Can you help me analyze this quote...

Yeah this is true. Didn't even notice that part

mickey thinks we live in a simulation

So you're saything that it's ridiculous to believe that our counciousness could be anything other than basically chemical reactions? I would agree with this, but I cannot know anything for sure LMAOOOO

Something being the product of material occurrences like chemicals does not invalidate it.
That's the point.
Who cares if the love you feel for your kids is the product of chemicals? What does that change about the reality?

Nothing is suppose... but it's unsettling for some reason. I can't really put my finger on it though

If we evolved to survive then why would most of us die for our loved ones? I know I would die for my family, but isn't that contradictory to evolutions purpose? How does our brain decide to cause self destruction in order to prevent harm to another separate entity?

I'm saying you're a moron, as is the argument that HURR U CANT KNO NUFFIN.

Ouchie my feels

you've mystified it because the link between mundane things and existential meaning scares you

>know I would die for my family, but isn't that contradictory to evolutions purpose?
literally the opposite. your family has your genes, you fucking moron. on some levels it's even be good to look out for your species on general.

>evidence supports that thoughts are reducible to chemicals
Explanatory reductionist heavy wew. Maybe try to semiotics a shit then get into multiple realizability and downward causation . You are an idiot that couldn't into philosophy if you tried.

Don't worry user, your skepticism is entirely rational.

>our consciousness is made possible through complex chemical reactions
this is the same as saying computers work by moving electrons, which completely misses the point of how computers work. you can have computers that don't use electricity, it's the system that emerges from functions performed by it's parts that makes a computer, same with consciousness.

>semiotics

I'll have a double decaff latte with a bran muffin to go please.

Brainlet
Move to biosemiotics after you get the basics of pierce

>is reducible
Found the problem. Reductionism is one outlook among many, it is not how the world actually works. Once you understand this you come to realize that we are no less real than the atoms in our bodies, and that the idea of our consciousness being caused by physical processes in our brain is complete nonsense, even if we assume physicalism.

Because if those chemicals were arranged in some other way, it'd be possible for you to hate your kids and want to kill them, and it'd be just as valid.

And if I was a crow I would be able to fly. What's your point?

Can you give me an example of a situation where reductionism doesn't work? Other than the "consciousness" one I mean because I don't agree with you on that but am curious to see if there's a good example of reductionism not making sense on a less controversial topic.

>Can you give me an example of a situation where reductionism doesn't work?
What do you mean by "work"?
You can reduce anything you want, but that doesn't mean that the thing being reduced is caused by or less real than the elements it is reduced to.

I don't know if I follow the not being "caused by" part. If what you've reduced a given phenomenon to is what the phenomenon is actually made up of, wouldn't that mean it was caused by those things it's made up of?

Yeah the image is stupid.
I thought of editing in a rebuttal but realized it wasn't worth the effort.
>You trust the FACT that people are a result of materialism? Haha well I'm going to believe there is something greater for no reason.

>I always interpreted that as meaning that if one were to trying accept a nihilistic view of world that nothing matters, then they wouldn't bother with such basic acts as feeding themselves, breathing, and generally avoiding death. For is not the fear of death itself just chemicals?
Instincts, emotions, and feelings are more powerful than logic.
If you doubt this, next time you are in extreme pain just try to logically will the pain away by telling yourself "it's just chemicals bro."
You won't be surprised to find that it doesn't work.

Let's take the example of atoms and molecules.
A molecule is made up of its atoms but is not caused by them. There is and can be no causal relation between the two because they are exactly concurrent;causality implies that one precedes the other. The molecule and the atoms it's made of are not two different phenomena, they are the same phenomenon seen from different angles; two different manifestations of the same object(s); two sides to the same coin.
The molecule is its atoms, but it is not "just" the atoms because it is also a molecule. Likewise, the atoms are individual atoms, but they are also, taken together, a single molecule.

Mickey's logical flaw is that he's conflating value with truth. Our lives lacking value due to being the product of mostly deterministic chemical reactions doesn't mean information based on chemical reactions is less likely to be accurate.

Donald: everything is worthless, nothing has value or meaning
Donald: except this^ statement ;)

>Instincts, emotions, and feelings are more powerful than logic.
You can say that but then as a conscious being you arguably also have to accept that something matters. Of corse, I think that's not really what Donald is trying to argue against. It's not that easy to say that the lack of intrinsic value leads to lack of value altogether.

He says nothing has intrinsic value, not that nothing has meaning. There's no hypocricy in claiming a statement about there not being value is true.

I've noticed nobody has brought up "brain in a vat" theory yet.

>theory
It's a wack ass thought experiment.

>What is Biosemiotics?

>Biosemiotics is an interdisciplinary research agenda investigating the myriad forms of communication and signification found in and between living systems. It is thus the study of representation, meaning, sense, and the biological significance of codes and sign processes, from genetic code sequences to intercellular signaling processes to animal display behavior to human semiotic artifacts such as language and abstract symbolic thought.
>Such sign processes appear ubiquitously in the literature on biological systems. Up until very recently, however, it had been implicitly assumed that the use of such terms as “message” “signal” “code” and “sign” was ultimately metaphoric, and that such terms could someday effectively be reduced to the mere chemical and physical interactions underlying such processes. As the prospects for such a reduction become increasingly untenable, even in theory, the interdisciplinary research project of biosemiotics is attempting to re-open the dialogue across the life sciences – as well as between the life sciences and the humanities – regarding what, precisely, such ineliminable terms as “meaning” and “significance” might refer to in the context of living, complex adaptive systems.
Well that's real fucking neato

So what you are hinting at is a "biosemiotic" of computational functionalism?

That doesn't invalidate it though.

Occam's razor.
The entire argument depends on supernatural intervention.

>If you doubt this, next time you are in extreme pain just try to logically will the pain away by telling yourself "it's just chemicals bro."
>You won't be surprised to find that it doesn't work.

you'd be more surprised to find it does, bitch nigga