In a way, you could even say that the illusion theory is just pushing consciousness away one step. What then is experiencing the illusion? — Theologian

Frankish says that the Illusionist argument can't just be pushing the hard problem back one step, so what's being claimed is that the illusion is that we have an experience at all. It's a cognitive trick. Dennett and Frankish use the metaphor of a magic show with slight of hand being used to fool our brains.

It's even more basic than that. Colour is a real phenomenon by any account and not a merely "mental" phenomenon. — Janus

That's debatable and a minority position called color realism. Wavelengths of light and reflective surfaces are real. Whether either of those could be said to be colored in the way we experience color is controversial.

Compare this to feeling hot or cold, which relates to the amount of energy the particles in a volume of space has. Our experience of the energy can result in feeling cold or hot, but the space doesn't feel that way. Similarly, our experience of color relates to visible light reflecting off surfaces of objects.

Even granting color realism, it certainly wouldn't apply to all of our conscious sensations. Kicking a rock and feeling pain is a perceiver dependent experience, not a property of the rock.

our definition of 'carrying capacity' is according to 'species'. Are you saying that the hunter-gather is a different species than the agrian? Otherwise, as the same species the carrying capacity is the same. — Metaphysician Undercover

Nah, the carrying capacity changes as technology improves to support more of the same species (humans). A hunter-gatherer lifestyle would not support billions of people. We have billions of people now because modern civilization makes it possible. If the lights went out for good, our population would fall back to medieval times. (There's a fictional series of books that explores this.)

Future progress may further increase the carrying capacity of Earth for humans.

Because we know that it's impossible for houses to turn into flowers. — Michael

We don't know this, and it probably isn't impossible. We just aren't anywhere near that technologically advanced. But I doubt it's physically impossible.

Do you mean there is no non-technological way for houses to turn into flowers? My guess is it's merely highly improbably, but QM would allow for a non-zero possibility of such an arrangement coming about in an infinite universe or given enough time.

However, to Street's point, if we ever do get that technologically advanced, houses might become more like living things that can morph themselves into whatever suits the moment. In which case our conceptual understanding of houses and most of the world around us will have shifted into some highly technological symbiosis between the environment and ourselves.

Or we go extinct before then.

But the point being made is not about things: it is about concepts (or language). It's not about physical possibility. It's about conceptual possibility. And importantly, it is about how the one does not mirror or track the other (at least, not in any pre-established way - hence the bit about 'pre-established' harmony - an old theological notion). One way to put all this is that language is normative: we call things what we do not because (or not only because) of their 'physical properties' but also because of what we imagine things 'should' be: a 'house' is roughly what we call something to be lived in; — StreetlightX

But as at least one other poster has brought up with the magic example, we can conceptually understand houses being turned into flowers by some special means. And this sort of imaginative leap happens quite a bit in fiction, and not so infrequently in theology. Think of the Catholic Eucharist.

But let's say the language is meant to be everyday real-world and not magic or metaphysics. Is there anything physically preventing a house from being turned into flowers atom by atom, given some really unlikely scenario or with advanced technology?

Let's say time travelers or aliens leave a device behind that can rearrange matter however we like. Someone uses it to turn an abandoned decrepit building into flowers. Does this require us to alter our conceptual understanding of houses or flowers? Or does it just broaden our knowledge of what's physically possible?

Most of us have a sacred sense of life, where we conclude that almost any condition of life is worth living. — Josh Alfred

But is that because we have a biological imperative to survive? We can also say humans have a sacred duty to procreate and propagate the species. But again, is that just a biological imperative that we've turned into a sacred sense?

If you asked me would I rather be born into slavery my entire life or not exist, I would choose to not exist. And yet people were born and lived in slavery, and had children. And that's because the will to survive is very strong. And yes, we can say their lives had value, but it's not the sort of life we wish on anyone.

Who cares if you have to lie to someone threatening your kids? Is this something you're going to feel guilty about? No. Is it something society will judge you for? No. Will there be any legal ramifications. No. Will God deduct brownie points for getting into heaven because you lied under duress?

What good does it serve to always follow Kant's maxim anyway? You can say under ordinary circumstances it's best not to treat people as a means to an end. That's a nice ideal. But it's just that, an ideal that someone came up with.

Is the point that Kantian ethics are impossibly ideal? Probably. So is the golden rule and the ten commandments.

Are you being sarcastic? I’m not always quick on the uptake. — Noah Te Stroete

Sort of, but I was conceding your argument. For now.

I don’t understand. — Noah Te Stroete

In my mind, it seems like you proved your point. Horses are mental cats.

Oh wait, mixing things up with the OP.

You’ve convinced me. Now work on Terrapin Station. — Noah Te Stroete

Why does it feel like you won the point?

As if you can even speak of something extra-mental — Noah Te Stroete

Based on what you've been arguing, Terrapin cannot speak of himself extra-mentally.

But does he only perceive himself mentally?

LOL and we’ve arrived back to Terrapin Station. — Noah Te Stroete

Only the mental conception, though.

I would have to interrogate a physicalist to know for sure. — Noah Te Stroete

I'm pretty sure you can find a few on here. @Terrapin Station

I think so. — Noah Te Stroete

So physicalists fail to take that into account?

I suppose when I say that you can’t have one without the other, I mean that physicality is needed to give a venue for the mental, while the mental is needed to give meaning to the physical. — Noah Te Stroete

Does this mean that no physical theory can be complete because it will always fail to account for the mental component in deriving the physical theory?

That information is also a conceptual framework which requires minds. — Noah Te Stroete

Yes and no. Information can also be thought of as physical. The lightwaves bouncing off objects into photoreceptors is a physical exchange.

You would stop experiencing of course. There is “something” that caused your death, viz. matter. But that’s all we can say about it. “Highway”, “cars”, “traffic” are all mental representations of perception. — Noah Te Stroete

Problem with that is explaining how it is that I can predict your likely death if you cross without looking, if it's just something material that perception does not tell us about. More broadly, how is it that we can navigate the world, make technology and do science if our perception isn't somewhat accurate?

Unless you mean something else by that. I can agree that colors are not properties of things themselves, but our ability to experience color does give us information about those things.

You’re presupposing other minds observing your death. — Noah Te Stroete

Would it matter if nobody observed your death? You'd still stop experiencing.

That “thing” isn’t what’s being spoken of. — Noah Te Stroete

I don't see why not. If I tell you there's a busy highway there, and to look before crossing, you could reply that I'm not speaking of the extra-mental highway but a mental one. That doesn't change the fact that crossing without looking can get you killed, which would be an extra-mental state for you. Therefore, I must be referring to something extra-mental about the busy highway.

“The thing being experienced” presupposes a mind experiencing it. — Noah Te Stroete

Yes, but that doesn't mean the thing presupposes a mind experiencing it.

Well, that would all depend on your epistemological views, right?

I think I can speak of things extra-mental, even though my experience of them is mental. I think that's confusing the experience itself with the thing being experienced, or what the experience is about. Just like the word "rock" is different from specifying a rock that one kicks.

But that does bring up a frequent issue that philosophical debates often involve terms like perception and mental that people don't agree on.

I've learned recently that cats are actually flerkens (movie reference). I do agree with the OP that philosophy arguments on here tend to go down the semantic rabbit hole and end up with people talking past one another. Or definitions are shifted so that arguments can be won.

As an example from a while back, someone posted that color irrealism is a challenge to direct realism. The argument went on for a while and devolved into direct realism meaning how things appear to us, which is not what realism means, but that's how it got redefined.

The entire history of humanity is technological. We can't survive without some level of it. And we certainly can't continue to support billions without modern tech.

Just remember to double tap the zombies. Also, good cardio for running away.

It's universal given a standard definition for arithmetic and natural numbers. And seeing as how useful arithmetic is, we can assume any intelligent beings out there in the cosmos will agree that 2 + 2 = 4.

Ideally, we should just all slow down. But, realistically, that's not going to happen. — Baden

So in reality we live ideal lives? Way to settle that long standing debate.

Could this be generalized to asking why it's ethically wrong to consider one group of people better or worse than other groups based on some biological factor like gender or ethnicity?

We could take height. Anyone above or below a certain height is somehow lesser. Why is that? Well, because seven feet tall people should rule the world, because they can see farther. Or something.

That sounds dumb, but little people have faced discrimination. If you're under four foot something, then society has had a tendency to think less of you. And the seven footers were probably treated like freaks at some point (before modern sports).

What does methodological naturalism have to do with repeatability? — Echarmion

A scientific prediction has to be based on experiments and observations that can be reproduced. Otherwise, human bias and experimental flaws can be mistaken for real results. We should always be cautious with any single paper or experiment. There always needs to be confirmation.

And I don't see how you go from "social processes are not well understood" to "therefore predictions about social processes are unscientific" — Echarmion

I didn't say "social processes" in the generic sense. I said societal collapse, which is quite specific, and would mean the global society we have today.

Indeed. Notable ones in the past 50 years or so:

Population bomb: no way we can feed several billion people.
Silent Spring: chemicals like DDT would wipe out birds and other animal population.
Rainforest deforestation: Amazon will be cut down in a couple decades.
Ozone depletion: everyone will be getting skin cancer from the sun.
Acid Rain: northern forests will die off.
Peak oil and various minerals: we'll run out and civilization will crash.
Animal population declines: means major extinction is on its way.
Carrying capacity: The Earth can only support 4 billion people.

Now all of those have been or still remain problems. But the worst case scenarios have not come to pass. Animal populations have a tendency to recover (often when protectives measures are taken). New oil fields and mineral deposits are discovered with better means of mining them. DDT was banned, air pollution in developed countries has declined, the rate of deforestation went down, the green revolution happened, and improvements in technology change the carrying capacity equation.

Also, our understanding of the environment improves as do the computer models over time. So predictions are adjusted. The key point is that society adapts and changes over time.

That is a highly controversial statement. Which epistemological principle requires repeatability specifically? — Echarmion

Methodological naturalism.

The main issue in this thread isn't with climate change predictions, it's with societal collapse predictions, which are not scientific, even if the reasons for predicting a collapse are scientific.

Consider the analogy with predictions about future automation displacing a large percentage of jobs. The studies about current technology might be sound, but prediction about how the technology will be applied and how workers and employers will adapt are not well understood.

What, no reintroduced cloned Woolly Mammoths to go with rest of the natural riff-raff? What better way to combat climate change than with an ice age critter.

There is a way, You type the words on a lap top and then click "post comment". Science is all about predicting the future — unenlightened

Science is all about repeatability, and societal collapse isn't a repeatable phenomenon. It has happened for various societies in the past. But that's history, not science. And there's a difference for a reason.

But yes, anyone can type words on a laptop and click post.

Also, when did the doom and gloom predictions go from later in this century to a decade from now? The conspiratorial part of me thinks it's a strategy to motivate people to act sooner so as to avoid eventual bad outcomes.

2. Social collapse will be worldwide, and in the next 10 years or so. — unenlightened

There's no way to make an accurate prediction like that. It's one thing to predict the climate 10 years from now. Seems like we have fairly good models. Society is a whole different animal.

There's fuck all to be done to stop it. — unenlightened

How can anyone know that without time traveling into the future? There have been proposals for engineering the environment to correct for global warming and removing the C02 form the atmosphere.

"I have chosen to interpret the information as indicating inevitable collapse, probable catastrophe and possible extinction." — unenlightened

It's not the first doomsday prediction in the history of the human race, nor the first environmental apocalyptic prediction in the past several decades. To date, the doomsday predictions have not come true. I'm a bit skeptical of worst case scenarios. Not that they can't happen, but when they're talked about in inevitable terms. I don't think we can know enough about a system as complex as the environment in conjunction with human civilization to make such claims of certainty.

I wonder why Camus thought life was meaningless? Did he give death as a reason? Or is life meaningless even for an immortal? — TheMadFool

I think it was more that nature was meaningless in the absence of something like God. So yeah, if you could be immortal, the world would still be lacking meaning. Although arguably, you would be living in a different world (like say heaven), since you can't be immortal in the actual one.

The definition of "suffering" employed by pessimists/anti-natalist is not normative free and not acceptable in any type of everyday usage of the word. This is the "whiny" part in my view, where boredom all of a sudden become suffering. You're not suffering, you're just bored; — Benkei

To be fair to the anti-natalist, boredom is just one part of what makes life less worth living. If some occasional short term boredom were the end of it, then sure, we could easily dismiss their argument. But it's not. I'm okay with some boredom. But there are other things in life that are not so okay that often have to be dealt with which do make me question whether being alive is worth it, from time to time.

America simply provided a new packaging to an old theme using science, magic and mythology. Americans are excellent at business. — TheMadFool

Yeah, America had a big market for comic books at one point which hasn't gone entirely away and a lot of the characters and stories have made it into movies, which now have big international audiences.

The stories and characters evolve a lot over time. They're not all about the heroic American saving the world from evil communist or Nazis plots. There's even alternative versions where you have a bad Superman who terrorizes the planet. A movie is coming out based on the idea of what if the Clark Kent-like character had dark tendencies as a child?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6eB0JT1DI4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6eB0JT1DI4

There is Black Panther, who leads a fictional African nation in Wakanda that's more advanced than the rest of the world. He ends up giving refuge to Captain America's friend who was a fugitive from the other world governments, and the Avengers like Iron Man who were ready to agree to government oversight in the movie, which Captain America, being the good libertarian that he had become, was adamantly against.

So how do you interpret Thanos form the Avengers: Infinity War where his goal was to solve the perceived threat of overpopulation with genocide in order to prevent the eventual extinction of life?