rogerg
New Member
Posts: 16
Likes: 6
|
Post by rogerg on Apr 8, 2021 6:27:37 GMT
Hello friends, I wrote down some thoughts of how people use value systems, in case someone would be interested in reading and discussing them... Since the dawn of time, when first protohumans climbed down from trees and started building a civilization, being unable to perceive the whole reality as it is, they started creating cognitive tools that would help them explore, simplify and interpret the surrounding world in a way necessary to at least survive and procreate. And one of such tools, needed to orient oneself in the world, is a value system. As David Hume pointed out, "you cannot derive an ought from an is", meaning you cannot come to a value judgement from a scientific observation. Therefor any claims of "we do not need faith, as we have science!" are absurd. Science is a great tool for exploring the natural world, but it is completely unable to tell you how to use the results of this exploration. It can tell you how to split atoms, yet whether you should split them in a power plant or above an enemy city is a value judgment. Usually, people are indoctrinated into those values systems by a religion, philosophy or culture in general. Sometimes people are able to construct their own systems. Afterwards confirmation bias kicks in and the adept starts seeing his value system as the one and only true, while competing systems are perceived as delusional. Such bias clearly has its evolutionary advantages, as people sharing the same value system can act in unison and be victorious over those, who are unable to cooperate due to different value system. So, while value systems are arbitrary, at times it might be beneficial to act as if they are not. Usually, such value systems come down to answering the following three questions: how did the universe come into being? what is our relationship with the world? / what is our life goal? / how we should treat each other? what happens after death? It might be wise to evaluate those systems not from perspective of perceived truth (as none of them can be objectively proven to be true or false), but rather by their effect on the individual and the society in general. For a value system to become viral, it usually needs to be at least loosely based in what is known as a "hero's journey" – hero feels a call to adventure, finds some supernatural guidance, fights the dragon, usually dies in some way, but then is reborn to guide his disciples to paradise. It seems that whether this journey contains a supernatural being or not is just a "marketing gimmick". Therefor all those arguments between theists and atheists are futile, as instead of focusing on the values proposed by the given system, they focus whether the hero had his revelation after studying in a library or rather after inhaling a burning bush and supposedly communicating with a supernatural deity. Author believes it is wise to pick a desired outcome on a dogmatic level (because I said so) and then pragmatically chose a value system that would most likely lead to the given outcome in a particular situation. In other words, pick the ends dogmatically, then choose the means pragmatically. Any means are good, as long as they work in the current situation and are not counter-productive to the end goal. If one discovers that the given means do not work, he should reevaluate the situation and choose more appropriate means. Unfortunately, most people do it vice versa – they link their self-worth with using some particular means, convince themselves that those means are the only true and will lead them to the best outcome possible, and then follow them blindly, without an exact end in mind. Even seeing that those means do are not working in the given situation, people often are unable to reconsider and keep pushing until the system crumbles on itself.
|
|
rogerg
New Member
Posts: 16
Likes: 6
|
Post by rogerg on Apr 14, 2021 11:15:33 GMT
Yes. But than it is up to you - human - to pick the concept of reality that you enjoy better. Either your soul is on a thrill-ride, hopefully to learn something along the way and build a society as you incarnate into new bodies. Or you are here just as an accident of nature, your life is meaningless, you will die and nobody will even remember you existed.
I would be careful here with too much love, as it might deviate you from your nature. I.e. if you see a bear don't try to give it a hug, better flee or fight.
|
|
|
Post by Eugene 2.0 on Apr 14, 2021 15:57:49 GMT
Yes. But than it is up to you - human - to pick the concept of reality that you enjoy better. Either your soul is on a thrill-ride, hopefully to learn something along the way and build a society as you incarnate into new bodies. Or you are here just as an accident of nature, your life is meaningless, you will die and nobody will even remember you existed. I would be careful here with too much love, as it might deviate you from your nature. I.e. if you see a bear don't try to give it a hug, better flee or fight. 1. I agree with you on that. We're the one who choose, and what we're encountered at - is that it's not us who has sent us here /I mean bring to his life to exist/, it's not us who's decided to put us to this epoch, to this body, to this location, et cetera. In some way it makes all the concepts be equal facing the fact of our - let's call it - the self-undetermination. 2. Well, I had nothing like 'perversion' in my mind speaking about love. For sure, I think there are bunch of adjectives or nouns like 'justice' or 'peace', or 'well-being', and so on. Surely, I don't know how to express these 'successful' terms more precisely. I guess each time when I'm wishing someone 'a good day' or 'good luck!' or something like that I express those un-expressible terms. About the bear. I guess we gotta be careful with any animals till no more or less comprehensible language we both are accepted. 3. About what I've promised to say. Maybe now I won't present those many arguments, but I'll try to bring a one. Lately I was careless and just fooling around, so one unpleasant thing helped me to figure it out some things. The same can be compared with brakes. A car with not brakes is not a car. We should know our limits. So, in many case what we consider as 'evil' isn't it. But I guess we have to talk about not just 'daily evil', but an overall evil - like earthquakes, volcano breaks, disasters, plagues, et cetera. Some of them are on people's shoulders, and people are responsible for them - like the corona from China /or maybe I'm wrong; sorry, Chinese/. Some of such evil is the real disaster. And yes, there's no real answer for this from believers. I guess who can answer why children die or why the innocent are most of the time have nots. There are many reasons to guess about it. Some of the literature examples tell us about it, like "The Book of Job" or "The Book of Habakkuk", and also some philosophical books like Epicurus' letters, Seneca's letters, and many others. Most of the literature raise question with no certain answers. However, you know, I won't reckon to open a book to get answers. Who gives me them? Even science bases on some axioms of the rules of inferences. We're open at metaphysics no matter what.
|
|
|
Post by thesageofmainstreet on Apr 15, 2021 19:47:07 GMT
Harris, Fry and other 'intellectuals' often ask similar questions, such as why God would allow a nun killed in an earthquake or a child to die of leukemia... but am I the only one to see that such question is self-contradictory? If we assume there is God, then there is no death in a final sense. Then life on this earth is sort of a role playing simulator. For example, a soul can choose to experience itself as a soldier, so it is born in time and place to fight in WWI and die under shell fire in the battle of Somme, for example. Therefor, if human life is just a thrill-ride for the soul, it makes all the 'evil' totally OK. Educated Eunuchs Whose guilt is it for childhood leukemia. The kid himself, if he had made fun of smartkids, treating them like nerdy freaks and losers. But those are the only ones who can cure it and they would have done it long ago if all the insults and ingratitude hadn't taken away their personal pride, the only source of creativity.
|
|
rogerg
New Member
Posts: 16
Likes: 6
|
Post by rogerg on Apr 15, 2021 19:54:49 GMT
What I would also add is that a modern value system should not focus on preaching, like Christianity, but rather on giving the person a hand-on experience of the divine, so to say, if you know what I mean.
|
|
|
Post by jonbain on Apr 16, 2021 16:28:10 GMT
That is well written.
But the line between fact and value is not as rigid as Hume would like to think.
Perhaps better expressed as: ...you cannot derive an ought, PURELY from an 'is'.
We derive our ought's from our is' all the time: We ought not to obey those that threaten us, because then they will enslave us.
Sure the value of being free is implicit. But We ought not to be enslaved because slaves are miserable most of the time.
|
|
rogerg
New Member
Posts: 16
Likes: 6
|
Post by rogerg on Apr 17, 2021 8:20:37 GMT
You came to this conclusion because you believe that being "miserable most of the time" is a bad thing. Not saying that it isn't, but still it is a value judgement. You can not prove it scientifically.
|
|
|
Post by jonbain on Apr 17, 2021 19:30:00 GMT
You came to this conclusion because you believe that being "miserable most of the time" is a bad thing. Not saying that it isn't, but still it is a value judgement. You can not prove it scientifically. Actually it is a logical proof because misery is defined as bad. Yes, we cannot be sure who is lying about their emotions. So that is why i use the word 'purely' "Perhaps better expressed as: ...you cannot derive an ought, PURELY from an 'is'. " We do need something beyond science to make these statements real. But that is true even in the most pure science too. Ethical values are a priori to any such study. All physical science begins with human emotional motive. Something 'the scientists' somehow manage to refute. Leading me to conclude that materialists must be automatons without emotions.
|
|
|
Post by Eugene 2.0 on Apr 24, 2021 8:55:13 GMT
You came to this conclusion because you believe that being "miserable most of the time" is a bad thing. Not saying that it isn't, but still it is a value judgement. You can not prove it scientifically. Actually it is a logical proof because misery is defined as bad. Yes, we cannot be sure who is lying about their emotions. So that is why i use the word 'purely' "Perhaps better expressed as: ...you cannot derive an ought, PURELY from an 'is'. " We do need something beyond science to make these statements real. But that is true even in the most pure science too. Ethical values are a priori to any such study. All physical science begins with human emotional motive. Something 'the scientists' somehow manage to refute. Leading me to conclude that materialists must be automatons without emotions. I would say that Hume claiming "there can't be that we can imply 'ought to' from 'is'", however his own statement had at least one "ought to" and that "ought to" was about an absoluteness of his formulation, while his claim had a priori structure. And so, if his a priori statement isn't necessary, then his own formulation can be wrong, and his own principle breaks. Moreover, let's say "thinkers" decided to check would it possible for a casual class of statement had one necessary statement, and this statements would be "there couldn't be that we could imply 'ought to' from 'be'". What could they do? - To think about it or to use some logical stuff. In either case when they would be doing it - their research - they should rely on some principles or axioms, so for them or anyone else it would not be possible to avoid at least one "ought to" that had been derived from "be". In general, no positive conclusions about "ought to" from "is" can't be. Therefore, "no 'ought to' from 'is' can be implied" is not a necessary claim, but possible. And this one might lead us to a thought: 'there could be one statement that we can get implying 'is' from 'ought to'".
|
|
rogerg
New Member
Posts: 16
Likes: 6
|
Post by rogerg on Apr 27, 2021 9:19:06 GMT
I would say that Hume claiming "there can't be that we can imply 'ought to' from 'is'", however his own statement had at least one "ought to" and that "ought to" was about an absoluteness of his formulation, while his claim had a priori structure. And so, if his a priori statement isn't necessary, then his own formulation can be wrong, and his own principle breaks. Moreover, let's say "thinkers" decided to check would it possible for a casual class of statement had one necessary statement, and this statements would be "there couldn't be that we could imply 'ought to' from 'be'". What could they do? - To think about it or to use some logical stuff. In either case when they would be doing it - their research - they should rely on some principles or axioms, so for them or anyone else it would not be possible to avoid at least one "ought to" that had been derived from "be". In general, no positive conclusions about "ought to" from "is" can't be. Therefore, "no 'ought to' from 'is' can be implied" is not a necessary claim, but possible. And this one might lead us to a thought: 'there could be one statement that we can get implying 'is' from 'ought to'".
That's too smart for me. Could you give a real world example? P.S. слава Украине!
|
|
|
Post by Eugene 2.0 on Apr 27, 2021 10:04:13 GMT
I would say that Hume claiming "there can't be that we can imply 'ought to' from 'is'", however his own statement had at least one "ought to" and that "ought to" was about an absoluteness of his formulation, while his claim had a priori structure. And so, if his a priori statement isn't necessary, then his own formulation can be wrong, and his own principle breaks. Moreover, let's say "thinkers" decided to check would it possible for a casual class of statement had one necessary statement, and this statements would be "there couldn't be that we could imply 'ought to' from 'be'". What could they do? - To think about it or to use some logical stuff. In either case when they would be doing it - their research - they should rely on some principles or axioms, so for them or anyone else it would not be possible to avoid at least one "ought to" that had been derived from "be". In general, no positive conclusions about "ought to" from "is" can't be. Therefore, "no 'ought to' from 'is' can be implied" is not a necessary claim, but possible. And this one might lead us to a thought: 'there could be one statement that we can get implying 'is' from 'ought to'".
That's too smart for me. Could you give a real world example? P.S. слава Украине!
:) Thank you for encouraging me! All the best to you and your country too! But I would say this is almost logically. I guess it would be simple to say that the Hume's Guillotine works well as a recursion. What should make us conclude that the Hume's Guillotine implies its own necessity? In life... well... For example, let's imagine I offered a theory and insisted to imply it (in a certain area). And some person reproached me of not using the Hume's Guillotine, and accused me with sharing intensively subjective propaganda, because, as he claim, I proposed "must" instead of "might", and so on. But let's suppose that person hated me and he was plotting to bring me some troubles by accusing me in something that aa he had decided would disappoint me. For instance, he watched me being sad each time I was offering another new theory. And by objecting me to not claim anything for good he just satisfied his not very kind intentions. Even couldn't be wrong about "no ought to can be derived from is" he might use it for his purposes. Also, some metaphysical statements can claim about something that hold the anti-Humean principle "ought to from is", like "cogito ergo sum" Descartes's or "causa sui" Spinoza's.
|
|