5AF Philosophy Thread

[MWB]

Ants want ants to do better than every other species. Same with hippos. And bears. And people. We take care of our own above all others. Nothing wrong with that. And we're winning. Woop woop.

I certainly disagree with the highlighted bit.

It may seem that we're on top in the short term, but there are billions upon billions of species of non-human life which have adapted and will continue to adapt and will far outlive our alleged dominance.

They'll be feeding on our remains a thousand years after the last human shuffles off the mortal coil.

Yeah, I agree with redwill.

[columbia]

I have actually changed my mind:

I no longer believe in free will. Note that this in no way signifies a belief in a divine.

I have assessed decades of events in my life and accept that it is improbable for many of them to have been the result of random chance.

[shmenguin]

My man

[Freddy Rumsen]

I have actually changed my mind:

I no longer believe in free will. Note that this in no way signifies a belief in a divine.

I have assessed decades of events in my life and accept that it is improbable for many of them to have been the result of random chance.

[Gaucho]

heh

[shmenguin]

I have actually changed my mind:

I no longer believe in free will. Note that this in no way signifies a belief in a divine.

I have assessed decades of events in my life and accept that it is improbable for many of them to have been the result of random chance.

wait...it never occurred to me that columbia may be swapping his belief in free will for a buy in to PRE-determinism. that's just as batty as thinking there's a guy with a beard sitting on a cloud.

this is pure determinism, right? right?

[Freddy Rumsen]

I have actually changed my mind:

I no longer believe in free will. Note that this in no way signifies a belief in a divine.

I have assessed decades of events in my life and accept that it is improbable for many of them to have been the result of random chance.

wait...it never occurred to me that columbia may be swapping his belief in free will for a buy in to PRE-determinism. that's just as batty as thinking there's a guy with a beard sitting on a cloud.

this is pure determinism, right? right?

I was making a joke, but YMMV.

Besides God is not a guy with a beard sitting on a cloud since He is a Spirit, without corporal form or spatial presence.

[columbia]

I'm not being controversial, if that answers your question.

[count2infinity]

Besides God is not a guy with a beard sitting on a cloud since He is a Spirit, without corporal form or spatial presence.

This amuses me for some reason...

[shmenguin]

I have actually changed my mind:

I no longer believe in free will. Note that this in no way signifies a belief in a divine.

I have assessed decades of events in my life and accept that it is improbable for many of them to have been the result of random chance.

wait...it never occurred to me that columbia may be swapping his belief in free will for a buy in to PRE-determinism. that's just as batty as thinking there's a guy with a beard sitting on a cloud.

this is pure determinism, right? right?

I was making a joke, but YMMV.

Besides God is not a guy with a beard sitting on a cloud since He is a Spirit, without corporal form or spatial presence.

the cloud thing was an unintentional Judaeo-christian dig. the gif simply made me wonder if columbia thinks that there is a plan or purpose to his life.

[columbia]

Negative

[Kraftster]

I have actually changed my mind:

I no longer believe in free will. Note that this in no way signifies a belief in a divine.

I have assessed decades of events in my life and accept that it is improbable for many of them to have been the result of random chance.

Do you find this affects your view of moral responsibility at all?

[columbia]

I've also come to accept that I do believe in original sin (assuming that's possible in the context of secular thinking).

[Kraftster]

What do you mean by that?

[columbia]

Humans are inherently flawed, independent of nurturing.

[shmenguin]

Humans are inherently flawed, independent of nurturing.

At this level, there's no such thing as flawed. Everything just is. Strip away consciousness and nothing is of any consequence.

[Willie Kool]

Humans are inherently flawed, independent of nurturing.

I would argue that nurturing is where the flaws are introduced...

[columbia]

Which is more likely:

We're living in a simulation?
Earth was terraformed by aliens?

I go with the former.

[Silentom]

Terraformed.

[Silentom]

Which is more likely:

We're living in a simulation?
Earth was terraformed by aliens?

I go with the former.

[shmenguin]

I believe the universe expands and collapses infinitely. I had this thought last night that maybe it all repeats EXACTLY the same every time. Which would mean atoms gradually pull towards each other in the same fashion...the same planets form...and eventually the same people are born every single time. With the exact same life and consciousness. So in that sense, we would all exist forever. Living the exact same life over and over. Fade to black in your death bed and boom you're a baby again with no memory.

I'll never find religion so I know I'll never believe in an afterlife. But maybe I can work with this...

[shmenguin]

So this is pretty much what I'm saying...

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/8 ... ry-repeats

...if you believe in free will, you are f***ed in this scenario. Somewhere along the way in the 14 billion years that precede you, things will happen that ensure that you will not be the little swimmer that gets to fertilize the egg. You're one and done.

But if you are a determinist, this means immortality. The fact that you ever lived - even for a split second - means you will live on literally forever. Of course the tragedy of this is that there are babies born every day who only know suffering. And their brief lives will be repeated over and over. Forever. So the moral is: make it count, folks. This is your infinite legacy.

@Kraftster - have you ever considered this? I actually felt like a weight was lifted from my shoulders. Should I lose a loved one...a child even...I will see them again. I'll even get to experience their whole lives alongside them again. Now this opens up larger questions about the nature of consciousness. Is it really "me" that will live on? Mentally and physically, it will be the exact same person with the exact same collection of thoughts and experiences...but is it me? And if it isn't, why? Because I have no memory of my previous lives? Is memory the only thing that makes you a distinct being? That doesn't really add up.

[Kraftster]

So this is pretty much what I'm saying...

http://www.express.co.uk/news/science/8 ... ry-repeats

...if you believe in free will, you are f***ed in this scenario. Somewhere along the way in the 14 billion years that precede you, things will happen that ensure that you will not be the little swimmer that gets to fertilize the egg. You're one and done.

But if you are a determinist, this means immortality. The fact that you ever lived - even for a split second - means you will live on literally forever. Of course the tragedy of this is that there are babies born every day who only know suffering. And their brief lives will be repeated over and over. Forever. So the moral is: make it count, folks. This is your infinite legacy.

@Kraftster - have you ever considered this? I actually felt like a weight was lifted from my shoulders. Should I lose a loved one...a child even...I will see them again. I'll even get to experience their whole lives alongside them again. Now this opens up larger questions about the nature of consciousness. Is it really "me" that will live on? Mentally and physically, it will be the exact same person with the exact same collection of thoughts and experiences...but is it me? And if it isn't, why? Because I have no memory of my previous lives? Is memory the only thing that makes you a distinct being? That doesn't really add up.

Hmm. Fun stuff.

First, I have never thought of it, but it immediately makes a good bit of intuitive sense. I've always been drawn to the idea that things have just "always been." So the idea that what preceded the big bang is a set of conditions that were always going to lead to the big bang, which would generate a "new" universe that was always going to head for that same place makes sense. I'm not sure it immediately clicks for me why the end of one run through the loop necessarily generates the precise same starting conditions for the next? Like, couldn't you have a non-identical loop scenario?

I am trying to compare the repeating self to the multiverse self and the uploaded-to-computer self to see if I think it is anymore "me" than those other scenarios. They're all a little different.

Multiverse self -- are the other "mes" even really me? I assume by tweaking even one small condition unrelated to me in the "closest" universe to this one I get changed in someway. So, let's say genetically different version of the person that is the son of the same "people" who has no knowledge of the other selves out there in other universes.

Computer self -- theoretically a different iteration of the same consciousness, complete with the "memory" notion you mentioned that would make the computer iteration believe it was really "me" but if I were observing, presumably I would have a distinct identity from the computer me. This perhaps also illustrate that memory of past is probably not the determining factor for continuous identity. (I agree with your query here, though -- what is?)

Looping Universe self -- literally is you just at a different point in "time." In fact, hard to even say the different yours are even different iterations of you since time almost disappears in the looping scenario. Here you lack the awareness/memory/illusion of being a continuous identity, though. So, something about that feels unsatisfying from a want-to-live-forever standpoint.

I will definitely think more on this.

p.s. since I've gotten into meditation and some secular buddhist ideas, I feel some cracks in the desire to live forever. It now strikes me as an impossibly selfish thing to want from the standpoint that there was a prebargained for exchange when the bunch of stardust came together to make me that eventually I would have to give it back to the universe. Hard to surrender to the universe in the practice of stoicism and hold out on that one last thing.

[shmenguin]

I'm not sure it immediately clicks for me why the end of one run through the loop necessarily generates the precise same starting conditions for the next?

it doesn't fully click for me either. it's mostly wishful thinking, but it's also taking into account some details of the big bang. as i understand it, when it happened, the only thing that existed in the universe was a field of equally distributed hydrogen atoms. an anomaly in the distribution caused the first incident of a gravitational pull...which then ultimately led to the universe as we know it. so that anomaly would have to be consistent throughout every big bang. that's tough to reconcile with this theory. however, if the big bang came from a true singularity, juuust maybe there is only one way for it to "bang". and it will bang that way every time. that's what i'm ban(g)king on.

Multiverse self -- are the other "mes" even really me? I assume by tweaking even one small condition unrelated to me in the "closest" universe to this one I get changed in someway. So, let's say genetically different version of the person that is the son of the same "people" who has no knowledge of the other selves out there in other universes.

even in a multiverse, i don't believe there are multiple versions of anyone walking around. there are 14 billion years of pre-existing circumstances that are subject to immense variation before you're born. even with infinite universes, i think it's highly unlikely your DNA makes an appearance. or maybe it does - but the context will be completely different. which changes everything.

[shmenguin]

Today's take is inspired by me spending the last several days at home with all the different permutations of family I have.

I think we're going to look back at the early days of smart phones and wonder why people had such a bug up their butt when people bury their heads in their phones rather than talk with the people they're surrounded by. You goobers share more interests with me than those people. And I go on Reddit to laugh a little but also gain more understanding about the world around me and the people that live in it. We have these tools at our disposal. There is no shame in using them. Much like sending thank you cards, people who get annoyed at this either are stuck in a dead past or take it personally when they aren't given enough attention.