Philosophical ramblings (Was: My single problem with BTW.)

[Blazara]

I'll give an example on the anger front and an example as to why bottling / subduing the emotion can be incredibly adverse whether that be long or short term: When you stub your toe, doe sit feel better to hop around panting and "oooh, ahhh oooowww"-ing for 5 minutes. Or does it feel better to shout "F*********CK!" at the top of your lungs? A quick, powerful release of emotion / aggression is much more efficient and healthy than trying to suck up emotion.

People often disagree / don't understand with this statement when I present it: but someone has to be poor. The usual response to this is "no they don't! There's enough money for everyone..."
Perhaps there is enough money (I seriously doubt it) but someone has to have more influential power than others, whether that be because that is what they consciously / subconsciously desire or whether they take it upon themselves "selflessly" (Pah, no such think as a selfless act) to be a leader of man. Frankly, the human mind doesn't sit well with everyone being treated exactly the same: If everyone has as much wealth as you, and everyone is treated identically, that means you're no more attractive / no more powerful than anyone else. This, as we have already discussed, doesn't go down well with human ambition.

The reason I laugh in the face of a notion of a selfless act is this: When somebody sacrifices themselves to save others, whether that be in a work of fiction or real life, you must think of their motives and gains from this. Obviously they lose much. The human survival instinct will not let you die without a fight, unless some mental disorders / issues are involved. Therefore we must look at what can be gained: the person that does so is often remembered as a hero, a desire all humans secretly possess. Please think for a minute, would you like to die as the person that saved a dozen lives whilst sacrificing himself / the person that is remembered fondly and gratefully by hundreds of people, or the guy that just... died? The human mind craves admiration and to be adored.

[Heilkaiba]

and here i was about to make refrence to the matrix...

its sad that what all the smiths are saying is true... the human mind just cannot accept a utopian society, without competition, struggle, or so called "evil", the mind rejects it as false reality

I'm pretty sure Smith doesn't say that. His monologue is about humanity's nature being like a virus or plague that consumes all available resources and moves on. The Architect of the matrix in the second film however discusses the original versions of the matrix including one where they attempted to create a utopian society but that having failed they went for one based around the idea of choice.

[Joeyjoebob]

That's my point, though. You can't really seperate religion from occultish-magic stuff. The occultists I know (Ok, I know about 4) count their studies as their religious belief. A religion is just a set of beliefs over a range of topics that try to guide people while providing some sort of understanding of the world (and/or universe) in which we live. In my mind, even science is a form of religion.

EDIT: Spelling and Grammar. I've not had my coffee yet ...

I just wanted to point out that your definition of religion is entirely too broad. Your definition makes it so any set of beliefs is a religion, which kind of makes other terms useless. Religion is a specific type of belief that has to do with the nature of the universe, which also includes rules and rituals.

[Gargantuan_Penguin]

and here i was about to make refrence to the matrix...

its sad that what all the smiths are saying is true... the human mind just cannot accept a utopian society, without competition, struggle, or so called "evil", the mind rejects it as false reality

I'm pretty sure Smith doesn't say that. His monologue is about humanity's nature being like a virus or plague that consumes all available resources and moves on. The Architect of the matrix in the second film however discusses the original versions of the matrix including one where they attempted to create a utopian society but that having failed they went for one based around the idea of choice.

In the first one Smith does mention the first matrix, how it was perfect but "entire crops were lost" because the human mind kept trying to wake up.

[Dirdle]

The reason I laugh in the face of a notion of a selfless act is this: When somebody sacrifices themselves to save others, whether that be in a work of fiction or real life, you must think of their motives and gains from this. Obviously they lose much. The human survival instinct will not let you die without a fight, unless some mental disorders / issues are involved. Therefore we must look at what can be gained: the person that does so is often remembered as a hero, a desire all humans secretly possess. Please think for a minute, would you like to die as the person that saved a dozen lives whilst sacrificing himself / the person that is remembered fondly and gratefully by hundreds of people, or the guy that just... died? The human mind craves admiration and to be adored.

I've never understood why this makes selflessness less selfless. If you die heroically because your brain chemistry was predetermined by natural forces to predispose you to consider having a legacy more important than staying alive, you still died heroically. It's not like the orphans you saved from the bulldozer-raptor-apocalypse will be any less saved just because you were thinking about how you'll so get laid for this if you make it out alive.

[Blazara]

My point is more that there is a selfish motive behind this "Selfless" act, thus, making it not selfless. A selfless act is surely an action carried out where he (or she) who carries out the action gains nothing, but does said action for the good of others. If you give some money to charity: people usually do this because they say it makes them feel like they're giving something back or helping. It gives them a happy buzz or feeling. If they're doing this action for that feeling, then surely it is no longer selfless?

[morvelaira]

No offense, Blazara, but I call BS on your theory above - or at least at the notion it applies universally. Some situations, when you're in them, you don't have the time to think about heroism or selflessness, and what your motivations are. Plenty of stories have been highly publicized out of the recent Colorado shooting, about acts of heroism - people protecting others wether they were loved ones, or just the stranger they happened to be next to. There were plenty of people too, who just fled, and while it might seem cowardly in comparison, it is understandable.

My point is that every single person in that situation did not have time to think about what the hell was going on at that moment, let alone the broader philisophical implications of it. Some people were paralyzed by fear and indecision. Those who could formulate an action in those few seconds either hid, fled, or protected others.

It is those who protected others we call selfless because do you really think they made their decision based on if they were going to be heroes or not? They did the thing that seemed best to them at the time, without having time to think it through.

Are there people in the world who will only sacrfice something of ourselves in order to gain something of equal value? Certainly. Most of us are that way given enough time to think and make determinations about things, and it is the logical basis on which trade is built. Selflessness enters into the equation, though, when there's no time to think, and that is why it is admirable.

[Kazuya Mishima]

If they're doing this action for that feeling, then surely it is no longer selfless?

Definitely. Humans are fundamentally biologically altruistic in nature and altruistic social structures, as Robert Trivers asserts, are stabilized by low population viscosity(inability to exit) and memory which permit a reliable accounting of reputation, trust and honor. As such we dont' need capital markets or even currency at small scales to handle this information because the index is internalized into individual minds. As you scale the size of society up you still maintain the primal-urge to participate in the proto-market and accumulate reputation and thus do good but the scale of the system exceeds your ability to appropriately assign positive or negative reputation to other agents within the social system as perceptual faculties do not increase proportionally with the size of society. It's unlikely any action is truly driven by selflessness even if the entity performing that pro-social act is unconscious of it due to biological self-deception. Any pure altruist would likely just enhance the fitness of a pure selfish or selfishly altruistic organism.

[Blazara]

^ aha! Someone that shares my beliefs! I think I might love you ;).

-snip

Absolutely no offence taken; people here clearly have rather different views when it comes to matters such as these. Discussing these sorts of issues can only help! :)

* Edit* Perhaps not universally no! But I think there is truth in this theory in MANY cases.

Believe you me I both admire and respect those that carry out such action and I hope, if I were to ever mind myself in one such situation, god forbid, I would be able to act similarly. My point is not that they're concious thinking of the implications of their actions, more that this sort of thing occurs on a subconscious level.

People now tend to overcomplicate humans dramatically; many struggle with the fact that we're walking bags of cells and carbon atoms. The human survival instinct / basic brain processing does not carry out an action on a whim. The human mind desires very few things, namely, safety, the key necessary things for life, comfort, and most importantly love / fellowship / a sense of belonging. The human brain, however complex it may be, is not a fair, rational being.

The brain's primary goal is to stay alive, and keep that meaty carcass below it moving and healthy. Therefore, an action is not carried out for the sake of it. Would a cow walk ten miles then walk back simply for the joy of a country walk? No. Living things generally do things for a reason. Thus, heroic actions must contribute something to the person carrying them out, else the human mind would probably never consider them in the first place.

[FlowerChild]

Going to move this over to off-topic guys, as while the conversation is interesting, I think we really have gone beyond the point where this has anything to do with the mod, and where it has any chance at all of returning to mod-related discussion ;)

[CycloneSP]

Sorry guys, but I have a far more cynical view about human nature than that. From both my personal observations and what I have learned from various sources, I am more inclined to believe that humans are, at the core, evil/sinful/just-plain-old-bad. That is not to say doing good is impossible. But doing good, from what I have seen, does not come naturally. It is far easier for humans to do that which is promotes his own self interests or harm others than to do what would be considered right, like aiding others at his own expense.

An example would be a child. You do not need to teach a child how to lie or steal. Those actions come naturally for it. But any decent parent must constantly train their child to tell the truth and to obey them when they tell it to do something.

Also I find, even myself included, that people tend to chose certain actions based on which one has fewer negative consequences. This is generally where the rationalization comes it. I tend to rationalize that doing 'wrong' in the long run does not pay off, or has higher risk for less reward, than doing 'right.' This is partly because of how I was raised and partly of what I have learn through life.

However, despite my odd sense of rationalizing, other people would tend to rationalize the other direction. Where doing 'wrong' is a bigger pay off despite the benefits of doing 'right.'

I am not trying to make a case for wrong or right being relative(I would strongly disagree, but I don't want to go there right now) I am merely saying that doing 'wrong' or doing what is in one's own self interest are both a natural course of action for humans, and it takes a conscious effort on the person's part to do things that are inherently 'good' or benefit others with no inherent benefit to themselves.

[morvelaira]

You make good points, Blazara, but I think there's one important fact that you're ignoring. While a good chunk of our subconscious is geared towards our individual survival, another deeper chunk is dedicated to the survival of our species. The survival of our species, on a grand scale, constantly demands the sacrifice of certain individuals. The infirm, the ill-adapted, the protectors and the strong. Individuals don't matter in this sort of thinking because there's so many of us one single incident by itself isn't going to matter in the grand scheme of things.

So to go back to my example from the previous post. Will one man shielding a child from violence make any difference to the survival of the species at large? No. But, at the same time, we are adapted to value individuals who do that sort of thing, because if we did not value it then people would not do it. If people did not shield and protect children from violence at all, then there would be many, many less children surviving to adulthood, and that WOULD affect the survival of the species.

This is where selflessness comes from. This is why we value it. Through culture, that same principle of protecting children for the good of the group has been extended to the elderly, the incapable, and the needy. This is because another basic trait that we have on the subconscious level of survival of the species is empathy. Humans are pack animals. We all experience deep emotions, and yearn for another to understand how we feel. Because we all experience this, we are culturally adapted to value those who can understand us.

Ah, but I'm rambling.

tl;dr - Evolution makes us want to protect babies.

[Kazuya Mishima]

-snip

If your speaking with reference to your own offspring then this is a property of kin directed altruism which is totally compatible with selfish gene theory. The importance isn’t so much individual survival as it is promoting the expression of particular gene in the population that you happen to have. These genes themselves tend to mediate the expression of particular pro-social emotions facilitated by oxytocin and vasopressin. So when you speak about the grand scheme of things then you must mean on a genetic basis of behavior, not with respect to some objective universal preference.

Keeping your babies alive provides this indirect benefit to you via the survival of genes you share with it. In addition children can provide labor and elder care so they come in handy, maybe not so much in modern society as the cost of raising a child in the west amounts to about 12k/yr over an 18 year period and elder care can be offloaded onto institutions other then family.

If you’re talking about engaging in pro-social behavior for unrelated children then there may be a measure of biological signaling in this behavior as it advertises a willingness to provide aid without an expectation of immediate remuneration of aid(as infant recipient is unlikely to provide repayment in any tangible sense). This can indicate to organisms external to this social commerce an eagerness to engage in cooperation or , as in the case of the handicap-principle and overabundance of biological resources/capability(that is to say you have a high degree of capacity to provide aid so a loss of an aliquot here or there becomes insignificant to you)thus facilitating cooperation between other parties. Or it may simply represent a evolutionary trade-off between the benefits of altruism in facilitating cooperation between unrelated members and the liability of being induced to feel empathy for members of society that may engage in false signaling indicating a need for aid when it’s either not really needed or the agent that is signaling is actually just engaging in risk-offsetting, regardless of if this is processed consciously but the signaling agent or the signaling agent is adjusting their behavior so as to control their levels of need as if its’ an economic output and sensitive to the actual supply of aid in the environment. Infact infants will do this and parents of all species will also adjust their level of investment in their offspring as long as it does not exceed a particular ratio that would compromise the parents direct vs indirect fitness. In times of extreme crises parents will neglect, destroy, or play favoritism denying all others aid. There tends to always be a cost vs benefit analysis when you average between the progeny and their parents/siblings with respect to parent-offspring conflict. If we can delude ourselves into seeing the frigidity of the calculus of it all it helps each of us continue on in this bizarre commerce.

So basically we benefit from our altruistic impulses because it keeps us from doing things that would signal to other members that we may be totally uncooperative and not a good candidate to invest in with respect to relationship or aid, but it leaves us vulnerable to individuals or organisms that signal desperation but are only responding to the level of altruism society is willing to offer. Cowbirds take advantage of the nurturing instincts of unrelated species this way and it’s hypothesized that dogs may be a form of social parasite with respect to human as well, how appropriate for the BTW forum to mention this species.

Also protecting the group is beneficial to you as you can obtain the benefits of the group, many eyes, division of labor etc, however when the group becomes sufficiently large and individuals lack the means to identify free-riders then it becomes beneficial to extract some margin more and exploit the group without providing the group proportional remuneration. Many experiments on primate behavior indicate that altruism between apes breaks down with respect to food sharing if the ape with access to food is aware the other ape is not looking at him feast.

[Blazara]

^ you beautiful, beautiful man. You said everything I wanted to say and 30x more.

[TheAnarchitect]

Probably the most interesting part of the "everyone is selfish" argument, to me, is it signals how you define the self.

Case in point, you are saying any action people take is rewarded by the good feelings they generate. These are caused by our biological systems releasing the happy chemicals into our brains to make us like doing things that our evolution prefers we do. Which means you define the self as that which experiences that reward, and you don't consider the systems that do the rewarding to be part of the self. In other words, you believe that fundamentally you are your serotonin receptors.

Dropping the biological underpinnings of how we have good feelings and why, The argument that we do altruistic things because of the good feeling we get is one of those insights that seems profound but is actually kind of circular. Yes, every action you take you take because you prefer it to all available other actions, because your value system weights that action higher than others. How do we know you value that action above all others? Because that's the action you took.

And that value system you're using is a combination of your genes, your socialization, and possibly uniquely for humans, your own logic and reasoning. You had a somewhat significant role in determining what you value. So for you to get a good feeling from being altruistic, you had to have somewhere along the line decided that you want to be selfless, which you didn't do for the good feeling of being selfless because you hadn't decided to feel good about that yet. You aren't just that part that feels the reward. You're also the part that decides to give it. You are your genes, and your socialized behaviors, and your logic and reasoning. You're both the serotonin receiver and the emitter. You're the totality of the system. Reduce the entire system to it's parts and you won't find a single particle of self.

[Vogias]

I agree with you. I'd like to add that our own nature gives us the freedom to define good and bad in a subjective way. One can decide either and still get joyous chems overflowing his brain. The actions then are defined by society as good or bad. Being subjective is the key word here. Objective viewpoints on such matters are impossible. People though tend to think that they can be objective if they are "the voice of the biggest number of people". Those voices are subjective too and have these opinions only in this era. In another time, the good or bad will shift one towards the other or to anyway other than that, making the previous opinions untrue, unrealistic and non-appliable to the (then)current way of life. One can recall past actions of pure goodness that now are thought of pure evilness with extra chili-sauce on top such as crusades, burning of witches etc etc.

EDIT: I snipped the quote away... I'm just bellow you for god's sake lol!

[Dirdle]

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Probably the most interesting part of the "everyone is selfish" argument, to me, is it signals how you define the self.

Case in point, you are saying any action people take is rewarded by the good feelings they generate. These are caused by our biological systems releasing the happy chemicals into our brains to make us like doing things that our evolution prefers we do. Which means you define the self as that which experiences that reward, and you don't consider the systems that do the rewarding to be part of the self. In other words, you believe that fundamentally you are your serotonin receptors.

Dropping the biological underpinnings of how we have good feelings and why, The argument that we do altruistic things because of the good feeling we get is one of those insights that seems profound but is actually kind of circular. Yes, every action you take you take because you prefer it to all available other actions, because your value system weights that action higher than others. How do we know you value that action above all others? Because that's the action you took.

And that value system you're using is a combination of your genes, your socialization, and possibly uniquely for humans, your own logic and reasoning. You had a somewhat significant role in determining what you value. So for you to get a good feeling from being altruistic, you had to have somewhere along the line decided that you want to be selfless, which you didn't do for the good feeling of being selfless because you hadn't decided to feel good about that yet. You aren't just that part that feels the reward. You're also the part that decides to give it. You are your genes, and your socialized behaviors, and your logic and reasoning. You're both the serotonin receiver and the emitter. You're the totality of the system. Reduce the entire system to it's parts and you won't find a single particle of self.

QFT. This is a great explanation.

@Vogias, I don't think we get to each define our own good and evil in a purely subjective way. If I define "good" as "that which maximizes the amount of kittens I can put in a blender," I'm either simply being perversely wrong in my use of language, or I'm insane. It doesn't seem inconsistent for me to believe "killing kittens is wrong" && "if social pressures cause me to believe killing kittens is right, killing kittens will still be wrong."* Letting the zeitgeist determine what is actually right would be no better than letting the current state-of-knowledge determine what is actually true**.

* - And "if social pressures cause me to believe killing kittens is right, I will say "killing kittens is right, and if social pressures caused me to believe killing kittens is wrong, killing kittens will still be right"" and so on forever.
** - That is, I don't see much difference between saying "witch hunts were right at the time" and "the earth used to be flat because we didn't know it wasn't."

[Vogias]

@Dirdle
I have to disagree with you unfortunately.. I didn't talk about society pressure or "peer pressure" and you forget the fact that you belong in THIS society... not to one that thinks that killing kittens is good. I'm talking for society as a whole living organism which gains knowledge and defines its rules by itself. Sociology is studying society as such and I find it mostly correct. As I've said before, when a society thinks that burning witches is good... burning witches is good. Whether we want it or not, we belong in that society, were grown by it and were taught those "morals" and "good-evil" stuff. If you are a "prodigy" and try to change that way because you found out that something else is true and right, you will either have to explain really good or publish a book after your "execution" for being a conspirator-heretic-whatever. Society changes by numbers and when the change occurs, new rules are applied to morals. When society changes views, it changes its way of thinking everything and reconsiders every extreme course of action that was taken before. The reason most people don't get it today is that we live into a placebo society of freedom of speech and expressing of opinions while the actual society is leaded by laws made many years before. Our actual today's society simply rejects to change according to our evolution as human beings. It's rather slow paced in comparison to our fast paced evolution of thinking. Thus our society should be viewed as a SUB-society or an underground one.

To answer to your example you gave above... you WOULD think that killing kittens is good if it was a part of a society's (in which you belonged) philosophy. Another example considers religion... just to make my point clear. Hinduists, a society group of people (or a sub-society) that believe in the ways of Hinduism, believe that cows are sacred animals and even DRINK their urine. Their belief over good and evil is defined by their own society group and they do what you (if you believe in something else of course) wouldn't ever do. And anyway, I won't go into deep studying religions but I think that if you check each one and what each one consider's wrong and right, you'll see many differences... especially to the parts that consider taking a human life and punishment.

That is why I believe that there is no objective knowledge of good or evil as of yet. We are still evolving and learning and thus the knowledge of good and evil we claim to have nowadays is just subjective from a society's viewpoint and a subject to change in the near (or not) future.

[Dirdle]

Another example considers religion... just to make my point clear. Hinduists, a society group of people (or a sub-society) that believe in the ways of Hinduism, believe that cows are sacred animals and even DRINK their urine.

Hindus. Not Hinduists. And the "cows are sacred" thing isn't entirely accurate; my reading of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_in_Religion suggests that the urine-drinking would be a very odd thing to do. It would be less odd to say "Christians all drink the blood of humans," as at least one well-known major group of Christians do at least believe they do so.

As to your other points: is it wrong to make moral judgments of other societies' morals? If yes, from where do you get that moral position? If it's from your society, how is it any more valid than my position that it IS okay to make moral judgments of other societies' morals? If it's not from your society, why can't I draw moral judgments from the same source and say that torture is a bad thing, for instance?

Verbosely: from what I could understand, you misinterpret "social pressure" as only peer pressure. I'm just using it to refer to all external influences on my beliefs by the beliefs of those around me. If the zeitgeist causes me to believe killing kittens is right, killing kittens will still be wrong.

[...] when a society thinks that burning witches is good... burning witches is good.

No, it isn't. If you can't imagine yourself being revolted by the evil actions of society around you, try harder. If everyone thought it was okay to torture to death random people now and then, the tortured people would still be screaming and suffering and dying. If you can imagine yourself happily accepting this as normal - not keeping quiet out of fear, but actually thinking "this is moral, this is right" - then you can honestly say you are a moral relativist, but you cannot possibly debate morality from that position. To do so, you have to make the moral judgment that "making moral judgments of other societies is wrong." And then see above questions.

[Vogias]

First of all, you turn this into a personal offense so please do not try to offend me, I'm trying to state my opinions not "correct the world according to my super-true and heavenly good beliefs".
Ok it's Hindus but since you understood what I was talking about, I cannot find a reason to point it out so loudly mate... seriously... I do think though that they still allow their cows to go wherever they please regardless if it's their home or anything... Do you find this doable or acceptable from your standpoint?
Then check out other religions to see if you are true or false mate. Suicide bombing was an honor and good deed for the bombers but evil for the victims. Who is right and who is wrong? Go ahead and answer that without being a part of either society. From a neutral standpoint (when you virtually create a distance from every social group that is) it is not good or evil. Trying to be objective... you could claim it's both. But never one of the two. My true standpoint is neither in christianity's or other religion's boundaries fyi. In other words, try to get the point, don't cling around some of my mistakes (unless you think I claimed I'm perfect or something).

You still fail to understand that you are grown up in this society, got its morals and ideas and you evolve based on these facts. THAT is why you have these thoughts. When I state my theory of true and false, good and bad, I view myself as a third person and try to see my actions as seen from another person's eyes and, according to each occasion, I position myself in another society group to try and imagine how would my sense of good and evil be. That's how I'm TRYING to be objective for what I'm saying about other society groups and their view points. And believe it or not, I actually did NOT state an opinion on what is bad or evil, I did not judge at all what a group believes in... all I'm saying is that society judges that and that I stand on neutral ground. Go ahead and prove a judge wrong when he thinks (backed up by law) that "saving kittens" is bad and you should be hanged! Or, for a more realistic example, go ahead and prove a theocratic society's judge that you have regretted stealing that *something-whatever* and he should not order to cut your arm...
Pressure is pressure whatever the case and social pressure is a magnified peer pressure but it's just from people you barely know. If you BELONG in a society group it's not pressure, it's law-rules-guidelines. When society, as a whole, changes, law-rules-guidelines change too. That's how evolution goes from the start of known history till now and I don't think that will change anytime soon. Society creates laws to serve the people in its group and keep an order. When people's needs change, laws change too to mirror the new demands. When, for example, a state in America is supporting the execution of criminals, (most) people there believe that taking a human life who committed crimes is good OR for the best of the society's good-willing people. Another state though believes that it's not right nor good to take a human life and that we are not capable of judging who is to live or die. Who is right mate? The first or the second and why?
I'm asking you because I can't find a clear answer myself on this. One group believes this the other that and that's how it goes. So KILLING A MAN (even if it's a criminal) in this situation is both good and evil and it depends from your standpoint. Thus... SUBJECTIVE knowledge of good and evil (if you perceive each social group as one will). People can differentiate from that standpoint and leave that group of course but that won't change that groups standpoint, only the individual's one. From there you can see who is judging who (and that's not me!!). The first state says the second is wrong and the second claims the first one is wrong.

P.S. When I'm using CAPS it's for emphasizing that word or phrase, I'm not one to yell at another while in conversation. Only in a fight!!!

[Elevatator]

Heh. Funny. You say you would look everything objective. It´s funny because you said this would be a "fight". In a fight, you can´t be objective.

[Vogias]

The funny thing is that I keep getting misunderstood by people who will not even try to understand what I'm saying. The "fight" part was a joke... usually exclamation marks point it out that way... especially when I have already cleared it out that I'm emphasizing with caps while in a conversation, not yelling or picking a fight. And I said that I **********try*********** to look at things as objectively as possible but (I can't believe I have to clear out even more my words...) since I'm a single human being and not a collection of wills-minds-consciousnesses, I'm still subjective, it is still a mere opinion. Everyone reading may or may not agree and that's everyone's right but I refuse to be misunderstood by either misdirection or poor reading. I think I made myself clear with this (hopefully last) answer on this subject for god's sake...

EDIT: Oh and this-> ******* is for emphasis too, since people get offended by emphasizing caps. It is not any kind of cursing.

[M!C]

EDIT: Oh and this-> ******* is for emphasis too, since people get offended by emphasizing caps. It is not any kind of cursing.

You absolutely don't want to use the usual means of emphasizing this forum provides, do you? :P

[Dirdle]

In this spoiler: feeding the troll?

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First of all, you turn this into a personal offense so please do not try to offend me, I'm trying to state my opinions not "correct the world according to my super-true and heavenly good beliefs".

First off, I don't care what offends you or doesn't offend you. Your offense doesn't affect the truth, which is what I want to learn. Secondly, I'm not sure why you're using quotation marks. I didn't even approximate that position at any point. It's not even a straw man. But it doesn't make sense as a airquotes-quotation either. Why would you airquote that? Nor does it fit as a mathematics-like method of drawing a distinction between a statement and its quotation. Most significantly, anyone who wants to play the offended-card probably shouldn't slander around a billion Hindus as zoo-urophages.

Ok it's Hindus but since you understood what I was talking about, I cannot find a reason to point it out so loudly mate... seriously... I do think though that they still allow their cows to go wherever they please regardless if it's their home or anything... Do you find this doable or acceptable from your standpoint?

That's much better. The reason I bring it up is because you seem to be claiming socio-religio-whatever as your area of expertise. Failing to get the term for the adherents of a religion right damages that claim. So does making ridiculous claims about said religion, especially when five minutes on Wikipedia would have taught you better.

Then check out other religions to see if you are true or false mate. Suicide bombing was an honor and good deed for the bombers but evil for the victims. Who is right and who is wrong? Go ahead and answer that without being a part of either society.

Why are you changing the subject? Picking a random act and asking about its morality is not the best way to find out about someone's moral views.

From a neutral standpoint (when you virtually create a distance from every social group that is) it is not good or evil. Trying to be objective... you could claim it's both. But never one of the two. My true standpoint is neither in christianity's or other religion's boundaries fyi. In other words, try to get the point, don't cling around some of my mistakes (unless you think I claimed I'm perfect or something).

Why are you changing the subject? Christianity came up only to make more clear how your statement would have seemed to a reading Hindu.

You still fail to understand that you are grown up in this society, got its morals and ideas and you evolve based on these facts. THAT is why you have these thoughts.

I'm too educated stupid to understand nature's four-day simultaneous time cube?

When I state my theory of true and false, good and bad, I view myself as a third person and try to see my actions as seen from another person's eyes and, according to each occasion, I position myself in another society group to try and imagine how would my sense of good and evil be.

This seems like an overwrought attempt to describe empathy? Yes, the ability to consider how something would seem from another's perspective is important to morality.

That's how I'm TRYING to be objective for what I'm saying about other society groups and their view points. And believe it or not, I actually did NOT state an opinion on what is bad or evil, I did not judge at all what a group believes in... all I'm saying is that society judges that and that I stand on neutral ground.

Incredible. All those other humans, they're just "society," but you, you're special enough to be properly neutral about things. That's the only way I can make sense of what you just said.

Go ahead and prove a judge wrong when he thinks (backed up by law) that "saving kittens" is bad and you should be hanged! Or, for a more realistic example, go ahead and prove a theocratic society's judge that you have regretted stealing that *something-whatever* and he should not order to cut your arm...

This kind of "prove it, nyeh" is juvenile. Whether or not I can prove that it's wrong to put kittens in a blender is irrelevant to whether it actually is wrong. The judge who wants to blend the kittens should not use the same words ("right" and "wrong") as I; we are clearly referring to wildly different concepts. The judge and I should stop using "right" and "wrong" and expand our meaning in terms of more fundamental variables, until, ideally, we agree.

I wanted to continue typing about everything you said, Vogias, but I realised you never got to the point. Can you or can you not answer these questions:

Is it wrong to make moral judgments of other societies' morals? If yes, from where do you get that moral position? If it's from your society, how is it any more valid than my position that it IS okay to make moral judgments of other societies' morals? If it's not from your society, why can't I draw moral judgments from the same source and say that torture is a bad thing, for instance?

[Vogias]

EDIT: Oh and this-> ******* is for emphasis too, since people get offended by emphasizing caps. It is not any kind of cursing.

You absolutely don't want to use the usual means of emphasizing this forum provides, do you? :P

I'm not really familiar with these ways but I'll try this time lol (and thanks) :D


Dirdle,
I will answer to your questions as straight forward as I can, ok mate?
No it's not wrong but it's subjective which was my point from the very beginning.
I said over and over again that I do not judge whether something is good or bad so you cannot draw moral judgement from the same source since there aren't any! Neutrality does not offer morals, just a distanced viewpoint of observation. So if you were to draw from the same source you would obviously claim the same things as I do.
And I don't think that a troll would make such looooong conversations trying to make a point and express an opinion.

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You should, by the way, care if I'm offended or not since I did not offend you (or at least I didn't mean to) up until the point you said "No, it isn't. If you can't imagine yourself being revolted by the evil actions of society around you, try harder." which was in answer to my example of witches. I use quotation marks as airquotes and I airquoted phrases that were written in an ironic tone (I think it wasn't that hard to get that).

That's much better. The reason I bring it up is because you seem to be claiming socio-religio-whatever as your area of expertise. Failing to get the term for the adherents of a religion right damages that claim. So does making ridiculous claims about said religion, especially when five minutes on Wikipedia would have taught you better.

And about the Hindus (thanks for correcting me on this) I didn't mean to upset the natural order of the universe by saying that they drink cow-urines while I meant that some of them do that.
No I did not claim to be a religion know-it-all or a social one but you really thought I did so for some invisible reason. Plus, the reason I did not even check wiki is that I did not want to appear with a perfect-ish opinion to claim that I do know it all (since I obviously don't), I wanted my opinion to be clear as an opinion of a single and simple person (obviously I have failed to achieve such a feat with our situation). Oh and by the way, there are documentaries that have shown the said action in TV (that's where I first heard that from actually).

Christianity came up only to make more clear how your statement would have seemed to a reading Hindu

Nope, it came up to show to you that I am not affected by a religion or something else in order to say the things I say.

Why are you changing the subject? Picking a random act and asking about its morality is not the best way to find out about someone's moral views.

You cannot understand what I'm saying, can you? Firstly it was not a change of subject, it was another example. Secondly I did not want to learn anything about your moral views, I do not care about your moral views since my point was/is that everyone has his own morals in the end and you can't say objectively that my morals are good or bad, you can only say so subjectively as others may have a different opinion.

I'm too educated stupid to understand nature's four-day simultaneous time cube?

I didn't say you're stupid, we're having a conversation, saying so would mean even more for me lol! I meant that you didn't get the point I was making by just ignoring what I wrote there mate.

This seems like an overwrought attempt to describe empathy? Yes, the ability to consider how something would seem from another's perspective is important to morality.

Yes and it is also used (as in my situation) for seeing things as objectively as one can. You should really try it, you wouldn't be that offensive afterwards.

Incredible. All those other humans, they're just "society," but you, you're special enough to be properly neutral about things. That's the only way I can make sense of what you just said.

For once I agree with you, I stated that in the wrongest way I could. Let me correct myself by explaining a few things, ok? First off, I am not that special (even though I'd like to) and I've said that by using trying with which I meant that I cannot be objective as well since I'm a single human being but try to do my best. Then I said that I did not judge any beliefs which is true. Last thing I said is that society judges and (in a few words) I observe... ok that was a completely wrong way to state what I meant which was; in this conversation, all I have said stands in neutral ground and what I've said does not judge anything at all but it reinforces the neutrality of my standpoint to make the statement that good or bad is decided by society groups clear.

This kind of "prove it, nyeh" is juvenile. Whether or not I can prove that it's wrong to put kittens in a blender is irrelevant to whether it actually is wrong. The judge who wants to blend the kittens should not use the same words ("right" and "wrong") as I; we are clearly referring to wildly different concepts. The judge and I should stop using "right" and "wrong" and expand our meaning in terms of more fundamental variables, until, ideally, we agree.

That was actually an example to show you that laws (which serve a society's needs and are thought of as just and right by its members) can be at your wrong side. The "prove it" thing I admit is a bit juvenile (I actually laughed with that). The judge would surely use the same words with you with a different meaning than yours but his words would count since you are (in the said situation) a subject of the current society's law. I mean, if you talk to the mobile while driving in Greece, will get you a fine even though you can do that freely in Sweden and you can't talk your way out of the laws claws or "expand your meaning in terms of more fundamental variables until you agree"... it will be a plain "you broke the law, you will pay".

Please do correct me if I didn't understand anything you told me but please (again) do it without offending any more, it's not nice!