The state of apprehending an objective truth with your brain....is a biological state.

(August 27, 2019 at 1:27 pm)downbeatplumb Wrote: People who do bad things are bad people. They stray from the norm, but then so do really good people, we call them saints or heroes.  

Tattoos in certain cultures are straying from the norm, so are man buns, wearing jeans, etc...

So when you say x is bad, is this basically what your saying, that I'm straying from the norms of my particular society, like you might say of tattoos?

How about when claiming the holocaust is immoral/bad. Is this just based based on the social norms of your society, but not wrong for German society at the time? Judging that your had different social norms than them, does this means there's nothing objectively wrong about the holocaust, just like there's nothing objectively wrong about having a tattoo?

Should i interpret your moral statesmen about right or wrong, as your iterating the actions behaviors that achieve social approval and esteem in your particular society?

If you’re honest, you'd probably say no it's not like this. That good and bad mean something different than straying from the norm, and try and jump to some other basis as a justification.

Hopefully, straying from the norms in a persons culture -does- broadly describe the field of bad, whatever it is.

(August 27, 2019 at 1:36 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: The state of apprehending an objective truth with your brain....is a biological state.

Apprehension is. Just like the apprehension of the sun is a biological state, and all other perceptions of reality are. But the thing being perceived is not. 

Objective truth is not, it's true independent of our brain, just like the sun, or the existence of the table in the room.

Then biological states aren’t the objection you thought they were.

Can a realist moral proposition refer to biological states, yes, yes it can. All realist propositions do, by definition. QED.

(August 27, 2019 at 1:48 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: Then biological states aren’t the objection you thought they were.

I don’t object to a biological states when it comes to moral perception and apprehension. Only when they’re appealed to, to account for the object of perception and apprehension, the “objectiveness” or morality.

This is a point I’ve made several times already.

It seems to be that folks like yourself, when lacking the ability to actually defeat my argument, resort to inventing ones of your own.

(August 27, 2019 at 11:34 am)Simon Moon Wrote: So, you are trying to support your assertion that we all teleologically detect a god, with children's undeveloped brains? The same children that have imaginary friends? Believe there are monsters in the closet or under the bed? You might want rethink your examples.

You do understand, that there are and have been cultures and tribes all over the world, with no god beliefs, right? The Pirahã are one example.

I know that talk about teleology is sometimes associated with religion, but it doesn't have to be. It's pretty much just asking, "what's it FOR?"

So for example my niece took her two-year-old son to the doctor the other day. In an effort to make the office more kid-friendly, they had put up a bunch of odd and (IMHO) ugly decorations. The little kid said, "what's THAT?" and his mom said, "It's just decoration." So then he asked, "what's it FOR?" 

First, I was proud that he had such good taste. But I think that's a non-religious example of teleological thinking in someone who hasn't yet been evilly indoctrinated into religious thinking. If he sees something odd, he assumes it's FOR something. 

Likewise, if a child sees a diagram of the body, and asks "what's a heart?" the teleological answer will be more educational than the simpler answer. Answer with teleology: "it's a muscle in your chest that pumps the blood around." Non-teleological answer: "it's a muscle in your chest." 

It's true that some religious people claim a sort of final teleology, in which all purposes, in the end, point to a single purpose, but we can think teleologically about lots of stuff without that.

(August 27, 2019 at 7:02 pm)Belaqua Wrote:

(August 27, 2019 at 11:34 am)Simon Moon Wrote: So, you are trying to support your assertion that we all teleologically detect a god, with children's undeveloped brains? The same children that have imaginary friends? Believe there are monsters in the closet or under the bed? You might want rethink your examples.

You do understand, that there are and have been cultures and tribes all over the world, with no god beliefs, right? The Pirahã are one example.

I know that talk about teleology is sometimes associated with religion, but it doesn't have to be. It's pretty much just asking, "what's it FOR?"

So for example my niece took her two-year-old son to the doctor the other day. In an effort to make the office more kid-friendly, they had put up a bunch of odd and (IMHO) ugly decorations. The little kid said, "what's THAT?" and his mom said, "It's just decoration." So then he asked, "what's it FOR?" 

First, I was proud that he had such good taste. But I think that's a non-religious example of teleological thinking in someone who hasn't yet been evilly indoctrinated into religious thinking. If he sees something odd, he assumes it's FOR something. 

Likewise, if a child sees a diagram of the body, and asks "what's a heart?" the teleological answer will be more educational than the simpler answer. Answer with teleology: "it's a muscle in your chest that pumps the blood around." Non-teleological answer: "it's a muscle in your chest." 

It's true that some religious people claim a sort of final teleology, in which all purposes, in the end, point to a single purpose, but we can think teleologically about lots of stuff without that.

It's a bit misleading though, because organs haven't evolved in order to do anything specific. They have evolved as a result of being advantageous (or being associated with advantageous traits) within a certain environment, thus favored by natural selection.

“Ethics is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate...the way our biology enforces it’s ends is by making us think there is an objective higher code to which we are all subject.” -EO Wilson

Quote:“Ethics is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate...the way our biology enforces it’s ends is by making us think there is an objective higher code to which we are all subject.” -EO Wilson

Good job you found a quote