Humans - our part in development

@livinglava,

I started a new thread on randomness.
https://able2know.org/topic/548317-1

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

What is the connection?
You talk about evolution.
I'm talking about being able to improve our nature.

1 Reply

@chai2,

So are you claiming that we humans are unable to correct ourselves and live by instincts only?

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@Setanta,

I think that "It takes one to know one"
Don't you think so ???
Smile

))))))

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@maxdancona,

I think the opposite.
But each one and his own perception.

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@chai2,

Balance at the intent level
Do you understand the difference?
I'm not talking about the Bahamian life of eating, sex,reproduction, etc.
I'm talking about a higher rank.
Level of Intentions.
why?
Because it is more important, more influential. And that may change by whom?
Only by us

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@yovav,

yovav wrote:

What is the connection?
You talk about evolution.
I'm talking about being able to improve our nature.

I am questioning the moral difference between humans and animals (evolution, as the mechanism that these hypothetical differences might of occurred, is a tangent).

Humans have significantly better cognitive skills than any other animal. Other animals have significantly better skills in other areas than humans. Different animals have different strategies for survival. Many animals, including humans, share strong instincts that direct our behavior.

Humans have invented something they call "morality"... but I have seen no evidence that morality is anything more than a quirk of human nature.

We are unique in that we can articulate "right and wrong", but how much of this is just communicating instincts. We are social animals, and many social animals have instincts that make them care for each other, share resources, and defend each other.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

For the record, I read LivingLava and Setanta equally.

Setanta seems to have a superiority complex (and can be a little nasty).

Setanta is an absolute darling, but his brain fossilized a long time ago. Lava's problem may be the opposite: not enough structure.

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@maxdancona,

Other animals have significantly better skills in other areas than humans. - I agree
Different animals have different strategies for survival. Many animals, including humans, share strong instincts that direct our behavior. - I agree

Humans have invented something they call "morality"... but I have seen no evidence that morality is anything more than a quirk of human nature. - I agree

We are unique in that we can articulate "right and wrong", but how much of this is just communicating instincts. We are social animals, and many social animals have instincts that make them care for each other, share resources, and defend each other. -
********************************************
I also agree with this, but at the same time I argue that, unlike moral theory, we have a unique point (regardless of religion) that will require us to discover the evil within us. The same evil that is not found in animals.
This is about the system, related to degrees in nature, a bad thing that only we have to improve and not animals or plants.
Because they work instinctively, and we have been given the ability to fix.
improve what?
Our actions? No.
Our genome ? also not.
So what?
Our intentions.

1 Reply

@yovav,

Quote:

I also agree with this, but at the same time I argue that, unlike moral theory, we have a unique point (regardless of religion) that will require us to discover the evil within us. The same evil that is not found in animals.

What "evil" exists in human beings that does not exist in other animals. Animals commit rape. They engage in prostitution. They steal from each other. They kill for sport. Animals have wars among their own species. They kill their mates. They take slaves.

The argument that it is only evil if you know it is evil seems a little shaky to me.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

What "evil" exists in human beings that does not exist in other animals. Animals commit rape. They engage in prostitution. They steal from each other. They kill for sport. Animals have wars among their own species. They kill their mates. They take slaves.

Animals don't have the ability to evaluate their choices before making them. They just react to desires and fears and other rewards/punishments.

Humans (at least sometimes) have the capacity to feel desire and/or fear/aversion; but then to choose to make another choice/action than what they might otherwise do if they didn't stop to question/reflect before acting on impulse.

A dog or cat might stop itself from doing something it's been trained not to do, but it doesn't make its choice based on moral reasoning but based on an estimate of being punished if it gets caught, which happens automatically as a result of training and not because the animal sits and reasons about its choices and the possible effects/consequences that will happen as a result.

Humans also experience punishment-based aversions similar to a dog reacting to the fear of being shamed or punished for peeing on the floor; but we also have the capacity to reflect on why it's bad to pee on the floor, for example, why it's good to keep the floor clean, that we should clean the floor pro-actively sometimes, etc.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

Totally agree, animals do not have the ability to plan beyond one move forward. What humans have.

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Here is the problem.

- The claim is that if an animal does something "evil", he has no guilt because he doesn't know it is evil.

- Why wouldn't a human being who does something "evil" be free from guilt if as long has he doesn't know it is evil?

Most of you understand of what is "evil" is based on what you were taught. If you weren't taught that something is "evil", then I suppose it wouldn't be "evil" for you.

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@yovav,

Good.
Disagreeing is proof of interest.

Why is it you disagree?
I'm assuming you're subject to a 'physical' realisation of reality.

Does not a pheonix arise from the 'ashes' of its predecessors' demise?
Have a Lovely Day

1 Reply

@yovav,

How do you 'know' whether other animals question their mortality, or not?
And why do you assume that 'such' questioning is relative to superior intellect?

Maybe 'Being/Experiencing' life is more valuable than substantiating and measuring lifes' variables...?

Have a Lovely Day

1 Reply

@mark noble,

Every action that is performed has a twist from a previous essence.
Now the question is whether we are also rotated in exactly the same way or do we have a place of choice.
a question....

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@mark noble,

Maybe 'Being/Experiencing' life is more valuable than substantiating and measuring lifes' variables...?

Maybe
But because we humans can be just like animals but they cannot measure and evaluate like humans.
I guess I'm still clinging to my stand.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

- The claim is that if an animal does something "evil", he has no guilt because he doesn't know it is evil.

Do you mean the animal feels no guilt, or that it isn't guilty by some standard of incrimination?

Quote:

Most of you understand of what is "evil" is based on what you were taught. If you weren't taught that something is "evil", then I suppose it wouldn't be "evil" for you.

It just depends on how the people who figure out moral rules do so.

If you just make up an arbitrary rule based on subjective preference, such as you don't like broccoli so you deem it 'evil' on that basis without objectively controlling for your own bias and considering that broccoli might be a healthy and thus good food despite your personal dislike of it, then that would just be an arbitrary, made-up rule.

But if you discover something is bad/evil in a way that goes beyond your own personal biases, then how did you discover that? Why, for example, can't you be lied to without just accepting it, despite the fact that you are aware that someone else chose to lie to you and thus disadvantage you or harm you in some way? If we leave something outside in the rain and it gets ruined, we feel it is our own fault for not foreseeing the rain in time, but if someone lies and tricks us, we know that they made a choice to lie, or at least that they could have chosen to avoid it; so is that just an arbitrary moral observation about lying being bad, or is there something fundamentally bad in lying that makes it more evil than honesty?

1 Reply

@livinglava,

Every moral belief is an "arbitrary rule based on subjective preference".

If you think you have found something "beyond your personal bias", you are fooling yourself. There are no moral principles beyond personal bias. Even if there were, our personal bias would prevent us from finding them.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Every moral belief is an "arbitrary rule based on subjective preference".

If you think you have found something "beyond your personal bias", you are fooling yourself. There are no moral principles beyond personal bias. Even if there were, our personal bias would prevent us from finding them.

I just gave the example of lying and you ignore it.

Fundamentally there are things that are wrong because you wouldn't want them happening to you. That's why Hammurabi's Code of an eye for an eye makes sense even though it can be overly harsh or overly lax depending on the context in which it is applied.

Let's say you are a total satanist who believes in doing as much damage and harm as possible for as long as you can get away with it: is there any question that that is evil? If someone subjectively defends such morality, isn't it obvious they are rationalizing wrongdoing without paying any attention to their conscience?

1 Reply

Humans - our part in development

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