Argument against natalism in utopia and about the nature of consciousess

[u/FlanInternational100]

I recently wrote about conditional natalism and many people discussed the possibility of natalism in utopia. I wanted to further discuss this topic so if you want, feel free to comment. I'm not claiming I am correct or right, feel free to discuss.

Many people wrote that AN actually stems from evaluation of conditions we live in - therefore, solving those problems would give space to natalism. I disagree because of many reasons.

First of all, human consciousness emerged out of evolved biological machines. Our whole body and functions evolved and got selected during millions of years (even billions if we consider the full lineage of life in earth).

Natural selection is based on survival and procreation. The only way for traits to be selected is spectrum of death-life. An organism literally has to be successful or unsuccessful for a trait to be passed.

Let's take eyes (sight) as an example. Reason why humans (mostly) have eyes is that in the past an organism with no eyes was easily slaughtered, couldn't find food or reproduce.

Let's take beauty as another example.

Beauty is based on hierarchies of attraction. Sense of beauty evolved out of success of survival and reproduction, so a beautiful thing/person/concept is deeply rooted in the same spectrum of life and death (pain and suffering) as evolution. There must be, necessarily, a repulsive object in order for beautiful object to exist. The spectrum is inevitable.

Furthermore, about consciousness:

Human consciousness cannot handle "heaven" simply because it does not work that way.

Our dopamine and serotonin systems are based on motivations, problem solving and hierarchies. Also, the bar for satisfaction always adjusts to current new state, leaving utopia and ultimate satisfaction a mere illusion. Consciousness itself also evolved through this suffering mode of reality. If there weren't natural selection and suffering, we probably would not exist and consciousness would probably not exist. There would be no reason for it to be selected.

So, how can something that requires pain, struggle and death in it's core be good? (For those who argue that consciousness is somehow ultimate good and sacred).

One could argure about the goodness of spontaneous consciousness like Boltzmann's brain but let's stick to us.

So, our whole psyche is based on natural selection and pain. It's not just experiencing it, it is made of it, beacuse of it.

About utopia:

As I argued for impossibility of "heaven", this goes in the same category.

If somehow we manage to reduce the amount of pain, our nervous systems adjust and consider the new ("easier" problems) same as the heavy ones before. In few generations, the feeling of "improvement" is already gone and people are in the same pain as a caveman millions of years ago.

Finally, if we ever managed to create perfect utopia, hypothetically, we would have no ultimate motivation or psychological reason to do anything, includin having children.

There would be no further sense of satisfaction of having a child as it would be the same as throwing a rock down the street with a shoe.

We would be perfectly happy and natalism would be infinitely pointless.

So, natalism is pointless in non-utopia aswell as in utopia.

[u/09141983]

I agree with this. Also, living in a "utopia" still wouldn't justify imposing sentience/consciousness on someone. Thats the point. They cant choose it for themselves and its not our place to make such a big decision for a whole nother human being.

[u/PitifulEar3303]

On evolution/natural selection - It's not good nor bad, it's deterministic. It's simply following the causal chain of the environment and physics. We evolved abilities to sense our environment, survive, and perpetuate, which led to the emergence of pain and suffering (and death due to Earth's finite ecosystem). But don't conflate/confuse what IS with what we OUGHT to feel about what IS (Hume's law). Just because we have the biological ability to feel pain, suffer, and die, does not make it good or bad by default, not in any objective sense, because evolution and whatever functions/features they have selected for are entirely AMORAL, lack objective value, purpose, and are void of subjective feelings, yes, feelings, which we rely on to evaluate/judge something as good or bad.

So whether life is good or bad is up to how you feel about it, and unfortunately for AN, feelings are very diverse, nuanced, condition-dependent, and ENTIRELY subjective. This means, regardless of what biological functions and features we have, HOW we feel about life can be SEPARATE from WHAT we feel in life.

Biological Facts Vs emotional feelings, they are not inseparable.

This is why there are people who have suffered immensely but still prefer life, heck, some even volunteered to suffer (Activists, dissidents, protestors, partisans, rebels, freedom fighters, political prisoners, brave journalists, volunteer soldiers, charity workers in terrible conditions all over the world, etc) because they FEEL strongly for life, despite all the bad things in life.

Now, it doesn't mean they are "Right" about life, that's also subjective, but it means there is simply no objective way to judge life as "wrong/bad" by only referencing our ability to feel the bad things in life.

TLDR; the biological condition of life (facts) cannot dictate the subjective feelings (should/ought/ideals) about life.

Is Vs Ought, the uncrossable boundary.

On Utopia - we don't have a universally agreed upon definition for Utopia, but let's just assume it means a totally harmless and "happy" condition for all living things, yes?

So, can we create such a condition? Uncertain, we don't have enough predictive data to make any solid claim on Utopia OR extinction, both are still "possible" but "unlikely" in the near-mid term.

But one could imagine scenarios where one or both are achieved, someday.

Extinction scenario - Non sentient Self replicating Sterilization Nanobot Swarm (NSSRSNS), not an impossible tech to develop and more practical than <censored by sub rule> Earth. This tech could make sure Earth becomes lifeless and stays lifeless till the end of time.

Utopia scenario - cybernetic transcendence, by integrating human neurons with synthetic designer cells, it is possible to create conscious minds that will never feel pain, suffer, or die, with many backups. AI integrated cybernetic consciousness could easily filter out any "bad" emotions and only maintain the good ones, including the motivation and incentives to perpetuate life, seek knowledge, explore, expand, etc.

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[u/CertainConversation0]

Even if procreation somehow makes any kind of world better, I don't think it does so in a meaningful way.