Why would an all good God have created an array of life forms that can only flourish at the expense of each other's suffering, instead of creating an array of life forms that live in perfect cooperative harmony, with no predation or parasitism, no aging, etc? — Pfhorrest

No predation = overpopulation = suffering. No parasitism = suggestion that some lifeforms are less deserving of life than others due to the nature by which they survive = inequality. Every organism parasitises resources or the prosperity of other organisms to some degree. Parasitism is a relatively arbitrary concept when you consider that in a broad sense most organisms have some sort of parasitic relationship to one another; for example we parasitise chickens for their unborn embryos for food: something obviously detrimental to the reproductive potential of the species but this is offset by the fact that we also rear chicken populations greatly beyond the natural population that would occur normally if we left them be in the wild.

You can’t have a state of endless creation and no destruction. You can’t have positives without negatives to balance them otherwise the positives quickly themselves become negatives. I believe if such a god exists the “good” we refer to isn’t an egocentrically founded “human good” based around how we believe the world should work but rather “good” in the sense of stability and equilibrium and the capacity for change to be graduated and controlled rather than completely chaotic and reckless.

you make a valid point One would imagine the cause of the Big Bang is external to time. But I think this lies on the assumption of “linearity” and I prefer/tend to lean towards cyclical phenomena as the basis for a lot of physical processes. Frequency. So for me the Big Bang is not so much a beginning but perhaps a singular state in the set of all states that both completes and begins a cycle. Kinda like the “zero point magnitude” of a wave at the beginning or end of a period.

So for me the Big Bang would be a something like a condensation of space, time, matter and energy into one. And that they contract and expand into their respective behaviours from this state

I think it would help to consider existence seeing as we are discussing god and time. Most would consider existence and being integral to time in that nothing can exist if it has no duration. Ie that anything that exists is and always will be doing so in relation/relatively to something else - that information is occurring or that change is proceeding in some way.

So if existence is dependent on the passage of time then could anything have qualities that reside beyond the relevance of time? I doubt it.

Furthermore, Time, space, energy and matter are all interdependent in one another for their existence in relativistic terms so I don’t see why if we focus on time we ought not to account for the simultaneous development of the other fundamental states.

Perhaps God is the point from which time space energy and matter proceed and is therefore a unified single entropic state of creation rather than something that interacts with the specific traits that it generates.

if it is even definable, and it may not be! It may turn out to be a term something like "race," which 50+ years of science has shown to be a meaningless term. — tim wood

Interesting remark. Perhaps we have objectified/classified sexual qualities too much just like ethnic ones.

i disagree. I don’t believe it’s an unusual question any more than the question “why are there genders?” or “what is sexuality?” In my opinion no question is particularly less worthy of contemplation than another and don’t believe in restricting/confining ourselves to questions which are deemed “not strange” or “strange”. I’m simply curious. Also, nowhere did I suggest abnormality or any information regarding personal opinion or prejudice against homosexuality. I’m simply scientifically/philosophically inquisitive as to the role of various factors in the development of such behaviours. Theories as to what conditions necessitate/ result in the homosexual inclination

Well one would thing that like many a human characteristic sexuality is a spectrum? It’s very likely. But I simply advocated the discussion of one pole of the spectrum there wasn’t any specific agency about it to neglect bisexuality. Furthermore, spectrally assorted traits are still often dictated by a multitude of genes. Height, skin colour etc are governed in such a Complex way like this. I’m open to suggestions for a theory as to why sexuality occurs in the way it does generally or specifically the nature of bisexuality either. All would give equally decent insight into the topic I’m focusing on

But isn’t social housing a form of socialist delegation/distribution of property with social welfare and basic human needs at its core? Sure perhaps the residents don’t necessarily own the property but the governing body ensures that they have housing and also can pay off the purchase of the house at a highly competitive rate. Some Instanced even getting the deeds without paying.

“To ignore evil is to be an accomplice to it” — Legato

I believe it depends on awareness.
Consider subject A,B and C.
Subject A and C have a strong grasp of “good/morality and it’s contrasting state “evil/immorality”
Subject B has no grasp of either - he is morally ignorant and can’t discriminate between the two. He doesn’t know what causes harm and what causes benefit.

A chooses to behave/act/be good and moral while C chooses to behave evil/immorally.
If C manipulates B into being evil can we say B is evil? I don’t think so because he is ignorant and doesn’t know. It’s as if a young child were asked to push their mother off balance where she subsequently dies. The child didn’t know it would cause harm/ didn’t understand the consequences

Similarly if A manipulates or encourages B to be good can we say B is good? Not really. Agency and understanding determine accountability. Innocent by insanity is just that - you cannot hold the mentally infirm accountable for their actions.

So really evil is A ignoring Cs actions instead of intervening/discouraging them and good is A acting against C.

If a judge was caught stealing vs a poor uneducated person caught stealing which is worse?

When we say what is “real” what we are really saying is where must we draw the line between that which is possible/has the potential to exist and that which does not.

Many like to consider real as “material” but this negates the existence of forces and energy states and probabilities etc which have no matter or substance. Some like to consider real as “objectively observable” between multiple members of society but this negates an individuals internal experience Imagination and personality or uniqueness as it is not perceivable consistently by others, as well as important concepts such as morality, justice and ethics which you cannot scientifically prove or observe yet are understood collectively to varying degrees and augment scientific endeavour to make it humane.

Some believe “real” is that which exists consistently or with most certainty/ stability through time but that negates the passage of time itself which is inherently consistent but also the mode by which things change. It also means that the laws of physics are the most real while the painting I drew and then burned straight after was not real because it didn’t last long enough.

Some people also believe that what is “real” is that which is perceptible or has the ability to interact or pass information or be measured. In this case considering what is real or not is a mute point because we cannot concieve of nothingness. Nothingness or absence of something is a concept constructed by objects that exist using phenomena that exist and so is inherently biased. It is something that exists and contains information.

So my opinion is that everything is real and that time dictates what part of everything is real at any one stage. If we can generate simulations and also put our imagination into words images and media then I fail to see a limit on thought and the physical products of thoughts.

Energy is work waiting to be done. I believe both are measured in Joules or Ergs. — TheMadFool

I agree however I’ve also come to difficult viewpoints regarding the “potential” side to energy vs the “actionable” side. You can’t measure potential to be you can only measure interactions between things that already are. We know energy is there because objects mysteriously move and conjugate or explode and do all sorts of things by the invisible hand of some force. But without energy being objects there would be nothing to interact with anything. So I’m the sense of “energy is work waiting to be done” it’s a bit illogical as work is the definition of “done” in the first place otherwise it’s not work it’s potential. So that statement says energy is acted states (work) waiting (Another act) to be acted (done)

If energy is the potential for doing work, then what's potential energy, the potential for the potential for doing work? — Metaphysician Undercover

I think the confusion is in the term “potential” being used in different ways. There are many types of energy; chemical, electrical, light, heat etc. Energy is the potential to be any or all of these forms and more. But “Potential energy” on the other hand refers to a specific measurement of energy in one of its forms rather than the capacity of energy in its entirety.

For example an elastic band under tension or an object suspended at a height under the influence of gravity are things with potential energy; that is to say they have the inherent chemical energy Of being an object which has the capacity to store additional potential energy to do work in the form of tension or height above ground. But energy is the “potential” To be an elastic band or object in the first place as well as the interactions and forces that act between objects etc

0 contains all paired positive and negative integers to infinity on both sides which cancel eachother out to zero. This is the idea behind potential energy of space or "vacuum energy" in the sense that it is possible to get a spontaneous positive and negative particle of energy out of a field which sums to zero. This borrowed energy exists as a phenomenon (something) coming from nothing (unless you want to call the inherent qualities of a void as something too) in which case the question is nonsensical because there has always been something so there is no instead.

But if we assume that cancelling energies can be extracted from a field of zero energy then cycles can occur and cycles within cycles generate dynamics and dynamics at different rates and a dilation of time required to perform them, which would lead to a sort of evolution of processes within a ever expanding fractal of possibility so why is there something istead of nothing? Well because theres also nothing. You cannot have something without nothing.

I can't picture a scenario where being "nice" is something that can be measured objectively. — avalon

Well when dealing with subjects usually the larger the sample size the more objective the result. So if we take the largest sample size possible- 8 billion people - I could reasonably hypothesize that one is likely the worst, most unkind not "nice" person alive while another is conversely the "nicest", kindest most loving person and everyone else is plotted in a spectrum between these two poles.

As to what to define nice as is difficult. What parameters do we based the assessment on? The inherent difficulty here being obviously that the people designing the experiment and setting the parameters are subje ta themselves from within the set and cannot objectively assess themselves on said scale.

If we were to take "I hate and want to kill everyone" as well as all associated negative attitudes; intolerance, racism, sexism etc. as the philosophy of the worst person and egalitarianism, equity, compassion understanding and love or virtuous qualities as the other pole then some semblance of measure can ba accorded to the set.

Obviously we havent avoided the issue of objective definition because we cannot define love and hate any better than "nice" but as a general rule of thumb because the nature of comparison is relativistic and the parameters basic and extreme, the nature of the results would still be telling. Alas we cant do such experiments on the whole world population but defintely for subjective matters large scale is needed

I will discuss with those who have a modicum of manners and who actually try to have some eloquence in their intellect. — Asif

Tell that to Diogenes :D haha

omg caught rotten haha

Instead of the economy being run by economists we should ask entrepreneurs how to run the economy especially those from poor backgrounds because they'd know what needs the most priority in terms of how to succeed financially. Whether it's education, loans or transport etc — Gitonga

We should run economies like a cell runs its biochemistry? Why? Because it's a stable open system where the currency (ATP/money) would be provisioned equally and necessarily to all components.

What one “truly thinks” doesn’t matter—he can think whatever he wants with no demonstrable affect beyond his surface—but the manner in which one acts is key. — NOS4A2

See for the most part im inclined to agree with you. I think it wouldnt be fair to hold someone to the expectation that their private internal thoughts must always be nice in order for them to be considered nice.

However I also dont believe that it doesnt matter what one truly thinks at all. Because to constantly lie or act outside or away from ones true nature must be exhausting and I would imagine slip ups happen. Also if you're constantly preoccupied with violent thoughts or say graphic images of sex or other things while trying to behave socially I find it hard to believe you can hide it in every circumstance because of the simple fact that you cannot stop thinking about those things and have an obsessive mental pursuit of vice.

For example if someone drinks they become uninhibited. This for some means becoming suddenly aggressive or violent. I think this is sometimes "what they truly think" coming through. But who knows it could just be the alcohol talking

It appears that the "genuinely nice" are actually less impressive in re niceness than people who aren't nice by nature. — TheMadFool

You make a good point

You absolutely should fear death. That fear motivates you to take care of yourself, which results in a better quality of life. — Philosophim

I dont see how fearing death necessarily encourages/motivates you in life nor how not fearing death is a bad thing for having a good life. You could just as equally argue that fearing death could give you such anxiety around risk that you never even leave your apartment in case you die. What kind of quality of life is that. I dont fear death. That doesnt make me any less motivated to live it simply makes me less preoccupied with what happens at the end

How is the 'social mask' not part of what people really think? — Isaac

That is my question. For some the social mask is their authentic personality. It is what they really think. And these people must be genuinely kind if their "social perception" or "outgoing character" or "social mask" isnt really a mask at all. But for others what they want people to see and what they actually are inside are two very different things.

What I'm asking is how does one know who is genuinely nice and who is a very good actor at being nice. And also if I pretend to be nice but am not very personally sincere yet someone else believes i am nice and it has that positive effect on their life does that make my actions qualifiably nice or not?

I would say any animal that can feel shame or fear after doing something we consider bad has a sense of right and wrong. Dogs certainly do this - a cowering dog that knows he is in trouble after having taken a piece of bread from the table before anyone has even given out to them.

My dogs know what they are allowed to do and what they are not. I would consider this a basic level of moral. A lot of moral is innate and instinctual - the preservation of anothers life at the risk of ones own ie. Maternal instinct or pack instinct. And some is trained (like not taking bread from your owners table) both of which a dog can demonstrate.

I believe a lot of animals are highly perceptive and intelligent and it is our own arrogance to assume we are the only ones that possess the capacity for morality etc.

There must, therefore, be a way of understanding a word that is not given by providing its definition. — Banno

There are some words that are inherently self- descriptive/defining. The most well known group is onomatopoeiac words - words that sound like what they mean: crash, bang, boom, wallop. Because the quality of the word is linked to sound perception/ the senses. Others can be created simply by employing exactly what is defined in the construction of the word for example the word "word" is exactly what it defines. You can see its definition demonstrated in front of you without actually understanding it.

So yes I agree there are ways to understand word without having a definition for it.

So if emotions are similar to mathematical operacions, math like data would also have space that it occupies? That does not make much sense — Sir2u

Math is a human construct and can only "act" as mathematical functions through either our brains or the devices we have programmed to do it for us; calculators, computers and other artificial machines both of which are physical objects that occupy space. It in this sense is a quality or behaviour of physical things.

The concepts of "one, two, three, plus, minus, multiply etc" are all artificial and ultimately arbitrary- based on discrimination between things for example I could say 1 molecule of water, 1 ml of water, 1 ocean of water. The concept of one is repeated but the definition of the quantity of water is different because we are discriminating differently in each case. Maths is just a descriptive tool to understand the universe, and like language, symbols, ideas, data, emotions feelings etc they are symbolic of an information state or relationship between things that is always inextricably linked to our awareness/consciousness.

All information occupies space. It has to. We are getting caught up on "how" that space is occupied as in in what form - material or conceptual that this information (energy, matter, interactions) occupy the universe (space).

If math doesnt occupy a space in the mind regarding the symbolic meaning of the external world then it must occupy a space in the physical external world. If that is the case show me the external natural proof of "multiple" or "add" or "square root". You can prove any of them experimentally which means the space they occupy must be in the brain as patterns of neuronal connections and organisation. If not that then from what "non-location" in "non-space" is mathematics coming from?

Energy occupies space. Something does not have to have mass to occupy space. Just because a photon is massless doesnt mean it doesnt have a velocity, a location, a distance to travel- all of which denote location or "space".

But the mind is more than data, it is reaction to data, analyses of data, emotions. Do they have a location? — Sir2u

The mind doesnt have to be more than data because data can react to data. Analysis, computation and processing of data requires "software" ie. Data. All information reacts with information to transform it into new or derivative information.

Just as a mathematical function is information with input (data) and an output (data).

So basically you think your whole body contains your mind? — Sir2u

Well how would a mind identify itself without having a physical body? Neurons reach to every point in the body and also regulate hormones and mobility. Without the Peripheral nervous system you couldn't have a central nervous system. I think its meaningless to try to remove or separate the mind from the tool it uses to sense - to feel to see to hear to taste etc.

Data in a computer does not occupy any space at all. — Sir2u

If Data does not occupy space in a computer than how can there be a limited capacity for storage of data? I'm not suggesting that data occupies a physical material space like hardware does but that it occupies a "configurative" space - that is to say... in a sense hardware is analogous to an amorphous solid - such as that different patterns can be created in its structure "bytes" and these symbolic patterns denote data. So yes the data does occupy space because without the hardware that it is configured in there would be no data.

Think of it as a container of water occupies a cube of space. Now change the container. The water still occupies the same "quantity" of space (volume) but a different "quality/type" of space just as data does in a hard drive.

I would argue that all information must occur in spatial dimension. Because if it didnt it would have to occur outside the universe.

What about things that do not fit into either of the categories 'exist' or 'not exist'.
— A Seagull

What things would those be? — Pantagruel

Money for example. In some tribes the concept of a standardised currency doesnt exist. But for most of the world it does. But wait it only exists when you believe it does. When you stop believing in the value of money it doesnt exist. So "to whom" is the "existence" relevant? Who do we believe when we try to qualify the existence if money? How does money "exist" or not "exist?" It has both a material and symbolic component. Both of which can "exist." And both of which can be made redundant/ discarded and no longer "exist".

It seems some things can exist and not exist simultaneously depending on what perspective is used to measure it.

is? I am asking this because it seems that everything that occupies a space is limited — Daniel

This seems a bit redundant because you could argue that the universe occupies space... but what space... the space of the universe, ie. it occupies itself - it's self-contained. So the limit is completely set/dictated by itself. And then what occupies outside the universe if it has a limit?

Limits or boundaries are between things that have boundaries. I dont believe space inherently has a boundary but that rather they are generated with the existence of things within space. A limit cannot exist outside something which by itself (vacuum) has nothing to discriminate a boundary -no mass, no energy, no heat etc.

The problem with the mind is that if you look at everything a body does, some specific things that happen in minds, like what the color red looks like, are nowhere to be found. — Echarmion

I'm not sure if they are "no where to be found" so much as we dont know what we are looking at when we observe an fMRI scan of the brain during activity. We are likely looking at exactly what red looks like to the person but because we have no way of reading or decoding these electrical signals into a language we can understand we might as well be looking at the ocean and trying to see the currents.

Secondly personality/individualism- or the way in which ones brain is wired, processes, stores and perceives information is unique for each individual like a neural fingerprint so why on earth would we expect the micro structure of brains to be organised the same... that the same colour red uses the same neurons to perceive it and not more or less or in a slightly different location etc. I'm left handed and just that alone means that my right motor cortex contains more neurons than the left one. That alone would have huge implications for any neurons connected to the motor cortex and so on in a cascade of differences

If it occupies a space, it must have a limit. What limits the mind? — Daniel

Not true, fluids occupy a space but dont have a strictly limited boundary. You could stretch them out in almost any configuration all the way down to just an atom thick or condense them into the smallest compartment possible. Yes theres an ultimate limit to the number of atoms of liquid but almost infinite possibilities for configuration.

That seems to be asking whether or not the mind is material. — Echarmion

Surely non-material things also occupy a dimension or "space" or sphere of influence at the very least. Does vacuum occupy space? Energy for example must occupy space as it has to travel between 2 coordinates to be perceived/measured despite being massless in it's pure form.

Data surely occupies space in the computer. This space may be no larger or less than it was previously but rather a specific pattern or configuration of "on" switches and "off" switches but no less the information occupies the space of the computer in a certain encrypted order.

And are you also suggesting that because 95% of Americans guess that a GOD exists...that represents "valid information" on the truth of whether or not a GOD actually does exist? — Frank Apisa

No because "means" refer to numerical values which are subject to probability in the statistical sense no in the philosophical/metaphysical sense. Plus these experiments encounter the phenomenon of "educated guesses" where direct information is being perceived but relatively poorly or inaccurately. It's as if the sum of all semi accurate perceptions balance eachother in such a way as to give a realistic perception of the quantity if something.

I would imagine it also works for some qualities. For example the ratio of different basic tastes in a foodstuff. If you had hundreds of people taste the flavour of a food and asked them to rate it in each category and you took the average of all subjective interpretations it's likely to result in a reasonably objective actual ratio of sugar (sweet) , salt (salty), glutamate (umami) etc flavours.

Basically there is an intelligence to collectives that is not possessed by any specific individual but is derived from the interaction of their personal guesses/ perceptions.

You can't really blame Pandora though — Outlander

I dont blame her. I would gave done the same. Inquisitiveness is a hard thing to stifle. I would say its human nature to interact with that which it is probably best not to

Has it been tested? — Frank Apisa

It has. Numerous times with replicable results

Enformy — Gnomon

This is so interesting

Isn't true but unprovable a contradiction? — TheMadFool

I'm feeling content right now. It's TRUE but not provable. In fact pretty much most of my internal experience is not provable but no less true (to me). I wouldn't say it's a contradiction except that empirical data collection and the application of scientific method depends on the equivalence of truth to proof.

a very apt example thank you. I enjoyed contemplating it and totally agree the power for benefit and detriment that comes with exploring genetics as well as the mystifyingly natural complexity defo makes it a good analogy. I wish more people got involved in the discussion but alas

The problem that fundamental physics has is then to explain why just about everything gets cancelled, yet not absolutely everything — apokrisis

Perhaps the sum of all possibilities has to be an odd number. Haha. Maybe even infinitely odd rather than infinitely even so that always there is something that does not get cancelled out

You might have better luck asking a scientist. Do you believe philosophy can answer these questions? — Wheatley

I believe philosophy is interdisciplinary and relies on logical argument/reason therefore I see no reason why it shouldn't be able to contribute. Can you define the boundaries of philosophy as something that doesnt strongly overlap with science?

It's also a bit comparable to the quantum vacuum, where things really can pop into and out of existence. Maybe at root, order is just the thing that ordering minds can perceive within a universe that is more pluralistic. — Kenosha Kid

I was going to mention quantum vacuum Haha. Perhaps you're right. Maybe order in the universe is more of a description of the observers function rather than something intrinsic. But I have a nagging feeling that chaos must by probability cause order and that order by necessity must have chaotic tendency - conflict between states of order. So who knows really