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[MrWiggles]

Well, I disagree with pain  with not being associated with negative emotion as a failing. You can condition someone to associate  pains with all kinds of other emotions and physical states. I would suggest that external stimuli without emotional feedback is a failing. I do also agree that choices can be made absent to the emotional feed back. Thats what being objective, and impartial suppose to be.

[Siquo]

Then what would you base those choices on?

[TheDarkJay]

I think what is being said here is that logic can say the way things are, and the way they can be, but it requires some level of emotional evaluation to suggest the way they "should" be because at the end of the day we're all just clusters of atoms, and there is no real right or wrong except what we make of it. We can even strive cast these concepts aside, should we seek to, and form new "alien" rules of morality, entirely indifferent to our present social norms and morees. I think that's what a certain philosopher meant by the Ubermensch...

[Neruz]

Pain is your body's indicator that damage has been or is being caused to it. There is an emotional reaction to pain, but again it is not neccessary.

In fact, some people enjoy pain, this is an indicator that the emotional reaction is failing.

And who is saying that damage is bad? Damage, and pain, can be good for you! The doctor's needle, the dentists drill and the setting of a bone.

The vast majority of the time, it is not.

Nice strawman, mind if i bring some marshmellows over and roast them on the fire?

In response to:

Once again proving that Religion and Logic exist in seperate, disparate spheres.

That was not a strawman, that is reinterpreting your quote as even less stupid that it is in and of itself and giving you the benefit of doubt.
That benefit is now removed and with that quote you are now one of the thickest people I've ever met, including the aforementioned christian zealous conservatives. Saying stuff that sounds stupid out of context should either not be said without context, or not be said at all, and I really can't think of a context that would make the above statement sound intelligent.

Congratulations, you too can take silly jokes seriously. Aren't you special.

[Siquo]

The vast majority of the time, it is not.

Tip: There is no good and bad.

Congratulations, you too can take silly jokes seriously. Aren't you special.

Oh, hey, you made a funny! In a thread where funnies either have to be really obvious, or will be taken seriously, and you will be found stupid, because more stupid things have been said in all seriousness.

Aside from that, when in doubt, I always take people seriously.

[RAM]

@Bauglir: Correct. However, RAM and Neruz both still maintain after 200 pages that there's no such thing as an axiom/assumption in Reason and Science, and if there are, they are Provable! 

I do not maintain that there are no axioms, I simply maintain that they are not necessary, at least not in the way you seem to think they are. Take you current state as your only axiom, that is sufficient if you are willing to work at it...

[Max White]

So, can wisdom be measured though logical means?
I mean knowledge, sure we can do that, we have scientific method to help us there, but wisdom? It would seem such a concept operates without a frame of reference (Or at least one with too many factors to EVER hope to measure) and that means scientific method fails here.

In this way, even though everything in the universe follows a common logic, not everything can be measured by it, and this makes perfect sense. This is because wisdom is something that concerns how we act and behave, it has to do with who we are, and we can never know ourselves. This isn't because of some soppy saying. If you ask any programmer, scientist, or mathematician they will tell you that to predict a system, you require another system of greater capacity then it. Because we only have our own mind to measure our own mind, we will NEVER be able to tell exactly how to works, just come close to having a good guess.

In this way, logic and reason can not define wisdom, because it is beyond our capacity. Instead we need something that is built on faith, and accept that it is because it is. While science provides the world with knowledge, religion gives us wisdom.

[RAM]

Mathematics predicts stuff with much simpler systems. If you don't account for all the variables it will not be as precise, but you can certainly predict something enough to be useful using a simpler system.
Wisdom is making the correct decision, wisdom IS logic and reason. Wisdom doesn't always work, sometimes wisdom has bad results, it isn't defined by its results but by its efforts. Amongst other things this makes it easy to misidentify wisdom...

Personally I dislike statistics, it completely fails to address reasons and jump directly to coincidences, but it is a field of study that quite specifically quantifies a type of wisdom It states what is appropriate to take notice of, what is likely, what can be risked, what makes a good choice based on observations...

To dismiss something so easily, to assume that untold legions of people are all in complete agreement with your statement, to assume that an eternity of flawed study is immune to flaws. Where is the wisdom in that?

[Max White]

Wisdom is making the correct decision, wisdom IS logic and reason.

Truly?
Let us present the situation of medical research. Right now humans can not partake in anything deemed dangerous by a board, and as such animals are often used as substitutes.
BUT what happens in a lab rat will not always be the same as what happens in a human. Sometimes something that looks like a cure can have very ill effects.

As such, logic would dictate that using a human in tests would be the most effective method. That way if anything goes wrong, it only happens to one person, and in a controlled experiment, we could quickly and easily define the problem and make corrections.

Yet we do not do this, because the choices we make forbid it. Can you explain, if wisdom is logic, why we do not do the logical thing?

[RAM]

Because humans are stupid...

P.S.
To be fair there are various anxieties about freedom and selection and impersonalisation, but basically...

[Max White]

Because humans are stupid...

And I assume you think that you, and people like minded to you, are an exception?

[Grakelin]

Max White summed up what I've been meaning to say in a number of threads recently. There is a certain movement going around that humans are vicious, nasty creatures with no moral or conscience. This isn't the issue, since Hobbes is a perfectly valid theorist. The issue is that the same people who are reciting these beliefs seem to think they're somehow different from everybody else. It is extremely narcissistic to hold yourself on a higher moral ground than everybody else because 'they're stupid and brutish'. It is also inherently a false belief.

[Neruz]

The vast majority of the time, it is not.

Tip: There is no good and bad.

Feel free to replace 'good' and 'bad' with 'positive' and 'negative' if you like. I'm using that definition, not the emotionally charged ones like Good and Evil.

Congratulations, you too can take silly jokes seriously. Aren't you special.

Oh, hey, you made a funny! In a thread where funnies either have to be really obvious, or will be taken seriously, and you will be found stupid, because more stupid things have been said in all seriousness.

Aside from that, when in doubt, I always take people seriously.

I highly reccomend you do not.

In this way, even though everything in the universe follows a common logic, not everything can be measured by it, and this makes perfect sense. This is because wisdom is something that concerns how we act and behave, it has to do with who we are, and we can never know ourselves. This isn't because of some soppy saying. If you ask any programmer, scientist, or mathematician they will tell you that to predict a system, you require another system of greater capacity then it. Because we only have our own mind to measure our own mind, we will NEVER be able to tell exactly how to works, just come close to having a good guess.

Unless we can build a mind that's bigger than our own mind. Or perhaps we could get two people together and they could measure one mind?

And I assume you think that you, and people like minded to you, are an exception?

Actually; what he means is that A Person is a smart, rational being. People are dumb, panicky animals.

[Max White]

Actually; what he means is that A Person is a smart, rational being. People are dumb, panicky animals.

If that is what he meant, and I will request you do not put words into the mouths of others who are perfectly capable of explaining themselves, then he was attempting to smoke screen hes way out of giving a real answer.

It is a board of people that sat down after many years of education and made the choice that they were not going to allow humans for medical research. Not a crowd of people in a panic situation that did not understand the repressions of there choice, and trying to bring the human condition in such a situation into the answer is irrelevant.

[Neruz]

Actually; what he means is that A Person is a smart, rational being. People are dumb, panicky animals.

If that is what he meant, and I will request you do not put words into the mouths of others who are perfectly capable of explaining themselves, then he was attempting to smoke screen hes way out of giving a real answer.

It is a board of people that sat down after many years of education and made the choice that they were not going to allow humans for medical research. Not a crowd of people in a panic situation that did not understand the repressions of there choice, and trying to bring the human condition in such a situation into the answer is irrelevant.

Because, of course, boards of people getting together always find the best possible answer to a situation.