Your reply gave me a lot of good insights. I agree with you it seems the ideal is to not desire help or frame your worth in respect to how much assistance you require but to help it enable one to be more independent and less in need of help or better yet to reach a level where they themselves can offer it to others.

Giving isn't the solution to the problem at all. It's just a last "humanity safety net" but it doesn't solve anything after all. — dimosthenis9

This is a bit like the sentiment “give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.” It’s about creating cycles of sustainability.

Sometimes, when you see a very good person with a great soul making laborious acts to help people, he or she ends up cheated or disappointed of how ungrateful the people can be. — javi2541997

Good point. And I suppose if they have the view that they would do it anyway despite whether people are grateful or not means they aren’t doing it “transactionally”.

We do it because we know it's right. — T Clark

And knowing it’s right makes us feel good

true. Assuming reincarnation (which I imagine is harmonious with the laws of physics - when energy and matter on a habitable planet is limited and therefore must be recycled) it stands to reason that death being a state of “no record, no accountancy” means that death and birth are instantaneous... that the time elapsed between them for something sentient is for all purposes null

Haha. Well diversity is the spice of life. I can understand their sentiments. But for me life is brief and death is long standing if you consider the ratio of living to dead matter in the universe. And if I know death is waiting for me, why not play around and have fun while one can hold the notion of these endeavours.
I’m not saying I prefer life per se, but “when in rome...” *shrug*

God and existence are the same thing. — EnPassant

I’m inclined to agree. When one steps back from daily life and really dives into the state of simply being and “knowing it”, to just exist as this strange phenomenon that has a sense of being... it’s quite undefinable. Language doesn’t muster to potency required to encapsulate it.

When I think of “god” I cannot conceive of something more powerful, more brilliant and clever, than being a “self”. The fact that the universe is capable of producing such a state just blows my mind. The fact that matter and energy can have its very own personal sense of agency - that to me is the most intelligent thing one can appreciate.

We all hit the jackpot with being manifested as sentient beings. But it only feels as such when one truly acknowledges that they are a system that collapses... and resumes a phase of non-being. The wonder is in the transformation, the contrast between inanimate and animate.

It’s interesting when one places living on the trophy case, denotes being alive as a state more precious than death.

Why ought we treat the state of being alive with such reverence? It stands to reason that this sort of I guess “favouritism” so to speak, lends itself to an inherent fear of death, a fear of the inevitable “coming in at second best” -being dead.

Many philosophies see an indifference or apathy towards death as a triumph, a liberation, for in the state of total lack of bias one is free from the burden of navigating their distaste surrounding ones obvious mortality.

Death is required, it is natural, it is price of emerging into awareness, and when suffering, death is even welcome, beckoned forth. You don’t suffer in death. It wasn’t painful to not yet exist nor will it be when we return to dust.

In my experience reflecting on death in this way is incredibly helpful. It is one of the most powerful transformations a living thing can undergo - to plummet from the heights of a life long construction of self identity into pure oblivion.

It doesn’t negate the beauty of living but simply frames it truthfully. It takes the pressure off one trying to “maximise” on every moment, to make every moment spent living worthwhile.

Because at the end of the day a lot of living is about doing very little, being insignificant, being unproductive, “wasting” time. But it’s only a waste if there is this compulsion based on the unequal weighting of the importance of life verses death.

I think it’s okay to live a life where you made very little impact. Because ultimately when all is said and done, no one, not even the greatest legends will be remembered. We will all be lost to time. It stops for no man.

The energy loss is only apparent because the distances between the rishons in our galaxy don't expand along. — Prishon

Yeah this is the line of thinking I was taking but I wasn’t able to articulate it as well as you

oh okay interesting I wasn’t aware of they I’ll look into Noether’s theorem and conservation of energy a bit deeper. Thanks :)

When a photon travels large distances on a cosmic scale and red shifts, where does that energy the photon originally had go? — InPitzotl

Well I know a photon cannot lose energy unless it interacts with a particle. The amount of energy it has isn’t related to the distance it travels. It’s massless.

What I’m saying is I don’t think redshift (decrease in frequency) of a photon necessarily means the energy of the photon must be lost. It’s one way that this can occur. But the Hubble constant is based on the idea that the wavelength (distance) per unit time is increasing because the space that must be travelled through per unit time is expanding.

When a photon travels large distances on a cosmic scale and red shifts, where does that energy the photon originally had go? — InPitzotl

Not sure but I believe this refers to the Doppler effect. If the transmitter and or receiver of a frequency are not stationary relative to each other then the distance between wavelengths (frequency) will be altered by a factor of the new distance between reviver and transmitter.

In the case of space this translates to expansion. The space through which the frequency is travelling is stretching therefore the frequency appears to decrease - red shift. As for the energy of the photon I’m not sure if it has necessarily diminished

Why wouldn't he be?

If we divorce the idea that God is all good, issues about him being an asshole don't arise. — Manuel

I think the catch here is that a perfect creator is incapable of creating anything imperfect for they would not know what that possibly is. All they have ever known is perfection. It’s like asking “something” to create “ultimate true nothingness”. They couldn’t possibly do that.

I think that if there is a creator they are by default imperfect as there is no reason why existing is definitely better than not existing. But existing seems to be the only way in which one can ascertain this.

Why are you such a cunt? — Tom Storm

Hmm. Perhaps so that you may have the choice not to be? obstacles are meant to be overcome no?

Explain so I can understand why you created anything at all (e.g.a universe less perfect than yourself inhabited by creatures less perfect than their universe). — 180 Proof

Tell me this... would a perfect universe be worth living in. Would we ever understand it to be perfect. Or would it be boring. Nothing to gain for all worthy of being gained has been gained

Seriously, almost all the questions I have I can get answers for off the web. — T Clark

I find it hard to believe the web has even close to all the answers. For if it did life would not be as we know it now. It’s easy to think that the present is the most sophisticated level of knowledge we can possess...but 10,000 BC was at one stage the present. The world and status quo has changed massively since then but some important questions have and still do elude us.

If a God exists, the one question which I would ask is why do some people experience so much more suffering than others? Is it simply unfair? Or, is it that suffering stretches us? Suffering may lead us to draw upon inner resources and develop consciousness in a way which would not occur if our lives were more comfortable. — Jack Cummins

Well I’m no authority on this but from my experience firstly suffering has to exist. If it didn’t exist neither would it’s opposite. You cannot know all the positive emotions without an antithesis/ an opposite.

As for who is suffering more? It’s relative I would imagine. Something that is gruelling and horrible for one person may not necessarily be the case for another. Some people are accustomed to a certain level of discomfort or struggle which is normal for them and they have adapted to it. Or found solace in other ways which make it tolerable for them where it would otherwise be intolerable for another.

If you suffer a lot more than someone else your ability to take delight in small victories and strokes of fortune is likely more emphasised than someone who is used to having everything go perfectly for them.
You may be starving and find getting fresh drinkable water every day a great difficulty but if this is all you’ve ever known you may not find it a source of suffering but a part of daily life. You may form very close and supportive relationships with others through their shared struggle. You may laugh, you may feel apart of a community whilst a very privileged and individualistic first world individual may be chronically bored, dissatisfied unchallenged or miserable and suffering depression and loneliness.

People may look at you with pity that you won’t understand it as such.

A lot of our source of suffering is a fear surrounds premature death. But in some philosophies/ spiritual views death is not seen as something awful and to be avoided at all cost but a simple, natural and necessary part of the cycle of life. And you cannot suffer if you are not living. Death in some ways is merciful.

A long life does not a good one make. A brief existence full of love and meaning could be better than a long pointless one. Consider those who believe in multiple lives, for them this life may be crap but it is only one of many, and in that way they are relieved and seek comfort in transfiguration when they die.

good point actually haha

generally speaking we have several options. It’s quite interesting to see how each option aligns with people’s belief as to whether we can successfully tackle such a seemingly insurmountable threat to the entirety of humanity.

Option one: the most talked about. Cut emissions, transition to renewable clean energy. There seems to be a race on towards fusion power for obvious reasons - harnessing the power of the sun on our planet will revolutionise the accessibility and abundance of power available to us as a species and its byproduct is helium and other inert and harmless compounds.

Option two: divide and conquer. Outsource to other planets. This is a bit of a “cop-out to me” as it’s more “dilutional” than “solution” based. Simply carry on activity as is but in new domains where resources are available.

Option three: cut demand. Birth control and population decline. Less people less demand. This involves bringing all countries to a first world parity where self actualisation takes precedent over reproduction and large families.

Option four: adapt. This to me is the most likely scenario. If there’s anything humans are good at it is innovating and adapting when our hand is forced and there is simply no other choice than to deal with our problems head on. This doesn’t mean climate change is avoided but rather our culture lifestyle and socioeconomic activity is slowly altered to sustain a quality of life in a changing world.

Option five: do nothing. Ignore the signs and see what happens.

depends on when you define an object as not being that object anymore.

I understand it in two ways: you can dismantle a car and it is no longer the object “car”, for all intents and purposes the car is destroyed. It is now myriad pieces or car elements with the potential to be constructed into a car.

Can you destroy oxygen atoms on the other hand? I tus inherently more difficult. You can’t divide an oxygen atom. Cutting through gas doesn’t destroy it. However again through fusion or fission you can convert it into another element and then I guess it as the material phenomenon “oxygen” with all its physical and chemical properties has been destroyed.

If you consider the universe as an object with borders then no I don’t believe you can destroy it. Because by definition it still pertains to all processes internal to it.

And of course if you refer to everything as energy then truly it cannot be destroyed just converted to heat or light or sound or maybe a different form of matter.

I don't think so. Energy is always working, no? But God spends eternity not doing anything. — bert1

But paradoxically the quality of energy to “be the cause of all change” must itself be unchanging and constant. Like a law: For if energy no longer caused change/ exerted influence/ power (or if it’s character as a phenomenon was changed itself) it would no longer be energy.

That which changes all things must itself remain the same. It’s a bit of a mind bender. There’s some strange interplay here between passivity and activity in energy. Perhaps “space time” is the passive side of energy.... that fabric that is unchanging and fixed and through which we perceive change by contrast.

The reason I posit space time as standing in for this passive role is that energy cannot act without it. Yet it serves nothing more than to simply be the medium of energetic process. Time is the difference between the singularity - all things happening simultaneously, instantly and as one unit (as if nothing ever happened at all, pure potential/potency) and the long drawn out evolution of activity that we see as the dimensional universe playing out before us.

this is a really well rounded and fleshed out answer thank you! Definitely food for thought/ curiosity fuel.

We see that energy works on itself though. It is self acting. Energy (be it radiation, a person, a force - lie gravity) takes energy (matter) and recombines it/ moulds it into something new (still energy).

Could this not fulfill Option one - the creator. If you think about it - if the only thing energy can do is change (it’s the only way it proves it’s existence - ie. to act or do something) and the singularity is a singular energetic state at the beginning of time. The only way a singularity can change is to create new phenomena from itself

Reality is the standard by which we measure if something is consistent or not.
What ever is consistent with reality, is true. Whatever is not, is false. — Yohan

What do you mean by consistent? Because if you mean repeatable then I’m afraid there are myriad examples of phenomenon and things in the universe that can never be repeated more than once. That doesn’t make them false just exceedingly rare or “unique”.

I don’t believe one can choose unless they taste both goodness and evil. I myself am acutely aware of my worst and most toxic behaviour. It makes me unsettled and ashamed to consider it. Sad in fact. Even disgusted. However without fully embracing and recognising this never ending potential to be “the worst” could I ever steer clear of it.

If something is hidden from you by yourself, if you are dishonest with yourself, if you pretend that you could never possibly be so terrible, that is the exact moment when you are at most risk of behaving in such a way. No one is infallible. Those who believe they cannot be at fault have no capacity to correct themselves for the better.

This is why self- reflection and contemplation plays such a huge role in all religions as well as meditation, learning and self awareness.

Consider a psychopath, their inability to empathise with another means they simply cannot ever admit fault. Guilt is not a feature of their emotional environment. Therefore it’s open season on all behaviours which can meet a personal goal - manipulation, back-stabbing, exploitation etc.

The way I see is that if everything was utopian and perfect, the concept of benevolence would be meaningless. As meaningless as trying to conceive of “absolute nothingness” as a “something” in a universe that “exists” - also somethingness. We cannot imagine it. Everything we think of is something.

In order for there to be benevolence there MUST be an antithesis, a contrast to give it dimension. If everything was dark we wouldn’t call it darkness because we never knew what light is.

This is why Abrahamic religions as well as Buddhism, Taoism etc have to recognise the existence of suffering and malevolence as an irrefutable facet of being. A god couldn’t be good if they didn’t have something to act against. If there’s no choice how can one choose to be/ act or behave in any specific way?

Any self respecting deity, should there be any, would permit suffering so that we could experience pure love, ecstasy and joy by contrast. And know it by referencing the opposite.

The question would really be “ would you rather live in a state of absolute numb unfeeling emptiness or would you choose a life equal parts bad and good so that you might experience the full spectrum?

Further more if everything truly has an equal and opposite, if everything is down to probabilities that balance out, then your joy, your abundance and prosperity, your wealth and happiness is someone else’s suffering and poverty. It’s impossible for everyone to have everything all the time. So could you live with being eternally happy if it meant someone else eternally suffered to balance the books?
For me I would rather go through the motions of good and bad experience, as life has always intended. A beautiful and constant struggle.

for me information is the product of contrast. Without two poles - without a binary interaction there is no information.
0 = nothing or no discernible “content” however -1 +1 is a contrast of equal opposites - a spectrum which can be appreciated from within itself and yet still equals zero.

You cannot have black without white or space without matter to occupy it. Information is difference.

To truly imagine a universe with no observer, then you must imagine it from no point of view. Nothing within it is nearer or further, older or newer, closer or further away. Of course, if you realise what that means, then you will realise its impossibility. — Wayfarer

Would this not suggest then that observation and “self- awareness” is a universal property. Which would suppose I guess that at the beginning - the singularity - there was observance. A single entity that is aware of its own singularity. Seems pretty theistic to me.

Then again I don’t think panpsychism is completely out of the realms of possibility. Perhaps awareness is a proportional function of organisation. And us as highly complex self replicating systems of inanimate chemicals are simply a high level of emergence of this fundamental ego

Being dead has a notion of pure passivity. This seems fitting for an "observer". As for most of the universe. — Heiko

It’s interesting that you associate being dead with being passive. Because as I understand life itself is a mix of active and passive roles: for example photosynthesis can be seen as passive in the sense that where there is light there is automatic photosynthesis it’s not like plants can refuse to covert light into usable energy but also it is active in the sense that a plant requires a certain level of self organisation in order to carry out the process.

Also parasitism is passive for the host. They are merely being used as a commodity by the parasite. So I’m the same way perhaps being dead can be active. A star is not considered alive but it certainly has an active role in sustaining it.

I borrowed these perspectives from Yin and yang which focuses on the importance of active and passive couples in the interaction of all things. I do see how being dead is sort of like being on the bottom rung of the ladder of utilisation. When you are dead you are at the mercy of all that wants to use you matter and energy for their own devices

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I am not sure what you mean by "the state of being observed". Me observing and me being observed? And being observed by the physical universe? How can that be? I don't undestand this.
Also, I don't see how this is related to the question of your topic, namely, "Does reality require an observer?". Maybe I miss something. If you could explain it to me, esp. with an example, I could maybe be able to answer this question. — Alkis Piskas

I mean that if “life” is in fact a false distinction from other inanimate chemistry and simply a very complex physical process that gives the impression of “self reference” or emergence of ego, then it stands to reason that awareness is just a product of chemical/energetic reactions. And if that is the case then perhaps all chemical interactions in the universe are to some degree observing the other ones. This is along the lines of Panpsychism where awareness is a fundamental property like space, time, matter etc

Does reality require an observer? If by observer we mean a human being, — Samuel Lacrampe

Not necessarily. I cannot say whether humans are the only “aware” or “conscious” agents. I would imagine that many animals and maybe plants and fungi are to varying degrees conscious - dogs, dolphins, elephants primates etc. And perhaps to a lesser extent lower life forms - worms bacteria etc. Reality seems to only acknowledge its own existence through the capacity to be aware. Without any conscious agent one would imagine reality would never know it had even manifested in the first place.

And if nothing is conscious in the universe how would the universe ever be a universe. There’s nothing to realise it exists.

There might be a hair to split between what is conceived versus what is realized or actual. But, I would approach it as God must be slightly less than infinity and greater than everything else. — Cheshire

Might I approach it from a slightly physics direction. Assuming that maybe this “god” is the sum of all energy in the universe, god must be finite as the law of conservation of energy would dictate: cannot be created nor destroyed. Although finite in quantity, energy being the ability to do work one could say they must be infinite in quality - that is to say can transform from one form to the next. Cannot be destroyed cannot be created but ALWAYS changing

If your not an optimistic your a pessimist.
Don't hide behind the nonsense of I only asked a question.
Grow a pair and own your post. — Mystic

Rude haha. And very polarised view. Nothing is black and white and there is such thing as “ on the fence”, besides I’m actually asking a question based on what people have said to me not my personal opinion. Anyways despite your somewhat unwarranted, hostile and needlessly personal comment I will assume you’re just having a bad day. Poor you.

You pessimists can stress yourselves out,and doom and gloom,but you only hurt yourselves and annoy others. — Mystic

How am I a pessimist for simply asking the question? I personally have little opinion on either course of humanity I’m simply looking to see what others believe. Be careful not to make needless assumptions about people based on little more than their inquiry

There will always be mentally lazy/ weak people. They exist as a point of reference for which to determine those who are mentally strong and diligent. And vice versa of course.
We are a distribution of varying mental capacity with most in the middle and few at the extremes.
But even if you promote the weakest of us to improve by say 5% then still there is a bottom rung it just so happens to be five percent higher than previously.

It’s all relative and importantly, all necessary.

in such a case how might we then help the poor to help themselves?
Do you think it will always be a case of providence by the better off? Or is there some way to encourage the poor to have self- directed, motivated and productive attitudes and improve their lives? Perhaps they don’t see any need to improve. Some people are very satisfied with their circumstances despite what others may believe.

I guess in the end it’s a case of a Gaussian distribution of productivity or intelligence or wealth etc. For a population of people you always have the majority in the Center - and then the exceptional upper margin and unexceptional lower margin. There’s always a “poorest” person not matter what.

After all the accounting of freedom to and freedom from has been tallied up — James Riley

That’s a brilliant quote. Of course freedom also operates in the avoidance of adversity by “restricting” you for your own good, not just the liberty to do what you want.

My only issue is I think one can go overboard with regulation. Many of our societies are getting to what I call the stage of “bubble wrapping”.
That is to say blanket restrictions for all on even the slightest of risky activities due to the inherent idiocy of a few. Bubble wrapping everyone and enclosing us in safety net after safety net so we can’t accidentally injure ourselves. It kind of drains the exhilaration out of activities because at the end of the day “life is a risk sport no matter how many protections you put in place and some people will always be hurt so we should go with waivers and disclaimers rather than preventing people from exploring limits that are considered borderline unsafe.

I can understand why adrenaline junkies seek out threatening situations to feel alive again.

So its not because the US is a society that there is an income tax, but because the government, inspired by competing socialist and populist forces, gave itself the right to pilfer its citizen's wealth on the specious claim that politicians knew how to better use the people's wealth than they did. — NOS4A2

Do you think we would be better off if we lived in a public “campaigning/ go fund me” type society where instead of paying tax to one centralised governing body each person is free to select their own beneficiary’s at an individual and micro-group level but have to invest a certain percentage of their wealth minimum.

I can see some benefits and flaws: the benefits being money would be spent by a community on its own improvements - the people who are most acutely aware of their local communities needs are directing the money rather than some national body. Also a lot more diversity would be seen in innovation and entrepreneurship.

The major problem is highly costly and large scale projects would never be funded because not enough money would be directed towards it. People tend to focus on what impacts them and their families most not what’s best for the country.

My experience is that equality leads to jealousy. — Pretty Herds

Why does equality lead to jealousy? Surely it ought to have the opposite effect. Then again being as subjective as we are “the grass is always greener on the other side”.

Has the individual ever been free? We've been living in ever-growing communities for the last 12,000 years, but even as hunter-gatherers individuals were not "free". Social animals like us can't be entirely free and independent agents. We are obligated by our various needs to maintain tight social relationships. — Bitter Crank

I suppose you’re right. In many ways I think this is why the escapism of media and literature plays such a large part in our lives. Distraction from the disenfranchising aspects of every day social life and lack of true freedom. If anything the human mind and imagination is the most free thing we’ve got - there is little restriction in the non physical/ hypothetical.

. So the powerful take from the rich and give to the non-starving. This is how humans act. — Gregory

Except they don’t, or rather can’t. At least not by any punitive measure. Tax avoidance is a wealthy mans specialty. The middle class pay a disproportionate amount of their wealth into the system and this is because they don’t have an accountancy team working around the clock to maintain their assets.
Furthermore the whole way in which the monetary system operates further rewards wealth with interest rates which are negligible in the case of small capital but quite significant at large sums.

One could simply live off interest alone if they have a large lump sum in the bank.
Also the way the justice system operates companies can essentially raise a legal “blockade” while they operate to profit by questionable means. By this I mean they have no intention of winning the case in court all they have to do is have their team of 50 high profile lawyers find every way in the book to stall proceedings for as long as possible and appeal repeatedly. In the meantime they’ve made 20X what they’ll pay as a penalty to the court.