Ethics of Killing Animals

[Dragar]

Originally Posted by Listener

QM have been around since the beginning of the Universe not just since the early 20th century. I can't believe they have anything to do with the psychology of ethics. Our behaviour evolved through need for food, need to breed, fight and flight etc until it became the complexity it is now. Perhaps QM has a role in mutation?

QM was in place when we were still single celled organisms. If it has any function in the brain it's more likely to be about the behaviour of electrolyte ions etc. than our ethics.

I think NA is arguing an understanding of ethics should take into account quantum mechanics. If our understanding of ethics relies on determinism (or dare I say even niave realism), we're clearly on the wrong track.

[Dragar]

Originally Posted by Listener

The difference between human beings and animals from a moral point if view is that a human being (admit it or not) knows right from wrong.

I wouldn't put it past other primates than humans to have this notion either.

Which leads me to suspect it may be premature to decide no other animals have some social behaviour like our 'right-from-wrong' obsession.

[Iacchus]

Originally Posted by Brimshack

Quantum Mechanics!

...because you don't need to understand science to have fun with it.

Strictly speaking, what it all boils down to, is whether the Universe is a "random" effect or not.

[Iacchus]

Originally Posted by naturalist.atheist

That is the thing. If we are talking QM then there is most likely many possible courses.

Of course, one cannot maintain a sense of free will (a notion of many possible courses) otherwise. However, unless we are very specific about the outcome and how it is defined (as a single fluid event and, unalterable once it has occurred), we may as well give up trying to explain any of it ... because nothing will happen. There is nothing there to exercise our free will or, have an effect over.

Maybe not in this universe but in some other universe.

Exactly.

[naturalist.atheist]

Originally Posted by Dragar

I wouldn't put it past other primates than humans to have this notion either.

Which leads me to suspect it may be premature to decide no other animals have some social behaviour like our 'right-from-wrong' obsession.

I not only suspect it, I expect it. Call it a prediction if you like. What we call morals is just a word we give to certain kinds of social behavior that I would expect to see in other very social animals that form association in a manner similar to ours.

I always find it funny how people are so taken with traits that we have such as love, loyalty, devotion and so forth that would seem to me to be shared by a wide range of social species and think these traits somehow make humans special.

[naturalist.atheist]

Originally Posted by Iacchus

Of course, one cannot maintain a sense of free will (a notion of many possible courses) otherwise. However, unless we are very specific about the outcome and how it is defined (as a single fluid event and, unalterable once it has occurred), we may as well give up trying to explain any of it ... because nothing will happen. There is nothing there to exercise our free will or, have an effect over.

Exactly.

Iacchus the past is only as certain as we can remember it or reconstruct it. We exist on the surface of a vast boiling roiling sea of uncertainly that only looks certain to us because of the central limit theorem (in other words what we see is an artifact of the averaging effects of our particular scale of existence).

[Iacchus]

Like I said in the other post, one need only watch a video recording, in order to see how the present (and future) is inextricably linked to the past. It's all the same phenomenon ... notwithstanding the observer of course, who stands in the present and is capable of altering what it sees before it.

[naturalist.atheist]

Originally Posted by Iacchus

Like I said in the other post, one need only watch a video recording, in order to see how the present (and future) is inextricably linked to the past. It's all the same phenomenon ... notwithstanding the observer of course, who stands in the present and is capable of altering what it sees before it.

The video example is exactly what I am talking about. Unless you are trying to tell me that you "believe" everything you see on video.

[Iacchus]

No, I'm suggesting that once something occurs, it stands as it is (it has now become part of the past) and, is unalterable. So I really don't see what if anything it has to do with "uncertainty?" In fact, of this much I think we can be quite certain.

[naturalist.atheist]

The past only stands as it is recalled, as it is reconstructed. Otherwise it is gone. Yes the present stands on the past, but just like the future, there is more than one possible past for any given set of present remains of the past.

[Iacchus]

These possibilities may in fact exist but, only on the "other side" of matter. Once it is effected on "this side" of matter, however -- or, on "this side" of QM -- it is final, and cannot be changed.

[naturalist.atheist]

If that makes you feel good about yourself then have at it. "Believe" anything you like.

[Iacchus]

Really? It seems to me you're the one who's saying we can "reconstruct" the past in any old we like. And yes, I concur, this is strictly a matter of "belief."

[Iacchus]

But hey, whatever floats your boat.

[naturalist.atheist]

Well of course Iacchus, but some people lack the conviction of their "beliefs". Their "beliefs" are just bullshit they spout as a kind of self administered therapy. Of course Iacchus, at any time you could put your "beliefs" to the test and kill yourself. If you are right then your existence will not come to an end. According to you it will just begin. I have no idea what you are waiting for unless you do not actually "believe" your own bullshit.

[Iacchus]

Or, at the very least, you will find yourself without the need to effect some sort of reply ... one less "idiot" to deal with anyway.

[naturalist.atheist]

Originally Posted by Iacchus

Really? It seems to me you're the one who's saying we can "reconstruct" the past in any old we like. And yes, I concur, this is strictly a matter of "belief."

I didn't say anyway you like, I said that the remains that we find in the present can have a number of pasts. Not any old past. But in your case none of this matters. Because what drives you is not any sort of honest interest in how the universe works, what drives you is your desperate need to make yourself feel special.

[Iacchus]

Originally Posted by naturalist.atheist

I didn't say anyway you like, I said that the remains that we find in the present can have a number of pasts. Not any old past.

Okay so, then you are agreeing with me.

But in your case none of this matters. Because what drives you is not any sort of honest interest in how the universe works, what drives you is your desperate need to make yourself feel special.

No, the problem is that I agree with much of what you're saying, just not the ultimate result. Does that bother you? Oh, if that somehow entails the notion that human beings are "special," then at least I am able to provide the basis for it ... or else, like you say, people are making a way big deal over nothing here. Honest.

[Iacchus]

Originally Posted by naturalist.atheist

I didn't say anyway you like, I said that the remains that we find in the present can have a number of pasts. Not any old past.

Actually, no, I don't agree with this at all. In either case it implies more than one possibility, and I'm saying no. Or, if not, how (or why) insist on holding people accountable for their actions? Why do you insist on calling me an idiot, or a fool if, it weren't indelibly stamped on my character? Of course we all know this is simply what you would like to "believe."

[naturalist.atheist]

Iacchus, I didn't call you a fool or an idiot. Remember? I'm the one that calls you a narcissist.

[Iacchus]

These are just synonyms, for the most part. For example, the fool is blinded by his pride, which is typically self-referential and a form of self-love. Narcissism is just a fancier label.

[Gonzo]

I'm the one that called you a dolphin.

[Listener]

Originally Posted by Dragar

I think NA is arguing an understanding of ethics should take into account quantum mechanics. If our understanding of ethics relies on determinism (or dare I say even niave realism), we're clearly on the wrong track.

That sounds like what Gilbert Ryle called a "category error" to me. QM is about physics. Ethics is about behaviour/psychology.

The simple ethics (for me) is the legalistic (carrot and stick) ethics. If I do something illegal (e.g. drive too fast or when I'm drunk) then I can expect to be punished by the law enforcement folk - so I don't drive all that fast and never when I'm drunk. If I'm inconsiderate then I'm unpopular.

The main one (for atheistic me) is about empathy.

When I was seven or eight I went to a farm with my father. He was a chick sexer.

YouTube- Chicks arrive from McMurray Hatchery...

Rather than have me hanging around he told me to make myself useful and slaughter the cockerels.

That farmer used a horrible technique. He has a tub of cold water and a stirring rod, tipped a box of chicks (typically 25-30) in the water and stirred them in. He asked me to do the stirring.

I was horrified! I hadn't been told that I should be horrified but dry chicks float, try to swim and panic, desperately trying to save the newly-found life. I was supposed to shove any chick that was struggling under the water to drown. I just couldn't do it to the heroic little creatures.

I asked permission to slaughter them by breaking their necks which is much more humane. The chick goes from comfortable to "asleep" without any inkling that it's going to happen, no panic, no pain.

I can't answer the question "why should we be good?". With hindsight my actions were purely egoistical - my empathy (I felt for those chicks) made me want to do it more kindly. If I'd opted out completely someone else would have drowned them.

[Iacchus]

Originally Posted by Listener

That sounds like what Gilbert Ryle called a "category error" to me. QM is about physics. Ethics is about behaviour/psychology.

That's the whole point though. If QM is the very basis of reality, how can this not be what ethics are all about? You have to postulate something prior to QM, where ethics already exist, in their full scope and totality, in order to make the distinction. Otherwise you are saying there's no basis for it, other than random noise.

[Gonzo]

YouTube- 1 of 2 Author Jonathan Safran Foer...

YouTube- 2 of 2 Author Jonathan Safran Foer...