Should Philosophy Seek Help from Mathematics?
I was on this other thread on antinatalism and despite it being the hot topic for about 4 weeks with many participants, no resolution is in sight.
Then it dawned on me that if we mathematize the problem we can settle the matter once and for all. One questions we can formulate to aid us on the issue:
1. What is the probability, given the givens, of the child you're planning on having will find life worth it? If the probability is < 50%, you should refrain from having this child and if the probability is > 50%, go ahead, birth the child.
Generalizing from the above:
2. What are the chances that a baby, any baby, will find life worth it? The same logic applies in this case too but notice we can make the case for natalism/antinatalism depending on the results of the calculations.
At the very least we've established the utility of probability in philosophy; other subdisciplines of math may also aid in finding solutions to different philosophical problems.
Then it dawned on me that if we mathematize the problem we can settle the matter once and for all. One questions we can formulate to aid us on the issue:
1. What is the probability, given the givens, of the child you're planning on having will find life worth it? If the probability is < 50%, you should refrain from having this child and if the probability is > 50%, go ahead, birth the child.
Generalizing from the above:
2. What are the chances that a baby, any baby, will find life worth it? The same logic applies in this case too but notice we can make the case for natalism/antinatalism depending on the results of the calculations.
At the very least we've established the utility of probability in philosophy; other subdisciplines of math may also aid in finding solutions to different philosophical problems.
Comments (202)
Using probabilities and statistics in any framework of thought, philosophical or other, is not mathematizing. Probabilities and statistics are used everywhere and concern almost everything, in every bit and corner in life. (As besides is Math, in general.) Probabilities, in particular, are part of logic, and logic, although a basic element in Philosophy, it is not and exclusivity of or copyrighted by it. It is used in all kinds of arguments, descriptions, positions, solutions, explanations, proofs, and so forth, by people from all walks of life.
To ask this question for this topic is misplaced. Antinatalism is an ethics argument. As such, argumentation in the form of statements and reasoning will suffice. I think you mean to say that we need to provide mathematical proof to win this argument. No. If anything, that's a charlatan's way of weasling itself into making a point, but really it's just hiding behind numbers because they couldn't articulate their argument properly.
Why not point out the idea that this issue could not be won?
Could you explain what you mean here? Aren't probabilities and statistics mathematical?
Today, the relationship is much more strained. Perhaps there are things of interest in the philosophy of math. But, outside of extremely broad and general questions, which are of little interest to most mathematicians I'd imagine, I think this topic won't lead to much.
Not really using math, just guesstimating probabilities. In any event, the idea is dreadful. :roll:
Continuing with the example of antinatalism, why would you not mathematize the problem? The issue is by and large about uncertainty, just what the mathematics of probability was invented to deal with.
For antinatalists, all that needs to be done is prove/demonstrate that any random child has a high likelihood of a miserable existence. The exact same thing is required of natalists as well - show that a happy life is more probable than a sad one.
:chin: If uncertainty is key to an issue as it is in antinatalism vs. natalism, probability is just what the doctor ordered, oui monsieur?
Quoting jgill
Why? See my replies to other posters [math]\uparrow[/math].
Of course they are. Simple arithmetic is too. I didn't say they aren't. I said "Using probabilities and statistics in any framework of thought, philosophical or other, is not mathematizing." So, you should most probably check the meaning of the word "mathematize".
It's one thing to use use probabilities in discussing a subject and another thing to consider or treat a subject as a mathematical one (i.e, "mathematize" it.) Because then, all mathematical questions and problems could be considered also as philosophical ones!
Uncertainty refers to something that is not certain, i.e. not known or definite and not to be relied on. Where does Math come in this? Even if we attach numbers to uncertainly, e.g; 1/3, 50%, etc., this would not be enough for qualifying a subject as a mathematical one. Probability, chances, certaintly, uncertainty, and so forth may be terms used in Math of probabilities, but also in all kinds of fields or areas, including everyday language.
And, BTW, asking "What are the chances that a baby, any baby, will find life worth it?" that you mentioned as an example, is not only far from being a mathematical one but it also has no meaning, because what is the criterion for life to be considered worthy or not? This is totally subjective/personal. One can only ask this question to himself, based on the criteria one has regarding a worthy life. And that could be qualified as a philosophical question.
Then, what is the acceptable smallest percentage of chances for a baby not to have a worthy life --based on whatever criteria-- that one is willing to accept in deciding to have a baby oir not? Some decide not to have a baby based on the idea that the slightest chance for their baby not having a worthy life is enough. Other may put that to 50% and other --the vast majority-- do not consider such a question at all in their decision to have a baby!
No, there's absolutely no mathematics in any of that! :smile:
Well, uncertainty can be quantified and that's mathematical probability. So we begin with doubt/uncertainty; e.g. it's possible that the world is a simulation. We then bring math to bear on the issue and, after the relevant calculations, we arrive at a better answer viz. the probability that the world is a simulation is x%.
On average, poor people have larger families than rich folks. Suppose the ratio is 9 poor babies : 1 rich baby.
The probability that anyone will be born poor = [math]\frac{9}{10}[/math] = 90%.
The probability that you'll be born rich = [math]\frac{1}{10}[/math] = 10%.
Once we have concrete numbers like 90% and 10%, we can use 'em to make rational choices/decisions.
So if using mathematics in a field of study does not constitute mathematizing it, then what does? Is physics mathematized? Is music mathematized?
You still didn't look up the term "mathematize", did you?
Yes, I agree, although using simple percentages is near the lower bound of the definition. At this intellectual level grocery shopping might be, "Well, one can is $2, so two cans will be $4".
It means to treat mathematically. So, I would assume that using mathematics in a field of study constitutes mathematizing.
Quoting jgill
I think it depends on how you do your shopping. Many people figure the price per 100 grams, or oz., and stuff like that, to compare pricing, which requires mathematical thinking. But if you go into the store with a list of products and already know the brand and sizes of containers you will get, there is no mathematizing involved. They even add everything up for you, and all you do is put your card in and accept the charges.
Mathematize
/?ma?(?)m?t??z/
verb
regard or treat (a subject or problem) in mathematical terms.
"Keynes resisted attempts to be overprecise and mathematize his insights"
:up: Yep, and math has proven itself as the master key of sorts, unlocking doors to rooms in the house of wisdom that were previously out of bounds.
Right. Which is totally different than just use Math/Arithmetic/Probability terms which I have already pointed out. Just using words like multiply/divide, constant, cube, diameter, probable/improbable, 50% chances or one in two cases, average, and so on is not mathematizing.
When people utter common phrases like "Life is not fair", "Humans are intelligent beings", etc., this doesn't mean that they are philosophizing. Most probably they are not able to expand or explain or argue on those statements in a (standard) philosophical way.
isn't that really what philosophy is, an act of seeking help.?
Quoting Alkis Piskas
No I don't see the difference you are claiming. To use math is to apply mathematics. And to apply mathematics is to treat the thing which you apply mathematics to, mathematically. Therefore to use math is to mathematize the thing you apply it to.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
Unless they are just parroting (repeating what was heard without understanding), then they are philosophizing when they use such phrases. But people always need some understanding when they apply mathematics, so they cannot be just repeating without understanding.
Without math how do we have a good understanding of reality such as the many ways to use pi and if we do not have a good understanding of reality, how can we have good philosophy? I have skipped over a few threads because the complete lack of an understanding of math means nothing is being said that interest me.
Quoting Edward B. Burger, Ph.D, Southwestern University
There's a big difference between using and applying in this context. Using a screwdriver or a key is not applying mechanics! Using multiplication or division is not applying mathematics. Both Mechanics and Mathematics are sciences containing laws, theorems, axioms, and othe theory as well as applications. So applying mechanics or math means taking such laws, theorems, axioms, and other theory into consideration. A boy can fly a toy airplane without having the slightest idea about and aerodynamics, and yet he uses aerodynamics without knowning what that is. And I can use a car without knowing and/or applying knowingly any elements of car mechanics.
I hope that all this makes the difference between using and applying in the context of Mathematics, as it is layout in this topic.
That's all for me. I won't come back on this issue.
See why I love this forum? :cool:
I mean, Pi and mathematical formulas belong to mathematics. Applied math, the kind the gives us theories, usually belong to physics.
Sorry to be picky, but applied math goes beyond physics. Physics, in fact, almost has its own math.
Not at all, thank you for the correction.
Quick question, for my benefit: does this applied math give us insight into the nature of the world?
Quick answer: insomuch as there are existing patterns in the world that we identify and attempt to codify with mathematics. But applied math can go any number of directions, like computing the stresses on bridges, calculating the orbit of a satellite, building the pyramids, etc. :cool: Sometimes pure math finds surprising applications, like a result of mine from 1991 that was recently used in a paper on decision making in group environments.
Very cool. Congrats man, well deserved! :clap:
Of course using a screwdriver is not applying mechanics. But using a screw driver is applying a screw driver, just like using mathematics is applying mathematics. In the context of mathematics, there is no difference between using and applying.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
But it is, because multiplication and division are branches of mathematics. So apply multiplication is applying mathematics.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
To apply multiplication requires taking the laws of multiplication into consideration. It does not require taking the many other laws of mathematics into consideration. But to apply mathematics doesn't require that one knows all the laws of mathematics.
Quoting Alkis Piskas
The boy in this example is not using aerodynamics, the boy is using the airplane. The person who made the airplane used aerodynamics, or maybe just copied another one. When you drive a car you are using the car, you are not using car mechanics.
How about math and our understanding of reality? That requires more than being able to add, subtract and do multiplications, and divide. I wish all grade schools introduced children to geometry and the Greek sacred math and went on to explain pi and other wonders of math such as being able to see the invisible. I wish I had better words for the mysteries of math. I can not do advanced math, but we can learn about the amazing things that can be done with math.
Sure. Though liking math is something that few people are intuitively attracted to.
One interesting question that arises as a follow-up to yours is, what is math? What does it study? Some structures. It's nebulous territory, hence the appeal of Platonism, which at least tries to give some coherence to the existence of math.
But, you should ask one of the mathematicians here, like jgill or others, who could help you out much more than I ever could.
An educated guess, math is the study of patterns but wait, that's not all, math also has to explain patterns + numericize/geometrize them when doing so.
A great point. The antinatalism on the thread about impositions is about when or if it is ever right to create impositions for others if it is not ameliorating a greater harm with a lesser harm. In other words, you are simply creating impositions from scratch. And I defined impositions as a) Forcing one's will onto another and b) creating burdens for others. Procreation falls under both those definitions.
@Agent Smith, so it would be like saying, "Kant thought we should not use people as a means to an ends".. Or perhaps, you should not impose onto others that CAN'T consent, or that CAN'T have a choice. Mainly it was about the idea of "aggressive paternalism".. Is the attitude that one can make decisions for others on significant matters regarding the conditions and limitations that life offers (how to survive, the amount of harms we know about, the amount of unknown harms) for another person ever appropriate? All of these questions are based on some kind of principle and violation of things that we may find morally relevant such as justice, autonomy, dignity, etc. In other words, you can't say, "52% of people might benefit from being used" against a Kantian deontological principle that using people is always violating some kind of categorical imperative or whatnot.
Quoting Agent Smith
Quoting Agent Smith
Perfect. Right now schools are teaching math all wrong because it does not deal with those questions and an answer such as Agent Smith provided, the study of patterns. Excite me! I wish everyone would get the book "A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe THE MATHEMATICAL ARCHETYPES OF NATURE, ART, AND SCIENCE" by Michael S. Schneider.
This is not just a study of patterns but also function. Triangles and hexagons have obvious structural functions. The US Republic is a triad, triangle, of checks and balances. Unfortunately, it doesn't work as well today as it once did, but that is another subject, except that it brings out the importance of education and having a shared sense of purpose and goals. But maybe if we held a better understanding of what math has to do with our lives, we would have a better understanding of democracy as rule by reason, and good moral judgment.
lol I need an emoticon of someone standing on a soap box and giving a lecture. Thanks for being tolerant of me and my passion for the greatness of Athens and democracy.
"Geometry existed before the creation." Plato
Monad "You cannot conceive the many without the one... The study of the unit is among those that lead the mind on and turn it to the vision of reality." Plato
Dyad "The opposit is beneficial; from things that differ comes the fairest attunement; all things are born through strife." Heraclitus
Triad "A whole is something that has a beginning< middle and end." Aristotle
"The One engenders the Two, the Two engenders the Three and the three engenders all things." Tao Te Chi'ing
Tetrad "It is hard to be truly excellent, four-square in hand and foot and mind, formed without blemish." Simonides
Pentad It is a frequent assertion of ours that the whole universe is manifestly completed and enclosed by the Dyad, and seeded by the Monad, and it gains movement thanks to the Dyad and life thanks to the Pentad." Iamblichus
"God has established nothing without geometric beauty which was not bound beforehand by some of law of necessity." Johanne Kepler
and all the biblical and Kabalah references to the numbers 6 and 7
Heptad - A regular heptagon cannot be constructed with the geometer's three tools and so is not born like other shapes through the vesica piscis. But an approximate Heptagon is possible to construct. From the Beginner's Guide. There are biblical references to 7 and we can see Plato's notion of nothing being as perfect as things are in a higher realm.
Octad Change has an absolute limit:
This produces two modes;
The two modes produce four forms,
The four forms produce eight trigrams;
The eight trigrams determine fortune and misfortune.
Confucius (commentary on the I Ching)
Ennead The nine worlds of the Odine Mysteries. The Egyptian Ennead, or company of nine gods and the goddesses, represents archetypal principles that regulate and rule the cosmos through the laws of number. The pharaoh came forth from between the thighs of the divine Nine. Egyptian myth
Decad In counting systems world wide, each tenth step begins a new level and recapitulates the whole. Number systems reveal a culture's picture of the cosmos. From the book Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe.
I think there is far more math in our understanding of life and our beliefs than most people realize. This fact of life enflames my anger with Rome and the Roman-Christian destruction of Greek academies which to this day prevents us from knowing the wisdom of the ancients and I include our failure to know and understand Mayan harmonic math in this Roman-caused problem. Rome closed our eyes and turned us from knowledge and when it began one with Christianity that was a sad day for the world.
Western minds tend to be closed minds, thanks to Rome. So those who understand stand math as it is taught in the West have valuable information, but we should know they most likely come to the study of math and all other things with closed minds.
I'm quite skeptical of forming such far reaching connections between math and "real life", not because we don't use it, most of us do in some form of another, but I don't think geometry, say, can tell us much about complex things like human relations or governments - they are as far apart as possible, concerning the difficulty involved in understanding such things.
Which is not to say that, for example, thinking about triangles has no use in philosophy. Descartes showed, convincingly I think, that we impose the image of a triangle on top of very imperfect data. It's an example of an innate idea. Plato did a similar thing back in his day.
But triangles are among the simplest things we can conceive. Comparing that to a government is like comparing an microbe to a blue whale.
Nevertheless, again, I am limited in what I can say here, it's not my area of expertise at all. These are very general comments.
Not worth the effort
One of the biggest concerns mathematicians have is very few people have a good understanding of math, and this is why I said we are teaching math wrong. By the beginning of high school, students may not have great math skills but they should at least know how math is applied to everything in our lives so they might at least be motivated to learn math. Why would anyone want to learn math? For most people, it is tortuous especially when we get to algebra. Part of the problem is they do not explain to children why they must do all the steps in solving problems so the kids put down the right answer without doing the steps and later when algebra is a requirement they can not do it because they have not learned the steps. Math must be learned one step at a time, and when a student begins failing math, that means the student must go back to previous lessons of learning the steps. The point is, I do not blame you for not knowing things that are not taught.
Math is a very important part of our lives and that includes policy making and government.
Quoting Josh Rhoten
Math and psychology
Quoting Parker Smith, Yanjun Liu, James T. Townsend, Trish van Zandt
What is not worth the effort?
While metaphysics does contain some exciting numerical (mathematical) aspects, I doubt if they're cornerstone ideas. They seem to be incidental rather than essential. Disappointing, oui?
Nevertheless, a superb post! I owe you one!
However, I wouldn't mind if I were born into a rich (and powerful :snicker: ) family. Therein lies the rub, oui monsieur?
Competing with the wisdom of the ancients, such as:
Quoting Athena
It's not about that.
Why not?
The key points we need to address.
1. Nonexistent people (no rights, consent Mu)
2. Possible people (rights? can't consent)
3. Actual people (have rights, can consent)
Quoting Athena
Hi ! Excellent point. The main reason for most people to learn math is probably its central role in science. I don't just mean physics. I mean any science that infers from data. Math helps us decide rationally whether a drug is safe and effective, or (as you mention) whether a policy is safe and effective. It plays a central role in rationality.
How does a society motivate its members to cultivate their rationality? As others have noted, this is an expression of caring for others and not just for oneself. Granted that none of us are angels, how can we create a virtuous circle ?
Theres a lot of things off here.
1. Being rich does not equal heaven obviously. Though being rich can help make some things easier.
2. Its not about non existent. Its about whether its ok to make significant impositions on others behalf when its not ameliorating greater with lesser harm but simply creating impositions from scratch. Is it ok to choose for others what their set of choices (that life represents) is, the harms they will endure are, and the unknown harms. I claimed no because it takes an attitude of aggressive paternalism that one can assume that these large significant conditions are necessary or proper to decide for others what to endure.
On the one hand, we may worship math and science because of the wonders we can achieve with this mathematical and scientific reasoning. On the other hand, we may totally turn our backs on math and science because they can bring us evil and may seem to lack anything that is good about the humanities and religions.
In the past, bureaucratic problems could be resolved by reasoning with the bureaucrat. We were all basically on the same page with the same human reasoning. That is no longer the reality for the technological world we are in now. As the old retire and die we are losing the human consciousness that once defined our democracy. Like we shifted from analog to digital electronics, there is a serious shift in our reasoning. It is no longer the humanities forming our reasoning, but the laws and requirements of math and science.
I have a non-taxable income that is to be disregarded when I apply for any form of government assistance. In the past, all I had to do was explain this and maybe present the letter from the bureaucracy at the federal level, and the bureaucrat disregarded that income. This is no longer true. The requirement has totally changed with a demand for information presented in a form that is acceptable in this technological age validated who I am, what my position is, and the legal explanation of this income being disregarded. To be clear about this, my word is no longer good. The form letter we have used in the past is no longer good enough. I can not even imagine the form that they are demanding so I am turning to an attorney for legal help. The young man handling my request for a hearing could not comprehend I can not get the equivalent of an employee's pay stub from the volunteer organization because no one has thought as the bureaucrats are thinking today.
Technological thinking is demanding proof, whereas in the past we just had human reasoning and social agreements. Today these different modes of thinking are colliding like a very messy train wreck. Every job is divided into the smallest parts and the people doing each part are isolated from the larger organization. All people know is their own little piece of the bigger whole and they are not working together as we did in the past, with the pandemic accelerating this problem! In relative isolation, they turn to technological demands like another mechanical society we defended democracy against. There must be absolute obedience to authority and there is no other way to get through this. Trying to reason with the person making the decisions is suicidal! Wow, will that piss them off and get a very bad result.
and at this point, all hope depends on having a good attorney. Why be so resistant to showing the required proof? Off with your head!
Should we deal with this in philosophy? God, I hope so.
Your first statement is the belief. However, it is even worse than the belief in the gods, because the bureaucrats have real power. I studied public policy and administration at the University of Oregon. After something has gone through the process of social research, it resembles reality as well as a plastic-wrapped stake resembles the cow it came from.
Your second statement is perhaps the most important thing we can talk about right now because we are on the same path as the world war enemy of the allies, to a mechanical society that totally crushes individual authority and power.
How is this cultivated? Replace the humanities with education for technology. How we think depends 100% on how we are taught to organize our logical thinking and the conceptual thinking we learn. The young of our technological society have been trained to think in terms of proves and reliance on AUTHORITY. That manifests a very different culture than the one coming out of the humanities and religion.
Excuse me, but if you do not have the right proves to validate your eligibility, the only right you have in some cases is the right to a hearing, and if you don't have an attorney you are screwed. And in other cases, you have no rights at all.
Money is also helpful. Today a young paraplegic requiring medical help has been thrown out of the hospital with a sleeping bag and he will be sleeping on the streets somewhere. Good luck sucker. This is America the wealthiest country in the world and we are great. The marginalized people do not count. Surely this is not what you mean by people who have rights and those who don't?
I love your reply! I am not sure of your meaning or why you quoted me about the Egyptian Ennead but given the greater discussion, I delight in pondering how the Egyptian Ennead is different from how we think of number 9 today. Today we no longer think of numbers having a sacred meaning, do we? We don't know what they have to do with the laws of nature do we?
I wish I had found this information when the subject was the trinity.
Quoting ?
It seems we agree on the important of the humanities. A good citizen needs critical thinking and historical awareness. A mere cog in the machine, however, needs only a set of a skills. I've been reading Howard Zinn's history lately, and the presence or absence of class consciousness looks central to me. Am I to be merely a monkey pulling levers as directed ? Or an enlightened, autonomous being working with others to build a just and happy society? Certain politicians and oligarchs would rather me be the former, surely.
This is a good description of us fitting ourselves to our own machines, become their obedient robots. It's easy to imagine AI playing larger and larger role. It's my understanding that banks already loan or not according to algorithmic decisions, and someone might joke about the replacement of juries (trained on transcripts of previous trials and associated verdicts.)
Sad but true. "Sorry about your luck."
Please go to this thread about our ID and how to have a better society. Some people's utopia is another person's hell. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/13274/doing-away-with-absolute-indiscerniblity-and-identity
I think you truly have a better understanding of what is important than some people. :grin: But how much fun would we have if everything was absolute and we had no reason to argue from our different perspectives? It is a big step between identifying ourselves with our human relationships or with numbers and thinking of numbers as sacred or as cold lifeless things useful for recording information or making predictions.
I had no idea how important @Agent Smith's question is. I don't think we are going in the direction of the expected discussion, but I am seeing a lot of importance starting with no longer seeing numbers as sacred to no longer having a sacred notion of humans. I stand against all the God of Abraham religions, but now I am seeing the Beast and I have a sense of horror.
Trying to get us to the topic of math and philosophy. Today it matters what we measure and what measurements have to do with public policy. Maybe we should not be divided between those who have made math and science their God and those who have not because we are butting heads. I think a lot may rest on if we see numbers as sacred or not. If we have no sense of awe and no reverence could we go in the wrong direction?
I see a more divisive conflict between right-wing Republicans and left-wing Democrats.
Quoting Athena
Not my experience at all. But if you mean entertaining the wisdom of the ancients, like this:
Yes, perhaps of interest as part of history, but nonsense nevertheless.
Excellent point. We need space to wiggle around in, within which we enjoy the drama of self-realization. There's no light without darkness.
Edit: I should add that I do agree that we should carefully consider the probability of a good outcome stemming from our actions. We might not be able to know everything, but one's socio-economic conditions alongside the general state of well-being in one's vicinity can at least serve as useful indicators of what one might escape. There are some people who think that life is always good, which is something I do not agree with.
Also, darkness is the absence of light. Darkness and light exist concurrently but the latter does not need the former for its existence. Nevertheless, sometimes appreciation of a good (which is distinct from its existence) can be aided by contrast.
I hope everyone here has a nice day!
:up:
Youre simply going to be unreasonable to make your same argument.
If I went around assuming for others significant limitations on their choices and foisting harms because it sometimes brings good to them as well, the good is not the ethical issue. If thats the case I have a game you cannot escape from youre really going to like..let me foist that onto you.
Taking unnecessary risks and causing harms to existing beings who probably do not need them to live a sufficiently valuable life is not the same as bestowing a good that cannot be solicited (and it's evident that non-existent beings cannot choose to exist).
You said it bro.
The ethical part is not about the good then. I have no problem if every choice would have been wanted and no harms befell people.
Edit: Also, I hope that you have a good day/night ahead!
Indeed we disagree. I dont think a person needs to exist prior to life to know it will be affected, and thus at some point negatively. Child born in lava pit will be born in a lava pit. If you can convince the woman not to, you will prevent this negative for the future person. Clearly future states matter.
Quoting DA671
Yes, weve had this debate. Im just going to repeat the point that the ethical part is about whether to foist harms and limitations, not goods. Its goods that come with significant impositions. Thats the very question at hand. The person not existing beforehand isnt some magic excuse that somehow makes this situation different. Ill just repeat, I have a game Id love to foist on you, certainly will be fun in some parts. Yes, you wont be able to escape the set of choices and yes at parts you will be harmed. Even if I conjured you from thin air to play my game, and not taken you from your existing life, there are serious ethical considerations you would be overlooking to say, oh no thats fine.
The goods and bads both matter ethically. Extricating the former from ethical consideration is not possible if one wants to have a comprehensive worldview, in my opinion. There is no "magic" involved in pointing out that the inexistent is not dancing in joy due to their lack of being, which is why they cannot be made worse off by existing. However, this view is not held by all, so I do not insist on arguing for itprimarily because I do not have to. Obviously, one should seek to avoid creating harms. Nevertheless, I simply do not see how it can be ethical to never lead to the genesis of a good. As an existing individual who has no strong proclivity for unknown games at the moment, it wouldn't be good to take a risk that has a higher probability of things going wrong. When the value is already there, there is no point in pulverising it and then trying to repair it. But who knows? If no adequate source of value can be found, playing certain risky games can be worth it. Having said that, I would merely like to point out that trying to do good for existing beings (who might have a strong interest in a state of affairs they are in) is not the same as creating somebody (who does not have a desire to remain in the void) in order to bestow innumerable benefits that matter just as much as the negatives do. The significant impositions also come with resilient wills and indescribably powerful positive experiences that cannot be relegated to the sidelines. It's still good to try to save someone even if there is a small chance that they would become miserable due to this because one knows that the probability of a positive outcome is higher. Pessimistic rhetoric about games does not diminish the potency of happiness.
Indefinitely stretching discussions can become quite vexatious, especially on a weekend! My apologies for callously jumping into the thread. As I have said before on multiple occasions, I do agree that suffering is a serious problem that needs to be tackled. If there were more people who cared about doing that instead of just discussing things such as politics and celebrities, it is quite likely that the need to even have this discussion would not be strong. Nonetheless, I am glad that you are here advocating for giving people the good (and I consider the lack of harms to be a good thing) that they deserve. Have a nice day!
You gotta stop harping at a point I didnt make. Its about the parent making a choice that could affrect someone. Its about whether to impose or not.
Quoting DA671
Im just gonna repeat what I said previously about creating limitations and harms.
Quoting DA671
Are you purposely twisting the argument or just not understand? Its about whether its ok to make these decisions that limit and harm for another. The state of not existing but could exist doesnt exonerate that this is a decision that if chosen one way, will affect a person. And thats the issue at hand. This is beyond common sense.
Quoting DA671
You dont? You dont see how assuming that others should like and experience these sets of choices and endure these harms, because there is good, can be an ethical problem? Really?
Quoting DA671
Noted
Quoting DA671
Cool
And I will just say that freedom and benefits are also pertinent factors to consider.
I am not trying to misconstrue anything. The question of exoneration, in my opinion, simply does not arise when the decision does not lead to an action that decreases one's well-being. Of course, not everyone agrees with that, which is fine. In this case, I think that common sense would also tell us that it is good to create positives and the ability to find happiness regardless of whether or not inexistent souls are asking for them. Even a Kantian deontological framework would not ask one to simply ignore the enormous amount of good that could come from an action. The innate goodness of the outcome, despite the presence of harms, does seem to suggest that procreation is at least justifiable, provided one has the right intentions and properly cares for the person. Absolute contentment is not a reality (yet) but neither is life epitomised by infinite deprivation. I believe that respecting the diversity of the sentient experience is generally preferable to a one-size-fits-all solution.
I do not see how some people fail to see that letting their pessimism and excessive aversion to/emphasis on risks lead to the prevention of billions of good experiences is perfectly acceptable. Verily, it's a mystery that keeps intensifying.
:up: Thank you.
But its not about effects. Its about the rule. And so contra your post here, you are misconstruing the argument. We will continue to disagree because not providing positives from scratch has no moral relevance. Assuming someone elses choices (limitations of sets of choices) and harms is where ethics comes into play. Creating positives always comes with this baggage. Why you want to rehash this debate specifically between us, I dont understand. Weve done it before.
We will indeed continue to disagree because I believe providing positives has enormous moral relevance (though it can be difficult to recognise that due to the interconnected nature of harms/benefits and the fact that existing beings can live decent lives without requiring constant interference for happiness).
When assuming is the only thing one can do and the bestowal of a lifetime's worth of happiness is at stake, then only looking at the limitations and ignoring the opportunities does not seem right to me. Then, there is also the loss of happiness that could be experienced by many people as a result of a lack of creation. Deontology does not wish to annihilate the minority perspective for the sake of a greater good, which is why one cannot ignore the positive perspective that many people have.
The baggage might not always seem like an immense burden when there are countless invaluable diamonds in it them. It's not for me to decide that the negatives would always be more important even if I fail to find adequate value in my own life.
I merely wanted to restate the obvious lest some people mistakenly begin to think that preventing all positives is ethical. Thank you for the discussion, and I hope that you have a great day!
So that's the very point in question. Is it ever okay to aggressively assume harms/choices for another person? I understand your position that it is okay to assume goods for a person. I can even get on board with it IF it didn't have the contingency that I was going to be assuming choices/harms for another. But of course, it doesn't and you are stuck with the reality.
However, isn't antinatalism the exact same thing, thinking for someone else?
And there is obviously the impact on existing people but that's a different matter.
It's not about thinking for others on its own. It's about specifically creating impositions for them or deciding what impositions are appropriate for others.
What do you have to say to people who exult "Thank god I was born!" To be frank, I've never heard anyone make that remark. It just doesn't seem to make sense, oui monsieur?
That's the child, not the person making the decision for them. And I have had this debate before, but just because someone says that at one moment in time, doesn't mean a minute later, when they are stuck in traffic they don't go "Oh fuck I hate this shit". Is in the moment dislike their attitude or that general statement? But I think all of it is irrelevant because you are looking at the effect only, when this is about the principle of deciding impositions that are appropriate for others. Even the person who says they were grateful or whatnot, that doesn't prevent the fact that there were harms they may not want to encounter and limitations that they would not have wanted in the choices. In other words, I don't think that statement really reveals much about the nature of how people encounter harms and choices in life.
Is God outside of nature or is nature God? Should we look for God in everyone? Could our understanding of God affect our understanding of democracy?
I have been watching and rewatching this video about him. Especially his reasoning of cause and effect impresses me as how the ancient Athenians thought and I think this thinking is the foundation of democracy. It goes with what Cicero said about happiness and doing the right thing when one knows what the right thing is. It is the foundation of democracy being rule by reason and good moral judgment being good reasoning.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leoBccWOZfo
And thank you, I am having a nice day. I am enjoying the forum and eating popsicles on this hot day. I just finished eating a shrimp salad. And I want to say I have an extremely low income that forces me to live very simply while thanks to the internet and libraries and books, I can have what Cicero and Jefferson meant by happiness. Intellectually my life is very full and that makes any personal troubles seem very small. Poverty does have to mean ignorance and suffering.
I suppose there are psychoanalytic threads woven into the relationships between the gods of ancient Egypt, but, yes, nonsense. On the other hand, some of the spiritual practices originating in the East, like Zen Buddhism, are relevant today. I once wrote a chapter of a book on a certain aspect of a sport being a "mystical art form." :cool:
What I experience is mentioned in the video about Spinoza, that the more I learn and expand my consciousness, the more I see a bigger picture and that decreases the importance of the small things. Learning other languages and traveling are good ways to expand our consciousness and so is MATH. With math, we can see the invisible. I know a professor who can lecture for at least 4 hours about knots and how we can use math to know if the DNA is knotted or not. Like pi can explain so many surprising things making math mind-blowing as we can know more than our six senses can detect.
In India, it seems religion and math went hand in hand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_mathematics
That is not so in the West outside of Egypt and the Greeks who delighted in learning from Egypt. In India, the relationship between religion and math made it possible for them to recognize 0 as a legitimate number and to recognize negative numbers, and it made them capable of contemplating infinity.
The mystical and math go very well together and I think the Western mind is biased and this bias is like blinders that limit the consciousness of the Western mind.
PS In another thread I tried to have a discussion of how ancient Greeks and Romans differed and that discussion didn't go very well, so here I want to bring up the fact that the Roman number system would have never led to scientific discoveries.
There are about 24,000 math topics on Wikipedia, many if not most by "Western minds". That doesn't sound like the Western mind is terribly limited.
Doing the right thing for the right reasons is certainly quite important. It is the only way one can ensure the long-term triumph of the good
I am sorry, but did you mean to say that poverty does not have to mean ignorance and suffering? Your reply seems to suggest so. If that is the case, I would definitely agree with you. Coming from a relatively poor country, I have been amazed by the degree of satisfaction many of the financially less fortunate people seem to experience. Additionally, they seem to have a wisdom about how to live a good life that many well-off individuals appear to lack. The pursuit of knowledge is undoubtedly a source of great satisfaction. I am glad to know that you have had a nice day. May you have plenty more ahead!
Choices and harms are presumed for another. Thats all that matters ethically. Youre imposing on others.
My point is simply this: either way (natalism/antinatalism) we're imposing (on a possible person). Damned if you do, damned if you don't! We gotta choose the lesser of the two evils. Can you give it a shot? I'm all ears.
Yes, only that one presumption creates harms and presumes set of choices thats supposed to be good for another with its other intention. This matters. Not creating goods creates no negative situation for no one. I can do this all day.
Does the following make sense to you?
Imagine a couple who had it all in a manner of speaking. They decide not to have children. A person, a stranger, hears of them and remarks "If only they had children! How lucky it would be to be born to such a wonderful human beings!"
My central point is that if it isn't bad to create positives because nobody would lose something/be harmed due to their absence, then it also isn't good to prevent harms for non-existent souls who do not have beatific smiles due to the lack of creation and will not gain anything from the end of all procreation. Personally, I do not think that an action can be a harm if not doing so does not have any value for a being. Yet, if it is a harm to be born, it is also good to create the positives. At this point, I think that one should also care about the opportunity for the good instead of making ethics all about annihilating the possibility of the bad.
Lastly, there are indeed people who are saddened by having a life they did not ask for, just as there are many other individuals who are grateful for having a good they could not have solicited. If one wants to just focus in impositions and ignore the value of doing any good, then that is they are free to do so (though the possibility of universal AN causing harm to existing people still remains). However, this is quite a limited understanding of ethics that appears to miss the enigmatic depth of the complexity of the sentient experience.
No ONE that this decision is affecting is in fact affected. Period.
And if youre going to talk about already existing people sad they didnt create a child, just think of the slippery slope implications of that. Imagine if people were allowed to impose anything they wanted to others because theyd be sad otherwise. Thats nuts. A mad scientist wanting to use people for his experiment doesnt get to just use people when hed like because hed be sad otherwise. Think of any other situation whereby one person would be sad so they do X cause they want to see it play out and theyd be sad if it doesnt. Crazy.
That's an amazing article on Indian mathematics on Wikipedia. Ramanujan, of course, was one of the great geniuses in math. When I was a math prof I would be asked occasionally to teach the survey course in mathematics history - a task none of us relished since no one had the necessary background. It would have been an enormous help had Wikipedia been available!
How do you guess mathematics might have evolved had it not been for the Romans and Christianity? Or, is it the teaching of math to school age kids that you think should be different? My wife is a retired HS English teacher and she made the same remark about coming up with the right answer without going through all the steps when she was a student. :smile:
The "slippery slope" can become a big threat when it starts to impact a significant amount of people. Unless one believes that anybody who does not share their pessimistic worldview is mad, talking about a single random scientist has no bearing on the negativity that could be experienced by countless innocent individuals. Also, nobody is saying that we should not do everything we can to improve the lives of those who exist, so harping about "using" someone as if the action entails nothing except harms for the individual does not seem right to me.
What would be crazy if we stopped doing any good in the world just because someone was unable to ask for iteither due to epistemic or physical limitations. Thankfully, we do not live in a world wherein the only things that matter are impositions and harms.
As populum fallacy.. a million nazis is a million nazis. Less extreme- a million misguided people are a million misguided people. Multiple as much as you want.
Quoting DA671
Yet no one is deprived and youre right back at square 1. It always goes one way.
Quoting DA671
And that is exactly the attitude of impositions at question. That you should make those decisions for another.
And nobody benefits from the absence of the harms, which is why the unavoidable fact is that the lack of creation has no value/disvalue for the non-existent. There is no room for untenable double standards here.
Saving someone or choosing to provide a good when one is unable to ask for it is only an imposition in the eyes of someone who has deliberately chosen to blind themselves to one side of the coin.
You keep overlooking the negatives that come with it! And you cant use a gift excuse unless the gift was also an inescapable set of burdens that others couldnt ask for. That certainly would be questionable gift.
Quoting DA671
And for millionth time, it doesnt matter to literally no one. Its only the other way, creating harms and limitations of choices for another along with the intended goods that matters as now someone indeed exists that this affects.
And for the infinite time:
1. It can matter to existing people.
2. If the absence of happiness is not bad because it does not matter to those who do not exist, then the absence of suffering is also not good because it does not matter for the inexistent.
3. In the absence of a prior state of well-being and pre-existing interests, creation is not a benefit/harm/imposition/positive. If one still insists on saying that it can be a harm and imposition, then it can also be a positive that comes from an act of beneficence.
No one is obliged to give a gift, especially for an empty set.
Quoting DA671
Already addressed.
Quoting DA671
Lava pit. It only matters if the person will be born to be harmed. That is the morally questionable thing. Im not at this point questioning unmediated good (which this is not a case of).
Quoting DA671
For millionth time, it does t matter UNTIL the person comes into existence. Lava pit
Already responded.
Absolute bliss. The pit is indeed bad for one who does exist. However, it's absence is not desired and does not benefit the non-existent. When the lack of action does not result in an actual better/worse state of affairs for a person, there is no obligation to do/not do something (unless it impacts existing people). In the absence of a meaningful comparison, all that remains are mere projections of value (moral or otherwise) where there is none. But if creating someone in a lava pit is bad, then creating someone in a palace of joy is also good and questions about deprivations are irrelevant. This isn't an unrestricted harm either.
For the trillionth time, it's true that being in lava pit/palace of joy feels bad/good. But neither of those states are worse/better for someone who does exist because it does not decrease/increase a prior state of well-being. And if you wish to continue talking about the effects, then the positives should also be a part of one's final analysis.
Nonexistence is not just nonexistence in re life (the supposedly highest form of existence). Nonexistence has the potential for existence if you concede the notion of possible persons and with the potential for life, a possible person has, in my humble opinion, some basic rights - the right not to suffer (antinatalism) and the right to be happy (natalism).
What sayest thou?
With collateral of the other (harm and imposed choices).
Quoting DA671
No one claimed it did. Straw man that you even bring it up (constantly and annoyingly).
Quoting DA671
This is either common sense or ridiculous depending how you mean it. The lava pit refutes whatever point you were trying to make, and "prevented" good hurts no ONE. Again and again and again.> You can keep making these category errors your gospel and I will keep refuting thus.
Quoting DA671
Creating good WITH the bad though, buddy.. Yes not UNMITIGATED good. You are creating burdens/impositions/harms/choices for others, THAT is the relevant ethical claim. Creating good WHEN IT COMES WITH BAD. You say it's fine. I say it isn't good to do procreation or otherwise (except as always with the mitigating greater with lesser harms which procreation doesn't fall under except to expiate someone else's sadness for not getting to enact their will, as if every desire that isn't acted upon is automatically wrong).
There is no right for the unborn to be happy. But there seems to be a prohibition to creating harms/choices for others "just because you want to".
I never said that you are saying that. It's my argument that there is no obligation to create someone/not create someone because neither of those two actions cause a person to gain/lose something.
Your refutations are terribly insufficient and misguided, I am afraid. Common sense isn't always right (after all, the goodness of life is a fairly commensensical view). It is my view that because there is no prior desire to not exist/to exist, the actualisation of neither of those states is worse or better for someone. And if something is not a benefit/loss, there is no obligation to choose/avoid it. You keep suggesting that the only thing that matters is being hurt (which is supposedly why the absence of happiness isn't a problem). In response, I would again say that, unless one wants to have a myopic worldview, one has to also say that preventing harms is not necessary unless their absence benefits an actual person. The gospel of pessimism cannot obfuscate the truth.
Nonexistence has no rights, I'm with you on that. However, a possible person does have rights even if not to the same degree/level as actual persons. At the very least, if a good life can be assured, possible persons should be allowed to become actual ones.
You're playing a semantic game with what I underlined, throwing out red herrings...by trying to make an odd metaphysical point.. but I'm not letting you do that.
I think you are mixing up semantic metaphysical points as well. Possible people don't have "rights". However, possible people have considerations as to what can befall them. There are such things as future conditionals. A future can happen. The lava pit baby. The baby is born into a lava pit by a crazy mother. You talk the mother out of it. You prevented a horrible incident in the future of someone who was not even born yet (but could have been.. into a lava pit). I think this conversation moves forward with progress if you try not to do summersaults about this.. You are giving full rights to non-existent people and @DA671 is denying that considerations are possible. It's like the two extremes that are kind of weaselly in an attempt to avoid the issues.
Just asserting "double standards" doesn't make the argument a double standard. You are placing one and haven't seen how your point doesn't actually make sense.
There is no "right" to the unborn for either harm or happy. There are considerations for what can befall someone in the future who will have rights that are violated. So in these considerations, we can say, "Is it appropriate for one person to make such significant decisions on behalf or another person relating to the kind of choices they will encounter, and the harms they will endure, and the gambling of unknown harms that we did not even know would occur to a child?". That is the question at hand.. not the red herring questions about benefitting non-existent people.
You are ignoring my question and making your own red herring/straw man so you can try to knock it down. Stop it.
Except that rights begin with creation, which is why they are not violated by it. Deciding on behalf of another person is bad for an actual individual, not the air.
The presence/absence of a real person is very much relevant. It lies at the heart of your confusionalong with your inability to appreciate the ultimate value of the good.
Ok!
Whence does an individual come into play (when they are born). This is also when bad comes into play. Don't do that thing that causes bad. It doesn't matter one wit about whether the non-existent person gets joy from this move of not getting harmed.
While I agree that there can be a potential person who will suffer, and will experience happiness.. Not causing the happiness isn't morally wrong, or an ethical problem or issue, especially in light of the fact that collateral damage of harm is entailed.
You made my point.
Ethics is also about doing good. Happiness cannot be sacrificed on the altar of unremitting pessimism.
Let's hope that the sacrifice is worth it!
I hope that everyone here has a nice day!
We need 'em like a chimney sweep needs a shower.
Quoting DA671
I wanted to pick schopenhauer1's brain on how, given the givens, a minimum amount of suffering is necessary (leprotic/diabetic neuropathy related maladies) for survival or, in more colloquial terms, to stay outta trouble. Transhumanists disagree of course and I feel there's merit in such a position - we could, if we work in earnest, find ways of decoupling danger from pain. It's just that in my humble opinion, nature (evolution) has already experimented with that and it was a disastrous failure - those who didn't feel pain were genetic dead ends and failed to pass down their [s]superpower[/s] superweakness to the next generation. In a sense, life rejected happiness or, inversely, life welcomed, with open arms I might add, pain.
[quote=Agent Smith :cool:] Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost[...][/quote]
Too much of a good thing can sometimes lead to terrible consequences. Having a tunnel vision can be quite limiting. Let's not use up all the water we have!
I am sympathetic to transhumanism. I have talked with David Pearce and found him to be fairly realistic in his assessment and expectations (though he was also a bit too pessimistic, I believe). I have no qualms about letting everybody willingly deciding to give up on life and ceasing procreation. Although I would certainly be sad that people cannot find value in the world anymore, I am not going to let some rule about the sanctity of life make me try to prevent people from doing something they rationally wanted to do after considering all other options. People can decide to not be reproducing machines. The main point is that if the goods can outweigh the negatives for many sentient beings (and there are many people who do find inimitable happiness in love and unraveling the mysteries of reality despite suffering significantly), then turning a blind eye to that truth is not going to make it disappear in a puff of smoke.
@schopenhauer1 thinks that the cardinal consideration is whether or not impositions and choosing for someone else are justifiable. However, another equally critical question (aside from the obvious one about the ethical value of an act with reference to an agent that does not exist prior to the act) is whether or not is is ethically important to bestow a good. As far as I am concerned, the answer is a decisive yes.
:up: Let us design something better!
Edit: Albeit briefly and irregularly, the quotation and mentioning systems worked! I am grateful for this miracle!
Right, the straw man you keep presenting that I am not positing.
Quoting DA671
Wrong conclusion from a straw man argument.
Quoting DA671
Weasily words to get out of the fact one is doing the three things I argued in the OP. It's not just unimitigated benefit (benefits without contingencies attached). Benefits purely, and alone is not what is in question here in terms of the "bestowing". Other things (what set of choices others must endure, harms they must endure, unknown harms) were what was in question as moral. You must admit that I have given you my objections numerous times in regard to giving a gift that isn't just trivial or unimitigated good, but comes with those three things. To ignore this is to be uncharitable to the extreme and wasteful conversations that go on forever because I have to repeat myself, being that these objections have been unprocessed/packaged, overlooked for the same argument that I am questioning, and then repeating the process. To move forward you'd have to at least recognize that goodness isn't unmitigated and that this unmitigated "gift" is the aggressive move, because it is assuming things for others that imposes on them.
I see no difference between choosing for others what they must endure/be harmed/gamble harms for them when already alive and from scratch. That is indeed the question at hand.. Why would procreation not fall under this kind of aggressive paternalism? How is it any different than if someone was already born. See conversations I've had with @Tzeentch about this recently as well.
It is my argument and there has been no successful demonstration of its falsity.
Weasels are nice. However, prevarication will not work forever. I never said that the benefits were unmitigated. My claim is that the absence of absolute perfection does not imply that it isn't better to create positives, just as the fact that life isn't completely bad does not make one day that it is never wrong to create someone. Even though I do not find creation to have any value/disvalue, I assumed the framework to be true and then simply tried to suggest that it would be rational to expand it by also including the factors such as the goods one would experience, the fact that the positives cannot be asked for prior to existing, and also that there are ineffaceable positives that can be found by people even in the darkest of times. I am sorry if my replies seemed "uncharitable". However, I think it is you who is refusing to see the light of reason here. The unavoidable truth is that the positives will always matter. Also, it isn't "aggressive" to provide a good that cannot be solicited. Perhaps your unbridled pessimism is preventing you from grasping this.
Don't be a dick. The OP of this thread set out an argument about something being wrong due to making an aggressive(ly paternalistic) move on someone else's behalf. THAT is the question.. It is a two parter.. It is not just about the person being affected, but rather the person doing the affecting upon the other person.. In fact, it is MORE about that. It is about the move the procreator makes upon the procreated.
Edit: Not THIS thread but what this thread has become about.. (The other thread).
So similar to DA671, this is not about straight up harms/benefits but a move I characterized as "aggressively paternalistic". So for example, if I forced you into a game that had a set of choices that were the parameters of the game, and also had a certain amount of harms, and even ones I didn't mean to happen but happened anyways as you played.. You would say that's wrong.. But not only because it kidnapped you from a previous life.. There is something wrong with me choosing for another person (you) that THIS is what you should endure.. And then telling you to kill yourself if you want out of my game. I see no difference with this intuitively wrong move and procreating someone from scratch. In other words, even if I conjured you from thin air with the snap of my fingers, it would be just as wrong as if you already existed.
That's just spin. I can limit you, create conditions of harms for you, and gamble with unknown harms on your behalf and then say, "I am giving you opportunities as well".. That's an old manager's trick when they hand you more busy work.
Unknown benefits are also important.
THAT goods exist aren't justifications for the aggressive paternalistic assumptions in question. Just because there is a state of affairs that's better off than complete negative outcomes doesn't mean, THUS aggressively assume for the others what you think is best because goods exist.
I don't get to force people into my game because I think there are good parts they will enjoy in my game.
Unremitting repetition about paternalism and aggression cannot distract one from the value of bestowing goods, which are also a key part of the "question".
Just because there is a state of affairs that is worse than absolute perfection (the world could also be permeated with a lot more harms), it does not mean that it is better to never choose the right thing for someone who cannot ask for it and bestow the good that innocent sentient beings deserve. Illimitable pessimism will not define the destiny of an existence that is filled with a variety of perspectives and experiences. Nevertheless, I firmly believe that people should be able to find a dignified exit if no other source of fulfilment can be discovered. Blindly worshipping happiness does not seem appropriate and is unlikely to lead to formation of a more ethical society.
My hypothetical pessimistic outlook does not justify me trying to prevent the manifestation of a better state of affairs for a sentient being who is not in a position to ask for the positives themselves.
Its not aggressive to give nothing to no one.
Well, I did agree that giving birth to children is imposing on 'em (your aggressive paternalism).
Nonetheless, antinatalism is also an imposition.
Think of it in terms of possible persons. This isn't far out, it's perfectly reasonable to do so, as (an) actual (person) implies (a) possible (person).
No, it just isn't. Positives are not separated from the negatives and thus you are giving both. When giving both, one must face the fact one is creating impositions on others, whether bestowing goods or not. Is it ever okay to do this? No. It is aggressively assuming various choices and harms for other people. Goods doesn't thus make this not an issue.
If I gave you a gift that was tied to many limitations and harms that I figured was good for you and your only escape was death, that is similarly aggressively paternalistic in my assumptions of what I should do to you.
What is the damage to said "person" by not reproducing them? Do you get to produce "good" (with limitations of choices and harms) because you feel uncomfortable that a potential good did not actualize? How is that a justification? "OH I feel uncomfortable and sad by not forcing others into X, therefore I shall do it". Does that sound right? The judgement of "sad" or "uncomfortable from the missed opportunity is simply your imaginative projection.
And no, it doesn't go the other way.. That is to say.. I don't care about the happiness of missed negatives (as there is no person to be happy about this. Just me). Rather, I do not want to be the cause of imposing my view onto others for what choices another should endure and what harms are acceptable, let alone gamble with the unforeseen harms.
The proof by assertion fallacy is being exemplified here. Unless the so-called game can be a source of greater value for a person and that person has an interest in it, it isn't necessary. However, non-existent beings are not in a state of affairs they prefer, which is why excessive risk-aversion at the cost of ignoring the opportunities is probably unwise. I already have the gift, and I appreciate it despite the limitations (just as many do). But even if I did not, it does not erase the value of the joy experienced by you or someone else. If you were to save me and give me something good even if there were some negatives that I would have to face, it would still be better to provide the benefits. Perspectives and experiences can differ. It is an act of beneficence to bestow a good.
Huh? I know you are trying to make your repeatedly refuted argument, but this variation of it is hard to comprehend.
Quoting DA671
It is not obligatory, nor moral to bestow goods with significant amounts of harms and choices made for other people. Never was, never is. If I have you work at my company and say you can never leave my company because I believe you to get benefit from it.. And somehow you are stuck there... Even if you derive some benefit from it eventually, BESIDES the kidnapping aspect, I would still be wrong in imposing my sets of choices on you and imposing my view of what harm is "good" for you.. Along the way you also were harmed unexpectedly (I didn't want you to get harmed in "that" way...or wasn't expecting "that" kind of harm). Well, life is just a bigger version of this. Just because the "sets of choices" are much broader doesn't mean they are not THE de facto sets of choices someone SHOULD be made to encounter. Same with harms. Same with gambling with unexpected kinds/amounts of harm.
It's not just a "bigger" version of this (though the analogy does reveal your pessimistic biases). Non-existent beings have no interest to avoid existence that is being disregarded as they are dragged away from the blissful void. For existing people, not doing something negative is usually sufficient for them to live a life they value. Kidnapping someone (or intentionally forcing them to do something they dislike) is highly unlikely to give them happiness they want and deserve. But when it comes to those who don't exist, bestowing the goods of love and beauty is a far cry from unnecessarily harming existing individuals for the sake an improbable benefit. It's not 'kidnapping" someone to give a good/save someone when they are not in a position to ask for it themselves. It's not for you to decide what choices are "de facto" adequate for all sentient beings, and constantly focusing on the risks whilst downplaying the significance of beneficence and benefits only paves the way for a myopic worldview that does not understand the variety of the sentient experience. It is a major folly, I think. It will never be moral to deliberately contribute towards the end of all happiness, beauty, meaningful relationships, and the pursuit of knowledge merely because there are harms (that will differ from person to person). If there are inescapable harms, there are also irremovable goods. The fact that life does not end easily can also be seen as a blessing. It shows the resilience of the gift and how it drives us to move forward even in difficult times. The crux of the problem is that you are not willing to come out of your pessimistic narrative. For you, everything is about impositions and deprivations. However, I believe that beneficence and fulfilment are equally essential elements of forming a coherent worldview.
You keep thinking Im claiming this straw man. Either you are arguing out of bad faith now or you just cant stop repeating it for some reason.
Quoting DA671
And because you ignored my explicit comment that the imposition is still in question BESIDES the obvious kidnapping aspect means you do seem to be arguing out of bad faith by ignoring what Im saying.
Quoting DA671
Thats actually my point. You are not deciding for anything by the non-procreation option. @Tzeentch described it as non-interferance. Maybe he can explain his position that is similar.
When one begins to keep harping about the same point ad infinitum despite multiple attempts to demonstrate their obvious flaws, I think that there is very little one can do. I have no blind faith in unbridled pessimism. You are the one who ignored the difference between bestowing a good that cannot be solicited and imposing a harm that is neither required nor ultimately beneficial. Tragic but not unexpected.
You are also not deciding for someone if they don't exist. And once they do exist, there is nobody for whom one can decide (as far as their creation is concerned). If procreation can be an imposition even though there is no agent existing at the time of the action whose interests are being violated, then it can also be gift. Non-interference is not a good idea when one is trying to save someone (@Isaac delved deeper into the nature of the cause of harms and non-interference in a discussion he had recently). Furthermore, the central point is that it is good to decide on behalf of someone in order to provide a good they deserve and would benefit from but are not able to ask for.
Quoting Cuthbert
That's usually the idea I get when people claim their actions are motivated towards the survival of the human race. What benevolent and great beings to aspire to such lofty ideals!
Hey when I force recruit you to my company you can save all the whales you want! Hopefully you can be grateful to me for allowing you to do your help projects and giving you this opportunity. Ill make sure to give you the range of choices are best and decide that you should be harmed in certain ways I deem as acceptable. There will also be a set of unknown harms I hope you dont mind I decided maybe or maybe not will happen to you. I guess well find out!
I don't know if that is enough information for that judgment. Do you want to provide some of those categories on the chance of conceiving me?
Don't tell me I forgot to put in the word "not" again. I hate it when I do that.
You reminded me of shows of poor people around the world that I have seen and how impressed I am with their happiness. I sure do not want to romanticize being poor however where everyone is relatively poor and there is equality, there is no relative deprivation between the have's and the have-nots. In these cases, it appears to me happiness is dependent on relationships and everyone doing a lot of singing and dancing together and of course eating together. They do not need math and a search for truths.
You have me really thinking. The Greeks developed the idea that happiness is gaining knowledge. Now I am wondering, what are the social conditions that made that so? Why a search for truth, instead of just singing and dancing together?
The amazing thing isn't the poverty (obviously!), but their ability to find happiness in the seemingly small things of life. It's become a cliché at this point to talk about love and beauty, perhaps because these things are simply not good enough for a society that encourages creating unnecessary holes in order to fill them up again. When the good is already there, it's better, I think, to have modest expectations and appreciate the value that does exist (as much as we can).
I cannot hope to have all the answers. Nonetheless, I think that having a balanced worldview can definitely be immensely helpful. The pursuit of knowledge is obviously good for rational beings who are curious about the nature of ultimate reality. It's also important to know if the direction we are headed in is the right one. But this doesn't mean we need to embark on this journey in an emotionless manner or disregard simple the goods of life. If anything, understanding the sheer diversity of the sentient experience has made me more open to the value that might be inherent in things that I once considered to be boring or intellectually deficient. In the end, I hope that we can do the right thing, reduce acrimony, and find the happiness that (hopefully) ethical beings deserve.
Have a nice day!
I very much appreciate teachers confirming the truth of things I read in books and/or experience.
Your question has a very deep meaning with no empirical support that I know of. My interest in the Roman/Greek difference has become a big-picture awareness. I have always known the Celts and Greeks got a long, but not the Celts and Romans. However, only recently have I become fascinated by the deeper metaphysical significance of that difference.
Rome did not have the number system essential to developing math and science. Rome did not ask the impossible to answer questions and dare to answer them. Rome did not have the concepts for metaphysics.
That makes Christianity a problem. On the one hand, we must believe in supernatural beings, and on the other hand, we must stand against superstition. How is it logically possible to do both at the same time? My god is real but not yours? :chin: There is a saying, "when you think you know God, you know not God". How about this, why do Christians think the unscientific story of creation is important, but not an understanding of pi? A few have put quantum physics and Tao together but that will not be discussed in Sunday school when everyone is proudly talking about God's truth. How can I explain this better? Rome did not have the concepts for such a discussion, and Christianity neither does Christianity. The Greeks and others created gods as they saw a need for them. Without all those gods (concepts) interacting we could not have developed our intellect. Without the Greek academies, the Dark Age was dark.
So what music do you listen to for healing? What is your favorite medication? What do you read for an understanding of truth?
My only qualm is this: if we all do the right thing and refrain from procreating then the human race will quickly cease to exist. And that (I'm tempted to believe, rightly or wrongly) is a bad thing. So by everyone behaving in a way that is beneficial, right and just - that is, by not procreating - then we would collectively create an empty world.
Conversely, if we don't want an empty world, then we depend upon people doing the thing that is not right, not just and not over-all beneficial, that is, procreating.
How can I overcome that qualm? One approach I have seen is - let justice be done and let the world be empty. I'm not ready to take that step. Another approach is - we know most people will ignore the moral claims of anti-natalism, so the world will go on anyhow. That is pragmatic but it does seem to undermine the moral strength of anti-natalism because it entails colluding with the harm and injustice of procreation. So although I am veering towards anti-natalism, I am stumbling over this last problem.
I'd love to work for your company and if it's the only company there is (the world) then I guess I'll have to take my chances and rely on your kindness to protect me as best you can.
Which is mass suicide albeit in a way so subtle as to pass unnoticed by so-called guardians of life. Kill without killing is the right expression I believe. It gets confusing. Meanwhile in...
:snicker:
Why would the existence of the human race even be on the individual's radar? They don't have an influence on whether the human race exists or not, nor will they be around to appreciate how the human race exists or not.
Ultimately moral behavior needs to be guided by rational ideas, and for humans to base their behavior on things they have no control over is, in my opinion, irrational.
Look around you. Is the extinction of the human race even a remote possibility today?
Clearly it is not, and it won't be tomorrow either.
If it even becomes a possibility, let the individuals that live then make their choices to avoid it, if they wish.
Finally, if by some unimaginable fluke all of mankind were to voluntarily decide that not procreating is indeed the moral thing to do, on what basis would you object to them making that voluntary decision?
I am glad that you have actively played a role in preventing unnecessary misery. All I would say that there is something beyond the clouds as well and it would be better to not let a shroud of excessive risk-aversion and pessimism prevent us from grasping its value.
Also, I wouldn't mind if all rational beings willingly decided to stop reproducing due to their inability to find adequate value in the world. Perhaps I would be sad, but my sadness does not justify ignoring the reality of innumerable individuals. However, since we (fortunately, I think) do not live in a world devoid of all hope and value, I believe that it can be justifiable to procreate. At the same time, the individual should obviously ensure that the environment in which they are creating is more conducive than not to the existence of a life that would be permeated with more worthwhile experiences. One's expectations and perspectives can also influence their lives in an unimaginably powerful way, which is another reason why absolute pro-natalism and antinatalism seem limited in their scope.
I hope that you have a good day!
Yes, you are right about the human population. We can be as anti-natalist as we like and the world will go on. That was the answer to my problem that I summarised and said I found weak. If we depend upon other people behaving unjustly in order for our world to continue then we are in a poor position to promote justice. We would say: not procreating is just, right and beneficial - but thank goodness for all our futures that most people pay no attention to these moral claims. That seems a view that is odd, at best, if not inconsistent.
You are also right about decisions not to have children. God forbid that I should tell anyone to have children in order to sustain the race. And I don't do that. I respect my friends' views to apply anti-natalism to their personal lives. My problem is that if I say that, for example, murder is unethical then the result, if my view were ever to universally applied (unlikely), would be a happier and safer world. If I say that procreation is unethical then the result, if my view were applied universally (unlikely, again, as you say), would be an empty world. And an empty world, I cannot help feeling, might be a bad thing. I would be promoting an ethical principle which, if applied generally, would lead to a world without humans. That's my problem.
Many people I know are sceptical about having children. That doesn't mean they are universal antinatalists. Conditional natalism (or conditional AN) appears to be a better alternative.
Ultimately, people like you, Bartricks, Tzeentch, and Schopenhauer1 are intelligent enough (certainly a lot more than me) to decide your path. I am just glad that there is little support for violence here because there are some who want to accomplish their goals using whatever means necessary.
As for the empty world, you are right that in the absence of beings to experience happiness or grief there can be no preponderance of grief over happiness. But still, perhaps a world with life in it is better than a world without. Then it would follow that happiness and suffering are important but are not the only measures of value that we are inclined to use.
You also seem to be arguing that not creating happiness is not bad because nobody loses anything if they don't exist. This is true, but this principle also applies to the prevention of negatives. If the absence of happiness is only bad if someone is deprived because of it, then the lack of suffering is only good if it allows a being to live a happier life and benefit from the absence of suffering. In order to argue that this isn't true, I think that one has to resort to arbitrary double standards that fail to recognise the value of the positives. If one is going to say that it's better/good to prevent suffering even though this prevention helps no actual being, then I can also say that it's worse/bad to not create happiness even if it's absence doesn't cause a loss to someone. Alternatively, if the argument is that creating suffering is bad but not doing so is neutral (as opposed to being good), then it is also better to bestow positives rather than maintain neutrality because a neutral state of affairs is worse than a (largely/mostly) positive one. I just don't think that the only alternative to reduced welfare is no welfare. There are guaranteed harms (though it's also a mostly likely a guarantee that nobody born today will suffer from smallpox) and there are also guaranteed ineffaceable goods. Some of the happiest people I've met have been those who didn't have a lot. I can't find the strength within me to feel that, no matter how much you cherish your life, it would have been better/not bad for you to have never existed.
There are obviously a lot of people who believe that life has intrinsic value and deserves to be continued. I think that the nature of this value cannot be entirely divorced from the well-being of sentient beings, but I certainly respect those who find some enigmatic yet potent significance in the continuation of life (and we all know that the existence of life is a rare phenomenon that only occurred because many things went right).
This is projection of fear of nothingness. You as an
Individual will not be in the world one day. Not just a projection of it from the alive vantage point. Life itself causes death. So I get your mixed feeling but its just a feeling. There are logistical questions of the last generations but thats not necessarily the wrongness of the principle.
Your fear thus causing you to pass it on to the next generation because of an uncomfortable or sad notion would be like a pyramid scheme.
These worries are fair and understandable. Let me say the following:
The prospect of no humans doesn't appeal to most humans. It doesn't appeal to me either. Yet, when we ask whether something is universalizable or not, we must ask ourselves if the situation that arises is immoral.
Is an empty world an immoral outcome, or just one that we as humans don't find very appealing?
Exactly!
I think there is an odd notion going on here. I'd like to know your thoughts. The notion is something like this:
"I feel sad, lonely, uncomfortable (X negative feeling), THEREFORE another person MUST endure X for me".
There are a couple scenarios one can make from this:
1) Someone asks for help/favor.. If you deny it to them.. They can think you're a lousy unhelpful bastard, but it is not immoral per se.
2) Someone wants something out of life so they will FORCE someone else to comply with their needs because it will fix their current negative feeling of not being fulfilled. THAT is unethical. Another person in a way, "pays the cost" of your unfulfillment by being imposed upon. Not only that if that imposition (definition A of simply forcing your will on another) also creates impositions (definition B of burdening someone), it has the double aspect of not only forcing your will without consent but creating negative outcomes for others in your strident decision on their behalf.
3) Someone asks for help/favor.. you help them. They appreciate your decision. However, not helping was not unethical. Rather, helping was supererogatory. That is to say, one went above the ethical guidelines.
I'm wondering if you can add your notion of non-interference to those three ideas and scenarios.
@Cuthbert, perhaps you can add something as well as this is partially sparked by your last posts.
Scenario 1 and 3 essentially portray that this idea about morality involves freedom of choice.
The moral agent is free to involve themselves, or not. Involving oneself can give an opportunity to do good, however one may also pass up on an opportunity to do good.
As for scenario 2, that one cannot simply force others to cater to one's needs should go without saying. If we were to consider that acceptable we'd be back in the jungle.
And the obvious retort is something like, "It's not bad to force people if X amount of people wouldn't have minded it". There's a whole slew of things I find wrong with this. The obvious one is your parachute response.. "If you were to push someone out of a plane and 90% of the time the parachute worked.."
But also, even if there were a very high percentage of people who literally said: "I don't mind it.." There is something seemingly wrong with choosing for someone such significant conditions such as what choices one is exposed (like how to survive in this world, etc.) and what kinds of harms are acceptable. This isn't a trivial gift that can be gotten rid of.. We are talking a lifetime of having to do X, Y, Z here. These are not trite, arbitrary, and trivial. These are substantial things that one person is deciding for another.. And judging from the responses here.. All deemed as acceptable because the parents might be "sad" or "unfulfilled". Totally counter-intuitive when compared to any other weighty decision made on others' behalf. This gets a pass because if Joe, Bob, Sue, and Sam want to see X outcome (a new person), they will excuse it any which way..
On top of this.. literally saying "I don't mind this".. Is just one consideration. The next minute, that same person can be trapped in a lot of unwanted tasks/harms/scenarios that they would definitely mind.. So is it the general statement or the "lived experience" of things they would rather not do that we pay attention to? Because in each of those moments you asked them, they would say.. "Well I don't want this" and "Yes, I very much do mind that".
Also, should we even be basing such weighty decisions on post-facto responses in the first place? The only time we usually do such things and find it ethical is if someone has a greater harm that could be prevented and no consent could be had (comas, bad accidents, etc.). There is never another time it is usually deemed as acceptable to make life/death/weighty/SIGNIFICANT decisions for someone else "just because we would be sad if we didn't" or any excuse like that. No, even on the FACE OF IT, this kind of thinking is off. You don't need any contingencies attached like "X amount of people will probably like it" to get that making these kinds of decisions are always presumptuous to the extreme. Again, what I deem as "aggressively paternalistic".
My dear lady, that was done long ago. Regardless of categories. :cool:
Wikipedia Mathematics Articles
Early in life, I realized accomplishing something resulted in much more happiness than going to a party.
I was chasing after happiness and it was always out of reach or ended as soon as the party ended, but gardening, hard work over a period of time, and then getting the results of that work, was experienced as a happiness that stayed with me. Kind the difference between eating empty calories or healthy food. Feeling satisfied by my own work was more satisfying than temporary, frivolous happiness. Few people have the land for gardening today.
Nature has always been a source of happiness for me, but I grew up in LA county in California and witnessed concrete and blacktop covering the ground from mountain to mountain. I am extremely thankful that where I live now the banks of the river have been preserved as natural areas with parks along the way and within half an hour I can out of town and in nature. I would swear, much insanity is caused by the loss of nature.
There have been times in history when music was considered essential to a good frame of mind. The Greeks, god bless them, thought music and beauty quite essential to a good life. So to defend my opinion line, modern living can deprive us of family, beauty, good music, and nature. And may god have mercy on the person who thinks happiness is using a credit card.
OH come on. I was looking forward to a better answer. One that might help me understand what you are talking about. When it comes to math, I am an idiot, but an idiot who delights in the subject. To me math is perhaps the best magic wand we can have. What we can know and do with math is totally awesome and my point is we do not teach math as needs to be taught. Instead of trying to "program" little minds with math that our high-tech society demands, excite them with the history of math and the wonders of math such as the magic pi. I swear, few math teachers truly love math so the best they can is "program" the little brains that are programable, but they can pass on a love of math and they turn children off.
I like your words "intentionally create unnecessary desires in order to acquire superficial pleasures". This seems very much the focus of our consumer society, and this is worrying. For one thing, it is very bad for our planet and it leads to believing happiness is what is outside of who we are, leaving us dependent on an external world for our happiness, instead of developing our inner world.
My favorite math professor loves math and he gets so excited when he talks about it. He makes comments such as "cry for the joy" of the math principle he is talking about. I don't think he needs anything else in life other than his joy of math and sharing it. That is not "a superficial pleasure" and wouldn't it be wonderful if everyone had such an internal pleasure? I know when someone expands my understanding of a concept, I feel extreme joy. Nothing makes me happier than the enlightenment feeling of getting a better sense of meaning. Except I am dependent on all of you for this pleasure. Reading is very beneficial but it is much more fun when I know I am going to share my new ideas with all of you. There is a social component to my sense of pleasure.
Sharing knowledge is undoubtedly a great way to obtain happiness!
You have soothed a painful wound. I was expressing my joy of learning and how I what others to interact with me in another forum and a mod closed thread. This is not unusual. I made many enemies several years ago by answering a professor's question by saying "I am a seeker of knowledge." What is up with that intense anger towards someone who delights in learning? :worry: What has gone wrong with our society, people feeling anger towards those who enjoy
? That resentment goes against a love of democracy. And when I spoke of being poor, it is my understanding that Socrates was poor. There should be no shame for pursuing knowledge instead of wealth and I think in a democracy that pursuit of knowledge should be free. Can you help me with this- what is the virtue/moral of what knowledge for the sake of knowledge?
And for darn sure, good manners are essential to our intellectual development and the progression of our civilization. When people come to a forum they should feel safe to express what they think and they should never have to fear being attacked. Challenging their idea is wonderful because that is one way to develop our thinking and moves a discussion forward, but keeping these 3 rules in mind is helpful.
1. We are respectful because we are respectful people.
2. We protect the dignity of others.
3. We do everything with integrity.
Seems to me if we follow those rules, it pretty much handles most human problems.
Quoting jgill
Quoting Athena
:smile: :smile: :smile:
Quoting Athena
I'm not sure I've known a colleague becoming that euphoric, but it is a really good feeling when understanding dawns. It's mostly a game of exploring concepts. But I only taught at the college level and know little of techniques used in K-12. However, the modern math movement supported by university mathematicians during the 1960s and 1970s was a failure - I ventured into it when I taught a freshman algebra course. For a few very motivated students it worked well.
As to motivation, part if not most may have to come with genetics, like musical talent.
This discussion has gone for 7 pages. Hence it is probable that Leibniz and his views have come up.
Or should have come up. (If not, in my disgusting laziness I didn't check it)
The idea that philosophy freed from its verbal limitations is mathematics, the real lingua universalis. So let's just compute! Or in the modern way, let's make a mathematical model of reality.
Thus we should look at what has been the critique of the Leibnizian view. Perhaps the most famous is Professor Pangloss in Candide by Voltaire. Even if Voltaire's main critique is the Leibnizian optimism, that this is the best of all possible worlds, this still relates to mathematics and mathematical modelling.
How?
Well, we usually seek maximums (or minimums) in our mathematical models, to see what would be the best possible outcome. That is rather easy to do with math, even if you have many, many variables in the equation. Computers can crunch the numbers...if you have data to use. And usually the mathematical formulas don't open up to the common man (or a philosophy major who hasn't studied math), so that's something positive. So learn math before trying to make any counterarguments to my mathematical model!
Yet mathematics, being based in logic, demands many things when making a mathematical model. The first thing that comes to mind is that we have to make the correct assumptions, picked out the correct variables in order for our model to work. Otherwise our model simply doesn't give us an answer as it doesn't depict reality. In philosophy these primary assumptions are even more important and philosophers can end up really quickly asking questions that basically are part of metaphysics. Just ask why a couple of times and your down to true philosophy that natural sciences don't care about.
So I would argue that the philosopher can and will rather quickly face the limitations of mathematics. Even if mathematics can be said to be a language, so is English.
Oh dear! What can you tell me about the 1960s-1970s math education failure? :broken: I really care. I consider my failure to understand higher math as my worst disability. I so wish my school had put geometry before algebra. I am drawn to geometry as it is explained by Michael S. Schneider in "A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe- The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science".
Dropping art and music as unnecessary liberal education is so wrong because they go with understanding math. And if we had a good understanding of these things we would have a better understanding of science and then a better understanding of life. And we would use such understanding for philosophical discussions and live happily ever after. Then we would have good moral judgment and a strong democracy. :heart: I write to repair my broken heart.
Here is a video of Professor Satyan L. Devadiss, the professor who gets very emotional about math. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR6saOaGXNg
New Math
As an Asst Prof in the early 1970s, I had a colleague whose office was a couple of doors down the hall. He was a retired Army colonel with an MA in math, and he taught some of the remedial and freshman courses. One day, early in the semester, he burst into the department chair's office, red in the face and clearly angry,"What is this shit!? Why prove a*0=0???" We were using Vance for College Algebra and there it was in chapter one. I was less vocal, but I too found it ridiculous to toss bits of math foundations into a more or less utilitarian course.
Proof: a*0=0
Note in the Wiki piece that Time magazine called New Math one of the 100 worst ideas of the twentieth century. :cool:
Imagine that! Perhaps human history can be retold in terms of how many and how big our failures were/are rather than as it's usually told to us, a sequence of successes. I wish I had the time and resources to do that; no worries, some are already on the job (re History's Biggest Mistakes, a book by....).
I love that idea! Maybe that would give us a much better perspective on the meaning of being human.
I don't know if this is relevant but- The education controllers did the same thing with teaching reading. I could not learn to read because when I was that age the school was using the "look and say method", not phonics. Many of us could not read without learning phonics and fortunately for me my grandmother was a teacher and spent a summer teaching me to read and spell.
It would be interesting to do MRI's of learning brains. What happens in the brain when it absorbs the lesson and what happens in the brain when there is no learning?
"The four core learning styles in the VARK model include visual, auditory, reading and writing, and kinesthetic." https://sphero.com/blogs/news/learning-styles-for-kids#:~:text=What%20are%20the%20four%20learning,reading%20and%20writing%2C%20and%20kinesthetic.
I find, that when I can not see it, I may have trouble thinking it. Phonics has a mechanical nature to it. It is slower but it is also closer to seeing how the symbols work together. Take that away and reading is like the explanation of proof. A jumble of symbols that do not make sense. My brain does not cross that gap. A picture of one apple and a picture of no apple make sense. What is seen with the explanation of proof? We teach math with pictures. How many apples are in the box? But a prove? If all I see is symbols, the me that is trying to learn, screams and runs away. Does that make sense? I would like to break through that barrier and be able to understand the language of symbols.
Interesting you should say that. I still do minor research and write short notes. Just last night I was dabbling with my current project and the thought came to me, All I'm doing is moving symbols around. The create/discover part of the process was missing. :chin:
Later: An idea came to me and now the symbols have meaning. :cool:
What you said is very exciting. I just spent the morning with a deceased friend's daughter and carried over the discussion we are having here with her. She has one of those super high-paying jobs as a computer chip engineer. What you said perfectly fits in the discussion we were having, the difference between manipulating the symbols and understanding their meaning. You expressed that very well.
Logical thinking is far more disciplined than what most of our thinking is. Math must be logical but can be devoid of meaning. Blending the logical with a sense of meaning is uniquely human don't you think?
Animals may have a concept of 4 wolves and distance and the best escape route. That would happen instantaneously without much deliberation. But figuring out the best design for a computer chip or the knots in DNA is a whole different ball game.
:chin: Does our understanding of such matters require better words for explaining? Do our thoughts become none existent when we stop thinking them, or might they infect others and grow and become more permanent and yet changing?
The math has no meaning until we give it meaning. I don't think there is any empirical evidence of your ethical considerations. Exactly how do we come to a consensus on the best reasoning? Like I didn't mean to be insensitive. I was just very busy and had to stay focused on my goal.