Morality of Radiant bonds

[Frustration]

32 minutes ago, apepi said:

Also with the power of magic you could probably make spren have souls, given certain experiments....

I said not SR Souls, and if your argument is for SR souls you have to put rocks on the same level as humans.

10 minutes ago, Elegy said:

That's not a good point because we don't even know if it's true. First off, who says that spren don't go to the Beyond? We know nothing about the Beyond and never will, so we also don't know what makes a Beyond soul. Which means that there's nothing that indicates that sentience alone isn't enough for a being to have a Beyond soul. Spren might as well have one. And on the other hand, since, as I said, we don't know anything about the Beyond, it might just be nothingness anyway; humans might just vanish when they die. If there is no Beyond, neither is there a Beyond soul. Which means, not only don't we know if spren dont have a Beyond soul, we also do not know if humans do have one. Both premises of the statement are actually assumptions about things we don't know (and will never know). Therefore, this is no basis to make statements about the value of lives.

And here we come to the crux of the issue, if there is no Beyond there is no value in any life.

[Halyo_Alex]

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

And here we come to the crux of the issue, if there is no Beyond there is no value in any life.

*Visible Confusion*

I just... What... Whaaaaaa...???

[Frustration]

Just now, Halyo_Alex said:

*Visible Confusion*

I just... What... Whaaaaaa...???

Well think about it, and note this is going to get very dark and Nihilistic so if that bothers you you have been warned.

Spoiler

So the Beyond is Cosmere heaven right? So if there isn't heaven, or God, then what is there? It's all just pointless matter pretending for what breif instant it has in the face of eternity that it matters.

But it doesn't, eternity doesn't care, it moves on, with or without them, they have no purpose, it doesn't matter anyway, nothing will change, all will fade and die, there will be nothing left, true with the cosmere it will repeate, but for what? What will it do?

If there is nothing for life to be worth what is it's value? Valubale because we feel like it? Valuable because we care?

Eternity doesn't care, purpose and light have left us and all that is left is emptyness.

 

[Halyo_Alex]

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

Well think about it, and note this is going to get very dark and Nihilistic so if that bothers you you have been warned.

  Hide contents

So the Beyond is Cosmere heaven right? So if there isn't heaven, or God, then what is there? It's all just pointless matter pretending for what breif instant it has in the face of eternity that it matters.

But it doesn't, eternity doesn't care, it moves on, with or without them, they have no purpose, it doesn't matter anyway, nothing will change, all will fade and die, there will be nothing left, true with the cosmere it will repeate, but for what? What will it do?

If there is nothing for life to be worth what is it's value? Valubale because we feel like it? Valuable because we care?

Eternity doesn't care, purpose and light have left us and all that is left is emptyness.

 

Well at this point I think it's safe to say we just fundementally disagree on multiple philosophical matters, and we can never have a meaningful debate about whether or not Spren are alive.

...Go have fun in your sad little meaningless world all alone in a universe where no other being besides yourself can be proven to actually have a consciousness and be alive, rather than just being a very good approximation of life.

[Elegy]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Well think about it, and note this is going to get very dark and Nihilistic so if that bothers you you have been warned.

  Reveal hidden contents

So the Beyond is Cosmere heaven right? So if there isn't heaven, or God, then what is there? It's all just pointless matter pretending for what breif instant it has in the face of eternity that it matters.

But it doesn't, eternity doesn't care, it moves on, with or without them, they have no purpose, it doesn't matter anyway, nothing will change, all will fade and die, there will be nothing left, true with the cosmere it will repeate, but for what? What will it do?

If there is nothing for life to be worth what is it's value? Valubale because we feel like it? Valuable because we care?

Eternity doesn't care, purpose and light have left us and all that is left is emptyness.

 

First off, with this, you only answer to one of two complaints I had, the "maybe humans have no soul" one. You ignore the "maybe spren have a soul" one.

Second, feelings of living beings are facts. Negative feelings have to be prevented if possible, because it feels bad to have them. I don't see why we need anything outside of that for humans to have good reason to place value on those lives and feelings, necessarily.

[Halyo_Alex]

3 hours ago, Halyo_Alex said:

...Go have fun in your sad little meaningless world all alone in a universe where no other being besides yourself can be proven to actually have a consciousness and be alive, rather than just being a very good approximation of life.

Okay. I... Should not say these words.

But that mentality just feels so fundementally wrong to me that it confuses and disturbs me. I don't know how to respond to someone who believes that.

[NameIess]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

I said not SR Souls, and if your argument is for SR souls you have to put rocks on the same level as humans.

If an SR soul is not a beyond soul then every human on Scadrial, the Parshmen, Nalthians, and most likely all sentient life in the Cosmere is not actually alive. Do you think that Shards have some connection to the Beyond that allows them to give a human a Beyond soul? They made humans out of investiture, almost exactly the same way as they made humans, the sole difference being humanity's connection to the physical realm. a capital G God did not make most of the humans in the Cosmere, Shards did.

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

Well think about it, and note this is going to get very dark and Nihilistic so if that bothers you you have been warned.

  Reveal hidden contents

So the Beyond is Cosmere heaven right? So if there isn't heaven, or God, then what is there? It's all just pointless matter pretending for what breif instant it has in the face of eternity that it matters.

But it doesn't, eternity doesn't care, it moves on, with or without them, they have no purpose, it doesn't matter anyway, nothing will change, all will fade and die, there will be nothing left, true with the cosmere it will repeate, but for what? What will it do?

If there is nothing for life to be worth what is it's value? Valubale because we feel like it? Valuable because we care?

Eternity doesn't care, purpose and light have left us and all that is left is emptyness.

 

Journey before Destination 

Jokes aside, I actually agree with you on this one. Life by itself is basically meaningless.

 

[ScadrianTank]

3 hours ago, Nameless said:

Do you think that Shards have some connection to the Beyond that allows them to give a human a Beyond soul?

Assuming that God is a real presence in the cosmere, distinct from Adonalsium, we should also assume that God operates separately from Adonalsium and the Shards. Then it's up to him( or them?) to give away souls to entities that need one. 

3 hours ago, Nameless said:

a capital G God did not make most of the humans in the Cosmere, Shards did.

Practically speaking, it seems easier to assume that if God Beyond is God - then Adonalsium is either his spren or a spren of the cosmere Big Bang. Then, they would act with the same Intent as God while still being God's lesser. This way, God Beyond remains true a religious God while staying within all the known cosmere rules.

[Pathfinder]

15 hours ago, Frustration said:

I said not SR Souls, and if your argument is for SR souls you have to put rocks on the same level as humans.

And here we come to the crux of the issue, if there is no Beyond there is no value in any life.

So, prefacing this that I respect that is your beliefs, and is important to you. You are perfectly entitled to believe as such.

Having said that, that is not an argument against spren having souls, or the beyond not existing. It is only a statement that you personally would dislike such an occurrence. Your personal dislike, and perspective of that, does not act as a proof that it cannot be. Simply because as demonstrated by two other individuals here, such a possibility does not seem so fatalistic to them.

Basically I can personally dislike a room being over 70 degrees F, but that does not mean based on my dislike of that status, the room cannot possibly attain such temperature. 

 

edit:

To put it in context. You believe without an afterlife/soul, there is no point to life. And that is fine. You are perfectly entitled to feel as such. But because you believe there is no point of life without an afterlife, does not mean that there then HAS to be an afterlife. It just means if an afterlife did not exist, you would feel life is pointless. While there are others who would disagree with you. Your personal feeling that a lack of an afterlife would make life meaningless, does not preclude an afterlife from not existing. Does that make sense? I can get convoluted when I type things, so I like to check. 

Edited August 17, 2021 by Pathfinder

[NameIess]

13 hours ago, ScadrianTank said:

Practically speaking, it seems easier to assume that if God Beyond is God - then Adonalsium is either his spren or a spren of the cosmere Big Bang. Then, they would act with the same Intent as God while still being God's lesser. This way, God Beyond remains true a religious God while staying within all the known cosmere rules.

Eh. I don't think that a capital G God in the Cosmere would have a spren. It would make more sense if capital G God had made Adonalsium and the universe, maybe some humans too. I don't see a need for Adonalsium and capital G God to be related in any way.

[Halyo_Alex]

On 8/17/2021 at 8:15 AM, Pathfinder said:

So, prefacing this that I respect that is your beliefs, and is important to you. You are perfectly entitled to believe as such.

Having said that, that is not an argument against spren having souls, or the beyond not existing. It is only a statement that you personally would dislike such an occurrence. Your personal dislike, and perspective of that, does not act as a proof that it cannot be. Simply because as demonstrated by two other individuals here, such a possibility does not seem so fatalistic to them.

Basically I can personally dislike a room being over 70 degrees F, but that does not mean based on my dislike of that status, the room cannot possibly attain such temperature. 

 

edit:

To put it in context. You believe without an afterlife/soul, there is no point to life. And that is fine. You are perfectly entitled to feel as such. But because you believe there is no point of life without an afterlife, does not mean that there then HAS to be an afterlife. It just means if an afterlife did not exist, you would feel life is pointless. While there are others who would disagree with you. Your personal feeling that a lack of an afterlife would make life meaningless, does not preclude an afterlife from not existing. Does that make sense? I can get convoluted when I type things, so I like to check. 

Thank you for putting my feelings into coherent thought when I couldn't. I really need to learn to chill out about these sorts of debates, I'm way too sensitive...

[LewsTherinTelescope]

On 8/17/2021 at 10:15 AM, Pathfinder said:

To put it in context. You believe without an afterlife/soul, there is no point to life. And that is fine. You are perfectly entitled to feel as such. But because you believe there is no point of life without an afterlife, does not mean that there then HAS to be an afterlife. It just means if an afterlife did not exist, you would feel life is pointless. While there are others who would disagree with you. Your personal feeling that a lack of an afterlife would make life meaningless, does not preclude an afterlife from not existing. Does that make sense? I can get convoluted when I type things, so I like to check. 

It also does not at all prove that, if an afterlife/true soul does exist, spren aren't part of it.

[Frustration]

On 8/16/2021 at 6:06 PM, Halyo_Alex said:

...Go have fun in your sad little meaningless world all alone in a universe where no other being besides yourself can be proven to actually have a consciousness and be alive, rather than just being a very good approximation of life.

Oh, my version of the universe is quite positive, it just relies on an afterlife

On 8/16/2021 at 6:18 PM, Elegy said:

First off, with this, you only answer to one of two complaints I had, the "maybe humans have no soul" one. You ignore the "maybe spren have a soul" one.

Second, feelings of living beings are facts. Negative feelings have to be prevented if possible, because it feels bad to have them. I don't see why we need anything outside of that for humans to have good reason to place value on those lives and feelings, necessarily.

That makes everything you do as important as the chemicals it releases in other people.

10,000 years later what does that mean?

On 8/16/2021 at 7:33 PM, Nameless said:

If an SR soul is not a beyond soul then every human on Scadrial, the Parshmen, Nalthians, and most likely all sentient life in the Cosmere is not actually alive. Do you think that Shards have some connection to the Beyond that allows them to give a human a Beyond soul? They made humans out of investiture, almost exactly the same way as they made humans, the sole difference being humanity's connection to the physical realm. a capital G God did not make most of the humans in the Cosmere, Shards did.

Most(if not all) humans on earth were made by other humans

20 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

It also does not at all prove that, if an afterlife/true soul does exist, spren aren't part of it.

There is a quote from Syl in either WoK or WoR that goes something along the lines of "When you kill a rock, it's still there, When you kill a spren She's still there, When you kill a person, something leaves, all that's left is meat."

and in RoW the Stormfather says "Spren don't die as men do."

[NameIess]

7 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Most(if not all) humans on earth were made by other humans

And humans on earth are the only sentient lie that we know of, probably the only sentient life in the universe.

7 minutes ago, Frustration said:

There is a quote from Syl in either WoK or WoR that goes something along the lines of "When you kill a rock, it's still there, When you kill a spren She's still there, When you kill a person, something leaves, all that's left is meat."

and in RoW the Stormfather says "Spren don't die as men do."

That's because no spren has ever actually died. They've just had their spiritweb damaged dramatically. (Until RoW)

Edited August 19, 2021 by Nameless

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, Nameless said:

That's because no spren has ever actually died. They've just had their spiritweb damaged dramatically.

Considering that shards can just decide to reform spren as if from new I'd say it doesn't really matter for them.

[NameIess]

Just now, Frustration said:

Considering that shards can just decide to reform spren as if from new I'd say it doesn't really matter for them.

Not if the spren are destroyed by anti-investiture. 

[LewsTherinTelescope]

6 minutes ago, Frustration said:

There is a quote from Syl in either WoK or WoR that goes something along the lines of "When you kill a rock, it's still there, When you kill a spren She's still there, When you kill a person, something leaves, all that's left is meat."

and in RoW the Stormfather says "Spren don't die as men do."

This?

Quote

“We’re spren,” Syl said. “We’re forces. You can’t kill us completely. Just . . . sort of.”

“That’s perfectly clear.”

“It’s perfectly clear to us,” Syl said. “You’re the strange ones. Break a rock, and it’s still there. Break a spren, and she’s still there. Sort of. Break a person, and something leaves. Something changes. What’s left is just meat. You’re weird.”

Deadeyeing is what's being referred to here (hence "you can't kill us completely"), which is separate from the actual death we learn is possible in RoW. (And considering Brandon has said the Beyond may or may not even exist and characters don't know the answer either, her comment does not even necessarily refer to that anyway, as opposed to just referring to the fact that they don't leave a deadeye, and that the Cognitive aspects of sentient and non-sentient things are notably different and so presumably have some form of differences in how they function, with the flame vs bead stuff.)

[Pathfinder]

50 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Oh, my version of the universe is quite positive, it just relies on an afterlife

That makes everything you do as important as the chemicals it releases in other people.

10,000 years later what does that mean?

And just to reiterate, totally respect your opinion and your perspective. Just going to offer what is the response to this for those that do not believe in an afterlife:

 

The lack of an afterlife makes everything we do matter even more. Because the earth is all we have. This life, and what we do with it is precious for the time we have and the relationships we build. Because it is finite. You say 10,000 years later what does it mean. What did it mean when the wheel was invented? What did it mean when aqueducts were created? What did it mean when Socrates philosophized ages ago? What did it mean when a parent worked hard to give their child a better life? There doesn't have to be some grand eternal reward to give value to these experiences. The value is there independent of it. It is the betterment of the here and now. If a meteor suddenly flew out of space and blew up the planet, wiping humans out and all evidence of our civilization, there would still be the value the people had through each other. And that is enough. A person can see the value in helping another, loving another, or working towards a goal, all without a sense of eternal reward. Appreciate and work towards making the world better in the here and now, instead of leaving it for "someplace else". 

 

But again, I totally understand and respect if in your perspective, you feel personally for yourself that is not enough. You for your own reasons feel an afterlife is crucial for existence to have a point. Just there is a perfectly valid, and understandable perspective that disagrees with you. 

[Elegy]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

That makes everything you do as important as the chemicals it releases in other people.

10,000 years later what does that mean?

I could argue with you over this, but that would miss the point - because this was originally a discussion about whether or not a spren life is of value; there was a list of reasons why that would be the case, there was one reason why it wouldn't, and that one was based on an immensely uncertain premise (that being the difference between human and spren "Beyond soul"). That tangent about the universe doesn't do anything for or agalnst your original argument, because no matter its result, the statement that "spren lack a soul" (as a differentiator from humans) remains baseless either way. So that's why I don't find arguing on about this particular thing helpful at all, in this case. I think we should instead focus on more possible reasons why spren lives would be of no value, because the one reason mentioned didn't really work in my opinion 

[Frustration]

On 8/19/2021 at 4:23 PM, Pathfinder said:

And just to reiterate, totally respect your opinion and your perspective. Just going to offer what is the response to this for those that do not believe in an afterlife:

 

The lack of an afterlife makes everything we do matter even more. Because the earth is all we have. This life, and what we do with it is precious for the time we have and the relationships we build. Because it is finite. You say 10,000 years later what does it mean. What did it mean when the wheel was invented? What did it mean when aqueducts were created? What did it mean when Socrates philosophized ages ago? What did it mean when a parent worked hard to give their child a better life? There doesn't have to be some grand eternal reward to give value to these experiences. The value is there independent of it. It is the betterment of the here and now. If a meteor suddenly flew out of space and blew up the planet, wiping humans out and all evidence of our civilization, there would still be the value the people had through each other. And that is enough. A person can see the value in helping another, loving another, or working towards a goal, all without a sense of eternal reward. Appreciate and work towards making the world better in the here and now, instead of leaving it for "someplace else". 

 

But again, I totally understand and respect if in your perspective, you feel personally for yourself that is not enough. You for your own reasons feel an afterlife is crucial for existence to have a point. Just there is a perfectly valid, and understandable perspective that disagrees with you. 

Fair enough

On 8/19/2021 at 6:05 PM, Elegy said:

I could argue with you over this, but that would miss the point - because this was originally a discussion about whether or not a spren life is of value; there was a list of reasons why that would be the case, there was one reason why it wouldn't, and that one was based on an immensely uncertain premise (that being the difference between human and spren "Beyond soul"). That tangent about the universe doesn't do anything for or agalnst your original argument, because no matter its result, the statement that "spren lack a soul" (as a differentiator from humans) remains baseless either way. So that's why I don't find arguing on about this particular thing helpful at all, in this case. I think we should instead focus on more possible reasons why spren lives would be of no value, because the one reason mentioned didn't really work in my opinion 

Well, when my entire basis for the value of life revolves around an eternal soul I don't have any other arguments.

[ConfusedCow]

How do you think the Human Lives > Spren Lives argument would go down with the Stormfather? 

The Nahel bond though does seem unethical to me, or at least ethically problematic.  It's a fundamentally unequal and terribly intimate relationship.  The radiant holds the spren's life in their hands and makes the choices about where to go, what to do etc... The spren has to stay with their radiant, by their side, or die.  The radiant literally turns their partner into a tool and then uses them to kill things.   Enslaving another being, even kindly, even for a good cause, even with their consent, is not good.  There are consequences to your understanding of the world and the value of life.  Journey before pancakes, etc...  I think the ancient Radiants understood this and took steps to mitigate the problem but were unable to fundamentally resolve it.