ON EMOTION DRUGS
Note added 04/05/2012: Happiness Boxes are finally under development. A Russian billionaire has started the ball rolling.
The Suicide of Man has begun.
ON EMOTION DRUGS
by Jeffrey A. Corkern
Why are emotion drugs illegal?
Our society---in fact, all stable, functioning societies in the world---do NOT like emotion drugs for some strange reason. Drugs like pot, cocaine, heroin, LSD, meth, Ecstasy and so forth. They spend literally HUNDREDS of billions of dollars fighting emotion drugs. "War On Drugs" is not an over-exaggeration to describe this world-wide effort, not in the least. The expenditure easily matches what has been spent on fighting real shooting wars.
This world's societies are SERIOUS about this war. A lot of this world's societies will stand you up against a wall and SHOOT YOU DEAD if they catch you selling emotion drugs.
You wanna know the weirdest thing?
The world's societies can't really tell you WHY they're doing this.
They can't answer the question of why they're making this EXTREME effort against emotion drugs. They can't. Not one society in this world can give an answer to that question you can't shoot down with the greatest of ease. If they could give an entirely logical answer, an answer that could convince EVERYBODY emotion drugs really were intrinsically bad things, an argument everybody could understand, they wouldn't be having such a hard time keeping people away from emotion drugs. They wouldn't be having to spend so much money.
This extreme effort seems strange to a lot of people. So much so there are organizations---like NORML, the National Organization to Reform the Marijuana Laws, for example, and many others---that are actively trying to make emotion drugs legal.
One sign of everyone's complete and total confusion is they haven't even correctly labeled these things as what they are. EMOTION drugs, that is. Drugs that make people feel good, that MAKE people feel a certain EMOTION they want to feel.
Let's run through a couple of these worthless arguments against emotion drugs and shoot them down, just to illustrate how completely and totally confused this anti-emotion-drug thing is.
The first objection you hear is that it's wrong to use to emotion drugs----because they're illegal.
Right.
This is so astoundingly illogical it takes your breath away. An example of circular logic at its finest. Because they're illegal? Easily cured, man. Just make the damn emotion drugs legal. Then it'll be right. Just make all emotion drugs legal and let corporations sell them just like soda pop. You'll save how many HUNDREDS of billions of dollars? How much drug crime will go away? How many prisons will be COMPLETELY emptied? How much money will you rake in on taxes? It'll be in the billions! You'll make every nickel back you spent on that futile War On Drugs! People will spend money on emotion drugs before they'll spend money on FOOD, man!
Which brings up the second objection.
Emotion drugs in general hurt their users. Letting people use emotion drugs will be allowing people to damage themselves, even kill themselves. Several of these emotion drugs will kill you deader than a hammer if you slip just one little inch.
First answer to that: There are quite a number of activities that people do in this world that are just as dangerous (or MORE!), that can kill you just as dead---and none of the world's societies forbid these activities. Things like sky-diving. High-speed auto racing. Airplane racing. Hang-gliding. Scuba diving. Mountain climbing. Slip just one little inch doing any of these activities or any of a thousand other risky activities---and you're DEAD, quicker than a heartbeat.
(You know, it's odd, but we can abstract a rule from this observed behavior. We can abstract a single, simple rule the world's societies are using to determine what is and is NOT allowed behavior to get happy.
You can do anything you want that doesn't hurt other people to get happy---except stimulate the happiness centers of your brain directly.
Anything else is allowed, even if you can get yourself killed doing it. Indirect stimulation of your brain's happiness centers is legal. Direct stimulation of your brain's happiness centers is NOT.)
Second answer to that: Okay, so what if we find a way of stimulating the brain's happiness centers that DOESN'T hurt the user? That have no side-effects. Not physically addicting and impossible to overdose on. The perfect drug or class of emotion drugs. Then we can make that one class of emotion drugs alone legal.
Impossible to make a single chemical that does that, you say? Chemicals ALWAYS have side-effects.
Well, actually, you're probably right---if you're talking about chemical substances.
Fortunately, science is marching on. The human race is no longer restricted to chemical substances when it comes to getting stoned---pardon me, happy. We can cut right to the chase these days, without having to use any kind of nasty chemicals with their nasty side effects.
Direct electrical brain stimulation.
We can run a little metal wire right to certain sections of your brain, trickle a few milliamps of current to it---and you will be in Nirvana INSTANTLY, man, higher than a kite. With NO side-effects.
The groundwork has already been laid. Neuroscientists have ALREADY discovered precisely what sections of brain to tickle, believe it or not.
So there we have it, the perfect happiness drug. Or machine, rather.
So now all objections to emotion drugs have been refuted.
So now we can make all emotion drugs and machines legal. Right? Right! There's not a single objection we can't shoot down. We can't find a single truly logical reason not to.
W-e-l-l, perhaps not. Perhaps there are one or two teeny-tiny little objections to making emotion drugs, or machines, legal.
Let us examine this question as precisely as possible. (Which is something, by the way, the world's societies have NEVER done. They have just been reacting instinctively, stumbling around blind in the dark, on this subject.)
First, let us define precisely what an emotion drug is.
An "emotion drug" is a substance that is capable of directly affecting the emotion centers of the user's brain and is employed by the user for the SOLE purpose of affecting the emotion centers of his brain, for directly altering his emotional state.
Note that this definition is totally a use definition, i.e. the user is the one who defines what an emotion drug is.
Let me illustrate what I mean. Smoking marijuana for the SOLE purpose of getting high defines marijuana as an emotion drug (and illegal). Smoking marijuana to, let us say, relieve the pain of menstrual cramps or to stimulate your appetite because anti-cancer drugs have suppressed your appetite defines marijuana as NOT an emotion drug (and legal).
It is the purpose the user has for the drug that primarily determines whether or not the drug is an emotion drug. To DIRECTLY affect his brain's emotion centers---it's an emotion drug. Anything else, it's not.
So now we have a working definition of "emotion drug." Which is also hereby defined to include, not just drugs, but also mechanical devices.
Now, what rational, logical objection can we find to making these things legal?
What do emotion drugs do.
Hmmmm.
They make people happy. Fundamentally, the rock-bottom, that's what they do. They make people feel good.
How in the world could that be a bad thing?
I mean, everything else people do has as its sole purpose to get happy. Why aren't emotion drugs just yet another pathway to this emotional state?
Perhaps we should pause here a minute and look at this getting-happy thing. There is something quite astonishing about this getting-happy thing.
You know why people do what they do?
BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL TRYING TO GET HAPPY!
You know what? You can describe ALL human action in terms of getting happy!
All of it, man! ALL OF IT! No matter how small, it’s ALL about being happy!
You race cars at high speed---because you enjoy it. You parachute out of perfectly good airplanes---because it's fun. You play video games---because it brings a smile to your face.
It goes deeper than that. A LOT deeper.
(You even BREATHE to stay happy. Right? How happy are you going to feel if you STOPPED breathing?)
You get married, because being with that special other person makes you happier than anything else in this world.
(You wanna know where this deep insight into human motivation first began to pop to the surface? To become consciously known?
In the eighteenth century!
In the eighteenth century, there was a great deal of philosophical inquiry into why people did what they did. And the answer they came up with was people did what they in order to get happy. This was NOT just some airy-fairy philosophical conclusion, either. This conclusion GOT USED AS A FOUNDATION RULE FOR ONE OF THE WORLD'S MOST SUCCESSFUL SOCIETIES!
Guess which one.
The United States!
What does it say in the Declaration of Independence?
"life, liberty, and THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS!"
The Founding Fathers were trying to lay the foundations for a successful society using this radical new discovery. And they did it, man, they did it. They absolutely NAILED it! Because ALL human action truly can be described as an effort to get happy!
Smart guys, our Founding Fathers.)
You have a family---because it makes you happy. You get up every morning, go out and work like a damn dog---because having a family, in the end, makes you happy, so happy you don't mind the extreme effort it takes.
Whatever you do, it's to feel happiness in one form or another. It's all about being happy, your own personal happiness, and everybody else's, in the end.
Unless, of course, you use emotion drugs to get happy.
Now you no longer need to do any of those other things. Now all you need is the emotion drug---a bag of pot, a line of coke, a wire to the brain. Now you don't need any of those other things to get happy anymore. Race cars, airplanes, video games, you don't need them---and something far more terrible you're not going to need.
You want to know what the most terrible thing is you're not going to need?
You're not going to need---other people.
You're not gonna need other people, man. You can see this already happening in society. This is a known psychological effect of emotion drugs. Look at the people you know who use dope. Look at them REAL HARD.
Are they not---ISOLATED? Fundamentally cut off from the rest of the world? In a kind of unchanging stasis? Not going anywhere?
They don't HAVE to change, you see. With people who don't use emotion drugs, if they are in pain somehow and not happy, they are FORCED to change something about themselves or their environment in order to be happy. They are FORCED TO GET SMARTER about the Universe, to strike the rock-bottom. This is NOT true for people who use emotion drugs. If they feel bad, they just go running to the dope, and PRESTO! They're happy! Without having to go through the effort of making all that nasty, wrenching, painful change! Of having to learn anything, of having to get smarter even the least little bit!
So they DON'T change or get smarter, and this is a known psychological effect of emotion drugs. If somebody started using emotion drugs at fifteen, you can examine him psychologically ten, twenty, thirty, forty years later---and he will STILL be fifteen years old on the inside. He (or she, of course) will know what he knew at fifteen---and NOTHING else.
(You can see this same isolating effect in drug-related violent crime, too. Crimes committed while under the influence of emotion drugs have a tendency to be more violent. The emotion drugs have cut the criminal's emotional connection to the rest of humanity, you see, and the result is he does more horrible things to his victims than he would have had he not been under the influence.)
Emotion drugs---cut you off from EVERYTHING. Period. WITHOUT emotion drugs, you must interact with the world in order to get happy. WITH emotion drugs, you DON'T. Right?
You know what the definition of society is?
People interacting with other people.
What do emotion drugs do?
Shut down that interaction with other people. With everything else, too, but primarily with other people.
So, if a society makes emotion drugs legal, what, inevitably, must legal emotion drugs do to that society in the end?
DESTROY IT. UTTERLY.
Oopsie.
NOW we have a rational, logical reason for a society to make emotion drugs illegal. VIOLENTLY illegal, put-you-in-jail-for-twenty-years illegal, stand-you-up-against-a-wall-and-SHOOT-YOU-DEAD illegal.
(I'm not advocating these kinds of severe punishments, please understand. I'm saying I understand why a society would impose these kinds of severe punishments.)
Now, I know some people are NOT going to like this coldly logical conclusion, that emotion drugs really, truly are intrinsically bad things, because they use emotion drugs themselves on a regular basis, and they are going to whine about this and refuse to be convinced. Because they LIKE emotion drugs and don't want to give them up. So they'll DELIBERATELY stay dumb. They’d rather have dope than brains, man. They’ll squinch their eyes shut as tight as they can, put their hands over their ears and refuse to believe a single word they've read. Emotion drugs are their refuge from reality, their escape from pain.
So I'm going to hit this one more time, harder.
Let's look at this one more time, in more detail.
Let's theoretically make emotion drugs legal, and see what happens to society.
Okay. Emotion drugs are legal, and corporations start fighting each other to sell them.
What happens first?
Emotion drugs get CHEAP. Cocaine, fifty cents a pound. Crack, one dollar a pound. Marijuana, two dollars for twenty one-ounce cigarettes. Heroin, five bucks a pound.
Sure, millions of people will get addicted and eventually kill themselves. You'll be stepping over dead bodies in the streets every day. Every city will have to have a crew that does nothing but pick up dead bodies. But we knew that's what was going to happen when we made emotion drugs legal. Hell, it's just cleaning up the gene pool. Just evolution in action, right?
And, yeah, intellectual, moral, and scientific progress will slow way the hell down because society will be collectively choosing NOT to get smarter. The smart people, instead of doing all the stuff smart people do, like inventing cures for cancer and AIDs and things like that, will be drooling against their bedroom wall stoned out of their friggin’ minds.
What will happen along with this?
Well, if people can use emotion drugs to get happy---they will tend NOT to use any other method. So sales of high-speed race cars will go down. Along with parachutes. And airplanes. And video games. And whatever else you can name, because the only goal people really have, the ONLY reason they do whatever it is they do, every single action, no matter how small, is to get happy. As so fundamental a document as the Declaration of Independence recognizes.
When we made emotion drugs legal---we made that the CHEAPEST way to get happy.
So the VISIBLE start of the decline of society will be an economic crash, which will take a good while before it starts.(The INVISIBLE part will be the intellectual decline. This will start immediately and actually have MUCH more severe effects---but you will NEVER see it happening.) The only companies making money will be the emotion-drug companies.
What happens next?
The emotion drugs get BETTER.
Free-market competition, right? The first primitive generation of emotion drugs have an unfortunate tendency to damage and kill their users. This is like, you know, REAL bad from a profit standpoint. So the emotion-drug companies will engage in a research race to produce the best possible emotion drug, one that doesn't kill or damage their customers.
It is QUITE clear what the end of that research race will be.
Say hello to the Happiness Box.
The Happiness Box is the ultimate expression of the wire-to-the-brain thing, the ultimate emotion drug. It is a steel box designed to keep a human brain alive and happy. VERY happy. The way it's used is a living brain is removed from its body and placed in the box. Various wires and tubes are connected to the brain and the box is closed. Somebody punches the start button, and that brain goes into Nirvana---and STAYS there, forever.
For as long as the brain or the box lasts, anyway. With the appropriate technology, this could easily be hundreds of years, maybe even thousands.
Various ruffles and flourishes are possible. For example, the most advanced version of the Happiness Box could, instead of just keeping you stoned all the time, be programmed so that you lived an artificial life inside the box. Of course, after the knowledge you were in a Happiness Box was removed, so it would seem completely real to you.
Hmmph. It hits me the first primitive generation of Happiness Boxes are on the market RIGHT THIS SECOND.
Video games.
Right? The user gets into what's already being described as a "total immersive experience" and stays there in his own little world for hours and hours, completely isolated from the rest of reality. It's not unknown for people to play these things for days on end, without even sleeping. And to get addicted to them, too.
Yeah, Happiness Boxes are already headed our way. The Playstation 10,000, the ultimate XBox, SIMS become real, Azeroth forever and ever. Just drop your brain into it, close the lid, and press the Start button.
These things will sell like hot cakes, won't they, folks? Perfect happiness living your perfect life forever, and no side-effects! People will be jumping into Happiness Boxes by the millions.
And there will be a TREMENDOUS push for everybody to jump into his own personal Happiness Box. Because as more and more people disappear, society is going to go downhill FAST. It will be a race to the bottom like nothing ever seen in history.
And once the last person goes into the last Happiness Box, that will be the end of society. Society made emotion drugs legal---and the end result was the absolutely unavoidable, total destruction of society.
And the Suicide of Man.
Once again, oopsie.
(Guess what we just found.
We just found the mechanism by which sentient races go extinct. They reach the technological point where they can build Happiness Boxes, build them, jump into them, and disappear. When the last brain dies----as it must inevitably do---that race is extinct. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. Poof.)
In the meantime, I note that in the real world, while emotion drugs are illegal, HAPPINESS BOXES ARE NOT. The world's societies haven't looked very far down the road when it comes to emotion drugs. Which makes sense, when they can't even define what an emotion drug is.
So get ready, all you young people out there. The opportunity to buy your own Happiness Box and disappear into it is going to come within your lifetime. It's going to be entirely legal to do so.
Step right up and get'em while they're hot, folks.
One hell of a debate is coming to this world.
SHOULD I, OR SHOULD I NOT, JUMP INTO A HAPPINESS BOX?
On the face of it, this seems a laughably absurd question. Of course, you should jump into a Happiness Box! Perfect happiness! Living a long time, maybe a thousand years! More! It's the SMART thing to do!
Sure, when the world's societies see what Happiness Boxes are doing to the world, they will try to make these Happiness Box thingies illegal, in order to stay in existence.
But does a society really have that right? To punish people for using emotion drugs, Happiness Boxes, even when it's a certain thing that society---the human race itself---will be destroyed in the end?
Does a society have the right to put its existence above the right of its members get happy anyway they want to? Does the human race have a right to put its existence above the rights of its members to get happy anyway they want to?
The answer to this question---doesn't matter. If enough people want it, and they will---Happiness Boxes WILL become legal. No matter what the answer is, no matter what it does to society, to the human race. The history of Prohibition teaches us that.
The world's societies are going to LOSE this War On Drugs, aren't they, folks? They don't have a snowball's chance in Hell, despite all the hundreds of billions they've spent. Society is going down, HARD. The clock is ticking, the fuse is lit, it's only a matter of time until the explosion. Happiness Boxes are going to come out, and it's going to be Game Over for the human race in less than fifty years.
And why does that even matter? Where in Nature does it say that human society HAS to exist? That the human race itself HAS to exist? Don't all species go extinct in the end anyway? It all seems just so inevitable and unavoidable.
So why not just let it happen? In fact, why not start funding research into creating Happiness Boxes for everybody in the world immediately?
Last one in is a rotten egg!
I mean, look at the real world. A world filled with horror. With death and dying, cancer and AIDS, with terrorists and suicide bombers and a million different painful ways of getting killed.
A world---FILLED WITH UNHAPPINESS.
Compared to perfect bliss and perfect safety inside a Happiness Box. Is there anything in the world that could possibly offset that? That would make jumping into a Happiness Box a STUPID thing for an individual to do?
Because that's the one thing that would stop this from happening. If there were some EXTREMELY powerful reason for an individual NOT to jump into a Happiness Box.
Is there such a reason?
W-e-l-l, yes, there is, actually. There is ONE teeny little thing that could actually make it incredibly stupid for an individual to jump into a Happiness Box. So much so that he would look at this thing and then just walk away without so much as a backward glance at a lost Nirvana.
But I have got to warn you all first. It is a truly BIZARRE reason. Lean back and take a breath. Brace yourselves.
The reason is:
IF PEOPLE HAVE SOULS.
If people have souls. That one thing, AND THAT ONE THING ONLY, would make it stupid to jump into a Happiness Box.
Allow me to explain.
First, I must define precisely what I mean by "soul."
A "soul" is an eternally existing thinking and feeling structure that survives the death of the physical body. Souls can and do inhabit physical bodies, but don't require one.
In the simplest terms, a "soul" is you---without a body. Exactly the same---except without a body.
So how would having a soul make it stupid to jump into a Happiness Box?
Let's think about what would happen to you when you jumped into a Happiness Box and closed the lid.
Okay. Centuries and centuries and CENTURIES of unending pleasure and bliss. Then your brain dies, as it must do in the end.
And your soul pops loose. Is thrown back into harsh, cold reality from the artificial Nirvana it's been in.
What kind of psychological condition is your soul in? How well is it going to get along with all the other souls out there?
How strong is your soul going to be after centuries of bliss?
About as strong as wet cardboard, huh, folks. Whatever lessons your soul learned about getting along with reality and all the other souls out there have been wiped away by centuries of unending pleasure, haven't they? Just smoothed away and gone.
So all those painful lessons are going to have to be relearned. All over again. Painfully.
And the pain won't just be yours. For everybody else who has to deal with you, too.
The danger is greater than it might appear. For somebody who has been in the simplest kind of Happiness Box, one where his bliss centers were stimulated, the end result will be the creation of a child, an infant. This will be an unpleasant thing to deal with, but not too unpleasant.
But worse is possible. MUCH worse.
Consider somebody who has been in the most advanced type of Happiness Box, one where he has lived in an artificial reality designed to cater to his every whim. Centuries and centuries and CENTURIES of having his every desire fulfilled, of ALWAYS getting his own way.
What kind of psychological effect would that have on a soul?
It would turn that soul into a stone-raving sociopath, wouldn't it, folks. A true screaming psycho. Somebody who would never take anybody else's feelings into account. Who would stop short at nothing to get what he wants, not even murder.
This is a bad thing. To say the least. There's going to be a great deal of pain and agony involved for that soul to get right again, to relearn old lessons. For that soul and everybody else who has to deal with that soul.
So, in the end, when the pleasure that soul experienced unlearning those lessons is weighed against the pain that soul and everybody else experienced for that soul to relearn those lessons---the pain will be the greater amount. FAR greater.
Which makes jumping into a Happiness Box a STUPID thing to do in the first place.
If you DON'T have a soul, jumping into a Happiness Box is SMART.
If you DO have a soul, jumping into a Happiness Box is STUPID.
Note. Which one is the smart thing to do is entirely dependent on whether or not you have a soul---AND NOTHING ELSE.
So do you really, truly have a soul? That's the key thing you have to know when it comes time to make that decision.
(It's far from an impossible thing, you know. There isn't any DEFINITIVE scientific evidence one way or the other. In fact, there are at least three different scientific projects I know of going on this very minute that are trying to detect souls.)
We can get an indication of the answer to this question by examining it from a somewhat abstract viewpoint. Let's look at this question from a societal viewpoint, by examining what the impact of immortal souls would be on a society.
How would everybody having immortal souls affect a society's behavior?
(You can examine this question by examining individual human behavior too, and get the same answer, but we are talking about societies here, and so I restrict the argument here to societies.)
What kinds of rules and regulations would an immortal-soul society have to have?
One rule should be perfectly clear from all of the above.
IN AN IMMORTAL-SOUL SOCIETY---YOU CAN'T GET HAPPY BY DIRECT STIMULATION OF YOUR EMOTION CENTERS. YOU CAN'T GET HAPPY BY ANY MEANS OTHER THAN INTERACTING WITH OTHER SOULS AND THE UNIVERSE.
In others words---emotion drugs HAVE to be ILLEGAL in an immortal-soul society, because, as we just saw, they create more pain than pleasure in the end. Any kind of emotion drugs. No Happiness Boxes. No coke. No crack. No heroin. And so on down the line, although the line starts getting fuzzy eventually, because there will be certain substances---like marijuana and wine---that will have uses other than getting stoned.
(But it won’t actually be necessary to pass laws making emotion drugs illegal. No SMART eternal being is going to touch these things. In a society of smart, self-aware eternal beings, a dope dealer will starve to death.)
I gotta tell you, man, I see something quite incredibly strange here.
You know that single, simple rule the world's stable societies are using regarding getting happy we abstracted up above? Compare it to the rule we just now derived about getting happy in an immortal-soul society.
Do you see it?
IT'S THE SAME DAMN RULE!
You can't get happy by using emotion drugs! Stable human societies are ALREADY acting like an immortal-soul society!
Like we all have souls!
When you try to find a good, solid reason why societies make emotion drugs illegal---the rock-bottom reason you eventually run into is the deep, deep assumption by all these stable societies that people really, truly are immortal souls!
Although nobody knows for a scientific fact souls exist---the world's stable societies ACT like they do. ALL of them. EVERY damn one!
Funny thing, that.
Y'all have a good one.
END
Labels: souls emotion drugs happiness
posted by Jeff @ 9:20 PM|
42 Comments:
Your argument style is quite geared towards teenagers. Perhaps that is a good thing. I have to say that I saw this Happiness Box thingy a quite a long time ago. Though, I have never put it down into words as nicely as you have. Good work.
I have to write it as simply as possible, to get the point across.
Or maybe it's because I'm really permanently fifteen years old on the inside . . .:-)
I rather suspected there were other people who could see Happiness Boxes coming. I bet the only truly original idea here is the idea that sentients represent an extreme threat to the Universe because they understand its fundamental laws. That one, I think, is entirely new.
Sorry I didn't reply sooner, the e-mail notification thingy apparently doesn't work.
Thank you for your comments.
All that first question proves is that people care about what other people think of them and are willing to lie to look like nice people. I'll say it point blank (albeit anonymously), I would shoot that guy in the head, throw him and the pill into the ocean, and walk away rich. I'd do it if he were the nicest guy on earth. A million dollars is a lot of money.
Saw your link from New Scientist.
1) Murder on a Beach: If you would gain something (a million dollars) by shooting a man, and lose nothing (i.e. you would get away without any consequences, not even the memory of committing murder), the fact that you would still hesitate indicates that you’re actually worried about consequences in the afterlife.
Response: Ignoring the fact that this argument is based on a leap of logic (if I’m not worried about the consequences of this life, I must actually be worried about the consequences of the next life), this argument seemingly fails by simply extending the “no-consequences” aspect: God himself makes an appearance to assure you that there will be no consequences to the murder in your afterlife. I believe that most (tho not all!) people would still refrain from pulling the trigger.
Two additional comments: Your reasoning seems based on your own personal introspection as to why you yourself believe that you avoid murder (a cosmic Cop is watching over your actions). This in turn presupposes gods and souls and such. And I would add that I feel sorry for those who believe that murder is wrong only due to the personal consequences.
2) Nothing Heard My Scream: Being soulless makes you angry and want to kill people.
Response: First of all, this is an example of arguing from consequences: if A is true, then B is true -but I don’t like B, therefore A must not be true. Secondly, you haven’t established that being soulless causes people to become angry about not having such. (I trust that you acknowledge that you lack Chi, Thetans, Kirilian auras, etc. Do you feel particularly angry about it?) Thirdly, the absence of consequences does not equal a motive. If I were to somehow remove your soul, is it truly the case that you have so much pent-up rage that you’d go about killing people simply because there’d be no consequences? If so, you have my pity.
These are the only two of your arguments that I’ve read, and they seem pretty weak (no offense!) Certainly, these two arguments don’ t warrant declaring the existence of souls to be as well established as you indicated. Perhaps these two are not representative, but I don’t feel motivated to look any further at your writings (“And Nothing Heard My Scream” was pretty telling, for reason that I won’t go into.) If you believe that you have significantly stronger arguments elsewhere, let me know what and where, and I’ll give your defense of souls a second chance. Otherwise, I see no reason to spend more time reading your material.
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As with Jamie B I also saw and responded to your comments on NewScientist. After reading through you're material here I can see a array of logical fallacies and inconsistencies.
To start off with you seem to be under the misapprehension that science involves performing experiments to go off and prove the non-existence of things. I say this because with your proposed experiment of utilising SQUIDs it's strikes me that if this experiment was done and showed nothing that you would presume that the SQUIDs were not sensitive enough (and perhaps suggest your other experiment including giant squid neurons). On the other hand if the result showed some odd electrical activity localising outside of the brain at the point of death you would most likely assume that this is "proof" of a soul. In actuality it would merely be evidence of electrical activity with no conformation as to whether or not it is a soul or a thetan or the product of a natural process we don't understand.
I have two point's I would ask you to address in terms of your "proofs" for a soul, firstly the beach murder.
This is a fallacious argument because you have shown no necessary link between proposition A (no one would kill the man) and explanation B (that this unified behaviour is due to an immortal soul). The arguments weaknesses can be shown by another application of it,
"imagine a man says to you that he will give you £1billion and all you have to do is rape your mother. It wont be pleasant but afterwards you, your mother and the man will all have their memories wiped and replaced with a happy memory of having a picnic. You've got nothing to loose!"
Now I can't claim that everyone in the world would say no to this (there are some people who have raped their mothers for no money) but even if they did that is no evidence for a soul! Your implication is that people would not do the act because souls intrinsically know what is right and wrong and will be judged upon death (though you give no argument for why this is necessary).
I would propose that the reason most people would not rape their mothers is because we have been bought up in a society where such actions are reprehensible (we also have an emotional stake in this but that is besides the point for now). We don't fear divine judgement in the next life, we fear real world judgement and sentencing in this life! Even when presented with a no-consequences scenario we say no because that social conditioning is engrained.
Lastly you make the claim that neurons are not the cause of the mind but are "antennae" for detecting instructions from the soul. You don't seem to be aware that neuroscience has a complete and thorough understanding of how neurons interact, i.e. why and how they fire (show electrical activity) and how that relates. It's down to biochemistry, I fail to see where you think a soul would come into this?
I apologise for the long post but I would truly appreciate your reply, I applaud your advocacy of science but feel that you are tied up in logical fallacies that have lead you to inaccurate conclusions.
As with Jamie B I also saw and responded to your comments on NewScientist. After reading through you're material here I can see a array of logical fallacies and inconsistencies.
To start off with you seem to be under the misapprehension that science involves performing experiments to go off and prove the non-existence of things. I say this because with your proposed experiment of utilising SQUIDs it's strikes me that if this experiment was done and showed nothing that you would presume that the SQUIDs were not sensitive enough (and perhaps suggest your other experiment including giant squid neurons). On the other hand if the result showed some odd electrical activity localising outside of the brain at the point of death you would most likely assume that this is "proof" of a soul. In actuality it would merely be evidence of electrical activity with no conformation as to whether or not it is a soul or a thetan or the product of a natural process we don't understand.
I have two point's I would ask you to address in terms of your "proofs" for a soul, firstly the beach murder.
This is a fallacious argument because you have shown no necessary link between proposition A (no one would kill the man) and explanation B (that this unified behaviour is due to an immortal soul). The arguments weaknesses can be shown by another application of it,
"imagine a man says to you that he will give you £1billion and all you have to do is rape your mother. It wont be pleasant but afterwards you, your mother and the man will all have their memories wiped and replaced with a happy memory of having a picnic. You've got nothing to loose!"...
...Now I can't claim that everyone in the world would say no to this (there are some people who have raped their mothers for no money) but even if they did that is no evidence for a soul! Your implication is that people would not do the act because souls intrinsically know what is right and wrong and will be judged upon death (though you give no argument for why this is necessary).
I would propose that the reason most people would not rape their mothers is because we have been bought up in a society where such actions are reprehensible (we also have an emotional stake in this but that is besides the point for now). We don't fear divine judgement in the next life, we fear real world judgement and sentencing in this life! Even when presented with a no-consequences scenario we say no because that social conditioning is engrained.
Lastly you make the claim that neurons are not the cause of the mind but are "antennae" for detecting instructions from the soul. You don't seem to be aware that neuroscience has a complete and thorough understanding of how neurons interact, i.e. why and how they fire (show electrical activity) and how that relates. It's down to biochemistry, I fail to see where you think a soul would come into this?
I apologise for the long post but I would truly appreciate your reply, I applaud your advocacy of science but feel that you are tied up in logical fallacies that have lead you to inaccurate conclusions.
Jeff, if you're going to continue citing these arguments at New Scientist and elsewhere as 'evidence' for the existence of a soul, perhaps you should address the many criticisms that you've received.
"Okay, there is one thing in this situation----AND ONE THING ONLY---that would make the refusal to commit murder RATIONAL."
What does human choice have to do with being RATIONAL? Decision making is mostly emotional, and we use rational arguments to justify those decisions. Some of us don't kill people because we believe murder is wrong, not because we'll get punished for it. And you find plenty of religous people in prison.
Also, BELIEVING that you'll be punished after death doesn't mean it will actually happen, only that you believe it.
I choose to live in a reality in wich i know there is a Happiness Box out there but i decide not to enter on it. Instead i'll try to be happy even without the help of the Happiness Box and stay here on earth and keep creating beautiful music, stories (just like Middle Earth, Star Wars...), and every beauty the Human Being can create... I can make my own reality right now, and it's curious that the reality i chose doesn't need a happiness box to be made... I believe we are supposed to create things instead of being stuck inside a creation... Moreover It is very likely In the future there will be such amazing things that aren't even possible to imagine right now and only who decided to stay out of the happiness box, creating those things, will be able to enjoy it in its entirety.
The reason few people would choose a "happiness box" is that people prefer reality over illusion. Perhaps due to the thought that illusion doesnt really matter or that whilst you are in your HB someone could be standing over you ready to burn the house down.
However consider this; a scientist comes up to you and explains he has made a machine that will re-write the laws of physics to whatever the user desires. The whole universe can be edited so that instead of entropy, matter and energy it was made of pure happiness, safety and fulfilment where all entities can exist in the paradoxical state of being constantly stable in happiness yet constantly evolving.
Assuming the scientist could prove his claim very few people would tell the scientist to dismantle his Heaven Bomb and never use it. On the contrary almost everyone would say "hell yes!". Same situation (offer of total happiness) but now its reality not illusion
As various people have mentioned, there are many logical flaws in your arguments and thought experiments. Here are another two.
First, in "On Emotion Drugs" you claim that after "centuries .. of unending pleasure and bliss .. your brain dies. And your soul .. Is thrown back into harsh, cold reality"
Again, you have assumed what you are trying to show: if a person has no soul then, upon death, they would simply cease to exist; they would not be thrown into "harsh, cold reality."
However, if people do have souls, why not assume the blissful & heavenly afterlife promised by the Bible? Then these flabby souls would merely move from a physical Happiness Box into a divine Happiness Box.
(Your assumption that Happiness Boxes lead to "weak" - or damnable? - souls has been pulled out of thin air. If souls exist, and are eternal, why would they be harmed by a few score years in a Happiness Box?)
Secondly, you claim that the "INVISIBLE start" of the decay of society, following drug legalisation, will be "intellectual decline."
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, opium was legal in England and the U.S. The Romantic poets were users of the substance: Coleridge and Wordsworth were famously addicted, as was Edgar Allan Poe. I think you would be hard-pressed to show that the work of these poets signalled the "intellectual decline" of Britain and the U.S.
In the U.S., the vastly expensive "war on drugs" only began after the Vietnam war, when soldiers came home addicted. As with alcohol prohibition, criminalisation drove up drug prices and made poppy cultivation hugely profitable.
"Zero tolerance" and mandatory sentencing laws introduced since the 1980s have resulted in an almost linear increase in the per-capita number of U.S. citizens in gaol. From 1920-1980 the percentage of Americans in gaol was almost constant at 0.1% - apart from the blip during Prohibition: by 1990 it was 0.3%; by 2000 it was 0.5%; by 2010 it was 0.75%.
The U.S. currently gaols a greater proportion of its population than any other country: the U.S. has 0.75% in gaol, Russia 0.6% while the European average is 0.1% - about the same as Canada and China.
Unlike you, I don't think the world (well, primarily the U.S.) needs an allegedly rational reason for outlawing emotion drugs. Rather, I think the U.S. needs to learn the lesson of prohibition and abandon the war.
Portugal decriminalised heroin use more than a decade ago. Convince me that Portuguese society - and addicts - are now worse off!
Mental exercises derived from a predisposed supposition can not be taken as proof of anything.For example assume you were conditioned to believe that there is no soul and no after death consequence and nothing wrong with killing if it were in your best interest,If you believed this, logic states you would surely do it.(people kill without remorse not given these parameters anyway) the reason you have a "morality" problem with this is simply because this is not the position you are comming from,Not because you do or donot have a soul.By the way you dont "have" a soul you "are" a soul you "have" a body if thats what you believe.
Your 'murder on the beach' argument attempts to apply rationality to an emotional decision. The decision not to murder someone doesn't have to be rational at all. I would choose not to murder someone because I believe that life is precious, mostly because there is no afterlife. I'm sorry, but I really don't see any of this "scientific" analysis your introductory section claimed you would present.
My main question is why are there so many apparently intelligent and thoughtful people bothering to comment on this author's drivel?
What I found interesting was the "troll-ish" comments on New SCientist.
I was curious enough to come here - so one way or another the plot or non-plot worked.
THe few other well-presented comments here on your blog on your very illogical construct need no further commentary from me.
However, for what it is worth, you really should pursue an education of value. It appears that aside from relative youth, you have very little life experience.
My suggestion(I was you once, 60 years ago)is that you study the foundations of social existence by reading the philosophical history of civilisation from an Indian (no, not U.S.native, the original)viewpoint. 10,000 year old stories/legends/history, still applicable to you and I right now.
Your angst was resolved 15,000 years ago.
Sorry I only read the first story and all I can say is this: Well aparently you've never been hungry. Most Agnostics and Atheists aren't concerned with the existence of souls but of a God or Gods. Frankly I don't see how you're "test" applies to either souls or Gods. Perhaps you should try a perfectly satiated person tempted by greed because just about everyone I know will eat other people to stay alive if they're hungry enough, not all but most will, they just don't really know untill they get there. I agree with anonymous from 9/4/10 that this story only shows that most people are more concerned with what others think of them than what most people think of themselves as well as their ability to rationalize selfish decisions. I commend your search, keep looking. I myself have only come up with one possible hypothesis. Drop me a line if you're curious and I'll share. Full disclosure; I am of course, as most rational people are, agnostic.
rbpontius@comcast.net
Hmm, your writing makes no effort whatsoever to identify alternative assumptions, weaknesses in yours, alternative conclusions, and so on. Moreover, it is clear that, rather than asking people to think and providing material, you delibeately load every word and argument, without even raising the possibility of weakness. In essence, it shows a pretence of cleverness, but is instead a hamfisted, overly wordy, and shamelessly brash piece of nonsense.
If anybody wants to read sme genuinely clever thought experiments, buy "the pig that wants to be eaten: 100 thought experiments for the armchair philosopher"
You say you write simply. Put simply, you dont. Read julian baggini, you will see how a genuinely fair, reasonable, and entertaining person writes. Even better, read Terry Pratchett, who can make points extraordinarily cleverly and without such clear but blind determination.
Well, I commented on 2 of your other posts. Other people have clearly demonstrated that you lack an understanding of logic or what the word science means. Also stating that you have some sort of soul experiments but that you won't go into what the equipment might be, is incredulous.
If you are truly interested in sociology, and not just trying to promote "god exists" nonsense, you might start thinking about what the scientific reasons are for how the human race progressed from primitive barbarism to civilization. That we did is recorded historical fact. What evolutionary biological imperatives wired into us brought this about? Would these sociological imperatives work in prehistoric times?
Can we see the result of genetic expression in brain structure changes? Or, are all sociological imperatives strictly learned and passed on by society?
These, and many other questions, are real questions that researchers explore. If you have an inquisitive mind, if you truly have the "bug" for research, don't hold back, do it! We need all the trained minds we can find to continue to develop our scientific knowledge base. If you are having trouble following the logic truth tables, or discussion about emotion versus rational behavior, or any of the other well written comments in response to your posts, I would urge you to take some courses in critical thinking at a university. You might look under philosophy as well. From my experience it tends to be less algebraic, but the concepts of logic, logical and critical thinking are well explored in philosophy.
If you are having a "knee-jerk" denial reaction to finding out that you have logical flaws in your arguments, that your rational scenarios are not as rational as you original thought, etc., recognize this as an emotional response, perhaps a cover for embarrassment. Regardless, of the source, get over it. Life is short. Put your brain to work solving real problems. Maybe you will be the person that finds the cure to cancer, or maybe you'll prove string theory, or some other breakthrough. Don't waste your time. Its your life and your memories. Do you really want to look back on your life and realize all you did was chase endless logical fallacies?
Hey
People do really bad things and get found out about it so maybe the situation of being asked if you might be potentially bad without it actually happening is likely to get you a fake response. What is it they say, chaos is 2 square meals away.
Why do people go to war and kill people they don't know? Ask them the 'guy on the beach question...It could be that people say no to this question of shooting the guy because they feel empathy, that the guy with the money might somehow someday be them. Maybe they might not want to see them selves in such a financialy challenged situation and are saying 'no' to the likelyhood that its likely to ever be them. Maybe if you suggested the guy in the water with the money was a murderer you might get more people shooting him or not emphasise his innocence so much for so long people might choose yes....you have a really long build-up to the question. You could have said...'this guy with the money was really mean...killed many people, burnt houses down and was responsible for many crimes' but if you shot him it would still be murder and robbery. I think its the empathy thing playing the main part. The guy would know he had been shot or feel death and most people would empathise with that. Did you ask anyone who had actually shot anyone? Why would people agree they would do this in the event of it actually happening that way...kinda defeats the whole anonymity thing :/ You might just know nice people lol.
A nice illustration of a fallacy from The Simpsons:
After a single bear wandering into town has drawn an over-reaction from the residents of Springfield, Homer stands outside his house and muses, “Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol is working like a charm!”
Lisa sees through his reasoning: “That’s specious reasoning, dad.”
Homer, misunderstanding the word “specious”, thanks her for the compliment.
Optimistically, she tries to explain the error in his argument: “By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.”
Homer is confused: “Hmm; how does it work?”
Lisa: “It doesn’t work; it’s just a stupid rock!”
Homer: “Uh-huh.”
Lisa: “… but I don’t see any tigers around, do you?”
Homer, after a moment’s thought: “Lisa, I want to buy your rock…”
the last three were me
Are you insane, or just plain stupid? I found your writing very entertaining, but for all the wrong reasons. It's like watching a car crash in slow motion. Horrific, but strangely alluring. Good luck, get yourself a good doctor, and stay away from those colourful mushrooms.
While the guy on the beach was still facing away from me, I snuck up on him and knocked him cold with the butt of my gun.
After dragging him from the surf I wrote him this message in the sand "don't be so mean in your future life"
I then took the case full of money to the soup kitchen wrote a note saying "please accept this donation for all your good work" and secretly deposited it where the charity worker would find it later.
Next I disposed of the gun and then took the pill to ensure my memory of the actions would not cause me any future angst.
This poses the question, do I have a soul and therefore fear the consequences of my actions would be viewed badly, or did I think that my actions were going to gain me some sort of soul points and improve my standing with god, or do I just like soup and want to ensure its continued supply.
You decide
As Kierkegaard has so convincingly argue, some truths are subjective, like one having a soul, so they are lived, and therefore they cannot be scientifically proven objectively.
So trying to prove people have souls scientifically, is pure nonsense. while it can be shown quite convincingly that people the world over has some inkling they possess what is called a soul, most Westerners can either be manipulated by scientism or by some other means into denying that they do have one, simply because they do not want to face the resulting dilemma of having to answer an angry God.
Yet, there's no shortage in the great body of human literature of those who speak of having a soul, who readily recognize that inner part of themselves that they most easily self-indentify with as "Oh,my soul!" and this is a multi-dimentional lived experience from which we can hate and love from, or even suffer personal ruination from. People everywhere will immediately know just what I'm talking about...except scientists.
That man standing on the beach story is flawed...
Most people will not kill that person because they too are the man standing with the money. You see, one could as easily be the man standing with the money and we would not like some1 else to kill us. Thus when we are the poor etc man, we don't kill the man with the money
It is not about happiness its about survival. The collections of replicating matter that arrange themselves into a structure that links survival requirements to feelings of euphoria seems to work. its inefficient but it works. As you point out this survival strategy may ultimately prove to be a dead end.
however, lets not forget that the end of a society is by no means the end of all societies. There will always be some people that do not want to live in a happy box even if all of their desires such as the desire to not be living in a happy box could be reproduced by the happy box. something as simple as fear could keep them out of the happy box. These people would live on, possibly with a simpler way of life or perhaps not. If we have the tech to live in happy boxes we surely have the tech to do amazing things with limited human resources.
Fantastic stream of worth-free drivel. Your style could work in an American evangelical Christian newsletter perhaps, but don't delude yourself into thinking that your 'work' could remotely approach even the feeblest academic standards. I don't know why this annoys me so much, I think it's your ridiculous conviction that you've made a flawless, logical, earth-shaking argument for the existence of souls...
Yeah, this is about what I'd expect out of someone who advertises himself in the New Scientist comments.
sadly this can post can only be described as quasi religious rubbish.
I think the author was right - his development seems to have stopped at the age of 12 when he had his first cup of coffee.
Just like a 12-year-old he's exalted to have found the meaning of life - pursuit of happiness. How profound...
Hello,
I am not a drug user, and my purpose here is not to defend such a bad thing, hold it in mind !
First, you didn't ask yourself why the ancient societies, that faced the same drugs as ours, didn't encounter the same apocalyptic future you describe for a theroretical free-drug-US.
Besides, they didn't need a huge police force to restrain people form consuming drug !
Second, you didn't suppose that acts would be done very quickly to suppress this established fact in your theoretical apocalyptic free-drug-US.
You didn't even mention that, perhaps, our present society is too difficult to live in.
While we have the know-how and science to control the dangers and lacks encountered in nature, perhaps we created ourselves a new nature : a social and legal wildness, that is even more hard to live in, primarily for the weakest of us.
Try to think about it, and not to put your hands on your ears and close your eyes tight ;-)
Have a nice day !
ps : I am French so i apologize for the possible mistakes i might have written !
Your 'argument' indicates that you have no idea of the concept of existentialism or any other philosophy not reliant on theology. But most important, is that your 'argument' is riddled with flawed reason (something I don't think you understand how to apply) and abuses too numerous of rules for both informal and formal logic.
Hello,
I did not mean to argue against or for his theories.
I just wanted to present others ways of thinking about that subject.
I mean : more than focusing on the sole drug, if you want to build a strong theory, you have to consider the contigencies that lead to drug consumption, for instance.
I did not mean either to do religion or theology, as you say, for I am a scientist.
See you later, à bientôt ;)
Dear Anonymous, I like your reasoning! and especially: "What does human choice have to do with being RATIONAL? Decision making is mostly emotional, and we use rational arguments to justify those decisions". True. I am a philosopher as well. Wishing you a great day (if you wish you can write to me lepo_ime@yahoo.com I would be happy to hear from you). K
I've only read through the first couple blog entries, so I can't claim to have a full grasp of your argument. But one huge problem jumps out immediately: You create these hypotheticals that show people behave as though they BELIEVE they have a soul. That's in no way the same thing as establishing that they DO have a soul. The fact that most of us are inclined to behave honorably even without threat of punishment is not really debated by anyone. People have proposed countless explanations for this - god, soul, social conditioning, evolutionary advantages in cooperating with others, etc. Your argument falls apart unless you can provide some evidence that our inclination to good behavior is the result of a soul rather than any of these many other possible explanations.
The purpose of The Nine Point Five Theses is not to convince people they have a soul, Geack.
The purpose is demonstrate there is sufficient theoretical---by examining human behavior and demonstrating people act like they have souls---that scientists should at least TEST THE PROPOSITION IN THE LABORATORY.
Is there sufficient theoretical justification here to conduct soul experiments? Or not?
That's the question I want the "gentle reader" to answer.
I assume you are a Christian of some sort. Good and well, but you have a misunderstanding about what the Bible says about soul and death. For starters, man does not "have" a soul insomuch as he IS a soul! The Hebrew of Genesis 2:7 states that when God created man, He created a living soul; 'man became a living soul,' and some translation render the Hebrew exactly like that. Also, man is not immortal, as 1Timothy 6:16 states, only God has immortality. For more info you can check out the web site http://www.truthaboutdeath.com/, or if the blog deletes web site addresses, truthaboutdeath and it's a dot com address. Thanks for your blog, it was interesting.
How funny, my previous comment disappeared.
Bullshit.
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