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Truth, myth and morality is regards to X and Y

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
First off, the short possible version of what this post is about.
Someone: For the everyday life we are all a part of I hold truth in practice for all important aspects of the human experience and existence.
Me: No!
Someone: That is a false belief.
Me: I don't care, because in practice I can get away with it.

That claim comes with many variations and can be done in an overall weak or strong version. The weak version is to the effect of: Don't you think, that we ought to agree on...
Me: No! Not as long you use it to in effect to judge the worth of other humans regardless of how indirect, polite and civil you do it, because you in effect claim an objective standard for morality, that is not there.

Now something else and I will say it in straight terms: Since there is no way in practice as long as humans remains humans to do objective morality, I will be "beeping" with your mind and cause cognitive dissonance in you if you in effect do objective morality how ever indirect. How I do that is my responsibility, but how you deal with it, is your problem. Now here it is what happens people are present with something:
They are unable to understand, what it is about.
They don't care, they are indifferent because they know they can do it differently.
They hate it.
They like it.
This will also happen here and play out with variation.

So what is it that always happen if a sufficient number of people start debating humans and their part in the world.
Well, we all do it with words to the effect of: "Everything, something, something else and/or nothing for the same, similar and/or different aspects of everything, something, something else and/or nothing."
That is one of the most general ways of stating it.

So I need words and so do you. So here it is: Words are not all of the world, but you need words to express that. So we need away to describe and explain words for which we use words.
Words or rather signs are used by some animals and computers. They stand for something, their meaning and that, their meaning is always in an animal or computer. They are placeholders for a process in brain or computer.
Words are themselves only signs, they link to the meaning and thus are always in at least one aspect subjective.
They are about something, they refer to something.

Now are all words all the same as for what they refer to? No, but then what are the most basics categories you can explain them with? Objective relationship, inter-subjective relationship and subjective relationship and their combinations in a given context.
So here is an example of you, a dog and a ball. There are some things I take for granted about you, the dog and the ball. You now throw the ball, call out "fetch" and the dog tries to catch the ball.
Now explain it for the 3 categories and account for the causality involved in overall terms. Physics, chemistry and some aspects of biochemistry are objective. Other aspects of biochemistry and further cognition and feelings are intersubjective and others are subjective.
What does that have to do with causality? Well, some of those would be there without you and the dog; e.g gravity. Others are the result of the causality of the replication of the fittest gene, that is the subjective part and some of that is shared: E.g. you and the dog understand the sign for "fetch".

So what is the myth in western culture, well it is the uneasy marriage of 2 cultures, which share the idea of an objective source of knowledge: The Jewish and the Greek one. They are 2 sides of the same coin, in that they both claim access to objective knowledge. One through God and the other trough reason, logic and objectivity.
Both fail, because neither can in effect remove and reduce away the subjective aspects of the human existence and experience. Both have tried and they fail.

So for wrong beliefs the joke is this as back to words and how they work in practice in regards to the objective relationship versus the subjective relationship.
If a human claims an objective relationship for a word, which is not there, then the relationship is subjective and as long as that word enable this human to act, it doesn't matter that there is no objective relationship because it works in the subjective sense.
That is not unique to either X or Y for this sub-forum. It also pertains to such words as reason, logic, "I am objective, rational and what not", evidence, truth, proof and so on.
Just as the word god as some non-believers like to point out is human and wouldn't be there if there was no humans, the same applies to a lot of words these non-believers use, including the most common variants as useful, utility, worth and so on.

And finally morality. Morality is in part inter-subjective and subjective as it relationship to evaluation of right, wrong, good and bad. But there is not objective standard because the causality is always subjective back to the replication of the fittest gene and the culture (inter-subjectivity) it takes places in.

If you want to, we can nitpick all the words you like and I will then point out the relationship to objective, inter-subjective and subjective and you might not like it. That is not my problem, that is yours.
If you want to cooperate, I don't have to, unless we can agree on how to separate the world into objective, inter-subjective and subjective and their combinations. And if how ever polite, civil and indirect you then turn me into the Other, I don't mind. I am a card-caring member of the Other. I have 3 psychiatric disorders, I am a special needs person and I am on a disability pension. So that won't work. I am the Other in regards to reason and logic and I am proud of it, because I have learned to make the best out of being the Other. I am very good at that. :D

So for morality we start with all humans are equal as humans and different as individuals or we "fight" with words.

With the best regards and the sincere hope that your worldview works for you and that you will have a long and good enough life for what is left of your life. And please don't project to much of your individual subjectivity onto me. I "fight" back. :)
 

bobhikes

Nondetermined
Premium Member
So here is an example of you, a dog and a ball. There are some things I take for granted about you, the dog and the ball.

This is how I understand it. What does dog mean in your mind what did you see? What does ball mean? What did the ball look like? Do you see something different when Dog and Ball are used together vs if you hear a Dog in the back yard or a ball in the gym? I know you did not understand it exactly as I did.

Each of us uniquely defines words and believe we understand the other on hearing their words but only truly understand a small amount. Yet with belief it is enough for us to thrive, yet with lots of challenges.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
This is how I understand it. What does dog mean in your mind what did you see? What does ball mean? What did the ball look like? Do you see something different when Dog and Ball are used together vs if you hear a Dog in the back yard or a ball in the gym? I know you did not understand it exactly as I did.

Each of us uniquely defines words and believe we understand the other on hearing their words but only truly understand a small amount. Yet with belief it is enough for us to thrive, yet with lots of challenges.

Yeah, the problem comes when we have to communicate in some cases, especially about morality, culture and what you could call worldview.
 

bobhikes

Nondetermined
Premium Member
Yeah, the problem comes when we have to communicate in some cases, especially about morality, culture and what you could call worldview.
How I see it,

Because belief is more necessary and we have no actual reference, morality, culture and worldview are harder. As long as you understand belief is involved and that these are not objective, (be open minded) the problems are minimized. Open mindedness comes from experience and expansion and is not teachable, closed mindedness is protective and limited for the individual and their group and is teachable. While open mindedness makes for a better world, it could be much harder for the individual and their group. Closed mindedness is protective for the individual and their group but dangerous with expansion. We are currently progressing to an expansive worldview over a individual worldview but because closed mindedness is teachable it will never go away.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
How I see it,

Because belief is more necessary and we have no actual reference, morality, culture and worldview are harder. As long as you understand belief is involved and that these are not objective, (be open minded) the problems are minimized. Open mindedness comes from experience and expansion and is not teachable, closed mindedness is protective and limited for the individual and their group and is teachable. While open mindedness makes for a better world, it could be much harder for the individual and their group. Closed mindedness is protective for the individual and their group but dangerous with expansion. We are currently progressing to an expansive worldview over a individual worldview but because closed mindedness is teachable it will never go away.

In science as observed open mindedness are only found in about 10-15% of adults and it is hard to achieve in others, because closed mindedness works so well defensively. So yeah, you go it right.
 

osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
I'd have to disagree. There is moral truth. It is objective in the sense that there is a goal to it, and its true regardless of personal feelings toward it. It is subjective medicine that there is moral truth.

Words do make things hard to say often times but i will try.

How far will a person get without honesty. Honesty is a moral value that says i will tell the other that which they deserve to know, and I will do what able needs be done for fair value, and my time permitting. Without honesty then life is screwy.

Or how about priorities as a moral virtue. Priorities says I will do the most important things in my life first, and foremost as the choices arise.

I can think of many moral virtues that just happen to be true. And they work for good reasons.

I am all for giving a situation what it calls for. So moral truth is relative to the situation also.

My bottom line is moral truth is objective, and relative. It improves my subjectivity also.
 

cladking

Well-Known Member
Yeah, the problem comes when we have to communicate in some cases, especially about morality, culture and what you could call worldview.

Yes. Since the "tower of babel" we use a confused language to try to communicate. As utterly confused as the language is it is "good enough" for thinking because we all understand our own thoughts.

The real problem is that we only understand the product of thought so the means of arriving at these conclusions is far more difficult to understand unless we remember the thought processes and ideas that went into them. It is very hard to see "thought" from the inside and most people don't really have a clue how it works. They can't see the role of language in thought even though it is fundamental. It is fundamental because we must learn to think in analog as babies in order to acquire language. Another way to say it is that our ability to acquire language hinges on our ability to think in analog. This is unique to humans and unique to humans after the tower of babel. Ancient humans used a digital language which was natural to the brain since most neurons are either on or off.

Since language is no longer "natural" and no longer reflects nature and human learning, we must use other means to gain and hold knowledge. We even had to invent a new kind of science. In order to manipulate knowledge we must form analog models of a digital reality (things either exist or they don't, things that don't exist either once existed or never existed, things which exist now will not in the future)(this is reality)(it is digital). Since we can't experience reality directly using analog thinking we must build analog models to try to understand. These models are composed not of reality as it is understood but of beliefs whether this beliefs are founded in faith, interpretation of experiment, or simple delusion. We simply are experiencing a digital reality in a now analog brain.

I disagree with the idea that there is no objectivity to morals. Even in a confused language there is reason and reason tells us that excesses of all sorts are harmful to the individual and to others. War and indiscriminate murder are detrimental to the smooth functioning of a healthy culture. Theft and destruction cause more deprivation than they prevent. Waste is a simple "sin" from any rational perspective.

We each have our own beliefs but the primary reason that communication fails isn't that we believe the others' beliefs are wrong; it's that we assume his conclusions are wrong so we don't try to understand how he reached these conclusions. Instead of looking for his logic and the sense of what he's saying we're looking for his errors. No one usually is worse or more "holier than thou" than individuals who base their beliefs on the interpretation of experiment. Frequently they don't even understand experiment or how it fits in to the big picture. They just read some nonsense in the paper and think science now knows everything. They don't realize that the reporter didn't understand what he's reporting and frequently the scientist has little better or no understanding at all.

All beliefs are wrong. Nature doesn't dance to the tune of any scientist at all nor to Peers. There will always be anomalies and so long as we stay this course people will try not to see them.
 
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