It makes sense to explore scenarios, sure. What I have explored has not led to any reason to believe in a God, but who knows if I may one day find something — PhilosophyRunner

Maybe you will. :) maybe you won't. I guess we will see won't we, and I admire the effort. A truth seeker to the true nature of things is always a brave and curious person

However if I did believe in an omniscient God, perhaps the bitterness would be palatable and I would avoid the arguments I was making. Funny that. — PhilosophyRunner

Wouldn't it make sense then to explore thoroughly all the possible reasons why such a god could indeed exist? If it would ameliorate the bitterness of the pill and make it more palatable? Sounds like a worthwhile pursuit even on just the hope that it may better things. Because if it were the case that there was an a omniscient and benevolent god it would be a great revelation for sure. And if not then well at least you tried and could feel more settled in knowing you explored all avenues to find out if such a truth existed

Maybe it's time to give up on notions of being guided by some benevolent, all-powerful, cosmic father-figure? I honestly think we are on our own. — ToothyMaw

I dunno. I don't like the idea of giving up hope. Hope for a better future is so important to our survival. I think it's important to stay hopeful its sometimes all we have. We must be strong otherwise we lose hope and get depressed.

What an odd thing to say. I doubt God would suddenly intervene now of all times. — ToothyMaw

It is an odd thing to say yeah you're right haha. Almost sounds like a prayer. If god is truly good I suppose they would only intervene when the truly bad is already here. Yikes.

Indeed. I just really doubt that a good God exists — ToothyMaw

That's a terrible shame. I do agree that probably most people at this stage in time would have to "see it to believe it" rather than blindly trust that such a good god exists.

So if there is such a good God and they are able to be a person for a limited time and speak the truth now would be a good time for them to reveal themselves

If God desires to even be ethical, that is. — ToothyMaw

Precisely. God could choose of their own free will to spread the truth (reveal themselves and their omniscience) and extinguish the power of deceit/lies - in otherwords be benevolent/ethical.

OR

They could withold the truth (tell know one who they really are) - and permit deceit and lying to run rampant.. Or in otherwords be malevolent / unethical.

I think no one good wants the second type of God to exist.

It would be arbitrary if God said what is ethical is ethical merely because he says so. — ToothyMaw

Exactly. He or she would have to demonstrate it instead of just saying so/dictating. They would have to show everyone what it means to be ethical (good) or unethical (bad) by utilising themselves (the truth - if they are indeed omniscient).

1. If God is just then there should be no injustice
2. There is injustice
Ergo,
3. God is not just [1, 2, MT] — Agent Smith

Are we referring to God as a person here or god as the universe?
Because god as a person could be just. They have free will to make good or bad decisions. God as the universe cannot be just as the universe is everything: thus including both justices and injustices as a whole.

if you take God to be omniscient then God has a better understanding of what is just than you do (as your knowledge is not perfect, God's is). And as such it make no sense for you to judge God's actions as unjust, this is merely your limited human mind not being able to comprehend true Godly justness. — PhilosophyRunner

If god is omniscient then he/she would be the ultimate truth of all things no? Because all knowledge (omniscience) pertains to what is true - what is "fact" and what is not (lies/delusions). And as far as I know people can tell the truth or lie. So they can know more or less about god if they so choose?

I don't know. Besides, I think that's a psychiatric problem and not a philosophical question. — 180 Proof

I'm not sure I agree. I think it is a philosophical question. If psychiatry and philosophy are both referencing the quality of thought, behaviours and beliefs of the mind... I don't see how there isn't massive Overlap. I think philosophy (thinking and questioning) can and should be applied to all disciplines - for the sake of ethics at least.

Two good points. So, 15000 child deaths per day, from preventable events cannot be allowed to continue. We all share the responsibility for this imo. — universeness

Yes I agree. If you truly see eachother as being valued, if you really think other people deserve the same protection and care that you receive/ or ought to receive from others then there's no other option than their pain and suffering being your pain and suffering, it's empathy, otherwise you only fool yourself while they starve to death through no fault of their own.

If 15000 children's deaths can be prevented. And we see all children on the planet as deserving protection. Then it's imperative to try and do so. Otherwise we are just spectators observing bad and good things being done but not actively contributing to it ourselves or worse... Being manipulated by bad people and liars to do their bidding for them unbeknownst to ourselves.

In every culture "the devil" is portaryed as a being of utmost "civility". Folk instincts in this regard are instructive. All that glitters is not gold ..., etc. Such inhuman folk, it seems to me, forfeit the right of inclusion in any human community. Put out both of their eyes and permanently exile them to the remotest place on Earth — 180 Proof

Ive heard this too.. The devil being the most masterful/artful liar and appearing like an angel. It worries me that such a level of deceit could exist in the world. How would one ever prove who they are?

That being said, the worst thing a person can do is hurt a child. — T Clark

Is this because childhood is commonly viewed as a state of innocence and therefore unaccountability? If you cannot be held responsible for your actions you cannot have done wrong or right?

And if so at what age do you believe one is suddenly responsible for their actions/ no longer innocent? Is this age the same for every person? Is it defined or arbitrary based on intelligence, self awareness, experience or a specific age?

I think the most heinous evil is to truly believe that YOU are the most important object in the universe and to act 100% in accordance with that belief. Adolf Hitler was one of the most evil humans who has ever lived and I think his narcissism was at a 100% level or as close to it as a single human can get. — universeness

Interesting indeed. But what say you of a person who believes they are the only thing that exists (solipsists) - one who believes their "self" is unanimous with the "whole" but perhaps have a perogative to act in servitude of the self. In that case a crime against another is a crime against the self. They hold accountable their actions against another as if it was against their self and therefore are benevolent towards all people.

It is sort of positive narcissism. I wouldnt hurt myself therefore I cannot hurt another as it is equivalent.

good summary I think we are both on similar lines of thinking.

Follow up question for you; having defined it now what would you think motivates such people to commit those kinds of perverse pleasures? As in do you think it's nature or nurture? Do you think people who do such things are redeemable? Do you think those that pursue evil things are simply mis-directed or do you think there's nothing one can do to salvage some civility in them?

Both are just as likely to break free. Despite the conditions inside, another factor such as curiosity will enter the equation — introbert

I find this an interesting tale and I too am inclined to believe that both groups will certainly try to explore beyond the domes. Their reasons or motivation may be different but I think it's fundamental to human nature to push boundaries as far as we can in a search to fill gaps in our knowledge

. For examples see the US's southern border, the border between Russia and Kazakhstan, and the Mediterranean Sea between northern Africa and Europe — T Clark

Yes granted they do but the point of the experiment is there is no information about what's outside the dome. In your case they are fed the "American dream" or other propaganda, heresay and media about the 0lave they are trying to get to.

In my case what's outside the dome could just as easily be a void or abyss (akin to the one that sailors in the age of exploration believed to be out to sea) from which to fall off or it could be some grand potential for other lives akin to when we look up at the night sky and wonder what could be out there.
The total ignorance amplifies the risk benefit ratio

So the thought experiment is not far fetched but carefully thought out with exacting parameters

We don't have technology advanced enough to create a simulation potentially good enough to trick the human mind — dclements

Why so? Is a simulation not at its broadest definition a set of conditions that restricts and directs the ways in which a person believes reality exists. At what point is the general commonly experienced reality different enough from an individuals to say they are living in an illusion constructed for them?

For example the truman show. A fake world with paid actors all there to fool one man for TV. That technology is already avaliable. If you put someone in a specific place and restrict their movement and coerce their behaviours to avoid questioning it... Making sure they don't stray to the border of their confines who's to say they arent living in a simulation? One scripted just for them

It is irrelevant. We are not living in a simulation — I like sushi

Okay put it this way. Consider you're born with locked in syndrome - you're paralysed and can only think and receive input from your senses. Luckily I have technology to provide you senses with whatever input I wish. I can feed your brain motor feedback so it feels like you can move around and navigate and interact with the biome that's programmed and fed to you. Your nutrition health etc all you needs are met but you're floating in a stasis tank.

The programming can be changed to any parameters - a day could be 52 hours long, all food could taste like pizza, dogs may be replaced with a completely new animal that doesn't exist. You've never known anything else but this world I've coded and am transmitting to your brain via your senses. The reality I see every day is quite different to to the one you know. Would you say you live in a simulation? Or would you say you live in the same reality as me except you nothing about it due to the illusion I have upheld around you for your entire growth, development ever since you could remember.
And how would you feel if I suddenly turned off the machine and showed you what's actually outside the tank?

For me it comes down to something simple - choice. The living can choose to go on living or they can choose to die (suicide). The dead cannot choose to live (as far as we know). There is no power to change circumstances from a place of non-existing. Existence is where everything and anything - including death - can and does occur.

This for me means living trumps being dead.
A second more minor reason is that if it is the case that ones life is unique, non-reproducible/ irreplaceable and extremely brief in the duration of the entire timespan of the universe, then living your life is the rarest thing ones matter and energy will ever have the opportunity to be. If I had to choose between never having existed, never even having an awareness of being something, never experiencing consciousness or on the other hand having a short lifespan of feelings and emotions both good and bad, I would live out the 80 odd years before I return to oblivion forever. Even if those 80 years didn’t go by particularly well or come to much at all.

What else would you be doing anyways?

You should live because you can and less based on whether you should or not or whether you deserve it or not. It’s unlikely you are the least deserving person to ever live and we all already won the great race of conception - the first and only competition that really matters - the life lotto. 15 million to one odds - very much against you being here and yet here you (we) are.

There is comfort in knowing we have an escape (albeit extreme) if it were to ever become too much. Whether we really acknowledge it or not, every moment you breathe, every day you wake up and persist against the natural tendency of the universe to destroy you in thousands of potential ways is a testament to you being a survivor, to you upholding the will to live, to be seen, heard and known.

The problem here is that this buys into the romantic myth that we are all essentially solitary "self-actualising" agents in life. The truth is that humans are socially constructed. The idea that we are individual "egos" with the private drama of moral choice is itself a social script. — apokrisis

That is an interesting take. I hadn’t considered it from this point of view. If we then take a person out of the construct of society, are you saying self- actualising is never a goal of their agency ie. they would hold no beliefs further than eat, sleep, mate and defecate? Just as any other animal would be preoccupied with?

When we most need to explain and defend our fears, the mind returns to this undefined place in an attempt to free itself from external stimuli that no longer meet its structural demands. — kudos

Would that mean that ok a fundamental level all of our fears and anxieties come from the concept of “impermanence” or the fact that things may be “lost” or “disappear”?

But all is not what it seems. The person who appears to have the 'biggest' ego and the most assertive sense of self may well be a fragile individual, with low confidence and high vulnerability. The self being a role one adopts to project a preferred identify, a form of compensation — Tom Storm

Hmm yes. I see what you mean here. Naturally one would imagine this assertion and domineering ego of theirs is a compensatory or coping mechanism for their lack of self esteem. Perhaps then there are two facets to ego - that which we project onto others (the social façade) and the internal ego that we really believe (which may be contrarily one of low value and worthlessness). In that way we are playing an act of value in front of others in hopes they may approve or believe in it and bolster our self perceived ego.

. Is there any good evidence that the mind heals the body — Tom Storm

Plenty I would say. Oodles. Emotional pain and suffering elicit the very same stress response as physical pain and afflictions. A stressed mind sends the body into a cortisol flush which changes much of the bodies metabolism to one of “sequestering the bare essentials necessary for fight or flight at the expense of repair, regeneration and immunity. It is catabolic rather than anabolic.

Cortisol alone as a systemic hormone has been shown to decrease insulin sensitivity (a predisposing factor for diabetes), raise blood pressure beyond what is appropriate for longterm. It thins the skin, reduces hair growth and generally makes you look less vital over time.
It is highly valuable for short term survival but detrimental long term- Increasing the likelihood of inflammation and cancers.

That’s only one (rather more objective and direct ways) that the mind impacts the health of the body.
Other indirect ways are: the cravings we have - for exercise or sedentary activities, for certain foods healthy or junk, self harm - cutting, anorexia, drug abuse etc.

So it stands to reason if the mind can take the body hostage like this and beat it down with bad choice after bad choice there’s no reason why a healthier more constructive mind can do quite the opposite - bring the body into its most harmonious and maximally healthy and ordered states.

He was hardly ever sick in his life, was always content and well into his 90's, he looked to be around 70 - vigorous and physically active. I suspect that a long happy, healthy life is probably down to luck and there's fuck all we can do about it. — Tom Storm

Of course we must accept there are cases that don’t intuitively make sense. But I would argue that epidemiology and data suggests these are the rarer anomalies rather than the rule. Exceptions don’t prove what is generally known to be good practise on living.

Perhaps his resilience to disease is solely genetic (luck) or maybe there was something about his mind that enabled him to mitigate the bad habits. It’s very complex indeed. There are very healthy people that succumb much earlier to disease than they ought to.

Epigenetics is interesting here as not all identical twins which are genetically the same age the same way nor do they get the same diseases. The environment, exposure to certain things and likely mindframe and behaviours impact what genes become active and which don’t. Not to mention random mutation which applies to all individuals regardless of genetic similarity.

Fair. You make valid points I need to go and consider. Food for thought.

I don't think it is. I don't think any evidence has been offered, except brain reactions to the environment. Of course, since the brain works on a stimulous-reaction basis — Alkis Piskas

I have heard theories that the brain could be a sort of “transmission tower or receiver” that has the capacity to condense and accelerate the properties and abilities of the environment at large that exist anyways - a sort of sluggish, slow and inefficient awareness. That is to say that our ability to feel emotions, to imagine, to reason is like a “self-contained” “hyper-dynamic” “rapidly evolving” system that emulates the natural world but in a way (learning) that enables us to adapt to whatever nature throws at us.

In this way the brain doesn’t generate consciousness, It simply concentrates it/ empowers it, so that our body - an environment created by and an extension of “the environment” (outside ourselves) has the capacity to gain control or be the leading edge of awareness - which is not exclusive to us or even living things for that matter.

The theory sort of suggests that consciousness as we know it is all of evolution crunched down into a plastic, malleable semi- fluid, semi- crystalline electrochemical representation of the nature from whence it came.
It’s a bit “panpsychism” except we cannot appreciate the consciousness of lower order life and chemistry because it’s so inefficient, slow and disordered to be considering aware (even if it has a limited capability to be so).

Sounds circular. What does it even mean for a concept to be physical vs. Non-physical? — Harry Hindu

A “concept” to me is a ‘mental construction’ of something that may either a). Already exist. For example I have the concept of a tree in my mind. Or b). Something that does not already exist - a technological invention, sci-fi, a musical piece, a hypothesis, a work of art or creativity.
C). Some recombinant mixture between both things - those that do exist and those that do not yet exist.

But the key to a “concept” is that it exists in the mind, it is personal - only applying to me in a specific reference frame, is separate from the object or person or subject for which it represents.

For example the concept I have of my mother is a personal/ biased/interpretative and incomplete definition or understanding of my actual existing mother - which I could never fully conceive of unless I “was” her (all her memories, thoughts, experiences etc). I can only conceptualise things in my reality - I can never “know” their entirety.

A unique personal concept can be made physical. It can be used/ utilised, it can be understood, dissected, analysed, improved even. But then it has changed. It’s shared. No longer personal. So it takes on the linguistic concept of a noun - denoting an object.

For example if I and only I consider the possibility of a toaster. I describe it to an engineer - it’s function, how it looks, it’s form and dimension. The engineer may create it and hey presto - we have toast. Now your concept is an object. Your personal concept of it deviates from what you created - because now toasters are blue, cream, black, some can toast 2, 4 , 6 pieces of bread. Some are plastic ... some are metal, some are incorporated into paintings, musics literature etc. Your concept gets reworked by other minds and it is not now yours alone, but rather a physical thing at the mercy of all conscious beings.

Even if you conceptualised the “original” toaster. It’s unlikely you can ever conceive of all the possibilities and applications and forms your invention may take in the future, or what it’s significance to society may be through time - especially if the world is taken over by rogue sentient toasters!

How do physical things and concepts interact, or how do physical things come to possess concepts? — Harry Hindu

Well that’s where the mind comes in doesn’t it? The mind holds conceptual information. Art, music, creativity, re-inventing, mixing of ideas and things and our bodies (physical) act as a conduit between the mind and the physical environment - manifesting into reality concepts that previously only existed in the mind.

When an artist envisions a new unique mental image (a concept) they employ their physical existence (their body) and physical tools - paintbrushes, canvas, paints etc to “realise” their concept - to make it an individual, existing, physical representation of their concept that can be interpreted and appreciated by others.

The concept - of a specific composition or orientation of literal or abstract objects / people is now separated from the mind that “gave birth to it”. It can exist perhaps even longer than the conscious being that created it. It can impart insights into that persons mind long after they are deceased - I believe we call it “legacy.”

Materialism deals with both matter and energy: "All existence is made up of energy in some form. Matter is a form of energy. All things that exist are made of energy, atoms, molecules, forces and other entities that consist of energy. There are no non-physical or non-material existents." — Alkis Piskas

Ah well if that’s the case then it does satisfy both the material/ substantial/ matter as well as all processes or interactions (energetic) that exert work on those material things. I was confused because the word “material” seems misleading in that it suggests only the set of things that have mass/matter (which I and many think to be synonymous with materials). That’s why I used the term physicalism (even if erroneous) because it seemed not to depend on matter being the only way something can exist. But your definition of materialism does indeed do that so I’m happy haha.

And then lost traction when science discovered that the world is not as it appears and that observers might actually influence what is observed. — Harry Hindu

Precisely. Enter shrodinger and the fundamentals of quantum mechanics.

Physical = matter & energy are physical. — Agent Smith

Energy is not “always” physical (referring to “physical” as having dimension and material/substance). It can be... because E=mc2. Matter has equivalence to energy - Einstein.
But light (which is energy) has no mass or dimension. It is not matter. But it is energy.

Matter = Mass + volume — Agent Smith

Matter and mass are the same thing. Matter always has volume. Mass is volumetric. Name a piece of matter that doesn’t have a volume or similarly matter that doesn’t have mass. It’s one and the same.

A philosophical understanding is possible if we try to conceive it as provisional, limited, conditioned, imperfect, rather than ultimate. — Angelo Cannata

Isn’t scientific understanding also provisional, limited, conditioned, imperfect and ofc not ultimate?

Is this lack of results maybe an indication of a failure in this area --the mind-- and that this area is not an area for the conventional, totally materialistic science to get involved in?

I strongly believe it is. — Alkis Piskas

I also agree with this attitude. I think the hard problem may be a pseudoproblem in the sense that science may not be the correct discipline to decide the functioning of the mind. However if the mind is generated by the brain - which is bio-electro-chemical in nature - there should definitely be a link.

So alas it’s a conundrum.

As for physicalism vs materialism. I’m simply chose physicalism because I felt it better encapsulated processes in physics that aren’t material but no less exist - such as the photon (which has no mass) and electromagnetism etc - all physical phenomena but with no actual material (atoms/ matter etc).

So, without further heating, a hot cup of coffee does not become a cold cup of coffee? — 180 Proof

Further heating of the coffee cup still leads to increased entropy. The point is entropy is why the coffee cools in the first place. Energy doesn’t like to be close to itself it prefers to spread out evenly and as far from itself as possible

To heat the cup of coffee further - you still require all the processes to make the fuel, or electricity, the appliance for heating it, and the heat itself which 80% or more is lost to heating the air or environment that isn’t the coffee. In simple terms more work is always put in than that which is gotten out of the system.

In any aspect of that process more energy is lost than that needed to heat the coffee. Therefore entropy always rises.

The problem is deceptively simple. Physical = Existence. These two terms have the exact same definition and that implies nonphysical = nonexistence! :snicker: — Agent Smith

What do you mean by “physical” - do you mean having substance or material? Because a photon is massless and yet it exists- if it didn’t you wouldn’t be able to read this.

That's exactly the reason why we cannot trust our understanding. The very concept of "understanding" is undermined by the fact that we try to understand what we are part of. — Angelo Cannata

But by that logic we can never understand society - because we a part of it. We can’t understand natural selection because we aren’t removed from it. Nor could we understand genetics, medicine, psychology etc because it all applies intrinsically to our being.

Yet we do have a good understanding of these things as they have lead to a knowledge database that reflects what seems to occur in each case.
I think it’s a fallacy to assume we cannot trust our comprehension of something simply because we are a part of its system.

I wonder why EMP doesn't fry our brains like they do electronics. — Agent Smith

It’s because we use ions (sodium, chlorine and potassium) as the carrier of charge and unlike electrons these are huge - if an electron was a football the ion would be a mass about 20,000 times larger - about the weight of a six tonne truck.

And electromagnetic field can easily perturb electrons in a circuit but an ion which moves much slower and requires more energy to disturb it is relatively fine in an EMP.

Can another kinda particle take the place of the humble electron — Agent Smith

I believe a positron can take the place of an electron assuming it evolved in a universe made completely of antimatter. Physics should work the exact same as long as all charges are reversed.
Interestingly if these two identical and opposite universes came together they would cancel eachother out. I hope I never meet anti-matter me haha

we put us as a reference point to understand the universe: — Angelo Cannata

I don’t see how there is any other way of appreciating or understanding reality. Of course the universe as we understand it is in reference to how we understand things.
The conscious being is self referential in all they experience.
It’s just absurdity to expect a Rock to understand and behave as a bird does just as it is absurd to expect humans to interpret the universe from any other method of intelligence (be it inferior or superior) than our own.

However that said, I feel we may undersell ourselves here a little bit on our abilities. Sure it’s possible we may be grossly ill equipped to understand the universe at large. But there is also the chance that - considering we evolved from its very properties and mechanics - we may be perfectly equipped. Perhaps our intelligence and scientific endeavours and advancing technology are a demonstration that we are at a level of complexity required to understand not only ourselves but nature itself. We cannot completely rule out this possibility.

Would a universe without consciousness have any states-of-affairs? Would there ever be a now, a present moment in such a universe, in which a state-of-affairs could exist? — bert1

That’s a good question. For me I find it hard to imagine a linear chronology of time without the capacity to remember (a feature of conscious things).

I’m not sure if the passage of time is just a neat trick of being aware - part of what makes consciousness - having memory and therefore a past and also the ability to anticipate the future by consequence. Both of which give sense to a present moment that is finite.

Without it I don’t see how any moment from the creation to the extinction of the universe (assuming it does so) can be distinguished from another. And in that case all moments are one moment and all things would happen and end simultaneously. There’s nothing to experience time - no one who is a stable system at a set rate (ageing) that can experience rates both slower and faster than their own.