Do you wish there's a god?

[Acrobat]

If truth is something pertaining to statements, then, in the absence of statements (which would happen in the absence of consciences), truth is non-existent.

Reality, though, would be what it is, regardless.



No truth pertains to facts about reality. Truth statements are language based descriptions of reality. Truth is no more dependent on our descriptions for its existence, than a mountain is dependent on a topographic map for its existence.

My question was more in line of what is an addition in the absence of a conscious entity?
Does reality do addition?
Does reality count items?

Reality need not do addition, for 1+1 =2, no more than reality needs to be conscious of the laws of physics, to be subject to it.


Possibly... if they extrapolate torture to their own kind...
I don't know how wrong will they consider if it's done to the self species.
Also, you're assuming that a non-human would also categorize things as we do, with a pattern seeking brain. That need not be so.

That wasn’t the question. The question assumes the observers understands human subjective and objective perceptions, views and beliefs perceived as objective truths, like 1+1=2 and that which is perceived as subjective taste and opinions, like Fred’s has the best pizza in town. What an objective observer would recognize is that moral statements are not like subjective statements like the best pizza in town, but resemble the way we speak of objective truths like 1+1 = 2.

It shouldn't be surprising that our moral perceptions resemble the set of behaviors that lead to a healthy and thriving community. Some of those behaviors have been genetically selected for and are similar to those found in other social species, while other behaviors seem unique to or species and tend to be learned and imposed by society, either by laws and rules, or by peer pressure.

But we’re not talking about human behavior, but about human beliefs and perceptions. Its about the nature of moral beliefs, the ontology of mortality, not about the behaviors that stem from them. A thief can acknowledge that stealing is wrong, while stealing your wallet. A husband can acknowledge it’s wrong to cheat on his wife, while cheating on her.

It is typically described as something more akin to disgust... not a simple negative feeling, but one of the strongest there is.

Yet claiming something is immoral is not synonymous with claiming some thing is strongly disgusting to me. If you’re telling your children it’s wrong to cheat people, what you’re not saying is that it’s wrong because it disgusts me as a father. Im not telling them that they shouldn’t do wrong things, because it disgusts me.



Wrong. Psychological phenomena needs such an account.
You easily acknowledge that you have morals, that within you is a sense of a moral reality... but you can't bestow that moral reality upon the rest of the world.



The wrongness of torturing innocent babies, isn’t a psychological phenomena it’s an objective observation, like the laptop it front of me. Now, the question of why and how our minds perceive the laptop or the wrongness here, may be described psychologicaslly. But acknowledging the existence of things outside our mind, is not dependent on how well we understanding psychology or the origins of the things we’re perceiving. We experience it as self-evident, as self-evident as the existence of other minds outside our own, etc..

But why do you (and most of us) consider that harming another human being is morally wrong? (see?, it doesn't need to be torture and babies, nor for fun)
I'm certain that such a "rule" is not floating around in the ether and it somehow crystallizes upon most of the human brains…

Because of underlying core moral principles, floating around in the ether, in which all our moral views and perceptions are built and rely on. It’s not because you tell me torturing innocent babies just for fun is immoral, it’s not because I say it, its immoral, and its not because society says its wrong, but reality itself. Now maybe you’ve never actually dealt with immoral people personally. Revealing to someone that something they’re doing is wrong is not like changing their taste in fashion, its akin to revealing truth to someone ignorant or delusional, or taking a blindfold off.

But, if they perceive a lie to be a truth, then what you consider to be an evil, they consider to be a good.

A nazi might acknowledge that killing innocent people is wrong, but justify killing jews by a delusional belief that they’re not innocent but guilty. In order to scapegoat, murder, and justify their actions they can’t see the jews as innocent. It’s not that they disagree that killing innocent people is wrong, but because they fail to acknowledge that the jews were innocent.