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Here’s my info:

Website: http://www.sonicsuns.net

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Email sonicsuns@gmail.com

It’s been awhile since I made a post.

My original notion for this blog was to post all my videos, along with maybe some normal text posts. I used a blip.tv features to post my videos automatically.

But then they changed the blip.tv interface, and I started forgetting to click the box I needed to click. And I sorta gave up on it.

In fact, it’s been awhile since I even put a video on blip.  My youtube account has always gotten 99% of the attention, maybe more.

Thus, the blog I called “neglected” has lived up to its name.

I may make more posts here sometime, I don’t know.

I’ll make one more post with my info on it, and then I’ll probably leave this thing alone for a while.

I have a new blog, by the way, a book-in-development. Here it is: http://eudothewanderer.wordpress.com/

Thanks for reading.

See ya later.

http://www.youtube.com/comment_servlet?all_comments&v=ondQGZ83SuY

Here is my latest response:

Aha, TheMorbidAtheist, I see that you are still enganged in debate. Well then, let’s continue.

I said: “I like to think that nothing is completely certain, not even death”.
You eventually responded with: “philosophy shouldn’t be about something that you like, it should be about the truth. and you just don’t like the truth.”
I respond in turn: I did not mean to imply that I believe it because I like it. I believe it because it’s true. And, incidentally, I happen to like it. But just because I like it doesn’t mean that it’s false.

A basic sketch of my thought process: Humans are flawed, therefore we can know nothing with 100% certainty. We can be 99% certain, or 99.9999% certain, or what have you, but we are never 100%. I mean, sure, we might think that. Someone might claim “I am 100% certain on issue X”, but he’s not really as certain as he thinks. (Here, when I say “certainty”, I mean knowledge of the truth, as opposed to belief in that knowledge. The aforementioned man believes that he is right, and that he has no chance of being wrong, but actually there is a chance that he’s wrong, there is always a chance that he’s wrong, because he is flawed.)

I can offer many examples where a person’s personal conviction did not line up with actual truth. At some point, people were quite certain (or so they thought) that the Earth was flat. They were wrong. Later people believed that the planets all orbited the Earth. They were wrong. Later still a man named Issac Newton declared F=ma in all circumstances. He too, was wrong, as proven by Albert Einstein. And you know what? I think that Einstein was probably wrong too. I don’t know how he was wrong, precisely, but I know that he was human just like anyone else and he must have made a mistake somewhere along the line. Everyone is flawed, everyone is (at least partially) wrong. Nothing is 100% certain.

So here we are, and you have declared that death is absolutely inevitable. Well, you know what? I think you might be wrong. I don’t know how immortality might be achieved, or when it might happen, or anything. But I know that you are flawed just as we all are, so there is at least some chance, some tiny chance, that immortality is possible.

For that matter, many things are possible. I suppose it’s possible that the moon is made of cheese. It’s extremely unlikely, even moreso that functional immortality in my opinion, but still technically possible. Allow me to be clear: I do not believe that the moon is made of cheese. Chances are extremely high that the moon is made of normal minerals like anorthite, olivine, etc.. I’m just making a philosophical statement about how, technically, nothing is certain. Do you understand? I’m saying that, when you declare that death is absolutely unavoidable, you’re stretching things too far. True certainty can only come about as a result of ominscience. We are not omniscient. We are flawed.

You say that I  believe in the chance of immortality just because I like the idea. But this argument is double-edged. I say that you don’t believe in the chance of immortality just because you don’t like the idea. You see? The potential for bias runs both ways.

You said: “ever since I became an atheist I’ve been sleeping like a baby, no doubts, no sleepless nights, no more fantastic wonderings.”

I respond: If you mean to argue your validity based on the quality of your sleep, you won’t get anywhere. I also sleep easily. Though I doubt that either of us is completely free of doubt. As I continue to say, nothing is truly certain.

You said: “I was simply trying to help you let go of this dream, because it WILL haunt you, I know that it does already.”

I respond: What dream? Immortality? In what way does it haunt me? I think your are substituting my perspective with your own. You view life as mostly negative, therefore the prospect of immortality is negative, therefore it has the potential to haunt. For you, the solution was to “accept” that immortality is impossible, and that we’re all going to die. With this, you free yourself (in a way) from your fear of continual suffering. But I come with a different perspective: I see life as generally positive, or at least as potentially positive. I believe in the power of hope and persistence, that ultimate despondency is never rational, that even in pain we must strive for a better world. Therefore I offer a different solution: rather than escaping life by means of death, we should focus on improving life as it is. And we can keep improving it, on to infinity. So even if life is mainly negative now, the potential to make it positive makes life (including immortal life) worth living.  Therefore, to me, the notion of immortality is NOT frightening, and it DOESN’T haunt me. Quite the opposite, it empowers me! It’s wonderful to think of the chance (even if it is a one-in-a-trillion chance) that I might live to be a thousand years old, or even longer. It gives me hope. It gives me joy. I am not haunted.

You said “that’s only one part of the argument. For you its first and foremost fear, and then comes the open-mindedness. “

I respond: Not so, not so. Look, I’ll admit that I’m not perfect. There’s probably some fear-of-death lurking in me, fine. But I am quite certain that my opinion on this matter is founded mainly on hope, not fear. If I die, then so be it, I die. I understand that. But maybe I won’t die. Who knows?

You said: “Tell me, are you willing to be open-minded if I told you that my garden gnome came alive when I put ketchup on it? “

I respond: Well now we are dealing with two separate ideas: (1) The chances of immortality (or functional immortality) actually being achieved, and (2) the abstract desirability of immortality, whether or not it’s actually possible.

As for item #1, the notion of functional immortality (but not actual immortality) is being investigated by some well-regarded scientists. Aubrey de Grey is a leader in the field, and he is supported by a number of scientists (most are less optimistic that he, but they agree to the general principles of his work). The MIT-published magazine entitled Technology Review examined the issue in 2005, and found that the topic was at least worthy of learned debate (as opposed to being random junk science or whatever). So you see that there is far more reason to believe in functional immortality than there is to believe in ketchup-activited garden gnomes.

As for item #2, let us take care not to conflate it with item #1. Even if immortality is logically impossible, that doesn’t make it morally wrong in the abstract. And if immortality is morally wrong (or right) in the abstract, that doesn’t mean it’s logically possible or impossible. These two items are independent.

(A note on my phrase “in the abstract”. What I mean is, if X is false/impossible, then clearly it is wrong to believe in X; thus believing in X is morally wrong. So when I say “in the abstract”, I mean to say that we are posing the question “If X were true, if hypothetically X was a viable option, would it be right or wrong to use that option?” Thus we can discuss, in the abstract, notions of morality with regards to immortality, even if we regard immortality to be impossible. Incidentally, I believe that immortality IS possible, but even IF I thought otherwise, we could still have a discussion regarding item #2. Ok?)

You said: “the world will go on after I die and there is nothing I can do about it. “

I respond: Perhaps you should watch my video entitled “The Parable of the Snakes”. In it, a man is dying of snakebite, and the antidote he carries has an extremely low chance of saving him. Nevertheless, it is only logical that he should drink the antidote, because a tiny chance of survival is better than no chance at all. Similarly, the “certainty” of death is, in my opinion, merely a very high chance of death. We humans are flawed, therefore we know nothing with absolute certainty. Suppose there is a 99.9999999999999999999% chance of being mortal. It is wise, of course, to acknowledge this. It is wise to prepare for one’s death, to write a will etc. (Incidentally, I have an online will in the form of a youtube video, entitled “My Will”. Hopefully this will help to convince you that I am aware of death.) It would be foolish to assume that you will are (or will be) immortal, based on the aforementioned odds. However, it would also be wrong to assume that death is 100% certain, when technically it’s only 99.9999999999999999999% certain. I mean, for your day-to-day life, that’s good enough to work with (thus, write a will, etc.), but technically, if someone asks, it’s wrong (in my opinion) to say “I am 100% certain of death”. Nothing is truly certain. Thus, I have hope for immortality.

(And yes, by the same token, I have hope to win the lottery or whatnot. But I believe that (functional) immortality is more likely, for the reasons I listed above.)

You said: “I dont have the embrace death because I don’t like it, but I don’t have to fear it anymore.”

I respond: It seems that you have only imagined two options: (1) “Fear death”, and (2) “Accept death as inevitable.” But once again, I’m breaking your mold and offering (3) “Realize that death is very likely, but not technically inevitable. Accept and do not fear the high chance of death, but continue to have hope for the low chance of immortality. In all cases, do not fear, and do not ignore reality.”

You said: “I KNOW that you’re being tormented because of human mortality. “

I respond: Not really, no. I think you’re substituting your perspective in place of my own. I think that you were once tormented because of human mortality, so you assume that I’m in the same boat. As I said, I probably have some fear, but primarily I have hope. Is that so strange a concept?

You said: “And the best solution I can give is just to think of the state you were in before you were born, because that’s where we are all going”

I respond: Unless, of course, we’re not. Remember: 99.9999999999999999999% certainty.

You said: “But hey if you really want to get rid of this fear, think about what Im writing and what I wrote before.”

I respond: Again, I think you’re grossly overestimating the amount of fear I have. And I’ve thought about your writings, but they still fail to convince me.

With regards to living 1000 years, you said: “hey Im all for that.”

I respond: This is interesting. At what point, then, would you desire to die? 1000 years old? A million? Billion? Trillion? When does life become worthless?

With regards to living the same day over again like Groundhog’s Day, you said: “and thats what YOU are going to be feel after living for 50 trillion years. Think about it.”

I respond: No, I won’t, and I don’t see how you plan on proving your assertion. It seems clear to me that, in an infinite universe, with infinite possibilities, there’s no reason at all to conclude that boredom is inevitable.

Here’s another quote (and you quote me at the start of it): “

“You have assumed that the negatives will conquer us,”

I havent assumed that. The FACT is that there is more evil and suffering in this world that good “

I respond: Oh, a FACT, is it? How on earth do you plan on proving that? What method shall you use for measurement? Tell me, what is the precise ratio of good to evil in this world? How have you arrived at this conclusion? What are your sources, and why should I trust them? And can you even be sure that you have measured ALL the good and ALL the evil in the world (or even just planet Earth), in order to attain a proper measurement? I submit the theory that your assertion is a product of your focus; you focus on the negative, therefore you neglect the positive. (Yes, yes, I will admit: the opposite theory applies to me. So both of us are basically stuck, unable to expressly prove that the world has more good than evil or vice versa. On the subject, I think that good and evil are on one line, one spectrum, reaching to infinity in either direction. So any measurement of the degree of good or evil in the world is dependent on where you put the “zero” point. But perhaps that’s another topic altogether.)

More importantly, take careful note of the fact that my statement was worded in the future tense, while yours was in the present tense. Regardless of how much evil there is now, how much will there be in the future? Hard to say, isn’t it? It’s my opinion that, in the long run, humanity is improving. There used to be a lot more slavery, and a lot more tyranny, and a lot more violence per capita. (You think modern-day politics is fierce? Try the civil war.) It’s not a steady slope; there’s plenty of backsliding etc., and when one area is improving another may be declining, but generally I think we’re getting better. Generally we have more freedom, better health, more free time and more stuff to do with it, compared to a couple thousand years ago. Continuing this trend (which I suppose you will probably dispute), we find that, even if evil still outweighs good, there will probably come a time in the future when good outweighs evil. I, for one, would like to live to see that day.

You said: “and how is deprivation of both negative AND positive a bad thing?

explain that to me.”

I respond: Um, when you lose the positive…that, by definition, is a bad thing. Of course, losing the negative is a good thing. Working from your perspective that there shall always be more evil than good, I can see how this would seem like a fair deal. If the world is negative, and always will remain negative, then nonexistance theoretically brings us to “zero”, for an overall “positive” motion. However, this only works in the context of your perspective, which I believe to be seriously flawed (see the above).

You said: “If you never knew the idea of something great and pleasant then you would never miss it!”

I respond: Ah, now you are arguing from ignorance. If one is ignorant of a lack, one will not “miss” it in the normal sense, but one will still experience the lack! For instance, billions of humans walked this earth without ever experiencing airplanes. (Think, like, several thousand years ago). These people had never heard of airplanes, and never even thought about airplanes. (Ok maybe some of them did but let’s ignore those people and focus on the others). These people did not “miss” airplanes in the normal sense, they did not say “Oh, if only I had an airplane!” etc.. Nevertheless, they experienced the lack of airplanes. In situations where airplanes would have been useful (when traveling great distance, for instance), they were unable to use them, because airplanes didn’t exist. The ignorance of the possibility of airplanes did not change the fact that long journeys were still long, with all the associated dangers, aches and pains. Similarly, there are many great things that we lack right now, things we haven’t even thought of yet. We are ignorant of these things, but we still experience lack. The situations where these things would be useful (or fun, or whatever) become more difficult (or boring, or whatever) in their absence.

Nonexistance would provide us with total ignorance. That doesn’t change the fact that we would be missing out on all the possible positive things of the world.

I pointed out that oblivion would be devoid of happiness, to which you responded: “it is ALSO without smallpox, aids, having to go to work, having your heart broken, seeing your parents die, growing old and decomposing, etc etc – I COULD DO WITHOUT all those things, thank you very much. Think of all the negatives that are in life.”

I respond: First, if we all achieve immortality, you won’t have to see your parents die. (And we’ll probably devise cures for the diseases you mentioned; smallpox itself has already been eradicated!) More importantly, we’re heading back to the “measurement” question. I could list 1000 good things about the world, and you’d list 1000 bad things, and I’d list 1000 more good things, and we’d go back and forth forever without settling anything. Suffice it to say that I still believe that the potential for good outweighs all the bad.

Regarding my continuing list of good things, you said: “none of that compares with having cancer, arthritis, growing old, unattractive, etc etc”

I respond: It does compare, and it often triumphs. Why do you suppose people bother living in the first place? If this whole evil-is-greater-than-good thing is so self-evident, why do we all put so much energy into our lives?

You said: “I DO see the positives”

I respond: Oh, good.

You said: “I just KNOW that those positives are mostly about eliminating the negatives.”

I respond: What does that even mean? I could easily construct the opposite statement: “negatives are mostly about eliminating the positives”. There, does that counter your argument? Can your prove that one is “mostly about eliminating” the other, moreso that vice versa?

You said: “and analyze those good things – you will find out that most of those good things are only good because you had to eliminate something bad, some need, some desire.”

I respond: Wait, are you telling me that good things are irrelevant simply because we desire them?? And again, I can easily construct an opposite statement: “most of the bad things are only bad because they eliminate some good, some possession, some contentment”. Again, how is anything proven, any which way at all?

You said: “And thats what we are-need machines, we are insatiable!”

I respond: You realize that there’s an infinite universe, right? Theoretically, that’s enough to keep us happy for, well, eternity. And again, does an activity become evil just because it’s needed?? Are eating and breathing considered wicked, because we need them? I don’t understand you. I suppose it relates to your continuing feeling that there’s not enough to go around (in one way or another). You fear that we shall lack, therefore you fear the notion of needing. But imagine, just theoretically, that we started doing something about all that. Suppose we found a way to sustain everyone. It’s possible, you know. Have a little hope; don’t be afraid.

You said: “just re-read all those things that await us when we grow old, those things are inevitable, at least now. “

I respond: I say again: No. Nothing is certain. Nothing is inevitable. Some things are 99.999999% likely to occcur, but that is still not the same as certainty.

You said: “3/4 of the world’s population live in shit.”

I respond: Just wondering, how do make that measurement? I mean, I don’t deny that a whole lot of people are starving etc., I’m just wondering where you got 3/4 specifically. According to the World Bank, about 1/2 of the world lives in poverty, not 3/4. And in 2007 the World Bank issued a report, stating that overall poverty has been declining in recent decades, and that this decline is expected to continue.

With regards to human suffering, you said: “Its HIDEOUS!”

I respond: Yes of course it is. What do you propose we do about it? Shall we “accept the inevitable” of it all? Shall we lie down in defeat? Shall we say “Screw you world, you suck!” and then go off and die somewhere? Because, going by your theory, the world is so screwy that we’re all just better off dead, right? Is that what you mean? According to you, the world is mainly negative, and nonexistence is non-negative (and non-positive), thus nonexistence is better than the world. Thus…death? Should we all just die, right now?

You said: “Apparently, Im still here, Im putting up with it”

I respond: I’m glad you’re still here, TheMorbidAtheist. I don’t want you to die. And I find your continuing existence to be intriguing: it goes against your philosophy. You claim that “If life is not near perfect, then its not really worth living”, you declare that “life is mostly bullshit” and “there is more evil and suffering in this world that good”, and you insist that death leads to “eternal peace” in nonexistence AND YET, my friend, AND YET…you are still here!

Why? I can only speculate. I speculate that, somewhere deep within, you doubt your own theories. (And sometimes I doubt mine, incidentally. I’m not certain either.). Some portion of you, even if your refuse to acknowledge it, still believes that life is worth living. If you didn’t believe that, you would have died already! So for all your claims of certainty, you (like any other person), are uncertain, you harbor DOUBT, and ironically, my friend, in that doubt there is… HOPE.

I believe that, on some level, you hope that things will get better. You hope that life is worth living, you hope that the world can change. You know you are uncertain and so you stick around, just a little bit longer each day, just to see if maybe you might be wrong. Maybe life really does have a purpose. Not necessarily a god or anything, just…some sort of purpose. Some sort of meaning. Some sort of hope.

I have hope. And I hope that you join me.