Do people have choices?

[Warren Dew]

It's my contention that what we feel as "more" than just our bodies - that sense of inhabiting our bodies, but not being exactly part of our bodies - is an illusion. Our consciousness is analogous to an arm or a leg or a penis or skin. It's part of us. Our brains are an organ, like the pancreas and the brain creates what we call consciousness.

What do you think of p-zombies?

[Aos Si]

The best thing we can learn is what is right and what is wrong...

You can't "learn" right and wrong. If we could there would be a logical ethical system that told us what to do in every moral situation. We feel what is right and wrong. That's why reason only goes so far.

Yes you can learn right and wrong, what's more there has been recent evidence that the taboo on murder in human cultures appears to be partly instinctive. Not only can you learn stuff, it can after a long enough time become part of the human genome. How do you think instincts evolve, and how do you think a need for religion, or a propensity to feel religious, has become a part of our genetic make up?

You can't learn right and wrong if you are a moron or a vegetable, otherwise you spend your entire life exposed to lessons of right and wrong, one hopes from which you will learn which is which.

[Aos Si]

It's my contention that what we feel as "more" than just our bodies - that sense of inhabiting our bodies, but not being exactly part of our bodies - is an illusion. Our consciousness is analogous to an arm or a leg or a penis or skin. It's part of us. Our brains are an organ, like the pancreas and the brain creates what we call consciousness.

What do you think of p-zombies?

I think the whole zombie idea is sometimes quite laughable to be frank and often reflects nothing at all to do with where science is atm. Better to look at people with brain damage than keep looking for fictional entities that do not exist and waxing lyrical on those. Since the field is exploring some intriguing possibilities such as viewing the formation of memory from image to clusters of neurones, and even mapping entire animals neuronal networks atm: personally I think its best to stick with the real world examples and only refer to tangential speculation when it relates to an actual physical entity. The danger is if you speculate too much on how something that is speculative behaves and why it does so, it becomes a house of cards. Although I do admit there is a dearth of good science in this area atm, I still think the whole P-zombie thing is a bit of a trying to find the light switch in the dark thing atm. They can be extremely useful in thought experiments and arguments, but I tend to be wary of any conclusions based on them.

The qualia (or the issue of perception quanta) issue is interesting because the philosophers are often not just referring to speculative entities (well with the exception of androids and AIs), but constantly refer to biological studies to suggest which areas are most likely to have success. Hence the demise in popularity of dualism and the rise of forms of materialism.

[surreptitious57]

It's become quite noticable over the past 10 years or so in the UK that the majority of the lowest paid jobs have been taken by migrant workers who are willing to accept minimum wage for shit jobs which the natives are unwilling to do. I am fairly sure that this has also enabled employers to keep the pay for these jobs significantly lower than it would need to be if not for migrant workers. I almost said "artificially low" but that would imply there was something wrong with the way we allow migrant workers to live and work here. Capitalism requires cheap labour, and the international movement of labour produces that in spades. An unfortunate side-effect is that people are then left to choose between very low wages or no job at all. Either option gives them a very poor standard of living and there are few oportunities to improve your skill-set in that situation. Drudgery for no recompense isn't much of a choice. The migrant worker will stereotypically have a much greater financial incentive to work for low pay (a better choice), and they surely can't be faulted for taking the opportunity when they see it.

One of the reasons as to why migrants take these jobs may have to do with the fact that in their country the standard of living is lower, so taking employment at national minimum wage is actually a step up for them, since the same job at home would not pay as much. This incentive doesn't apply to the domestic unemployed, which is why they may not take them.

[surreptitious57]

Whereas if most people didn't believe in free will, I suspect the result of that would be, people creating a society as a system with more equal results, more equal output regardless of an individuals input - rather than judging unequal outputs to be evidence of an individual's worthiness.

I suspect if most people didn't believe in free will, the society would view results as predetermined and fated; with unequal outcomes the result of the inexorable hand of fate, the emphasis would be on accepting those results, not changing them.

There is no such thing as free will. There are legal, physical, psychological and moral restrictions on what one can do.

[surreptitious57]

The best thing we can learn is what is right and what is wrong...

You can't "learn" right and wrong. If we could there would be a logical ethical system that told us what to do in every moral situation. We feel what is right and wrong. That's why reason only goes so far.

Absolutely. Morality is subjective. It is emotional rather than logical.

[surreptitious57]

The best thing we can learn is what is right and what is wrong...

You can't "learn" right and wrong. If we could there would be a logical ethical system that told us what to do in every moral situation. We feel what is right and wrong. That's why reason only goes so far.

Yes you can learn right and wrong, what's more there has been recent evidence that the taboo on murder in human cultures appears to be partly instinctive. Not only can you learn stuff, it can after a long enough time become part of the human genome. How do you think instincts evolve, and how do you think a need for religion, or a propensity to feel religious, has become a part of our genetic make up?

You can't learn right and wrong if you are a moron or a vegetable, otherwise you spend your entire life exposed to lessons of right and wrong, one hopes from which you will learn which is which.

Two people can hold contradictory views on a moral issue. By your logic, one is definitely right and one is definitely wrong,

[Aos Si]

The best thing we can learn is what is right and what is wrong...

You can't "learn" right and wrong. If we could there would be a logical ethical system that told us what to do in every moral situation. We feel what is right and wrong. That's why reason only goes so far.

Yes you can learn right and wrong, what's more there has been recent evidence that the taboo on murder in human cultures appears to be partly instinctive. Not only can you learn stuff, it can after a long enough time become part of the human genome. How do you think instincts evolve, and how do you think a need for religion, or a propensity to feel religious, has become a part of our genetic make up?

You can't learn right and wrong if you are a moron or a vegetable, otherwise you spend your entire life exposed to lessons of right and wrong, one hopes from which you will learn which is which.

Two people can hold contradictory views on a moral issue. By your logic, one is definitely right and one is definitely wrong,

Who said they couldn't?

And no that was not what I was saying at all, ethics is about determining what is right and what is wrong, I made no colour judgement, often its shades of grey, so I'm not sure what you are getting at?

I was talking about right from wrong in the sense of how people develop subjectively and function in society (what one person sees as right may well be wrong to another though) I never meant it to be a blanket term for all moral conduct? I've seen plenty of people on this forum labouring under obvious cases of cognitive dissonance already, so one person can hold completely contrary views quite easily and they will even be completely unable to reason that they are a contradiction.

For example few people would argue murder is wrong, however the classic if you could go back in time would you murder Hitler question shows that it's almost always not completely black and white. Also the killing one person to save ten questions etc.

You can learn right and wrong, you can't learn through applying absolutes though, is perhaps how I should of said it. Hence why religion is morally difficult to justify given the sophistication of modern societies and the changing social landscape.

[Aos Si]

The best thing we can learn is what is right and what is wrong...

You can't "learn" right and wrong. If we could there would be a logical ethical system that told us what to do in every moral situation. We feel what is right and wrong. That's why reason only goes so far.

Absolutely. Morality is subjective. It is emotional rather than logical.

I agree for the most part it appeals to a fiction, that anything can be morally absolute.

[Warren Dew]

Although I do admit there is a dearth of good science in this area atm, I still think the whole P-zombie thing is a bit of a trying to find the light switch in the dark thing atm. They can be extremely useful in thought experiments and arguments, but I tend to be wary of any conclusions based on them.

Really I was asking Coito, since he brought up the subject of consciousness, on which science has little to say.

[DRSB]

The best thing we can learn is what is right and what is wrong...

You can't "learn" right and wrong. If we could there would be a logical ethical system that told us what to do in every moral situation. We feel what is right and wrong. That's why reason only goes so far.

Yes you can learn right and wrong, what's more there has been recent evidence that the taboo on murder in human cultures appears to be partly instinctive. Not only can you learn stuff, it can after a long enough time become part of the human genome. How do you think instincts evolve, and how do you think a need for religion, or a propensity to feel religious, has become a part of our genetic make up?

You can't learn right and wrong if you are a moron or a vegetable, otherwise you spend your entire life exposed to lessons of right and wrong, one hopes from which you will learn which is which.

Two people can hold contradictory views on a moral issue. By your logic, one is definitely right and one is definitely wrong,

"There are trivial truths and the great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true."
Niels Bohr

[hiyymer]

Yes you can learn right and wrong, what's more there has been recent evidence that the taboo on murder in human cultures appears to be partly instinctive. Not only can you learn stuff, it can after a long enough time become part of the human genome. How do you think instincts evolve, and how do you think a need for religion, or a propensity to feel religious, has become a part of our genetic make up?

Evolution happens by changes in the genetic form due to the natural selection of random mutations. What could that possibly have to do with "learning".

In social mammals learned behaviors can be "culturally" communicated geographically and across time. Chimp troops in one area use a tool for a certain task, while chimp troops in another area, isolated from the first, do not although it would certainly benefit their survival. But there is no evidence or known mechanism by which the chimps in the one area have become genetically different than those in the other due to that particular behavior. Some ability of the chimps brain to form neuronal patterns of a rational causal nature may certainly have had something to do with the acquisition of the behavior in the first place, but there is no evidence that the acquisition of the tool was directed by the rational consciousness of the chimp as an uncaused cause.