Philosophy Discussion Forums

If the universe is going to go through this journey from plasma to hyper intelligent post-life, then the process should not have to hurt so much. The suffering in this world is beyond comprehension.

What kind of psychopath would come up with a system where everything survives by killing other things? We are forced to be ruthless bastards to survive. We are forced to objectify other living things. The attrition rates behind all great evolutionary gains are shocking. The process is amazing, but not kind.

Maybe all this construction and deconstruction will ultimately lead to many billions of years of joyous prosperity when the universe finally matures in the far future? However, those lucky possible future beings should appreciate that they arrived at their happy place based on the suffering of countless lives during the brutal early universe.

Ormond wrote:It seems clear beyond doubt that conversations on the God topic are experienced as engaging, entertaining and meaningful for a great many people, given that such dialogs have been going on around the world for thousands of years. Having agreed to that without reservation, the next question for philosophers should be...

Where is the evidence that God debates ever accomplish anything else?

No, I'm not trying to shoot down the thread, as I am participating in it too. What I am trying to do is to get my fellow members to do philosophy for once. We are supposed to be using logic here, which typically involves the examination of evidence. Before we spend the next 1,934 pages debating the "does God exist" question in all it's many forms, why don't we first look for evidence that such a time investment will yield anything but more of the same old pattern.

And I don't mean just us on this little forum, but our entire culture and it's thousands of years of God talk and debate. What issues have been settled, either within the religious communities, or in dialog with the non-religious? Is it rational, is it philosophy, is it evidence based, to keep going endlessly round and round and round on the same old questions when there is no evidence that any of the questions will ever be settled no matter how long they are discussed?

Should we stop talking? No. We're clearly interested in the God topic, or we wouldn't be here in this thread. So let us talk. But let us talk productively for once, a process which might begin by discarding all the usual issues which have long ago proven to be going nowhere.

I agree that most god discussions follow one of a few patterns, and yield no conclusion. However, I like to think of discussions, philosophical or otherwise, as being more about the communication and connection itself than the result. I don't discuss things with people to change their mind, because I rarely can/ will. I just like to connect and understand others philosophically.

I definitely agree with you- we should approach this, and all theological discussions, from a more logical and productive manner. How do you propose we do that, though? After all, theology is based on subjective principles at best, so it's hard to do anything more than present our beliefs and acknowledge each other's.

Greta wrote:If the universe is going to go through this journey from plasma to hyper intelligent post-life, then the process should not have to hurt so much. The suffering in this world is beyond comprehension.

What kind of psychopath would come up with a system where everything survives by killing other things? We are forced to be ruthless bastards to survive. We are forced to objectify other living things. The attrition rates behind all great evolutionary gains are shocking. The process is amazing, but not kind.

Maybe all this construction and deconstruction will ultimately lead to many billions of years of joyous prosperity when the universe finally matures in the far future? However, those lucky possible future beings should appreciate that they arrived at their happy place based on the suffering of countless lives during the brutal early universe.

For the purpose of better understanding your point here; if you were to create a universe with mortal and/ or immortal intelligent life, how would you structure it?

Whitedragon -

It seems you have people here who want to discuss the bible with you (theological discussion). I am not interested in that, sorry.

Like I said, I don't think I have anything to offer.

Ozymandias wrote:

Greta wrote:If the universe is going to go through this journey from plasma to hyper intelligent post-life, then the process should not have to hurt so much. The suffering in this world is beyond comprehension.

What kind of psychopath would come up with a system where everything survives by killing other things? We are forced to be ruthless bastards to survive. We are forced to objectify other living things. The attrition rates behind all great evolutionary gains are shocking. The process is amazing, but not kind.

Maybe all this construction and deconstruction will ultimately lead to many billions of years of joyous prosperity when the universe finally matures in the far future? However, those lucky possible future beings should appreciate that they arrived at their happy place based on the suffering of countless lives during the brutal early universe.

For the purpose of better understanding your point here; if you were to create a universe with mortal and/ or immortal intelligent life, how would you structure it?

Given that I can't even structure my own schedule, structuring the nature of reality is perhaps a tad out of my league.

Still, if I was creating a universe it would start out with original inhabitants who could never die and did not need to ever hurt anything to live happily, and they would evolve painlessly and joyously through eternity.

Greta: Still, if I was creating a universe it would start out with original inhabitants who could never die and did not need to ever hurt anything to live happily, and they would evolve painlessly and joyously through eternity.

I don't see an impetus for evolution in that scenario. Everything is just fine and dandy, ennui would set in. But if mortality is merely a form of temporal amnesia....

Greta wrote:

Ozymandias wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


For the purpose of better understanding your point here; if you were to create a universe with mortal and/ or immortal intelligent life, how would you structure it?

Given that I can't even structure my own schedule, structuring the nature of reality is perhaps a tad out of my league.

Still, if I was creating a universe it would start out with original inhabitants who could never die and did not need to ever hurt anything to live happily, and they would evolve painlessly and joyously through eternity.

Pretty much what felix said again,

How can beings evolve, individually or collectively, if they don't need have problems (which cause them pain) to prompt the changes?

Evolution only happens when there is need for improvement. Otherwise, the beings are simply stagnant and soulless.

Greta wrote:If the universe is going to go through this journey from plasma to hyper intelligent post-life, then the process should not have to hurt so much. The suffering in this world is beyond comprehension.

What kind of psychopath would come up with a system where everything survives by killing other things? We are forced to be ruthless bastards to survive. We are forced to objectify other living things. The attrition rates behind all great evolutionary gains are shocking. The process is amazing, but not kind.

Maybe all this construction and deconstruction will ultimately lead to many billions of years of joyous prosperity when the universe finally matures in the far future? However, those lucky possible future beings should appreciate that they arrived at their happy place based on the suffering of countless lives during the brutal early universe.

Hi, Greta, how are you? Again let us ask, what would a perfect universe look like? Moreover, what would it look like if we keep on trying to mess it up? It is reminiscent to a mother having to watch a small child the whole time. It seems we will remain small, without responsibility for the rest of our existence. We had a perfect world, but we ruined it. It was not a onetime thing either. As said in a different post, is the Lord our divine lackey that he should keep cleaning up after us?

If someone drinks himself to a pulp every night, wanting to get behind the wheel, the Lord gets in on the other side and says, “Hey Mike, scoot over, I’ll drive.” So Mike say, nah, Lord I can drive, and they get into an argument and he ties him up and drives him home in anyway. Thinking about it, we will despise the Lord much more if he interfered like that. As said, we would all be believers too, for who could argue that he exists? How many people do you think will have the attitude of, “Oh, there is G_d again? Does not sound like the life anyone wants to live.

Greta wrote:Still, if I was creating a universe it would start out with original inhabitants who could never die and did not need to ever hurt anything to live happily, and they would evolve painlessly and joyously through eternity.

Felix wrote:I don't see an impetus for evolution in that scenario. Everything is just fine and dandy, ennui would set in. But if mortality is merely a form of temporal amnesia....

Ozymandias wrote:Pretty much what Felix said again,

How can beings evolve, individually or collectively, if they don't need have problems (which cause them pain) to prompt the changes?

Evolution only happens when there is need for improvement. Otherwise, the beings are simply stagnant and soulless.

What you each say is true only because we humans have progressed via struggle and suffering. The motivations for immortal original beings who never had to struggle could be to grow and create, simply because they can. A "why not?" attitude. They would have positively based psyches rather than ours negativity bias-influenced minds.

In a sense this is what human progress has been all about - escaping the privations of the wild so we could improve our collective lot. Our success in that area is patchy but without our protective bubble of infrastructure we'd stagnate, being too busy with infant and maternal mortality, parasites, predators, the elements and so forth.

Felix, if "mortality is merely a form of temporal amnesia" then that's a flawed system too. Think of all those wasted life lessons. Nobody would want to start all over again as a clueless, helpless infant. Maybe masochists and lunatics :)

Greta said,

What you each say is true only because we humans have progressed via struggle and suffering. The motivations for immortal original beings who never had to struggle could be to grow and create, simply because they can. A "why not?" attitude. They would have positively based psyches rather than ours negativity bias-influenced minds.

In a sense this is what human progress has been all about - escaping the privations of the wild so we could improve our collective lot. Our success in that area is patchy but without our protective bubble of infrastructure we'd stagnate, being too busy with infant and maternal mortality, parasites, predators, the elements and so forth.

Felix, if "mortality is merely a form of temporal amnesia" then that's a flawed system too. Think of all those wasted life lessons. Nobody would want to start all over again as a clueless, helpless infant. Maybe masochists and lunatics

Is that not how we started out originally?

Whitedragon wrote: Hi, dclements. Some cartoons and movies influence thinking. If you have an important message to communicate, what do you do? People buy pirate DVDs in parking lots, and often chuck fliers into bins. The voice of narrative speaks loader than mundane words about life. Thanks for your post, btw, what movie are you watching this weekend, or do you prefer to read? Do you read fiction or fact all the time? Just curious.

Unfortunately I'm unemployed on disability and waiting for my social security to kick in so I can't afford to watch movies that much. I guess I read a mix of fiction and non-fiction (fiction to escape reality and non-fiction to learn something new) but since my disability is chronic acute pain it is sometimes hard to sit down and read. To be honest I'm really a refugee from another philosophy forum that I spent many years at but since it is now unmanaged so I have no where else to go to debate with others. I could tell you anything more that you might want to know or anything about my viewpoint but I don't want to bore you about things that you might find too uninteresting.

-- Updated December 13th, 2016, 4:29 pm to add the following --

Felix wrote: Right, but the Buddhists think the world is a finite mistake, and therefore the only reasonable solution it to attempt to escape from it - into nirvana. Other more progressive religious sects, including certain Christian denominations, believe otherwise. They think that the world is a work in progress, a trail of tears but also a path to ultimate salvation, i.e., Divine knowledge.

To use your carpentry analogy, the Buddhists have little appreciation of the house they live in, and no interest at all in learning how to construct houses, they just want to abandon their current home, which they believe cannot be renovated, and find a more comfortable prefabricated one. Progressive Christians, Hindus, et. al., think the house has promise, it can be remodeled, but it will take a lot of work (it has many mansions), both physical and spiritual/moral to do it.

I think the modern version of such an analogy is the debate between romanticism and pragmatism, where one tries to either escape from this world by building a fantasy around them; or they try to avoid such distractions, focus on whatever the problem is at hand, and do whatever needs to be done to fix things or make them better.

My guess is that nowadays people do a little of both where they sometimes escape into booze, drugs, religions, or any other vice some of the time and other times try to lead a normal stable progressive life where things are somewhat more sane. Obviously the pragmatic way is usually more productive but it is hard to escape romantic thinking or vices entirely; or at least that it what I believe as well as Abrahamic religions are just another from of vice and/or romantic thinking.

Felix wrote: There have been many explanations, which vary in credibility, but to understand them and sift the true from the false, one must understand the language in which they are spoken, otherwise they appear to be mere babble. This is to be expected.

Yes, but shouldn't sift through various religions/systems of beliefs instead of just focusing on Abrahamic religions like we often do in Western society. Also I think the study known as 'comparative religions' and work done by Joseph Campbell already deals with such sifting.

I estimate I have spent a decade or more trying to studying such things in regard to ethics and religion and it is starting to become harder and harder to find out anything new or something to really challenge what I know. Most of my beliefs come from just 'rolling it myself', with a few ideas borrowed here and there, and almost all religious doctrine don't contain anything more than than what might know from common sense or even what we learn from fairy tales as a kid. As i said before what morality we really have comes from something of a combination hedonistic calculus and game theory and beyond that "we do what we do, because that is the way we do it".

There really isn't any 'truths' or 'axioms' holding everything together, such as a real 'good' or 'evil' other than that in which we choose to have faith in/ The narrative/religion/ideology/system of beliefs/etc. is merely a trick of the hand to hide the fact that we are just more or less guessing as to what everything nowadays (just like we had to guess about everything during ancient times) and the problem is not only do we not know most of the time about anything, almost all the time we don't even know that we don't know. However the latter issue is a problem of our own making and caused by our unease at realizing we live in such a state of existence. But if one can learn to accept it, they no longer need to cling to narratives, axioms, religions, 'truth' that trap us in our typical way of thinking.

Greta: The motivations for immortal original beings who never had to struggle could be to grow and create, simply because they can.

But if everything is perfect as it is, what is is there to grow into? (or out of).

Think of all those wasted life lessons. Nobody would want to start all over again as a clueless, helpless infant.

Well, the idea is that the primary life lessons are not really lost, there is an innate "soul memory" of them. A scientist might attribute all talents to genetics, but the gestation of them is still rather mysterious. And when you say that no one wants to "start over" as a helpless infant, you could have just said that no one wants to start out that way at all.

Science tells us that environmental stress and competition is what leads to human diversity and the lavish and marvelous diversity of all life on earth. If you remove it, you may just end up with a real yawner of a play that puts even the actors to sleep.

And God may not be omniscient, in fact I found a picture that supports that premise:
http://i.imgur.com/QbUW88T.jpg

Whitedragon wrote:Greta said,

What you each say is true only because we humans have progressed via struggle and suffering. The motivations for immortal original beings who never had to struggle could be to grow and create, simply because they can. A "why not?" attitude. They would have positively based psyches rather than ours negativity bias-influenced minds.

In a sense this is what human progress has been all about - escaping the privations of the wild so we could improve our collective lot. Our success in that area is patchy but without our protective bubble of infrastructure we'd stagnate, being too busy with infant and maternal mortality, parasites, predators, the elements and so forth.

Felix, if "mortality is merely a form of temporal amnesia" then that's a flawed system too. Think of all those wasted life lessons. Nobody would want to start all over again as a clueless, helpless infant. Maybe masochists and lunatics :)

Is that not how we started out originally?

We humans, like everything else living in the wild, started out basically living in a dangerous hell. We have gradually tried to climb out of the pit. The system of reality is a mess, easily improved upon, as shown above. Reality takes a ridiculously long time to get anything done, resulting in this ruin of slowly developing changes. The constant change - construction and destruction - relentlessly inflicts suffering on living things, who are permitted brief islands of happiness to break up the vast oceans of struggle and pain before their final, often brutal, extinguishing.

There surely could be no high mind behind such a system - either no mind, a primitive mind or a sadistic one. The "God has a greater plan" explanation is absurd. How long are we supposed to wait for this dog's breakfast of a universe to get its act together? (Apocalypses don't count - that would just be another dog's breakfast). Are we to take succour from the possibility that in many billions of years perhaps ultra-advanced life forms somewhere may manage to fully conquer suffering?

It's a harsh, violent and viscous world that we live in, have always lived in, with the only compensation being that the world is at least not as unthinkingly brutal as it was in more primitive times. The universe started out mindlessly, like a humongous organism, and it is seemingly in the process of growing minds that may work out how to find sustainable ways of growing and progressing without leaving a trail of suffering and death in their wake. Not that that helps all the suffering species on this planet.

-- Updated 13 Dec 2016, 16:21 to add the following --

Felix wrote:

Greta: The motivations for immortal original beings who never had to struggle could be to grow and create, simply because they can.

But if everything is perfect as it is, what is is there to grow into? (or out of).

No need to grow into anything. These beings wouldn't be perfect, just immortal, and with no need to kill, harm or exploit to thrive. They could simply freely create for enjoyment.

Felix wrote:

Think of all those wasted life lessons. Nobody would want to start all over again as a clueless, helpless infant.

Well, the idea is that the primary life lessons are not really lost, there is an innate "soul memory" of them. A scientist might attribute all talents to genetics, but the gestation of them is still rather mysterious. And when you say that no one wants to "start over" as a helpless infant, you could have just said that no one wants to start out that way at all.

Science tells us that environmental stress and competition is what leads to human diversity and the lavish and marvelous diversity of all life on earth. If you remove it, you may just end up with a real yawner of a play that puts even the actors to sleep.

And God may not be omniscient, in fact I found a picture that supports that premise:
http://i.imgur.com/QbUW88T.jpg

Souls are speculative concepts, at least ones that retain form after brain death. Maybe, maybe not. Some information is retained - via DNA, cultural transmission, individual memories etc - but much is seemingly lost, recycled in the "cosmic compost heap". Seemingly wasteful. I have an idea that all information is stored at the Planck scale and the universe's information store is thus growing exponentially but that's as speculative as souls (and if souls exist, that would probably be the physical basis).

I wonder why must we only be stimulated by struggle and strain? We take it for granted that we are supposed to need a certain level of adversity to entertain us, but that's just a function of our animal nature, and my fictitious immortals would have no adrenal glands, no fight-or-flight reflex. Consider those who enjoy hunting. Many cannot imagine being content doing only civilised things. We can, though. It's just another step in that direction to see how joy can be had from a more civilised way of being still (much more civilised than we are), without needing threats for stimulation.

Another of my speculations, not miles from your Larson cartoon, is that God is a work in progress, being created by the universe, but not yet present. In that case I am essentially criticising the work of a toddler :)

Wow, Greta. I almost feel sorry for you. You seem oblivious to how physicists and cosmologists (showman Neil deGrasse Tyson notwithstanding) struggle to avoid what you casually dismiss -- some kind of Mind undergirding the material universe.

Dark Matter wrote:Wow, Greta. I almost feel sorry for you. You seem oblivious to how physicists and cosmologists (showman Neil deGrasse Tyson notwithstanding) struggle to avoid what you casually dismiss -- some kind of Mind undergirding the material universe.

If a mind produced all this, then that mind is either sadistic and cruel or robotically uncaring. A being utterly indifferent to the mind-boggling level of pain and suffering meted out to humans and other animals through history.

Your Overmind scores an F for this universe for carelessly allowing extreme and prolonged suffering in its creation. While my own life has been a lucky one, all in all, matter would have been better off not awaking at all than coming into this nightmare world (for most).

BTW, please feel free to make a post that does not denigrate my intellect and/or character. It would make a pleasant change. My ego is not a massive rock that can endlessly take wave after wave. I know I am a secularist, which you seem to consider to be mindless and heartless robot beings, but I am actually a frail human being capable of feeling who finds repeated insults wearing after a while.