can you prove something is objectivly wrong or right?

It kind of annoys me that you just cannot prove something is objectively wrong or right. Because it is all perspective on viewing things, here is no stable ground. You could view that, let's say, killing is good or killing is bad, because it is your subjective option. There is no right and wrong if there isn't something forceful or conditionally proving rightness or wrongness. If something is subjective, it means optionality. It doesn't matter if it is logical or not, because logic itself is subjective. So if you think you're right or wrong, It is just in your head. can exist (other than math) logical reasoning or proofs that force to be true or false just on purely logic?

>logic itself is subjective Logic is math. Or rather it's both subsets of the machination of the objective reality. One that must exist at the base foundation of absolutely everything. And it must facilitate your mind while it is perceiving itself and asking this question. Cogito, ergo sum. You objectively exist and so does at least one most outer later of reality which must be shared between all the other beings in it. So this means at least some things of our world can not be purely subjective. Another branch of math is game theory. Look into it and you will see that while there's infinite options but some are better than others. Objectively so, relative to achieving some goal from some initial position. So the mechanisms of life and morality can't be entirely subjective either. If you want to preserve and propagate life for instance there's some actions that can be generally considered good and some others bad. Now you can question the usefulness or futility of wanting to preserve life but life is what yields consciousness and that in turn is necessary for the universe to perceive itself.

read Kant. >If something is subjective, it means optionality. How so? Emotions are subjective, but we don't get to choose not to feel them. >It doesn't matter if it is logical or not, because logic itself is subjective. Just because you can make subjective value judgements such as "I believe this logical statement to be valid" does not mean that statements such as "this logical statement is valid" do not have objective truth values. > Cogito, ergo sum. You objectively exist I actually take issue with this. It is in fact a leap of faith to believe that you exist. However, it's one that I'm quite happy to take, and one that is necessary for anything interesting to be thought about. And if you're not thinking about anything interesting, then why are you doing philosophy?

>>84345 >I actually take issue with this Why so? If you think the thought you do and realize that you're thinking then something must facilitate those thoughts that you're being witness of. You can be a brain in a jar, trapped in a waterfall of simulations or be a figment of a dream some higher being is having, yet on some level you simply must exist in at least some shape if there's the clear evidence for the existence of those thoughts and you perceiving them. And if you then exist then something must also contain you or facilitate your being. At the very least some bedrock of the universe that is shared by all because any possible bubble of existence would run on the same base mechanism and there would be literally nothing that would separate them. I'm not interested much in philosophy since it easily can lead astray into world views like subjectivism which is due to the person not really being able to fully grasp the maximum extends that those concepts can have. But I am interested into the nature of the world I inhabit and I am becoming more and more convinced that thoughts, matter and reality are somewhat a different side of the same thing. Just in a strange weird way that even the few thoughts I have on it I can not coherently articulate or if you are even interested in reading any of those half formed contemplations. But in a sense we truly are in some way all connected.

>>84343 you can say that something is objectively wrong or right, given certain shared presuppositions. for example, "IF you wish to remain alive, then driving drunk is an objectively wrong thing to do to accomplish that goal". most people WANT something out of life, therefore people "should not" do suicidal things, or things that are threatening to their lives, given their desire to live, and also people "should" seek out the free time and resources necessary to do the things they want, given their desire to do it, etc. and then social values emerge as a kind of compromise between people's desires. sometimes a person's desires are incompatible with society, say someone WANTS to die and kill other people, and becomes a school shooter. there's nothing objective saying his desires are better or worse than most other people's, but it is true that people SHOULD prevent him from doing that, given their desire to continue to live or for their children to continue to live.

>>84347 >why so? It presupposes that everything which thinks must exist. But we can easily come up things that do not exist, yet which think; for example, if Hypothetical Hal thinks "cogito ergo sum", he is utterly incorrect, because he is nothing more than a figment of my imagination. He experiences all the qualia associated with thinking, and yet those qualia do not exist either. The bedrock of his reality which he exists in is additionally not there, because there is no reality in which he actually exists. He is just a hypothetical. Hopefully you see what I mean. What's really going on here with the "cogito ergo sum" business is that it is taking a linguistic truth (transitive verbs have subjects) and turning it in to an epistemological truth (a subject exists). However the linguistic argument works just as well for things that don't actually exist. One has to take as an axiom that something exists, otherwise nonexistence is just as logical of a conclusion. >I'm not interested much in philosophy >But I am interested into the nature of the world I inhabit You seem pretty interested in philosophy for somebody that isn't interested much in philosophy.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, can be proven without starting from undefined/unprovable assumptions. Some people assume certain of their assumptions are "true", and build a logical belief structure on that foundation. Other people start with other assumptions, and build a different belief structure. Most people fail to realize that their most fundamental beliefs are unprovable. For instance, even Descartes is guilty of this kind of circular logic. "I think, therefore I am" is a perfect example of using the conclusion as part of the proof, the definition of circular logic. All reasoning is circular logic. And that's why people disagree on what objective reality is. Geometry is the same. You have to start with a foundation of undefined and unproven assumptions. Logic is the same. Ask anyone to prove that logic is valid, and they will invariably try to use logic to prove that logic is valid... textbook circular reasoning. Science is the same. You have to make certain unprovable assumptions, such as: I exist. Objective external reality exists. My senses provide me with some more or less accurate information about external object reality. Logic/mathematics allow me to reason about this information. etc. Religion is the same. Everything, all "knowledge", is the same. If you want to understand why someone believes certain things, try to find out what his basic assumptions are. They're no better or worse than yours.

>>84351 >They're no better or worse than yours. Sounds like an unproven assumption to me. Absolute relativism is what a silly person leaps to when confronted with the fact that epistemology is difficult. It's basically just giving up on epistemology. The wise person admits, yes, my beliefs are circular, but I still believe it to be true.

84354 >Sounds like an unproven assumption to me. Exactly. Everything I wrote is unprovable and unknowable. In fact, even the statement that nothing can be known is unknowable, which leaves you with nothing but a paradox. >Absolute relativism is what a silly person leaps to when confronted with the fact that epistemology is difficult. It's been a major school of philosophical thought since classical Greece: "Pyrrhonism". >It's basically just giving up on epistemology. Exactly the opposite. It's the application of extreme rigor to epistemology without any fudging or wishful thinking, like "a priori" knowledge or "transcendental" knowledge, or similar cop-outs. >The wise person admits, yes, my beliefs are circular, but I still believe it to be true. Agreed. That's the step beyond the paradox that rigorous skepticism leaves you with, and that's what requires giving up on rigor in epistemology, not the other way around. Recommended reading: "Five Modes of Scepticism, Sextus Empiricus and the Agrippan Modes".

>>84354 Clarification of 'It's been a major school of philosophical thought since classical Greece: "Pyrrhonism".' By "It" I mean the idea that nothing can be known, not "absolute relativism," Absolute relativism isn't what I'm describing.

>>84350 It looks like we disagree on the semantics of what it means to exist. While I'm conscious, I'm bombarded with overwhelming evidence that at least at this time and place I'm here. And something must facilitate me being here otherwise I simply wouldn't. Your example makes little sense under my axioms where if you simply imagine a concept of a being then it doesn't automatically mean that it is also a being that exists, let alone has the capacity to think. It's like if you write a name on a piece of paper. Those squiggles on a medium aren't the person that they represent or refer to within out human and cultural frameworks. Do you see what I mean? But if you do imagine a being to the extent that they somehow do actually possess the ability to think then that being, in some odd sense does exist. Just not in the way that you imagine other people on the street and in your life to exists. From my understanding the entire universe could be just that: a cosmic mind, and nothing else that's dreaming all of us up and we're just tiny figments of its imagination. However this doesn't contradict what I've said. And you can put labels on what I do all you want, it doesn't change what I do, simply wondering about the machinations of this universe. And what I don't or avoid to do, getting trapped in half baked subjectivist musings where the conclusion usually is that nothing matters and everything's relative. Philosophy is too often just a vehicle to try to impress each others. That I have little interest in. >>84351 It's good and possibly necessary to question tautology. It's just that at some point we ought to hit a wall. Existence, in its furthest extent, must be self contained, self referential or recursive since the alternative is non-existence which by definition is literally nothing. So it may just be that at some point even circular logic might become valid. Also how do you reason that something is circular reasoning without ultimately relying on that thing itself?

>>84343 wrong or right is false dichotomy however we can say that going against nature is "possibly wrong" due to what it entails. even though our reality is self-correcting or rather self-aligning/balancing the more we stray from natural the more it would lead to "suffering" so let us say that suffering is wrong, you feel it is wrong, even animals feel suffering and can be depressed similarly the pollution, encroachment activities, destruction, and our technologies that are convenient to us but harms them and us also have a negative effect, so is negative effect right or wrong? there is a fine line. a tree that grew without any wind would grow tall but fall without fail. incorporate winds or heavy winds and it grows stronger, too much and it falls again. so it's like a horseshoe kind? so the dichotomy is false, there is a sweet spot in there, the best spot. also to "prove" its correctness is biased and limited by the scope of time. we can say this plant grows faster than that plant with this specific soil mixture but the slow starter would later turn out to be better in every possible way. so if we're to account for our scope of time (life) then we should just do so in such a way that it aligns with natural course of things which is what it is intended in the first place. there are such markers for it mainly the way we favor symmetry or perfect ratios over the imperfections - however these types of biases when applied in extreme or terrible ways would likely create more problems (inbreeding ideology, ethnocentric bias/ideology, greenbeard effect lowering the genetic potential, etc.)

>>84362 >While I'm conscious, I'm bombarded with overwhelming evidence that at least at this time and place I'm here. And something must facilitate me being here otherwise I simply wouldn't. Circular reasoning: The conclusion: I exist. The proof: I (something). You can't use "I" in the proof because it presupposes that the conclusion is true >Your example makes little sense under my axioms... Axioms are unproven assumptions. Why should anyone accept your unproven assumptions? >Existence, in its furthest extent, must be self contained, self referential or recursive "self referential", "recursive" "self-evident" "obvious": All circular, all non-rigorous. >since the alternative is non-existence False dichotomy. Suspension of judgement is an alternative. >So it may just be that at some point even circular logic might become valid. Circular logic can never be valid since it's invalid by definition. >Also how do you reason that something is circular reasoning without ultimately relying on that thing itself? I'm not sure what you mean.

After reading, form my all comments. I realized here are two types of comments. one is: sure there is subjective thinking, but here must exist something objective. like observable universe. or rules designed by life inself secound: we cannot make objective statements because we are based on assumpions or axioms so any conclusions can only be circular logic I kinda as OP i have zero idea, what to respond other to Vasya well I'm trying to read kant's books but they are difficult for me. I'm around page 140 in kant's critique of pure reason.

>>84367 >You can't use "I" in the proof I believe our misunderstanding is mostly linguistic. The nature of the "I" doesn't matter here. It might be my corporeal body or it might even be the thought/process itself that is self reflective. When I said "I", I meant a conscious which witnessed a thought with the awareness of itself. The origin of that thought remains a mystery but the existence of that thought becomes indisputable to me once I observe or perceive it. I suppose a better translation of cogito, ergo sum would be that when I think then something must exist. Then there also must be something facilitating that thought otherwise there would be no thought. That facilitator can be my brain or something else entirely. The nature of the facilitator is not certain but that it is there, is. Then something must contain that facilitator. That container, if it's the boundaries of existence must contain within itself also the rules and mechanisms by which it exists. Now that container can be the universe or the thought, facilitator and container can also be one and the same. All there could be is this thought that somehow exists by itself and making up all those concepts about this world, my room, my fingers typing this post, the screen I see your responses on, these may not exist at all and are just part of this illusion that this thought is making up. But these would at least exist as a concept withing that thought, which by becoming aware of itself then proves to itself that it is there at that moment and place this self reflective thought occurs. And by extent the circumstances by which it came into being. Even if the how and what is not known for certain. In short, I observe a thought therefore something must have produced it. And while the shape might be subjective, its presence isn't. As for the suspension of judgement, if a tree falls in a forest and nobody hears it, is it still relevant to this argument? >>84375 To one I would add rules that emerge by themselves by which the universe works. Observable or not. Since that's a different topic to something like evolutionary psychology that yielded some sort of biological/mechanistic morality. But us sitting here discussing this I don't think it's possible for nothing at all to exist. So there's at least that.

>>84356 >It's been a major school of philosophical thought since classical Greece: "Pyrrhonism". is that supposed to make it unsilly? >It's the application of extreme rigor to epistemology without any fudging or wishful thinking, like "a priori" knowledge or "transcendental" knowledge, or similar cop-outs. But the 'rigorous' conclusion is "knowing things for sure is impossible, give up on it". Whereas with a leap of faith, we can still know things. >Recommended reading: "Five Modes of Scepticism, Sextus Empiricus and the Agrippan Modes". I'll check it out! (no sarcasm) >>84362 >Your example makes little sense under my axioms where if you simply imagine a concept of a being then it doesn't automatically mean that it is also a being that exists I agree! My point is that existence is not a necessary condition for having properties, performing actions, etc. "Unicorns fart rainbows" is a true statement (vacuously as well as in practice, I think we can all agree that this is one of the defining features of unicorns), but it does not imply that unicorns exist. Why then would "I think" imply that I exist? >And you can put labels on what I do all you want, it doesn't change what I do, simply wondering about the machinations of this universe. That's what philosophy is. >>84375 Just take a leap of faith bro. All your friends are doing it!

The Four Blind Men and the Elephant Four blind men who knew nothing about elephants approached one. The first blind man grasped the elephant's tail and said, "An elephant is like a rope." The second blind man put his arms around the elepaant's leg and said, "An elephant is like a column." Yhe third blind man touched the elephants trunk and said, "An elephant is like a large snake." The fourth blind man said, "So many contradictions... I suspend judgement." Each of the first three blind men called the others fools, citing their own first-hand experience, and went on arguing into the night. The fourth blind man found a quieter place, had a cup of tea, and listened to some music.

>>84376 You think, therefore something must be. Sadly, you cannot define what "be" or "something" is. Also you are using "therefore" and "must" which assume that there is something like cause and effect. This leaves you with "I think", which is not a great way to state ones opinion.

Factually yes, morally no. There is certain morals universal and timeless enough they could be considered in effect objective though but it is very limited to things like do not kill those of your species with a will to not be killed.

No, it's not possible. "You know it when you see it" is as good as it gets. Reassuringly this is still extremely powerful, and something that changes with time and situation.

>>84343 >It doesn't matter if it is logical or not, because logic itself is subjective. So if you think you're right or wrong, It is just in your head. can exist (other than math) logical reasoning or proofs that force to be true or false just on purely logic? It is not true that logic is subjective. For example, look at this proposition: 1. If A, then B 2. A 3. Therefore, B This would've been true in ancient Athens, and it is equally true today, it would also be true regardless if there are any humans around. It is not possible for this particular proposition to be untrue, since the rules of logic are objective. That being said, if the proposition is a statement about (for example) the external world, it can both be true and yet still be invalid. For example look at this proposition: 1. If Socrates is blue, then the world is round 2. Socrates is blue 3. Therefore, the world is round As with the first proposition, it follows the same logic and is logically true, but it is also obviously invalid. This is since one of the premises is false (Socrates is not blue, he is long dead and has no colour at all), and the conclusion (that the Earth is round) doesn't seem to have a causal correlation with the premises. tl:dr: Yes, reasoning can be true based solely on logic, but propositions that are logically true can be invalid.