Define "Evil."

[Krylo]

The only reason that there are no absolutes in good and evil is because humanity created good and evil as loose thoughts. If you want a dictionary definition it would be this:

Good: That which is moral. That which aligns with one's moralistic view of the world. That which achieves a desireable outcome.

Evil: That which is immoral. That which conflicts with one's moralistic view of the world. That which achieves an undesireable outcome.

And that is as close as you can get.

Why? Because of the phrases "one's moralistic view". Morals are defined by people. They are not laws of physics. Just like beauty and ugly aren't laws of physics. Nor is tasty and not-tasty. Etc. etc. They're perceptions that are altered from person to person.

This is why I quoted the Tao Te Ching, to attempt to allude to this with ancient chinese philosophy. Let me try again:

"We see good and say, "That is good." Herein lies evil. We see beauty and say, "That is beautiful." Herein lies ugliness."

Good and evil exist as opposites of each other and have no further concrete definition.

The only way that something which exists merely as a construct of the mind can become absolute is if there is a god, but we can't talk about that.

It's not a hard concept to understand.

Again, I suggest reading the Tao Te Ching.

Also, to simplify what Samwize is saying: In some version of quantum physics all things exist in all states simultaneously. It is the observer which causes it to exist in one or the other.

It's the cat in the box problem. If a cat is in a box with poison gas, it is both dead and alive until you open the box and see whether it is or not. Until the time that the observer acts upon it, it is in every state that it can be in.

I strongly suggest not even thinking about it unless you feel like switching your major over to quantum physics, or having an hour long discussion with a quantum physicist.

Go check some of Darthsith's threads in this forum to start trying to understand how is and is not, although contradictory, can both be true at the same time.


Edit: P.S. I'm closing this in 10 minutes or the next post. Whichever takes longer. It got over post limit while I was typing, but I really hate to close a thread after giving myself the last word like that.

[RedScar]

Originally Posted by krylo

It's the cat in the box problem. If a cat is in a box with poison gas, it is both dead and alive until you open the box and see whether it is or not. Until the time that the observer acts upon it, it is in every state that it can be in.

That's not a nice thing to do to a cat! Sorry I'm a cat lover. Besides that sounds cruel.


Well looks like evil is once again going to be lost forever unknowen.

Originally Posted by krylo

Edit: P.S. I'm closing this in 10 minutes or the next post. Whichever takes longer. It got over post limit while I was typing, but I really hate to close a thread after giving myself the last word like that.

But you do get the last say, because you post and then you close it. Unless you close it and don't post.

I might have the last say! YES!

[Krylo]

Yah. Been a half hour now.

And there was a post.

And I hate it.

A lot.

Also, by last say, I mean the last thing said about the actual subject. I try not to close threads after saying something about the subject. I like to give people a chance to rebut.

This time, it is not to be, however.

I gave it a half hour, and the closest I got was a lecture on being mean to cats.

P.S. Redscar. Spammage. I need to see if you've been warned before. If you have you're banned for a few days. If not, you're warned now.

Edit: Warned it is. You lucky dog.