Ethics - the Problem
(PD) Rembrandt Two Old Men Disputing
Copyright ©2009-2020 — updated August 23, 2020
"To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science." — Albert Einstein(1)
In all things, including choices, there is an up and a down, a left and a right, an inward and an outward, and within this universal manner of opposites — with each opposite direction nascenting from the originating nature of a thing — each action is chosen by, or for, a cause. With each choice, each reaction becomes the foundational memory of logical conclusions from which all future logic is judged and structured upon.
Most choices may appear to be of little significance towards the final sum of thoughts, but some choices turn a man's thoughts upside-down. The belief in a god establishes a foundation from which all further choices are weighed to conform to the belief, and likewise, a disbelief in a god establishes a foundation from which all further choices are judged to conform to the belief in a disbelief. The choice, to believe upwards or to believe downwards, fully and forever changes the whole of a man's thoughts and logic.
But what if neither of the two choices are correct? What if the choice to believe or disbelieve in a god sprang from a former choice of whether to believe or disbelieve that the choice had only two options? To choose a choice that only two options are available, requires that there also existed a choice that three or more choices were available. There are indeed other choices available, but once a man has made the choice to believe that only two choices exist, the man's belief now prevents the man from rationalizing how it might be possible that other choices existed.
The self-chosen mental standard that now rules a man's thoughts — of his now insisting that there can only be two choices — was logically deduced, placed into memory, and now contorts all of his other thoughts to conform to the belief. The self-chosen mental standard was created similarly as to what we will term an ethic since the standard now regulates what the man will think and do, and the man will think nothing and do nothing that breaks the image of his self-chosen belief. The man's standard is a triangulation point, a fixed point that all other thoughts and behaviors are judged by, and though the triangulation point is most commonly applied unconsciously by most individuals, still, the triangulation point exists, and it will remain existing until the individual chooses through logic that the belief should be changed.
What is the third option of choice if believing or disbelieving in a god are not the only two possibilities? Think about it, think. I choose to not give the answer here, but rather to allow the reader to exercise his/her own mind in the search, to discover that there is more profit in analysis than in memorization.
Almost a dozen years ago I placed an article online that spoke of a third angle, illustrating that there is not only a heads and a tails of a coin, but rather there is also the edge, and the analogy pointed to the reality that for every two choices of action there must also be the origin, and from the origin there will exist other choices as well. The natural forces of Nature (physics) act within numerous rules, including a rule of three, that there will always be a minimum of three components/forces to all things. Humans are a part of Nature, and the rule of three rules over humans as well, including human thought. Many philosophies usually ignore the several fields of science, especially those of physics and psychology, and in so doing the philosophies behave as if they can supernaturally create and make alive sophisms that do not agree with the laws of Nature.
And here is a standard to be chosen, another triangulation point, of whether to judge all things by whether they agree with Natural laws, or to choose to allow into one's mind beliefs that are physically impossible. As was written on the home page of one of my old websites, "Logic is the act of comparing information. Only information that agrees with Natural laws is valid. Correct logic is Nature-based." Does an individual's current system of beliefs first judge whether a thing is in agreement with Natural laws? And with psychology? And with the several other fields of science? Before an individual can judge whether a thing is in agreement or disagreement with Natural laws, the individual must first discover what the Natural laws are, and almost all healthy life-forms learn in a similar manner, through that of the common experience of sensory perception.
One man observes a red object with his five senses, and within his mind he creates a segregation of objects, a classification that states "these are things with red colors, these are things with red tastes, these are things with red sounds, these are things that feel red, and these are things that smell red." Always will the memory of the objects remain as the memories of having sensorially perceived the objects, and though the different objects might be logically associated with other objects of similar colors, tastes, aromas, sounds, and textures, still the memories remain as the memories of the actual experiences of having sensorially perceived the objects, and when the memories are drawn back into the consciousness, each memory contains within it a recreation of the sensorial sensation of when the object was first perceived, that is, the memory is one of firsthand experience, of remembering the sense of touch, of smell, of sound, of taste, and of sight, but none of the memories are accompanied with the symbols of worded names.
Another man may place his memories into a classification as did the first man, but the second man then places an invented name upon each classification. In time, the second man's mind no longer directly remembers the sensorial experiences, but rather the mind has subjugated the memories of experience to be ruled under the ruling name of the classification, i.e. terms of physics, psychology, and philosophy.
The difference is the hierarchy of which is held within the mind to be of the greater importance; the name of the memory, or the lucid memory itself. One man, who uses nouns as ruling entities, may say that red defines an apple, while another man, who uses the actual memory of firsthand experiences to be the base of his logic, he may say that an apple defines red. The choice of whether to base one's logic on memories of firsthand experiences, or to base one's logic on the ruling nouns, is one of the determining factors that differentiates between types of acts of logic: one act of logic which is based upon experienced fact, and the other act of logic that is based upon ruling nouns (a birth of deities).
Similar to the previous choice to believe that there are only the two choices of believing a god exists or a god does not exist, the current chosen choice to accept nouns or to accept firsthand experiences is another act similar to what we will term an ethic since it has become the man's standard, and the chosen choice now rules over what the man will think and do.
When gazing in the direction of an object, and a man's eyes perceive light that the mind interprets to be of the color of red, does the man think to himself that he is seeing light, or does he think to himself that he is seeing an object? Which polarity is his mind, that of a seer of light, or a seer of objects? And does the man then think to himself that the object is red? Does his mind tell him that red describes the object, or does his mind tell him that the object describes red? Observe and recognize how the differences of mental interpretations of simple things can and do alter the whole of all future logic. The man whose mind knows that the eyes see light, not objects, may also be of the knowing that what is seen is what defines the perception that is then given the name of red. For the man whose mind believes that he sees objects, he may be of the belief that the name red defines the object.
The two men's minds cannot share a compatible logic, for both minds are structured upon previous choices that chose opposite paths of sensorial experience, of a different type of memory retention, and of a different method of memory classification. The man whose eyes see light, and whose mind recognizes that the perception of light is what defines a color, he has no need for terms, for his memories and logic are structured upon what is real within his capacity for sensorial perception. But for the man whose eyes see objects, and whose mind places the noun red as the description of the objects' color, that man's logic is structured upon the necessity of nouns, and never can the man's logic achieve accuracy because the logic must draw upon invented symbols to be used as information for logic to weigh, and since symbols cannot be the thing symbolized, then the man's logic cannot achieve a rational conclusion, as western philosophy has so well illustrated in its three-thousand years of failure to derive rational conclusions from dialogues of words. (See also Type A and B Intelligence.)
Almost all philosophies are structured upon the mind that sees objects and defines the objects with nouns, and there is no value in pursuing an investigation into a philosophy that is known from the beginning to not possess the capacity for rational thought. If a man enjoys debating unknowns, then the man will surely find contentment within the numerous different philosophies, but if a man wants solid answers, then he has the choice to abandon and to intellectually grow beyond what the philosophies permit.
On the topic of ethics, which is a noun-based logic, a man must choose whether to remain trapped within the sophistry of philosophies, or to choose a thought sequencing that ignores the unknown word. If a man wishes to retain the words ethics and morals, then he should redefine the words to symbolize but not describe what he himself experiences as acts of logic. An act of honesty is an act of accurate speech, but never can accurate speech be ruled by the noun ethic, for no symbolic word can ever be the origin or judge of an action. First learn how to speak accurately, and only then give the action a name, for if a name is given without there first being an action, then never can the name have meaning. It matters nothing whether it was Aristotle or anyone else that first used the term ethika; the term was invented without a definition, and it is time for man to shed his undefined words.
Update August 23, 2020: From the time of when this article was first written in 2009, I have discovered several excellent books written by individuals who were very articulate in their understandings of the topics. Humorously, all of the titles are ancient Chinese books of around 2,300 to over 3,000 years old. Examples include the Xunzi book, Daodejing book, Zhong Yong book, and the Confucius Analects Book IV Li Ren English Translation.
(1) Albert Einstein's Type A quote is illustrative of modern man's propensity towards imaginations rather than to exert effort towards first understanding what the topic is. If this article were to be rewritten, the Einstein quote would be the first to be deleted.
(Aside from this update notice, plus removing a dead link, replacing another link with a local address, and adding a reference mark to the first quote, the article's wording has not been changed from it's previous version.)