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Embrace the Horror

By David Wong December 10, 2007 40,084 views
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"It is not accurate to say that there is horror in the universe. The universe is horror."

-Dr. Werner Heisenberg, physicist

You're better off not knowing what I'm about to tell you. Once you know it, you can't unknow it and you'll spend the rest of your life wishing you could. Unless you just happen to forget it, though living your life with that kind of a faulty memory would be its own horror, would it not?

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

My glimpse into the true horror of the universe, like all dread glimpses of truth, flashed out from an accidental piecing together of separated things -- in this case an old newspaper item and the shit left behind by my former roomate.

It fell upon me to examine the boxes of shit that grad student G.O. Fuckart had abandoned at my place, as he left no forwarding address. There was little of note in the shoebox of personal records, the stack of paperback books and the porn, porn and porn that littered the room. But there was one box which I found exceedingly puzzling. Not the box itself -- it was merely the empty cardboard container which once contained a Nintendo Gamecube. But what could be the meaning of the queer clay bas-relief (a sort of sculpture on a flat surface) I found inside it?




I did not know. I would have been happier if I had remained in my slumber of ignorance.

The second discovery that would forever plummet me down the horror hole came when I was cleaning out my refrigerator. In the remote reaches of the produce drawer at the bottom I found the remains of an old piece of fish, wrapped in a newspaper. I tested the fish for freshness by smelling it. I regained consciousness some forty-five minutes later.

I was about to throw the rancid meat away when I noticed the year on the newspaper: 1922. Fascinated, I unwrapped it and saw a small article about a German man named Werner Heisenberg, a scientist who had been ticketed and fined on a public nudity & disorder charge. The fine was cancelled, it said, because Heisenberg was also drunk at the time and in Germany public drunkeness actually earns the citizen a small monetary reward.

The incident piqued my interest and I investigated it further. I'm about to share what I discovered and how it relates to the clay artifact G.O. Fuckart left behind. This is your last chance to turn back. I highly recommend you do so.

Werner Heisenberg was a nuclear physicist, meaning he studied atoms and the particles inside the atoms that make up everything in the universe. He knew these very particles had been continously flying around since the universe exploded into existence a very long time ago. The scientist had, in fact, gone past studying reality and was studying inside reality, into the very building blocks of existence. It was, as he put it, "more fascinating than watching a monkey shit a grandfather clock."

Heisenberg's day of horror would come in the fall of 1922. He was performing his atomic experiments (while heavily intoxicated, as is the way among German scientists) and he noticed that it was difficult to measure exactly where the subatomic particles were going and how they were interacting with other particles, because they're so tiny that the enormous microscope he used to view the particles (called a "Mondoscope") would knock them off course when he turned the light on. It seemed like a minor problem, and he certainly didn't realize that all of reality had just come undone before his eyes. He would find out soon enough.

"Hans!" shouted Heisenberg to his young apprentice, Hans Schmeisel. "I cannot measure the movement of the subatomic particles, because when I flip the switch on the Mondoscope the machine itself throws them off their natural course!"

Schmeisel looked at the Mondoscope, then at Heisenberg, then at a printout of the results scrolling out of one of their gigantic diesel-powered computers.

The apprentice began screaming.

"What is it?" demanded Heisenberg, clutching the shrieking young man by the lapel. "You are screaming like a woman! Remember your penis!"

"But Herr Heisenberg," stuttered the assistant, tears streaming down his eyes. "Do you not see? You said you scattered the particles from their natural course when you turned on the Mondoscope! But it is not so!"

"Fool!" shouted Heisenberg, slapping the man across the jowls. "Look at the results!"

"But I have! It is true they were scattered by the Mondoscope! But the particles are also still on their natural course!"

"That's impossible, you sausage-stinking ass!"

"Do you still not see?" squealed the apprentice. "The Mondoscope is itself is made of the same particles you are observing with it! And so is this laboratory! And so is your hand. And so is your brain."

Heisenberg did not understand. Instead, he grabbed a leather strap and gave the assistant a sound beating, for it was not considered proper among physicists at the time for an apprentice to talk back to his master.

"But sir!" Squealed Hans from the floor as the leather strap lashed across his shoulders with a sound like a gunshot. "My brain is made of atoms and atoms only react to other atoms and energies present in the world! They cannot be changed! It was destined from the beginning of time that I should talk back to you just now!"

"So be it!" Screeched Heisenberg. "And so it was also destined from the beginning of time that I should thrash you for it!"


Dr. Werner Heisenberg, 1919


In the throes of his beating frenzy, Heisenberg had not yet realized that all of reality as humans had ever understood it had just melted away, right there in his lab. But in the long night that followed, the truth landed on him like a jackboot on a ferret. Neighbors found Heisenberg that next morning, naked, clinging to the branch of an Elm tree and screaming insults to the wind.

The tree, he ranted to the police who tried to coax him down, would always grow according to the quality of the soil and the rainfall and the air and the genetic code in the seed from which it grew.

"If you change one factor, you change the tree!" slurred Heisenberg, beery urine dribbling down his thigh. "It is as sure as flipping a switch! As it is for the tree, it is for the man in the tree!"

Heisenberg wept, his genitals vibrating with the sobs. "Don't you get it? What this tree will look like ten years from now is decided completely by forces set into motion billions of years ago. And we're made of the same stuff!"

"Well," chuckled one of the officers, "I could have that tree cut down right now! That would show the universe who's boss! We'll see what the cosmic elements have to say about that!"

"You fool! Don't you realize that the lumberjack is himself formed by the same elements as the tree? The tree grows and sprouts green, the lumberjack lumberjacks, but both do it by the same cause-and-effect domino fall. If he cuts down the tree then he was always destined to cut it down! If he changes his mind then he was always destined to change his mind!"




The officer laughed and shook his head. He had heard all that before, way back in school, fate and free will and all that. Fortunately for him, he didn't fully realize what Heisenberg was saying. The police eventually knocked Heisenberg down from the tree by jabbing him with long staffs called "pokeabstimmung."

"Don't you worry, sir," said the officer as he helped Heisenberg into the police van. "The future is what you make it! Just choose to do the right thing!"

Heisenberg let out a long laugh. "Fool! When you were a babe at your mother's crotch, you had a brain built on the genes handed down by your parents! And they got theirs from their parents, all the way back to the first life formed by an accidental cell mutation! And everything you've seen or heard in your life since was fired into your brain as electrical nerve impulses from your eyes and ears. We can measure those impulses! They are physical things! And each of those impulses, what you called 'sights' and 'sounds' threw certain chemical switches in your brain, all of which can also be observed and measured! And those switches, as they turn as predictably as gears in a clock, are what we call 'thoughts' and 'emotions!' And what you know as your 'self' is just the accumulation of chemical changes made to a genetic blueprint! We could change it in a lab! We could make you fall in love! We could make your soul from scratch! EVERYTHING YOU'VE EVER HEARD ABOUT FREE WILL VERSUS FATE CAN NOW BE MEASURED IN A LABORATORY! THE DEBATE IS OVER!"

The police van was two kilometers down the street by the time Heisenberg finished that speech. It's just as well. With that realization, everything the policeman outside had ever thought or said or done in his life would have been rendered utterly ridiculous.

The cop had woken up to go to work in the morning because he believed that having a job was better than living as a hobo in a train car. But to call one thing "better" or "worse" than another is based on the idea that we are able to choose between two outcomes. This is physically impossible, as Heisenberg had found out.

As a scientist, even in a state of extreme inebriation, he knew that if you cool water enough it has to freeze. And if you send certain impulses down the optic nerve into the brain, the gooey neurons that make up the brain have to chemically react in one way. Those chemicals are our thoughts and emotions and personality and actions. Claiming that there is some magical force in the brain that can let us "choose" how our brain chemicals will react to impulses is just as ridiculous as claiming you can make a pot of water boil only with the force of your mind, or that Randy Johnson can make a pitch stop in midair and return to him just because he "chose" for it to do so. The impulses that play on the brain are bound by the exact same laws of physics as the baseball in flight.

To change them would require nothing short of magic.

You're scoffing, just as you were destined to scoff from the moment the universe burst into existence billions of years ago. "After all," you say to your computer monitor, whilst arrogantly stroking your luxuriant beard, "I can choose to stand up or remain sitting! I'm sitting here right now, making the choice! I can do either one! I know what it feels like to freely choose!"

That feeling that you can choose to do something different than what you wind up doing is just a chemical side-effect, an impression of the emotions that feels like something it really isn't, just as a certain formation of clouds can look like a castle or a tree branch can look like it's flipping you the bird. You're getting an impression of something that isn't really there.



I can prove it. Are you sure you want me to?

Okay. You already know that there is a difference between the statement "the waterfall is 50 feet high" and the statement, "the watefall is awesome." The first is fact, the second is opinion. The first is saying something about the waterfall, the second is only saying something about your feelings toward the waterfall. The waterfall is a certain height even if no one is there to observe it, but the waterfall is only "awesome" inside the skull of a person looking at it. When the person leaves, the awesome leaves with him.

But what lots of people don't notice is that all statements making a value judgement on anything ("better" or "worse" or "awesome" or "sucks") are factually meaningless. It's hard, because if you loved the Lord of the Rings movies you don't just think that's your preference. You secretly think that those movies are better than, say, the Carrot Top vehicle Chairman of the Board.



And deep down you let yourself think that even if the whole world loved Chairman better, they'd simply be wrong, as if "better" somehow was a thing that existed outside of people's opinions (which are just the result of chemical reactions in the skull). If you disagree with that, try to prove it. You'll start sputtering that the acting was "more natural" in your film, that the editing was "superior" and the story was "more meaningful." But you'll notice that all you did was break out a few categories and express more opinions, all of which still exist only in your head. You're just saying you prefer one style of acting to another, one type of editing, one type of story.

If you shoot back that critics and film experts universally agree that Rings was better, then are you saying that all you meant by "better" is what critics thought was better? And that if the critics changed their mind, the movie would factually stop being better? So you can never say the critics are "wrong" about a movie because the definition of "better" is just what experts happen to like?

No, of course not. And when asked why a thing is better if you answer "it just is," you lose. The scientific mind doesn't answer "why is the sky blue" with "it just is." You have to give the logical reason for it. And no statement of "better" can be supported in this way. Try it with a friend. It's fun!

"Goodyear tires are better on snow than Firestone."

"Why?"

"They keep you from skidding off the road."

"So you say it's 'better' to keep the car on the road than to drive into a ditch? Why?"

"Because you could be injured or killed if you land in the ditch."

"So you say it's 'better' to be alive than dead? Why?"

"Because society depends on you to do good things and you can't if you're dead."

"So you say it's 'better' to do good things than not to do them? Why?"

"Because society won't survive if people don't do good things. And people need society to thrive and be happy."

"So it's better for people to thrive and be happy than not? Why?"

"It just is."

Bzzzzt. You lose. Think on it long enough and you'll find that, sure, there are opinions on which lots of people agree, but they are still just opinions. And nothing in the universe is "good" or "bad" on its own, apart from what people think of them. So the feeling you get in your gut that tells you water molecules tumbling over rock are "beautiful"...



...and that diarrhea molecules sprayed on bed sheets are "disgusting"...



...is just superstition. You begin to see Heisenberg's horror revealing itself. Your entire life has been lived based on the idea that some objects and states of being are inarguably "better" than others and you've always acted according to that belief. You're still reading this because you thought it would be "better" to read it than to stop reading it. But when you examine the situation you realize you cannot call anything "better" than anything else without stopping to acknowledge that your statement was so meaningless as to not be worth saying.

You're not reading this because it's "better" to. You're reading it because you were always destined to read it.

Every attempt to claim otherwise falls apart. The illusion dissolves. You see things as they are, see that the molecules are what they are and that by the laws of physics, they could not have been anything else and cannot be anything else in the future other than what they are destined to be. Heisenberg's horror, the utter meaninglessness of everything you have ever thought or felt, reveals itself before your eyes like one of those stupid-ass Magic Eye pictures.

Of course if nothing can truly be "better" than anything else, then that includes people's actions, too. This can be proved in the same way. My message board hosted this long and detailed discussion on dog fucking where a few posters said there was nothing wrong with sexing their pets. The response was as loud and angry as it was clumsy and futile:

"But the dog can't give consent! It's like rape!"

"What if she 'presents' herself to me sexually, the way she does with another dog?"

"But... the dog could be injured!"

"It's a big dog and I have a small penis."

"But... but... it's disgusting!"

"That's your opinion, based on arbitrary social taboos. To say dogfucking 'is' disgusting is no more valid than saying The Fast and the Furious 'is' awesome."

"I can't believe you need a reason not to fuck your dog!"

"And yet, you can't come up with one."

The dogfuckers were right, of course. Even if you argue that dogfucking is "bad for society" and could cause the human race to become extinct due to people fucking dogs instead of women, you're still stating an opinion. You're saying it's "better" for the human race to survive than go extinct. Why? "It just is."

As a footnote, it is interesting to notice that, after his discovery, Werner Heisenberg burned his results, abandoned the area of study and tried to build an atomic bomb for the Nazis instead.

And this brings us to the sculpture G.O.Fuckart left behind. With some analysis I was able to identify the image as a Flying Spaghetti Monster.



The Flying Spaghetti Monster, if you haven't heard of it, is an internet phenomenon started to show the utter ridiculousness of religious belief. They point out that you can't prove the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) doesn't exist, even though it's intentionally retarded, and thus all religions are also retarded because they also cannot be proven or disproven. Here I finally found brethren who grasped Heisenberg's terrible secret.

Their website has signed many thousands to the roster of Flying Spaghetti Monster "worshippers" (who laughingly call themselves "Pastafarians") and they are heroically grinding their boot of sarcasm into the face of the old and obsolete school of thought that Hesienberg could have destroyed had he gone public. That obsolete school of thought, in the form of "religion" or "absolute morality" says there are actually two forces that can make things happen in the universe.

The first is the random, mindless motion of physics, energy carrying forth elements spewed from the Big Bang like a handful of Mardi Gras beads farted from a cow's anus.

The other, they claim, is will. The idea is that humans possess control of some kind of invisible metaphysical energy (what they call a "soul") that lets them actually choose their actions, apart from the pure physical push of genetics and stimulus. It supposedly exists independently from the physical brain and it acts by choosing, not based on opinion, but by recognizing inherent "good" and "bad" things in the universe.

They imply that the emotional impression you get from a kitten in a blanket versus a pile of maggots on a human face is a result of the soul actually tuning into an inherent "goodness" in the first and "badness" in the second. They imply that these attributes exist whether you are there to observe them or not. They imply that if there were only two men left on Earth, and one murdered the other, the murder would still be wrong even though there is no one left to think it is wrong.

And by that, they say, humans are able to do something incredible, which is to re-make the physical universe in ways they see fit. It may have been destiny for a stone to roll to a certain spot and stay there, but this power of "will" lets a human actually interrupt that destiny by picking up the stone and sticking it in his pocket.

It only demonstrates how ridiculous this is when we notice that the only observable instance in all of the universe where this power is exercised is via one particular species living in one short span of time on one particular tiny speck of a planet out in the vast ocean of nowhere:


Earth, as seen from Voyager 4 billion miles away


That would suggest that human beings are not only unique in their physiology, but actually harness a sort of energy that is stranger and, in some ways, more powerful than that found in the stars that dwarf their planet. We're back to the ridiculous geocentrism that says all of the universe revolves around us humans. As if there was something special about us.

They also believe that the universe itself was born from this mystical power of preference or "will," in that there are supposedly sentient energies larger and older than the universe itself (what the Chinese call the "Tao" and the Hindus call "karma" and others call a "god") and that those powers either recognize some things as good and some things as bad, as we do, or that they implanted "goodness" or "badness" in the things they created.

In fact, the FSM thing was started in response to a movement in American schools to teach "Intelligent Design," which would teach in science classes something that cannot be measured by any scientists: that this magical force called "will" exists and influences the universe even though it cannot be measured or weighed or seen or smelt. Of course, they should be teaching in the opposite direction. They should be debunking the silliness of "free will" which also cannot be measured or seen or smelt, and obliterating the concept of "morality," which is made up of many "it just is" (or "you just should") statements that also cannot be proven in a laboratory.

What is baffling about the Pastafarians, however, is that they don't demand that. They stop short in their understanding. While rightfully mocking this magical force called "will" in the form of religious belief, many of them seem to cling to the idea of "will" in the human brain. They'll accidentally use words like "mind" as if the "mind" is some separate thing that exists apart from electrochemical signals transmitted between neurons. They may talk about "love" as if it were also some kind of mystical energy and not just a certain kind of neural chain reaction. They laugh at the idea of a "soul" and then proceed to talk and live every day as if they had something exactly like it inside themselves.

Even worse, one Pastafarian chatted with me online and went from mocking the silly creationists, to talking about attending a rally on environmentalism. He said I "should" support cleaner alternative fuels and cutting greenhouse gases:

"Othwerwise global warming is going to get really bad in 30 or 40 years, mass starvation, the whole bit."

"So? I won't be alive for that. I'm already 72 years old."

"Well, yeah, but your children..."

"No kids. I drive an Escalade and I leave it running 24 hours a day, because it might hurt my wrist to twist the key every morning. Don't worry, I can afford it."

"But... what about future generations? Don't you want them to survive, too?"

"Why? How does that affect me? I'll be dead."

"But... but... you should care about your fellow man even if it doesn't benefit you!"

"That's a false emotional impression, left over from our ancient herd instinct. Surely you're not saying that it's 'better' to care about your fellow man than not to."

"Of course I am! People will die if you don't!"

"So you say it's better that people live than die? Why?"

"It just is!"

I was shocked and disappointed. He believed in this invisible, unmeasurable force called "better" as much as he believed in man's equally-unmeasurable ability to discern and act on the "better" thing and that "it just is" right do that "better" thing when given the chance. He believed in things science can't quantify. He believed in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

He had to know that the kind of cold logic he demands of the religions to prove there "just is" a god or an absolute morality is just as lacking in his "just is" statements. To say racism "just is" bad or that I "just should" care about my environment is just as unscientific as the Christian saying you "just should" stay a virgin until marriage.

And even stranger, when talking about the FSM they'll say they want to make people, "think for themselves" and "only teach science in science classes." These would all be admirable goals, if it were actually possible for humans to act apart from their genetic blueprint and external stimulus, which we've long proven they're not. What sort of curriculum Georgia's schools teach next year was determined at the moment of the Big Bang, billions of years ago.

The very core of their movement, that it would be "better" for people to abandon religious beliefs in favor of logical scientific materialism, is contradictory because by the rules of logical scientific materialism nothing in the universe can truly be "better" than anything else and nothing can be changed. I suppose I cannot fault them for this. It's easy to debunk other people's bullshit, any college freshman can do it. It makes you feel better about your own bullshit. But it takes real balls to debunk your own.

After all, it is the exact same anthropomorphism that lets humans look to the sky and see "God" that lets them look to their own brain and see "free will." It's simply projecting personality where there is none. It's also the same method of thinking that lets a little girl honestly believe that her teddy bear is her "friend." To believe otherwise, is to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The Pastafarian's beliefs turn out to not be one bit more scientific than those of the Muslim or the Christian or the Malaysian cult that worships a giant teapot.



My friends, we cannot blind ourselves. We have to embrace the horror.

We've let religious quacks say for centuries that there's a layer of self-evident truth at which you stop asking questions because the questions become meaningless. They say asking why dog-fucking is disgusting is like asking why time is running forward rather than backward. They say it factually, "just is." They say you can stop there, that you only clean the windshield until you see the road, and then you're done cleaning.

But that is an arbitrary stopping point. We cannot make their mistake. If you throw up your hands and say, "eh, free will just works somehow, it's Quantum physics or something," or, "I'll just live my life and not worry about it," then you might as well have stopped with, "it just is." Though I guess that would rob you of the chance to make fun of those other people.

No, we must push through to the absolute and terrible truth of the universe, to ride the horror like a dolphin at Seaworld. After we have "cleaned the windshield" enough to see the road we must then look until we can see through the road itself. And through what's behind it and what's behind what's behind it. Real logical inquiry doesn't stop until you've seen through everything. Then, when you can look and see absolutely nothing, you have found the truth.





My pen hesitates at this point, shaking in my very fingers. I have realized, to my horror, that by the very act of writing this I have violated everything I just said. I cannot instruct you on how to see the universe because you were pre-destined to see it in one way, regardless of what actions I think I "chose" to take. I'm even writing this based on the unspoken assertion that it was "better" to write it than not. The very act of saying what I said contradicts what I say, like a man who tells you everything he says is a lie.

So, nevermind, I guess.

-David Wong


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123 Comments

HOLY SHITFUCK CARROT TOP IS BLINKING IN THAT PICTURE

10/23/2009 2:10:08 PM
janek

I was not at all expecting a philosophical article, but it seems it is destined that I was to read this and it has given me much to think about.

10/17/2009 11:27:15 PM
Amadman

While indeed the concept of morality is a laughable one, without free will we probably would not have gotten this far. Despite the fact that our brains are technically a mushy mass of neurons and tissue, it creates something much more than that, the thing that differentiates us from other beings, a consciousness; and that is the closest we have to free will. If it were not for free will, would I be sitting here reading this? I'm reading this because I thought it would be "better" than performing another activity. And while that is simply an opinion that exists solely within my head, it is because of it that I am here right now. There were 15 links, but I CHOSE to click on this one because my brain told me to. I could have clicked on any other, but after thoroughly analyzing the options, I decided this one was the most worthwhile. I made a choice. And don't give me bullshit about the particles in my brain and stimulus. I could have chosen any of those links. Our brains aren't just made the way they are right now. Every second of life molds our thinking processes in different ways. Everything that has ever happened to me has influenced my decisions made from that moment. And all of those events were in turn affected by other people, who were affected by other events, and so on. Even if is this is what you truly believe, then please don't publish articles like these. Free Will is all we have left to live for. If indeed we have no free will and no morality, then we should try to simply live life happily, as there doesn't even seem to be a purpose anymore. If ignorance is bliss, then why do you have to reveal the truth in such a shocking way? Most people can't take that. You live however you want to live, but try not to f**k up other people's lives, free will or no free will. And if you haven't read Kurt Vonnegut, then that's what you will be doing next week. It's been destined since the Big Bang.

10/14/2009 7:33:37 PM
Colombus

This article was entertaining and thought-provoking.

However, as many people have already pointed out, the field of quantum mechanics actually provides substantial evidence AGAINST a deterministic view of the universe. Basically, scientists realized that things on the smallest quantum levels act in completely random and unpredictable ways.

Ergo, it is incorrect to say that everything was determined from the moment the Universe was created. Instead, the exact opposite is true. Everything is actually completely random, and NOTHING can be precisely determined.

Of course, you can always "determine" that the earth will exist tomorrow, and chances are that you'll be right. But, according to Quantum mechanics, there is a very very very slight chance that the Earth might disappear tomorrow. This probability is so close to zero that it is laughable, but the probability exists.

But if you take this down to a smaller level and observe the smallest subatomic particles, you'll find that they tend to zip in and out of existence spontaneously, leaving scientists befuddled. The fact that matter can actually spontaneously cease to exist is troubling, to the say the least.

In conclusion, I think that the real horror of the Universe isn't that everything is completely determined. The real horror is that nothing is determined, and everything is subject to probabilities.

Nevertheless, I agree with the idea that free will is an illusion (we are, after all, a collection of molecules with some sort of an illusion of self-awareness). I also agree with the idea that "better" and "good" are ultimately meaningless. Even though I may think that being alive is "better" than being dead, I have nothing to back up that statement other than the fact that I really, really like to live.

9/16/2009 10:40:33 PM
omnikaush

bigdaddy93, I'm sorry to be the one to say this, but the reactions of a person who doesn't believe in what you think doesn't really qualify as proof. This is what Wong does, he poses realistic existential questions, entwined with comedy to get his audience both thinking and entertained, so though there are obvious bits that aren't real, there are also numerous questions to consider after reading. What you supposed, would be like me going into a catholic church and saying "Your god's not even real", I may or may not be correct, but that doesn't mean those people aren't going to hate me for it.

9/13/2009 9:27:05 AM
montblanc

I'm 95% certain this is satire. 95%. If it is satire, as a scathing indictment of reductionism and fatalistic thinking, it's a bit of a non-starter. I say this because you seem to have convinced most of the people who read it of the veracity of that mindset. On the offside chance you're being serious, go tell a cancer patient that the ongoing battle with cancer is meaningless, because "well" and "not-well" have an equal ultimate value. When she hands you back your face, we'll talk further.

9/3/2009 8:36:44 PM
bigdaddy93

Sunny, you're missing my point. I never said that a good knife is a good thing. In fact, I explicitly denied it in certain cases.

"Good" isn't like "red". If something's a red car then it's also a red vehicle and a red thing. This is called a "predicative" term. "Good" is like "complete" or "half". The truth conditions of its use depend on what kind you attach it to. So, for instance, something can be a "complete" chapter without being a "complete" novel or a "complete" thing. This is called an "attributive" term.

Most people don't learn the logic of attribution, so words like "good" and "complete" throw them. However, arguing that I can't say that a good knife is a good knife without saying it is a good thing is like arguing that I can't say that a complete chapter isn't a complete chapter without saying it is a complete novel or a complete thing. Attribution just doesn't work that way.

Neither does the word "good". When people try to use "good" as a predicate like "red", it becomes a mess. But that mess doesn't show that the word is meaningless, just that people don't understand attribution.

9/3/2009 9:03:55 AM
Oceanus

And hey, your 2nd to last paragraph reminds me a lot of Jean Paul Sartre's discourse on existentialism.
Personally, I think it's "better" to teach everyone some of the topics you covered here, because there are enough smart, non-tyrannical people in the world who, adopting this perception of the world, can make greater progess towards absolute truth.
But that's just my opinion, not any better than those of the state of Texas, which has forced Bibles into schools this year.

9/3/2009 1:52:40 AM
sunnysidedown

"Why do you think "good" is dependent on emotion and free will? Water is good for trees. There's no emotion of free will there. A good knife is sharp. This isn't just a part of my desires for the knife. A serial killer can have a good knife, while the good knife is still a bad thing. "Good" is an attributive term, defined in terms of characteristics relative to the powers of a kind. "

What are you even saying? He's basically asking, why is a dull knife better than a sharp knife? Because it can cut better? What makes that a good thing? Why should things be cut and, if it's because it aids tasks such as eating watermelon, then why is cracking a watermelon open on the ground and shoving your face in it any worse? If you say because it feels uncomfortable then you were born with that sensation, free of your will.

Same with the plant analogy. What makes a dead plant better than a live plant? The beneficial emissions into our environment? Why is that 'good'?

Another example that brings credence in this article is something cited by another post of David's, Conservapedia. In the post he writes that if the media is in any way biased against conservatives then it's because there aren't that many conservative journalists. Well, why? Clearly a series of experiences shaped their beliefs, and those beliefs shaped what they deemed to be fulfilling jobs.

9/3/2009 1:20:36 AM
sunnysidedown

There seems to be a lot of confusion in this article. To name a few:

1) You use the word "just" a lot, where is isn't justified (hehe pun). Even a bowl isn't "just" clay. It's also a bowl. What makes something a bowl is a capacity to hold liquid, a capacity that clay doesn't have unless put into a particular shape. So, a bowl isn't just clay; it's clay in a particular shape (or set of shapes). This is usually called "emergence" and is far to complicated to just assume reductionism and throw around the word "just"

2) Have you heard of "compatibilism" in ethics? It's the view that indeterminism isn't required for moral responsibility and it's a widely held position in ethics. In fact, it's probably the majority view among professional philosophers studying ethics. Hume was a compatibilist, as one example.

3) Why do you think "good" is dependent on emotion and free will? Water is good for trees. There's no emotion of free will there. A good knife is sharp. This isn't just a part of my desires for the knife. A serial killer can have a good knife, while the good knife is still a bad thing. "Good" is an attributive term, defined in terms of characteristics relative to the powers of a kind.

4) I simply don't get the whole, "It just is", thing. Any explanation is going to have to stop somewhere, even scientific ones. The standard view of atheist philosophers of science is that the fundamental laws of nature, whatever they might be, are just what are called "brute facts", which is as close to "it just is" as a concept can be. Something is going to have to be either self-explanatory or unexplained; an infinite regress would be vicious.

Anyway, that's all just off the top of my head. The idea that we have "discovered" the meaninglessness of all existence is just silly. The philosophical concepts involved in such a claim are still in a process of being worked out and are highly contentious. You might want to reconsider the freedom-emotivism-morality and determinism-knowledge-indifference conceptual knots you've tied up your thought into.

9/2/2009 10:17:05 PM
Oceanus

I've embraced the horror, took it to the movies and had sex with it in a cheap motel.

Or shouldn't I have?


I would say you are my new god. But then again, why want a god because it doesn't make any difference in the long run. OR DOES IT?

Who'll ever know, timeline differences don't exist in a linear world.

8/11/2009 5:40:34 AM
Serefan

I want to make sweet dirty love to your brain.

8/10/2009 11:37:38 AM
cutelz

"The existing scientific concepts cover always only a very limited part of reality, and the other part that has not yet been understood is infinite."

—Werner Heisenberg

Those who think that quantum mechanics leads to determinism have not even the slightest understanding of quantum mechanics. If anything, quantum mechanics destroyed the determinism implicit in old school Newtonian physics by demonstrating just how little we truly understand our world. It is not mere coincidence that the founding figures of quantum mechanics were drawn to religion and mysticism, Oppenheimer being the classic example.

I would write more, but have not the time; I shall return to this page later on.

8/5/2009 12:17:15 AM
SergeiAndropov

It is funny how materialism makes questions that have the same answer regardless of your metaphysical bent seem more threatening. Socrates asked Euthyphro where morality came from well over 2000 years ago and there wasn't a causal answer within the theistic viewpoint. Also, when a person is free (not restrained by physical force) to do what he/she wants, regardless of whether matter is the whole show, he/she will always do what he/she wants. That is the essence of freedom, you may do what you want, but your wants have come from outside of you.

Materialism did not cause these dellimas, it just helped us to see them.

Morality requires faith and a willinness to see the chain of causality end on a moral law. Science also requires a faith in a determistic and consistent universe (there is no causal reason that whatever laws of physics that are fundimental cause things to act in the way they do, experience just tells us that they do).

The sense of it all is just that it is.

8/1/2009 9:31:29 PM
IWantToComment

I just re-read this, and was surprised to find out how much of my personal philosophy and way of thinking comes from it. I doubt I'd be nearly as cynical as I am now if I hadn't read it. And then I got thinking about how I don't understand what conciousness is, and if emotion is an illusion how can there even be someone for it to fool, and I would like to find out, but liking doesn't really exist, and at this point my brain dissolves because everything is hypocritical and sitting on my arse being confused doesn't seem like the best course of action but "best" doesn't exist and it's what's probably going to end up happening

I have just forgotten how to think
aah

7/28/2009 5:15:11 AM
MainHurdyGurdy

"You harped on this "better" concept for entirely too long for me to let it go unchallenged, written in 2007 or no.

It doesn't matter that "better" is relative. The concept of "better", formed by the "mind" aka the "brain", as predetermined by the Big Bang (or to be accurate, whatever happened first... ever), is what drives an individual's "want", and the "want" makes our choices for us. And don't downplay any attempts to "change" things. Because in order for the universe to be what it was predetermined to be, the things that were predetermined have to happen. We have no problem with things being set in stone because, wouldn't you know it, the things we were predetermined to do were the things we were going to do anyway. No one ever says "I didn't want to put on this particular pair of socks today! Curse you, big bang!" "

But don't you realise the implications of this? You and Hitler are no different, because there no system of morality is superior to another's. If you put a gun to Hitler's head and shot him, you would have no justification beyond "Because!" No legal system can truly find a man guilty, because their interpretation of right and wrong is not any "better" than the accused man's.

Even if absolute morality is irrational, I'd prefer that society continue to practice it. I think everything would collapse without it.

7/25/2009 3:48:19 AM
Maw

You harped on this "better" concept for entirely too long for me to let it go unchallenged, written in 2007 or no.

It doesn't matter that "better" is relative. The concept of "better", formed by the "mind" aka the "brain", as predetermined by the Big Bang (or to be accurate, whatever happened first... ever), is what drives an individual's "want", and the "want" makes our choices for us. And don't downplay any attempts to "change" things. Because in order for the universe to be what it was predetermined to be, the things that were predetermined have to happen. We have no problem with things being set in stone because, wouldn't you know it, the things we were predetermined to do were the things we were going to do anyway. No one ever says "I didn't want to put on this particular pair of socks today! Curse you, big bang!"

There. Horror dissipated.

I love the overall concept, though. Or at least my brain thinks it does.

7/15/2009 6:48:03 PM
thekg

You do realize my head literally exploded, don't you?

Seriously, it's disgusting.

7/13/2009 11:37:23 PM
Chickamauga

There are enough comments here to discuss to get me thoroughly fired from work for unproductive use of time, so I'm going to comment only on Humility's previous post.

You cannot prove that any event, be it movement or lack thereof in regards to any matter or antimatter, is indeed random. One can only prove randomness by absolutely knowing the outcome of a series of events and observing varied behavior. Since one cannot know the future of all events of the matter in the universe, it cannot be said that those events are not in fact predetermined. Likewise, it cannot be said that they are predetermined. They merely are what they are.

The only observations that can be said to be accurate are those made from outside of a system, like a scientist watching the movements of a mouse in a maze. He is outside the mouse's universe, and thusly can make complete observations and statements with complete (or as complete as possible) truth.

Since a "higher power" that should exist outside the bounds of our universe, be it described in three dimensions or ten dimensions, cannot be observed from within the closed system itself, one can never make an accurate statement regarding the qualities of said power.

One can also not say that there is not another layer outside of the "higher power's" universe (or whatever such system it exists within) that dictates the actions and "will" of the power. In that regard, no comments describing the existence or qualities of such a being (or non-being) can be considered to be truthful.

Perhaps an infinite being existing outside the scope of our understanding can do such things as extending will unto all creations, but it cannot be proven (or disproven). One (of reasonable intelligence) could only say that their opinion or basis for belief is based solely on their own opinion, which I would hope is based on their understanding of probability.

With regards to probability, there is probably not a giant flying spaghetti monster. There is probably much that is wrong, but it cannot be proven or disproven. Just play the odds.

7/9/2009 10:29:49 AM
Norla

Except for one small problem, with higher dimensions, black matter and energies like that which don't follow a predestined course because they are in fact random, nothing is destined.

Any higher power existing above our dimension with such an infinite mind, would truly have free will and thus should be able to extend that free will to any of his creation.

7/1/2009 10:27:20 PM
Humility

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