2. All morality is an attempt to answer the question, "What best serves human flourishing?" What kinds of rules can we come up with that will help us to all get along and prosper? — Thomas Quine

Is someone obligated to prosper? No.

Is someone obligated to not cause unnecessary harm? Most likely yes.

That is why prosperity seems to not be related to morality. Rather, it is more related to folk-wisdom for what one should strive for. Even that is ill-defined and breaks down when looking at individuals. For example, in an ideal world, let's say, no one has to do any activity they didn't like. But this is not the real world. So, we must do the least worst thing we would like. What happens if even the least worst thing is incomparably not the ideal? So now it is just dealing with the least worst outcome. But what if there are many barriers? So now we are dealing with getting rid of the barriers that lead to the least worst outcome, and so on and so on. Why put more people in the world to deal with situations of removing barriers to the least worst outcome in the first place?

So using fertilization treatment to relieve the suffering of being unable to have children is permissible in your view? — Pinprick

Sorry, I should say, if one can prevent ALL pain for another person when one is able to, that is the correct action.

Otherwise, of course not to your example. If coming into existence brings about all possibilities of future harm for someone else, and fertilization treatment brings this outcome for someone else into fruition, then no.

I want to get paid well so that I can attract and provide for some girl I’ll fall in love with, as well as to be able to provide for the kids I would want us to have. In other words, I want to make money as to not be lonely. I suppose my sense of loneliness manifests in an urge for romantic love. — MadWorld1

Perhaps by having children you would be continuing the chain of suffering and causing others to deal with the same existential problems. The best way to prevent suffering is to simply not have people that can experience it.

Don't know much about negative ethics, but at first glance it appears to be more of a thought experiment than a moral system that any culture has embraced. — Thomas Quine

It just means, either preventing a negative or not violating a right. So preventing harm to others or not unnecessarily forcing things upon others.

There is a reason most people think suicide is immoral: our DNA tells us we should be instead trying to survive and flourish. — Thomas Quine

This sounds like an appeal to nature fallacy. For example, aggression is also a part of most human experience. It doesn't mean it is always called for. Humans tend to like feeling good.

It may be wise to maximize happiness in the long-run by downplaying short-term gains and emphasizing things that will build over time. However, this tendency to like happiness, and this folk-wisdom to try to maximize long-term gains does not necessarily amount to a morality, or how to treat other people in theory or in practice. Rather, it is just a sort of hypothetical imperative, that may be prudent.

I ask, "What do all these have in common?" My answer is, they all are detrimental to human flourishing. Who am I to say? How do I know this? I consult the evidence from the available science. — Thomas Quine

Again, this can be attributed to violating a negative ethics of non-harm and non-force. Flourishing is only a secondary hypothetical imperative. IF you want long-run happiness THEN there might be some well-trodden ideas about how to gain this. It is not guaranteed, and it often relies on contingencies of various kinds (e.g. personality types, surrounding circumstances), but it can be construed as practical truisms that can be practiced. This (long-run gains) should not be misconstrued as a morality though.

Yep, it's problematic. — Banno

I'm not sure if you agree or not with the objection that it leads to a rule-based system.

My other main point was not only does it lead to a rule-based system, it is violating negative ethical principles possibly to do so (e.g. it is okay to harm or force others for X positive value-goal).

And better to be, to choose, to grow, than never to have been. — Banno

I don't see that as objectively true statement. There is no justification that people need to be born in order to grown. It actually (like any positive principle) becomes its own circular absurdity. People need to be born so growth can take place. Why? Because, because growth needs to take place damn it!! Just makes little sense other than what I stated earlier- once born, it is a good idea to maximize positive feelings in the long-run but has no strong obligation attached to it.

Indeed. You were expecting it to be easy? — Banno

No applied ethics is when ethics is tested, in a way. But, I am just saying virtues in themselves mean very little, and what ends up happening is a hierarchy which then actually leads to a "rule", the very kind it seems which you are against. One person's courage is another's foolhardiness. But even more complicated is that one can be courageous yet by doing so, be intemperate or unkind, or cause pain to others, where does that fit in? Maybe causing the harm to others, is only the perception of the other person who thinks this to be unkind, but is not. Maybe they are not judging it correctly, etc. etc. and on it goes.

In any case, since you want everyone dead, what is it to you? The dead cannot act virtuously; even less, those who never exist. — Banno

Not being born and everyone dead are two different things. You can conflate them for rhetoric sake if you want, but doesn't change that.

But anyways, this statement would be a straw man or red herring as, I don't think ethics entails virtue or any positive ethics as I explained above to Thomas Quine.

Muddled. Virtue ethics is about growth, becoming; encouraging courage, temperance, liberality, generosity, patience, kindness. — Banno

The problem with this is one person's virtue is another's immoral act sometimes. I see this with things like "courage".

I think causing unnecessary suffering is not in the best interests of human flourishing, but I am quite comfortable with causing justifiable harm to those who are responsible for actions which are destructive to the project of human flourishing. Otherwise there would be no such thing as a just war, or killing in self-defense, or locking up serial rapists, and so on. — Thomas Quine

So there is some complexity here. Let me explain:
1. In the case of procreation, you would not only be preventing all harm, you would be preventing all harmful people, or the need to protect others from harmful people. Simple point, I know, but true.

2. There is another principle that is a part of the negative ethics I mentioned earlier, besides not causing unnecessary harm, and that is the non-force principle. Do not violate a fully autonomous person's life or property unnecessarily or unprovoked. When doing so, the 1st principle of non-harm is abrogated. They may be inversely tied. Force is granted, when harm is in play. Force is not granted otherwise.

2a. By forcing a child into the world, you would not only be violating the non-harm principle, you would be violating the non-force principle as well, doubly making this a bad idea.

As to your own idea of human flourishing, it is a positive ethics in the sense that it is trying to promote a positive rather than prevent a negative. However, I don't see any moral impetus towards positive ethics other than an after-the-fact heuristic for society. In other words, if you were to tell me that you would like to force autonomous humans to flourish, and possibly harm them at various instances along the way to achieve this, then no, this ethic is flawed. It is using people for a cause, unjustifiably. Only negative ethics respects the dignity of the person, and their autonomy. Any X goal (like flourishing) is a secondary value that people may try to take upon themselves once born, but there is no strong "should" other than it is probably a good idea to do things which promote positive feelings in the long run and perhaps there is some methodology that might bring this about. This is not a moral obligation though.

All of which is to argue once again that the grounding of morality is not something we get from God or make up out of our own imaginations, but is grounded in the instinctual desire to flourish. And the reason we have disagreements about what is moral and what is not is that our flexible brains come up with different solutions to the problem. All I am saying is whatever the solutions offered, they are all propositions for solving the same problem... — Thomas Quine

Morals need not be grounded in a desire to flourish. In a negative rights or negative utilitarian approach one can say that it is a simply a desire not to cause unnecessary harm for others. This might lead (as I think it does) to conclusions of antinatalism. That is to say, to prevent the maximum amount of harm to someone else, prevent their birth. I see the prevention of harm as more important than causing flourishing to take place. No negative consequences ensue if no one is born to flourish. All negative consequences ensue if someone is born and (inevitably) is harmed or suffers.

You can put up a better rebuttal than this...
Not getting to cause other people's pain because one wants children, is not a good argument to go ahead and proceed causing others pain.

If one can prevent pain for another person when one is able to, that is the correct action.

If i get pleasure from an action that directly causes a lifetime of known and unknown forms of suffering for another, that should be questioned at best.

Yes, that is the correct answer to that rebuttal, JacobPhilosophy.

Three things being born has that makes it a detriment for the person being born:
1) The child now has to "deal with" life. Putting someone in a position to deal with survival, finding comfort (and navigating social, political, economic challenges) is not an ethical position, in my opinion. It is "throwing" someone into a game of challenges, that did not need to be played in the first place, but cannot be stopped, lest brutal harm to oneself via suicide.

2) There is a component of necessary suffering in all life, especially human life. We are dissatisfied much of the time, as shown by our own wants and desires. They are representative of things we do not currently have now. We constantly are becoming but rarely ever being. This goes into principles similar to Eastern philosophy and Buddhism, but are certainly touched upon in ancient Greek sources, and of course Schopenhauer describes this principle (which he calls Will) at length.

3) There is an obvious component of contingent suffering. People are born into different causal circumstances, different personality types, different brain chemistrys, different family circumstances. Someone can be a complete insomniac, have physical or mental disorder, have a shitty job, have an accident, have no job, live in a garbage heap, etc. etc. The billions of contingent negative circumstances anyone might find themselves in, in terms of their own causal life-story is endless. Positive psychology, and the hope for change to something better does not prevent contingent harm from befalling, and it often simply feeds back to point 1 ("dealing with"). So there is the initial negative circumstance, and the dealing with the challenges to get out of it, and then calling this "good" and "right" for the person to endure. I believe this to be the equivalent of philosophical gaslighting. Blame the victim for not liking life's circumstances and telling them, that this is the way things are. No they don't have to be anything. People don't have to be born in the first place. Nothing (no thing) ever suffers nor cares about not experiencing the good. That's only a worry for the already born (already too late).

And no, the logic that there needs to be someone around for suffering to matter is false. That would be like saying that in a world with no torture, having no torture doesn't matter because no one is experiencing it. You don't bring about torture in order for it to be prevented. Rather, if there was no torture to begin with, that in itself is good and better than having to prevent torture that already exists.

that is you want philosophers to be able to answering the question by changing the subject. — Banno

Not changing the subject. Changing the parameters for which something can be answered.
Example:
Person 1: X problem can only be answered using 1, 2, 3 types of solution.
Person 2: But if you look at X problem, it can be answered using I, II, III types of solutions as well.

That's not changing the subject. That's changing the types of answers that can solve the problem, which is essentially what new applications and constructions of logic, ethical reasoning, metaphysics,and epistemology does.

...just opening up new ways of thinking about your question rather than providing a definitive solution to a problem. — Banno

Ok, so you are demonstrating a poor example of what I am talking about and that is demonstrating what?

Special pleading. — Banno

Explain please.

Here's a thing; if a question is not just unanswered, but unanswerable, it is not rational to make up an answer anyway. — Banno

A lot of philosophy might be about opening up new ways of thinking about something rather than as a definitive solution to a problem. That means that what you might construe as an "answer" is actually just a call for a different way to look at the problem itself.

For example, in ethics, there may not be a definitive answer to something. However, you have plenty of ways to look at the problem.

However, you should try to disprove it nonetheless to avoid confirmation bias. — Benkei

Agreed.. Nothing should just be taken as "proven" because there is no evidence on the other side.

Interesting article from April in The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/

Here is an interesting part to keep in mind:

The Chinese government, meanwhile, has put a total lockdown on information related to the virus origins. Beijing has yet to provide U.S. experts with samples of the novel coronavirus collected from the earliest cases. The Shanghai lab that published the novel coronavirus genome on Jan. 11 was quickly shut down by authorities for “rectification.” Several of the doctors and journalists who reported on the spread early on have disappeared.

On Feb. 14, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for a new biosecurity law to be accelerated. On Wednesday, CNN reported the Chinese government has placed severe restrictions requiring approval before any research institution publishes anything on the origin of the novel coronavirus.

The origin story is not just about blame. It’s crucial to understanding how the novel coronavirus pandemic started because that informs how to prevent the next one. The Chinese government must be transparent and answer the questions about the Wuhan labs because they are vital to our scientific understanding of the virus, said Xiao. — https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/14/state-department-cables-warned-safety-issues-wuhan-lab-studying-bat-coronaviruses/

We were talking about evidence all the time since that's what I replied to (the idea of circumstantial evidence being available). If you want to talk probabilities this is a different discussion altogether. Like the example of the used car salesman, the other victims make the likelihood of intent much higher in your particular case. But it's still not evidence though. — Benkei

Circumstantial evidence is not strong evidence, but it is still in the category of "evidence" that can participate in the "facts of the case" (such as a insurance payout for a fire participating to establish motive for setting the fire; if there was no evidence of an insurance payout, it becomes much more difficult to argue there was motivation to achieve such thing). — boethius

What he said. I'm just saying we can't discount it, and I also provided an article with good questions to ask, from a reputable science magazine. Here are the questions in that article, that they thought the WHO should be investigating pertaining to the lab:

What experiments with bat coronaviruses took place at WIV? This is the mother of all questions for those who suspect SARS-CoV-2 came out of the facility. Accidental releases do happen, and one even triggered a pandemic: An influenza strain that surfaced in 1977 was linked to strains in Russian labs collected 2 decades earlier. Is it possible that somebody at WIV became infected with the virus and then passed it on to others outside the lab? It’s unknown which bat viruses WIV has in its collection of samples and whether any of them infect humans. And a controversy surrounds the closest bat virus to SARS-CoV-2, which is called RaTG13. As Shi and co-workers reported, they only fully sequenced this virus after SARS-CoV-2 surfaced and they looked through their database for potential relatives. (The group often sequences only one small region of bat coronaviruses genomes that mutates infrequently, so changes indicate distinct viruses.) A great deal of speculation has circled around the naming of the partial sequence: Shi’s group earlier had reported a virus named BtCoV/4991 that exactly matches RaTG13 in that small region, but are they one and the same? Or could it be, as some assert, that BtCoV/4991 is SARS-CoV-2 itself? What other bat coronaviruses has the lab yet to fully sequence? Could any of them offer clues?

Another outstanding question is whether Shi’s team or other researchers in Wuhan manipulated bat viruses in “gain-of-function” experiments that can make a virus more transmissible between humans. In 2015, Shi co-authored a paper that made a chimeric SARS virus by combining one from bats with a strain that had been adapted to mice. But that work was done at the University of North Carolina, not in Wuhan, and in collaboration with Ralph Baric. Did Shi’s group later carry out other gain-of-function studies in Wuhan—and if so, what did they find?

Finally, diplomatic cables from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing in 2018 warned that a new, ultra-high security lab at WIV had “a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators.” Did Shi’s team ever work with coronaviruses in that lab, and, if so, why? — https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/who-led-mission-may-investigate-pandemic-s-origin-here-are-key-questions-ask

Here the "evidence" doesn't even rise to that level. Even if every lab in the past had leaked a virus at some point in time then you still have exactly 0 evidence for it having happened this time. — Benkei

So now we are speaking a bit different languages. I am speaking in likelihoods and you are speaking of direct evidence. I am saying that there is a higher likelihood based on circumstances of the case, not that there is right now any direct evidence.

Let me be clear.. I am not saying that I definitely think it was from the lab. It could be the case that this is from crossover somewhere else. However, the right questions have to be asked and investigated. To do a fair investigation, all the evidence has to be available. I honestly don't know how much cooperation is happening, but I do no know that WHO investigators are supposed to go to China to investigate origins. Are they going to be impartial? Are they going to get as much evidence as they can for every avenue of possibility?

Here is a helpful set of questions that the WHO should probably be asking.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/07/who-led-mission-may-investigate-pandemic-s-origin-here-are-key-questions-ask

The fact this lab had measures in place to avoid this and live markets don't, the likelihood of it starting in the latter is many times higher. — Benkei

So you hang your hat on that argument. It could be a coincidence that the virus started in a the wet market in the same city as a virus lab studying the virus. I agree. Or it could have been a coronavirus that leaked from the virus lab studying this virus. There are many other wet markets. But it coincidentally started from this one. Also, the first known case cannot be traced back to the wet market itself.

The coincidence makes it more than tangentially related. Your binary argument revolves around this one idea of lab leaks being less likely than wet market outbreaks.

And yes, viruses can be escaped.. Decontamination failures, logistical failures, equipment failures, human error, or any number of things. It's happened before. It just depends how deadly the virus is and how immediate the response for the consequence. It's happened enough to not rule it out.

The Chinese government also responded with extreme suppression of information. Yes, the Chinese government doesn't like any bad news. Any country wouldn't want the bad press. Obviously, the government's policy is hide misshaps, whether from nature or human. But it seems to me there would be more at stake here that would cause intentional delaying.. more than if this was a virus in a remote province wet market or other area where this might have taken place.

The missing evidence that you seem to be alluding to is some sort of strain that is closer to the pandemic strain that the lab has. This may be found out eventually.. But things can also be hidden, etc. Why aren't people allowed directly in the lab? There are certain things that one can explain away.. but if you do that enough times, you are now actively trying to discount the theory rather than weighing all possibilities.

None of this has to do with supporting a political position either. Dr. Trummpypants doesn't know what the fuck he is talking about almost all the time.. Every once in a while he'll mistakenly say something partially correct based probably on some passing briefings that where he remembered some tidbit without the full understanding of the nuance.. So I am not trying to put some weird Trump spin on this, or right-wing, or whatever. So we must look at the nuances of the possibilities and not at how it is associated with political propaganda.

The virus was not engineered. This possibility was explicitly debunked by the science.

That certainly leaves the possibility it might have accidentally come from the lab but lets look at the possibilities here.

1. It escaped a lab that has at least some measures in place to avoid the escape and spread of a virus.
2. It spread at one of those live markets, which have been considered a brewery for new viruses for years, which markets have exactly 0 measures in place to avoid this.
3. The PRC did it on purpose for vague and uncertain politics goals in exchange for predictable economic damage.

I'll give 1 a .9% chance, 2 a 99% chance and the last .1%. — Benkei

This is an arbitrary weighting of the system. My guess is there are other wet markets in China and the world. This one happened to have a virus lab studying coronavirus in it :chin:. I'd up the percentage on 2. I do agree that 3 is much less likely and more along the lines of the crazy conspiracy theories.

I think lab leaks happen more often than we think. It just hasn't had this bad a consequence until now, if it is the case that it escaped from a lab.

Again, it could be that the virus adapted in the lab under its own evolutionary conditions. Either way, many powers that be, may not like this scenario and would not want this to be well-known. Certainly, there is strong incentives to cover-up any association of the lab with the virus.

See article Wuhan lab had three live bat coronaviruses, but none matched COVID-19 — ssu

SSU, c'mon though.. So one quote from someone at the lab saying "“In fact, like everyone else, we didn’t even know the virus existed,” she said. “How could it have leaked from our lab when we never had it?” Magically puts the issue at rest? Case over.. One research lead strenuously denies ever working with the virus and that puts the issue to rest?

Also, as I stated, it may have been a virus that evolved at the lab (not intentional), and got out. Though that might be harder to prove. Also, what animals are they working with in the lab? Will investigators get to see this? What things might be missing to indicate any connection?

What has been largely dismissed is various claims of genetic "proof" that the virus was engineered by gene splicing. I believe there was some Indian studies, or just one study, that sparked off these claims.

More famously, there's a French researcher, Luc Montagnier, accredited with discovering HIV causing AIDS, who claims the corona virus is for certain has a genetic splice of HIV, that it can't be natural. In the same interview, he makes the bizarre followup claims, to paraphrase, "that because it's unnatural, it is not in harmony with nature and thus will evolve away and be gone [by about nowish]" as well as an unrelated claim about his current research into the potential for electromagnetic waves to cure viral diseases. The interview is available here; this was right-wing super-juice as it both simultaneously supports the Wuhan lab origin hypothesis, China's attacked the US if you want to spin things that way, and supports the notion that the threat of the virus is completely overblown as it's not "natural" (supporting, as a subpoint, that the hubris of such scientists is ultimately futile against the power of God's maintained natural balance which is also why climate change isn't a threat) and so is already gone by nowish, and it's clams by a Nobel prize winner so "lefty-facty" people are hypocrites for not believing it wholesale. Unfortunately, the liberal media is so science illiterate and simply corrupt that this sort of highly dubious claims from someone already approved by the establishment cannot be dealt with.

Picking apart the claims is a pretty simple task.

Luc Montagnier supports the HIV engineered hypothesis based on the mathematical permutations required to create the same gene. Even assuming the gene is the same as HIV and a the mathematical permutations requires astronomical (i.e. even if the premises are correct, which I'm not sure about but don't need to bother to even check) the conclusions doesn't follow since viruses do not all evolve independently but share genetic information between them all the time. Someone infected with HIV, or an animal with a related virus, then infected with the coronavirus could pass the HIV gene to coronavius. Indeed, if the gene in question is what makes coronavirus so effective (the motivation for engineering into the virus in the first place) then it also has an advantage in transferring around in natural hosts as it provides the new virus with an immense advantage.

In other words, this "Nobel Prize" winner doesn't understand the basics of his own domain of expertise.

The even more bizarre claim that the virus is "non-harmonious" and therefore will just go away, doesn't even have a plausible mechanism, as the viral replication lines (chains of replication from one cell to another, one host to another) are happening all over the globe and at very different rates or replication, and there is simply no mechanism available to coordinate all these viral lineages to somehow peter-out.

His current research on radiation curing viral diseases is far fetched enough that a credible person realizes some basic proof of concept is required to entertain the idea; such as breaking apart suspended virus particles with EM frequencies (at energy levels well below what would just ionize or then cook the whole body). I.e. a credible person would preamble with such research, or then focus on these steps of proof of concept that could eventually lead to therapeutic application down the road. Presented as he does, it simply sounds completely delusional, and that he is engaged in some macabre program of trial and error of microwaving lot's of mice (and to the small mind of the bureaucrat, if a Nobel Prize winner wants to microwave some mice, it's not like anyone's proved otherwise; if we can broadcast television, why not health?). — boethius

Yes all this stuff you mention sounds like bullshit, and I was not referring to this, or any similar-dubious claim, so this is kind of a non-sequitor to my claim, though interesting to learn the nutty theories out there. What this does prove is that, the nutty theories will detract from legitimate, more logical straightforward ones surrounding lab leaks and at least a likelihood of it given the evidence (location of origin, P4 lab, gain of function research being a real thing, governments being embarrassed or hurt by something like this, etc.).

However, as ↪schopenhauer1, points out, there's no way to rule out a lab origin, either by accident or on purpose, and any credible analysis must admit that if the premises are true, the conclusion still maybe true; and even if the conclusion isn't true, it doesn't rule out other bio-engineering techniques; therefore, it's better to ignore the issue altogether, and fuel claims of a conspiracy to suppress these sorts of claims (which, to be clear, there is a conspiracy between corporate media owners and executives to shape public discourse, and spinning a lack of evidence of one claim as positive proof of the opposing claim, that also lacks evidence, is a manifestation of this conspiracy to shape public discourse; there is only, ironically, a much stronger conspiracy in right wing media to shape right-wing discourse to be so far removed from reality, for instance repeating the idea that they are the real intellectuals and the more liberal media the real conspiracy funded by Soros and run by cultural Marxists et. al., that public discourse more generally is not even possible). — boethius

Yes, this is what I was getting at above to your other section.. The discourse has drowned out sound evidence.. Because of nutballs on the right creating a political spin, it is "right-wing". And then left-wing amplifies this notion making it moot when in fact, it has more than enough circumstantial evidence to be a real possibility. It needs to be divorced from the political discourse though, especially about "nefarious" intentions, bioweapons, etc. Rather, this looks like a case of what is more common- a lab leak. It is also probably a real possibility it was known and is (or trying to be) covered up due to various political, economic, scientific embarrassment, fallout, etc..

I added a bit more there.

Just wondering, how so? Why? I know I've seen that in reports, but even if it was a natural adaptation in lab, why wouldn't one look at the possibility that it may have escaped from a lab that was actually studying the disease located in the city of its origin? That seems suspect. These type of lab leaks happen more than people think. Its just never been this worldwide a consequence.

Here's a decent article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01541-z

Now, again, speculative, but if the main way this virus transmits so easily is the furin cleavage site, that could be one of two things.
1) It is known in nature as a way a virus can spread more easily as an adaptation.
2) If it has been known in nature to spread the virus more easily, it would also be something that can be manipulated to make the virus transmit more easily in humans for gain of function research.

I don't see how 1 would necessarily prevent 2's possibility. In fact, it might even make more sense for 2. Sure, 1 can imply that this happens in nature. But to then say, "So this rules out a lab" would be false logic. And in fact, can be countered as a reason, the lab would favor this mutation.

Also, it is still very suspect that the origin seems to be in a city with a P4 laboratory that itself studies coronaviruses. Why should that be taken as "just" a coincidence? Odd.

Just because there is no direct letter from someone from the lab, or whatnot also does not rule out that it didn't come from the lab. Direct evidence from actual lab members can be suppressed or any direct evidence hidden. It is especially interesting that China does not want inspectors in the lab. But I don't think it is unusual, even in Western countries to get nervous about questions related to highly infectious deadly viruses. These labs are in many countries, with many types of similar research. But, certainly politically, economically, etc. there would be incentive to suppress this. However, China itself would be able to more than other countries, suppress the press, investigations, and evidence in this case. So there is even more ability to hide I would think in a country with so little transparency anyways. However, my point is that you can even take China's specific ability to hide information more easily out of the equation, and there would still be obvious reasons to suppress this that any country might take to not inform the public perhaps.

Now, it may be there was no gain of function research. Perhaps the virus naturally adapted in the lab. That can happen, even while studying it. Or it could have infected a host from the lab and evolved in that host and spread.

I'm just saying because there's not something like a lab worker's suicide note that he mistakenly let out a virus or something, does not mean that this discredits the theory. There is a lot of circumstantial evidence that indeed can point to a lab leak.

I'm also not saying that it cannot be a natural occurrence, but certainly I don't think evidence has ruled out the idea of a lab, actually studying similar viruses could be the origin of this particular one.

I haven't been keeping up with this thread, but has anyone discussed the possibility that the virus leaked from the Wuhan lab? That could be either from a mutation that happened in the lab (naturally), a mutation that happened from a human host who got it in the lab (naturally) or from "gain of function" research (done purposefully to enhance the transmissability of the virus for research purposes).

You live "beyond the human mind's constructs of the world". You are always, already, embedded in the world. Stop pretending you need an explanation before you engage. — Banno

Being already embedded, and recognizing that being embedded doesn't mean the universe is only how a human is embedded. There can be relations of things beyond how we construct the world. That is all that is required. There is are relations of objects or processes beyond the human-to-object relation.

I thus said it pretty much:
Correlationism is the idea that you cannot get beyond the human mind's constructs of the world

the idea according to which we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other."[7] Philosophies of access are any of those philosophies which privilege the human being over other entities. Both ideas represent forms of anthropocentrism.

I explained it myself here:

The minute you find "evidence" of folk not making stuff up, the stuff becomes part of the correlation circle of epistemology, not ontology. Any answer thus evinced through something akin to scientific data, would be just the human-to-object relation. — schopenhauer1

That part is nothing to do with metaphysics, just pointing to the circularity of correlationism and the ontological reification of human experience as "experience" projected to the universe. — schopenhauer1

Don't take your point of view as THE point of view of the universe. By expecting an explanation of consciousness that comports to something like a human (e.g. scientific) point of view, would be barking up the wrong tree, as that is still part of the human-to-object way of relating to the world. It doesn't break that correlation of human mind/world.

That quote is appalling. At least I put some effort into my "smarmy quips". — Banno

Why is the quote appalling? Again, dodge-quip.

Yep, folk make stuff up. — Banno

No, again you're letting your smarmy quips block actual understanding.

The minute you find "evidence" of folk not making stuff up, the stuff becomes part of the correlation circle of epistemology, not ontology. Any answer thus evinced through something akin to scientific data, would be just the human-to-object relation. Again, read the quote again, this time carefully:

Because object-oriented ontology is the realist philosophy, it stands in contradistinction to the anti-realist trajectory of correlationism, which restricts philosophical understanding to the correlation of being with thought by disavowing any reality external to this correlation as inaccessible, and, in this way, fails to escape the ontological reification of human experience. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_ontology

That part is nothing to do with metaphysics, just pointing to the circularity of correlationism and the ontological reification of human experience as "experience" projected to the universe.

The notion of a reality-in-itself as ineffable is something that philosophers of a certain ilk will talk about ad nauseam, and apparently without seeing the irony. — Banno

I never said ineffable. Just not the animal/human perception of it.

If it's ineffable, don't try to "eff" it.

That is, don't pretend to use it in your metaphysics. — Banno

I was discussing Speculative Realism with @fdrake. One of the things that makes it different I guess is that they are willing to make speculative metaphysical theories. There are some interesting ones like here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_ontology

The main step that speculative realism wants to get rid of is Kantian Correlationsism. Oddly, for disliking Kant, you seem to be steeped in that thinking in this thread at least.

Related to 'anthropocentrism', object-oriented thinkers reject correlationism, which the French philosopher Quentin Meillassoux defines as "the idea according to which we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other".[12] Because object-oriented ontology is the realist philosophy, it stands in contradistinction to the anti-realist trajectory of correlationism, which restricts philosophical understanding to the correlation of being with thought by disavowing any reality external to this correlation as inaccessible, and, in this way, fails to escape the ontological reification of human experience.[13] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_ontology

There is also Quentin Meillasoux's idea of hyper-chaos:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Meillassoux

There is also good old process philosophy by people like Whitehead and the likes.

All of them are willing to look at the world beyond human perceptions into the things themselves. However, the point is you don't have to commit to one version of this, but just be open that there might be a version.

Stoopid question #1. — Banno

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Contextomy

I've long argued that the distinction is misleading. — Banno

Not really. Body- neural pathways, chemicals, molecules, cells, etc. Mind- seeing, hearing, sensing a food particle (if you're something like a fish), fear, fleeing from pain, finding something funny, etc.

I'm not sure what the word "perception" is doing there. It's unclear what you are claiming, so I'm not sure if I agree, disagree, or defer. — Banno

It's the view without an animal observer. What is reality in itself? You think the persistent image of what you experience? That's naive realism at its finest. Poor naive orangutan Banno.

It's just Spike Milligan, Lewis Carrol, Edward Lear, are better at nonsense than Kant or your namesake. :razz: — Banno

But yet you failed to acknowledge what I said:
a) Presumably you are not a mind/body dualist, and thus emergentism fails to satisfy the anti-dualist (physical stuff here, then physical and mental stuff there).
b) Objects relate to each other in some way that isn't Banno's perceptions of how other objects relate to each other.

If you don't acknowledge that and go straight to naysaying and poo pooing.. that's just dodging the argument with I'm just going to call it something like "fallacy of incredulousness"..aka Banno's gorilla picture in the dictionary next to...

Metaphysics is where you make stuff up because you don't know what's going on. It's not compulsory. One can simply admit to not knowing. — Banno

Well, it's obvious we don't know. Nothing wrong with speculative metaphysics. You think you Kant do it, and rely on Witt to get you out of thinking about it :razz:.

It sorta goes with the OP. — Banno

I see what you mean..
You seem to have a very narrow definition of consciousness.

Presumably you are not an advocate of mind/body dualism.
Emergentism almost always resorts to a (hidden) dualism. Whether weak emergence or strong emergence. There was physical stuff and now there is physical and mental stuff.

Sophisticated forms of panpscyhism aren't saying "matter = consciousness". Most would qualify their panpsycism as describing some sort of relational process between the simples/objects.
This simply bypasses the dualism by attributing the epistemology to a metaphysics. That's why words such as "proto-experientialism" are used.

You are still thinking of objects as things that are perceived by humans. But if objects have relational qualities with other objects, then there is a springboard for more complex relationships to form. The key here is the relationships are their own relationship, not the relationship, you the Banno observer have given it by your own relationship with the object. There are many levels of object-to-object relationship on their own terms, that are nothing to do with the human-to-object terms.

The problem I see with anti-pan-experientialist advocates is that they are looking at the human-to-object terms as if that is the relationships other objects have with each other. They are using their own epistemology to project a metaphysics.

I sorta goes with the OP. — Banno

Don't know what that means. The OP was a poll.

Except that rocks are not conscious. — Banno

But objects have relations to other objects. What is the nature of these relations?
Ironically, by viewing it as if it is an "object that a human perceives", then you are already making this a human epistemological phenomena rather than something happening in itself. The objects relate to others on their own terms, not in the human perception of it.
Notice I said nothing about consciousness here. Nor did I earlier. You asserted that.

We don't know. Nevertheless, that is the thesis. — Banno

Agreed. Thus my original claim:

The "jump" to the next level is the magical part. So take your pick, the magic of emergence or the magic of proto-experiential processes. — schopenhauer1

Well, no, it produces the observer. That's rather the point. — Banno

The simples make arrangements. How does the observer come out of the arranging of simples?

That is the very thing to be explained in emergentism.