There is no 'tree' outside my house prior to me defining it. There is an entirely seamless continuum of atoms. I decide that some of them together are a 'tree'. — Isaac

Yes, but your decision did not impact the atoms in any way. That’s what I’m saying. Disagreements about concepts don’t change the world. Would be a big problem if it did.

What are 'subjective experiences'? — Isaac

You know what subjective means.
You know what experience means.
I don’t see the issue.

Subjective experiences are what you’re having right now (assuming you’re conscious). They’re kind of like “shape” in which they are a self evident concept that no one asks for definitions for seriously.

Yes, if you define consciousness as the property indicated by these electrical signals. — Isaac

But that’s not a definition anyone is using

Please don't respond to partial paragraphs out of context, it's complicated enough as it is to keep everyone's line of argument in mind. I said they don't only have one data point...if... The 'if' is important. — Isaac

My bad. But I don’t define consciousness as the feeling I have per se. I define it as the capacity to have a feeling

this thing we've found arises in humans in this way - we'll call that consciousness — Isaac

Well, if the definition of consciousness literally includes “arises in humans” then obviously being human would be a necessary condition.

Anything similar we find elsewhere at some later date, we'll call something else — Isaac

I was calling them the same. So what name do you propose for this thing? Not-human-consciousness? That seems too long for me. Why are we making a destination when finding the same property in something else?

What evidence do you have to justify that proposition? — Isaac

That if every single thing required a definition or a theory and made no sense without it that nothing would make sense. Because you’d be defining words ad infinium.

Are you suggesting there's absolutely no disagreement whatsoever about what 'awareness' is? — Isaac

There is disagreement about what the word should indicate. There is no disagreement about the things being indicated. An easier example: the word “tree”. When you teach a child what a tree is he might misunderstand and call broccoli a tree. In that case there is disagreement between you and the child about what a tree is, but the tree outside your house is not affected by this disagreement.

I’m saying we all have “packets of sense” we start with that we use to reason with. We can slice these packets up in different ways and put different words on them but that doesn’t change the initial packet. In other words, I’m saying disagreements about awareness are a product of language not a product of people having different awarenesses.

Some things that are in this packet of sense are concepts like: shape. Try to define: shape

Depends entirely on your definition of consciousness, — Isaac

Something is conscious if it has subjective experiences.

Most neuroscientists in the field detect consciousness by patient reports of sensory stimulation — Isaac

Are subjective experiences necessary for a report of subjective experiences to be made?

Some prefer to use electrical signals of wakefulness — Isaac

Are these electrical signals necessary for consciousness not just sufficient?

They don't have only one data point — Isaac

Yes they do. That’s why solipsism is uncounterable. It is the case that a world where there are no other subjective experiencers other than yourself is possible. And our world could very well be that world.

If absolutely nothing else shows the same set of phenomena we have just previously determined constitute our definition of consciousness — Isaac

What are these phenomena? That subjective experiences are occurring there? Again I ask, how can we detect subjective experiences. Reports of subjective experiences hardly constitute evidence for actual subjective experience do they? If we’re being honest. And if reports are everything to go by would you believe your toaster if it played the message “I am conscious”?

We don't test every single day that gravity is still working — Isaac

That’s not what I’m proposing we do. I’m proposing we don’t arbitrarily decide “yup, gravity is the only force” upon discovering it.

All we can say about consciousness is: we have found a way in which consciousness arises in humans

That doesn’t imply: this is the only way consciousness can ever arise

I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall here. 'Awareness' is just a word. You cannot say animals possesses awareness without first knowing what awareness is — Isaac

Yes you can. Some things work like that. Other examples include: shape, space, time. All of these things you know before any theories about them have been developed. Some words don’t need definitions

but if time is a circular path — Wittgenstein

This is almost impossible. It will mean the world has to keep returning to an initial state over and over again. That makes you think our world works this way?

then entropy is such that it can be reset to a previous state — god must be atheist

It can, but it won’t. That’s sort of the whole point. Statistically speaking, it is almost impossible for entropy to decrease in a complicated system

Let me try it like this. You claim that because consciousness is X, science cannot say Y about it with any degree of certainty. — Isaac

X is “cannot be measured” and Y is “needs the specific mental processes in our brain”

But in order to make such a claim, you have to say X about it with absolute certainty. — Isaac

Yes. I am absolutely certain we don’t have a consciousness-o-meter that detects subjective experiences. Note how I didn’t claim such a device is impossible (though I cannot fathom it), just that we don’t have it.

In order to make a claim about how the nature of consciousness makes it difficult for science to investigate, you have to first make a claim about the nature of consciousness, the one thing you've just argued cannot be done with any certainty. — Isaac

When did I say we cannot make any claims about the nature of consciousness? I said science cannot make the claim that our specific mental processes are necessary for consciousness as it doesn’t have the evidence to say so. You’re conflating that with me saying “consciousness is voodoo magic we can’t know anything about”.

Is it or is it not true that we have no way to detect consciousnesses?
If so, then how can a scientist make a theory of consciousness with only one data point? A scientists has one test subject he knows displays the property of consciousness: himself. He can’t make a general theory out of that.

And even if the scientist assumes all humans are conscious, he cannot then make the further assumption that humans are the only thing that is conscious. That’s a bit too unscientific no? There is absolutely no evidence to support either of those assumptions. I’ll let one slide but not the other one.

just because we only see rain when there's clouds doesn't mean that clouds are the only way rain can form — Isaac

Correct. Any source of dripping water can be described as rain. Clouds aren’t necessary for rain. Though it’s safe to assume no one is artificially making rain.

just because we only see matter in motion without other force in the presence of gravity, doesn't mean that's the only other force — Isaac

Correct. But in physics you can add up forces so if you call the net force on this object in question “gravity” then it would be the only force.

just because the only outcome we've ever seen from jumping of a 600m cliff is death, doesn't mean that's the only outcome — Isaac

Correct. Theoretically you can survive with enough things in the way.

Basically, every scientific investigation whatsoever becomes a 'hard' problem because we cannot be certain that our experimental conditions cover all possible conditions — Isaac

No. Science makes assumptions like these all the time. And most importantly it never claims to be correct, it just claims to be able to describe the patterns what we see. Did newton say that the gravitational force is the only possible force upon discovering it? No he didn’t. But you’re doing something akin to that. You’ve discovered a way consciousness arises them claimed it is the only way.

Fine, science is hard. so why is consciousness special? — Isaac

Because you can’t measure it. You can’t tell for sure anything else is conscious other than yourself. So it’s especially hard. Imagine trying to make a theory of everything in physics with your data being a ball falling from 2m and that’s it. Just a single data point.

Consciousness is whether or not there is an experiencing subject for the object in question. Whether or not there is an experiencing subject for the object in question says nothing about the properties of the object in question. We can reasonably assume that since consciousness comes and goes based on certain properties of a certain conscious object that those properties are sufficient for consciousness. But we cannot assume, based on that, that no other objects have experiencing subjects nor can we assume that if another conscious object is discovered that it would share properties with the one we know.

Conditions which are necessary for consciousness appear to be located in the brain — Isaac

Sufficient*. Just because brain causes consciousness doesn’t mean brain is necessary for consciousness. You’re claiming the brain is necessary and sufficient for consciousness, I’m claiming it’s only sufficient so my hypothesis makes fewer assumptions

for evidence of this we have the fact that what we recognise as consciousness in others stops when brain activity stops. — Isaac

Claim: when “is conscious” is false, “certain brain activity is occurring” is false

You can’t go from that to saying that when “is conscious” is true, “certain brain activity is occurring” must be true. Because you have to show that the ONLY way consciousness can occur is through certain brain activity. What the statement above shows is that certain brain activity occurring is sufficient for consciousness, not that it isn’t necessary.

In other words, you made a claim and assumed its inverse is true. Which is not always the case.

It's only a problem if you then go on to make the unwarranted assumption that what we recognise in others a signs of consciousness are, in fact, not exhaustive signs. But why would you presume that? — Isaac

Why would you presume they ARE exhaustive. Unlike length and weight, you can’t “measure” consciousness. That we all assume others are conscious is great and all, but let’s not make the further assumption that the only consciousness possible is human consciousness unless we have some reason to believe our brain is NECESSARY not sufficient to cause consciousness.

So long as we have defined consciousness as "that which causes us to..." — Isaac

I don’t think anyone here defined consciousness that way. Usually people define it as “is there an observer there/ is there something that has experiences there”

Look at the specific parts of the brain that experience consiousness and make consious decisions and see if you can spot a difference from the parts of the brain that don't. — Frink

We’ve been trying for a while. So far it all just seems like meat. Our brains don’t have any special “chemical X”. This is called the hard problem of consciousness btw. It’s basically asking “what are the necessary conditions for consciousness?” We can’t really answer that very well because we have no way to detect consciousness. There is no consciosness-o-meter. I can’t even tell whether my couch is conscious or not, and neither can you. Heck, I can’t tell if you’re conscious or not

Because humans have an optimistic mind

Mathematics does not make any claim as to usefulness or meaningfulness — alcontali

Which is why this razor wouldn’t affect it

You and I seem to be disagreeing on something — T Clark

That would be whether or not the hard problem is hard

We've agreed that biological activity in the human nervous system, including the brain, is sufficient to explain how mental processes, including consciousness, arise. Is that correct? That means there are no additional factors that have to be taken into account. — T Clark

Agreed. Except the hard problem asks what are the necessary conditions not what are the sufficient ones. Answering that is pretty hard

The theft of happiness that we're discussing — Shamshir

It’s not theft if no one is stolen from and no one is harmed is it? Calling it theft might make it sound wrong but you haven’t actually presented a logical reason for why

Would you feed them if there was a chance for them to be allergic, even if the chance was 99%? — Shamshir

Of course. But these examples aren’t alike at all. Here, it is 99% chance of suffering (feeding them) vs 100% chance of suffering (not feeding them) so obviously I’d pick the 99%. In the case of birth it’s whatever% vs 0% so obviously I’d pick 0%

But if I were to offer the three starving these two choices and they all chose B, would it be moral to choose A anyway? — Shamshir

First off this would never happen as they have absolutely nothing to gain from adding the 100 people. Note we’re not considering the benefits those 100 people might bring later for this example because that will add unnecessary complexity for the point I’m trying to make. In the same way that were not considering “but what if the 3 people were criminals” and other such cases.

Secondly, of course it would be moral to choose A anyway. After all, you don’t owe these people to feed or help them in any way. You’re the one who is going to be implementing the solution out of your own desire so whatever solution you choose to implement is fine, as long as they don’t object to it. So you’re not allowed to force feed them for example if they want to starve for whatever reason. Let’s think of another example real quick to show this: if you asked a beggar if he preferred 1$ or 5$ and he said he preferred 5 would it be ok to give him 1 anyways? Of course it would!

No, man is not morally obliged to have children.
But man ought to be morally obliged not to deny children — Shamshir

You are proposing A and not A at the same time

Man is not morally obliged to have children
Man ought to be morally obliged (aka is morally obliged) not to not have children (aka to have children)
So: Man is morally obliged to have children and not morally obliged at the same time

You're making decisions for the child you're not even willing to give a chance. — Shamshir

And natalism is making decisions for a child which actually risk his wellbeing without there being any need to. I’ll take making decisions for a child without giving them a chance any day, especially since it doesn’t actually hurt anyone

You're not sparing it harm, you're sparing yourself the responsibility if it comes to harm and unwilling to risk that it might enjoy its life with gratitude to spare. — Shamshir

This is wrong on so many levels. Quite simply not true. Not only are my motivations irrelevant to my argument anyway, but you have them wrong as well. If these were my motivations, I wouldn’t be looking to adopt in the future would I? But I am looking to do so. And even if I was doing all of this to “avoid responsibility” that wouldn’t take anything away from whether or not my argument makes sense AND saying I’m avoiding responsibility would have to assume I had the responsibility to have children which is a position you somehow hold simultaneously while saying I don’t actually have a responsibility to have children

Something I've seen from my many interactions with disabled children; they don't want your pity, they want to live. — Shamshir

I would know. My brother has a mutation and can’t do much at 12 except walk and eat. Your arguments seem to be getting more and more personal only to fall even harder on their face.

Your failure is the failure to see past the corrupt idea that kids don't desire to live. — Shamshir

Point me to the kid that wants to live who I would be denying life by not having children. Also, just because kids want to live doesn’t morally oblige me to have them does it? If you believe that you’d have as many kids as you could but you don’t do you? That would make you pretty much just as guilty as an antinatalist wouldn’t it? Having 1 or 2 kids is nothing in comparison to he number you COULD have, look at all this happiness you’re denying. You absolute monster

But mostly the children. — Shamshir

Which children? The non existent ones? The non existent children are harmed?

The world as a whole. — Shamshir

How is the world harmed by me not having children? Maybe my child would have turned out to be another hitler despite my best efforts. Also who cares about the world being harmed when the alternative causes a child to be harmed. I don’t have an obligation not to harm “worlds”, I have an obligation not to harm people.

Making someone do something means extracting them out of condition A and inserting them into condition B. — staticphoton

Does it? I see no need for this highly complicated definition. Making someone do something, is making someone do something. It doesn’t matter if that person existed at the time the decision was made to make them do something. If the result of an action is: B is doing something without having expressed he agrees with it then that action is making B do something

You’re for some reason stuck on whether or not there existed someone beforehand as if that mattered. So then I ask you to explain why you think genetically modifying children to suffer is wrong. After all, genetic modification is done on sperm and egg so it’s not actually doing anything to the child, so why is it wrong? I don’t care if you don’t respond to anything else as long as you respond to this

If a Psycho is harming someone, that is bad — staticphoton

Doesn’t birth risk harming someone?

The very foundation of your argument is that human reason provides the ultimate answer for all ethical questions and is above all other forms of moral guidance. — staticphoton

So you don’t believe human reason has the answer for this ethical question? Why are you reasoning about it then? And why didn’t you say so at the very start?


I would do A in that case although I don’t know where you got the idea that I was trying to be true to any cause in the first place. I’d be convinced with a good counter argument

didn’t realize you guys were discussing free will my apologies. There are like 3 threads on that ongoing already though

Your values are nobody lives — staticphoton

Simply incorrect. If that were the case why would I stop at antinatalism? Why not be a pro mortalist? Why stick so such a losing strategy for achieving my supposed goal?

My values are mine but the highest one among them is: I can’t enforce my values on others, and I think you share this too (as do most people). You’re just making an exception for procreation

I believe everyone should be entitled to do what they believe is right. — staticphoton

Me too. Do you not also believe that no one should be entitled to make OTHERS do hat THEY believe is valuable?

You believe only your values are right. — staticphoton

Incorrect, you just haven’t shown any evidence that you even understand my argument because you’re missing the point half the time and not giving straight answers to questions

And that makes me a hypocrite lol. — staticphoton

No it doesn’t. Believing that no one is entitled to enforce their beliefs on others in every other scenario except procreation does.


Again, would that psycho be right for what he did? You’re still not answering questions which is quite ironic because the quote you quoted is literally me telling you to please answer the questions.

I think you’re conflating “can be dismissed” with “is false or insignificant”. All the razor is doing is saying: sure you can start with this axiom, or this one, or that one, as long as there’s no evidence for them they’re all equally worthless. In math you can “dismiss” any axiom you want, you’ll just get wacky useless math most of the time.

A conjecture in science is the same way. It can be dismissed without evidence, that doesn’t mean it is automatically false or insignificant. Notice the quote says CAN be dismissed without evidence not MUST be dismissed due to lack of evidence

claim full ownership of your response to things... — S

I don’t think that’s what he’s doing, I think it’s more that he thinks that as long as the information processing and deciding happened within one’s own body that it’s his responsibility, automatic or not

Do you believe Beethoven’s parents should not have had Ludwig because he suffered through deafness? Yes no harm no foul, but then again, no Moonlight sonata. — NOS4A2

Yes. I do believe that. Because then who would be harmed. It’s not like there is some announcer telling people what their children would have accomplished when they decide not to have children. Tell me who is harmed in a world without Beethoven? No one will “miss” the moonlight sonata will they.

On the other hand, who is not harmed in a world without hitler? Plenty of people.

This is another asymmetry when it comes to giving birth vs not doing so. Giving birth to a criminal hurts people, giving birth to an entrepreneur benefits people. So it’s good vs bad. On the other hand not giving birth to entrepreneur doesn’t harm anyone but not giving birth to a criminal saves a lot of people. So it’s good vs neutral.

(This argument might not makes sense I'm not sure I just came up with it)

Well, like you said, no one is harmed, but it denies the world and posterity a human being who may alter the course of history for the better. — NOS4A2

Or for the worse. Do you believe the world would have been a better place if hitler’s parents hadn’t had him? Yes. You can’t just assume your child will be groundbreakingly successful. Might as well try to win the lottery with that luck.


That’s really the point here. The crucial point to understand about antinatalism is that no one actually believes making happy people is a good thing. Sure making people happy is good, but making happy people is neutral at best. As I’ve shown with the “3 starving people” example.

I ask you the same question I asked the other guy: if I knew your next 10 children would be successful and happy are you morally obliged to have them? I highly doubt you’ll say yes. That should show you that not even you think that creating happy people is good in and of itself.

Happiness is only good for those who exist, it’s not good in and of itself.

I'm not seeking to convert you out of antinatalism, but the absolute conviction that you have found the ultimate truth, and that everyone else is a fool for not following suit — staticphoton

I don’t have such a conviction or I wouldn’t be here, again. I do however have quite the strong conviction that you’re being a hypocrite to your own values. Especially since you keep avoiding giving straight answers.

Also I could accuse you of the same conviction for natalism. But I don’t.

I would have to know something better than cleaning sewage to be able to decide whether cleaning sewage sucked — staticphoton

Alright let me change the question a bit. Would that psycho be wrong for doing what he did?

But you’d also prevent many other things besides harm. I wouldn't want to prevent the birth of Nicola Tesla because he was sure to suffer through cholera. — NOS4A2

First off I think that’s incredibly selfish. And second off, what happens once those good things are prevented? Who is harmed?

Look at it this way:
Worst case scenario for antinatalism: someone who would be extremely happy is not born
Total amount of harm done: 0
Total amount of harm saved: a bit (not too much because they’re extremely happy)

Worst case scenario for natalism: someone who would be extremely sad is not born
Total amount of harm done: extreme
Total amount of harm saved: 0

Best case scenario for antinatalism: someone who would be extremely sad is not born
Total amount of harm done: 0
Total amount of harm saved: extreme

Best case scenario for natalism: someone who would be extremely happy is born
Total amount of harm done: a bit
Total amount of harm saved: 0

By “harm saved” I mean “harm that would have happened if the alternative was chosen”

You can look at EITHER harm done or harm saved and you’ll find antinatalism wins out on both
I just came up with this so maybe there’s a lot wrong with it idk

Unless you believe that all living things have mental processes, which I don't, there are lots of biological processes that don't lead to mental processes. So it's not sufficient — T Clark

My bad. I meant the particular biological processes we have, not just any

I'd like to explain that forcing allowing others into a model that you agree with or even someone else identifies with later on is wrong
— schopenhauer1

No its not wrong. — staticphoton

So you wouldn’t mind if some psycho believed very vehemently in the greater purpose of cleaning sewage and so forced you to clean sewage with him for 60 years? After all, it’s not wrong for him to force you, he sees value in the activity after all. Fuck asking for your opinion

it’s ok. Antinatalism was very counter intuitive for me as well. Until I spent 6 months arguing with a guy on reddit and he convinced me. Also read benetars book if you want very accurate arguments. It’s like 250 pages or something relatively short


The question antinatalism asks is simple: why risk harming someone for your own selfish gain? Because there is literally no other reason to explain it. Find one other scenario where there are 2 courses of action A and B. A has a chance to severely harm or severely benefit someone. B is neutral. Where someone would pick A for someone else and think it’s ok to do so. You can pick A for yourself all you want but for others please pick B. I don’t want random strangers to start using my bank account to buy things they like in an attempt to please me which is the type of behavior that would be allowed if you extend the reasoning of natalism to the end

something that is always claimed to help others — NOS4A2

I thought we went over this already at the very start. Antinatalism never claims to help anyone. The antinatalist doesn't think he’s doing a good thing. That’s why I truly don’t get how it can possibly be virtue signaling when it doesn’t even claim itself a virtue. It claims the alternative a vice. And for good reason

ok cool so you’d be perfectly fine with genetically engineering someone to be born with 10 broken limbs and suffer tremendously because of it? After all: they can’t say no.

Seriously though just think about it. Is consent ever assumed when it is not available? Because that’s what you’re doing. You’re assuming consent because it’s not available. Which beats the whole point of consent

Other than that can you actually answer the question?

do you think it is right for person A to cause person B to do something B might not like because A likes it? — khaled

You are able to use your intellect to decide when the conditions are favorable to allow this to happen. — staticphoton

And I’m here to ask everyone to take this advice and find that the favorable conditions are: never


Also I just wanted to re ask another question you never answered: do you think it is right for person A to cause person B to do something B might not like because A likes it?

just that since antinatalism has no one to apply their principles of to — NOS4A2

Do you mean to say that since no one benefits from antinatalism that it is somehow virtue signaling? Is not modifying children to suffer virtue signaling then as well?

It would be immoral of me to deny one of them their happiness — Shamshir

You actually truly believe that? So again I ask

You have 3 starving people and 2 solutions
A: feed them
B: materialize 100 satiated people such that you create more pleasure than in A

Would you seriously pick B?

Also let me ask you another question: do you think someone is ever morally obliged to have children?

I'll cut it short: If you deny the child, you deny any potential good from and to. — Shamshir

Agreed

You will stagnate in fear of potential damage. — Shamshir

That is wise when dealing with other people you don’t know. The default is to do the action that doesn’t risk harm. Would you appreciate it if someone destroyed your house in an attempt to add a room to it when you didn’t ask him to do so.

To be moral and free here, would entail to risk — Shamshir

This doesn’t follow from anything you have written. Not taking risks for other people is the default position in every other scenario. I’ve never heard someone claim before that one has to take risks with other people when they didn’t ask him to for him to be moral

Certain failure versus potential failure. — Shamshir

Who is harmed by me not having children? Where is this failure?

why do you think it cant be known to be causal? As I’ve said before, you don’t need to imply determinism to say that one can trace the neurological effect of hate speech in the brain

They’re not alike in many ways yes.

The whole point of that is that it's not at all like the gun example. — Terrapin Station

But there is someone who chose to put the gun there should they be punished? But we can't say putting the gun there was causal to someone getting shot can we?

I had a different definition of the word control in mind that made it impossible to happen.

Now, you were saying

With free will it's not something random. — khaled

Sure it's controlled then turns determined at the moment the decision is being made. Now what.

So I'm back to asking why you're NOW saying that you don't control your choices? — Terrapin Station

Again. Notice the past tense. Also this

Ok phew. We're in agreement — khaled

In short: we control our choices. Now moving on.

Right. So, for example, you don't believe that you can control your thoughts at all? — Terrapin Station

Notice the past tense.

How are you getting from "You are a 'bunch of neurons'" to "You don't control your choices"? — Terrapin Station

Because I didn't want to say neurons control what neurons do. Because I defined control differently, as that mysterious "third way" of causation that we agree doesn't exist called "free". Control to me meant "free". You only would have "control" if the decision was not random or deterministic

PS: I don't actually believe some of this because I'm still not sold on the idea that "you are a bunch of neurons" totally but that's a topic for another day