Barbarity in the USA! (Sung to Springsteen's memorable hit)

[Aeson]

I concluded that the natural universe does not contain information about the value of its contents;

Certainly it does. Anything that can be perceived has a value. If not, it couldn't be perceived.

More to the point though, we (and any other sentient beings) are part of the universe. The assessments we make are assessments the universe as a whole makes. Thus the sum assessments made by sentience is what is important universally. Clearly that leads to a form of utilitarianism as a universal morality (eg. what is best). Increase your enjoyment without decreasing, and ideally while increasing, the enjoyment of others. It's pretty simple stuff to comprehend at the extremes, even if it gets muddled in edge cases and because of perspective biases.

[Lorizael]

Certainly it does. Anything that can be perceived has a value. If not, it couldn't be perceived.

Moral value.

More to the point though, we (and any other sentient beings) are part of the universe. The assessments we make are assessments the universe as a whole makes. Thus the sum assessments made by sentience is what is important universally. Clearly that leads to a form of utilitarianism as a universal morality (eg. what is best). Increase your enjoyment without decreasing, and ideally while increasing, the enjoyment of others. It's pretty simple stuff to comprehend at the extremes, even if it gets muddled in edge cases and because of perspective biases.

This is not a conversation I'm interested in having. We're coming at this from very different places, to the extent that I can identify at least 4 major things we disagree about from this post alone.

[Aeson]

Yes, I'm taking the self-less view, and you are taking the self-ful view. My view of course encompasses your's, even though in the end it doesn't agree with it fully. (Though much more than would be ideal.)

[Aeson]

Moral value.

The distinction is not clear. Arrangement of matter can have many different perceived values, and moral value is one of them.

[Lorizael]

Yes, I'm taking the self-less view, and you are taking the self-ful view. My view of course encompasses your's, even though in the end it doesn't agree with it fully. (Though much more than would be ideal.)

Ah, no. That is not what I would identify as one of our differences. But that's part of why I don't think this would be a particularly productive conversation--we can't even agree about what we disagree about.

[Sava]

For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me, I feel the need to add something here. Your theories don't track with my actions historically. After I formulated my philosophy in 2003, I talked about it with the people close to me because I wanted them to know what I believed. Reactions were almost universally negative. For a guy who was lonely and trying to make friends, this was a pretty disastrous result. I learned the lesson that expressing my beliefs does nothing but generate antipathy. If I had wanted to seem edgy or contrarian, I might have kept doing it. But instead I stopped. irl, excepting a couple people (one friend, previous girlfriends), I don't discuss my philosophy with people I know, and I never discuss it with people I don't know. I do it here, every once in awhile, because the consequences online are relatively mild. Otherwise I keep it to myself. I have only to read over old chat logs of my friends yelling at me about how stupid and evil and arrogant my beliefs are to remind myself why I don't do it anymore.

(This, btw, is one possible narrative for the events around that time. Another is that I was still seriously depressed and consequently very angry. This anger seeped into interactions with my friends, who were unable to contain their frustration over my depression while I was being a dick to them and responded by attacking my beliefs, because the alternative was attacking me personally.)

Trolololol

[Aeson]

Ah, no. That is not what I would identify as one of our differences. But that's part of why I don't think this would be a particularly productive conversation--we can't even agree about what we disagree about.

Why are you worried about productivity on an internet forum? I enjoy talking about things I talk about, which is why I talk about them.

The self-ful/less distinction seems to be the root cause. A process which viewed the entire universe as "self" would naturally come to the conclusion that the most good for the most parts of the universe was the most good for itself, and view all sentient "beings" as actually part of itself. You and I and everyone else are at some lesser (in scope) definition of "self" and so view what is most good for ourselves differently. But I can certainly see on an abstract level how a larger scope would affect the view the universe.

As for the subject of moral assessment vs any other assessment...

Consider an abnormal (to us) process that viewed red wavelengths of light as good and wholesome, and green wavelengths light as evil and wicked. The inputs could be objectively assessed for their quality, even if the assessment itself (as all assessments are) was subjective. You might say because it's so fundamentally different than our views on morality that it's necessarily "wrong", but it still would be a moral assessment made by a component of the universe. If all sentient beings in the universe were to assess things as such, then undeniably red light would be good and wholesome while green light was evil and wicked. The very act of assessing it makes it so. (eg. that what "good and wholesome" and "evil and wicked" actually are.)

I think we both would agree that morality isn't an absolute or objective thing. But that doesn't mean morality doesn't exist, or that there can't be an overarching morality that describes what is best for [whatever scope you want to take]. As you alluded to earlier, without such assessments nothing would ever be done.

The only difference between your own goal, and a goal for humanity, is the scope of your perspective and attachment level.

[Sava]

I don't know if you guys need to smoke more weed or less.

[Aeson]

Are you saying there are situations where less weed is advisable?

[Lorizael]

Can you smoke negative weed? Probably only when you're smoking weed.

[Sava]

Are you saying there are situations where less weed is advisable?

Speaking with law enforcement.

[Alexander's Horse]

Just light a match and walk away eh Moby

[I AM MOBIUS]

Moi?

[Kidlicious]

A woman has to like kill 100 white american babies to get the do. No wonder mobius is upset. They killed his hero.

[Kidlicious]

Certainly it does. Anything that can be perceived has a value. If not, it couldn't be perceived.

More to the point though, we (and any other sentient beings) are part of the universe. The assessments we make are assessments the universe as a whole makes. Thus the sum assessments made by sentience is what is important universally. Clearly that leads to a form of utilitarianism as a universal morality (eg. what is best). Increase your enjoyment without decreasing, and ideally while increasing, the enjoyment of others. It's pretty simple stuff to comprehend at the extremes, even if it gets muddled in edge cases and because of perspective biases.

One problem with this is that there's a difference in what you think you believe and what you actually believe. We can and do fool ourselves into believing that we believe whatever makes us feel good. That's why we like to believe that we believe in codes of morality like utilitarianism.