Skimming through your post, I believe some of the apparent contradictions you point out can be resolved with a more than surface level investigation of the 4 noble truths.

I agree with some of what you write. As I mentioned earlier, I'm not a Buddhist and don't subscribe to all their beliefs.

Does ignorance about Buddhism also cause suffering? — szardosszemagad

Ignorance about our true nature does, according to Buddhist thought.

If you are fine, praxis, then you just proved the Buddha wrong. — szardosszemagad

I'm not fine because I haven't realized my true nature or emptiness, though I may have an intellectual understanding of it.

I stopped reading after about the second paragraph. In Buddhism it's believed that suffering is caused by ingnorance, John, not desire. Once you understand that you may have a better understanding of emptiness.

Harris's video is about human values and in it he claims that the separation between science and values is illusory. He never claims that morals are objective facts. He only broadly outlines a spectrum from the worst possible suffering (earthy suffering because no one can actually conceive any other kind) to the greatest good or happiness, and makes a distinct point that in the horizontal plane there can be equivalent peaks and valleys within this spectrum.

Informed by science, I claimed that values can shift away from being materialistically centered. Some may take exception to this claim, because of the imagined polarity between science and human values.

I've gone far enough down the rabbit hole.

Problem being, as you know, that people don't all agree on what's moral and immoral.

So your statement makes more sense to me with a slight revision...

Probably against [Trump casinos], because I don't think gambling is a good thing. But we shouldn't legislate my morality. — Agustino

I don't think we're elucidating your comment that we shouldn't legislate morality.

Trying a different angle, how would one legislate morality?

It's severity or social impact, I imagine. If gambling, for example, proved to be detrimental enough to society I'm sure there would be a push to increase regulation or ban it entirely.

And these other conditions are unrelated to morality?

we shouldn't legislate morality. — Agustino

Curious, could you elaborate what you mean by that?

Looking forward to it. And do enjoy your evening.

I think people who do outstanding work that impacts a lot of other people positively should get rich. — Agustino

So, Trump casinos, pro or con?

Emptiness doesn't mean nothingness. If it interests you I suggest that you study the concept to better understand it. If you'd like to discuss it further I suggest starting a new topic on the subject.

Emptiness.

In other words, please explain for me to what PRECISELY it is that you ( a nihilist) claim to make your "definitive commitment" (?) — John Gould

I'm not a nihilist and I didn't claim to make a definitive commitment. I said that my belief advises a definitive commitment should be made. That doesn't mean that I've made a definitive commitment. To answer your question as to what, in Buddhism it's the cessation of suffering. My personal goals are not so lofty.

I am more than happy to quickly demonstrate for you that Buddhism is based on a set of logical contradictions. — John Gould

Please do. I think we might be able to stay relatively on topic.

Well, being dim witted and poorly informed can have its advantages at times. For instance I now realize that I've been enjoying the naive notion in the back of my mind that AI could be used for good, rather than a tool for the rich a powerful to acquire more wealth and power.

People suck. :’(

The line that I thought disturbing:

Whoever becomes the leader in this area [AI] will rule the world. — Vladimir Putin

Didn't know there was an AI arms race. If it's true I imagine it will greatly accelerate development.

Nihilism is at the root of the widespread mentality which advises us that a definitive commitment should no longer be made, because everything in human life and the world is fleeting and provisional. — John Gould

Everything in life is fleeting and provisional (empty), and for Buddhists and people like myself, it is this belief that advises a definitive commitment should be made, because doing otherwise will result in more suffering.

If there's a lack of definitive commitment in the world today the loss appears to be shared rather equally between theist and atheist. To me, that doesn't suggest a loss of values but rather a shifting of values, a shift towards materialistic values.

I don't care what the source is--a prophet, a coin toss, dumb luck, an accident, carefully designed rigorous empirical science--I want the truth. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I believe the Buddhist concept of emptiness is true, but I'm not a Buddhist. There are many aspects of Buddhism that I think are not true and are therefore meaningless to me. I have no use for religion in general because I believe it's essentially just a neatly packaged system of meaning, and nothing more. Though I think it's in our nature to desire meaning in our lives I think we can find it for ourselves. That's one of the gifts of the enlightenment, as I see it.

All the executive program knows is that after identifying the snake, the hydraulic pump sped up, the large conduction velocity wires began to hum, its vision became brighter, and other background programs such as do the vaccuuming have shut down. — MikeL

It's believed that this works the other way around in people. The predictive brain, operating subconsciously as in your model, would direct the release of adrenaline etc. after recognizing a serious threat. At some point the more 'executive' consciousness would realize what was going on and perhaps think something like "I'm scared."

This robot has been programmed with a few phrases that let the programmer know what is happening in the circuits, "batteries low" that sought of thing. In the case of the snake it reads all these reactions and gives the feedback "I'm scared."

Is is really scared? — MikeL

It's theorized that interoception and affect are major aspects of human emotion. Also in the mix are our past experiences and emotion concepts, like the concept of fear. So for a machine to have a human like experience of fear, at a minimum it would need the concept and its associated interoceptive sensations. As you describe it the interoceptive sensations for the robot would be predictive feedback loops associated with "hydraulic pumps," "higher conduction velocity wires," "batteries," etc. And of course the robot would need the capacity to consciously recognize these sensations in the context of a snake, which it has learned to fear for some reason, to conclude "I'm scared."

Wisdom

It's not sufficient to keep just those close to him happy and satisfied, the people also must be kept happy and satisfied, or otherwise there will be a revolution and the king taken down. And guess who will be leading that revolution? Those close to him! — Agustino

A winning coalition member in an autocracy is going to lead a revolution to claim wealth and power? They already have that. Revolutions are messy and destructive. To throw the dice like that they'd have to be rather desperate. They would also need control of the military.

In democracies, the winner tends to be the one who best deceives the stupid majority and promises them some quick gain, because he won't pay for not delivering, the future leader after him will pay. — Agustino

Trump deceived the stupid minority, but yeah, if we're lucky there will be enough of a democracy left for the next administration to clean up.

The fundamental premise in selectorate theory is that the primary goal of a leader is to remain in power. To remain in power, leaders must maintain their winning coalition. When the winning coalition is small, as in autocracies, the leader will tend to use private goods to satisfy the coalition. When the winning coalition is large, as in democracies, the leader will tend to use public goods to satisfy the coalition. — wikipedia

The people tend to do better in democracies.

Con: incompetent dictator wannabe.

Pro: makes for good satire.

The guy above is pointing the wrong way! — Jake Tarragon

If you adjust the exposure you can see that it's not a dude... and she's not pointing.

I believe one plan is to tax the robots, presumably to support imbeciles like me. I'm cool with that.

Roses are red,
violets are blue,
people are greedy,
whatdaya gonna do.

Your language is difficult to interpret but what you seem to be saying is that sensations themselves, whether good or bad, do not add sufficient meaning to our lives. You write: "sensations do not allow you to perceive any sufficient quality of good or bad value in your life at all". When you say "value in your life," you essentially mean meaning, right?

Most would agree that modernity has shifted the world towards a more materialistic mindset, that we're currently trapped in the iron cage of rationalization, and there's something of a cultural void when it comes to meaning in our lives. So we may be on the same page so far. There's a need that you attempt to address.

You go on to say that being in a "horrible miserable state, then that scent [of a rose] would not give me much awareness of good value in my life at all. It would only give me an awareness (perception) that is very slim." So the question is how do we get out of this miserable state. We know that pleasant sensation is too slim. I think even the illustrious pioneer in meaning Viktor Frankl would agree with this assessment so far.

From your previous comments, I glean your proposal to be that developing positive emotions is a way out of this miserable state and even go so far as to suggest that these positive emotions are objective perception, and then go even further by adding a quasi-spiritual quality to these positive emotions.

I can see some truth to this in that we can take an active part in how we experience emotion, and perhaps change them, with good result. For example, it's been suggested by researchers that reframing 'nervousness' to 'excitement' can change a potentially unpleasant and poor performing experience to a pleasant and high performing experience. Regarding whatever induced the arousal as a challenge rather than a threat changes the way our body prepares itself. If our mind predicts injury it will prepare for injury, sacrificing performance. If our mind predicts a need for heightened performance our body will prepare for that and our performance will be enhanced.

The scent of a rose may be too slim an experience to add meaning to our lives, but seeing the world through rose colored glasses may be too slim as well. Emotions are not a sense, they're only the tint of our lenses.

When I said that logical and rational thought processes alone (value judgments) do not allow us to see value in our lives, I am saying that the only thing that can allow us to see value is a force/energy, if you will. It is like a divine force that is literally intrinsic goodness itself. That force would be our positive emotions. — TranscendedRealms

There are many avenues to meaning, and perhaps none better than pain and suffering.

Preach it, Viktor!

The child cannot simply acknowledge the vegetables as having good value. He needs to actually want these vegetables in order to see them as something good. — TranscendedRealms

The child may not have the capacity to see the value of vegetables in terms of nutrition but he could certainly appreciate simpler forms of abstract value. The mother could create a social construct like money such that eating 5 carrots equals something that the child does value, like some sort of healthy treat or perhaps a toy. Her child eating nutritious food is valuable to the mother and a toy, or whatever, is valuable to the child. The child would then want to eat carrots because he could 'see' that that activity would result in acquiring something that he did value.

You can't have a subjective when there is an objective. That all goes back to what I said before. There is an objective form of sight which is the real sight that allows us to see objects. — TranscendedRealms

What you may not appreciate is that emotions are social constructs. Constructs that are fundamentally that same as the construct the mother created in the value-added vegetable scenario above.

How do you feel about paying for some of the results of unwanted pregnancies that are not aborted, such as welfare programs, correctional facilities, and other costs to society associated with cycles of poverty?

I oppose abortion, and any woman interested to have it is free to have it with whoever agrees to it, but the government has no right to take my money and use it to fund abortions. — Agustino

So you don't think that abortion should be illegal, or that it's not killing a being with a soul or whatever?

Alright, I'll try to piece something together.

Earlier you wrote...

So there is an emotional style that speaks to a set of shared values and serves as the expected way to behave. If you can't show these virtues in your "feelings" - in the way you feel you want to act - then you can expect social consequences meant to correct that state of affairs. — apokrisis

In regard to creativesoul's creative post, we don't know if you felt appropriately. I suppose we may be able to tell in future behavior?

I'm not sure what you're talking about. I'm a bit drunk and was just messing with you.

Denial... interesting.

I feel alright. A little hungry and depleted at the moment but that will be remedied shortly. How do you feel? Are you unmove by public ridicule?

You demonstrate poor emotional grainularity or EQ, apo, failing to recognize satire pointed directly at you.

It's a trick question. Just because they'll allow us to enter nuclear war doesn't mean that we need to do so. Those sly alien devils! >:)