I would say it is also trivially true that if I wanted to assume my grandfather passed painlessly because it gave me comfort then my ignorance surrounding any truth that it was horribly painful and terrifying would be optimal for my assumption.
This would depend on you and on your grandfather. For example he may have died a horrible death in your estimation but not in his estimation. He may have died a horrible death in his estimation but not your estimation. Personally I would want to know the details about the death of a loved one, even if I concur that such details may in fact be horrible to me. As it is I don't know in advance what details would be horrible to me or the exact effect such horror would have, would it destroy me so I took my own life or would it strengthen me. I can't see into the future. There is also the fact that I may wish to prevent such horrible deaths in the future for other loved ones or even strangers. The head in the sand technique is something which may work for certain people over the short term but in the long term I don't think it's a great idea. I see people do hugely destructive things to themselves because they are so good at lying to themselves. The problem is how do you know which lie is beneficial and which lie is harmful in advance? I can't think of a good methodology for filtering out all the things I don't want to believe before I have heard them? Plus again it is short termism, even if I did invent a methodology would it really be of benefit to me (or future generations) for my whole life? Would I have truly lead a better life? Who is happier the happy Pig or the unhappy man/
I do not view the truth as an inherently positive thing because I consider anything harmful to my goals a negative thing
That is only if those goals are themselves a positive thing. It is also not at all clear if the truth would indeed be harmful to said goals. For example you could read true information on how to groom children. This is true. Certain people should be prevented from accessing this information. Most people should be aware of some general things to looks out for. Certain people should know all there is to know in order to prevent such things. If your goal is negative then the truth about how to achieve your goal would ideally be held from you. Even more ideally the truth that your goal is negative should be known to you. Let us at least agree that snippets of the truth can be harmful to the wrong people at the right time.
in this day and age incompetence or ignorance are insufficient for death.
Kind of. But you are thinking over the extreme short term. In the long term this is not true.
It seems to me that evolution is actually going backwards nowadays and statistics actually support this
Evolution doesn't go backwards.
When it comes to life once again I feel that not many decisions revolve around life
I feel that not many decisions don't revolve around life. You say that a quality life is worthwhile but it's hard to have a quality life if you aren't alive. As I said earlier I would argue that a quality life increases the chances of life into the future.
I don't view procreation as my purpose in life.
No you misunderstand. You don't need to procreate in order to have a positive effect on the gene pool. You don't need to procreate in order to pass your genes onto future generations. We share a great number of genes.
I really view life in terms of quality not quantity, one happy life is better than 100 miserable lives in my view.
Yes, this is the key point. How do you judge quality? What is a quality life? This is what I have been arguing for. If life is good (note the if) then a quality life must be good because a quality life will best further life into the future.
that you would find no truth unpalatable and would welcome it, to me the only way this is really possible is impartiality towards the truth.
No. You can accept deeply unpleasant truths. For example if I had the option of being blissfully unaware that I was going to die tomorrow at 1pm or being horrible aware, I would rather be aware. I can say good bye to my loved ones. I can prioritise a few things. I can make the best of a horrible situation.
I would ask why you do not measure truth by its outcome?
I do. My argument is that the outcome is generally better if the truth is known rather than not known. Like I said earlier it's important that all the truth is known and not to just cherry pick the truth.
you said life and welfare's superiority over other concerns was an empirical fact?
Not quite what I said. Apologies for not being clear. I'll try again. I didn't mean that it was a fact which humans had proved, I meant if true then it would be a fact (although unmeasured). That's what I meant about relativity being a fact before Einstein was born, it wasn't a human known fact but it was still a fact. Also to be clear I posed a number of questions. I said 'if' life is desirable, I said 'if' high welfare (or quality in your words) increases survivability. What I was trying to say is that if those things are true then they are facts which could be discovered (I am not saying that they have been discovered). Like I said earlier, we have to start with 'is life desirable'. This is worth debating because a lot of what I have said follows from it (in my opinion).
If you have been referring to reality as causality or evolution then I will revoke my statements about you treating reality as a God
Yes I meant reality as in the state of things as they actually exist. Causality is a part of reality (maybe), evolution is a part of reality. Those things are real. Reality has made conscious life, not as an act of intelligent purpose, but as a result of the laws of nature. I understand the confusion and I apologise, but it was never my intent to personify the state of things as they actually exist. I was just trying to point out the results of the state of things as they actually exist.
in the context of culture and thus deny objective moral law
As I said it depends if 'life is good'. If life is good then you can argue (as you did) that a high welfare (or quality) life is also good. If a high welfare life is good you can argue all kinds of things morally. Of course there will be disagreements on the particulars but in my opinion whether or not you are living a high welfare life is a matter of fact. Granted a very hard to ascertain fact.
Once again reality has created nothing and you are describing causality - this is not semantics because reality and causality are very different things
Causality may or may not be part of reality. It's a great model. It describes a lot of things. It's perhaps true at certain granularities but not others. Part of the story but not the whole story. I understand the confusion and I apologise, but I was thinking in terms of the very big picture.
Do you think like OP that world views are noise to scientifically minded individuals who have transcended the petty differences of preference and interpretation?
No I don't think scientists have super human powers, they are human. Perhaps your average scientist does do a better job of abandoning petty bias, perhaps they don't. The key thing though is that the methodology does transcend petty bias much better than any other methodology. A truly great scientist will follow the science and do their best to work around their own bias. They try to prove a thing. They need to provide empirical evidence, they need to double blind the studies, they need to publish their methodologies before looking at the results etc etc etc. Of course scientists aren't perfect and of course the scientific method is not perfect. But it's the best system we have of transcending our imperfections and I believe the results are impressive. This computer I'm using is pretty damn impressive. If you are asking if I want the government to employ the scientific method then too right I do. But I don't think that that is a trivial undertaking by any means.
That some reality exists that offers us answers to all problems; that can be studied and understood such as the empirical reality that you have invoked previously?
Not sure about all problems as such. Plus even if it did exist it does not follow that we can study or understand it. But generally yes, I think there is a reality and I think all statements can (in theory) be tested against it. Of course it's complex, I never said it was simple.
the world we live in is not bound by the rules of causality in nature
That depends on how you looks at things. I'm not sure how you are defining nature here? Some people would say for example that humans editing gene sequences was not natural? and transcends evolution? I would just say it's a part of evolution, sure it's not natural selection, but it's still evolution. Again it depends on how you define things.
Unknown means unknown.