Yep. Sort of.

The argument would be that accelerating entropification would be the most general of all imperatives - the one rule that all existence is driven by. But constraints aren't absolute. They irreducibly have their associated freedoms. So humans - as the most complex and rationalising form of dissipative structure - can do "whatever they like" within that most general constraint.

Every material action of humans just has to be entropy producing by physical law. No perpetual motion machines allowed.

But for example, it is open that a choice could be made to produce as little entropy as possible. So one could withdraw as much as possible from the race, so to speak.

On the other hand, if you actually measure the collective material actions of humans, our entropification activities are on an exponential curve. All the evidence points at us in fact having the goal of maximising our global rate of entropification.

So a few people might form a personal goal - like having the smallest ecological footprint possible. However that so far has put no visible brake on humanity as a whole.

So the thermodynamic imperative is alive and well. Burn, baby! Burn!

from the article:

When I ask scientifically minded people if they think life on earth may have some larger purpose, they typically say no. If I ask them to explain their view, it often turns out that they think that answering yes would mean departing from a scientific worldview — embracing the possibility of supernatural beings or, at the very least, of immaterial factors that lie beyond scientific measurement.

That is the nub of the reductionist argument. Whenever discussion turns to such things as 'purpose', unless in the strictly functional sense of material and efficient causes, then you're no longer in scientific territory. The aim of the scientific account is to find material and efficient causes which can be related to, or reveal, general principles or scientific laws. Whatever you consider 'purpose' to be, is circumscribed by those considerations.

But for example, it is open that a choice could be made to produce as little entropy as possible. So one could withdraw as much as possible from the race, so to speak. — apokrisis

I guess that's what 'renunciation' would look like, eh?

if you're talking about a metaphorical supercomputer creating the world, you're basically talking about God. It's just a crappy metaphor. — Noble Dust

Or maybe it exposes the essential incoherence of that familiar notion of a creating God?

It seems nuts that anyone would want to create our flawed world as some kind of "interesting experiment". Why would any super-being - alien, computational, or divine - give a stuff about doing something like that?

So if the computer simulation explanation seems lame as it lacks any sufficiently high-minded motive, then maybe it is a metaphor that focuses attention on what seems lame about a monotheistic creator.

At least the ancient Greeks imagined their gods to be a bunch of binary divisions that naturally led to love, strife, and general gameplaying. And in the beginning was a chaos that god-hood brought the basics of organisation to.

therefore there is no underlying metaphysical moral reality. — Noble Dust

Try telling Trayvon Martin that morals are relative and there is no metaphysical moral telos. — Noble Dust

>Understands that the nature of the discussion is descriptive ethics
>Discusses metaethics

◔_◔

>Understands that the nature of the discussion is descriptive ethics
>Discusses metaethics — Emptyheady

Your first quote is a misquote of what I said. Do you realize I'm critiquing descriptive ethics because I disagree with it?

Feel free to engage in real discussion about this topic, but if your next response is more snark, then I have no reason to keep attempting to discuss the topic.

Where do you get the suggestion that the idea is metaphorical in the article? — Agustino

I see now I was misreading that part of the article. The idea of an actual computer projecting the world as some simulation is even more inane.

That is the nub of the reductionist argument. Whenever discussion turns to such things as 'purpose', unless in the strictly functional sense of material and efficient causes, then you're no longer in scientific territory. The aim of the scientific account is to find material and efficient causes which can be related to, or reveal, general principles or scientific laws. Whatever you consider 'purpose' to be, is circumscribed by those considerations. — Wayfarer

Right, I understand that. This to me is why physicalist arguments don't work.

Or maybe it exposes the essential incoherence of that familiar notion of a creating God? — apokrisis

If by familiar notion you mean:

It seems nuts that anyone would want to create our flawed world as some kind of "interesting experiment" — apokrisis

Then that's not a notion of God that's familiar to me. It sounds more like the kind of god the new atheists enjoy using as a strawman.