De hoenderhokknuppel van David Hume, Esq.

It would be easy to prove that suicide is as lawful under the Christian dispensation as it was to the Heathens. There is not a single text of scripture which prohibits it. That great and infallible rule of faith and practice which must controul all philosophy and human reasoning, has left us in this particular to our natural liberty. Resignation to Providence is indeed recommended in scripture; but that implies only submission to ills that are unavoidable, not to such as may be remedied by prudence or courage. Thou shalt not kill, is evidently meant to exclude only the killing of others, over whose life we have no authority. That this precept, like most of the scripture precepts, must be modified by reason and common sense, is plain from the practice of magistrates, who punish criminals capitally, notwithstanding the letter of the law. But were this commandment ever so express against suicide, it would now have no authority, for all the law of Moses is abolished, except so far as it is established by the law of nature. And we have already endeavoured to prove that suicide is not prohibited by that law. In all cases Christians and Heathens are precisely upon the same footing; Cato and Brutus, Arrea and Portia acted herocially; those who now imitate their example ought to receive the same praises from posterity. The power of committing suicide is regarded by Pliny as an advantage which men possess even above the Deity himself.

Deus non sibi potest mortem consciscere si velit quod homini dedit optimum in tantis vitae paenis.

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Essays on suicide, and the immortality of the soul: ascribed to the late David Hume, Esq. Never before published. With remarks, intended as an antidote to the poison contained in these performances, by the editor. To which is added, two letters on suicide.' Oxford Text Archive, Oxford University. iBooks.

David Hume - Wikipedia

Boltzmann brain

The Boltzmann brains concept arises from the need to explain why we observe such a large degree of organization in the universe. The second law of thermodynamics states that the total entropy in a closed universe will never decrease. We may think of the most likely state of the universe as one of high entropy, closer to uniform and without order. So why is the observed entropy so low?

Boltzmann proposed that we and our observed low-entropy world are a random fluctuation in a higher-entropy universe. Even in a near-equilibrium state, there will be stochastic fluctuations in the level of entropy. The most common fluctuations will be relatively small, resulting in only small amounts of organization, while larger fluctuations and their resulting greater levels of organization will be comparatively more rare. Large fluctuations would be almost inconceivably rare, but are made possible by the enormous size of the universe and by the idea that if we are the results of a fluctuation, there is a "selection bias": we observe this very unlikely universe because the unlikely conditions are necessary for us to be here, an expression of the anthropic principle.

The Boltzmann brain paradox is that any observers (self-aware brains with memories like we have, which includes our brains) are therefore far more likely to be Boltzmann brains than evolved brains, thereby at the same time also refuting the selection-bias argument. If our current level of organization, having many self-aware entities, is a result of a random fluctuation, it is much less likely than a level of organization which only creates stand-alone self-aware entities. For every universe with the level of organization we see, there should be an enormous number of lone Boltzmann brains floating around in unorganized environments. In an infinite universe, the number of self-aware brains that spontaneously randomly form out of the chaos, complete with false memories of a life like ours, should vastly outnumber the real brains evolved from an inconceivably rare local fluctuation the size of the observable universe.

The usual counter-argument is that natural selection is capable of generating outcomes which are a priori extremely improbable (as demonstrated by the weasel program). The level of organization in ourselves, and in the biosphere around us, was not generated by a single random fluctuation, but by a process of evolution by natural selection acting across billions of years. This evolutionary process does not violate the second law of thermodynamics, since the biosphere is not a thermodynamically closed system (it receives energy from the Sun and loses energy to space).

(Bron: Wikipedia)

Il n'y a qu'un problème philosophique vraiment sérieux

Il n'y a qu'un problème philosophique vraiment sérieux: c'est le suicide. Juger que la vie vaut ou ne vaut pas la peine d'être vécue, c'est répondre à la question fondamentale de la philosophie.

Le mythe de Sisyphe (1942)
Albert Camus

Fuck Yeah, Ralph Waldo Emerson

Fuck Yeah, Ralph Waldo Emerson
Everything Emersonian!

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How often must we learn this lesson? Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations. The only sin is limitation. As soon as you once come up with a man’s limitations, it is all over with him. Has he talents? Has he enterprise? Has he knowledge? It boots not. Infinitely alluring and attractive was he to you yesterday, a great hope, a sea to swim in; now, you have found his shores, found it a pond, and you care not if you never see it again.