[Vision2020] Historic Precedence

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

Wayne et. al.

Wayne wrote:

Since neither Dale nor his analogues of various persuasions all over the 
world (and maybe elsewhere in the universe) can produce any verifiable proof of 
the correctness of their superstitions, many of us will not accept the 
imposition of the values dictated solely by those superstitious beliefs but will 
continue to rely on observation and testing.   

Ted replies:

OK, Wayne, fair enough.  Now I ask you to apply your standards of observation 
and testing and provide verifiable proof of the truth of the following 
statement regarded by many as the foundation of American Democracy:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that 
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

If you can provide verifiable proof based on observation and testing of the 
truth of this statement (skip the "endowed by their Creator" reference because 
I do not want to focus on debating whether "God" exists or not, but to focus 
on the basic idea of "unalienable Rights," assuming such a concept has any 
validity when not derived from theological foundations), I nominate you for the 
Nobel Prize for an astonishing breakthrough in the development of Ethical 
thought.  Some of the greatest thinkers in history have admitted such Ethical 
statements as the one above that we use as moral guidelines all the time cannot be 
"proved" in the sense in which we think of logical principles or empirical 
statements of fact being "proved."

Perhaps we should back up and ask what the notion of an "unalienable Right"  
is?  If we do not have a clear truthful idea of this concept, then all debate 
about "right" and "wrong" is dust in the wind.  We would therefore have no 
ethical basis to say, for example, that slavery is wrong.

Personally I think that from the point of view of "proof" of Ethical 
statements we are in a fix.  The universe is vastly unconcerned with whether we exist 
or not, the birth and evolution of the universe not being altered one bit by 
whether life exists or not!  We think we are so important, but if our sun was 
of the sort that could supernova, earth and all life on it could be gone in a 
second, and the universe would not even blink.

Physics is the ultimate science, and as such is concerned with principles of 
the behavior of matter, principles governing almost everything happening in 
the universe, that provide us with no ethical backing whatsoever to justify our 
grand "unalienable Rights."

Sorry to be so gloomy, but this is an attempt to face the truth.  No fairy 
tales here!

I'll save those for later.  After all, our creativity as a species to create 
worlds of wonder, beauty and love is based on the human dimension of our minds 
to endow our lives with the qualities we think are the best expressions of 
our being, our spirit.  But there are no "proofs" we choose the best path, 
except to say, in the final analysis, "Love feels better than hate" or "Beauty is 
more enjoyable than ugliness."  Such statements do have factual basis in our 
feelings, but still some people enjoy hate more than love, and ugliness more 
than beauty.  I do not know of any proofs to prove them wrong, except to say, 
"your feelings are not sufficiently developed or are somehow amiss, like a person 
who has jaundice seeing yellow when most of us see other colors."
This approach also has problems.

I suspect we will keep arguing and fighting over these questions for 
millennia!

Ted Moffett
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