritual realm, just noting parallels, as well as the curious phenomenon of science now recognizing that some kinds of reality elude our conventional materialistic categories.

From Ivan Seminiuk, Going deep underground in Canada in search of dark matter – The Globe and Mail:
Unseen but ever present, dark matter makes up 85 per cent of all the stuff in the universe. Like an invisible conductor, its gravity guides the motions of galaxies and stars. When the universe began, dark matter helped to shepherd atoms together, ultimately making it possible for planets to form and life to emerge. Until we understand dark matter, we won’t really understand why we exist.

Like the Higgs boson, which was confirmed last year, or the gravitational echoes from the Big Bang reported earlier this week, the detection of dark matter would be a Nobel Prize-worthy find – one that would offer a genuinely new piece of information about the nature of reality.
The challenge for physicists is that dark matter can be neither seen nor felt.

To keep reading:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technolo ... e17620674/

[moda0306]

K,

Long story short, I'm willing to accept, for now, that you can prove a decision-action is "wrong" based on a false interpretation of reality.

Also, as they are necessary for logic to even function, that "truth" and "consistency" are universally preferable to falsehood and inconsistency, but this I assert in the world of logic, where there is, as always, some specific goal in mind when guiding action in a given reality.

In the world of making arguments of fact, truth and consistency are universally preferable.  Because truth and consistency are the GOALS of logic.  It's like saying that "Writing doesn't communicate anything."

Well of course that statement is "incorrect."  But that doesn't mean that "writing communicates something" is necessarily correct.  Just because something is not one way, does not mean it is necessarily opposite.

But so we don't get too wrapped up again, I'm willing to agree for the purposes of this debate that "truth" and "consistency" are universally preferable traits overall.