Comments

  • Is Suicide always irrational and immoral?
    I think that it is a mistake to say that something so extreme as suicide can be moral.
    I do not think that your life is a gift or even that has been given to me and I also believe that Morality is strongly attached to the moment in history, place and circumstance of every and each act so by saying that I cannot say that All of something is wrong or right.
    The problem with suicide is that it can be said that most of the times it is caused by an extreme condition or an extreme circumstance (It is also worth saying that suicides like someone in your house say that if you don't suicide they you murder your children is not an actual "suicide" because it was directly caused by an impossible decision) and it is logical that every extreme situation that happens needs to be dissected and given thought before any decision or actions take place.

    On the other hand in a world of chaotic situations with absurd decisions made by people that don't really care can take a man to think that he is powerless and that none of his decisions will change anything, by looking at it this way it is possible to think about someone that did not choose when to be born, did not choose when to grow, did not choose what to be, did not choose your family.... to finally choose when to die.

    In conclusion, I would state that all human life is equally important and that suicide is never an answer because it does not solve any of the problems that it may lead the person to it...
    Suicide may never fit in moral or immoral standards and it should not be considered logical or illogical it is that last decision that a person will ever make and to be tackled logically it should be considered every second of the person existence that utterly lead her to the moment
  • Useful knowledge vs. scientific knowledge
    You are right it feels incomplete because you are right to say that you do not need to know how chemistry work to make a cake you just need the right instructions and for the biggest part of society that is work just fine. But you will always have someone that you ask you Why and that is the magical word that gave us the capacity to evolve (technologically) Why.
    Some people make the mistake of saying that we are stagnated in science and that before we were smarter and that people in the past had a better understanding of existence, they come and say names like Newton, Albert, Pythagoras and Etc, but what people fail to understand is that there were billions of people that lived with those guys but they never care to ask why...
    And you know what, that is just fine as long as there are guys that ask why and make discoveries and create new ways of doing things so that we can continue to make the cake (a better, bigger, tastier cake) everything gonna work.
  • Important Unknowns
    You say that someone cannot be sure about the Non-Existence of the deity (any deity) but that is simply not true, is perfectly possible to prove a negative but the thing is, it is not necessary, nobody needs to "debunk" the existence of God because nobody has proven his/her existence in first place.
    The problem is what you consider to be God...The Christian God? all-powerful, all-knowing in all places? So that would be a being that can do anything but doesn't do anything because he doesn't want to interfere but at the same time, he dictates who you should marry and what you should eat, the being that is all love but if you have sex before marriage you will burn throughout eternity?
    Or maybe you talking about the Egyptians Gods, so now when you die you can take your employees and your money to the afterlife but at the gate, your heart will be weighed against a feather.
    Or maybe you talking about a God that no human knows it but feels it and IT can do whatever whenever ignoring all rules of physics and chemistry.

    But as you say there is no amount of logic and evidence that will convince someone that there is no god simply because they do not understand the evidence... and because of the complexity that the universe seems to have the only explanation is that something superior did it.

    I have a different question for you mate, what would be an absolute proof that God does not exist?
    Because for me absolute proof of God's existence would a simple hello.
  • Equanimity, as true happiness.
    I personally believe that all happiness comes from the acceptance that there is no true happiness.
    The concept of a moment in your existence where you will be truly happy is as illusionary as the concept of "the one true magic trick", and the catch is that there is none because the phrase already states that if a trick.
    And the reason for you to never have to be truly happy is that you require the none happiness to understand happiness and if you know the dark there is no way that you would enjoy living in an all-white room.
  • Why there must be free will
    The problem with free will is that you cannot have it if you exist...
    Your person is a compilation of the things that you lived and your tastes, so all your decision making all your free will is the sum of things that you did not choose or control, think about it like a poker game the dealer gives you your cards and than you can as you choose to play it and if you think that reacting is free will than you are correct but In my opinion the absolut of freedom is the possibility of not playing at all.
  • The basics of free will
    All types of "Freedom" can be considered infinite paradoxes.
    Can you choose to not have freedom? Because if you can you will not have freedom after all and if you cant you already don't have it.

    But If you talking about the Christian concept of the Divine provided Free will than that brings it to a whole new discussion about how a God that knows what choices you will make can give you options that he knows that you will not pick.
  • Zeno and Immortality
    Time in itself is relative to the experiencer, exactly because infinity is relative, there are infinite numbers between 0 and 1, but it is intrinsical that there are more numbers between 0 and 2 and if you apply the same logic to all types of infinity including Time you will realize that every second is a mathematical impossibility of an infinite amount if infinities happening (what is the last number before 1 second? would it be 0,0000000001? or 0,00000000000000001 or even 1X10^-8474?) Living is an improbability, the odds of existence are so incredibly low but yet it feels so certain that is scary so finally Living is being immortal (at least to some degree)
  • There is no Real You.
    The question "Why would you even ask that?" or "What is the reason to ask such things".

    I would say that the short answer is peace.
    Because once that you truly understand that the "real you" is an actor that simply act the universe and there is no true difference between you and everything.
    You are always part of something, not just anything but all that there is and that personally gives me some peace.
  • We Don't Matter
    There is only one problem with your hypothesis and that is because you are using the human perspective to describe the non-human.

    Its the same as saying that the universe is bad because it sent a meteorite to hit the earth and kill the dinosaurs, the Universe is not bad or good, lonely or sad because those are human descriptions of the human condition.

    But now.
    The same can be said of the opposite of your proposition if we are the ones that decide what matter and what doesn't, we can say that we are the only thing that matter in the entire universe and you can even argue that things only exist because we are there to observe and that brings us to the old question....
    If a tree falls on a forest where there is nothing to contemplate its fall does it make a sound?
  • The eternity Problem
    My point is that, as long as there are "things" to learn and do they must be Finite and if you have an infinite amount of time it is categorical that you run out of things, so the only way to not face that problem is to have an infinite capacity and that would make you God.
  • The Paradox of the invention.
    yes it was, tried and falied thousants of times throughout history, it became pointless, technology is exponential and I personaly belive in the Technological singularity and I belive that things like time and space will be one of the "final barriers"
  • The Paradox of the invention.
    So was flying on 1900 and we landed on the moon in 1969...
  • The Paradox of the invention.
    I share your beliefs, time is unstoppable and it already considers any "time adventures" that may happen.
  • The Paradox of the invention.
    All paradoxs are fiction it is just interesting to think about it, but at the same it implicates some incredible insights on multi verso and the expation of all things.
  • The reason why the runaway railitruck dilemma is problematic to some.
    I agree with @Terrapin Station I do not see as dilemma at all and I would go as far as saying that even when you introduce the ideia of family in the middle of the victims I would still act and I would sleep ok at night... ( It was a variation of the problem when the "lonely person" is actually part of your close family), in a normal situation I would Choose the 1 person but in the new scenario I would choose to leave the train hit the 5 people.
  • The paradox of Death
    This line doesn't make sense. How could "not being" be our original form? The very fact that there is a form to talk about implies something exists and therefore implies being.
    -@czahar

    I understand your confusion and I do apologize, what I ment by original form is that we spent most of the time of the universe not being here, we were technically "not being", in the same way that it is impossible for a being to remember the moments before they were born we will not 'remeber' the time as dead, because it is simply not a experience
  • The paradox of Death
    It therefore seems to be a better conceptualization that biological entities want to live than that they "concioussly" fear death and therefore "flee" in to trying to stay alive based on their thoughts.
    -- @CaZaNOx

    I would never attempt to judge the fear of dying, it is a evolutionary necessity of survival and it will never leave humans and it should not, we based our entire society and technology on the ideia of not dying, what I would like to present with this disscusion is the ideia that we Spent 99% of time itself "not being" and the ideia of death should not be treated as taboo or the evil end of a life, but simple the other side of being alive.
  • The paradox of Death
    But I am not talking about dying, but about death in itself.
  • The paradox of Death
    When we think that experience is only dictaded by what our Brains decide... If you have no memory of walking from point A - B did you really walked? in the logical way yes, in a metaphyscal way It does not matter... our concept of what it is, is based on what it was. If you were on a dark room for Billions of years you are existing and that runs from the ideia of not existing and that is way is impossible, everything in this universe comes in pairs because that is the fabric in what our universe expand on it, so if you are trully in a blackout box and you can feel it you are being (in a unconventional way) but you are, Death is the opposite of Life not a variation of it. There is no way to describe nothingness because is the absence of everything, even a thought is a disturbence of nothingness and by defition stop being "not being"
  • The paradox of Death
    that is a very complex subject that you approached and it brings us back to the argument of the paradox of what is being, (the old complex of understanding of who you are... Are you who you present? or are you who you consider yoursef? Because both questions may have very logical anwsers to it) I classified my personal experience in each moment as proofs of my existence and exactly because memories cannot be trusted I use my preset rationality to define my very existence.
  • The paradox of Death
    That is absolute true, the very necessity of trying to understand the end is a symptom of fear of it but because we are above anything curious of nature, death is a undetailable subject to discuss... and the understanding of it may bring some comfort to such delicade creatures as we are.