I'm not sure why I could not be wrong in principle. No logical contradiction there. It is at least not logically necessarily. — Marty

Well, let's say you find yourself having a red experience via. introspection. It's right there in front of you, you can point to it and refer to it as you are having it. Is it possible for you to not actually have a red experience when you are in this state of mind?

It is not incorrigible, because we are often wrong about what we're thinking. — Marty

How so? Can you offer an example of this?

I am currently thinking about the sentence you just wrote, and this is what I find upon reflecting upon my experiences and my thoughts. Is there any way I can be mistaken or wrong in making that judgement?

It depends on your views on time really.

Traditionally we understand it to be an instant, or duration-less (as someone like Augustine would say, it's like a knife edge separating the past and future). However, some people would venture to say that the present has some extension to it and that what currently exists is more than an instant but still very short. If you take the idea to the extreme, you have the block universe, where all moments exist. Take it back a notch and you have the growing block universe, which is smaller but it would still be pretty big.

There is also the specious present, the present that figures in our perception, which is a little bit bigger than an instant but that all depends upon our brain processes. Relativity also talks about simultaneity, which refers to the way we order events in spacetime, where we could call the "now" we live on the set of events in which are simultaneous to us. However, I imagine that that is not what you are looking for.

Personally, I don't think that there is such a thing as a present "moment" or "time" at all, so questions about its duration are meaningless. You don't need times or moments in order for things to change.

Unitary Quantum Mechanics is a local theory. It is only when you ad-hoc modify it or burden it with metaphysical baggage like collapse, hidden variables, and unreality that are you forced to appeal to acausal interactions from beyond spacetime. — tom

What are "acausal interactions from beyond spacetime" supposed to mean?

My personal aversion to most of the other interpretation is non-locality. Bohmian doesn't necessarily have it, but the others do. The ability to alter the past seems a nastier pill to swallow than the (mostly religious) implications of what MWI does to one's biased ideas of personal identity. — noAxioms

Non-locality doesn't necessarily have to violate causality. From what I've read, FTL effects can be accepted without retrocausation provided one give up the principle of relativity and adopt a preferred frame of reference. It can be a price to pay in it's own right for some, since it sort of takes the relativity out of relativity theory but if it takes away the problem of killing your own grandfather then it all comes down to what one thinks is preferable. As someone once said, “Relativity, causality, and FTL: pick any two”.

I sort of wonder whether this is the reason why the Bohmian interpretation is said to require a preferred frame of reference. In a sense, it does seem like a very 19th century theory. Non-locality was never a problem until Einstein showed up (Newtonian gravity I think was non-local), and a deterministic, realistic, and non-relativistic theory sounds like something that would be popular then (though maybe not today).

From the "point of view" of eternalism everything exists eternally, in its eternal "right now" or eternal present. From a temporal perspective, of course everything that has, does or will exist does not exist in the current "right now", but does exist in some other "right now". — Janus

Sounds good, I think. To me, saying that everything exists in this "eternal present" is just a way of saying that they currently exist. Saying that there is a time where Napoleon exists under eternalism is no more different than saying that there is a parallel universe where everything is set 200 years back and Napoleon is alive IMO, and we have no trouble using the present tense for the latter.

So all of language is wrong if eternalism is the case? I don't consider saying that "Xmas will be on a Monday" to be an assertion of presentism. It's just how language works. — noAxioms

Well, Eternalism is well-known for being counter-intuitive (again, you can look that up if you're skeptical), unless you want to argue that it is a common sense view. If you want to state that "Xmas will be on a Monday" and intend it as an expression of the passage of time, then you're probably not an eternalist. Sorry, but that is just how the words are defined.

I disagree with the reference to "right now". What does that mean in eternalist terms?? There is no "right now". — noAxioms

What does it mean when we usually speak of things existing "right now"? I am typing up this response "right now" because my fingers are currently going across the keyboard. You're reading this post "right now" as your eyes are currently looking at the screen. What does it mean when we say that?

I think the better question is, what does it mean to exist if things neither existed, will exist or currently exist.

You can try to argue that things exist "tenselessly" in the sense that they are eternal and unchanging, but that notion can be captured either by saying that they "always did exist, are existing and will always exist", or that they "currently exist" and rejecting that things ever did happen or will happen (ie. rejecting the flow of time, which is what Eternalism does). One may also try to argue that things exist "timelessly" like some may claim to be how numbers and God exist, but I am not a platonist, nor do I believe in a religious God, so the notion of existing a-temporally seems nonsensical to me.

Assuming I am an eternalist (I'm not really), is it not legal for the October2017-noAxioms to say that Christmas will be on a Monday this year and last was on a Sunday? If the October2017-noAxioms can legally use those tenses, surely it is valid for the October2016-noAxioms to assert that this Christmas will be on a Sunday. Or do you disagree? Not sure what you're saying is invalid to do. — noAxioms

Nope, because under eternalism, it simply isn't the case that Christmas "will exist". Christmas doesn't just pass into existence and October out of it. Instead it already exists at a part of the block universe and it is located later to where October-2017-noaxioms is located on the block. The Christmas located on a Sunday of 2016 is located earlier to the same individual.

You try to bring in talk of "will" and "was" to the mix, but that just confuses things, as they are commonly associated with the passage of time. It is a basic fact that eternalism is commonly associated with the rejection of the flow of time, but I highly suggest you look at any corner of the literature if you're not convinced. This is why the article says that every event exists "right now", but I am not sure why you disagree with it.

I think it legal to use these tenses, but the reference point must be explicit, lacking an objective present. — noAxioms

No it isn't. If you don't believe in an objective flow of time then there is no meaning to saying that events have occurred or will occur. That is really the main crux of the eternalist vs presentist debate, the existence of this passage. The only tense that makes sense is to say that all things "are", which is to say that they are all exist now in the way we normally understand things existing right now.

So from 1910's present, WWI will happen. Events are still ordered and the tenses are not completely invalid. — noAxioms

Under eternalism, we say that WWI is later to 1910, not that it will happen, similar to how I say that the store is to the right of my house. I believe you are referring to the temporal location sense in your use of the present here.

What is the difference between "existing right now" and being "currently present"? — Janus

The author of the article refers to two different senses of the term "now", one in which he calls "ontological" and the other "temporal locative". When he says that Socrates isn't "currently present" he is saying that he is not "present" in the sense of temporal location, despite being ontologically real.

I believe that the ontological sense of the term "now" refers to what we normally mean when we talk about what is currently happening. When we say that you are reading this post "right now" we don't mean that it "has happened" or that it "will happen"; we mean that it is happening right now. That is just a basic fact. To say that something "has happened" or "will happen" would require a flow of time. Given that Eternalism simply lacks a passage of time by definition, this is where we get statements from the article such as:

One version of Non-presentism is Eternalism, which says that objects from both the past and the future exist just as much as present objects. — Stanford Article on Time

The temporal location sense of the term "now" in contrast seems to refer to a similarity in coordinates. Under eternalism, everything exists in four dimensions, the fourth being time, which is functionally like space (you might as well consider it a fourth dimension of space). We not only have the notion of objects existing to the left/right, above/below, or behind/ahead of each other, we also have them exist earlier and later to one another as well. To say that Socrates isn't "present" is just to say that he is located earlier to where I am. If he was to be considered "present" by me in the temporal location sense, then he wouldn't be located later or earlier relative to me. Of course, this doesn't mean that Socrates in this four dimensional universe does not exist (in the ontological sense). He is still around for the Eternalist, just not where you are.

The only other option that I see is that there would have to be infinite versions of me (or an incredibly large amount) which exist corresponding to every moment of my life. That is, there is a version of me that only experiences a moment when I am a toddler, one experiencing a moment where I am an old man, and of course one where I am asking this question. — Alec

I actually argued for something similar to this in a thread a few months back. I think your conclusion refers to the stage view of persistence, which states that you are one of the multiple (though not numerically identical) instantaneous counterparts of you in the block universe.

If you're willing to do some extra reading, there have been other authors who have discussed this topic. Off the top of my head, there is Experience and the Passage of Time by Bradford Skow (which I think can be found on the author's page) and A phenomenological argument for stage theory by Josh Parsons (I'm not sure if this can be found online as easily though).

That would explain why my experience is of one moment only but now we face the question of why I only experience this particular view. Out of all the different versions of me that exist, why am I the person who experiences life in October of 2017? — Alec

This is like asking why you are you and not somebody else. It's not like there was a roulette wheel that was spun prior to your birth to determine who you are. If you were somebody else you would probably ask the same question, and similarly, the same would apply if you weren't the you who experiences life on October 20 of 2017.

I still contend, however, that the phenomenology surrounding the ethics of past events is that these past events are still "real" in some sense, and aren't only a transcendent fact. Somewhere, deep in the past, victims of the Holocaust are still "hurting". — darthbarracuda

Well, they are certainly more "real" than say, Santa Claus or Harry Potter. This is what I meant when I said that they are more than fictional. We still treat past facts seriously despite them no longer being material unlike works of fiction.

That said, I don't think I see the ethical issues the same way you do. If we were to punish a former Nazi for their crimes in WWII, it was because of the acts they committed, not because they are currently committing them. The way I see it, you want to treat the Holocaust as a present atrocity that needs to be stopped, rather than as an event that already occurred, but that isn't how most of us would look at the issue.

Whether this is actually true is another matter but it would seem to have some plausibility when we consider the B-theory of time, or eternalism. Facts, by themselves, do not "hurt".

Well, if the purpose of punishing former Nazis is to stop the Jews from WWII which are currently still "hurting" from continuing to be "hurt", then I don't think eternalism helps much in that regard. The eternalist theory is a static theory, meaning there is no such thing as a flow of time and thus the events of WWII cannot be changed.

How does presentism ground ethical claims rooted in the past (and future) if the past and future do not exist? — darthbarracuda

The past and future do not exist, but they did exist and they will exist respectively. If you believe that there are facts about what happened then I don't see why you can't base your moral judgements on that.

My question is, if the Holocaust was prevented by time traveling back to the 1920s and shooting Hitler in the head, did it really no longer happen? Did all those millions of deaths suddenly not really happen? What happened to the past when we stopped it from happening? Did it just...disappear? Or does it exist in another possible world, like an alternate reality in a multiverse or something? — darthbarracuda

I think the better question would be if the concept of time travel even makes sense. If you time travel to the past with the sole purpose to prevent a particular event, and succeed in doing so, would that stop you from time travelling back in time in the first place? Or to use a clearer example, if you go back and kill your grandfather before he fathers a child, then would that prevent you from existing to go back in time? Clearly if we look at the act of travelling back in time as affecting our own past, we run into logical problems. IMO, the only way to make sense of it all is to either make it so that time loops back in on itself (such that you wouldn't be able to prevent the particular events that led to you time travelling), or to use some form of pseudo-time travel where you travel to an alternate timeline, like in your multiverse scenario.

As for the question in the title, there are many different ideas as to what the past refers to. Eternalists view the past as currently existing in the same sense as the present in the block universe. Presentists don't think the past or the future is strictly real, but that it isn't purely fictional due to it having occurred. And finally there are those who believe that the past has no real existence at all in any sense. I suppose if you view time in the former sense then time travel will be possible, but not so much for the others.

I'm not sure if the concept of existence can even be defined. To me, it sounds more like a fundamental term, one that cannot be reduced to anything else. Thus any attempt at explaining it is meaningless.

Agreed. One deals with physics, while the other deals with metaphysics. The scientific models by themselves don't necessitate any particular worldview; that would require an additional argument.

I can understand where you're coming from, but it seems like if we ask a soldier why he saved his comrades, he wouldn't disagree that he did so because he couldn't live with himself if he didn't. In other words, the guilt that he would face if he let his friends die is something that makes dying in their place more preferable. And it could be argued that this sort of thinking applies to every person who wishes to help others. The idea that they provided assistance to avoid guilt sounds just as appropriate as saying that they did so because they wished to help. — Alec

Even if the soldier would feel guilty if they didn't perform their action, was that what was on their mind when they saved their comrades? Were they thinking "Oh dear, my friends are going to die and it would be such a pain if I have to deal with the resulting guilt" (which is the sort of thinking they'd have if they were really being self centred) or were they more concerned with the fact that their friends are actually in danger? In addition, wouldn't the fact that they felt guilty be a signal that there is more to their decision to save their friends other than the pain that comes from this guilt?

Now, let's say we have an ecosystem. Mr. Reductionist claims that said ecosystem can be explained in purely physical terms. Mr. Irreductionist claims that it can't. Mr. Reduction anything in that ecosystem can be explained by the motions of its constituent particles, since it's all made of matter anyway. Mr. Irreductionist claims that it can't, because explaining the actions of any particular particle fully will require an account of its interactions with other particles, so the whole thing telescopes out. Mr. Reductionist says that, even after "telescoping out," the whole business will still just be a bunch of particles. Mr. Irreductionist then asks what, exactly, Mr. Reductionist is trying to explain. — Pneumenon

If Mr. Irreductionist's objection to Mr. Reductionist's picture amounts to a merely pointing out that the individual motions of the particles requires taking into account the other particles, then it seems like there is no substantive disagreement between them. It would seem like Mr. Irreductionist would still ultimately agree that the ecosystem can in theory be described by a system of interacting particles, so it seems like the dispute is methodological. However, if Mr. Irreductionist's claim requires that there exist something over and above the particles themselves and their interactions, then there would be a substantive disagreement because we are now talking about an ontological dispute.

Is altruistic action necessarily mutually exclusive with inflicting harm though? If the intent of causing suffering in others is so that they too can achieve salvation, then I don't see why that can't be considered selfless. It is only when the intent was selfish that we don't have altruism, but such intent need not be present in the above, at least as I conceive it.

What about our conversation? Are you doubting whether or not we are having a discussion right now?

There's not a lot of clarity here. — Banno

You're right, there isn't. I've no idea what you're trying to say and it seems like you're deliberately being obtuse.

I don't, but I thought our conversation was about defining reincarnation.

Or perhaps you might explain what a subject is? — Banno

The entity that is having the experience. As for what that entity is exactly, that is something I cannot answer, as that is linked to the problems of understanding consciousness. But that doesn't stop us from understanding the former so I really don't see what you're on about.

I've no idea what it might mean. — Banno

The same subject who had Napoleon's experiences now has Banno's experiences. I honestly have no idea what's not to get about that.

I have long rejected reincarnation on the grounds that it uses a confused notion of the self. It is unclear how Banno could be the very same person who was previously Napoleon... — Banno

Banno is the reincarnation of Napoleon in the sense that both of those individuals share the same subject of experience. Do you have a problem with this definition? You may believe that they are both not the same "person" because you have a particular idea of what a "person" should be, but that just means that reincarnation doesn't involve a persistence of personhood.

Perhaps I have trouble understanding your scenario, but the idea of someone freezing their own time without freezing the time outside themselves doesn't seem to make sense to me. The examples that people have given seem to involve instances where people's perception of time is slowed down, but that is quite different from being completely frozen. A person can experience a billion years in a second, but not an instant (or whatever the smallest unit of time is, if you believe there is one). The former can be explained away as a difference in processing rates between one person's mind and the rest of the world, but such a phenomenon is quite normal, even occurring in our everyday lives where people's perception of time can slow down during critical moments.

The only way I can imagine the scenario is if the person is able to pause the world around themselves and the unpause it if they decide to resume their lives (like that episode of the Twilight Zone with the stopwatch), but in that case the answer is simple in that the world itself will be frozen forever without you getting killed at all. However, you said that that isn't what's going on, so to me the only other option would be that the question sounds meaningless. At that point, I can only say that because the question lacks any meaning, then there is no answer to it.

No it's not. We haven't had drastic changes in our livelihood over short periods of time. If it were a totalitarian regime it could fluctuate based on the leader. Since the Obama to Trump transfer of power there has been no huge change, the constitution still applies and all changes that happen in future will be slow. A totalitarian regime can change over night based on the absolute rulings of their leaders. That was my point, of course there could be stability like you mentioned in a totalitarian regime, but the democracy is overall more stable. — yatagarasu

I wasn't really referring to our livelihood, but the type of government that a country would have over time. Speaking of livelihood though, you say that it can change depending upon the leader, but of course, with totalitarian governments that's the one thing that rarely changes. If a leader is corrupt and selfish, then they will use any opportunity to better themselves at the expense of their people and unless they have a sudden change of heart (which sounds very unlikely) than the people will continue to suffer under their rule.

Corruption is just as bad in both systems, you just see its impact more readily in totalitarian regimes. Money in politics, division of the lower class by elites over "ideology" all are signs of corruption (propaganda). Bribery happens secretly but in broad daylight through "campaign contributions", which in most 3rd world countries is just called bribing. Democracy biggest achievement is its ability to slow down corruptions impact on the system as a whole (and it's population). — yatagarasu

Sure, there is corruption in both systems, but I wouldn't agree that they are both just as bad. Not only is it easier to get away with corruption under a totalitarian system than it is a democracy, but it is easier to get away with a greater amount of evil. A totalitarian ruler can execute someone in public and no one can do anything about it, but don't expect Donald Trump to get off with shooting someone on fifth avenue (though whether or not he would lose his core support is another issue). Democracy isn't able to stop all kinds of corruption, but it is, despite its flaws, able to stop the worst instances of corruption.

Um, since when did choice become a part of all this? Our discussion mainly had to do with determinism and its compatibility with QM, and not with free will. But if you're not interested in having a discussion, then I can't really do anything about that.

They don't study Bohm, instead they just copy errors. Bell actually took the time to study the equations and came up with a way of understanding it better. Bell favored Bohm's approach. Of course others later on tested Bell's equation later in the laboratory.

As I have said in other thread, scientists are human and they are full of biases. Bohm should have received a Nobel Prize for doing the impossible, instead he was ostracized and marginalized - by everyone except Bell. — Rich

As if Bell and Bohm were the only Bohmians around. And everyone else is simply biased against Bohm? I'm sorry, but there have been plenty of physicists who have written papers analyzing Bohmian Mechanics in detail and a number of them that I've glanced over acknowledge that they are discussing it as a deterministic interpretation.

I count four deterministic interpretations. Bohm no. Many-Worlds, Many-Mind, still probabilistic in our world and universe. And the last one I never heard of. — Rich

There are also the agnostic ones as well. Like I said all of these positions are compatible with a deterministic position.

I would like you to consider the silliness of Many-Minds. Observe to what extent scientists will the to deny choice in humans. It's bizarre. — Rich

Your arguments against MW and MM apparently stem from it's non-intuitiveness. However, for one, intuition is rarely a good guide to understanding reality, so you need something more substantial than that. In addition, it's hard to single out the strangeness of MWI when pretty much every interpretation suffers from a certain degree of non-intuitiveness itself.

The key to understanding the Bohm solution is the quantum potential. There is a lot there so rather than actually studying it, people just copy errors. — Rich

To be frank, I am still skeptical that many people, including physicists who should know better, are prone to this error. Some part of me suspects that there are different versions of Bohmian Mechanics, one which is commonly known to be deterministic and one which, according to Bohm, is not (this is what he calls the "Causal Interpretation"). Bohm apparently has gone through different phases in his thinking over the course of his life, having taken a mystical approach in his later years. The fact is, he did explicitly describe the Bohm interpretation as being deterministic when he introduced it in the 50s, your quote having been made in the late 80s. This would explain his spiritual sounding language in your quote, but this is just speculation from a lay reader who currently can't really determine the technical details of it all.

Either way, I have not mentioned this earlier, but you have only responded to two-three of the seven interpretations which allow for determinism. You still haven't demonstrated that QM is inherently indeterministic. And no, the Bell Inequality Tests do not demonstrate indeterminism, only the falsity of local realism.

Hmm, interesting. I didn't know of that. Unfortunately, like I said earlier, I have no technical knowledge to rely on so I can't look into it. The best I can do is listen to what others have to say about it. Still not entirely sure what " creative operation of underlying, and yet subtler, levels of reality" could mean though.

I just told you my source is Bohm himself. Read the source and not some chart. That is What I did. — Rich

Then perhaps you can show me a quote where he specifically says that his Bohmian theory is indeterministic.

You realize that Bohm himself said that his equations are causal but not deterministic. — Rich

What's the difference? Is causal compatible with uncaused indeterminism?

They can't be because the quantum potential has to be probabilistic and it's right there as a probabilistic function in his equation. So that person who created that chart is just copying someone else's error. It happens when people are lazy. — Rich

I'm sorry, but it's actually common knowledge that the Bohm interpretation is deterministic. It's a non-local hidden variables theory. The only person I've heard that seems to be suggesting otherwise is you. Of course I don't have the technical know-how to understand the details of the Bohm Interpretation myself (and it'd be impractical of me to learn about it on the fly) so I can only put your word against theirs.

That everything(almost everything) in this universe happens according to our laws of physics does not mean that everything is determined. — Barry

Yeah, I originally meant to say that the vast majority of our scientific theories (barring QM which is debatable) are and have been deterministic and operate on deterministic mechanisms. That's clearly evidence of determinism and not zero evidence.

Quantum mechanics predicts the chance of a particulair event. For example if one is about to measure the position of an electron, quantum mechanics can predict the chance you will find the electron in lets say position x. It is impossible to predict exactly what will happen. Not because the theory is incomplete or a because of a lack of information. It seems that this is how nature works, which would suggest that the universe is nondeterministic. — Barry

Like I told Rich and the OP, there are different interpretations of QM, and not all of them are deterministic. A deterministic worldview is just as compatible with the science as any.

1) There is no such thing as the Laws of Nature. It is a made up please with no definition. It is precisely equivalent to God and has its roots in religion. — Rich

Then what are the scientists looking for if not laws that describe how our world works?

2) Science says that events are non-deterministic. If they were we could throw out Schrodinger's equation and replace it with Newton's. But, alas, science decided 100 years ago that Newton's Laws do not correspond to experimental evidence including Bell's Inequality which demonstrate non-locality. — Rich

This is the listing of all of the interpretations of QM (there are probably more but this is most of them). Realize that not all of them are indeterministic:



The Schrodinger Equation works, certainly. It's been experimentally verified time and time again by science. How we choose to interpret that is a whole other matter.

Determinism has zero evidence. There is absolutely nothing to support the notion that everything is determined or anything it's determined and the choices we make are either governed by some supernatural God or Laws of Nature which in turn are mystically creating the illusion of choice. — Rich

Yeah, determinism has zero evidence, apart from the fact that we find that pretty much everything in the physical universe is determined by the laws of nature. That's what science is all about.

In 1920's 'they' found out that the idea of determinism is not right due to the discovery of quantum physics. So how do quantum physics give the Universe 'free will'? Or is quantum physics just an other thing we have yet to fully understand and is determinism still right? — FMRovers

Not necessarily true. The Copenhagen interpretation of QM says that there is indeterminism, but there also exist other interpretations as well that say there are hidden variables which support a causal view of nature, such as the Bohm interpretation. In fact, there are plenty of interpretations, some of which are deterministic but some aren't, and there doesn't seem to be any consensus agreement that any one is true, so the question of determinism is up for grabs.

As for the implications of this quantum indeterminism on free will if such indeterminism does exist, whether or not this grants us "free will" depends on what you want to get out of the idea. If by "free" you are just looking for us to make decisions that are unhinged by any sort of deterministic influence (simply making choices that are uncaused), then we can technically have free will if we can draw a clear line linking the decision making processes in our minds and the quantum process of the subatomic world. In theory, this seems possible, as the former is reducible to the latter, but it seems like a very rare occurrence even if it does occur. Of course, if you're looking for anything more substantial than that (or somehow less "chaotic") than that, then I don't think you can get that from QM.

The fact is, QM isn't really the best theory we have, since it doesn't mesh well with GR, and vice versa for GR. We are still looking for a theory of Quantum Gravity so it's likely that one or both will be replaced in the future. How this all will mesh with determinism isn't really clear, but it seems like alot of different ideas are on the table with respect to a theory of QG (continuity, the multiverse and the existence of higher dimensions being some examples), so it's debatable which ones are right and which are wrong.

I doubt that most Quinians or Wittgensteinians would say that it is a benign regress and would reject it, given it's similarity to the Modus-Ponen's infinite regress paradox of Lewis Carroll, as used by critics of truth-by-convention to attack the idea that the notion of logical necessity is representable or derivable from a finite supply of community conventions. — sime

Okay, so what exactly in the infinite chain is objectionable?

Also, what is this "Modus-Ponen's infinite regress" you're referring to? Quick google search doesn't give me anything.

One variety of vicious infinite regress could be when trying to justify some proposition, p, and justifying p is done with (or requires) a different proposition, p1, which, in turn, depends on p2, ..., ad infinitum, where pn diverges. — jorndoe

I think this sounds similar to my own theory, just with different wording. Instead of saying that an infinite regress involves "solving a problem", you instead say that it would involve justification. I've also heard it said that a vicious regress is one that is meant to be explanatory as well, but again it all sounds the same to me.

On the other hand, if all propositions/claims can be shown to collapse into one (like pn+1 = pn), for example, then it's not a vicious infinite regress. — jorndoe

Interesting. So, would statements such as "Every event has a prior cause" and "Every region of space is composed of smaller regions" work here to describe an infinite past or a continuous interval of space? Though I am not sure if they qualify as regresses, I am inclined to think of continuity and causality as being benign if they are so that'd be nice.

First off, I would want to say that I do not believe in any sort of "objective" morality. Or to put it another way, I don't think that there any absolute fact as to what is right or wrong. However, that doesn't mean that I don't think that there doesn't exist any morality at all. Clearly we do have a deep-rooted sense as to what is right or wrong, and I believe that this is grounded in our own capacity as human beings to empathize and feel compassion for others. We are social beings after all, so it's not surprising that we have evolved with an inborn conscience. This, I think, is where laws such as the golden rule come from, and why they are so pervasive across different cultures.

Democracy's weakness and strength is the stability it gives. With totalitarianism you can actually have really good times if your leader is benevolent and knows what he is doing. (Example: See Singapore/Lee Kuan Yew, or Korea/Sejong the Great). But unfortunately most of history has been the exact opposite. Democracy avoids this but makes actually fixing issues a slow and sometimes impossible task. — yatagarasu

I think it's the opposite really. Democratic systems tend to change their ruling party from time to time (for instance just look at the U.S. where they went from Obama to Trump). In contrast, totalitarian countries usually have the same ruling party (and in a lot of cases the same person) as the head of government for decades. Democracy, if anything, is good at avoiding corruption, which is unfortunately something that most totalitarian governments fall victim to.