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[McTraveller]

I thought you were trying to ask why do we Humans follow morals and laws when the universe only follows the physical laws of nature and has no morals or cares to give.

Ahhh --- yes I guess that was the prior question.  For some reason I thought you were trying to say something about one of the logical conclusions, not about the meta-question.

*sips more C2H5OH*

What's your LOGICAL basis for morals with religion? ...

It's logical in the sense that it would provide a non-relative framework for defining morality, kind of like mathematics is logical in that its framework is independent of interpreter of the framework.

[Reelya]

It's because our history books say we are the country of the Moral High Ground, and the Greatest Country In The World, omitting almost all the inconvenient truths.

It's not far off religion: each religion thinks their religion is the one true faith, and all the other followers are deluded fools. Similarly, American routinely mocks other countries if they have a "we're the best" vibe going on, and mocks other countries if their history textbooks omit nasty shit they did, yet America does the exact same things.

What's your LOGICAL basis for morals with religion?

Big Sky Daddy will punish you for doing things on The Naughty List.

Except there's a problem: the bible approves of slavery and stoning children to death. And look at the shit the Catholic Church did to people. Secular Society moved on to what we call "ethical" behavior in the Enlightenment, and "The Church" had to be dragged kicking and screaming behind. It's always been that way.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

What's your LOGICAL basis for morals with religion? ...

It's logical in the sense that it would provide a non-relative framework for defining morality, kind of like mathematics is logical in that its framework is independent of interpreter of the framework.

Well there are two problems with that. One is that religion is 5000% relative, as it's all thought up by humans based on very little initial information with much of it purely conjecture--EDIT: and none of it remotely provable (as of yet, anyways.) The other is the mathematics is in a similar, if more refined, rut. We could find one day that everything we know about math is just a close approximation to the truth. The thing about scientific theory is that is changes all the time. I'm sure some people thought newton was the end-all-be-all of physics, but we found better models that more accurately described things.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

What the hell, guys? What the hell?

MRW 2016

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of mathematics if you think it is in any way attempting to approximate truth.

How so? That is exactly what math does? Of course, 1+1=2 is as much truth as knowing that hurting someone makes them feel bad, but it's when we try to string all the little truths together that we get mixed up and start to conjecture things that may or may not be correct.

EDIT: Also, humanity's greatest analytical strength is literally it's ability to imagine perfect scenarios and approximate them--because actual perfection is pretty much impossible.

[Reelya]

Look at the list of behaviors approved of in The Bible. If we lived by all of that then you'd be arrested in 5 minutes and society would collapse completely in 10 minutes. "Religion" doesn't dictate good morals: people have the good sense to ignore most of what is in the official religion books and just live their lives according to common sense.

The escape clause for Christians is that "ignore the old testament, those were the old rules, we have new stuff now", but that itself looks pretty questionable. Did God "get it wrong" when he wrote the old testament or something? And who decides which parts of the old testament are ignorable and which must be adhered to or god will get pissy? And that leaves a problem with Jews. Are Jews less moral because they lack the New Testament? I think not.

If we have to ignore most of what is in the official religion's own books and use our own judgement on what is moral and what is not, in religion's own books, then religion can in no way be said to be an objective bedrock of what is moral.

[Shadowlord]

Someone said the universe doesn't have morals. It does. They are as follows:

• Valar Morghulis.

That is all.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of mathematics if you think it is in any way attempting to approximate truth.

How so? That is exactly what math does? Of course, 1+1=2 is as much truth as knowing that hurting someone makes them feel bad, but it's when we try to string all the little truths together that we get mixed up and start to conjecture things that may or may not be correct.

EDIT: Also, humanity's greatest analytical strength is literally it's ability to imagine perfect scenarios and approximate them--because actual perfection is pretty much impossible.

1+1=2 is not exactly a trivial math statement. It could just as equally be 0. You're assuming every single Peano axiom when you make that statement, and that's a lot of assumptions.

Mathematics is about building off of a few underlying constructs. Any notion of "truth" is relative. In homotopy type theory, truth is nothing more than another type.

"2+2=5" - Ispil, December 2016

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of mathematics if you think it is in any way attempting to approximate truth.

How so? That is exactly what math does? Of course, 1+1=2 is as much truth as knowing that hurting someone makes them feel bad, but it's when we try to string all the little truths together that we get mixed up and start to conjecture things that may or may not be correct.

EDIT: Also, humanity's greatest analytical strength is literally it's ability to imagine perfect scenarios and approximate them--because actual perfection is pretty much impossible.

1+1=2 is not exactly a trivial math statement. It could just as equally be 0. You're assuming every single Peano axiom when you make that statement, and that's a lot of assumptions.

And you assume that stabbing someone and making them feel bad IS a trivial psychological statement. We haven't found a unified theory in mathematics, and we certainly haven't found one socially in the form of religion or system of beliefs. The point is that we do not know the truth, and even though through observation we can come close to it, in the end it's all just approximation.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

Oh hey we're discussing math now. Cool, one of my favorite things.

Math is... well, first of all, it's almost entirely in-the-head (or in-the-calculating-machine), in that unlike science it is not tested by reality. But in another sense it is shaped by reality in that...

Take geometry. Geometry is obviously shaped by our 3D pseudo-Euclidean reality. Is it too hard to imagine that algebra might be too?

What I mean to say is that mathematics is neither separate from the universe (thus, it is not "ultimate truth"), but neither is it like science, constantly tied to reality by test after test (thus, it is not "truth in description of the universe"). Math is just... patterns, in a sense.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of mathematics if you think it is in any way attempting to approximate truth.

How so? That is exactly what math does? Of course, 1+1=2 is as much truth as knowing that hurting someone makes them feel bad, but it's when we try to string all the little truths together that we get mixed up and start to conjecture things that may or may not be correct.

EDIT: Also, humanity's greatest analytical strength is literally it's ability to imagine perfect scenarios and approximate them--because actual perfection is pretty much impossible.

1+1=2 is not exactly a trivial math statement. It could just as equally be 0. You're assuming every single Peano axiom when you make that statement, and that's a lot of assumptions.

And you assume that stabbing someone and making them feel bad IS a trivial psychological statement. We haven't found a unified theory in mathematics, and we certainly haven't found one socially in the form of religion or system of beliefs. The point is that we do not know the truth, and even though through observation we can come close to it, in the end it's all just approximation.

Where did he assume that??

Someone said the universe doesn't have morals. It does. They are as follows:

• Valar Morghulis.

That is all.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of mathematics if you think it is in any way attempting to approximate truth.

How so? That is exactly what math does? Of course, 1+1=2 is as much truth as knowing that hurting someone makes them feel bad, but it's when we try to string all the little truths together that we get mixed up and start to conjecture things that may or may not be correct.

EDIT: Also, humanity's greatest analytical strength is literally it's ability to imagine perfect scenarios and approximate them--because actual perfection is pretty much impossible.

1+1=2 is not exactly a trivial math statement. It could just as equally be 0. You're assuming every single Peano axiom when you make that statement, and that's a lot of assumptions.

Mathematics is about building off of a few underlying constructs. Any notion of "truth" is relative. In homotopy type theory, truth is nothing more than another type.

"2+2=5" - Ispil, December 2016

"Any notion of "truth" is relative." - an eeeviiiil post-truth moral relativist

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Of course we can't find a unified theory in mathematics; we proved that no such universal theory could even exist.

Again, there are no observations in mathematics. You're not observing a damn thing. You make a few basic sets of rules, and go from there.

But there are observations in mathematics. How do you think such a system was created? The concept of our current system of mathematics didn't just poof into somebody's head. And even if it did, religious morals are much the same. There are certain things and rules that "definitely" exist, so people "went from there."

[Helgoland]

Folks, could we just get back to politics? The topologician part of me has been homotoping into something green and bulky as I read the last two or three pages...

[McTraveller]

Big Sky Daddy will punish you for doing things on The Naughty List.

Except there's a problem: the bible approves of slavery and stoning children to death. And look at the shit the Catholic Church did to people. Secular Society moved on to what we call "ethical" behavior in the Enlightenment, and "The Church" had to be dragged kicking and screaming behind. It's always been that way.

Wow, that's an uniformed or naive view of the what the Bible says about slavery and stoning people (really, people should be familiar with the entire book as a whole, not just with pieces of it - regardless if you believe it or not).  And things groups of people do in the name of anything shouldn't affect the merit of the thing.  I mean, what about the illogical things like the cult of Pythagoras? Does that mean the math was any less correct?

But yeah, I would say some things people do in the name of religion can be just as unsettling as things people can do in the name of any other thing.  So what is the similar evaluation of all the "acceptable" things associated with religion claimed in the name of a religion?

The escape clause for Christians is that "ignore the old testament, those were the old rules, we have new stuff now", but that itself looks pretty questionable.

So what's the protocol for cross-posting to the religion thread? Because any answer I have for this is definitely more that than politics.

Of course we can't find a unified theory in mathematics; we proved that no such universal theory could even exist.

Again, there are no observations in mathematics. You're not observing a damn thing. You make a few basic sets of rules, and go from there.

More things to which I want to respond but belong in another thread...

[Shadowlord]

Any notion of truth in mathematics, dammit.

You have two apples. You add two more apples.
WHAT DO THE NUMBERS MEAN, MASON?

[MrRoboto75]

Any notion of truth in mathematics, dammit.

You have two apples. You add two more apples.
WHAT DO THE NUMBERS MEAN, MASON?

It means I could potentially be doctor free for about 4 days.  This has doubled my previous ability to repulse doctors.

[McTraveller]

Wait what just happened - did everyone go to sleep?

Maybe we should talk about Mike Rowe's response to flag burning at colleges? (I found it humorous).