moralist Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 36 minutes ago, jts said: What is conscience? Conscience is when you know that's right and wrong... ...regardless of what you think or feel.. You are completely free to choose to either affirm or deny this statement. Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jts Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 18 minutes ago, moralist said: Conscience is when you know that's right and wrong... ...regardless of what you think or feel.. You are completely free to choose to either affirm or deny this statement. Greg How is it possible to know something apart from thinking or observing? I know that the sky is mostly cloudy with patches of blue. How do I know this? I have eyes and a large window and I can see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 12 minutes ago, jts said: How is it possible to know something apart from thinking or observing? I know that the sky is mostly cloudy with patches of blue. How do I know this? I have eyes and a large window and I can see. I'm happy to discuss this with you. Can you either affirm or deny this statement? "Conscience is when you know that's right and wrong... ...regardless of what you think or feel." You're totally free to state it's a lie if that's your honest opinion. It's just really helpful to know up front your view of that statement for the sake of our conversation. Thanks, Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jts Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 1 hour ago, moralist said: I'm happy to discuss this with you. Can you either affirm or deny this statement? "Conscience is when you know that's right and wrong... ...regardless of what you think or feel." You're totally free to state it's a lie if that's your honest opinion. It's just really helpful to know up front your view of that statement for the sake of our conversation. Thanks, Greg You say conscience is 'when', meaning a time, not a definition. So the statement is disqualified from being a definition. Maybe you mean conscience is a thing that enables knowledge apart from thought or feel or (I will assume) observation. Then the statement seems to me to be a nonsense statement because so far as I know there is no such thing. Maybe you mean instinct, which is roughly to animals as tropisms are to plants, but I don't see instincts as knowledge. So far as I know, conscience is a product of education. For example a Muslim father might honor kill his daughter who was raped because he 'knows' that is the right thing to do regardless of what he thinks or feels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthony Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 57 minutes ago, moralist said: I'm happy to discuss this with you. Can you either affirm or deny this statement? "Conscience is when you know that's right and wrong... ...regardless of what you think or feel." You're totally free to state it's a lie if that's your honest opinion. It's just really helpful to know up front your view of that statement for the sake of our conversation. Thanks, Greg Greg, Are you claiming a conscience arises through non-conscious means? Jts, You said nobody wants to discuss intuition, and I did - and now? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jts Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 2 minutes ago, anthony said: Jts, You said nobody wants to discuss intuition, and I did - and now? What I wanted to know about intuition is how does intuition fit into Objectivist epistemology? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 15 minutes ago, jts said: You say conscience is 'when', meaning a time, not a definition. So the statement is disqualified from being a definition. Ok. "Conscience is the ability to know what is right and wrong... ...regardless of what you think or feel." In your own opinion, do you affirm or deny this to be true? Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 1 hour ago, anthony said: Greg, Are you claiming a conscience arises through non-conscious means? Absolutely not! That would be an impossibility. What I'm saying is that everyone is privvy to moral knowledge of what's right and wrong... with which their thoughts and emotions may or may not necessarily agree. A simple question serves to clarify the point: Do you possess the personal power to choose to act contrary to your thoughts and emotions? Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jts Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 1 hour ago, moralist said: Ok. "Conscience is the ability to know what is right and wrong... ...regardless of what you think or feel." In your own opinion, do you affirm or deny this to be true? Greg A unicorn is a horse with a horn in the middle of its forehead. Do you affirm or deny this? I probably would affirm that this is a true definition but then I would say there ain't no such animal. Your definition of conscience may be correct (or not) but then so far as I know there ain't no such ability. I think the word 'conscience' as commonly used means a product of moral education and it sometimes masquerades as an ability to know what is right and wrong apart from thought and feel. For example a Muslim father honor kills his daughter who was raped because he 'knows' that is the right thing to do contrary to thought and feel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaalChatzaf Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 53 minutes ago, jts said: A unicorn is a horse with a horn in the middle of its forehead. Do you affirm or deny this? I probably would affirm that this is a true definition but then I would say there ain't no such animal. Your definition of conscience may be correct (or not) but then so far as I know there ain't no such ability. I think the word 'conscience' as commonly used means a product of moral education and it sometimes masquerades as an ability to know what is right and wrong apart from thought and feel. For example a Muslim father honor kills his daughter who was raped because he 'knows' that is the right thing to do contrary to thought and feel. The mythical Unicorn is NOT a horse. It is a chimera. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 48 minutes ago, jts said: I probably would affirm that this is a true definition but then I would say there ain't no such animal. Well, your response clearly defines our two different views... which is why I asked such a simple direct question. It clarifies the difference between your view and mine without having to go round and round in semantic circles. . In your view you do not possess the ability to act contrary to your thoughts and emotions. Your actions are wholly the product of thought and emotion... ...and nothing else. While in my view... I am that which chooses whether to act on my thoughts and emotions... or whether to act contrary to them. And this conscious decision is informed by what I see is right and wrong in the moment... what I call Conscience. Now, my thoughts and emotions may or may not agree with what I see, or what I do as the result of what I see... ... but they are not the sole determining criteria. Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthony Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 3 hours ago, jts said: What I wanted to know about intuition is how does intuition fit into Objectivist epistemology? You'd know the epistemology is: 'how we know' (what we know). Senses, percepts, concepts. "Intuition", as popularly believed, supposedly transcends the method. It cannot "fit" Oist epistemology, iow, and you beg the question by inferring it can. If 'intuition' is a mysterious power which one has, to know without knowing - it's subjective (and I'd say, an anti-concept). You realise what "knowing without knowing" is? Faith. If 'intuition' is reaching a conclusion based upon previous knowledge, it's conceptual - and then it's not "intuition". Both ways, you can't have it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthony Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 2 hours ago, moralist said: Absolutely not! That would be an impossibility. What I'm saying is that everyone is privvy to moral knowledge of what's right and wrong... with which their thoughts and emotions may or may not necessarily agree. A simple question serves to clarify the point: Do you possess the personal power to choose to act contrary to your thoughts and emotions? Greg So you say you choose to act on that moral knowledge, first, and thoughts and emotions follow later..? But to choose IS to think. So can I act against my choice? Why would I? Can I choose to change my mind? Of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jts Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 28 minutes ago, moralist said: While in my view... I am that which chooses whether to act on my thoughts and emotions... or whether to act contrary to them. I can understand that a person might act contrary to what he thinks, ie contrary to his understanding of reality, out of weakness of character. I don't understand making a virtue out of acting contrary to one's understanding of reality. When billionaire Ross Perot was running for prez, he explained the difference between a man and a rabbit. A rabbit acts according to its feelings but a man acts according to reason. At that time the talk was about president Bill Clinton and Lewinsky. Ross Perot said the problem is what we have in the White House is a rabbit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jts Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 40 minutes ago, anthony said: You'd know the epistemology is: 'how we know' (what we know). Senses, percepts, concepts. "Intuition", as popularly believed, supposedly transcends the method. It cannot "fit" Oist epistemology, iow, and you beg the question by inferring it can. If intuition is a mysterious power which one has, to know without knowing - it's subjective (and I'd say, an anti-concept). You realise what "knowing without knowing" is? Faith. If intuition is reaching a conclusion based upon previous knowledge, it's conceptual - and then it's not "intuition". Both ways, you can't have it. It seems I am impaled upon the horns of 2 possibilities. 1. Intuition is faith. Then should I infer that faith works in chess? 2. Intuition is not intuition. Then what is what is called intuition in chess? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaalChatzaf Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 44 minutes ago, jts said: It seems I am impaled upon the horns of 2 possibilities. 1. Intuition is faith. Then should I infer that faith works in chess? 2. Intuition is not intuition. Then what is what is called intuition in chess? I think the problem is deeper. Right now no one really knows how the brain thinks in terms of the molecular and electro-chemical processes happening in the brain. Roger Penrose is correct in saying that our brains do not work like computers. It is possible that embedded in all the chemical processes there might be quantum state transformations. We might have quantum computers buried in our brains (so to speak). It has been a little more than 50 years since we started to get high resolution probes into brain processes. I think we have been misleading ourselves when we model brain processes as a kind of computer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 Ba’al wrote: I think the problem is deeper. Right now no one really knows how the brain thinks in terms of the molecular and electro-chemical processes happening in the brain. end quote On this Ba’al you are a lame brain. You are reducing the problem to a SUB conscious level. You are talking about atoms and Tony is talking about a compilation of atoms, cells, electricity, and matter, which leads to consciousness. If the problem is deeper it is because it is beyond your bull shit explanations which are attempts to deny the truth. Grow up. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaalChatzaf Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 1 hour ago, Peter said: Ba’al wrote: I think the problem is deeper. Right now no one really knows how the brain thinks in terms of the molecular and electro-chemical processes happening in the brain. end quote On this Ba’al you are a lame brain. You are reducing the problem to a SUB conscious level. You are talking about atoms and Tony is talking about a compilation of atoms, cells, electricity, and matter, which leads to consciousness. If the problem is deeper it is because it is beyond your bull shit explanations which are attempts to deny the truth. Grow up. Peter Consciousness is a physical process we do not fully understand. I am fully grown up and I understand that the cosmos is physical from top to bottom. what is there to deny. Do you think what your brain, glands and nerve fibers do is anything but physical? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 4 hours ago, jts said: I can understand that a person might act contrary to what he thinks, ie contrary to his understanding of reality, out of weakness of character. I don't understand making a virtue out of acting contrary to one's understanding of reality. The flaw in your view is that you believe your thoughts and emotions are the same as understanding reality because thought and emotion is all you are and nothing else. While in my view, thought and emotion may or may not agree with reality. So I am free to choose to act either in harmony with or contrary to thought and emotion as a result of understanding the reality of what's right and wrong. Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 33 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said: Consciousness is a physical process we do not fully understand. It is impossible to understand what you don't have. Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 4 hours ago, anthony said: So you say you choose to act on that moral knowledge, first, and thoughts and emotions follow later..? But to choose IS to think. So can I act against my choice? Why would I? Can I choose to change my mind? Of course. Yes, Tony. You know what's right and wrong first... then you can have thoughts and emotions about it... which can either agree or disagree with what you already know. Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anthony Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 15 hours ago, jts said: It seems I am impaled upon the horns of 2 possibilities. 1. Intuition is faith. Then should I infer that faith works in chess? 2. Intuition is not intuition. Then what is what is called intuition in chess? I suggest to not be so impressed with Intuition nor by what others may call "intuition". It could be a mixed grab-bag of all things. But as the common definition stands, it is only subjective. The 'advantage'' of a subjective notion is that any person may use it as he feels on any occasion, changeably and variably - i.e. subjectively. People are often attracted to the idea of having quasi- mystical powers, and when something ever works out right by sheer chance, will say "I felt and knew it intuitively". Since they have selective recall they won't remember the hundreds of times they had "intuition" and it didn't work out. You'll note, they never mention the failures. I thought we already established that just because a great chess player (diagnosis by a doctor, etc.) said he made an intuitive call, doesn't mean he did. He deduced/connected dots/recognized a pattern from his life long, intense internalizing and study of the game (or medical profession), bringing to bear all that inductive/conceptual knowledge to make a fast decision. Artists also make or claim to make what seems, and feels like, intuitive, snap decisions in their work. It's not true, they are drawing on a wealth of prior observation, pre-visualizing and thought, which 'tells' them to do it this way, not that. Which is self-inspiration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moralist Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 22 minutes ago, anthony said: I suggest to not be impressed with Intuition nor by what others may call "intuition". Good advice, Tony. I never invoke the word. My attention is rather on Conscience because it is what makes possible the powerful moral choice between acting on thought and emotion... or acting contrary to thought and emotion... or even simply doing nothing which can be the most powerful response of all. Those who deny the existence of Conscience have robbed themselves of moral choice, and have sentenced themselves to compulsively and indiscriminately act on their every thought and emotion. For they have affirmed the lie that they are nothing more than what they subjectively think and feel. And for those who don't deny... they acknowledge that they are not their thoughts and emotions, but rather the sentient being who silently knowingly and consciously observes thought and emotion... and freely chooses whether or not to act on them. Greg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 Ayn Rand wrote in ITOE, p. 150-2, "No, you do something else volitionally . . . . Do you know what you will? You will to observe. You use your senses, you look around, and your will is to grasp, to understand. And you observe similarities. Now, you don't know yet that this is the process of abstraction . . . But you are engaged in it once you begin to observe similarities." On the next page she wrote, "As he discovers certain things, he begins to direct his sensory apparatus, and that is volitional." Ba’al asked, “Do you think what your brain, glands and nerve fibers do is anything but physical?” Abstraction. Volition. Reasoning. Those *mental* processes would not occur without our physical apparatus which brings us back to the “free will v. determinism debate.” When a human baby’s brain begins its uniquely human brain wave patterns around the 26th to 28th week in the womb, a phenomenon occurs. The activity that was mostly chemical, electrical, and physical generates a forth state: consciousness. You are using your consciousness to claim there is no consciousness, but instead, an organic computer with information interchange capabilities, memory storage capabilities, and computational capabilities. I say that knowing you exist is not a faux state of reality. It is not postulating The Twilight Zone. Something beyond gray matter exists and that is why it matters to people when someone who they know, dies. Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 I thought of something else. How can someone who has the physical attributes of one sex think they are the other sex, like Bruce Jenner? If our physical nature determines who we are, then in an evolutionary sense how can someone prefer their own sex, for sex? Saying that we are only physical is not very PC. And if we are strictly physical beings how can there be billions of different individuals? Even twins are not totally alike, though I like those stories about twins who are orphaned and raised apart, but are still very similar. Peter Walter Williams wrote: Suppose a college honored the right of its students to free themselves from biological determinism and allowed those with XY chromosomes to play on teams formerly designated as XX teams. I would anticipate a problem competing with other colleges. An unenlightened women's basketball team might refuse to play against a mixed-chromosome team whose starting five consists of 6-foot-6-inch, 200-pound XYers. The NCAA should have a rule stating that refusal to play a mixed-chromosome team leads to forfeiture of the game. It's no different from a team of white players refusing to play another because it has black players. end quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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