Suffering

Well, what does "physical health" mean? Does it encompass the health of dangerous individuals, societies, or national rulers? Does it prefer mental prowess, emotional stability, or cultural purposefulness? How should it encompass goals for genetic and cyber engineering, and for which individuals? Or fitness to an assigned job? To be assigned or determined by whom? Does physical health favor conditioning for speed, or endurance, or strength, or disease resistance?

Is it objectively moral to improve the health of a despotic psychopath able to put his finger on the button? Should every person receive medical treatment to maximize "physical health," even if it leads to reduction of effectiveness of inoculations or susceptibility to pandemic because of lack of genetic or health diversity?

Nonsense, Per Steven Weinberg: "Now, Sam Harris is aware of this kind of counter argument [to utilitarianism], and says it's not happiness, it's human welfare. Well, as you make things VAGUER and vaguer, of course, it becomes harder and harder to say it doesn't fit your own moral feelings, but it also becomes less and less useful as a means of making moral judgements. You could take that to the extreme and make up some nonsense word and say that's the important thing and no-one could refute it but it wouldn't be very helpful. I regard human welfare and the way Sam Harris refers to it as sort of halfway in that direction to absolute nonsense."

IAE, what would maximizing the physical health for the greatest number entail? Whose health would be sacrificed so the health of the greatest number could be maximized? Who would decide? Some healthy people stay that way because they decline to live in antiseptic environments. That way, they harden their immune systems. Can any moral scientisimist say who should thus harden himself and who should not?

What resources should be sacrificed to pursue the greatest physical health for the greatest number? Should resources be sacrificed for developing technologies to defend nations or the world against artificial or natural asteroid attacks? What objective moral science based on physical health or well being can or should objectively answer such questions? Should the masses have no say against the "moral experts"?

NOTE: I do not oppose scientific research to find cures or to improve health. I think populations should seek to assimilate values for pursuing such aims. But to call such assimilations of values "objectively good" in the sense of being purely determinable by expert moral scientists is a reach too far. I agree with the idea of contingent morality. I agree that an idea of mutual empathy is both contingently and objectively valid. However, because such idea of empathy necessitates reference to subjectivity, I think moral issues, like existentiality generally, entangles both with objectivity and subjectivity. To me, that seems obvious.

To me, a notion that morality is entirely subjective is nonsense. And an idea that morality can be reduced to pure objectivity is likewise nonsense. Rather, the idea of morality is entangled both with innate empathy and with particular subjectivity. As Jesus said: Good Faith (Great Commandment), and Good Will (Golden Rule). If (CONTINGENTLY) we want a decent republic of free thinking and responsible adults, we need to stop teaching children that morality is entirely subjective (or does not exist), and we need to stop teaching children to believe, irresponsibly, that morality is entirely objective (what fake moral scientisimists say it is). And we need to stop ridiculing or reviling wisdom just because it may be found in ancient texts.

Btw, I suspect some neuroscientists believe they can objectively quantify pleasure. Problem: Do we really want a world of pleasure addicts? Maybe we can put everyone on the Cloud/Matrix after we divine algorithms to control AI to service our pleasures. Lol.

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Millennials tend to be too young and too recently indoctrinated to apprehend that what they think would be benign socialism would in fact be prelude to worldwide fascism. That would eliminate much of the middle class and its political influence, and it would convert most workers to desperate competitors for low wages, worldwide. The problem is that many Millennials are already enduring low wages and they make ends meet only with the help of parents' basements and governmental handouts. But increasing those handouts will mainly increase the power of the central gov, which will then become even more beholden to corporate fascists. This mess is so rotten that there is no principled easy way out. But enforcing the borders and addressing the trade deficit and the exodus of industry are good places to start. Maybe add some infrastructure jobs. Unfortunately, Millennials tend to be so clueless and indoctrinated that they oppose enforcing the border.


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It is hardly charitable to undermine a representative republic of competent, free-thinking citizens and their intended progeny, in order to replace them with a new world order of elite sheeple farmers and wannabe sheeple. How is it "charitable" to raise a new world crop of indolent, entitlement-minded, incompetents --- who will simply incline to return the country to third world misery?


Taking more and more functions away from charities and putting them on the central gov is compounding the problems, not fixing them. When a victim gets help from a charity, he may tend to feel thankful. When he gets help from the gov, especially if over an extended time, he may become resentful that he is not being entitled to more. This kind of pyramid scheme cannot be sustained much longer.


Jesus said render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. Jesus did not tell us to build a gov bureaucracy to tax the people, to dispense the revenues as elites decide, and then to call such dispensation of opm "charity."


Word gets around. When everyone seems to be abusing disability claims, everyone tends to try to get his while the getting is good. The ratchet never seems to make a correction the other way, until a tipping point is reached. What starts out as understanding and tolerance soon morphs towards legalization, public funding, celebration, and eventually forced grooming.


We often tend to get more of what we consume and support. To the extent we support whining and victim-playing into adulthood, we will of course get more of it. It used to be, a volunteer charity would feel a need not just to provide for an unlucky person's immediate needs, but to help and push him to acquire and use skills to leave the nest. Nowadays, government has been conflated with charity. Problem is, it is not charity to volunteer other people's money. And gov bureaucrats that dispense welfare may feel incentives to expand their fiefdoms. Guess at whose expense. I am not a proponent of eugenics, but I do not like dysgenic and cultural drags on decent society. Another problem is, these fiefdoms, when united, now seem to feed a majority of voters. If so, the representative republic may already have been lost to people-farmers and their shills and stoolies.


The truth that most concerns me relates to promise keeping. What President has been more truthful about keeping promises than Trump? Trump is a deal maker who may get carried away with metaphors and unintentional inexactitudes. As President, I am more concerned with Trump's results than with his precise verbal fencing. Leave the parsing with the Establishmentarians. Who lie more about things that matter. Such as that they are looking out for the republic. Sorry pukes.




No mortal institution is without need of continuous improvement.

Empathy and compassion are commonly displayed among lower orders of animals.

I think consciousness is consciousness. It abides at various levels, depending on relational situation and sequence. But for relational situation and sequence, it seems obvious to me, perhaps not to you, that we are all of the same consciousness. That is the basis for innate empathy. IOW, good faith and good will. Like Jesus taught.

I do not think the people clamoring for the undermining of all religion would make for a good transition. I think they are historically naive and self-centered malcontents who would produce disaster. I don't think they are capable of establishing or defending any practical principles whatsoever.

Because they respect no principles, they claim not to be hypocrites. Except they are gigantic hypocrites, because they complain every time a Conservative does not live up to his principles. As if they had any moral standing whatsoever to complain! To have standing to complain about someone else's failure to live up to his principles, I think you need to have some principles for yourself. If Lefties can articulate or defend any sustainable principles, I would like to know what they are. S/




Eeveryone who is not intellectually blinded knows that Orwellian totalitarianism is where modern Leftism is headed. Why do you think Lefty stoolies go along with corporatists that want open borders for cheap, easily bribed, easily deluded, and easily ruled immigrants? Why do you think Lefties align themselves so easily to take the corporate funding from Soros? They take the corporate money, then imagine they are not setting themselves up for fascism under a corporate establishment! Lol.

Do you think Soros has your best interests at heart? Do you think Soros and his ilk want to let you keep a say in determining those interests? If so, why does he want to flood the nation and California with so many third-world liberty illiterates? Why does he want California, based on popular vote, to be able to elect the President?

Do you remember or ever think about the book within the book, in Orwell's 1984, about the theory and practice of oligarchic collectivism? Why are Dino-Rino oligarchs of the establishment almost entirely united against Trump? Do you want to surrender the representative republic to their efforts?

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I agree that we are a secular nation that has a lot of Christians in it, and many of our Founders were Christians who were influenced by Christian values, such as values for respecting individual freedom and dignity (or Golden Rule).

But I would not agree that Christian people and volunteers should be conflated with nations. A nation will be comprised of all manner of people, some of whom may or may not be Christians. To suggest a nation is or is not Christian because a majority of voters or even Christians decline to avail government to replace volunteer charities would be too silly to compute.

Our government has now accorded many entitlements, and I do not disagree with all of them. Such entitlements may have to do with public empathies, but I do not think those qualify as charity or charitable. It is simply not charity to tax opm to give it to other people.

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I agree that corporations, by political influence buying, have often put Americans, whose blood and sweat defend this nation, in an untenable position of having to compete with some of the most desperate laborers of the world. The open borders agenda seems to be about imposing this condition on workers worldwide.

Corporate mooching and welfare put American industry and independence at risk. Having gone down that path, there does not seem to be any principled easy way out.

Problem is, except for Trump, I suspect the agenda of established corporatists and the kind of managers that are selected to rise within them is to use gov to make that situation ever worse, worldwide.

There is no easy way out. Unfortunately, I suspect ever more gov programs influenced by corporatists will continue towards making.matters worse. The more Soros types cry for workers, the more it seems they plan to use gov influence to make matters worse for them.

The selection process for our profs, managers, bankers, priests, and representatives seems steadily to become ever more corrupt against laborers, small businesses, and the representative republic. Giving that system ever more money seems more likely to expedite the elimination of the middle class, leading to a fascist society that only pretends to value social fairness and justice.

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I did not say Jesus was AGAINST gov programs. If a gov program was legitimately enacted that did not encourage able bodied people to become permanent wards of the State, I do not think He would be against it. I just think He would prefer volunteer and faith based agencies. Like Christian hospitals, etc.

I happen to think gov should sometimes take measures to invest in and improve infrastructure. In some cases, that could even include taxation for the purpose of defending the republic against depredations by influence buying oligarchs. In some cases, it could even include health care. But that would come under the heading of defending the republic, more so than under the heading of charity. Charity attempted in gross by the gov too often turns into a political or crime scheme.

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Socialism is cultural and genetic drag on steroids. Socialism is negative eugenics, practiced by people farmers seeking ignorant and docile sheeple to farm. Socialism drives down birth rates among productive people, as it opens borders to relieve pressure from third world nations --- so they can continue to flood the world with high fertility rates from counter productive nations. Socialists go around the bend from disapproving of eugenics to actually promoting dysgenics. Nowadays, if a person opposes dysgenics, people-farmers and their stoolies work to ensure he is labeled a phobe. Apparently, this will continue until it cannot. The unstated purpose, even if unintended, is to wipe competent representative republics off the earth.


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There are many ideas about God, though I am not sure it makes sense to call them definitions.

To me, a Godhead that contemporaneously reconciles to determine among all possible manifestations, in order to avoid the metaphysics of a multiverse, has all the power there is. That is what I mean by omnipotence.

I am concerned with appreciating the procession of the "eternal present" and what may be our empathetic connection with that. I am not concerned with vain questions like, could an all powerful God create a rock so heavy He could not lift it, etc. It seems madness for a mortal to try to pass on issues of original creation, etc. When I think of what is possible for the Godhead, I do not concern myself with whether the Godhead can possibly do the impossible. I see that as good sense, not as giving the Godhead "A PASS."

IOW, I do not presume impossibilities in order to try to resolve impossibilities. Rather, I try to appreciate what seems obvious: We must eat to live; we are nurtured by a system of conservation so that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction; and, as consciously aware beings, we are innately endowed with capacities for empathy.

I think consciousness is a fundament of the universe. I think consciousness from every perspective carries this common characteristic: That we differ in our perspectives only because of temporary differences in genes, forms, and situations. The more the genes, forms, and situations come to be similar, the more similarity we experience among our perspectives, and the more we tend to discover that we are of one and the same consciousness. I think this is what makes empathy innate. Even though, to ward off loneliness, consciousness formulates various perspectives. And that entails competition within a system of conservation. IOW, we have to eat to survive, but we don't have to be brutes about it.

To me, the Godhead is expressed among three fluxing fundaments: Subjective Consciousness, Objectively measurable Substance, and cumulating Information. The flux obeys a conserving algorithm. I do not concern myself with whether the Godhead wrote that algorithm as an original creation. I am simply satisfied that it abides.

I see sacred stories more as commonly appreciated metaphors and music for inspiring people to come together in empathetic appreciation, to assimilate and share unfolding values, purposes, and sciences. I do not see them as literal truths for eternally binding existentiality. For that matter, neither do I see scientific models as literal truths in themselves. Rather, they also are models of reality, not reality itself. As such, they can never make a completely true exposition of "reality." To me, to think otherwise is to reason in circles. And I try to avoid that game.

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Less suffering as subjectively experienced by conscious organisms is consistent with evolution.

An all powerful Godhead may have all the power there is, and still lack power to do the impossible. For all I know, it may be impossible to eliminate suffering or to objectively measure how it should best be reduced.

In that case, the role of the Godhead may be more that of a Reconciler. Not to predetermine or overpower every perspective of consciousness. But to appreciate each surprise from each perspective, and to contemporaneously facilitate and reconcile the interfunctioning of all.

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I am not dodging. I just don't see any there, there. But I do not preclude you from espousing your solution. Feel free to lay it out.

EDIT: Maybe Evil of loneliness is innate to the beingness of the Godhead. Maybe derivatives of that Evil are inherent to every attempt by the Godhead to salve loneliness. The existential gnawing of loneliness may simply be incurable, regardless of the number of iterations of conscious beingness. Maybe we are both connected and separated in consciousness and its manifold perspectives.

Maybe not even the Godhead can entirely avoid an innate angst to existentiality, that perpetually drives us all. In that case, the task is to try to make the best of it. Some people break. For them, there are the paintings of Edvard Munch.

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Without competition, death, and destruction, there would be no purposeful evolution in a system that obeys a law of conservation of energy. Having all the power there is does not change that aspect of power.

Re: Could there be slightly less suffering and still be purposeful evolution?

Suffering is a subjective experience. And it is experienced by many organisms. If there is a way to objectively measure the cumulative sum of suffering, I don't know what it would be. So I cannot see a way to answer such a question. Could there be more technological advancement without the suffering of war? How much war is the Goldilocks amount, to put humanity on a path to technological happiness? I do not believe such questions can be answered -- either by you or by myself.

EDIT: Were I a politician, I could espouse various positions I might in my subjective judgment consider for the betterment of humanity. But I do not see a way to judge God should God thwart me.

Regardless, a conscious being's response to whatever the situational-evolutionary unfoldment, it can be purposeful. I think a society that assimilates values can evolve and move in purposeful ways. To me, that is self evident. But I do not claim to speak for you.

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I suppose we could all imagine how we rate God on a scale of 1 to 10. Maybe that would scare some sense into God?

Steven Weinberg described how in his youth he had been a utilitarian but had been dissuaded of the notion that "the fundamental principle that guides our actions should be the greatest happiness for the greatest number" by reading Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Weinberg went on to say: "Now, Sam Harris is aware of this kind of counter argument [to utilitarianism], and says it's not happiness, it's human welfare. Well, as you make things vaguer and vaguer, of course, it becomes harder and harder to say it doesn't fit your own moral feelings, but it also becomes less and less useful as a means of making moral judgements. You could take that to the extreme and make up some nonsense word and say that's the important thing and no-one could refute it but it wouldn't be very helpful. I regard human welfare and the way Sam Harris refers to it as sort of halfway in that direction to absolute nonsense."

Personally, I fail to see how advocating for the most well-being for the most people (or the least suffering for the most people) could be any kind of "scientific" improvement over the utilitarian argument advocating for the most happiness (or pleasure) for the most people.

In both cases, the argument that such a "principle" can be measured in practice on some kind of objective, science-based scale seems juvey at a fundamental level. It's the sort of argument a militant atheist or gay hedonist might make, to try to force everyone else to accept the "objective science" of his system of values.

A madman (although, who can say what is mad nowadays) might say that a loving God should simply wipe us all out immediately, so we would therefore feel the least suffering. But a Progressive might say, wait a second, let's get Gov to try to impose the optimal level of suffering. S/

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I am not able to get a handle for such a thought experiment. I can agree that suffering can take different paths. But to objectively quantify the net suffering or joy availed to each and/or every being is simply not something I believe I can do or remain interested in trying to do.

Similarly, I can state my subjective preferences for human population controls, but I cannot say whether such preferences would objectively lead to less net suffering. Some Buddhists may believe the better path to fulfillment is in desiring less of the material world, as opposed to desiring objectively fair redistributions to be performed by objective dispensers of morality.

Maybe you have studied Sam Harris' book, The Moral Landscape, seeking an objective measurement of "well being." I think it is juvey. But others may like it.

EDIT: Were I a politician, I could espouse various positions I might in my subjective judgment consider for the betterment of humanity. But I do not see a way to judge God should God thwart me.

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Sorry. I'm not getting your point. Are you sure it's based in sound reasoning?

Maybe you prefer to think of evolution as nothing but random surprise. But the other side of random surprise is active response. In that, some beings endowed with consciousness can practice personal involvement and responsibility. That entails more of a slow dance than a sudden happy place bestowed by a super being that wants only to cater to you.

You seem to be complaining about how the Godhead uses evolution, as if IT should cater to your preferences without so much hard work by yourself. I can pray for you, but I cannot improve the Godhead for you. Good luck with your responsibility in that relationship.

Empathetic involvement with others does reduce suffering. So may opiods.

In time, so may other medical procedures, perhaps depending on how good faith and good will unfold. Maybe you should find purpose in helping to that end?

Because it is a question you need to answer for yourself. Why do you want not to feel pain, like a plant? Do you not want ground for empathy with others?

That might be true in your case, if you feel you are without purpose. But I doubt you are qualified to speak for others. Some people may find enough art and music in the world to feel purposely inspired and astonished by it

If you feel you have no purpose, maybe not you.

Are you upset you are not a plant? Do you really want to be as emotionally pain free as a sociopath?

The question pertains to why suffering is necessary. Not to why slightly less suffering might be possible. Death comes to all.