By "justification", I mean "rationale" . In other words, I'm saying that rationale does not apply everywhere.

Please don't equate me with "society". This is literally the second message you've ever received from ,e

An interesting paper that commits the author to some substantial positions. The way the author defines morality depends on epiphenomenalism being false. If morality depends on freedom and freedom exists only as a subjective experience, epiphenomenalism would refute the very possibility of morality by rendering its basis causally inert.

I'd be interested to see his thoughts on Calvinists - committed liars, amoral zombies, or madmen? If people all feel subjectively free, they're either lying or people can be mistaken about what it is to feel free, raising issues for the author's own position.

A quality article - to the point, clear, and thought provoking.

Note: I'm not a committed epiphenomenalist, I just consider it a serious possibility.

What if "Death" is misunderstood?

Hear me out but have you ever heard the saying "Sleep is the cousin of death"? Well what if there's more truth in that statement then society gives it credit for?

Think of when you sleep, you have no concept of time in the slightest. So why would death be any different? Physics tells us that energy can never be destroyed, it only changes form. Once passed, you'd have no conscious self to keep track of "time" so even though it would take an unimaginable amount of time to happen, eventually in the cycle of the universe all the elements that make up us would surely come together again at some point and we'd experience what we know as conscious life again right?

I mean of corse we wouldn't be aware of our previous lives like so many claim to be able to remember but does this mean in a technical sense "Reincarnation" "could actually scientificly possible.

Why does one need justification for that ?Why not just pure Iogic and reason ? I know Europe largely uses the ICD and America the DSM but AFAIK and both are based around the 'individual defect theory'. It is funny how society tries to jump through hoops, mental hoops, here, to try to defend the status quo --in this case Psychiatry.

I found the article somewhat simplistic, myself, and its depiction of psychiatry something of a caricature - certainly in relation to how it's practiced where I live (Ireland). It might be more accurate elsewhere, where medicalisation of mental illness seems so rampant that there might be some justification for identifying psychiatry with the "individual defect theory" the author names. In most parts of Europe, though, psychiatrists do still refer patients for therapy - they don't only prescribe medication. Yes, they do have that power, and yes that is open to abuse, but that is some way from identifying the power and the abuse as if they were one.

The experience is equally meaningless without analysis, there's an argument to be made that meaningful observations can't even exist without analysis. When you see the world that's not raw sensory input that's a picture your brain built out of it. Just because the analysis is automatic doesn't mean it's not important.

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Hello can anyone explain to me in 4 or more paragraph Plato's Divided Line

I'd never go to the extreme mephistophilian conclusion that "we might as well not exist." Beauty, love, truth, mystery, adventure, are all too magical to just permanently destroy.

Philosophy and mental health issues:

Many people feel that there is a significant connection between their philosophical interests and troubling feelings of anxiety, lethargy, and depression they may be having, and so come to communities like /r/philosophy to find further ways of engaging philosophy that might help them deal with these feelings. It's important to recognize that anxiety and depression are complex phenomena that can have a variety of causes and exhibit a variety of different developmental courses. If you're having difficulty with these sorts of feelings and are looking for help, it's important to try to identify their origins. The human mind that finds itself in a state of anxiety or depression often tries to understand this experience, and this can include forming theories that try to explain the experience, for instance with reference to philosophical work. But even if we feel quite certain about such a connection it may end up being a bad theory, so that we need to investigate the matter further. Often, we feel the emotions first and then try to form theories to explain them, whereas it may seem in retrospect that we first had a certain theory and this is what caused the emotions.

When to seek help:

Feelings of anxiety and sadness, and worries about the aim of your life and your relationships with other people, are a part of normal adult life. So if you're troubled by these sorts of concerns, that doesn't necessarily mean that anything unusual is going on. Normal feelings of anxiety and sadness can be explored through the various activities of an active life, so that you might find it beneficial to explore these feelings through participation in art, through your relationships, through your work at a job, hobby, or charity, and so on.

When feelings of anxiety or depression interfere with the activities of life, so that they prevent you from being able to do the things you want, like sustain relationships and a job, and this state of disability persists for an extended period of time, this is a sign that you should consider asking for help and doing more to address the problem.

How to seek help / What to do with more serious issues:

Straight-forwardly physiological issues like dietary and hormonal conditions can produce feelings of anxiety, depression, and lethargy, and a physician is usually able to identify and treat these conditions. So it would be a good idea to discuss these problems with your physician, so that you can either rule out a straight-forwardly physiological issue or else get the medical help that you need.

If you do have mental health concerns that cannot be readily addressed in this medical way, one of the easiest and most effective ways to improve is to make adjustments to adopt a healthy lifestyle. It may seem odd that basic health practices can have a significant impact on serious mental health issues, but the idea here is to give your mind the resources and solid foundation of health it needs to work through its problems more or less with its own power. In pursuit of a healthy lifestyle, you should consider: (i) adopting healthy sleeping habits, which includes not only getting enough sleep but also sticking to relatively stable times to go to sleep and wake up; (ii) adopting healthy eating habits, including drinking adequate water, and cutting down on junk food, as well as caffeine and alcohol if applicable; (iii) adopting healthy exercising habits, which needn't mean an intense routine of weight-lifting, but at least a regular practice of light exercises 3-4x a week for around 45m a session would be an excellent start; (iv) adopting healthy socializing habits, which may mean cultivating your relationships with your family, friends, neighbours, and/or dating; (v) adopting healthy work habits, involving regular employment at least part time and/or a comparable amount of regular work at school or related training programs; (vi) adopting healthy habits of self-improvement, involving pursuit of a hobby; and (vii) adopting healthy involvement with your community and the larger world, which can involve things like volunteer work at a charity, doing community outreach, enjoying art, and regular walks in a natural setting. If you're able to make these changes in your lifestyle, you'll likely find a significant improvement in your mental health follows.

But one of the most challenging things about mental illness is that feelings of anxiety or depression can make it difficult to make these kinds of changes. If you find yourself trying but unable to make these kinds of changes, because of persistent feelings of anxiety or depression, which are interfering with the regular activities of your life, you should consider consulting with a mental health professional like a registered psychologist specializing in anxiety or depression, or a registered psychotherapist. Your doctor may be able to suggest some resources in your area, so this is something you can ask them about when you consult with them to exclude physiological factors.

Psychotherapy is a means of exploring the issues surrounding a mental health problem with another person, and psychotherapy with a registered professional has shown good results in improving mental health.

In general, if you're struggling with serious issues of this sort, you need someone you can trust, with whom you can have a stable relationship, to discuss these issues with. At the outset, this might be a friend, family member, or someone from your community. If you pursue this route, it may be a psychiatrist, psychologist, or psychotherapist. Because of the importance of this relationship, seeking help from people online is not likely to be effective. Or, the best advice you can get online is this sort of advice about where to go next.

This is a shared account that is only used for notifications. Please do not reply, as your message will go unread.

>We can’t have moral duties to do the impossible or control our involuntary functions.

Would that it were so. But this perspective trivializes morality, reducing all moral duties to a preference rather than an obligation. Self-determination is only a strong foundation for a theory of an ethical system if "ethics" is merely a quid pro quo voluntarily entered into (conscientiously and knowledgeably understood) by all participants, the very opposite of morality, though admittedly as close to it as a formal, conventional, or historic philosophical theory has gotten. But if historical systems of ethics had successfully deduced the nature of morality, philosophers would not still be discussing such things. "Normative ethics" is as inadequate for explaining what morality is, let alone elucidating its ramifications on how we should behave, as scriptural faith is.

>Some people have expressed concern that morality is a restriction on freedom, as if we are slaves.

Slaves are not morally bound, they are physically bound. Morality is a restriction on freedom, just not a restriction that prevents transgression.

>starting point for any moral system must be personal agency.

I agree with this premise, but I cannot discount the inverse; that any personal agency must have morality as it's starting point, in order to be at all distinguishable from lack of personal agency. Freedom by itself does "create" morality, it just doesn't differentiate between moral action and immoral action, without some premise beyond freedom itself; a "boundary", in your formulation. Your analysis confuses moral bounds for mere principle, and simultaneously appears to demand morality be a "limit" that somehow requires adherence beyond moral dictate, as if being immoral made an action physically impossible for the moral agent making moral judgements, even for itself and according to it's own moral strictures, to execute.

LOl, sure :)

But so many parallel and orthogonal meanings and one that just outright defeats the purpose of its existence makes it difficult to use even with context, right?

(I actually very much enjoy the multiple meanings of the word; I wouldn't change the situation.)

By focusing more-or-less exclusively on "freedom" as a psychological (philosophy related to contemplation of personal consciousness) matter while ignoring the more important and perilous sociological (philosophy related to laws and government) issue, the author has succeeded in saying precisely nothing. Even still, the essay is meaningful, but primarily as a counter-example to useful discourse on the subject.

>Morality exists only within the boundaries of freedom.

This stands as a reasonable premise, but not an informative one, since any useful discussion of freedom can only be considered within the bounds of morality. To ignore morality is to reduce freedom to "do what thou wilst", which does not merely epitomize immorality, or does not provide a reasonable, or even a logical, basis for any particular or even specific course of action. There are, after all, many things outside of the bounds of freedom or morality which limit our actions, in the real world.

>First, the experience of freedom is a certainty.

If only that were so, we wouldn't need the word "freedom" at all, we could simply say "existence". The belief one is acting freely is easier to experience than freedom itself is, unless of course the inverse is true. The essay does little to untangle this Gordian Knot of "experience", aka consciousness, aka the hard problem. But refocusing on the sociological nature of freedom, freedom from interference by corporeal authority, whether justified by morality or not, makes it plain that the experience (which is to say, for clarity, in this context, the existence) of freedom is not at all a certainty, either in the abstract or in practice.

>Second, freedom is the standard for judging moral claims.

Here is where we have a choice to either consider the premise of the essay to be entirely incorrect or merely incoherent. It is this claim which makes clear the intersection between the psychological and sociological perspectives on freedom. If only the freedom of the judge, or only the freedom of the claimant, is to be considered, then the dictate is merely incorrect; freedom is only one of an indeterminate number of standards that must be utilized in assessing the accuracy of a moral claim. But a useful consideration of freedom, and perhaps even a moral consideration of morality, must (not merely "should", but must) consider not just the freedom of the judge and the claimant, but the freedom of everyone else, as well. So although the statement is not incorrect in saying that freedom "is the standard", an analysis which addresses only the personal/psychological perspective and forgoes focusing (nearly entirely) on the legal/sociological perspective of freedom is incoherent, incapable of producing any reasonable conjectures from its premises.

>Conscious experience also sets the inherent boundaries of our moral community.

Again, if only this were so, no discussion would be necessary on the matter of either freedom or morality, or for that matter, consciousness or experience.

I surmise, after reading the full essay, that the author's intent is to state that a comprehensible and useful morality must take into account the foundational (zeroth order) nature of self-determination (née "free will"), and on that I agree entirely. But rather than subvert any real consideration of morality by making it subservient to consciousness, a philosophically sound approach must presume that morality itself is not secondary and subsequent, even a first order let alone second order phenomena, but an integral aspect of consciousness/self-determination itself, merely a different perspective on the zeroth order existential reality of conscious being. To do anything else leaves us mired in "do what thou wilt" as the preeminent dictate, an immoral premise.

IMHO. Thanks for your time. Hope it helps.

If a word having multiple meanings bothers you I have some bad news about nearly all words for you.

I meant it tongue in cheek.

But still, in real life a paradox is something true but appears false. The multiple meanings (with Websters even condescending to a straight 'contradiction' as a final definition of about 5, in contradiction of it's meaningfulness of existence) makes use of the word quite tricky in public debate.

Meaning and purpose is derived from the struggle against suffering. I never argued to "let suffering win" or "don't even bother struggling against suffering."

A suffering-free utopia is an impossibility. It's incompatible with human nature (at this stage in evolution). My argument is: The best we can all do is support each other throughout our unique individual (temporary) struggle against suffering. It appears that humankind, as a group, will ALWAYS have to struggle against suffering.

Tip: you're allowed to disagree with me, but please avoid the name-calling because that behavior makes me wanna stop reading your response.

"There where most darkness lies there light shall thrive"

~C.E.G Väinämöinen

An undesirable state of being, which can be but isn't necessarily convergent with pain. For example, the muscle pain from an intense work-out wouldn't be called "suffering" by most people, but intense depression would, despite not being painful. This is, incidentally, how most people use the word.

Either way, it's definitely not "pain so intense and prolonged that it makes people avoid it at all costs, including suicide", because in that case, the term "moderate suffering" would be a self-contradiction, and that's just absurd and definitely not common-sensical.

If you're genuinely curious about the question of defining suffering, I can elaborate or offer some reading recommendations, but otherwise, I'd like to go back to topic, which is that existential confusion/dread/suffering (call it as you will, the term is secondary in its importance) is relevant to the majority of mankind regardless of living conditions or physical state, thus your initial claim that the problem is irrelevant to most still fails.

I studied logic and my mentor was a logician. He had a lecture in his back pocket for this.

In short, no, paradoxes are a first-class entity in metamathematics/model theory. A “real” mathematical paradox is a statement that is provably neither provable nor disprovable. Such paradoxes include the continuum hypothesis.

It would be interesting to know when 'paradox' got twisted by logicians and mathematicians to mean seems true but is false instead of seems false but is true.

It's the latter that is genuinely useful and the original meaning. Trust logicians to fuck it all up.

>unusual definition to suffering

Lol, what is suffering to you? How about some examples?

Well, yes and no...

> I'm currently writing an essay on the way we treat AI and if it's supposed to have rights.

Before even considering AI; do humans have rights? What are rights and how do we know? What rights do people have and who has them? Do you think you can square something controversial like the debate over abortion where both sides claims to support rights?

I'd think if you even attempted to answer "do AI have rights?" you'd already have answers for these questions.