Caltrops - Biohazard: Code Veronica





	[quote name="Senor Barborito Metafilter Post"]Eludes, not alludes. And yes. I've always found it rather insane that longevity research wasn't the primary focus of humanity - but then I've never been 70 years old. [quote]So, wise people, can anyone direct me to something that tackles the dilemma of how or why to live a moral life when one doesn't believe in God or an afterlife?[/quote] I tend to start from the standpoint of Descartes' skepticism - that is, assuming that everything coming in through my senses is false. There's no way to know for certain, is there? If this is true, than the only two things I know are that a) I exist, and b) I have the capacity to recognize my own existence. Where Descartes went wrong is then making the assumption that all his ideas came from somewhere - ie they sprang from something analogous to Plato's 'ideal forms' of things like cats, dogs, etc. Thus, because he had the idea of God, there must be a God. This is patently absurd - I have ideas about all that exists being the translations of giant green spheres floating in a void, which my actual senses convert into the data perceived by virtual senses via a fractal function with the position of the spheres as a seed - but I have no basis of proof for this idea either. Regardless of whether the state of the universe is as we perceive it or truly consists of giant green balls swinging through space, there must be a state to something external to myself because otherwise my cognition would consist of nothing but the phrase "I exist" repeated endlessly. Something other than self exists, but what form is left open to debate. The only possible conclusion to come to, and it exists solely for lack of a better one, is that the universe is as we perceive it until such time as we encounter a better explanation through what is pouring through our senses. Some evidence, no matter how 'circumstantial', is better than none at all (with apologies to green ballologists reading this). For the moment I have no choice other than to accept my current universe-model as governed by my senses as the true state of all that exists. In this model, there exists a phenomenon called 'death' in which this self - the knowledge of which being all that I possess - cessates. Absent any evidence of an afterlife, as dictated by my universe model, this phenomenon threatens to deprive me of all that I know or am. Therefore my highest priority should logically be not dying - all else is negotiable. In this model, there exist other selves just like mine - nearly equally valid (I don't share their direct experiences) independent beings that appear to be sharing my condition. To end their existence would be to deprive them of what little they too seem to possess. Thus my second highest priority is to prevent the death of others. I've gone on long enough and am out on a limb far enough to leave further extrapolation of this line of thinking as an exercise to the reader. Generally I continue on with something about the concept of anguish and ending with 'and it harm none, do as you please.' I no longer believe this as stridently as I did when I was 18, but if there's a major flaw to be found in the above, I've yet to discover it. The above is, for what it's worth, fully compatible with my belief in determinism. [quote]we'll just malinger about until disease or accident strikes us down.[/quote] Unless something akin to Transmetropolitan's fogletism hits first, in which case the real issue becomes dysfunctional neural configurations from a macroscopic perspective. ie eternal senility induced by lack of neurogenesis. posted by Ryvar at 9:07 AM PST on October 13 [/quote]