Big Big Question

How do you break out of a funk? What are your favorite anti-rut tactics? When you feel creatively/emotionally stranded at point A and you know you’ve got to get your ass over to point B, what kind of vehicle do you buckle into?

I’ve found myself in a few discussions about just how permanent web content is, and how permanent it should be, and what folks expectations on that front are. It’s a big question, and I’m curious what sort of take you folks have on it.

What do you expect to stay around? What do you not count on? Why? Is how you things see right now how you’d like to see them? Where do your feelings on this come from, historically?

Etc. Go crazy.

Philosophico-semantic cage match GO.

To answer this question, it shouldn’t matter if you actually believe in free will or not. This is a counter-factual (though, personally, I don’t believe in free will).

Let’s say an entire world of people didn’t believe in free will (and that they were right). What would such a world be like?

Let’s say the world is otherwise like our world. If you’re temped to say, “That’s impossible. A world in which people don’t feel like they have free will would never wind up being anything like our world,” imagine this:

Super-intelligent aliens visit present-day Earth and explain to us that free-will doesn’t exist. They actually (somehow) prove to us that it doesn’t. Of course, some people don’t (or can’t) accept the proof, even though it’s iron-clad. So the aliens put something in our water — some chemical that forces us to see the truth. Suddenly, we all KNOW that there’s no free will.

What happens?

You discover you have a disease which will eventually kill you if it is left untreated. It could take weeks or years. There are a few treatment options available.

The cost of the treatment is not a factor - you have great health insurance.

The treatments offered to you may have serious side effects, but they could alleviate your symptoms and make you feel a lot better.

While treating your disease is not a guarantee, there is a very good chance it could cure the disease, or significantly extend your lifespan. (This extension of your lifespan would not involve a decrease in the quality of your life.)

If you choose not to treat the disease (not for any moral or religious reasons - simply because you don’t care if you live or die) is it suicide? Please elaborate on your answer.

(I’m not sick, it’s just a discussion I was having with someone.)

Broad-brush topic — this could spawn a dozen future (big big) questions:

What’s not fair? Locally or globally, personally or systemically, emotionally or economically: what are some big and small things in the world that are unfair?

Bonus questions: why isn’t it fair? And if it isn’t fair, why does it persist? And who might disagree about it not being fair, for that matter, and why?

Yesterday and this morning, I’ve been involved in the zillionth argument of my life about words. I have these arguments (not generally the angry kind) all the time. They generally take this form:

Someone: Word X means Y.

Me: I guess it does to you. That’s not what it means to me. To me, it means Z.

Someone: Well, then you’re wrong. It doesn’t mean Z; it means Y.

Me: How can I be wrong? Do you mean my definition is non-standard? That most people mean Y and I’m going against the social default?

Someone: No, you’re just wrong. Word X MEANS Y.

At this point, if I question further, Someone either doesn’t want to talk about it any more, or he starts using mystical language that I can’t parse, e.g. “Words carry energy with them, you know.” Sometimes Someone brings up word origins. If you study linguistics, you learn that most origins are pretty murky. But even if they’re crystal clear, linking a word’s meaning with its origin is like linking a building’s purpose with its designer’s original intent: “You can’t move your car factory into there! In the 1930s, that building was built as a warehouse for storing cork!”

To me, it makes complete sense to use words in standard ways. But that’s just a matter of utility. It makes communicating easier. It says nothing about what words MEAN in some cosmic sense.

I guess it also might make sense to defer to some sort of authority, like a dictionary. But I don’t see how we — as a culture — can agree on a specific authority. I think that would be hard to do even within a small circle of friends. Imagine saying, “Whenever we argue about what a word means, let’s agree to go with whatever’s in the New Heritage Dictionary.”

Even if meaning just implies conventional meaning, why are people SO sure they know the consensus. “When most people say ‘Democracy,’ they mean blah blah blah…” How do you KNOW? Have you taken a survey? Based on my conversational experience, as a talker and as an observer, words are very fuzzy and meanings slip all the time from person-to-person. That’s one of the reasons we have so many conversational confusions.

Where does this idea come from, that words have fixed meanings? Why do so many people believe it?

If you believe it, why do you believe it? If you believe my “fuzzy” view is wrong, why is it wrong?

Don’t get me wrong: I’m in my 40s, and there are tons of ways I wish my life were different: I wish I was richer for one thing, and if I’d taken a different career path in my 20s, I probably would be. But that doesn’t make me feel like I wasted my youth. Truth is, I don’t think about my youth much. I’m too caught up in the good and the bad of right now.

This week,. two twenty-somethings asked AskMe-relationship questions which took the form of, “I love my partner, but the relationship is dull, sexually. If I say with her, will I wind up regretting that I wasted my youth?”

I’m tempted to write, “It doesn’t work that way. When you’re 30, 40 and 50, you don’t look back and lament all the things you never did. You’re too busy being 45, fighting with your boss, kissing your kids, watching DVDs… whatever. You’re more worried about where you’ll be five years from now than where you were you were ten years ago.

“I would like to travel around the world, and I’ll probably never get to do it. I’m married, I have a job, etc. It makes me sad, but I think about it as ‘I’ll probably never get to do it.’ Which is upsetting. But I don’t think of it as ‘I squandered my chance,’ even if that is somehow true. The past is the past.

“And even things I did do in the past don’t thrill me all that much now. Yes, I drove across the country; yes, I went to Europe… So? That was fun at the time. What am I supposed to do about it now? Bask in the memories? They’re fading. They’re like chapters in a book that I’ve already read. They’re way less potent than stuff I’m doing now and stuff I’m worried about — or looking forward to — in the future.”

But I don’t write that, because maybe I’m just quirky this way. Maybe I just happen to dwell on the present (and the future). Maybe that’s just my temperament. Maybe other people are more nostalgic.

What do you think? What makes someone a past person, a present person, or a future person?

The question comes courtesy of the referrer logs; I hate to think that whoever was doing their metauniverse research came up empty-handed, so, okay:

What is it?  What isn’t it?  How many are there?  What colors do they come in?  Etc.

I feel like I can divvy up the people I’ve met into two groups: people who are angry that they bothered reading all the way through Atlas Shrugged (or Fountainhead), and Objectivists. Ayn Rand gets a lot of guff, but she’s got her fans, and literary disgruntledness aside I’ve met some perfectly nice and reasonable fans of Objectivism.

So, what’s the deal? What makes sense and what doesn’t? If you’re for, if you’re against: why, and how did you get there?

Would everybody be happier if the John Galt speech was a quarter as long but substantially the same?

If I met my genetic duplicate, would I instantly like him or fear him? What if I was the duplicate?

(Hat tip to robocop is bleeding, who posited this and other questions over in Metatalk recently.)

I recently read a book which included an argument that the story of human history was our desire to impose power and control structures over each other - men over women, the rich over the poor, etc. Since my Master’s work focused on this type of topic (the nature of power structures that society uses, and how they are changed), this argument really resonated with me.

What I found interesting was the statement in the book that we will not know our true nature as a species until we are free of these structures. Which lead me to wonder - is it not our nature as a species to create them? Can we ever be free of structures like these, or is it “hard-wired” into us, that we must create methods that give some group more power than others?

As much as I’d like to think that Big Big Question (along with a number of other fine sites and misc. internet and non-internet venues) makes for a good way to get some head-scratchers scratched and What Ifs what-iffed, there are probably some more complicated life mysteries that seems less solvable, less answerable.

So what are the big (or not so big) things you worry or suspect you’ll never really understand?  What are the answers you think you might never get?

(A question by proxy, for Keith.)

When I was growing up (Im 21 now, so when I was 13-14) whenever my sister or I said we hate something my parents/grandparents always told us not to say hate its a strong word. Then I was watching Scrubs and one of the characters mentioned that hate has lost all meaning now a days. The one thing that I can relate it to is to hate crimes. So my question has hate lost its meaning? Or did it used to mean more? Was it related to hate crimes?

You know when you read a book, hear a piece of music or see a painting, and you think, “Wow! It’s bottomless. I could look at it forever and still see new things!”

This is one of the most profound experiences I get from art (and sometimes I get it from objects and experiences that aren’t art, as when I look at the ocean).

However, bottomlessness is an illusion. A work of art only has so much information in it. But at some point, it SEEMS like it has infinite information in it. I’m interested in the mechanics of this. How much information — and what sort of information — creates an oceanic feeling?

I have a theory that you don’t really need that much information. I think the human brain sort of goes one… two… three.. four… OH MY GOD! INFINITY!!!

I remember, years ago, seeing the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “Nicholas Nicholby.” Near the start, they created the illusion of a busy London street. I remember marveling at it, feeling like they had a million actors on stage, all doing very different things — so many things that I could never take in the whole scene, even if I saw the play a hundred times.

In fact, they had about 25 actors on stage. That’s a relatively large number, but it’s not vast. Still, I couldn’t keep track of them all at once, so my brain just decided that something really profound and “infinite” was going on.

I doubt it’s possible to break this down into an equation, but I do wonder about the minimum amount of information needed to create the illusion of vastness, great depth, the oceanic, the infinite…

There’s a well-trod (if not exactly widely accepted) argument for the idea that the world we live in now could be not the real world but a simulation being run by far-flung descendents of what we think of as the modern human race. (Nick Bostrum is probably the foremost figure in this debate; but then there’s this angle on it, too.)

Settling the “if” and assuming that yes, we are in fact running on some post-singularity desktop in the year 3008, what are the hints available to us as simulated denizens in a superbly but not perfectly modeled reality? Where did they goof up? What are the gaps and the glitches in this simulation that should leave us wondering exactly what is going on?

Sure, you’re not going to murder anyone, or rob a bank, and set a house on fire.  But what about the little things?  What’s the least-bad thing you just fundamentally will not do?  Or what’s the worst thing you will do?  And in either case, why?
Have you ever stepped over what was at the time a clear line of transgression?  Did your ethical boundaries (or your resolve) change as a result?

An oldie but a goodie. Interpretations for different values of “God” welcome; personal belief not required, but personal/practical as well as philosophical/abstract takes would be great.

When (and how, and why) has the border between art and the Real World broken down? If life imitates art, what are some examples of life doing so in a particularly notable fashion?

There are decisions and then there are decisions.  When faced with a touch choice, how do you go about deciding?

And how do you help yourself feel okay about the decision you’ve made?

If there are things that money can’t buy, does having money make those things nonetheless easier to acquire?  Just how cold a comfort is the idea of the nobility of poverty?

What are the upsides of living without means?  What’re the advantages to being broke?

(Hat tip to Cat and Girl, via the inimitable Dorothy Gambrell.)

In various contexts, where is line drawn between unconstrained discussion of death and the (recently) dead — including criticism of the deceased and metacriticism of the discussion — and a social expectation of respect for the dead, for the gravity of death as a shared experience?

Where do you think the line should be drawn? Why does the line shift from context to context — what defines the social mores of those different contexts that causes (or permits) the line to shift?

(Inspired by the latest in a long historical string of Metatalk conversations about obitutary thread etiquette.)

Is it possible to systematically educate someone based on a series of internet discussions with both amateurs and professionals in the field who genuinely hold an interest in the subject? E.g. I learned more from the “What would happen if you halted advertising for major brands like Coke and Pepsi” thread than I did from struggling to stay awake in Intro to Business and grudgingly doing the readings and taking summary notes on the textbook.

(Bonus metaquestion: Is it the fault of the individual or the institution if someone finds that posting to BBQ/MeFi hones their critical thinking skills and piques their interest in the world more than attending class does?)

1. What’s your take on government welfare versus personal charity? Should it be the role of government to help the poor and needy or should individuals do it?

2. If you think individuals should care for the poor, do you think such a system is practical in today’s society?

3. Should people be forced to help the poor at all?

4. Is the government really wasteful? Would charities be more efficient? Would businesses?

Blatant ripoff: FMF

Could the state institutions that we currently have (in the form of government, e.g.) exist without some form of written language?

The philosophy of eugenics, “a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention”, is usually spoken of as an evil thing. In the 20th century we’ve seen things like forced sterilization of certain classes of people, and the Nazi “racial purity” programs.

But if we separate the concept from its uglier implementations, is there anything morally wrong with a philosophy of encouraging the development of desirable traits in the gene pool? What would be some morally acceptable ways of implementing such a philosophy? (Whether by a government, social group, organization, or whatever.)

One of the biggest conflict between the “left” and “right” all across the world is what level of responsibility lies with the individual and what level lies with the government the individual pays.

Without government or any form of community organization, the line is obvious…all responsibility lies with the person. The larger the government gets, the more taking over responsibility is expected of them (and then, it seems, the government gets larger.

Assuming that most people believe somewhere in in the middle is the correct balance, where does that balance lie?

(related topics: health care, personal defense, policing, punishment, freedom, taxation, national defense, loyalty, child care, welfare)

I’ve been in countless discussions about theism and atheism. But it just occurred to me that most (all?) of these discussions have been meaningless (or at least not as meaningful as they could have been) because the participants never defined “belief.” I say I don’t believe in God. Fred says he does. I ask him why he does. He asks me what sort of proof would make me believe… We’re circling around a word, but we never attack it directly. How can we be sure we’re even talking about the same thing?

Does belief mean “to feel like something is true”? To be unable to imagine it being false (completely unable or able only with a really strong effort)? To be unable to feel like it’s false (even if you can intellectually imagine it being false)? To generally live one’s life as if it’s true (even if you know it may be false — or that it is false)?

It seems reasonable for me to claim belief that my arm exists. But I’m not even sure what I mean by that. I know it’s POSSIBLE that I might be imagining it. Still, there’s a strong emotional/intellectual SOMETHING going on. It feels profound, and I call it “I believe.” What do I mean?

As social creatures, we have some control over how we are thought of by the people we interact with: through our actions and our words and the choices that we make, we give those around us a sense of who we are, and thus shape (however directly or indirectly) how they feel about us.

Presume that you have absolute control over how others perceive you, though: when forced to choose, would you rather be loved, or respected? And how would your hypothetical self behave, in this What If, and how would it differ (or resemble) your day-to-day actions in real life?

In today’s world, where technology (i.e., Photoshop and the
like) can be so deceptive, what ‘Proof’ would make you believe that extra-terrestrial life/a divine being had actually visited Earth?

What would you accept as proof of a bona fide “Miracle”?

Broad minimalism today:

What does it mean to live a good life?

(As suggested by Meatbomb.)