For the discussion of all things philosophical.
https://canzookia.com/
Apparently it goes against human nature to address the root cause, but we also want to survive, so I think we will end up with some barbaric method like decreasing the incoming sunlight by 2%.
If it's stupid and it works then it isn't stupid... Necessity is the mother of invention.
Au contraire: unless you think the very recent, modern West is the same as "human consensus," then fighting wars -- along with all the other things I listed -- is how the "human consensus" gets its business done, both in the historical dimension and on a world scale.TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 6:09 pm That's very small-minded thinking. Look at society as a whole - all 7.5 billion people. The fact that a handful of assholes fight wars - doesn't mean that the others want to.
The problem is that there's no "consensus" on who should be allowed to "avoid extinction," and who should not. In fact, extinction isn't even a threat, if one is thinking only of killing one's rivals, or another race, or a different culture, or only the followers of some other ideology. So fear of one's own extinction is no motive at all for good behaviour.Besides, if you don't agree with "lets avoid extinction" as a common goal, then surely you don't have to worry about all the social problems you point out?
We can get to society (as a whole) in a second. Do YOU - the individual accept the argument? That avoiding extinction is the only useful conception of "objective mortality", thus cooperation is a better strategy to competition towards the goal? From which the "no harm" principle emerges.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 6:50 pm Au contraire: unless you think the very recent, modern West is the same as "human consensus," then fighting wars -- along with all the other things I listed -- is how the "human consensus" gets its business done, both in the historical dimension and on a world scale.
You haven't mentioned any contradictions. You only say "I said", but if imagining so is the only way you feel exonerated go for it.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:06 pmThe one of us who does not believe in objective right and wrong...Dubious wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:59 amNo contradictions; my logic is perfectly clear on the subject.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 1:17 am Like I say, Dube: it's not me you have the contradiction with...it's yourself.
...says I am wrong.
...says I am doing wrong.
...says I am being the wrong kind of person.
...says I have wronged him.
...insists he is right.
...says I do not respond in the right way.
...says that it is not right of me to be what I am.
...rages and insults, because he feels I have violated his rights.
...believes that right-thinking people ought to agree with him.
But there is no contradiction.
Is that right?
Well, as I said, "extinction" isn't a real threat to those who believe in killing. What they do is simply to define their parameters: like, "Let's kill all the half-wits," for example (or "Just the unborn," or "Just the Jews," or "Just the....whoever.") Since most people are not "half-wits,"or whatever you choose, the species is not threatened; in fact, from a eugenic perspective, some might even argue that it would be helpful to the species if "half-wits" (or the others 'we' don't like) died out.TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 6:56 pm We can get to society (as a whole) in a second. Do YOU - the individual accept the argument? That avoiding extinction is the only useful conception of "objective mortality", thus cooperation is a better strategy to competition towards the goal? From which the "no harm" principle emerges.
In the animal world, "harm" happens all the time, and it's just the Law of Nature: there's nothing moral about it, and if we are merely animals, why would it be wrong for us to kill each other -- or even the whole planet, if it suited us to do it (for example, if the bad effects will only be felt by future generations, and the money is to be made for us right now, by polluting the planet)?Dubious wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 7:23 pmYou haven't mentioned any contradictions.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:06 pmThe one of us who does not believe in objective right and wrong...
...says I am wrong.
...says I am doing wrong.
...says I am being the wrong kind of person.
...says I have wronged him.
...insists he is right.
...says I do not respond in the right way.
...says that it is not right of me to be what I am.
...rages and insults, because he feels I have violated his rights.
...believes that right-thinking people ought to agree with him.
But there is no contradiction.
Is that right?
Too funny. Well, okay, Dube. I'll bet any fair observer will see a few.You are deflecting. Let’s not assume/speculate what other people might do.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 8:04 pmWell, as I said, "extinction" isn't a real threat to those who believe in killing. What they do is simply to define their parameters: like, "Let's kill all the half-wits," for example (or "Just the unborn," or "Just the Jews," or "Just the....whoever.") Since most people are not "half-wits,"or whatever you choose, the species is not threatened; in fact, from a eugenic perspective, some might even argue that it would be helpful to the species if "half-wits" (or the others 'we' don't like) died out.TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 6:56 pm We can get to society (as a whole) in a second. Do YOU - the individual accept the argument? That avoiding extinction is the only useful conception of "objective mortality", thus cooperation is a better strategy to competition towards the goal? From which the "no harm" principle emerges.
So "avoid extinction" gives us no particular moral precepts at all...not even enough guidance to speak against broad-scale genocides, provided they are defined so as not to include everyone, or provided we stop short of killing everyone.
There is also no "no harm" principle available in a world without God. To say, "It's wrong to harm," simply begs the question, "What is harm?" (And if you think that can't go wrong, consider that in the US alone, in the last year, almost 800,00 babies have been aborted, including half of the black babies that could have been born in New York City during the same period: is that "harm," or is it a good thing, would you say?) Moreover, what tells us that doing "harm," whatever we consider that to be, is actually "wrong"?
So while what you suggest soundsvaguely nice and well-intended, that's all it does. It's incapable of telling us whether or not we should do anything.
And that means it fails the minimum we ought to expect of anything we call "moral": that it should tell us definitively that something is right, or something is wrong. If the "no harm" principle actually provides no such information, then what good is it?
I'd bet that would not be a good bet to make!Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 8:06 pmDubious wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 7:23 pmYou haven't mentioned any contradictions.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:06 pm
The one of us who does not believe in objective right and wrong...
...says I am wrong.
...says I am doing wrong.
...says I am being the wrong kind of person.
...says I have wronged him.
...insists he is right.
...says I do not respond in the right way.
...says that it is not right of me to be what I am.
...rages and insults, because he feels I have violated his rights.
...believes that right-thinking people ought to agree with him.
But there is no contradiction.
Is that right?
Methinks he doth abuse too much.TimeSeeker wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 5:45 pmNo, you stupid philosopher!Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 5:38 pm So your argument is: AI is an existential threat to humanity, so morality is objective. Sorry, but I've no time for this blather.
If murdering one human is immoral/wrong/undesirable/bad (pick your favorite word) then the closest thing to "objective immorality" (the biggest evil, the worst wrong, the ultimate sacrilege) that we HUMANS can conceive is every single one of us DYING. The end of the line for humanity - extinction!
So if Human Extinction is The Worst Evil. Then by contraposition Human Survival is The Best Good. Anything which threatens our survival is objectively immoral! AI is just one example of MANY potential existential threats.
I expect that at this point you will protest with some philosophical nitpick such as "what makes it objective"? Collective human consensus!
Plus - extinct species don't get to philosophise about "objective morality"!
You don't understand the "nature of objectivity" either. Because you are trapped in linear spacetime and your brain is too small to grasp the factorial complexity of 10^160 quantum particles. So I am offering you an operational definition. Till you come up with a better one (which philosophy has failed to produce in 3000 years - so I am not holding my breath).Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:14 pm You obviously don't understand the nature of objectivity - and therefore what this whole discussion has been about.
That's what everybody says when they don't like the answer they got.
I didn't. I just said what their worldview would warrant them in doing. What they would actually do? Probably a bit of the good and a bit of the bad. Most people are like that.Let’s not assume/speculate what other people might do.
As a Theist, you mean? Or what the average human being, devoid of any such belief would be likely to do? Which do you want?Tell me what YOU would do.
?Do YOU accept or reject the “avoid extinction” goal and the “no harm” principle emerging from cooperation
Well, we can see.
I don't know what most people are like. I can't read the minds of 7.5 billion people, but I imagine most of us share the will to live.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:54 pm I didn't. I just said what their worldview would warrant them in doing. What they would actually do? Probably a bit of the good and a bit of the bad. Most people are like that.
As a human. Which part of "you" is ambiguous?Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:54 pm As a Theist, you mean? Or what the average human being, devoid of any such belief would be likely to do? Which do you want?
You are the one bringing (a)theism to the table. It's another attempt at diverting from the point.Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:54 pm You say they "emerge"? What does that mean? There's no logic that connects, "avoid extinction" and "no harm" to Atheism or agnosticism. So you can't just take for granted that those principles are binding -- or that everybody has the same meaning for them. That's not given for free.
The Sun goes red giant in four to five billion years but the rise of the oceanic temperatures in a billion years will kill all life on EarthTimeSeeker wrote:
If Earths biosphere does not remain in equilibrium do you think humans will still be able to survive on this planet?
