Are You Human?

  On 4/3/2011 at 3:39 AM, kaini said:

what is temperature? temperature is the innate sense that humans have to tell warm from cold

what is warm or cold? warm or cold are what humans tend to call temperature as a convenient shorthand.

warm or cold are very flexible concepts. hence temperature is a very flexible concept.

i think morality exists because of mirror neurons. You don't cut your neighbour's arm because it feels like you're cutting your own. But one can get used to anything.

killing someone is wrong by nearly anyone's standards. placing your hand onto a red-hot stove is just stupid by nearly anyone's standards.

  On 4/3/2011 at 3:46 AM, Babar said:

  On 4/3/2011 at 3:39 AM, kaini said:

what is temperature? temperature is the innate sense that humans have to tell warm from cold

what is warm or cold? warm or cold are what humans tend to call temperature as a convenient shorthand.

warm or cold are very flexible concepts. hence temperature is a very flexible concept.

 

i think morality exists because of mirror neurons. You don't cut your neighbour's arm because it feels like you're cutting your own. But one can get used to anything.

I don't care about my neighbour. But blood and gore is gross. heheheh ;-p

  On 4/3/2011 at 3:56 AM, kaini said:

killing someone is wrong by nearly anyone's standards. placing your hand onto a red-hot stove is just stupid by nearly anyone's standards.

you're quite right that morality is a very flexible concept.

for example, what about killing someone in order to save 5 others?

or putting your hand on a red hot stove to possibly stop a bomb from going off? (not that this one has much to do w/ morals - just askin)

  On 4/3/2011 at 4:03 AM, luke viia said:

for example, what about killing someone to save 5 others?

 

or putting your hand on a red hot stove to possibly stop a bomb from going off?

these are the oldest gedankenexperiments in the book

Trolley problem

The Case of the Speluncean Explorers

Violinist (thought experiment)

i can't really give a definitive answer - i don't think anyone can. but personally speaking i'd kill that violinist, explorer, or the single person. i wouldn't like it, but i believe in science, maths, the laws of probability, the greater good, etc., etc.

yes they are, just had to make sure this thread didn't gloss over them

edit: hadn't heard of "the violinist" one... thanks for that, yer my favorite kaini

I have a feeling this thread is about to morph into some Zeitgeist nonsense.

OR AM I DANCER????????

first post

some days i wonder if troon is just a very bored a&r guy

  On 4/3/2011 at 4:08 AM, kaini said:

  On 4/3/2011 at 4:03 AM, luke viia said:

for example, what about killing someone to save 5 others?

 

or putting your hand on a red hot stove to possibly stop a bomb from going off?

 

these are the oldest gedankenexperiments in the book

 

Trolley problem

The Case of the Speluncean Explorers

Violinist (thought experiment)

 

i can't really give a definitive answer - i don't think anyone can. but personally speaking i'd kill that violinist, explorer, or the single person. i wouldn't like it, but i believe in science, maths, the laws of probability, the greater good, etc., etc.

fascinating, thanks!

I am

I always picture Troon as some skinny vegan guru sitting atop a tall purple lily in the lotus position.

With long black hair.

me too

Is this troons way of saying we are all really fuckin stupid?

  On 4/5/2011 at 4:27 AM, karmakramer said:

Is this troons way of saying we are all really fuckin stupid?

LOL

  On 4/1/2011 at 11:58 PM, Z_B_Z said:

being post human is so 2001.

  On 4/3/2011 at 3:23 AM, delet... said:

Morality we didn't 'invent', perhaps you could say nature created it and we reside blissfully under it's shady branches.

i like this, and agree. it's the same with 'Love', i think, also..

but then you could say the same about fear, hate, aggression, anger, etc. etc.

All the components that make morality tick.

  On 4/3/2011 at 3:38 AM, vamos scorcho said:

so if God just 'happened.' if the universe just 'happened.' then what?

 

how can anything exist without something before it. what IS IT!??????!!!!!!

 

 

someone refer me to some good philosophy that goes into this. Heidegger ?

what if there's trillions of "God's", all of whom evolved enough to create trillions of Universe's at their will, from 'something' we know nothing of yet? where does that leave us? lol.

yeah, best not to think about it.............. we've a long long way to go i reckon! ;)

tho we can all still play 'Sims' if we like, for a taste, maybe... lol

why did you remove the picture, troon?

  On 4/3/2011 at 1:17 AM, troon said:

who here believes in wrong and right? do you believe in such a thing?

It depends on a bunch of things. I'm pretty convinced there are individual and social ideas of right and wrong that are based in some general values.. I think right and wrong stem directly from our understanding of pleasure and pain.

While right/wrong begins and ends in one individual's brain and doesn't float around in the air, it's kinda hard to make out the concept of morality from a subjective perspective. What's wrong about wrong is usually the pain that shame and guilt makes you feel, either because of other people judging you or you judging yourself - all this being based on your relationship with other people and what you value in your day-to-day experience. I believe that within the individual himself, removed from all others, there is no right and wrong.

So while it's a social construction, I really don't believe these terms are universally applicable, some people derive pleasure from pain and we are kind of crazy as a collective (I'm especially fascinated with our tendency to do wrong out of curiousity).. But I believe there's right in what gives me pleasure on some level. It depends on where that pleasure comes from - Like, I value compassion which influences what I derive pleasure from and I have to understand that other people don't share that by default - but I'm at a loss on how to argue against something that feels good (stupidity would be one way but in nature, stupidity fixes itself). Like in terminator 2, when the kid tries to explain to the terminator why killing is wrong, I can't explain my ideas of sharing and compassion to someone who doesn't care for that sort of thing - if you don't hold those values there are no real logical ways to explain it other than the social evolutionary purpose. My values never pit me as some universal judge against people's actions, but I'm more or less ruled by my emotions and will react negatively to things I percieve as wrong by my judgment, even things that don't directly concern me.

So, while I look at right/wrong as more of a socially encouraged delusion than rule & truth, I still stick to my associations of pleasure and pain - and how a little sensitivity in the way you express yourself as a human usually ties into our more seasoned moral principles. That said, in this year of our lord there are a TON of bullshit rights and wrongs floating around that don't make humans very happy, mainly because we're normally somewhat stupid and afraid.

  Quote

is it possible that learned behaviors over time could be validated by this same process of preference and naturalized into our culture and tradition?

 

after a period of time would we know the difference? have we lost our criterion? what shall we reference to get it back, is there an authority that we would respect?

 

do we want it back? do we avoid knowing the truth conveniently? could the truth actually be a common sense that we suppress daily?

I can't figure out where you're attempting to go with this, but I'll contend that truth is extremely relative..

  On 4/3/2011 at 3:35 AM, vamos scorcho said:

*snip*

what is this? what is reality and existence? what is this? why is this happening? why does the present moment exist? where did it come from? how can the moment end? from where did existence come? *snip*

To me, these types of questions make all other human concerns dwarf in comparison. I would like to believe that while we aren't equipped for these questions (presently), our purpose in the world lies in pleasure and learning (about ourselves, maybe eachother), and we are more than well equipped for that. I'm sure there are better ways to follow that purpose than what we're doing now - maybe we need to work out a few kinks as a race before we can get our act together.

troon you are a cool dude but some times your ego is a bit egregious