On Wed, May 10, 2017 at 3:14 AM, John Luke Gibson eaterjolly@gmail.com wrote:
The mountains of religious thought pumped into this thread has it visibly oozing (I mean no offense). Firstly, the speaker in that video linked @zap I'm familiar with and is very unreliable when their claims are checked or researched. Secondly, Nietzsche explores that so-called "trap". The thing is that religion presents the concept of morality which fills the space created by ennui and lack of obstacles to self-preservation. Noam Chomsky popularized abit the thought that the consistent trend in nature is more intelligent species tend to go extinct after a shorter period than obviously less intelligent ones (i.e. beetles), this is due to genetic drift and inbred weaknesses due to a lack of obstacles to their survival. Ethics is an artificial obstacle we present ourselves in order to keep us strong (Nietzsche referred to the model used by Christianity as Slave Morality, suggesting that the ethics therein enslave the subscriber to the whims and desires of the less fortunate, and thusly purporting the existence of less fortunate as ENDEMICALLY NECESSARY because without less fortunate people then there would be point to the ethics of christianity and therefore there would be no obstacle to occupy ourselves with and therefore genetic drift would set in and we would die as a species. In other words, Nietzsche considered christianity so obsessed with compassion, that in a world without suffering it would utterly and completely fall apart.).
Nietzsche's life's work was dedicated to attempting to create a well-developed replacement to both religion and "Slave Morality".
I don't know if I support Nietzsche's alternative of "Master Morality" (where the obstacle is to become the best human possible, the so-called "ubermensch"), but I do say that "trap" is hardly a "trap" rather it's just a human need for an obstacle or conflict, and by rejecting religion all one is doing is rejecting the type of conflict which that religion endorses.
Well said. I read on a neurology book that the human brain is made in such a way that if we pumped ourselves with dopamine and endorphin all day we would end up committing suicide. We are designed to need both pain and happiness in our lives to keep ourselves balanced. If you think about it it makes sense: pain does exist in the world and we are bound to feel it at some point, we might as well design ourselves in such a way that we actually need it. A bit of evolution 101 there. Also I like to think of ethics as the way that we prefer to make society work. As someone who bases his world view on logic, I prefer a set of ethical rules that benefit society as a whole the most. Others prefer ethics deriving from religions.
Thirdly, ______
.................| -> vvvvvvvv ______
On the subject of Relativity: ______
.................| -> ^^^^^^^^^ ______
"The only rule is everything changes, even this rule." is the best misquoting of Heraclitus I've heard and has rather impacted my view of "Relativity". Ultimately building off of the concept that the meaning of life is just any arbitrary form of conflict, then sometimes constant values contribute to having an increased selection of types of conflict. Technology of modern day allows us to have simulated battles over the net, and, without a whole slew of discovered constants (such as ways of making the voltage across a wire consistent with what is intended to deliver a message), then that would not be possible. I believe the universe only stays as consistent as it needs to be for every life to have a potentially unique purpose given work to discover new constant attributes to apply to a new purpose to assume. I believe it is quite possible high-fantasy magic might have existed at one point and that it was merely purged by the work devoted to the infinitely more rigorous "science". That's just my perspective, and it is also my perspective that science could be replaced with high-enough degree of arbitrary work dedicated to discovering attributes of the universe incompatible with modern science. This would require a large influx of unfulfilled persons highly motivated to transform the status quo and contradict conventional wisdom.
Maybe. But As Arthur C. Clarke said, Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. At that point I don't care if it's magic or god or too advanced technology, it's just way beyond my reach and that's what matters the most.
arm-netbook mailing list arm-netbook@lists.phcomp.co.uk http://lists.phcomp.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/arm-netbook Send large attachments to arm-netbook@files.phcomp.co.uk