Let us understand...the objectivity thread

[Raynd]

No offense…but the devout always use the “hey you’re taking that out of context defense”…the bible is a hodge podge mix of contradictory themes, stories, traditions etc…yes this is subjective…but I’ve read the bible. It’s convenient to “parabalize” (to use a Bushism) the nasty stuff, and highlight the good stuff. That’s why there are so so so many many denominations…no one knows what the strong thread is (oh except the catholic church)…we will not get into that…dissent…etc… Hey if they knew the holy spirit was upon them when putting the “bible” together…how can you argue with that?.. The bible does indeed promote violence in my opinion. If video games and TV promote violence…then the bible itself promotes violence.

JimO:

. Each person that contributes to the collective “will” bases his/her morals/ethics on something. If not religion, then something - what?

Intellect…cause and effect…the social contract that men of free will have with eachother…good old fashioned common sense brother!

Also, if you are not a theist, then I presume that you believe that all morals and ethics have a human origin. If so, then they are subject to change with each new generation. There is no objective good or evil, right or wrong. Christians, and many other world religions, believe in absolute good and evil, right and wrong that are defined by God. This is the basis of our morals/ethics. These two world views will always clash. Not because theists are trying to impose their will on non-theist any more than the converse, but because this is not utopia or heaven and people want their own way.

Their was a right and wrong before the hebrew god and jesus…this is actually a tenet of the catholic faith…remember when jesus talks about mans heart? The rest of what you said is purely a hypothetical…the core wrongs and rights have always been the same as far as I can remember?

Now an illustration. Suppose Action A is clearly evil in the site of God and most citizens (Group A) agree on this. Action A is unlawful and has been unlawful since the founding of the Country. Some people (Group B), for their own reasons, want to do Action A. As time goes on, Group B doesn’t see why Action A is wrong because they don’t believe in absolute right or wrong. This sentiment grows until Action A becomes lawful. Group A still believes it to be wrong, but now is faced with tolerating it even though it is seen as thoroughly evil. Group A can ignore Action A and simply not participate, or Group A can try to overturn the law making Action A legal. What would you have them do?

I bet you thought I was talking about abortion. I’m referring to the killing of Jews.

That is why God is relevent. Without objective good and evil, right and wrong, people will be people and things like the murder of Jews can become “legal”.

That actually makes no sense, and doesn’t show a strong grasp of mass murder, and genocide? Are you speaking of the holocaust?..cmon. There is more to it than that…ALSO - you are still talking about the the christian god…there are quite a few civilized countries that worship “pagan” gods…and they are getting along quite nicely…we better not tell them how relevant jesus is to the machinations of their culture and well being…

 

[Shibboleth]

Raynd:

Since you feel the need to attack me …I will simple highlight what you posted…this should suffice in shining the light on your idiocy.

“To someone that does not believe in God they cannot know for certain that France does exist” …that qualifies as the most retarded thing I have heard all day…and I am employed at a law firm if that means anything… hhaaaaa …yea philosophy 101 huh??? Tell me about it champ.

Well, you certainly seem to be in touch with your anger.

Peace brother.

I don’t mind being called ‘idiot’ or ‘champ’ but I worked with individuals with developmental disabilities for a number of years and I am offended by your colloquial use of ‘retarded.’ You can refer to me with whatever derogatory name that you desire – but remember that your guff is with me and try to use words that would only refer to me.

I don’t think it’s nice, you laughin’. You see, my mule don’t like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you’re laughin’ at him. Now if you apologize, like I know you’re going to, I might convince him that you really didn’t mean it.

• Clint Eastwood

In other words direct your comments at me and me only.

Anyways, in regards to my idiot statement… By saying such you have ipso facto called a hundred thousand Philosophers idiots who have contemplated the existence of the external and not been able to adequately prove its existence. Am I to assume that you have been able to solve this conundrum? Doubtful to be sure…

If you are getting agitated you can only be the one to blame because you have failed to establish your modus operandi. Outside of that, your writing style leaves little to be desired. This environment does allow a certain amount freedom of rhetoric in that one can utilize colloquial language, shibboleths, and gonzo style – but one still needs to communicate effectively. You fail to do this.

On top of this you have contradicted yourself on numerous occasions.

If you want to argue about the deleterious effects of religion on society, I am all game – but you need to do it in an effective and orderly way else it just becomes a spewing of vitriol and diatribes.

 

[JimO]

Raynd - I can’t help but notice that the tone of your responses has changed, undoubtedly due to the tone of some of the other posters. For myself, I’d like to continue this in the spirit of objectivity and I promise not to devolve into personal attacks, inappropriate sarcasm, or broad judgements. I like a good fencing match and don’t like it when either side whips out the battle axe. If I get testy, you have my permission to chastise me publicly. I’d like to respond to each of your comments, but have not quoted the entire text.

Raynd:

No offense…bible itself promotes violence

I will grant you that many Christians cry “out of context” as a last defense when what they really mean is “I don’t know how to answer you!!” However, this doesn’t negate the fact that many people take Scripture passages out of context or misapply them and I maintain that the verse you paraphrased was not a call to violence issued by Christ. There are places in the OT where violence was a central theme and even where “God commanded” acts of violence. I admittedly struggled with this myself over the years. A full treatment of this would occupy another thread, so suffice it to say that: 1) Not all violent acts are wrong (self defense, defense of the innocent, just war); 2) Understanding the religious and socio-political situation in Palestine several thousand years ago requires more than a reading of the Old Testament and deserves deeper discussion (I’m not avoiding this issue, it would simply take a lot of time); and, 3) The teachings of Christ explicitly reject unjustified acts of violence.

Raynd:

Intellect…cause and effect…the social contract that men of free will have with each other…good old fashioned common sense brother!

I can buy the first two and the last. People can develop morals/ethics in these ways and even pass the lessons learned on to future generations. But c’mon, social contract. That’s somewhat vague. Interestingly, however, we could agree on all these points in a theistic or non-theistic world because this doesn’t address the origin of the morals/ethics.

Raynd:

Their was a right and wrong before the hebrew god and jesus.

Which is one of the arguments for God. By the way, you won’t be conceding a point by capitalizing Jesus, it’s a proper name.

Raynd:

That actually makes no sense…

Forgive the illustration, apparently my point didn’t come across as I had hoped. I was trying to illustrate the relevence of God to government. My point is that if morals are of human origin, they can change depending upon what humans are in charge. This can result in actions that have previously been considered evil, becoming acceptable and “legal”. The holocaust was “legal” and acceptable in Germany. It is now “legal” in Holland for a third party guardian to euthanize a child who is suffering (their definition of suffering is very broad). So, God is relevent to human government in that the fixed morals associated with God can have a restraining effect on those of ill intent.

General Comments - One difficulty in this discussion is that all my comments come with the presumption that God exists, the Bible is the Word of God and that the teachings of the Catholic Church are true. Your comments come with the opposite presumption. This is obvious, but the difficulty lies in the simple statement: If God exists, He is utterly relevent. If He does not, religion is, as Marx said, “the opium of the masses” and is only relevent as a way for the “enlightened” to control us poor deceived theists .

Consider this Raynd - before God came into my life, I was a selfish being. The best evidence I have to show that God exists is that I genuinely care about you!

 

[Shibboleth]

Intellect…cause and effect…the social contract that men of free will have with each other…good old fashioned common sense brother!

I can buy the first two and the last. People can develop morals/ethics in these ways and even pass the lessons learned on to future generations. But c’mon, social contract . That’s somewhat vague. Interestingly, however, we could agree on all these points in a theistic or non-theistic world because this doesn’t address the origin of the morals/ethics.

I am going to have to disagree somewhat on this issue – if we are trying to state that ethics are less than subjective when developed outside of religion. For someone to declare what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’ by default one must have to operationally define what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad.’

Intellect and cause and effect are questionable at best. John Stuart Mill and others spoke of the greatest good hypothesis. This was the logic that the act that brings about the greatest amount of good is the correct response. For instance, killing a mass murderer is a greater good because it prevents the possible death of multiple others.

On the most obvious levels this works but when it gets to the less than obvious it fails miserably – sometimes even with things that seem obvious to both sides but differ between groups. The reason being is that in a secular world it is impossible to define what is ‘the greatest good.’ Granted Religion has its difficulties in this area also but at least there is a reference point.

Let us look at the Holocaust since it has been addressed in an earlier post. Germany and the NAZI regime in particular felt that euthanizing the mentally challenged population was part of the greater good of society. Supporting such individuals taxed the masses, lowered moral, and continued less than adequate genetic lines. If one continued to support such a group in the long run it would weaken the society. Because of this intellectual cause and effect logic millions of individuals were murdered.

Intellectually this seemed somewhat sound to a great amount of people, but another large population found this to be atrocious to say the least.

In the end intelligence pared with cause and effect does fail on many levels to establish consistent societal norms for right and wrong, good and bad.

 

[JimO]

Shibboleth:

I am going to have to disagree somewhat on this issue –

I don’t disagree with you. My point to Raynd was that if we set aside for the moment the basis of morality, the further development of morality can be attributed to intellect, reason, cause and effect, trial and error, whatever. That is why I agreed with his specific point. What Raynd and I have not specifically addressed is the basis of morality. For the theist, it is God, for the non-theist, it is man. The problem in even discussing this issue is that for me to make my case, a Christian world view is assumed. For Raynd, a non-theistic world view is assumed. Thus, we are essentially talking past one another.

It takes an incredibly objective individual to debate from a position that accepts the other’s world view as the basis for discussion. Neither Raynd nor I have done that because we both feel strongly about our positions and, therefore, we will likely continue to talk past one another. This has been the biggest obstacle that I have run into when debating atheists and agnostics. I’m sure they feel the same way about Christians or any other theists.

However, my goal is to continue the “fencing match” in an objective manner and not get emotional. Many on these forums fail to make an impression (on either side - and I include myself) because of emotion - when that leads to personal attacks, insults, offensive sarcasm or a complete dismissal of the person.

 

[Raynd]

I have no problems with delivering an apology to shibboleth…but no one likes to be slapped. I’m not a pacifist in that sense. You slap me…I’ll slap you back, and harder. If you can’t read your post(shib), and come to the conclusion that you are indeed making assumptions about my experience regarding philosophy, and basically calling me ignorant…then don’t be so sensitive to the fact that I can easily go back into one of your posts and highlight an ignorant statement. Which it was (relevant to this thread). This is “striving” to be a thread dealing with objective analysis. Of course we are not without contradictions…Are you telling me that I can’t search back through all of your posts and find a contradiction somewhere? We would not be sentient. We would not possess intelligence whatsoever if we didn’t contradict ourselves occasionally…but if you understand objectivity, then you would realize that the statement “if you don’t believe in god then you could also believe that france doesn’t exist” …paraphrasing …fall’s flat…then well…We will always be floundering in our attempt to define the relevance/ irrelevance of worshipping the supernatural. That’s what objectivity is. It’s the philosophy to end all philosophy… .as I chuckle…

**If a tree falls in the forest and there is nobody around
does it make a sound?
**…etc…etc…etc… Nonsense… nonsense…nonsense.
"Is there any objective truth? Or must we finally accept that at bottom, in the end, philosophically speaking, there is no “real” or “objective” or “absolute” or “foundational” or “fact of the matter” or “right answer” truth about anything…

What do you think the answer to this question is?

Like I said before…I’m not proof reading everything I post…What concerns me as that I feel that we have arrived (or at least jimo - aridite…etc…) to at least some sort of general idea on what we are talking about…if you want to pick through, and try and confuse the issue even more - then so be it…but it is a bit unreasonable.

.

 

[Raynd]

Let us refresh for a second…Some of this is quoted…some of it is from me.

Reason is defined by Ayn Rand as “the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses.”
Reason performs this function by means of concepts, and the validity of reason rests on the validity of concepts. But the nature and origin of concepts is a major philosophic problem. If concepts refer to facts, then knowledge has a base in reality, and one can define objective principles to guide man’s process of cognition. If concepts are cut off from reality, then so is all human knowledge, and man is helplessly blind.
This is why religion is troublesome…for obvious reasons.
This is also the “problem of universals,” on which Western philosophy has foundered.

Plato claimed to find the referent of concepts not in this world, but in a supernatural dimension of essences. The Kantians regard concepts as devoid of referents, i.e., as subjective creations of the human mind independent of external facts. Both approaches and all of their variants in the history of philosophy lead to the same essential consequence: the severing of man’s tools of cognition from reality, and therefore the undercutting of man’s mind. (Although Aristotle’s epistemology is far superior, his theory of concepts is intermingled with remnants of Platonism and is untenable.)
Ayn Rand challenges and sweeps aside the main bulwark of the anti-mind axis. Her historic feat is to tie man’s distinctive form of cognition to reality, i.e., to validate man’s reason.
According to Objectivism, concepts are derived from and do refer to the facts of reality.

**Concepts are neither supernatural nor subjective: they refer to facts of this world, as processed by man’s means of cognition. **

 

[Raynd]

So I think we have defined reality right? … I happen to agree with the dictionary definition of reality… So regarding relevance. In respect to a God…or Jesus. There is ABSOLUTELY nothing that you can achieve…or strive for…think about…that another human being cannot reflect without a belief in a god…It’s that simple…so why is religion relevant in our society when it basically asks of us something that is unnatural…or at least backwards. If you know why we are here…how we got here…and where we are going then what is the true purpose in the quest to better ourselves?..to aquire knowledge…to move forwards…refine…etc…? Why examine the universe? If you are devout…what’s the purpose…you already know how we got here right? These all lead to divisions within society…they always have…
“Men learn from others, they build on the work of their predecessors, they achieve by cooperation feats that would be impossible on a desert island. But all such social relationships require the exercise of the human faculty of cognition; they depend on the solitary individual, “solitary” in the primary, inner sense of the term, the sense of a man facing reality firsthand, seeking not to crucify himself on the cross of others or to accept their word as an act of faith, but to understand, to connect, to know.”

 

[JimO]

Raynd,

Since I see no specific response to any of my comments in the above monologue, I will now bow out of the thread. Since all of my best points were left unchallenged, I assume that you have no answers to those points. Please take no offense, none is intended, but you did, after all, initiate this thread in a very open-ended fashion with an apparent intention of drawing others into dialogue. In such cases, you are somewhat obliged to provide specific responses to reasonable points.

Regards

 

[Shibboleth]

Raynd:

Let us refresh for a second…Some of this is quoted…some of it is from me.

Reason is defined by Ayn Rand as “the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses.”
Reason performs this function by means of concepts, and the validity of reason rests on the validity of concepts. But the nature and origin of concepts is a major philosophic problem. If concepts refer to facts, then knowledge has a base in reality, and one can define objective principles to guide man’s process of cognition. If concepts are cut off from reality, then so is all human knowledge, and man is helplessly blind.
This is why religion is troublesome…for obvious reasons.
This is also the “problem of universals,” on which Western philosophy has foundered.

Plato claimed to find the referent of concepts not in this world, but in a supernatural dimension of essences. The Kantians regard concepts as devoid of referents, i.e., as subjective creations of the human mind independent of external facts. Both approaches and all of their variants in the history of philosophy lead to the same essential consequence: the severing of man’s tools of cognition from reality, and therefore the undercutting of man’s mind. (Although Aristotle’s epistemology is far superior, his theory of concepts is intermingled with remnants of Platonism and is untenable.)
Ayn Rand challenges and sweeps aside the main bulwark of the anti-mind axis. Her historic feat is to tie man’s distinctive form of cognition to reality, i.e., to validate man’s reason.
According to Objectivism, concepts are derived from and do refer to the facts of reality.

**Concepts are neither supernatural nor subjective: they refer to facts of this world, as processed by man’s means of cognition. **

First off I want to apologize for any offense that I may have given you and also I would like to add that your last two posts were very helpful in letting me know the purpose of your thread.

Now I have something to bite onto.

Since I am not fluent in Ayn Rand I will have to make some assumptions that will be incorrect – but bear with me.

From what I understand you are saying in this post that the external world exists and plays off our senses in such a way that it creates objective and not subjective concepts.

There are several problems to this line of thinking. First off what is observable and what is not is not definable in some instances.

Let us look at a few things. Phlogiston for example, as far as science was concerned, did indeed exist at one point in time. We had scientific proofs to show that it existed and experiments that proved its existence. One might say that we know have discovered that it is not scientific and has proven to be false. This is incorrect…

It is possible to create a universe with working mathematics in which Phlogiston does indeed still exist. In fact a physicist/mathematician has done just that in a dissertation. None of the proof disagrees with scientific method and is completely provable.

The only identifiable problem is that the mathematics involved are far more complex than with the ‘oxygen’/’fire’ hypothesis. It does not stand up to Occham’s Razor.

Likewise a group of Mathematicians are working on creating a model for a Pre-Copernican universe. Last I heard they have yet to run into a problem other than the mathematics involved are horrendously difficult.

So as you can see one person could on a subjective level state that phlogiston does indeed exist as we cannot disprove its existence. The only thing preventing one from holding this view is societal norms.

Thomas Kuhn wrote and interesting book called “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” in which he attempts to show that we are not working towards an asymptotic Truth in science like we tend to believe. There are some problems with his proof but it is very thought provoking.

So what is observable? Are microbes observable? Yes and no. How do we know that we have not simply designed devices to prove their existence that are faulty just as we have done with phlogiston? We do not. We have to have faith that we are not mistaken.

Now in reference to concepts in themselves one must define what is meant by concepts. There are some concepts that are completely societal and therefore subjective, albeit subjective en mass.

The concept of what constitutes snow is subjective on one level or another. Some might call something sleet and the other will consider it snow. From what I understand the Eskimos have something like 14 names for different types of snow.

Well I better end with this, but I could write for an eternity on some things.

More to come…

 

[Raynd]

Let me just say that I’m sorry to see JimO go. I didn’t intentionally deny his points…I’ve been in and out, and I fear that I may have washed over some of it. If he returns - I will go back and address.

Ahhhh Phlogiston - I had heard of this, and am admittedly not well versed…but…aren’t we dealing in the world of “theory” here? 18th century theory to be exact and yes…busted.

I’ll leave you with 2.

“It may seem hard to believe that phlogiston theory, which is incorrect, was so persistent. How could it survive all of the attacks, and come back for more? I think the answer is that phlogiston theory is actually very close to the truth. If we consider a chemical’s tendency to take up oxygen, and call its lack of oxygen “phlogiston,” we can describe absolutely any chemical reaction involving oxygen. Instead of putting oxygen on one side of any chemical equation, we can put this anti-oxygen on the other side. It will always balance. One atom of phlogiston would always have an atomic weight of -16, and the weights will always balance, too. So, we can always construct a self-consistent phlogiston theory, even today.”

"How would you go about disproving the theory of phlogiston? We could merely burn carbon in oxygen, and accurately measure all of the gasses and solids, before and after. We would find that carbon+oxygen became carbon dioxide. We can determine that the final gas CONTAINS carbon dioxide. If we start with the right amounts of carbon and oxygen, we can show that the final gas is nothing but carbon dioxide.

So…we are getting off track, and I don’t want to get into a debate about Phlogostin theory…BUT this is what objectivity is my friend. We must understand and set a course that theory is a great way to try and understand truth…I don’t think an objectivist would even debate theory in that sense…they would debate relevance maybe? hahaaa
here is an excellent quote from Ayn

"Religious mystics often claim that God or the supernatural is so different from everything we know that it is beyond reason’s ability to understand. But since whatever exists has identity, i.e. definite and delimited properties, it is always possible to contrast it with other things, conceptualize it, establish standards of measurement, and thereby begin to reason about it. At a time when mathematicians explore the properties that even infinite spaces and processes must have, it underestimates the human mind to think it incapable of plumbing deep or complex phenomena.
Anyone who claims insights that do not derive from sensory evidence and logical reasoning is, in effect, asking you to abuse your mind. Someone who claims, skeptically, that no real knowledge is possible is asking you to abandon your mind entirely. Objectivism holds that it is possible to be certain of a conclusion, and that there is such a thing as truth. But being certain depends on scrupulously following a logical, objective process of reasoning, because it is only that kind of thinking that allows us to formulate true ideas. To be objective, people must know how to define the terms they use (so they know what they mean), base their conclusions on observable facts (so their beliefs are anchored in reality) and employ the principles of logic (so that they can reliably reach sound conclusions).

So we have to start correctly…GOD is a theory…there are many different theories on dieties, the origin of the universe…etc…But if we postulate that by being true…it has relevance…then we can ascertain the validity of the statement…This is the meaning of the thread I guess…my take.
I understand faith shib…I understand subjectivity…they shadow us…my problem arises when an individual is confronted with the obvious conceptual problems of western religion in particular…and how they start to describe their “reality”… It’s very troublesome. I have faith in a lot of things…but if someone pins me down on it… as a person who strives for objectivity…I would at least have to say… I just don’t know. Anything other than that is a leap of faith…which is only personally relevant. See whether or not I have faith that I will make it to work in the morning has no scientific bearing on whether or not I will make it. Reality exists outside of our mind in that sense!..our dreams, wishes, hopes…they really don’t mean squat…until they move from dream, wish, hope to REALITY…the only relevance religion can have to society would be of the negative nature in my opinion…we can get into the bedrock of religion and it’s horrible effects on society if you want later.

 

[Shibboleth]

First I want to get to what I still consider the flaw to your view… one cannot without appealing to an outside force prove the existence of the external. You either have faith in a God or faith in the external universe. Once again faith is believing in something that cannot be proven.

Saying that not believing in an external world would make things hopelessly blind is not a proof. A lot of things suck that doesn’t mean that they are not so…

"How would you go about disproving the theory of phlogiston? We could merely burn carbon in oxygen, and accurately measure all of the gasses and solids, before and after. We would find that carbon+oxygen became carbon dioxide. We can determine that the final gas CONTAINS carbon dioxide. If we start with the right amounts of carbon and oxygen, we can show that the final gas is nothing but carbon dioxide.

That is fine as long as you create a universe where you presuppose the existence of elements as they are understood today. How do you know that their presupposition isn’t as flawed as that of phlogiston? You do not…

Objectivism holds that it is possible to be certain of a conclusion, and that there is such a thing as truth. But being certain depends on scrupulously following a logical, objective process of reasoning, because it is only that kind of thinking that allows us to formulate true ideas. To be objective, people must know how to define the terms they use (so they know what they mean), base their conclusions on observable facts (so their beliefs are anchored in reality) and employ the principles of logic (so that they can reliably reach sound conclusions).

This is not Ayn Rand’s theory, this is what was called Logical Positivism and it existed way before her time – it also has been proven to be fallacious in it’s use since that time. The main problem of course was the fact that it was impossible to draw a line where the observable became unobservable. On top of that she alludes to what are called “Operational Definitions.” I used this word at the beginning of the thread because it does help but it has serious problems and implications.

Operational definition is where one defines something precisely so that it is measurable and quantifiable. Sounds good but why is this a problem – well, because when this is done one person could be talking about a thing and the other person could be talking about a thing but since their operational definitions are so precise that they differ on what that thing is…

For instance, much to the dismay and bafflement of the philosophical community, the social sciences still use operational definitions. There are a few tests used by phychologists that identify if someone has depression. Each test is measurable and identifies depression based on the precepts of the Operational Definition. In many cases one person will end up being identified as having depression on one scale but will not on the other.

So does the person have depression or no? According to what you posted this should not happen that since logic, observation, proper definition, and the like were utilized all things should be True and outside of sujectiveness.

And yet is happens and things are not as objective as they seem.