Comments

  • Solving the problem of evil
    An interesting idea, but I still think it misses the crux of "The problem of Evil".

    The problem of evil is not really about God, its a lesson about defining terms without thinking through them fully. If you define any of the omni terms as "Being able to do anything without limits, even the impossible", then an omniscient, omnipowerful, and omnibenevolent being would be able to do anything, even contradictions.

    So let us run with this logic. If God can do anything, is infinitely good, and we consider good experiences to be being able to live healthy, and happy lives while learning and becoming good ourselves, then we run into contradictions.

    If God can basically do anything, then we can learn and experience all good without experiencing any suffering. You see, if we "needed" to experience suffering to learn, that would be a limitation on Gods power. But a God who can do anything, even contradictions, doesn't "need" to do anything.

    If we look at the present situation of humanity, there is obviously suffering, crippling experiences, horrifying genetic abnormalities, and senseless and wasteful death.

    Therefore we cannot conclude that God can do literally anything, and be perfectly good. It just doesn't work. There are two conclusions we can make from this.

    1. God does not exist.
    2. Our definition of "omni's" being "Can do literally anything, even contradictions" are poor, and we need to revise what they mean.

    In my opinion, the first conclusion is a lazy way of dismissing the conversation, which only causes people to try to "solve" the problem of evil instead of concluding the more logical conclusion of point two. If you can conclude omni as being, "The greatest possible X that can be", then you have:

    omnipotent: "The most powerful a being can be."
    omniscient: "The most knowledgeable and aware a being can be."
    omnibenevolent: "The most good a being can be."

    Basically, God might be the best in what is possible, but God is limited by what is possible. If you think about this for a while, this should be satisfactory to you. If God is possible, then God must exist in the realm of possibility, not impossibility.

    This also solves the problem of evil. We can merely conclude that if there is evil in the world, it is because of God's limitations. This also fits in with the idea that God wants humans to make certain choices, improve themselves, learn, and cause actions which further good in the world. This also seems to fit in with your OP in a certain sense. The existence of evil does not necessitate God is unjust or punishing the innocent.

    Of course, this does not prove that God is actually omni-anything, that we're innocent OR guilty, or that God even exists. These are further puzzles to think about. But if you understand that the problem of evil is merely a lesson in not defining words in such a way that they cause contradictions, you can solve the problem of evil and move onto other ideas.
  • The Philosophy of Hope
    What if the best thing realistically possible for you is not the best thing realistically possible for another?

    The problem is you have to show why point 4 has merit.
  • A possible compromise on perpetual economic growth
    If you view the "economy" as money, then yes, we run into issues. If you view the economy as, "The creation of new ways to make life easier, more engaging, and furthering human capabilities," I think very few people would have an issue with this.
  • Is Universal Perfection realistically possible?
    What is perfection? What is perfect for one individual would be hell for another. Example: Sports all day, all the time.
  • We are all in agreement; disagreement is simply our inability or unwillingness to see that
    I disagree, because there are some very fundamental disagreements based on very real physical differences.

    A psychopath who cannot feel empathy, cannot be in agreement with someone who does.

    A person who is missing a hand, cannot be in agreement with the viewpoint of someone who has two hands.

    I could see what you are saying if we were all physically identical, but had different experiences. At that point, if we all saw each others experiences, we would all be in agreement.

    But the fact that we're all physically different means we will have fundamental experiences we cannot share with another human being. Their experiences will fall on our deaf ears, because we do not have ears to hear. As such, there will be things we will never agree on.
  • Is intelligent life in the universe a mistake?
    I would argue that the self-disruption of our planet and our environment is a lack of intelligence and foresight. It is the primal and animalistic parts of our brains that lead us to do very unintelligent things. Intelligence isn't just about being able to do something, its also about foreseeing the consequences, and wondering whether you should.
  • Nothing is intrinsically morally wrong
    Excellent! Which means it is not morally wrong if I treat your statement as if it is morally wrong. The problem is, your statement cannot support itself with its own claims.

    If all claims are equally valid, then all claims are also equally invalid, including yours. At that point, its just whoever desires something more strongly and capably, which is more about power than the concept of morality.
  • Understanding the notion of doing "good" in society
    What you may not be considering is the scarcity of resources.

    When resources are plentiful, it is good to spend them to help people. When they are scarce, spending them is not seen as "good".

    An example is triage. Lets say that 3 people are wounded, and if not treated will die. There is a young person, a middle aged person, and an old person. To simplify, they all need the exact same treatment, nothing more.

    If you only have enough resources to treat 2 people, most people understand it would be good to treat the young one and the middle aged one, and let the older person die. However, if you have the resources for all 3, and do not expect to need any more resources or find more injured in the near future, it is good to treat all three, and considered wrong not to treat the elderly.

    Essentially, the wealth of a society is marked by how it treats its "lesser valued" citizens. In a society that deplores their poor, you find a poor society. In a society that assists and helps its poor, you find the wealthiest nations on Earth.
  • Theories of consciousness and personal identity
    Depends on what you mean by "persistent self"? If you mean an unchanging being, that was disproved the first time it was uttered centuries ago.

    The classic dilemma is "Theseus Ship" for example. What the example shows is that definitions of identity are malleable based on their convenience and useful to us through personal, or societal use. It may be very convenient for me to identify the "original" ship as Theseus ship, but to what scale? To the exact time and atomic position at the time of purchase? Definitions of rigidity and inconvenience are often useless in application.

    Consciousness can best be though of as "metathought". Basically your brain is divided into several functioning components, and consciousness is the key "regulator" of certain parts of your brain. As your brain changes, you will too. As the currently present regulator, you are also able to abstract "yourself". Even if the regulator of 14 years ago was different, it too abstracted "yourself", and in some bits and pieces, you may have some memory of this.

    As long as change happens as a slow enough rate, people are usually content to call it the "same thing" in some respects. If a rapid change occurs, or people haven't seen your gradual change, that is when people say, "They aren't the same person they used to be" Something to chew on.
  • About the existence of a thing.
    This depends on your definition of a "thing". If you want, you can define a thing to be a moment of time. One second? Nano second? What scale? A definition is only useful, as long as it can be accurately, and conveniently, applied to reality. Such a definition of existence fails as a tool, and is useless in application.