[Luis Dias]

There are some quips here that boil my blood, seriously. I have to self-restrain .

First of all, when you state that:

Philosophy has no place in this discussion. This is about science, and you need to have evidence. Get out.

you are implying several things. First, you are implying (and have throughout your pieces) that I am anti-science, because I dare to disagree with you. You hinted that I may even be insane, etc. I don't like that kind of tone. Second, you are implying an absurd thing: that we are here doing science. No, we are here debating things using logic and our knowledge. IOW, we are making philosophy here. It always strikes me as completely hipocritical for some people in the internet that I find (in blogs, forums, etc.) to make essays on how "Philosophy" sucks and is immaterial, completely oblivious to the fact that they "are" doing, or at least trying to do, philosophy. It's self-contradictory.

Third, I didn't know that you owned this thread like some dictator to order me around and tell me what to do, "get out".
If this kind of attitude of yours is not corrected, I will not answer more of your posts. Now to the core issues.

Let's get some things straight. I did not say that human behavior isn't predictable. Some of it is "somewhat" predictable, some of it isn't, but even conceding that it is, we are not finding out whether such behavior is GOOD or BAD. We are only finding out WHAT IT IS. To accuse me of being shockingly ignorant about the basic fact that we can diagnose "depression" is really irritating, because I can't find in my notes any passage that implies such inanity.

Now, I have used extreme examples in my case, and still in such cases we will find people who disagree "with the norm". This means that in any other less extreme example, we will find such choices completely dominated by desires, by emotions, etc., and they may differ completely person to person. Your solution to this problem is to call anyone who deviates from your norm as "insane". That's utterly Orwellian and I want no part in it.

And who among us aside from Nuke wants nuclear war? We are back, again, to basic biological impulses: when should we kill, when should we die. We can quantify what it will require to make you take certain choices, but you insist that this doesn't prove we know what you will choose. It's madness.

Either you are not reading well, or you are just poking straw mans after straw mans. What I will choose is besides the point. What you are able to predict in my behavior is also besides the point. We can begin a discussion about behavior and statistics another time, if you like but we are just deviating from the subject at hand. What the point is that even if you "predict" what I would do, this tells us ZERO, NADA, to whether if it is right or wrong to do so.

You say that morals are scientifically testable because you can observe, theorize and test our behaviors. This is important, but irrelevant. It does not tell us if such morals are bad or good. It merely describes them as they are. "Mr John didn't pursue love for mr. Joshua because he finds such love to be utterly immoral". Any paper deviating from this grammatical approach of "observation" and stating for instance "of course he was wrong, because homossexuality is perfectly ok" is already philosophical editorializing. How do you know that homossexuality is "perfectly ok"? You must first describe "ok" in a scientific testable manner.

Now you're simply being willfully ignorant. Science can determine a normal. From that we can assign a "this performance is worse than normal" and a "this performance is better than normal" by simple means; does it do it faster or slower now? Can it do more or less? Is this more or less efficient?

Yes, so there you go, it's Borg philosophy in a nutshell. Ok, I won't disagree, it is one possibility. If you really *credit*, favor, desire for efficiency, speed and quantity, then you may derive something from this. But in order to do this, you *must* have these desires first. Don't you see? What if what I desire is something less efficient, slower? What if I am happier living slower? Then I may reach entirely different conclusions from you.

Your solution to this problem is just saying "he's insane, throw him to the asylum". This is nihilism in a nutshell. Abusing the godwin's law for a moment, it eerily reminds me the nazi obsession for the purity of genes, as if a perfect gene could even exist. And then throwing to the dustbin any deviation from such perfection. Of course, in no time you'll have everyone but yourself in the dustbin...

You must know everything, or you know nothing. This is your stance, then? Here's a term you'll do well to learn: confidence level. You aren't talking like a scientist at all. You're talking like a priest.

You didn't understand. In order to find out whether if something is, in itself, RIGHT, I think you'd have to revolutionize the entire field of science to something quite different from today. This is not finding out if someone believes or behaves as if something is right, or finding out the majority of the population beliefs or behaviors.

I am utterly pessimistic about this exchange of ours. And until you drop this "you talkin like a priest" attitude, we will get nowhere.

[Luis Dias]

Sam Harris is a fool, commiting the natural fallacy. This has been discussed ad eternum elsewhere for a long time already, and I really find his arguments lacking.

Umm, where is he committing the natural fallacy? What he's clearly saying is that when a religious whacko does something bad, it's bad and irrational because it doesn't achieve what even the whacko ultimately wants, which is human well-being. He's not saying it's bad just because he or science says it is, he's saying it's bad because it contradicts what the whacko himself is trying to achieve. That's not a naturalistic fallacy, that's saying that religious fanaticism is just a really poor tool for achieving the things religious fanatics claim they're trying to achieve, which, as with pretty much everyone else, is usually human well-being.

He is assuming that he *knows* what the whacko is trying to achieve. Claiming that everyone wants "human well being" may be a good generalization, a useful line and a good way to analyse things, but it is ultimately subjective and irrational. What exactly *is* human well being? Sam goes on to say in many places that well being is this and that, that we can measure it, etc. Sheer nonsense. He's just fooling himself. Yes, we can measure many chemicals and brain states, but to say that we can scientifically grip the entirety of what it means to be human, what it means to choose the things we do, etc., is just hubris to the highest degree.

The problem with these kinds of assertions is that they are followed up with "scientific reasons" why X is wrong and Y is right, without making the huge caveats that such "reasons" are nothing more than derivations from one value to another, informed by a prolonged equation of some sorts. And such first values are always assumed.

Now if this is the scope of what is intended: to create a web of science papers that inform us better about the factual consequences of adopting certain values, then I am all for it. To pretend however that such papers inform, per se what we should do is fallacious.

[Luis Dias]

I say that if it can be described, then we can also prescribe it. Why am I wrong?

Wow. Just wow.

Ok. Bear with me. You can describe what a blue pencil does to a sheet of paper. Now use this description in order to describe what I should do with it, without invoking a single desire (desires are not "scientific reasons"). I'm waiting.

[Luis Dias]

Actually, Luis Dias is being completely self-consistent and logical in his discourse here.  He is correctly pointing out that there is a distinction between the what and the why.  He is a rational atheist, which is (ironically) a refreshing change from the irrational atheism that so often pervades the discussion on HLP and elsewhere.

Indeed, one cannot arrive at morality except through philosophy, whatever that may be.  Science can only provide facts; it cannot provide reasons.

Given that you fully support the existence of a magic man in the sky based on myth and nonexistent evidence, I don't believe you have the moral authority to declare what is and is not rational.

This was just rude.

[karajorma]

Would you lot please keep it civil?

I'm actually enjoying the discussion. If it degenerates into an argument or if there is any further name calling bans will be handed out.

This was just rude.

As was the comment about irrational atheism.

[NGTM-1R]

you are implying several things.

This is The Internet. Don't deal in implication when you don't have the cues to be sure is pretty much rule number one.

First, you are implying (and have throughout your pieces) that I am anti-science, because I dare to disagree with you. You hinted that I may even be insane, etc. I don't like that kind of tone.

No such thing has been implied. I have stated that I do not believe you actually understand either of your subjects, morality or science.

Second, you are implying an absurd thing: that we are here doing science. No, we are here debating things using logic and our knowledge.

There are two problems with this statement. The first is that it's actually directly contradictory to what I've said. I have made references to outside sources (admittedly not specific) for scientific backing, not claimed we are doing it here. (Seriously, how the hell did you get that?)

The second is that logic is essentially expressible as math, and math is a science, so arguably we are. I wouldn't personally describe it that way, but there you go.

IOW, we are making philosophy here. It always strikes me as completely hipocritical for some people in the internet that I find (in blogs, forums, etc.) to make essays on how "Philosophy" sucks and is immaterial, completely oblivious to the fact that they "are" doing, or at least trying to do, philosophy.

I don't think philosophy sucks. This is a pretty tangent, but it's not relevant, so let me spell it out: philosophy is not an evidence-based subject and is not required to have any bearing on reality. It thus has nothing to offer to this discussion, because it will offer you no proof.

Third, I didn't know that you owned this thread like some dictator to order me around and tell me what to do, "get out".

This is called hyperbole. I think you might have been on The Internet long enough to become familar with it.

However, in simplest terms, if you refuse to actually engage with an argument, then yes, I think I am fully within my rights to tell you to get out of it. So far when I've asked you to prove that something isn't science, you've gone off on tangents about other subjects. The closest you've come to engaging with my point was actually a concession that anything of reality is science. Since morality is, by your admission, a real though intangible thing, it is also of science.

Let's get some things straight. I did not say that human behavior isn't predictable. Some of it is "somewhat" predictable, some of it isn't, but even conceding that it is, we are not finding out whether such behavior is GOOD or BAD. We are only finding out WHAT IT IS. To accuse me of being shockingly ignorant about the basic fact that we can diagnose "depression" is really irritating, because I can't find in my notes any passage that implies such inanity.

It would be good to read ahead on occasion, it might make your arguments more valid...

Now, I have used extreme examples in my case, and still in such cases we will find people who disagree "with the norm". This means that in any other less extreme example, we will find such choices completely dominated by desires, by emotions, etc., and they may differ completely person to person. Your solution to this problem is to call anyone who deviates from your norm as "insane". That's utterly Orwellian and I want no part in it.

This has absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote. I addressed your specific examples with that adjective, so you decide to extend it to any possible disagreement from the norm? That's a pure, blatant straw man. It's utterly deceitful.

For that matter, it doesn't seem to occur to you that insanity covers a myriad of different conditions. You seem to directly equate it with gibbering homicidal lunacy. There are lesser and less-dangerous forms. In fact, in my arguments I could well be considered tolerant in recognizing that while ultimately the belief in, say, a Flat Earth is by this point clearly a form of insanity, it does not necessarily impair functioning and thus it's not something that really needs to be corrected.

Either you are not reading well, or you are just poking straw mans after straw mans. What I will choose is besides the point. What you are able to predict in my behavior is also besides the point. We can begin a discussion about behavior and statistics another time, if you like but we are just deviating from the subject at hand. What the point is that even if you "predict" what I would do, this tells us ZERO, NADA, to whether if it is right or wrong to do so.

You seem to have lost part of the point. In fact, the key part. If we can predict the consequences of a nuclear war, does that have no moral authority at all? In fact, if we are biologically wired in a certain fashion that creates human morality as we understand it, does that have no bearing on this discussion?

On the contrary, it has everything to do with this discussion, because the fact we are wired a certain way does not make it the best way. There are any number of human biological functions that can kill you for no physically sound reason at all. Allergies come to mind.

All previous moral systems have not had the remotest chance to separate the biological imperatives from what is truly the most efficient method to get things done. That chance is here, now. The option should at least be explored, but you would tell me that this cannot be done, that it does not exist!

You say that morals are scientifically testable because you can observe, theorize and test our behaviors. This is important, but irrelevant. It does not tell us if such morals are bad or good. It merely describes them as they are. "Mr John didn't pursue love for mr. Joshua because he finds such love to be utterly immoral". Any paper deviating from this grammatical approach of "observation" and stating for instance "of course he was wrong, because homossexuality is perfectly ok" is already philosophical editorializing. How do you know that homossexuality is "perfectly ok"? You must first describe "ok" in a scientific testable manner.

I already did. You should really read ahead.

Yes, so there you go, it's Borg philosophy in a nutshell. Ok, I won't disagree, it is one possibility. If you really *credit*, favor, desire for efficiency, speed and quantity, then you may derive something from this.  But in order to do this, you *must* have these desires first.  Don't you see?

No. In simplest terms, you do not. The entire process of evolution refutes you, sir. Evolution is blind, undirected, and results over time in improved efficiency for your environment. We can wait for nature to take its course, if you like, but you will go there whether you want to or not.

Unless you think we are no longer subject to evolution? Basic biology does not apply? I really don't know what point you're trying to make here.

Don't you see? What if what I desire is something less efficient, slower? What if I am happier living slower? Then I may reach entirely different conclusions from you.

That's great, but your conclusions are utterly irrelevant in the face of facts. As I said, you're coming along for the biology ride whether you want to or not.

Your solution to this problem is just saying "he's insane, throw him to the asylum".

As noted above, this is patently untrue. It is a very poor generalization at best. That you threw in the reducto ad Hitlerum is merely icing on an ass-shaped cake.

You didn't understand. In order to find out whether if something is, in itself, RIGHT, I think you'd have to revolutionize the entire field of science to something quite different from today.

You claim, in other words, that truth does not exist. I propose a simple experiment. Take two food items and eat one. It is now true, if you followed the instructions, that you have one left. Truth exists after all.

You may be extremely uncomfortable with the search for quantifiable moral truth, but that does not and cannot (by your own admission) invalidate it.

without invoking a single desire (desires are not "scientific reasons").

There's your problem. It all comes down to this. They are. I refer you to Battuta back on the first page. The human mind is explicable. Your desires can be explained, and predicted, and influenced through the use of the science.

[Bob-san]

Noooooo, without vault-tec we are screwed.

Ghoulification > Experimentation

[zookeeper]

Sam Harris is a fool, commiting the natural fallacy. This has been discussed ad eternum elsewhere for a long time already, and I really find his arguments lacking.

Umm, where is he committing the natural fallacy? What he's clearly saying is that when a religious whacko does something bad, it's bad and irrational because it doesn't achieve what even the whacko ultimately wants, which is human well-being. He's not saying it's bad just because he or science says it is, he's saying it's bad because it contradicts what the whacko himself is trying to achieve. That's not a naturalistic fallacy, that's saying that religious fanaticism is just a really poor tool for achieving the things religious fanatics claim they're trying to achieve, which, as with pretty much everyone else, is usually human well-being.

He is assuming that he *knows* what the whacko is trying to achieve. Claiming that everyone wants "human well being" may be a good generalization, a useful line and a good way to analyse things, but it is ultimately subjective and irrational. What exactly *is* human well being? Sam goes on to say in many places that well being is this and that, that we can measure it, etc. Sheer nonsense. He's just fooling himself.

Human well-being is whatever you and the religious whacko would agree human well-being to encompass.

The problem with these kinds of assertions is that they are followed up with "scientific reasons" why X is wrong and Y is right, without making the huge caveats that such "reasons" are nothing more than derivations from one value to another, informed by a prolonged equation of some sorts. And such first values are always assumed.

Yep, no naturalistic fallacy there. He's not proposing creating values using science, he's assuming values.

Now if this is the scope of what is intended: to create a web of science papers that inform us better about the factual consequences of adopting certain values, then I am all for it. To pretend however that such papers inform, per se what we should do is fallacious.

Yes, and AFAICT he isn't pretending that. He's saying that fine, you have your values (which can be whatever), but science or a rational, scientific approach can inform you of how to most efficiently act according to those values or which approaches are actually harmful according to your values or perhaps contradictory.

Also at sometime around 0:20 he was (IMO) making the rather inverse point of an "ought" being a basis for every "if". You can't have an "if" without also an implicit "ought" telling how you should formulate your beliefs. If you say that it's raining outside then you're already including an "ought" in that; that is, the methodology of how you're supposed to know whether it's raining or not and how you should communicate that.

[Luis Dias]

First, you are implying (and have throughout your pieces) that I am anti-science, because I dare to disagree with you. You hinted that I may even be insane, etc. I don't like that kind of tone.

No such thing has been implied. I have stated that I do not believe you actually understand either of your subjects, morality or science.

I was being generous. Still be aware, the feeling is mutual.

Second, you are implying an absurd thing: that we are here doing science. No, we are here debating things using logic and our knowledge.

There are two problems with this statement. The first is that it's actually directly contradictory to what I've said. I have made references to outside sources (admittedly not specific) for scientific backing, not claimed we are doing it here. (Seriously, how the hell did you get that?)

The second is that logic is essentially expressible as math, and math is a science, so arguably we are. I wouldn't personally describe it that way, but there you go.

Philosophy uses logic. To state that logic is science, therefore everytime we use logic we are doing science is just silly. You outright stated that if my point is a philosophical one, "get out". Well of course it is a philosophical one, it couldn't be anything else.

IOW, we are making philosophy here. It always strikes me as completely hipocritical for some people in the internet that I find (in blogs, forums, etc.) to make essays on how "Philosophy" sucks and is immaterial, completely oblivious to the fact that they "are" doing, or at least trying to do, philosophy.

I don't think philosophy sucks. This is a pretty tangent, but it's not relevant, so let me spell it out: philosophy is not an evidence-based subject and is not required to have any bearing on reality. It thus has nothing to offer to this discussion, because it will offer you no proof.

Ridiculous. It has everything to offer to the discussion, and yes it is a tangent. For science to "overcome" philosophy, you'd have to show robustly how the hell you can derive an ought from an is. I am not denying that you may some day do it. But for the time being, 2010, I have been utterly unaware of such successes. And it's not because I'm uninformed.

Third, I didn't know that you owned this thread like some dictator to order me around and tell me what to do, "get out".

This is called hyperbole. I think you might have been on The Internet long enough to become familar with it.

It's not called hyperbole, it's called rudeness.

However, in simplest terms, if you refuse to actually engage with an argument, then yes, I think I am fully within my rights to tell you to get out of it. So far when I've asked you to prove that something isn't science, you've gone off on tangents about other subjects. The closest you've come to engaging with my point was actually a concession that anything of reality is science. Since morality is, by your admission, a real though intangible thing, it is also of science.

Ridiculous. I've never avoided any of these things, and on the contrary, it is you who failed to show how to derive an ought from an is. This is also outright silly: "that anything of reality is science". It's not even wrong a sentence, and yet you claim that I said it. How more evidence anyone here requires that you are not understanding what I am saying? What I said was utterly different, that is, I was denying that there is anything more in the world than what's in it. I was denying the supernatural. That's all. To state however that "Reality" (what the hell is that anyway?) is "Science" is one of the most egregiously self-ignorant but outright religious statements any "science-lover" can say. No, reality isn't science. Reality is what it is, it's a metaphysical entity, and I have nothing with it, read Wittgenstein for once. Science is a human activity of gathering knowledge. That's all it is.

It would be good to read ahead on occasion, it might make your arguments more valid...

sigh...

Now, I have used extreme examples in my case, and still in such cases we will find people who disagree "with the norm". This means that in any other less extreme example, we will find such choices completely dominated by desires, by emotions, etc., and they may differ completely person to person. Your solution to this problem is to call anyone who deviates from your norm as "insane". That's utterly Orwellian and I want no part in it.

This has absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote. I addressed your specific examples with that adjective, so you decide to extend it to any possible disagreement from the norm? That's a pure, blatant straw man. It's utterly deceitful.

For that matter, it doesn't seem to occur to you that insanity covers a myriad of different conditions. You seem to directly equate it with gibbering homicidal lunacy. There are lesser and less-dangerous forms. In fact, in my arguments I could well be considered tolerant in recognizing that while ultimately the belief in, say, a Flat Earth is by this point clearly a form of insanity, it does not necessarily impair functioning and thus it's not something that really needs to be corrected.

It has everything to do with what you wrote, and your last paragraph is a testament to it. Because someone does not accept basic knowledge we do accept about the world, you are eager to classify such people as "insane". Now mind you, if you do so non-seriously and rethorically I'd approve. But to do it scientifically is too much of a stretch. It is orwellian. Specially when you equate Science with Reality! I mean wow.

You seem to have lost part of the point. In fact, the key part. If we can predict the consequences of a nuclear war, does that have no moral authority at all? In fact, if we are biologically wired in a certain fashion that creates human morality as we understand it, does that have no bearing on this discussion?

First question, no. Nothing at all. Data is data, moral interpretation of said data is fully dependant upon the observer. Second question is irrelevant. If we are hard-wired to do X does not teach us if doing X or Not doing X is good or evil. You say it yourself:

On the contrary, it has everything to do with this discussion, because the fact we are wired a certain way does not make it the best way. There are any number of human biological functions that can kill you for no physically sound reason at all. Allergies come to mind.

For instance, someone is hard-wired to indulge in sexual interaction every hour. Should he therefore comply with such hard-wirings, even if it costs him his friends, jobs, etc.? Evolution does not teach us what is "Right". Not even what "Works". It only teaches us what kind of hard-wiring behaviors were able to survive thus far. And some of those hard-wirings are not pleasant, but arguably they did some good job on keeping the human race alive until now.

All previous moral systems have not had the remotest chance to separate the biological imperatives from what is truly the most efficient method to get things done. That chance is here, now. The option should at least be explored, but you would tell me that this cannot be done, that it does not exist!

Oh no, methods of doing something do exist. You just failed to input what exactly is that "Something". Sam Harris defines said "Something" as "human well being". I deem that kind of thing utterly subjective and outright incomplete. Worse, it's circular. What is the best course of action? The one that will create well being. Best and Well are the same kind of stuff. What is well being? Who is in charge of defining what is "Best"? To me, I can think that the best is to extinguish the human race so that planet earth survives. Fortunately I do not think so, but there are people who do. For some, the "best" is to die in martyrdom and have sexual intercourse with 72 young ladies.

Yes, so there you go, it's Borg philosophy in a nutshell. Ok, I won't disagree, it is one possibility. If you really *credit*, favor, desire for efficiency, speed and quantity, then you may derive something from this.  But in order to do this, you *must* have these desires first.  Don't you see?

No. In simplest terms, you do not. The entire process of evolution refutes you, sir. Evolution is blind, undirected, and results over time in improved efficiency for your environment. We can wait for nature to take its course, if you like, but you will go there whether you want to or not.

So I take it that you find "Evolution" to be a "Good Thing". So your morals are "Whatever survives is good". So, for instance, if nazi germany had won the second world war, that would have been good, because it happened? This is sheer nihilism, sir.

Unless you think we are no longer subject to evolution? Basic biology does not apply? I really don't know what point you're trying to make here.

Yes I can see that you don't. You are free to see evolution in good light and state that evolution is your moral reference. It is not one that I choose, nor one that most respectable biologists do. Most of them are outright leftists because of this awareness. The liberal project is exactly one of negating the process of evolution and stop it altogether. Values such as "equality" for instance are outright anti-darwinian.

Don't you see? What if what I desire is something less efficient, slower? What if I am happier living slower? Then I may reach entirely different conclusions from you.

That's great, but your conclusions are utterly irrelevant in the face of facts. As I said, you're coming along for the biology ride whether you want to or not.

So I guess that because it is unavoidable, it is therefore good? For instance, I die some day. Everyone will die. One can even say that every life form we met will die. Thus this is utterly good? Is this your measure of goodness, the inevitability of it? So why even bother with morals? If what happens is what is good, why have any morals in the first place? Just follow the drill and no one gets hurt! You are drowing in contradictions.

For your consideration I find the state of affairs named "human condition" utterly disgusting and if there's anything we can do to alter it in a good direction we should just do so.

As noted above, this is patently untrue. It is a very poor generalization at best. That you threw in the reducto ad Hitlerum is merely icing on an ass-shaped cake.

wtv

You claim, in other words, that truth does not exist. I propose a simple experiment. Take two food items and eat one. It is now true, if you followed the instructions, that you have one left. Truth exists after all.

I'm not fond of the word Truth taken in its extreme fashion, ie. absolute truth. I can take truths. I just can't stand people professing Truths with capital T.

Still that was not what I was saying. I was saying that I don't think that Absolute Right exists. Which is something different. There are moral relativists who deny truth relativism.

You may be extremely uncomfortable with the search for quantifiable moral truth, but that does not and cannot (by your own admission) invalidate it.

Quantifiable? Really? How do you propose this shenanigan? Utilitarianism? Ah!

without invoking a single desire (desires are not "scientific reasons").

There's your problem. It all comes down to this. They are. I refer you to Battuta back on the first page. The human mind is explicable. Your desires can be explained, and predicted, and influenced through the use of the science.

Desires are not scientific reasons, just as rocks are not scientific reasons. You are confusing categories. Rocks can be observed rather simply, just as desires can. But if desires is what is grounding human moral values, to state that you can observe and even manipulate them, does not inform you if you should, it only informs you that person A is desiring X, and that you can, if you want, make him desire Y. But why would you want such a thing? Your own desires. It's turtles all the way down, mister. Your arguments boil to nothing more than smoke and mirrors unconvering nada. Nothing. Nihilism. Nietzsche warned us all about it, more than a century ago. And even after WW2 there are still people who don't get it.

[Luis Dias]

Human well-being is whatever you and the religious whacko would agree human well-being to encompass.

At last, an agreement, except the insult part. Can't you leave him alone?

But I take it that you concede that if human well being is something we should agree on, then it has nothing scientific about it. It's about what we want.

Yep, no naturalistic fallacy there. He's not proposing creating values using science, he's assuming values.

He assumes too much.

Yes, and AFAICT he isn't pretending that. He's saying that fine, you have your values (which can be whatever), but science or a rational, scientific approach can inform you of how to most efficiently act according to those values or which approaches are actually harmful according to your values or perhaps contradictory.

Well, he does hints to more than that. And even accepting it, I'm rather suspicious of certain quantifications. Utilitarianism is dead.

Also at sometime around 0:20 he was (IMO) making the rather inverse point of an "ought" being a basis for every "if". You can't have an "if" without also an implicit "ought" telling how you should formulate your beliefs. If you say that it's raining outside then you're already including an "ought" in that; that is, the methodology of how you're supposed to know whether it's raining or not and how you should communicate that.

Absolutely. But I don't see that as reassuring to his thesis, much to the contrary.

[Hades]

[Sushi]

Seriously, great thread. Luis is my new hero.

I do think it might help if we refocus on exactly what we're debating about, though. Because there have been enough tangents and refutations of refutations that I'm starting to get a bit lost.

[Luis Dias]

Seriously, great thread. Luis is my new hero.

I do think it might help if we refocus on exactly what we're debating about, though. Because there have been enough tangents and refutations of refutations that I'm starting to get a bit lost.

Thanks. Perhaps that will do the trick. The main point, for me at least, is embebbed in the title. Sam Harris is less ambitious and more vague about this subject. But if you search for discussions about this matter, you'll see lots of backs and forths from a variety of intelligent people and Sam Harris himself. We could bring these up, but I am quite tired now, so I'll leave that kind of thing to anyone else.

The problem I have with NGTM is one of an entirely different worldview. So of course many other things will be brought up, because he assumes a lot of things that I don't, and perhaps vice-versa. He's a moral objectivist and a truth absolutist. Perhaps he himself is completely unaware of the arguments and problems that have been posed over the centuries on these positions. But from my point of view, his position has been obliterated somewhere around the nineteenth century. More or less at the same time that god died

[zookeeper]

Human well-being is whatever you and the religious whacko would agree human well-being to encompass.

At last, an agreement, except the insult part. Can't you leave him alone?

Umm, what? I'm not talking about anyone in particular.

But I take it that you concede that if human well being is something we should agree on, then it has nothing scientific about it. It's about what we want.

No, it's not what we should agree on, it's what we agree on. And science has as much relevance to that as it has to our agreement on a scientific issue.

Yep, no naturalistic fallacy there. He's not proposing creating values using science, he's assuming values.

He assumes too much.

Uh, what? People got values. He assumes people got values. How's that assuming too much?

Yes, and AFAICT he isn't pretending that. He's saying that fine, you have your values (which can be whatever), but science or a rational, scientific approach can inform you of how to most efficiently act according to those values or which approaches are actually harmful according to your values or perhaps contradictory.

Well, he does hints to more than that. And even accepting it, I'm rather suspicious of certain quantifications. Utilitarianism is dead.

No, utilitarianism is great.

Also at sometime around 0:20 he was (IMO) making the rather inverse point of an "ought" being a basis for every "if". You can't have an "if" without also an implicit "ought" telling how you should formulate your beliefs. If you say that it's raining outside then you're already including an "ought" in that; that is, the methodology of how you're supposed to know whether it's raining or not and how you should communicate that.

Absolutely. But I don't see that as reassuring to his thesis, much to the contrary.

I think it's reassuring to his thesis in the sense that it shows that almost all people share underlying oughts, and that those oughts say that one should use reason and a scientific'ish approach to things.

[Ghostavo]

This is the natural consequence of the secularization of the society. Philosophy and Science have been built as logical and empirical projects of knowledge of facts and patterns, while Religion was built as a moral nav buoy. Disregard for one second the religious question per se and focus on the historical anthropological questions. Science is about what is, Morality is about what should be - these questions are fully separated. (...)

Morality is not the sole domain of religion. You don't even need religion to derive morals and furthermore you can explain through game theory and evolution how those morals came to be.

Just something to ponder upon.

[General Battuta]

ghostavo is correct

philosophy is utterly immaterial to the discussion of almost everything. it is an exercise in masturbation based on the incorrect belief that humans can derive truths from assumptions using flawed heuristics.

science is the only domain of knowledge that has anything meaningful to say about morality. and what it says is that morality is a treaty: meaningful only because people agree to obey it, derived from evolution and memetic mutation in order to regulate stable societies.

there is no good or evil in the fabric of the universe, only mathematics.

[MP-Ryan]

But they cannot prescribe what they should do.

You are correct.  You're just missing the discipline that you need to be talking about.

Evolution, genetics, and behavioural genetics prescribe what we should do.  Behaviour is biologically evolved, not just learned.  All human societies share similar moral codes (with large variation among them, granted, but the principles they describe are fundamentally the same) because we have evolved to function as a cooperative society.  Altruism is quite literally coded into our DNA (as it is with a large number of our primate relatives).

One need not invoke philosophy to explain why we do and should do certain things.  Behavioural genetics explains it more than adequately, in conjunction with the other disciplines you've named.  Philosophy is akin to religion in many ways - it's a temporary attempt to explain things which we could not yet explain with science.  Behavioural genetics is beginning to reach a point where philosophy is nearing its demise as a discipline taken even remotely seriously, because we are rapidly discovering a large number of other species share behavioural (and societal) traits that we have always previously described solely in the human domain.  It's fairly clear that Mr. Dias there has some training or interest in philosophy, and while that's all well and good for him, philosophy still suffers from one enormous flaw:

No empirical evidence.

I can show you how behaviour evolves in conjunction (through at least four interaction types) with biology.  No one can show me empirical evidence of any of the philosophical principles.  It is a discipline based around descriptive and prescriptive ideas, not fact.

EDIT:  Sorry Battuta, I added to my post after you replied.

[General Battuta]

that is truth

also

one of the fundamental aspects of human morality seems to be our willingness to do whatever we're told to do, right down to killing our fellow human beings. we are not people with hard cores of moral fiber; we are circuits who do what the environment tells us to. witness the milgram and zimbardo experiments.

grim stuff. explains the holocaust and the military.

[MP-Ryan]

that is truth

also

one of the fundamental aspects of human morality seems to be our willingness to do whatever we're told to do, right down to killing our fellow human beings. we are not people with hard cores of moral fiber; we are circuits who do what the environment tells us to. witness the milgram and zimbardo experiments.

grim stuff. explains the holocaust and the military.

Yeah, the empirical evidence for groupthink alone shoots the whole "individual innate moral fibre" argument right in the foot.  Zimbardo's work was [horrific] genius, too - especially his own reactions to how the experiment was proceeding (he make an excellent video describing how it was his female graduate student that actually brought him back to reality).

[General Battuta]

whom i believe he was involved with somehow, right?

it's worth pointing out that there is a core group of people that seems resistant to paradigms like milgram or zimbardo. i'm open to the notion that religion and illusions of objective morality would help create people like that, though given the history of organized religion it's clear that in most cases they don't.

neither religion nor the notion of objective morality would exist if they didn't have some type of utility.

EDIDDENDUM: also, religion bashers should bear in mind that being religiously active can be very good for you. the actual tenets of the faith you're involved in don't matter - there is no evidence here of any god or supernatural force to bless you - but most faiths tend to gather in congregations, and having a big social network that supports you is very good for life expectancy and happiness.

of course being in an equally big and happy atheist club would probably do just as well.