Jes
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Jes has not written any posts yet.
Jes has not written any posts yet.
Same category as the revolution and the second coming.
Dear mods, just a personal blog post, please do let me know if anything is wrong with me this here <3
That's the point. In (protestant) Christianity, the old law was a standard that humans could never follow. But the old law had to be paid in blood. So God became human himself, so that he could pay in blood a law that only he could live up to.
It sounds like the author accidentally LARPed as an orthodox Jew.
Well, it's not dead. It taught my daughter and I how to reason using Bayes' Rule, something I had completely given up on understanding until I read the fantastic guide from Arbital.
Maybe it didn't become a cool trend that people clamor over, but it probably helped other people with similar questions!
Here's the link if anyone else wants to learn the same: https://arbital.com/p/bayes_rule/
Thank you, this makes a lot of sense. I do see how the history of science kind of narrows its way down towards materialism, and if we assume that path will continue in the same direction, pure materialism is the logical outcome.
But...
I disagree with the narrative that science is narrowing in on materialism. Popular culture certainly interprets the message of Science with a capital S that way, but reading actual scientific work doesn't leave that impression at all.
The message I got from my middle school science classes was that science is profoundly uncertain of what matter is, but that it appears to manifest probabilistically under the governance of forces, which are really... (read more)
Unborn beings don't exist, they are not moral patients. It would be perfectly fine if no one else was born from now on - in fact it would be better than even 1 single person dying.
Well, okay, but why? Why don't tomorrow people matter at all? Is there a real moral normativity that dictates this, or are we just saying our feelings to each other? I don't mean that condescendingly, just trying to understand where you're coming from when you make this claim.
I can see the altruism in dying for a cause. But it's a leap of faith to claim, from there, that there's altruism in dying by itself.
But I'm arguing for... (read more)
Individualism and altruism aren't exclusive. I didn't mean to imply you are selfish, just that your operating definition of self seems informed by a particular tradition.
Consider the perspective of liberal republicans of the 19th century who fought and died for their nation (because that's where they decided, or were taught, to center their self). Each nation is completely unique and irreplaceable, so we must fight to keep nations thriving and alive, and prevent their extinction. Dying for patriotism is glorious, honorable, etc.
... (read more)I have no idea of what consciousness is scientifically, but morally I'm pretty sure it is valuable. All morality comes from the seeking of well-being for the conscious being. So if
Okay. I'm curious to understand why! Are you yourself materialist? Any recommended reading or viewing on the topic, specifically within the context of the rationalist movement?
Are people here mostly materialists? I'm not. In a Cartesian sense, the most authentic experience possible is that of consciousness itself, with matter being something our mind imagines to explain phenomenon that we think might be real outside of our imagination (but we can never really know).
In other words, we know that idealism is true, because we experience pure ideas constantly, and we suspect that the images our minds serve up might actually correspond to some reality out there (Kant's things-in-themselves).
The map might really be the territory. Like, if you read a book by Tolkein and find that the map doesn't match the text, which is right? And if Tolkein clarified, would... (read more)
Wish I could! But alas, I live in Guatemala. Of course, if anyone ever passes through Guatemala and wants a free tour guide, hit me up.
Good luck finding a new housemate!