So I can "learn German", "read philosophy", "listen to music", sleep and avoid pain.
Deleted UserJanuary 08, 2018 at 00:00#1410490 likes
I am alive to attempt to bring love, hope, and joy to other beings. Even though I don't always succeed, those are my goals, and I want to work towards them. A life lived for oneself is shallow and meaningless, believe me. Without living for something, or someone, greater than myself, I have no purpose.
At the end of everyday, seconds after I've snuggled into my bed, my cat comes and spoons me, right under my armpit. In the last five years of cohabitation, she has perhaps failed to do so 2 or 3 times.
JustSomeGuyJanuary 08, 2018 at 03:04#1410920 likes
I live for life. For the experience. Occasionally I still get in a funk and question what the point is, but I always remember--either on my own or with the help of others--that life has no point.
The only purpose of life is to live it. To do it for it's own sake. Like watching a sunset, or listening to a symphony, or dancing. You aren't trying to accomplish anything in these activities. There is no higher purpose beyond the experience itself. Life is the same.
JustSomeGuyJanuary 08, 2018 at 03:06#1410940 likes
I should add for clarification, when I say life has no point or purpose, I'm only speaking of inherent purpose. But this lack of purpose is exactly what allows us to give our lives whatever purpose we want them to have, which is an incredible thing.
BuxtebuddhaJanuary 08, 2018 at 03:25#1411000 likes
To find love in all things and smile.
StreetlightJanuary 08, 2018 at 03:38#1411100 likes
I live to see why others live. It amazes me the things that people say to keep going everyday. I mean, it is all instrumental- we live but for surviving, finding a more comfortable circumstance, and keeping entertained and out of boredom's clutches, but the attempts at some aspirational faith (see here: aspirational faith article) is quite amusing. If you teach yourself to believe long enough and hard enough, maybe you will actually believe it. But is it just fooling ourselves? Swinging from one hope-vine to the next; getting starry-eyed for lofty visions of grandeur?
Those who are restless and anxious, always running from this and that and not knowing what to do - they are to be pitied, for they are already dead. To be alive means precisely to chase after this and that, for no other reason than the chase itself. It is overflowing energy, which must be dissipated - those who are restless and anxious, they have very little energy, and therefore they don't do anything, and are depressed. But how is it possible that intense energy flow through a man or a woman, and not have them move mountains?
Depression is just that - a low energy state - we're talking of psychological energy here. You barely have energy to even get out of bed in the morning... you struggle to even brush the teeth! To take the same toothbrush every day, and every day do the same old motions, over and over again. That must take great energy - and when there is little energy, it becomes a chore, almost impossible to do.
And yet, there are people in their 90s, crooked and barely able to move, and yet they do move and don't complain. Why? Because they have great psychological energy - their bodies may be old, but their minds are young.
And then, there are people in their 20s who stay on their bed the whole day starring at the ceiling. Why? Their body is 20, but their mind is 90!
What can be done, though, by someone with low psychological energy (depression) to remedy their situation? How does one increase their psychological energy?
What can be done, though, by someone with low psychological energy (depression) to remedy their situation?
I'm not really sure. I can distinguish between the two states, and it is like seeing the world differently when you switch between them, but that switching is difficult. It's like seeing one object red, and then suddenly seeing the same object yellow. It's hard to give a "how" - you see, looking for a "how" seems to be part of the problem, since depression and low psychological energy often lead to rumination and compulsive thinking. So seeking a "how" is often a compulsive thing and is actually a manifestation of the problem.
To give an example. When I was 12-14 and played video games, I remember that I would often end up compulsively researching how to be the best at a certain game (say Counter-Strike), rather than actually playing the game. It was so hilarious because I was reading about "What is the best weapon?", "How To Get The First Shot In", "How to get more headshots", and other such questions, and I spent more time compulsively researching than actually playing. And each of those questions didn't really have a clear answer, but there were a whole host of competing answers! So, I kept jumping from answer to answer thinking I now have the holy grail and can finally play at my best (that thought and good feeling didn't last long, soon I was back to compulsive research after I started doubting each of the answers I had read :P ).
I think in life many things don't have a how, and most people do things without having a how. A how is not necessary. You don't need a how to move your legs, you just do it. It is the mind that creates the problem. Before you first kissed a girl, you were so worried about "how" - how to do it? And then when you actually do it, you find out that the "how" is irrelevant, because you don't follow it anyway - you just do it - naturally - the same way you move your legs.
There are a lot of contributing factors for low psychological energy though. Beliefs, attitudes and expectations are part of it. If you have the wrong beliefs, the wrong expectations and the wrong attitudes, you're going to dig yourself in a hole. Studying stoicism is useful in that regard. Mindfulness also helps bring those into awareness and learn to manage the underlying emotions.
Being around negative & discouraging people is another thing that can pull you down, depending again on your beliefs, attitudes and expectations. For example, growing up, my family was always very negativistic, pessimistic, and discouraging of everything. So I internalised this very negative attitude and pessimism. So if you let what other people think or say of you, then you can be in trouble. For example, if someone says "You can't do X", and you let that affect you, then you may really be unable to do X. A healthy attitude to have towards what others say is to realise that what they say objectively does not affect what you're capable of or not. So if they say negative things, they're actually doing you no harm - the only moment when harm is done is if you take what they say as truth. So depending on your social circumstances, your age, etc., you may have to live around such people, sometimes, if you're married to such a person for example, for your whole life. So then you need to adjust so that you don't react to negative things they say about you anymore.
Another issue is that you may not accept being a certain way. For example, maybe you're an introvert and prefer to spend time alone, but your society pushes you to live like an extrovert - then no wonder you'll be miserable so long as you accept what your society forces on you.
Also, social expectations can pull you down. For example, you may not have a girlfriend or boyfriend, and your society tells you that you must have one to live a worthy life. So then, you may be depressed, thinking that you're in a really bad place, and you're doing something wrong. So learning not to care about social expectations, and love your fate, is also quite freeing.
And the other issue is when you're too much goal-focused rather than process focused. When you're goal-focused and things are going great - then you'll be ecstatic and you will have abounding energy. But when you're goal-focused and things aren't going great... then you will often lose energy very quickly. One way to be less goal-focused is to not care about the result so much. So, for example, you can play chess always thinking about winning, or you can play chess focusing on what's the next move you should make, and not caring if you win or lose. The process-focused way seems more sustainable psychologically. Obsession with winning is, paradoxically, one of the things that can prevent you from winning.
I continue to exist because I can't bear the thought of causing unwanted suffering in others, even though I would likely not be around to witness it. I also fear the result of a failed suicide attempt, ending up with an even worse set of circumstances (partial brain damage, paralyzation).
Being 'trapped in life' this way, I aim to do things that will minimize suffering or maximize long-term contentment. I take antidepressant medication, undergo repetitive trans-cranial magnetic stimulation once a month (another treatment for depression), talk to a counselor when life's stresses are high (like now, while I'm fighting my ex's potential move with my daughters to a city 6 hours away), work a steady job, exercise regularly, stick to a decent diet, get an adequate amount of sleep, and pay attention to the people in my life that matter.
It may sound like a pretty dismal perspective, but by doing all of these things, I manage to maintain a decent mood most of the time, and enjoy a lot of what life brings. Thoughts of the ultimate pointlessness of existence have less power when I maintain this feel-good regime.
I continue to exist because I can't bear the thought of causing unwanted suffering in others, even though I would likely not be around to witness it. I also fear the result of a failed suicide attempt, ending up with an even worse set of circumstances (partial brain damage, paralyzation).
Why are you in such a hurry? Wait a little longer, we all die anyway. You will not escape from that, so don't be worried. Just hang around as much as you can, death will come by itself anyway.
I continue to exist because I can't bear the thought of causing unwanted suffering in others, even though I would likely not be around to witness it. I also fear the result of a failed suicide attempt, ending up with an even worse set of circumstances (partial brain damage, paralyzation).
Worst than that, there could be a life after death!
Reply to JustSomeGuy Also, @Wosret's advice which I have recently started following has proven to be very good too. It's called not giving a shit about what happens. Or in more formal terms, as Krishnamurti said, the secret is not to care what happens next (and by that, I don't mean not to want certain things to happen, but rather not to be attached to them happening).
Thoughts of the ultimate pointlessness of existence have less power when I maintain this feel-good regime.
Why is pointlessness even relevant? If existence had a point it would be rectilinear... no just kidding. If existence had a point, you'd be complaining why does it have a point?! Now you're not free to do whatever you want, you have to chase this point! And failure to reach that point will be terrible. You cry now, when it has no point, but just imagine what you'd be doing if it did have a point >:O
I think the problem is that I spent a good portion of my life chasing the wrong points, and the consequences of those actions are interfering with my chasing the right points... haha
I think the problem is that I spent a good portion of my life chasing the wrong points, and the consequences of those actions are interfering with my chasing the right points... haha
I think more important than chasing the right or wrong points is chasing what Nassim Taleb calls optionality - the possibility to change route at any time. You never want to corner yourself.
To a certain extent. Those are good, but they already require energy to undertake.
Good point, but these should address the real issue (the depression). And with that relief, it will be easier to take action. Negative thoughts will fade for a time. It all comes down making the effort to take action. Action drives passion and visa versa.
When I was 12-14 and played video games, I remember that I would often end up compulsively researching how to be the best at a certain game
I think that's a common drive for a lot of people; one that comes from this learned need to be somehow different from or better than others. I know this played a large role for most of my life, and lingers on despite having recognized it for what it really is. For example, I get some small satisfaction at being the #1 Word Buzz player in the world (and from letting other people know! haha), despite it having no real use in my life aside from passing the time.
It probably doesn't help that I work at an old-age home, where most of the people don't know who they are anymore, can't carry a conversation, and/or have to wear diapers and can't wipe their own butts. Seeing people in varying states of mental and physical decay is a constant reminder of what we're all working toward...
It probably doesn't help that I work at an old-age home, where most of the people don't know who they are anymore, can't carry a conversation, and/or have to wear diapers and can't wipe their own butts. Seeing people in varying states of mental and physical decay is a constant reminder of what we're all working toward...
That is true. I probably couldn't manage to do that - I would lose my mind. So I definitely respect people like you.
I think that's a common drive for a lot of people; one that comes from this learned need to be somehow different from or better than others.
Yeah, but it's interesting how that plays out. Because you don't actually end up becoming much better than everyone else, since you play less than everyone else, and actually read "how to" more than everyone else >:O .
I have been inclined toward human service work, and that's mostly what I've done. Once in a while it was fulfilling; most of the time, not too much. I gave of myself to various causes, and that part was good. I had a lot of sex, loved several men, there was lots of sturm and drang, and here we are in retirement, a widower and a bachelor again, and likely to stay that way.
Now my goal in life is to make it to the grave as gracefully as possible. I spend a lot of my time on filling in the holes of my now long passed undergraduate education. This task is very satisfying. For instance, Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year-History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin has tied together a number of loose ends from three biology and geology classes in which I wasn't paying that much attention. The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery By Wendy Moore is a biography about John Hunter, a pioneering surgeon and anatomist in the 18th century. Knife Man filled in several small holes. So did three books by neurosurgeons. There are many holes left to be filled.
To what end is all this study and reading? No end really, other than to learn. It won't help me get a job (not at this point) and it most likely will not get me into heaven or keep me out of hell, or even make the hereafter a slightly less boring eternity. I have an unknown amount of time to fill, and learning is a pleasant way to fill it.
Futile? No more futile now than it was when I begin college in 1964. Had I learned as much back then as I have since learned, I could have been a college professor, one of the cushier jobs on the planet. But if I had done that, then I would have had to put up with decades of POMO, and that would have been at least as bad as dealing with the fakery and futility of the helping professions.
An odd presumption, that one needs some reason to live.
schopenhauer1January 09, 2018 at 01:13#1414170 likes
Reply to Banno
One of my main points is that we survive, seek comfort, and avoid boredom using preferences based on our linguistic-conceptual minds shaped by enculturation of social setting and personality tendencies shaped by that very socialization and development.
I doubt the average person, even the average TPF member, is conscious of what they "live for everyday", since the daily ritual of life doesn't allow for that much reflection. On top of that, when we do reflect on why we live life each day, we tend to come up with a nice ideal: "I live life for the betterment of others", "I live life for the beauty of things", "I live life because it's my imperative to do so", etc., ad naseum. But these aren't real reasons for "living life"; they're justifications for one's existence, and generally not quite truthful. In reality, we generally don't know exactly why we're living life.
Which has nothing to say about why life should be lived, which is the implied question within your question. The recognition of the uncertainty and the insincerity are good starting points, however.
ProgrammingGodJordanJanuary 09, 2018 at 09:40#1416960 likes
I doubt the average person, even the average TPF member, is conscious of what they "live for everyday", since the daily ritual of life doesn't allow for that much reflection. On top of that, when we do reflect on why we live life each day, we tend to come up with a nice ideal: "I live life for the betterment of others", "I live life for the beauty of things", "I live life because it's my imperative to do so", etc., ad naseum. But these aren't real reasons for "living life"; they're justifications for one's existence, and generally not quite truthful. In reality, we generally don't know exactly why we're living life.
True, nobody seems to be really asking the question. Look at my answers:
1.b) Within that process, work or activities done through several ranges of intelligent behaviour are reasonably ways of contributing to the increase of entropy. (See source)
1.c) As species got more and more intelligent, nature was finding better ways to contribute to increases of entropy. (Intelligent systems can be observed as being biased towards entropy maximization)
1.d) Humans are slowly getting smarter, but even if we augment our intellect by CRISPR-like routines or implants, we will reasonably be limited by how many computational units or neurons etc fit in our skulls.
1.e) AGI/ASI won’t be subject to the size of the human skull/human cognitive hardware. (Laws of physics/thermodynamics permits human exceeding intelligence in non biological form)
1.f) As AGI/ASI won’t face the limits that humans do, they are a subsequent step (though non biological) particularly in the regime of contributing to better ways of increasing entropy, compared to humans.
2) The above is why the purpose of the human species, is reasonably to create AGI/ASI.
The first time I've almost agreed with you! Would love to see your work. Assuming you really mean that sculpting is your main motivation for life (even if I disagree with that motivation itself).
Yup. Everyone is fake. Except me. I'm always one tick away from nihilism, which seems to be the place to be. It positions you one tick away from God as well. :P
Well, you brought up a term called 'psychic-energy' to describe a state of depression. Something I doubt has any use to trying to describe the term, 'depression'. Such as states characterized as 'low psychic energy' manifesting in depression.
Well, it's just that depression is much more than the manifestation of 'psychic-energy'. Doesn't that term sound too new age to be taken seriously for you?
There are a lot of contributing factors for low psychological energy though. Beliefs, attitudes and expectations are part of it. If you have the wrong beliefs, the wrong expectations and the wrong attitudes, you're going to dig yourself in a hole. Studying stoicism is useful in that regard. Mindfulness also helps bring those into awareness and learn to manage the underlying emotions.
I just think that there's no point in talking about 'wrong beliefs', 'wrong expectations', and 'wrong attitudes', as if some Ayatullah or priest professing a certain dogma or way of life.
Yeah, there is no mention of "psychic" energy there. I did say psychological energy, because that's what it is phenomenologically speaking. Do you disagree?
I just think that there's no point in talking about 'wrong beliefs', 'wrong expectations', and 'wrong attitudes', as if some Ayatullah or priest professing a certain dogma or way of life.
So you don't agree with the CBT version that wrong beliefs, wrong expectations and wrong attitudes are one of the prime causes of depression?
Yeah, there is no mention of "psychic" energy there. I did say psychological energy, because that's what it is phenomenologically speaking. Do you disagree?
Fine, then. Allow me to use that term in a different context. How do you understand a term that cannot be quantified, meaning that which is 'psychological', and at the same time include a term that can mostly be understood when quantifying it, such as 'energy'? They don't seem to go well together.
Fine, then. Allow me to use that term in a different context. How do you understand a term that cannot be quantified, meaning that which is 'psychological', and at the same time include a term that can mostly be understood when quantifying it, such as 'energy'? They don't seem to go well together.
Okay I see. Well, I think the term "energy" doesn't only have the meaning we're used to in physics. If you're very tired, you'll say "I don't have enough energy". In that case, you certainly don't mean the useful work that can be quantified, but you're referring to a psychological state. Correct?
Okay I see. Well, I think the term "energy" doesn't only have the meaning we're used to in physics. If you're very tired, you'll say "I don't have enough energy". In that case, you certainly don't mean the useful work that can be quantified, but you're referring to a psychological state. Correct?
Yeah; but, that's a sort of cognitive distortion if we're going to be strictly logical about this. I mean, how does one know if they have 'enough energy' for some task. And, where does this energy come from?
How are beliefs and cognitive distortions related?
Beliefs are subject to being true or not. People with schizophrenia tend to have more cognitive distortions arising in their minds than the rest of the population. But, that's not the point. The point I'm trying to make is that there doesn't seem to be a fundamental difference between beliefs and knowledge as I understand it. So, if one has accurate beliefs about the world then that is knowledge bona fide.
Beliefs are subject to being true or not. People with schizophrenia tend to have more cognitive distortions arising in their minds than the rest of the population. But, that's not the point. The point I'm trying to make is that there doesn't seem to be a fundamental difference between beliefs and knowledge as I understand it. So, if one has accurate beliefs about the world then that is knowledge bona fide.
Personally, I think cognitive distortions are false beliefs - I take them to be presumptions that people act on, which don't reflect reality. For example, if someone sees another laughing, some people will presume they are laughing about them, and start feeling anxious/bad, and change how they act. So that belief will cause one to feel bad. On the other hand, I don't think it's the truth or falsity of the belief that causes one to feel bad, but merely having that belief. If it happened to be a true belief, and they really were laughing at them, then would the person be justified in feeling bad?
Personally, I think cognitive distortions are false beliefs - I take them to be presumptions that people act on, which don't reflect reality. For example, if someone sees another laughing, some people will presume they are laughing about them, and start feeling anxious/bad, and change how they act. So that belief will cause one to feel bad. On the other hand, I don't think it's the truth or falsity of the belief that causes one to feel bad, but merely having that belief. If it happened to be a true belief, and they really were laughing at them, then would the person be justified in feeling bad?
I started a thread listed below. Let me know what you think. It's 3 AM and I should be heading to sleep. Night.
Reply to Banno i think the trick here is to not take the query of the thread too literally.
How about what makes you life interesting, worth while. What gets you out of bed in the morning.
Reply to Noble Dust Sculpting has not always been my main motivation. But it is what gets me out of bed these days.
I it up after looking around for something new to do a year or so after cancer.
I doubt the average person, even the average TPF member, is conscious of what they "live for everyday", since the daily ritual of life doesn't allow for that much reflection. On top of that, when we do reflect on why we live life each day, we tend to come up with a nice ideal: "I live life for the betterment of others", "I live life for the beauty of things", "I live life because it's my imperative to do so", etc., ad naseum. But these aren't real reasons for "living life"; they're justifications for one's existence, and generally not quite truthful. In reality, we generally don't know exactly why we're living life.
My mother-in-law, who currently lives with us, has never made an effort to develop her mind and the consequence of that, it appears, is that she's like a lost and helpless child.
A dog will provide you with a reason to get out of bed every morning. It will get off the bed and stand beside you and whimper softly. Then whine louder. Then poke you with its nose. Then poke harder. Then bark once, loudly. Repeat. You WILL get up because its bladder is full and its stomach is empty, an intolerable situation. It will do this every day throughout its long life.
has never made an effort to develop her mind and the consequence of that, it appears, is that she's like a lost and helpless child.
Sounds like the President of the United States. Wolff of Fire and Fury fame says Donald Trump doesn't read. It isn't clear whether he can read. He doesn't listen to people either. He watches televisions.
when we do reflect on why we live life each day, we tend to come up with a nice ideal: "I live life for the betterment of others", "I live life for the beauty of things", "I live life because it's my imperative to do so", etc., ad naseum.
Whatever defense we offer for our drab wretched lives is invariably total bullshit, but the cover story is important. It is better if it sounds good. "I live to bring beauty and joy into the lives of others" is nauseating, but it sounds better than "If you can't take a big healthy crap every morning, you might as well be dead."
Whatever defense we offer for our drab wretched lives is invariably total bullshit, but the cover story is important. It is better if it sounds good. "I live to bring beauty and joy into the lives of others" is nauseating, but it sounds better than "If you can't take a big healthy crap every morning, you might as well be dead."
Or... maybe not.
Is it always total bullshit? What about defenses like sunk cost, concern for how a few particular human beings will fare without one, the hope that one has not yet peaked yet, one's 'programing', etc. What comes to my mind is a spectrum. We have dark comedians on one end and politicians on the other. Have you watched Another Period? That show is savage and as funny as Arrested Development. What does our enjoyment of such shows indicate? It seems at least part of us knows that we are full of shit, and comedy is enjoyable as us being less full of shit by temporarily admitting how full of shit we are. (I wonder if 'full of shit' has the same resonance outside the states.)
I just mean that no one really knows why they live life every day. So when confronted with the question, people just come up with platitudes; and the results are no different on TPF either.
I wake up every morning and kiss my wife because the alarm goes off and hope I can get through my shower before my daughter wakes up.
Each morning I dress her and we talk about the day before and what's she's going to do today. That's my first bright point of the day. We have breakfast and then she waves goodbye when I leave the backyard. This week she doesn't want me to go to work which is both the sweetest thing in the world and heartbreaking. When thinking about dying I don't want her to feel the pain of missing me so I've decided to live forever.
Before coming home I'm already happy with the expectation of seeing my wife and daughter. I usually put her to bed as well; brushing teeth is a struggle but then we go through the day again and what she'll do tomorrow. Finally, I read her a story and spend some quality time with my wife.
If my daughter and wife were the only thing going for me it would be enough.
A dog will provide you with a reason to get out of bed every morning. It will get off the bed and stand beside you and whimper softly. Then whine louder. Then poke you with its nose. Then poke harder. Then bark once, loudly. Repeat. You WILL get up because its bladder is full and its stomach is empty, an intolerable situation. It will do this every day throughout its long life.
I just got home. My dog ran round in circles at the sight of me; grabbed her plastic squeeky pig and teased me to try to take it off her; after a tussle she rolled into her back and juggled the pig and (threw it) propelled it in the the air; I then stroked her tummy with my foot as I sat to answer my emails; then she tried to jump up pushing the macbook aside sniffing my clothes for microscopic particles of food; finding none she pushed her armpits into my face; a sure sign of wanting a pee.
After letting here out the back for a pee she expectantly looked for a few kibble as a reward - the look is unmistakable.
Boffy (the Boffin), for that is her name, has learned the word for her favourite treat; a deep fried pig's ear. Nothing excites her more. It is impossible to use the phrase pig's ear without her getting manically excited.
Hoping to avoid such excitement we have decided to replace the phrase with "P. E.".
She now gets ridiculously excited when she hears "P. E.", so much so that we now have to call it "The Aural Organ of a Swine".
So having learned the phrase, and then how to spell the initials; how much longer will it take before her knowledge of scientific language allows her to break the code???
(I wonder if 'full of shit' has the same resonance outside the states.)
During a period of international conflict having something to do with some guy named Napoleon, A Hapsburg minister referred to a French minister as "a sock full of shit". So, from that I take it that "full of shit" probably has resonance outside the states.
Reply to charleton
That link didn't work for me, but it was a profile image for a site connected to the links you provided. It was a light brown color.
The self that gives reasons does seem like a rider on a horse with a mind of its own. If we find ourselves in a reflective mode, we can reach into the fog of our minds for words. 'I like this. I like that. Here's a short term project. Here's a long term project.'
When immersed in a project, we don't see it from the outside as a project. Such is my view. But philosophy or what-you-may-call-it is the project of (among other things) making life's projects explicit as projects. I'm tempted to argue for a 'nihilistic'/negative 'violence' at the heart of critical thinking.
It's from the zoomed-out perspective that the long-range emptiness of all projects appears. We look like clever animals who woke up to our eerie situation. Is life good or bad? Every mood has its own philosophy. In good moods the awake-to-nullity thinking type can speak of the fascinating show of its mysterious origin. In bad moods, he speaks of the nightmare from nowhere that at least will subside into the blackness from which it came.
schopenhauer1January 11, 2018 at 02:07#1424340 likes
It's from the zoomed-out perspective that the long-range emptiness of all projects appears. We look like clever animals who woke up to our eerie situation. Is life good or bad? Every mood has its own philosophy. In good moods the awake-to-nullity thinking type can speak of the fascinating show of its mysterious origin. In bad moods, he speaks of the nightmare from nowhere that at least will subside into the blackness from which it came.
This long-range emptiness to all projects I call "instrumentality". It is instrumental in that we pursue but with no final satisfaction to any particular goal, just a general striving that underlies our linguistic-conceptual minds. Conceptually we can break this general Will or Striving into three basic categories of motivation: survival (in a cultural and/or economic context), seeking comfort/maintenance (e.g. you clean your house, you brush your teeth, you make your bed, etc. etc.), fleeing boredom (e.g. you get lonely, you pursue a hobby, you make art, you take a walk, etc. etc). All the most complex goals/technologies/outputs come from a combination of those three underlying motivations. However, these motivations are simply conceptual breakdowns of our originary Striving/Will that manifests from within us in the first place. It is an instrumental moving-forward-but-for-no-reason. All goals are subsumed by the simple sheer need in our waking daily lives for striving/willing.
So yes, we slap on a label after-the-fact for what we are doing it for. The problem is, as you indicated, that we are an existential creature. Whereas other animals may have motivations of survival (and perhaps maintenance/boredom for higher level animals), they are not self-reflective to our degree. We are the animals that know that we simply live to live to live. Our conceptual minds turn in on ourselves and there is no easy way out by slapping a label on why we do anything. We simply keep the continual striving for survival/maintenance/boredom-avoidance going to the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and so on and so on and so on. Meanwhile, we are plagued by the contingencies of our circumstances- mental/physical conditions, uncomfortable circumstances, tragedies, and what not.
Hence I categorize suffering into two main camps- structural suffering and contingent suffering.
Structural suffering is the instrumental nature of existence- the striving that is never satisfied, the motivations of want/desire (survival/comfort/maintenance/boredom) that lead to the repetitious Sisyphean aspect of existence (yet another day of survival, comfort seeking, boredom fleeing).
Contingent suffering is the circumstances which can be different for each person is identified with classical notions of suffering in the West (i.e. circumstances of physical/mental pain, circumstances of negative situations, etc. etc.).
The classical retort is to minimize one's purview such that you get "caught up" in something. Thus the bigger picture of existential issues will be ignored/suppressed. Thus, analyzing a spreadsheet for 8 hours, or figuring out an engineering differential equation, or writing a paper on the philosophy of biology, will keep one's mind on intra-worldly affairs and not on the global situation of our existential place. Thus, just go play a video game, just go read that book on evolution, networks, form and function, language, and logic, write that paper on biophysics, or just go knit a pair of socks.
@Bitter Crank You may want to join in with the usual critiques ;).
The classical retort is to minimize one's purview such that you get "caught up" in something. Thus the bigger picture of existential issues will be ignored/suppressed. Thus, analyzing a spreadsheet for 8 hours, or figuring out an engineering differential equation, or writing a paper on the philosophy of biology, will keep one's mind on intra-worldly affairs and not on the global situation of our existential place. Thus, just go play a video game, just go read that book on evolution, networks, form and function, language, and logic, write that paper on biophysics, or just go knit a pair of socks.
What you call the classical retort is successful as far as it goes. While we're engrossed, we forget our absurdity.
Here's something I've been thinking about. In general being future oriented is associated with virtue. Work hard now for greater reward later. Work out and have a great body for the beach. Study hard and end up with a creative and/or high paying career. Save money and don't throw money away on interest by going into debt. There's also research and development. Arguably our foresight is our greatest gift.
But projecting too far into the future reveals decay and death. We generally like to accumulate value, build castles, empires, legacies. There are comforts for personal mortality that depend on the survival of a community. Yet projecting far enough ahead removes even this comfort. A critic could retort that each moment is real and has its own fragile value even as it passes. They aren't wrong. But I think there's an instinct (or something like that) which demands permanence. In my opinion, the easily mockable 'nihilistic' crisis is an often inarticulate frustration with the theoretically perceived impossibility of leaving a deathless mark.
I don't think this decides the value of life either way, but it does open a source of suffering. On the other hand, I think there's a part of us that wants everything erased. We also dream of starting from zero, of being reborn. So we laugh at dark comedy. We laugh at the part of us that dreams of substantiality.
I liked the rest of your post too. I do think the breakdown or classification is a little arbitrary. Not bad, just arbitrary. I suppose I see more of a chaos of particular needs/desires. True, some are especially linked to survival. But I don't see how to cleanly separate morale from survival. Boredom arguably kills indirectly in the sense that stimulation is a sort of need. But these are quibbles.
schopenhauer1January 11, 2018 at 08:54#1425470 likes
But projecting too far into the future reveals decay and death. We generally like to accumulate value, build castles, empires, legacies. There are comforts for personal mortality that depend on the survival of a community. Yet projecting far enough ahead removes even this comfort. A critic could retort that each moment is real and has its own fragile value even as it passes. They aren't wrong. But I think there's an instinct (or something like that) which demands permanence. In my opinion, the easily mockable 'nihilistic' crisis is an often inarticulate frustration with the theoretically perceived impossibility of leaving a deathless mark.
We are always hoping.. Everything on the horizon seems good- we swing from hope to hope, thinking that after this or that endeavor or long-term project, this will bring some salvation or answer. I think the worst conceit is the idea of a pyramid gleaning towards self-actualization. In fact, it is a straight line. Achievement is really the Striving of our very nature churning in its own instrumental nature to do something. Culture just gives it direction which presents itself as some "meaning".. The hope that is built-in to this social cue is someone internalizes it enough for the long-term projects to be useful for society. It is society perpetuating society.
I liked the rest of your post too. I do think the breakdown or classification is a little arbitrary. Not bad, just arbitrary. I suppose I see more of a chaos of particular needs/desires. True, some are especially linked to survival. But I don't see how to cleanly separate morale from survival. Boredom arguably kills indirectly in the sense that stimulation is a sort of need. But these are quibbles.
Granted they are quibbles, but I think everything is really categorized in these ways very broadly. Survival-through-cultural-means, maintenance-through-cultural-means, fleeing-boredom-through-cultural means is really useful in understanding where we are coming from.
Oh come on, you're going to go into detailed responses to others, but ignore the small second paragraph of my response you so readily agreed with? The small paragraph that goes against your views?
schopenhauer1January 11, 2018 at 09:00#1425520 likes
Oh come on, you're going to go into detailed responses to others, but ignore the small second paragraph of my response you so readily agreed with? The small paragraph that goes against your views?
What exactly do you want me to comment on? You said it is a matter of why we live, no? Do you want me to answer why we continue to live rather than commit suicide?
Which has nothing to say about why life should be lived, which is the implied question within your question. The recognition of the uncertainty and the insincerity are good starting points, however.
schopenhauer1January 11, 2018 at 09:06#1425580 likes
Reply to Bitter Crank Reply to Noble Dust
Assuming Bitter Crank is answering for Noble Dust- the pain of life is not so unbearable as to go against the biological instinct/enculturation of survival. This is not an indictment that life is therefore something which is necessary, too-good-not-to-continue, etc. etc.
Also, may I add, that is the point- we are going by our nature based on our survival/maintenance/boredom motivations.. this is not a positive reason for existence, just what we do. Labels are put on after.
I feel a classical notion is that we do stuff to compensate for other stuff.. I did this negative experience so I can experience this positive experience. See, isn't life worth it? I think it's more than this simple equation.
No; re-read the first paragraph that you agreed with, and then the second short one that I assume you don't agree with.
By detailing how I think we don't know why we live life, I wasn't specifically agreeing with you, but rather cutting to the chase of why I think you started this thread. But, in doing that, I was tacitly agreeing with you that we mainly don't know why we live life. Then, in the second short paragraph, I was emphasizing that the fact that we don't know why we live life says nothing about the implicit question of whether life is worth living, which I know you're getting at; or, as you put it, with your assumption, whether or not we should commit suicide.
We are always hoping.. Everything on the horizon seems good- we swing from hope to hope, thinking that after this or that endeavor or long-term project, this will bring some salvation or answer.
'There is no joy in the tavern as on the road thereto' says a character in one of Cormac's novels. To truly feel on the way (the pleasure of anticipation) does seem like a genuine temporary salvation. That's another shade of meaning of instrumentalism. We are future-oriented problem solvers. Our hands and words serve as instruments (forceps) that give birth to a desired future. It's a platitude that we are often less satisfied than we expected. What comes to mind is a person who loves to be in love more than they love the individual object of love.
Granted they are quibbles, but I think everything is really categorized in these ways very broadly. Survival-through-cultural-means, maintenance-through-cultural-means, fleeing-boredom-through-cultural means is really useful in understanding where we are coming from.
Don't get me wrong. It's a strong categorization. But here's an example of an objection. Boredom is not-being-in-love or being trapped in un-stimulating circumstances. It gives rise to a consciousness of futility. The feeling tone helps open up a thinking that justifies death. A person who's always 'in love' can't take nihilism/pessimism seriously. They can cognize the abstractions, but it's natural for them to advise the ultimately emotional retort: be fascinated as I am in a project and that futility vanishes. Of course we can't will ourselves into fascination, even if we can seek out the conditions for its possibility. In short, I associate boredom with frustration and frustration with a desire to die. That desire to die looks for reasons/justifications/methods like any other desire. Even if nihilism/pessimism is true in some sense, it also seems like the rationalization of a mood.
schopenhauer1January 11, 2018 at 09:15#1425670 likes
Then, in the second short paragraph, I was emphasizing that the fact that we don't know why we don't live life says nothing about the implicit question of whether life is worth living, which I know you're getting at; or, as you put it, with your assumption, whether or not we should commit suicide.
The question is to get people's understanding of why they think life is worth living. I am curious to see people's take on it which usually leads back to the usual theme of instrumentality.
And by the way, I was right, then, that this thread is basically a loaded question, right?
I don't know, that depends- is life a loaded question? ;). What is your point though? Gadfly the gadfly right? Question the questioner.. Get it. Provide a response, make a positive claim about something.
Instrumentality- I've stated so many times.. here is one way I phrased it: Here is the idea of instrumentality- the absurd feeling that can be experienced from apprehension of the constant need to put forth energy to pursue goals and actions in waking life. This feeling can make us question the whole human enterprise itself of maintaining mundane repetitive upkeep, maintaining institutions, and pursuing any action that eats up free time simply for the sake of being alive and having no other choice. There is also a feeling of futility as, the linguistic- general processor brain cannot get out of its own circular loop of awareness of this. Another part of the feeling of futility is the idea that there is no ultimate completion from any goal or action. It is that idea that there is nothing truly fulfilling. Time moves forward and we must make more goals and actions.
Another way I phrased it is in this thread here: This long-range emptiness to all projects I call "instrumentality". It is instrumental in that we pursue but with no final satisfaction to any particular goal, just a general striving that underlies our linguistic-conceptual minds. Conceptually we can break this general Will or Striving into three basic categories of motivation: survival (in a cultural and/or economic context), seeking comfort/maintenance (e.g. you clean your house, you brush your teeth, you make your bed, etc. etc.), fleeing boredom (e.g. you get lonely, you pursue a hobby, you make art, you take a walk, etc. etc). All the most complex goals/technologies/outputs come from a combination of those three underlying motivations. However, these motivations are simply conceptual breakdowns of our originary Striving/Will that manifests from within us in the first place. It is an instrumental moving-forward-but-for-no-reason. All goals are subsumed by the simple sheer need in our waking daily lives for striving/willing.
So yes, we slap on a label after-the-fact for what we are doing it for. The problem is, as you indicated, that we are an existential creature. Whereas other animals may have motivations of survival (and perhaps maintenance/boredom for higher level animals), they are not self-reflective to our degree. We are the animals that know that we simply live to live to live. Our conceptual minds turn in on ourselves and there is no easy way out by slapping a label on why we do anything. We simply keep the continual striving for survival/maintenance/boredom-avoidance going to the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and so on and so on and so on. Meanwhile, we are plagued by the contingencies of our circumstances- mental/physical conditions, uncomfortable circumstances, tragedies, and what not.
Hence I categorize suffering into two main camps- structural suffering and contingent suffering.
Structural suffering is the instrumental nature of existence- the striving that is never satisfied, the motivations of want/desire (survival/comfort/maintenance/boredom) that lead to the repetitious Sisyphean aspect of existence (yet another day of survival, comfort seeking, boredom fleeing).
Contingent suffering is the circumstances which can be different for each person is identified with classical notions of suffering in the West (i.e. circumstances of physical/mental pain, circumstances of negative situations, etc. etc.).
the absurd feeling that can be experienced from apprehension of the constant need to put forth energy to pursue goals and actions in waking life. This feeling can make us question the whole human enterprise itself of maintaining mundane repetitive upkeep, maintaining institutions, and pursuing any action
Another part of the feeling of futility is the idea that there is no ultimate completion from any goal or action. It is that idea that there is nothing truly fulfilling. Time moves forward and we must make more goals and actions.
The feeling of futility is predicated on the very concept of completion, fulfillment, etc. So the nihilistic experience of moving from "the possibility of fulfillment" to "the loss of fulfillment" begins with the concept of fulfillment. Where does that concept come from? Not just social causes; look at any society other than our nihilistic twilight world, and you'll find concepts of fulfillment writ large everywhere.
schopenhauer1January 11, 2018 at 09:57#1426040 likes
Just meaning activities that we deem to be our non-work time. Much of this can be seen as arbitrary, but the way our culture has it set up, is that we psychologically/socially make space for "work-time" and then make space for our personal "free time". Of course, it can be any combination of work/non-work time that you can think of. Any activity not related directly to the attainment of some survival goal (i.e. work-to get money- to buy stuff- to live in a first world country, OR hunt/gather/build and maintain hut/subsistence farm, etc. etc.).
The feeling of futility is predicated on the very concept of completion, fulfillment, etc. So the nihilistic experience of moving from "the possibility of fulfillment" to "the loss of fulfillment" begins with the concept of fulfillment. Where does that concept come from? Not just social causes; look at any society other than our nihilistic twilight world, and you'll find concepts of fulfillment writ large everywhere.
Don't follow. The very point is that it's all instrumental, yet we are self-aware of this. We are existential animals, not just animals that can "be" without knowing it. Thus, some animal-life, primary consciousness, non-linguistic, non-reflective state is not really an option.
schopenhauer1January 11, 2018 at 10:01#1426090 likes
A person who's always 'in love' can't take nihilism/pessimism seriously. They can cognize the abstractions, but it's natural for them to advise the ultimately emotional retort: be fascinated as I am in a project and that futility vanishes. Of course we can't will ourselves into fascination, even if we can seek out the conditions for its possibility.
Ah yes, those oxcytocin feelings of love.. that doesn't last, is not sustained, life moves forward, the novelty wears off. In fact, it is these type of enthrallments that beget more life which brings more instrumental existence on a new person.
Whether life is a loaded question is something prior to me asking about it.
No, lol. If your worldview is that life is not worth living, and then you make a thread called "what do you live for everyday", then you're definitely asking a loaded question; begging the question, essentially, from your own point of view.
Don't follow. The very point is that it's all instrumental, yet we are self-aware of this. We are existential animals, not just animals that can "be" without knowing it. Thus, some animal-life, primary consciousness, non-linguistic, non-reflective state is not really an option.
I see you made an edit there which added a lot of paragraphs. I'll get to it when I can, assuming you wanted me to respond, despite the fact that I wouldn't have seen it unless I had scrolled up.
schopenhauer1January 11, 2018 at 10:10#1426150 likes
No, lol. If your worldview is that life is not worth living, and then you make a thread called "what do you live for everyday", then you're definitely asking a loaded question; begging the question, essentially, from your own point of view.
But you are missing the point of how I phrased it. And, most people know my point of view here, I would suspect after 10+ years on this and the previous forum. Though, some newer posters have probably caught the drift rather quickly.
But you are missing the point of how I phrased it. And, most people know my point of view here, I would suspect after 10+ years on this and the previous forum. Though, some newer posters have probably caught the drift rather quickly.
So since I'm a mere 1-year guy, I'm not worth debating? Got it. Sorry.
schopenhauer1January 11, 2018 at 10:13#1426170 likes
So since I'm a mere 1-year guy, I'm not worth debating? Got it. Sorry.
Oh stop with the histrionics. That's beneath you, no? You clearly know my point of view, since you are stating it now. My point was that no one was expecting me to tie it all together with a nice bow.
Ah yes, those oxcytocin feelings of love.. that doesn't last, is not sustained, life moves forward, the novelty wears off. In fact, it is these type of enthrallments that beget more life which brings more instrumental existence on a new person.
What comes to my mind is the way that lust/curiosity transforms (with compatibility) into what's called love: trust, friendship, warmth rather than excitement. The woman well known and much loved gets cast to some degree as a mother. She's no longer the unknown frontier. Her body might be great, but it's no longer a wonderland for him. It's territory that only becomes exciting within the act or when possession is threatened. (Jealousy sex is psychedelic.) (Yeah, it's occurred to me that I might just be an endlessly ambivalent jerk. Nevertheless, I think I speak from 10 above average quality years of marital experience. Folks is complex in they minds.)
The friendship can be great, but it's not quite like a great friendship with another man. You have to argue with this chick about how to arrange the household and where and how to be. It's like democracy. It's the least worst system perhaps. Sometimes it's paradise. You look over at her to see her reaction to some good TV. Instead of staring at one another, you look out on the world together.
Doesn't have to lead to children, but of course for many it does. I'll let others speak of the satisfactions and frustrations of parenthood. I do love petting the silly bitch who sleeps on my couch. (I don't mean my wife. She doesn't sleep on the couch.)
And please, bringing up 10 years experience is obviously not a 100% innocent ploy. Don't placate me with histrionics.
You are getting unpleasant and troll-like at this point. What do you want from me, sir? There is no innocent ploy... just that as far as these forums are concerned, my positions are fairly consistent. It doesn't have to do with experience, just how long I've been saying similar points of view.
As far as your question about expanding on my phrasing.. I said earlier:
Whether life is a loaded question is something prior to me asking about it.
So the thread is "What do you live for everyday".. Yes, I think there is an answer, and perhaps I had something in mind along the lines of instrumentality. I thought you essentially had it right with your first paragraph there. As far as the second one that we have been circling, I don't really understand. Based on the consistency of your other threads, I would think you are mostly in agreement, but perhaps you also are showing disagreement for the sake of getting some dialectic out of me. You want something from me, that I am not providing, I don't know.. so again, what is it you want from me?
Wait, you've read my threads, none of which I can remember you responding to, but you think I'm in agreement with your overall position? That's definitely not correct.
>:O >:O >:O did you not get bored for 10 years to be saying the same thing? I mean one understands for 1 year, 2 years, maybe even 3! But for 10+ years?! Even a boring person would get bored. Not to mention that your efforts had a 0% success rate! Imagine! Toiling for 10+ years, and no followers to show for it!
Wait, you've read my threads, none of which I can remember you responding to, but you think I'm in agreement with your overall position? That's definitely not correct.
Honestly, I'm just remembering a thread where we discussed suicide. Just a note, I do not usually identify as nihilist, but a philosophical pessimist of sorts, as nihilism has too many meanings depending on context. Philosophical Pessimism and association with Schopenhauer is more up my alley.
What I want is a point-by-point defense of your nihilistic views.
Was your second paragraph about me making a point-by-point defense of nihilism? I've said plenty, and can copy and paste a number of things I would probably be repeating. So, why don't we change it up. Why don't YOU state a position, and we can go from there. You started to with your nice paragraph about labels and such at which I agreed. But if you have a point that you would like to make, make it.
schopenhauer1January 11, 2018 at 11:37#1426640 likes
What comes to my mind is the way that lust/curiosity transforms (with compatibility) into what's called love: trust, friendship, warmth rather than excitement. The woman well known and much loved gets cast to some degree as a mother. She's no longer the unknown frontier. Her body might be great, but it's no longer a wonderland for him. It's territory that only becomes exciting within the act or when possession is threatened. (Jealousy sex is psychedelic.) (Yeah, it's occurred to me that I might just be an endlessly ambivalent jerk. Nevertheless, I think I speak from 10 above average quality years of marital experience. Folks is complex in they minds.)
The friendship can be great, but it's not quite like a great friendship with another man. You have to argue with this chick about how to arrange the household and where and how to be. It's like democracy. It's the least worst system perhaps. Sometimes it's paradise. You look over at her to see her reaction to some good TV. Instead of staring at one another, you look out on the world together.
Doesn't have to lead to children, but of course for many it does. I'll let others speak of the satisfactions and frustrations of parenthood. I do love petting the silly bitch who sleeps on my couch. (I don't mean my wife. She doesn't sleep on the couch.)
Day in day out...Granted, better with a significant other, but still the same instrumental existence. You had it more accurate with moving of furniture than the starry-eyed narrative. Not to mention, relationships cause a lot of strife- getting them, keeping them, maintaining them, losing them. This falls under contingent suffering- some people are more fortunate than others in many "goods" of life. Who is to say what new person brought into the world will have more of these goods or very few. Either way, the repetitious nature of our striving wills cause no lasting satisfaction, just a new object of striving.
Either way, the repetitious nature of our striving wills cause no lasting satisfaction, just a new object of striving.
Indeed, no satisfaction lasts. Nor any pain. There is no substance. Everything is smoke and music. Waves of Heaven, waves of Hell, waves of Blah.
For each wave its voices and philosophy. The Hell wave sings a song of anti-natalism. The Heaven wave sings a song of reproduction and passing the torch. The Blah wave sings this song of waves and their singing, neutral on the matter.
schopenhauer1January 12, 2018 at 15:08#1430190 likes
For each wave its voices and philosophy. The Hell wave sings a song of anti-natalism. The Heaven wave sings a song of reproduction and passing the torch. The Blah wave sings this song of waves and their singing, neutral on the matter.
But there doesn't have to be waves in the first place. Why should we experience the waves?
But there doesn't have to be waves in the first place. Why should we experience the waves?
Why be born? Why leave early once we are born? We can dig for reasons. My point is that these are the voices of moods. If I get disgusted with life, then I'll agree with you. If things turn sweet again, that why will have a largely ineffable answer. And you won't believe the words that I do find. Not unless you are also lifted by a mood.
I have read bad-mood-writing in a good mood and the reverse. It's illuminating. Every passion has a philosophy. Life-love, death-love. If a mood lasts long enough, we begin to believe in substance again. We think that we are simpler than we are and more fixed. (So it seems to me.)
schopenhauer1January 13, 2018 at 01:14#1431920 likes
My point is that these are the voices of moods. If I get disgusted with life, then I'll agree with you. If things turn sweet again, that why will have a largely ineffable answer. And you won't believe the words that I do find. Not unless you are also lifted by a mood.
I have read bad-mood-writing in a good mood and the reverse. It's illuminating. Every passion has a philosophy. Life-love, death-love. If a mood lasts long enough, we begin to believe in substance again. We think that we are simpler than we are and more fixed. (So it seems to me.)
Do you think it is short sighted to think that the good moods mean that life must be good? Can evaluation be separated from mood? If not, why not? Why is it that new people should experience life? Because you are in a good mood? Does mood justify bringing new people in existence? What is the point of more people experiencing life? If my premise is life is survival, comfort, finding entertainment- why should those things be experienced by yet a new person? This is just in reference to structural suffering (see previous posts for definition).
How about contingent harms? This would be the classical Western view of "good experience' and "bad experience". Why do the good experiences make up for the bad ones? What about the unforeseen bad experiences? What about the variables of people's psyches, physiology and circumstances that make some people prone to worse experiences than others?
Do you think it is short sighted to think that the good moods mean that life must be good? Can evaluation be separated from mood? If not, why not?
To be clear there is a continuity of personality through moods. A good mood doesn't wipe out years of linguistic and physical habit. But a person in love can be terrified of death as nothingness. They can be terrified that the species will go extinct and the experience of being in love (and so on) lost forever. Reproduction is our flight from death. Sexual love is arguably our sweetest pleasure. No big surprise that this kind of system would be evolved.
And in a truly bad mood that sees life as a net evil, the fear is that we won't go extinct. I may escape to the grave, but I am also in the others not yet born. Occasionally there's a story about a parent killing their kids and themselves. I can only understand this in terms of a depression that is (in its view) protecting the children from suffering. They all flee to death together. I remember a story where the parent was the father. He did the apparently evil dirty work. He took the guilt and evil on his shoulders to do the misunderstood good. As awful as the crime is, this is one of the more generous readings of the father's motives.
Does mood justify bringing new people in existence? What is the point of more people experiencing life? If my premise is life is survival, comfort, finding entertainment- why should those things be experienced by yet a new person?
As above, the individual in a good mood values life. He or she wants to share the experience as a net good. If this person is abstract, he or she may want to give humanity more time. It's possible that most suffering will be eradicated. It's possible that our species is in its technological infancy. We can know start playing with our own code. We are close perhaps to leaving this planet. If we are still here a million years from now, then these times might be the stuff of scary bedtimes stories. But we can only get there is (foolish or not) we persevere. A hopeful (and abstract) person might find extra motivation in this. [I personally don't know what's going to happen. Now do I support or oppose this view. I just don't know. Instead I describe apparent possibilities. ]
How about contingent harms? This would be the classical Western view of "good experience' and "bad experience". Why do the good experiences make up for the bad ones? What about the unforeseen bad experiences? What about the variables of people's psyches, physiology and circumstances that make some people prone to worse experiences than others?
Indeed. In a bad mood I tend to think of all the terrible stuff that could happen as well as the terrible stuff that will happen. I also feel for life's bigger losers (we're all at least small or medium sized losers). In a good mood I'm absorbed in the object or project. In this approximately neutral mood I can turn things around in my mind abstractly.
You may not believe me, but I think I understand your position. I think I could argue from an approximation of it. But I could also argue the other side. In my life, my 'real' position varies with my mood. I may write the feel good novel of the year and then get depressed and hang myself. It's possible. The hanging wouldn't necessarily be any more definition of my true nature than the feel good novel. A final action doesn't necessarily have any extra weight, just as death-bed mumblings aren't the sum of a man's thinking. I've known artists whose art was joyful to kill themselves. I've known depressive types live to be old men. I think lots of artist types swing back and forth from higher Heavens to lower Hells.
schopenhauer1January 13, 2018 at 13:47#1433700 likes
To be clear there is a continuity of personality through moods. A good mood doesn't wipe out years of linguistic and physical habit. But a person in love can be terrified of death as nothingness. They can be terrified that the species will go extinct and the experience of being in love (and so on) lost forever. Reproduction is our flight from death. Sexual love is arguably our sweetest pleasure. No big surprise that this kind of system would be evolved.
And in a truly bad mood that sees life as a net evil, the fear is that we won't go extinct. I may escape to the grave, but I am also in the others not yet born. Occasionally there's a story about a parent killing their kids and themselves. I can only understand this in terms of a depression that is (in its view) protecting the children from suffering. They all flee to death together. I remember a story where the parent was the father. He did the apparently evil dirty work. He took the guilt and evil on his shoulders to do the misunderstood good. As awful as the crime is, this is one of the more generous readings of the father's motives.
I'm going to reply here with a reply I had to Bitter Crank in another thread:
People read into their happy emotions too easily. Sex happens at a time of optimal contentment. Feelings of oxytocin start pouring in and dopamine and all of a sudden every care in the world is washed away in ideas of future ideals of two parents and babies in household, etc.
Let's back up though. What does my term of instrumentality really mean? It means that the world keeps turning, the universe keeps expanding, that energy keeps on transferring, and entropy keeps on its steady path. That is to say, that happiness is always on the horizon (hope swinging I mentioned in other posts). When goals are "obtained" are often not as good or too fleeting compared to the effort to get it (yes yes, eye roll eye roll... it's not the goal but the process to get there BS., not buying it..just slogans to make people not think about it).. we still need to maintain ourselves, our bodies, our minds, our comforts, our anxieties, our neuroses, our social lives, our intellectual minds, etc. etc. etc. It's all just energy put forth to keep maintaining ourselves, that does not stop until death. Why ALL of THIS WORK AND ENERGY? Does it really need to be started anew for a next generation?
We really are living in the eternal twilight of Christian sentiments. There is "something" special that we are DOING here.. It all MEANS something to "FEEL" to "ACHIEVE" to "INTELLECTUALIZE" to "CONNECT".. all buzzwords of anchoring mechanisms to latch onto as our WILLFUL nature rushes forward, putting forth more energy but for to stay alive, keep occupied, and stay comfortable.. All the while being exposed to depridations, sickness, annoyances, and painful circumstances that inevitably befall us.. It doesn't NEED to be expanded to more people.
Indeed. In a bad mood I tend to think of all the terrible stuff that could happen as well as the terrible stuff that will happen. I also feel for life's bigger losers (we're all at least small or medium sized losers). In a good mood I'm absorbed in the object or project. In this approximately neutral mood I can turn things around in my mind abstractly.
You may not believe me, but I think I understand your position. I think I could argue from an approximation of it. But I could also argue the other side. In my life, my 'real' position varies with my mood. I may write the feel good novel of the year and then get depressed and hang myself. It's possible. The hanging wouldn't necessarily be any more definition of my true nature than the feel good novel. A final action doesn't necessarily have any extra weight, just as death-bed mumblings aren't the sum of a man's thinking. I've known artists whose art was joyful to kill themselves. I've known depressive types live to be old men. I think lots of artist types swing back and forth from higher Heavens to lower Hells.
But again, should mood dictate evaluation of life. Is it possible to prevent suffering for future generations sans our own mood at the time of evaluation? It may be hard, but if the argument from structural and contingent suffering is taken into consideration, perhaps it can.
Believe it or not, I get your point. In a good mood, you may lose perspective. Life seems to be going well, so why would I tempt fate by thinking of its negative qualities? This just belies our superstitious natures.. "Best not tempt the gods by thinking of the negatives, in the throes of my positive experience". I get it, man meets women, falls in love, doesn't understand why the world is so bad. Again, the question is can humans separate evaluations from their particular moods? You seem to be indicating that this is an absolute no.
When goals are "obtained" are often not as good or too fleeting compared to the effort to get it (yes yes, eye roll eye roll... it's not the goal but the process to get there BS., not buying it..just slogans to make people not think about it).. we still need to maintain ourselves, our bodies, our minds, our comforts, our anxieties, our neuroses, our social lives, our intellectual minds, etc. etc. etc. It's all just energy put forth to keep maintaining ourselves, that does not stop until death. Why ALL of THIS WORK AND ENERGY? Does it really need to be started anew for a next generation?
This is an excellent description of a mode. I've been there, and I may be there again. But the slogans that this mood doesn't buy are the truth of another mode.
We really are living in the eternal twilight of Christian sentiments. There is "something" special that we are DOING here.. It all MEANS something to "FEEL" to "ACHIEVE" to "INTELLECTUALIZE" to "CONNECT".. all buzzwords of anchoring mechanisms to latch onto as our WILLFUL nature rushes forward, putting forth more energy but for to stay alive, keep occupied, and stay comfortable.. All the while being exposed to depridations, sickness, annoyances, and painful circumstances that inevitably befall us.. It doesn't NEED to be expanded to more people.
This captures the religious/philosophical quest. It's a part-time though important game. That small part which is not dog seeks god.
I can't see a clear distance from your position and a late version of this quest. Aren't 'life is suffering' and 'the world is evil' connected to our Christian heritage? Renouncing the evil will to live is an old-school spiritual mission, right? I can imagine a pessimist finding out he is going to die peacefully in his sleep that night and being annoyed that he hasn't finished his pessimist masterpiece.
Ho do we get beyond words and poses? I think we have to look at actions to see beliefs. Some people will suffer greatly in order to survive a threat to their future. Others hang themselves in a situation that others from the outside consider the dream itself. You might call the first person the victim of an illusion. Others would call the other person the victim of an illusion. But who is neutral here?
The project I'm immersed in as I write this involves something understanding as many perspectives as possible (breadth and flexibility of consciousness). I could boil this down further to the pursuit/maintenance of sex appeal and charisma. Philosophy 'should' make one a more beautiful animal, let's say. And sometimes the animal doesn't provide the raw material. Then philosophy helps one die. (That's the voice of a perspective. It sounds good now and might not later.)
Sure, you lose the perspective of the bad mood. And in the bad mood you lose the perspective of the good mood.
A lazy but down-to-earth vision of science is (as said elsewhere) technology that works whether one believes in it or not. Philosophy and religion are still valuable to individuals, but I think their effectiveness depends on an emotional investment therein (on believing in them via action especially). This is itself the voice of a perspective. Defining science isn't the work of science. But it is a perspective that keeps its own fragility in mind and strives for expansion on one hand and adaptation on the other. [None of this matters to the person who really wants to die, though. It looks like everything 'rational' is grounded in the threat/promise of the future.]
Comments (143)
The only purpose of life is to live it. To do it for it's own sake. Like watching a sunset, or listening to a symphony, or dancing. You aren't trying to accomplish anything in these activities. There is no higher purpose beyond the experience itself. Life is the same.
I live to see why others live. It amazes me the things that people say to keep going everyday. I mean, it is all instrumental- we live but for surviving, finding a more comfortable circumstance, and keeping entertained and out of boredom's clutches, but the attempts at some aspirational faith (see here: aspirational faith article) is quite amusing. If you teach yourself to believe long enough and hard enough, maybe you will actually believe it. But is it just fooling ourselves? Swinging from one hope-vine to the next; getting starry-eyed for lofty visions of grandeur?
>:O >:O >:O No it's not. You may be swinging from one hope-vine to the next, I'm stuck on the same one.
Depression is just that - a low energy state - we're talking of psychological energy here. You barely have energy to even get out of bed in the morning... you struggle to even brush the teeth! To take the same toothbrush every day, and every day do the same old motions, over and over again. That must take great energy - and when there is little energy, it becomes a chore, almost impossible to do.
And yet, there are people in their 90s, crooked and barely able to move, and yet they do move and don't complain. Why? Because they have great psychological energy - their bodies may be old, but their minds are young.
And then, there are people in their 20s who stay on their bed the whole day starring at the ceiling. Why? Their body is 20, but their mind is 90!
The concept of hubris is as old as the Greeks, maybe older!
Very well said.
What can be done, though, by someone with low psychological energy (depression) to remedy their situation? How does one increase their psychological energy?
No. Those don't give you energy, you just no longer feel sad.
Quoting matt
To a certain extent. Those are good, but they already require energy to undertake.
Quoting JustSomeGuy
I'm not really sure. I can distinguish between the two states, and it is like seeing the world differently when you switch between them, but that switching is difficult. It's like seeing one object red, and then suddenly seeing the same object yellow. It's hard to give a "how" - you see, looking for a "how" seems to be part of the problem, since depression and low psychological energy often lead to rumination and compulsive thinking. So seeking a "how" is often a compulsive thing and is actually a manifestation of the problem.
To give an example. When I was 12-14 and played video games, I remember that I would often end up compulsively researching how to be the best at a certain game (say Counter-Strike), rather than actually playing the game. It was so hilarious because I was reading about "What is the best weapon?", "How To Get The First Shot In", "How to get more headshots", and other such questions, and I spent more time compulsively researching than actually playing. And each of those questions didn't really have a clear answer, but there were a whole host of competing answers! So, I kept jumping from answer to answer thinking I now have the holy grail and can finally play at my best (that thought and good feeling didn't last long, soon I was back to compulsive research after I started doubting each of the answers I had read :P ).
I think in life many things don't have a how, and most people do things without having a how. A how is not necessary. You don't need a how to move your legs, you just do it. It is the mind that creates the problem. Before you first kissed a girl, you were so worried about "how" - how to do it? And then when you actually do it, you find out that the "how" is irrelevant, because you don't follow it anyway - you just do it - naturally - the same way you move your legs.
There are a lot of contributing factors for low psychological energy though. Beliefs, attitudes and expectations are part of it. If you have the wrong beliefs, the wrong expectations and the wrong attitudes, you're going to dig yourself in a hole. Studying stoicism is useful in that regard. Mindfulness also helps bring those into awareness and learn to manage the underlying emotions.
Being around negative & discouraging people is another thing that can pull you down, depending again on your beliefs, attitudes and expectations. For example, growing up, my family was always very negativistic, pessimistic, and discouraging of everything. So I internalised this very negative attitude and pessimism. So if you let what other people think or say of you, then you can be in trouble. For example, if someone says "You can't do X", and you let that affect you, then you may really be unable to do X. A healthy attitude to have towards what others say is to realise that what they say objectively does not affect what you're capable of or not. So if they say negative things, they're actually doing you no harm - the only moment when harm is done is if you take what they say as truth. So depending on your social circumstances, your age, etc., you may have to live around such people, sometimes, if you're married to such a person for example, for your whole life. So then you need to adjust so that you don't react to negative things they say about you anymore.
Another issue is that you may not accept being a certain way. For example, maybe you're an introvert and prefer to spend time alone, but your society pushes you to live like an extrovert - then no wonder you'll be miserable so long as you accept what your society forces on you.
Also, social expectations can pull you down. For example, you may not have a girlfriend or boyfriend, and your society tells you that you must have one to live a worthy life. So then, you may be depressed, thinking that you're in a really bad place, and you're doing something wrong. So learning not to care about social expectations, and love your fate, is also quite freeing.
And the other issue is when you're too much goal-focused rather than process focused. When you're goal-focused and things are going great - then you'll be ecstatic and you will have abounding energy. But when you're goal-focused and things aren't going great... then you will often lose energy very quickly. One way to be less goal-focused is to not care about the result so much. So, for example, you can play chess always thinking about winning, or you can play chess focusing on what's the next move you should make, and not caring if you win or lose. The process-focused way seems more sustainable psychologically. Obsession with winning is, paradoxically, one of the things that can prevent you from winning.
Yes, what about it? You mean to say that I'm a prime example of it? :D
I continue to exist because I can't bear the thought of causing unwanted suffering in others, even though I would likely not be around to witness it. I also fear the result of a failed suicide attempt, ending up with an even worse set of circumstances (partial brain damage, paralyzation).
Being 'trapped in life' this way, I aim to do things that will minimize suffering or maximize long-term contentment. I take antidepressant medication, undergo repetitive trans-cranial magnetic stimulation once a month (another treatment for depression), talk to a counselor when life's stresses are high (like now, while I'm fighting my ex's potential move with my daughters to a city 6 hours away), work a steady job, exercise regularly, stick to a decent diet, get an adequate amount of sleep, and pay attention to the people in my life that matter.
It may sound like a pretty dismal perspective, but by doing all of these things, I manage to maintain a decent mood most of the time, and enjoy a lot of what life brings. Thoughts of the ultimate pointlessness of existence have less power when I maintain this feel-good regime.
Why are you in such a hurry? Wait a little longer, we all die anyway. You will not escape from that, so don't be worried. Just hang around as much as you can, death will come by itself anyway.
Worst than that, there could be a life after death!
Why is pointlessness even relevant? If existence had a point it would be rectilinear... no just kidding. If existence had a point, you'd be complaining why does it have a point?! Now you're not free to do whatever you want, you have to chase this point! And failure to reach that point will be terrible. You cry now, when it has no point, but just imagine what you'd be doing if it did have a point >:O
I think the problem is that I spent a good portion of my life chasing the wrong points, and the consequences of those actions are interfering with my chasing the right points... haha
I think more important than chasing the right or wrong points is chasing what Nassim Taleb calls optionality - the possibility to change route at any time. You never want to corner yourself.
Quoting Agustino
Good point, but these should address the real issue (the depression). And with that relief, it will be easier to take action. Negative thoughts will fade for a time. It all comes down making the effort to take action. Action drives passion and visa versa.
I think that's a common drive for a lot of people; one that comes from this learned need to be somehow different from or better than others. I know this played a large role for most of my life, and lingers on despite having recognized it for what it really is. For example, I get some small satisfaction at being the #1 Word Buzz player in the world (and from letting other people know! haha), despite it having no real use in my life aside from passing the time.
It probably doesn't help that I work at an old-age home, where most of the people don't know who they are anymore, can't carry a conversation, and/or have to wear diapers and can't wipe their own butts. Seeing people in varying states of mental and physical decay is a constant reminder of what we're all working toward...
That is true. I probably couldn't manage to do that - I would lose my mind. So I definitely respect people like you.
Yeah, but it's interesting how that plays out. Because you don't actually end up becoming much better than everyone else, since you play less than everyone else, and actually read "how to" more than everyone else >:O .
Now my goal in life is to make it to the grave as gracefully as possible. I spend a lot of my time on filling in the holes of my now long passed undergraduate education. This task is very satisfying. For instance, Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year-History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin has tied together a number of loose ends from three biology and geology classes in which I wasn't paying that much attention. The Knife Man: Blood, Body Snatching, and the Birth of Modern Surgery By Wendy Moore is a biography about John Hunter, a pioneering surgeon and anatomist in the 18th century. Knife Man filled in several small holes. So did three books by neurosurgeons. There are many holes left to be filled.
To what end is all this study and reading? No end really, other than to learn. It won't help me get a job (not at this point) and it most likely will not get me into heaven or keep me out of hell, or even make the hereafter a slightly less boring eternity. I have an unknown amount of time to fill, and learning is a pleasant way to fill it.
Futile? No more futile now than it was when I begin college in 1964. Had I learned as much back then as I have since learned, I could have been a college professor, one of the cushier jobs on the planet. But if I had done that, then I would have had to put up with decades of POMO, and that would have been at least as bad as dealing with the fakery and futility of the helping professions.
One of my main points is that we survive, seek comfort, and avoid boredom using preferences based on our linguistic-conceptual minds shaped by enculturation of social setting and personality tendencies shaped by that very socialization and development.
I doubt describing this in terms of 'psychic energy' really frames the issue. It seems more complex than that.
Declare initially, and then declare again, only when new evidence arises?
I doubt the average person, even the average TPF member, is conscious of what they "live for everyday", since the daily ritual of life doesn't allow for that much reflection. On top of that, when we do reflect on why we live life each day, we tend to come up with a nice ideal: "I live life for the betterment of others", "I live life for the beauty of things", "I live life because it's my imperative to do so", etc., ad naseum. But these aren't real reasons for "living life"; they're justifications for one's existence, and generally not quite truthful. In reality, we generally don't know exactly why we're living life.
Which has nothing to say about why life should be lived, which is the implied question within your question. The recognition of the uncertainty and the insincerity are good starting points, however.
Life after death is scientifically unfounded.
True, nobody seems to be really asking the question. Look at my answers:
Quoting Agustino
Sounds like I was a good boy ticking all the right boxes on the new national survey! >:O
ii) Why is the purpose of human life to create Artificial General Intelligence?
1.a) Evolution is optimising ways of contributing to the increase of entropy, as systems very slowly approach equilibrium. (The universe’s predicted end)
1.b) Within that process, work or activities done through several ranges of intelligent behaviour are reasonably ways of contributing to the increase of entropy. (See source)
1.c) As species got more and more intelligent, nature was finding better ways to contribute to increases of entropy. (Intelligent systems can be observed as being biased towards entropy maximization)
1.d) Humans are slowly getting smarter, but even if we augment our intellect by CRISPR-like routines or implants, we will reasonably be limited by how many computational units or neurons etc fit in our skulls.
1.e) AGI/ASI won’t be subject to the size of the human skull/human cognitive hardware. (Laws of physics/thermodynamics permits human exceeding intelligence in non biological form)
1.f) As AGI/ASI won’t face the limits that humans do, they are a subsequent step (though non biological) particularly in the regime of contributing to better ways of increasing entropy, compared to humans.
2) The above is why the purpose of the human species, is reasonably to create AGI/ASI.
Can you expand on this?
The first time I've almost agreed with you! Would love to see your work. Assuming you really mean that sculpting is your main motivation for life (even if I disagree with that motivation itself).
Yup. Everyone is fake. Except me. I'm always one tick away from nihilism, which seems to be the place to be. It positions you one tick away from God as well. :P
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/141692
Well, you brought up a term called 'psychic-energy' to describe a state of depression. Something I doubt has any use to trying to describe the term, 'depression'. Such as states characterized as 'low psychic energy' manifesting in depression.
I don't have time to read the article, but I'll look at it later (which means I probably wont; I'm too lazy :P care to summarize?)
Read it. Only read first paragraph but it's superb.
Oooo oooo yay
Well, it's just that depression is much more than the manifestation of 'psychic-energy'. Doesn't that term sound too new age to be taken seriously for you?
I did not say psychic energy though :P
Interesting first paragraph. Who's the author?
Derp, nvm, the name appears on the tab, but nowhere else; Shestov. Been meaning to read him.
Me.
[hide]No, just kidding you...
[hide]Keep Searching...[hide="Reveal"]Lev Shestov[/hide][/hide][/hide]
See above, sucka!
Here's the quote:
Quoting Agustino
I just think that there's no point in talking about 'wrong beliefs', 'wrong expectations', and 'wrong attitudes', as if some Ayatullah or priest professing a certain dogma or way of life.
Yeah, there is no mention of "psychic" energy there. I did say psychological energy, because that's what it is phenomenologically speaking. Do you disagree?
Quoting Posty McPostface
So you don't agree with the CBT version that wrong beliefs, wrong expectations and wrong attitudes are one of the prime causes of depression?
Fine, then. Allow me to use that term in a different context. How do you understand a term that cannot be quantified, meaning that which is 'psychological', and at the same time include a term that can mostly be understood when quantifying it, such as 'energy'? They don't seem to go well together.
Quoting Agustino
I'm afraid that's the wrong term to use in this case. CBT talks about cognitive distortions, not the right or wrong'ness of a belief.
Okay I see. Well, I think the term "energy" doesn't only have the meaning we're used to in physics. If you're very tired, you'll say "I don't have enough energy". In that case, you certainly don't mean the useful work that can be quantified, but you're referring to a psychological state. Correct?
Quoting Posty McPostface
How are beliefs and cognitive distortions related?
Yeah; but, that's a sort of cognitive distortion if we're going to be strictly logical about this. I mean, how does one know if they have 'enough energy' for some task. And, where does this energy come from?
Quoting Agustino
Beliefs are subject to being true or not. People with schizophrenia tend to have more cognitive distortions arising in their minds than the rest of the population. But, that's not the point. The point I'm trying to make is that there doesn't seem to be a fundamental difference between beliefs and knowledge as I understand it. So, if one has accurate beliefs about the world then that is knowledge bona fide.
They feel it.
Quoting Posty McPostface
As I said when I was asked this before, I don't know.
Quoting Posty McPostface
So are cognitive distortions false beliefs then?
Good question. What's your take on the matter? I think I might have to polish this up before starting a thread. Still reading the Shestov.
Personally, I think cognitive distortions are false beliefs - I take them to be presumptions that people act on, which don't reflect reality. For example, if someone sees another laughing, some people will presume they are laughing about them, and start feeling anxious/bad, and change how they act. So that belief will cause one to feel bad. On the other hand, I don't think it's the truth or falsity of the belief that causes one to feel bad, but merely having that belief. If it happened to be a true belief, and they really were laughing at them, then would the person be justified in feeling bad?
Quoting Posty McPostface
That's just the preface, you can keep reading the rest if you like by clicking the arrows to move to next chapter at the top.
I started a thread listed below. Let me know what you think. It's 3 AM and I should be heading to sleep. Night.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/2697/cognitive-distortions-belief-and-knowledge-#Item_1
I hope not. But I have met people who do.
How about what makes you life interesting, worth while. What gets you out of bed in the morning.
I it up after looking around for something new to do a year or so after cancer.
https://twitter.com/MarkCarterMC/status/857204514658680832/photo/1
Agreed. Well stated. (Y)
An object in motion tends to stay in motion.
My mother-in-law, who currently lives with us, has never made an effort to develop her mind and the consequence of that, it appears, is that she's like a lost and helpless child.
Sounds like the President of the United States. Wolff of Fire and Fury fame says Donald Trump doesn't read. It isn't clear whether he can read. He doesn't listen to people either. He watches televisions.
Whatever defense we offer for our drab wretched lives is invariably total bullshit, but the cover story is important. It is better if it sounds good. "I live to bring beauty and joy into the lives of others" is nauseating, but it sounds better than "If you can't take a big healthy crap every morning, you might as well be dead."
Or... maybe not.
What I take to be your self-portrait is my favorite. Good stuff. Thanks for sharing.
Is it always total bullshit? What about defenses like sunk cost, concern for how a few particular human beings will fare without one, the hope that one has not yet peaked yet, one's 'programing', etc. What comes to my mind is a spectrum. We have dark comedians on one end and politicians on the other. Have you watched Another Period? That show is savage and as funny as Arrested Development. What does our enjoyment of such shows indicate? It seems at least part of us knows that we are full of shit, and comedy is enjoyable as us being less full of shit by temporarily admitting how full of shit we are. (I wonder if 'full of shit' has the same resonance outside the states.)
But not the second paragraph? :P
I just mean that no one really knows why they live life every day. So when confronted with the question, people just come up with platitudes; and the results are no different on TPF either.
Each morning I dress her and we talk about the day before and what's she's going to do today. That's my first bright point of the day. We have breakfast and then she waves goodbye when I leave the backyard. This week she doesn't want me to go to work which is both the sweetest thing in the world and heartbreaking. When thinking about dying I don't want her to feel the pain of missing me so I've decided to live forever.
Before coming home I'm already happy with the expectation of seeing my wife and daughter. I usually put her to bed as well; brushing teeth is a struggle but then we go through the day again and what she'll do tomorrow. Finally, I read her a story and spend some quality time with my wife.
If my daughter and wife were the only thing going for me it would be enough.
Did you mean this one?
https://www.artfinder.com/product/the-telos-of-all/#/
I just got home. My dog ran round in circles at the sight of me; grabbed her plastic squeeky pig and teased me to try to take it off her; after a tussle she rolled into her back and juggled the pig and (threw it) propelled it in the the air; I then stroked her tummy with my foot as I sat to answer my emails; then she tried to jump up pushing the macbook aside sniffing my clothes for microscopic particles of food; finding none she pushed her armpits into my face; a sure sign of wanting a pee.
After letting here out the back for a pee she expectantly looked for a few kibble as a reward - the look is unmistakable.
Boffy (the Boffin), for that is her name, has learned the word for her favourite treat; a deep fried pig's ear. Nothing excites her more. It is impossible to use the phrase pig's ear without her getting manically excited.
Hoping to avoid such excitement we have decided to replace the phrase with "P. E.".
She now gets ridiculously excited when she hears "P. E.", so much so that we now have to call it "The Aural Organ of a Swine".
So having learned the phrase, and then how to spell the initials; how much longer will it take before her knowledge of scientific language allows her to break the code???
During a period of international conflict having something to do with some guy named Napoleon, A Hapsburg minister referred to a French minister as "a sock full of shit". So, from that I take it that "full of shit" probably has resonance outside the states.
That link didn't work for me, but it was a profile image for a site connected to the links you provided. It was a light brown color.
The self that gives reasons does seem like a rider on a horse with a mind of its own. If we find ourselves in a reflective mode, we can reach into the fog of our minds for words. 'I like this. I like that. Here's a short term project. Here's a long term project.'
When immersed in a project, we don't see it from the outside as a project. Such is my view. But philosophy or what-you-may-call-it is the project of (among other things) making life's projects explicit as projects. I'm tempted to argue for a 'nihilistic'/negative 'violence' at the heart of critical thinking.
It's from the zoomed-out perspective that the long-range emptiness of all projects appears. We look like clever animals who woke up to our eerie situation. Is life good or bad? Every mood has its own philosophy. In good moods the awake-to-nullity thinking type can speak of the fascinating show of its mysterious origin. In bad moods, he speaks of the nightmare from nowhere that at least will subside into the blackness from which it came.
This long-range emptiness to all projects I call "instrumentality". It is instrumental in that we pursue but with no final satisfaction to any particular goal, just a general striving that underlies our linguistic-conceptual minds. Conceptually we can break this general Will or Striving into three basic categories of motivation: survival (in a cultural and/or economic context), seeking comfort/maintenance (e.g. you clean your house, you brush your teeth, you make your bed, etc. etc.), fleeing boredom (e.g. you get lonely, you pursue a hobby, you make art, you take a walk, etc. etc). All the most complex goals/technologies/outputs come from a combination of those three underlying motivations. However, these motivations are simply conceptual breakdowns of our originary Striving/Will that manifests from within us in the first place. It is an instrumental moving-forward-but-for-no-reason. All goals are subsumed by the simple sheer need in our waking daily lives for striving/willing.
So yes, we slap on a label after-the-fact for what we are doing it for. The problem is, as you indicated, that we are an existential creature. Whereas other animals may have motivations of survival (and perhaps maintenance/boredom for higher level animals), they are not self-reflective to our degree. We are the animals that know that we simply live to live to live. Our conceptual minds turn in on ourselves and there is no easy way out by slapping a label on why we do anything. We simply keep the continual striving for survival/maintenance/boredom-avoidance going to the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and so on and so on and so on. Meanwhile, we are plagued by the contingencies of our circumstances- mental/physical conditions, uncomfortable circumstances, tragedies, and what not.
Hence I categorize suffering into two main camps- structural suffering and contingent suffering.
Structural suffering is the instrumental nature of existence- the striving that is never satisfied, the motivations of want/desire (survival/comfort/maintenance/boredom) that lead to the repetitious Sisyphean aspect of existence (yet another day of survival, comfort seeking, boredom fleeing).
Contingent suffering is the circumstances which can be different for each person is identified with classical notions of suffering in the West (i.e. circumstances of physical/mental pain, circumstances of negative situations, etc. etc.).
The classical retort is to minimize one's purview such that you get "caught up" in something. Thus the bigger picture of existential issues will be ignored/suppressed. Thus, analyzing a spreadsheet for 8 hours, or figuring out an engineering differential equation, or writing a paper on the philosophy of biology, will keep one's mind on intra-worldly affairs and not on the global situation of our existential place. Thus, just go play a video game, just go read that book on evolution, networks, form and function, language, and logic, write that paper on biophysics, or just go knit a pair of socks.
@Bitter Crank You may want to join in with the usual critiques ;).
Quoting schopenhauer1
What you call the classical retort is successful as far as it goes. While we're engrossed, we forget our absurdity.
Here's something I've been thinking about. In general being future oriented is associated with virtue. Work hard now for greater reward later. Work out and have a great body for the beach. Study hard and end up with a creative and/or high paying career. Save money and don't throw money away on interest by going into debt. There's also research and development. Arguably our foresight is our greatest gift.
But projecting too far into the future reveals decay and death. We generally like to accumulate value, build castles, empires, legacies. There are comforts for personal mortality that depend on the survival of a community. Yet projecting far enough ahead removes even this comfort. A critic could retort that each moment is real and has its own fragile value even as it passes. They aren't wrong. But I think there's an instinct (or something like that) which demands permanence. In my opinion, the easily mockable 'nihilistic' crisis is an often inarticulate frustration with the theoretically perceived impossibility of leaving a deathless mark.
I don't think this decides the value of life either way, but it does open a source of suffering. On the other hand, I think there's a part of us that wants everything erased. We also dream of starting from zero, of being reborn. So we laugh at dark comedy. We laugh at the part of us that dreams of substantiality.
I liked the rest of your post too. I do think the breakdown or classification is a little arbitrary. Not bad, just arbitrary. I suppose I see more of a chaos of particular needs/desires. True, some are especially linked to survival. But I don't see how to cleanly separate morale from survival. Boredom arguably kills indirectly in the sense that stimulation is a sort of need. But these are quibbles.
We are always hoping.. Everything on the horizon seems good- we swing from hope to hope, thinking that after this or that endeavor or long-term project, this will bring some salvation or answer. I think the worst conceit is the idea of a pyramid gleaning towards self-actualization. In fact, it is a straight line. Achievement is really the Striving of our very nature churning in its own instrumental nature to do something. Culture just gives it direction which presents itself as some "meaning".. The hope that is built-in to this social cue is someone internalizes it enough for the long-term projects to be useful for society. It is society perpetuating society.
Quoting dog
Granted they are quibbles, but I think everything is really categorized in these ways very broadly. Survival-through-cultural-means, maintenance-through-cultural-means, fleeing-boredom-through-cultural means is really useful in understanding where we are coming from.
Oh come on, you're going to go into detailed responses to others, but ignore the small second paragraph of my response you so readily agreed with? The small paragraph that goes against your views?
What exactly do you want me to comment on? You said it is a matter of why we live, no? Do you want me to answer why we continue to live rather than commit suicide?
Yes.
I want you to answer this:
Quoting Noble Dust
Assuming Bitter Crank is answering for Noble Dust- the pain of life is not so unbearable as to go against the biological instinct/enculturation of survival. This is not an indictment that life is therefore something which is necessary, too-good-not-to-continue, etc. etc.
Also, may I add, that is the point- we are going by our nature based on our survival/maintenance/boredom motivations.. this is not a positive reason for existence, just what we do. Labels are put on after.
I feel a classical notion is that we do stuff to compensate for other stuff.. I did this negative experience so I can experience this positive experience. See, isn't life worth it? I think it's more than this simple equation.
He is not.
I guess I am asking- is this about why we don't commit suicide?
No; re-read the first paragraph that you agreed with, and then the second short one that I assume you don't agree with.
By detailing how I think we don't know why we live life, I wasn't specifically agreeing with you, but rather cutting to the chase of why I think you started this thread. But, in doing that, I was tacitly agreeing with you that we mainly don't know why we live life. Then, in the second short paragraph, I was emphasizing that the fact that we don't know why we live life says nothing about the implicit question of whether life is worth living, which I know you're getting at; or, as you put it, with your assumption, whether or not we should commit suicide.
'There is no joy in the tavern as on the road thereto' says a character in one of Cormac's novels. To truly feel on the way (the pleasure of anticipation) does seem like a genuine temporary salvation. That's another shade of meaning of instrumentalism. We are future-oriented problem solvers. Our hands and words serve as instruments (forceps) that give birth to a desired future. It's a platitude that we are often less satisfied than we expected. What comes to mind is a person who loves to be in love more than they love the individual object of love.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Don't get me wrong. It's a strong categorization. But here's an example of an objection. Boredom is not-being-in-love or being trapped in un-stimulating circumstances. It gives rise to a consciousness of futility. The feeling tone helps open up a thinking that justifies death. A person who's always 'in love' can't take nihilism/pessimism seriously. They can cognize the abstractions, but it's natural for them to advise the ultimately emotional retort: be fascinated as I am in a project and that futility vanishes. Of course we can't will ourselves into fascination, even if we can seek out the conditions for its possibility. In short, I associate boredom with frustration and frustration with a desire to die. That desire to die looks for reasons/justifications/methods like any other desire. Even if nihilism/pessimism is true in some sense, it also seems like the rationalization of a mood.
The question is to get people's understanding of why they think life is worth living. I am curious to see people's take on it which usually leads back to the usual theme of instrumentality.
I've read about your idea of instrumentality, but remind me.
And by the way, I was right, then, that this thread is basically a loaded question, right?
I don't know, that depends- is life a loaded question? ;). What is your point though? Gadfly the gadfly right? Question the questioner.. Get it. Provide a response, make a positive claim about something.
Instrumentality- I've stated so many times.. here is one way I phrased it: Here is the idea of instrumentality- the absurd feeling that can be experienced from apprehension of the constant need to put forth energy to pursue goals and actions in waking life. This feeling can make us question the whole human enterprise itself of maintaining mundane repetitive upkeep, maintaining institutions, and pursuing any action that eats up free time simply for the sake of being alive and having no other choice. There is also a feeling of futility as, the linguistic- general processor brain cannot get out of its own circular loop of awareness of this. Another part of the feeling of futility is the idea that there is no ultimate completion from any goal or action. It is that idea that there is nothing truly fulfilling. Time moves forward and we must make more goals and actions.
Another way I phrased it is in this thread here: This long-range emptiness to all projects I call "instrumentality". It is instrumental in that we pursue but with no final satisfaction to any particular goal, just a general striving that underlies our linguistic-conceptual minds. Conceptually we can break this general Will or Striving into three basic categories of motivation: survival (in a cultural and/or economic context), seeking comfort/maintenance (e.g. you clean your house, you brush your teeth, you make your bed, etc. etc.), fleeing boredom (e.g. you get lonely, you pursue a hobby, you make art, you take a walk, etc. etc). All the most complex goals/technologies/outputs come from a combination of those three underlying motivations. However, these motivations are simply conceptual breakdowns of our originary Striving/Will that manifests from within us in the first place. It is an instrumental moving-forward-but-for-no-reason. All goals are subsumed by the simple sheer need in our waking daily lives for striving/willing.
So yes, we slap on a label after-the-fact for what we are doing it for. The problem is, as you indicated, that we are an existential creature. Whereas other animals may have motivations of survival (and perhaps maintenance/boredom for higher level animals), they are not self-reflective to our degree. We are the animals that know that we simply live to live to live. Our conceptual minds turn in on ourselves and there is no easy way out by slapping a label on why we do anything. We simply keep the continual striving for survival/maintenance/boredom-avoidance going to the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and so on and so on and so on. Meanwhile, we are plagued by the contingencies of our circumstances- mental/physical conditions, uncomfortable circumstances, tragedies, and what not.
Hence I categorize suffering into two main camps- structural suffering and contingent suffering.
Structural suffering is the instrumental nature of existence- the striving that is never satisfied, the motivations of want/desire (survival/comfort/maintenance/boredom) that lead to the repetitious Sisyphean aspect of existence (yet another day of survival, comfort seeking, boredom fleeing).
Contingent suffering is the circumstances which can be different for each person is identified with classical notions of suffering in the West (i.e. circumstances of physical/mental pain, circumstances of negative situations, etc. etc.).
That's unrelated to whether this thread was a loaded question, and obviously a diversion.
Quoting schopenhauer1
My point is that this thread was a loaded question, which you know, since you started it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I fully identify with that sentiment.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Free as opposed to what?
Quoting schopenhauer1
The feeling of futility is predicated on the very concept of completion, fulfillment, etc. So the nihilistic experience of moving from "the possibility of fulfillment" to "the loss of fulfillment" begins with the concept of fulfillment. Where does that concept come from? Not just social causes; look at any society other than our nihilistic twilight world, and you'll find concepts of fulfillment writ large everywhere.
No it's not actually. Whether life is a loaded question is something prior to me asking about it.
Quoting Noble Dust
Cool.
Quoting Noble Dust
Just meaning activities that we deem to be our non-work time. Much of this can be seen as arbitrary, but the way our culture has it set up, is that we psychologically/socially make space for "work-time" and then make space for our personal "free time". Of course, it can be any combination of work/non-work time that you can think of. Any activity not related directly to the attainment of some survival goal (i.e. work-to get money- to buy stuff- to live in a first world country, OR hunt/gather/build and maintain hut/subsistence farm, etc. etc.).
Quoting Noble Dust
Don't follow. The very point is that it's all instrumental, yet we are self-aware of this. We are existential animals, not just animals that can "be" without knowing it. Thus, some animal-life, primary consciousness, non-linguistic, non-reflective state is not really an option.
Ah yes, those oxcytocin feelings of love.. that doesn't last, is not sustained, life moves forward, the novelty wears off. In fact, it is these type of enthrallments that beget more life which brings more instrumental existence on a new person.
No, lol. If your worldview is that life is not worth living, and then you make a thread called "what do you live for everyday", then you're definitely asking a loaded question; begging the question, essentially, from your own point of view.
Quoting schopenhauer1
What are existential animals?
I see you made an edit there which added a lot of paragraphs. I'll get to it when I can, assuming you wanted me to respond, despite the fact that I wouldn't have seen it unless I had scrolled up.
But you are missing the point of how I phrased it. And, most people know my point of view here, I would suspect after 10+ years on this and the previous forum. Though, some newer posters have probably caught the drift rather quickly.
Quoting Noble Dust
Animals that can self-reflect on their own existence. They know they have an existence and question what is the point.
So since I'm a mere 1-year guy, I'm not worth debating? Got it. Sorry.
Oh stop with the histrionics. That's beneath you, no? You clearly know my point of view, since you are stating it now. My point was that no one was expecting me to tie it all together with a nice bow.
As St. Catherine of Siena put it, "All the way to heaven is heaven."
Ok, so, expand here:
Quoting schopenhauer1
And please, bringing up 10 years experience is obviously not a 100% innocent ploy. Don't placate me with histrionics.
What comes to my mind is the way that lust/curiosity transforms (with compatibility) into what's called love: trust, friendship, warmth rather than excitement. The woman well known and much loved gets cast to some degree as a mother. She's no longer the unknown frontier. Her body might be great, but it's no longer a wonderland for him. It's territory that only becomes exciting within the act or when possession is threatened. (Jealousy sex is psychedelic.) (Yeah, it's occurred to me that I might just be an endlessly ambivalent jerk. Nevertheless, I think I speak from 10 above average quality years of marital experience. Folks is complex in they minds.)
The friendship can be great, but it's not quite like a great friendship with another man. You have to argue with this chick about how to arrange the household and where and how to be. It's like democracy. It's the least worst system perhaps. Sometimes it's paradise. You look over at her to see her reaction to some good TV. Instead of staring at one another, you look out on the world together.
Doesn't have to lead to children, but of course for many it does. I'll let others speak of the satisfactions and frustrations of parenthood. I do love petting the silly bitch who sleeps on my couch. (I don't mean my wife. She doesn't sleep on the couch.)
Nice.
You are getting unpleasant and troll-like at this point. What do you want from me, sir? There is no innocent ploy... just that as far as these forums are concerned, my positions are fairly consistent. It doesn't have to do with experience, just how long I've been saying similar points of view.
As far as your question about expanding on my phrasing.. I said earlier:
Whether life is a loaded question is something prior to me asking about it.
So the thread is "What do you live for everyday".. Yes, I think there is an answer, and perhaps I had something in mind along the lines of instrumentality. I thought you essentially had it right with your first paragraph there. As far as the second one that we have been circling, I don't really understand. Based on the consistency of your other threads, I would think you are mostly in agreement, but perhaps you also are showing disagreement for the sake of getting some dialectic out of me. You want something from me, that I am not providing, I don't know.. so again, what is it you want from me?
Oh dear, you've been saying the same things for 10+ years like a broken record? >:O
Right, suggesting your motives aren't 100% pure for bringing up your 10+ years experience on the forums is certainly troll-like behavior.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Wait, you've read my threads, none of which I can remember you responding to, but you think I'm in agreement with your overall position? That's definitely not correct.
Quoting schopenhauer1
What I want is a point-by-point defense of your nihilistic views.
I did say consistent right? Hey, you may have a protege, it looks like your style here :p.
Ok, no. Agustino has a lot to learn from me, not the other way around.
Which protegé I have many, you being just one of them >:O
Quoting schopenhauer1
>:O >:O >:O did you not get bored for 10 years to be saying the same thing? I mean one understands for 1 year, 2 years, maybe even 3! But for 10+ years?! Even a boring person would get bored. Not to mention that your efforts had a 0% success rate! Imagine! Toiling for 10+ years, and no followers to show for it!
You should bless me with your wisdom then :D
I have.
Hey, futility is my theme, so why not.
I'm not saying your trolling- just "troll-like" behavior.. Something to rile for the sake of riling.
Quoting Noble Dust
Honestly, I'm just remembering a thread where we discussed suicide. Just a note, I do not usually identify as nihilist, but a philosophical pessimist of sorts, as nihilism has too many meanings depending on context. Philosophical Pessimism and association with Schopenhauer is more up my alley.
Quoting Noble Dust
Was your second paragraph about me making a point-by-point defense of nihilism? I've said plenty, and can copy and paste a number of things I would probably be repeating. So, why don't we change it up. Why don't YOU state a position, and we can go from there. You started to with your nice paragraph about labels and such at which I agreed. But if you have a point that you would like to make, make it.
Day in day out...Granted, better with a significant other, but still the same instrumental existence. You had it more accurate with moving of furniture than the starry-eyed narrative. Not to mention, relationships cause a lot of strife- getting them, keeping them, maintaining them, losing them. This falls under contingent suffering- some people are more fortunate than others in many "goods" of life. Who is to say what new person brought into the world will have more of these goods or very few. Either way, the repetitious nature of our striving wills cause no lasting satisfaction, just a new object of striving.
Is it better? I can't compare anymore. I don't remember being single very well. Different comforts, different discomforts.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Indeed, no satisfaction lasts. Nor any pain. There is no substance. Everything is smoke and music. Waves of Heaven, waves of Hell, waves of Blah.
For each wave its voices and philosophy. The Hell wave sings a song of anti-natalism. The Heaven wave sings a song of reproduction and passing the torch. The Blah wave sings this song of waves and their singing, neutral on the matter.
But there doesn't have to be waves in the first place. Why should we experience the waves?
Why be born? Why leave early once we are born? We can dig for reasons. My point is that these are the voices of moods. If I get disgusted with life, then I'll agree with you. If things turn sweet again, that why will have a largely ineffable answer. And you won't believe the words that I do find. Not unless you are also lifted by a mood.
I have read bad-mood-writing in a good mood and the reverse. It's illuminating. Every passion has a philosophy. Life-love, death-love. If a mood lasts long enough, we begin to believe in substance again. We think that we are simpler than we are and more fixed. (So it seems to me.)
Do you think it is short sighted to think that the good moods mean that life must be good? Can evaluation be separated from mood? If not, why not? Why is it that new people should experience life? Because you are in a good mood? Does mood justify bringing new people in existence? What is the point of more people experiencing life? If my premise is life is survival, comfort, finding entertainment- why should those things be experienced by yet a new person? This is just in reference to structural suffering (see previous posts for definition).
How about contingent harms? This would be the classical Western view of "good experience' and "bad experience". Why do the good experiences make up for the bad ones? What about the unforeseen bad experiences? What about the variables of people's psyches, physiology and circumstances that make some people prone to worse experiences than others?
To be clear there is a continuity of personality through moods. A good mood doesn't wipe out years of linguistic and physical habit. But a person in love can be terrified of death as nothingness. They can be terrified that the species will go extinct and the experience of being in love (and so on) lost forever. Reproduction is our flight from death. Sexual love is arguably our sweetest pleasure. No big surprise that this kind of system would be evolved.
And in a truly bad mood that sees life as a net evil, the fear is that we won't go extinct. I may escape to the grave, but I am also in the others not yet born. Occasionally there's a story about a parent killing their kids and themselves. I can only understand this in terms of a depression that is (in its view) protecting the children from suffering. They all flee to death together. I remember a story where the parent was the father. He did the apparently evil dirty work. He took the guilt and evil on his shoulders to do the misunderstood good. As awful as the crime is, this is one of the more generous readings of the father's motives.
Quoting schopenhauer1
As above, the individual in a good mood values life. He or she wants to share the experience as a net good. If this person is abstract, he or she may want to give humanity more time. It's possible that most suffering will be eradicated. It's possible that our species is in its technological infancy. We can know start playing with our own code. We are close perhaps to leaving this planet. If we are still here a million years from now, then these times might be the stuff of scary bedtimes stories. But we can only get there is (foolish or not) we persevere. A hopeful (and abstract) person might find extra motivation in this. [I personally don't know what's going to happen. Now do I support or oppose this view. I just don't know. Instead I describe apparent possibilities. ]
Quoting schopenhauer1
Indeed. In a bad mood I tend to think of all the terrible stuff that could happen as well as the terrible stuff that will happen. I also feel for life's bigger losers (we're all at least small or medium sized losers). In a good mood I'm absorbed in the object or project. In this approximately neutral mood I can turn things around in my mind abstractly.
You may not believe me, but I think I understand your position. I think I could argue from an approximation of it. But I could also argue the other side. In my life, my 'real' position varies with my mood. I may write the feel good novel of the year and then get depressed and hang myself. It's possible. The hanging wouldn't necessarily be any more definition of my true nature than the feel good novel. A final action doesn't necessarily have any extra weight, just as death-bed mumblings aren't the sum of a man's thinking. I've known artists whose art was joyful to kill themselves. I've known depressive types live to be old men. I think lots of artist types swing back and forth from higher Heavens to lower Hells.
I'm going to reply here with a reply I had to Bitter Crank in another thread:
People read into their happy emotions too easily. Sex happens at a time of optimal contentment. Feelings of oxytocin start pouring in and dopamine and all of a sudden every care in the world is washed away in ideas of future ideals of two parents and babies in household, etc.
Let's back up though. What does my term of instrumentality really mean? It means that the world keeps turning, the universe keeps expanding, that energy keeps on transferring, and entropy keeps on its steady path. That is to say, that happiness is always on the horizon (hope swinging I mentioned in other posts). When goals are "obtained" are often not as good or too fleeting compared to the effort to get it (yes yes, eye roll eye roll... it's not the goal but the process to get there BS., not buying it..just slogans to make people not think about it).. we still need to maintain ourselves, our bodies, our minds, our comforts, our anxieties, our neuroses, our social lives, our intellectual minds, etc. etc. etc. It's all just energy put forth to keep maintaining ourselves, that does not stop until death. Why ALL of THIS WORK AND ENERGY? Does it really need to be started anew for a next generation?
We really are living in the eternal twilight of Christian sentiments. There is "something" special that we are DOING here.. It all MEANS something to "FEEL" to "ACHIEVE" to "INTELLECTUALIZE" to "CONNECT".. all buzzwords of anchoring mechanisms to latch onto as our WILLFUL nature rushes forward, putting forth more energy but for to stay alive, keep occupied, and stay comfortable.. All the while being exposed to depridations, sickness, annoyances, and painful circumstances that inevitably befall us.. It doesn't NEED to be expanded to more people.
Quoting dog
But again, should mood dictate evaluation of life. Is it possible to prevent suffering for future generations sans our own mood at the time of evaluation? It may be hard, but if the argument from structural and contingent suffering is taken into consideration, perhaps it can.
Believe it or not, I get your point. In a good mood, you may lose perspective. Life seems to be going well, so why would I tempt fate by thinking of its negative qualities? This just belies our superstitious natures.. "Best not tempt the gods by thinking of the negatives, in the throes of my positive experience". I get it, man meets women, falls in love, doesn't understand why the world is so bad. Again, the question is can humans separate evaluations from their particular moods? You seem to be indicating that this is an absolute no.
This is an excellent description of a mode. I've been there, and I may be there again. But the slogans that this mood doesn't buy are the truth of another mode.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This captures the religious/philosophical quest. It's a part-time though important game. That small part which is not dog seeks god.
I can't see a clear distance from your position and a late version of this quest. Aren't 'life is suffering' and 'the world is evil' connected to our Christian heritage? Renouncing the evil will to live is an old-school spiritual mission, right? I can imagine a pessimist finding out he is going to die peacefully in his sleep that night and being annoyed that he hasn't finished his pessimist masterpiece.
Ho do we get beyond words and poses? I think we have to look at actions to see beliefs. Some people will suffer greatly in order to survive a threat to their future. Others hang themselves in a situation that others from the outside consider the dream itself. You might call the first person the victim of an illusion. Others would call the other person the victim of an illusion. But who is neutral here?
The project I'm immersed in as I write this involves something understanding as many perspectives as possible (breadth and flexibility of consciousness). I could boil this down further to the pursuit/maintenance of sex appeal and charisma. Philosophy 'should' make one a more beautiful animal, let's say. And sometimes the animal doesn't provide the raw material. Then philosophy helps one die. (That's the voice of a perspective. It sounds good now and might not later.)
Quoting schopenhauer1
Sure, you lose the perspective of the bad mood. And in the bad mood you lose the perspective of the good mood.
A lazy but down-to-earth vision of science is (as said elsewhere) technology that works whether one believes in it or not. Philosophy and religion are still valuable to individuals, but I think their effectiveness depends on an emotional investment therein (on believing in them via action especially). This is itself the voice of a perspective. Defining science isn't the work of science. But it is a perspective that keeps its own fragility in mind and strives for expansion on one hand and adaptation on the other. [None of this matters to the person who really wants to die, though. It looks like everything 'rational' is grounded in the threat/promise of the future.]