Galen's Soul (SYTO's thread [Fine, "Philosophy Thread"])

I think yes? It's early in the morning and I'm trying to do without coffee.

[1] - you, swagbot, were correct.

[2] - iirc, maxims are a philosophical position boiled down to an essential position regarding circumstance X to allowing for the pithily encapsulation of one's position re: X. An axiom, otoh, is a premise or starting point of reasoning; one that (preferably) a) can be seen to be true without any need for proof, or at least b) gets assumed for the sake of argument.

[3] - It's possible we're both getting at the same thing here via differing nomenclature. I have a very specific meaning I assign the term "values"
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Briefly: ethics [systems/codes of thought/belief] impact upon morals [the standards a society develops through an ongoing process of people, as a group, applying ethical models while filtering them through the practices of every-day-life] impact upon values [the standards an individual develops through an ongoing process of applying ethical models while filtering them through the practices of every-day-life-- a process which is mediated to a grater/lesser degree by the morals present in that individuals society].

Thus we may critic an ethic for being poorly constructed; we (often do) critic people for being "immoral" (i.e. failing to adhere to a socially negotiated norm); however, it is rarer that we critic a person's values-- we might say "I don't agree", but there's generally a recognition that values are the prerogative of an individual's conscience (unlike morals, which are, in essence, the sum of the "conscience" of the group/society as a whole) and hence outside the scope of the group/society to comment on.

More succinctly:

• Ethics are what you find in texts like the Bible or the Humanist Manifesto
• Morals are what laws (both judicial and social) are enshrinements of
• Values are what individual people like you and me base our everyday decisions off-of
• Ethics inform morals, ethics and morals inform values

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which I'm almost positive isn't what you mean by the term. By "principles" I mean those things that are held forth to be of worth, significance, or concern. Is that what you're meaning? On a personal note, if that's in fact what you do mean, fwiw I pick the term "principles" over a term like "values" both because I've already assigned a meaning to values and, more's the issue, I feel that "values" has connotations with the kind of slippery, slidey, overly hermeneutical, 'negotiability' of subjectivism and "personal opinion" (of the school of thought where "opinion" and prejudice trumps careful reasoning. ugh), whereas "principles" (to my mind at least) is more suggestive of solid, non-negotiable things like 'truth', 'justice', 'liberty', and 'hard-boiled egg' -- the important things in life that everybody needs and are the kinds of things that most ethics champion (even if only in a half-arsed fashion bc the creators of said ethic refused the veil (of ignorance, yes, I hadn't forgotten that part of the question, and yes am familure. Is good work. :>)). Ofc, this is all personal taste; but I guess I just wanted to lay out ma reasons!

[4] - Social creatures. Probably. I suspect there's some minor semantic inflections I intended when I wrote "communal", but I can't think of them atm. Silly no-coffee days. Grr.

Oh, "relationality" is a Christian theological concept that's derived from (or, at least, I first encountered it studying) the essential nature of God.

First, you have the nature of the Trinity. While there's an (actually wonderfully fascinating, might break it out some time) idea about how to conceptualise the whole "three-in-one" deal, the crux of the matter is that the Trinity is essentially relational in nature. i.e. the single best trait for describing the Trinity is relationship-- such that you get "three persons in such perfect relationship that they are also one being".

Second (bonus fact) the idea is that when you have an infinite God, who's basically self-sufficient in every conceivable way, leads to the question: what the bleeding hell does he need us (or the rest of creation, for that matter) for The answer is that God desires something not directly Himself who can: experience Him, enjoy their experience of Him, glorify Him through their expression of their enjoyment of Him, and thus close the loop created by Him being infinitely excellent in the first place (see some of the Transcendentalism commentary on "the necessary response to encountering the sublime" for more on why excellence requires admiration). Thus the whole God-and-man dynamic is one with relationship at its core.

Apologies for the high-end theology if it did anyone's head in. I'm fine with it, but that's bc I've been studying it for years. Tried my best to compact things down without taking too many explanatory short-cuts, but don't know how well I succeeded.

[5] - I'm going for the direct thing of 'personhood as exemplified by people'. Humans. Of the live persuasion. Ofc there are debates to be had as to where "life begins" (and the same with death), but those are really topics for another day. Implicit in personhood (as I imagine it) is moral agency and capability; non-sentient organisms (animals, microbes, plants, etc.) are thus disqualified from personhood due to lacking (afaik, correct me if there have been recent findings to the contrary) the dual capacity for sensation and self-awareness (animals, ofc, have sensation, but self-awareness was still a 'no' last time I checked; sorry PETA). Ofc, technically, children and some mentally ill adults also lack the necessary "pre-reqs" for sentient; however, they are also afforded personhood bc to do otherwise would allow room for slippery-slope arguments about "when is a person not a person"-- plus, I suspect there's some measure of courtesy of a similar vein to when we say "Ladies and gentlemen", despite the fact that not all gentlemen are, in fact, gentlemen (although, ofc, all ladies are ladies); it's a courtesy grown from the recognition of an undeniable similitude between the first and second party-- that of their common humanity.

Forgive me if I'm reading this wrong, but it looks like Ferne

is making a subjectivist argument based on perceptions of "the good" in things. Which is fallacious. You can (and would be wise to) recognise that all human observations are, due to the nature of the observers, subjective in nature; but it is unreasonable / unproductive to assert that there is no objective "object" upon which these subjective observations are made. Moreover it follows that if objective objects exist, then A can be compared to B, and the comparison can be made in terms of any of its characteristics-- including things like height and moral worth (i.e. its "goodness").

I get the point about

but I guess (as I think more on it and refine my question) what I'm looking for here is not so much the definition of good, but rather the nature of good. An analogy might be how, depending on who's calling the shots, the standard unit of measurement will change (cubit, inch, cm, parsec, etc.); however, regardless of the "model & philosophy of measurement" employed, the nature of what is being measured (distance) remains the same.

What we're after, lads, is some term or concept (X) that could be spoken of in terms of "A is more/less X than B" such that anyone (regardless of religious background) familiar with the subject could say "ah, they're talking about the comparative moral worth (the "goodness") of A relative to B".

This, my friends, is the Holy Grail of ethics. A way to define "the good" in any situation! That's accessible irrespective of ideological assumptions! I'm pretty damn sure it's out there. Tallyho!

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Also: loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool that was a long post. I want my coffie.

 

Good itself, not whether people are intrinsically good (something I'd have to answer in the negative, bc assuming anything else gets you into a Maslowsian quandary)).

 

You'd need to speak to @SAcptm about that. I, as a filthy non-physicalist, would suggest that those moments are when your conscience is kicking in; but I'm sure he has a very interesting answer involving chemical-imbalances or something.

 

This is why I'm not good at discussing philosophy.

 

And thus you prove your mettle as a philosopher.

Out of interest, do you have any comment (positive, negative, otherwise) on my own semantic pedantry re: ethics, morals, and values? It's something I personally cooked up over years of theological studies, but I'd be interested to know what someone with actual formal schooling in philosophical endeavours thinks.

I'd have to agree, but might I also be rude and add the note that living and operating in a highly pluralistic society it's also not uncommon to occasionally find oneself "split", as it were, between the 'logic of present circumstance' and the 'logic of held conviction'.

For example, I might find myself in a situation where action A would be materially advantageous (say, siding with X over Y in a political struggle) but it also would be immoral (or even unethical) according to my beliefs-- thus creating a situation where I have two "reasonable" choices, each in opposite directions.

Ofc, this dichotomy is merely on the surface; once you've stepped through all the implications of action A it becomes apparent that I'm not simply choosing between "logic 1" and "logic 2" but rather I'm faced with choosing between: a) sticking by my convictions [good], or b) ignoring my convictions because they're not currently convenient [bad], or c) allowing my present circumstances to change my convictions [could be good/bad/better/worse than either of the previous two choices, depending on a number of factors; the key thing to remember being that this third choice has a very real risk of turning into a slippery slope-- so tread carefully, grasshopper].

In theological terms we call this apparent dichotomy between reason and goodness: "the temptation to sin".

Damn, Sac. I'd never actually heard of / thought of it in those exact terms, but you've basically given voice to some unspoken intuits that have been floating around in my brain for a while now. I'm currently experiencing that "mind r beautifully bork" feeling when several loose-ends / stray puzzle-pieces suddenly, unexpectedly, click together in one's head. Thank you for that. Really. Remind me some time when I've recovered my composure to ping you some of my thoughts on the nature of an infinite God; I think you might appreciate, even if you don't agree with the premise.

Nope. Might actually be coming to you for reading recommendations after I get my head clear of my current summer course.

Mmm. Will need to think about this a bit in order to re-frame things...

 

Speaking of good, morality and goals, is there any reason to consider the continuation of our species a goal, beyond providing a basic level of comfort and satisfying the desires of the population (which often involve reproduction but that seems to be happening less and less anyway)?

Given how birth rates have collapsed in the Western world and are collapsing everywhere else (except Sub Saharan Africa), despite the best efforts of countries to enact pro natal policies (to a certain extent. More could be done but what's been does so far hasn't helped Germany or Singapore at all), I'm starting to think planning for a comfortable phasing out of humanity would actually be a decent long term goal.

According to all the data I've ever seen, the collapse in birth rates is irreversible in a post industrial culture. The only ones that haven't collapsed (Amish, Sub Saharan Africa) are poor, uneducated, and with low levels of technology. Given wealthy, educated, and high tech societies are desirable by humans, and it can be assumed will be the long term goal of any group (in the form of comfort advancement rather than being like us), then Sub Saharan Africa and niche exceptions like the Amish will eventually develop to at least current Western standards as well.

Once they do, the birth rate collapse will hit them too. They need not be just like Western civilization with all it entails for that to hit either; North Africa, India, East Asia all have collapsing birth rates too despite radically different cultures.

Immigration isn't a solution as that requires there be other places to draw people from; in a low birth rate world it's very much so a zero sum game, so on a species level isn't worth considering.

Another potentiality is we just need to last long enough to find some mythic aging cure, or cloning/birthing vats, or super computers into which we upload our minds and become AI with a fleshy past.

Ideally we'll reach one of those sci fi style fixes (Personally hoping for the super computer one), but they don't look very likely at the moment. There may be some new trend that will kick in that will halt the birth rate collapse, but we can't rely on faith there.

Given all that, planning for a comfortable extinction should be the long term goal of the world. Plan for the worst, hope for the best, and all that.

Ignore for the moment the low chance of any power taking that seriously.

tl;dr extinction should be comfortable

 

I've never liked the idea of being uploaded into a super computer. Whilst I reside in my fleshy meatbag, I'm comfortable in the knowledge that I have some form of physical contuity, which may or may not house my non-physical 'personality'. As much as I resign myself to an apparently purely material world, which indicates that my body is what makes me me, losing my precious meatbag feels like losing the me part, even if all the worrying memories and dirty thoughts are uploaded and perpetuated by my new improved mechabag.
MechaHella would feel like FleshyHella, but FleshyHella would surely have been discontinued and therefore MechaHella =/= FleshyHella?

I have a fundamental distaste for the concept of MechaHella from the perspective of FleshyHella.

 

I think we should just destroy an MechaGalen's before they can come to fruition. Maybe the Fleshy models too.