[Royce]

I guess that's one way to see it - just accepting that our crude human brains are so limited that we might as well be deceived about everything, and that we'll probably never answer the Big Questions of existence, so we might just as well go with the flow and stop worrying about these things.

(Bakker would probably disagree with that agnostic view - at the end of Neuropath, he basically says that agnosticism is just another comforting lie.)

I can never put away my curiosity towards these questions. My "problem" is that I can not fully commit to an idea. I can be committed
for awhile, but not for long. It is very tiring, and I have accepted long ago that I will most likely never commit fully to one idea, philosophy,ideology or whatever. Thats just how I am wired:).

Well, Bakker is also just a confused monkey like the rest of us.

[Callan S.]

that's a strawperson, the contention that the atheist or materialist has no reference point outside of self.  my marxist position is undergirded by kantian deontology, and i see no reason why we can't assemble general duties in the absence of immaterialist speculation.  if necessary, i can reduce a concept of ethical duty to published legal codes. don't get more material than that.  (you may have a point against ayn rand, though--she hated marx, kant, deonotological arguments, the concept of duty, &c.)

I can see how the pyramid structure of current society tends to dictate the fundimentals of any further development - we have duties to keep certain people on top of the pyramid and duty to grant them control of resources below them?

I'd kind of pay that sans a god idea, newly minted moral imperatives will hover around keeping the rich, rich. As much as the god idea caused a but load of wars, it being on the other end of an extreme spectrum, it was a leash that held the other end of the extremism from too much grip.

[sciborg2]

I'd hoped Harris might have grand metaphysical answers but he early on notes there are "obvious" morals so I don't expect him to identify the grounding of these morals.

I think one reason Bakker is a less optimistic materialist is that he's considered the effect rewiring brains could have on morality. Even if our wiring is responsible for the generally accepted moral compass, spirituality at least grounded the "ought" in the Is-Ought problem so Good was somehow written into the universe.

Without that grounding, I'm honestly a bit wary of what the future brings. I mean this guy on Wikileaks manages to rationalize why child porn is acceptable, imagine his moral musings if he thought no one had free will in the matter.

[Callan S.]

In the red dwarf series I thought it was BS at first that the cats left behind on the ship would evolve into humans over time. But then I realised the ship was designed for humans - so the optimal shape to form into is that of a human.

Just saying as a bit of speculative hope that maybe the optimal form for the universe is to shape into morality? Then again maybe rape is as well? Maybe the universe is conflicted?

I was both starting to feel sick reading the justifications thing and also it seemed like the same old wall of text bullshit justification method that simply hides it's shit justification by spreading it amongst thousands of words whilst using normalising words over and fucking ove ('industry'? - I'll fucking show you industry - how about normalising popping you guys into wood chippers - that'd be just as much an industry and so pretty fucking cool, eh?). Where does it get to any sort of justification? Any particular paragraph?

[sciborg2]

I think it's what you say Callan - he smears his argument over paragraphs of smarmy calmness. It's interesting how he assures us how the "bad child pornographers" are just evil parents, while the rest of the industry is so much better.

But the conclusions at the end are probably where you'd see his final considerations about how consumption of child porn should be legalized.

[Royce]

Without that grounding, I'm honestly a bit wary of what the future brings. I mean this guy on Wikileaks manages to rationalize why child porn is acceptable, imagine his moral musings if he thought no one had free will in the matter.

I am going to be a dickhead now.Without even reading about this, I jump to the conclusion that this guy needs to get his head caved in. I would happily cave it in(not really, I am kind of a pussy when it comes to fighting).

I guess it boils down to that I have a daughter, and the thought of abuse makes me boiling with rage. So I am of course biased, so maybe he has some good points.

Just saying as a bit of speculative hope that maybe the optimal form for the universe is to shape into morality? Then again maybe rape is as well? Maybe the universe is conflicted?

Yes, it would be interesting to see what shape it would take. If the universe is conflicted, rape is possibly as valuable as love, in the sense that it makes you more certain that rape is wrong when you actually know that it happens.

[mrganondorf]

This thread got me thinking "is a non-materialist morality possible?"  This is something I love about the TSA--Bakker is inventing a world chock full of meaning, like Narnia but not skipping any of the hard issues.  Morality in this setting seems to be arbitrary and/or simply based on power.  That doesn't mean the materialist has a better answer, sure, but I really like thinking of TSA as an extended, full-detailed experiment in having all the meaning/morality you could wish for and finding out that its a raw deal.

[sciborg2]

Well, immaterialist immortality is really just a way to ground our moral sentiments.

Which is not to flat out deny Moral Realism, as I've not read the arguments supporting such an idea, but I would give a minimum argument that the moral principles we've inherited via evolution and our social history is are more easily upheld when they're assumed to be part of the universe's structure.

[Callan S.]

I would think more easily upheld when we have a relatively good supply of food, water, dentistry, immunisation and sanitation (and probably alot of other infrastructure I'm forgetting). I'd pay that.

Ironically when someone, when nursed amongst all that infrastructure, can't maintain behavioural norms that keep that infrastructure going* because 'it's not real' and instead do whatever the hell they want, I actually think that's a bad person.

* Caveat: Sometimes it only seems a certain norm is needed to keep the infrastructure going. So if for example someone takes their pet anaconda for a walk down the street, it breaks a norm but...upon reflection it's not breaking the infrastructure really, if at all.

[sciborg2]

Heh, well regardless of veracity we may have to question whether disbelieving free will is a good thing:

The Value of Believing in Free Will: Encouraging a Belief in Determinism Increases Cheating:

http://www.carlsonschool.umn.edu/assets/91974.pdf

~~~

Prosocial Benefits of Feeling Free: Disbelief in Free Will Increases Aggression and Reduces Helpfulness:

https://users.wfu.edu/~masicaej/Baumeisteretal2009PSPB.pdf

~~~

Inducing Disbelief in Free Will Alters Brain Correlates of Preconscious Motor Preparation: The Brain Minds Whether We Believe in Free Will or Not:

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/22/5/613.short