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If my 3 year old son got terminal cancer I probably would sit and think about the fact that global life expectancy has gone up and child mortality has gone down

If my 3 year old son got terminal cancer I probably would sit and think about the fact that global life expectancy has gone up and child mortality has gone down and while this is horrible for me at least less and less people are having to experience this awful pain. I think I would legitimately attempt to find solace in that. What else would you do? Just feel bad? Going through terrible things is awful. Going through terrible things with a philosophy that allows you to take the most charitible interpretation of it is the least awful. It's still awful, but less so. Can I ask you a question? Is it your belief that we can live in a world where no one feels bad ever? Or... Is it your belief that there will always be some minimum degree of suffering in the World that is irreducible? Which one?

ceejayoz 8y ago
There's likely to always be some minimum degree of suffering. We most certainly haven't come anywhere near it yet.
- james_s_tayler 8y ago
  Ok, that's good. I think that to say there is likely always a minimum degree of suffering is really the only rational position. I definitely agree with you we are nowhere near it and to the extent that I could usher in the best possible world tomorrow, I wish that I could, so I do my part as I see fit toward that end. I think where I differ from most people is in the core metaphor of how I think about it which I've described elsewhere in this thread as a ship that's basically impossible for any one person to reason about or to navigate, and so I approach normative implications borne from individual reasoning with extreme skepticism and instead prefer to focus on the honest signals of how far we have come and let the 'guess and check' dialectic play out in order to compute the truth value of any normative claims being made by any party at present as I think that's the only way it can actually be accomplished. I sort of wonder what people's conception is of how possible and how one might go about being able to delineate what is necessary suffering from what is unnecessary suffering? Because I think this is where I differ with a lot of people too. It seems to me people think you can distinguish one from the other. I don't think you can. There is a famous parable that illustrates why and it's the one where son breaks his leg and the father exclaims that is terrible! Then the next day war breaks out and his son doesn't have to go war because he isn't capable of fighting and the father exclaims that breaking his leg was wonderful! I submit to anyone that would say you can objectively compute that something is good or bad a priori that you have a real problem on your hands with that example. The implication of that is to the extent that I want to take an action in the world that might hurt someone else I am not sure if that won't actually later on be of greater benefit to them and the only way to actually compute whether it will or not is to let the scenario play out and even then all truths are sort of temporal in that it can flip-flop between being good and bad and good and bad again ad infinitum. Though, I would suggest the guiding principle be in line with John Stuart Mill in his original concept of liberalism in that you should carry out your life project to the extent that it doesn't harm anybody else. Currently the radical left seems to feel morally justified in their extreme perversion of that which is basically formulated as "you can't even say anything that hurts my feelings" which is now just getting into very dangerous territory with deleterious effects. Yet their position ideally I suppose is that they are attempting to get the minimum amount of suffering through that mechanism and it will sort of backfire from what I can see. I call this The Hard Problem of Delineation and it's formulated as follows: "It's almost impossible to enumerate the possible causes of an effect and delineate the correct one, and it's almost impossible for you to think you haven't done so." It's this trap that we get ourselves thinking that we are right and it's very hard not to be convinced that you are right, but it's also very hard to be right. If that makes sense?

ceejayoz 8y ago

There's likely to always be some minimum degree of suffering. We most certainly haven't come anywhere near it yet.

james_s_tayler 8y ago
Ok, that's good. I think that to say there is likely always a minimum degree of suffering is really the only rational position. I definitely agree with you we are nowhere near it and to the extent that I could usher in the best possible world tomorrow, I wish that I could, so I do my part as I see fit toward that end. I think where I differ from most people is in the core metaphor of how I think about it which I've described elsewhere in this thread as a ship that's basically impossible for any one person to reason about or to navigate, and so I approach normative implications borne from individual reasoning with extreme skepticism and instead prefer to focus on the honest signals of how far we have come and let the 'guess and check' dialectic play out in order to compute the truth value of any normative claims being made by any party at present as I think that's the only way it can actually be accomplished. I sort of wonder what people's conception is of how possible and how one might go about being able to delineate what is necessary suffering from what is unnecessary suffering? Because I think this is where I differ with a lot of people too. It seems to me people think you can distinguish one from the other. I don't think you can. There is a famous parable that illustrates why and it's the one where son breaks his leg and the father exclaims that is terrible! Then the next day war breaks out and his son doesn't have to go war because he isn't capable of fighting and the father exclaims that breaking his leg was wonderful! I submit to anyone that would say you can objectively compute that something is good or bad a priori that you have a real problem on your hands with that example. The implication of that is to the extent that I want to take an action in the world that might hurt someone else I am not sure if that won't actually later on be of greater benefit to them and the only way to actually compute whether it will or not is to let the scenario play out and even then all truths are sort of temporal in that it can flip-flop between being good and bad and good and bad again ad infinitum. Though, I would suggest the guiding principle be in line with John Stuart Mill in his original concept of liberalism in that you should carry out your life project to the extent that it doesn't harm anybody else. Currently the radical left seems to feel morally justified in their extreme perversion of that which is basically formulated as "you can't even say anything that hurts my feelings" which is now just getting into very dangerous territory with deleterious effects. Yet their position ideally I suppose is that they are attempting to get the minimum amount of suffering through that mechanism and it will sort of backfire from what I can see. I call this The Hard Problem of Delineation and it's formulated as follows: "It's almost impossible to enumerate the possible causes of an effect and delineate the correct one, and it's almost impossible for you to think you haven't done so." It's this trap that we get ourselves thinking that we are right and it's very hard not to be convinced that you are right, but it's also very hard to be right. If that makes sense?