• Positive characteristics of Females
    ↪Agent Smith
    "HAL 9000's" just an example of AI, don't geek down that rabbit hole. :sweat:
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Agent Smith
    Minimum disorder to maximum disorder. That's how we roll, amigo.
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Agent Smith
    Maximum entropy (omega) is the terminus of all sequences. Or chasing your own tail... "Progress" is a parochial illusion like the apparent flatness of the Earth.
  • Positive characteristics of Females
    ↪Jack Cummins
    Kinda. :up:

    ↪Agent Smith
    I wasn't looking at the dilemma you posed from a human perspective but from the perspective of the AI (e.g. HAL 9000).
  • Is morality ultimately a form of ignorance?
    ↪TheMadMan
    Whatever. :roll:
  • Positive characteristics of Females
    Would an AI designed to protect mankind - if it comes down to choosing only one of two, a last man xor a last woman (imagine a spaceship has room for only one person) - choose the man or the woman? — Agent Smith
    1. The AI (assuming a droid of some kind) could choose to sacrifice (disassemble / repurpose or jettison) itself in order to protect both humans.

    2. Maybe the AI would make more room in the spaceship by relocating to the outside of the spaceship and attaching itself and yet remain 'plugged-in' so that it can continue to 'protect & serve' as long as possible.

    3. Maybe, instead, the AI would clone them both, preserve their embryoes and then euthanize both donors while they sleep (tossing the carcasses out of the airlock). :up:

    The solution, Smith, need not be binary. :nerd:
  • Positive characteristics of Females
    "And thus spoke the little old woman: You go to women? Do not forget the whip" (for her to use!)
    ~Freddy Zarathustra
    You jokingly viewed males [as] lesser than females. I was joking in my response too … unless you were serious? — I like sushi
    I was "joking seriously". :smirk:
  • Positive characteristics of Females
    ↪I like sushi
    How so?
  • Higher or other dimensions.
    Enformationism is not presented on this forum as a scientific paradigm, so it makes no attempt to "explain" any scientific evidence. — Gnomon
    And yet my critique still stands
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/644062

    especially given ststements like these:
    The Enformationism thesis is indeed "exotic" and "non-standard". But that's only because it is on the cutting-edge of Information science & philosophy. — Gnomon
    The core idea of yyEnformationism is simple : everything in the world is a form of Generic Information. That's illustrated most succinctly in Einstein's formula E = MC^2 — Gnomon
    The Woo-lady doth protests too much, methinks. Reductionism of 'Its to Bits' is a speculative "scientific paradigm" (Wheeler, Wolfram et al). As I've pointed out (re: link above), Gnomon, your formulation is, however, pseudo-science akin to "cold fusion" & "intelligent design".
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Lambert Strether
    :up:

    ↪Gregory
    Appeal to popularity / tradition fallacy —> magical thinking (i.e. make believe) :fire: :eyes: :pray:

    A more likely "source" ...
  • Positive characteristics of Females
    Does it still work if we flip it around? :chin: — Agent Smith
    Noooo! :sweat:
  • Why do Christians believe that God created the world?
    ↪universeness
    :100: :strong:

    ↪Agent Smith
    :rofl:
  • Is morality ultimately a form of ignorance?
    Adam and Eve ate the apple.
    Now we know good and evil, right and wrong.
    Morality is born.     — TheMadMan
    This preamble contradicts the title of your thread which otherwise doesn't make much sense to me. And the discussion so far doesn't help. Homo sapiens are a eusocial and metacognitive species, after all, so our moral concerns are adaptive and, to the extent we codify them into normative judgments and conduct, they are habits (i.e. virtues) developed by trial-and-error (i.e. praxis). Thus, morals are performative forms of understanding (re: empathy, eusociality, human health-fitness-ecology), not just abstract rules or emotive preferences.
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    @Gregory
    YOU are an atheist in every sense except in the christian sense. You believe in one more god than I do.
    You only have to take one more step, using the same rationale that makes you reject Allah, Vishnu, Odin, Zeus etc.     — universeness
    :fire:
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Gregory
    :eyes: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/767084
  • Positive characteristics of Females
    The first "positive characteristic of females" that comes to mind is they are not males.
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Gregory
    Read the links in my last post. Read Spinoza's Ethics. Then read them again, sir.
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Agent Smith
    There's no problem to solve that I can see.

    Acosmism is theism. — Gregory
    :roll:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theism

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acosmism
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    What are the wider ramifications of this simple cyclical pattern? — Agent Smith
    My favorite speculation –
    https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/607424 :smirk:
  • Anyone follow Dr. Strange?
    ↪TiredThinker
    As a rule, scifi / fantasy depictions of "the multiverse", like "time-travel", never make sense as they are only plot devices which don't need to.
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    Matter →→ Life →→ Consciousness. Why? There clearly is a sequence here, oui monsieur? — Agent Smith
    :roll:

    "Life —> Consciousness" —> Extinction aka "matter". A sequence (e.g. Möbius loop) =/= "progress".

    But you seem to be saying Spinoza wasn't an atheist? — Gregory
    Spinoza is an acosmist who rejects theistic / deistic (i.e. transcendent) divinity and deems such religions superstitions.

    NB: Read the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus.
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Gregory
    It seems to me (à la Spinoza) that everything is "one with God" sub specie aeternitatis whether or not we are aware of this. We belong to Nature (or God) just as e.g. waves belong to the ocean. An atheist is someone who does not (have a need to) call Nature "God" or, for that matter, regard nature as "Nature"; primarily, it's theistic (& deistic) deities which atheists disbelieve in. Atheism, however, does not exclude idealism or mysticism (or even occultism) ...

    there's something rather disturbing about reductionism (read science). I see progress in the universe, from matter to life to consciosuness and this forward movement — Agent Smith
    Well, being free of the illusion of (evolutionary?) "progress" or the facile reduction of "science" to "reductionism", I'm not disturbed in the least by our human all too human, Faustian bargains. Apotheosis or extinction sooner rather than later? The prevailing entropy gradient of this cosmic neighborhood inspires me! Amor fati (aka "wu wei"), amigo. :fire:
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Gregory
    Very much so. How is that relevant to your criticism of 'disbelief in God'?
  • A philosophical quagmire about what I know
    I think JTB is useless. I propose different factors for identifying knowledge. Rather than belief, justification, and truth; I think belief and adequate justification are the right factors and are all that's required. I'll bring out one of my favorite quotes, from Stephen J. Gould - "In science, ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." — T Clark
    :up:
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ... to be one with the eternal is to be eternal as well since you are one. — Gregory
    I don't grok the point you're making.
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    To disbelieve God is to doubt yourself — Gregory
    Well, only if you "believe" that you are "God".
  • Problems with Assisted suicide
    No you are throwing millions under the bus and the integrity of the health and care systems and the value of life due to your desire to have someone help kill you. Something you could easily do yourself. — Andrew4Handel
    If one could "easily do it", then assistance euthanizing oneself wouldn't ever be needed; but it is, thus the issue.
    Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. — Benjamin Franklin
    Seems to me, Andrew, what your position 'criminalizing the choice of whether or not to assist or be assisted ending one's life' amounts to is the tradeoff Ben Franklin warns about.

    I have already provided evidence of who is being affected by assisted suicide such as the poor, the lonely and victims of abuse from others. — Andrew4Handel
    With or without the option of well-regulated assisted suicide, "the poor, the lonely and victims of abuse from others" will always be adversely affected, so your "evidence" is moot.
  • Stoicism is an underappreciated philosophical treasure
    the Roman Stoics emphasized ethics and practical wisdom. — Ciceronianus
    :up:
  • Linguistic Nihilism
    ↪Nils Loc
    :up:
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    ↪Agent Smith
    So why blame "biochemists" for not being "mystics"? Science does what it's exceptionally good at and nothing more. Criticizing a hammer for not being a paint brush or a theorem for not being a sonnet profoundly misunderstands each of them. Sciences and arts are not 'mutually exclusive' practices or ways of being (Laozi).
  • Why Science Has Succeeded But Religion Has Failed
    our spiritual needs — Agent Smith
    Such as?
  • Anyone follow Dr. Strange?
    ↪Agent Smith
    Performing neurosurgery probably doesn't require much math but premed, medical school, pharmacology and computer imaging tech are impossible to master to a "world-class level" without mastering quite a bit of varied applied mathematics (re: graduate-level physics, organic & inorganic chemistry, molecular biology, computer programming, laboratory experimental modelling, etc). Amplified by cosmic-level arcane understanding and force-multiplied by the "Eye / Orb of Agamotto", Strange's insights into reality (mathematical and otherwise) have to be literally otherworldly or multiversal – godlike. :fire:

    C'mon, dude! A teen genius "web-slinging wallcrawler's" knowledge is, at best, Earth-bound and, compared to the "Sorcerer Supreme's" comprehension, extremely parochial, even
    primitive :point:

    Doctor Strange : Spiderman :: Monolith : HAL 9000.
  • Anyone follow Dr. Strange?
    ↪Agent Smith
    Really? :smirk: Well, off the top ... Dr. Stephen Strange's day job was "world-class neurosurgeon" (almost genius-level) which means a good deal of applied mathematics in his scientific and medical education. Peter Parker, a high school "science prodigy" didn't remotely have Dr. Strange's advanced education. Neither of them was depicted as an expert in pure mathematics but it seems to me that a scientifically well-educated "Master of the Mystic Arts" (and later "Sorcerer Supreme"), especially using the "Eye of Agamotto" so frequently, would have acquired far more insight into the Platonic domains of the most arcane mathematics than Peter Parker (Tony Stark or Reed Richards) ever dreamed of or or needed to know. In the Marvel universe, Agent Smith, magic is just sufficiently advanced math (re: the "Cthulhu Mythos" ... which, IIRC, had inspired Steve Ditko in the first place.) :nerd:
  • Stoicism is an underappreciated philosophical treasure
    Epictetus was a Greek philosopher who lived in Rome. — Athena
    :up: I stand corrected. It was my impression that Epictetus, along with Seneca, primarily influenced late Roman thinkers and mores.
  • Anyone follow Dr. Strange?
    ↪Agent Smith
    Nope.
  • Multialiusism
    ↪Agent Smith
    I think, more precisely, anatta means "no" permanent – independently existent – "self" (i.e. ego is maya (an illuson) due to attachment, or karma (habit) of treating the impermanent (self) as "permanent").
  • Anyone follow Dr. Strange?
    ↪Agent Smith
    I was about 8 years old and an altar boy attending a Catholic grammar school when I became a Doctor Strange fan. Dinosaurs, mythologies & Star Trek, along with Marvel comics, were my jam back then. I don't think "magical thinking" in any literal sense (e.g. religious or occult) ever had anything to do with my pop-culture preferences as a kid.
  • Anyone follow Dr. Strange?
    ↪Agent Smith
    They – wielder of the "Infinity Gauntlet" – cannot "destroy entire universes", just alter (e.g. destroy) much of or all the contents (e.g. living sentients) of a "universe". Apparently, there is only one "Infinity Gauntlet" in the "multiverse" or maybe that each universe in the multiverse has its own "Infinity Gauntlet" that only affects that one universe and not any of the others.

    NB: Btw, besides Silver Surfer & Vision, my favorite Marvel character since the early 1970s has been Doctor Strange. I have no idea, however, what they've done with either of them in the last forty or so years (the MCU doesn't count in my book) :nerd:
  • Multialiusism
    ↪Agent Smith
    No.

    ↪Agent Smith
    Yes (e.g. anosognosia.) Also, to claim, or believe, "I do not exist" is a performative contradiction.

    ↪Agent Smith
    Well, since one is not objectively what one subjectively seems, one is illusiory. You only can outrun your own shadow, Smith, if you're "mad". :eyes:
  • Atheism Equals Cosmic Solipsism
    ↪ucarr
    We're tediously talking past each other. Merry Xmas, ucarr. :sweat:

    ↪god must be atheist
    :100: :up:
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