On/Off: What Is Binary Choice?

What is binary choice…

…to us, as humans?

Is it 1/0? On/Off?

A choice between opposites?

Could what we consider a choice, not apply to the larger aspects of reality?

Especially, when considering on and off. We view it as the extremes of existence, but when we turn something on and power it, did we create it or channel it only, for it never was truly turned off?

We’ll need a context of course.

Here’s one that I often fall back on: abortion.

You are a doctor performing Mary’s abortion. You have choices to make as the procedure unfolds. You can choose to do this or you can choose to do that. Which choice is the most rational? Can this be ascertained by trained doctors?

You are an ethicist asked to weigh in on the morality of aborting Mary’s unborn baby/clump of cells. Mary does not want to give birth and believes it is her political right to choose to terminate it. John, the father of this unborn baby/clump of cells, insist instead it is the natural right of his son or daughter to be born.

Binary thinking in the first context, binary thinking in the second context?

If you cannot understand this topic or its importance, ask for clarification, otherwise please refrain from your usual, Groot spam.

Make that at least twenty times less respect for your intelligence.

But then you are a member of obsrvr524’s Coalition of Truth, right? So, are there still only two members? :laughing:

On the other hand, sure, I’ll be interested to see how others fare with you on this thread.

What, using the tools of philosophy, is a “binary choice”.

If only in a contextless world. :evilfun:

Please let your latest post, your polemic, chitting and chatting, be the last of your participation in a thread unworthy of your brilliance, ie. go beat off in your own threads.

Now that is Philosophy Wendy Darling Style!!! :laughing: :evilfun: :laughing:

Well, not that she hasn’t reduced me down to the same. :banana-dance:

Biggie, you truly don’t want to use your brain, just jack around because every time I try to inspire you to use that #6%?#%’ nub you call your brain, you ‘Groot’ back to your usual idiotry.

he is incapable of learning.

Example:
Q: do I think this thread worthwhile enough to continue contributing? Yes or NO

Answer No

I thought that this thread was going to be about reducing choice down to two options. :-k

As in : Communism is good or Communism is bad

or : Abortion is good or abortion is bad

And we’re supposed to, we have to, pick one or the other because there is nothing else.

What is this thread about? :confused:

The brain as analogous to a signaling device, a coding machine, which may use interpretation in a secondary function to primarily fed data, upon which recognition plays a decisive part.

Maybe?

I think it is more a choice between absent/s. Something is or isn’t - the opposite something might be or not be also. In gray there is white and black - opposites. But the binary choice is whether there is an absence of gray or not.

What “is” when we observe our natural surroundings?

From my example in my opening post “is” our use of electricity actually a binary choice?

Are we turning on the existence of electricity? OR does electricity exist despite whether we turn it on or off?

The 1/0 choice pertaining to computers is an issue of the voltage level of the electricity at any particular semiconductor gate. The functional idea is that if the voltage is above a certain level - that is counted as a “1” and anything below that is “0”. So it is not an issue of creating anything but of changing the state of electricity at a particular place. And the level chosen to distinguish 1 from 0 is a matter of industrial convenience. It is called a 1 or 0 - it is not actually a 1 or 0.

Language allows for calling things specific names if they fall into specific categories even though they are not precisely and exactly anything that our language could perfectly define. And only in QM fantasies do we “create” anything because of the language we use.

In other words, we only channel the energy that already exists?

I thought that was well established by science even before James explained exactly why energy could never ever be created or destroyed. To do so would be the same as saying that “black = white”.

The only thing ever possible is to merely redistribute energy - perhaps freeing it from a locked up source (such as nuclear fission - or matter-antimatter interaction). All energy always comes from somewhere it had been before - ALL of it - Always and Forever.

“Always and Forever” reads like the absence of a choice?

When I think of binary choice, the basic choice between two things, it leaves me wondering if we use it improperly to make us feel more powerful as an illusion of control when there is in fact no choice at all, only the one option that is. In cases like the existence of energy, not only does the binary choice between off and on give us a reference point, but it may be used to shield us from some aspects of reality which are beyond our control when we have no choice.

Is there an existence of choice in all circumstances?

Binary choice is the choice between two options.

The choice between on or off.
The choice between pizza or ice cream.
The choice between staying or going.
The choice between going to sleep or staying up to watch late night TV.

It doesn’t mean that those are the only possible choices, but it means that the choice is between only those 2 choices.

Okay, can you turn off existence? Describe your choices.

You can not turn off existence, that is not possible. That is not a choice. Space can not be destroyed. Space is infinite volume, which is 3 dimensional distance. Space is inevitable and can not be got rid of.

Existence is that which exists, and space always exists.