Down The Rabbit Hole

All things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. If anything, more complexity (such as god/s) are a less probable explanat...

Consciousness Confessions of a Romantic Reductionist by Christof Koch.

As a very pessimistic person, I would love to be able to accept the bad. However I don't know if I could change my character.

There's an asymmetry between the amount of happiness and sadness people experience? This is something I'm on the fence about myself.

I think a case could be made for strict parenting on the basis of the "Success-Oriented Argument", but when you introduce CP you open the door to the ...

You know the problem with using those attributes as justification for poorer treatment though? I think veganism is a stepping stone to antinatalism. M...

We are both operating from the foundation that suffering is the moral priority. So do you disagree with the premise that the animals would have more s...

@"schopenhauer1" Do you disagree with bringing animals into the game? How about for food?

@"David Pearce" An argument used by hunters (like Joe Rogan) is that they are doing the animals a favour, as otherwise their lives and deaths can be h...

No, latest figures show almost 45 million kangaroos in Australia alone - I wouldn't be surprised if there were a few mutant striped ones. I definitely...

The amount of evidence we should have to believe something, is a tough one. It's something I think about a lot. Yes I was going to say, you gave me so...

Based on your knowledge of kangaroos? This would be using evidence to reach a conclusion.

Yes, disbelief is consistent with agnosticism, and believing something is false is not. The former doesn't require evidence, but the latter does.

To actively claim something does not exist, you have a burden of proof, and just because it's harder to meet your burden of proof, doesn't make it dis...

It is to move from agnosticism. The first clip in this video looks pretty real: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZswREtWpJrg :wink: I know what you mea...

This is noble. Putting aside one's desires for a greater good.

I don't have sufficient evidence to claim fairies don't exist. Do you? What is it? Remember what you said here:

"One cannot prove a negative" and "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" are not always true. An example would be using sonar on a pond and ...

If we get rid of the "maybe". I would need evidence to do that. Not with me you're not: You are making the active claim that the RQF is not the fundam...

It is necessary that people with lives full of unbearable pain and suffering be born, for the majority to be born. This is what I meant by calling the...

Maybe there is something more fundamental than the RQF (if the theory is correct) I just see no reason for there to be, as it begs the same questions ...

Are those that are born to live a life of horrific pain and suffering a reasonable sacrifice for the majority being born?

I think there's plenty of Willys. I'm sure with your experience debating the matter, you've seen many people argue the 'option' as a defence for natal...

Nothing within the universe is supposed to be able to travel faster than the speed of light - it's called the cosmic speed limit. As galaxies are movi...

You're back :smile: I think you are being too generous regarding the suicide pill. The reality is a lot more distressing for the person doing the act,...

It still doesn't explain, why for millions of years god allowed many millions of beings, which god caused to come into existence, to suffer a life of ...

I appreciate the links. I will have to set some time aside to do some proper research. Any possible ultimate explanation would seem incomplete to us. ...

Do you think you'd enjoy it more if you put it on a slightly lower difficulty?

So there wasn't a big bang that started an expanding universe?

I understand what you are saying about the abuse of the word "nothing". I think Krauss' explanation, is at least as good of an ultimate explanation as...

I'm not trying to catch you out; I'm genuinely interested in your view. Maybe, nothing came before that "nothing". What would be a less absurd ultimat...

It seems that any ultimate explanation would appear absurd to us. Why not Krauss' one? What would be a better ultimate explanation than that?

What makes you think Krauss' explanation is wrong?

The spaceship can keep going, because the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light. The spaceship won't catch up with the expansion of the...

Descarte's "I think therefore I am" is seen as the one thing we can be sure of. However, you are right. We can't be sure we are applying logic correct...

It's been a while since I've seen that film. With Jim Carrey worth a review. Presumably, if base reality turns off the illusion, the illusions within ...

Except those in reality could turn off our illusion at any time. :grimace:

@"David Pearce" Which version don't you agree with?

@"David Pearce" What makes you think we understand enough to prevent suffering in the whole forward light cone? To follow up on a question I asked on ...

The crux of the alleged asymmetry lies in the status of the non-existent, but all that matters to the consequentialist is what would result if someone...

If this is the illusion, we wouldn't know the method/s the real world uses to produce it. As @"Manuel" said, it could be the dream of the third turtle...

A NU or indeed anyone doesn't need the asymmetry to tell them that birth leads to suffering. The meat of the asymmetry is that the unborn are not bein...

We can argue over whether or not the absence of good should be defined as a downside to being unborn, but considering that that good would be experien...

Thanks for coming back and providing some reassurance that I'm not going crazy :wink:

Doesn't look likely we are in the real world then? :grimace: Thanks. A lot of the bad reviews might be people that don't agree with his conclusions. I...

Thanks for commenting. @"David Pearce" was defending the view that our perception of reality is fundamentally different to reality in his thread, and ...

Yes. Ahh, but if we are in an illusion we have no evidence as to the steps that would be in the real world. So to make the thought experiment fair, al...

@"schopenhauer1" In any event, the wording would only matter to deontologists. The asymmetry argument is of no use to a pure consequentialist?

I was comparing the chances of this being reality to that of surviving the terminal illness. "Less steps" aside, there is the same amount of evidence ...

@"schopenhauer1" This seems right to me: As I say, if someone dies they are deprived of life's pleasure. Is it only different for the unborn because t...