RE: Euthyphro dilemma asked for evolution.
June 13, 2012 at 5:25 pm
(This post was last modified: June 13, 2012 at 5:36 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
(June 13, 2012 at 4:30 pm)genkaus Wrote: Are we talking about animal morality here or human morality.
A difference that can only only be hoped to be argued over by definition, yet again. We are animals. Human morality is an animal morality. Our morality, whatever it is, appears to be more complex than that of say, a cow. The varying levels of complexity that we may perceieve don't rule out heuristics in the case of the cow, ourselves, or an ant. I'm screaming bias on this one (I always do).
Quote:You do realize that once we communicate and codify those notions, they'd no longer be heuristic to those we have communicated them to. That is, while biologists may argue that morality may have started as a heuristic behavior, but with generations of codification and communication, that is no longer the case for humans.
Communicating the particulars of your hueristic process does not change that it is a heuristic process. Borrowing from a set of equally or more successful hueristics to augment your own is equally incapable of changing the fact that they are heuristics.
Quote:However, the fact being that we are mostly aware of our complex problems and the actions we undertake to solve them, we can safely say that for us, morality is a guide.
I already handled this, it can appear to be such even if it is not. Which is quite often the case...with heuristics. The most famous example being ants, who's actions appear to be guided, who appear to have some sort of oversight, who create complex (relatively) social structures and physical objects, when in fact, no such guidance is occurring (or even possible in their case). A solution to a problem that relies on this process can have literally nothing to do with the problem at any given step, no direction whatsoever, the only thing that matters is the outcome, and there isn't anything pulling the strings to make that happen. For something to be a guide, to me, it would have to have just a little bit more. But this seems to be a difference in definition, yet again.
If reasoning were a string of inputs and outputs that allowed you to "get it right" by scrutinizing any given step, heuristics could be seen as a string of guesses (no inputs required) that had a statistically high occurrence of "getting it right"
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