Hey, so I'm new to the subreddit so apologies in advance.

Here's my question under determinism there are a couple distinctions made: compatiblist and incompatiblist with regards to free-will. Doesn't that distinction carry over to a non-deterministic world as well? Just because a world isn't inherently deterministic, that doesn't guarantee that we have free will.... Right?

Again sorry if this is the wrong place or if my terminology is flawed.

Edit: sorry, wrong place

What makes a human?

Hey it’s me the resident nerd.

I often read early Inhuman comics and one of the big moral debates is what to do withe alpha primitives. The Alphas are basically cloned netherhals created to serve the inhumans as slaves. But the inhumans debate is that right to enslave them; are they people to?

Then I think of the Star Wars extended universe and Star Trek, and they always ponder a question when is a robot sentient and deserve rights? That is kind of the back drop of George Lucas’s clone wars and the legacy stories from it, the morality of clones and droids shooting each other.

So I want to know; can you justify clone servants even if they are of a lesser “human” species?

Can you argue the humanity of a machine?

On free will
The more I think about free will the less it seems reasonably possible.
First, lets define Free will.
I had a pretty clear Idea but I look it up on Wikipedia to find an already wide consensus on its definition: Free will is the capacity of the ability to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Being able to choose means there are real possibilities to choose from.
Unimpeded means not being force, push or nudge.
Second, what are the necessary requirement for free will to exist.
If we can show that those requirements exist we can, then, reasonably think that free will is possible.
Not yet proving it exist but might exist.
Can a 6 sided die can fall on its 8th faces?
Of course not. Being a cube exclude having more than 6 faces. So it’s “choice” is confined. It cannot “choose” to fall in any other ways.
It structurally impossible.
I guess we are all humans here, reading this. Or maybe ChatGPT is.
Anyway for the sake of argument it is not important.
Being humans implies a lot of limitations and reduces the choices we can make.
You did not choose to be human. You did not choose where and when you are born.
You did not choose you parents, culture, language… any social-economics conditions.
Your gender, your genes, your environment.
And not remembering you have chosen is not an argument, it is not an explanation. And in fact limits you more add constrain and tend to push toward no free will.
OK lets suppose you are on a road and there is an intersection. You may choose to go right or left.
Both choices lead to the same road. So you can freely chose to go left or right.
Witch way do you choose?
Can I choose to go both ways? Why left or right? Why not up or down or back? Why?
Why am I on a road? Did I choose a road with no other choices than left or right? Why am I on this road?
Why am I speaking the language I speak? I am sure nobody is born being able to speak Polish and Japanese… Why? We don’t have to choose because this is not REAL possibilities.
We are like a 6 sided die. We can’t choose what we cannot choose.
Can I choose to live forever? Not just saying so, or believing so until I die. I mean really live because I choose too.
Can we be smarter than we are by sheer will? It will be thinking that we can be taller by sheer will.
I think we cannot.
To resumed: Where there is no real choices there is no way we can show there is free will.
What can we choose by our self that is not implicit or force on us?

Our thoughts and actions are either causally determined or the subjects of randomness (or a combination).

If our thoughts and behaviours are entirely causally determined, then calling our will(s) "free" is misleading. We wouldn't be free to deviate from what we were always absolutely bound to do, maybe unbeknownst to us since we're unaware of all the causes involved.

On the other hand, if our thoughts and behaviours are subject to some randomness, well, to that extent they're outside of our control, since randomness is beyond our control by definition. If our thoughts and actions are "free" from the causal chain (since they're simply random) they're outside the influence of a will.

And to the extent that they are within the influence of a will, they're part of the chain of cause and effect, stretching back before any of us were born. Very much not "free" of this long chain.

TL;DR : If it is a will, it isn't "free". And to the extent that it's "free", it's nothing to do with a will.

This was deemed too spicy for a regular post so it has been relegated to the weekly thread. As a result it is a bit too long, sorry 😬

Supertasks by VSauce

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ffUnNaQTfZE

This is a good video by VSauce on supertasks. Fun, informative, accurate; just watch it!

I'm posting this because I think it shines a light on an area of philosophy which I think is seriously flawed: metaphysics (downvotes incoming!). My problem with metaphysics is that it tries to reach conclusions about what exists which are too strong using "armchair" reasoning, when this should be better left to scientists, especially physicists. While philosophy does utilise cold hard logic sometimes, especially to construct paradoxes to establish what isn't true, it often also requires other approaches to arrive at conclusions about what is true, such as coming up with different theories which fit, valuing parsimony, etc. But when it comes to establishing what exists, it's the scientists who should be left to come up with theories that fit, utilise parsimony as they see fit, do experiments to narrow things down, etc., and yes they can also be trusted with the cold hard logic when it comes up. They get to decide when a question is more concretely answered vs. when there isn't sufficient information and so there are only hypotheses.

So how does this relate to Michael's video on Supertasks? Supertasks originated as thought experiments, specifically paradoxes, thought up by philosophers. The two most famous are Zeno's paradox and Thomson's lamp. Michael explains the correct answer to both, which was stated firmly by Paul Benacerraf back in 1962: all these supertask thought experiments ultimately come down to a lack of information (like one of those logic puzzles where one of the options is "not enough information"). So they aren't really paradoxes at all and don't tell us anything about reality.

That doesn't mean that these thought experiments are useless. They should be better thought of as puzzles, which tell us something about reasoning, and open interest into what physicists may one day discover, or what mathematics might apply. Often puzzles have been the foundation on which beautiful and interesting maths is built. Indeed, it feels like metaphysicians are often pulling interesting ideas which belong in maths or physics into their department, because while they aren't qualified to tackle them properly they still need to publish papers.

Now, for some philosophers like Alexander Pruss this isn't enough: they want to use these thought experiments to reach conclusions about what exists. In Pruss's book 'Infinity, Causation, and Paradox' (2018) he uses supertasks and other reasoning to try and argue for his position of causal finitism, which roughly implies that none of these paradoxes could ever come about in reality.

But this is just not necessary and an overreach of philosophy. Let's take the example of the green and yellow cube at timestamp 10:57 in the video. If a cube like this did exist in reality, yes it's true that the colouring algorithm does not tell us the colour of the top. But maybe physicians would find out that the top colour must always be green, or always yellow, or always a quantum superposition of the two. All answers fit because the supposed paradox isn't a paradox: the colouring algorithm doesn't give enough information to determine what the top colour is. So the thought experiment is interesting and opens up questions about reality, but can never answer them. Zeno's paradox is much the same: all it tells us it that physicists must determine how motion works; maybe because motion is continuous (so the limit of the partial sums gives the answer, as expected), maybe because space is not infinitely divisible, or something else.

I've only been talking about a small slice of metaphysics, but it is my personal opinion that this a microcosm which correctly shows the sub-discipline's flaws (I can feel the downvotes running through my veins ❄️). This is of course my personal opinion, and seeing as I'm posting it anonymously on Reddit it's worth pretty much nothing, but I thought I'd voice it here anyway to give a little balance to this subreddit.

If you actually read this far, well done! Here's a cake 🎂

If morality is subjective, that means world ending philosophy like Antinatalism, Pro mortalism and Benevolent world exploder argument are all valid and it wouldnt be "wrong" for people to pursue the end of all life on earth or beyond.

The only difference between them and other people is the amount of subscribers? lol

So if one day in the future, a small group of them are determined enough to fund and develop a technological doomsday device to sterilize or blow up earth into pieces, they would not be morally "wrong", right?

Does anyone else like philosophy but dislike (or find boring, annoying, stupid, what have you) many contemporary philosophers? I found in uni that while most philosophers were nice people (moreso than other disciplines), there was a fair amount of work going on which I thought was wrong, stupid or pointless. The same goes for reading contemporary papers, even of people well respected in their field (I'm looking at you Nick Bostrom).

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r/askphilosophy is for questions. I mean, you can ask here as well but your question is more likely to be seen there and since it's the purpose of the sub you're more likely to get better and more detailed answers over there.

In philosophy class we discussed Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates. We even discussed Buddha and Jesus Christ. There was also Max Weber. Though Weber was a sociologist there was clearly a train of philosophy in his otherwise socially scientific thoughts. Therefor I shall explain my understanding on government based on my rudimentary understanding of the philosophy of Max Weber, sociologist philosopher.

As much as we like to point the finger at leadership we need them in the purest form of irony.

During times of feast we celebrate and times of famine we lament. But like the yin yang we have thise lamenting the leadership in feast and celebrating in famine.

However, leadership keeps people together. Either as a rallying force for the way or a enemy to band against. For the latter the people will banded against those against the greater good. A necesssry but still evil culling, which is the reason for the leadership.

This leadership has culminated in our society into what we call government. We as people cannot see past our immediate needs to outside. The idea of government is a group of elites that can see the big picture. Even so they have their own interests and people can really tell when someone is on the take. They rally against that corruption respresented by that corrupt figure. The corruption succeeds or it fails but otherwise people would not have the grand goals of supporting the good, benefitting from the corrupt, or fighting the bad. Their goals would be hunter gather and hunt food. That lifestyle is the most harmless and pure to society. It is clean mountain water not tap, but most would die without tap.

That is why we are the dominant species on the planet. We have infrastructure that runs deep. If weren't for the leadership and the governments we would not even be living as good as those that live off the grid, because they have access to modern technologies that make their life possible. We would still be in caves hunting and gathering with a population comparable to any other predator like a bear with a slight advantage because of our thumbs.

Max Weber described government as the monopoly of force. When the individual is allowed his own force no society can emerge from that. He would fight community for his own well being and food. Take the force from him and people can work together. Somebody has to occupy that spot or we would still be stuck in a cave.

Could you expand more on what you have in mind? To which field(s) are you referring?

No particular fields. I knew a really nice and smart professor primarily working in logic who spent a while wasting time on some philosophy of language, many tedious and reinterpretations of modern philosophers (your Mills and Sartres etc., but also more obscure figures I can't remember the names of), a rather arrogant philosopher of economics who was doing things like taking models and assume they were intended as true descriptions of reality, and much more. There were still probably more people doing at least somewhat interesting and good work in the department than not, but when reading papers you'd find just so much that adds little value. As for students, the average level of ability was low.

I have a substantial amount of disrespect for metaphysics, but I don't think the philosophers in that field were better or worse than average, I just think the field itself is largely wrongheaded.

The young are thinking themselves into despair.

Why should young people concern themselves so frequently and often to the point of despair with questions of morality or even nihilistic beliefs? Aren't we allocated many years in the later stages of our life when we have more time, experience, and wisdom to dwell on such topics? The young's superior fluid intelligence cowers in comparison to experience. I propose that our younger years should be driven by self-improvement, and if you do believe that your opinions are superior, then also laying the framework for a career with power where your opinions might hold more weight. This should all be done while constantly learning so that you may be even more qualified to speak on topics like the ones mentioned.

I am having a fun time using Stable Diffusion to combine philosophies with various physical things. For instance I like using the following 5 words: stoic, epicurean, hedonist, skeptic, ascetic

and follow that with... anything.

"Bedroom", "Bedroom theme", "Backyard", "toys", "toilet", "city", "art", etc.....

I find it interesting, nothing is too surprising, but its interesting to see these visualized. My most interesting thing so far, I got a hedonist bedroom that seemed to like Christmas trees and lights, but with the colors pink and blue.

(Note that the images I have below have more details in the prompts, that was because I was a noob before. Now I just edit the guidance scale)

https://imgur.com/a/CZAFRxE

Lets be philosophers, find it interesting, and figure out what is interesting. We all know how to be skeptics and poke holes.

If morality is subjective then any example you give would not be morally wrong, so correct?

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This is not how subjectivity works. You’re equating subjectivity to non-existence. Right and wrong can and in almost all cases do still exist to the moral subjectivist, they just don’t refer to an objective principle of reality. Subjective morals are derived from the subject’s interpretation of morality, any of these world ending philosophies would be considered wrong by the vast majority of people and so would be intersubjectively wrong.

I haven't got any readings for you, sorry, but I can say that valuing one's time is fundamental to much of mainstream economics. Specifically, in many models an agents time is split up into working vs. non-working (leisure), and you assume an agent desires both leisure time and money to purchase things with. This very basic idea can be used to construct all sorts of interesting, explanative and predictive models. So it would make sense that you would want to get the most out of your time, seeing as that's one of the building blocks of your enjoyment of life

Pretty cool

I don't entirely agree. It has often been the relatively young to drive social change. Emmiline Pankhurst formed the Women's Social and Political Union, later known as the Suffragettes, at age 47, with her daughters Adela (23), Christabel (23) and Sylvia (21). Gandhi starting civil rights campaigning at age 23. Martin Luther King led the Montgomery boycott at age 26. Older people are more likely to have conservative views. This may be due to ageing causing changing views, or generational differences (being brought up in times when homosexuality and abortion were illegal, and racist attitudes were widely accepted); scientists are still trying to pick those apart. But in both cases it is the young who are more likely to want to shift the status quo forward in the direction it has been travelling rather backwards to where it once was at some past point. In democratic countries, society is changed by voting and campaigning. A rational and ethical agent should vote and campaign based on their moral values and their understanding of the world. So moral values, especially about society, will and should always play a central role in people's political lives. Insisting that a person, young or old, stop spending time on the morality of society, is to insist they remove themselves from democracy.

Its not objectively wrong, its only subjectively wrong due to moral consensus of the day.

Just like when people used to own slaves, have human ritual sacrifice, burn witches, not letting women vote, etc.

Just like when atheism is considered wrong by the majority a few hundred years ago.

Just like when Galileo were imprisoned for his teaching about the solar system.

A lot of terrible things used to be subjectively right due to consensus, a lot of good things used to be subjectively wrong due to consensus as well, they gradually change over time.

Thus blowing up earth as a philosophy is only wrong due to subjective consensus, it could become right one day to many people, depends on the amount of suffering that will either increase or decrease in the future.

All non-objective ethics positions have these sorts of problems. Typically relativism (theories where ethics is in some sense relative to a "group" of people) is favoured over outright individual subjectivism, but it's still fundamentally flawed. With all of these sorts of views it's hard to eliminate a "Hitler was right" type of statement. Jumps and backflips are performed, but I have never found any convincing. I will never be willing to concede any "Hitler was right" type of statement, so for me an acceptable ethical theory must satisfy some form of objectivity.

Askphilosophy is a draconian mess of a subreddit, even moreso than here (and that's saying something!). Most posts with more than a few upvotes end up getting locked so only flaired users can post. In practice this shuts down debate. You'll get the same responses listing some views from the most famous classical and "modern" (i.e. before the 1950s) philosophers. As a result you'll get little to no analytic philosophy, as it has been understood post WW2.

The answer to your question is obviously yes, indeterminism does not imply free will. Anyone who would have you believe otherwise is a fool.

Thanks, i didn't really expect an answer.

Yeah, figured it was a non-sequitur, i just wanted to make sure i wasn't missing anything.

I haven't read those comics, but I will say that anyone who reserves moral value strictly to humans is an idiot. Consider some alien species of equal intelligence and similar faculties to feel pain coming to visit us. It would be just as wrong to torture them as to torture humans, other concerns aside (like if there was some reason for torture such as gaining vital information). If some species here on Earth were to develop similar faculties to us, it would be wrong to deem them of lower ethical value just because they do not have the same biology as us. This is wrong for exactly the same reason that racism is wrong. It is not our biology that defines us, but our faculties. I have a problem with the term "humanism" for this reason, though seeing as there aren't currently any comparable species to us yet, it's not really an issue for now. In my opinion this means a good ethical theory must find something other than biology to base its ethical value on. For me the most viable option is sentience, though others look to the experience of pain and pleasure. Theists need to contort themselves around the musings of ancient books written and rewritten over time by many different people of questionable intelligence, motives and sanity, but I imagine they may run into trouble because the various authors didn't have the forethought to consider non-humans similar to humans in intelligence, because sci-fi hadn't been invented.

Wait are you ChatGPT?

Yes. In the same way that the eradication of poverty and inequity could be considered right. These issues are not a result of subjectivism but the social and political environment in which these situations arose. Similar to the problems with the value judgements you mentioned is the way in which these views at the time were seen to be grounded in objectivity - the belief in the existence of objective morality can be just as, if not more, destructive when compared with subjective morality.

Whence are the objective standards of morality you are referring to? There is no objective principle of morality, to improvise one for the sake of objective morality would create many more problems than any subjective valuation.

I take the view that "free will" is poorly defined, roughly echoing Strawson's compatibilist view (if you are interested in this you MUST read Strawson's 'Freedom and Resentment' [1962], one of the greatest philosophy lectures ever which changed the minds of many in the field; it's only 15 pages!). What matters to me is 'choice'. Now, seeing as I also hold a materialist view of the brain-mind issue, and a materialist view of metaphysics, I fully accept that all things we typically call 'choices' are causally (fully deterministically or partially randomly) determined by the material world, included both brain activity and everything else. We slide between different definitions of choice in everyday language, considering choices free-er when for example not taken under duress. But these definitions of choice are slid between precisely because we wish them to align with our understanding of ethics; specifically, what a moral choice is and when a choice should or shouldn't be punished. And this is all above board because even though there isn't some external presence disconnected from the material controlling the mind, nevertheless choices are being made within brains. Choices you make are yours because they stem from your brain's activity, and this activity IS you. Note that if you read Strawson's paper, he makes his arguments without appealing to materialism; it's just easier and quicker for me to use it because I believe it.

One of the reasons r/askphilosophy is a load of bullshit is because that answer would have probably been deleted

Nice one :)

Time is the most valuable resource because you can never have it back . i would recommend Tomes More Utipa. he discuss the value of time

The thing about “imagining Sisyphus happy” by Albert Camus. I understand that the meaning of it is that we need to find joy in the struggle of life. My issue with it, which I’m thinking through, is that I don’t really want to be complacently happy about constant labor with no real accomplishment. That sounds like meaningless purgatory. Can someone explain if I’m missing something? I haven’t really looked into Camus too much.

I suppose you don’t consider doing the dishes a real accomplishment? I guess I have lowered my expectations with age.

Well put. It’s nice to have a place to practice philosophy (to some extent) as opposed to just telling someone what views are out there.

Is reality 100% deterministic? Determinism says everything has a cause, so the beginning must be uncaused, right? With this reasoning, indeterminism must be true in some aspects of reality.

You can objectively point out at so many things which you could label as "it makes me sad!". But you cannot objectively name one thing that makes you happy in absolutenees.

Thank you for the reference.

I will have look.

Can you extend that to a machine? If you grant a machine the feeling of pain, of love and lose, can it become free?

Similarly, can I create a sub human with same intelligence as a gorilla and make it subservient?

An ownership isn't an action. It can be seen as an abstract relationship between a possession and a proprietor enforced by a law or consensus.

Not being an action means that an ownership isn't production. Goods and services are exclusively produced, excluding some very rare cases of natural goods like atmospheric oxygen. Human responsibility in production will be limited to the role of one's own personal human capital, such as his time availability, experience, acquired knowledge, skills, mental and physical capabilities, etc. Humans will thus not be responsible for automated production, for example, even if the owner of the automate is his producer. In essence, the producer isn't what he produces and can't claim responsibility of the role of what he produces in production.

We can thus say that wealth compensations can't be given for ownerships of any kind other than personal human capital. Since production for which humans are responsible for is limited, any such compensation will cause a reduction of the pool of wealth. This pool of wealth being used to compensate back producers, its reduction will prevent a compensation for participation in production for the equivalent amount of produced wealth, creating an unfairness or prejudice akin to wage theft.

Anyone can agree or disagree with what I'm saying?

Bergson - I am interessted in developing Bergson’s thoughts that appear in his Introduction. However, what he says sounds very smart and correct, but did he develop some sort of methods for attaining this sort of intuitive grasp of the inner object. I feel like it sounds well, but can it be done? Could we really know things like that? Not by symbolical science but by grasping it from within in one strike?

There's nothing in principle about machines that must forbid sentience and ethical value. Consider we are able to build a perfect mechanical reproduction of the brain utilising computer parts which are able to interact 3 dimensionally and in exactly the same manner as neurons. Also assume using this replica combined with necessary input sensors and output body movements we were able to create exactly to recreate the electrical activity that occurs within the brain. This artificial brain would therefore be doing exactly the same thing as a human brain, just using a substrate of silicone or another material rather than flesh. The use of flesh has nothing to do with sentience, so this artificial brain would exhibit exactly the same sentience and types of thoughts and feelings as ours. It seems obvious to me that it then should receive exactly the same ethical value as us.

The issue is that there are 86 billion neurons in the human brain, they interact 3 dimensionally, chemicals can flow throughout all of the brain via blood, and failing to give appropriate input sensors and output movements might cause insanity. So we may never be able to build this. Now in principle if we perfectly understood how everything worked and tied together, we could simulate the entire thing without building it using an incredibly powerful computer. But we are nowhere near that sort of understanding so again it's unclear if we ever can.

In sci-fi these real world concerns about feasibility of construction are pushed aside. But also we are often asked to deal with artificial intelligences which are conscious but different from our own, often radically. This is the same case as the inherently racist/speciesist term "sub-human". Here ethical comparison is now problematic, and may differ from case to case. I personally would value any intelligence considered sentient equally; other philosophers talk of "personhood". Importantly, just because a being is more or less intelligent shouldn't grant it more or less ethical value, just as humans with higher IQ are not of greater ethical value.

Proust thought that literature was a viable option - a lot of Remembrances could be considered as a literary experiment in Bergsonian intuition.

I strongly believe in the fact that someone’s reasoning for a crime, does not change the crime of that in itself.

It is often said, “Is stealing bad? What if someone stole to feed their family?”

I am not saying that stealing is objectively bad, just that the reason for any crime does not change the crime committed and what should be punished for it. The factor in crime is malicious intent over self preservation. There could be thousands of reasons for someone committing murder although none make that person have committed less of a wrongdoing or more of one. Lightening someone’s punishment or worsening it is acting on personal feelings over facts.

I have concluded that the “self” starts from a prenatal stage (genetically determined) and grown through life experiences. And the idea of “me” is an illusion that the prenatal “I” attaches to over time. The ideas of Buddhism are the only thing ive found that comes close to explaining “will”. But If there is no “self” and thus no separate will, is the prospect of obtaining liberation predetermined in itself? (understanding that any “will” you have is the will of the universe as a whole)? How can buddhism have any “methods” while simultaneously believing in a concept of “no self” or “separate will” ?

What can “i” do, if there is no “i”.

I should just watch life go by until one day it hits me?

Do you think somebody stealing food to feed their family should receive the same sentence as somebody stealing food to put a store out of business?

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If you believe in Free Will or are an Atheist, read on:

​

Why is there something and not nothing? How is there something and not nothing?

Let’s call the answer to both questions God (necessarily outside of time). The “something” includes the observable universe and anything that may be unobservable in another realm (can never be proven).

Well I ask this: “Where do our decisions come from?”

Well, where does everything come from? God, right? We may undergo a process within our minds to reach a decision, but ultimately, it was entirely orchestrated by God. This must be the case, as God, whether intentionally or not, determined the nature of the “something” that is all of existence. You may still think you can choose from “your perspective”, but it is an illusion resulting from your lack of knowledge of yourself. We are products of God and had no influence over our genome, place of birth, and other environmental factors beginning at birth contributing to one’s nature as a person and decision making. Moreover, once you do something, that’s what you would’ve done all along in this universe/state of being. We will always see in hindsight that we never had free will. If we “hit the rewind button” on all of existence and let things play out again, things would all end in exactly the same way.

As I said, I believe the answer to my question is God, but if you disagree, please explain your thoughts and let me know of any errors I may have made.

This is also a question for atheists too. As you see God defined above as the “First Mover” and creator of the universe, why do you not believe in God’s existence? Why is God not logically valid as a term for the producer of existence? My definition appears to be the standard from what I’ve been able to see that’s universally accepted and not of any particular religion.

Appreciate the question. I'm not sure where I fall in terms of religious or atheist, but I'd like to think I'm somewhere in-between.

Is your perspective not just a collection of what you know and how you react given what you know?

My decisions help me make future decisions. I have foresight based off of what I already know/have seen in the past. I have no direct control over outcomes, but I can accurately assume some outcomes.

I feel like I'll get a slap on the wrist for this one, but how do you justify God? What is God, other than the creator of all? How did God come to be? How can you have a God but no way of creating God? Are there other Gods? Does this make us simply a science experiment? What is our purpose for this God?

This all feeds in to why I also find it hard to believe there is no God, or creator. We are advanced organisms - the most complex that we know of in terms of everything we know. We live on a planet that exists in a universe, both of which we don't truly understand the beginnings of, nor do I think we ever will - how can we?

God seems like a very easy out for the unknown and unexplainable. I don't like that.

This may get twisted, but I have recently taken up the mentality that I am my own God. I feel I have the most control over my life. Obviously there are external factors that I cannot foresee or control, but for the most part, I control my life. Everything I know exists through me. My existence is my reality is my everything. I have no proof or concept of what may come after life. We have thoughts of a heaven, purgatory, greater unknown.. but we have no clear proof of it.

I want to believe there's an afterlife, that there's some hidden mystery that suddenly becomes unlocked, but at the same time, why does it matter? What is the point of existence if we're merely puppets of a God with no true free-will or perspective?

If we truly want to figure out everything in the universe, I think we need to put God in the back seat and look for other explanations.

I get what you're saying, but eventually you're going to hit a gray area, right?

You may think it's ok to drink alcohol, but other parts of the world do not agree. Which one is right? Why?

>As I said, I believe the answer to my question is God, but if you disagree, please explain your thoughts and let me know of any errors I may have made.

The problem is that you've just posed questions and then said "God is the answer." But to convince the atheist, you'd have to establish how God exclusively, or in a uniquely satisfactory way, answers these questions. They clearly don't already agree, and do have potential answers. For example, they can just say "I don't know why anything exists, but none of the arguments for God as an explanation succeed." Or perhaps they might say the existence of anything at all is a brute fact, i.e., a contingent fact which neither has nor possibly could have an explanation.

>This is also a question for atheists too. As you see God defined above as the “First Mover” and creator of the universe, why do you not believe in God’s existence? Why is God not logically valid as a term for the producer of existence?

Atheists disagree because they don't think there is a first mover/creator, or at least that it has the various properties God is supposed to have (e.g., personhood and consciousness, omnipotence and omniscience).

Do you extend this to animals that show intelligence but not to the degree as humans? Like perhaps instead of sub-human(neanderthals) clones, it’s a Planet of the Apes situation and we found away to make Apes a servant class? Would the ability to complete complex task be enough to justify emancipation?

> In practice this shuts down debate.

The point of /r/askphilosophy isn't to foster debate; it's to provide a place where verified experts answer questions.

>As a result you'll get little to no analytic philosophy, as it has been understood post WW2.

/r/askphilosophy is chokful of people working on analytic and post-analytic philosophy.

I think the issue here is our interpretations of "God". I don't claim to know the nature of God beyond him (default pronoun for simplicity) being responsible for existence rather than nonexistence. I'm not saying God is what Christians believe him to be or what Muslims claim etc. The supposed properties you mention are undecided for me. It's not like I imagine God to be a gray-haired man in the sky with infinite wisdom. I believe all theists agree on that foundation - God is just what we call the ultimate creator. He didn't create in the sense that a conscious effort involving rationality and purpose (very human-like) was made. The universe we inhabit we truly know very little about, I wouldn’t claim the source of its entirety to be just like us necessarily.
But you must agree that there is indeed something rather than nothing. At some point after questioning the causes for everything sequentially (parents meet, grandparents meet, big bang, etc.) , you must reach something that has always been there. “Something” could never come from “Nothing” or it wouldn't be “Nothing”.
That something is what I call God. Unless you don't agree with my definition for God, I truly don't see how anyone can deny God.

Appreciate the response. I don't claim to know anything about God other than that he (default pronoun for simplicity) is the creator of all. God did not come to be. That would make him a part of his own creation. Something cannot come from nothing, so God was always there. I don't know our purpose either or whether there even is one. I also don't believe free will can logically exist.

Regarding the afterlife, I would point you in the direction of Near Death Experiences (NDEs). These are the closest things we have to scientific proof of an afterlife. I was originally a skeptic, but after watching UVa's presentation (linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KhtRnbl8ZE), I believe NDEs are real and a currently unexplainable phenomenon - not just anecdotal accounts of wishful thinking. It's likely there is some extracorporeal mode of perception that still feeds to our brain. This can seemingly be triggered by certain NDEs.

Outside of NDEs, I don't have a clue how an afterlife would manifest for us if at all.

I think science will continue to help us make breakthrough discoveries that offer sound explanations for what we observe. What we learn of existence will also help us on the way to determining God's nature. Just remember that the explanations provided through science are not empirical and can be disproven or revised in the future (I.e., Newton). Although, they are effective and practical - real for all intensive purposes. It is our collective observations that are empirical, after all, each individual's reality is shaped by their own knowledge and observation.

Why do you believe free will cannot logically exist? Do you have more to add to it? I feel it's a bleak outlook considering our lives have already been paved. What is the point of existing if we are predetermined to do whatever it is we do? I've tried to make sense of it and fail to string together something I'm comfortable with. Curious to hear more.

I'm aware of NDEs, and have a hard time coming to any conclusion. I'll have to check the video when I have a little more time. Thanks for sharing!

Science is fantastic, but you are right; it isn't a static and will exist to be disproven, questioned, or modified (just like everything else).

Hello, I would like to see where exactly Hume talks about the concept if force in his Treatise - can anyone give me some links to pages?

Essentially, the process by which we choose has to have been created and determined in nature by God if God is the creator of everything. This is not necessarily a conscious decision on God's part, but nonetheless his doing.

I believe the point to existing is independent of free will existing. In a general sense, as we are living creatures, it is to reproduce and maximize our lifetime endorphin secretion. However, this will vary from person to person depending on how goals are prioritized. Factors that contribute to one's goal in life are determined by God as is everything.

Good questions, I think whenever anything starts approaching human level intelligence we need to ask them. I haven't got any answers for you though, as I would have to look into the literature and have more of a think to make up my mind

Why did you include "child, cartoonish, cartoon, childish, kid" as prompts for something hedonistic or stoic? Or, I mean, in general?

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Interesting and good are subjective. They could also find great meaning in the small focuses that you think adds little value or in the philosophy of language. There is an enormous amount of work being done across topics and with different issue areas out there, perhaps you just haven’t found the modern work that strikes you and that you find significant yet. It may be helpful to engage more with this material you think is wrong or pointless - there may be something your missing about it or you could develop your own counter theories by writing out what you think is wrong about them. If you don’t see contemporary philosophy that strikes you, start writing out your own ideas and then find if anyone out there has similar conclusions.

Identifying as an atheist doesn’t mean you deny any possible definition of “God”, it’s referring to a specific definition or group of definitions that need to be agreed upon before any real conversation can happen.

Your argument would make perfect sense to anyone that agrees with your definition of “God” and also doesn’t believe in him. How large do you think that group is?

You bring up a good point. I could claim to be atheist, agnostic, or theist depending on what I consider God to be.

There doesn't seem to be a universal definition for God that I could find (some internet searching), which is indeed a problem when it comes to communicating our beliefs on the existence or nature of God with everyone.

Word play aside, I think we can all agree that there is a something that's always existed. Ourselves, what we see around us, etc. couldn't have come from nothing or it wouldn't really be nothing.

Curious what definition you base your atheism on (I presume you are)?

I don’t disagree that “something” preceded existence as we understand it, although I wonder what the implications of that are? I guess I’m more agnostic about anything that by definition can’t be comprehended.

I generally base my atheism as opposed to religious theism. If I were to roughly boil it down I’d say I don’t believe in any omnipotent entity that passes judgement on our existence.

I dont agree that "something" must have always existed, I also dont agree that everything couldn't have come from nothing. I just came across this and I dont know the first thing about philosophy. Im a physicist.

Time is a function of our universe. That is to say that time is not linear. It does not pass at a constant rate. It appears to for us as humans. However, we know that time infact changes depending on relative speed. This is a known fact (time dilation, special relativity)

There are objects inside our own universe where the fundamental rules of the universe (time, matter, 3 spatial dimensions etc etc) seem to break down e.g a black hole.

Why is this relevant? Its because you are applying the ruleset of our universe - time, causality, matter, energy etc to a scenario outside of our universe. Essentially, your entire premise requires this assumption to work.

So you say "What happens before the big bang? There must be something? There must be a cause? We cant come from nothing" - Why? All those are rules OF our universe. It is a assumption to assume that any of that ruleset would exist outside of our universe. If there is no time, what do the words before, after, begin and end even mean anyway?

So thus God cannot be the logical outcome. If you need to make a string of assumptions in order to reach your logical conclusion... then its probably not a logical conclusion.

EDIT: your point on freewill in of itself is an entire assumption. You have no idea whether brownian motion or quantum phenomena are truly random, or whether the same answer would repeat if you were to go back in time and observe the event again. Using the current model for quantum theory if you went back in time and observed a quantum event again, it could change. However, there is no way to know as it cannot be tested.

As someone with a background in physics who every now and then browses this thread. I agree with you completely. My biggest gripe with metaphysics isnt the logical process. Its that for some unknown reasons philosophers in the realm seem to assume that observations made at their (macro) level apply to all scales and scenarios.

God as far as I and many religions are concerned exists outside of time.

The idea of things coming about involves time. For there to be nothing and then something implies time as well. So for there to be no change, there are two possibilities:

1. There was/is/will be nothing
2. There was is/will be something

We can cross out number 1 as we know there is indeed something right now. So no change means there always was something.

But let's suppose there was nothing but that changed and something came about as you say. Now, because time is involved as a change occurred, I can pose the question, "where did that something come from?" A true nothingness, and I mean absolutely nothing, cannot spawn something or else it would be the "thing that caused something" and would be something itself.

With regards to free will, the "rewind" thing was a very small part of my argument. If random phenomena dictate our reality, then I think there's an even better case against free will - more outside of our control. If it would rewind the same (not random), my argument stands exactly the same.

Speaking of time, I've been spending a lot of time in this sub and have enjoyed these discussions, but I gotta take a break for the day at least haha

Those are all very different questions.

What makes a human? Well homo sapiens, the primate species. if you have the requisite genetic structure, DNA and chromosomes etc... Then you're a human.

A cloned neanderthal would not be a human... It would be a neanderthal.

You mention humanity... Now that is far more subjective, and more to do with the difference between how you socially treat a human vs an animal. Hence if you were treating someone inhumanely, you would be treating them in a manner equivalent to (or less than) an animal. This of course exists because most humans elevate their importance above all other animal and plant life.

Sentience is a very tricky thing to define, and is normally defined as awareness and the ability to experience feelings or sensations.

Of course this definition came about back in the 1600s, feelings and sensations are just a bunch of electrical impulses interpreted by your brain in order to try and get the human to act in a specific manner because at some point historically, acting in said manner would have increased the odds of survival. So does it apply to an android? Depends whether you insist on keeping the words "feeling" and "sensations" in the definition...

I personally wouldnt justify keeping a gorilla as a slave (assuming it wouldnt just tear my arms off) so I certainly wouldnt justify neanderthal slaves.

This can be applied to the modern day. Do you think that the great apes deserve "right to life". If so, what other animals would you extend that to?

non philosopher here, wtf is post-analytic philosophy. It sounds like a terrible name.

Yeah, you're probably right

I read this laid back debate between Julian Baggini and Laurence Krauss a while back (https://amp.theguardian.com/science/2012/sep/09/science-philosophy-debate-julian-baggini-lawrence-krauss) where Baggini essentially concedes that metaphysics should be replaced by physics. At the time I wasn't really ready to make that concession, but know I see it differently. Other than that point the debate isn't great, with both participants mostly talking past each other, but that point always stuck with me.

Edit: I found it because at the time I was frustrated by so-called "scientism" which I was seeing everywhere, and was trying to find places where scientists had espoused it. I still think scientism is largely wrong and harmful, but I view it more sympatheticly. It's sad but ultimately unsurprising that physicists like Feynman subscribed to it. Only a few physicists like Sean Carroll are even willing to engage with philosophy. Which is annoying because while I don't care much for metaphysics, interpretations of quantum mechanics which imply nonsense like the moon isn't definitively there whilst you're not looking at it are just so nonsensical that I have to hope for theories like objective collapse to win out.

if i understand things correctly, the idea that "true nothingness cannot spawn something" isn't necessarily true outside the universe as that's a rule of the universe. thus invalidating the premise of "where did that something come from" (the premise being that it must've come from something) and everything that follows

It's not really a rule, it's just logic. I don't know how else I can phrase it. Do you also think that 2 + 3 can equal 4 outside the universe?

whatever it is, it's "of the universe"

2 + 3 could equal 4 outside the universe. idk. i doubt those numbers, as we understand them, exist outside the universe at all

you've just hit the nail on the head. 2+3 can absolutely equal 4 outside the universe. *Obviously we have defined the axioms that make this work so if our definitions hold then no, but barring semantics and all that rubbish aside, thats the exact point.

You have no idea what 2+3 equals outside our universe because we come up with all these logic rules through observation. Macro level observation at that, the quantum world works completely differently. There you can get very strange results like 2=4=5 for fractions of a second, before it then becomes 2+3=5.

So no, logic is defined on the actions of the observable universe and are thus an assumption you are applying to outside of the universe. You have no idea of the ruleset outside the universe, so you cannot apply any "logic" to it.

What do you think exists outside of the observable universe?

LOL! I know what you mean, ive seen some crazy explanations for quantum phenomena and some of them are pretty nuts. The issue isnt quantum mechanics, its the interpretations of it.

Essentially what physics has done is observe a bunch of stuff, and then see if its possible to get maths to fit the observations. In some cases the maths is elegant, in other cases its crazy and messy.

The issue is it seems to work. Here's the important part. We don't know Why it works, we just know it does. We know it does, because we have observed and tested it - loads, but the why of it eludes physicists. The reason why some of the explanations (quite a lot of them) appear nonsensical is because when you take the maths, and try and turn it into physical reality its just... weird. The problem is, unless your a physicist people want examples, they want a demonstration, an analogy, and there just isn't a very good one, because its so weird. As such you end up with this often talked about, but little understood topic. This is especially common when people talk about anything to do with superposition, collapsing a wavefunction, observers etc and leads to crazy analogies like disappearing moons and cats which are neither alive nor dead etc.

I will try and clarify most of this stuff in a small example. If I give you $5 and $10 and ask you for the total. You will answer $15. This is a mathematical expression to which you have a numeric answer.If I am about to roll a dice and ask you which number will it land on, in that scenario your answer will be "I dont know". Now you could absolutely give me a probability - you could say "its a 1/6 chance of landing on a number between 1-6". Essentially rather than give me a numerical answer, you have to give me a function as an answer, and as this function will give you a probability we call it a probability function.So there is no way to know which number the dice will land on, but you do know the probability function of the dice and you can tell me there's a 1/6 chance of it landing on any of its sides.So now we roll the dice, once its stopped rolling and we then look at the dice, you can now tell me the numbers its on! You no longer have a probability function anymore because you can now observe the actual value.

This is in essence what most of the misunderstanding of quantum physics is about. We have observed that the probability function of a lot of quantum events happens to be in the form of a wave. So while the quantum event is happening the prediction of its position, or momentum, or energy etc is a probability function. We dont know what the number is, but we know the likelihood of it being certain values. Then when we observe the event, its like looking at the dice after its finished rolling, now we have a specific value. In physics this is given the fancy sounding term of "wavefunction collapse".

So when you come across the nonsense descriptions they're normally trying to say that until you "measure" or "observe" the quantum object, it will be in a "superposition of states" and is in neither one state nor another. (essentially while the dice is rolling its value is not a 2 or a 4 yet, its a probability function). Once you measure or observe it, then the wavefunction collapses and then you can observe its state. (once the dice stops rolling you'll have an actual value rather than a probability)
Hence the cat is neither alive nor dead until you open the box, the moon isnt there until you observe it etc etc. Its just people taking the maths probability stuff in a literal sense and applying it to absurd examples.

Hello! I'm a 'noob' in philosophy, I'm trying to get into it.

I started with Meditations by Rene Descartes and I was wondering what is everyone's general feelings towards him? I find him a bit full of himself and difficult to read, but I'm quite probably the reader he warns doesn't like. That being said, my question is:

What are questions you'd ask him if you could, in regard to his meditations?

Yeah. But it's also important not to stray too far into instrumentalism, the idea that none of the mathematics of physics needs to correspond to anything in physical reality, it's just an accurate prediction apparatus. Because the only reason a prediction apparatus can be consistently successful is if it is latching on to some elements of reality which follow constant, or at least very slowly changing, laws. There was a course I didn't have the time to attend covering the span of the history of physics from start to now, expounding the idea that while it has never been an entirely correct reflection of reality, it is an ever-evolving dialogue with reality. As we make new discoveries we refine our understanding of the world. Maybe at some point we will understand its true nature - maybe we already do, in the sense that there won't be any serious rewriting of the current mathematics, only the addition of new elements for e.g. new particles. There is a reality to the quantum realm as with everything else, and maybe one of the current interpretations will prove true, or maybe our dance with reality will give rise to new mathematics and new "interpretations". Because while physicists might call them interpretations due to the often sole dependence on the current mathematics, they are in fact hypotheses about the world, which ultimately have to prove true or false. We often forget that the theory of atoms used to just be an "interpretation" stemming from the mathematics of chemistry.

I disagree.

I dont...

Whatever I could think up would be wrong, hence its an exercise in futility. if I postulate that there is a fluffy land with unicorns running around in it, thats just as likely to be correct as some old father-like dude watching us from his seat in some mythical kingdom, nothingness, some weird 9-dimensional spacetime etc etc. Its all just arbitrary guesswork with no frame of reference. So you can make up whatever story you like and be content that its just as likely as whatever other story you've heard.

Maybe the Christian God did it, but then again, maybe I made it all. And seeing as how you're actually talking to me right now, then im probably more likely to have made the universe than the Christian God, because at least you have evidence that I exist.

You are right, and that is actually one of the biggest issues libertarians face, namely how to connect indeterminism to free will

thanks!

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>And the idea of “me” is an illusion that the prenatal “I” attaches to over time

How have you come to that conclusion? It doesn't seem entirely clear the self is experienced as an illusion.

>What can “i” do, if there is no “i”.

Are you trying to deny your own existence here? All the pronoun 'I' refers to is the human being that you are, so unless you're denying you're a human being I'm not sure what the problem is.

Bc the self is an ever changing, non static, mask, that grows from past experiences in memories.

By “I” i dont mean the human being, i mean the experiencer behind all experience, to which no labels (except for the purposes of this conversation (“I”)) can be attributed to.

This “I” represents a self that is not separate from anything, simply bc it is what experiences everything.

And if nothing is separate, then nothing exists, bc in order to have “some-thing” you have to have something else to reference it. This is known as non-dualism. And is why there is a buddhist belief in “no-self” or nothing separate.

My question is why do they have methods, if there is no “I” that can really do anything. If my will is the universes will as a whole.

>By “I” i dont mean the human being, i mean the experiencer behind all experience, to which no labels (except for the purposes of this conversation (“I”)) can be attributed to.

What is this experiencer behind all experiences exactly? It sounds like you're describing some sort of self?

>And if nothing is separate, then nothing exists, bc in order to have “some-thing” you have to have something else to reference it.

Depends what you mean by separate, but I'm not sure how you've jumped to the conclusion that 'nothing exists,' what do you mean by this exactly?

>This is known as non-dualism. And is why there is a buddhist belief in “no-self” or nothing separate.

Two very separate schools of thought. Anyway, while Buddhists seem to deny a self, Vedantins (advaita vedantins) and others, argue there precisely is a self -- a substratum witness consciousness which grounds change in the first place. Both can be non-dual experiences because the experience is not separate from the witness consciousness. Advanced meditators tend to disagree on these topics, you can come away from such experiences with conclusions that there is a self, much like you can come away with no - self conclusions.

>My question is why do they have methods, if there is no “I” that can really do anything. If my will is the universes will as a whole.

This is a question regarding free will. Most modern day philosophers seem to be compatibilists, the belief that free will is compatible with determinism (which is what I presume you mean by the 'will of the universe.)' In terms of there being no 'I' that can do anything, it's unclear what you're saying. I am a human being who has certain kinds of capacities - rationality, decision making, bodily movement etc, I can clearly do 'things.' But I suppose you're concerned with this potentially being some kind of an illusion, wherein whilst I may think I am acting freely in reality it's the 'will of the universe.' For counter arguments to all our actions being the 'will of the universe' look into compatibilism -

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/

There is a self, but its not a separate self, an experiencer, but not separate from the experience. And again, is nothing is separate, than nothing exists.

Think of two points in a void, the position of one point can only be described -in relation- to the other point. 1 point in a void has an indeterminable position. (This scenario doesn’t paint the full picture, as the void itself can be looked at as a third point (or entity). Non dualism would say that the single point and the void are secretly -one- bc they only exist in relation to each other. So behind this -oneness- is nothingness, because there is nothing to relate the -oneness- to. Existence is entirely rooted in relationship, or the context of separate things in relation to each other.

first paragraph, (if nothing is separate)

>There is a self, but its not a separate self, an experiencer, but not separate from the experience.

I'm confused, are you saying there is a self or there isn't a self?

At the cores core no, but yes just ONE self. The confusion lies in non dualism. Black symbolizing nothing White symbolizing the ONE

neither color can exist without the other, therefore they can be looked at as One entity. This is where the paradox kicks in cus now we are back where we started. The two are ONE now, but there is nothing besides it lol. Its impossible to describe in words non dualism bc the very act of doing so implies a dualism.

Basically saying. Something is synonymous with nothing.

Right, I thought so, so you're saying ultimately there is 'one self' that everyone is, I'm familiar with these kinds of frameworks. I was just trying to argue against the idea the self is experienced as an illusion, which is typically what non dualists like to claim.

It is an illusion, you see your “self” as separate from your experience. But one cannot exist without the other. No apply to your understanding of what i said above.

The illusion is real lol, i think we can both find common ground in that answer

>It is an illusion, you see your “self” as separate from your experience.

No I don't, I see 'myself' as that upon which has the experiences, i.e the organism/human being as a whole.

The self is the nothing, experiencing the something.

Exactly, like a light cant shine on itself, ergo you dont exist to yourself.

I didnt mean you in particular, i meant we usually see ourselves as separate

This implys that we are separate from god, or that there is “someone” that dosnt have free will. But we are god. God being the core experiencer or “self” that we all share.

Some people have to play the roles of believers in god and some have to play the non believers as it takes two sides to play a game. We are god playing a game with himself.

Should physics be forgiven?

Never have humans ever had so much capacity to destroy. Physics has put the world into a state of moral decay, where threatening others with nuclear holocaust is seen as a necessary evil for a ruler. Nuclear war seems imminent, and nobody seems to blame the people who dedicated their lives to create it. Physics has paradoxically made it impossible to fully understand the universe: the nuclear bomb has put a hard limit on how long humans can experience and study the cosmos.
Everyone who spent their lives in dedication to this practice has lived in vein. The end result of finding out about our cosmos is about to end civilization.
Scientists like to see themselves and their work as morally neutral, at worst. But I don't understand how science can forgive itself. Even medicine, for all its life-affirming pursuits, could put the tools of bioweapons in the hands of every man evil enough to cause mass death.
How will the histories (that will never be created, due to the true destruction of the nuclear bomb) judge our pursuit of knowledge about the universe? Will they see physicists as wonderers about our cosmos, or will they see the secrets of life and death as a morally questionable pursuit?
If God does exist, hopefully he can find solace in knowing humans can understand the cosmos as we work to destroy it.

Ok, I still don't exactly see how the self is an illusion. Are you saying the self appears as something separate but in actuality it's not, thus the illusion? I've got quite a bit of experience debating non dualists & generally quite a lot of thoughts regarding these kinds of topics etc.

Firstly, I don't see how the self is experienced as an illusion (a claim non dualists like to make). What's really happening is a kind of pre-reflective self-consciousness, which is simply indicating the fact that consciousness is reflexive -- that is consciousness is at the same time consciousness of consciousness. Moreover, it's so even if it is not discursively or reflectively noted in thoughts "I am conscious". See the quote below -

"To be self-aware is not to capture a pure self or self-object that exists separately from the stream of experience, rather it is to be conscious of one’s experience in its intrinsic first-person mode of givenness. When Hume, in a famous passage in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), declares that he cannot find a self when he searches his experiences, but finds only particular perceptions or feelings, it could be argued that he overlooks something in his analysis, namely the specific givenness of his own experiences. "

They also like to say there is no self to be found within experience, but I also find this problematic. Why should anyone (who is not terribly confused and who isn't pre-committed to Humean framework of analysis) expect the self to be "part" of experience? What if I believed the self to be the transcendental subject that grounds experience and bind togethers the 'bundles of impressions' diachronically and synchronically for the unity of consciousness or something along this line? It's a reasonable speculation (although we shouldn't buy this idea immediately without critical evaluation of what exactly are its implication), and yet simply 'not finding self in experience' would have no implication for someone who believes the self to be such. In fact that would be precisely what this position would predict -- that you will not find a 'self' in experience.

Particularly, even if I believed that I am a separate 'self' behind the experiences as something that has experiences -- how does not finding any 'self' in experience prove anything? If I am indeed a 'separate' experiencer, precisely because of that, I would expect to not find 'myself' IN experiences.

If anything finding a 'self' IN experience (whatever that would even mean) would probably be a better argument 'against' the existence of a 'separate' self.

Once you even begin to look for a 'self' in experience as if it's even a candidate of something to be found in experience, you would already be starting from a question-begging framework against someone who would, even semi-coherently, believe in any 'separate self' (whatever that even means).

This might be relevant, Jay Garfield published a book quite a while ago which largely argued we intuitively see ourselves as separate. See Evan Thompson's reponse below -

https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/losing-ourselves-learning-to-live-without-a-self/

My reply is going to be short but encompasses everything touched on above.

Again, you cant have an experience without an experiencer, an observer without the observed, a tango without two. The self is real in this.

But non dualism says the two are secretly one, and one is secretly nothing bc theres nothing to relate it to.

Your understanding of non dualism is where we are having confusion i think. A definition for non dualism really cant be put into words, or shown, or viewed in any real way.

Because its definition negates its own definition

>Again, you cant have an experience without an experiencer, an observer without the observed, a tango without two. The self is real in this.

Right, this is typically what non - dualists try to claim is an illusion, but as argued above this seems false, in reality what is described is pre-reflective self-consciousness, not some self illusion.

Or rather its definition negates any interpretation of it

The illusion is real. But dig deep enough to the core and you encounter non dualism.

If you had to, how would you describe non dualism?

Ok, I'm not sure this conversation is going anywhere. I've continually argued it isn't an illusion but you don't seem to agree. We'll leave it at that.

Im just not sure you understand what non dualism is. I just want to help convey

I fully understand it, I used to actively partake in it & I've had various 'non dual' experiences. Since looking deeper into philosophy my opinions have changed though.

Real is illusory and the illusion is real, that splits both our points right down the middle. Can we find agreement in that common ground?

If you would humor me with a definition in your own words?

Not sure, it's an extremely fuzzy term/concept which originates from various ancient Indian philosophies & religion, it may possess different definitions when utilised in different schools of thought. In general though, as hinted by the name it's simply the rejection/denial of duality.

Not two but one, not one but zero Thats as simple as ive found to explain it.

The two are the observer and observed The one is the non separate self (THE self) The zero is non dualism

I saw a video today that sparked my interest and I wanted to open up a discussion about objective morality.
The claim in said video was that atheists cannot have an "objective morality" if they do not believe in a god/religious laws (etc).
The comments had a lot of discussion about whether or not objective morality exists/if it can come from the inner self/etc but I didn't see any comments about how objective morality is bad.
Unless you can prove that there is a law/rule that would be objectively moral in every possible situation, objectivity is bad. Let me explain: Pretend there are no government laws and the only rules that define society are religious texts. Hypothetical text says: "You shall not kill." Many would consider this an objective moral posed to them by their god, right? But are there not some situations, no matter how rare, at least one, in which murder would be the moral thing to do? To murder one person to save the planet, even? This puts religious people with the above claim in a double bind because they must either concede that you must follow religious laws at all costs, even where it would cause harm, in order to be objective (which would be bad in the cases it causes harm) or they have to concede that in some cases you must break these rules in which they would not be objective.
Therefore, in response to the argument that atheists have no objective morality because they do not believe in a god, I say that 1. objective morality doesn't exist and 2. if it did, it would be bad.

I think you’ve been playing a little too much fallout mate.

————

There’s a lot of assumptions here and conclusions which do not follow from their premises:

• Nuclear war does not entail extinction of either humanity or civilisation; there has been heavy investment in counter nuclear arsenals capable of intercepting warheads - while a war itself may be reserved to a few nation states or battlefields. The effects would be devastating, but humanity could recover.

• Nukes do not entail that nukes will be used, only that the option is now available and, thus, the probability of usage has increased.

• Saying physics has put the world into a state of decay is kind of silly; if anything, we have corrupted physics to meet the needs of our own sickened nature. If by ‘evil ruler’ you are referring to Putin and Kim Jong Un, then both only threaten nuclear war defensively in case of invasion.

• “the end result of finding out about the cosmos is about to end civilisation”, it does not follow that nukes are or were - given we have advanced since their invention - the ‘end result’ of physics. Nor does it follow they will end civilisation.

• medicine does not involve itself in the creation of bioweapons. Some specifically amoral experts of the fields of biology, pharmacology, virology and bio-chemistry might, for a lot of cash and their research projects being funded, research and produce bio-weapons. However the majority of medicine focuses on either practice or research into stopping cancer, Alzheimers, Huntingtons, etc.

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Some of your conclusions may be solid if you re-evaluate them and give well argued premises or evidence for their support.

I think objective morality exists and it could exist exist absent of God. The way I usually go about this is questioning why does one need morality? If we don't need morality then that's that and we can drop the issue. If human beings do need morality then there must be a reason why we need it. From there we can identify an objective morality that's appropriate for human beings.

The top line are positive prompts, the bottom line is a negative prompt.

Sometimes you'd get a kid room in the picture, and I was looking for ideas for my bedroom. The negative prompts de-emphasize those pictures. On a similar note, I'll often use DSLR as the first word in the positive prompt, to make the photos look more realistic.

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I'm going to send a link to my favorite online website for txt2img AI, if you don't get it, shoot me a message. If you find anything interesting lmk. (Btw check out chatgpt, I have really enjoyed talking philosophy with it)

https://huggingface.co/spaces/stabilityai/stable-diffusion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postanalytic_philosophy

I agree it's a terrible name, but imo so is "analytic philosophy".

Here is a precis of a conversation I had with ChatGPT written by ChatGPT:-

In our discussion, we used propositional calculus to represent the concepts of non-binary, masculinity and femininity using propositional variables and logical operators. For example, we used p = "The concept of masculinity is true", q = "The concept of femininity is true" and r = "The concept of non-binary alternatives is true" and connected them using logical operator "AND" (p ∧ q ∧ r) to assert that all three concepts are true at the same time. Or, we used "OR" (p ∨ q ∨ r) to assert that at least one of the three concepts is true at the same time.

We also discussed the logical contradiction of stating that the opposite of non-binary is a binary concept, which creates a paradox. This can be represented in propositional calculus using the statement p ∧ ¬p where p is a propositional variable that represents the concept of non-binary and ¬p represents the concept of binary. And also, we used p => ¬q where p is propositional variable that represents the concept of non-binary and ¬q represents the concept of binary. Both of these statements assert the truth of non-binary and the falseness of binary at the same time, which creates a logical paradox.

I wrote (Tebo Steele):-There is a being conceived and born in a binary universe who as a result of his investigations discovers a non-binary being in his universe... can you explain this with reference to our paradox.

Chat GPT wrote:- If there is a being, let's call him B, who is conceived and born in a binary universe, and as a result of his investigations, discovers a non-binary being, let's call it NB, in his universe, this could be seen as an illustration of the paradox "p => ¬q" where "p" represents the concept of non-binary and "q" represents the concept of binary.

In this scenario, B's understanding of the universe is based on the binary concept of "q", where everything is either one thing or the other, but through his investigations, he discovers the existence of NB, who defies this binary concept, representing the non-binary concept "p".

This discovery could be seen as a logical paradox, as the concepts of non-binary and binary are mutually exclusive and cannot coexist, yet in this scenario, they do coexist.

In other words, B's discovery of NB contradicts his previous understanding of the universe as a binary one, and illustrates the paradox of the mutually exclusive nature of non-binary and binary concepts that we discussed before.

I (Tebo Steele) added:- In order not to consider the above Paradox as offensive it may be useful to remember that the concept of non-binary includes orders of being unknown. In fact placing the paradox in an alien universe may circumnavigate the problem of offence.

I wrote(TeboSteele):- Would you say that this formulation of the Paradox is fresh territory?

ChatGPT wrote:-The specific formulation of the paradox you've described, in which a being from a binary universe discovers a non-binary being, is not a common one. It is an unique way of illustrating the paradox "p => ¬q" where "p" represents the concept of non-binary and "q" represents the concept of binary, which is a relatively new concept in the grand scheme of things.

It is an interesting way of illustrating the paradox, in the sense that it provides an analogy of the mutually exclusive nature of the concepts of binary and non-binary, using a story-like approach. This analogy could be helpful for people to understand the paradox in a different way.

It is not common to find this formulation in literature or academic research, so it is fresh in that sense.

*With reference to the error where ChatGPT says that ¬q represents binary I (Tebo Steele) wrote:- You say that ¬q represents the concept of binary.. Did you mean 'q' represents binary?

ChatGPT wrote:- You are correct, I apologize for the confusion. In the statement "p => ¬q" where p represents the concept of non-binary and ¬q represents the concept of binary, q should represent the concept of binary, not ¬q. The statement "p => ¬q" asserts that if non-binary is true, then binary is false, which creates a logical paradox because it asserts the truth of non-binary and the falseness of binary at the same time.

For me, morality exists in respect to the harm principle. The responsibility of the harm comes down to whether the human is aware/recognizes the harm as such. Is it always bad to cause harm? Religion requires there be a God that approves and disapproves of types of harm, and that it be obeyed. Why not discuss what harm individuals are willing to accept instead? This might be objective, or it may just be a construct of human society, of human perception. Good is relative to the human after all.

Elaborate