It seems like everyone is obsessed with the highly ego-centric model of happiness that is "being happy". People go to Barns and Nobles, order books from Amazon, and tire themselves over their perceived lack-of happiness in their lives. Even positive psychology is mired with the concept of happiness as an ultimate goal. A quick search on this forum will show that there's a strong bias to achieve or even maintain happiness. Yet, there is no aspect of being that is totally and wholly independent of one's situation/circumstances/state of affairs, and this is what Western thought gets wrong in my opinion. — Wallows

I don't quite get what you're saying here. What's an "egocentric" model versus an alternate model? But more confusing is "no aspect of being that is totally and wholly independent . . . " What are you referring to there?

. And I'm saying childbirth is harmful — khaled

I've asked you a ton of times what's harmful about it. What consequences will hurt someone? Specify what you're talking about (not exhaustively--just via some examples).

No, I should elaborate. I do know what depression feels like, and this doesn't really feel like depression. More like some kind of blissful acceptance or contentment. But, I've become so accustomed to the lure of "being happy" that this new feeling is somewhat foreign to me. Does that make sense? — Wallows

Maybe you arrived (at happiness) but you haven't realized it.

Stay away from sex, autoerotica, and self-actualization;

Stay away from fatty food, from carbs, from proteins, from opioioioioids, from salt, from natural and artificial sweeteners, colouring and spices; from dairy prodcts, (they are full of dihydrogen monoxide, you know), from insecticides, from genicides, from pesticides; stay away from sleeping, from sitting, from standing, walking and running; stay away from people (they are a deadly bunch), and stay away from animals and plants, rocks, sand, grass, etc. — god must be atheist

lol

Depression doesn't necessarily amount to feeling sad or depressed. It would depend on just how apathetic/unmotivated you are (keep in mind that that should be in terms of whether things interest/excite you; it's not an issue of you not being interested/motivated towards things that other people believe you should be interested in). If you're really apathetic/unmotivated by anything, that could be caused by depression.

A person has a right to live under the set of rules that they find fair. — JosephS

That can't work for similar reasons. If we have 100 people and they find 100 different things fair, what do we do? You can't have a functioning, interactive society if each person is effectively their own country and there's no overarching "international" law. If Country Joe thinks it's fair to rape Country Jane, but Country Jane doesn't think that's fair, what do we do?

In order to have a society in the first place, there has to be some compromise. As part of that compromise, some people are going to think that some things aren't fair. There's no way to avoid that with real people.

Individuals born to a model of governance that they did not accede to are unethically imposed upon . . . — JosephS

I don't think that's clear at all.

For one (related to a discussion we were having in another thread, by the way), no one really thinks of children as fully autonomous entities capable of granting or withholding informed consent, where as such, their consent has to be (and can be) obtained for any and everything. Children are seen as entities that slowly develop the ability to grant or withhold informed consent, which is tied to the concept of them becoming adults.

Additionally, the whole idea of raising kids is that you're teaching them in some normative manner, you're guiding their development, including in terms of values.

Two, practically, there's no way that it could work to have children opt out of the social system they're born into, whereupon they immediately decide what sort of governance they'd like. When they're born they can't communicate or take care of themselves. Where would we keep them, how would we raise them until they're able to talk enough to say what sort of government they want? How many different governments do they get? How often do they vote--there are more kids every day.

It's a ridiculous idea, really.

The most practical solution is what we do. Once they reach the age of adulthood, they have a say, they can vote, etc. just like everyone else.

I voted:

There was a big bang - this is the most revisable of the three. But current evidence points to a big bang, whatever might have preceded it.

There is no God - In my view this isn't even slightly questionable. The notion of there gods is ridiculous and many aspects of it are incoherent. It's just absurd, childish shit that people made up to explain their experiences when there weren't better ways to explain them.

There is only one universe - this is primarily a matter of definition, although part of it is also that physicists can veer into absurd/idiotic (at least if not meant as fantasy/SciFi) explanations when they start positing things like the multiverse interpretation of qm.

And then you get those silly Gettier problems. — T Clark

The Gettier problems primarily hinge on the notion that intuitively, people do not want to say that we can know something accidentally.

But the Gettier cases, in my and some other folks' views, typically hinge on misconceived ideas of how the actual contents of belief work with respect to formal logical conventions.

Knowing something doesn't imply that it's impossible to be wrong, by the way.

And if you thought of knowing that way, then, for example, you'd have to say that in terms of the sciences, we categorically can never know anything, because it's a basic tenet of science methodology that any claim is open to revision in the face of new evidence. In other words, it's a basic tenet that any scientific claim could be wrong. It's never impossible that a scientific claim is wrong. Taking a claim so that it's impossible that it can be wrong means that we're no longer doing science.

But obviously, the vast majority of people do not use "know" that way--we know many things in the sciences.

Knowledge = jtb

Belief = something one is inclined to think is the case, with varying degrees of conviction

Truth = a judgment that a proposition has a particular relation (the exact relation depends on the truth theory (or theories) one uses--I use correspondence personally) to other things.

Justification = whatever one considers a good reason to believe that P, and to believe that P is true; most people have a variety of approaches fueling what they consider good reasons to believe various propositions.

A lack of evidence that P is often considered good grounds for a belief that not-P. For example, considering the notion that a normal-sized, non-invisible (etc.) elephant is in my apartment at the moment, the lack of evidence of an elephant in my apartment is a good justification for assigning "true" to "There is no (normal-sized, etc.) elephant in my apartment at the moment."

The same sort of justification works against the notion of a God, though in that case we also have issues like logical coherence re the notion of nonphysical existents.

In any case what bearing does it have on or against the anti-natalist argument that being born will necessarily provide the causes or conditions that will occasion suffering? — Janus

It's not an argument against antinatalism. I don't know how many times I need to say that in order for anyone to understand it.

It is, however, a way of saying that I don't consider being born to be the cause of, say, someone suffering via not wanting to eat broccoli but being made to eat broccoli, or, say, someone suffering from a broken arm they received from playing "king of the mountain."

I think I get what you’re saying, but the way I see it, any state of being is finite in time. The doing refers to an event that loses its status as an entity once it’s measured. Energy measured is a difference in relational 3D information states over time, just as a photon measured becomes a moving particle. Even a life measured becomes a series of relational 3D information states over time. So yes, a doing or being that can’t be measured in relation to time doesn’t cohere. — Possibility

??

The idea is much simpler than that. We can't have motion, and we can't have forces transferred, etc., without having SOMETHING that is moving, something that is applying and receiving forces, etc.

You are lost in your own red herrings, that you have no argument against the actual antinatalist claims. — schopenhauer1

Was the comment about whether there is suffering when people don't have children an argument against antinatalism?

Are you talking about frames of reference as used by Einstein in Special Relativity? — Noah Te Stroete

As it's used in physics in general. And again, I wrote, "This isn't to suggest that I'm using the term identically to physics usage, but you should be familiar with and able to understand that usage (because it's a pretty basic idea in contemporary physics), which doesn't imply talking about a percipient."

Because the fact that we can imagine or conceive frames of reference as existing independently of percipients does not entail that they actually do. — Janus

So you were figuring that I was probably an agnostic about realism? You were just checking to confirm this?

What you still seem to fail to grasp is that physics is a model created by a percipient. — Janus

Still having problems with the use/mention distinction.

Is there reference absent percipients, according to you? — Janus

You're not thinking that "reference" in "frame of reference" is the semantic sense of "reference" a la "sense/reference" are you?''

By the way, since we have so much problem communicating with each other and agreeing on anything, how about if we try to see if we can keep things simple enough to (a) conjointly feel there's not a communication problem, and (b) agree on at least one thing? I wonder if we could do that.

If you know that, then why would you write "Particular frames or points of reference exist only (predominately) for humans and perhaps (and if so, much more minimally as far as we know) other percipients, do they not?" And why would you disagree with comments that they do not?

Calm down. How about answering this: " And you understand that physics doesn't use the terms "observer"/"observation" to (necessarily) refer to percipients, right? "

lol

No, again I haven't denied that the concept is taken to refer to something extramental. — Janus

Okay. And you understand that physics doesn't use the terms "observer"/"observation" to (necessarily) refer to percipients, right?

which I do understand is not necessarily conceived as a human observer — Janus

Okay, so you understand that it doesn't imply a percipient, right?

Likely he's misunderstanding the way that physics uses the terms "observer" and "observation." There's a tendency to interpret those terms in the colloquial senses where they're referring to people.

I thought he said the phrase referred to the concept which is mental and refers to something extra-mental, — Noah Te Stroete

No, he's disagreeing that the concept refers to something extramental. It's not clear that he even believes there is anything extramental.

"sensible" is irrelevant.

That’s not what he said. — Noah Te Stroete

He said the concept refers to the concept.

Sure: the phrase 'frame of reference' refers to the concept frame of reference. — Janus

No, it doesn't it doesn't refer to itself. Frames of reference are not concepts, though there is a concept of them., Why don't you look it up if you're not familiar with it?

A frame of reference just is a concept — Janus

The concept refers to something. It doesn't refer to itself. Use/mention? Ring a bell?

Classic Terrapin. — Noah Te Stroete

:grin:

Well, it's ridiculous. Why would I write something in set-of-words x when set-of-words y says what I really want to say? Just say what you really want to say from the start.

So you think there is physics without percipients? Not what physics describes mind, but physics itself? — Janus

What it describes. Frames of reference are something it's describing. Frames of reference do not imply percipients. Yes or no, are you familiar with the concept of frames of reference?

What it is saying is that in the case of the procreational decision, no collateral damage of harm is done to someone else. Yes, at that point, all that matters is that harm is not foisted on someone else. — schopenhauer1

If someone is making the decision for themselves, that's the case. If they're pressured into it--including by someone like you incessantly, repetitively nagging about it, or if there would be a law about it, that then that's not the case.

This brigs us to the bad argument of suffering of the parent for not having a child, the same thing that Terrapin Station uses. — schopenhauer1

That's only an argument against the claim that no one is harmed or no one suffers just in case someone is pressured or forced into not having kids, when they want to have kids.

For example: most people would say that modifications that risk harm are bad not that modifications that are "unusual" as you have defined them are bad. — khaled

Re this, by the way, most people don't actually believe that harm, unqualified, is bad as a "trump card principle." That's the reason that antinatalism will never be more popular. Antinatalists have the very unusual disposition that harm and suffering, in the broadest, most vague senses, are bad in principle, to a point where nothing else matters.

Normally, even if someone were to agree that harm and suffering are negative in principle, they're not going to agree that that's all that matters. They'll think that it has to be balanced against positive facts.

There is no way to convince someone who believes social norms are the basis for what makes actions against non consenting entities (that will become consenting) of antinatalism. — khaled

Again, it's an ontological fact that you can't do anything to the entity in question prior to conception, because the entity doesn't exist prior to conception.

There is nothing I can do to convince you — khaled

I could have easily told you that from the start. I didn't just start thinking about this stuff yesterday. I've been doing philosophy for over 45 years, and I have a formal and a bit of a professional background in it. It wouldn't be impossible for my views on anything to change, but it wouldn't be easy to change them and it would require pretty clever theorizing that's different than stuff I've heard over and over for decades, or it would take some novel insight on my own part. (An example of the latter is that I didn't use to reject principle-based approaches to moral stances, but then I had an insight that that was a form of theory-worship and that it was stupid--just like theory-worship in general)

You have shown that for some bizzare reason you think that whatever the social norms dictate is what is ethically correct concerning non consenting entities even when they will grow to be ones. — khaled

Just for irreversible body modifications. Of course, this isn't a principle that I hold so that it would be a trump card. Could there be a cultural norm re body modification that I'd have an ethical problem with? Sure, but I'd not know that for sure until I encountered it.

As I've stated many times, I base no moral stance on either harm or suffering. Both are far too vague in my ooinion.

Yes, mental properties are from the frame of reference of being (identical to) a particular brain.

For me "unusual" isn't bad but "harmful" is. — khaled

"Unusual" is only bad re the full scenario I explained above. Because that's my disposition with respect to that (re modifications to an entity--we need to have the entity in question, where it's going to survive to a point where it's normally capable of consent, etc.) That can effectively be a foundational disposition.

Re circumcision, I'd prefer that it wasn't a norm, but sure, I wouldn't say it's unethical.

And don't say "because it's unusual" I am asking why unusual is bad — khaled

Any moral stance is going to ultimately come down to "because that's the way I feel about it." This is true for everyone, for every moral stance.

I am trying to argue that it is bad according to the subjective values you set here a — khaled

Didn't I point out to you that I do not do moral stances via principles? I do moral stances by dispositions for particular situations. No principle is ever a trump card for me. I think that approach is ridiculous. So there's no way to argue that I would think something is wrong via some principle I hold. That's not how I do moral stances. I pointed that out from the start.

Ok let's take this slowly then. Why exactly is genetically modifying a baby to have 8 broken limbs on birth bad? And don't say "because it's unusual" I am asking why unusual is bad — khaled

You understand that I was simply reporting my personal ethical dispositions to you re the "unusual" bit, right? No fact can ground any ethical stance. So if you're looking for a fact to ground an ethical stance, you'll never find one.

Ohhhhhh. So your argument against antinatalism i — khaled

How many times do I need to point out that I'm not arguing against antinatalism as an ethical stance? Ethical stances can't be objectively right or wrong, true or false, etc. They're always ultimately ways that people feel, dispositions they have re behavior.

That's not to say that I wasn't arguing anything, but I was arguing things like, "There's no one to do anything to prior to conception." Because that's an ontological fact. That ontological fact implies nothing about ethics, because no fact implies any value.

Also please actually respond to my points not literally a single line. — khaled

Keep posts short if you don't want anything overlooked. You can type as much as you want, of course, but I'm not going to respond to multiple points per post.