And here is probably the most important takeaway- if existence was satisfying IN AND OF ITSELF there would be no need for need. — schopenhauer1

Existence can be satisfying in and of itself. Very useful information, but the price tag will be it might spoil your Schopenshour hobby. Your call of course.

Looking through the mechanical lens....

We have to eat and drink regularly to survive. We typically don't turn this never ending life long requirement in to a big complex problem. We calmly accept the fact that a price tag for living is eating and drinking, and we do the regular maintenance which is required. Simple.

When we're tired we don't turn this in to a big complex problem, we just get some sleep. Simple.

When we need to go to the bathroom we don't turn this in to a big complex problem, we just go. Simple.

If we look at the mind as just another mechanical process of the body then the same kind of simple direct maintenance solutions present themselves. If we're suffering from doing too much thinking, take a break from thinking, rest, let the thought engine cool off.

Of course this is a temporary solution, and the need for ongoing maintenance remains. So what? How is this any different than all the other routine maintenance which we calmly accept as being necessary?

Well ok, if one wishes to turn this fundamentally simple situation in to a huge complex issue for entertainment purposes there's no law against that. But shouldn't the clear minded honest philosopher disclose that this is what they're doing?

Thank you for the Schopensour summary.

I'm wondering if it's possible to sidestep all this wordy complexity. It seems more useful to me to do something along these lines...

1) Suffering arises from thought itself.

2) Thought is an electro-chemical information medium, a mechanical process of the body like circulating blood, digestion, sex drive etc.

3) Suffering is most efficiently managed by focusing on the mechanical process which is it's source. Suffering is a story, an unpleasant story generated by this mechanical process called thought. To the degree we lower the volume of thought, that which the story is made of, the story and suffering goes away.

As example, say there is an annoying advertisement on the TV. We could yell at the TV, bemoan our fate, analyze the social forces which lead to ads etc etc a process which can continue without end and so on. Or, we could just hit the mute button on the TV, thus sidestepping that whole process.

Change isn’t always comfortable, Jake, but it is inevitable. — praxis

And it is you, fellow members of this thread, and most of the society who are resisting that inevitable change. Most of the culture, led by the cultural elites, is determined to cling blindly to a relationship with knowledge straight out of the 19th century.

This is a philosophy forum. I'm arguing that our philosophy needs to be updated to match the technological environment, that we need to adapt philosophically to the new reality. And the group consensus says, "No, no, no and no, we're intent on staying in the past!".

Thanks for the link unenlightened, very relevant. Near the end of the article it reads....

Finally, what about the nightmare scenario: Is CRISPR so easy to use that we need to worry about biohackers—either accidentally or intentionally—creating dangerous pathogens? Carroll and others think that the danger of putting CRISPR in the hands of the average person is relatively low. “People have imagined scenarios where scientists could use CRISPR to generate a virulent pathogen, ” he says. “How big is the risk? It’s not zero, but it’s fairly small.” Gersbach agrees. “Right now, it’s difficult to imagine how it’d be dangerous in a real way,” he explains, “If you want to do harm, there are much easier and simpler ways than using this highly sophisticated genetic editing technique.”

Please note my bolding of the phrase "right now". Not that I know all that much about CRISPR, but I suspect that statement is probably true. Right now CRISPR is probably more trouble than it's worth for the bad guys to bother with. Right now.

How about twenty years from now? By then CRISPR will probably be obsolete, having been replaced by some other more powerful and accessible technology.

Ok, so the government will pass laws about the use of such technologies. The War On Drugs should give us some insight in to how well that will work. Laws mostly serve the purpose of keeping law abiding people from wandering in to areas that they probably don't want to be in anyway.

As example, if I wanted some heroin I'd have no idea where to buy it, because it's illegal. But millions of people who want to do heroin don't seem to be having much trouble finding it. What limits me is not really the law, but my lack of interest in heroin.

Jake, try to be sensible. You invented a story about my neighbor creating new life forms in his garage and then claimed that it’s not a story you invented. You must realize how ridiculous that sounds. — praxis

Please observe how you're completely ignoring the evidence I offered regarding the history of computing, so you can type the word "ridiculous" again.

Another example. When I first got in to web publishing in 1995 you had to be a kind of NASA scientist power nerd type person to create a website. I could charge people $75 just to upload some images to a web server. These days, your dog can create a web site for free in countless places.

This pattern has been repeated in too many different fields to list. As the technology matures it gets cheaper, easier and more widely available. Why you think the prospect of this happening in the DNA field is ridiculous is beyond me.

But go ahead, type the word ridiculous again Mr. Philosopher. I'd suggest trying all caps, bold and some exclamation points this time, so readers will know you're really trying hard to make a contribution to this subject.

Will Trump go down in history as the most successful troll of all time?

The ameliorative efforts are always an ad hoc effort in Western culture.. try meditating more, simplicity/minimalist movement, mindfulness.. these are all bandaids on a bigger issue. — schopenhauer1

If suffering arises from thought itself, then it seems such schemes would be addressing the heart of the issue. Your, um, thoughts?

We are always lacking, and this is the root of his philosophy, in my opinion. It is what I describe as the "structural suffering" — schopenhauer1

Imho, suffering is built in to the nature of thought, which explains why suffering is a universal property of the human condition, whatever the time and place etc. Does Schopensour have anything to say along those lines?

It hasn’t happened yet but you didn’t invent the story. Truly remarkable nonsense. — praxis

See? This is what you're interested in, squabbling.

To disprove this, start your own thread on these subjects where you attempt to dive deeper in to these topics in a sustained manner.

You’re the one who started with the sci-fi story about my neighbor creating new life forms in his garage — praxis

I didn't invent this story. That's exactly what's going to happen if DNA manipulation continues on it's present course of rapidly getting easier and easier, cheaper and cheaper. It's just like what happened with computers. First they were primitive and expensive and only governments and big corporations had them. And now everybody has a computer or two in their pocket.

I asked you that question to try to get to the bottom line so we wouldn't have to waste even more time on all this endless blah, blah, blah.

But anyway, you're not even interested in the subject. You're just looking for somebody to argue with. I'm sure you'll find some takers, but I'm going to pass.

Neither of us has defined "mystic" — tim wood

To me, mysticism is just a fancy word for experience of the real world. All the other stuff are various explanations of the experience. The experience is real, the explanations are symbolic. It's like the relationship between you and your name, or you and your life story etc.

Mystic experiences can occur in the absence of theology. — praxis

Agreed. Theology and other philosophies whether religious or secular are attempts to explain mystic experience. They aren't in themselves mystic experiences.

Explanations of whatever flavor are an attempt to capture and control the experience. But the experience is a living thing, we can't capture it any more than we can capture the wind. Imagine that we hold a bucket up in the breeze so as to capture the wind. Once the air is contained within the bucket, it's no longer the wind. So it is with all explanations of mystic experience, to capture it is to kill it.

That said, I would agree that one doesn't need to be in total either a mystic or philosopher, one or the other. It's only in the moment that this choice is necessary.

We tell ourselves stories about life? — schopenhauer1

We ourselves, the "me", is a story. So it's more fundamental than me telling myself a story. The story teller is himself a story.

Meaning is a story. My life is meaningful because I'm a good Christian or a brilliant thinker or the best car mechanic in town etc.

Schopenhauer seems to be saying something like these are all just made up stories. Ok, fair enough. But there's no point in leaping from there in to all this endless dreariness. Imho, that's just Schopenhauer expanding his own personal situation and personality in to some kind of universal statement. You know, like me saying life is all about typing because it is for me.

It seems more helpful to work on building a better relationship with our story, whatever it might be. You know, the meaning story in our lives might be thought of as a friend, whom we've learned to not take too seriously.

Knowledge and technology could potentially equip (via biotech enhancement or whatever) our species to be effectively responsible enough to handle dangerous tech. — praxis

Yes, if technology was able to profoundly transform the human condition for the better, that might solve the problem. But who would be designing such a transformation? The imperfect human designers. What the evidence of history shows is that it's most likely the designers would use whatever this mystery power is to their own advantage.

Or, there would be good intentions that would somehow go wrong. You know, that's how we got in to the climate change mess. The industrial revolution was created with good intentions, but without enough information and maturity to anticipate all the consequences.

Whatever Karl means about "science as truth" or humans becoming supernatural, or whatever he means and I doubt he himself knows, that might work too, whatever it is.

As wonderful as all these dreamy notions are, the fact remains is that civilization is racing towards calamity today, and it is imperfect humans who will have to fix it. You guys don't wish to face this, and so you are escaping in to various futuristic fantasies.

I said this...

Human beings typically require a story to live within. Sometimes finding a story we like can be challenging. But then things happen, and life goes on. Until it doesn't. Not so complex after all. — Jake

But you don't like it because it doesn't create a space for you to play the role of profound expert. Ok, you are not obligated to like it, no problem.

The argument from evolution is that life is 'correct to reality' from the atom up, through its DNA, its physiology, its behavior - all crafted by the function or die algorithm of evolution. The implication is that we have to be intellectually correct to reality or be rendered extinct. — karl stone

Yes, so for instance, if the environment changes we have to change too. Or we can ignore the need to change, and die.

Your plan for change appears to be that humans will become Super Rational. But you offer no explanation of how that will happen, and blatantly ignore thousands of years of evidence which points in the opposite direction.

To be intellectually correct to reality we either have to scale ourselves up (become Super Rational!) to meet the new power rich environment created by science, or scale down the powers we give to the quite flawed creatures we actually are.

If you have a plan for how we become Super Rational it might be helpful if you'd like to present it.

Mortgage fossil fuels to the world to monetize without extracting them, and use the money raised to fund fossil fuel infrastructure. What is it about that answer do you not understand? — karl stone

Like I've asked about a dozen times now, how do we mortgage an asset which can't be used in any realistic manner or time frame, and thus has no value? Are you going to lend YOUR money to such a hair brained project? No, you're not. Neither is anybody else.

What is the insight people are supposed to get over time? — schopenhauer1

To take college sophomores with a grain of salt, while remembering we've all been there.

Your focus appears to be skewed to fit your belief that knowledge needs to be regulated and this is an expression of intellectual dishonesty. — praxis

Thank you for characterizing my remarks.

Now, if you don't mind, could you please address the issue of scale. As example, is there not a profound difference between a bomb that blows up a building and a bomb that blows up a city?

The "more is better" paradigm you are defending arose in an era when the powers available to human beings were modest in scale, in comparison to today, and what is coming. That era is over, and my honorable fellow members along with most of the rest of society, are still stuck there philosophically.

If my neighbor could do something that impressive it would mean that biotechnology had advanced to a degree that more things are possible than we could imagine. For example, with that advanced biotech, we might have modified our immune systems to withstand any biohazard that a terrorist could unleash, or that we modified our neurology so that we had less fear and aggression and more cooperativeness so that terrorists would no longer exist, or we might have wiped ourselves out with the tech long before my neighbor could get his grubby little hands on it. — praxis

Or a million things. Or your neighbor might crash the ecosystem before any of that happens. What's your plan, do nothing and wait to see what happens?

You don't even understand your own argument implies there's nothing anyone can do. — karl stone

That's not the case at all. There's nothing stopping us from updating our relationship with knowledge to adapt to the new environment that's been created by science. Well, nothing except grasping that the environment has profoundly changed, thus creating a need to adapt.

But, your point is taken that we're not ready yet to do anything. Reason isn't enough, we're going to need some kind of big crisis to awake us from our philosophical slumbers.

I guess the complexity is in that finding of a story. — macrosoft

Indeed. Some people are good at that, and others not so much, like everything else. Huge brained profound philosopher grand thinker peeps like us often have problems with stories, because we tend to ask too much of them. Simpler folks tend to have simpler stories which are easier to manage.

Okay, Jake, do I want my neighbor to create a life form in his garage that will rapidly decompose plastic into environmentaly beneficial material? Yes. — praxis

Thank you.

I want that too.

And so the next question becomes, are we willing to pay the price tag for what we both want?

If your neighbor can do something that impressive, what could a team of well funded terrorists do with the same technology? If they wipe out the human race or collapse civilization, either with intent or by mistake, do you still care about what's happening with plastic?

The problem we should be focused on is the issue of scale.

WWII is a good example. Conventional explosives, even when used with wild abandon over large areas, just aren't powerful enough to crash civilization. WWII created a huge mess, but a mess that could be cleaned up. But a WWIII with nuclear weapons would likely be a very different story, due to the much larger scale of the technology involved.

So we can chose to embrace DNA technology for the many impressive benefits it will surely bring. But do the benefits really matter if they can all be erased by mistakes and misuse?

The issue of scale. Focus on that. In the past the scale of powers was modest, so problems could be fixed. As the scale of powers grows, sooner or later we hit the "one bad day and it's game over" situation.

Perhaps it is seeing things how they are, but still coping with it. — schopenhauer1

No offense, and this may not apply to you, but the vast majority of Schopenhauer flavored posts on philosophy forums appear to be written by college sophomores living on mom and dad's money while typing their profound insights from a bean bag chair under the impressive beer can wall in their dorm room.

The "way things really are" is that nobody at that age really knows what they're talking about, for very understandable reasons. And it doesn't get a whole lot better as they proceed in to middle age and beyond either.

Human beings typically require a story to live within. Sometimes finding a story we like can be challenging. But then things happen, and life goes on. Until it doesn't. Not so complex after all.

To make it even simpler, let's reflect on a picture of Schopenhauer the man. Is his philosophy working for him?

Not at all. I'm quite happy to discuss what I've actually proposed — karl stone

How are you going to fund what you've actually proposed?

You give sound bite answers to this, while investing post after post after post in expressing how dented your ego feels etc.

Ok, yes, as I suspected. You're not actually interested in the topic, you're interested in debating. You don't want to answer a simple yes or no question about WHAT YOU WANT because you fear that doing so will put you at some debate disadvantage.

Not a crime, but not interesting either.

I don't find Prof. Hawking's pronouncements on the existence of god even remotely compelling. — Bitter Crank

Well, they are interesting to the degree they illustrate a social phenomena. People like Hawkings are obviously very good at science. Some scientists, emphasis on some, make a leap from that fact to the theory that therefore they are experts at thinking, at reason. And from there it's just more leap to the idea that therefore scientists are experts at everything.

We're part of the problem. Scientists deliver goodies that we want, so we tend to treat them like gods. Some scientists, emphasis on some, fall victim to the very human tendency to believe what we want to believe. So if you tell me I'm a god, that sounds good, so about ten minutes later I decide it must be true.

When I explain that's not what I'm saying, you flat out contradict me, insist that what you think I'm saying is what I'm saying, and then repeat yourself. — karl stone

Yes, that's it. I understand what you're saying better than you do. I get that having this revealed to the world in print is annoying to you, and I do regret the dent your ego is experiencing, but again, this is a philosophy forum, and that's what happens in such places.

You want to be an enthusiastic member of a reason religion, but you don't yet quite get how inconvenient reason can be. It's like the religious person who gets all wound up in their faith, before it dawns on them that their faith is going to demand things of them that they aren't ready to do.

Whether reason religion, or regular religion, it's all very exciting and inspiring, if we don't get what the price tag is.

The premise of this thread is - the particular approach I argue is necessary to save the world, and I want to talk about it. — karl stone

And that particular approach is a technical approach. And you chose a technical approach because you see climate change as a technical problem requiring a technical solution.

It's a philosophical problem - i.e. a failure to recognize scientific method as the means to establish valid knowledge of reality. — karl stone

And in order for this failure to be remedied human beings from the broad voting public, in to the political class, and on to the scientists and engineers, will all have to become far more rational than today and buy in to your "science as truth" religion.

You've failed to provide any evidence that such a thing is possible. You're just chanting a dogma, much as a Christian might chant, "when everyone is Christian the world will be saved!" Without evidence to support the notion that such a radical transformation might take place you aren't doing philosophy or reason, you're doing ideology, a kind of "science religion". That is, by your own actions you're illustrating how illusory such a imagined transformation is.

This explains the subsequent misapplication of technology; explains how and why we have created these problems, and why, despite availability of better technologies, we refuse to deploy them. — karl stone

We refuse to deploy your particular technologies because you've not made a convincing credible case that they are at all realistic. Your ponzi scheme-like funding mechanism has no chance of happening, thus this entire thread is irrelevant.

With the exception that you are demonstrating for us why it's reasonable to question the technological fix paradigm. We had various problems, so we invented the industrial revolution, which gave us climate change. If your scheme worked, the economy would take off like a rocket causing us to chew through other finite resources at an ever faster pace, accelerating species extinction etc. Each technological solution generates another, bigger, crisis. The problem gets moved from one box to another, but it never gets solved.

Because it's not at heart a technical problem, no matter how much the technologists want it to be.

I just want to discuss the proposal I started this thread to discuss - something you've refused to do. — karl stone

Whenever I attempt to inspect those specific ideas with specific questions, you find the inspection inconvenient and either ignore the questions completely, or blow them off with a quick sentence. I think it just might be you who is refusing to discuss your ideas.

It's rude and off topic. Crashing into someone else's thread with a vaguely related idea - contrary to the stated aim of the thread, is exactly what I'd call that - and it's exactly what you're doing here. — karl stone

The premise of this thread which does not belong to you is that this is a technical problem requiring a technical solution. You appear to accept this premise as a matter of faith. You appear to be demanding that we do as well. But not all of us are actually members of the science religion. Some of us may decline to accept the premise "this is a technical problem" as a matter of faith. Some of us may wish to challenge that premise.

You want to draw a tight little circle around the subject to confine it to the narrow zone which you personally are comfortable with. Ok, you are free to do that within your own posts. The rest of us are under no obligation to confine our analysis of the situation to the tight little circle which you prefer.

The real world is also under no obligation to accept the boundaries of your tight little circle. In the real world, human beings will implement whatever solutions are chosen, and they will do so in the midst of many competing agendas such as ego, political power, profit etc. All these different realms are connected and will all feed in to whatever the final outcome is. Your tight little circle is a creation of your imagination.

Who says it can never be used? There may come a time in the future when it will be necessary to burn fossil fuels to regulate the climate in the opposite way — karl stone

And you're going to somehow get someone to lend us money using this utterly vague very long term asset as collateral? Is that the plan? Where will you find such investors? Are you going to invest your own personal funds in this project? No way, right?

Beyond that, I don't know what you're asking for. Names and addresses? — karl stone

My wording was insufficient, rhetorical excess, apologies, will try again.

My point was, science is not going to manage technology, because science exists only as a collection of ideas. Human beings are going to manage technology. Thus, you face the burden of explaining how human beings in the real world will acquire the Mr. Spock level of detached objectivity which your "science as truth" plan seems to require.

My argument is that even if we limit the discussion to scientists, ignoring politicians and all other inconvenient people, scientists do not possess this Mr. Spock level of detached objectivity. Instead, like all human beings, their primary interest is in their own situation. They get paid to develop knowledge, and so they understandably reject any notion of limiting knowledge development.

And in the real world, there will be many more humans involved than just the scientists. Technology funding is arises out of a political process which is infected with many competing agendas which have nothing to do with "science as truth". And then there's the public, the source of the funding, who probably wants technology funding to be applied to improving surfboards and ipads.

Welcome to the real world, where the "science as truth" concept which is at the heart of your proposals goes swirling, swirling, swirling down the toilet bowl.

In order for the ideas presented in your opening post to be relevant to the problem you are addressing, all of the above has to be ignored. You want us to ignore it. I chose not to. Get used to it.

There are good reasons for the particular application of technologies I suggested. — karl stone

How do we mortgage an asset which can never be used, and thus has no value?

How do we protect large scale solar array installations on the surface of stormy oceans?

Which specific human beings will save the world by implementing your vision of "science as truth"?

You have either failed or not even tried to get to grips with my ideas. — karl stone

Here's an analogy which may help explain my focus in this thread.

Let's say a religious person starts a thread where they want to debate Bible verse interpretations. To them, the Bible is the word of God so, to them, understanding what the verses mean is very important.

You could join them in debating the real meaning of all the verses in the Bible, a process likely to take the rest of your life. Or, you could efficiently end run around all that unnecessary work by asking them to prove the Bible is the word of God. That is, you could take the focus up a level to the assumption which all of their other arguments are based upon. If they can't defend that foundational assumption, then all arguments derived from that assumption can be set aside.

In this thread you're like the religious person who wants us to limit our focus to the level you're comfortable with. You want us to accept as a matter of faith as you do that technology is the solution, and then discuss/debate your particular technology idea.

I'm not doing that because it's a waste of time, because...

1) Your ideas are poorly conceived and you aren't willing to address specific challenges to those ideas I've repeatedly presented to you.

2) There's no point to examining 10,000 different technological solutions until we first determine if this is at heart actually a technical problem.

Perhaps you are new to philosophy forums, but FYI this is what happens in such places. Somebody presents some idea, and everybody else typically tries to rip it to shreds. Please notice that this very same thing happened in my knowledge thread, and in fact happens in most threads whoever started them. As Harry Truman once sort of said, if you can't stand the heat, perhaps philosophy forums are not the right kind of kitchen for you.

Again, you seem to be suffering from the consistent illusion that this thread belongs to you personally. It actually belongs to the forum owner and his team of mods, who are the sole authority on what is appropriate in any thread. Even your own posts don't belong to you in the sense that the mods can delete them at any time for any reason. So please try to get over the notion that this is your house and you make the rules.

My argument is difficult to understand. It suggests a mistake made 400 years ago, in our relationship to science, has had lasting consequences. It requires bearing in mind a distinction between science as truth, and science merely as a basis for technology. Understanding what I'm saying actually requires doing philosophy - that is, holding a set of premises in mind to compare to the current situation to suggest an alternate rationale and course of action. But you haven't understood, or even remembered those premises. Indeed, it's difficult to believe you even read them. — karl stone

You've repeated this many times. It's nothing more than a vague notion that if we all somehow become rational as defined by you then these problems will all be solved. That might be true, but there is no chance of that actually happening any time soon. This idea is equivalent to the notion that if we all became Christians then the world would be a wonderful place. Maybe that's true too, but it's never going to happen. So let's stop wasting time on such dreaminess.

Understanding all that is necessary to understanding why technology should be applied as directed by science; a principle we can prove by considering the very nature of life — karl stone

As directed by science. Who exactly are you referring to? Science exists only in the mind of human beings, so you need to point us to the specific human beings who will implement this science in the manner which you feel will "save the world". Who are they? What are their names?

What I see are a millions of smart scientists with good intentions who are ardently determined to give humanity more power than we can successfully manage. They aren't evil, they're just dense when it comes to understanding the implications of a "more is better" relationship with knowledge. Technically they are living in the 21st century, philosophically they are stuck in the 19th century.

You keep saying "technology should be applied as directed by science". Science is just a concept, so science will not be directing technology. HUMAN BEINGS will be directing technology. Which human beings are you referring to specifically?

To dismiss my argument again and again as some simplistic 'more is better' approach is insulting — karl stone

I'm dismissing your argument because...

1) It need not be addressed until the philosophical foundation of your arguments is proven to be valid.

2) Your arguments are weak.

3) You don't respond to specific challenges presented to your specific proposals.

4) YOU DON'T OWN THIS THREAD.

Is that a yes or a no?

Do you want your next door neighbor to be able to create new life forms in his garage workshop?

No, you haven't presented an argument for why it's necessary. — praxis

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/3728/the-knowledge-explosion

Of course. It's just the idea of regulating power and information sounds so, well, absurd. — praxis

It sounds absurd, until we understand what the alternative is. Do you want your next door neighbor to be able to buy a kit on Amazon which allows him to create new life forms which he then releases in to the environment to see what will happen? If not, then we have to somehow regulate power and information, right?

For one thing, the regulator would be the super elite, possessing all the power and information. — praxis

Elected governments already restrict our access to some power and information, and we typically don't object. Please note that I'm not arguing that shifting away from the outdated "more is better" relationship with knowledge will be easy. I'm just arguing it's necessary, like it or not.

But I'm interested in Jake's plan. I assume he's thought this all out. — praxis

If you are interested, you won't wait for me to think it through for you. If you are interested, you'll start thinking it through yourself, and perhaps will share what insights you develop with us in one of these threads.

:up: :up: :up:

Here's photographic proof that the SS storm trooper mods are massing for another assault on incoherent lazy posts! Run everyone, run!!

Bearing in mind such issues as transmission loss over long distances, I would suggest that solar panels floating on the surface of the ocean, could produce electricity - used to power desalination and electrolysis, producing fresh water and hydrogen fuel at sea, collected by ship. — karl stone

How do we sustain vast solar panel arrays on the ocean, given that oceans routinely experience storms, and sometimes those storms are very powerful?