What could make morality objective?

[Belinda]

SDecrum wrote:

If 3 and 4 are integers, then the answer to the question is 0. There are no integers between 3 and 4.
if 3 and 4 are real numbers, then the answer is infinity. There are infinitely many numbers between 3 and 4.

3.0000000000...1
3.0000000000...2

Integers are discrete - they come in parcels. You can count them.
Real numbers are continuous - they are on a spectrum. You can't count them.

And Spectrum wrote:

But do you see the exact same pattern emerge here?

Are there little, discrete, categories of "mathematician", "philosopher", "scientist" or are we all humans on a spectrum?

Integers and real numbers are both true?

[Skepdick]

Then there is no event that can't possibly be defined and differentiated from other events. That is tantamount to claiming nature is ordered=each event is a necessary event=necessity is the engine of the Big Bang.

That's already a step too far, I think. The language (and conception) of an "event" is in its very own nature discrete - so you are treating time as discrete, not continuous.

An event has a beginning and an end. Starts at 3. Ends at 8.

It follows from the Big Bang perspective morality as a function of social reality is a necessary event. It does not follow we know a) the whole picture of necessity and b) the morality subsection of the whole picture of necessity.

The philosophical problem with "morality" is much like the Mathematical problem for "change". Defining it.

You can't really talk about any phenomenon (and even the word "phenomenon" requires the language of phenomenology) until we invent a language for it, and we both agree to use it.

If I am using the vocabulary of Calculus, and you using the vocabulary of "disparity" - we aren't going to get anywhere until we synchronise our languages and the meaning of our words. Until we do that, we would be talking right past each other.

All philosophical debated end up to this point: semantics. What do words mean? How do words relate to reality?

From previous experience we, as animals that can learn, and we do know our most efficacious way to Big Bang moral necessity is reason i.e. knowledge and judgement. NB not, as theists believe, via revelation from on high.
It is a pleasant thought that other animals are in the Garden of Eden and not burdened with existential angst. Robert Burns wrote a nice poem called "To a Mouse" after that theme .

Last stanza:

"Thou art blessed compared wi me,
For backwards I can cast my ee
On prospects drear
And forward, though I canna see

I guess and fear. "

I like that, but for the distinction between fear and prudence.

[Skepdick]

Integers and real numbers are both true?

I am not sure that question makes sense.

An assertion about the numbers can be true.

4 > 3
3+4 is 7
etc.

All that we say about "the numbers" is that they exist (we accept that a priori). And the notion of "existence" is as blurry in Mathematics as it is in the real world.

Much fun and debate is had by rejecting the existence of things. You could totally reject the existence of numbers. And then you don't get to talk about 3+4. You get to talk about abstract place-holders like x + y.

[Belinda]

For example the fullest possible definition of horse includes every event that is horse-connected. Every event that is horse-connected can't exclude unconventionally horse-related events such as the contemporaneous existence of predatory sabre toothed tigers, and infinitely more only limited by the beginning and end of time.

Do you think concepts mean their definition?

You can't conceive an idea unless the idea is defined, usually by language and sometimes by image, sound, touch and so forth.

[Skepdick]

You can't conceive an idea unless the idea is defined, usually by language and sometimes by image, sound, touch and so forth.

Distinction required between conception of an idea and the expression of an idea.

e.g you always had a conception (intuition?) of "change", even if you didn't always have a language to speak about it, but developing or acquiring the language to speak about it crystallised your conception.

[Belinda]

I like that, but for the distinction between fear and prudence.

You are not a full blooded Romantic then?

No I did not have a conception of change maybe not until I read "The Tao of Physics" a few decades ago. I did a feeling of change which grew and grew the older I became. I am now a socialist who loves the continuity represented by the person of Queen Elizabeth.

[Skepdick]

You are not a full blooded Romantic then?

I would be, but for the whole notion of destiny doesn't sit well with me. It's what you make it

No I did not have a conception of change maybe not until I read "The Tao of Physics" a few decades ago.

Not even by another word? Surely you experienced it? It's everywhere in the daily lives of humans.

I did a feeling of change which grew and grew the older I became. I am now a socialist who loves the continuity represented by the person of Queen Elizabeth.

Ah. I don't draw too great a distinction between feelings and concepts. I am with Hume in this regard. Reason is a slave to passion.

Developing a shared language to talk about our passions... that's a never-ending endeavour.

[Belinda]

Reason is a slave to passion.

But freedom is the aim that overarches partisans of passion and partisans of reason. Moderation between the two is good, psychologically. Politically there are tides in the affairs of men that call for more passion to avoid apathy.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... gain-world

[surreptitious57]

All that we say about the numbers is that they exist ( we accept that a priori )
And the notion of existence is as blurry in Mathematics as it is in the real world

Numbers exist in an abstract sense and are defined as the relationship between quantities
They dont exist in an empirical sense although they do pertain to empirical reality
That is because reality is physical and physicality can be defined mathematically
This is the reason why the laws of physics are written in mathematical language

[Skepdick]

Numbers exist in an abstract sense and are defined as the relationship between quantities

Do quantities exist?

Numbers exist in the form of quantities in the memory of a computer.

[Skepdick]

But freedom is the aim that overarches partisans of passion and partisans of reason. Moderation between the two is good, psychologically. Politically there are tides in the affairs of men that call for more passion to avoid apathy.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... gain-world

Freedom is just a slogan. Everybody wants it.

It's the things we want to be free from that are contentious.

Free from authoritarian oppression.
Free from dystopian apathy.
Free from over-zealous and unreasonable passion.

Is the eternal battle of semantics.

[uwot]

Skepdick implied that I belong to, "The Certain Knowledge crowd," and I was pointing out, in philosophy today there is no such crowd. No philosopher of the last two hundred years has held that position--except me. If there is such a crowd it is a very small one.

Well yeah, you can pull in the boundaries so much that there is only room for yourself inside, but there are and have been a lot of philosophers over the last two centuries, and if you know where to look, you can find someone making a case for practically any position you care to imagine. I've mentioned IBE which is most closely associated with Peter Lipton. Alexander Bird takes it a step further and argues for inference to the only explanation. To my mind that just shows a lack of imagination. The principle is loosely that of Sherlock Holmes; that once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth - my point being that there is no limit to the number of explanations which investigation subsequently prove impossible.

Philosophy has so corrupted language it is almost impossible to say anything true. I think what you have in mind by, "rationalists," are those who believe certain knowledge about exitense is possible using reason, (objective reason, perhaps), but unfortunately that is not what rationalism means in philosophy, (though it ought to). From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Rationalists claim that there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience. Empiricists claim that sense experience is the ultimate source of all our concepts and knowledge.

That false dichotomy is almost insurmountable.

Some empiricists, such as yours truly, are quite happy to hypothesise; I like a good story but, as above, there is no limit to the number of stories that can be told about any experience, never mind the stories that can be told that have no relation to any actual experience. Descartes put it quite well when he said (something like) No idea is so ridiculous that some philosopher hasn't said it. Empiricists just think rationalists confuse coherence with truth and generally suspect them of trying to smuggle in some pet idea, typically god, for which there is no evidence.

I suppose that is why there is so much objection to my article, "Certain Knowledge."

Nah. It doesn't matter what you say, someone will pick a fight with it.

[Skepdick]

smuggle in some pet idea, typically god, for which there is no evidence.

But all of existence (being, reality, the universe, the multiverse, the multi-multiverse, and all other inductive types) is the evidence for god?!?

And that's how underdeterminism works. Which is to say that it doesn't.

That's what falsification fixes.

[uwot]

At the risk of playing mind-reader here, what you seem to be misunderstanding is metaprobability/p-values/statistical significance. Context and all that.

1/3 (n=5) is not the same thing as 1/3 (n=500000). The value for n is a function of discretising time.

Skepdick you wally, have another look:

The derivative of the mathematical function which represents the historical murder rate over centuries of data is a certain value.

That value is not positive (murder is not increasing), and it's not zero (murder is not steady).

Murder is decreasing.

That's 2:1 unlikely, or just above 3 decibels of evidence.

What difference does n make to your assertion that murder decreasing is 2:1 unlikely?

[Skepdick]

What difference does n make to your assertion that murder decreasing is 2:1 unlikely?

The confidence interval is the semantic in which my assertion is meant to be interpreted.

Without confidence intervals statistics don't mean anything! Do you not know this, or are you just practicing philosophy?

Nah. It doesn't matter what you say, someone will pick a fight with it.