"As an alternative to feeling good, there is feeling at peace" I am in full agreement with this. You've made me realize that i dont really know anything about taoism, but i've always liked eastern philosophies a lot. Any resources you can recommend?

Anyways, i personally believe the reverse of this:

the universe is half human. — T Clark

I think the human is half universe. Where did this idea come to you?

Also, the way you presented the idea of the Tao seems incredibily similar and yet inverse to that of the old western "substance". As i read in a book named "Lecciones preeliminares de filosofía" -i do not know how trustworthy the author is but whatever-, true substance cant possibly be named or classified, because for something to be named, it would have to bee made of something, and substance cant be made out of something because everything is made out of it.

On another note, what do you think of this:

This is what i mean: why would you do something you dont have to do? why do something that is explicitly useless? And if the answer is "because it gives us meaning", then why? — Oppida

Though i guess that it'd be wise to first stablish in which situations are you doing something that is useless.

Well, it could be because this is an extremely broad theme. As stated previously, both usefulness and uselesness only make sense in a human frame, so in order to actually grasp whether its best to be "this" usefull or "this" useless in this thing or that thing over there, we'd sort of have to classify everything i guess? Like, make a chart of every human action possible and plot in how useful or useless you should be in order to not feel meaningless or something.

This has made me think tho, i might leave for a while to rethink usefulness/uselesness in a few more areas before i come and edit the post maybe. Anyways, what do you think of the question(s) i quoted above?

Hell of an interesting article you wrote my friend, indeed. As i understood the general idea of your idealism idea is that ideas (i'll stop) you are in agreement with an empirical, "self evident truth" -to call it something- that the physical reality does exist, but that the mind has "created" a reality or, rather, interpreted the physical reality to something arbitrary. Why would you say that humans are engineerd this way? Your efforts to try and create a non dualist systems are commendable, by the way.

And going back to the tread's OP objective; im trying to connect some dots here, but, could it be that the idealist origin of the way we interpret reality has something to do with our moral and phylosophical values having meaning? I mean, i can see that your argument could be that, since we have given a certain meaning to a reaity (i.e., given it order trough our brain), every assertion we make about anything has to be true from that interpretation.

In other words, we came, we saw a messy reality, we somehow ordered it trough perception and then, once it was ordered and categorized -arbitrarily- we started making and thinking made up things from a reality that was, again, arbitrarily categorized, which in turn means that

• A. Since we were the ones to categorize the world, non-physical truths will always have some subjectivity, because they stem from our perspectives
• B. To any person of group of persons who share, more or less, a perspective, a truth is true without having to give up its subjectivity.

Thus, would i be right to assume that the subjectivity of "truth" comes from the individual's own perception? (which may or may not be influenced by society) tell me if any of this is wrong because i feel it is...

Very true. I live in a city and, let me tell you, the vibe is very VERY different from that of a small town. Everything here is to be done "now" and to be done with efficiency. This pressure i see people put on themselves and on others is very clearly wearing them down.

Anyways, farmers are a good oportunity to represent my idea too:

Say im a farmer who loves farming; now, since i like the process of planting and harvesting, my crop yield will be less than of those who industrially farm, however, it might also be of higher quality. This might not be forever the case though, maybe some day a technology that does just what i, a farmer, do (be it a robot or a system or whatever) and then some, with the benefit of being cheap. Wouldnt be that unfair for me? I mean, i can always keep farming but, nobody would buy it! The problem gets worse once you realize that people actually prefer the machine over your work, so the tools with wich you used to farm go up in price or to simply dissapear.

This possibility is why i consider the question something ethical: should we keep advancing in technology to make it as efficient as it can get when theres a risk of losing something people like doing? Doing for the sake of doing is a very powerful tool to have meaning in life.

Now, i can see the argument that the cure for this would be art: if you do art whilst you let the machines do hard, laborious work, then youd be avoiding this all together. But i think that the moder human cares more about pleasue rather than doing.

This is what i mean: why would you do something you dont have to do? why do something that is explicitly useless? And if the answer is "because it gives us meaning", then why?

Yes, answers to this particular questions are supossed to be useful to yourself, so feel free to share them! Im eager to know more ways in which to consider usefulness and efficancy.


So, you believe that humans have an infinite capacity for learning? because if we do, should we pursue our full potential? or, more specifically, in what areas should we pursue our full potential, ideally? because, if we know too much too fast, if we become extremely efficient, if we dont have a goal that takes time, what would we do? Technology is accelerating at an extremely fast pace and i personally fear another meaning crisis born not from the lack of purpose, but from a new, artificially-created lack of purpose created by being too efficient in our tasks. Again, the example of the switchboard operator ladies; did they lose purpose? they got liberated from a task , only for them to be given another thanks to automation, but do they feel any more fulfilled after losing their jobs? probably, the answer is yes, but this has a wider implication for technology.

Say you're a carpenter and that a new machine has come out in the world that can do carpentry 10x as faster as you can. How would you feel? does the answer lie in the fact that you like or do not like your job?


Of course! to talk of usefulness you need a frame of reference. Heres one you can use for the fun of discussing: When should we stop a technology from being "too useful" or "too useless"? Look at the example above, too.

Yes, indeed, it is not a directly answerable question i supose and yes, you nailed the part of us getting this infinite knowledge trough AI in that example. So again, retaking the AI example; If we had an AGI, what then? what would we possibly do? wouldnt human action be rendered completly "useless" in the frame of doing anything? Again, this question of efficancy was born from the fact that us human could become completely sedentary once we obtain AGI. Like mentioned before, mostly born from my personal fear of humans going trough another "meaning crisis". Toughts?

Yeah, i guess it proves your point of current world thinking being very scientific because of the divide you mentioned.

Do you like Aristotle's metaphysics?, because it does work with that subjectivity trough the "accident" part, which as i understand it accepted a universe that wasnt entirely subjective -concepts were well defined trough "essence"- but that had a central, universal truth which was something about movement or god, i dont remember.

Also, what truth do you mean? do you mean a universal one or some other truth? and how does the fact that said truth, being subjective, has to have a meaning? and what kind of meaning?

Indeed i was talking about the emotional payoff kind of good. For now, lets say that an emotion feeling "good" is an emotion that feels pleasuable. I imagine a lot of people feeling good from hugs, but also a lot of people feeling good from commiting atrocities. Why is that? is it learned?

Oh that utilitarianism of us... Whilst i think happiness is important, i dont think its necessarily good. Ive had this question lately, why does happiness feel "good"? What sort of brain paths or whatever do we take to correlate something to feel plasurable? I mean, sadness does feel bad but it clearly isnt intrinsically bad, or so i think.

Also, i didnt know about that resistance, but thats very interesting. Im not sure -rather, im inclined to say no- wether there is or not a higher truth, but from what i know, the search for a universal ruler of sorts was indees mostly prominent in old philosophies, mostly under the name of substance (please, correct me if im wrong) and every so often it ended up involving some sort of god. Now, im an atheist but i still think its noteworthy how prevalent the god figure is in humans.

Tell me more about your toughts on meaning, do you perhaps think that meaning is not truly subjective? Why do you feel that it is or isnt?

Ah, Hispano! qué bien! Habrá que hablar en inglés para entretener a otras audiencias.

Im a little confused. What do you exactly mean by "infinite knowledge"? Do you mean infinite capabilities to understand? Maybe you think all knowledge is simply dormant within us? What about examples of the selfish and violent uses and also, explain what you mean by "only giving credit to artifcial things. Muy interesante si si.

I think its interesting to note how much the lack of a higher meaning has impacted in the world, specially in the youth. What are your toughts on this? Im thinking mostly -due to my environment- that a lot of people began to put pleasure and by extension themselves over other because they had no meaning. I've also tought about how that creates a sort of loop where people dont think because it takes a lot of effort and in our current times pleasure and happiness is so much easier, which distracts people from thinking even more, which in turn makes them more miserable and that makes them want to pursue even more pleasure and so on.

Im eager to hear more ideas though.

Yes! My bad, i meant that the way they produced was flawless; both envisioned societies were extremely "useful" in the frame of society because in both of them, people emphasized a greater good. Brave New World case being the society itself and -as i understand- the party being 1984 case.

Now, i'd also like to push yet another division of usefulness for the sake of argumenting. Toughts on "material" usefulness and "humane usefulness" for current-day living? By this i mean whats strictly necessary and whats useful but not necessary, respectively.

Indeed, why should it?

Or where should it? I've a friend that loves maths and engineering. He told me once something like "Of course i love efficiency! why would you possibly want to be inefficient?" As a context, we were talking about making a spaceship for some videogame, and i suggested he made some decorations for its interior (he literally just made a huge box with wires and called it a day), and he said that it was unnecessary.

Well of course it was unnecessary! At least for it to fly. But for it to be remembered was a whole other thing. Should he have done that? It made me think just how much our conception of "useful" is kind of messed up, and so does the example of the tree. Again, both Huxley and Orwell made utopias that worked almost flwalessly, but that were completly devoid of -oh the subjectivity- of humanity.

This is very interesting. I feel i should also ask, what are your takes on art? is it useful? i mean, it obviusly is to a certain frame but, in what frames exactly? and to which ones would it be worthless?

Also, you can see that the tree is, in fact, useful to the people who are sitting under it, and also to those who admire it, but not to those who want to tear it down. Toughts?

Hello! And thanks. I feel sort of obligated to share more of myself for the purpose of the chat now, so:

Firstly, i think that to consider usefulness is to establish a pre-existing frame of work, so yeah, i do agree that it doesnt really make any sense to speak of "natural usefulness". However, i can also see the frame changing to nature in some other contexts, specially in those that -unlike i do- dont discriminate between the artificial and natural. One could consider them both the same thing but, obviusly, it depends on the ontology that whoever considers any of this may have.

Some religious traditions specify that God or the gods created humanity specifically because they got bored. — T Clark

Funny you should mention this. I partially believe in what i said before about the artificial/natural being more or less two faces of the same coin (a sort of reality coin). I've wonder if we'd really be bored with an infinite cosmos of ifinite possibilities, but with no humans. As i see it, we add a lot of complexity to a deterministic universe, although i can also see the idea that it is not all that deterministic. What im trying to say is that, looking at us humans from a god's POV would be a lot of fun, because we are not only part of an already incredibly complex natural system, but we've created an ever-more-so complex artificial system.

Now onto the stopping part, maybe i should share some context.

Im currently living in a country in which a lot of people love happiness. Now, of course that i am aware of the "dangers" of hedonistic practices and i dont subscribe to the idea that humans should feel happy all the time, or that happiness is the ultimate goal of human doing, so seeing this situation has made me think a lot about wall-e (the movie) and A Brave New World (keep in mind im not only the most cultured human on earth but also the most humble humblemost humbleton) which has led me to a couple of conclusions:

1. Im rather silly
2. Supose that people obtain meaning trough actions like doing something they like, where/when does this action become bothersome rather than meaningful?

I have the present example of switchboard operators. Did they like it? Did any of them consider that meaningful and, thus, "useful" to their existance? Say i loved being a switchboard operator. Would i find it annoying that we have done technology that renders my doings meaningless? Again, this idea comes from the situation we are facing with AI. AI is extremely efficient at making anything you ask it so, if we keep developing it, will the switchboard operator problem happen again? Of course, this is assuming anybody liked being a switchboard operator but, what if? people can be weird, theres always people who only find meaning trough niche or specific tasks. I mean, AI is certainly extremely good at predicting the weather, but i like meteorology and i dont want to be surrounded by Ai that can do it a trillion times better than i do not because i'd lose my job, but because i'd lose something im passionate about, even if i fail, even if im inefficient at it.

Im sorry if any of this is hard to follow but, condensed into a few words: i appreciate inefficacy; i like analogic things like discs and old pianos even if technology can do it better, and i certainly wouldnt change that for a perfect machine that can stimulate my pleasure centers in my brain to make me feel happy all the time, or feel purposeful, or feel anything, or feel that i am listening to a record-player.

And to be clear, im not against AI!!! im mainly worried about its use because, when we can do anything, will we do anything? we already have near all the knowledge in our pockets and yet, again, people around me are all addicted to feeling good; hell, im addicted to a great degree too.

I dont want this to become another AI thread tho, its just an example of how much attention ive seen people give to pleasure over any other activity in my surroundings.