Are values purely subjective?

Doc Dutch said:
Disagreed as proved by twin studies. IMO, it makes sense that mothers protecting their offspring and males defending their tribe favors survival of their group.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8228475/
Genetic and Environmental Structure of Altruism Characterized by Recipients in Relation to Personality


https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/6/5/662/1657142
Investigating the genetic basis of altruism: the role of the COMT Val158Met polymorphism
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Right, humans and other mammals practice kin altruism.

But altruism outside of kin or tribe, altruism towards complete strangers has no evolutionary benefit and we choose to either do it, or not do it, which indicates it's not driven by genes.
 
Doc Dutch said:
Nazis, white supremacists and atheists like him. The like Wagner too. LOL

https://academic.oup.com/liverpool-scholarship-online/book/17053/chapter-abstract/174373493
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I am agnostic about Nietzsche's connection to fascism.

On the one hand, his philosophy was admired by Hitler. Slave mentality and Ubermensch were right up Hitler's alley.

On the other hand, I think Nietzsche became disillusioned with Wagner for, among other things, Wagner's toxic antisemitism. Nietzsche's sister was a genuine proto Nazi, and I don't think Nietzsche bought into his sister's agenda either.
 
Cypress said:
I am agnostic about Nietzsche's connection to fascism.

On the one hand, his philosophy was admired by Hitler. Slave mentality and Ubermensch were right up Hitler's alley.

On the other hand, I think Nietzsche became disillusioned with Wagner for, among other things, Wagner's toxic antisemitism. Nietzsche's sister was a genuine proto Nazi, and I don't think Nietzsche bought into his sister's agenda either.
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Nietzsche had no sympathies for nazism. Only idiots who never read Nietzsche think otherwise.
 
Cypress said:
Right, humans and other mammals practice kin altruism.

But altruism outside of kin or tribe, altruism towards complete strangers has no evolutionary benefit and we choose to either do it, or not do it, which indicates it's not driven by genes.
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The point being that if one has the genetic ability, it can be applied in other ways. The question about beauty is an example. If humans perceive some mates as more beautiful than others, then that trait might be applied to immaterial things such as mountains or flowers. It's an ability like strength or intelligence.
 
Cypress said:
Nope. There are even exceptions to Newton's laws of mechanics, because deviations from them occur at relativistic conditions. But it's still fair to call Newtonian mechanics universal laws in everyday speech.

Mentally ill people aren't fully functional humans, and cannot be expected to neccessarily share in the experience of fully functional humans.
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you were talking about social values, not mathematical ones......
 
Doc Dutch said:
The point being that if one has the genetic ability, it can be applied in other ways. The question about beauty is an example. If humans perceive some mates as more beautiful than others, then that trait might be applied to immaterial things such as mountains or flowers. It's an ability like strength or intelligence.
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The purpose of genes is to propagate and reproduce.

Richard Dawkins is always trying to boil everything down to evolution.

There is no evolutionary benefit to practicing altruism to strangers, appreciating art, valuing the intrinsic qualities of beauty and aesthetics.

The human experience seems to be more than just a genetic Darwinian struggle to pass on our genetic code.

Human conciousness seems to be more than the sum of it's parts, more than just a collection of genes, molecules, quarks and electrons.
 
Cypress said:
The purpose of genes is to propagate and reproduce.

Richard Dawkins is always trying to boil everything down to evolution.

There is no evolutionary benefit to practicing altruism to strangers, appreciating art, valuing the intrinsic qualities of beauty and aesthetics.

The human experience seems to be more than just a genetic Darwinian struggle to pass on our genetic code.

Human conciousness seems to be more than the sum of it's parts, more than just a collection of genes, molecules, quarks and electrons.
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That seems to be the general idea. However, if we see evolution and genes as a tool of the Universe, then there could be something we're missing. A hammer is a tool that can be used for many purposes, both primitive and sophisticated. The world's finest hammer in the hands of a primitive might only be used for killing and bashing food. In the hands of someone more sophisticated, it could be used to build an orphanage. Maybe the Universe is waiting for our genes to become more sophisticated. LOL

Alan Watts believed that the Universe was intelligent, that it wasn't stupid.* I tend to agree. Life alters the natural progression of the Universe. If there is a purpose of the Universe, then it's to begin "peopling".

Disagreed on the evolutionary benefit of altruism. However, like the hammer analogy; there are both primitive and sophisticated ways of using this benefit. Chimps will be altruistic for their troop, human beings might be altruistic for strangers. One is a primitive use of altruism, the other is a more sophisticated use of the same tool.

*https://alanwatts.org/transcripts/the-tao-of-philosophy-6/
Look: Here is a tree in the garden, and every summer it produces apples, and we call it an “apple tree.” Because the tree apple-s; that’s what it does. Alright, now here is a solar system inside a galaxy, and one of the peculiarities of this solar system is that—at least on the planet Earth—the thing people-s, in just the same way as an apple tree apple-s. Now maybe two million years ago somebody came from another galaxy in a flying saucer and had a look at this solar system, and they looked it over and shrugged their shoulders and said, “Just a bunch of rocks.” And they went away. Later on—maybe two million years later—they came around, and they looked at it again, and they said, “Excuse me! We thought it was a bunch of rocks but it’s peopleing,” and “It’s alive after all; it has done something intelligent.”

Because, you see, we grow out of this world in exactly the same way as the apples grow on the apple tree. If evolution means anything, it means that. But, you see, we curiously twist it. We say, well, first of all—in the beginning—there was nothing but gas and rock. And then intelligence happened to arise in it—you know, like a sort of fungus or slime on top of the whole thing. But we’re thinking in a way, you see, that disconnects the intelligence from the rocks. Where there are rocks, watch out! Watch out! Because the rocks are going, eventually, to come alive.
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Doc Dutch said:
That seems to be the general idea. However, if we see evolution and genes as a tool of the Universe, then there could be something we're missing. A hammer is a tool that can be used for many purposes, both primitive and sophisticated. The world's finest hammer in the hands of a primitive might only be used for killing and bashing food. In the hands of someone more sophisticated, it could be used to build an orphanage. Maybe the Universe is waiting for our genes to become more sophisticated. LOL

Alan Watts believed that the Universe was intelligent, that it wasn't stupid.* I tend to agree. Life alters the natural progression of the Universe. If there is a purpose of the Universe, then it's to begin "peopling".

Disagreed on the evolutionary benefit of altruism. However, like the hammer analogy; there are both primitive and sophisticated ways of using this benefit. Chimps will be altruistic for their troop, human beings might be altruistic for strangers. One is a primitive use of altruism, the other is a more sophisticated use of the same tool.

*https://alanwatts.org/transcripts/the-tao-of-philosophy-6/
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Lots of unanswered questions here, but that's what makes science and philosophy fun.

There's no evolutionary benefit to helping complete strangers
The evolutionary theory of altruism is that by helping your kin you are ensuring the perpetuation of your genetic code. If you help omeone in the pack, tribe, neighborhood, or pod there is a reasonable expectation they will return the favor. That's an evolutionary benefit. A complete stranger you may never likely see again.

It's possible human ethics and human conciousness is more than the sum of it's parts, and we can't point to genes to explain everything. It's possible we haven't even formulated the right questions yet
 
BidenPresident said:
Nietzsche had no sympathies for nazism. Only idiots who never read Nietzsche think otherwise.
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I've only read Beyond Good and Evil, which had that Ubermensch stuff, and a trashing of Christian ethics as a slave mentality. Hitler probably loved that stuff. But it seems a reach to tie Nietzsche to Nazism.

I'm agnostic because I've heard different opinions about Nietzsche and anti semitism from different professors of Philosophy. Patrick Grimm seems to think Nietzsche is an appalling anti semite. Robert Solomon seemed to think Nietzsche had been widely misunderstood.
 
Cypress said:
I've only read Beyond Good and Evil, which had that Ubermensch stuff, and a trashing of Christian ethics as a slave mentality. Hitler probably loved that stuff. But it seems a reach to tie Nietzsche to Nazism.

I'm agnostic because I've heard different opinions about Nietzsche and anti semitism from different professors of Philosophy. Patrick Grimm seems to think Nietzsche is an appalling anti semite. Robert Solomon seemed to think Nietzsche had been widely misunderstood.
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You should try reading Nietzsche.
 
Cypress said:
Lots of unanswered questions here, but that's what makes science and philosophy fun.

There's no evolutionary benefit to helping complete strangers
The evolutionary theory of altruism is that by helping your kin you are ensuring the perpetuation of your genetic code. If you help omeone in the pack, tribe, neighborhood, or pod there is a reasonable expectation they will return the favor. That's an evolutionary benefit. A complete stranger you may never likely see again.

It's possible human ethics and human conciousness is more than the sum of it's parts, and we can't point to genes to explain everything. It's possible we haven't even formulated the right questions yet
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Agreed on the synergy. It would help explain why the Universe exists if it was, indeed, created by a superior intelligence. To grow synergy; make something that is greater than the sum of its parts.
 
Doc Dutch said:
Agreed on the synergy. It would help explain why the Universe exists if it was, indeed, created by a superior intelligence. To grow synergy; make something that is greater than the sum of its parts.
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Presumably because our brains, our language, our reason is more advanced and abstract than other animals, we are able to construct cultural, artistic, religious, ritual, and ethical archetypes and standards that don't neccesarily link directly to evolutionary requirements and survival.
 
Cypress said:
Presumably because our brains, our language, our reason is more advanced and abstract than other animals, we are able to construct cultural, artistic, religious, ritual, and ethical archetypes and standards that don't neccesarily link directly to evolutionary requirements and survival.
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Agreed on advanced and abstraction. That's the synergistic effect. It's based upon evolutionary requirements and survival but the culmination goes beyond those basics.
 
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