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

[Bradski]

I’m answering your questions to the best of my ability, Charles.

How about you reciprocate?

A reminder…

Again, I will ask for anything that you consider to be objectively beautiful or ugly or whatever, where you disagree.

If you can find one, then the situation is obviously then relative. If you can’t find one, then it appears you have direct access to the correct ruling on all objective matters. You are never wrong.

 

[inocente]

Uh huh.

Apparently, you have now learned to sing a new tune, one markedly different from the “Philosophy…What is it good for?” song you were spouting back in '13:

The stickies say don’t jump threads. But rules don’t apply to you do they?

How long did it take you to mine that quote? Yes, that’s another problem with faux philosophy - building a house of cards from one sentence quoted out of context.

Here we have a problem distinguishing “personal attacks” from evidentially true remarks. I was not throwing a “tantrum” merely pointing out that failures to distinguish legitimately subjective claims from those which are objectively true in more than a mere repeatible or measurable sense leads those who fail to see the difference into real conundrums. Oh, what a tangled web we weave…

As, for example, your diatribe against philosophy which you claim was not against “real” philosophy but merely against the “faux-pseudo” type which then nullifies any truth to your first statement under the guise that it was meant as merely a subjective assessment on your part. The waters become very murky when we begin to allow relativity and subjectivity to rule. We can change the meaning of words and ideas on the fly as it suits us.

This subjective/objective distinction is kept deliberately confused so that you can hide apparently objective claims behind a facade of subjectivity at the same instance as inflicting those claims on others as objective. You and Hee_Zen are both playing that game.

“I didn’t say that, I meant this. I didn’t mean that, I said this.” Both are games being played while profiting off the keeping of ideas and words deliberately arcane and ambiguous so as to justify murky claims and spouting confused notions.

When you are called on it, you play the “personal attack” card, ostensibly because anyone who questions your subject cum objective claims must, therefore, be attacking your subjectivity.

As the mod says “Discuss the topic, not each other”. But rules don’t apply to you do they?

I spent time writing posts to you on the subject (#892 and #930) but you didn’t respond (presumably you saw the error of your ways) and instead you made ad hominem without even having the courage to say it to my face.

I put you on ignore before because of all your personal attacks, you’re one of only two people ever to make that list, but you kept on following me around anyway.

I was perfectly content discussing the subject but yet again you draw me into all this personal dross. I’ve told you many times I’m not interested in your attempts to psychoanalyze me. If that’s your forte, perhaps you’d be more at home on Twitter or something.

I think you’ve not got anything of substance left to say on this thread. Next time you post to me, please make it about the subject, and please please try for once to give me a challenge.

So this is not a personal remark?

Yes, you’re right, I’ll report him instead from now on.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Your salty fish example works against you.

You said ‘“This fish tastes salty,” is a factual claim which can be checked by whether salts exist in the composition of the fish.’

But the fish may taste salty to you and yet not contain salts: Your taste-buds could be malfunctioning or firing in response to something which tastes like salt but isn’t, just as saccharine tastes sweet but isn’t sugar. Tastes don’t even need the presence of food - just a tiny electric current is all that’s needed, e.g. medicalnewstoday.com/articles/269324.php

Yeah, and so what? Even delicate scientific instruments give false positives – that is why new and improved models keep appearing. What’s your point? That taste should NEVER be relied upon to “measure” saltiness or sweetness because it occasionally gives false positives?

This is far from proving that taste is a completely unreliable instrument for determining the presence of salt or sugars. Sure, it is “quick and dirty” but once that is understood there is no need to concede taste is completely subjective.

Or the fish may contain salts but not taste salty to you: “Different salts can elicit all five basic tastes, e.g., salty (sodium chloride), sweet (lead diacetate, which will cause lead poisoning if ingested), sour (potassium bitartrate), bitter (magnesium sulfate), and umami or savory (monosodium glutamate).” - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_%28chemistry%29#Taste

So the taste of the fish to you may or may not coincide with whether the fish really contains salts.

Again, so what? Taste buds are not 100% reliable, in themselves. They aren’t meant to function at that level because they haven’t been calibrated to do so. Does that make taste COMPLETELY subjective? No!

And that’s a case where we can independently use machines to analyze the chemical composition of the fish. But with beauty there is no independent measure, there is no testable analysis.

Yes, this is what you keep asserting, but you fail to give any grounds for thinking beauty is not objective except that there is no “testable” analysis. Presumably, that means no instrument or machine exists to measure beauty.

Okay, but perhaps beauty is not that kind of quantifiable reality.

Your presumption – again one that we have no reason for thinking it to be true – is that all important aspects of reality should be quantifiable in a way that allows “testing” by some contrived mechanical instrument or other. Why do we have any reason for thinking THAT to be true?

We could rightly say that all healthy humans probably share some concepts of what is beautiful and moral, just by virtue of being human, but that’s a long way from claiming that Pink Flood’s greatest hits are more/less beautiful than some other aging pop combo’s, or even that their whale ditty (Echos?) is more/less beautiful than a wolf pack extemporizing under a full moon. If there’s no way to make objective comparisons then the claim that beauty is objective would seem to have no legs.

The problem here is that there is no invented instrument that can measure important qualities like significance, meaning, truth, goodness, value, etc., Human beings, as instruments for measuring those qualities, are all we have. Presumably a cohort of finely calibrated, well-functioning humans would give us the best possible results regarding those qualities, provided we select carefully and don’t succumb to biases or agendas.

Merely because a machine cannot be invented to measure those qualities is no reason to dismiss them all as unimportant or not worth considering. The point beinng that those qualities are far more important than any of the accurately measureable aspects of the physical world and they SHOULD occupy a great deal more of our time to try to apprehend them better, rather than dismissing them on the pretext that they cannot be accurately “measured” in some lab using some complex piece of electronic machinery.

Your, and Hee_Zen’s, position that non-quanitifable aspects of reality should be relegated to the “subjective” bin of shame as not worth wasting time attempting to make “objective” determinations about continues to be an indefensible position, especially since those non-quantifiable aspects of reality - significance, meaning, truth, goodness, value, etc. – are determinably the key aspects that SHOULD occupy our time.

Any position that claims they SHOULDN’T BE is self-refuting since it MUST give a value-based - and thus NOT quantifiable – accounting for why they shouldn’t be.

How’s that for addressing your post?

Happy now?

 

[Peter_Plato]

You comparison doesn’t work. Science progresses. Newton got gravity right for all the data he had, and his equation is still used in most situations as it gives good answers. Einstein had more data and got even closer.

While the philosophy of beauty hasn’t got anywhere. The various opinions are interesting but they don’t make any progress, and they’re unhelpful.

Apparently, you don’t understand what begging the question means.

How would you know various opinions “don’t make progress” or aren’t “helpful” without having made an a priori determination about what those opinions are or are not getting closer to?

You can’t know they aren’t getting closer without knowing either:

1. What the destination is, or
2. There is no destination to get to.

How would you know either one? The only way you could make your claim is to presume 2) is true and 1) is false. That, however, is EXACTLY what you are trying to prove. Thus, you are begging the question.

For instance, how is it that a man can look at portrait images of women and instantly decide which is the most beautiful face? Then, how come different men may make different choices? Is there a face which all men will unswervingly find most beautiful? Would that depend on photoshopping out some details? How much of this is cultural? In fairy stories, a male frog is supposed to find the princess more beautiful than a female frog. Do frogs have aesthetics?

The artist in me has all these questions and more, but it seems that armchair philosophers can’t answer a posteriori questions, only philosophers who get out of their armchairs and do some real-world research can find answers to such questions.

Explain how “real world research” would provide anything like legitimate answers to those questions?

You seem to be implying that developing some instrument or other that would “measure” beauty would be what “real world research” would involve. But that is missing the point entirely.

I’ll ask the question again: “What makes you think all important aspects of reality are quantifiable and, thus, measurable?”

What if “subjectivity” itself is THE most important aspect of reality and it is the profound qualities of subjectivity that are those which will lead us to understand qualities such as significance, meaning, truth, beauty, goodness, value, etc., more profoundly?

Why do we need to presume only “objects” in the world around us are worthy of our time and our own subjective existence valueless?

Perhaps, as SUBJECTS, our definable task is to “fine-tune” or calibrate OURSELVES to a higher degree of sensitivity to those realities and only then will we understand or grasp them more acutely.

Whereas if you go to MoMA and sit in front of Monet’s water lilies, you start to see vivid colors, beautiful because they’re produced within the eye itself due to Monet’s careful arrangement of colors to create after-images. He knew enough to generate beauty within us. Artists give answers.

“Artists give answers.” So you do agree that spending time and effort developing “subjective” determinations may pay off in terms of giving us a better appreciation for qualities such as beauty, then?

If artists can “generate beauty” within us, then you seem to admit that beauty is a real and objective quality of reality given that – as subjects – we, too, exist in reality.

You seem to have undermined your entire diatribe against the objectivity of beauty by your last statement.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I spent time writing posts to you on the subject (#892 and #930) but you didn’t respond (presumably you saw the error of your ways)

No, actually, I was trying to spare you the experience of eating humble pie.

…and instead you made ad hominem…

You need to bone up on what an ad hominem actually is.

A personal remark is NOT, in itself, an ad hominem.

…without even having the courage to say it to my face.

I can’t help it if you turn your back to my posts.

 

[Peter_Plato]

I put you on ignore before because of all your personal attacks, you’re one of only two people ever to make that list, but you kept on following me around anyway.

Personally I have no interest, whatsoever, in whether I am on your ignore list or not. I will, however, respond to any post that includes errant or disputable claims. I am an equal opportunity “disputer.”

Given that I’ve been on this particular thread since Post #37 and you are a relative late-comer (Post #797) I might ask YOU what you are doing “following me around anyway?”

Your appearance following my initial postings on a number of recent threads makes the charge of “following me around” a rather dubious one.

Since you highly regard “research” as the grounds for making objective claims, why don’t you do the necessary work to support your claim? Look into threads where both of us have posted over the past six to twelve months on CAF and let us know which of us was the first to post on those. Or are you content to make merely baseless assertions regarding “following me around anyway?”

 

[Bradski]

The ‘subjective bin of shame’?

Peter, that says all we need to know about your argument. As I said earlier:

This fish is too salty.
Oh no! Everything is relative!

Because you claim that morality is not relative, you have put yourself in the untenable position of saying that nothing is. It’s a slippery slope!

Beauty? Art? Flavour? Weight? They are all objective? Ye gods, how did you get in this mess? How do you get out of it?

 

[Peter_Plato]

The ‘subjective bin of shame’?

Peter, that says all we need to know about your argument. As I said earlier:

This fish is too salty.
Oh no! Everything is relative!

Because you claim that morality is not relative, you have put yourself in the untenable position of saying that nothing is. It’s a slippery slope!

Beauty? Art? Flavour? Weight? They are all objective? Ye gods, how did you get in this mess? How do you get out of it?

It might be a slippery slope for those who want to put on skis whenever they encounter an incline. It may also be that the slope is designed to challenge our abilities to reason through situations which have no obvious answers.

By the way, I am not claiming that everything need be objective in the same sense - quantifiable and measureable - as some are insisting it must be. More importantly, however, I am arguing that “subjective” need not imply a full blown relativism where any objectivity is impossible.

Flavour, for example, may have an objective basis - saltiness, pungency, etc - for the subjective sensation which makes the sensation affiliated somewhat to objectivity. But even if flavor were either completely objective or completely relative, the question of significance would remain. Is flavour a significant quality? No, it doesn’t matter in most cases whether one individual prefers one flavour over another so it doesn’t matter in the end whether personal and subjective differences regarding flavour exist.

Ethics are a completely different story, however. Again, while moral considerations are not determined by scientific methods using quantifiable determiners, and that while ethics do have subjective aspects because moral agents have “skin in the game” those two conditions do not make ethics “trivial” in the sense that “subjective” entails for some, like Hee_Zen, on this thread.

What I have argued in my response to Post 930 a few posts back is that the most important qualities ARE grounded in subjectivity but that may be because getting subjectivity right is the most important existential task facing us - far more important than measuring or reverse engineering the physical world around us.

Even to disagree with this last point requires you to give an accounting for how you decide things - even “objectively determinable” things - to be significant or important in the first place - that DEPENDS upon a subjective assessment that is convincing to anyone who might dispute the issue. It certainly isn’t dependent upon measureable or quantifiable “objective facts.”

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Even to disagree with this last point requires you to give an accounting for how you decide things - even “objectively determinable” things - to be significant or important in the first place - that DEPENDS upon a subjective assessment that is convincing to anyone who might dispute the issue. It certainly isn’t dependent upon measureable or quantifiable “objective facts.”

Exactly
What we do is relate. We then break up what is basically a unity into subject and object.
“Subjective” is bandied about by certain individuals seemingly without any appreciation of the implications that the description of experiential phenomena lies outside the realm of the structure which is the physical universe.
Where is saltiness?
View attachment 21259
Is it all here?
This diagram shows how we exist as part of the physical world. To be able to taste requires thses neurological processes.
Where is taste then?
It remains within the mind.
This is God’s joke.
Sort it out if you can.

 

[tonyrey]

Darwinism is a hopelessly inadequate explanation of both the spiritual and physical beauty that are the basis of the teaching of Christ:

A hopelessly inadequate response from one who claims to be a follower of Christ.

Then how do you explain the decline in religious belief in the West? 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 in the UK speaks for itself - plus the fact that many people do not bother to get married…

It’s regrettable and I’d have thought there are many factors: increased freedom and independence of women, greater individualism, higher wealth, routinely traveling all over the world when a couple of centuries back most people lived their whole life in one village…

Not one of those factors explains the decline in religious** belief** unless religion is regarded as outdated superstition.

Not sure people now are less spiritual or moral than the previous generation. Fewer go to church, but Christ is still here. Your lament reminded me of this:

Christian Zeal and Activity; John Adams; San Francisco SO (Edo de Waart) - 'Adams states that the title of the movement was “stolen out of old Methodist gospel or hymn tune book” and is an arrangement of “Onward, Christian Soldiers”’

Is the increase in number of abortions, divorces and suicides unrelated to moral values and spiritual beliefs?

 

[Bradski]

Is the increase in number of abortions, divorces and suicides unrelated to moral values and spiritual beliefs?

You’d have to ask all those Christians who have abortions and get divorced. Do they have no morals? Are they losing their spiritual beliefs?

But even if flavor were either completely objective or completely relative, the question of significance would remain. Is flavour a significant quality? No, it doesn’t matter in most cases whether one individual prefers one flavour over another so it doesn’t matter in the end whether personal and subjective differences regarding flavour exist.

Ah, that’s how you’re going to do it. ‘It doesn’t matter in the end…’

I think we’ll see some reference to this post at some point: ‘I’m sure you’ll find that I have already suggested that even if…then…so that…etc etc…so why you are bringing this up again I fail to see…’.

I’m sure that Hee Zen will require some clarification.

And by the way, anyone seen Charles? I was waiting for him to answer a question, but he seems to have slipped off. Anyway, I can always ask it again when he turns up.

 

[ChainBreaker]

And by the way, anyone seen Charles? I was waiting for him to answer a question, but he seems to have slipped off. Anyway, I can always ask it again when he turns up.

Charles is my butler. He has things to do.

 

[Hee_Zen]

I’m sure that Hee Zen will require some clarification.

Unlikely to get one. Of course the so-called significance is also subjective. For someone who is staving, the taste of the food is irrelevant. However, in an “Iron chef” type of competition it is of utmost importance. (And such a competition is very important in the eyes of the contestants.) It sure looks like that the believers are scared to admit the existence of any “subjective” assessments, because they fear that the whole house of cards will come tumbling down on their heads. And that fear is not unfounded.

Only an idiot would want to drag in the question of “significance” prematurely, and want to contemplate of “how should one behave” before the “what exists” is established. The sequence of philosophical disciplines is very simple and straightforward. First one needs to establish the “metaphysics” - which is just another word for “what exists”? To do that one needs a solid “epistemology” - in other words: “how do we know it”?. Since we talk about the objective, external reality, the only sufficient epistemological method is the scientific one. Once the metaphysics is established, then and only then - can we start to ponder the question of “so how do we behave?” which is the field of “ethics”. And finally, if one has a lot of time, then he can ponder the question of aesthetics, which is just a time filler for not doing anything productive.

Now I am sure that someone would love to jump in and scream “scientism”, so a short disclaimer is due. The scientific method is ONLY applicable to the objectively existing external reality. It is NOT applicable to the abstract sciences, it is NOT applicable to the nonexistent past, it is NOT applicable to the subjective feelings, emotions and tastes. The trouble with is disclaimer is that the nincompoops will either not read it, or will not understand it, or will forget it real soon. So I fully expect to see some poor sucker screaming “scientism”… over and over again.

 

[Peter_Plato]

Only an idiot would want to drag in the question of “significance” prematurely, and want to contemplate of “how should one behave” before the “what exists” is established.

Subjects exist. Objects exist. There, we have established “what exists.”

Now, what of the relative significance of subjects and objects?

When you jump to “objects” being primarily important, you have “prematurely” decided that objects have more significance in terms of our behaviours related to “coming to know” than subjects. You have also arbitrarily decided that verification is the one and only “significant” criteria upon which epistemological “certainty” is to be founded, merely because it can be done with relative ease.

Speaking of dragging the question of “significance” in “prematurely,” you have already done that by dogmatically proclaiming that quantifiable accuracy is the only “significant” grounds for epistemology.

Why would verification by repetition be the ONLY significant criteria or method for arriving at certainty? Merely because it is “significantly” objective rather than subjective? Hello? Speaking of prematurely dragging in significance.

As Descartes pointed out, I can only be absolutely certain that I, as subject, exist, ergo if certainty is the ground for epistemology, subjectivity, itself, is a stronger candidate than verification, since subjectivity requires NO verification unless you are insane or wish to make an arbitrary determination that verification by objectivity is simply more significant than subjectivity based upon something other than mere epistemic certainty.

Let’s not forget that it is subjects who are the only beings, as far as we know, who CAN BE certain of anything. Epistemic certainty REQUIRES subjectivity as a necessary condition.

Hence, it was you who have smuggled in the priority or “significance” of objectivity PREMATURELY, hoping we wouldn’t notice.

Now, calling you on that little deception may make me an idiot, but no more of one than you for thinking that mere nasty name calling would enable you to get away with prematurely smuggling in “significance” under the guise of not having done so.

 

[Bradski]

Can you all stop putting “quotes” around words in an “arbitrary” manner? Thanks in “advance”.

 

[inocente]

Yeah, and so what? Even delicate scientific instruments give false positives – that is why new and improved models keep appearing. What’s your point? That taste should NEVER be relied upon to “measure” saltiness or sweetness because it occasionally gives false positives?

Strawman, since your calm was “This fish tastes salty,” is a factual claim which can be checked by whether salts exist in the composition of the fish. The fact that someone can taste the salt or whether their taste apparatus can detect it to any degree is an issue with the function of their senses. But the existence of salt is indisputable". I gave three reasons why the existence of salt is disputable - the subjective salty taste does not logically require that salts are objectively present.

*Yes, this is what you keep asserting, but you fail to give any grounds for thinking beauty is not objective except that there is no “testable” analysis. Presumably, that means no instrument or machine exists to measure beauty.

Okay, but perhaps beauty is not that kind of quantifiable reality.

Your presumption – again one that we have no reason for thinking it to be true – is that all important aspects of reality should be quantifiable in a way that allows “testing” by some contrived mechanical instrument or other. Why do we have any reason for thinking THAT to be true?*

If beauty is objective then it would be independent of personal feelings and so there would necessarily have to an independent way to analyze beauty. There would need to be a procedure by which anyone could independently get the same result when, for instance, comparing the beauty of one of Pink Floyd’s ditties against something else.

I’ve asked several times what that procedure is. Without it, personal feelings and opinions are all there can be, and your claim fails.

The problem here is that there is no invented instrument that can measure important qualities like significance, meaning, truth, goodness, value, etc., Human beings, as instruments for measuring those qualities, are all we have. Presumably a cohort of finely calibrated, well-functioning humans would give us the best possible results regarding those qualities, provided we select carefully and don’t succumb to biases or agendas.

Fine, then state the procedure by which this cohort can do its appointed task. So, we choose 100 people with different personal tastes, from different age groups, different cultures, different ethnic groups, etc. and get them to follow a procedure which allows them to ignore their personal opinions and instead objectively determine the beauty of one of Pink Floyd’s ditties against something else. Then we repeat this ten more times with different groups, and others also do it with other cohorts, and if beauty is objective then every group gives (more-or-less) the same result, and your claim is proven beyond reasonable doubt, and you get a Nobel prize.

I caution readers not to hold their breath while eagerly awaiting your explanation.

*Your, and Hee_Zen’s, position that non-quanitifable aspects of reality should be relegated to the “subjective” bin of shame as not worth wasting time attempting to make “objective” determinations about continues to be an indefensible position, especially since those non-quantifiable aspects of reality - significance, meaning, truth, goodness, value, etc. – are determinably the key aspects that SHOULD occupy our time.

Any position that claims they SHOULDN’T BE is self-refuting since it MUST give a value-based - and thus NOT quantifiable – accounting for why they shouldn’t be.
*

I’d say the exact opposite - it is the subjective that makes life worth living. If all we had was cold hard logic, if we had no emotions, we’d be no better than computers. I think most people would agree with me, and that’s why we all say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

You’re the one claiming otherwise. Apparently you think subjective is shameful, or at least less authentic. Why would you think that?

*How’s that for addressing your post?

Happy now? *

Thank you for not just ignoring it, and for sticking to the subject.

 

[tonyrey]

Is the increase in number of abortions, divorces and suicides unrelated to moral values and spiritual beliefs?

It is simplistic to suggest people have **no **morals if they divorce, have an abortion or commit suicide. There has always been disparity between what people believe and how they behave but the marked decline in church attendance and the dramatic increase in the number of abortions, divorces and suicides is hardly a coincidence.

 

[inocente]

Apparently, you don’t understand what begging the question means.

How would you know various opinions “don’t make progress” or aren’t “helpful” without having made an a priori determination about what those opinions are or are not getting closer to?

You can’t know they aren’t getting closer without knowing either:

1. What the destination is, or
2. There is no destination to get to.

How would you know either one? The only way you could make your claim is to presume 2) is true and 1) is false. That, however, is EXACTLY what you are trying to prove. Thus, you are begging the question.

I can say no progress has been made because, unless some breakthrough has been made in the last few years, I read what I could find and found no progression. There’s not even much that’s useful to anyone who wants to understand beauty.

Whereas from artists you can learn that there are some rules for classic beauty, such as the golden section, but you need to break a few of them to introduce novelty, otherwise it’s not beautiful, it’s just boring. That’s why there is a fashion industry.

And so forth.

Explain how “real world research” would provide anything like legitimate answers to those questions?

Who can speak of beauty who hasn’t experienced beauty?

Are Marcel Duchamp’s found objects (such as his infamous urinal) beautiful? After all, the Bauhaus thought form follows function. Does it, or does beauty depend on pretty ornamentation? Look at the metrics used by facial recognition software. How do we recognize faces instantly, do we do the same kind of processing? Answer all these little questions and we at least stand a chance of progressing towards the answer to the big question. Whereas armchair philosophers try to do it in one go, bite off more than they can chew, and that’s why they never get anywhere on this kind of subject.

*You seem to be implying that developing some instrument or other that would “measure” beauty would be what “real world research” would involve. But that is missing the point entirely.

I’ll ask the question again: “What makes you think all important aspects of reality are quantifiable and, thus, measurable?”

What if “subjectivity” itself is THE most important aspect of reality and it is the profound qualities of subjectivity that are those which will lead us to understand qualities such as significance, meaning, truth, beauty, goodness, value, etc., more profoundly?

Why do we need to presume only “objects” in the world around us are worthy of our time and our own subjective existence valueless?

Perhaps, as SUBJECTS, our definable task is to “fine-tune” or calibrate OURSELVES to a higher degree of sensitivity to those realities and only then will we understand or grasp them more acutely.*

I think you got confused. I’m not arguing that “all important aspects of reality are quantifiable”. I’m saying your claim that beauty is objective logically requires a way to determine beauty that is independent of personal feelings and opinions.

There isn’t. You’re wrong. Beauty is not something you can weigh.

As to calibrating ourselves to a higher degree of sensitivity, nope, that sounds like something from Mao Tse-tung’s little red book. “Well the Party is much more finely-tuned than me so if they say it’s beautiful then I guess it must be”. “Well the Party is much more moral than me so if they say it’s OK then I guess it must be”.

c.f. “You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.”

“Artists give answers.” So you do agree that spending time and effort developing “subjective” determinations may pay off in terms of giving us a better appreciation for qualities such as beauty, then?

Not sure what you mean. What I mean is if you want to paint beautiful pictures or write beautiful poems then studying how others did it may be useful.

*If artists can “generate beauty” within us, then you seem to admit that beauty is a real and objective quality of reality given that – as subjects – we, too, exist in reality.

You seem to have undermined your entire diatribe against the objectivity of beauty by your last statement.*

So you’re claiming that as you like Pink Floyd ditties that means they are objectively beautiful. Hmmm. Perhaps you should look up the meaning of subjective and objective.

 

[inocente]

Personally I have no interest

Nor me. Let’s stick to the subject.

 

[inocente]

inocente;12639276:

Cut a couple of words out of that and you’ll have yourself a mighty fine haiku!

A hopelessly inadequate response from one who claims to be a follower of Christ.

Your user name suggests you are a king. But I already have a King, so sadly must decline the offer to follow you as no one can serve two masters.

Not one of those factors explains the decline in religious* belief*** unless religion is regarded as outdated superstition.

I think they do. For example the increase in migration leading to multicultural society. Imho a teenager who has friends of different faiths and is surrounded by different places of worship is more likely to question which if any is the one True Religion, than would her forebear from two centuries ago who never left her village and never came into contact with other ways of life.

Is the increase in number of abortions, divorces and suicides unrelated to moral values and spiritual beliefs?

I looked for abortion stats and this came up first:


guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_IAW.html

It gives the Lancet as the source. Not just global rates are dropping but secular Europe is markedly down.

But really I don’t know enough about this to comment on whether the historical rates for those three things correlate globally with religion.