Historically this was the case. — ovdtogt

Well even if it was it isn’t now. I don’t believe you would be able to kill a stranger in cold blood, if you did, even in another culture you would be charged with murder, the worst crime of all. And even if that culture went soft on you your own culture would condemn you for the crime of taking a life.

I still can't figure out why you think the future is unknowable. — TheMadFool

Okay, let’s define, or agree somehow, on what we mean by ‘the future’. To me it’s the absolute unknown, it doesn’t exist. And yes, for me, the universe is chaos.

Thumbs up — 3017amen

Thanks. It’s always nice to know that you’re making sense after all.

This is not the case for members outside of this group (the other, the stranger). These people can be killed with impunity. — ovdtogt

Try it.

The things about that life that are worthwhile or valuable to society, for example a virtuous person, or a skilled person. — DingoJones

What merits would a three year old child have?

[quote="DingoJones;355461" the merit of life that gives it value, lives with no merit I dont really care about. So its not intrinsic. Id say the opposite.[/quote]

I feel that I might not have made by post clear enough.

Taking the life of a murderer or rapist is fine with you. That’s because you regard their crime as heinous. And what was their crime? It was the assault on the sanctity of someone else’s life.

For you that deserves the death sentence. That is because you regard life to have intrinsic value and it should not be interfered with in any way by another.

Its the merit of life that gives it value, lives with no merit I dont really care about. — DingoJones

What would you regard as ‘merit’?

Those people you accept having their lives taken are people who have attacked the sanctity of life. Their death is commensurate with their crime. So it does seem to me that you do ascribe some sanctity, some intrinsic value to life

Yes, if I had a good reason. Self defence for example.[/quote]

But still, your answer suggests that you need a very good reason for doing it.

Edit: and interestingly enough you chose a reason that is most acceptable in society, that you had a good reason to do it, an accepted defence.

Why should anything have an intrinsic value. The value of a thing is what you bestow on it. — ovdtogt

But we do ascribe some idea of sanctity to life and the taking of it is regarded as the worst crime a human can commit. Why?

But you would not knowingly take a life?

personally i would want manson to be free simply because of freedom of speach. he has a right to say or do anything he wants — OmniscientNihilist

Welcome to the future.

Oops. That is not related to any post. I just messed up some editing of my following post.

The sacredness of life; the assault to your senses when a child dies or is killed, compared to the elderly.

What is that?

An example to finish: Charles Manson, kept alive for 40-50 years or whatever, provided with food and shelter, his health preserved, let out once a day for an hour, not allowed to do interviews anymore after a certain point, not allowed communication with the outside world...all to preserve his life because presumably that life has some intrinsic value that supersedes his dark deeds. — DingoJones

Did you chose Manson after considered thought, or was it just a quick choice? Because he obviously presents problems for people because his situation is so complex.

In a way his life does have value, locked up in his cell, fed, ministered to by the state. The value is the demonstration of the fact that we the state own him, we can take his life whenever we want or we can keep him locked up for the rest of his life; his life now belongs to us. He’s not kept alive because we value his life. This is the message to the world from the state.

But there is nothing sacred about his life. Sacred seems to me to be some unique flame that life contains that is felt by others. However that’s so obviously subjective, but that’s all we seem to be anyway. Even after death there is still the sense of the sacred about people. Once again held in memory and subjective but still capable of moving many people.

I think where we clash here is in the idea that we can consciously shape and plan for the future, whereas I don’t think we can because the future is unknowable and cannot be planned for.

Edit: I am talking about time in evolutionary terms here.

Second thought: actually that’s not necessarily so. In terms of climate change the changes and demands are going to happen in a very short time, possibly, maybe. But it’s not going to be hundreds of years, or more.

Besides intentional genetic manipulation though, hasn't human society largely eliminated the "survival of the fittest" thing? Nearly all humans will have the opportunity to reproduce if that is their life goal. What choices do I need to make in order to successfully pass on my genetic material? — ZhouBoTong

You don’t need to make many choices to pass on your genetic material, but your choices might determine the nature of its future. See my comments to TheMadFool about climate change.

Why do you say that? Have you never planned for the future? — TheMadFool

Of course I plan for the future. However I might make a plan for going from Australia to New York, book flights, hotels, anticipate the weather and choose appropriate clothing, change my money, work out how long it takes from home to the airport and arrive in time to board the plane. What I didn’t plan for was the plane crashing into the Pacific Ocean.

[quote="TheMadFool;354822"
]I'd like to request a good justification for the words "future you do not know"[/quote]

I’d like to hear a justification for the words “future I do know”.

I don’t mean this as confrontational as it sounds.

It's just a metaphor. — Gnomon

Yes, I’m aware it’s a metaphor and I disagree with the concept it represents.

You cannot make the right or efficient choices for a future you do not know, and the choices you do make are very minor in the scheme of things, and whether they are the right choice in terms of evolution cannot be known.

So is there evidence of choices determining our future that overrides our nature? The only evidence of a choice is in going against our nature, as I said, which is no different than suicide, it’s more an act under duress, which is not much of a choice. Could that affect our evolution? Possibly, if there were enough people making the same type of unstable decisions, but then again the decisions are unstable and not conducive to survival.

So, if there is no choice then there is no free will.

I've heard that evolution finds it difficult to explain morality, given the fact of the selfish gene. I find this rather odd point of view considering how a person's sense of wellbeing seems to lie beyond the self too - in family, friends, communities, nations, etc. — TheMadFool

It’s not hard to explain evolution and morality if you throw out the idea of the selfish gene. A discussion we’ve all been through before.
Yes, our well-being does lie outside of ourselves. Family, communities, lie at the core of our evolution. The morals we feel to be real today are the ones that formed those communities and were perpetuated by the success of those communities, both owe their success and endurance to each other.

By and large our choices are framed by those morals. Being moral is not a matter of choice, it’s what we are. This doesn’t mean that people won’t behave badly. So there is no free will except in going against our nature, which takes us nowhere.

So I don’t believe we can make choices that we might call efficient to shape the future according to our desires. As I said which is the best choice about my climate change dilemma?

Yes, everything is ‘us’ in the sense that no one can get off the train. But we can only affect what happens around us now, through our ideas of morality, which are essentially the protection and well being of the family and community, which is what enabled our evolution to this point.

Could that aspect of human nature, that morality, be destroyed. I don’t think so, but it could become dormant if the idea and importance of family and community is whittled away and the idea of the individual is made paramount and promoted as the essential way to survival. Then you will see ideas of efficiency working their way through society and morality regarded as old fashioned, inefficient and burdensome.

In fact the use of the word efficient in terms of society makes me nervous.

If truth is our ultimate goal then self-awareness is a necessary step. I can work in my own favor only if I know I exist. Right? It appears that life and by extension the universe wants a "life" that isn't at the mercy of chance. Life, the universe, has become self-aware AND rational. Essential ingredients for success, don't you think? — TheMadFool

So, the evidence of our self awareness, our quest for truth, is also evidence of the universe seeking the same, recognising and choosing order over chaos, choosing rational thought and naturally efficiency to reach that ultimate goal, and that this is evidence of free will in action.

But my feeling is, and this partly tied to the selfish gene idea, that the only act of free will we have is to go against our nature (I don’t know if this what ZhouBoTong is suggesting, maybe) which is moral anyway, and that would be a destructive act and consequently irrational. If self awareness amounts to the ability to make that choice, then what could the benefit be?

We cannot chose efficiency because we can only know the present. The future waits to act on us.



I

Second thought: and, if I am correct (of course I think I am), then what exactly and what value is the ‘self-awareness’?

One could say that life has achieved self-awareness through humans. This isn't such a difficult proposition to consider. Look at the human body. Is our liver or heart or lungs or our toes conscious? No. Yet the brain, the conscious part of our body, works to ensure the survival of the whole body. Similarly, life is like the body and humans are like the brain. We humans, conscious and capable, must work to ensure the survival of the entire biosphere. Trying to prevent and reverse climate change is beneficial to the entire ecosystem. We may not be in the know about which methods/processes can solve the problem of climate change in the most efficient way but we are looking aren't we? — TheMadFool

But I doubt we can know the best course to take, despite our self awareness.

Trying to prevent and reverse climate change is beneficial to the entire ecosystem. — TheMadFool

Possibly, but not necessarily so. What if we didn’t reverse climate change, that we let it go, that in time (maybe a hundred years, maybe more) the climate caused a reduction in human numbers, a reduction in the demand for food, a reduction in tensions over resources and borders and instead there was a more balanced environment, occupied by people who had the time to consider decisions more temperately.

That could be the greater efficiency than fighting climate change. But how do we chose, how do we decide?

Not only that, but what is a collective choice? Is there such a thing, or is it the choice imposed from above where the “right” decision has been weighed and implemented.

That's why I have concluded that human Free Will is limited to a conscious Veto over the options presented by automatic sub-conscious calculations. Our "selfish genes" program the subconscious to calculate what's "best" for survival and reproduction — Gnomon

I don’t know if I accept the idea of “the selfish gene”. So on that basis the human Free Will has even less presence or effect over what’s ‘best’. And even less as a ‘future-predicting machine’.

But that’s purely on the basis of my position on the selfish gene.

The most obvious flaw of your OP is that you don't even try to address the stated topic. The title question is about God, but the post talks about animals? WTF? It's like you had one question in mind, then while writing out your thoughts you digressed into related issues, and finally you just said to yourself: "Fuck it, this is hard work!" And just hit the Post button. — SophistiCat

I think it was a combination of laziness and impatience. It’s not like I can’t put together an OP, because I have in the past. In my mind there was a large, amorphous idea, or concept, that I wanted to pull together, or join the dots.
I’ve always been interested and influenced by interviews in the sixties and seventies, that weren’t so much interviews but free flowing discussions between two people. One in particular I remember was between Norman Mailer and an interviewer I don’t know the name of, titled ’The Political Economy of Time’ which roamed over so many different ideas as they moved forward to defining something.

There was none of the “Prove this, prove that!” that often happens here, just a discussion that moves forward whittling things down, clarifying meaning, getting closer and closer to finding the core, or maybe the truth of something.

So I think I anticipate someone throwing something into the ring that sparks a thought that I can then build on and develop and get a little closer to joining the dots.

Anyway I think I’m on to something else now. Start a poor OP, have it deleted then start a new conversation about the deletion.

Actually, I might have just clarified one of my doubts. Regarding my example of climate change I am quite aware of the choice. I just don’t know which is the most efficient.

:up: p

But we can and do plant the future don't we? The success of such plans may be less than certain but if we look at the way the world's turned out we do have an acceptable hit rate with our plans. — TheMadFool

I’m just not sure that’s true. Wouldn’t it be the case that it’s only true if we had somehow stepped out of the condition of evolution as it applies to the past and other life forms? That we are no longer bound by nature. And that might be the case.

Similarly I'd say that knowledge of life processes will give us an advantage for we can select the best processes that give us a survival advantage and discard those that are detrimental. — TheMadFool

So which would be the best process to consider in my point about climate change? Which would be the decision that has most efficiency for our survival?

Ok, but that's not what we want here. No dark rooms unless you've got a flashlight. — Baden

I wish I could come up with a line like that.

I don’t see ‘choice’ being a factor, nor do I even see it as a fact in evolution. And if there’s no choice then there’s no proof of free will. Not that I’m disputing free will necessarily, only that this doesn’t suggest it.

It’s only after the fact that the efficiency is evident, isn’t it? No one can know what the future holds. I tend to regard what you see as efficiency as advantageous, in relation to future events. Those with the fortunate advantages advance, survive and pass on their genes. That may look like efficiency in the long run because of the perfect fit.

Is it possible for humans to make efficient choices regarding evolutionary survival? What efficiency would we chose for an unknown future? Who can know except those in the future? Is climate change a slow, inevitable process that reduces human numbers? If so then our contribution to climate change is an efficiency to reduce numbers to a level where we can survive and continue our evolution. Or should we fight climate change because it threatens the species?

I usually regard your posts as quite reasonable. Possibly I over reacted there. Throwing so many questions at me in one post didn’t seem like an attempt to address my post. I mean, did you expect me to address each question? It seemed more like a dismissal of the query. Anyway, I think the subject has been done to death, and I have my answer: only humans produce art.

I think that’s quite reasonable. But ... for me it’s the beginning of an investigation, if you like, into a topic that’s of interest to me. I don’t know exactly what my position is because I’ve just stepped into a dark room. I’m hoping others might open things up and that we can discover things that way. Probably naive there because generally the site is more combative. Anyway I’ll try and keep what you say in mind. But i don’t think it allows for differences in approach or personalities, etc.

Can you give me a bit more clarification for future use?

This is a common straw-man of the capitalist apologist — Isaac

I’ve never been called that before. Thank you so much for the new and unexpected experience.

The idea that the investor is helping the workers pay for their house by providing work is absurd. — Isaac

First of all my example is not an investor. They’re the owner of a business.

This is the definition of an investor:
An investor is any person or other entity (such as a firm or mutual fund) who commits capital with the expectation of receiving financial returns. investopedia.com

None of this actually happens to an entrepreneur (except in extremely rare cases) because the moment a company is doing well it is floated on the stock market and owned by its investors. — Isaac

What do you mean by ‘None of this happens to an entrepreneur’? None of what?
That’s just plain silly. Not all companies go on the stock market.

your ludicrously fantastical notion of how business works... — Isaac

This is the problem with a lot of the anti capitalist posts on this site. You seem to have no idea who the enemy is. I’m not happy with what a lot of big business does, but at least try and understand what you’re up against. And understand that not everyone in business is the same.

There’s nothing ludicrous about what I said about how business works. But you do display your ignorance by saying so.

Is it actually a truth that the most efficient survive? I don’t know how we can really know that without knowing what the alternative might have been. Is our position on the planet, the result of evolution, one of being the most efficient? Is this the best we could be? Would we have been more efficient with an eye in the back of our head, or two hearts sharing the load?

I’m not trying to defeat you but point out what I regard as the obstacle that’s in the way. How do we get around this? Do we reduce consumption before prodding people in the direction of more meaningful transaction? How do we persuade people that we don’t need more chairs, that the relationship is more important?

Before this new relationship begins to germinate I think people have to be persuaded that they need less, that what’s important is what they need, not what they want. Isn’t this the very crux of Commodity Fetishism, isn’t that what’s necessary to break the grip of economic relationships?

But one of the problems I have is that the desire for more is a real human trait. Inexplicable but real.

It’s always fun to be flippant.

Why brand all business men as those who declare bankruptcy and move on? What about the person who built the house, borrowed money from the bank, started a business from scratch, worked the long hours, developed a reliable product, a trusted company that hired skilled people to build houses, that used their wages to pay off their own mortgages? Then from those profits enlarged the business and hired more people. Think about where that company bought all their timber from, the transaction that then enabled the timber company to pay its own employees. Think about the plantations where all that timber came from, who hired people to mill the timber and paid there wages. Now think about those companies competing against other companies in the same line of work who might be moving in on your market, taking some of your business, but your loan with the bank still has to be paid, the wages have to be covered. So now you’re in a battle for survival. Who’s going to help you? The loan is yours, not the employees, your house is mortgaged, interest rates go up, global fluctuations affect the cost of materials, overseas companies enter the market. Then the banks increase loan rates so less people enter the home market, or they tighten lending procedures, or the government lets overseas companies import cheap, pre-fabs to help people get into their own home.

Extrapolate that into larger and larger more complex companies involving millions of dollars, thousand of employees. So that you can drive to your local mall and buy the latest smart phone.

Excuse me while I wipe away the hubris.