6th mass extinction!

[Shaker]

It's grim news, along with climate change.  I feel basically pessimistic, as climate denialism seems to be growing now, and the calls for economic growth are just as strong.   Nature has been our dustbin since the industrial revolution, and it seems unlikely that we can stop now.   There are some signs of hope, in the different conservation movements, but when the chips are down, conservation often plays second fiddle.

That's the wiggy version.

The Shaker version is essentially the same in all respects, only shorter: we're fucked. And while that's of no moment to me at all as regards H. sapiens, the real crime is that they'll take so many other creatures and indeed even species - the harmless ones, the ones innocent of ruining their own biosphere - along with them. If humanity is destined to perish, for that alone it would deserve to.

[Udayana]

Everything might be fucked, but it doesn't matter in the end - all any individual can do is think about the direction and consequences of their own actions. They can opt for short term family gains or aim for longer term, global, benefits. The final outcome is really just a statistical effect of trillions of individual actions.

We might not be able to save the camel but it might last longer if we didn't pile the straw on so fast.

[Sriram]

For those who believe that everything is predetermined....the extinctions are also obviously predetermined.

All a consequence of the Initial Conditions! Inevitable!

[Leonard James]

For those who believe that everything is predetermined....the extinctions are also obviously predetermined.

All a consequence of the Initial Conditions! Inevitable!

Good reason not to subscribe to such a dismal idea.

[Nearly Sane]

For those who believe that everything is predetermined....the extinctions are also obviously predetermined.

All a consequence of the Initial Conditions! Inevitable!

Good reason not to subscribe to such a dismal idea.

Argumentum ad consequentiam

As ever on this though I will go back to the quote 'of course I believe in free will, I have no choice'.

[Samuel]

We are stuck in a pattern of reacting to disasters, instead of planning for them. It might actually help if there was a Tambora scale volcanic eruption that lowered global temperatures by a couple of degrees for a year. That would likely have severe but temporary effects and may just sharpen the minds of most people around the world that climate change is a big fucking problem.

[Rhiannon]

Samuel, your kids are younger than mine - do you think that it is better to hope for their future or just resign to it being a calamity?

[Nearly Sane]

Samuel, your kids are younger than mine - do you think that it is better to hope for their future or just resign to it being a calamity?

'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.'

[Rhiannon]

Yep.

[Sriram]

For those who believe that everything is predetermined....the extinctions are also obviously predetermined.

All a consequence of the Initial Conditions! Inevitable!

Good reason not to subscribe to such a dismal idea.

Its surprising that a materialist like you denies predetermination.  If all things in the universe are subject to natural laws, then everything works according to these laws and there is no question of a 'free will'. Once the Initial Conditions are set....everything else follows automatically thereafter.....including human evolution and the life of every single individual.

Its only if we accept interference and influence through some outside forces (external to the physical universe) that  any changes to this pattern are possible. Free will should necessarily be free of natural forces including biological influences.

 

[Udayana]

The Times has an interesting piece on how much of the species extinction is being driven by invasive species rather directly to climate change/consumption.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4476320.ece

[Shaker]

Its surprising that a materialist like you denies predetermination.  If all things in the universe are subject to natural laws, then everything works according to these laws and there is no question of a 'free will'. Once the Initial Conditions are set....everything else follows automatically thereafter.....including human evolution and the life of every single individual.

Its only if we accept interference and influence through some outside forces (external to the physical universe) that  any changes to this pattern are possible. Free will should necessarily be free of natural forces including biological influences.

... unless there are stochastic - random and statistical - features built into nature at the deepest level. Which there are. No woo required here.

[ekim]

Yep.

Tao Te Ching Verse Twenty-nine

Man tries to improve the Earth,
He always fails.
The Earth is a natural harmony,
It cannot be improved upon.
Try to change it and you spoil it.
Try to possess it and you lose it.
Some things are fast some are slow;
At times living is easy, at times hard;
At times there is strength, at times weakness
There is a time to flourish, and a time for decline.
Therefore the Wise do not impose upon the Earth,
They avoid extremes, extravagance and self indulgence.

[torridon]

For those who believe that everything is predetermined....the extinctions are also obviously predetermined.

All a consequence of the Initial Conditions! Inevitable!

Not sure anyone here believes in predetermination.

Here's a few things I don't believe in : free will, predetermination, predestination, determinism, god.

I don't think we are ever likely to be able to say with confidence that the universe is deterministic.  That's a big claim to make.

The fact that one particular species of ape on one particular planet does not, contrary to popular belief, have free will, this is not evidence for a deterministic universe. Biology to all intents and purposes is deterministic and humans are made of biology, but that doesn't mean that all natural law is deterministic, it is a spurious inference.

[Nearly Sane]

I fully agree with your posts, torridon, but I would quality my lack of belief in say a god to my lack of belief in free will. I see no evidence for either but in the case of free will, I have no real choice to act and speak as if I do on occasion. Thus I don't describe a feeling of desire for a bar of chocolate as there been desiring of chocolate in the neurons within the structure commonly referred to the perpendicular pronoun. That said it dies not make sense to take intellectually the declarative 'I want chocolate'  indicative in shyly sense that either there is belief in free will or that it exists