If people were 100% rational, would the world be better?

[The Grand Nudger]

Why, why does reductivism or physicalism have a problem approaching meaning as you see it, and why would a god provide whatever meaning that is. I can't really comment unless you can specify your preferred category.

Ultimately, I may not see that meaning - that may be the case, reinforcing your intuitions, but I just won't know that unless you can explicate what it is you're after. I've not been presented with any value or meaning that the faithful profess that I don't have without a god in my life or that would require one, or, even, one that a god could effect.

The world of meaning, as you put it, seems to exists regardless of the answer to the question of a gods existence. If we found out, demonstrably and definitevely, that there were no gods. If we lived in a world, all other things being equal, where no human being believed them....it seems that this would not answer any of our questions about apprehended meaning, we would still have all of them, and all of the pursuant disagreements.

No?

Or, to put it in different terms. If you found out that I did -or- didn't exist, that doesn't answer any question with respect to the meaning or value of life, does it?

[HappySkeptic]

@vulcanlogic said something that intrugued me. Talking about @Belaqua. It was suggested that atheism and mysticism were two-sides of the same coin rather than opposite sides of a spectrum. Perhaps.

I am not dismissing the worlds of meaning we've created, just that any modern atheistism that is both reductive and physicalist has a very big problem reaching those world of meaning. That is not a defeater. I cannot prove warrant for meaning is impossible within an atheistic framework but all the proposals I see do not work.

reductionism is an excellent tool for understanding things, but emergence must also be studied.

Reductionism tells us the basic building blocks of the universe.  How those blocks operate can be surprising, and requires looking into chaos theory and attractors.  Behavior and patterns emerge that are not inherent in the blocks themselves, but only show up in how things interact.

I've already mentioned in threads that re-entrant processes are the heart of complicated behavior - including the human mind.  A mathematics that is re-entrant cannot both be complete and correct.  Many processes that are re-entrant cannot have their outcome predicted.

If a theist wants to say "you can't get consciousness from matter", I say this is a bad question.  Complex processes MUST be built on top of some logical framework (as opposed to chaos).  We understand how complexity can arise in the natural world.  Matter can produce pretty much any process imaginable, and what you think of as consciousness is just a particular type of process.  It isn't an "object", and it doesn't require a "soul".

[Angrboda]

I don't believe emergence can be rationally studied. Explanations are inherently reductive. If an emergent cause could be explained by some accounting of its constituent parts, then it wouldn't be emergent. In that way it's like free will--if there's a deterministic explanation for free will, then it ceases to be free will (of the incompatibilist kind).

[HappySkeptic]

Yes, all emergent properties have a cause - it just may take a supercomputer to partially model it.

But chaos prevents us from knowing exactly how the emergent properties will behave, from only looking at the reductive elements.

As for free-will, it could both be deterministic and categorically impossible to model -- and that is because "will" is a complex emergent phenomenon involving re-entrant processing and a lifetime of memories and neural network.

[LadyForCamus]

Is conscious experience not also a thing of value?  I suspect the answers to that question will be as varied as conscious viewers are.  Perhaps that's why we tend to presume that people who fail to see any of that value, anywhere, aren't playing with a full deck..or, to be generous, having their best or most reasonable day.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. Maybe I’m not playing with a full deck, lol. I can’t rule that possibility out myself, I suppose. 

Another fun thought to play with down the rabbit hole.  If value is fundamentally subjective, than conscious experience is literally the value maker.  All value proceeds from it, and without it nothing is of value.

You have me thinking then, can the value-assigner assign value to itself? That seems wrong to me. Something is valuable if it serves some purpose to the value-assigner. What purpose does my own existence serve to myself? What am I even saying? My own existence serves the purpose of me existing? That seems circular, or like a tautology. Can we even talk about the valuation of things within our existence and the value of our existence itself in a comparative way that is reasonable? 

Would it be fair to say, then, that you see many rational reasons for life, or for a selective preference for life, or for why equilibrium seeking produces the compulsion?  Other than all of those reasons, or any of those rational cases, you cant see a reason or rational case for life.

I’m not sure I’m convinced they’re rational. I don’t know yet. I’m thinking on it. I keep going back and forth, tbh. If simply wanting live is a rational case for life; life for life’s sake and nothing more; then isn’t not wanting to live equally as rational? 

Kloro thinks there's no reason/value/purpose to life because it isn't god value.  You have a value category that you're inquiring about too..but it's not the set of rational cases for life.  You're aware of some and can imagine that there are more, but those cases don't satisfy that set you have in mind.

I think many theists use god-value and eternal existence interchangeably, though the latter doesn’t necessarily follow from the former. Would theists care as much about how much god values them if a promised eternal afterlife wasn’t part of the shtick? If they had the same awareness of inevitable annihilation as we do? I’m thinking probably not. It’s permenance that most theists (and some atheists) want. I’m not sure they’d even care about a god if they knew they could have it without one. @Neo-Scholastic is welcome to jump in on this one. I’d be curious to hear his thoughts.

This statement strongly suggests that you do want it, and don't want it to end.

Correct. But that isn’t one of the choices.  The choices are exist for as long as possible and then not exist, or not exist. They seem the same to me. So, how is it irrational to simply decide to choose the second and not bother with the in-between at all?

[The Grand Nudger]

I mean, don’t get me wrong. Maybe I’m not playing with a full deck, lol. I can’t rule that possibility out myself, I suppose. 

Neither can I.  I want to say that you're in god company, but I'm there to...soo....

You have me thinking then, can the value-assigner assign value to itself? That seems wrong to me. Something is valuable if it serves some purpose to the value-assigner. What purpose does my own existence serve to myself? What am I even saying? My own existence serves the purpose of me existing? That seems circular, or like a tautology. Can we even talk about the valuation of things within our existence and the value of our existence itself in a comparative way that is reasonable? 

That's an interesting rule.  That valuers cant assign value to themselves. Is this a law of physics.....or...?

I’m not sure I’m convinced they’re rational. I don’t know yet. I’m thinking on it. I keep going back and forth, tbh. If simply wanting live is a rational case for life; life for life’s sake and nothing more; then isn’t not wanting to live equally as rational? 

Not necessarily, no.  It might be that a human who wants to live and a human that wants to die are not on equal rational grounds.  Not that this matters to either of us as to what they should, can, or will do, an any binding sense.

Kloro thinks there's no reason/value/purpose to life because it isn't god value.  You have a value category that you're inquiring about too..but it's not the set of rational cases for life.  You're aware of some and can imagine that there are more, but those cases don't satisfy that set you have in mind.

I think many theists use god-value and eternal existence interchangeably, though the latter doesn’t necessarily follow from the former. Would theists care as much about how much god values them if a promised eternal afterlife wasn’t part of the shtick? If they had the same awareness of inevitable annihilation as we do? I’m thinking probably not. It’s permenance that most theists (and some atheists) want. I’m not sure they’d even care about a god if they knew they could have it without one. @Neo-Scholastic is welcome to jump in on this one. I’d be curious to hear his thoughts.

Well, conveniently, there have been religious people who don't believe in heaven (or in fact any non natural anything) despite believing in gods.  It appears to mean as much to them as any common muslim nut.

Correct. But that isn’t one of the choices.  The choices are exist for as long as possible and then not exist, or not exist. They seem the same to me. So, how is it irrational to simply decide to choose the second and not bother with the in-between at all?

Perhaps You're not choosing the second.?  You're settling for it in abhorrent circumstance....but only conceptually.

It doesnt actually follow, for example, that if you lived a life of pain, you should end it.

[Neo-Scholastic]

@LadyForCamus ...for meaning to exist, I believe, some conscious entity must sustain it, in the same way thay substance sustains form. But that doesnt have to be me and my life can have had meaning even if it ends.

[HappySkeptic]

@LadyForCamus ...for meaning to exist, I believe, some conscious entity must sustain it, in the same way thay substance sustains form. But that doesnt have to be me and my life can have had meaning even if it ends.

Great post, but I have an alternative idea.  By this idea, nothing can have meaning that isn't, in some form, eternal.  What if consciousness on Earth ends - were the lives that were previously lived without meaning?

The one bit of mysticism that I have allowed myself is to hypothesize that something can only have meaning in "the now".  Yes, something from the past could find meaning "now" as well.

So, for something to have meaning, there must be some moment of time where someone notices meaning.  That moment is transitory, not eternal.

Perhaps because of my physics training, I view time as a mystery.  Time may have a beginning and end, or may cycle endlessly.  Time may be an illusion, and all times "exist".  I don't find meaning in eternity, or an infinite set of eternities.  No-one is going to even know that I lived 200 years from now.

If any meaning exists at all, it is the meaning in a single moment.

[Neo-Scholastic]

@LadyForCamus ...for meaning to exist, I believe, some conscious entity must sustain it, in the same way thay substance sustains form. But that doesnt have to be me and my life can have had meaning even if it ends.

Great post, but I have an alternative idea.  By this idea, nothing can have meaning that isn't, in some form, eternal.  What if consciousness on Earth ends - were the lives that were previously lived without meaning?

The one bit of mysticism that I have allowed myself is to hypothesize that something can only have meaning in "the now".  Yes, something from the past could find meaning "now" as well.

So, for something to have meaning, there must be some moment of time where someone notices meaning.  That moment is transitory, not eternal.

Perhaps because of my physics training, I view time as a mystery.  Time may have a beginning and end, or may cycle endlessly.  Time may be an illusion, and all times "exist".  I don't find meaning in eternity, or an infinite set of eternities.  No-one is going to even know that I lived 200 years from now.

If any meaning exists at all, it is the meaning in a single moment.

I do not consider your post an alternative. Yes, if [when] all life ends in the universe then all proximate and intersubjective meanings end with it. And, as Nietzsche correctly observed, “My today refutes my yesterday.” The significance of things to me can change daily. The once annoying ephemera generated by a beloved friend has, with his passing, has gained sentimental value. Was it not just trash days before? And yet, I cherish these physical reminders of him, as if somehow a bit of him endures and remains present with me to ease my heartbreak.

So, yes, meaning is always in the now because life is always in the present moment. True, few of us will be remembered in 200 years, as you suggest, and IMHO “being remembered”, or any kind of legacy for that matter, is a piss-poor consolation prize anyway. But if you would allow me, I would like to build on your mystical intuition. For any Creator and Sustainer worthy of those titles, all of time is Now. Just because one species of primate in an isolated corner of the universe experiences time as sequentially, doesn’t make the so-called arrow-of-time an essential feature of reality; but rather, one of potentially many ways to experience and interpret reality. But as you also mentioned, no one really knows what the fuck time “is” and as far as I am concerned our experience of it as humans is just a very finely honed heuristic for navigating through a reality whose depth is beyond our ken.

As for reductionism and emergent properties, if in doing natural science, material and efficient causes are isolated and formal or final causes removed from consideration, then of course the connection between mind and matter will be broken. And that’s okay because that approach is phenomenally productive even if at as a logical consequence it excludes from its consideration of reality one of the most essential features of thuman experience: intangibles, such as intentions, functions, and values. Like Nietzsche said, “If you stare too long into the abyss, then it stares back at you.” So I know it may be my own hobby-horse but I truly believe nihilism is the inescapable logical conclusion of any physical reductionist philosophy.

Perhaps reductionism could be favorably paired with a kind of “maximalism.” Man sits at the center of where the infinite meets the infinitesimal. When we look into the infinitesimal, from the reductionist perspective, we see only the “structured nothingness” of indeterminate potential being. But if instead of trying to build our model of reality entirely from the bottom-up what if we include a top-down model of subdividing the Totality.

The tacit assumption of physical reduction is that change is propelled forward from the bottom-up. And that’s just that…an assumption. Since all we see at the very very bottom of reality is indeterminate potential waiting to be actualized, whence comes this “power” in the infinitesimal to propel change? It could just as easily be the case that the Totality draws the infinitesimal unto itself from the top-down.

[vulcanlogician]

I know I’m kind of going off the deep end here, and I apologize in advance if I’m starting to exasperate anyone. That’s not my intent. When we talk about objects like the Golden Gate Bridge, we’re talking about the value of a thing (whether it’s functional, aesthetic, practical value, etc), in the world for us, or to us, as the experiencers. But what is the value of a live conscious experience itself, if it’s finite and we know that? What can we point to beyond whatever evolutionary advantages consciousness may imbue us with as an instinctual means for species survival?

No. You're fine. It's refreshing to talk to someone who doesn't accept platitudes... and treats arguments (like my Golden Gate Bridge argument) with the skepticism they deserve.

Also, someone with "forCamus" in their handle would be expected to keep pointing out life's absurdity and how much of an insoluble problem life's absurdity really is.

I obviously like the route that Plato and a great many other philosophers take. They realize a metaphysical structure in reality (or higher truth), conclude that such a structure is "good" (because it solves many of life's issues) and go around arguing that we ought to pay attention to these structures and -- for better or worse-- impose them on our lives and use them to generate meaning.

I think Camus (and also Emil Cioran) have some excellent criticisms of this methodology. At some point, it just doesn't work. Life is absurd and meaningless, and it is false to try to impose something like Platonic structures on it.

As a philosopher, I like to stand back and look at the entire continuum of thinking. There looms above the abyss, the question--- "WHY?" --- It branches off in two direction. Two answers. 1) "There is goodness and truth in it."--- 2) It is nothing but absurdity. Any truth in it is fleeting.

In one direction (answer 2), you have Camus and other thinkers who stress the error that comes along with answering such a question "why"... pointing out how any "answer" is going to be false right out of the gate. In the other direction there are thinkers like Plato who posit that there is value in trying different answers to that question. Plato says, there ARE answers that you could entertain and try to support. It isn't easy, says Plato, but it can be done because (as confusing and deceptive as the world is) you CAN find truth if you look for it.

I think the whole continuum of thought about the question "Why?" is immensely valuable. Camus's criticisms protect us from error and show the limits of any potential answer produced for why... while Plato urges us to find the good in life, understand it and try to work with it "the unexamined life is not worth living."

I think there is value in both approaches. They both put the question "why?" right in your face and force you to choose a direction.