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Post by goz on Jan 17, 2019 23:42:27 GMT
It's very defeatist to say it's "desirable on paper" and give up. We can recognize that we have biases just as we can recognize we have jealous thoughts for instance, but we make a major blunder if we stop being ashamed of such impulses and make no effort to manage them or compensate for them. In my opinion, in politics, when a society stops caring about objectivity it opens itself to rampant corruption. We must not be complacent when a leader lies through his teeth. Objectivity is perhaps the greatest asset of good science, and while perfect objectivity isn't achievable it is still a crucial goal. In my opinion justice and equality are more important than objectivity. And that's a biased opinion. Humanity has a history of establishing unjust societies, and claiming concepts like "objectivity", "natural law" or "common sense" as justification. On average, women are physically weaker than men. On average, black people have lower IQs than white people. Should these "objective" facts in anyway influence our legislation? I don't think so. I'm biased towards human rights, especially non-discrimination. Some people prefer natural rights; but I prefer human rights, which are not objective, and biased towards equality and justice. I agree, and if you look at my post above to Cool. it sets this out in an anthropological manner in terms of the evolution of human thought, society and requisite ethics!
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Post by general313 on Jan 18, 2019 0:38:47 GMT
It's very defeatist to say it's "desirable on paper" and give up. We can recognize that we have biases just as we can recognize we have jealous thoughts for instance, but we make a major blunder if we stop being ashamed of such impulses and make no effort to manage them or compensate for them. In my opinion, in politics, when a society stops caring about objectivity it opens itself to rampant corruption. We must not be complacent when a leader lies through his teeth. Objectivity is perhaps the greatest asset of good science, and while perfect objectivity isn't achievable it is still a crucial goal. In my opinion justice and equality are more important than objectivity. And that's a biased opinion. Humanity has a history of establishing unjust societies, and claiming concepts like "objectivity", "natural law" or "common sense" as justification. On average, women are physically weaker than men. On average, black people have lower IQs than white people. Should these "objective" facts in anyway influence our legislation? I don't think so. I'm biased towards human rights, especially non-discrimination. Some people prefer natural rights; but I prefer human rights, which are not objective, and biased towards equality and justice. I agree that justice and equality are of paramount importance, but without objectivity you lose the clear view of the right path to those goals. In this sense objectivity is a means to an end while the others would be the ends. But without a certain discipline of that means, the end goals may be out of reach. Objectivity is an important element of rational thinking (in science, law, philosophy and yes, religion) in my view. I believe we can arrive at a deeper understanding of why we value justice and equality by taking an objective and scientific look at the human animal, an intensely social animal that has evolved from similarly social predecessors. Developing a sense of fairness was crucial to creating a social system that allows humans to cooperate (at least some of the time, often enough to build workable civilizations). A sense of fairness is a product of human evolution, on which we base our sense of justice and equality.
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Post by Arlon10 on Jan 18, 2019 11:17:17 GMT
In my opinion justice and equality are more important than objectivity. And that's a biased opinion. Humanity has a history of establishing unjust societies, and claiming concepts like "objectivity", "natural law" or "common sense" as justification. On average, women are physically weaker than men. On average, black people have lower IQs than white people. Should these "objective" facts in anyway influence our legislation? I don't think so. I'm biased towards human rights, especially non-discrimination. Some people prefer natural rights; but I prefer human rights, which are not objective, and biased towards equality and justice. I agree that justice and equality are of paramount importance, but without objectivity you lose the clear view of the right path to those goals. In this sense objectivity is a means to an end while the others would be the ends. But without a certain discipline of that means, the end goals may be out of reach. Objectivity is an important element of rational thinking (in science, law, philosophy and yes, religion) in my view. I believe we can arrive at a deeper understanding of why we value justice and equality by taking an objective and scientific look at the human animal, an intensely social animal that has evolved from similarly social predecessors. Developing a sense of fairness was crucial to creating a social system that allows humans to cooperate (at least some of the time, often enough to build workable civilizations). A sense of fairness is a product of human evolution, on which we base our sense of justice and equality. To take a lesson from history a look at the Democratic Party in the United States. It began as a check on the power of an overbearing government. It was more about defending the weak, helping the poor, and preventing abuses by people in power. Over time it became established in government itself and the role of government expanded. Now the Democratic Party has become what it was originally intended to prevent, an intrusive and unsound government. You might see people on the politics board complain that the Democratic Party "has no policy ideas," but it was never supposed to be about making policy, only keeping policies that are made tempered and in check.
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Post by general313 on Jan 18, 2019 15:52:02 GMT
I agree that justice and equality are of paramount importance, but without objectivity you lose the clear view of the right path to those goals. In this sense objectivity is a means to an end while the others would be the ends. But without a certain discipline of that means, the end goals may be out of reach. Objectivity is an important element of rational thinking (in science, law, philosophy and yes, religion) in my view. I believe we can arrive at a deeper understanding of why we value justice and equality by taking an objective and scientific look at the human animal, an intensely social animal that has evolved from similarly social predecessors. Developing a sense of fairness was crucial to creating a social system that allows humans to cooperate (at least some of the time, often enough to build workable civilizations). A sense of fairness is a product of human evolution, on which we base our sense of justice and equality. To take a lesson from history a look at the Democratic Party in the United States. It began as a check on the power of an overbearing government. It was more about defending the weak, helping the poor, and preventing abuses by people in power. Over time it became established in government itself and the role of government expanded. Now the Democratic Party has become what it was originally intended to prevent, an intrusive and unsound government. You might see people on the politics board complain that the Democratic Party "has no policy ideas," but it was never supposed to be about making policy, only keeping policies that are made tempered and in check. I'm not sure what this has to do with what I was saying.
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Post by goz on Jan 18, 2019 20:38:15 GMT
To take a lesson from history a look at the Democratic Party in the United States. It began as a check on the power of an overbearing government. It was more about defending the weak, helping the poor, and preventing abuses by people in power. Over time it became established in government itself and the role of government expanded. Now the Democratic Party has become what it was originally intended to prevent, an intrusive and unsound government. You might see people on the politics board complain that the Democratic Party "has no policy ideas," but it was never supposed to be about making policy, only keeping policies that are made tempered and in check. I'm not sure what this has to do with what I was saying. That doesn't matter to Planet Arlon and his celestial soapbox! He is the spouting non-sequitur self titled sage!
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Post by Arlon10 on Jan 19, 2019 1:10:47 GMT
To take a lesson from history a look at the Democratic Party in the United States. It began as a check on the power of an overbearing government. It was more about defending the weak, helping the poor, and preventing abuses by people in power. Over time it became established in government itself and the role of government expanded. Now the Democratic Party has become what it was originally intended to prevent, an intrusive and unsound government. You might see people on the politics board complain that the Democratic Party "has no policy ideas," but it was never supposed to be about making policy, only keeping policies that are made tempered and in check. I'm not sure what this has to do with what I was saying. "Our" sense of "justice and equality" needs repairs from time to time. This time it looks like we need a complete overhaul.
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Post by goz on Jan 19, 2019 1:28:56 GMT
I'm not sure what this has to do with what I was saying. "Our" sense of "justice and equality" needs repairs from time to time. This time it looks like we need a complete overhaul. NO, that was what YOU and the voices in your head were saying not @cham13. It is not all about you! It is a conversation and NOT a soapbox Planet Arlon!
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Post by Arlon10 on Jan 19, 2019 1:35:58 GMT
"Our" sense of "justice and equality" needs repairs from time to time. This time it looks like we need a complete overhaul. NO, that was what YOU and the voices in your head were saying not @cham13. It is not all about you! It is a conversation and NOT a soapbox Planet Arlon! If I'm not allowed to make my own observations what point is there to this?
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Post by goz on Jan 19, 2019 1:46:21 GMT
NO, that was what YOU and the voices in your head were saying not @cham13. It is not all about you! It is a conversation and NOT a soapbox Planet Arlon! If I'm not allowed to make my own observations what point is there to this? This is a message board. There are other posters also with their opinions. You are free to offer yours. If you are in 'conversation' with another poster it is polite to answer the content of their post and not get on your soapbox tangentially and with non-sequiturs that have nothing to do with the conversation, nor are relevant. You have your own stupid website for that.
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Post by phludowin on Jan 19, 2019 9:28:29 GMT
I believe we can arrive at a deeper understanding of why we value justice and equality by taking an objective and scientific look at the human animal, an intensely social animal that has evolved from similarly social predecessors. Developing a sense of fairness was crucial to creating a social system that allows humans to cooperate (at least some of the time, often enough to build workable civilizations). A sense of fairness is a product of human evolution, on which we base our sense of justice and equality. While this may be true, it still means that valuing fairness is not an objective goal, but subjective to humanity and human animals. And possibly not to all of them; libertarian Randbots may see things differently (that is a subjective opinion of mine). My beef is mostly with the word "objective". In the company where I work, a colleague pinned a sentence on the wall. "Objectivity is the illusion that observations can be made without an observer." I agree.
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Post by Isapop on Jan 19, 2019 14:07:56 GMT
My beef is mostly with the word "objective". In the company where I work, a colleague pinned a sentence on the wall. "Objectivity is the illusion that observations can be made without an observer." I agree. Your beef with word "objective" seems to be that humans can't be perfectly objective. I don't think anyone uses the term with that in mind. When we say an opinion is an "objective" one, we mean that it relies on a commonly accepted criteria of value, and that it was arrived at absent the obvious factors that would cause the opinion to be biased. Taken on those terms, the distinction between objective and biased opinion is necessary and very useful.
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Post by general313 on Jan 19, 2019 19:30:54 GMT
I believe we can arrive at a deeper understanding of why we value justice and equality by taking an objective and scientific look at the human animal, an intensely social animal that has evolved from similarly social predecessors. Developing a sense of fairness was crucial to creating a social system that allows humans to cooperate (at least some of the time, often enough to build workable civilizations). A sense of fairness is a product of human evolution, on which we base our sense of justice and equality. While this may be true, it still means that valuing fairness is not an objective goal, but subjective to humanity and human animals. And possibly not to all of them; libertarian Randbots may see things differently (that is a subjective opinion of mine). My beef is mostly with the word "objective". In the company where I work, a colleague pinned a sentence on the wall. "Objectivity is the illusion that observations can be made without an observer." I agree. Please don't let the Libertarian Randbots soil your views of "objective". In my opinion they claim to be objective but then ignore the science that conflicts with their vastly simplified word view, especially that pertaining to social behavior. My view of what it means to be objective is to strive to look at things without bias (as much as possible). If one were to face a trial in court one would hope that the jury is either unbiased or biased in your favor. The best science is that which is done without bias (i.e. objectively), as much as is humanly possible. I think your colleague is oversimplifying as much as the Randbots, in the opposite direction.
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Post by goz on Jan 19, 2019 20:14:42 GMT
While this may be true, it still means that valuing fairness is not an objective goal, but subjective to humanity and human animals. And possibly not to all of them; libertarian Randbots may see things differently (that is a subjective opinion of mine). My beef is mostly with the word "objective". In the company where I work, a colleague pinned a sentence on the wall. "Objectivity is the illusion that observations can be made without an observer." I agree. Please don't let the Libertarian Randbots soil your views of "objective". In my opinion they claim to be objective but then ignore the science that conflicts with their vastly simplified word view, especially that pertaining to social behavior. My view of what it means to be objective is to strive to look at things without bias (as much as possible). If one were to face a trial in court one would hope that the jury is either unbiased or biased in your favor. The best science is that which is done without bias (i.e. objectively), as much as is humanly possible. I think your colleague is oversimplifying as much as the Randbots, in the opposite direction. Sorry, I love diving headfirst into other people's conversations. Reading this part of the thread, I absolutely love this quote and like many such similar quotes and truisms, it is true, butt in limited circumstances, which are often not of much value when one is trying to ascertain a workable situation in real life. Fat from quoting Trumisms such as 'alternative facts', I do think that there are valid workable truths and objective facts. Like most things that pertain to humans and natural organisms, I like ti think that they are on a sliding scale. In this case one end of the scale would be facst that are a constant ( like gravity, speed of sound and light etc etc etc of scientific factsthat can be replicated and relied on as 'truths, calculable and enduring ) The other end of the scale is perceptions by a variety of humans with different agendas such as interpretation of the Bible 'observations made by a biased and or interpreted by that observer'....with pretty much everything in between where we come back to my proposition of 'useful and workable truths'. They are the attempts by humans to be as objective and truthful and just 'as humanly possible'.
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Post by general313 on Jan 19, 2019 21:24:45 GMT
Please don't let the Libertarian Randbots soil your views of "objective". In my opinion they claim to be objective but then ignore the science that conflicts with their vastly simplified word view, especially that pertaining to social behavior. My view of what it means to be objective is to strive to look at things without bias (as much as possible). If one were to face a trial in court one would hope that the jury is either unbiased or biased in your favor. The best science is that which is done without bias (i.e. objectively), as much as is humanly possible. I think your colleague is oversimplifying as much as the Randbots, in the opposite direction. Sorry, I love diving headfirst into other people's conversations. Reading this part of the thread, I absolutely love this quote and like many such similar quotes and truisms, it is true, butt in limited circumstances, which are often not of much value when one is trying to ascertain a workable situation in real life. Fat from quoting Trumisms such as 'alternative facts', I do think that there are valid workable truths and objective facts. Like most things that pertain to humans and natural organisms, I like ti think that they are on a sliding scale. In this case one end of the scale would be facst that are a constant ( like gravity, speed of sound and light etc etc etc of scientific factsthat can be replicated and relied on as 'truths, calculable and enduring ) The other end of the scale is perceptions by a variety of humans with different agendas such as interpretation of the Bible 'observations made by a biased and or interpreted by that observer'....with pretty much everything in between where we come back to my proposition of 'useful and workable truths'. They are the attempts by humans to be as objective and truthful and just 'as humanly possible'. I basically agree, but I'd point out that what is considered "constant" at one end of the scale today wasn't always so, for example, the heliocentric model of the solar system and the papal house arrest of Galileo for his heretical views. I think most people today would agree that Galileo's reasoning was more objective than the pope's.
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Post by goz on Jan 20, 2019 7:11:02 GMT
Sorry, I love diving headfirst into other people's conversations. Reading this part of the thread, I absolutely love this quote and like many such similar quotes and truisms, it is true, butt in limited circumstances, which are often not of much value when one is trying to ascertain a workable situation in real life. Fat from quoting Trumisms such as 'alternative facts', I do think that there are valid workable truths and objective facts. Like most things that pertain to humans and natural organisms, I like ti think that they are on a sliding scale. In this case one end of the scale would be facst that are a constant ( like gravity, speed of sound and light etc etc etc of scientific factsthat can be replicated and relied on as 'truths, calculable and enduring ) The other end of the scale is perceptions by a variety of humans with different agendas such as interpretation of the Bible 'observations made by a biased and or interpreted by that observer'....with pretty much everything in between where we come back to my proposition of 'useful and workable truths'. They are the attempts by humans to be as objective and truthful and just 'as humanly possible'. I basically agree, but I'd point out that what is considered "constant" at one end of the scale today wasn't always so, for example, the heliocentric model of the solar system and the papal house arrest of Galileo for his heretical views. I think most people today would agree that Galileo's reasoning was more objective than the pope's. I would hope that my post ever said otherwise.
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Post by Arlon10 on Jan 23, 2019 1:18:03 GMT
I believe we can arrive at a deeper understanding of why we value justice and equality by taking an objective and scientific look at the human animal, an intensely social animal that has evolved from similarly social predecessors. Developing a sense of fairness was crucial to creating a social system that allows humans to cooperate (at least some of the time, often enough to build workable civilizations). A sense of fairness is a product of human evolution, on which we base our sense of justice and equality. While this may be true, it still means that valuing fairness is not an objective goal, but subjective to humanity and human animals. And possibly not to all of them; libertarian Randbots may see things differently (that is a subjective opinion of mine). My beef is mostly with the word "objective". In the company where I work, a colleague pinned a sentence on the wall. "Objectivity is the illusion that observations can be made without an observer." I agree. I believe objectivity is possible and testable, it just isn't easy for some people.
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Post by goz on Jan 23, 2019 20:32:19 GMT
While this may be true, it still means that valuing fairness is not an objective goal, but subjective to humanity and human animals. And possibly not to all of them; libertarian Randbots may see things differently (that is a subjective opinion of mine). My beef is mostly with the word "objective". In the company where I work, a colleague pinned a sentence on the wall. "Objectivity is the illusion that observations can be made without an observer." I agree. I believe objectivity is possible and testable, it just isn't easy for some people. How and by whom?
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Post by Arlon10 on Jan 24, 2019 3:24:32 GMT
I believe objectivity is possible and testable, it just isn't easy for some people. How and by whom? Some things are more readily established than others. For example if the question is whether the DVD is on the table, that can be readily established if two people who are there say it is. If those two people are known to conspire to deceive, other witnesses might be required. Or despite the ancient Roman saying that one witness is no witness, one very good witness might suffice. If the question is whether the DVD is about WWII, that might be easy if it says so on the package. It might however not say so. It might be about a magic ring and say so. Then whether it is about WWII is far less certainly objective and might require expert opinions. It might not be about WWII at all even if some subjective opinions say it might be. So there are things, especially opinions, that elude being established as certainly objective, but other things, especially science that are readily identified as objective fact. The bad news is that quite many people are more fond of science than capable of it and they can be troublesome in establishing important truths. They are known to believe things are "logical" simply because some authority they recognize told them it is logical and have never really exercised their own logic. So as is often the case with questions you have, the answer is complicated.
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