Quotes from Posts to the MITAAH Discussion Mailing List

"But what's the group really like?" you ask.
"What do you guys really do?"

Our primary forum is the mitaah-discussion mailing list, and here is a selection of actual posts to the list.

Please note that the quotes do not represent the position of the group.. in fact the quotes do not even necessarily represent the views of the quotees! Some points may be made in order to promote consideration of an alternate viewpoint (in order to play "devil's advocate") or simply to further rational discussion of an issue. Please note also that since this is a public, open mailing list, some of the quotees are not necessarily atheists, agnostics, or Humanists. Indeed, the group is open to all freethinkers (who are affiliated with MIT). Our disagreements are what we value most!

Furthermore, our opinions are always changing when we learn new things, even if the quotees did believe what they said when we said them, that doesn't mean they still do!

Some quotes have been edited for length, though we assure you that no quote has distorted in meaning or removed from context. Since webpages are available to the whole world, names are initialized in respect of the posters' privacy.

Keep in mind that this is just a sampler, a tiny glimpse at a plethora of different topics we talk about. It is not necessarily completely representative, though it is to some extent.

Topics: Death - Beauty - Meaninglessness - Killing Mosquitos - Consciousness

"Death"

* W.L. (5/5/97):

Remember, the following logical argument is invalid:

1. Immortality of sentient life is impossible.
2. Therefore, there is no point in living.

One doesn't have to live forever to find a purpose for oneself, and
making sure sentient (and semi-sentient :) beings are happy seems like a
perfectly noble and valid purpose to me...

Just think of falling in love, and the fact that life has a purpose,
many purposes in fact, should become clear...


* K.L. (5/5/97):

I wish I could agree.  But the way I see it, sentience will only be
around for a mere blink on the cosmic scale, after which (and before
which) there will be no record WHATSOEVER of any of this having
happened.. nor would any record be of any use, as there will be no one
to read them.  We will experience the ultimate in being forgotten..
there won't even be anyone to forget us. On the cosmic scale.. did that
wink of sentience MATTER?  Did it affect anything?  Was there even
anything to affect?


* W.L. (5/5/97):

So what if we are forgotten? Let's say you send a letter to your senile
grandmother for her birthday. For a moment or two she is filled with
joy... and then she forgets a little while later. Was the act of sending
her the letter not a good act? Did it not have value? Perhaps only a
"little," but it still MATTERED. It mattered to her, and it mattered to
you.

We affected each other. That's more than enough... that is what all the
wonder and love and beauty of our world is made of... and perhaps its
finite time in existence makes our lives all the more precious.


* K.L. (5/5/97):

[re: grandmother]
Did it matter to her?  It mattered to me, sure, but did it really matter
to her?  Are you absolutely positively sure?  I'm not saying it didn't
matter to her.. I'm saying that I'm not so sure, and that it's worth
questioning, instead of just asserting that it mattered.

When we send letters to senile grandmothers, is it really for their joy,
or is it to make us feel better because we believe it brought them joy?

[re: brevity brings preciousness]
I certainly agree that it makes our lives more precious, and I'm glad
you feel that the temporary joy is enough.  But for me it's not.  What
is a moment of joy when it will simply be lost? What is the value of
winning the lottery if the money is withdrawn the next day?  If you KNOW
that the money will be withdrawn the next day?

We say that the ephermeral is beautiful.  We say that the shortness of
life makes it beautiful.  But is that really ture, or are we comforting
ourselves, refusing to believe that it all really DOESN'T matter? 
Because that would be a much more ghastly thought.  Perhaps it would be
more than we could bear, so we refuse to believe it?

I know that I believe life is meaningless, and it pisses me off bigtime.
Others who believe life DOES have meaning seem much happier.  I envy
them. I want some morphine, too, but I know I can never get it.



"Beauty"

* K.L. (10/5/97):

I was just looking at some artwork of Saturn and its satellite on the
Cassini homepage ( http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini/Images/artwork/ ),
and, looking at a painting where the POV is on the surface of Titan,
looking at a "methanefall" flowing into a methane lake, with a very
large Saturn slightly desaturated through the atmosphere looming
over the horizon...

I just thought, "WOW!  Man, would I pay a helluva lot to be able to
stand there and just stare at that scenery!"

I'm thinking.. What's the origin of aesthetics?  Why do we find sunsets
beautiful?  Meadows, fields of flowers?  Mountains in the distance
half-hidden by haze?  Saturn looming over the horizon with a methanefall
in the foreground?

I mean, I can understand beauty we find in members of the opposite sex.
Most of the characteristics we find attractive in people are the ones
that make them better reproductive mates. But what evolutionary reason
would cause us to find absolute beauty in the rings of Saturn?


* B.B. (10/6/97):

Perhaps the pit of evolutionary reason that has caused mankind to
explore the planet, and thereby establish dominance over it.  The rings
of Saturn are beautifull because they represent new teritory, much in
the way frontiersmen found western North America to be beautifull.  Our
genes have been so successfull (numericaly speaking) not only because we
have developed intellegence and can use fire to fight off Mr. Grizzly
Bear when he comes knocking at our cave, but also because we have the
urge to go where we haven't been before.


* A.H. (10/6/97):

I'm not sure if the reason is evolutionary or not.  I think that, in
general, we find things beautiful because exhibit symmetry or order in
some way.  This could be because there are some many more unordered
things in the universe.  Randomness is a much more natural state. 
Perhaps we appreciate the orderly and symmetric because such things are
different and unusual.



"Meaninglessness"

* V.L. (9/3/97):

I think it is completely plausible that the world is meaningless, and
that all our experiences (even unexplainable ones) are nothing more than
that. What I do not really understand is the view that there are
meaningful things, but that there is no objective meaning. 
Alternatively, that some things have value, but there is no objective
value, that nothing is inherently good.  The only explanation I have
heard and understood so far is [K.L.]'s from way back: that appreciation
(I mean this broadly to include the experience of pleasure) by sentient
beings gives meaning.  But then isn't this appreciation inherently good,
valuable, meaningful?  If so, then WHY?  If not, then from whence does
the meaning or value derive? Unless meaning is merely an illusion, an
abstraction by which we organize our thoughts, or a distraction in our
brains, no more than the statement written into the memory of a
computer.

But if there is really no meaning, then why live?  (Of course, we could
equally ask, why die?)  Why strive, or do anything at all?  In
particular, why try to convince others of this truth?  Even hedonism
cannot stand under this strain, it seems to me, because pleasure is not
inherently good.  Nor is truth.  So we are left to say that we do
because that is the way we are.  Which is to say nothing at all.

Does anyone hold to this degree of utter meaninglessness?  If so, then
how do we justify our choices?  If not, then what are the fundamental
values?  If there are none, how is there any value at all?


* G.H. (9/3/97):

For a nihilist, which I am, ethical beliefs typically come at at least
two levels: the global and the personal.  There isn't any source of
global ethics; the universe will plod along with or without these
peculiar carbon compounds.  But I have personal principles and
preferences, owing to my biology and from the way I was brought up, and
I adhere to them quite strongly.

>>In particular, why try to convince others of this truth?<<

Oddly enough, you can conclude that I have more of an incentive to
indoctrinate people into my personal beliefs, because no global argument
is going to bring people to them.  If I don't want people to be violent,
then I have to live in a society which teaches people not to be violent.

But I have no particular incentive to turn other people into nihilists,
except as an intellectual exercise.  Indeed, if their moral beliefs
rested somehow on religion, convincing them to be nihilists might turn
them into people who might hurt me.  (That's not really a concern; for
pretty much everyone I know, moral beliefs appear to come before
religion even though they might think of it the other way around.)

>>If not, then what are the fundamental values?  If there are
none, how is there any value at all?<<

Not in any global sense.


* I.S. (9/4/97):

I am not sure this helps, or even is very clear, but it is approximately
what I believe.  I also believe that the world may just be meaningless,
at least in the sense that I do not believe it was neccessarily created
for a purpose.  I do believe, however, that there is value to life for
people.  What should motivate us is to do what is best in the long run,
to do what is best for our children, for while we may be not worth
anything as a species, yet, we have the potential to amount to something
in the future.  We have the concept of morality.

Even if we cannot agree on just what the characteristics of a moral
person are, or even what is right or wrong, we still are the only
sentient species in the Universe that we know of that has such an idea,
and so we should preserve ourselves to preserve the idea for future
life.



"Killing Mosquitos"

* K.L. (10/5/97):

Does anyone here have moral qualms when killing mosquitos?

(I'm not joking; this is a serious question.)


* F.L. (10/5/97):

I personally don't worry about killing mosquitoes or insects because
they are designed to breed as quickly as possible and often have few
predators.

Besides, I doubt there's enough complexity in their nervous systems to
give them consciousness.  Thus, I feel no moral qualms whatsoever in
killing with my bare hands the couple of them that make it into my room
to disturb my sleep.


* P.L. (10/6/97):

In a fundamental sense, there is only one kind of pain: mine.  *You* can
never know *my* pain (Bill Clinton notwithstanding).  My pain is real to
me in a way it never can be to anyone else; that is the nature of
feelings.  Of course, your pain is similarly forever inaccessible to me.

When I see you writhing in (apparent) agony, I make the assumption that
something is going on inside your head which is analogous to what would
be inside mine if I were similarly writhing.  What justification do I
have for this?  Well, the structure of your brain (mind?) is similar to
mine, so I grant that you might feel "pain" which is somehow analogous
to mine.  I repeat: This is only an analogy; I can understand your pain
*as pain* only indirectly.

I take as axiomatic that pain is a bad thing.  I have no particular
basis for this axiom and may re-examine it at some point :-).


* K.L. (10/6/97):

So you're only objection to killing would be due to pain? Then what
about painless death?  Would you not mind killing a person in him sleep?
 I'm not saying that you wouldn't; I'm pretty sure that you would; I'm
just pointing out that I don't think pain is the only criterion, nor
indeed even the most importatn criterion by far, in judging whether the
death of something is a Bad Thing.


* P.L. (10/7/97):

If nobody were around to mourn the death, and the societal costs did not
exist, then I am not sure I see any problem.

To be precise, if someone's death was destined to reduce human suffering
overall, and I knew that, and I could kill them painlessly, then yes, I
think I would.

Of course, it's the "and I knew that" part which is problematic in
practice.  Perhaps more importantly, the societal costs of passing
judgement on people to decide whether they should die probably causes
more long-term pain than it prevents.  Of course, most societies do this
sort of thing all the time.

I think pain (both physical and emotional), as hard as it is to measure,
is the essential metric.


* K.L. (10/7/97):

I personally find the worse part of death the dying. That is, losing
consciousness for ever.  That is what _I_ fear most, personally. I just
don't want to ever lose consciousness for ever, and I thus think that's
the worst part of dying.


* B.B. (10/7/97):

The thing about losing consciousness forever is that you won't realize
that you have lost consciousness and will never regain it because you
will be dead.  Dead people arn't sad, dead people arn't happy.  Dead
people are dead.  You may say "I want to accomplish this many things
before I dye," but after you have died none of that will matter to you,
nothing will matter to you.  "You" will not exist.


* P.L. (10/7/97):

To steal a concept from Mark Twain:

Try to remember the time before you were born.  Do you fear it?  If not,
then you have nothing to fear after death.

After all, you were nonexistent for billions of years and it wasn't so
bad, right?

P.S.  As for immortality, after a few centuries I think I would be about
ready to throw in the towel.



"Consciousness"

* P.L. (10/7/97):

I submit that "consciousness" is, by definition, that which I know I
have.  This may seem like a poor definition, but I also submit that it
is the definition which you yourself use in practice.
 
To wit, suppose someone claimed to have a precise understanding of
consciousness, precise enough to build a "consciousness testing device".
If they aimed their device at you and the machine said you were not
conscious, how would you respond?
 
  a) "Oh, well, I guess I'm not conscious after all."
 
or
 
  b) "Your machine is flawed."
 
I think your answer would be (b).  Why?  Because your own consciousness
is the single, primary example; the metric by which any theory of
consciousness must be measured; the *definition*.


* W.L. (10/7/97):

So [P.L.] claims:
Def1. Consciousness is the ability to have experiences.
and
Def2. Consciousness is that which I know I have.

That implies:

Concl1. The ability to have experiences is that which I know I have.

Which is false, because that is not what we mean by the word
"experience." 

As far as [P.L.]'s machine example, which I presume is an atempt to
justify Def2, "your own consciousness is the single, primary example;
the metric by which any theory of consciousness must be measured; the
*definition*" is false because:

	1. Your own consciousness is not neccessarily the "single, primary
example;" it is the only _known_ example of consciousness.
	2. Therefore, it is the only _known_ metric to measure a theory of
consciousness, not neccessarily the only metric.
	3. Therefore, it is not neccessarily the definition of
consciousness.

Even if it were, that does not imply that consciousness is linked to the
concept of experiences. That would be a seperate claim.


* P.L. (10/7/97):

In the context of our discussion (ethics, pain, etc.), what do you think
we mean by "experience"?  I took it to mean "subjective experience".  So
I was using "consciousness" as a short way of saying "the ability to
have subjective experiences".  Do you dislike this terminology?

Just to be clear...  I am not talking about *human* consciousness as the
single, primary example; I am talking about *my own* consciousness as
the single, primary example.

I would not necessarily immediately reject a machine which said that
*you* are not conscious, because maybe (for example) somebody could
open you up and show me that you are just a tape recorder playing
canned responses.  But I would necessarily reject any machine which
said that *I* am not conscious, because I know it would be wrong, by
definition.

I know that I am conscious in a way that I can never know that anyone
else is.  My definition of "consciousness" is forever tied to me
personally, just as yours is forever tied to you personally.  My thought
experiment was meant to demonstrate that this definition is the one you
yourself use in practice, even if you do not (or did not) realize it.

Although looking back at it, "definition" is the wrong word.  A better
word might be "axiomatic", as in, the fact that I am conscious is
axiomatic.

Put another way, there is only one entity which any metric of
consciousness must include, and that's me.  So any metric of
consciousness must rank me "as conscious or more so" than anything else.


* P.W. (10/7/97)

[P.L.], what if the machine said that you weren't conscious, but did say
something else. Let's say that according to the machine, you are a
computer. The arms, legs, etc., that you think you have are a result of
incorrect data being fed into your processors. Your memories are
actually preprogrammed data that are called up (sometimes randomly,
sometimes not), and your thoughts are actually expressions someone else
is typing in. The rest of the world may or may not be as you think it
is. Can you prove that the machine is wrong?

P.S. My consciouness is the only one I can ever know, but I cannot
assume that yours is like or unlike mine. therefore, I cannot use it to
define your consciousness. I can use it as a reference frame, but any
assumptions I make can easily be very wrong.


* P.L. (10/7/97):

[Re: If a machine says you are a computer, can you prove it's wrong?]
Of course not.  But then again, since I believe in an essentially
mechanical universe and I do not believe in a supernatural soul, I
have already accepted that I am some kind of machine.  I have decided
that consciousness is one property of that machine, partly because to
decide anything at all is to accept that machine as conscious.  The
machine's precise nature is unimportant here.

An alternative, I suppose, is to conclude that consciousness does not
exist.  Maybe this is even closer to the truth (in some sense), but
since I am forever locked inside my own mind, I do not find it a
useful line of thinking (cf. determinism versus free will).

[Re: I can't assume your consciousness is like or unlike mine.]
Almost exactly my point!  Except I would argue not only that you *can*
assume my consciousness is like yours, but that only by making such an
assumption can you refer to me as "conscious" at all.

P.S.  I am enjoying these exchanges; I hope nobody takes my
confrontational style as any sign of disrespect...


* P.W. (10/7/97)

[Re: Only by assuming my consciouness is like you can you assume I'm
conscious at all.]
Quite the contrary...I can assume that you have consciousness, but the
available evidence suggests that your thinking process (and therefore,
quite possibly, your consciousness) is different from my own. The same
is true of every other person I've ever met.

This means that I can't make any assumptions about how a person thinks
without realizing that i have a good chance of being wrong. I can't
guess what you're thinking or why you would do anything with good
accuracy unless I accept some things as pyschologically universal.

>>I am enjoying these exchanges; I hope nobody takes my
confrontational style as any sign of disrespect...<<

What, you're supposed to just agree with everything I say? <g>

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