RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases
Brent Meeker wrote: Jef Allbright wrote: > > Brent Meeker wrote: >> That raises a fundamental question - should we believe what's true? >> Of course in general we don't know what's true and we never know it >> with certainity. But we do know some things, in the scientific, >> provisional sense. And we also have certain values which, as Jef >> says, are the basis of our action and our judgement of good and bad. >> So what happens when we know X and believing X is *not* conducive to >> realizing our values? >> Of course you could argue that this can never happen; that it's >> always best (in the values sense) to believe what's true. But I >> think this is doubtful. For example, person who is certainly dying >> of cancer (and we're all dying of something) may realize more of his >> values by believing that he will live for much longer than justified >> by the evidence. >> On the other hand you could argue that one can't just believe this or >> that as an act of will and so it is impossible to know X, even in the >> provisional scientific sense, and also believe not-X. > "Tell me Human, what is this Self you speak of, somehow apart from its own value-system, somehow able to observe and comment on its own subjective experience?" I don't think I said anything about "self", much less that it is separate from a value system. But seriously, the values that matter most are generally below conscious awareness and can only be inferred. This is why I suggested that story-telling might be among the most effective methods for collecting sets of values for further analysis and distillation. An interesting idea. I'd say that action has to be the real test of values. Has there been any study of the correlation between stories told and actual behavior? Not of which I am aware, although there has been some collecting of stories in anthropology, and some listing of "human universal" values in rough form. It would be more accurate to say that our values drive our self rather than belong to our self. That's fine with me. I'd say the "self" is nothing but an abstraction to collect values, memories, thoughts, etc. Then I think you're on the right track. Evidence abounds of memories (and thus experience of self) being subject to a great deal of distortion, fabrication, and revision, and the human capacity for cognitive dissonance and confabulation answers loudly your question in regard to the handling of conflicting values and beliefs. So you observe that people commonly believe things they know are false. Do you also conclude that they are generally doing this to maximize the projection of their values into the future? No, most such action is not a result of rational consideration, or even conscious intention. Or would they do better if their beliefs and knowledge aligned? In other words, is there a "should" about belief? There is no "should", but only that what works tends to persist, thus increasing the likelihood of it being assessed as good. Some beliefs, despite being invalid, can be very effective within a limited context but tend eventually to succumb to competition from those with greater effectiveness, generally through more general scope of applicability and with fewer side-effects. We come to think of these principles of increasingly effective action as "laws of nature". - Jef --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: computer pain
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Brent Meeker writes: > In fact, if we could > reprogram our own minds at will, it would be a very different world. > Suppose you were upset because you lost your job. You might decide to > stay upset to the degree that it remains a motivating factor to look for > other work, but not affect your sleep, ability to experience pleasure, > etc. If you can't find work you might decide to downgrade your > expectations, so that you are just as content having less money or a > menial job, or just as content for the next six months but then have the > motivation to look for interesting work kick in again, but without the > confidence- and enthusiasm-sapping disappointment that comes from > repeated failure to find work. I think that's called a cocaine habit. :-) The difference between happiness that is derived from illicit drugs and happiness derived from real life is that the former does not really last, ending in tolerance, dependence, depression, deterioration in physical health, inability to work and look after oneself, not to mention criminal activity due to the fact that the drugs are illegal. This is because drugs are a very crude way of stimulating the nervous system. It is like programming a computer with a soldering iron. The only time drugs work well is if there is a relatively simple fault, like an excess or deficit of a certain neurotransmitter, and even there you have to be lucky for function to return to normal. Which presumes a well-defined "normal". Changing specific aspects of thinking or emotions without screwing up other functions in the process would require much greater finesse than modern pharmacology can provide, and greater efficacy than psychology can provide. David Pearce in "The Hedonistic Imperative", and some science fiction writers (Greg Egan, Walter Jon Williams come to mind) have looked at some of the consequences of being able to reprogram your emotions, motivations, memories and personality. Larry Niven imagined a future in which you would be able to plug into implanted electrodes in your brain and selectively stimulate different areas. I think this was suggested to him by popular articles on finding a "pleasure center" in rats. No-one that I am aware of has explored how utterly alien a world in which we had access to our own source code at the finest level would be. I wouldn't download anything from Microsoft! Brent Meeker The first time Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck will be when they build vacuum cleaners. --- Bill Jefferys --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases
Jef Allbright wrote: Brent Meeker wrote: That raises a fundamental question - should we believe what's true? Of course in general we don't know what's true and we never know it with certainity. But we do know some things, in the scientific, provisional sense. And we also have certain values which, as Jef says, are the basis of our action and our judgement of good and bad. So what happens when we know X and believing X is *not* conducive to realizing our values? Of course you could argue that this can never happen; that it's always best (in the values sense) to believe what's true. But I think this is doubtful. For example, person who is certainly dying of cancer (and we're all dying of something) may realize more of his values by believing that he will live for much longer than justified by the evidence. On the other hand you could argue that one can't just believe this or that as an act of will and so it is impossible to know X, even in the provisional scientific sense, and also believe not-X. "Tell me Human, what is this Self you speak of, somehow apart from its own value-system, somehow able to observe and comment on its own subjective experience?" I don't think I said anything about "self", much less that it is separate from a value system. But seriously, the values that matter most are generally below conscious awareness and can only be inferred. This is why I suggested that story-telling might be among the most effective methods for collecting sets of values for further analysis and distillation. An interesting idea. I'd say that action has to be the real test of values. Has there been any study of the correlation between stories told and actual behavior? It would be more accurate to say that our values drive our self rather than belong to our self. That's fine with me. I'd say the "self" is nothing but an abstraction to collect values, memories, thoughts, etc. Evidence abounds of memories (and thus experience of self) being subject to a great deal of distortion, fabrication, and revision, and the human capacity for cognitive dissonance and confabulation answers loudly your question in regard to the handling of conflicting values and beliefs. So you observe that people commonly believe things they know are false. Do you also conclude that they are generally doing this to maximize the projection of their values into the future? Or would they do better if their beliefs and knowledge aligned? In other words, is there a "should" about belief? Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: computer pain
Brent Meeker writes: > In fact, if we could > reprogram our own minds at will, it would be a very different world. > Suppose you were upset because you lost your job. You might decide to > stay upset to the degree that it remains a motivating factor to look for > other work, but not affect your sleep, ability to experience pleasure, > etc. If you can't find work you might decide to downgrade your > expectations, so that you are just as content having less money or a > menial job, or just as content for the next six months but then have the > motivation to look for interesting work kick in again, but without the > confidence- and enthusiasm-sapping disappointment that comes from > repeated failure to find work. I think that's called a cocaine habit. :-) The difference between happiness that is derived from illicit drugs and happiness derived from real life is that the former does not really last, ending in tolerance, dependence, depression, deterioration in physical health, inability to work and look after oneself, not to mention criminal activity due to the fact that the drugs are illegal. This is because drugs are a very crude way of stimulating the nervous system. It is like programming a computer with a soldering iron. The only time drugs work well is if there is a relatively simple fault, like an excess or deficit of a certain neurotransmitter, and even there you have to be lucky for function to return to normal. Changing specific aspects of thinking or emotions without screwing up other functions in the process would require much greater finesse than modern pharmacology can provide, and greater efficacy than psychology can provide. David Pearce in "The Hedonistic Imperative", and some science fiction writers (Greg Egan, Walter Jon Williams come to mind) have looked at some of the consequences of being able to reprogram your emotions, motivations, memories and personality. No-one that I am aware of has explored how utterly alien a world in which we had access to our own source code at the finest level would be. Perhaps that is one of the things that would happen at the Vingean Singularity. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order & Belief)
Brent Meeker wrote: That raises a fundamental question - should we believe what's true? Of course in general we don't know what's true and we never know it with certainity. But we do know some things, in the scientific, provisional sense. And we also have certain values which, as Jef says, are the basis of our action and our judgement of good and bad. So what happens when we know X and believing X is *not* conducive to realizing our values? Of course you could argue that this can never happen; that it's always best (in the values sense) to believe what's true. But I think this is doubtful. For example, person who is certainly dying of cancer (and we're all dying of something) may realize more of his values by believing that he will live for much longer than justified by the evidence. On the other hand you could argue that one can't just believe this or that as an act of will and so it is impossible to know X, even in the provisional scientific sense, and also believe not-X. "Tell me Human, what is this Self you speak of, somehow apart from its own value-system, somehow able to observe and comment on its own subjective experience?" But seriously, the values that matter most are generally below conscious awareness and can only be inferred. This is why I suggested that story-telling might be among the most effective methods for collecting sets of values for further analysis and distillation. It would be more accurate to say that our values drive our self rather than belong to our self. Evidence abounds of memories (and thus experience of self) being subject to a great deal of distortion, fabrication, and revision, and the human capacity for cognitive dissonance and confabulation answers loudly your question in regard to the handling of conflicting values and beliefs. - Jef --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order & Belief)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Tom Caylor writes: It is the ultimate irony that Jesus was taken to be blaspheming when he said he was "one with the Father" and "before Abraham was, I AM", for "no one can say that they are God". the mistake is the missing phrase at the end: "...except God". Yes, but what if Jesus was not God? He would then have been lying or deluded, and blaspheming as well in the eyes of Jews, Muslims etc. I have met many peopel who thought they were Jesus. Once, we had two Jesuses on the ward at the same time. We thought they might get into a fight, but in an appropriately holy manner they both walked around smiling and blessing everyone. They even forgave the staff for disbelieving and giving them medication. I have to admit, they were nice people, and others could learn from their example. But they were deluded. Or at least one of them was. :-) Brent Meeker And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?" They replied, "You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood revealed." And Jesus replied, "What??" --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order & Belief)
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Tom Caylor writes: On Dec 24, 3:49 am, Stathis Papaioannou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Tom Caylor writes: > > Bruno, > > > I have been doing a lot of reading/thinking on your former posts on the > > Hypostases, other reading on Plotinus and the neo-Platonist hypostases, > > and the Christian "interpretation" of the hypostases. There is a lot > > to say, but I'll start by just giving some responses to your last post > > on this. > > > On Dec 11, 8:46 am, Bruno Marchal > > > I agree that the problem of evil (and thus the equivalent problem of > > > Good) is interesting. Of course it is not well addressed by the two > > > current theories of everything: Loop gravity and String theory. With > > > that respect the comp hyp can at least shed some light on it, and of > > > course those "light" are of the platonic-plotinus type where the notion > > > of goodness necessitates the notion of truth to begin with. I say more > > > below. > > > The discussions over the last two weeks on Evil, and just how to define > > good and bad, underscore how puzzling this problem can be. I agree > > that at the base of this is the question, "What is Truth?" I am not > > satisfied with the Theaetetus definition, or Tarski's "trick". I > > believe the answer to the question, "What is Truth?" which Pilate asked > > Jesus, was standing right in front of Pilate: Jesus himself. The > > Christian definition of truth goes back to the core of everything, who > > is personal. As I've said before, without a personal core, the word > > "personal" has lost its meaning. In the context nowadays of > > impersonal-based philosophy, "personal" has come to "mean" something > > like "without rational basis". But when the personal IS the basis, not > > an impersonal concept of personal, but the ultimate Person, and with > > man being made in the image of that ultimate Person, we have a basis > > for truth, personality, rationality, good... > I'm not sure that this is what you meant, but there is in a sense an objective > basis to the personal or subjective, which is simply that when I say I feel or > desire something, this is an empirical statement: either I do feel it or I am > lying. This looks like Tarski's trick to me. It is an act of faith any time we take what we say as truth. This is unsupported without an ultimate Person who gives the ultimate source of bringing truth into existence through words. Have you considered the possibility that we can never know the ultimate truth? I can't even be certain that I had a particular thought a moment ago; I believe I did, and all the evidence suggests that I did, but I can't be *absolutely certain*. This seems obvious to me and I am quite comfortable with it, but even if I weren't, that is no reason to create ex nihilo a source of ultimate truth (if such a thing were even logically possible, which it is not). And what does "ultimate truth" even mean? Does it mean complete and accurate description of everything? Does it mean the set of all "true" propositions; where "true" means...what?, in accordance with observation?, provable in some axiomatic system?, referring to a fact? > Also, there is an objective explanation for why I have the feeling in > terms of neurophysiology, evolution and so on. But this is not enough for some > people and they think, for example, that there must be more to "love" than > just particular feelings and the scientific basis for these feelings. But this > mysterious love-substance would appear to make no difference whatsoever. > The evidence is that if certain chemical reactions occur, the love feeling also > occurs, and these chemical reactions occur because they have evolved that > way to assist bonding with family, community and so on. That explanation > covers everything, and the love-substance remains superfluous and undetectable, > inviting Occam's Razor to cut it down. > > Stathis Papaioannou Reducing everything to particulars results in the loss of meaning. Schaeffer describes this process as nature "eating up" grace. Reductionism has resulted in "cutting out" the basis for knowledge. Knowledge has to be personal, as shown by the epistemologist Michael Polanyi, particularly in his book "Personal Knowledge". Of course Bruno maintains that after Godel we have gone beyond reductionism, but I don't think so. I will say more in response to his post. I don't have my notes with me, but a few examples of what happens with reductionism are: Jacques Monods (?) in his Chance and Necessity reducing everything basically to the roll of the dice -> B.F. Skinner, eliminating freedom and dignity of man, and saying farewell to man qua man. The result: the rule of the elite. I had the privilege of hearing a guest lecture by Skinner at UCLA in the '80s, and the question & answer section was pretty lively, with agnostics defending freedom and dignity as if they really believed in it. M
RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order & Belief)
Tom Caylor writes: It is the ultimate irony that Jesus was taken to be blaspheming when he said he was "one with the Father" and "before Abraham was, I AM", for "no one can say that they are God". the mistake is the missing phrase at the end: "...except God". Yes, but what if Jesus was not God? He would then have been lying or deluded, and blaspheming as well in the eyes of Jews, Muslims etc. I have met many peopel who thought they were Jesus. Once, we had two Jesuses on the ward at the same time. We thought they might get into a fight, but in an appropriately holy manner they both walked around smiling and blessing everyone. They even forgave the staff for disbelieving and giving them medication. I have to admit, they were nice people, and others could learn from their example. But they were deluded. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order & Belief)
Tom Caylor writes: On Dec 24, 3:49 am, Stathis Papaioannou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Tom Caylor writes: > > Bruno, > > > I have been doing a lot of reading/thinking on your former posts on the > > Hypostases, other reading on Plotinus and the neo-Platonist hypostases, > > and the Christian "interpretation" of the hypostases. There is a lot > > to say, but I'll start by just giving some responses to your last post > > on this. > > > On Dec 11, 8:46 am, Bruno Marchal > > > I agree that the problem of evil (and thus the equivalent problem of > > > Good) is interesting. Of course it is not well addressed by the two > > > current theories of everything: Loop gravity and String theory. With > > > that respect the comp hyp can at least shed some light on it, and of > > > course those "light" are of the platonic-plotinus type where the notion > > > of goodness necessitates the notion of truth to begin with. I say more > > > below. > > > The discussions over the last two weeks on Evil, and just how to define > > good and bad, underscore how puzzling this problem can be. I agree > > that at the base of this is the question, "What is Truth?" I am not > > satisfied with the Theaetetus definition, or Tarski's "trick". I > > believe the answer to the question, "What is Truth?" which Pilate asked > > Jesus, was standing right in front of Pilate: Jesus himself. The > > Christian definition of truth goes back to the core of everything, who > > is personal. As I've said before, without a personal core, the word > > "personal" has lost its meaning. In the context nowadays of > > impersonal-based philosophy, "personal" has come to "mean" something > > like "without rational basis". But when the personal IS the basis, not > > an impersonal concept of personal, but the ultimate Person, and with > > man being made in the image of that ultimate Person, we have a basis > > for truth, personality, rationality, good... > I'm not sure that this is what you meant, but there is in a sense an objective > basis to the personal or subjective, which is simply that when I say I feel or > desire something, this is an empirical statement: either I do feel it or I am > lying. This looks like Tarski's trick to me. It is an act of faith any time we take what we say as truth. This is unsupported without an ultimate Person who gives the ultimate source of bringing truth into existence through words. Have you considered the possibility that we can never know the ultimate truth? I can't even be certain that I had a particular thought a moment ago; I believe I did, and all the evidence suggests that I did, but I can't be *absolutely certain*. This seems obvious to me and I am quite comfortable with it, but even if I weren't, that is no reason to create ex nihilo a source of ultimate truth (if such a thing were even logically possible, which it is not). > Also, there is an objective explanation for why I have the feeling in > terms of neurophysiology, evolution and so on. But this is not enough for some > people and they think, for example, that there must be more to "love" than > just particular feelings and the scientific basis for these feelings. But this > mysterious love-substance would appear to make no difference whatsoever. > The evidence is that if certain chemical reactions occur, the love feeling also > occurs, and these chemical reactions occur because they have evolved that > way to assist bonding with family, community and so on. That explanation > covers everything, and the love-substance remains superfluous and undetectable, > inviting Occam's Razor to cut it down. > > Stathis Papaioannou Reducing everything to particulars results in the loss of meaning. Schaeffer describes this process as nature "eating up" grace. Reductionism has resulted in "cutting out" the basis for knowledge. Knowledge has to be personal, as shown by the epistemologist Michael Polanyi, particularly in his book "Personal Knowledge". Of course Bruno maintains that after Godel we have gone beyond reductionism, but I don't think so. I will say more in response to his post. I don't have my notes with me, but a few examples of what happens with reductionism are: Jacques Monods (?) in his Chance and Necessity reducing everything basically to the roll of the dice -> B.F. Skinner, eliminating freedom and dignity of man, and saying farewell to man qua man. The result: the rule of the elite. I had the privilege of hearing a guest lecture by Skinner at UCLA in the '80s, and the question & answer section was pretty lively, with agnostics defending freedom and dignity as if they really believed in it. Marvin Minsky and his colleague (don't recall his name) at MIT, saying that basically we have to act "as if" we have free will, even though we "know" that we don't. Talk about a loss of the concept of truth. It seems to me that you go one step further than Marvin Minsky and say that not only must we behave as if we have free will,
RE: computer pain
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Jef Allbright writes: [Stathis Papaioannou] >> If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being of >> the species as a whole does that mean we should have slavery? Does it >> mean that slavery is good? > Teaching that slavery is "bad" is similar to teaching that lying is "bad". In each case it's a narrow over-simplification of a more general principle of what works. Children are taught simplified modes of moral reasoning to match their smaller context of understanding. At one end of a moral scale are the moral instincts (experienced as pride, disgust, etc.) that are an even more condensed form of "knowledge" of what worked in the environment of evolutionary adaptation. Further up the scale are cultural--including religious--laws and even the patterns of our language that further codify and reinforce patterns of interaction that worked well enough and broadly enough to be taken as principles of "right" action. Relatively few of us take the leap beyond the morality that was inherited or given to us, to grasp the broader and more extensible understanding of morality as patterns of behavior assessed as promoting increasingly shared values over increasing scope. Society discourages individual thinking about what is and what is not moral; indeed, it is a defining characteristic that moral principles subsume both narrow self interest and narrow situational awareness. For this reason, one can not assess the absolute morality of an action in isolation, but we can legitimately speak of the relative morality of a class of behavior within context. Just as lying can clearly be the right action within a specific context (imagine having one's home invaded and being unable, on moral grounds, to lie to the invaders about where the children are hiding!), the moral issue of slavery can be effectively understood only within a larger context. The practice of slavery (within a specific context) can be beneficial to society; numerous examples exist of slavery contributing to the economic good of a locale, and on a grander scale, the development of western philosophy (including democracy!) as a result of freeing some from the drudgery of manual labor and creating an environment conducive to deeper thought. And as we seek to elucidate a general principle regarding slavery, we come face-to-face with other instances of this class of problem, including rights of women to vote, the moral standing of sentient beings of various degrees of awareness (farm animals, the great apes, artificial intelligences), and even the idea that all "men", of disparate mental and emotional capability, are "created equal"? Could there be a principle constituting a coherent positive-sum stance toward issues of moral interaction between agents of inherently different awareness and capabilities? Are we as a society yet ready to adopt a higher level of social decision-making, "moral" to the extent that it effectively promotes increasingly shared values over increasing scope, one that provides an increasingly clear vision of effective interaction between agents of diverse and varying capabilities, or are going to hold tightly to the previous best model, one that comfortingly but childishly insists on the fiction of some form of strict equality between agents? Are we mature enough to see that just at the point in human progress where technological development (biotech, nanotech, AI) threatens to drastically disrupt that which we value, we are gaining the necessary tools to organize at a higher level--effectively a higher level of wisdom? Well, I think slavery is bad, even if it does help society - unless we were actually in danger of extiction without it or something. So yes, the moral rules must bend in the face of changing circumstances, but the point at which they bend will be different for each individual, and there is no objective way to define what this point would or should be. I thought you and I had already clearly agreed that there can be no absolute or objective morality, since moral judgments are based on subjective values. And I thought we had already moved on to discussion of how agents do in fact hold a good portion of their subjective values in common, due to common environment, culture and evolutionary heritage. In my opinion, the discussion begins to get interesting from this point, because the population tends to converge on agreement as to general principles of effective interaction, while tending to diverge on matters of individual interests and preferences. Please notice that I don't say that slavery *is* immoral, because as you well know there's no objective basis for that claim. But I do say that people will increasingly agree in their assessment that it is highly immoral. Their *statements* are objective facts, and measurements of the degree of agreement are objective facts, and on this basis I claim that we can implement an improved form
Re: computer pain
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Jef Allbright writes: [Stathis Papaioannou] If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being of the species as a whole does that mean we should have slavery? Does it mean that slavery is good? Teaching that slavery is "bad" is similar to teaching that lying is "bad". In each case it's a narrow over-simplification of a more general principle of what works. Children are taught simplified modes of moral reasoning to match their smaller context of understanding. At one end of a moral scale are the moral instincts (experienced as pride, disgust, etc.) that are an even more condensed form of "knowledge" of what worked in the environment of evolutionary adaptation. Further up the scale are cultural--including religious--laws and even the patterns of our language that further codify and reinforce patterns of interaction that worked well enough and broadly enough to be taken as principles of "right" action. Relatively few of us take the leap beyond the morality that was inherited or given to us, to grasp the broader and more extensible understanding of morality as patterns of behavior assessed as promoting increasingly shared values over increasing scope. Society discourages individual thinking about what is and what is not moral; indeed, it is a defining characteristic that moral principles subsume both narrow self interest and narrow situational awareness. For this reason, one can not assess the absolute morality of an action in isolation, but we can legitimately speak of the relative morality of a class of behavior within context. Just as lying can clearly be the right action within a specific context (imagine having one's home invaded and being unable, on moral grounds, to lie to the invaders about where the children are hiding!), the moral issue of slavery can be effectively understood only within a larger context. The practice of slavery (within a specific context) can be beneficial to society; numerous examples exist of slavery contributing to the economic good of a locale, and on a grander scale, the development of western philosophy (including democracy!) as a result of freeing some from the drudgery of manual labor and creating an environment conducive to deeper thought. And as we seek to elucidate a general principle regarding slavery, we come face-to-face with other instances of this class of problem, including rights of women to vote, the moral standing of sentient beings of various degrees of awareness (farm animals, the great apes, artificial intelligences), and even the idea that all "men", of disparate mental or emotional capability, are "created equal"? Could there be a principle constituting a coherent positive-sum stance toward issues of moral interaction between agents of inherently different awareness and capabilities? Are we as a society yet ready to adopt a higher level of social decision-making, "moral" to the extent that it effectively promotes increasingly shared values over increasing scope, one that provides an increasingly clear vision of effective interaction between agents of diverse and varying capabilities, or are going to hold tightly to the previous best model, one that comfortingly but childishly insists on the fiction of some form of strict equality between agents? Are we mature enough to see that just at the point in human progress where technological development (biotech, nanotech, AI) threatens to drastically disrupt that which we value, we are gaining the necessary tools to organize at a higher level--effectively a higher level of wisdom? Well, I think slavery is bad, even if it does help society - unless we were actually in danger of extiction without it or something. Slavery is bad almost by defintion. It consists in treating beings we empathize with as though we had no empathy. So yes, the moral rules must bend in the face of changing circumstances, but the point at which they bend will be different for each individual, and there is no objective way to define what this point would or should be. Slightly off topic, I don't see why we would design AI's to experience emotions such as resentment, anger, fear, pain etc. John McCarthy says in his essay, "Making Robots Conscious of their Mental States" http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/consciousness/consciousness.html In fact, if we could reprogram our own minds at will, it would be a very different world. Better living through chemistry! Suppose you were upset because you lost your job. You might decide to stay upset to the degree that it remains a motivating factor to look for other work, but not affect your sleep, ability to experience pleasure, etc. If you can't find work you might decide to downgrade your expectations, so that you are just as content having less money or a menial job, or just as content for the next six months but then have the motivation to look for interesting work kick in again, but without the confidence- and
Re: computer pain
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Jef Allbright writes: [Stathis Papaioannou] If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being of the species as a whole does that mean we should have slavery? Does it mean that slavery is good? Teaching that slavery is "bad" is similar to teaching that lying is "bad". In each case it's a narrow over-simplification of a more general principle of what works. Children are taught simplified modes of moral reasoning to match their smaller context of understanding. At one end of a moral scale are the moral instincts (experienced as pride, disgust, etc.) that are an even more condensed form of "knowledge" of what worked in the environment of evolutionary adaptation. Further up the scale are cultural--including religious--laws and even the patterns of our language that further codify and reinforce patterns of interaction that worked well enough and broadly enough to be taken as principles of "right" action. Relatively few of us take the leap beyond the morality that was inherited or given to us, to grasp the broader and more extensible understanding of morality as patterns of behavior assessed as promoting increasingly shared values over increasing scope. Society discourages individual thinking about what is and what is not moral; indeed, it is a defining characteristic that moral principles subsume both narrow self interest and narrow situational awareness. For this reason, one can not assess the absolute morality of an action in isolation, but we can legitimately speak of the relative morality of a class of behavior within context. Just as lying can clearly be the right action within a specific context (imagine having one's home invaded and being unable, on moral grounds, to lie to the invaders about where the children are hiding!), the moral issue of slavery can be effectively understood only within a larger context. The practice of slavery (within a specific context) can be beneficial to society; numerous examples exist of slavery contributing to the economic good of a locale, and on a grander scale, the development of western philosophy (including democracy!) as a result of freeing some from the drudgery of manual labor and creating an environment conducive to deeper thought. And as we seek to elucidate a general principle regarding slavery, we come face-to-face with other instances of this class of problem, including rights of women to vote, the moral standing of sentient beings of various degrees of awareness (farm animals, the great apes, artificial intelligences), and even the idea that all "men", of disparate mental or emotional capability, are "created equal"? Could there be a principle constituting a coherent positive-sum stance toward issues of moral interaction between agents of inherently different awareness and capabilities? Are we as a society yet ready to adopt a higher level of social decision-making, "moral" to the extent that it effectively promotes increasingly shared values over increasing scope, one that provides an increasingly clear vision of effective interaction between agents of diverse and varying capabilities, or are going to hold tightly to the previous best model, one that comfortingly but childishly insists on the fiction of some form of strict equality between agents? Are we mature enough to see that just at the point in human progress where technological development (biotech, nanotech, AI) threatens to drastically disrupt that which we value, we are gaining the necessary tools to organize at a higher level--effectively a higher level of wisdom? Well, I think slavery is bad, even if it does help society - unless we were actually in danger of extiction without it or something. So yes, the moral rules must bend in the face of changing circumstances, but the point at which they bend will be different for each individual, and there is no objective way to define what this point would or should be. Slightly off topic, I don't see why we would design AI's to experience emotions such as resentment, anger, fear, pain etc. John McCarthy says in his essay, "Making Robots Conscious of their Mental States" http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/consciousness/consciousness.html In fact, if we could reprogram our own minds at will, it would be a very different world. Suppose you were upset because you lost your job. You might decide to stay upset to the degree that it remains a motivating factor to look for other work, but not affect your sleep, ability to experience pleasure, etc. If you can't find work you might decide to downgrade your expectations, so that you are just as content having less money or a menial job, or just as content for the next six months but then have the motivation to look for interesting work kick in again, but without the confidence- and enthusiasm-sapping disappointment that comes from repeated failure to find work. I think that's called a cocaine habit. :-) Brent Meeker --~--~--
RE: computer pain
Jef Allbright writes: [Stathis Papaioannou] If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being of the species as a whole does that mean we should have slavery? Does it mean that slavery is good? Teaching that slavery is "bad" is similar to teaching that lying is "bad". In each case it's a narrow over-simplification of a more general principle of what works. Children are taught simplified modes of moral reasoning to match their smaller context of understanding. At one end of a moral scale are the moral instincts (experienced as pride, disgust, etc.) that are an even more condensed form of "knowledge" of what worked in the environment of evolutionary adaptation. Further up the scale are cultural--including religious--laws and even the patterns of our language that further codify and reinforce patterns of interaction that worked well enough and broadly enough to be taken as principles of "right" action. Relatively few of us take the leap beyond the morality that was inherited or given to us, to grasp the broader and more extensible understanding of morality as patterns of behavior assessed as promoting increasingly shared values over increasing scope. Society discourages individual thinking about what is and what is not moral; indeed, it is a defining characteristic that moral principles subsume both narrow self interest and narrow situational awareness. For this reason, one can not assess the absolute morality of an action in isolation, but we can legitimately speak of the relative morality of a class of behavior within context. Just as lying can clearly be the right action within a specific context (imagine having one's home invaded and being unable, on moral grounds, to lie to the invaders about where the children are hiding!), the moral issue of slavery can be effectively understood only within a larger context. The practice of slavery (within a specific context) can be beneficial to society; numerous examples exist of slavery contributing to the economic good of a locale, and on a grander scale, the development of western philosophy (including democracy!) as a result of freeing some from the drudgery of manual labor and creating an environment conducive to deeper thought. And as we seek to elucidate a general principle regarding slavery, we come face-to-face with other instances of this class of problem, including rights of women to vote, the moral standing of sentient beings of various degrees of awareness (farm animals, the great apes, artificial intelligences), and even the idea that all "men", of disparate mental or emotional capability, are "created equal"? Could there be a principle constituting a coherent positive-sum stance toward issues of moral interaction between agents of inherently different awareness and capabilities? Are we as a society yet ready to adopt a higher level of social decision-making, "moral" to the extent that it effectively promotes increasingly shared values over increasing scope, one that provides an increasingly clear vision of effective interaction between agents of diverse and varying capabilities, or are going to hold tightly to the previous best model, one that comfortingly but childishly insists on the fiction of some form of strict equality between agents? Are we mature enough to see that just at the point in human progress where technological development (biotech, nanotech, AI) threatens to drastically disrupt that which we value, we are gaining the necessary tools to organize at a higher level--effectively a higher level of wisdom? Well, I think slavery is bad, even if it does help society - unless we were actually in danger of extiction without it or something. So yes, the moral rules must bend in the face of changing circumstances, but the point at which they bend will be different for each individual, and there is no objective way to define what this point would or should be. Slightly off topic, I don't see why we would design AI's to experience emotions such as resentment, anger, fear, pain etc. In fact, if we could reprogram our own minds at will, it would be a very different world. Suppose you were upset because you lost your job. You might decide to stay upset to the degree that it remains a motivating factor to look for other work, but not affect your sleep, ability to experience pleasure, etc. If you can't find work you might decide to downgrade your expectations, so that you are just as content having less money or a menial job, or just as content for the next six months but then have the motivation to look for interesting work kick in again, but without the confidence- and enthusiasm-sapping disappointment that comes from repeated failure to find work. Or any variation on the above you can imagine. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b
RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order & Belief)
Bruno Marchal writes: > I'm not sure that this is what you meant, but there is in a sense an > objective basis to the personal or subjective, which is simply that > when I say I feel or desire something, this is an empirical statement: > either I do feel it or I am lying. Also, there is an objective > explanation for why I have the feeling in terms of neurophysiology, > evolution and so on. But this is not enough for some people and they > think, for example, that there must be more to "love" than just > particular feelings and the scientific basis for these feelings. But > this mysterious love-substance would appear to make no difference > whatsoever. The evidence is that if certain chemical reactions occur, > the love feeling also occurs, and these chemical reactions occur > because they have evolved that way to assist bonding with family, > community and so on. That explanation covers everything, and the > love-substance remains superfluous and undetectable, inviting Occam's > Razor to cut it down. I can agree completely but as you expect I will ask you to cut *any* substance once you bet on comp. Not just love-substance, but neuron-substance as well. (Or explain me at which step of the UDA reasoning you feel unconvinced, thanks ;-) ... of course we can believe in neurons and ... love. No need of any substances ... (more exactly, with comp, substances can't help). The bit about computations not supervening on physical activity (or alternatively supervening on any physical activity) could be seen as a reductio ad absurdum against comp. I'm not entirely convinced either way; I'd bet even money on the hypothesis at present, although that changes from day to day. In any case, it becomes cumbersome to qualify everything with "given the appearance of a real world" or some such. There is a computer on my desk at the moment, but there is no gold bar. You could say that the computer and the gold are equally insubstantial, so what is the difference between them? The difference is that one produces a very good illusion of being substantial, whatever test you throw at it, while the other does not. The special immaterial love-substance is more like the gold bar on my desk than the computer. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases
Tom Caylor wrote: On Dec 24, 3:49 am, Stathis Papaioannou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Tom Caylor writes: > Bruno, > I have been doing a lot of reading/thinking on your former posts on the > Hypostases, other reading on Plotinus and the neo-Platonist hypostases, > and the Christian "interpretation" of the hypostases. There is a lot > to say, but I'll start by just giving some responses to your last post > on this. > On Dec 11, 8:46 am, Bruno Marchal > > I agree that the problem of evil (and thus the equivalent problem of > > Good) is interesting. Of course it is not well addressed by the two > > current theories of everything: Loop gravity and String theory. With > > that respect the comp hyp can at least shed some light on it, and of > > course those "light" are of the platonic-plotinus type where the notion > > of goodness necessitates the notion of truth to begin with. I say more > > below. > The discussions over the last two weeks on Evil, and just how to define > good and bad, underscore how puzzling this problem can be. I agree > that at the base of this is the question, "What is Truth?" I am not > satisfied with the Theaetetus definition, or Tarski's "trick". I > believe the answer to the question, "What is Truth?" which Pilate asked > Jesus, was standing right in front of Pilate: Jesus himself. The > Christian definition of truth goes back to the core of everything, who > is personal. As I've said before, without a personal core, the word > "personal" has lost its meaning. In the context nowadays of > impersonal-based philosophy, "personal" has come to "mean" something > like "without rational basis". But when the personal IS the basis, not > an impersonal concept of personal, but the ultimate Person, and with > man being made in the image of that ultimate Person, we have a basis > for truth, personality, rationality, good... I'm not sure that this is what you meant, but there is in a sense an objective basis to the personal or subjective, which is simply that when I say I feel or desire something, this is an empirical statement: either I do feel it or I am lying. This looks like Tarski's trick to me. It is an act of faith any time we take what we say as truth. When I take what I say to be true based on evidence it is not a matter of faith. This is unsupported without an ultimate Person who gives the ultimate source of bringing truth into existence through words. This is pure magic mongering - as though some special "ultimate" person can bring something into existence by words. Also, there is an objective explanation for why I have the feeling in terms of neurophysiology, evolution and so on. But this is not enough for some people and they think, for example, that there must be more to "love" than just particular feelings and the scientific basis for these feelings. But this mysterious love-substance would appear to make no difference whatsoever. The evidence is that if certain chemical reactions occur, the love feeling also occurs, and these chemical reactions occur because they have evolved that way to assist bonding with family, community and so on. That explanation covers everything, and the love-substance remains superfluous and undetectable, inviting Occam's Razor to cut it down. Stathis Papaioannou Reducing everything to particulars results in the loss of meaning. A strawman. No one has tried to reduce everything to particulars. Stathis refers to generalities, like chemical reactions, families, and love. Schaeffer describes this process as nature "eating up" grace. Which is apparently intended as a profound metaphor for something. Reductionism has resulted in "cutting out" the basis for knowledge. Knowledge has to be personal, as shown by the epistemologist Michael Polanyi, particularly in his book "Personal Knowledge". Of course Bruno maintains that after Godel we have gone beyond reductionism, but I don't think so. I will say more in response to his post. Critics of reductionism ignore the contrary process of synthesis. Physics does not *just* reduce things to atoms, it also shows how things are synthesized from atoms and their relations. I don't have my notes with me, but a few examples of what happens with reductionism are: Jacques Monods (?) in his Chance and Necessity reducing everything basically to the roll of the dice -> B.F. Skinner, eliminating freedom and dignity of man, and saying farewell to man qua man. The result: the rule of the elite. You mean like the divine right of kings? I had the privilege of hearing a guest lecture by Skinner at UCLA in the '80s, and the question & answer section was pretty lively, with agnostics defending freedom and dignity as if they really believed in it. It's only theists who imagine that some god is necessary to give them freedom, dignity, and purpose in their lives. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ You received this message be
RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order & Belief)
Thanks for the explanations. I am astonished about all children being psychopathic: I guess you mean very young one? Bruno http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ To be fair that term isn't normally used for children due to its pejorative connotations, but I think it is close to the truth. Infants lack not only a moral sense, they also lack an understanding of consequences of their actions. Older children act to gain rewards and avoid punishment. Older children still act for all the above reasons but also to gain approval from authority figures - to be a good boy or a good girl, whatever that takes. The final stage involves internalising moral values, so that "good" and "bad" take on a separate meaning, not just what has positive or negative consequences or what other people think of as good and bad. These roughly correspond to Kohlberg's stages of moral development: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg's_stages_of_moral_development Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order & Belief)
It looks like I might have timed out. Hopefully this doesn't appear two times. On Dec 24, 8:55 am, Bruno Marchal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Le 24-déc.-06, à 09:48, Tom Caylor a écrit : > Bruno, > ... > I believe the answer to the question, "What is Truth?" which Pilate asked > Jesus, was standing right in front of Pilate: Jesus himself. Hmmm Perhaps in some symbolical way. The "crux" is that he is not symbolic... > The Christian definition of truth goes back to the core of everything, who > is personal. As I've said before, without a personal core, the word > "personal" has lost its meaning. In the context nowadays of > impersonal-based philosophy, "personal" has come to "mean" something > like "without rational basis". Of course that *is* a pity. It is bad, for human, to develop such "self-eliminating" belief. It is not rational either. I agree. cf my examples (Skinner...) in response to Stathis. But how do *you* define rationality and persons? You also seem to reduce it, to numbers. I think the sophistication of incompleteness simply hides the fact that it is still a "castle in the sky". > But when the personal IS the basis, not > an impersonal concept of personal, but the ultimate Person, and with > man being made in the image of that ultimate Person, we have a basis > for truth, personality, rationality, good... So you are emphasizing the "third hypostase" = the first person = the ALL-SOUL = the universal knower. This is akin to David Lymann and George Levy. It is not incompatible with your view if you accept the idea that we "are all God(s)". Cf Alan Watts for example and most mystical insight. I think later down you see that I am addressing all of the hypostases. > I'll just deal with the first 4 hypostases, since this is the basis of > the rest, even though my John quote below addresses the others also. > Perhaps the neo-Platonists couldn't see how the core could be personal > (even though Plato called it the "Good"). It is hard to accept that the > core could be both infinite and personal (and good), since our view of > personality is finite (and flawed). But the infinite personal core, God > the Father, which replaces the neo-Platonist "ONE" or 0-person (of > course I maintain that the replacing was in the other direction :) It looks you seem really to be an Aristotelician By the "direction" of replacement I didn't mean chronologically, like Plato replaces Aristotle. I meant that the impersonal core replaced the real personal core, independent of Aristotle's views. You have said before that the Christians emphasize matter more than mind, as opposed to the Platonists and neo-Platonists. There may have been a few Christians who reclaimed a belief in nature, like Thomas Aquinas, when the mind/grace was being emphasized too much. But, as can be seen in the Christian "interpretation" of the Greek hypostases, the core of Christianity, being rooted in the Hebrew God who is the source of all things/persons, is really first of all a downward emanation, like the neo-Platonists thought. There can be no upward emanation unless/until a sufficient downward emanation is provided. In Christianity, the downward emanation is "God loves us", and then the upward emanation is "We love God". > In a way this is true, > in that our earthly fathers/mothers and others take part as persons in > developing us as persons. But there has to be an ultimate source. Yes. To be a realist is to bet there is one, but from a scientist (third person) pov, it is an open question as to know if such ultimate thing is personal. Comp is going in the Plotinus direction where the ultimate reality is not personal. As you saw, I addressed the third person pov below. > He (the Holy Spirit) fills in > the gaps when we cannot find words to talk to him. Like G* minus G does for any self-referentially classical machine. (The lobian machine). Yes. By the way, you said to Brent that "you" know that you are lobian. How do you know? > Then, the real clincher is the third person point of view, the > neo-Platonist "INTELLECT". The personal God did not stay silent and > keep all of this personhood stuff at a purely theoretical level which > we would have to take with blind faith. Instead the hopes of the > neo-Platonists were fulfilled in the Christ (Messiah) whose name was > Emmanuel which means "God with us", who was the "wisdom and power of > God". "In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with > God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through > him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been > made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light > shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it... The > Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. I can take this as a poetical description of the relation between the internal modalities or the hypostases. This is not poetry. Heidegg
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order & Belief)
On Dec 24, 3:49 am, Stathis Papaioannou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Tom Caylor writes: > Bruno, > I have been doing a lot of reading/thinking on your former posts on the > Hypostases, other reading on Plotinus and the neo-Platonist hypostases, > and the Christian "interpretation" of the hypostases. There is a lot > to say, but I'll start by just giving some responses to your last post > on this. > On Dec 11, 8:46 am, Bruno Marchal > > I agree that the problem of evil (and thus the equivalent problem of > > Good) is interesting. Of course it is not well addressed by the two > > current theories of everything: Loop gravity and String theory. With > > that respect the comp hyp can at least shed some light on it, and of > > course those "light" are of the platonic-plotinus type where the notion > > of goodness necessitates the notion of truth to begin with. I say more > > below. > The discussions over the last two weeks on Evil, and just how to define > good and bad, underscore how puzzling this problem can be. I agree > that at the base of this is the question, "What is Truth?" I am not > satisfied with the Theaetetus definition, or Tarski's "trick". I > believe the answer to the question, "What is Truth?" which Pilate asked > Jesus, was standing right in front of Pilate: Jesus himself. The > Christian definition of truth goes back to the core of everything, who > is personal. As I've said before, without a personal core, the word > "personal" has lost its meaning. In the context nowadays of > impersonal-based philosophy, "personal" has come to "mean" something > like "without rational basis". But when the personal IS the basis, not > an impersonal concept of personal, but the ultimate Person, and with > man being made in the image of that ultimate Person, we have a basis > for truth, personality, rationality, good... I'm not sure that this is what you meant, but there is in a sense an objective basis to the personal or subjective, which is simply that when I say I feel or desire something, this is an empirical statement: either I do feel it or I am lying. This looks like Tarski's trick to me. It is an act of faith any time we take what we say as truth. This is unsupported without an ultimate Person who gives the ultimate source of bringing truth into existence through words. Also, there is an objective explanation for why I have the feeling in terms of neurophysiology, evolution and so on. But this is not enough for some people and they think, for example, that there must be more to "love" than just particular feelings and the scientific basis for these feelings. But this mysterious love-substance would appear to make no difference whatsoever. The evidence is that if certain chemical reactions occur, the love feeling also occurs, and these chemical reactions occur because they have evolved that way to assist bonding with family, community and so on. That explanation covers everything, and the love-substance remains superfluous and undetectable, inviting Occam's Razor to cut it down. Stathis Papaioannou Reducing everything to particulars results in the loss of meaning. Schaeffer describes this process as nature "eating up" grace. Reductionism has resulted in "cutting out" the basis for knowledge. Knowledge has to be personal, as shown by the epistemologist Michael Polanyi, particularly in his book "Personal Knowledge". Of course Bruno maintains that after Godel we have gone beyond reductionism, but I don't think so. I will say more in response to his post. I don't have my notes with me, but a few examples of what happens with reductionism are: Jacques Monods (?) in his Chance and Necessity reducing everything basically to the roll of the dice -> B.F. Skinner, eliminating freedom and dignity of man, and saying farewell to man qua man. The result: the rule of the elite. I had the privilege of hearing a guest lecture by Skinner at UCLA in the '80s, and the question & answer section was pretty lively, with agnostics defending freedom and dignity as if they really believed in it. Marvin Minsky and his colleague (don't recall his name) at MIT, saying that basically we have to act "as if" we have free will, even though we "know" that we don't. Talk about a loss of the concept of truth. Tom --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: computer pain
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Oops, it was Jef Allbright, not Mark Peaty responsible for the first quote below. Brent Meeker writes: [Mark Peaty]Correction: [Jef Allbright] From the foregoing it can be seen that while there can be no objective morality, nor any absolute morality, it is reasonable to expect increasing agreement on the relative morality of actions within an expanding context. Further, similar to the entropic arrow of time, we can conceive of an arrow of morality corresponding to the ratcheting forward of an increasingly broad context of shared values (survivors of coevolutionary competition) promoted via awareness of increasingly effective principles of interaction (scientific knowledge of what works, extracted from regularities in the environment.) [Stathis Papaioannou] What if the ratcheting forward of shared values is at odds with evolutionary expediency, i.e. there is some unethical policy that improves the fitness of the species? To avoid such a dilemna you would have define as ethical everything improves the fitness of the species, and I'm not sure you want to do that. If your species doesn't define as unethical that which is contrary to continuation of the species, your species won't be around to long. Our problem is that cultural evolution has been so rapid compared to biological evolution that some of our hardwired values are not so good for continuation of our (and many other) species. I don't think ethics is a matter of definitions; that's like trying to fly by settling on a definition of "airplane". But looking at the long run survival of the species might produce some good ethical rules; particularly if we could predict the future consequences clearly. If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being of the species as a whole does that mean we should have slavery? Does it mean that slavery is good? Teaching that slavery is "bad" is similar to teaching that lying is "bad". In each case it's a narrow over-simplification of a more general principle of what works. Children are taught simplified modes of moral reasoning to match their smaller context of understanding. At one end of a moral scale are the moral instincts (experienced as pride, disgust, etc.) that are an even more condensed form of "knowledge" of what worked in the environment of evolutionary adaptation. Further up the scale are cultural--including religious--laws and even the patterns of our language that further codify and reinforce patterns of interaction that worked well enough and broadly enough to be taken as principles of "right" action. Relatively few of us take the leap beyond the morality that was inherited or given to us, to grasp the broader and more extensible understanding of morality as patterns of behavior assessed as promoting increasingly shared values over increasing scope. Society discourages individual thinking about what is and what is not moral; indeed, it is a defining characteristic that moral principles subsume both narrow self interest and narrow situational awareness. For this reason, one can not assess the absolute morality of an action in isolation, but we can legitimately speak of the relative morality of a class of behavior within context. Just as lying can clearly be the right action within a specific context (imagine having one's home invaded and being unable, on moral grounds, to lie to the invaders about where the children are hiding!), the moral issue of slavery can be effectively understood only within a larger context. The practice of slavery (within a specific context) can be beneficial to society; numerous examples exist of slavery contributing to the economic good of a locale, and on a grander scale, the development of western philosophy (including democracy!) as a result of freeing some from the drudgery of manual labor and creating an environment conducive to deeper thought. And as we seek to elucidate a general principle regarding slavery, we come face-to-face with other instances of this class of problem, including rights of women to vote, the moral standing of sentient beings of various degrees of awareness (farm animals, the great apes, artificial intelligences), and even the idea that all "men", of disparate mental or emotional capability, are "created equal"? Could there be a principle constituting a coherent positive-sum stance toward issues of moral interaction between agents of inherently different awareness and capabilities? Are we as a society yet ready to adopt a higher level of social decision-making, "moral" to the extent that it effectively promotes increasingly shared values over increasing scope, one that provides an increasingly clear vision of effective interaction between agents of diverse and varying capabilities, or are going to hold tightly to the previous best model, one that comfortingly but childishly insists on the fiction of some form of strict equality between agents? Are we mature e
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order & Belief)
Le 24-déc.-06, à 11:49, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : I'm not sure that this is what you meant, but there is in a sense an objective basis to the personal or subjective, which is simply that when I say I feel or desire something, this is an empirical statement: either I do feel it or I am lying. Also, there is an objective explanation for why I have the feeling in terms of neurophysiology, evolution and so on. But this is not enough for some people and they think, for example, that there must be more to "love" than just particular feelings and the scientific basis for these feelings. But this mysterious love-substance would appear to make no difference whatsoever. The evidence is that if certain chemical reactions occur, the love feeling also occurs, and these chemical reactions occur because they have evolved that way to assist bonding with family, community and so on. That explanation covers everything, and the love-substance remains superfluous and undetectable, inviting Occam's Razor to cut it down. I can agree completely but as you expect I will ask you to cut *any* substance once you bet on comp. Not just love-substance, but neuron-substance as well. (Or explain me at which step of the UDA reasoning you feel unconvinced, thanks ;-) ... of course we can believe in neurons and ... love. No need of any substances ... (more exactly, with comp, substances can't help). 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order & Belief)
Le 24-déc.-06, à 09:48, Tom Caylor a écrit : Bruno, I have been doing a lot of reading/thinking on your former posts on the Hypostases, other reading on Plotinus and the neo-Platonist hypostases, and the Christian "interpretation" of the hypostases. There is a lot to say, but I'll start by just giving some responses to your last post on this. On Dec 11, 8:46 am, Bruno Marchal I agree that the problem of evil (and thus the equivalent problem of Good) is interesting. Of course it is not well addressed by the two current theories of everything: Loop gravity and String theory. With that respect the comp hyp can at least shed some light on it, and of course those "light" are of the platonic-plotinus type where the notion of goodness necessitates the notion of truth to begin with. I say more below. The discussions over the last two weeks on Evil, and just how to define good and bad, underscore how puzzling this problem can be. It certainly is. I agree that at the base of this is the question, "What is Truth?" I am not satisfied with the Theaetetus definition, or Tarski's "trick". We can come back to this. I believe the answer to the question, "What is Truth?" which Pilate asked Jesus, was standing right in front of Pilate: Jesus himself. Hmmm Perhaps in some symbolical way. The Christian definition of truth goes back to the core of everything, who is personal. As I've said before, without a personal core, the word "personal" has lost its meaning. In the context nowadays of impersonal-based philosophy, "personal" has come to "mean" something like "without rational basis". Of course that *is* a pity. It is bad, for human, to develop such "self-eliminating" belief. It is not rational either. But when the personal IS the basis, not an impersonal concept of personal, but the ultimate Person, and with man being made in the image of that ultimate Person, we have a basis for truth, personality, rationality, good... So you are emphasizing the "third hypostase" = the first person = the ALL-SOUL = the universal knower. This is akin to David Lymann and George Levy. It is not incompatible with your view if you accept the idea that we "are all God(s)". Cf Alan Watts for example and most mystical insight. >> Note also that the major critics by the neoplatonists on Aristotle, >> besides their diverging opinions on the nature of matter, is the >> non-person character of the big unnameable, but then for Plotinus the >> "second God" (the second primary hypostase is "personal"), and indeed >> G* has a personal aspect from the point of view of the machine. I >> agree >> (comp agree) with Plotinus that the big first cannot be a person. The >> second one can. To be sure Plotinus is not always completely clear on >> that point (especially on his chapter on free-will). > None of Plotinus' hypostases are both personal and free from evil (as > well as infinite, which we agree is needed (but not sufficient, I > maintain!) for the problem of meaning). It is a key point. I agree. None of Plotinus hypostases are both personal and free from "evil/good". Finding an arithmetical interpretation of the hypostases could then give a hope toward an explanation of goodness and evil. Please note that 7/8 of the hypostases are "personal-views". I'll just deal with the first 4 hypostases, since this is the basis of the rest, even though my John quote below addresses the others also. Perhaps the neo-Platonists couldn't see how the core could be personal (even though Plato called it the "Good"). It is hard to accept that the core could be both infinite and personal (and good), since our view of personality is finite (and flawed). But the infinite personal core, God the Father, which replaces the neo-Platonist "ONE" or 0-person (of course I maintain that the replacing was in the other direction :), It looks you seem really to be an Aristotelician answers the big question of the origin of all other persons (and consciousness). You mentioned to Brent that perhaps invoking the second-person is a way of explaining the origin of "personal" aspects. I was just saying that the "second person" or some collective intimacy can explain utterance of "uncommunicable things". Some "ethical" scientific truth can be said in the coffee room, not at any congress ... In a way this is true, in that our earthly fathers/mothers and others take part as persons in developing us as persons. But there has to be an ultimate source. Yes. To be a realist is to bet there is one, but from a scientist (third person) pov, it is an open question as to know if such ultimate thing is personal. Comp is going in the Plotinus direction where the ultimate reality is not personal. And in the Christian "interpretation" the ultimate source of all first-person level experience (neo-Platonist "ALL-SOUL" or "UNIVERSAL-SOUL") could be said to be God the Holy Spirit. I can agree wit
Re: computer pain
Le 24-déc.-06, à 09:17, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Brent Meeker writes: >> If your species doesn't define as unethical that which is contrary to >> continuation of the species, your species won't be around to long. >> Our problem is that cultural evolution has been so rapid compared to >> biological evolution that some of our hardwired values are not so good >> for continuation of our (and many other) species. I don't think >> ethics is a matter of definitions; that's like trying to fly by >> settling on a definition of "airplane". But looking at the long run >> survival of the species might produce some good ethical rules; >> particularly if we could predict the future consequences clearly. > > If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being of > the species as a whole does that mean we should have slavery? Does it > mean that slavery is good? Note that I didn't say "promote the well-being"; I said "contrary to the continuation". If the species could not continue without slavery, then there are two possible futures. In one of them there's a species that thinks slavery is OK - in the other there is no opinion on the subject. OK, but it is possible to have an ethical system contrary to the continuation of the species as well. There are probably peopel in the world today who think that humans should deliberately stop breeding and die out because their continued existence is detrimental to the survival of other species on the planet. If you point out to them that such a policy is contrary to evolution (if "contrary to evolution" is possible) or whatever, they might agree with you, but still insist that quietly dying out is the good and noble thing to do. They have certain values with a certain end in mind, and their ethical system is perfectly reasonable in that context. That most of us consider it foolish and do not want to adopt it does not mean that there is a flaw in the logic or in the empirical facts. Words like "irrational" are sometimes used imprecisely. Someone who decides to jump off a tall building might be called irrational on the basis of that information alone. If he does it because he believes he is superman and able to fly then he is irrational: he is not superman and he will punge to his death. If he does it because he wants to kill himself then he is not irrational, because jumping off a tall enough building is a perfectly reasonable means towards this end. Unless Quantum Mechanics is correct. Unless the comp hyp. is correct. (OK this does not invalidate per se your argumentation). We might try equally hard in each case to dissuade him from jumping, but the approach would be different because the underlying thought processes are different. OK, 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order & Belief)
Le 23-déc.-06, à 15:01, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit : Bruno marchal writes: > Even if it is presented as good for society, the child may accept that > because of feelings of empathy for others. OK. Note that such an "empathy" is hard wired in our biological constitution. Many mammals seems to have it at some degree. Some form of autism are described by pathological loss of that empathy. Perhaps Stathis could say more. Autism, psychopathy and psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia can all involve a loss of empathy. It is sometimes said that autistic children lack a "theory of mind" so that they can see others as being like themselves, with a similar view of the world to themselves. As they grow up, they realise intellectually that other people are like them but it seems that they lack the intuitive grasp of this fact that non- -autistic individuals have. People with schizophrenia can develop a blunting of affect, which perhaps is a different process but can have the same effect. They may be able to compare their feelings to when they were well and may say things like, "I can longer feel things like I used to, I know I ought to feel happy when others around me are happy and sad when something sad happens, but I feel nothing, I just register the facts". Psychopaths are different again in that they usually have a full range of affect, understand that others may suffer as they do, but don't care and can't understand why they should care, other than to keep the legal authorities happy. Young children are all psychopathic: they refrain from behaving badly only because they might get punished. As they grow up, they internalise the "good" and "bad" behaviour paterns so that they seem to have these characteristics intrinsically. Autism and schizophrenia are almost always dysfunctional conditions, but intelligent psychopaths often do very well, in business and politics for example, because they can lie and manipulate people without compunction. In fact, they often seem unusually charming and likable when you first meet them, because they have learned to act the way that will best serve their selfish purposes. It is conceivable that an entire society of psychopaths might be able to function with rules of conduct similar to the moral rules that most normal societies live by, but arrived at in a practical and dispassionate manner. That is, thieves are punished because it is expedient to do so in the same way as it is expedient to take an umbrella with you if expecting rain, and saying "theft is wrong" is like saying "rain is wrong". Thanks for the explanations. I am astonished about all children being psychopathic: I guess you mean very young one? 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order & Belief)
Tom Caylor writes: Bruno, I have been doing a lot of reading/thinking on your former posts on the Hypostases, other reading on Plotinus and the neo-Platonist hypostases, and the Christian "interpretation" of the hypostases. There is a lot to say, but I'll start by just giving some responses to your last post on this. On Dec 11, 8:46 am, Bruno Marchal > I agree that the problem of evil (and thus the equivalent problem of > Good) is interesting. Of course it is not well addressed by the two > current theories of everything: Loop gravity and String theory. With > that respect the comp hyp can at least shed some light on it, and of > course those "light" are of the platonic-plotinus type where the notion > of goodness necessitates the notion of truth to begin with. I say more > below. The discussions over the last two weeks on Evil, and just how to define good and bad, underscore how puzzling this problem can be. I agree that at the base of this is the question, "What is Truth?" I am not satisfied with the Theaetetus definition, or Tarski's "trick". I believe the answer to the question, "What is Truth?" which Pilate asked Jesus, was standing right in front of Pilate: Jesus himself. The Christian definition of truth goes back to the core of everything, who is personal. As I've said before, without a personal core, the word "personal" has lost its meaning. In the context nowadays of impersonal-based philosophy, "personal" has come to "mean" something like "without rational basis". But when the personal IS the basis, not an impersonal concept of personal, but the ultimate Person, and with man being made in the image of that ultimate Person, we have a basis for truth, personality, rationality, good... I'm not sure that this is what you meant, but there is in a sense an objective basis to the personal or subjective, which is simply that when I say I feel or desire something, this is an empirical statement: either I do feel it or I am lying. Also, there is an objective explanation for why I have the feeling in terms of neurophysiology, evolution and so on. But this is not enough for some people and they think, for example, that there must be more to "love" than just particular feelings and the scientific basis for these feelings. But this mysterious love-substance would appear to make no difference whatsoever. The evidence is that if certain chemical reactions occur, the love feeling also occurs, and these chemical reactions occur because they have evolved that way to assist bonding with family, community and so on. That explanation covers everything, and the love-substance remains superfluous and undetectable, inviting Occam's Razor to cut it down. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
RE: computer pain
Brent Meeker writes: Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > Brent Meeker writes: > >> >> If your species doesn't define as unethical that which is contrary >> to >> continuation of the species, your species won't be around to >> long. >> Our problem is that cultural evolution has been so rapid >> compared to >> biological evolution that some of our hardwired values >> are not so good >> for continuation of our (and many other) species. >> I don't think >> ethics is a matter of definitions; that's like trying >> to fly by >> settling on a definition of "airplane". But looking at >> the long run >> survival of the species might produce some good >> ethical rules; >> particularly if we could predict the future >> consequences clearly. >> > > If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being >> of > the species as a whole does that mean we should have slavery? >> Does it > mean that slavery is good? >> >> Note that I didn't say "promote the well-being"; I said "contrary to >> the continuation". If the species could not continue without slavery, >> then there are two possible futures. In one of them there's a species >> that thinks slavery is OK - in the other there is no opinion on the >> subject. > > OK, but it is possible to have an ethical system contrary to the > continuation of the species as well. There are probably peopel in the > world today who think that humans should deliberately stop breeding and > die out because their continued existence is detrimental to the survival > of other species on the planet. If you point out to them that such a > policy is contrary to evolution (if "contrary to evolution" is possible) > or whatever, they might agree with you, but still insist that quietly > dying out is the good and noble thing to do. They have certain values > with a certain end in mind, and their ethical system is perfectly > reasonable in that context. That most of us consider it foolish and do > not want to adopt it does not mean that there is a flaw in the logic or > in the empirical facts. Right. > Words like "irrational" are sometimes used imprecisely. Someone who > decides to jump off a tall building might be called irrational on the > basis of that information alone. If he does it because he believes he is > superman and able to fly then he is irrational: he is not superman and > he will punge to his death. If he does it because he wants to kill > himself then he is not irrational, because jumping off a tall enough > building is a perfectly reasonable means towards this end. We might try > equally hard in each case to dissuade him from jumping, but the approach > would be different because the underlying thought processes are different. I don't disagree. I'm just pointing out that values contrary to continuation of the species are not likely to be among the basic hardwired values of any species. Those conducive to continuation probably will be - with allowance for changes of circumstance rapidly compared to biological evolution. So values in an evolved species are, on the whole, not just free floating, independent of facts. The facts show us why as a society we have the sorts of values we do, but they do not provide justification for why we should or shouldn't have certain values, like a sort of replacement for Moses' stone tablets. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: computer pain
Stathis Papaioannou wrote: Brent Meeker writes: >> If your species doesn't define as unethical that which is contrary to >> continuation of the species, your species won't be around to long. >> Our problem is that cultural evolution has been so rapid compared to >> biological evolution that some of our hardwired values are not so good >> for continuation of our (and many other) species. I don't think >> ethics is a matter of definitions; that's like trying to fly by >> settling on a definition of "airplane". But looking at the long run >> survival of the species might produce some good ethical rules; >> particularly if we could predict the future consequences clearly. > > If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being of > the species as a whole does that mean we should have slavery? Does it > mean that slavery is good? Note that I didn't say "promote the well-being"; I said "contrary to the continuation". If the species could not continue without slavery, then there are two possible futures. In one of them there's a species that thinks slavery is OK - in the other there is no opinion on the subject. OK, but it is possible to have an ethical system contrary to the continuation of the species as well. There are probably peopel in the world today who think that humans should deliberately stop breeding and die out because their continued existence is detrimental to the survival of other species on the planet. If you point out to them that such a policy is contrary to evolution (if "contrary to evolution" is possible) or whatever, they might agree with you, but still insist that quietly dying out is the good and noble thing to do. They have certain values with a certain end in mind, and their ethical system is perfectly reasonable in that context. That most of us consider it foolish and do not want to adopt it does not mean that there is a flaw in the logic or in the empirical facts. Right. Words like "irrational" are sometimes used imprecisely. Someone who decides to jump off a tall building might be called irrational on the basis of that information alone. If he does it because he believes he is superman and able to fly then he is irrational: he is not superman and he will punge to his death. If he does it because he wants to kill himself then he is not irrational, because jumping off a tall enough building is a perfectly reasonable means towards this end. We might try equally hard in each case to dissuade him from jumping, but the approach would be different because the underlying thought processes are different. I don't disagree. I'm just pointing out that values contrary to continuation of the species are not likely to be among the basic hardwired values of any species. Those conducive to continuation probably will be - with allowance for changes of circumstance rapidly compared to biological evolution. So values in an evolved species are, on the whole, not just free floating, independent of facts. Brent Meeker --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Evil ? (was: Hypostases (was: Natural Order & Belief)
Bruno, I have been doing a lot of reading/thinking on your former posts on the Hypostases, other reading on Plotinus and the neo-Platonist hypostases, and the Christian "interpretation" of the hypostases. There is a lot to say, but I'll start by just giving some responses to your last post on this. On Dec 11, 8:46 am, Bruno Marchal I agree that the problem of evil (and thus the equivalent problem of Good) is interesting. Of course it is not well addressed by the two current theories of everything: Loop gravity and String theory. With that respect the comp hyp can at least shed some light on it, and of course those "light" are of the platonic-plotinus type where the notion of goodness necessitates the notion of truth to begin with. I say more below. The discussions over the last two weeks on Evil, and just how to define good and bad, underscore how puzzling this problem can be. I agree that at the base of this is the question, "What is Truth?" I am not satisfied with the Theaetetus definition, or Tarski's "trick". I believe the answer to the question, "What is Truth?" which Pilate asked Jesus, was standing right in front of Pilate: Jesus himself. The Christian definition of truth goes back to the core of everything, who is personal. As I've said before, without a personal core, the word "personal" has lost its meaning. In the context nowadays of impersonal-based philosophy, "personal" has come to "mean" something like "without rational basis". But when the personal IS the basis, not an impersonal concept of personal, but the ultimate Person, and with man being made in the image of that ultimate Person, we have a basis for truth, personality, rationality, good... >> Note also that the major critics by the neoplatonists on Aristotle, >> besides their diverging opinions on the nature of matter, is the >> non-person character of the big unnameable, but then for Plotinus the >> "second God" (the second primary hypostase is "personal"), and indeed >> G* has a personal aspect from the point of view of the machine. I >> agree >> (comp agree) with Plotinus that the big first cannot be a person. The >> second one can. To be sure Plotinus is not always completely clear on >> that point (especially on his chapter on free-will). > None of Plotinus' hypostases are both personal and free from evil (as > well as infinite, which we agree is needed (but not sufficient, I > maintain!) for the problem of meaning). It is a key point. I agree. None of Plotinus hypostases are both personal and free from "evil/good". Finding an arithmetical interpretation of the hypostases could then give a hope toward an explanation of goodness and evil. Please note that 7/8 of the hypostases are "personal-views". I'll just deal with the first 4 hypostases, since this is the basis of the rest, even though my John quote below addresses the others also. Perhaps the neo-Platonists couldn't see how the core could be personal (even though Plato called it the "Good"). It is hard to accept that the core could be both infinite and personal (and good), since our view of personality is finite (and flawed). But the infinite personal core, God the Father, which replaces the neo-Platonist "ONE" or 0-person (of course I maintain that the replacing was in the other direction :), answers the big question of the origin of all other persons (and consciousness). You mentioned to Brent that perhaps invoking the second-person is a way of explaining the origin of "personal" aspects. In a way this is true, in that our earthly fathers/mothers and others take part as persons in developing us as persons. But there has to be an ultimate source. And in the Christian "interpretation" the ultimate source of all first-person level experience (neo-Platonist "ALL-SOUL" or "UNIVERSAL-SOUL") could be said to be God the Holy Spirit. He fills in the gaps when we cannot find words to talk to him. Then, the real clincher is the third person point of view, the neo-Platonist "INTELLECT". The personal God did not stay silent and keep all of this personhood stuff at a purely theoretical level which we would have to take with blind faith. Instead the hopes of the neo-Platonists were fulfilled in the Christ (Messiah) whose name was Emmanuel which means "God with us", who was the "wisdom and power of God". "In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it... The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 3:1,2,3,14) So the particular finite form that we have, God somehow took on that same form. In this way God showed us (who are in his image) true truth about h
RE: computer pain
Brent Meeker writes: >> If your species doesn't define as unethical that which is contrary to >> continuation of the species, your species won't be around to long. >> Our problem is that cultural evolution has been so rapid compared to >> biological evolution that some of our hardwired values are not so good >> for continuation of our (and many other) species. I don't think >> ethics is a matter of definitions; that's like trying to fly by >> settling on a definition of "airplane". But looking at the long run >> survival of the species might produce some good ethical rules; >> particularly if we could predict the future consequences clearly. > > If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the well-being of > the species as a whole does that mean we should have slavery? Does it > mean that slavery is good? Note that I didn't say "promote the well-being"; I said "contrary to the continuation". If the species could not continue without slavery, then there are two possible futures. In one of them there's a species that thinks slavery is OK - in the other there is no opinion on the subject. OK, but it is possible to have an ethical system contrary to the continuation of the species as well. There are probably peopel in the world today who think that humans should deliberately stop breeding and die out because their continued existence is detrimental to the survival of other species on the planet. If you point out to them that such a policy is contrary to evolution (if "contrary to evolution" is possible) or whatever, they might agree with you, but still insist that quietly dying out is the good and noble thing to do. They have certain values with a certain end in mind, and their ethical system is perfectly reasonable in that context. That most of us consider it foolish and do not want to adopt it does not mean that there is a flaw in the logic or in the empirical facts. Words like "irrational" are sometimes used imprecisely. Someone who decides to jump off a tall building might be called irrational on the basis of that information alone. If he does it because he believes he is superman and able to fly then he is irrational: he is not superman and he will punge to his death. If he does it because he wants to kill himself then he is not irrational, because jumping off a tall enough building is a perfectly reasonable means towards this end. We might try equally hard in each case to dissuade him from jumping, but the approach would be different because the underlying thought processes are different. Stathis Papaioannou _ Be one of the first to try Windows Live Mail. http://ideas.live.com/programpage.aspx?versionId=5d21c51a-b161-4314-9b0e-4911fb2b2e6d --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ 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 [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
