I've been refining an argument — ethics isn't a human invention. It's what a finite universe with conscious agents structurally requires

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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It’s interesting that you do recognize function/purpose, and you do not accept artificial ones (even excluding humans existentially defining their own essence). Biological life on earth is new on the scene of the universe — why do you recognize “just so” stories about biological function/purpose, but nothing beyond those stories, especially considering that there would be no mechanical computer programming without a programmer (mind)? Mechanism (not the same as function/purpose) is ordered—to denature something is to break the mechanism/order so that it no longer functions according to its purpose. How could it have become what it is in a stepwise fashion if changing it makes it no longer operate?

Culture would not exist if consent violation was the norm/order. Disorder is cultural breakdown from primary consent recognition. If you think violation is primary, Who tamed us? But the thought self-destructs because you can only violate what is there to violate. If you don’t recognize consent, there is nothing to violate.

The eternal end in every moment is communion, and our breaking it did not change that. Eternal communion subsumes all change, because communion (consent) is more than blind mechanism & requires choice to demonstrate it.

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I edited my above post to show that I think that function and purpose are the same thing, unless by function you just mean the mechanism. And perhaps I should also ask if by mechanism you mean a) the process/method, or b) the object/subject that undergoes/undertakes the process?

Do you think human maturity (beyond mere biological maturity) happens mechanistically, or requires consent—so that even if a person does not have a human body, if they recognize consent, they are capable of maturity?

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@FLI

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Do they, don’t they. That’s really beside the point. The point, as I have demosntrated, is that assigning purpose on the basis of feature is fallacious.

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You mean like when a mobster “offers” protection and since you are “making use of it” it’s “legal tender” for him to extort you?

Concent! As long as you consent to what I say. Otherwise fuck you, legal tender.

I bet no rapist ever thought that. “If she had just given it up willingly.”

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As stated, there are plenty of consent structures out there, since life has both agency and choice.

And praytell which animal does not recognize agression, threat, pain?
Which animal does not recognize rejection to a mating offer?

The word “because” is a nonsensical moving of the goalpost again.
Its not eating you BECAUSE its violating your consent.
The violation of consent happens automatically through the disregard of your will. Of you not wanting to die.

Funny cause you are running the human program, supposedly have this thing called recognition, which makes you capable of recognizing that no living being you kill and eat wants to die, consents to die, yet you somehow still disregard it.

Either there is no difference between you and the lion, or you are just trying to avoid facing that consent is simply a manifestation of will and it’s disregard.

Society. You, the conscious being, are nothing more than the net sum of information that has been fed to you since your birth. Everything outside of that is just your empty vessel.

I recognize them. I just have no reason to prioritize them over the hard floor of reality.
You want to claim that programming needs a programmer? Absolutely fine. I cannot exclude the possibility of that, however, that puts the burden of showing the programmer, on you.

And since you cant, we are down to hypotheticals.
And since we are down to hypotheticals, anything goes.
And since anything goes. The hard floor of reality takes precedence.

Could you be right? Absolutely.
But under these circumstances, the best your argument can do is to achieve a draw by being recognized as a possibility. Not more and not less.
You could be right. You could be wrong. And thats the kindest, most open and most objective interpretation of it since anyone can just throw Hitchen’s razor at it, and its goan as a whole.

And how did you arrive at this idea?

  1. Culture is a social construct. In and of itself thats already something that is only valid for social creatures. Culture does not exist for any solitary form of life.

  2. For added irony: Different cultures are perpetually competing and even fighting, actively violating eachother’s consent.

Again: Society did.
Your culture as an individual who is speaking right now is literally a consequence of where you have been born and raised.

For added context you can take a look at wild children which grew up alongside animals.

Reality does not support this idea. At least not the one i am living in.

And your proof of this is the fact that you said it?
That you relegated yourself to be an equal to a stone?

Sorry, your demonstration is not convincing.

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It can be suggested that life itself has no conceptual meaning, that the desire for a “purpose” is simply a tool used by the mind searching for a grand meaning … and when the continuous loop of thought drops away, the body functions in its natural rhythm, separate from psychological demands and conflicts.

It’s a viewpoint that ordinary life is itself complete: without the psychological movement of thought demanding a future goal, existence is experienced as it is in the present moment:

(There is no problem with our present life. For thought there seems to be one because it extracts certain knowledge out of past satisfactions and discomforts, compares the present with it, passes judgments, avoids the present by concocting a future and pursuing it. But for the comparisons that thought makes there is no problem with our life as it is; and there is no other life. It is precisely our thought of a better state that prevents us from coming to terms with our life as it is.)

However

Each cell in the human organism is interested solely in its survival. It knows in a way that its survival depends on the cooperation of all cells. In this way the whole body survives. It’s not a choice, it’s an inate intelligence. An extraordinary functioning – a state of deep, harmonious connection with others (cells). Communion.

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If you meant “in it’s own survival”, then that sentence holds only true for cancer cells.
Its not true for regular cells which actively sacrifice themselves (or get killed off) for the whole upon reaching their hayflick limit or take any kind of damage that risks their preprogrammed function.

If you meant in the survival of the human organism… well…

Communion is a kind of romanticized concept, like communism is.
All work for themselves and for the betterment of the whole. One big harmonious family.
Please disregard the commissar in the corner and the 7 guns pointed at your head at all times. Oh and do make sure to smile.

Imagine the kind of harmony where retirement is a word for voluntary public suicide. Or an assisted one if you struggle with pulling the trigger.

Ah the many wonders of free interpretation.

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^^Right before Captain Underpants dragged the red herring of taxation across the well of discourse (extremely large well… ocean-size, even).^^ Oh, frick it, I’m a sucker for red herring…

That doesn’t make taxes innately evil. Conversely (I think?) making a profit is not innately evil… you can turn a profit while still properly compensating the people that help you do it. If you’re not going to properly compensate them, though, you have to be OK with paying taxes (proportionate to what you should have been paying your employees) …but I’m saying, why don’t we cut out the middleman of taxes and properly compensate your people? And I’m talking about all consent-recognizing people, whether or not they are born naturally or artificially produced.

Somehow, this feels related to men and women… and there might be some truth to it. Which of our features are essential to our function/purpose as humans/persons? Certainly not sexual reproduction. Definitely consent recognition.

mic drop

Even our laws (when pivoting consent recognition) do not look at it that way. Malicious intent must be established. A lion does not have consent recognition in order to have malicious intent.

You’re still on this red herring and you’re not gonna let it go because you pride yourself in being a vegetarian, am I right? It’s part of your identity. Tell that to the red herring. :wink: Ok, ok… please do not force me to defend a position on this topic. I can do it. I have so little time to waste on it …seriously. Just compare it to taxation and what I have said about taxation. The same concepts apply across all examples you can drag across the well of discourse. It’s about graded absolutism and what we’re actually obligated to in any particular moment when absolutes conflict (the one that pivots consent recognition for all stakeholders as far as is possible). It is not that you intend to lie to the would-be murderer (malicious intent, because capable of consent recognition and having no higher absolute in the moment that would justify the death rather than the death being unjustifiable murder) about their victim’s location… it is that you intend to save the life of their victim. Saving life is always higher than telling the truth… unless you are a twisted psychopathic infidel who thinks you are saving your spouse from suicide by lying to them about infidelity. I mean, if we’re gonna be talking about red herrings, let’s throw them all out here.

Now you’re just being goofy on purpose (¿now?) unless you mean original personhood (eternal Trinity). Were we tamed or are we just made in their image or does it require both… like getting the right answers in math (unless you have some sort of supernatural genius)? I mean you could say all purpose is supernatural if it pivots consent recognition—even the source of all mechanism is supernatural IF by nature you mean what cannot exist of itself. Is the tail pinner spinning like a donkey yet?

I reviewed the rest of your reply and realized it is extremely long and there are two other extremely long replies which follow it. I think I’m done here at least for now. Probably anything I have to say would just repeat myself. Again.

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It’s because you know it’s a gaping contradiction, no matter how much expert rhetoric you employ to try to patch it up.

Sure, not if you don’t think violating consent is evil.

…

Worth thinking about that you bent over backwards to batter your supposed core belief, but never once even wavered in support of the seemingly outlying opinion, on weight of which the other was completely violated.

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Um… that sounds like a load of crap on stilts.

Is that the best you got? This is what I wake up to?

hehe snort

All of the above did spur this, though:

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And that was precisely my point. Thats literally what i said. Your idea of consent is on a legal foundation, not one that recognizes inherent agency and will.

But the argument also fails. Even within the justice system murder is recognized as malice.
The only distinction the law makes in that regard is that if you are incapable of understanding the consequences of your actions, then instead of a prison, you will be sent to the closed ward, but there is no question whatsoever about whether or not you just violated someone’s consent. You killed someone.

A red herring is a derailing of the conversation. What i said is a core of the argument.
Its one thing that you cant or wont recognize it, but to try and portray it as a red herring… just makes me question whether or not you even understand what i am saying.

Your standards for red herring are rather curious.
I simply stated 2 things for you as a core of the argument:

  1. Disregard of consent inherently happens when will is disregarded
  2. Most living beings are inherently capable of making choices

These 2 points culminated in the conclusion that i am peddling a red herring, so instead you go on a fishing trip about absolutism and how life ranks higher than truth. If you think what i wrote is a red herring, but this is not, then i have no idea what to tell you.

Leave a child without the interaction of society or any other human and you will get to see what a human being is without those 2 things.
I also have no idea about the religious undertones you are throwing around here cause nothing what i said is left to imaginary skydaddies.

You asked for a tamer, i gave you one. I can also point at what happens when the tamer is absent.
Show me the supposed template of yours. Who is it we were made in the image of? Who tames us? Please bring them here so we can all see.

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Stop lying because you only like attacking straw men.

So they cage you like a lion instead of a human.

Think I’ll be skipping your “red herring of red herrings”.

Young elephants start out tamed by their fathers until their fathers are poached—so the order is tameness, and disorder is removal of fathers. Not even mothers. Kablooey to your whole worldview, man—one. Two…if disorder is the order…who tamed elephant fathers to tame their sons? Pretty sure this is worse than the three body problem…for you.

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Your words:

You are literally comparing to legal standards and concepts.
So according to you, im making a strawman because you cant understand the meaning of your own words. Fantastic. Amazing even.

Notice how this response fails to address the fact that even in the legal system murder is inherently considered to be a breach of consent.

No problem, you have been disregarding my points for a while now.

You asked about taming so i told told you a specific and very factual example: Remove society from the picture and see for your self what “human” remains in a child.

In response you misrepresent it by
a.) removing the “tamer” halfway through the taming
b.) calling the lack of a tamer a disorder even though it was you who was going on about “being made in the image of”

And you are the one talking about red herrings.
At this point you are literally talking to yourself dude.

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Lions don’t murder because they have no concept of consent. Laws would not curb their behavior because they wouldn’t understand them. You can’t tame them with laws. Humans can be tamed the same way lions can be tamed, but it is a lot easier to just use laws.

The best laws just remind you of what you already know (consent and agency, for one) so that you know you’re not fooling anybody when you pretend you didn’t know, like some kind of lion (who misrepresents my argument as being based on human made laws, you straw man constructor). The worst laws violate consent-respecting consent (probably because they are legislated by reality-divergent predators).

The child acts like the society that raises them—that is part of being human. We think a group of animals is wild because it is not our society—but then we learn of fatherless baby elephants and realize that the ones with fathers were definitely more tame then the label wild we put on them. That’s why Greeks had a word for barbarians, but also a word for Scythians—the ones they considered feral (perhaps a slight exaggeration) amongst the barbarians.

Consent recognition is a measure of personhood. The more you are able to match the other and interact with them on the same level, the more you are displaying personhood (unless of course you are a predator using a hunting/grooming tactic similar to camouflage). This is why the golden rule transcends culture and is what makes culture possible—and to the extent any being, whether human or nonhuman, demonstrates it, their consent should be respected as persons—regardless if they are a citizen of any locality.

If wild is the rule (as is your assertion), an outside source that was always tame had to insert their influence. Doesn’t make them any less capable of being wild… depending how you define wild. You gave NO outside tamer who tamed US… you answer “society”… but US is every society (from their perspective)… all of humanity or even animals by which to compare untamed children/baby elephants.

Not when the programmer has already been revealing themselves, it doesn’t. There is no burden. The deed is done and continues to be done. What is missing is contact with the revelation you are part of, and the necessary source of the part of you that is not just revelation. You never get the whole revelation. You can’t. It would take an eternity.

People who deny consciousness is real (including their own)…cannot be convinced otherwise—they are doing their own demonstrating, but are blind to it. This is the exact same sort of blindness.

You should respond to this:

By life caring… are you anthropomorphizing or deifying life? Or are you saying that if life cared about consent, it would take away people’s choice to harm each other? Because that self-destructs, especially if you want to reset a broken leg.

And how does violating life-violation… violate life???

Communion in mutual consent recognition is the point/purpose (life).

Disordered compared to what primary order? Ordered in the image of what original order?

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There is your red herring again. Nobody said lions are murdering because they have no concept of consent. What was said is that in the process of murdering they ignore will and thus consent.

Not getting into humans being tamed by laws because thats an entire new off topic discussion, but even that is just a thin veneer. Take away all food from a city and in less than 3 days you will have all civility, laws and being “tamed” out the window. People will eat eachother like any animal.

The claim is yours, so is it’s proof. If your programmer is already revealing themselves, then its even more easier for you to point at them, isnt it?

Neither. I stated a simple fact without any kind of transformation: The phenomena called life, has no regard for will or consent. The weak die. The strong prosper. Thats how biological life functions.

Humanity is not exempt from this either. We just like to play pretend that we are so far above it all, yet i repeat it again: Take away all food. See what happens to consent, laws and the rest of the civilized decadency and wishful thinking of ethical and spiritual supremacy.

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…and that is not the claim I am countering. And you know that.

muting thread

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I would say that ethics are necessary for humans who have volition but not omniscience. But ethical principles have to be discovered. They aren’t self-evident. I’m not saying that ethical principles exist apart from the mind, though. They aren’t floating around in space. Instead they are relational and conceptual.

Ichthus77’s “At the End of the Day”
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Narrow this down a bit more cause i do wonder where you are coming from.
Morality should be self evident and absolute, no? Otherwise what is it really? Pretending? Wishful thinking? How do you conceptualize it?