Quebec bans religious teaching in publicly subsidized daycares

[Hauldren Collider]

When was the last time you deliberately touched a hot stove?

During his last kinky romantic adventure involving Mark Foley.

[giblets]

When was the last time you deliberately touched a hot stove?

Well obviously the simulation will punish me if I don't play by the rules. So I don't touch what appears to be a hot stove.

[Hauldren Collider]

He believes in the Matrix. He also probably believes that the sequels were good movies

[Kuciwalker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Bostrom#Simulation_hypothesis

Axioms that produce identical predictions represent identical theories. So when is the next time you'll choose to act as if we're in the Matrix instead of the real world?

[Cort Haus]

Morality is entirely biological, possibly originally stemming from species-game-rules governing reproduction. We can see this in the behaviour of lower mammals with basic social rules governing the model of reproduction, like meerkats.

We interpret it in various social ways, including a need to please the magic-man in the sky, or the need to please our peers for our own well-being, but there's nothing mystical about it.

That's all, really.

[Cort Haus]

Of course the interpretation of morality becomes humanly complex, but that's just an additional layer of complexity because, well, that's the kind of species we are.

[Lorizael]

Axioms that produce identical predictions represent identical theories. So when is the next time you'll choose to act as if we're in the Matrix instead of the real world?

I do, occasionally, but that's only because I get kind of Philip K. Dick-paranoid sometimes. That's all beside the point, really. Yes, of course, the vast majority of humans behave as if their lives are real the vast majority of the time. But given that other possibilities exist, and given the wide variety of known ways in which our senses can fail us, it strikes me as another cognitive bias to believe that our reality is the real reality, and another bias again to believe that our conception of morality is the real morality.

Edit: Which is not to say that our methods of describing reality do not produce useful observations, or that our methods of describing morality do not produce useful decisions. I'm merely saying that neither our reality describing methods nor our decision making methods may be at all related to anything objective.

[Kuciwalker]

Morality is entirely biological, possibly originally stemming from species-game-rules governing reproduction.

So is eyesight.

[Kuciwalker]

What you guys seem to be missing in all of this is that if morality is just as objective as physics (which it is) then we should treat it similarly. When scientists come up with some new iGadget that does cool **** we don't [typically] get all filosofical, questioning whether it really works, we just go and buy it.

[KrazyHorse]

just as objective

No.

[Kuciwalker]

Elaborate.

[giblets]

What you guys seem to be missing in all of this is that if morality is just as objective as physics (which it is) then we should treat it similarly. When scientists come up with some new iGadget that does cool **** we don't [typically] get all filosofical, questioning whether it really works, we just go and buy it.

So you're saying we can determine right and wrong scientifically?

[KrazyHorse]

Elaborate.

Just because both require certain leaps of faith doesn't mean that there is not a sliding scale of "objectivity"...

For example, there are a great number of otherwise reasonable people who believe that the life of a murderer (insert your own favored dislikable character) is worth nothing (or perhaps less than nothing). That is something pretty clearly divergent with my beliefs.

[Kuciwalker]

So you're saying we can determine right and wrong scientifically?

That would be the blatantly obvious interpretation of post #195, yes.

[Kuciwalker]

Just because both require certain leaps of faith doesn't mean that there is not a sliding scale of "objectivity"...

For example, there are a great number of otherwise reasonable people who believe that the life of a murderer (insert your own favored dislikable character) is worth nothing (or perhaps less than nothing). That is something pretty clearly divergent with my beliefs.

Physics doesn't tell me that my eyes are seeing something that looks like a wall; ultimately, the idea is that the axioms we're discovering are pretty far removed from our immediate sensations.

Also, a rational person who wanted to help maximize global welfare would, if possible, choose to become 'irrational' and believe things like you described.

And finally, I'll admit that economics might be a better analogy than physics