The making of western morality

Dutch Uncle said:
Disagreed. You're watching too much Fox News, Perry PhD. The same species came up with a COVID vaccine and has the ability to travel to Mars.
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Daylight63 said:
Obviously.

Humans are special. We have in-built moral system but we also have the ability to set aside our better choices and we can and often do act against our best interests.
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we're not all to blame.

a small subset is warping human perceptions throught disinformation, coercion, and terrorism.
 
Daylight63 said:
Not sure what's going on here. Let's just talk about the topic, shall we? I don't know what you are on about today so I'll just stick with the topic.
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^^^
Always whines about others being off topic but never when he does it.


You're off topic whining about me, Perry. :rofl2: :ROFLMAO: :rofl2:
 
Daylight63 said:
Sure! Glad to. I just read one of Gazzaniga's books on this as well.

Basically the brain is a neural network that creates intention prior to conscious choice of an action as shown by repeated studies using fMRI (functional MRI). This calls into question how much of our actions are our direct "choice" per se. But the system is not as simple as your brain telling you what to do.

As I understand this "softer" semi-deterministic type approach there is a significant role in the event chain of the neural network generating the intent (based on prior training...like an AI if you will) but there is also a role for selecting out of all the options provided that integrate input from other stimuli, like interactions with others.

Gazzaniga, in other writings, disavows a hard determinist position and feels that many aspects of morality and other social-influenced thoughts/beliefs arise from our interactions with OTHER members of the group.

If anything it is closer to the "emergent property" view of things (which is an area of science you are skeptical of despite it being pretty commonly accepted as a real effect).

What we KNOW is that the brain creates intention BEFORE we are consciously aware of a CHOICE. Indeed split brain studies show that there is an "interpreter module" which resides in our left hemisphere that creates ad hoc justifications for our actions even when it is not consciously aware of the stimulus provided to the other hemisphere (remember, these are people with a split corpus colossum so no signal moves through it).

I know you don't like to read a lot, especially science. But this is some really good stuff. I hIGHLY recommend reading G's book "Who's In Charge". (IT's short less than 200 pages and the science isn't so hard you won't be able to understand it. He writes in a very approachable manner for non-scientists as well)
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^^^
Off topic.
 
Cypress said:
Blanket statement

Correct. The Greeks and Romans made their own code of values which venerated reputation, courage, honor, individual achievement, the heroic ethos above all else. Although their ethos was entwined with their religious and cultural traditions.

That is precisely why Nietzsche was drawn to the ethos of antiquity and considered Christian ethics a slave morality suitable only for the weak.
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Why the idea of human rights and the innate value of human life does not just come from common sense.

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2nJ2_Ktw_m0
 
"Michael Gazzaniga is one of the most venerated experimental neuroscientists of our age. "

'Gazzaniga finds a more general cause for the persistence of religious belief in that “humans are belief-formation machines…. It seems to be what our human brains do.” Yet in this possibility there is for Gazzaniga also cause for hope. Religion and philosophy are the stories we once told ourselves. But now that we can see these stories for what they truly are, mere fictions, we can replace them with a more scientific account. And it is this possibility that leads Gazzaniga to happily conclude, almost in a religious rapture of his own, “that a universal ethics is possible.” “There could be a universal set of biological responses to moral dilemmas, a sort of ethics, built into our brains.”'

www.thenewatlantis.com

Morals and the Mind

Michael Gazzaniga is one of the most venerated experimental neuroscientists of our age. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, president of the American Psychological Society, and a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics. He is the author of many highly regarded...
www.thenewatlantis.com www.thenewatlantis.com
 
Daylight63 said:
"Michael Gazzaniga is one of the most venerated experimental neuroscientists of our age. "

'Gazzaniga finds a more general cause for the persistence of religious belief in that “humans are belief-formation machines…. It seems to be what our human brains do.” Yet in this possibility there is for Gazzaniga also cause for hope. Religion and philosophy are the stories we once told ourselves. But now that we can see these stories for what they truly are, mere fictions, we can replace them with a more scientific account. And it is this possibility that leads Gazzaniga to happily conclude, almost in a religious rapture of his own, “that a universal ethics is possible.” “There could be a universal set of biological responses to moral dilemmas, a sort of ethics, built into our brains.”'

www.thenewatlantis.com

Morals and the Mind

Michael Gazzaniga is one of the most venerated experimental neuroscientists of our age. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, president of the American Psychological Society, and a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics. He is the author of many highly regarded...
www.thenewatlantis.com www.thenewatlantis.com
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Please explain the article and the conclusions in your own words, and don't just cut and paste words from the article.
 
Daylight63 said:
Sure! Glad to. I just read one of Gazzaniga's books on this as well.

Basically the brain is a neural network that creates intention prior to conscious choice of an action as shown by repeated studies using fMRI (functional MRI). This calls into question how much of our actions are our direct "choice" per se. But the system is not as simple as your brain telling you what to do.

As I understand this "softer" semi-deterministic type approach there is a significant role in the event chain of the neural network generating the intent (based on prior training...like an AI if you will) but there is also a role for selecting out of all the options provided that integrate input from other stimuli, like interactions with others.

Gazzaniga, in other writings, disavows a hard determinist position and feels that many aspects of morality and other social-influenced thoughts/beliefs arise from our interactions with OTHER members of the group.

If anything it is closer to the "emergent property" view of things (which is an area of science you are skeptical of despite it being pretty commonly accepted as a real effect).

What we KNOW is that the brain creates intention BEFORE we are consciously aware of a CHOICE. Indeed split brain studies show that there is an "interpreter module" which resides in our left hemisphere that creates ad hoc justifications for our actions even when it is not consciously aware of the stimulus provided to the other hemisphere (remember, these are people with a split corpus colossum so no signal moves through it).

I know you don't like to read a lot, especially science. But this is some really good stuff. I hIGHLY recommend reading G's book "Who's In Charge". (IT's short less than 200 pages and the science isn't so hard you won't be able to understand it. He writes in a very approachable manner for non-scientists as well)
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This thread is not about free will or determinism.
 
Daylight63 said:
A lot of Christian hypocrites are pretty damn sure they ARE following Jesus.

I've seen Second Amendment people cite Luke 22:36 rather than Matthew 26:52 because they want to live by the sword.

Which one is the "correct" Jesus? Want to hazard a guess?
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Jesus never said anything about guns.
 
Cypress said:
This thread is not about free will or determinism.
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But it is about the origin of morality. The second quote from Gazz that I posted completes the circle.

I understand, it's a lot of science and that isn't your thing. A lot of people who are armchair philosophers avoid science because science carries a lot more concrete reality and less "flights of fancy".

I can understand why people won't read the science and I also realize science is often hard to read. Especially if one came on here to have flights of fancy unbound by any guardrails.
 
Daylight63 said:
But it is about the origin of morality. The second quote from Gazz that I posted completes the circle.

I understand, it's a lot of science and that isn't your thing. A lot of people who are armchair philosophers avoid science because science carries a lot more concrete reality and less "flights of fancy".

I can understand why people won't read the science and I also realize science is often hard to read. Especially if one came on here to have flights of fancy unbound by any guardrails.
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Please explain exactly how DNA molecules, quarks, electrons have morality.
 
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