Subjective problems with philosophies on Morals and ethic such as Moral Tralism

[vulcanlogician]

Objective facts are what they are regardless of what or how anyone thinks of them.

I'm starting with this definition of yours. I like this definition of "objective facts." And if this is the definition of objectivity that you use, we are on the same page.

But it puzzles me why you can't see how math is objective. The Pythagorean theorem is true regardless of what anyone thinks. That makes it objective according to your definition. It is always and provably true, given any three angled form with a 90 degree hypotenuse, that the sum of the squares of two angles equal the square of the hypotenuse.

Yes or no, Mike-- is this true regardless of what anyone thinks?

Keep in mind that I am not claiming that math is a "force of nature" or anything like that. I'm not overstating its ontology. I'm saying that it is OBJECTIVE. That's all.

Is it correct to equate math and science as you have done?

Yes, because all I'm saying is that math is just as objective as science. That's not really equating the two in any significant way. It's merely saying that, as far as objectivity goes, it's a virtue that they possess in equal measure. And it's true. Mathematics isn't a discipline of opinions. It's a discipline about the features of space and quantity. How they interact with one another. Math is about as objective as you can get. It deals strictly with things which are true whether anyone agrees with them.

Are there natural right triangles in nature or are there right triangle-ish things in nature?

There are right triangle-ish things in nature. The more right triangle-ish they are, the more the pythagorean theorem describes their angles and area accurately. The less right triangle-ish the shape is, the less able the pythagorean theorem is to describe its properties. So what?

And the same limitation of scope is present in science. Newtons laws of gravity can't be used to explain chemical reactions. At least not very well. Gravity may indeed explain something that happens during a chemical reaction. Like the Pythagorean theorem, Newton's laws have their scope. The more gravity plays a role, the more Newton's theory can explain what is going on in a chemical reaction... the less gravity plays a role, the less Newton's laws can say about it.

When I say that mathematical constructs are subjective, I simply mean that they are created in the subjective mind, that they are the product of the subjective mind.

Your definition here is incongruous with the other definition you gave. I don't like this one very much. Especially if you are wont to call science objective (which I think we both are). Newton's theories were created in his subjective mind and were a product of his subjective mind. But that doesn't make them subjective. And is the mind purely subjective anyway? Seems to me like mental stuff is sometimes objective and other times subjective.

As I said before, I take it as a given that math is thoroughly objective. If you aren't convinced of math's objectivity, it follows that you should neither find any argument for moral objectivity compelling. Are we at an impasse?

Can you divide 2 sheep by 3 and get 0.666666… (an infinitely repeating decimal by the way) sheep in the real world?

You can, but it would be a rather bloody affair.

A repeating decimal is merely the result of an inadequacy of the decimal system to express certain fractions. It's not a crime against nature.

 

[wellwisher]

I find it interesting that over 50% of self-identified philosophers (whatever may have qualified them for the poll) accept Moral Realism seemingly consistently since 2009.

I am curious as to whether it reflects a personality type that, in general, is attracted to the boundless abstraction afforded in Philosophy in creating answers to general and fundamental questions, as opposed to the bounded scientific approach to addressing such questions.

I, personally, view moral and ethical systems as completely subjective, and as such, would agree with your conclusion.

The subjective assumption and approach creates jobs for lawyers, philosophers and politicians and allows criminals to escape justice. For example, looters and shop lifters in the USA, are no longer judged by their actions, in a cause and affect way. They are philosophically abstracted in a way that justifies their crimes, thereby encouraging more crime and more jobs for lawyers.

The blame game, where the white Christian male of today, unless you are a Democrat, has to accept responsibility for all the mistakes of the past, even before they were born, without personalized proof, has no proven science explanation; genetic or quantum pairing. This original sin knockoff scam is created by thieves for thieves. Science should be able to point this out using the limiting criteria of known natural and physical laws and shut that argument down. But it too is part of the circle of thieves; mercenary science funded by crooks.

The way you make morality objective is easy. You base the value of any system on the final results, and not just the fancy hot air and distractions; sales pitch. An organized peaceful nation, running on all cylinders, comes from a good moral and ethical system. While a chaotic nation of blame and violence, run by a den of thieves and injustice, does not. The latter needs much more relative double talk and lies, to deflect from the hard objective data that betrays the crap pit their system has created.

The Atheists claim to be about science, so why don't they apply science and speak up. For example, science loves casino science, so why not use the black box approach, of empirical and statistical science. You do not need to know what it is in the black box; mind and heart of man, to correlate the observed output affects. I prefer to go deeper, but this will be enough to be objective to any system.

For example, under Trump all economic measures were very good, including minorities and women. This is not the case under Biden. This is not rocket science if we apply the black box approach, like we do comparing new medicines, to see which has the best performance. Next, we can break both down each approach and then try to explain the observed output data and the harmful side affects that leads or a crap pits?

Instead science allows the hot air game to distract from the good and bad final results so poison can pass for medicine. Those who claim to be on the side of science and reason, why are you not approaching the output data with simple casino science, judging a tree by the fruit it bears, without having to know all the variables, beforehand? Are you part of the problem or part of a quid pro quo? The black box approach does not require you be an expert to get empirical results, if truth matters.

 

[MikeF]

I'm starting with this definition of yours. I like this definition of "objective facts."
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But it puzzles me why you can't see how math is objective.
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Yes or no, Mike-- is this true regardless of what anyone thinks?

The short answer is no. The Pythagorean theorem is not an objective phenomenon of mass/energy with spatio-temporal extension. It is an artifact of an analytic abstract system that was created by human brains and is brain dependent for its existence. The theorem is always provably true within the rules of the Domain, which would be no different from things provably true in other analytic Domains that consist of a different set of rules. Any abstract analytic system requires *someone* to *think* up the rules in the first place.

Does our (humanity’s) math exist if there are no longer any human beings? Can we presume our abstract quantitative and computational language we call mathematics, which was created within the performance limits of our biological brains, is the only possible way of thinking quantitatively about the Cosmos? Can we even imagine a quantitative and computational system incompatible with the physical limitations of our biological computing capacity?

The Pythagorean theorem is an artifact made possible by the rules of the analytic system we have created. We can mentally overlay the abstract conception of a triangle onto things in the real world, and with our abstract quantitative language, make useful quantitative conclusions within the limits of our ability to measure. Our imagined triangle overlay isn’t objectively real, just the objects or phenomena that we overlay it upon.

What if we consider descriptive languages like English or Japanese instead. If different languages use different sets of verbal sounds to create words and use different rules for word order in sentence structure, might we imagine a rhyming scheme that works well for one language being incompatible with another? Is the rhyming scheme of the first language an objective fact or an analytic fact? Is it objective regardless of what anyone thinks, or is it an artifact of the abstract analytic language created in/by the human mind?

Yes, because all I'm saying is that math is just as objective as science.
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It deals strictly with things which are true whether anyone agrees with them.

Can math be used incorrectly? Can math be used correctly, like Logic, with a given set of presumptions, and be used to draw conclusions that are not possible in the real world? Two plus two equals four, by itself, is meaningless abstraction. Twos of what? Are the things being added identical in nature, compatible, or using the same unit of measure?

Math is abstraction and not objective in and of itself. It is simply a quantitative and computational language we may use to *describe* objective things in the world and great care must be taken if that is our intent. Math, however, doesn’t have to apply to the real world, the world of experience. Mathematics can simply be used to explore what is possible within the rules of mathematics itself, purely within the mathematical Domain. It can also be used to describe other imagined worlds that operate with a set of rules distinctly different from the actual world of our experience in the same way verbal language can.

The objective world is the world of phenomena consisting of mass/energy with spatio-temporal extension and events of interactions related to mass/energy. The subjective world is all that is in our heads. All human thought is subjective abstract representations. The abstractions do not literally share the properties of the things they are meant to represent and that is why, in our heads, a 400 lb pig can fly and we can imagine a creature with the body of a lion and head and wings of an eagle and call it a Griffin.

I am sure you have heard the expression, “A map is not the territory”, and it is apt to this discussion. Language, Mathematic, Logic are all abstract tools we can subjectively use for mapping/describing the objective world. Science, utilizing the principles and standard of scientific inquiry, is the demarcation tool we use to ensure our abstract representations, when used to describe the real world, the objective world, those abstractions being both of verbal language and quantitative language, actually does so to the greatest extent possible. Science, then, is the error detection and correction mechanism employed to verify the correspondence and utility of the *maps* we build of the objective world.

There are right triangle-ish things in nature. The more right triangle-ish they are, the more the pythagorean theorem describes their angles and area accurately. The less right triangle-ish the shape is, the less able the pythagorean theorem is to describe its properties. So what?

So, the triangle-ish things are the objective phenomena in the real world and the Pythagorean theorem is a subjective analytic fact in the subjective Domain of Mathematics. Would you consider the standard of dividing a circle into 360 equal degrees to be an objective fact?

Different cultures have created computational language using a different radix, or number of unique digits in their positional numeral systems. The decimal system is most widely used today, but other cultures have used a different base. Apparently the Maori used a undecimal system, languages in Nigeria used a duodecimal system, Basques and Celts used a vigesimal system, others have used ternary, quaternary, and quinary. Today our machines use a computational language based on binary and hexadecimal systems. These examples speak to me of the subjective analytic nature of mathematics.

And the same limitation of scope is present in science. Newtons laws of gravity can't be used to explain chemical reactions.
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Like the Pythagorean theorem, Newton's laws have their scope.
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Here is a great example of what I am saying. Mathematics, the analytic system, does not know what celestial bodies are. It does not know what mass is. It does not know what the speed of light is. It is simply a quantitative and computational abstract language. To describe our observations on motion we create abstract concepts such as Force, Mass, and Acceleration and explain their relationships with descriptive language. We can also represent the relationships in the mathematical language form of equations that allow us to either explore hypothetical quantitative value relationships or use actual observed and objective data of known variables to calculate an unknown variable. Analytic mathematical facts and rules of operations enable us to think and communicate subjectively about objective things in a synthetic way. We are able to create a useful subjective representation of what is objectively occurring.

Your definition here is incongruous with the other definition you gave. I don't like this one very much. Especially if you are wont to call science objective (which I think we both are).
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I didn’t like the sentence when I wrote it. It was not very clear. Here is my position. *All* mental activity is subjective. *Some* of that subjective mental activity is meant to describe objective phenomena in the real world in a synthetic and useful way. Scientific inquiry is a modality of inquiry and investigation that endeavors to verify, to the greatest extent possible, the degree to which our subjective descriptions of objective phenomena are synthetic and useful representations. I must emphasize again that since we are not omniscient as to all aspects of the real world, any subjective statements about the objective world are presented with varying degrees of confidence. Scientific statements are still only *maps* of the objective world, not the world itself, and much like ancient mariner maps with detailed drawing and descriptions of home coasts and progressively less detail further from home ending in uncharted waters, our “scientific maps” of the objective world form a similar pattern. Science, then, is used to police both our use of verbal language and mathematical language when our intent is to use either or both to describe the objective world.

This idea is nicely illustrated with the Newton example. Newtonian laws, the foundation of Classical Mechanics, gave a boost of confidence in the level of understanding of how and why celestial bodies moved in their respective patterns. Although it provided an improved perspective on that aspect of the objective world, from our further improved perspective of today, it was still an incomplete picture. General and Special Relativity have added some more detail to our *objective map* of the Cosmos, but we still recognize from this new vantage point that the map is not yet complete.

So, instead of saying, “Science is objective”, it seems better to say, “What is observed and verified by science is as objective as it currently can be”. All this is not to say that there are not aspects of our macroscopic world that we have complete confidence in such that our subjective statements are assumed to be strongly representative of the objective. These, as we discussed earlier, would be considered facts as described in your second definition of the word, or objective facts as opposed to analytic facts.

Given what I have said above, perhaps it would be better to substitute the phrase "synthetic facts" for "objective facts" in the interest of clarity and as an acknowledgement that any statement is made up of subjective abstractions. So, facts in your second definition would represent synthetic facts as opposed to analytic facts.

You can, but it would be a rather bloody affair.

It wouldn’t be sheep anymore though, it would be mutton.

A repeating decimal is merely the result of an inadequacy of the decimal system to express certain fractions. It's not a crime against nature.

Correct. Not a crime against nature, simply an artifact of a subjective analytic system.

As I said before, I take it as a given that math is thoroughly objective. If you aren't convinced of math's objectivity, it follows that you should neither find any argument for moral objectivity compelling. Are we at an impasse?

The abstraction of mathematical language, like verbal language, can be used to describe or convey information about the objective world. I don’t think we are at an impasse. All that is required is to demonstrate that our abstract constructs we call morals, or some aspect of them, describe or are derived from some objective phenomena in the real world, the world of experience. The stronger the evidence, the more confidence we will have in the objective status of morals.

 

[MikeF]

The subjective assumption and approach creates jobs for lawyers, philosophers and politicians and allows criminals to escape justice. For example, looters and shop lifters in the USA, are no longer judged by their actions, in a cause and affect way. They are philosophically abstracted in a way that justifies their crimes, thereby encouraging more crime and more jobs for lawyers.

Is it a subjective assumption or simply a statement of fact that any moral framework is an ongoing evolutionary process that reflects the composite subjective attitudes and will of society members at any given point in time.

Do you have specific data that shows how changes in shoplifting and looting prosecutions have resulted in no action taken against those who commit such crimes? Or is it that they are not getting the level of punishment you would have them receive. Do you have data to show how changes in prosecution of shoplifting and looting has resulted in ever increasing crime rates?

The blame game, where the white Christian male of today, unless you are a Democrat, has to accept responsibility for all the mistakes of the past, even before they were born, without personalized proof, has no proven science explanation; genetic or quantum pairing. This original sin knockoff scam is created by thieves for thieves. Science should be able to point this out using the limiting criteria of known natural and physical laws and shut that argument down. But it too is part of the circle of thieves; mercenary science funded by crooks.

I’m unsure as to why you see this issue as targeting white Christian males specifically. I assume this paragraph is about those who advocate for reparations for those who are descendants of slaves. Is this the case? If it is, then as far as I can tell, such reparations would be paid out at the federal level of government, which means *everyone* is on the hook to the extent to which they pay federal taxes. Nowhere have I seen any proposal to target white Christian males of today and hold them personally responsible for historical slavery in the United States.

What science can tell us and show is how the power of law was used to maintain black disenfranchisement throughout the post-slavery period resulting in inveterate poverty. If actions of law guaranteed the persistence of generational poverty, is it unreasonable to want to dismantle such institutional injustice and ameliorate in some way the chronic poverty that remains?

The way you make morality objective is easy. You base the value of any system on the final results, and not just the fancy hot air and distractions; sales pitch. An organized peaceful nation, running on all cylinders, comes from a good moral and ethical system. While a chaotic nation of blame and violence, run by a den of thieves and injustice, does not. The latter needs much more relative double talk and lies, to deflect from the hard objective data that betrays the crap pit their system has created.

Which means that a good moral and ethical system is subjective. It is something we as a society must identify and choose. You claim that it is easy, yet you must form a consensus on what those “final results” should be. I would agree that once the subjective goal is identified, one can then make objective decisions on how it can be achieved.

The Atheists claim to be about science, so why don't they apply science and speak up. For example, science loves casino science, so why not use the black box approach, of empirical and statistical science. You do not need to know what it is in the black box; mind and heart of man, to correlate the observed output affects. I prefer to go deeper, but this will be enough to be objective to any system.

For example, under Trump all economic measures were very good, including minorities and women. This is not the case under Biden. This is not rocket science if we apply the black box approach, like we do comparing new medicines, to see which has the best performance. Next, we can break both down each approach and then try to explain the observed output data and the harmful side affects that leads or a crap pits?

Instead science allows the hot air game to distract from the good and bad final results so poison can pass for medicine. Those who claim to be on the side of science and reason, why are you not approaching the output data with simple casino science, judging a tree by the fruit it bears, without having to know all the variables, beforehand? Are you part of the problem or part of a quid pro quo? The black box approach does not require you be an expert to get empirical results, if truth matters.

I think the issue is coming to consensus on what societal goals should be. All of this also depends on what you are putting under the “good” category and what you place under the “bad” category.

You mention Donald Trump. Do you consider him to be a paragon of virtue? Does he represent your ideal of moral behavior?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

...

The abstraction of mathematical language, like verbal language, can be used to describe or convey information about the objective world. I don’t think we are at an impasse. All that is required is to demonstrate that our abstract constructs we call morals, or some aspect of them, describe or are derived from some objective phenomena in the real world, the world of experience. The stronger the evidence, the more confidence we will have in the objective status of morals.

The problem of morality is that brain scans show that it is dependent on brains. So what you state there is an idea, that there currently are no evidence for in the positive sense.

 

[MikeF]

The problem of morality is that brain scans show that it is dependent on brains. So what you state there is an idea, that there currently are no evidence for in the positive sense.

Is this:

The abstraction of mathematical language, like verbal language, can be used to describe or convey information about the objective world.

the idea to which you refer in your post?

It isn't clear to me what you are trying to say. I assume it is a critique or criticism of my comments. Perhaps you could elaborate your point somewhat.

Thanks.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Is this:


the idea to which you refer in your post?

It isn't clear to me what you are trying to say. I assume it is a critique or criticism of my comments. Perhaps you could elaborate your point somewhat.

Thanks.

Where does math and logic happen if it is not objective as independent of brains.
The same can be asked of morality.
And brain scans show all 3 happen in brains as dependent on brains. It is physical, just not independent of brains.

 

[MikeF]

Where does math and logic happen if it is not objective as independent of brains.
The same can be asked of morality.
And brain scans show all 3 happen in brains as dependent on brains. It is physical, just not independent of brains.

Indeed. All thought is an objective event, a manifestation of our neuro-physiology. The mental event is objective, the content of the thoughts are subjective.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Indeed. All thought is an objective event, a manifestation of our neuro-physiology. The mental event is objective, the content of the thoughts are subjective.

No, that is absurd ontological dualism in effect.
Because you then have to explain how something is subjective and objective in effect for the following belief:
My content in my thoughts are caused by the objective event and the objective event cause my content to be subjective.
You have hit the problem of 2 different ontologies of being. Being objective versus being subjective. How does that work?

 

[MikeF]

No, that is absurd ontological dualism in effect.
Because you then have to explain how something is subjective and objective in effect for the following belief:
My content in my thoughts are caused by the objective event and the objective event cause my content to be subjective.
You have hit the problem of 2 different ontologies of being. Being objective versus being subjective. How does that work?

I really don't see the problem. The nature of thought is abstraction. Abstraction is not bound by physical laws, rather, abstraction is infinitely plastic and has full freedom of association and interaction in the space of mental thought. We create abstract constructs as representative tokens of the things we wish to think about or communicate. In the brain, these tokens are physically manifested in some neuro-physiological form. We can also use other physical means to communicate or store abstractions. We might use hand or body gestures to convey an abstract thought. We might scratch primitive pictures in the sand to communicate an idea, or we may use specific vocal patterns to be associated with a particular concept or thing.

So, as you can see, the sky's the limit as to what physical form a abstract token can take, from gestures and vocalizations, to the complexities of modern written language. My thoughts for this post have physical form both in my neuro-physiology and now also in this written physical manifestation on the forum server. The abstractions of my thoughts physically exist in these two objective forms but the meaning of the abstractions as used and associated is purely subjective, i.e. subject or individual dependent.

That's how it works.

 

[vulcanlogician]

The short answer is no. The Pythagorean theorem is not an objective phenomenon of mass/energy with spatio-temporal extension. It is an artifact of an analytic abstract system that was created by human brains and is brain dependent for its existence. The theorem is always provably true within the rules of the Domain, which would be no different from things provably true in other analytic Domains that consist of a different set of rules. Any abstract analytic system requires *someone* to *think* up the rules in the first place.

But you are wavering on your definitions again. For something to qualify as "objective" (as per your definition you provided before) it must be true regardless of what anyone thinks or opines.

Just as science could be considered "the study of nature," you could look at geometry as "the study of space." Mathematics is an objective analysis of quantity and space. "1+2=3" is demonstrable physically if I have three pebbles handy. All the axioms do is set up a framework that allows me to use the symbols (1, 2, and 3) to show you what I mean by 1+2=3.

Quantities are something that exist in nature. Axioms about quantity are what is self-evident about quantity. Space exists in nature. Geometric axioms tell us what is self-evident about space. This isn't some Harry Potter nonsense that Euclid dreamed up because he ate an unfamiliar mushroom one day. They are facts (type 1 AND type 2 facts) about how quantity and space operate.

Most scientist agree with me on this. And, as I said before, scientists copiously depend on mathematical axioms being true in the real world. Exactly how math is true is a mystery that dates back to Plato. But most scientists agree that mathematics is the language of nature, and that without out it, we have no hope of understanding most of nature. Newton and Einstein have nothing to say if you take the language of mathematics away from them.

This idea is nicely illustrated with the Newton example. Newtonian laws, the foundation of Classical Mechanics, gave a boost of confidence in the level of understanding of how and why celestial bodies moved in their respective patterns. Although it provided an improved perspective on that aspect of the objective world, from our further improved perspective of today, it was still an incomplete picture. General and Special Relativity have added some more detail to our *objective map* of the Cosmos, but we still recognize from this new vantage point that the map is not yet complete.

Of course it's just an objective map... and no understanding (of anything) is ever fully complete. I never claimed anything different for mathematics or morality. I think you are complicating the issue. All we're trying to do here is find out what disciplines are "objective" and which ones aren't. I think science is objective. Incomplete knowledge has nothing to do with objectivity. Newton's statements about gravity and motion are objective. Full stop.

If Newton's laws are somewhat inaccurate, that doesn't make them less objective. They are still true regardless of what anyone thinks. And where Newton was mistaken (say, concerning an absolute frame of reference), he wasn't wrong because someone disagreed with him. He was simply wrong. Wrong in the old fashioned sense. Wrong in the sense that he made a statement about the universe that was (in some degree) false.

Correct. Not a crime against nature, simply an artifact of a subjective analytic system.

If infinite decimals bother you, you can write 2/3 as a fraction. None of those numbers repeat. But if you want to write 2/3 in numerical units of 10, you are going to get some repeating decimals. Humans have ten fingers, so we arbitrarily chose a system of ten digits (literally "finger" in Latin). It has NOTHING to do with the subjectivity of an analytic system. It has everything to do with the limitations of our numerical system to express certain fractions.

The abstraction of mathematical language, like verbal language, can be used to describe or convey information about the objective world. I don’t think we are at an impasse. All that is required is to demonstrate that our abstract constructs we call morals, or some aspect of them, describe or are derived from some objective phenomena in the real world, the world of experience. The stronger the evidence, the more confidence we will have in the objective status of morals.

I think we ARE at an impasse. Unless we agree that analytic truths can be objective, I can't proceed on with my arguments about the objectivity of ethics. I mean, it's not so controversial. There of course are viewpoints that name math as subjective... and some viewpoints even say that math is a "useful fiction." But the consensus among scientists is that math is objective... or at least "objective enough" to be relied upon to make verifiable statements about the universe and nature.

If you really think that math is subjective, then it follows that ethics must also be subjective. I think that would be the only logical conclusion to have on the matter. The only reason I entertain the idea that ethics might be objective is that I first recognize that some analytic truths are objective.

But I've basically given you all I got as far as why I think math is objective. Truth be told, I'm not super educated in the philosophy of mathematics (never took any classes at university on it, nor have I studied much, aside from a few very basic YouTube videos and wikipedia entries). So if I haven't convinced you yet, the prospect of me producing a convincing argument for the objectivity of math is looking pretty bleak.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I really don't see the problem. The nature of thought is abstraction. Abstraction is not bound by physical laws, rather, abstraction is infinitely plastic and has full freedom of association and interaction in the space of mental thought. We create abstract constructs as representative tokens of the things we wish to think about or communicate. In the brain, these tokens are physically manifested in some neuro-physiological form. We can also use other physical means to communicate or store abstractions. We might use hand or body gestures to convey an abstract thought. We might scratch primitive pictures in the sand to communicate an idea, or we may use specific vocal patterns to be associated with a particular concept or thing.

So, as you can see, the sky's the limit as to what physical form a abstract token can take, from gestures and vocalizations, to the complexities of modern written language. My thoughts for this post have physical form both in my neuro-physiology and now also in this written physical manifestation on the forum server. The abstractions of my thoughts physically exist in these two objective forms but the meaning of the abstractions as used and associated is purely subjective, i.e. subject or individual dependent.

That's how it works.

You haven't showned how it works. You do understand the difference between saying it works and showing how it works.
How do you actually show the link between the physical and the mental? I want to know it works, and not that you claim it works. What is the actual process?

 

[MikeF]

But you are wavering on your definitions again. For something to qualify as "objective" (as per your definition you provided before) it must be true regardless of what anyone thinks or opines.

Just as science could be considered "the study of nature," you could look at geometry as "the study of space." Mathematics is an objective analysis of quantity and space. "1+2=3" is demonstrable physically if I have three pebbles handy. All the axioms do is set up a framework that allows me to use the symbols (1, 2, and 3) to show you what I mean by 1+2=3.

Quantities are something that exist in nature. Axioms about quantity are what is self-evident about quantity. Space exists in nature. Geometric axioms tell us what is self-evident about space. This isn't some Harry Potter nonsense that Euclid dreamed up because he ate an unfamiliar mushroom one day. They are facts (type 1 AND type 2 facts) about how quantity and space operate.

Most scientist agree with me on this. And, as I said before, scientists copiously depend on mathematical axioms being true in the real world. Exactly how math is true is a mystery that dates back to Plato. But most scientists agree that mathematics is the language of nature, and that without out it, we have no hope of understanding most of nature. Newton and Einstein have nothing to say if you take the language of mathematics away from them.



Of course it's just an objective map... and no understanding (of anything) is ever fully complete. I never claimed anything different for mathematics or morality. I think you are complicating the issue. All we're trying to do here is find out what disciplines are "objective" and which ones aren't. I think science is objective. Incomplete knowledge has nothing to do with objectivity. Newton's statements about gravity and motion are objective. Full stop.

If Newton's laws are somewhat inaccurate, that doesn't make them less objective. They are still true regardless of what anyone thinks. And where Newton was mistaken (say, concerning an absolute frame of reference), he wasn't wrong because someone disagreed with him. He was simply wrong. Wrong in the old fashioned sense. Wrong in the sense that he made a statement about the universe that was (in some degree) false.




If infinite decimals bother you, you can write 2/3 as a fraction. None of those numbers repeat. But if you want to write 2/3 in numerical units of 10, you are going to get some repeating decimals. Humans have ten fingers, so we arbitrarily chose a system of ten digits (literally "finger" in Latin). It has NOTHING to do with the subjectivity of an analytic system. It has everything to do with the limitations of our numerical system to express certain fractions.



I think we ARE at an impasse. Unless we agree that analytic truths can be objective, I can't proceed on with my arguments about the objectivity of ethics. I mean, it's not so controversial. There of course are viewpoints that name math as subjective... and some viewpoints even say that math is a "useful fiction." But the consensus among scientists is that math is objective... or at least "objective enough" to be relied upon to make verifiable statements about the universe and nature.

If you really think that math is subjective, then it follows that ethics must also be subjective. I think that would be the only logical conclusion to have on the matter. The only reason I entertain the idea that ethics might be objective is that I first recognize that some analytic truths are objective.

But I've basically given you all I got as far as why I think math is objective. Truth be told, I'm not super educated in the philosophy of mathematics (never took any classes at university on it, nor have I studied much, aside from a few very basic YouTube videos and wikipedia entries). So if I haven't convinced you yet, the prospect of me producing a convincing argument for the objectivity of math is looking pretty bleak.

I'll take a tact from your playbook:

Yes or No: Can math be used incorrectly? Can computational or other errors be made?

Yes or No: Can math be used correctly within the rules of mathematics and get results that are not possible in the real world?

Yes or No: Can math be used to describe other possible worlds, worlds with characteristics and properties other than that of our objective physical world of experience?

 

[MikeF]

You haven't showned how it works. You do understand the difference between saying it works and showing how it works.
How do you actually show the link between the physical and the mental? I want to know it works, and not that you claim it works. What is the actual process?

I'm confused. You asserted the link yourself in your own post:

And brain scans show all 3 happen [math, logic, morality] in brains as dependent on brains. It is physical, just not independent of brains.

Are you not stating a link between the physical and mental?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I'm confused. You asserted the link yourself in your own post:



Are you not stating a link between the physical and mental?

We are doing objective and subjective. Your claim is than a brain is objective and a mind is subjective. So a brain as objectively independent of a brain is independent of it self.
That is your claim in effect.

 

[MikeF]

We are doing objective and subjective. Your claim is than a brain is objective and a mind is subjective. So a brain as objectively independent of a brain is independent of it self.
That is your claim in effect.

In an effort to not talk past each other, how do you define and use the word "subjective"?

 

[vulcanlogician]

Yes or No: Can math be used incorrectly? Can computational or other errors be made?

Yes. I think computational errors can be made. But I don't see how any such state threatens the objectivity of a given enterprise.

Our senses sometimes deceive us. Does that mean it is unwise to rely on the senses? What else are you going to rely on to reliably give you information about the world? I don't know about you, but I rely on my senses to give me information

Yes or No: Can math be used correctly within the rules of mathematics and get results that are not possible in the real world?

I don't know. I think that a mathematical statement must be consistent with itself, and still, consistent with the world, at least in regards to quantity or space. And by-and-large they are. And they are also consistent with physical accounts that involve space and quantity.

Yes or No: Can math be used to describe other possible worlds, worlds with characteristics and properties other than that of our objective physical world of experience?

Yes. Math CAN describe other worlds. But it can also describe our own. And not only can it describe it, it can describe it very well.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

In an effort to not talk past each other, how do you define and use the word "subjective"?

@vulcanlogician
@Zwing
@Kfox

Okay, this is going to be long. Because no word is in itself, but rather all words are interconnected as an understanding for those humans, who have the cognition to do so.
But there are several ways to do that understanding and this post in one, but not the only way to do.

Using analytical and phenomenological philosophy integrating in effect biology and more broadly cause and effect, I can make the following model of the universe where the model is a part of the universe and not independent of the universe.
The universe is assumed to be real, orderly and knowable, but not objective or subjective as only the one or the other.
Rather if I say I know something I account for all 3 parts of I know something.

So how does that work for objective and subjective if I include cause and effect and biology?
Well, first version for the 5 senses as objective:
2a: of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers : having reality independent of the mind.

Definition of OBJECTIVE

expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations; limited to choices of fixed alternatives and reducing subjective factors to a minimum… See the full definition

www.merriam-webster.com

So something objective is an experience not caused by the brain, but coming to the brain/mind. I will add biology more in depth latter.
Then there is the other version of objective, which is not objective as the first version but rather non-objective in the above sense.
1a: expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations. Again MW.
Notice express or deal. Those are active human behaviors, they cause something and they require a brain. They are not independent of the brain/mind.

Then there are the standard ones for subjective, again subjective as per MW.
3a: characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as independent of mind : PHENOMENAL compare OBJECTIVE sense 2a
b: relating to or being experience or knowledge as conditioned by personal mental characteristics or states
4a(1): peculiar to a particular individual : PERSONAL
(2): modified or affected by personal views, experience, or background
b: arising from conditions within the brain or sense organs and not directly caused by external stimuli
c: arising out of or identified by means of one's perception of one's own states and processes

And now comes the joke for cause and effect. If all causes are objective as independent for brains/minds then they, brains/minds, can't work, because they can't cause any behavior, but they do. You are reading the result of one such case right now.

So the biology part of the replication of the fittest genes and the organism, who do that.
In a proto sense all life is subjective as all processes are in the organism and not independent of the organism.
Now here are the 4 classes of behavior for life in general for which only humans match all 4.
-"Automated" behavior.
-Behavior learned to testing out the behavior, e.g. higher motor skills.
-Behavior learned by mimicking and then internalizing the behavior.
-Behavior using abstract signs learned by internalizing the behavior as meaning and understanding.

And now comes the joke of Western culture. Objectivity is so useful to what we do, that some of us have learned the folk belief that everything can be done objectively, because objectivity is better than subjectivity.
Well, no. Everything is not objective. Rather if something is subjective, then someone can claim it is objective and get away with that, because they can do it subjectively. But I can catch that for my model and do it differently.

So this model is a model in the landscape of both the model and landscape as parts of the same.
So now feelings about independent. I hate that word in philosophy as the folk dualism of objective reality is independent of the brain/mind as really independent, because it end up being impossible to explain for cause and effect.
But in the broad sense it is the same dualism some people use for objective and subjective.

So back to I know something. I can know something is subjective and I describe it as subjective as I. I just have to understand that I am describing a relationship in 3 parts: I know something and some of it is objective in relationship to my mind, but not independent in toto.

 

[Zwing]

In an effort to not talk past each other, how do you define and use the word "subjective"?

I know that I may be intruding, but I want to put my two cents into this pot. We are talking about perceiving and understanding here. Any act of perceiving and understanding has an animate perceiver/understander (the “subject”) and that which is perceived or understood (the “object”), which may be a material or non-material object, a phenomenon, or a set of circumstances. That being taken, “subjective” simply means an act of perceiving and/or understanding which “pertains to the subject”, or more expansively, it is the appearance of the object as perceived and understood from the subject’s perspective, as it’s abilities to perceive (physically sense) and understand (mentally assess) the object dictate. In contrast, “objective” means “pertaining to the object, the object, phenomenon, or set of circumstances in question. It refers to the object of the act of perceiving and understanding as it actually is, without the limitations caused by the subject’s abilities to perceive (physically sense) and understand (mentally assess) being involved. To myself, that is what is meant by the terms subjective and objective.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I know that I may be intruding, but I want to put my two cents into this pot. We are talking about perceiving and understanding here. Any act of perceiving and understanding has an animate perceiver/understander (the “subject”) and that which is perceived or understood (the “object”), which may be a material or non-material object, a phenomenon, or a set of circumstances. That being taken, “subjective” simply means an act of perceiving and/or understanding which “pertains to the subject”, or more expansively, it is the appearance of the object as perceived and understood from the subject’s perspective, as it’s abilities to perceive (physically sense) and understand (mentally assess) the object dictate. In contrast, “objective” means “pertaining to the object, the object, phenomenon, or set of circumstances in question. It refers to the object of the act of perceiving and understanding as it actually is, without the limitations caused by the subject’s abilities to perceive (physically sense) and understand (mentally assess) being involved. To myself, that is what is meant by the terms subjective and objective.

Well, yes. That is a part of it. But it also gets used as to how something exists and connects to the idea of real, reality and so on.