View Single Post
Old 10-08-2005, 23:23 PM   #34 (permalink)
Bulgaroctonus
Senior Contributor
 
Join Date: 10-29-04
Location: Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Posts: 1,139
Country:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Leader
Bye, I don't argue with subjectivists. It's pointless. Your pathology prevents you from admitting your wrong because all that is necessary for you to be right is for you to think your right thereby completing the chain of anti-logic.
Now we enter my field. First of all, I am by no means a subjectivist. In fact, morals seem so subjective that thet are nonsensical to me.

I will lay out my ideas in two simple ways, both of which have their grounding in science.

The human body is a collection of sub-atomic particles. In fact, thats all existence is. Every single thing in the Universe can be described (or in the case of modern physics postulated) according to a quantum mechanical probabilistic framework.

Even you taking the action of typing you response was a product of certain neurological processes within your brain. These processes can be understood as nothing more than the interrelation of matter and energy. Those thoughts are dictated by physical laws.

This leads logically to a scary possibility for most people. If humans are nothing more than complex physical systems under the control of physical laws (or probability more correctly), how can we ever have free will. Think about it, it certainly isn't our own will that moves the tiny protons and electrons that make our body. Action is determined by thought, thought by neurons, but neurons don't 'think' they simply fire or stay inert. No sir, all of human history is the playing out of subatomic particles set in motion by the big bang, or whatever origin the universe had.

This means that since no human can be ultimately held responsible for their actions, all moral systems collapse. In order for a human to be praised or blamed for an action, they had to have undertaken it of their own free will.

If you still think I'm pathological, just run my ideas past your nearest physics/biology/philosophy professor.

Furthermore, even if we had free will, a moral system requires several illogical conclusions. If all actions are the movement of particles, then in order to assign morality to an action, we have to assign a moral value to a chemical reaction. Essentially, we'd be blaming sub-atomic particles for behaving as they do. Its nonsensical. To attribute one set of reactions with a kind of moral value, and another reaction with a different value is illogical.

All more statements are neither true nor false. They cannot be dealt with scientifically since they deal only with our own preferences, not objective facts.

For example, which do think corresponds to reality? F=ma (Force equals mass times acceleration, Newton's Second Law) or "killing is wrong."
Bulgaroctonus is offline   Reply With Quote