Is the statement "Claims demand evidence" always true?

[Mudhammam]

I'm ignorant on the meaning of the rest... what you mean by abstract objects distinct from bodies.

By abstract "objects" I mean entities like persons or selves, or if those are too controversial, then numbers or the relations between them; or relations as find expression in physical regularities or statistical laws; perhaps even such principles as those to which one might make appeal when forming a theory of rationality or morality, things of that sort.  Do metaphysical entities need to be conceived as A. merely the products of a linguistic system of thought that attempts to understand itself and reality as a cohesive whole or as B. weird platonic "essences" that exist in the sense that Cartesian Egos are often thought to "exist," within spacetime but in a nonspatial or nontemporal manner? I'm confident that these aren't the only alternatives.  But what the correct answer is, I don't know.

Again, what I mean by arbitrary in this case is probably a rare view, but it just comes from my mechanistic/reductionistic view of the mind, psychology, and neuroscience. What I mean is that it's arbitrary in the sense that in my view, each changeable aspect of consciousness represents a changeable state of the underlying system, and therefore as a whole a conscious system can be described as an arbitrary collection of states... and a different system (say another type of animal when referring to biological systems) represents a different collection of states. So from my perspective, when defined/viewed like that, there's nothing special about any particular state... they come into awareness, they change, they leave awareness... regardless of what phenomenological form they take. Perhaps to put it in your terms, that's the core essence of a conscious perception, regardless of type?

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I would like to concede what you say here, because I too find the mechanistic/reductionistic view most fruitful in its attempt to dig further down into our conceptual understanding of ourselves and the world, but to answer -- and add a bit -- to your suggestion, sure, we could call such a state "the core essence of a conscious perception"; however, it still seems to leave unresolved whether the types of abstract objects (or metaphysical entities--whatever we wish to call them--including numbers, relations, principles, etc.) that these changeable states involve are 1. part of the underlying reality or 2. simply part of the resulting conscious systems.  Either way, that these seem to possess rational and ethical "essences" or properties or what have you, which make discussions of underlying realities or moral duties intelligible, still seems fundamentally mysterious as it relates to physical beings.

And moreover, the system represented by states includes the 'observer'... what has the illusion of being the homunculous... the self, is a state like any other in my view. Therefore there is no distinction between the observer and the observed, the content and the container, the measured and the measurement... all are represented states that come, change, and go.

I don't know if I would say that there is no distinction, in so far as my observation of an object may be different from some other being for reasons that are grounded in the state of "myself" as an observer.  If we want to say that these differences are explained by different states, we still have to agree, it seems to me anyway, that logic and mathematics and even the empirical sciences suggest that the underlying reality which these different states represent coheres by a set of non-arbitrary rules.  Furthermore, it is only because these rules are in a framework that is basically intelligible that the rational facilities which our conscious states involve can establish "truths" (whether absolute or provisional), and then communicate these truths with one another using arbitrary expressions of speech.  My question is not even so much "What is true?" but rather the one that Pontius Pilate is alleged to have asked Christ in the Gospels: "What is truth?"

Granted when two similar systems are compared, such as from the same species of animal, there may be some shared states... which would likely be what we would call the innate aspects of the animal... those states that represent the [evolutionary] 'design' of the system... from above paragraph they would most likely be on the 'container' side of the equation... the actual visual field and its form etc... along with any innate drives for the animal. In this view I would class beauty as one of those shared innate states... the measurement itself... the ruler as it were. And likewise there would be some states that are less shared and more unique/subjective... generally on the content side of the equation. It may turn out to be the case that all sentient life shares some of these states at a core level, depending on how you define life, for instance if you say that all life, at its core, seeks what it wants/needs to survive and seeks to avoid what is dangerous to that survival, then arguably all life would have states representing attraction and aversion, of which beauty could be an example.

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So, are you saying that "beauty", on this view, is objective or subjective? (Or is that a distinction which collapses given your prior remarks?) That is, to the extent that certain cognitive systems, for evolutionary purposes, come to "share innate states" which they then identify as beautiful.  Is beauty intrinsic to the conscious system, i.e. to the changeable states of the underlying reality that these represent (and is this ideal of beauty really changeable? Is this always so?)?  Would you also say that truth, expressed in the following statements, "One plus one is always equivalent to two", or "Molesting children is always wrong even if it fulfills my greatest desires", is nothing but a description of particular "shared innate states" that happen to intelligibly express certain intuitions regarding the correctness of such claims?  But what does "correctness" even mean outside the context of these innate states?  What does it mean for something to be "immoral" on this view?

And then we, using the gifts that evolution has given us (the ability to reason), have emulated and exponentially expanded upon those processes by taking them out of our heads into formal systems of thought that can be shared and built upon through language and writing etc. So in that sense I can agree that there is some sort of objective truth that both we and evolution drive towards. But I'm still not comfortable really calling it that until I understand what you mean by objective truth. But close enough for the time being.

You and me both.  I don't have trouble calling it objective truth but I am equally reluctant to definitively say whatever it is that formal systems of thought are, not only supposed to be illuminating, but themselves supposed to be (in terms of A or B or some other alternative, as I suggested above).  To what degree are ideals imaginary?  How do they correlate to the underlying reality that has brought forth conscious systems, which contemplate these ideals, and are even driven towards them (in ways that are often contrary to the tendencies of natural selection)?

But regarding the other things... morality, beauty etc, the problem I see with how you seem to be describing it, is that any 'objective standard' seems to me to at the very least to presume the existence of sentient life capable of perceiving it, and more specifically, of a particular form of life to which it is tailored. In other words, if moral truths are absolute and unchanging, just waiting out there to be discovered, what is their scope? To what do they apply? Would a hypothetical alien form of life, completely different from human or any other life on earth, benefit from it for instance? Or would there be another, different one for them? I admit I am very confused by this and may be fundamentally misunderstanding what you mean by objective standards, but those are the questions that come to mind as my knowledge stands. It just seems to imply that if objective truths have to be tailored to a particular audience... human morality for humans, bee morality for bees etc, then it just just makes it arbitrary again. From my current position I'd simply say that all inherent morality, beauty etc is just innate... part of our evolutionary design... shared and inherited states of the system. Are you for instance suggesting that there is a web of objective truths out there, comprised of essences and what have you, and therefore that a moral truth applies to some class in that framework?

Those are great philosophical questions.  I see no issue with the possibility that morality could have various solutions for different situations, or other species, but I doubt that all aspects would be equally pliable or susceptible to change.  If a bee can suffer in ways that are comparable to conscious systems such as human beings (thankfully, recent scientific research has suggested that insects likely do not suffer pain), then any ideal morality would reflect that.  This might be digressing from your remarks, but I want to add that it can be the case that there are, say, "imperatives" such as the Kantian principle that one should "act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law," and it could be true that the act one would be restricted from doing given their adherence to said imperative becomes permissible when the conditions change.  Take lying, for instance.  I can fulfill the imperative of acting only in those ways that I would require all to act, and decide that in normal circumstances nobody ought to lie ever.  Yet if I am hiding Anne Frank in the attic, say, I will modify my imperative so as to now declare that in all circumstances in which one is hiding an innocent life from one would who seek to harm that life, I require that all should lie.  Does this mean that the statement "lying is an immoral act" is not absolutely true?  Yes, in so far as we are speaking of all circumstances and not all normal circumstances.  Does this mean that "lying is a wrong act" is no longer objective?  No, because it remains objectively wrong in normal circumstances and objectively right in those involving innocent persons, like Anne Frank, and a murderous fiend.  

As far as your last question is concerned, I don't know if that is really a helpful way of looking at it.  But I don't know if there is a good way, or if it matters so much, as long as it is generally understood what it is we mean by objective moral truths and whatnot.

So of your three choices as it stands I would have to choose A, but I suppose I would replace 'man' with 'system' such that 'the system is the measure of all things, whatever that system may be.'

Doesn't that just result in relativism/subjectivism though?  And doesn't it make impossible any meaningful talk of, well, moral progress, if all boils down to nothing but a matter of perspective?