Draugnar, isn't it the Kansas hit, not a movie? Or was it also referenced in a movie?

Maybe you're thinking "shadows and dust" from Gladiator?

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure :P

@ Chrisp:

This WILL be my last post on the topic, since it's highly off topic, but to answer your questions:

Because they cross the blood/brain barrier they are inherently unnatural. And yes, that's a bad word to use, because of course they are natural products - but it not how chemistry naturally works in your body.

And of course I would if my life depended on it. I've drank caffeine before as well, it's just I generally, as a rule, avoid them. And no, I wouldn't take something that had no side effects. It's essentially the question of steroids in baseball. I'm not morally opposed to other people using them, but I refuse to because then I am not accomplishing something myself, I am relying on something else to aid me - ergo I can not be proud of my accomplishments, because they are not truly "my" accomplishments.

Yes. I realize that we all rely on other people at a bare minimum by using their inventions etc. But I do attempt to minimize that as much as possible. Fundamentally, I try to be my own person.

@rlumley:

A burger is a burger, and a person is a person.

Is it better to have no negatives (feed the starving person) than higher numbers and some negatives (feeding the other person, making him stronger?)

THAT is an entirely different question, and your assertion that it is obvious that the first is obviously right over the second would be challenged by plenty of philosophers, Aristotle and Nietzsche among them, and as they are two of the most influential minds in Western thought... not so clear cut and obvious...

So you might wipe that smirk off your face. ;)

And I, for one, would side with them and say you ARE wrong, sir.

A burger doesn't have the "same" value to the non-starving as to the starving... but then the same burger will not be valued the "same" by two starving people, either.

People are DIFFERENT from one another, and a blanket claim such as yours is wholly unremarkable and simply inapplicable in the face of true human nature... or, rather, the true differences in one person's nature from another.

Further, I'd go so far as to say that the entire claim falls even "flatter" (yeah, bad phrasing, so sue me lol) as to suggest such a thing is to assign the burger a definite, fixed value. That is folly if you hold out the hope for the sort of absolutist idealism you seem to endorse. A burger is worth the same as gold or diamonds or a piece of shit-

Nothing... except in context.

That starving person might be "allergic" to burgers, can't eat them- it's worthless to him.
That full person might be going for the world record and the cash prize that goes with it.

The full person, albeit, still doesn't have the BEST claim to the burger, an eating contest is by no means a grat good, it's rather paltry. Still, it is undeniable he will ascribe more worth to that burger than the starving man in that situation, and "mean more" to him there.

And then, of course, if the starving man were NOT allergic to burgers- he'd almost certainly have the far stronger need and claim.

It is all relative, sir.

@ Obi: I don't give a damn what you or other philosophers think.

Anyone with a brain will tell you that a burger is worth more to a starving person than to a person too full to eat.

And I NEVER said that the first is right over the second.

If anything, they're both wrong.

Druagnar And in "Old School"

rlumley, fair enough, but you'll excuse me while I take the last word. A lot of very natural (to our metabolism) products cross the blood brain barrier. A distinction cannot really be made based on what can and cannot cross the blood brain barrier, because that distinction would be based on relative fat solubility, rather than the naturalness of the substance.

I only mentioned the cognition-enhancement example because I vaguely remember last time we had this discussion, you argued that the natural brain was best suited to using logic and reason to understand the world, or something along those lines, so I thought maybe I could entice you with a chance at even greater understanding. Steroids and baseball is an interesting take on the idea, but I think that only applies in competitive situations, such as using the drug in a chess competition. In a competition, achievement is your performance relative to others, such that it doesn't as much matter what technology, drugs, or rules you use so long as everyone gets to use them and there's a level playing field such that it is individual ability (and maybe some element of luck) that determines the outcome.

There's no real demarcation point between drug and non-drug, it's a continuum. I also have my personal limits, but they're more based on the individual properties of various substances such as potential for dependence. I find distinctions between drug and natural to be quite artificial. I'll give you credit for more consistency than I see in many people at least. A lot of people draw the drug vs. non-drug line such that caffeine and nicotine aren't really drugs, or better yet that alcohol isn't a drug. A girl I know once claimed that she had never done a drug, but when I pointed out she drank coffee and booze and smoked cigarettes and pot, she responded by saying those didn't count.

I love obiwan vs. rlumley, though I do think that rlumley's right more often. Sorry obi. When rlumley says that a burger is worth more to a starving person than a satiated person, it is implied that this relationship exists ceteris paribus. You can't invoke allergies and world records to refute it because the basic meaning of his claim still exists, and that is, without differences in other circumstances, a starving man puts more value on a burger than does a satiated man.

Not at all, Chrispminis... I love it when folks disagree with me, helps me to refine my ideas and to fuel open debate- so I love obiwan vs. rlumley, too. ;)

However, in this case I am holding, and I'll try to restate, as I think maybe I've phrased my position to vaguely.

I do not contest that the starving man would place more value on the burger than the satiated man.

I DO contest that it IS, in fact, more valuable, the valuations of each person aside, to the starving man than to the satiated man.

The starving man will appear to (and undoubtably will) value the burger more than the satiated man because of his state, because of the end toward which he hopes to use the burger as a means, namely, to recover from starvation, at least in part.

However, this is a feeling, and does not change the ACTUAL value of the burger at all.

The burger is a burger- and nothing more. Circumstantially it MAY be put to better use if it were given to the starving over the satiated man, but that does not change the fact that in either case it is +1, so to speak.

Whether that is:

Starving man... -1 due to starvation +1 due to burger= 0, contention
Satiated man... 0 due to contention +1 due to burger= +1, happiness

In either case, the burger is ONLY A RESOURCE, with a FIXED VALUE.

It is merely circumstance that makes it seem more "right" to give the burger to the starving man; in either case, however, a good is produced, and that good is the same, a +1, so to speak.

The ONLY way that we might say that it is more valuable to the starving man is that to level him out, from -1 to 0 and neutral, is something that would be more valuable not to either men, but to the OVERALL populace.

If the happiness of the people will be increased because the starving man starves no more, then it is right to give him the burger.

But if, for some reason, it will cause them more happiness to see it put to other uses, then it is NOT the correct action to give the starving man the burger... UNLESS we count the lives as different in value.

If we count all the lives equally, and the majority hold that the burger should not be given to the starving man, and we take for granted they are competent judges and reflective of the moral code the starving man holds (ie, if they are all of the same justice system; if the starving man is denied the burger because he is a victim of Apartheid and a judicial system he does NOT accept, or a Jew and NOT allowed to take part in the judicial system of the Nazi government, in either of THOSE cases the decision of the masses may be nulled as the one they are deciding upon has not consented to enter that realm of justice and as such has not consented to their judgement) then the majority view MUST hold- if the man is within the judicial system of the masses and the majority of that mass would be happier if he starved, for whatever reason, if he constented to that form of judgement from the start, then the masses, practically, must rule, as all are equal, and it will be the greatest exercise of justice to side with the majority view and the majority happiness over the other.

HOWEVER...

If we are to accept that human beings ARE different in value, then that changes EVERYTHING.

We must THEN ask who is valued more in their worth and in their opinion- the Others or the Starving Man?

If the Starving Man is of stronger character and will, if he is, say, the Nietzschean Ubermensch and is, mentally and emotionally, ABOVE AND BEYOND the rules of the Others, then he has the greater entitlement to the burger regardless of what they say. Needless to say, however, this is tricky to prove, how might we prove he is worth more?

I would ask you to consider (oh, dear, here we go...) a Jesus-like figure- NOT in personality, but ONLY in ability... imagine a Messiah.

The Messiah needs a burger.
NOW who has the higher claim to the burger- the Masses or Messiah?

The Messiah- his worth is greater, he morally and mentally supercedes the others, and as such has the greater claim.

To use a far more mundane example- two men want that burger and BOTH are starving. You are trapped in a cave with them.

Person A is a nice guy, but the weakest physically of the three of you.
Person B is like Popeye the Sailor with burgers- give it to him, and he'll be able to lift up the rocks and free you all from the cave; however, as a result of not getting the burger, Person A will die.

Who gets the burger THERE?

Person B, the Popeye-type person, as he is more useful, and two lives can be saved, at the cost of one, wehreas if A is fed, all three, likely, will die.



All that goe into many forms of ethics, but my main point (ten paragraphs or so ago lol) is that regardless of what sort of value OTHERS place on the burger, even if the starving man places a higher value on it and says it is more valuable to him, it is NOT, the value of a burger is fixed, the value of anything is fixed- and it is merely the situations we face that creat an illusory "greater" or "lesser" value for something, when it truly is worth the same... its AFFECTS might have different values, but the value of a burger is ALWAYS +1, so to speak.

"I would say that to assess possible benefits of evil, it can help to imagine a world without evil." - Good example, and to ignore the conversation about God - thusly we can think of a world where there are no challenges, there is no sense of achievement because nothing you do is challenging.

If you consider your life to be a series of challenges then there is no evil just thigns which are set to challenge you. If we take on challenges/evils as something to be overcome we should be thankful to have them in our lives, for without them everything would be boring. (like the challenge of a good diplomacy game, which is made boring by having control of all 7 accounts...)

@ Obi: If the burger has more value to the starving person, it should be -1 + 3 = 2, for the starving person and 0 + 2 = 2 for the satiated person. That's all I'm saying.

I disagree with your overall point as well, but I don't really care to argue it atm.

"In that sense, generosity is hardly a good reason to justify evil, because though generosity may not exist without evil, it does not improve upon the situation where no evil exists anyway." - in a sense we are all social creatures, and challenges (or evil) allow us to help one and other - they increase the need for social co-operative behaviour - which would not be neccesary in a world without 'evil' - of course i beleive we would not have evolved to be social creatures if we didn't live in a world with evil.

It is not surprising that this conversation have veered wildly away from the original topic, but it is pleasant to see it have taken an interesting turn (and not become some boring theist vs atheist arguement which doesn't resolve anything)

Yet evil is something to be avoided within oneself. To see evil as something that spurs growth toward morality or cooperation is fine and, to an extent, I agree. Certainly technology increases more swiftly in time of need, but does it follow that great need is the only thing that spurs growth? So we as humans tend to need that challenge to better ourselves, but will we always need such challenges? Are we moving toward a position in which they are unnecessary to spur growth?

"It's essentially the question of steroids in baseball. I'm not morally opposed to other people using them, but I refuse to because then I am not accomplishing something myself, I am relying on something else to aid me" - there are negative effects to steroid use - ie damge which can occur if you over-use, and finding that limit (personal in each case) is probably risky - of course steroids are prescribed where they are needed but no sport 'needs' drug enhancment - So if you play a sport and are agreeing to play without drugs then you are on an even playing field.

I don't see it as a case of doing it on your own, it is more taking the challenge as set. If you choose to play a sport which specifically encourages drug use then there would be nothing immoral about that and there would be now reason to think you were doing it any less 'by yourself' because you would be deciding how much of drugs you were taking into your system...

If you use nuclear weapons to win a war then you are not 'doing it by yourself' but you are doing your best to win. That is your personal 'best' (against the challenge/evils set before you)

@Crazy Anglican: "Yet evil is something to be avoided within oneself. " - i am not saying we should do evil to others in order to 'help them help themselves' but i do think that we are better off if we choose to think of the evils we face as challenges to be overcome.

"Are we moving toward a position in which they are unnecessary to spur growth?" - yes we can set our own challenges (be they technical, scientific or sporting) and excel/grow without 'evil'.

The competition which spurs growth in a 'capitalist' system is just that sort of challenge - how to make the most money competing against other companies and individuals.

I don't think we as humans will ever go beyond challenging ourselves, there will always be another challenge to overcome even when all are comfortable by todays standards.

http://www.orthodoxpress.org/parish/river_of_fire.htm

It appears that while I was out this thread got quite off topic, so I will get back to my original assertion (and the question posed to me by Chrispminis). First, to not love God is itself bad, so no, we could not simultaneously be good and not love God. And while God may alleviate suffering on occasion (and this does lessen the downside consequences of our free will), there is no guarantee that this is going to occur and we must always be prepared for the consequences of our actions.

On the second point about allowing suffering, maybe I need to phrase what I said better. Suffering is the direct consequence of sin. Without sin, there would be no suffering (since it is as a result of sin that not only the sinner but all of humanity suffers, though the sinner usually a bit more). Therefore, God allows suffering because it is the natural consequence of our sinful actions, not because he wants us to "prove" our love. Now, on a related note, we are often made stronger through suffering (similarly to how we grow in endurance/strength by pushing our limits there), so it can have good effects.

Finally, on the issue of heaven and hell, it must first be understood that they are not so much "places" but states of being. Heaven is perfect union with God, and hell is total separation from God. Those that love God would desire perfect union with God, and as a result of their faith, hope, and love, even though they are not perfect, through the sacrifice of Christ for their sins (i.e. their imperfection) they are granted admission to union with (the perfect) God. Those that do not love God, however, more or less through their own desires do not want to be with Him, and their wish is granted as well.

@rlumley:

I don't care to argue this any lon ger, either, but before I'm "done" arguing burgers and starving men- you missed the point of what I meant completely.

Ahem... clearly and loudly...

A BURGR HAS A FIXED VALUE AND HAS NO GREATER OR LESSER ACTUAL VALUE TO THE STARVING MAN, EVEN IF HE PLACES MORE VALUE ON IT IN HIS MIND AND WANTS AND NEEDS IT MORE, THE VALUE OF THE ACTUAL BURGER IS STILL THE SAME!

...unless, you know, someone sits on it or somehting, then the value would go down ;)

@Obiwan*2: all burgers are not equal, thus sayeth the law of diminishing marginal returns. Perhaps we should feed try feeding a load of them to you and see if you enjoy the 100th as much as the first?

@obiwan's really long post: I agree with you completely on the first part, but disagree with you on the second part, because I am a consequentalist, not a utilitarian. I say that you should give the burger to the starving man, because without it, he could die.

@Obiwan*2: you should perhaps also check out the Big Mac Index (http://www.economist.com/markets/bigmac/) for a truly global perspective on the value of a Big Mac.

How ironic that a thread quoting a man synonomous with good eating should end up discussing Big Macs.

obiwan, that's absurd. A burger does not have a fixed value. Value is not inherent in a thing, value is a human abstraction and so may not be consistent in value between different individuals. This is practically the basis of economics. When something is priced, it is not because this is its actual value, it is a compromise between how little the vendor is willing to sell it for, and how much the consumer is willing to buy it. At most prices there will be some proportion of people who will choose not to buy the product because the price is higher than their value of it, and there will be some proportion of people who would actually be willing to pay even more for the product.

@orathaic and nola Re: Obstacles as impetus to growth. See, this is a very positive way to look at obstacles and challenges, but I do not see it as justification for the obstacles and challenges. Yes, one gains more muscle by pushing them to the limits, but I don't believe such muscle growth is good in and of itself. If nothing weighed very much, we simply wouldn't need the muscle growth. Growth is only good by association with the fact that now one can lift more, which in our world is good because there are heavier things to be lifted. I'm only using lifting as an example, I know a lot of people work out to be more attractive, but I would say that attractiveness only exists because it displays the ability to lift heavier things, which would be entirely useless in a world of light things. This is perhaps an unrealistic analogy, but say we lived in a world without evil or suffering. Sure, we would never get stronger and able to endure greater suffering, but we wouldn't need to be. I say that the growth of endurance due to suffering is only considered a positive thing in a world where greater suffering may be expected, it is not in and of itself a good thing. In a world without evil, while we would miss out on such growth, we would not miss it, because such growth would be useless. There are many aspects of our life in which we do not grow, but we hardly miss them.

nola, I still don't see why being given the choice to not love God naturally leads to side effects like theft, genocide, and earthquakes. There seems to be a gap there. I'd consider not loving as not bad, but neutral, with hate being bad. God aside, there are over 6.5 billion people I do not love, but I don't consider that to make me a bad person. They mostly just don't individually cross my mind in the way that I would think would be necessary for any real love.

Ok, without sin there is no suffering, and because there is sin, there is suffering. I hear you, but it seems you've just supplanted sin for suffering instead of really answering why there is suffering. Why then, is there sin? If the final goal is reunion with God, then why the moral obstacle course? You're saying that a pious murderer will be united with God before a kind and considerate atheist?

Regarding heaven and hell, you do not ascribe to the classical interpretation of heaven up in the clouds with the pearly gates, and hell as the fiery pit full of demons and mosquitos? Could you describe them as anything other than degree of closeness to God? I can tell you now that I'm probably quite separated from God and if this state of mind is hell, then I think it will be quite alright.

Chrisp +1.

The fact that value is subjective is, as Chrisp said, the basis of all microeconomic study. Maybe you aren't big on econ, but my brother was an Econ major, and I've taken some classes - no rational person says that a burger is worth the same thing to everyone in the world.

Perhaps you mean something different than we do when you say "value".

@Chrips - i'm not saying that suffering is justified by the positive effect it can have - Mainly because i am not argueing as a theist - i am merely observing the world as it is.

If Entropy didn't increase as time moves forward there would be no challenge, there would be no advantage to increasing your local entropy at the expence of the global entropy and thus there would be no life or intelligence.

No evil = No suffering = No challenges - I extend this to - = No increase in global entropy = No arrow of time = No life/intelligence

This is just my observation of the Universe, now you might ask what i'm doing observing the Universe when everyone else is tlaking about the Nature of God, but i really can't distinguish the two.

I can't know anything about God, but i can observe things in 'his' Universe. I find it much more interesting to inspect the things of which we can glean some understanding.

If you want to infer something about the nature of God from the Universe you think 'he' created then that is fine, but I don't see the value in talking about 'him'...

Not to be picky, I'm genuinely asking, but why does entropy has to *increase*? Surely constant entropy would be enough?

orth +1.

@ fig:

It can, but only if nothing in the systems changes. The only impetus of change is a entropic driving force of one form or another.