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All of dunno's Comments + Replies

Open Thread March 31 - April 7 2014
dunno40

Does compatibilism recognize a difference between "we have free will" and "we have a will"?

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0Alejandro1
This is mostly a semantical question, as different compatibilist philosophers might use the words "having a will" to mean different things. (They are not words with a fixed technical meaning in philosophy). Some may think "having a will" is synonymous with "having free will", while others might think that e.g. if you a mind-controlled without knowing it you might "have a will" (a subjective sense of willing to do things) while not satisfying the conditions for compatibilist free will.
Open thread, 11-17 March 2014
dunno00

An upward arrow shaped like a human looking up?

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0Slackson
I'm not sure I can visualize that very well?
In favour of terseness
dunno00

Determinism means that you were not the creator of the circumstances that led to the decision you made. So, in a sense, it does make it not really "your" decision.

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1Sophronius
It's really hard to convincingly counter all possible objections in just a few lines. The above was meant to give an instance of a hypothetical list of "things rationalists believe and why", not something that could replace an actual sequence . Obviously you one cannot hope to clear up all possible confusion in so short a post. If I were to make a serious terse post about free will, I'm thinking I would at least have to take some time to try and dissolve the concepts of 'identity' and what it means to be 'responsible' first. This would still keep the information/effort ratio high by explaining multiple related concepts simultaneously. I've edited this in above to make it a little clearer, but there's only so much space to work with...
[Open Thread] Stupid Questions (2014-02-17)
dunno00

What makes this obviously wrong? I mean, aside from preferences, why would it not make sense to start with a universe in a current state you like and end up with a state you dislike?

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0RowanE
The universe you dislike is in the same state as the one you like, there's just more of it.
[Open Thread] Stupid Questions (2014-02-17)
dunno00

If I ceased to exist there would still be people that suffered without a choice. Ceasing to exist wouldn't change this while if everything ceased to exist, it'd change.

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[Open Thread] Stupid Questions (2014-02-17)
dunno00

This just doesn't seem right. Perhaps no amount of happy living outweighs suffering beyond a certain amount.

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3RowanE
Well, that sounds obviously wrong - it would mean you could start with a universe you liked, scale up the population without changing average quality of life at all, and end up with a universe in which you want to destroy all life.
[Open Thread] Stupid Questions (2014-02-17)
dunno10

If suffering has far greater dis-utility for you than happy living has utility, is it logical to conclude that it'd be a good thing if the universe ceased to exist, thereby preventing all future suffering at the cost of all future life?

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2MugaSofer
No. Not purely from that knowledge about your utility function, anyway. Unless suffering has infinite disutility, then enough happiness would outweigh all the suffering in the world. If we reach a Good Future, then it would be worth it even if the average modern human has negative utility - which seems far from obvious itself, even given the premise; most human lives could still experience sufficiently more happiness than suffering.
0Alsadius
All that implies is that we ought to tolerate suicide. Those with negative net value attached to living can reset it to zero pretty easily.
3Creutzer
You might want to look at the writings of David Benatar. He's a professional philosopher who argues something similar in spirit. His position it that it would be better for there to not be (and never have been) any sentient life. He is not as crazy as this may sound; the problem is just that he has one premise that is totally intuitive to some people while others completely fail to see its appeal, and there's no real reason for or against accepting it other than intuition. The shortest thing to read would be his paper "Why It Is Better Never to Come into Existence". He also has a book titled "Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence".
1RowanE
Only if you also do not expect there to be enough happy living to outweigh the amount of suffering.
1Dagon
In that case (which I believe is not true for almost any modern human, so this is a purely theoretical answer), it's logical to conclude that it'd be good for you to cease to exist. In order to prefer that others so cease (assuming you're a utilitiarian), you'd need to believe that every individual has a similar weighting.
6Baughn
No, since there may be far more happy living than suffering. Not on its own, at least.
Open Thread for February 11 - 17
dunno00

What if the 3^^^3 people were one immortal person?

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0DanielLC
Being horribly tortured is worse than death, so I'd pick death.
1RowanE
Well then the answer is still obviously death, and that fact has become more immediately intuitive - probably even those who disagreed with my assessment of the original question would agree with my choice given the scenario "an immortal person is tortured forever or an otherwise-immortal person dies"
Open Thread for February 11 - 17
dunno00

Would you prefer that one person be horribly tortured for eternity without hope or rest, or that 3^^^3 people die?

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-3jobe_smith
I would solicit bids from the two groups. I imagine that the 3^^^3 people would be able to pay more to save their lives than the 1 person would be able to pay to avoid infinite torture. Plus, once I make the decision, if I sentence the 1 person to infinite torture I only have to worry about their friends/family and I have 3^^^3 allies who will help defend me against retribution. Otherwise, the situation is reversed and I think its likely I'll be murdered or imprisoned if I kill that many people. Of course, if the scenario is different, like the 3^^^3 people are in a different galaxy (not that that many people could fit in a galaxy) and the 1 person is my wife, I'll definitely wipe out all those assholes to save my wife. I'd even let them all suffer infinite torture just to keep my wife from experiencing a dust speck in her eye. It is valentine's day after all!
RowanE110

One person being horribly tortured for eternity is equivalent to that one person being copied infinite times and having each copy tortured for the rest of their life. Death is better than a lifetime of horrible torture, and 3^^^3, despite being bigger than a whole lot of numbers, is still smaller than infinity.

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