Be nice?

[manored]

I have been thinking about important matters (universal origin, reason of life, etc) and got to the conclusion that since we are going to be dust someday, and even if there is afterlife we are still going to be dust on the world we left behind (there is always the possibility of we not letting it behind, but since we cannot prove anything chances are 2x1 it wont :) ) we should do something else beside living on this world. Then I got to the conclusion that we should do something for the survival of species... AKA either have children and educate then in a manner that will make em help the species as well, or make the world a better place for the children of other people. And after some more tough I got to the conclusion of that the system is perfect... WE are the problem, like, humans are always trying to have more than the others, because they think they should have a lot of things, but they never stop to think why. If they did and did it well they would notice that they have no reason to do that, and therefore should do something else with more basis... help the species? :) Basically I think that if humans just stoped trying to overcome each other and started to do what they are supposed to do and dont do what they arent, society would start to work... Example: If the brazilian govern stops stealing so much and being lazy thinkers, they will actual invest in education and solve the low quality public education problem instead of forcing universtitys of having exclusive spots for public school students...

Basically if people:
1. Be honest
2. Convince other people to be
We will have utopia :)

Waiting opinions...

[Machiosabre]

I think candy is great.

opinions?

[manored]

I think candy is great.

opinions?

It is :)

Now get back on topic :)

[SwiftSpear]

Think this through deeper, we should stop competing and "do what we should"? How do we know what we "should" do? And additionally... what if our best efforts are inadequate if we don't have experts and phenoms who strive to be the best at what they do. Competition CERTAINLY isn't a universally bad thing.

As for the survival of the species... we aren't in immediate danger... I mean, there's a few billion of us and growing. It might be nice to have things like other planets to colonize and stuff, but ultimately the efforts of the individual in most cases don't directly effect the survival of the species. We can expand the definition, call it the "success" of the species... but then we have more compelling problems, like what exactly entail's success, and when we say "species" does that mean it's ok to succeed at the expense of every other species? What if there is other sentient life in the universe? Shouldn't they get a cut in the ultimate "success of our species" as well? Even the non sentient life should have a place to exist.

Finally... honesty only really works between people in mutual contract, which just isn't always the case in real life. I should DEFINITELY be honest to the people around me who are willing to engage in social contract with me, like my boss, my family, my coworkers. Those people will work towards my interests if I continue to work towards their interests. But the guy who wants to steal my car, I have absolutely NO reason to be honest to him, honesty in that case will result in overall negative. It comes down to game theory, I need to be honest to those who are willing to play the game with me, but for those who are only playing for their own benefit I benefit more by screwing them over, in fact everyone benefits more by screwing them over.

Ultimately, the reality of the situation is that there's a million "utopia's" based on the premise that "if everyone just thought and behaved exactly like eachother then everything would be perfect!". Unfortunately, that isn't now, nor is it ever going to be feasable. A real utopia would have to account for the fact that people are so different in so many different ways.

[Jamuk426]

You pinpointed the source of the problem, but didn't address the solution. There is conflict because that is human nature. Therefore to prevent conflict you must remove humans from the picture.

[SwiftSpear]

You pinpointed the source of the problem, but didn't address the solution. There is conflict because that is human nature. Therefore to prevent conflict you must remove humans from the picture.

That's making the assumption that "conflict" is a universal problem, as opposed to it being simply a problem internal to human affairs. As long as there are humans there will be conflict, sure, but I think the total lack of humans would mean an overall worse universe than one with conflict but also humans.

Sure, that's arbitrary, but it's arbitrary to assume that conflict is negative as well at this level of abstraction.

[Fanger]

Its arbitrary to assume anything is negative at any level of abstraction, because negative is a word that exists because of humans, and was given its meaning by humans, and thus does not have an absolute strict existance. Therefore without humans we cannot have negative and even so with them negative is a relative term that cant actually be proved beyond an individual case.

Since anything we say or do is "arbitrary" by its own nature, there is really no point to any of this. Since there is no general point to anything not doing something is not a "negative" effect.

Hence this discussion is pointless..

Life and anything for that matter only has whatever meaning we choose to give it. Beyond that there is no meaning or purpose to anything. What happens in this universe is all part of some naturally occuring phenomenon not some "higher purpse" and even if there was a "higher purpose" what would that purpose be? Since you cant answer that question with something that I cant question the purpose of, that would seem to indicate there is in fact no purpose. So again meaning is always given, and as such is subjective and opinion based and thus non discussable.

Opinions cant be discussed because they are by nature not easily alterable. Most people are convinced of their opinions and wont change them readily, or without serious argument. Since arguments are generally bad in real life, and doubly so on the internets. I therefore propose we do not discuss this, and say we did.

You guys follow me..

[SwiftSpear]

You can't touch wind, doesn't mean it can't touch you.

Just because we can't figure something out right now, doesn't mean it doesn't exist or is impossible.

At a very low relative level it's usually pretty easy to figure out what's right and what's wrong. Often it's contextual, but it's still something that seems ingrained into most of us. As the relative complexity increases the problem becomes more and more difficult to solve, and at the maximum abstraction we really can't do any more than guess.

But the same used to be true for mathematics. We could figure out basic addition and subtraction, and then some multiplication and division, but complex problems were not addressable mathematically. But then we invented algebra and were able to plot more complex relationships, and then we invented calculus and were able to describe pretty much all smooth action in the universe, and now with computational math there are very few mathematical problems we can't address with reasonable accuracy.

I won't pretend to know more than anyone else, but ultimately I do feel that we are looking at a solvable problem. Even if the current language we have to discuss it just really isn't adequate.

[Machiosabre]

what? you can touch wind.

[Lumpy]

my opinion is that if I am a nice guy and dont fuck people over.

And I do happen to wind up at the pearly gates and god / buddah goes..

"hey man you didnt do this and that..."

I would reply

"If you cant let me in for being a nice guy then I dont want in."

[manored]

I think that living just for the sake of living makes no sense. If we just all suicided because life has no meaning, I believe that we would be losing something, as we got to be here for a reason... then, we need a meaning. Working towards the good of the species sounds like a nice meaning, cause well... we are MADE to do that :)

Nothing against competition, but if the competition is for something more than fun or glory, then It would be better avoided :)

And I think that members of the society who work only for thenselfes in detriment of the society should be excluded or eliminated.

The efforts of a individual might not affect the success of the species, but its gonna effect the success of the people around it, and if everbody does this it WILL affect the species :) And also I think that a good definition for racial sucess would be merely its survival. Other species should be eliminated? Not really, we should just not care about then, in a infinite universe taking a empty area will probally be always worth more than a war with some alien species...

That is an interesting idea Jamuk... I think that tranfering our minds to machines would make that possible, as we would no longer have our tough affected by our body... but winhout having the basic instincts telling us what to do, we would probally just do nothing. We probally would have to set ourselfes a completion-proof objective to waste the eternity on...

[Fanger]

Why does there have to be a reason..

(swift if wind can touch you, you can obviously touch wind.. additionally that was a terrible choice because wind is not some intangible object, it is in fact the name for a larger phenomenon of lots of air moving which you can touch and feel)

Why does there have to be a reason manored.. explain to me why there HAS to be a reason.. and then explain what that reason is.. or why that reason exists..

[SwiftSpear]

Why does there have to be a reason..

(swift if wind can touch you, you can obviously touch wind.. additionally that was a terrible choice because wind is not some intangible object, it is in fact the name for a larger phenomenon of lots of air moving which you can touch and feel)

Why does there have to be a reason manored.. explain to me why there HAS to be a reason.. and then explain what that reason is.. or why that reason exists..

There doesn't HAVE to be a reason... but it's the same sort of thing as the unified theory of physics. Scientists don't know how things work right now... but they believe that they HAVE to connect somehow. It's like asking the question, why does there have to be a unified theory? Because if things exist, and they work, then there must be some sensical unified method through which they work.

Most people believe that good and evil work very very strongly when observed in the small scale. A man killing people for his own pleasure is evil. A man giving up his share of food for another who needs it more is good... because those things exist, in my mind, there HAS to be some larger overall principle that connects all good things. Effectively, there IS absolute good, because we can see that there is relitive good, and everything relative reflects the existence of something absolute, even if the absolute entity is just totally out of view for us.

[manored]

Why does there have to be a reason..

(swift if wind can touch you, you can obviously touch wind.. additionally that was a terrible choice because wind is not some intangible object, it is in fact the name for a larger phenomenon of lots of air moving which you can touch and feel)

Why does there have to be a reason manored.. explain to me why there HAS to be a reason.. and then explain what that reason is.. or why that reason exists..

There has to be a reason because if there was no reason then we wouldnt be here. I cannot explain what that reason is or why that reason exists, in just saying there is one. and with there being a reason to live, we need something to live for... survival of the species looks like a nice option...

[SwiftSpear]

Why does there have to be a reason..

(swift if wind can touch you, you can obviously touch wind.. additionally that was a terrible choice because wind is not some intangible object, it is in fact the name for a larger phenomenon of lots of air moving which you can touch and feel)

Why does there have to be a reason manored.. explain to me why there HAS to be a reason.. and then explain what that reason is.. or why that reason exists..

There has to be a reason because if there was no reason then we wouldnt be here. I cannot explain what that reason is or why that reason exists, in just saying there is one. and with there being a reason to live, we need something to live for... survival of the species looks like a nice option...

Even if we evolved from random chance... I still don't think that invalidates the existence of absolute good.

[Fanger]

why cant it be random chance.. why does there have to be a reason.. why do things cease to exist because they have no reason..

These are all constructs of your MIND.. you cling to them because doing otherwise causes you to question everything you know.. and this scares you on a fundamental level.. other than that they dont really exist...

[SwiftSpear]

why cant it be random chance.. why does there have to be a reason.. why do things cease to exist because they have no reason..

These are all constructs of your MIND.. you cling to them because doing otherwise causes you to question everything you know.. and this scares you on a fundamental level.. other than that they dont really exist...

Causality indicates this to be false. Thus I see it as unlikely enough that I belive the contrary to be true.

No one said things cease to exist when they have no reason... however, it could be argued that it's impossible to have something that has no reason. It's plausible that existence itself innately connotates reason at the highest level of abstraction. Plus, if we're going to talk about reason we really need to make a distinction between "the reason X exists is because X is caused to exist" and "the reason X exists is because X must complete it's task". The word reason can either connotate cause or fate. The reason I am at the mall may be that I need to buy a book... or the reason I'm at the mall may be that my dad drove me there. Certainly something cannot exist without a cause, because the cause in itself is the creation... and it's prosumptious to assume the fate of anything is predictable, so it's not really plausible to objectively state an objects fate reason.

Keep in mind, I'm not stating objective fact, I'm just spewing my mental process...

In my mind because all things have a cause, and every action causes a reaction, ultimately there is reason for every action and object, and because there is reason, there is ideal. Once something has a purpose, it can either succeed or fail. In my opinion, in an ideal universe everything succeeds, and in the worst possible universe, everything fails (read, null universe)... with that in mind, IMO our current goal as a human species is the total reversal of universal entropy. I'm not sure it's possible... but it seems to be the only logical current objective.

[manored]

why cant it be random chance.. why does there have to be a reason.. why do things cease to exist because they have no reason..

These are all constructs of your MIND.. you cling to them because doing otherwise causes you to question everything you know.. and this scares you on a fundamental level.. other than that they dont really exist...

Randow doesnt exists, there are merely unknow facts... if one knows everthing that exists on a given universe and its current status, one can predict what will happen with perfection, meaning its not randow.

[Fanger]

and you know that how..?

[Erom]

FWIW, I really agree with most of what Swift is saying here.