[ExI] A science-religious experience

[efc at disroot.org]

On Thu, 20 Feb 2025, Jason Resch via extropy-chat wrote:

>       Another way is to deny the existence of objective email, and affirm our
>       opinion about events.
> 
> Good and evil derive ultimately from subjective states of consciousness, which
> makes their objective characterization and comparison difficult:

I agree. This is my current favourite position. An ethical anti-realist I guess.

> "For these words of Good, evill, and Contemptible, are ever used with relation
> to the person that useth them: There being nothing simply and absolutely so;
> nor any common Rule of Good and evill, to be taken from the nature of the
> objects themselves; but from the Person of the man or, From the Person that
> representeth it;" -- Thomas Hobbes in “Leviathan” (1651)
> 
> "We have already observed, that moral distinctions depend entirely on certain
> peculiar sentiments of pain and pleasure, and that whatever mental quality in
> ourselves or others gives us a satisfaction, by the survey or reflection, is
> of course virtuous; as every thing of this nature, that gives uneasiness, is
> vicious." -- David Hume in “A Treatise of Human Nature” (1739)

David Hume is a philosophical ninja! Jan Narveson developed contractarianism in
a very nice way showing how rational minds, based on contractarianism should
converge on a kind of libertarian ethics.

> "It there appeared that we could not, on reflection, maintain anything to be
> intrinsically and ultimately good, except in so far as it entered into
> relation to consciousness of some kind and rendered good and desirable: and
> thus that the only ultimate Good, or End in itself, must be Goodness or
> Excellence of Conscious Life." -- Henry Sidgwick in “The Methods of Ethics”
> (1874)
> 
> 
> But I think it is still possible to give an objective definition of what
> constitutes evil, as the previous examples suggest.

How come, and it what way?

> Further, although uncomputable in practice, for a god-like mind there is a way
> to define morality objectively:

I find examples with infinities, and postulates with god or god-like a bit
unsatisfying. It seems to me, if you assume god-like powers, or god(s) you can
basically justify or explain anything.

Best regards, 
Daniel


> https://youtu.be/Yy3SKed25eM
> 
> Jason
> 
>
>       Sometimes our opinions align, sometimes the opinions
>       of the majority align, sometimes the opinion changes. At the end of the
>       day, we have particles, which is not something you can read "evil" into._______________________________________________
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> 
> 
>