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Unread 08-02-2014, 04:03 PM   #1445 (permalink)
Dent
Lost in Hilbert Spice
 
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Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Surrounded by knaves and fools
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde View Post
But when has there not been suffering on Earth? When has there not been death? It has, quite literally, always been the case. You may as well desire the sky to be bright green, or for all water to taste like Sprite.
Phanerozoic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde View Post
Of course, we can (and should) work to change that, to decrease suffering.

But that's not what you're doing.
Yes it is.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Blonde View Post
That's what you want, isn't it? To be in a state of pure physical pleasure as much as possible?
That's not the main aim of a negative utilitarian
Quote:
Originally Posted by Karl Popper
"I believe that there is, from the ethical point of view, no symmetry between suffering and happiness, or between pain and pleasure. Both the greatest happiness principle of the Utilitarians and Kant's principle, "Promote other people's happiness...", seem to me (at least in their formulations) fundamentally wrong in this point, which is, however, not one for rational argument....In my opinion...human suffering makes a direct moral appeal for help, while there is no similar call to increase the happiness of a man who is doing well anyway."
(The Open Society and Its Enemies, 1952)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blondie
but it is nonetheless a fact that your desire to live a suffering-free life at a time when such a reality does not exist is only causing more psychological suffering for you. And that sucks, because I really don't like to see beings suffer more than their lot.
Trying to minimize suffering doesn't cause psychological suffering.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blondie
Basically, everything you experience is structured in a "yes/no" logical framework of human bias, and when something (like consciousness, or ethics, or God) does not fit into that definitive "yes/no" logical framework, it creates more suffering.
I think I found one thing where we might disagree, I think think there are objective values.
"the pleasure-pain axis discloses the universe's inbuilt metric of value. "

The Point of View of the Universe: Hardback: Katarzyna de Lazari-Ra Peter Singer- Oxford University Press

Quote:
Originally Posted by Book
What does the idea of taking 'the point of view of the universe' tell us about ethics? The great nineteenth-century utilitarian Henry Sidgwick used this metaphor to present what he took to be a self-evident moral truth: the good of one individual is of no more importance than the good of any other. Ethical judgments, he held, are objective truths that we can know by reason. The ethical axioms he took to be self-evident provide a foundation for utilitarianism. He supplements this foundation with an argument that nothing except states of consciousness have ultimate value, which led him to hold that pleasure is the only thing that is intrinsically good.

Quote:
Originally Posted by blonderection
It will take work (all things worth doing do), but it's possible I suppose. I mean fuck, look at this guy's Instagram. Why not make your life like that? Who is going to stop you?
Do you think his existence decreases the amount of suffering in the world? If we just wanted pleasure we could wirehead.
He's a faggot, I prefer celibate philosophers.
By suffering I mean involuntary suffering*
Quote:
When you see a deer, you say "Hey, look at that deer!". You don't say "Hey! That's Deer A5681.23!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calf_269

Here is another thing that I would like your thoughts on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_individualism
Quote:
Originally Posted by thewikilinkrightabove
Open individualism is the view in the philosophy of personal identity, according to which there exists only one numerically identical subject, which is everyone at all times.[1] It is a theoretical solution for the question of personal identity, being contrasted with empty individualism, the view that personal identities correspond to a fixed pattern that instantaneously disappears with the passage of time, and with closed individualism, the common view that personal identities are particular to subjects and yet survive time.

Last edited by Dent; 08-02-2014 at 09:34 PM.
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