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An interesting paradox
Topic Started: 18 Sep 2009, 01:21 PM (5,797 Views)
Concolor
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Barabbas
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@conradw: You and I may be using different categories for these things.
I usually divide into rational, irrational and arational. Where irrational is what goes against rationality, whereas arational is what has nothing to do with rationality. I have no problems embracing arational aspects of life, like poetry, flavours, music etc. Interestingly I find embracing these things to be the rational thing to do, as they enrich life and builds our creativity and other abilities in general.

When I say "giving up my rationality" I mean giving in to irrationality. I may think the lyrics of My Fairy King by Queen are beautiful and inspiring, but the moment I claim them to be true (without any evidence to back that up with) is when I cross the line to irrationality.

Some of the most beautiful landscape-paintings I have seen, have been of non-existing landscapes. This has nothing to do with rationality until I claim this landscape to actually exist. Normally, you would call this level of irrationality madness. The strange thing is that for some special cases of this, we don't ;)

The fact that something is beautiful does not make it true, even though it's true that it is beautiful.
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
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conradw
Goliath
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If you describe it in those terms then fine.
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Concolor
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Barabbas
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Oh...okay. I was all fired up for debate and then you just agree with me? :'(
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
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conradw
Goliath
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no. I normally use rational and irrational. If you add arational in there (and I agree it makes sense to), we don't have a dispute anymore.

I dislike arguing for argument's sake, and although people often accuse me of playing devil's advocate, I try not to.

However if you would like me to, I'll try pulling this old one out of the bag: Science and reason have not got us any closer to understanding morality and the answer to life's great existential questions: who are we? Why are we here?
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Concolor
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Barabbas
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Well I like discussing things with intelligent people, and if we're just agreeing all the time then there's only back-patting. But if I find myself disagreeing with someone then there is a chance I can improve my knowledge, and to me there are few things that are more exiting than improving myself and my view of life. That's why I try to seek out points of difference, because I feel that you have a potential of expanding my horizon.

Let's play :)
What do you mean by "understanding morality"? I think studies of history, psychology and biology have taught us a great deal about the origins of our morality, how it works and what factors influence it. I also think science is crucial in order for us to gain knowledge to build our morality upon. If we have a faulty image of reality, then our actions are less likely to have desired outcomes. It is our moral obligation if we want a better world to gain as much knowledge about it as we possibly can.

When it comes to existential questions I would argue that science is a method for exploring "how" questions, not "why" questions. As a fine point, I would add that the word "why" itself implies a purpose, how can you be sure there even is one? Just because we can pose a question, that does not mean there is an answer. But our thoughts about these questions can be highly influenced by the results of our rational thinking and science.
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
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Luemas
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DELICIOUS!
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But, let's face it, Madre Nature isn't exactly the Virgin Mary. Wouldn't it make sense for mankind to act as it had learned in it's upbringing from Mother nature to do whatever it takes to survive?
Natural Selection?
This is Evolution how I have heard it, I would like to hear your view on it.
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I think I'm Crazzzy. I think your crazy. I think your crazzzy... probably.
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conradw
Goliath
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We already do what it takes to survive. The thing is, when we're all not being enjoined to kill one another we needn't kill to survive.

@concolor: AH! so science and rationality is no means of assessing morality in that (to use Socrates' definition) it cannot tell us how we ought to behave.
Well, if not from rationality, where do we get our morals from?
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Concolor
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Barabbas
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@conradw: From here *Concolor points at his heart*

For a more elaborate answer, please see my post #141 in this thread.

(Yes, science is descriptive, not normative)

@Luemas: Remember that what it takes to survive can be a lot of different things. For elephants it helps to be big, for hummingbirds it helps to be small. For tigers it helps to be alone, for lions it helps to cooperate. For a praying mantis it helps to eat you partner, for humans it helps not to eat your partner. Just because the basic mechanism of natural selection seems simple, it doesn't mean that the result of this process will be.
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
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Deleted User
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oh thats the ppl have a natural instinct to help each other debate you tryed to pull......
yeah i suggest everyone read the posts past the concolor puts his hand on his heart bit !

ever been to a soccer match mate?
*football you might know it as*...........but everyone knows football is rugby league :whistle:
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Concolor
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Barabbas
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Yes, and I agree with ARAZEC that the whole thread is worth a read.
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
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conradw
Goliath
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yeah, i remember that thread, but I'm going to try and pull a different twist on it.

Does that mean therefore that your morals are arational?
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Concolor
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Barabbas
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In a way I guess you could say that, as the source of the motivation for my morals is not my rationality. I would claim that my rationality plays an integral part of improving and directing my morality, to make sure it's a good one, but at first though I would agree to label my morals as arational.

This is fun :) Now I'm just waiting for my words to come back and bite me in the shin when I'm not looking :D (Does that make sense in English?)
Life is beautiful, love heals, people come through.

Reason, compassion and love comes first. Everything else is secondary. Except for Skittles. - And emperor Cheezy! Posted Image
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conradw
Goliath
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in english we don't normally include the 'in the shin' bit, but yes, it makes sense.

So if you are prepared to not use your rationality when you decide on your ethics, why not base them on something equally arational - MY heart.

or to push you further - the heart of God?
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Deleted User
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like do you mean as in man is made in the image of God?
Are you suggesting that Concolors heart is................................................











*drumroll please*
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conradw
Goliath
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is the image of God's heart?

I hadn't thought of that... There's probably more truth in that than he would admit, but that wasn't really what I was getting at.
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