Re: What is CTD?
by BadgerJelly on March 13th, 2018, 4:53 am
I think I get the idea. Brains are moral, but consciousness is not? I can see how this may snare you
I still say if this is proven wrong you're morally culpable, and if not it makes no difference either way. I err on the side of caution and assume my thoughts have an impact, meaning my conscious thoughts have an impact - to be clear, meaning I assume that I do make choices rather than being a mute passenger of life.
I can break this down again into simple form (I've done so before several times for RJG):
Let us make two possible assumptions, call it an appeal to our possible ignorance:
1) Everything is predetermined and nothing we think effects anything.
2) Not everything is rigidly determined, but it playout within certain limitations. What I think and choose makes a potential difference to what will happen.
Now we have another two positions:
A) I believe (1) rigidly and in no way think my choices are my own or that I have any control. If I am correct then it obviously doesn't matter, if (1) is true then there is no consequence following this belief. If however (2) is true I affect my future choices and arm myself with the presumption that what I do or think makes no difference and if the time comes in the future where a choice will point to toward something good or something bad I will mutely just go along with anything because I don't believe I am more than a passenger.
B) I believe (2) rigidly, but in reality (1) is true so it doesn't matter at all what I do or think. My thoughts and belief in having any agency at all are merely a consequence of the predetermined universe - there is no consequence to my thought here, there is essentially no difference to me believing (1) or not. If however (2) is true and I possess some element of agency in the universe, that my thoguhts can impact upon future events AND I am thinking they do then I put my agency to use and direct myself toward the good and away from the bad, and no doubt make mistakes and learn and strive toward something better.
The difference here is stark. If you adhere to rigid and unerring belief in (1) you're not even trying because you don't believe "trying" matters.
If you don't understand this let me break it into more simplier terms.
Position (1) means there is no responsibility for our conscious awareness. Position (2) means there is some responsibility carried by our conscious awareness.
Belief in either position makes no difference if (1) is true. Belief in each position has consequences if (2) is true.
To solidify the difference more clearly. You have the option of choosing two guns and placing it against your temple and pulling the trigger. One gun is loaded and the other is not. If you deny the existence of the empty gun you blindly march into oblivion, whilst if you accept the existence of both guns you can choose to end your life or continue it.
In reality it may be that both guns are loaded, or that we don't know which one is loaded. What is preposterous to me is to deny the existence of one in order not to be faced with "having to make a choice," because you don't believe that you have a choice.
You can of cause attempt to prove that the universe is predetermined and fatalistic, but you cannot prove this. Therefore I have proven the idiocy of adhering to the idea that what you think now have no causal effect on future events when you cannot definitively say one way or the other, but I can show quite clearly, as above, that when it comes down to ethics there is only one choice, that is to accept your choice means something rather than nothing.
The problem of the human condition is not knowing how much an impact our actions have or what leads to a better future. Accepting responsibility is the first step toward not welcoming destruction in with open arms, because even though your influence in the world may be small it may just be enough to avoid destruction.
Mitch calls is "bad" and I call it "morally abhorrent." On the surface it looks mundane, and I am assuming (in all honesty) that you fail to my point clearly enough or that I'm simply doing a terrible job of it - or I could possibly be wrong, in which case you're doing a terrible job of defending it.
Either way, we're all failing here to some degree. I can accept that and keep on keeping on because I believe it is still currently worthwhile, but tomorrow I may think I am talking to myself. Sometimes people are so far apart in their thinking that any common ground seems so unlikely as to appear an impossibility. And until either RJG or I die, or leave the forum, I'll continue to the bitter end.
Mitch -
"bad" or "abhorrent" are just different degree fo disliking something. They are judgements. Ignorant if I am to be kind and morally abhorrent if they understand the chance they are wrong yet choose not to choose this option.
I just meant the "get out of jail free card" as being an appeal and acceptance of personal limitation with the added bonus of assuming there is an overlying moral meaning to the universe and that we're a blip, albeit a blip that matters.
Basically I am saying it is an appeal to reason "beyond reason", which we obviously cannot conceive of. Much like physicists don't tend to mull over what happens outside of time and space, because such ideas are so beyond human contemplation that to frame them rationally is to bring them into the confines of that which they are unknowable - and there is the point at which people struggle with Kant's "noumenon" and misinterpret it as an appeal to something "other", not realizing that the very term "noumenon" is its own refutation.
Anyway, nevermind! It appears Dfly thinks RJG has stumbled upon some "ultimate truth."