Comments

  • The Future Of Fantasy
    How would you what the real world is like when you don't or possibly can't distinguish between the two?TheMadFool

    Alright, then forget about the word 'real'. What is 'really real' doesn't matter one iota unless you want metaphysical certainty, i.e. knowlegde for knowlegde sake. For practical purposes it's enough that a simulated world that we create is different from the one we might be living in, because there we are not the creators and we can't re-create it to align perfectly with our wishes... and that difference does matter, to us as human beings.
  • The Future Of Fantasy


    Meh, if it's a simulated world already, it's certainly not one I can easily change with my ideas alone, unlike say Virtual Reality... it's functionally the same as a real world, which is what really matters it seems to me.
  • The Future Of Fantasy
    The philosophical question might be, what are the implications of finally getting what one really wants? Is that a utopia, or the beginning of the end?Jake

    Good question, I've been thinking along the same lines... that 'idealism' could finally become the case afterall. We can't be certain of what's going to happen of course, but the idea that we possibly won't have to adjust our wishes to an external world, seem more like the beginning of the end to me... for homo sapiens anyway. Being forced to adapt and adjust your wishes to an external world, seems to be something of vital importance for the devellopment of a healthy human being.

    We've got a long way to go before we can match those science fiction visions, but we are moving steadily in that direction.Jake

    Have you tried the most recent VR-technology allready? Like for instance the one you can get standard on a playstation now... We're not that far off it seems to me. This kind of VR will be massive in the not to distant future, mark my words, not in the least because of its possible applications in the porn industry.
  • Very Sunny Uplands!
    I basically agree with the opening post.

    People generally think of 'the laws' that govern human societies and behavior as if these are things that can just be altered at a moments notice, unlike the laws of nature... I don't think this is justified.

    Drastic measures would need to be taken to prevent the worst temperature rises, measures that would harm societies in other ways. That is something very few politicians will have the courage for in democratic societies... and that is if we assume they have the power to take these measures to begin with, which they don't. Because in the end it's a world problem, and there is no 'we' or 'us', just a bunch of competing nations at best.

    If we look at the track record of democratic governments solving problems proactively, which is needed to solve this kind of long term problem, then one can only conclude that it's not looking very good. For instance, look at how governments have dealt with saving up to finance for baby-boomers leaving the job-market. It's doesn't get any easier and more certain qua prediction than a demographic pyramid, and there have been times with a lot of financial possibilities.... yet here we are, scrambling to find solutions for the problem.

    There is plenty of evidence that suggests that democratic governments are typically very bad at solving long term problems. This is not despairing, nor helping to close the window, this is just being honest about the chances... which is what philosophers and scientists should do in the first place it seems to me. Yes, hope and believing that we can solve the problem are necessary to actually solve the problem, because that's what motivates people into action. But that is not the philosopher or the scientist job, he should look clearly at what is... that is untainted by the 'holy lies' designed to achieve what should be.
  • How to Save the World!


    Sorry for not responding earlier, it's been a busy few days...

    No, you're right. The system I describe has all the thermodynamic efficiency of a steam train. There's an energy loss with conversion from electricity to hydrogen fuel, and from hydrogen fuel back into electrical energy - that's not dissimilar to the heat loss from the fire box and boiler of a steam locomotive. However, it's a clean process, and the sun is blazing down upon millions of square miles of ocean anyway. Capturing that sunlight and turning it into fuel made from seawater - effectively negates that thermodynamic inefficiency, like we'd still be using steam trains if we had an infinite amount of coal that didn't harm the environment.karl stone

    Well, arguably, given that applying this technology is premised upon accepting a scientific understanding of reality as authoritative - it follows that the market would put the science before the profit motive. I entirely accept there are experts who know better than me, and while I'd argue for my technological solution relative to others, there are other technologies - and the best scientific and technological advice to the market might not be my advice, in which case - listen to them.karl stone

    I certainly agree that from a scientific point of view it would be preferable to choose the cleaner and renewable energy over the cheapest energy. But I have my doubts that markets would put the science above the profit motive. They typically don't make any value judgements aside from the profit motive, right. Because that's what the stockholders want, more return on investment. And you get more profit when you sell more products or services. So the consumer decides in the end, and he typically will favor the cheaper products and services.

    I don't see that dynamic changing any time soon, but one of three things could happen that will make renewable energy more viable economically : 1) the consumer will start to value 'clean and renewable' more as the situation gets more dire 2) governments start imposing more pollution taxes which drives up the price of the old energy sources, and 3) renewable energy becomes cheaper and cheaper in comparison, as technology advances and old energy sources get more expensive because of depletion.

    The financial cost of building a nuclear power station is not the point. Climate change is the point. Nuclear power produces carbon free electricity, however, because construction requires as much as half the energy it will ever produce - it is only half as carbon neutral as it appears, and that's without taking into account the carbon costs of looking after the nuclear waste forever afterward.karl stone

    Right, though there are only carbon costs if we assume that the energy used for construction or looking after the nuclear waste is itself carbon energy? Or am I missing something?
  • How to Save the World!
    I suggest we can mortgage fossil fuels while still in the ground, and use that money to apply sustainable energy technology. I also suggest floating solar panels at the equator, producing hydrogen fuel - did you read the OP? Solar panels would not provide electricity directly. Hydrogen fuel would be burnt in power stations, and electricity transmitted through existing grids. Thus, nighttime etc isn't an issue.karl stone

    Yeah my bad, I read the hydrogen part, but didn't think about it writing my post. It was more an example of the type of questions I would have.

    I guess the main issue then might be the cost and efficiency of producing hydrogen. I allways hear that it's not particulary energy efficient, but i'm no expert so...

    The mortgages and the hydrogen production are two seperate things it seems to me, as mortgages can be used to finance whatever renewable energy source. And the market would presumably favor the one that cost the least.

    Oh super - you had a thought. I've been thinking about this for many, many years, but you think your off the cuff impressions are more likely to be true? Not! Did you know for example, that a nuclear power station requires about half the energy it will ever produce in the construction phase alone - and that's to say nothing of the carbon cost of managing nuclear waste forever afterward?karl stone

    Though I don't claim to be an expert, I did know that the construction costs were high, and I also know that the production cost itself of nuclear energy are very low. My point was only that the discussion seems more ideological than rational concerning nuclear energy, and that if needed, we should choose nuclear power rather then let CO2 levels rise... until we figure out how to run everything on renewables. But maybe we can allready.
  • How to Save the World!
    Also i think we should look into the technological possibility of building a sun shield... it seems very probable by now that stopping CO2 emissions won't work, so we better start looking at some other technological solutions to keep temperatures acceptable.
  • How to Save the World!


    It's hard to critique the idea, because we would need a lot of numbers and technical details to be able to evaluate it. I mean, i like the idea in theory, but have no idea how feasable it is economically and politically.

    How much would the proces cost, say compared to more conventional means of producing energy? What about night and winter times, is battery technology sufficient to suppliment times when solar energy is low?

    And how do you solve the political issues? Often times people just ignore those, because well unlike the laws of nature, people can just adapt their behaviour, and therefor should... but it never really happens that way. So what about countries that don't have access to the oceans, or that are situated in areas where there is not a lot of reliable solar energy? Do you think it reasonable to expect countries to just get allong, and give away energy to those that need it?

    I think we should go nuclear again, and geothermal. Nuclear can be a temporary solution, not indiffinately ofcourse, but right now CO2 is a far bigger problem then nuclear waste. And maybe in the future we will find better ways of exploiting earth warmth, which is reliable and as good as infinite.

    In practice, a mix of all possible low carbon energy sources will probably be needed though.
  • How do you feel about religion?
    No. The real philosopher studies facts in their right relation. There have been good religious philosophers in the past and the basic tenets of the major religions are good philosophical teachings. Right perspective is a philosopher's greatest tool.BrianW

    No they are not good philosophical teachings, with the possible exception maybe of Buddhism, they are revelation. Good philosophy starts with accurate description, not with proscription.

    Those who seek fault find fault. If we judge the law according to miscreant law breakers or religion by the ignorant adherents, all we'll get will be flaws. Let's judge Christianity according to Jesus Christ, Islam according to Prophet Muhammad, Buddhism -> Gautama Buddha, Hinduism -> Lord Krishna, etc.BrianW

    Yeah sure let's not judge Christianity by how it's been practiced the last 2 millenia. Never mind that the church itself has never followed the teachings of Jesus Christ, but was build on some corrupted version by Paul.
  • How do you feel about religion?
    Yes, it is reasonable. The limiting factor would be practical experience. While every circumstance is open to any number of possible considerations, there is a convergence to our shared perception and utility. There are certain specific contexts which prevent situations from being amorphous.BrianW

    I very much agree with this, I feel one should start from what one knows and can know, and not from what one can't know. And how do Gods fare with practical experience as a limiting factor?

    I agree. Personally, I'm not a fan of religion. I wish people used reason to justify their beliefs or, at the least, to determine their conduct within those beliefs. But, I must also concede that things won't necessarily happen the way I want them to, especially if they involve other people. I may not care for religion but I must regard those who do with the due consideration.BrianW

    The aim of religion is to anchor traditional morality, to keep people from questioning that morality... Thou shall not eat the fruit from the tree of knowlegde of good and evil!

    And that morality is used to keep people in line, which from the perspective of the rulers is very usefull.

    But if your aim is questioning and knowledge, then that is contrary to the aims of religion. The real philosopher is the archenemy of priests and theologians.
  • How do you feel about religion?
    Can a law e.g., of cause and effect, apply to the whole of the universe without applying to each relative circumstance? Why not a deity/deities, if such exist?

    My point is, not knowing cannot be used to validate any possibility and, no matter how scientific the approach, it still remains unknown.
    BrianW

    Perspective is relative, so is our understanding of simplicity. Hence, the many varied choices we make. It all depends on our abilities/capacities.

    But then any regular everyday event can be explained in a million different ways if complexity is not a limiting factor and all metaphysical unverifiable possibilities are up for consideration. Is that reasonable?

    Faith, Belief, Intuition, etc., are applicable to human experience because they are based on more than reason, perhaps will. We face the unknown, not because we understand it, but because we are determined to rise to the challenge. Religion is specifically directed towards instigating certain reactions in humans and among aspects like emotion, thought, intuition, will, etc., reason is not the greater cause, as proven by past human experience. Infact, the success of religion to achieve its aims may be proof of its reasonable-ness, though this is just personal opinion regardless of the probability we may assign to its practical utility.BrianW

    Yes, i'm not saying we should allways use reason or that reason is more important then the rest of our abilities, but the question was, "is it reasonable"... so I answered with that in mind.

    And sure religion has been effective in achieving certain aims, the more salient question maybe is what aims, and are these also my or your aims?
  • Philosophy and Psychology
    I seems to me you are starting from a faulty premise concerning Nietzsche's work :

    Nietsche, in many of his writings, presents argumentation criticizing synthetic a priori iudgments yet maintaining their undeniability.Blue Lux

    ... yet maintaining their indispensability.

    They are not undeniable, nor true... but necessary for a human being. In that aphorism he's taking a stab at Kant's explanation for how synthetic judgements a priori are possible. He says Kant's explanation comes down to 'by means of a means', which is no explanation at all. So the conclusion is, they are in fact not possible, we have no right to them... but we do still need them. This has nothing to do with truth really, but more with his general thesis that what ultimately matters is what is life-affirming, not necessarily what is true.
  • How do you feel about religion?
    2.) Is it reasonable/unreasonable to believe or disbelieve in deity/deities? - No. The common reference to deistic belief is based on choice, not logic. And if logic were to be the basis, there is still the problem of ignorance or lack of facts. However, there is no sanction against the use of reason to justify, to a relative capacity, the basis of such belief/disbelief.BrianW

    I think it's not unreasonable to believe in 'a deity' in itself, because that is indeed a question of choice in a matter that can't really be verified one way or the other.

    I do think that it's somewhat unreasonable to believe in one or more of the specific gods put forward by the major existing religions... and especially in the whole moral system that is typically based that deity. In light of current scientific insight on the vastness of the universe, it would seem kind of strange that a deity who is the creator of all that is, would occupy itself with regulating the minutia of the behaviour of a species on one the many many planets.

    Furthermore, now that we understand human beings a little better, there are perfectly reasonable human all to human explanations for why we would want to believe in God and have moral systems based on that. Ockam's razor would suggest, if we have a choice in explanations, we should choose the more simple explanation. And the more simple explanation to me seems the one that doesn't require supernatural entities.

    Finally there also is something fundamentally un-reasonable about the methodology of religion and the morals it proscribes. In essence it's based on revelation and faith with the 'word of God' being the final word, and not on experience and reason.

    4.) Should we accept all beliefs? - Yes, but only if those beliefs do not contribute to harm of self or others. Every human has a right to their own beliefs.

    This is a difficult one, and depends on what you mean by 'accept'. And it also depends on what you mean by 'harm'.

    It seems obvious to me that people can believe what they want, I don't think anyone has a business with what other people believe, because mere belief itself doesn't effect other people. And it impossible anyway to check the beliefs of other people to some standard of belief, even if we would want to. So in that sense I agree that we should accept all beliefs... but this is maybe a bit of a trivial point.

    Problems only arise when people act on their beliefs. And here I think most Western societies are somewhat inconsistent, in that they usually subscribe to an array of different fundamental principles that are not allways compatible with eachother. For instance we have a secular state with a system of law of it's own, the principles of equality and non-discrimination... but also freedom of religion. Here, it don't think we should accept people acting on their religious beliefs if they are incompatible with the principles of a secular state.
  • There is No Secular Basis for Morality


    Ram, you are misrepresenting my position. Without God, it's hard to see how you could get objective morality I said... not morality altogether. I think non-objective morality is based on a social contract (on agreement or convention), as did Nietzsche. I said this a couple of times already, but you didn't respond to that part.

    And as other probably allready said, Nietzsche also wasn't a nihilist. He warned about nihilism in the West-European tradition because people still adhered to Christian morality, eventhough they didn't believe in its cornerstone God anymore...
  • Nine nails in the coffin of Presentism


    Sorry I don't understand what you mean? Please explain 'time emerges with the characteristics required by Presentism or Eternalism'.
  • Nine nails in the coffin of Presentism
    But time is fundamental to the universe - the speed of light (speed=distance/time) speed limit is a fundamental law that governs everything in the universe. The law applies whether change or no so time is fundamental to the fabric of the universe.Devans99

    It's fundamental to our descriptions of the universe maybe, but I don't see why the law couldn't be reformulated in terms of change. Maybe there is allways change, even in 'empty' space, which doesn't seem to be at odds with current understanding of quantum fluctuations in empty space.
  • Nine nails in the coffin of Presentism
    There are probably different versions of presentism, but I don't think presentism necessarily entails eternal beings and some of the implications you seem to think it has.

    I think it's just the view that time does not exist as a seperate metaphysical dimension, but is merely a usefull fiction that measures change.

    Clocks measure change.

    It doesn't make sense to speak of 'eternal' and 'for ever' in any real sense if time does not exists.

    The best argument for it is, I think, that we do not observe time itself, we only observe change. So you have to make an extra metaphysical assumption if you want to believe that time exists as a real dimension.

    And finally, I don't think it's necessarily depressing if time would not exist, in fact the idea that all moments in time allready exist simultaniously, which some say is an implication of relativity, seems far more depressing to me.
  • The Mother of All Dilemmas


    Alright, I read through the whole post again, and I find myself agreeing pretty much with the other posters again.

    Your first post gives an example of adjusting ranges as you think a couple levels deeper. And the range for the furthest level you give, is closer to GTO. That's no proof though that level infinity or equilibrium equals GTO. I mean, maybe it's an indication at best.

    And even if it were, what's the point you are trying to make? What should poker players do with this information? It just seems like a mere theoretical issue.

    You then say that switching to GTO at some point, causes a psychological issue that prevents you from going back to your regular level thinking. This seems like an empirical question and could be tested. But then you would have to provide evidence for that (i.e. a significant number of observations that a lot of players fall prey to this), which you haven't done as far as I can tell.

    I'll leave it at that...
  • There is No Secular Basis for Morality


    Good argument Moliere, I can't think of a clear reason why it wouldn't apply to theists also.

    I'll check out the reference.
  • There is No Secular Basis for Morality


    Maybe, though it would seem a bit of a strange atheist to me... rejecting revelation and being sceptic on the one hand, and having a sort of faith on the other.

    And how does he deal with the naturalistic fallacy... even if we are evolved to behave a certain way, does that necessarily mean we should? I mean should we start living in tribes again for instance?
  • There is No Secular Basis for Morality


    That's probably true, but they all can believe their particular version comes from God, making is justified objectively in their view.
  • There is No Secular Basis for Morality


    You do make a good point... still the word of god is a little bit more detailed, even if not enough, then innate moral feelings.
  • There is No Secular Basis for Morality


    Yeah but such a teleological element doesn't inform us about the details like say the word of God does.

    I also believe that we are not blank slates, and that there is some telos to human beings, but it's not detailed enough for an applicable moral code. We do have innate moral feeling etc... but we can take those in different directions when it comes to the details, it seems to me.
  • There is No Secular Basis for Morality


    If you believe in God there can be... it brings a teleological element into the picture.
  • There is No Secular Basis for Morality
    With all due respect for my fellow atheists here, I don't think you are helping the argument.

    Moral realism, innate morality etc... is no real justification for morality. All i have to say to you is, like he's been saying all along, I feel/think differently, and we are back at moral relativism. Why should I put my moral beliefs aside for yours?

    There is no objective morality without god, you're trying to have your cake and eat it too.
  • There is No Secular Basis for Morality


    And to answer more generally, as to the basis of non-objective morality, you just have think of sports, any sport will do. People invent the rules, yet everybody playing the sport follows them. That's because a system of enforcement and arbitration is put into place. People follow the rules ultimately because they will be punished/penalized otherwise.

    The same basicly holds for secular morality.
  • There is No Secular Basis for Morality
    At the time the Quran was revealed, it was a common practice that people would bury their infant daughters. The Quran forbade this. If the majority thinks it's okay to bury your infant daughter, is it wrong to tell people not to bury their infant daughters? — Ram

    From an atheistic perspective, I wouldn't say it's wrong to tell people not to bury their infant daughters, it would just not be a moral rule if the majority disagreed... and people would ignore it.

    Of course some people will have more (moral) influence (and power) then others, and may change peoples minds on that issue. Like Jesus or Mohammed did, from a atheist perspective that is.
  • There is No Secular Basis for Morality


    You still haven't answer my suggestion that convention or agreement in a given group is the basis for a non-objective morality. It isn't necessary that everybody literally agrees with it, it's enough that most do, tacit or explict, or that this happens via representation...

    To take your example, it doesn't matter that the Columbine Shooters personally believed that what they did was not immoral. They would be put into jail anyway, not because God ordained it, but because (the large majority of) people collectively agree on the rule that murder is wrong.
  • Euthyphro and moral agency
    I voted for the second option, morality is acting according to G.

    And while G here is some God, since i'm an atheist I believe this is just a stand-in for the more general notion of convention. Morality is the mores or customs of a people, be it theistically based or not.

    Regarding the torquemada problem, I don't really believe in metaphysical free will, and so agency will be limited. It's limited by our biology, and more importantly here, also limited by our upbringing.

    So I think 'moral intuïtions' arent' really so free as would have to be supposed by the first senario (G acts according to morality, where morality is something independant) or the torquemada problem. 'Moral intuïtions' are also shaped by our upbringing and the culture we live in. There's no standing outside of this... unless maybe in the case of the philospher (achetype Socrates) who examines his (moral) assumptions over the course of his live by a proces of dialectics.
  • The Mother of All Dilemmas
    The "art" of poker relies on the fact that so many people stupidly study the game and all get marched down the same set of teaching and thus all end up with playing styles which are predictable.

    Only a fool would go into a poker game using any kind of pattern or ruleset for their moves.
    At the most crass end of this spectrum I just shove all in every hand, what you do is of no consequence.
    If you fold I get the blinds, if you play then luck determines the outcome.
    Pilgrim

    I think you are missing the most basic premise of playing good poker. It's not about a single hand or a couple of hands, it's about getting the most EV out of all of your different hands (good and bad) over a large number of hands played... it's statistical. And you do that, in the first place, by getting your money in with good hands and folding with bad hands... that is the opposite of randomness.

    If you shove in with every hand, all I have to do is call with a range that beats 'the range of all hands' and fold with hands that don't beat that range, and I will profit over the long run. That has nothing to do with luck or randomness. Individual hands may be subject to luck, but not the long run. If I consistently get more money in with better odds (which i do by getting in with the right adjusted ranges) that will translate into profit.
  • The Mother of All Dilemmas
    Thus the only real way to approach the game is to act purely randomly so that the opponent has no information about how they play. No ranges, no rules, no conditions for raising or folding. Just outright random behaviour.

    Ultimately this turns the game into one of pure luck.
    Pilgrim

    This is just wrong. Information has some value of course, but in the end it doesn't matter how much information you have, a pair will still lose to three of a kind.

    Certain hands have more value than others, the lack of information given by playing randomly will never make up for the difference in value between hands.
  • The Mother of All Dilemmas
    They said pretty clearly about 100 times that; "GTO has nothing to do with thoughts". "You cant reach GTO using thoughts alone". "You need math to find GTO".

    I'm saying that both, using the math, and, using these Levels, leads you to the same set of moves. The same strategy. GTO.
    Yadoula

    Yes, you just keep asserting this, but where is your argument, reasoning or proof for it?

    I don't think it leads to the same strategy.

    GTO is a strategy that gives you the most expected value against a wide range of hands opponents could play. This will give you, I presume, steady value but not the most value. The unthinking aspect of GTO is that you don't really have to pay attention and think about how your opponent might adapt and change his ranges.

    A good poker player will get better results by finding weakness and exploiting opponents on the fly. This requires attention and thinking about how opponents adapt etc... I guess this is what they mean by GTO requires no thought.
  • The Mother of All Dilemmas
    They say that GTO is a complex mathematical equation and can not be calculated using the mind without using some complex math.

    I can prove they are wrong very easily, this is rediculous, but I just get blocked and banned from their sites. They mock me and then quickly silence me.
    Yadoula

    That's not what they said though.

    They said GTO is a mathematical equation by which the optimal range can be calculated as a counter to a given opponents range.

    And Level thinking is level thinking, where you can put opponents on a range depending on the level they are thinking at, and adjust your range accordingly. And so theoretically you could get to level infinity this way...

    The question, as I understand it, is why would GTO be the same as level infinity? It seems to be two different things, which you are mixing together for no apparent reason.
  • A Fantasy Dream World.


    Yes LCD, mushrooms or even alcohol could probably induce such states.
  • A Fantasy Dream World.


    Well I would say that the shifting towards another dream is maybe the result of derealisation, but not the derealisation itself. Derealisation is more the temporary absence of the dream, a kind of madness or drunkeness where one doesn't stay very long usually... but it can maybe give some insights so that the following dream has shifted yes.
  • A Fantasy Dream World.
    What do you mean by that? I'm not understanding your stipulative definition of 'de-realization'.Posty McPostface

    Yeah, I can see how that can be confusing, I was using different definitions of reality along side eachother.

    If the 'normal everyday reality' of human experience is living in this symobolic order (the fictions we create as a society) and the particular roles we play in in relation to that order, then this 'normal everyday reality' is more akin to a dream.

    De-realisation then would be falling out of that dream, or the unravelling of that 'fictitious' symbolic order... as opposed to how you used it in your post, as a turning away from reality towards a dream (where dream and reality are opposed).

    I'm basicly using Nietzsches Apollonian-Dionysian distinction here, where Apollo stands for order, individuation and the dream, and Dionysus for ecstacy, madness and a more primordial oneness.

    To make this somewhat more concrete, you could maybe think of the appolonian as people going through a fixed routine everyday, to their jobs and back to home, where everybody has a particular fixed role in hierarchies. And the dionysian as people going to a summer festival, where they get drunk, listen to music and go up in the crowd... and let go of the usual societal bounderies.
  • The Mother of All Dilemmas
    You could start by adressing Pokerguy's concerns :

    What you have described is how we change our range based on what we know villain knows we know and so on. You can continue that I know you know I know thing infinitely. And then at some point, maybe you will reach "equilibrium" where both guys play only AA or something like that. But designing ranges can be done with math. GTO is a mathematical concept, as I explained before. We can take villain's range and find a mathematically perfect way to react to that. GTO has nothing to do with how we think or how villain thinks. So, you can't say that different thought processes ultimately lead to GTO. — Pokerguy

    Why is Game Theory Optimum, level Infinity? I also see no reason for this, you do seem to be mixing up categories without a clear reason.

    We all already know these things. "What I did was arrange all Poker theory into the Levels of Thought. And it works perfectly." That is like putting a solid block of iron to a fish soup and saying it is tasty. You have just mixed up concepts that everyone already knows and described them in an incredibly complex way. It adds no value to us. — Pokerguy

    Ideas have instrumental value for those guys, it is supposed to help them playing the game better (and win more money). If you come up with something that doesn't build on the tradition that has stood up to the test of time and worked for them, or just formulate it in a more complex way, I can understand that they are not willing to consider it further.
  • A Fantasy Dream World.
    What is reality for a human anyway, would be the first question.

    Aren't the societies we are allways in the business of creating reliant on fictions and ideals we collectively believe in... and so dream-like in nature.

    And are the roles we play in those societies not more akin to that of actors on one big stage? I mean, if people would say to the slacker 'get real' or something along those lines, doesn't this mean that he needs to start working the social hierarchy, building a reputation and things like that. What is important is how people come to view us, that is the thing that has (monetary) value in the end, not the way we 'really' are.

    'De-realisation', I would content, is actually the opposite of turning away from reality... it's the unravelling of this dream-like apollonian structure in ones mind. If you want to experience that, I'd recomment getting drunk for a couple of days straight, and just walk arround a city observing people and things.

    So translated to millennials, the critique then maybe is not that they are escaping reality, but more that they don't buy into the collective dream of previous generations, and are creating dreams of their own. And doing so, they actually are also 'real-ising' their own dreams. Just look at how big the gaming industry, E-sports etc have become... and how much money can be earned there. And what other then money would be the ultimate fiction as a measure of realness ;-)?
  • There is No Secular Basis for Morality
    Non-objective morality is no morality. It translates to "I can do whatever I want". — Ram

    No it doesn't. Morality doesn't have to be objective, it never has been objective, the basis for non-objective morality is agreement. You will be excluded from the group, or worse, like put into jail if it's against the law also.
  • There is No Secular Basis for Morality
    Bit of a troll post, but sure I'll bite, there is no objective morality. And inventing a basis doesn't make it any more objective.

    So where does that leave us? That people will have different opinions on morals, and that we need to find ways to agree on certain moral rules as a community, so we can get along.

    But theists will presumably have a problem with this because they know objective morality, and so that is above any agreement on the matter. (This isn't the case by the way if you know a bit about Christian history and how much popes have changed 'objective morality' over the years.)

    You probably think this is a good argument, but from the perspective of an atheist its actually the opposite, because you deny anyone to have a different opinion then the subjective one you have... and refuse to enter into dialogue about what we can agree on as a community.

ChatteringMonkey

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