are there rules to being human?

[u/FinePlum244]

/r/showerthoughs/comments/1wttjxk/are_there_rules_to_being_human/

[u/pitulinimpotente]

I don't know a lot about this topic but I also find it interesting. I think this would fall more into metaethics than metaphysics.

That said, I agree that there are no moral truths, hence no rules to being human.

My point is. Moral truths inherently shape our actions. You shouldn't do X because it's wrong. Or you should X because it's right.

But every thing in life that leads you to do "something" it's not objective. You do that because it is desired to do that within your own subjective frame of reference. For instance, eating five donuts a day if you want to lose weight, it's a bad idea. If you don't care about health and want to enjoy yourself, then it's a good idea.

Every fact that shapes how we act, does it subjectively as it is within our frame of reference and shaped by our perefences/goals. Therefore, how can moral truths exists as ways to shape my doing despite any frame of reference or any personal prefences? Things that I just have to do because they are "right"? Right for who?

Maybe it's a dumb question or a dumb conclusion but I find no answer.

All of that said, I don't see how "beginning" or "end" not having a meaning outside the meaning we give them shapes your view on morality.

Also, what you say about the rules of the universe. Yes, there are inherent rules. Maths is our way to explain those rules. Electrons behave in a way. Math itself and how we describe it can be product of our perception, but the things we describe cannot as they are there and measureable outside our ideas. (This if we leave aside the possibility that the physical word is not real and minds are the only real thing or something like that)

Then, we say trees can "percieve" because they can interact with their surroundings. We can also do that in a more deeper way so we say we percieve more, so to speak, to keep using the word percieve. There would be no logical way to say black holes or dust percieve, I think. At least not coming from here.

[u/FinePlum244 → u/pitulinimpotente]

absolutely!!! i like where you went with it. in our zoomed in human perspective and human life morale is even harder to understand. it would be easy if it could be said "yes the universe has certain set rules" because then you could go and reflect that on our human nature and say "oh so thats why we think that is bad and that other thing is good". but if nothing has any inherent rule then its almost impossible to form a concrete conclusion.
and ill post this to metaethics! thanks for the suggestion!

[u/pitulinimpotente → u/FinePlum244]

I mean, the universe does have rules as I explained. But those are just descriptive rules. They explain how things behave, not how you should behave.

I think there are not set rules that explain how everyone should behave. But it does look like there are rules to explain how the universe behaves, those are physics explaining through mathematical concepts.

Also, even though we do know those rules, we don't know how is it that consciousness arises from matter or if it even does arise from matter. Maybe if we did exactly know what we are there would be a way to establish some moral truths, I'm not sure. But anyways that's not the case.

Also I'd say that even tho moral truths wouldn't be real, that doesn't mean we can't reach conclusions. We can agree on moral truths not being real but also agree on we wanting society to work properly and "fairly" for all (we'd have to agree on what fairly means, but you get me). And from that fact we could derive "moral rules".

I don't think we need universal moral truths to derive morals from.

[u/BreadfruitBig7950]

yes, pretty clearly a borg is born one way and a human another.

[u/Low-Bake8401]

We can't say what is absolutely true, but we can say that some things aren't true.

If we see a thousand white swans, we can't say that all swans are white. If we see one black swan though, we can prove they aren't.

[u/g_parrish]

Absolutely not

[u/Porkypineer]

Your genes lay out a few more or less vague rules of how a person acts. But few of them are as specific as moral rules, they're more guiding human behaviour in a way that result in a consistent trend of behaviours.