I would argue that conspiracy theories are vastly worse than reading bones. — hypericin
Parallel to it: preservation and suppression are the same thing, stasis, non-change.
To preserve is to prevent destruction. To suppress is to prevent creation. — Pfhorrest
- To preserve something good is to suppress something bad.
- To suppress something good is to preserve something bad.
- To create something good is to destroy something bad.
- To destroy something good is to create something bad. — Pfhorrest
Sorry if I offended you, but all such arguments seem trivial, so why present them? Of course creativity is not always a good thing, nor destruction inherently bad. — jgill
To sum up, the existence of irrational numbers that aren't formula-based proves that the reality we're living in isn't a simulation because the program required to encode for them would have to be infinite. — TheMadFool
Rather, a natural law is a description. — Banno
Ok fine, if you really want, matter combines itself into consciousness. What is your point? It still doesn't make matter itself conscious, like a carbon atom itself isn't hard or soft. — ChatteringMonkey
Let's say they are created. Creation presupposes a process from something to something else. Now for creation to make any sense that process should be predictable in some way, otherwise one never knows what one is creating and anything can come from anything. Predictability presupposes that there is some ' way things go'. — Tobias
The same applies for 'reasons'. things have a reason when they are there to accomplish a certain something. Now one can only accomplish a certain something if it can be predicted what will cause that something to come into being. Therefore also ' reason' is only applicable against the backdrop of some natural laws. — Tobias
If you want to fill it in with wild speculative metaphysics , more power to you, but why would you, if it is pointless to do so? — Tobias
No "matter inherently has the power to give itself" is not accurate, or at least it's a very strange way of putting it. Matter is the building block, it's only a certain configuration of those building blocks that has purpose and consciousness. Matter and itself don't have the same meaning in that sentence. — ChatteringMonkey
Edit: You can combine carbon atoms with carbon atoms to form really hard or really soft substances. The property of hard and soft is not something the carbon atom by itself has, it only a property of certain configurations of it. — ChatteringMonkey
Because creation and destruction are terms relative to human perception. That is, we say something is created when its parts, previously separated, gather into something we recognize as being a composite; similarly, we say something is destroyed when its parts become separate, and the shape we recognized as a unity is no more. Creation and destruction are thus human terms given to what we perceive as two different phenomena; but as you said, these phenomena (creation and destruction) are just continuous change. Creation and destruction are dependent on perception; change is not. — Daniel
And this is your original thesis? I'm amazed someone hasn't thought of it before. :roll: — jgill
But for natalists it is not unknown. They know for a fact that having a child will risk harming them. And they also know for a fact that that decision need not be made. It is not like the case where there are two alternatives both of which cannot be precisely calculated which you just cited, no. Here there are two cases:
1- Take an unjustified risk with someone else's life (risk of harm)
2- Don't. (no risk of harm) — khaled
But this kind of logic doesn't work because matter combines into all kinds of stuff that has properties that are not inherent in matter by itself. This is not a matter of logic, it's an empirical matter... — ChatteringMonkey
What happened before the big bang? Nothing, because there is no before... — ChatteringMonkey
But even if it is merely a question pertaining to causation, then it isn't always a legitimate question either, because causation only makes sense in time and space to begin with. — ChatteringMonkey
I pick the second because I seen no signs of matter, outside of biological life which is only a small subset of matter, behaving consciously. — ChatteringMonkey
And I think we will come up with an explanation for how meaning can come from purposeless matter, so to me that is no argument that sways me. To be convinced, someone would have to show how purpose arising out of matter without purpose is impossible in principle.... and I haven't seen that argument yet. — ChatteringMonkey
And furthermore, you happily shift the burden of proof to the physicalist, but I don't think merely positing that matter is conscious, really explains all that much. For a theory to have some explanatory value, you also have to show how it helps to explain the phenomena we see all around us... not just the question why matter behaves the way it does. — ChatteringMonkey
I live as if things have purpose for me, which doesn't have to imply the belief that the whole universe is inherently purposeful... — ChatteringMonkey
Because I am part of this calculation too. The "expected value" of the harm I would cause unto others is much lower than the "expected value" of the harm I would cause myself by killing myself. So I continue to exist. You have to consider alternatives. — khaled
Antinatalits aren't striving for a better world. They just don't want to risk hurting people. Which is why some adopt. — khaled
In essence, because we do not listen to what the scientists say. — Banno
Human laws, the laws that govern our conduct, are created. Natural laws just are. — Tobias
Morover the assumption that law constrains is false. Both natural laws as well as human laws constrain and enable. A natural law, say the law of cause and effect makes our universe livable in the first place, take for instance cycle of birth. This would be impossible without cause and effect. Human law too does not only constrain. Take a traffic light. Yes, you have to stop, but because it regulates all the participants in traffic, it enables you to plan your journey and safely arrive at a destination. — Tobias
That we could not detect change does not mean it would not exist. — Daniel
The label destruction doesn't apply to a house collapsing into rubble because simple geometric transformations can be applied to the house to yield the rubble - a combination of reflection, translation, and rotation is what describes the house becoming rubble. — TheMadFool
All of which seems pedantic and is more than a little absurd. Perhaps you can demonstrate how your creation/destruction interplay applied uniformly to everything is of any value whatsoever. — jgill
I don’t see it this way, we build upon what is already there. An improvement - creativity is design and design can be viewed as destruction but we build upon what is already there and if we think about is something destroyed the creation of new? the basis of creation (design) stems not from originality but from the past of which we build upon. — SwamOfInTheHorizon
Because a why-question pertains to purposes and meaning, and as far as we know only biological life develops purposes and meaning. So to ask why matter behaves the way it does, is already assuming a conscious entity capable of meaning that created matter with a purpose. — ChatteringMonkey
And BTW, it is in fact possible to conceive of explanations for matter behaving the way it does without resorting to the language of meaning and purpose. Universes could in theory be selected for by a non-purposeful process, akin to the process of natural selection, because some values of the properties of matter give rise to stable universes and others do not. — ChatteringMonkey
For me, I kinda like the idea that the universe is purposeless and that we are the only ones that seem to bring meaning into it... it makes me feel special ;-). — ChatteringMonkey
Why not?
Edit: by that I am asking you what's a reason change could not exist independently of consciousness? — Daniel
What about so-called conservation laws in science. You know, those that say "matter/energy can neither be created nor destroyed". Perhaps you need to look at the world from the perspective of transformation which doesn't contradict the conservation laws scientists have discovered after, I'm guessing, painstaking research. In short, what you've been looking at as creation-destruction is actually, at its heart, just transformation. — TheMadFool
Change is change, nothing else. Creation and destruction are forms given to change by human perception.
In the same way, good is a term given by human perception to agreeable things.
There would not be a creation or a destruction, or good and evil, if there were no human perception. However, there would be change in the absence of human perception. — Daniel
Why don't I see how their brain shivers are readying them to choose among which symbols to point at which objects? — bongo fury
The word "destruction" has a negative connotation. Try using the word "change" instead. Just a thought. — jgill
Why isn't always a legitimate question. Just because you can ask the question, doesn't mean there is an answer to it. — ChatteringMonkey
If say the universe is just material stuff and only created consciousness on earth as a result of biological life evolving there, then for the larger part of the universe the why-question is a meaningless question, because it pertains to meaning and purposes, which presupposes some kind biological life and consciousness that is capable of generating meaning. — ChatteringMonkey
God usually serves as a stop to the infinite regress of causation. It seems to me that this only tells us something about a desire we have for meaning and a first cause, and nothing about the veracity of it. — ChatteringMonkey
The laws of nature are aggregate regularities we discover from how matter interacts with matter. You could off course always ask, why it has the properties it has, or why do those properties interact in the particular way they do.
And we can't really know, because there are limits to what we can observe, and we also can't step outside of this universe to compare it to some other set of universes. — ChatteringMonkey
I don't know why matter ultimately has the properties it has. But higher consciousness, or God is no explanation IMO, because it just shift the question one step further to that higher consciousness. — ChatteringMonkey
I can't move my laptop with my thoughts, I can get rendered unconscious when I get hit in the head hard enough, I feel my consciousness changing when I drink to much, I do not see any signs of consciousness in rocks or things without brains etc etc... All of these things I do know, and it points to the physical having an effect on consciousness, more than the other way around. Even if we would assume consciousness is inherent in the universe, that still doesn't explain any of these particular experiences. — ChatteringMonkey
from what I gathered directly deriving larger scale emergent properties for more basic laws is, at this point anyway, only possible for a select few things. I could dig up references for this if you insist. — ChatteringMonkey
perpetuating the myth of an internal world. — bongo fury
"Conscious" is what we call certain kinds of thinking, which are real brain shivers. Those kinds of thinking cause us to indulge fictions about an internal world, which are fictional. — bongo fury
But if we know how something moves, we know its configuration right? — ChatteringMonkey
So if we figure out what configurations of matter produce consciousness, then you could 'in principle' derive when consciousness would arise because you can derive the configuration from those equations of motion. — ChatteringMonkey
I don't see how this should necessarily be any different than any other property matter gets at larger scales, you also need to know what configurations give what properties, which isn't given in the laws of motion themselves. — ChatteringMonkey
There are many things we can't mathematically derive from basic theories of physics. To give but one example, we cannot derive from these equations when and how a storm will come. But nobody thinks that we are invoking magic when we say that the patterns of a storm are ultimately just matter behaving according to the basic laws of physics. It's just to complex to calculate precisely how that works from the ground up. — ChatteringMonkey
You expect the physicalist to give an exact account of how consciousness arises from a physical universe, but then invariably fail to give the same kind of detailed and accurate account for your alternative theory. — ChatteringMonkey
or consciousness just is the action of a brain, in the same way that walking just is the actions of legs. So there is no need for any strong emergence, weak emergence is enough. — bert1
Consciousness comes from matter being configured in a certain way. — ChatteringMonkey
And no, i'm not going to tell you how that exactly works, because nobody really can at this moment. But the fact that we don't know exactly how it works at this point, doesn't mean that no such explanation exists. — ChatteringMonkey
No, only biological (or other yet undiscovered) life has the ability to perceive... you need a sense organ to be able to perceive, and most of the universe doesn't have such organ. — ChatteringMonkey
the laws that humans make are not like the laws of nature.
The laws of nature do not "constrain the universe". They describe the (physical) universe. In a sense, the laws of nature and the universe are one and the same. What we call "laws" are really descriptions, and they only constrain our ideas about the universe (most notably our predictions) not the universe itself. — Echarmion
Consider this, a universe devoid of stars and planets gave rise to stars and planets, even though stars and planets weren't injected from outside of the universe. This doesn't seem like it's a problem in this case... why would consciousness be any different? — ChatteringMonkey
I see why I didn't pursue philosophy in school . . . :roll: — jgill
I disagree with the generality of this statement. As an example, I recently "created" a "form" in mathematics that simply extends a particular kind of function. Nothing is destroyed in this process. As to whether this creation is of any importance, I admit it is quite unimportant. :chin: — jgill
But at the same time I find it depressing, so bad things will happen anyway... — Philosophuser
The reason why this depressed me is because most of people believe that there are infinite parallel universes with a lot of versions of "you", with variations, some of then could had won the lottery, but some could have a hard life... I had never paid so much attention to this because, well, they are just not "you", even if they are identical, they are other persons with different lifes, you experience different things... But with this idea of BU, are they more different than the versions of your past/future? Are there reasons for care about to your future "you" and not to the others? — Philosophuser
The Block Universe itself could be a bit disturbing, but it's awful when think in the multiverse... If there are infinite universes, in some of then versions of you could have a lot of suffering... I had never think this "versions" were you, they are like other people, but with the implications of the BU, why are they more different than your future you? — Philosophuser
When you sense something, isn't the thing sensed, in the past by the time that it is sensed? This is how we came to know that light moves faster than sound. You see something in the distance, then the sound of that follows. But still, light takes some time, so the thing seen (experienced) is in the past by the time that it is experienced. — Metaphysician Undercover
I think our experience is really of the past and of the future. Think of anticipation in general. It is a natural instinct to expect the future. How could you anticipate unless you somehow knew there is a future. And how could you know there is a future unless you somehow were experiencing it. — Metaphysician Undercover
This would make sense, but it requires a mechanism which propels one along through time. So when you think about it, it makes a lot more sense to conceive of actual time passing in an active world, then to conceive of a mechanism propelling human beings through a static world. Consider all the scientific evidence which indicates that time was passing and things were changing prior to the existence of human beings. How does it make sense to think that the physical world was arranged in such a way so as to make it appear to us like time was passing and things were changing before human existence, but things were really static without some conscious being, actively being propelled through this simulation? And now, if you accept that this is a simulation, and change was not really occurring, you need to explain this mechanism which is exclusive to the human being, and propels the human being through this fixed world. — Metaphysician Undercover