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Why life is absurd

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Re: Why life is absurd

#131

Post by keane »

locopati wrote: post #123
keane wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, AnimalMuppet is correct. We are unable to value the survival of mankind as objectively good, as we have no empirical evidence to do so (more accurately: we cannot infer an Ought from an Is). See this for more on why: http://liamk.org/is-love-real/ Our options are Nihilism/Zen/Absurdity or Theism. And if the former is true, it doesn't matter if we hold the latter. As CS Lewis put it, if the Theists are wrong after…

Zen is not nihilism (unless you're bandying about the word in a way that has nothing to do with the actual practice of Zen)

The goal of Zen and all Buddhism is to achieve "Enlightenment", a state of mind where one fully internalises the rather Daoist idea (remember the Yin Yang) that God does not exist and due to this Good and Evil are not different at all (an illusion) but are one and the same. Believing that Right and Wrong are equivalent is the same as denying they exist at all, hence Nihilism.

All of the practices done before this (meditation, compassion, tantra, etc) are--as in other branches of Hindu and Dharmic faiths--understood to be merely optional "yogas" or activities to fill the time and enjoy oneself in a Nihilistic world.

Re: Why life is absurd

#132

Post by AnimalMuppet »

gphil wrote: post #66
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that I'm arguing on a different level than that link. If all we are is matter obeying the laws of physics, then you can't say "It was wrong to do that" because I couldn't have done anything else . Each of my atoms is just obeying the laws of physics; that's driving my biochemicals according to the laws of biochemistry, and those are driving my neurons according to the laws of neurology. At no place in there d…

You're really bringing the Philosophy major in me out tonight! First off, naturalism does not necessarily imply determinism. But even given physical determinism, the incompatibility of it and free will is not a certainty: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/ The point I'm really trying to make is that there are a lot of smart people who have written on all these topics, and the answers are far from settle…

Naturalism (as we currently understand the laws of nature) doesn't totally imply determinism. There is some quantum uncertainty at the lower layers. But that isn't the same as me having free will, because my free will doesn't control the quantum uncertainty.

As for compatibilism... it looks like "you can't totally prove that materialism implies no free will, so it might be possible." No mechanism, not even a guess at one, just "it could still be". Forgive me, but I don't find that very persuasive.

I think that my objection to most of the compatibilism stuff is this: What is the "I" that is going to choose? In a purely naturalist view, all I can be is a collection of matter that obeys the laws of physics, because there's nothing else for me to be. I'm a machine made out of atoms, nothing more. It seems to me that all these compatibilist arguments aren't really taking that seriously. (Perhaps not surprisingly, since they're being made by philosophers, not physicists.) They therefore have some intuitive, experience-based idea of what a person is that sneaks in to their arguments, rather than really grappling with the implications of the purely naturalist position.

Re: Why life is absurd

#133

Post by sjg007 »

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #70
forloop wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elysium has 5 Nobel Laureates on their board[0]! Their Chief Scientist is Leonard Guarente of MIT. Novartis[1], the pharmaceutical company, who ranked number one in world-wide sales in 2013 is working on a longevity drug based on rapamycin. Elizabeth Blackburn got a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, in 2009, for her work on telomeres! Quite frankly: lulz! [0] http://www.elysiumhealth.com/team [1] http://en.wikip…

nothing you said changes the incentives in front of researchers. Grant money is there in the billions for cancer research, obesity research etc. There is essentially no grant money there for basic longevity research. I say this having spoken with people trying to get funding for basic longevity research.

Cancer cells are by definition immortal.

Re: Why life is absurd

#134

Post by locopati »

keane wrote: post #131
locopati wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zen is not nihilism (unless you're bandying about the word in a way that has nothing to do with the actual practice of Zen)

The goal of Zen and all Buddhism is to achieve "Enlightenment", a state of mind where one fully internalises the rather Daoist idea (remember the Yin Yang) that God does not exist and due to this Good and Evil are not different at all (an illusion) but are one and the same. Believing that Right and Wrong are equivalent is the same as denying they exist at all, hence Nihilism. All of the practices done before this (me…

This is a complete misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Buddhism, which is the Middle Path between nihilism (a denial of existence) and eternalism (a belief in permanence or independence). Among the foundational beliefs are impermanence, interdependence, and the emptiness of self-existence all phenomena; or from another angle, suffering, the cause of suffering, that suffering can cease, the means of achieving that cessation. The practices are not meant to "fill the time" but are the means of seeing reality clearly.

Re: Why life is absurd

#135

Post by tim333 »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #47

We long for permanence, but death comes anyway. We long for a real basis for morals, but if all we are is matter obeying the laws of physics, morals cannot be anything more than arbitrarily-made-up rules. We long for meaning, but that's hard to come by too. It usually comes down to randomly picking something and assigning meaning to it, and claiming that now you have meaning. But if all you are is a machine made of a…

>morals cannot be anything more than arbitrarily-made-up rules

Morals are more than made up rules because if we're just atoms, they have come about through evolution. Presumably any advanced creature would have senses for pain so it does not harm itself at the wrong time, something like happiness when things go well, an instinct to protect the offspring, a sense of beauty which quite likely corresponds to environments and creatures that are helpful for survival and probably some instincts to not trash the environment to the extent it wipes it's kind out. Hence much of the basic morals we have would seem some what inevitable to evolved life forms.

I quite like common sense evolved morals. They can be preferable to what the God inspired likes of ISIS get up to.

Re: Why life is absurd

#136

Post by eli_gottlieb »

keane wrote: post #130
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This would give you Nihilism. The Is-Ought Problem and the Open Question Argument are not so conclusive as to justify nihilism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_naturalism

If the world is material (natural) only, then the maxim of Hitchens and Sagan applies: "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence". You assert humans have value. There is no empirical evidence of this claim. This leaves you with Moral Nonrealism. Only if the world is posited to be something beyond material (supernatural), can we suggest values are Real and hold to Moral Realism. A…

>You assert humans have value. There is no empirical evidence of this claim.

But of course there is. Humans have value to humans. You are assuming that "have value" requires a supernatural grounding.

Re: Why life is absurd

#137

Post by eli_gottlieb »

andrewflnr wrote: post #128
aikah wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it arbitrary? every species on that planet is "programmed" to reproduce and thrive, and we are no different.

Yes, absolutely, people are programmed to survive just like every other life form out there, so why favor humans? Just because we're the smartest? If I destroy humanity to ensure my survival, in what sense is that bad , since after all I'm just following my programming to survive. When we talk about morality, we're looking for something that should happen, deeper than what does happen or what anything wants to happen…

>Yes, absolutely, people are programmed to survive just like every other life form out there, so why favor humans?

Because we happen to be humans. But there's also lots of other creatures out there to favor: monkeys, dogs, that sort of thing.

>When we talk about morality, we're looking for something that should happen, deeper than what does happen or what anything wants to happen.

The word "should" becomes utterly meaningless if it has nothing to do with what we want. What do you think "should" would mean if I proved conclusively to you "should" exterminate all life on Earth? It's an ungrounded symbol if it doesn't take your real desires into account.

>“Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.” -- Immanuel Kant

Re: Why life is absurd

#138

Post by gphil »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #132
gphil wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're really bringing the Philosophy major in me out tonight! First off, naturalism does not necessarily imply determinism. But even given physical determinism, the incompatibility of it and free will is not a certainty: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/ The point I'm really trying to make is that there are a lot of smart people who have written on all these topics, and the answers are far from settle…

Naturalism (as we currently understand the laws of nature) doesn't totally imply determinism. There is some quantum uncertainty at the lower layers. But that isn't the same as me having free will, because my free will doesn't control the quantum uncertainty. As for compatibilism... it looks like "you can't totally prove that materialism implies no free will, so it might be possible." No mechanism, not even a guess at…

> What is the "I" that is going to choose?

Another good question!

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/

> It seems to me that all these compatibilist arguments aren't really taking that seriously. (Perhaps not surprisingly, since they're being made by philosophers, not physicists.)

They are. Nothing about naturalism implies "I'm a machine made out of atoms, nothing more." Even granting that I am a machine made out of atoms, I'm not just that. I possess other properties than just being a machine made out of atoms--e.g. those atoms are in a particular location, they can affect other sets of atoms, etc.

Going back to the original point, there's nothing innate about sets of atoms that implies they can't also be the subject of moral assertions. I understand that you may not intuitively agree with this position, but there's nothing about sets of atoms that logically rules out this possibility.

You should actually study the philosophy before dismissing it.

Re: Why life is absurd

#139

Post by AnimalMuppet »

gphil wrote: post #138
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Naturalism (as we currently understand the laws of nature) doesn't totally imply determinism. There is some quantum uncertainty at the lower layers. But that isn't the same as me having free will, because my free will doesn't control the quantum uncertainty. As for compatibilism... it looks like "you can't totally prove that materialism implies no free will, so it might be possible." No mechanism, not even a guess at…

> What is the "I" that is going to choose? Another good question! http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/ > It seems to me that all these compatibilist arguments aren't really taking that seriously. (Perhaps not surprisingly, since they're being made by philosophers, not physicists.) They are. Nothing about naturalism implies "I'm a machine made out of atoms, nothing more." Even granting that I am a mach…

To be honest, I'm not going to bother. It's going to be another couple of centuries before compatibilists are finally argued into submission; and the grounds of their "you can't logically rule it out" are going to shift another three or four times before they run out of hiding places.

To me, the physics is pretty convincing. I don't care that philosophers object "but you can't totally rule it out!". There's lots of things I can't totally rule out. That doesn't mean that they should be seriously considered.

Re: Why life is absurd

#140

Post by andrewflnr »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #137
andrewflnr wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, absolutely, people are programmed to survive just like every other life form out there, so why favor humans? Just because we're the smartest? If I destroy humanity to ensure my survival, in what sense is that bad , since after all I'm just following my programming to survive. When we talk about morality, we're looking for something that should happen, deeper than what does happen or what anything wants to happen…

>Yes, absolutely, people are programmed to survive just like every other life form out there, so why favor humans? Because we happen to be humans. But there's also lots of other creatures out there to favor: monkeys, dogs, that sort of thing. >When we talk about morality, we're looking for something that should happen, deeper than what does happen or what anything wants to happen. The word "should" becomes utterly me…

My point is that "should" is redundant with "want" in a materialist viewpoint. It only makes sense to talk about "should" separately from desire if they're not necessarily the same. Is this not tautological? You need some other set of axioms describing some goal other than want-satisfaction and an assertion that it's true for everyone before you can meaningfully call it "morality", a system containing "should". Otherwise it is, as you put it, an ungrounded symbol.

In other words, a moral system needs to answer the question "why should I give a #$@*?". Why not let the world burn if i feel like it? Why not just that part over there that's only being used by people I don't like and don't depend on? Your Kant quote is a succinct statement of the commands of most moral systems, but doesn't answer the real question. If there's nothing more to the universe then we can see, only matter in odd configurations, I don't see how it can be answered.

P.S. I'm not sure what you meant by "real desires", but it bears mentioning that there exist people and other beings whose real desires are purely destructive, to others and themselves; self interest in the usual sense (survival and comfort) is not necessarily relevant. Think about people we class as "mentally ill" (which really just means outlier, since our "healthy" baseline is just the average). If you didn't mean to imply that no one has a "real desire" in some sense to do "evil" things like destroy all life on earth, then you can probably ignore this part, but it had to be said

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