What if you may already intuitively understand that the statement is lacking substance? — Vaskane

Yes that is probably the case.

Therefore, if someone uttered the statement, it would beg the question, "Which sentence do you mean?" — Corvus

Yes, my reaction exactly. The most intriguing thing about this paradox is that a lot of people don't mind reasoning with something that is empty of meaning... Probably because they did not check that it actually has meaning prior entering this logic loop.

The term "paradox" is overrated and abused. Most "paradoxes" are simply self-contradictory, self-refuting or circular statements or statements based on a false hypotheses. — Alkis Piskas

Yes, I agree. And I find it quite unbelievable that no discipline has managed to reach a consensus about all of these "fake paradoxes".

There are such factors as perspective and relativity, which alone leave certain paradoxes "open" or "unsolvable". E.g. The Ship of Theseus paradox (thought experiment). — Alkis Piskas

The Ship of Theseus paradox looks more like a philosophical or linguistic issue than a paradox.

Having distinct and unique thoughts is what produces the idea of individuality. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't see how the unique part makes sense. If we were to clone two human beings, they wouldn't feel like two different persons anymore because their thoughts wouldn't be unique anymore?

But that's not how we conceive of an individual, as having a a separate "I", the "I" being something general. The "I" is the complete package of the individual. So you propose a separation of the "I", but it's unrealistic. — Metaphysician Undercover

Which "I" are you referring to? The notion we have when we are completely awake and conscious? The cloudy version of "I" we sometimes have in dreams? What about people with mental illness, their notion of "I" is completely different, imagine people with split personality, or people with schizophrenia who hear voices. Which "I" are they? I don't think you realize how complex this "I" is, we feel like ourselves when we can access our memory, our feelings, things that we normally access to when we're conscious and awake. I mentioned waking up from fainting in my thread, and the first images and sounds were really different from reality, yet I didn't experience any feelings of weirdness or fear. If I had the same notion of "I" as I do when I'm conscious, I would have felt disoriented and scared.

To go back to the thought experiment, imagine we make a computer with the notion of "I", that would be vaguely aware of its components etc, like we do. Do you think that would trigger consciousness, that the computer would experience something as soon as the notion of individual is coded? I don't see why this would happen, what relates this notion to the fact that experiences "light up"?

To propose a fictitious one is to say that things could be otherwise, but since the notion of individual is the true concept what purpose does the fictitious one serve? — Metaphysician Undercover

What do you mean it is the true concept? Again, which "I" is the true concept? And it's not about being true or not, it's about assessing its relation to consciousness. How do we know that the notion of "I" is related to consciousness? Why would that be the best theory? It's the most intuitive one, for sure, hence my topic: "deconstructing our intuitions". If we choose not to trust our intuitions, what rational arguments do we have to say that consciousness is always related to this "I" notion?

It is a reply in that it focuses on the formation of consciousness, or rather the formation of qualia and individuality. That's a dimension that needs to be included if we are to break down our intuitions of consciousness. — Christoffer

It would be needed if I were deconstructing a theory about the formation of consciousness, which I am not. I'm focusing on what consciousness actually is, about explicitly trying to grasp our intuitions about what it is. And you're discussing the how and why, which doesn't make sense in this thread since we didn't even elaborate what it actually is. How can we talk about why and how something was made if we didn't clarify what we're talking about?
Consciousness is an intuitive notion, not a scientific one (it wasn't created by sciences).

You ask what we think about your reasoning, but there's no clear conclusion you make. It reads more as a speculative meditation on the subject than deconstruction down to a conclusion. — Christoffer

The first conclusion is that there are no rational reasons to believe that consciousness always come with the notion of individual. And that therefore, they should be treated as two different matters. The second derives from the first one: there could be several neural networks experiencing consciousness in our brain.

anytime a "ball of energy", supposedly a consciousness, passed from one subject to another, it would find itself completely disoriented, being in a completely different frame of reference, sort of like if you went to sleep in Tokyo and woke up in London, except much more extreme. — Metaphysician Undercover

First of all, thank you for reading and actually replying to my thread, unlike most of the replies here.
Replying to your comment, the "ball of energy" would not be disoriented because it would only carry the energy to "light up" some neural network, to give rise to this "conscious experience". It wouldn't carry the content of the thoughts. It could be like electricity: if you change the charger of your computer, or the battery, the data and programs in the computer stay the same.
If you imagine that "you" are the ball of energy, like a battery, like the electrons travelling throughout the electronics of the computer. If you are taken to a unit that says "You are individual and have been living in his body since 50 years", you can't "think" anything else because these units define your trajectory. And if the battery is taken to another computer, it won't "notice" anything.

This would produce all sorts of irreconcilable confusion for the consciousness because it would not be able to distinguish forces of change coming from the inside, from forces coming from the outside, leaving it incapable of intentional activity. — Metaphysician Undercover

If we didn't have the notion of individual, this would indeed happen. But if the notion of individual is simply a structure that the ball of energy "reads", this wouldn't happen.

But this is just a thought experiment to challenge this notion of "individual" and show that it could be separated from consciousness. It's to emphasize that this sense of individual could just be a concept in our brain, just like time, numbers,... From the point of view of the thought experiment, there's no reason to think that whenever there's a flow of electron through a circuit, there must be a specific electronic circuit coding for the concept of individual. For living beings, it makes a lot of sense to have this notion and it's hard to imagine that a living being would function without it, but that doesn't make it part of the flow of energy, it doesn't make it necessary for the "conscious experience", they're independent.

the question of qualia and our subjective experience as a consciousness is another discussion that fits this thread better. — Christoffer

However this is not a generic thread about qualia and our subjective experience as a consciousness, this is, as the title suggests, a thread about challenging our intuitions of consciousness. How is anything that you wrote a reply to my thread? It seems like you are just expressing your opinion about consciousness.

I understand that my thread is quite long, but I did not expect that level of misunderstanding.

As long as you think reality is something that has to be ‘matched to knowledge’ you’re screwed from the get-go — Joshs

That is not my opinion, all I said is that knowledge doesn't perfectly match reality... How did you go from that to "reality has to be matched to knowledge"? They're two completely different sentences...

There is no conceptual space for the role of the subject in that method — Wayfarer

Saying this is ignoring philosophy of sciences. And even if we put philosophy aside, there is and there was a place for the subject in sciences long before quantum physics. This is why so many papers get criticized and rejected (and this process is part of the scientific method), we're only humans applying a method that we created, we're biased and make mistakes, and science takes that into account.

Individuation is indeed a fundamental part of human being, but mystics have long pointed to states of consciousness beyond that of 'me and mine'. — Wayfarer

I think you misunderstood, my opinion is that the notion of subject isn't tied to the notion of consciousness.

That it's very jumbled. It's full of mixed metaphors and partially-grasped ideas. — Wayfarer

What do you mean partially-grasped ideas? Who's ideas?

I think neither of these really reflect the problem of explaining phenomenal experiences — Apustimelogist

Indeed, they do not, this is why I said they aren't specific to the hard problem of consciousness.

"Consciousness" is an empirical problem yet to be solved (i.e. testably explained) and not merely, or even principally, a speculative question ... unless by "consciousness", Skalidris, you mean a 'supernatural' (i.e. non-empirical) entity. :chin: — 180 Proof

Okay, let me understand what you mean by empirical. Is anything "non-empirical" supernatural? What about love for example, is it empirical or supernatural?

And if by empirical you mean scientific, well this is a philosophy forum, not a scientific one. If science is the only field that is allowed to deal with the topic of consciousness, should it be banned from this forum?

Its just a very visual example of creatures not recognizing 'Themselves". — Philosophim

Yes, I always thought the mirror test was really reductive, we are animals that rely heavily on visuals so this test makes sense to us but it doesn't make sense for a lot of other animals. Dogs can recognize their own smell but not themselves in a mirror.

Several of your quick answers to my questions from the OP imply that a "perfect" knowledge is possible, and desirable. And that anything that doesn't reach that perfection causes pain. Is that really what you think?

In sciences, we constantly test our hypothesis to see how well it matches reality. And since we keep on doing that, it becomes closer and closer to reality, and we're willing to replace old theories with new ones that are a better match. But with psychology, they don't touch intuitive concepts that are deeply rooted in the society, like love. They do a top down approach, and don't touch the top. It's the same with philosophy: they discuss all the problems there might be with a term like "selfish" but don't do anything about it, its aim isn't to replace terms like that but observe them. It's as if we were only making hypothesis in sciences and never coming up with a method to test them...

So inherently, people learning psychology or philosophy will be disappointed that the intuitive terms are so misleading.

You even suggested it had no benefits — Hanover

No, I asked what the benefits could be:

I don’t believe this is just a random trait that stayed within us while having no advantages, so what could it be? — Skalidris

Of course some of it is related to genetics, so? Almost everything about us is driven by both genetics and the environment. But the ratio can vary a lot. The way we're driven to be disgusted by certain smells is mostly genetics and there isn't much we can do about it. So my question to you is: do you think that it is the case for alcohol? That it is mostly genetics and there isn't much we can do about it.

Don't we already have such fields, though, including those of sociology, anthropology, and cognitive sciences? — javra

If these fields were trying to replace the intuitive concepts that are misleading about human nature, we wouldn't spend hours on this forum pointing out how they don't make sense. "Are humans selfish?", "Does freewill exist?", "What's the meaning of life?". We still use these poorly defined concepts that, when you think about it, are contradicting our knowledge of reality.

but this doesn't come close to defining what "human nature" in fact is — javra

Why make it binary? There is no such thing as "perfect knowledge", knowledge is always evolving. What I mean is that what we currently know, in more scientific fields, not personal opinions or cultural believes, is in contradiction with a lot of intuitive everyday concepts. I just don't understand why no one fixes it.

To give you another example, the expectations we have of romantic love, the way it is painted in movies, is honestly closer to expecting being love bombed by narcissists than actually wanting to be close and spend your life with someone because you truly love who they are. And I believe so many relationships fail because people still hold on to these expectations and never reach it.

What is your point exactly? That society and education are mostly helpless about alcohol consumption and that it's mostly genetic and there isn't much we can do about it?

do you really feel like you're "in control of your thoughts" when you're not drunk? — flannel jesus

More than when I'm drunk, absolutely.

“the proof is in the pudding: rape happens in the world and always has”. This genetically determined aspect of human nature is so called “reality” as they see it. — javra

Just because some humans do some things doesn't mean everyone should do it, that has nothing to do with being closer to human nature. When I mentioned making concepts that are closer to reality, I meant it in a scientific way, gather the best knowledge we have about human nature and try to change concepts that are misleading like those I mentioned. How is considering rape as a crime distorting human nature?

but rather a method by which we can dispel the bullshit and prop up truths - especially those truths that have utility or are impactful. — ToothyMaw

Yes, it would come with a method. And about having a use, the problem is that we don't always know what's going to be useful and what's not. It's like doing fundamental scientific research, you may find things but not all of them will have a direct use, and you can't judge their use if you don't even know what the findings will be. But unlike sciences, doing research in the field of digging into human nature can have destructive consequences.
Imagine if there was such a discipline, it could have the power to destroy everything we rely on, it could even have the power to destroy most of our language. Will we say "I love you" anymore? Will we still say "you're selfish"? There are so many concepts we use everyday that seem absurd considering what we know about human nature. How would such a discipline emerge if it's like a dangerous bomb over which you have no control? It's not like we can say "don't use the method for everything", once people understand it, they will be tempted to analyse everything around them with it.

In fact, those things are required for a human to navigate the world socially and otherwise, I would argue. — ToothyMaw

But to what extend? I never implied it to be black and white, and to completely destroy all intuitive concepts, but to make it more and more rational, and more in harmony with our knowledge of human nature.

we catalogue human nature and teach it so as to avoid Weltschmertz? — ToothyMaw

Yes, that's what I'm suggesting.

Point being it really boggles the mind how such small little gestures or even inaction can literally change the world and lives of countless people — Outlander

Doesn't it boggle the mind specifically because we've been mislead about how much we can do to make things "better"? For example, in my opinion, wishing for peace in the world is completely unrealistic, but that doesn't mean we can't do things to avoid violent and deadly wars. And if someone struggles with drug abuse, expecting them to get better if you say "it's bad for you, it's destroying your life" is unrealistic too. If you're more aware about the problem and the changes that are possible, it might seem more depressing at first but at least you won't keep on being frustrated and you won't expect them to quit after one conversation.

It's not as if Native Americans, for example, who have extremely high rates of alcoholism, are just weak willed. It's part of their genetic response to the substance. — Hanover

Some people with mental disorders can be considered as "weak willed", and some studies showed that some mental disorders have a higher risk of substance abuse. Mental disorders are the result of both genetics and the environment. But for the case of native Americans, it's not necessarily because of mental disorders but it could be because of their culture, their lack of information about the dangers of alcohol, or because what happened to them is pretty terrible...

My point is that the psychological state of an individual and their habits play a crucial role in their appreciation of alcohol. If you raise your kids telling them they should drink alcohol if they feel bad, or that alcohol is a holy beverage that brings them closer to God, there will be more prone to liking it. And we live in a society where alcohol is a must for socialisation so inherently, it's the norm and a lot of people enjoy it. Almost everyone who tries alcohol for the first time finds it disgusting, and the first time being drunk is also not necessarily pleasant. But social pressure makes you do it more and more, and allow it to become a pleasurable habit.

My thread was mostly about why we keep on feeding these habits as it promotes escapism and gives less importance to meaningful social interactions.

Some people just don't have the genetic disposition to react to chemical substances as others, which also explains the alcoholic who seems compelled to drink. — Hanover

I seriously doubt that someone can be resistant to all kinds of drugs. It's not just about alcohol but about any mind altering drug. Some people just like to remain in control and most just prefer to lose it and forget. I believe alcohol reacts in a similar way on me as it does in everybody else, I just don't like it. Just like when watching a movie: people see and hear the same things but some will like it and some will hate it. It's doesn't necessarily mean that they don't see the same things or don't understand it.

There's the idea that one doesn't need religion in order to be moral. — baker

I had a similar thoughts about morals being tied to religion/spirituality.
I made these concept to explain their relation:
Dogmatic intuition: The extension of an intuition that becomes a reference principle.
Reference principle (value): Intuitive categories that serve as guideline for an individual.

So basically, morals, faith and believes are all dogmatic intuitions: they are intuitions that emerged in our life and that we somehow decided to "strongly believe in", that became part of us and that are hard to change. And in my opinion, spirituality and religions build stories around it and reinforce them.
If you strongly feel that something is bad, it's easy to be attracted to spiritual or religious thoughts that reinforce that you're "right" to feel this way, and that people who don't agree will go to hell or whatever.

So I'd say religions and spirituality are a way to maintain strong morals, but that it's not the only way. Some people just don't need to think about why they want to be loyal for example, they just are, because that's what they've been told they should do. I know some people who have strong morals but aren't spiritual or religious at all.

However, if you don't have strong dogmatic intuitions, I don't think you'll be likely to be religious or spiritual. It's my case, I don't have strong moral principles and I've never been attracted to spirituality or religion.

What do you think?

Well, it's not a tautology according to them since the new element is that they call certain phenomena "selection" because it would be similar to the "selection" in the evolution theory, which, to me, isn't similar at all. So all that's left is a tautology.

That phrasing borders on tautological. "X will tend to happen in a system when the environment around that system is favourable for X". Replace x with literally just about anything and that sentence structure holds. Right? — flannel jesus

Yes absolutely! To me, what they call "selection" has nothing to do with evolutionary selection, they created similar words to state the obvious, unless of course, I'm missing something!

I quickly found several other sites with references to a "missing law" to be added to Darwin's 4 or 5 "principles — Gnomon

A missing law to be added to Darwin's theory? Darwin's theory was made in 1859 and is outdated... Darwin didn't even know about genes, we've unraveled so many other mechanisms for evolution since then, such as genetic drift, gene flow, mutations,...

Nowadays you can't study evolution without genetics, so if a new law is made and doesn't necessarily require genes, it certainly can't be added to our current theory of evolution.

Now, from a rational point of view, the reason why we could build the theory of evolution is because living beings all have nucleic acids molecules (DNA, RNA), so in a way we somehow identified how these molecules behave in the environment, their properties. If we were to make an "evolutionary" theory for non living things, which molecules would we study, all of them?

What makes these molecules unique is replication, and then reproduction of the living beings. If an entity randomly generated laws that prevented it from destruction, in order to last longer, it has to reproduce and mutate to be able to adapt to changing environments. To my knowledge, there are no Non nucleic acids molecules having that property. Sometimes stable complex entity are formed, but without reproduction, they won't "survive" if the environment keeps changing. Crystals can grow but their property don't include reproducing, there is no "release" of baby crystals. It can happen if something breaks the crystal but it's not a property of the crystal itself. This is why living beings are able to "override" the law of entropy by being complex "stable" entities and why non living things are less complex.

I find it odd that the article doesn't discuss the importance of replication or reproduction since they're necessary for evolution.

It's not necessarily obvious that things must become more complex over time — flannel jesus

That's not what the theory says. "the functional information of a system will increase over time when subjected to selection for function(s)." There is a big WHEN. If it was true for everything, it would be in contradiction with the law of entropy.

I might be wrong but the way I understand it is: "the functional information of a system will increase over time when the environment around the system is favorable for that to happen".

Humans seem to have always enjoyed altering their consciousness and augmenting their quotidian experiences through all manner of activities - sex, exercise, hiking, travelling, flying, sky diving, deep sea diving, exploring, rock climbing, art, dance, music, cinema, performance, costume, meditation, gambling, massage... — Tom Storm

The difference is, it's easy to see an advantage for all of these activities: it "makes sense" that we get pleasure from sex, or else we wouldn't reproduce, that we exercise be so healthy,... But what about alcohol? If alcohol and drugs didn't exist or triggered a negative reaction that would make us avoid it, what would we lose and what would we gain?

They can make life a bit more interesting and fun. — Tom Storm

But that's the thing, if you didn't consider something interesting sober, why would you want to alter your state to find it valuable? Who would you trust more to access the value of things, your sober self or your drunk self?

But alcohol is not primarily about escape or alteration of mind. In moderation it's a lubricant to conviviality — Vera Mont

It's a lubricant to conviviality because we escape from social norms or fears we had when we were sober... It slows our cognitive abilities, it is an alteration of mind.
To me, drinking alcohol in social events is like admitting we are better equipped at facing this event in our drunker self. I don't understand why we want to change what feels good and what doesn't instead of changing the situation. If I only find a social event fun and interesting when drunk, why go there instead of going somewhere that is fun when sober?

if one is properly 'tuned up' - that is, physical fit and mentally calm - then it is likely the need for such artificial aides to well-being will correspondingly be reduced. — Wayfarer

Yes, then why do we tend to change our perception of reality rather than change our reality itself? I never understood this, if I find people uninteresting, I'm not going to get drunk to have fun with them, I'm going to find people with whom I can have fun when I'm sober...

responsible drinkers know this is an illusion and temporary state, — Outlander

Do they really? It is so normalized to drink during social occasions. Why would you want to cause an illusionary state whenever you socialize, how does that make any sense?

Just because you're sober or awake, as you think, doesn't mean you're any more coherent or in touch with the absolute nature of things than someone who is perhaps a bit less than sober. — Outlander

Okay, so let's imagine you have to choose between spending some fun time doing something you only like when you drink, or doing something you like when you're sober, would you consider them both as valuable in your life? Some people stare at lights when they're on LSD, would you consider staring at lights a valuable thing in your life? Some people have sex with people they don't even like or are attracted to when they're drunk, would you consider that a valuable experience in your life?
I've heard people who had life changing experiences with drugs, where they realised something so important and got their life together after that. I've met someone like that and when he told me his revelation, I couldn't help but think "what, but that's so obvious". And the truth is, denial is the reason why most people can't admit obvious things about themselves, and alcohol and drugs, most of the time, feed denial. It's like when we dream about a solution of our problems, in the dream it seems like we're such a genius and that's an amazing discovery, but most of the time, when we wake up, we realise that solution didn't make any sense. And when it does, it's never something complex that we couldn't have thought about when we were conscious.

l so let me tell you a story based on the truths and falsehoods of what people commonly prescribe to be a case or "unchangeable situation" of such. — Outlander

I didn't get the point of your story. Yes, in extreme situation that alter our physical state, our states of mind is also altered, so? And even if there aren't any physical damage to the health, if someone is keeping a person captive and giving them enough food and water, they'll start losing their mind too, so? I don't think "drugs are bad", without drugs, medicine would be hell for people receiving the treatments. But what I don't understand is why we normalize alcohol during social occasions, where there aren't supposed to be any suffering. And if we suffer from our life, how changing how we feel about it doesn't change anything and is only temporary, so what's the point?

The only way forward for it is to abandon dualism, and in evolutionary terms this would be a catastrophe rather than part of a gradual evolution. . . — FrancisRay

Why would it be a catastrophe?

Because the most realistic depictions of people I’ve read have involved unpredictable and illogical behaviour. — Jamal

To me, a story, or a character is "logic" if it is a logic continuum of the premises, whether they are realistic or not.

If in the story, there are a lot of birches (presented as regular birches) growing underground without any light, it's illogical if the author never explains how they do photosynthesis. Similarly, if a character is presented as a healthy human being, then later in the story is completely distorted, if that distortion is never explained, it's illogical given the premises. But if the premises are that the character is completely crazy (or not a human being), then, even if the reader can't make sense of their behavior, it can be considered logical.

But can a story with surrealistic characters be thought provoking?
To me it’s like saying you had a revelation about a philosophical topic by reading a Disney story… You could understand the ideas of the author better, but how can it be thought provoking if you can’t stay in the story and think deeply about the characters, about how they would react in the world the author described?

But maybe it’s just the way people think in general, if the author exposed some human traits, they don’t mind making links with other things without considering humans as a whole.

Of course it’s impossible to make completely realistic characters, but personally when I’m thinking about any topic in humanities or social sciences, I try to think of humans as a whole as much as I can, not just one or a few traits and make an opinion based on that.

an independent thinker would need some sort of education to learn the terminology and ideas employed by the current field of academics he wishes to present his ideas to otherwise it would seem like he was talking in a different language. — simplyG

You mean he would need to learn the philosophical terminology? Or the terminology of the closest discipline (here sciences)? If so, I agree, if he uses scientific premises as a part of his method, he needs to know about sciences and keep updated on scientific discoveries. But in the end, he would still use a new vocabulary he invented for the rest of the method since the end goal of his discipline is philosophy, and not sciences. And sciences, as it is now, is quite clueless about philosophy. No philosophical thought can be studied using only the scientific method.

existing ideas have to be understood first in order to overcome them — simplyG

Existing disciplines would need to be understood, yes. But for example, if he builds knowledge around free will with the method he created, why is it relevant to consider what philosophers said about free will if he already assessed the philosophical method and concluded it is too different from his own to be relevant? It's like I said with sciences and religions, it's totally irrelevant for scientists to read the bible to see what it says about a natural phenomenon if they are already studying the phenomenon from a scientific point of view.

The pace would depend on the amount of good ideas being produced — simplyG

But how exactly can we judge if it's a good idea if it contradicts the methods in place?

due to some people having intuitions more compatible with recognizing the merit of the new idea — wonderer1

I didn't understand that.

even all the Maths and Geometry theorems, that we are able to prove in so clever and irresistible ways, can be considered just another way how power is able to impose itself as the fundamental law, fundamental rule, in nature, in ideas, in everything. — Angelo Cannata

You're still talking about human power, right? If so, with maths, you can objectively prove your solution is better, regardless of your social status. If a homeless finds a solution to a math problem and present it to a professor, since it's pure logic, they can't argue and have to recognize it works. I think maths underlie our "universal logic": throughout history, some things have never change, even if we represented 1 + 1 = 2 in a lot of different ways, the essence is still the same, so the essence can't be influenced by power. This notion of "unit" (=> numbers) and the notion of "and" seem to be universal for all humans.

Maybe I didn't understand your point but why should "INTs" be treated any differently than "IRTs"?

In the end it's just easier for most people to guess to meaning an INT rather than an IRT because not everyone has basic knowledge of etymology. The impact of the first judgement/guess a person makes when they encounter a new word is quite small compared to the intuition that will later come as the person hears that word in conversations. Whether we call free will: "partial free will" or "flying unicorn", if there is a definition and that most people talk about it, there will be some kind of unified intuition of what that means, regardless of how it's called.

But of course, it's easier to remember the meaning of the word if it is straightforward. And if we talked about "flying unicorn" to refer to "free will", people would most likely create a synonym that is easier to remember, and that synonym (which would most likely be similar to free will) would take over the flying unicorn. Similarly, if the name of a concept contains too many words, like "partial free will", people will only remember a portion of it and that's what will stay.

Is he capable of recognizing political decisions that are unfavorable to others? — Leontiskos

We can't analyze a political opinion and be certain it is better or worse than another, politics is very subjective. And most people derive their political opinions from their own values.

So maybe when the analysis of an opinion doesn't contain much uncertainties (for example: if we suddenly decide that killing humans isn't a crime anymore), when it's quite certain that this decision would lead to a lot of suffering (short and long term), he could have an opinion. But when it's more uncertain (hence most political opinions) and that people take sides because of their intuitions and values rather than conscious assessment, then he would choose not to have an opinion.

it’s important the wrong ones don’t get elected as they could end up affecting your life. — simplyG

Where does this come from? I never said "what if everyone is like that?", I said, "what if someone is like that?". Or even: what if a group of people becomes like that?". Why should every single citizen be interested in politics? If someone only cares about maths, why force them to vote?

A lot of things affect our lives and we can’t have a complete control over everything. Just because having a bad computer affects your life doesn’t mean you should learn how to build one. We have limited time in our lives, we can’t be interested in everything and do everything ourselves. That’s why we live in a society. So why should everyone care about politics?

Aside from judging, we categorize everything. Without that, there wouldn’t be any knowledge. I find it useful in my everyday life to be able to tell to what extend a person is considerate to other’s feelings or not (which is a big component of the term “selfish”). It’s not to judge their morality, but just to be able to understand them.

It’s a shame there isn’t a term like selfish without moral implication. It would be much more precise and not judgmental.

He believed in more of a "saintly" kind of compassion — schopenhauer1

Maybe that's it, what's missing in the definition is that "holy" aspect of morality, of what's good and bad. If there is some kind of higher judgement that we don't have access to, we could question the nature of humans to see if it tends more towards the good or towards the bad, given the "clues" we have available.

So maybe there is a religious/spiritual connotation to this simple term used in everyday life, even for people who are atheist, since I believe, they could also understand the question "Are humans selfish?".

And maybe this is why I don't naturally understand it, I don't have a high sense of "morality", but would rather weight the potential positive and negative consequences.

What do you think?

I helped a person who was in a very bad situation — Angelo Cannata

Why did you help them? You didn't feel bad for them at all in the beginning?

If selfishness isn't the disregard of other people's feelings, then what is it?
You say selfishness is related to intentions, but what should they be in order to be considered "selfish"?
Good intentions means that you intend to do good to people, meaning that they will feel positive emotions from your interactions with them. But why would you do that if you feel no emotional resonance ?

Some people help others because they are "used to it", or because they want to look good in front of others. But isn't that selfish?

The currently accepted cosmology - big bang, inflation. It's plausible but incomplete. — T Clark

I asked chat GPT to name 15 theories that could explain the origin of the universe, whether they are scientific, spiritual or religious:

Big Bang Theory
Inflation Theory
Multiverse Theory
Oscillating Universe Theory
Quantum Fluctuation Theory
Creationism
Intelligent Design
Hindu Cosmology
Buddhist Cosmology
Native American Creation Myths
Steady State Theory
Ekpyrotic Theory
Conformal Cyclic Cosmology
String Theory
Plasma Cosmology

Even in the realm of science, there are a lot of hypothesis that are really different from each other. The problem is: how can you tell which one is more probable? The big bang theory is the more famous one but does that mean that it's the most probable? Have scientist really tried to assess probabilities and uncertainties of the different theories? If so, I'd love to read a paper about it, do you know any? I find science a bit helpless for assessing probability when it comes to such abstract concept that contains so many uncertainties.

And even if we could find the most probable theory according to science's standards, the second part that I explained would make the probability of that theory close to zero anyway:

=> The probability that the “true” theory can be made by our imagination, and therefore from knowledge from 1): that tiny part of the universe, is even more ridiculously small. — Skalidris

My point is, I genuinely don't understand why humans even try to answer these questions. Especially since they made the hypothesis that the universe is infinite, which makes our knowledge look ridiculous, so why try to speculate about the origin of everything?

The right word is "unlimited." Humans languages can generate an unlimited number of propositions. — T Clark

Unlimited is still wrong, probabilistically. If you compare human's imagination with the power of creating combinations of elements, if the number of elements is finite, the number of combinations is as well, it is limited by the size of the sample. At least at a given time. You could say that it's unlimited because that sample of elements is constantly growing but it's different from my proposition.

If you assume they are with no evidence, it invalidates the analysis. — T Clark

I didn't understand that.

I'm not required to provide reasons for my disagreement with you if you didn't provide justifications for your statements in the first place. — T Clark

You're not required, I'm just saying I don't see how it is useful for anyone. I don't mean to be rude but who solely cares about the opinion of a random person on the internet? How can it be useful to know a human being disagrees with something, without having any more details on the reasons why? At least if I had the reasons why, maybe it would provide useful information.

I might not have detailed my justification enough for you to be able to make anything of it, but that's personal, the probability that someone can extract useful information out of my 400 word intro is much greater than extracting info from the sentence "I disagree" :p

However, despite the potential for water to be either of these things, when it "is" "ice" ie when it's probability of ice approaches 1, it's potential to be boiling approaches zero, impossible. — Benj96

So what you are saying is that the possibility that the universe is a subject has already happened and therefore cannot be anything else? Also when water is ice, it's not a probability, it's a fact.

Also having subjects in the universe doesn't make the universe a subject. And the possibility of the universe being a subject doesn't mean it is true, it's just a possibility among many others. And assessing the weight of that possibility among others is what's called a probability, which is what this thread is about.

6). Therefore the probability that the universe can exist as a subject is also 1. — Benj96

I'm not sure I understand. The probability of a possibility is one? (you said probability that the universe CAN exist as a subject). It can exist as a subject, this is certain, this is how I understand your statement, but it doesn't mean the probability of it existing as a subject is 1. So what's your probability on the existence of God?

Thanks for playing the game! I'll clarify the points:

6) We don’t have enough knowledge to make a plausible hypothesis of the creation of the universe that would explain all that we know now.

Are you talking about an origin of causality, all of the unknown steps that would lead to what we know today, — Philosophim

Yes, my idea of an hypothesis that could be plausible is that we would be able to relate it to the current laws of nature and everything would fall in place like the pieces of a puzzle. Considering that we cannot even unify laws together (eg. quantum physics with classical physics), it seems impossible to come up with an origin of causality from which would result these laws. Of course, no theories are perfect puzzles but if we call "plausible" a reasonable (or even countable) amount of "unknown" and contradictions, it's not possible for the origin of the universe.

So for 8), to assess the "plausibility", we would need to review the hypothesis one by one, apply it to all the laws we know, maybe count the question marks left unanswered and count the contradictions? But the problem is that there are many more unknown logical links (too many to be countable) and contradictions than actual links. Assuming we could count the actual links that make sense, if we were to make a ratio of plausibility, which would be: valid logical links/invalid logical links, the ratio would be the same for all hypothesis since we cannot count the invalid logical links, which is a great number for all hypothesis, much greater than the valid logical links, which seems insignificant in comparison, and therefore useless to count.
As an analogy, it would be like taking physical laws one by one and trying to explain it using only premises from the bible. I can't even think of one law that can emerge from such premises.

We do currently have a plausible hypothesis. — T Clark

Really? What would that be?

. We can certainly generate an infinite number of propositions about anything. That is one of the fundamental features of the kind of language we use. — T Clark

Well chat GPT doesn't agree on that one, and I'm not sure what your premises are for such assumptions. Our imagination is infinite? Why would that be? Imagine a set a elements of a finite size, and imagine all the combinations possible, how could that ever be infinite?

It's clear that the possible combinations are not random. — T Clark

I never said they were, I said if they were, it wouldn't change their accuracy.

This is clearly not true. — T Clark

I don't really know what you're trying to achieve here with that type of answer. It's not true according to YOU. There rarely are consensus in philosophy, especially metaphysics. And I can't read your mind to figure out why you think it's not true, so that sentence doesn't bring any value to the conversation.

I'm not sure what this means. Do you mean that we only know the substances we've observed or witnessed? That's clearly not true. Or do you mean that we do positively know the substances we have witnessed or observed. That's not true either. — T Clark

The 4) statement makes an attempt at explaining how we gather knowledge in just a few words, while it represents a whole discipline (epistemology) so yes it's incredibly unprecise and lacks a lot of elements. What I wanted to express with that statement is that knowledge emerge from elements we've "experienced", in whatever way we have, whatever tool we built to be "aware" of it. I made that statement to be able to talk about these "elements" that are part of our current knowledge. I didn't express it well, if you think of a more accurate way, yet synthetized, please do tell. Maybe there is a technical word that qualify these "elements" I'm trying to talk about?

I'm not sure exactly what you're saying here, but I am sure it's wrong — T Clark

It's quite funny you're actually aware of this. You said just here, that you dismiss my theory based on an intuition you cannot explain. So you admit there is no explicit logic in your opinion (which is that you disagree with mine), but yet claim my answer lacks logic, it's pretty amazing.

Cognitive biases effect both the uncritical as well as the critical thinker. — Caerulea-Lawrence

I would just say that I see cognitive biases as the result of a normal emotional response in humans, which affects the "direction" of thoughts. I don't like to put people in two distinct groups "critical and uncritical", that's actually one of my critique for cognitive biases, it seems like they want to make people "critical" but most of the time, they just tell people how to meet the standards of one discipline (often science) without taking personal experience into account. So basically, it often ends up with "trust serious experts and don't try to understand yourself because you will be biased". And to them, the "critical" people are simply the ones who meet the standards of a discipline. So that term is meaningless to me.

In other words, to me, it's not about being "critical" or "uncritical", it's about how much people fight emotional responses: and the more they do; the more objective knowledge they will produce. And to me, trying to be aware of cognitive biases is not going to help in fighting the influence of emotions on the rational mind. And this is because you can never know if you're biased or not. And on the contrary, working with emotions is clearer. It seems easier for me to judge if I'm angry, defensive or happy, rather than asking myself "Was I biased by the success of the lottery winner?" How could you ever answer that? You can't trace back the unconscious reasoning. So even if you feel like buying a lottery ticket afterwards, how would you know if it's biased or not? However, you could access your emotions and realise you're more excited than before you met the lottery winner, so you could decide to wait until that emotion fades away to see if you still want to buy a lottery ticket. And only then you would have a better estimation of how much it affected your thoughts at the time.

I used the term "ego trap" because a lot of people feel like they're more critical because they know these theories, while to me, it's the opposite. For example, they would judge the opponent's opinion as biased (which is very easy to do because they are so many biases, you can always find one) and reject it because of it. But they wouldn't be as rigorous when it comes to inspecting their own biases: we tend to notice the splinter in the other's eye, but don't notice the beam of wood in our own. And I don't see how any of the cognitive biases theory could help prevent this.

Which I see as concluding that critical thinking doesn't immunize against biases. — Caerulea-Lawrence

So that's not what I meant. To rephrase it, I would say: fighting emotional responses would mitigate cognitive biases, because it's fighting the cause. But fighting cognitive biases directly seems pointless as they're unconscious and are very difficult (impossible?) to perceive with certainty. So fighting cognitive biases directly doesn't help mitigate them!

And my main point is that when you fight the emotional responses, it prevents cognitive biases so naming them and finding "tools" to detect it seems useless and extremely complex compared to just assessing emotions.

Wait...What? You're actually debating it? It's ironic, right?

Physically, we're somewhere at the bottom; mentally, we top the list. — Agent Smith

Thank you! You directly put it on a scale because you know that "big/small" doesn't give much information. It's the same with the other questions, they implicitly drive people to debate it as if it was 2 separate concepts rather than a scale.

A better way to ask the question would be "How tall is the average human?" or "How tall are humans compared to other species on earth?".

But, for some reasons, when people ask these questions :
Are humans selfish?
Are sciences objective? Is philosophy subjective?
Does free will exist or is it an illusion?

They debate 2 positions instead of creating a scale. Even if we define what "selfish" means, having the answer "yes or no" isn't very informative. Aristotle made a separation of self-love (philautia) into people who love themselves and act morally and those who love themselves and act immorally. In that sense we're all "selfish", we're all focused on ourselves, our needs, but the difference is that some people's need include making others happy, and for other people, it does not as much, so that makes them more selfish. I don't think the question "are we focused on our own needs?" is very interesting, to me it's kind of obvious that we are. In the end we do what we do for a reward, which is the good feelings, whether it's triggered by making others feel good or not. But what's more interesting is to study how our needs include caring about others, and how it varies from people to people.

I don't understand why philosophy is so binary. Why they like to take two opposite concepts and prove they both have problems instead of creating one in between... Like Rationalism vs. Empiricism for example.

What evidence do we have to demonstrate that humans are selfish? I still think the question emerges from an illogical reasoning in the first place.



Yeah okay, maybe it's useful in the educational system as it is now...


Post update

What if the fifth question is : "Are humans big in size?"
Still no obvious common problem?

Components of philosophy that are missing:
4. Logic — Agent Smith

Yes, how does it lack logic? What makes these questions illogical?

By stipulating “philosophical research” sufficient to answer the questions, isn’t an academic answer implied? — Mww

Are all philosophers doing research in academia? I don't think so.

Those “a little bit interested” can offer opinion. Is that enough? — Mww

Enough? What do you mean?

These questions seem to be looking for answers/certainty founded on some kind of metaphysical objectivity, which as far as I am aware is not possible — Tom Storm

Yes. So what would you ask if you want to know more about the "selfish/selfless nature" of a human being?

They read like exam questions. Vague and general, to give candidates the challenge of clarifying and explaining. — Cuthbert

They're more than vague, don't you think they would mislead the students?

In the implicit meaning the questions give to these terms.



Sorry, I didn't mean to play the teacher, and I'm not expecting an academic answer, I'm just trying to understand the intuition behind philosophical concepts.

To be more clear, to me they all lead to the same problem once they're debated, even if the terms are clarified.

Aren't all philosophical topics anthropocentric?

I'm assuming that's how religious people could reassure themselves, yes, why not? They basically stop thinking about it because they trust God, they trust whatever is in the afterlife. So even if someone asks them "yeah but well, what's there going to be in the afterlife and after that? They can say that they will see for themselves when they get there. I'm playing the devil's advocate here, I'm neither religious or spiritual, and I've never been either of the two.

??

Did you miss the part where I say that people assume they're gonna find the meaning of the afterlife in the afterlife itself?

I can tell you from experience that people who are dying and hold religious beliefs and beliefs in god are as likely to be frightened at the thought of dying as anyone — Tom Storm

It's not so much about the moment of dying itself, but dealing with existential crisis during your life. If you start thinking about these topics, if you have faith, you can use that as an escape "it's fine, I'll just go to another world, and what I'm doing here is just a step to something greater".

Besides, "the afterlife" only kicks the can by begging the question of the "meaning of the afterlife." — 180 Proof

Spiritual people just avoid thinking about the meaning, sometimes they say that "only god can understand" — Babbeus

It keeps you focus on one step, on the life you're living now, they probably think that they will find the meaning of the afterlife in the afterlife itself, and so on. It's like a high school student who's passionate about physics and wants to understand a specific concept for which he needs more background than he has, he's just going to wait until he goes to university. But yeah you're right, it actually prevents people from thinking too far for their own good. They "trust" whatever forces out there instead of investigating by themselves. If you think about it, the "why" questions never end, the only way to get closure with it is to know where to stop, which "why" is too far from the reality we live in to make sense. So I was wondering if we could make a rational approach of metaphysics that would get people back on track of their lives, as much as religion does. Like take the physics student, if you tell him "you'll understand at university", or if you tell him "well actually we don't understand that one, it's just a mathematical model that happens to work", one is certainly more powerful for motivation than the other. With the second one, maybe the student is going to be like "well fuck this shit, I like understanding stuff completely, so I'm gonna go for engineering instead".

Or maybe the society feeds the need to understand "completely" way too much, doesn't show the uncertainties enough, keeps saying "that's okay, scientists know", or experts or whatever. So naturally people get disappointed when they realize "no one knows", not even "god". Maybe people would naturally stop the "why" questions when they realize it's out of their reach, and it wouldn't come as a disappointment if they're used to deal with uncertainties. Maybe they wouldn't try to play the superhuman who can understand several dimensions, or multi directional times even though we only know past present future. no offense.

Sounds like you may have come from a religious upbringing or culture that privileges afterlife stories — Tom Storm

It's more than afterlife stories (cf last paragraph I wrote on this post).

I'm also an eternalist (I actually thing Einstein's theory is more likely correct than incorrect), and that means there isn't a present moment that will someday not include me, or at least what I call 'me'. — noAxioms

So you're not afraid of disappearing because you believe you'll always exist somewhere in this universe? But to you, to your consciousness, the passing of time is one directional, so when it ends, will it start again somewhere else? What is it going to feel like for you?

I have more of a need for truth than a need for imaginary comfort, but I was surprised to find the latter (and meaning as well) anyway. — noAxioms

So what's your imaginary comfort on this one? That you live for your family? What if your family was dead and you didn't have any friends? Would you then still be comfortable that life has no meaning?

The statement makes no sense unless you believe in an afterlife. — noAxioms

It does not indeed. "There is no afterlife" makes more sense.