You assert that morality depends on an untestable premise: that your imaginary friend exists. I do assert that the concept of morality depends on the existence of a spiritual world. Let us assume for your argument that this is untestable. Perhaps you can convince me of the opposite? A proof by contradiction, perhaps? What arguments do you have for morality in a completely physical reality?
This is arguing for your superstition by threat: IE, that terrible consequences (ie, no morality, chaos, bloodshed, and whatnot) ensue from failing to join you in your delusion. Sorry, I'm not buying it. I have never stated this. It is strange but this is the exact same argument presented by other posters. This is not my argument. Perhaps I am being unclear. I am not saying that one should believe in a spiritual morality for fear of otherwise "terrible consequences." Why do you claim that this is my argument?
But it sounds like you and I are in agreement on at least one thing: that immoral actions are wrong. Now the question I pose to you is this: if my morality is orthogonal in belief to your morality, who's to say which is right?
If this is the case, why are atheists so under represented in prison population statistics? I'm not claiming that belief in a moral system derived from a supernatural entity automatically causes someone to follow that moral system.
I would assume that the percentage of atheists in prison probably corresponds with the percentage of atheists outside of prison. Is that reasonable? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "under represented."
Similarly, you can't measure morality, but you can measure human well-being and suffering as consequences of morality. So by what rule do we measure human well-being and suffering? Can you compare one suffering against another?
There is no way to know that your "green" isn't my "red". What do you think about tests like this: http://www.toledo-bend.com/colorblind/Ishihara.html
I understand you're claiming that we could all potentially have our own personal interpretations of the physical reality. My point is that there is a shared physical reality that is incontrovertible. I think we probably agree on that point. Along with that, I believe there is a shared universal morality as well.
Morality is just a label to describe actions that lead to positive outcomes. I guess I am poorly representing my question. The question I am posing is, who decides what is positive?
Colors are different wavelengths of light, and can be measured. How would you propose we measure the existence of morality in a purely physical world?
We have to be careful with the distinction between a description of behavior that appears moral, and actual morality.
However, we do both agree that morality exists. By definition, this means good and evil, or right and wrong, must exist. So in this environment, how would you go about deciding what is right and what is wrong?
"I would like to live a good life and let other people lead a good life" The problem with this statement in a physicalist universe is that it is a completely non-sensical thing to say. Since there is no universal definition of "good" or "bad," there is no point in saying that you want everyone to lead a good life. What if my "attitude" about what a good life is, is incompatible with yours? Whose defintion of good is the right definition, in this case?
When did I ever say that "the only thing that keeps [me] from going on a murderous rampage is the idea that some ultimate dictator will kick [my] ass if [I] do?" I never claimed this, but for whatever reason people seem to want to quickly pigeonhole me into a particular box (their fantasy of what "religious" people fit into) and cast me aside, rather than actually engaging their brain. Let's see. Since I've posted on this subject, mostly asking questions about where people think morality comes from, I've been insulted, called names, and moderated as a troll, none of which I have returned in kind. And all I did was suggest for argument that there can be no morality in a materialistic universe. I think if we met in person we would actually get along great. I wouldn't mind having you for a neighbor.
There are good biological explanations for altruism and the evolution of morality. These behaviors are not unique to humans. They are observed in many species. You are confusing descriptions of behaviors that fit descriptions of morality with actual morality. In a completely materialistic worldview, which I believe your argument alludes to, there is no room for morality. This poster sums it up better than I could: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=341525&cid=21136937/
On the other hand, the theist explanation basically says you better be good or else god will punish you. Morality is merely a consequence of fear. People are moral only because they're being watched? That does sound scary! While this may be true for some religions, it is certainly not true for all. There are actually religions where it is understood that good and evil exist, humans will inevitably do evil, and yet they still don't need to live in fear of their supernatural deity! So I would say, no, in this case they are not behaving morally simply because they are "being watched." You can probably find one of these religions at a local church near you...:) And I would encourage you to investigate them further.
How do you know what's moral anyway? The Bible is not a good source of moral inspiration. The God of Abraham condones human sacrifice, rape, mass murder, slavery, etc. I'm not making this stuff up. It's all in the Old Testament. How anyone can point to the Bible as a moral guideline is beyond me. Well, I'm not claiming that I know what is moral and what is not. I am simply claiming that morality exists... quite different from claiming that I can tell you right from wrong. And actually, I didn't point at the Bible, but I am happy you are aware of its existence!
Where does spirituality come into play here? Does your spiritually guided, moral compass tell you that killing someone is wrong without question - or - is killing someone who will be responsible for the deaths of millions morally acceptable? Does it tell you that you should love your parents unconditionally - or - should you stop loving them if they are responsible for heinous abuse, neglect or even murder??? Where do you draw the line? Do these things suddenly become moral or immoral based on some sort of invisible, cosmological line drawn between wrong and right? These are great questions. Who do you think could make such a moral decision in these cases? How do you know if such a moral decision is right or wrong? When you do make a moral decision, should there be a judge of whether you made the correct moral decision or not? If so, who should be the judge? If not, then who is to say what is moral and what is not?
Exactly where in your spiritual text book does it explain you to you, word for word, what is absolutely morally right or unquestionably morally wrong? Is it 'instilled' inside of you? Does that mean you always make the right, moral decisions? If so, it must be nice to be you... Do you think it is possible to spell out in entirety everything that is moral and everything that is not? If it is possible, do you think you or I could ever understand it in its entirety? I think we both know the answer to that question. Given that, how do we go about discovering what is moral and what isn't?
And I guess can no other living being make a moral decision without spirituality? When dolphins care for their injured or sick, is this not a moral decision? When animals such as dogs and walruses 'adopt' animals of other species and take care of them even though there's nothing to gain, is that not a moral decision? Are you saying that they are making moral decisions?
It's hard to believe you summarized the entire multi-verse up in two categories - "immoral" and "spiritual". If spirituality is solely responsible morality, then nothing could have been immoral without it, no? You can't have good without evil and you can't have immorality without morality. It makes me sad that people have such a narrow vision.:( I am not equating spirituality with morality, though I agree I intentionally worded my question that way.:) I completely agree with you that good and evil both exist; but not necessarily that you cannot have one without the other. I am sad that I have saddened you, but am happy that you are open to communication!... and am looking forward to a widening of my "narrow vision."
If there's a universal right and wrong, then human beings don't know what the Hell they are doing. I believe that we are constantly seeking to better understand the nature of the existent universal right and wrong; but we can never reach a full understanding! If we could, what would that make us?
Length of time is relevant if the topic is legitimate. Legitimacy of the argument is the component missing in your question.
The amount of scholarly research devoted to the latter, or pink elephants, or , is hardly comparable. Anyway, I'm sure you'll be happy to point us to the thousands of years of scholarly research for the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Heck, I'll take any scholarly research.
yes: ghosts can exist, angels can exist, God can exist, pretty much anything supernatural could exist, and by definition be difficult or impossible to measure or access from the natural world.
no: then we're living in a strictly materialistic world where there is no morality (no right and no wrong).
Again, keep in mind: "There is no god" is equaly as valid or invalid as "There is no flying spaghetti monster". Not true. Thousands of philosophers support the existence of specific supernatural deities, and have debated these topics for thousands of years.
The amount of scholarly research devoted to the latter, or pink elephants, or <insert ridiculous analogy here>, is hardly comparable.
There is a huge difference between those two statements. To claim otherwise is simply a logical fallacy.
From TFA: "This new capability can eliminate the additional plumbing, wires, weight and other performance penalties required to liquid-cool traditional sensors and electronics near the hot combustion chamber..."
...what about the heat generated internally? Hmm, what's the next step down from liquid cooling? Gee, I don't know, maybe a heat sink?
20 years ago, I wouldn't have even thought to question NASA's work, but their track record lately invites such abuse. With that kind of a statement and accompanying "analysis," I wouldn't start.
He thinks there is objective truth, and yes, thinks his own statement is either objectively true or false regardless of his opinion, regardless that his opinion is that it is true. So what's the question? I guess he could have simply said:
There is objective truth, and we can know it.
which would leave out the self-contradictory language and make the meaning much more clear.
Such vitriol against someone just trying to help! I think what the GP poster did was a great service. I clicked through to RTFA (I know, I should be banned from Slashdot) and was disappointed I would have to go through the effort of using bugmenot. So I scanned the posts looking for someone who had provided an easier way to access the article, and voila. What, do you work for WSJ and are saddened you won't get more addresses to spam to or something?
I am _guessing_ that if the OS developers know that certain OS memory block uses are infrequent and access times to them are not critical, they can quite safely cache these data in swap, leaving more of the precious RAM resource available for application use. But, I'm no OS developer.
You've basically summed up the argument of cultural moral relativism, which was exactly the argument used in Nuremberg, which is exactly the argument that, fabs64 is stating, was ruled immoral. The various defences you listed (court jurisdiction, laws in effect at time and place of alleged crimes, and national independence) are all forms of argument for the same underlying argument of cultural moral relativism.
Cultural-relativistic morality proposes that morals are shaped and defined by members of a given culture. The claims of cultural moral relativism, and more generally, moral relativism, are a hot topic of modern moral philosophical debate.
One commentator in the debate has likened cultural moral relativism to "Star Trek morality." In other words, every culture's moral philosophy holds equal credence in the universe of moral philosophy, and there should be no interference in the execution of that moral philosophy within the context of a particular culture.
Given this framework, you could say that Google is following this law of cultural moral relativism to the letter, and furthermore, is obligated to follow the moral laws of India's culture within their sovereign borders! And since these borders are wholly outside the control of the United States from the perspective of national sovereignty (reference the Nuremberg argument from above), absolutely NO consideration should be paid to United States law or moral guidelines when conducting business in India -- in fact, it would be immoral to do so.
I do not personally agree with the arguments of cultural moral relativism but that is the argument, nonetheless.
It worked fine for me.
This sounds like a lawsuit to get money based on some bogus claim. How can you possibly damage a motherboard. The voltage is all regulated by the motherboard, so it couldn't be that. The timing is all regulated by... the motherboard, so it couldn't be that. I've never known of any binary values that could damage a motherboard... so what is it? Prolly it causes some BIOS problem or something like that, and they're calling it "damage."
Just my quick uninformed take.
Slashdot Mirror
But it sounds like you and I are in agreement on at least one thing: that immoral actions are wrong. Now the question I pose to you is this: if my morality is orthogonal in belief to your morality, who's to say which is right?
I would assume that the percentage of atheists in prison probably corresponds with the percentage of atheists outside of prison. Is that reasonable? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean by "under represented."
I understand you're claiming that we could all potentially have our own personal interpretations of the physical reality. My point is that there is a shared physical reality that is incontrovertible. I think we probably agree on that point. Along with that, I believe there is a shared universal morality as well. Morality is just a label to describe actions that lead to positive outcomes. I guess I am poorly representing my question. The question I am posing is, who decides what is positive?
Colors are different wavelengths of light, and can be measured. How would you propose we measure the existence of morality in a purely physical world?
We have to be careful with the distinction between a description of behavior that appears moral, and actual morality.
However, we do both agree that morality exists. By definition, this means good and evil, or right and wrong, must exist. So in this environment, how would you go about deciding what is right and what is wrong?
Here is a post with an excellent description of the problem of the lack of morality in a materialistic universe:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=341525&cid=21136937
So how exactly is my claim specious and unsupported?
I have yet to see any support for the counterargument: that morality does exist in a purely physical world.
I recognize that discussing philosophy on Slashdot can be intimidating (thanks to the ocean of verbal abusers), so I will ping you directly.
When did I ever say that "the only thing that keeps [me] from going on a murderous rampage is the idea that some ultimate dictator will kick [my] ass if [I] do?" I never claimed this, but for whatever reason people seem to want to quickly pigeonhole me into a particular box (their fantasy of what "religious" people fit into) and cast me aside, rather than actually engaging their brain.
Let's see. Since I've posted on this subject, mostly asking questions about where people think morality comes from, I've been insulted, called names, and moderated as a troll, none of which I have returned in kind. And all I did was suggest for argument that there can be no morality in a materialistic universe.
I think if we met in person we would actually get along great. I wouldn't mind having you for a neighbor.
And actually, I didn't point at the Bible, but I am happy you are aware of its existence!
I completely agree with you that good and evil both exist; but not necessarily that you cannot have one without the other.
I am sad that I have saddened you, but am happy that you are open to communication!... and am looking forward to a widening of my "narrow vision." If there's a universal right and wrong, then human beings don't know what the Hell they are doing. I believe that we are constantly seeking to better understand the nature of the existent universal right and wrong; but we can never reach a full understanding! If we could, what would that make us?
I completely agree with you. To argue for theism on Slashdot is definitely not going with the popular crowd, wouldn't you agree?
I don't believe that you think I'm arguing for the case that the popularity of an argument makes it right.
So where's your argument? Since you understand "real morality," feel free to enlighten the rest of us!
If what I have posed is a false dichotomy, then where's your counter-example?
Here's the simple question:
Is there anything beyond the natural?
yes: ghosts can exist, angels can exist, God can exist, pretty much anything supernatural could exist, and by definition be difficult or impossible to measure or access from the natural world.
no: then we're living in a strictly materialistic world where there is no morality (no right and no wrong).
So which is it?
The amount of scholarly research devoted to the latter, or pink elephants, or <insert ridiculous analogy here>, is hardly comparable.
There is a huge difference between those two statements. To claim otherwise is simply a logical fallacy.
"We're dealing with a fundamental new connection between two fields, diabetes and Alzheimer's disease..."
Onward to the Grand Unified Disease theory?
...what about the heat generated internally? Hmm, what's the next step down from liquid cooling? Gee, I don't know, maybe a heat sink? 20 years ago, I wouldn't have even thought to question NASA's work, but their track record lately invites such abuse. With that kind of a statement and accompanying "analysis," I wouldn't start.He thinks there is objective truth, and yes, thinks his own statement is either objectively true or false regardless of his opinion, regardless that his opinion is that it is true. So what's the question? I guess he could have simply said:
There is objective truth, and we can know it.
which would leave out the self-contradictory language and make the meaning much more clear.
Such vitriol against someone just trying to help! I think what the GP poster did was a great service. I clicked through to RTFA (I know, I should be banned from Slashdot) and was disappointed I would have to go through the effort of using bugmenot. So I scanned the posts looking for someone who had provided an easier way to access the article, and voila.
What, do you work for WSJ and are saddened you won't get more addresses to spam to or something?
I am _guessing_ that if the OS developers know that certain OS memory block uses are infrequent and access times to them are not critical, they can quite safely cache these data in swap, leaving more of the precious RAM resource available for application use.
But, I'm no OS developer.
You've basically summed up the argument of cultural moral relativism, which was exactly the argument used in Nuremberg, which is exactly the argument that, fabs64 is stating, was ruled immoral. The various defences you listed (court jurisdiction, laws in effect at time and place of alleged crimes, and national independence) are all forms of argument for the same underlying argument of cultural moral relativism.
Cultural-relativistic morality proposes that morals are shaped and defined by members of a given culture. The claims of cultural moral relativism, and more generally, moral relativism, are a hot topic of modern moral philosophical debate.
One commentator in the debate has likened cultural moral relativism to "Star Trek morality." In other words, every culture's moral philosophy holds equal credence in the universe of moral philosophy, and there should be no interference in the execution of that moral philosophy within the context of a particular culture.
Given this framework, you could say that Google is following this law of cultural moral relativism to the letter, and furthermore, is obligated to follow the moral laws of India's culture within their sovereign borders! And since these borders are wholly outside the control of the United States from the perspective of national sovereignty (reference the Nuremberg argument from above), absolutely NO consideration should be paid to United States law or moral guidelines when conducting business in India -- in fact, it would be immoral to do so.
I do not personally agree with the arguments of cultural moral relativism but that is the argument, nonetheless.
Within the same ten minutes of seeing this headline I also visited this page:
r s-getting-smashed/
http://considerable.biz/top-tep-videos-of-compute
What a strange coincidence...
I'd like to see 100 employees maintain the hundreds of thousands of machines in Google's datacenters. That'd be awesome.
But seriously, Google is built on the concept of scalability; even at the management layer.
You'd rather more people died for your money?
It worked fine for me. ... the motherboard, so it couldn't be that. I've never known of any binary values that could damage a motherboard... so what is it? Prolly it causes some BIOS problem or something like that, and they're calling it "damage."
This sounds like a lawsuit to get money based on some bogus claim. How can you possibly damage a motherboard. The voltage is all regulated by the motherboard, so it couldn't be that. The timing is all regulated by
Just my quick uninformed take.