Why the vision argument is a very good one!

[The Grand Nudger]

I am saying the brain from a biological perspective doesn't know the details to give us the exact accurate objective value to who we are.

Then we don't have the "exact accurate objective value to who we are"......so what?

I think both you and Jo agreed with that, just don't agree we have an objective exact value, which I argue later why I believe is not a good view.

Who cares?  If we have an objective value, then we have an objective value, even if we're not personally aware of it's "exact accurate" whatsits.

What does any of this bullshit have to do with a god?

[Ravenshire]

QED:  God has been absolutely proven.

nope. Not even close.

[Whateverist]

You are a more masterful debater than ever, Jorm

Agreed. Too bad we don't have a best Forum Baiter award. I'm a master at that.

[Mystic]

What I may have agreed is that the neural pathways don't have the concept of value in them... but, as with most of our mental activities, on a highly abstracted way, they (some of them, at least) contribute to what we consider to be the attribute of value towards a particular thing, towards ourselves and towards other people.



I will agree that this highly abstracted mental state of value attribution is present in most humans, if not all.

The issue is not that our brains don't contribute to value, even if they didn't, I would not be assuming in the argument it's impossible. Rather I am saying the detail exact measured you is beyond the capability of the brain. The brain can only generate an estimate of who you are, yet who you are must exist in accurate manner.  But that manner is not physical thing, it's value is linked with perception, and so you exist through perception of perceiver. I further argued that the exact value can only be given by a perfect absolute judge who knows this exactly as they are. 

Your brain for example, doesn't know every single angle of measurement to your actions. It has an estimate.

I agree that, as a society, we've come to agree, even if implicitly, upon some larger than zero value of any other human beings.
This societal agreement can be viewed, from the individual's point of view, as a value seemingly imposed by an outside influence. In other words, human value can seem to be objective; it can feel to be objective; it can feel like you have no choice upon the matter, as if it had been imposed unto you, unto me, unto everyone!
But has it really been imposed?

I think love is impossible, misguided or guided, to exist without firm belief in objective value. Let me know if you disagree and I will explain why.

I think the example of money is a very good one, as it is one that is well known to be of human origin. There is no actual outer influence upon it, just humans.
Is the value of money imposed unto you, me and everyone? Or is it controlled almost imperceptibly by all of us?

Do we need a divine influence to account for "value"?
Or is our brain enough?

This is somewhat circular to go this route.   Money is not an accurate value, it's a relative thing with an objective application, and it's value emerges from an objective value of human life, which people subjectively try to estimate and in my view are constantly underestimating and belittling.  That is why there is concept of justice linked to money and paying fair wages.  This is why poverty has to be combatted. 

We need a divine influence to account for value, more than that, we need the divine's value itself being given to us, eternal light mixed with temporal light.  

Human value is not determined by majority view of humans or some sort of poll, humans ought to realize human value and dignity.

The thing is when you estimate who or other human values of who they are, their detailed beauty, their traits, the image, that is an estimate of something, but that something is beyond our vision. We can't know a person like the Absolute only possible perfect Judge.  If we judge, we will do so ignorantly. No one can know the most evilest or the most good and all between but God.

This proves God because our knowledge of who we are is contingent upon that being existing. We assume beyond the estimate image and blurry vision of our subconscious and conscious, is a real accurate us.

When I was discussing details, I was not merely mentioning them to say you have to know physical stuff, and everything, I'm saying the brain doesn't even know how it physically runs, let alone, all the psychological components that factor to an action for judgment. 

It's not more knowledgeable then us. In fact, nothing can know, if you think about it, this system where we receive our actions upon our necks, is not some easy system. It takes not only the Creator to perceive, but we have to some sort of link that we get a degree of vision from the absolute, or else, our actions would have little meaning and good and evil will become practically non-sense at so many levels.

What I mean by that is that if you become lost in sight and vision of what good and evil is, there still has to be a proof and vision of good and evil as is, with you, for you to be accountable to return.

That word of truth and light, is God's King, who is with every human though they may not perceive.

[The Grand Nudger]

We need a divine influence to account for value, more than that, we need the divine's value itself being given to us, eternal light mixed with temporal light.  

You might, "we" don't.

Human value is not determined by majority view of humans or some sort of poll, humans ought to realize human value and dignity.

The thing is when you estimate who or other human values of who they are, their detailed beauty, their traits, the image, that is an estimate of something, but that something is beyond our vision. We can't know a person like the Absolute only possible perfect Judge.  If we judge, we will do so ignorantly. No one can know the most evilest or the most good and all between but God.

So what?

To recap, you have absolutely no way to assign value in your life without invoking pixies....and there's a bunch of shit you can't do.  Your admission of vast incompetence proves allah...somehow?

[LadyForCamus]

Your argument is so bad that it gave Tibs appendicitis. Way to go, MK! 😡

[pocaracas]

What I may have agreed is that the neural pathways don't have the concept of value in them... but, as with most of our mental activities, on a highly abstracted way, they (some of them, at least) contribute to what we consider to be the attribute of value towards a particular thing, towards ourselves and towards other people.



I will agree that this highly abstracted mental state of value attribution is present in most humans, if not all.

The issue is not that our brains don't contribute to value, even if they didn't, I would not be assuming in the argument it's impossible. Rather I am saying the detail exact measured you is beyond the capability of the brain. The brain can only generate an estimate of who you are, yet who you are must exist in accurate manner.  But that manner is not physical thing, it's value is linked with perception, and so you exist through perception of perceiver. I further argued that the exact value can only be given by a perfect absolute judge who knows this exactly as they are. 

Your brain for example, doesn't know every single angle of measurement to your actions. It has an estimate.

You may argue the existence of such an exact value all you want, but I don't see it. All I see is value attributed by people, towards other people.... by people towards the self.... by people towards other things (like money, food, land...).
Each person has their own way of attributing value to those things and people.

But, on the whole, we've evolved mechanisms that impose upon us some value towards all other humans. Because we've been living in a society for millions of years, those of us who attribute no value to others have been deemed psychopaths and mostly eliminated from the gene pool by not being allowed to breed or even survive until breeding age.

Since most of us, the non-psychopaths among us, implicitly agree upon some measure of human value, a measure that we have no immediate grasp upon its origin, we are forgiven to come to see that value as something thrust upon us by an outside influence... something absolute, that can only come from an absolute entity. I get it. I disagree, but I get why people go in that direction.

I agree that, as a society, we've come to agree, even if implicitly, upon some larger than zero value of any other human beings.
This societal agreement can be viewed, from the individual's point of view, as a value seemingly imposed by an outside influence. In other words, human value can seem to be objective; it can feel to be objective; it can feel like you have no choice upon the matter, as if it had been imposed unto you, unto me, unto everyone!
But has it really been imposed?

I think love is impossible, misguided or guided, to exist without firm belief in objective value. Let me know if you disagree and I will explain why.

Love is probably the strongest bonding emotion that a human feels. That bonding leads to attributing more value towards the loved "object" than to anything else. Again, relative... not absolute.

I think the example of money is a very good one, as it is one that is well known to be of human origin. There is no actual outer influence upon it, just humans.
Is the value of money imposed unto you, me and everyone? Or is it controlled almost imperceptibly by all of us?

Do we need a divine influence to account for "value"?
Or is our brain enough?

This is somewhat circular to go this route.   Money is not an accurate value, it's a relative thing with an objective application, and it's value emerges from an objective value of human life, which people subjectively try to estimate and in my view are constantly underestimating and belittling.  That is why there is concept of justice linked to money and paying fair wages.  This is why poverty has to be combatted. 

Money's value is tied with the value of human life?...
I thought it was mostly tied with the labor required to produce things...

We need a divine influence to account for value, more than that, we need the divine's value itself being given to us, eternal light mixed with temporal light.  

Human value is not determined by majority view of humans or some sort of poll, humans ought to realize human value and dignity.

The thing is when you estimate who or other human values of who they are, their detailed beauty, their traits, the image, that is an estimate of something, but that something is beyond our vision. We can't know a person like the Absolute only possible perfect Judge.  If we judge, we will do so ignorantly. No one can know the most evilest or the most good and all between but God.

This proves God because our knowledge of who we are is contingent upon that being existing. We assume beyond the estimate image and blurry vision of our subconscious and conscious, is a real accurate us.

That doesn't prove anything, MK. Sorry.
It's based on an assertion that's not an axiom, nor is it demonstrated that the assertion is true.
You have done nothing to even attempt to shake away my view that human value is relative, or subjective, to the human population.

When I was discussing details, I was not merely mentioning them to say you have to know physical stuff, and everything, I'm saying the brain doesn't even know how it physically runs, let alone, all the psychological components that factor to an action for judgment. 

The brain kinda knows. I'd wager there's no individual neuron that knows anything, but the collection of neurons... or the various collections work in tandem to produce our awareness, our abstractions, our thoughts.

It's not more knowledgeable then us. In fact, nothing can know, if you think about it, this system where we receive our actions upon our necks, is not some easy system. It takes not only the Creator to perceive, but we have to some sort of link that we get a degree of vision from the absolute, or else, our actions would have little meaning and good and evil will become practically non-sense at so many levels.

I agree that it's not an easy system to understand.
But let's not throw the towel and draw upon a potentially inexistent divine entity for the capabilities that we find in our minds.

Good and evil are perceptions we have of our actions... or the actions of others. Those actions are good if they lead to an increased happiness, and evil if they lead to an increased suffering.

What I mean by that is that if you become lost in sight and vision of what good and evil is, there still has to be a proof and vision of good and evil as is, with you, for you to be accountable to return.

That word of truth and light, is God's King, who is with every human though they may not perceive.

Or it's a system we developed as a way to survive in society.... to want to better that society.

It seems to me that the religious philosopher/apologist is constantly forgetting the important aspect that "society" has had in the development of our species (and many others!!). They always argue from the point of view of the individual, bereft of any societal pressure, influence, or input. That can only lead to a wrong conclusion.

Look into other mammalian societies and try to discover what they do that is clearly a mental state produced by societal influences. I saw a TED talk some time ago... let me see if I can get it:

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Enjoy

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[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I've slogged through most of this and  the 'argument' seems to boil down to 'the brain doesn't know how the brain works, therefore God exists'.  I'm as sorry as Canby, MK, and I hope you don't take this personally, but that is a monumentally stupid position to take.


Boru

[Angrboda]

I am saying the brain from a biological perspective doesn't know the details to give us the exact accurate objective value to who we are. I think both you and Jo agreed with that, just don't agree we have an objective exact value, which I argue later why I believe is not a good view.

No, this is wrong. I can grant you that objective value exists (assuming the concept is coherent) without there needing to be a knower who possesses exact knowledge of who I am as a person, how patient, or intelligent, or loving I am. These "objective values" can exist and be directly if imperfectly apprehended by me without there needing to be some entity that knows the objective values of each of these traits. Objective value can exist in the world without your argument following necessarily from that fact by itself. Take the question of how intelligent I am (I will deal with love in the bottom half of this post). Now I've never taken an official I.Q. test, but I know from estimates based upon my SAT scores, as well as from online IQ tests that my quantifiable intelligence has remained fairly constant since high school. There is an objective fact of how intelligent I am, and it's based on the existence of objective facts about the world. Even if I were ignorant as to my actual measured IQ, I would still have plenty of directly accessible facts from which to infer an idea of how intelligent I am. These range from my grades in school, to my ability to best others in debate, as well as my ability to adapt successfully to novel, stressful situations. In that case, there is an objective fact of the matter, but my ability to form an imperfect representation of the exact value does not depend upon the mediation of some perfect knower to inform my representation. I can appeal to readily accessible facts of my past and present existence. So, assuming ex hypothesi that objective value exists doesn't get you to the conclusion that the existence of objective value requires a perfect knower as some sort of causal explanation for the imperfect representations of such in my mind.

The phrase objective value is itself ambiguous. If by value here you mean something akin to innate desirability, then objective value as a concept is incoherent. If by value here you mean instead simply that an objective property is quantifiable, then there is no need for a mediator between said 'values' and my apprehension of them. If you intend by objective value such things as my worth as a human being, then you are out of the realm of objective fact and into a sense of value which is less perceived than it is simply asserted, based on my own innate moral and political compass. Besides being incoherent as noted, again, my imperfect knowledge of the 'value' in question is based upon things to which I also have direct if imperfect access. I would like to recount an anecdote as an example to introduce the subject. One day in psychotherapy, I was telling a story about my family, and my therapist remarked about how our family is significant by virtue of the fact that we've spent so much time with them. That observation struck me, as I had never before considered the brute fact of my shared time with fellow members of my family. The significance and meaning of my attachment to my family members is mediated by a vast expanse of shared memories and time spent together. My feelings toward them based on that would not be in any way diminished if instead of having been a natural born member of the clan, I had instead been adopted. My emotions and feelings about the members of my family are built on that shared time together. In a sense, mature love is similar, in resting on a foundation of shared time and commitments to each other. In this vein, it's worth noting that immature love, the infatuation stage, is known to be wildly unreliable in terms of our heart's ability to assess such things as the stability of a partner, their sexual desirability, their suitability as a life-long helpmate, and so on. It is only with the transition to mature love that these perceptions seem to settle down into more realistic assessments. I don't know if you have experience of the mature phase of a sexual relationship, but because of the effects of the intense intimacy and interdependability, mature sexual relationships have shapes which aren't equally modeled in family or friend relationships. They have their own palpable dynamic which itself is a consequence of the continual interaction in terms of intimacy, interdependability, and so on. However, like the way in which our feelings about our family are shaped by the shared experiences and mutual observation of each other's maturation, the romantic couple's feelings towards each other are likewise shaped by the features unique to that relationship. In either case, the "value" which I attach toward a family member is as much shaped by that mundane history, which we have direct access to, as it is by our biology and evolved psychology as a social species. I don't need to appeal to a mysterious third party to acquire a deep and meaningful connection to another person, such as a lover, spouse, father, or sister. Biology and shared time are more than adequate as a rough draft explanation.

Anyway, we've lumped together sexual relationships, friendship, family relationships, personality traits such as patience and intelligence, as well as political and moral concepts such as human worth. Each of these appears unique and divergent in the ways which mundane, directly accessible facts can contribute to our varied inferences about who we and others are, and our value, exact or not. By this time, the analogy to vision is literally bursting at its seams. Nowhere in any of this does there appear to be a necessary call to an outside knower. You not only need the existence of objective value, but two additional components as well. a) That objective values would not exist without a perfect knower of the objective facts, and b) that my imperfect representation of those values would not exist if said knower did not exist. In some sense, you need to show how perfect knowledge of such values in some sense "causes" our imperfect representations. If you have addressed these points in the other thread you reference, I request that you import them here or provide specific reference to individual posts in that thread. I do not at present intend to delve into that thread in search of things which may not even be there.

I will take a moment here to compliment you on the improvement in your exposition of your argument in the OP here. Your presentation follows the form of a syllogism and is much easier to follow and analyze than your previous, seeming "stream of consciousness" expositions of the argument before. You have improved in your ability to convey your ideas considerably. Good work.

[robvalue]

The very notion of "ourselves" is massively vague, anyway. All we ever get is our brain's representation of the data it is receiving. We never get to compare it to the "real us", if such a thing is even coherent. Our brain is also the thing that "decides" what counts as part of ourselves and what doesn't; and such notions can be fooled, or outright broken.

I know religious people will start talking about (unevidenced and ill-defined) souls, to suddenly strip away everything that (apparently) makes us up in the first place, making the whole thing redundant.

Even if there is a "real us", so what? This just means reality conforms to some sort of specific logic or physical rules. No God required.