DominicBunnell
New
Before the forum went down, I suggested that psi phenomena and the afterlife could be real but not actually very important in terms of ethics and the meaning of life. Somebody challenged me by saying that the fact that I and so many other people spend so much time talking about these things just shows that they must be important for ethics and the meaning of life. This was an interesting point, but I think it's wrong.
One reason why we care so much about these things right now could be that they are sexy, dangerous and taboo. Once they become mainstream science, it may be that we'll come to see that they don't actually make any difference to us ethically. The fact that something is exciting to me right now doesn't necessarily mean that it has any deep meaning or significance in the great scheme of things.
Another point is that there could just be cultural reasons why we think that, say, the afterlife is very important to us for meaning and ethics, even though when you think about it philosophically there doesn't seem to be any such connection. This is basically what Nagel was getting at in his famous essay 'The Absurd'.
I think we should remain open to the possibility that psi and the afterlife are real but at the same time either not relevant to ethics and the meaning of life or even negative. Too many people just assume that they have to be positive.
One reason why we care so much about these things right now could be that they are sexy, dangerous and taboo. Once they become mainstream science, it may be that we'll come to see that they don't actually make any difference to us ethically. The fact that something is exciting to me right now doesn't necessarily mean that it has any deep meaning or significance in the great scheme of things.
Another point is that there could just be cultural reasons why we think that, say, the afterlife is very important to us for meaning and ethics, even though when you think about it philosophically there doesn't seem to be any such connection. This is basically what Nagel was getting at in his famous essay 'The Absurd'.
I think we should remain open to the possibility that psi and the afterlife are real but at the same time either not relevant to ethics and the meaning of life or even negative. Too many people just assume that they have to be positive.