The rights of a conscious entity

A concept much explored in science fiction. And there are many creation myths from all over the world. How do you tell if one is right? If they are as intelligent as me they would not need to be "given" morals. Did you need to be "given" morals? Or did you develop them in relation to the society you live in and the assumptions you make about values.Given that, as conscious entities as intelligent as me, they would have their own society and their own assumptions about values, and any "moral code" you may want to impose may be totally inappropriate, perhaps way too primitive for them, being based on anachronistic beliefs that don't reflect reality and that don't apply to them. You have a lot of assumptions here. You assume that people will care more about this than they do about dingo scat, you assume there is an afterlife, and you assume they can be traded around like baseball cards (don't know the aussi equivalent). You assume that, just because this little universe was created, that it is accessible. Without some valid reason to make all these assumptions there is no way to assume that you even COULD give them an afterlife, no matter how much your possibly well meaning (possibly selfish) but misinformed soul assuming self wants to.Let's keep the assumptions simple and only work with one at a time: that we have created this alternate universe with people in it. We could leave them alone to discover it. Perhaps they would be justifiably annoyed by people that have a world full of starving children and petty wars fought over anachronistic and primitive beliefs but that think they have some marvelous moral system and mental "gift" that automatically renders the ones with it blessed, might find those kind of people rather pretentious ... to be polite. Nope. For one you assume (again) that you have some moral value that is superior to anything they develop. For another, what you are talking about is ethics, not morals.Try this assumption: in 5 years they develop a rational and logical moral and ethical society, based on conscious evaluation of reality, free from want, and free from injustice, they greet each day with joy, and spend their plentiful free time thinking and studying about how the universe works, always adding to the total cultural knowledge: would you be morally obliged to learn from them?Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : based

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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• • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •

If creatures are crated solely to suffer that suggests an evil malicious and nasty creator.If suffering is a necessary part of existence then denying existence on the basis of some suffering is arguably less "humane".But a giggle always adds to ones existence too....

Fine I will pay that but then again you are acting in the best interest for the group. Its when you act in your own interest first at the peril of others is when the problems come up

Well that is obvious! I think I was making more of a statement then asking a question. It would be silly to go through all this stuffing around for no reason. I have! Becasue in the end they have nothing to live for. There life would be like a philosopher describe human life (wish I could remember who it was) he said words to this effect "Life is like a man in a sinking boat forever using a bucket to pale the water out. In the end its all for nothing" What I am saying is if we all sat at a table and put foward reasons for these beings to come into existance, if I remember correctly you said before that bring these beings into existance is like having a baby. I said that it is not because we are genitically programed to have babies but we are not programmed (as far as we know) to create other universes and other beings in them. So thus seeing there is not precedent should we be doing it and is it ethically right to do so? Maybe subconsciously but why have it any other way? After all if we are creating this universe we would have a say as to how much good/evil there is in it.If you could make someones life easier why wouldn't you?

I was saying this becasue there would be people here in our world who would be saying that it would be mean to create them for only a short time and then destory them (with their own death). I am one of these people or at least I am in the middle ground saying that it is rather cold stance to take if you only create sometihng for a short time and then destroy it even though you have the ability to give it an endless life and ever lasting happiness. Yes ethics is a better word.I am sure we can all agree about what would be an ideal life! Lots of kids, no wars, everyone getting along blah blah blah.So we all know what a perfect life is but its just not possiable in this world to get everybody reading from the same page. Why not make it so in this other world that we create?No matter your culture/religion/race we all have a the same general idea of happiness and thus passing this on to our new creation would be in there best interest.I guess when I think about it, its not really a moral or ethical problem that we face its more of a "human" problem which mostly involves dogma and petty quibbles.Ok I will put another spin on it!In this new universe should we make so that it is all the same culture/religion/race? Would this go along way to univeral understanding? And in the process make a better life for all?

Why? I give my life my own meaning. To me it doesn't matter that there's no afterlife, I'm quite happy with that fact, actually. Nothing to live for? Could you please let these conscious entities decide for themselves wether or not they have something to live for? And again, I am quite happy with the fact there is no afterlife here, saves me from following silly rules. Again, it all depends on how we make the universe. If we design it anything like ours, I think there's nothing wrong wit it, if we design purelu to be evil to the creatures that inhabit it, I'd find that wrong. Again, how do you know that your set of morals and values apply to these creatures. You see, the problem with giving them a free will and a conscience, is that they might not agree with you on that.

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I hunt for the truth

That's your problem right there. We CAN'T agree on what is a perfect life. I for one am not getting any kids, I'm not the type for it, and quite frankly, I would have to sacrifice to much of my current lifestyle to get them. As I pointed out above, We all know what a perfect life is like, but this differs from individual to individual, who are you to say which of these is "right"? no we DON'T. Every human decides for himself what he thinks are the proper morals, what makes you think these creatures would be anything different and decide OURS are any better than THEIRS. Exactly, and you're trying to use that to say what's "right" and "wrong" for this new universe, you could be completely off. We shouldn't do anything, these creatures are perfectly fine figuring it all out on their own.

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I hunt for the truth

Thanks WaveDancer, Which explains all the wars and conflicts, the brawls between factions, all the them-vs-us divisions in the world: we are all one big happy family. Sorry, one kid is enough. I can probably name some things that you would disagree with, such as the freedom for any female to have an abortion on demand: we are talking about her happiness, yes? I don't think you could presume on any grounds to know what would make them happy or fulfilled.Enjoy.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

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• • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •

Huntard - Reading your reply you seem to be of the opinion of that doing nothing when somebody or something is in need is ok! If somebody was drowning in this universe would you help them? If somebody was drowning it this new universe would you help them? You would be very callous if you did not help both of them right? So why not help them with regards to laying the blue prints for their civilisation? You dont want to create the image of being callous do you?If your new creations where going to go to war in a similar way as we went to war during ww2 would you just sit back and watch the fire works even though you had the power to change things? Do you have a problem if they figure it out the hard way? Or even the VERY hard way?Just going to sit back and watch? Feel no need to ease the suffering?

RAZD both you and huntard seem to be of the same school with similar answers. I am sure we could all agree on some things that make us all unhappy right? You would have no problem in keeping that out right? Things such as death, warfare and green vegetables. Keeping stuff like this out would be in everybodies interest! How could demand to have these things included? Unless of course you wanted to inflict suffering on you new creations! But then that would make you evil! You are not eveil are you?

I guess I could change the question again.Do you think it would be in their interest to have free will?Seeing that humans will always find something to argue about whether it is the price of a good or the opinion of another person on an internet forum.Would we all be happier if we where more robotic/computerised in our thinking and actions?Should our new world be free of free will?And before anyone asks. No I am not a communist!

Since I do not believe anything in the universe has free will, (we are just biological organisms with neural functions applied to our enviroment through our sensory system), if they are our mirror image, I don't believe thay'll have free will either.Now, do I see fit for them to have freedom of chioce. I think you'll find that the further we get into researching neural functions, the more it seems that we do nothing more than compute and assign action. They should be free to do as they please, as we are. That includes building their own *new* universe too.

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"All great truths begin as blasphemies""I smoke pot. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your mouth."--Bill Hicks"I never knew there was another option other than to question everything"--Noam Chomsky

Hmmmmm it seems like everybody here except me is happy with the way of our current world. You all also seem to think that if there is a god he should not do anything to interveane in this world even if he has the power too. With all the pain and suffering you seem to think that it is ok for god to just sit there and do nothing. I am very surprised.Maybe there is a god after all and he is just like you people.

If He is like us then He is NO God...

Hello again WaveDancer. If I could, I most certainly would. No I would not. No I wouldn't, they have their own universe, thus their own set of rules, perhaps rescuing someone from drowning there will get him tortured to death. I don't interfere with other universes because my set of morals aren't necessarily true for others, I mean, we are both in this universe, and we can't agree on some things, how would you expect these creatures in this other universe to agree with you? Because it needs to be THEIR civilisation, not MY idea of what civilisation should be. They'd have to know I'm there first to have an opinion of me, and since I'm not interfering, they won't know. Yes, I most certainly would, their universe, their rules. They have the right to figure it all out by themselves. No I don't that's all part of the experience. No, not one bit, furthermore, if they're anything like us, the suffering won't be that great anyway.

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I hunt for the truth