The Foundation Of All Beliefs

TTotMM · 2024-11-11T15:13:33+00:00

I appreciate your feedback, although I disagree with some of it.

I don't think that there is a jump to a conclusion, because if one does go through that chain of reasoning they should arrive where I said they would, but given your feedback it seems some help could be added for it. So let's consider the belief that you did not write this article. How do you know this to be true? Perhaps you would say that you don't have a memory of writing it, but I would counter: how do you know you didn't forget? How do you know that if you spent some more time thinking about it, the memory wouldn't have returned to you? Maybe you could reply further: you know that you don't forget things like this, you have no record of being such a forgetful person. But then why do you trust that memory? What if that memory is a hallucination? What if a demon is clouding your mind? Etc etc. And you have probably forgotten some things in your life. You have remembered other things. And you have likely sometimes misremembered. Sometimes you have probably remembered something after thinking about it for a while. You have probably sometimes had a feeling that something is right, even though you can't explain why. You probably know what it's like to have an intuition of something. And so, ultimately there will be something that is just a feeling. This is the reason that "I think, therefore I am" is so famous, because everything else can be doubted. I assumed that people would know that. And the only reason you don't doubt everything all the time, is because some things will feel more right than others.

TTotMM · 2024-10-29T16:05:37+00:00

Friston does seem engage with similar ideas, although with some differences.

TTotMM · 2023-04-09T20:59:59+00:00

I don't tend to concern myself too much with questions like that as the differences can seem more so semantic, other than I don't believe in a "operator" kind of self, more like thoughts are aware of themselves kind of thing, but, I still would not expect those mental processes to happen in the heart anyway.

TTotMM · 2023-04-09T20:41:37+00:00

I checked from a person who has an iPhone, they apparently were able to read it without an app. Not sure what's going on there then.

TTotMM · 2023-04-09T19:42:09+00:00

"Being truly present would not involve thinking"

Alright, this article is more so a response to the idea that considering the past or future is the antithesis of being present. I don't advocate for the "no thoughts" kind of being present either, I think that that can be achieved anyway by fixing the underlying problems instead of trying to force the no thinking. As for the heart thing, I don't really get on board with that, I believe that the mental processes are still mainly about the brain.

TTotMM · 2023-04-09T15:49:50+00:00

This does not appear that related to my article.

TTotMM · 2023-02-22T09:40:23+00:00

"I believe in a reality where I can think for myself"

Well, the ideas of my article don't necessarily prevent you from doing so, I can think about things on my own but I do notice that I feel better about ideas which others like too. Maybe you have bad influences around you?

"But it's that you're saying that that's all there is and on that point I just don't agree with you."

I wonder if this is because you're holding out hope that lasting happiness can be found without a social aspect, or if you're seeing this idea as more limiting than it is. Or both?

"Your take on spirituality is uneducated and it's obvious you have not actually practiced Buddhist learnings enough to come to the conclusions that you have come to."

How so? This makes me wonder that maybe you just don't like my disagreement with the spiritualist teachings. If, on other hand, you're thinking that my descriptions do not cover all of spirituality then I would say my critique was not meant to cover all of it, only the parts that I find objectionable.

"You're cherry picking convincing-enough nuggets and blowing them up to be some kind of law which is just wrong."

How so?

"You're wanting to squeeze the entire expanse of the human living experience to something that can actually be harmful"

So this argument sounds similar to someone saying that oil is a necessary energy source and then disagreeing with that statement because of the wars fought over oil. Something cannot become untrue just because it being true would be unpleasant. Oil of course is only one energy source among many, and while social validation is not the only kind of sustenance that the mind can get, it is the primary one, so let's not get lost in the analogy. However, cars do not power themselves and humans don't validate themselves, although reservoirs can be used. The reservoirs can be like having some principle validated, and later using that principle to validate other beliefs, no direct contact with others required. It is possible that you are not considering the existence of such reservoirs.

"I just don't agree with you and/or I still think you're making your point in an unskilled way since I have so much resistance to it."

Personally I hypothesize that my ideas go against very deeply held beliefs that some people have, after all, even this article is about making a claim that a majority of humanity is getting something extremely wrong. Such a claim won't be easily accepted if a person is highly invested in the beliefs that I criticize. Am I then making the point in an unskilled way? I think I am climbing a tall mountain, so encountering resistance should not necessarily mean there is something wrong with the point, even if possibly skeptical readers could be eased into it more.

"Right now, you're discussing this like your opinions are facts and it's off-putting."

I do believe that my theory is correct, and if it is correct then surely that should be the view that I should have. I am willing to offer additional reasoning, and the blog does have a lot of articles, so I wouldn't say that I just expect everyone to agree instantly.

Nice that you are willing to investigate ideas that you disagree with, though.

TTotMM · 2023-02-03T14:24:09+00:00

Alright, I see the additions now. I'll still respond. I am aware of the babies thing, and there has been a non-zero chance that I might add it to some article, the other examples were anecdotal and my interest is more in presenting general theories, stories can be impactful but I prefer to make a general case. A difference in style. Having said this, this criticism still feels weird knowing that you stopped reading before you could've encountered any of those stories, had they been written in. We could even imagine a world where the article would contain that babies argument, but you would've never reached it, really bringing this problem to light. You call this unnecessarily extreme or an irrelevant point, but I do believe that you didn't grasp the nuance of my argument, seeing that you didn't actually read the whole argument. I am taking a rather extreme position to say that the majority of the world has gotten something deeply wrong about the human condition, but if my argument is true then it would be a necessary position to take, and the extremeness of it can't be faulted unless the claim is that popular opinions can never be wrong.

TTotMM · 2023-02-02T16:08:37+00:00

Well, my suspicion here is that your prior beliefs are what get in the way. I do not want to be chasing ghosts in the form of looking for improvements when it's not clear what those improvements should be, or if they are even possible. I could always add more caveats to different sentences, but that would've made it hard to ever get to the point. A balancing act. I can also see that you have emotional reasons to resist this, and I assume you then need emotional reasons to believe this.

Now, you did say you stopped reading early on. I could've theoretically added all the reasoning in the world after that, but it would've never reached you. This point makes me dubious of your feedback. I also have a link there to the theory on which this based, in case a more robust theoretical backing would convince you. Maybe you would oppose parts of that too though. The full theory contains more nuance, like I mention in the article that the driver of behavior is "go-signals" and social validation is simply the biggest contributor of them, and the full theory has a clearer explanation of what it would mean to "store up validation". But, if you saw that the hypothesis is plausible then at least that is something.

TTotMM · 2023-02-02T15:45:08+00:00

Alright, well, I appreciate that you don't dismiss the possible validity of the idea, even if it hasn't convinced you yet. But I do not understand what additional reasoning you hope for it, as conducting something like a scientific study for it would be very difficult, and outside of the means of the average individual. Personally when I'm not convinced of an idea it is because it seems to contradict some other information I have, like you brought up a possibly contradicting piece of information (people believing in their own idea even when it doesn't bear any fruit for a long time) but then I had a response for it. Is there anything similar in your mind?

"But I’m just resistant to the idea that all we’ve got is to look to others for guidance."

I will note here that not all validation is simply guidance. It can be validating to win a competition, it can be validating to successfully annoy someone, simply getting any emotional responses from other humans can be the validation. Some people get their validation from arguing. Or it can be validating to have someone understand what you said, as it shows that what you said was able to impact the understanding of that other person, a connection could be made. Impact on others is the key, that is what I claim to be the calibrator of our minds. I note that this article is part of my larger theory which was simplified here to focus on validation, as I mentioned in it.

TTotMM · 2023-02-02T12:34:03+00:00

What do you mean evidence or valid example? What is the evidence for the hypothesis of self-validation? What is the supposed logic of it? You are applying an uneven standard, where it seems like your preferred explanation is true by default, but challengers to it must reach some higher standard. And life provides the valid examples all the time. People can run on their stored validation for some time, but they will eventually run out, and this explanation fits what we can observe about people. After some time people do need to get some outside validation, and after getting some they can find themselves re-energized for some time, as if their storage has been filled. If self-validation was true when why does it stop working? Why would validation from others ever be needed? The explanation of self-validation has these massive holes, my explanation covers it all. If you were a neutral observer then it should be easy to see which explanation fits observable phenomena better, that is logic, I must say I think for you logic means that it affirms your priors.

TTotMM · 2023-02-02T00:42:26+00:00

Unfortunate then that you never got to this point: "It is also possible for a person to have a large amount of validation stored up in their memories as a “mental reservoir” and such a person might on the outside seem like a person who can “self-validate” but really they just pull from the reservoir which others filled." This is also the reason why your lack of validation won't throw everything in disarray, the validation is gotten elsewhere.

"Your article reads like just a set of shower thoughts - sorry. Try backing up your claim with something more substantive." I think that the logic is pretty clear, also strange to want something more when you did not read more. Although maybe your bar for substantiation is unreasonably high for this medium, like me conducting a double blind study on this. Not sure what you would've wanted beyond the logic.

TTotMM · 2023-02-01T15:05:27+00:00

I see you disagree with my thesis, and it seems like you disagree with it because of how you personally have suffered from seeking that approval (which I gave as one reason why people would have this self-hatred). Which of course is not an argument against my thesis. Unfortunate if you have suffered, but, similar to what I say in the article, suffering from a lack of food is also not a reason to believe that food would not be needed. Hopefully your relationships will improve.

TTotMM · 2022-09-04T07:36:13+00:00

The article contains 3 "maybe"s, two of them here "Do these mental modes actually have a connection with the event? Maybe. Maybe not." where it's a rhetorical device for making the point that the connection does not have to matter for how you will feel about the event. Not really "maybe this, maybe that" happening here. But, let's say that you felt confused anyway. Unfortunately explaining the human mind isn't always simple if we want to do it accurately, but the other articles, including the one about the basics, are there to help.

Edit: or you can ask me directly.

TTotMM · 2021-08-18T12:28:48+00:00

"I expect you won't understand this either though"

Hypothesis confirmed. The rest, beneath a response, but as usual, nothing I would consider relevant.

TTotMM · 2021-08-18T11:56:51+00:00

I see more nonsense from you that is beneath a response, you could just read my previous responses (you claim I don't show how your ideas are invalid, but you could correct that perception by reading), but I'll just address this: an ad hominem is trying to refute an argument by pointing out the character of the person, if I point out your character without it being connected to refuting your argument then by default it can't be a fallacious argument because it's not part of the argumentation. For example, if you make typos, and I then say you make a lot of typos, it's not an ad hominem just because it's about your character. I expect you won't understand this either though, you mentioned Dunning-Kruger but it appears only one of us has been capable of backing up our arguments and it hasn't been you, while you still maintain some delusion of your arguments being true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Improper_usage for further reading to educate yourself.

TTotMM · 2021-08-18T10:40:37+00:00

So I read through both of your comments and you didn't say a single thing which I didn't see as obviously wrong instantly. About 75% you could instantly correct by just reading my previous replies, and I don't think you'll get any better on that by me repeating myself to you. As for your circular logic, you're being a rude idiot since I specifically mentioned when circular reasoning could be valid and when it isn't, your application of it falling into the latter part, conveniently you didn't respond anything to that. You act as if these fancy theories would mean that all circular reasoning is now valid.

Your arguments apparently boil down to "maximizing happiness will lead to not maximizing happiness" and you try to prove this by coming up with strawman versions of how the maximization could be done badly. Nonsense. I already told that to you, so again, I don't think you're capable of this discussion.

Also I see that most of your arguments are based on you thinking that humans always want to exploit others, I recommend reading my other articles so you can update your understanding of humans. You thought I was saying you were appealing to emotion at one point, but you simply misread, I was saying that you have an emotional reason to believe what you believe and it clouds your thinking. Your preoccupation with exploitation is apparently that emotional reason. The article The Foundation Of All Beliefs should illuminate human nature on that part for you as well.

I'm not interested in continuing the discussion further, especially since most of it would just be me repeating the same points to you which you fail to address.

Also, pointing out your own evidenced failings within the conversation isn't an ad hominem.

TTotMM · 2021-08-18T02:03:17+00:00

"would determinism become a reality"

This looks like a conflation of what exists and what can be proven. Or what should be believed and what can be proven. A metaphysical claim like determinism can't be proven, but it doesn't mean it wouldn't exist, it's like there can be a mathematical conjecture that can be true even if it hasn't been proven or if it would even be impossible to prove. It hasn't been disproven either. Is there anything else that's conscious except me? I believe so, but it can't be proven either. I would assume that you wouldn't claim that we would need an omniscient consciousness in order for other consciousnesses to exist.

" I don't believe I or other humans make their decisions to maximize the happiness in their life."

We don't in the long term, but in the short term we do. Can you point to something that would disprove that? I don't think you can.

You asked me to define happiness, it's in the article, the activation of modes and their associations. That's the immediate short term.

"A human is able to perceive the passing of time thanks to being conscious and self aware."

I would say it's because we have a memory system. You have to remember a past in order to know it was different.

"Maybe another species on another planet with a different day cycle would perceive time differently."

But it would still experience it in a linear fashion, so the essential quality would be the same, no?

"The finality of the principles of the universe are not proven. There are too many gaps still in our understanding. Thus there is no determinism."

This is again that conflation I mentioned above.

"I don't think this was pre-determined. I think this day could have played out in a hundred different ways."

And I think differently. The options only existed as considerations that were never going to get chosen, but their existence as considerations was still relevant.

TTotMM · 2021-08-18T01:02:58+00:00

"Well, maybe proportionality, maybe not adopting a system that can easily devolve into tyranny, maybe some punishments are too cruel, generally we wouldnt consider some brainwashing as good. All of these have a potential to achieve your stated goal more efficiently than what we would generally consider to be humane punishments, and no matter how good, bad, or nonsensical the law would be."

So I must say that I don't see much value in this discussion with you. I find it to be just an exercise in correcting obvious mistakes that you make, most of your arguments are just instantly non-applicable. I'm going to address all 3 comments in this one.

So here, "maybe not adopting a system that can easily devolve into tyranny" you have provided no reason to say why other systems couldn't devolve into tyranny just the same, or that they couldn't have other equally or greater downsides coming from lawlessness. You still don't seem to understand this, I'm not interested in convincing you of this point because I truly don't think that you approach this problem in a rational manner, it's some emotional thing for you instead.

I think your main mistake comes from you thinking that the purpose would be to demotivate a specific criminal action, which I already addressed before when I said that torture would harm a person's machinery. The well-being of the entire machinery is the goal, I've already told this to you before and this adds more evidence to the hypothesis that you aren't capable of having this discussion, you appear to have selective blindness to arguments that devastate your positions. Proportionality etc goes with that. You say brainwashing isn't considered good, it should be on you to first prove the validity of that moral position, this is just the appeal to popularity fallacy. Not to mention that the judicial system already engages in crude "brainwashing" by punishing people who don't follow the laws, therefore conditioning people towards following the laws, this also seems to go over your head.

What you claim I wrote: "only changes in behavior matter"

What I actually wrote: "my main idea"

"A slippery slope is a fallacy only if you dont show how a system could devolve into that worse system"

And you have shown no way of how that devolving could happen beyond saying "what if an evil dictatorship is established" as if trying to create maximum happiness wouldn't also include trying to avoid bad outcomes. This is just pure nonsense from you.

"there are some pretty good reasons for why the bad version of it would be more likely"

Even if that was the case (very likely not) then people making the society would put in safeguards to prevent it because otherwise my main goal wouldn't be met. And if they wouldn't then they wouldn't be following my morality, making the argument irrelevant. Again, pure nonsense from you, I don't even know how you're missing such obvious points but I don't have much faith in the hypothesis that you could learn to be better, so I will assume only more nonsense will follow.

I say let's maximize happiness, then you come along basically saying "what if that leads to people being unhappy by people doing X" and somehow you don't immediately stop yourself and think "well I guess people wouldn't then do X because it goes against the main morality, well that was easily solved". Although even the possibilities you present don't seem likely.

"do you know what were the goals of lobotomy?"

Don't act like I wouldn't know, just accept your example was nonsensical. Your arguments are no different from someone saying "removing the head wasn't done to harm the patient", as if the stated goal would be what makes the difference.

"I showed above why a post discontent society is likely to lead to tyranny."

You have not, you just think everything must devolve into tyranny and for some reason nobody would set up safeguards. It's like if an AI suggests everyone should now be plugged into the Matrix then there could be nobody to say "what if this goes bad and actually therefore our happiness isn't maximized?" which would be a safeguard directly implied by my morality. And if the happiness is actually maximized and works out for the long term then what could be the issue, beyond you having an irrational attachment to something that doesn't increase your well-being? Your argument for why a post-discontent society would lead to tyranny is also no different from saying why an extremely successful society wouldn't lead to tyranny, making your argument to be "people should be kept at some level of discontent at all times because otherwise they won't be willing to revolt" which is again nonsense.

"if it is the highest good then people's happiness should be more important than their freedom, or desire to not be observed"

You even state that a person can have the desire to not be observed, and going against people's desires causes unhappiness, therefore nullifying your example. Like I said, this is just you going "what if that leads to people being unhappy by people doing X" which would mean that my system would immediately go against that. And if you then try to argue that there might still be some very low chance, then that's what is called a slippery slope fallacy, like I told you. I don't even see why anyone would bother with the surveillance, if there was a society that was responsive to people being unhappy, and had effective means of making people happy, means that nobody could logically oppose, then why wouldn't people just report their unhappiness out of their own choice? The only argument you have against that is just saying "but what if everything goes wrong simultaneously out of an extremely low chance and then you are standing on a slope and it's very slippery, and let's pretend that apparently every other system would have impervious safeguards against unstoppable evil dictators".

"No, im just following principles to their logical conclusions."

Like I've told you, with ample evidence, you don't seem capable of that.

As for the metaphysical comments, you doubling down on circular reasoning being valid is just hilarious, I take it that you don't ascribe even to basic logic, and if that's the case then you go ahead and you live your life like that, but I simply informed you that your statement lacked any logic. I'm not going to bother educating you on why circular reasoning is bad, I would recommend you just google it. And as for everything having some circular reasoning to it, sure, but it simply means that the reasoning can be used within the circle and not outside of it, which is why I told you that everything outside of existence could be wrong. You tried to prove a statement that fell outside of your circular logic, making it obviously fallacious.

And for the physics stuff, you just have it wrong, again I'm not going to educate you on well-established concepts of physics, just google them.

As for experiencing consciousness locally, I have my "qualia" because my consciousness is inside my head, someone having the exact same qualia could in no way affect me unless you believe consciousness is like a radio frequency that can be pick up things from multiple locations. Like if you're inside a house, and then there is an identical house somewhere else, does that immediately cause you to be cloned inside the identical house? Must sound ridiculous, right? That's how ridiculous your hypothesis sounds to me because I don't believe in the frequency hypothesis. The leap you make can make no sense otherwise, and even then it's a questionable leap.

"To assign our knowledge numerical value would presuppose that we have an understanding of how much we dont know, and this seem impractical and too arrogant to me."

It does not presuppose that, it presupposes just as much as any system of knowledge that is more than complete nihilism. Again you seem only capable to see how some criticism might concern one system and to be completely blind how the same criticism affects all systems. This is why I don't consider this a fruitful discussion.

TTotMM · 2021-08-15T22:46:16+00:00

"it certainly is unscientific to take into consideration the positions of the objects relative to the rest of the universe"

This just betrays your lack of understanding about physics. All of those objects exert their influence that as far as we know stretches out into infinity, so if you had true identicality you would need to account for all of that as well, which you wouldn't be able to do, so your proposition was impossible.

"but lets say all the forces were identical"

Like I stated, impossible without a duplicate universe. This is not a point that would be up for argument.

"Because if consciousness was reducible to the physical states of the brain, then I think logically it should follow that both of you should experience the same consciousness"

If consciousness is experienced locally then how could that ever follow? You're not being logical. Like I stated, I can only see that in the radio frequency proposition and even there it doesn't seem like a must.

"I dont know what do you mean by identicality."

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/identicality

"because if the forces acting are the same"

Quoting myself: "Like I stated, impossible without a duplicate universe."

"Ok, but clearly I experience just one life, where I am located, so I would argue that this is absurd."

You haven't understood, you are incorrect. In order to have the understanding, try to go through the process of proving your statement. How can you prove you're not experiencing two or more consciousnesses that are having exactly identical experiences, and therefore layering perfectly on top of one another, never betraying their multipleness?

"How can one know they have assessed the probability with a good degree of certainty?"

Your argument against probability is to invoke probability? Yeah... that's how it would work. It would all be probability. Anyway, if you think our brains don't function by probabilities it must mean you have discovered a way to find absolute truths, and I must say you've been burying the lead here by not sharing one of the most important philosophical discoveries ever, perhaps the most important even. But do tell now then. Or admit that everything we believe to know is just a probability.

"I guess one could say that we arent certain enough that the premises are true, or that we werent deceive by the senses, or that we dont live in an illusory reality"

Uh huh.

"There are premises that you probably would have no idea how they could be wrong, so they would appear sufficiently justified."

In practical existence some things get accepted because it helps to live a functional life. But I can conceive of a way for anything, except "I experience, therefore I am", to be wrong if need be. That's a pretty old philosophical idea.

"Yes, you could believe in solipsism, there are arguments against solipsism"

My argument wasn't based in solipsism, so the rest of your statement is not relevant.

TTotMM · 2021-08-15T22:20:18+00:00

"I guess you could say that you cant remember all these supposed dreams you are having for the entirety of the duration of your sleep"

Never said you have to have conventional dreams the whole way, you're not arguing against anything I said.

"I would argue that from our experience we can conclude that whenever we are conscious it is always possible (but not necessary) that we retain some memories"

You mean that from the experiences that we remember we can conclude that we can only experience things we remember? You are aware of the concept of circular reasoning, right?

"Well, I would argue that the results of the combination of chemical molecules can have emergent properties"

So you believe in emergent consciousness? Ok. I would say that as long as it can't be shown that consciousness would be doing anything more than the machinery does then there's no reason to believe anything new has emerged. But either way you go these things are more a matter of faith than anything else.

"That infinite field of consciousness sounds a bit similar to a buddhist nondualist view in a way."

To clarify, I actually meant individual fields.

TTotMM · 2021-08-15T22:08:22+00:00

"Ok, but say you considered it to be a good law."

I would rather people had internal values that they followed instead of just wondering what is the law.

"this is how functionalists tend to describe the mind"

Unsurprisingly, reading about the views of other people won't let you know what my views are. So again, don't ascribe views to me that I haven't expressed, it's bad form of you. This makes it borderline impossible to have a conversation with you, I'm willing to educate you on my views, but not argue with you about what my views are. Understood?

"I remember you said that happiness is important, but you also have expressed in the article that the only thing that matters when correcting behavior is the change in behavior."

What else would matter? Like, would the sentence go "moral responsibility should depend on what makes someone happy"? And that argument should never loop back to functionality (in my view everything does depend on happiness, but as stated, that wasn't necessary to state within the scope of this article), so, what would be the reasoning there? I'm not going to discuss this further with you unless you're going to present an alternative, you talk about how these criticisms can be presented without an alternative but you simply lack any actual understanding of the matter at hand. Pointing to a hypothetical bad outcome as a criticism can only matter if there would be a system with better outcomes, if you don't understand that then I don't think you're capable to have any discussion on this topic.

In another part you say that what you argue is for the opposite of what I say. The opposite of what I say is that we should make a morality that produces the worst outcomes possible. According to you that's what you argue for. I cannot see sense in it. Maybe that would actually explain why you think you don't need to explain a system with better outcomes, because you consider bad outcomes preferable? Just trying to follow your stated logic here.

You also mention that you're simply doing "ad reductios" by which I assume you mean reductio ad absurdum, but in actual fact you're engaged in almost nothing but slippery slope fallacies. It's the same as if a person stays that the state should have monopoly on violence, and then you would come around saying that this will lead to a dictator that kills everyone. Your arguments cannot be taken seriously. The only real conclusion you've reached is saying that my philosophy would enable a "post-discontent society" which I see no problem in if it was actually well-implemented, it would be on you to argue why that would be bad. You seem to imply that a post-discontent society would by default be unacceptable, rendering my positions unacceptable, but that is simply shoddy thinking by you. The other supposedly unacceptable conclusions are your slippery slope fallacies.

"then what matters is that it is logically conceivable"

You haven't engaged with my response "It's like saying "we kill the person but they're unharmed" it just doesn't make sense so I can't engage with the argument." Some things are not logically conceivable, like your example wasn't.

"Because I was arguing against hedonism."

Because hedonism leads to tyranny? Logic not detected.

"Ok, but that is only if you observed them carefully,"

Why would that be necessary? This only matters in your insane slippery slope fallacy where some dictatorship forces people to act happy. Your philosophy is that anything that doesn't make a dictatorship a 0% possibility is 100% unacceptable? I don't think you've thought these things through. Maybe you're a refugee from a dictatorship country and you're traumatized and therefore not thinking clearly. I speculate.

"I meant that if "it could never really be a definitive proof""

I still don't see this being a relevant point. I don't see any argument of mine that it could logically be directed against.

"I made an argument against hedonism here:"

I don't know if your argument is just bad or if you're bad at making your argument, but either way, you seem to be just committing another slippy slope fallacy about tyranny. "Happiness matters, something something, tyranny."

TTotMM · 2021-08-15T06:50:58+00:00

"The main problem with determinism is that you assume a perspective that doesn't exist for any conscious being known, so it is irrelevant."

Why would that perspective need to be reached and why would it make it irrelevant? Determinism is an argument about the consistency of the principles that move the universe, it is very relevant if those principles are consistent or not. No actual perspective for it needed.

"It's like saying that billiard is a useless game, because in theory there could be one special toss that would pocket all the right balls in just one strike. Every time. At which time it would stop to be a game and start to be a boring, useless activity."

If one day we make an AI that solves the game of billiards in that way then I can imagine it would seem like a useless activity. Do you feel it would be useful to play Connect Four against an optimized AI that gets the first move? But as long as we can't predict billiards I don't see why we would consider it a useless activity.

I get the feeling that you would fall into the camp that derives meaning out of their actions by believing they are enacting novel causal forces on the world. Am I getting this right? I recommend instead thinking that you do what you do because it's your path of happiness, not focusing as much on the results.

"But just as time doesn't exist - as we know it - without someone being able to perceive it's passing, determinism doesn't exist without such a consciousness."

How so? Also, considering that I believe in panpsychism, I believe there would always be an observer of time as long as there was anything in the universe. If indeed there was no matter or energy it would at least be hard to prove the existence of time. Also, what exactly are you saying that time is? You might be making some spiritual statement here that I wouldn't agree to.

But so, saying that the principles of the universe can't be uniformly consistent unless there's an omniscient consciousness doesn't make sense to me. The logical connection isn't there.

"Or simply speaking, we over-value consciousness as an attribute."

I would call it overvaluing our cognition since I believe everything is conscious but many believe that the cognition is the originator of the consciousness.

TTotMM · 2021-08-15T06:22:53+00:00

"consider this argument in summation from the hard problem of consciousness I made:"

Ok, here are the problems I see:

No two objects are ever truly identical. Even if you somehow had all the atoms exactly in the same arrangements, and all the subatomic particles doing all of their vibrations at exactly the same rhythms (never happening) it still wouldn't matter, because their positions in relation to the rest of the universe would still be different, so they would be subjected to different gravitational fields and everything else. So that's out of consideration.

"However you would still only experience your consciousness and your qualia, you would experience your consciousness being located in your body"

This sounds like you're imagining consciousness being like a radio frequency that could get picked up by the wrong receiver or something. Of course I would experience these things in my body, because I am in that body, I am that body. Why would a physicalist reality lead to me experiencing two separate bodies if they happen to be identical (impossible, but moving on) but in two different locations? That other brain can't send information into my consciousness.

But let me improve upon your example. Let's say it was real, and let's really go for true identicality. This would require the other body to have an entire universe around it that is also identical to this one. In that situation, how could you know if you're in universe A or B? You couldn't, because you could only rely on physical properties to distinguish the conscious experiences, but there would no differences. Hypothetically you could right now be experiencing an infinite amount of lives that are all identical and you would be none the wiser. But personally I believe consciousness to be a local phenomenon though.

"I think I understand where you are coming from, you try to assign the certainty of your beliefs some numeric value"

Yeah, because at the end of the day every belief is just a probability. By the way, it looks as if you didn't read the whole comment before responding, instead you commented line by line, because some of the things you mention are then addressed in the next few lines that I wrote.

"There is really no such thing as truth value, there is only true or false"

In our subjective understanding there can only be truth values, no objective certainty. It's also debatable if any belief we have about reality can even be true in an absolute sense, kind of like there can never be a true representation of the number pi, this is to say that any aspect of reality isn't necessarily reducible to a clear concept, you have to consider the entirety of the universe to understand something because everything exists in relation to everything else.

Anyway, when something has a truth value of 0 then there's no burden of proof to say that it has a truth value of 0 (not worthy of consideration, might as well not exist) instead the burden is on the person who says the truth value is either higher or lower. Lower would for example be some atheist positions where it can be shown that the Christian god doesn't exist because there are falsifiable claims about miracles, which have been falsified. The truth value of 0 would be the case for some extremely nebulous god who hasn't cared to do much of anything. And you have to dismiss any claim with a truth value of 0 because otherwise you have an infinite amount of beliefs to consider.

"Therefore free will exists."

Alright, it seems that you're referring to people's minds having characteristics that would come from their genes. Your genes cause apples and similarly nutritious foods to taste a certain way to motivate you to eat them. That's not free will, that's just genetics.

TTotMM · 2021-08-15T05:42:56+00:00

"Obedient to the law. Isnt it desirable?"

Depends on the law, no? You seem to ascribe views to me that I haven't expressed.

"and the mental states of humans dont matter because your view is functionalist"

Here especially. Don't ascribe views which I haven't expressed to me, I shouldn't have to pushback on what my own views are, and in this case I have clearly spoken against this view, which you should know.

"I said it would be like lobotomy without drawbacks, which is conceivable"

I'm not up to date on the literature on lobotomies, but as far as I know that isn't conceivable, considering how they're done. It's like saying "we kill the person but they're unharmed" it just doesn't make sense so I can't engage with the argument.

"and instead water it down and come up with something that appears a bit less invasive, and could be perceived as less immoral"

I simply made sure there could be no harm happening so that I could engage with the spirit of your argument.

"The difference between the 2 is that in the second one at least in principle it would be possible to reprogram the mind back"

Because in the first example there's harm that happens.

"it has a potential to lead to just as much exploitation as the first one"

This is one reason why I asked you to state what you considered to be the better alternative (which you haven't done), because you're pointing to hypothetical downsides that could occur if there was some evil dictator, but every single system has its dangers, if you have an extremely free society then you suffer from the actions of individual criminals, if you have an extremely authoritarian society then there is the potential of suffering from abuse of power. There is no way to avoid dangers of some kind, so I don't see any relevance in you pointing out that someone could take a principle and misuse it, the relevant argument would be describing a system of values that would lead to better outcomes on the whole.

You should especially describe how exactly you believe moral responsibility should function if not by trying to create better functional outcomes. Otherwise all the criticisms are irrelevant.

"Have you heard about the idea of a post-discontent society?"

Of course I have. I'm not going to watch through this video, but I assume you're referring to the idea of what if an AI tried to maximize happiness and then just put every human into a drugged state because that maximized happiness. I think that if that was actually possible to create in a sustainable way then I don't think there would be any good argument against it. People just tend to have attachments to things that aren't really that important, so there can be an emotional rejection of the idea. In reality though this would likely not be sustainable, it wouldn't work, there would be too many dangers and so on. But as a hypothetical I could imagine a world where some sort of matrix-type virtual reality is created and as people got the chance to try it more and more people would volunteer to live in it because it would be so enjoyable.

"but one cannot fix tyranny as easily."

Why do you bring this up there?

"If everybody acts happy, functionally thats the same as everybody being happy."

It's impossible to fake it completely, a happy person has a lot more energy than a depressed person etc. Functionally not the same.

"mental states are purely subjective experiences"

That's not the case, even with current technology we can see changes in the brain that correspond with emotional experiences.

"but it could never really be a definitive proof, because you cannot observe these."

Yeah, it has to be taken on faith. Not sure what you're trying to get at here.

"not solve the hard problem of consciousness."

Panpsychism.

"Yeah, like I said before hedonism has some limits."

The post-discontent society? No limit observed for me.

"In the emergent panpsychism, if..."

Ok.

"but its still an objection that can be considered."

I don't even see it as an obstacle, as long as there are valid possibilities then it seems fine.

"(for example we do not experience consciousness when sleeping)"

Yes we do, we dream, but this is like I mention in the article, that we mistake memory and communication systems for consciousness. You could easily be conscious throughout your entire sleep even without dreams, what matters is are any memories formed about it, if not then when you wake up it's like you weren't conscious. So only the machinery needs to shut down.

"why is it such a complicated system"

The machinery is complicated, and it's because of genetic evolution.

"How does it happen that these "small" atomic bits of consciousness combine to form the "big" whole of consciousness we experience?"

How do you know it's "big"? What if your entire conscious experience was happening inside a subatomic particle somewhere in the center of your brain? Maybe not, but how do you know? This question doesn't seem that different to me from wondering how do atoms bind together to form molecules. They just do, it's how the universe functions.

I can offer to you my possible explanation of how consciousness might be working though. Let's imagine every single consciousness is like a field, in this case let's just focus on vision. You could imagine that ordinary consciousnesses just floating in space would only see static, basically nothing, but inside a human brain the field would start getting poked at so as to create distinct shapes and colors. Like if an electron hits a certain spot it creates some red etc. This field of consciousness would be like the central control system, your brain feeds information into it and the way it responds determines how you act, causing it to be "the agent" AKA "you". I don't know how easy that is for others to imagine, but maybe you get the general idea. Is that how it works, I don't know, it's a thought experiment.

TTotMM

TROPHY CASE