If someone sees the world as inherently bad, because humans dominate other species, kill animals, and evolution produced this without a way out, is there a specific name for this kind of thinking?
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"Confused" comes to mind. If the world was produced by evolution rather than a creator, then it has no purpose or value, so it can't be inherently bad. – David Gudeman Mar 26 '22 at 23:50
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@DavidGudeman Oh, so you know precisely what "purpose" or "value" are, to make such a claim? – causative Mar 27 '22 at 03:06
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@causative, I don't have to know exactly what they are to know that they are not the sorts of thing that can arise from random physical processes. – David Gudeman Mar 27 '22 at 09:10
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@DavidGudeman Then what sort of thing are they, to make such a claim? Humans arose from random physical processes, and humans find these words "purpose" or "value" useful. On what basis can you say everyone is mistaken about the usefulness or meaningfulness of these words? – causative Mar 27 '22 at 09:20
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@causative, I reject your premise. Furthermore, I'll note that by all precedent and understanding of these these words everyone would have agreed with me a century and a half ago. There is zero justification for thinking that things like purpose and value can arise from physical processes except for the fact that this is required for materialism to be true. It is like the Catholic doctrine of True Presence. All reason is against it, but you take it on faith anyway because your faith demands it. – David Gudeman Mar 27 '22 at 09:32
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You might look up materialism and physicalism and atomists here -https://plato.stanford.edu/ There was also an ancient Indian school of materialism called the charvakas. See chapter 3 here - https://archive.org/details/IndianPhilosophyACriticalSurvey/page/n5/mode/2up – Swami Vishwananda Mar 27 '22 at 10:49
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@DavidGudeman What do they arise from then? You think purpose arises from some big man in the sky telling you what to do? You're eager to say what purpose isn't but I'm not seeing you say what it is. If a man in the sky wants you to do something, why should that be your purpose, as opposed to just his? Maybe he'll punish you forever if you don't do what he says. If that's what makes it your purpose, then your real purpose is avoidance of punishment. And avoidance of punishment is just as real in a materialist universe as in a theistic one. – causative Mar 27 '22 at 17:54
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@DavidGudeman Or maybe the man in the sky has a plan for you. Why, again, should his plan be your purpose, as opposed to just his purpose? You have your own plans, that may be different from his; why can't your own plans be your purpose? – causative Mar 27 '22 at 18:05
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@causative, this isn't about the man in the sky; it's about category errors. Numbers don't have a color, dream objects don't have mass, and purposes don't arise from mechanical action. You can always ask "why not" to questions like this, and the only possible answer is: "If you really understood what I meant by the terms, you wouldn't ask." – David Gudeman Mar 27 '22 at 22:32
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@DavidGudeman Well, I do not understand what you mean by the terms, because you haven't said what you mean. Is your notion of the terms clear enough to describe specifically? – causative Mar 27 '22 at 22:36
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@causative, everyone knows what a purpose is unless they have an ideological reason not to understand it. – David Gudeman Mar 27 '22 at 22:45
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@DavidGudeman Question isn't about what "everyone" thinks a purpose is, but about what you think it is. Different philosophers have different opinions on the subject. It is your opinion, not that of the average person, that matters here. – causative Mar 27 '22 at 22:55
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@causative, I've never seen an account of purpose or any other intentional concept explained in a way that was both (1) plausibly what people normally understand about the concept and (2) in any way caused by or reducible to mechanical events. In the AI community, they sometimes use programming concepts that are obviously nothing at all like what people normally understand. In philosophy, they either go panpsychist, which completely changes the meaning of "mechanical", or appeal to future scientific discoveries--but have no suggestions about how it could be possible. – David Gudeman Mar 28 '22 at 01:14
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Let us continue this discussion in chat. – causative Mar 28 '22 at 01:25
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This sounds a bit like Schopenhauer.
I don't know how familiar you are with philosophy, but Schopenhauer's thought was a niche offshoot of the German Idealist tradition that used quasi-Kantian principles (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics/, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental-idealism/) to conclude that the world was fundamentally not a good place, a view often called "pessimism" today.
Schopenhauer believed that there was a blind "will" behind our actions (and even behind how we perceive the world - hence the second part of the title of his most famous book). In his seminal work "The World as Will and Representation", S. argues that this will is what makes us do nasty things to living things. It also causes us suffering, a suffering that he says far outweighs the pleasure we get in life. S thought that this "will" that causes us to constantly desire things, and, once we satisfy this desire, we can move on to another desire, leaving us in a constant state of dissatisfaction. This is also what causes us to do horrible things to each-other, to S. Your idea about evolution is not exactly what S. believed, but he did have an idea about a blind force behind our actions that condemned us and others to a life of suffering, and was an early sympathizer with ethical ideas that made room for animal rights.
A word of caution, however. I personally (please make of philosophers what you will; don't just take your ideas from others) don't think Schopenhauer is a particularly interesting or stimulating thinker... I think his philosophy is not just flawed but also rather shallow. His understanding of Kantian subjectivity and Indian/Buddhist philosophies is quite shaky, in my opinion, and I'm also not a big fan of pessimistic philosophies in general. Once again, please evaluate S. on your own, not through my lens, but remember that there are many other philosophies and ideas to explore, so keep an open mind.
For further reading:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schopenhauer/
Hope this helps!
SamIAm123
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