From: mss2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: God and Science:  The Ramblings of The Nightstalker
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 14:14:04 GMT

In article <1dtif6INNem4@gap.caltech.edu> lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>In article <1992Nov12.020748.21841@midway.uchicago.edu>, mss2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer) writes:

>=	"I have direct experience of exercising free will-- more
>=direct than my experience of the real world itself, which is after all
>=filtered through sensory experience before reaching my consciousness.
>=I _could_ be wrong about this, but since no one has yet devised a
>=means to prove or disprove the hypothesis, and I don't think it's
>=irrelevant (since I would consider it unjust to hold people
>=responsible for their actions if they had no choice in the matter) I
>=have to choose one position or the other."

>I was more interested in why you don't find a mass delusion of meaning a
>compelling hypothesis.  The actual existence of meaning would be compelling
>were people able to agree on what that meaning is.  Given that so many people
>have made so many different claims as to what that meaning might be, I don't
>find the idea that there's any intrinsic meaning to life very compelling.

	"The answer is essentially the same.  As we hashed through
back during the discussion of moral relativism, I consider holding
actions to be praiseworthy or blameworthy to be meaningful only if
there's a universal standard against which to measure them.  Because
if not, if it's just a matter of taste, then my own moral standards would
consider it to be unjust to sanction punishment or censure for wrong
actions.  But, I consider the idea that, say, genocide or torture is
merely a matter of different but equally valid moral standards to be
an absurdity.  Many people find it possible not to find it absurd, but
since that's the crux of why _I'm_ not a relativist (and therefore why I
think there is a universal moral meaning in human actions)
disagreements here don't seem to be able to go any further."

>=	"I haven't the foggiest idea.  But ascribing a guilty
>=conscience to dogs may merely be a matter of anthropomorphism-- like
>=calling some animal's facial expression a "smile" because it
>=superficially resembles our smile, without any knowledge as to whether
>=the source is the same.  We know humans from the inside, and hence
>=have some experience what internal mental processes cause the external
>=behavior described.

>Well, to pick a nit, we each know ONE human from the inside.

	"Quite true.  As I said before, I can't disprove solipsism
logically-- my presumption that other humans can be analogized to me
is somewhere between a leap of faith and an educated guess.  (Then
again, if I'm the only sentient being in the universe, then by
definition there _is_ universal meaning to life, since I'm the only
one who gets to decide yea or nay.  :-) )"

Michael

-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Indeed I tremble for my country
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 when I reflect that God is just."
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on
mss2@amber.uchicago.edu		    Virginia (1784)