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Can thoughts be moral or immoral?

In my example one needs take in to account likelihood that a particular measure isn't just extraneous phenomena. We have examined neural electrical activity to the ner-do-well and we have found general activity not particularly relevant to underlying neural local function. Sure there is onset and awareness indices but they are way too weak or late to provide index even to threshold. Point is study of local function requires something more onto time and activity expected by underlying processes.. At this stage of study there are lots of good reasons to ignore particular sets of data.

My argument relates to matching process to activity not some general index like REM. Every good statistician knows the risks of adding variables just to get significance. Does rings-of-Saturn effects ring any bells?
 
Politesse said:
My reading of the current state of neuroscience is that physical measurement of activity must be built up from the outside to get at how the brain became what it is. For instance respiration is always an indication of behavior in oxygen consuming beings. Therefore oxygen uptake is a better measure of activity than is coincidental electrical activity one might record.
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That sounds absurd to me, I would want every possible measure for analysis. There's no good reason to choose to ignore a set of data.
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If you want to build a universal model that might be the case. However scientists tend to constrain their investigations to particular aspects of the material and function they investigate. They reduce their investigation to a minimize number of variables to facilitate identification and function.

Continuing on from my previous post We know there is a continuum from first life to current life. Its most evident within phyla. Phylogeny recapitulates ontogeny still works. Its one reason we take the work of Crick seriously when he talked of necessary elements for consciousness.

We also, in my field, make lots of use of mechanical and electrical models when we attempt to emulate behavior. We've found that response increases in fidelity and completeness with duration so we model with growth models from electrical applications. At the same time we look at underlying principles of organization of tissue that likely facilitate such growth functions and usually find confirming evidence therefrom.
 
Hi laughing dog,

IMO, a thought without any accompanying action is neither moral or immoral. Questions of right or wrong only come into play when you interact with the world around you.

If someone cuts you off in traffic and speeds away, an angry fantasy of road-raging the other driver might well pop into your head for an instant. However, if you let the moment pass & stick to safe driving, you did the right thing. Anger is a normal emotion, and we shouldn't be guilt-tripping ourselves every time we have a fleeting "bad thought", if the thought was never translated into action.

Lets say instead you are always short of money, and you start thinking up elaborate plans to rob a bank. If you actually did it, your action would be wrong and immoral. If you started casing the place, bought a gun, researched successful bank robberies on-line, bragged to your wife, etc., I'd say you were also taking actions that would be immoral -- even if your wife turns you over to the cops before you could carry out the robbery. However, if all this planning just stayed between your ears for decades on-end, and you died, then your thoughts about robbing the bank were neither moral or immoral. They were just a waste of mental energy.

Finally, obsessive thoughts/fantasies of a violent or negative nature are signs of a mental health issue, not immorality. Whoever has them needs a medical intervention, before we need to call the cops when they try and act on them.
 
You must hold yourself responsible for the things you think. Nobody else has the power or right to so so, so YOU MUST. This is what morality means to me.
 
Ethics, those to me are something different. Those describe that which others ought, together, hold each other accountable for, and how they must account, for the best of all.

To speak is free, unless you speak of intent to doing harm to someone else who is not publicly and clearly intending to harm you or someone else first. That's the extent of it. Then others must judge you. And you must judge yourself if you continue to wish to be considered moral. They may only to that extent judge you not moral in their eyes.

To do an immoral thing is unethical. It means a violation of principles we can expect people to uphold, because it directly harms us.

This creates a heirarchy of expectation and accountability.
 
fromderinside said:
Yes, but not a hierarchy based on support by material evidence.
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It's based on logical conclusion. If nobody else can hold you accountable for what you think then you are the one who must do it. If you don't, and you let those thoughts out I have the RIGHT to call you immoral, and deal with you as I will within that judgement.

I cannot do more than that, ethically, justifiedly, join with others, unless you act on it, or make communications that you will, in a way that harms me or others, in which case I WILL do something about it and seek coordination with others to stop it, and only to the extent it is forced to become necessary.
 
fromderinside said:
What you wrote looks more like setting up judgmental method rather than preparing responses founded in moral value.
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It means I am the God of my own body. If there is some demon in me, I must be the one to put it away. Nobody else can, for this is a part of me. And sometimes these demons in us grow from exposure to whatever feeds them. Sometimes what feeds them is simply letting them run amok inside who we are, suggesting unacceptable ways of looking at the world without consequence or challenge of reason. There is an "I" inside me. I AM. I steer me. I ultimately decide who I am and what I do. I pity anyone who does not have the temerity to take control of who they are.
 
Morality assumes all human life is equally deserving of life and equally deserving to not be harmed.

The criminal justice system and the legal system work under the assumption that humans have freedom of will and have control over their actions. Assuming freedom of will does not in itself cause any harm. Humans can be harmed by environments and actions taken after a verdict of guilt though.

Aaron Burr said: "I am the one thing I can control". To wait is to control.

But hating your fellow man is what apes filled with hormones do.

The trick is to not act, just think. Then you can claim you are as pure as the driven snow.
 
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