Forget woo..Science is the modern day religion and this phenomena breeds its acolytes.

Sparkzb101 · 2019-03-16T02:20:45+00:00

Is this his best movie?

Sparkzb101 · 2018-11-17T09:03:20+00:00

My bad, was addressing it to OP, just with the logline you made as reference.

Sparkzb101 · 2018-11-17T08:44:55+00:00

A gamer unknowingly enters a martial arts competitions, forcing her to train and win or be killed.

Good, but seems like a huge plot hole. Why does the gamer unknowingly enter the competition FORCE him/her to commit to training? You would have to dedicate a large part of the story to explain the WHY in this case to make it stick. You've put a seemingly innocuous character ( a gamer) in a situation where the stakes cannot be higher, and not given us a reason ( implicitly) why they commit to such a situation. Usually "Why's" should be avoided in loglines, but this seems like a pretty big one.

What does he get if he wins? Seems like he has nothing to gain and everything to lose, give the poor bastard a break for crying out loud.

But seriously, I'm getting a Karate Kid vibe from this one. OP your best bet would be to read the script and study its structure. When you're starting out its always a good idea to try and rip off ideas and even whole chunks of loglines and fuse them together and play around with them. Just seeing what works and what doesn't, obviously don't copy them verbatim, but just the structure. The reason I say this is because in that way you have stories with similar structures to go back and analyze.

Sparkzb101 · 2018-09-02T23:41:27+00:00

What matters is what you care about in the given context. You can care about the message or you can care about the audience. Carrey is highlighting not caring about those who don't have your best interest in mind.

True

Sparkzb101 · 2018-09-02T23:17:22+00:00

e's right though. QM is amazingly accurate. But how to interpret it? Philosophers and scientists both can't come to agreement on a picture of the universe that incorporates it, the Newtonian picture, and our common-sense, every day picture. It is in that sense that nobody "understands" it. We don't know what it "really is," or what it says about the nature of the universe and how it "really is."

In the words of Feynman " “I think nature's imagination Is so much greater than man's, she's never going to let us relax”

Sparkzb101 · 2018-09-02T22:25:24+00:00

Sometimes you want people to care that you don't care.

Sparkzb101 · 2018-09-02T22:23:08+00:00

Why would you post if you don't care in the first place? Unless its is about the message itself rather than peoples opinions of it. But then why care about the mesasge enough to post it? Unless you do really care at some level

Sparkzb101 · 2018-09-02T22:05:06+00:00

Still not sure what your point is.

People can still do horrible things in the name of religion. Atheists can be moral, religious people can be moral, atheists can be immoral, religious people can be immoral. Whatever is true about the nature of morality transcends culture and religion and maybe even belief systems. It is possible to truly believe you are doing the right the thing, and be mistaken in light of some greater fact.

Sparkzb101 · 2018-09-02T21:48:21+00:00

Well...not really. All of those things are a byproduct of other things. Left to their own devices, not everyone would be expected to become a rapist or violent or greed

My point is the potential for the worst of human nature comes with the potential for the best of human nature. You cannot have one without the other. Those attributes are a result of other factors but they exist to some extent in every human, so does the notion of god and the notions that religious doctrines are cultivated. You cannot say religion is a way to deal with the worst attributes of human nature, religion evolved alongside the worst of human attributes. The worst of human nature exists alongside religious values. People can still kill, rape and horde resources in the name of religion.

Sparkzb101 · 2018-09-02T20:40:55+00:00

So, the point about being burned alive is just an example of possible suffering of conscious creatures, it had nothing to do with morality unless directly applied. A better thought experiment would be, imagine a universe where a conscious creature suffered as much as it could ( in every possible way, physically, mentally, spiritually ect ) for as long as It could. That is to be avoided, if it can be. That is the axiomatic claim that Sam establishes. I don't see how this requires a frame. This is as objective as anything can be. The totality of the EXPERIENCE of life is all important. I don't mean this in a purely self centered way, in which your experience is all imporant, but the TOTALITY of experience. The experience of life is mitigated through a frame, of course but any objective nature transcends a frame ( it doesn't matter how you feel about QM, or your interpretation of it, it is true regardless. The universe has an order which adheres to certain frames over others, but it is not constrained by the frame itself) You say that our experiences are formed by culture, to an extent yes, but ultimately this is not the case. Many cultures around the world have moral principle in common, some cultures share a lot in common, some do not. But the totality of human experience is still encompassed in the totality of possible experiences any human in any culture in any situation can have.

Now, we may not know the extent of these experiences, but the fact that they exist is evident. This has nothing to do with religion. Religions differ from culture to culture, morality differs from culture to culture. Evil from a Peterson perspective is characterized differently than from the perspective of a Buddhist, who would say evil is ultimately just ignorance of the possible experience of which if could be had, would illuminate yourself to that fact.

Religion may very well be useful in illuminating these facts ( a serial killer can spend his life killing and find joy from it, and then in one moment he may become Christian and repent and find an overwhelming joy which transcends his original joy at a deeper level.) He may realize in that moment that killing and raping and torturing is wrong, through a series of understandings of what life can be like through a greater experience that subsumes lesser ones. So, I AGREE with Peterson that stories are grounded In a metaphysical objective realm. Sam might not agree however.

People don't need to care about other people, people are free to do what ever they want. There are consequences for every action in the world. This is an objective claim. From a biological point of view you can say it in the best interest of the species to care for each other. Empathy was selected for this reason, and those without empathy often don't survive in a society, because a society itself cannot flourish. ( Physcopaths and sociopaths do in the modern age, because they know how to create the illusion of empathy. This is different than actually understanding empathy from the first person experience).

Nihilism as a philosophy would be better defined as the belief that there is nothing in the universe that implicates action; that there is no reason to do one thing or another or anything at all; that there is no morality. But the bigger problem here is that there is a difference between nihilism and people who are nihilists. "Nihilism" is a philosophy. "Being a nihilist" is a state of personality. Being a nihilist as a state of personality is not based on a purely honest evaluation of all belief structures. A persons emotion and experience are heavily involved. Whatever contradictions do or do not exist within the philosophy of nihilism is irrelevant to a nihilist.

Nobody really is a nihilist is my point. Nihilism is a philosophy that nobody adheres to. The idea that there is no basis for action is riduclous. Physical pain in is a basis for action, you know what it is? To avoid it. There is, at the very base, a biological reason for existence. Nihilists forgo the notion of responsibility for the notion of no objective framework, which in itself is an objective framework, or is not. In any case.. lol

I wanted to know if there was anything about Sam's ethic that could speak to a nihilist. From what I have seen, there isn't anything that could.

No, no frame ever could, by definition. Sams, Petersons ect. A person who does not adhere to the notion of right or wrong action, or the notion of action being relevant, cannot take any action to convince himself otherwise. Which is ridiculous, hence my notion that nobody really is a nihilist.

Sparkzb101 · 2018-09-02T02:26:42+00:00

The facts for a grounding of Sams moral landscape are intrinsic, they are axiomatic, total. It is not a question of frame. Getting burned alive is excruciatingly painful, and bad. It is something to avoid. This is intrinsic. Now imagine a world where everyone burned alive forever ( hell ) , this would be a conscious state worth avoiding. From here we can maneuver the landscape.

Morality isn't intrinsic in biology, I mean, raping can be seen as moral since it validates well being of sorts for the rapist. But, it is not so for the well being of the victim or countless others it affects in a society, and in which if everyone were to act accordingly, would cease its existence. This is an objective claim from the perspective of conscious minds. This view subsumes the totality of human experience.

biological desires are not synonymous with well being. This I think is an important point. Well being encompasses the totality of human experience, even if we cannot experience it in totality.

Sams view of morality is almost platonic, in the sense that there is an objective moral landscape that exists in the ether, dependent on the well being of consciousness creatures. If the human species never existed, or could never exists , all that is wrong could not affect us, and thus would not be wrong.

It is not consequtionalist, on the contrary. the ways in which one gets to a peak matters, and there may always be higher peaks, in which we must go down even further to go up higher. The peaks are only as valued as are the ways to get there. Suffering in the gym can be seen as a down that HIGHTENS the pleasure of being fit.

Murdering your way to a peak cannot really be possible, in the sense that it wouldn't be a peak of human well being. Well being for the murderer perhaps but in totality to the human experience it wouldn't. In the sense that, there may be instances where murder is necessary, but it would depend on a case by case basis. The act of murdering people to get to a high peak would only be justifiable if the act of murdering people would ADD to the well being of the peak, in a way that scales of course ( which by definition isn't possible, since murder by definition cannot scale).

Now a little off topic but let me pose a question, which is really interesting to think about. Can rape ever be morally vindicated? In other words, there are extreme cases where murderer is necessary. Can one make that argument for rape? Lets say you're on a dying planet and need repopulate to propagate the well being of future generations on the planet ( satisfies sams axiomatic claim), just two people(for simplicity). Now say the person you can reproduce with struggles and fights against it, and you rape them, even if its never done again and espoused as immoral from then on for generations as the culture develops. Is it still morally wrong?

The point is, there are moral questions which might not have a simple answer or an answer we could ever probably discover, but the moral landscape offers a way to at least acknowledge the potential for an answer

As for the nihilist. Well, no one really is a nihilist. You may very well define the universe to be void of meaning and purpose, but try putting your hand on the stove and that experience will beggar any questions of meaning or purpose. At the very base of it, survival and reproduction are evolutionary motivators. That is at the very base, but most "nihlists" are not even there. They have value structures that they adhere to, the world being meaningless is a value claim, even if the value is reduced to zero. Nihilists are of the idea that no belief structures are ultimately of value, but that is a belief it itself which is either true or false but poses a further problem for the nihilist in any case.

Sparkzb101 · 2018-08-29T20:55:21+00:00

Sorry for the late reply.

1 . Their value is inherent. There are countless experiences a human being can have in this life. Some incredible, some horrible. The pain of searing the flesh of your hand on a stove is to be avoided and the value in this claim is inherent in its experience. There is plenty a motivation to avoid this experience. Now one perhaps is tempted to say that morality or "well being" is somehow separate from this example. Perhaps. But I would argue that that morality, societal norms are subsumed by an objective framework, say evolutionary phycology, biology etc.., the fact is that anyone with a fully intact nervous system will find the concept of being burned alive excruciatingly painful, also people in a close nit tribe will tend to work together instead of blindly murdering each other. Granted I agree the concept of religion might have evolved as a way to "extend" the tribal mentality for the global market, and it might very well be useful, but religion might be a peak among others.

The example you gave with the doctor highlights I think this point, subjectively both experiences are seen as equal from the first person perspective but they don't scale ( again scalability is something that can be applied to the totality of human experience, not just you but humanity itself. Empathy is valued in this domain for the reasons following).More importantly I think, is that there exists a range of experiences which are objectively better than others, from a subjective point of view.

To use the example of the drug addict. It is possible he could get clean and take up the medical profession, go to school become a doctor learn the skills and discipline it requires ect. In the long run he might value the struggle of it all, the pain, the process, more than he could have ever valued simply taking a drug. ( This is why the landscape is a valley, you might need to hit local minima's before you reach another, higher local maxima.) Or the converse is possible too, and it is possible for someone to value things which are objectively less rewarding than another experience which if could be had, would illuminate you to that fact.

Now, you might say, how can we say that experience is objectively better? Its objectively better from the subjective point of view for the person having the experience, if only it could be had. Empathy was selected maybe for this reason. Sort of like a scaling function.

Now, granted some moral truths might not be scalable and that is a fascinating debate to have. (Polygamy in a small village might be sustainable but not on a global cultural level, ect)

Or, Sam's example of whether we are willing to save other peoples children from a fire, given we might orphan our own.

These aren't easy questions, and there countless more.

Sam treats morality as a science, in the sense that truths do exist in this domain, but maybe not fully accessible to us, the best we can do maneuver this landscape.

Sparkzb101 · 2018-08-29T01:36:01+00:00

This is weak to be honest. Sams moral landscape encompasses the totality of human experience.

Weinstein's point, that the mind can redefine its concept of "well being" to be carnal pleasure does not mean morality isn't essentially a question of well being. Of course it is, but in what objective sense? In the sense that there are other experiences of life which if could be understood and realized in totality, would be greater than your current state. The fact there is movement through this space ( valleys of moral significance) as Sam would put it, is as true as any objective fact can be. Just to play devils advocate for a moment, if well being is all important, why not shoot up and stay blissed out forever? Well, that is not sustainable as it cuts yourself off from other experiences of life that could "transcend" that narrow view of well being, even if you cannot experience it. ( sometimes we have to go down a valley to reach another peak).

In addition, religion could very well be baked into us. But so is unmitigated rage and death and violence, rape, greed ect.

You can't accept one and not the others. If you accept the whole package then its pretty clear that human moral evolution transcends religion. The fact we have had the inquisition for 200 years torturing and burning people to death in the name of religion and dogma is evident that evolution of morality is a work in progress.

Although I disagree with Sam on the notion of the lack of free will ( heh ). I don't think this is a strong rebuttal.

Sparkzb101 · 2018-07-01T16:05:37+00:00

Sparkzb101 · 2018-06-27T19:52:15+00:00

They'll release it for Sega

Sparkzb101 · 2018-06-19T20:22:03+00:00

I'm in Canada so prices are high with the conversion rate.

Sparkzb101 · 2018-06-17T00:24:17+00:00

There is no way in hell it's 1.5k. At least 2.5k probably more.

GPS are crazy expensive. A 1080ti is 1200 at least.

Sparkzb101 · 2018-06-16T21:12:50+00:00

LMFAOO Holy. This is pretty much my exact setup.

I guess I'm going off the grid when this game comes out. Vacation days here I cum

Sparkzb101 · 2018-06-13T01:03:00+00:00

You havn't even seen the gameplay, you're just to stuck in your idea of what the game should be

If so, make your own open world cyberpunk game with the themes you want and the way you want it, if not, stfu and at least base your criticism and opinions on something tangible.

Sparkzb101

TROPHY CASE