71–80 of 85 posts
I generally consider myself a nihilist, but only because it's the very last stop on the bus ride of my failed attempts at religion and other philosophies. I grew up very religious and when I lost my faith in my 20s, I tried to replace it w/ absurdism and existentialism, but couldn't shake the notion that lives deep in me that ultimately, even if humanity spreads across the cosmos and we're able to find meaning in our…
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>Also, I would be interested what you think the crucial difference is between not continuing to live and not being born. It is the difference between killing two children and deciding to not have 10 extra ones.
That makes no sense, since children want to live, so you can't apply the logic to children, only to yourself. So I ask you again, would you prefer not to have been born? And if yes, what's your argument for continuing your own life?
People that exist have wants.
I exist, yet the dozen other children my parents could have had don't. You can ask them if they want to have been born, but they don't have an opinion on the matter.
Which part of that do you have trouble with?
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>For one, it seems to me you have to basically reject all of relativistic physics if you want to maintain a perspective on the universe where only the present moment exists. This is because the relativity of simultaneity tells us that there is no such thing as a universal present moment. How can only a single moment exist when there is no such thing as a single moment? Humans do extremely poorly in relativistic envir…
Yes, but regardless of their relevance to our daily lives, Einstein's equations do have strong implications about the basic structure of the universe. And that structure is fundamentally not compatible with ontological presentism.
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I'm an existentialist, not a nihilist. Not even at my core. I never, really, believed in God despite being the son of a religious couple and the grandfather of a preacher. I don't know that there's a way to escape heat death either, but my answer to that is: So what? I don't see why that should make me a nihilist. Nor do I really see why deciding to try to prevent suffering through veganism should follow from any of…
This is the exact same conclusion I came to from we-cannot-escape-the-heat-death argument. I will just make myself and my loved ones happy (latter because it indirectly makes me happy). On an unrelated note, is your grandfather a preacher or your grandson?
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Killing something alive is different to not creating a life. Asking me to kill myself is a rather poor attempt at a gotcha. The better question is why aren't you having children as often as possible if you think life is worth while. On average any fertile couple can produce around 12 children, if you're not on track to have that number of children but think that life is so grand then why aren't you? The difference be…
> The better question is why aren't you having children as often as possible if you think life is worth while. That's a pretty weak "gotcha" as well. The reason I have had 3 children instead of 12 is because it balances my interest and desire to be a parent with the work/cost of doing so. I doubt anyone's decision to reproduce is centered around bestowing the maximal amount of meaning to the universe.
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The societies that dominate others through violence need an even more advanced moral system around killing than those that don't. "Killing is wrong" is enough to get some basic internal stability around, but to start pillaging your neighbors you need a moral code with loopholes.
There is nothing called "Advanced" Moral System, just "Different" ones. "Morality" is entirely Subjective and evolves over Time. Thus it can be used to do and justify anything.
I didn't mean "Advanced" in any sort of value judgement way, but just in terms of complexity. "Never kill people" is a much simpler axiom than "never kill people, except for in these specific circumstances where it's good to kill people instead."
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There is nothing called "Advanced" Moral System, just "Different" ones. "Morality" is entirely Subjective and evolves over Time. Thus it can be used to do and justify anything.
There's not such thing as a society without a moral against killing, so we're far in the reaches of conjecture and theoretical here. I didn't mean "Advanced" in any sort of value judgement way, but just in terms of complexity. "Never kill people" is a much simpler axiom than "never kill people, except for in these specific circumstances where it's good to kill people instead."
Eg: Thou shalt not Kill vs. Thou shalt have only one wife.
They are two very different things. I am talking about the latter which is context-specific and malleable. The former i don't consider as a "Moral" but as a direct corollary of the instinct for self-preservation.
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That makes no sense, since children want to live, so you can't apply the logic to children, only to yourself. So I ask you again, would you prefer not to have been born? And if yes, what's your argument for continuing your own life?
People that don't exist have no wants. People that exist have wants. I exist, yet the dozen other children my parents could have had don't. You can ask them if they want to have been born, but they don't have an opinion on the matter. Which part of that do you have trouble with?
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People that don't exist have no wants. People that exist have wants. I exist, yet the dozen other children my parents could have had don't. You can ask them if they want to have been born, but they don't have an opinion on the matter. Which part of that do you have trouble with?
If they will have wants once they are born, bringing them to the world is justified. Your reasoning makes no sense to me.
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If they will have wants once they are born, bringing them to the world is justified. Your reasoning makes no sense to me.
Then why aren't you bringing in as many children into the world as you can? The average couple can have 12 children in their reproductive lives. Are you on track to reach that goal?