You keep using the word "morals", without explaining what you mean by that.
Could you please provide 3 examples of morals? Is it moral statements, truths, thoughts, beliefs, properties, or what?
That aside, just as having certain motivations may be morally evil, having certain motivations may be mentally ill.
What do you even mean by "morals"?
Could you please list 3 morals, as examples?? Is it moral statements, truths, thoughts, beliefs, properties, or what?
Moreover, one could argue just as much:
A1: If mental illnesses can exist outside of our opinions, then like geometric objects , they exist within the world around us (in the sense that we can apply them to the world around us in useful ways) ...which means the world around us is necessarily mind dependent.
A2: If truths about elephants can exist...etc.
apeman said:
As I have just intimated (in the previous post) morals exist in the way mathematical /geometric laws exist, they are in the world around us and are only discoverable by mind. That implies that the world around us has at least a component that is mind dependent.
Actually, you said earlier that you were talking about
thoughts when you said "morals" - more precisely, you described them apparently as "self-regarding thoughts".
But regardless, I will point out that:
a. You provide no good reason to believe that just because only entities with mind can discover mathematical laws (whatever that means, I'm not sure, but regardless), then the world has at least a component that is mind-dependent.
b. Even assuming that there is some "mind-dependent component", you provide no good reason to suspect that said component would be God, or would be morally perfect, etc.
apeman said:
Obviously since it is clear that the world "makes" minds and objects that are only discoverable by minds, it could well be the case that the whole of existence is mind dependent.If we are to follow Occam's advice it follows that we should discard materialism until we have good reason for believing in mind independence.
c. You seem to be ruling out all non-mental objects, not just materialism (whatever that means).
d. Regardless, even if that claim above were true - not sure how you interpret Occam's advice or why one should follow that -, then positing an omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect being surely does not make things simpler. Maybe some sort of panpsychism is true - no creator -, and that's simpler. At any rate, even assuming a creator of sorts, the further assumptions that she's omniscient, omnipotent and morally perfect only complicate the hypothesis greatly, and you've provided no good reason to think they're true, either, even assuming a creator of something (whatever that something is).
e. In particular, you've provided no good reason to think that a creator would be morally perfect.
apeman said:
If true morals exist then it is necessary that they exist beyond our opinion .Elephants are not a matter of our opinion, and yes , if God exists then they are also mind dependent...but morals exist differently to elephants ...they are something we sense in ourselves that have the capacity to at least indicate that there is more to the world than elephants and other such creatures...such as purpose for instance.
f. You keep playing with the word "morals", instead of explaining what you mean by that. Moral thoughts? Beliefs? Truths? Propositions? You seem to be equivocating all the time.
g. Elephants are not a matter of our opinion. Neither are humans. Whether a lizard is an elephant is not a matter of opinion. Whether the leader of IS is a morally evil man is not a matter of opinion, either. How is the comparison not relevant?
h. Now you say "morals" (that word again, apparently used in different and obscure ways in the context of the same argument. If you're not equivocating, please explain then what you mean by "morals", and provide a few examples of morals) "they are something we sense in ourselves that have the capacity to at least indicate that there is more to the world than elephants and other such creatures...such as purpose for instance."
What's the evidence, and how does this "sense" works?
Because I have a sense of right and wrong, but I don't have a sense that the world has some sort of purpose - not to mention an uncreated creator would not have been made for a purpose, so in the end, the whole world (not the arbitrary part of the world not including God) would have no purpose of its existence anyway, even if some agents have purposes for theirs. God might have purposes, but we have our own purposes without requiring God.