Is It Possible to "Make A Difference?"

[chezlaw]

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1) Helping one or more people in some way?

If yes, then to what degree, and for what length of time? For example, if I help you with your homework one time, is that enough to have made a difference in the world? How about a surgeon saving lives for 40 years? Are Einstein's accomplishments enough? Thomas Edison's? D. Sklansky? Motzart? Bill Gates? etc..

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I think its enough if one person's life is significantly changed as a non-flukey consequence of your action.

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2) Does making a difference have to consist of something admirable in nature?

For example, did the guy who shot John Lennon make a difference? Did Hitler? There is no question these people have changed history, but is that enough? Time magazine was all set to name Hitler the man/person of the century, but due to harsh criticism from many who mistakenly saw the nomination as an honor, Time went with Einstein instead, I believe.

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No it doesn't have to be admirable. Clearly Hitler made a huge difference.

chez

[guesswest]

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"There is no question these people have changed history"

I guess this would depend on the way you perceive reality.
In my reality nobody has ever nor will ever change history.

In the same way nobody will ever make a difference.

The universe is set!
When the Big-Bang emerged, the unfolding of the universe took place just as the Big-Bang dictated, just as the Big-Bang dictates the end of the universe to it's ultimate detail.
And even the fart that I am to let go in a minute, was enclosed in this Big-Bang!

Double cheers!

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This is the basic argument for determinism; eg. all-encompassing causality in the universe dictates that events are extensions of that which is previous. Setting aside the interesting stuff that quantum mechanics is saying about that (which I don't really understand) there's a fundamental philosophical problem too.

To view the universe as pre-determined in this way involves stepping outside of the universe to look at it. If human thought functions in the same way a chain of falling dominoes does, we can't offer any kind of meaningful analysis of our condition, including a deterministic one, because we ultimately can't decide anything. If we can decide, then we have free will, to some extent at least.

[BluffTHIS!]

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1) Helping one or more people in some way?

If yes, then to what degree, and for what length of time? For example, if I help you with your homework one time, is that enough to have made a difference in the world? How about a surgeon saving lives for 40 years? Are Einstein's accomplishments enough? Thomas Edison's? D. Sklansky? Motzart? Bill Gates? etc..

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I think its enough if one person's life is significantly changed as a non-flukey consequence of your action.

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I agree with this. The question is whether one wants to make a difference that affects (positively of course) hundreds of millions of people like with curing some disease, or are content to make a big difference to handful or just one person(s). And the answer depends not just on a realistic appraisal of one's talents and likelihood of success in a bigger endeavour, but on whether one really has a goal of history remembering one. And the fact is there really aren't many persons with both the talent and opportunity to make a difference to hundreds of millions, but there are hundreds of millions who collectively can do the same thing, albeit via being just a voice in a choir instead of a solo star soprano.

[Philo]

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People are generally in agreement (here at 2+2 anyway) that we humans do have a biological purpose, but nothing more.


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Really? What a juvenile view.

[Ben K]

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People are generally in agreement (here at 2+2 anyway) that we humans do have a biological purpose, but nothing more.


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Really? What a juvenile view.

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? Juvenile as in 'looked, read, considered, thought and concluded' or juvenile as in 'mum told me, preacher told me, 2000 year old book told me and I concluded'.

[Ben K]

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This is the basic argument for determinism; eg. all-encompassing causality in the universe dictates that events are extensions of that which is previous. Setting aside the interesting stuff that quantum mechanics is saying about that (which I don't really understand) there's a fundamental philosophical problem too.

To view the universe as pre-determined in this way involves stepping outside of the universe to look at it. If human thought functions in the same way a chain of falling dominoes does, we can't offer any kind of meaningful analysis of our condition, including a deterministic one, because we ultimately can't decide anything. If we can decide, then we have free will, to some extent at least.

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Not sure I agree here. You don't have to step outside the universe to view the universe as pre-determined. Tim is managing it well and he's inside the universe.

While our decisions are determined, they are not forecast becuase we are unable to gather and interpret all of the required information to do so. Instead we offer meaningful analysis of our condition based on what we do know. Something does not have to be known in totality for it to be meaningful.

Following on, so we don't have actual free will but we do have the illusion of free will created by the fact that we don't have all the information required to work out that our decision was pre-determined.

[guesswest]

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Not sure I agree here. You don't have to step outside the universe to view the universe as pre-determined. Tim is managing it well and he's inside the universe.

While our decisions are determined, they are not forecast becuase we are unable to gather and interpret all of the required information to do so. Instead we offer meaningful analysis of our condition based on what we do know. Something does not have to be known in totality for it to be meaningful.

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I'm not particularly married to this argument (I'd ultimately make an argument for determinism, just not this one). That said, I wasn't saying we can't have the perception that events are pre-determined, Tim clearly does - but perceiving and deciding are different things.

It's hard to imagine what the 'analysis' you refer to would consist of - if our thought processes are a result of a causal chain, there is no 'we' to analyse anything, it's just non-independent neural activity. Where is self in that?

[DonkBluffer]

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My understanding of the subject is limited, but from what I gather, quantum physics seems not to support the notion that "the universe is set".

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So it's impossible to 'change history'. To change history, 'history' would need to happen in some way, then you'd change that. But there's nothing to change.

[Philo]

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People are generally in agreement (here at 2+2 anyway) that we humans do have a biological purpose, but nothing more.


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Really? What a juvenile view.

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? Juvenile as in 'looked, read, considered, thought and concluded' or juvenile as in 'mum told me, preacher told me, 2000 year old book told me and I concluded'.

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I'm not sure what having a 'biological purpose' amounts to here, but my guess is it's something like "to propogate and continue the species." In any case, there's more to life than biology.

[latefordinner]

Is it possible not to make a difference?