In the spirit of getting to know each other on the board (I think that was your original intent here before we answer questions about our deepest desires, loves, etc.) Here's a bit about me...

My name is Bob Scopatz. Jack Onus is the lead character in the story I've been writing for too long and now have the desire to finish from beginning to end!!! Wow! I came here because I credit OSC with writing the best characters in all of literature, not just SciFi and I wanted to learn. Ended up in a writers' group and poking around the forum.

I have a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology (rats & pigeons in memory research). My career is in traffic safety -- rats in mazes are about the same as people in traffic. I travel a great deal and love what I do. I also realize I'll never get rich doing it and it does leave a certain creative void (one is not allowed to create fiction in traffic safety research until much later in one's career, ha ha ha!).

I live in Central Florida with my lovely wife and our menagerie (dog, cat, love birds, and a couple of dozen finches). No kids, and no desire to have them. Oddly, we live within a few miles of Disney World and have a house full of Disney stuff. Just big kids ourselves.

I try to write hard SF, but since I know the most about psychology (and a bit about biology and less about physics and chemistry) my stuff comes off more like a study of humanity than about how technology affects humanity. I like to write about the what would happen if humans had sentient competition on the earth.

I'm a member of Hatrack Group 9. We are taking a breather (at the end of the summer) because of various problems with computers and people actually having a social life.

I always enjoy your comments on the board here.

That's it. That's everything. I wouldn't even get up in the morning, or anyother time, for that matter, unless I thought there was something that I could do in that cause.

As it turns out, there is a lot that I not only can, but must do, in that cause. The problem is that I seem to stink at all of it, or most of it anyway. I just have to do my best, but that's not much.

It's like the old saw.

I have a certain number of things to accomplish in this life. Right now, I'm so far behind that I'll never die.

1) To always tell the truth. Lies are base.

2) Never to make a promise I can't keep, and do my utmost to keep those I make.

3) Never cheat anyone else of what they deserve. Or rather, pay attention to what everyone's earned and be sure they aren't shortchanged.

4) Always stand up for the weak against the strong.

5) Don't let considerations of personal gain or loss, whether of money, prestige, friends, or recognition, affect any judgement.

6) Never take or accept anything, no matter how trivial, that doesn't rightly belong to me.

My sheer bloody-mindedness about all this is constantly landing me in trouble, though! I'm sure everyone thinks I'm a stubborn, hard-nosed, so and so. But I feel sorry for people who can't (or don't think they can) afford the luxury of honor. It would take something pretty extreme to persuade me to give it up. I'm astounded at people who sell their honor for spare change. They must not think very much of themselves.

Then I begin to think it's only pride, after all. To be craven is what would really take courage! I don't know if I could be brave enough for that!

So, I'm off the hook anyway.

As for the truth, Victor Hugo in Les Miserables makes an excellent case for lying out of compassion as better than remaining "virtuous." I for one agree with him. If we lose our compassion, honor is meaningless.

Do the RIGHT thing? Seems to me that there are few instances in which we know, with certainty what the right thing is. If we structure our lives so we only act when we know what the RIGHT thing is, we'd spend most of our time in stasis. Not that I'm trying to convince you that situational ethics is the way to go, more like it is our lot in life to be forced to act on incomplete data. If you lack omniscience you are bound to do the completely wrong thing from time to time.

What matters is intention and hard work, seems to me. Humility is important in that we don't think more of our meager cognitive processes than we ought to. But finally, in the long run, I think it matters most how we treat each other. If you act from kindness and compassion, even if the outcome is less than optimal, it is not evil.

If the truth is destructive, then you need to find a better truth. The truth never destroys, because it sets us free to make meaningful choices.

When you don't know the truth, you are not free. You are nothing more than a machine, responding erratically to impulses that you do not control. Being turned into a machine is the ultimate personal destruction.

No meaningful choice exists when we don't know whether or not we are doing the right thing, so action in the absence of that knowledge is irrelevant. Thus, acting without knowing what is right is the same as choosing inaction.

If you believe that there is a point in doing something, then you must believe that you know what the right thing to do is.

I don't know whether this makes any sense at all, but I feel it strongly. I don't always know what the perfect thing is, but I usually know the general direction. I stike out in that direction, and hope that I am getting closer. I refine my ideas when I can. I try to learn. And that is all that I can do. Try my best. Avoid failures that I can avoid, seek success that I can find.

Doing the right thing is never simple, even when you know the perfect way. In fact, that's when it's the hardest.

But I don't understand your last comment.

I can certainly write about characters that are sympathetic, yet have weaknesses that I don't share. After all, I have weaknesses too, and I respond to all of them in pretty similar ways. Thus, I can imagine how I would respond to weaknesses that I don't have, and then apply that to a character. Also, I can imagine a character having strengths that I don't always have, but that I try to share. Same process, because I'm always trying to imagine myself as being stronger and better than I am, even more than I imagine being weaker and more foolish.

I think that we all do that, at least the part about imagining ourselves with some ability that we feel the lack of. Very few people have so little imagination that they never wish to have strengths that they do not, in fact, possess.

But what about showing a character that has a strength that we do not want for ourselves? Like being a good Catholic? I'm not a Catholic and I don't want to be a Catholic, so how could I make that a strength in my character? I would tend to portray it as a limitation. Or another character that I wrote a story about, an utterly conscienceless killer that was the absolute slave of his controllers. I thought of those qualities as being limitations. I think being able to kill is fine, but not even being able to know what your doing, that isn't a strength. It's a weakness. Only awareness of the moral...

Examples:
I know/believe that you are my brother so I will treat you as such.

I know/believe that everyone is intitled to respect so I will strive to be respectful to all.

I know/believe that it is wrong to steal so if it isn't mine I'll leave it where I find it or do my best to find the owner.
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A building has integrity because it is built in such a way that it can go from one minute to the next and stay a building. It the order were disturbed, the materials might all still be there, but the building would be gone.

I am myself. There is an order that dictates and predicts my actions. I remain myself by acting in a manner consistent with myself. If I change, then that metaphysical action must be in accordance, at some level, with all the metaphysical actions that I have taken before.

The principle that governs the choices I make is the belief that I am a CHILD OF THE KING. I am in training to one day govern as he does. Therefore my choices are colored or shaped by my desire to be worthy of that position. I know who I am and who I want to someday be. I am not alway successful in my training. That is why there is repentence.

My building is still under construction! It will change many times I suspect, but it will be what it was meant to be. I will guard its integrity. Hopefully, as I learn my building skills will improve and the product of my efforts will be a mansion worthy of a queen!

Wasn't this thread about getting to know each other. While I'm intrigued by the various life philosophies expressed here, I think the original intent was to find out who we are, what we do with our time aside from writing, and what our interests are.

I am father of three and husband of one!

I live in Salt Lake City Utah where I perform menial tasks for various companies in order to pay bills and survive.

I was born and raised in the great state of Utah -- but have had the opportunity to live in California and Colorado. (Okay I'm a westerner and admit it.)

My main hobbies are writing and brooding.

Most of my time is spent with my family. If only I didn't have to go to work so I could spend more time with them.

My name is Laurie Weston. I live in utah, but still consider myself an Oregonian. I am 46 and have never been married. I am an incurable romantic and am still hoping to meet the right man. I sell shoes but am seriously considering a change of careers. I would like to make enough money to actually live on it. I am an unpublished poet and am currantly working on a what I hope turns out to be a book. What else do you want to know?

Name: Richard Chun-Ling Chiu.

Birthdate: Sept. 16, 1972.

Hair: Brown. Eyes: Brown. Complextion: Scaly.

Height: 1.76 m. Weight: 82 kg.

Occupation: Starving Writer.

Location: Northern Virginia.

Fields of Expertise: Survival.

Well, anything else, you'll just have to ask.

Oh, by the way... I just got this riddle.

When asked this riddle, 80% of kindergarten students got the answer, compared to 17% of Stanford University seniors.

It is greater than God ~
more evil than the devil ~
the poor have it ~
the rich need it ~
and if you eat it, you will die.

What is it?

Okay, it took me a minute or so to get the answer. I'm convinced that if you hadn't said that thing about little kids getting the answer, I probably never would've solved it. Good one.

I personally favor a system of independent learning experience with certification awarded based on comprehensive objective testing. In fact, I don't think that any part of the learning process should be under institutional control, only the certification procedure. It would make getting a degree vastly cheaper and I guaruntee that it would improve markedly the level of expertise that degree holders would display.

Whatever. What was this topic about? Oh. Well, I just have to say, to him that hath, shall more be added on, while he that hath not shall have even that he has taken away. True indeed.

At times I loathe it, other times I find it exhilerating. Actually, it's both, much of the time. It's like standing alone against a great host and destroying them by the sword, cutting through the enemy ranks in the sure knowledge that I'm unstoppable. There is no way to describe it. And in the midst of such a fight, there is only the blade and the enemy, somehow defined by some distant concept that frames and....

Well, anyway, it's like that. Sort of. I know what I'm doing, and what I'm going to accomplish, but I just can't see right now how the one ties in to the other.

Regardless of that, however, you have me a bit worried. I have known people who set themselves unrealizable goals and who also lack the capacity for self-forgiveness. I can't tell if that's an apt description of you, but it sounds like it might be not far from the mark.

To me, it is a dangerous path to follow in life. There's nothing wrong with not knowing how to connect where you are with where you want to be. But describing it as an armed struggle with you as the invincible swordsman? What happens when you find out you aren't invincible? What happens when you find out that the world has infinite shades of grey where you were searching for black and white?

As for your notion of shades of grey, I have to say that it makes no sense. Shades of gray are defined by reference to black and white. As a matter of fact, given any two shades of gray, we can tell which one is brighter because of reference to black and white. To say that everything is gray, and that there is no black and white, is to deny that there are any shades to the gray, it would all have to be uniform.

Obviously, if there is no better or worse, then there is no point to telling me that I am following a dangerous path. In fact, there is no point in life, death, or anything else at all.

In fact, I happen to know that there is Good, and Evil as well. I've seen them, and while I cannot understand the totality, I know by experience that they exist.

I fully agree with you when you say--

quote:

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I happen to know that there is Good, and Evil as well. I've seen them, and while I cannot understand the totality, I know by experience that they exist.

---

I have seen Good and Evil as well. They do exist. I do not buy this postmodernist mood that all truth is relative, that there are no absolutes. The idea that all reality is mere shades of gray is a convenient way to avoid taking a moral stand, of shrugging one's shoulders at evil so as to not appear "judgmental" (seemingly the only "sin" left in our postmodern, postChristian, postjudgmental world).

Re Jackonus' statment:

quote:

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I have yet to see an absolute that wasn't someone else's example of a malleable moral precept.

---

True enough, what some consider absolutes others will consider malleable moral precepts. So what? That doesn't prove the absolute is not absolute. It only shows that some people refuse to accept the absolute for what it is. In my mind, the law of gravity, the speed of light, and "thou shalt not murder" are all absolutes, embedded in the very nature of reality. Some might deny that gravity is an absolute, and throw themselves off a tower, resulting in their demise. Others might deny the absolute nature of a moral law, but that doesn't make the moral law any less absolute. It just means that those who deny the absolute make fools or monsters of themselves.

--wizzywig

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Check out my Working Writer's Website at: http://userzweb.lightspeed.net/jdenney/

Not killing one another is a great principle and a wonderful example of what I'm talking about. Does that absolute mean we should all be conscientious objectors? According to my church's doctrine, the answer is "no." According to our faith, I am expected, by my human nature, to put my life before others' lives. If I am threatened, I am forgiven for killing the person who threatens me. By extension, if the lives of those I love are threatened, I am forgiven for killing... I owe allegiance to my country (by extension of having love for its people) and should protect it with deadly force if necessary.

I think that muddies the water sufficiently to say we've got a shade of gray here. Scholars have struggled for thousands of years over the apparent inconsistency of the "shalt not kill" message in the Mosaic law versus the various orders to kill off the rivals (and "do not suffer them among you," or "kill them all or they will remain a thorn in your side") elsewhere in the Old Testament. I'm not convinced I have the one and only handle on this argument. Seems to me that is our biggest example of situational ethics and its burned right into the cornerstone of the faith shared by most of us on this board.

As for our visual system and our perception of black, white and every shade in between, I have two points:

1) While I certainly agree that our perceptions color our thought processes, it's a big stretch to argue that how we visually process black, white and monochromatic shades has any DIRECT analogy to our moral sense.

2) You are wrong about how we perceive shades of gray. It doesn't require a direct reference to black or white to perceive the difference between two shades of gray. The number of photons reaching the eye from each "sample" is good enough.

And I wasn't trying to argue in favor of situational ethics. What I was trying to say is that I feared you might lack a capacity for self forgiveness, Survivor. Self forgiveness, like self love, is the basis for our forgiveness (or love) of others (at least that's what the Bible says, if you want me to quote "The Source.") I'm not worried that you might not feel invincible in the future. I'm worried about what happens to you when you hit the wall of your philosophy of "invincible until proven otherwise." Do you literally die when vanquished? If so, then I question your nom-de-board.

That's none of my business, and your's and Wizzywig's replies have sufficiently chastised me in that regard. Basically, I wasn't trying to make you question yourself or start doubting your ability to reach the pinnacle. I was just worried and should've kept it to myself.

Heck, the statement "There are no moral absolutes" is meaningless unless it is true in some objective sense. If any statement about fundamental morality can be true in an objective sense, then it is a moral absolute. Ergo, if you're statement is true, then we may safely assume that it represents a moral absolute. That would mean that it was false.

Also, the original commandment is 'thou shalt not shed innocent blood.' An unsubtle distinction. I think that we can all see that it makes a difference. Very few cultures thought highly of the shedding of innocent blood, and most of us abbhor those that do.

Does everyone agree about moral absolutes? no. Does everyone agree about the speed of light? Surprise, no. Ask the man on the street the precise measure of the speed of light, and he probably won't know. Ask the average woman, and she'll probably even admit that she doesn't know

Anyway, I'd have to be dead to stop fighting, so yes, if I'm proven non invincible, then that would mean I was dead

As you can see, I don't use a pseudonym, (as I have said before, I usually end up just telling everyone what my name is, anyway, and haven't had any nicknames worth using here).
I was born in California, but live in Maryland because my husband is stationed at Ft. Detrick.
I will not tell anyone how much I weigh.
However, I have brown, curly hair and more-or-less brown eyes. (They sometimes look pretty green, but it's muddy).
Other than writing short fiction and poetry, I play Irish and Bluegrass fiddle, (I've had classical training, but didn't play for 11 years so it sort of fell to the wayside...), and read, read, read.
I have a dog, and no kids.
Right now, I'm a manager for Little Caesar's Pizza and am seriously getting ready to quit and find a nice, stable office job. (I *hate* office jobs, but the money/schedule are so much better that it's worth the trade-off).
I'm a card-carrying member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, a Medeival social/re-enactment group with chapters world-wide, and a motley-wearing member of the Militant Society of Bards.
As far as my philosophy on life goes, I just try to do what's right, and I depend on my instincts to tell me what that is. I have found that, the times I ignored my instincts, I got into more trouble than if I'd paid attention and done what I thought of first. Doing the "right" thing usually means being kind, putting others before myself, and considering the feelings of others.
The concept of the "lie of kindness" is something I have lived by and am trying to quit. It's that very idea that nearly destroyed my marriage and I won't take the chance of it happening again.
I also believe that it's silly to require those who want to teach History, English, or Music, to pass math and science classes, but that's just the spoiled two-year-old in me talking.
As far as the "black and white" vs. "grey areas" debate, my feeling is that one has to have a great deal of moral strength to live in absolutes and survive because, as fallible human beings, we are bound to fail in some way. Either we fail ourselves, or others. I understand the concept of "fight or die", but it isn't necessarily literal. I fight to keep my independent mind every day. I don't watch TV, (why do you think they call it "programming?"), I think about how those in power can take away my freedom and my rights as an individual and try to figure out ways to keep that from happening, and, rather than having any paticular "brand loyalty" or attending any church in paticular, I have a personal relationship with God that I feel good about. These are battles I fight every day, and I know that they are honorable.

Jeannette

Anyway, thanks for clueing us all in.

Misapplication of Darwinian theory to society is fraught with all sorts of obvious complications. On top of that, the inferior thinkers who attempted it based their conjectures on a faulty understanding of what Darwin was saying. So, what they ended up with is, predictably, a mess.

And, it has nothing whatsoever to do with moral absolutes once you reduce the social Darwinism construct into any semblance of logical analysis.

As for your broader point about moral absolutes, I think humans do have a hard time living without them. That's probably why they work so hard to invent them, and, some of us, work even harder to enforce them. I think the experience of the ages teaches us, however, that moral absolutes are like perfection, wonderful in theory and impossible in practice.

And every band of humans who claims to adhere to a set of moral absolutes claims that they were handed down from an omniscient, omnipotent 3rd party who is above humans (or created us), and thus has the right to set the standards. But, those personal contacts from the All Mighty are lost in the dim recesses of history and are now completely a matter of faith. The faithful adhere because of their belief, not because their god personally communicated the law to them.

Those of us who are "religious" are okay with that -- we take comfort in our faith and even wear it as a badge of distinction. Those who are not religious quite rightly point out that our faith need not be theirs and therefor our laws and absolutes need not be the same as theirs.

But it is not our place to say who is right and who is wrong. We can lead through example by living a good and virtuous life by our standards. We can talk about what we believe. But that's that.

I find it hard to fathom that anyone, especially the most faithful among us, would ever have the hubris to say that he/she has THE set of moral absolutes and that no-one else does. The human condition is one of fallibility and striving and uncertainty. Were it not so, we would all believe the same things and do the same things and we'd all be perfect already.

But the idea that humans are fallible implies that they make mistakes, do things that are wrong instead of right. You cannot believe that humans are fallible without believing that there is a standard of right and wrong beyond what is merely human.

In other words, if there is no such thing as right and wrong, there is no such thing as fallibility. Therefore, we are all infallible. The fact that we are not implies that there is, in fact, right and wrong.

Besides, anyone that has a lot of experience with moral absolutes knows that they are both too simple to be put into words and too complex to be comprehended by the human mind. It all comes down to just doing what's right. But learning to do it consistently is beyond mortal ability.

Still, I see your point about inventing moral absolutes. It's hard to live the real ones, so let's give up and live some cheap knock offs. Loving our neighbor is too hard. Let's just tolerate him until he moves away or dies. Loving ourselves is to hard. Let's just please ourselves. Sacrifice is too hard. Let's just contribute.

The problem is, the cheap knock offs don't produce the same effect as the real thing. They don't make us better or more Godly. They just affirm us in our mere humanity.

my is Paul Hildebrandt,
i live in the grat (yeah right) state of Kansas no Dorothy comments please,
i'm a senior in high school,
going to major in art next year,
write poems, stories, plays and canticles (yes I hav one) for fun,
read all the time (am working on the Ender series for my fifth time, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Mainenence, the Bible, Hamlet, The Gunslinger series, and others the list is long),
weigh 250lbs and am damn proud of it (12.5 percent body fat so Ha Ha, I'm barely even chubby.),
can bench 275lbs,
and could squat 500lbs three years ago when my back went out, haven't tried it since,
I have no philosophy I find them too confusing and that is my philosophy on philosophies,
i have an interesting wardrobe and my hair and eye color changes on a regular basis.

did I forget anything?

I'm starting a new post on moral absolutes so we don't swamp your triumphant arrival with rantings about this other, less important topic.

Oh, by the way, here's a link to the Moral Absolutes topic that Jack started.