>"In what way does it exist outside of the mind?"

In a nutshell; benevolence and malevolence exist objectively hence good and evil exist objectively hence morality (moral and immoral) exists objectively.

>"Morality, good, and evil are concepts created by humans."

The concept of the horse is not the same thing as the horse.

And arguably a dinosaur choosing to eat another dinosaur alive when it could kill it was strictly speaking evil.

>"If all minds were removed from the universe, where would morality exist?"

The same way it always exists; Rape would be immoral because it would be evil because it would be malevolent. That there is no longer anyone in existence to be malevolent or benevolent does not erase that from reality. Nor did organic life bring it into reality, it was always there.

Kind of like... hmm... "Organic life would grow because organic life would have genetics." Organic life actually existing is irrelevant.

>"Brother, it sounds like your ideas are fixed and immune to external review."

Not at all, you're missing my point; If you're not even awake enough to actually correctly read the sense of myth I cited or take on board anything I've said about concepts then you're giving me no indication that you're trying for anything but to troll with feigned ignorance and strawman arguments.

>"I don’t think my proof demands or objections are unreasonable or illogical."

I didn't say they were*, I'm saying you're (possibly deliberately) misreading what I've said and asking for proof that belongs in a different conversation ("Is everything an illusion?")

>"These labels - “materialist,” “dualist,” “idealist” - that you have shrugged off are not primarily membership tokens, but rather a shorthand for communicating belief in ideas, ideas that are at the heart of philosophical study!"

Yes, but you're clearly not understanding why I shrug them off in terms of this conversation.

>"That is to say, if someone who believes in materialism is a “materialist,” this means only that she believes in the idea of materialism, not that she values the solidarity of others who believe in materialism as well, or that she derives authority of belief from the number of materialists. This lack of mission or purpose is unlike a club to me."

What do I care? I'm saying I don't care what club you're in in terms of this conversation because that has no bearing on there being inconsistencies in what I've said.

>"In addition, the objectivity of morality, which you have asserted without argument, is a hotly contested topic!"

I know but what do I care? Rape is objectively evil, it still would be if there were only two lifeforms in the universe or zero lifeforms in the universe. And I've more or less said that already so it was decidedly not without argument.

>"Do you really figure your conclusions to be so bulletproof to the collective scrutiny of humanity, past and present?"

That depends on which conclusion is in question.

>"For the record, I did not skim your response to merely clamp down on what I perceived as weak points in an effort to produce “gotchas” and make myself seem smarter."

I didn't say you were doing that particularly or for that particular reason.

>"I wasn’t prompting you to mansplain or break down rudimentary concepts to spin your wheels either."

I didn't say you prompted me to break down any rudimentary concepts for you so that's more (deliberate?) misreading from you. I said "prompting me to mansplain myth and concept, and my use of horse and pegasus, and even regurgitate the very point our conversation started on; me not misusing the word myth."

In other words, I had already broken down the rudimentary concept of myth.

>"I just tried to pinpoint the crux of our disagreement so that we might communicate more efficiently.".

That crux is you've been Mr Magoo from the getgo and all throughout and never getting to any actual inconsistencies due to just trying to invoke neighboring but irrelevant philosophical issues.

In other words: Brother, you asked me to prove horses are real. So asking I prove atoms and radiation are real when I was saying breaking a mirror unleashing seven years bad luck is not the same as splitting the atom unleashing radiation, the former is a fiction and a myth. You said "I don’t think my proof demands or objections are unreasonable or illogical." You said this with a straight face?

• Until now.

>"I think I misquoted, I see “navigate life better” in another one of your comments"

Okay, I see that.

>"- better than what? In what way? The point of this was that this is implicitly a value statement."

Would it be a "value statement" to say that we navigate better when we are not hallucinating things that are not there? I don't think so, seems to be more about the nature of what navigation is to me. Kind of like seeing works better if you're not cutting your eyes with a razor blade at the time.

>"Prove this."

No. You know what a horse is. There are only about seven things we can know for certain exists beyond doubt i.e. not as parts of some 'The Matrix-type illusion' but this is not a conversation about "Are we on a planet or more like brains in a jar fed sensory data?"

>"Another assumption."

(sigh) No, it is not. Imagine we went extinct then a hundred years later aliens land and pick up a Superman comic. They decipher English and begin to grasp it is about a humanoid from another planet that came to this planet and from its Sun gained powers beyond the local humanoids. Communication is the sharing of concepts. Concepts are one of the few indestructible things there are. They can be lost to us physical beings but they can never be destroyed.

>"Another assumption."

No, rape is evil, this is not something just in our minds, that is objective fact. It would remain true if we humans went extinct and then ages later some other species got the exact same sapience as us and rape existed just like now. 'Rape is evil' would remain true today even if all life in the universe had gone extinct a very long time ago.

>"It sounds like you don’t subscribe to materialism"

I don't care about labels and clubs like that.

>"I myself am a dualist on good days and an idealist on bad ones. And yet, while I believe in an objective reality, I have yet to prove that materialism is an untenable world view, just as you have failed to do, along with countless philosophical minds of the past much greater than ours."

I don't care about "philosophical minds of the past". I don't care if it was David Hume that said "You cannot get an ought from an is" or someone else, what I care about is what that means and how it fits with what else I understand about the truth.

>"This isn’t to say that I don’t truly believe in my worldview, but the minute I appeal to the distinct nature of qualia the materialist will object."

What do I care, if you can't even follow the logic of the person you are speaking with without going "You can't say that is fact because no one can prove it." and "Those are assumptions you're making, you can't possibly know them to be facts." etc.?

>"More philosophical work must be done for the matter to be “settled,” if it ever can be."

Nothing ever "must" be done. Our ancestors could have gone sterile and our species would be extinct by now.

>"Where did I say I was smarter than you,"

You didn't.

>"and how is that even relevant?"

Did you just skim my last post for things to go "Prove it." and "No one can know that yet and no one might never figure it out." about?

>"The caliber of my intellect does not grant or revoke special credence to my ideas."

I wasn't talking about your ideas, I was (obviously) talking about your post prompting me to mansplain myth and concept, and my use of horse and pegasus, and even regurgitate the very point our conversation started on; me not misusing the word myth. Observe;

You said this: "You say, or imply, that a horse is “real” and a Pegasus is a “myth.” Well, this is confusing for one because you are using the wrong sense of myth that you cited, as people rightly (according to you) believe a Pegasus to be a fiction."

This, what you were referring to, was what I cited: "A myth is a fiction believed by a large number of people (in the present or in the past) to be a non-fiction."

It's right there: or in the past. The past includes ancient Greece.

So your ideas (or them getting special credence) have zip to do with you making me go "Did this person leave their brain at home or am I being trolled with feigned ignorance?"

>"The ideas should have merit on their own,"

"Should" is a myth. And I guess "merit" would be too since it would be a form of "deserving" which is (drum roll) another myth.

>"and “stand trial” as you say."

I don't think that's the same as what I was referring to. I was referring to them standing trial to be decided as fiction or non-fiction, not if they "merit" something. But I guess you don't mean it like that, you mean in terms of plausibility and truth in which case I take it back, it is the same.

>"Likewise, me indicting your ideas is not indicting your intellect."

That on other hand is wise of you. I hope that is true of me as well.

>"The only personal thing I was criticizing was your behavior. Finally, I assure you I am not feigning anything; if I’m truly that incoherent in these remarks then I am that stupid."

I was not saying you were incoherent.

>"You say “value” is not real, but then elsewhere talk about living a “better life,” and that “nihilism is stupid.”"

I don't recall saying anything about living a better life but yes, "value" is not real and nihilism is stupid.

>"You roll out a laundry list of things that are “real” or “myth” (which aren’t ordinarily juxtaposed as exact antonyms),"

Did I say they were exact antonyms? Does it matter to my point? I don't think it matters to my point.

>"seemingly without any serious reflection upon the entires and thereby introducing a number of inconsistencies into the list."

Then you either don't understand what I'm saying or you're smarter than me in which case I would ask you to enlighten me where I am inconsistent.

>"You say, or imply, that a horse is “real” and a Pegasus is a “myth.”

Technically I am using pegasus as a symbol of a fictional thing more than example of myth but sure, the general point is that to the ancient Greeks the pegasi were like the alligators thriving in the New York sewers.

>"Well, this is confusing for one because you are using the wrong sense of myth that you cited, as people rightly (according to you) believe a Pegasus to be a fiction."

...as in people today? Yes, people today see pegasi as fictional. That's the point. That's why I used them.

"But it is primarily confusing because you claim a concept is “real,”"

Hhohh boy. Yes, all concepts are real concepts. There's no such thing as a fictional concept.

>"yet a Pegasus is a concept."

The concept of the pegasus is a concept, yes. The concept of the horse is a concept. But the actual horse exists apart from just being a concept. If it didn't a horse would be a fictional thing. This is my point. This is why I used horse and pegasus.

>"In what sense is it a “myth” then?"

Because the ancient Greeks believed pegasi were non-fictional flying around somewhere. This is how Zeus and the New York sewer alligators are different from Harry Potter and James Bond.

>"That it doesn’t exist outside of your mind?"

Harry Potter and James Bond don't exist outside our imagination and are therefore fictions. Basically no one thought they were not fictions so they're not myths.

>"Do other concepts? Do horses?"

Concepts exist outside our minds as abstract things. And at risk of beating a dea... hrm, horses exist outside our minds as they are not fictions.

So far you have given zero evidence of being smarter than me, you've done the opposite, you've made me begin to suspect you're feigning stupidity to troll me. In other words, what you just had me do above? That was me breaking down the most basic things and mansplaining it because it seemed you barely knew how a concept works e.g. how the concept of Superman existing as a concept differs from Superman existing in real life and from Superman existing as a fictional character in the imagination.

>"Basically your comments are formed on the tip of an iceberg of ontological assumptions. Which wouldn’t be a problem if you entered into these discussions from a position of intellectual humility, but instead you baselessly assert everything you put forth as fact"

Not baselessly.

>"and display childish exasperation and immature condescension when challenged."

Not quite, I display exasperation with the immaturity I have on occasion been presented with. I ENJOY being challenged on the intellectual logical level. Instead I have been receiving responses like the following:

>"According to you nothing is real and everything is a myth." --FireingHex

(That's strawman argument if not an outright lie)

>"Like “organisms don’t need to live”. Okay? Go ahead and don’t" --FireingHex

(That's telling me to go kill myself)

>"You are free to believe life is pointless and humanity is not the center, but what is life's point then?" --FireingHex

(That's outright stupidity. What to even call it, an inverse tautological question?)

>Same with morality, or moral evil/good. Or are you using a different definition of imaginary?

Morality exists outside the mind. Good and evil that is, not "morally right" and "morally wrong", in the latter sense I would agree.

>"Must" and "require" presupposes a first principle position, which assumes agreement, right?

It's simpler than that. "Must" (i.e. "imperatives") and "require" (i.e. "necessity" or "need") affect nothing directly outside the imagination hence they are imaginary things.

​

In practice: If I am out in the desert I can believe I "require" water or "must" find water (based on the possibility of me dying soon without ingesting water) but reality is simply that I may soon die of thirst without having found water, the universe doesn't care.

I disagree with the terms "require" and "must" (since those are myth) but other than that I agree fully.

>"I already pointed out an obvious inconsistency: the concept of danger is predicated on some want/need."

No, you didn't since there is no such predication. You're willfully ignoring my point about the car and the bus and the planet and the asteroid. The planet would be in danger of being split in two, that has absolutely nothing to do with organic life existing on it yet so has nothing to do with any organic life's egomaniac myths about "need/necessity".

The rain forests being in danger of disappearing has nothing to do with being organic or alive or if other lifeforms exist (EDIT: Okay, the latter was really bad phrasing but you get the gist). Latin was in danger of becoming a dead language and then one day it was.

>"An aside: when I was posting that I thought to myself “why even get involved with someone who is going to turn out to be a total crank?”"

Right, I question things so I'm a right up there with "They're abducting cows, man!" and "They shot Kennedy, dude!" (sarcasm) :-)

>"I don’t think you’re trolling."

Good.

>"Fine, call them inconsistencies."

Then prove to me how I'm inconsistent. Ask yourself, do I seem like I would troll you and not admit when you're making good points?

>"The only reason that's a danger/threat (and not the same thing as two air molecules bumping into one another) is because I want/need my car"

(sigh) How does one "need" a car? 3.4 million years of Stone Age, 6,000 years of Stone Age, 300,000 years of homo sapiens, cars have been around for about a century, I say we humans don't even "need" oxygen in order to breathe oxygen, that that is (for lack of a better term) a self-delusion, and your contribution to a philosophical conversation amounts to "Well, I need my car so NYAH!"

The air molecules bumping into eachother does not involve danger because there would be no consequences. If it was matter and anti-matter on the other hand...

>"and the people on the bus want/need to not be in an accident."

I didn't say there was anyone on the bus since it's irrelevant. My question was about your car having a "need". You say you have "needs", I say you don't, that is the conversation. Danger is a real abstract thing, this planet could have been in danger of a giant asteroid basically splitting it in two before there was any life on it. Does the planet have a "need" to not be split in two? No, just like I do not have a "need" to avoid becoming a drowned corpse if you chain me up and toss me in the ocean. "Need" is just one of our many egomaniac self-delusions to make the universe revolve around us in our minds when it just simply does not.

(Which is okay by the way, life is meaningful regardless.)

>"You're trying to build a philosophical system that has no internal consistency."

So you claim but so far I see no evidence you can back up that claim.

Yeah, gauntlet thrown. Identify my inconsistencies for me, I would (and I swear this on my life) be happy to know them.

>"Then what is justice without myth?"

Justice is mankind's search for an equality that is not absurd. It has nothing to do with myth.

>"How do you explain to me what it is without some sort of narration?"

Clearly (as seen above) easily. :-)

>"Is there something inherently wrong to the idea of a myth/narration?"

Not at all. Why do you ask? Seriously, I'm curious as to what I said that makes you think I was suggesting something that... broadsweeping.

>"Money does have direct influence."

No, it only affects through the imagination. Take a moment and think about it. The coins in "your" pocket, are they still "in date" or do you want to go online to check if people will trade you something for them or tell you to take them to the bank since THEY might?

>"You can use it to influence others, purchase things, or whatever."

"Purchasing" would be a myth so... And a thing can influence without being real, just look at kids running around with towels on their backs pretending to fly and shoot beams from their eyes.

>"It may be a concept, but it affects us in real ways."

Are you talking about it itself or its concept? The concept of Superman, Zeus or Odin affects us in real life but Superman, Zeus or Odin themselves affect us only through the imagination (as fictions do).

>""Do nothing" is a bit of a stretch don't you think?"

Obviously I do not.

"Flaws" are yet another myth, "imperfection" and "perfection" are two sides of the same myth. Say you're on a deserted island; the bowl with a big crack in it can be used for filtration and the bar-brawl-tested half-smashed bottle can be used to cut things. Them being "flaws" exists only in our imagination.

"Your" parked car can be at threat of getting hit by a runaway bus. Does your car have a "need" for not-hit-by-bus-ness?

(Huh, that almost makes it sound like I'm saying survival is imaginary. :-) )

(sigh) What difference does it make what "my position" is or if if I'm "trying to put it forward"? The question is is what I'm saying logical and can you logically argue what I'm saying with me, yes?

I'm trying to provoke THOUGHT. What is wrong with you humans?

EDIT: In other words: Philosophy used to be about questioning things, is it the opposite here on reddit?

It's not arbitrarily considered. If a pegasus does nothing outside our imagination it is a fiction. A horse does something outside our imagination as does danger and English. "Money" and "ownership" do nothing outside our imagination, they are not objective or subjective, they are imaginary.

It's dirt simple.

(sigh) Of course they all fall under concepts. Zeus throwing lightning bolts is a concept, that doesn't make it a non-myth. Harry Potter playing quidditch is a concept. The concept of horse is a real concept and the concept of pegasus is a real concept, all concepts are real, there's no such thing as a fictional concept.

Also, I never said the WORD "must" is not real, it's a word. Quidditch is a word, myth is a word and Kryptonian is a word.

EDIT: Sorry for sighing, it's not personal.

(sigh) A myth is a fiction believed by a large number of people (in the present or in the past) to be a non-fiction. So masturbation causing blindness, alligators thriving in the sewers of New York and Zeus being the cause of lightning while ruling the gods of Mount Olympus.

So no, I'm not misusing the word myth.

EDIT: Your "According to you, nothing is real" nonsense... (sigh) trolling or strawman argument or both, aye, there lies the rub.

Do you honestly think that's intelligent, I point out it's egotistical to believe we "need" to live (when record level of species are going extinct as we speak, even) and you tell me to go kill myself?

Also, where did you get the idea that I "believe in nothingness"? If you mean nihilism, nihilism is stupid.

Believing in "the unimportantness of the human existence" is right for a very simple reason: "Importance" is a myth. We are no more "important" than the T-Rex or the dodo or some genesplicing-technologically created animal in the future.

EDIT: Also, living a happy life is irrelevant to the conversation in general and specifically it's irrelevant to "finding a point in it", you're confusing the myth of "purpose' with sense of contentment or sense of accomplishment etc.

"Must" is a myth i.e. "imperatives" exist only in our imagination. That said, my life is just as meaningful as yours since meaning is omnipresent. I don't know what your idea of spirituality is so I won't go into it.

To navigate life and to be as knowledgeable as possible you want a grasp of what is real and what is myth. Horse and pegasus.

--Some examples of non-imaginary things--

Humans

Horses

Danger

Thoughts

Emotions

Concepts

Language

Communication

Justice and Injustice

Rape

Meaning/Patterns/Consequences

The Truth

Accuracy/Right and Inaccuracy/Wrong

Morality

Good/Benevolence and Evil/Malevolence

Utility

Societies (people being socially structured)

Civilizations (people telling white lies in fear of losing social structure)

Landmasses

Racism

--Some examples of imaginary things--

Kryptonians

Hippogriffs

Santa Claus

Names and Labels (though this might be arguable)

"Necessity/Need"

"Imperatives"

"Rules"

"Laws" and "Crimes"

"Murder"

"Purpose"

"Deserving"

"Should"

"Value"

"Money"

"Owning"/"Property"

"Theft"

(The list is longer, e.g. "Justification" and "Authority", but you get the idea)

Nihilism is stupid and how am I ("We humans think the universe revolve around us organisms, how egomaniac is that?") the narcissist here? :-)

>"Oh, really, that so?"

Yes, that so.

>"Nothing is ever needed if"

No, no "if", period.

>"all you can think about is the existential crisis in your head and the point of existing. If you simply want to live life in itself and enjoy it to its fullest. As Buddha has said, and this is verbatim, life is simply too short to worry about what can't be answered."

I see no relevance to that quote since I just answered it. We navigate better with the truth. (Partly since the truth will outlast life, the stars, even time and space.)

EDIT: And there is no "the point of existing" so I have no idea for what reason you bring that in.

>"So in short, yes, stuff is needed to exist and live."

That is a lie, partly because organisms do not "need" to live.  Humans are just too much of egomaniacs to accept that and grow from it.

>"Rules exist so we can."

Another lie.

>"In this world, there have always been rules and laws"

No. 3.4 million years of Stone Age, 6,000 years of post-Stone Age and not a single "rule" or "law" has ever existed outside the imagination. Same with chess, "crime' and "murder". Although... I guess chess arguably exists as an abstract thing.

>"We use them to navigate our existence and to be able to complete certain tasks and etc. The rules of chess don't float around the table, but Hikaru surely can't be a grandmaster if he doesn't know the rules, can he?"

Calvin and Hobbes can be "grandmasters" of their game of "make up rules as you go". The title means you've learned to play the game well but playing chess IS an entirely imaginary activity, two people can even do it simply through conversation. You and your best friend can make up a dance, i.e. "create the rules" of it, and become masters at it but you're performing an imaginary activity, the "rules" of your new dance never magically leaves the imagination, only the dance (arguably) becomes an abstract non-imaginary thing.

>"It could have ended" but sadly, it has not. I do not care about the fact you believe life on earth doesn't revolve around humans and life. If you have such a depressing selfless belief in your life, so be it."

So not being an egomaniac invariably is a depressing existence? I.e. if the universe does not revolve around you OH WOE IS YOU, WHAT A DEPRESSING EXISTENCE, HOWEVER CAN YOU GO ON?!

(Sorry if that is too agressive, I'm just trying to illustrate my stance about egotism.)

>"You are free to believe life is pointless and humanity is not the center, but what is life's point then?"

It doesn't have one, nothing does. "Purpose" is a myth.  (Proof below.)

>"I am not interested in leading a longer discussion than needed, to be quite frank!"

Nice one but reality remains; neither of us ever "need" to have any conversations  in our lifetimes, our parents could have had other offspring or we could have died a long time ago or life on Earth could have gone extinct before conversation was even feasible, hence no conversation ever "needs" to be any particular length.

--Proof of "purpose" being a myth--

I can use a hammer as a doorstop, as a paperweight, to scratch that hard to reach spot on my back, to smash a window to get out of a burning car or as a sex toy. I can use a dirty rock from a nearby ditch to slam a nail into a wall. That is the nature of utility.

 One brother can go into the woods to cut down a tree, lug it home, work for weeks to make a nice-looking comfortable wooden chair intending to sit in it by the fireplace reading Shakespeare. As he's finished he goes back out into the woods to cut some wood for the fire. His brother comes in, takes the nice-looking comfortable-looking wooden chair no one's ever sat in, chops it up and makes a fire in the fireplace.

 "Purpose" is a myth, it exists nowhere but in our imagination. It doesn't exist in hammers, rocks, trees, wood, chairs, fireplaces, fire, molecules, atoms or organic life.

No, there is no "if" that can make "necessity/need/needing" non-myth. My desire to make apple pie does not magically create the "necessity" of apples existing or the "necessity" of me finding any apples (whether they exist or, say, somehow ceased to exist). "Necessity" exists only in the imagination.

EDIT: Obviously, the same goes for if I'm dying of cancer within a month and desire a cure or dying of thirst in the middle of the Sahara and desire Mountain Dew.

I would not disagree with moral principles being essential for our inner peace i.e. the stance "We cannot have inner peace without moral principles" as I see no way to disprove it... without some grand global social experimentation. :-)

Not at all, it has nothing to do with being doomed. It's a simple question of what's real and what's myth. Horse and pegasus. That also helps us navigate life better; the truth, that is.

Three inaccuracies in your post:

• Nothing is ever "needed" since "need/necessity" is a myth. The drowning man does not "need" to avoid becoming a drowned corpse anymore than the drowned corpse "needs" to avoid becoming a drowning man... or becoming a time traveling unicorn with cybernetic wings.

• "Rules" are also a myth. The "rules" of playing chess do not float around the players invisible like Casper the friendly ghost, we simply pretend they exist for practical reasons.

• "Must" is yet another myth. "Imperatives" never exist outside the imagination the same way "need/necessity" and "importance" (and "value") never do. The universe simply does not revolve around us organisms, all life on this planet could have ended before there were even dinosaurs.