Sure we can. You’re right that you don’t have access to everything. But then again, the kinds of subjects that philosophy covers tend to be associated with conscious attention and intention. It’s also true that the more aware you become, the more of your unconscious mental activity becomes conscious. — T Clark

Nope, not how it works. The fact that it's unconscious means you cannot be aware of it, no matter how much more aware you become. It's out of the scope. Vision is one example of this, you brain predicts what might happen based on past data and corrects for errors, but you cannot tell. To you it seems seamless, that's something no amount of awareness will change.

Philosophy's "purpose" is flourishing –
to understand and practice aligning expectations (i.e. judgments) with reality. — 180 Proof

Funny how it manages to do the opposite of that, especially when philosophers can't agree on reality.

As opposed to the assumption that we don't know what being out of the cave looks like... — Banno

That's kinda the point. We imagine the cave and what we think being out of it looks like, but the reality is we can never know. Pretty sure solipsism pointed that one out.

My preferred interpretation of W's statement is that the fly bottle is something the fly has contrived and by which it mistakenly thinks of itself as apart from the rest of the world instead of a part of the world. So, showing it the way out would include correcting misconceptions, e.g. the belief in an "external world" which can't truly be known, mind/body and other dualisms. The fly bottle is self-imposed. — Ciceronianus

That doesn't really track. You mention belief in an external world that can't be known and yet showing it the way out as if there is an "out" of it and mind/body dualism was pretty much disproven with modern neuroscience. But the external world can be known, more or less, and if not it's a safe assumption to make (also how would it be a misconception?). That's not really leading out of the bottle though so much as keeping them in one. But also if you are arguing the "external world cannot be known" then there is no "world" for it to be part of. In that sense the bottle is inescapable.

Hence why your statement doesn't really follow.

Also the bottle being a part of the world doesn't make it any less trapping. You aren't really correcting misconceptions so much as putting others in it's place.

The fly bottle isn't self imposed either, it's representative of the cave a la Plato, and suffers from the same problems. That being we assume we know what being out of it looks like. But as I said you're just going from one bottle into another.

I think his quote is made in the sense that he is largely ignorant of how philosophy is.

Nope, just nothing.

I really don't think I can add further, except commenting on your post. You mentioned that plenty of animals think. Could you please give me an example of an animal with the capacity to think? You also mentioned that the meaning of life is both a thought and a feeling, which, of course, does not mean anything at all. — MoK

It does mean something, it means the meaning of life is our invention, we created the concept.

Also as for animals that can think, crows for one. Pigs. Most primates, there are many others. Sounds like you don't see how not special humans are in that department.

Also, elephants mourn their dead. You're making this quite easy. Surely you could do a bit of research? — Outlander

It just sounds like they think humans are the exception when recent research into animals has shown that we are not special in much of what we do.

There are many alternative possibilities as well. Perhaps we were made by a being that no longer exists. Perhaps we succeeded in our purpose, whatever it may have been, and now get to live unhindered by our past duties. It gets a bit hard to keep track of when you step over the logical edge like that and like most religions require, of course so generally isn't very productive in traditional philosophy.

Would you agree that if it were an absolute fact humanity simply evolved organically over millions of years, and the modern human is the most advanced and intelligent being in this and any universe, human life has in fact no real purpose? That is to say, no other purpose than that of a mosquito or a common cold germ? (That "purpose" being simply to propagate DNA) — Outlander

It's not really a matter of that, there seems to be no purpose to life and as such we are able to make one. It looks to be that simple.

You're not really stepping over any logical edges with those "possibilities" (to be generous) since they end the same way, where we are now. That being there seems no purpose so we make one. Everything else you've said is mostly noise.

Being mortal doesn't really make one less capable of understanding life as being immortal, and whether we are able to or not remains to be seen. Maybe there is nothing to get after all, who really knows? Maybe it is just what one makes of it? Doesn't really seem to matter much which people go with.

It is correct. You cannot explain the meaning of life using thought and feeling. Otherwise, you need to explain it using thoughts and feelings to me. As I said, if there is such a thing as the meaning of life, then we are not able to experience it since we are not cognitively evolved well, similar to animals that didn't evolve in order to have thoughts, but feelings only. — MoK

It's not though, the meaning of life is both a thought and a feeling, that doesn't mean I can explain it as such. Plenty of books have also been written about the meaning of life so again you're just wrong.

Also it's not true the animals didn't evolve to have thoughts, plenty do. There is also nothing to suggest that the meaning of life is something we cannot experience because we are not cognitively evolved well.

The meaning of life is a human invention, nothing more. Hence why I said it's thoughts and feelings.

If so, then what else matters most? — 180 Proof

Nothing.

I have come to see that philosophy is a practice like meditation, exercise, learning musical instruments, tai chi, martial arts, and similar enterprises. As with all such practices, the goal is self-awareness. Philosophy is a practice that focuses on becoming more aware of our internal mental processes. This is certainly how it is for me. — T Clark

Well we can't really be aware of our internal mental processes since much of it happens unconsciously.

I like what Wittgenstein said about the purpose of philosophy: "To show the fly the way out of the fly bottle." — Ciceronianus

The irony though is that philosophy also shows there is no way out of the bottle. Rather philosophy is more getting into someone else's bottle (which is sorta what he's doing with the remark, albeit unknowingly).

then is the purpose of philosophy showing the way out, or shaking the bottle? — Banno

Not really, it shows that you can never really know if you're out of it. Plato's cave is fine and all but the assumption in there is that we know what being out of the cave looks like. The painful reality is that like 50 different thinkers all believe they know what's outside the cave.

For me, reducing philosophy to the "why" is a simplification. But there is something interesting implicit in what you have said. To say why the "why" is important is to say that in order to do justice to philosophy in terms of its goal and purpose, you must do more philosophy. For example, my idea of what philosophy is (the discovery of problems) is linked to the ontology I adhere to (the virtual, the problematic and the actual). This is why different philosophers, according to their own philosophy, have different ideas about what philosophy is and what it is for. There is no single answer to what philosophy is; it depends on the philosophy from which you position yourself. In other words, meta-philosophy is philosophical in itself. — JuanZu

Well you could just become a Pyrrhonist and say "nuts to all that".

I would think not crazy but prone to generalization and using arguments by jumping to conclusions, unsupported claims like like everyone is a philosopher and historical accounts that have been proven inconclusive or just outright inaccurate. — L'éléphant

Yeah, I was never really good at telling when people online are bullshitting or not. That or I'm so easily impressed I just accept it because they have pictures and big words so they must know

That's generally the main issue I hear people talk about with philosophy, it doesn't really enhance our lives.

For me, philosophy consists of discovering problems. A problem is discovered in the unthought-of relationships between objects, situations, beliefs, systems of thought, etc., about which concepts are invented. This can be done in a profound or superficial way. But the more profound the philosophy, the more problematic it is. Philosophers train themselves by reading other authors in order to discover problems that require an updating of the virtual. The problem of justice encompasses subjects, social relations, legislation, ethics, and morals, all of which establish virtual relationships with each other that the philosopher must shape and update into new concepts that make you think differently through new concepts. — JuanZu

Well profound might be more open to interpretation than anything else. Plenty of things are problematic without being profound.

I wouldn't say it's discovering problems, more like wondering why. Then again that also raises the question of "why" does the why matter.

The meaning of life, if it exists, is not thoughts or feelings. It must be something that we are not able to experience, perhaps because we are not cognitively well-developed. Life does not have any purpose per se. Any intelligent creature, however, is able to define a purpose for his/her/its life. — MoK

I don't think that's true, that it's not thoughts or feelings since those things are where we get the notion of a meaning for life. There isn't anything saying it's something we are not able to experience.

We're passengers and crew on a great, ancient ship tossed about in an endless storm. What matters most, it seems to me, is deciding how we choose to spend whatever time we have. :death: — 180 Proof

That is not what matters most.

Well, can't be helped. There's an old cartoon, some guy typing away on his monitor, saying 'can't come to bed yet, dear, someone on the Internet is wrong about something.' As an old forum habitué that was a little too close to home ;-) — Wayfarer

It's not really that so much as wondering if there is a point that is valid or I'm just being incredibly gullible again. I don't have a good filter for what's right and wrong on the internet.

Fair enough. But I did notice that the thread was 6 years old. He might well have moved on. — Wayfarer

You say that but he cared enough to leave an (IMO "pissy" comment) when I questioned his notion of purpose in another thread I made so who knows TBH.

I cited the link because it's posted in the intro post he made, the one you upvoted. However that post seems to negate the one he made about what philosophy's purpose is.

I don't know, I guess it depends on interpretation. I think everyone is a philosopher in some sense insofar as they have accepted or rejected some set of values or other. — Janus

Yeah but if the bar is that low you could make the case for any sort of ticket machine being a philosopher since it "Accepts or rejects some set of values or other".

The point is more to examine the things that you hold and why you hold those to be true, that's generally the core of philosophy in my experience.

Completely different thread. But really, if you’re going to debate Quora threads why not do it on Quora? Do you expect the contributors here to weave between here and there just because there’s some question you want answered? — Wayfarer

Well judging by the last thread I made about it the dude doesn't really respond to any critiques of what he says so I want a second opinion from people a bit more versed in philosophy than me.

And it shows how the world we live in has changed. Up until recently, most notable philosophers wrote outside of academic environments and lived off of other jobs or inheritances. These include — Joshs

Right but the point in the link was that everyone is one which is what I disagree with. Most people I argue don't really think much about why things are the way they are.

Some philosophies argue such questions don't matter, which is ironic.

I'm going to assume that's sarcasm because in the same post he links to how all that is pointless:

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-profound-thought-that-you-have-had/answer/David-Moore-408?comment_id=487011320&comment_type=2

The use of the word "maturing" here is suspect. It is because according to historical accounts, maturity of the mind, similar to the conception of "modernity", does not differ among people thousands of years ago.

In fact, dating as far back as 200,000 years ago, one discovery that researchers have found is that, compassion and helpfulness have been around since the cave man era. There were evidence that members of a tribe had carried their wounded members to safety, not left them to die out in the field. — L'éléphant

Well part of me thinks he comes of as a crazy sage who's seen some truth because he uses words like semantics and syntax and cites Wittgenstein a lot, but when I look at other stuff of his it doesn't seem like that. like his stuff seems deep only if you don't know better

That's sorta what I meant when I told him in the "big picture" there is no purpose and he got majorly defensive, saying that:

What 'big picture'? If what 'you' are saying is correct then not only is every one of the 'words' in your comment merely a jumble of purposeless pixels but there's no 'comment' either - only a clump of coincidences that fell together like the mass of salty proteinaceous mush that just so happened to conduct enough current to 'think' it was 'clever' to be entirely contradictory in producing such a mess of meaninglessness.

Not only do you not understand what I've written - but by your own 'logic' you don't understand anything.

This is why I am sick of the internet. It continues to suggest to me that people aren't worth my time.

Oh, and of course - your fake profile is blank. I should have known.

To which I would reply, yes. Outside my head these words are not words, there is no comment, nothing like that.

It reminds me something of what Buddhism argues with not only the two truths doctrine but also:

Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.”

And to me it just reads like someone who cannot step out of the human perspective and recognize that all this is mostly for our benefit. Purpose is how we understand the world and reality, without us there is no purpose.

It's sorta like relative and ultimate reality in Buddhism

More than likely though I'm talking to someone who doesn't really understand the concepts he talks about as evidenced here: https://qr.ae/pCGCmB

There's a gap in his argument regarding 'man's search for meaning is the man's purpose'. I am also not satisfied with that. — L'éléphant

Yeah to me that just didn't track and his reply to me just sorta felt like a strawman.

I'm also not really sold on how he thinks we make meaning:

It merely refers to the fact that I, you, and all of us, are continually maturing. We evolve, and in that adaptive development over time we apportion significance to our experience in a manner that manifests as mood, motivation and morality.

Even his concluding remark isn't convincing that making meaning is our purpose:

If we think about it, regardless of what you believe about how man came to be, logotherapy (like all human endeavours) must be evolutionary. It develops in a progressively responsive manner, and even if we imagine that everything is a result of coincidental evolution, acting via complexity for complexity’s sake, then nevertheless we are left with man’s search for meaning occurring within that - which is as much a testament to the undeniable purpose of people as could ever be possible.

This was the link: https://www.amazon.com.au/Evolution-Everything-How-Ideas-Emerge/dp/0062296019

That said all that doesn't sound like purpose, it's just what we do. Heck existentialism was about how to deal with meaning in a meaningless universe. Camus had the best take on it and likely would have denied his arguments.

In fact I'd go further to say that we aren't searching for meaning so much as looking for a way to make it work.

I think you overstate the case ... though I agree with the gist of your comments but for a different reason:

Even if there is an ultimate "purpose", we cannot know it because we do not have an ultimate perspective – a god's eye view from nowhere – from which to perceive / conceive of the whole of reality; we are partial (i.e. ephemeral, proximal) beings for whom 'ultimates' (e.g. purpose with a capital "P") are merely illusions (i.e. "projections" ~Feuerbach, or "hollow idols" ~Niezsche, or "nostalgias" ~Camus ...) — 180 Proof

I have a hard time articulating my thoughts and everything just comes out at once, even though I know the point I'm trying to make.

My main point was that just because we do something doesn't necessarily make it a purpose and that even the language I use is just purposeless lines and pixels without me or someone else there to give them meaning.

In the exchange with him I feel like the word purpose was doing some heavy lifting and from his response he seemed defensive at the notion of things happening by accident, which if you know evolution they kinda do.

I just feel like he misunderstands the terms he uses

Agree with 180 proof.

We do not *know* there is no objective meaning to life, there's just no good evidence for such a thing at this time.

The OP is right though that that doesn't entail everything being meaningless let alone impacting epistemology. You can decide on your own meaning. And you can value this life for what it is. — Mijin

Well that was what I found odd about his reply to me, purpose not existing in the objective sense doesn't mean that we don't know anything or such. Though you could argue whether we know reality itself if all we have is our senses and models of it but I don't think that's what he's going for.

No, purpose is a property that is conferred by something external, it implies design. It's the reason the watchmaker analogy fails as an argument for god.

The fact that we make meaning doesn't mean it's our purpose, it's just what we do. It would be like arguing the purpose of gravity. Purpose can be something that we do but just because we do something does not make it our purpose.

Purpose exists in our heads and we project it onto the world because that's how we understand things, cause and effect. He seems to argue that because that is what we do that makes it our purpose yet that is easily proven false through the various philosophies that argue otherwise (Buddhism being one that comes to mind).

Meaning making is what we do, but just because we do it does not make it our purpose. Eating is what we do but our purpose is not to eat, rather you can argue eating serves a purpose (even that is debatable).

The problem is that we are taking something WE use to understand reality and try to apply it to everything when it doesn't work. He even gets evolution wrong by implying it's some sort of ladder.

He seems very opposed to things being an "accident".

I guess from the link he was trying to infer to some greater level of it and I disagreed with that notion. Like there is no objective purpose because purpose is something we create and how WE as humans understand the world, but that doesn't mean that it is reality.

Like I know we create it but if you read the link he seems to think we search for it.

But again I'm looking more for if my assessment was correct in my arguing against him (per the link)/

There’s no meaning but I think we’re here to enjoy life and learn from the experiences we go through. The question is why though … why do we accumulate countless experiences if we can’t take it with us when we die ?

From a theistic point of view though we’re a product of gods creative energy and there must be a reason why we’re here.

I think life is a big test and we’re here to test ourselves. — kindred

It can be whatever you want to be because there is no purpose to it. But I'm mostly referring to the argument I made in the link.

If we were all actually stuck in our subjectivity then how could numerous people - all prisoners of their own subjectivity - work together towards a common goal and actually succeed? How many people were involved in getting humans to the Moon? How many people in their separate departments and jobs came together to accomplish something above and beyond what they do in their own departments if our minds are only subjective in nature? I think that the distinction between objective and subjective is a false dichotomy. — Harry Hindu

I dunno, I just chalk it up to life’s complicated.

If im honest I don’t really have much to say about the nature of reality and all that. But I don’t think writing mind off as fiction it correct and you end up stuck in a briar patch if you go down that route.

I guess my stance is be like water.

It bugs me too. It's as if neurologists claim to have direct access to what it is to be me as "just chemicals" when they are only aware of this via their own subjective experiences of other people and their brains. It's as if neurologists are claiming to have some special power that the rest of us do not, in seeing everything as it is, even though they have the same limitations as everyone else in that we are prisoners of our subjectivity. — Harry Hindu

Well the was someone on here who claimed the mind is fiction or something, but that’s just wrong since our experience of reality itself is all mind. Our brains construct a simplified version of reality so we can navigate it, not to mention it’s constantly making predictions and overriding incorrect guesses. Even what you believe impacts what you experience or perceive. So I guess I can see your point.

Like…if mine isn’t reality then nothing is given what neuroscience says. But that’s obviously nonsense.

Though when I first learned that about our experience it threw me for a loop, but yeah mind is reality/nature (or whatever you call it).

Firstly, I think it is quite arguable that the chemical reactions that cause our feelings are often themselves caused by external events, like the love I feel when I'm petting my dog. So I think my dog plays a causal role in my feelings of love towards him. — GazingGecko

That would still be the chemicals causing that love you have for your dog.

Secondly, once again, I don't see the jump. For example, my visual experience of watching my computer screen typing this reply is caused by my brain's neurochemistry and my optical system, but I don't see why that would mean that my visual experience is not about my computer screen. If one accepts that visual experiences could be about external things even if caused by our brains and optical systems, I don't see why my meaningful experiences of loving my dog that are caused by my brain and sensory systems as I interact with my dog, can't be about my dog. — GazingGecko

I mean you can just look at people who use recreational drugs to see that those kinda feelings don't have to be about something else.

Furthermore, your phrasing makes it seem like it is only bias that prevents people from accepting pure hedonism. That could be the case, but I don't think that has been established by experimental philosophy yet. — GazingGecko

It's illustrated in the link I gave to IEP.

Sure, that could solve the dilemma by pointing out a difference between emotions and reasoning. However, this fix seems a bit ad hoc to me. Our reasoning is dependent on our brains, no? — GazingGecko

Yeah, but that's got nothing to do with the thought experiment. It's like the Quora post I mentioned was trying to argue in regards to the simplest solution.

Or to put it bluntly, if we do things we like because it feels good and we enjoy it then why not plug in and skip having to do the thing? Just get the feeling guaranteed?

From this Quora post:

If we do not determine the unambiguous goal of human existence post haste, then a machine superintelligence will. Is it to survive? Then we will be made into Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. Is it to breed? Then the hatcheries of the Brave New World will overflow. Is it to know blissful pleasure? Then a matrix of cannabinoid and dopaminergic drivel will envelop us.

Ever since Charles Babbage proposed his difference engine we have seen that the ‘best’ solutions to every problem have always been the simplest ones. This is not merely a matter of philosophy but one of thermodynamics. Mark my words, AGI will cut the Gordian Knot of human existence….unless we unravel the tortuosity of our teleology in time.

https://www.quora.com/What-ethical-dilemmas-should-we-consider-as-technology-evolves-rapidly/answer/David-Moore-408?ch=15&oid=1477743839367290&share=118d711a&srid=3lrYEM&target_type=answer

Though I'm pretty sure Thermodynamics doesn't say anything about the simplest answer, I checked. If anything it argues against the notion of endless because entropy increases in a system...

I don't understand the jump you're making. Let us say I accept that my affection is constituted by chemical flashes in my brain. Why does that imply my affection cannot be about another being, place or object? I don't see how that follows. — GazingGecko

Because it's the chemicals causing the feeling, not the thing.

I'm not sure that is true. Pleasure can often be a strong motivator, but I think it fails to be the main one in many important cases.

To illustrate my point, let us imagine that my dog is about to be put down due to illness. The veterinarian gives me an offer: their daughter wants to practice vivisection and my dog is perfect for this. They know it would be very upsetting for me to live with this fact, so they offer to use a hypnotist to make me forget the ordeal and make me instead believe that my dog died peacefully in my arms as a comforting memory. Furthermore, they will also pay me 100 dollars for me to spend on whatever pleases me.

I would arguably get more pleasure from taking the deal, but I would not be motivated to take it, nor do I suspect most would. I think this is due to us being motivated to care about what actually happens to the being, in this case, my dog, not just our own pleasurable sensations. — GazingGecko

That could be due to status quo bias, emotions seem to be getting in the way when the result in the end would be the same.

https://iep.utm.edu/experience-machine/#H5

Is this not one of the most important aspects of the experience machine thought experiment? People seem to care about their meaningful experiences being accurate to reality. I get that you reject this, but I think this is what is under debate and should not be dismissed. — GazingGecko

That's status quo bias.

No, I disagree. I extended what seems to be the underlying assumption of your argument to other mental phenomena. This is not doing a strawman. I'm testing your assumption. I think your assumption faces a dilemma. Either, (A) accept that reasoning, which I guess would also be chemical flashes in your view, can refer to the world and be more or less accurate, but then you need to provide a reason for why other mental phenomena, like our meaningful experiences, cannot have such a reference; or (B) use the same underlying reasoning to reject reasoning itself as chemical flashes but thus ending up in a self-defeating position because your argument relies on the accuracy of reasoning.

This is not a strawman. If we were discussing act-utilitarianism and you used the trolley problem to justify your position, it would not be a strawman to bring up the transplant-surgeon case, or the utility-monster to test the position. If the underlying assumption has problems, that spells problems for the specific argument too. — GazingGecko

We aren't talking about reasoning, but the sensation of pleasure, the emotion. Reasoning isn't really due to chemicals.

I found this thread but the argument advanced in it is pretty weak: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/9577/the-experience-machine-and-preference-satisfaction

Preference satisfaction doesn't exactly lead to choosing the Experience machine.

The glaring hole in the argument is that this assumes people know what makes them happy and what life they want, research however seems to show otherwise.

Even if PS theory was true it would not be rational to choose the machine, they'd likely stick with reality based on what they want. Plus people seem to find a strange joy in life not going the way they want sometimes.

Also altering one's preferences so they would prefer the machine is poisoning the well, any argument works if you permit brainwashing, so it's a moot point. In a sense it invalidates your point. "everyone would agree with me if they could be made to agree" doesn't really prove anything.

Ultimately your argument doesn't get at what the experience machine is about. The experience machine is arguing about whether pleasure and suffering are the sole factors of meaning in life and our decisions, and the PS doesn't get around that either. It's essentially just EP repackaged, and still assumes "welfare" (vague term) and pleasure are the sole good in life and should be maximized. But based on evidence while welfare and pleasure are part of it, they aren't the only values in life. Oddly enough, a lot prefer the unpredictability and messy nature of life, despite the harm it did to their welfare.

Heck I'm reminded of Frida Callo, that artist, who was in crippling pain her entire life but still had no regrets and lived "well". Or people who put themselves in mortal danger for the thrill even if they might not survive. Humans are weird...

So in a sense PS would argue against EM. Even if PS is true it would not be rational to choose the machine since not everyone would prefer that kinda life. Since we are talking about individual desires the word "rational" doesn't make sense. But also EM is to argue against Hedonism and that pleasure is the highest good, PS doesn't really support that since what someone prefers to live might not be pleasurable.

I'd also argue against preferences being experiences, they are judgments about experiences not experiences themselves.

You haven't made a case that welfare and happiness are the sole values for a meaningful life. It also makes the fallacious assumption that welfare is the goal of life, and given human behavior that fact is highly doubtful. It also assumes that living the life we prefer it part of welfare, but as evidence shows that's not entirely true. Turns out getting everything you want doesn't really lead to welfare, even a preferred life.

But also there is no objective improvement of welfare or measurement of it. That's a subjective judgment that cannot be measured in any empirically verifiable way.

Does it matter to you, whether your thinking is incoherent or not? Your thinking about the answer to my question might help you see that at present your thinking isn't coherent. — wonderer1

You're not though, you're implying that knowing about chemicals is due to information processing but that's not what's going on here. The reason you feel emotions is due to chemicals, hence why I said it doesn't matter what the information is it's the chemicals that make you feel.

Again, you are looking at things in an overly simplistic way. The reasons we feel what we feel are quite complicated. You certainly aren't going to find any scientific backing for 'it's just chemicals'. — wonderer1

There is actually plenty of backing for the just chemicals thing.

I suggest you consider the possibility that your perspective is self contradictory. How do you know anything about chemicals? — wonderer1

Does it matter? Doesn't change how they impact us and how they are the reason we feel what we feel.

Nah, you are looking at things far too simplistically. There is a whole lot of structure to how those chemical are arranged. That structuring results in information processing occurring. That information processing is about things. — wonderer1

That’s the illusion, it’s really just the chemicals. It is that simple and our stories making it to be more than what it really is.

Without those chemicals it doesn’t matter what the information is.

It’s not so much a question of meaning more like if the feelings are due to chemicals there is no reason to seek the experience and you can just plug in. So your argument isn’t quite right.

I don’t honestly want to be right about this and would rather believe that it’s more than just that and that life is wonderful and rich. But to do that would be to deny reality so it seems like either choosing blissful ignorance or cold reality. We humans are pretty good storytellers so maybe we just made it out to be more than it really is.

So far humanists and atheists if asked about this can only seem to dodge the question and implications of their system, never really reckoning with what they mean.

Aboutness. Meaningful experiences tend to be about something else. For instance, meaningful bonds seem to refer to some other being, place or object. There is an accuracy condition due to this aboutness. My love for my dog is about that existing being, and without that being existing, as it is in the case of living inside the experience machine, my love is not accurate, because the being my love refers to does not exist. If this is correct, it seems like our meaningful experiences are either more than chemical compositions, or chemical compositions can be about something else, and then there is a potential reason to opt out of a life in the experience machine. — GazingGecko

Meaningful experiences don't tend to be about something else, it only seems that way due to the chemicals in us. You don't actually have love for your dog or anyone else, that's only the chemical flashes happening. Your love is already not accurate. Even so it would not be a reason to opt out of the machine since the sensation would be the same.

Self-defeat. The underlying assumptions of the argument risks striking too widely. Our beliefs, justifications, reasoning, use of logic, would arguably from this perspective be chemical compositions in the brain as well. Yet, they seem to have an accuracy condition, like the one mentioned above. One can accept this accuracy condition as an emergent property of chemical compositions, but then that leaves one with a tension: Why could not meaningful experiences have this accuracy condition if other chemical compositions can? If one rather denies the accuracy condition for reasoning as well, it seems to leave us in self-defeat. Our reasoning could be manipulated to make us think anything is the case so it is not special, it does not matter if it is accurate or not, thus risking to undermine almost all of our thinking, and even the argument itself. — GazingGecko

It's not striking widely, it's referring to pleasure which appears to be the main motivation behind us doing anything. And if that good feeling can be replicated there is no reason to partake in life.

Thinking that it has anything to do with beliefs or reasoning is a strawman and dodging the question. Even if we did grant your point it would only serve to reinforce the argument, not undermine it. Also no one is talking about accuracy here.

So in the end neither of the two points really defeat the argument, merely avoid it.

I assume you would hold that rocketships, skyscrapers, leprechauns and unicorns are part of nature? — ENOAH

In some sense, yes. You seem to have a very...limited view of what nature is. Mind is part of nature after all.

If Mind is part of Nature, it does.
But I agree, Nature doesn't give a damn, a damn and the giving of it belongs to Mind. — ENOAH

If was assume nature is some godlike entity. If by nature we mean the entire planet then no it doesn't, but animals seem to care and so do we.

That's my point. Meaning making is the only reason...etc. Meaning is made, not pre-existent. Fabricated, not discovered or disclosed.

The chemicals are just fine as they are. Only for Meaning makers are the questions begged. And ultimately, both questions and answers are illusions. — ENOAH

So what if meaning is made? Like I said, if we didn't do that you wouldn't be on here communicating to me. You wouldn't even know about chemicals. The questions aren't begged for the meaning makers and questions and answers aren't illusions (illusions of what anyway?). It sounds like you have a limited view of reality.

It's questions all the way down. Especially in a forum like this. I'm neither energetic nor presumptuous enough to provide what would be required to close a thought. Do you think there are thoughts completed anywhere? I don't. — ENOAH

There are, despite your efforts to appear otherwise. All you've reality shown is a limited and naive view of reality.

I would hypothesize that it's, rather, because of our attachment to the Narrative we've built, and the "I" which takes center stage; both of which are illusions we are strongly but fallaciously attached to. — ENOAH

I truly don't think you understand the "I", let alone what illusion means or is. This sounds like you have a hammer and everything else is a nail. You can't even see how every statement you made isn't only contradictory but also wrong. You are a meaning maker whether you accept it or not, everything you've said is a story, a narrative.

The general thrust of your post is unintelligible, but, at the level of iron flakes, there is obviously no reason to suppose they possess consciousness of any kind, since their molecular structure is undifferentiated. Unless, of course, you define "consciousness" as a capacity to respond to any external stimulus, a definition which would include every atom and molecule in the universe, and, consequently, would be meaningless. — alan1000

I'm just trying to understand what he's saying.

We are hardwired to like interacting. It ensures a higher likelihood of out genes being passed down. — Malcolm Parry

That's not really true, it's just that we are social animals, that's all.

However, the modern world has disconnected from the hunter gatherer scenario we evolved into. Some gamers and young people spend most of their time in a virtual world. they might swap reality of interacting with "people" with an augmented world that reacts with "people". — Malcolm Parry

They do that because they don't really have much else. If it were easier they would choose real people.

I won’t endeavor to here “prove” this proposed hypothesis: it’s by no means something easy to do, and most certainly impossible in soundbite forum form. Nevertheless, the hypothesis does answer the question of why we (typically) don’t do things such as desire to lobotomize ourselves or else enter the unrealities of an experience machine – this irrespective of the prospective pleasures such might promise and possibly accomplish.

I should add that, in the absence of this hypothesis, I have not answer to give for why one ought not, for one example, lobotomize oneself, or else choose to perpetually remain in a virtual reality. — javra

Part of me also just likes the unpredictability of reality and how we don't always get what we want. I dunno if you can just reduce it all down to just chemicals given how we are social animals and the stories we tell impact us and said chemicals. I mean mindset is a pretty big thing when it comes to well-being and some people can be depressed but have fine brain chemistry. We are complex beings.

Though maybe the value of life isn't something we can measure with words...