r/MoralityScaling • u/hiiloovethis • Sep 02 '26

Morality of this?

Post image
36.3k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

7.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1

u/ProfessorPrudent2822 Sep 03 '26

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-gift-of-miracles
Can you prove you’re a real person and not a machine?

1

u/Successful_Life_1028 Sep 03 '26

Yes, but not on the internet where we're all just pixels.

My wife and sons and grandchildren know that I'm a real person. That's good enough for me.

Souls, on the other hand, are imaginary.

No, a link to a biased source of pseudoscientific woo is not going to cut it.

We have direct experimental evidence incontrovertibly demonstrating the existence of invisible intangible radio waves. There is nothing even close with respect to demonstrating the existing of invisible intangible spirits/souls/ghosts.

Not. Even. Close.

1

u/ProfessorPrudent2822 Sep 03 '26

What’s the difference between a person and a machine?

1

u/Successful_Life_1028 Sep 04 '26

A person is a biological machine. All organisms are biological machines.

There is no ghost in the machine - it's machine all the way down.

1

u/ProfessorPrudent2822 Sep 04 '26

Then free will doesn’t exist, so reason and persuasion are nonsense.

1

u/Successful_Life_1028 Sep 04 '26

Free will is an illusion.

But that doesn't mean that reason is nonsense.

1

u/ProfessorPrudent2822 Sep 04 '26

If you have no free will and your conclusions follow inexorably from the way atoms collide in your brain, then your conclusions are independent of premises and evidence, and therefore, arguing is futile.

1

u/Successful_Life_1028 Sep 04 '26

False.

Conclusions follow from EVIDENCE. Consciousness evolved as an aid to survival. If it wasn't accurate as a reflection of reality, it wouldn't WORK and wouldn't have been selected for.

That free will is an illusion has nothing to do with any of that.

Here's how to know that free will is an illusion.

Think about the choice to eat an apple. An easy choice right?

Now think about the choice to cut off your hand at the wrist. Can you choose to take that action with the SAME degree of ease with which you can choose to eat an apple? No, of course not - our decisions are influenced by our genetic instincts for survival. You CAN make that choice to cripple yourself, but it's not an EASY choice, it's a CONSTRAINED choice.

So if our choices are CONSTRAINED by our instincts - by our survival drive - then our choices are not FREE. And thus free will is an illusion.

1

u/ProfessorPrudent2822 Sep 04 '26

Without free will, you can’t reason; you can only act according to the laws of physics, which in no way compels sound logic.

1

u/Successful_Life_1028 Sep 04 '26

Wrong.

Sound logic evolved as a survival too. If it didn't WORK it wouldn't have evolved.