Hi. Glad to have found this forum.

I've been a solid atheist for almost 3 years. I was always a doubter but up until more recently I was pretty naive. As early as 4 or 5 perhaps, I remember being in church and hearing people pray and talk about God as if they just knew. I noticed that I didn't have that sense. From then on I was always 50-50 on it at best, and certainly more of an agnostic than a follower of a well-defined sect. I was also pretty horrified about there even being a slight chance that I could be wrong. I reasoned that I might as well take no risk of eternal punishment, however small the risk.

In my 20s I got into psychedelics and Zen Buddhism and those led me down the rabbit hole, unfortunately. I wound up one of those drug-people who thinks things like 'losing your ego you become god' and all of that garbage and navel-gazing. Big waste of time. In the end I wound up getting very depressed for a period of a few months, to the point of basically losing my mind. It was then that I finally felt someone was listening to me when I prayed. That couldn't last long, though. After so long of me continually upping the ante on this belief and staking everything on it, I woke up one morning and realized my life was in ruins and I was bound for the insane asylum if I continued on this path. That's when I realized it really all was just superstition and wishful thinking.

These days my philosophy is pretty well captured by someone like Sam Harris most of the time (minus parts of Waking Up although I think half of it is truly great). Guess you could call me a "New Atheist", although it is of course a silly label. I am fairly tired of talking about atheism itself, though, which is paradoxically why I am here. My hope is that this isn't just a place of identity politics, but more a place of having selected out a certain kind of nonsense so it doesn't have to be dealt with. I easily get hampered down arguing with believers and it's a waste of time. Although I am a huge fan of "street epistemology" which some around here may have heard of.

I like to take contentious positions. Some that interest me are the following. For one, I consider myself a transhumanist. That just means that I think we should use technology to overcome out biological limitations; indeed, that may be one of our defining traits as a species. Glasses are the most basic example of that. I'm no fan of "natural". Enhancement is more and more becoming a possibility and I think we should apply "glasses" to many other areas of human performance, rather than worshiping the humanness of seeing in blur. Or, say, getting ill and aging.

I am also a fan of utilitarianism, specifically the 'negative' sort which holds the relieving of suffering as having the highest moral weight. I belief suffering and death are bad. I believe in progress, I believe we have made progress, and I believe we will probably continue to, and probably at a quickening pace. I hope we can tackle problems like poverty, disease, and violence and take them all down to even lower levels. One area I find particularly important is animal welfare. I am an anti-speciesist: in the words of philosopher David Pearce, that means I think "all else being equal, equally strong interests should count equally" regardless of the arbitrary criterion of what species something is. Granted, "all else" isn't always equal, but there's a lot of room for improvement, I think, without even really having to consider that. One hope I have is that cheap in-vitro meat will eventually spur global veganism.

I don't believe in free will. I don't believe "life is what you make it" or that it is beautiful, a gift, sacrosanct, or anything like that. It can be some of those things, but it often isn't. Atrocities happen. Things could go truly horribly on this planet, it is all up to us (that is, if anything can be done about it at all). Thus I have quite a sense of urgency about the world and about spreading healthy beliefs about it. Regarding 'evil', I think the Problem of Evil is a pretty good knock-down argument against at least a benevolent God (and I kinda think the idea of a malevolent one is just silly). It also, in my opinion, makes it seem pretty unlikely that intelligent space-faring aliens are anywhere near us, if they exist at all. The idea that they are observing this planet without intervening is repugnant. In a similar vein, the idea of seeding other planets with life seems equally barbaric to me, unless the seeder can ensure that the sort of atrocities human history is filled with would never occur.

I think the Many Worlds interpretation of QM is probably correct. I think materialism is probably false, because of the Hard Problem of Consciousness. Subjective experience seems irreducible to hard spherical particles bouncing around. So I tend to think reality is experiential in nature (i.e. Strawsonian physicalism), but not in any woo-woo sense of "you manifest it" or "the universe is one great mind" or anything like that. It is hard to deny, though, as a person who is experiencing doing this right now, that the universe has first-person qualities. I speculate that those first person qualities may have always been around like a soup of incoherent noise, and sentient brains my have evolved to specialize in 'binding' those incoherent microexperiences. Very speculative indeed, but maybe still preferable to eliminative materialism ("consciousness is an illusion") or, *gasp*, dualism.

Anyway.. hopefully this will be a good place to find some challenging discussions and sharpen my mental toolset and whatnot. That's what I'm mostly looking for. Cya'll around.

Welcome.

The beverage cart will be around shortly, the hot apple cider is quite tasty !!

Welcome!

Wow, that's a lot to take in all in one sitting. Going to go cook a steak and think about it all. (hehe)

Welcome

That was some .

Hope you find this forum everything you'd hoped for.

Welcome! Fellow determinist here, glad to meet you. I hope you enjoy your stay here!

(December 9, 2015 at 2:48 pm)Amine Wrote: Hi. Glad to have found this forum.

And I'm glad you're here. Reading through this OP you sound like a brilliant human being.

Quote:These days my philosophy is pretty well captured by someone like Sam Harris most of the time[...]

You and me both.

Quote:(minus parts of Waking Up although I think half of it is truly great).[...]

I'd love to hear more of what parts you disagree with

Quote:I like to take contentious positions. Some that interest me are the following. For one, I consider myself a transhumanist. That just means that I think we should use technology to overcome out biological limitations; indeed, that may be one of our defining traits as a species. Glasses are the most basic example of that. I'm no fan of "natural". Enhancement is more and more becoming a possibility and I think we should apply "glasses" to many other areas of human performance, rather than worshiping the humanness of seeing in blur. Or, say, getting ill and aging.

This is all very fascinating to me.

Quote:I am also a fan of utilitarianism, specifically the 'negative' sort which holds the relieving of suffering as having the highest moral weight.

If I had to choose a form of utilitarianism I would definitely be more on the negative utilitarian (NU) side of things.

I am definitely a consequentialist. I buy into Sam Harris' science of morality and utilitarian-ish ideas but the only objection I have to utilitarianism is I don't think that suffering of many individuals can be aggregated.

Every individual's sufferings are separate. Empathy indeed exists but empathy is within the consciousness of individuals and when someone empathizes with someone else, they feel that empathy within their own brain.

No matter how many people suffer a pinprick, every single person merely suffers a pinprick. It makes no sense to me to say that if we got enough people merely feeling the pain of a pinprick, that it could even outweigh the pain of one person being kicked very hard in the kneecap.

Quote:I am an anti-speciesist: in the words of philosopher David Pearce, that means I think "all else being equal, equally strong interests should count equally" regardless of the arbitrary criterion of what species something is. Granted, "all else" isn't always equal, but there's a lot of room for improvement, I think, without even really having to consider that.

Awesome!

Quote:I don't believe in free will.

Me either!

Do you agree with Sam Harris' arguments and do you believe that losing our belief in free will, rather than dehumanizing us - humanizes us? And makes us more compassionate and reduces vengeance? Retribution makes no sense without free will

Quote:I think the Many Worlds interpretation of QM is probably correct. I think materialism is probably false, because of the Hard Problem of Consciousness. Subjective experience seems irreducible to hard spherical particles bouncing around. So I tend to think reality is experiential in nature (i.e. Strawsonian physicalism), but not in any woo-woo sense of "you manifest it" or "the universe is one great mind" or anything like that. It is hard to deny, though, as a person who is experiencing doing this right now, that the universe has first-person qualities. I speculate that those first person qualities may have always been around like a soup of incoherent noise, and sentient brains my have evolved to specialize in 'binding' those incoherent microexperiences. Very speculative indeed, but maybe still preferable to eliminative materialism ("consciousness is an illusion") or, *gasp*, dualism.

Are you familiar with Daniel Dennett's position on the matter?

I agree with Daniel Dennett's view on consciousness, but I don't agree with his view on free will. I agree with SH on that matter.

Quote:Anyway.. hopefully this will be a good place to find some challenging discussions and sharpen my mental toolset and whatnot. That's what I'm mostly looking for. Cya'll around.

Cya around indeed!

I spent years engaging in serious discussions here, and I still do... but I am mainly here for fun and friendship now

(December 12, 2015 at 10:22 am)Evie Wrote: I'd love to hear more of what parts you disagree with

Hello and thanks!

Um, let's see. The meditation stuff, mostly. Frankly I kinda think meditation is little more than staring at a wall. I understand that doing this consistently will "change your brain". I understand that doing this for hours, days on end will bring you to a different state of awareness, as doing anything that repetitively would. I'm still not compelled.

I spent 5 years practicing meditation and it ended when I said, "I no longer believe in 'enlightenment', and even if I'm wrong, I actually don't care enough to find it anymore, as there are things I'd rather do than sit around waiting for something which might be." It seems to me to require faith. Some people might call that realization itself enlightenment. I really wouldn't. But I agree with what he says about the conscious experience of determinism, and perhaps even there being no self.

In his book he actually does mention a school of thought on the matter that says 'there is nothing you can do', and that would line up best with my experience, if what happened to me is indeed what is being talked about. It kind of seems like it is. Thus, giving someone practices to work on just seems to me like a way to keep them chasing their tail. I'd tell them straight up: you will never get enlightened, because there is no such thing as enlightenment. Just like I would tell a religious person to not bother praying, because no God will ever answer your prayers and tell you he doesn't exist.

Harris actually goes as far as to say he himself is enlightened, acknowledging that this is a taboo. I wasn't a fan of that. It seems to me that Harris has made an uncharacteristic dip into the territory of mysticism--stuck around at the Buddhism party a bit too long and got infected with some of their jargon, which I see as utterly unnecessary. Unless I'm mistaken, this can all be explained in terms of plain English with 0 reference to the East or "enlightenment" to an ordinary person who needn't attain anything from it, especially not by having to meditate for 10000 hours.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm discounting the effect of all the practice I did. I can hardly know. I'm certainly baffled by people who can't believe there is no free will, something that is transparently obvious. Maybe they really are in a dream of self that I have shed. I just can't say.

Quote:This is all very fascinating to me.

Anti-aging research and such? I've been wondering what the consensus on that around here is, if there is one at all. One can only seed those sorts of thoughts in people gradually...

Quote:If I had to choose a form of utilitarianism I would definitely be more on the negative utilitarian (NU) side of things.

I am definitely a consequentialist. I buy into Sam Harris' science of morality and utilitarian-ish ideas but the only objection I have to utilitarianism is I don't think that suffering of many individuals can be aggregated.

Every individual's sufferings are separate. Empathy indeed exists but empathy is within the consciousness of individuals and when someone empathizes with someone else, they feel that empathy within their own brain.

No matter how many people suffer a pinprick, every single person merely suffers a pinprick. It makes no sense to me to say that if we got enough people merely feeling the pain of a pinprick, that it could even outweigh the pain of one person being kicked very hard in the kneecap.

Interesting! I think you're the first person I've met who has also (as I have) come to the conclusion that experience doesn't just "add up" from person to person. That idea has frustrated me for a while now. There is no "supra-being" who experiences, say, 6 million people's suffering added together. There is only ever 1 person experiencing 1 person's suffering.

Recently I had an argument with some guy about this and my position made him so angry he started screaming at me. Literally. (I just laughed.) I had said, I wouldn't think existence was worth it if it required the eternal torment of a single person, even if it meant enormous wellbeing for an unlimited amount of people. In part that's because of my not believing experience adds simply. Also, how could I ask it of someone else if I wouldn't do it myself? I don't care if we are talking about trillions of people. I would never voluntarily choose eternal suffering so they could have (what amounts to) a great big fuck-fest.

Other interesting problems abound. The "repugnant conclusion" of Parfit relies on that thinking of addition. So does a strange conclusion of the LessWrong community, that it would be worse for a large enough number of people to get a speck of dust in their eye than for a single person to be tortured for 50 years. And then there's that old chestnut, Roko's Basilisk

Quote:Do you agree with Sam Harris' arguments and do you believe that losing our belief in free will, rather than dehumanizing us - humanizes us? And makes us more compassionate and reduces vengeance? Retribution makes no sense without free will

Yeah, I have to say I agree with it. I think retribution on humans makes about as much sense as retribution on, say, a grizzly bear. We would live in a better world without the lazy idea of free will. It seems to me little more than a convenient way to ignore the factors which make a person do what they did. It's sloppy to just say "oh, if I were him I would have done differently". As Sam says, if you were him, you would be him atom for atom, and you would make the decisions he made. Free will is a leftover idea from religion, depends on the same dualistic mysticism.

Quote:Are you familiar with Daniel Dennett's position on the matter?

I agree with Daniel Dennett's view on consciousness, but I don't agree with his view on free will. I agree with SH on that matter.

I keep on thinking I am mistaken on this because it seems so inconceivable, but isn't Dennett's position that qualia is an illusion? I only believe I am seeing colors right now.. Huh?

This seems to me a way to bite the materialism bullet. Dennett knows that if the universe is made of little billiard balls flying around, that leaves no room for consciousness. He has merely, it seems, decided to heed the implications of that ontology, despite the direct contradiction of our present experience. But it seems to me that this idea of "non-phenomenal stuff" is unfounded. We shouldn't think in terms of billiard balls anymore, that's an old sort of parochialism. The quantum world doesn't need that picture.

Harris wrote a bit on it here: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-m...ciousness/

"Most scientists are confident that consciousness emerges from unconscious complexity. We have compelling reasons for believing this, because the only signs of consciousness we see in the universe are found in evolved organisms like ourselves. Nevertheless, this notion of emergence strikes me as nothing more than a restatement of a miracle. To say that consciousness emerged at some point in the evolution of life doesn’t give us an inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle."

Another interesting essay: "If Materialism Is True, The United States Is Probably Conscious" by Eric Schwitzgebel.

(December 12, 2015 at 10:22 am)Evie Wrote: I'd love to hear more of what parts you disagree with

Hello and thanks!

Um, let's see. The meditation stuff, mostly. Frankly I kinda think meditation is little more than staring at a wall. I understand that doing this consistently will "change your brain". I understand that doing this for hours, days on end will bring you to a different state of awareness, as doing anything that repetitively would. I'm still not compelled.

I spent 5 years practicing meditation and it ended when I said, "I no longer believe in 'enlightenment', and even if I'm wrong, I actually don't care enough to find it anymore, as there are things I'd rather do than sit around waiting for something which might be." It seems to me to require faith. Some people might call that realization itself enlightenment. I really wouldn't. But I agree with what he says about the conscious experience of determinism, and perhaps even there being no self.

In his book he actually does mention a school of thought on the matter that says 'there is nothing you can do', and that would line up best with my experience, if what happened to me is indeed what is being talked about. It kind of seems like it is. Thus, giving someone practices to work on just seems to me like a way to keep them chasing their tail. I'd tell them straight up: you will never get enlightened, because there is no such thing as enlightenment. Just like I would tell a religious person to not bother praying, because no God will ever answer your prayers and tell you he doesn't exist.

Harris actually goes as far as to say he himself is enlightened, acknowledging that this is a taboo. I wasn't a fan of that. It seems to me that Harris has made an uncharacteristic dip into the territory of mysticism--stuck around at the Buddhism party a bit too long and got infected with some of their jargon, which I see as utterly unnecessary. Unless I'm mistaken, this can all be explained in terms of plain English with 0 reference to the East or "enlightenment" to an ordinary person who needn't attain anything from it, especially not by having to meditate for 10000 hours.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm discounting the effect of all the practice I did. I can hardly know. I'm certainly baffled by people who can't believe there is no free will, something that is transparently obvious. Maybe they really are in a dream of self that I have shed. I just can't say.

Quote:This is all very fascinating to me.

Anti-aging research and such? I've been wondering what the consensus on that around here is, if there is one at all. One can only seed those sorts of thoughts in people gradually...

Quote:If I had to choose a form of utilitarianism I would definitely be more on the negative utilitarian (NU) side of things.

I am definitely a consequentialist. I buy into Sam Harris' science of morality and utilitarian-ish ideas but the only objection I have to utilitarianism is I don't think that suffering of many individuals can be aggregated.

Every individual's sufferings are separate. Empathy indeed exists but empathy is within the consciousness of individuals and when someone empathizes with someone else, they feel that empathy within their own brain.

No matter how many people suffer a pinprick, every single person merely suffers a pinprick. It makes no sense to me to say that if we got enough people merely feeling the pain of a pinprick, that it could even outweigh the pain of one person being kicked very hard in the kneecap.

Interesting! I think you're the first person I've met who has also (as I have) come to the conclusion that experience doesn't just "add up" from person to person. That idea has frustrated me for a while now. There is no "supra-being" who experiences, say, 6 million people's suffering added together. There is only ever 1 person experiencing 1 person's suffering.

Recently I had an argument with some guy about this and my position made him so angry he started screaming at me. Literally. (I just laughed.) I had said, I wouldn't think existence was worth it if it required the eternal torment of a single person, even if it meant enormous wellbeing for an unlimited amount of people. In part that's because of my not believing experience adds simply. Also, how could I ask it of someone else if I wouldn't do it myself? I don't care if we are talking about trillions of people. I would never voluntarily choose eternal suffering so they could have (what amounts to) a great big fuck-fest.

Other interesting problems abound. The "repugnant conclusion" of Parfit relies on that thinking of addition. So does a strange conclusion of the LessWrong community, that it would be worse for a large enough number of people to get a speck of dust in their eye than for a single person to be tortured for 50 years. And then there's that old chestnut, Roko's Basilisk

Quote:Do you agree with Sam Harris' arguments and do you believe that losing our belief in free will, rather than dehumanizing us - humanizes us? And makes us more compassionate and reduces vengeance? Retribution makes no sense without free will

Yeah, I have to say I agree with it. I think retribution on humans makes about as much sense as retribution on, say, a grizzly bear. We would live in a better world without the lazy idea of free will. It seems to me little more than a convenient way to ignore the factors which make a person do what they did. It's sloppy to just say "oh, if I were him I would have done differently". As Sam says, if you were him, you would be him atom for atom, and you would make the decisions he made. Free will is a leftover idea from religion, depends on the same dualistic mysticism.

Quote:Are you familiar with Daniel Dennett's position on the matter?

I agree with Daniel Dennett's view on consciousness, but I don't agree with his view on free will. I agree with SH on that matter.

I keep on thinking I am mistaken on this because it seems so inconceivable, but isn't Dennett's position that qualia is an illusion? I only believe I am seeing colors right now.. Huh?

This seems to me a way to bite the materialism bullet. Dennett knows that if the universe is made of little billiard balls flying around, that leaves no room for consciousness. He has merely, it seems, decided to heed the implications of that ontology, despite the direct contradiction of our present experience. But it seems to me that this idea of "non-phenomenal stuff" is unfounded. We shouldn't think in terms of billiard balls anymore, that's an old sort of parochialism. The quantum world doesn't need that picture.

Harris wrote a bit on it here: http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-m...ciousness/

"Most scientists are confident that consciousness emerges from unconscious complexity. We have compelling reasons for believing this, because the only signs of consciousness we see in the universe are found in evolved organisms like ourselves. Nevertheless, this notion of emergence strikes me as nothing more than a restatement of a miracle. To say that consciousness emerged at some point in the evolution of life doesn’t give us an inkling of how it could emerge from unconscious processes, even in principle."

Another interesting essay: "If Materialism Is True, The United States Is Probably Conscious" by Eric Schwitzgebel.

You have my Cudos simply for mentioning Quantom Mechanics.
For me, I simply believe in Free Will because I want to. I won't argue about it, it simply is. I will allow you to make of that what you will.
Time waits for No One.