It's a science literacy bias (as well as a science numeracy bias), mi amigo. Without that, TPF would be nothing more than Twitter or Reddit. :mask: :point: — 180 Proof

True that. It's depressing to hear someone like Neil deGrasse Tyson ask the rhetotorical question "so we're just bags of chemistry?" Science has been, since the Copernican revolution, in the business of demoting the status of humans from a-one-of-a-kind to just-another-face-in-the-crowd.

He is missed. — Yohan

He graduated summa cum laude from this forum as per his own words. I'm happy for him.

Indeed, a byproduct, an afterthought, could turn out to be the main attraction, the primary goal so to speak. Yet, the persistence & prevalence of a plethora of cognitive biases seems to suggest otherwise.

A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason. — J. P. Morgan

How large samples did you go through to get to this generalization? — god must be atheist

Statistical question. If memory serves, 30 is the magic number.

Ethics seems biochemically mediated for your average Joe and Jane - an illegal subroutine of sorts, oui mon ami?

I have my moments, assuming no sarcasm was intended.

Can a cat ever stop being a cat? Looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, but isn't a duck! :chin:

And what happens when the subject makes itself the thing that's under examination? — Yohan

A good question. Wayfarer would've answered that question best. Sadly, he left (voluntarily) the forum.

The unexamined life is not worth living. — Socrates

?

Maybe I've watched too many movies; life is a movie too, oui mon ami? One thing I learned though is not to generalize from a small sample.

human imagination — universeness

maya — universeness

Same thing!

Well, if what we value the most is just a trick evolution plays on us to keep us addicted to the game of life, I'd be down in the dumps. I'm mildly surprised that you don't feel that way. You're an agent of the system GLEN willows and you're playing your part with a finesse I find admirable. As for me ... I'm unplugged! :cool:

I defer to your more nuanced assessment of the situation.

Would you agree with me more if I replaced crime with immoral?

Personally, I would like to be vegan, but lack the will power to be one. Perhaps people like me - want to but haven't yet adopted veganism - are carriers of a proto-morality gene which will be expressed fully in a few generations down the line; some like you, a vegan, are ahead of the pack.

Entropy has been described by some as disorder but others say this is incorrect/inaccurate/only an approximation. I don't know what to believe.

Statistically/probabilistically, there are more ways a particular object can be broken than can be whole (only 1) and so, given randomness, disorder becomes the norm and order an exception. A simple example of entropy is a shattered wine glass.

I wish I were enigmatic. I'm the last person who could fit that adjective. By the way, maya is fun for some.

Holists are those who say 2 + 2 = 5.

Would that mean that those people like me, who are still eating meat from animals that were raised and then killed for that purpose are in the same moral position as slave-owners in the year 1700 CE or 100 BCE — Matias

Yes, Yep, and Aye!

We're criminals, all of us, at least to the extent we kill & eat for fun/pleasure (meat is tasty, oui?).

However, predators hunt out of necessity and if meat is essential for health, that does absolve us to some extent.

Where our descendants, if they survive global warming, can point a finger at us is for not trying hard enough to develop meat substitutes.

That's a good question.

Can you really put a price on love ? — Deus

I dunno, but it seems possible and actual in some cases.

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

Power + Money (the other thread).

It might buy you everything on earth but not love.

I’m not saying your wife is a whore just saying you ain’t really in love. — Deus

True, true, but you know what, money does buy ... everything. We just have to quote the price right, oui mon ami?

children will be born regardless. — Deus

Most unfortunate that! Children are our investment in society - our contribution to the group, an extra hand, an Einstein, a good samaritan. Sadly, things sometimes don't go as planned.

It’s an outdated trait and hoarding can be unhealthy not just for self but others — Deus

Money!

Delusion — Deus

Yep, that's one way of describing it.

wealth management — Deus

I believe that's a skill one has to learn, the easy way or the hard way. Saving for the lean season is a good idea, but sometimes people go overboard and hoarding results. How large does one's safety net need to be before one feels safe enough to use the money that one's piled up in the vault?

I sympathize — Alkis Piskas

Danke!

The corruption of power is evil for it can no longer be called power. — Deus

What can it be called then?

Because of the improper exercise of it e.g. corruption…see hitler, putin etc — Deus

In other words power trumps ethics and hence evil; I suppose all crimes/evil deeds can be reexpressed as power play - might is right?

It's rather humbling and depressing when even our loftiest thoughts, our deepest feelings can be shown to be nothing but means by which evolution keeps a particular ape species willing and even eager to play the game (of life).

condom — Deus

On target mon ami! Much of the world's misery can be attributed to a lack of effective contraception. Some of us should've never been born, but here we are, monsieur/mademoiselle as the case may be, here we are!

@GLEN willows

We're just a complex self-sustaining electro-chemical reaction according to science. Holists disagree, saying there's more. Bring in evolution and we're further ... reduced

If I were an evil genius, I'd make the most evil the most pleasurable.

:up:

:up:

Technological (over)dependence! From optional tools to essential life-support.

Well, not all machines were created equal - some are more essential than others. This would mean losing our capability to produce one may not be as disruptive as that for another, but for sure our lives would be impoverished if we lose the knowhow to build any machine, small or big.

I don't know if it's the same with other philosophy forums, but this one has a conspicuous scientific bias. It's as expected though (Streetlight effect & Maslow's hammer i.e. scientific reductionism).

This may be..but I am looking at it from a core and auxiliary, where the core needs the auxiliary in a secondary sense (to sell, market, account for, service, etc. the stuff), the auxiliary needs the core people absolutely in a primary sense for the technology itself. — schopenhauer1

Yup, we're looking at the whole chain from raw material to finished product - each link is a potential point of failure.

That seems a little bold. Is it so easy to determine the limits of adaptability? — Janus

Perhaps, but does it make sense?

Good exegesis of our predicament: specialization (in technology) is a vulnerability, an Achilles' heel. Technologies are interdependent and if only one group of specialists is eliminated, civilization will collapse.

Freedom is beyond good and evil. — 180 Proof

Indeed, hence the problem of evil vis-à-vis god?