Believing your right vs Being right

Quark · Post by **Quark** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 5:48 am

You know, you guys are just proving Quinn's point by arguing over this.

Humans never learned how to tell right from wrong and they never will.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 5:55 am

I am still reading through the thread, but i thought i would post one of my musings.

War is not about hate, and the act of agression by another country does not translate to the battlefield. War is in fact not about violence in the one man to another sense.

IMO violence is an issue when what you do effects another person in a negative way, if you goad them and insult them this is a type of violence, where as the men/women on a battle field do not have malice towards each other. So the act of war by the aggressive antion might well be an act of violence, but mostly the actual war that ensues is not violent.

Now back to reading, this is all very interesting BTW.

EMINEM · Post by **EMINEM** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 6:03 am

Originally posted by Vehemence:

My question is this... Is there absolute right? Is it something that is easily definiable. In every situation, is someone going to be right and someone going to be wrong? How do we know who is right and who is wrong? What if the moral code you live by is different than someone elses moral code?

Well, stating that "there is no absolute truth" violates the law of non-contradiction, since making such a statement pre-supposes a standard of right and wrong. One could simply rebut with "Is there any truth in what you just claimed?" to lay bare the contradiction in that statement.

I believe there is such a thing as absolute truth, absolute right and wrong, but clear-cut instances are rare, such as rape, murder, genocide, or drinking Pepsi over Coca Cola. I think that morality is one big gray area dappled here and there with lighter shades of black and white according to your culture and upbringing. The dilemma that absolute truth naysayers run into, however, is this: if you believe even in one case where absolute right and wrong apply (my ethics professor BTW was a moral relativist who nonetheless drew the line at the murder of innocent children), then absolute truth must exist regardless of what you think of other "justifiable crimes." It's an all or nothing proposition.

Vehemence · Post by **Vehemence** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 6:05 am

Originally posted by Mr Sleep:
War is not about hate, and the act of agression by another country does not translate to the battlefield. War is in fact not about violence in the one man to another sense.

What about the German invasion of Stalingrad? They were killing each other based on hatrid. The Russians hated the Germans for trying to take their country, and the Germans hated the Russians because they weren't like them. That's still violence, Sleep. Killing someone with or without malicious intent is still violence.

Originally posted by Mr Sleep:
IMO violence is an issue when what you do effects another person in a negative way, if you goad them and insult them this is a type of violence, where as the men/women on a battle field do not have malice towards each other. So the act of war by the aggressive antion might well be an act of violence, but mostly the actual war that ensues is not violent.

They do have malice for eachother. Why would you want to kill the other person if you didn't feel malice? Like I said, violence is still there due to the fact that violence is the either the pysiological or psychological hurting of another person. That's what war is. Death, destruction, disease, needless.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 6:22 am

@Veh, my point was that the hate is directed by the government that instigate the conflict, the people on the ground just end up doing the 'dirty work'. The only example i can offer up, is the way that during WW2 the Germans and British got up to play Football on Christmas day. and the ngot back i nthe trenches and started fighting after it had finished.

It was a conclusion i came to last night, it is not a strongly held belief. Disuade me i might be wrong

Vehemence · Post by **Vehemence** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 6:30 am

Originally posted by Mr Sleep:
@Veh, my point was that the hate is directed by the government that instigate the conflict, the people on the ground just end up doing the 'dirty work'. The only example i can offer up, is the way that during WW2 the Germans and British got up to play Football on Christmas day. and the ngot back i nthe trenches and started fighting after it had finished.

It was a conclusion i came to last night, it is not a strongly held belief. Disuade me i might be wrong

Well, you make a fair point and I agree entirely with your opinion that the hatrid is government insited. But you can look at that on two levels. First, the people elect the government and the government represents the people. And since the people doing the dirty work are those people, the hatrid is there already.

Secondly, the people doing the dirty work are no longer conscripted. They join the military of their own free will.

nael · Post by **nael** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 6:32 am

man, i go to bed for a few hours, and i come back to a wholely different discussion in here.
@tom - i would just like to give a quick criticism on utilitarianism. i don't knwo who originally thought of this, but it's the "anne frank" example.
suppose you are hiding anne frank in yoru attic and the nazis come to yoruo door and ask if her and her family are inside. what do you do?
according to utilitarianism, you do your bentham calculus and decide that the beast thing to do is lie, since that would provide the most pleasure...since in your math, you decide that anne frank dying is bad.
however, what ends up happening is that anne gets scared and climbs out a side window. the nazis leave your house, see her, kill her and you.
if you had invited the nazis in to look around, she would have escaped, and everyoen would be fine.
so, basing things on what you hope the outcome will be is very erroneous. you have no way of knowing what an outcoem will be, much less what another person feels. do you weigh a psychopath's pleasure in killing over someone's pleasure in stayign alive? who is to judge just how much pleasure any given event may cause each party. and on top of all of that, you still have the problem of other minds...solipsism. we have no true way of knowing that anyoen else even feels the same as we do, if feels at all.

Kant uses his categorical imperative to steer things back to a realistic point of view: Act only in accord with a principle which you would at the same time will to be a universal law.
what you do should be out of duty and universally true, such as telling the truth.

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 6:58 am

Originally posted by nael:
what you do should be out of duty and universally true, such as telling the truth.

But is it always right to tell the truth? And is truth a universal constant?

nael · Post by **nael** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 7:01 am

according to kant it is. since you have no way of knowing what the oputcome will be anyways, you should ALWAYS tell the truth.
for if the opposite held true and everyone lied, all of society would crumble.

Mr Sleep · Post by **Mr Sleep** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 7:13 am

Originally posted by Vehemence:
First, the people elect the government and the government represents the people. And since the people doing the dirty work are those people, the hatrid is there already.

This is true but look at the recent UK elections, there was nearly no possible alternative. THe Conservatives are a hopeless choice and can not even govern their own party let alone a nation. THe Lib DEms are not sure of their own party polotics or what they believe. What am i supposed to vote Plyd Cymru for the world?

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 7:24 am

Originally posted by nael:
according to kant it is. since you have no way of knowing what the oputcome will be anyways, you should ALWAYS tell the truth.
for if the opposite held true and everyone lied, all of society would crumble.

So you don't think there are situations in which it would be better to lie? Say, if you were a soldier caught behind enemy lines, and you were being interrogated to discover some kind of important intelligence which could lead to your side being defeated if you told them... You'd tell the truth?

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 7:27 am

Good one Georgi.

Depends if they put hot pokers up your bum. Soon be telling the truth then.

Vehemence · Post by **Vehemence** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 7:29 am

Hmmm... what happened to my post? Did I not press the add reply button? Hmmm....

Georgi: I'd tell the truth, but in such a way as to make them think you were lying

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 7:31 am

Hmm. Vehemence obviously *enjoys* having hot pokers up his bum.

nael · Post by **nael** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 7:35 am

well, what if you lie to your captors, btu in the mean time, your commanding general has changed his plans and you end up spoiling yoru sides efforts afterall??

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 7:39 am

Originally posted by Gruntboy:
Good one Georgi.

Depends if they put hot pokers up your bum. Soon be telling the truth then.

LOL

quite possibly, but in the case of whether you'd do it as a matter of pure belief... Let's say the enemy guards just ask you really nicely, without any threat of violence, whether you'd mind telling them everything they want to know...

Vehemence · Post by **Vehemence** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 7:45 am

Originally posted by Gruntboy:
Hmm. Vehemence obviously *enjoys* having hot pokers up his bum.

Well just as long as the interogators don't know that

Georgi · Post by **Georgi** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 7:50 am

Originally posted by nael:
well, what if you lie to your captors, btu in the mean time, your commanding general has changed his plans and you end up spoiling yoru sides efforts afterall??

Well, what if you just don't tell them anything?

Vehemence · Post by **Vehemence** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 8:07 am

Originally posted by Georgi:
LOL quite possibly, but in the case of whether you'd do it as a matter of pure belief... Let's say the enemy guards just ask you really nicely, without any threat of violence, whether you'd mind telling them everything they want to know...

Theres an example of that in the film "Enemy at the Gates" where Ed harris bribes the kid with candy.

Sailor Saturn · Post by **Sailor Saturn** » Fri Aug 31, 2001 8:24 am

Originally posted by Tom:
you are simply not correct - somewhere along the line you have misunderstood something. Quantum mechanics does not change the rules of math. I would be most delighted if you could quote someone who support this view - Hawking certainly doesnt nor Bor or Einstein.

Of course Einstein never said Quantum Mechanics change the rules of math. He was against Quantum Mechanics, even though it was his theories of relativity that got the ball rolling in that direction.

It was, in fact, Hawking who made this point though I do not claim that he said the specific words because I do not have his books here to look in. I checked them out from a library and read them.

Now, I shall explain how Quantum Mechanics effects math and I will attempt to remain within the confines of our 4-dimensional universe in this explaination. At most points in our universe(the physical dimensions and the temporal dimension) the laws of physics are "set in stone." However, there are places in our universe in which the laws of physics have no meaning. i.e., Black holes. Within a black hole, the laws of physics break down. So do the laws of chemistry, the laws of biology, the laws of math, the laws of everything. Yet, even here the "it can happen, so it will happen at least once, so it will happen again, and again, and so on" continues. Nothing can escape a black hole's gravity well once it has passed the event horizon. However, black holes are constantly emitting a large amount of subatomic, and possibly atomic(okay, 2 hours of sleep doesn't help quite as much as I wish it did), particles from within the event horizon. Right there an impossibility is occuring. That's Quantum Mechanics. Within that black hole 4+4<>8 may be true. There is no way to know for certain.

Another thing showing that Quantum Mechanics does effect the laws of math. Probability. You flip a coin 3 times. According to probability(laws of math), once it will land heads, once it will land tails, and once it will land on it's edge and be neither heads nor tails. Quantum Mechanics changes all of that. You flip a coin, it may land heads 200 times in a row(I've done this, but I can control how it lands...a subject for a later date), or it may land heads 10 times and tails 50 times. When it gets right down to it, probability means very little because of Quantum Mechanics. Damn, I wish I could remember what book I read about this in. Due to the effect of Quantum Mechanics on probability, nothing is 100% impossible and everything is at least an infintesimal % possible. This also states that anything that is at least an infintesimal % possible, it will happen at least once and that if it does happen once, it will happen again.

I knew that once I was able to be more awake it would all come back to me.

Originally posted by Tom:
ohh and was the last bit another compliment?

the last bit? You mean the "Oyasuminasai, minna-san"? That was just saying "Goodnight, everyone."

PS, I can't directly quote anyone on these things I've said because they're out of books I checked out from the library and read. Cheaper and easier than buying books, at least back when I lived near a good library, it was.