Please tell me what unusual was referring to. — khaled

Outside of human behavioral norms (where those are culturally relative).

Given that we don’t really know what energy IS (only what it does), — Possibility

There's no reason to believe that it's something other than the "doing" you're referring to. But the incoherence of doing sans something doing isn't linguistic, it's ontological.

You can come off a motorbike without breaking your leg — Janus

Yes, but not at the particular velocities etc. in question.

Particular frames or points of reference exist only (predominately) for humans and perhaps (and if so, much more minimally as far as we know) other percipients, do they not? — Janus

Aren't you at all familiar with physics? Frames of reference in physics, for example, aren't referring to percipients. This isn't to suggest that I'm using the term identically to physics usage, but you should be familiar with and able to understand that usage (because it's a pretty basic idea in contemporary physics), which doesn't imply talking about a percipient.

Exactly what I was saying is exactly what I wrote out. Which is why I wrote it out just as I did. If other words would have done the job better, I would have used those other words instead.

I'm not an antinatalist, but I'm criticising your argument against it, which seems to rely on the reductive idea that there is one isolated cause, or perhaps at most a few causes, of any instance of suffering or misfortune, and that we cannot count being born as a cause of suffering. — Janus

First off, it's not an argument against antinatalism. It's simply a disagreement with considering a precondition for x a cause of x. I use "cause" in the way I described. With an important aspect of that being that if c is the cause of F, then c can't occur without F occurring. That criterion isn't met by preconditions, but it is met by some things. It's only the things that meet that criterion that I call "causes."

If all you're saying is that nothing is without relations, or that a thing is nothing over and above its relations, then I agree. — Janus

If that were all I was saying I would have only written that.

See, you were criticizing this kindergarten-level stuff and you're having a problem with it, too.

So first, again, If c is the cause of F, then c can't occur without F occurring.

You can travel to South Africa without breaking your leg, so traveling to South Africa is not the cause of breaking your leg.

One thing you seem to be not recognizing is the fact that people make free-will decisions to do things.

Yes, if you impact you leg with sufficient force to break your leg you will break your leg. Again, that's real intelligent, genius! — Janus

And the cause is the forces that break your leg, which are not identical to your leg breaking.

The cause is not everything that's a precondition for breaking your leg in the circumstance that you broke it. For example, if you break your leg in South Africa, being in South Africa is not a cause of breaking your leg. This should be almost kindergarten-level simple, yet we've seen folks having trouble with it above.

You can do absolutely anything without breaking your leg...except breaking your leg; so according to your argument breaking your leg is the cause of breaking your leg. That's real intelligent! — Janus

If you impact your leg with particular forces, under conditions where your leg isn't in armor, etc., you'd actually not be able to do that without breaking your leg. The cause is the forces that necessarily result in the effect in question.

So suffering is not qualified by "suffering that comes from.creating all harmful experiences for someone else?" — schopenhauer1

Not sure what you're asking there.

Yes, suffering by not using ANOTHER person's life that will cause all other instances of harm for that person, is irrelevant as it is suffering had from not playing with someone else's life. — schopenhauer1

So if suffering is not your trump card, what is?

As for (b): I would say modifying sperm/egg -> human is a problematic unusual modification. — khaled

Then you don't understand what "unusual" is referring to.

Also, you have to be careful to not interpret my ethical views as principle-following. As I mentioned, I'm against that approach.

Frustrated because you aren't doing something that causes a life that contains harm for another person? I am okay, letting that person stay frustrated by not putting another person into that. — schopenhauer1

I'd count it as progress that you apparently no longer think that suffering is a trump card. You're prepared to effectively dismiss some suffering.

I need to run for now too. I'll be back in a bit.

It has to be looked at on a case-by-case basis, really.

Right, so it depends on the health of the child, whether we'd allow infanticide (which I think we should in some cases), etc.

You mean giving birth? Because that definitely wouldn't be the case merely with conception. We can and should allow abortions.

Re giving birth, it depends on the health of the child, whether we'd allow infanticide (which I think we should in some cases), etc.

You don't have to abort it, but if it's not going to survive to a point where it's normally capable of granting or wiithholding consent, then it's not a problem.

Is it or is it not ok to genetically modify a baby so that it is born with 8 broken limbs and suffers severely for the rest of its life? under your ethical system — khaled

As long as it's going to continue to live to a point where it's normally capable of granting or withholding consent, and the limb modification isn't reversible, then yes, I'd not allow that legally.

So, for example, in my view, you could do anything you want to a fetus just in case you're going to abort the fetus.

The point in time at which the issue occurs is after the baby is born with 8 limbs however that doesn't mean genetically modifying it to give it 8 limbs is ok even though the actual problem occurs later. That is because the suffering of having 8 broken limbs is causally pegablle to that genetic alteration. Do we agree? — khaled

It's not just because of that. I didn't type stuff superfluously.

It's also because:

(a) we have an entity that will likely survive as a consent-capable being
(b) we're modifying it unusually, outside of corrective measures for deformities, diseases, etc., in a manner that would linger indefinitely/not be reversible during their consent-capable years.

?? If it's not okay to you, then it's an ethical issue in your view. At any rate, obviously the stance of mine that you quoted doesn't apply to nonexistent entities or to any arbitrary biological matter.

The problem of the suffering baby with 8 broken limbs doesn't arise before sentience either — khaled

Correct. So you agree that it's can not be an issue prior to having a sentient baby.

What? What is "this" — khaled

This=the stance you just uttered.

The problem is if I somehow made the mole sentient — khaled

The problem doesn't arise prior to sentience, though.

You're not limiting this to conscious biological matter, are you?

So in your view, it's a problem to do things to any arbitrary biological matter? For example, if you have a mole that's bothering you, it's an ethical issue to cut it off?

Babies are not inanimate matter.

What metaphysical views of mine would you be referring to?

You're giving inanimate matter — khaled

So in your ethics, it's a problem to do things to inanimate matter?

Yeah, I've got to run, too, but I don't know why you either can't come clean with metaphysical views you have that I don't at all agree with, or otherwise why you can't learn with respect to the ridiculous metaphysics you're (maybe unwittingly?) espousing.

I would say that giving an entity an entire PHYSICAL BODY and SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE out of knowhere without being asked is a pretty unusual modification. — khaled

You're giving an existent entity a physical body?

Right, the antinatalism argument is at the procreation level, and you are arguing from some post-birth perspective about consent. — schopenhauer1

Right, those comments were about the concept of consent, because that's something I'm interested in that we don't talk about in 100 different threads every day. Those comments were not at all about antinatalism per se.

but add to that, one is "damage" from not doing anything TO someone else — schopenhauer1

From conversations with you previously, you count frustrated/unmet desires, especially where that causes emotional distress, as suffering, right?

Otherwise a lot of what you're classifying as suffering for offspring wouldn't count as suffering.

For example, the fact that nothing can be and not be in one and the same way at one and the same time, contra if it were the case that something could be and not be in one and the same way at one and the same time.

What sorts of things are meaningful? How do these things become meaningful? To whom are these things meaningful? — creativesoul

Things aren't literally meaningful. Rather, people think about them in a meaningful way. A person can think about anything in a meaningful way. And they can also refrain from thinking about anything in a meaningful way. It depends on the person and the situation.

As I posted in another recent thread:

Meaning is something mental that we do. Namely, it's the mental process of associative thinking, of thinking about something so that it implies, refers to, connotes, denotes, suggests or "pushes" or "leans towards", etc. other things. It's not possible to perceive this. Even when you observe things like others literally pointing at something, or you read dictionary definitions, you need to think about those things in those associative ways. This is why the paper that a definition is written on, for example, can't do meaning. You can't perceive thinking about something in those associative ways. In fact, you can't literally perceive others thinking period. We rather abductively conclude that others are thinking.

From a "perspectiveless perspective" (which means considered as they are absent being perceived) — Janus

No, it doesn't refer to that. I made this explicit above. I'm using perspective in the sense of relations and properties from a particular point or frame of reference. The idea is that relations/properties are particular and unique from each point/frame of reference, and there's no way to be absent some point/frame of reference, which can include concatenations of points/frames of reference--those are just further frames of reference. It's not saying anything limited to persons, perceptions, etc. It's saying a general truism about ontology, relations, properties, situatedness. The idea has similarities to perspective in visual art.

Irrelevant in the case of the procreational decision — schopenhauer1

But those comments had nothing at all to do with "procreational decisions" and there was never any claim that they did have anything to do with that. That seems to be a reading comprehension issue on your end rather.

There is no damage done to another person by not procreating. — schopenhauer1

This statement is false. The damage doesn't have to be for someone else. The damage is for the person who wants to procreate but doesn't because they're pressured or forced not to.

Most human beings past, future, and present can give consent. — Andrew4Handel

How are past or future humans normally capable of granting or withholding consent?

That’s your interpretation. You’re discounting the person’s perceived experience because it doesn’t fit with your preconceived model. — Noah Te Stroete

How are they perceiving the time that they're experiencing the phenomena, though?

Basically, it's saying, "Okay, this phenomena is occurring. Now, how are we pegging it to a particular time frame?" You claimed that it's happening when there's no perceptible brain activity. How would we know that?