nv - 12 August 2012 07:39 AM

How about:
Do or not-do to others as you’d like them to do or not-do to you. If you’re lucky, they will-won’t.

Unfortunately it lacks rhythmic cohesion.

Or, in the immortal words of Dalton,  “Be Nice”.

Ah, yes, that’s nice. But now we have to define ‘nice’. Probably simpler to leave it as Don’t do 2 others what you don’t want them to do to you.

Jefe - 12 August 2012 07:48 AM

nv - 12 August 2012 07:39 AM

How about:
Do or not-do to others as you’d like them to do or not-do to you. If you’re lucky, they will-won’t.

Unfortunately it lacks rhythmic cohesion.

Or, in the immortal words of Dalton,  “Be Nice”.

Yes, and the trick is to somehow convey to your children some amount of ethical subtlety. For instance, our immediate reactions to people need not always seem friendly and be cooperative especially if such friendliness and cooperation would have a tendency to encourage someone in an unhealthy or nasty direction.

nv - 12 August 2012 07:55 AM

Jefe - 12 August 2012 07:48 AM

nv - 12 August 2012 07:39 AM

How about:
Do or not-do to others as you’d like them to do or not-do to you. If you’re lucky, they will-won’t.

Unfortunately it lacks rhythmic cohesion.

Or, in the immortal words of Dalton,  “Be Nice”.

Yes, and the trick is to somehow convey to your children some amount of ethical subtlety. For instance, our immediate reactions to people need not always seem friendly and be cooperative especially if such friendliness and cooperation would have a tendency to encourage someone in an unhealthy or nasty direction.

I posit that ethical subtlety does not necessarily eliminate the ability to be nice.

Don’t talk to strangers doesn’t mean be a dick to strangers.  YMMV

Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (Rob) - 12 August 2012 07:26 AM

I see Nhoj’s Squirrel story as a colourful take on the inevitability of disagreement and conflict in moral beings. Without disagreement there’d be no conflict and we wouldn’t need morality. We’d all be on the same page like bees and other social insects and we’d be incapable of doing wrong.

Conflict came before morality.  Morality is a way to minimize conflict. 

Another way is to live in a society in which behavior is very limited and stereotyped, like social insects.  The thousands of members of an ant or bee colony all come from the same mother and so share most of their genes.  They function essentially as many parts of one individual, so disagreement does not make sense.

However, primates are more distinctly individual, genetically and behaviorally.  Thus, conflict.  Social rules allow humans to live synergistically and take over the world.

I agree, Hannah.  In fact, that’s what I said. .But the wellspring of morality goes back even further than the birds and the bees. Morality is rooted in the very drive to live. It goes back to the very first life and maybe even back as far as the laws of nature that brought forth life in the first place. . But that is an idea I will enlarge upon in another thread.

Nhoj Morley - 11 August 2012 06:05 AM

Once we summarize what we perceive, it no longer universal or even of the universe.
The universal or objective truth doesn’t need to be summarized to be more truly true, but only to be perceived by primates with large foreheads and opposable thumbs.

Did those primates conduct the first experiment, or did I miss it somewhere?

Even more so than be nice, just be respectful of others, even if you don’t like them, or disagree with them. Everybody deserves basic respect.

Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (Rob) - 12 August 2012 12:10 PM

I agree, Hannah.  In fact, that’s what I said. .But the wellspring of morality goes back even further than the birds and the bees. Morality is rooted in the very drive to live. It goes back to the very first life and maybe even back as far as the laws of nature that brought forth life in the first place. . But that is an idea I will enlarge upon in another thread.

I’ll be interested in that thread.

Epaminondas - 12 August 2012 01:00 PM

Even more so than be nice, just be respectful of others, even if you don’t like them, or disagree with them. Everybody deserves basic respect.

I have to limit my agreement with this statement.

Everyone deserves equal protection of the law, and equal rights and the respect that those protections and laws engender unto people.  Individuals, however, must earn respect.  The idea of equality and respect engendered by laws protecting rights of equality should not be mistaken as transferring to automatic respect for ideas (that may be demonstrable harmful, or just plain out-to-lunch). 

Basic universal respect can be granted.  Complex individual respect must be earned.

There are times when I just can’t connect even with my best pals. I’m trying to burst all those bubbles in this last batch of posts. Not me… trioonity will burst them.

Bubble one: Primates need morality more than bees. 

The reason bees are more socially rigid is because their perceptual systems developed in a direction that did not create a divegence into a first and second floor of perspective. There is no Mr. Now and only a very complicated Hippo. Aside from mutation, there is not much opportunity for conflict political or otherwise.

Mr. Now’s perception of Hippo (“I have a body!”) gives him cognition of individuality. That will lead to behavior that is tailored toward the interest of individuals and that means conflicting interests. With time, nature will find a balance of violence, forgiveness and family bonding. Or the colony will die. Why is surprising that all the social primate species that survive to this day have some kind of conflict resolution incorporated in their social behavior? Other creatures found different solutions like head-butt-protecting antlers or infanticide. Some infants mature after birth and are taught many skills including social skills by their parents. Like Mr. Nv says, to the skill level of their perception. But our skill level is different. Elephants teach behavior patterns and not something they cannot perceive like morality. We put it there.

Just like the blue swirls in the EYEBALL FUN picture… our perception put morals there.

The scheme suggests that the line between creatures with a Mr. Now (or not) is stereoscopic sight but it could go back further.

Bubble two: The GR precedes us.

I have admired Dr. Goodall since childhood when she graced the cover National Geo Junior. If her, or any of us, spent twenty years in a miniture golf lot with a colony of air dogs, we would find a morality in their behavior. We have to. We are narrators.

Try this… dash off and get two full glasses of icy cold water and come back to the computer. Then, read these words…

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Now, grab one of the glasses of water and toss its contents into your face. Look at the passage again. Nothing? Try the second glass. Now, as someone once said, JUST LOOK. It does not truly describe animal behavior unless it is presented as a narrow categorization that is projected to be some kind of emergent ambition of animal life. It’s Bambi and Thumper on a journey to see the Baby Jesus. Personal projection, altruism and empathy are what they are. They are not a universal Force for Good. Violence and intimidation are what they are and not the Dark Side.

If all the narrators (us) were gone, where in the universe would Good and Evil or The Golden Rule exist and what difference would it make if they did? Lurking dormant Forces waiting billions of years for us to come along? That’s a lot of rummy.

There is a simpler explanation. It is a message from one optimistic primate encouraging optimism is another primate. Invest in good will. It’s easier to relax when everyone is relaxed. It’s a proposition and not a principle.

Its Golden because it is within the reach of all talking primates. It has universal currency in human communication. It is a cool artifact. One of our best. Ours, as in, us narrators.

Bubble three: If we find an objective morality, we can take it with us.

We seek an objectified morality. We can see one in our objectified narration if we squint. If morality is real, then so is the running narration in our brains that perceives it. Both are farcical post-cinema perceptions. Morality is arbitrary.

Distillations like narrative summations are departures from essence. Essence is the thing itself. You can see it, but you can’t have it. You can shoot it, stuff it and glue it to a branch but it becomes artifact and no longer essence.

The bad news is that morality can be anything we want it to be. The good news is that morality can be anything we want it to be.

That’s the tough Trioon truth. I didn’t like it either. But it makes for real meat and potatoes atheism.

‘Basic universal respect can be granted.  Complex individual respect must be earned.’

True of course, but I don’t think complex individual respect is what we are talking about with the GR. The GR is pretty simple. As you said, be nice and as I added,  treat people with basic respect.

That should be enough. Being nice alone just didn’t seem to suffice for me. I know a lot of people who are NICE but stab people in the back all day long.(metaphorically of course) Being nice is more about attitude than substance, although it is also important in human behavior.

A minor quibble here I think.

Epaminondas - 13 August 2012 07:56 AM

‘Basic universal respect can be granted. Complex individual respect must be earned.’

True of course, but I don’t think complex individual respect is what we are talking about with the GR. The GR is pretty simple. As you said, be nice and as I added, treat people with basic respect.

That should be enough. Being nice alone just didn’t seem to suffice for me. I know a lot of people who are NICE but stab people in the back all day long.(metaphorically of course) Being nice is more about attitude than substance, although it is also important in human behavior.

A minor quibble here I think.

But would you agree to the necessity of caveats that, if listed, might seem to approach an infinite number?

Basic respect remains as a yet untapped resource for plenty of people. Employers, for instance, only rarely seem to understand that it can be a necessary ingredient for success, potentially convincing employees to slave day and night. Some employers know this, though, of course.

Politeness and common courtesy almost universally work well in smoothing interactions between human and other animal individuals. There’s really nothing like it. I don’t think that’s at issue. In my opinion, its popularity has a long ways to go before reaching its public potential.

But, if you were being accused in court for having beaten some innocent person or dog to a pulp, would you calmly plead guilty and quietly accept the judge’s sentence? It would depend on whether or not you felt you were actually guilty, right? If you felt that the dog or person somehow deserved your beating, you might see the Golden Rule in a very different light from the way the prosecutor in the case sees it. In such a case, the Golden Rule might become an incoherent and irrelevant bit of nonsense, wouldn’t you agree? Other than for its politeness-courtesy aspect, of course.

nv - 13 August 2012 08:20 AM

Epaminondas - 13 August 2012 07:56 AM

‘Basic universal respect can be granted. Complex individual respect must be earned.’

True of course, but I don’t think complex individual respect is what we are talking about with the GR. The GR is pretty simple. As you said, be nice and as I added, treat people with basic respect.

That should be enough. Being nice alone just didn’t seem to suffice for me. I know a lot of people who are NICE but stab people in the back all day long.(metaphorically of course) Being nice is more about attitude than substance, although it is also important in human behavior.

A minor quibble here I think.

But would you agree to the necessity of caveats that, if listed, might seem to approach an infinite number?

Basic respect remains as a yet untapped resource for plenty of people. Employers, for instance, only rarely seem to understand that it can be a necessary ingredient for success, potentially convincing employees to slave day and night. Some employers know this, though, of course.

Politeness and common courtesy almost universally work well in smoothing interactions between human and other animal individuals. There’s really nothing like it. I don’t think that’s at issue. In my opinion, its popularity has a long ways to go before reaching its public potential.

But, if you were being accused in court for having beaten some innocent person or dog to a pulp, would you calmly plead guilty and quietly accept the judge’s sentence? It would depend on whether or not you felt you were actually guilty, right? If you felt that the dog or person somehow deserved your beating, you might see the Golden Rule in a very different light from the way the prosecutor in the case sees it. In such a case, the Golden Rule might become an incoherent and irrelevant bit of nonsense, wouldn’t you agree? Other than for its politeness-courtesy aspect, of course.

Hence the difference between “do 2 others” and “Do not do 2 others”.

In any case, they’re both subjective.

‘If you felt that the dog or person somehow deserved your beating, you might see the Golden Rule in a very different light from the way the prosecutor in the case sees it.’

Boy ain’t that the point! Whatever people think the other guy deserves is too often what happens isn’t it?

Carl Sagan, (and probably others) talked about a moral system consisting of the golden rule, plus tit for tat. You do unto others as you would have them do unto you, until they fuck with you and then you reciprocate accordingly. Or if you don’t mind losing you can of course walk away, and live with the comfort that you at least tried.

Or something similar to that.