Physical information has gotten into general usage as something unintended by physicists. It's not a property of the physical matter itself but associated with the matter in the mind of the observer. This might not be your fault at all since many physics articles are written by non physicists who don't understand the issue. — Mark Nyquist

I hear what you're saying and from the perspective of a specialist that has narrowed, strictly defined and specified their line of thinking and empirical evidence a great deal to be on the frontier of that specialty, it seems incorrect to overlaps departments of knowledge.

We love to categorise and make discrete so we can better apply constants with one another and find novel outcomes.
But just as the electromagentic spectrum can be quantized into discrete packages (photons) let us not forget its wave duality - the fact that is is at the same time a spectrum that is not discrète.

So information can be packaged and solid and particulate , but it can also be fluid and miscible. Like water. Science likes to control information by giving it parameters, taoism acknowledges the flow and interconnectedness of things

You might be referring to what physicists term physical information and you should not mix definitions — Mark Nyquist

Why not. Are we not made from physics? We are physical. The information we hold in our brain is as much stored in the physical (anatomical synapses) as any information in the objects/ physical world we see around us.

To split physics information from biological information or chemical information is to randomly assert that we are separate from physics which I think is a pretty unreasonable conclusion.

It's only useful to segregate for the purpose of specialisation in that discipline but all human disciplines of observation of the universe (be it scientific, philosophical, spiritual, medical or social/political) are not discrete. We have huge overlap of our disciplines with one another otherwise technological information could never influence medical, scientific could never influence philosophical and so on.

Big picture, little picture, macroscopic, microscopic, it's just on the order of scope/magnitude. All information (of whatever quality/content) is connected.

If it wasn't we would just be in separate innumerable multiverses that have no connection or sense to one another

Physical matter exists in a perpetual physical present so for matter alone time might not be a fundamental component.

Perception of time requires consciousness and understanding information first is required. Information exists as brain state and brain state is the physical brain AND its mental content. Mental content, being emergent from the physical brain, is where time perception exists, as you were explaining. — Mark Nyquist

Yes quite right. Non-conscious matter in theory wouldn't "experience" the passage of time but conscious matter (people) do experience time as its perception requires awareness.

However that would leave us with a conundrum if we stop there. Because if only matter can undergo change (time), unlike energy at the speed of light, and only conscious beings like us can perceive that change, when does consciousness emerge from unconscious matter and become "animate" as we are?

I think the key to accessing a possible answer to that is to not consider memory as explicit to/strictly confined in the "human brain", but rather simply the storage of information in something physical (matter), that can be rearranged and processed through time (reviewed)

Well when we consider memory in this definition, we can appreciate consciousness in a new way - a continuum all the way from "potential energy" at the speed of light (unconscious), deceleration into matter (the first recording/memory/storage of energy) as well as the beginning of time and the continued generation of information (change) - a very primordial consciousness.

Then organisation of this stored information (memory) takes place (gravity) and diversification of that information through processing (birth of new elements in stars, thus new molecules), new cycles (tectonics, ocean currents, tides, seasons etc) and evolution of that stored information (memory) of those systems all the way up into life and further towards humanity.

All the while the capacity for condensed and ever more efficient computations - manipulations of stored/memorised/encoded information is pressured by evolution and our consciousness ("human self awareness") as we know it emerges.

Regarding time without direction (pre-Big Bang), can you elaborate some behavioral details? For example, do past-present-future evolve simultaneously? — ucarr

I think past-present-future evolve simulateneously, through deceleration away from/ in reference to - the speed of light (where past-present-future are one and the same/simultaneous/singular). That's relativity for you.

Only objects experience time (can be changed/are subject to transformations from one physical state of being to another).

Because of that a past (A state), present (B/current state) and (C anticipated/predicted) future state can be observed in objects in motion. The easiest of which to predict would be a simple linear movement from A through B to C, but as we know things can also move in revolutionary/circular, and pendular motion. Oscillations. That's a little trickier to predict for us which consider time to typically only operate in a linear fashion.

This can be done by other objects (ones that observe - for example humans, with the condition that conscious awareness requires memory).
Without memory, we cannot acknowledge change in reference to something pre-recorded/stored.

You're welcome. We still have a long way to go! — Agent Smith

We do indeed. The journey is a process, but a good one, who doesn't love a challenge.

Benj96Hats off to you for yer brief but well-considered post mon ami! — Agent Smith

Thank you Agent Smith.

I found out that the creator of the world in native cultures was not the forbidding giant of a monstrous knower, judge and goodness. — god must be atheist

That's fascinating. I had never heard about these stories either as said.

I can only imagine how many kernels of wisdom are out there in the far reaches. Some perhaps still alive but many surely lost to time as well.

There's a certain De ja vu to reading of the various cultural, religious and philosophical views - both archaic and modern. A familiarity beneath them all, despite their individual idiosyncrasies

Endless growth is cancerous. — unenlightened

Perfect use of the term cancerous imo.
A healthy cell recognises that it can't have it all without being a cancer to the others, and ironically ignoring those natural laws to its existence (the immune system) will end in ultimately killing its host. And nobody is a winner in that case.

I think our current global capitalist regime has elements of this toxic or "cancerous" insistance that economy can grow indefinitely in a finite space (the earth - our organism).

I don't think we fully recognise that we are guests of mother nature. Not her owners. We can't come into her house (be born) and trample around rampaging, pillaging and plundering her resources to find some form of happiness, meaning or satisfaction.

She has house rules. Like any good mother, and she'll sweat us out with the AC if she has to. She will put manners on us if we don't put manners on ourselves. The fever is rising. The planet is ill. We can be medicine or toxin. The choice is ours.

Use it to refer to your own bumhole if you want — Bartricks

I mean, I'd rather not.. butt... If you say so. :p

Here it means what I say it does. It's my thread. So if you want to understand what I am saying, then you need to understand that I mean by 'God' an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenvolent person, — Bartricks

Yes I understand, I didn't mean to offend or anything I was merely following what I thought to be the logical implications of such a God as you described. I don't know about the others here I was just trying to add some different viewpoints for you to consider in your quest to personally understand better the God you believe in. As I assume is the reason you're here right?

But of course you're allowed to consider or reject whatever ideas you wish.

So, don't tell me what Christians believe — Bartricks

I didn't think I had. I apologise again if you feel I overstepped. Personally I think Christianity has a good deal of very useful and insightful points and I try to respect religions and those that believe in them.

But I'm a little confused is all as to why one would start a philosophical thread on the subject - presumably to discuss with others, but then get personal when they express their views. They're just opinions, some more reasonable than others I would imagine.

I don't think "my bumhole" as you launched off about has any place in a formal/ academic discourse.

Im trying to afford you the respect you deserve to speak your mind here on the forum. I think it's only fair I am permitted the same in return.

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" Luke 6:31 - a great one from Christianity.

I think you are referring to human selection rather than any aspect of natural selection. — universeness

In that sense you outlined, yes I'm referring to human selection. However humans are natural - born of nature itself. At what point does natural selection convert into human selection? And how arbitrary or definitive is this boundary?

I suppose based on your distinction of "intent" and "no intent" you're referring to "choice" which pertains to agents/that which is conscious.
So the difference then between natural selection and human selection would be the emergence of conscious agents with intent right?

Does that mean then that humans are the only conscious agents with intent? Or is it perhaps a continuum graduating stepwise from a system with no agency or choice towards one that does have agency and control. And where would other animals, plants and life fall on this continuum of emergent "intent"?

nt, and omnibenevolent.

Now, what are you disagreeing with? Do you think I don't ,in fact, mean that by the term?

Er, I do. That's what I mean by the term. I'm an expert - the world's leading expert - on what I mean by the term 'God'. And that's what I mean. — Bartricks

That's totally fine. Based on how you use the term - I disagree. I don't think a person can be omnipotent (they can't create stars, levitate or teleport), they can't be omnipresent (as they are a singular finite object) and they can't know everything that has ever occurred is occurring or ever will occur (they don't know what Janet just called her new baby across the world).

This concept of a God is absurd. I'm sure there are better versions of a god that could exist.

Makes more sense then to move on now that we agree that that idea is absurd and discuss better description and parameters we could give to such a term that seem more reasonable and plausible, more clout for argument.

as is the fact that natural selection will maintain those aspects of a species which best equips it for survival within the environment it finds itself in, regardless of any issue of what humans label, morality — universeness

Could natural selection not also operate on a cultural, linguistic and neurological level? I fail to see how the process is limited to biology and cannot be extended to other things like concepts, the words that represent them and the cultures that use them.

For example if a concept is useful (logical and or ethical) in explanation of something it will be used by an individual to articulate themselves (articulation being the spreading of that concept to others).

Similarly such new concepts require new words right? To condense their meaning into something useful - a short hand explanation for quicker/more efficient spreading of the information.

For example: Instead of saying "we should like totally be friends with that four legged animal that seems pretty nice and does stuff for us in return for food" we can just call it a "dog" and refer to it as "man's best friend". The information is the same, the number of words is condensed.

Languages evolve out of usefulness. Slang and tech words are the new most useful terms accepted to describe ideas and that's why they gain popularity.

I can now "Google it". It's now a verb in the dictionary. Instead of before where I had to say "I can now search for the information using the digital world wide network". A mouthful for sure.

The writer of Genesis employed the term 'day'. If I say 'day' you interpret me to mean a 24 hour period or thereabouts. That is the reasonable interpretation of the term.

Now, if you want you can insist that every single word in Genesis - hell, every single word anywhere - means something different. But that'd be unbelievably stupid and unjustified, yes? — Bartricks

I think most scriptures are intended to be interpreted metaphorically not literally. Parables, like children's stories, don't neccesarily have to refer to an actual event that ever occurred.

I doubt three little pigs ever built three different home, however the underlining message of "strength in numbers, and acknowledging the wisdom of others when due" is very applicable.

In the same way the most fundamental basics and meanings (specific details/exacting words aside) of all scriptures in most if not all religions has validity.

We must remember that the messages they wrote were culture/time dependent. They were written for, and read by, people of that time. They didn't have our modern day science and tech that discredits what's "literally written" but not what underlies figuratively .

Also let's not forget these books are seriously old. Like pre-printing press by thousands of years so they've been hand transcribed hundreds of times. Perhaps a lot of nonsense and errors were added in, in that time no, adding to the modern day ludicrousness?

Language evolves too so the meaning of words changes, some become obsolete, and new ones emerge making the text ever more interpretative and less accurate.

there are real ecological constraints at work that are equally, if not more important — Janus

Yes you're absolutely right I didn't include that in the phrase: economics is mass psychology and the finite resources under its behaviour/influence.

How did you arrive at that novel conclusion? I have entertained (inferred from E=MC^2) the above-my-paygrade-notion that Matter is essentially slowed-down (decelerated) Light energy. For example, at lightspeed a photon is massless, but as it slows down to matterspeed, it transforms into mathematical Mass, which we measure in terms of physical Matter. I have found a few statements by scientists that could be interpreted as pointing in that direction, but nothing definitive. — Gnomon

[9] Space and time are separate and absolute. — god must be atheist

Well the photon is "matterless" yes (not physical/solid/has no dimension) but not massless. Matter and mass are not the same thing: Matter is the solidly of an object that we can see and measure the weight of in a given gravity. Mass on the other hand is the sum of both the matter (solid part) and energy (kinetic part/vibrations) of an object and doesn't depend on gravity.

Proof of this concept: a fully charged torch verses an uncharged torch. The mass (energy and matter) of a torch with a full battery is greater than the mass (energy and matter) of one where the batter is depleted. When you turn on a torch the chemical energy stored in the battery is converted into light energy that quickly bullets off out of the system taking its mass with it.

If a photon was massless how could it impart its mass to matter when it decelerates? Where other than energy would this mass come from otherwise? The key is understanding that the mass of a photon exists as "potential mass" just as a stretched spring represents "potential kinetic energy" which is converted to actual kinetic energy when it is released (accelerates). Which doesn't mean the mass doesn't exist (massless) it just means it cannot be measured at the speed of light because of what's simultaneously occurring to time and space at such a speed.

Can pure energy interact with itself? — Gnomon

That's a good question.
Energy Travelling at the speed of light cannot interact with itself. At the speed of light there is no change "experienced" only potential for change. For energy to interact with itself at the speed of light (do work/influence itself/generate information, that information would have to somehow travel faster than the speed limit - have greater momentum which isn't possible).
Because time dilates infinitely and space contracts infinitely at the speed of light there's no space-time in which anything can change anyways - a singularity.

As for why, when and how energy deccelerates and precipitates matter in a slower, time and space influenced medium (no longer potential but actual change) I'm not entirely sure if I'm honest.

Perhaps some fundamental law based on probability and possible states of being that forces energy to decelerate (change).

I dont know if you have read through his recent posts on this page regarding his flavour of antinatalism.
It is based on a moral dilemma, not the issue of human suffering. I think his main posit is simply that it is immoral to bring a newborn into this existence without its consent and as its impossible to obtain its consent, the moral default position must be applied which MUST be, the decision not to procreate.
That's my attempt to 'steelman' his bizarre logic.
2h — universeness

Well one can only say that the default to not procreate as we cannot ask the unborn if they'd like to be born is merely based on the belief that we don't think we can raise that potential child to be good and to fight suffering. If we can raise such a child then we ought to (morally speaking).

If we are sure we would create a monster instead then we ought not to (again morally speaking). It speaks to a direct reflection on one's own capacity to be good and thus train their children/teach them to do the same.

But as we cannot know for certain how our children will turn out we do take a chance by procreating. But we do know ourselves - as parents - we may be sure that we have the best intentions to do right by our children. That is usually enough to convince them (their agency) to be good because our children usually respect us as parents, as the ones that brought them into the world.

I do appreciate what you are saying and I broadly agree with your advice, BUT when you are dealing with those who post in an evanhellical style then they will not desist as long as they have a platform, and we cannot remove all their platforms because that would suggest we cannot deal with them in a civilised manner and still defeat them. If the antinatalist fountain keeps spouting, then I for one will keep trying to bail out our ship. Better that, than trying to save some if we all end up in the water as I can't swim and would be too busy drowning to help save anyone else — universeness

Quite right Universeness, we must continue bailing that ship. Its a noble act of you to do so.

However we must recognise the point when one stops pumping the fountain and instead picks up a bailor and bails the ship with us. For then they're on our side. We can only do our best to convince the fountainists to become bailors. The rest is up to the fates.

I hope the anti-life posters appreciate the olive branch you offer them.
I would just still watch who you invite into your world. — universeness

I appreciate your concern for my wellbeing really. Its very kind of you. I think that they have good reason to accept the olive branch and perhaps they do. It's hard to tell other than observing a change in their attitude and what beliefs they support and propagate.

If you fight antinatalism and suddenly they are suggesting more rational, reasonable arguments that are harder and harder for you to reason against (because they are less extreme and contradictory) then chances are you were successful in your goal, to steer them away from that vicious cyclical contradiction. You may feel defeated, but in actual fact that's only because you had a great effect - they accepted the beliefs you offered them and are now using them as their rock - a healthier one, in which to continue discourse.

You've tipped the balance back to the middle.
Given them your insights as a tool to defend themselves against the tendency to drift back towards antinatalism (depression). No longer then do you have the upper hand because you gave it away to help them.

"it's equally important to know when the fight is already won than to continue arguing beyond the point at which you already helped, for the sake of it, because you run the risk of role reversal where you yourself drift towards antinatalism.

At some point we must leave the table of argument knowing we instilled what we needed to in others, wisdom is knowing when the point was taken on-board, and you can then move onto the next crisis in need of your insights and help them out of that nosedive the same way you did previously. "

A job well done is just that - done.
You should feel proud of that fact, and move on.

It certainly seems that way but perhaps some of them do get an actual buzz out of the incredulous responses they get. Attention seekers? — universeness

I wouldnt say buzz so much as a minute "hope" that their belief is valid - the antinatalist one that is. The controversy in itself serves to validate their "hope-rock" that they're clinging to to justify their existence. As engaging in debate about it validates its worthiness of debate in the first place.

The buzz is the same buzz as all the buzzes in life that maintains our hope, ambition, satisfaction, enjoyment, a reason to like living. And so that buzz is not something we should extinguish in someone, as to take away someone else's last shred of hope is to condemn to their own self annihilation.

All we can merely offer is a change in the quality of the buzz - how someone gets their pleasure in life, a step away from something absurd/toxic/dangerous and towards something worthwhile, meaningful and wholesome.

But the antinatalist Tzeentch has just posted that he does not care about reducing human suffering so does your number 1 here apply to his/her flavour of antinatalism? — universeness

Well it wouldnt be true antinatalism then, if that's actually the case. If he doesn't care to reduce human suffering he doesn't behold an ultimate ethical principle for ending all suffering.
But if he believes all people should not reproduce that contradicts him claiming he doesn't care about reducing suffering because if people don't reproduce we go extinct and suffering cannot occur. So it would just lead back to the actual true antinatalist belief that we shouldn't exist to prevent suffering.

If he really doesn't care for reducing suffering perhaps he has let go of his antinatalist absolutism/fundamentalism and believes he deserves to exist despite the existence of suffering. Which is good as we can only fight suffering through existing, I think though that we ought to care a bit about suffering and not totally disregard it as doing so disregards ethics altogether.

I would see that this new view as an improvement on just repeatedly reiterating antinatalist idealogy in its endless contradictory cycle, but can be further improved by establishing a balance between one's worthiness to exist and an ethical imperative to minimise suffering.

In otherwords having the wisdom to acknowledge yourself as worthy and just do your best to fight suffering in a capacity that doesn't deny your own right to exist. That is harmony and balance.

[6] The behaviors of substances are caused. — god must be atheist

The behaviour of energy is to "cause" not be "caused", that's the perogative of matter (physical objects).

[9] Space and time are separate and absolute. — god must be atheist

They are separate and absolute from the relativity (perspective) of matter/physical things/objects.
To energy on the other hand time and space are the same thing. Pure energy would "experience" no time and no distance - as it is pure change/ability to do work/pure potential - everything occurs simultaneously for energy, as a singularity, in a single instant. But as energy condenses into matter, time and space stretch out relative to this process.

Energy converting into matter is decceleration - conversion of potential to change into something changeable (rate - and thus the beginning of time and space - the only medium in which rate (change) can occur.

[2] The universe consists entirely of physical substances - matter and energy. — god must be atheist

Well their is duality here is there not? Matter and energy are the same but separated by the quality of mass. Energy and matter both have mass; a hot box of matter has more mass than a cold box of the same amount of matter (because of the energy in the box system/heat).

The difference between matter and energy then is space-time (C) energy travels at the speed of light (timeless and distanceless but a potent cause of change) - it is not physical but has mass - the connection between it and matter, while matter does not travel at the speed of light (has duration/experiences time and occupies distance/space) - it is physical and is the subject of change (is less potent) and again has mass, but obeys its more potent counterpart (energy).

They are equivalent in the sense that they can be converted between one another (mass), but they are qualitatively different: matter is physical and changes while energy is non physical and causes change.

They are the two opposite ends of a spectrum separated by speed (distance/time) squared, or "momentum" ( velocity - "speed in space" and mass).

As Einstein proposed with his equation E=mc2.

I want to say language sits comfortably along side of anything at all, like my cat does when I am not thinking about it and it is just there. SUre, there is language attending implicitly in the comfortable absence of explicit thought, but my cat could suddenly reveal herself as an avatar of God, and language could still be there attending to the spectacle.

On the other hand: In my best meditations, when things settle into an odd intimation of something just there, beneath the skin of the familiar, and there is something there, in the givenness of things, that appears just on the horizon of things, and I give this its breadth and depth as I can, I do feel the world receding and the revelatory event issues from within, as if to fill all things. It is a very strange business, I have to admit, which is why I feel the need to step into this discussion. Language does yield in that identities of things weaken, and something steps forward. And it is like going home, but this is revealed as within subjectivity, as if, as the Buddhists' say, one already is the Buddha, and it is a matter of discovering this — Constance

Wow. That is very poetic Constance. Beautiful painting with words. Language indeed has the power to be used figuratively, as a metaphor, in a non-literal/sense to describe multiple meanings at once. To have many levels of depth accessible to the audience through interpretation.

Is that not the true foundation of any good poets work? To be most thought provoking without committing to any specific defined line of thinking, in other words to express the most by permitting the expression to echo out into the audience in multiple forms, multiple understandings?

I look forward to your future musings.

I know that's a very 'no shit Sherlock,' observation to make, but I do think it's important to think deeply when faced with such irrational and impractical people as antinatalists.
I think they may be just people who are crying out for help and recognition. — universeness

Haha sometimes the "No shit sherlock observations" are the most profound and useful. We often forget the basics on such a hectic and changeable life.

For me Antinatalists are:

1). People with a fundamentally good intention (to address suffering, to find an ultimate ethical/moral solution for suffering).

2). Lack any coherent good reasoning for that intention (because from their ideal concept: no one would exist - and then oops! Suffering doesn't exist, hence what ethical intention would they have to even suppose the ideal in the first place, as they wouldn't exist to have intention. Duh. ).

In this way it is a paradoxic cycle alternating from subjectivity (concept of an ideal), to the implications of that ideal if it was objective (actually the case). In which case the intent (ideal) violates its own existence if it were to be real (objective).

You cannot have an ethical principle (existence without suffering) that destroys the assumptions (suffering) required to formulate that principle.

And that's why they feel helpless and sad. Because they don't contribute in action to mitigating suffering. Like starting a charity or educating people or doing a humanitarian aid trip. They only articulate a pointless contradictory principle and flounder helplessly by fixating on it. One needs to identify their ability to act (their agency, the fact that their life can and does matter, and they can make a positive differenve against suffering) rather than just talk about sufferings inability to be abolished entirely.

Being someone who exists (but has an ideal of not existing) signals serious concern to me for their wellbeing. Because to me it sounds like a state of helplessness and impotency - inability to reconcile their purpose (core ideal) with the fact that they exist as a person. So the only other option is to project the need for non existence onto others (in other words make it everyone elses problem).

In short, a last ditch effort to cope by denying the fact that they're severely depressed/utterly miserable and have little joy left to feel.

But that's hopeful in the sense that the only other choice available to them is to stop coping, make it their own problem to deal with, which as you can probably anticipate, doesn't end well. And that's something we don't want for them. Hence why I try to explain and help.

The challenge is to imbue an Antinatalist with a reason to live that is better than just telling everyone else they should die. Because that's entirely ineffective as an argument strategy. No one who wants to live, enjoys living, wants to agree that they should die. That's obvious. And so all an Antinatalist will ever get in return is fierce rejection from happy, more hopeful, more omtimistic people or agreement from others that are severely depressed.

There is proof in the argument itself that others want to help an antinatalist to feel happy. Because if we didn't we wouldn't argue with them about it. We would just ignore them even though we know they're helpless and vulnerable. And that wouldnt be very ethical of us. The only way to derail someone's helplessness is to educate them through conversation and help them identify their depression in themselves and try to empower them to make the right decision to save themselves. As none of us can save them without their consent.

Whether one chooses to accept help from someone who is trying to show them an interest in life, to show them some positivity, is entirely up to them. But from the point of view of their ideal any help offered is interpreted as the greatest imposition. It feels like theyre being forced by everyone to participate in life because they still hold onto that part of them that doesn't want to allow them to be happy despite suffering.

You don't have to give up the intention to reduce suffering to be happy. You can satisfy both (recognition of suffering and the desire to reduce it) by getting your happiness and fulfillment in life through helping others to feel happy, but it requires letting go of a fixation on a contradiction, by finally accepting that it is a contradiction, and living anyways to fight another day. Together.

Your death in certain circumstances will be the action that will improve the lives of millions, permanently. But you will never be credited. In fact, your memory will be despised, as the circumstances mean that you will have to seem to be the traitor, the judas, the evil one. You will be forever damned. No one will ever know that you were in fact the saviour. Would you do it? no martyrdom, no credit, no memorial other than as one who is hated and utterly damned? — universeness

It would be sad to imagine helping others and nobody appreciating it. People like to be appreciated for the good things they do. Positive reinforcement and all.

For me this would seem like an unlikely scenario. It would mean humanity would have to be totally and completely blind to what's good for them, to lack all sense of what is good. Which sounds suspiciously like antinatalism again.

I think at most, if you really were a saviour of humanity and died for their benefit, you would be a great source of controversy, but not universally hated.

Some would hail your efforts as mighty and wonderful, others would say you were an anarchist trying to ruin everyone's lives by disrupting and upheaving the systems in place (even if you did so by simply by highlighting their flaws and trying to prevent their demise through that flaw. ).

Most martyrs or assassinated leaders are very controversial indeed. History books tend to polarise those that cause a great change or Copernican revolution of seismic proportions, as history writers are undecided towards either one of two arguments (he/she was good and saved us) or (he/she was bad and trying to destroy us) so they record both.

In the case that you believe you were a saviour yet every single person things you are horrible, evil, incorrect and deserve to be hated, I think one ought to assume that their judgement is severely misplaced. If no one is on your side then why believe you're actually doing something good. It's a matter of whether you respect others ability to appreciate good acts or believe you are the only one who knows what they're talking about and totally superior, everyone else just meer simpletons.

I don't think someone hated by everyone has any power to influence them, so thus unlikely to be the saviour of anything at all.

I don't think Hitler did much good for anyone. He probably believed he was a saviour blessing humanity with his efforts and simply ignoring anyone who contradicted this belief. Good leaders, actual saviours, entertain others thoughts and navigate them not by ignorance but by explanation (revelation).

Good leaders leave the choices to be made by others. They merely offer their wisdom and ask that others might accept it (democracy). Bad leaders make the choices despite what anyone else might think or say (dictatorships).

. Many humans still suffer horrendously from generation to generation but we have improved things since the days of the first cities, Jericho, Uruk, Ur etc. So I would say to the antinatalists that before we vote for our own extinction. GIVE US A F****** CHANCE! Say another few million years (which is less than the dinos had) before you offer us antinatalism again. — universeness

I agree. Consider what a middle class person has available to them at this current moment: global communication at the touch of a button (internet), global foods and luxuries of all exotic sorts (chocolate, coffee, avocado's in frigid North regions where they historically were impossible to ever expect to eat for dinner). We have a mini Arctic climate in a little box in our kitchen able to preserve food as long as we please, we have an ever more complex and refined immune system (legal constitution) we can seek aid from for when others commit crimes against us.

We can travel at great speeds never before believable, be across the world in less than a day. We have all these tools and appliances that make previously arduous time consuming tasks fast, efficient and effortless.

Are these all things we should be amazed by, grateful for and happy thus? Yes I think so. Is everyone happy about it? No. A shame really.

To our ancient ancestors we seem like gods of unfathomable knowledge, power and abilities. And likely we would look like simpletons to the humans of hundreds of years in the future, our current methods appearing barbaric in their better refined modernity.

Antinatalism will probably still fixate on their future problems while ignoring the immense progress we have made and will continue to make at ever accelerating rates.

It depends. Some things are known logically; they just seem self-evident, and any attempted questioning of them presupposes them. Other things are known by observation. Encyclopedias are full of "facts" which are conventional formulations of what is taken to be the store of human knowledge.There is obviously a distinction between belief and knowledge, but then on examination there are many things humans count as knowledge which would better be characterized as belief. — Janus

Absolutely Janus. I agree. I think belief and fact differ only by a matter of magnitude/scale/scope.
The more people that believe a belief, the more factual that becomes (the more easily it can be assumed/presupposed as obvious/evident).

Some beliefs however (whether poorly reasoned or unethical) are harder to accept as fact than others.
Things that are useful to humans are generally considered fact: money has value is considered collectively to be a fact, because if it didn't how would we be able to transact it for goods and services?

Money is a good example of a large scale belief system.
And what happens to the value of money when we lose confidence in it? When we lose our belief in its value due to fear or greater priorities - need for goods/physically useful objects for survival like food, water, fuel, medicines (in times of war and political upheaval for example - like now with the Russian - Ukraine war).

The answer is it "inflates" - becomes less valuable per product. What used to cost 10 €$£ now costs 20. Less "Bang for your buck".

However money doesn't have any actual intrinsic physical value other than the heat the paper could generate when burnt. It requires everyone who uses it to believe that this little flimsy note equals 20 somethings.

It's a good lesson in economics for sure. Economy is merely mass psychology in disguise.

If a billionaire was the only person left on the planet his/her money would be likely used to keep them warm during the long cold winters. What else would the paper pile be good for with no one else there?

Yes, I am sure you do. And that makes you a what? — Bartricks

Not really sure what you're referring to exactly by "yes, I'm sure you do." But if it is about me disagreeing with you, it just makes me someone with a different perspective I guess.

If its about God, it makes me spiritual. I'm not religious. I don't ascribe to any one religion in specific I think they all have some basic validity but also a lot of strict, stubborn specific dogmas that I don't agree with as they don't keep up with the progression of society.

We can argue our beliefs and personal assumptions for reasoning things, or determining what we think is immoral or immoral all day and night, for years, but in the end it doesn't mean we have to agree unanimously.

It just means we can accept, reject or offer a third option to whatever is discussed, all the while times change, culture changes, society advances and some lines of argument thus become obsolete while others become newly minted/available.
Fundamental arguments on the other had seem to persist throughout the millenia. We are still arguing about basics that were argued by plato, Aristotle etc. I doubt that will ch age any time soon.

IOW, a gob-smackingly elegant, fragile, complicated, confounding, terrifying and amazing piece of machinery. And all different, to boot! — Vera Mont

Precisely!

So, perhaps we are indeed natures/the universes best attempt so far, to be able to figure out what and why it is existent. Another reason why we can't vote to end our story, as the antinatalists request, as the universe may never know what or why it is other than through the efforts of a species like us. I am not a panpsychist, but do I think that some kind of emerging panpsychism is happening within the linear time we experience? ....... meh! — universeness

Agreed. We may be nature's most recent prize, its latest pride and joy, the current best effort. And we (as parts of nature) may create on its behalf something more durable, more long lasting, and imbue it with our nature, the product of nature itself, so that it may extend this awareness beyond the boundaries of what is capable by the human body. The next frontier.

But if we birth something human in mind but not in body, something metallic perhaps, then we need to tread carefully, not to assume that because it is different to us in appearance, it is not the same as us in spirit.

We just don't know what effects our actions and our words may have on others, that's why we have to think about our actions and our words deeply and carefully.
Something I don't think antinatalists are very good at. — universeness

I think this story from Babylon 5 holds a deep, endearing message. I'm glad you shared it with me, I had never come across it before. It's really nice and quite apt to our conversation.

We do definitely need to consider our words and actions carefully. Words are very often underestimated in place of action. But words are mighty. They have huge power when used rationally and ethically. They shape and influence eachother beyond what physical bodily action could ever do.

To use your body to enforce your ideals, to be intensely active, is often a source of aggression, imposition and intimidation. To use words on the other hand is to suggest/impart meanings and beliefs without laying a finger on the other person. It allows choice.

.. it made intimacy and connection very difficult. So he quit his job in the morgue and took up gardening. :wink: — Tom Storm

Probably a wise and necessary choice. It's scary to see people as completely objective - just a conglomerate of systems, mechanical processes and matter behaving in a way seemingly removed from its material basis.

But that's the beauty if the human body. We are not only matter (substance) carrying out sterile, cold, dead operations. We are also electricity, warmth, energy - that which invests the matter with sense, with capacities beyond the solely objective, the purely physical.

I see what you mean. I think irrationality must exist in commune with the rational. For without eachother neither would exist. Irrational numbers for example will never be complete as they are endless and not repetitive (not predictable). They can thus never fully be known.

And on the other hand the rational and predictable can be known and thus is discrete.

So here we have two opposing forces, one that is erratic, changeable, unpredictable, inaccurate, and one that follows a rule, is clear and known and finite/discrete.

Nature always creates such opposites. That which is pure chaos and that which is pure order.
Their interaction and dynamic with one another, is the basis for evolution, for the struggle between control and lack thereof, between life (ordered systems) and death (dissolution into the chaos).

Yep is akin to the two questions we must always ask ourselves.
1. Who am I.
2. What do I want. — universeness

Precisely. They are much the same.
I think the borders of self are created by our beliefs, not definitive and discrete. So if we want to maximise our self awareness, if we want to extend those borders to the maximum, we are ever increasingly responsible for others and thus their suffering or happiness.

If on the other hand, we minimise our borders to just our body. Reduce it to simply me, then all we have to consider is "what's in it for me". A selfish stance.

The only difference between "them" and "I" (boundary of self) is to what degree I am prepared to see likeness, to believe I am the same as others, to empathise and thus take on board their suffering and delight as if it were me own.

Perhaps even a panpsychist who believes that some humans are more 'in touch' with the 'universal mind' than others are? — universeness

Well I believe you are more in touch with reason and ethics than many others. As you showed me you were. Is it not then possible that there is an ultimate reason and ultimate ethics that are one and the same? A maximum we can reach through discourse. And have done so many times in the past.

You go on to describe people who have died rather than speak contrary to what they believe is truth. A rendition of what is called 'martyrdom' yes but such is just an aspect of the human psyche. I see nothing in what you type that supports your initial question:
s that not possible, for God to have an existent? — universeness

Well, we worship noble people and the noble acts they do. And we condone the most intense demonstrations of evil that have existed amongst us. (Both may know the truth - god/reality)
The difference is what they choose to do with it.

If you have the entire truth but withold it entirely from others you have no choice other than to lie - the opposite of truth. You can be utterly convincing, manipulative and appear as a noble person but you intentions (to withold the truth but use its power, to take no responsibility) is an evil act. I believe this is why Hitler came to power. Anyone who understands how the mind works can either empathise with it and inform it (Martin Luther king, ghandi, jfk, Joan of arc, all the revered martyrs) or manipulate it (Hitler, perhaps Putin nowadays).

Those who don't know the truth of things are vulnerable. Children don't know much at all and are therfore vulnerable to the teachings (good or bad) of those that know the truth. Right? So the choice when faced with reality is do I choose to benefit myself by manipulating others, or do I choose to share it and empower them to be more informed and therefore less likely to be swayed by manipulation.

Absolutely, especially if the ideas being communicated will prove to be to the detriment of those who hold power — universeness

Precisely, it would be to the detriment of those that hold power, fame, recognition, authority, beauty, knowledge, révérence in all its formats. It would pose a threat to those that fancy themselves as gods and others as beneath them by proxy.

A god which is shy? and needs to communicate by proxy? Not a description of a god which inspires much respect from me. I seem to be more self-assured than this god you describe. Such a channel/conduit would not be a god existent it would simply be nothing more than a communications relay. — universeness

Not a shy god, a god that presents its true nature as the whole/the everything, in a means/format understandable and accesible to humans, a human voice, a human that beholds and shares the true nature of reality.

. Even if you decided to be nice and call it a prophet it's still not an actual god incarnated into an existent. — universeness

It is a prophet indeed. You're quite right. Because for actual god to exist as a person it would require the entire universe to condense into a singular person, what external reality then would such a person exist in? The universe as a system cannot be the whole unit and also be within itself.

But a prophet is no mere lay person though. They have a deep knowledge of the relationship of them and others (fractions of a whole) to the actual whole (god/the universe).

Through that deep understanding, they would inherit the highest degree of empathy and patience for others who don't understand their own relationship to the universe as it actually is, and would naturally go about illuminating that knowledge in them so they can appreciate in full their true relationship to reality, as he/she does.

As I said they would be the fourth condition of a god worth pursuing - the benevolent aspect of the entire system. The part that can't imbue a sense of connectedness and belonging.

God is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent person. Those are the essential attributes of God (don't be tedious and question that - if you want to use the word 'God' to refer to a peach, that's fine, but you're just a berk). — Bartricks

I disagree - not entirely but I think some specifics need to be hashed out.
God is omnipotent (all energy - and matter e=mc2, they are equivalent), omniscient (all information throughout time - all interactions between energy and matter) that have or ever will occur) and omnipresent (all space in which these interactions occur). If that is the truth of things then God cannot be a person (because people are not omnipotent, omniscient or omnipresent) because they are minute objects in the system (universe).

A person cannot move a mountain for example (potency), be everywhere because they're a singular object (omnipresence) nor be omniscient (a person cannot know what someone across the world just named their newborn baby).

However, a person can behold/believe in this truth of things, this God, can hold that god as their ideal in their mind and understand it, and thus the limitations of its application in the Human sphere. The can channel that truth, its description, but they cannot be that truth - its characteristics.

In that sense one can reveal God to others but cannot be God itself, at most a conduit for the truth, a "truth teller", but not a "truth-be-er".

A person can however be onibenevolent, by describing this truth to others, and thus enabling insight, understanding and empowering them with the knowledge of God. In that way a person satisfies the final of four conditions for a god worth worshipping: omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence (characteristics of the universe at large) and finally omnibenevolence (accurate description of the universe) only done by a person, a truth teller (a part of the whole universe).

If we went extinct and there was no other intelligent life in the universe that combinatorial biology would just reproduce it in time — universeness

Exactly what i said earlier! You're right Universeness.

Sentient beings that have such dilemmas and philosophical arguments would be sure to evolve again to occupy the niche currently occupied by humans in nature if all of humanity were to self annihilate. Maybe some other primate over millions of years would go through the same processes of adaptation under the same pressures exerted by nature and re-emerge.

Re-emergence of species is well documented by biologists. So the argument would just be postponed until next time wouldnt it — Benj96