/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15318446]

How do we solve the is-ought problem?

[Anonymous No.15318455]

Looks like a wrinkled dick, sorry.

[Anonymous No.15318456]

>>15318446
Making everyone dogmatically read Kant.

[Anonymous No.15318468]

There is none. Anything you think ought to be is just your opinion

[Anonymous No.15318477]

>>15318468
What if ought is simple that which is logical. 1 plus 1 ought to equal 2?

[Anonymous No.15318479]

Seduction

[Anonymous No.15318488]

>>15318446
>How do we solve the is-ought problem?
First you're going to have to convince me that this is something we ought to do.

[Anonymous No.15318493]

>ought ought ought
stfu fags, my dick ought to be in your moms asshole.

[Anonymous No.15318501]

>>15318477
Why ought 1 plus 1 equal 2?

[Anonymous No.15318511]

>>15318446
What ought to be is dictated by the word of God, and God dictates what is. The word of God is all.

[Anonymous No.15318520]

>>15318501
it's just useful to assume it does because then you can use math for stuff. You dont have to if you dont care

[Anonymous No.15318541]

>>15318477
1 + 1 = 2 in the system of rules we've constructed to linearly deal with the quantity of things, but in nature there's no individual things but vastly complex patterns constantly changing and interacting with each other which we approximate as things. Why should reality have to be perfectly described by our tiny monkey brains? Logic is only possible when you divide phenomena arbitrarily but there's no such division outside of your mind.

[Anonymous No.15318575]

>Thats just your opinion
YES
Comply or die

[Anonymous No.15318585]

>>15318541
This. I hate postmod shit and deconstruction as much as the next guy, but to say that 1+1=2 is "true" is misleading. It's an axiom, and only an axiom sometimes. 1+1=0 mod 2. Is that "true"? At some level the nature of being and matter cannot be described with numbers. You must have faith in a higher creative force, namely God.

[Anonymous No.15318601]

>>15318585
Well you don't necessarily know that either. Maybe numbers are some facet of objective reality.

[Anonymous No.15318612]

>>15318446
The human brain evolved morality to cooperate and function in groups. All humans have an instinctive understanding that truth is better than deception, beauty & nobility are better than baseness, freedom is better than subjugation, etc. Relativist nihilists will never want untoward action directed at them, and we build what ought to be off the best case scenario for all parties: virtue as an extrinsic end rather than a vehicle for personal satisfaction.

[Anonymous No.15318620]

>>15318541
But can’t you simply say that one proportion (doesn’t matter what) and another portion are together equal to the sum of the both. Or that all bachelors are unmarried? Just because it’s self defining doesn’t make it any less true.

[Anonymous No.15318635]

>>15318446

calling it a "problem" is a misnomer

In reality "ought" does not actually exist at all only "is"
No "is" has ever been generated from anything other than another "is"
At no point does an "ought" every come into play it is purely an illusion of the mind

[Anonymous No.15318639]

>>15318446
If you mean, 'How do we universalize preferences?', we don't. Human nature is not universal.

We can, however, apply heuristic strategies that leverage the overlap in our natures. We already do this... We've evolved to do this. As to how we can improve our strategies, I think a good way would be to explicitly empirically evaluate widespread behaviours for adaptive/maldaptive outcomes and adjust policy accordingly.

[Anonymous No.15318646]

>>15318446
is
>is-ought
not just
>being-becoming

>>15318456
Kant only wins here if it's is-ought-if
like, if people care

[Anonymous No.15318658]

>>15318446
Biopolitics solves the is-ought distinction

[Anonymous No.15318676]

>>15318620
It is defined that way without assumption.
The assumption is made when you try to apply this to the world

[Anonymous No.15318694]

>>15318612
>All humans
Are you sure? To the same degree and sensibility? I don't think so. There are a lot of places on Earth you could go where you'd be appalled by standards of behaviour that the locals don't bat an eye at. This is why relativists are right.

I'd also point out that a nihilist wouldn't necessarily disagree with your definition of morality or it's utility, so I don't get why you're trying to imply they're hypocrites or something.

I agree with your pragmatic skew, but I'd be wary about the naive ideal of moral universality.

[Anonymous No.15318716]

>>15318585
Eh, I'm a fan of later Wittgenstein, mathematics is like a rule following language game. All numerical operations represent changes with respect to each other, so I wouldn't say it's inconsistent, but just an unverifiable language.
>>15318620
Of course it's a valid statement within it's own rules, and it can provide verifiable information as well, but this language game cannot be proved outside of it's own axioms. There's no way to prove the validity of mathematics outside of it's use, and mathematics in general is more about it's usage in context than anything else, especially after Godel tore ass into its supposed axiomatic foundations. The problem with describing all of nature with such a limiting system is that it needlessly excludes most of the complexity we observe in it by virtue of this very simplistic reduction it requires to remain translatable into simple things that can be represented by numbers. Take the sun for example, we mathematically define it's radius by the extent of it's visible fire, but we know that the heat of the sun extends far beyond that range, and is only invisible to our eyes due to our biological composition. The range between a "thing" and it's environment is always arbitrarily divided to allow us to perform calculations on it, but these divisions are only surface level. When we deal with abstract quantities in our daily lives like you mentioned there's no problem, but these aren't tangible existing entities, only names in a language game we play. All mathematical descriptions of nature itself are no more than abstractions of an ineffible reality.

[Anonymous No.15318723]

>>15318635
Quite so. But we do still need a pragmatic linguistic shortcut... We can't get into exhaustive empirical analysis everytime we attempt to regulate behaviour.

[Anonymous No.15318788]

>>15318716
I agree with this. I was just saying that ought, when using a system of truth, can in fact be true (internally of course). Im not arguing against the arbitraryness of things, just that truths can be maintained within praxis, if not in a universalizing theory. Of course there is the diffence, and the confussion that arizes between words, ideas, and "things in themselves".

[Anonymous No.15318833]

>>15318511
>>15318479
ooh scary boring philosophy problem gon' let satan in to getcha

[Anonymous No.15318841]

>>15318446
>How do we solve the is-ought problem?
Read philosophy

[Anonymous No.15318889]

>>15318716
>mathematics is an unverifiable language
Big agree. This is part of what I was trying to say in my post, but I'm a little retarded

[Anonymous No.15318911]

Are Turing machines the only option?

[Anonymous No.15318935]

>>15318446
Even looking at is a problem to be solved shows that it can't be solved. People want to be able to justify their preconceived notions of morality through an 'is' reason. What people don't want is to reason from what 'is' to what 'ought' to be, see the derision scientific conceptions of morality are held in.

[Anonymous No.15318992]

>>15318541
I agree with you, but it’s also impossible to know whether “such division” really does exist. I don’t see how’d you refute the possibility that atomism is true, and discrete-ness is fundamental, and just creates the illusion of continuity the way a color gradient on a computer screen does

[Anonymous No.15319016]

I find attempts to fix morality to some sort of fixed logic is like putting legs on a snake, or lungs on a fish. It's such a strange justification for something so intangible, and this debate seems nonsensical. Is the tsunami that kills 10,000 in Japan amoral? Is the sun moral for giving humans life? If we're to create some form of objective moral structure we'd need it to be comprised of relations between moral "objects" or "things", but moral actions are not objects in the sense a number or orange is. Morality can be defined by relations between people, but there are infinitely many variations of interactions that can be judged morally. Rather than using arbitrary definitions of good and bad to judge a subjective situation "objectively", morality is dynamic. Since you can never know all the potential variables or outcomes for a situation, or know what another person is feeling or will feel, all moral actions must be taken on a subjective judgement and can be considered by the intention of a moral actor, since estimating what another is feeling and what course of action is beneficial or not in a situation is something that arises with incomplete information. Morality is for you to decide at every moment, and can be as useful or useless as you decide, but these same things apply to anyone else you interact with, so being "good" or "bad" is only valid as a subjective judgement from others based on your interactions, and can vary.

[Anonymous No.15319019]

>>15318479
i see you

[Anonymous No.15319029]

>>15318716
>All mathematical descriptions of nature itself are no more than abstractions of an ineffible reality.
Agreed, but I’d say that’s true for all descriptions of nature, mathematical or otherwise

[Anonymous No.15319047]

>>15318446
if you want to win a race, you ought to come first
if you want to be moral, you ought to do X
boom

[Anonymous No.15319059]

>>15319016
this is your brain on modernity. there is a moral structure to the world.

[Anonymous No.15319094]

>>15319059
Read the OP this is about the is-ought problem. If there is a moral structure to the world how does that affect what I ought to do? Just calling it moral doesn't work

[Anonymous No.15319118]

>>15318446
The same vision that can glimpse at what ought to be is the same sight that can see what is.

Those who can't see what is, cannot see what ought to be.

[Anonymous No.15319122]

>>15318446
1. Not all opinions are equal
2. Mine is superior to yours
3. I will prove it by force

[Anonymous No.15319131]

>>15319122
This is what it all comes down to. Philosophy is just to pretty up the victors.

[Anonymous No.15319134]

>>15318992
I'd argue that the structure of our brains is ultimately discrete in the same way a supercomputer is, as our senses must filter out information by the limited nature of our intellects in order to make predictions using a logical structure, which is another tool our brain uses. We perceive an atomistic world, but we have atomistic brains, and we can never know anything outside of our own perceptions and brains, so we can never assume reality is exactly as it appears to us. We perceive light as discrete because we can only measure it by dividing it up and our brain constructs reality by the discrete nature of sensory impressions, but if you only have a hammer every problem looks like a nail. You could equally say that in reality you can never define when one event begins and ends, as any event is just as much it's "cause" as it is it's "effect", and any object is as much it's environment as it is a "thing". Without air sun and food could there be a human? Does birth begin at conception, fertilization, your parents fucking, or your parents being born? You could say there's one event, and one time, which is now, and the now that we think happens one minute later is exactly the same composition, as one interdependent reality constantly arising.
>>15319029
I agree, most descriptions are mathematical anyway.

[Anonymous No.15319153]

>>15319134
This is dumb take a physics class. Light is not discrete nor is it continuous and it has nothing to do with how we perceive it

[Anonymous No.15319192]

>>15319059
Is this moral structure you speak of an abstraction you place on the world or something tangible in reality, because I can't find it. There may be a moral structure to YOUR world, but there's a different moral structure to everyones world. Just because you don't "ought" to be moral doesn't mean don't be moral, you don't ought to do anything, you don't have to keep on living, or get out of bed in the morning, eat your tendies, post on a nigerian stamp collecting forum, or be autistic, but you still do it. The consequences of being moral or amoral will always apply to you, and the feelings resulting from choosing to be moral in as many situations as you can will be your "ought", so long as you choose to. Happiness is not guaranteed, you can always choose to suffer and bring misery to others, but it's your choice. Not because someone told you to do it, and if they did, they just influenced your choice.

[Anonymous No.15319231]

>>15319153
I'm aware of particle wave duality, but if it has nothing to do with how we perceive it how the fuck do we know anything about it? All experiments are extensions of our senses in a way, as they ultimately must be interpreted by our senses. Light can be mathematically described as discrete particles while simultaneously being a wave in a continuous field of energy, but outside of mathematical abstractions what does this have to do with what I said? I'm speaking of our perception of reality being informed entirely by the structure of our brains, as it necessarily filters out much of reality, including most of the EM spectrum. Who can say the natural world ends neatly where our experiments fail to probe further, as if that was so we can say the universe is only the size of the observable universe, and the microverse ends at the planck scale, but that's only from our inherently limited perspective.

[Anonymous No.15319255]

>>15319231
So you perceive light as discrete? Like you see light particles? With your eyes? Because I think most people think of the intensity of light as a continuous quantity

[Anonymous No.15319321]

45 replies and no one brought up Putnam, dark times upon lit with such a pseud to non-pseud ratio
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJxn-sqADUA

[Anonymous No.15319335]

>>15319255
We have discrete instances of experience, as according to physics trillions of atoms jiggle around in my brain between every moment we experience, but our sense of time is on a different scale. Light is only the thin part of the EM spectrum we perceive through our eyes, but there's a vast ocean beyond this. To our perception light is perfectly continuous, but from another perspective it can be said to be discrete. When does a moment end and another begin is so seamless that to us it's perfectly continuous, as the changes we perceive must be of a certain scale. On another level this falls apart. Who can say if reality is discrete or continuous if not relative to an observer, and we can think of particles as relatively continuous waves from their perspective that are discrete particles from our perspective.