Makaze

When I was 18 I believed in natural law. Had a fetish for consistency. The idea seems so silly to me now.

Kafka-esque absurdism.

i really don't remember you have we had many conversations

who are you

In-group out-group bias.

First and current impressions of me? I'm so lazy.

It's more about whether you're saying "these things profit everyone" or "these things profit me". What you and another believes is objectively right may bring you both pleasure (i.e. you feel better about the state of the world when the result reflects your values) even if your views contradict. We have no choice but to follow our own compasses. What I want is better because it's me. Me, me, me. Your compass is inferior to mine. Why? Because it's my compass. My enemy thinks the exact same thing about me. To a third party observer, my enemy and I must look fundamentally the same. When two people are both saying "this is moral" and they both mean "this makes me feel better about the world", how can you blame them for what is, in essence, who they are? I feel indignant when my values are violated and happy when they are respected just like someone who believes their values are objective. What makes following my own compass different from believing in traditional morality? When I feel good because the world matches my compass, I do not let myself feel righteous about it.

Can objective black and white exist if there is even one person who sees your black as their white, or as a grey? It may be really close to black or white on average, but it's still grey. Even then, the average depends who you sample from. If all you know of is your local town, is it sufficient to extrapolate that everyone has the same values as your town? What about one city? One country? One time, one planet? Even if every single person happened to believe in the same blacks and whites, people could be born who have a different set of values. There could be sentient aliens with different values. Even universal agreement about what is black and white can only exist relative to a certain time, a certain place, or a certain group of people.

One way out of the loop is to assume that God would make the universe one where the things he said were good were empirically good. That begs the question of what you're aiming for. Imagine if two people are starving and there is only enough bread to save one of them. What is the right thing for each of them to do? If the goal is to survive, then they should fight to the death, and the one who wins had the right to do so. If the goal is to be selfless, then each of them should offer the bread to the other, and both will starve, and they are right to do so. There are hundreds of potential goals to define every scenario. In a vacuum, what is good depends on the values of the person. There are compelling arguments for and against even God's actions relative to certain values. The construct of the afterlife could be seen as a way to resolve this problem. In the empirical world, a "good" deed may not fulfill our desires, make our lives easier, or even make us feel better about ourselves, while some "bad" deed may do all of the above. If we cannot empirically prove that our "good" deeds are rewarded, then we can form a way to bypass those questions by appealing to a non-empirical reward. We could create a construct that will grant us happiness. It cannot be a specific kind of happiness, because some people would be displeased. We must claim that it will make you happy, and leave it at that. The existence of hell must be equally ambiguous, so that the worst fears of anyone can be imagined and no one can be content with going there. A reward for all and a punishment for all. It comes back to subjective desires and the fears that accompany them. Such a construct could be used to justify any arbitrary set of goals. Imagine if God said, "You must kill all babies who do not have blue eyes." If there were no empirical basis for the harm of non-blue eyed children, then an appeal to the consequences in the afterlife would suffice for those with faith. The "fact" that people who did as was commanded went to heaven and those who didn't went to hell would be just as convincing to them as statistics showing that disease fell on families with non-blue eyed members would be to skeptics. If God had made this world one where non-blue eyed people caused disease, then it would be plausible to argue that killing non-blue eyed babies is a morally correct thing to do even in empirical basis. However, if you were a God, could you justify making the world one where that had to happen? We get a similar result if we apply the opposite experiment. Suppose that something was "good", but had only displeasing effects, including in the afterlife. There were absolutely no redeeming qualities for you at any time, ever. The only thing you had to go on, and would ever have to go on, were the words "God says it is good". Suppose that something was "bad", but had only pleasing effects, including in the afterlife. There were absolutely no adverse effects for you at any time, ever. The only thing you had to go on, and would ever have to go on, were the words "God says it is bad". In that case, what would you think God meant when he said those things were Good and Bad? If he didn't mean that they have good and bad effects, then what could he mean? I posit that in that in the absence of an appeal to consequences, it would be same as if some mortal said "You should feel the same way as me". Surely it is not rational to place the personal preferences of one being, no matter who, over a body of evidence that something is "good" for me, personally. If you argue that God would never create such a world, then you admit that "good" and "bad" must be intrinsically tied to consequences. If you argue that God is correct regardless of everything, then "good" cannot even be pleasurable in the sense that we use it.

Whatever I want is correct.

wow

That feeling when people actually like Tellius.

The P at the end of the name stands for Producer.

Oh damn. I should watch it then.

First tri...?

For someone who is known for remembering quotes, I'm not good at thinking about favourites. ‘Where would we go, then, Skintick? We don’t even know where we are. What realm is this? What world lies beyond this forest? Cousin, we have nowhere else to go.’ ‘Nowhere, and anywhere. In the circumstances, Nimander, the former leads to the latter, like reaching a door everyone believes barred, locked tight, and lo, it opens wide at the touch. Nowhere and anywhere are states of mind. See this forest around us? Is it a barrier, or ten thousand paths leading into mystery and wonder? Whichever you decide, the forest itself remains unchanged.’ — Toll the Hounds, Steven Erikson

"ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS" ― Animal Farm "Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" ― Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Hellscope

if (human) die();

No risk, no reward.

I lost.

Home.