• Does wealth create poverty?
    I like the idea of a universal basic income. It would benefit a lot of people.The problem is paying for it. We're already trillions of dollars in debt. So we need to increase taxes. You don't want to tax income too much because that would disincentive productivity. I think we should raise the capital gains tax and start a wealth tax like they have in Europe. And they also should start charging households for extra garbage. Protect the environment and discourage waste. Kill two birds with one stone.
  • What are you listening to right now?
  • Does wealth create poverty?
    ↪Bitter Crank
    (Y)
  • Experiencing of experience
    ↪Cavacava
    I agree that not everything we do is through awareness. But there's a lot we can't do unless we are aware.
  • Does wealth create poverty?
    You are saying that in school, the kid that works hard, studies every night, forms study groups with his or her peers, attends all office hours, and works his or her ass off; deserves the same grade as the kid who slacks off and plays video games and skips class.

    The business owners who works 20 hours a day to build their business, cares for their employees, provides genuine value to the community, deserves the same as the business owner who rips off his customers and cheats his employees.     — fishfry
    I'm not saying that there should be no inequality. People who work harder and do honest work should get more than those who don't. All I am saying is that the scales are tilted towards the wealthy in that they have an unfair advantage over people who aren't wealthy who work equally hard, and that negatively effects the poor.
  • Does wealth create poverty?
    ↪fishfry
    You're right. I mean equal. (Forgive me, I didn't sleep last night)
  • Experiencing of experience
    The number of physical states is enormous, superconductivity, Superfluidity, solid, gas, liquid, etc. — bahman
    I'll concede that brain states are physical states because your using the words "physical states" in a broad sense.

    It is not difficult to imagine that since most of the things which we communicate is the result of unconscious mind activity. We just are conscious of them when we communicate — bahman
    So you don't think consciousness plays a role in communication?
  • The Last Word
    ┌( ͝° ͜ʖ͡°)=ε/̵͇̿̿/’̿’̿ ̿ Last words!
  • My doppelganger from a different universe
    Here's an interesting video that's relevant.
    This too.
  • My doppelganger from a different universe
    ↪tom
    Interesting points.

    Anyways, back to the OP. Everyone agrees that they are different people (including me). So there's no point of discussing it anymore, unless you want to talk about something else.

    As I also mentioned in the other thread, there is no evidence for this cosmological multiverse, yet it is the one most people are quite willing to accept. — tom
    I'm not willing to accept it unless there is ample evidence. I was just talking hypothetically in my OP. It's fun to talk about cosmilogical multiverses, even if there's no such thing.

    On the other hand, there is overwhelming evidence for the quantum multiverse, yet this is supposed to be controversial. — tom
    Really? I thought the MWI of quantum mechanics was just that - an interpretation.
  • Experiencing of experience
    ↪bahman
    Brain is physical therefore brain state is physical state. — bahman
    What kind of physical state is? It's not solid, nor liquid, nor gas.

    That as I mentioned is related to hard problem of consciousness. It is not clear to philosopher that why we need consciousness in order to communicate for example. — bahman
    I don't agree that the so called "hard problem" is harder than the "easy problem". I believe that they are the same problem.

    How is consciousness different than awareness? It's hard to imagine how we can communicate properly if we aren't aware of what's going on.
  • Consequentialism vs Taoism
    Yes, because the chain the causation doesn't stop...it continues unto the end of the universe itself. — TheMadFool
    So what if the causes never stop? We can still track the causes that are meaningful, and ignore the rest. And the "maybe" story is rare, there's usually only one meaningful effect to a cause.
  • Consequentialism vs Taoism
    ↪TheMadFool
    I honestly don't know what to think. How is damning for consequentialism? Is it because we can never know what the outcome of an event means?
  • Consequentialism vs Taoism
    May be.
  • My doppelganger from a different universe
    I'm confused as to why this conversation got so confusing. — fishfry
    I don't know why either. Maybe end it here before it gets even more confusing? >:O
  • My doppelganger from a different universe
    It isn't unlikely, it's infinitely unlikely — T Clark
    We don't have to be on earth-1 we could be on any earth.
  • My doppelganger from a different universe
    ↪T Clark
    I'm sorry that you found my question silly. Maybe fishfry's example of a cloned human may seem less fantastical.

    Also, if there are an infinite number of universes, it is infinitely unlikely we are on Earth-1. — T Clark
    It would also be equally unlikely that we are on another planet. In an infinite multiverse everything that happens will be extremely unlikely. But just because something is unlikely doesn't give you justification for believing it's not true. Unlikely things happen all the time.
  • My doppelganger from a different universe
    You are me as well. You find yourself occupying every perspective. — oysteroid
    I find that hard to believe.
  • My doppelganger from a different universe
    we can talk of the experience of the cloned pair being identical before the cloning operation — fishfry
    But there's is no cloned pair before the cloning process has begun. There's only one person yet to be cloned.
  • My doppelganger from a different universe
    ↪tom
    I started reading it until they started talking about "intrinsic" and "extrinsic" properties. I couldn't read anymore. :s
  • My doppelganger from a different universe
    Well if they're two humans then they're not one human. So your statement's a bit unclear. — fishfry
    You can talk about two things that happen to be one, like Hesperus (the evening star) and Phosphors (the morning star). Both of which incidentally turns out to be Venus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesperus

    If a human is cloned, that results in two different people who shared all experiences, inner and outer, up to the moment of cloning. — fishfry
    When did the cloned person come into existence? If it's the moment of cloning then he couldn't have shared all the experiences up to the moment of cloning.

    But the idea that there are two universes that are identical seems a little different from the usual conception of the multiverse, in which each universe represents a different state of matter. Does multiverse theory allow for identical yet distinct universes? — fishfry
    I don't know. I guess it's logically possible.
  • My doppelganger from a different universe
    The analogy I'm trying to get at is that at the moment of cloning/replicating, you have two individual humans who have the same memories and experiences. Their experiences immediately start to diverge. — fishfry
    Two humans with different memories and experiences must be different people. Got it.
  • Experiencing of experience
    Experience is a physical state so it cannot be experienced within materialism. — bahman
    When I think of physical states I think of how matter is arranged such solid, liquid, and gas. I find it hard to conceptualize experience (i.e brain states) being a physical state, but then again I'm no brain scientist.

    The thing which feels amazing must have a good functioning in your body. The question is why it should come with an experience? Why things doesn't go in dark? This is hard problem of consciousness as far as I understand. — bahman
    If everything goes in the dark then it would be impossible to communicate what is happening. We (humans) are a social species and we need experience in order to communicate what happens.
  • Experiencing of experience
    It seems absurd to me that brain can be aware of its internal states, experience, because a state is not physical but rather the result of physical activity. — bahman
    Are you sure that experiences can't be physical. Many physical things are the result of physical activity. For example, the rotation of a fan blade produces something physical - wind.

    And what is the practical use of this? — bahman
    Are you kidding me? How often did you tell someone "you've got to try this, it feels amazing"?
  • A Google search for "environmental costs of science" yields nothing. Why?
    ↪WISDOMfromPO-MO
    Did you try a verbatim search?
  • My doppelganger from a different universe
    In any event, you would be two different people. It's no different than running the Chrome browser on millions of different computers. There's only one Chrome browser, namely the program code. But there are millions of individual instances of the Chrome browser. In computer science it's the difference between program and process. — fishfry
    Are human beings like a process? If so, what would be analogous to the single "program code"?
  • My doppelganger from a different universe
    Because then they could not be separate entities. — Sir2u

    Your going in a circle. But never mind, I agree, two separate entities are different things.
  • My doppelganger from a different universe
    Didn't we beat this story to death in another recent thread? — fishfry
    Do you think you can provide a link?
  • Experiencing of experience
    If experience is product of brain activity then how possibly we can experience experience? — bahman
    You need to elaborate on this. What does experience being a product of brain activity make it hard to understand how we can be aware of our experiences?

    What is the use of experiencing of experience? — bahman
    Because we can talk about what we experience.
  • My doppelganger from a different universe
    No. You are different people. Separate entities. — Sir2u
    Why can't separate entities be the same?
  • Wiser Words Have Never Been Spoken
    CAPITAL letters exist. They go at the beginning of each sentences. — Sir2u
  • Can something be deterministic if every outcome is realized?
    Some outcomes are mutually exclusive. Yes every outcome can occur under determinism - but not at the same time.
  • Philosophical quality control
    ↪Rich
    But philosophy has nothing to do with a changing universe. Philosopher's deal with ideas not the universe. Sounds like a job for science.
  • Philosophical quality control
    One builds a philosophical perspective by exploration and observation of all, not some. — Rich
    The problem is that no one has time to explore and observe all. It would take more than a lifetime to explore all the philosophical writings.
  • Relief theory of humor
    ↪Sapientia
    Wow, you must have an amazing memory!
  • Philosophical quality control
    You have to duke it out in the marketplace of ideas — Wayfarer
    Let the truth prevail!
  • Philosophical quality control
    ↪sime
    So you judge a philosophy based on how persuasive it is to you?
  • Philosophical quality control
    I would say that the most important thing is to learn how to read the material with the intent to understand. — Metaphysician Undercover
    What about philosophy that you can't understand? Is that the basis of rejecting a philosophy? On whether you can understand it or not?
  • Philosophical quality control
    ↪Rich
    Do you pick and choose what philosophy you read? Surely you don't just jump into a random philosophy book without first making a judgment about it.
  • Intrinsic Value
    I think we need to make a distinction between value and we valuing something. Somethings are valuable because they are beneficial to a creature (such as health). On the other hand, we value things because it gives us pleasure (art for example). There's a difference between those two cases.
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