Nad you bring up some great points. Thank you for that.
-Sab
Moral Rigidity vs Ethical Rigidity
by sabastious 33 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Naddia_the_Godless
Sab said: Because we cannot travel anywhere in the physical universe, but merely magnify what we see which is actually light that has been traveling for billions of light years. Until I actually know what is there NOW I have no reason to factor it into any firm conclusions.
I don’t think I understand what you’re saying here. Could you clarify? You state that we cannot travel anywhere in the physical universe. If I travel from my house to my car, I’ve traveled somewhere in the physical universe. If you’re skeptical of the physical universe, how can you know that light exists? How can you know that it has been traveling for billions of years? Even if you don’t have reason to draw firm conclusions about the existence of the physical world, how do you know that it isn’t the reality? You may have good cause to be skeptical of its existence, but can you prove that it isn’t reality? Again, I may be confused about your position, so please clarify if I’ve misunderstood you.
You said: You can only know something is real if it is constant across all known scanarios. Take how water drains for instance in relation to the hemispheres. Without space travel we can prove how the earth is positioned in space: on an axis.
But earlier you said that reality exists in the mind. I’m confused. How does the consistency of something allow you to know that it is real? Is reality in the mind, the subjective experience of each individual? Or does reality exist in the material world? Also, quantum physics tells us that there are many things that are inconsistent and relative, yet they are known, scientifically speaking, to exist.
You said: We can predict exactly how gravity works in all known scanarios. That is reality. Does it mean that gravity only works the way we think it does? Not a valid question because not enough data is there to support any conclusion like that.
How do you know that gravity is reality? Is it possible that the physical universe doesn’t exist, and that we are simply ideas in the mind of an absolute intelligence? Or take the Matrix, awesome movie, the point of the movie was that reality may be altogether different than what it seems. For Neo, reality was perceived as the world he lived in, the world that had been pulled over his eyes. When he awoke, he realized that nothing he had experienced was a reality, even gravity. In that story, another physical world was the reality, one in which gravity too was present, but what if he had awoken to find himself in another reality, one without gravity? His experience of gravity while he was in the Matrix was not reality.
You said: Of course the creation of the computer program changed our perspective. As movies like the Matrix toy with, reality may be a system, similar to a computer program, and that is why constants exist because they are part of a systematic program.
True, but the message in the Matrix goes deeper than that. The Matrix was the world that was pulled over their eyes, the world they were meant to see, but nothing about it was reality. Zion was the reality. But you could regress that as far as you want. How do you know that Zion was the reality? Could there have been multiple worlds layered over their eyes? How would they even know when they had reached the real reality?
I read a cute little story one time that went something like this: A two-dimensional circle was hanging out with a two-dimensional square. The circle was trying to tell the square about his experience in a three-dimensional world. “It’s amazing! Circles are spheres, and squares are stacked on top of each other to form cubes. There’s another whole layer of dimension out there.” The square is skeptical. He’s never experienced anything beyond the two-dimensional world. He can’t even comprehend what a square or cube is. It makes no sense. The circle is crazy. The circle is insistent that the three-dimensional world exists. There’s another whole layer of reality. This is not reality, that is.
“How do you know?” the square asks. “Maybe there’s a fourth dimension.”
Is it possible that a universe without gravity does exist? Or even that a physical universe doesn’t exist at all?
You said: They are contradictory and illogical until more data brings in the missing pieces to the puzzle making it logical, which of course may never happen. Many things are only illogical temporarily, but not to minimize the term. Illogic is illogic and must remain so until proven otherwise.
Two contradictory statements are not logical and will never be logical because they violate the rules of logic. To state that a baseball is both a sphere and a cube is illogical. An object cannot be a sphere and a cube at the same time. It’s either a sphere or a cube, or perhaps something altogether different, but it’s not both. If we’re talking about ultimate reality, god (assuming both people are defining that term the same way) cannot both exist and not exist at the same time.
You said: Nad you bring up some great points. Thank you for that.
Oh, you’re welcome! I’m enjoying the discussion, and I appreciate your take on it.
Nad
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PSacramento
It seems that, based on our discussion, that morals and ethics require each other within their perpsective definitions. It could be said then that both came to be at the same time, correct?
In practical terms, yes I agree.
The amount of data is paramount. In the beginning there was little data for humans because of perceptual limitations. At our point in time we have more data than one person can even work with which changes everything doesn't it?
It makes things more subjective, not necessarily different.
Ethics may have been second to morals at first with limited human perception, but now ethics seem more useful than standalone morals, am I right?
More useful doesn't always equal better.
Take the moral of cleanliness both body and mind. Cleanliness is defined by the moral and definitions are created by human observation also which changes over time. The ethics of cleanliness will continue to be refined as morals are created and tossed out the window.
Not sure what you mean...
So, with all data taken into account, is it morally upright to ingest Monosodium Glutamate? From where I stand ethics can take care of that question whereas our contemporary moral conclusions only provide a convoluted or overty simplicstic solution.
You've lost me when you apply morals to food...unless you are referring to how we treat what will be our food.
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sabastious
Lol PSac looks like I lost you on that last one. Let me elaborate on that:
The topic of MSG is of interest to me because, from what I have seen, people get really fired up about MSG. These people say that the FDA is basically a bunch of quacks that can't figure out that the stuff is poisen and causes all types of bad stuff. When the studies on MSG came out though there was strong reason to believe that it is safe in low amounts and only unsafe at very high amounts. What was found was that some people have a nasty allergy to the stuff. I then speculate that this allergy could have been what gave these people such a revolutionary spirit against this substance.
I have noticed that many people will look down at you for eating things with MSG in it. They will make a snide remark about it's "obvious" harmful effects and I just sit there and look at them funny. The stuff has been around for decades and has had several times where it was under mass scrutiny all ending in strong data for it's safety in moderation.
So for these people it is actually not morally upright to ingest Monosodium Glutamate because they would not be caught dead with the stuff and they are highly critical of others who choose to believe the FDA's conclusions in writing. Many would have licence to use the Bible's "do not defile your body" clause.
So is it morally upright to ingest something man made that you know might have unknown or untracable harmful effects on your body?
-Sab