I disagree.

The wheel is physical yes, but the “spin” of the wheel is a process that the physical object undergoes. The process itself is not physical. Similarly, the brain is physical, yet a thought it not.

Both the spin of a wheel and a thought in the brain are supported by energy, one through the force that set the spin in motion, the other by the energy it takes to fire the neurons that in sum create your thoughts.

I agree. I’m claiming this analogy mirrors the OP.

the spin of the wheel has no mass, the wheel does (forgive the earlier typo) but otherwise my point stands

Let's get right down to business.

Physicalism claims everything is matter and/or energy.

Matter is anything that has mass and volume.

Energy is the capacity to do work.

Here's me, observing a wheel spinning.

The wheel neither gains mass nor increases in volume. Ergo, the spinning wheel isn't matter!

Conclusion: The phenomena of a wheel spinning is neither matter nor energy.

In other words, the spin of a wheel is nonphysical.
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1. The brain is made up of matter.
2. The mind is the name we give the core function of the brain.
3. A thought is an atomized unit of "mind".

Really depends on what you mean by "value". You might say that nature is valuable insofar that we exist in nature. Secondly, nature provides us sustenance and the raw material in which to be creative.

As an atheist, it depends on the nature of the God. However, if I had to generalize I'd likely hope that there IS a god, even if only because I can continue to live on in some form instead of existence simply ending at death.

To answer your question directly (and of course in my opinion), yes. To explain further, morality is simply the consensus subjective opinion of the group in question. It helps explain why morality differs with time, location, theological underpinnings, etc.

Joining the conversation late so bear with me. A few questions.

1. Can you define consciousness as you understand it in your first post. Do you mean the individual consciousness or the collective?

2. Do you see the mind as something immaterial? If so, how is this different than any mind / body dualism argument? For a physicalist, there is no evidence that the mind is anything other than matter.

Cheers!

There is no reason to live. Not any objective meaning anyway. For many, their faith in a higher power is their raison d'être. For those that are secular (myself included), we continue to live because of stubbornness to see things through and a general willingness to avoid death.

It has little to do with forums per se and more to do with any social group interaction. There are many among us that cannot handle being told we're wrong and do not enjoy being challenged on beliefs we hold. For those individuals, making a "statement" and "rage quitting" (as another poster put it), is the perfect way to make a splash and feeling self righteous before making an exit.

It entirely depends on what one believes to be ethical. Therefore, I don't think there is any objective answer to this.

Furthermore, one's ethics are informed by one's upbringing and in my opinion more importantly one's socioeconomic status.

Suppose two people were to equally believe that eating factory farmed animals is unethical yet one is economically disadvantaged and chooses to eat it anyway since alternatively raised animals is too expensive, would we judge the latter for being unethical?

In my mind, the short of it is that finding out we're in a simulation does not increase our odds of going to hell one way or the other.

1. If a simulation is indeed what we're in, we have no information about its creator(s) other than the fact that they likely had a reason for creating it.
2. Since the idea of "Hell" is presumably an idea created by residents within the simulation, we cannot be sure if such a place exists (either as an extension of the simulation itself, or a place in the "true" reality).
3. If "Hell" were to exist and exist in the "true" reality (whatever that is), we have no idea if our consciousness would even have the ability to travel there.
4. If "Hell" were to exist and exist in the "false" reality (presumably an extension of the simulation we're in), we have no idea what criteria determines our entrance to such a place.

I agree that the average forum member leans centre or left. With that said, why exactly is that a problem? Nobody is censoring discussion here. If you wanted to make a post about the failings of progressivism in the US or elsewhere, you're free to do so.

I agree. Matter may not be as straightforward as we think. With that said, there is no evidence of any kind that consciousness (specifically the consciousness of the person deceased) continues in any form.

I'd like to add that I've noticed a trend in various discussions regarding consciousness to conflate the consciousness of the individual with consciousness as a concept or even "force" of nature. When I say that consciousness ceases to exist, I am referring to the consciousness an individual possesses. It matters not for the individual if the "force" of consciousness continues to exist in some abstract way. The person will cease to experience life.

Consciousness is related directly to life. Death therefore presents us with the lack of consciousness. I think of it as an endless dreamless sleep of sorts.

Meaning is “deleted” in life too. For instance, suppose you enjoyed a certain show as a child. In your present life you may even struggle to remember you felt that way. Using your phrasing, it’s been deleted. Meaning only exists in the moment you’re in. This isn’t a unique feature of death.

I suggest life can have meaning without an afterlife.

Meaning is something deeply personal (not based on some objective truth) and exists solely in the present (you cannot feel in a time you do not exist). This would imply to me that life only has meaning in the moment that you're in. Once you die, your ability to experience meaning will die with you but that doesn't speak to the meaning you experienced when you experienced it.

I believe this would hold true even if there was eternal life or an afterlife of some kind. In that scenario, could you really experience meaning in any moment other than the one you were present in?

You mention that belief in determinism is self refuting. I don't see it. Your belief is determined, just like anything else. Yes, their argument would be determined. Yes, their conclusion would be determined.

I agree with you entirely.

However, for the sake of argument and discussion, perhaps the “artist’s statement” can be considered part of the art itself. For example, if one were to look at a painting, who’s to say the art in question ends at the frame? Perhaps the art is incomplete without the aforementioned statement.

Well, I would've liked to say "exactly" but then your last statement prevents me from doing that.

The mind/consciousness/psyche, whatever you want to call it, is a complex subject. Perhaps what I've been saying in this thread makes sense if we make the assumption that there's something, call it x, that does the thinking in us.

Yes, admittedly, this x could be the brain but how does one explain sleep/death? In both these states we have an intact brain but no consciousness - in sleep it's a temporary absence but in death it's permanent. — TheMadFool

It’s complex, I agree. Your last paragraph here is interesting. Let’s separate sleep and death. In my eyes, during sleep you still possess consciousness, you’re just unaware of it. We say you’re “unconscious”. Death on the other hand is a matter of physical decay. You don’t possess consciousness nor the potentiality of consciousness because the physical brain decays. Science has not yet clearly identified what level of decay results in consciousness being unsustainable.

Using my previous wheel example, in sleep the wheel is still intact and CAN spin. In death, the wheel itself is no more, the ability for it to spin is no more. The physical state (brain / wheel) results in the process (consciousness / spin) being possible or not.

This is the right time to consider the nature of consciousness and we come to the realization that it deals exclusively with thoughts. Consciousness is all about thoughts - ideas/concepts - and thoughts are clearly not physical like brains, and neurons are.

The human body has, at any one time, multiple physical processes in action - the heart, the kidneys, etc. but all of them remain, so to speak, within the realm of the physical - blood flow, urine, etc. all physical. Given physicalism, how do we explain the peculiar fact of the immaterial/nonphysical nature of thoughts? — TheMadFool

I disagree with your premise here. We don’t actually know whether or not consciousness is physical. To say “thoughts are clearly not physical” seems like a stretch. It certainly appears non-physical but we may simply lack the understanding to describe it in physical terms (currently). As a species, we have overcome our lack of understanding regarding all sorts of topics (for example how one becomes sick through bacterial and viral infections). Given our (mostly recent) successful history of explaining previously misunderstood topics in physical terms, I see no compelling reason why consciousness could also not be explained in such terms.

I would tend to agree with your position on this. For argument's sake, I am assuming God as described in the Abrahamic texts exists.

God's knowledge being independent of the universe does not refute determinism. I'd argue it has no bearing. God could exist outside of the universe and "look in". Assuming God's omniscience applies to what happens within this universe he would know the outcome of every event.

I'd argue for determinism with or without God. The existence of an omniscient being (whether internal or external to our universe) does not factor into this.

precisely :lol:

That title grabbed your attention so while I still have it, where does the conscious awareness of a newly conceived baby come from? One day the embryo is a ball of cells and the next it has a neural plate and then tube and hey presto its kicking and dreaming and thinking. — Benj96

Where does the ability for a plant to photosynthesize come from? One day the plant is a seed and the next it has a fully formed leaf and hey presto it’s converting light energy into chemical energy.

I would like to develop a previous point: Life cannot be both worth living and acceptable in ending. One of these premeses has to be false, either life is not worth living (and therefore there is no reason not to end it) or death is inherently bad (and therefore should be feared). This presents an interesting dilemma as neither outcome is particularly desirable in my opinion: either fear death or kill yourself. — JacobPhilosophy

Death is “acceptable” to us due to its inevitability. If we truly had a choice about it, we could debate the merit of existing forever vs ending one’s life. The question is whether life is worth living in spite of death. I’d argue that death’s inevitability and permanence makes life’s worth living, even if to simply see what’s next.

We create morals, as a group or collective. Since we create them, and this creation happens based among other things on peoples opinions on morals, you can't really say it's not subjective. But then there are also a whole bunch of objective background constraints that make it so that it generally goes in certain directions... so there are 'objective' aspects to it too. — ChatteringMonkey

What you describe as objective background constraints I would rather call the "environment" to avoid the term objective. I otherwise agree.

And then once morals have been created, which is a matter of agreement/convention, it is not a matter of subjective opinion anymore whether a person breaks a moral convention or not. It's objectively true that people agreed upon a certain moral convention, and objectively true or not whether that convention is broken. — ChatteringMonkey

I agree that you can say that an agreed upon convention can be objectively said to be broken or not. In my eyes however, and more importantly, the convention itself is not reaching at some objective moral truth. You're back to a kind of subjective consensus about what is right or wrong.

Moral objectivism has a few qualities I struggle to reconcile (maybe someone can help me here):

- If a moral evaluation of some event is to be made by an individual, it is by definition subjective. A group of individuals will tend to disagree (partially / fully) on what the correct moral evaluation of an event is.

- If a moral evaluation of an event were to draw upon some objective "truth" (a correct moral evaluation that is not contingent on the individual and exists objectively), I struggle to see how one would know or come to understand of this truth.

My Mind is not physical. — TheMadFool

You say the mind is not physical. When you say the mind, you can only be referring to two things, either the brain or consciousness. The brain is physical and by definition has mass. You can examine a brain, weigh it, etc. Consciousness is a process, more specifically the brain's process. A process has no mass.

Put another way, a wheel has mass. The motion of spin a wheel experiences has no mass.

Nothing you've stated refutes physicalism.

In my mind, this is relative. Firstly what is considered "nice" is different depending on the values of your parents, society in which you're raised, the peers you have, your religious or non-religious views, the time in which you live, among other things.

If you were to to assess the actions you performed on a given day (let's call them x, y, z), you would determine if they fit the criteria of "nice" or "not nice" through the lens / limitations of aspects of your experience I mentioned above. You may determine that all three actions were nice. A spectator or peer may view actions x and y as "nice" but action z as "not nice" and then determine that in their opinion you are "not nice".

This brings me to an even bigger issue. Someone may think that you're "nice" in spite of the fact that they believe your individual actions are "not nice".

I can't picture a scenario where being "nice" is something that can be measured objectively.

I agree that death is a non-experience. Fear of death while "irrational" is easily understood. As biological beings, we seek to preserve our lives for as long as we can. Beyond this, in common language, fear of death also refers to the fear of dying, and as that process still exists within the realm of experience, it cannot be seen as irrational.