What could make morality objective?

[Belinda]

There is no evidence for ontic status. If I believe in supernatural being that's a matter for faith. However if you are true to the principle of scepticism you have to be agnostic about supernatural being of the personal sort and of the Platonic sort.

Mind-dependency cannot be proved to be absolutely the case however much evidence there is for it.

[TimeSeeker]

There is no evidence for ontic status. If I believe in supernatural being that's a matter for faith. However if you are true to the principle of scepticism you have to be agnostic about supernatural being of the personal sort and of the Platonic sort.

Mind-dependency cannot be proved to be absolutely the case however much evidence there is for it.

No. That is a false dichotomy. On matters of ontology - I remain agnostic. I am not making any claims for supernatural origins or otherwise.

I say "I don't know'. To pressure me to utter anything else is to pressure me to lie.

Until somebody tells me HOW we will know that we have found the One, TRUE ontology.

HOW do you look for a missing person without a description, a photo, or SOME identification marks?!?
I have no time for that hamster wheel...

[Belinda]

TimeSeeker wrote:

HOW do you look for a missing person without a description, a photo, or SOME identification marks?!?
I have no time for that hamster wheel...

You invent a chimaera of your own choice. I have recently on this board invented the chimaera of omniscience and of course am only copying what theists believe in. A model which is contrary to nature can be used better to understand nature, where 'nature' includes human psyches.
I note that you are agnostic about the supernatural. I am too and I also prefer nature to supernature.

[TimeSeeker]

TimeSeeker wrote:

HOW do you look for a missing person without a description, a photo, or SOME identification marks?!?
I have no time for that hamster wheel...

You invent a chimaera of your own choice. I have recently on this board invented the chimaera of omniscience and of course am only copying what theists believe in.

Which is exactly what the omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God is. An epistemic chimera

We are striving to become God. So you could say I believe in the pursuit of the chimera, if not the chimera itself!

In terms of my behavior - there is no observable difference in practice.

[Belinda]

TimeSeeker wrote:

Which is exactly the omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent God is. An epistemic chimera

I agree.So I suppose that you trust reason. So do I. That is why I am a Spinozan pantheist.

We are striving to become God. So you could say I believe in the pursuit of the chimera, if not the chimera itself!

I dont know what striving to become God can mean. I guess your chimaera is not as well delineated as mine.

[TimeSeeker]

I agree.So I suppose that you trust reason.

It has its limits. We must recognize why some of its biases are that way - being overly pessimistic ensured survival.

Being aware of the the mind's limits means I can augment its shortcomings with tools.

Which is why I outsource some of the mental heavy lifting (computation, automation) to machines.

[TimeSeeker]

I dont know what striving to become God can mean. I guess your chimaera is not as well delineated as mine.

Knowledge is power. One of Feynman’s quotes was “What I cannot create I do not understand”. I like to keep myself accountable to that standard of knowledge/understanding.

From knowledge comes prediction AND control. Control of the environment. Control of the future. So to put power on a qualitative continuum:

* You get powerless (can't even tie their own shoes)
* You get powerful: can build primitive tools
* You get powerful: can grow their own food.
* You get powerufl: can cure disease
* You get powerful: can transplant organs engineer self
* You get powerful: can control the environment/ecosystem to their own advantage
* You get powerful: can create planets/life/ecosystems
* You get powerful: can create/change/manipulate universes.

I am sure we can add and remove milestones all in between, but I am sure you get the gist of the progression. The most powerful entity that we can imagine is "God". I guess "transhumanism" is one over-simplification.

And if it turns out that there are multiverses and multimultiverses then I guess we are going to have to upgrade our chimera....

[Belinda]

TimeSeeker, I'd not thought of God as absolute power. I had thought of God as absolute order/meaning.

Power is impossible without content, so God as power is impossible without a manifested and relativistic substance. In other words God as power is nonsense if it's not power of change through time or space. At your one of your lower terrestrial levels for instance the man who lacks a viable heart changes to the man who has a viable heart transplant.

However order/meaning can be thoroughly abstracted from our terrestrial models i.e. mathematics. The Platonic God-as -order does not necessarily have anything to do with morality.
Biosphere needs death and decay .

[TimeSeeker]

TimeSeeker, I'd not thought of God as absolute power. I had thought of God as absolute order/meaning.

I don't see the two as disjointed ideas.

The universe is chaotic, entropic - always changing. In order to bring order to the chaos one requires power/control (work? energy?). There are some parallels to thermodynamics here.

In order to manifest meaning from one's mind into reality - one requires power/control. Creation? Creativity?

Human values and desires are all over our mythology...

[Belinda]

TimeSeeker, I'd not thought of God as absolute power. I had thought of God as absolute order/meaning.

I don't see the two as disjointed ideas.

The universe is chaotic, entropic - always changing. In order to bring order to the chaos one requires power/control (work? energy?). There are some parallels to thermodynamics here.

In order to manifest meaning from one's mind into reality - one requires power/control. Creation? Creativity?

Human values and desires are all over our mythology...

But I think of 'absolute' as indicating the absolute default like "
(of a computer program or other mechanism) revert automatically to (a preselected option).
when you start a fresh letter the system will default to its own style"
synonyms: revert; select automatically
"when you start a fresh letter, the program will default to its own style" "



In this case there would not be any need for injection of power to change anything because anything that is not the absolute default, i.e. eternal order, is relative absence of it, so all reverts to order. Entropy itself according to this model would be intrinsic to the default order.I recall that you are a scientist not a metaphysician so maybe you will not talk the language of metaphysics.So be it whatever.

[TimeSeeker]

But I think of 'absolute' as indicating the absolute default like "
(of a computer program or other mechanism) revert automatically to (a preselected option).
when you start a fresh letter the system will default to its own style"
synonyms: revert; select automatically
"when you start a fresh letter, the program will default to its own style" "



In this case there would not be any need for injection of power to change anything because anything that is not the absolute default, i.e. eternal order, is relative absence of it.

I do not know how to think about ordered concretes/absolutes without involving the human mind in some way. The "pre-selected option" is what I call entropy.
The things that are random - the things which are beyond our understanding or control. The things that CHANGE without us interfering.

And so in that context the sentence "eternal order" is an oxymoron.

With or without us being here to see it - maximum entropy is at the end of the line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_deat ... e_universe

The "eternal order" is total chaos! And if we were able to do a time-lapse video - the road there is Biblical hell.

[Belinda]

TimeSeeker wrote:

I do not know how to think about ordered concretes/absolutes without involving the human mind in some way.

I can do it only by the shaky scaffolding of analogous images. Metaphysical claims are ultimately based on faith not reason.

BTW, are you possibly conflating 'eternal' and 'everlasting' ?

[TimeSeeker]

BTW, are you possibly conflating 'eternal' and 'everlasting' ?

Both of these sound equally wrong Equally as wrong as the word 'infinite'.

There are no infinities. The universe has a finite lifespan. So what does the word 'eternal' mean in relation to the word 'finite' ?

[Belinda]

BTW, are you possibly conflating 'eternal' and 'everlasting' ?

Both of these sound equally wrong Equally as wrong as the word 'infinite'.

There are no infinities. The universe has a finite lifespan. So what does the word 'eternal' mean in relation to the word 'finite' ?

Eternal does not relate to or that I can contrast with finite, it's everlasting that relates to and that I can contrast with finite.


What relates to 'eternal' is 'relative' or in advaita terms 'dual' and 'non-dual'.

[TimeSeeker]

What relates to 'eternal' is 'relative' or in advaita terms 'dual' and 'non-dual'.

From 30 seconds of Google:

The Vedanta tradition also posits the concept of Brahman as the eternal, unchanging metaphysical reality

Eternal, unchanging, metaphysical reality is not something my brain can parse.

My metaphysics (ideas/beliefs etc.) change constantly. They are also finite - I am taking them to the grave. Unless I figure out how to move them from my head into other heads.