Thanks for your point of view. Indeed as you say practicing philosophy can make one better at imagination and communication. Which then can make it easier to solve problems and to connect with others.

But then, if practicing philosophy helps to solve problems and to communicate with others, isn’t it a helpful tool towards approaching what we mentioned? (Truth, awareness of reality, happiness, freedom)

As they say the Truth will set you free :)

So you’re chasing after more freedom? Would you agree that it’s connected with the awareness of Truth, of Reality, and happiness?

I would argue that conspiracy theories are vastly worse than reading bones. — hypericin

A conspiracy theory is a theory that there is a conspiracy.

A conspiracy is a group of people secretly agreeing to do something wrong.

A theory can be true or false.

Plenty of conspiracy theories have turned out to be true. See here for a list : https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/wiki/lopc

It is meaningless to say that conspiracy theories as a whole are worse than reading bones. There are conspiracy theories that are an accurate description of what is really happening, and others that are an inaccurate description.

The conspiracy theories that are correct correctly describe what has happened or what happens.

There is the widespread misconception that a conspiracy theory equates a false or far-fetched idea. That’s a misconception. And sometimes, conspiracy theories that appear far-fetched do turn out to be true.

People conspire. Powerful people conspire. How they conspire is the question that conspiracy theorists attempt to answer. There are some very intelligent people among conspiracy theorists, contrary to popular belief. And some not-so reasonable people, as everywhere.

Parallel to it: preservation and suppression are the same thing, stasis, non-change.

To preserve is to prevent destruction. To suppress is to prevent creation. — Pfhorrest

But since both creation and destruction are a change, preservation and suppression prevent both creation and destruction.

To preserve an object is to prevent the creation of something that could be built from it. To suppress an idea is to prevent the destruction of a previous mindset.

- To preserve something good is to suppress something bad.

- To suppress something good is to preserve something bad.

- To create something good is to destroy something bad.

- To destroy something good is to create something bad. — Pfhorrest

Actually I wouldn’t make these associations.

To preserve something is to suppress something else. If what is preserved is good, it is possible that what is suppressed might also be good.

What we can say is that if the thing that is preserved is better than the other thing that is suppressed, then it is good to preserve it.

Similarly, one can create something good while destroying something good. As to whether the act itself is good, both have to be taken into account and compared, and maybe what was destroyed was better than what was created in its place.

Sorry if I offended you, but all such arguments seem trivial, so why present them? Of course creativity is not always a good thing, nor destruction inherently bad. — jgill

Thanks for the apology. Yet as you noted, destruction has a negative connotation, and it isn’t trivial to show that this negative connotation is unwarranted. Many people would say, sure there are some examples where destruction is good, but most of the time it’s bad, while most of the time a creation is good. Which is wrong, as my argument shows, any creation is a destruction so a creation can’t be good more often than a destruction.

This civilization is focused a lot on what it creates and very little on what it destroys, because it doesn’t have in mind that anytime something is created there is also something that is destroyed. And because of the widespread misconception of creation being mostly good and destruction being mostly bad, this civilization cares very little what it destroys in order to create.

They say it’s progress, supposedly progress is good, as long as we create it’s good. And meanwhile plenty of good things are destroyed and plenty of bad things are created in their place.

So no, sorry, it isn’t trivial at all to talk about that, about the misguided connotations associated with creation and destruction.

To sum up, the existence of irrational numbers that aren't formula-based proves that the reality we're living in isn't a simulation because the program required to encode for them would have to be infinite. — TheMadFool

Have you seen an irrational number? You’ve seen a symbol for it, you have thought about the idea of it, but you haven’t seen one, with its whole infinite decimal expansion. So it could be argued that they don’t exist as more than an idea, and then your reasoning doesn’t apply.

And if they do exist ... why couldn’t the program that runs the simulation be infinite? It can’t be infinite within the simulation, but beyond the simulation you don’t know that.

So in both cases your reasoning doesn’t prove we aren’t in a simulation.

But if we’re in a simulation, it’s a simulation that has the power to give us consciousness, feelings, thoughts, ... so it’s more than a mere computer simulation.

“Nothing” cannot be described, because even the thought of nothing isn’t nothing. We can only attempt to imperfectly describe all that it is not, all that it doesn’t have.

It doesn’t have properties. It doesn’t have any constraint. But then I see it as the same as infinite possibility, which cannot be described either. It is nothing, but it can become everything.

And then why something rather than nothing ... because there was nothing to prevent nothing from becoming something.

“But nothing cannot become” ... well in the absence of rule it can.

Rather, a natural law is a description. — Banno

This was addressed in the rest of the thread.

Ok fine, if you really want, matter combines itself into consciousness. What is your point? It still doesn't make matter itself conscious, like a carbon atom itself isn't hard or soft. — ChatteringMonkey

The point is matter has the creative power to give itself consciousness, purpose, feelings, thoughts. This is even more extraordinary than saying that matter is conscious.

Matter isn't some dead thing that moves, it has an immense creative power. It gave itself consciousness. Purpose. Feelings. Thoughts.

Matter doesn't reduce to atoms, it is much more than that. What we observe of matter, that is what matter observes of itself, is given to itself by itself. Potentially matter is showing us, who are parts of itself, only a tiny part of itself.

The point is reality is much more extraordinary and amazing and awe-inspiring than materialists would have us believe, that's the point.

Let's say they are created. Creation presupposes a process from something to something else. Now for creation to make any sense that process should be predictable in some way, otherwise one never knows what one is creating and anything can come from anything. Predictability presupposes that there is some ' way things go'. — Tobias

Sure. But if the 'way things go' is ultimately that the creator can create whatever he wants, then the creator isn't constrained by any external law, any law would come from himself. In that instance it is false to say that the laws "just are", they are created.

The same applies for 'reasons'. things have a reason when they are there to accomplish a certain something. Now one can only accomplish a certain something if it can be predicted what will cause that something to come into being. Therefore also ' reason' is only applicable against the backdrop of some natural laws. — Tobias

As above, an omnipotent creator could predict what he will create without being constrained by a "backdrop of some natural laws". And his reason for creating a certain something would be that he chooses to.

If you want to fill it in with wild speculative metaphysics , more power to you, but why would you, if it is pointless to do so? — Tobias

It isn't wild speculative metaphysics to point out that saying natural laws "just are", that there is no reason for them, is an assumption and not a logical necessity. It is the assumption that there is a fundamental meaninglessness. And I'm not the one who believes the universe is pointless, you have to see the other guy for that.

No "matter inherently has the power to give itself" is not accurate, or at least it's a very strange way of putting it. Matter is the building block, it's only a certain configuration of those building blocks that has purpose and consciousness. Matter and itself don't have the same meaning in that sentence. — ChatteringMonkey

It is accurate. If everything is matter, matter configures itself, there is not something else configuring it.

Edit: You can combine carbon atoms with carbon atoms to form really hard or really soft substances. The property of hard and soft is not something the carbon atom by itself has, it only a property of certain configurations of it. — ChatteringMonkey

If everything is matter, 'you' are matter, so if 'you' combine carbon atoms with carbon atoms, it is matter that is combining itself. The properties of hardness and softness are created by matter itself.

Because creation and destruction are terms relative to human perception. That is, we say something is created when its parts, previously separated, gather into something we recognize as being a composite; similarly, we say something is destroyed when its parts become separate, and the shape we recognized as a unity is no more. Creation and destruction are thus human terms given to what we perceive as two different phenomena; but as you said, these phenomena (creation and destruction) are just continuous change. Creation and destruction are dependent on perception; change is not. — Daniel

You say creation and destruction are human terms given to what we perceive as two different phenomena. But change is also a human term given to what we perceive as different phenomena, we have somehow the ability to compare different phenomena and we label it change.

Let's say you look at an object, then you close your eyes, while your eyes are closed the object is destroyed, then you open your eyes again and you see the destroyed object. Why would you say that change occurred beyond your perception, but not that the object was destroyed beyond your perception? The object was destroyed before you opened your eyes right? You became aware that it was destroyed when you opened your eyes, but it was destroyed beforehand, beyond your perception.

I think it is misguided to give a special status to change in that way. Whatever we say occurs beyond our perception, we're describing it in our own human terms anyway, including change.

And this is your original thesis? I'm amazed someone hasn't thought of it before. :roll: — jgill

I don't claim to be the first one to realize that destruction isn't inherently negative, and thus that its widespread negative connotation is unwarranted, but I had never found a logical argument showing it.

One of the points of philosophy is to think more clearly, see more clearly, to identify and overcome the misconceptions that cloud our judgment. I lived with this misconception for many years, and I was glad to overcome it. I see many people who have this misconception, here and elsewhere. I made this thread to help others who have this misconception overcome it too. Because I also see philosophy as teamwork, where we all help one another to see more clearly. At the end of my OP I even mentioned how this is a step towards answering a greater question of philoosphy.

You seemed to have this misconception too. Probably you still do, considering your repeated snarky remarks, instead of actually putting forward arguments. But as you said and showed earlier, philosophy is not your thing. It requires humility. You not seeing the point or its importance, doesn't mean there is no point nor that it isn't important.

But for natalists it is not unknown. They know for a fact that having a child will risk harming them. And they also know for a fact that that decision need not be made. It is not like the case where there are two alternatives both of which cannot be precisely calculated which you just cited, no. Here there are two cases:

1- Take an unjustified risk with someone else's life (risk of harm)
2- Don't. (no risk of harm) — khaled

But we know for a fact that any decision we make risks harming others, whether they are alive now or will be in the future. And we can't foresee all the consequences of the decisions we make, using again the analogy of the butterfly effect.

In your example, if the person decides not to have a child, this may have unintended consequences more harmful to existing people and to future children than if the person had decided to have the child.

So really, antinatalist or not, the best we can do is do our best, and neither the antinatalist nor the natalist knows for sure which decision will end up being the best one.

But you have a great regard for the well-being of others and that's commendable, the world would be a better place if more people didn't only focus on themselves.

But this kind of logic doesn't work because matter combines into all kinds of stuff that has properties that are not inherent in matter by itself. This is not a matter of logic, it's an empirical matter... — ChatteringMonkey

Just think ... if matter is all there is, where do these properties come from ... they come from matter.

You agree with this at least, right?

Now, we observe matter in a way that is given to us by matter. You agree with this too?

Then, when we observe matter combine in ways that reveal properties of matter that were previously concealed : either these properties were already there and matter is revealing them to us ; or these properties weren't already there but were created, by none other than matter itself.

So, either these properties are inherent in matter, or matter creates them.

If matter creates them, then matter creates consciousness, purpose, feelings, thoughts. And what is it that experiences consciousness, purpose, feelings, thoughts? Matter itself, because it is all there is.

So, logically and empirically, if you assume that matter is all there is, then either matter is inherently conscious and has inherently purpose, or it has inherently the creative power to give itself consciousness and purpose. In both cases the implications are extraordinary, and that's an understatement.

What happened before the big bang? Nothing, because there is no before... — ChatteringMonkey

You're assuming ...

But even if it is merely a question pertaining to causation, then it isn't always a legitimate question either, because causation only makes sense in time and space to begin with. — ChatteringMonkey

Here it is legitimate, because we're remaining within the realm of everything that exists, where matter is taken to be the fundamental substance of everything that exists.

I pick the second because I seen no signs of matter, outside of biological life which is only a small subset of matter, behaving consciously. — ChatteringMonkey

If you can't see what a person feels or thinks, how can you tell what is conscious and what is not.

And I think we will come up with an explanation for how meaning can come from purposeless matter, so to me that is no argument that sways me. To be convinced, someone would have to show how purpose arising out of matter without purpose is impossible in principle.... and I haven't seen that argument yet. — ChatteringMonkey

I gave that argument. If you start from the assumption that everything that exists is matter. And if you assume that matter is purposeless. Then immediately everything is purposeless. So there can be no purpose arising anywhere. But if you start from the assumption that purpose exists, as we indeed experience, then : either matter is not all there is, or matter has purpose.

So if you believe purpose exists, then you have to give up either materialism or the purposelessness of matter, which leads to giving up materialism as well.

And furthermore, you happily shift the burden of proof to the physicalist, but I don't think merely positing that matter is conscious, really explains all that much. For a theory to have some explanatory value, you also have to show how it helps to explain the phenomena we see all around us... not just the question why matter behaves the way it does. — ChatteringMonkey

Positing that matter has purpose explains why we experience purpose, whereas the opposite alternative doesn't explain it.

I live as if things have purpose for me, which doesn't have to imply the belief that the whole universe is inherently purposeful... — ChatteringMonkey

But if you are made solely of matter, then the matter you are made of has the ability to have purpose. And if matter is all there is, then all there is has the ability to have purpose. Otherwise you would be saying that you are made of a different stuff than the rest of the universe. No you are made of the same stuff. And something that has the ability to have purpose, is not some unconscious purposeless thing.

Because I am part of this calculation too. The "expected value" of the harm I would cause unto others is much lower than the "expected value" of the harm I would cause myself by killing myself. So I continue to exist. You have to consider alternatives. — khaled

But you can't calculate that expected value. Like the butterfly effect, it is possible that you do something apparently innocent, which eventually ends up causing enormous harm in the world. How do you put a probability on that? It's possible that the act of killing yourself would cause less harm. But you can't put a probability on that either.

So in the face of the unknown what do you do? You do your best. And that's how natalists see it too. They are faced with the unknown. But they do their best.

Antinatalits aren't striving for a better world. They just don't want to risk hurting people. Which is why some adopt. — khaled

Your very existence risks hurting people, yet you're taking that risk all the time. An antinatalist risks hurting a child he adopts. So why take that risk if the antinatalist can't know for sure?

One important thing to point out is that suffering isn't entirely negative. While we experience it it is negative. But suffering can lead to positive changes, for instance to a greater understanding of some aspect of reality. There are people who are glad to have gone through the suffering they have gone through, because it has made them who they are today, and if they hadn't experienced it they would have remained stuck in their old flawed ways.

Suffering can lead to enlightenment, to a higher awareness of oneself and the world. I wouldn't say all suffering does, but some of it at least.

Difficulty isn't inherently negative. From a limited point of view it appears as negative. But from a higher point of view it enables positive things. If there was no difficulty, there would be no such thing as courage, adventure, discovery, achievement, the greater the difficulty the more positive they are.

And so by seeing suffering and difficulty as not entirely negative, or rather as less negative than usually thought, we're led to the idea that there is more positive than negative in existence.

There are beings who suffer most of their life here, but it is assumed that their existence begins when they are born here and ends when they die here, maybe their existence as a whole is very positive, and the suffering they experience here will be positive in some way for them elsewhere.

At that point the antinatalist will say since we can't know for sure better not take the risk to bring a being here, and the antinatalist is free to not take the risk, and the natalist will remain free to take it, and the game of life will continue, potentially in a more and more positive direction overall.

In essence, because we do not listen to what the scientists say. — Banno

That comment highlights in itself one of the great problems of science, or rather with the perception of science. The idea that if we listen to what the scientists say then the world will be fine, we won't threaten our existence, we will have a good life and so on.

One only needs to look at the history of science to find dangerous statements or recommendations that were presented as true by scientists. That is, statements that are now widely seen as dangerous. And there are statements made by scientists today that are dangerous, but because many people blindly believe that scientists tell the truth and that we should listen to them, well they don't see them as dangerous.

There is a growing distrust of what scientists say, but they have mostly themselves to blame for that. If they stopped presenting their conclusions as much more certain than they truly are, we wouldn't have many people blindly believing false statements made by scientists, and there wouldn't be a growing distrust of what they say.


And then there is the whole what demarcates science from 'pseudoscience', and there is no good answer to that, there are many observation-based logically consistent theories of the world that are labeled as pseudoscientific or non-scientific for no good reason, just to discredit them because they go against the mainstream power structure.

Human laws, the laws that govern our conduct, are created. Natural laws just are. — Tobias

You're arbitrarily assuming natural laws weren't created. To say that natural laws "just are" is to assume that they are there for no reason at all, that the universe is purposeless. See my last post above on that.

Morover the assumption that law constrains is false. Both natural laws as well as human laws constrain and enable. A natural law, say the law of cause and effect makes our universe livable in the first place, take for instance cycle of birth. This would be impossible without cause and effect. Human law too does not only constrain. Take a traffic light. Yes, you have to stop, but because it regulates all the participants in traffic, it enables you to plan your journey and safely arrive at a destination. — Tobias

Yes interesting point, laws both constrain and enable.

That we could not detect change does not mean it would not exist. — Daniel

Why do you assume change would exist but not creation or destruction? Why do you give a special status to change?

The label destruction doesn't apply to a house collapsing into rubble because simple geometric transformations can be applied to the house to yield the rubble - a combination of reflection, translation, and rotation is what describes the house becoming rubble. — TheMadFool

Oh, so when a species goes extinct it isn't really destroyed, because if we track all the matter that composed the beings of that species it is all still there somewhere, the species is still here guys we just have to apply a combination of reflection translation and rotation to see it.

When we destroy an ecosystem we don't really destroy it it's OK guys, we just apply a combination of reflection, translation, and rotation to it.

Seriously ...

All of which seems pedantic and is more than a little absurd. Perhaps you can demonstrate how your creation/destruction interplay applied uniformly to everything is of any value whatsoever. — jgill

As I stated repeatedly, the point was to show that creation isn't inherently positive and destruction isn't inherently negative, contrary to popular belief. If you can't point a flaw in my logical argument, then maybe you can ponder why a sound logical argument gives rise to a sense of absurdity in you.

I don’t see it this way, we build upon what is already there. An improvement - creativity is design and design can be viewed as destruction but we build upon what is already there and if we think about is something destroyed the creation of new? the basis of creation (design) stems not from originality but from the past of which we build upon. — SwamOfInTheHorizon

We build from what was already there and in the process destroy some of what was there. What we create isn't always positive, and what we destroy isn't always negative.

Because a why-question pertains to purposes and meaning, and as far as we know only biological life develops purposes and meaning. So to ask why matter behaves the way it does, is already assuming a conscious entity capable of meaning that created matter with a purpose. — ChatteringMonkey

I don't agree with this. Asking why here simply means what makes matter behave the way it does. Just like we could ask what makes tree branches move the way they do, and we could answer "the wind", and we're not assuming the wind is a conscious entity capable of meaning.

But then we ask what makes the wind behave the way it does, and so on and so forth until we reach the question what makes matter behave the way it does?

Here we are assuming that matter represents everything that exists, I believe you agree with that statement. What are the properties of that matter? Obviously that matter has the ability to behave the way it does (which doesn't assume that matter is conscious).

Now there are only two possibilities : either there is a purpose for why matter behaves the way it does, or there is no purpose. Since matter is assumed to represent everything that exists, then if there is a purpose it would come from matter itself, and if there is no purpose then that would come from matter itself as well (matter would not have a purpose, which doesn't assume that matter is conscious).

So either matter chooses to behave the way it does, or it doesn't choose. If it chooses, then it is conscious. If it doesn't choose, then it does what it does for no reason at all.

The why-question is valid, and it has only two possible answers.

If you pick the second answer, that matter does what it does for no reason at all, then you would have to explain how something that does what it does for no reason at all, that has no purpose, has the ability to morph into conscious beings capable of meaning, purpose and choice.

Basically either you assume the universe is fundamentally meaningful or meaningless. But if you assume it is meaningless then you have to explain how meaning can appear in a meaningless universe. If matter is everything and it is meaningless, then meaning would be an illusion. But then every sentence we type here would be meaningless. And then what are we doing? Why don't we just write like this goingozinfegoizgtizsngroiqoiden,oqin,donazefonaoeingfe if it is meaningless all the same?

And BTW, it is in fact possible to conceive of explanations for matter behaving the way it does without resorting to the language of meaning and purpose. Universes could in theory be selected for by a non-purposeful process, akin to the process of natural selection, because some values of the properties of matter give rise to stable universes and others do not. — ChatteringMonkey

You're just pushing the problem one step further, the bottom line is either the fundamental substance of existence is purposeful or purposeless.

For me, I kinda like the idea that the universe is purposeless and that we are the only ones that seem to bring meaning into it... it makes me feel special ;-). — ChatteringMonkey

Well here's the kicker, if the universe is purposeless we don't bring meaning into it, because we are purposeless too and any meaning we think we bring is an illusion, and you aren't special and you feeling special is an illusion, and it doesn't matter what we do it's all meaningless, what you do here and anywhere is meaningless.

You say the universe is purposeless but you don't live it that way. You live as if there is some purpose in it. If you bring meaning into it, you who belong to the universe, then meaning exists, and then the universe can't be purposeless, and then matter can't be purposeless.

Why not?

Edit: by that I am asking you what's a reason change could not exist independently of consciousness? — Daniel

In my view consciousness is fundamental to the universe for many reasons, so I don't believe there is change without consciousness.

But if you assume there is such a thing as change in the absence of consciousness, then why not assume there is also creation and destruction? Why single out change? You say creation and destruction are forms given to change by perception, and thus depend on perception, but it can be argued that change also depends on perception. For instance if we had no memory of the past and no anticipation of the future, every moment would be disconnected from all the others, we couldn't compare any moment to any other, we wouldn't detect change. So change itself is linked to perception.

And so if you assume change in the absence of perception, it seems to me that to be consistent you should also assume that in the absence of perception some things are created and some other things are destroyed. Or if you realize that creation and destruction depend on perception, then you should also realize that change depends on perception as well.

What about so-called conservation laws in science. You know, those that say "matter/energy can neither be created nor destroyed". Perhaps you need to look at the world from the perspective of transformation which doesn't contradict the conservation laws scientists have discovered after, I'm guessing, painstaking research. In short, what you've been looking at as creation-destruction is actually, at its heart, just transformation. — TheMadFool

Conservation laws follow from the assumption that the laws of physics do not change, which isn’t a discovery but an assumption. Also you’re implicitly making the assumption that the laws of physics describe everything and account for everything, which isn’t the case.

Regardless, there is change, which you call transformation. When a house collapses and leaves rubble in its place, you can say the house has changed into rubble, was transformed into rubble. It is also customary to say that the house was destroyed.

Saying that the house was destroyed doesn’t mean that the materials that composed the house have suddenly vanished. It means what it means, what we call the house is no more, there is something else in its place, rubble. At the same time, there is now rubble where previously there used to be none, so in that sense rubble has been created. This doesn’t imply that rubble popped into existence ex nihilo, but there used to be no rubble and now there is.

As long as there is change, or transformation, there is something new that wasn’t there before and there is something that was there but that is no more. That is, there is something created and something destroyed.

When people talk of destruction they usually don’t mean that matter/energy has vanished. They simply mean that something was there and now it isn’t there anymore. However there is a negative connotation associated with the word destruction, and the point of this thread is to show that it is unwarranted. Destruction isn’t inherently negative, but it can be. Just like creation.

Change is change, nothing else. Creation and destruction are forms given to change by human perception.

In the same way, good is a term given by human perception to agreeable things.

There would not be a creation or a destruction, or good and evil, if there were no human perception. However, there would be change in the absence of human perception. — Daniel

I would say change, creation, destruction, good and evil are all dependent on consciousness. Why would it mean for there to be change without the experience of change?

Why don't I see how their brain shivers are readying them to choose among which symbols to point at which objects? — bongo fury

That’s all thinking is to you? To you there is no fundamental difference between the way a human thinks and how a computer operates?

Why do some ‘shivers’ give rise to the experience of thought, while other shivers give rise to the experience of color, or to the experience of love?

Also presumably if you crack open their skull you will see a brain there, and you can measure its shivers all you want, you still won’t see its thoughts or its feelings.

The word "destruction" has a negative connotation. Try using the word "change" instead. Just a thought. — jgill

Yes it has a negative connotation, but it shouldn’t. It is not destruction itself that is negative, it is the destruction of something which may or may not be negative. If you have a parasite eating your flesh from the inside, I don’t think you would view the destruction of that parasite as negative.

Change is both a creation and a destruction, creation of what comes to be and destruction of what ceases to be. So it would be misguided to use change as a synonym for destruction.

Why isn't always a legitimate question. Just because you can ask the question, doesn't mean there is an answer to it. — ChatteringMonkey

Why would it be legitimate to ask how matter behaves, but not why it behaves the way it does?

There is an answer to it. There is just a refusal to accept that answer.

Why do we do anything? Because we choose to. Choice is part of the universe. As much as what we see.

It is not possible to explain why matter behaves the way it does without a choice, either a consciousness making the choice to force matter to behave that way, or matter itself making that choice.

The alternative is the refusal to explain it. Which is a choice too. The answer exists, whether we accept it or not is a choice.

If say the universe is just material stuff and only created consciousness on earth as a result of biological life evolving there, then for the larger part of the universe the why-question is a meaningless question, because it pertains to meaning and purposes, which presupposes some kind biological life and consciousness that is capable of generating meaning. — ChatteringMonkey

How could material stuff that has no meaning or purpose, and that behaves the way it does without meaning or purpose, create something that has meaning and purpose?

How could something that is unconscious create something that is conscious?

It is mind-boggling to me that people are willing to accept the idea that something unconscious can create something conscious with the ability to make choices, but scoff at the idea that something conscious can create something unconscious which doesn't make choices.

Those who make the first choice have a God too, they call it Matter. Their God who has created them is unconscious, and does what he does for no reason at all. And they see themselves as the result of that, meaningless pieces of stuff in a meaningless world that goes wherever it goes for no reason at all. And to see themselves as that, that is a choice.

Which we could rightly see as an anthropocentric choice. They see themselves as meaningless, so they project that meaninglessness into everything.

God usually serves as a stop to the infinite regress of causation. It seems to me that this only tells us something about a desire we have for meaning and a first cause, and nothing about the veracity of it. — ChatteringMonkey

And some people seem to have a desire for meaninglessness that trumps everything else. Matter is a God too which serves as a stop to the infinite regress. The stop to the regress is that the Matter God did all he did and does all he does for no reason at all.

You have a choice between a meaningful God and a meaningless God, you can't escape that choice. When you refuse to see meaning you're making a choice already.

The one who created you, is he conscious or not? Does he have a purpose or not?

The laws of nature are aggregate regularities we discover from how matter interacts with matter. You could off course always ask, why it has the properties it has, or why do those properties interact in the particular way they do.

And we can't really know, because there are limits to what we can observe, and we also can't step outside of this universe to compare it to some other set of universes. — ChatteringMonkey

Here is the interesting thing : let’s say you could step outside of this universe into other universes in which matter behaves differently. Let’s say you came up with some greater law of nature that encompasses how matter behaves in different universes. That still wouldn’t answer the question why does matter behave the way it does? Laws of nature describe, they answer the how, not the why.

No matter how matter behaves, there is the fundamental question why does it behave in that way? And ultimately the answer to that question is that something is choosing to make matter move that way. Either some higher consciousness is choosing that, or matter itself is choosing that.

If we want to answer the ‘why’ there is no escape from that answer. Because the other alternative is to leave the ‘why’ unanswered forever.

I don't know why matter ultimately has the properties it has. But higher consciousness, or God is no explanation IMO, because it just shift the question one step further to that higher consciousness. — ChatteringMonkey

It shifts the question one step further and then finally reaches an end. Why does a consciousness choose to do something rather than some other thing? It may have reasons, but the ultimate reason is : because it can. If it couldn’t it wouldn’t. It can, and it chooses to. A consciousness has the power to create and to choose. And consciousness is an inherent part of the universe.

Why are we so afraid of that answer? Why would we prefer an absence of answer, a fundamental meaninglessness, over that answer? Essentially choosing to refuse that answer is choosing meaninglessness over meaning. Yet the very act of choosing is meaningful. Meaning exists and it’s there, in us and all around us.

I can't move my laptop with my thoughts, I can get rendered unconscious when I get hit in the head hard enough, I feel my consciousness changing when I drink to much, I do not see any signs of consciousness in rocks or things without brains etc etc... All of these things I do know, and it points to the physical having an effect on consciousness, more than the other way around. Even if we would assume consciousness is inherent in the universe, that still doesn't explain any of these particular experiences. — ChatteringMonkey

The outside has an effect on the inside, and the inside has an effect on the outside. They are interrelated. The physical and consciousness are interrelated. There are things beyond your consciousness that have an effect on your consciousness, and you have an effect on things beyond your consciousness.

You do see that your choices have an effect on the world around you. It’s not just the world around you having an effect on you.

from what I gathered directly deriving larger scale emergent properties for more basic laws is, at this point anyway, only possible for a select few things. I could dig up references for this if you insist. — ChatteringMonkey

If you want. But there is a widespread misconception surrounding ‘emergence’. For instance people are told that liquid water is water molecules in rapid motion. That the property of wetness, that is water sticking temporarily to a surface, emerges (can be derived) from the motion of these molecules. That’s true. But the property of wetness is not the feeling of wetness. Every emergent property that can be derived from fundamental laws of motion is never a feeling, a conscious experience.

Then one might say if we take the skin and the nerves and the brain into account we might derive the emergence of the feeling of wetness. No, we will only derive the emergence of electrical patterns going from the skin through the brain, we will not derive that these patterns feel like anything at all.

So the fact that macroscopic patterns can emerge from microscopic patterns has no bearing on the fact that conscious experiences can’t emerge from laws of motion. Consciousness is one of the basic building blocks of the universe.

If all there was is stuff that moves and which doesn’t require a consciousness to move, then why is there consciousness at all?

On top of that, every single observation that we make about the ‘world’ involves consciousness, our own, so it seems preposterous to pretend that we can describe the whole world without involving consciousness as something fundamental.

What physics does is describe the content of our consciousness, describing that content cannot explain the origin of that content. Also physics only focuses on a small part of that content (what we call sight/hearing/smell/...) and arbitrarily assumes that all the rest somehow derives from it (emotions, thought, will, ...) instead of seeing it all as equally important.

And the fundamental laws of physics can never explain where these laws themselves come from, so they can’t be the whole story. There is a choice behind these laws.

perpetuating the myth of an internal world. — bongo fury

"Conscious" is what we call certain kinds of thinking, which are real brain shivers. Those kinds of thinking cause us to indulge fictions about an internal world, which are fictional. — bongo fury

If there is no internal world, why don’t you see what other people think? They don’t really think? You’re a solipsist?

But if we know how something moves, we know its configuration right? — ChatteringMonkey

Yes.

So if we figure out what configurations of matter produce consciousness, then you could 'in principle' derive when consciousness would arise because you can derive the configuration from those equations of motion. — ChatteringMonkey

One problem is that our physical senses do not perceive what is conscious and what is not. We don’t perceive other human beings to be conscious, we assume them to be. We would need a sense that would show us what they feel and think.

If you’re conscious then you at least know that your own configuration of matter (yourself) is conscious, but another problem here is that you don’t know whether what you perceive is an accurate picture of reality. So you could say that your configuration of matter is conscious, but what that configuration is exactly you don’t know. You only have an image of that configuration, a potentially very limited and flawed image. There again you would need some extraordinary, transcendental sense in order to know whether that image is accurate and complete.

So we would need a perception that we don’t currently have in order to figure out what configurations of matter are conscious. The ability to see what others feel or think, and the ability to know whether we see an accurate image of matter.


But apart from these problems let’s go with your idea anyway, let’s assume that consciousness is matter configured in a certain way. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, let’s also go with the idea that the laws of nature do not dictate how matter moves, that they are only descriptions of how matter moves.

Now, if there is nothing that constrains or forces matter to move the way it does, why does it move that way? Either matter decides on its own to move that way (hence it is conscious in the first place), or you have a bunch of unconscious matter moving in a specific, regular way for no reason at all. Unconscious matter moving in a regular way for no reason at all, and then for no reason at all it becomes conscious when it happens to arrange itself in some configuration.

Which story is the most incredible really? When you think about it. Some higher consciousness who makes matter move in a regular way? Matter being conscious and choosing on it own to move that way? Or unconscious matter moving in a regular way for no reason at all and becoming conscious for no reason at all?

I suppose it’s possible to cling to the third story, but man it seems the most implausible to me.

I don't see how this should necessarily be any different than any other property matter gets at larger scales, you also need to know what configurations give what properties, which isn't given in the laws of motion themselves. — ChatteringMonkey

The laws of motion do not tell us how something is going to feel, they don’t deal with consciousness at all. But the large scales properties of matter are derivable from the laws of motion. For instance you can derive from the laws of motion that on large scales chunks of matter eventually aggregate into large spherical objects, and when the density is high enough the internal motions lead a bunch of photons to be released in all directions, and you have a star, that is a large spherical object that emits a bunch of photons.

The laws of motion can describe how photons that reach your skin are going to modify the motions of the molecules that compose your skin, how this is going to lead electrons to travel from your skin through your nerves towards your brain and how they are going to move in your brain, but they cannot tell you that your brain or your skin or your body is feeling anything.

And if you say that a specific configuration of matter is conscious, you don’t explain what it is about that configuration that makes it conscious. If motion can produce consciousness, then it isn’t just motion, there is something more in there. It isn’t just unconscious matter in motion. Unconscious matter in motion is just unconscious matter in motion. There is something more.

There are many things we can't mathematically derive from basic theories of physics. To give but one example, we cannot derive from these equations when and how a storm will come. But nobody thinks that we are invoking magic when we say that the patterns of a storm are ultimately just matter behaving according to the basic laws of physics. It's just to complex to calculate precisely how that works from the ground up. — ChatteringMonkey

With sufficiently accurate measurements and computing power you could. You could predict when and where there is going to be lightning (photons and electrons moving in a specific way) and so on. But even with infinite accuracy you couldn’t predict from equations of motion that some configuration of physical entities is going to be conscious. You can only predict how that configuration is going to move. That’s the key point you keep missing. Equations of motion, which are at the heart of physical theories, only describe how things move.

Knowing perfectly how things move would allow you to derive when there is going to be a storm, but not that some configuration of matter is going to become conscious. Do you not see that? You will derive how each part of that configuration is going to move, that’s it.

You expect the physicalist to give an exact account of how consciousness arises from a physical universe, but then invariably fail to give the same kind of detailed and accurate account for your alternative theory. — ChatteringMonkey

If the truth is that consciousness was always there, how do you want me to explain how consciousness arose? It was always there.

Physicalism doesn’t explain how matter arose in the first place, but on top of that it cannot explain how consciousness arose.

or consciousness just is the action of a brain, in the same way that walking just is the actions of legs. So there is no need for any strong emergence, weak emergence is enough. — bert1

In saying that, there is the idea that matter itself can generate images, feelings, thoughts. That matter has this ability. So in that view matter is more than stuff that has the ability to move. It is stuff that has the ability to move AND the ability to be conscious.

But physical theories don’t take into account that second ability. They only consider and describe the first one, the ability to move. And they can never derive the second ability from the first one. The two are fundamental. That’s what is missing from physics.

The universe is made of stuff that has the ability to move and to be conscious. With our eyes we only perceive that ability to move. We don’t see with our eyes what others feel or think, we only see a part of them, the part of them that moves. And if we take into account only that part, as physicalists do, we’re missing a fundamental part of the picture.

Consciousness comes from matter being configured in a certain way. — ChatteringMonkey

You assume. You don’t know that.

And no, i'm not going to tell you how that exactly works, because nobody really can at this moment. But the fact that we don't know exactly how it works at this point, doesn't mean that no such explanation exists. — ChatteringMonkey

You can’t explain how consciousness can arise from matter. I can explain how it cannot.

A physical theory boils down to equations that relate how fundamental physical entities move. Logically you cannot derive from equations of motion that a configuration of physical entities will perceive anything. All you can derive is approximately where these entities will be. More accurate measurements or equations only will improve these approximations. If you start from a physical theory you will never be able to derive consciousness. You will always have to say “no one knows how that works but maybe in the future we will”. Well it can’t work. You have to invoke magic in order to have consciousness arising from matter.

No, only biological (or other yet undiscovered) life has the ability to perceive... you need a sense organ to be able to perceive, and most of the universe doesn't have such organ. — ChatteringMonkey

Again, you assume. You don’t know that. You assume consciousness arises from matter while logically it cannot, unless you ascribe to matter some magical properties but then it isn’t matter. And if you ascribe such properties to matter then you surely can’t tell what is required to have the ability to perceive. If you can’t explain how consciousness arises from matter then you surely can’t tell what is needed or not to have the ability to perceive.

the laws that humans make are not like the laws of nature.

The laws of nature do not "constrain the universe". They describe the (physical) universe. In a sense, the laws of nature and the universe are one and the same. What we call "laws" are really descriptions, and they only constrain our ideas about the universe (most notably our predictions) not the universe itself. — Echarmion

If you agree that the laws of nature describe the universe, then you must agree that these laws themselves cannot create anything, they cannot inject consciousness into matter, they cannot provide matter with the ability to perceive.

So if the laws themselves don’t do that, what does? Unconscious matter spontaneously becomes conscious, magically? That’s what you have to admit, if you assume that the universe wasn’t conscious in the past.


Regarding laws of humans and laws of nature : humans follow the laws of humans most of the time, from an outside point of view one could say these laws are only descriptions of how humans behave but they don’t constrain humans. If a human is observed to break a human law, one could put that observation into the list of “unexplained phenomena” that one hopes to be able to explain in the future. Or one could say these laws were only approximations and come up with more accurate laws. Isn’t that what we do with matter?

The difference is that we know how to break some laws of humans but we don’t know how to break laws of nature. Or maybe miracles are what happens when humans manage to break these laws.

Consider this, a universe devoid of stars and planets gave rise to stars and planets, even though stars and planets weren't injected from outside of the universe. This doesn't seem like it's a problem in this case... why would consciousness be any different? — ChatteringMonkey

Assume a universe initially devoid of consciousness, which behaves according to laws of motion. While being constrained by these laws, various parts of the universe can assemble into approximately spherical configurations (stars, planets) and into many other shapes. These shapes are within the realm of what is permitted by these laws. But what would make any of these configurations conscious? If there was no consciousness initially, and the laws themselves do not inject consciousness, where would consciousness come from?

In such a universe, its parts have the ability to move, but not the ability to perceive. And indeed consciousness, the ability to perceive, is fundamentally different from the ability to move. The ability to perceive must have been part of the universe from the beginning, for us to have this ability now. Rather than consciousness magically arising out of non-consciousness, there was a initial consciousness that arranged itself into various configurations, various conscious beings.

Take your favorite physical theory. It refers to fundamental physical entities and relate them through equations, which dictate how these entities move. These entities do not perceive anything. There is no way to derive from these equations that a combination of these entities will perceive anything. In order to have a combination of these entities that perceives something, you need to inject consciousness (the ability to perceive) at some point, which is not a physical entity.

Hence physicalism is nonsense.

I see why I didn't pursue philosophy in school . . . :roll: — jgill

Because you don’t like to pursue truth?

The point is that destruction isn’t inherently bad, contrary to popular belief. Maybe you need to overcome that belief too.

I disagree with the generality of this statement. As an example, I recently "created" a "form" in mathematics that simply extends a particular kind of function. Nothing is destroyed in this process. As to whether this creation is of any importance, I admit it is quite unimportant. :chin: — jgill

Did you write it down on a blank sheet of paper? Then you destroyed the blankness of that sheet. Did you visualize it in your mind? Then you destroyed whatever it is you were visualizing before. And if you published that form, then you destroyed the state that mathematics was in before the introduction of that form.

You say you created something because you focus on what comes to be, the field of mathematics that includes this "form". If you focus on what ceased to be, the field of mathematics without that "form", you would say you destroyed something. But really you both created and destroyed something. Change is a simultaneous creation/destruction.

Simply stated, let's say you add something to a painting. You may say you created a new painting. But you also destroyed the former painting in the process.

Every creation is a destruction. And more is not always better.

I would say one of the more fundamental dualities is that of attraction and repulsion. If all things attracted one another everything would be reduced to a point. If all things repelled one another there wouldn’t be any star, planet, mammal, plant, bacterium, molecule, atom. The interplay between attraction and repulsion is at the heart of this world.

But at the same time I find it depressing, so bad things will happen anyway... — Philosophuser

Bad things will happen ... good things will happen too. If more good things happen than bad things, or if the good things more than compensate for the bad ones, then why would it be so depressing that bad things will happen?

You don’t have total control over your life anyway. Some other beings make choices that have an influence over your life and that you can’t control. But there is a lot you can control. And you can control how what happens makes you feel.

If everything was under your control, there would never be any surprise. I don’t think you would like a life where you control everything. There would be something missing in that life. The uncertainty. The adventure. Without the suffering there would be no incentive to change or to learn or to evolve.

Find the good in the apparently bad things. There is always some good in them. There is much more good than you think, it’s there all around, and the more you see it the more beautiful life becomes in your eyes.

The reason why this depressed me is because most of people believe that there are infinite parallel universes with a lot of versions of "you", with variations, some of then could had won the lottery, but some could have a hard life... I had never paid so much attention to this because, well, they are just not "you", even if they are identical, they are other persons with different lifes, you experience different things... But with this idea of BU, are they more different than the versions of your past/future? Are there reasons for care about to your future "you" and not to the others? — Philosophuser

The Block Universe itself could be a bit disturbing, but it's awful when think in the multiverse... If there are infinite universes, in some of then versions of you could have a lot of suffering... I had never think this "versions" were you, they are like other people, but with the implications of the BU, why are they more different than your future you? — Philosophuser

Maybe this can help a little bit ...

You will get to experience your future “you”, so if you want your future “you” to be a pleasant experience try your best to make that happen.

The idea that there are infinite parallel universes is an idea, not necessarily the truth. Within that idea, the alternate “you” in the alternate universes presumably have made different choices than you have, so they are partly responsible for the life they experience over there. Maybe some of them did their best and they get a shit life, well that happens in this universe too. But there isn’t much you can do about alternate versions of you who have a shit life in parallel universes. However there are probably things you can do to make the life of people in this universe a little bit better. This can be your own life or that of the people around you, or both.

You can also think of the idea that maybe the other people in this universe are also alternate versions of “you” that you will get to experience at some point.

Bottom line is, there is stuff you can do in this universe, so do what you can here and don’t worry too much about parallel universes that may not exist and that you can’t do anything about.

You can also see suffering as something that is not entirely bad, there is some good in it. Suffering is sometimes necessary to understand some things, to grow in some way. So even if you or alternate versions of you suffer, it’s not necessarily bad for them down the road, even if it may appear so while the suffering is being endured.

If everything was easy, there would be something missing wouldn’t it? Aren’t the most beautiful stories the ones that contain hardships? But a story is judged as a whole from start to finish, you can’t just read a page that contains a lot of suffering and say oh this is depressing this is a bad book. Wait to read the whole thing, and then see how it all fits together. And maybe you will come to see that it couldn’t have been written any better.

When you sense something, isn't the thing sensed, in the past by the time that it is sensed? This is how we came to know that light moves faster than sound. You see something in the distance, then the sound of that follows. But still, light takes some time, so the thing seen (experienced) is in the past by the time that it is experienced. — Metaphysician Undercover

What you experience you experience now. If you assume that what you experience is an image of what was in the past, you're still experiencing that image now. It is in that way that I mean we only experience the present.

Also, there is nothing experienced without an experiencer, so in my view it is meaningless to talk of how things are while abstracting out the experiencer.

I think our experience is really of the past and of the future. Think of anticipation in general. It is a natural instinct to expect the future. How could you anticipate unless you somehow knew there is a future. And how could you know there is a future unless you somehow were experiencing it. — Metaphysician Undercover

Interesting ... yes we do experience change, which involves a comparison between different moments. It's true there is a part of what we experienced that remains, and some of what we anticipate that we do end up experiencing. Well the anticipation is an experience itself, but we do have that ability to distinguish between what we call past and future.

If we say we're only ever experiencing a changing present, there is implicitly a notion of past and future in it. So yes I suppose we could say we don't experience a succession of instantaneous "nows", but a chunk of time that is evolving.

This would make sense, but it requires a mechanism which propels one along through time. So when you think about it, it makes a lot more sense to conceive of actual time passing in an active world, then to conceive of a mechanism propelling human beings through a static world. Consider all the scientific evidence which indicates that time was passing and things were changing prior to the existence of human beings. How does it make sense to think that the physical world was arranged in such a way so as to make it appear to us like time was passing and things were changing before human existence, but things were really static without some conscious being, actively being propelled through this simulation? And now, if you accept that this is a simulation, and change was not really occurring, you need to explain this mechanism which is exclusive to the human being, and propels the human being through this fixed world. — Metaphysician Undercover

It isn't really that the being would be propelled through time. Also it wouldn't be exclusive to the human being it would apply to all beings that experience.

If you agree with the idea that we experience a chunk of time, then that means the past and future are at least partly determined. Now consider the idea that the whole past and future of all beings are already determined. And that they are all occurring simultaneously. Meaning the future and past "you" exist now, but not just one of each, an immense number of them, maybe an infinity, and they're all experiencing their limited chunk of time that is evolving, all flowing towards the end of the story that is already predetermined. And for it to be a continuous whole, the end would also be the start. Your story wouldn't start with your birth some decades ago and end some decades in the future, it would be much grander than that, we are more than material beings, much more than that.

The end of the story would be all beings realizing and experiencing how everything is connected and all reunited into the One infinite consciousness that they belong to. But the end of that story would be occurring at the same time as all the other parts of that story. And the end would circle back to the beginning. And the whole of that, that eternal whole would be what is timeless and perfect.