thebestofenergy wrote:
The only sentience we know and we're able to prove is the one that only exist in this universe: the one with neurons. If someone claims to know another one, then they should present evidence for it, or atleast explain it.
Explaining- rather, offering plausible explanations- and not presenting empirical evidence is what most apologetics is about.
thebestofenergy wrote:
Someone could easily say that plants are sentient, and therefore say that eating animals is the same as eating plants, that it could be preturnatural.
It wouldn't be the plant itself, but some kind of soul or ghost-like being residing in the same location as the plant that was sentient. Likewise, this is easy enough to claim about rocks, and everything else down to hydrogen atoms and quarks (that in a parallel plane, there are souls everywhere- whatever).
Nobody, however, can claim that eating animals is physically or morally the same as eating plants on those grounds- animals are confirmed to be physically sentient in this plane- plants, quite the opposite.
It is empirically true that animals are sentient, and that harming them is immoral. It is only speculation that there might be souls on another plane affected by our actions.
In the domain of moral decision theory, empirical facts trump speculation every time.
While somebody may believe something on the grounds of speculation, that belief remains of low or unknown probability, and acting in its favor over empirical reality is immoral.
Animals, plants, and rocks for that matter may additionally have preturnatural spirits co-existing in the same space on another plane- but that doesn't necessarily have any moral relevance whatsoever to this plane- and even if you thought it did, the precise opposite of whatever moral conclusion you drew could probably just as plausibly be the case.
Pascal dealt with decision theory a little bit, but he did so poorly because he failed to account for the negatives of his religious beliefs, and other equally plausible options.
Anyway, the notion that our actions are harming souls in another plane can also be alleviated pretty easily.
If there's no normal interaction between the planes, then the souls on that plane wouldn't even know what's happening on this plane- much less be individually aware of it and feel it to their detriments.
If there was direct interaction between the planes, then it would be empirically detectable- as interaction is.
If the interaction was incredibly indirect, as by some intelligent agency acting with discretion, then it's not exactly us doing the hurting.
That said, it's still at best
morally irrelevant without meaningful evidence, despite being potentially plausible as a source of a world view.
thebestofenergy wrote:
To say that we wouldn't go insane after billions of years, you must discard evolution. The rational purpose of life is to grow up, find a partner, reproduce and die, to keep the specie alive (just like every other sentient being on this planet). There'd be a time where you know everything, you've experienced everything and you saw everything you could. And those things would just keep repeating themselves.
Well, for one, evolution isn't very relevant to an unnatural transcription of the mind.
Whether you're uploaded into a computer, or into some kind of metaphysical heaven, the rules there can be fundamentally different from the common conditions on Earth, and a highly programmed or intelligent agency could tamper with your mind in such a way as to reduce or eliminate those effects. How about being perpetually drunk or stoned (pleasantly so, with no hangover)?
But more importantly: repetition, even in the real world, is not always tedious.
Have you ever watched a movie a second time and enjoyed it? Maybe one from your childhood which you couldn't count the number of times you've seen it?
Because memory is imperfect, and fades with time, repetition (with sufficient variation) isn't inherently bound to yield insanity.
Eventually, you would forget everything entirely, and could experience anew everything you had forgotten.
Incidentally, it's one of the reasons vampire stories these days are so silly (beyond the obvious of them being supernatural). "Really? You remember the second century? No you don't."
Give a human mind, with its limited processing power and capacity, a few hundred years of life, and good luck even remembering your parent's names.
Of course, any deity or sufficiently advanced computer program could provide you with memory backups and cliff notes for anything you really didn't want to forget. But otherwise, you could be wiped and watch a movie a hundred times in a row, or just forget more naturally and watch a million different movies with different plots- or play a million games- before cycling back around.
Any modestly intelligent being wouldn't have that much difficulty keeping the meager minds of humans occupied and entertained for an eternity.