tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post52028317539776688..comments2024-02-13T12:50:30.457-05:00Comments on Rants Within the Undead God: The Problem of Evil and the Role of Omega SpiritualityBenjamin Cainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comBlogger56125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-12644730303560582072013-11-10T20:16:17.013-05:002013-11-10T20:16:17.013-05:00I agree with your second paragraph here, which quo...I agree with your second paragraph here, which quotes Camus and says that suicide is a reaction to unbearable suffering. This means suicide is a "choice" in the same way that Sophie's choice of having to kill one or the other of her children was a choice. This choice between the lesser of two evils isn't really a choice at all; it's going with flow of horror, because there's no good option and we usually choose what we think of as good. <br /><br />But this second paragraph contradicts what you say in the first one, where you say that suicide is a "viable option." An option is whether you want your car to have a sunroof or not. Neither burning to death nor leaping from a burning building is an option, properly speaking. When someone's overwhelmed by suffering, when life is unbearable, given a person's limited ability to cope with pain, then by way of a sort of Newtonian reaction, the person is forced to take her life. Choice has little to do with it.<br /><br />You say my worldview implies that suicide is warranted. This isn't so. I say the world is a horrible place. But as the author Matt Cardin has pointed out on his blog, a blog which is included in my list of links above, horror is a facet of the numinous. This is why theists speak of fearing God. God would be a terrible personage to behold, not a loving parent but an absurdly powerful alien that would make us piss our pants for eternity. For that reason, all souls in heaven would need adult's diapers in addition to their wings. <br /><br />My point, though, is that horror is close to awe. There's a spiritual way of sublimating suffering and the hyper-awareness of nature's absurdity. This is why my worldview talks a lot about aesthetics and art. We should use our suffering to create great art, to live in fact as art objects. Nature creates us for no good reason and now we must create an artificial world to one-up the undead god and to distract us from the alien wilderness beyond our collective hearth. <br /><br />You say that we might as well just kill ourselves instead of doing any of that, that this existential heroism is subjective nonsense. But not all subjectivity is arbitrary. Sometimes we choose things on a whim, but other feelings are very powerful, as in the case of our response to great art. Look at the religious feelings that wash over crowds of true believers who see the pope or some slick televangelist, or the bliss that fills the crowds of girls who watch a Justin Bieber concert. Heroic revolt and renunciation aren't empty just because they're not objective. In any case, as I say in "Humanization and Objectification," so-called objective reasoning isn't entirely free of subjectivity. <br /><br />I suppose, though, I should address this question more directly in a separate article: Why don't existential cosmicists just kill themselves? It's a good question and I will take it up in the near future (maybe a week or two). Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-47196850129449558352013-11-10T17:35:18.212-05:002013-11-10T17:35:18.212-05:00Given our existential situation, labels such as &q...Given our existential situation, labels such as "heroism" and "cowardice" are completely illusory. You are trying to assert that there are no objective values while sneaking in descriptors that imply objective values. The reality is that suicide is just as viable of an option as continuing to live and there is nothing to say that one option is better than the other (at least not one resting on philosophical grounds). Like Camus in the "Myth of Sisyphus" you describe a situation in which suicide is warranted but then proclaim that there is something noble and heroic in not committing suicide. I do not imagine Sisyphus to be happy and I care nothing about labels. The only thing left to do is find a good way to facilitate my departure. <br /><br />The truth of suicide is that it does not rest on philosophical grounds but on a foundation of pain and anguish. As David Foster Wallace wrote, "The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant. The variable here is the other terror, the fire’s flames: when the flames get close enough, falling to death becomes the slightly less terrible of two terrors. It’s not desiring the fall; it’s terror of the flames. And yet nobody down on the sidewalk, looking up and yelling ‘Don’t!’ and ‘Hang on!’, can understand the jump. Not really. You’d have to have personally been trapped and felt flames to really understand a terror way beyond falling.”<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-49536373761820802842013-11-04T06:13:22.342-05:002013-11-04T06:13:22.342-05:00Heartbreak and horror are different from nut aller...Heartbreak and horror are different from nut allergies. People enjoy reading or watching horror or heartbreaking stories. We get a kick out of it. I doubt that anyone chooses to experience the effects of a nut allergy. <br /><br />Your argument is obviously invalid. <br /><br />You compare sympathy with nut allergies, and insist that its a valid comparison. Well, lets take your argument to its absurd conclusions: We live in a world that is full of suffering a misery. In this case, if exposure weren't voluntary, it would be like someone with nut allergies constantly being forced to eat nuts. Life in this case would be miserable if not impossible. Yet clearly you and I are alive and well. Obviously we are not overly burdened by our consciences. Clearly then we can choose when to feel sympathy and when not to. <br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-33334384704877228562013-11-03T09:53:03.660-05:002013-11-03T09:53:03.660-05:00High Arka,
I didn't propose the principle tha...High Arka,<br /><br />I didn't propose the principle that contrast is *necessary* for meaning. I said only that it's possible a different contrast will produce a different meaning, and as to whether that would actually happen in a different world, it's hard to say because there are many factors involved. <br /><br />Assuming the original point of your thought experiment is the one you make toward the end of the second part of your Nov 2 response, beginning with the third-last paragraph, I agree that empathy is strange and that the evolutionary explanation of it is incomplete, at best. I think qualia are just as strange and for the same reason, which is that our species has withdrawn from nature in a way that seems unique in evolutionary terms. We have self-control, we create alternative worlds in our minds and in our societies; we degenerate in moral terms because of our liberation from many natural laws, and we pursue philosophy at the expense of our happiness. Hyperconsciousness and empathy (creativity expressed by actions/life choices governed by mere prescriptions that substitute for natural laws) are features of the free, withdrawn, self-controlling self which is thereby alienated from the wilderness in which everything is more-tightly causally interconnected. More on this in next Monday's article, in which I intend to get to the bottom of the aesthetic aspect of morality and meaning.<br /><br />You say 'The social hierarchy you’ve presupposed is that people would seek “greater” pleasures, and not be satisfied with lesser.' Again, this isn't a social point about interpersonal contrast. Even if there was only one inhabitant of this possible world, she might still pursue more intense pleasures if she'd prefer them to her lesser ones.<br /><br />There's a non sequitur in the last paragraph of the first part of your Nov 2 response. You say the implication is that those who prefer greater to lesser pleasures are driven by a social desire to dominate, rather than by a survival-based desire for pleasure (and to avoid pain). I don't see how this follows, although again all of these factors might be at work. For example, we have an evolutionary need for sugar, but we overdo it and consume too much when it's available. What's responsible for that obesity problem? Is it evolution which put that blind craving for sugar in us in the first place (when sugar was rare in our ancestral environment) or is it the scheming elites who exploit that desire by filling cheap food with addictive sugar and fats and so on? Clearly, both factors are to blame.<br /><br />I agree about the the danger omegas face, that they might secretly desire to rule. This was precisely Nietzsche's point about slave morality and the slave's resentment. Also, we see this in Christianity, when Jesus loses on Earth but wins in the afterlife and in his return to rule in God's kingdom. This is also the point I make at the end of this article on the problem of evil, when I say that an NGO of existential Illuminati might become just another corrupt collective. Social interaction is dangerous because it's subject to the natural forces that corrupt us (Law of Oligarchy, corruption by power's concentration, and dominance hierarchy, including the evolutionary function of instrumental reason which is to help us scheme our way to victory in competitions, and the function of conspicuous consumption, which is to signal our social status).<br /><br />I should add that I don’t think the world was "designed to be a paradise of all for all." Here I think we have a conflict between our myths.<br />Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-5445983253203998392013-11-02T03:47:54.467-04:002013-11-02T03:47:54.467-04:00There are two ways you can come at being an “Omega...There are two ways you can come at being an “Omega.” One is by saying, “The hierarchy is stupid, and therefore I choose to find independent meaning in my life.” That’s good and healthy. However, saying instead, “The hierarchy is stupid because it figures its winners and losers wrongly; there should still be a hierarchy, but Omegas should be at the top instead of at the bottom, because they understand the fraudulence of our myths and know how to rise above them,” is dangerous and wrong. That is the trap of contrasts built directly into our social code, which will lead you right back into being an Alpha, at the top of the same hierarchy. And in fact, you’ll find that most Alphas were born just that way: they consider themselves rebels who got to the top by cunning outsider thinking, not realizing that they’re really only validating the system by doing exactly what the paradigm was encouraging all along. <br /><br />Returning to the hypothetical pleasure-world: the pleasure/pain example shows us that we’re equipped with the tools for improvement. Empathy and pain are hardwired in to encourage us toward the inclusive spread of pleasurable life. (Your best counterargument from an evil perspective is to say, “Well, that’s because we’re encouraged to selfishly survive and preserve our genes at the expense of other organisms.”) <br /><br />That argument breaks on empathy, which is why market biologists struggle so hard to justify empathy as only applying to kinship groups, in perverted little 100 Days of Sodom tests where they masturbate under white coats while delivering electric shocks to mice to prove that mice try to stop other mice from being shocked. People naturally, though, are saddened by watching, say, the elephant mother squish her baby. They recognize (rightly) that something there is wrong--with the mother, or the captivity--and are able to feel for the elephant even if no one has ever stepped on them, tried to kill them, or abandoned them before. That reaction, which offers absolutely zero individual survival benefits to a human (a caveman trying to “save” a baby elephant from its mother would be attacked by the elephant, or just waste resources trying to nurture a baby of a different and incompatible species), evidences the interconnectedness of life, and how the world is designed to encourage us to work for others. <br /><br />E.g., it’s designed to be a paradise of all for all, and it is our choices, not a natural mandate, that have made things unpleasant. Evil’s champions work hard to tell us that cruel acts prove the cruelty of the world, rather than the cruelty of the actor, and admittedly, there are many such good arguments, when viewed in isolation from the world. But they’re also self-serving arguments. They no more prove that the world is fundamentally flawed than my giving you a red rose and a box of chocolates proves that the world is fundamentally perfect. <br />High Arkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14723123626955733759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-56923418709130703532013-11-02T03:36:00.507-04:002013-11-02T03:36:00.507-04:00We're having quite the dance of relativity, he...We're having quite the dance of relativity, here. You're saying that contrast is necessary for meaning, which is not true. If a person grows up isolated on a tropical island, eating only wild boar meat and drinking from a waterfall, then is suddenly rescued by a French cruise ship and served a piece of chocolate torte prepared by a world-class chef, that person will recognize that the torte is sweet in comparison to roast boar. <br /><br />Similarly, though, if your average western child grows up eating processed breakfast cereal with a higher sugar content than chocolate torte, and happens to be sailing on the same cruise ship that rescued the man from the island, and is served the very next piece of torte, the child might experience the same bliss upon enjoying the dessert--even though it represents a step down in actual chemical sweetness from her normal breakfasts (or the pixie stix she gobbles for afternoon tea). <br /><br />How can this be? Is it only because they each have other experiences to draw on that they are able to identify the torte as sweet, if from different ends? <br /><br />Contrast is an important aspect of experience, but even without contrast, we possess the neurophysical capabilities of sensing and interpreting the nature of the chocolate torte. The same with pain: we can empathize to some degree with a torture scene in a movie even if we’ve never done more than skin our knee in real life. Imagination gives us the capacity, even without experience, to process and interact with reality. We’re able to generate completely new things, rather than merely to synthesize old things and regurgitate them (despite what pop culture tries to establish). <br /><br />The social hierarchy you’ve presupposed is that people would seek “greater” pleasures, and not be satisfied with lesser. For example, in our alternate world, if you had an orgasm machine, but someone else owned a 2x orgasm machine, would you spend your evenings plotting to kill him and take his machine, or would you instead spend your evenings inside your orgasm machine? Some people would choose the former, but many others would choose to enjoy what they had. <br /><br />You said that the hypothetical pleasure-world would operate like our own because people would still pursue greater pleasures at the expense of lesser. This implies that people are not actually driven by pleasure and desire for survival, but instead by a desire for contrast--domination inside a hierarchy--which is a noxious notion of the colonial powers. <br />High Arkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14723123626955733759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-62487713904906282602013-11-01T12:10:50.035-04:002013-11-01T12:10:50.035-04:00I agree that lesser pleasures now don't count ...I agree that lesser pleasures now don't count as pains, but that's because in our world we also have those pains, so we can contrast pains with both lesser and greater pleasures, and either of the latter would generally be preferred to pain. But in your imaginary world in which there are no pains, we wouldn't have that contrast. Instead, the contrast would be between what we'd call lesser and greater pleasures. We in our world wouldn't interpret either as pain, but I was trying to imagine how a denizen of the imaginary world would interpret those lesser pains. Would they count as pains relative to the greater pleasures? Would they serve as perverse warnings that the person is wasting her time and should be pursuing the life-threatening greater pleasures? Who knows? This is a complex thought experiment which doesn't have a single right answer.<br /><br />Anyway, I don't see how I've compared one person's pleasures to another person's and have thus presupposed a social hierarchy. My questions about your thought experiment would apply even if only one person occupied the imaginary world, since the comparison is between each person's mental states (one person's lesser pleasures could function as pains relative to that same person's greater pleasures).<br /><br />But I'm still not sure what the upshot of this is for my interpretation of the problem of evil. I take it you're saying this problem isn't objective, but is self-imposed by white, rich Westerners. Against that sort of criticism, I'd just repeat my a priori point about the difference between reality and an ideal which is entailed by the ideal's emergence. Are you saying, then, that we can have an ideal which doesn't force us to look at reality as worse by comparison?Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-958490429877852882013-11-01T05:10:10.166-04:002013-11-01T05:10:10.166-04:00You are using semantics to evade the point. The or...<i>You are using semantics to evade the point. The original argument was not about capacity but response. I didn't say that we don't have the capacity for empathy, but that we choose when to respond that way. The same counts for a nut allergy. Having a nut allergy doesn't doom me to ill health. I can simply choose not to eat nuts. </i><br /><br />Funny, I'd say you are using semantics to evade the point.<br /><br /><i>Surely you are aware that the 'heartbreak' and 'horror' you speak about is only an illusion, fundamentally no different from seeing double when you're woosy or your typical magician's trick?<br /><br />*snip*<br /><br />If a person feels horror and anguish, it is likely because they choose to. Trying to force a different choice on people is authentically dubious, if not practically unfeasible.</i><br /><br />Sure, when someones nut allergy goes off, its because they chose for it to go off by choosing to eat nuts.<br /><br />It could never be trigged in any other way. Sure.Callan S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/15373053356095440571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-89179793218612407732013-11-01T00:03:47.825-04:002013-11-01T00:03:47.825-04:00Oh, come now--if you've had enough sex, or jus...Oh, come now--if you've had enough sex, or just eaten enough different kinds of food, you can understand that variegated pleasures, whether "less" or "more," do not count as pains. Sometimes, a hamburger followed by a milkshake really <i>is</i> better than duck and cherries followed by torte. Simply because in a different mood you might prefer a different "greater" pleasure does not mean that you are suffering by not instead experiencing that different pleasure. <br /><br />Have you ever just sat on the couch, eaten some chips, and watched a light but entertaining TV show? Was that suffering? Was it suffering when compared to, oh, being moved to passion by the symphony? Or an orgasm? Or the five minutes after you find out you've just gotten a major bonus at work? <br /><br />It's patently ridiculous to say that "lesser pleasures would count as pains," and that shows how thoroughly invested you are in the westernized hierarchies you claim to "rant" against. To a wealthy, selfish, never-satisfied western consumer, trying always to keep up with the Joneses, it does seem natural that you'd burn with pain simply to think that someone else was having "greater pleasure" than you. <br /><br />There is a much larger world beyond those hierarchies. Imagine a life, and a world, without castes. The initial reaction of the westerner is to be afraid, and to think, "How could I possibly be valued if I wasn't ranked higher than someone else?" But there is, in fact, nothing to be afraid of. Pleasures are pleasures even without using other people as yardsticks. You fear the loss of caste because you believe everything is relative, yet the objectivity of some aspects of existence is able to save you. <br /><br />The latter is also why Heaven could be a place where many people enjoy something, without needing to hurt others, or feel that they're "above" others, to achieve that enjoyment. From some perspectives, learning to understand that possibility is the path to paradise, while being mired in the idea that your enjoyment must come at the expense of others is the mindset that keeps you trapped in Hell. High Arkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14723123626955733759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-59965076428496387822013-10-31T19:08:31.947-04:002013-10-31T19:08:31.947-04:00I think it's hard to answer that question, Hig...I think it's hard to answer that question, High Arka, because the results would either be the same (lesser pleasures would count as pains and serve as warnings), in which case the difference would be semantic, or the results would differ in which case it's hard to imagine how that other world would work. <br /><br />When you ask "better or worse?" I'm reminded of what Jon Stewart said the other day about CNN. I think of this in aesthetic terms, so the question for me would be which world supports the greater fictional narrative as an interpretation of its latent pattern. The best fiction seems to me to require suffering, which is why hell has interested artists more than heaven. If normativity is ultimately an artistic judgment of taste, we have to ask about the function of art. What purpose would art serve in heaven or in some utopia in which suffering is impossible? I see art as a part of existential rebellion against an absurd world. We create art along with the rest of our artificial worlds to distract us from the nightmare of the pre-existing wilderness. I'll say more about this in this Monday's article, Decadence and Enlightenment.Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-27072673481534761732013-10-31T18:57:07.124-04:002013-10-31T18:57:07.124-04:00Ah, thanks for clarifying, Anon. You were expressi...Ah, thanks for clarifying, Anon. You were expressing your views in my terms. I think I see what you mean about how we're trapped in a sort of limbo of what Kant called phenomena, which is the field of experience largely constructed by our conceptual schemes and interpretive programs. The idea of life, then, would have to do with unity with nature, whereas abstract knowledge separates and alienates us as well as disenchanting the world. I'll be saying more about this in my article for this Monday, called Decadence and Enlightenment.Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-55530344052919129552013-10-30T17:44:37.638-04:002013-10-30T17:44:37.638-04:00Cain:
Sorry, I guess I'm mixing my metaphors,...Cain:<br /><br />Sorry, I guess I'm mixing my metaphors, or your metaphor. In my reply to your comment I was simply extending your metaphor of the undead god to my views. Undeath and unlife there refer to metaphysical metaphors. I don't actually believe that non-living matter is more alive than living beings. <br /><br />But the idea is certainly intriguing. <br /><br />Rather, unlife and undeath simply refer to the distance which consciousness creates between the conscious existent and his or her existence, a distance which places us in in some strange space in between existence and non-existence, a kind of purgatory. <br /><br />Think about it for a moment. Does anything you know actually exist? No. We can intuit that there is something like existence, but we can never know it. The only thing we can know are our ideas, and ideas are only non-existent simulacra of reality. We are trapped in a world of simulations, with the knowledge that they are simulations of reality, but a reality we will never know. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-82337267705117599772013-10-30T15:20:15.172-04:002013-10-30T15:20:15.172-04:00Well, this one's curious about whether you'...Well, this one's curious about whether you'd find such a world "better" or "worse." You're saying instead that it's "impossible," but we accounted for that. Remember, food is still tasty, sex is still pleasurable, and in this world, we have the intelligence to anticipate future food and sex (and dominion over others, accumulation of resources, et cetera). We feel pleasure if we accidentally hit our thumbs with a nail, but, all things considered, we'd probably rather stay on the couch watching TV, instead of getting up, going to the garage, getting out the hammer, and whacking ourselves just for that pleasure-rush. Also, just like people try to avoid rich desserts now, and exercise, we're intellectually aware that killing ourselves--while pleasurable--would lead to a lack of future pleasure, so most of us make the decision to enjoy painful pleasures only very carefully, or when they're thrust upon us by chance. <br /><br />The "physical pain" aspect of this alternate world is cute, though the more interesting one is the pleasurable compassion we'd all feel, in this world, at hearing of the crushing of the elephant, or the massacring of an enemy in wartime. Our days in this world would include far more time spent mildly enjoying the misery of others than actively enjoying banging our own thumbs with hammers. <br /><br />Same question still--better or worse than this world? High Arkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14723123626955733759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-76236842164721173682013-10-30T10:29:03.220-04:002013-10-30T10:29:03.220-04:00That's an interesting metaphysical story, Anon...That's an interesting metaphysical story, Anon. I'd question, though, your use of "living" and "nonliving." When you call animals and people undead while calling the rest of the world living, you've got to be redefining those words. For one thing, you can't be assuming the biological definition of life (reproduction, homeostasis, metabolism, growth, adaptation, response to stimulus, etc). Also, you can't be relying on a psychological definition, attributing mentality (consciousness, rationality, emotions, personality) to nature. So how would you define "life" and "nonlife"? What is it about animals and people (or is it just people?) that makes us not alive, while solar systems, atoms, asteroids, and so on are all alive?Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-10831676825667949072013-10-30T10:21:16.398-04:002013-10-30T10:21:16.398-04:00A curious hypothetical! I think there's someth...A curious hypothetical! I think there's something similar in Hume's Dialogues on Religion, but I could be mistaken. The thing is, pain clearly has the evolutionary function of warning us about some danger so we can survive long enough to pass on our genes. If animals lose that warning system, life would swiftly come to an end; indeed, we'd all be like moths to a flame, seeking danger because of the greater pleasure we'd feel.<br /><br />But what's the point you're wanting to make here about the necessary divergence between ideals and reality? (It's necessary because as soon as you imagine ideals, you've shown you're discontent with reality. If we were entirely content with what's happening in front of us, our imagination would atrophy and we wouldn't bother imagining any counterfactual scenario, let alone one we value more than the facts which thus motivates us to change the facts to suit the ideal.)Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-53653990433388274882013-10-29T22:35:35.986-04:002013-10-29T22:35:35.986-04:00No-no; you've changed the terms. This one isn...No-no; you've changed the terms. This one isn't positing a situation in which the world is the same, yet we are "ignorant." Rather, the world is the same except that we enjoy (or are merely content with) the bad examples you describe--say, infanticide or being put to bed too early. <br /><br />So, we're not ignorant, in this alternate world. We're fully aware that a dead baby elephant never grows up, but we all (or just a simple- or super-majority of us, if you'd prefer to diametrically "switch" reactions on a ratio you feel matches that of the current world's people, as to how many would disapprove of the crushing of the baby elephant) react to it with pleasure. <br /><br />Lamb and the lion--in this world, the lion catches a lamb, and as its neck is crushed, the lamb feels ecstasy and contentment rather than pain and fear. Later, when the lion is old and dying, it feels increasing euphoria instead of stiff joints. <br /><br />A world where everything happened as it does now, and people still made oil wars and prisons, but the dying itself was pleasurable instead of painful? Where we all competed for resources because we still enjoyed eating and sex and money a lot, but the lack of those resources caused comparable pleasures, instead of pains? <br /><br />If our reactions were switched around that way--if--would it be a better world than this world we have now? High Arkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14723123626955733759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-78779768544145099572013-10-29T19:30:19.052-04:002013-10-29T19:30:19.052-04:00It is broad, because it is a scalar definition. Sc...It is broad, because it is a scalar definition. Scalar definitions do not define by exclusion but by degree of comparison. It says that there are certain features which define 'free will' or 'living', and the more frequent or prominent that feature is, the more the definition applies to it. <br /><br />Consider for instance certain features of living organisms, such as stasis and flux. Living organisms have a remarkable ability to maintain their form. A corpse for instance disintegrates within hours of death and is almost almost unrecognizable within a matter of days. Yet while it is alive, it may maintain its form with little change for decades or even centuries. The human hand is not a very tough instrument, but it perseveres for all the years of your life when far tougher instruments slowly corrode and finally fall apart over time. And taking into consideration that that same hand is essentially the same as its ancient forebear millions of years ago when the first hand evolved, this continuity is almost miraculous.<br /><br />At the same time, living beings are also characterized by flux. You are a constant expression of energy, of a pumping heart, twitching muscles, and moving limbs. There are few forces which have as great an effect on their environment while expending relatively small amounts of energy. Even while your body is able to maintain such a high degree of stasis, it is constantly in motion and effects vast changes on its surrounding environment. Furthermore, considering that you are a descendant of the first chemical reaction we call life, we are talking about a single relatively small chemical reaction which has managed to continue uninterrupted for several billion years. <br /><br />If we take these two speculative criteria as defining life, we will find that it encompasses all existence, but also that it is more definitive of certain phenomena than others. In other words, everything is alive to some extent, but those things we call life forms are far more alive than the rest. <br /><br />Is is an atypical definition? In some ways yes, but mainly it is not. Most rigorous definitions of free will I know of do not see free will and determinism as opposing one another. After all, if choice weren't deterministic (i.e. had no cause and effect), choice wouldn't matter. Rather, they distinguish between internal determinisms and external determinism, that is, the 'I' or 'me' as a cause as opposed to something outside of it causing an effect on 'me' or the 'I'. <br /><br />This is the traditional definition as I take it. However, if we apply this definition rigorously, we find that free will is not confined to human beings or even living beings (as your example with the rock illustrates). Most will dismiss this observation off hand, but I cannot think of any reason to reject it. Free will then again defines everything that exists to some extent, but applies mostly to living beings to a far greater degree than the rest. Again it is a scalar definition. <br /><br />As such I would say that it is a more conventional definition of free will, but one which is applied less conventionally. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-78655677954550584722013-10-29T14:48:41.773-04:002013-10-29T14:48:41.773-04:00I didn't say that your definition were inconsi...I didn't say that your definition were inconsistent. What I was trying to say is that your definition is too broad. It encompasses too many things. If everything is living, what then does it mean to be alive. Being alive would be synonymous with existing.<br /><br />"I've defined free will as a type of determinism and living beings as a type of non-living matter."<br /><br />I guess you know that these are not the usual definitions of 'free will' and 'living being'. It is your right you use the words as you like but this is bound to create a lot of confusion. Like the following: If determinism is true, there is no choice (by definition). Free will usually means that somehow there is "choice" involved. So the concept of free will and of determinism are usually incompatible. Defining 'free will' as a form of determinism doesn't seem appropriate to me. It's like defining 'atheism' as a form of theology.<br /><br />"they themselves must become in some limited sense living beings"<br /><br />...with free will? And thereby with the ability to make a choice?dietlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-35054728896570794692013-10-29T14:28:03.779-04:002013-10-29T14:28:03.779-04:00Perhaps I could at some point post some sort of ma...Perhaps I could at some point post some sort of manifesto, but I don't really have the opportunity right now. <br /><br />But to slake some of your curiosity, let me provide you with a basic outline:<br /><br />There is no truth or certainty. The conditions required for truth or certainty to exist are impossible to meet. From this follows that all knowledge is mythic/fictional, in other words unliving. We can intuit through experience that we exist in a real or living world, but we cannot ever know that world, because the very nature of consciousness reduces living experience to dead knowledge. In short, even though we sense that the world we live in and we ourselves are alive, we can only sense it as a corpse. <br /><br />As such, we are corpses moving through a living world, longing to join the world of the living, but unable to do so because of our essential unlife. <br /><br />But at the same time, we are also undead. Experience grants us an intuitive appreciation of life, so that we can never truly console ourselves to death either. Instead, we are both unliving, removed from life, as well as undead, removed from death. <br /><br />I see existential philosophy as providing us a means to harmonize our undeath with our unlife, to achieve a kind of authentic balance between our dual conflicting natures, name our love of death and our urge to live. <br /><br />Between the two however, I think that our love of death is the stronger. This I think is visible in our love of knowledge and our innate myth-making predilection. This is where I see atheism as vital. Atheism is the preference of experience of life over dead myths. Atheism then is a myth-breaking, iconoclastic philosophy which helps withdraw us from the grave of our own mythic reality and resuscitate our connection to the world of the living. <br /><br />The danger however lies in our mythic predisposition, for as soon as one myth dissolves another takes its place. But in that brief moment between one myth and the next, we get to experience life. Atheism then best expresses itself in self-destroying myths, myths which are inherently incomplete, like that of the ouroboros, which continuously destroys itself in same the moment of its creation, or the myth of science which destroys its own certainties as soon as it creates them (as opposed to scientism which opposes any doubt of its certainties). <br /><br />This is just a vague general outline of my views as they relate to yours. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-82494862384242376722013-10-29T13:55:04.863-04:002013-10-29T13:55:04.863-04:00Dietl:
I agree completely that the fundamental pr...Dietl:<br /><br />I agree completely that the fundamental processes are the same in both historical and immediate causation. But the difference comes in in that the details of how determinism works in each case differ. <br /><br />Although how determinism affects a human being and how it affects a rock appears similar on a fundamental level, in terms of forces working on one another and chemical reactions, etc. But the way those systems of interactions are ordered are vastly different. Rocks don't have physiology, they don't have neural networks, they do not have cellular energy sources or the means to convert it into biological behaviour. <br /><br />These definitions cannot be inconsistent because they contain no inconsistent categories. This definition of free will cannot be inconsistent with a definition of determinism, because determinism and free will are not mutually exclusive categories. Rather, I've defined free will as a type of determinism and living beings as a type of non-living matter. <br /><br />Regarding mechanisms in general, mechanisms in a certain sense are understood as objects which replicate the actions of living beings, as with forms of AI or a dice shaker which replicates the action of the human hand. To the extent that they replicate the actions of living beings, they themselves must become in some limited sense living beings, but only to the extent of that replication. <br /><br /> Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-16905726247666606532013-10-29T12:29:13.420-04:002013-10-29T12:29:13.420-04:00Anon,
I'm intrigued by your critique of exist...Anon,<br /><br />I'm intrigued by your critique of existential cosmicism. Do you have a blog or an article summarizing your view? If you could write one up, I'd consider putting it up on my blog and continuing the dialogue in that fashion. This comment section can get a bit cramped and I'd like to read more about your opposite take on cosmicism, philosophy, and so forth. You can send it through the Contact the Ranter part of this blog, between my profile and the RWUG Archive on the right. (Your name and email won't appear on the blog if you send it there and you can keep your anonymity if you like.)<br /><br />I agree we're undead in that we're material beings with no spirit or living substance that transcends nature, which nevertheless simulate life and mentality. But your cosmicism would seem to conflict with science and naturalism, so it's not really cosmicism in Lovecraft's sense. That's just a semantic point.<br /><br />Regarding philosophy and diversity, I think we differ on whether diversity should be a means or an end. Relativists and antirealists think it should be an end, because they think there's no such thing as objective truth. I think it should be a means to finding final or universal truths, because scientific theories aren't merely subjective and aesthetic standards suffice to distinguish between great and minor artworks. <br /><br />Also, there's a difference between lies and fictions. We suspend our disbelief when dealing with a fiction/myth, because we enjoy creations. That's one way we're similar to the creative world all around us: it creates us and we create artificial worlds, like children mimicking their parents.<br /><br />I'm not sure what you're saying now about the existential Illuminati. Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-74510640435875278402013-10-29T12:01:41.504-04:002013-10-29T12:01:41.504-04:00I climb a stairwell and experience sturdy steps. T...I climb a stairwell and experience sturdy steps. The state of the step changes. I still assume that the steps are stury because I haven't seen/hears/felt the change. So far so good.<br />But then you write: "[I assume this], because the experience has been internalized, i.e. cut off from its source."<br />The source of my experience was in the past. I can't be cut off from it, because it happened no matter how the world changed. <br />"Internalising" an experience doesn't make it "independent of its origin". The origin of an experience lies in your past and you can't change that.<br /><br />The line between internal and external sources is completely arbitary. If you define 'free will' the way you do at the moment a stone can have free will too.<br />Lets say the sun is shining on the stone. It experiences the photons (external source) and internalises them. The particles of the stone gain energy and so the stone warms up. The energy created like this reacts with the environment ect.<br />You see it is the same. You have an external source, something happens in the inside and then there is a reaction and no stone reacts in the exact same way because no stone is alike. Some are bigger, some smaller and so on.<br /><br />"... if determinism is solely externalized, all human beings would react identically to the same stimulus, provided that all the human beings are biologically similar (no blind people or vegetables please) and reacting to the same stimulus." <br /><br />I'm not saying that only external sources determine how a human being reacts but the internal reaction depends on the external experience. Some things are the same for all healthy human beings. If I cut you with a knife, you feel pain. If you take certain drug you will start to hallucinate. If I put a strong enough magnet to your brain, your experiences might change, you might loose control of some of your body part, you might even start to listen to what I say now ;-)<br /><br />What is the difference between a living and a non-living being? Is your TV a living being? By your definition it has free will. Is your computer? Your mobile phone? A dice shaker?<br />You really need to start to question your definitions of 'living' and 'free will'. They lead to unreasonable conclusions.dietlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-62640569587287814612013-10-29T11:13:28.569-04:002013-10-29T11:13:28.569-04:00Cain:
Philosophy needs diversity because philosop...Cain:<br /><br />Philosophy needs diversity because philosophy needs to be relevant and we live in a world without certainty and therefore cannot ever be certain what this relevance will be. <br /><br />The very fact that we need to find answers implies that we don't have the answers and thus that we have no way of predicting which questions we need to be asking. Having many different answers then is better than committing to just one. <br /><br />For instance, you and I are both existentialists, but at the same time, our philosophies couldn't be more different. For instance, I don't credit your concept of cosmicism. On the contrary, my beliefs run in exactly the opposite direction. I believe that the cosmos is alive, and that it is we who are undead. We are zombies doomed to wander the land of the living with the burden of knowledge that we can never wholly escape our undeath. For me, cosmicism is a source of comfort and inspiration, not of dread and despair. For me, the consolation of philosophy lies in its promise of escape from the human condition of undeath and of immersion in the living cosmos outside ourselves.<br /><br />I don't credit scientific truth either, and would view a philosophy of consoling ourselves to lies as perverse. <br /><br />Which of us are right? I would like to say that I am, but I can't, and we are better off exploring both alternatives that committing ourselves to only only one. <br /><br />Would you be willing to discard your beliefs on some questionable argument that it would be better for humanity? This is ultimately what your existential illuminati amounts to. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-24448503336015421742013-10-29T10:29:28.805-04:002013-10-29T10:29:28.805-04:00Callan:
You are using semantics to evade the poin...Callan:<br /><br />You are using semantics to evade the point. The original argument was not about capacity but response. I didn't say that we don't have the capacity for empathy, but that we choose when to respond that way. The same counts for a nut allergy. Having a nut allergy doesn't doom me to ill health. I can simply choose not to eat nuts. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-24501050104672879022013-10-29T10:19:33.535-04:002013-10-29T10:19:33.535-04:00Dietl:
Although the source of the determinism wi...Dietl: <br /><br />Although the source of the determinism with experience is external, once it is experienced, it becomes internalized. For instance, imagine you climb a stairwell, and you experience that every step is sturdy. Then during an interval, one of the stairs is compromised. You will still assume every stair to be sturdy, because the experience has been internalized, i.e. cut off from its source. If the experience were externalized, you would automatically know when the stair were compromised, because the change in the state of the stair would automatically change your experience of it. But we know that experience is internalized because it is independent of the actual state of the stair. <br /><br />Experience originates from external experience, but is immediately internalized, making it independent of its origin. In this way, the determinism becomes internal rather than external, and defines living beings both internally and externally determined. It its the ability to select between external and internal determination that makes us free willed beings. <br /><br />Regarding your question regarding the robot, if the robot has the ability to internalize experience and then to react deterministically to it, then the robot has free will. The very definition of a robot seems to me to be a mechanism which replicates free will. If the replication weren't in some way true, the robot wouldn't be a robot, would it? <br /><br />Obviously however, this doesn't mean that this instance of free will is exactly the same as that of you or me, in the same way that free will is different for a single celled organism than it is for a human being by virtue of the human being having a far more complex system of internalized determinisms. <br /><br />Regarding the example, I believe my answer is appropriate, because if determinism is solely externalized, all human beings would react identically to the same stimulus, provided that all the human beings are biologically similar (no blind people or vegetables please) and reacting to the same stimulus. <br /><br />What it all comes down to is the perception that living beings and non-living beings react differently to determinism, by virtue of being different. Surely, you can agree that there are such differences. We can then refer to those differences as free will. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com