How do you explain Laws of Logic and Morality?

[rat_spit]

Ha. Are we in a “who’s experienced more pain” competition?

I’ll give you the nod on the ruptured disk in the neck. Sounds excruciating. How about mental pain? Whatta you got? Mines probably worse. We’ll see.

I’m over it now. But at the time it “kinda” sucked. For like four years straight without interruption … that kind of pain. A pain so utterly binding that I had to admit to myself I couldn’t feel it. A kind of vice so tight on the mind that you know it’s there 24/7 but can’t point to it.

Kind of sucks when the psychiatrist asks you how the pain is and you have to say “I know it’s there, but I can’t feel it.” One gets written off as a “hypochondriac” real quick like.

[skriten]

@mr.macabre13

Words alone can’t describe that experience, it was mine and mine alone

I agree, words are inadequate and the experience is uniquely yours.

[rat_spit]

So, does a 10 degree warm day in the winter feel like 30 degree warm day in the summer?

[mr.macabre13]

Nope, just giving a little history of the facts of my life from the last 8+ years. I had surgery 12 times in a span of 4 years, including 2 spinal fusions of my neck. If this is a pissing contest now, I’ve dealt with my own mental health issues during the entire time.
Depression and thoughts about suicide don’t ever go completely away, you know it’s there somewhere, just waiting for the right moment.

[rat_spit]

That’s rough. I was treated for depression some time ago.

Working the gravey train for so long has allowed me to effectively “sleep it off”.

I’m back on days. I find a simple sense of purpose and a good dose of sunlight can help mountains with mood.

Spring is in the air. Get ready for some good ol’ seasonal affective disorder (if you haven’t already been hit by the changes).

Not a pissing context. Just comparing scars. The older the lion, the greater the scar tissue. You win this time.

[Get_off_my_lawn]

@rat_spit

does a 10 degree warm day in the winter feel like 30 degree warm day in the summer?

That’s not what is being questioned or debated. The issue is that what is perceived as warm or cold is relative to what you are used to. For someone that is used to tropical temperatures, 10 degrees is perceived as cold, and they would put on warm clothes. Hell, some years ago we had a heat spell here, with temperatures of 30+ degrees for weeks. Then, when going for vacation to a place that was “only” about 20 degrees, it suddenly felt chilly. The opposite happens when, during the middle of winter when going from -30 to non-freezing temperatures. Single-digit temperatures suddenly feels really warm. But of course, if you get to compare directly +30 degrees with +10 degrees by (for example) having one room with +30 and one with +10 degrees, and you go back and forth between them, it would be bleedin’ obvious that those temperatures are not one and the same.

[rat_spit]

I can relate.

Edit: for sniffing crack cocaine.

[Cognostic]

@rat_spit

Again. Commonalities exist. That’s all I’m pointing to. Especially where the sense objects are the same,

So you are cherry picking your facts and don’t have the brain power to look at the whole picture. Hey! That’s no surprise to anyone reading this thread.

[Sheldon]

@rat_spit

This is the kind of bullshit I’m up against here with both you and Sheldon. This fucking nonsense that one persons experience doesn’t reflect another’s.

To be fair I have never said anything like that. Merely that pain perception is subjective, because it is entirely a personal experience. That we draw subjective inferences based on how we subjectively perceive our own pain was never disputed.

@rat_spit

The idea that pain is personal assumes the existence of a person. In reality there is no person,

Say what now? You’ve lost me there, the existence of a person is objectively verifiable.

@rat_spit

In reality there is no person, there is only pain. And that pain may be entirely explainable in physical terms.

1. In reality there is a person, and the experience of pain cannot be verified objectively at all, only the objective stimuli and the physiological responses to it.
2. Whoever suggested pain even our perception of it would require a non-physical explanation? How would one even demonstrate such a thing is possible?

@rat_spit

you might as well be telling me that where I see green another person sees red!

Well colour perception again is subjective, I found an interesting article HERE

“Besides our individual biological make up, colour perception is less about seeing what is actually out there and more about how our brain interprets colours to create something meaningful. The perception of colour mainly occurs inside our heads and so is subjective – and prone to personal experience.”

@Cognostic

@rat_spit

So, I acknowledge that pain thresholds and tolerances exist.

YOu can not acknowledge that in one breath and then assert people feel the same pain in the next.

I agree, as that adds a variable to the start of our subjective perception of pain. What infer is largely assumption about the pain of others from the reactions we perceive in others to certain stimuli, but how similar the experience is we don’t know. Though we do know it can vary, and sometimes quite a lot.

@rat_spit

Most people will agree what “cold” feels like within a reasonable range of temperatures.

That’s too general, if you asked a long term resident of the arctic circle whether it was going to be cold tomorrow, the question would not be the same as asking someone living on the equator, for pretty obvious reasons. Hot and cold are subjective terms, temperatures are not.

@rat_spit

@Cognostic

Are you completely unaware of the fact that some people can see colors that other people can not see?

And how? Magic?

No it’s not magic, our brains interpret colour from stimuli again, and this can vary. Have you ever heard of synaesthesia? It can occur in up to 20% of the population, but is largely harmless, but can affect dramatically the way one’s brain interprets things like colour and sound.

@rat_spit

Commonalities exist. That’s all I’m pointing to. Especially where the sense objects are the same, people with roughly the same genetic material are bound to closely agree on the nature of their perceptions.

So how would one scrutinise those subjective perceptions, to check them against reality? It’s objective evidence right, and the methods that do this best, are the ones designed to remove subjective bias. Our senses alone are simply not reliable enough to do this, they have not evolved to remove subjective bias, but to help us survive long enough to pass on our genes.

@rat_spit

I make hypothesis, I make corrections, I make assumptions, I arrive at conclusions.

Ok, but you do have a tendency to get annoyed when the facts and objective evidence others present suggest you’re wrong, I mean no one likes to be wrong, but the best way to avoid this is to adjust our beliefs and thinking in line with the objective evidence.

@rat_spit

I guess you don’t have that issue since you’re never adjusting your view point.

Purely for your own edification might I suggest you go back and honestly ask yourself if you might have adjusted your thinking on this issue any earlier, you don’t have to share your conclusions with anyone, and for the record I have seen @Cognostic adjust his, and admit when he was wrong. Though to be fair he is not often wrong, as he recognises the difference between subjective opinions and objective evidence. We can all have blind spots, all we can do is try to identify these, and be open minded.

[Cognostic]

@rat_spit

In reality there is no person,

The only thing non-existent around here is your ability to reason logically.

[rat_spit]

@Cognostic

The only thing non-existent around here is your ability to reason logically

It’s true. I’m so fucking far out in the aether that logic no longer applies.

Did you know that I’ve been conceptualizing nothingness since the age of 10.

And it’s only recently that I’ve come to appreciate the extent and derivation of the singularity.

Sartre hinted at this:

Nothingness lies coiled in the heart of consciousness like a worm.

Is it possible to conceptualize nothingness? And why does there exist a halo of consciousness in a sphere around nothingness?

And is it presumptuous to assume that nothingness precedes consciousness, or even that the one is not conditioned (or a condition of the other).

Tragically, no one here will be able to comment apart from all the logical assertions which fall out of the bare definition of “nothingness”.

I’ll have to investigate these questions on my own. So I might be taken a hiatus for a while.

I know. I know. What would “Atheist Republic” be without poor, poor ratty?

You’ll survive men. Keep your chins up. When I return I will have a sound, logical, and reasonable ontological argument for how nothingness gives rise to consciousness.

(Hmm. I may have to read Sartre again and see for my self if he’s already gotten it right. He’s definitely missed somethings. I find it hard to believe that he understood saññāvedayitanirodha)

One last thing for you all to chew on.

Now that we’ve established the universality of suffering as sort of extension on pain, feeling, and perception - it remains to find out if existence has any moral imperatives.

Clearly it does. The ear gives rise not only to the perception of sound on the basis of an emergence from neurocorrelates in the brain. It also gives rise to other neurocorrelates which we call emotions.

More precisely, the moral emotions of:

• good will
• compassion
• moral judgment and authority
• sympathetic joy
• equanimity

Are predicated, respectively speaking, on:

• the ear
• the body
• the tongue
• the eye
• the nose

These moral imperatives which exist in certain well adjusted humans are, like other perceptions, correlated not only with faculties of perception but also brain activity.

As such they represent sense data - in particular the sounds, tactile sensations, tastes, sights, and odours which we derive from our fellow human beings.

Thus, just as hearing cannot exist without sounds; touch without objects; taste without flavours; sights without visuals; or smell without odours -

Good will cannot exist without lust
Compassion cannot exist without ill will
Moral authority cannot exist without remorse
Sympathetic joy cannot exist without laziness
Equanimity cannot exist without doubt.

Human existence, therefore, is a moral existence (please forgive any errors in the above logic. This is, after all, a work in progress and, as Cognosticso clearly outlined, I’m effectively removed from logical thinking). Imagine navigating through a world without the ability to think logically? How does one ever find time to think?

[CyberLN]

@rat_spit

You’ll survive men.

But apparently the women won’t, eh?

[rat_spit]

@CyberLN

But apparently the women won’t, eh?

There are women on the internet?

Just kidding. But, I think, after a period of intense withdrawal, the women here will appreciate that I left for good reason.

[CyberLN]

Oh, Ratty, you missed a fine opportunity to apologize to the people here for your inappropriate remark.

[rat_spit]

It was in jest! Like, you know, “army talk”; “onward Christian soldier”???

As if I meant to offend anyone? Come on? You know me better than that …

Edit: my formal apologies to all the genders and sexes who participate actively or passively in AR.

[Cognostic]

@rat_spit

Sartre hinted at this:

Fred Flintstone said: “Yabba-dabba-do.” I’m betting I can tweak that into philosophical insight as well.

[rat_spit]

@Cognostic

Fred Flintstone said: “Yabba-dabba-do.” I’m betting I can tweak that into philosophical insight as well.

Certainly speaks to type of existentially limited appreciation for the evolution of early language modes among developing human societies.

But more of that later. For now I must go. Can I go now? Will you show me the door, kindly?

[rat_spit]

Btw. I’m heading over to https://www.christianforums.com to go heckle some Christians. Drop by. See if you can spot me.

(If you think I was annoying here wait until you see how illogical I can really get!)

[Sheldon]

@rat_spit

Imagine navigating through a world without the ability to think logically? How does one ever find time to think?

Two separate questions there clearly, and humans don’t think logically obviously, if they did we wouldn’t need a method (like logic) that helped us do this. Humans have since the agricultural revolution increased the time they have to think, the industrial revolution has increased this exponentially.

We are both a part of nature, and to a certain extent devolved from it…

[Sheldon]

@Cognostic

Fred Flintstone said: “Yabba-dabba-do.” I’m betting I can tweak that into philosophical insight as well.

£10.00 it is what are the odds? I’m pretty drunk now, the rugby dunnit, not me clear-uh-lee…