Moral Mess

What is the root of morals?

At 1st glance, it seems like there should be obvious morals, and preset principles. There are actions which seem inherently good or bad. But what is the reasoning behind those actions being perceived as good or bad? Anything we assume to consider inherently bad, comes from the common and relatable experience and knowledge of an action causing someone else harm or pain, while what we consider good, comes from relatable experiences of something being helpful, or making us happier. So basically, assumed morals root from instinctual positive or negative feedback, caused by circumstances.

I further described instinct in another post; Instinctivity, as basically; default feedback triggers, received from genetics. These neurochemical triggers will cause the individual to experience negative reinforcement, in order to avoid circumstances which have been proven over generations, to typically be harmful for that species. Or, experience positive reinforcement, to pursue helpful circumstances. These triggers, are what cause most humans to agree that an action is good or bad. An action which causes positive reinforcement, is considered good, and vice versa.

For eg, physical harm QUITE often causes negative feedback, so an action which causes pain for someone else is considered bad. Hurling a pumpkin at someones face, will QUITE likely cause pain, so doing this, is usually frowned upon.

But at 2nd glance, someone could be an abnormality, and experience the opposing feedback trigger, to what is common. This causes the actions which are blanketed as positive or negative, to be be not so distinct. As every person has minor variances in their instinctual feedback, particular situations of an action, become very difficult to outright distinguish as good or bad.

Beyond the variances in instincts, subconscious influence can cause an additional significant amount of varying feedback, which is experienced by any particular individual. I explained more details of subconscious influence, in a recent post; Subconscious Subjection. Basically, any experiences throughout an individual's life, adjust those feedback triggers. An experience which receives instinctual positive reinforcement, will make a connection in the subconscious memory, with other factors involved in those circumstances. It's the same concept with negative reinforcement, where those additional factors, connected to the experience through sensory perception, will now also cause negative feedback, in the future (whereas otherwise, would not).

For eg, someone is traumatized by severe food poisoning, from eating undercooked chicken from KFC. They would then associate negative reinforcement with the smell of the deep-fried chicken. From that point on, they would consider that smell to be bad. Instinctually, someone would associate the smell of chicken as good, since naturally, chicken is a helpful source of food (in the right quantity). The subconscious influence of the negative situation, altered the instinctual feedback triggers.

All these variances in individual reinforcement triggers, can make a guesstimate of positivity for certain situations, not so distinguishable (as it initially seems). With ever-changing instinctual and subconscious feedback triggers, this causes differing relative perception of what is good or bad. That which can be presumed to be black and white, can actually consist of a lot of color mismatching, creating distinguishability to be a Moral Mess.

Acknowledgement of Ignorance

What does it mean to be ignorant?

How relevant is this concept, for an individual, and for the world?

To avoid being “ignorant” of the technical definition, Wikipedia describes; “Ignorance is a lack of knowledge. …can describe individuals who deliberately ignore or disregard important information or facts, or individuals who are unaware of important information or facts.

It seems to have 2 basic meanings;

1) Awarefully disregarding information

2) Unawareness of information

The 1st type has fairly relatable concepts and factors involved, to my previous post; Obligation via Capability. Awareness of information relevant to the particular context, is a key required component for “obligation”. If someone knowingly disregards that information, they are being “ignorant” of their obligation. Without an individual's ignorance of information that they are aware of, it seems they are not to be blamed for their obligation. In another post; Blame by Consciousness, I described how the amount of awareness of knowledge, reflects the blamability. I also described how comprehension of awareness of information, can be determined by the individual’s estimate of probability of the particular circumstances.

This means, if someone estimates a higher probability of a certain outcome, caused by their actions, then they can potentially be more to blame. This seems that it would follow with the concept of ignorance. If someone is awarefully disregarding information, it would depend on their estimate of probability of the outcome of that information. If they estimate a low percentage, that certain information will cause an outcome, then it seems they are being ignorant to a lower degree, as they were not as “aware” of the outcome. An individual's estimate of probability is ambiguous by our measuring capabilities, and basically indeterminable (at this point), but there should always be some degree of expectation by the person, for any outcome. Even if they themselves don't know the estimate, or expectation, it would still occur, and be relative to ignorance. Best estimate of their estimate, may be the best gauge to go by.

For example, someone driving a car which has had the “check engine” light on, hits a pedestrian because the brakes fail. The drivers estimate of probability of the car having significant problems, just might be relative to their potential ignorance. If the driver estimated the probability to be 80%, of the check engine light causing a dangerous problem, then their ignorance, seems it could be proportionate, at 80%. If they had estimated a 5% probability that the car would have dangerous problems, then they could be 5% ignorant.

As the 2nd type of ignorance is, being unaware of information, there seems to be less blame applicable. If there is less blame, it seems there should be less negative connotation for the term “ignorant”, in that situation. If blame insinuates that the person should have taken an alternate action, it seems logical that awareness of information should be required to take that alternate action. However, perhaps if the person had the potential to gain the relevant information, but chose not to gain the information, they could still be “blamed”. But in this case, the blamable ignorance, is focusing on a separate set of information which the individual is aware of. Instead of ignorance of the direct information at hand, they are ignorant of preceding information; that they should gain more information. It is still a prerequisite for ignorance, to have that higher estimate of probability, that gaining the further information will be useful.

These concepts should be relevant to any individuals life, as understanding how to reduce ignorance, should be a useful method of reducing consequences of the negative outcomes which follow. With the 1st type of (awareful) ignorance, someone can simply, consider more factors of information that they are aware of, which are likely to be involved in the circumstances. Additionally, regarding estimate of probability of each factor, an individual could attempt to more accurately estimate the probability of that factor, by analysing more details of cause and effect involved. Regarding the 2nd type of (unaware) ignorance, there can often be the option of choosing to learn more information ahead of time for a scenario which may potentially occur. There may always be situations where the person is lacking information, of which they would have had no reason to predict the need of, but it seems there is little blamability for this, as there is little potential to avoid it.

By understanding ignorance, those potential improvements for individuals, can be extrapolated for the entire world. If the average individual decreases the consequences of negative outcomes, by better analysing and learning relevant information, then the sum of negative outcomes on the world should also decrease. It seems it should be beneficial to apply the Acknowledgement of Ignorance.

Obligation via Capability

Is someone more obligated to do something, the more capable they are?

By “obligation”, I basically mean; insinuation that an action should be taken to cause a more beneficial outcome. In a post from last yr; Blame by Consciousness, I described how someone could be blamed more, for more awareness of alternate actions they could have taken. This is a similar concept, as blame is the insinuation that a certain action should have been taken, in order to cause a more beneficial outcome. The difference, is that “blame” tends to focus more on an action which was taken, and caused a negative result, whereas “obligation” tends to focus on the lack of an action being taken, which could likely cause a positive result.

Being conscious of capable actions, should be applicable for obligation as well. The similar concept of; an individual’s estimate of the result of their actions, should apply for obligation, in the same way I described it for blame. The more aware someone is, of a potential action which they could take to cause a better result, it seems the more they should be obligated.

But, besides awareness of a potential action, capability seems that it should be quite relevant for obligation. If someone has no capability of performing an action, then it seems logical that they should have no obligation. If someone has significant capability, they could hypothetically have significant obligation. A higher degree of capability, would basically equate to a lower degree of effort. Lower effort, would basically mean fewer resources or energy required. So it seems to follow, that the fewer resources or energy needed to be spent by an individual to cause a positive action, the higher the obligation they have.

If causing a certain positive result requires approximately the same resources, regardless of who is spending the resources, then the obligation would move to whom can spend the least energy to supply those resources. If 1 person has excessive pools of the required resource, then it would cost them less energy to supply those resources.

Which particular beneficial outcomes to be sought after, which can be caused by actions that an individual is capable of (with minimal resources or energy), is another question. Calculating beneficiality, can be quite ambiguous and subjective. From the grander perspective, anyone could potentially consider anything to be beneficial, if it suits their subjective view of something being “better”. But, within a particular context, it seems there can be an objective beneficial outcome. Taking common preferences of, what is “beneficial”, is not a concrete context, but should be a more effective guideline to follow, for determining what is a better outcome for any circumstances. A more concrete context would be, any situation with an agreed upon preferred result. In this case, the most beneficial action, would objectively be, that which causes the preferred result.

If agreeing upon a preferable result, is fundamental for determining an objective beneficial action to cause that result, then an individual’s agreeability, seems to be key, for objective obligation. If someone agrees that a particular result is preferable, yet does not take an action to cause that result (despite ease of resources or energy to cause that action), then it seems they have a higher obligation. Lack of that action, with knowledge of capability and preferable outcome, could be considered ignorance.

If the scenario is considered, of less concrete objectivity, then obligation seems to become less certain. If common preferences of an outcome, is disagreed by a person with ease of causing that outcome, then obligation seems less obvious. If 99.9% of people prefer 1 outcome, yet 1 person disagrees, it seems arguable that they are not obligated, as they dont have the knowledge of that same preferable outcome. Even if they are mistaken by their estimate of beneficial outcome, it seems they are not particularly obligated, with their lack of awareness.

Objective obligation seems to increase, with a lower amount of resources or energy needed by a person, to cause an outcome (which they agree is preferable). When a person disagrees with a preferable outcome, less obligation seems applicable. Either way, capability seems to be a direct route to obligation.

Subconscious Subjection

What are the outlining parameters of subconscious? and how does it function?

I’ve mentioned subconscious in a lot of posts, and described it to a relevant degree, in a few posts, such as; Equation of Action, and Update Pending: Subconsciousness. But I haven’t done a specific focus on its function, including aspects involved in that function. Being subjected to subconsciousness should be incredibly significant and relevant to this world, considering it seems to be a core influence of nearly all animal and human reactions.

My understanding of subconscious, is that it's basically a reaction of the mind, which the individual is not aware of the cause of, to avoid or pursue a situation, based on memory of resembling circumstances. It functions based on recording sensory input of circumstances, and linking positive or negative reinforcement with those recordings, which are saved in memory. As any animal or human goes through any experience, a lot of what they perceive through senses, is recorded as memories. Priority of memory space in the brain, for which senses are saved more accurately as memory, varies from animal to animal, depending on their particular effective use of senses.

But memory priority also fundamentally depends on the reinforcement which is linked by the specific experience. When I refer to reinforcement, I basically mean emotional feedback. I described in a previous post; The Notion of Emotion, more detail on how, what we consider “emotions” (relative to humans), seem to be an instinctual default reinforcement trigger in the brain. These feedback triggers develop slightly, over generations of any particular species, based on what is most effective for that species survival and reproduction. The reinforcement trigger then reacts by default, to a range of circumstances, to cause the individual to avoid or pursue those scenarios, which are typically harmful or helpful (respectfully).

When any animal encounters an experience with any degree of reinforcement, the memory of that experience is prioritized based on the severity degree of the reinforcement. For eg, if a deer has the experience of going near a particular pond, and being chased by a wolf, that deer may receive fear as severe negative reinforcement. The sensory input of the sight of the pond may be recorded with high priority for memory space in the brain, and linked with the negative reinforcement. The deer would then avoid those resembling circumstances of going near that pond, in the future (unless higher priority reinforcement, of perhaps being extremely thirsty, overrides). This could hypothetically benefit the deer, by avoiding that area, where there’s a high probability of wolf chasing them again.

This function applies regularly to humans as well. Humans go through many experiences throughout each day, using subconscious reinforcement. 1 significant difference in humans, is that we regularly have the ability to overpower subconscious influence, using “conscious” awareness. My understanding is that conscious awareness allows the person to access additional memories relative to the factors within the circumstances. Accessing more details of memories takes more time, but generally causes a more accurate reaction, based on analysing more specific factors (and therein the reinforcement linked with those memories of factors) involved in the circumstances.

But any time in which a person has a lack of attent (and conscious memory access), they default to subconscious reaction. This occurs frequently and regularly throughout any common day, when a person is performing repetitive or simple tasks which don't provoke conscious thought. Dreams are likely another common state of subconsciousness, where the mind is inattentively accessing memories of sensory input, and receiving linked reinforcement, in a cycle. Being drunk or sedated would be another common state, where proficient comprehension of factors, is reduced.

Subconscious reaction seems to be a useful function for most animals to avoid or pursue harmful or helpful scenarios. Humans seem to have developed a method of memory access, which is often more effective for situations involving complex circumstances, but still make use of subconscious reaction regularly. Considering it seems to be a core, and common influence on the reactions of virtually every animal and person, it should be significantly useful to keep in mind, the function of the concept of, Subconscious Subjection.

Material Motivation

What causes and effects are there, for and from materialism?

I’ll consider “materialism” to basically mean; putting a significantly high value on material items.

Starting with the cause, instincts are likely to be the core cause of putting a high value on objects. As natural selection would have it, acquiring and keeping as many materials as is feasible, generally increases the probability of that individual to survive, then pass on their genetics. This is true for most animals, and should be the same throughout the history of humanity. This causes a strong selfish instinct for mostly anyone, to try to obtain as many resources as they can. With the development of society and technology, comes more and more material objects to be strived for. As instincts are the core triggers behind all positive or negative reinforcement, this should have a huge impact on the motivations throughout anyone’s life.

A secondary ongoing contributor to the cause of materialism could be subconscious influence. Since the reinforcement triggers, which steer subconscious, are aimed in the direction of acquiring as much as someone can, after repeated circumstances of gaining materials, and feeling the neurochemical reward for that gain, the mind will subconsciously be driven to feel that same reward again. As subconscious functions on relatively simple factors involved in the circumstances, the mind will attempt to repeat any vaguely similar circumstances. Materialism is not unlike a drug. It will cause an unaware subconscious craving for more and more.

Besides circumstantial occurrences triggering the positive reinforcement of gaining materials, the influence of others can also contribute to the subconscious desire to attain more possessions. As another functional aspect of instinct, it also causes a member of a group to copy fellow species-pack-members. This can be a useful learning method in a lot of natural environments, but when it comes to the modern complex circumstances of society, it can cause one’s actions to be replicated by others, in less beneficial circumstances. With the commonality, throughout modern society, to aspire to collect more and more materials, this causes peer perspectives to follow in the same direction.

The effects of materialism can deviate quite significantly, from the usefulness of the concept, as it was in a natural environment. With the alteration to the contextual environment (relative to variables), technological and societal advancements have made materials unnaturally easy to acquire. This means each individual will continue to have the instinct to obtain more and more, despite the scenario of rapidly surpassing quantities of resources which are sufficient for a quality life.

If resources and materials were vastly quantiful, this effect may not cause many problems. But considering available resources for today's humanity, are not majoritively renewable or widespread, the selfish nature of materialism causes inefficient distribution of resources, and collateral damage. I further explained efficiency of distribution, in a post from a couple yrs ago; Distribution Devisal, and further explained the cause & effect of unequal wealth in society, in a post from last yr; Disproportionate Society. From many members of society gaining and keeping vast amounts of unnecessary and irrational materials, comes the effect of many other members left with a lack of sufficient materials. Beyond that, comes contribution to supply & demand, which causes the effect of long term collateral damage to the natural ecosystem. This effect is  caused by wreckless harvesting of materials, which in the long run, will affect all of humanity, by significant alteration to the planets environment.

Besides negative global effects, materialism is likely to have relative hindrances in any individual’s life. It has the effect of overly focusing on obtainable physical objects, and diverts the majority of motivation to acquire either specific, or a high quantity, of objects. The diversion of focus and motivation, leaves other potential qualities of life forgotten. The nature of a subconscious mindset, can also have the effect of irrational decision making in a lot of scenarios. 1 might spend more money or effort than is efficient (even for them as an individual), at a certain time, having the effect of repercussions in other areas of their life.

As seems to be the cause of virtually all human actions, instinct and subconscious influence, are the triggers behind the strive to obtain a lot of possessions. The focus and aspiration to acquire possessions, doesn’t initially seem like it would be too bad a trait in a lot of specific contexts. But, in the larger scope of incorporated variables, there can be profound negative side-effects, to the individuals life, and on a global scale. It seems it could be significantly beneficial for humanity, to generally implement a revisal of the continued use of the perspective, of Material Motivation.

Philosophication

What is Philosophy?

Philosophy takes problems, questions, and concepts which have too little concrete evidence to be "definitively" solved by science. I consider philosophy to be the step prior to science. It applies hypothetical perspectives, using concepts, functions and ideas from other areas of knowledge.

Various perspectives can be taken, considered, and applied, to test accuracy. This is similar to science, but with less distinct factors of the equation. Philosophically testing ideas can be effectively done through hypothesis, then application of logic and reasoning. Once a topic or question is taken, a broad range of potentials for the reasoning of the solution can be considered, then narrowed down by probable cause and effect, using logical comprehension.

Logic seems to be a significant component for the effective practice of philosophy. It’s an effective method for discerning the most probable solution. Using reasoning to determine the most probable cause of any result, logic applies order to, why any given process occurs, by rationalizing whether the function of how the process occurs, fits with common knowledge of function. Without logic, a hypothetical conclusion is likely to be meaningless, as the result would be determined ambiguously.

The other most significant attribute of an individual to practice philosophy, is likely being open-minded. In order to objectively and unbiasedly analyse a topic or question, which has vague variables and isn’t fully understood by any field of expertise, an open mind seems very effective. Related to what I wrote about recently, Closed -mindedness causes a narrow perspective on any given topic, by repetition of actions, thoughts and memory access. A mind that repeatedly uses the same thoughts, will simply use the same information and ideas that already exists on the subject. Similar neural pathways are used each time the individual comes across a situation with similar factors. As I posted a couple yrs ago, Open -mindedness enables the potential to consider various possibilities, and beneficially apply logic, to consider the probability of those new possibilities. This seems like an important component to philosophy, in order to take ideas and concepts from other areas of knowledge and experiences, and then further consider the relative applicability of those concepts toward the topic or question at hand.

Understanding concepts seems like an important aspect of using logic and open-mindedness. As I further described, in a post from last year; Carry the Concept, concepts are a significant tool in the practice of attempting to comprehend the function of an undefined process. Considering philosophy to be a mechanism for explaining an undefined process, carrying a concept can be used as a method to extract the cause and effect from a known concept, then apply the same cause and effect to the new undefined process. If the variables in the new questioned process, are within the maximum extents of the contextual concept, to cause the same effect of result, then the concept is “carryable” to the new scenario.

After the step of philosophy is taken for a questionable process of function, and a probable hypothesis is implemented, the post-applicability is, considering that hypothetical concept for effective application in other concepts which are relative to the new hypothesis. It can be considered by others for agreeable applicability, and by the individual, within other relative areas of knowledge, from that point on. Some hypotheses might eventually have enough evidence to be more accurate and measurable (either by experimentation, or new discoveries (potentially enabled by technology)), and may be bumped to the next measurably accurate step, of science.

As philosophy is a method of considering potential reasoning for an undefined process, to then determine a probable cause, it seems to be a very significant method of narrowing down likely explanations. Within a world of many undefined variables and concepts, philosiphication should be a very useful tool, for any individual to apply beneficial comprehension to various questions in life. Perhaps even more significantly, the most effective tool for humanity to further understand the multitude of unknown workings of the interactions, of the vastly complex combinations of variables in modern day life, may just be Philosophy.

Closed

What is the neural function of being closed-minded?

In a post from a few yrs ago, Open, I explained the application of being open minded. The contrary to that, would be closed minded. The application, would be generally a lack of consideration of alternate potentials through life. The neural function of being closed minded, seems it could be fairly linked with repeated use of memories. In a recent post, Memory Priority, I explained how memories can be prioritized subconsciously or consciously, through reinforcement triggers, or through repetition of memories. These 2 methods of memories being prioritized, seem relevant to the function of being closed minded.

The more times a memory is used, of experience or of information, the more likely it is to be used in the future. This happens through neural pathways being more receptive, the more times they are used, and seems to coincide with common memory use in everyday life. If subconscious is allowed to be in use, then within everyday interactions, simply the most commonly used memory, which resembles the present factors, will generally be triggered by any given stimulus from those factors. Emotional reinforcement can over power these commonly used pathways, if a new experience occurs with significant positive or negative feedback. But after that point, that same new neural pathway connected with the strong reinforcement, will become the new commonly used pathway, if the reinforcement is profound enough. Without new strong reinforcement, the default would likely be, the most commonly used neural pathway to memories/ thoughts.

Allowing these common functions would basically be the process of being closed minded. This causes a lack of considering alternate possibilities to situations that an individual comes across. Someone using these default methods of subconscious memory access, would simply react the same way , within many scenarios involving similar factors. There could be minor variances in factors involved, which could change the outcome to the scenario. But the commonly used neural pathways would still be used, based on the closest inaccurate memory to the sensory input stimulus of the factors at hand, which would not consider the minor variances. New information or new variances, are less likely to trigger any difference of reaction of the individual, which causes a less accurate prediction and reaction to the situation, and therein less beneficial to the individual.

Alternatively, the method of conscious active memory access, in reaction to any given scenario, would allow more memories to be accessed, of relevant cause and effect, for even minor variances of factors within the scenario. With less weight on reusing the same simple (in context) neural pathways, more deviances are enabled within the neural pathways, to allow access to alternate memories of information or experiences, which are relevant to the scenario. With unlocked access to alternate details of memories, the individual can access more accurate information about the cause and effect of any specific factors involved. With more accurate information, the individual can make a more accurate prediction, and adjust their reaction, beneficially. This can allow more effective problem solving, through ability to “think outside the box”, and consider alternate options or possibilities throughout someone's life.

Being closed minded is virtually the opposite of having an “imagination”, as I touched on, in another post, Imaginate. Being imaginative is creating new connections of neural pathways, to various memories, and making new combinations. However, some degree of closed mindedness is useful for quick subconscious access to memories in simple situations. Without the repetition of commonly used neural pathways, thoughts would be ambiguous, as random and irrelevant memories could be accessed to easily. But too much repetition seems to be a more common problem.

Too much repetition of commonly used neural pathways, seems to cause a lack of conscious thought. This reduction of conscious memory access of more detailed memories of information, through lack of varying connections between neural pathways, seems to cause less effective and less beneficial reactions to scenarios involving variances in factors. Being too closed minded, leaves the door for potential improvements, closed.