J. Alden Page
July 2, 2008
Philosophy
1 Comment
It’s been almost a month now since I’ve posted. I sincerely apologize. Life has been busy, I’ve been too wore out to think and have been undergoing an identity crisis of a “What the fuck should I be doing with my life?” nature.
I’ve been thinking a lot about the purpose of life. I used to think the purpose of life was happiness. Happiness is just a bunch of chemicals, and a happy state can be created artificially. Someone who is perfectly happy would not live very long, because desire is necessary for survival. Desire stems from not being perfectly happy.
One could argue that the purpose in life should be to maximize the amount of happiness experienced over a lifetime. This would make longevity important, and would give a reason to be happy without being completely happy. But, it wouldn’t provide a reason for keeping society alive. That would require changing the goal to maximizing society’s happiness. But, why should anyone care whether or not other individuals are happy?
Steve Pavlina wrote a post about how to find your purpose in life. The method he describes is essentially writing down as many possible purposes as you can think of until you write something that strikes a chord. The claim is that it should take about 20 minutes to find your purpose, but that it could take longer.
I tried this method about a year ago. After a couple of hours, I was still purposeless. I wrote it off as being silly and didn’t give it a second thought. Recently, I stumbled across his post again and decided to give it another shot. I wrote possible purposes for 4-5 hours. The next day I analyzed the purposes, and I found one that makes sense to me.
The purpose of life is the survival of consciousness.
I think consciousness gives the universe meaning, rather than thinking the universe gives meaning to consciousness. A chair doesn’t define you. But, your perceptions give the chair a meaning. You perceive its purpose, whether it is soft or hard, beautiful or ugly. This is still true when looking at the sky or even at other planets.
Meaning is an internal property of the observer. No meaning is applied to an object if an object can in no way be perceived. It follows that the existence of meaning requires conscious observers.
Something as complicated as a purpose or goal requires that things have meaning. No consciousness = No meaning = No purpose. This means that if there is a purpose and meaning in the universe, that purpose and meaning requires consciousness.
So the purpose of life? Ty to keep consciousness alive in the present and make it as fit as possible for the future. I think because meaning exists for the thinker, an individual can give life any meaning that can be thought. A meaningless universe sounds boring and undesirable to me, so I think the survival of consciousness is a good purpose.
The survival fitness of consciousness depends on abundance, diversity, adaptability, continuous creation of new conscious beings, and probably a large number of other things.
J. Alden Page
June 14, 2008
Philosophy, Society
2 Comments
Chrisitianiy is the most popular religion in the world. In the U.S., over 80% of the population is christian. The majority of christians think the world is going to end soon. This poses a large hurdle when trying to make preparations for the future.
We are starting to run into potentially devastating problems, whose solutions require long term planning. Global warming, limited resources, foreign policy, and many if not all of our other needed improvements are adversely affected if you aren’t thinking ahead farther than 50 years.
We are struggling to have a serious discussion about our current problems. How are we going to plan for future dilemmas? One example is the effect of genetic engineering and cloning on our gene pool. Topics like these aren’t discussed enough, and when they are discussed, they usually aren’t taken seriously. This is despite the fact that these are near future problems whose solutions will shape society.
Christianity isn’t just harmful in terms of not thinking long term, it is harmful in shaping our present way of thinking. Many sects of Christianity are actively anti-science. It amazes me that we are still debating evolution. I worked in a lab for about a year, inserting genes into S. Aureus bacteria to figure out which of its proteins aid in uptaking heme. Heme uptake is vital for the survival of many types of bacteria, so stopping heme uptake could be an effective way of fighting infections. I’ve used the primers, ran the gels, and grown the petri dishes. I know that the building blocks of life can be manipulated. I also know that these blocks are inherited and change over time.
There is overwhelming evidence of evolution. Scientists have seen bacteria evolve significant mutations in the lab, and genetic drift is a commonly observed and indisputable phenomena. In fact the more we learn about genetics, the more we see how perfectly it backs up evolution. You would be hard pressed to find a geneticist, biologist, or even a reputable scientist who doesn’t believe in evolution. Our understanding that has stemmed from the theory of evolution is responsible for new medicines and genetic diseases being engineered away. Heck, most of the food we buy at the grocery store has been modified using our understanding of genetics. Yet, a large percent of the population happily reap the benefits of the science, while telling the scientists they are wrong.
The anti-evolution debate is reminiscent of the belief that earth is the centern of the universe. In both situations, not accepting the truth is based on ego instead of logic. It makes the earth less special if it is not the center of the universe, even if it makes more sense mathematically. It also makes humans seem less special if we evolved from single-cell life, instead of being the supreme organism, instaneously created to look the same as god.
I realize that many christians believe in evolution, and some do not believe the world will end soon. But it is the “faith” based thinking which christianity perpetuates that is keeping these beliefs alive. Lots of people are insulted by anti-christian talk. But, it’s time to leave the dark ages. I think tolerance towards christianity is part of the problem. Christian ideas should be weighed on the same scale as all other ideas. The evidence isn’t their, and the group-thinking and anti-science ideals are harmful. The world needs scientists coming up with solutions, not zealots waiting for the end of the world.
J. Alden Page
April 25, 2008
Philosophy
2 Comments
When deciding what decisions should be made in the future, it’s important to analyze what aspects of a decision hold value.
Here is an interesting moral dilemma that was created by Philippa Foot.
“A runaway trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people who have been tied down in its path. If nothing happens, they will be killed. Fortunately, you have a switch which would divert the trolley to a different track. Unfortunately, the other track has one person tied down to it. Should you flip the switch?”
According to the results found in this study, about 77% of people will choose to pull the switch.
Here is a situation with the same consequences, where only 36% of the poll takers choose to sacrifice one in order to kill five.
“A trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by dropping a heavy weight in front of it. As it happens, there is a very fat man next to you - your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?”
Here is another popular ethical dilemma. This scenario leads to the same consequences, yet, only 2% of the population will choose to kill one person in order to save five.
“A brilliant transplant surgeon has five patients, each in need of a different organ, each of whom will die without that organ. Unfortunately, there are no organs available to perform any of these five transplant operations. A healthy young traveler, just passing through the city the doctor works in, comes in for a routine checkup. In the course of doing the checkup, the doctor discovers that his organs are compatible with all five of his dying patients. Suppose further that if the young man were to disappear, no-one would suspect the doctor. Should the doctor sacrifice the man to save his other patients?”
Here are the results from the link above.
Question Yes No
surgeon 2 98
fat man 30 70
Pull switch to save 5 77 23
Pull switch to save 10 82 18
Pull switch to save 15 83 17
Pull switch to save 20 83 17
% with this response triple:
——-flip switch? push fat man? sacrifice traveler for organs?
42.6 Y N N
29.8 Y Y N
20.6 N N N
5.0 Y Y Y
0.7 Y N Y
0.7 N Y Y
0.7 N Y N
It is obvious that means matters to most of the population. Granted, there are some inherent inaccuracies in this survey. It is a small population size, and it doesn’t proportionally represent people from all walks of life. Still, a difference of 2 percent and 77 percent indicates that importance is placed on means.
We’ve established that generally people take means into consideration when making a decision. Is it logical to place importance on means?
I think the answer to this is yes/no. Logically, consequence is all that matters. Consequence is the long-term affect that will permanently alter things. A means is temporary, so it is potentially infinitely less important. But, means inevitably leads to consequences. This is why I think if different means lead to the same consequence, the consequence is what should be considered.
However, different means will almost always lead to different consequences. If not directly, then indirectly.
The doctor scenario goes against beneficial societal thinking in many ways. It requires killing an innocent person in cold blood and taking out their organs. A doctor is viewed as someone you can trust with your life to do their best to heal you. And personally killing an innocent person is an act that only the outcasts of society commit.
These views are beneficial. If we didn’t trust our doctors, or thought that a normal person could kill an innocent, this would lead to huge problems. Granted, this scenario specifically says that no one will find out about it. But, that kind of certainty rarely exists in real life. This is why a willingness to commit such an atrocity would be detrimental.
In conclusion, I think consequence is what matters. However, the effects of crossing moral boundaries need to be considered. While consequence may be somewhat immortal, if ignoring means was a consistent practice, it would also have a kind of immortality. Thus, the reason means should not be ignored is because harmful means can often lead to harmful consequences.
J. Alden Page
March 8, 2008
Philosophy
2 Comments
Before jumping into what might cause morality, I want to clarify what I mean by morality.
Morality is doing what benefits the people around you. Immorality is hurting others.
The three most commonly pointed at culprits when discussing why people behave morally are: society, religion and innate goodness.
1. Society: Many people believe that morality is taught. We are born amoral, and then learn morality through our parents, teachers, friends and by adhering to the law.
Evidence For: Examples of learning morals through a teacher, friend or parent.
Evidence Against: Society can encourage extreme cruelty, such as the attempted genocide of the Jewish race.
2. Religion: Another common belief is that people behave morally because of religion. This view can be based on the belief that religion is divinely inspired, or that religion is a tool resulting from either society or innate goodness.
Evidence For: Often teaches morality and encourages moral service.
Evidence Against: Responsible for holy wars and terrorism..
3. Innate Goodness: Some people think we are born with a desire to help other people, and with a sense of guilt about hurting other people.
Evidence For: Altruistic behavior that isn’t the result of being taught. There are people who are brought up in bad situations that end up good. A young child who cares for and protects his/her sibling.
Evidence Against: Violent behavior that that isn’t the result of being taught. There are people who are brought in good situations who end up bad. A young kid raised by moral parents that vandalizes and is violent.
It seems clear that all three of these play a role in morality. Which, if any, is the primary basis for morality? To test which one of these primarily causes morality, you would have to have an environment where only one of these causes has an influence.
Since it is near impossible to eliminate any of these factors, this leaves this topic very open to debate.
What’s your opinion?
Poll: What is the Primary Reason People are Moral?
Poll Results
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