We will always learn more about human life and human personality from novels than from scientific psychology?
I agree completely. Psychology is really a pseudo-science except for its statistical applications, which like all fields, shaves the outliers from the top and bottom and trends to the average. Novels and poetry trend to the outliers, which is what makes them fascinating and genuine within their own context. Life is more of a mystery to be lived than a problem or riddle to be solved. Psychology attempts to view much as problems to be solved. While it provides advancement in some areas, when it comes to human personality, it tends to use the pigeon hole approach. It always seemed to me that psychology instructors talked out of both sides of their mouth. It is not as important to explain why things are but to appreciate the fact that they are the way they are. Novelists express that and the human spirit and psychologists to a large degree just put labels on all of it and tug at their chins.
Is there any evidence for an objective morality?
A2AAll morality is subjective. Morality begins with a subjective — personal — valuation of something for which, on which, or about which a person might act. No thing has any inherent value; all value is subjectively assigned.For example, to consider the morality or immorality of lying, a person must first place some kind of value on truthfulness. Is it important to be truthful? if so, why? Does a person place a high or low value on being truthful? This is how it starts. From the answers to these and other questions regarding truthfulness a person comes to understand how they value truthfulness. If they place a high value on it, then they’re likely to regard lying as immoral. If they place a low value on truthfulness, they might not see lying as immoral, or at least not immoral enough to worry about it.Because morality starts with a subjective valuation, it cannot be objective. Morality is always subjective. Even people who believe their morality is bestowed on them by some authority operate under the subjective morality of that authority.
If morality is subjective, then how come human rights are objective?
Let me put this bluntly, at the risk of being rather unpopular:There is no such thing as a “right”.There are only privileges that have been won by blood, sweat & tears, and entrenched in law by sustained and intelligent effort.If there were actual “rights”, you would never have to fight for them; they’d just come naturally. A lot of people these days seem to think that’s how it works, but I imagine they are starting to suspect the truth.“Morals” are one way of entrenching privileges and preventing their violation, but the only reliable tool for incorporating them into a legal code is ethics — which require thought, understanding, compromise and cooperation (lost arts in today’s world).We have a lot of work to do on our individual intellectual infrastructure if we want to preserve any of our most beloved “human rights”.If you are scornful of the “intellectual elite”, God help you, because no one else will, least of all yourself.
Is it possible for humans to achieve objective truth, or is humanity destined to subjective perceptions of reality?
Taking after Douglas Hofstadter, I think the existence of isomorphisms is profound. Probably my favourite is the relationship between cellular components/cells/tissues/organs/individual humans and society.In the same way that the ‘hard problem’ of consciousness forces us to admit that individual cells cannot be sentient in the same sense that that we believe individual people are, I suggest that ‘reality’ cannot be determined by an individual in the same way that a cell cannot describe the state of the whole body to which it belongs.However, the intricacy of even single cells and their methods of communication is such that much can be known about the greater ‘corporate reality’ by observing just these individuals, and it would be logical to argue that they ‘perceive’ this reality in a sense. I cite the responses of almost any human cell to the prevalence of inflammatory cytokines.But of course this is not to say cells or individuals achieve objective truth, since such a thing (I suggest) only exists at a higher (suprasocietal) level, in the same way ‘molecular conformation’ does not exist at an atomic level (but even in that case the state of individual atoms is determined by that same molecular conformation which is rendered indescribable by the level of observation).Holism vs Reductionism. Your perspective (or attempt thereat) determines your answer.
Do you think Subjective time (personal) or Objective time (fixed) is real?
We "experience" time in a relative way depending on a few factors. For example, personal time is what is tracked on a watch you might be wearing. As long as you are merely walking around, that time is the same as the place you are. However if you are traveling at high speeds ( like on an airplane), you would have to "add" or "subtract" time depending on which direction the plane is flying in order to keep time with the surface of the earth below. A second factor has to do with how we "note" time, or maintain an awareness of time. If you are not terribly busy, you can stay aware of the passage of time by noting time-based events in your environment, such as, changes in sunlight, shadows, noticing a clock, estimating time spent, and so forth. If you are very busy or very engaged in one event (concentrating), you might not notice the passage of time - "time flies when you're having fun". On the other hand, if you have nothing to do, you become very much aware of the passage of time because there are no events taking place; then time "drags slowly" - like school ?, or a boring movie, etc. Einstein called time "the distance between two events" - that's why it can be relative.
Does subjective truth exist?
There is truth and then there is what individuals or groups believe what is true whether it is a fact or not. A truth is a general mutual fact that pretty much everyone agrees exists whether we need people for it to be fact or not is a long discussion. A subjective truth is what some believes to be true that another will disagree with which is not a general mutual understanding of a fact. It is a fact that we have the ability to have pain. Someone who has never had pain will not necessarily agree its a fact but I do not know anyone who has experienced that. What your asking really is a discussion on whether religion is a subjective truth, from what I understand. The sun exists its fact everyone can see, and we do not have believe it to see it because its there. The argument against it is the sun does not exist because we believe it does not exist whether we can see it or not. Subjective is a perspective of truth whether right or wrong but is mentally justifiable over scientifically proven. Now we have different believes in faith and whether that faith believes it is right or wrong over another faith whether its fact or not which many faiths do not do anyway a mutual respect does exist. There is a fine line between general knowledge and a subjective belief or view of a fact that is not necessarily scientifically proven yet. That is the basic difference, unfortunately a method of teaching a fact which is originally from a belief makes harder in certain situations to clarify those differences between an objective and subjective fact. You said judgements and opinions are subjective but are not subjective truths, actually these are the things that make up the subjectives truth which can be a collective view of a group, otherwise what other logic is there to clarify it is subjective. Like I was saying before a subjective is simply what someone believes to be true of which there is no sufficient mutual evidence.
What is human life?
Human life is the highest expression of nature. It is the stage of evolution where 'nature' can think about its own thoughts, qualities, feelings and characteristics. It is called self-reflective thinking. You do not only think, but you can also think about or evaluate your thoughts. This capability is uniquely human - not shared by other species. This capacity allows us humans to make moral and spiritual progress by eliminating thoughts and behaviors that hurt ourselves and others. We can even get rid of our negative thoughts and feelings by reflecting upon their root causes, realizing the futility of negativity, becoming aware that past cannot be undone, reading and learning from wisdom literature, and so on. The human being, if he advances sufficiently mentally-emotionally- spiritually, then he can even attain Self-realization - the awareness of one's oneness with the one life force or consciousness that runs through the entire Universe. Transcending all the illusions of limitations, and realizing this oneness with the supremely pure consciousness or God or one’s immortal Soul nature is the ultimate purpose of human life. Nature is unable to help us beyond providing with a fully equipped body-mind for this ultimate purpose. We have to attain this supreme goal with our own intelligent efforts. Other souls who have gained wisdom in the past can only help us by showing the path. We ourselves would have to walk on it to find and realize the Truth.
Is ethics subjective or objective?
Ethics is a set of agreed-on standards devised to benefit society or certain segments of society (see Michael Fairfax’s answer). So ethics are simultaneously objective and subjective, effectively making them neither. They typically have a moral basis, which is to say that the majority of people agree that certain actions are either right or wrong.As explained in my Ethics in the Media class, ethics are not moral tenets that you necessarily agree with but that you conform to anyway. Someone else gave the example of paying taxes. You might not agree with how people are taxed. You might think that no one should be taxed. However, if you are an ethical person, you pay your taxes as prescribed. Because taxes benefit society.Ethics are in place to prevent individuals from acting on immoral urges. For example, the county clerk who refused to grant marriage licenses to gay couples was both unethical and immoral. Most people would argue that if she has an issue doing her job, she needs to find a new one. Her immorality (refusing to act ethically) outside of the workplace is her own personal cross to bear.Our society (in the U.S.) has determined that prostitution is similarly unethical because it harms far more people than it helps. This is a hot-button issue for many, because arguments can be made both for and against prostitution. However, bottom line: we the people have determined prostitution to be unethical. So those who engage in it are unethical unless we as a society determine otherwise.Once immoral and amoral actions infringe on the rights of others, that’s when it becomes important to insist that our system of ethics be followed.
Can humans really have a True purpose in this Wicked world?
Our purpose is not to follow a imaginary God, it is to thrive and dominate, probably destroy this world, then be done with it, so quit fooling around with your mental disease AKA - religion, and get on with life. Some quotes here to maybe make you see the truth..? "If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever."—Woody Allen "We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes."—Gene Roddenberry "The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one."—George Bernard Shaw "Our Bible reveals to us the character of our god with minute and remorseless exactness... It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere. It makes Nero an angel of light and leading by contrast"—Twain "It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."—Twain "thank god Im an Atheist" as being from Salavdor Dali, then later the same quote saying it was Luis Bunuel Blaise Pascal Men never commit evil so fully and joyfuly as when they do it for religious convictions Emo Philips When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me. unknown: Don't pray in my school, and I won't think in your church Steven Weinberg With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. George Carlin: Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man -- living in the sky -- who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do.. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time! ..But He loves you. --------- You asked for my personal thoughts.. I gave you the truth.
Are humans dumb enough to destroy themselves?
human being ..such an intelligent and gifted creature. Human beings are almost built to pure perfection, but just like a person with too much money we do have to much abilites that we do not know how to use right, just like that guy with too much money he doesn't know what to spend it on. We can perform great with the natural world and that is what we are mad for, but we grow up in industrial towns that have barely any morals. This world is built apon science in my opinion. It is an atheist;s world and not a world of a pagan. Pagans were once the dominent religion and pretty much everyone was pagan many years ago. Things then were lived out naturaly.. crisis was still there, but it did not occur as much as it does now. Along came the midival ages and everything natural began to evaporate into the clouds in our minds. We began to reporduce our young into a world filled with systems that were run by royals. classes of the people were unables, seperation of humans and nature was at it's awakening. I can only explain to you that the human was once a cave man.. living off nothing, but what mother nature provided to him. He wasn't that intelligent, but his kind evolved andhe would never have an image of what it is today. Our kind can advance, but should'nt we build our world to suit our needs and the needs or nature? Our needs are overshadowing all others. Selfishness is a disadvantage of a human being and you can see it built into the concret of our pathways, the steel of our building and oversized homes, and the gassey air given to the sky and water by us, Nature gives us life and we give it nothing, but rising temperature and choking abuse, I did not have to whatch that movie to understand the problems.. The ozone layer is already destroyed.. global warming is excelerating at world breaking temperature yearly. The world has enough room to support our kind because there is still much room not taken up and future problems will also kill of many humans so.. I am sad when i say this.. I'm sorry if you don't boelive my boelifs and i don't want to offend you but... This is an Atheist's world built apon science which is roting our nature. I boleive in God because the story of my religion Apocolypse is coming to life..