That would be pretty bad . If we start to agree more ill consider changing my viewsđ
My evolution can inform me that dropping a rock on the person next tome is probably not in my best interest for long-term survival, but it cannot say whether I truly should drop the rock on the person.
There are two related questions that science cannot answer:
What gives your life its meaning?
What is the nature of good and evil?
The first question is so personal that it would be difficult for science to give an answer. Science can help provide the knowledge needed, but not the answer.
As to the second, you have a similar problem. Science can provide you the knowledge to help you judge good and evil, but the determination itself is not simply objective.
Iâm sure that there are other similar questions that are beyond scienceâs purview. One that comes to mind is âwhat is beautyâ or âwhat is art?â
Yeap. Social norms i guess doesnt exist. Arent they the result of evoltuion though?
Evolution has given us nearly all two moral imperatives; do no harm and be fair, as can be seen throughout non-human species.
Successfully reproducing individuals are those who are the parents of future generations. This is an amoral fact and does not depend on the way how this result is achieved.
âBe fairâ is not a basic rule in nature, at least not in the sense I understand it.
âBe fair if it is profitableâ is a more accurate observation. Nature is not fair.
âDo no harmâ is not either a basic rule in nature. Harming others in a passive or active way is common. âDo no harmâ only holds if harming gives no reward or is too risky.
What is right or wrong is something that cannot (or should not) be decided based on what happens in nature. Otherwise we might conclude that eating your own kids is ok, or something as horrible.
Interesting.
Remind you some rules and actions that God commanded troughout the OT?
These are natural, evolved, genetic, human and higher animal basic rules. Capuchins know unfairness when they see it.
Does anyone else see the contradiction? (It wasnât edited away.)
One question that I feel science canât answer is â what is the value of one personâs life versus the nextâ or at what point does something become statistically not worth spending time on anymore such as a struggling marriage and the chances of it making it or not and so on. Obviously science canât give a definite answer on faith or morality as well.
0t course science cannot address âwjhâ this or
that about people. Science is good at " what ",
not. " why ".
As for âshouldâ purpose, goals etc these are
human concepts about conscious human behaviour, and no more apply to evolution than
to a waterfall.
They emerge from the evolutionarily genetically hard wired brain. Science is perfectly adequate for addressing the whys, the shoulds. Thereâs nothing else, God or no.
I can find no way to connect the definition of "should " to evolution.
As for " why" , Dr Feynman said it far better than i could
I donât know much about the capuchins but I can accept that they understand unfairness in the relationships within their social group. This does not mean that âbe fairâ would be a basic rule in nature. Many social animals, probably also the capuchins, favor closer relatives or friends in sharing resources or services, and cheat when they get an opportunity to do it without others seeing. Knowing unfairness is different from âbe fairâ.
Capuchins know it independent of kinship. You need to see the Frans De Waal Ted Talk.
Should is used in morality. That is evolved from the bottom up of life. Our capacity for should, for shame, is entirely predicated on what others would think. That isnât magic.
As to the why of things, why is existence meaningless? is syntactic but not semantic. Why questions are only meaningless when they reach for what isnât there. But why did you steal the last cookie that was for your sister? is a perfectly valid quest for motive, self reflection, moral development which is why it was asked.
Science doesnt do why, or morality. We dont seem to be on the same topic.
we dont seem to be on the same topic.
Oh ⌠it is the same topic. Klax just has a one-track mantra he repeats around here that âthere is nothing beyond.â Donât let that bother you much. Most Christians have no trouble accepting that there is much to life and philosophy quite beyond the reach of science. Dissenting background noise and grumblings will always be there.
I read posts elsewhere and got the idea after i postedâŚ
you confirmed it. Tnx.
Can science tell me if I have a soul or spirit?