Christians, Prove Your God Is Good

[The Reality Salesman01]

Why must "less desirable options" be available in order to judge that some one thing is desirable under a particular aspect? If you are hungry, you don't need to encounter both an apple AND a rock to judge that the apple is desirable/good.

That's the wrong way to view the question. The existence of options is not what defines that which compels us to choose. Hunger is not defined by apples or rocks. Hunger is a feeling we use to describe our desire to eat. And there are better and worse answers on how best to satisfy that desire. You say "we don't need to encounter both an apple and a rock to judge that the apple is better", but you do need to encounter what it feels like to be hungry and what it feels like to be satisfied. And these feelings give the options relevance in that sense. Apple and Rocks do not have any inherent "food" meaning to them. We give the meaning to the objects as they correlate to our desires.

Any judgment, however, which compares the goodness of things OBVIOUSLY requires the presence of different objects.

Why do you think that is? If all that existed was a single option, how might you classify that? What meaning does the word "classify" or "judgement" have when there is no basis to compare anything?

I'm not sure what you meant when you wrote "if [conscious brain states triggered by particular experiences] were all the same". Is this an expression of Sam Harris's approach in The Moral Landscape? I am just not sure what you mean.

I mean that that if you are hungry and you eat a rock, you will experience a brain state...

If you eat an apple, you will trigger another.

..and that one is certainly more desirable than the other. Obviously, this isn't something that you would personally consider before weighing out which option is best to satisfy your hunger, but you've been doing this very thing since the moment you were born.

Yes, but I think I would say that all things in the universe that are perceived to be good or bad, require a conscious mind to make them so.

I agree. Goodness is an inherently subjective concept.

In principle, not in practice. Stick your tongue in an electrical socket. I'd say that's an objectively worse way to live a fulfilling life.

And the meaning of anything good can only have meaning by the recognition of something less desirable which we tend to recognize and describe as bad.

Why is that the case? Why does desiring a thing require a comparative judgment of goodness? Things must first be judged individually before they can be compared as more or less desirable than other things.

Explain to me how you might first make a billboard top 40 list of songs without first having music? and before that, you would need the creative inspiration that gives rise to it, would you not? The appraisal of what comes later is only after you have samples to compare. You're putting the cart before the horse...

I agree with that first sentence. Aren't we describing practical actions (i.e. human action, and even supposed divine action) as either good or bad?

Yes. And that is because we are capable of cognitive responses to "practical actions". And each "practical action" will trigger a different cognitive response. If our brain was static, and perceived everything equally, there would be no meaning behind the word "good". The word good becomes relevant as soon as you go from the very first cognitive experience to the second.

I'm reminded of Socrates here...

Is a bag carried because it is being carried? Or does the bag possess some intrinsic quality of carriedness even if it were sitting on the ground?

In this case, it's carried IF it is being carried, and as soon as it hits the floor, it is no longer carried. An apple is an apple. It is food if it can be healthily ingested. As soon as there is nothing on this planet to consume this apple or assign additional meaning to it, it just is what it is.