• Deciding what to do
    My mind wanders too easily and I got distracted making the opening post.

    I think my main question was supposed to be how is it possible to do the act of choosing?

    It seems people would like to make a robot that can make decisions but my dilemma is how do you make decisions and select amongst a huge range of inputs.

    It is true that their are restraints in humans from upbringing hormones and genes etc but when you get to the point that you become aware you have Sartrean style of freedom to chose and you can reflect abstractly on decisions then the dilemma kicks in.

    If we want to make autonomous machines (that also don't become genocidal lol) then we need to imagine what kind of decisions they might make given complex inputs.

    And on that vein I think creating intelligent robots that act on their own (if possible) would be dangerous if they didn't have our own desires, biology and style of interaction with the world.

    PS on the internet these days people have been heavily cancelled/criticised and their death celebrated for having a different belief/ideology to some other group of people. Even if you stick by your principles it can be clouded by other peoples animosity.
  • Deciding what to do
    I'm with Tom Storm - We do the best we can. — T Clark

    But some people want more from life.

    I probably do.

    Life presents us with deep mysteries (I studied consciousness as part of a degree) I grew up in a really religious milieu. I won't be happy not knowing or not trying to know.

    To me understanding why I exist and knowing how to act are fundamental. I already sit around getting fat on junk food pottering around the internet. That will end up being my existence. The path of least resistance. I see it as defeatism.

    Someone with serious moral principles may want to radically change society. I personally am an antinatalist so I believe the decision to procreate and its ramifications are far from trivial and resonate in many ways philosophically and socially and we need a serious attitude shift around this.

    As you said it is possible one persons procreational decisions could have affected and created all of us ( I was brought up like in many religious families being told Adam and Eve had doomed us all).

    I found my religious upbringing raised many unanswered questions and inconsistencies that made me skeptical about everything and lacking a default trust in society.

    Conformity is certainly an easier life.
  • Deciding what to do
    ↪T Clark
    But it is an example of a paradox involved in doing the right thing and the absurdity of the consequences of our actions.

    How would you describe a rational or reasonable action?
  • Deciding what to do
    My point is that none of this is relevant to the 'baby Hitler' thought experiment wherein a scenario which can't possibly happen is used to shape real world thinking. — Tom Storm

    I was mainly using that example as an example of an extreme consequence of decision making or a serious unforeseen consequence of decision making to highlight the potential dilemma we face.

    I am not sure to what extent we can be criticised for not acting but if we have serious information that means we should probably act then should we?

    Like info about climate change or human rights abuse and poverty.

    You can turn off the news etc and limit your own exposure to stimuli and info that might make you make more profound decisions.

    I am not suggesting everyone spends every day making massive decisions but to some extent we want people to make serious decisions to minimise harm. Realising we may cause great harm or great good/benefit might be useful.
  • Deciding what to do
    You are asking, after I've done what I choose, how will I know whether I've done the best thing. Give this up, only an omniscient being, like some assume God to be, could ever answer that, and we are only human. — Metaphysician Undercover

    Thanks your advice is interesting.

    I do come from a fundamentalist religious back ground with regular hell and damnation sermons which I rejected in my late teens. So I have been forced into existential thought and decisions from day one.

    Now as a non believer I have struggled to retain meaning after leaving the extensive rules and regulations and mandates of religion to making a new meaning from scratch.

    But after being lied to as a child truth and validity have become very important to my (being on the autism spectrum may also contribute.)

    I tend to take an agnostic position to what I don't or can't know but I want to have a meaningful life and I suppose fulfil potential or an easier life where what I am doing isn't delusional, pointless or harmless but is fulfilling on a basic needs level I suppose.

    Every day you are confronted with other peoples opinions and values from childhood religion to school to now the internet and other media.
  • Deciding what to do
    Saying that humans may have an innate moral sense is not the same as saying they are innately good. As shown in Wynn's studies, I think it shows we are innately judgmental. — T Clark

    Humans clearly exhibit moral judgement making. But that is one of numerous traits humans exhibit. That does not mean any of these traits should guide how we chose to live. Isn't that the naturalistic fallacy and the appeal to nature?

    I believe utilitarianism is using pleasure as a guide to action and is mistaking pleasure with good and rightness or meaningfulness. Where we have extreme scenarios such as drugging everyone or putting them in a happiness machine to induce mass pleasure or deciding we must end all life because suffering outweighs pleasure.

    Utilitarianism had the truth problem where some pleasures were thought to be higher pleasures than other like listening to Mozart over The Spice Girls but it is argued that the notion of higher values or pleasure could not be justified on utilitarian grounds.

    So I think what seems to be reason based decision making can just be an appeal to utilitarianism which is an appeal top pleasure and so does not lay a rational foundation to decision making.
  • Deciding what to do
    The baby Hitler example, for instance, is never going to happen and like most thought experiment scenarios, has minimal relevance. — Tom Storm

    It did happen Hitler existed and cause the deaths of Millions and massive destruction in Europe. Hitler was kept alive as a child by interventions. Likewise with other murderous dictators.

    One human can cause massive destruction or massive benefit. It is statistically unlikely but it has happened several times. A scientific theory can cure a disease or create a weapon of mass destruction.

    I think we are in a situation where are decisions or lack of can have profound consequences. Every one who didn't stand up against Hitler contributed to the Holocaust.

    No calculations involved. We can only do the best we can (within reason) and make our choices. — Tom Storm

    Doing the best we can can be apathy and a lack of imagination and following the crowd.

    The existential dilemma as in Sartre's bad faith scenario is that we are freer than we believe and have an existential freedom but we can act as we don't by reifying (or making concrete) invented social roles.

    If you become a school teacher or work in a factory the decisions you make are restricted by the practises of the organisation but as in Sartre's you can leave the job anytime and reject the rules. So I am saying making choices within pre-existing structures and dogmas is not necessarily authentic choice.

    Choices can be restrained but are these restraints, pragmatic or social or religious or through fear etc?
  • Deciding what to do
    ↪T Clark


    Those baby studies have a problematic paradigm.

    On what grounds are the babies evaluations being considered moral? You have to prove a behaviour is good or moral not the baby and the baby is doing things we think are good which could be anything we already have a preference for.

    Wynn also found babies seemed to exhibit bias

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EoNYklyShs&t=129s&ab_channel=CNN

    Here the babies choice overlooks "bad" behaviour based on shared preferences.

    I was badly bullied in school as a child and if humans are innately moral I would like an explanation for how that happened? You need to explain the array of antisocial behaviour humans exhibit in light of supposed inherent moral knowledge.

    Some of these soft toy studies and child preferences can be explained by self preservation however. It is not surprising people would like cooperative and non aggressive behaviour because it has the most personal benefit. Children as I have seen especially very young ones are frightened by aggression and loud voices.

    My main dilemma on this thread though is not morality per se but choosing out of a seeming infinity of choices and with modern technology at our finger types such of the masses of information and behaviours on the internet we have even more choice daily. None of these choices may turn out to be profound but the seem to be there free will permitting yet our brain somehow copes at least to some extent.
  • Deciding what to do
    Do you think evolution didn't provide them with the ability to make decisions and act on those decisions? Do you think people 100,000 years ago couldn't act without application of rules, objectivity or teleology? — T Clark

    Slavery and misogyny have have been constants in human history. Humans are quite capable of surviving whilst behaving in harmful and irrational ways. I am exclusively gay and don't have children but gay people seem to have been around for ever.

    It is reason that makes it harder to act and now increasingly people are more highly educated and aware of paradoxes etc. More educated people have a lower birth rate ironically and more religious people have irrational prohibitions leading to large families. Like my own religious parents had six children.

    Ironically a false religion can do more for the continuation of our species then reason which as in my case may lead to antinatalism or seriously restricting family size and nihilism.

    I think most actions are probably initially made without getting to the existential stage that I got to so decisions might more based on instinct and socialization and culture over reason.
  • Deciding what to do
    Is torturing a child for fun wrong?

    Yes, obviously.     — Bartricks

    What do you mean by wrong? Nothing than happens in nature is wrong it either can happen or can't. nature allows animals to be eating alive and starve and nature didn't intervene in The Holocaust.

    I think you are stating a preference rather than discovering as morality. In some countries they are adamant homosexuality is wrong and should be punishable by death. Having a strong reaction to something doesn't mean you have made an accurate judgement.

    But most consequential and moral decisions are not about straightforward immediately harmful things. Like I said with the saving baby Hitler paradox. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The calculations you need to do to live ethically are immense and convoluted.
  • Deciding what to do
    And wishing to avoid that unnecessary anxiety, realize that we only have control of ourselves… more or less. See: stoicism. — praxis

    How does Robotics deal with this issue?

    There is The Paradox of Buridan's ass and the halting problem in computer theory.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_ass

    We cannot always make decisions by reason or emotion such as choosing between to equally desirable things o ending up with some form of insoluble choice or conundrum.

    I know little about computing if someone does and how they deal with these issues I would be interested.

    I want to do the best and most ethical thing for me an others or just do something worthwhile/meaningful. (If I have not already done so.)
  • Deciding what to do
    you might succumb to analysis paralysis — Tom Storm

    I did that long ago.

    But I think that maybe partly due to society/socialisation.

    Society limits us despite the appearance of great choice. I in particular has a very strict authoritarian religious upbringing. But some people thrive with boundaries and certainties.
  • Deciding what to do
    ↪Banno

    I think existentialism and nihilism probably require a response and a solution.

    In a sense I am just filled with a sense of fearful wonder at the situation we find our self in which is why I don't view humans as just another mundane product of nature.

    But how to do deal with this anxiety?
  • Deciding what to do
    Animals know what to do to live without some outside force motivating them. — T Clark

    I am no expert on animal behaviour but it seems to me humans can never exist (spontaneously?)like an animal in the wild without language communities and complex learning.

    It would be great if we could just go out and exist at one with nature as animals appear to do although we can't really comment on how any other animal experiences reality. They do not appear to have the capacity to experience reality by dividing it up through language to reflect on their experiences.

    Thinking about animal minds and other peoples mind and our own is always going to be speculative. However we do have a transparent language where can ask clear, rational and lucid questions about reality that don't have answers.

    The existential crisis or nihilism occurs because of this capacity. This is the crux of the issue, animals never seem to have this situation arising and if they do have a "no win" situation" that does appear to cause helplessness in animals as well in that they have been seen to develop apathy after trauma,

    I would agree that some instincts (if this is what you are alluding to) can help us stay motivated , living instinctively based on brute desires. And indeed it sound good to have naturally strong passions and drives. But these drives do seem to override the questioning side rather like supressing doubts with pleasurable hormones or something biochemical.

    I was thinking to day after reading about someone committing suicide how extremely horrible it is to get to that mental state where you see no way out and existence becomes unbearable. That probably relates to this and differentiates us from other animals.
  • The Supernatural and plausibility
    I think quite a lot of things become problematic without a concept of the supernatural or "beyond nature"

    One issue is morality which used to be considered God's/gods laws. In nature nothing is right or wrong things just can happen or can't happen. This is why philosophy's like logical positivity and empiricism undermined things like moral statements an any statement that didn't just state a fact or observation.

    Societal norms, concepts like ownership become more like useful games/fictions arbitrarily enforced by humans with no law like or logical legitimacy

    It also effects logic and mathematics which appear to have no realm to exist in.

    Subjective mental states including thoughts also appear to have no realm to exist in and no causal mechanism. We cannot see how the brain causes minds with some kind of causal necessity or mechanism. How do symbols work and language get its meaning?
  • The Supernatural and plausibility
    Andrew4Handel By "supernatural" I understand imaginary and impossible; e.g. Woo-of-the-gaps ... — 180 Proof

    Models of the atom were wrong and imaginary. Science uses the imaginary and posits the implausible.

    Theories require the imaginary and symbolic before they start to be used to manipulate reality. Useful fictions. Likewise morality and social norms/psychology/culture. Useful fictions.

    Some beliefs aim to fill in gaps but some are more of a general attitude towards reality or general model/belief such idealism vs naturalism, uncertainty versus mechanical materialism.
  • The Supernatural and plausibility
    ↪Tom Storm
    People said things like Ghosts travelling through walls are implausible but now we know things including radio waves can pass through walls and communicate information.

    Reincarnation has been made more plausible because we can imagine consciousness interacting with the body in a different way like a radio interacts with a signal or things can be stored on memory sticks.

    I am not referring to any specific claims however just referring to the type of claims. Anything now seems possible because there are less theoretical restraints.

    I think how we view reality is important for our mental health and incorrect models of reality and humans could be harmful. (see Eugenics)
  • The Supernatural and plausibility
    I suspect that there's an element of genuine magic involved in much of the technology that exploits the mysterious properties of quantum physics, such as non-locality (which is nowadays used for secure communications technologies) and for quantum computers. — Wayfarer

    That's the point. Modern technology is amazing and has changed how we communicate and what is possible. It is not reductive like a reductive mechanistic philosophy but expansive.

    It shows us more possibilities not less.

    Weird Thought experiments like the brain in a vat become more plausible not less.

    I think these technological innovations should also shape new philosophical directions.
  • The Supernatural and plausibility
    No the main objection is and always should be "Possibility" — Nickolasgaspar

    It seems to me that the supernatural is something that humans have always claimed is behind the scenes of nature giving reality attributes like life, consciousness laws and forces. Or the hand of God or fate.

    My point I suppose is that reality is at bottom mysterious and illogical and weird, that there is not a concrete machine like reality to be contrasted with the supernatural just the strange inexplicable reality of existence.

    We haven't escaped the supernatural through science and philosophising but just deepened the mysteries. We have made the implausible/impossible the normal.
  • The Supernatural and plausibility
    In what sense are they supernatural, though? If they're not, then how do they support your point? — Ciceronianus

    My argument is that the main objection against The Supernatural has been implausibility but that modern technology and modern scientific discoveries make previously implausible things look as plausible as the new world picture. Things can go through walls which are apparently mainly made up of empty space.

    I am not supporting either the supernatural or natural because I think they are rather tautologous and don't refer to anything. They are not properties of anything. But that is a reason I think they stand for Rational explanation/materialism versus implausible/causality independent.

    In summary I think there is no grounds to say that reality it self is plausible/coherent/rational etc in the way it used to be characterised/viewed via the the success of science.

    I suppose someone could argue that somehow reality is at bottom logical and rational if they could and define logical and rational.
  • The Supernatural and plausibility
    Lack of objective evidence - non anecdotal - I would say. But it's pleasant to think of ectoplasm slowly oozing from the aether. — jgill

    I am assuming a shared concept of the supernatural here in popular culture. I don't think that as has been said absence of evidence is evidence of absence.

    My assertion here (I suppose) is that people simply mean the implausible when they refer to the supernatural now. Apparently the word dates back to at least 1425. As something beyond human understanding (among other things).
  • The Supernatural and plausibility
    What do you mean by Supernatural? I would think that means actions of God. — Jackson

    Here is a dictionary definition of The Supernatural.

    "(of a manifestation or event) attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature."

    But what I am referring to is things commonly referred to as supernatural such as ghosts, things with magic powers, prophecies etc. Maybe God's actions and gods.

    If you get into definitions you can end up in an infinite regress of justifying each definition so I am assuming a common notion of the supernatural.

    If as per the definition it is something above or beyond science and sciences laws then in a way that is trivially easy to prove by pointing out things (consciousness for one) that science doesn't understand or have laws for.
  • Is it possible...
    Dawkins is an altruist - he does not take the facts of nature as an ought only as an is. — Tom Storm

    But if we are nature we cannot transcend it.

    It is an incoherent position like blaming people yet claiming we have no freewill.
  • Is it possible...
    Altruism is idiotic, some might even say it's insanity — Agent Smith

    How can you avoid altruism. Individuals and usually a society have to ensure children survive to adulthood?

    I think Dawkins altruism phobia exists because of his desire to have a purely robotic, mechanical universe and to endorse the worst form of natural selection and ubermensch. Maybe he will post on here and enlighten us.

    I suppose it is altruism why we care about others suffering.
  • Is it possible...
    And here he is wrong. At the bottom we see love and hate in purest form. — EugeneW

    I think he is wrong because things including love and hate exist in a mental realm.

    You don't observe injustice in the universe you experience it.

    His viewpoint then was being rigidly mechanistic and reductionist. But a reductive mathematical/physical universe only has statistics in it.

    I think the presence of suffering is problematic for everyone because it requires experience. Without conscious entities no suffering.

    No idea what conclusion to draw from all this.
  • Women hate
    I think power relations mean that any group of people can become the target for oppression.

    However sexism seems to have flourished under religion.

    As a gay man I do think I can appreciate women better without the frustration of falling into lust. Maybe.
  • Is it possible...
    I wish I knew how to end suffering.
  • Is it possible...
    Well according to Richard Dawkins

    “The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
  • Are we responsible for our own thoughts?
    I could[(...)/quote]

    Who is "I" is it some region in your brain? Is it your whole body?

    No "I" region or explanation has been located in the brain.

    I don't know what "I" or the self is but I am asking what it's explanatory power is in explaining behaviour, actions, thought or reason etc.

    If we are just our brains then they are material objects controlled by laws of nature/physics/biology.

    I can't take credit for any of my actions.     — Bitter Crank
  • Are we responsible for our own thoughts?
    Many of the brain's activities are not conscious. — Bitter Crank

    Are any of the brains activities conscious if so how?

    You seem to be assuming that conscious is inextricably linked to some brain actives of which no reliable correlates have been found.
  • Are we responsible for our own thoughts?
    Do you think your brain is something other than you? I am my body, my brain. What my brain thinks, I think. — Bitter Crank

    Do you think with your Kidneys?

    We have numerous cells and organs in our bodies are you suggesting we are just our brains?

    Is there a specific region of the brain you identify with a self?
  • Are we responsible for our own thoughts?
    Thoughts at times insist with the adamance of matter. Of course, thoughts are more fluid. But they can crescendo to the repetitive insistence of the killing floor. — ZzzoneiroCosm

    What is the killing floor? Is it the point of thought leading to physical action?

    Lots of people have repetitive thoughts and these are the ones I and others are least likely to act on. (See obsessional compulsive disorder)

    I am far more likely to act on spontaneous thoughts than pondering.
  • Are we responsible for our own thoughts?
    We're responsible for what we do with our thoughts. — 180 Proof

    Are you an advocate of free will then?
  • Cancel Culture doesn't exist
    Purity spirals and Stalinesque witch hunts.

    It never ends well for anyone.
  • Murder and unlawful killing
    ↪Benkei
    You should have followed the trial of Travis Reinking like I did.

    "Due to severe schizophrenia, Reinking was initially found incompetent to stand trial and committed to a mental hospital for treatment.[9] Later that decision was changed and Reinking was put on trial forfour counts of first degreepremeditated murder on January 31, 2022. He was convicted of the charges on February 4, 2022."#

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_Waffle_House_shooting

    He was convicted of murder despite being severely mentally ill and delusional and being heavily medicated during his trial and looking very ill.

    There was plenty of evidence presented by the defence of his deranged mental state including him writing a letter to Oprah Winfrey claiming he was being stalked by Taylor Swift. The defence presented two psychiatrists who had diagnosed his illness and the prosecution could not present one mental health expert witness to dispute this instead they relied on the police on the day he was arrested/captured claiming he seemed sane to them.

    Then the prosecution lawyers questioned the psychiatrists and they said insane illogical stuff like that Travis claimed God told him to kill 3 people but 4 people were killed so he must of been insane. That he fled the scene of the crime so he must have known what he did was wrong. Travis did the shooting naked but for a short coat.

    It is kind of infuriating that you don't know this kind of thing about the justice system. People are rampantly speculating about hidden mental states and motives.

    My position does not hinge on the idea that the criminal justice system is in anyway good or infallible but quite the reverse. Your position appears to hinge on some kind of notion of infallible common sense.
  • Murder and unlawful killing
    Sometimes people admit to others their intent. — Hanover

    Does that take the diagnosis of murder out of the mental realm?

    My point has roughly been that values seem to only exist in a mental realm and that the appearance of a wrong doing could be how we are defining a murder but in essence it is just an unlawful killing
    .
    So much other killing and harm goes on.

    In this sense I would be supporting a model of social fictions motivating people.

    Cain's murder of Abel — Hanover

    It wasn't explicitly described as a murder in Genesis (God hadn't laid out his commandments at that stage) and interestingly it didn't incur the death penalty. The use of the death penalty for much more than killing someone including consensual sex acts, money laundering and pick pocketing really makes the whole history of criminal justice a bizarre farce.
  • Murder and unlawful killing
    Murder only appears to have a legal definition as an unlawful killing.

    If a killing was lawful then calling it a murder would be describing something else (see the execution of gays in Iran.) I would apply this to many other things including theft and marriage.

    Murder is described as an unlawful killing not an unethical one. The Bible itself has unethical killing like disproportionate punishments, a child sacrifice and genocidal actions (collective punishments) and God's whims.

    I don't think an act reveals its ethical or criminal status without perspective in the same way all perception can be argued to be transformative and constructing concepts rather than direct perception.
  • Murder and unlawful killing
    Nonsense. Intent can be deduced from circumstances and isn't speculation or you wouldn't ever be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt someone murdered another. Think of preparatory acts, like buying the murder weapon, lying in wait, etc. — Benkei

    "When a defendant is charged with a criminal offence, the prosecution must prove that the defendant both committed the act ('actus reus'), and had the required mental element of intent ('mens rea'). The mental element is that the defendant intended or foresaw the natural consequences of the actus reus".

    https://www.inbrief.co.uk/court-proceedings/proving-intention-to-commit-a-crime/#:~:text=When%20a%20defendant%20is%20charged,consequences%20of%20the%20actus%20reus.
  • Murder and unlawful killing
    Which is why you look for other evidence to prove intent. — Benkei

    Looking for intent is speculating about the content of someone's mind (non physical I would/symbolic?) Not analysing the crime scene.

    I don't think that if someone intended to kill someone they intended to do so unlawfully.

    I can't remember if this dilemma had a name in moral philosophy but does not committing an act imply you don't think it is wrong. Actions speak louder as words as they say.

    I think a murder is considered as such if the motivations are suspected to be malicious. But you could view all killing as wrong simply on the basis of harm.

    Speculating about peoples moral motives is tricky.
  • Cancel Culture doesn't exist
    There is an ongoing attempt to cancel J K Rowling by the people she made rich and famous out of her own franchise.

    This is worrying for new writers and creativity because when the most famous wealthy author in the world is trying to be written out of history what chance is there for up coming authors to express themselves before they have the relative protection of wealth?

    It is very draconian and absurd.

    But the main intention is to persevere political correctness and Wokeness at all costs. It is a political/power move not the response of an oppressed minority.

    Who wants to sell books to these kind of people anyway? It makes you want to opt out of society. I don't want to share ideas with brainwashed and virtue signalling banal people.
Home » Andrew4Handel