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Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: starspirit on January 27, 2015, 03:20:38 am

Title: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: starspirit on January 27, 2015, 03:20:38 am
Something I've been questioning recently, inspired by a number of the recent debates and blog posts. Perhaps others may like to join the musings...

Can "rights" exist in a stateless society? If not ultimately by coercion supported by consensus, how can any rights be enforced?

Ownership is where property is accepted by the community as belonging to somebody, for their control. But without a means to identify this (looking through the block-chain to individuals) and to enforce this (ultimately via co-ordinated threats of some nature), does ownership really exist, or just the ability to control, for as long as that ability is maintained? For example, sometimes we use the language that block-chains enforce property rights. But is this the most accurate language? Block-chains seem only to enforce control of property, to whoever holds the keys. Should the keys be lost or stolen, there is no way to enforce the attribution of the property back to the individual.

In a future state-less world, should a location-based community be attacked by drones for its geographic resources, what international law would prevail to uphold any rights of the "owners"? Are they left to coordinate and mount their own defence?Does everything come down to control, and the ability to attack and defend that control? Wouldn't this naturally lead to centralised and decentralised communities forming co-ordinated defensive mechanisms?
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Troglodactyl on January 27, 2015, 03:30:30 am
If by "rights" you mean moral rights, then enforcement is irrelevant to their existence, because they only describe that which it is morally justifiable to enforce.

If by "rights" you mean whatever status is enforced, then I don't see how it matters whether that status includes the presence or the absence of a state.

Or is the question whether morality exists in any real sense, or if it's just an artificial projection of the desires of the strongest or most violent group?
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: wesphily on January 27, 2015, 03:34:53 am
Something I've been questioning recently, inspired by a number of the recent debates and blog posts. Perhaps others may like to join the musings...

Can "rights" exist in a stateless society? If not ultimately by coercion supported by consensus, how can any rights be enforced?

Ownership is where property is accepted by the community as belonging to somebody, for their control. But without a means to identify this (looking through the block-chain to individuals) and to enforce this (ultimately via co-ordinated threats of some nature), does ownership really exist, or just the ability to control, for as long as that ability is maintained? For example, sometimes we use the language that block-chains enforce property rights. But is this the most accurate language? Block-chains seem only to enforce control of property, to whoever holds the keys. Should the keys be lost or stolen, there is no way to enforce the attribution of the property back to the individual.

In a future state-less world, should a location-based community be attacked by drones for its geographic resources, what international law would prevail to uphold any rights of the "owners"? Are they left to coordinate and mount their own defence?Does everything come down to control, and the ability to attack and defend that control? Wouldn't this naturally lead to centralised and decentralised communities forming co-ordinated defensive mechanisms?

Even in centralized solutions land is not owned. It is controlled so long as it does not stand in the way of a public good. (Eminent domain)

A simple fix to lost keys would be a quit claim. This hasn't been created because people haven't investigated it yet. However, a social consensus could be used to resolve clout of ownership. This of course would require that the block chain be able to store deed and title information.

Long story short, it is possible, but it does not exist yet. Bitshares could be modified to make it work.


Edit: I was proposing solutions to prove ownership in land through the Bloch chain.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Troglodactyl on January 27, 2015, 03:40:36 am
Clearly both laws and blockchains are impotent for enforcing anything, because they're just communication.  If anything is to be enforced, either with a state or without it, it will be enforced by people who are willing to use force against others who don't comply.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: starspirit on January 27, 2015, 03:40:59 am
If by "rights" you mean moral rights, then enforcement is irrelevant to their existence, because they only describe that which it is morally justifiable to enforce.

If by "rights" you mean whatever status is enforced, then I don't see how it matters whether that status includes the presence or the absence of a state.

Or is the question whether morality exists in any real sense, or if it's just an artificial projection of the desires of the strongest or most violent group?

In modern society, when people currently use terms like "property" or "rights", they generally mean that this will be defended on their behalf by the community or some state apparatus, should those rights be breached in any way. They have some community-provided recourse to make amends. So I am talking more about this than "moral rights" (though I also question the latter, but lets keep that separate).

One of the purported advantages of block-chain like technology is that property rights are inarguable. I'm putting forth an argument that not only is that not the case (because that transparency does not extend to the owners of the keys), it is any any case unenforceable in the sense that most would expect of those terms.

Taking this even further, I'm also conjecturing that the need to defend this control in a stateless world might lead to a situation where communities (centralised or decentralised) form their own coordinated modes of attack and defence around common resources. The world may not see the end of war as a result, just a change in form.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Stan on January 27, 2015, 03:44:38 am
Something I've been questioning recently, inspired by a number of the recent debates and blog posts. Perhaps others may like to join the musings...

Can "rights" exist in a stateless society? If not ultimately by coercion supported by consensus, how can any rights be enforced?

Ownership is where property is accepted by the community as belonging to somebody, for their control. But without a means to identify this (looking through the block-chain to individuals) and to enforce this (ultimately via co-ordinated threats of some nature), does ownership really exist, or just the ability to control, for as long as that ability is maintained? For example, sometimes we use the language that block-chains enforce property rights. But is this the most accurate language? Block-chains seem only to enforce control of property, to whoever holds the keys. Should the keys be lost or stolen, there is no way to enforce the attribution of the property back to the individual.

In a future state-less world, should a location-based community be attacked by drones for its geographic resources, what international law would prevail to uphold any rights of the "owners"? Are they left to coordinate and mount their own defence?Does everything come down to control, and the ability to attack and defend that control? Wouldn't this naturally lead to centralised and decentralised communities forming co-ordinated defensive mechanisms?

Rights are not granted by governments, they are inalienable.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, block chains are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the owners, That whenever any form of block chain becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Owners to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new block chains, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Your actual mileage may vary.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: starspirit on January 27, 2015, 03:59:03 am

Rights are not granted by governments, they are inalienable.


If so, there are no property rights, because ownership of property, even purchased property, can always be philosophically challenged. Nature does not grant any person any right to any mineral, goods, quality of health, basic income, or even life itself. These human conceptualisations can only be granted by a consensus willing to enforce it, whether that apparatus is called state or not.

It's a subtle point. I'm saying block-chains do not enforce anything except the ability to control. Ownership rights exist separately if they are enforced.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Troglodactyl on January 27, 2015, 04:20:05 am

Rights are not granted by governments, they are inalienable.


If so, there are no property rights, because ownership of property, even purchased property, can always be philosophically challenged. Nature does not grant any person any right to any mineral, goods, quality of health, basic income, or even life itself. These human conceptualisations can only be granted by a consensus willing to enforce it, whether that apparatus is called state or not.

It's a subtle point. I'm saying block-chains do not enforce anything except the ability to control. Ownership rights exist separately if they are enforced.

We're getting mixed up on moral rights versus legal rights again.

The fact that moral property rights can be challenged and questioned philosophically doesn't prove that they don't exist.  Claiming that a human's right to life does not exist without a consensus is true of the legal right to life, but I reject the idea that the moral right to life is nonexistent without consensus.  I assert that objective value exists, because there is literally no value in supposing that it does not.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: starspirit on January 27, 2015, 05:10:57 am

Rights are not granted by governments, they are inalienable.


If so, there are no property rights, because ownership of property, even purchased property, can always be philosophically challenged. Nature does not grant any person any right to any mineral, goods, quality of health, basic income, or even life itself. These human conceptualisations can only be granted by a consensus willing to enforce it, whether that apparatus is called state or not.

It's a subtle point. I'm saying block-chains do not enforce anything except the ability to control. Ownership rights exist separately if they are enforced.

We're getting mixed up on moral rights versus legal rights again.

The fact that moral property rights can be challenged and questioned philosophically doesn't prove that they don't exist.  Claiming that a human's right to life does not exist without a consensus is true of the legal right to life, but I reject the idea that the moral right to life is nonexistent without consensus.  I assert that objective value exists, because there is literally no value in supposing that it does not.
OK, let's suppose moral property rights exist, and that there is some way the consensus can agree on this, thousands of years of human conflict notwithstanding. How do we solve the practical issue of how it can be assured that private keys are always in the hands of their rightful owners, or of how those property rights can be enforced in the absence of consensus-based threat (i.e. a state, or some other consensus-based apparatus of coercion)? This is why I am questioning whether block-chains actually assert property or ownership rights, as opposed to just property control. I'm suggesting we need to change the language we use, for a start, and think about how society can (and is likely to)  respond to the latter problems in the absence of state.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: arhag on January 27, 2015, 05:22:00 am
Define "rights". Regardless of your definition of rights someone else may have another definition that conflicts with yours. Perhaps your definition of rights gives you moral authority (authority that is only recognized by yourself and other people who share your philosophy of course) to disregard other's definitions. The statement that "rights" are "inalienable" and "endowed by their Creator" seems to suggest that you believe in rights (and furthermore morality) as objective things, meaning things that exist in the physical (or metaphysical?) universe outside of any conscious entity's mind, rather than as abstract constructs in the minds of human beings. I think of morality as purely a subjective thing.

EDIT by Stan:  apologies, I hit edit instead of quote and screwed up this post.

EDIT2 by arhag: Darn.. I forgot what I wrote and don't have a backup in my cache. It was pretty long too. It was something about discussing the distinction between coercion by consensus (e.g. coordinated shunning) and violence, but ultimately saying I don't think of them as that far apart. For example, coordinated shunning can essentially be a death sentence for stubborn individuals because they depend on others for survival. And we can argue whether that is morally equivalent to "murder by the shunners" or "suicide by the shunned" but is not all that different to me to enforcing rights with the threat of violence by the state. Also, I then responded with the above quote to Stan's comment and further added that the only thing that I consider close to objective regarding morality are the consensus morals determined by a given society (which can differ community to community and over time) which we can also call "legal rights" (to use the phrase that Troglodactyl used). Society holding those consensus morals would find it beneficial to enforce these "legal rights" and one could even call that a government or state.

I really wish I could get back the original. Too bad these forums don't have revision histories. By the way, does anyone know of a bot I could run that can automatically back up all of the posts in a user's "Profile >> Show posts" page in their raw form? I might be motivated enough to build one myself...
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Stan on January 27, 2015, 05:49:53 am

Rights are not granted by governments, they are inalienable.


If so, there are no property rights, because ownership of property, even purchased property, can always be philosophically challenged. Nature does not grant any person any right to any mineral, goods, quality of health, basic income, or even life itself. These human conceptualisations can only be granted by a consensus willing to enforce it, whether that apparatus is called state or not.

It's a subtle point. I'm saying block-chains do not enforce anything except the ability to control. Ownership rights exist separately if they are enforced.

We're getting mixed up on moral rights versus legal rights again.

The fact that moral property rights can be challenged and questioned philosophically doesn't prove that they don't exist.  Claiming that a human's right to life does not exist without a consensus is true of the legal right to life, but I reject the idea that the moral right to life is nonexistent without consensus.  I assert that objective value exists, because there is literally no value in supposing that it does not.
OK, let's suppose moral property rights exist, and that there is some way the consensus can agree on this, thousands of years of human conflict notwithstanding. How do we solve the practical issue of how it can be assured that private keys are always in the hands of their rightful owners, or of how those property rights can be enforced in the absence of consensus-based threat (i.e. a state, or some other consensus-based apparatus of coercion)? This is why I am questioning whether block-chains actually assert property or ownership rights, as opposed to just property control. I'm suggesting we need to change the language we use, for a start, and think about how society can (and is likely to)  respond to the latter problems in the absence of state.

Block chains are only sovereign over the ledger data they contain.  All they can enforce is the rules for altering that ledger. To the extent that the state of that data is important to you then others may be able to influence your behavior in the "real" world in exchange for whatever ability they have to alter that ledger state in your favor. 

Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Stan on January 27, 2015, 06:11:22 am
Define "rights". Regardless of your definition of rights someone else may have another definition that conflicts with yours. Perhaps your definition of rights gives you moral authority (authority that is only recognized by yourself and other people who share your philosophy of course) to disregard other's definitions. The statement that "rights" are "inalienable" and "endowed by their Creator" seems to suggest that you believe in rights (and furthermore morality) as objective things, meaning things that exist in the physical (or metaphysical?) universe outside of any conscious entity's mind, rather than as abstract constructs in the minds of human beings. I think of morality as purely a subjective thing.


(Rats, I hit modify instead of quote and screwed up this post.)

Natural rights such as to secure life, liberty, and property as John Locke defined them.

Morality is only subjective if there is no rather opinionated Creator who says otherwise.  :)
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: arhag on January 27, 2015, 06:31:38 am
Morality is only subjective if there is no rather opinionated Creator who says otherwise.  :)

Great, time to bring up the five questions I asked bytemaster back in October:

  • Do you believe that objective morality exists?
  • If the answer to the first question is yes, then who/what determines these objective morals and how are humans supposed to discover them and prove their veracity?
  • If the answer to the first question is yes, then do you believe that "respecting property rights" and "not harming others" belong in the aforementioned set of objective morals?
  • How do you define property and property rights? What is and is not considered property? What rights do they give to the owners? How are the owners even determined? What does it mean to not harm others? Is this physical harm, emotional harm, or both? Who even gets to determine whether harm occurred or whether it was "sufficient" harm? (I realize these are actually way more than one question)
  • If the answer to the first question is yes, then are your answers to the previous question, which describe what "property rights" and "harm" should be, also defined objectively along with the set of objective morals? If not, through which mechanisms do you believe human societies should come to a consensus on the answers to those questions?

You already answered yes to the first question. I'm particularly most interested in your answer to the second question more than any other, in particular the "how are humans supposed to discover them and prove their veracity" part.


P.S. I find it really annoying that the SMF software doesn't allow me to quote a post in a locked thread.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: starspirit on January 27, 2015, 06:54:22 am
These are fantastic questions arhag. I also think whatever the individual answers are, beyond the simple statements like "not harming others", there is a world of conflicts and compromises once people start debating the nuances. I find hypothetical situations useful to elucidate these, and I've given some past examples.

Irrespective of one's stance on the existence of objective moral truths and rights, the point of the OP is that the block-chain cannot protect whatever ownership rights it is that one believes they have. The block-chain is silent on whether the distribution of property control is consistent with those moral ownership rights, nor does it provide a practical mechanism to enforce it. This means that other (outside-blockchain) mechanisms are required to satisfy property rights.
(Unless one takes a post-blockchain neo-view that control is sufficient to grant the ownership right...)
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Stan on January 27, 2015, 02:27:58 pm
You already answered yes to the first question. I'm particularly most interested in your answer to the second question more than any other, in particular the "how are humans supposed to discover them and prove their veracity" part.

You can't discover or prove things which are not observable.
If there are such things, you can only know them if they are taught to you by someone you find credible.
There are many who claim to have been eye-witnesses to such teaching.
Like any juror, you have to decide whether you find such eye-witnesses credible.

I have never seen a strange quark.
I have no capability to observe one.
I have to decide whether the group of physicists who say they have observed them are credible.   :)
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: arhag on January 27, 2015, 05:52:54 pm
You already answered yes to the first question. I'm particularly most interested in your answer to the second question more than any other, in particular the "how are humans supposed to discover them and prove their veracity" part.

You can't discover or prove things which are not observable.
If there are such things, you can only know them if they are taught to you by someone you find credible.
There are many who claim to have been eye-witnesses to such teaching.
Like any juror, you have to decide whether you find such eye-witnesses credible.

I have never seen a strange quark.
I have no capability to observe one.
I have to decide whether the group of physicists who say they have observed them are credible.   :)

The scientists who claimed to have observed a strange quark do not merely state their claim. They also provide a procedure that anyone with sufficient resources could recreate in the present to repeat the observation for themselves. Their claims are falsifiable. This means that they are putting their reputation on the line if the make false claims. Other scientists are waiting to repeat their observations to check their work. The more the original set of scientists' claim is accepted by society, the more significant it would be for the second set of scientists to disprove the claim. Checking each other's claims is possible and the incentives for checking the claims are in place. The rest of us can rely on this mechanism to trust falsifiable claims that have been verified by many independent groups and have not yet been disproven even though we won't be making the observations and calculations ourselves. It would take a very elaborate and difficult to maintain conspiracy for a large set of scientists to intentionally propagate the belief in false scientific claims (assuming they would even have any personal motivation to do so in the first place).

Let's compare the above to alleged eye-witness claims of divine teachings and phenomena. We are forced to base the belief off books which are translations of other books written many years ago of stories that were passed down verbally which originated 1000s of years ago allegedly from eye-witness evidence. There are many places along this process where the information could be corrupted (think of the game of telephone). The most significant of which is the original observation of the "evidence" by potentially flawed observers as well as the original reporting of the observation to other people. And we have no way of proving whether these observations were accurate or not because we cannot go back in time to observe it (and even if we somehow could we would need a sufficiently decentralized and unlikely to collude group of individuals to all go back and observe it so that they could corroborate on their story).

Furthermore, there can be many reasons why the reporters of this evidence would have incentive to lie about their claims. They may wish to obtain fame and power (claiming you are special enough to be a prophet that God decided to directly present and speak to could be a good way of achieving that, although it can also backfire and provide notoriety instead and result in one's death for blasphemy and heresy). They may wish to control populations through religion (claiming certain rules you want populations to follow have authority not because you say they do but because a higher power than you does gives it more credibility to significant portions of the population). Also, keep in mind that the eye-witness observers may also not be intentially lying but rather subconciously exaggerating their claims and seeing what they want to see (we know the human mind tends to do that). Since a belief in supernatural phenemona has been deeply buried in the human subconcious for a long time (our pattern seeking brains tend to observe natural phenomena that we cannot explain scientifically through all kinds of imaginative stories), it is not odd to think that the observers of "novel" divine "evidence", which was in reality nothing special or significant, saw something there that confirmed their expectations of what they hoped to see (think Virgin Mary on a piece of toast).

Given the above realities of the human condition, we should be skeptical of these claims. We should be skeptical of radical scientific claims as well, of course. But the scientific claims are falsifiable. Furthermore, people don't really take new theories very seriously if they are not going beyond the currently accepted theory in some way. If the new theory explains all evidence that is already explained by the current dominant theory, and nothing more, then it is not interesting. If there is evidence that seems to contradict the current theory but a new theory explains it as well as all the other evidence explained by the current theory, then it is interesting enough to scrutinize. If the novel predictions the new theory makes are then later confirmed, it then stands a very good chance of replacing the current theory. You can see many examples of this in science but just to give one example, look at Einstein's general relativity replacing Newtonian gravity. While the process is not perfect and wonderfully rational always, it at least continually improves upon itself based on evidence observed in the physical universe and through the scientific method.

I think the same processes should be applied to divine claims. There is no reason to consider a new theory of how the universe operates unless there is evidence that doesn't fit the current theory and the new theory explains it (or explains it much better). But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A claim of divine powers existing in the universe that had never been observed is an extraordinary claim. It is not sufficient in my opinion to consider the testimony of a single person (or even a small group of people) who claimed to have had a first-hand experience of the phenomena as "extraordinary evidence" (especially for all the reasons I stated two paragraphs above). It is certain that our current theory of the universe is incorrect (even if only slightly) and it may even be possible that the correct theory includes a subset of divine phenomena as reported in religious scripture, but it makes no sense to jump to that theory based on the faulty evidence we have supporting this new theory as of today. If extraordinary evidence did present itself in the future, and we were to skeptically and scientifically study this evidence using critical reasoning, then the theory should (and very likely would) change. So far, it has not.

But I want to go a bit further. Even if we found the evidence of divine phenomena reported in religious scripture to be compelling (of course we have to ask which of the many conflicting religious scripture we are talking about in this case), I would argue that it is not sufficient evidence of an afterlife, dualism, or objective morality. A being with abilities that were, up to the point of us observing them, considered supernatural (if we reach a  consensus that they actually exist in the natural physical world, it is no longer accurate to call it "supernatural"), is not necessarily also a being that is omnipotent and is the creator of the entire universe. Humans with our current technology would look like magical wizards compared to humans a few thousand years back in the past. It could be plausible that extraterrestrial beings with their advanced technology (potentially exploiting laws of physics we were unaware of) could exhibit actions that most of us humans would be unable to interpret as any other way than "divine". And just because such an advanced being might claim they are the omnipotent creator of the universe, that there exists a human soul that will after biological death either experience eternal paradise or eternal torture based on the judgement of the omnipotent being, and also here are the list of criteria by which the being will be judging humanity, doesn't necessarily make any of it true. It could just be a prank or a means of claiming higher superiority than they already have to further quell any resistance to their claims of control and power.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Stan on January 27, 2015, 06:27:47 pm
You already answered yes to the first question. I'm particularly most interested in your answer to the second question more than any other, in particular the "how are humans supposed to discover them and prove their veracity" part.

You can't discover or prove things which are not observable.
If there are such things, you can only know them if they are taught to you by someone you find credible.
There are many who claim to have been eye-witnesses to such teaching.
Like any juror, you have to decide whether you find such eye-witnesses credible.

I have never seen a strange quark.
I have no capability to observe one.
I have to decide whether the group of physicists who say they have observed them are credible.   :)

The scientists who claimed to have observed a strange quark do not merely state their claim. They also provide a procedure that anyone with sufficient resources could recreate in the present to repeat the observation for themselves. Their claims are falsifiable. This means that they are putting their reputation on the line if the make false claims. Other scientists are waiting to repeat their observations to check their work. The more the original set of scientists' claim is accepted by society, the more significant it would be for the second set of scientists to disprove the claim. Checking each other's claims is possible and the incentives for checking the claims are in place. The rest of us can rely on this mechanism to trust falsifiable claims that have been verified by many independent groups and have not yet been disproven even though we won't be making the observations and calculations ourselves. It would take a very elaborate and difficult to maintain conspiracy for a large set of scientists to intentionally propagate the belief in false scientific claims (assuming they would even have any personal motivation to do so in the first place).

Let's compare the above to alleged eye-witness claims of divine teachings and phenomena. We are forced to base the belief off books which are translations of other books written many years ago of stories that were passed down verbally which originated 1000s of years ago allegedly from eye-witness evidence. There are many places along this process where the information could be corrupted (think of the game of telephone). The most significant of which is the original observation of the "evidence" by potentially flawed observers as well as the original reporting of the observation to other people. And we have no way of proving whether these observations were accurate or not because we cannot go back in time to observe it (and even if we somehow could we would need a sufficiently decentralized and unlikely to collude group of individuals to all go back and observe it so that they could corroborate on their story).

Furthermore, there can be many reasons why the reporters of this evidence would have incentive to lie about their claims. They may wish to obtain fame and power (claiming you are special enough to be a prophet that God decided to directly present and speak to could be a good way of achieving that, although it can also backfire and provide notoriety instead and result in one's death for blasphemy and heresy). They may wish to control populations through religion (claiming certain rules you want populations to follow have authority not because you say they do but because a higher power than you does gives it more credibility to significant portions of the population). Also, keep in mind that the eye-witness observers may also not be intentially lying but rather subconciously exaggerating their claims and seeing what they want to see (we know the human mind tends to do that). Since a belief in supernatural phenemona has been deeply buried in the human subconcious for a long time (our pattern seeking brains tend to observe natural phenomena that we cannot explain scientifically through all kinds of imaginative stories), it is not odd to think that the observers of "novel" divine "evidence", which was in reality nothing special or significant, saw something there that confirmed their expectations of what they hoped to see (think Virgin Mary on a piece of toast).

Given the above realities of the human condition, we should be skeptical of these claims. We should be skeptical of radical scientific claims as well, of course. But the scientific claims are falsifiable. Furthermore, people don't really take new theories very seriously if they are not going beyond the currently accepted theory in some way. If the new theory explains all evidence that is already explained by the current dominant theory, and nothing more, then it is not interesting. If there is evidence that seems to contradict the current theory but a new theory explains it as well as all the other evidence explained by the current theory, then it is interesting enough to scrutinize. If the novel predictions the new theory makes are then later confirmed, it then stands a very good chance of replacing the current theory. You can see many examples of this in science but just to give one example, look at Einstein's general relativity replacing Newtonian gravity. While the process is not perfect and wonderfully rational always, it at least continually improves upon itself based on evidence observed in the physical universe and through the scientific method.

I think the same processes should be applied to divine claims. There is no reason to consider a new theory of how the universe operates unless there is evidence that doesn't fit the current theory and the new theory explains it (or explains it much better). But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A claim of divine powers existing in the universe that had never been observed is an extraordinary claim. It is not sufficient in my opinion to consider the testimony of a single person (or even a small group of people) who claimed to have had a first-hand experience of the phenomena as "extraordinary evidence" (especially for all the reasons I stated two paragraphs above). It is certain that our current theory of the universe is incorrect (even if only slightly) and it may even be possible that the correct theory includes a subset of divine phenomena as reported in religious scripture, but it makes no sense to jump to that theory based on the faulty evidence we have supporting this new theory as of today. If extraordinary evidence did present itself in the future, and we were to skeptically and scientifically study this evidence using critical reasoning, then the theory should (and very likely would) change. So far, it has not.

But I want to go a bit further. Even if we found the evidence of divine phenomena reported in religious scripture to be compelling (of course we have to ask which of the many conflicting religious scripture we are talking about in this case), I would argue that it is not sufficient evidence of an afterlife, dualism, or objective morality. A being with abilities that were, up to the point of us observing them, considered supernatural (if we reach a  consensus that they actually exist in the natural physical world, it is no longer accurate to call it "supernatural"), is not necessarily also a being that is omnipotent and is the creator of the entire universe. Humans with our current technology would look like magical wizards compared to humans a few thousand years back in the past. It could be plausible that extraterrestrial beings with their advanced technology (potentially exploiting laws of physics we were unaware of) could exhibit actions that most of us humans would be unable to interpret as any other way than "divine". And just because such an advanced being might claim they are the omnipotent creator of the universe, that there exists a human soul that will after biological death either experience eternal paradise or eternal torture based on the judgement of the omnipotent being, and also here are the list of criteria by which the being will be judging humanity, doesn't necessarily make any of it true. It could just be a prank or a means of claiming higher superiority than they already have to further quell any resistance to their claims of control and power.

Yep, you should consider all of those things when determining whether any unfalsifiable teaching is credible.

But the burden of proof that there are no bears in the woods lies with the person who wants to go there unarmed.

:)
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Troglodactyl on January 27, 2015, 11:52:42 pm
You already answered yes to the first question. I'm particularly most interested in your answer to the second question more than any other, in particular the "how are humans supposed to discover them and prove their veracity" part.

You can't discover or prove things which are not observable.
If there are such things, you can only know them if they are taught to you by someone you find credible.
There are many who claim to have been eye-witnesses to such teaching.
Like any juror, you have to decide whether you find such eye-witnesses credible.

I have never seen a strange quark.
I have no capability to observe one.
I have to decide whether the group of physicists who say they have observed them are credible.   :)

The scientists who claimed to have observed a strange quark do not merely state their claim. They also provide a procedure that anyone with sufficient resources could recreate in the present to repeat the observation for themselves. Their claims are falsifiable. This means that they are putting their reputation on the line if the make false claims. Other scientists are waiting to repeat their observations to check their work. The more the original set of scientists' claim is accepted by society, the more significant it would be for the second set of scientists to disprove the claim. Checking each other's claims is possible and the incentives for checking the claims are in place. The rest of us can rely on this mechanism to trust falsifiable claims that have been verified by many independent groups and have not yet been disproven even though we won't be making the observations and calculations ourselves. It would take a very elaborate and difficult to maintain conspiracy for a large set of scientists to intentionally propagate the belief in false scientific claims (assuming they would even have any personal motivation to do so in the first place).

Let's compare the above to alleged eye-witness claims of divine teachings and phenomena. We are forced to base the belief off books which are translations of other books written many years ago of stories that were passed down verbally which originated 1000s of years ago allegedly from eye-witness evidence. There are many places along this process where the information could be corrupted (think of the game of telephone). The most significant of which is the original observation of the "evidence" by potentially flawed observers as well as the original reporting of the observation to other people. And we have no way of proving whether these observations were accurate or not because we cannot go back in time to observe it (and even if we somehow could we would need a sufficiently decentralized and unlikely to collude group of individuals to all go back and observe it so that they could corroborate on their story).

Furthermore, there can be many reasons why the reporters of this evidence would have incentive to lie about their claims. They may wish to obtain fame and power (claiming you are special enough to be a prophet that God decided to directly present and speak to could be a good way of achieving that, although it can also backfire and provide notoriety instead and result in one's death for blasphemy and heresy). They may wish to control populations through religion (claiming certain rules you want populations to follow have authority not because you say they do but because a higher power than you does gives it more credibility to significant portions of the population). Also, keep in mind that the eye-witness observers may also not be intentially lying but rather subconciously exaggerating their claims and seeing what they want to see (we know the human mind tends to do that). Since a belief in supernatural phenemona has been deeply buried in the human subconcious for a long time (our pattern seeking brains tend to observe natural phenomena that we cannot explain scientifically through all kinds of imaginative stories), it is not odd to think that the observers of "novel" divine "evidence", which was in reality nothing special or significant, saw something there that confirmed their expectations of what they hoped to see (think Virgin Mary on a piece of toast).

Given the above realities of the human condition, we should be skeptical of these claims. We should be skeptical of radical scientific claims as well, of course. But the scientific claims are falsifiable. Furthermore, people don't really take new theories very seriously if they are not going beyond the currently accepted theory in some way. If the new theory explains all evidence that is already explained by the current dominant theory, and nothing more, then it is not interesting. If there is evidence that seems to contradict the current theory but a new theory explains it as well as all the other evidence explained by the current theory, then it is interesting enough to scrutinize. If the novel predictions the new theory makes are then later confirmed, it then stands a very good chance of replacing the current theory. You can see many examples of this in science but just to give one example, look at Einstein's general relativity replacing Newtonian gravity. While the process is not perfect and wonderfully rational always, it at least continually improves upon itself based on evidence observed in the physical universe and through the scientific method.

I think the same processes should be applied to divine claims. There is no reason to consider a new theory of how the universe operates unless there is evidence that doesn't fit the current theory and the new theory explains it (or explains it much better). But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A claim of divine powers existing in the universe that had never been observed is an extraordinary claim. It is not sufficient in my opinion to consider the testimony of a single person (or even a small group of people) who claimed to have had a first-hand experience of the phenomena as "extraordinary evidence" (especially for all the reasons I stated two paragraphs above). It is certain that our current theory of the universe is incorrect (even if only slightly) and it may even be possible that the correct theory includes a subset of divine phenomena as reported in religious scripture, but it makes no sense to jump to that theory based on the faulty evidence we have supporting this new theory as of today. If extraordinary evidence did present itself in the future, and we were to skeptically and scientifically study this evidence using critical reasoning, then the theory should (and very likely would) change. So far, it has not.

But I want to go a bit further. Even if we found the evidence of divine phenomena reported in religious scripture to be compelling (of course we have to ask which of the many conflicting religious scripture we are talking about in this case), I would argue that it is not sufficient evidence of an afterlife, dualism, or objective morality. A being with abilities that were, up to the point of us observing them, considered supernatural (if we reach a  consensus that they actually exist in the natural physical world, it is no longer accurate to call it "supernatural"), is not necessarily also a being that is omnipotent and is the creator of the entire universe. Humans with our current technology would look like magical wizards compared to humans a few thousand years back in the past. It could be plausible that extraterrestrial beings with their advanced technology (potentially exploiting laws of physics we were unaware of) could exhibit actions that most of us humans would be unable to interpret as any other way than "divine". And just because such an advanced being might claim they are the omnipotent creator of the universe, that there exists a human soul that will after biological death either experience eternal paradise or eternal torture based on the judgement of the omnipotent being, and also here are the list of criteria by which the being will be judging humanity, doesn't necessarily make any of it true. It could just be a prank or a means of claiming higher superiority than they already have to further quell any resistance to their claims of control and power.

Yep, you should consider all of those things when determining whether any unfalsifiable teaching is credible.

But the burden of proof that there are no bears in the woods lies with the person who wants to go there unarmed.

:)

Thanks Pascal.  :P  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

I prefer to take that logic a bit further back.  We must assume (if possible) that we have real, non-illusory free will, because choosing not to make that assumption is absurd.  Likewise, we must assume that objective value exists, and that our decisions can have objective value, because this is either true, or by definition no value can be lost by choosing to believe it falsely.

Having established that objective value exists, I take the consequentialist approach to morality, though accepting the existence of objective value leaves plenty of room for debate regarding its exact nature and what actions may create it or destroy it.  Depending on the standards of value incorporated, I think a consequentialist framework can encompass any other moral system.

I am Christian, but I believe that God is "good" not simply by arbitrarily defining the term as a self reference, but because what God is as an entity is defined by the creation of real value.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: starspirit on January 28, 2015, 12:04:35 am
With acknowledgement to Donald Rumsfeld...

Views that hold that unobservable things objectively exist are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are things that are objectively objective; there are things we can verify and agree upon as objectively existing. We also know there are things that are objectively subjective; that is to say we know and agree there are some things that only have subjective existence according to the views of individuals. But there are also things that are subjectively objective -- the ones we disagree on and have no way of verifying whether objective existence actually exists. And if one looks through the history of our forum and other free debates, it is the latter category that tend to be the greatest conundrums.

In the latter category, we might include objective morality, inalienable rights, objective reality, objective truth, god(s), determinism, an ultimate model of the universe, etc etc.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: starspirit on January 28, 2015, 12:44:08 am

Thanks Pascal.  :P  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager


Never underestimate the tremendous cost of denying yourself the ability to live life according to your own principles, values and beliefs, driven by fear that you will disappoint any of an unlimited range of beings that humans could conceive of, any of which could make our lives heaven or hell on the back of a prescribed code of behaviour.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Myshadow on January 28, 2015, 01:27:38 am
I love that this forum has discussions like this and the discussions remain discussions that I am able to learn from and enjoy. I'm just going to leave this excerpt from https://board.freedomainradio.com/page/books/universally_preferable_behavior_a_rational_proof_of_secular_ethics.html regarding morality here. :)

The closest historical analogy to our present situation occurred in the 15th and 16th centuries, during the rise of the scientific method. The early pioneers who advocated a rational and empirical approach to knowledge faced the same prejudices that we face today – all the same irrationalities, entrenched powers of church and state, mystical and subjective “absolutes” and early educational barriers. Those who advocated the primacy of rationality and empirical observation over Biblical fundamentalism and secular tyrannies faced the determined opposition of those wielding both cross and sword. Many were tortured to death for their intellectual honesty – we face far less risk, and so should be far more courageous in advocating what is true over what is believed.

In order to attack false moralities, we must start from the beginning, just as the first scientists did. Francis Bacon did not argue that the scientific method was more “efficient” than prayer, Bible texts or starvation-induced visions. He simply said that if we want to understand nature, we must observe nature and theorize logically – and that there is no other route to knowledge.

We must take the same approach in defining and communicating morality. We must begin using the power and legitimacy of the scientific method to prove the validity and universality of moral laws. We must start from the beginning, build logically and reject any irrational or non-empirical substitutes for the truth.

What does this look like in practice? All we have to do is establish the following axioms:

Morality is a valid concept.
Moral rules must be consistent for all mankind.
The validity of a moral theory is judged by its consistency.

To start from the very beginning… are moral rules – or universally preferable human behaviours – valid at all?

There are only two possibilities when it comes to moral rules, just as there are in any logical science. Either universal moral rules are valid, or they are not. (In physics, the question is: either universal physical rules are valid, or they are not.)

A rule can be valid if it exists empirically, like gravity, or because it is true, like the equation 2+2=4.

We must then first ask: do moral rules exist at all?

Certainly not in material reality, which does not contain or obey a single moral rule. Moral rules are different from the rules of physics, just as the scientific method is different from gravity. Matter innately obeys gravity or the second law of thermodynamics, but “thou shalt not murder” is nowhere inscribed in the nature of things. Physical laws describe the behaviour of matter, but do not contain a single prescription. Science says that matter does behave in a certain manner – never that it should behave in a certain manner. A theory of gravity proves that if you push a man off a cliff, he will fall. It will not tell you whether you should push him or not.

Thus it cannot be said that moral rules exist in material reality, and neither are they automatically obeyed like the laws of physics – which does not mean that moral laws are false, subjective or irrelevant. The scientific method itself does not exist in reality either – and is also optional – but it is not at all false, subjective or irrelevant.

If we can prove that moral theories can be objective, rational and verifiable, this will provide the same benefits to ethics that subjecting physical theories to the scientific method did.

Before the rise of the scientific method, people believed that matter obeyed the subjective whims of gods and devils – and people believe the same of morality now. Volcanoes erupted because the mountain-god was angry; good harvests resulted from human or animal sacrifices. No one believed that absolute physical laws could limit the will of the gods – and so science could never develop. Those who historically profited from defining physical reality as subjective – mostly priests and aristocrats – fought the subjugation of physical theories to the scientific method, just as those who currently profit from defining morality as subjective – mostly priests and politicians – currently fight the subjugation of moral theories to objective and universal principles.

As mentioned above, the scientific method is essentially a methodology for separating accurate from inaccurate theories by subjecting them to two central tests: logical consistency and empirical observation – and by always subjugating logical consistency to empirical observation. If I propose a perfectly consistent and logical theory that says that a rock will float up when thrown off a cliff, any empirical test proves my theory incorrect, since observation always trumps hypothesis.

A further aspect of the scientific method is the belief that, since matter is composed of combinations of atoms with common, stable and predictable properties, the behaviour of matter must also be common, stable and predictable. Thus experiments must be reproducible in different locations and times. I cannot say that my “rock floating” theory is correct for just one particular rock, or on the day I first tested it, or at a single location. My theories must describe the behaviour of matter, which is universal, common, stable and predictable.

Finally, there is a generally accepted rule – sometimes called Occam’s Razor – which states that, of any two theories that have the same predictive power, the simpler of the two is preferable. Prior to the Copernican revolution, when Earth was considered the centre of the universe, the retrograde motion of Mars when Earth passed it in orbit around the sun caused enormous problems to the Ptolemaic system of astronomical calculations. “Circles within circles” multiplied enormously, which were all cleared away by simply placing the sun at the centre of the solar system and accepting the elliptical nature of planetary orbits.

Thus any valid scientific theory must be (a) universal, (b) logical, (c) empirically verifiable, (d) reproducible and (e) as simple as possible.

The methodology for judging and proving a moral theory is exactly the same as the methodology for judging and proving any other theory.

Moral Rules: A Definition
The first question regarding moral rules is: what are they?

Simply put, morals are a set of rules claiming to accurately and consistently identify universally preferable human behaviours, just as physics is a set of rules claiming to accurately and consistently identify the universal behaviour of matter.

The second question to be asked is: is there any such thing as “universally preferable behaviour” at all? If there is, we can begin to explore what such behaviour might be. If not, then our examination must stop here – just as the examination of Ptolemaic astronomy ceased after it became commonly accepted that the Sun was in fact the centre of the solar system.

As we discussed above, the proposition that there is no such thing as preferable behaviour contains an insurmountable number of logical and empirical problems. “Universally preferable behaviour” must be a valid concept, for five main reasons.

The first is logical: if I argue against the proposition that universally preferable behaviour is valid, I have already shown my preference for truth over falsehood – as well as a preference for correcting those who speak falsely. Saying that there is no such thing as universally preferable behaviour is like shouting in someone’s ear that sound does not exist – it is innately self-contradictory. In other words, if there is no such thing as universally preferable behaviour, then one should oppose anyone who claims that there is such a thing as universally preferable behaviour. However, if one “should” do something, then one has just created universally preferable behaviour. Thus universally preferable behaviour – or moral rules – must be valid.

Syllogistically, this is:

The proposition is: the concept “universally preferable behaviour” must be valid.

Arguing against the validity of universally preferable behaviour demonstrates universally preferable behaviour.

Therefore no argument against the validity of universally preferable behaviour can be valid.

We all know that there are subjective preferences, such as liking ice cream or jazz, which are not considered binding upon other people. On the other hand, there are other preferences, such as rape and murder, which clearly are inflicted on others. There are also preferences for logic, truth and evidence, which are also binding upon others (although they are not usually violently inflicted) insofar as we all accept that an illogical proposition must be false or invalid.

Those preferences which can be considered binding upon others can be termed “universal preferences,” or “moral rules.”

How else can we know that the concept of “moral rules” is valid?

We can examine the question biologically as well as syllogistically.

For instance, all matter is subject to physical rules – and everything that lives is in addition subject to certain requirements, and thus, if it is alive, must have followed universally preferred behaviours. Life, for instance, requires fuel and oxygen. Any living mind, of course, is an organic part of the physical world, and so is subject to physical laws and must have followed universally preferred behaviours – to argue otherwise would require proof that consciousness is not composed of matter, and is not organic – an impossibility, since it has mass, energy, and life. Arguing that consciousness is subject to neither physical rules nor universally preferred behaviours would be like arguing that human beings are immune to gravity, and can flourish without eating.

Thus it is impossible that anyone can logically argue against universally preferable behaviour, since if he is alive to argue, he must have followed universally preferred behaviours such as breathing, eating and drinking.

Syllogistically, this is:

All organisms require universally preferred behaviour to live.

Man is a living organism.

Therefore all living men are alive due to the practice of universally preferred behaviour.

Therefore any argument against universally preferable behaviour requires an acceptance and practice of universally preferred behaviour.

Therefore no argument against the existence of universally preferable behaviour can be valid.

Since the scientific method requires empirical corroboration, we must also look to reality to confirm our hypothesis – and here the validity of universally preferable behaviour is fully supported.

Every sane human being believes in moral rules of some kind. There is some disagreement about what constitutes moral rules, but everyone is certain that moral rules are valid – just as many scientists disagree, but all scientists accept the validity of the scientific method itself. One can argue that the Earth is round and not flat – which is analogous to changing the definition of morality – but one cannot argue that the Earth does not exist at all – which is like arguing that there is no such thing as universally preferable behaviour.

Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Myshadow on January 28, 2015, 02:02:53 am
The greatest challenge of philosophy is the definition of a universal, objective and absolute morality that does not rely on God or the state. The moment that we rely on God or the state for the definition of morality, morality no longer remains universal, objective and absolute. In other words, it is no longer “morality.”

The invention of imaginary entities such as “God” and “the state” does nothing to answer our questions about morality.

We fully understand that the invention of God did nothing – and does nothing – to answer questions about the origin of life, or the universe. To say, in answer to any question, “some incomprehensible being did some inconceivable thing in some unfathomable manner for unknowable purposes,” cannot be considered any sort of rational answer.

The gravest danger in making up incomprehensible “answers” to rational and essential questions is that it provides the illusion of an answer, which in general negates the pursuit of truth. Furthermore, a group inevitably coalesces to defend and profit from this irrational non-answer.

In the realm of religion, this is the priestly caste. In the realm of government, this is the political caste.

When a real and essential question is met with a mystical and violent “answer,” human progress turns to regression. The science of meteorology fails to come into being if the priests say that the rain comes because the gods will it. The science of medicine fails to develop if illness is considered a moral punishment from the gods. The science of physics stalls and regresses if the motion of the stars is considered the clockwork of the deities.

When false answers are presented to moral questions, questioning those answers inevitably becomes a moral crime. When illusions are substituted for curiosity, those who profit from those illusions inevitably end up using violence to defend their lies.

And for evermore, children are the first victims of these exploitive falsehoods.

Children do not have to be bullied into eating candy, playing tag, or understanding that two plus two is four. The human mind does not require that the truth be inflicted through terror, boredom, insults and repetition. A child does not have to be “taught” that a toy is real by telling him that he is damned to hell for eternity if he does not believe that the toy is real. A child does not have to be bullied into believing that chocolate tastes good by being told that his taste buds are damned by original sin.

Saying that morality exists because God tells us that it exists is exactly the same as saying that morality does not exist. If you buy an iPod from me on eBay, and I send you an empty box, you will write to me in outrage. If I tell you not to worry, that my invisible friend assures me that there is in fact an iPod in the box, would you be satisfied? Would not my claim that my invisible friend tells me of the iPod’s existence be a certain proof that the iPod did not in fact exist?

If morality is justified according to the authority of a being that does not exist, then morality by definition is not justified. If I write a check that is “certified” by a bank that does not exist, then clearly my check is by definition invalid.

The same is true for enforcing morality through the irrational monopoly of “the state.” If we allow the existence of a government – a minority of people who claim the right to initiate the use of force, a right which is specifically denied to everyone else – then any and all moral “rules” enforced by the government are purely subjective, since the government is by definition based on a violation of moral rules.

If I say that I need the government to protect my property, but that the government is by definition a group of people who can violate my property rights at will, then I am caught in an insurmountable contradiction. I am saying that my property rights must be defended – and then I create an agency to defend them that can violate them at any time. This is like being so afraid of rape that I hire a bodyguard to protect me from being raped – but in the contract, I allow my bodyguard – and anyone he chooses – to rape me at will.

Because “morality” based on the state and on religion is so irrational and self-contradictory, it requires a social agency with a monopoly on the initiation of force to function. Since everyone is just making up “morals” and claiming absolute justification based on imaginary entities, rational negotiation and understanding remain impossible. We do not need a government because people are bad, but rather, because people are irrational, we end up with a government. False moral theories always end up requiring violence to enforce them. Moral theories are not developed in response to violence – false moral theories cause violence – in fact, demand violence.

The moral subjectivism and irrationality involved in answering “What is truth?” with “God,” and “What is morality?” with “government,” is so openly revealed by the framework of UPB that it is hard to imagine that this concept is not more widespread.

One central reason for this is that truly understanding UPB requires the very highest possible mental functioning. It is relatively easy to be rational; it is very difficult to think about the implicit premises of rationality, and all that they entail. It is relatively easy to debate; it is very difficult to tease out all of the implicit assumptions involved in the very act of debating.

It is easy to catch a ball – it is hard to invent the physics that explain motion universally.

Thinking about thinking is the hardest mental discipline of all.

At the beginning of this book, I talked about a “beast” that terrified and enslaved mankind. This beast is always located on a mountaintop, or in a deep cave. People are afraid of the beast in the world, which is why the beast has never been defeated.

The beast has never been defeated because the beast is an illusion.

The beast cannot be defeated in the world, because the beast is within ourselves.

The collective fantasy that there exists a “null zone,” where morality magically reverses itself, called “the government” is exactly the same as the collective fantasy that there exists a “null zone” called “God” where reality reverses itself.

If we define “morality” according to the subjective fantasies of mere mortals, then it will forever remain under the manipulative control of power-hungry tyrants. Since God does not exist, anyone who speaks about morality in relation to God is just making up definitions to serve his own purposes.

Since “the state” does not exist, anyone who speaks about morality in relation to government is just making up definitions to serve his own purposes.

Until we can define an objective and rational morality that is free from the subjective whims of each individual, we will never make the kind of progress that we need to as a species.

Morality, like physics, biology, geology and chemistry, must join the realm of the sciences if we are to flourish – and indeed, perhaps, to survive at all.

However, if we can sustain our courage, it is this discipline alone that can set us, and our children – and all humanity in the future – free from the tyranny of the greatest beast: our own moral illusions.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: ticklebiscuit on January 28, 2015, 02:03:53 am
Clearly both laws and blockchains are impotent for enforcing anything, because they're just communication.  If anything is to be enforced, either with a state or without it, it will be enforced by people who are willing to use force against others who don't comply.

Drones would do a good job too at enforcing i bet and they communicate with a blockchain will always have a database to communicate with!
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: starspirit on January 28, 2015, 02:13:59 am
Nice contribution Myshadow. Here's my take on it...[your first post above]

Any scientific theory can be falsified by a single piece of contradictory evidence. Surely the fact that different people make moral choices that are different in the same given situations is enough evidence to prove that there is not a complete set of universal preferences of behaviour?

Is there even a single subset of behaviour that absolutely everyone can agree on as always holding? I guess this is what the author is trying to show via examples.

The excerpt discusses the preference for truth over falsity. But the scientific sample is only those who participate in the debate, arguing all such participants are clearly espousing truth over falsity. But this ignores the full sample of humanity, including those choosing to not have a view or to be silent from the debate. Nothing can be deduced of their preferences. Even if they all preferred some view of truth over falsity, this says nothing about their moral preferences (rules of interacting with others to elucidate or confer truth).

The excerpt also discusses the biological preference to breathe, eat and drink. But these are not forms of human interaction that say anything about moral preferences. The piece is trying to identify a base of universally preferred behaviours, when it should be focused on universally preferred modes of interaction, or morals. Universally preferred behaviours that have no moral implication are irrelevant.

The problem with this type of argument overall, is that there is not an irrefutable logic around these concepts that everybody will agree with. So though the author believes his case is strong enough to personally believe in objective morality, the subjectivity of the logic used means the case is left open for others. ie. It is only subjectively objective (or subjectively subjective).

Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Stan on January 28, 2015, 02:52:47 am
I also love the depth of thinking and elegance of expression in this thread.  Wow.  We have a lot of smart people in this forum!

But I would love to see a high-quality, thoughtful sequel to The Matrix where all of the arguments made above are carried on by characters in white lab coats observing a computer generated universe from the inside and pontificating about how they are able to know everything there is to know by applying the Scientific Method. 

(https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTKmblJ5cg9Ekm9dhkAxFG1ro0BEOF2oqGaC0sOuNJxkPGmydGONw)

You need to think BIGGER, Pinky.  :)
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: arhag on January 28, 2015, 03:13:59 am
The greatest challenge of philosophy is the definition of a universal, objective and absolute morality that does not rely on God or the state.

I would argue that it is incredibly challenging because objective/universal/absolute morality does not exist. :)

Morals are subjective. They exist only in the minds of entities complex enough to contemplate them. The only objective morals we can refer to is the consensus moral code and values of a particular group of individuals or of an entire society. We can objectively say that these group of individuals (each with their slightly different morals) discussed it and came to the following compromise set of moral codes. We can codify that set and refer to it objectively, but it doesn't mean morality is objective. It is also almost certainly not universal, at least not necessarily. Of course we need to talk about which set of conscious entities we are considering when we are talking about something being universal. Let's talk about all human beings currently living on Earth. The probability that all human beings living on Earth would all hold the exact same set of subjective morals is incredibly small. However, there is probably some subset of those morals which nearly every human (but not necessarily all) holds personally.

This isn't to say that people couldn't objectively study morality as a field in philosophy. In fact, I would think of it more to do with the fields of social sciences, like psychology, and other sciences like biology, particularly neuroscience. It is an interesting challenge to understand how environment, life experiences, and biology shapes the subjective morality that develops in a human being. Even more interesting is to use that understanding to engineer changes in the environment to get desired changes in the moral views of human beings, particularly children growing up in that new environment. But I want to make it clear that I see the role of this field of study to make positive statements (what is that state of human morality and its dependence on various outside factors) and not normative statements (what should be the state of human morality). That scientific understanding could then be exploited to engineer morality (which deals with normative statements), but the decisions of what should be done is not determined because there is an objective answer but rather determined by the compromise consensus decided upon by the collection of human beings who have the means to actually implement those changes.


Thus it cannot be said that moral rules exist in material reality, and neither are they automatically obeyed like the laws of physics – which does not mean that moral laws are false, subjective or irrelevant. The scientific method itself does not exist in reality either – and is also optional – but it is not at all false, subjective or irrelevant.

Morality is not false (I don't think it even makes sense to call it false) and certainly not irrelevant, but I do think it is subjective. The scientific method is also subjective. That doesn't mean it isn't useful though. Many of us (but not all!) agree that is the best method that humans have thought of for understanding the universe. But there is no objective moral law that says understanding the universe is good or should be done. Similarly, morality is useful (to each of us). And we certainly recognize that each of us hold certain values and moral codes and that they are incredibly important to us. But it does not mean that there is some objective morality that exists and that we have to try to discover and live our lives according to that moral code. We do however recognize that it would be easier to each live our lives and enjoy it if we shared a common moral code. And perhaps if we can come up with some meta-morals that the vast majority of people agree with that govern how we should come up with the specific morals that we can all share, then we can further develop that and use those meta-morals to reach the goal of a society that shares similar moral codes and is more pleasant to live within. But I think it is important to realize that there can be people who even disagree with those meta-morals or the very goal of trying to share common moral codes, and I consider that equally legitimate as the people who think we should follow the meta-morals. That, of course, doesn't stop me from ignoring them, disregarding their views, and moving on without them.


“Universally preferable behaviour” must be a valid concept, for five main reasons.

The first is logical: if I argue against the proposition that universally preferable behaviour is valid, I have already shown my preference for truth over falsehood – as well as a preference for correcting those who speak falsely. Saying that there is no such thing as universally preferable behaviour is like shouting in someone’s ear that sound does not exist – it is innately self-contradictory. In other words, if there is no such thing as universally preferable behaviour, then one should oppose anyone who claims that there is such a thing as universally preferable behaviour. However, if one “should” do something, then one has just created universally preferable behaviour. Thus universally preferable behaviour – or moral rules – must be valid.

I believe "UPB exists" is false which means I might prefer to oppose people who claim "UPB exists". But there exists people who do not prefer to oppose people who claim "UPB exists" because they are simply apathetic about the issue (whether or not they actually believe "UPB exists" is a true statement). Therefore, the behavior 'arguing against people who claim "UPB exists" is true' or 'correcting those who speak falsely' or 'preferring truth over falsehood' are not universally preferred. There is no logical inconsistency. Ah, I see starspirit already addressed this point while I was writing this.

Anyway, that's it from me for now. I already spent too much time writing on this thread today.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: starspirit on January 28, 2015, 05:10:34 am

But I would love to see a high-quality, thoughtful sequel to The Matrix where all of the arguments made above are carried on by characters in white lab coats observing a computer generated universe from the inside and pontificating about how they are able to know everything there is to know by applying the Scientific Method. 


Characterising reality in this way leads to an endless causal chain. The reality within can only be completely described from the more encompassing reality, where there will be yet more beings in their version of lab coats speculating on their own reality. And by the same logic, that reality can only be described by an even larger reality. And so forth. And then likewise that infinite hierarchy of realities can only be described by a meta-reality. And that meta-reality by an even larger meta-reality, and so forth. Sounds like a long (yet interesting) film....

Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Myshadow on January 28, 2015, 05:24:03 am
Nice contribution Myshadow. Here's my take on it...[your first post above]

Any scientific theory can be falsified by a single piece of contradictory evidence. Surely the fact that different people make moral choices that are different in the same given situations is enough evidence to prove that there is not a complete set of universal preferences of behaviour?
Thanks :) I'm glad you found it as interesting as I did. I don't think it is, the fact that it is required that people are required to eat to survive is not negated by the fact that some people choose not to eat or survive.
Is there even a single subset of behaviour that absolutely everyone can agree on as always holding? I guess this is what the author is trying to show via examples.
No i don't think there is. I still don't think this negates the validity of universally preferable behaviour because of the reason above.
The excerpt discusses the preference for truth over falsity. But the scientific sample is only those who participate in the debate, arguing all such participants are clearly espousing truth over falsity. But this ignores the full sample of humanity, including those choosing to not have a view or to be silent from the debate. Nothing can be deduced of their preferences. Even if they all preferred some view of truth over falsity, this says nothing about their moral preferences (rules of interacting with others to elucidate or confer truth).

The excerpt also discusses the biological preference to breathe, eat and drink. But these are not forms of human interaction that say anything about moral preferences. The piece is trying to identify a base of universally preferred behaviours, when it should be focused on universally preferred modes of interaction, or morals. Universally preferred behaviours that have no moral implication are irrelevant.
I don't think that interactions can be put in a different class to other behaviours like drinking or eating. I think they should be subject to the same method of analysis to evaluate whether or not they are universally preferable as eating or drinking are. The examples given aren't relevant to morals, but they are proof of universally preferable behaviours.
The problem with this type of argument overall, is that there is not an irrefutable logic around these concepts that everybody will agree with. So though the author believes his case is strong enough to personally believe in objective morality, the subjectivity of the logic used means the case is left open for others. ie. It is only subjectively objective (or subjectively subjective).
I would say that he has irrefutably proved that eating and drinking are UPB if the objective is survival. Could the same framework be applied to morally relevant behaviours with the same certainty of results? If it can, then any behaviour can then be evaluated using UPB framework to determine its validity in assuring an agreed upon outcome.

In regards to the example given by arhag, I don't think that the apathy toward ethics/economics/philosophy of most people proves that morals are subjective or that UPB doesn't exist. The majority may be apathetic toward these things out of choice, but it does not mean that it is preferable for them to be that way if they want to live well and be happy, or even preferable if they want to preserve the meager amount of wealth they have by understanding the system they support is destined to fail and looking for alternatives... If anything, the results of the apathetic nature of most people help to prove that apathy toward these things is not preferable if you want a society where the initiation of force is minimized.

I also reject the assertion that the scientific method is subjective. We certainly don't have to use it if we don't want to but that doesn't make its results any less consistent, accurate and it certainly doesn't change the way it works.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Myshadow on January 28, 2015, 05:46:12 am

But I would love to see a high-quality, thoughtful sequel to The Matrix where all of the arguments made above are carried on by characters in white lab coats observing a computer generated universe from the inside and pontificating about how they are able to know everything there is to know by applying the Scientific Method. 



Characterising reality in this way leads to an endless causal chain. The reality within can only be completely described from the more encompassing reality, where there will be yet more beings in their version of lab coats speculating on their own reality. And by the same logic, that reality can only be described by an even larger reality. And so forth. And then likewise that infinite hierarchy of realities can only be described by a meta-reality. And that meta-reality by an even larger meta-reality, and so forth. Sounds like a long (yet interesting) film....

(https://scuppernongspringsnaturetrail.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/theturtlecarriestheearth.jpg)

A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"

—Hawking, 1988

Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Stan on January 28, 2015, 01:58:48 pm
Yes, but there may also be a completely observable universe (like the one Science assumes as a foundational axiom) containing a big computer (perhaps sitting inside a test tube on a turtle in a hot tub) simulating the one we are actually living in and Science couldn't tell the difference.  If that were the case, the only way we could learn our true situation is if someone on the outside chose to reveal something about it to those on the inside - perhaps as part of a controlled experiment to see how humans behave when they think they have been left alone to their own devices. 

If that were to happen at one or more points in time,
Science would completely miss it.

Occam's razor is nice when one needs the simplest possible equation that will do the job.  (I find that F=ma is highly useful, even though it does not fully describe the behavior of a photon passing a bit too close to Alpha Centauri.)   

But, to presume that the (meta)universe is as simple as it can be is an unwarranted assumption - unworthy of what we have already learned since Science replaced superstition.

The true nature of the (meta)universe may not be constrained by what Science can prove.

"Can't prove it is!"
"Can't prove it's not!"
"Did too!"
"Did not!"

"A man's gotta know his limitations."  - Clint Eastwood

Quote
“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”

― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Troglodactyl on January 28, 2015, 02:02:15 pm

Thanks Pascal.  :P  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager


Never underestimate the tremendous cost of denying yourself the ability to live life according to your own principles, values and beliefs, driven by fear that you will disappoint any of an unlimited range of beings that humans could conceive of, any of which could make our lives heaven or hell on the back of a prescribed code of behaviour.

Indeed.  I don't like Pascal's Wager as a defense, I was just labeling it since I saw it in Stan's response about bears in the woods.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: bytemaster on January 28, 2015, 02:48:59 pm
I want to do a blog post on this at some point.  Remind me if I don't get to it ;)
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Ander on January 28, 2015, 09:47:25 pm
You can't discover or prove things which are not observable.
If there are such things, you can only know them if they are taught to you by someone you find credible.
There are many who claim to have been eye-witnesses to such teaching.
Like any juror, you have to decide whether you find such eye-witnesses credible.

I have never seen a strange quark.
I have no capability to observe one.
I have to decide whether the group of physicists who say they have observed them are credible.   :)

Stan, I used to think like this.    Treating science more like an appeal to authority (Top scientists say X is true, therefore it is true), rather than the process by evidence can be gathered for or against a hypothesis. 

In that mindset, religion is the ultimate appeal to authority and it feels 'stronger' than science.  That is, top religious people say X is true with ABSOLUTE certainty!  But scientists cannot absolutely prove something, they only claim that X is very, very likely.  Religion is stronger, and science is very useful, but ultimately cannot answer many questions.



There is reality out there.  The universe, and whatever greater reality lies beyond it, are real.  This is the 'territory'. 

There is also our mental belief about what is real.   Our belief, our mental model of the world, is the 'map'.  Our belief can be correct or incorrect.   The map can accurately reflect the territory, or it can fail to match it. 

http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_map_is_not_the_territory


Through empiricism (observation - in a wider sense than just 'seeing with our eyes'), we can gather evidence about whether our mental map matches the territory of reality, or not. 

http://lesswrong.com/lw/jl/what_is_evidence/

http://lesswrong.com/lw/jn/how_much_evidence_does_it_take/


So in the case of the top quark, we cannot see it with our eyes.  Our standard method of updating our mental map to match the territory of reality doesnt work.  When our shoelaces were untied, we learned this because photons from the sun bounced off our untied shoelaces, into our eyes, and our brain processed that information.  It then updated its belief that our shoes were tied (with very high probability), to our shoes being untied (with very high probability). 

We cannot do that with Top Quarks, but that does not mean we cannot gather evidence about whether or not there is a thing in reality which has the properties we describe with the term "Top quark". 

Building upon our previous understandings, physicists constructed a model of the universe, a hypothesis, which could be true or false.  The model predicted top quarks, and predicted they would have certain properties.   The model predicted that if it was true, when we smashed certain particles together in an accelerator at high energies, we would sometimes see top quarks be generated.  It predicted what percentage of the time and under what circumstances they would appear.

We tested this, building the accelerator and using it.  We found that to high precision, the prediction of top quarks (our map) matched the reality of what we observed (the territory).  While it would not be possible to gain ABSOLUTE certainty of this, the probability that it was true became very very high. 

(You never get absolute certainty or uncertainty in something, because 0 and 1 are not probabilities!)   http://lesswrong.com/lw/mp/0_and_1_are_not_probabilities/


More recently, we did this process again with the Higgs Boson.  The following book by Physicist Sean Carroll does a fantastic job of describing the theory behind, and process of discovering evidence for the higgs boson, how much evidence we gathered, etc:
http://www.amazon.com/Particle-End-Universe-Higgs-Boson/dp/0142180300/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422480417&sr=8-1&keywords=the+particle+at+the+end+of+the+universe



With the scientific method, we become the lens that sees its flaws.  We can recognize that our mental map is not guaranteed to match the territory of reality.  We can figure out what beliefs are correct or are wrong, and modify them.

http://lesswrong.com/lw/jm/the_lens_that_sees_its_flaws/



We know that we might just be a brain in a jar, and a demon is feeding us inputs that correspond to the world we see  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon).  We also know that the universe might operate on mathematical laws, the fabric of real things (http://lesswrong.com/lw/eva/the_fabric_of_real_things/)

While we cannot say for CERTAIN that we are in one and not the other, one of these scenarios is massively more complex than the other.  A reality which operates on a certain number of mathematical laws which govern what is real and what is not, can be specified in some number of bits of information.  On the other hand, a demon simulating the entire universe and all inputs and outputs we see, requires an enormous number of bits of information in order to specify it. 

This allows us to compare the probability of each of these being true by Occam's Razor: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jp/occams_razor/


In the end, through the scientific method, we can know things.  We cannot know with absolute certainty (100% is not a real probability).  But we can know with a high probability.

We do not need to rely on appeals to authority.  Appeals to authority are only as accurate as the mental map of the authority you have chosen to follow.  But what matters in terms of something really being true, is whether that map matches the territory of reality.



Returning to the earlier question of whether there is morality is subjective:
While morality is not specified in the laws of nature that govern whether something is real or not, neither are most of the complex things which with we interact with in our lives.  Neither is the idea of what 'life' is.

As particle physics is built upon whatever underlies it, and chemistry is build upon that, and biology is build upon that, and consciousness is build upon that, leading to what it means to be a human being, so can morality also come about. 

We can empirically study societies of sentient beings which we refer to as humans, and determine certain ways in which their collective benefit could be maximized.  These things can be 'morality'. 

Amazingly complex things can come from things that seem simple.
The mandlebrot set comes form the equation Z(n+1) = Z(n)^2 + C.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandelbrot_set

It is fascinating in its complexity.

So can morality, free will, life, consciousness, biology, chemistry, physics, etc, derive from laws of nature that we are approaching a good understanding of but do not yet fully know. 

Steven Pinker would say that morality "is out there" and can be determined empirically, and I would agree:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pinker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Better_Angels_of_Our_Nature


I doubt anyone has actually made it to the end of my ramblings, but if you have, wow, you probably think I'm nuts.  Or maybe not.  :)
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: arhag on January 28, 2015, 10:27:23 pm
I doubt anyone has actually made it to the end of my ramblings, but if you have, wow, you probably think I'm nuts.  Or maybe not.  :)

I did made it to end and no I don't think you're nuts, I think your post was great. +5%

Although, I think we may disagree on our definition of the word "morality" (or maybe we are just overloading the word with multiple definitions which can lead to confusion). Also, how do you define "collective benefit". Benefit is itself subjective. It requires a value system to judge whether one action or state is greater by some metric (that is where the subjective value system comes in) than another action or state. I think the best you can do empirically or scientifically is a bunch of conditional statements: "if you value this then it is in your benefit to do this".

By the way, lesswrong.com is such a great website.


 
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Ander on January 28, 2015, 10:35:00 pm

Although, I think we may disagree on our definition of the word "morality" (or maybe we are just overloading the word with multiple definitions which can lead to confusion). Also, how do you define "collective benefit".

Yes, words are confusing.  And this is a very hard topic to analyze, for sure.

I would say that some form of preference based utilitarianism could be used to measure collective good of the sentient beings, which you would then want to maximize.  You would also want to ensure some fairness level, so you arent completely screwing over some of the sentient beings for more utility in others.  I dont have all the answers.

Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Troglodactyl on January 28, 2015, 11:35:53 pm
...
I doubt anyone has actually made it to the end of my ramblings, but if you have, wow, you probably think I'm nuts.  Or maybe not.  :)

I also made it to the end, and not only do I not think you're nuts, but what you're saying does not conflict with my map of reality.

To "knowing with a high probability" I would also add "knowing by safe assumption."  When building a map, I can assume that I'm not a brain in a jar fed by a demon, because choosing that as a map is a dead end.  It makes no sense to build a map that implies that maps are useless.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Myshadow on January 28, 2015, 11:59:28 pm
Awesome post Ander, You explained far better than I could what I was trying to get at :)

I am not a fan of Pinker though, his statistics are cherry picked and only include first world countries after world war 2 so his conclusion that a larger government means less violence is woefully inaccurate to say the least. The review below sums it up quite well.

http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/features/john-gray-steven-pinker-violence-review

A sceptical reader might wonder whether the outbreak of peace in developed countries and endemic conflict in less fortunate lands might not be somehow connected. Was the immense violence that ravaged southeast Asia after 1945 a result of immemorial backwardness in the region? Or was a subtle and refined civilization wrecked by world war and the aftermath of decades of neo-colonial conflict—as Norman Lewis intimated would happen in his prophetic account of his travels in the region, A Dragon Apparent (1951)? It is true that the second world war was followed by over 40 years of peace in North America and Europe—even if for the eastern half of the continent it was a peace that rested on Soviet conquest. But there was no peace between the powers that had emerged as rivals from the global conflict.

In much the same way that rich societies exported their pollution to developing countries, the societies of the highly-developed world exported their conflicts. They were at war with one another the entire time—not only in Indo-China but in other parts of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. The Korean war, the Chinese invasion of Tibet, British counter-insurgency warfare in Malaya and Kenya, the abortive Franco-British invasion of Suez, the Angolan civil war, decades of civil war in the Congo and Guatemala, the Six Day War, the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and of Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Iran-Iraq war and the Soviet-Afghan war—these are only some of the armed conflicts through which the great powers pursued their rivalries while avoiding direct war with each other. When the end of the Cold War removed the Soviet Union from the scene, war did not end. It continued in the first Gulf war, the Balkan wars, Chechnya, the Iraq war and in Afghanistan and Kashmir, among other conflicts. Taken together these conflicts add up to a formidable sum of violence. For Pinker they are minor, peripheral and hardly worth mentioning. The real story, for him, is the outbreak of peace in advanced societies, a shift that augurs an unprecedented transformation in human affairs.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Ander on January 29, 2015, 12:02:20 am
I have to admit that I haven't actually read Pinker, I have only read some reviews about his positions. 

I believe in the general idea that we can empirically determine some moral guildlines, applicable to a society of humans.  For example, I think we can empirically demonstrate that Slavery is evil. 

But I definitely wouldnt say this is an easy problem, its clearly very hard.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Myshadow on January 29, 2015, 12:30:04 am
I Agree, I'd go further and say that we can empirically demonstrate that the Initiation of Force is Evil.

If we can empirically demonstrate that, then we already have the objectively validated framework that we need to build society on, its hard to get your head around, but incredibly simple at the same time.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: starspirit on January 29, 2015, 01:01:38 am
I have to admit that I haven't actually read Pinker, I have only read some reviews about his positions. 

I believe in the general idea that we can empirically determine some moral guildlines, applicable to a society of humans.  For example, I think we can empirically demonstrate that Slavery is evil. 

But I definitely wouldnt say this is an easy problem, its clearly very hard.
I Agree, I'd go further and say that we can empirically demonstrate that the Initiation of Force is Evil.

If we can empirically demonstrate that, then we already have the objectively validated framework that we need to build society on, its hard to get your head around, but incredibly simple at the same time.
The essential problem with this is the same problem with attempting to empirically demonstrate economic principles - the sample is only historic, and is influenced by so many other factors you would never be able to tease them apart. That's why Austrian economics is built on a foundation of presumably axiomatic principles and not on empirical testing.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Myshadow on January 29, 2015, 01:33:09 am
The essential problem with this is the same problem with attempting to empirically demonstrate economic principles - the sample is only historic, and is influenced by so many other factors you would never be able to tease them apart. That's why Austrian economics is built on a foundation of presumably axiomatic principles and not on empirical testing.

Are the requirements for Economics that much different? Would we be Austrians if the fall of the Roman empire could be clearly demonstrated to be linked to a lack of debasement of their currency?

Of course not! Both internal consistency of principle as well as supporting evidence are required for any given hypothesis to be accepted as accurate by rational individuals. This is why an internally consistent principle is required to validate actions as moral or immoral as well as the evidence supporting it.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: starspirit on January 29, 2015, 02:02:08 am
The essential problem with this is the same problem with attempting to empirically demonstrate economic principles - the sample is only historic, and is influenced by so many other factors you would never be able to tease them apart. That's why Austrian economics is built on a foundation of presumably axiomatic principles and not on empirical testing.

Are the requirements for Economics that much different? Would we be Austrians if the fall of the Roman empire could be clearly demonstrated to be linked to a lack of debasement of their currency?

Of course not! Both internal consistency of principle as well as supporting evidence are required for any given hypothesis to be accepted as accurate by rational individuals. This is why an internally consistent principle is required to validate actions as moral or immoral as well as the evidence supporting it.

I empathise with the view that evidence gives one greater confidence in one's deductions. However Von Mises says (p69, Human Action) that "it is impossible to abstract any causal relations from the study of complex phenomena". If it were possible to isolate all other variables as one might in a scientific experiment, then empiricism stands a shot. But it is impossible to do this with historic statistics on complex dynamic systems. [Edit: There is also no ability to repeat and verify]. Thus Mises' emphasis on deductive reasoning, despite its openness to challenge and review. Of course he could be wrong like anybody else, and maybe your resolve might lead to a better approach.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Stan on January 29, 2015, 04:01:42 am
This is a very wide-ranging thread.
Not sure where its going.
Not sure it needs to be going anywhere, since such discussions are generally fun.

So let me ask a question about the portions of this thread that seem to be aimed at deriving some sort of moral code, that presumably we want to identify and then (non-violently) get everyone to adopt.

There seem to be only five possible sources of moral code:

1.  Each individual is free to pick their own code.
2.  Individuals collectively pick a code by consensus.
3.  There is somehow a Universal Code that can be derived by logic.
4.  Our Creator or some intermediate Higher Being (convincingly) specifies it for us.
5.  Men with guns pick a code and (nonviolently) get us to abide by it.

I reject #2 because the majority is always wrong about such things (Stan's Axiom #1).
If the answer is #1 or #4 or #5, then this discussion is obviously moot.

So, (I finally get to my question) is this discussion about #3?




 
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Myshadow on January 29, 2015, 04:24:47 am
I empathise with the view that evidence gives one greater confidence in one's deductions. However Von Mises says (p69, Human Action) that "it is impossible to abstract any causal relations from the study of complex phenomena". If it were possible to isolate all other variables as one might in a scientific experiment, then empiricism stands a shot. But it is impossible to do this with historic statistics on complex dynamic systems. [Edit: There is also no ability to repeat and verify]. Thus Mises' emphasis on deductive reasoning, despite its openness to challenge and review. Of course he could be wrong like anybody else, and maybe your resolve might lead to a better approach.

I do certainly see your point, We can't reliably repeat and verify the effects of preferential behaviours on society based off historic examples, so we can't rely on that as evidence to support objective morality or the effects of universally preferential behaviour on complex systems. Well we could try but it would never be accepted as objective fact by rational people.

I think what Mises is trying to get across here in a somewhat roundabout way is that Correlation is not Causation(I could be missing the point here so please correct me if i've misunderstood).

However, having a basis of principle in deductive reasoning is a valid way to abstract reason from evidence, this is what Austrian economics is built on. I think we can derive the principles of morality in the same way... If we can, the results can be objectively verified by the evidence.

Stan, I certainly hope its about #3... Otherwise I may have missed the point. :)
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: luckybit on January 29, 2015, 04:30:09 am
Something I've been questioning recently, inspired by a number of the recent debates and blog posts. Perhaps others may like to join the musings...

Can "rights" exist in a stateless society? If not ultimately by coercion supported by consensus, how can any rights be enforced?

Ownership is where property is accepted by the community as belonging to somebody, for their control. But without a means to identify this (looking through the block-chain to individuals) and to enforce this (ultimately via co-ordinated threats of some nature), does ownership really exist, or just the ability to control, for as long as that ability is maintained? For example, sometimes we use the language that block-chains enforce property rights. But is this the most accurate language? Block-chains seem only to enforce control of property, to whoever holds the keys. Should the keys be lost or stolen, there is no way to enforce the attribution of the property back to the individual.

In a future state-less world, should a location-based community be attacked by drones for its geographic resources, what international law would prevail to uphold any rights of the "owners"? Are they left to coordinate and mount their own defence?Does everything come down to control, and the ability to attack and defend that control? Wouldn't this naturally lead to centralised and decentralised communities forming co-ordinated defensive mechanisms?

Rights are not granted by governments, they are inalienable.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, block chains are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the owners, That whenever any form of block chain becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Owners to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new block chains, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Your actual mileage may vary.

Rights are granted by your ability to enforce it. Law enforcement capability alone is what determines the rights that exist. If it cannot be enforced then it's imaginary (like moral rights).

I think all rights have to be enforced whether by mathematics or physical force.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Myshadow on January 29, 2015, 04:58:17 am
Rights are granted by your ability to enforce it. Law enforcement capability alone is what determines the rights that exist. If it cannot be enforced then it's imaginary (like moral rights).

I think all rights have to be enforced whether by mathematics or physical force.

People consent to the use of physical force as a valid way to preserve their rights. Last I heard half of the people in the USA thought torture was justified to prevent terrorism... http://www.ibtimes.com/cia-torture-report-poll-half-americans-say-enhanced-interrogation-was-justified-1758576

To me that's a truly terrifying statistic. However, people used to consent to their taxes being used to catch slaves also... Times have changed and morality with it.

The key word is consent, consensus on morality is required for rights to be enforced, whether it be by physical force or mathematics.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: arhag on January 29, 2015, 07:00:13 am
There seem to be only five possible sources of moral code:

1.  Each individual is free to pick their own code.
2.  Individuals collectively pick a code by consensus.
3.  There is somehow a Universal Code that can be derived by logic.
4.  Our Creator or some intermediate Higher Being (convincingly) specifies it for us.
5.  Men with guns pick a code and (nonviolently) get us to abide by it.

Here is what I think:

#1 is a little vague because of the word "free". What does freedom mean in this case? They certainly have the capability of deciding their own code within their own minds. Whether they can enforce the real world consequences of that moral code is a different story.

#2 is not mutually exclusive with #1. The reason #2 is done is because humans depend on each other for survival. They would die if they were to try to survive on their own. Because it is difficult to work together if you act according to your ideal code that can conflict with other people's ideal codes, humans decide to compromise on their ideal code in order to reach a consensus code within a particular society/community/civilization. This allows the society to maintain order and work together in a way that is net beneficial (from each of their own perspectives) to each of the parties (despite the slight compromise to their ideal code). For individuals whose compromise moral code would deviate too far from their ideal code to be acceptable, they separate into different communities. These separate communities, each with their own compromised moral code that is very different from one another, will likely come into conflict with one another often (usually violently).

I don't believe #3 is possible purely through logic. However, I think it is important for one's moral code to be logically consistent (although even logical consistency is not absolute/objective; someone may not think it is important for their moral philosophy to be logically consistent). I think you can reduce the moral code through logic, rationality, and empiricism down to the minimal set of axioms that derives the rest of the moral philosophy. But I do not believe that set of axioms is the empty set (i.e. morality is subjective). I can define the set of all possible minimal set of moral axioms as A. I define the logically derived metric by which to judge the utility of any minimal set of axioms as M_a(b) where a, b ∈ A are particular choices of minimal set of axioms. b is the minimal set of axioms that is being judged and a is the minimal set of axioms that logically derives the metric that does the judging (notice the metric is dependent on the minimal set of axioms chosen, hence it is subjective). For the choice of a minimal set of axioms a to be logically consistent, I think the following proposition P(a) also needs to be true: ∀ b ∈ A M_a(b) ≤ M_a(a) and ∀ b ∈ {x | x ∈ A ∧ x ≠ a ∧ M_a(x) = M_a(a)} M_b(b) ≤ M_b(a). I believe the set L = {x | x ∈ A ∧ P(x)} is not only non-empty but also has more than one member. So, how should one choose one particular minimal set of axioms (which logically derives the remaining moral philosophy through conditionals derived through empiricism and the scientific method) from the set L? I think any choice is as good as any. In reality, it won't be a choice for any given human being. The choice will be made for them (based on their experience growing up as well as partly from their biology) and they will find it very difficult to change their moral philosophy to one derived from a different member in the set L.

I actually think #4 can partly fit into #3 if empirical evidence was able to convince someone that such a being who has a set of morals that it wants humanity to follow actually existed (and also was able to know with reasonable certainty what those set of morals was). However, I still think it requires a minimal set of axioms a. In this case one of the axioms in a would be "one should follow the morals dictated by this Higher Being". Although it is possible that the same result can be achieved without that axiom. If one were to truly believe a hell (eternal torture) existed, that their consciousness could be sent there by this Higher Being, and that this Higher Being would send their consciousness there after death if they did not follow the being's moral codes, then the only axiom they would need in a is "one should try to avoid pain (especially extreme pain that lasts forever)".

I think #5 is a different conversation entirely. It has more to do with #2 actually. I think everyone has their ideal moral code (which I talked about with #1 and explained how I think it should be logically consistent with #3), but the reality of living and depending on other people requires them to accept compromise moral codes that communities can reach a consensus on (which I discussed with #2). Of course, the compromises one needs to accept depends on their relative leverage. If one party significantly overpowers the other party, the compromise will be in the favor of the party with more power. Certainly having guns and being willing to use them gives one more leverage in the compromise. But there is a limit to how much one can skew the compromise before the other party gets fed up and becomes willing to get their own guns and use it to defend their position. This brings balance back to the compromise. Anyway, my guess is that what you mean by #5 is the government dictating moral code to its citizens. But government is just a collection of people (a subset of its citizens). More importantly, it depends on compliance by a significant portion of its citizens or else it would fail. So, typically (though not always), the moral philosophy dictated by governments is close to the compromise moral codes reached by consensus by its citizens. If it deviates too far from the consensus code, it inevitably results in revolution.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: CLains on January 29, 2015, 12:23:29 pm
1. If there is no god there is no "good and evil" as duty.

2. We need to ground morality in feelings like pain.

3. Feelings like pain are as real within the Matrix as outside it.

If you start by saying pain is subjective you are lost.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: starspirit on January 30, 2015, 12:41:18 am
There seem to be only five possible sources of moral code:

1.  Each individual is free to pick their own code.
2.  Individuals collectively pick a code by consensus.
3.  There is somehow a Universal Code that can be derived by logic.
4.  Our Creator or some intermediate Higher Being (convincingly) specifies it for us.
5.  Men with guns pick a code and (nonviolently) get us to abide by it.

Here is what I think:

#1 is a little vague because of the word "free". What does freedom mean in this case? They certainly have the capability of deciding their own code within their own minds. Whether they can enforce the real world consequences of that moral code is a different story.

#2 is not mutually exclusive with #1. The reason #2 is done is because humans depend on each other for survival. They would die if they were to try to survive on their own. Because it is difficult to work together if you act according to your ideal code that can conflict with other people's ideal codes, humans decide to compromise on their ideal code in order to reach a consensus code within a particular society/community/civilization. This allows the society to maintain order and work together in a way that is net beneficial (from each of their own perspectives) to each of the parties (despite the slight compromise to their ideal code). For individuals whose compromise moral code would deviate too far from their ideal code to be acceptable, they separate into different communities. These separate communities, each with their own compromised moral code that is very different from one another, will likely come into conflict with one another often (usually violently).


I think this (#2) nails it. The fear of many is that without a common moral code society will fall into chaos. Historically a consensus moral code is therefore established with the coercive power of the law to back it, a compromise position that individuals in the community will accept as long as the perceived benefits of order outweigh any conflicts with their personal moral code, otherwise they are urged to disassociate from the community. But automatically there is inconsistency, because the use or threat of force will be considered immoral by most, yet exclusion from the community (or "shunning") is too heavy a price to pay to express this. And yet, if there were no law, and no price for stepping outside the moral code of others, those with more flexible moral schema will usurp the wealth and power in that society.

So the practical question is not whether objective morality exists. This will forever be debated. The question is what are the best mechanisms on which society should function given that there are, in every place and time, differences in peoples' preferences and moral judgments?


I don't believe #3 is possible purely through logic. However, I think it is important for one's moral code to be logically consistent (although even logical consistency is not absolute/objective; someone may not think it is important for their moral philosophy to be logically consistent). I think you can reduce the moral code through logic, rationality, and empiricism down to the minimal set of axioms that derives the rest of the moral philosophy. But I do not believe that set of axioms is the empty set (i.e. morality is subjective). I can define the set of all possible minimal set of moral axioms as A. I define the logically derived metric by which to judge the utility of any minimal set of axioms as M_a(b) where a, b ∈ A are particular choices of minimal set of axioms. b is the minimal set of axioms that is being judged and a is the minimal set of axioms that logically derives the metric that does the judging (notice the metric is dependent on the minimal set of axioms chosen, hence it is subjective). For the choice of a minimal set of axioms a to be logically consistent, I think the following proposition P(a) also needs to be true: ∀ b ∈ A M_a(b) ≤ M_a(a) and ∀ b ∈ {x | x ∈ A ∧ x ≠ a ∧ M_a(x) = M_a(a)} M_b(b) ≤ M_b(a). I believe the set L = {x | x ∈ A ∧ P(x)} is not only non-empty but also has more than one member. So, how should one choose one particular minimal set of axioms (which logically derives the remaining moral philosophy through conditionals derived through empiricism and the scientific method) from the set L? I think any choice is as good as any. In reality, it won't be a choice for any given human being. The choice will be made for them (based on their experience growing up as well as partly from their biology) and they will find it very difficult to change their moral philosophy to one derived from a different member in the set L.


To begin, I glazed over your mathematical expressions, sorry. But essentially I think you are saying it is important for everyone, whatever moral code they choose, for it to be self-consistent. I agree this should be sought in principle, though doubt this can be ever be accomplished in practice. Basically I think the ambiguity of morality will just not bend itself to the precise logic of mathematical systems, and so consistency and completeness always arguable.

On Completeness - any set of axioms contains a finite amount of information. There will always arise situations where certain of the axioms are in conflict, and the rationale for the preference established at that point needs to be encoded as a new axiom.

For example, suppose you believe (i) do no harm and (ii) never steal, which I have chosen arbitrarily. Now you have a predicament arise where to not steal may harm another. At this point the preference expressed in the resolution of this conflict adds information to the schema that was not present in the axioms. The infinite variety of such moral dilemmas that are conceivable means that this information cannot be captured in a finite set of axioms. In fact it will refine itself over a person's lifetime, as I'm sure everyone experiences.

On Consistency -  any two moral axioms that appear in conflict to an outsider can be rationalised as consistent by the owner. Suppose somebody believed (i) do no harm and (ii) attack is an appropriate form of self-defence. Conflict? Not necessarily - they merely rationalise that somebody initiating an attack is bringing that harm upon themselves, while the defender that has no recourse is simply a conduit of that harm.

I think what will drive people is what "they feel is right" in the circumstance, which will be a product of their experience, wisdom and past thinking on the matter, but also unfortunately the external and public pressures of the choice to be made. Rationalization is refined afterward to provide the comfort of consistency around the choice.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: arhag on January 30, 2015, 01:41:43 am
To begin, I glazed over your mathematical expressions, sorry. But essentially I think you are saying it is important for everyone, whatever moral code they choose, for it to be self-consistent. I agree in principle, though doubt this can be done in practice. Basically I think the ambiguity of morality will just not bend itself to the precise logic of mathematical systems, and so consistency and completeness always arguable.

On Completeness - any set of axioms contains a finite amount of information. There will always arise situations where certain of the axioms are in conflict, and the rationale for the preference established at that point needs to be encoded as a new axiom.

For example, suppose you believe (i) do no harm and (ii) never steal, which I have chosen arbitrarily. Now you have a predicament arise where to not steal may harm another. At this point the preference expressed in the resolution of this conflict adds information to the schema that was not present in the axioms. The infinite variety of such moral dilemmas that are conceivable means that this information cannot be captured in a finite set of axioms. In fact it will refine itself over a person's lifetime, as I'm sure everyone experiences.

On Consistency -  any two moral axioms that appear in conflict to an outsider can be rationalised as consistent by the owner. Suppose somebody believed (i) do no harm and (ii) attack is an appropriate form of self-defence. Conflict? Not necessarily - they merely rationalise that somebody initiating an attack is bringing that harm upon themselves, while the defender that has no recourse is simply a conduit of that harm.

I think what will drive people is what "they feel is right" in the circumstance, which will be a product of their experience, wisdom and past thinking on the matter, but also unfortunately the external and public pressures of the choice to be made. Rationalization is refined afterward to provide the comfort of consistency around the choice.

I think of the logical consistency I discussed as a process which is not ever fully obtainable in practice. As you say, these axioms will constantly be refined as the person encounters new scenarios and reflects on how they feel about it. But your examples show what I mean by this process. Say you thought two of the axioms in the set were "do no harm" and "never steal". Now you encounter scenarios where these axioms come into conflict. In an attempt to aim for better logical consistency, you would refine these axioms. You would have to adjust what you mean by "harm" and "steal" which would inevitably lead you to defining "pain" and "property rights". You would have to put different weights on different types of harm in the cost/utility functions so that you can logically conclude an action that would need to be done in that new scenario that you were comfortable with. This new choice might inform you through further logical deductions that perhaps you should have done something differently in another scenario to be more true to your morals. You may now feel bad that you were unaware of the immorality (by your own new refined moral philosophy) of your past actions and promise yourself to follow the new appropriate actions in any future similar scenarios that may arise. So the hope is that the rationalizations that come after experiencing new scenarios and reflecting on them actually lead to change in overall behavior rather than being limited to just that one particular experience (so the person feels okay about what they did) and not translating over to how one feels about past experiences or how one reacts in future scenarios.

I should also mention that I am using the phrase "logically conclude" very loosely. I recognize this isn't a precise process. All these conclusions and deductions deal with relative weights, which are seemingly arbitrarily chosen (in reality are chosen in such a way that lead to conclusions that one finds compatible with how they subconsciously feel), and probability estimates of the truth of various conditionals ("if you value this then it is in your best interest to do this") derived from empiricism.

Regarding your comments on consistency. I realize that the axioms as one agent understands them may not be viewed as conflicting while another agent would think they are conflicting. But this all has to do with vagueness of language (well that and human irrationality of course, but I think most of the time the problem is the vagueness of language). What one understands from "do no harm" and "attack is an appropriate form of self-defense" can be very different than what another understands of those terms. I would say those two are in conflict because of the certainty of the statements as they are written. I would argue that to make it non-conflicting (or rather "less conflicting" since nothing will ever be perfect in this space), the axiom "do no harm" has to be abandoned. Perhaps it could be replaced instead by "do not intentionally harm another sapient being unless it is immediately necessary for one's own survival". Again, it requires particular understandings of what each of these words mean for this to not be conflicting with "attack is an appropriate form of self-defense" for a given agent (actually I would argue that the second axiom would no longer be necessary given the revision of the first axiom). Another agent's understandings of those phrases can lead them to conclude that these axioms are still in conflict. Future experiences by the agent may lead them to encounter scenarios where further additions or refinements are necessary to the axioms (What do I consider sapient? What counts as a survival need and what counts as a luxury?) So it is not perfect, and it will never be. But this process of refining ones understanding of words and changing the axioms appropriately to avoid conflicts leads one closer to what I call logical consistency and leads one to axioms that can derive a closer-to-complete moral philosophy. And I think these are good things.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Stan on January 30, 2015, 02:34:47 am
There seem to be only five possible sources of moral code:

1.  Each individual is free to pick their own code.
2.  Individuals collectively pick a code by consensus.
3.  There is somehow a Universal Code that can be derived by logic.
4.  Our Creator or some intermediate Higher Being (convincingly) specifies it for us.
5.  Men with guns pick a code and (nonviolently) get us to abide by it.

Here is what I think:

#2 is not mutually exclusive with #1. The reason #2 is done is because humans depend on each other for survival. ... humans decide to compromise on their ideal code in order to reach a consensus code within a particular society/community/civilization....


I think this (#2) nails it. The fear of many is that without a common moral code society will fall into chaos. ...

But essentially I think you are saying it is important for everyone, whatever moral code they choose, for it to be self-consistent. ...

...I think what will drive people is what "they feel is right" in the circumstance, which will be a product of their experience, wisdom and past thinking on the matter, but also unfortunately the external and public pressures of the choice to be made. Rationalization is refined afterward to provide the comfort of consistency around the choice.

"Not mutually exclusive" is the answer I was fishing for.

Fact is many don't think about moral implications, they just do "what they feel is right" (meaning act to achieve immediate gratification).  "Ooooh, there's a jelly donut!"  Gone.

Of the rest that presumably want to abide by some consistent code of morality, everybody does #1. Except, since we are not all deep thinkers, most use their free choice to just pick from one of the other categories.  Thus, for all but those deep thinkers, the choices are:

1.  Learn to think, then do that instead of watching TV - meh, not gonna happen.
2.  Adopt the prevailing consensus on morality - self-consistent holocausts happen this way.
3.  Adopt a carefully reasoned logical framework - not gonna happen or we'd do #1.
4.  Adopt a religiously-derived set of teachings distilled over the ages by people desiring to please a generally omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Being. - Regardless of whether you personally believe they had divine origins, people worked hard on those codes and documented them for you pretty thoroughly.  They can't all be right, though, because they disagree diametrically.  But one of them might be.  Choose carefully.
5.  Adopt a code selected by people with the most guns, mostly for their own benefit.

Those are your choices.  Which do you (realistically) hope your neighbors will pick?

Personally I think "Love your neighbor" is a pretty good Prime Directive to derive everything else from.  We can all agree that our neighbors should do that, can't we?  :)







Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: arhag on January 30, 2015, 03:37:08 am
...
3.  Adopt a carefully reasoned logical framework - not gonna happen or we'd do #1.
...
Those are your choices.  Which do you (realistically) hope your neighbors will pick?

I say #3. Number 3 sounds good. Let's have a higher standard for what we expect out of our neighbors. But I will reiterate that I believe the moral philosophy derived from this method is not universal and always ends up depending on some subjective axioms that cannot be reduced logically any further. It's not a problem, it is just something to be aware of.

4.  Adopt a religiously-derived set of teachings distilled over the ages by people desiring to please a generally omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Being. - Regardless of whether you personally believe they had divine origins, people worked hard on those codes and documented them for you pretty thoroughly.  They can't all be right, though, because they disagree diametrically.  But one of them might be.  Choose carefully.

I'm not saying all of the moral philosophy in religious texts is a load of crap that should be ignored, just some of them. :) Choose carefully indeed. And preferably aim for some consistency in whatever moral philosophy you adopt; religious texts often have huge inconsistencies and contradictions in them that are hard to resolve even when you stretch your interpretations of the text to the limits of natural language. Also, my view is that these texts are (potentially) only good for guiding your decision on the moral philosophy to adopt (along with all kinds of other non-religious texts too written by brilliant philosophers and thinkers), but not for any positive statements about the nature of the physical universe. Leave that to science.
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: starspirit on January 30, 2015, 06:34:42 am
Do you think its possible for society to design and continuously adapt a moral philosophy that appeals to most people, and yet reflects the modern path that humanity is on? A thousand years (plus) ago the Earth was the centre of everything, it was flat, there was no science, nature was unconquerable, there were all-powerful overbearing gods etc. Many old religious texts and other philosophies for example offer wisdoms that perhaps need to be re-interpreted or re-stated in the modern age.

One can still not impose a moral code on people, as they always have choice, and the freedom to adopt their own stance on right and wrong. But common understandings can be fruitful, if only so that people can anticipate how others might respond to their behaviours if they act inconsistent with the moral code. This might be particularly important in a state-less society without enforceable law.

Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: Stan on January 31, 2015, 03:30:45 am
If it appeals to most people, it is of little use.  A moral code is an ideal to be strived for, and few are interested in setting the bar very high.  :)

Quote
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." 
-- John Adams, second U.S. President

I believe the same might be said for a stateless society.  The only reason we have governments is because no one can stand the alternative.  I believe that the way forward is to provide better alternatives to government, things that make government irrelevant, things that restrict its abuses, but not the elimination of all that is barely keeping a finger in the dike of untamed human nature.

Quote
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.   
-- American Declaration of Independence

I simultaneously hold the (apparently) conflicting views that men ought to be free and that a situation where everyone does what is right in his own eyes is a recipe for disaster.   I am not concerned about contradicting myself, because such conflicts present an opportunity to learn a Greater Truth that resolves them.  Light is both a wave and a particle... hmmm... and opportunity to pursue a deeper understanding!

Quote
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let the great be great, that we may learn from them.  But encouraging moral relativism as a great cancer that ought to be resisted.  I hereby resist it.

There is an absolute standard of right and wrong burned into our firmware along with an implaccible determination to ignore it.  It has taken all of recorded history for great men to decode and document that firmware.  We ought to teach our children that wisdom of the ages and deviate only where it is obvious that that wisdom has failed.  Refinement and distillation obviously continues, but If everybody is encouraged to start over, most will have no idea where to start and the few who are able to think it through will only repeat the mistakes of our ancestors.  We are fools if we do not stand on the shoulders of those giants.

You will say, "How can we decide what should be taught?  Whose Shoulders should we use?"

I believe that those who are interested in finding that answer will find it.  Those who are not, will not.

Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: donkeypong on January 31, 2015, 03:50:49 am
The only reason we have governments is because no one can stand the alternative.

Unless everybody drinks Utopian Koolaid and subordinates their own self interest, then the alternative to governments is organized crime. For evidence, look to any part of the world that lacks a functional government. I'd rather have someone I can vote for, who answers to me in some small measure, even if such a system has limitations and could be improved.

(https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5568/15127936491_bf4d4f468e_b.jpg)
Title: Re: The stateless society, ownership and rights? Can they co-exist?
Post by: starspirit on January 31, 2015, 05:39:08 am
If it appeals to most people, it is of little use.  A moral code is an ideal to be strived for, and few are interested in setting the bar very high.  :)

Quote
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." 
-- John Adams, second U.S. President

I believe the same might be said for a stateless society.  The only reason we have governments is because no one can stand the alternative.  I believe that the way forward is to provide better alternatives to government, things that make government irrelevant, things that restrict its abuses, but not the elimination of all that is barely keeping a finger in the dike of untamed human nature.

Quote
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.   
-- American Declaration of Independence

I simultaneously hold the (apparently) conflicting views that men ought to be free and that a situation where everyone does what is right in his own eyes is a recipe for disaster.   I am not concerned about contradicting myself, because such conflicts present an opportunity to learn a Greater Truth that resolves them.  Light is both a wave and a particle... hmmm... and opportunity to pursue a deeper understanding!

Quote
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Let the great be great, that we may learn from them.  But encouraging moral relativism as a great cancer that ought to be resisted.  I hereby resist it.

There is an absolute standard of right and wrong burned into our firmware along with an implaccible determination to ignore it.  It has taken all of recorded history for great men to decode and document that firmware.  We ought to teach our children that wisdom of the ages and deviate only where it is obvious that that wisdom has failed.  Refinement and distillation obviously continues, but If everybody is encouraged to start over, most will have no idea where to start and the few who are able to think it through will only repeat the mistakes of our ancestors.  We are fools if we do not stand on the shoulders of those giants.

You will say, "How can we decide what should be taught?  Whose Shoulders should we use?"

I believe that those who are interested in finding that answer will find it.  Those who are not, will not.

Absolutely we should stand on the shoulders of giants. I never suggested a clean slate on wisdom, merely adaptation. The last word on morality has not been said, and never will.

A thousand years from now, what will our descendants say of our current morality? That we freely experiment upon our kindred life forms on the planet? That we subject them to slavery for the consumption of their flesh, when the need for that has long vanished? Is this justified because they lack the intelligence and power to defend against us? When we meet our more advanced superiors in the reaches of space, would we accept their treating us in like manner?

What will they say of our judgments of those who are different, as we genetically engineer our physical forms and merge with our technological creations? Does it make sense to judge the myriad of relationship structures that might form between these diverse sentient beings? Why are we so judgmental today?

What will they say of our perceived moral right to judge and punish? To hunt and kill enemies as vengeance for attacks by others? Or to uphold conceptual ideals like democracy, transparency, free trade, borders, and bibles?

And for those that might argue their own moral codes would never condone these things, what would they say of our willingness to stand by and be silent?

This evolution of ourselves and our ideals is inevitable. If morality does have an objective basis, I believe we are a long way from finding it.

It is impossible to prove that there is any single objective source of all right and wrong. We are each entitled to our opinions. Were society's greatest thinkers to construct an authoritative moral code, built on past great thinkers, but which contradicted your personal views in certain respects, would you abdicate your sense of moral justness completely and wholeheartedly to the code? If the situation called for a choice, which would you choose? And what would you expect of others in the same situation?

Do not fear that the recognition of these differences will lead to a breakdown of society. These differences have always been present, but society has managed them in different ways. To participate in society, each individual needs to recognise its cultural norms and bear the consequences of conflicting behaviour. Power blocs establish to enforce rules. Laws are established by governments.

In the absence of state, other mechanisms need to be brought to bear, and with imagination we will build them. Recognition of differences in moral code does not require tolerance of harmful expressions of those. It is not a free-for-all because defences will be built consistent with people's different moral standards, as they have been in the past. But in the absence of state, there is an opportunity to accomplish this in better ways.

There is no practical value in hoping that everyone in society will suddenly agree on and live by some perfected moral code. It is better to be honest as a society and recognise it is something we need to keep working on together over time.