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Absolute Logic

he is and i disputed that premise. you can too.
yes, i agree that he is weighting the argument in an attempt to generate the sort of answer he would most like to receive.... it is a distinctly emotional premise. but... you recognize that. you can restructure the argument (as you suggest) to eliminate the hyper-emotional content and while keeping the essential premise... and argue it.

geo.

What is the essential premise?


Tim-
 
What is the essential premise?


Tim-

you are faced with having to sacrifice another to save your own life.

we cannot argue a question like this wholly unemotionally. who that person is changes the argument. a stranger would still evoke an emotional response.. an innocent child, more... yer dear ma who suckled you and taught you right from wrong, still more.

hell, i would have a problem killing and eating my dog. but i could look at the argument and consider the logical structure of the possibilities without ever considering eating my beautiful pup. that is the ONLY way i could consider it.

to disarm the emotional weight of the argument for any practical purpose is not possible. but you can analyze the argument unemotionally in the abstract while admitting that you could not actually act without your emotions. or anyway, that is what i tried to do.

geo.
 
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The “absolute logic” satisfies all concerned,
Otherwise, This is not “absolute logic”.
But, this is “self service”!!! >>

True, no matter how it's presented, or how it's characterized, logic, including absolute logic, is still individual perception.

ricksfolly
 
this is a unsustainable equation. the proscription against eating foods "that creep on their belly", against crayfish or fish without scales makes good sense... for a people that live in a region where water is scarce and hygiene is limited - just as the social practice of eating only with the right hand, reserving the left hand for less hygienic activities in similar circumstances such as North Africa, Morocco, makes perfectly good sense - is perfectly logical.

to ascribe the decision to god... THAT makes good sense too. a helluva lot easier to enforce. of course, there are gonna some weaknesses in the message. Yes, catfish have no scales and feed on the bottom so ya gotta be careful with them... avoid them if you cannot be certain of their cleanliness... but trout are scaleless too... and they are not unclean and they are tasty!

religion is not based on reason, but it need not proscribe reason either. most do when reason conflicts with dogma, 'tis true.

But it's one thing to be against those things because they are unhealthy and entirely another to be against those things solely because you think an imaginary friend in the sky said so. I won't disagree that there are good reasons for dietary restrictions, I'm saying that inventing a foolish reason for it is, likewise, foolish. Be honest about your reasons, there's no need to pretend there's a god.

Religion, indeed, is not based on reason. That's the problem. It's based on wishful thinking. That, like it or not, is not healthy.
 
I don't see how the OP's example shows that perfectly emotionally-based actions are superior to perfectly logically-based actions. Logic isn't something that stands on its own. When making logical decisions, one has to have an end goal in mind. You neglected to explain why self-preservation is superior to not murdering people as an ultimate goal.

Religion, indeed, is not based on reason. That's the problem. It's based on wishful thinking. That, like it or not, is not healthy.
Assuming you're correct, what's unhealthy about it? If there's no life after death, religious people cease existing before they ever find out that the strong beliefs they've held their entire lives happen to be a complete sham. While they're alive, they get to look forward to the most awesome party they've ever attended after they die. I don't see the problem.
 
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Logic cannot function without premises. All premises in moral reasoning are based on emotion.
 
Assuming you're correct, what's unhealthy about it? If there's no life after death, religious people cease existing before they ever find out that the strong beliefs they've held their entire lives happen to be a complete sham. While they're alive, they get to look forward to the most awesome party they've ever attended after they die. I don't see the problem.

You don't think living a lie is a problem? Spending your life on your knees, wishing that some imaginary friend would make your life better, rather than getting on your feet and actually doing something about it? Throwing money at a church that wastes it rather than doing something useful with it? Wasting time sitting in a pew when you can be doing something productive? You don't see anything wrong with that?

Sorry, I do.
 
There is logic, emotion, "right", "wrong", and every other preconcieved notion out there.

I am posting an ordeal where one chooses between absolute logic and emotion. Stick to the story, make your choice, and explain why.
_

Let us say you and your mother were lost in the frozen barren woods. You had kindling, a lighter, a knife, rocks, and little hope. Your mother was slowly succumbing to the atmosphere and neither of you had food. (Here we go) Would you kill your mother and survie through cannibalism because absolute logic dictates that you must do so to survive? Or would you let her be because you love her and would rather starve?

_

That is all. I'm trying to illuminate why absolute logic cares not for morality or emotions. I am showing why emotions are an important and credible aspect in argumentation. There is no other alternatives in this story. It must be a hard choice with deep reasons.

What are your thoughts and, more importantly, what would you do?

I would let my mother be. Period.

Edit:

@ Wake: What would you do in the situation you mentioned? (If this was already addressed, cam someone please PM me the link as I don't feel like going through the thread. Thank you :) )
 
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Logic cannot function without premises. All premises in moral reasoning are based on emotion.

Which was the point I was making, in that, the premise is an ethical question. I am yet to see an ethical question reasoned for truth by using pure logic?


Tim-
 
I won't disagree that there are good reasons for dietary restrictions, I'm saying that inventing a foolish reason for it is, likewise, foolish. Be honest about your reasons, there's no need to pretend there's a god.

bitchen.... this is something we can get our teeth into... i started a response and decided that, having found i had managed to wedge my head up my ass, i had better take a walk and ruminate a bit... ihave no doubt that you would have caught the logical flaws in the first attempt AND the double-talk gobbledygook in the second... the idea needs a trifle more marinating... (i seem to have picked up a gustatory metaphorical tic... ).

geo.
 
Logic cannot function without premises. All premises in moral reasoning are based on emotion.

good start. now, you wanna try to show that with a reasoned argument? or... is that simply a personal belief?

geo.
 
bitchen.... this is something we can get our teeth into... i started a response and decided that, having found i had managed to wedge my head up my ass, i had better take a walk and ruminate a bit... ihave no doubt that you would have caught the logical flaws in the first attempt AND the double-talk gobbledygook in the second... the idea needs a trifle more marinating... (i seem to have picked up a gustatory metaphorical tic... ).

No problem, take your time. I was just thinking that, while there was a time where humans were pretty ignorant and illogical, back in the days when most of these dietary restrictions were originally made, today there's just no excuse for attributing their efficacy to a deity, nor should we take the ignorance of the past as a sign that it was a good idea back then to use gods as excuses for otherwise good ideas. While yes, they didn't know any better then, we certainly do today, we ought to be able to dismiss their ignorant conclusions and come up with a better idea now.
 
Religion [is] based on wishful thinking.
no, i do not think that it is. further, i don't think you have given the matter as much thought as it deserves.
there are good reasons for dietary restrictions [but] inventing a foolish reason for it is, likewise, foolish..

Ok.... TWO walks and two cigarettes... let's try again.

the problem i was having had to do with NOT having the argument dismissed as 'arguing semantics" (it is pretty hard to argue without employing semantics, of course). truer, perhaps, is that our difficulty may revolve around a 'lexical' inspecificity.

we use the term rational in a number of ways. shall we dismiss the "crazy" usage for the purpose of this discussion? (i'll allow as to using it that way with the folks that think Climate Change is a conspiracy by the world's scientists).

that aside, "rational" means based on reason. with this very simple definition, it would seem impossible to derive rational behavior from irrational cause. but the fact is, MOST of what we do is NOT based on reason, or at least, not based on OUR reasonings.

if you shower and brush your teeth each day, no one is gonna call that "irrational", but YOU never reasoned out the benefits of doing so - the probability is great that, though someone once reasoned it out, you acquired the behavior at a time when you could not have reasoned the benefits of doing it. you inherited a rational behavior. Here, and in most of the instances in which we use the term, "rational" means "in accord with reason".

and the truth is, that since we do not figure out all or even most of the good reasons for all the good things that we do, we not only do not question the methods of acquisition, we are inclined to value those methods over reason. they are a lot easier, for one thing.

for these reasons, i would argue that it would be irrational to criticize the methods of learning them as "irrational". i would argue that a behavior that is in accord with reason is rational even if the methods for acquiring the behavior was not.

not taking by force those things which belong to another IS rational, whether you see it as a matter of maintaining social harmony or as a proscription from God.

Hebrew dietary laws WERE rational, though they were not reasoned out as we would.. they had no accumulation of data regarding microbial infections.

they DID have a knowledge that eating such foods had a greater liklihood of making the eater sick than did other foods. We tend to think that Newton invented the notion of cause and effect. ridiculous of course - such understanding in innate. to ascribe unknown cause to an unknown entity is, in fact, perfectly rational.

our issue today, is that we KNOW the causes of most of those things which early peoples acribed to deities. that modern people continue to ascribe them to deities is irrational.

but reason is valuable for a reason. no reason determined it, it is valuable as a matter of mere (evolutionary, physical) mechanics - it is good because it works.

irrational behavior that does not counter "good" is value neutral. irrational behavior that nonetheless produces "good" is still good... could be better, possibly, but still "good".

only irrational behavior that produces harm is subject to criticism by rational people. (again, what one thinks or believes is meaningless unless it take the form of action that affects others).

criticizing a religion (qua that religion) is irrational. criticizing religious practice that produces good behavior is irrational. criticizing religious practices that produce harmful behavior is rational and moral. Criticizing Religion (capital "R" - as a social force, a political force) IS rational if we can conclude (as i frequently do) that is is detrimental to the rest of us.

Criticizing a Roman Catholic for kneeling before a plaster statue... is not rational in my view. Criticizing a Roman Catholic adherent for attempting to impose his nonreasoned religious conclusions as policy for others is perfectly rational.
 
no, i do not think that it is. further, i don't think you have given the matter as much thought as it deserves.


Ok.... TWO walks and two cigarettes... let's try again.

the problem i was having had to do with NOT having the argument dismissed as 'arguing semantics" (it is pretty hard to argue without employing semantics, of course). truer, perhaps, is that our difficulty may revolve around a 'lexical' inspecificity.

we use the term rational in a number of ways. shall we dismiss the "crazy" usage for the purpose of this discussion? (i'll allow as to using it that way with the folks that think Climate Change is a conspiracy by the world's scientists).

that aside, "rational" means based on reason. with this very simple definition, it would seem impossible to derive rational behavior from irrational cause. but the fact is, MOST of what we do is NOT based on reason, or at least, not based on OUR reasonings.

if you shower and brush your teeth each day, no one is gonna call that "irrational", but YOU never reasoned out the benefits of doing so - the probability is great that, though someone once reasoned it out, you acquired the behavior at a time when you could not have reasoned the benefits of doing it. you inherited a rational behavior. Here, and in most of the instances in which we use the term, "rational" means "in accord with reason".

and the truth is, that since we do not figure out all or even most of the good reasons for all the good things that we do, we not only do not question the methods of acquisition, we are inclined to value those methods over reason. they are a lot easier, for one thing.

for these reasons, i would argue that it would be irrational to criticize the methods of learning them as "irrational". i would argue that a behavior that is in accord with reason is rational even if the methods for acquiring the behavior was not.

not taking by force those things which belong to another IS rational, whether you see it as a matter of maintaining social harmony or as a proscription from God.

Hebrew dietary laws WERE rational, though they were not reasoned out as we would.. they had no accumulation of data regarding microbial infections.

they DID have a knowledge that eating such foods had a greater liklihood of making the eater sick than did other foods. We tend to think that Newton invented the notion of cause and effect. ridiculous of course - such understanding in innate. to ascribe unknown cause to an unknown entity is, in fact, perfectly rational.

our issue today, is that we KNOW the causes of most of those things which early peoples acribed to deities. that modern people continue to ascribe them to deities is irrational.

but reason is valuable for a reason. no reason determined it, it is valuable as a matter of mere (evolutionary, physical) mechanics - it is good because it works.

irrational behavior that does not counter "good" is value neutral. irrational behavior that nonetheless produces "good" is still good... could be better, possibly, but still "good".

only irrational behavior that produces harm is subject to criticism by rational people. (again, what one thinks or believes is meaningless unless it take the form of action that affects others).

criticizing a religion (qua that religion) is irrational. criticizing religious practice that produces good behavior is irrational. criticizing religious practices that produce harmful behavior is rational and moral. Criticizing Religion (capital "R" - as a social force, a political force) IS rational if we can conclude (as i frequently do) that is is detrimental to the rest of us.

Criticizing a Roman Catholic for kneeling before a plaster statue... is not rational in my view. Criticizing a Roman Catholic adherent for attempting to impose his nonreasoned religious conclusions as policy for others is perfectly rational.

How are you sure that your beliefs are correct?

How can we logically talk about irrational behavior if we can't even know for surt what sanity, art, and normality are?
 
i expressed little in the way of "beliefs".

it is beginning to look as though you have difficulty talking logically about anything. that is not an attempt to insult you, it is simply one way of expressing the view that you demonstrate no willingness to entertain reasoned arguments about the merits of reason. you dismiss reason in preference to "belief", "emotion", "instinct"... whatever term you like.

but, in answer to your question, if one statement, dependent upon a prior statement is in accord with that prior statement it can be said to be logical. in the post above i attempted to do that. if that has led to a post that is overlong for most, my apologies.

that we do not agree on the quantification of "art" does not mean that reason has no meaning. sorry.

geo.
 
i expressed little in the way of "beliefs".

it is beginning to look as though you have difficulty talking logically about anything. that is not an attempt to insult you, it is simply one way of expressing the view that you demonstrate no willingness to entertain reasoned arguments about the merits of reason. you dismiss reason in preference to "belief", "emotion", "instinct"... whatever term you like.

but, in answer to your question, if one statement, dependent upon a prior statement is in accord with that prior statement it can be said to be logical. in the post above i attempted to do that. if that has led to a post that is overlong for most, my apologies.

that we do not agree on the quantification of "art" does not mean that reason has no meaning. sorry.

geo.

Actually, I'm trying to pinpoint exactly what terms like logic mean, because I've discovered multiple meanings from various books. I like to concretely understand things and should I make "mental mistakes" by ruminating and qeustioning everything so that I may learn, then so be it. The reason I question reason is because reason, it seems, is manyu different things depending on the time and place. I do value my perception of logic, as in knowledge and axioms, but I cannot merely cling to that and abandon my Apostolic/Pentecostal Christian faith. Currently I'm wanting to know why people believe what they post, and also if what they deem to be perfectly factual is indeed so. I respect you as an experienced user, and I do not mean to offend you.
 
Geo Patric said:
no, i do not think that it is. further, i don't think you have given the matter as much thought as it deserves.

In fact, I would argue the opposite, that believers have not given the matter as much thought as it deserves, they simply embrace it because it is emotionally comforting to them, regardless of whether or not it is logical, and especially whether or not it is factually true.

that aside, "rational" means based on reason. with this very simple definition, it would seem impossible to derive rational behavior from irrational cause. but the fact is, MOST of what we do is NOT based on reason, or at least, not based on OUR reasonings.

Whether or not most of what we do is based on reason doesn't mean that it shouldn't be. The fact is, for most arguments that are not already emotionally charged, we do use logic to evaluate the reasonableness of the claim. If I lose my car keys and I can't find them, is it logical to claim that leprechauns stole them? The vast majority of the population is going to look at that claim and conclude that it isn't rational or logical that such a claim is reasonable, based specifically on the fact that we have no reason to think leprechauns are real. Virtually no one has an emotional investment in claims of leprechauns to be true. However, if you change "leprechaun" to "devil", more people are going to accept that as a reasonable argument, even though there is no more evidence for the existence of a devil than there is for leprechauns. They are more emotionally invested in the existence of devils and demons than they are in the existence of leprechauns. It wasn't that many centuries ago when belief in leprechauns and fairies and the like were more widespread. That didn't make the claims about them any more reasonable then than they are now, nor does it make claims about gods reasonable today, just because they are widespread.

If you want to argue that some people, even the majority of people, are stupid and gullible, I'll accept that, but it doesn't change the facts. There is still no evidence that any of these supposed gods exist. It doesn't matter how it makes someone feel, it doesn't matter how emotionally invested they are in the idea, the facts are the facts. I'm no more interested in people's emotional state over the existence of a god than I am over the existence of leprechauns or a flat earth or magical unicorns. I'm interested in the facts. Full stop.

Hebrew dietary laws WERE rational, though they were not reasoned out as we would.. they had no accumulation of data regarding microbial infections.

Sure they did. They observed that people who ate certain things got certain diseases more often. They had no idea why it happened, they just knew that it did. A rational idea would have been to tell people not to eat those foods, or not to eat them uncooked, whatever their observations were. Once you start tacking on "because this god said so", you leave rationality behind. No god told anyone anything. However, man's brain is hard-wired to seek out patterns and answers. In the absence of easily understandable answers, many people simply make something up because to do otherwise is emotionally uncomfortable. They don't like not knowing so they invent an explanation. Just because we are genetically predisposed to do it, however, doesn't make it rational. Luckily, we are able to overrule most of our mental hard-wiring, we can choose not to fall prey to emotionally comfortable ideas and keep looking until we find an actual explanation, rather than one that's convenient.

our issue today, is that we KNOW the causes of most of those things which early peoples acribed to deities. that modern people continue to ascribe them to deities is irrational.

That is true. However, that doesn't make the original attribution rational, only understandable. Today, it is not understandable why anyone would continue to do such a thing when we know better.

irrational behavior that does not counter "good" is value neutral. irrational behavior that nonetheless produces "good" is still good... could be better, possibly, but still "good".

I don't buy that it is value neutral. There was a time when people believed disease was caused by demons. Lots of people were cut up, tortured, starved and murdered to "get the demons out". Is that value neutral? Hell no! Getting back to your dietary restrictions, you have to remember there are places in the Middle East where they're taking those exact same dietary restrictions and using them as justification for slaughtering millions of pigs and outright banning pigs from some countries. Is that value neutral? Absolutely not! Even taking benign examples, you have people who are taking their religious views and trying to impose them on larger society, even people who do not share those views. Take the Blue Laws in the U.S. They still exist in some areas, and have only been done away with relatively recently in others. It is the imposition of a religious viewpoint upon a secular society by people who want to force their beliefs on everyone. Is that value neutral?

Not a chance. There's no such thing as value neutral so long as the belief goes beyond the believer and invariably, it always does. It affects how a person acts in public, how they vote, how they raise their children, how they interact with society. Our beliefs always affect our actions. So long as one has irrational beliefs, one's actions will be, to one degree or another, irrational. That's not value neutral.

criticizing a religion (qua that religion) is irrational. criticizing religious practice that produces good behavior is irrational. criticizing religious practices that produce harmful behavior is rational and moral. Criticizing Religion (capital "R" - as a social force, a political force) IS rational if we can conclude (as i frequently do) that is is detrimental to the rest of us.

No it isn't, in fact I'd argue that it's rationally necessary. Take the fundamentalists who have been in the news on and off over the last couple of years, the ones who refuse medical treatment for their children. They are killing their kids. I can cite case after case after case of religious parents who might as well be slitting their kid's throat, they are no better than murderers in my eyes because they just watch their kids, kids who could have easily been saved had they sought treatment, wasting away to nothing. Just because you can point out practices which are not immediately and demonstrably harmful to people around the believer doesn't make the practices any more rational. Harmless does not mean valid.

Criticizing a Roman Catholic for kneeling before a plaster statue... is not rational in my view. Criticizing a Roman Catholic adherent for attempting to impose his nonreasoned religious conclusions as policy for others is perfectly rational.

Sure it is, that's not all they do. When you have a church which demonstrably protects pedophiles, which preaches against condoms in Africa, condoms which could have saved millions of people from contracting AIDS, a church that protected and supported the Nazi regime, and someone voluntarily keeps putting money into the collection plate on Sunday to keep supporting an institution like that, it's damn rational to criticize that. Catholics worldwide ought to be ashamed of themselves that they keep supporting this institution, yet they keep showing up and tossing away billions of dollars. Why? Because the church has them all scared that if they stop, they're going to go to an imaginary hellfire when they die. Stick around and you get paradise, leave and you get fried. It's that Pavlovian cycle that keeps those wallets opening and those people, the vast majority of whom have to know what their church is doing, tossing their hard-earned money away to support the system.

And you think it's irrational to criticize that?
 
Actually, I'm trying to pinpoint exactly what terms like logic mean, because I've discovered multiple meanings from various books. I like to concretely understand things and should I make "mental mistakes" by ruminating and qeustioning everything so that I may learn, then so be it.
then i owe you an apology and a dose of encouragement. keep going.
The reason I question reason is because reason, it seems, is manyu different things depending on the time and place. I do value my perception of logic, as in knowledge and axioms, but I cannot merely cling to that and abandon my Apostolic/Pentecostal Christian faith.
nor can i think of any reason that you should. reason and faith are not, in my view, wholly incompatible.
Currently I'm wanting to know why people believe what they post, and also if what they deem to be perfectly factual is indeed so. I respect you as an experienced user, and I do not mean to offend you.
don't worry about offending me.. i am tough. and i would hope you never withhold ideas that are important to you for fear of offending anyone.

geo
 
In fact, I would argue the opposite,
gotta head to work... be back later to read and respond. thanks for the great discussion.

geo.
 
reason and faith are not, in my view, wholly incompatible.

It depends on what you have faith in. Although I dislike the usage of the word in this case, if you have "faith" in gravity and your "faith" is based on objective evidence, scientific measurements and understanding of the world around you, then certainly, your "faith" would be reasonable and rational. However, if you substituted faith in unicorns, without having any rational basis to support your faith, your faith would not be reasonable.

It's sad that some people use the word "faith" loosely, to refer to any belief of any kind, and then try to transfer reasonable beliefs, based on rational evaluation, to anything anyone wants to believe in. That's blatantly dishonest.
 
good start. now, you wanna try to show that with a reasoned argument? or... is that simply a personal belief?

How do we know this for sure?

It's not an argument. It's a truism. It's just like a little kid asking "Why?"; every moral argument can be regressed indefinitely until someone breaks down and answers "because I said so" or "because God said so", which anyone who cares about logical arguments should recognize as not being logical arguments.
 
It's not an argument. It's a truism. It's just like a little kid asking "Why?"; every moral argument can be regressed indefinitely until someone breaks down and answers "because I said so" or "because God said so", which anyone who cares about logical arguments should recognize as not being logical arguments.

It's just an absurd position to take. It springs from the irrational idea that just because someone cannot absolutely prove beyond any doubt that something happened, or did not happen, that any cockamamie idea that they want to propose has just as much validity and chance to be true as the one that is supported by the evidence we do have.

It's the last bastion of the uncritical thinker.
 
It's not an argument. It's a truism.
dunno about that... YOU may accept it as a truism. i do not accept that " All premises in moral reasoning are based on emotion", nor would most moral philosophers. in fact, i would say that the most, perhaps ONLY truly legitimate moral reasoning is based on a rational understanding of what is beneficial.
It's just like a little kid asking "Why?"; every moral argument can be regressed indefinitely until someone breaks down and answers "because I said so" or "because God said so", which anyone who cares about logical arguments should recognize as not being logical arguments.
i am sorry, but that is nonsense.

geo.
 
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It depends on what you have faith in. Although I dislike the usage of the word in this case, if you have "faith" in gravity and your "faith" is based on objective evidence, scientific measurements and understanding of the world around you, then certainly, your "faith" would be reasonable and rational. However, if you substituted faith in unicorns, without having any rational basis to support your faith, your faith would not be reasonable.

It's sad that some people use the word "faith" loosely, to refer to any belief of any kind, and then try to transfer reasonable beliefs, based on rational evaluation, to anything anyone wants to believe in. That's blatantly dishonest.

quick pop in... will get back to th elarger discourse tomorrrow... i ma starving, gonna bail and fill the tank. but, a lil clarification -

i agree about 'switching' the meaning of faith ... drives me nuts. in these discussions, I do not use the word "faith" in the sense that "I believe in gravity", nor really would i ever say that.... i KNOW gravity exists. i do not use it in the casual colloquial sense of "i believe i will have a cheese sammitch for lunch". specifically, i intend it to mean what religious and other 'transcendant' type use it to mean... i use "faith" to mean an acceptance of a premise as true without any supporting evidence.

be back tomorrow.

geo.
 
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