Is this a joke? I wish r/philosophy becomes a more serious subreddit.

A neat trick I learned is to go to www.removepaywall.com , and paste any paywalled link and see if it works. This one does.

Thanks for actually posting the definition, I was lazy.

The paragraph also highlights another interesting facet of Vedic religion. Ṛta has sacrifice as an input, and the sacrificial order is a microcosm of the universe. You can track the evolution of dharma alongside the change from ritual to more philosophical thought in the late Vedic era.

I think people back then were just fed up with the barbarism of their feudal lords, kings and rulers. lol

Somebody back then thought it would be better if we just work together to increase quality of life instead of hurting each other for the sake of a few on the top.

But the problem is they didnt think it through, because total nonviolence pacificism is how you become slaves for generations.

The Japanese took this idea and modified it into the Warrior Monk mindset, which is great until it became corrupted with a more violent Samurai bushido, lol.

The modern iteration of this is the Marvel Superhero mindset, where you advocate for all the good shit but still ready to defend them with strength when required.

So we should all learn from Superheroes. lol

If we lived in a Simulation, we would not in fact "exist"(?)

I see some posts about simulation theory here, and would like to share my thoughts. (I could not find a post similar)

If we lived in a simulated universe, we would not be conscious right? Like, if we have a code that could perfectly simulate a human mind into a game, such that this simulated mind really really looks like to us to have conscious, this would be nothing more than a illusion because is just this, a simulation, a program extremely complex created by us.

But us are different, we feel like we are inside our body's, like as we are more than just ours bodies, we SEE and FEEL things through it, then we can manipulated, and create things that are useful for us, like a computer, a computer would do nothing more than Imitate us, because we design this way, so it would be not conscious of It's own because their just imitated us in the first place.

This is hard to put in word, but saying different, If we are simulated, the difference between simulated and non existence should be none.

I feel like, if I was just a simulation, I could do absolutely everything that I can in fact do, like write this text here in reddit, but I would not feel nothing different from not existing, what is different from existing... I know, is paradoxical. Someone share the same feeling? What are you thoughts about it?

Thanks for your time

Can someone post this? Pay walled

Where’s this “you” with the gun to its head? Your argument implies that there’s something like a soul that is unfortunately tethered to a physical body and thus imprisoned by causality. It’s all just you. The body, the tethers, and the thing that feels like a soul.

This is super cool. Thanks for sharing.

For the lazy, Wikipedia:

>In the Vedic religion, Ṛta (/ɹ̩ta/; Sanskrit ऋत ṛta "order, rule; truth; logos") is the principle of natural order which regulates and coordinates the operation of the universe and everything within it. In the hymns of the Vedas, Ṛta is described as that which is ultimately responsible for the proper functioning of the natural, moral and sacrificial orders. Conceptually, it is closely allied to the injunctions and ordinances thought to uphold it, collectively referred to as Dharma, and the action of the individual in relation to those ordinances, referred to as Karma – two terms which eventually eclipsed Ṛta in importance as signifying natural, religious and moral order in later Hinduism. Sanskrit scholar Maurice Bloomfield referred to Ṛta as "one of the most important religious conceptions of the Rigveda, going on to note that, "from the point of view of the history of religious ideas we may, in fact we must, begin the history of Hindu religion at least with the history of this conception"

I don’t understand why it can’t be a spectrum. Can’t we have agency in certain scenarios but not in others? Vaguely like electromagnetism, electricity and magnetism seem like different things but they’re really not.

But again, that “criteria” isn’t causa sui. If your “criteria“ determines your choice to become violent when the waiter flirts with your wife it’s the “criteria” that needs to change. If you can’t use your agency to change the “criteria” that causes what you choose, what good is it?

African Tribesmen Can Talk Birds Into Helping Them Find Honey

>My point is the randomness might not be so random when it comes to human agency

I'm trying to think of a good metaphor for this, unsuccessfully, and I think that might be because there aren't really things that work this way.

Something is either random, or it is not. Although you can bound the domain, they're really isn't an in between. So if you have the set of all things random, and human agency does not fall in that set, then human agency must fall within that set's compliment (the compliment of all random things), which is by definition, things that are not random–that is, systematic, predictable, causal, etc.

Therefore, if human agency and decision making is not entirely random, then it must be nonrandom. So you're either accepting randomness as a given (to some degree) in the universe, in which case it still doesn't allow for free will in the traditional philosophical sense, or you're rejecting that the process is up to randomness, in which case you fall back into determinism. ,

Autonomy, or "true autonomy" for me would require there to be conscious intentions behind (intentions behind) actions. And not doing so as a way to avoid punishment. Which of course is impossible (probably). Not "doing something part of me-as-a-whole tells me to do, because if I don't do it, I experience suffering of some form." When someone's pointing a gun at your head and suggests that your might get blown off if you do what they don't want you to do, and you do the thing they want you to do, is that an exercise in autonomy? We may distinguish the two when it comes to ethics, and you get less accountability from people for doing something in the latter case, but when talking about what's going on inside one's mind, I don't think there's as much meaningful difference between the two.

Suppose you get brain-washed by someone, and you now feel the urge to act like a pig, while still having your prior human preferences. Do you consider the pig part, which is now a part of "you" as a whole, you? Do you call it your "decision based on free will" when the pig instinct somehow wins, and you roll around in a pool of mud--even though the part of you who consciously thinks, writes and talks HATES doing that? Is that decision to roll around in the mud your exercise of agency? If you somehow think the pig instincts you acquired through brain-washing is an external imposition or something (what isn't), what if you were born like this to begin with, rather than acquiring these attributes later in life? It's always been a part of you, and "you" (the conscious you) always hated it, cause its goals doesn't align with "your" preferences. But conscious part of you-as-a-whole still cannot control it.

To me, "my" biological nature/instincts are like those pig instincts. I've examined my needs, drives, and reaction towards things (like the pretty/ugly face example for instance), and deemed they were primarily there due to my nature as a machine that's 'made' (not implying intention of someone/something) to live and reproduce. Both functions I see as something utterly stupid and pointless, lacking any utility in itself--this mechanism happened due to happenstance, and all it does is to do the same thing so it can continue to do the thing til the end of fucking time (why the hell should I continue my existence so I can continue to try to fulfill needs that constantly arise, which lack utility of its own (other than to serve the said stupid mechanism), despite my desire for them to stop bothering me)? It's not a result of conscious and rational thought process, let alone mine.

I see a human baby, and I feel the urge to protect them. Why's that? Because they are small and 'cute' (which causes me a certain kind of emotional and behavioral response)? Or helpless? Why do I want to protect that bipedal organism if it's small and cute? Because that's in the interest of this mechanism as a biological copy machine. "My" emotional response towards the cuteness and whatnot are not much more than a triggering mechanism. (Whether that response is also caused when I see a cute and small quad-pedal organism or non-organism is irrelevant to this. I also want to protect them so they won't experience suffering, but the same applies to this motivation as well)

When you think hard about those 'responses', get to the root cause of such things, and figure out that they are there to serve/to help achieve something ultimately (or that you deem, even if you are wrong) pointless, and if your conscious/rational preferences don't align with it, it no longer feels like a part of you. And it's like this way all the way down, what's "my choice", what's "my decision", when the sky's all clear and you can see where they come from--and that where isn't you.

Wiki is pretty good

Rta?

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When does a consciousness permanently lose consciousness of their current brain and body? Could a lobotomy make me lose my current existence and give it away to another consciousness, even if my brain and body survive the lobotomy?

I would agree we just don't understand it yet. I think it is a real jump to conclusion with implications that outpace the assumption to assert everything is determined. You might as well become a practicing Calvinist. No need to apologize. The core of what I am getting at is we really do not know enough, or at least that agency is too complex and nuanced a concept with wide-ranging ethical bearing to settle on the stance there is no free will because all is pre-determined. Frankly, I feel the belief is not just pessimistic and ethically problematic, but a bit lazy.

Dharma has to be one of the trickiest concepts to define, and as the author mentioned, has changed a lot with time.

Related to the verb-noun thing, and rather important in the Vedic period, is the notion of Ṛta. One way of defining dharma is doing whatever is required to uphold Ṛta, which is universal law. I quite like this definition since it doesn't prescribe specific actions in itself but acts a cautionary principle for all actions.

I think "it depends" is probably an apt thing to posit here.

It's probably the alt-right trolls doing what they do best, trying to "own the libs" in their maniacal culture wars.

>I, and I assume most people, oppose incest out of concern for the welfare of the individual potential children. Children born with genetic diseases suffer.

Most people don't care about social stigma attached to incest?

> He doesn't understand that his conception of free will is a layman's conception, and that philosophers have long ditched that.

Hate to say it, but you need to actually look into his stuff before spewing such nonsense. One of his main complaints is that compatibilists arbitrarily redefine free will. He feels that this counterproductive.

Philosophers don't [always] philosophise just for the sake of philosophising. In the case of free will, the practical outcome of the conversation is of paramount importance.