Why is a certain subset of the pop sci crowd so vehemently hostile to any way of thinking about the universe that privileges life and consciousness? Why are atheist materialists so absolutely hellbent on denying the dignity of being human?
What are you talking about
>>1341047
>le feign incredulity fedora man
every fucking time
>>1341057
You gotta elaborate to get a serious response you dumbass chr*stian nigger
Claims require evidence.
If they don't, then I win the argument anyway because I'm the king of Swaziland.
>>1341035
What's with all the anti-atheism, anti-evolution, etc. shitposting? Did I miss the memo?
>>1341035
Because people don't want the OCD that's bundled with thine aesthetic sense.
And because we are a god's foolish children. You wake up and realize the work never ends but is ever more entertaining the more one shuts up and plays.
Christians destroyed christianity by being loud faggot unspiritual spawn. That's on them entirely.
What do you mean?
It's no surprise that they would disagree with any conception of the universe that implies that life and consciousness is somehow "special" in any objective sense, like it's not just a material phenomenon like anything else, like there's a spiritual component to it or something.
I don't think it's that they hate it because they're all just big meanies, they just don't think that's the way the world works. If you mean that they're hostile to any worldview that places value on life and consciousness, I don't know why anyone would be that way.
There's something really sad about people who can't see value in anything unless it's "objective" value, and therefore can't see value in anything because there is no objective value. As if just the fact that people enjoy something doesn't give it legitimate value.
>>1341107
Nah, this is just /his/
>>1341035
Yeah most sci-fi is leftist propaganda shit nowadays, as is almost all pop culture. There's still good stuff out there though, Google the Hugo's/sad puppies/rabid puppies to learn about the backlash fighting the good fight against the Marxist bullshit fluff.
>>1341107
Are you new to 4chan
We like to be contrarians
Why do you think we hate Reddit so much
>>1341124
This post is made of cringe
>>1341127
Prove me wrong
>>1341107
You'd be surprised how willing people are to engage across lines. But you have to ask genuine questions, be ready for hostile answers, and be totally ready to not justify a shred of spite or vitriol in for the sake of argument.
TL;DR, try and keep trying and you'll find some civil discussions in the mess.
>>1341128
He literally just proved you right with his unqualified, unjustified contrarianism.
>>1341124
>we
>we
>we
Is this your first year? Make sure you read up on all 4chan culture on Know Your Meme™ and have a great time!
>>1341035
google Rupert Sheldrake
>>1341035
Why is a certain subset of the a group I disagree withso vehemently hostile to any way of thinking about the universe that shit that I like but has little to no evidential baasis? Why are people who disagree with me so absolutely hellbent on denying my euphoria?
>>1341107
They need to constantly canvas/astroturf this place to make it a safe space for religious/altright proselytizing.
>>1341035
>why doesn't reality conform to my beliefs
Being a Christian must be so depressing.
>>1341205
>le evidence
This is exactly what I'm talking about. The fuck kind of evidence do you want for "the universe is engineered to produce life" besides the fact we're having this conversation you dumb fucking nigger?
>>1341222
There's never going to be a situation where people are saying "gee, this universe sure isn't suited for life"
Kind of a selection bias there.
>>1341222
>there isn't going to be any evidence for my claim so you should feel bad about implying that I need any to make the claim
Seriously?
>>1341224
But the counter-assertion that there's no "evidence" for this view or the implication you're a drooling mong to even have the audacity to bring it up in CURRENT YEAR is retarded.
>>1341229
You really are thick aren't you?
>>1341219
They gain solace by having martyrdom complexes and escapist daydreams of final victory.
>>1341230
You see, intelligent people tend to avoid superimposing their desires onto ambiguous situations.
>>1341235
us intelligent people amirite?
>>1341242
Well, in this context, I can only judge you based on the evidence you've chosen to give me.
You sound like a mouth breather.
But that's not true OP.
Just because we exist doesn't mean the universe "privileges" life.
You're just ignoring all the other millions upon millions of planets that are barren and not hospitable for life at all.
>>1341250
Walk me through your vision of reality then.
>le floating rocks and empty void
>le nothing means anything
>suddenly a phenomenon that is a difference of kind instead of degree (dead, inert matter becoming living, self-aware matter) occurs
>le doesn't mean anything PROOF?
nigger please
>>1341251
just like earth didn't "privilege" life thousands and thousands of years ago because there were only a million of us, tops. what a shitty argument
>>1341260
>just like earth didn't "privilege" life thousands and thousands of years ago because there were only a million of us, tops. what a shitty argument
This is some stellar b8.
>>1341260
>le floating rocks and empty void
>le nothing means anything
Why is this so ridiculous to accept
>>1341260
>I'm a rational person
>I base my view of reality on what I find emotionally satisfying rather than what the evidence tells me
It's your right to do that. It's my right to make fun of you.
>>1341269
>don't privilege life fag, it's 2016
>you should privilege the void instead
holy shit, a literal self-cucking
>>1341275
what exactly does "the evidence tell me", m8? that rocks exist? it also tells me life exists?
just what the fuck are you mongs even arguing? you're incoherent. is your argument just a roundabout way of saying "we're just atoms"? wow, we're made of stuff, where's your empirical proof that being made of stuff = nothing matters?
Creationists deserve to be shot to death in the streets. They are the most annoying group of people I've ever had the misfortune of vaguely knowing.
>>1341280
just what the fuck do you mean by "privileging life"
>>1341299
the universe is a self-perfecting system that exists to evolve life and consciousness, after which consciousness takes over (really just bits of the universe with agency and self-awareness) to continue the drive to perfection
>>1341035
I know exactly what you mean OP, but I can't pin it down. I think it's their strict belief in hard evidence and ignorance or rejection of the philosophies surrounding these questions science hopes to answer.
>>1341280
>"the evidence tell me", m8? that rocks exist? it also tells me life exists?
Yeah.
The evidence is telling you nothing.
If you want to believe something, go for it, but don't try to pretend it's rational.
>>1341357
Neither is the "evidence" confirming your worldview.
So there exists a system that has no meaning except for the meaning we make... sounds like a meaning to me, dipshit.
What makes you think the fact that we're not special to the universe itself means we lack dignity? Dignity is a human concept. Why should the universe respect it to be special?
I honestly suspect there's a deeper undercurrent of nihilism among the people that seek for (or assert) grand universal meaning than among those that reject it, because the general notion seems to be that if it isn't etched into the universe itself then nothing truly matters, whereas the so called "nihilists" themselves seem to be quite content to live, love, and create without it.
>>1341365
My worldview is that we don't know shit.
>>1341374
It's more a deeply felt recognition of the status of being an existing, rational being when it could have just been an eternity of nothing at all
>>1341386
There's nothing wrong with that. But why does it need to matter on a grand universal scale? I think I matter, but I have no illusions that the universe cares about me or was somehow structured to allow my existence.
>>1341406
Do you think I'm arguing all 93 billion ly of the observable universe cares about me, or my family? You get I'm saying, as an objective phenomenon, life, consciousness, matters more than rocks and void because without someone to perceive it, there wouldn't be any universe to speak of in the first place?
>>1341408
Then we're not really that far off in reasoning. Of course I acknowledge that we matter more than the universe, because it's basically required to do so to function as a social organism. I just don't think we have any sort of objective significance. Sapience is just one of many phenomena in the universe, perhaps not even the most spectacular.
The reason I say this kind "existence just has to mean something" thinking has a nihilistic bent is the fact it seems as though it's only a thing skin against the kind of nihilism that commonly gets touted as the "typical" nihilism (versus the more common variety, which seems to just involve people living normal lives), in which you have the despairing lout who has had the wind taken from his sails by his lack of meaning.
>>1341421
I just don't get this line of reasoning. it isn't a grasping for meaning, but a very honest acknowledgment (that is arrived at after a nihilistic crisis, actually), that if this universe is supposedly the dead, dying, empty, cold meaningless system that it is, nonetheless even the most ardent fedoracuck can't explain what the fuck life is doing in what should just be a void with particulates floating around
>The present posture of most Western scientists is to deny any sense of purpose and direction to the world around us, believing that to do so would be to introduce mysticism and superstition Yet what could be more superstitious than to believe that the world in which we live and where we have our most intimate personal experiences is not really trustworthy and that another, mathematical world exists that represents a true reality?
fedoracucks blown the absolute fuck out
>>1341435
So this proves the earth is 6,000 years old.
Got it. Fuckin magnets how do they work.
>>1341431
That's your problem, not anyone else's.
>>1341439
>he can't see the fedora's appeal to some deeper, "meaningless" reality is essentially the same thing they accuse christcucks of doing
I'm not even christian. nice strawman you hysterical faggot
>>1341431
>fedoracuck
Oh good lord.
That kind of reasoning is idiotic, because you could extend it to any kind of phenomena in the universe. Life and sapience aren't special, and in fact occupy only a very tiny portion of the universe, which mostly is just a void with dead shit.
The reasoning here is to not make assertions about things you don't understand. So you claim there is no apparent meaning because there's no reason to believe there is meaning.
>it isn't grasping at meaning
Yes, it is. You have no basis for believing that there's a meaning, yet still desperately try to assert one. That's pretty much textbook "grasping."
>>1341441
le enlightened science man has it all figured out but has not deigned to reveal his illumined knowledge to the ignorant masses, got it
nigga please
>>1341443
>people looking for evidence and then acting on the evidence is the same as my mindless blathering
>>1341443
So this proves the earth is 6,000 years old.
>>1341231
Do I have to dumb it down for you?
>>1341447
But you're the only one here "revealing illumined knowledge to the ignorant masses here." Since you're the asshole who seems to think you've got it all figured out.
>>1341444
do you not understand what a "difference in kind" means? so there's this void with dead shit, but there's also some alive shit (as if the locality of a phenomenon is an argument against it, nigga what the fuck?), but don't ask about the alive shit because you'd be sounding like a superstitious goatherder LOL I FUCKIN' LOVE SCIENCE
so much for intellectual honesty
I don't know how fuckin more intuitive I can make my argument. You don't get it.
>>1341451
>you're only allowed to be smug if you agree with my worldview
lmao
>>1341459
So this proves the Earth is 6,000 years old
>>1341222
Some kind of evidence. If you pick up a watch and claim it's been built to tell time, you can typically point to tool marks on the pieces for instance. So perhaps some sort of indicator of a creator that isn't better explained by naturalistic forces.
>>1341450
haha those dumb walmart christians, what will they think of next
upboated XDD
>>1341462
So this proves the Earth is 6,000 years old
>>1341351
You mean you are pissy that others don't just assume your pet theory is right and keep demanding you have a REASON to for your belief.
I know what you mean. My friends keep telling me that thetans don't exist just because I have no sound reason to expect them to exist let alone prove them, but that shouldn't matter.
>>1341467
So this proves the Earth is 6,000 years old
>>1341466
the naturalistic forces themselves you dipshit lmao
>the universe isn't some sunday school caricature of eden so everything is meaningless lmao
>>1341469
haha THETANS just like that episode of south park XDDD EPIC
>>1341459
>You don't get it.
You've tried this argument countless times. Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe it's just not as persuasive as you think it is?
If the universe were truly engineered for life, why isn't there more life within it? Why has life only been observed on one of the trillions of planets that have been found? What is the rest of the universe? Waste product? What an idiotic claim.
The earth is 6,000 years old? Did you know?
>>1341474
What specifically about them shows evidence of a creator?
>>1341435
> posture of most Western scientists is to deny anything that there is no very good reason to believe
>this is somehow a bad thing
Did they shut down your pet metaphysical theory, anon? I'm sorry.
>>1341481
THE FACT MATTER HAS A RULESET FOR SELF-ORGANIZATION IN THE FIRST PLACE JESUS FUCKING CHRIST
>>1341475
Ironic shitposting is still shitposting.
>>1341488
This proves the Earth is 6,000 years old
Is it healthy or mature to be personally offended when you discover that other people in the world don't always share your own beliefs?
>>1341488
>entropy reverses in a few select areas when you put energy into it
>FUCKING MIRACLES
Have you studied abiogenesis?
>>1341488
Why couldn't that have come about as a product of unconscious happen-stance?
Also do you not see the circularity in this reasoning? The universe has meaning because the universe exists which has meaning.
>>1341488
Well, is there any aspect of life that violates the regular laws of physics in the universe?
Because I'm thinking this is just basic logic.
Phenomena that repeat themselves are going to repeat themselves and thus survive.
>>1341496
Not this anon, but furthermore, where did the complexity that made up this cosmic engineer come from?
>>1341494
He's been at this basically since /his/ first started. His initial argument that the universe must have been created for human life because human life exists in the universe. He got blown the fuck out, sperged harder than anyone, and tries this thread on the regular, I think about once a month.
You need to provide some evidence that humans are extra special snowflakes.
>>1341496
>matter self-evolved to self-organize
wow thanks for supporting my argument you mong lmao what the fuck?
>>1341497
yeah...
that's why...
my argument is...
there being a reality where something called life...
can evolve and repeat itself and survive according to intrinsic laws of behavior...
is the whole reason why I'm arguing the universe is engineered to produce life int he first place
Jesus. Fucking. Christ
>>1341512
>wow thanks for supporting my argument you mong lmao what the fuck?
Wait, what? If you want to learn more about abiogenesis than I suggest the following link. It sums up leading theories pretty well.
http://exploringorigins.org/
>>1341501
>it's a "god is complex" episode
what is divine simplicity you pleb
>>1341512
>wow thanks for supporting my argument you mong lmao what the fuck?
That wasn't an answer. Matter supplied with an unfathomable amount of energy over the course of billions of years eventually resulted in life in one very tiny portion of the universe.
How is that not hard to grasp for you?
>>1341518
An asspull.
>>1341518
How is intelligence more fundamental to reality than anything else? Intelligence is the function of a form, the form being a physical mind, much like how toasting bread is the function of a toaster. If intelligence can be more fundamental to reality than anything else then why not the function of toasting bread?
You have no argument for intelligence being more fundamental to reality than anything else.
>>1341512
Okay.
You are free to believe this.
I will continue to mock you if you continue to espouse this view as a certainty or an objective truth, as there is insufficient evidence to support such a claim.
>>1341532
Divine toasting bread simplicity. Nothing is more simple than the act of toasting bread.
>>1341532
the fact the universe is intelligible to intelligence
>le ebin toaster
what is this reddit shit?
>>1341534
I can grok it just fine. It's just an idiotic concept meant to dodge the fucking question of "where did God come from."
>>1341541
The universe is also pretty good at hydrogen fusion, meteor impacts, and the Ice Capades.
If the universe was just a little different, none of these would be possible.
>>1341534
>holy shit dude im not debating models Im arguing that the universe even being able to do this in the first place is evidence enough lord give me strength
But it isn't. There's no reason to assume that this didn't happen as a result of a force without will. Was it the fucking tao?
>>1341541
>the fact the universe is intelligible to intelligence
That's not an argument.
Toasters can toast bread, therefore toasting bread must be the most fundamental thing in reality.
If you think the analogy is absurd then please realize that's how you sound.
>>1341552
I mean, hydrogen fusion is, by far, the most common thing for matter to be doing in the universe.
I'd have to guess that like 99% of the baryonic matter in the universe is doing that. Life would be like 10 orders of magnitude down from that.
What evidence do you have that life is fundamental to the universe?
>>1341549
What the fuck are you talking about? I'm arguing the universe is engineered for life/consciousness/intelligence, and if the universe conforms (as far as we can tell) to our categories of perception then it's just as fundamental to the universe (if not moreso since the very concepts of space, time, causality, physical laws is what keeps the universe ticking in the first place) as le toasters or whatever le wacky non-argument you're gonna make next.
Fuck.
>>1341547
So you're telling me matter "willed" itself to create life? you know that's literally exactly what I believe right, that the universe is self-perfecting and eventually "hit on" creating life as the next step in its self-refinement right?
>>1341552
Are you going to make actual arguments? Like honest question.
>nah nigga, you don't grok it
I grok it just fine, you imbecile. It supports something along the lines of the tao, something that truly is beyond human concepts, more than it supports any sort of creator capable of willing.
Personally I recommend you read the Tao Te Ching and the Book of Chuang Tzu, as they'll probably round out your thinking.
>>1341552
>bringing NDT into it for no reason
Jesus Christ you are butthurt.
>>1341534
Yeah, it's the scientists who are hostile.
>>1341565
Did the water will itself to create waves?
Or did it just obey the laws of physics?
>>1341566
You dumb shit I never even argued for a creator or supreme being, the tao/whatever you want to call the ineffable background medium from which the universe sprang, is EXACTLY what I'm talking about
>>1341565
>So you're telling me matter "willed" itself to create life?
No, I'm telling that something does not need to have "will" to do something. Atomic decay happens without will.
Further your argument that the universe is self-perfecting is inane, as matter itself seems to drive itself ever towards eventual oblivion as a course of entropy. So it only fits your argument if you believe perfection is absolute non-existence.
>>1341565
I'm saying your argument doesn't make sense. Intelligence isn't the most fundamental thing to reality just because it can make the perform it's function of making things intelligible. The universe doesn't conform to human consciousness because human consciousness works. No more than it conforms to toasters because toasters work. Just because a function exists doesn't make it the most fundamental damn thing to reality itself.
>>1341575
Does self-perfection have to happen everywhere, at all times, for it to be what the universe is going on, or does it just need to happen in the bits of the universe that are self-aware?
>>1341578
*because it can perform...
>>1341578
>the universe operates according to "laws" that are intelligible to the mind
>the universe has no mind-aspect
Come on
>>1341573
Stop with the hyperbolic butthurt.
The problem here is that any sort of "meaning" would require a willing entity to have created the universe, as only something with will can assign meaning. The tao is beyond meaning, the tao that can be defined, described, or in any way limited is not the tao.
https://www.amazon.com/Book-Chuang-Tzu-Penguin-Classics/dp/014045537X
https://www.amazon.com/Tao-Te-Ching-Lao-Tzu/dp/014044131X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1467076576&sr=1-1&keywords=the+tao+te+ching+penguin
Here, read these. I think they'll help you refine your concept here. I think you're ultimately just hung up on the western notion of meaning, essence, and form, when none of these actually suit your thought.
Seriously though, niggas. Abiogenesis is cool as hell.
>>1341588
As I've said multiple times, no, that doesn't follow. You repeating it won't make it suddenly work.
>>1341591
I've read them more times than you can guess.
Obviously the Tao has no inherent "meaning" for it is what presupposes meaning in the first place.
The "meaning" of this universe is for particularized bits of the fullness of the void to physically manifest in a universe of change and contingency, and to thereby transcend those limitations. Do you get it?
There's no will behind it but a natural impetus towards the creation of any self-consistent system, because that's what the Infinite Plenitude happens to like doing
>>1341584
Perfection is a human concept though, so it can only really happen in the parts of the universe that are aware of concepts themselves.
Does the water that flows through a stream perfect itself by moving to the ocean? Only man can answer that. But the water itself never will, nor does it need to. The water just is. If one wants to live by the meaning (which I would say could better be termed nature) of the universe, one should seek to be like the water, and just be.
>>1341596
>minds can comprehend the universe
>universe is not mind-like in any respect, nevermind the fact it is what produced minds, or even the concept of a mind in the first place
Oh please
>>1341588
>the universe operates according to "laws" that are intelligible to the mind
Most of the mechanics are totally counter intuitive, and a lot of them are totally unknown to us.
But yeah, why would a living thing evolve to not understand at least some laws of the universe.
It's going to die if it can't.
>>1341599
Hey, now we're getting somewhere. "God is", "Just be", "wu wei", "I am awake", all that jazz, there ya go, heeyyy, the anon gets it,
>>1341588
The laws of physics are simplified approximations of what actually happens, occasionally very good approximations, but they are still essentially models. And even then, this is like saying the universe itself must have some dog-aspect because dogs can operate within them.
>>1341604
You just pretty much said "a being needs to evolve a mind to understand the universe", which obviously implies a mind-quality to the universe
You never heard about Anthropic Principle? Very popular idea in pop sci crowd that privileges life and consciousness. Shows how little you know about what you are speaking, I guess.
>>1341606
A dog interacts physically with its environment. A human can "interact" in the abstract, can understand the universe through principle as much as physical cause-effect
>>1341608
I think you need a mind to understand anything.
That's what "understand" means.
Humans can understand universes that are totally different than the one we live in, thanks to the power of abstract thinking and mathematics.
You would be totally wrong if you think human understanding of physics is intuitive except at the most basic evolutionary level.
>>1341613
>why are there humans, what is all this
>because it's the only universe where there could be humans, i hope this answers your question :^)
>>1341597
I get what you're getting at. But I think you're overlooking the second aspect of creation, which is destruction. Everything in the universe trends towards creation through change, but change will always bring with it some element of destruction. Something must be taken from somewhere else to become something, and the eventual trend of the universe is for all motion to cease, all change to become still, which is ultimately tantamount to an end. Whether this will precipitate another cycle anew of another universe, I can't say, but it none the less stands as a fundamental quality of the universe.
One could say both creation and destruction are the meaning of the universe, and those both of these have trend towards our existence. But I prefer to take the other approach, that neither is a meaning of the universe, and that they simply allowed us to be one of many results.
I'm afraid I'll just have to agree to disagree.
If I were to make a recommendation, I'd recommend simmering down a bit. This discussion got more fruitful when things calmed down a bit. I'm sorry for being rude to you.
>>1341614
>A dog interacts physically with its environment
And also abstractly, because they can corner prey in ways beyond just following visual stimuli.
Thus, dogs are part of the fundemental fabric of the universe.
>>1341615
The "human slice" of the universe we understand very well intuitively, what's "below" it we need physics and all that shit. I don't know why you think this is an argument for there not being mind instead of just that the structural coherency of Mind is expressed differently at different scales
>>1341624
I think that there's no evidence for a "mind."
I think that the things you've put forward as evidence are non sequitur logic.
>>1341617
> Pointing out that OP was factually wrong
> Not on my 4chans! XD
>>1341620
But destruction, or rather the interplay of creation-destruction is exactly the principle of the "limitations" I was talking about in the first place - essentially, temporality, and all that's implied by it, decay, change, corruption, death, etc.
For there to be some condition, some limitation or sorry state of affairs to transcend, there must be something other than the infinite stillness of the Tao/void, and if something is not infinite, homogenized fullness, then it is change, it is Other.
I get mad because instead of anons who know what they're talkinabout like you, even if they disagree, I get fedoras and reddit shit
>>1341633
> there's no evidence for a "mind."
What about... I dunno, thoughts that everyone can check if they have them or not? This denial kind of is absurd one.
>>1341633
We're arguing in circles. Even if a dog has the cognitive capacity to anticipate the movements of its prey, it's obviously utilizing "Mind" to the degree a dog can participate in Mind. You don't get it.
Good day.
I think it's because such notions tend to be packaged with more familiar theistic belief systems that these people find distasteful. Look for yourself, OP, at the accusations of Christianity within this thread.
>>1341641
If you'll excuse me, I have to publish some papers on my "toasterthropic principle," if you're just going to throw shit at the wall.
>>1341644
So why Mind then specifically? Dogs and humans "participate in Mind" to the best of their ability, then why not other common things? Do dogs and humans "participate in Urine" to the best of their ability? Is that fundamental to the fabric of reality too?
>>1341640
>I get mad because instead of anons who know what they're talkinabout like you, even if they disagree, I get fedoras and reddit shit
Well considering I am one of those people you accused of reddit shit, you might just want to take a breather when you try to discuss these things. Keep in mind that people are often arguing from a completely different from of mind, often against an idea of what they think your position is.
Consider the guy making cracks about the earth being 6000 years old. While I think it was premature, I think it's also worth noting that your position as advertised could very well have been (but thankfully wasn't) an attempt to argue for young earth creationism.
>>1341645
It is mostly because if you say that something is an exception you can't really build up a coherent scientific theory from that i.e. you can say that a thing is just magical or miracle at this point.
>>1341655
because the mind is isomorphic to the nature and structure of the universe by the very virtue of the fact the mind can learn shit about the universe, which would be impossible if it did not exhibit a categorical correspondence with the system that birthed it
>>1341670
>the mind is like the universe because the mind can understand the universe
>the mind is like a leaf because the mind can understand a leaf
>>1341670
But humans can learn about universes they don't live in.
If we wanted to, we could develop a universe where gravity repels instead of attracts particles, and model that shit mathematically.
>>1341669
That's fine. You shouldn't be saying such things when making scientific theories. But life isn't all about scientific theories. We go about all kinds of things unscientifically, do you appreciate entertainment in a scientific fashion? Sure there are scientific mechanisms at work there, but your enjoyment and pursuit of it most certainly is not driven by a scientific thought. Why should our evaluation of life be any different?
>>1341683
The problem isn't so much thinking about life that way as it is thinking that was and assuming it's a fact. The way we think about entertainment, for example, is largely regarded as personal and subjective. If you want to think about life in a personal and subjective way, go for it, but just acknowledge you aren't dealing with facts.
>>1341678
only different permutations of this universe's behavior, it's impossible to conceptualize a universe that doesn't even have the concept of a "concept"
>>1341675
No, the universe is like the mind because the mind can understand the universe. The leaf is like a mind (in that it is derived from intelligible principles we can model and describe scientifically) because the mind can understand it.
>>1341601
I tell you that your argument isn't an actual argument and that you are just repeating yourself and you repeat yourself even harder than before? I don't believe you were the original person I was posting with. You sound like a falseflagger at this point trying to make the original anon look bad.
>>1341704
But concepts don't exist in physics, they exist in psychology.
And we can totally run the physics for universes in which thought is impossible.
>>1341704
And, again, we come back to the central point, which is what is so special about understanding? Why is that the basis of your metaphysical system and not one of the other billions of things humans do?
>>1341683
I guess there is more merit for such thinking, but for pop sci crowd to say that science have no place here is like to say for Christian that religion should stay away from something.
>>1341723
BECAUSE IF WE'RE TALKING ABOUT UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF REALITY THEN WE MUST PRESUPPOSE THE PRIMACY OF HUMAN CAPACITY TO UNDERSTAND IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE AND NOT LE WACKY TOASTERS
IF THE MIND ALLOWS US TO GRASP THE PRINCIPLES GOVERNING THE BEHAVIOR OF THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE IT IS NOT OUTRAGEOUS TO ASSUME WE CAN EXTRAPOLATE BACKWARDS FROM THE FACT OF THERE BEING EMPIRICAL LAWS TO SOME META-UNDERSTANDING OF THE UNIVERSE AS A
SYSTEM GROUNDED IN A COHERENT ONTOLOGICAL "SYNTAX" THAT IS SO FAR PRETTY INTUITIVELY INTELLIGIBLE TO ANY DIP WHO DOESN'T REFUSE TO LEAVE THE HOUSE WITHOUT SPORTING A CERTAIN OUTDATED ARTICLE OF CLOTHING ONE WEARS ON HIS HEAD
EVEN IF THE DOUBTER MUST GRANT A PRIMACY TO HIS DOUBT
OR ELSE THERE ISN'T ANYTHING TO TALK ABOUT FUCKING REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
REEEE
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
>>1341779
I think you live in a cloud of buzzwords and you are lashing at phantoms of ideas that haunt you.
Is your life a waking nightmare of unrealized angst?
>>1341838
>>1341779
>IF THE MIND ALLOWS US TO GRASP THE PRINCIPLES GOVERNING THE BEHAVIOR OF THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE IT IS NOT OUTRAGEOUS TO ASSUME WE CAN EXTRAPOLATE BACKWARDS
It's not outrageous, but that doesn't mean it's correct. It is equally not outrageous to extrapolate backwards from toasters, outside of subjective human bias that brains are important and toasters are unimportant. You might personally find it wacky, but there isn't much difference in an objective sense.
>FROM THE FACT OF THERE BEING EMPIRICAL LAWS TO SOME META-UNDERSTANDING OF THE UNIVERSE AS A SYSTEM GROUNDED IN A COHERENT ONTOLOGICAL "SYNTAX" THAT IS SO FAR PRETTY INTUITIVELY INTELLIGIBLE
For one thing, if it were intuitively intelligible then anatomically modern humans should have been doing quantum physics. We woudn't have had to bother with Aristotle and Newton if the way the universe actually worked was so intuitive. It is in fact actually extremely counter-intuitive, and you can see that y how easy it is for someone to misunderstand a result or for people to even argue about what a result actually means. Our brains aren't really designed to actually understand it, which is why, for example, people have so much trouble conceiving of the distances between objects in space.
>TO ANY DIP WHO DOESN'T REFUSE TO LEAVE THE HOUSE WITHOUT SPORTING A CERTAIN OUTDATED ARTICLE OF CLOTHING ONE WEARS ON HIS HEAD REEEEE
I'm not sure someone posting frog memes should be throwing stones in his glass house.
>>1341869
It kinda is. Group therapy is basically just a means to reinforce certain ideas in its participants, to help them better cope with their lives. The problem with 4chan is that it doesn't necessarily reinforce healthy ideas.
>>1341936
Kudos to you for having the patience to respond to a cruise control post.
>>1341779
>EVEN IF THE DOUBTER MUST GRANT A PRIMACY TO HIS DOUBT
nuh uh cause the only thing you cannot doubt is that you doubt you doubt.
>>1341035
>thinking about the universe that privileges life and consciousness?
because it doesnt
>>1341222
>the universe is engineered to produce life
it isnt unless you think that the universe ends after we leave the solar system, even fucking earth itself could be a million times better for living instead of this shit we have now
>>1341035
>hellbent on denying the dignity of being human?
I'll buy the vehemently hostile to privilegeing consciousness thing, but not this.
When I considered myself Atheist it was more about keeping what I saw as my material dignity and denying assumptions/pretense/dogma. It was also about staying brave in the face of annihilation, denying promises of reward/threats of punishment, and staying """unbiased."""
I don't think the same way now as I did then, but I damn well never denied dignity.
I hope this response doesn't seem shitposty OP, I'm serious.
>>1341123
>The solution to propaganda is to react with counter-propaganda.
No thanks, Action Hank.
>>1341035
That's funny, I think the same way about life-denying religions like Christianity.
Man's dignity doesn't stem from the soul or some divine creator figure, it is found solely in the brevity and fragility of life. Our own absurd situation, namely that we do not have enough time to realize and cope with the endless scope of the world, results in a beauty that not many people can adequately express. Theists (often unwillingly) undermine and destroy this great gift, and that's why I hate them.
>>1341078
this
I, the emperor of Europe, agree
>>1341035
>Why are atheist materialists so absolutely hellbent on denying the dignity of being human?
because they are edgelord faggots desu
>LALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING TO YOU!! WE DON'T NEED LOGIC AND ARGUMENTS IN OUR SAFE SPACE! FUCKING ATHEIST FEDORAS, AM I RIGHT GUYS??? LALALALA
No matter how many threads like this we have, this is always how it ends when the religious people and alt-rightists start losing
>>1341305
Im gonna need some evidence to back this up
>>1341534
>universe exists
>therefore god
Wew you forgot some intermediary steps here
>>1341035
Because its is a massive statment about human ego to say their is intrinsic value in life, specificaly human life.
Im atheist and I personally dont like being one. I wish that somehow something or someone can actually give me evidence to beleive other wise.
But it simply makes more sense that the universe is indifferent. And to accept rather then go into some form of denial and delusion that death isn't exactly what it is, the end of life.
It would be nice to be a believer.
>>1346340
always request evidence from anyone making a statment in in argument. Foundation of good debate. But if your someone making a statment be prepared to present evidence yourself.
>>1344423
>safe space
>rightist
lol wut
>>1341035
I think they have fallen for vain parlor tricks. Many people seem to think/feel that because the universe is SOOOO big compared to us, that we must be ultimately insignificant and non-special; as if size ever had anything to do with his important something is.
The whole notion of cosmic horror is self contradictory and vain.
>>1341250
You sound like a human being!
I bet you have to put your pants on one leg at a time! How pathetic and embarrassing!
>>1341222
>universe's purpose is to create life
then it's kinda working terribly, since we could only find it on one of millions planets.
>>1346683
>implying you have some objective metric of how well a universe is producing life
Terrible argument.
>>1346394
>le acknowledging your objective status as a rational being is ego-stroking except when I stroke my own ego thinking about how I'm a totally cool nihilist XDD
Not everything reduces to the feeling you get when people like your latest tweet you tedious mouthbreathing cuck
>>1346939
not an argument
>>1347239
Neither is yours. thanks for playing
>>1341035
Because priviliging life and conciousness is a surefire way to ignore the fact that we are a minute detail of existence and that for the sake of our own understanding we need to see as much of the bigger picture as we possibly can.
Or, when you say "priviliging life and conciousness", do you mean the religious world view? Because if that is the case your bait sucks and your boat is ugly.
>>1348960
To add to this.
I have never seen a rock assign value to eroding by force of wind or by force of water. There is no star wishing it was a moon because they get all the bitches.
Assigning value to anything is as far as we can prove an exclusively human action and mostly informed by philosophy. To assume any such thing as "value" exists beyond our subjective minds is kind of silly.
>>1346414
Rightists are Social Justice Warriors who think jews, woman, and blacks are the aggressors against the white male victims.
They use the same dogwhistle, astroturfing, alarms, and shaming tactics.
>>1341035
>Why is a certain subset of the pop sci crowd so vehemently hostile to any way of thinking about the universe that privileges life and consciousness? Why are atheist materialists so absolutely hellbent on denying the dignity of being human?
I only deny that there is something like an absolute, concrete aspect of "dignity".
The notion that the universe privileges life actually makes it harder to explain why stuff happens the way it does and doesn't allow you to make any predictions concerning how stuff will work out in the future. The model of an uncaring universe like the sciences use is simply more reliable.
In my day-to-day life I make lots of value judgements but I like to think I'm wise enough to think these aren't natural (or divine) laws, merely my opinions.
>>1349343
yo honestly fuck the "scientific universe", because a) science doesn't make value judgments in the first place, even to the effect of denying value b) fuck that bullshit, if science's big contribution to "philosophy" is "rocks don't have a concept of justice", then wow, so deep, bro, we're back where we started which is: objective, physical reality gives rise to subjective realities, which create meaning from there. fucking goatfuckers thousands of years ago knew this
>>1349360
>objective, physical reality gives rise to subjective realities, which create meaning from there
And that's all you can say. You are flipping back the order of things are treating as if objective, physical reality existed to give rise to subjective realities. But you can't extract finality from causality when dealing with unthinking beings. You jump from causality to teleology.
I just don't see why your perspective is any more sound, if it just doesn't provide anything substantial and just complicates things.
Also, the notion that people that regular people thought in such terms is amusing, but lacks backing - moral laws were taken to be absolute by the Abrahamic creeds for instance.
Another point I'd like to make is your complaint on what science contributes to philosophy. I didn't think to address that at all. I was just saying that your personal philosophy contributes nothing - to anything, besides perhaps your sense of self-importance.
>>1349403
>You are flipping back the order of things are treating as if objective, physical reality existed to give rise to subjective realities.
*You are flipping back the order of things and treating it as if objective, physical reality existed to give rise to subjective realities.
>>1349403
I can when those unthinking beings contributed to a process that resulted in thinking beings, especially when those thinking beings are made from bits and pieces of unthinking shit themselves.
I look around me and see a universe that is mostly dead but somehow births a spectacular diversity of life when the ingredients are there. saying life is just "a chemical accident" is like admitting I could leave a bunch of alphabet blocks in a room, come back in a million years to find them having reproduced Joyce's "Ulysses", and then have some fedora say "WELL, GIVEN ENOUGH TIME..." nah nigga, if they didn't have the potential to do that in their very physical makeup, it wouldn't have happened, end of story.
>>1349510
In the same way, I could say that life only did arise so plastic bags could come into existence. Just like so much of the universe isn't conductive to life so much of life isn't conductive to plastic bags. Yet, it's a fact that life contributes to making plastic, like much of the nonliving universe contributed to making life.
Your hypothetical scenario is specially silly, even when compared to the more used "infinite monkeys typing randomly for eternity will eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare". Even then it makes sense. Because pi contains infinite configurations of algorithms and these numbers can be converted to letters or words, pi must contain Joyce's "Ulysses", the perfect recipe for octopus pie and a complete record of all the bowel movements you ever had or will ever have. This doesn't mean pi exists so you can make up codes then look for these things between the gibberish.
The only potential required is for "sufficient randomness".
>>1349510
For your analogy to work, the alphabet blocks would need to be self-replicating, able to prune non-Ulysses content, occur in billions of rooms, be able to move blocks of matching text from one room to another, not be actually specifically lookong for Ulysses but anything about the Irish or The Odyssey etc. Once you start making it more similar to what actually happened, it becomes much less implausible.
Of course, at this point, you'll say that the fact that such "rules" seem to exist is evidence that the rooms are designed to engineer Ulysses specifically. But they aren't, Ulysses is simply one of many products the rooms produce.
>>1349567
>arguing randomness
>for a universe that has set-in-stone laws
>>1349610
>countless "dead" phenomena
>life itself
>dude it's just something that happens lmao
Oh man. Until any of you can intuitively explain to me what a ruleset for life is doing in your fedora fantasy void of meaninglessness and epin darkness XDDD, nah
>>1349676
>what a ruleset for life is
There is a "ruleset" for waterfalls. When water in sufficient quantities reaches an area where it can go into free-fall, you have a waterfall.
There is a "ruleset" for metamorphic rock. When sufficient heat and temperature is applied to certain minerals in certain combinations, they are forced into forms that either tolerate the heat, the pressure, or a little of both. Then you have a metamorphic rock.
There is a "ruleset" for life. The shapes of certain molecules means that they either self organize or self replicate. (For example, phospholipids have a hydrophobic and hydrophilic side. The hydrophobic side will seek regions without water, the hydrophilic side will seek regions without water, so if you get a bunch of them together in water you will get an externally-facing hydrophilic region and an inwardly-facing hydrophobic region, roughly in a sphere for the same regions bubbles form.) If you get the right mixture self-replicating molecules beside the right mixture of self-organizing molecules, you get life.
The "rulesets" are humanity's ways of summarizing whatever behaviour actually exists, but they are just the products of the properties amd interactions of the subjects in question. And there is nothing that makes the interactions we call "life" particularly more important than the interactions we call "metamorphic rock" or "planets" etc.
>>1349676
can you only talk in memes?
>>1349735
The bugger with materialism is you have to have faith that somehow understanding the minutia of the material universe will let you work backwards towards things like the nature of consciousness.
But, while the material world can indirectly give you access to the subjective, it may very well turn out to be that the immeasurable will forever be beyond its grasp. Even now, we know so much about how to alter and detect states of consciousness and even specific perceptions as they form electro-chemical patterns in the human brain, it maybe that is all we can ever know from that perspective, just ever more precisely.
We may one day have a "ruleset" for consciousness, but if that rule set can only be defined as a particular electro-chemical reaction, I doubt it would ever be a satisfactory explanation for anyone actually experiencing that state.
On the other hand, as mister ALL CAPS ( >>1341936 ) is flailing about in an attempt to express, how can ever one truly have a rational discussion about the irrational? If the core nature of the object in question is incommunicable in mutually agreeable terms, how does one come together with another individual, or group there of, to examine and analyze it?
Though I don't want to drift into yet another qualia debate, as someone has been conspiring to post up at least fifty of those a day on /sci/.
Because it's an untestable claim. It cannot be falsified and is therefore meaningless
>>1350542
Not even science claims consciousness is meaningless, only that it is beyond its grasp.
There is no meaning without a consciousness to lay claim to it, afterall.
>>1350548
>only that it is beyond its grasp.
That's what I meant with the word 'meaningless'. If you can't verify or falsify a concept, then any discussion about it is pointless, as the veracity cannot be properly establish. It makes no difference if you declared such a concept an unknown.
>>1350573
Well, it's a sad state of affairs when you have to declare that which gives meaning to the universe meaningless.
So I suppose all you can hope for is that sufficient understanding of that which can be empirically defined and discussed somehow creates a framework from which that which cannot, can be.
The risk is that it may never be so, and thus the one thing all that effort of countless generations is and will be built upon, ultimately has no meaning.
On the other hand, it'd be quite a lie to say that science hasn't probed into the nature of consciousness at nearly every opportunity, and not all the efforts have been entirely ambiguous. It's just that, at the moment, those few that are not, only seem to be dancing vague outlines around an unfathomable abyss.
>>1350614
>Well, it's a sad state of affairs when you have to declare that which gives meaning to the universe meaningless.
Did you even read my post? Do you even know how to read properly?
I said that the claims you make cannot be verified nor falsified, which means that any discussion about them is pointless. We can simply declare everything you've just said an unknown, as nothing can be said about it that explains or clears up anything about it. Your long, rambling appeal to emotion doesn't solve this problem, as we're still stuck with all your untestable claims and various other noncepts you just made up. Discussing it has no point. I would be like me discussing what my life was like before I was born. I have no single way of figuring out anything about this
>>1350639
Well, I'm saying, and I suspect the hope of most staunch materialists is, that it won't always be the case... That somehow, by unraveling the secrets of the material universe, we can also unravel the secrets of ourselves. Lest we never understand ourselves beyond the level of tin men.
I'm also not so sure I'd be willing to go so far as to state the discussion is entirely pointless. It's difficult, if not impossible, to have a rational discussion about the entirely irrational and entirely unknown, yes, but the thing is, it isn't entirely unknown. Even if it's only on a preverbal level, we all experience it. Even if it is incommunicable, and thus only expressible through art and metaphor, and we can only ever touch upon the very edges of it, we all intrinsically know it's there.
>>1350675
>Even if it is incommunicable, and thus only expressible through art and metaphor, and we can only ever touch upon the very edges of it, we all intrinsically know it's there.
Again, this is an untestable claim. 'We all know this' sounds like the very definition of unfalsifiability. Now, that's fine as a position of faith, but the problem is that you keep talking about knowledge. In knowledge, 'we all know this' just doesn't cut it. In knowledge, you need to have something to show for the claims you make. Otherwise, what you're talking about has no epistemic foundation.
Finally, science isn't predicated on materialism, it's predicated on fallibilism. Materialism is another claim about reality which can't be tested properly, as no one has access to the whole of reality and no one probably ever will
>>1350690
>Finally, science isn't predicated on materialism, it's predicated on fallibilism. Materialism is another claim about reality which can't be tested properly, as no one has access to the whole of reality and no one probably ever will
Well that's why you get your theory of everything going full tilt. But that which isn't measurable isn't falsifiable, and thus science is, more or less, restricted to the material world.
And as untestable as the claim is, outside of yourself and a few, currently ambiguous, baseline medical definitions, I doubt you, or anyone, could truly deny the existence their own consciousness. Even though you, similarly, can't prove its existence to anyone but yourself. The non-sociopaths and non-solipsists among us just kindly assume it.
Granted, again, I'm only willing to have this sort of talk on /his/. Irks me to hell when someone tries to start it on /sci/ in some religious primitivist effort to bully the nerds and claim "science can't know nuttin about nuttin cuz muh qualia".
