I've been busting my brain over this question for the past several hours now: what makes something mathematical? Is it a level of rigor? Must you reason from fundamental concepts? What makes physics so mathematical as opposed to the "higher-level" sciences? Is it the quantitative nature over qualitative? Maybe I'm just having a bad night but I can't figure it out for the life of me.

I don't know, tbh. All I'm saying is, given how strange it is, and with how physicists say things of the like, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the case (though if I'm being perfectly honest with my beliefs, I expect it is).

You need to run this by me again. I don't get it. If you have the time and patience that is. Perhaps you can link me to a detailed account of Max Black's thought experiment. Thanks — TheMadFool

I'm speaking of the arguments other people have made in this thread. Specifically, unenlightened argued that even if they are in different locations, because the observer can't discern between them, PII is false. I don't think anybody actually made the argument that the two objects are actually in the same location though.

Here's the link to Black's original dialogue: http://home.sandiego.edu/~baber/analytic/blacksballs.pdf. Honestly, I think defenders of the argument might be reading too deeply into it. If you read it, there's a lot of waffling about what symmetric universe means. Like, initially the mirror of symmetry is literally a mirror, and so to be copied in the mirror means your heart is on the right side of your chest. That seems clearly ridiculous and unecessary to the argument, but shows, to me, that the argument isn't as profound as it seems to be. Of course, I'm probably just not understanding it properly.

By the way, anticipate a response in your other thread, it's basically the starting point to my metaphysics, and will probably shed some light onto my claims about space and time not being fundamental.

If we had some sort of absolute space with a coordinate system, we could say that the two spheres are at different locations in this space. If we draw two circles on a sheet of paper on opposite sides of a line of symmetry, we can say that each occupies a different position on the sheet. But if there is nothing analogous to that sheet in the two-sphere universe, no background relative to which the spheres can be said to be located, it would seemingly present a problem of finding a difference in locations. — petrichor

I think Black's treatment actually disagrees with this. In the original text, his anti-PII character states:

Let me abandon the original idea of a plane of symmetry and to suppose instead that we have only a centre of symmetry. I mean that everything that happened at anyplace would be exactly duplicated at a place an equal distance on the opposite side of the centre of symmetry. — Black

So there is an absolute relative, which is the "centre of symmetry", and he even says that there is an "opposite" side, implying that despite the symmetry, one can have a notion of this side and that side. Also, sounds like by the very end of your post you seem to agree that there's something wrong with Black's thought experiment :grin:.

3. x is a copy of y [neither 1 nor 2] if and only if x and y are indiscernible with respect to all attributes assignable to x and y except the attribute of spatial location at an instance of time. — TheMadFool

I wouldn't say this is a necessary stipulation. It's strange to me how space and time are treated specially in metaphysics. Sure, they have a seemingly omnipresent role (quite literally) in our universe, but they are still just rules. They need not apply to all possible worlds. For example, Max's universe does happen to involve some notion of space because he defines spheres, but not necessarily time. Also, another unintuitive fact is that, depending on how you define Max's world, there may be objects existing in multiple places at once, something that seems impossible in our world (although it probably isn't with QM).

Also:

Max Black's alleged "counterexample" of the symmetric spheres doesn't quite cut it because to be a counterexample that refutes the identity of indiscernibles, the symmetric spheres must be, well, indiscernible which, by virtue of their different locations in space, they're not. — TheMadFool

That's exactly the point I made initially, that some have been trying to argue isn't a valid objection because the symmetry of the universe makes it such that either they aren't in different locations or that the observer can't discern the difference of location. At least I think that's what points were being made.

The problem with denying the identity of indiscernibles is that any language rich enough to express that two entities are non-identical is rich enough to require, by virtue of that admission, that they have distinct properties: each has the property of being identical to itself, and not to the other. — Snakes Alive

Are you talking about the concept of "thisness" or haecceity? I actually don't accept that as a defense of PII. Maybe it again boils down to what properties are and that I think about them in terms of relations rather than take them as fundamental.

He is illustrating how not getting sick is an absolute good (in his terms it seems to mean something like good, in any state of affairs). — schopenhauer1

The joys of life, would only matter once born, and thus are not a consideration for the non-born, as his analogy illustrates, it's only instrumentally good. — schopenhauer1

Perhaps instrumental good is better than absolute good? Perhaps there is another asymmetry, and that is an asymmetry between the good of experiencing pleasure and the good of not experiencing pain? And as such, the claim that non-existence is preferable because existence experiences badness and non-existence does not is unjustified?

To make someone sick so they can recover from the illness, would be analogously a bad or immoral thing to do. — schopenhauer1

You must be careful with your analogies. Most anyone would agree with you that such an infliction is bad, but consider another supposed example of inflicting harm for the greater good: childhood discipline. Of course it's the right thing to harm your child either indirectly by not giving them the treats they desire, or even by direct discipline (timeout, scolding, etc.). This indicates that there is a difference between your uncharitable example and mine, that difference being that in your example, you are giving them sickness just to alleviate them from the sickness you gave them. It's a reversal. In the case of childhood discipline, your aren't putting them in time out just to take them out, rather you are putting them there to, well, discipline, shape up their behavior so that they may lead better, ethical lives in the future.

This is the difference in perspective, and I think the unspoken assumption that anti-natalists have that life is suffering. To give birth is to give them the illness of life, only to reverse that illness as best we can. But I don't think life is inherently suffering. Yes, life is fundamentally about avoiding pain, but that doesn't mean life is pain.

Perhaps we can argue on whether or not life is fundamentally painful. I know you have arguments for that and you've already expressed some. In addition, I have two questions for you to narrow the scope of the conversation so that we can maybe communicate more effectively:

1. Is it possible that the good of existing pleasure outweighs the good of non-existent pain?
2. If life was inherently pleasurable, happy, and beneficial, with some pain and negativity, would you still agree that non-existence is better because there is no bad in non-existence, but still some bad in existence?

Thanks for the link. I think I spotted a point of contention when he describes the comparisons between pain/pleasure on existence/non-existence.

Not gonna quote the whole thing, but he argues that "the pleasures of the existent, although good, are not a real advantage over non-existence, because the absence of pleasures is not bad" (to other readers, it's advised to read the source to get a clear picture of the argument. Duh). His justification for this is to consider that "[a person] S is prone to regular bouts of illness. Fortunately for him, he is also so constituted that he recovers quickly. H lacks the capacity for quick recovery, but he never gets sick." Of this example, Benatar states "S is not better off than H in any way". I've skipped over a little bit of the logic, so, again, see the source for the whole argument, but I find fault with his conclusion from the situation.

If I sum it up, S's recovery (a good) is not an advantage over H's lack of recovery, because it doesn't matter that H can't recover (it's "not bad"). I think this is easily flawed, because it ignores the potential dynamics that S's good recovery has as relief to his bad sickness, in contrast to only H's good lack of sickness. Similarly if we continue to the end of this section, Benatar finishes by saying, "There are benefits both to existing and non-existing. It is good that existers enjoy their pleasures. It is also
good that pains are avoided through non existence. However, that is only part of the picture. Because there is nothing bad about never coming into existence, but there is something bad about coming into existence, all thing considered non-existence is preferable."

This is just an assertion that he doesn't back up with anything. Why is it that any badness immediately makes the alternative preferable? Again, he doesn't seem to be entertaining the idea that the dynamics between the good and bad of existence makes it preferable, despite the lack of bad in non-existence.

Thanks for the reference. I'd be lying if I said I fully understood the argument, but I completely, wholeheartedly, and fundamentally disagree with D3, haha. Don't mean to disregard the argument altogether, but it seems not as relevant as I'd like to my philosophy given the disagreement. I'll keep it on the shelf though in case there's anything else to gleam from it.

I think to enter the classical Experience Machine—where one steps in, doesn't know they're in it, is given artificially simulated experiences, and they never leaves—is to die.

Your current self no longer has any connection to your future self in the machine. You won't have any memory of yourself, your experiences won't dictate your actions in the machine, where is the connection?

As for why we don't rush to make such a machine, in my view, it's because maximal pleasure is not the aim, rather its minimal pain. You might say, "Well, isn't zero pain minimal? This machine would also reduce pain to zero as well as maximize pleasure, so we should still strive for it." However, I think local minimization of pain is the goal, not global. That is, we respond to the current inducers of harm and work to fix that rather than strive for grand solutions that will eliminate all.

As a bonus food for thought, I believe the Experience Machine is mistaken. If we do want to construct it to minimize pain, then the goal isn't to simulate experience such that we don't feel negative things like a stubbed toe, rather it is to rewire our thinking such that we don't fear pain but embrace it. We still function such that we strive for survival, we strive for better lives and more pleasurable lives, but we accept the inevitable pain that comes with life. It's about perspective. It's about what's inside, not the outside impulses, that shape the harms and benefits of reality

You have to be careful which version of the principle it denies; not the one you quoted. — unenlightened

You mean between the "Identity of Indiscernibles" and the "Indiscernibility of Identicals"? I think I got the right one.

And Stanford doesn't explain it much better. However, I did find the original writing by Max Black, which (obviously) sheds some light onto his thinking. But since it's in the form of a dialogue, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take as rational argument and what is just extraneous, such as the details of an observer passing through the mirror of the universe.

But let me propose this: you say if there is an observer, the observer is also symmetric. In fact, in your first comment you say, "But now imagine you are a symmetrical observer, looking at the same time from opposite sides." But in this case, you are a symmetrical observer, in two places at once. Is it not the case then, that this universe doesn't function as a universe where two objects exist symmetrically to each other, but that one object exists in multiple locations? In this case, it isn't the case that there exist two identical, but distinct spheres, rather there exists one sphere in two locations, given the properties of this symmetrical space we've created. That is a key distinction.

But that trivializes PII, because if two objects actually present themselves as numerically distinct, then you can always predicate something that would imply a distinction, if only by ostention ("A is this and B is that"). — SophistiCat

Did you mean numerically identical? Because if they're already numerically distinct, it wouldn't matter if you predicated another distinction. Although, if you did mean identical, I don't think it would still make sense because if we take PII to be true, it would be impossible for two things to be numerically identical in the first place, so we couldn't predicate anything to make a distinction.

I guess my confusion comes from not entirely understanding what properties are. In my own thinking, I feel I often conflate properties and relations, because I think about everything in terms of relations, but not necessarily in the philosophical sense.

But are we not describing the universe from the outside? I don't believe indiscernible in this case means indiscernible with respect to an observer. PII only talks about properties of objects and the identity thereof. From Wiki: "For any x and y, if x and y have all the same properties, then x is identical to y."

The way I view the symmetric universe is (and this may be ignorant as I don't know the mathematics behind constructing spaces) a, say, 3-dimensional space with some point of symmetry (0, 0, 0). To maintain the symmetry of the universe, if you introduce sphere A at point (2, 4, 3), there must be sphere B at point (-2, -4, -3). Even if all other properties were equal, these clearly are discernible because they exist at different points in space. But I must be missing something because explaining like that just seems like common sense.

You'll have to forgive me as I've given myself an existential headache reading up on the pessimist views of Benatar, Schopenhauer, and yourself, so I probably won't do the best job responding/clarifying your position (but in retrospect, I think I did a pretty good job actually).

I think I gleamed the most of your position from the thread It is life itself that we can all unite against (which, by the way, wasn't even one of the links you gave me :wink:), particularly this post.

On the unborn being used, you say:

Being born is being used, period.

We are born for our parents, and with the inevitable enculturation process, this means for society's means to be used for labor.

Anyways, procreating more people so that they can be used, is not good, period. The ends here, don't justify the means, when, someone didn't need to be born to experience any harm in the first place, and no actual person prior to birth exists to be deprived.

I may agree that being born is being used, but like I said, we are not merely used. Nor do I think we are merely being used for labor. Yes, in a way, we are being used; society is what keeps human life healthy and flourishing, and in order to maintain society, we all must play a role, but the reason I don't find fault in this is because (1) I think procreation is a necessity for the good of current human life and (2) the existence of goods in life justifies the creation of new humans that will inevitably experience at least some suffering.

Notice, I might (strong might) agree that, if procreation wasn't necessary for the good of current life, then bringing in new life, even if they'd experience more good than bad, wouldn't be justified. Another thing to note, the necessity of new life is for a similar reason that anti-natalists don't promote suicide or active methods of removing human existence: because for the people that are living, we should still minimize suffering, in some sense. New life is necessary for this reason because, like it's been mentioned before, if we imagine a world where we stop procreating, even if its not all simultaneous, eventually our social structures preventing suffering will degrade and cause suffering to the final generations. Is this not indirectly an action we are taking that causes suffering?

I mentioned that I think there is good in life which allows us to comfortably procreate despite the inevitability of suffering. On this, you say:

Even so, there is built in systemic suffering not related to the usual contingent (read common) notions of suffering. There is the subtle suffering of the human psyche of desire, which is simply inbuilt.

I'm not sure how to respond to this as of yet. Although I agree that the pursuit of life is not to pursue happiness (for happiness is never achieved, as we continually desire something new), I believe that this state of mind may be fixed with a change in internal attitude. In general, I'm not convinced that if suffering merely exists, life isn't worth living, as you seem to claim. That is, that if there is any form of suffering, even suffering that ultimately leads to a greater good, then that's bad and no one should have to experience that at all. Perhaps you can argue why any suffering at all is bad? I'd like to also get into a discussion on some of these terms, because I think a lot of the terms like suffering and society are rather lofty and could do with a more precise and fundamentally rooted understanding.

But you only restated the Ponzi scheme and then said, "that's life"! — schopenhauer1

What I intended to do was view his "Ponzi scheme" from a different perspective, and hopefully show how my perspective actually describes a healthy existence. In his perspective, it's about people suffering and procreating to prevent suffering, only to bring suffering people into the world. In my perspective, it's about people avoiding suffering (not already suffering) and procreating to prevent further suffering, while bringing people into a world built to shield them from suffering, while providing pleasure.

Maybe the two scenarios I'm describing are functionally the same, but a glass half-full and a glass half-empty are functionally the same, it just depends how you look at it. But like I said, I don't think it's merely a difference in perspective nor do I think they are functionally the same. For further clarification, read on.

Well yes, he thinks that if one generation is using the other, then we should stop doing this to the new generation. There is no downside for the next generation that doesn't exist. — schopenhauer1

First of all, yes, there is no downside to non-existence. The downside is for people that do already exist. And part of my solution for alleviating those downsides is to produce new generations.

But here's the key distinction:

We aren't using the next generation, the same way I don't use the waiter to get my food. This is where the symbiosis comes in. The waiter is providing me a service to get food, and in return, I treat them with respect and give them a tip. Society (and life in general) is predicated on these mutually beneficial relationships. The symbiotic relationship between us and the next generation is that we, as living beings, need continuing generations to uphold the workforce, economy, hospitals, etc. so that, up until death, we can remain living pleasurable lives, maybe in a nursing home taken care of by young caregivers. And, in return, we use the society we have built to raise the children we need and give them fulfilling lives, outweighing the bad they may experience with the good.

Notice, then, that this reasoning is not at all relevant to the reasons you give for having children:

If you point back that the downside is that parents feel bad, then you are reiterating his exact point that the parents feel bad, and thus use the children to feel better, but inadvertently keep the suffering scheme going in the process. Thus, to be benevolant, they should put their personal feelings aside to prevent a new generation from suffering. — schopenhauer1

I was trying to figure out whether or not you were making my point, or making the point you actually did make, which is highlighted by the bolded portion.

I'm not advocating that people have children merely because they want to, and it'll make them, personally, feel good to have children. I'm making the point that it is a societal necessity to continue making children, for the good of all living people.

Thinking out loud here, but do we actually have any moral obligations? Or, in other words, if a particular action is most moral, or the morally right thing to do, are we obligated to act it out? I don't think so. I think free will is more important than moral obligation.

Spontaneity is what makes life so intriguing. If we were to just do whatever we were obligated to do, we would hardly be more than robots. However, we can still be virtuous—in fact, we may only be virtuous if we have free will. If everybody follows their moral obligations, virtue has no meaning. However, if certain actions are morally right, and we have the will to either follow it or not, then we can say the virtuous are those who decide to follow.

@schopenhauer1 I visited the wiki and followed a link to a conveniently recent debate where he discussed his ideas. I was surprised and pleased to find that he actually made a comment that addressed the point I made in this thread, that "the only way to avoid daily suffering is to sustain a society that protects us from suffering":

I don't deny that there would be disadvantages to existing people in not bringing into existence new generations, the question though is whether we are entitled to treat other people as means to our ends in that way. Say if we keep reproducing new generations for our benefit and then those new generations have to suffer and then they need to produce new generations for their benefit, what we have is what I call a procreational Ponzi scheme. — Benatar

But I simply think that Benatar has a pessimistic view on this cycle of procreation. He seems to think that we all are suffering, and to alleviate that suffering, we procreate, which will just bring more suffering beings into existence. This leads to his procreational Ponzi scheme.

I believe, however, that the cycle of procreation is symbiotic.

We are born into this world of pain and pleasure. As living, conscious beings, we strive to avoid pain, and indulge in pleasure (note: avoiding pain is fundamental, indulging in pleasure is a byproduct). In order to minimize pain, we build society, but society can only be sustained with new generations. So it is essential that we bear new generations and then those new generations will live to experience pain and pleasure, but in a society that shields the pain from them and provides pleasure for them to indulge in.

This isn't a Ponzi scheme. We aren't using new generations merely as means to an end. It's the circle of life.

Minimizing suffering doesn't mean creating a state of minimal suffering, it means avoiding current suffering. The difference is in tense: your perceiving a future where there exists minimum suffering, which would be non-existence, or zero suffering. However, we live in the present and we must avoid suffering in our day-to-day activities. The only way to avoid daily suffering is to sustain a society that protects us from suffering. This, of course, isn't even considering the fact that we're completely ignoring the good in life, which one could easily argue outweighs the bad.

If nothing matters, why do you care?

Things matter because we have desires, and the thing we desire most fundamentally is to avoid negative emotion. It matters if I step on glass because it'll hurt, potentially kill me. What does it matter if I die? Because I don't want to die, I want to keep living and feeling positive emotions. Not to mention that the thought simply scares me, and I want to avoid the fear.

You might be right that meaning is only relative to us and that there's no universal meaning, but so what? We experience meaning, and I give an explanation for where that meaning comes from. Is this insufficient? And what could some universal meaning give us that we don't already have?