Why? Because I Say So, That's Why!

Moral relativism was invented by the hippies back in the 60s so they could do wrong things and not feel guilty about it. I was developing my own internalized moral code about the same time, but I took a different tack. I don't believe that something is wrong just because somebody says that it is. When in doubt, I always try to get a second opinion, a third opinion, or as many opinions as it takes to form an informed opinion of my own. Once I accomplish that, right and wrong is what I say it is. If I screw up and do something wrong, I either change my opinion or I just don't do that thing again. That's how I avoid feeling guilty about what I do. Uncle Ken and I have previously agreed to disagree about this. He doesn't believe in good guys and bad guys, but then he doesn't believe in God either, so there you go.

We seem to agree about objective reality, although we may not always agree about a particular thing being real or not. The problem with objective realism is that the only way we can observe objective reality is through our perception. Perception is not always reliable, but it's all we've got. When in doubt, you can ask somebody else if they see it too, but their perception is not perfect either. Believing in objective reality is kind of like believing in God. You might be able to prove it to your own satisfaction, but you may not be able to prove it to somebody else's satisfaction. Nevertheless, a guy's got to believe in something, and that's what I choose to believe in because I find it easier to believe in it than to not believe in it.

I also choose to believe in Old Dog's interpretation of that dreaming computer story, mostly because he seems to know a lot more about that stuff than I do, but partly because I want to believe it. The idea of sentient computers is unsettling to me. I don't have a problem with artificial intelligence, what I have a problem with is artificial consciousness. I understand that there are people working on that as we speak, but I don't know why. Mark my words, no good will come of it.