A scientific definition of good and bad

[Michael 345]

Understood. But I think I have already achieved that goal now. So, I think we are ready here to discuss this idea of mine.

I think NASA is closer to going to Mars. Already you have dropped from
A Scientific definition of good and bad to
this idea of mine

I also meant to ask sometime ago
With this idea of of yours - objective good/bad right? - first WHO gets to decide? next - what about the shades between good (say light or white) and bad (say dark or black)? Or are good/bad absolutes with no grey between?

 

[MattMVS7]

I think NASA is closer to going to Mars. Already you have dropped from
A Scientific definition of good and bad to
this idea of mine

I also meant to ask sometime ago
With this idea of of yours - objective good/bad right? - first WHO gets to decide? next - what about the shades between good (say light or white) and bad (say dark or black)? Or are good/bad absolutes with no grey between?

The idea of mine was a scientific definition of good and bad. As for who gets to decide what is good and what is bad, we still can because things and situations would still hold their own values. But in order to truly see the good value that things hold, then that requires the objective good (our positive emotions). The same idea applies to negative emotions. As for a shade, if you had mixed emotions such as half positive emotions and have negative, then you would be perceiving 50% bad value and 50% good value in regards to certain things and situations. Lastly, let me add something else here which is important:

When I am in my most miserable and hopeless state due to an emotional trauma, then my whole entire reality is the most horrible hell. But when I reach a state of full recovery, I am able to see harmony, peace, joy, beauty, and goodness. This is a perception that I never had during that miserable moment. This is a perception that goes beyond a value judgment. In other words, it goes beyond a mere thought and it is like a blind person recovering his sight. So, I can clearly tell that this is not a matter of my value judgment when I say that I see the peace, harmony, joy, and goodness in my life. This proves that our positive mood and emotional state is the inner light to our lives. I could clearly tell that thoughts themselves of goodness and beauty during my miserable moments did absolutely nothing.

Based on this, I conclude that we might have a sense like sight that allows us to see our entire world as good and beautiful. It is a new sense that has yet to be discovered by science. When we are in a positive mood or emotional state, then that is this sense allowing us to perceive stable qualities of good value as well as enhanced and more profound qualities of good value and beauty in our lives. So, when a person is completely miserable and hopeless and a person comes along, giving the suggestion to just work at developing a new mindset, then that is only focusing away from one's own inner light which is the very vital and precious thing that allows us to see the goodness in our lives in the first place. It is NOT value judgments and our ways of thinking alone that allow us to see the goodness in our lives. It is our new sense that does. Could a blind person make himself see? No, but he could certainly be deluded into thinking he can. Actually, let me make it a better analogy. It would be like people who think they can see the truth, but are really blind to it.

 

[Michael 345]

Based on this, I conclude that we might have a sense like sight that allows us to see our entire world as good and beautiful. It is a new sense that has yet to be discovered by science. When we are in a positive mood or emotional state, then that is this sense allowing us to perceive stable qualities of good value as well as enhanced and more profound qualities of good value and beauty in our lives.

Not going to happen

NASA has a better chance of setting up a retirement home for astronauts on Pluto (the mini planet not the Disney dog)

 

[DaveC426913]

The idea of mine was a scientific definition of good and bad.

What about it makes you think it qualifies as a scientific definition? If it were a scientific definition, we would not be able to poke holes in it.

As for who gets to decide what is good and what is bad, we still can.

Then it's not objective.

But in order to truly see the good value that things hold, then that requires the objective good (our positive emotio ns).

We still have not established this idea of objective good.

And I don't see how you jump from "objective good" to "positive emotions". What I do see is a non sequitur - the latter does not follow from the former.

Based on this, I conclude that we might have a sense like sight that allows us to see our entire world as good and beautiful. It is a new sense that has yet to be discovered by science.

This is what the term "jumping the shark" was invented for.

 

[MattMVS7]

What about it makes you think it qualifies as a scientific definition? If it were a scientific definition, we would not be able to poke holes in it.


Then it's not objective.


We still have not established this idea of objective good.

And I don't see how you jump from "objective good" to "positive emotions". What I do see is a non sequitur - the latter does not follow from the former.


This is what the term "jumping the shark" was invented for.

According to my idea, when this new sense allows you to see the good value in your life, then that positive emotional state would have to be sheer goodness itself. When you observe this emotional state, it would have to literally be pure joy, beauty, and goodness itself. That is why I say that our positive emotions are an objective good. That goodness would be an intrinsic quality (our positive emotions).

 

[DaveC426913]

According to my idea, when this new sense allows you to see the good value in your life, then that positive emotional state would have to be sheer goodness itself. When you observe this emotional state, it would have to literally be pure joy, beauty, and goodness itself. That is why I say that our positive emotions are an objective good. That goodness would be an intrinsic quality (our positive emotions).

No, I get the idea. I mean, it would be nice if it were true. But it is not a theory; it's wishful thinking.

 

[MattMVS7]

No, I get the idea. I mean, it would be nice if it were true. But it is not a theory; it's wishful thinking.

What makes you think that? By you saying this, it makes me think that people are just denying the existence of my own inner light and expecting me to live by the standard of words alone. Words themselves possess no power in my life to give my life any real joy, good value, etc. I need my inner light (positive emotions) to make that happen. For such a blatant and obvious need to be dismissed and denied as nonexistence, especially such a profound need, then that just really gets to me.

I am fed up with people in my life dismissing my inner light as nonexistence and all in my head. They think it is just my value judgment. But, like I said, value judgments are just words and words themselves are empty in my life without my inner light. The values in my life are something that go beyond words which is a value system that takes it to a higher level than a value system based on words alone going through our minds.

I would call my values the consciousness based values since they are values that focus on our own inner conscious light and darkness rather than just judgments (words) alone. These values focus on what it is like rather than what we judge. For example, what it's like to see the color red is not a matter of value judgment. It is a matter of consciousness. So, if a certain state of mind is truly like something beautiful for you (in my case, a positive emotion) and this beauty transcends mere value judgments, then we would call this a beautiful consciousness based value.

It would be pure goodness itself. Consciousness is everything to our human existence and shouldn't be ignored. If it weren't for consciousness, then we would all be dead. As a matter of fact, we would not be able to perceive any qualities in our lives without it. So, what it all comes down to here is what it's like to judge your life as something good and beautiful. Not a simple matter of just judging your life as something good and beautiful. What I was trying to do here with my whole idea is to present it in such a way that would hopefully convince others so that they would understand my need as a real need and no longer dismiss it as fantasy. There are many mysterious about consciousness that we have yet to know and perhaps my idea is a mystery that I have figured out from personal experience.

 

[NotEinstein]

Based on this, I conclude that we might have a sense like sight that allows us to see our entire world as good and beautiful. It is a new sense that has yet to be discovered by science.

I think the word you are looking for is "conscience"; "an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior" (Google's definition). You can certainly interpret this as a sense. Luckily for you, science's got you covered already, and the existence of conscience is fully explained by evolutionary psychology.

In other words: you're quite right that humans have this sense (although it's certainly not objective/absolute), and you're quite wrong when you say that science hasn't discovered this yet.

(And if you don't actually mean "conscience", this thread is indeed in the right sub-section of the forums.)

 

[MattMVS7]

I think the word you are looking for is "conscience"; "an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior" (Google's definition). You can certainly interpret this as a sense. Luckily for you, science's got you covered already, and the existence of conscience is fully explained by evolutionary psychology.

In other words: you're quite right that humans have this sense (although it's certainly not objective/absolute), and you're quite wrong when you say that science hasn't discovered this yet.

(And if you don't actually mean "conscience", this thread is indeed in the right sub-section of the forums.)

This inner voice would not be a thought. Like I said, these are values that go beyond our thoughts.

 

[NotEinstein]

This inner voice would not be a thought. Like I said, these are values that go beyond our thoughts.

Conscience is not a thought either, it's "an inner feeling or voice", so conscience can also be said to "go beyond our thoughts".

 

[MattMVS7]

Conscience is not a thought either, it's "an inner feeling or voice", so conscience can also be said to "go beyond our thoughts".

I'm not sure, but this could be the idea I was advocating all along. I don't know on this one. But if that were my idea, then why would there be so many people out in this world claiming that the misery and hopeless feelings in our lives can make our lives something truly beautiful if we make something of it? That all goes back to my example with the famous and genius miserable artists. My idea, according to what you've just said, would be that it can only be our positive emotions which give us this "good voice" (what I call a surge of inner light energy that goes beyond words) while it can only be our negative emotions which can give us this "bad voice" (what I call a surge of inner dark energy that goes beyond words).

Without emotions, then we could only have a neutral voice (a neither good nor bad voice regardless of what we were to think or believe otherwise). These good and bad voices are what make our lives truly matter to us in good or bad ways. Without this voice, then nothing can truly matter to us regardless of what we were to believe otherwise. It would be like a positive and negative charge. Except, consider our emotions to be the positive (good) charges and the negative (bad) charges. Again, just to recap, positive emotions would be feelings of euphoria which are biochemical induced states by serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, and oxytocin. They could be feelings of joy, love, or a feeling of relaxation. Negative emotions would be feelings of dysphoria such as a feeling of despair, anger, sadness, hopelessness, etc. Having neither a positive nor negative charge would be no charge at all.

 

[NotEinstein]

Sound like a big step towards a scientific theory! The scientific field of psychology has been investigating these kinds of things for years; there's bound to be good and scientific information and data on this topic out there. (Not my field of study, so unfortunately I don't have any good reading tips.)

 

[MattMVS7]

Sound like a big step towards a scientific theory! The scientific field of psychology has been investigating these kinds of things for years; there's bound to be good and scientific information and data on this topic out there. (Not my field of study, so unfortunately I don't have any good reading tips.)

Finally! I've been trying to reach this point all along. I have been creating topic after topic trying to convey my idea, but my methods have failed. I was conveying my idea incoherently in such a way that people deemed it as nonsense and word salad.

 

[NotEinstein]

Finally! I've been trying to reach this point all along. I have been creating topic after topic trying to convey my idea, but my methods have failed. I was conveying my idea incoherently in such a way that people deemed it as nonsense and word salad.

Yeah, quite a few of the word-salad posters turn out to be complete crackpots, so I guess the longer you have to deal with word-salad posters, the easier it becomes to just wave it off as crackpottery. I'm still quite new here, so I haven't "learned that skill" yet.

 

[Michael 345]

Finally! I've been trying to reach this point all along. I have been creating topic after topic trying to convey my idea, but my methods have failed. I was conveying my idea incoherently in such a way that people deemed it as nonsense and word salad.

Before you get to excited you might like to review the following and ponder deeply about the implications for your idea

Extract

The dismissive attitude scientists have toward psychologists isn't rooted in snobbery; it's rooted in intellectual frustration. It's rooted in the failure of psychologists to acknowledge that they don't have the same claim on secular truth that the hard sciences do. It's rooted in the tired exasperation that scientists feel when non-scientists try to pretend they are scientists

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201601/the-is-psychology-science-debate?amp

And follow up with

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/13/news/la-ol-blowback-pscyhology-science-20120713

 

[MattMVS7]

Before you get to excited you might like to review the following and ponder deeply about the implications for your idea

Extract

The dismissive attitude scientists have toward psychologists isn't rooted in snobbery; it's rooted in intellectual frustration. It's rooted in the failure of psychologists to acknowledge that they don't have the same claim on secular truth that the hard sciences do. It's rooted in the tired exasperation that scientists feel when non-scientists try to pretend they are scientists

https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/blog/theory-knowledge/201601/the-is-psychology-science-debate?amp

And follow up with

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/13/news/la-ol-blowback-pscyhology-science-20120713

Understood. But now that I have made my idea clear, you can go back and reread my opening post in this topic.

 

[DaveC426913]

What makes you think that? By you saying this, it makes me think that people are just denying the existence of my own inner light and expecting me to live by the standard of words alone. Words themselves possess no power in my life to give my life any real joy, good value, etc. I need my inner light (positive emotions) to make that happen. For such a blatant and obvious need to be dismissed and denied as nonexistence, especially such a profound need, then that just really gets to me.

I am fed up with people in my life dismissing my inner light as nonexistence and all in my head.

Woah woah woah. Woah.

No one is denying you your feelings, your experience, your perceptions of them or how you interpret them.

But that is not what you've brought here. You've brought your personal experiences wrapped in the guise of a theory that you'd like to see objectively recognized and analyzed by a bunch of strangers on a science forum.

You need to think long and hard about whether this is your journey, your feelings (which don't need to be justified) that you are recounting, or whether you wish to remove your personal involvement in it and try to develop it as something independent of your feelings. You can't do both.

You are in for a world of hurt if you try to get acknowledgement of a personal trauma by pretending it is part of a theory to be developed and analyzed by strangers.


And with that, I am going to extract my foot from the quicksand I've stepped into, and move back on to dry land.

 

[MattMVS7]

Woah woah woah. Woah.

No one is denying you your feelings, your experience, your perceptions of them or how you interpret them.

But that is not what you've brought here. You've brought your personal experiences wrapped in the guise of a theory that you'd like to see objectively recognized and analyzed by a bunch of strangers on a science forum.

You need to think long and hard about whether this is your journey, your feelings (which don't need to be justified) that you are recounting, or whether you wish to remove your personal involvement in it and try to develop it as something independent of your feelings. You can't do both.

You are in for a world of hurt if you try to get acknowledgement of a personal trauma by pretending it is part of a theory to be developed and analyzed by strangers.


And with that, I am going to extract my foot from the quicksand I've stepped into, and move back on to dry land.

Alright, I understand now. I thought that people were denying and objecting to my personal experience. With that being said and with that out of the way, I am instead going to approach this as an idea rather than some sort of validation of my personal experience. I think it is an interesting idea after all. I was approaching this both from an idea perspective as well as a validation process. But we don't need the validation process anymore. So, continuing on here. If you read my recent posts here, one person has actually found my idea interesting and it is through having a discussion with that person that my idea has become clear. Now, how would we go about testing that idea? I can't think of any experiment. I gave an experiment in my opening post and you can go ahead and read it if you haven't already, but I think a better experiment needs to be done as well.

I would like to add one last thing. In the event that I struggle with the worst unhappiness and misery of my life and it is ongoing, I would become suicidal. I am doing just fine now though. But in that pretend suicidal situation, that is when others would call me names such as weak, selfish, cowardly, etc. So, it is during this moment that people would be denying and objecting to my personal experience (i.e. my need for my positive emotions). Personally, if a loved one were in my position, then if nothing worked within the reasonable time frame of 1-2 years to significantly or fully bring back the goodness and beauty in his life, I would allow him to end his life and not call him names. I think it is justified that he ends his life in such a situation. It would be cruel and inconsiderate of me to expect him to drag his life on and on like this for any given expectation whether it be to prevent me from grieving and others from grief, or to still try new things that might help.

 

[spidergoat]

I think I get what you are hinting at. Since everything is objectively without quality, that is to say, all perception is subjective; if one has a sense of reality, that sense must always be an approximation of reality, from their emotional perspective. What we call emotions are value judgements on the nature of reality. Emotions turn undifferentiated perception, the raw data of experience, into a sense of reality that can be dealt with by the conscious mind. Since emotions influence our perception of reality, they do in a sense, create reality.

 

[MattMVS7]

Sound like a big step towards a scientific theory! The scientific field of psychology has been investigating these kinds of things for years; there's bound to be good and scientific information and data on this topic out there. (Not my field of study, so unfortunately I don't have any good reading tips.)

Let me actually add one last thing to my idea. These emotions are the good and bad voices themselves which means that these voices are always there. Without emotions, then we cannot have these good and bad voices. A stable positive mood would be like a singer constantly humming a good tune while positive emotional states would be like the singer loudly singing a good tune.