Well we gotta file it somewhere.
Unexplained stuff happens. So it’s not in the mind as CC suggests.
What you are doing here is the same as saying that UFO’s are “aliens” because we don’t know what they are.
Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) are not proof of Aliens, and Miracles (UPOs) are not proof of God.
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Ok so here’s a question for you.
You don’t want to jump to an educated guess because your position as an atheist doesn’t Allow it or because this is how you’re wired mentally?
Where did you ger that idea? Atheism causes stagnation in scientific inquiry? You have this completely backward.
Theism causes stagnation in scientific inquiry.
Atheism demands research into unknown quantities and qualities. There is no easy out like “God did it”.
All of science relies on a variation of this chronology;
The scientific method is often represented as an ongoing process. This diagram represents one variant, and [there are many others](Category:Scientific method - Wikimedia Commons)
The scientific method is an empirical method of acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries).
It involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation. It involves formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on such observations; experimental and measurement-based testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings. These are principles of the scientific method, as distinguished from a definitive series of steps applicable to all scientific enterprises.[1][2][3]
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That’s not what I was asking :). That’s not a question of stagnation but a question of one’s internal mental process.
So you don’t want to jump to a conclusion or an educated guess, because you’re bound by a process of thinking or is this you and that’s how you’ve been most of your life?
If you find my mental process so flagrant then it makes me curious. 
Because I’m making an educated guess on UFOs saying they’re alien AI but obviously i don’t have any proof.
But you don’t want to make any educated guesses … so that’s why I’m asking.
I don’t find your conclusions flagrant, I find them uneducated speculations, probably a result of reading good science fiction.
Unless there is some evidence other than appearance associated with the UFO, then it is a UFO, no more no less. It is impossible to make an “educated” guess.
When there is no evidence there is no factual reason to conduct further research based on unwarranted speculation.
Science includes the process of educated guesses. It also admits they are guesses. It doesn’t believe in miracles based on guesses.
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Ouch, that’s nasty.
Nothing of the kind.
I think you should first spend some time learning about the various manifestations of ego before tossing around the term.
Perhaps you could say an honest person is a good ego - I’ll grant you that.
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How can it not be in the mind, you are the one thinking about it; formulating the words to explain yourself, etc?
That has to be my favorite of this latest member. “Unexplained stuff happens”. So, something that can’t be explained, can’t be recreated, can’t be sure what it was, somehow, is the thing that you THINK it is.
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In theory at least, the philosophical view ethical naturalism takes evolution into account because
“Ethical naturalism , is the view that moral terms, concepts, or properties are ultimately definable in terms of facts about the natural world, including facts about human beings, human nature, and human societies. “
And evolution is what has created human beings, human nature, and human societies.
Philippa Foot described herself, at least at one time, as supporting ethical naturalism.
Massimo Pigliucci, an active advocate for stoicism, describes himself and virtue ethics as supporting ethical naturalism and therefore basing morality at least in part on an evolutionary perspective on human beings, human nature, and human societies.
That said, I have been disappointed in how little attention philosophers pay to the implications of, for example, cultural moral norms and our moral sense being the products of evolutionary processes.
Welcome!
I like your topic and look forward to your perspectives.
I agree with the general idea that morals, like everything else, are a by-product of evolutionary processes.
However, when identifying specific morals , those are usually a product of local ecological conditions, in nature as well as in human societies.
In the end it comes down to functionally effective survival mechanisms choosen per natural selection.
For a Black Widow spider to eat her mate after mating is perfectly moral in view of the passive nature of the spider’s predation technique. For the survival of her offspring she must eat everything that is available.
Humans are not so restricted and we have the luxury of choosing our survival techniques that offer the greatest safety for our offspring that are helpless without care and protection from a large group.
Hi write4u,
Thanks for your warm welcome.
A couple of comments about why survival (reproductive fitness) and morality are not as strongly connected as I read you to be thinking.
Cultural moral norms may have nothing to do with survival. They are selected for by whatever makes them attractive to people as moral norms. Survival is just one aspect that might make them attractive. When people argue about moral norms they are usually not arguing about reproductive fitness.
Increased reproductive fitness is not what is encoded in our moral sense. There are lots of behaviors that increase reproductive fitness that are immoral. Increased reproductive fitness is the means by which morality is encoded in the biology underlying our moral sense, not what is encoded.
I think you will find that what is encoded in our moral sense are the cooperation strategies needed to form highly cooperative societies.
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Welcome to CFI forums. I’d like to learn more about Ethical naturalism. Maybe you could start a thread on the topic.
And what is the purpose of a highly cooperative society? Safety and security, no?
Reproduction is a result of successful survival strategies, not its a priori goal.
We do not cooperate to reproduce. In fact most species compete to reproduce.
But we do cooperate to survive as an a priori goal.
I understand there are many subtleties attached to moral behaviors , but in the end, everything is based on survival strategy.
Write4u,
Consider two hypotheses:
- Cultural moral norms and our moral sense exist because they increase reproductive fitness.
- Cultural moral norms and our moral sense exist because they solve cooperation problems.
How do we decide which is scientifically (provisionally) true?
Science can support one or the other as more correct based on their explanatory power and lack of contradiction with known facts. So far as I am aware, the cooperation hypothesis explains virtually all past and present cultural moral norms and judgments by our moral sense no matter how diverse, contradictory, or strange and is not contradicted by any known facts. The explanatory power of the reproductive fitness hypothesis is minimal and it is contradicted by cultural moral norms advocating celibacy.
Perhaps your point about the link between reproductive fitness (or perhaps species survival?) and morality is not about what the underlying principles of our moral norms and our moral sense ‘are’ but rather what our moral goals and values ‘ought’ to be. That would make it a question in moral philosophy’s domain, not science’s.
Increased reproductive fitness is the means which encoded morality in our moral sense. Reproductive fitness is not what was encoded in our moral sense. What was encoded were cooperation strategies.
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mriana,
Thanks for the welcome!
Ethical naturalism is I think a correct view. But we should probably find someone who is more familiar with the philosophical issues to defend it. My interest is really in the science of morality rather than moral philosophy. Lots of interesting new ideas in the science of morality.
I believe that is posing a false equivalence.
I explained that reproduction has nothing to do with morals.
Survival does depend on cooperation of members. Cooperation equals strength, but cooperation requires reciprocal moral behavior.
Allow me to ask what religion is more moral, Christianity or Islam, they are both Abrahamic religions and have extensive moral tenets.
Yet, millions of people have died in the name of their moral laws.
An excellent proof can be found in “The Skeptics Annotated Bible”
https://skepticsannotatedbible.com/#gsc.tab=0
Note that cooperation is already part of nature’s survival techniques.
We call that symbiosis. The Honey bee lives in symbiosis with flowering plants. Cooperation for mutual survival and look what that interspecies cooperation has created. A world of color and fragrance and fruits and honey and Royal Jelly and fodder for 75% of the world’s grazers.
To me the honey bee is the most moral animal alive. It lives a moral life, but after mating all the drones are killed. They have fulfilled their purpose on earth and are recycled along the food chain, to which we all belong.
write4u,
I don’t understand the false equivalence claim (about the two hypotheses or perhaps between the first one and your position?).
But I am delighted to hear you say that “reproduction has nothing to do with morals”. Can we take that as mutual win? I am happy to agree I misunderstood you.
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Indeed, as an evolved survival strategy. I’m sorry, but I firmly believe that all Natural evolutionary processes are survival based.
Again, natural selection does not select for procreation. It selects for beneficial survival strategies. The result is an enhanced living gene pool due to superior survival strategies, which in turn leads to better adaptation to the environment, not necessarily to more moral behavior. It has nothing to do with procreation itself. That is but a secondary effect.
During a time of hardship, morals fly out the window really fast in favor of survival strategies by smaller factions that are self-sufficient.
As a war survivor myself I can speak with some authority on that loss of human moral behavior.
Today, we see that process developing all too easily. Instead of cooperation in making gun ownership more responsible, we sell assault weapons in the name of self-defense. Talk about moral hypocrisy.
Instead of cooperation it has become “us vs them” and we may well be heading toward civil war, morals be damned.
Perhaps philosophers do not take evolution into account because nature does not have any moral foundations.
Survival by any means is clearly expressed by the incredible variety of survival behaviors.
Is parasitism an example of natural morals? To lay your egg in the body of another species and have the larva eat the host from the inside out?
Bacteria that can wait until there are sufficient numbers and then signal via quorum sensing that it is time to attack and overcome a host that is millions of times larger than they are.
OTOH, should we say that our beneficial bacterias are moral because they help us digest food, or are they doing this for their own survival?
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