FORGIVENESS

[The AntiChris]

But I already debated this with you earlier in the thread and won (yes, of course, you disagree. I invite interested readers to take a look).

No disagreement here.

It hadn't occurred to me to think of our exchanges in terms of 'winning' and 'losing'.

 

[ruby sparks]

I am of course pointing out that the assessment that some conditions (a minority of which tend to result in death) are illnesses, is based on intuition.

But are you or are you not (simple yes or no please, for clarity) saying that whether something actually has a disease (eg cancer) depends on intuitions, but whether something is actually dead doesn't depend on intuitions?

No. You surely can't be. So what are you saying? Are you merely saying that an assessment of whether either disease and/or death have occurred ultimately depends on what you are calling intuitions (some would say faculties or perception might be better)? If so, fine, it's trivially true for all human knowledge that assessments of everything and anything depend on such things, but, for disease and death we surely agree, I hope, that there is also an objective, intuition-independent and attitude-independent fact of the matter.

Now, that this is also true about moral assessments is what you strongly believe to be the case. And you also seem to strongly believe that you have shown it to be the case by argument. And you hope that some day someone will come along who realises that you have conclusively shown it, and that your personal convictions are in fact both correct and true and have been shown to be correct and true. In the meantime, until you are convinced otherwise, you will continue to hold the beliefs you do.

The problem with this of course is that it is pretty similar to the sorts of things that people say who strongly believe in, have convictions about, and assert by argument, the actual objective existence of gods. As I said way back, it's that type of claim, even if in this case it does not include beliefs about the supernatural.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

But are you or are you not (simple yes or no please, for clarity) saying that whether something actually has a disease (eg cancer) depends on intuitions, but whether something is actually dead doesn't depend on intuitions?

No, I am not saying that whether something actually has a disease depends on intuitions. I am saying that in order to ascertain that something has a disease, we need to rely on intuitions. More precisely, in order to ascertain whether a certain condition that some organism has is a disease, we need to rely on a very specific intuition, namely one by which we make judgments of health/illness.

That said, that particular intuition actually informs the referent of the terms 'illness', 'health', etc., so in a very indirect way, it would depend on it, but only in the way of informing how we humans coin and use words.

If so, fine, it's trivially true for all human knowledge that assessments of everything and anything depend on such things, but, for disease and death we surely agree, I hope, that there is also an objective, intuition-independent and attitude-independent fact of the matter.

Well, you and I, and the vast majority of humans, agree that there is a fact of the matter. I have explained what I mean by 'attitude-independent'. I am uncertain as to what you mean, but if it is the same, then you and I agree that the fact of the matter is attitude-independent. The word 'objective' does not seem to add anything to the usual expression 'there is a fact of the matter', but sure.

So, you and I, and the vast majority of people, agree that there is a fact of the matter. And we agree with that because we intuitively perceive it as such. However, this has the following problems:

1. A first problem is that you earlier said (for example):

But let's suppose, hypothetically, that humans generally are moral realists about at least some things, that there are at least some moral 'facts'. I don't have a problem with this. I agree with it. There are certain things which humans regard as having a factual, right or wrong answer in moral terms. The problem is, what does this tell us? It tells us what human beliefs are like. It does not necessarily extend to showing they are correct that there are objective, independent moral facts. Moral realism, if it relies on commonsense human intuitions, has built its house on sand, because human intuitions have often been shown to be wrong. All normal human brains are prone to and predisposed to false beliefs about the world. Science in particular shows this over and over. It's the achilles heel for the idea that human intuitions and commonsense and everyday language are the proper or best basis for realism about anything at all. The beliefs, including the ones deemed to be to do with what we call morality, may be pragmatically useful for successfully navigating the world, but that could be all it is.

More to the point, they are human intuitions. They are not independent of humans.

Surely, a person who is in the minority who rejects the existence of objective facts of the matter about illness can make the following parallel:

But let's suppose, hypothetically, that humans generally are health/illness realists about at least some things, that there are at least some health/illness 'facts'. I don't have a problem with this. I agree with it. There are certain things which humans regard as having a factual, right or wrong answer in health/illness terms. The problem is, what does this tell us? It tells us what human beliefs are like. It does not necessarily extend to showing they are correct that there are objective, independent health/illness facts. Health/illness realism, if it relies on commonsense human intuitions, has built its house on sand, because human intuitions have often been shown to be wrong. All normal human brains are prone to and predisposed to false beliefs about the world. Science in particular shows this over and over. It's the achilles heel for the idea that human intuitions and commonsense and everyday language are the proper or best basis for realism about anything at all. The beliefs, including the ones deemed to be to do with what we call health or illness, may be pragmatically useful for successfully navigating the world, but that could be all it is.

More to the point, they are human intuitions. They are not independent of humans.
​

Do you see the point?
You could insist that illnesses existed before humans, or whatever. But the point is that whether those conditions that existed before humans were illnesses (as a matter of fact, independent of attitudes, etc.), is something that you and I (and nearly all humans) ascertain intuitively. It's not because of empirical science. One could do empirical science and study how to stop a virus or modify the eyes so that they see better without saying anything as to whether cataracts or the flu are illnesses.

The structure of your anti-intuition argument would give the health/illness anti-realist a tool for challenging health/illness common sense realism that seems to be no worse than it is as a tool for the moral anti-realist to challenge common-sense realism. Note that this argument does not depend on whether the conditions that look like illnesses to humans existed also before there were humans.

2. A second problem is color. When it comes to color, the vast majority of people - not you - agree that there is a fact of the matter, with all of the objective, independent bells and whistles of illness/health. Yet, you do not. Why? Are you relying entirely on intuitions? Surely, for billions of years, there were things with reflective properties that would make them look red, or green, or blue to us if a human had been there to look at them. Or look at this picture of Martian rocks of different colors. Many Martian rocks had been there for millions of years, eroding very, very slowly, and some probably have the same reflective properties as they did before there were any humans. Why would the facts that they have such-and-such colors be not attitude-independent, objective, etc., as nearly every human believes?

3. A third problem is morality, but I will leave it for later.

 

[ruby sparks]

You could insist that illnesses existed before humans, or whatever. But the point is that whether those conditions that existed before humans were illnesses (as a matter of fact, independent of attitudes, etc.), is something that you and I (and nearly all humans) ascertain intuitively.

As I said before, it is agreed to be the case that everything we know is based on what you are calling 'intuitions'. I'm not sure if that's necessarily the best word or whether 'faculties of perception' or 'mind states' or 'beliefs' is better or whatever, but I'll use your word.

What you seem to be trying to say is that because of this, every claim about the world could be said to be based on what you are calling intuitions. Fair enough. But you can't necessarily put the existence of or facts about everything in the world trivially on a par like that merely because everything humans know about them comes through what you are calling intuitions. Well, you can, but only if you deny there are facts about the world which don't depend on intuitions. I'm sure you don't do this.

You could insist that death existed before humans, or whatever. But the point is that whether those conditions that existed before humans were death (as a matter of fact, independent of attitudes, etc.), is something that you and I (and nearly all humans) ascertain intuitively.

Is that another possible version of your point about intuitions? Because, you know, we don't have to play semantic games with the term 'illness' (or 'disease' or 'damage to health') and what they mean in everyday language. To illustrate the important limitations of that sort of word game, we can go straight to certain types of illness; we can do fatal ones.

Consider:

Factual claim 1A: Damage to the human body caused by fatal illnesses causes death.
Factual claim 1B: Fatal damage was caused to Ted Bundy's body by electric shock.
Factual claim 1C: Ted Bundy died.

Factual claim 2: The execution of Ted Bundy was good and right.
(Please note that I am choosing a relatively easy moral example here and that there are more difficult ones).

The facts about those claims are not necessarily on a par, even if knowledge of all three is agreed to be based on what you are calling intuitions, and so the idea that something is factually true just because of (what you are calling) intuitions is potentially flawed, so, no, I don't see the point of what you are saying, other than that it's yet another way to restate your own beliefs, opinions and attitudes about claims such as 2 above.

 

[ruby sparks]

The facts about those claims are not necessarily on a par, even if knowledge of all four are agreed to be based on what you are calling intuitions.....

Correction (above in bold).

So knowledge of all four are based on (what we are for convenience calling) intuitions. If this is all you have been saying then it was already obvious long before we started this discussion.

Some things we have intuitions about are related to attitude-independent facts about humans. Eg Death.

If you think that human death is not an attitude-independent fact, now is the time to make that claim.

Intuitions about human morality may or may not be like that. It hasn't been shown yet.

(With caveats about the suggested species-independent rules previously offered).

 

[ruby sparks]

I'm asking whether in those examples (i.e., health/illness) you see something that makes them attitude-independent and that is not present in moral judgments.......

For judgements about human bodily health, I would cite freshly severed limbs or heads, or a crushed skull, or massive haemorrhaging of blood for any reason, or ECGs which reliably detect the presence of a very severe type of (eg STEMI) heart attack, or a series of x-rays showing the rapid advance of a very aggressive and lethal cancer to the point that death is imminent.

And/or in the end, cold, dead, stiff or decaying human bodies. Zero exceptions.

Compare that degree and type of apparently conclusive evidence for the realism behind judgements about human bodily health to the evidence for the realism of human moral judgements, and you have a reasonable basis to make an epistemic distinction between the two types of phenomenon, to the point that the former is arguably not even up for rational debate and the latter is endlessly discussed and as yet unresolved.

 

[fromderinside]

This is getting to be like pulling shit by hand from an abandoned Chick Sales because your grandparent told you to do it.

 

[ruby sparks]

2. A second problem is color. When it comes to color, the vast majority of people - not you - agree that there is a fact of the matter, with all of the objective, independent bells and whistles of illness/health. Yet, you do not. Why? Are you relying entirely on intuitions? Surely, for billions of years, there were things with reflective properties that would make them look red, or green, or blue to us if a human had been there to look at them. Or look at this picture of Martian rocks of different colors. Many Martian rocks had been there for millions of years, eroding very, very slowly, and some probably have the same reflective properties as they did before there were any humans. Why would the facts that they have such-and-such colors be not attitude-independent, objective, etc., as nearly every human believes?

It's far from being just my idea. Many (in fact I read most) colour psychologists and some philosophers do not hold that colours really exist, of themselves, as properties of the world outside our heads, inside which they are colour experiences. It's not an unusual idea at all. The issue is up for debate and is unresolved. The vast majority of lay people may simply rely on limited, potentially fallible, 'ordinary/everyday' human intuitions, colloquial understandings and folk-psychological beliefs about it and haven't thought about it deeply enough or read about it widely enough, as with many things.

It's one thing to have a strong preference for realism about stuff. It's another to dogmatically deny the validity of alternatives, particularly when a particular realism/non-realism issue is unresolved and apparently inconclusive, as with colour realism and moral realism, but not so much realism about diseases, especially but not exclusively those that cause bodily death, the actual, conclusively-evidenced reality of which is surely not up for debate or in any plausible doubt by any reasonable or rational standards, despite our knowledge of it being based on what we are for convenience calling intuitions about it.

 

[fromderinside]

I am one retired sensory psychophysiologist who holds that evolution of color vision as well as the existence of spectra in light, reflection, and illumination demonstrates colors do exist as properties of photic energy in the natural world.

 

[ruby sparks]

I am one retired sensory psychophysiologist who holds that evolution of color vision as well as the existence of spectra in light, reflection, and illumination demonstrates colors do exist as properties of photic energy in the natural world.

I'm sure we could discuss it.

For instance, we apparently don't need light input to experience colour. Coloured phosphenes can be experienced in the dark and can be induced by Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, or by inserting electrodes into the brain. I read that in some such experiments, blind people have been astounded by the experience.

I'm not saying that's conclusive either way (it isn't) but it does seem to suggest that light is at least not even necessary for the experience.

I wouldn't dispute that light factually and independently exists as radiated energy of various wavelengths or particles, or even possibly as information, or whatever. I would only say that for example 'redness and greenness' (like 'pain and pleasure', or 'the taste of chocolate') might not exist outside brains, even if our experiences of them do accurately map onto independent phenomena which are out there (or at least map fairly well most of the time, bearing in mind that for example our visual cognitive systems are not photometers and that our intuitive colour assessments are sometimes wrong*). Or it might exist outside our brains.

-------------------------------------------------------------

*There are potentially interesting comparisons here between intuitive colour judgements and intuitive moral and related judgements.

If a colour image is 'framed' by the inclusion in it of an object that appears to cast a shadow over some parts of the image, the brain will identify the colours in that part of the image differently to the rest of the image and no amount of mental effort can banish that experienced difference. There are other examples of framing effects in relation to visual judgements.

Somewhat similarly (though not identically) some experiments suggest that moral judgements can also be induced to differ by another type of framing. I am talking about how moral judgements about various moral dilemmas can apparently vary according to (a) the order of the versions of the dilemma presented, (b) the difference between taking indirect action or direct action and (c) whether the agent is presented in the second or third person (eg as 'you' or as 'John').

Similarly in some other ways, 'cooperate' or 'defect' strategies in the prisoner's dilemma can be affected by prior framing that causes the participants behaviour to vary one way or the other [eg if, while sitting in the waiting room prior to playing the game, a person overhears a (fake but believed to be true) radio news item about an act of sacrifice, such as the donation of a kidney, then the person will be much more likely to adopt a cooperative strategy in the subsequent game].

The suggestion that is made is that if our mental intuitions and instinctive judgements were reliable they might not be prone to variations and inconsistencies of this type. Again, whether that is correct is inconclusive, but in my view it at least potentially undermines the reliability of intuitions to some extent, and it's already non-controversial to suggest that intuitions can be unreliable (see my previous 'Top 20', which didn't even include obvious examples from religion).

 

[Angra Mainyu]

What you seem to be trying to say is that because of this, every claim about the world could be said to be based on what you are calling intuitions. Fair enough. But you can't necessarily put the existence of or facts about everything in the world trivially on a par like that merely because everything humans know about them comes through what you are calling intuitions. Well, you can, but only if you deny there are facts about the world which don't depend on intuitions. I'm sure you don't do this.

But the problem is that an argument that rejects intuitions as a general method is bound to fail, for the reasons I've been explaining.

Some things we have intuitions about are related to attitude-independent facts about humans. Eg Death.

And again, we assess intuitively that some facts are independent of the attitude of the person making them. Examples: facts about whether a condition a person has is an illness, or whether an object is red, or whether a person behaved immorally. The point is that in some of those cases, you reject the intuition that those are facts independent from the attitude of the person making the assessment, and in some other cases, you accept such intuition, but you do not explain why do you reject some of the intuitions.

Intuitions about human morality may or may not be like that. It hasn't been shown yet.

No, you miss the point. You reckon intuitively that the fact that cataracts is an illness is independent of the attitude of the person assessing whether cataracts is an illness. But when I reckon intuitively that the fact that some apples are red is independent of the attitude of the person assessing whether some apples are red, you tell me I am wrong in using intuition, and when I reckon intuitively that the fact that Ted Bundy was a bad person is independent of the attitude of the person assessing whether he was a bad person, you accuse me of being religious, mock me, etc.

For judgements about human bodily health, I would cite freshly severed limbs or heads, or a crushed skull, or massive haemorrhaging of blood for any reason, or ECGs which reliably detect the presence of a very severe type of (eg STEMI) heart attack, or a series of x-rays showing the rapid advance of a very aggressive and lethal cancer to the point that death is imminent.

Again, how do you reckon that the fact that those conditions are illnesses is independent of the person making the assessment?
Intuitively? If not, how? (of course, intuitively).

It's far from being just my idea. Many (in fact I read most) colour psychologists and some philosophers do not hold that colours really exist, of themselves, as properties of the world outside our heads, inside which they are colour experiences.

Sure, and there are people who reject the idea that facts about whether a condition is an illness is attitude-independent. In philosophy of health and illness, you have the 'naturalists' (they would be roughly the equivalent of moral realists), and the 'constructivists' of different sorts (roughly the anti-realists).

See https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/health-disease/ for more information.

It's not an unusual idea at all.

It is indeed extremely unusual. The vast majority of the human population disagrees.

The issue is up for debate and is unresolved. The vast majority of lay people may simply rely on limited, potentially fallible, 'ordinary/everyday' human intuitions, colloquial understandings and folk-psychological beliefs about it and haven't thought about it deeply enough or read about it widely enough, as with many things.

And the vast majority of those people are correct, as the challenges clearly show confusion and provide no good reason to reject those intuitions. Regardless, if you are going with that, I will point out that the same the same can be said about whether a condition is an illness. The vast majority rely on human intuitions about whether something is an illness.

 

[fromderinside]

I am one retired sensory psychophysiologist who holds that evolution of color vision as well as the existence of spectra in light, reflection, and illumination demonstrates colors do exist as properties of photic energy in the natural world.

I'm sure we could discuss it.

For instance, we apparently don't need light input to experience colour. Coloured phosphenes can be experienced in the dark and can be induced by Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, or by inserting electrodes into the brain. I read that in some such experiments, blind people have been astounded by the experience.

Nonstarter. Each is experienced by a being that already translates photic energy as color. Antecedent for experience of color is ability to process photic energy which is evolved using photosensitive chemical processes. Blindness does not exclude the ability to use those biochemical processes inherent in the being.

 

[ruby sparks]

But the problem is that an argument that rejects intuitions as a general method is bound to fail, for the reasons I've been explaining.

No. Human intuitions are often fallible and unreliable, especially when it comes to intuitions about mental phenomena. This is demonstrably the case and many categories and several examples have been given. It is not the case with diseases. Your analogy with bodily health, which is arguably a different kettle of fish, has been flawed from the moment you first tried to use it.

And again, we assess intuitively that some facts are independent of the attitude of the person making them. Examples: facts about whether a condition a person has is an illness, or whether an object is red, or whether a person behaved immorally. The point is that in some of those cases, you reject the intuition that those are facts independent from the attitude of the person making the assessment, and in some other cases, you accept such intuition, but you do not explain why do you reject some of the intuitions.

On the contrary I have explained many times. You are merely an evidence-denier, although to be fair I knew that already, from when you hand-waved away the body of scientific evidence that at least somewhat undermines folk-psychological beliefs about free will, and you have done it repeatedly. Sidestepping evidence is, coincidentally, something religious people also often do.

I think you are also also slightly deluded, because basically, you kid yourself you have resolved issues that are plainly and obviously unresolved. The stuff about no one understanding you and your hope that others will come after who will is imo possibly a borderline delusion of grandeur specifically. I won't even get into your claiming to have won arguments that have not been decided yet.

No, you miss the point. You reckon intuitively that the fact that cataracts is an illness is independent of the attitude of the person assessing whether cataracts is an illness. But when I reckon intuitively that the fact that some apples are red is independent of the attitude of the person assessing whether some apples are red, you tell me I am wrong in using intuition, and when I reckon intuitively that the fact that Ted Bundy was a bad person is independent of the attitude of the person assessing whether he was a bad person, you accuse me of being religious, mock me, etc.

Your dogmatically-held personal convictions and your mode of discussion, including the sophistry, evidence-denial, and the being blinkered to alternatives, are like religion, that's all. Although that's arguably being a bit harsh on religion, since many religious people exhibit more flexible thinking than you do.

Again, how do you reckon that the fact that those conditions are illnesses is independent of the person making the assessment?
Intuitively? If not, how? (of course, intuitively).

I have already provided reasonable reasons for making the relevant epistemic distinction, most recently one based on standards of evidence. I did not actually expect you would account of it. That's par for the course for you when it comes to evidence. It's often inconvenient for you, I guess.

It is indeed extremely unusual.

Not among experts it isn't.

The vast majority of the human population disagrees.

Most ordinary people believe in god and free will and that there is a self between their ears, just behind their eyes. Do you actually have a point?

And the vast majority of those people are correct.....

According to the Word Of Angra.

.....as the challenges clearly show confusion...

So you claim. The alternative, of course, is that there is no attitude-independent fact of the matter. You haven't shown that there is yet. All you have done is to state that you intuitively believe there is, and that moral properties exist of themselves, and attempt to present these things as undeniably the case and that those who disagree are merely, unlike you, succumbing to confusion. Surely by now you can see why I'm saying you seem to be behaving at least a bit like a religious person.

..... and provide no good reason to reject those intuitions.

They do. You should read up on the alternatives. It is de facto not a decided issue and you being convinced about the real existence of attitude-independent moral facts and properties (which none of your convoluted scenarios demonstrated) is why I say you are being a bit like a religious person about it. One doesn't have to believe in god to be religious. People can be religious about almost anything.

Regardless, if you are going with that, I will point out that the same the same can be said about whether a condition is an illness.

No, it can't. I showed this by extending your analogy to fatal illnesses. That fatal illnesses actually, really do result in actual, real death is not an unresolved issue. Moral realism on the other hand is. In that way it's really quite simple. This matter is undecided. Stop fooling yourself into believing you've decided it in one direction.





Do you have anything more to add that isn't merely a regurgitation of your strongly-held personal beliefs and articles of faith?

If you want to stop now I'll happily agree that your claims are undefeated. I sometimes do that with theists too.

 

[ruby sparks]

I am one retired sensory psychophysiologist who holds that evolution of color vision as well as the existence of spectra in light, reflection, and illumination demonstrates colors do exist as properties of photic energy in the natural world.

I'm sure we could discuss it.

For instance, we apparently don't need light input to experience colour. Coloured phosphenes can be experienced in the dark and can be induced by Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, or by inserting electrodes into the brain. I read that in some such experiments, blind people have been astounded by the experience.

Nonstarter. Each is experienced by a being that already translates photic energy as color. Antecedent for experience of color is ability to process photic energy which is evolved using photosensitive chemical processes. Blindness does not exclude the ability to use those biochemical processes inherent in the being.

Ok thanks. But of course that does not seem to resolve the issue. Any mental experience can have correlates. The experience of pain can have correlates that do not necessarily themselves have pain in them for example. Ditto many other experiences.

My main point in this thread on morality is not to argue strongly for or against colour realism (although I do myself lean towards colour non-realism) but to make the point that despite Angra's convictions, moral and colour realism issues are both unresolved. The bodily health realism issue isn't, by any reasonable standards.

 

[ruby sparks]

Continuing on the theme of comparing various issues, here are some interesting reads:

COLOUR FICTIONALISM

MORAL FICTIONALISM

Both seem to make the case that when whether something actually exists or is the case is not clear, what arguably matters most for practical purposes is the nature of the particular beliefs about them. This could be extended to other issues, such as free will, self, and obviously, god.

There is also this:

CANCER FICTIONALISM

 

[Angra Mainyu]

No. Human intuitions are often fallible and unreliable, especially when it comes to intuitions about mental phenomena.

First, no, not "often", but a minuscule proportion of the times. Yes, you can point to many studies. But note that in order to even do those studies, or even to figure that some intuitions are unreliable, scientists (and everyone else) have to rely on stronger intuitions about mental phenomena as well. In particular, they need to trust their memories in nearly all cases (even when that is to challenge some specific memories).

Second, the category 'mental phenomena' is picked arbitrarily, it seems. That some intuitions about some mental phenomena are sometimes unreliable does not warrant a general skepticism about human intuitions about mental phenomena...which, of course, neither you nor anyone else could actually practice, as they intuitively trust their intuitions about many of those phenomena all the time. Not that it would be rational to even attempt to have that general skepticism. In fact, even assessments of rationality require trusting some of such intuitions.

It is not the case with diseases.

It is not the case with morality, either. and the category of 'mental phenomena' is just arbitrary.

Still, even this would not help your position, as illnesses include mental illnesses, so there you have mental phenomena.

Your analogy with bodily health, which is arguably a different kettle of fish, has been flawed from the moment you first tried to use it.

No, you are changing the subject. You attacked human intuitions in general. I showed that your own argument would turn against your own position - I showed this many times already, in different posts and contexts.

On the contrary I have explained many times. You are merely an evidence-denier, although to be fair I knew that already, from when you hand-waved away the body of scientific evidence that at least somewhat undermines folk-psychological beliefs about free will, and you have done it repeatedly. Sidestepping evidence is, coincidentally, something religious people also often do.

I think you are also also slightly deluded, because basically, you kid yourself you have resolved issues that are plainly and obviously unresolved. The stuff about no one understanding you and your hope that others will come after who will is imo possibly a borderline delusion of grandeur specifically. I won't even get into your claiming to have won arguments that have not been decided yet.

Your accusations are false an unwarranted.

1. First, I do not deny evidence. You attribute to me arguments I do not make, you ignore and deny the arguments you lost already, etc.

2. I do not claim that no one understands my points. I'm pretty sure there is someone who does understand the points I am making, if he is still reading. You understand some but clearly many you do not, because otherwise your misconstruction of what happened would be dishonest.

2. I do not claim that I have resolved those issues. It's not my doing. But they are not "unresolved" other than in the sense philosophers still debate them. Big deal, philosophers debate a number of things. Many argue that the Biblical creator exists and is omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect, the same entity (or substance, or whatever depending on the philosopher) as Jesus, who walked on water, etc. Moreover, of course some philosophers also deny illness realism. So, if by 'unresolved' you mean some philosophers debate it, deny the facts, etc., that is pretty much everywhere. Else, you are making a mistaken assessment, and then making disparaging accusations against me.

Your dogmatically-held personal convictions and your mode of discussion, including the sophistry, evidence-denial, and the being blinkered to alternatives, are like religion, that's all. Although that's arguably being a bit harsh on religion, since many religious people exhibit more flexible thinking than you do.

No, you just make disparaging, unwarranted and false accusations.

Do you have anything more to add that isn't merely a regurgitation of your strongly-held personal beliefs and articles of faith?

I do not regurgitate articles of faith or anything. I showed you that you are mistaken. I tried my best to explain the matter to you. I was very careful, and spent a lot of time trying to get you to understand. But you are not in a mood for understanding. You just attack me. I hope one day you realize that you were wrong. But I do not count on it.

 

[fromderinside]

Nonstarter. Each is experienced by a being that already translates photic energy as color. Antecedent for experience of color is ability to process photic energy which is evolved using photosensitive chemical processes. Blindness does not exclude the ability to use those biochemical processes inherent in the being.

Any mental experience can have correlates.

I didn't advocated correlates. I pointed out that experiences are dependent on material realities.

My main point in this thread on morality is not to argue strongly for or against colour realism (although I do myself lean towards colour non-realism) but to make the point that despite Angra's convictions, moral and colour realism issues are both unresolved. The bodily health realism issue isn't, by any reasonable standards.

I don't agree with either you ruby sparks or with Angra Mainyu that philosophy can stand independently. Any philosophy must recognize constraints of extant knowledge. It is howling at the moon to suggest experience, intuition, insight is free from physical dependency. You just can't dream up a mind - more or less because you are not cognizant of physical system parameters - that operates outside behaving physical system definitions.

You must know that color vision arose from materials capable of transducing light into electrochemical information which over time evolved into a system capable of finely distinguishing differences in that photic energy relevant to the continued existence of the the beings evolving. The very fact that those differences are distinguishable is strong evidence what is distinguished is material. Otherwise there would be no means for inferring Higgs Boson.


...and what is morality if not a system for treating social behavior within some schema.

 

[ruby sparks]

I do not claim that I have resolved those issues. It's not my doing. But they are not "unresolved" other than in the sense philosophers still debate them......... So, if by 'unresolved' you mean some philosophers debate it, deny the facts, etc., that is pretty much everywhere.

Thanks for the discussion. During the course of it I added to my previous knowledge about the many different and competing theses about morality, mostly by reading outside the thread while it was going on. Inside the thread, I met an individual who seems very personally convinced indeed that the particular thesis about morality which they endorse is the correct one, and who insists that this is true.

 

[ruby sparks]

I pointed out that experiences are dependent on material realities.

I'd agree.

I don't agree with either you ruby sparks or with Angra Mainyu that philosophy can stand independently. Any philosophy must recognize constraints of extant knowledge. It is howling at the moon to suggest experience, intuition, insight is free from physical dependency. You just can't dream up a mind - more or less because you are not cognizant of physical system parameters - that operates outside behaving physical system definitions.

I'm not saying that anything is free from physical dependency.

You must know that color vision arose from materials capable of transducing light into electrochemical information which over time evolved into a system capable of finely distinguishing differences in that photic energy relevant to the continued existence of the the beings evolving. The very fact that those differences are distinguishable is strong evidence what is distinguished is material. Otherwise there would be no means for inferring Higgs Boson.

I'm not saying light isn't material.

...and what is morality if not a system for treating social behavior within some schema.

What is morality indeed. Very good question.

 

[fromderinside]

I'd agree.




I'm not saying that anything is free from physical dependency.

So you're upgrading from correlated then?

You must know that color vision arose from materials capable of transducing light into electrochemical information which over time evolved into a system capable of finely distinguishing differences in that photic energy relevant to the continued existence of the the beings evolving. The very fact that those differences are distinguishable is strong evidence what is distinguished is material. Otherwise there would be no means for inferring Higgs Boson.

I'm not saying light isn't material.

I didn't say you were. I argued color is material as a distinguishable aspect of light.

...and what is morality if not a system for treating social behavior within some schema.

What is morality indeed. Very good question.

Of course it is. Yet you are attempting rational argument about something that you don't think is material as an consequence of being from mind something invented to be inserted for what the nervous and neurochemical systems do.