I agree that life satisfaction isn’t a very good criteria for evaluating lives. I think lives are better evaluated through the measure of pleasant and unpleasant experiences. What criteria would you use to distinguish good lives from bad lives?

I am sure many people will not be satisfied with just hedonistic pleasures and likewise, many will not be satisfied with a virtual reality. — Judaka

The virtual reality life which I was talking about allows you to experience any experience that you want while being unaware that you are living a virtual reality life. That is to say, it forces someone experience mental states of satisfaction towards their virtual life. It’s kinda like a form of brainwashing which disables you from not enjoying or being dissatisfied with your life.

We cannot evaluate a life's worth, it is purely subjective. — Judaka

While I agree that satisfaction might not have the capacity to be an objective criteria for evaluating life, I do think there is at least some objectivity in life evaluation. Consider the following 2 lives; one life contains no unpleasant experiences at all while the other life contains some unpleasant experiences. Would you not say that there is some clear objective advantage that the 1st life has over the 2nd life based on the amount of unpleasant experiences of each life? Of course, the 2nd life might also have some more speculative advantages in other questionably objective criteria but it seems unquestionable that having less pointless suffering would be advantageous under all circumstances.

If it is to say "my life is good because I am satisfied" or "I want a good life therefore I will aim to be satisfied" then these are good ideas but over what timeframe is this person focusing? You may be satisfied when you eat a lot but dissatisfied over your weight gain or you may be satisfied in a low paying job now but many years down the track begin to regret. — Judaka

Regarding the “my life is good because I am satisfied” interpretation, it’s possible for people’s life to alternate between being good and bad during various parts of their life. Of course, if we wish to evaluate the entire life rather than simply a portion of a life then we would simply take a cumulative measure of each period of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. One hypothetical way we could do this is by asking a participant to rate their life satisfaction on an hourly basis on a scale of -10 to 10. -10 would imply that one strongly wants to commit suicide. 0 would imply that one is indifferent to being alive while 10 would imply extreme satisfaction. If we were to conduct such a survey with an individual for their entire life, we would probably get a decent representation of how satisfied they were throughout their entire life. Regarding the "I want a good life therefore I will aim to be satisfied" interpretation. This would imply a preference satisfaction theory of well being and it’s not clear if it’s good to get what you want in this case.

People, groups, society, culture and whatever else place values on particular attributes and qualities. I don't think these opinions matter until they matter. In other words, the people with those opinions have to matter and that includes yourself. All of this plays into whether one will be satisfied with their lot in life or not. — Judaka

So, how exactly would we determine if people matter or not? Wouldn’t this require us to evaluate the quality of people’s lives?

As I am a nihilist and a pragmatist, I feel compelled to evaluate things from the perspective of someone else's value system. There is no greater goal for people to aspire towards. People never have things sorted out though, they don't even know what they want. Even when they get what they want, they may become bored of it later and will want something new. Just ambition alone means that perhaps one will perpetually dissatisfied with what they've got. However, I interpret being satisfied to mean that your life is being lived in accordance with what you wanted out of it. Representing low internal conflict, knowing yourself and living well. Even if you aren't someone to be admired. — Judaka

Fair enough, would you not describe the goals of “getting what you want out of life“ and “lacking internal conflicts” as “greater goals” though? It’s actually somewhat controversial whether those goals should always be pursued though. I actually think it would be less controversial to claim that minimizing suffering and unpleasant experiences in your own life could be thought of as a good end goal to pursue for everyone. Of course, the question remains as to whether other goals could be prioritized above that goal.

Is there more to it than that? — tim wood

Well, I would like to distinguish Attitudinal Hedonism from Valance Hedonism. Attitudinal Hedonism states that the most important criteria for determining the quality of a life is whether a person is pleased or displeased with the state of affairs of his life, while Valance Hedonism states that the most important criteria is whether a life is overall pleasant or unpleasant. It is possible for someone to be pleased about unpleasant state of affairs. For example, imagine someone who is pleased with his life despite having almost constant chronic pain. An attitudinal hedonist would judge his life to be good while a valence hedonist like myself would judge it to be bad. Attitudinal hedonism or Satisfactionism is about enjoying or being satisfied with what you get in life, while Valence Hedonism is about actually having a pleasant life with little suffering and an abundance of pleasure and joy. Thus, a valence hedonist is not likely to envy the life of the satisfied slave while an attitudinal hedonist might.

Now such a thing happiness, above all else, is held to be; for this we choose always for self and never for the sake of something else, but honour, pleasure, reason, and every virtue we choose indeed for themselves (for if nothing resulted from them we should still choose each of them), but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, judging that by means of them we shall be happy. Happiness, on the other hand, no one chooses for the sake of these, nor, in general, for anything other than itself." — tim wood

So, would you agree with the non-hedonic conception of happiness which Aristotle has proposed?

I must point out that I don’t actually support Satisfactionism. I’m kinda surprised that everyone assumed that I did from the OP. This was just meant as a conversation starter to talk about various theories of well being. Satisfactionism was just one theory that I have thought about. I rejected this theory since I think there is relatively speculative reasons to think that life satisfaction is important beyond the hedonic benefits it may bring. It’s worth noting that the life of the slave is actually also bad from a hedonic perspective since he gets severely beaten every day. It’s possible for someone to be satisfied with life despite living a hedonically bad live. I would call that irrational satisfaction with life.

That being said, it can be more complicated because this understanding of evaluating quality of life by satisfaction may encourage short-term hedonistic behaviour without worrying about long-term consequences. — Judaka

I have not mentioned it in the OP but any mature form of Satisfactionism would argue that the duration of the life satisfaction is important in addition to the intensity of life satisfaction. That is to say, you would need to have prolonged satisfaction across your entire life in order to live a good life. Of course, life span might also effect your level of well being in an instrumental way. Living a longer life might allow for a higher or lower periods of satisfaction to periods of dissatisfaction ratio. So, imagine a hypothetical person who satisfied with his life until he’s 30 and then dissatisfied until he’s 50 and then he’s indifferent to life until 60. If he was to live beyond 60, this may positively or negatively affect his well being depending on whether or not he will be satisfied or dissatisfied with his life.

I have my own preferences but I tend to think that its the job of people to live up to their own preferences in the best way they can, that's what I want for others and not for people to think as I do. — Judaka

So, would you accept something resembling a Preference Satisfaction theory of well being? I must note that I regard Preference Satisfaction theory as distinct from Satisfactionism. Satisfactionism is a mental statist theory of well being. This means that a Satisfactionist would claim that everyone would benefit from an Experience Machine life even if it wasn’t desired by the individuals who are forced to plug themselves in. This is because the Experience Machine guarantees life satisfaction since the ignorance about the fact that one is living in a virtual reality universe makes dissatisfaction impossible. The Preference Satisfaction theorist, on the other hand, would claim that the EM life is bad for those who do not desire it prior to being forced to plug in. I would encourage you to look up Experience Machine Thought Experiment if you are confused about what I am talking about.

I think you misunderstood the intention of my OP. I did not claim that I supported Satisfactionism. This was merely a theory which I have considered. It was also partially inspired by me reading another philosopher named Fred Feldman and his Attitudinal Hedonism theory. My rejection of satisfactionism revolves around the fact that I think certain positive and negative valences(AKA pleasant and unpleasant experiences) have more relevance for evaluating quality of life. I would classify myself more as a hedonist than a satisfactionist.

Can you offer a definition of satisfaction beyond its being just what someone says? — tim wood

Well, life satisfaction appears to be the extent to which you regard your life to be valuable or disvaluable. If you love your life then you are satisfied. If you hate your life then you are dissatisfied. Are you satisfied with this definition?(no pun intended lol).

What might be sound reasons for accepting a judgment of satisfaction? — tim wood

I actually agree that satisfaction may be an arbitrary criteria for evaluating life. I think there is only undeniably sound reasons to try to maximize pleasant experiences and minimize unpleasant experiences in our own life. Although, I’m willing to entertain that there may be more speculative reasons for other value criteria like satisfaction. I might be willing cause myself a little unpleasantness in order to drastically increase my life satisfaction even if the life satisfaction is not instrumentally good for attaining hedonic happiness.

Cool :cool: , I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being autistic or weird either lol

Just out of curiosity, do you fall on the autism spectrum? — Noah Te Stroete

Nope, I’m just weird lol

Well, I actually got an associates degree in IT but I wasn’t able to find a job in my field within my area. I didn’t want to move away from my family and look for jobs in other areas. Plus, I started to doubt that I would enjoy working in the IT field. My stress tolerance isn’t very good and I’m very much against excessive spending and having children from a prudential standpoint so I don’t need a super high paycheck to get by. Plus, I still live with my mom and I should have enough money to buy a house without a mortgage within 3 years. My prudential strategy is basically save a bunch of money by living with my mom and then buy a house without a mortgage and then live a minimalist lifestyle and save a $100000 emergency fund and then I can maybe afford to only work a part time job. I haven’t thought about becoming an electrician but I definitely don’t want to be a truck driver. I’m a shitty driver lol

Get a associates or go to an online college and then if you are capable of it get a CDL and drive trucks the rest of your life. — christian2017

I actually do have an associates but it didn’t turn out to be very useful for me. Luckily, I didn’t pay anything to get it.

That I am saying is bad, and should be a good reason to not bring others into this state. — schopenhauer1

I think there might be a good emotional reason. I might feel pretty bad about bringing someone into existence and it might cause me to suffer. But, if I was capable of not feeling bad about causing others to suffer, what reason would I have to not cause suffering to others? Well, I would say only the prudential reasons like the fear of being reprimanded or the fear of spoiling valuable cooperative relationships. I think it would easier for you to persuade people to avoid having children by talking about how much suffering will come to them from the stress, anxiety, worry, sleep deprivation, emotional exhaustion, labor pain, boredom, and possible grief that comes with having children.

I agree that it is preferable to have not been born but I don’t think anyone has a duty to avoid having children. This is simply because there doesn’t seem to be any natural rights or duties which people possess. The only reason that anyone has to reduce the suffering of others is if it would also minimize their suffering or cause them to feel joy in the long run. I do think that you have reason to minimize suffering in your life though. This is because when you suffer, you cannot easily trivialize the badness of that suffering upon exposure to that suffering. You are compelled to regard that suffering as being bad inherently. Whereas, you are not compelled to regard the suffering of others as bad(unless it also causes you to suffer). It’s quite easy for some people to trivialize the suffering of others even while watching it take place. I think the reason why people might tell you to “do something about it” is because they don’t feel anyone has a duty to solve your problems(and they are completely right about that). The upside is that you also don’t have any duties to solve anyone else’s problems. I do think that most people who have children have made a mistake though. It’s not a moral mistake but a prudential one. Having children usually brings about more suffering for the parent as well.

Now, I could not contend whether, if the environment operates at a normal pace, but the peripheral or central nervous systems slow down, the subject might feel being in a haze or slowing. However, if the environment stimuli slowed down together with the entire nervous system, I do not see how the subject would notice any difference. And in my thought experiment, the stimuli are artificially slowed down in their arrival to the brain - as if reality slows down together with the cognitive and perceptual functions. — simeonz

I had just thought about a different concern about the thought experiment. While physics doesn’t recognize absolute time, time is relevant to their study since it could impact the laws of physics. For example, humans can only survive for about 80 human years. How long could the giant being survive in human years? Unless their larger size would imply a much larger life span in human years than the normal human lifespan, they might die before they experience anything. I suppose you could imagine a hypothetical immortal giant being, but I think the conditions of the thought experiment would have to be pretty outlandish for there to even be a possibility of consciousness. It’s hard for me to comment on consciousness in a scenario which is so alien to me. Either way, I’m skeptical that this thought experiment would imply that ecosystems or social systems might have mental activity.

If you ran into one, do you think you would owe it an apology? — Wayfarer

Did I say that I believe that self-driving cars can be upset about me running into them? I wouldn’t apologize if I ran into a fish in the water. This doesn’t mean that fish aren’t conscious.

The twist in the Chinese room, I guess, is to reveal a human (Searle) who is then revealed to be, in relation to the outer behaviour of the creature, a mere machine himself. — bongo fury

I’m not really understanding how this twist is relevant. If the Chinese AI was pre-programmed with knowledge of Chinese then sure I agree it is likely simply following its instructions (of course, you could never simply pre-program a machine to speak perfect Chinese). The Chinese AI would have to be programmed to know how to learn Chinese instead through interactions with Chinese speakers because it’s impossible to simply hard code the knowledge of Chinese into the AI. It would probably require you to type more lines of code than the number of atoms in the universe. But I actually think that being able to follow very complicated instructions would also require consciousness. The question of whether the AI or the human really understand Chinese is seemingly irrelevant because the functionalist could simply claim that the ability to follow really complicated instructions mentioned in the thought experiment would require you to mentally understand those instructions in some way. Just as the human in the thought experiment cannot follow his instructions without mentally understanding them, the AI couldn’t do so either.

Predictably, a primitive science attempts to understand and build machines with true "automotivity". The fruits of this research are limited to sail-powered and horse-powered vehicles, and there is much debate as to whether true automotivity reduces ultimately to mere sail-power, so that car engines will eventually be properly understood as complicated sail-systems. And even now the philosophers remark sagely that engines may appear to be automotive, but the appearance of automotivity is, in reality, the sum of millions of sailing processes. — bongo fury

Well, I actually don’t consider cars to be autonomous or having consciousness as a whole. I think the car sensors are probably conscious and self-driving cars might be conscious as a whole. So, let me ask you a question. If the post-apocalyptic world had self-driving cars, how would the reductionist sages of that world explain them in terms of simpler mechanical processes? How would they even explain a seat belt sensor through simple mechanical processes?

The brain from the thought experiment (the China brain idea, as ↪bongo fury pointed out) includes all marks of sentience that Mars does not have - great memorization, information processing, and responsiveness (through simulated peripheral output.) The time scale is off, but I do not see how this affects the assumption of awareness. In the post-Einsteinian world, time is flexible, especially when acceleration is involved, so I wouldn't relate time and sentience directly. — simeonz

If the brain from the thought experiment is supposed to have all the marks of sentience then I would have to disagree with that thought experiment. Perhaps my example of Mars wasn’t a very good example though. I think the marks of sentience requires that the information processing and responsiveness happens in a somewhat timely manner. If the giant being takes literally like 1000 years to respond to a stimulus like having water quickly thrown at him because the human neurons are taking forever to follow their instructions, then it’s hard to imagine what the giant being would even experience. Would he experience 1000 years of neutral emotion followed by 900000 years of being pissed off because someone threw water at him, and then would he experience the emotional states associated with calming down for another 200000 years? It’s kinda hard to imagine such slow responses would be influenced by mental states. Unless, the being experiences time really fast. But, how would experience time fast with such a slow brain. Having a slow brain doesn’t seem to make time go fast. So, I think it’s more plausible to think that the being is simply not conscious.

But wouldn't they appear that way if they were zombie robot insects?... if you can imagine such a thing... could zombie actors help? — bongo fury

I think that appearance of consciousness is some evidence for consciousness. Insects could be zombies but they could also be conscious. The fact that they are capable of moving and looking afraid means that there is greater evidence of insects being conscious than there is evidence that they are zombies. My knowledge of my own experience while I’m behaving a certain way provides evidence that the observation of such behavior patterns likely indicates consciousness. To make an analogy, I don’t have to taste a particular piece of candy to have a reasonable belief that it is sweet. My past experiences with similar candies would suffice as evidence for a hypothesis that the candy is more likely to be sweet than non-sweet. Similarly, my past experience of having behavioral patterns and seeing that they are influenced by my mental activity provides evidence for the hypothesis that insects are more likely to be conscious than zombies. Why do you think they are more likely to be zombies?

I would like to contribute to my earlier point with a link to a video displaying vine-like climbing of plants on the surrounding trees in the jungle. While I understand that your argument is not only about appearances, and I agree that analytico-synthetic skills greatly surpass plant life, it still seems unfair to me to award not even a fraction of our sentience to those complex beings. — simeonz

Well, I suppose that there’s some significant autonomous action from some plants so some plants might indeed have some mental activity. It’s hard for me to say but I’ll have to do more research and think about this topic more.

I don't accept any view at present. I am examining the the various positions from a logical standpoint. But, speaking out of sentiment, I am leaning more towards a continuum theory. — simeonz

Fair enough, I should have been more careful at ascribing to you a viewpoint.

The peripheral input could be fed in as slowly as necessary to allow a relaxed scale of time that is comfortable for the human beings involved. This doesn't slow the brain down relative to the sense stimuli it receives, only to time proper. But real time does not appear relevant for the experiment. — simeonz

Well, in that case, it’s not clear to me if the giant being made of human neurons would have any mental activity because he would thinking and acting extremely slow. This is because the slow speed of the human neurons would imply that the giant being would be taking an eternity to even perform a really basic cognitive task like responding to a stimulus. His extreme slowness and largeness would make him seem more like a mountain that can make gradual movements rather than a being of any sort. This would make mental activity seem less likely for this being since it’s probably not necessary for such basic functions. Otherwise, we might as well conclude that a lifeless rock like Mars is conscious because it’s capable of micro-movements like teutonic plate activity. So, we could say that there must be a minimum speed of processing for mental activity to occur. Just like water molecules have to move rapidly in order for water to boil. Even if you think that functionalism does imply that the giant being would be conscious, it still would make functionalism a theory which is just as plausible.

I must say, I find it easy to intuit that all insects are complete zombies, largely by comparing them with state of the art robots, which I likewise assume are unconscious (non-conscious if you prefer). — bongo fury

Fair enough, I mostly suspect that insects are conscious because they are capable of moving. They also appear afraid whether I try to squash them.

I would to start by mentioning that bongo furry corrected me in his earlier comment about the definition of eliminative materialism. I would say that my view is more properly called functionalism rather than eliminative materialism.

The human brain has greater overall capacity for information processing than that of animal species. Both have (in general) greater analytical performance compared to plants. Doesn't it follow that animals are more conscious then plants? — simeonz

Yes, I think it does because they are capable of more autonomous action and more complex decision making.

Plants, on the other hand, are capable of some sophisticated behavior (both reactive and non-reactive), if their daily and annual routines are considered in their own time scale. Doesn't that make them more conscious then, say dirt? — simeonz

Well, I’m not sure if plants have mental activity of any sort. This is because plants do not seem to be capable of autonomous action or decision making which is remotely similar to that of humans. They also probably do not possess sufficient energy to support something like mental activity. Plants are more likely to have mental activity than dirt though. This is because dirt doesn’t seem to be sufficiently compact to form an embodied entity which could support a mind.

But is dirt completely unconscious? Particles cannot capture substantial amount of information, because their states are too few, but they have reactions as varying as can be expected. After all, their position momentum state is the only "memory" of past "observations" that they possess. But it isn't trivial however. One could ask, why wouldn't they be considered capable of microscopic amount of awareness? Not by virtue of having a mass, but because of their memory and responses. If not, there has to be some specific point in the scale of structural and behavioral complexity at which we consider awareness to become manifested. — simeonz

I don’t think that the view that particles could have some microscopic amount of mental activity could completely be dismissed but I think the most reliable hypotheses that could be formed about the types of things which are conscious comes from the most certain beliefs which we hold about our own consciousness. I cannot know if you are really conscious but my best educated guess is that you are since you are the same type of thing as me(a human). Furthermore, it’s seems that animals are capable of experiencing certain things as well. This is because if I tell my dog that it’s time to eat, he will respond by running to his food bowl. This implies that he is capable of listening the same way that me and other people are. AI Programs also display characteristics indicative of mental activity. For example, if I am speaking to an AI chat bot which seems to respond to me as through it is reading and comprehending what I am saying, then it’s hard for me to conclude that the AI bot is less likely to have mental activity than an animal without simply being prejudice in my judgements. On the other hand, I don’t observe plants or particles performing tasks which I can recognize as being indicative of the presence of mental activity. Therefore, my best educated guess is that only humans, animals, and AI have mental activity.

How many neurons (or similar structures) would we need to create an organism whose behavior can be considered minimally sentient - five, five hundred, five million, etc? — simeonz

This is difficult to precisely answer but I would make an educated guess and say enough to form a microscopic insect. I don’t think that my theory has to explain everything precisely in order to be a plausible theory. The same epistemic difficulties exist for the binary view of consciousness which you accept. The binary view also has to explain which things or beings are conscious. It also has to explain why animals should be considered just as conscious as humans or whether humans with serious neurological issues are just as conscious. Accepting the spectrum view would allow you to demonstrate that human beings are more complex in their mental activity than animals.

I would like to illustrate how I think societies and ecosystems are similar with respect to consciousness using a thought experiment. Suppose that we use a person for each neuron in the brain, and give each person orders to interact with the rest like a neuron would, but using some pre-arranged conventional means of human interaction. We instruct each individual what corresponding neuron state it has initially, such that it matches the one from a living brain (taken at some time instant). Then we also feed the peripheral signals to the central nervous system, as the real brain would have experienced them. At this point, would the people collectively manifest the consciousness of the original brain, as a whole, the way it would have manifested inside the person? Or to put differently, do eliminative materialists allow for consciousness nesting? — simeonz

So, I would like to start by distinguishing between an unrealistic thought experiment and an absurd thought experiment and why I feel the thought experiment you are presenting me is part of the latter category and why only the former category is relevant for most metaphysical discussions. Unrealistic thought experiments cannot possibly occur in the real world but are still within the realm of possibility. For example, if you have a theory that a star will always be bigger than a planet, then I could ask you to imagine a planet that is bigger than a star. Because this scenario appears to be within the realm of possibility, it has some point to make even if we cannot ever find a planet which is bigger than a star. An absurd thought experiment, on the hand, is not only unrealistic but is also not within the realm of possibility. For example, if you have a theory that all round shapes have no sides and I respond by asking about whether round squares have sides, then I am giving you an absurd question/scenario because round squares are not within the realm of possibility. The reason why I think that the thought experiment you are providing me is absurd is because humans cannot remotely behave like neurons while maintaining their identity as humans or even humanoid creatures. This is because humans would have to carry out interactions as rapidly as neurons do with unrealistically perfect synchronization. This would require humans to have radically different body shapes and brain composition. In other words, they would have to look like giant neurons. Thus, the resulting creature would not resemble an ecosystem or a social system. It would just be a giant monster. I cannot even properly imagine your thought experiment similarly to how I cannot imagine a round square and so I will have to abstain from responding.

This neatly distinguishes a strong eliminativism (ascribing consciousness to nothing) from mere identity-ism (ascribing consciousness to some things, some brain states). The former would be what causes horrified reactions from many (see above), and the latter is accepted by Terrapin (I think), and @TheHedoMinimalist (I think). — bongo fury

You’re right, I misunderstood what eliminativism was. I was surprised to learn that some eliminativist philosophers even deny the existence of pain. This is certainly not what I believe. I actually think the proper term for my position is actually functionalism.

Doesn't ascribing consciousness to any machines with "software" set the bar a bit low? Are you at all impressed by Searle's Chinese Room objection? — bongo fury

I would like to object to Searle’s Chinese Room objection with the following argument:

P1: If AI are capable of learning through exposure to stimulus, then it likely has some mental understanding of what it has learned.

P2: AI are capable of learning through exposure to stimulus

C: Therefore, it likely has some mental understanding of what it has learned.

To explain why I think P1 is true, imagine that you are training a dog. The dog listens to your commands and learns to respond appropriately to them. You would likely believe that the dog is indeed capable of hearing. Similarly, if there was an AI that could learn Mandarin by interacting with Mandarin speakers without the need to pre-code the knowledge of Mandarin into the AI, then it is likely capable of some type of mental understanding of Mandarin. It’s not clear to me why we have more reason to believe that the dog is capable of mental understanding when learning something but not an AI program. To show that P2 is true, I would like to mention that AI programs which are capable of learning through interaction already exist. For example, Alpha Zero is an AI program which taught itself how to play chess while only being pre-coded with the rules of chess. I imagine that it must be capable of some sort of mental understanding to constantly improve its strategy and adapt its playing style to beat every human and AI player. It might even receive positive and negative reinforcement through the experience of positive emotion after winning a game and negative emotion after losing a game. Overall, I would say that we likely already have AI with some mental capacity.

Then what would differentiate eliminative materialists from pantheists or panpsychists, aside from sentiment? — simeonz

Well, a pantheist or panpsychist believes that all things have mental activity while an eliminative materialist might believe that only things and beings capable of decision making and autonomous action has the capacity to experience things. This is because the only way that a thing made of atoms can do those high level tasks is if they have some sort of software. Software is strange to the materialist in the same way that consciousness is strange. 100 years ago, it would be hard for anyone to believe that we could create something like AI from an object made of only atoms. People who claim that you would need to have a soul or some other weird thing to create an intelligent entity. We now know that intelligent and autonomous entities can be created from mere atoms. So, why couldn’t consciousness be created from mere atoms? It’s strange to imagine but it’s also strange to imagine that intelligence can be created from atoms. We now know that matter can arrange itself in very complex and interesting ways.

In particular, does materialism deny awareness and self-awareness as a continuous spectrum for systems of different complexity? — simeonz

They do not deny that it is a spectrum but they don’t have to think that it begins on a molecular level or that all objects are part of the spectrum.

Would they consider an ecosystem or a social system to be aware or have sense experience, at least in principle similar to ours? — simeonz

Probably not because ecosystems and social systems are not unified systems in the same way that an organism is. An organism is a unified embodied system which is composed of parts called organ systems which are composed of smaller parts called organs. All these organs work very closely together to maintain the organism. The same cannot be said of social systems. People who are part of a social system sometimes contribute to it and sometimes they don’t and they don’t make their entire existence about the social system. The very concept of a social system or ecosystem is a lot more vague than the concept of an organism. Scientists rarely disagree where an organism’s body begins and ends. They do disagree about where an ecosystem or social system begins and ends at though. So, you basically also need to be part of a compact system to experience mental states.

Or to put in simpler terms, assuming the position of eliminative materialism, how would they precisely differentiate our sense experience from any other abstract system, simpler or more complex? — simeonz

I don’t fully understand this question. What do you mean by an abstract system?

I think eliminative materialism might imply that consciousness will and can only form into systems which are capable of autonomous action. It may be argued that the only way that a collection of atoms can form a being or object that can move on its own is if it implanted with software. Just as I cannot get a robot to move on it’s own and make simple decisions without software, animals cannot be capable of autonomous action without biological software. We don’t deny that autonomous robots, which are definitely material entities, can have something as weird as software implanted into them. It’s possible that our current AI already have some mental activity(although probably not as much as we do.) But, I would say that consciousness might just be an advanced form of software and the presence of software implies the presence of mental activity.

In psychology, they usually refer to this phenomenon as the hedonic treadmill. Whenever something makes us feel good, the good feelings that the activity brings us start to diminish. On the positive end, activities which cause us negative experiences are also subject to the treadmill to a lesser extent. Unfortunately, it usually takes longer for negative experiences to diminish than it does for positive experiences. In addition, the extent to which negative experiences ultimately diminish seems to be less than that of the diminishment of positive experiences. Sometimes, really terrible life events can permanently lower our hedonic set point(which is the average hedonic happiness one experiences after adjusting to good and bad events). It’s really rare to have positive events permanently raise your hedonic set point. I think if you are a value hedonist or mental statist of another sort, you would probably be drawn to pessimism if you take the time to think about the positive and negative experiences that you experience in daily life and in your likely future life.

I think that a suicide actually requires an extraordinary event. All suicides must be accidents. A person can not consciously choose to commit suicide. There's that the person creates the situation that makes for suicide possible, but that it ever actually happens is simply by chance. I just think that people unremittingly desire to live. It's sort of the case that it is impossible to go against what could be regarded as human nature in this regard. — thewonder

Well, there appears to be many suicides that happen without an extraordinary event. For example, sometimes immature teenagers commit suicide to get revenge on their parents for grounding them. This would seem to be a suicide without an extraordinary event. Another question I would have to ask is how exactly can someone accidentally commit suicide. Do they just become philosophical zombies when they are in great distress and just pull the trigger? It seems that they would have to have some awareness of what they are doing and the will to do it. Finally, it’s not clear to me if we can say that there is a universal human nature. After all, human beings have a very diverse set of preferences and it’s not safe to assume that if you cannot commit suicide that means that no one can. After all, I might have a difficult time understanding how any man can enjoy having sex with another man and this may lead me to assume that homosexuality is some kind of an accident and no man can really choose to have sex with another man. But, this judgement would be a mistake on my part because I can’t assume that what I want says anything about what other humans want.

I honestly suspect that people naturally desire to live indefinitely. For me, there is no question as to whether or not anyone wants to live longer. They just simply do. No amount of reason can change this.

We all incessantly avoid death. Human beings are incapable of acting otherwise. — thewonder

What about individuals who commit suicide with little or no hesitation? I would argue that those individuals either never had a desire to live or had lost their desire to live due to immense suffering or some other type of disenchantment towards life. Personally, I can’t imagine myself not committing suicide if my life was completely torturous all the time.

I wish I could say I respect the emotions. I really really wish I could say that. But my logical side is making it really difficult to. I believe I am a more emotional person in general, but consequences can't be ignored. I have to be smart about my decisions, especially in such a pivotal point in my life. — Etzsche

Ok. I think it’s good that you don’t let your negative emotions run your life. Although, I would say that compassion is also an emotion and the wanderer in the story does seem to respect his emotions. He just prioritizes what I think are the positive emotions rather than the negative ones. I think if the wonderer was purely logical, then he would of never volunteered to be humiliated for the boy or even runaway from his royal life to become a wonderer. Either way, I agree with you that you have to smart about what decisions we make in life, because we would suffer greatly if we make the wrong decisions.

So I suppose one must decide whether to respect their intelligence and decision making, or respect their human emotions. — Etzsche

Fair enough, which do you respect more?

Yes I believe it is possible. But I can't help but think that the wanderer gains a sense of self respect from his life of compassion. — Etzsche

That’s a good point you just brought up. Does this mean that it’s sometimes possible to maintain your dignity while refusing to take revenge?

believe the only way this person who has lost all respect for himself can be happy is by means of materialistic pleasures and other outside influences like that. This person cannot produce anything that they are proud of, which allows them to only feel temporary happiness from outside influences. I think long term happiness comes from self respect and pride. — Etzsche

I would like to entertain you with a story. There once lived a wanderer who was passing by a local town and he saw a little boy who was caught after pulling a prank which humiliated a wealthy and powerful aristocrat in the town. The aristocrat decided it was appropriate to punish the boy by humiliating him. Except the proposed humiliation was far more cruel than the prank. The prank simply involved a whoopee cushion yet the aristocrat wanted the boy to be stripped naked and have the boy thrown into a cage with a dozen skunks who will spray him in front of everyone as punishment for the prank. Horrified at this ordeal, the wanderer told the aristocrat that the boy was his son and he would like to take the punishment for him. The aristocrat was happy to have the wonderer take his place since he thought it might humiliate the boy even more to see his supposed father get sprayed by skunks while naked. After the humiliating ordeal, the wonderer felt no resentment or temptation for revenge. This is despite the fact that he happened to be a runaway prince who could of summoned his father, who was the King of the his nation, to punish the aristocrat for his actions. He did not want to do so partly because he knew his father would overreact and have the aristocrat beheaded for something that doesn’t seem to warrant a beheading in the opinion of the wonderer. The wonderer believed that he could be happy by traveling around the country and helping those in need. He shunned his pride to save the boy from the wrath of the aristocrat and to spare the life of the aristocrat from the wrath of his father. He also shunned the materialistic pleasures which came with his royal life to pursue a life of impoverished adventure and compassion. Is it psychologically possible for someone like the wanderer in the story to exist in real life?

If you can't feel comfortable in your own skin, then you've got no place else to go. — Etzsche

That’s interesting, but this comment raises another question. Imagine someone who is shameless and has lost all self respect yet has become comfortable with his lack of self respect. Someone that allows himself to be humiliated and yet is unfazed by the humiliation. Could such a person exist and yet be happy?

Dignity can lead to a happy life. — Etzsche

Fair enough, but is dignity ever necessary for a happy life?

Dignity leads to self respect, which can lead to a happy life. — Etzsche

What’s the difference between dignity and self respect?

Revenge can give someone back their sense of dignity. If someone wrongs me and I take revenge, that might make me feel better. I know it’s taboo to say that publicly, but I view most feeling that come natural to us have a certain value. I have never believed that a natural feeling can be all bad. — halo

Why do you think it is important to have a sense of dignity? Is having a sense of dignity good for its own sake or is it good only because of something else that it allows you to obtain?

From the prospective of game theory, there might be a case made for the prudence of revenge. It might be argued that those who have a reputation of taking revenge are less likely to be messed with in the first place. This implies a counterintuitive prudence to revenge. Although, I actually don’t think that people who harm others in modern times take into account your willingness to seek revenge since they don’t usually know if you would or not. This is because vengeful behavior patterns mostly evolved in humans in a sparsely populated environment of the African savannas where there were few people and everyone knew everyone else very well. This means that people were far more aware of everyone’s reputation than they are in modern times. So, it’s less useful to focus too much on your reputation of not letting people fuck with you in modern times than it was in Paleolithic times.

Revenge could fulfill an import end goal in life by giving you the peace of mind that you stood up for what you care about. Is this not an important accomplishment? Could this not give you wisdom? — Etzsche

I don’t think that revenge will give you piece of mind. It is more likely to torture you for needless reason. I think it’s easier to learn how to control your impulses for revenge than it is to carry out revenge and then deal with the unexpected emotional consequences of that decision.

Of course, we don't do things (like who we fall in love with) on the basis of the diminishing law of utility. Sometimes we can apply such reasoning when the decision at hand is not too emotionally freighted. Like, "Is it worth spending another $300 to fix the large and very old refrigerator in the church basement." One can argue that it's throwing good money after bad. Just go ahead and apply the repair cost to the new fridge.

But when one meets someone and is infatuated with them, like as not no calculation took place anywhere that you had a chance of observing it. One might end up in bed with them before rational thought can come into play. — Bitter Crank

I agree that most people are only able to consider these laws in situations that are less emotionally influenced. But, perhaps it would be useful to also apply these laws to relationship matters. Of course, we might not be able to be as cool headed in those decisions but I find that being aware of this can actually help you be the exception to the rule. You can’t live a good life by being like everyone else. It doesn’t matter how rare or difficult it is for other people to do something, what matters is that you do what makes sense for you to do. This is also similar to my intuition regarding self-education. It doesn’t matter if other people can’t pull it off. What matters is whether you can. Of course, you also have to be aware of the possibility of failure and how this may impact your life. Luckily, there’s no harm if I am wrong about being able to self-educate or being able to apply the law of diminishing utility. I’m not taking a real risk by doing these things as far as I can tell. But, if I drop out of college or marry the wrong person, that’s a different story. So, I have more reason to doubt my abilities there.

What's significant about that is that it isn't only the amount of wage that is paid, but the status one has in the distribution of wages in a group. That sort of thing can affect decision making in an unrecognized way. It's a sort of "better to reign in hell than be a servant in heaven". — Bitter Crank

This is something I thought a lot about. Many people seek wealth not because of the material goods that it brings but rather the status and the opportunity for relationship formation. It could, of course, be argued that status provides benefit to one’s life. This is especially true for men as it may lead them to be more desirable to women. Of course, the law of diminishing utility applies to status and women as well. You only need so much status and you don’t need to be attractive to every woman. Although, I don’t think the benefits of status is worth the cost myself.

Here's a simple example: hunger (low blood sugar) and fatigue can creep up on us without our noticing. Both can affect our thinking and decision making. An event that is viewed as a threat before lunch might well be viewed as irrelevant after lunch--and we won't necessarily be aware that eating lunch altered our mental functioning, slightly. — Bitter Crank

Yep, I think it would be wise to have a law that says that a judge and jury must have a meal tray with any food they want provided within reason and be allowed to eat during any hearing where they might be required to make a decision.

Researchers do study personal decision making, from various angles. Take risk, for example. Whether you are risk averse or risk tolerant will affect the kind of decisions you will make, and to some extent, how you will make them. Risk averse people are likely to be cautious about how they make decisions (gathering safe, reliable information for example) as well as which decisions they make. Risk tolerant people may also gather reliable information, but treat it different than a risk averse person. People are not always consistent from thing to think. An individual may be risk averse about money, but be risk tolerant when it comes to sex. — Bitter Crank

I’m definitely belong to the risk adverse camp for the most part. This is because of the Law of Diminishing Utility which is recognized by most economists under a slightly different name(Although, I’m not sure to what extent we can call this a scientific law, it’s mostly an intuitive observation about utility.). The Law of Diminishing Utility basically states that we gain less utility with each additional unit or level of improvement of a utility-giving substance. For example, the difference in utility between having an income of $50,000 and having an income of $30,000 is greater than the difference in utility of having an income of $70,000 and $50,000. This is because the extra money in the former difference is more essential in fulfilling needs and important wants rather than trivial wants like having a fancy car. If you have a choice between a guaranteed $50,000 income and a second choice where your income will either be $30,000 or $70,000 which will be determined by a coin flip, then it’s better to choose the first option because of the Law of Diminishing Utility(I know real decisions are more complicated than that but I think it’s helpful to have these models in mind). This law also applies to other things like the attractiveness of your sexual partner for example. The difference in utility between having an average looking partner and an ugly one is greater than the difference of utility between an attractive partner and an average looking one.

Maybe study neurology? Westerners don't believe in Fate anymore but a lot of stuff goes on between our ears that we have no knowledge of nor control over that we might as well believe in Fate -- up to a point, anyway. — Bitter Crank

Well, I have studied neuroscience actually (I’m assuming you probably meant neuroscience rather than neurology in your comment because neurology is about treating brain and spinal cord injuries while neuroscience is about studying the functions of the brain.). How would believing in fate impact your decision making in a positive manner?