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A concept of objective morality is not necessarily a good thing. It can be harmful.

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  • Originally posted by Paprika View Post
    In my attempt at facetiousness, I put it wrongly. Memory is this: you believe that you drank tea at a prior time.
    Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
    Nah, memory would be the image/impression of having had a cup of tea, not the belief of having had one. It's entirely possible to "remember" events while at the same time believing they actually never happened. /nitpicking
    Originally posted by Paprika View Post
    No, it's the image/impression which you interpret as having had a cup of tea.
    I don't think any of this is as separable as ya'll seem to imply. Terminology is going to get screwy here, so we'll have to be very careful with how it's used. For my purposes, impression is equivalent to sensation. Interpretation is a statement about the impression. Thus, flavor and temperature are impressions; interpretation is 'hot' and 'tea'. Experience ties impression and interpretation together: "I experienced a drink of hot tea." You could restate the experience as a belief: "I believe I had a drink of hot tea." Memory would encompass everything. It includes the impression, the interpretation, and the experience (all of which are past). Alternatively, a memory could include only the interpretations.

    Suppose you believed the first experience to be tea because someone told you the drink was called tea. Later, you could be presented with an identical impression with a different interpretation. This time, someone tells you the drink is called coffee. This time the flavor, though identical to the original impression, is now interpreted as 'coffee'. Your new experience now conflicts with the memory of a past experience. You could believe that both experiences are correct, but that there are extenuating circumstances (you're in a different country, so naming might be different).

    Say you continue to have near identical experiences which all relate to coffee. In that case, you could come to re-evaluate the initial experience and decide it too was coffee. Now your memory of the initial experience is revised. The new memory includes the original memory but also includes a belief about the original memory's truth value. You could coherently say "I remember tasting coffee for the first time but thinking it was tea" and "The first time I knowingly tasted coffee was not until later". Another remembrance would even include the recognition of the original interpretation as incorrect: "I remember when I realized that what I had thought was tea was really coffee".

    Memories and beliefs encompass each other. You can have beliefs about a memory, and you can have memory of beliefs.
    I'm not here anymore.

    Comment


    • Originally posted by Doug Shaver
      For me to count anything as evidence, it has to be an objective fact.
      Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
      How do you distinguish between objective fact?
      Between objective fact and what else? If the alternative is subjective fact, then I distinguish them on the basis of whether the fact obtains independently of any human's perception or belief. If something is so regardless of whether anybody thinks so, then it is an objective fact.

      Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
      We could say that a state of mind is a fact.
      Yeah, or we could say that it's not a fact, but I'm not sure what sense it would make to say such a thing.

      Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
      We could call it a fact that you experienced something.
      I either had the experience or I didn't. If I did, then my experience is a fact.

      Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
      But to accept that experience as evidence, by your own standard, that experience would have to be an objective fact. How is objectivity established?
      It is established by coming up with a good reason to believe that the fact obtains regardless of what anybody thinks.

      Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
      It would seem you require empirical or logical verification in order to establish objectivity. If so, that puts you firmly in the camp of logical positivism.
      I have read quite a bit of what the logical positivists had to say for themselves. I've also read a couple of books critiquing their work. Their major mistake was in claiming that verification in principle is necessary to establish the meaning of any statement other than a logical truth. That was an untenable position, as even some members of the Vienna Circle came to realize. We can and do know what some statements mean even if they are unverifiable in principle. But it does not follow that verification is epistemologically irrelevant.

      Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
      but you should know that most people will object to the sheer amount of facts you necessarily ignore because of a (generally) impossible requirement for fact to become evidence.
      I suppose it would make my epistemological life a lot easier if I could decide whether to believe something just by checking how many people already believe it.

      Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
      It is my understanding that you only call something evidence if it is a fact that has been empirically tested. Is my understanding correct?
      If you believe something to be a fact, then it can be evidence for you. If I don't believe that it's a fact, then it cannot be evidence for me. The question will be whether I should believe that it's a fact. It may well be that I ought to believe it, in which case my unbelief is a mistake. But until I correct that mistake, I cannot count that fact as evidence for anything. Those who think I should believe whatever the fact is evidence for need to convince that it really is a fact.

      Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
      The only type of evidence that Doug disregards is what he calls 'nonfactual evidence'. However, given his own statement that something has to be an objective fact to be evidence, I don't see how there could ever be such a thing as 'nonfactual evidence'. Doug, can you clarify that?
      I see no need to. If I understand you correctly, you have understood me correctly on that particular point.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
        ...


        Teal:
        I think you've misunderstood a lot of what Doug is claiming, but I admit it's a bit confusing. As far as I can tell, Doug's claim has never been that eyewitness testimony isn't evidence, and he hasn't claimed that eyewitness testimony and circumstantial evidence are the same thing. Rather, he considers them all to be merely forms of evidence which need no distinction for his purposes. He holds that in contradiction to popular media which would hold eyewitness testimony as stronger evidence than circumstantial. That's what the reference to TV scriptwriters was about. All he's really saying there is that he thinks TV has gotten it wrong.

        In attempt to restate his position:
        Evidence comes in many forms. Some of it is circumstantial. Some of it is testimonial (including eyewitness testimony). No type of evidence is necessarily stronger than another type.


        The only type of evidence that Doug disregards is what he calls 'nonfactual evidence'. However, given his own statement that something has to be an objective fact to be evidence, I don't see how there could ever be such a thing as 'nonfactual evidence'. Doug, can you clarify that?

        No, I got that - my original question to him was whether or not he considered circumstantial evidence to be evidence and his reply was no - along with a confused equation of circumstantial evidence with eye witness testimony.

        Near as I can tell, he considers anything non-empirical to be non-factual, hence the rejection of circumstantial evidence. I'm not as sure that empirical is actually correct - at times it sounds more like he means non-physical.

        Your restatement is not consistent with what he's claimed thus far - at least that isn't at all what I've understood him to say. I'll wait and see if he agrees with you.
        "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

        "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

        My Personal Blog

        My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

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        • Originally posted by Paprika View Post
          In my attempt at facetiousness, I put it wrongly. Memory is this: you believe that you drank tea at a prior time.
          Sure, it is the memory of a historical event.
          Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s

          Comment


          • Originally posted by seer View Post
            Sure, it is the memory of a historical event.
            Not necessarily so, human memory is notoriously faulty. It makes historical events more meaningful if their record is based on more then human memories.
            Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
            Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
            But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

            go with the flow the river knows . . .

            Frank

            I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
              my original question to him was whether or not he considered circumstantial evidence to be evidence and his reply was no
              Wrong. I have not denied that circumstantial evidence is evidence.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Doug Shaver View Post
                Between objective fact and what else? If the alternative is subjective fact, then I distinguish them on the basis of whether the fact obtains independently of any human's perception or belief. If something is so regardless of whether anybody thinks so, then it is an objective fact.
                I don't know what else there could be, which is why I asked. The adjective 'objective' is meaningless to me when discussing facts. Either it is a fact, and thus obtains regardless, or it is not one. There is nothing subjective or objective about it. This strikes me as a terminology issue, but I'm not really sure. It sounds like possible confusion between facts and beliefs, especially in cases where the latter is represented as being the former.


                Originally posted by Doug Shaver View Post
                Yeah, or we could say that it's not a fact, but I'm not sure what sense it would make to say such a thing.
                Me neither.


                Originally posted by Doug Shaver View Post
                I either had the experience or I didn't. If I did, then my experience is a fact.
                Agreed.


                Originally posted by Doug Shaver View Post
                It is established by coming up with a good reason to believe that the fact obtains regardless of what anybody thinks.
                This is where the issue shows up. If it's a fact, it always obtains regardless. What anybody thinks about it is irrelevant. I think what you're really trying to get at is how we establish something as a fact. That's something else entirely, and I think this is where some confusion is showing up.


                Originally posted by Doug Shaver View Post
                I have read quite a bit of what the logical positivists had to say for themselves. I've also read a couple of books critiquing their work. Their major mistake was in claiming that verification in principle is necessary to establish the meaning of any statement other than a logical truth. That was an untenable position, as even some members of the Vienna Circle came to realize. We can and do know what some statements mean even if they are unverifiable in principle. But it does not follow that verification is epistemologically irrelevant.
                I haven't claimed that it's epistemologically irrelevant, merely that it's epistemologically incomplete. You seem to agree.


                Originally posted by Doug Shaver View Post
                I suppose it would make my epistemological life a lot easier if I could decide whether to believe something just by checking how many people already believe it.
                And this is why you shouldn't break things up mid-sentence. My point was that most people (including you, it seems) believe logical positivism to be incomplete. The intent is not to establish an argument ad populum, but to establish the positions from which people are arguing. So far, those positions haven't been clearly established (imo).


                Originally posted by Doug Shaver View Post
                If you believe something to be a fact, then it can be evidence for you. If I don't believe that it's a fact, then it cannot be evidence for me. The question will be whether I should believe that it's a fact. It may well be that I ought to believe it, in which case my unbelief is a mistake. But until I correct that mistake, I cannot count that fact as evidence for anything. Those who think I should believe whatever the fact is evidence for need to convince that it really is a fact.
                Here's where the terminology confusion pops up again. The question here is first and foremost if something is a fact. Then we ask what that fact is evidence of, if anything. You shouldn't refer to things you don't accept as facts. That only muddies things up. This last statement is proof of that. You're claiming they need to convince you something is a fact while you just previously refer to it as a fact. If you accept it as a fact, they need to convince you it's evidence for something. If you don't accept it as a fact, they need to convince you it's a fact.
                I'm not here anymore.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
                  No, I got that - my original question to him was whether or not he considered circumstantial evidence to be evidence and his reply was no - along with a confused equation of circumstantial evidence with eye witness testimony.

                  Your restatement is not consistent with what he's claimed thus far - at least that isn't at all what I've understood him to say. I'll wait and see if he agrees with you.
                  I would suggest re-reading Post #239. Part of the problem is that his answer was not a clear or direct response to your very simple question. Part of the problem is that you misunderstand what it was he said (probably in part because it wasn't a clear/direct answer). The answer to your original question about circumstantial evidence is: yes, he does accept circumstantial evidence.

                  Doug said in Post #210 that he only considers something evidence if it is an objective fact. In keeping with that terminology, circumstantial evidence is admissible (since it's based on facts, by definition). Doug's response Post #239 actually stated that he doesn't hold eyewitness testimony as having higher utility than circumstantial evidence. This is what I drew from when I restated his position.


                  Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
                  Near as I can tell, he considers anything non-empirical to be non-factual, hence the rejection of circumstantial evidence. I'm not as sure that empirical is actually correct - at times it sounds more like he means non-physical.
                  I originally thought this too. I think the correct statement is that he considers anything non-empirical to be inadmissible as evidence. That still might not be fully correct, but it's definitely not the case that he rejects circumstantial evidence.
                  I'm not here anymore.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
                    The adjective 'objective' is meaningless to me when discussing facts. Either it is a fact, and thus obtains regardless, or it is not one. There is nothing subjective*or*objective about it.
                    I think just about everybody agrees that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. That makes beauty quintessentially subjective. Even so, if someone were to say, "It is not a fact that some women are beautiful," I would insist that they were wrong.

                    Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
                    I think what you're really trying to get at is how we establish something as a fact.
                    We can establish subjective facts by consensus. For objective facts, we need other methods.

                    Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
                    And this is why you shouldn't break things up mid-sentence. My point was that most people (including you, it seems) believe logical positivism to be incomplete.
                    My apologies. It's a touchy subject with me. The usual complaint I hear, when I raise the issue of verification, is not that logical positivism is incomplete, but that it's a pile of garbage.

                    Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
                    Here's where the terminology confusion pops up again. The question here is first and foremost if something is a fact. Then we ask what that fact is evidence of, if anything. You shouldn't refer to things you don't accept as facts.
                    I try not to, but "alleged fact," if used routinely, is tiresome to write and irritating to read. If the distinction is relevant, I try to write so that the context makes it clear. When I fail, I expect my interlocutors to ask for clarification.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by seer View Post
                      Well there you go, acceptable evidence to me - completely arbitrary and subjective. Thanks...
                      You are perfectly free to consider the “completely arbitrary and subjective” experience of an invisible pink unicorn to be acceptable evidence to you provided you don’t expect it to be acceptable evidence to me. NOR demand that I conform to the immutable laws of your invisible pink unicorn; nor force school boards to include them into the syllabus of public schools as accepted fact.

                      Originally posted by seer View Post
                      To shunyadragon.

                      It doesn't matter shuny - a fact of history is a fact of history no matter who confirms it or not. My experience of drinking my morning tea is as true and real as any other fact. Whether anyone else believes it or not.
                      Again, seer, not all evidence is of equal value. The alleged evidence of an incorporeal entity, of which you claim personal experience, is not as likely to be true as your tea-drinking claims because it is purely personal to you.
                      “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
                        Cool. Take as long as you need.
                        Hi Teallura,

                        Well my effort is paltry compared to yours. I tend to argue/discuss/debate a lot on facebook sites these days and that does keep me away from these forums a lot. So here goes.



                        



I see it like this. In essence I agree with what you say about objectivity as in:-

                        Originally posted by T
                        In an objective case the thing (person, place, thing or idea) exists regardless of the existence of an observer.
                        And it is largely this I get hung up about:-

                        Originally posted by T
                        You’re probably saying ‘aha, see, it is subjective!’ But that misses the important bit. The process of interpretation involves some subjectivity because it involves perception - but it also involves reason and hard data (the laws). Calling the whole process subjective is technically true - but not grounds to invalidate.
                        It’s because I think the technicality is important. Reason itself is something we humans do, as well as collect data and interpret it. In the end then, human biases, foibles and fallibility all come to bear on what we deem to be objective knowledge. 

Hence I stick to the outcome of the claims for it, as opposed to whether or not it can really exist in any way that is outside of human perception.

                        I see that question as something will be argued about till, I’m not sure what. (I cannot use “till hell freezes over”, because last year Hell did freeze over in your country.)




                        Let me back track a wee bit.

                        I accept that the objective morality can exist in that humans do it, that is, they have morals, behave morally etc. In another sense it exists too. Groups of humans agree on moral behaviour and so a sense of objectivity is there too, insofar as agreement can be reached. Morality is taken away from individual preference by reason of the group nominating the required behaviour. So, no matter how much humans disagree, or whether or not some folk are actually moral, the moment a human begins moral reasoning, objective morality exists.

 It’s the source of it, which is, to my mind, contentious here. In terms of this forum, does God define morality and set the standard, or is the standard something that is innate in us, because of our natures (the wiring in our brains occurring naturally as opposed to being made by God).

                        I don’t think we can know. Certainly we can appeal to nature and natural process in the sense that we believe these exist. But what, if anything lies beyond? That is something we cannot know in the sense we claim to know nature.

                        And here the problem lies. The believer will certainly argue “God”, while the non believer will argue “Not God, but simply natural process”. And it’s here that your point comes into play:-

                        Originally posted by T
                        The process of interpretation involves some subjectivity because it involves perception - but it also involves reason and hard data (the laws). Calling the whole process subjective is technically true - but not grounds to invalidate.
                        I think that “technically true”, is important.

                        I agree, it does not invalidate, simply because - who knows. We are dealing with something (if anything) beyond the universe we can perceive. And so, while it does not invalidate, it does not validate either.

 Like God, it’s an idea that is interesting, and one that is worth pondering. Some folk clearly accept this as possibly true, or as being truth. Others do not.

 So, in essence, I’m more interested in the outcome than in the truth of the claims. The truth or otherwise of the claims is more for a camp fire discussion/argument, all the while eating chocies and sipping wine. :yippee:

                        So like God, where does the question of objective morals get us? 

Well I think it depends.

 With some folk I think it can modify behaviour that can be potentially bad. It can make some people good, inspirationally so. With other folk it seems to encourage bad behaviour.

 There might be a personality factor behind this, but I also think it depends on how the individual perceives her/his obligations under that moral code. And there the problem lies. We come back to perception again.

                        A person might claim that her/his actions are best because they are based on that objective standard, but to all others, how can that be demonstrated? This is particularly so when conflict arises, not only with those who hold to a relative standard, but also with those who hold to the objective standard but see it differently.

                        This is perhaps best illustrated by the following:-

                        Originally posted by T
                        Here we look to the Scripture - does it say ‘kill’ or ‘murder’? It in fact says ‘murder’ so the Decalogue does not support the ‘all killing is always wrong’. Scripture interprets Scripture - meaning we look to other passages when we aren’t sure how to handle a given one.
                        People still have to read and interpret Scripture. So what happens in the context of war in which two groups of objectivists decide differently, and one views the war as just and the other views it as unjust? In one case it’s “killing”, and in the other case it’s “murder”, surely.

                        To my mind, Scripture’s words can be very clear, but humans still have to decide. And in the case of the war example above, who decides what God actually is thinking on the issue?

                        In the end, I simply don’t see how we can get away from human perception in this, even when we do use logic and hard reasoning, and even when we use scripture.

                        Last edited by rwatts; 05-27-2014, 06:08 AM.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Carrikature View Post
                          ...


                          Teal:
                          I think you've misunderstood a lot of what Doug is claiming, but I admit it's a bit confusing. As far as I can tell, Doug's claim has never been that eyewitness testimony isn't evidence, and he hasn't claimed that eyewitness testimony and circumstantial evidence are the same thing. Rather, he considers them all to be merely forms of evidence which need no distinction for his purposes. He holds that in contradiction to popular media which would hold eyewitness testimony as stronger evidence than circumstantial. That's what the reference to TV scriptwriters was about. All he's really saying there is that he thinks TV has gotten it wrong.

                          In attempt to restate his position:
                          Evidence comes in many forms. Some of it is circumstantial. Some of it is testimonial (including eyewitness testimony). No type of evidence is necessarily stronger than another type.


                          The only type of evidence that Doug disregards is what he calls 'nonfactual evidence'. However, given his own statement that something has to be an objective fact to be evidence, I don't see how there could ever be such a thing as 'nonfactual evidence'. Doug, can you clarify that?
                          I think I got it right the first time, Carry - but I'd have to review the whole thing now and I really don't have time. So, I'm dropping this portion of the discussion so I can answer RW when he gets back to me on that last post. I may - no promises - come back to this later if I have time.


                          Edit: I see now RW did get back to me - I'm gonna be busy...


                          RW: I'll get back to you - I don't have time to answer today and I don't want to read it until I've got time to begin working on it. I'll get to it as soon as I can.
                          Last edited by Teallaura; 05-27-2014, 10:06 AM.
                          "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

                          "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

                          My Personal Blog

                          My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

                          Quill Sword

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                          • Originally posted by Teallaura View Post
                            I think I got it right the first time, Carry - but I'd have to review the whole thing now and I really don't have time. So, I'm dropping this portion of the discussion so I can answer RW when he gets back to me on that last post. I may - no promises - come back to this later if I have time.


                            Edit: I see now RW did get back to me - I'm gonna be busy...


                            RW: I'll get back to you - I don't have time to answer today and I don't want to read it until I've got time to begin working on it. I'll get to it as soon as I can.
                            That's the problem with life. Lots of things get in the way of other things. :(


                            Teallaura - unless you want to do otherwise, simply summarise your position with respect to my reply above. If you put too much effort into it, I probably won't respond anyway. Things are dragging me in other directions.

                            Comment


                            • I most likely will - by the time I get to this we'll probably both be in the middle of other things. Thanks for a good conversation - I do appreciate it.

                              "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." - Jim Elliot

                              "Forgiveness is the way of love." Gary Chapman

                              My Personal Blog

                              My Novella blog (Current Novella Begins on 7/25/14)

                              Quill Sword

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