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World Philosophy Day and four questions

Question 4 doesn't make any sense.

4. DID YOU REALLY CHOOSE TO READ THIS ARTICLE?
Suppose that Fred existed shortly after the Big Bang. He had unlimited intelligence and memory, and knew all the scientific laws governing the universe and all the properties of every particle that then existed. Thus equipped, billions of years ago, he could have worked out that, eventually, planet Earth would come to exist, that you would too, and that right now you would be reading this article.

After all, even back then he could have worked out all the facts about the location and state of every particle that now exists.

<snip>

Now, of course, Fred didn't really exist, so he didn't really predict your every move. But the point is: he could have.

<snip]
Click to expand...

Fred could not possibly have existened. Being able to compute the position of everything in the universe requires a computer with more bits and energy than the universe contains.
 
1. SHOULD WE KILL HEALTHY PEOPLE FOR THEIR ORGANS?

If they are lawyers, sure.

2. ARE YOU THE SAME PERSON WHO STARTED READING THIS ARTICLE?

No. I turned into a nine year old Hindu boy somewhere in the third paragraph.

3. IS THAT REALLY A COMPUTER SCREEN IN FRONT OF YOU?

It looks like a screen, feels like a screen, smells like a screen, and acts like a screen. Whatever it is, it's close enough for me to use it as a computer screen.

4. DID YOU REALLY CHOOSE TO READ THIS ARTICLE?

No. I clicked on it by mistake while searching for porn.
 
BBC News Article said:
1. SHOULD WE KILL HEALTHY PEOPLE FOR THEIR ORGANS?
Suppose Bill is a healthy man without family or loved ones. Would it be ok painlessly to kill him if his organs would save five people, one of whom needs a heart, another a kidney, and so on? If not, why not?

Consider another case: you and six others are kidnapped, and the kidnapper somehow persuades you that if you shoot dead one of the other hostages, he will set the remaining five free, whereas if you do not, he will shoot all six. (Either way, he'll release you.)

If in this case you should kill one to save five, why not in the previous, organs case? If in this case too you have qualms, consider yet another: you're in the cab of a runaway tram and see five people tied to the track ahead. You have the option of sending the tram on to the track forking off to the left, on which only one person is tied. Surely you should send the tram left, killing one to save five.

But then why not kill Bill?
Click to expand...

My bold. If the kidnapper is dumb enough to give you the gun, just shoot the kidnapper.
 
Suppose Bill is a healthy man without family or loved ones. Would it be ok painlessly to kill him if his organs would save five people, one of whom needs a heart, another a kidney, and so on? If not, why not?
Click to expand...

I like to ask socialists a similar question. Basically the same, but bill doesn't die.

Such as: "Bill and his family are healthy, but Bills neighbors are not. His neighbors are all dieing of kidney failure. Would it be ok to painlessly take kidneys from Bills family (who all have two each) and give them to his neighbors, who have none? What about if you give them to people in another city whom he has never met?"
 
leon_heller said:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7739493.stm

Leon
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1. SHOULD WE KILL HEALTHY PEOPLE FOR THEIR ORGANS?
Who is this we, Kimo Sabe?
2. ARE YOU THE SAME PERSON WHO STARTED READING THIS ARTICLE?
Yes. I took it in and spit it out, nothing in it was of value. My net change as "me" is zero.

3. IS THAT REALLY A COMPUTER SCREEN IN FRONT OF YOU?
Yes.
4. DID YOU REALLY CHOOSE TO READ THIS ARTICLE?
Yes.

All your determinism is purest mental masturbation.

DR
 
"So your senses give you no reason at all to believe that there is a computer screen in front of you."

The mind is associational. The sensual input matches what it associates with its internal virtual mental model of the world, and specifically, its model of a monitor and how it operates.

That is plenty of reason. Whatever "out there" is, there's a nebulous conglomeration of stuff, whatever "stuff" is, that gives off complicated sensual input that operates like a monitor does. Of course, it could be something else that's generating fraudulent sensory input to you, but something is making that sensual input into the complicated input needed to appear as a functioning, 3-D, "out there" monitor.


4. DID YOU REALLY CHOOSE TO READ THIS ARTICLE?

Good old determinism issue going back to the beginning of the universe. Then it chokes on randomness, not realizing that true randomness thrown in doesn't rescue you from being the servent of physical processes. Moreover, it's far from clear, or even likely, that "true randomness" has anything to do with consciousness whatsoever. Consciousness could sit several magnitudes above the quantum level in the size of its base components, whatever they are. Or be equal to it or smaller in size, but just not related for no reason at all.

In any case, something generates my feelings of desire and pleasure at satifsying curiosity, so if I then deterministically follow that feeling, as any old deterministic computation would, then so be it.

I have yet to hear a coherent definition of what "spiritual" free will could possibly be if it doesn't involve determinism with possible random influences.

Worse for the philosopher, punishment is still valid precisely because the mind and consciousness follow deterministic patterns. They take into account the threat of punishment when arriving at decisions, to one degree or another.
 
Darth Rotor said:
1. SHOULD WE KILL HEALTHY PEOPLE FOR THEIR ORGANS?
Who is this we, Kimo Sabe?
2. ARE YOU THE SAME PERSON WHO STARTED READING THIS ARTICLE?
Yes. I took it in and spit it out, nothing in it was of value. My net change as "me" is zero.

3. IS THAT REALLY A COMPUTER SCREEN IN FRONT OF YOU?
Yes.
4. DID YOU REALLY CHOOSE TO READ THIS ARTICLE?
Yes.

All your determinism is purest mental masturbation.

DR
Click to expand...

TITCR x 5
 
1. SHOULD WE KILL HEALTHY PEOPLE FOR THEIR ORGANS?

Yes, but only if you eat the rest of him so that he doesn't go to waste.

2. ARE YOU THE SAME PERSON WHO STARTED READING THIS ARTICLE?

Yes, but please don't tell him that or he'll get jealous.

3. IS THAT REALLY A COMPUTER SCREEN IN FRONT OF YOU?

No, it's a widescreen TV. Actual computer screens are getting tinier every year.

4. DID YOU REALLY CHOOSE TO READ THIS ARTICLE?

No, we're in Soviet Russia, so the article read me.
 
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