Comments on: On light and morality

By: efrique

efrique — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 01:04:19 +0000

The argument comes up far too often.

Morality requires an absolute reference point. Without God there can be no morals.

Well, it gets called an argument, but it isn’t actually anything more than a pair of assertions.

By: Ian Bushfield

Ian Bushfield — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 04:08:48 +0000

I think what I was intending for was that we should push the devoutly religious to think of ethics in a new direction. That is, consider the possibility of ethics existing outside of a theistic framework. I suppose it is somewhat in the framework of paradigm shifts.

By: Ian Bushfield

Ian Bushfield — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 04:06:26 +0000

Good point, but the aether wind would have had an added effect (I believe, I haven’t done any math here) beyond what the (rotational) acceleration of the Earth did (which is what SR solved).

All cool things to think about for sure though.

By: Clemens

Clemens — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 03:36:46 +0000

Btw, the photon-hypothesis did not solve the aether problem, it was special relativity. The solution is that Maxwell’s equations already are “Lorentz-invariant” which basically means that they are true in every inertial system. Now special relativity talks about time dilatation and space contraction, and these contractions exactly cancel the shifts Moore and Michelson predicted for their interference experiment.

Cheers.

By: Joe

Joe — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:24:05 +0000

Two things:

And I’m not trying to be pedantic…. but you have to be really careful when using phrases like ‘absolute objective’ standard, especially when you are using a science analogy in an argument about ethics/morality.
Generally speaking, philosophers use those words differently than scientists. When science talks about absolute zero, it refers to the limit of cold, or the precise point where there is no heat. Philosophers use ‘absolute’ in a completely different way. They generally mean, something like ‘transcendent’, ideal or in the case of a god being all powerful… infinite or eternal.
Objectivity is also defined differently. Scientists generally refer to things that are measured (or measurable) by a given standard, repeatable…etc… as objective. Philosophers tend to define objective as ’separate from the mind’, as in dualism. Kant even went so far as to imply that objects are by their nature unknowable. Whether one agrees or not doesn’t really matter, but this is why Scientists and Philosophers tend to bicker so much. So your analogy may confuse more than enlighten.

Also, this sounds similar to Kuhn’s paradigm shift idea… which opens up another can of worms, with regards to the nature of objectivity in a strictly scientific sense. People around here probably understand what you mean, but you just walked into a veritable minefield.

Of course, maybe thats what you intended.