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Interested in you tearing apart my thinking so I can mature my thinking:

Consciousness emerges from physical states. For instance, the arrangement of atoms in a human brain.

The continuous sense of identity a given consciousness feels relates that arrangement of atoms. For instance, I feel like the same person as I was an hour ago, even though the brain that existed an hour ago no longer exists and instead my current one does

The multiverse is vast and may contain multiple physical states that replicate the same or equivalent physical states that produce a given consciousness. For instance, a functional human brain and body may appear due to a quantum fluctuation for a moment in space (‘boltzmann brain’)

The existence of at least one corresponding arrangement of atoms is required for a unitary sense of identity (whether or not space brains or souls exist, at least our brains matter)

Therefore, we may experience a subjective immortality upon the death of our ‘’current’’ body

The current body and brain we have experiences is able to effect change on the world and experiences a sense of non-deterministic free will. Whether or not this is true, it presents a perceived opportunity to reduce the suffering available to the universe that may or may not exist to ‘future’ subjective identities we may have

When Columbus landed in what is today Haiti... the tribes there were not warring or violent. They were not starving. In many ways, depending upon which metrics you want to use, they were very well off. They were surrounded by friends, family, nature, and had a very healthy lifestyle. Of course, that's not gold or combustion engines or life support machines that can technically keep you alive and increase your life expectancy while you vegetate... but they were still arguably wealthy.

But, today, I can't go live off the land in the forests of Haiti. Even if the forests there still existed I couldn't. The same holds true for much of the world. Any relatively idyllic place is either already owned or regulated to the extent that no one is allowed to live there. And you certainly couldn't plant a coconut tree and enjoy its fruits for generations.

So it's really just an empty challenge suggesting that I go wander off and live in the woods to prove how nice it would be. I'd love to that. I'd love to. But the techno-industrial civilization in place simply does not allow for any random person to have that freedom.

You know what? That whole thing had a bit too much edge to it. I'm leaving what I said, but know that I'm just tired. Should have gone to sleep hours ago. I value and respect your views even if I disagree with them.

First, I only mention the change over decades because change over centuries or millennia are blurrier. But they HAVE improved since then. You think one in eight is bad? The best records we have suggest that more than half of people died before the age of 20 in our ancient past.

And of course tons of it was death in childbirth, because our horrible techno-industrial civilization that freed countless people to work on science and medicine didn't exist to show people how that worked.

I also think it's unreasonable to say that people were at equal wealth when everyone had nothing. Did they have access to food and water? Sure. As long as the weather was good. Or the winter didn't last too long. Or a rival group of people didn't wander by and decide they liked the place you lived. I notice some people yearn for the past, but so few of them are willing to just wander off into the mountains or the jungles.

There are plenty of places untainted by man out there. But very few people live out there. Surviving off the land just like people did thousands of years ago. People DO do it. Just very rarely. You could go do it right now. A family holding you back? People had family back then. Bring 'em. Do they not wanna go? Couldn't imagine why.

It wasn't better. It was much much worse. If you disagree so much, go prove it.

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My article is obviously going to be my interpretation of the world. Sure, there are other possible interpretations as well, but if you read the first paragraph, I have linked articles as to what is considered better interpretations than others. Others cultures and individuals have their own interpretations, but they aren't better than what I have shared there (in fact they are worse than mine)- and if there are, feel free to actually share them.

Vague general claims about why I am wrong, is not useful in the slightest manner. You have made claims about me cherry picking but haven't actually wrote anything to refute my point. So all you have done is make an argument that is entirely baseless, because you didn't even post quotes or evidence of such cherry picking.

I think what you are feeling is also another form of cognitive dissonance, and I can't help you there if you are not willing to actually discuss your points more clearly. You are right that English is not my first language, but at least I have made actual arguments and not beat around the bush. Btw pointing that out is absolutely irrelevant to any of the points being made here. If you don't understand something, speak up and don't mock the author. It comes off as a shameful tactic that almost made me ignore anything else you had to say.

Harris' issue there is that he doesn't understand the is/ought gap. He seems to think it's the thesis that there cannot be moral facts, when it's just the idea that any argument for a normative conclusion must contain a normative premise (i.e., that the conclusion must follow from its premises). And his own take on moral philosophy actually does bridge this gap, since it goes roughly like this:

1. If our intuitions clearly indicate that some moral principle is true, then it is true.
2. Our intuitions clearly indicate that we ought to maximize the well-being of conscious creatures.
3. Therefore, we ought to maximize the well-being of conscious creatures.

That he doesn't acknowledge this might be continuing ignorance, general bloodymindedness, or just the fact that, laid out this way, it's clear that his project is a philosophical rather than "scientific" one as he purports. In any case, the actual problem with his moral philosophy isn't is/ought. It's that he doesn't argue for either premise well, nor even really explain sufficiently what "maximizing the well-being of conscious creatures" means.

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‘Recognised’? Philosophically I think the best way to put a world view is ‘the (world) occurred’ there is both truth and not truth in every occurring.

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> but it is dishonest to not acknowledge that the rate at which that is occurring is dropping and has been for decades.

Were we talking about just decades? I mean sure, in the decades since the invasion of Vietnam and Iraq the population there is doing better... but I don't think that's the best metric for overall improvement.

And not every place is improving. Much of Africa is undoubtedly much worse that it was hundreds of years ago before European colonization. One in eight people starving isn't an improvement brought about techno-industrial civilization, it's a CONSEQUENCE of techno-industrial civilization. It's the same with potable water. Most of the springs, streams, rivers weren't flooded with sewage and agricultural runoff 1000 or 100,000 years ago.

> dishonest to ignore that the percentage of people in the lowest margins of wealth has plummeted.

This just isn't true. Both in total numbers AND in relative degree of poverty, more people are poorer now than in the distant past. In fact, if you go back far enough, most people living in tribal societies had no discernible differentiation of wealth. And, again, most tribes weren't starving or unable to find clean water.

Sorry, late reply;

 

>It's a far cry removed from JTB, in any case.

 

Maybe I wasn't clear enough but my point was that using that definition of belief, then I think someone should logically believe that they have justified true beliefs If they believe that some fact is true and they think that that belief is justified. If you believe in justified true beliefs then surely it undermines the paradigm which wants to get rid of knowledge. The knowledge and non-knowledge views would be indistinguishable from a person's perspective from a practical viewpoint. My point is then not so much about whether knowledge actually exists in the JTB sense but whether someone should logically believe they have knowledge in the JTB sense under your scheme. I see you have specified your definition of reasonable though. I assumed that reasonable was more or less synonymous with justification since at face value when I think of someone having a reasonable belief then I think they are justifed in it, but maybe I should have anticipated some difference. Thinking more deeply though, I guess justification is complicated and I don't think I can even define the limits too well of where justification starts and ends.

 

At the same time, I don't think this affects my argument too much; but again, the more I think about this, the more complicated it seems to get. We can talk about someone believing something is a true when they have no uncertainty; we can also talk about someone believing their belief is reasonable or justified. Presumably they wouldn't assent to a belief that they didn't think was reasonable but if they were open to believing that some of those reasonable beliefs were justified then I think they would again be forced to believe that they had knowledge. Neither would I think that it differs from the knowledge position you argue against since someone working unser the assumption that knowlede was possible would also not believe they have knowledge if they didn't believe their belief was totally justified. So as long as a person believe that beliefs can be justified, then they should logically believe that they have knowledge.

 

>This applies to most conspiracy theorists: they aren't unreasonable because they've come to false conclusions, they're unreasonable because they've supported their false conclusions on the basis of cherrypicked and/or fabricated evidence that's extensively contradicted. Ignoring those contradictions and ignoring the baseless construction of those beliefs is what renders them unreasonable.

 

>If someone believes the Earth is flat because they're a child in an isolated community that's been told by trusted teachers and parents that the Earth is flat, they're reasonable in holding that belief.

 

If someone holds a belief reasonably because they have been taught it and don't know better then why can't someone have a reasonable belief from cherry picked/fabricated evidence. I think these two sources of knowledge are blurry because on one hand, the taught knowledge in the isolated community is going to be due to error/fabrication/cherry picking/deception while on the otherhand someone who holds their views despite counter evidence is going to subjectively feel that they are being reasonable and they cannot help that. They feel that the counter evidence they are shown is inadequate just as the non-conspiratorial person would feel about the evidence they are given by the conspiracy theorist; If the evidence doesn't seem reasonable to them, how can they help that? In their logic, what they have been shown just doesn't count as counter evidence. In your words, they come to conclusions about the counter evidenceu that they feel subjectively to be most logical. These may not actually be logically sound, but they have to make do with the best they're capable of.

 

Now, I do think that some beliefs seem more unreasonable to me than others (like conspiratorial ones) but its doesn't seem straightforward to defeat a skeptic purely with reason. Neither does there seem to be a straightforward divide between reasonable and unreasonable. For instance, some Christians may think their views are totally reasonable and conspiracy theorists views are totally unreasonable; but then again, I might think believing God is totally unreasonable. It doesn't seem sufficient to resolve the problem of skeptical hypotheses purely by "reasonable beliefs" if a person, specifically a skeptic, thinks the skeptical hypothesis is reasonable.

I will spew my train of thought here, maybe redefine some terms hehe. Not that I disagree with what you said.

I never looked at optimism or pessimism as needing specificity in an outcome. It is more as an attitude toward the future and of possibilities, and not knowing. That's what I think of expectation, in that it expresses a specific outcome that I don't think necessarily applies to an attitude.

But then I don't view this as a strict dichotomy but a spectrum of feeling. There's a scale of perceived freedom. In the existential sense of starting with nothing, the optimist sees ways to engage with possibility while the pessimist still sees nothing, within the context of each choice. The pessimist negates what is inherent to them while the optimist perceives various levels of possibility that is subjective to them.

So I see pessimism as seeing no meaningful choice and no freedom, the bottom where we all start, and optimism is any level above that where we actively engage, positivity, as it relates to existentialism. People with more optimism can feel like more is possible, that more choices can be made. Like that Bernard Shaw quote "There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

Just to echo what others have said, Schopenhauer was into the Vedantist/Brahmanism of the Upanishads. In the Upanishads, there is the Atman (translated many ways) which is also called the Self or God in existence (as opposed to Brahman or the universal infinite God that can’t be put into conception).

Instead of Atman, Schopenhauer used the term Will. His most famous (and really only) book is called The World as Will and Representation. Representation as Maya, illusion of separate things representing themselves as the material world, and Will as Atman, the true underlying/changeless force emanating maya.

The whole of Schopenhauer’s initial foundation for his philosophy is Vedantic, just not necessarily his conclusions.

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There are a couple of full philosophy courses on YouTube, lectured by outstanding professors. DM me and I can send you the links (I just don’t want them to get taken down cause of copyright issues)

Thanks

Thanks, I was motivated by the problem that the same mind that conducts science also created animist beliefs. The two are difficult to reconcile if you assume they are incompatible.

That's literally what the article starts with.

I liked this article. Enjoyable read.

I absolutely love Philosophize This; I used to listen to it regularly when I worked in landscaping.