A question for people who believe in Moral Absolutes

@JTT,

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"we", Matt? Is that not dishonesty?

JTT how are you so certain that Matt means harm or dishonesty? Sure I seen what you pointed out but could it possibly be that there is more than one way to interpret what you are seeing?

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@JTT,

I see JTT to be very emotional about acts of aggression done to others.

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And in this, I'm different from the average American how, RL? Or from anybody for that matter?

Yes you are different because you can often see the reality at hand in much of what you are sharing but I am not sure that you see Matt correctly but you could and I could be wrong, all that I am asking is that you turn your kaleidoscope a little more and see if Mat may appear a little different. Cool

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@JTT,

I followed you when I saw that you were defending a cause I thought you believed in.
I hoped that you would be defending that cause for children's education.
Children's education was my primary concern. You seemed resistant to bringing that topic around to practical realities in education. You would only confine yourself to linguistic theories. Linguistic theories are not my area of expertise, as I expressed to you several times in that discussion.
I have not much vested interest in a relativist/descriptivist linguistic ideological battle. I primarily care about how able students are to succeed in life.

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@MattDavis,

Quote:

I followed you when I saw that you were defending a cause I thought you believed in.

I would not give up on JTT or ignore him but you may want to ignore the things that he says that are negative because I do not think that he means them to be directed at anyone who is trying to be intellectually honest but rather towards those who are not. We all get reality wrong or should I speak for myself? I know I have been proven incorrect on more than one occasion.

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@MattDavis,

Quote:

I followed you when I saw that you were defending a cause I thought you believed in.
I hoped that you would be defending that cause for children's education.
Children's education was my primary concern. You seemed resistant to bringing that topic around to practical realities in education. You would only confine yourself to linguistic theories. Linguistic theories are not my area of expertise, as I expressed to you several times in that discussion.
I have not much vested interest in a relativist/descriptivist linguistic ideological battle. I primarily care about how able students are to succeed in life.

And not to be the least bit unkind, Matt, you don't understand just how the two are so inextricably intertwined.

As I've spent close to a quarter century in that very field, children's education and linguistic/language theory and practice, I would say that I'm mighty interested in both those things.

I dare say I have definitely defended that cause which I also definitely believe in. [should that have been a restrictive pronoun?]

The point at which you fled led me, perhaps unfairly, to believe that you were just another empty headed advocate of nonsensical language [Spendi] prescriptions.

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@MattDavis,

Quote:

…Children's education was my primary concern… I primarily care about how able students are to succeed in life.

Question:

With regard to preparing students to “succeed in life” (no matter how defined)…do you think schools and educators can do the job on their own…or are parents (and other family members) essential ingredients in educating youth?

I ask this, because if your answer is that family is essential (or extremely important) to the process…we have a problem that goes way beyond how best to educate our youth. If the answer is what I suspect it to be, reworking education methodology is like rearranging deck chairs on Titanic. There is a significant segment of society that is at such an enormous disadvantage in this predicament…that perpetuation of “lack of success” seems more probable than “success.”

Any thoughts?

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@JTT,

Of course I don't fully understand how they are intertwined. I was there to learn, because I was under the impression you were a linguist. I tried my best to follow along, I finally bowed out when you overtly insulted my intelligence. Declaring me unfit for your education. I felt I was being charitable by offering to be civil to you outside of that thread.

When you ventured into JoeNation's thread I asked for your expertise as it applied to a linguistic related topic. You declared yourself to be "no linguist". At that point I simply began to ignore you, as you seemed to be just as insulting to others. After that point I have no idea why you started your insults toward me. When you made it clear you had no intention of stopping, I put you on ignore.

I am glad we share a concern for children. I really don't have much interest in continuing a discussion with you further on this topic.
Feel free to consider this me "running away" or being a hypocrite or a liar. I quite frankly have a bit of resentment toward you, which will take some time to overcome.

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@Frank Apisa,

Thanks Frank,

If we are discussing American public education I do agree there are many societal/cultural difficulties. Chief among them is a problem of "labeling" children by their attributes/behaviors. Good boy Johnny gets an A, bad girl Sally gets an F.
I understand that stratifying children is convenient for educators, but I think it programs the wrong perceptions of self and causes students to place more value on "intelligence" or "grades" than on learning.
I know I certainly learned to game that system, and it did me no good in terms of learning to cooperate and collaborate. Success in society now depends on those abilities, which I had to train later in life.

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@MattDavis,

I guess we all learn to "game" the system, Matt.

My heart goes out to the disadvantaged...the young people who have no structure of family to bolster the "learning" process obtained from educators. Most will never successfully compete with the people growing up with educational family advantages.

I notice this particularly because I am in contact with many, many recent Asian immigrants who so highly value education that the family puts lots of pressures on student to succeed...a marked departure from some of (what we call) traditional American families who often give it short shrift. And when you factor in the additional disadvantages of some kids who come from inner city environments where family interest in education is marginal at best, you quickly realize that the growing disparity between the top 1% and the bottom 50% is as much a function of these conditions as are other economic factors.

Hope we get a handle on it.

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@MattDavis,

Quote:

Of course I don't fully understand how they are intertwined. I was there to learn, because I was under the impression you were a linguist. I tried my best to follow along, I finally bowed out when you overtly insulted my intelligence. Declaring me unfit for your education. I felt I was being charitable by offering to be civil to you outside of that thread.

That's not at all how you entered, Matt. You are being disingenuous. You started with a poorly researched dig at some collocation I had used. For a guy who knows he doesn't understand, you hardly tried your best to follow along.

I gave you one of the foremost people in language science to help bring you up to speed and you hardly addressed or asked any questions regarding that material - the very material that oh so pointedly addressed the entire issue.

Quote:

When you ventured into JoeNation's thread I asked for your expertise as it applied to a linguistic related topic. You declared yourself to be "no linguist". At that point I simply began to ignore you, as you seemed to be just as insulting to others.

You took my jocular, "I ain't no linguist" to be an insult to you? Why?

You explained why you began to ignore me - you got the PMs. Why would anyone who has an interest in honestly discussing anything listen to a bunch of people talking behind others backs? No, really!? It's astounding.

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After that point I have no idea why you started your insults toward me. When you made it clear you had no intention of stopping, I put you on ignore.

After starting in on the discussion of prescriptive/descriptive, then moving it away to include children's education, then failing to address any of the issue I pointed you towards, then blowing off the whole discussion when you found it wasn't going your way, you have the temerity to ask me another linguistic/language related question.

To term my accurate description of your behavior an "insult" is disingenuous in and of itself. Where do you get off telling others that they need to bring themselves up to speed when you so showed yourself unwilling to do the same? Is that not hypocrisy?

Where do you get off making snide remarks, and thinking they are fine if they receive a gratuitous apology?

Where do you get off making snide remarks, and thinking they are fine if they come from the safety of a pretense Ignore?

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I am glad we share a concern for children. I really don't have much interest in continuing a discussion with you further on this topic.

Why not? I'm the less than, perfect guy when it comes to language and education.

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Feel free to consider this me "running away" or being a hypocrite or a liar. I quite frankly have a bit of resentment toward you, which will take some time to overcome.

Didn't sentence two confirm sentence one? I harbor no resentment towards you. I'm more than willing to discuss any topic with you where there is a mutual interest, Matt.

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@Frank Apisa,

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I guess we all learn to "game" the system, Matt.

The problem comes, as it has for you, when you can't control yourself, Frank.

My heart goes out to the disadvantaged...the young people who have been so badly misled by the nonsense they were taught about language; the ones who aren't able to think these things out for themselves, which is, after all the main thrust of what education should be.

My heart truly goes out to those who, despite voluminous fact being placed squarely in front of them, rush to silly diversions to avoid the very things education is supposed to teach them.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but:
Matt defines Truth as any proposition about Reality that is inherently correct. This makes truth "absolute" by definition.
Frank Apisa defines Reality as that which is the case--whatever that may be. His "Reality" is real also by definition.
Neither seems to feel that human notions of Truth and Reality are problematical.
I know that I'm missing something. I welcome your corrections.

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@Frank Apisa,

This doesn't even call into account differences in natural abilities. My 3rd youngest brother (adopted) will struggle always with the effects of his biological mother's drug and alcohol abuse while he was still in her womb. There of course will always be "natural" disparities. I simply find little purpose in placing intrinsic value on intelligence or "enlightenment", if this leaves people as "less than" in any ethical calculus. This is not merely for sentimental reasons, I simply find that intelligence is not the "virtue" it is cracked up to be. The most help I have ever gotten in the long run, has not been from "smart" people, it has been from compassionate people. Intelligence is a tool, not a virtue.

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@JLNobody,

Regarding my moral philosophy there is a connection to my philosophy regarding the fundamental reality. I think I have discussed before, that one might assume an ontic reality, or one might assume a constructed reality.
So far the model which seems (to me) to have the greatest utility for "prediction and control" is an information theoretic one. An ontic reality "composed" of discrete information. This is also in a sense "constructed" because there is no possibility of exact prediction, and thus from an epistemological perspective "causation" is not the correct view. Shared influence, yet this has localization limits.
I think much of that has been gotten to at in the free-will thread.

You might say that the the epiphenomena of this ontic reality produces the materialistic effects we observe in "reality". Functionally we are corporeal beings. Life being an emergent phenomena. "Consciousness" is also an emergent phenomena, of course with many nested and non-hierarchical interactions with other "systems". That which "self" can most easily interact is quite obviously "body".

From this perspective "Buddhist" truth in transcending the self, is that of extending the "self" label to encompass more an more of epistemological reality (an ethical action). Body is of course the first step, then someone else, then more and more persons, eventually having "self" concern for all.
That (from a Buddhist perspective) is my moral position.

The pragmatics of proper interaction of "self" will be informed by what ever tools for prediction and control are available to the agent.

Why I believe that there is an absolute moral truth, is quite simply that any system (of agents) can be "optimized" in terms of agent perspectives. There exists an objective perspective from which such an optimization is apparent. That perspective is unobtainable epistemologically, but it can be approached.
Individual agent behaviors that approach this optimum (morality) are compassionate (including others as self).
The finding (for an individual) of the heuristics toward that end is ethics.
Ethics being the technology of morality.

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@MattDavis,

Either that, or ... turtles all the way down. Laughing

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@JTT,

Quote:

The problem comes, as it has for you, when you can't control yourself, Frank.

My heart goes out to the disadvantaged...the young people who have been so badly misled by the nonsense they were taught about language; the ones who aren't able to think these things out for themselves, which is, after all the main thrust of what education should be.

My heart truly goes out to those who, despite voluminous fact being placed squarely in front of them, rush to silly diversions to avoid the very things education is supposed to teach them.

I'm serious, JTT...every indication is that you need help.

Get it.

1 Reply

@MattDavis,

Quote:

I tried my best to follow along, I finally bowed out when you overtly insulted my intelligence. Declaring me unfit for your education.

Seeing as you have misunderstood much, Matt, do you think you possibly could have misunderstood this?

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@JLNobody,

Quote:

Correct me if I'm wrong but:
Matt defines Truth as any proposition about Reality that is inherently correct. This makes truth "absolute" by definition.
Frank Apisa defines Reality as that which is the case--whatever that may be. His "Reality" is real also by definition.
Neither seems to feel that human notions of Truth and Reality are problematical.
I know that I'm missing something. I welcome your corrections.

Allow me to correct you then.

I have said that whatever IS...is what IS.

There is no two ways about that...it is a tautology.

Whatever the truth is about REALITY...that is what IS.

The truth may be that human notions of Truth and Reality are problematical. (I'd just about bet on that; bet big; and give huge odds...but there seems to be no way to decide that bet.)

From the very first conversation we had, JL, I said to you that your non-duality guesses may be right (and are the guesses I would probably make if I were into guessing, which I ain't)...but that you erred in asserting them as the truth and the REALITY.

Please feel free to ask me any of the questions you have asked me over the many years we have discussed this...and I will repeat this to you again as often as necessary to finally get it through your barrier.

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@Frank Apisa,

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I'm serious, JTT.

You're never serious, Frank. By your own admission, you seek only to "play your game" which, of course, means obfuscation, lies, diversions, ... .

Were you able to get out this weekend and play any games of the dirtiest "sport" on the planet?

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@JTT,

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Were you able to get out this weekend and play any games of the dirtiest "sport" on the planet?

No, it snowed. So the Earth was saved.

1 Reply

A question for people who believe in Moral Absolutes

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