However, I am also aware that moral relativism comes with it an objection that there can be no moral progress, and so that undermines any idea of making suggestion as core to this would be that there is no increased in 'goodness' by making the above changes - there is no room for progress.
Furthermore, my own arguments as to why we should be using moral relativism in this case (it increases autonomy, respect and dignity at the end of life) are all undermined by my previous argument that 'goodness' is not fixed and therefore the qualities that i am trying to promote are not inherently good. — AlexMcGram

I think it would depend on your position:

(1) There is no basis to say that anything is good or bad

OR

(2) Good and bad are relative to the individual

If the latter, ostensibly not just goodness itself, but the degree of goodness is relative. By providing more options, you are providing opportunity for the subjective goodness for that person to increase?

If there are no right and wrong answers to moral questions, how can we say god is wrong, bad, or evil? — Down The Rabbit Hole

Surely some will say whatever it is that God does, says, or commands is good and not evil, no? But the actions and outcomes say otherwise, at least from the human perspective.

The bigger question then is, "If a morality is alien to human sensibilities, what would make that justifiably moral?". — schopenhauer1

The outcomes are merely not to our taste. I don't see a basis for saying that they're wrong, bad, or evil.

There could also be a God who commands what is good and what is bad, which we are not privy to. Who are we to demand for God to give us answers. It's not like we can say it is wrong for God not to give us answers.

Our perspective is irrelevant either way.

Yes. However, if we were to stick with god for a minute- what does a world with evil and mediocre outcomes reveal for its inhabitants (at least on Earth)? Have you ever noticed oddities in timing? An empty park that has one person in it that you collide with nonetheless? Things like this? There are oddities of life whereby the coincidences are higher than would be expected... One could weave a tale of a god who likes chaos and thrives in it. — schopenhauer1

It does feel like the world is conspiring against me every now and again. But over the course of a lifetime extremely rare events are going to happen.

If the creator is all-knowing, their actions are hard to forgive. However, if the creators were just reckless, or even just naive, there is room for forgiveness.

If there are no right and wrong answers to moral questions, how can we say god is wrong, bad, or evil?

I can see the point hiding underneath the question though. Even if there is no cruel god bringing us into this world of suffering, humans brought us here. If you feel it cruel for a god to bring us into this world, to be consistent you would have to say it was cruel for humans to bring us into this world.

I would think a nomadic lifestyle is similar to travelling/backpacking. While I enjoyed the experience, I eventually missed the comforts and security of home, and it felt like a relief to come back.

Even the cogito could be wrong?

We could be il-logical and therefore mistaken that to think we must exist. Or we could be in some kind of illusion such as a simulation with fabricated rules of logic. The cogito is built upon the unprovable assumption that we are thinking logically and our rules of logic are correct.

How can you even prove that disembodied brains are possible? The only examples of brains that we have are as parts of bodies. I can't see how anyone could argue that they are more likely without first establishing that they are possible, and so far I don't think anyone has done that. — GRWelsh

Yes, that's a strong objection.

Disembodied brains can exist, but they don't last long. I think I read that upon decapitation consciousness lasts for up to 10 seconds, and brain death occurs within 3-6 minutes.

Say viable brains with false memories appear as a result of quantum fluctuations - they only need to last momentarily for you to be having the experience you are having now. As your memories could be false, you don't know that you existed before this moment.

How would you calculate density for a infinite number of things (e.g., Boltzmann brains) in an infinitely large space? — RogueAI

Good question. It may be that density has no meaning within infinity.

Are we not material? Or did our consciousness arise unnaturally? — Patterner

I think consciousness is most likely either a property of matter or arises from it. Some people believe there is a non-material substance (such as a soul) that combines with the material to make consciousness.

If Boltzmann Objects could exist, if the universe was infinitely old, we'd see billions of odd things floating around. So either they can't exist, or the universe is not infinitely old. — Patterner

Science suggests this bubble was started by a big bang about 14 billion years ago. Boltzmann Brains could have existed before our big bang, either in previous bubbles or from a quantum fluctuation. Or if there is a multiverse, there could be infinite Boltzmann Brains existing right now. We wouldn't see them from our bubble.

I grew up on TOS. I know a lot of people find it unwatchable because of the effects, but it and TNG are my favorites. Then Voyager. — Patterner

I'm not of that generation, but I can respect the nostalgia.

As your tastes are similar to mine, you must be a Stargate fan. SG1 if my favourite Sci-fi series.

How do you account for 'paradox' in your 'every possibility that can happen, will happen in time.'
If I state 'The only true existent regarding Boltzmann brains is that they have no true existent.'
Is that statement true given a very large or even infinite duration of time? — universeness

(Unless all of this suddenly appeared from literally nothing, was created by god/s, or is an illusion) we know that patterns are spat out from something, like a QRF, or infinite universe/s (whether cyclical or a multiverse). Provided it's possible for Boltzmann brains to form, in an objective sense, they will almost certainly exist.

The question is how likely are we to be a Boltzmann brain. The Sean Carroll objection, that other posters have picked up on, suggests we cannot sensibly measure. As by doing so would be from the assumption that we are not a Boltzmann brain with false memories. I think @noAxioms is suggesting that our theory of how patterns form is more important than the fact there has been an infinite duration. And @RogueAI is saying from the view that material cannot naturally give rise to consciousness, Boltzmann brains cannot exist in any event.

I enjoyed TNG the most, followed by Voyager I think. I was just getting into Discovery and Netflix took it off :sad: I won't spoil Picard Season 3 for you, but it gets a lot better. There's some nice surprises.

Blame @Patterner for setting me off. That said, better my thread than @Bartricks'.

Well, Shatner's a classic, but Patick Stewart is my favourite captain of all time.

Have you finished the new Star Trek: Picard? I've still got two episodes to go.

You'll have to fight @universeness for it.

You need to be careful about what exactly "equally likely to occur" means in this context. The way cosmologists might pose this question is: "Given an observer, is it more likely to be a regular observer (a human or a similarly evolved creature) or a freak observer like a Boltzmann Brain?" This is a tricky epistemological question involving concepts like reference class, self-location and self-selection. — SophistiCat

Intuitively though it seems that simply adding "more of the same" to the world (more space or more time or more observers) should not make a difference to a generic observation made by a particular observer at a particular place at a particular time, so the challenge to epistemologists is to explain just how this challenge is only a seeming one. (Bostrom purports to meet it with his Self-Sampling Assumption, which he also uses elsewhere to analyze puzzles like Boltzmann Brains.) — SophistiCat

Yes, I think our meaning of "equally likely to occur" is pivotal. A more agreeable meaning may be from The Principle of Indifference: "A rule for assigning epistemic probabilities. It assumes that if you have multiple plausible scenarios, you should assume each is equally likely till you have evidence otherwise".

If the idea that minds can emerge from mindless stuff is incoherent, this problem goes away. As does simulation theory. — RogueAI

I don't see how we will be able to prove what gives rise to consciousness.

You're not suggesting substance-dualism are you?

If the universe is eternal, then it follows that every possible event will occur an infinite number of times. — Wayfarer

This is the basis for my suggestion that Boltzmann brains and human-life are equally likely to occur. Despite the latter's pattern being more complex.

Other posters have cast doubt on this suggestion. It would be appreciated if @jgill put us straight.

This seems self-refuting: if we were disembodied brains with false memories there would seem to be no rational justification for believing that we could be such, since the hypothesis that we are more likely to be Boltzmann brains relies on accepted mathematical and physical understandings which are reliant on the assumption that our memories are accurate (enough). — Janus

Yes, I think this is the point raised by Sean Carroll. And it is the same kind of paradox that faces epistemological nihilism - if we can't know things, we can't know that we can't know things.

We can only be completely agnostic on the question of if we are a Boltzmann Brain?

Yes, the part about all outcomes being equally likely within infinity, is my challenge to the paradox.

It would be good to have your thoughts. I have been impressed with many of the regulars knowledge on infinities.

Countable infinities are equal, so the infinite set of worlds where we're Boltzmann brains is equal to the infinite set of worlds where we're not. It's a 50/50 chance, epistemically speaking. Given an infinitely large multiverse, of course. — RogueAI

That's what I was thinking! Thoughts @noAxioms?

Professor Chomsky, as a millennial I have increasingly lost hope in politics. The Conservative Party here in Britain win election after election, and we have seen the prolonged character assassination of a kind and honest opposition leader, leading to him losing the last two elections. His own party's establishment took part in this, and have retaken control and kicked him out of the parliamentary party - a party he has belonged to for about fifty years. Do things change for the better? Is there hope for the left in politics?

Thank you for your response.

I have now read through "If You Must Give Them a Gift, Then Give Them the Gift of Nonexistence".

I don't accept Benatar's Axiological Asymmetry; it feels intuitively obvious that a pinprick as one's only negative would be worth it for a life of happiness and pleasure. With respect to the article's Scales of Value in Human Lives, if we are talking an individual's net experience, I would place myself on the same scale as Matti, and would accept The Offer. However, if not the majority, I suspect a large minority of people have a net positive life.

The article's Explanations and Concluding Notes asks: What life quality would be too low for their potential child? How likely is it that it would happen? I feel even the mildest of bad lives are better not brought into being. The question I struggle with is, what probability makes it acceptable/unacceptable to procreate? 60% chance of a good life? 5% chance of a life of chronic suffering? I don't know the answer.

What he is proposing is different to negative utilitarianism, which is the minimisation of suffering, and is similar to the way we generally make ethical decisions, by weighing up competing instincts - save that he is prioritising "negative things"?

Aside from the usual problem that his principles are just the result of his subjective feelings, said principles are going to be disagreeable to practically everyone (your everyday person and NUs).

In the first case, is each person just to be charged 0.50 (because that's the amount of damage they caused) or some larger number (because they irreparably bankrupted the business)? Similarly, in the second case, is the person charged with $500,000 or some lesser amount? Please discuss... — jasonm

Depending on the country, the offender/s may not only be liable for repayment of the money taken, but for any additional damage their illegal action/s caused. In England, in certain circumstances, legal action can be taken for loss of opportunity - for example if the owner/s of the business had a plan to invest the money, they may be able to sue for the profits they are missing out on. Any criminal sentence is likely to take account of the total amount of damage done (within the sentencing limits courts are bound by).

In my view, there is not a correct answer as to what should be done. There is the question of why each of the one million people in the first scenario and the one person in the second scenario stole the money e.g. was it necessary to feed them and/or their family. There is another question of whether the business owner/s were deserving of the money e.g. were they producing something that harms people. Et cetera.

Today there is even now a popular 'hype' philosophy like "optimistic nihilism". But to me personally, it's just the same basically with hedonism, which basically it all sounds the same, eg: "just live in the present moment, enjoy life, since we only live once!". But again, is this all there is to life? existence? — niki wonoto

We create our own values and purpose.

This could be helping people as @universeness has said, or improving ourselves, such as by learning as much as possible.

I have actually lived as a nihilist (I won't go into details) — Andrew4Handel

As a moral nihilist (currently not permanently, hopefully) I think saying that Genocide or slavery is wrong is meaningless. It may be that as with tsunamis and the rest of nature extreme brutality and harm is just a feature of nature which is neither good nor bad It means moral values are personal preferences, sentiments, and emotions but that nothing "wrong" has ever happened and that we probably cannot justify prisons or punishments and telling people how they ought to behave. — Andrew4Handel

Agreed. With moral nihilism you can still have values, but with absolute nihilism nothing matters. That's a dangerous view.

No, I think the quality of content on here is more than reasonable. There are interesting discussions and plenty of knowledgeable members.

No, I think it's great for testing my beliefs and learning from others. And seeing pig pics.

But there is no one body that belongs to you since it is a different one each moment by your definition. Since you have a different body every moment, why do you not jump all around the neighborhood from one moment to the next? Or would you not notice if it did? That depends of course on if memory is part of this 'mind' you posit or part of the body.

I'm asking what ties the body you've selected/inhabited in one moment to the different body you selected in the next moment, and why that 2nd body needs to be a specific one and not a random one. — noAxioms

I would say even on a materialist approach the memories themselves are part of our mind.

And it seems okay to say that our body will not be the same, and we will thus have a different body.

Can you justify that? If the parts are moved one at a time, at which point does the identity move? What if one nail (or whatever part you designate as the critical one) is left with the ship being fixed? — noAxioms

I think the best way is to say that as soon you change it, it is not the same ship. This is contrary to the common way of identifying things, and would mean there is no Ship of Theseus until all of the original parts are put back together.

I'd rather deal with any difficulties that arise from this than say that an object that has been taken apart and then put back together is not the same object.

Your parts change all the time, and yet you probably consider yourself to be the same person as you were earlier. Less than a thousandth of a percent of your current material is original material, so are you somebody else now? — noAxioms

I have always considered "me" to be my mind. When I say something like "my body", I mean the body that belongs to me.

The ship is the same. It may have had its parts replaced. But the object, the whole ship with its holistic design, function and behaviour remains the same. — Benj96

That doesn't seem right to me. An object goes where its parts go. If the original parts were put back together, that would be The Ship of Theseus. And they can't both be The Ship of Theseus

That does not make much sense to me. What sort of barriers are you referring to?

Occam's razor is commonly used against the explanation "God did it". — creativesoul

As you've alluded to, Ockham's Razor has a qualification that "all things being equal" the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

Let's say, just for the purpose of my argument, the evidence for a panpsychist and emergent view of consciousness is equal. There would be nothing getting in the way of panpsychism developing, as it has always been there, but for emergence there are barriers, such as the possibility that inanimate matter would never reach awareness, and further that consciousness would not be preferable for evolution (which many scientific tests are hinting at). There will be other barriers I can't even imagine to inanimate matter somehow becoming aware. It would be simpler to say it has always been there, and thus has no barriers to it becoming reality. The panpsychism has to have always been there for there to be symmetry with my argument about God.

All things being equal, God as always existing would have no more barriers, and is no less likely to exist than universe/s always existing.

We can only be said to have "free will" in that we make choices. Our making of choices isn't really free though.

Once a compatibilist, I now agree with Sam - a puppet on strings is not free.

Occam's razor is about reducing the likelihood for error. The fewest unprovable assumptions is best. The fewest entities is best.

The hitch seems to have been forgotten though...

...so long as there is no loss in explanatory power, the simplest explanation is the best. — creativesoul

It makes sense that the fewer barriers to something being true, the more likely it is to be true.

It is commonly used against belief in god, but I don't see how there are any barriers to something that has no cause.

In his book 'The Biggest Ideas In The Universe (space, time and motion,)' Sean Carroll writes about the conservation of energy.
"Both momentum and energy are conserved in classical mechanics, but kinetic energy by itself is not, since it can be converted into (or created from) other kinds of energy."
"Noether's theorem states that every smooth, continuous symmetry transformation of a system is associated with the conservation of some quantity."
"Our universe is expanding; faraway galaxies are gradually moving away from one another as time passes. Consequently, there is a sense in which energy is not conserved in an expanding universe." — universeness

My understanding was that dark energy, which expands the universe, gains proportionally from other forms of energy within the universe, and the total energy within it will always be zero. In what sense is Sean saying energy is not conserved in an expanding universe?

Yeah, but that was said to a moron ^^, not mere troll/stupid person. — Vera Mont

:lol:

If I was to use "bad" in the loose sense, it would be for things such as this:

I will continue to eat meat without an ounce of guilt — I like sushi

Torture is not a positive term. If you cannot except that there is no room for discussion because you are not speaking the kind of English I am familiar with. — I like sushi

But, good, bad, negative, positive, are all value judgments. A preference is not.

When you say it is bad/negative to unduly torture, is it bad/negative because most people are opposed to it or because you feel it is bad/negative? Neither is reason to be saying it is bad/negative in my view, and the problem is more obvious when large amounts of people disagree with each other, such as with consequentialists and deontologists.

In everyday life I am happy to use good and bad in the loose sense of what my preference is. But all it is really is a preference.

He must have been toxically persuasive to any un assuming layman (good at hiding his agenda and even better at manipulating people into doing his bidding for him). — Benj96

Luckily people have learnt from history and wouldn't be taken in by a charismatic conman :grimace:

The proponents of both consequentialism and deontology having good intentions is different to consequentialism and deontology being good. I'm going to say it - Hitler believed what it was doing was good, it doesn't make what he was doing good. Same for less extreme examples.

The most obvious example is the difference between consequentialists and deontologists. Which group is right, and why? — Down The Rabbit Hole

You mean ‘right’ or ‘correct’? Which is ‘right’? Both. Which is ‘correct’ neither. — I like sushi

I use "morally right" and "morally correct" interchangeably.

Are you using "right" to mean "good"? That's fair enough, but I still wouldn't say two conflicting positions are both good.

So am I. I don't wish to cause suffering. So what exactly are we arguing/discussing? — Benj96

It is more academic than of practical consequence.

I don't know if you're a consequentialist or deontologist, but my position would be that whichever group you fall into, you are no more right than the other group is. You just have different preferences.