"Life just does not make sense if we have infinite time and life!"
This reminds me of Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence, a demon that will ensure you relive your life exactly the same was as you did before, repeatedly, for infinity. It's a thought experiment, or a gamble, that makes important the here and now, an infinite possibility that can combat other infinite possibilities.
This is not a connection I made, but was made by another Substacker here:
Rationally I don't know if there's an afterlife, so I should keep an open mind to that possibility, but deep down I believe that all we have is our limited time on this Earth. And even if you do believe in an afterlife, this would still be true: It's important for us to make the best of this time.
But also I think anyone who finds Pascal's Wager to be persuasive just isn't being imaginative enough! I break down _that_ idea here:
We love substack drama. Hey, me and your drama seems like the nicer part of the drama around this subject rn lol
> I don’t think words and beliefs function independently of the whole of one’s life experiences.
I mean, while it’s true lots of arguments online are semantic arguments, I think lots of questions in philosophy have true answer. As my GOAT, Big Yud, said: “The claim ‘snow is white’ is true if and only if snow is white”. While you can argue that snow is red, we can have a debate about why you’re wrong, and find the truth. I think many philosophical arguments take this form, so I don’t think all philosophy is semantics. I’m pointing to something true when I say the color red, so I’m wrong when I say snow is red.
As far as the callout, I’m unconvinced when you say “infinite EV breaks our equations, so we shouldn’t use it.” Surely if infinite EV exists is a property OF THE UNIVERSE, not a property of my equations — I think being happy forever is infinite EV because being happy for a little bit of time is positive, and there’s no amount of enjoying life that would mean I wouldn’t enjoy life in the future, assuming my memory is wiped or something so I don’t have to have like a quintillion years of memories lol.
You have a point when you say “you’re not the same person after a certain amount of time” but that feels like a separate claim about consciousness and how much “we” continue into the future. Feels like if I am the same person I was yesterday then I could be the same person I am in a billion years depending on how consciousness works.
1) I was being facetious when calling you out but nevertheless will respond
2) My claim is not that philosophy is just semantics, but that semantics don’t really exist without baseline empirical experience. Snow is white seemingly definitionally true. The way we argue about it is not to talk about how words are used but with physical evidence (like when my dog goes to the bathroom on now). In the context here, I don’t think we can talk about things like pay outs and expected value without having an empirical baseline for the thing language is describing.
So “infinite value” is nonsense, similarly to 10^10000 dollars. Sure, these things are logically possible, and maybe as constructed, can be theoretically useful when making complex models in something like physics. Removing it from the context in which it works, maybe makes sense, to context that doesn’t breaks the use of language.
3) I don’t think infinite EV exists as a property of the universe because I don’t think value in general can be divorced from individual agents, and they lack the capacity to experience or understand infinity.
4) I recommend reading the book I linked on death and the afterlife, because the effect I’m talking about is a little different than the direction you’re going here. It’s not a problem of continuity of consciousness, but scarcity in generally. Like scarcity is a boundary condition (maybe that’s the word?) of our consciousness that we don’t appreciate.
"Life just does not make sense if we have infinite time and life!"
This reminds me of Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence, a demon that will ensure you relive your life exactly the same was as you did before, repeatedly, for infinity. It's a thought experiment, or a gamble, that makes important the here and now, an infinite possibility that can combat other infinite possibilities.
This is not a connection I made, but was made by another Substacker here:
https://theperse.substack.com/p/a-better-gamble-than-pascals-wager
I really like the idea.
Rationally I don't know if there's an afterlife, so I should keep an open mind to that possibility, but deep down I believe that all we have is our limited time on this Earth. And even if you do believe in an afterlife, this would still be true: It's important for us to make the best of this time.
But also I think anyone who finds Pascal's Wager to be persuasive just isn't being imaginative enough! I break down _that_ idea here:
https://ramblingafter.substack.com/p/im-not-a-polytheist-but-i-believe
>I just worry that it’s rushed and the cost of her own healing.
Yeah, agree.
Also, I think you mean "prophet," not "profit." Although that might be a not-so-subtle knock on what much Xtianity has become.
yeah there are typos here lol
I love "Freudian typos"
We love substack drama. Hey, me and your drama seems like the nicer part of the drama around this subject rn lol
> I don’t think words and beliefs function independently of the whole of one’s life experiences.
I mean, while it’s true lots of arguments online are semantic arguments, I think lots of questions in philosophy have true answer. As my GOAT, Big Yud, said: “The claim ‘snow is white’ is true if and only if snow is white”. While you can argue that snow is red, we can have a debate about why you’re wrong, and find the truth. I think many philosophical arguments take this form, so I don’t think all philosophy is semantics. I’m pointing to something true when I say the color red, so I’m wrong when I say snow is red.
As far as the callout, I’m unconvinced when you say “infinite EV breaks our equations, so we shouldn’t use it.” Surely if infinite EV exists is a property OF THE UNIVERSE, not a property of my equations — I think being happy forever is infinite EV because being happy for a little bit of time is positive, and there’s no amount of enjoying life that would mean I wouldn’t enjoy life in the future, assuming my memory is wiped or something so I don’t have to have like a quintillion years of memories lol.
You have a point when you say “you’re not the same person after a certain amount of time” but that feels like a separate claim about consciousness and how much “we” continue into the future. Feels like if I am the same person I was yesterday then I could be the same person I am in a billion years depending on how consciousness works.
1) I was being facetious when calling you out but nevertheless will respond
2) My claim is not that philosophy is just semantics, but that semantics don’t really exist without baseline empirical experience. Snow is white seemingly definitionally true. The way we argue about it is not to talk about how words are used but with physical evidence (like when my dog goes to the bathroom on now). In the context here, I don’t think we can talk about things like pay outs and expected value without having an empirical baseline for the thing language is describing.
So “infinite value” is nonsense, similarly to 10^10000 dollars. Sure, these things are logically possible, and maybe as constructed, can be theoretically useful when making complex models in something like physics. Removing it from the context in which it works, maybe makes sense, to context that doesn’t breaks the use of language.
3) I don’t think infinite EV exists as a property of the universe because I don’t think value in general can be divorced from individual agents, and they lack the capacity to experience or understand infinity.
4) I recommend reading the book I linked on death and the afterlife, because the effect I’m talking about is a little different than the direction you’re going here. It’s not a problem of continuity of consciousness, but scarcity in generally. Like scarcity is a boundary condition (maybe that’s the word?) of our consciousness that we don’t appreciate.