Mt. Lagazuoi, Italy




Boulder, Co.




Mt. Lemmon, Tuscon, Az.

No, there is no good or bad. Right and wrong are prefered delusions for some, and prefered simplifications for others.

It is no more wrong to shove your fngers down a little girls throat so you can see her vomit and cry; than it is to inject me with a 30 day dose of Haldol.

I think its obvious; maybe I'm not offering any new prespective here, but what else do you call it when you are forced to buy new books, uniforms, meal plans, dorm rooms, ect. Each year in order to be accepted for learning at a university or collage?

There is not a single nation on earth beside the U.S. that has a super carrier, yet we are about to build 10 more, ontop of the 10 we already have. They cost 4-6 billion a piece. Why are taxes spent on this shit? The 'market' has corrupted everything; education, war, medical care, and food. Is that not obvious?

Not nearly the same as in marriage isn’t like the rest of life? Or marriage isn’t like video games? — MysticMonist

Both

So an example would be marriage. Some days I’m a crummy husband. But everyday I get another chance. If I screw up enough I could lead to divorce sure but even then I still have another chance each day to do the best I can at being the best husband (or ex-husband) or father I can be.
Being a good ex-husband might just involve not bothering my ex-wife, but even then that’s right action in that case. Make the best of each day. — MysticMonist

Mm, not nearly the same.

Thats wishful thinking, and I think you optimism is out of bounds. Have you done anything before thats akin to starting over in a video game, aside from reversing your age?

The point I'm trying to make here is that the greatest precived common values of the greatest precived majority of mankind: seem convoluted and construed in many areas, including this one; suicide, and homocide.
— XanderTheGrey

Too many typos; not sure what you mean. — Noble Dust

Seem*

Abstinence and rejection of and from suicide and homicide, both on small and massive scales; is a "common value" in our culture. Why? I'll work on gathering information that acts as evidence to support my theroy; but I'm saying that there is evidence to suggest that it's a convolution to have this value.

Human lives have become of negative value with the current misallocation of resources, there is an artificial scarcity of resources due to the dynamics of "supply and demand" within our money based economy. When supply is too high, the commodity becomes worthless even to the point of pestilence(negative value).

We plow over fields of food if a particular crop is becoming abundant to the point of lowering the market value. We burn diamonds when we find caches so great that they would cause a drop in their value. The same kinds of things are done with dog breeds, cattle, dear, bear, ground hogs, wild boar, ect.; why not humans? Perhaps we do, and perhaps that is called: genocide.

I forgot to add perhaps; that even if I had no values, it would make sense for me to experiment with adhereing to different "patterns" as it were, rather than devoting myself to the behavior of a loose unit.
— XanderTheGrey

How would that make sense? — Noble Dust

Why make an effort to behave differently everyday? Even if I had no values, behaving differently everday would not achive any good results would it? For example; prescribing value to my life one day, and declaring it worthless the next. That wouldn't get me very far, I would still need to behave in certian patterns to achive anything; and I value achivement. So you see: I'm not valueless anyway, just as I never claimed to be; to my knowladge atleast, I put value on things according to a certin set of perimeters.

Hello. I see a contradiction between these two statements. If humans have no "moral" (I think you mean ontological) value, then your argument in the first quote has no effect. 1 x 0 = 8 x 0 = 0. — Samuel Lacrampe

The more resources for who? Individuals who have no value?

I say this a lot; you can't have soft nihilism. If individuals have no value, then resources for those valueless individuals also have no value. — Noble Dust

Resources for who? Your statement suggests that resources are valuable, but you admit that you think individuals are not valuable. What makes resources valuable, given that people are not? — Noble Dust

I think something people do not understand is that I'm not claiming to put 0 value on everything and anything. When I speak of random individual human lives having no value, possibly even negative value; its essentially for the same reason any other comidity would seise to have, or even negate its value.

Lets qoute Jacque Fresco on "gold" for example.

"If it rained gold, people today would be putting it in their closets and cellars and hoarding it. But if it rained gold for months and months, they would be shoveling it out of their house."

-Jacque Fresco

Every human at some point values someones life. — Hand In Hand

So as you see above, ofcourse I place value on human life, but all values we place on things are conditional, and subject to adjustment, and change.

In a serious and convincing voice, Xander has proposed mass murder as a political tool. I don't think he means 10 people, I think means millions. Otherwise his political goals would not be met. How is this different from the Nazis under Hitler, the Soviets under Stalin, The Chinese under Mao, or the Khymer Rouge under Pol Pot? From my point of view, the difference is that he means to apply it to me and my children. I guess I don't mind this being discussed here, but its sickening to have all the usual pseudo-philosophical suspects act as if the idea is not monstrous. — T Clark

I mean "either or" actually; 10 people here, 20 people there, and perhaps even a holocaust, yes. To me its a higher level of sanity to consider such things. No doubt however; war is an incredible waste of resources, I have to wonder what the footprint of ISISs human sluaghter houses are. Likely its far smaller than Hitlers holocaust. I wish I was educated in applied mathematics. It's probbably most similar to Saloth Sars ideals, but very different. I think the most I would ever seek to do is help create an online movement that encourages mass murder, and murder-suicide, and addresses its true effects on the rest of the population.

I say; yes, and heres why:

Information is matter and energy yes? Therefore is physical right?

Each thought is made up of electro-chemicals, and electricity; along with a pattern of nueral pathways. They have short lifespans, I don't see any part of the thought that is not physical.

The same goes for information within computers: across a chalk board, or on a sheet of papper.

Gods, ghosts, and spirits as far as I've seen have anatomical and physical decriptions within the classic religious scriptures. I was always under the assumption that energy, and or plasma, would be the most likely canidate substance for such things, but even if they are made of something yet to be discovered, they would still be physical, is a god even considered meta-physical? How can something exist without being physical, if God exists as a sentient being, then he would have to be physical(wether made of matter, energy, or plasma); otherwise there would only be thoughts of god, writings of god, therories if god, all of which are physical.

Even a thoery may be a physical thing; if you destroy all writings, and physical descriptions of a theory, does that theory still exsist?

If physics includes the study of other dimensions then won't anything discovered within those demensions become part of physics?

Value, as you are defining it, accounts for a single perspective; that of yourself. Given that most of the secular society has been taught that everything happens by chance, and there is no superior being, then it is not surprising to find the lack of purpose in many people's lives. If, however, the premise of the none existing god fails, then all of the secular society also fails. Purpose is not found in yourself, but rather in something greater; hence the populace cannot find purpose due to lack of finding

I'll need to do some reading and become more familiar with "secular" philosophy, I feel I could be more familiar with the word.

But yes, you could say I find propose in something greater than myself, which is simply desire. It adds up doesn't it? We will all risk our health and our lives for something we desire, even give them up willingly. "Desire" is greater than ourselves it seems.

My desire is to not adhere to concepts that are so saturated in hypocrisy and convolution. I recognize that hypocrisy and convolution cannot be avoided completely, but the topic of suicide and homicide are utterly saturated with it.

Privacy is a virtue, I'd rather my family not know about my deeper veiws on things.

But to answer your qeustion and clear my name I'll tell you the same thing I said to the docs; "I have many plans, many thoughts, desires, and urges, but I have no intent".

Hello. I see a contradiction between these two statements. If humans have no "moral" (I think you mean ontological) value, then your argument in the first quote has no effect. 1 x 0 = 8 x 0 = 0.

The more resources for who? Individuals who have no value?

I say this a lot; you can't have soft nihilism. If individuals have no value, then resources for those valueless individuals also have no value.

Every human at some point values someones life.

You all make a good point. I forgot to add perhaps; that even if I had no values, it would make sense for me to expetiment with adhereing to diffetent "patterns" as it were, rathet than devoting myself to the behavior of a loose unit.

The point I'm trying to make here is that the greatest precived common values of the greatest precived majority of mankind: seen convoluted and construed in many areas, including this one; suicide, and homocide.

The Earth is rather isolated in outer-space. Those of us in the 1st world suffer from a terrible delusion that our everyday lifestyle choices are not responsible for the vast amount of suffering on the otherside of the globe; that its "someone else's fualt" that there are "bad guys" to blame. Meanwhile a group of people were locked in a room together with enough resources to last each one 90+ years, it would be considered wrong if a smaller group claimed the majority of the resources as their own. Would it be wrong to those few people so that more of the others could survive?

When it comes to superiority, I think the average person from a 3rd world lifestyle has more potential than one from the 1st world. They are generally healthier, more physically fit, ect. Regarless of any possible malnourishment.

My vision for humanity - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." — T Clark

Regarding my vision for humanity -
I wanted to think this over a bit before offering it up, only to offer up origonal aspects, turns out that I have nothing at all to add to whats already been propoused. This being said I belive in the transition to an advaced resource based economy. This is done by creating and shaping a new world culture.



Jacque Fresco has been dead for months, but the project moves on.

Most philosophical discussions go no where, and we end up talking past each other, because the terms we are talking about aren't clearly defined. How is it that we can point to certain influences in our decision-making and sometimes not? — Harry Hindu

"Because our language is old, and therefore subject to inerpritation." I agree with Jacque Fresco that we need to develope a language that is not subject to interpretation. He pointed out that math, and the language of engineers, and chemists, where precursor examples of such a language.

I don't think "physical" or "mental" are helpful terms. They are terms referring to arbitrary boxes we've decided to put things in our categorizing of nature. "Mechanism" can simply refer to causation. We know that our intention/will has a causal influence on other things and itself is influenced by other things. There really doesn't need to make a distinction between "physical" or "mental" here. — Harry Hindu

Thank you very much for refocusing the discussion to the original topic. Thats my dilemma here, we have no control over what we decide; and that seems to make our efforts pointless, untill we relize that its too boring and are pushed to adopt faith in "free will".

Look are you gonna answer the question of what the physical/matter is, or are you gonna avoid that question? Because all that seems to be irrelevant until I know what the physical is from you. I didn't ask what physics is. — Marty

The non-physical is generally constitutive of things like: intentionality, beliefs, meaning, desires, motivations, concepts, etc. But again, if you're extending the concept of physical to include those - if its all encompassing - then of course everything is going to be physical but that claim begins to get vacuous. — Marty

I was under the impression that "physical" refered to anythng thats studied within the feild physics. But yes, it seems to be all encompassing, but not because I make it that way; and wether or not its vacuous is irrelavent. Intentionality, beliefs, meaning, desire, motivations, concepts, ect., all that is required for these things exsist is physical(matter, energy, time, and space.) How do you see these things? What part of them is not physical? Perhaps they are seen as non-physical because their anatomies are difficult to imagine compared to somthing like the human body, the human body exists in one small area, exsists within one timespan, ect.

He would exist immaterially, or a combination of the two, or hypothetically an infinite set of modes of God. — Marty

In an area of infinite space, infinite matter: enery, and time he would have to exist, in infinite forms, but he would be physical. There would be him himself, or "the actual being itself", and then thoughts, concepts, writings, ect. of him, all of which are physical. A "concept" exists across a vast area(the whole world for example) as a combination of writings(ink and papper, or photons through glass diodes[monitors, comp. & TV screens.]), voice & voice recordings(air against vocal cords, electricity against magnets[speakers, subwoofers, amps]), and finally thoughts and memories(electricity and electro chemicals traveling trough neural pathways.) Where is the non-physical god? Recordings, thoughts, memories, writings, and then concepts they collectivley compose; are all physical, because physics is a feild of study that includes time, energy, matter, and space. Anti-matter now as well I suppose.

Energy is physical, yet it is immaterial, immaterial can merely mean something that is not made of matter. Its an old word however; invented before the study of particle and quantum physics, so its specific meaning I think would be: immaterial - "something that cannot be grasped or held in the human hand". Therefore even a molecule may be "immaterial", right along with thoughts, energy, ect. But the non-physical? What is that? Physics includes time, energy, matter, and space.

Information is matter and energy yes? Therefore is physical right?

Each thought is made up of electro-chemicals, and electricity; along with a pattern of nueral pathways. They have short lifespans, I don't see any part of the thought that is not physical.

The same goes for information within computers: across a chalk board, or on a sheet of papper.

Gods, ghosts, and spirits as far as I've seen have anatomical and physical decriptions within the classic religious scriptures. I was always under the assumption that energy, and or plasma, would be the most likely canidate substance for such things, but even if they are made of something yet to be discovered, they would still be physical, is a god even considered meta-physical? How can something exist without being physical, if God exists as a sentient being, then he would have to be physical(wether made of matter, energy, or plasma); otherwise there would only be thoughts of god, writings of god, therories if god, all of which are physical.

Even a thoery may be a physical thing; if you destroy all writings, and physical descriptions of a theory, does that theory still exsist?

If physics includes the study of other dimensions then won't anything discovered within those demensions become part of physics?

If one is a physicalist, then metaphysics would in fact be that which physics has yet to explain. — Hanover

I suppose I am a physicalist then; I cannot see how anything outside of physics could exist given that physics is matter, anti-matter energy, time, ect.

Emotions and thoughts are even made of matter and energy.

Do you not see the paradox within this sentence? You've arrived at the conclusion that conclusions can't be arrived at. Of what value are any of your philosophical conclusions if you admit they aren't based upon intentional deliberation, but just based on coercive forces? — Hanover

Exactly, thats what I'm wondering, mechanism no matter how true it appears to me, seems to have less value to me than believing in free will.

As I said: "The truth is worthless outside of what it can achive."

Clearly I need to learn more about this subject. However I think we nearly agree, we both see that the world holds more than enough resources to give everyone a higher quality of life than anyone currently has now, yes?

My personal stance is that its not useful to be concerned with who fault anything is, world powers have the greatest or perhaps only capability to reshape the world.

It's difficult to imagine what kind of chemistry and physics would favor conversion to Buddhism. It would seem that the reasons would be "meta physical" rather than physical or chemical. — Bitter Crank

Meta-physics simply being "physics not yet within our understanding?"

I agree, the less meat and dairy, the better.

When it comes to health, "muscles are muscles" matters not if they come from fish, chicken, cow or pig, the human body is not made to eat them.

Concerning dairy, well, you are better off with small anounts of meat than with any amount of dairy. No animal, wether omnivore, herbivore or carnivore drinks the milk of its prey in nature. The reason dairy is addicitive is becuase it contains enough opiates to keep a calf focused on coming back to the utter.

Nathan Pritikin told us everything we needed to know over 40 years ago.

https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/education/podcast/nathan-pritikin/

But then what relation does this have to ethics? — darthbarracuda

None perhaps, but that wasn't my initial impression, and as T Clark explained, "it is said that whats ethical can sometimes be morally wrong"

Is there a specific dictionary thats used to authoritize any of these definitions?

My vision for humanity - "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." — T Clark

Definitely does not mean "the pursuit of happiness through any methods yes?" Ofcourse not. The majority of human beings do not wan't sadists on the loose I think. I'll write about my prefered vision for humanities future later, time for me to move out for now.

Why is defining "ethical" ok, but defining "moral" is pointless? It strikes me that they are at the same level of abstraction and deal with similar issues. — T Clark

Excellent question, I'm operating under the assumption that ethics and morals are not quite the same thing. With what's "ethical" being defined by the majority, with common values, and with what's "moral" being defined by each individual, with their personal values.

If they are the same thing, or I have failed to define ethics, then my only concern remains wether or not "the highest agreed upon common interest of the perceived majority of human beings, by the perceived majority of human beings" is in line with my highest interest for the fate of the world. I just didn't want to leave nearly a paragraph where a word could suffice.

If, as you say, it could be ethical to kill millions of innocent people, I don't think we have enough commonality to even discuss the issue. — T Clark

Maybe not ethical, given that I am failing to or even incapable of deteriming what ethics are; but as I said I am primarily only concerned with determining what the most desirable resulting future of the majority of humanity is.

What does the pecived majority of humanity desire? And how does that compare with what I desire for our fate, is it common enough with my vision for me to bother participating? Or should I simply focus on what I wan't for my own life(given that the majority would win out against my efforts). What would you call that specific area of study? Am I on the verge of needing to coin my own term?

And we should discuss what each of our visions for humanity are, and determine any form of commonality or differentiation between those, before hunting for commonality or differentiation between eachothers methods. For if our vision for the worlds future is different to beging with, why would it matter what our methods are?

I don't think that's a good argument, but let's change slavery to genocide. — T Clark

Very well, genocide is something I have yet to see anyone from the inside be amused with, or have a desire for ever again, and this includes those that reported 80-90% fulfillment of their desires in a rather authentic form of slavery, compared to 1-10% fulfillment in todays common preception of freedom.

the highest "agreed upon" common interest of the "perceived majority" of sentient beings "by the perceived majority of sentient beings" — XanderTheGrey

So could this attepmt of mine to define ethics as shown above; justify genocide? Ofcourse it could, poor little Saloth Sar, such a failure, but I admire what Pol Pot was trying to do, regardless of the fact that he failed, and that it was impractical.

Genocide would be a last resort I think, further reaserch is needed, it all depends how effective it can be in comparison with other methods of approach.

As I said previously, this can be used to justify slavery. You say "forget good or bad." So, ethical behavior can be morally wrong? I've heard people say that before. I don't understand how that could be. — T Clark

Depending on what you hold as your morals yes.

Slavery cannot exactly be identified. It cannot be delineated at least, how do you delineate slavery from freedom, we could all be slaves to a higher power and or grater intellegnce and we wouldn't even know it. What I am confident that I can identify, is my desire.

I have seen desire fufilled more in precived slavery than in precived freedom. Just as I much more often see it the other way around in others.

I understand that I am very undereducated and not well versed in philosophy, and that this can likely be chalked up and identified into and with a number of terms and pre-established areas of philosophy; so I appreciate the willingness of so many on this site to countinue obliging me in such discussions.

Can you define it for yourself? If so, no problem. If not, I think your goal should be to learn how to define how to, rather than come up with some formal system. — T Clark

Define what exactly for myself?

I've made an attempt to define ethics, and "identify" my "desire" in comparison with "the greastest common interest of the precived majority of humanity" but defining "good" is pointless, there is no such thing, there is only desire.

So what I'd like to see in the worlds modern day community is an attempt to establish "an agreed apon greatest common interest of the precived majority of humanity "by" the precived majority of humanity(not just me)" and then see if it is inline with mine, if so, I will know wether or not its worth it for me to be focused and involved with the changing of the future.

By what standard? The greatest good for the greatest number? That could be used to justify slavery. I think my standard is much less vague than yours is. — T Clark

The greatest precived number, forget good or bad, I'm not trying to find good or bad, I'm trying to "identify" the "desire".

So the greatest desire then? Well, that dosen't matter to me, only my desire matters to me. My hypothesis is that my desire is in line with the majority of humanities; which gives me a chance to make the world the way I "prefer" it to be vs. the way it is now. Taking into account the fact that we must think in order to determine our greatest personal desire.

Perhaps, but now you have identified the "good" with "highest common interest of all sentient beings". And like Moore, we can ask, is this really good? In the sense that:

"The highest common interest of all sentient beings is good"

is equivalent to

"The highest common interest of all sentient beings is the highest common interest of all sentient beings."

The latter is a tautology, but the former seems like a synthetic statement. They don't seem to be equivalent. — darthbarracuda

I'm not concerned with whats good or bad, I'm concerned with desire. Also allow me to correct that part if my passage; the highest "agreed upon" common interest of the "perceived majority" of sentient beings "by the perceived majority of sentient beings"

And I haven't defined the "good" with that statement, I have defined the "desired".(hypothetically)

"Try to see people as they are and try to treat them with good will and compassion." — T Clark

Thats entirely to vague for me, even if its merely a suggestion, and not an attempt to define ethics.

I insist that killing can be as much of an act of compassion as keeping someone alive can be. It all depends on how much they suffer, what they would rather suffer, ect. Others will insist otherwise.

Good will can be defined as leaving someone in a difficult situation so that they can gain more from the trail and error proccess than they would from your assistance. Others will disagree.

All of those things are better off left self defined, but the common interest of humanity could be established with enough communication. It's likely that we all wan't the option of life or death, misery or happiness, pain or suffering.

↪XanderTheGrey

So let me get this straight: You found out that you can change your own behavior?

Quick someone get this guy a Nobel Prize! — Jeremiah

No, I have not found any evidence that I am in control of my behavior. I'm a mechanist.

Or maybe you know very well that you're very likely to die if you shoot yourself. — BlueBanana

I might belive or fear that, but I don't "know". The entire human race could be in a streak of chance in which probabilistic mathematics happens to work, is that fair to say?

Regardless of what I believe, I have always been tempted to play with probabilistic mathematics.

I would say, not quite accurate. You have put forward a particular ethical theory. Ethics in philosophy is the study of such theories and there are many types. So when you look at your own theory and then list its advantages and disadvantages and the challenges that it might encounter, then you are studying ethics. Whether or not you choose to study ethics is entirely separate from the question whether you are 'ethical' in the sense of being a good person. — Cuthbert

So ethics is not defined by the majorities common interests?

Or is it? And you must theorize and or prove what that common intetest is, or present something that you theorize or prove most closely meets that common interest?

If everyone has 50/50 chance of winning, on average there are 2,5 winners each game. — BlueBanana

You've studied more about probability than me, but from a personal prespective your chances of wining any given hand or game are still 50/50 are they not? You will either win or you won't.

It's not possible for the first coin flip to have 50/50 chances, the second coin to have 50/50 chances and the odds of both having the desired result being 50/50. How familiar are you with probabilistic mathematics? — BlueBanana

I have not studied probabilistic mathematics at all, it always excited me to learn however. I've worked with odds calculations in underground poker, and some basic card counting, thats it.