An omnimalevolent being can't create heaven - a place of eternal happiness. I don't see what obligation has to do with this.

Are you saying an omnimalevolent being can create heaven but it simply won't? Are you saying such a being is not obliged to create heaven?

However, it is obliged not to create heaven - out of its omnimalevolence and out goes its omnipotence.

The omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient god creates hell to punish sinners. There IS a relevant assymetry.

Well, I'd like to get at your first reply to my post.

There you make a distinction between ability (the power to create heaven) and obligation (loosely translated as intent) to create heaven.

You state that this omnimalevolent being (call it x) can create heaven but is not obliged to do so.

Well, in this case it seems x is obliged, by virtue of its omnimalevolence, NOT to create heaven. Since x is under obligation NOT to create heaven it loses its claim to omnipotence - x is under an obligation NOT to do something (create heaven).

An omnipotent X has the ability to create any particular thing but isn't obliged to create any particular thing. Absolute malevolence and absolute benevolence weigh equally as logical constraints here. — Baden

Either the omnimalevolent (let's call it x) being can or cannot create heaven.

If x can create heaven x can't be omnimalevolent because there is some good in it that allows x to contemplate such a thing as heaven.

If x can't create heaven then x isn't omnipotent

I guess you didn't see my post. So, I'm reposting it for you and others who might be interested. I'd really like a comment on what I have to say.

An omnimalevolent being cannot create heaven - a place of eternal bliss. Therefore it cannot be omnipotent. Therefore it cannot be a GOD, who must be omnipotent.

The omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient god doesn't face this problem because this god can create everything, including hell - to dispense justice.

Perhaps my argument is not that good. However, I think it makes sense.

Just playing along...

Assuming heaven and hell exist, an omnibenevolent god can create hell - for justice. But an omnimalevolent god cannot create heaven - a place of eternal bliss.

And since such a god can't create heaven he wouldn't be omnipotent. This implying he is lesser than the omnibenevolent, omnisicient, omnipotent god we're familiar with. We already have such an entity - Satan

Is it true that only a few people are capable of reason, as Plato says? Are there really philosopher kings? — ernestm

If Plato thinks only philosophers should be kings then he probably didn't have any idea of democracy.

In a democracy, rule by the people, its the entire population, not just its leaders, that needs to be philosophers.

Shouldn't our healthy democracies be prepared for such situations though? Wouldn't state run militaries be a potential solution? — MonfortS26

You'd be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. State-run militaries are prone to the same problems as a federal army. I think the problem of the military (its potential to turn cancerous) is very deepseated, defying a solution (for me atleast).

But suffering? — TimeLine

I read this on a T-shirt:

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is an option.

What say?

Why should the military focus only on external threats? If we were to ever reach a point where we had to rise up against our national government, there isn't much we could do at this point. With the advancements of weapon technology, most people couldn't really afford to pay for anything that could fight off drones, missiles, tanks or any of the technology the government uses. — MonfortS26

You're right in that the military can become a threat to the very citizens it was created to protect but I don't foresee such a problem in healthy democracies around the world. It's a problem, if history teaches anything, for totalitarian regimes.

Yes, the primary role of the military is to protect citizens. From what? Well, external threats. We have the police to tackle domestic problems. These external threats are against the union which all states agreed to in forming the federation.

Do you still think the military should be state-controlled?

I quite specifically stated the truth of the pessimist position is irrelevant of the one presenting the argument. Even if no one claimed they supported the argument, the argument would still hold ground on its own merits and would have to be dealt with as such. — Chany

Yes, I agree that an argument stands on its own merits. I'm also admitting there's truth in pessimistic beliefs.

However, what's interesting is that pessimists, despite their philosophy, continue to live their, supposedly miserable lives. What gives here? There's a deep chasm between theory and praxis. After all, if you're a pessimist you should be killing yourself asap.

Either pessimism is wrong or there's something else at play here. Can you think of a way to resolve the paradox of the living, thriving pessimist?

Please read my reply to Chany

Assuming pessimist philosophers have never considered pleasure in their thinking is folly. — Chany

You're right. As WhiskeyWhiskers would have me do, I'll be charitable and get right to the point. Pessimists claim that life isn't worth the suffering one has to endure. In other words they think that the moments of joy/pleasure one has pales in comparison to the amount of suffering one has to simultaneously endure. Am I right? Is the above the best rendition of a pessimist's argument?

If no, kindly furnish one that we can discuss.

If yes, then let's cut to the chase. I agree that if one examines the human condition (even animals for that matter) one will invariably end up a pessimist - there really is a vast desert of suffering one must endure and the oases of happiness are few and far in between. Add death to all that and we have a very depressing picture of life - ''a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing''.

However, this pessimistic belief, as detailed above, has or should have, visible consequences in the world. Off the top of my head I can think of increased number of depression cases, suicide and general apathy. For better or for worse these predictions aren't actualized. Also, pessimistic people continue to live, their deadly beliefs notwithstanding. At this point I think you accused me of committing an ad hominem. Allow me to point out that these predictions (depression, suicide, apathy) are inevitable consequences of pessimism. Therefore their absence in the populace is logically relevant. The pessimist must explain why people and they aren't committing mass suicide, afterall it necessarily follows from their pessimism.

It could be that the most people haven't given any thought on the matter. This seems unlikely - if you look at ancient literature and religion you'll find their main goal is the alleviation of suffering. In other words, just as the pessimist has given due consideration to happiness, those who choose to live have weighed in the dark side of life.

It could also mean there's a difference in how people evlaute happiness and suffering; perhaps giving more weightage to happiness.

There could be a multitude of explanations for the paradox (pessimism is true and people still want to live). Can you think of one that allows pessimism and simultaneously provide a drive to live? I can't. Therefore, pessimism is self-contradictory; pessimism leads us to think life is not worth it while simultaneously, the pessimist continues to live.

Perhaps there is this other thing that resolves the paradox. I don't know what it is. Could it be hope? Hope for a better tomorrow?

Also, is it possible that pessimists are wrong about life?

Lastly I'd like to remind pessimists that the living conditions of homo sapiens have been improving over time. There was more suffering in the past - famine, drought, floods, war, disease, predators, etc. The situation has improved - there is less suffering now than in the past. This trend will continue amd there will come a time, all things being equal, when suffering will be less than happiness and pessimists would lose their job.

Suffering exposes nothing but the failure of evolution. — TimeLine

I don't think evolution has failed at all. Just survey the natural world. All animals have a pain system. What we don't see are painless organisms - did they lose the survival race? I think so.

Perhaps the very existence of such beings, realising this capacity and questioning is evidence of something other than the gross physical reality we find around us. — Punshhh

Yes, indeed. The materialistic view could be at best, incomplete and at worst, utterly false. However, the same may be said of non-materialistic philosophy.

That doesn't matter because current trends in almost everything under the sun seem to express a materialistic philosophy - a dangerous?? situation. Religion, the quintessential non-materialstic philosophy is diluted to such an extent that it would be unrecognizable to its very first followers.

I think it becomes imperative at this point - a time dominated by science (uber materialism) - to remind ourselves that even though the doors of the spiritual are closing fast and irreversibly, we should take note of the window of possibility which admits of an unexplored spiritual world.

Perhaps, so what is all this religious and spiritual love? What purpose does it have, in terms of survival of the species?

I do know the answer to this question, but I am suggesting it is not required, perhaps it is a byproduct. — Punshhh

A fair consideration. Religious love and spiritual love seem not to fit into the all-is-for-survival bag. However, these so-called sublime loves are born of fear - fear of injury and fear of death. There is also the hope of an afterlife. We're back to square one - all is about survival.

The anthropocentric nature of such a question notwithstanding, I offer another purpose of life - TRUTH (whatever that means).

TRUTH may be reworked by happiness fanatics as just another way of achieving happiness. However, note that TRUTH can be painful e.g. the truth that there's no objective purpose in life is, to say the least, disappointing. Therefore, TRUTH deserves its own category re the purpose of life.

Is beauty in the object or in the eye of the observer? Or is it something else? — Benjamin Dovano

Is this an exclusive OR is it an inclusive OR. I ask because I think beauty lies in both the observer and the observed. Why?

We all have different tastes - isn't this why we have so much variety in everything we do - from food to art.

For something to be taken as beautiful it must possess the features that turn on the observer.

Thus beauty is the harmonious confluence of personal taste and qualities of the object of beauty.

Is your god an interventionist? Either he is or he is not. If he is then we should see evidence in the physical world - miracles. If he isn't then why believe him? His existence is meaningless to you.

Quite, the capacity for love in humans does seem to exceed that required for survival of the species though — Punshhh

Do you mean things like love of animals, trees, music, writing, etc.? If yes, then it would seem that human love is in excess of that required for mere survival. However, I think this is untrue because one essential feature of love is, well, expansion of the ego - the object of love is absorbed by the subject's i. Thus united, the subject and object of love, become one and what follows is obvious - the object's loss/gain is equivalent to the subject's loss/gain.

The excess of love you see is actually not excess. What you see as excess is nothing more than an swelling of the selfish ego born from the realization that the self stands to benefit from this expansion - transiting from the ''i'' to the ''we''.

The fact you picked a rose for your example in the first place shows you're beginning with the conclusion that life is actually comparable to a rose; that on balance it's more positive in spite of its negatives. And life isn't necessarily roses and a few thorns for a lot of people in the world, and I could just as easily point to lots of things as symbolic of life that we could easily agree we would be better off without. But we can throw dumb analogies at each other all day — WhiskeyWhiskers

So some find life more painful than joyful. Indeed I agree because it is as expected given the apathetic world we live in and our demands re happiness being so great in number and kind. However, such people form only a fraction of the population. Not everyone finds life so miserable as to think it pointless and not worthwhile. They quite enjoy living. There's evidence for this - the simple fact that people seem content and happy to carry on living. In fact I won't be wrong if I were to attribute this positive attitude mentioned above to the majority of the populace. This attitude is not based on failure to consider the dark side of life. Rather, it is based on a good balanced reckoning - life has ups and downs and so enjoy the cusps and survive the troughs. Isn't that a mature response to what life throws at you? Should we whine about our predicament, especially when this does nothing to solve the problem at hand?

But anyway, why is the weight pessimists give to suffering undue? They give suffering a different moral value than you do. Why do you have the correct valuation and they don't? — WhiskeyWhiskers

Well, my problem is how pessimists claim to be objective. Isn't that why they present arguments in the first place? If the claim to objectivity were absent then pessimists would have held their tongues. They talk. So they claim to be purveyors of truth.

I have no issue if pessimists live their lives attuned to their philosophy - it's their life. However I reject their view if their claims are presented as if universally applicable. That's what I'm doing.

Because I care — WhiskeyWhiskers

Thank you very much.

The fear of pain and hurt can lead to an avoidance of what the actual reasons are that are causing you the pain and so one simply prolongs the suffering — TimeLine

Do you mean some people have an avoidance behavior that prevents them from facing the real cause of their suffering?

By that do you mean suffering fails to achieve what it was evolved for?

Well, no system can be perfeclty foolproof - there will be times and places where this basic survival scheme fails to produce the desired effect. Nevertheless, in general, suffering is about survival.

This is not specific enough though because both forms can conceivably be due to some physical phenomena. Even if an unfortunate predicament of the accidental evolution of intellect — Punshhh

Reductionism has become, for better or worse, a human habit and going by how science seems to be tyrannizing all spheres of human activity, we seem to be on the right track.

However, reducing everything to the physical is to overlook the limitations of science. Science can only answer what and how questions and usually can't handle why questions.

I don't have any information about love and evolution but if I were to offer a guess I think love does make sense vis-a-vis evolution because it results in preservation and perpetuation of life.

People want to be happy living a certain kind of life, they don't simply want to be happy. — Agustino

Why does x choose to live a certain way? Simply, x wants to be happy; living a particular kind of life makes x happy. So, contrary to your POV, happiness is the goal of all human endeavor.

I am looking for something about loves which reaches, or expresses something, beyond this animal function. — Punshhh

I think if you ask around, this transcendental love you seek is to be found in true or selfless love. I'm quite sure that many people have found it - love of a person, an idea, a god, etc. - and defined their very lives with it.

However, true/selfless love is a paradox because we can never extract the self i.e. there's always something to gain through such acts of goodness. The most we can say about all forms of love, including the true/selfless variety, is that there's a fair exchange of benefits between the lover and the object of love. I don't know how such an exchange can make sense if one loves an idea, inanimate objects, etc. but this doesn't vitiate the import of my view that there can be no true/selfless love.

From this angle it seems like a hopeless case - there can be no true/selfless love. Everything, from inanimate rocks to humans, is about give-take economics.

However, if I were asked for some form of solution to the love paradox I would say that self-benefit is unavoidable. The catch is in selfless/true love one sees self-benefit in the benefit of others. There is a paradoxical balance between egoism and altruism. This is unique and significant enough to give comprehensible meaning to true/selfless love.

Gee I bet you're a thrill to be around ;-) — Wayfarer

:D

I think the word 'love'' is only so meaningful as to allow for basic functioning of an organism. Some birds pair for life, animals have maternal instincts and humans feel it too. The moment the meaning of ''love'' is seen through the philosophical lens problems crop up - it is ambiguous and vague.

Is it our duty as members of society to confine ourselves to it's standards?

It is the duty of the society to confine the individual to its standards. Not the other way round. For this to make sense we need to study the solitary individual. An individual is a complex of wants, hopes, dreams, proclivities, emotions, etc. Some of these may be good for the health of a social order, others maybe harmful. It is the latter traits/tendencies that need to be confined. As for the former, they need care and nurture.

Strangely the fundamental unit of society is the individual. How a group of individuals, each with its own vested interests, cooperate to form a cohesive, ultimately benefitting each and every member, social group is anyone's guess.

please read my reply to WhiskeyWhiskers

please read my reply to WhiskeyWhiskers

Suffering is necessary in life, but life is not necessary. So suffering can be avoided, and that can be desirable depending on your moral framework. I don't see what's irrational about that. Want to provide an argument instead of an adjective? — WhiskeyWhiskers

A rose has its thorns and yet the blossoms are beautiful to behold. Evaluating a rose soley on the basis of its pain-inducing thorns is a morbidly constricted worldview. It ignores the other significant side of the coin viz. happiness. In rational analysis it is mandatory to understand the whole issue to have any chance of a fair and reasonable evaluation. Since pessimistic philosophies obviously fail in this deparment by unduly focussing on suffering, I consider them as irrational.

The expected retort of the pessimist would be that, in life, suffering is far greater than happiness. There's a simple but effective reply to such a POV - that most people are content with what life has to offer, the clearest indication of which is the absence of mass suicides. Of course one could say that this is because people haven't given much thought to the issue and thus go on living their lives despite the immense amount of suffering. My reply to this is that it is not a lack of deliberation on the issue. If it were that then there should be a conspicuous absence of pessimists. Yet, we seem pessimistic people happily selling their philosophy to the world. As you can see, pessimistic philosophy is self-contradictory and so, is irrational.

You can think suffering shouldn't exist and also understand the necessity of suffering for the survival of life as you have described it. It would just require you to commit to antinatalism. Nothing wrong with that. — WhiskeyWhiskers

Well, then that makes antinatalism irrational.

Necessary things cannot be avoided, as is the case. It then becomes irrational to think it shouldn't exist.

To get around your conclusion another way I could also claim that pessimists understand the necessity of suffering in life as well as anyone, and that's what makes them pessimists. — WhiskeyWhiskers

Some would think it irrational to be so overly concerned with an inevitable.

I think 'survival' is self-deceptive. It is just fear. — TimeLine

You're right, it is fear; fear of pain, injury, hurt, anguish, death, etc. all of which are about survival - in a relationship, in a group of friends, in a community, etc.

Granted avoidance behavior perpetuates suffering but this in no way means that avoidance doesn't have a survival function.

Jesus' miracles, even if they can be assigned statistical numbers, would be so astronomically large to occur that we should not expect to see them. — Chany

Take Jesus-like miracles to be trangressions of natural laws and not simply unlikely events. The problem of induction which science suffers from logically implies that we can't be 100% sure that, say tomorrow or a hundred years from now, these so-called laws will hold true. This logically implies that Jesus-like miracles have a non-zero probability between 0 (impossible) and 1 (certain). The moment a probability value can be assigned to an event Littlewood's law becomes applicable. Say we assign probability of 1 in a trillion or quintillion or any highly unlikely number you fancy. This very improbable event will be actualized given the sheer volume of events that are happening in the universe.

In short, we have good reason to believe that Jesus' like miracles are not based on statistics, but careful planning by God. — Chany

I haven't talked about god at all. Nevertheless the religiously minded folks will likely interpret such events as divine in origin.

Notice how we shifted from trying to validate the gambler's fallacy to defending something else entirely. — Chany

I agree I have shifted focus from the Gambler's fallacy to Littlewood's law but the two are not so disconnected from each other re my POV. Littlewood's law shows miracle are possible and the Gambler's fallacy??? shows that a miracle is due.

This is the gambler's fallacy. You believe the 50/50 chance ratio is some magical causal power that the universe must equal out. It is not. A single coin flip is 50/50 heads or tails. Every coin flip has the same chance of being either heads or tails. Previous coin flips have no causal bearing on the outcome of the next coin flip. Therefore, if we flip a fair coin and it lands heads 100 times prior, the likelihood of the 101st coin flip landing heads or tails is still 50 percent each. — Chany

If you'll read my post to Sophisticat you'll understand what I mean by saying the Gambler's fallacy is NOT a complete fallacy

The question so phrased hints you're thinking the two choices are mutually exclusive.

But as jkop pointed out it needn't be so. However, when it comes to actualizing the two options together it will be difficult.

I don't how far this is true but I think the problem you're facing is quite common and there are millions out there faced with this slippery dilemma.

Also, to tell you the truth, humanity has evolved since we first appeared on earth. Even back then, in the stone ages, people found space and time to do the thing that impassioned them - Google rock art, paintings, statues, etc. The modern world is, contrary to your state of confusion, greatly conducive to following one's passions - we have musicians, painters, poets, writers, etc. So I think your situation is better than you make it out to be.

Sorry to disappoint you. You seem to understand better than me. Let me make my reasoning explicit (using the coin scenario)

If you see a an inordinate number of heads then it is likely to be biased.

Taking the contrapositive of the above conditional we get:

If the coin is fair then you shouldn't see an inordinate number of heads

The coin is fair (my assumption)

Therefore, you shouldn't see an inordinate number of heads.

If you shouldn't see an inordinate number of heads then it is reasonable to expect a tail to even out the outcomes.

So, it is reasonable to expect a tail to even out the outcomes

Assuming a causal influence of preceding trials on subsequent trials would go directly against those assumptions. — SophistiCat

Perhaps the logic doesn't involve causality as is commonly understood.

I do believe that preceding trials and subsequent trials are independent of each other i.e. there's no causal connection.

However, taking the coin-flip example, the appearance of an inordinate number of heads or tails does raise suspicions on the fairness of the coin.

Expressed alternatively, a fair coin should not result in inordinate sequences of heads/tails.

This gives us a valid reason to conclude that in the event of a long sequence of heads a tail is due.

Unless the coin, or some aspect of its flipping, is biased. — tom

Yes

Littlewood's law refers to the type of "miracles" of unlikely chances — Chany

I agree. Littlewood's law limits itself within the boundaries of what we call natural. Taking your example of the sky diver surviving a fall the law would still look for natural causes for the unlikely event e.g. strong updrafts in the air that breaks the fall or falling into water, etc.

When it comes to Jesus-like miracles Littlewood's law seems inapplicable. Nevertheless the problem of induction - the fact that we can never be sure that natural laws will hold for ALL observations - allows us to assign a non-zero probability to Jesus-like (suspension of natural laws) miracles.

If any event has a non-zero probability then Littlewood's law becomes applicable. Therefore, Jesus-like miracles can occur given the sheer volume of events that can occur over prolonged periods of time.

The most valuable thing is consciousness. — woodart

Explain Romeo and Juliet