Science says the universe is intrinsically meaningless. — gurugeorge

Where does 'science' say that? I've scanned through my Encyclopaedia of Science, can't find any pronouncements to that effect. Is it in a paper I've missed?

It’s a fundamental consequence of the constitution of modern science. One of the consequences of ‘the book of nature being written in mathematics’ (Galileo) is that ‘only what is measurable is real’ - from the P.O.V. of science, anyway. And as science is nowadays considered the ‘umpire of reality’ then in effect, this relegates judgements of meaning to the human mind. And the human mind, in turn, is the result of a biological process, meaning that the wisdom it does possess is ultimately an artefact of the ‘selfish gene’. The net outcome is you’re free to entertain any notion of meaning you like (within reason and the law) - but it is basically either subjective or social in nature. So George is correct.

Your argument doesn't follow at all.

For a start you need to review your understanding of the scientific method (or stop misrepresenting it, whichever is the case). Science does not profess to 'know' anything, it is a set of theories which are tested for their utility by their ability to make accurate predictions with the least consideration of conflicting or invented phenomenon.

The 'meaning' of life is widely construed as the purpose for which one lives (certainly in the context of this thread, that is exactly what it is - the question "why do anything?", and "why have children?").

So a scientific approach to this question would be to propose a theory about what our proximate reasons might be based on, and most congruent with, phenomenon that we already have useful theories about.

The theory scientists have come up with that meets those criteria is that of reason having been written into our neurons by our DNA because it provided an advantage which meant that particular chemical was propagated in favour of any other.

You might not like that theory, but it's a theory nonetheless. It's simply not true to say that science says there's no meaning to life.

I fail to see how any other approach - religion, in the case GG was referring to - gets any closer. Religion might say that the purpose of the universe is God's purpose, but then you'd just have to ask why God came into being, why he chose that purpose and not any other purpose, why the universe is God's purpose and not just left purposeless.

All we can ever produce a proximate causes because we can infinitely ask why. Science has a perfectly good theory as to the proximate objective to life - do what seems to make you happy because we seem to like happiness.

*

Bullshit usually does that.

Where does 'science' say that? I've scanned through my Encyclopaedia of Science, can't find any pronouncements to that effect. Is it in a paper I've missed? — Pseudonym

That the Universe is intrinsically meaningless is a logically necessary implication of the materialist/mechanistic worldview, i.e. the view that the Universe is comprised exclusively of observable regularities, sequences of efficient causation ("laws of nature") with no necessary connection. It's true that not all scientists believe that idea, and simply use it as a heuristic (some are religious, for example); it's also true that most scientists don't think about it all that much and just get on with doing science. But it is, so to speak, the elephant in the room for a materialist/mechanistic metaphysical position, and it comes out particularly when philosophers try to consistently follow the implications of the mechanistic worldview - e.g. in debates about Free Will, Philosophy of Mind, etc.

That the Universe is intrinsically meaningless is a logically necessary implication of the materialist/mechanistic worldview, — gurugeorge

I don't understand your logic here. What is the thing you're looking for like? What properties would a 'meaning' have that you're finding absent in materialism?

What properties would a 'meaning' have that you're finding absent in materialism? — Pseudonym

Purpose, teleology, intelligibility (in the classical sense): something that doesn't ultimately terminate at "shit happens." After all, "shit happens" is hardly an explanation, is it?

So how does doing what makes you happy because we seem to like being happy miss that criteria? Are you specifically looking for meaning outside of the human experience?

No, I just said no in the very passage you quote. But perhaps the "phrasing" was too "unique" for you ;) — gurugeorge

No, you didn't just say no, you said something about "real" teleology. I was attempting to determine what you mean by that. This would be the part, in the civilized discourse that you profess to value, where you see my misapprehension and, in the good faith that civil discourse demands, correct my mistaken interpretation by explaining your meaning.

(I'm beginning to wonder if you think I'm a religious believer? It seems like you're arguing as one might argue against a religious believer. Just because I have some kind, positive things to say about religion, and I don't think the standard rationalist counter-arguments to the classical arguments for God are as slam-dunk as rationalists tend to think they are, doesn't mean that I am myself a believer :) ) — gurugeorge

How does one argue against a religious believer? If you're suggesting that your arguments are irrational I will not argue against that claim. But seriously, your primary position is apparently anti-materialist.

By the way, I'm not religious and I don't subscribe to the philosophy of materialism, should I assume that I'm a believer?

Naturalistic and mechanistic/materialistic are pretty much synonymous in this context, are they not?
— praxis

No, as implied by the word "alternative." — gurugeorge

Oh, you mean like 'alternative facts'. Metaphysical naturalism is synonymous with scientific materialism.

It doesn't need to be true. It only needs to be meaningful.
— praxis

Well that's just where we disagree. People trust that science is true. — gurugeorge

If you're trying to say that people trust the scientific method, sure, it proves to be a generally reliable method.

You mentioned yourself that some sort of naturalistic understanding of the world could replace a "specifically religious stance" and avert a drift into nihilism.
— praxis

Yes I think that's possible, but it couldn't be the current mechanistic/materialistic version of naturalism. — gurugeorge

How do you believe that metaphysical naturalism differs from materialism?

BUT, again, these kinds of alternatives would only be a viable counterweight to nihilism if they were true. — gurugeorge

Religious or metaphysical beliefs don't need to be true to be meaningful. For a simple example, a work of fiction, that we know is fiction, doesn't need to be true to be meaningful.

According to the google search I just did there are 4, 200 religions in the world. Many of them have vastly different and irreconcilable metaphysics. If truth were essential how could there be so many and how could they exist side by side? If one were true then others must be false.

Today evolution is generally regarded as fact and even though it contradicts at least one of the major religions many choose to simply not believe it. They don't care what the actual truth is, or rather they don't value truth as much as they value the meaning derived from their belief system.

That the Universe is intrinsically meaningless is a logically necessary implication of the materialist/mechanistic worldview,
— gurugeorge

I don't understand your logic here. What is the thing you're looking for like? What properties would a 'meaning' have that you're finding absent in materialism? — Pseudonym

In a word: values. For some strange reason, he doesn't seem to believe that values exist once a materialist/mechanistic worldview is adopted. They just magically disappear.

So how does doing what makes you happy because we seem to like being happy miss that criteria? Are you specifically looking for meaning outside of the human experience? — Pseudonym

Are people made happy by modern life? Reports and statistics seem to give a mixed impression. It's often remarked that poor people seem happier than people in rich countries - they suffer more from the kinds of things that rich people don't suffer from (disease, accident, etc.), but there's often the impression that they're psychologically happier, or that their happiness is independent of circumstances. Or maybe it's just a case of "hunger being the best sauce," type thing. Or maybe it's the more intimate forms of social life they have, as contrasted to our atomized alienation from each other, our life as mere individuals.

Of course happiness has several possible meanings. There's the momentary happiness of consumption (in all its forms), and we certainly have lots of that, but that's different from what one might call happiness as satisfaction, or fulfillment - the deep, profound satisfaction of a life well-lived, a life of creativity, of goals fulfilled; which is different again from the happiness of _ataraxia_ or a Buddhist sort of desireless state. All these latter kinds of happiness might even require momentary unhappiness in the former sense, or perhaps better to say discomfort, but they seem to be worth it. Generally, the satisfaction of long-term goals seems to give that deeper sense of fulfillment - perhaps even long-term goals beyond one's individual span, the happiness of raising kids, or of contributing to society, planting trees, etc.

But the further you go from the kind of happiness that depends on the satisfaction of range-of-the-moment whim, the less there seems to be any point, unless there's a point to the over-arching context of existence. It's almost as if a life of whim-satisfaction serves as a distraction from the emptiness and meaninglessness of a mechanistic universe - if you skip from one act of consumption to next fast enough, maybe you don't have to think about it, maybe you don't have to notice it. But the biggest problem with happiness as whim satisfaction, as de Sade told us long ago, is that it escalates - more and more extreme forms of stimulation have to be found.

I wouldn't say that meaning has to be found exclusively outside human experience - discovering one's own meaning does seem to be part of a fulfilled life - but I'd say that there does have to ALSO be meaning outside the human experience, some meaning or significance to the fact that anything exists at all, some over-arching context that gives our individual stories a meaningful place, to get the full spectrum of the best possible life.

you said something about "real" teleology. — praxis

Yes, as contrasted with the "as if" teleology I was talking about several posts back when we were talking about teleology.

Metaphysical naturalism is synonymous with scientific materialism. — praxis

No it's not, and I just explained how it's not. Scientific materialism is one form of naturalistic thinking. Other forms are e.g. Daoism, Stoicism, Aristotelianism, Spinozism, some forms of Idealism, Peirce's Pragmatism, Robert Pirsig's metaphysics of "Quality" - where there's no supernatural entity or designer in charge, but there is an intelligible quality to the Universe as a whole that's also external the individual (as well as internal). For non-mechanistic forms of naturalism, meaning and value are intrinsic to the Universe, such that nature doesn't just happen to be the way it is, it's the way it is for a reason (a reason that's ultimately self-explanatory or self-evident in a deep way, thus making the whole intelligible through and through). Another way of putting this might be to say that, for these kinds of systems, the big "why" questions can have rational answers without having to invoke a supernatural being - at most, they might invoke a "God of the Philosophers" or a "Deus sive Natura" type of concept, but that's conceived of as integral to nature, or immanent, not necessarily transcendent (not having to be transcendent to do its job of making the Universe intelligible).

Religious or metaphysical beliefs don't need to be true to be meaningful. — praxis

They have to be believed to be true for people to think of them as meaningful (in the sense of profound, not just in the sense of linguistic meaning). Obviously religious people don't believe their religions are works of fiction.

For some strange reason, he doesn't seem to believe that values exist once a materialist/mechanistic worldview is adopted. They just magically disappear. — praxis

They don't magically disappear, rather it's that they don't have any roots in the way reality is. For a religious worldview, or a non-mechanistic type of naturalism, "is" and "ought" are very much linked, you ought to precisely because the world is a certain way. But a mechanistic worldview necessarily divorces the two.

So if you take the mechanistic picture seriously, you can still have values - for a while. But as I said when we started this conversation, beyond a certain point they're running on fumes, there's no way to generate them out of the "is" of the mechanistic worldview, so eventually they'll fade out of use because there's no reason to hold to them.

Of course happiness has several possible meanings. There's the momentary happiness of consumption (in all its forms), and we certainly have lots of that, but that's different from what one might call happiness as satisfaction, or fulfillment - the deep, profound satisfaction of a life well-lived, a life of creativity, of goals fulfilled; which is different again from the happiness of _ataraxia_ or a Buddhist sort of desireless state. All these latter kinds of happiness might even require momentary unhappiness in the former sense, or perhaps better to say discomfort, but they seem to be worth it. Generally, the satisfaction of long-term goals seems to give that deeper sense of fulfillment - perhaps even long-term goals beyond one's individual span, the happiness of raising kids, or of contributing to society, planting trees, etc. — gurugeorge

I agree with your separation of the different types of happiness, but I'm still not getting the connection with materialism. You mention raising kids as an example of just that kind of long term selfless sense of deeper fulfillment and I'd agree entirely, but you can't get much more materialistically hard-wired into our DNA, than the desire to raise kids. It's a direct result of a chemicals pre-priming neurons to fire in a particular way, but it creates on hell of a powerful meaning to life.

But the further you go from the kind of happiness that depends on the satisfaction of range-of-the-moment whim, the less there seems to be any point, unless there's a point to the over-arching context of existence. — gurugeorge

This is the bit where you're losing me. Given the examples you've provided above. The long-term investment in teaching, landscaping, learning are all things that people seem to have no trouble committing to, but more significantly for this discussion, evolutionary biologist have no trouble finding material purpose for. Some (such as the urge to learn) have even been fairly clearly identified by neuroscience. So I'm not seeing how any of this gets lost in materialism.

some meaning or significance to the fact that anything exists at all, some over-arching context that gives our individual stories a meaningful place, to get the full spectrum of the best possible life. — gurugeorge

Again this comes back to my first question. What would such a meaning look like? What would be an example of a meaning or significance to the fact that anything exists at all?

I agree with your separation of the different types of happiness, but I'm still not getting the connection with materialism. You mention raising kids as an example of just that kind of long term selfless sense of deeper fulfillment and I'd agree entirely, but you can't get much more materialistically hard-wired into our DNA, than the desire to raise kids. It's a direct result of a chemicals pre-priming neurons to fire in a particular way, but it creates on hell of a powerful meaning to life. — Pseudonym

And yet as we see, people are less interested in having families in the "advanced" countries. And this is because DNA has no sense of time-binding, it's "blind," mechanistic. Consider tendencies towards r selection or K selection. Some people (both male and female) are interested in sexual pleasure, certainly, but aren't all that interested in investing in kids. Or again consider the prevalence of infanticide in times past, or abortion now.

The natural drives alone can be quite heartless and cruel; nature is impartial, if it fits the environment there will be parental investment, if not, not.

The evolutionary biology/psychology explanations explain why some things have come to be the way they are, but they don't give any rationale for continuing them - I'd remind you of how, notoriously, Darwinians, Racialists and Eugenicists and the like in the past were twitted by rationalists for mixing up theirs "oughts" and their "ises." ;)

As per my conversation with Praxis above, it's not that people don't currently find meaning, it's that in terms of the mechanistic worldview, there's no reason for them to do so. We're still fairly close to a time when people had over-arching meaningful contexts, so there's still the habit of it in society. But eventually, over time, that habit will fade (so long as that worldview is believed to be true). Already, one has the sense that talk about meaning is fading into pious nostrums that glide off one's mind, commodified in books, chatted about by Oprah for 5 minutes, and forgotten.

What would be an example of a meaning or significance to the fact that anything exists at all? — Pseudonym

One is obviously the religious one we're familiar with (there's a purpose to things, even if we don't understand it fully, we can trust that God's on the case), but there are other possibilities (e.g. non-dual mystical, Aristotelian final cause, Daoist "grain," or "Way of things," Hermetic microcosm/macrocosm, etc.) Generally speaking, there are outside-in positions, inside-out positions, or both - either the meaningful element is something that expresses itself from within, or it's something that impinges on the individual from without, or both (either in parallel or in a mutually-shaping interaction).

These possibilities are all foreclosed by materialism/mechanism - which boils down to sequences of quantifiable efficient causes without any sort of over-arching context (i.e. stuff just happens to happen the way it happens, the Universe is a stupendous accident, destined for an ignominious end).

We're still fairly close to a time when people had over-arching meaningful contexts, so there's still the habit of it in society. But eventually, over time, that habit will fade (so long as that worldview is believed to be true). Already, one has the sense that talk about meaning is fading into pious nostrums that glide off one's mind, commodified in books, chatted about by Oprah for 5 minutes, and forgotten. — gurugeorge

These possibilities are all foreclosed by materialism/mechanism - which boils down to sequences of quantifiable efficient causes without any sort of over-arching context (i.e. stuff just happens to happen the way it happens, the Universe is a stupendous accident, destined for an ignominious end). — gurugeorge

Indeed, you hit upon a major difference in modern and post-modern outlooks. Modernists may have left an over-arching theme of religion behind, but they replaced it with the over-arching theme that science, technology, and social engineering can bring us to a more ideal state (i.e. Marxism, Hegelianism, Secular Humanism, Liberalism, etc.). The post-modern outlook rejects meta-narratives and over-arching themes of human life. With this outlook, it insists we are all telling narratives and there is only meaning in relation to the context of that story. Or at least that is one view of the split between the two. There is never an overriding narrative to bind them all.

My take is that life is simply an instrumental affair. I call this concept instrumentality. We survive, maintain our comfort levels that are acceptable to our own and society's standards, and we flee from boredom. We do this repetitiously, day in and day out. Hope keeps us rushing through it trying not to dwell on it. However, we are striving for nothing in particular, but that death/dying seems painful or scary and we know nothing else except to live another day, the way we are used to doing it. It is a grinding, slow march to oblivion for the individual, choosing our ways to "work" "maintain our environment" and "entertain ourselves". That is it, not much more than that.

you said something about "real" teleology.
— praxis

Yes, as contrasted with the "as if" teleology I was talking about several posts back when we were talking about teleology. — gurugeorge

Maybe it will clarify if you can explain why your apparent view that Aristotelian teleology is "real" rather than "as if." Or should I just assume that you subscribe to Aristotelian teleology and therefore it is real for you?

Metaphysical naturalism is synonymous with scientific materialism.
— praxis

No it's not, and I just explained how it's not. Scientific materialism is one form of naturalistic thinking. — gurugeorge

Right, the metaphysical form of naturalism is synonymous with scientific materialism.

For non-mechanistic forms of naturalism, meaning and value are intrinsic to the Universe, such that nature doesn't just happen to be the way it is, it's the way it is for a reason (a reason that's ultimately self-explanatory or self-evident in a deep way, thus making the whole intelligible through and through). — gurugeorge

But the whole isn't intelligible through and through, in any narrative. This is anthropomorphism. Meaning can't be intrinsic to the universe without an intelligence or subjective experience.

Obviously religious people don't believe their religions are works of fiction. — gurugeorge

Also obvious that they don't know if their religion is true. That's why faith is required.

For a religious worldview, or a non-mechanistic type of naturalism, "is" and "ought" are very much linked, you ought to precisely because the world is a certain way. — gurugeorge

Even many of Hume's contemporaries didn't think this problem was much of a problem.

They [values] don't magically disappear, rather it's that they don't have any roots in the way reality is. — gurugeorge

Why is an overarching narrative necessary to ground our values?

You're repeatedly using terms without agreed meanings and it makes it extremely difficult to understand what you're saying. Rather than try and second guess what you might mean, I will try to explain myself better and see if you can specify where you disagree, apologies if it sounds like repetition.

Firstly we need to establish what you mean by meaning. I understood it to mean purpose, but you seemed not to be happy with the proximate purpose evolution gave us (to propagate our DNA). It seems you want there to be some other purpose, but I'm not sure why.

Part of your post above changes from talking about meaning, to talking about reasons "why?" but these are two different questions. Purpose, values, meaning, reason,... these are all very different issues but you seem to be using them interchangeably.

The purpose of our lives, according to materialism is to secure the survival of our DNA.

Our values are in tilled in us by our DNA and by our culture (the result of years of interaction between brains and environment, and they primarily serves as learnt techniques for achieving our purpose above.

Meaning is an extremely subjective term. Fundamentally, meaning is just a picking apart of an thing into it components. When we ask what a word means, we expect the answer to simply be in the form of other words, we could continue asking forever and continue answering in other words. So when you say that life doesn't have meaning under materialism, that cannot possibly be true. The fact that we can disassemble aspects of our experience automatically entails meaning.

Reason is the same as cause and effect. One thing happens in order to bring about another. Here you seem to be saying that because, under materialism, things happen simply because prior things caused them (rather than because of the thing they cause). But this is the problem with any overarching story, none of they can give an ultimate reason because we can always ask why. If God made the world, then why?

We all have to stop asking "why?" at some point, even the religious.

Maybe it will clarify if you can explain why your apparent view that Aristotelian teleology is "real" rather than "as if." — praxis

That sentence doesn't make sense as it stands. I'll presume you're asking me to explain why I think Aristotelian teleology (if true) would be a form of real teleology rather than an "as if" teleology?

The reason would be that Aristotelian teleology understands final cause, purpose, function, as intrinsic to nature, whereas when teleological concepts are used in biology, for example, it's just a manner of speaking (that's what I mean by "as if"). The true story according to science would be the full explanation of the biological concept in question in terms of chemistry, and ultimately physics; the use of "function" or "purpose" in biology is therefore just shorthand for that bigger explanation - or another way of looking at it might be that the ordinary teleological concepts we use are the explanandum of science, which tries to explain what's really going on under the hood that gives the appearance of function and purpose, when actually there is no function or purpose to anything.

Right, the metaphysical form of naturalism is synonymous with scientific materialism. — praxis

No, scientific materialism is one form of metaphysical naturalism, it's not "synonymous" with it, it's a subset or sub-type of it, one form of it.

But the whole isn't intelligible through and through, in any narrative. This is anthropomorphism. Meaning can't be intrinsic to the universe without an intelligence or subjective experience. — praxis

Intelligence yes, subjective experience not necessarily (that's what would distinguish these alternative forms of naturalism from supernaturalistic religion, the idea that this ... thing ... has an inner life of its own). So the idea would be (for all these non-nihilistic variants) that our own intelligence is a miniature, somewhat degraded version of the intelligence that infuses and structures the Universe, analogously to the way a broken piece of a hologram has the same image as the whole hologram, just slightly degraded. At any rate, that's not what I was talking about: I meant that a fully satisfactory story about the Universe has to be complete, and ultimately grounded in self-evidence. (i.e. as I said earlier, it should have the self-evident, unarguable quality of something like the cogito).

Why is an overarching narrative necessary to ground our values? — praxis

Because values partly pertain to the world around you that's not-you, yet values you merely create for yourself have no necessary connection to the world that's not-you. For all you know, you might be imposing values on the world that are alien to it. IOW values, to be truly values as distinct from whims or preferences, have to be grounded in the way the world is, not just the way you are, or the way you feel. (It makes no difference if we shift up to "our values", they would still be at risk of being subjective.)

Firstly we need to establish what you mean by meaning. I understood it to mean purpose, but you seemed not to be happy with the proximate purpose evolution gave us (to propagate our DNA). It seems you want there to be some other purpose, but I'm not sure why. — Pseudonym

It's not that, it's that the DNA "purpose" isn't actually a purpose. What work is "proximate" doing in your sentence there? How can there be "proximate purpose" at the level of the DNA mandate, if there's no distal purpose in the Universe as a whole? It seems like the "proximate purpose" is either just the seeming of purpose in something that is actually purposeless (which would be the materialistic/mechanistic idea, pursued to its logical conclusion) or it's the appearance of real purpose for the first time ever in the Universe, just at that biological level (for some reason).

The purpose of our lives, according to materialism is to secure the survival of our DNA. — Pseudonym

No, from a strictly materialistic perspective there's no purpose at the level of DNA, it's just a bunch of things that happen to be the way they are. Proteins fold and click together like lego or not, organisms "fit" with their environment or not. The purpose is only apparent, there only seems to be purpose, and the appearance of it is explainable in terms of the lower-level sciences.

There isn't even any function at that level, far less purpose. Recall Conway's "Game of Life." A few simple rules about contiguous squares flashing on and off create a vast ecosystem of complex patterns that do things like appearing to "eat" other patterns, that appear to move purposefully in particular directions, etc. But that's illusion, or rather just a manner of speaking that makes it easy to talk about the patterns.

We all have to stop asking "why?" at some point, even the religious. — Pseudonym

Yeah but the question is, do you stop because you've finally gotten a satisfactory answer, or just because you've given up, or are too tired to go on? You say:-

If God made the world, then why? — Pseudonym

That's a common misunderstanding of the classical argument for God. "God" closes the series of "why" questions because (speaking crudely, to get the point across quickly) it divides reality into two parts, creator and created (or at a more sophisticated level, necessary and contingent, act and potential, etc.). About the created part you can ask "why" questions, right up to the question of "why the whole thing?" The God part is the answer to that and the classical arguments explain why God must necessarily be something about which any "why?" question is unintelligible, IOW the God part is self-evident. That's a perfectly reasonable argument that gives full closure (if it's sound - of course the devil is in the details :) ).

I guess what I'm saying in a nutshell is that I think rationalists fool themselves into thinking that we can keep our cake and eat it, but the logic of materialism/mechanism is un-get-overable, and will eventually permeate society, if unchecked. The habits from DNA's mandate alone are not enough to create civilization, they only lead to a tribal society. It's only the classical philosophical views, or religious views, that trained us into being more than tribal beings, into building the vast, crystalline empires of thought and matter that we inhabit. But if there's no longer any reason to believe in the classical philosophical or religious views, and all we have as our basic metaphysics is materialism/mechanism, then we will inevitably return to a tribal way of life - only with nuclear toys.

This is all the case regardless of whether the over-arching philosophical/religious worldviews are true or false. If materialism is false and the grand, over-arching philosophical/religious meanings of old are true, then we're on a hiding to nothing for no good reason. If materialism is true, and the philosophical/religious meanings of old are false, then, ironically, we've rendered ourselves unfit by destroying our illusions.

You seem to have some meaning of the word purpose, which you are not making clear, which the apparent goal of DNA does not fit, but which the apparent goal of a God would fit. Both goals are apparent, I'm not sure what you're trying to say with this distinction. The goal of successful replication simply derives mechanistically from the chemical properties of DNA. The goal that God has in mind simply derives mechanistically from the properties of God, I'm not seeing the difference. You seem inexplicably more happy that a magical being dictates purpose than that a chemical structure does, but I'm in the dark as to why that makes any difference. Both are purpose.

In essence I think what you're saying is that you don't like the fact that apparent purpose is derived mechanistically from chemical structures, and you'd rather it was derived emotively from an anthropomorphic entity.

It seems your argument is that if we believe it is derived mechanistically, we might as well not bother doing anything because it's all ultimately pointless, whereas if it's derived emotively we can all get behind that and feel good about being a part of it.

I can see your point, but personally, I dwell more on the other side of the coin. If purpose is derived mechanistically, then it is impossible to avoid. we might talk esoterically about nihilism, and some might convince themselves that it's the best way to satisfy the many competing desires their DNA has mechanistically instilled in them, but by-and-large the population will have purpose whether they like it or not because it is as unavoidable as gravity.

To place purpose in the mind of an anthropomorphic God, however, is to create a purpose that can instantly be questioned. What if we've misunderstood what the purpose is, what if we've not been listening properly and are actually working against it. We end up with all this paranoia and guilt that has dogged the religious since religions began. The power of the 'interpreters', the fear of transgression, the confusion and doubt over the 'true' purpose etc. A minefield of psychological trauma.

Personally, I'd rather have a mechanistic, inescapable purpose, that is unavoidably instilled in every person from birth than one which is vague, unknowable, open to interpretation and largely in the hands of an elite few.

My perpetual question is why do we make new people experience life. I have not heard great answers thus far and each presupposes an unnecessary teleology (i.e. progress, goods of life, experience is rewarding in itself, personal achievement, relationships, etc.). I have not yet heard a compelling argument why making another existence is better than refraining from making a new existence.

I have not yet heard a compelling argument why making another existence is better than refraining from making a new existence. — schopenhauer1

Because we are compelled to either make a new being or assist in the raising of one relatively related to us, by the very chemicals which run our brains and bodies.

Given the complexities of the environment and the multitude of effects it may have on us, what some people deduce is the best way to assist in the raising of young can be quite varied to say the least, but I'm convinced that remains the driving force.

The problem is you're starting out presuming it's a choice we make, to have these desires which is really ironic considering your moniker.

“Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills”

Because we are compelled to either make a new being or assist in the raising of one relatively related to us, by the very chemicals which run our brains and bodies.

Given the complexities of the environment and the multitude of effects it may have on us, what some people deduce is the best way to assist in the raising of young can be quite varied to say the least, but I'm convinced that remains the driving force.

The problem is you're starting out presuming it's a choice we make, to have these desires which is really ironic considering your moniker.

“Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills” — Pseudonym

Odd you use the quote from Schopenhauer, who though not explicitly an antinatalist, said "“If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence, or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood?”

But, I think it is indeed a choice we can make. How is it not so? Besides which, you aren't really getting the point. It is not necessarily to try to get everyone to stop procreating, but to stop and ask themselves why is it better to make another existence rather than to refrain from creating another existence? Again, I have not heard a compelling argument. Your idea that it is simply instinctual drive doesn't really answer much. A) We can choose not to. B) People have chosen not to. C) People can go against "natural" instincts. D) How do you answer the "is" "ought" problem- just because its instinctual (if that is even the case) why should one ought to follow the instincts?

You seem to have some meaning of the word purpose, which you are not making clear, which the apparent goal of DNA does not fit, but which the apparent goal of a God would fit. — Pseudonym

No, no, it's not got anything to do with the traditional Abrahamic conception of God specifically, or even with what might be derived "emotively"; God is just one way of having purpose, function, teleology, goal-directedness, meaning, etc., be intrinsic to the Universe (I pointed out several other options a few posts ago - the classic examples in Western philosophy are Aristotelianism's Final Cause and Stoicism's Logos, both of which are non-supernatural, naturalistic ideas. Spinoza's Conatus is another variant, in a Universe that is conceived of as Deus sive Natura, IOW in a Universe in which God is not conceived in traditional terms, but is synonymous with Nature.)

From any naturalistic or religious point of view that accepts purpose, meaning, etc., as intrinsic to the Universe, things have natures, and their behaviour follows with logical necessity from their nature. Consider: it's "logically possible" that if I walk out the door the floor will turn into jelly. But it's not actually possible - the materials of which the ground is constructed have a limited range of possible things they can do, and turning into jelly isn't one of them.

But the mechanistic view can't allow any of that cluster of ideas to be part of the explanation of the Universe in any real way. From that point of view, it just happens to be the case that the ground doesn't turn into jelly, that's simply a regularity that we observe, and nothing more can be said about it. In terms of materialistic/mechanistic metaphysics, it's forbidden to say that things have specific natures, essences, powers, potentialities, etc. That's precisely what was gotten rid of as science divorced itself from Aristotelian metaphysics, that's precisely what defines science as a distinct modern enterprise. (In fact, at first such talk was merely bracketed, set aside, to see what could be said in terms of efficient causes and quantifiable regularities alone - that's why scientists could still be, and if they look at it this way, still can be, religious believers - but as science developed, people gradually came to accept a metaphysics which didn't just set aside teleological talk as a matter of methodology, rather it said that the Aristotelian view had been "defeated" and that there is no teleology.) From this point of view anything that's logically possible is materially possible, we must simply observe and note whatever causal regularities exist, and talk in terms of probabilities (i.e. the floor turning to jelly cannot be ruled out entirely, it just has a vanishingly small probability of occurring, based on the mass of other observed regularities).

Whenever science (science that takes this metaphysical stance) talks in teleological terms, it's necessarily just a manner of speaking, a way of chunking or compressing the full scientific story for convenience, and casting it in terms with which the layman is familiar. (Or rather, it would be that, except for the suspicious fact that teleological talk seems to be unavoidable in science - which might be a clue as to why the materialist/mechanistic metaphysics is in fact inadequate.)

The goal of successful replication simply derives mechanistically from the chemical properties of DNA. — Pseudonym

There is no goal of successful replication. Just as Free Will must necessarily be illusory in a mechanistic universe, so must goal-directedness necessarily be merely apparent. DNA is simply chemical lego that clicks together in such a way as to produce via deterministic biochemical processes, bodies with characterstics that either fit or don't fit with their environment in a way that gives organisms a chance to replicate. From this point of view, whatever goal-directedness we as humans have in our minds and emotions must necessarily be as illusory as Free Will must necessarily be in terms of the same metaphysics. We just happen to be made in such a way as to have particular kinds of emotions in certain circumstances (e.g. some people have a feeling for their offspring and their future). In terms of this metaphysics there can be no more real goal-directedness in the human mind than there is in the Sphex wasp, or the rock cycle.

From the mechanistic/materialistic point of view, things just happen to behave in the same way that things that were actually goal-directed would behave, it's just that they're not, they're just constructed in such a way that that's how they happen to behave. Again, the "laws of nature" are simply observable regularities.

Now, while this is a hurrah fact to some (to those who are nihilists by nature or temperament, so to speak), it's a boo fact to most people (people who quite like having meaning, purpose and and virtue around), and naturally many reasonable people try to cover the stark brutalism of the materialistic worldview over with the fig-leaf of "emergent properties" or "proximate" causes. But those are flimsy rationalizations for trying to keep one's cake and eat it, as I said - and (so long as the materialistic metaphysics is the reigning idea) eventually the truth will seep out through society and permeate it. Which is what we see happening around us now.

Your idea that it is simply instinctual drive doesn't really answer much. A) We can choose not to. B) People have chosen not to. C) People can go against "natural" instincts. D) How do you answer the "is" "ought" problem- just because its instinctual (if that is even the case) why should one ought to follow the instincts? — schopenhauer1

Your theory begs the question. Your arguments only work if you've already presumed (unlike Schopenhauer) that we have a choice about what it is we will. I do not believe that, and you evidently do. You're asking for a compelling argument but only accepting ones from a set of premises in which you believe, which include, it would seem, free-will.

I entirely agree with you that there is no logic whatsoever to creating new life under an assumption of both utilitarianism and free-will, which seem to be the assumptions you're working under. Entirely for the arguments you've put forward, there cannot be argued to be any net utility gain, which is exactly what Schopenhauer said. But the entire reason he wasn't explicitly an antinatalist is because of his position on free-will, which, though weaker than mine, lead him to believe that continued procreation was inevitable.

So the idea that it is an instinctive drive answers the question completely, if you do not hold onto the notion of free-will.

A) We cannot choose not to, what some people choose is a lifestyle which (at an instinctive level) some part of their brain is telling them will support other people who are raising new life and whose DNA will be similar to theirs.
B) See above - You might want to look at people like Edward Wilson for some ideas as to how non-breeders could have evolved despite the disadvantage of not passing on their DNA, but it's basically to do with increasing the life chances of closely related people.
C) Only if you already believe that's what they're doing. Otherwise, this is a non sequitur. How do you know they're going against their 'natural' instincts? Have desires got little labels on them that we can check? Do 'natural', ones show up in a different colour on fMRI scans?
D)The 'is' 'ought' problem is only a problem for those who believe in free-will. abandon free-will and there is only 'is'.

From any naturalistic or religious point of view that accepts purpose, meaning, etc., as intrinsic to the Universe, things have natures, and their behaviour follows with logical necessity from their nature. Consider: it's "logically possible" that if I walk out the door the floor will turn into jelly. But it's not actually possible - the materials of which the ground is constructed have a limited range of possible things they can do, and turning into jelly isn't one of them. — gurugeorge

I'm baffled as to what the distinction you're trying to make is here. The fact that things have 'natures' is entirely what science, and therefore by extension materialist philosophy, has confirmed. Physical things are bound by the laws of physics to behave the way they do, living things are guided by the interaction of their DNA with the environment. It's sounding increasingly like all you want is for the purpose to be 'a bit magic' and you just don't like science having found it out.

From that point of view, it just happens to be the case that the ground doesn't turn into jelly, that's simply a regularity that we observe, and nothing more can be said about it. — gurugeorge

How does a thing's Aristotelian 'nature' not just happen to be the case? Why are you allowing philosophical ideas to just 'be the case' for no reason, but when scientific ideas try to just 'be the case' for no reason, you think they've somehow lost something?

From this point of view anything that's logically possible is materially possible, we must simply observe and note whatever causal regularities exist, and talk in terms of probabilities (i.e. the floor turning to jelly cannot be ruled out entirely, it just has a vanishingly small probability of occurring, based on the mass of other observed regularities). — gurugeorge

It sounds to me from this that you're actually having trouble, not with science per se, but with the loss of idoloatry. I will try to explain using your example;

Science and Aristotle have both reached the same conclusion about the basic idea of the floor turning to jelly - that it won't do that because it goes against the floor's nature/laws of physics.

The difference is that science goes on to say that this is just our best current theory and if a better theory turns up or if something unexpected happens then the floor might well turn to jelly. It's just that our best current theory is that it won't.

So what you're really looking for is a return to idolatry, which is what belief-based philosophies are really all about. You want to simply believe someone without having to use your own critical thinking, whether that someone is Aristotle, Spinoza, St Paul, doesn't matter, just someone other than yourself. Scientists admit they might be wrong (there is only a high probability), belief in what Aristotle said does not entail an admission that it might be wrong, you've eliminated that nasty doubt, that 'probability' simply by uncritically accepting someone else's view of 'what is the case'

Look at all the alternatives you've mentioned. Did you come up with any? Why not? None of them rely in any way on evidence which is not also accessible by you. It's because you want to absolve the responsibility for your own decisions to an outside agency. Sorry for the pop-psychology, but it's crucial to understanding where I'm coming from.

Just try to rationalise your distinction between 'apparent' goals and 'actual' goals. In what way do they really differ, other than that your 'actual' goals are the certain pronouncements of an authority? How would Science and these other philosophical ideas differ if you just said right now that you were going to believe that all our current scientific theories are definitely and permanently true?

I'm baffled as to what the distinction you're trying to make is here. The fact that things have 'natures' is entirely what science, and therefore by extension materialist philosophy, has confirmed. — Pseudonym

Deary me, no. Or at least not officially - increasingly there are some noises from philosophy of science (e.g. Nancy Cartwright) that a strictly materialistic/mechanistic metaphysics is in fact inadequate and that we do need to go, if not exactly back to Aristotle, at least back to something like Aristotle, in the sense that it's becoming clear that efficient cause on its own is senseless without a deeper metaphysical background involving final cause, or at the very least an understanding of things as having natures, essences and intrinsic powers. But for ever such a long time, since the break with scholasticism, through Hume, through the positivism of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the position has been that things don't have specific natures that make them (of necessity) behave a certain way and not another way, they just observably happen to behave a certain way and not another way, and the observed patterns are called "laws of nature." They are, simply, regularities.

Again, think of the example I used: the difference is between a point of view which thinks there's a prior constraint on logical possibility (as to "what will happen next", for example) coming from the side of the object itself, and a view which doesn't think there's any such prior constraint inherent in the nature of the thing, a view which thinks only in terms of probabilities based on statistical regularities, with (e.g.) the floor turning to jelly as a live option (because it is a logical possibility and involves no contradiction) but just highly, highly improbable based on the other, contextual consistent patterns we've observed up till now. Modern science is all about probability (ostensibly - as I said, things might be changing).

Physical things are bound by the laws of physics to behave the way they do, — Pseudonym

You do realize that "law" is just a metaphor right? There is no "binding." It's simply an observed regularity. There is no form of necessity binding this and that together from the mechanistic point of view, that was the whole point of ditching Aristotle, that was the whole point of Hume's discoveries about induction, and the impossibility of experiencing or observing necessity in nature.

How does a thing's Aristotelian 'nature' not just happen to be the case? Why are you allowing philosophical ideas to just 'be the case' for no reason, but when scientific ideas try to just 'be the case' for no reason, you think they've somehow lost something? — Pseudonym

There is a reason in classical metaphysics for things having natures or essences, it's a necessary outcome of deeper metaphysical principles (actuality vs. potentiality, final cause, things like that - it's a whole number, don't ask me to get into it because I'm not familiar enough with it to generate it for you on the spot, I'd have to dig it up from the literature - and no, that's not an appeal to "authority"). There are analogous ideas in the other systems I mentioned, they all attempt to get down to some basic principles that are SELF-EVIDENT and don't just happen to be the way they are. Again, this goes back to the point about intelligibility. The philosophy that Christianity had inherited from antiquity was an attempt to develop a completely coherent picture of the Universe, with no dangly bits left over, no bits of "shit just happens." Part of that coherent picture was the idea of efficient cause, which was, in terms of the older metaphysics, an aspect of nature, essence and final cause. Science developed by focusing on efficient cause and (at first) setting aside those larger metaphysical ideas. Then it forgot that it had only set them aside, and denied their truth altogether.

The difference is that science goes on to say that this is just our best current theory and if a better theory turns up or if something unexpected happens then the floor might well turn to jelly. It's just that our best current theory is that it won't. — Pseudonym

That is not a difference from earlier science, Aristotle was an empiricist too, he didn't claim his scientific findings were set in stone. Nor did the Schoolmen, the Church, Aquinas. They all understood the idea of "best current theory," it wasn't an idea that some bright spark discovered for the first time ever in the 16th century.

Sorry for the pop-psychology, but it's crucial to understanding where I'm coming from. — Pseudonym

Yes, we can do without it. You're ridiculously off-base in your surmises.

The point isn't to appeal to "authority", the point is to have a convincing picture of reality that's grounded in self-evident metaphysical principles on the one hand, combined with empirical observation on the other. The thing that's missing from the materialist/mechanist wordview is any attempt at the former - and as I've said now several times, that was by design, that was the essence of the Baconian revolution in science, to set aside discussion of the deeper background metaphysics. At first it was a methodological adventure (let's see how far we can get just by thinking about things in terms of mathematically quantifiable efficient cause), then later the methodological bracketing became a metaphysical ditching (for no good reason, it tuns out - people just believed the older metaphysics had been refuted).

I entirely agree with you that there is no logic whatsoever to creating new life under an assumption of both utilitarianism and free-will, which seem to be the assumptions you're working under. Entirely for the arguments you've put forward, there cannot be argued to be any net utility gain, which is exactly what Schopenhauer said. — Pseudonym

Ok, so we agree that it is better never to have been but not that it is a possibility to not have children for some people.

A) We cannot choose not to, what some people choose is a lifestyle which (at an instinctive level) some part of their brain is telling them will support other people who are raising new life and whose DNA will be similar to theirs. — Pseudonym

This is nonsense. First off, you have to believe in the premise that the concept of "having and raising a child" is an instinct. I think it is a linguistically/culturally created concept that may be pushed along with chemicals like oxcytocin, but certainly not to the "must do" urge you claim, like say, going to the bathroom, or even the sexual urge (which is not the same as the "urge" to have a child, just something that may lead to it).

But even if one assumed your premise that "having and raising a child is an instinct", then one can refrain from it like one would any instinct. Say humans have an instinct to take pleasure in sweet tasting foods. However, an individual is on a diet, this individual refrains from all sorts of sweet tasting foods on the diet. Say humans have an instinct for aggression when angry, but instead of giving into the aggression instinct an individual learns to control it and channel it in ways other than violence or conflict. Thus, I don't see the "inevitability" of your argument. All I see is a cultural preference that people choose to follow.

B) See above - You might want to look at people like Edward Wilson for some ideas as to how non-breeders could have evolved despite the disadvantage of not passing on their DNA, but it's basically to do with increasing the life chances of closely related people.

I think you are taking evolutionary psychology too far. Human behavior is far more complex than instinctual drives. When you add in linguistics/culture the picture is more than "what behavior is related to what evolutionary advantage". In fact, much of what we do has nothing to do with evolutionary advantage. You may have a stronger argument for sexual fitness, but humans can divorce sex from birth and often do. So do not conflate sexual activity or sexual fitness or sexual advantage with birth as humans can and do divorce the two all the time.

C) Only if you already believe that's what they're doing. Otherwise, this is a non sequitur. How do you know they're going against their 'natural' instincts? Have desires got little labels on them that we can check? Do 'natural', ones show up in a different colour on fMRI scans?

I don't know, you were the one who says that humans cannot do otherwise except breed. This leads me to believe you meant that we have instincts to breed that we cannot bypass, and I have demonstrated otherwise by both a) undermining that we necessarily have instincts to breed (as opposed to sexual pleasure urges), and b) if we did have instincts to breed, we do deny our instincts all the time.

D)The 'is' 'ought' problem is only a problem for those who believe in free-will. abandon free-will and there is only 'is'.

True, people have preferences that may be tied to their environmental interaction/upbringing/social forces/genetics/biology/epigenetics, etc. etc. but nonetheless, people can choose to do otherwise than what one would expect them to do based on factors that have shaped their preferences. It happens. Even in a deterministic universe, what choice will be made is not known until it is made. You must not confuse determinism with self-fulfilling prophecy (he/we/they are always like this so he/we/they will always be like this).

Also, as I've stated, similar to your observation on Schopenhauer, I recognize that procreation will not stop any time soon. My goal is not that quixotic. Rather, it is to simply have more people question the fact of why they are bringing new people into the world in the first place. What are they trying to accomplish? What is the teleological assumption people hold for why a new person needs to be created? Why is creating a new person better than refraining from making a new existence? Again, I haven't heard a compelling argument as to why more people need to be born. You seem to agree.

You've just restated the argument in exactly the terms I put it without addressing the problems.

Basically your position boils down to the fact that the scientific explanation for why things are as they are is insufficient because it cannot (does not even attempt to) demonstrate that they necessarily are that way, just that that is they way they seem to be. I'm with you so far, that's a perfectly sound definition of science.

But then you go on to say that various metaphysical positions do give reasons why things are the way they are necessarily because of some metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, which you can't quite remember but nonetheless believe profoundly is the case.

no, that's not an appeal to "authority" — gurugeorge

Really? Because it sounds an awful lot like an appeal to authority.

This is essentially the problem. What if things just do happen to be the way they are? What if that is why all the metaphysical attempts to show otherwise have failed? You seem to be convinced that we cannot continue fulfilling lives with this being the case, I've not heard any evidence for that conclusion. Things don't seem to be significantly worse now (with half the population atheist) than they were 200 years ago when most of the population had this over-arching meaning you opine.

You keep stating that I believe "having and raising a child" is an unavoidable instinct, yet I have nowhere stated this to be the case. What I've said is that either having a child or contributing to society's ability to raise children, is an unavoidable instinct, and that what people feel is the best way for them to achieve the latter is quite varied because the environments in which they have to make that calculation are quite varied. I never said that instincts were simple, only that it is a reasonable theory that they unavoidably drive us to act.

All of the examples you give make the same question begging fallacy. You presume a) that instincts are going to give one single desire so any alternative must not be an instinct, or b) that you somehow know which desires are instincts. How do you know that the desire to diet doesn't result from an instinct? How do you know that peaceful conflict resolution isn't an instinct?

As I said, I agree that there is not a logical argument for continuing life from Utilitarianism and accepting free will, but I don't accept either of those premises, so it's not an issue for me.