Can morality be reduced to merely having good intentions?

[McCulloch]

I think that some people who support abortion have good intentions, and are generally concerned about women's rights. These are not the grounds of immorality though.

Even people with good intentions can act immorally. Or is it that all that is required, in your view, to be moral is to have good intentions?

To be moral is to have good intentions. If I slip on a bannana peel and kill a dog, it is not an immoral action because it was not my intent to do so.

Can morality be reduced to merely having good intentions?

[LiamOS]

All perception is a process. We are trying to determine if there is meaning in these processes.

What is meaning?

What I have been trying to get across is that both intellectual constructions and opinions that come from direct consciousness are both subjective. There is no reason to reject one subjectivity in favour of another.

And? You've been making positive assertions, so in light of your philosophy it is only fair that you retract them.

[mgb]

All perception is a process. We are trying to determine if there is meaning in these processes.

What is meaning?

The material universe is not a fundamental existence. It is literally not there in any substantial way. Scientists have gone into the atom and discovered that it is mostly 'empty' space. They have discovered that what seems to be physical stuff does not exist as such. When energy condences into matter it is because it cools and assumes certain geometries. We have names for these geometries - 'proton', 'fish', 'star', 'mountain' etc. But all that is really there is energy. Matter is geometry and as such it does not have a fundamental existence. It is not objectively there in the naive way our senses persuade us it is. There is only the energy field.

The physical universe is a 4-dimensional image of the energy field. Like all moving images it is telling us a story about the energy field that is its source. It seems to theists that the universe's energy field has condensed in such a way as to optimise the physical image's creative potential.

Questions about meaning are concerned with why this energy field engaged in such prodigious creativity. Can we discern, by way of image, analogue and metaphor if the physical image is representative of a living force in the energy field? Is the physical image descriptive of the sublime? Is physical beauty a descriptive methphor of something more sublime? This is what is meant by 'meaning'.

[LiamOS]

Before I commence, I'd like to call your attention to the rules of the forum. In particular, rule 5.

The material universe is not a fundamental existence.

Please support this assertion with logic or evidence or retract it.

It is literally not there in any substantial way.

Please support this assertion with logic or evidence or retract it.

When energy condences into matter it is because it cools and assumes certain geometries. We have names for these geometries - 'proton', 'fish', 'star', 'mountain' etc. But all that is really there is energy. Matter is geometry and as such it does not have a fundamental existence. It is not objectively there in the naive way our senses persuade us it is. There is only the energy field.

You previous statements do not follow from this, and that matter is not as we perceive it does not mean it doesn't exist.

Questions about meaning are concerned with why this energy field engaged in such prodigious creativity.

This assumes there is a 'why'.

Can we discern, by way of image, analogue and metaphor if the physical image is representative of a living force in the energy field? Is the physical image descriptive of the sublime? Is physical beauty a descriptive methphor of something more sublime? This is what is meant by 'meaning'.

So meaning is entirely subjective?

[mgb]

Before I commence, I'd like to call your attention to the rules of the forum. In particular, rule 5.

The material universe is not a fundamental existence.

Please support this assertion with logic or evidence or retract it.

But this is what modern physics has been telling us for decades!!! There is no fundamental physical substance*. No scientist has ever discovered it. Matter is energy.

E = mc^2. Mass IS energy. Have you not heard??? This is common knowledge!!! It has been since Einstein discovered that equation. Nothing of what I have said is from me personally. It's the standard view of the universe and has been for a long time!
Identify a fundamental physical substance and I will retract what I have said.

*The keyword here is 'fundamental'. Think about it...

[LiamOS]

But this is what modern physics has been telling us for decades!!! There is no fundamental physical substance*. No scientist has ever discovered it. Matter is energy.

E = mc^2. Mass IS energy. Have you not heard??? This is common knowledge!!! It has been since Einstein discovered that equation. Nothing of what I have said is from me personally. It's the standard view of the universe and has been for a long time!
Identify a fundamental physical substance and I will retract what I have said.

*The keyword here is 'fundamental'. Think about it...

Of course I'm aware of that equation.
I still don't see how that proves that there isn't a fundamental reality, though.

You seem to be making an implicit bare assertion fallacy.

[mgb]

But this is what modern physics has been telling us for decades!!! There is no fundamental physical substance*. No scientist has ever discovered it. Matter is energy.

E = mc^2. Mass IS energy. Have you not heard??? This is common knowledge!!! It has been since Einstein discovered that equation. Nothing of what I have said is from me personally. It's the standard view of the universe and has been for a long time!
Identify a fundamental physical substance and I will retract what I have said.

*The keyword here is 'fundamental'. Think about it...

Of course I'm aware of that equation.
I still don't see how that proves that there isn't a fundamental reality, though.

You seem to be making an implicit bare assertion fallacy.

I never said there is no fundamental reality. I said physical substance. All is energy.

[mgb]

So meaning is entirely subjective?

Our evidence for it is. The jury is still out concerning whether there is meaning.

[LiamOS]

Why can energy not be considered substance?
What is substance and what is energy?

[mgb]

You are missing my point. Energy is the substance of matter. There is no 'material' substance therefore matter is not a fundamental existence. It is literally not there in a substantial sense. It is geometry. All that is threre is energy.

Take two magnets and push their like poles together. It will feel as if there is something solid holding them apart but there is nothing physical there, only energy fields repelling each other. This is what the solidity of matter is. This is why physicists speak about matter as a process rather than a substance. A material object is an event in the universe's energy field. The entire physical universe is an event or series of events. Substance is energy not matter. Spacetime is the geometry of the event we call the physical universe. It is part of the event. The event is happening to or in the universe's energy field.

[LiamOS]

That energy field is actually composed of photons, so there is something there.
Those photons change the momentum of the magnets.

Anyway, what does this have to do with anything?