Philosophy

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Philosophy

Post by {censored} » March 19th, 2021, 11:47 am

A thread about philosophy and exchanging thoughts. Everyone is welcome.
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Re: Philosophy

Post by Schiaparelliorbust » March 19th, 2021, 12:15 pm

Nice. Glad to see this here.

Ok first discussion topic: Free will.
We do not have free will and I can prove it. Let's say there is some being that has free will. We can't say that it just "has free will". If it can make decisions, then there must be a mechanism of doing so. Then that being must have some part in it that has free will. If none of the parts have free will (behave deterministically), then where does the free will come from? If a part does have free will, then the same can be said for it as the main being. Thus we run into the infinite regress. Also see the Free Will Theorem, partially proved by John Conway himself.
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Re: Philosophy

Post by {censored} » March 19th, 2021, 12:34 pm

Interesting.
We are very complex beings and we still do not know much of how our brain works.
Our emotions shape us. We can often choose a worse option knowing that it is worse if it allows something that the best (or at least apparently best) one cannot.
We decide many things through the day and we often choose worse option even if it prevents us from acquiring our goals. Emotions may also prevent us from killing our parents even if we know that there may be a massive benefit,so it could also be the case that they power us. God may also be giving us our free will.
Also, decision-making is often very hard if there is a balance. For an example I am not a good chooser when it comes to clothes because they often both have benefits from choosing them.
Maybe we actually indeed do not,but we sure have emotions and our big brains that disallow us to see a few things due to our intelligence! Emotions are something else,however. I also believe we like things to stay like they were and to live life as free as possible and to break limits.
I may have made some mistakes since I am a little tired but I will not sleep soon.
Thoughts?
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Re: Philosophy

Post by Schiaparelliorbust » March 19th, 2021, 1:12 pm

{censored} wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 12:34 pm
Interesting.
We are very complex beings and we still do not know much of how our brain works.
Our emotions shape us. We can often choose a worse option knowing that it is worse if it allows something that the best (or at least apparently best) one cannot.
We decide many things through the day and we often choose worse option even if it prevents us from acquiring our goals. Emotions may also prevent us from killing our parents even if we know that there may be a massive benefit,so it could also be the case that they power us. God may also be giving us our free will.
Also, decision-making is often very hard if there is a balance. For an example I am not a good chooser when it comes to clothes because they often both have benefits from choosing them.
Maybe we actually indeed do not,but we sure have emotions and our big brains that disallow us to see a few things due to our intelligence. Emotions are something else,however. I also believe we like things to stay like they were and to live life as free as possible and to break limits.
I may have made some mistakes since I am a little tired but I will not sleep soon.
Thoughts?
Even if God existed (which they don't), the same rules I said above would apply to them too. We would ultimately have no free will. Also, the complexity of our brains has nothing to do with free will. If it did, we would run into absurd conclusions like babies acquire free will at some point of their lives or we gained free will somewhere along the way of evolution. There is a good deal of empirical evidence for the lack of free will too. There is an experiment where scientists were able to accurately predict the choice of people asked to choose between two approximately 11 seconds before they were aware of their choice. Also listen to Robert Sapolsky's lectures (on free will).
Slight tangent: I also think that my argument also applies to randomness, especially that of quantum mechanics. To me, the Copenhagen interpretation basically says that quantum systems are completely random, but they make one specific choice. I think that this implies that there must be some way of choosing that outcome, while there is nothing in physics that say so. This is why I favor the many worlds interpretation, because it gets rid of the need to choose between outcomes.
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Re: Philosophy

Post by {censored} » March 19th, 2021, 1:25 pm

Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 1:12 pm
{censored} wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 12:34 pm
Interesting.
We are very complex beings and we still do not know much of how our brain works.
Our emotions shape us. We can often choose a worse option knowing that it is worse if it allows something that the best (or at least apparently best) one cannot.
We decide many things through the day and we often choose worse option even if it prevents us from acquiring our goals. Emotions may also prevent us from killing our parents even if we know that there may be a massive benefit,so it could also be the case that they power us. God may also be giving us our free will.
Also, decision-making is often very hard if there is a balance. For an example I am not a good chooser when it comes to clothes because they often both have benefits from choosing them.
Maybe we actually indeed do not,but we sure have emotions and our big brains that disallow us to see a few things due to our intelligence. Emotions are something else,however. I also believe we like things to stay like they were and to live life as free as possible and to break limits.
I may have made some mistakes since I am a little tired but I will not sleep soon.
Thoughts?
Even if God existed (which they don't), the same rules I said above would apply to them too. We would ultimately have no free will. Also, the complexity of our brains has nothing to do with free will. If it did, we would run into absurd conclusions like babies acquire free will at some point of their lives or we gained free will somewhere along the way of evolution. There is a good deal of empirical evidence for the lack of free will too. There is an experiment where scientists were able to accurately predict the choice of people asked to choose between two approximately 11 seconds before they were aware of their choice. Also listen to Robert Sapolsky's lectures (on free will).
Slight tangent: I also think that my argument also applies to randomness, especially that of quantum mechanics. To me, the Copenhagen interpretation basically says that quantum systems are completely random, but they make one specific choice. I think that this implies that there must be some way of choosing that outcome, while there is nothing in physics that say so. This is why I favor the many worlds interpretation, because it gets rid of the need to choose between outcomes.
While I do not want to reveal my beliefs about God,by most definitions God is the highest being that controls us all and so probably has free will.
Also,I think that we still have free will because that term may also apply to cases when the person is not forcibly controlled by any man or something else (except God if there is God) and can choose whatever he wants without being forced by others.
I think the other worlds may just be extensions of our universe that are too far to see, just like galaxies with many stars are quite distant from each other. I am not fully sure about how I can place the Big Bang,but I think it could actually be an explosion of a large black hole. I am also not sure how to place God in this theory.
Thoughts?
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Re: Philosophy

Post by Schiaparelliorbust » March 19th, 2021, 1:42 pm

{censored} wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 1:25 pm
While I do not want to reveal my beliefs about God,by most definitions God is the highest being that controls us all and so probably has free will.
Also,I think that we still have free will because that term may also apply to cases when the person is not forcibly controlled by any man or something else (except God if there is God) and can choose whatever he wants without being forced by others.
I think the other worlds may just be extensions of our universe that are too far to see, just like galaxies with many stars are quite distant from each other. I am not fully sure about how I can place the Big Bang,but I think it could actually be an explosion of a large black hole. I am also not sure how to place God in this theory.
Thoughts?
I don't see why some magical sky daddy (Sorry) would be exempt from what I first said. Also, we are forcibly controlled, just by the laws of physics.
Jerry A. Coyne at https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25381 wrote:Some even argue that we have free will because most of us choose without duress: nobody holds a gun to our head and says "order the strawberry." But of course that's not true: the guns are the electrical signals in our brain.
God does not fit into the picture at all.
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Re: Philosophy

Post by wwei47 » March 19th, 2021, 1:48 pm

Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 1:42 pm
Also, we are forcibly controlled, just by the laws of physics.
But aren't quantum mechanics random?
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Re: Philosophy

Post by Schiaparelliorbust » March 19th, 2021, 1:49 pm

wwei47 wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 1:48 pm
But aren't quantum mechanics random?
Yes, read what I said about it.
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Re: Philosophy

Post by {censored} » March 19th, 2021, 1:54 pm

I do not nesecarrily insist that God exists,just want to place and clear and resolve as much potential factors as possible.
I am not sure how much physics laws are forcibly controlling us.
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Re: Philosophy

Post by Schiaparelliorbust » March 19th, 2021, 1:57 pm

{censored} wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 1:54 pm
I do not nesecarrily insist that God exists,just want to place and clear and resolve as much potential factors as possible.
I am not sure how much physics laws are forcibly controlling us.
So you're saying that we are to some degree exempt from physical laws? I don't see how that is possible.
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Re: Philosophy

Post by {censored} » March 19th, 2021, 2:00 pm

Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 1:57 pm
{censored} wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 1:54 pm
I do not nesecarrily insist that God exists,just want to place and clear and resolve as much potential factors as possible.
I am not sure how much physics laws are forcibly controlling us.
So you're saying that we are to some degree exempt from physical laws? I don't see how that is possible.
No,I did not wanted to say that. Exactly what,I am a bit tired to answer. I think I wanted to say that they run and power us but I am not sure what is changed. Maybe I forgot. Also,there could possibly be ways to avoid being impacted by physical laws.
Let's change topic a little. We can back here later. This concrete one is hard to think about.
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Re: Philosophy

Post by praosylen » March 19th, 2021, 7:14 pm

Here's a kind of out-there thought: maybe quantum randomness is free will...
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Re: Philosophy

Post by Moosey » March 19th, 2021, 9:38 pm

Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 1:12 pm
Even if God existed (which they don't)
Can we please avoid this argument? Dvgrn did mention locking the sandbox on a thread with that topic.
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Re: Philosophy

Post by wwei47 » March 19th, 2021, 9:54 pm

We don't need this argument: We just prove the same thing first assuming that God exists, then assuming that God doesn't exist. Then we can say: If God exists then x, if God doesn't exist then x. Therefore x!!!
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Re: Philosophy

Post by toroidalet » March 19th, 2021, 10:05 pm

A for awesome wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 7:14 pm
Here's a kind of out-there thought: maybe quantum randomness is free will...
You might want to check out this paper, which theorizes (as a toy model) a limited but extremely large number of "freebits": qubits whose quantum state is unknown to us in an inherently unpredictable way (bad description). These are things like CMB photons, radioactive atoms in your body, and states of ambient electrons. Their influence is extremely small, but every now and then one will interact with a neuron, and inherent unpredictability even if we perfectly know your body's quantum state emerges as "free will". (a primitive version of the idea is mentioned offhand in the free will theorem paper)



A key lemma in the proof of the free will theorem shows that it is impossible to make a function (of the measured basis) that deterministically determines what measurement a given qubit could give. This might seem paradoxical, but remember the principle of quantum pseudo-telepathy: a grid populated with 1's and -1's cannot have all positive column products and all negative row products, but if you allow superpositions, you can. (if you measure an individual row or column, it will have the given property)

I view the free will theorem in the opposite way you do. You go, "If experimenters have free will to choose measurement bases, then the measured particles must have free will. Unacceptable!" whereas I go, "If particles don't have free will, then since not all their potential properties can simultaneously exist, it must be determined ahead of time the ways in which it will be measured. Unacceptable!"

Additionally, the term "free will" is a bit of a loaded term, because in humans it has a specific meaning, but "a particle can't think! It doesn't have anything with which to 'will'!" but all "free will" means for particles is that their measurement outcome is undetermined by current conditions (I will admit this is sort of circular).

Even without quantum randomness, determinism does not entail predictability, and many chaotic systems seem to behave almost randomly, so that determinism is useless if you don't know the exact position of every atom in the universe.
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Re: Philosophy

Post by {censored} » March 20th, 2021, 8:08 am

wwei47 wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 9:54 pm
We don't need this argument: We just prove the same thing first assuming that God exists, then assuming that God doesn't exist. Then we can say: If God exists then x, if God doesn't exist then x. Therefore x!!!
Yes!
I think that there stiil could be free will because I am totally out of my mind if I drink alcohol, because of which I mostly avoid it.
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Re: Philosophy

Post by Schiaparelliorbust » March 20th, 2021, 10:32 am

Moosey wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 9:38 pm
Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 1:12 pm
Even if God existed (which they don't)
Can we please avoid this argument? Dvgrn did mention locking the sandbox on a thread with that topic.
Yes, sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I will avoid it from now on.
A for awesome wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 7:14 pm
Here's a kind of out-there thought: maybe quantum randomness is free will...
Free will implies some sort of active choosing. Randomness doesn't. Also:
Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 1:12 pm
Slight tangent: I also think that my argument also applies to randomness, especially that of quantum mechanics. To me, the Copenhagen interpretation basically says that quantum systems are completely random, but they make one specific choice. I think that this implies that there must be some way of choosing that outcome, while there is nothing in physics that say so. This is why I favor the many worlds interpretation, because it gets rid of the need to choose between outcomes.
wwei47 wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 9:54 pm
We don't need this argument: We just prove the same thing first assuming that God exists, then assuming that God doesn't exist. Then we can say: If God exists then x, if God doesn't exist then x. Therefore x!!!
Well yeah, but you would have to define "God", which varies from culture to culture.
toroidalet wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 10:05 pm

Even without quantum randomness, determinism does not entail predictability, and many chaotic systems seem to behave almost randomly, so that determinism is useless if you don't know the exact position of every atom in the universe.
I'm not advocating determinism, I'm advocating that any system cannot choose for itself. Also look at what I told A for awesome.

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Re: Philosophy

Post by {censored} » March 20th, 2021, 11:49 am

Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 20th, 2021, 10:32 am
Moosey wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 9:38 pm
Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 1:12 pm
Even if God existed (which they don't)
Can we please avoid this argument? Dvgrn did mention locking the sandbox on a thread with that topic.
Yes, sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I will avoid it from now on.
A for awesome wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 7:14 pm
Here's a kind of out-there thought: maybe quantum randomness is free will...
Free will implies some sort of active choosing. Randomness doesn't. Also:
Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 1:12 pm
Slight tangent: I also think that my argument also applies to randomness, especially that of quantum mechanics. To me, the Copenhagen interpretation basically says that quantum systems are completely random, but they make one specific choice. I think that this implies that there must be some way of choosing that outcome, while there is nothing in physics that say so. This is why I favor the many worlds interpretation, because it gets rid of the need to choose between outcomes.
wwei47 wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 9:54 pm
We don't need this argument: We just prove the same thing first assuming that God exists, then assuming that God doesn't exist. Then we can say: If God exists then x, if God doesn't exist then x. Therefore x!!!
Well yeah, but you would have to define "God", which varies from culture to culture.
toroidalet wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 10:05 pm

Even without quantum randomness, determinism does not entail predictability, and many chaotic systems seem to behave almost randomly, so that determinism is useless if you don't know the exact position of every atom in the universe.
I'm not advocating determinism, I'm advocating that any system cannot choose for itself. Also look at what I told A for awesome.
God is very easy to define I think. I think that we are going to need to put God here just as a way to attempt to prove God and see how God would impact things.
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Re: Philosophy

Post by praosylen » March 20th, 2021, 12:11 pm

toroidalet wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 10:05 pm
I view the free will theorem in the opposite way you do. You go, "If experimenters have free will to choose measurement bases, then the measured particles must have free will. Unacceptable!" whereas I go, "If particles don't have free will, then since not all their potential properties can simultaneously exist, it must be determined ahead of time the ways in which it will be measured. Unacceptable!"
This is a lot to read in to my literal one-sentence post... My view on the matter is that of course particles' measured properties are non-deterministic, and it completely violates Occam's razor to try to say otherwise and claim that instead experimenters can't pick measurement bases (at least in this unsophisticated picture), so the second one would be a lot closer to my view than the first. I think you're mistaking me saying "quantum randomness is free will" for "pah, free will is just quantum randomness", which is not what I'm trying to say at all.
toroidalet wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 10:05 pm
Additionally, the term "free will" is a bit of a loaded term, because in humans it has a specific meaning, but "a particle can't think! It doesn't have anything with which to 'will'!" but all "free will" means for particles is that their measurement outcome is undetermined by current conditions (I will admit this is sort of circular).
Sure, exactly! I would even add that if you try to deconstruct human free will far enough and look at what exactly happens when you make any sort of decision, unless you're willing to attribute it to some higher "soul" or whatever involving unknown physical laws, you're pretty much left with quantum randomness as the only (in principle) non-deterministic phenomenon to attribute any non-determinism in decision-making to. Again this kind of sounds like "pah, free will is just quantum randomness", but I don't think of it as diminishing the value of free will in any way, since I think the lack of a real functional difference between "RNG"-style non-determinism versus "free will"-style non-determinism lets one pick whichever perspective on fundamental non-determinism one wants and I tend to prefer the latter myself.
toroidalet wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 10:05 pm
Even without quantum randomness, determinism does not entail predictability, and many chaotic systems seem to behave almost randomly, so that determinism is useless if you don't know the exact position of every atom in the universe.
Here in my view there's an important distinction between predictability in principle (which your hypothetical situation would have) and predictability in practice (which it wouldn't)... If your system is unpredictable only in practice but predictable in principle (in a chaotic fashion so that you can in theory indefinitely increase the accuracy of your predictions but it just becomes harder and harder to do so) there is a subtle functional distinction to some extent between PRNG-style non-determinism and "free will"-style non-determinism, so in my view the case for equating the two and choosing the latter perspective is much weaker.
Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 20th, 2021, 10:32 am
Free will implies some sort of active choosing. Randomness doesn't. Also:
Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 1:12 pm
Slight tangent: I also think that my argument also applies to randomness, especially that of quantum mechanics. To me, the Copenhagen interpretation basically says that quantum systems are completely random, but they make one specific choice. I think that this implies that there must be some way of choosing that outcome, while there is nothing in physics that say so. This is why I favor the many worlds interpretation, because it gets rid of the need to choose between outcomes.
Randomness doesn't directly imply some sort of active choosing, but in my view it doesn't exclude the idea, at least if you go full reductionism on what "active choosing" means — if you claim choices must be non-deterministic for free will to hold (which I think most people would), then there's going to be some fundamental indivisible level of non-determinism at the core of that choice — and non-determinism from whatever the core of what free will means is (i.e. "active" non-determinism) doesn't seem functionally distinguishable from passive randomness to me — except as a matter of different perspectives in looking at the same phenomenon.
Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 20th, 2021, 10:32 am
I'm not advocating determinism, I'm advocating that any system cannot choose for itself. Also look at what I told A for awesome.
Again, "choose for itself" is a tricky idea to isolate at a fundamental level — to me it simply requires non-determinism, but you might claim it also requires a simultaneous aspect of selecting options toward some goal or with some purpose in mind, which in my view is more deterministic and requires some degree of sentience in the entity that is choosing. If that's the case, yeah, you couldn't say particles choose for themselves since they lack the capacity to act toward any goals, but that doesn't imply the converse that free-will choices don't involve some element of quantum non-determinism at their core. In my view defining free will in a more complicated way that requires deterministic and non-deterministic elements as well as elements of sentience in the entity possessing it is less justified, and I think it's more justified to consider free will and true randomness (i.e. quantum randomness) to just be two sides of the same coin (i.e. fundamental non-determinism, no loaded terminology attached) and pick whichever one is more useful based on the situation.

(Again, these are just thoughts, I don't expect them all to be right, I'm mostly just speculating. I'm also kind of operating within a group of QM interpretations I don't really find philosophically appealing because I don't have any kind of technical understanding of any of them that I do find appealing...)
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Re: Philosophy

Post by {censored} » March 20th, 2021, 12:17 pm

What is your opinion on the reason why life exists in the universe?I think that that one is very deep and enjoyable.
From the scientific point of view life's only goal is to dominate the other life and make its next generation and its future. It is also a lucky merger of some random conditions in the universe.However,there could also be other reasons.
For an example, from a religious point of view it can have other reasons.
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Re: Philosophy

Post by {censored} » March 20th, 2021, 1:31 pm

{censored} wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 2:00 pm
Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 1:57 pm
{censored} wrote:
March 19th, 2021, 1:54 pm
I do not nesecarrily insist that God exists,just want to place and clear and resolve as much potential factors as possible.
I am not sure how much physics laws are forcibly controlling us.
So you're saying that we are to some degree exempt from physical laws? I don't see how that is possible.
No,I did not wanted to say that. Exactly what,I am a bit tired to answer. I think I wanted to say that they run and power us but I am not sure what is changed. Maybe I forgot. Also,there could possibly be ways to avoid being impacted by physical laws.
Let's change topic a little. We can back here later. This concrete one is hard to think about.
Maybe I wanted to say that because they are not alive but that is mostly irrelevant now. I think you pretty much dominate on this topic, Schiaparelliorbust.
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Re: Philosophy

Post by toroidalet » March 20th, 2021, 5:40 pm

A for Awesome: I had originally written the post (the section after the multiple line breaks) in response to Schiaparelliorbust, so "you" refers to them, not you. This is why the rest is pro-free-will-for-particles. Apologies for the confusion.

To rephrase what I said there in multiple paragraphs better, I view the free will theorem in a contrapositive fashion: that if the particle's measurements were predetermined, then so are the experimenter's measurement choices—otherwise they might accidentally measure an undetermined property (which must exist in the classical case, despite the fact that each individual measurement can give a defined value).

Re reason for life:
The easy but philosophically unsatisfying answer is the anthropic principle: "if there weren't life, there wouldn't be anyone to observe that", but I don't really have a better reason.
There seems to be a lot of meaningless suffering in the animal kingdom (most infamously, parasitic wasps and flesh-eating bacteria), so I don't believe that "very deep and enjoyable" is very compelling.
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Re: Philosophy

Post by {censored} » March 20th, 2021, 5:45 pm

I know,toroidalet,but many things Iike 18+ are enjoyable but still sometimes painful.
Also,that is not all that life has to offer,that is why I said that it is deep and enjoyable. Other your points are good,however.

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Re: Philosophy

Post by Moosey » March 20th, 2021, 8:27 pm

I had a conversation with prao about meaning in life on a different discord once, in response to someone saying that eliminating a God would deprive existence of purpose:

keep in mind that this argument is mainly discussing a universe in which a God doesn't exist, which means we don't really have anything beyond opinions about whether it applies in this universe, and as such none of the assumptions made are to attack any belief.
I wrote:the lack of a deity to rule us isn't necessarily a bad thing (assuming none exists-- personally I don't know); it means there's nobody to arbitrarily assign meaning to some things
I'd say that it's not depressing to have no deity watching over us, because we have one less thing to limit us
sure, in some respects it makes the universe more rigid; its laws function with no exceptions without the existence of miracles etc
but on the other hand the laws of the universe are predictable, and there are still a lot of cool things we can do within them
science doesn't make existence worse by depriving it of a deity to assign meaning
it gives us the authority to assign meaning instead

so that's my nihilistic argument
prao/a for awesome wrote:That's interesting... I still don't really like nihilism because I know people's experiences don't always match with the idea that they're the ones creating the meaning they feel — for me sometimes meaning just seems to exist tbh, although I'm sure it depends in the person
I wrote:yeah, that too
but my point is that there isn't anyone to determine what meaning is right and what is wrong

you don't have to worry that what you derive meaning from isn't what god thinks is meaningful; if you derive meaning from like eating a burrito or something you don't need to worry whether god approves of the burrito

except if what you derive meaning from is morally wrong or something
(and imo morality can exist without a diety and stuff; the arguments that without a god, nothing would be moral or immoral aren't really true imo, there's still morality that exists independently of a god)
the morality might be a little more fuzzy, sure
but things that are clearly morally wrong are still going to be clearly morally wrong without a god
and should not have meaning derived from them
though to be fair I don't think a sane person really can derive meaning from something that is wrong
prao/a for awesome wrote:Morality in the absence of religion I feel like operates primarily off of empathy and consensus
I wrote:things are immoral imo if (not necessarily only if tho) they directly make people miserable
-> if you derive meaning from hurting people, you have a problem
anyway this was a wild tangent
but that's more or less why I think that science does in fact make things better in that way
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Re: Philosophy

Post by Hunting » March 20th, 2021, 10:41 pm

Schiaparelliorbust wrote:
March 20th, 2021, 10:32 am
Free will implies some sort of active choosing. Randomness doesn't.
Define active. Active is ill-defined from the very beginning.

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