What is this "scientific method" you all speak of?

[tonyrey]

People do not always admit - or even realise - the full implications of their statements. Some give the impression that science will dispense with all non-scientific - particularly religious and metaphysical - explanations. After all, materialism is the prevailing ideology in our secular society…

Vague beliefs without specific moral teaching have little influence on people’s lives. The fact that there are more than a million one-parent families speaks for itself - plus the fact that many people do not bother to get married…

 

[Hee_Zen]

You seem confused. Now you are resorting to hashing together different claims in a bizarre attempt to discredit them. You know the above misrepresents what I claimed.

It is called “caricature” and “sarcasm”. To enhance certain features to show their absurdity.

The point you seem to keep missing is that where “taste” is concerned, claims may be subjective (as in when someone likes or prefers the taste of a flavor of ice cream) but claims may also be objective (as when someone claims the meal is too salty.)

Nope, I did not miss that at all. It is the whole point that “aesthetical considerations” must not be confused with “medical assessments” - because that is precisely what you were doing.

What I am saying is that aesthetic claims may have a similar “ABOUTNESS” to them.

Ah, “MAY” have? The good old “MAY” argument? Is this “MAY” about the fifth month of the year? (Sarcasm does not denote misunderstanding).

Many people, especially those not trained regarding aesthetics may simply mean their claims ABOUT beauty are intended to be merely subjective claims, but that does not rule out the possibility that objective claims regarding aesthetics could be made by someone with sufficient knowledge or the wherewithal to make competent aesthetic claims ABOUT objects rather than merely expressing subjective preferences.

So let the so-called “well-trained experts” (the elitist argument raises its ugly head again!) build a beaut-o-meter, or present some **epistemological method **(yes, we are back to the topic of the thread) which will allow the dirty, untrained masses (that would be us) to find out if Bach’s music is more beautiful than Wagner’s? It is a cheap shot to “argue” that a nail scratching the blackboard is not music. The sound waves need to conform to certain objective criteria in order to be considered “music”, but not all kinds of music are palatable to everyone.

And the opinion of the so-called “experts” is transitory. What was considered “beautiful” by some experts some time ago is just ordinary “who cares” today.

1. Objective statements about tastes can also be made, such as when someone says “This steak is too salty,” meaning they detect too much salt and should not be eating salty foods.

Back to medical claims again? Don’t you EVER learn?

1. Aesthetics and ethics are properly philosophical and academic areas of study and legitimate theories of ethics and aesthetics exist and can be defended rationally and logically.

So where is your beaut-o-meter?

By the way, I see that you attempt to mix “ethics” and “aesthetics” into one argument (thereby creating confusion), to support your theory that beauty is “objective”. That is either the lack of comprehension or a deliberate distortion on your part. Par for the course for the “goalpost mover”.

 

[inocente]

You have overlooked an adjective…

Don’t see how it makes any difference. Her children are unlikely to think she’s both beautiful and ugly, just as you wouldn’t see Christ as both beautiful and ugly. Cognitive dissonance overload bro.

You probably feel she’s ugly because humans tend to prefer symmetry around the vertical plane in a potential mate, since that’s an indicator of potential heath and suitability in humans. Sorry to rain on your parade, but without such raw matters of survival we might never have developed aesthetic feelings at all.

Vague beliefs without specific moral teaching have little influence on people’s lives. The fact that there are more than a million one-parent families speaks for itself - plus the fact that many people do not bother to get married…

Your original claim that materialism is the prevailing ideology is not supported by the evidence. Whether people would be better off adopting your ideology is a separate question.

 

[Peter_Plato]

It is called “caricature” and “sarcasm”. To enhance certain features to show their absurdity.

Nope, I did not miss that at all. It is the whole point that “aesthetical considerations” must not be confused with “medical assessments” - because that is precisely what you were doing.

Ah, “MAY” have? The good old “MAY” argument? Is this “MAY” about the fifth month of the year? (Sarcasm does not denote misunderstanding).

So let the so-called “well-trained experts” (the elitist argument raises its ugly head again!) build a beaut-o-meter, or present some **epistemological method **(yes, we are back to the topic of the thread) which will allow the dirty, untrained masses (that would be us) to find out if Bach’s music is more beautiful than Wagner’s? It is a cheap shot to “argue” that a nail scratching the blackboard is not music. The sound waves need to conform to certain objective criteria in order to be considered “music”, but not all kinds of music are palatable to everyone.

And the opinion of the so-called “experts” is transitory. What was considered “beautiful” by some experts some time ago is just ordinary “who cares” today.

Back to medical claims again? Don’t you EVER learn?

So where is your beaut-o-meter?

By the way, I see that you attempt to mix “ethics” and “aesthetics” into one argument (thereby creating confusion), to support your theory that beauty is “objective”. That is either the lack of comprehension or a deliberate distortion on your part. Par for the course for the “goalpost mover”.

This entire post is simply misconceived. I don’t have time at the moment to address it entirely, but I will say it is nonsense to demand a beaut-o-meter be presented because no one is claiming beauty is a measurable or quantifiable fact about the world that can be subjected to some metric or other, but I WOULD make the claim that beauty is an objective quality (not fact) with regard to things in the world, though not one necessarily subject to quantification in the sense you demand. Yet your position is that it must be before you accept beauty as an objective reality.

There is no such thing as a truth-o-meter, either, but you wouldn’t claim one is required to distinguish truth from falsehoods now would you?

Perhaps you would - and there is your problem.

Remember my post about judgements as opposed to facts? The ONLY thing you have on your side is that physical events are repeatable and, therefore, SOME physical events can be used to verify (using some metric or other) hypotheses ABOUT the physical causal order BECAUSE of the measurable qualities ABOUT the event. Whoop-te-doo.

Yet, your citing one paradigm (quantifiable events) in which something like an -o-meter is possible does not mean the paradigm fits every possible area of knowing or being - again, no matter how much you insist all knowledge must now be subject to it because it can be used effectively with some quantifiable facts. It is a ludicrous position, no matter how much you insist it is the only tenable one - for you.

I ain’t buying because it is full of holes and you keep repeating points grounded in malformed assumptions as if you have presented a knock-down argument. You haven’t, although you don’t seem to have the capacity to see where your argument fails completely.

That you now have inocente trumpeting your point of view doesn’t say much - he pretty much began on these forums claiming philosophy and logic were entirely subjective and without merit. He has slowly, over the past two years, been much less vocal about that, but his sympathies do have a tendency to be fideist and anti-reason.

 

[Peter_Plato]

So let the so-called “well-trained experts” (the elitist argument raises its ugly head again!)

Ugly heads? I presumed there were no such beasts, since ugly, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

I suppose you refrain from visiting medical professionals and “experts” to treat your complaints based upon eschewing ugly “elitism” in the medical field, as well. You must be keeping the witch doctors, snake oil peddlers and alchemists down in your neck of the woods busy, then?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

So is ugly always purely subjective? Then on what grounds could one find beauty in the physical traits of Joseph Merrick, the famed Elephant Man?

images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrBT.VAE6xUQH4AFrtXNyoA?p=Joseph%20Merrick&.sep=&fr=yfp-t-314-s

 

[Hee_Zen]

This entire post is simply misconceived. I don’t have time at the moment to address it entirely, but I will say it is nonsense to demand a beaut-o-meter be presented because no one is claiming beauty is a measurable or quantifiable fact about the world that can be subjected to some metric or other…

If it cannot be objectively measured, then it is subjective. That is basic definition, my dear Watson. No one says that the “measurement” must be a litmus paper or a scale… but it must be **objective **and produce the same result no matter who performs the analysis.

…but I WOULD make the claim that beauty is an objective quality (not fact) with regard to things in the world, though not one necessarily subject to quantification in the sense you demand. Yet your position is that it must be before you accept beauty as an objective reality.

Which I do not accept. Just like “heaviness” or “lightness” are not objective qualities, but “weight” is. Just like “nearness” or “farness” are not objective qualities, even though “distance” is. And so on…

There is no such thing as a truth-o-meter, either, but you wouldn’t claim one is required to distinguish truth from falsehoods now would you?

Oh, yes there are many different ones, each pertaining to the facet of **reality **they pertain to.

Ugly heads? I presumed there were no such beasts, since ugly, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Indeed it is a subjective assessment. I simply indicated that your kind of “elitism” is displeasing to ME - and many others - who do not subscribe that the subjective opinion of some so-called experts (who are unable to come to a consensus among themselves) should be taken as a guideline pertaining to subjective assessments of “beauty”, “pleasant taste”, “heaviness” and so on.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Indeed it is a subjective assessment. I simply indicated that your kind of “elitism” is displeasing to ME - and many others - who do not subscribe that the subjective opinion of some so-called experts (who are unable to come to a consensus among themselves) should be taken as a guideline pertaining to subjective assessments of “beauty”, “pleasant taste”, “heaviness” and so on.

So apparently the experts have no expertise but the great unwashed do?

Yes, experts can disagree, but they can also agree. And when they all pretty much agree, you can bet they are onto something objectively beautiful; and not infrequently what they are onto cannot even be fathomed by those whom the atheist H.L. Mencken called the great “booboisee.”

 

[Charlemagne_III]

If it cannot be objectively measured, then it is subjective. That is basic definition, my dear Watson. No one says that the “measurement” must be a litmus paper or a scale… but it must be **objective **and produce the same result no matter who performs the analysis.

So who would be the subjectivist who would allow that on some scale Joseph Merrick’s physical traits might be counted as ordinary or even handsome?

 

[Aloysium]

. . . on what grounds could one find beauty in the physical traits of Joseph Merrick, the famed Elephant Man? . . .

The beauty lies in this man’s humanity. The pictures speak through the ages of a life being lived.

I imagine that for the most part, as is the case of most of us with serious illnesses, typical responses in human encounters would be of pity or disgust.
We act as mirrors to one another. To undergo the transformations in one’s body and then have reflected back, the distortion that vision perceives would be a difficult journey.
Its end however, is the beauty of the person in themselves.

Merrick reflects the most basic realities of our being.
To some it is horrifying, appearing so with the realization that we are matter undergoing growth and ultimately corruption.
Death lurks in the shadow of his physical form. That is what frightens and disgusts us - it is the skeleton within.

What is ugly is sin. It is our actions that can ultimately transform us into something hideous.

 

[Hee_Zen]

So apparently the experts have no expertise but the great unwashed do?

The so-called expertise counts for nothing. The OPINION is subjective, and if Mr. White considers something “beautiful”, then Mr. Black’s opinion in the matter is irrelevant. You probably think that Mr. White’s opinion should be considered “objective”, in which case it would be “binding” on others, but that is not the case.

Yes, experts can disagree, but they can also agree. And when they all pretty much agree…

All? But what if “all” would agree? That would be just as irrelevant as the collective opinion of all the weightlifters who would agree that a certain weight is not heavy at all.

So who would be the subjectivist who would allow that on some scale Joseph Merrick’s physical traits might be counted as ordinary or even handsome?

By whose opinion? There can be an environment where his “deformity” - by OUR standards - would be not just the “norm”, but actually very handsome". We find beautiful what we are exposed to. In the land of the elephant man, where everyone has some deformity, we, the ones without deformity would be the “ugly” ones.

If you would drink a distilled water, you would find the “taste” horrible, because it has no taste.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

By whose opinion? There can be an environment where his “deformity” - by OUR standards - would be not just the “norm”, but actually very handsome". We find beautiful what we are exposed to. In the land of the elephant man, where everyone has some deformity, we, the ones without deformity would be the “ugly” ones.

Very clever analogy I’m sure.

But can you tell me where is this environment where the elephant man is actually very handsome?

Can’t find it on the map, can you?

 

[Bradski]

Carefull, Charles. You’re on the slippery slope again.

If you get one hundred people to agree that something is beautiful, like a sunset (or ugly like Merrick), then you are saying it must therefore be objectively beautiful (or ugly).

So what if you get a stadium full of people at a bullfight saying that the spectacle is beautiful? If only you disagree, then it must be subjective. Or do you tell everyone that it wasn’t really your cup of tea, but as everyone said it looked great then it must have been.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Carefull, Charles. You’re on the slippery slope again.

If you get one hundred people to agree that something is beautiful, like a sunset (or ugly like Merrick), then you are saying it must therefore be objectively beautiful (or ugly).

So what if you get a stadium full of people at a bullfight saying that the spectacle is beautiful? If only you disagree, then it must be subjective. Or do you tell everyone that it wasn’t really your cup of tea, but as everyone said it looked great then it must have been.

Well that’s not quite kosher, is it? I daresay the vast members of humanity regard bullfighting as stupid and cruel.

So who in your opinion would be right? The barbarians or the rest of the world?

If gladiatorial combat to the death was revived, and the whole nation was for it, would you be on the side of the nation or on the side of the saner peoples throughout the world?

Watch your step … slippery slope ahead!

 

[Hee_Zen]

Well that’s not quite kosher, is it? I daresay the vast members of humanity regard bullfighting as stupid and cruel.

So who in your opinion would be right? The barbarians or the rest of the world?

If gladiatorial combat to the death was revived, and the whole nation was for it, would you be on the side of the nation or on the side of the saner peoples throughout the world?

Watch your step … slippery slope ahead!

So, if the majority happens to support your view, then the majority is right. If they are against you, then they are just uncouth barbarians. You are not on thin ice any more… you just sunk without a trace.

 

[ChainBreaker]

So, if the majority happens to support your view, then the majority is right. If they are against you, then they are just uncouth barbarians. You are not on thin ice any more… you just sunk without a trace.

Just because something does not exist externally to our senses does not mean it does not exist. The fact that one finds something beautiful would require reality to have meaning, even if that meaning is not intrinsic to physical objects themselves. We discover beauty and thus while there is a subjective element to the experience there is also an objective aspect to.

 

[Peter_Plato]

If it cannot be objectively measured, then it is subjective. That is basic definition, my dear Watson. No one says that the “measurement” must be a litmus paper or a scale… but it must be **objective **and produce the same result no matter who performs the analysis.

Yes, we have been here before Sherlock, and, as I pointed out to you before, there is no objective scale by which to determine whether things are important, significant, meaningful or otherwise valuable.

All you have to offer as “knowledge” is the very thin emaciated view that “knowledge” is merely what can be replicated and measured on some objective scale.

That leaves you in the unenviable position of holding a metric in your bag that is ultimately not effective and functionally impotent for determining anything with regards to what is worthwhile knowing, doing or caring about.

In fact, it has left you in the compromised position, a few posts back, of staring at the determinably evil effects of the Holocaust and barely getting out that the only determination of “wrong” you COULD possibly make about the Holocaust was that no determination of the sort could be make because such a determination would be purely subjective and of no merit, as far as you are concerned.

Yet, how can “no merit” be determined absent a metric for measuring what is meritorious to begin with? Thus, your position is self-defeating.

Indeed it is a subjective assessment. I simply indicated that your kind of “elitism” is displeasing to ME …

Very interesting. And why should I or anyone care that it is displeasing to you because your displeasure is not objective nor measurable and, therefore, doesn’t matter in the least to anyone except yourself. It is, you see, your view that presents a problem for your view. At least, you can offer no account for there being a valid sense in which anyone ought to care because “caring” itself is merely a subjective matter and no one else has any reason, according to you, to be in the least concerned about your displeasure.

The chickens, apparently, have come home to roost.

• and many others - who do not subscribe that the subjective opinion of some so-called experts (who are unable to come to a consensus among themselves) should be taken as a guideline pertaining to subjective assessments of “beauty”, “pleasant taste”, “heaviness” and so on.

What is interesting is that inocente – what seems a long time ago – used virtually those exact words for impugning all of philosophy as irrelevant and a waste of time BECAUSE philosophers have been unable to reach consensus about philosophical issues, completely forgetting that science has also failed to come to much of an abiding consensus regarding any of its theories which, likewise, are constantly changing.

You two, have, apparently, each found a sympathetic ear. It should be pointed out that you sit on opposite sides of the fence as far as the existence of God is concerned, however. Good luck working that one out.

 

[Bradski]

Well that’s not quite kosher, is it? I daresay the vast members of humanity regard bullfighting as stupid and cruel.

If by ‘not kosher’ you mean a lot more difficult a scenario than your pretty sunset, then yeah, I’d agree.

You’ve now moved from a position where you argued that if everyone agreed something was beautiful it must be objectively beautiful to one where if a majority say the same, it must be.

Ever been hunting, Charles? Nearly 80% of US citizens think it’s ok (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-hunting). No doubt consider it a pleasurable experience. That is, a minority of people think it’s stupid and cruel to kill animals for fun.

Therefore…well, therefore what, Charles? Is hunting objectively good or bad? What sort of a majority do we need? Or are the percentages irrelevant and what actually decides the matter is what Charles thinks on it.

Because that leaves you somewhere between a rock and a hard place. If everything is objectively ugly or beautiful or right or wrong just based on your personal view then your argument is: It is beautiful because I say so! If that is not the case, then you are going to have to come up with something you claim is objective about which you personally disagree.

In which case, it becomes…subjective.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

So, if the majority happens to support your view, then the majority is right. If they are against you, then they are just uncouth barbarians. You are not on thin ice any more… you just sunk without a trace.

Not really. It’s usually the barbarians that sink beneath the ice. Think Hitler.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Ever been hunting, Charles? Nearly 80% of US citizens think it’s ok (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-hunting). No doubt consider it a pleasurable experience. That is, a minority of people think it’s stupid and cruel to kill animals for fun.

Therefore…well, therefore what, Charles? Is hunting objectively good or bad? What sort of a majority do we need? Or are the percentages irrelevant and what actually decides the matter is what Charles thinks on it.

Again, not kosher as an argument. Clearly hunting for the sake of eating what you hunt is O.K. That is where the 80% would naturally stand. But if you ask all 100% is killing animals just for fun is O.K., I think you would get a royal thumbs down from almost everybody. The few who would give you the thumbs up are not people I want to know or get too close too. They might think I’m just another dumb animal.