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Morality is like a religion
#21
RE: Morality is like a religion
Okay! Well, I think I've added everything useful I can so I hope someone else gets a neat idea to help Smile

I'm off to walk the dog and think about ninjas/pizza.
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#22
RE: Morality is like a religion
One last try Smile If I'm understanding you correctly:

What you have created is correct, but it is a logical tautology (always true regardless). It's nothing to do with science, or the subject matter in fact. Let me explain:

Say we have a person X. We find out their capacity for having "positive feelings" with F(X) and their ability to live a "worthwhile life" as L(X). They both return a Y or a N.

You have stated that L(X) = Y if and only if F(X) = Y. So, in fact, F(X) = L(X) for any person X. You get the same answer, yes or no, for both questions for any given person.

Your proposal is now:

"If a person has no positive feelings, they can't live a worthwhile life."

If F(X) = N then L(X) = N

But since F(X) = L(X), it becomes

If F(X) = N then F(X) = N

So this is correct, but it is a tautology. If you have no positive feelings, you have no positive feelings. This logic is also true for any F and L that I define in the same way. F could be "Do I have a green car" and L could be "Am I trendy?" and I say F = L . Then I get the same result. The fact that F happens to be talking about feeling is irrelevant. The above example reduces to if I don't have a green car, I don't have a green car.

So hopefully you see my problem! You're just stating something that must logically be true, by definition. Which is fine, but it doesn't demonstrate anything else.
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#23
RE: Morality is like a religion
(August 19, 2015 at 8:53 am)robvalue Wrote: One last try Smile If I'm understanding you correctly:

What you have created is correct, but it is a logical tautology (always true regardless). It's nothing to do with science, or the subject matter in fact. Let me explain:

Say we have a person X. We find out their capacity for having "positive feelings" with F(X) and their ability to live a "worthwhile life" as L(X). They both return a Y or a N.

You have stated that L(X) = Y if and only if F(X) = Y. So, in fact, F(X) = L(X) for any person X. You get the same answer, yes or no, for both questions for any given person.

Your proposal is now:

"If a person has no positive feelings, they can't live a worthwhile life."

If F(X) = N then L(X) = N

But since F(X) = L(X), it becomes

If F(X) = N then F(X) = N

So this is correct, but it is a tautology. If you have no positive feelings, you have no positive feelings. This logic is also true for any F and L that I define in the same way. F could be "Do I have a green car" and L could be "Am I trendy?" and I say F = L . Then I get the same result. The fact that F happens to be talking about feeling is irrelevant. The above example reduces to if I don't have a green car, I don't have a green car.

So hopefully you see my problem! You're just stating something that must logically be true, by definition. Which is fine, but it doesn't demonstrate anything else.

Now let me just say this. There are two different personality types. There are those types of people who are just completely fine living with no incentive or any inspiration whatsoever. They are completely fine living their lives completely neutral and settled down. They are completely fine with living like biological robots.

But then there are those types of people like me who always need to be up and running in a high transcended inspired state. If people such as me ever become lowered down into that inferior biological robotic settled state, then we would become psychotically enraged.
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#24
RE: Morality is like a religion
OK...? Is that in relation to what I wrote, or something new?
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#25
RE: Morality is like a religion
I am on the mission here to destroy the moral version of good and bad since it has mocked and insulted me long enough. It is deluded ignorant nonsense to say to a severely crippled depressed person that he/she can still have good meaning in his/her life.

The moral version of good says that if we personally judge our lives to have good meaning through our thoughts, then that will make it so. But this is nonsense because this would mean that we could go up to a severely crippled depressed person and say in a joyful/excited tone:

"Yipee! Your life is so wonderful since you told yourself that your life was great! Forget the fact that you were on the brink of suicide and were hardly able to function! Your life was so wonderful!"

This, right here, is the deluded mocking/insulting ignorant blatant lie that is the moral version of good. It would be no different than telling a person with Parkinson's or a stroke:

"Yipee! You can still fully function mentally because you told yourself you can!"

It would also be no different than telling a blind and deaf person:

"Yipee! You can still see and hear since you told yourself you can!"

The fact is, there has to be a scientific version of good and bad that humanity and science is currently unaware of.

It would have to be our good moods (pleasant emotions) that are the scientific version of good and it would have to be our unpleasant feelings/emotions (such as depression) that would be the scientific version of bad.

Good and bad would have to be senses like sight, hearing, and smell. So they are scientific terms like sight, hearing, and smell. Just as how a blind and deaf person cannot give his/herself sight and hearing through his/her thoughts alone, we cannot give our lives any good or bad meaning either without our pleasant/unpleasant feelings/emotions.

If you were to say the phrase:

"My life is nothing but hopeless," then that would be no different than saying:

"My life is nothing but bad and has no good meaning." Therefore, since depression is a feeling of hopelessness, then if you were to struggle with depression, then you would feel that your life is nothing but bad. Here again, thoughts of our family and such still giving our lives good meaning during our depression won't give our lives any good meaning since we don't have our actual sense of good meaning which would be our pleasant emotions (our reward system).

In conclusion, I myself struggle with depression and anhedonia (absence of all my pleasant emotions). This moral version of good and bad is a deluded and mocking/insulting lie towards people such as me who struggle with these illnesses. It is time we destroy this moral lie and instead create a better life.

An eternal blissful life of no more suffering, depression, and anhedonia created by science in the future and have people such as me who have missed out resurrected so we can live this life. We would create this eternal blissful life based upon the scientific version of good and bad since scientists would be encouraged like never before to find cures and treatments knowing that our pleasant emotions are all that we have in our lives to make us good people and our lives good.

The scientific version of good and bad is different than the moral version of good and bad. It is a feeling/emotional version of good and bad and is not any moral or any other version of good and bad. I realize that science has no moral lessons to teach us. So you might say that there is no scientific version of good and bad. Like I said before, morality is not the same thing as good and bad.

So it would no longer be morality. We would instead have to refer to it as something different. We would instead have to refer to it as us interacting and socializing as human beings and nothing more. Good and bad would instead have to be something completely different. It would have to be the scientific version of good and bad which would be the feeling/emotional version of good and bad.
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#26
RE: Morality is like a religion
(August 19, 2015 at 1:01 am)Detective L Ryuzaki Wrote:  There is the scientific version of good and bad which is the feeling/emotional version of good and bad which would be our pleasant/unpleasant feelings/emotions.

What is the scientific version of good and bad when it's at home?
[Image: Bumper+Sticker+-+Asheville+-+Praise+Dog3.JPG]
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#27
RE: Morality is like a religion
Let me add something new here. I can't help but really wonder if the moral version of good and bad really is fake even though we do not realize it yet. That we are all just blindly believing in it when it was never true to begin with. Society teaches us lies. This is a known fact of life. It happens so much throughout the world and we are all nothing more than just blindly believing in them. The fact is, we can't trust anyone. We can't trust everything we have been taught.

Even though the moral version of good and bad might have supporting evidence, that doesn't necessarily make it true. The fact is, there could be new tests and new evidence supporting my theory that we need to find out. The moral version of good and bad says:

"How you feel is nothing important. It is nothing good or bad in of itself. It is all about your thinking. Just simply change your thinking and you can live a life that has good meaning."

I find that quote to be a mocking insult to me. It is ignorant deluded nonsense towards the person's depression and suffering. Really, if depression and all the suffering (unpleasant feelings/emotions) were nothing bad, then why are there so many people trying to find better treatments and cures for it? It should all just be a matter of changing one's thinking, acts, and way of life and nothing more. When we look at a severely crippled depressed person and feel sadness and grief over him/her, would it be just simply nothing more than because he/she has a pessimistic mode of thought towards life? No!

It is instead because he/she is going through so much suffering. He/she has a crippling experience of an unpleasant feeling/emotion that gives nothing but bad and horrible meaning to his/her life that is known as depression. Therefore, depression in of itself has to be bad and it has nothing to do with our way of thinking. It is the scientific version of bad. The opposite would be the scientific version of good which would be our pleasant feelings/emotions. And, of course, having neither pleasant nor unpleasant feelings/emotions would only render you and your life having neutral (neither good or bad) value and worth. 

I mean, it all adds up to there being a scientific version of good and bad. I clearly have a rational and valid basis for my theory which would be everything I explained here about why the moral version of good and bad is a mocking/insulting deluded ignorant lie.
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#28
RE: Morality is like a religion
Thanks for responding to my reply, I really appreciate it
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#29
RE: Morality is like a religion
(August 18, 2015 at 11:34 pm)Detective L Ryuzaki Wrote: I have come up with a theory here that explains how the moral (personal value judgment) version of good and bad is fake and does not make us and our lives good or bad.  That there is a scientific version of good and bad that humanity and science is unaware of.




In conclusion, morality and the thinking area of our brains alone would not give our lives any good or bad meaning.  It would only be a matter of choices and decisions.  It would only be a matter of avoiding or pursuing certain situations and nothing more.  We wouldn't even refer to the acts of Hitler as being bad.  We would still say that Hitler's life was good since he derived pleasant emotions from harming the Jews.  Morality does not exist.  It would no longer have the terms good and bad for it.  It is all just a matter of how we as human beings socialize and interact and nothing more.  Our pleasant and unpleasant feelings/emotions are a feeling/emotional version of good and bad and not any moral version of good and bad.

I think you are on to something here.
However, you are neglecting to consider that the individual is embedded in a system larger than itself.
Personal good and bad could be, as you say, only restatements of the pleasant and unpleasant emotions of one person, a reflection of the activity of the brain's reward system.  But if one considers a higher level of complexity, that of the family, the community or the state, good or bad would have to be re-defined.  

My model defines morality as contextual to the replicating system to which it applies.  e.g. good or bad for the person is not good or bad for the community.  The community might find it convenient to sacrifice the individual for the community's smooth operation.  It could confine or kill that individual for the benefit of itself.
A more nuanced definition of a moral action in my model is this: an action taken by or acting on a replicating system is moral from the system's perspective if it serves to aid the replication and expansion of that system. It may be a tautology that this definition results in the perpetuation and expansion of moral systems.  

Your depression and anhedonia are sub-optimal, bad, for your community as you are likely unable to participate fully in communal activities.  Diagnosis and treatment are therefore  moral actions.
So how, exactly, does God know that She's NOT a brain in a vat? Huh
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#30
RE: Morality is like a religion
(August 19, 2015 at 12:52 am)robvalue Wrote: Hello there Smile

I'm sorry to hear about your depression. I too am severely depressed. At my worst I have been so numb as to barely feel any emotions except the depression, so I have some idea where you are coming from.

I'm not sure what you mean by morality not existing. We need to be careful exactly what we mean by terms. Of course morality is an abstract concept, and like all abstract concepts, doesn't literally exist. But I don't think that is what you mean.

We can either look at an individual and their personal thoughts about morality, or we can look at humans as a whole. I think when trying to understand the "source" of morality, it's better to focus on humans as a whole. Each individual will find their own rationalisations for their morality, but ultimately they are getting it from a combination of genetics and environment.

As a species, we can observe that people do care about each other. We value the lives of each other. That is morality, at its simplest. So in this way, morality does exist. Why do we care about each other? As you probably know better than me, we evolved as a cooperate species through natural selection. People who cared about others fared better.

So as a species, we have morality. If we look at each individual, they are going to have their own specific different behaviours. This is to be expected.

So then going to the individual level and saying "it makes no sense to have morality because..." is just untrue. We do have morality, in general. The reasons we have it may not be the ones we tell others, or ourselves. Ultimately, we have it because of evolution. Nature and nurture, with nurture echoing nature to a large degree. We raise children by our own values on the whole.

As we're able to think at such a high abstract level, we can start to analyse our own morality, and to question it at a fundamental level. Some people won't have any, such as sociopaths. Some people will have a very twisted or just unusual version compared to the rest of us. This is all to be expected. But there's nothing magic going on, and I'm not at all sure what you mean by it's a religion or it doesn't exist. If morality didn't exist, we wouldn't care about each other. But we do. You may just be using a very different definition which is causing problems here.

No, our lives are not inherently "good" or "bad" because that makes no sense. These are value judgements, and are subjective. We can each say someone else is living a good or bad life, but it depends on our own individual morality to make that judgement. There is no ultimate objective standard. There is also no reason to expect one.
I have seem you say you were depressed before Rob. The truth is and I am one of them, I don't have time to be depressed, too busy. You need to get busy and stay busy, see if that will help.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
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