I gave you the example you asked for, and you've ignored it. I explained where the role of science is in that, and you completely misunderstood for the second time.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
By appropriate I mean using the right tool intended for a specific job. I'm sure you will agree that a chainsaw is an inappropriate tool for use to dig a hole in the ground. Likewise, science/math is an inappropriate tool in figuring out what my own preferences "should be" or what "options" I "should choose".
Science and mathematics are not a chainsaw; they aren't a narrow tool for a particular job. Science and math are at the root of reliable knowledge, so if reliable knowledge is useful to an endeavor, then they are the right tool. If you don't need knowledge for something, maybe you don't need them; they may have limited applications to some forms of expressive "art".
Something specific like Geology might be the wrong "tool" to apply to certain data needed for ethical considerations, much as a chainsaw could be to do some jobs, but science is not on that level of specificity; it adapts to solve the problem you need solving, it's just a way of looking at the world to eliminate bias and obtain more reliable knowledge.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
You trying to twist my words in an attempt to show me what you think I meant has absolutely zero bearing.
It's not an argument, it's an irrational platitude. I know what you meant, and it's ridiculous and scientifically ignorant. It's also ignoring completely my explanation.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
It's like you're saying:
"I'm an open-minded person... buuuut only within the rigid paradigm of science."
Be open minded by all means, but not so open minded your brain falls out. That's what happens when you reject logic.
In attempt to be MORE open minded, you actually become LESS open minded, because you have by rejecting logic rejected the possibility of differentiating truth and falsity.
See the principle of explosion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_explosion
It's clear you don't understand these topics well enough to present an argument on them, which is why you rely on feel good bullshit platitudes instead of actual arguments.
You really need to address the arguments I'm making, not reply with a meaningless woo catch phrase.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
The 3 burning questions I asked in the start of this thread has been addressed but NOT cleared.
They actually have been, but I did so with logic, which you reject. You can not engage in a rational discussion without using logic. Your reach here, even by asking a question, exceeds your willingness to listen to the answer. This is fundamentally a form of intellectual dishonesty; I would challenge you to try again to understand the answers I have given and why they are valid instead of dismissing them because you don't like them.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
"I'm not sure why I prefer snickerdoodle cookies over raisin cookies. I think I'll apply math and science to figure this out."
This is not my claim. Not at all.
It doesn't matter why you prefer snickerdoodles. It matters
that you prefer snickerdoodles.
Completely different issues. I don't care WHY you prefer them. That information is pretty immaterial to most considerations (unless we are trying to identify other cookies you might also like but have not yet tried; think an improved version of pandora or netflix recommendations but for cookies).
The fact THAT you prefer them is why I should give you those instead of raisin cookies, all other things being equal.
I have said this multiple times.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
... This is what I'm getting out of the discussion.
Then you have not been paying attention to anything I said. It's pretty much the opposite of what I'm saying.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
I asked for a
simple example, instead I get cryptic numbers and equations that don't mean a thing to me.
You asked for an equation. If you're too lazy or "bad at math" to understand a very simple example like the one I gave, that's hardly my fault.
Do you want a simpler one?
Option 1: I give you raisin cookies = 5 satisfaction points from you
Option 2: I give you snickerdoodles = 10 satisfaction points from you
Given these two options, all other things being equal, I should choose option 2 because it better satisfies YOUR interests. My preference for raisin or snickerdoodle has nothing to do with it, because it's YOU who will be eating the cookies.
Can you understand that?
Any modestly intelligent relativist can understand that concept and in fact usually come into the conversation already understanding it. It blows my mind that you don't get it.
Usually the contentious issue is how I know that one will give you 5 points of satisfaction and the other will give you 10. To that I answer: we ask. We give you a super
scientific survey of some kind, and you fill in a point value to indicate your preference for each cookie.
Science only applies in the learning. Instead of me guessing that you like this or that cookie, or just giving you the cookie that I like more, I should use science to find out which cookie you like. A survey being the simplest means.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
Plus, the words bad, good, rational and irrational are all relative. You forgot to define these terms but that's ok, no worries.
I
literally defined them. Look back
one page.
brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sun May 14, 2017 4:00 am
ra·tion·al
ˈraSH(ə)n(ə)l/
adjective
1.
based on or in accordance with reason or logic.
ir·ra·tion·al
i(r)ˈraSH(ə)nəl/
adjective
1.
not logical or reasonable.
I also went into detail defining good and bad, both absolutely and contextually; it's what my entire argument is about.
I feel like you're just being intentionally obtuse to troll us at this point. There is no way you read my posts and did not see multiple instances of my defining these.
If you're not here to troll and are honestly trying to understand my argument, you have a serious reading comprehension problem and you need to go back to page 1 and read everything again more carefully.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
Someone you might be familiar with once said
"A preference does not require logical justification or consistency, it simply is what it is."
Obviously it does not, and no part of my argument requires that it does.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
Interjecting math and science to try and "logically" explain my preference only complicates the matter.
As I said multiple times, I'm not trying to explain your preferences or why you hold them. I'm only trying to determine what they are. Completely different.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
Did people have to look to science and math in order to be persuaded to veganism? No. Instead, they either looked into their heart for the compassion or watch a couple of documentaries and YouTube videos. Now their preferences point to fruits and veggies over meat and dairy, fake leather over real leather, forks over knives. No math and science required. Preferences changed like you said. Simple.
Vegans do not necessarily prefer the taste of vegetables and fruits over meat and dairy; they may still enjoy meat and dairy, but they prefer to be moral people instead of indulge hedonistic preferences.
Preferences can be in conflict. When they are, the stronger one will win out in terms of behavior, but that doesn't mean the lesser goes away.
What convinced them that they needed to avoid these things in order to be moral people is often science and logic: basically, learning about the reality around them, and what morality actually means.
A major motivator for changing preferences is learning. And sometimes the core preferences don't need to change at all, we just get new information and change the way we act to better realize those preferences (like going vegan to better realize a preexisting preference to be moral, but that was realized poorly due to ignorance of the meat industry).
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
I am not anti-science
Of course you are; and it's probably because you do not understand science. You may not even realize that your rhetoric is in effect anti-science by misrepresenting science.
Science is a method of learning about the world around us; the most reliable one there is. There is no doubt in this unless you subscribe to magical thinking.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
I'm no expert in the field of science but I respect it more than you do. I say 'more than you do' because I recognize its limits, as you also admitted this yourself.
That's hilarious. No, you don't understand science or its limits, you instead impose imagined ad hoc ones like Gould's Non-overlapping magisteria.
You have consistently failed to understand my argument because you don't know how science works and what it does.
I have repeatedly explained this, and the place of science in understanding morality: it is to give us unbiased facts about reality which we then must use in a moral calculus (and I derived this too).
For my part, I may have erred in assuming you were more educated than you are on this topic. Intelligent relativists make a certain kind of argument and that's what I was expecting (I can explain that if you want). Like with your claim that you're doing animals a favor by letting them feed you and being thankful of them, your beliefs are so profoundly misguided that they threw me for a loop. You just don't understand what you're talking about, and you may not have the background to grasp what I'm trying to explain.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
Science has granted you some measure of knowledge, and knowledge is power, but the power of science does not extend to this arena.
Wow, really? It doesn't extend to having the power to make a survey that asks you what kind of cookie you like best?
That's basically all I'm saying it needs to do, at least in the simplified simplified example that I had to make just for you.
If you really don't think science is capable of learning what a person's preference of cookie probably is (not WHY, but WHAT), then you have functionally no regard for science at all.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
Thus far you've been loyal to your position trying to persuade me to the contrary, but as of yet to no avail. You're hardly to blame for this. Not clear enough or maybe I'm just bad at math, I don't know.
I was very clear. You should re-read our exchange, bearing in mind I am saying that the role of science in this is to tell us WHAT others prefer, not WHY they prefer it.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
but guess what... my questions would remain standing.
They've all been answered quite thoroughly. That you did not understand the answers I can only do so much about.
I can try to clarify more, but if you can't recognize that you're massively misrepresenting my argument when you say I want science to explain WHY you prefer one cookie over another, then there's no point. What would be more concerning is if you don't understand the difference between asking WHAT and WHY.
If you can admit your error, apologize for the misunderstanding (particularly as I explained it a couple times already), and re-read the thread, I'd be glad to clarify any outstanding concerns or questions.
AMP3083 wrote: ↑Mon May 15, 2017 9:54 pm
You've spent a majority of the discussion trying to put a label on me, desperately trying to figure me out.
The funny thing is that you're the one who wants personal examples you can relate to, but you won't tell me anything to go off of.
No, in most of that I'm contextualizing the moral relevance of the preference to be moral. Most of those "you"s are general, not specific to you personally.
Your anti-science platitudes do sound like Ken Ham, though.