Who or what created the universe

[Ahriman]

@Belacqua

Did you read that post I made about 8 days ago, about my plan to end all human suffering? If not, I'll post it here.

"Get everyone playing the same game, allow them to become engrossed in the game to the point where they forget about time, humans no longer perceive time, time ceases to be a thing, all financial incentives for perpetuating "time" (as a shared reality) become obsolete, everyone stays happy playing the game forever."

[Belacqua]

"Get everyone playing the same game, allow them to become engrossed in the game to the point where they forget about time, humans no longer perceive time, time ceases to be a thing, all financial incentives for perpetuating "time" (as a shared reality) become obsolete, everyone stays happy playing the game forever."

If I construe the above as a poem which needs creative unpacking, I like it very much indeed. Forgive me if I read into it more than you intend. 

So I can take the word "game" in a very broad sense. (Hello Mr. Wittgenstein.) It's an activity conducted according to a set of rules that are made up by people. It's nomos (culture, tradition) rather than physis (laws of nature). So the game is not physically binding on us, as gravity is, but following its rules is an ethical duty for those who agree to participate. 

As for the perception of time, I agree that a "flow state" in which we don't think about time is a great experience. Free-flowing creative endeavors or good sex, for example. But I don't see how a whole human life can be in such a peak state very long. 

There is another sense, though, in which time might cease to rule us: we could learn to give value to more than our own time and place, and feel we are a part of the whole flow of history. And, most importantly, to feel a strong sense of duty both to those who came before and those who will come after.

Currently this is not a widespread value; we do not feel responsibility to those who came before. We live in an era when throwing out all the old institutions is taken as some kind of moral good -- again, it's a liberal meliorist myth (compatible with scientism) that society is slowly but surely making itself better. We constantly see old institutions, that were made for good reasons, being mocked and straw-manned -- without the awareness that people before us, though they knew less of technology, knew some things that we don't. This allows us to over-value our own contingent desires, and ignore the lessons of history. Which in turn makes us less responsible to those who will come later. And of course capitalism can only function if we don't think about its future ramifications. 

So yes: participation in a society-wide engrossing social system, not based on personal gain, and not aimed at only out own time. A lovely prescription.

[Ahriman]

@Belacqua

I was thinking of something more along the lines of an "experience machine" that could keep people in a *permanent state of flow and pleasure (*or at least as long as they wanted to remain in that state) But your idea is a very solid one.

[Belacqua]

@Belacqua

I was thinking of something more along the lines of an "experience machine" that could keep people in a *permanent state of flow and pleasure (*or at least as long as they wanted to remain in that state) But your idea is a very solid one.

I wouldn't mind plugging into that machine once in a while. Sign me up for monthly sessions.

[Ahriman]

@Belacqua

I was thinking of something more along the lines of an "experience machine" that could keep people in a *permanent state of flow and pleasure (*or at least as long as they wanted to remain in that state) But your idea is a very solid one.

I wouldn't mind plugging into that machine once in a while. Sign me up for monthly sessions.

One month in the pleasure machine? Okay, here you go...... 

[Thumpalumpacus]

We don't know how the universe was created (yet) but I don't see how making up fairy stories helps anything.

If making up fairy stories is beneficial for people, why shouldn't they do that?

You haven't yet demonstrated that, as I pointed out elsewhere.

[Fake Messiah]

At this point some kind of religion or non-material value system that makes the preservation of nature spiritually and ethically sacred would be a great improvement. Science isn't sufficient to do this.

There you go. You admit that religion and spirituality exist to manipulate people. The problem with creating a religion to preserve nature is that someone can easily create a religion for destroying nature to counterpart one for preserving nature since many people are interested in destroying it. Thus we would have another religious war between those religions that would then harm nature even more.

[Ahriman]

If making up fairy stories is beneficial for people, why shouldn't they do that?

You haven't yet demonstrated that, as I pointed out elsewhere.

People have been doing it for thousands of years, and here we still are.

[FrustratedFool]

What difference would it make?
I lean towards the liklihood of the universe being a brute fact that has always been, but I don't really know of course.

[Ahriman]

What difference would it make?
I lean towards the liklihood of the universe being a brute fact that has always been, but I don't really know of course.

It really doesn't make sense for the universe to have always been.