Philosophy Now Forum

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Sadly there never will be any significant space-faring.
We are evolved from the need to live on earth and not surprisingly earth has everything we need to live. The chance of getting another planet within a million years of space travel that comes close to earth without being completely hostile from every bacteria, and macro-organism we have not evolved to defend against, is next to impossible.
Add to that the unimaginable amounts of energy needed to get there, which could other wise be more wisely spent protecting what we have on earth make the prospect void.

True interstellar is unlikely and as you say habitable planets appear too far away but orbitals appear possible and maybe Dyson spheres or swarms, there have been a myriad of imagined possibilities in the sci-fi world. And we may well need the resources in future that are limited upon this planet but appear abundant in the Solar System.
http://www.philipmetzger.com/blog/the-p ... -in-space/
(not saying the above is definitive - just gives the gist).

Dalek Prime wrote:After I wrote that, I was thinking I should have said pretty much any inanimate object, as a rock, to avoid (pun) the overhead of the void we might encounter. Void in my context is absence of consciousness, not absense of physical laws, although I've been thought experimenting with the universe being within a physical void.

That's the thing; voids or nothingness dont give me vertigo. I get them; long fugue states, in the context of consciousness. In this 'fugue', the first 13.772 billion years of the universe went really smoothly and quick for 'me'. And then someone created the wetworks to house this consciousness, and I've felt the next 52+ years, bumpy and slow. Once this has passed, I won't recall this, and the rest of universal time should go swimmingly again.

Ah, I was too literal. Then again, when it comes to voids the difference between the literal and metaphysical is moot, unless we are choosing between different kinds of nothings ... ah, the vertigo ...

It may be that metaphysical voids are just as unsustainable as physical voids. There may be little respite for you after you die, and you might soon afterwards find yourself sucking on a breast, completely unaware of anything except the feeling that life is grand.

But would that be you or someone else? Would it matter?

Greta wrote:

Dalek Prime wrote:After I wrote that, I was thinking I should have said pretty much any inanimate object, as a rock, to avoid (pun) the overhead of the void we might encounter. Void in my context is absence of consciousness, not absense of physical laws, although I've been thought experimenting with the universe being within a physical void.

That's the thing; voids or nothingness dont give me vertigo. I get them; long fugue states, in the context of consciousness. In this 'fugue', the first 13.772 billion years of the universe went really smoothly and quick for 'me'. And then someone created the wetworks to house this consciousness, and I've felt the next 52+ years, bumpy and slow. Once this has passed, I won't recall this, and the rest of universal time should go swimmingly again.

Ah, I was too literal. Then again, when it comes to voids the difference between the literal and metaphysical is moot, unless we are choosing between different kinds of nothings ... ah, the vertigo ...

It may be that metaphysical voids are just as unsustainable as physical voids. There may be little respite for you after you die, and you might soon afterwards find yourself sucking on a breast, completely unaware of anything except the feeling that life is grand.

But would that be you or someone else? Would it matter?

That's my point. Breeding could conceivably bring this antinatalist back, after I've specified in the negative. And someone is responsible for this. Which makes me not a happy camper indeed. Someone keeps choosing for me.

Is it any wonder then, that certain people come back to perform genocides? Eg. Stalin, Hitler? Perhaps they didn't want to be reborn, so try to stop it. ie. Correcting a wrong.

That scares me more than anything else, Greta. The possibility that I will die, only to see out a set of eyes once again. I couldn't conceive of doing this to someone else, and refuse to create another mind. To me, it truly is the greatest sin; the original sin.

(Addendum: It's not that I buy into reincarnation. It's the random possibility that the configuration of consciousness produced would be something that I would recognize as 'me', and having to experience the world again, even if I didn't recall my last 'me'. Ugghhh!)

Dalek Prime wrote: That's my point. Breeding could conceivably bring this antinatalist back, after I've specified in the negative. And someone is responsible for this. Which makes me not a happy camper indeed. Someone keeps choosing for me.

Is it any wonder then, that certain people come back to perform genocides? Eg. Stalin, Hitler? Perhaps they didn't want to be reborn, so try to stop it. ie. Correcting a wrong.

That scares me more than anything else, Greta. The possibility that I will die, only to see out a set of eyes once again. I couldn't conceive of doing this to someone else, and refuse to create another mind. To me, it truly is the greatest sin; the original sin.

(Addendum: It's not that I buy into reincarnation. It's the random possibility that the configuration of consciousness produced would be something that I would recognize as 'me', and having to experience the world again, even if I didn't recall my last 'me'. Ugghhh!)

I gave this quandary a lot of thought myself and this is how I concluded it.

If there is some statistical being that shows up again, whether in this universe or another, which resembles you in every way there is absolutely no connection between YOU now and IT then since the outcome is merely a function of math and time. Nothing could be more impersonal than having multitudinous creations of me either simultaneously or in sequence. The separation between me and me would be as great as the difference between you and I as separate entities.

There is zero connection between your being as it exists now and any probability of a functional statistic which may happen and coincidentally resembles some part of the past. In short, it makes no sense to project myself into a possible disembodied statistic which has nothing to do with me or is in any way relative to existing in the here and now.

Dubious wrote:

Dalek Prime wrote: That's my point. Breeding could conceivably bring this antinatalist back, after I've specified in the negative. And someone is responsible for this. Which makes me not a happy camper indeed. Someone keeps choosing for me.

Is it any wonder then, that certain people come back to perform genocides? Eg. Stalin, Hitler? Perhaps they didn't want to be reborn, so try to stop it. ie. Correcting a wrong.

That scares me more than anything else, Greta. The possibility that I will die, only to see out a set of eyes once again. I couldn't conceive of doing this to someone else, and refuse to create another mind. To me, it truly is the greatest sin; the original sin.

(Addendum: It's not that I buy into reincarnation. It's the random possibility that the configuration of consciousness produced would be something that I would recognize as 'me', and having to experience the world again, even if I didn't recall my last 'me'. Ugghhh!)

I gave this quandary a lot of thought myself and this is how I concluded it.

If there is some statistical being that shows up again, whether in this universe or another, which resembles you in every way there is absolutely no connection between YOU now and IT then since the outcome is merely a function of math and time. Nothing could be more impersonal than having multitudinous creations of me either simultaneously or in sequence. The separation between me and me would be as great as the difference between you and I.

There is zero connection between your being as it exists now and any probability of a functional statistic which may happen and coincidentally resembles some part of the past. In short, it makes no sense to project myself into a possible disembodied statistic which has nothing to do with me or is in any way relative to existing in the here and now.

I realise it's an irrational fear, Dub, but it does prey on me. I appreciate your clarification on the point though, and am glad someone has given it some thought besides me.

Metaphorically it's easier to think of it this way.

If there were a billion universes with a God in each having created the same Dalek Prime, would there be a connection between them? Or put another way, coincidences impervious and unknown to each other whether they be in sequence or parallel are only that and nothing more...literally nothing more.

Dubious wrote:Metaphorically it's easier to think of it this way.

If there were a billion universes with a God in each having created the same Dalek Prime, would there be a connection between them? Or put another way, coincidences impervious and unknown to each other whether they be in sequence or parallel are only that and nothing more...literally nothing more.

I get ya. I pretty much say the same thing about 'downloading consciousness' onto a hard drive, were it possible, and that the duplicate would not be the same as the person who then goes for a beer after the procedure. Again, thanks for setting the record straight. It does help.

Arising_uk wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Sadly there never will be any significant space-faring.
We are evolved from the need to live on earth and not surprisingly earth has everything we need to live. The chance of getting another planet within a million years of space travel that comes close to earth without being completely hostile from every bacteria, and macro-organism we have not evolved to defend against, is next to impossible.
Add to that the unimaginable amounts of energy needed to get there, which could other wise be more wisely spent protecting what we have on earth make the prospect void.

True interstellar is unlikely and as you say habitable planets appear too far away but orbitals appear possible and maybe Dyson spheres or swarms, there have been a myriad of imagined possibilities in the sci-fi world. And we may well need the resources in future that are limited upon this planet but appear abundant in the Solar System.
http://www.philipmetzger.com/blog/the-p ... -in-space/
(not saying the above is definitive - just gives the gist).

It will never be economic to gather resources beyond our orbits.
We'd do far better and cheaper by researching the transmutation of matter.

Dalek Prime wrote:That's my point. Breeding could conceivably bring this antinatalist back, after I've specified in the negative. And someone is responsible for this. Which makes me not a happy camper indeed. Someone keeps choosing for me.

With all due respect, you are rather small as compared with a cosmos that insists - against your express wishes - on coming alive. Is there a time when one becomes pragmatic? We are all resigned to the brutality of nature and we've all probably gone through times where we wished we didn't exist. If I was a person suffering in poverty and deprivation I would not be impressed with wealthy people who still weren't happy. I'd be thinking, "If wealth isn't making you happy I'll take it off your hands!".

Dalek Prime wrote:Is it any wonder then, that certain people come back to perform genocides? Eg. Stalin, Hitler? Perhaps they didn't want to be reborn, so try to stop it. ie. Correcting a wrong.

They were psychotic narcissists. All they were correcting were the painful feelings inside them that seemed to only be quelled when they passed that pain on to others.

Dalek Prime wrote:That scares me more than anything else, Greta. The possibility that I will die, only to see out a set of eyes once again. I couldn't conceive of doing this to someone else, and refuse to create another mind. To me, it truly is the greatest sin; the original sin.

Sure, the teen years are basically spent sitting on the prongs of Mephistopheles's trident. Thing is, nobody designed anything, nobody inflicted anything. It all just happened and instincts have compelled we animals to do what we do. By the time we even have the slightest idea what's going on the kids have already finished school.

Dalek Prime wrote:(Addendum: It's not that I buy into reincarnation. It's the random possibility that the configuration of consciousness produced would be something that I would recognize as 'me', and having to experience the world again, even if I didn't recall my last 'me'. Ugghhh!)

The law of averages makes it inevitable that most people won't be anything like you. A proportion will be a bit like you and a smaller proportion, very much like you - and there's probably a few ringers, mentally. I note that the Dalek Prime model has proven himself to be an effective survival machine, having lasted five decades plus and still going strong.

Whatever, I retain hope that life can greatly improve its lot.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:It will never be economic to gather resources beyond our orbits. ...

Wouldn't that depend upon how much we need them?

We'd do far better and cheaper by researching the transmutation of matter.

I agree nanotechnology could be the cornucopia machine.

Arising_uk wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:We'd do far better and cheaper by researching the transmutation of matter.

I agree nanotechnology could be the cornucopia machine.

Being able to economically generate food from waste would be a game-changer.

Greta wrote:Being able to economically generate food from waste would be a game-changer.

Not sure what waste you mean but the idea of vertical-farms is pretty much this, as the idea is that they take effluence and produce power from a methane power generator and also use it to run a hydro and aquaponics 'farm'.

Arising_uk wrote:

Greta wrote:Being able to economically generate food from waste would be a game-changer.

Not sure what waste you mean but the idea of vertical-farms is pretty much this, as the idea is that they take effluence and produce power from a methane power generator and also use it to run a hydro and aquaponics 'farm'.

I was also thinking of plastics, metals, building rubble ...

Arising_uk wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:It will never be economic to gather resources beyond our orbits. ...

Wouldn't that depend upon how much we need them?

Need what?

Greta wrote:

Arising_uk wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:We'd do far better and cheaper by researching the transmutation of matter.

I agree nanotechnology could be the cornucopia machine.

Being able to economically generate food from waste would be a game-changer.

We can already do that. It's called the soil.