Right and wrong, a digression, continued

Is it your view, then, that emotions like happiness, loneliness, and peace, concepts like dignity, liberty, and beauty do not exist, because there is no "absolute way to measure" them? I'm not trying to be facetious here. I'm trying to understand your point of view.

It is a reasonable point to raise. This is the question of "universals" - the idea that there must be a some independent measure of a quality in order for that quality to make sense. Previous supposed universals have been shown to be unnecessary. It used to be thought by some that, for example, "red" was some kind of essence that has to be part of an object that looked red. Now we know it is due to the differential absorption and reflection of different freqencies of light. I would argue that other universals (such as happiness and beauty) will go the same way as we find out more about the brain.

We experience red when certain patterns of excitation are present in sets of brain cells. I have little doubt that the same will apply to happiness and beauty, and peace and the others. We experience those in similar ways because our brains are pretty much the same, and we are within the same culture. These things are real, because the patterns in our brains are real. But as for any idea that they exist as independent concepts, I don't believe so. They are words we use to express what we experience in our brains.

Are you saying that, unless a thing can be subjected to measurement, you do not acknowledge its existence?

I realise that I am subject to illusions, both optical and mental, and also to wishful thinking. If I want to find out what it is useful to believe about reality, I start with simple ideas, and build up from them using a high standard of evidence (which may, or may not, involve measurement), and not just feelings or thoughts. I am also prepared to accept that even my initial simple ideas may be wrong, or may need to be simplified further. You may call this science.