Personally I think it’s silly as hell. Qualia is obviously a biological component of experience… Not some weird thing that science will never be able to put in to words.
I’ve been listening to a lot of psychology podcasts lately and for some reason people seem obsessed with the idea despite you needing to make the same logical leaps to believe it as any sort of mysticism… Maybe I am just tripping idk
It’s chemical soup animated by electricity. Everything our bodies do is in response to some preceding event. You’re alive because of an unbroken chain of life stretching back to the simplest natural chemical reactions. It’s been a nonstop craving for energy and resources ever since then.
Humans give themselves far too much credit. Everything living on the planet is equally just as alive as any of us. We share a massive amount of genetic similarities to not just animals, but also plants and fungi. I’m not saying we should sacrifice a human life for that of a fly, but rather that, to the fly, it’s life is just as meaningful and important as ours. Our existence is barely a blip in the planets history.
The dinosaurs spent millions of years dominating the Earth. How can we say, in our measly 200,000, that we are Gods favorite and uniquely bestowed a soul? What right have we to claim to be so elevated above all other life on Earth? We eat, breathe, die, the same as everything else in this world. The passage of time is unavoidable. “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings…”
That is actually a topic that interests me in terms of e.g. degrowth. I’d like reading suggestions from others on this, because if Life is hardwired to increase entropy, how do we manage global communism for any kind of “sustainability”? How can human civilization design itself to be within planetary boundaries? Maybe recognition of our “inability” to do so is all that’s required. A kind of consciousness similar to class consciousness.
Edit to clarify my idea a bit: One’s own class consciousness develops in part due to recognition that change which benefits your personal material interests is not possible alone but in a collective of your fellow class members. Maybe individually human beings are energy maximizers but can collectively develop “species consciousness” in order to align material interests (i.e. a human society which balances human liberation with ecosystem services, rights of the biosphere, etc)
Life is actually the counter to Entropy. Thats where we get the term Negentropy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negentropy
It fits so perfectly well into a Marxist dialectic fractal acid trip theory too… I love it.
Lots of process cause local reductions of entropy; it has nothing to do with life. And life massively increases global entropy.
It is not the counter to entropy. Life manages to get less entropy in a small volume by dumping magnitudes more in surrounding space.
Right I know that life’s increasing levels of complexity and organization are “counter” to entropy
But at the same time, the more complex the organism the greater the energy required to sustain it. The same can be said for the development of industrial civilization. So while I get what you’re saying I don’t think that really solves the problem at all…
Yeah philosophically it feels great but it either completely disrupts the laws of thermodynamics or it doesnt… I am leaning toward doesn’t. Maybe Lifes incredibly resilience is the key to its Negentropy. We will simply come up with a new means of living whenever the shit hits the fan. Thats what Bill Gates wants us to believe anyways.
I 100% guarantee theres some genius Chinese think talk talking about this right now and we will never fucking hear of it. Some dingus on Reddit told me Marxism is dead because Rawlsianism replaced it so I decided to do a deep dive on modern marxist theory and… they be cookin.
Please, for the love of God, learn what entropy actually is and what the laws of thermodynamics actually say before trying to wax lyrical about them. Learn what the term “closed system” means for a start
I actually wrote an entire masters thesis on Negentropy
Sure you did, I’m sure the person who proudly declared they don’t read arguments from people they disagree with wrote a masters thesis on negentropy without understanding the second law of thermodynamics and thinking that maybe life violates it.
damn he caught me i didnt acutually write an essay on negentropy, but i did fuck them, first.
I will find this place and I will learn Chinese and I will get a job there and I will contribute to the realization of Sustainable Intergalactic Super Communism.
Every time someone at work compliments me for doing a good job I literally think “yeah but its all for nothing because I am not Chinese”
real sad world we live in. The Haves (Chinese) certainly make us Have Nots (everyone else) look like shit.
Yeah for real. Not gonna dox myself but I work in Science™ in the US and we are getting absolutely dabbed on it’s so pathetic. I guess it’s for the best that Empire is forgetting how to do The Science.
looping @BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net in on this subthread because I think it aligns with her interests based on comments i’ve seen on the bear. maybe im confusing her with another doomposter…
I am, broadly speaking, less interested in philosophy and more interested in science. I totally agree with Lurkmore’s statement that we are chemical soup and that all life has a nonstop craving for resources. I’m a materialist and panpsychism sounds like nonsense to me, I don’t know how one would even demonstrate such a thing.
I’m not familiar with the idea of negentropy, all I can really remember about life and entropy was someone explaining to me that life can temporarily create local order, but overall the system (including life) is still heading towards disorder. To get our local bit of order, maybe 1.1x the amount of disorder is caused to sustain us. Life is messy and especially our industrialized society.
Yes, this is essentially what needs to happen. I think its hypothetically possible for that to happen, we overcome desires all the time. Especially with the consequences being so grave. Plus we’re talking a society that is already seeking equality, most good for the most people etc. I’m imagining a very selfless socialist/communist society being able to come together and degrowth and live sustainably.
If we had overthrown the rich 100 years ago and had global socialism by say the 1970s, yea definitely. I am not optimistic at present that this will materialize in reality.
I’m glad this makes sense to somebody else. I have the privilege of knowing Smart Science People in daily life who I can engage on these topics with to a certain extent, but they are not Marxists so it never feels like our conversations lead to dialectical “progress.” They are very smart but ultimately libs so trying to have these discussions is so utterly unsatisfying.
That is basically my position. It’s not that humans are incapable of solving the polycrisis, it’s that our present material conditions (and I am including a livable biosphere in this) are probabilistically determined. Our species needed to “get lucky” on many dice rolls in order to place itself in a competitive position at this very moment, and we failed basically all of them.
Thank you for responding to my @. I viewed your profile after doing so and was worried I shouldn’t have brought the topic up given your headspace. I know words on the internet mean shitall during the twilight of our species, but I am truly thankful for being able to engage with somebody on this topic.
Every place I see climate news from also has- significantly worse politics then here, I’m glad we agree on the situation.
You’re completely okay. My headspace kinda, is what it is.
I actually quite enjoy it, words online are a good way to spend the twilight of humans. I appreciated talking with you about this too, climate change is one of my most passionate subjects. Tag or DM me anytime :)
So you wouldn’t consider it a bad thing if I tortured you to death? After all, you’re just chemicals, no different than a rock or a river or a printer.
Yes, I think causing suffering is bad. Why do you think its bad to torture someone to death, some non material “thing”?
I am an intelligent creature capable of suffering.
Also, not evidence of anything outside of the material. Just wishes.
Sorry. What is “suffering?” How can a certain set of physical forces operating on a collection of cellular matter have a moral valence?
What do you mean? We’re just talking about a grouping of elementary particles responding to the laws of physics in a deterministic manner. Exactly the same as a rock, river, or printer. How can electricity and soup have any kind of subjective or moral properties?
Really? Because you seem to be assertion the existence of some non-material dynamic that makes certain collections of particles qualitatively different from others.
The state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.
I, the inhabitant of this flesh suit, find it unpleasant. I value the experience of other fleshy bags of meat. Its just a choice. If you wanted different morality you could find it. I think my morality is pretty good though, I think it’d work out for a lot of us fleshy meat bags. Might be good for our collective experiences idk.
I am giving you my best explanation of the evidence I have seen. If you have evidence we are more then electricity and soup by all means, share with the class. I honestly don’t care to argue morality back and forth, as I said earlier in the thread I’m more interested in science. There’s loads of evidence both chemical soup and electricity plays a significant role in me living and my inner experiences. I’ve taken drugs that bind to different neurotransmitters that make me feel different kinds of ways, I also had ECT done where they sent a lil shock through my brain to help me feel differently. Where is the evidence something non material impacts my thoughts, my subjective experience? Some soul, or whatever you are getting at.
Just because we do not know something does not mean we should fill in the gaps. I am open to a non material explanation for my inner world, by all means where’s the evidence? Until then I’m sticking with what we have evidence for. The evidence has only ever pointed to materialism.
I am qualitatively, materially different from a rock. There is no evidence a rock can think, can suffer, can anything.
Sorry, what are those? What particles mediate them? I do not know of any mechanical process called “pain”
I thought you said it was all just biological soup and electricity. Now you’re claiming there’s some kind of ghost “inhabiting” it?
How can a cloud of particles and forces have values or experiences? And if you do, why do you value some fleshy bags of meat but not others?
A choice? How can a deterministic set of mechanical interactions have a choice? It just responds to cause and effect according to the laws of physics.
Who’s this “I” and what does “pretty good” mean? It’s all just physics and chemistry right?
Sorry, what’s an “experience”? And why would your arbitrary designation of some physical systems as having a valence be “good”
You have it the wrong way around; you’re the one asserting things beyond electrity and meat: things like “suffering”, “experiences”, “good and bad”, “‘inhabitants’ of the ‘flesh suits’”.
I suspect you would change that tone pretty quickly if someone decided to take seriously your assertion that people are just meat and decided to dissect you.
“Significant role” is very different from “there is only meat and electricity.”
Read this again and try to find the contradiction.
I’m not. You are
No. You aren’t. You are made up of exactly the same three particles, subject to the exact same physical forces.
There’s no evidence you can either: all we have is stimulus and response via physical mechanism. A mousetrap does that too
Since you want to pick apart my view and clearly do not agree, I am curious about yours. You seem to think there’s more to a person then chemicals, what else do you think there is? What is missing?
What really made me want to engage with you was this:
And it seems pretty obvious to me you disagree with this view, that you are saying it in a sarcastic or mocking way. You’ve done you’re bit, I see that either my view is incomplete or I am not explaining myself properly. Maybe both, I am not a philosophy person. So could you please explain, even a hint, of what you think I’m missing so I can improve?
you’re referencing/quoting a different poster just for the record