Godless Morality

So by your definition then, someone who, say, because of a bodily handicap or societal rules, or the laws of nature, unable to follow through with a decision, is a psychologically unhealthy person? It's just a matter of taste I suppose but perhaps there is some place for a tweak or two there, if I may so boldly suggest...

Also, while we're at it, could you please elaborate on what you mean by 'system' and 'closed system (model)', respectively? For what you are describing with actions returning to their origins one way or another, or indeed the interaction between all pairs of things, is not a necessary characteristic of either systems in general nor of closed systems in particular, as far as I know. It may be a sufficient one though, I'd have to think about that.

first its the ability to proccess information - to absorb understand retain and integrate information as its encountered

to see how that information relates -to integrate the new information into the existing program so to speak

then its the ability to decide based on all existing information -which sometimes would result in new decisions and sometimes not - but requires always the ability to follow through with whatever decision/s was/were made based on the available information

so it learning that eating broccoli is better for your health than cotton candy
then understanding why this translates into what decisions should be made about the ratio of broccoli - cotton candy in ones diet - make the appropriate decision/s based on this, then the ability to follow through with the decision/s

so basically we are healthy to the extent we engage that proccess effectively

-

imagine a city or a large town - imagine that its trapped inside of a giant glass bubble thats floating out in the middle of the ocean

the bubble is airtight and it cannot open

the city has an ecosystem which provides everything it needs to sustain itself IF it uses its resources properly

if it is irresponsible with its resources it will not survive

thats a closed system

it is also a very very small scale model of the actual reality we live in here in the earth bubble system

the earth bubble is obviously much larger than any city but basically its the same thing

we may have the (mostly theoretical) ability to leave the bubble, but only temporarily and only from within the protection of another closed system (the ship) which either has to return, or deliver us to yet another closed system, (like a space station or another planet) or has to provide us with the means of sustainibility itself which would ultimaty make it simply another closed system

from this model of a space ship or a sea bubble we understand that we are limited by our biology to a closed system model and that virtually everything we do has an effect on something else within the system
and
that what happens to the overall system has a direct effect on each of us

we can live with the perception of isolating ourselves from the system
but thats false perception which is only convincing as a condition of how large our system is in relation to our size as individuals

so my understanding of morality is centered on being able to grow and develop and to self actualize as individuals
and cultures/societies
in a way that respects the integrity and cohesion of the system which we inhabit

Some information I gathered suggests that flying can be a faster method of travelling than walking. So for that purpose I now decide to grow wings... But I am incapable of growing wings. Therefore I am not psychologically healthy.

The earth is not a closed system. If it were, it would be a barren rock by now, devoid of life. Nor is a spaceship a closed system nor any celestial object we came to know about. All of those things, with exception of the spaceship, which ideally only loses net energy for maneuvers, either gain or lose net energy just about all the time, and that is not counting the energy that is constantly coming to a state where it can no longer be utilized which I shan't call entropy at this point, because that term usually applies to proper closed systems. It is not however required of neither a system nor of a closed system that all things interact with all other things. All parts must be interacting with at least one other part of the system but there is no need for the same kind or the same magnitude of interaction to come back to the former part ever. In fact, a thing can act upon another for so long that it eventually no longer were capable to continue and at that point the system would not remain as it was in the beginning but it would have been as much a system until then as one would be where interaction circulated or did so partially.

As for the moral implications, please, consider: If we assume that all systems are ultimately closed and that all action prompts an equal or greater reaction, there would be no amoral, i.e. morally neutral choices possible even in principle. Things like picking one's nose when nobody is watching would have some moral consequences eventhough for all we know they affect no reasoning entity (which, I postulate, is a base assumption we must make before any moral discussion can begin). I suppose that is a coherent model, but again, I think it is somewhat narrow in that it fails to recognize all of the nuances we actually face in our lives, because it leaves no room for properly neutral situations.

by my viewpoint morality has nothing to do with moral judgements of good and evil

it is about interdependence and self actualization within a closed system model - the implications of personal behavior within a system where everyhing affects the overall system (and therefore affects everything within the system)

if this terminology does not meet your criteria then use your own terminology to develop an equivilent model to understand so that you can relate to the idea i am expressing

does it matter so much if i say "closed system" as opposed to "holistic system" or even if i just make up some completely new identifier altogether?

it is not usually difficult to understand other people IF you care to actually understand them rather than just poke holes in their ideas

if someone went through the wing growing proccess you described then yes i would most definitely consider them psychologically unhealthy

the definition i offer of psychological health covers the reasons for that assessment accurately and fairly

also the language i use in sharing that defition in that it is based on my CURRENT understanding, which implies that the definition is open to change

but the first element of psychological health is the ability to proccess information

proccess information

proccess


information

please think about that before you pick it apart

proccess

the

information

integrate the information into the existing program

existing

as in the program which already exists

the program is the total of the information already proccessed

so all the stuff you already know

would still be stuff that you know


if it makes you feel better i will say that we live in a holistic system

everything affects the overall system because everything effects something else within the system and this in turn effects the system

if "everything" is too big a word then substitute it with whatever terminology you feel appropriate to be able to relate to the idea i am expressing

it is only difficult to see the reality of this concept

by those who try really hard to miss it

if you want to critique the models and the language that people use to express their ideas

but refuse to

acknowledge the ideas themselves

then be prepared for the conversation to end

theres such a thing as a baby and such a thing as a bath

you dont have to throw them both away

if i seem impolite or impatient i apologize for that -youre very intelligent person and it may be that i misunderstand because of the limitations of the written word but i constantly get the sense from what you say that youre not really interested in dialogue and exchange of ideas but rather in debate and intellectual competition

im not really interested in competition
so the picking apart of everything i just dont relate to it

thank you for reading

hugsnotdrugs

The holes in your concepts are not my fault. You asked me to be prepared for the conversation to end, basically because I failed to see the obvious truthiness and perfection of your argument by sheer force of my will. If my humble inquiry for clarification or refinement are too much, I shall indeed be prepared to end the conversation, just please don't tell me that it was I who was uninterested in it, thank you very much.

There is nothing inherently sick about the wish to grow wings. It is in principle possible in that some other animals managed that pretty well and in that we have quite some knowledge about how to move DNA about such as to provoke wing development in beings that under most other aspects would still be very much human. It is also possible to attach prosthetic wings and connect them with our spinal cord such as to make it possible for us to utilize those wings for flight.
There used however to be a day in history where it was, with all information available, deemed impossible for humans to fly and those brave dreamers who came to make it happen by your standard to this day remain psychologically unhealthy because they were apparently unable to "process the information". Same goes for those sick weirdos who came up with a horseless carriage or the wireless phone. By your standard they are psychologically unhealthy. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, I'm not attacking that definition. Feel free to keep it, if you want, I am only trying to illustrate why somebody else might find it troublesome, which, of course, doesn't need to worry you.

Now on to the moral framework. Again, there is nothing wrong with one that is either too absolute to account for any nuance nor with one that would not have anything to do with moral judgements. A model that doesn't help us make choices is a useless model, but not a wrong one in any sense. My point was, and please don't paint it as if I didn't understand your idea, that (call it as you might so long as everybody understands what you are talking about) in a closed system, as with any other system, interaction is not necessarily two ways. I did specifically say that the type and the magnitude need not be the same, particularly, not that interaction can be exclusively one-sided (though I wouldn't see why not). For instance: The sun heats the Earth and the Earth heats the sun. The Earth receives something on the order of 10¹⁷W of power from the sun. With its Bond albedo, about 37% of it are scattered back into space. Knowing the mean distance to the sun, the amount of power it would be getting back from Earth is more on the order of tenths of microwatts. There are two planets closer to the sun than Earth, and five, mostly larger ones, further away, not to mention a plethora of asteroids, planetoids, and planetary moons. Let's be generous and say that there are ten planets like Earth all in the same distance to the sun as Earth. Now it is no longer tenths but just plain microwatts of power we are talking about. The sun still gets thirty orders of magnitude less than it what gives to the planets, and that is not counting all the energy it radiates out into space never to come to heat anything out there, let alone to be reflected back at it.
It is a crude example, and it is designed to illustrate that by far not everything done one way will come back the same or indeed any other way. There are things we affect very much but we ourselves might not be affected anywhere near as much by them or by any other things. We are going to be affected to a lesser extent or perhaps in a totally different way, but how would you build a moral framework on that? "Everything you do affects something else and you may or may not be affected by it or by something else in this or a totally different way that either is or is not related to it?" It's true, but where do you go from there? How does it help us make choices?

i acknowledge the lack of perfection in the description i offer

i even allow liberty in rearranging the items of the description so that you might improve or at least agree to understand it

what i cannot do is explain it any more clearly than to just clearly explain it

the people who built airplanes were able to proccess the information

which suggested it was unlikely that they were physiologically able to grow wings

given their genetic disposition

and the science of their day

btw thats an assumption - i am ASSUMING that the idea of growing wings even occurred to any of them.

its a fair assumption, given the topic, but assumption none the less

proccess

information

??

lol

to put it bluntly it means being able to proccess information

like in a proccess

involving information

being proccessed

please proccess this

your ability to proccess this is very much indicative of your psychological health

if you consistantly fail to understand the meanings of those around you

it is due to your failure as a communicator

ten billion chinese cant all be wong

try thinking about it like this

"what if everyone else is actually just as smart as i am

and when they offer a model of something instead of shooting it down

i ask myself "what might i have meant if i had used this model to make my point?"

or

"if i were attempting to convey the idea they are expressing, what model might i use to get that idea across""

you might find your communication with others takes a whole new range of excitement and depth

if i get a chance i will post a link to a site or a video which explains the aquaponics system

that would give you a better explanation of what im talking about

of course if you were interested in actual communication - which requires each of us to be open to each others point

-you in this case dont in fact HAVE a point - only a critique of someone elses point, which is a common theme for you -

you might google the word if youre not already familiar with the model

thanks for reading

hugsaredrugs

It seems to me that "God" is the origin of all things both in existence and outside of existence so for me at least morality has is more about what is sustainable behavior, while trying to maintain a balance between the self and the whole, as such there can be no static definition of what qualifies as moral. "God" is both destroyer and creator there for we have to look to ourselves to determine right from wrong.

"Do the gods love it because it is holy?
Or, is it holy because the gods love it?"
Socrates in Euthyphro (paraphrased).

as far as how this model helps to make choices

in the broadest sense it means basically that one would follow "the golden rule"

but not because its a clever catch phrase but rather because one understands that the way we treat others creates a sort of mood which can move from person to person and from each single person to several/many people in short order

its easy enough to feel insulated from the effects of our own actions and attitudes when we inhabit a large enough system

but when we think of the dynamics of say a small office its easy to see that how we treat one person at 9AM could very easily set the tone for how we are treated by a totally different person at 2PM

or how i address you right now may come back to me -from you or from someone else altogether - at any time in the future

the internet is unique in that what we say to each other may be preserved indefinitely

its very possible for something a person says in 2005 to be read and considered as indicative of that persons character by someone else in 2015

so from the holistic system model we interpret that intrapersonal dynamics always contain a "message" which is greater than the particular idea being expressed

the "real" message is how we treat each other

and that message comes back to us

technologically this idea applies to the type of waste we create

the idea being that - ultimately - we have to face up to what we do

burying garbage underground or in landfills or dumping it in the oceans - maybe even launching it into space -these are immature solutions to long term issues

the sustainable and intelligent answer is to do everything with the standars that we are willing to let our children play in the midst

if you wouldnt let your kids eat it or play with it then dont make it

theres no good place to bury poison and no "environmentally friendly" way to handle radioactive toxic sludge

this principle applies to the sludge we make psychically and the sludge we make industrially

theres no going backwards

we live in the age that we live in
and no amount of discourse is going to end the production of computers and cell phones (as an example) but the goal should always be in every instance to devise a way of achieving the desired outcome with (ideally) no "sludge" by product

in terms of how we deal with each other this means that "as far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons"

it means being able to speak ones truth and stand ones ground but also to have character and acknowledge the value of others and be willing to set aside the old feelings of hostility and replace them with new moments of comradery

always reminding ourselves that we personally are responsible for our lives and for our relationships with others

that we personally are responsible for at least a portion of the overall health of the system

if we put poison out we will get poison back

what we do affects the health of the system and in that understanding we are mindfullof the effect we have

how do we actualize in a way which is respectful of the whole?

thanks for reading

about "morally neutral" situations; from the model i am presenting "neutrality" isnt quite real

neutral means without bias or inclination one way or another

but every moment of our lives can be said to be either driven by something or in pursuit of something

so there is always an inherent bias

when we look at things from the perspective of evil vs righteous then we can say that something like buttering bread is a morally neutral activity

when we shift the emphasis by exchanging the word "morality" for the word "health"

then we have a pretty different perspective from which to consider the value of this moment of buttering bread

we ask why, and how much, and what are the accompanying parameters?

is this in fact healthy in this particular case?

so morality in the biblical sense is moot from this view

in fact we could say that ones morality is mostly useful as an indicator of ones health

this is where we start reaching that moment where the exact meaning of health may be up for some degree of interpretation

assuming that we can arrive at a uniform and standard for health

we can see how at every moment of our lives, what we do, why we do it, and how we do it, are all things which serve to both/either indicate and/or influence our health

thoughts and behaviors have cummulative effects

every moment is relevant

--

as for things not comingback to us

im going to use an extreme example because extremes serve to clearly illustrate ideas

a while back we had what was known as the d.c. sniper crisis

there were these two people driving around shooting random citizens and nobody had any idea who they were or why they were doing it

they were eventually caught, and one was executed by lethal injection and the other was given llike ten life sentences or something.

now its clear how their actions came back to them

but if we look at life in terms of traditional morality then things like this have a huge potential of leaving us confused and resentful towards god and life and the universe

what if they had never been caught?

suppose they had "gotten away with it"

first it can still be said that they would have had to deal with some of the consequences of their deeds

but because they were not publically dealt with we would have to console ourselves with platitudes like "god works in mysterious ways" and have faith in "karma" that "the vibrations" will come back to them

if we switch to the framework of health, and think of them as being infected
and consider that their behavior was not only a symptom of their illness
but also a facilitator of further infection (that is to say that by acting out on the illness they were spreading it deeper into themselves as well as spreading it to others)

then we surmise that no matter where they go or what they do they will never escape themselves amd their infection
and because it has spread so fully within them, its only going to be a matter of time (and at this point probably not very much) before they create the circumstances of their own destruction

they cant help it, the infection doesnt give them a choice
the infection demands that they act out on it
and acting out on it spreads it further, both internally and externally

theoretically they could recover but its unlikely

if they had the means of doing so under their own resources it is fair to say they would never have deteriorated so far to begin with

both health and illness have momentum

the momentum we choose (what we are in pursuit of) is also the momentum that pushes us forward (what we are driven by)

from this model, even the butter on our bread comes back to us