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I sort of see where you are going with math formula idea.
Our universal physical laws are indeed described in terms of mathematics, however the big difference is that the mathematics that describe how the universe is built, is constant and unchanging and exists whether humans discovered it or not.
Morality on the other hand is entirely open to interpretation, there is no universal set of 'rules' to determine what morality is at any point in time. Morality is fluid and as I said before, needs two sentient beings to decide what it is. Without those sentient beings it wouldn't exist.
That being said, actual written formulae such as E=mc2 wouldn't exist without a human writing it down even though the mathematical relationship between energy and mass would.
Taking another example, it's like saying language existed before the earth was formed. But it took animals to come along and develop it. Clearly language, like consciousness, although not tangible, is a 'thing' that we recognize. So what you're saying is that potential for interpretations of morality is something that exists within the fabric of the universe? It's an interesting idea.
I think there are universal rules to determine what morality is. We can feel them. If I hurt myself, that's bad. It's a very simple set of rules. If you hurt yourself, that would also bad...at least until we take into account any positive results of your or I being hurt. Maybe the hurt comes because I was exercising, and it improves my strength...but I'd say the hurt itself is bad, because it's bad.
I am saying that the potential for interpretations of morality is something that exists within the fabric of the universe. Feeling life will experience positive and negative feedback, or some type of feedback that tells it to do some things and not do other things. Otherwise, it would not be feeling life. This is not anything limited to humans. It might as well be called a law of nature. Because feeling organisms experience this positive and negative feedback, there will inevitably be things that will be good for them and things that will be bad for them. They'll be able to feel how good or bad things will be for them. Therefore someone could weigh that, and the inevitable result of that ability to weigh that means someone could, given sufficient information about the universe, determine the ideal behaviors for all life.
Those ideal behaviors would be this unchanging morality that's not determined by culture, or my personal feelings.
I agree, it's not evidence of some universal quality of morality. The evidence for that universal quality of morality comes from the fact that our only option for distinguishing right from wrong is the weighing of the pros and cons/suffering and positive emotions.
The universality of it then is not in morality but in the basic reality of organic existence and survival that gives rise to morality -- putting food in one end and emitting crap out the other, avoiding being eaten or injured or elbowed out of the way by more aggressive organisms, competing for mates, and if you're capable of sufficiently abstract thought that you can perceive a story arc to your existence, deal with your existential angst -- etc.
Pleasure / pain and contentment / anxiety evolved to help underscore the safety or danger, effectiveness or ineffectiveness of different strategies -- as well as a warning of injury and developing illness the like. I would imagine that some version of this "nature, red in tooth and claw" would obtain in any ecosystem, even one that isn't carbon-based. And it would lead to pleasure / pain equivalents and to some kind of moral system. The moral system might seem very alien to us in a hypothetical alien race that evolved to more of a hive mind rather than individual entities with social interdependencies like us, or was based on some biochemical energy cycle we're not familiar with. But it would be a moral system nonetheless.
Another thing is that "weighing the pros and cons / suffering and positive emotions" happens at multiple levels in a sufficiently advanced intelligence. For humans it is not a sufficiently functional adaptation to think only of immediate pain / pleasure / gratification / frustration. Or of just one's own needs. A social creature of sufficient perceptive ability knows that it has to consider medium and long range concerns as well as short range, and interpersonal, tribal, species or even ecosystem-wide as well as just the personal perspectives. This may be strong motivation to endure personal suffering for the greater good, or short term suffering for ultimate greater personal pleasure.
And then of course there is the whole issue of how much of your evaluation is realistic vs illusory. How many times in life to we sacrifice for some larger purpose only to discover we can't trust the people we thought we could or whatever?
So it's hard to reduce morality or the factors it arises out of, into a simple formula -- which tends to make us think it mysterious or "spiritual" in nature. It is a complex chaotic system at the edges of our mind's ability to get a firm grasp on it, and it's constantly changing anyway. It is rather like trying to understand the genesis of personality traits based on a person's experiences alone, and then finding out that so many other factors enter into it than simply saying, "if an infant of 6 to 18 months in age is frightened by an agitated dog, it will develop a particular neurosis, X, as a result". It quickly becomes too complex to track. Just as personality development is a mix of nature and nurture, experience and response to experience, rigidity or flexibility of certain neural circuits, balance of neurotransmitters and on and on ... morality is a complex emergent phenomenon of a million conscious and unconscious societal interactions and operant conditioning and layers of imposed filters and beliefs atop it all.
Then again, there are those who (like animals) have instincts that Rape is simply wrong to do on others, regardless if it could never be done on you anyway.
Well yes, that's what I'm inferring (or attempting to anyway). But given enough people with no empathy, it's inconceivable that there is any one person who couldn't be raped.
But you've touched on the underlying part of what I was trying to convey really. Empathy. Because without empathy, and the understanding that rape is doing harm to another person, why would anybody perceive rape to be "wrong"? And to that end.....I dare say we wouldn't have the term "rape", as separate from "sex", if not for empathy.
No...I mean that would be a good idea, if possible, unless it proved to cause more suffering than positive emotions in some way. Keep in mind, I'm not just talking about the cat's emotions or the emotions of the mice, but everything's emotions.
I'm not understanding your use of the word "no" here, are you saying my suggesting would be a good idea or some other suggestion you posited earlier that I'm unaware of?
I do think there is an immutable quality of morality. We can feel the source of it: suffering and pleasure. To deny that it exists is to deny that suffering and pleasure exists.
I actually tend to think that the idea that there is no immutable quality of morality stemming from suffering and pleasure stems from the desire for a kind of mental resting spot, the same mental resting spot people seek theism for. It doesn't make any sense to me, why there would be no immutable quality of morality...but I could see it as comforting due to the lack of complexity. That has been my opinion for quite some time now.
...
If suffering and pleasure are some sort of "objective" standard, then the most pleasure would be the most good, and a world of lies/drugs filled with only pleasure and no suffering (lambs to a pleasureful slaughter) might be seen as good. Then there is the pleasure one could technically receive form causing suffering (on oneself or others). Of course, in robots, any sense of suffering and pleasure might be erased, but tendencies for avoidances and attractions might still exist in the program... or maybe not... maybe pleasure and suffering are JUST the emergent properties of the application of such tendencies to sentient beings.
But yes, I agree with Neuroscientist/writer Dr. Sam Harris that a "universal foundation" might be found in seeing the greatest suffering as the least good.
I think there are universal rules to determine what morality is. We can feel them. If I hurt myself, that's bad. It's a very simple set of rules. If you hurt yourself, that would also bad...at least until we take into account any positive results of your or I being hurt. Maybe the hurt comes because I was exercising, and it improves my strength...but I'd say the hurt itself is bad, because it's bad.
....
Your feelings are only part of the facts, you could also just have very deluded feelings (although real feelings non-the-less, they might not be attached to the realities in any proper ways).
the hurt of exercising comes because the nerves are sensing something and construing it as dangerous or possibly dangerous and want to cause you to seek to lower such actions if at all possible (the nerves evolved in a low calorie world). It simply highlights my point about deluded feelings... moths to a flame sort of thing.
Did the rules of checkers always exist before being discovered by humans?
Some of the rules did, the laws (standard patterns) of nature. A checkers piece can't become a dove and peck at your opponents face when an incantation to a god is made.
The universality of it then is not in morality but in the basic reality of organic existence and survival that gives rise to morality -- putting food in one end and emitting crap out the other, avoiding being eaten or injured or elbowed out of the way by more aggressive organisms, competing for mates, and if you're capable of sufficiently abstract thought that you can perceive a story arc to your existence, deal with your existential angst -- etc.
The type of morality I'm talking about will not necessarily spread genes or help people to survive. It does not necessarily assist our evolution. It purely results in the reduction of harm and increasing of positive emotions...because there is no other way I'm aware of to distinguish between right and wrong. Therefore all species that understand enough about the universe will see it as a good thing to strive to do so. That is where the universality comes from. They might not do it. They'll have social pressures, instinctual influences, and other factors that might prevent it, but they'll all understand that it's best to strive to reduce suffering and increase positive emotion if they understand reality well enough, I'd say...because there is no other reason for doing anything for feeling beings besides achieving positive emotions and avoiding suffering, I'd say.
No matter if the species is a hive mind organism or whatever, if it does not strive to reduce suffering and increase positive emotions in some way, it's system of morality will not help it achieve rightness and avoid wrongness. It could still be a system to help the society achieve some goal, but really there'd be no reason to have that system of morality, IMO.
So, once an organism understands a sufficient amount about how the universe works, their sense of morality will no longer be guided by their urge to survive and breed and cooperate to do so, IMO. It will change into something a little different, something that focuses on reducing suffering and maximizing positive emotion. I see that as inevitable for any species that will eventually learn a sufficient amount of information about the universe, regardless of what culture or instincts or emotions they have.
Quote:
Pleasure / pain and contentment / anxiety evolved to help underscore the safety or danger, effectiveness or ineffectiveness of different strategies -- as well as a warning of injury and developing illness the like. I would imagine that some version of this "nature, red in tooth and claw" would obtain in any ecosystem, even one that isn't carbon-based. And it would lead to pleasure / pain equivalents and to some kind of moral system. The moral system might seem very alien to us in a hypothetical alien race that evolved to more of a hive mind rather than individual entities with social interdependencies like us, or was based on some biochemical energy cycle we're not familiar with. But it would be a moral system nonetheless.
Another thing is that "weighing the pros and cons / suffering and positive emotions" happens at multiple levels in a sufficiently advanced intelligence. For humans it is not a sufficiently functional adaptation to think only of immediate pain / pleasure / gratification / frustration. Or of just one's own needs. A social creature of sufficient perceptive ability knows that it has to consider medium and long range concerns as well as short range, and interpersonal, tribal, species or even ecosystem-wide as well as just the personal perspectives. This may be strong motivation to endure personal suffering for the greater good, or short term suffering for ultimate greater personal pleasure.
And then of course there is the whole issue of how much of your evaluation is realistic vs illusory. How many times in life to we sacrifice for some larger purpose only to discover we can't trust the people we thought we could or whatever?
So it's hard to reduce morality or the factors it arises out of, into a simple formula -- which tends to make us think it mysterious or "spiritual" in nature. It is a complex chaotic system at the edges of our mind's ability to get a firm grasp on it, and it's constantly changing anyway. It is rather like trying to understand the genesis of personality traits based on a person's experiences alone, and then finding out that so many other factors enter into it than simply saying, "if an infant of 6 to 18 months in age is frightened by an agitated dog, it will develop a particular neurosis, X, as a result". It quickly becomes too complex to track. Just as personality development is a mix of nature and nurture, experience and response to experience, rigidity or flexibility of certain neural circuits, balance of neurotransmitters and on and on ... morality is a complex emergent phenomenon of a million conscious and unconscious societal interactions and operant conditioning and layers of imposed filters and beliefs atop it all.
It is hard to reduce morality or the factors it arises out of into a simple formula. I'd say it would be impossible if the formula is to be at all accurate. For example, I see strong reason to believe your pain has relevance to me for many of the same reasons my pain has relevance to me...but I'd think there should be several modifying factors. Some of these modifying factors would include concepts like, because I don't know you as well as myself, how much energy am I wasting irritating you by worrying about your problems? How much less energy would be wasted worrying about people I know quite well instead? How much energy am I essentially removing from them to spend on you? How much stress does it cause me to focus attention on people I don't know extremely well, who won't have the option of returning the favor because of a strong, long term bond? How much stress does even thinking about all this cause? Maybe it would be better to just think like a nihilist and do whatever feels good and doesn't obviously harm others and not think too hard about long term repercussions or philosophy. That could very possibly be the best way to reduce suffering: avoiding thinking about how to reduce suffering, so as to avoid wasted energy, annoying strangers, and increased stress.
There would be dozens of questions like that for every single possible action we could make. However, we always have the option of asking ourselves a few of those questions, and asking questions like that to determine the pros and cons of behaviors is how I think we are capable of understanding the type of morality that achieves positive, real results. That's another part of the universality. That, or an abbreviated version of that which involves much estimation, is what every species must do to get as close to morality that achieves real, positive results as they can.
Other important questions we'd need to answer for the formula would be, do people ever actually deserve punishment, or should punishment strictly be negative feedback? How reasonable is it for a person to put themselves and their family before society? (I'm sure that's reasonable in ways...but, I'm not sure how reasonable). What if the person gains nothing from the rest of a group? Does that person owe anything to the rest of the group? Then we have long term affects of each act to consider...and attempting to make the formula would end up a nightmare...but we can develop certain sections of this formula we seem to need, as we see fit, here and there, IMO through estimation.
I'm not understanding your use of the word "no" here, are you saying my suggesting would be a good idea or some other suggestion you posited earlier that I'm unaware of?
Sorry. I think I was being needlessly picky. I think we were on the same page. I was just thinking that...it would take more than awareness for a cat to do all the synthesizing of its own meat and other things you mentioned. It would probably need opposable thumbs and some other inventions too. I was just being anal-retentive.
Your earlier post was:
Quote:
Originally Posted by LuminousTruth
He means that were the cat more aware, it would synthesize its meat synthetically for its digestion needs without causing pain, and then stream-line its own species' evolution so that the future generations wouldn't need such "actively destructive" tendencies/reliances.
Last edited by Clintone; 06-03-2016 at 12:30 AM..
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