Redefinition of Methodology

Metaphysics & Epistemology
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For a long time, humans have had a serious misconception about their own cognitive methods, believing that logic is the only method of cognition. But in fact, humans have three cognitive methods: logical cognition, emotional cognition, and awareness. I will discuss these three cognitive methods with you here.

First, we must establish that logic itself cannot define what is right and wrong. Logic can only be responsible for non-contradictory derivation; it is only responsible for the process of derivation. And the human capacity to cognize right and wrong is by no means something logic can define.

Human cognition of right and wrong comes from more fundamental cognitive methods — emotional cognition and awareness. Awareness is a cognitive method that humans directly possess, which directly judges right and wrong, good and evil. For example, when we see one person beating another, we immediately judge that the act of beating is wrong. This directly defines right and wrong, without any other form intervening.

Emotional cognition can also directly define right and wrong, but its way is different from awareness. It is a value judgment based on “I.” For example, if my country invades another country, I might claim that we are just because of “I.” The fundamental difference between emotional cognition and awareness lies in whether “I” is involved. Awareness is “without self,” while emotional cognition is “with self.”

Emotional cognition and awareness can switch directly. For example, when I see a person suffering, my awareness immediately sees that this should not be, and I feel compassion. But very likely my emotional cognition intervenes right away, thinking: fortunately it is not me. And logical cognition is merely a tool called upon by emotional cognition and awareness, used to express and implement already-existing cognition.At this point, I will engage in rational thinking: what must I do to not suffer?

Logical cognition is humanity’s only tool for recognizing differences at the material level. Emotional cognition and awareness, on the other hand, deal with differences at the non-material level — for example, I like red, I dislike blue. This liking and disliking is not within the scope of logic, but rooted in emotional cognition. Humans possess moral cognition precisely because they possess awareness. Awareness can directly judge good and evil, which is why each of us has a nearly identical moral sense.

Emotional cognition, because of the介入 of “I,” obscures the awareness-based cognition rooted in “no-self.” In the moral dimension, the shallower this obscuring of awareness, the more kind a person is, showing more altruism. The deeper the obscuring, the more selfishness is shown, and the more evil a person becomes. The fundamental reason a wicked person is wicked is that he only cares about his own interests and does not consider others. Both emotional cognition and awareness can call upon logical cognition. Therefore, an evil person uses reason and logic to do evil, while a kind person uses reason and logic to help others.The more rigid the cognition of “I,” the deeper the obscuring of awareness.

The root of all this lies in the discrimination between “I” and “other.” The more lightly each person regards this distinction, the less easily “I” arises. The proportion of calling upon awareness versus emotional cognition will then shift drastically. Therefore, whether a person is good or not does not depend on whether they are rational, but is determined by the root of their own cognition.

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I don’t think this is correct. I don’t think “logic” rates highly or even fits a lot of this. Humans obviously also privilege emotion and aesthetics as ways of understanding their environment.

Well, many of us would argue that right and wrong are values not matters of logic, although logic might be invoked in some instances. Generally, our judgements would be shaped by many factors culture, values and emotion.

Doesn’t that depend on the situation? There are plenty of people we might want to see suffer, and plenty of people we might want to see face the consequences of their actions.

I’m not convinced that we possess moral cognition. To say that awareness is involved in anything is not really an insight. Awareness is involved in all human activities from atrocities to acts of love. I would say we have emotional reactions to certain situations, and not all people or cultures share these reactions.

I’d disagree with that. Firstly, what is a wicked person? I would say people often do harmful things (wicked?) out of goodness and with the best of intentions. Often, consideration for others is at the heart of a dubious project and great harm.

I think this needs some work, as it’s unclear what you mean. People do bad and harmful things for any number of reasons. We are shaped by cultural values, our upbringing and the era we live in, as well as our personal experiences, interests and emotional responses. Many of our moral positions are inherited from religions, families and cultures, often without critical reflection. We can cause harm while believing we are doing the right thing, sometimes with the best of intentions.

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We can conduct a thought experiment. Place a pair of twins in the same enclosed environment and raise them with no differentiation from childhood until adulthood. Tell me, do you think these two people would possess the same values? Facing the same event, would they be able to make exactly identical judgments of good and evil? Those who have raised children surely know that a child’s cognition is by no means merely the result of parental indoctrination. A child can open their mouth and ask all kinds of questions, which you cannot predict. Many psychologists attribute all of this to external causes — environment, experience. I believe this is one-sided. If that were truly the case, if these psychologists were to take charge of education and were given absolute power, could they really make everyone possess the same values, and thereby eliminate evil from these people forever?

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Human moral cognition exists universally. For example, no matter which country or ethnicity a person is from, no one regards abuse as good; no one regards the evil of attacking others as a normal principle; everyone shares the same compassionate cognition toward others’ suffering, and no one thinks it is normal to take pleasure in others’ misfortune. In some higher-level cognitions, there may be slight cultural differences. But as the universal moral foundation, all humans are connected. If there were no moral commonality, we humans from different groups could not possibly engage in normal communication and cooperation at all. Because if your goodwill were understood by me as evil, or ignored, we could not have understanding.

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Many people have a deviated understanding of good, especially regarding false goodness — they do not truly understand it. For example, when parents expect their children to fulfill their own wishes, the parents are imposing the influence of “I” upon the children. At this point, good is hijacked by evil. The parents believe they are doing it for the children’s good, but from the children’s perspective, it is a disaster. In reality, at this point, the parents are swayed by their own emotional cognition, and impose evil disguised as good upon their children. Within their emotional cognition, the parents actually believe themselves to be acting with goodwill — they are even deceiving themselves.

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I’m not sure what you’re attempting to address with your repose.

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(post deleted by author)

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I’m saying that moral cognition can never be simply reduced to environment or education. Every person is not completely the same, and a large part of it comes from the individual themselves. Also, the good and evil that we humans cognize possess universality — it is not something defined separately by any single ethnicity or culture. The harm that you mentioned can come from what is called “good” happens because you haven’t realized that false goodness is actually evil. They use the name of good, but in reality they are driven by “I,” serving “I” — this is emotional cognition, which causes those who impose false goodness to believe they are truly doing good. The reason we can distinguish false goodness is precisely because we have awareness; otherwise, you might not even be able to tell false goodness apart from real good.

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I think this is wrong. I did not argue that everyone is the same. I don’t accept the term moral cognition; it makes it sound too fancy. People have values, which they express through their moral views. Generally, people acquire values through culture, family, upbringing and education. People interact with these influences in different ways.

I don’t accept terms like false goodness or evil.

I think this is rather meaningless. Maybe you can try to provide an example of false goodness?

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Have you noticed that you have been emphasizing “I” all along? I already wrote above that this is called emotional cognition. What you cannot deny is that you and I are communicating because we both hold the same foundational goodwill. No matter what you call it, it exists. Otherwise, you could not explain why, despite our different cultures and different experiences, we are able to conduct a peaceful discussion here.

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Let’s stick with one thing at a time.

You makeup terms for conversation. I don’t accept that we have the same foundational goodwill. That is a far too grand and loaded term for what we have. We are on a forum communicating.

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I already gave an example earlier. Here in China, parents want to pre-plan a path for their children, believing this path helps the children. For the parents, they see this as evidence of their love for their children. But for the children, they are locked into the parents’ path, deprived of self-choice, and they feel it is a disaster. This is false goodness. The parents believe they are doing good, but in reality, it is evil. Because this “good” is defined by the parents themselves, mixed with the purpose of “I” as defined by the parents. And you said that we do not need goodwill to communicate on the forum. But you overlooked why the forum explicitly states on its homepage: please maintain the greatest goodwill. The very fact that you want to communicate with others means you hope to receive goodwill from them, not to create hostility. I believe that in real life, you do not go around making enemies for fun either. What you hope for is that others respect you and offer you goodwill, not the opposite.

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I disagree with this. It isn’t false goodness. This is a societal expectation. A fairly common phenomenon. It’s well understood that these sorts of expectations may be harmful.

Maybe we are having a language problem. I would not use the word goodwill and I doubt that appears on the page. I would be “polite” which is quite different to goodwill.

Some people enjoy conflict and do go around upsetting others for their amusement.

One could say that in most ordinary lives being polite is advantageous. I do not expect goodwill from others unless by that you mean basic courtesy.

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You are actually constantly changing various terms to substitute, but to me, I judge all of them as goodness — you just may not agree. Moreover, etiquette itself is a person’s expectation of goodness. Why do you prefer others to be polite to you rather than abusive? You are merely packaging all these surface phenomena with various terms, refusing to recognize that they share the same foundation. Our judgments of peace, kindness, and politeness must all be based on a unified foundation — otherwise how did you form these concepts? That we can distinguish hostility, that we can distinguish insult, is precisely because we share the same foundation. You and I do not arbitrarily misidentify each other’s goodwill and ill will, because we share the same foundation. As for what you said about some people having various abnormalities, such as taking pleasure in others — I have said, this is emotional cognition obscuring awareness, a person in whom evil manifests more obviously. But for society as a whole, across different countries, absolutely no country would on the whole take pleasure in abusing others. Because most people are normal people, not evil.

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On a deeper level, why do we form judgments of benefit and harm? Why can we all form the same judgments of benefit and harm? If we did not have a common foundation, we could not have this shared cognition. For example, if the red you perceive and the red I perceive are completely different, then we could not even communicate.

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I disagree with this. We all have our own interpretations of these concepts. Politeness means different things in different contexts. We might agree about some of the attributes, but I’m not sure how far down this goes.

No, I have no expectations of goodness. I prefer politeness. Not everyone here is polite or seems polite based on my understanding of what polite means.

But we don’t form the same judgments of benefit and harm.

I agree that there might be a common folk understanding of right and wrong in certain cultures which is widely shared. But this doesn’t say anything about truth to me.

I don’t think we share a common foundation. There are layers of overlap but it is patchy. I would say further that perhaps, we never fully understand anyone.

I think of communication as an art not a science. It’s usually an act of creative interpretation not certainty.

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I believe you have basically understood what I mean. A person’s inner self can only be changed by themselves; others can only provide ideas, not change them. So I believe our discussion has achieved its purpose.

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Yes, I also admit that no one can truly understand another person — not because the level of communication is insufficient, but because it is fundamentally impossible. On this point, we are in agreement.

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I don’t think that’s actually how cognition works but you and @Tom_Storm have been over the main points

I sgree that people need to be conscious of others. Whether as a result of meditation or reflection it’s something we all need to practice

Thanks