Gotta rep it here: Benatar on the Exploring Antinatalism Podcast

[a.n.kirillov]

Enjoy

 

[Deleted member 1465]

If anti-natalism is the principle that the only way to avoid new suffering is to avoid bringing new life into the world, then it could be argued that it doesn't go far enough.

If (when) humanity is extinct, something else will evolve and the process begins again. If all life on earth is extinct, well, same process, only it may not have enough time before the sun wipes everything out. If all life in the solar system is gone, there will arguably be other places in the vast universe where the forces behind nature strive to fight the entropy of the universe and life comes into being again, to start the ponderous ascension into sentience and suffering.

The only way for there to be no suffering is for there to be no life. The only way for there to be no life is to remove the potential for life to develop. The only way to remove this potential is to reduce the energy state of the universe to zero. This is already happening in a process that takes trillions upon trillions upon trillions of years. This tendency towards entropy is potentially why the forces behind nature, life and sentience exist in the first place.

Eventually, it will all be gone and there will be oblivion. No suffering then. But also no peace, because there will be nothing.

*shrugs*

 

[Wolfjob_dayjob]

Oh I love podcasts and his books! I'm going to check this one out.

 

[Epsilon0]

If anti-natalism is the principle that the only way to avoid new suffering is to avoid bringing new life into the world, then it could be argued that it doesn't go far enough.

If (when) humanity is extinct, something else will evolve and the process begins again. If all life on earth is extinct, well, same process, only it may not have enough time before the sun wipes everything out. If all life in the solar system is gone, there will arguably be other places in the vast universe where the forces behind nature strive to fight the entropy of the universe and life comes into being again, to start the ponderous ascension into sentience and suffering.

The only way for there to be no suffering is for there to be no life. The only way for there to be no life is to remove the potential for life to develop. The only way to remove this potential is to reduce the energy state of the universe to zero. This is already happening in a process that takes trillions upon trillions upon trillions of years. This tendency towards entropy is potentially why the forces behind nature, life and sentience exist in the first place.

Eventually, it will all be gone and there will be oblivion. No suffering then. But also no peace, because there will be nothing.

*shrugs*

Do you think aliens experience suffering? Maybe suffering is a human concept.

 

[a.n.kirillov]

Do you think aliens experience suffering? Maybe suffering is a human concept.

First of all can we agree that to the best of our knowledge we have to assume animals suffer pain just as we do? I mean sentient beings?

So if the part of the universe where these hypothetical beings exist still required them to consume energy and thus move and act in specific ways, pain and pleasure might arise in much the same way as they did on Earth as a motivating principle.

How can a being who doesn't experience negative feedback when it goes hungry be motivated to search for food?

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Do you think aliens experience suffering?

Yes
We are ALL in the middle of a gigantic violent explosion that will last for trillions upon trillions upon trillions of years and will end in oblivion.
The very idea that anything that can feel wouldn't suffer through their existence in such an environment is beyond me.

Unless there is a race of pan-dimensional masochistic aliens out there. But then for them, surely pleasure would be suffering so hey. And without positive and negative there would be no impetus to survive.

I question the value of suffering. It's horrible but it does teach us things. I've learned things since coming here, it's changed my view of life. Some would say for the worse and some would say for the better but that's nonsense because it's subjective. I still think I've learned things. I just don't know what to do with what I've learned.

I'd suggest the idea that up to a point, suffering does indeed teach us valuable lessons and without it, life would be meaningless and probably not even possible. However, there is a point for each individual where the suffering becomes too much and no lessons are learned, that's the tragic thing.

So anti-natalism, which only goes so far, is kind of a 'so what' idea. No life, no suffering, but nothing else either. Not good not bad but neutral.

*shrugs*

 

[Epsilon0]

When I think about the possibility that there might be aliens, I like to imagine they would be unlike anything we could describe or understand: Why should they be carbon based? Why should they have a body? Why should they react the way we envisage what a reaction is?

But, of course, you both are right: the universe looks the same in all directions, and it is made up of the same ingredients, so it is "reasonable" to make the assumptions you just did.

You know what really fascinates me: that we don't even know what we don't know. All our ideas are based on our knowledge of baryonic matter (matter made up of atomic particles).

What if there's a whole lot of universe that we don't even understand?

... oh wait, THERE IS!

About 95% of it. It's called dark energy and dark matter.

 

[a.n.kirillov]

When I think about the possibility that there might be aliens, I like to imagine they would be unlike anything we could describe or understand: Why should they be carbon based? Why should they have a body? Why should they react the way we envisage what a reaction is?

But, of course, you both are right: the universe looks the same in all directions, and it is made up of the same ingredients, so it is "reasonable" to make the assumptions you just did.

You know what really fascinates me: that we don't even know what we don't know. All our ideas are based on our knowledge of baryonic matter (matter made up of atomic particles).

What if there's a whole lot of universe that we don't even understand?

... oh wait, THERE IS!

About 95% of it. It's called dark energy and dark matter.

Okay let's say the were somehow fundamentally different from us, but they were still individual beings; so let's say they might be complex patterns in an electromagnetic field or something.

First of all they would have had to evolve somehow, otherwise you would have to say that it was the most unlikely event ever in the universe and all the matter or patterns or whatever they are constituted of just randomly happened to align in the exact configuration of that complex being. But if there is some sort of evolutionary process, they have to die and compete with each other or the environment, so there have to be pressures upon the system and they have to reproduce and die, otherwise they would go extinct very quickly.

This whole question is problematic though because if you say you think the life forms would be fundamentally different (like patterns in an electromagnetic field) what would qualify them as lifeforms? If not the fact that they consume energy, reproduce, evolve and die? Why not call a rock a lifeforms then or gravitational waves?

I say as long as they are sentient and required to move and consume things some mechanism to signal to them a deprivation would be necessary.
.
I could see a non suffering being only as a "pattern" or arrangement of matter that has no competitors, is supplied with energy from external sources forever (let's say the electromagnetic winds supply the pattern in the storm with energy) and it had to come about suddenly by a random configuration of all the elements to it (I think there is this hypothetical of a lightbulb randomly assembling in space by some physicist I can't remember right now; that's how it would have to happen).

So it would be a immortal, lonely, thinking cloud of electromagnetic waves.

But then what would it think about? All human thought wouldn't make any sense to it.

Lol yeah I don't think so :-P
.

You can't seperated thought or sentience from feeling, need and deprivation in my opinion since the whole mechanism serves the sole function of surviving, finding food, playing hierarchy games, reproducing etc... And thus are linked inextricably to pain and deprivation

Boltzmann brain - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Ah right the Boltzmann Brain. It had to be like that and not require energy/ have an unending external supply of it for it's operation.

 

[Epsilon0]

"So let's say they might be complex patterns in an electromagnetic field or something"

Let's not say that, because dark matter does neither absorb nor reflect light, i.e. electromagnetic radiation.

"But if there is some sort of evolutionary process"

Once again, you interpret something based on our understanding of the cycle of life and biology.


"what would qualify them as lifeforms? If not the fact that they consume energy, reproduce, evolve and..."


Just as we cannot define dark energy or dark matter, neither can we define what life made up of exotic particles might look like or require in order to be "alive". We simply cannot define life in non-baryonic terms, that's all I am saying.


Listen, this is all highly speculative, I make no claims to know anything. Quite the contrary: I have zero understanding about the topic.



Edit:
Thx for the link. I don't know what a Botzmann brain is. I will look into it. It has a nice, serious ring to it - German quality type of ring to it :-)

 

[Deleted member 1465]

I'd be wary...

Dark matter isn't really a thing.
Its an absence of understanding as to why the universe doesn't fly apart given or current understanding of physics.
There is something else going on for our science to work as it does that cannot be accounted for by our science.

Dark energy is a similar incongruity. Why is the expansion of the universe accelerating when it should be slowing down? Because there is some mysterious energy having a weird effect on it in some pan universal osmosis type thingy wooooooooooooooo

Nah, what we have here is an understandably incomplete picture of the reality of things.
That's where M theory comes in and then everybody gets confused.

Maybe there are different forms of sentience in this mix that will forever remain beyond our understanding, like five dimensional creatures that darkle sideways in time. Who are we to say what suffering is to them?

But certain principles underlay the foundation of the universe no matter how it is expressed.
Like 1+1=2, and if you have something, then someone else doesn't have that very thing because you have it.
So wherever there is a balance between creation and entropy there will always be the potential for fulfilment and for suffering.
Different life forms would simply experience it it ways that would be meaningless to us.

 

[Epsilon0]

I'd be wary...

Dark matter isn't really a thing.
Its an absence of understanding as to why the universe doesn't fly apart given or current understanding of physics.
There is something else going on for our science to work as it does that cannot be accounted for by our science.

Dark energy is a similar incongruity. Why is the expansion of the universe accelerating when it should be slowing down? Because there is some mysterious energy having a weird effect on it in some pan universal osmosis type thingy wooooooooooooooo

Nah, what we have here is an understandably incomplete picture of the reality of things.
That's where M theory comes in and then everybody gets confused.

Maybe there are different forms of sentience in this mix that will forever remain beyond our understanding, like five dimensional creatures that darkle sideways in time. Who are we to say what suffering is to them?

But certain principles underlay the foundation of the universe no matter how it is expressed.
Like 1+1=2, and if you have something, then someone else doesn't have that very thing because you have it.
So wherever there is a balance between creation and entropy there will always be the potential for fulfilment and for suffering.
Different life forms would simply experience it it ways that would be meaningless to us.

Ok it's been a while since I took a course in astronomy for beginners, but I seem to recall that dark matter does exist and we know that because we can detect its gravity.

Dark energy is what accelerates the expansion of the universe.



Edit:

Unlike normal matter, dark matter does not interact with the electromagnetic force. This means it does not absorb, reflect or emit light, making it extremely hard to spot. In fact, researchers have been able to infer the existence of dark matter only from the gravitational effect it seems to have on visible matter.


Source: CERN




Edit 2:

Whatever the missing mass of the universe is, I hope it's not cockroaches.


Source: NASA

 

[Deleted member 1465]

Exactly. Those are both assumptions based on the very physics that fails to explain them.
It's inference.
Maybe that 85 percent of missing matter is located within the concurrent 10 or 11 or 26 (I forget the numbers) dimensions of sub space that M theory postulates to explain why physics works the way it does.
And dark energy is just a name given to the fact that we don't understand how the univetse can accelerate in its expansion.

It's bleeding edge stuff and any straightforward explanations of it I'd find a bit dodgy.
Oh we simply haven't detected it yet. Well, okay, maybe, but still...