It seems to me that non-human animals are not bio-machines, so I assume that they have consciousness, but it doesn't make it true. But let's assume it's true, is animal consciousness the same as human consciousness? There are just too many elements in the definition of consciousness to answer the question with a simple yes or no. — Vince

It only matters if they can feel suffering, because suffering is the definition of conscious life.

So:
1) Can dogs feel suffering?
2) Can houseflies feel suffering?
3) Can plants feel suffering?

"Simple questions: Does a housefly have consciousness? — SolarWind"

Difficult to answer without a clear definition of what consciousness is. — Vince

Would you ask the same question if someone hit their dog? Is the dog even conscious?

Why is it self-evident for you that the dog is capable of suffering, but you start to wonder about the housefly?

Do you also think about the clear definition of consciousness with the dog?

Let's work with gut feelings. — TheMadFool

This is not a scientific answer. It is about answering questions through experiments. In philosophy also through thought experiments.

What is then your gut feeling to dark matter? Why research? We'll just ask you.

Why can't consciousness be a wholly physical phenomenon? It presumably comes out of certain configurations of matter, i.e. brains. — Manuel

Simple questions: Does a housefly have consciousness? Does it have feelings? Or is it just a bio-machine? What about plants? Are reactions to the environment sufficient or necessary conditions for consciousness?

Someone with a complete worldview should be able to answer that.

I have written something similar: Imaginary proof of the soul .

It proves the existence of an "Ipointer" (or soul) independent of the existence of p-zombies.

Whether the Ipointer or the matter carries the qualia cannot be shown with this proof.

I wait for the one who comes after me to continue the proof.

One very good example of a fuzzy/vague concept is tallness/shortness. However, once we fix a particular height as a cut-off point, the vagueness/fuziness disappears. — TheMadFool

How exactly are you going to determine the cut-off point? One thousandth of an inch?

Then true and false depends on the hairstyle.

The definition of tidal flat is "essentially horizontal and commonly muddy or marshy land that is covered and uncovered by the rise and fall of tides"

There is no fuzziness here. Tidal flat is land. — Hermeticus

You can also call it "Wadden Sea".

Can you also give me a statement that brings out the fuzziness in the term "tidal flat"? — TheMadFool

I do not understand the question. Obviously, there is sometimes water and sometimes land. So I can't say it's either sea or land.

You need an additional assumption to decide the question. — SolarWind

So? — TheMadFool

OK, my example was bad.

Does the tidal flat belong to the land or to the sea? — SolarWind

Define "tidal flat".

The tidal flats have water at high tide and land at low tide.

Do not fault binary logic for the errors in our conceptual schema. You mentioned fairness as regards pay. Be precise as to what you mean by fairness and it's all good, bivalent logic is perfectly apt. — TheMadFool

You need an additional assumption to decide the question. It is not immediately clear whether the answer is true or false.

Another example: Does the tidal flat belong to the land or to the sea? I think fuzzy logic is appropriate here.

What I am actually saying is that there are issues that are not subject to binary logic like opinions of different people. But there are also problems with it in logic like the liar paradox.

In the end, all that remains to be said is that binary logic can be applied where it can be applied and cannot be applied where it cannot be applied.

Truly binary. :lol:

Not a true contradiction - a definitional issue at best, confusion at worst. — TheMadFool

But everything depends on definitions. You wrote it yourself with Sorite's paradox. What is the use of insisting on binary logic if I cannot apply it in many cases? In politics there are many questions where binary logic is of no use. Is the pay of a particular worker fair? Yes or no?

A proposition being both true and false is a contradiction. I gave the example of how if x is a cat, it's impossible that x is not a cat (x is cat is true and x is a cat is false). — TheMadFool

What if you talk about the evolutionary ancestors of cats? One researcher says that's already a cat, another says that's not a cat yet.

Either p is true OR p is false [principle of bivalence] — TheMadFool

Didn't you read my question?

Do Brussels sprouts taste good? True or false?

We have choices. Like it or not, as per the argument which I simply reproduced, none of the choices you make are free i.e. they're determined by forces beyond our control. That should cover all the bases, no? — TheMadFool

You can also define that free will prevails when one has the feeling to decide freely. If there is coffee and tea in my kitchen and I decide for the tea and also have the feeling to have decided freely, then I could speak of free will.

Otherwise, every thing is what you define it to be. If I define "free will" as a hotdog, then a hotdog is just free will.

Ergo,

3. No free will [conclusion] — TheMadFool

It depends on how you define free will. If you ask your friend if he wants coffee or tea and he chooses coffee, do you say: "That wasn't free will, because that was clear since the Big Bang, please choose what you really want!"?

Hypothetically speaking supposing there was an omniscient being - doesn’t have to be (a) god necessarily maybe a hyper intelligent AI or a genie or whatever but you could ask it one question - anything at all, what would it be? — Benj96

How many neurons or transistors does your brain work with?

Incidentally, this argument refutes utilitarianism:

1. If utilitarianism is the correct normative ethical theory, then gang rape is right (if the gang is sufficiently big)
2. Gang rape is wrong (irrespective of the size of the gang)
3. Therefore utilitarianism is not the correct normative ethical theory. — Bartricks

Good point. But almost every action has disadvantages for someone (animals included). How do you want to offset these disadvantages?

Or in other words, what is the correct normative ethical theory?

1. If rape is wrong, then you ought not to rape
2. Rape is wrong
3. Therefore, you ought not to rape — Bartricks

Points 1 and 3 seem logical to me, but point 2 does not. Why is gang rape wrong, for example? Some have fun and there is only one victim. In the sense of utilitarianism this could be commanded.

↪SolarWind

How do you know that X is wrong? — SolarWind


By my reason.

Anyway, you've missed the point. I derived an ought from an is. Here, again:

1. If Xing is wrong, then we ought not to do X
2. Xing is wrong
3. Therefore, we ought not to do X — Bartricks

Sorry, I don't understand a word, not even the first sentence:

"1. If Xing is wrong, then we ought not to do X".

Who or what is "Xing"?

Ask yourself! :)

If xing is wrong, you ought not x, yes? — Bartricks

How do you know that X is wrong? That's just asking the question shifted.

Example: Is it right or wrong for a resource-poor country to invade a resource-rich neighboring country?

Please infer based on the facts alone.

No, but what is the point?

Can you give an example of how to derive an ought state from a state of being?

↪SolarWind
Total nonsense. You can't seriously think this -

What we should or should not do cannot be derived from being. — SolarWind

has any meaning? — Bartricks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy

Well, if we lack free will, then we lack all obligations. Or at least, that seems self-evident. Obligations, whether moral, instrumental or epistemic, presuppose free will. Thus, if we lack free will, then we lack any obligation to do or think anything. As such, if hard determinism is true, nothing you think is anything you ought to think, or ought not to think, and likewise for anything you do. So it is a kind of dead-end. — Bartricks

What we should or should not do cannot be derived from being.
Since determinism is part of being, it has no influence on ought.
And the free will has also no connection with it, because it is only a feeling.

These are all islands of knowledge that have nothing to do with each other.

If death has no properties, what valuation does it have?

How much suffering must someone experience in order to make it "worthwhile" to kill himself?

In terms of game theory, a value is missing here.

I don't think it matters to punish or to treat offenders. The only important thing is that offenders never harm society again, if possible. As far as I'm concerned, they can also be banished to a beautiful island. The punishment would be to distance them from the rest of society.

Free will, which is nonsensically defined anyway (free from what?), plays no role in this.

I do not understand. Both say there is a neutral substance in living beings and both say a stone has no consciousness.

Can anyone explain the crucial difference between panpsychism and neutral monism?

I concede you are right. — Down The Rabbit Hole

All respect. Rare that someone admits that someone else is right. Was a good try, but no one will ever solve the theodicy question.

It's very simple: why aren't we born in heaven right now without any suffering?

Well no if you believe in rebirth you have already a reason to "act good". But most people who believe in rebirth don't they follow some kind of religion already? Don't know, just asking.
And well then, we would have to convince more people start believing on rebirth. But without any God for that, wouldn't that be difficult to happen? — dimosthenis9

I don't know any religion that fulfils that. It would be a kind of Hinduism without gods or Buddhism with souls.

What I'm very interested in, what would you call someone who doesn't believe in gods but in souls?

.If you gonna make people stop believing in religions then WHAT could replace God? How can you convince people to be "good" ??? — dimosthenis9

If you believe in rebirth, it automatically means that you want to preserve the future world.

Do you need a God for souls to exist?

↪SolarWind

< This infinity is never reached because it is only a potential infinity. We cannot be in the moment of "infinity" and therefore never have experienced infinite happiness.> — SolarWind

All that matters is the good goes on forever. — Down The Rabbit Hole

If you suffer 1 year and are happy for 9 years, then you have 10% suffering.

If you suffer for 1 year and are happy for 99 years, then you have 1% suffering.

If you suffer for 1 year and are happy for 999 years, then you have 0.1% suffering.

It never becomes 0, only in the limit.

But if you have never suffered, it is always 0%.

Quantum superpositions amongst entangled wavicles are fundamental, which give rise at a very basic level to percepts, which eventually reach enough emergent organization to constitute consciousness. It seems as obvious to me as evolution was in Darwin's seminal account, but the research that proves exactly how it all works is yet to be performed. — Enrique

No classical, quantum mechanical, electrodynamic, chemical, thermodynamic or emergent equation contains a term for the smell of a rose.

Grow to more than infinity?

-10 + infinite good = infinite good
-157 + infinite good = infinite good
-258958 + infinite good = infinite good
-999999999999999 + infinite good = ..... — Down The Rabbit Hole

This infinity is never reached because it is only a potential infinity. We cannot be in the moment of "infinity" and therefore never have experienced infinite happiness.

Why is "b+" better than "b"? — Down The Rabbit Hole

If you have a sum of positive and negative numbers and you change the negative numbers to zero, the sum grows. Simple mathematics.

... (a) no finite bad to be cancelled out by the good (b) finite bad that is cancelled out by the good, and as there is no reason to prefer "a" or "b", god acts completely reasonably in picking at random or letting what will be, be. — Down The Rabbit Hole

If you take (b) and delete the bad you get (b+), which is better than (b), thus God could never choose (b).

If you ask the wrong question you will inevitably get the wrong answer. — prothero

I'm not the thread opener and I'm just making case distinctions.

That paves the way for a souless universe devoid of any inherent value or purpose.

Why can't there be a universe WITH souls and WITHOUT gods?

The way I see it, if God exists and is omnipotent, then I think he can do as he pleases. He is under no obligation to submit his actions or the motives of his actions to human scrutiny and judgment. — Apollodorus

That is not the question. The questioning presupposes goodwill. Then the existence of suffering is illogical.

If God is not benevolent, then it is a different question.