"The value of nihilistic thinking."

@livinglava,

My view is that the role of these computers is to provide agreements or disagreements to our reasonings.i.e. there is no God.In answer to this statement they will either agree or disagree.

1 Reply

@Jasper10,

Jasper10 wrote:

My view is that the role of these computers is to provide agreements or disagreements to our reasonings.i.e. there is no God.In answer to this statement they will either agree or disagree.

So you mean the one just plays devil's advocate to the other, e.g. "there is no God" results in, "there is God?"

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@livinglava,

Yes.

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@Jasper10,

Jasper10 wrote:

Yes.

Ok, well that is a fine way to initiate a thought process, but you're not going to make any sense about whether there is God or there is no God by just going on with yes/no counter-suppositions.

You will notice lots of people here engage in exactly this type of thinking about whether God is to blame for bad things that happen (if He exists), but by doing that they are projecting uncritical assumptions.

If you ask what if there is no God, for example, your answer will depend on what you assume it means for there to be God, and what you assume it would mean for the universe to exist without God.

Relativism is the notion that all these different ways of thinking about God and the universe are equally valid, but they aren't. For example, someone recently was making arguments that God isn't omnipotent if He can't do things that defy the laws of physics/nature; but that defies God's power to create the laws of physics/nature and then work within them to accomplish miracles or whatever.

So I think asking yes/no 0/1 questions like that doesn't do any harm, but you're going to have to think beyond that to make any sense of what you're trying to understand.

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@livinglava,

I just want to come back to you on one point for now...if the question is asked.... what if there is no God ? Just because one has forgotten the counter question to this,it doesn’t mean that it’s irrelevant....The computers will always remind you eventually...i.e. but what if there is? I do agree that this machine like thinking doesn’t answer all questions but what it does highlight is....machine like thinking.

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@Jasper10,

Jasper10 wrote:

I just want to come back to you on one point for now...if the question is asked.... what if there is no God ? Just because one has forgotten the counter question to this,it doesn’t mean that it’s irrelevant....The computers will always remind you eventually...i.e. but what if there is? I do agree that this machine like thinking doesn’t answer all questions but what it does highlight is....machine like thinking.

Everything in the universe is a machine because everything works mechanistically. That is God's design. Atoms and molecules stick together and break apart because they exchange energy. Everything is made out of these particles and they absorb and emit energy, causing all the chains of events that happen, including those that make up our neural networks (brains).

So our brain ARE machines, but they don't just operate with 1/0 switches because a nerve cell (neuron) is made up of lots of gated ion channels whose charge-concentrations can vary continuously. So you can't just say that a neuron either fires or it doesn't fire, i.e. because it might start to fire but not build up enough action potential to trigger other neurons around it; plus there are varying amounts of myelin sheathing that either constrain the signals or allow them to flow through.

If you haven't reviewed how neurons work, you should do so because it will give you some perspective on how the brain actually does work as a machine, just not in the same way as a silicon chip in a computer processor.

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@livinglava,

Thank you for your recommendations.My view is that how the brain actually functions to minute detail is phenomenal but is not the fundamental issue.My view is that ultimately there either is or there isn’t....there is either right or there is wrong.There are no in between’s other than neutral.Neutral means that you can have no opinion one way or the other.In other words you can’t have half a truth or half a lie.Its either true or it’s a lie.Therefore we are going to have to agree to disagree once again.

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@Jasper10,

Jasper10 wrote:

Thank you for your recommendations.My view is that how the brain actually functions to minute detail is phenomenal but is not the fundamental issue.My view is that ultimately there either is or there isn’t....there is either right or there is wrong.There are no in between’s other than neutral.Neutral means that you can have no opinion one way or the other.In other words you can’t have half a truth or half a lie.Its either true or it’s a lie.Therefore we are going to have to agree to disagree once again.

It's not a question of right, wrong, and/or neutral being absolute categories.

Take the example of eating: we cannot eat materials, like sand, that are not derived from living organisms. So we have to decide what to eat and what not to eat.

E.g. should we eat plant-based foods, animal-derived foods, and/or meat from other humans.

Most people avoid cannibalism, though not all animals avoid it. Some people and animals avoid eating meat; and most people think it is less wrong to eat plant-based foods than meats.

Then you have people who say it's less wrong to eat meat if it comes from animals who lived wild until they were hunted, e.g. because otherwise there would be overcrowding of wild animals; or you have people who say it's more ethical to slaughter animals in one way or another.

So there is no 1/o right/wrong/neutral for what to eat, whether eating hunted meat or ethically-slaughtered meat is right/wrong/neutral. They all have issues of relative right/wrong depending on what aspect you consider, e.g. the animal's life before it is slaughtered and/or the suffering it goes through before and during slaughter, and of course the whole issue of resources used/wasted on meat vs. plant-based foods, etc.

So at some level you can think about what it might mean for something to be 100% right/wrong/neutral, but you should also realize that there are subtleties and nuances that go beyond simplistic absolutism.

That doesn't mean you won't come to absolute truths, such as that animals/humans must eat to survive and therefore eating is not wrong or neutral, but it is right. But that is not automatically going to make it right to eat other humans or to torture animals or to eat food that has been sourced in a way that is more wasteful or harmful than necessary.

I hope I am conveying how ethics and moral reasoning go beyond 1/0 right/wrong/neutral; even though I am not a relativist who believes all thoughts and moral values are equally valid.

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@livinglava,

I think we have gone off track somewhat.Apologies,probably my fault.I need to back track.You know my views on the 2 off computers in our head and how they,from my experiences anyway, balance themselves out.Lets start from neutral due to this balancing out.Rules have gone right.We need rules going forward is my view.If there are rules then we need to keep them or else what’s the point of rules? But where are the rules? If we can find the rules then your questions may get answered.

2 Replies

@Jasper10,

Quote:

But where are the rules?

I did suggest a couple.
I assume they were not right for you.

0 Replies

@Jasper10,

Jasper10 wrote:

I think we have gone off track somewhat.Apologies,probably my fault.I need to back track.You know my views on the 2 off computers in our head and how they,from my experiences anyway, balance themselves out.Lets start from neutral due to this balancing out.Rules have gone right.We need rules going forward is my view.If there are rules then we need to keep them or else what’s the point of rules? But where are the rules? If we can find the rules then your questions may get answered.

Everything becomes meaningful differently when applied in context.

Rules can fail in context; i.e. they can end up defying the original spirit in which they were written in the way in which they are applied.

You have to learn to think about the spirit/reason behind a rule in order to know when applying it defies that spirit/reason.

There are people who push rules in an authoritarian way fully knowing that doing so is a way of undermining the purpose of the rule. It is a form of rebellion that poses as obedience to camouflage itself.

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@livinglava,

My view is that once you have neutralised, RULES are needed.There either are rules or there are not rules.It’s your black and white switch again.The rules I’m talking about are not your normal rules.The rules I’m looking for are something else.No rules or fake rules means..anything goes...confusion.One remains in the rats maze.

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@Jasper10,

Jasper10 wrote:

My view is that once you have neutralised, RULES are needed.There either are rules or there are not rules.It’s your black and white switch again.The rules I’m talking about are not your normal rules.The rules I’m looking for are something else.No rules or fake rules means..anything goes...confusion.One remains in the rats maze.

It is good to follow certain rules, but bad to follow others. It depends on the rule and what effects you cause by following it or not following it. Sometimes there are mixed consequences; e.g. following or disobeying a rule can have both good and bad effects simutaneously. Ethics involves reasoning what choice(s) to make based on all these considerations, which may not sum up to 100% good or bad.

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@livinglava,

Find the rules or remain in the rats maze.

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@Jasper10,

Jasper10 wrote:

Find the rules or remain in the rats maze.

What rules? The commandments? You can't get out of anything by following rules because rules are just attempts to control behavior.

E.g. Jesus was killed because people turned Him over to Roman authorities for execution because they said their laws wouldn't allow them to do it themselves.

Can't you see how there are so many ways to break rules without breaking rules or follow rules in a way that defies the fundamental purpose of the rule?

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@livinglava,

These commandments you talk about.I’m interested.What do you mean?

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@Jasper10,

Jasper10 wrote:

These commandments you talk about.I’m interested.What do you mean?

Well, Christians mostly just talk about "the Ten Commandments," but there are more. You can easily search for it, if you want.

If you weren't talking about the commandments, though, what then?

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@livinglava,

Thanks for this.I will have a look.I need an example of a 0 becoming 1 and a 1 becoming 0 and it’s related to rules and tied into what I have been discussing.

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@Jasper10,

Jasper10 wrote:

Thanks for this.I will have a look.I need an example of a 0 becoming 1 and a 1 becoming 0 and it’s related to rules and tied into what I have been discussing.

Look at the sin of pride. 'Sin' means doing wrong, so logically people who avoid doing wrong are inclined to feel pride in themselves for avoiding it.

But then why is pride a sin then, you ask? Answer: because if we become self-interested as a result of doing good, we are distracted from doing good and tend to do bad by others in the interest of self-indulgence.

So in order to be good, we have to transcend pride; but if we become good by transcending pride, we are tempted to feel proud of ourselves for doing so.

This is the vicious cycle that traps us in the sin of pride. If pride is '1' and humility is '0,' then becoming humble results in us feel proud ourselves for becoming good and humble. So '0' leads to '1,' which humbles us, if we acknowledge that we sin by feeling pride.

There are many quasi-paradoxes like this you will discover in moral reasoning. It's not as simple as 0/1 and yet it isn't contradictory to the point that it dissolves into meaninglessness. It's just the nature of morality to be complex in this way.

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@livinglava,

I’ve looked into sin in the bible and and I came across 2 Corinthians 5.21.This is interesting if applied to 0 and 1 whereby 1 is no sin and 0 sin.Can you sin if there are no rules? What would be the measure? There therefore needs to be rules in my opinion following neutralisation....but did those rules apply prior to neutralisation? One can’t say no because the computers will remind you that one could also say yes.The ten commandment rules in the bible are fair enough but are more than a bit challenging I have to say.The problem is if there are rules one would have to keep them and keep them perfectly.If I sin just once then there is no way of undoing this.Sin once, and then I can’t then call myself not sin, if you know what I mean.How can you keep these rules perfectly? You can’t in my opinion.

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"The value of nihilistic thinking."

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