question for athiests

CerebralCortex

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

You're currently not a parent then, I take it :pac:

So end of discussion? I have nothing to say if I don't have kids already? I can't run that parenthood experiment. However I do know that no new person means no new suffering. Suffering is contingent on sentience.

Hotblack Desiato

No not end of discussion!

It means no more suffering but no more happiness either. Becoming a parent is the triumph of blind optimism over rationality...

nozzferrahhtoo

CerebralCortex wrote: »

An interesting take on the creation of sentience. https://www.edge.org/conversation/thomas_metzinger-benevolent-artificial-anti-natalism-baan

Think it was mentioned earlier, though cant remember which thread, but Sam Harris did a two hour podcast with An Anti Natalist here.

CerebralCortex

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

No not end of discussion!

It means no more suffering but no more happiness either.

That's not a loss for unborn people. There's no one around to be deprived of that happiness. There isn't a queue of future people waiting to cash in on their promised happiness.

You could say that you'd feel happier but that's all about you not the non existent people. See how that might resemble a Ponzi scheme?

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Becoming a parent is the triumph of blind optimism over rationality...

Absolutely.

CerebralCortex

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Think it was mentioned earlier, though cant remember which thread, but Sam Harris did a two hour podcast with An Anti Natalist here.

Listened to it. David Benatar drew down a load of heat from the Sam Harris crowd for that one. Sam Harris' podcast has a lot of interesting guests if you can stomach his sanctimonious "moral" outlook.

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=105815592&postcount=155 is David Benatar's argument paraphrased.

nozzferrahhtoo

Well alas a lot, though not the totality, of his moral outlook is one I share But I will not take it personally I like his "continuum" approach to things in general rather than "neat boxes" approach that most people in our world seem to take on many issues including morality. Suffice to say I like him and never had issues with his outlook or presentation, or personality even on subjects I strongly disagree with him on. He, like me, thinks human discourse should be elevated above all else... and he goes from there. But anyway this is not about Sam Harris. Or me So I will shut up now.

Yea I can imagine why they draw heat. It goes against ALL of our intuitions as humans generally, but intuitions so deep we have never had to attempt to articulate them before. So many people listen to anti-natalism rhetoric..... they just KNOW it is wrong.... but they simply can not explain why. And when people just KNOW they are right, and do not have the words to explain why they are right..... they tend to get somewhere between antsy to outright vindictive.

You can see similar if you open one of the threads on boards.ie about incest. People go around just thinking they "know" it is wrong. But when you confront them with the question "Assuming two people are consenting adults, who just happen to be siblings for example, what is actually wrong with incest". And you will see on those threads just how aggressive and antsy people get. They just can not get their gut feelings out into words. And this drives people NUTS.

I guess Human Sentience (in the absence of us having any reason yet to think there is any other high level sentience in our universe) is not only the only thing that "matters" in our universe..... it is the only thing that currently can make anything matter. Without saying which side of THAT debate I come down on, it is certainly a conversation worth having as to whether that small fact places any moral onus on us to keep sentience going, and to ensure we bring enough new sentience into our world to ensure sentience as a whole never dies out. It is weird because if humanity were to disappear tomorrow......... I simultaneously feel the universe would have lost nothing much........ yet also that it lost everything that actually matters in any way.

A weird feeling, and I can imagine how it translates into heat being brought down on anti-natalists by people even less capable of adumbrating and articulating those feelings than I already clearly am.

Hotblack Desiato

I do think there is a reasonable possibility that we are not the only sentience in the universe, merely on the grounds of probability. It is rather unlikely that we would be near enough in time and space to ever make contact however.

CerebralCortex

To be fair to Sam, he is very unfairly treated by his opponents. I find myself defending him frequently. He gets labelled as a racist for example which is absurd.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Well alas a lot, though not the totality, of his moral outlook is one I share But I will not take it personally I like his "continuum" approach to things in general rather than "neat boxes" approach that most people in our world seem to take on many issues including morality. Suffice to say I like him and never had issues with his outlook or presentation, or personality even on subjects I strongly disagree with him on. He, like me, thinks human discourse should be elevated above all else... and he goes from there. But anyway this is not about Sam Harris. Or me So I will shut up now.

Honestly I don't think he brings anything useful to the table w.r.t morally. Must of the work he needs to do is on the is-ought gap. If he focused more there then I might pay him more respect. But he just seems to brush it off.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Yea I can imagine why they draw heat. It goes against ALL of our intuitions as humans generally, but intuitions so deep we have never had to attempt to articulate them before. So many people listen to anti-natalism rhetoric..... they just KNOW it is wrong.... but they simply can not explain why. And when people just KNOW they are right, and do not have the words to explain why they are right..... they tend to get somewhere between antsy to outright vindictive.

You can see similar if you open one of the threads on boards.ie about incest. People go around just thinking they "know" it is wrong. But when you confront them with the question "Assuming two people are consenting adults, who just happen to be siblings for example, what is actually wrong with incest". And you will see on those threads just how aggressive and antsy people get. They just can not get their gut feelings out into words. And this drives people NUTS.

Agreed, it's why I don't talk about these subjects with the general public.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I guess Human Sentience (in the absence of us having any reason yet to think there is any other high level sentience in our universe) is not only the only thing that "matters" in our universe..... it is the only thing that currently can make anything matter. Without saying which side of THAT debate I come down on, it is certainly a conversation worth having as to whether that small fact places any moral onus on us to keep sentience going, and to ensure we bring enough new sentience into our world to ensure sentience as a whole never dies out. It is weird because if humanity were to disappear tomorrow......... I simultaneously feel the universe would have lost nothing much........ yet also that it lost everything that actually matters in any way.

There's so much in that. The short answer for me is that Sam sells that as logical the only option, as I see it that's just his preference and he just pushes it whenever it comes up. Hence why I find him sanctimonius. It sounds like "you must slave for the betterment of future people." Well no and no thanks. Especially in light of the fact that it's a well established truth that extinction will happen anyway.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

A weird feeling, and I can imagine how it translates into heat being brought down on anti-natalists by people even less capable of adumbrating and articulating those feelings than I already clearly am.

nozzferrahhtoo

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

I do think there is a reasonable possibility that we are not the only sentience in the universe, merely on the grounds of probability. It is rather unlikely that we would be near enough in time and space to ever make contact however.

Oh so do I! Pure numbers dictates that much. But I am also a big one for substantiation too. And until such time as we have any reason to think there is other sentience in the universe, I think our morality has to be constrained by the assumption it is just us out (t)here. If you suspect the possibility that you are in possession of the only instance of "X" in the world or universe.... your morality towards "X" needs to be shaped by that assumption I think.

As soon as genuine reason to think there is more "X" there however, one can relax those constraints in direct proportion. So I think the first issue an Anti Natalist needs to address is exactly that, and I think Harris actually failed to push Benatar on that. If we are in possession as a species of the only instance-set of Sentience in the universe..... does that or does that not place any moral constraints on us to protect and continue it?

But the whole 2 hour talk focused mainly on Suffering, the moral issue of creating more individuals that can suffer, and how all that goes against our intuitions on the joys in and of life. So yea, I think Harris could have worked that one better.

nozzferrahhtoo

CerebralCortex wrote: »

To be fair to Sam, he is very unfairly treated by his opponents. I find myself defending at times.

Oh very much so. One of his issues is he often uses words that have a lot of baggage, even though his view is something that probably warrants a whole new word. But rather than use a new word, he uses the old one, and he gets lambasted for the baggage it brings.

Example: If you listen to his opinions on "profiling" they differ vastly from what people generally mean by "profiling". In fact he himself says he would better describe his own position as "anti-profiling" or "reverse profiling". If you take the time to listen to his actual position..... I can not rebut or disgree with any of it. But people hear the word "profiling" and think instantly they know what he is advocating.... and all bets are off with the level of response he receives.

Something similar happens with his views on torture and first strikes. Again often without cause. What amazes me in all of that is that of all the things he gets lambasted for..... the one thing in his main book he did NOT get lambasted for which he probably should have......... was when he wrote that the Jews had pretty much only themselves to blame for what happened to them. Yet I am yet to see anyone cite him on that and question it. Perhaps I just missed it

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Honestly I don't think he brings anything useful to the table w.r.t morally.

I think he grounds a rational continuum view of morality in a way the most lay person to philosophy can understand. He tries to unite a few disparate strands of morality, like utilitarianism and many others, together in a unified concept of there being a multi dimensional continuum of morality we can move around on like a chess board.

And while there is no single "right or wrong" way to move on that board objectively, if we have a concern for the well being of sentient creatures at all........ and if not what is morality even for......... then there are right and wrong moves we can make in any single instance. Moves that can, despite the historical divide between science and morality, be very heavily informed and guided by the methodologies and findings of science.

I would parallel what he is trying to do (regardless of how well or not you think he or sam are actually doing it) with the work of VS Ramachandran who is trying to bridge the gap between science and art and artistic appreciation.

Historically it was always asserted with immovable confidence that science could never explain art, our human responses and appreciation of art, but Ramachandran is leading a group of people in our world doing exactly that and uniting them quite well indeed.

I am genuinely not sure I can agree he does not work on the is-ought gap. I think some of the core axioms he presents address it directly. He asks us for example to imagine a universe that is built to maximize the suffering of the most amount of sentient creatures possible. Then imagine it's exact opposite. And then imagine a continuum of iterative universes between the two.

And the moment you concede that morality is in the business of moving from one end of that continuum to the other.... you are already over most of the hump the "is-ought" issue purports to place in your path. If anything at all suggests that the "right" thing to do is move from one extreme end of that continuum to the other......... is-ought just falls out of your way in a huge swath of thought and conversation.

CerebralCortex wrote: »

It sounds like "you must slave for the betterment of future people." Well no and no thanks. Especially in light of the fact that it's a well established truth that extinction will happen anyway.

I do not think it sounds like that at all. At least not how I parse it and present it above. It is not so much about "future people" when it comes to the anti natalist discussion. But just about sentience itself. If sentience is not only the only thing that matters, but the only thing that CAN matter, or even make anything matter in our universe............ then do we garner from that a moral and ethical concern for it in and of itself and an onus to protect it and perpetuate it?

I am happy to be agnostic on that point right now as I genuinely have no conclusion either way. But it is a conversation well worth the having, and not one I think we can derail by thinking it more "sanctimonious" than it is. If we are to consider ourselves moral agents at all, than that has to say something (whatever that something is) about our responsibility towards the origin of morality itself.

It's an open question, much deeper and richer than either of us are able to do justice to I fear.

smacl

CerebralCortex wrote: »

What I also find intractable is how non believers justify rolling the dice aka procreating especially in light of the guaranteed suffering and meaningless in life.

How about the simple notion that we're imperfect with very limited intellects following hard-coded biological imperatives? As Frank Zappa put it, 'you are what you is', and while Metzinger speculates on how a super-intelligence might behave, in the first comment, Jacquet pretty much kicks the legs out from under his argument by questioning his starting assumptions. Your own statement above makes a similar mistake in reference to non-believers, in that by implication it suggests that belief in a greater power and all that goes with it is the only way that we find meaning in life. This to my mind is a nonsense as we find life subjectively meaningful at a contextual level all the time. Metzinger talks about a single god-like super intelligence and arriving at ultimate conclusions which progress towards a final position over time. Other philosophies such as Taoism stress the importance of transition over being in any fixed state and see the universe as the sum of these transitions. Again to borrow from Taoism, if you're always willing to sacrifice the present for the future your life becomes one of self sacrifice until you die. I think Metzinger is likely to die of old age while transfixed by his naval. Myself, much like Hašek's Švejk, can find plenty of meaning in life thanks to my small brain, limited intellect, and good nature

CerebralCortex

smacl wrote: »

Myself, much like Hašek's Švejk, can find plenty of meaning in life thanks to my small brain, limited intellect, and good nature

Ah the old "meaning" hobby horse. I wish another term could be used. It's like a misappropriated term from a flawed concept "the meaning of life" applied to something that is a tautology "subjective meaning". Why can't we just say one can tolerate life? Meaning is a relative term but expecting there to be meaning to life finding out there is none and then say you create you're own meaning is just word salad.

Maximimising meaning is a concept I don't get. Or at the very least Jacquet needs to be clear what she means.

smacl

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Ah the old "meaning" hobby horse. I wish another term could be used. It's like a misappropriated term from a flawed concept "the meaning of life" applied to something that is a tautology "subjective meaning". Why can't we just say one can tolerate life? Meaning is a relative term but expecting there to be meaning to life finding out there is none and then say you create you're own meaning is just word salad.

Maximimising meaning is a concept I don't get. Or at the very least Jacquet needs to be clear what she means.

Yet in your previous post you used the term 'meaningless in life'. If you wish another term could be used, why introduce that term into the discussion in the first instance?

As you say, meaning is term that relates subject and object, and in many respects is interchangeable with understanding. Either works for me.

smacl

Interesting response to Metzinger's thought experiment here; https://foundational-research.org/reply-thomas-metzingers-baan-thought-experiment/

smacl

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

And the moment you concede that morality is in the business of moving from one end of that continuum to the other.... you are already over most of the hump the "is-ought" issue purports to place in your path.

You could also consider a contuum ranging from no suffering and no pleasure to one containing much suffering and much pleasure. An essentially empty life to a rich one. I think this is where Metzingers line of thought falls flat on its face.

nozzferrahhtoo

You could of course always imagine other things, but it does not take away from the first one in any way I can see.

Hotblack Desiato

smacl wrote: »

...to one containing much suffering and much pleasure

Sounds like a fun Saturday night at the BDSM club :pac:

The human brain is a funny thing, whatever about negative signals which some people find overwhelming and self-reinforcing, it appears that in pretty much everyone it does its best to damp down repeated positive signals. e.g. some who are in a position to know have said that one's first shot of heroin is a pleasure almost indescribable - but to an addict it's a daily need, a relief - the brain has adapted and normalised the situation it finds itself in. Alcoholics say the same thing about their first drink. They're always chasing the feeling of the first time and never quite getting there. I can imagine gamblers saying the same about their first win. Sex addicts, perhaps not given how crap many people's cherry busting experience is

smacl

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

You could of course always imagine other things, but it does not take away from the first one in any way I can see.

Collectively, we can imagine an enormous number of things but how many we countenance as reasonable is smaller. Personally, I measure life as the sum of experience and don't for a moment think we should only consider the remainder after equally negative and positive experience cancel one another out. Positive and negative experiences are unique events that can't in my opinion be treated as scalar variables.

nozzferrahhtoo

Yet none of that undermines the purpose of the thought experiment described, or what it achieves to do it. The point still remains that if you can imagine the worst of all universes, and if even the smallest concession is made that one would want to move on the continuum away from it, then there are implications that can be drawn from that. Regardless of what other kinds of universes you can then go on to imagine too.

smacl

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Yet none of that undermines the purpose of the thought experiment described, or what it achieves to do it. The point still remains that if you can imagine the worst of all universes, and if even the smallest concession is made that one would want to move on the continuum away from it, then there are implications that can be drawn from that. Regardless of what other kinds of universes you can then go on to imagine too.

Only if you accept the opening assumption that suffering and pleasure lie on a continuum, which in turn implies that one can be netted off against the other. I don't accept that, as a large amount of pain plus an equally large amount of suffering is not equivalent to none of either. As per HB's post earlier, our minds tend to acclimatise to pleasure and pain over time, such that what we experience are variations to what is normal for us at any point in time, there is no absolute scale. Perhaps I simply don't 'get' Metzinger's line of reasoning and am missing something fundamental, but from where I'm sitting it seems like extrapolation from untested assumption, and not that different to a religious belief in that regard.

nozzferrahhtoo

It is not really an assumption. If you imagine the worst of all possible universes. Then even the smallest change to it would improve things. Another change could improve things more. And so on. So there you build a continuum. No assumption required.

Again all you have to do is imagine the worst of all possible universes, concede that any move away from that would be a good thing, and instantly there are implications that can be drawn from that concession.

smacl

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

It is not really an assumption. If you imagine the worst of all possible universes. Then even the smallest change to it would improve things. Another change could improve things more. And so on. So there you build a continuum. No assumption required.

Again all you have to do is imagine the worst of all possible universes, concede that any move away from that would be a good thing, and instantly there are implications that can be drawn from that concession.

The problem there is that 'worst' in this context demands a sentient subject, best and worst are not terms appropriate for inanimate objects. Yet if you take Metzinger's final state which involves obliteration of humankind, there can be no worst (or best) as there are no subjects left to apply this condition to. You also have the problem that if you re-introduce sentient subjects, what is worst becomes subjective. What is bad for one person may be less so for another. There is no absolute frame of reference and hence no worst-best continuum.

nozzferrahhtoo

Yes I am discussing sentient subjects. Discussing a moral continuum in a universe without any would be rather pointless doncha think? It is not that "worst" is what "demands a sentient subject"........ it is the point in even discussing the topic in the first place demands one.

Again: If you imagine the worst of all possible universes.... that is one set up to maximize suffering in every possible way...... then any idea that we should move away from that scenario brings with it many implications.

smacl

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Yes I am discussing sentient subjects. Discussing a moral continuum in a universe without any would be rather pointless doncha think? It is not that "worst" is what "demands a sentient subject"........ it is the point in even discussing the topic in the first place demands one.

Again: If you imagine the worst of all possible universes.... that is one set up to maximize suffering in every possible way...... then any idea that we should move away from that scenario brings with it many implications.

Possibly my lack of imagination, but I can't imagine a unique worst universe that is simultaneously as bad as it possibly can be for every individual that inhabits it. I think it is a fantastical religious concept akin to hell and is irrational. A universe is not static, if you allow for suffering, you must allow for time in which to suffer. Were human beings to exist in such a universe they would either acclimatise or perish. If they acclimatise, that change in them is actually a change in their universe for their better, as they are part of that universe. To be part of that universe ask yourself how they got there and was it better or worse for their predecessors. I understand you're talking about an abstract concept rather than any actual possible reality, but even then it is logically flawed.

nozzferrahhtoo

I am not sure you have to be able to literally imagine it for the thought experiment to work. You just have to concede that you imagine such a thing could be configured. The details of what it would actually consist of are not required.

No logical flaws at all. It does not even have to be a universe in meat space either. It could be run on or against sentient software too.

Not does the thought experiment have to be the WORST one of all possible universes. It just helps. It still works if you imagine the worst one you possibly personally can imagine. Still, the moment you decide that it is something we would want to improve upon, that concession brings with it implications.

CerebralCortex

smacl wrote: »

... and not that different to a religious belief in that regard.

Ah here. Take it easy.

smacl

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Ah here. Take it easy.

Fair enough. Paint me cynical but I'm struggling to find the anti-natalist rhetoric even vaguely persuasive.

Hotblack Desiato

The worst universe I can imagine is where Nathan Carter is blasting out 24/7.

But some people might like that :eek:

nozzferrahhtoo

Depends entirely what he is blasting out of.