Something Instead of Nothing

amazing, it is best post of the forum. ( for me only ) leave everyone is side. cuz ( lol ) im not any supreme being in the heart of everyone else. ( including ants and 8.4 million forums of life )

And I told you above:

To me rational means something that can be demonstrated to be true for all of us. Going all the way back to an understanding of why there is something and not nothing. And why it is this something and not another.

Note to others:

Can any of you make sense of this? How does one discuss the question of human autonomy without bringing it out into the world that we live in? Without making at least some attempt to differentiate between that which is deemed to be or not to be rational thinking, feeling, saying and doing?

What really important point here is he trying to yank me in the general direction of understanding? And how is that point in turn yanked down from the clouds of abstraction and rendered meaningful to the lives that we live?

I mean that in the minds of all of us are things that we believe are true and things that we claim to know. And as long as you don’t interact with others, you can go to the grave smugly believing and knowing these things.

Though, sure, for some there’s the part about God. The part where He judges what you think you believe and know on the other side of the grave.

Now, as soon as you interact with others, however, there’s the possibility that what you think you believe and know is not what they think they believe and know.

So, for all practical purposes, what else is there but our capacity to demonstrate [in whatever manner] that which it appears all rational men and women would seem to be obligated to believe and know. How else could we possibly interact socially, politically and economically in the least dysfunctional manner?

But then we’ll still need a context, right?

It’s just that on this thread there is also a discussion revolving around whether any of these posts were ever able to be anything other than what they are.

For example, reconfigured given that at the time of posting we could have freely chosen to change our minds about something and posted something else entirely.

True. Some things are considerably more difficult to demonstrate than others. But my point is that in the either/or world a demonstration is always possible. Why? Because the objective truth is either one thing or another. Then it’s just a question of a mind like Newton’s reconfiguring historically into a mind like Einstein’s reconfiguring historically in a mind like…?

Ah, but then there’s the is/ought world, right?

I have addressed this point before. Yes, even in the either/or world we would still need a God around. And that is precisely because mere mortals are not themselves omniscient. There are any number of perfectly rational beliefs that are beyond our demonstrating.

For example, look at how many juries believed that sending someone to death row was the right thing to do because they believed he was guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Then it was determined later [with new evidence] that he is innocent.

Mere mortals will always be constricted in this sense. But the crucial point [mine] is that there is in fact an objective truth able to be determined by the right minds in the right set of circumstances. Joe was murdered or he wasn’t. Jim committed the murder or he didn’t. The fact that different people have conflicting beliefs about it doesn’t make the truth go away. But that’s why Gods need to be invented. He knows EVERYTHING!

But let’s shift the discussion back to the deer. The deer in the road having been intentionlly shot and killed by a hunter instead accidentally by a car. Is the killing and consumption of deer a rational behavior? What might be the objective truth here?

Okay, but we will still need an actual context in order to substantiate what we think we believe or know.

I can only assume here that you are making a point that is beyond my comprehending.

The word rational came into existence here on planet earth when the human brain evolved to the point where it could find that word useful in subsisting from day to day. Do this, don’t do that if you want to stick around. And then eventually the minds of men evolved to the point where philosophy was invented and the word rational became a component in the epistemologists toolbox. The part embedded in all of the discussions here: scholar.google.com/scholar?q=ra … i=scholart

But how on earth [and throughout the rest of the universe] could this not somehow be connected to an understanding of why there is something instead of nothing, and why it is this something and not another?

Okay, let’s leave it there.

I’ll let you figure it out if you think that it’s important.

Would I? What’s the difference between how the illusion of free will feels and how the real thing feels? What is it about the real thing that would make the distinction more clear?

So you’re saying there’s things about the real thing (real free will) that we who don’t have it can’t even imagine?

It means we aren’t really choosing (not rocket science).

Be my guest.

Thank you!!! :smiley:

That’s right. So it comes down to that which is powerful enough to persuade a person to change his or her mind, and that which will never be powerful enough to persuade a person to change his or her mind.

Weren’t you just asking out of curiosity?

Biggy, I was being serious. Put your questions aside for a sec, and give what I said some thought. It’s one of the rare moments when I’m trying to help you. Take it. Although you’ve most likely thought of this tons of times before, you also keep bringing up the fact that you feel stuck in this dilemma of yourself, that life is not made peachy and rosy by it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re depressed. See a doctor. Maybe you need medication. I’m not bringing this up as just another statement to be thrown into the philosophical mix. I’m serious. If you’re as bothered by this as you claim to be, I think you need help.

For all practical purposes, this is basically a distinction without a difference to me. If I was never able to not run into traffic or sit at home playing video games, what difference does it make what we call it? If my “thoughts, actions and choices” are determined by my previous “thoughts, actions and choices” are determined by my previous “thoughts, actions and choices” are deterrmined by going back through the evolution of life on earth going back to whatever brought into existence the existence of existence itself, then it all seems to be unfolding only as it ever could have.

Again, the difference being that no matter is quite like brain matter. That’s still the main quandary to me. How can – how did – matter evolve into minds able ponder such things as this?

Well put. But, in my view, it still doesn’t pin down whether or not these “thoughts, actions and choices” are in sync with a brain wholly in sync with the laws of matter.

“Magically know to be true”? I don’t really understand your point. Mine is this: that whatever I choose, I am either not able to not choose it, or I am able to act autonomously on the values I have accumulated existentially and make what most will insist is the “right” choice.

Let’s consider a hypothetical I raised with Gib…

Imagine that earth is in a part of the universe where everything – everything – is wholly determined by the laws of matter. Aliens from a part of the universe where autonomy prevails note the option that I chose. They are freely debating among themselves whether that was the right thing to do while pointing out that in making the choice myself, I was never really “metaphysically” able to choose other than what I did. But: my brain/mind has deluded me into thinking that “psychologically” I freely chose either 1 or 2.

Why not? Mindless matter interacts only as it must. It doesn’t choose to act. But mindful matter embodied in the brain is able to convince itself that it can and does choose among multiple options.

But if it was only able to convince itself to choose the only possible option for this particular brain/mind in this particular context, it’s not at all a choice in the manner in which choosing is contrued by those convinced that mind has somehow evolved to acquire autonomy.

Discount my character?

I don’t follow this. If we were only able to either discount or not discount it, and this was inherently embedded in the evolution of all the matter that came before that choice, it was only ever going to be what it only ever could have been. The illusion of freely willing to or not to.

An “immaculately definable” character? What “on earth” does this mean? Note a context in which human interaction unfolds. How would you describe this given the choices that are being made? And how would it be “perfectly predictable”?

As for the choice, is it in fact just an inherent manifestation of nature having evolved into the human brain, or is there something in this brain that takes matter to a whole other level?

And how on earth can we know the answer to something like this assuming we do have the capacity to make the choices we do of our own volition.

Done.

Done.

Note to others:

Seriously, how can anyone actually imagine that the gap between what we think we know here and now and all that there is to know about the existence of existence itself, is not of fundamental importance?

Back to this:

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

And though Rumsfeld [as I recall] noted this in connection to the war in Iraq, it is clearly applicable in turn to an ontological understanding of Reality itself.

You switched to something else again.

You changed from “understanding of why there is something instead of nothing, and why it is this something and not another” to “the gap between what we think we know here and now and all that there is to know about the existence of existence itself”.

Do you not notice that you do this? Are you just unfocused? Are you intentionally trying to attribute a position to me that I don’t actually hold?

We can easily miss the forest for the trees… which is more and more what I suspect is going on here.

A mountain is, just like an ocean, made up of electrons neutrons and protons and if we define them by the “matter” that makes them up… we can fool ourselves into thinking they are exactly the same thing.

But they are not exactly the same and they are not defined solely by the “matter” that makes them up, this kind of reading is a form of sophistry…
It’s how that matter is organized that qualifies something as stone or water, and the volume of it that makes it a mountain or an ocean.

So too with people. We are not merely “neurons” or “brain matter”… we are a particular and very complex organization of neurons and chemicals and more fundamentally protons, neutrons and electrons…

You can organize things in such a way that you create a system. Systems, as you complicate them, are governed by ever more distinct rules than their fundamental building blocks.
Protons, neutrons and electrons have rules but the biological systems that are made up of those things have their own set of distinct rules, then the organism made up of biological systems have their own rules… and so on and so forth.

We are many layers of systems deep when we get to human brains… so trying to understand how humans work by looking at how protons, neutrons and electrons work is at best a tremendous misunderstanding of our nature.

I must admit I’m beginning to suspect foul play on your part. “magically know to be true” was a weird thing to get hung up on and confused by as it was tangential to the question I posed you…

But in case this was an honest misunderstanding and my question wasn’t clear, I’ll ask it again differently.

What is the minimum requirement for an act of choice?

Could you be given options such that the “choice” you will make between them is a given?
Like say “you are an empathetic person” might be one of your characteristics.
So when given the option to torture someone for the fun of it or NOT torture someone it would be a foregone conclusion that you would choose to NOT torture?

In other words can you have characteristics that would make certain choices a certainty? As in you cannot logically posses this characteristic and simultaneously make a different choice.
If so, would that mean it was never a choice?

Mad Man p - a warning. I have never observed any honesty in Iambiguous’ approach, no intention to do justice to his conversation partners.

He is on here to score “hits”. His own thread, the mundane irony thing, consists strictly of titles of commercial products and some inane non comment on each of them. He is here strictly for the Google bots.

You’re about the two hundredth person to try to talk to him with a lot of good will and you’ll come out of it like all of us - pissed off at how someone can be so empty.

I was reading through your posts and felt I might as well inform you. He is here to steal your energy for the hollow purpose of bot-fame. A species of parasite that the Internet brought forth.

Edit-
But I suppose you must have been here before, having joined in 2005.

I was not here.
-“Bill Clinton”

Now there will be a “note to others” in guous’ next post.

Well, that would depend entirely of course on the extent to which the aliens are able to demonstrate that where they reside autonomous minds do in fact exist. Although even here you may or may not have the capacity to grasp what they tell/show you. Or the whole experience might be encompassed in a sim world or in a dream or while on LSD or because your brain was damaged in some manner.

After all, can mere mortals ever really be certain of anything until they are able to comprehend the existence of everything?

I’m saying that anything that I might say or that you might say here would seem to be necessarily embedded in Don Rumsfeld’s “unknown unknowns”.

But if we don’t have free will anything that we imagine would seem to be only that which we were ever able to imagine.

The autonomous aliens note that we do in fact choose. Just as, when we watch something on TV or at the movies, we note the characters on the screens choosing. But they choose only that which the directors [and the writers] compel them to choose. Their choices are scripted. So, the questions we need to ask here are these: are the choices that we make scripted by God? by nature? by our own free will?

Me, I don’t know. I’m not really sure what to believe. “Deep down inside” I’m still convinced that I am in possession of at least some measure of volition. But in the dream I just woke up from I was just as certain of that then.

Again, that might be God or the immutable laws of matter embedded inherently in nature or…or what?

Sure, the power might revolve around my own autonomous mind. My capacity to think something through and arrive at the most rational conclusion. After all, look at the technology around us. Some folks were unequivocally able to make choices that brought it all into existence. And I’m sure they would accept no other explanation but that they accomplished this because they freely made the right choices.

And there will in turn be those who accomplish nothing in life able to convince themselves that this is only because they were never able to accomplish something.

So, beyond all doubt, which one is it?

Was I ever able not to?

Here [once again] the assumption is that how you construe all of this is somehow more reasonable than the manner in which I do. And that if I will only try harder to understand your own frame of mind, I might be helped. All the while assuming in turn that this exchange is unfolding “metaphysically” only as it ever could have, producing human minds able to convince themselves “psychologically” that it is all unfolding instead because they choose for it to unfold one way rather than another.

And even though this choice is really just an illusion it is still no less a choice.

Unless, perhaps, you are just being ironic? :wink:

Depressed? Hardly. I have many, many distractions that bring me tons of fulfilment. Here and now. But there it is: oblivion. Getting closer and closer. And a “frame of mind” on this side of the grave having convinced itself that human existence is essentially meaningless in an is/ought world in which I have brought into existence [in my head] the components of a moral philosophy that is either entirely grim or entirely liberating.

I don’t wallow in this sort of thing. But the questions truly do fascinate me. Just as they fascinate others here.

Only my “I”, unlike your “I” and their “I” is considerably more fractured and fragmented. And, therefore, as long as I don’t bring you over to my point of view, you can sustain a measure of “comfort and consolation” that continues to escape me.

I merely speculate that, in an autonomous world, it is this soothing psychological frame of mind that is actually behind their philosophy.

How on earth are they not profoundly intertwined?

You are either making a point here that I do not yet grasp or you are only being ironic.

Which is why I always suggest that we bring these abstractions “down to earth”. Note a context in which someone is choosing to do something. How is that related to the question of how [as some spectulate] all that there is exploded into existence out of nothing at all.

Something/everything out of nothing? Something that evolved into minds able to contemplate either the ontological or the teleological implications of that for our day to day interactions with others?

How does a mere mortal even begin to grasp this relationship?

Actually, I am trying to understand what your position is here? And then the extent to which you can demonstrate that it is not a position that you were only ever able to have but one that is derived [at least in part] from autonomy and free will.

Or [as I suspect] do you think about this in the manner in which you think about Communism?

Okay, but unlike the matter in rocks and water, the matter in the human mind has somehow become aware that the brain is composed of all the elements that make up matter in turn. But put together in a way that appears to be qualitatively different than the matter in rocks and water.

How then to explain the difference?

Even if this is entirely true, it doesn’t explain why this set of rules and not another. Or demonstrate that the rules that exist either do or do not permit human minds to choose with some measure of autonomy.

And it doesn’t encompass the optimal or the only rational manner in which to grasp our “nature” going all the way back to the “nature” of existence itself.

Basically your argument [to me] is just another bunch of words defining and defending another bunch of worlds in “general desription” intellectual contraptions that resolve nothing relating to the conflicting points of view that inundate actual human interactions out in particular contexts.

You’re the one who brought it up.

And then this part:

[b]Let’s consider a hypothetical I raised with Gib…

Imagine that earth is in a part of the universe where everything – everything – is wholly determined by the laws of matter. Aliens from a part of the universe where autonomy prevails note the option that I chose. They are freely debating among themselves whether that was the right thing to do while pointing out that in making the choice myself, I was never really “metaphysically” able to choose other than what I did. But: my brain/mind has deluded me into thinking that “psychologically” I freely chose either 1 or 2.[/b]

Would they not note in turn that the question you posed to me and the manner in which I chose to answer was only ever as it could have been down on a planet existing in a part of the universe in which everything – everything – unfolds only as it ever could have.

Well, in a wholly determined universe, the minimum requirement would seem to the existence of matter able to delude itself that it is freely choosing among various options. Or matter having evolved into human brains actually able to precipitate a human consciousness that has somehow acquired the capacity to choose of it’s own volition.

Now, who among us here is able to demonstrate that it is unequivocally one rather than the other?

Given options from who or what? God? Nature? Our own minds?

Is this a characteristic I freely chose to embody, or is the entirety of my character a material, physical, phenomenal mechanism wholly in sync with the laws of matter?

I don’t know. But you seem to think that you do. But you have no way [beyond a world of words in my view] in which to demonstrate it.

Or, rather, nothing that has so far convinced me.

Some would choose to do so, most would not. Why? How do we determine the extent to which, in an autonomous world, such choices are not embedded [as I believe] in the existential contraption that is dasein? And how do I determine that the choice to bring this up was or was not the only choice that I was ever able to make?

Back to the autonomous aliens. What would they suggest?

Indeed, how are the philosophical tools that we call logic and knowledge applicable in discussions such as this?

Abstract. Scholastic. No practical value.

Nobody knows how or why it “exploded into existence”.

Why would I keep talking about it after I have made that statement? What could I possibly say that is meaningful?

Sure, I could say that “God did it” and that’s my model of the universe. I could say that “it just happened out of nothing” and that’s my model. Or “it always existed and it self-organized” and that’s my model.

That’s my answer. It’s as settled as it can be. What else?

Next.

But I don’t give a shit about demonstrating anything to anyone.

I’m not preaching anything.

Determinism and free will are irrelevant to me. Those labels are worthless. I have to make exactly the same decisions in exactly the same way whether I have free will or not.

Here we go again. As with Mr Reasonable, Jacob will pop up occasionally on a thread like this to warn others about me.

Of course he doesn’t actually respond substantively to the points that I raise. Instead the entirety of his point is clearly to make me the point.

Then he commenses to huff and puff about all the terrible things he has discovered about me. He offers no actual instances of this in the posts that I contribute here. He simply knows this to be true.

I can only speculate about his motive. All I know is that over the years any number of objectivists of his ilk have felt duty bound to thump me. Call it say the Satyr Syndrome.

But I suspect that even they are not fully aware of how this propensity is derived largely from the fact that bit by bit I am deconstructing their own precious [b]I[/b].

The more they imagine themselves as “I” instead, the less solid ground they have to stand on. They have invested so much in their own particular objective narrative that it truly disturbs them how the points I raise may well be applicable to them too.

Unless of course I’m wrong. But how on earth could I [or anyone] ever possibly know that beyond all doubt?

Then it’s back to this: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296

Unless of course I’m wrong about that too.

Well, in regard to grappling with that which brought into existence the existence of existence itself, how can we not be but abstract or scholastic? I mean, it’s not like we can go to youtube and watch videos of existence coming into existence while scientists, philosophers and theologians discuss and debate the meaning of it.

Yeah, that’s kind of my point. But: If nobody knows why or how existence itself came to be, what are the odds that they understand the nature of our own existence here and now?

Aren’t we all in the same boat here? We continue to discuss and debate the meaning of things that appear to be beyond our reach. But, then, what else is there? We are among the few inhabitants on planet earth who frequent venues such as this. We can’t get these “big questions” out of our head and then, somehow, existentially, we become more and more drawn to them. Doing the best that we can to “think them through”.

Then it’s back to André Gide: "Trust those who seek the truth but doubt those who say they have found it.”

That’s where we are always stuck with questions this big.

But the focus of late on this thread is the extent to which, in regard to the model that we do choose here, was it ever really within our capaicty not to choose it?

Here even my own “existential contraption” – “I” – is merely another cluster of dominoes toppling over only as they ever could have.

That’s not the point of course. Instead, the point [mine] revolves around whether you do have to make exactly the same decisions in exactly the same way.

And if you have no interest in demonstrating what you think you know and believe, you may well have never been able to acquire that interest. But if it is is within your capacity to have or not have an interest in particular things, if you don’t give a shit about demonstrating what you believe or know is true then you are basically arguing that what anyone thinks they believe or know is as far as it need go.

Instead, I am more in sync with the idea that given human autonomy all we have is our capacity to demonstrate that what we think we know or believe in our head all rational men and women are obligated to believe and know in turn.

Then I segue here from the either/or world to the is/ought world.

What?
You’re constantly telling people to bring abstractions “down to earth”. You just did it in the last post: "Which is why I always suggest that we bring these abstractions “down to earth”.

So what were you asking for if it can’t be done, by your own admission? #-o

You don’t need to understand “how existence came to be”. You can understand lots of things about your own existence and the existence of other people, animals, plants and objects without that particular knowledge. It’s not essential for living.

You continue to repeat the same stuff. Calling it “discussion” is a stretch.

Round and round you go …never getting anywhere.
If people want to do that with you, it’s up to them.

But notice how many of your discussion partners turn away with frustration and disgust.

You ask the same question over and over.

Show of hands … how many posters here are interested in this point or bothered by it?

I think that’s true … I can’t make anyone believe what he doesn’t want to believe. I can’t make him want to know more. He has to be motivated. He has to have an interest. He has to want more knowledge. He has to want to change.

I can’t teach someone who does not want to learn.

Yeah. So you say. (It doesn’t make any sense for a nihilist to talk about “obligations”. But whatever.)

Note to God:

Smite him!!! :banana-linedance:

If the universe ends in a big freeze, there may as well be nothing.

https://www.universetoday.com/36917/big-freeze/

Why do you ask a question to which the answer is located in the next paragraph of my post?

Well evolution attempts to explain why these systems and not other systems came into being… as for your concept of autonomy, as you have presented it, seems to be logically impossible outside of solipsism…

You see, we need to define our terms and stick with those definitions in order to have a productive conversation… I need to understand what it is you are saying to me and you need to understand what I am saying to you.
If you say 2+2=3 the first thing I’d ask you is how you define those terms.
if you say “…” I count 3 periods in the quoted section then I can see how you got your results, but you and I seem to have a different understanding of what that symbol means.

When you say “there can be no choice/autonomy in a deterministic universe” I have to check to see if those words means something different to you before we can argue about whether you added things up wrong or not.

No one can demonstrate anything unequivocally… so that’s a silly question to hinge this on.

We could however examine the logical consistency of such perspectives as well as the practical value of said definitions.

You, for example, seem to have defined autonomy in such a way that it is made LOGICALLY impossible outside of solipsism…
what value is there in such a definition? what use does that have?

I am not attempting to convince you… I’m attempting to make sense.
If you refuse to be reasonable or refuse to apply a charitable interpretation to what I say by ignoring the context in which it was said, for example, I’m perfectly happy to leave you unconvinced.

If they cannot be brought to bear, that marks the end of our conversation…

Edit:
It occurs to me that I did not provide an explanation as to why I say your definition is only logically possible given solipsism.

It’s quite simply this:
If autonomy means to choose your own character, then there is no character to the thing that chooses, which means it cannot be defined, if it cannot be defined it has no borders, if it has no borders it is “reality”… whatever reality we take ourselves to be in, whether entirely materialistic, dualistic, supernatural, deterministic or utterly random it is all of that reality. It cannot be merely a “part” of that reality because then we could define “the part” that it was but the moment it has a character, it is no longer autonomous… I imagine you would say it is enslaved to it’s own character.