What is your fundamental moral compass?

@OmSigDAVID,

There is no one to one correspondence between valuing money and being a materialist.

In fact, there are many ways in which one may be a materialist, including several that involve not valuing money in the least.

Think of literary characters, starting with Jay Gatsby. There was a materialistic character who did not value money. Anyone who throws money around does not value it.

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

There is no one to one correspondence between valuing money and being a materialist.

In fact, there are many ways in which one may be a materialist, including several that involve not valuing money in the least.

Think of literary characters, starting with Jay Gatsby. There was a materialistic character who did not value money.

Anyone who throws money around does not value it.

I deny that; e.g., I 've attended many conventions of groups to which I belong, usually ( or always ) in hotels.

Sometimes, I leave happiness boms around.
That means either giving a beautiful chick a $100.oo bill
or just unobstrusively leaving $20s or $50s or $100 bills around
on the hotel furniture for the first person who finds it.

I especially like to do that in the general areas that children are hanging around.

I value $$, your assertion to the contrary notwithstanding.

I believe that we shoud all be greedy but not stingy.

David

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@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Eorl wrote:
Additionally, if you are convinced that death is an illusion,
then your ethical response to life & death situations is compromised.
By what reasoning have u reached that conclusion ?

if death is an illusion then how is it different than when an illusionist saws a pretty lady in half on stage?
From another angle, the wrongly executed may be seen as suffering a punishment that might be compensated for, or they face utter oblivion. Hence, much higher support for killing criminals among Christians than atheists.

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@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:
Eorl wrote:
Stipulating that something completely lacking evidence is equal to something else
that in the past also lacked evidence is a fallacial argument, as you are fully aware.
Where is your evidence? Surely you'll concede absence of proof does not equal proof of absence, yes?

Eorl wrote:
of what? That the human ghost and radio waves are not equally existent
due to the fact that both were thought non-existent in the past?
I need no proof, it's simple faulty logic.
If I understand u accurately,
your logic is that u have knowledge of facts
and that if u have no evidence of a given fact,
then, by virtue of your paucity of information & skepticism,
that fact cannot exist and it must be false.

If that is not what u mean,
then please clarify.

David

No it's not what I mean. I mean faulty logic requires no proof.
Let's look at this one though. It's like telling the jury that even though no evidence has been found of this mans guilt, another man has been found guilty in the past when evidence was found even though initially there was none. We may find evidence on this man too, therefore the jury should find him guilty.
It is my position, that of an honest person and a skeptic, to take no position without evidence, especially a ludicrous position such as the continuation of thought after the destruction of the brain.

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@Eorl,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Eorl wrote:
Additionally, if you are convinced that death is an illusion,
then your ethical response to life & death situations is compromised.
By what reasoning have u reached that conclusion ?

Eorl wrote:

if death is an illusion then how is it different than when an illusionist saws a pretty lady in half on stage?

OK; same concept; no problem.

Eorl wrote:

From another angle, the wrongly executed may be seen as suffering a punishment that might be compensated for,
or they face utter oblivion. Hence, much higher support for killing criminals among Christians than atheists.

Thay shoud both be penalized for their conduct, not for their beliefs.
U might note, incidentally, that suicides and atheists who have returned from death
have reported some problems; according to them: suicide or atheism does not bring good luck after molting.

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@Eorl,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:
Eorl wrote:
Stipulating that something completely lacking evidence is equal to something else
that in the past also lacked evidence is a fallacial argument, as you are fully aware.
Where is your evidence? Surely you'll concede absence of proof does not equal proof of absence, yes?

Eorl wrote:
of what? That the human ghost and radio waves are not equally existent
due to the fact that both were thought non-existent in the past?
I need no proof, it's simple faulty logic.
If I understand u accurately,
your logic is that u have knowledge of facts
and that if u have no evidence of a given fact,
then, by virtue of your paucity of information & skepticism,
that fact cannot exist and it must be false.

If that is not what u mean,
then please clarify.

David

Eorl wrote:

No it's not what I mean. I mean faulty logic requires no proof.

????

Eorl wrote:

Let's look at this one though. It's like telling the jury that even though no evidence has been found of this mans guilt, another man has been found guilty in the past when evidence was found even though initially there was none. We may find evidence on this man too, therefore the jury should find him guilty.

I don 't believe that I fell into that error of logic.
I will examine what I said, to see if I find any such mistake.

Eorl wrote:

It is my position, that of an honest person and a skeptic,
to take no position without evidence, especially a ludicrous position

R u ASSUMING the answer qua truth and falsity before u figure it out?

R u reasoning from your preferred conclusion (i.e., that thus n so is "LUDICROUS") backward to justify that conclusion ?

Eorl wrote:

such as the continuation of thought after the destruction of the brain.

Have u received evidence that thought is impossible unless seated in a brain?
If u have seen zebras only in Africa,
then that proves that thay cannot be elsewhere, right?

If someone alleges that he saw zebras elsewhere,
then that is idle superstition & irrational because thay 've only been known in Africa ?

Do u have knowledge of whether a photon of light is able to think?
Perhaps its enuf just to ASSUME the answer
and THEN u have a competent factual conclusion on that point, right ?

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Of course, no one seems to have noticed that this thread has taken the three major definitions of materialism and coalesced them into one. Ho hum.

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@plainoldme,

plainoldme wrote:

Of course, no one seems to have noticed that this thread
has taken the three major definitions of materialism and coalesced them into one. Ho hum.

As I have indicated hereinabove, we can be greedy, without being stingy.

That can be fun, sometimes.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

plainoldme wrote:
Of course, no one seems to have noticed that this thread
has taken the three major definitions of materialism and coalesced them into one. Ho hum.
As I have indicated herein...

Thanks for quoting Plain - I never read her laughably pretentious stuff, so would have missed this brand-new usage of "coalesce" as a transitive verb. I take it to be analogous to "compress" in this instance, but I'm happy to be corrected Smile

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@OmSigDAVID,

You and Eorl have been talking at cross-purposes for many pages now - iterations that would have been avoided if you had explained you use the word "death" in the specific sense of "clinical death"; Eorl is using it in the general sense, where the finality is total and irrevocable.

You know there are countless documented cases of people falling through thin ice into frozen lakes, staying under the water surface for hours, then getting pulled out and revived - sure they were clinically dead for hours, just like others were on operating tables for minutes, but their "clinical death" symptoms were reversible. And yes, these "out of body" experiences you describe are very common symptoms of irregular neural electro-imaging in the brain (similar to the imaginary strange smells and flashing lights commonly preceding epileptic seizures) and have no independent reality. Just explain this to Eorl and move on to some substantive conversation - I love reading you both!

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@High Seas,

I think Plain has fled the scene.

1 Reply

@High Seas,

High Seas wrote:

You and Eorl have been talking at cross-purposes for many pages now - iterations that would have been avoided if you had explained you use the word "death" in the specific sense of "clinical death"; Eorl is using it in the general sense, where the finality is total and irrevocable.

You know there are countless documented cases of people falling through thin ice into frozen lakes, staying under the water surface for hours, then getting pulled out and revived - sure they were clinically dead for hours, just like others were on operating tables for minutes, but their "clinical death" symptoms were reversible. And yes, these "out of body" experiences you describe are very common symptoms of irregular neural electro-imaging in the brain (similar to the imaginary strange smells and flashing lights commonly preceding epileptic seizures) and have no independent reality. Just explain this to Eorl and move on to some substantive conversation - I love reading you both!

His reasoning qua separation of consciousness from the material is the same
concerning both dead human bodies (i.e.: no EEG, no EKG, no respiration
for several minutes unrelated to cooling from [the special case] cold water),
as I understand it: we believe that consciousness occurs
between the ears and therefore: it occurs between the ears
and if anyone disputes that, he is idly superstitious and irrational
because we know that it occurs between the ears and hence it
cannot exist differently, the same way that zebras are African animals, not elsewhere.

He alleges that because something is believed to be one way,
therefore it cannot exist another way. I have my doubts about his reasoning.
He will correct me, if I have misrepresented his logic.

There have been instances of people returning from death
with knowledge of remote events that occurred during said death.
People have been disinherited upon the basis of what thay
were heard by disembodied decedent
to have uttered to relatives in hospitals' waiting rooms,
remote from the place of death. Decedent revived and lunged for his lawyer.

David

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@High Seas,

I think David and I are in complete agreement about what death is. It's just that David knows that death is not the end, through personal experience, and I think death is the end, and believing in anything beyond is akin to believing in flying pink unicorns.
There's no reconcilling our positions, as one of us is wrong but the effect these beliefs have (or not) on our ethics and morals is the interesting part.
I do apologise if it seems to have taken the thread ofF track, but I don't believe it has. This stuff is relevant.
(oh, and thanks for the compliment)

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@Eorl,

The effect of the beliefs is the ONLY interesting part. Believing otherwise is akin to believing in flying pink unicorns and discussing such a belief is like wittering meaninglessly until that is understood or death comes first.

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@OmSigDAVID,

If you were to tell me you had a cup of tea this morning, I would probably take your word for it, even when taking your profession into account :p
If you told me you'd seen a zebra in Mexico I'd believe you and expect there would be a rational, not unlikely, explanation.
If you told me you'd seen one in the wild in Greenland I'd be much more skeptical and I'd want to see at least some evidence like a photo and even then I'd hold onto doubts and suspicions of mischief.
The more extreme the claim, the more a sensible intelligent person will demand evidence before acceptance.
The problem with the life-after-death claim is that it's such a wonderful promise (the ultimate promise!) that has been accepted by so many for so long (as a carry-over from far less logical and less scientific times) that it seems reasonable due to it's popularity. But it's not. It's extremely improbable wishful thinking. I don't need any specialist knowledge to think that anymore than I do to think that flying pink unicorns are also myths.

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@Eorl,

But your "extremely improbable" phrase is the whole point.

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@Eorl,

Eorl wrote:

I think David and I are in complete agreement about what death is.

There is an additional concept whereof we shoud be cognizant: the death of WHAT??
If a lobster molts off his exoskeleton, and he walks away, abandoning it,
we can agree in the cell death of the molted exoskeleton, tho I will allege that IT
is not the lobster, who lives on in good health.

Eorl, I think that there is a tacit difference of opinion qua who has "died"; this is a case of mistaken identity.
If we both see a man get shot, fall over and ostensibly "die" (no EEG, no EKG, no respiration for a while),
u may say and believe that the man has indeed died, whereas I will
believe that the man 's health was unaffected by the shot,
tho HIS VEHICLE was damaged and rendered dysfunctional and defunct.
The event is analogous to a motorist whose car stalls,
cannot be re-started and he walks away; he is not dead.

It appears to me that u assume, in factual error,
that the object that u SEE walking n talking IS the man.

I see that thing as the man 's property,
not the man himself who, in the ordinary course of events
will endure without it, after it has worn out and sometimes
he can and will leave it while it is functioning properly ("out-of-body-experience").

It may be entirely possible that neurological faults can and have caused hallucinations of different kinds.
That has no evidentiary bearing upon whether a man really CAN
get out of his human body or not. These r 2 distinct issues.

Imagine that on Monday alien life forms from another planet fly a saucer past
some witnesses who report it to newspapers.

Imagine that on Tuesday a fraud is committed simulating observations of alien life
and on Wednesday, that fraud is discovered and revealed.
Tho Monday 's event be discredited in the popular consensus,
that loss of confidence has no bearing upon the history of that craft.

Eorl wrote:

It's just that David knows that death is not the end,

Death is the end of the thing that falls n rots; it is NOT
the end of its owner, the mental consciousness
who leaves the defunct and inert machine behind.

I like the way it was expressed by Deepak Chopra, M.D.:
"people believe that we are human beings with occasional spiritual experiences,
but we are spiritual beings with occasional human experiences."

Eorl wrote:

through personal experience, and I think death is the end,
and believing in anything beyond is akin to believing in flying pink unicorns.
There's no reconcilling our positions,

Maybe; not necessarily. Suppose someone in whom u have confidence dies in a hospital (no EEG, etc).
If he is revived and returns with information of remote events
during his state of death and he presents u with this information
which is objectively verified n confirmed, it may be possible
that your skepticism will be affected, that at SOME point,
people will believe not only in radios, but also in radio waves.

Eorl wrote:

as one of us is wrong but the effect these beliefs have (or not)
on our ethics and morals is the interesting part.

It IS.
There is another factor that has not been raised yet, so far as I am aware:
some returners from death have reported having "life review experiences"
e.g. one Tom Sawyer, whose experience included
re-viewing an incident when he slugged someone in the mouth many times,
without justification. He reported feeling during his "life review experience"
not only the pain in his hand from so doing,
but also the pain in his victim 's mouth.

(Indeed, he felt it to another secondary level beyond that,
of empathic emotional travail of consequential damages
of persons remote from the time and place of the occurrance.)

If members of the populace believe that the consequences
of their treatment of others will be felt by them at the end
of their earthly lives, then their behavior may be modified accordingly.
By way of extrapolation, if u create joy in other citizens,
u may vicariously feel that in the fullness of time, if Tom Sawyer was correct.

Eorl wrote:

I do apologise if it seems to have taken the thread ofF track, but I don't believe it has. This stuff is relevant.
(oh, and thanks for the compliment)

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@High Seas,

Look at the great pretender!

You are one of the most mean spirited people to walk the planet. Your posts are always poison. But, I have no respect for you or your supposed intellect, which you talk about but always fail to demonstrate.

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@OmSigDAVID,

No, I actually have friends and I actually go out. Was with some folks at the movies last night.

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@High Seas,

BTW, you are incorrect about coalesce. It is both transitive and intranstive. However, compress would not suit in this instance.

Gee, I would have thought that you would be better at that with words that begin with c.

1 Reply

What is your fundamental moral compass?

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