[extropy-chat] Re: The Force of Human Freedom

[Matus]

> So. There are no such things as *right* or *wrong* actions. There are,
> however, *smart* and *stupid* action. and I am conceding that in some
> circumstances fighting back is the only smart thing to do. But please
> let's fight back WITHOUT THE FUCKING LECTURE. Self defense is the
> obvious thing to do when one is attacked, there is no need to justify
> it with nebulous and unverifiable abstract concepts such as "objective
> morality". 

How exactly are 'right' and 'wrong' really that much different than
'smart' and 'stupid'  If you concede that fighting back is the 'only
thing to do' are you not acknowledging that it is also right?  Self
defense is not obvious to everyone as justifiable and self defense can
mean many different things.  For instance, does one have to wait until a
gun has been fired directly at them to act in self defense?  Or is it
enough for someone to be acting maliciously toward you while also
waiving the gun around a firing.  What if someone were shooting everyone
in a line, one person at a time, and you were last in that line.  Can
you act in 'self defense' then?  He has not harmed you, he has not
pointed a gun in your direction, he has not acted in a malicious or
belligerent manner toward you.

> Also, it would be practically dangerous. If you work yourself into a
blind  > belief that only your viewpoint is "objectively valid"

Is the only manner in which one can believe he is right be based on
'blind belief' (read: faith) Faith is belief without evidence, or belief
AS evidence.  Can I have evidence that suggests my morality is *right*?
If I cant, if no one can ever know such things, what guides your
actions?  Surely you must suspect, at least, that your actions are
right, in someway, somehow.  Yet our descriptions of reality get ever
more accurate.

> As you well
> know quantum physics followed to its conclusions makes one question
> the very meaning of "reality" and "truth", 

Not at all true, there are no aspects of Quantum Mechanics that directly
imply, as a simplest explanation to observed phenomena, that reality is
to be questioned and that the universe is a figment of our imagination.
This is all hogwash, arbitrary interpretations that happen to fit
current experimental evidence and presented as conceivable by the very
scientists who have built their careers on parsimony, occam's razor, and
hume's maxim, all of which they wantonly disregard when making such
absurd comments about quantum mechanics.

> but here the pragmatic
> engineer would say, I don't need to know what is true, I just need to
> know how to design a semiconductor device, and quantum physics permits
> doing that.

The practical engineer says it works because it is true.  The pragmatic
engineer says it is true because it works.  The former is capable of
forming higher abstractions and recognizing larger patterns that hint
toward a fundamental understanding of reality, of objective reality, and
can create and anticipate new things based on that.  The latter never
conceives of the idea that the formulas he uses to build a bridge work
because they are right, and thus never connects them to other areas and
hinders his own intellectual progress in the universe.  The practical
engineers formulas work specifically because they are right!

Michael