exploration of what good and evil is

[Kate]

exploration of what good and evil is ...

[Kate]

Firstly this discussion focuses on Western issues concerning this topic  (as i personally know very little about eastern views however im sure considerable overlap exists)

I would love those who read this be gracious (and tolerant) on others views of good and evil, for the following reasons.

What is good to some is not necessary good to others. For example: People should be polite to each other and such politeness entails x y and z. and x y and z are good.  But if x y and z are adopted, it may remove the possibility of a b c being done in their place, things someone else thinks is better, so a conflict of good becomes logistic (not just academic - as if you do good 1 you cant also do good 2).

Usually when I watch the news most politicians debate how a "better" good is being jeopardized by a "short sighted" good or "misguided good" the opposition party is trumpeting.

This i think is the cause of a lot of frustration in our society, for the scope of releavence of different "types" of good vary from person to person, intention to intention, belief landscape to belief landscape

for example : Free speech / expression => Good

vs

prevention of slander or unproven accusations

(eg your a witch ! Your sick pervert ! A dingo didn't kill your baby - you did You sick bitch ! murderer !).

Straight away their is a conflict of good (assuming all have typical values and actually want to express themselves freely and in the same breath dont want the world believing you killed your own baby and ostracizing you )  A lot of what I think is the source of this dilemma comes from the English language itself and not necessary people

Ownership and identity are very key concepts in western culture, when mixed its a receipy for disagreements quickly

This person is "IS a witch" => identity being assigned to a person who is not the speaker (ie English allows others to attribute identity to others, not just oneself).

Ownership also => "You are a jerk" or "you are sick" or "you are a liar". The speaker is assuming a position of assumed awareness (objectivity), and authority assigning these traits to another generically.

Removing implied identity ownership makes it become more workable, gives it more options for the other to have a sensible conversation with

"To me your a jerk" "To me your sick"

watering scope down makes it even more palatable => "To me your a jerk when it comes to how you behave when we play sport"

watering the trait down can result in the following - an expression of what they felt

"To me I felt you were a jerk when it comes to how you behave when we play sport"

Inspecting feelings usually results in a value landscape appearing

"To me I felt you were a jerk (to what I value) when it comes to how you behave when we play sport"

Values usually are a sense of a persons private sense of good

"To me I felt you were a frustration to my sense of good when it comes to how you behave when we play sport"

(Ie i wanna play too and your so good at the game I never get time to have the ball you always have it, and I can't get better without practice of the ball being in my possession, all the while your just getting better having more practice and you give me crap about how useless I am, its not fun .. its just empowering your ego trip and well your a jerk about it .. my sense of good I visualized for this time is ruined - due to your behavior and experiencing it is not a fun feeling I feel disemboweled)

Assuming others share the same landscape of good is something many run with, and can lead to very ugly scenarios. Countries thinking "good is when I own this land" and another country thinking "our good is you don't".. being the most obvious.

English did this almost by indirect design. English primarily is a sublime trading language, its highly useful for drafting conditions of transactions and more importantly (to the crown) WHO is authoritarian. Who is the one that chooses if something is true or not. Attributing ownership and responsibility, accountability etc is what English does best. If your a colonial power wanting to exploit spices etc from a dozen islands and have it regularly shipped back to the mother land - forcing all to know English and getting job descriptions / rules / laws contracts etc drafted in them gives an enormous amount of power and flexibility to whoever "owns" (the right to assume a mantle of authority).

This is not something core to humanity however in some cultures didn't have a word for "I" ... for example I think some native American Indian cultures didn't.

Now this doesn't resolve to highlight ALL issues concerning what good and evil are .. what I have explained JUST touches on GOOD alone.
still good to one can be an "evil" influence on another good (as it is actively existing in the place of another good). and i think is useful to just hint at the fact that "what is evil" or "not good" or "bad" COULD be a good to another.

Also I wanted to highlight the trap of how easy it is in english to assign ownership to another and a mantle of authority so easily, and how hard it is to over come it

"You murderer" takes 1 second to say ... undoing that so no rumor ramifications plague your life .. could take a lifetime, could be impossible.

English language and our culture automatically bias' power to sentences assuming objectiveness
(undoing this or getting them to justify it properly isn't so easy .. just look at politicians bickering)

[Jude]

First of all, I don't think it's very logical to describe human beings as good, evil, neutral, innocent, et cetera.  It's an attempt at boiling down the moral state of a person to one word.  Everyone is more complicated than that.  So are our actions, that which motivates them, and the consequences of our actions.  Even if labeling a person was possible, you would need to know the totality of their existence and then you would have to weigh each portion against each other to come up with a final verdict.  It's clearly impossible in the case of anyone but the most egregious of offenders and saintly of heroes.  Focusing on each individual "component" of an action gives you different moral systems:

- If the consequences of an action are what's important to you, then you're a teleologist.
The problem here is, if you decide whether an action is good or bad based on the outcome, then people are going to do bad things all the time simply because we cannot know the consequences of our actions in advance.  That seems like a rather fickle basis for a moral system.  Plus, if we're acting based on intended consequences, what's really happening here is fixation on what we intend to do, so Utilitarianism is not only fickle, but more than likely completely impossible even for the most devout of follower and self-contradictory.

- If what a person intends to do is what's important to you, then you believe in <I don't know what this is called>.
Focusing on intent alone basically absolves people of the consequences of their actions.  This puts emphasis on sincerity even if that sincerity is backed by delusion or insanity.  Furthermore, I'm not sure if anyone exists in the world who doesn't believe that what they're doing is for the best, even Hitler thought his actions were going to bring humanity into the future by promoting the growth and prosperity of the master race.  It isn't enough to have good intentions.

- If what a person actually does is what's important to you, then you are a deontologist.
Those who believe in the ten commandments fit in this group.  I personally have a problem with deontology because although other moral systems can be expressed in terms of deontological moral systems, you arrive back at the basic fundamental problem:  how do you arrive at these rules which form the basis of morality?  Ultimately accepting that there are moral rules to follow and duties that we all have is well and good, but buying into this doesn't help you actually find those ethical rules.

- If you're spiritual you can always buy into the philosophy of divine command, but "this is right because god says it is" isn't exactly ironclad either.

- The golden rule is crap because it's completely biased to your own expectations of how things should be.  For example, you might want someone to kill you because you're depressed and think life isn't worth living, that doesn't make it OK for you to kill other people.

These philosophical bents (and many others including character ethics) try and solve the problem, but none really succeed whatsoever.  What's interesting is that focusing on the components of action does lend some interesting (albeit imperfect) results.  It makes sense that you have to consider the consequences of what you do, but at the same time some acts almost always lead to negative consequences (such as rape) and some failures can be excused on the basis of good intent.

The problem is that all of my scattered thoughts do not in any way lead to a clearing of confusion that results in the emergence of a moral system.  There's faults in all of those kinds of thinking, so how can you ever know how to act?  The answer is pretty simple:  you can't.  It's an approximated process, and in some situations you're set up to fail without ever even making a choice.  Life is full of unsolvable moral quandaries, and to me the fact that there is not a solution to every problem speaks volumes on the nature of morals.  Morality is not a hardcoded, mathematical, or scientific system.  It's a touch-and-go mixture of ideas, doing the best you can, and with a focus on remaining practical -- which is pretty much the opposite of philosophy.

One thing I will contend is that it doesn't make sense to make moral decisions about beings and/or things that are currently not capable of making moral decisions and never will be (which isn't to say a being's future capacity for moral choices gives them present moral worth -- that's a quandary I haven't resolved myself, especially in the context of abortion).  This explains why it's OK to chop down a tree, but not a stab a person (both are a form of life, so life doesn't really make a very good basis for argument there).

For me, the single most important thought is that even if there isn't an absolute ethical code build into the nature of reality, treating some principles as right or wrong make the world a better place (in terms of suffering and joy) overall, thus there's obviously some worth to social contract concepts.  This is a mixture of Hobbes and Utilitarianism really, and at the most basic level it rings true.  I also like a lot of what John Stuart Mill had to say.

[Tick]

Not sure I can really match both of your posts in value but I will throw my two cents in.


Defining good and evil, is as forementioned, impossible on a global scale since different groups value the actions in different ways. For many theists what God says is good, is good. Simply put that is a straight forward system with a moderate degree of logic behind it in the greater factor of life. That being said, I am going to put down a debate prompt from a few years ago in Lincoln Douglas debate.

Is it Just to kill one innocent person to save lives or more innocent people.

I believe this prompt is a prime example of what we are discussing. A theist friend of mine and me discussed this on a personal basis once and his belief was that it was unjust since you would be directly responsible for the death of the one in order to save the many, which was a sin. Where as the death of the many was a issue of circumstance that even if you chose to save them it was a sin to commit such an act in the process. Sin being an act of evil obviously. As Jade said, this would be an example of deontology, a word I had forgotten till said earlier.

His reasons for such are obvious, being a catholic murder is nice and simply wrong. When you attempt to single out a responsible party in both cases the person who chose not to help might be considered evil but at the same time, they were trying to follow their god's set values.

But when you take a greater being out of the equation, to define good I think it should be taken as a step by step scenario. First of all, what is the goal? Without a higher being, and afterlife to take into account what is the greatest goal of the human race? Personally i believe it is happiness and I am often called a hedonist for my views. But from my obwervations, whether they are accurate or not I cannot promise yet, but even environmental workers and those who donate a lot are after happiness in one form or another. They want the world to live longer and better because they love mother nature and want her beauty to last indefinitly(this is my personal experience with the group, might not pertain to all). Similarly those who donate large sums of money to the happiness of others. In both cases the acts tend to make the person in question happier or more comfortable with themselves.

Even religion had such forms of desire in them. For instance those who wish to save others from hell obviously want others and themselves to enjoy themselves eternally in afterlife. It might not be the foremost reason that they do it, but it is at the basis of the idea of someone going to paradise. Even the act of rape, as sick as it can be, is aimed at some sort of happiness and pleasure. Maybe not for the victim. Mind you I am against rape except for writing purposes or rping assuming that the people involved enjoy it, but half the time i think if the rape victims I know in real life and it makes me sad. Does that make their roleplaying evil? Not entirely since it wasn't the intention but it was their intention to enjoy themselves.

I guess my point can be summed up by a single line from Aristotle, "Every Qrt and every inquiry and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some form of good." First page of Nicomachean Ethics.

All statements made were not meant to offend any group or person and if you disagree with anything i said, feel free to prove me wrong.

[Kate]

i like how your both approaching this - this already has an aura of maturity for a subject that can easily move into tangents of passionate schools of thought being loud.

Although none have really gone down this path just one thing that i would like to state right now,
is many beleive in god - but not necessarily the views of a particular religion. Theism implies belief that god exists (this can range from
fundamental interpreations of sacred texts or priests or clerics or  as somethign that is unknowable at least in the sense that they dont have faith in bibles or anothers take on the thoughts and values of such a being, and that it may be unlikely to be understandable at all).

"What god says" is not agreed to for those who beleive in god some can beleive it exists but not something that takes the time to really intervene MORE than just existing (or the act of creation) or that its presence alone is intervention
- the creation of reality which we live within (ie we are not separate to it) IS god...

In a way Tick i think your right  - and jude also actually -

A raper who ADORES raping - is serving a "good" within their own intentions.
"Getting off is good" and better than not doing so. Him being locked away its "good" for those who otherwise would be
"victums" (which there are schools of thought on if such thing is true spiritually), or could easily be debated as good for the society.. but not good for the intentions of the raper. IE conflict of good - 1 good can exist in a space where other goods want to fill and they cant share the space because the action of one ruin the possibility of the other.

One thing i see tangential is that "god" exists in this thread.

Before we continue do we want the existence of a "God" or a "overarching / fundamental" sense of good being relevant in this ?

[Shjade]

@Tick: I'm not sure what you're getting at in the latter half of your post. You say good, or perhaps the goal of good acts (a little unsure which you meant?), is happiness.

Happiness for whom?

If anything done to generate happiness is good, then essentially everything that people do is good. I kill your father because I'll be happier knowing he can't tell the police I've been embezzling from his company. You kill me for the cathartic feelings that come from avenging your father. Is one of those acts more "good" than the other? We both were happy with our respective outcomes, so they must both have been good acts, right?

I could go out on a limb and suggest you meant something like "good is what brings the greatest happiness to the the greatest number of people," or something to that effect, which would give it a little more definition, but doesn't really resolve my problem above or situations similar to it.

This won't be very helpful of me, I know, but all I can think of good and evil is that they're socially-constructed concepts: they're relative and determined more by community values than any foundational truths. Good is what the people around you say is good, and the same for evil - unless, of course, you disagree with them, in which case what is good for you is evil for them, what is evil for them is good for you, a clash in personal values. Ultimately that's all it is: personal values.

[Tick]

I keep forgetting these terms.

I am not exaclty referring to utilitarianism but close. I more refer to the net good, or happiness brought.

But the last half of my earlier post was actually trying to point out that all personal values, and moral beliefs are at their base, aimed at happiness. For the user or others. Morals themselves make people comfortable and in a sense happier because they know what is acceptable and what isn't. Public morals also ensure happiness within your society. The morals of a group are typically aimed at the public good. For instance the Aztecs sacrificed hundreds to keep everyone as a whole alive. Or I think it was the Aztecs... Hopefully someone can confirm which native American culture sacrificed humans to keep the sun rising each day.

I agree that morals are personal and subjective, but my point is that happiness is the basis of all morals.

At least that is my opinion.

[Kate]

A lot of confusion happens between those who beleive

that the current life is "all there is", and those believing "there is life then the after life"
and those believe in reincarnation (who may also beleive in an after life).

I personally beleive in reincarnation not necessarily from a karmatic perspective imposed but more a choice thing.

Souls on this earth could have issues they need to manage ... perhaps a victim of rape as a soul got frustrated not understanding rapers and came back as one... or that a raper themselves to resolve their own issues with another soul came back as a victum to the soul they victumised before hand - not for GODs choice of balance and karma pay off stuff but an agreement between individual souls or a choice one soul made on their own.

Some could have simply arrived to "Experience material incarnation to know whats about" as tey were confused with other souls displaying emotional states they didnt relate to and wanted to relate. In these cases (if true - and remember ... I am not TRYING to prove re-incarnation is true but there is some evidence to imply it could be a possibility - when 5 yo speaking in long dead languages they were never exposed to fluently etc or go to a new place they have never seen before and explain they know this and that and can point out details they couldn't have known otherwise ... again "if that is true or real" from others point of view i am not going to debate - just that evidence exists for some who wish to look for it - and likely beleive it likely beforehand. ).

"Is rape bad" in these instances ? Should society prevent it happening because they have "more of an idea of why the soul is here" than the soul does ? Or because it causes too much grief. There is an argument that some who beleive in reincarnation debate that even if souls wanted-to resolve or experience something like this for abstract reasons - by eliminating it on earth - doesnt mean the souls CANT do it elsewhere or in a different reality.

The existence of souls vs "just people" driving intentions or objectives does complicate what "good" can be concerning human behavior.

[Jude]

When you bring the supernatural into the equation it becomes impossible to rationally decipher what is and isn't wrong given that it's seemingly impossible to verify whether the supernatural does or does not exist (some would say this is because it does not, but I don't think that's relevant to this discussion).  The soul is a concept with deep, far-reaching implications.  If human beings have souls and souls are eternal, it would greatly reduce the horribleness of murder, for example.

Ethical thinking, to be at all pragmatic for personal application and societal use, has to be an extension of that which we know is real, true, and present.  Without that, you have no basis for discussion, exchange, and mediation of differing morals.  That's why the divine command theory is so utterly nullifying of any other philosophical concepts:  it leaves no room for debate, discussion, or consideration.  It just is.

So I really don't think it's at all practical to speak of the soul, as people can have value with or without it, and all souls do is muddy the water by adding in spirituality to what can be a purely philosophical system.  Inability to consider ethics divorced from religion is one of the greatest problems facing the world today.

[mystictiger]

Ethical thinking divorced from religious views are actually quite dificult to achieve in practice. The standard example of this are human rights. Agreement with various human rights norms is generally a Good Thing (tm). But where do these norms come from, and are they universal?

The only metatheoretical answer that makes sense is that they are Natural Law. Which means that they are mandated by God / The Force / Something. Otherwise, they're all entirely relativist and transitional.

What is so self evident about the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit to happiness without this Natural Law filter? A human being is only unique and special and of inherent dignity if you either:
a) declare it to be so arbitarily
b) trace it back to a non-human source of authority

I am of the opinion that 'good' means 'for the benefit of society' for the most part. But what do you do when your society is twisted? I think of the people that resisted unjust laws or nasty regimes.

[Kate]

'for the benefit of society' or for the "good of most people" is I think were we are as a culture get really entangled.

We have the ability to impose any good on anyone - not absolutely but generally we can. Culturally we do it horribly.

Politicians debate which is a "better good" compared to their counterparts constantly. Ethics of the value of human life for example. I do beleive this is mainly historical and cultural, and that mainly comes down to charismatic individuals or politically influential themes in the past.

EG: Ethical stances on Euthanasia.

Ethically massive human right abuses can be justified. Which is good for human's rights, and bad also in the same breath. Eg for euthanasia, forcing a family to keep a member alive even though they are in pain / don't want to live, effectively brain dead has an irreversible disease etc. Causes immense logistic, financial and emotional stress on the family, and could be debated as an unecessary and cruel burden the society has placed on a family for values "human rights not to have a right" which don't make sense to the family.

Valuing the quantity of life over the quality of life when a choice can or has to be made causes massive misery and inefficiency, where "good" is abstract and more an ideal that doesnt give happiness, and "bad" things are more real.

Valuing the quality of life over the quantity of life when a choice can or has to be made can also lead to human right abuses => Eg lets wipe out all of X (ie disabled and dying ) such that the rest who are the majority can have quality of life .. but wait think that is unethical ? Not really because if you eliminate the sickly constantly especially before they breed what is left after generations is a healthy hardy population where the bureden of health is less ... better quality for all ... for many generations to come.. horrible for several generations maybe but the future will be thankful for us...

[mystictiger]

Euthanasia is not as clear cut as you suggest. Merely because you think that euthanasia is acceptable does not mean that it is ethically simple.

House summed up my view on euthanasia really very simply - you can live with dignity but you can't die with it.

An argument based on logistics or finance isn't an ethical one, it's an economic one.

An argument based on the obligation to the family is irrelevent; the only view that matters is the view of the patient.

You also work on the assumption that:
-That a right to life includes a right to die at a time and in a manner of one's chosing.
-Being free from pain > being alive.

These are not self-evident truths, and they are arbitrary judgments that you've made as to value.

[Kate]

I never said it was simple, i did said "better for all" I think its where we are as a culture get really entangled.

[Cooper5362]

Good an evil are actual real qualities in the universe just like light and dark.  While you will never find either in their pure form, because they are real, it is easy to identify tendencies.  For example, just as the sun would be construed as light and the voids in space as dark, people can get to know a rapist and know they are evil as opposed to someone that promotes self control and know they are good.  This is because there are actual measurable qualities to the two forces of choice.  Evil will always look to control others without ever checking itself, while good is in touch with reality and seeks self control without looking to control others.  No one is truly able to follow either of these forces cleanly in their intent or actual action, so the question of utility is pointless in determining the scale to which people are choosing one direction over the other.  Good actually rests on truth and order, or reality in the end.  Evil hangs on ignorance fear and is an illusion creating chaos.  Choosing to gather knowledge and act out of respect is the good path while reacting to ignorance with fear is the evil path of choice.  As it turns out, the universe has an infinite set of knowledge to gather while people can only hold a finite amount of it.  Given this fact, there is always a certain level of ignorance and fear in every person.  Religious writers have recognized this condition and call it "the fallen state" while others have tried to produce labels more neutral to emotion like "accuracy" or  the "Heisenberg uncertainty principle".  The bottom line is it takes infinite knowledge to always be good and no one gets to do that as a human because of knowledge limits.  Some people want to shy away from good and evil at that point and cling to cultural norms as the "truth" when, in fact, they are guaranteed to not be the truth.  A fine example is murder in the U.S.  Just because someone killed someone else, does not constitute an actual move for or against the universe.  It is impossible to know if a murderer is more evil or good without understanding the action in depth.  However, the U.S. errs in stating it is always a crime and even makes the jaw dropping mistake of saying it's the highest crime.  The fact of the matter is, rape and torture are the highest crimes because you know, by definition, that someone is controlling someone else to the victim's detriment and the criminal's self indulgence.  Even this area can get confusing though, because pain can be a fair and good exchange as the BDSM community will explain.  So it becomes important again to understand the choices made to be able to categorize how much good and evil is in an act, and then deal with the fact that both are always present.  In the end a fair definition of the two choice forces are this:

Good is the choice to stay true to the universe.
Evil is the choice to make the universe go away.

It is always important to remember that even the more skilled chooser of evil will think it is doing a good thing because their inaccuracy is so high, they can easily convince themselves they are being true to the universe because they are just satiating themselves.  It is the universe that determines the actual result of the choices made and doles out the consequences that determine the real level of good or evil in an action.  The universe responds to good with order and evil with chaos.  Disease will spread wildly in evil choice making while it is less rampant in good choice making.  Again though, you can't find a purely clean spot any more than you can find a completely infected spot.  We don't have to go to the extremes to recognize the two forces though.  We cannot find a spot in the universe completely packed with light, nor can we find a pure vacuum with no energy in it at all, but we still understand light and dark are real, just never pure.

[Shjade]

Good an evil are actual real qualities in the universe just like light and dark.

If that is true, how do you measure them?

Good is the choice to stay true to the universe.
Evil is the choice to make the universe go away.

What exactly makes absence evil and presence good? For that matter, according to whom is this true? Is this just your opinion or has someone proven this to be the case? If it is only your opinion, how does this assertion reconcile with the previous statement that they are real qualities (meaning something that can be measured and assessed and, as such, not subjective)?

You make a lot of statements about the way things are according to you. I'm not seeing much "why" to support them. Why is my choice to steal money out of the hat of a homeless man good (staying true to the universe: survival of the fittest, looking out for myself, doing what is necessary to continue existing as myself in this rendition of reality - define it how you will) while the contrasting decision to simply ignore the man (willing him - and the universe, by extension, to go away), in which case he gets to keep his cash, evil? If that's not what you meant by those descriptions I should hope that example at least succeeds in pointing out how grossly ambiguous "stay true to the universe" and "make the universe go away" are as summaries of motivation and action. You could bend those to mean just about anything.

[SuperHans]

Like people have said, it's difficult to measure evil in purely human terms. Evil would require an individual to be so far beyond the point of redemption and so devoid of goodness that there is no other term applies, and I don't think that's possible.

To me, evil is tied down in the concept of nature verses nurture. In many who commit acts we would deem to be evil, we find evidence of nurture in their behaviour. Abusive dad, difficult childhood, alienation at school and so on. While other more adjusted children come out of the nightmare with only minor pysychological scars, it still provides an accountability for later behaviour. But if the 'nature' argument is true and people really do perform evil because they were born that way, then that makes the argument for evil more compelling. Either the individual is truly evil, or there is a force of evil in the universe that caused that cold misanthropy, or the brain defect that removed emotion and empathy.

This is touching on Stephen King territory here, but whyen you get a place where evil has taken place, you seem to get an 'imprint' left on it. I've had friends who visited Auschwitz-Birkenau who could just feel the sense of loss there; obviously, they knew its history and were being shown the various horrific implements and conditions, but there was something more. People experience it in battlefields and places of massacre also such as Darfur. The evil done there seems to taint the place-not in any overtly supernatural way such as violent ghosts, but subtly.

I think there is a force of good also. It's not necessarily tied in to religious or karmic concepts, but at times, like evil, it's possible to feel it. It can't be measured in scientific terms and doesn't have a physiological trace, but many think it circulates.

[Jude]

I completely disagree on that charge because what you're saying is supernatural.  There's no reason to believe that visiting a concentration camp led to a sense of palpable evil and that whatever you felt wasn't simply an emotional reaction to the history you're aware of.  Even being ignorant of the history there and in the presence of people who are not would give an individual the sense that something is off about the area in how other people act.

If you wanted to actually test that hypothesis you'd have to have a person who is completely ignorant to the atrocities of the holocaust, send them there to spend a little time, remove all visual cues that hint at what happened or negativity in general, then see if that "sense" that you believe is there rises to the top.  Naturally, nothing even close to that has ever been done.

[Cooper5362]

Shjade, evil and good are measured by the amount of entropy.  It is in fact very scientific.  Up chaos and watch suffering increase.  Reduce chaos and watch peace ensue.  It really is just that simple.

[Cooper5362]

SuperHans, nothing is completely good or evil in this universe.  In fact, I've noticed only the most daft cannot pick up on the trends.  Saying the Holocaust was more good than evil would give me hard evidence to immediately dismiss that person as either trolling or completely out of touch with reality, and if they decided to act on that opinion, would be an immediate justification to exterminate them before another Holocaust occurred.

[mystictiger]

Shjade, evil and good are measured by the amount of entropy.  It is in fact very scientific.  Up chaos and watch suffering increase.  Reduce chaos and watch peace ensue.  It really is just that simple.

Given that entropy is increasing in the universe, and that the universe will ultimately die of heath-death, then the universe is evil.

[Cooper5362]

If the universe is truly finite as it appears, then yes, it is evil.

[SuperHans]

I completely disagree on that charge because what you're saying is supernatural.  There's no reason to believe that visiting a concentration camp led to a sense of palpable evil and that whatever you felt wasn't simply an emotional reaction to the history you're aware of.  Even being ignorant of the history there and in the presence of people who are not would give an individual the sense that something is off about the area in how other people act.

If you wanted to actually test that hypothesis you'd have to have a person who is completely ignorant to the atrocities of the holocaust, send them there to spend a little time, remove all visual cues that hint at what happened or negativity in general, then see if that "sense" that you believe is there rises to the top.  Naturally, nothing even close to that has ever been done.

Of course there's a degree of psychological conditioning at concentration camps. I think the influence is less prevalent in less-marked sites, like battlegrounds. It's annoying, because before posting back I dragged up the internet to at least find some anecdotal evidence I used to read about in magazines as a kid about people experiencing this, but found nothing. And obviously, it's hearsay, so it wouldn't make too much difference. When the scientific explanation isn't clear, humans just revert to their beliefs.

As for your second point, I'm game if you are! But seriously, I know it would be impossible to test, even if the two of us had infinite time on our hands. Besides, I'm not trying to make explosions in the study of parapsychology, I'm just a guy on a message board.

[SuperHans]

SuperHans, nothing is completely good or evil in this universe.

I'm not talking about absolutes. I'm talking about forces at work. True, if a person is born a psychopath, then evil is an apt term, but since nature verses nature is still an active debate, it's impossible to talk in absolutes. Black and white morality is rarely justified.
 

In fact, I've noticed only the most daft cannot pick up on the trends.

I'm sensing a personal affront. Could have misread the signs.

[Cooper5362]

SuperHans, there is no personal affront.  I was thinking of the president of Iran who maintains the Nazis never tried to exterminate Jews.  You have not shown any daftness to me at all, so I apologize for poor wording giving you that impression.  Your earlier post where you mentioned labeling someone as good or evil prompted my first remark about no absolute.  I don't think it would always invalidate a label though, and I get the feeling you would probably agree.  If we call someone evil, it would be because they cause more harm than good.  If we called someone good, it would be because they caused more help than harm.  Obviously, both labels come with a degree of accuracy and we always run the risk of being inaccurate with a label.  Even when we know someone has done an act of evil (which will have some good in it), the degree to which they were true to evil may be weak and could lessen the severity of the damage done.  Torture has many degrees of evil to it.  Even though the torturer is expressing an evil act and demonstrating their evil, the degree to which they damage their victims determines just how evil the act proves them to be, and it may, or may not, be out weighed by the good they perform.

[SuperHans]

No problemo, just got a bit confused there!  :-)

The idea of impact of actions brings out another point-is a person's evil measurable by their actions and level of consequences they entail, or their character itself? There are people who are perfectly capable of empathy but utterly reject it, who care nothing for others and have no inclination to act positively. If their actions, through no desire of their own, pan out in a way that isn't completely terrible, then it doesn't detract from who they are. In my opinion, anyway.

[Shjade]

Shjade, evil and good are measured by the amount of entropy.  It is in fact very scientific.  Up chaos and watch suffering increase.  Reduce chaos and watch peace ensue.  It really is just that simple.

Ah, so your assumption is that peace is good and disorganization is evil. That makes your argument a little more sensible.

I disagree with it, of course.

If you increase chaos - randomness - you will likely see suffering, yes. You will also see prosperity. Perhaps not in equal measure, but it could create more prosperity than suffering; that sort of unpredictable outcome is the nature of chaos. Likewise, order can be oppressive and create suffering in measure equal or greater than chaos depending on the source of that order and those over whom it extends. Consider your own example of the Holocaust: an extremely orderly and organized endeavor with the specific goal of mass extermination. It was in many ways the antithesis of chaos, but you don't seem to be arguing it was a "good" event, so I'm puzzled by your statements about chaos being indicative of evil and its opposite thereby being good.

Or, to put it more simply: chaos is different from evil; order is different from good. They are unrelated qualities.

[Cooper5362]

Shjade, you give me an example of millions of bodies turned to death, a distinct increase in entropy, and then claim it to be order.  I'm sorry for being so rude, but that's just plain silly.  Good is order.  It is knowledge of reality and how to improve it.  Evil is disorder, it is lack of knowledge and the wild abandonment of pillaging order without putting anything back.  A rapist does not choose sand to take out its desires on.  It chooses a human being who has a sense of security, is not diseased, and is not infected by unwanted and bad genetics, and then does damage to those conditions of the human making them more chaotic for the pathetic gain of a few moments of sexual and anger pleasure.  If you don't understand true entropy and how it applies to reality, we are wasting each others' time.  Sorry, but that was just plain silly to say the holocaust added order.  Records, buildings and dead bodies rotting in filth do not have more order than live humans working on constructive projects.  If you can honestly show chaos is different from evil when it comes to decision making, by all means do, but be honest about it as well.  I hope you aren't just trolling me, because you really are wasting our time then.  Chaos also bleeds down to no more atoms and every scientist knows this.  To say good things come from chaos is a massive stretch that no one has ever seen.  To expect trees to fall into the form of a house is just plain silly as well.  Just because chaos can accidentally create order doesn't make it better than a decision maker ensuring the order happens.  We know by law of probability and order, you can't sit around waiting for food to drop into your lap, you have to go out and get it.  I'm interested in reality for this discussion.

[Jude]

You need to read this in its entirety Cooper:

http://principiadiscordia.com/book/1.php

It explains why good = order and bad = chaos is false.

One simple reason for you, chaos and randomness is the fundamental mechanism of evolution, which is why our minds (which are supreme works of logic and order) exist at all.

[Cooper5362]

Jude, quoting another person won't help you, especially when their conclusion is impossible to prove.  If randomness drove our evolution, I already know the probability of now is extremely close to zero.  My concepts are based on the more likely scenario that the universe is truly infinite and the probability of now is 1.  Furthermore, what you have to say is far more interesting than a paper.  I'll read it eventually, but the fact you didn't want to give your take on it speaks volumes.  You may as well as told me to shut up and quit posting with that move because I didn't bow down to a philosopher's opinion.  Sorry it seems personal to me, but I hope you at least understand why it seemed that way to me.  Anyway, I already know for a fact choice is the fundamental mechanism of evolution.  Genetics are generated by sexual choice.  To call people's decisions random comes across as a bit arrogant to me.  No one can even prove random exists.  Random is a concept perception generates to explain the output of problems so complex, there is no way to compute them with limited computing power.  Every scientist knows this simple truth.  You can no more prove random exists than you can prove God exists.  In fact, a tantalizing thought is that if random does exist, maybe God doesn't, because there would be no way to absolutely know everything.  Our fun is that we can't prove either and to say either is the engine for evolution is extremely dangerous to integrity of a position.

[Zakharra]

 Cooper, you're asserting that order is good and chaos evil. Yet when someone put up an example of an ordered society, you dismissed it. I'll give you three other examples of ordered societies that are not in any sense of the word, 'good'.
  Soviet Russia, an extremely ordered society, yet the leaders, especially Stalin, killed tens of millions of his own people for his 'order'.  Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung), he engineered the rise of Red China and killed tens of millions of his own people to create that order. Pol Pot wanted to create an orderly agricultural society and murdered millions of his own people.

Other examples exist. North Korea, Vietnam, and other dictatorial nations, all striving to create their 'order'. And the worst, Nazi Germany. A very orderly society that was and is named as evil incarnate.
Unless you throw out those examples, I do not see how you can stand by your claim that order is always good.

I'n not sure what you mean by random doesn't exist. You can't really prove that.

[Noelle]

Jude, quoting another person won't help you, especially when their conclusion is impossible to prove.

No more impossible than your own, I'd say. Where are your sources for any of your theories?

If randomness drove our evolution, I already know the probability of now is extremely close to zero.

How do you know? Sources. Evidence. Show us that you know, don't just tell us. We already see evidence of evolution occurring all over (and there is a thread about it if you'd like to peruse it), but your "knowledge" of its probability has yet to be supported with equal standing.

My concepts are based on the more likely scenario that the universe is truly infinite and the probability of now is 1.

Straw-manning gets you nowhere.

Furthermore, what you have to say is far more interesting than a paper.  I'll read it eventually, but the fact you didn't want to give your take on it speaks volumes.  You may as well as told me to shut up and quit posting with that move because I didn't bow down to a philosopher's opinion.

Cross-referencing is hardly telling you to shut up and quit posting. I realize you're new here, but when you make claims in a debate, it is almost essential that you show where they're coming from and the basis for your ideas so others have a good understanding of the foundation from which your points are coming so those sources may be dissected and examined for error. Disregarding another person's post because you don't want to read their resources is also insulting. If I make a claim about evolution and show where someone with greater intellectual authority on the matter has proven my point and you throw it away because it's not in my words...well, that...kind of doesn't make sense at all, and frankly gives me the impression that you're only interested in throwing your point of view out there and not actually making an attempt to learn more about the subject.

Anyway, I already know for a fact choice is the fundamental mechanism of evolution.  Genetics are generated by sexual choice.  To call people's decisions random comes across as a bit arrogant to me.

Again, where are your facts? Where is any of this coming from but your own self-confirming bias? I hate to say it, but well-established reality is against you.

No one can even prove random exists.  Random is a concept perception generates to explain the output of problems so complex, there is no way to compute them with limited computing power.

...Except that we've already created random number generators that use mathematical algorithms to produce random results. There's no perception to it.

And I think Wikipedia has an awful lot to say about it, as well.

Every scientist knows this simple truth.  You can no more prove random exists than you can prove God exists.  In fact, a tantalizing thought is that if random does exist, maybe God doesn't, because there would be no way to absolutely know everything.  Our fun is that we can't prove either and to say either is the engine for evolution is extremely dangerous to integrity of a position.

Your whole post is filled with logical fallacies, wildly unsupported claims, and things that are just plainly untrue. If you're unwilling to read the resources given to you to better understand what we're saying, then you really don't have any business trying to make other people understand what you're trying to say. The best I can say is that the next time you say "I KNOW" or "It's a fact" or "All X knows Y", you back it up with something tangible that demonstrates your point realistically rather than as a fabricated statistic to prove your own point.

[Jude]

How do you account for the randomness and furthermore inherent unknowability of some things in quantum mechanics, such as particle superposition and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle?  To me, that singlehandedly annihilates your view of good, evil, and god.

[Cooper5362]

Jude, you are correct, they do.  The problem is, without a unity theory that brings together quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity, we know we don't have a handle on quantum mechanics yet; so, none of those laws is absolute.  It didn't seem to me to be out of bounds in assuming if random parameters were present, then there was a high probability of lack of understanding.  All of those laws depend on a finite universe as well.  It is noteworthy that none of them can run back to the finite time line to the point of zero, and that neither of them can explain the source of gravity or explain the anomalies we see with it.  It is for those reasons I table those laws as theory and try to advance philosophical theory based on guesses since the whole thing is a great big guess anyway.  I do try to run the math.  When we run the math on the universe we see, none of it has quite added up.  Just from basic probability alone, now was highly unlikely given all of the random parameters in our laws.  This condition makes me guess the universe is actually infinite, rather than finite, and have tried to develop the concept of knowledge from there.  I also know from information theory that infinite knowledge requires infinite energy.  If I place my guess of an infinite universe, then the infinite energy required for infinite knowledge can actually be true.  It didn't take long to reach the guess that infinite knowledge was actually all energy and space.  Of course, this all comes back to if the universe is as finite as it appears to us, I'm flat wrong.  I hope this helps.

[Apple of Eris]

My concepts are based on the more likely scenario that the universe is truly infinite and the probability of now is 1.

How do you know this is more likely? Source material please?

   Anyway, I already know for a fact choice is the fundamental mechanism of evolution.  Genetics are generated by sexual choice.  To call people's decisions random comes across as a bit arrogant to me.  No one can even prove random exists.  Random is a concept perception generates to explain the output of problems so complex, there is no way to compute them with limited computing power.

This just... simply is not true. Here you're using a fallacious arguement to prove your point. Random does exit. It's statistical definition is: "of or characterizing a process of selection in which each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen." Mathematically this is an entirely possible concept. If it is possible, then random by its very definition, exists.

If you are using a different definition of Random, please provide that one, so that we are using the same terminology in this discussion.

[Cooper5362]

SuperHans, you stated:

The idea of impact of actions brings out another point-is a person's evil measurable by their actions and level of consequences they entail, or their character itself? There are people who are perfectly capable of empathy but utterly reject it, who care nothing for others and have no inclination to act positively. If their actions, through no desire of their own, pan out in a way that isn't completely terrible, then it doesn't detract from who they are. In my opinion, anyway.

In my opinion, character, actions, and consequences all contribute to the amount of good or evil in anything.  If you desire to destroy the universe to your benefit and accidentally create a wondrous universe, you would still be evil because you'd just work at chopping down what you accidentally created.  If you have the best intention of trying to help someone, but end up killing 5 people without helping anyone, you would still be evil because you didn't take the proper time to know how to help.  People define who they are by what they do and how they do it.  Their actions give hints to their intention.  I would think it the good duty of a person to stop another who is going to do more harm than good.   For example, killing Garrido after he got caught red handed raping a woman was our duty.  We failed in that duty and now Jaycee Dugart has given birth to two children by him instead of by another person of her choosing that probably was going to have a much better parenting influence.  Those children are also carrying sociopathic genetics that are going to result in more of that kind of travesty in the future when males pop up in their family tree.  He has also given a lot of other bad people ideas on how to spread their evil.  Good failed to stop evil and now it is spreading in a way we can't stop.  The cleanup is going to be a mess.  I would say Garrido has good in him, but it was stupid to keep him around for that sake of the good he had given the damage he has done.  In the end, he must be laughing at us.

[Noelle]

I accidentally dropped a cup full of lemonade on someone's white shoes once.

[Oniya]

Actually, when entropy reaches its maximum, things get pretty darn peaceful.  *skitters out of thread*

[Serephino]

Good and evil are human concepts based on perceptions and morals.  Morals come from religion, parents, and society.  If someone tried to rape me and I killed him, to me, that would be good because not only did I defend myself, but I rid the world of a rapist.  Another person may see what I have done as evil because most people perceive murder as evil.

I'm sure Hitler thought he was doing the world a great service.  He and his followers thought he was good.  The rest of the world doesn't agree.

It's all in how you as an individual see the world.  I've seen people justify all kinds of actions I would consider evil.  My spiritual teacher once said to me everything can change, and yet, nothing changes.  The best way I can explain that is say you didn't believe in ghosts, but something happens that makes you a believer.  The way you see the world changes completely, but nothing actually changed.  If ghosts exist, they did before you believed, and will continue to do so.  If your next door neighbor doesn't believe, and didn't see what you saw, then he will keep not believing, and seeing the world just as he did yesterday. 

She explained it better, but the point is, perception is a powerful thing.  I don't think good and evil exist in the way most people think of them.  I've met a few people who think Christianity is evil, but I doubt Christians would agree.   

[mystictiger]

If order = good and chaos = bad

Then:
Heat = bad

If heat is bad, then metabolic activity is bad.
If metabolic activity is bad, then life is bad.
If life is bad, then death is good.

[Cooper5362]

Well, hate to rain on the hate parade, but the Nazis were the only country in the world besides Japan who were willing to shoot the people that claimed to own the earth and were letting 40% of the world's population starve to death on the footstep of their mansions in their muddy company houses.  So, while we are busy cursing them, we can pat ourselves on the back for forcing them to be the heroes of the day and break the power reign of the robber barons (much like Napoleon broke the royalty who pulled the same stunt).  The Nazi party isn't the great house of evil you are looking for as an example.  It should bother most that it took Nazis to end the evil of capitalism, which I define as 25% or less net taxes on the lower 75% tax brackets.  Yes, I have just defined the current U.S. system as socialist and stated WWII ended capitalism and that it turned out poorly because evil people ran it.  Don't get too upset though, it's not the capitalism that was evil, just the people running it.  As it turns out, capitalism, communism, and socialism are all great ideas until evil idiots start using it to get their own way.  Sorry if I missed insulting anyone.

Oh, and mystictiger, animals all create entropy (expend energy gathered by plants).  Plants actually create order (store energy), so you are actually onto something there.  It's way more complex than that, but you knew that when you posted the equation.

[Jude]

Jude, you are correct, they do.  The problem is, without a unity theory that brings together quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity, we know we don't have a handle on quantum mechanics yet; so, none of those laws is absolute.

Laws are never absolute, but Quantum Mechanics (whether it is unified with relativity or not) is the theory that best fits the evidence we have collected to date.  As such, I don't see how dismissing the parts of Quantum Mechanics that are inconvenient to your world view is particular logical on the basis that they are not absolute certain, when they are quite certain, and your world view is not.

It didn't seem to me to be out of bounds in assuming if random parameters were present, then there was a high probability of lack of understanding.

Yes, if random parameters are present there is a high probability that we don't understand something.  However, is it not more likely that our understanding of randomness, objectivity, and absolutes is what needs refining, not the law which is a consequence of good evidence?

All of those laws depend on a finite universe as well.

Do they?  I don't recall that ever being an assumption anywhere in any of the physics I've studied.  Even the cosmological principle doesn't assume that the world is finite.

It is noteworthy that none of them can run back to the finite time line to the point of zero, and that neither of them can explain the source of gravity or explain the anomalies we see with it.

... and?  The fact that I have a cup sitting to the right of my laptop right now can't any of that either, yet that doesn't mean I have reason to doubt that the cup is there.  Similarly, the aspects of Quantum Mechanics that are inconvenient for you are well-supported.  The unknown connection between relativity, gravity, and quantum mechanics that has yet to be illuminated is not sufficient reason to believe that it is false.  It is sufficient reason to believe that there is much we do not know.  It isn't unrealistic to think that some aspects of Quantum Mechanics could be wrong, but it isn't rational.  Reason implores us to keep our belief in a proposition proportional to its degree of confirmation, you're not doing that when you dismiss the aspects of Quantum Mechanics you don't like.

It is for those reasons I table those laws as theory and try to advance philosophical theory based on guesses since the whole thing is a great big guess anyway.

So you throw away fairly confirmed principles and make improbable guesses which conflict them?  That seems like a recipe error.

I do try to run the math.  When we run the math on the universe we see, none of it has quite added up.  Just from basic probability alone, now was highly unlikely given all of the random parameters in our laws.  This condition makes me guess the universe is actually infinite, rather than finite, and have tried to develop the concept of knowledge from there.  I also know from information theory that infinite knowledge requires infinite energy.

Yes, due to the complexity of reality any particular outcome is highly unlikely, but consider for a moment an event where a million different things could occur, each with equal chance.  That means there is a one in a million chance that what does happen will happen; that is not special.  If you throw a dart at an impressionist's painting you're going to hit a tiny fleck of color.  Lets say you hit a blue dot.  That doesn't mean blue is magical or something fantastical was involved in your act of chucking sharp objects at fine art.  That aside, I don't understand how one thing you're saying logically flows from another, I feel as if that bit of argumentation is non-sequitor.

If I place my guess of an infinite universe, then the infinite energy required for infinite knowledge can actually be true.  It didn't take long to reach the guess that infinite knowledge was actually all energy and space.  Of course, this all comes back to if the universe is as finite as it appears to us, I'm flat wrong.  I hope this helps.

Quite frankly it didn't help at all, but I fail to see how the universe being infinite really is at all relevant to this discussion to begin with.  I feel we're getting off topic here so I'm going to return to one of your earlier posts I didn't respond to in great detail.

Jude, quoting another person won't help you, especially when their conclusion is impossible to prove.

Nothing being said on the subject of good and evil is going to be possible to prove.  The idea in linking you to the Principia Discordia was to expose you to a school of thought that believes Chaos and Order are both good and evil; destructive chaos is bad, but the Principia makes the point that chaos can actually be constructive as well.

If randomness drove our evolution, I already know the probability of now is extremely close to zero.

Now had to occur regardless, the state that now took is what varies.  But it isn't like now had a choice of not happening or not choosing to land on some particular outcome (I already discussed this earlier in my post so I'll leave it at that).

My concepts are based on the more likely scenario that the universe is truly infinite and the probability of now is 1.

Two unrelated and quite possibly contradictory premises.  In order for the probability of now to be one, you have to speak in what context you mean this.  What is the probability of now arising given the initial conditions that existed 3000 years ago?  If you believe randomness in no way affected things, then the probability is one.

However, if the universe is infinite then there are an infinite number of working parts to the universe which are all capable of affecting each other, and in turn causing a chain reaction.  An infinite amount of opportunities for this to arise over an infinite amount of space and time leads to an infinitely interconnected existence full of infinite possibilities for complications to arise.  Now, sometimes infinity adds up forever and never becomes 1 (consider the case of a series of numbers starting with .9 and being divided by a factor of 10 every turn for example), but the infiniteness that you suggest actually results in a more chaotic vision of reality, not less.

Furthermore, what you have to say is far more interesting than a paper.  I'll read it eventually, but the fact you didn't want to give your take on it speaks volumes.  You may as well as told me to shut up and quit posting with that move because I didn't bow down to a philosopher's opinion.  Sorry it seems personal to me, but I hope you at least understand why it seemed that way to me.

There's nothing special about me, but I understand your point.  You came here to converse with another person, not read articles.  I wouldn't relish that attitude too much however, because if you debate topics without ever drawing on sources or reading what other people present as their sources, you're missing out on a lot of foundational knowledge and you have no way of knowing whether or not the claims they make are true.

Anyway, I already know for a fact choice is the fundamental mechanism of evolution.  Genetics are generated by sexual choice.

Genetics are generated by a number of things.  Errors in copying of DNA, abiogenesis potentially formed the very first amino acids which became the building blocks of genetics, but of course radiation has been known to mess with the structure of genetics now and again, often resulting in cancer, but sometimes mutations that serve as advantageous. Without mutation there is no evolution and there is no "natural selection."  Natural selection is of course highly different than choice; natural selection is merely dominance occurring based on deterministic outcomes:  Genetics A results in an organism that is more successful in Environment A than a creature with Genetics B, therefore Genetics A are selected.

To call people's decisions random comes across as a bit arrogant to me.

If there is no randomness to the decisions people make then they are completely deterministic and free will does not exist.  Be careful where you're heading with this, because the lack of free will annihilates any possibility of ethics being anything beyond a tyrannical code that exists to reign in human behavior for the success our species.

No one can even prove random exists.  Random is a concept perception generates to explain the output of problems so complex, there is no way to compute them with limited computing power.  Every scientist knows this simple truth.  You can no more prove random exists than you can prove God exists.  In fact, a tantalizing thought is that if random does exist, maybe God doesn't, because there would be no way to absolutely know everything.  Our fun is that we can't prove either and to say either is the engine for evolution is extremely dangerous to integrity of a position.

Please note that in this bit, which I replied to previously, you say that "every scientist knows this simple truth."  I gave an example of a scientific theory advanced by physics which is in direct contradiction to what you said.  Either physicists are not scientists or you're making claims without really thinking about what you're saying very much.

[Oniya]

Oh, and mystictiger, animals all create entropy (expend energy gathered by plants).  Plants actually create order (store energy), so you are actually onto something there.  It's way more complex than that, but you knew that when you posted the equation.

And roots break up stone (crystalline, ordered) into soil (particulate, disordered).  The plant itself takes in water (liquid, semi-ordered) and expels oxygen (gas, highly disordered).  If you want a less irreverent example than the Principia Discordia on how chaos can be constructive, I would be glad to point you towards some resources:  Benoit Mandelbrot, James Gleick, Aleksandr Lyapunov, and this particular scholarly article:  http://mat.ug.edu.pl/~pb/chaos/pdf/li-yorke.pdf should do for a start.

[Cooper5362]

If choice is modeled as a random function, it doesn't really mean much does it?  Choice has to be a purposeful influence to have meaning, otherwise we are just random number generators.

[Ramster]

Good and evil are considered such universal concepts because we've been hardwired to recognise them in order to survive as a group. The main idea seems to be: do not harm another person. What about euthanasia, you ask? There we see different opinions on how to define harm: does killing someone who wants to be killed constitute causing harm or suffering? As for abortion, the question there is: is a foetus of X months/weeks/days old to be considered an independent person capable of suffering, and with a right to life independent of the mother's? However, the basic principle of primum non nocere stands. This is how to debate ethics without invoking the supernatural: recognise that we all have a basic, evolutionary concept of good and evil, and define it. Does this make them moral absolutes, flowing from the very structure and foundation of the universe? No, but it does mean that as a species we agree on some basic norms of how to behave towards each other.

[Zakharra]

Well, hate to rain on the hate parade, but the Nazis were the only country in the world besides Japan who were willing to shoot the people that claimed to own the earth and were letting 40% of the world's population starve to death on the footstep of their mansions in their muddy company houses.  So, while we are busy cursing them, we can pat ourselves on the back for forcing them to be the heroes of the day and break the power reign of the robber barons (much like Napoleon broke the royalty who pulled the same stunt).  The Nazi party isn't the great house of evil you are looking for as an example.  It should bother most that it took Nazis to end the evil of capitalism, which I define as 25% or less net taxes on the lower 75% tax brackets.  Yes, I have just defined the current U.S. system as socialist and stated WWII ended capitalism and that it turned out poorly because evil people ran it.  Don't get too upset though, it's not the capitalism that was evil, just the people running it.  As it turns out, capitalism, communism, and socialism are all great ideas until evil idiots start using it to get their own way.  Sorry if I missed insulting anyone.

Oh, and mystictiger, animals all create entropy (expend energy gathered by plants).  Plants actually create order (store energy), so you are actually onto something there.  It's way more complex than that, but you knew that when you posted the equation.

Sorry to rain on that parade there, but Soviet Russia, Red China, N. Korea. N. Vietnam and other dictatoral nations would disagree. They did and regularlydo kill people, even their own citizens, to keep the order and get/claim land and property.

I do not see capitalizm as evil. Unchecked, it can be. The US in the 1800's and early 1900's is a good example of unchecked capitalism. But capitalism is well and alive today.

[Cooper5362]

Zakharra, what you call capitalism is obviously socialism to me.  Like I said, capitalism requires 25% or less net taxes on the bottom 75% income levels for a nation.  The U.S. is at about 40%.  The U.S. has been very tricky about hiding this, and this is of extreme interest to me.  Hiding is a good indication evil is present.  We have sales tax, city income, county property, state income, federal income, social security paid by employee, social security paid by employer, medicare, and tariffs that all add up to roughly 40% tax rate for people not at the top of the money ladder.  If you wish to call this new animal capitalism, so be it.  Just understand we are done discussing the implications of evil in economies because I'm not going to shift basic concepts so the U.S. can feel comfy calling its socialism capitalism.  Communism, by the way, is 75% or more taxing.  You can say, wait, socialism got 2 parts and the other 2 only got 1 part of the spectrum.  My reply would be ok, 33% and 67%.  Sadly, the U.S. is still socialist and still lying to me.  It is a prime indicator that the U.S. insists on lying while I am just trying to find out the real story.  It shows me evil is present in the U.S.

[Zakharra]

Zakharra, what you call capitalism is obviously socialism to me.  Like I said, capitalism requires 25% or less net taxes on the bottom 75% income levels for a nation.  The U.S. is at about 40%.

Exactly what does that mean? 75% for what?

The U.S. has been very tricky about hiding this, and this is of extreme interest to me.  Hiding is a good indication evil is present.  We have sales tax, city income, county property, state income, federal income, social security paid by employee, social security paid by employer, medicare, and tariffs that all add up to roughly 40% tax rate for people not at the top of the money ladder.  If you wish to call this new animal capitalism, so be it.  Just understand we are done discussing the implications of evil in economies because I'm not going to shift basic concepts so the U.S. can feel comfy calling its socialism capitalism.

The US economy is a hell of a lot more capitalistic than any in Europe I believe, and we are taxed less than most Europeans. The money is also spent somewhat differently too.  What is the US hiding? You haven't said that. Why is hiding evil?

Communism, by the way, is 75% or more taxing.  You can say, wait, socialism got 2 parts and the other 2 only got 1 part of the spectrum.  My reply would be ok, 33% and 67%.  Sadly, the U.S. is still socialist and still lying to me.  It is a prime indicator that the U.S. insists on lying while I am just trying to find out the real story.  It shows me evil is present in the U.S.

Uum.. someone from Europe help me on this? Are there any nations that have a income/total tax rate above 75%? I seem to remember there being several that have very high taxes, but they are not communist.


Cooper, I think part of the problem people are having with you is that you use terms* only you understand. You already have a rock solid opinion and are laoth to share exactly what your terms are. You also seem to have a habit of dismissing facts and ignore source materia which contradict yours.  You've said that you are not getting through in communication, then seem to cut off the communication and go off on your own tangant.

* Evil, good, order and chaos are terms of yours that are confusing a lot of peole since you seem to have your own definition of them.

[Jude]

If choice is modeled as a random function, it doesn't really mean much does it?  Choice has to be a purposeful influence to have meaning, otherwise we are just random number generators.

I wasn't saying that choice is just a matter of selecting an option purely arbitrarily in a disordered, random fashion.  I think you misunderstand what randomness is.  Randomness is the bane of determinism; that is to say, if randomness is involved then you cannot predict the outcome of a system based on its initial conditions even theoretically (if it can be done theoretically and not practically then that system is deterministically chaotic [such as the weather, etc - this is chaos theory]).  The only way the probability of now can be 1 is if human decision making is a deterministic process, and thus free will does not exist because the outcome was decided before the act was ever taken.

[Oniya]

(if it can be done theoretically and not practically then that system is deterministically chaotic [such as the weather, etc - this is chaos theory]). 

Adding to Jude here - the 'theoretical predictability' means that the initial conditions must be replicated exactly in order to replicate a given result.  Edward Lorenz's paper "Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow". Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences

[Cooper5362]

I think the points on randomness show that choice is a very interesting force in the universe.  It's impossible to predict, yet has direction provided by the being making the choice.  Good and evil are key components to a choice, because they reflect the quality of the decision making and how it plays out in reality.

Government control of an economic system and the spectrum of grades:  Pure capitalism would run all of a nation's services under private control and none under government control resulting in 0% taxes.  Pure communism makes all property government domain and has a 100% tax as a result (all money is controlled and issued to citizens by the government, the proverbial ration card for goods).    Neither exists in true form because government always has to do policing and black markets always exist in national systems where the government is supposed to have control over all money transactions.  For this reason, all economies have a mix of taxes and untaxed money circulation.  Socialism is the hybrid of communism versus capitalism.  It becomes necessary to get a real measure of a particular nation's economic control to determine just how much of the money flow is taxed.  I put socialism at the balance point of 50%.  My normal assumption is a 25% tax or lower for the capitalist end of the spectrum and 75% or higher for the communist end since both communities tend to be staunch in their idealism and loyalty to their systems.  33% or lower for capitalism and 67% or higher for communism is still a fair line to draw on the spectrum, giving each method of economic control a fair share of the spectrum, though.

U.S. History of Capitalism and Socialism:  The U.S. was founded under capitalism and the government only taxed citizens about 10% without using a federal income tax.  Federal income tax was in fact illegal.  It is interesting that the current U.S. tax system does not actually draw any authority from laws.  Many people have demonstrated that the IRS is actually unconstitutional, despite the fact it is necessary and the U.S. has no intention of dissolving the IRS.  The U.S. Civil War was extremely expensive and the U.S. had to up its tax rates to about 20% and introduced the federal income tax.  Though the hope was to get rid of it after war debt was paid off, federal income tax stuck.  The early 1900s brought about the company store, where business leaders discovered they could trap their employees in a false kind of debt by paying them less than they could live from and work for the company under corporately run communities.  They also discovered they could take unsecured loans (called stocks) from the public and then pocket the money by not paying back the value of the stock.  These two strategies under capitalism, in the interest of personal profit, created a very powerful money elite and put about 40% of the work force idle and starving to death since the elite had no use for them by the time of the Great Depression.  Roosevelt and the U.S. government responded to this crisis by socializing the U.S. economy in the 1930s.  Tax rates went up to about 35% with social security and other socializing programs.  The problem did not get solved though because the elite had already parked the lion's share of the national currency in their bank accounts.  The Germans, who were the worst off from the starvation, actually rose up and took the money not in circulation by force and put it back in circulation in their country.  They implemented a kind of communism called Nazism, but the strategy received a socialist label in the history books because the Germans did not want to associate their communism with the Soviets.  The financial elite were forced to spend a lot of their ill gotten gains to stop the Nazis when the Nazis decided to use their new found economic power to militarily try to take over Europe.  In the U.S., socialism stabilized for a time because of all the money put back in circulation to stop the Nazis and imperial Japan.  The U.S. has held that socialism in place to this day, with technology mitigating depressions and government debt building to create the illusion of maintained money flow.  The owners of U.S. debt are creating a pressure that will erupt at some point if they ever try to cash it in, but the interest rates will bring about that eruption at some point even without a cash in action.  I would guess the eruption will very likely involve war.

On Hiding and Evil:  If good is the pervasive force in decision making, hiding is a waste of time.  Most or all of the beings exchanging information are trying to cooperate and make the best of natural resistance to construction and determined purpose.  In that circumstance, it is best to share information accurately to determine the real situations and deal with them as efficiently as possible.  If evil is present, it is trying to "rip off" a neighbor and get more benefit from situations than the neighbor getting ripped off.  It is necessary to hide this activity, because good beings finding out about the contention introduced by this decision making will work to correct the situation in the interest of striving to be fair and cooperative.  This would reduce the chance a being practicing evil would be successful.  A fight involves hiding information from an opponent, and the presence of a fight indicates evil is present, though it does not explain which parties in the fight are contributing the most evil to the fight.  Good beings will not fight if it is avoidable, but evil beings will force a fight and can easily obligate good beings to fight them to prevent decay in society.

Randomness and Probability:  If we flip a fair coin, the chance of heads is 50% and the chance of tails is 50%.  This action also represents the basic unit of information, a bit at either 0 or 1.  If a universe only had 1 bit of information in it that was random, the likelihood of that universe is 50% because it could have been the other universe if the information turned out different.  Because our universe has such an intense amount of information in it, it's likelihood is very close to zero.  Now, if two of our 1 bit information universes exist together, one being heads, and the other tails, the composite super universe actually has a likelihood of 1 with both subsets sharing that likelihood, with the information condition merely determining which sub universe is the current position.  Basically, the likelihood of each sub universe becomes one and the likelihood of being in one of them becomes 50%.  If there are an infinite set of universes, the randomness in our sub universe wouldn't make a difference to the probability of our state of existence, it would only determine which of the sub universes we are currently in because they all are in existence despite being separate in the super universe (no set overlap).  It just becomes highly improbable of being in one sub universe.  I hope this explains my probability statements on what we can see as the universe right now.

[Jude]

I feel like you aren't really addressing my points of contention.  It seems to me that are ignoring many of them as unimportant inconveniences and then introducing ad hoc hypothesis after ad hoc hypothesis to bandage up your wounded theory in small ways and continuing on as if nothing has happened.  As such, I feel this discussion is unfruitful and I will regrettably have to depart from this discourse.

[Cooper5362]

Actually, Jude, I would be interested in hearing your construct of good and evil.  I already know mine looks invalid to you.  That does not mean yours would not look invalid to me.

[Zakharra]

U.S. History of Capitalism and Socialism:  The U.S. was founded under capitalism and the government only taxed citizens about 10% without using a federal income tax.  Federal income tax was in fact illegal.  It is interesting that the current U.S. tax system does not actually draw any authority from laws.  Many people have demonstrated that the IRS is actually unconstitutional, despite the fact it is necessary and the U.S. has no intention of dissolving the IRS. [/quote]

Incorrect. The federal income tax is legal. It's an amendment in the Constitution. The 16th amendment.

The early 1900s brought about the company store, where business leaders discovered they could trap their employees in a false kind of debt by paying them less than they could live from and work for the company under corporately run communities.

An example of unregulated capitalism. It's a good thing that kind is gone.

They also discovered they could take unsecured loans (called stocks) from the public and then pocket the money by not paying back the value of the stock.

They can sell that stock at any time. The value is there.

These two strategies under capitalism, in the interest of personal profit, created a very powerful money elite and put about 40% of the work force idle and starving to death since the elite had no use for them by the time of the Great Depression.

I'm not sure how you jump from the fact there were wealthy people to them being responsible for the unemployment of the Great Depression. That seems like a pretty big leap.

 

The financial elite were forced to spend a lot of their ill gotten gains to stop the Nazis when the Nazis decided to use their new found economic power to militarily try to take over Europe.  In the U.S., socialism stabilized for a time because of all the money put back in circulation to stop the Nazis and imperial Japan.

Ill gotten gains? They earned it by being successful business men. It's not ill gotten unless they stole it. Which most did not do. They worked hard to get it.

[Cooper5362]

Jude, reading your earlier post, my basic understanding of your premise is that good and evil are merely products of social contracts.  Does that sound accurate, or am I off in understanding your position?

[Cooper5362]

Zakharra, I hope you are right in that the legal system is good, but I have lost my faith in it as it stands now.  The monetary system seems to be a weak compromise to me as well, but I do hope that the proponents of it can make it work for a change if we are going to be stuck with it.

I agree the federal income tax was legalized.  I had been illegal originally was my point.  The IRS has never been "legal" per se, but exists strongly under current U.S. social contracts.

We agree capitalism doesn't work unregulated.

When stocks carry the same guarantees as a home mortgage, they'll impress me as legitimate.

You can't employ a person if you don't have money to pay them.  Unemployment is a direct result of no money circulation.  If money is stuck in a deposit, we all know the size of the bank accounts that do that.

Capitalism fails because all profit is guaranteed to be unfair.  Just by quantization error along, a monetary trade for goods is guaranteed to short change one party or the other.  Most successful businessmen have only figured out ways to consistently short change their customers.  They are ill gotten gains in the end.  If profit were fair, leaders would have the same amount of personal income as their followers.  There is a reason money goes out of circulation and depression ensues.

It's obvious to me good and evil play out in our legal and monetary systems.  Depression is a sure sign of greed and evil.  Wrongful convictions and repeat offenders also demonstrate evil at play in our legal system.

[Oniya]

When stocks carry the same guarantees as a home mortgage, they'll impress me as legitimate.

Have you been looking at the housing market in the last two years?  O_o

[mystictiger]

It's obvious to me good and evil play out in our legal and monetary systems.  Depression is a sure sign of greed and evil.  Wrongful convictions and repeat offenders also demonstrate evil at play in our legal system.

Or just... errors and mistakes.

[Zakharra]

Zakharra, I hope you are right in that the legal system is good, but I have lost my faith in it as it stands now.  The monetary system seems to be a weak compromise to me as well, but I do hope that the proponents of it can make it work for a change if we are going to be stuck with it.

It's the only way to effectively give value for work. The barter system will never work for a high tech society. Which this is.

I agree the federal income tax was legalized.  I had been illegal originally was my point.  The IRS has never been "legal" per se, but exists strongly under current U.S. social contracts.

The IRS IS legal.

When stocks carry the same guarantees as a home mortgage, they'll impress me as legitimate.

If you have enough stock,  yes they can match a home mortgage, but no one stock share will ever equal that. Nor should it.

You can't employ a person if you don't have money to pay them.  Unemployment is a direct result of no money circulation.  If money is stuck in a deposit, we all know the size of the bank accounts that do that.

You also cannot hire/pay people if no one is buying your product. The lack of money works both ways and you are forgetting that the wealthy spent money too. They do not horde it and keep it safe and unspent.

Capitalism fails because all profit is guaranteed to be unfair.  Just by quantization error along, a monetary trade for goods is guaranteed to short change one party or the other.  Most successful businessmen have only figured out ways to consistently short change their customers.  They are ill gotten gains in the end.  If profit were fair, leaders would have the same amount of personal income as their followers.  There is a reason money goes out of circulation and depression ensues.

Then by your definition, every single business man, stockholder and shareholder in a company is evil. Why do you see profits as unfair? People are willing to pay the cost for the item/service. What makes it unfair and evil?  Most successful businessmen give their product for a FAIR price. They do not gouge people. They are not shortchanging them.

I do not see how profits can be fair if the owners of the company make the same income as the employeers. That's hardly fair. The owners deal with a lot more issues than  the employees do and the most successful ones put a lot of work into making their business successful.

And again you're forgetting, or ignoring that wealthy people spend a LOT of money.

It's obvious to me good and evil play out in our legal and monetary systems.  Depression is a sure sign of greed and evil.  Wrongful convictions and repeat offenders also demonstrate evil at play in our legal system.

So far you've only posted stuff that shows your view of the 'evils' of the economy. There have been business tycoons that have gone to jail in the last few years.

[Asuras]

When stocks carry the same guarantees as a home mortgage, they'll impress me as legitimate.

When you buy a stock you are buying a piece of the company. You get a piece of its profits, and (with common stock) you get the right to fire the managers of the company if they aren't doing well enough for you.

If you want the security of a mortgage, then you can buy corporate debt or preferred stock. If the company goes bankrupt owners of corporate debt and preferred stock get first dibs on the company's assets. You will have a measure of protection, but you will pay for the protection.

On average, holders of equity (stocks) vastly outperform holders of debt (mortgages, bonds, loans...). Stocks get around 10% a year because the people who own them bear greater risk; the people who own corporate debt get around half that.

In order to have a growing economy - one that invests in new factories, new technologies, whatever - you need to be able to take risk. There must be places for people to invest in that risk, and stocks are probably the best way for a company to get financing for investment, and also the best way for investors to get returns.

[Apple of Eris]

Socialism is the hybrid of communism versus capitalism.  It becomes necessary to get a real measure of a particular nation's economic control to determine just how much of the money flow is taxed.  I put socialism at the balance point of 50%.  My normal assumption is a 25% tax or lower for the capitalist end of the spectrum and 75% or higher for the communist end since both communities tend to be staunch in their idealism and loyalty to their systems.  33% or lower for capitalism and 67% or higher for communism is still a fair line to draw on the spectrum, giving each method of economic control a fair share of the spectrum, though.

So... you're taking terms that all ready have definitions, and redefining them?

The Germans, who were the worst off from the starvation, actually rose up and took the money not in circulation by force and put it back in circulation in their country.  They implemented a kind of communism called Nazism, but the strategy received a socialist label in the history books because the Germans did not want to associate their communism with the Soviets.  The financial elite were forced to spend a lot of their ill gotten gains to stop the Nazis when the Nazis decided to use their new found economic power to militarily try to take over Europe.

I suggest reading a book on the rise of Nazism in Germany. The 'people' did not rise up and steal money from the elite to put it into circulation. Nazi leaders began printing currency at reckless levels, the also began several credit-swapping programs trading one form of junk money for reichmarks that were essentially worthless. It is likely, that had WWII not started when it did, Germany would have endured a financial collapse greater than any in today's Europe. If you want references for this so that you know I'm not just making this up, I suggest reading Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Also Nazism was -not- communism in any form. Nazi's had socialist in the name, that's it. They promised a number of socialist types reforms, but as soon as money stated coming from conservative elites in Germany, the socialst planks of the Nazi party were convienently forgetten at best, or considered an embarassment at worst.

[Oniya]

Also, communism does not equal socialism.  One is a type of economy, the other is a type of government.  Also, there are at least half a dozen forms of communism, ranging from Marxism to Maoism, to whatever North Korea has.