cynicist

Edit: Is trying to end your life a sign of significant mental health problems? Apparently, no.

Science is UPB. Do you think science is subjective?

Edit: Where I learn that having a really sucky life and wanting to donate organs are perfectly sensible reasons to kill yourself.

Edit: Preventing a suicide = Act of aggression, got it.

Actually I've thought about it and I think you are correct and I wasn't in this case. I was thinking that since no one would consider it immoral that it wasn't immoral, but that's not the reality. It's wrong no matter what, it's just that no one would care to prosecute you for it. So thanks for the correction.

They are, and maybe this is just the way I see it but I always thought of a lifeboat scenario as a sort of emergency around resource distribution. Like if there are several different people on a boat with very little food, how do you decide who gets what? If you are talking about a single guy or kid who can choose to starve to death or steal some food from a street vendor, that's not exactly a complex choice. I mean is there anyone who would say that the person should die rather than steal? I would find it hard to believe...

A lifeboat scenario is a gray area that is very complicated, it's not the same as a life or death situation. Morality requires choice, which is why it does not apply to people who are asleep or otherwise incapacitated, despite things like physics which are active no matter what. (it's also why we don't put animals in moral categories) If you value life at all, which is a safe assumption given the fact that you are alive and performing activities required to sustain that life, then choosing an immoral act vs death is not really a choice at all. (it's similar to why murder is widely considered one of the worst possible crimes, because it is the destruction of the body and a complete elimination of any future choice) Remember, one of the defining characteristics of force is the restriction of choice.

I'm saying that morality, which is an application of UPB, is not applicable.

Preventing someone from killing themselves clearly is not an act of aggression...I just want to point out here, in an effort to be more direct, that labmath has made as well as responded to several threads on UPB (some of which I have participated in) with very little apparent improvement in understanding, while at the same time criticizing what he perceives as flaws in UPB. He is also free to call into the show and ask for clarification from the writer himself but apparently has refrained from doing so.I for one am no longer going to respond to his posts, since it seems as if my responses have no effect anyway. I'm not saying anyone else should do the same, I'm just pointing this out in case someone thinks that they are helping him by responding. I have a feeling that he is more interested in finding problems with UPB than achieving any true comprehension of it. I could be mistaken, judge for yourselves... Edit: Should have stopped here, this was my main point anyway.

If you mean video that's probably due to the forum, people don't like being recorded admitting their mistakes. If you mean in person then that's a sign of some close-minded people. At the very least if I'm challenged on something and no longer sure of my position, I'll admit that, even if it takes me a few days to figure out if I was truly wrong or just hadn't thought about that exception in particular.

It's weird to think people in this community are watching something that I said, it's a somewhat uncomfortable feeling for me but fuck it lol. Don't judge me too harshly!!!! J/k, be honest people. I'd like to hear your thoughts on it!

Seems like you are looking at the topic of ethics through a subjective lens. UPB is based on logic, which itself is derived from the consistent behavior of matter/energy in the universe. Morality, being objective, is not dependent on the labels that humans give it. How is it not universal?

This board supports spoiler tags fyi. You can click on the button next to the eraser (looks like a window with green and blue lines in it and says 'Special BBCode' when your mouse hovers over it) and then choose 'spoiler', it just adds ([][/]) brackets with the word spoiler between them. As to the actual question:

Morality doesn't apply to life and death scenarios. If you are going to die and stealing is the only way you can survive, it is hard to say that you can only be moral by letting yourself starve to death. Once you are dead you are incapable of any choices at all. Most of the time when people bring them up they are just trying to find a way out of UPB, since they don't want the consequences of actually putting UPB into practice to accrue to them or their family. It's the same as when people bring up gray areas is if somehow that means we shouldn't use UPB at all, like for stopping wars, child abuse, etc. I'm comfortable with having a few gray areas and stopping 99.9% of violence in the world, so my response would be to say that if a drug had a 99.9% success rate against cancer, wouldn't you give it to people despite the 0.1% of cases that it doesn't work in? After that it is probably a good idea to investigate what they are avoiding in their personal lives by trying to discredit UPB, because if they aren't aware that it's a defense mechanism in their minds then they will never be able to fully get UPB and there is no point in discussing the abstract details of it.

The characters are just as complex if not more so, but with one season they don't get the same kind of journey. (Though for only 8 episodes it feels quite long) I concur with Avalanche that it's pretty dark, but there are some funny moments between the main characters and personally I found the ending more satisfying than anything I've seen in a while. If you like intelligent, insightful dialogue, intricate characters, and an actual mystery (instead of LOST-style cliffhangers) it's one of the best shows out there. It's very much a slow burn type show but that shouldn't discourage the FDR crowd. Definitely brace yourself for some scenes though...

I don't believe it does. It simply hides them from view.

It's better than that even. You can't universalize murder or theft, they fail the test of UPB. I think you are right that many people wish UPB would tell people what morally good actions to take, but like you I'm just happy that the big evils are taken care of.

This is actually hilarious. I never said the tricks were "dirty" or "sleazy", that is your interpretation of what I said. I don't know enough about PUA to claim either. Also, makeup is manipulative, and yes the whole point of using it is to attract men. So how am I sexist again? Oh right, you just want to throw around terms like 'shitlord' or 'sexist' for anyone who doesn't immediately agree with your position. Remind me, who is the closed-minded one here?

If you want to debate these things you need to get a basic understanding of epistemology (the study of knowledge) and metaphysics (the nature of reality), so check out Stefan's Introduction to Philosophy series (it's quite good!). Once you get these concepts down then things like UPB won't be nearly as difficult.

Umm, you do realize that the scientific method is based on the consistency of matter and energy right? In other words, it's based on reality. I'm sort of astonished that you are trying to debate something as complex as ethics without knowing something like this first. It would be one thing if you were a little uncertain (i.e. humble) about your ideas, but you are just saying things in a manner-of-fact way that I don't understand...

Actually bees communicate with other bees through what is called the 'Waggle dance', which certainly involves the senses, while ants use chemical signals called 'pheromones'. The idea of a collective consciousness is just a way of describing shared thoughts or beliefs within a human society, which is a highly misleading way to label the social phenomenon. If there is evidence for consciousness existing outside the constraints of the brain we have not seen it yet.

How do you know if a theory is true? You use the scientific method to test it! (this is the methodology) Galileo didn't just say, "I'd prefer it if the earth revolved around the sun". Well it's not up to people to accept what is true. If it is logically consistent and doesn't contradict the evidence of the senses, then it is binding on people who accept the validity of the scientific method.

Well we do understand what type of behavior indicates consciousness, and while we can't measure it directly in the form of neuronal activity, that is not necessary to determine what can or cannot be conscious. One obvious requirement is the brain, due to the complexity involved in emotions/sensations/thoughts, so that rules out rocks and plants. The issue I have with your definition is that it is so broad that it includes almost everything. Fire releases energy in the form of heat and is a creative/destructive force, yet is it conscious?

Well consciousness is not like a physical organ. We aren't currently able to map it to something specific in the brain. It's just a characteristic that is present in some organisms and not in others, and we're aware of this based on the capability of the organism. So a mouse for example is aware of its own existence, feels pain, reacts to its environment and also can comprehend events to some degree. (like distinguishing between potential threats and harmless objects) Let me ask you something, how do you define 'conscious energy' or 'consciousness' (no need to be complete, a description of characteristics is fine) in order to determine whether it is present or not? How do you separate it from other things in the universe?

Wow, seems like a lot of new posters have joined the boards recently. Welcome! Well so far we don't have a good understanding of how consciousness is possible, but we do know empirically that it requires physical form in terms of matter, since there is no evidence otherwise. (and all forms of consciousness that are observable cease to exist once the life of the organism has ended) Consciousness itself is an organism with awareness (the ability to think or feel, perceive ones surroundings), as opposed to something like a bacteria or plant.