The problem is that no one can choose to be born and so how do you describe their existence instead other than as an act of force? — Andrew4Handel

It's neither an act of force (against them) nor consent (from them), because there's no one to grant or withhold consent.

I think things like houses are made to exist by force and when I am doing gardening or moving something around I am aware I am using force. — Andrew4Handel

Yes, but it's not force against the house prior to the house existing.

The distinction here is force as a means of any physical activity occurring versus force against something('s consent).

Nevertheless I do think there is a puzzle about how we come into existence in term of consciousness because it seems you can mold clay into numerous different objects without it ever being aware of existence but humans are aware of existing in a profound way. — Andrew4Handel

Different material, in different dynamic structures, has different properties. Brains aren't made of clay. They have blood flowing through them, they have electrochemical activity, etc.

I have not claimed someone non existent is being forced to do anything. — Andrew4Handel

What started this whole tangent was you writing "to force him or her into existence," where you could be read as saying that there was a moral problem with doing something to someone that forces them into existence. I clarified that that's not possible (for force someone into existence.)

And no, I'm not claiming that nothing is forced on a child. I'm only claiming that no one can be forced into existence, in the sense of force being applied to a person to cause that same person to exist.

And yeah, no intentions would be illegal if I were king, a fortiori because no thoughts, period, or even expressions of thoughts a la speech, etc., would be illegal if I were king.

Now, if I were to assert that:
"Wallows believes that 2+2=6, instead of 4"

, then are we talking about truth or the validity of epistemic content? — Wallows

I'm probably not the only one confused about this.

What is the "truth/validity of epistemic content" distinction you're making, and what is it supposed to have to do with the de re/de dicto distinction?

Furthermore, what limits or broadens the scope of the existential quantifier as having a narrow or broad scope? — Wallows

That's defined in the article you took the bulk of your post from. Is it that you don't entirely understand the distinction they're making? (I kind of understand it "in theory," but re the examples given, it becomes less clear to me, which is a weird dichotomy.)

I don't think I understand "how predication works," either, if that would be pertinent here.

How would you say it works? (I wonder if it's something that I'd think has some merit or that I'd think gets things wrong.)

Just to be clear, Joe is saying that the relations you outlined, as something general about the world, do not seem like billiard balls striking billiard balls and what happens to them when struck.

While trying to avoid diversions re semiotics, semantics, etc. at the moment (we might not be able to avoid that tangent for long, but I'll try to avoid it), Joe says that force referring to "any possible measured values of pushes and pulls" and all of the rest of that isn't an explanation because it doesn't at all seem like what it's supposed to be explaining.

So who is right and who is wrong? Is it an explanation or not? And who gets to decide?

I'm a physicalist, so I do not believe that mentality/consciousness and body are at all separate.

The person still exists in a limited sense when dead. But they don't have philosophical "personhood" any longer, since that requires sentience, among other things, which requires a brain functioning in ways that it no longer functions once someone is dead.

If someone isn't functioning just for a minute, they might not be dead per the medical definition (which is the definition I also use), because that requires irreversible cessation of brain function, repiratory function, etc. Cessation of brain function etc. can be reversible in some cases after a minute. It depends on the state of the body, just what's been damaged (for example, in an accident).

The boundary between that person existing in some sense and no longer existing is fuzzy, because the decay of the body is so gradual and ultimately fuzzy.

Given my view on this, people definitely continue to exist while in a vegetative state.

None of that amounts to being able to do anything, pro or con, consensually or nonconsensually, to someone who doesn't exist.

Can we please with begin with the science of our nature? — Athena

"Our nature" is every way that any human is or can be. And part of that is that we don't have to feel unsafe due to difference. It's incorrect to say, as a universal generalization, that we don't feel safe around difference. And as I explained but you're not really acknowledging. for many people that's not why we're cautious around strangers. Maybe for some people it's why they're cautious around strangers, but that would probably just amount to some sort of bigotry/prejudice.

Yes, but obviously in a limited sense, since they're dead/not functional, they don't have "personhood" in the philosophical sense, they're not due the same moral considerations (although I wouldn't say they're due no moral considerations), etc.

The exact explanation for the example, and what we're explaining in the example, don't really matter. That's why I just picked something simple--it's just an example.

What I'm asking you is simply:

Joe says that "F=ma" isn't an explanation, because F=ma doesn't at all seem like what it's supposed to be explaining.

Frank says that "F=ma" is the explanation.

Is Joe right and Frank is wrong? Vice versa? What decides?

As long as some people tell the truth sometimes, lying would work.

Lies cannot be universalised because if they were they would not work. Lies only work in an environment of honesty and trust. If everyone lied about X no one would be trusted about X and then no one would be given the chance to get away with X. Lies only work because people believe promises, undermine that and lies don't work anymore (and we would be living in a far worse place). — Jamesk

Well, they can't work when everyone always lies, because then it's the same as telling the truth. People would just assume that anything anyone says is a lie.

They only work when people sometimes don't lie, sometimes do.

Re universalizing anything, again, as I noted above, it's just a matter of how you conceptually divvy things up. You can make that more or less specific/detailed/general.

So exposing a new person to all possible suffering it may incur in order to alleviate the suffering of a present person on one particular issue, is justified? That makes no sense to me. — schopenhauer1

If your goal is to reduce suffering, and there's a chance that the child won't experience suffering, at least not anywhere near the actually existent people who are suffering (because they can't have a kid), then it should make sense to you, because that could easily result in less suffering. That is, it should make sense to you if your goal really is to reduce suffering.

1. If the physical world is causally closed (this thesis Popper variously labels as materialism, physicalism or determinism), then it follows that the world of ideas is causally inert. (Some alternatives, such as the identity thesis, are rejected in separate arguments.)

2. Take any proposition, such as 1 + 1 = 2, or indeed the proposition that affirms the truth of physicalism. To what does it owe its truth? Both the proposition and any arguments in support of its truth are abstract ideas. But the physicalist only has the physical world at her disposal to make the argument. Nor can the abstract be reduced to the physical. Thus it follows that the physicalist cannot rationally support her own position. — SophistiCat

Man, I don't remember any of that, although I can't even remember if I read that book now.

At any rate, that's problematic that Popper is conflating materialism/physicalism and determinism (in my opinion as a physicalist who isn't a determinist).

In my view, the abstract is easily "reduced" to the physical.

No I mean, the import of the argument relies on creating harm for someone else. — schopenhauer1

The "import of the argument"? What argument? We're simply talking about people suffering or not. There are actual people who suffer (and who would) if they can't (or couldn't) have a child for physical or social reasons. That's not an argument. It's a fact about people suffering, a fact about a cost (in terms of suffering).

Then their suffering is their own and not exposing a lifetime of suffering for another- with no cost to any particular person (that is to say an actual child). — schopenhauer1

It's their own suffering and that's a cost. They ARE actual children.

Yes, there is a component that the suffering is on behalf of someone else. — schopenhauer1

The suffering isn't on behalf of someone else, it's their personal suffering, due to their desires not being met.

If someone suffers cause they can't do an action that will cause suffering to others, — schopenhauer1

You have no idea that the action will cause suffering to others. That's speculation. Meanwhile, there are existent people who really are suffering because they can't have a kid through no choice of their own.

he terminus is preventing harm with no cost to any particular person. — schopenhauer1

Not being able to have a kid when you want one is a cost to a particular person.

Not that that has to do with what you were commenting on. "Preventing harm" is only categorically good to the individuals who feel that it's good. It's simply false to suggest that it can somehow be good outside of that.

However it is an absolute always good — schopenhauer1

:lol:

Someone being prevented from harm is always good, period. — schopenhauer1

Which is factually incorrect. Things are only good or bad to particular people who exist and who feel that that thing is good or bad.

Guess what though, being not born is not a harm, it is not a bad. Nothing is lost by not being born for any particular person. — schopenhauer1

Again, to people who want to have a child, not having one, where that's not by their choice, is suffering. Why wouldn't you care about alleviating the suffering of people who actually exist?

Do not "saddle" a child with the burdens of life by procreating them into existence is the argument. — schopenhauer1

I know you're not trying to do this, but it's worth noting how difficult it is to state something like you want to state here without suggesting the idea of doing something to someone who doesn't exist yet.

if a child does note experience whatever X agenda (pleasure, experience for its own sake, etc.) that is no loss for the potential child, — schopenhauer1

Nothing can be any loss or gain or anything to a "potential child."

What I think gives strength to this argument over all others is the fact that there is NO COST. There is NO COST because no actual person is deprived of goods, — schopenhauer1

If Jim and Janis want to have a child but do not because of social pressures (maybe even a law) against it, doesn't that create suffering for them?

What is the problem with knowing it is our nature to be on guard when in the presence of a stranger? I thought understanding human nature was always a good thing. What is the problem with that? — Athena

The reason you'd be relatively on your guard when in the presence of a stranger doesn't have anything to do with difference--maybe the stranger looks, dresses, acts, etc. just like you, apparently has the same tastes and interests as you, and so on. The reason to be relatively on your guard (I say "relatively" because you don't need to categorically be too on-guard, there are other factors here) is that you don't know the person yet, you don't know whether you can trust them, you don't know that they might not be trying to scam you somehow, etc.

Have you ever heard the claim that determinism is "self-refuting" because if one is determined to believe in determinism that somehow means that we do not rationally believe in determinism? — Walter Pound

(Let me start by noting that I'm not a determinist, so my comments below are not sourced in wanting to support determinism:)

I haven't heard that claim before (or I don't recall it at least--I have a crappy memory), but it's not a good argument.

First off, whether determinism is true would have jackshit to do with whether anyone rationally believes determinism is true. Anything that anyone believes (rational or otherwise) isn't going to have any impact at all on whether determinism is true or not.

Further, all someone would have to say is that if we can't rationally believe in something just in case determinism is true (which this argument, sans other details, has to be suggesting, otherwise it's a non-sequitur), then if determinism is true, we don't rationally believe in anything (including, of course, Sir Eccles' and others' belief that determinism is false) . . . and so what? It's not as if there's a requirement in this case that we rationally believe anything.


This comment I do not understand as written, by the way: "This denial . . . presupposes free will for the deliberately chosen response in making that denial." I suppose he was just suggesting someone essentially saying, "I chose that 'determinism is true' of my own free will"? No one would say that.

Maybe Sir Eccles was simply saying that he doesn't consider anything a rational argument if one didn't freely choose to believe it, and he requires a rational argument to be persuaded that P, so he cannot be persuaded that determinism is true. Aside from that fact that that would be question-begging, he's also assuming that anyone's goal would be to persuade him that determinism is true. I don't know why anyone should care if he believes that determinism is true. (Especially not when he's set up a impossible, question-begging requirement to be persuaded.)

There are things, probably lots of things, you would not like forced on you as an adult.

Now it seems your using the excuse of the child's initial non existence to impose these on someone. — Andrew4Handel

Actually all I'm doing is stressing a very technical ontological point. You're not actually doing anything to anyone, consensually or not, prior to their existence, because there is no one to do anything to.

For example I was forced to go to church several times the week my entire childhood which was a grim joyless environment and read the bible and pray every day. As an adult I have never chosen to do anything like that. It is something I would never chose but my status as a child meant I was powerless. — Andrew4Handel

What I think is worth looking at here is why that experience was presumably so traumatic for you that it would lead you to thinking that if other people would have to go through it, it's better if they simply don't exist at all.

And something more specifically that's worth looking at there is this: some people can get something of value out of any experience--they can see positives in any experience, they can parse the experience differently while they're in it so that they get something of value out of it--perhaps even by mentally subverting it, focusing attention on things that one enjoys, seeing the humor in it, etc, they can treat every situation as one where something is learned and experience is gained, where those are seen as positives in and of themselves, and so on.

So in your case, what made the difference between being able to see the positive sides of having to go to church, etc. and seeing it as instead so traumatic that you'd recommend no one ever have kids because of the possibility that some other kid will have to do something like go to church?

It is not acceptable to rape someone when they are unconscious because of the impact when they become conscious. — Andrew4Handel

Aside from the fact that you're not seeing the distinction between whether a person exists or not (you're thinking of it simply as a question of whether someone is conscious--that's not the issue, the issue is that you can't do anything, pro or con, to a nonexistent), even if that were a good analogy, I don't have anything resembling conventional views on stuff like that, but I don't want to get into details on anything too controversial, because then that's all that anyone can ever focus on. (I've had that situation on message boards before.)

Even if someone is not an antinatalist they can accept that the child did not chose to be born — Andrew4Handel

Again, this is a category error, because there's not something to make a choice. It's not the case that you're doing something nonconsensually to anything.

but making "cool" mandatory seems like another oppressiveness. — Bitter Crank

The way it needs to be mandatory and oppressive is in there being not only no laws against difference, but not control via social pressure, either.

. . . because their own understanding of atheism passes right by theism. A-theism, on the other hand, seems problematic at best, and a mire that non-critical thinkers are caught in and waste other people's time with, to their discredit, if they but knew it. — tim wood

I don't quite get what you're saying there.

But the religious perspectives are far more insightful for giving us guidance toward understanding the nature of time.. — Metaphysician Undercover

What are some examples of that then?

That's not a definition, it's a bunch of incoherent nonsense. Look, you class "oscillation in pressure" and "particle velocity" together within the same definition. This is clear evidence that your so-called example of a definition of sound is nothing but incoherent nonsense. Clearly you just copied that off of some random website, — Metaphysician Undercover

It's the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) definition, from the American National Standard on Acoustic Terminology document, which is also quoted on Wikipedia, yes.

So is "objective" the same as "fact" and/or "truth" on your view?

I didn't ask what I wanted to ask clearly enough there.

The guy who says "That doesn't actually explain why billiard ball B moved. 'F=ma' doesn't seem anything like billiard ball B moving" says that F=ma is thus not an explanation.

The other guy says that it is.

What's required for it to "really be" an explanation in a case like this? We have two different opinions on whether F=ma is an explanation.

For an explanation to be satisfactory, it has to be sound, — Dfpolis

Then what explanations are isn't determined by logic, because logic doesn't tell us (except stipulatively) which premises are true.

The answer is obviously not because it's just like the gun example, the problem isn't the "giving birth" part it's the "they'll suffer if you do" part. Just like the problem isn't the "pull your finger back part" but the "they'll die" part — khaled

To use an amusing earlier example, though, if pointing a gun at someone and pulling the trigger meant that the person who was "shot" would have to do their laundry, should it be a crime to shoot someone?

The only way birth can be moral is if the parent is committed to doing assisted suicide to his child if he asks and can't do it himself. Even if it's illegal. Also it is immoral for the parent to try to prevent his offspring from committing suicide if it's a level headed decision and must assist him/her with it. — khaled

Thanks for answering. That's an interesting view at least. ;-)

That wouldn't come up very often (a kid going to their parent with a suicide request), but I suppose that doesn't matter.

If you risk someone else's well-being in an attempt to improve your own and it doesn't work out, you owe that person to return them to their previous state. — khaled

Re this, of course no one was in a previous state of not being alive.

So, say that someone says "(Part of) The explanation for billiard ball B moving in vector v after being struck by billiard ball A is F=ma."

And then the other guy goes, "That doesn't actually explain why billiard ball B moved. 'F=ma' doesn't seem anything like billiard ball B moving."

Is F=ma part of the explanation for why billiard ball B moved in vector v or not?

No, it is not about psychological satisfaction, even though that is usually involved. It is about having a logical structure in which the premises entail the datum to be explained. — Dfpolis

Aside from the fact that we'd still be talking about psychological satisfaction in response to some set of words, equations, etc. in this case, what you're saying is kind of ridiculous, because all we'd have to do for anything, then--in order to have an explanation for it--would be to forward two modus ponens to the effect of:

If x is F, then x is G (premise 1).
X is F (premise 2)
X is G (modus ponens a)
If x is G, then F is G (premise 3)
F is G. (modus ponens b)

Where "x is F" is something completely noncontroversial, and either "x is G" or "F is G" or both are the explanation we want. (If one only wants "x is G," just the first modus ponens would do, obviously.)

So for example:

If mentality is intentional, then mentality is material.
Mentality is intentional.
Mentality is material
If mentality is material, then intentionality is material.
Intentionality is material..

That's a logical structure in which the premises entail the datum to be explained.

But that can't be all that you require, can it?

You're no slouch, Terrapin (are you a Marylander?). But it seems you must be conflating "following" with agreeing. I'm pretty sure you "follow" most of it. Yes? — tim wood

Re my name, I'm a Grateful Dead fan. "Terrapin Station" is an album and song of theirs.

Re not understanding the post, I don't want to go through every sentence, but just a couple examples:

Neurophysiological data processing cannot be the explanatory invariant of our awareness of contents. — Dfpolis

There, I really have no idea what "explanatory invariant" is supposed to amount to. Explanations are not the sorts of things that are invariant. Explanations are about language usage and especially how people interpret the same. So how would it make sense to attach the word "invariant" to "explanatory"?

Another example:

All knowledge is a subject-object relation. — Dfpolis

There, I'd want to clear up if he's doing some sort of ontological analysis or propositional analysis.

One final example:

The material and intentional aspects of reality are logically orthogonal. — Dfpolis

I understand at least some of the common definitions of "othogonal" in mathematics and physics. But as with "explanatory" and "invariant," I have no idea how things can be "logically orthogonal," especially not when we're talking about "aspects of reality," or really, empirical stuff in general, since that's not the purview of logic.

It's one of those things where "I know all the words he's saying, but at least some of them don't make any sense to me put together in that order."

Yes, I know how they work. Certain people want to post like a troll to incite rather than insight. — schopenhauer1

Do you define "trolling" so that trolling is possible if one is being honest? Just curious. And yeah, I'm exactly the same online and offline.

Re the other part, "when you seem to suggest," which is necessarily about how I'm interpreting what you're writing. If you don't disagree with me, then why respond with a bickerish post? You don't want to ever agree with me?

Some people are proud to be called, and call themselves, atheist, — tim wood

I say that I'm an atheist, but just to be factual, just to tell folks what my view is. (I'm an atheist in your #2 (which implies #1) and #3 sense.) I'm not implying anything value-judgment-related in relaying the fact that I'm an atheist. I'm just relaying a fact.

I don't entirely follow the argument in #1, and I do not need to. — tim wood

I don't know if I really follow any of it. I have tons of questions about all of it--multiple questions about every sentence of it. That would need to be tackled one thing at a time.

It is quite common to believe that intentional realities, as found in conscious thought, are fundamentally material -- able to be explained in terms of neurophysiological data processing — Dfpolis

"This is material" in no way implies "This is able to be explained" first off.

"This is material" is an ontological claim about the sort of existent that something is..

"This is able to be explained" is a claim about individuals considering some set of words (or equations or whatever) to provide psychological satisfaction in a way that quells a "this is a mystery" feeling that they otherwise had.

Something being a particular sort of existent has no implications for whether individuals will find some set of words psychologically satisfactory.

Anytime that you talk about the way things are, which includes peoples' emotional state, you are speaking objectively. — Harry Hindu

Re this, so you are speaking what when you talk about the way things aren't? Not objectively, but _____?

I don't want to keep doing long posts back and forth, so just one thing at a time.

Feeling safe will always involve an aversion to a difference, or a curiosity because we are primates. — Athena

A problem with this is that there are lots of people who don't feel unsafe just because of difference.

I wasn't addressing you. — schopenhauer1

Someone needs to learn how public boards work. ;-)

If you want to address just one person, private message them.

I've already explained my position on that. — schopenhauer1

That's fine, but I'm going to point out the facts when you seem to suggest stuff that's wrong.