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The Universe -- For Better Or Worse?
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Bill wrote: "At the moment the universe is basically kind. But it could change to unkind at any time, and eventually it will."Remember the end of the question, Bill: Why do you say that?
Bill wrote: "For me personally, my health is good, my loved ones are not suffering, and I don't live in a police state. So life is good.But I know this will eventually change. I and my loved ones will all s..."
So, the whole question, for you, is circumstantial?
The universe is indifferent. It cares not a jot or a tittle about our discussion or anything else we do.
OK Jimmy and Patrice...that is certainly one possible take on things. So, as a result - should be diligent in our attempts to ward off suffering? Or should we just go with the flow?
Is the glass half full or half empty? Yes.
Good and bad are the two polar opposites that humans need to categorize action and sentiment in order to establish control. Morality is what sprouted from this concept and then developed into more extreme ideas such as religion. Religion adopted the eternal concept and ultimately scared people into choosing goodness over bad, therefor taking control.In the end, humans link several concepts - that derive from the psyche - and meld them to together to benefit their own cause, for example, the Church took Cartesian duality and paired it with morality to create heaven, hell and purgatory.
The majority of concepts that derive from human sentiment are baseless and illusion.
I totally veered off track, sorry.
I'd add, Bo, that the ground for Cartesian duality had already been fertilized by the Church's neoplatonic roots. They were in the right frame of mind to accept Descartes. The majority of concepts that derive from human sentiment are baseless and illusion.
I agree in general. But I do think the characterization of things as good and bad (or evil) can have a rational basis independent of our feelings about them.
The universe is random and indifferent. We must be constantly diligent to prevent calamity and suffering
Tyler wrote: "I'd add, Bo, that the ground for Cartesian duality had already been fertilized by the Church's neoplatonic roots. They were in the right frame of mind to accept Descartes. The majority of conce..."
I can only agree, for you are obviously much more educated than myself. Im only 17, still naive and most likely immature. Haha. I will absorb what you've said, and be less bold with asserting my uneducated propositions.
Hi Bo --Don't sell yourself short. To be 17 and able to discuss Descartes is a sign of sharp thinking. At 17, I could never have said anything about about Cartesian dualism.
Hi Robert --About the original question I'm an existentialist. So I think mankind is alone in a universe that's either hostile or indifferent to our needs. So I'm tempted to choose option 2.
However, I'm not sure that there's a "drift" towards a kinder or unkinder state. All we can say about the universe right now is that it just is.
Tyler wrote: "Hi Bo --Don't sell yourself short. To be 17 and able to discuss Descartes is a sign of sharp thinking. At 17, I could never have said anything about about Cartesian dualism."
Thank you, very mush so. I just love philosophy, it's all I really care about.
Im also for option 2, my sentiments are akin to that of an existential nihilist. I believe the universe to be indifferent to our needs. Humans are desperately searching for meaning, and so they think that their petty trifles are important enough to be judged by a higher being, which is sadly, an object of fantasy that has become an axiom - god.
I don't think we can trust the future, for everything just happens as is, there's no set-path for you that promises benevolence.
Thanks everyone. I'm a life-long student of philosophy, and in the past have taken great pleasure (intellectually) from reading it. But now, a moment of honesty:Just because it's fun doesn't mean it's important. Most of it is complete dribble, what a friend once called "mental masturbation". I think, actually, that there are very few important questions that have come out of philosophy. I posed the one above because I think that it (specifically in the way that I framed and qualified it) is one of those few important questions.
Bo - a piece of advice. Enjoy philosophy. But don't take it too seriously. When you say "it's all I really care about", that makes me queasy. The taste of your coffee in the morning, the touch of your lover's hand, the feeling that another person is more important than yourself, the arts, etc. are all more important, when all is said and done.
Kind and unkind are in the eyes of the beholder(s). They are also subjective because what is kind to one thing/being may be unkind to another. An example I will share is a poem about this very topic. I hope you enjoy it!!THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience)
By William Blake
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
PS thanks for starting the thread, Robert. I love pondering the universe.
Then there's the whole other school of thought that basically says in order to experience "kind" you must also experience "unkind" in order to have a frame of reference. :)
The universe is neutral; it is not kind or unkind. My perception of whether I perceive it to be kind or unkind, stems from a personal frame of reference and therefore all that is important to me, is whether I personally perceive the universe to be kind or unkind. I believe that the latter is to quite a large extent influenced by my actions and attitudes, and in smaller part by co-incidence.
Robert wrote: "Bo - a piece of advice. Enjoy philosophy. But don't take it too seriously. When you say "it's all I really care about", that makes me queasy. The taste of your coffee in the morning, the touch of your lover's hand, the feeling that another person is more important than yourself, the arts, etc. are all more important, when all is said and done. "I know what you mean. Although I have my reasons for my single mindedness, this stuff is all that really brings me some form of enjoyment, and also it serves a good distraction to obstruct negative reflection, and also justification and fuel for apathy, which has proven to be sorely necessary if I plan on moving on :)
And I completely agree with what you said about only some philosophy being ultimately relevant. Some idiot like Charles Manson can make insane propositions and even that is labeled philosophical... And philosophical thought does have the tendency to verge on self indulgent at times.
Rob the Obscure wrote: "1. The universe is basically "kind". The general drift of things is toward the good, the pleasant. In our personal lives, we can have a fundamental trust in the future for ourselves. Therefore, ..."Neither. The universe is just what it is. Neither kind nor unkind, neither fair nor unfair. But you write the rules by which your universe plays. No prizes for guessing that each of us wishes to create a personal space in which her strengths matter more than her weaknesses, and in which she can be herself. And this can be done. But it takes energy and dedication to get there.
The choice does not make sense, since to be kind or unkind is the action of a person. Unless, the universe is consider as one, the universe is neither. I guess, as a methphor, it might have some sense. In this way the universe could be deemed hazardous or nonhazardous. In this case the universe would appear to be both. I wouldn't stand next to an erupting volcano, yet the earth bares fruit to eat. Oops, that supernova just destroy its entire solar system, including possible life, which it once made possible.
I choose #2. More pragmatic and more inclined towards a view of history. The hand of fate is never stilled; every physical thing must sooner or later face dissolution. Atoms eventually part from each other and the products they form, must crumble away into dust. Given enough time, even the pyramids must disappear.Geneticists might like option #1 because it reminds us of evolution's trend towards increasingly complex creatures. But outside of evolution, astrophysics offers the unavoidable principle of the universe's inevitable 'heat death'. It will simply run down, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
I still maintain, that unless the universe as a whole is conscious or something like it, the universe is indifferent. And a universe that ends in heat death would not seem like a likely candidate for consciousness.
Indifference is a human attitude though. Even this can't be ascribed by us to the cosmos. Any kind of 'caring' or 'uncaring' is saying too much.
Feliks wrote: "Indifference is a human attitude though. Even this can't be ascribed by us to the cosmos. Any kind of 'caring' or 'uncaring' is saying too much."True
A truck parks next to an ant hill. The ants come out and see the side of the tire looming far above their hill. Soon, the ants start arguing about the tire. What is it? Where did it come from? Is it good or evil?Does it matter?
Of course it matters. What you've just described is an event. Events such as a moving tire need time & space to take place. They require elements of physics like mass, geometry, inertia, momentum and gravity. A world of conclusions can be drawn from the appearance of a tire, as far as those ants are concerned. Motive can be questioned. Ethics can be generated.
To the ants it seems to matter a lot.
Now the truck has been parked all weekend. It was a long weekend, labor day. The ants have been arguing a lot. A few ants have circumnavigated the tire and reported that there was a strange dark area on the other side of the tire. There was also that self proclaimed prophet who climbed the tire and claimed to have found the word of God inscribed on the side. (35 PSI is one of the largest ant cults.)The truck's owner gets back in and drives away. The ants are thunderstruck by the sudden disappearence of the tire. Arguments ensue.
Why does any of this matter?
It was an event. Events happen all the time. The tire only seems unique because it was observed by the ants.
The ants observed it and were changed by it? OK, but the ants never really understood the tire. For instance, the ants never knew about the truck and it's driver. (Probably a good thing. The driver has been watching a lot of youtube videos wherein people pour molten aluminum into ant hills.) Therefore their conclusions were completely wrong.
Any phenomenon, difference, change, or transition witnessed by an observer, can conceivably stimulate growth/depth/advancement/understanding in that observer.
Feliks,I will concede that personal advancement has signifigant value to the individual. I will further concede that some advancements may be of great value to societies and even the species. However, I submit that the value of these advancements is limited by their durability.
We look at history, and think that there is a progression. But this view is limited. We are seperated from the oldest names we know, (names like Zoser and Imhotep), by less than 330 generations. This is a discussion which requires a sense of deep time, and against that we haven't done anything of note.
In a few billion years our sun will either destroy our home or burn it and possibly eject it into the cold blackness between the stars. If life survives here, it will be as microbes in deep crustal rock formations. The only advancements that will matter at that point are the advancements which will allow our posterity to endure.
And when it comes to deep time the end of the Earth is not far away.
Now according to Plato, the aim of the good society is neither freedom, nor economic well-being. Rather, the aim of the good society is justice.
2. The universe is basically "unkind". The general drift of things is toward the bad - the unpleasant - trouble. In our personal lives, we can have no fundamental trust in the future for ourselves. Rather, we must be constantly diligent to prevent calamity and suffering.
Without resorting to explanations of philosophical or theological history, and without splitting hairs on socio-economic conditions in various countries or societal strata, if you are interested and willing state your own personal position on these two alternative worldviews, and why.