A More Localized Version of the Argument From Morality

[PRmerger]

A simple ethical system:

Rule #1: Do no harm. (Borrowed from the Hippocratic oath)
Rule #2: Do not allow harm to happen, if you can prevent it.
Rule #3: If the circumstances FORCE you to do harm, then do as little harm as possible.

Very Catholic, this!

 

[Aloysium]

. . . if you combine one Oxygen atom and two Hydrogen atoms, you will get “water”, which is “wet”. And that is not a contradiction.

Reductionism rears up when one claims there is no wetness, that all there is are physical forces. Water being wet involves a connection between a person and water. You and I experience the wetness. The wetness is not just some event in an endless minestrone of existence. A person feels it, having contact with water. We feel it because we exist in time and space, because we are physical beings. But, we are not just physical. Even if the sensation of wetness disappears when we lop off an area of our midbrain or cortex, indicating that our brains are necessary to experience the world, that wetness includes the whole person who is perceiving, thinking and acting, the person who encases the body, and the water itself. The soul involves the capacity to connect, to love. Talkin’ about you and me here. Reductionism reduces everything to a material structure. Truth is more than a pattern of neural firing. If that is all it were, everything would boil down to illusion. And, I have no idea why someone who believes this would argue anything. When i was a teen, way, way back, long ago, I came to the conclusion that since science, which is all I knew, was unable to explain “me”, that the universe was absurd. If I were now like then, I’d be like, “wow, kul brah!” About everything. Maybe I still am.

 

[inocente]

You’ll have to give me an example of an “instruction and usage” in which an electromagnetic state can be true or false. I understand the other two.

See for instance page 22 at simplemachines.it/doc/arm_inst.pdf

(ARM is a CPU used in lots of phones and other devices.)

inocente;14324683:

Sorry, lost you. You said you’ve proved that there’s an aspect of consciousness and a reality which is non-physical, and I’m saying if you had then it would have been major headline news all around the world.

How many scientists who made brilliant discoveries had their findings immediately published and accepted? Some of them took years before mainstream acceptance. Now you’re just being silly.

You realize mainstream acceptance will have to wait behind all the thousands of other brilliant discoveries made by posters on internet forums?

You could try jumping the queue by publishing your paper at philpapers.org/ or arxiv.org/.

*From your own link:

“One important aspect of the scientific process is that it is focuses only on the natural world, according to the University of California. Anything that is considered supernatural does not fit into the definition of science.”*

When you write up your brilliant discovery, I suggest you avoid mixing up words with different meanings, like ‘non-physical’ and ‘supernatural’.

Concrete is the antonym to abstract, so, no, I don’t think this. You appear to think knowledge must be concrete in order to be valid.

How distastefully condescending.

When I said that is strange, I was responding to you saying “Most think [math] is different from science. Which is strange, …”.

I was saying the reason you think that’s strange is because you think “math itself demonstrates that there are non-physical realities”. But it doesn’t.

The OED defines reality as “The state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them”. There is only one state of things as they actually exist, therefore there is only one reality. So math does not demonstrate there are non-physical realities, and to me it’s strange you think there are multiple realities, as there can’t be.

 

[PRmerger]

I was saying the reason you think that’s strange is because you think “math itself demonstrates that there are non-physical realities”. But it doesn’t.

Of course it does.

Math demonstrates that the number 3 exists. That is reality. But the number 3 is not physical.

QED.

 

[inocente]

inocente;14325034:

I was saying the reason you think that’s strange is because you think "math itself demonstrates that there are non-physical realities

". But it doesn’t.
Of course it does.

Math demonstrates that the number 3 exists. That is reality. But the number 3 is not physical.

QED.

Not sure why you felt the need to write out something that everyone learns in preschool, but you perhaps missed that I am being told this is a previously unknown proof, published for the first time on this very thread, that there are multiple realities, not just the reality in which you exist but another in which 3 exists, and yet more realities, apparently.

 

[PRmerger]

Not sure why you felt the need to write out something that everyone learns in preschool, but you perhaps missed that I am being told this is a previously unknown proof, published for the first time on this very thread, that there are multiple realities, not just the reality in which you exist but another in which 3 exists, and yet more realities, apparently.

You’re “not sure why”?

Why don’t you re-read the post I responded to.

Then it should be clear to you.

 

[inocente]

You’re “not sure why”?

Why don’t you re-read the post I responded to.

Then it should be clear to you.

OK, I didn’t realize that in America the concept that numbers are abstractions is something so profoundly obtuse that it is only taught to a few cognoscenti in post-grad. In Europe everyone learns it at a very early age, not meaning to brag of course.

 

[PRmerger]

OK, I didn’t realize that in America the concept that numbers are abstractions is something so profoundly obtuse that it is only taught to a few cognoscenti in post-grad. In Europe everyone learns it at a very early age, not meaning to brag of course.

Careful, inocente.

I try to tread carefully, and tailor my responses to you–because I like you very much–but I can see a rise in something in your last few weeks of posting…

I suggest you let peace be your guide as you respond to folks here.

 

[Aloysium]

Some people hear words like “spiritual” or “nonphysical realities” and think ghosts or worlds of fantasy. The laws of physics, both the ones we invent and those that underlie the flux of the universe may be thought of as nonphysical. In this respect, Mathematics is a nonphysical realm. Similarly music may be thought of as being spiritual although sound is necessary; in fact, it provides us with an analogy to the spiritual-physical unity of the person.

 

[inocente]

Careful, inocente.

I try to tread carefully, and tailor my responses to you–because I like you very much–but I can see a rise in something in your last few weeks of posting…

I suggest you let peace be your guide as you respond to folks here.

Ad hominem? Really? By all means send me a PM with your psychoanalytical diagnosis, and thanks for your sudden concern for my welfare, but I think you know that in debate, stooping so low as to question the mental health of other posters is not exactly a logical rebuttal.

My argument to you was that we all learn (yes, including Americans) the difference between abstract numbers and concrete things when we’re children, and therefore even the most vehement materialist will build that into her philosophy from day one, and therefore it’s entirely uncontroversial.

She may embrace any of the many schools of formalism or realism, she may hold that math does or does not preexist the universe, but no position is proved, or confuses abstract numbers with the spiritual, or speaks of coexisting multiple realities.

Do you agree, or do you have a rebuttal?

 

[Mort_Alz]

There is no contradiction, either here of any of compound structures.

Yes, there is. Here it is again: To say that consciousness is the same as the matter which makes up the brain is to say, “that unconscious matter is conscious,” which is a contradiction in terms.

What you suggest is called “reductionism”, and it is simply incorrect. The point is that not just “according to physics”. Just think about NaCl (ordinary salt) which is the composition of Natrium (Sodium) and Chlorine. Neither one of the elements is “salty”, but the composition is salty. That is NOT a contradiction. Neither Hydrogen, nor Oxygen are “wet”. The concept of “wetness” is undefined on the atomic level. But if you combine one Oxygen atom and two Hydrogen atoms, you will get “water”, which is “wet”. And that is not a contradiction.

Maybe. Rather than argue with you about how “salty” properties (chemistry) could theoretically be explained by observing how atomic physics behaves when a sodium atom and a Chlorine atom interact with each other (presumably, something about their collective atomic physics would cause their physical reactions to other atoms to be “salty,” [no pun intended ]), I’d rather just point out that reductionism, if it is not true, necessitates non-physical explanations for just about every natural phenomenon.

 

[Mort_Alz]

Reductionism rears up when one claims there is no wetness, that all there is are physical forces. Water being wet involves a connection between a person and water. You and I experience the wetness. The wetness is not just some event in an endless minestrone of existence. A person feels it, having contact with water. We feel it because we exist in time and space, because we are physical beings. But, we are not just physical. Even if the sensation of wetness disappears when we lop off an area of our midbrain or cortex, indicating that our brains are necessary to experience the world, that wetness includes the whole person who is perceiving, thinking and acting, the person who encases the body, and the water itself. The soul involves the capacity to connect, to love. Talkin’ about you and me here. Reductionism reduces everything to a material structure. Truth is more than a pattern of neural firing. If that is all it were, everything would boil down to illusion. And, I have no idea why someone who believes this would argue anything. When i was a teen, way, way back, long ago, I came to the conclusion that since science, which is all I knew, was unable to explain “me”, that the universe was absurd. If I were now like then, I’d be like, “wow, kul brah!” About everything. Maybe I still am.

You have a point here…

 

[Mort_Alz]

Not sure why you felt the need to write out something that everyone learns in preschool, but you perhaps missed that I am being told this is a previously unknown proof, published for the first time on this very thread, that there are multiple realities, not just the reality in which you exist but another in which 3 exists, and yet more realities, apparently.

Wow. All this was because of a misunderstanding of a literary style??

When I said, “we have just discovered…” I was speaking hypothetically, for lack of a better term. As in, let’s pretend that we’re taking all these considerations together and considering them for the first time. Then, it follows, we have just discovered X.

Why don’t you drop this one.

 

[Mort_Alz]

When you write up your brilliant discovery, I suggest you avoid mixing up words with different meanings, like ‘non-physical’ and ‘supernatural’.

Non-physical is a precursor to supernatural, argumentatively speaking. Since the supernatural is generally accepted to be non-physical and since philosophies which deny the existence of supernature also generally deny the existence of non-physical reality.

When I said that is strange, I was responding to you saying “Most think [math] is different from science. Which is strange, …”.

I was saying the reason you think that’s strange is because you think “math itself demonstrates that there are non-physical realities”. But it doesn’t.

The OED defines reality as “The state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them”. There is only one state of things as they actually exist, therefore there is only one reality. So math does not demonstrate there are non-physical realities, and to me it’s strange you think there are multiple realities, as there can’t be.

Fine. I have no problem changing my words to fit your definitions. Let us say then that reality includes things that are non-physical.

 

[Mort_Alz]

See for instance page 22 at simplemachines.it/doc/arm_inst.pdf

(ARM is a CPU used in lots of phones and other devices.)

Perhaps you can explain it to me?? I’m having trouble with your notion that physical events can be “false” in such a way that they can have the property of truth or falsehood in the same way that a thought does.

Maybe you can explain it in simpler terms, like, by way of example. Like, how can Saturns orbit be false? What would a true orbit be? Because, ultimately, our brain activity is the same thing; physical objects moving around. I’m having trouble understanding how those events can be true or false.

 

[inocente]

Wow. All this was because of a misunderstanding of a literary style??

When I said, “we have just discovered…” I was speaking hypothetically, for lack of a better term. As in, let’s pretend that we’re taking all these considerations together and considering them for the first time. Then, it follows, we have just discovered X.

Why don’t you drop this one.

Hoping to, yes.

Non-physical is a precursor to supernatural, argumentatively speaking. Since the supernatural is generally accepted to be non-physical and since philosophies which deny the existence of supernature also generally deny the existence of non-physical reality.

No, that would be mixing up the terms. The OED has:

Supernatural = attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature, e.g. a supernatural being

Non-physical = not tangible or concrete, e.g. non-physical digital money

When you pay for something by swiping your debit card, the amount of the transfer is non-physical but not supernatural.

Fine. I have no problem changing my words to fit your definitions. Let us say then that reality includes things that are non-physical.

OK, but then your thoughts can be non-physical but not supernatural, just like that debit card transaction.

Perhaps you can explain it to me?? I’m having trouble with your notion that physical events can be “false” in such a way that they can have the property of truth or falsehood in the same way that a thought does.

Maybe you can explain it in simpler terms, like, by way of example. Like, how can Saturns orbit be false? What would a true orbit be? Because, ultimately, our brain activity is the same thing; physical objects moving around. I’m having trouble understanding how those events can be true or false.

Agreed, an event can’t be true or false, it just happens. Only something that depicts or represents the event can be true or false. If a story describes an event faithfully, we say it’s a true story.

It wouldn’t make sense to look at Saturn’s orbit and say it’s a true or false orbit. But a statement about Saturn’s orbit could be true or false. It doesn’t make sense to say carrots are true, but it does make sense to say the statement “carrots are orange” is true.

So true/false is always a value about a proposition, and is known as a truth value. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_value.

In the digital world, truth values are called bits and are represented by high/low voltage, or north/south magnetic pole, or (in DVDs) by short or long pits in the surface, etc. There are lots of ways of doing it. The video I linked says that on the optic nerve, truth values correspond to nerve pulses. I don’t know exactly how truth values are represented in the brain. I’d imagine it has to do with neuron weightings, since that’s the inspiration for what are called neuron network programs in computing.

 

[Vera_Ljuba]

Yes, there is. Here it is again: To say that consciousness is the same as the matter which makes up the brain is to say, “that unconscious matter is conscious,” which is a contradiction in terms.

Consciousness is NOT matter, it is an activity of the matter (brain). Besides, a logical contradiction would assert that something is both true and false at the same time in the same context.

…I’d rather just point out that reductionism, if it is not true, necessitates non-physical explanations for just about every natural phenomenon.

What is a “non-physical” explanation? Reductionism is the attempt to explain everything based upon the properties of the lowest common denominator, and no serious scientist subscribes to that idea. We do not try to reduce the movement of the stock market to the electro-chemical motion of the electrons in the brain… even though without the motion of the electrons there would be no live humans, there would be no society, and there would be no “stock market”.

 

[STT]

Reductionism rears up when one claims there is no wetness, that all there is are physical forces. Water being wet involves a connection between a person and water. You and I experience the wetness. The wetness is not just some event in an endless minestrone of existence. A person feels it, having contact with water. We feel it because we exist in time and space, because we are physical beings. But, we are not just physical. Even if the sensation of wetness disappears when we lop off an area of our midbrain or cortex, indicating that our brains are necessary to experience the world, that wetness includes the whole person who is perceiving, thinking and acting, the person who encases the body, and the water itself. The soul involves the capacity to connect, to love. Talkin’ about you and me here. Reductionism reduces everything to a material structure. Truth is more than a pattern of neural firing. If that is all it were, everything would boil down to illusion. And, I have no idea why someone who believes this would argue anything. When i was a teen, way, way back, long ago, I came to the conclusion that since science, which is all I knew, was unable to explain “me”, that the universe was absurd. If I were now like then, I’d be like, “wow, kul brah!” About everything. Maybe I still am.

Wetness is a property of water which arises from the fact that molecule of water has special configuration and water is kept in specific external state. In the same manner the consciousness can arises from specific process inside brain.

 

[PRmerger]

Ad hominem? Really? By all means send me a PM with your psychoanalytical diagnosis, and thanks for your sudden concern for my welfare, but I think you know that in debate, stooping so low as to question the mental health of other posters is not exactly a logical rebuttal.

Firstly, as you know, it’s not a “sudden concern” for your welfare.

Secondly, as** I **knew, you were going to resort to your oft-appealed (and peculiar) paradigm that someone has to make a diagnosis from the ICD10 to make a conclusion about someone. This is, of course, absurd.

I don’t need any type of advanced degree to know:

This dog loves this boy:



Or this person is blind:

http://blog.walkingcaneco.com/wp-co...cane-saftey-day-october-15th-no21-289x300.jpg

Or this person is upset:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

NB: it’s true that the person above may simply be checking his thigh for a weird mole he just noticed…and the woman may actually be trying to search for diamonds (with the wrong tool…allusion to a different discussion…hi, Bradski! )…and the dog may be actually glued to this little boy he’s never seen before…but no one would fault a person for making the conclusions she does.

And chances are she’s right about her conclusions.

My argument to you was that we all learn (yes, including Americans) the difference between abstract numbers and concrete things when we’re children, and therefore even the most vehement materialist will build that into her philosophy from day one, and therefore it’s entirely uncontroversial.

Fair enough, fair enough.

But then you should amend/retract this statement, which is the one to which I was responding.

I was saying the reason you think that’s strange is because you think “math itself demonstrates that there are non-physical realities”.** But it doesn’t.**

Emphasis on your “But it doesn’t” needing to be retracted.

 

[inocente]

Firstly, as you know, it’s not a “sudden concern” for your welfare.

I had a conversation with the moderator ten months ago, not for public discussion, but thought by now it was safe to take you off ignore.

Please confine your response to the topic so I don’t have to report you again.

Sticky: “It is never acceptable to assume or say you know what another person thinks or needs”.

*Fair enough, fair enough.

But then you should amend/retract this statement, which is the one to which I was responding.

I was saying the reason you think that’s strange is because you think “math itself demonstrates that there are non-physical realities”. But it doesn’t.
Emphasis on your “But it doesn’t” needing to be retracted.

You still don’t appear to have noticed the plural - unless you believe in a multiverse there’s only one reality.