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Automatons

Toady said:
Logically, I know it shouldn't be a problem, but it's the thought that everyone around me is really a "robot." Of course, I am one too, but I don't feel like it. Even though I know there's no evidence for a soul or afterlife, I can't help struggling with the thought of non-existence and non-purpose. Honestly, I find it disturbing.
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I don't see where you get non-purpose from, you should make your own purpose. As with decisions, you can devise a poor one, but it is a purpose.
 
Toady said:
Logically, I know it shouldn't be a problem, but it's the thought that everyone around me is really a "robot."
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I've thought that was true from ever since I can remember, but this is more due to my thinking that the world is too awesome to be anything but a reality TV show ala The Truman Show that I'm the star of.

I'm sorry I'm so boring, everyone. :boxedin:
 
I'd recommend reading "Freedom Evolves" by Daniel Dennett for a detailed consideration of the relationship between a deterministic universe and free will.
 
Toady said:
Logically, I know it shouldn't be a problem, but it's the thought that everyone around me is really a "robot." Of course, I am one too, but I don't feel like it. Even though I know there's no evidence for a soul or afterlife, I can't help struggling with the thought of non-existence and non-purpose. Honestly, I find it disturbing.
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Be very careful with the "robot" bit.
It can lead to some nasty morals if you get nietche wrong.

I was brought up somewhat an atheist, and have wondered only lightly about purpose of life and afterlife. There could be a connection.

So far I have gotten to probably no afterlife, and purpose is what we make of it.
 
The plural of automato is automatoes of course. I chose to write that; that must make me appear to be a soul- based aupotato.
 
Hokulele said:
I don't see where you get non-purpose from, you should make your own purpose. As with decisions, you can devise a poor one, but it is a purpose.
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The non-purpose is the thought that nothing matters or has a reason for being here. Regardless of what decisions you make, you'll eventually die and blink out of existence, so what point is there in anything? You could say that the point is to live a good life and have an impact on people after you're gone, but what do they matter? They'll blink out of existence too, as will everyone else.

If we're soulless machines, then "alive" is just what we call the illusion of free will. And if there's no afterlife, we're just a bunch of robots existing for no reason until our systems fail. Your friends and families are robots too that don't matter. Any emotional attachment you have is just evolved constructs of the brain trying to maintain social structure.
 
Toady said:
The non-purpose is the thought that nothing matters or has a reason for being here. Regardless of what decisions you make, you'll eventually die and blink out of existence,
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Yep. Refreshing thought, that.

so what point is there in anything?
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None. Why should there be? Why do you want there to be? Life, like a Saturday afternoon, finds its ruination in purpose.

You could say that the point is to live a good life and have an impact on people after you're gone, but what do they matter?
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They don't.

If we're soulless machines, then "alive" is just what we call the illusion of free will. And if there's no afterlife, we're just a bunch of robots existing for no reason until our systems fail. Your friends and families are robots too that don't matter.
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They matter to me. Mattering to the universe at large is irrelevant and, frankly, incoherent.

Any emotional attachment you have is just evolved constructs of the brain trying to maintain social structure.
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It's still an emotional attachment. Why does it matter that it is just evolved constructs of the brain trying to maintain social structure?

But, that's right. We've already concluded that it doesn't matter, since nothing does, so why bother over it. Just enjoy the ride.
 
The thing is, I feel like a "robot" in a lot of ways... or, at least that the emotional/mental side of what I define as "me" is simply the top-most I/O software running on top of a complex operating system that pretty much runs on its own without any interference from me. My body runs mostly off an autonomous system with little or no input from me. I don't really tell my body to do much of anything at all. I relay instructions to some other invisible system, and THAT system tells my body what to do.

Real control or freedom seems to be a fantasy that disintegrates if you look too closely at things.
 
Toady said:
The non-purpose is the thought that nothing matters or has a reason for being here. Regardless of what decisions you make, you'll eventually die and blink out of existence, so what point is there in anything? You could say that the point is to live a good life and have an impact on people after you're gone, but what do they matter? They'll blink out of existence too, as will everyone else.
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This is not necessarily true -- given the current scientific and technological progress, there is a slight chance that if you can hold out for the next 30 or 40 years you will be around for a very long time after that.

Toady said:
If we're soulless machines, then "alive" is just what we call the illusion of free will.
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There is no illusion -- people have as much free will as they are able to define. What you will find is that people can't define free will like they thought they could, which troubles some of them.

But I don't understand why one should be troubled by the lack of something they can't even imagine.

Toady said:
And if there's no afterlife, we're just a bunch of robots existing for no reason until our systems fail. Your friends and families are robots too that don't matter. Any emotional attachment you have is just evolved constructs of the brain trying to maintain social structure.
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Well, let's assume the contrary. Assume there is an afterlife. Assume our reason for existing here is to prepare for the afterlife. Now, what our reason for existence in the afterlife?

At some level one simply has to accept that there is no greater "reason."
 
Toady said:
I'm struggling with the ramifications of being an atheist. If there's no soul and no afterlife, does that not make us cell-based automatons, going through the motions with the illusion that we're making decisions? What are your thoughts?
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Our decisions are not illusions -- they are real decisions. If you think, and are troubled by the thought, that an automaton can't really "think" then read "Godel, Escher, and Bach," to learn why you are most likely incorrect.

As for all of our decisions being determined or random rather than "free," well ... can you imagine what a decision would be like that is not determined or random? Because nobody else in the world has been able to...
 
Toady said:
The non-purpose is the thought that nothing matters or has a reason for being here.
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There are things that matter to me.

Toady said:
Regardless of what decisions you make, you'll eventually die and blink out of existence, so what point is there in anything?
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I regard the question as nonsense. I have not yet died and blinked out of existence, so I have the rare and wonderful opportunity to experience the whole universe. I even have the ability to change that universe in some ways. I can create something that didn't exist before. Why would I squander the opportunity just because none of the things that matter to me are eternal?

Toady said:
You could say that the point is to live a good life and have an impact on people after you're gone, but what do they matter? They'll blink out of existence too, as will everyone else.
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So what? In the meantime, THEY will have the same extraordinary opportunity I currently enjoy. If I can make their experience even better than mine, I'll enjoy my time here even more.

Toady said:
If [...] there's no afterlife, we're just a bunch of robots existing for no reason until our systems fail. Your friends and families are robots too that don't matter. Any emotional attachment you have is just evolved constructs of the brain trying to maintain social structure.
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If there's no afterlife, this opportunity is all the more precious. An afterlife transforms "this life" into a dress rehearsal, a holding action until we can get on with the "real thing," whatever that is.

Those who think this life is nothing more than a closed-book admissions test to eternity are likely to be squandering the only opportunity they'll ever have to make a real difference in the lives of real people. Why bother to make things better in this world, when perfection awaits just beyond the veil?

And yet, look at the remarkable life we're able to live today, because of the cumulative contributions of uncounted billions of people who are no longer alive.

Sorry, I just don't share your despair. Purpose is what you make it.
 
bokonon said:
I regard the question as nonsense. I have not yet died and blinked out of existence, so I have the rare and wonderful opportunity to experience the whole universe. I even have the ability to change that universe in some ways. I can create something that didn't exist before. Why would I squander the opportunity just because none of the things that matter to me are eternal?
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It doesn't feel like an opportunity. It feels like a pointless excursion in physical suffering.

If there's no afterlife, this opportunity is all the more precious. An afterlife transforms "this life" into a dress rehearsal, a holding action until we can get on with the "real thing," whatever that is.

Those who think this life is nothing more than a closed-book admissions test to eternity are likely to be squandering the only opportunity they'll ever have to make a real difference in the lives of real people. Why bother to make things better in this world, when perfection awaits just beyond the veil?
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On the flip side of the coin, why bother to make things better if the world doesn't matter? Who cares what difference you make? If there's no reason or purpose, then this is simply a sphere of matter orbiting around a star in an observable physical universe that goes on existing, pointlessly. Those "real people" are just the latest generation of mathematically evolved cell structures that will reproduce more structures before dying off. Their appearance of being alive is an illusion--their brains are cell-based automatons, no more alive or of value than a rock tumbling down a hill.

And yet, look at the remarkable life we're able to live today, because of the cumulative contributions of uncounted billions of people who are no longer alive.
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But value isn't real. The ultimate, objective conclusion on the physicality of the universe would be that morals, emotions, and social norms are illusions of the brain, evolved out of necessity for survival. That means there's no difference between a philanthropist donating to charity or a homicidal maniac killing ten people. To the universe, it doesn't matter.

Who cares what impact we leave behind? There's no eternal god to care, and future generations are robots who will live through their generation and die as we will, so their thoughts--nothing more than biochemical signals passing through some cells--have no meaning anyway.

Am I coming off as overly analytical here? :) I don't mean to. This is just a realization that bothers and fascinates me, though I know it's nothing new.
 
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