Hi Alberto G. Corona I suppose I opened a can of worms; I really don't want to get into a political argument, because never the twain shall meet. They speak completely different languages. Two completely different views, two different tribes always at war with one another.
Because of the bicameral mind metaphor (Jaynes and others): Left brain metaphor (top or intellectual portion of monad humunculus) Conscious, thinking, discreteness, sequential, control, logic, yang, male, ego, insistent, sun Right brain metaphor (feeling or middle portyion of monad humunculus) Subconscious, Feeling, global, nonlinear thinking, submission, aesthetics, yin, female, noninsistent, moon Two different tribes, the ought or moral coming from the right hand brain metaphor, the "is" coming from the left hand brain metaphor. The bicameral mind Let me just state my basis for the assignments. I think Lakoff wrote a book not long ago on the subject of words and politics. Liberal (ought) arguments are usually morally based (we can't let the poor starve so we need to tax the greedy rich) while conservatives try to reply using the "is" weapons of facts and logic (we can't afford that stuff, we're going bankrupt). Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 8/21/2012 Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function." ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: Alberto G. Corona Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-21, 05:30:05 Subject: Re: Politics and the is-ought problem of Hume Roger, It would be these days, however both groups obey the same ought rules. what changes is the whole which each one refer to; For example liberals usually exclude unborn children, and put any minority in the world above any else in the top of his whole (some put wildlife above humanity), while conservatives usually consider his country first and his civilization after. What is a fallacy is to consider the IS of the social life is the same IS of the physics and the logic. When Hume analized the writings of people about social matters which mixed the is and the ought, I guess Hume was wrong. Beacuse people act according with the is and the ought. I still did not read the interesting evolutionary paper that Brent linked here, but I again guess that Hume assimilate the egoistic behaviour of the people with the "IS" of the physics and logic based on the partial data of the vibrant commercial activity of the England of the XVIII century at the surface level. He did not realized the greath amount of "ougths" that people has to follow to maintan order in commercial interchanges with a comparatively little cohercion. 2012/8/21 Roger Clough <rclo...@verizon.net> Hi Alberto G. Corona Yes, the is/ought dilemma is embedded in our culture. These days (as always and as everywhere) the "is" people are the conservatives, the "ought" people are the liberals, and never the twain shall meet. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 8/21/2012 Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function." ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: Alberto G. Corona Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-20, 09:01:09 Subject: Re: Re: On comp and the is-ought problem of Hume In evolutionary terms, is and ougth reflect the double nature of a social being which has not lost is individuality, as individual and as a member of a bigger whole. Both are in tension. The social whole is also in our instinctive individual nature,and appear to the conscious trough intuitions and feelings of duty. The "Ought" are our long term rules for survival as individuals as member of a society trough generations, which is accesibe trough intuition. The IS is more inmediate to our intuition (when social things are ok). But both are given, but are adapted to the social circunstances : We would not be here if our ancestors would not have been egoistic. Neither we would be here too if they would not attend their social duties and repress the deleterious part of their selfish behaviours. For this reason,John Maynard Smith, an evolutionist http://meaningoflife.tv/ said that the naturalistic fallacy is itself a fallacy, because the Ough is in an IS no less IS than the IS of our ordinary selfish behaviour, with some matizations. is in concordance with the Christian notion of the human nature of a man in permanent tension between the god (which he have knowledge thanks to his Soul or his Nous) and the evil of his socially and individually deleterous selfish impulses. This tension between deletereous individuality that endangers the common good appears in all the scales of evolution. there are parasite molecules, parasite genes, parasite intracellular organules, parasite tissues and parasite individuals against which the whole has a set of countermeasures. The transitions from a level to the next never is complete. The tension between individuality and sociality is ethernal, but in the human being this conflict is not only is carried out externally, but in its own conscience. 2012/8/20 Roger <rclo...@verizon.net> Hi meekerdb All's well in Heaven, but down here on earth things are a little messier. Heaven is what should be, down here is what is. This conflict earns preachers a nice life. The Christian solution to this dilemma is that God solved it a long time ago by allowing his son to be crucified and proved it by resurrecting Him. IMHO. Roger , rclo...@verizon.net 8/20/2012 Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function." ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: meekerdb Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-18, 15:04:00 Subject: Re: On comp and the is-ought problem of Hume Who’s Afraid of the Naturalistic Fallacy? Oliver Curry, Centre Research Associate, Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, London School of Economics, UK WC2A 2AE, UK; Email: o.s.cu...@lse.ac.uk. Abstract: David Hume argued that values are the projections of natural human desires, and that moral values are the projections of desires that aim at the common good of society. Recent developments in game theory, evolutionary biology, animal behaviour and neuroscience explain why humans have such desires, and hence provide support for a Humean approach to moral psychology and moral philosophy. However, few philosophers have been willing to pursue this naturalistic approach to ethics for fear that it commits something called ‘the naturalistic fallacy’. This paper reviews several versions of the fallacy, and demonstrates that none of them present an obstacle to this updated, evolutionary version of Humean ethical naturalism. http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/ep04234247.pdf Brent On 8/18/2012 8:08 AM, Roger wrote: Hi Bruno Marchal This is probably just my ignorance of what comp is, but there seems to be a discrepancy between comp, which fits with Plato or Platonism, and real life, which actually fits more with Aristotle. Plato is "ought to be" and Aristotle is "is in fact". There is a troubling dualism between the two, that while we live in the Kingdom of Earth, we strive for the Kingdom of Heaven ("thy Kingdom come.). This is unreconciliable dualism Hume pointed out between "is" and "should be". He said he knew of no way to go from "is" to "should be". Hume is a great prose stylist and thinker so ihe's worth quoting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem Hume discusses the problem in book III, part I, section I of his work, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739): In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers; and am persuaded, that this small attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relations of objects, nor is perceived by reason.[1] Hume calls for caution against such inferences in the absence of any explanation of how the ought-statements follow from the is-statements. But how exactly can an "ought" be derived from an "is"? The question, prompted by Hume's small paragraph, has become one of the central questions of ethical theory, and Hume is usually assigned the position that such a derivation is impossible.[2] This complete severing of "is" from "ought" has been given the graphic designation of Hume's Guillotine.[3] Implications The apparent gap between "is" statements and "ought" statements, when combined with Hume's fork, renders "ought" statements of dubious validity. Hume's fork is the idea that all items of knowledge are either based on logic and definitions, or else on observation. If the is–ought problem holds, then "ought" statements do not seem to be known in either of these two ways, and it would seem that there can be no moral knowledge. Moral skepticism and non-cognitivism work with such conclusions. The is–ought problem has been recognised as an important issue for the validity of secular ethics and their defense from criticism—often religiously inspired.[4] Roger , rclo...@verizon.net 8/18/2012 Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so everything could function." ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-18, 10:10:58 Subject: Re: Descartes and the turf war between science and religion On 18 Aug 2012, at 15:35, Roger wrote: IMHO Religion deals with the unchanging Kingdom of Heaven: the eternal logic of Plato, final causes. Eternal truth, not contingent facts. Either and always Yes or No. Whoa! You are close to Platonism. Nice (with respect to comp). Science deals with the Kingdom of Earth: the contingent world of Aristotle and Lebniz. Contingent facts, not eternal truth. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I can be OK with that. We can be more precise by postulating comp, as many contingency become absolutely contingent. In particular the computational states become necessarily contingent. We have p-> []<>p (p -> necessary possible p): it makes the accessibility relation among worlds symmetrical, and something physical is something repeatable in principles. For a modal logician, Kripke is a big progress on Leibniz, because Kripke relativizes the modalities to the 'actual world'. Leibniz always works implicitly in one modal logic (known as S5). S5 is the only modal logic which cannot be interpreted in arithmetic, at least not in the self-referential approach to cognition. There are billions (even a continuum to be exact) of modal logic. Each defines its o<n notion of contingence and necessity. But both Aristotle, and Leibniz (and even G?el, arguably) single out S5. More on this later perhaps. Bruno The other remarks of yours are mankind's mistaken views of both. ----- Have received the following content ----- Sender: Bruno Marchal Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-08-18, 06:26:11 Subject: Re: Descartes and the turf war between science and religion On 17 Aug 2012, at 21:06, meekerdb wrote: On 8/17/2012 11:32 AM, Roger wrote: Hi guys, Regarding Descartes..... There has always been, and still is, a turf war between science and religion, each wanting to claim superiority over the other. And there's a bit of fear because most people believe that there's only one truth or that truth comes in only one form, either in science or in the Bible. WHOA! Talk about parochial. I guess Roger hasn't heard of the Quran, the Tao, the Eightfold Way, Dianetics, Wicca, the Torah,... The interesting thing is that wars are fought over divine TRUTHs, be not over scientific knowledge. It is the same, as you can see through history. Just that scientific knowledge impose itself in the shorter run than fundamental knowledge. Science is just an attitude of modesty, religion is the belief that, not science, but what science tries to handle, makes sense, and it motivates (fundamental) research. Of course humans, and even nature, perverts science and religion all the time for reason of dishonest selfish special local short term interests. That's part of life. Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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