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Comment by nendroid | Hacker News Reader

Well of course you can get really abstract, but let's keep the topic on things that we know about to the best of our knowledge. As far as we're aware science and logic applies to things outside of our own experience.

This is a semantic issue. Yeah you're not technically wrong that science and logic is part of the human experience.

But at the same time there is a demarcation between science/logic and religion. What's the semantic word used for this demarcation? I chose "human experience" but I'm sure you can agree that's just a semantic choice and that the principles of science and logic as far as we're "aware" apply "outside" of the "human experience" while religion and morality do not.

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> principles of science and logic as far as we're "aware" apply "outside" of the "human experience"

On the contrary if you take a critical thinking course, you'll see that your logic does apply to the human experience

>On the contrary if you take a critical thinking course, you'll see that your logic does apply to the human experience

Of course it does. I didn't say otherwise. All things we talk about are technically experienced through humans and thus all things are touched by the human experience. But that's just pedantics... we can think outside of that and assume that there are experiences other than our own even though technically the only thing we can experience is the "human experience."

There is a demarcation here that I'm talking about that separates science and religion. Perhaps culture is a better word than experience. What if I say that science and logic apply outside of "human culture" while religion and morality do not? Would that help you understand my point?

> What if I say that science and logic apply outside of "human culture" while religion and morality do not?

I would say that when it comes to morality in particular, I have the opposite intuition in that morality would be highly likely to extend behind the human experience. As you say in another comment, yes I agree that the rules are arbitrary and there is no absolute morality. However, that’s like that saying in statistics that all models are wrong. Yes, but some are useful.

All moral systems may be arbitrary (a perspective that by the way is a part of philosophy), but some are useful, perhaps even necessary, for the well-functioning of society. Discussing how to make, extend, and enforce these moral systems seems likely relevant to any society made of independent agents, whether human or not.

As a meta point, just as you can’t defeat science by doing better scientific experiments (because you’ll only ever be improving science by doing so), you can’t defeat philosophy by providing better philosophical arguments. The points you made about morality are points that other philosophers have already made. You are not avoiding philosophy by declaring morality to be arbitrary and defending your assertion, you are in fact doing the opposite and contributing to the philosophical discourse on the nature of morality.

Religion and morality are only two broad areas of philosophy. There are many more, if you care to look.

>The points you made about morality are points that other philosophers have already made. You are not avoiding philosophy by declaring morality to be arbitrary and defending your assertion, you are in fact doing the opposite and contributing to the philosophical discourse on the nature of morality. You can arbitrarily move the boundaries of the definition of a word to encompass whatever you want. That is what philosophy is. If I want to talk about something meta well being meta is part of philosophy because I defined it that way.

How about I redefine irrationality to include logic? Then when someone says I'm being irrational I just tell them they that irrationality is part of logic and that I'm actually being logical.

Philosophers always get into these meta paradoxes. These aren't profound concepts it's just language semantics involving the arbitrary definition of a word. If you define philosophy to be a many arbitrary academic fields including logical paradoxes and logical arguments then trying to logically argue your way out it of course it creates a sort of paradox. But the paradox only exists because of the arbitrary definition and that is exactly my argument.

Philosophy is an arbitrary definition. A hodgepodge of ideas many which have no relation to one another but it happens to include logic and self referential paradoxes that can be used to entrap anyone who attempts to argue against it. Word play has no meaning in the face of actual concepts, if philosophy is a word play then what's the point? It's basically the study of every single thing on the face of the earth.

It appears you don’t even know what philosophy is. If you think it’s all word play, you must either be unwilling or unable to understand the concepts behind the words.

All concepts can be victims of wordplay regardless of the complexity of the concept. Logic is Logic and religion is religion. These two words are concepts.

The word "Philosophy" combining the concepts like religion, morality, science and logic into a singular field of thought is called "word play" because the very definition of "Philosophy" is the combination of several of these concepts. Logic is used by math but it is not math, logic is used by science but it is not science. Could one say the same about philosophy? Can you remove all those concepts of religion and morality and science from philosophy and does the word "philosophy" have enough merit like "logic" to stand on it's own without resting on the shoulder of actual concepts?

The answer is no. The reason is because philosophy itself has no meaning it is simply a grouping of concepts and therefore "word play." My main argument in this entire thread is that the grouping that "philosophy" encompasses is arbitrary and flawed. Religion and Logic do not belong in the same group.

>All moral systems may be arbitrary (a perspective that by the way is a part of philosophy), but some are useful, perhaps even necessary, for the well-functioning of society. Discussing how to make, extend, and enforce these moral systems seems likely relevant to any society made of independent agents, whether human or not.

There are physical structures in your brain that point to genetic transmission of moral behavior. This indicates that morality is a product of natural selection. Moral behavior exists because it helps us survive similar to how hunger helps us survive. So what is the point of creating a philosophy around Morality when we don't create such philosophical studies around hunger? Why is there a philosophy of morality and not a philosophy of hunger when both sets of behaviors are arbitrary and serve the purpose you stated: "but some are useful, perhaps even necessary, for the well-functioning of society. Discussing how to make, extend, and enforce these <hunger/energy seeking/sex-drive> systems seems likely relevant to any society made of independent agents, whether human or not."

Clearly humans do not act morally. Pure moral behavior does not aid in survival. Rather a blend altruistic behavior and self interested behavior aids in survival. How natural selection implements this behavior is arbitrary. For humans, natural selection has NOT chosen to implement survival behavior through a singular processor, in short we do not see our survival as a blend of altruistic and self interested behavior. IN fact we do not even behave with "survival" on the forefront of our minds. Rather our behavior is implemented by our brain using conflicting emotional goals. These goals aid in our survival and exist for the purpose of our survival and are awareness of this fact or lack thereof is not a requirement.

We are aware of what evil behavior is, and we feel the emotions related to temptation we also feel guilt... we are also aware of good behavior and we feel emotions that reward us for altruistic behavior but also punish us when we do too much good to our own detriment. Genetic tuning of our emotional response largely influence our behavior. An evil person feels little response in harming others and an altruistic person feels great reward in helping others.

Morality and law arises as a phenomenon of our neo cortex attempting to parametrize and formalize these emotions. It is a mechanical side effect of trying to make greater sense of a mechanism that only has a singular purpose of survival. Morality is just a made up categorization of behaviors for a specific system.

The question is why then do we spend so much time trying to formalize ethics, fairness and altruistic behavior but spend almost no time trying to formalize other survival instincts like hunger or lust?

The hypothesis is complex but it exists. The neocortex (our higher level consciousness) is said to have evolved later in the evolution of life as a sort of higher level layer of consciousness that has executive control over our overall actions. Instincts like hunger and sex drive are baser survival instincts required for all things to survive and evolved relatively early before the neocortex. Many living things with no higher level consciousness such as bacteria display primitive versions of these instincts.

As a result our neocortex has no trouble recognizing hunger instinct or sex drive as separate modules within the human brain as these modules remain very well separated as they were created in different times of our species evolution. Therefore we don't care to analyze these modules as they are easily recognized as base instincts.

Group behavior involving altruism on the other hand evolved at a later time with the neocortex. Altruism aids in survival but its' benefits are not immediate and as a result like the neocortex such behaviors take longer to evolve. As a result it is harder for us to separate and see that these emotions are the same basal instincts as hunger because these modules are so integrated with the neocortex as they evolved together. We make the mistake and assume that morality arises from logic when it is in fact just a set of emotions reacting to certain actions and behaviors.

Due to the fact that the morality module in our brain is a product of natural selection you can actually probe it to find internal illogical inconsistencies that are unresolved because resolving such conflicts do not aid in survival. See the trolley problem: https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Trolley_problem and various edits to it like the fat man or the fat villain. Arbitrary edits that change the circumstance but not the overall logical moral consequences have a huge influence on human response showing that our modal module is not internally consistent because there was no need for mother nature to make it fully consistent as it does not aid in our survival. When you examine moral conflicts try to self-reflect. You will find that like all people you try to make sense of why you "feel" something is wrong in once case and why it isn't in another case. This process is exactly as I described, an attempt to formalize the resulting output of the moral module of your brain, but you just don't realize that this is what you're doing.

If it is worth studying morality as a philosophy then it is worth studying hunger and sex-drive as a philosophy as well. Philosophy chooses morality as a zone of study because it does not fully strip away the emotions and biases involved with the human experience in the same way that logic and science does.

> Why is there a philosophy of morality and not a philosophy of hunger when both sets of behaviors are arbitrary and serve the purpose you stated: "but some are useful, perhaps even necessary, for the well-functioning of society. Discussing how to make, extend, and enforce these <hunger/energy seeking/sex-drive> systems seems likely relevant to any society made of independent agents, whether human or not."

You are moving the goalposts. First, it was about whether or not morality is specific to human culture or not. Now, it’s about whether or not the study of morality counts as philosophy compared to the study of hunger or sex.

And yes, while I agree with most of your arguments about morality, you’re still making philosophical points. Yet again, you demonstrate an ignorance of what philosophy is in your attempts to brush it aside.

>You are moving the goalposts.

No goal post was moved. All my original points still stand. I am simply giving you the scientific explanation of morality... a deeper look than what philosophy has to offer. And why such an arbitrary construct makes philosophy a flawed field of study.

The hierarchy from existence to morality flows along a single branch of a highly complex tree. It flows like this:

   Existence-> atoms -> molecules -> evolution -> biology -> human biology -> neurology -> morality.

From this diagram of a single branch you can see that Morality is a biological phenomenon specific to humans. However, philosophy does NOT obey this categorization. It arbitrarily goes down this branch selects morality and places it side by side with "existence" as a field of study. Why didn't philosophy choose biology instead? Why did it have to flow specifically down the chain and pick out this really specific thing to humans called morality? Because when philosophy was invented many people were too stupid to realize that they had a biased view of the world with humanity and morality at the center of the universe.

Philosophy doesn't approach morality from this angle, it approaches it from a axiomatic logical angle as if it was a foundational thing when really morality is this very specific and arbitrary biological phenomenon.

>And yes, while I agree with most of your arguments about morality, you’re still making philosophical points. Yet again, you demonstrate an ignorance of what philosophy is in your attempts to brush it aside.

In logical debates, people tend not to make personal comments like "you're demonstrating ignorance" or other potentially disparaging garbage like that. If philosophers were truly logical they would just attack the subject matter rather than the character. I have a thesis how is it wrong? If you think evidence is flawed point it out. Deconstruct my points logically rather than stating your opinions about me and my points. Be more "philosopher" like.

Additionally this whole "you're still making philosophical points" is largely the main problem with philosophy. Someone decided hey lets' take any topic that's remotely interesting and package it up and put it under one field of study and call it philosophy. Great this package is so large that any thing that comes out of my mouth even criticism just happens to touch it.

The fact that my criticisms touch "philosophy" is why the field and word itself is loaded. It's stupid, if philosophy encompasses a bunch of BS but also logic than if I use logic to discount that BS than OF COURSE I'm going to be using "philosophy" because "logic" is part of "philosophy." Why don't you make "logic" part of the definition of "scientology" that way whenever you try to use logic to explain why scientology is wrong you will inevitably be using "scientology" to prove "scientology" wrong and be self defeating. Kind of a dumb way to defeat arguments.

> In logical debates, people tend not to make personal comments like "you're demonstrating ignorance" or other potentially disparaging garbage like that.

The point wasn’t to attack you, the point was that it’s futile to discuss “philosophy” if you continue to misrepresent what it is. Which is why I don’t have much more to say about the rest of your comment.

There is nothing misrepresented here. I am simply presenting facts and a conclusion based off of those facts. Other people have different facts and different conclusions based off of those facts. You think, philosophy is legit? Great, I respect your opinion, but I disagree and I will show you with pure logic why you are wrong and why I disagree.

If you disagree with my conclusion don't become emotional and call it a "misrepresentation." Deconstruct my conclusion and break it down to prove me wrong.

Any comment on my character or my actions is illogical and constitutes a personal attack. Focus on my conclusion. If I say philosophy is illegitimate than rather than say that I am "ignorant" or "misrepresenting" philosophy, stay logical and state that the conclusion is illogical and incorrect. Going into personal territory than running away like a scared cat by saying you have nothing more to say is a complete admission that you cannot win an argument by being logical or impersonal.

What's really going on here is that have nothing to say because logic has utterly defeated any capacity for you to deliver a counter argument. You cannot say anything because you know you are completely and utterly illogical and irrational and wrong.

If you had an argument you would present it, but of course we both know you have nothing.

> If you had an argument you would present it, but of course we both know you have nothing.

I’ve already presented some of my arguments. But of course we both know that you are being intellectually dishonest.

> What's really going on here is that have nothing to say because logic has utterly defeated any capacity for you to deliver a counter argument. You cannot say anything because you know you are completely and utterly illogical and irrational and wrong.

Ironic, isn’t it? Who’s being smug and emotional now? How old are you, out of curiosity?

But sure, I will engage with you on your childish level.

> No goal post was moved.

You originally said, and I quote:

> ...the principles of science and logic as far as we're "aware" apply "outside" of the "human experience" while religion and morality do not.

And when I gave reasons as to why entities outside of “human experience” might still have a use for morality, you did not counter that but instead moved the goalposts to:

> Why is there a philosophy of morality and not a philosophy of hunger

Boom, you were out-logic’d but unable to admit it. Wow. You can’t say anything about this because you were simply flat out wrong.

> All my original points still stand. I am simply giving you the scientific explanation of morality... a deeper look than what philosophy has to offer.

That’s what I mean, you refuse to acknowledge that the philosophical perspective takes into account the scientific one. It encompasses it. It’s greater than it. Science cannot be “deeper” than philosophy because philosophy includes the scientific perspective.

Funny how you accuse others of playing word games, when in reality that’s all you do. Because we both know your arguments have no other substance to them.

>But sure, I will engage with you on your childish level.

See, personal insults. That's why my post went on an expose to get you to say something substantial. Now you engage me because your pride is hurt.

>Ironic, isn’t it? Who’s being smug and emotional now?

I'm not being being emotional. Just triggering you to get you to respond. Also why does age matter here. It's irrelevant to me that you are clearly under the age of 10. I don't judge people based off age.

>And when I gave reasons as to why entities outside of “human experience” might still have a use for morality,

Anything central to the human experience can be considered useful by entities outside of humanity. For example swimming. Fish swim. So do humans. Therefore where is the philosophy of swimming? Clearly for some reason we feel morality is more important than swimming. My thesis is that it is NOT. Morality is just arbitrary behaviors with no more meaning than the motions that keep your head above water.... meaningless but maybe coincidentally meaningful to something else like fish.

And here's another indication of your bias. Who says intelligent entities are central to the universe? The concept of intelligence is another human invention. Clearly "intelligence" is just an arbitrary phenomenon that occurred on Earth. The fact you place anything "useful" to "entities" outside of the "human experience" is another form of bias similar to "intelligent design." Intelligence is NOT central to the universe or the creation of the universe. Like morality, Intelligence is a phenomenon in the universe as arbitrary as morality.

There is nearly an infinite amount of very low entropic structures that can be formed by atoms. The structures that encompass and lead to intelligence are a small arbitrary fraction of the total amount of these structures and therefore arbitrary.

Thus not even "intelligence" and "existence" are categories that go side by side... let alone "morality."

As I said before there is a clear categorical tree which indicates the origins of many concepts throughout the universe. The placement of morality and "entities with intelligence" on this categorical tree indicates that it is just an arbitrary creation. The placement of existence lives at the root of this tree.

>That’s what I mean, you refuse to acknowledge that the philosophical perspective takes into account the scientific one. It encompasses it. It’s greater than it. Science cannot be “deeper” than philosophy because philosophy includes the scientific perspective.

You can define a word "gloop" to encompass literal feces and science and logic. Therefore the concept of "gloop" which includes feces is more fundamental than science because it literally encompasses the scientific perspective. Does this make sense to you? I just defined a word that encompasses feces and science! This is the garbage logic you're presenting to me. Just replace feces with some obscure field of study from philosophy and you have the same BS.

Do you get it? I am saying philosophy is an arbitrary category made up by biased people who thought morality is as central of a question as existence. There is literally no difference between "gloop" and "philosophy."

>Funny how you accuse others of playing word games, when in reality that’s all you do. Because we both know your arguments have no other substance to them.

I don't see how anything is funny here. More like your pride is hurt so you want to pretend you're above it all by thinking everything I say or do is like a funny game to you. In actuality when you read it nothing is funny, it's just words.

Also I never accused others of playing "word games" I am saying people are ignorant and are participating in a word game without even knowing it. Philosophers don't realize how loaded the word "philosophy" is but they realize how "gloop" is a loaded word. It's pure ignorance or bias. You spend 4 years studying philosophy and suddenly you encounter evidence that shows you the entire field is loaded? What human in their right mind is logical enough to drop philosophy right then and there? No one. This is what's going on with you. Your bias prevents you from making the truly logical maneuver similar to how a christian who's been worshipping Christ for 20 years won't be able to give up his religion based off of a logical argument.

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