h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't care what those guys thought! I don't agree with them. It's neither evasion nor subterfuge but a synthesis (according to me, once again).

Well, FwT already knows my views on this issue, (we've argued it back and forth long enough), so he won't be surprised if I side with Tox on this one. I did like the Hegelian bit; I hadn't thought of it like that before.
*wishing I didn't have to work and miss the exchanges*

Noggin

I'm quite happy to argue for libertarianism because I accept it AND determinism. That's what makes me a compatibilist. 'Determinism OR libertarianism?' is a false dichotomy.

I think that there really is an order in things other than the one imposed by us. We may not get it right the first, or even the sixty-first, time. But we are looking for what's really there, or why not just settle for the first approximation/guess? In the case of clouds etc we know we're doing it (or you wouldn't be asserting it) and that seems harmless enough.

I think it would take an unsophisticated scientist to assume that anything is more than probable. The best tested (simplest etc) hypothesis is taken to be the most probable until a better one comes along. Yes, we could impose infinitely many orders on the universe, but we settle for the ones we can handle best. However, the others aren't exactly false, just less useful. Again, all this is according to me. I don't know whether anyone else has said the same thing before. Bits of it, for sure. Don't care that much as long as I have a reasoned opinion of my own.

Well there we go. I've accepted everything you say in your message and put my own spin on it.

Ah, didn't spot you there Nog! Must have been composing that post that appears after yours. Great to get into an almost real-time exchange occasionally. I think I have some of the contentious issues pretty well taped but I'm struggling with others. Maybe you'll comment if we have that exchange on personal identity tomorrow. I'm kinda radical on that one, but not so confident.

Hey, you've been here longer than I have Noggin. Do we know that FwT is a 'he'? I've been making no assumptions but the autogyro interest seems typically male.

I'll look out for it. It's past my bedtime now as I have to work tomorrow.

Noggin

For this question context is everything. In the context of cosmology, there is most certainly no such thing pure good or pure evil. These concepts are products of the mind, as are God, the Devil, and that strange feeling you get when you think you've left the stove on, although you are sure you turned it off.

Sure there's no such thing as pure good or pure evil. Those things are abstractions. But that wasn't the question. It concerns actions that may be PG or PE. I think the stove thing is called OCD!

I am most certainly a guy

The autogyros thing is for someone else though [any help please over to my journal ]

Are you a 'he' Toxxin...that is the assumption, but I've made that assumption mainly, I think because I'm a he myself...

What the question is about...is whether an action can be said to be not evil, or not good...or whether everything is a mixture of both...? [Hi by the way ]

Me he 2. Hi 2 u. I guess I have said this b4, but in the real world every action is some kind of mixture, even though it might be the right thing to do. Someone is lethally threatened by a furry animal, so you shoot the furry animal. Right, but not purely good - poor ole furry corpse!

If anyone disagrees with this answer, please say so. Otherwise I'm gonna think that I've given the definitive answer to this question.

I suppose...but does this undermine the values of good and evil?

I don't at all see why it should. Please explain.

because if you can never achieve pure good, why should you aspire to it?

You should aspire to doing what is right. That is what you ought to do, and the famous slogan is 'Ought implies can', so the right thing is to do your best. That may not be perfectly good through no fault of your own, but nobody ever said that you ought to do the impossible. As I've mentioned b4, ethics concentrates on right and wrong, not on good and bad - for reasons that should now be clearer.

Except that that falls foul of the Naturalistic Fallacy [I think!] because ought does not imply can...and if it does then you CAN perform an action which is purely good: so you're wrong either way

Sorry, but it doesn't happen often

Ought implies can because to say that X ought to do Y where it is impossible for X to do Y 'ought' has no application.

The Naturalistic Fallacy is usually taken to mean that ethical propositions can be completely reduced to nonethical propositions.

Noggin

I suppose that means that Toxxin isn't wrong...dagnabbit!

That's always debatable, but he's in good company on this one.

Aspirations: Do yo know what an asymptote is?

Noggin


PS computer now behaving perfectly

I did A level maths, Noggin; but you have me wondering why you ask about 'asymptote'.

Been having probs with your machine? I've always done my own upgrading, troubleshooting etc. I also have a buddy in RW who's a network administrator and general guru in these matters.

Not sure if it's my machine or somewhere else in the system. FwT says his has the same problem from time to time so the problem may be at the other end. Seems to clear up on its own, and its going well at the moment.

FwT asked: what's the point of having aspirations if you can't reach them? I was going to mention asymptotes as an appropriate analogy.


Noggin