Metaethics

[Jasper]

Time for another Sigmatic Brand Wall Of Text^®!

I have always striven to take into account all that I know about the world in my ethical observations.  I know, for instance, that before I was born there existed a long, sad, and vibrant history of human civilization and myth that, throughout recorded time, the most consistent sound has been the beating of war drums.  I know that we inhabit a naturally occurring planet that took shape around a star, which in it's own turn took shape from the remnants of a supernova, which in it's own turn was made possible by a cataclysm roughly 14 billion of our years ago.  I know that we are constantly on the brink of all out sci-fi dystopia or nuclear annihilation, and yet things are better than they have ever been in history.  There are laws in place that protect people's rights.  There are societal safety nets to catch us if we stumble, and we can talk to anyone in the world whenever we want to, instantly, at negligible cost.  The world is so complex and multifarious that it is harder than ever to conceive of an ethical framework that is relevant, complete, valid, and useful.  

Knowing all this, my moral ideal strives to balance a hugely complex worldview on extremely simple ideas.  The metaphor is that of a very jerky system of cogs that do not fit well, and wear down often, and are only kept functional with huge amounts of lubricant and upkeep,  The lubricant is humane sentiment and the upkeep is humor.    

My ideas about morality do implement a metaphysical basis.   And, perhaps shockingly, a form of metaphysical dualism.  I never liked Rene Descartes, perhaps because of his glib summation in the cogito, or perhaps because of his spiritual assumptions.  My form of dualism is that of energy and information.  Everything in reality is either energy or information, because if you read enough particle physics, you start to see that everything is composed of energy.  And if you think about it, the only thing that enables thought is the existence of information.  In my dualism I take energy to encompass time, space, and matter, and information to encompass any kind of system or arrangement, from binary data to metadata in the positions and behavior of neurons.  From this metaphysical basis I attempt to annihilate all the poor assumptions made of reality, from supernatural phenomena to the myth of unified rational agency.  

A certain amount of cognitive psychology also has a hand in my ethics.  I know that our brains have certain hard-wired "blind spots" in thought and memory.  What it all amounts to is the principle to not trust what our brains tell us.  

What this all culminates in is a somewhat boggled take on everything, a universe riddled with moral ambiguity, chaos, unknowability, and dilemma.   I am okay with this.  I find that the most pleasing levels of morality take place when one is the most confused and unsure.  Conversely, the most grievous things to have ever happened, happened when people were absolutely convinced that they were agents of divine mandate.   The infamous Stanley Milgram and Stanford Jail experiments are concrete evidence of this.  

Another inspiration for my ethos has been Kurt Vonnegut.  His sad, beautiful, hilarious take on humanity has always informed my opinion of morality, ever since I read Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions.  I still believe what he said, "We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane."

I don't presume to take my ethos as universally good.  I am even a little wary of anybody who would ask me to believe in a universal good.  Things that are good no matter what are dangerous, in my opinion, and humans should not be trusted with them.  As Baron von Munchausen said in the movie, "Your "reality", sir, is lies and balderdash, and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever!"  I feel that way about things that are "good".  Should I want to be good?  If I am meant to be a good man, why is it so pleasing to light firecrackers?  Why does mischief, gallows humor, and jaywalking seem so enjoyable?  I'm not alone in this.  If I thought nobody would agree with my predilections, I would conceal it from the world like an embarrassing birth mark.  But most if not all humans have a gleefully malicious streak, or an impish urge to screw things up, or some malefic tendency or another.  We are not good.  We habitually abuse and torment each other.  We form armies and build nukes.  We make puns.  And we laugh while we do it all.  How we laugh.

My people are not good.  My people are bewildered and awestruck by the multitudes of informations and energies  that constantly play foil to human folly.  My people cry in chick flicks and laugh at catastrophes.  In short, they are so confused that they forget to mistreat each other.  From the hideously complex miasma of information and energy we emerged, too brief to become sure of anything and too brilliant to sit there looking dumbfounded.  Life is cosmic brevity, a disease of matter that lives on the edges of sustainability.

[Juana]

I love this.

[Jasper]

Thankew.

It has been brewing for a month or so.

[nerinamakani]

Interesting.

I want to convince you to convince others that suicide is a moral imperative.

Positive suicide of course..

[Jasper]

Incompatible ideals, unfortunately.  I can't offer any imperatives with this ethos, in fact it's really only good for eliminating imperatives and biases.

[nerinamakani]

Hmm..

Perhaps eliminate imperitives against positive suicide?

The bias on the subject is excessive I feel.

[Adios]

OP, can you dumb this down a little? 

[nerinamakani]

Humilty+Compassion=Grace.

[Adios]

Humilty+Compassion=Grace.

Fuck Grace.

[Jasper]

@nerina

The right to die is, I feel, more a legal issue nowadays than a moral one.  If it were legal, nobody would say shit.

America doesn't have many moral issues, really.  We're 'diverse' now, which means moral relativism to most people.  I don't support moral relativism, personally.  Not because my proposed system doesn't support it, but just because it's a bias I have, and I find that most people use it as a cop-out than as anything worthwhile.

OP, can you dumb this down a little?  

Apologies, sometimes I get a bit carried away.  I like words.  I'll try to unpack it a bit, since the reception does seem to be a bit tentative.

Basically: don't trust anything, not even your own brain, and especially don't trust anybody who talks about "universal good".  We have things called "cognitive biases", which impugn on our ability to be completely objective and rational.  We can do a pretty good imitation of those things, but it's by no means pure.  Everybody thinks they're an expert on consciousness, but our experiences with consciousness deceive us in fundamental ways.  So, never be 100% sure.  Use Strong Inference (cf: Kai's recent thread on that).

It's all based on the idea about reality that everything in the universe is either energy or information (as opposed to mind and body, like the guy who said "Cogito Ergo Sum" thought).  My form of dualism is superior because mind/body dualism doesn't account for how minds interact with bodies.  If everything is information and energy, it is apparent how these things can interact while being fundamentally different types of reality.  Based on my admittedly foggy grasp of science, in the category of energy I include things like time, space, and matter as well as different kinds of energies and waves.  Physics and chemistry, basically.

Information can similarly cover a wide range of things.  Simply put, information is the difference that makes a difference. (Thank you Daniel Hillis.  "Patterns on the Stone" is a great book.)  It can be the unique arrangement of neurons, or a stream of binary, or a narrative of any sort.  And much more besides.

[Jasper]

Humilty+Compassion=Grace.

I'm not saying exactly that.  Yes, I'm inspired by Vonnegut, and those are useful virtues for living life, for some people, but what I'm really getting at is a sort of worldview that doesn't include lies.

Think of it as e-prime for consciousness.  C-Prime, or accuracy though doubt.

[LMNO]

Think of it as e-prime for consciousness.  C-Prime, or accuracy though doubt.

Huh.  You've given me something new to think about.  Many thanks.

[Jasper]

It's fascinating, isn't it?

[nerinamakani]

"Think of it as e-prime for consciousness.  C-Prime, or accuracy though doubt."

Ah.. I was focusing more on the ethics aspect. Constructed ethics. Just injecting some of my own bias.

Over all i'd have to say I agree with you. Except on the ..er.. lack of certainty?(onpersonalmorality) I make my own certainty(in a humble fashion)

(still inserting bias for susceptable readers, shh)

[Jasper]

Tell me what you are certain of, and I will tell you about the assumptions you make that may lead to poor decisions.