Good Experiences and Dealing with Life
When a new person is born, they now have to "deal" with their own maintenance. They have to navigate the social landscape for survival, maintaining comfort levels, and finding entertainment. A person has to "deal" with their own being. There is no escape- the closest thing being sleep. This dealing can be seen as a burden. A person has to struggle with the burden of maintaining their own being. Sure, they may subconsciously "want" to live based on inbuilt fears of death and pain, but the process of dealing with oneself is still a burden that cannot just be shrugged off (lest death). Often we just shut this existential view down in lieu of "getting shit done". However, when stepping back, indeed we see we are "burdened" with maintaining our own being. The burden comes with the whole animal thing of surviving/occupying time in a highly social landscape.
Anyways, this burden can often be considered "vindicated" due to certain good experiences. These experiences can roughly be categorized into 6 different inventory of "good"- flow states, relationships, aesthetic pleasure, physical pleasure, learning, and achievement. If one experience a good that falls into these categories, one may use that experience as vindication that life is worth its burden.
I don't know if I buy this. Experiences are fleeting. The burden is continuous and ever-present. While good experiences makes a life go better than it otherwise would have been, it does not make up for the burden of continuous survival, maintenance, and entertainment.
Anyways, this burden can often be considered "vindicated" due to certain good experiences. These experiences can roughly be categorized into 6 different inventory of "good"- flow states, relationships, aesthetic pleasure, physical pleasure, learning, and achievement. If one experience a good that falls into these categories, one may use that experience as vindication that life is worth its burden.
I don't know if I buy this. Experiences are fleeting. The burden is continuous and ever-present. While good experiences makes a life go better than it otherwise would have been, it does not make up for the burden of continuous survival, maintenance, and entertainment.
Comments (113)
Occasionally, someone is crushed by their boulder; they are thrown off the face of the mountain and vanish, never to be seen again. This happens to everyone, eventually. Sooner or later we slip up and the boulder comes crashing down, and that's the end of that. Recognizing the banality and absurdity of our condition makes positive experiences that much more precious. It's ironic, I think: declaring life to be good makes its pleasures that much more ordinary.
I agree with this. To add, the burden is always present; as long as you are alive, it is placed on you. The goods do not negate the burden itself or is a justification for it. That was my main point.
LOL. You guys.
Not trolling at all. Entertainment here really equates to this sentiment:
[quote=Schopenhauer]Then again, how insatiable a creature is man! Every satisfaction he attains lays the seeds of some new desire, so that there is no end to the wishes of each individual will. And why is this? The real reason is simply that, taken in itself, Will is the lord of all worlds: everything belongs to it, and therefore no one single thing can ever give it satisfaction, but only the whole, which is endless. For all that, it must rouse our sympathy to think how very little the Will, this lord of the world, really gets when it takes the form of an individual; usually only just enough to keep the body together. This is why man is so very miserable.
Life presents itself chiefly as a task — the task, I mean, of subsisting at all, gagner sa vie. If this is accomplished, life is a burden, and then there comes the second task of doing something with that which has been won — of warding off boredom, which, like a bird of prey, hovers over us, ready to fall wherever it sees a life secure from need. The first task is to win something; the second, to banish the feeling that it has been won; otherwise it is a burden.
Human life must be some kind of mistake. The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man is a compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy; and that even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness, where nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom. This is direct proof that existence has no real value in itself; for what is boredom but the feeling of the emptiness of life? If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing. But as it is, we take no delight in existence except when we are struggling for something; and then distance and difficulties to be overcome make our goal look as though it would satisfy us — an illusion which vanishes when we reach it; or else when we are occupied with some purely intellectual interest — when in reality we have stepped forth from life to look upon it from the outside, much after the manner of spectators at a play. And even sensual pleasure itself means nothing but a struggle and aspiration, ceasing the moment its aim is attained. Whenever we are not occupied in one of these ways, but cast upon existence itself, its vain and worthless nature is brought home to us; and this is what we mean by boredom. The hankering after what is strange and uncommon — an innate and ineradicable tendency of human nature — shows how glad we are at any interruption of that natural course of affairs which is so very tedious.[/quote]
If you want to discuss the subtleties of will, the human restlessness at the root of things, profound boredom, absurd repetition, or any of those things, great. However, nothing you said touched on these subtleties, nor about the TOPIC AT HAND, which is to say that the goods of life do not make up for the continuous burdens of life.
Still, fragment-of-macaroni-in groove or broken record, I think your plaintive posts about the burden of existence are better philosophy than "Germany receives Marx statue from China. Why?" or "Is objective morality imaginary?" and so on. Some threads generate tons of responses (like the current one on eating meat--I haven't read any of it, nothing new to say about that on either side.
Like life itself, the burden remains, and you keep asking what the point of it all is. Though I don't think you are really 'asking'. You are more 'telling', which is fine. That's how you see the world -- tell it like it is, as they used to say.
Whether burden or opportunity, life will go on until it doesn't. If we work just slightly harder, I think we have a good chance of eliminating ourselves from the equation maybe in the next century. The fewer people then remaining will hail your "GIVE UP" sign that flashes on off in bright neon colors in the middle of the desert that used to be Iowa as THE TRUTH, WORLD JUST ABOUT OVER, AMEN.
THEIR RUT LOOKS LIKE A LOT MORE FUN THAN OUR RUT.
Haha, I love the imagery :).
Quoting Bitter Crank
Eating meat is a perennial philosophical issue that is acceptable but questioning existence itself is off the table. It's only allowed to bloom once, but it better not happen again!
Quoting Bitter Crank
I do think the quantity is equal to the import of the message. It is THE central question of philosophy, and whereas other subjects are derivative, this one is the immediate ground from all other questioning.
Quoting Bitter Crank
So life will be a mess from the climate change we wreak on the planet..That probably will be catalyst for any stoppage, not a realization of burdens, sufferings, and the like.
Here is an analogy to what I am saying with burdens. It is a metaphor for systemic burden, even though I am using an instance of contingent suffering:
In my apartment, I have a noisy upstairs neighbor. I can hear his loud footsteps (and he seems to move a lot), I can also hear his loud video game console/tv/music, I can hear his loud friends too. Now, at this point I am forced to take several actions. 1) I can just do nothing and try to cultivate some inner peace that ignores it. 2) I can complain to him or the manager that this has to stop and there needs to at least be some compromise. 3) I can try to drowned out/dampen the noise with fans/noise machines/insulation barriers. 4) Decide to move out to another dwelling. 5) Stay away from my apartment as much as possible. There are probably some other options too. However, the point is something has to occur. My hand is forced in this situation. To me that is like life. You can drop out, you can try to achieve more, you can cultivate this or that, but something has to occur. Your hand is forced. There lies the continuous burden. It is not a choice really as much as a forced hand that moves you through (mainly involving the categories of survival/maintenance/boredom-fleeing). It's a subtle point, and easily mocked (pace apokrisis), but I think it is a large and relevant point to make as it is the core of what we humans face at all moments (except perhaps sleep, though even this can be its own thing to face if its not had in the right amounts, and this is quite a burden to be forced with for anyone in any culture).
So what makes that the correct framing of the situation rather than life being continuously stimulating apart from the occasional interruptions?
I've had noisy neighbors upstairs and downstairs. (It doesn't matter a lot which). I, sad to say, have also been the noisy neighbor upstairs. When people complained, I quieted down.
One would like to drill a small hole into their apartment floor and while they are in the middle of their games pipe in a nice fresh breeze of carbon monoxide. Noise stops. Remove all evidence immediately. Think about how you will get rid of it. Hint: Don't put it in nearby residential garbage. Do an extra good job fixing the hole in your ceiling. In advance, establish a good alibi that you were somewhere else that day. (Plan ahead, in other words. Think like a police detective. "How could this possibly have happened?" Like, leave an empty CO tank in their apartment, valve open. Make it look like suicide. Or extreme stupidity. Wipe your fingerprints off.
One can put up with this sort of thing for a while (the noise, not the CO) weeks or months, but not years) but then something has to give. Moving to some other location is always a gamble because sound-insulated buildings just aren't very common, and 30% to 50% of the population are assholes, so... noise might await you.
Some other solutions: You could buy them some cheap carpet with a very thick carpet pad; you could have your local mob boss pay them a visit; you could let yourself into their apartment and put their game device in their oven, turn it on, and leave.
I solved the problem of noise-getting-under-my-skin on mass transit with noise-cancelling headphones. Helped tremendously. How well does the noise cancelation circuitry work? maybe 5% of steady noises are eliminated. Most of the sound "cancelation" is the result of good padding on the headphones. But it does help.
Always live on the top floor.
There is no escape from assholes. (It's one of the burdens of existence.) Be a greater asshole.
Stimulating as in we experience stimuli, that's the right frame. We are literally forced to experience stimuli to survive, maintain, restlessly move about.
Oh how the imagination does ponder..
Quoting Bitter Crank
I am trying with apokrisis, so maybe it will work with the neighbor.
I think that analogy encapsulates what I'm trying to say better than anything else, ha.
I'm sorry you are having a bad experience with life and are "forced to experience stimuli to survive, maintain, restlessly move about" and suffer the "burden of continuous survival, maintenance, and entertainment". Here's someone else who had a bad experience and suffered a burden:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/17/kill-me-now-acid-attack-led-euthanasia-mark-van-dongen
"Mark van Dongen’s father was shown to the ward at Southmead hospital in Bristol where his son had been taken after suffering acid burns to his face, body and limbs at the hands of Berlinah Wallace, he thought there had been an error.
...
A doctor arrived and told him his son was in room one. “The first room I had looked in. I failed to recognise my own son. His injuries were unbelievable.”
Staff had never seen such injuries. Burns covered 25% of Van Dongen’s body and much of the damaged skin had to be surgically removed. His face was massively scarred. He lost the sight in his left eye and most in his right.
When he arrived in hospital, Van Dongen, 29, could see enough of his injuries to scream and beg: “Kill me now, if my face is going to be left looking like this, I don’t want to live.”
After the attack by Wallace, Van Dongen spent four months in a coma in intensive care, fed through a tube and only able to breathe via a ventilator. His lower left leg had to be amputated.
When he woke he only had movement in his mouth and tongue and communicated by sticking out his tongue when his father pointed to a letter on an alphabet board.
I drove straight to Gloucester. I arrived at five in the morning.” When he got out of the van, he heard screaming. “It was Mark. It didn’t stop. I was banging on the door. It opened. A woman came to the door. Mark was in the very first room at the entrance. What I saw there was horrific.”
He said his son was covered in his own faeces and distraught. “I calmed him down. I said: ‘I’m here.’ I went back to the van and fetched towels and flannels and I washed Mark. He said: ‘Dad, I’m coming with you to Belgium.’ He was scared. I said we’d work it out.”
...
He was constantly itching, I had to support his arm, try to relieve the nerve pain. There is membrane around the bones – it was full of holes, the sulphuric acid continued to burn. It was unbearable pain.”
Van Dongen underwent voluntary euthansia in the end. There's a crowd-funding campaign to help his father here:
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/bart-vandongen?utm_id=108&utm_term=pJeNNvazv
So I am guessing you are presenting this as an argument. If that's what this is, then it isn't much different than people using good experiences to justify the burden. It is just another variation. Rather, you are saying, "If you don't have torturous, brutal, unlivable contingent (circumstantial) suffering", it is not justified to find a burden in systemic suffering of the nature of having an always "forced hand". Though I disagree with Benatar on some of his reasonings, he does have a pretty good grasp of how people justify (what I call "contingent") suffering. He discusses the psychological mechanism of "comparison" and says:
[quote=David Benatar Wikipedia article]Comparison: we judge our lives by comparing them to those of others, ignoring the negatives which affect everyone to focus on specific differences. And due to our optimism bias, we mostly compare ourselves to those worse off, to overestimate the value of our own well-being.[/quote]
Comparing to those who have it worse doesn't negate the absolute suffering that occurs. Also, he stated in an interview:
[quote=Benatar]For example, the most intense pleasures are short-lived but pain is much more enduring. The worst pains are also worse than the best pleasures are good. Injury is swift but recovery is slow. [/quote]
This kind of focus on purely utilitarian score-keeping as to contingent pain is not my largest justification for pessimism/antinatalist stance, but it does seem to be apt regarding the horrific real-life story you presented.
Some burdens end up becoming a form of entertainment or even work for those so burdened. The type of thing they can periodically laugh about on a philosophy forum or make money from writing books about. Some are actually serious burdens which bring into question whether a continued existence is worthwhile. Which category does your burden fall under?
It goes without saying that you just don't get it. Living is what people do. We are built for it. We evolved to live the way human beings live. The world is a wonderful place, including all it's inconveniences. It makes me happy to see it, know it, and feel it. I recognize I am responsible for whatever unhappiness there has been in my life.
You, I guess, are defective in your own particular way. That's fine, I'm probably defective in mine. The fact that your way is so arrogant, self-indulgent, and annoying just makes it easier not to take your positions seriously.
I just don't assume existing is "good" because I exist. That can be considered unreflective, fearful (of looking too much into the matter), and reactive.
I think I already sort of answered this type of thinking (i.e. my burden is bigger than your burden, etc.) here:
Comparison: we judge our lives by comparing them to those of others, ignoring the negatives which affect everyone to focus on specific differences. And due to our optimism bias, we mostly compare ourselves to those worse off, to overestimate the value of our own well-being.
— David Benatar Wikipedia article
Comparing to those who have it worse doesn't negate the absolute suffering that occurs. Also, he stated in an interview:
For example, the most intense pleasures are short-lived but pain is much more enduring. The worst pains are also worse than the best pleasures are good. Injury is swift but recovery is slow.
— Benatar
This kind of focus on purely utilitarian score-keeping as to contingent pain is not my largest justification for pessimism/antinatalist stance, but it does seem to be apt regarding the horrific real-life story you presented.
Edit: The point is, our hands are forced. Survive, maintain, restless boredom flee... hitting all the contingent speed bumps along the way.
Life sucks and then you die. Do you like this summary of one's existence?
Sure, it can be a summary, but then this has to be explained. As I've said, most people will just counter this with "I have good experiences, thus schop1 is wrong". The subtleties are what need to be conveyed. Dealing with, forced hand. Individual vs. the given, absurd circularity, etc. Most people focus on contingent pain. Metaphysical pessimists see the structural aspects.
People who use counter-examples to your description are those who believe, including me, that we don't exist in a vacuum. No man is an island, as they say. Do you honestly believe that how you feel towards life has no bearing on your observations of humans around you?
The upstairs neighbor is loud and it forces you to make a decision on what to do. I don't understand this sentiment. In case you haven't noticed, life is a continuing process of defense mechanism. Have fun with it. Sometimes, your hunch is correct and you're able to act ahead of time. Sometimes, you're wrong, and you make adjustments to your way of thinking.
Of course, I don't mean to say you shouldn't complain about life.
I don't "assume" existing is good, I experience it as good. The fact that you don't says something about you, not about existence. You don't find life enjoyable or satisfying, therefore there must be something wrong with life rather than there being something wrong with you.
It's fine as an intellectual exercise to examine the negative structural/systemic aspects of existence, but it carries no weight in practical terms for anyone who doesn't frame their lives such that those structural elements become a problematic point of focus. Then what you're left with is people who have extremely low quality lives, such as Van Dongen after he was attacked, and most of the rest of us whose quality of life is variable but not such that the question of whether we should continue our existence becomes an actual serious consideration. I was trying to identify if you saw yourself as someone whose burden was so great that your continued existence was a problem for you. And why that would be. You have a tendency to generalize outwards from your own experience using the inclusive pronoun "our" in a way that comes across as an attempt to impose your frame on others. What's your justification for that?
So, to clarify, I don't argue that the negative structural elements are there, and that we can't escape them, but do I argue against the notion that framing them as a problem that brings the value of our existence into question regardless of our current circumstances is a valid move. On the other hand, life does sometimes present real problems that no amount of framing can rid us of. In that case, we really do find ourselves in the type of situation you describe.
This is a straw man of philosophical pessimism, I think. (Philosophical) pessimism does not claim someone cannot feel good at such-and-such time and place. Schop1, myself and others have consistently focused on the structural features of life that are negative. Nowhere have we argued that existence is bad because we don't like it at such-and-such time and place. What we have argued for is the idea that the "negative" components of existence are in some way more fundamental than the "positive" components of existence.
To re-orient the discussion, then, in order to illuminate this nuance: how do you feel about death? A philosophical pessimistic understanding of death is that it is immanent to life. You will find this idea widespread, that death is written in the contract of life, that life just simply is death. Often people will say death is an evil, but it's not here yet so it's not worth worrying about; or they will say that death, despite being an evil, somehow gives life "meaning". Generally, death is seen as "outside" of life, a "threat" to life, something that "happens" on a particular date and a particular place. But this is superficial - life entails death, life is the process of dying, life is the perpetual decline of health.
Nobody is going to deny that health is good. Yet life is the decline of health. Sooner or later you lose it, no matter how hard you try to hold on to it. Life kills us all, and oftentimes painfully. This is an example of the structural negativity of life. Other examples include our moral impediment, the onerous burden of need and desire, the transitory nature of pleasure, etc. The philosophical pessimistic perspective is that life, stripped of any contingencies (where and when you were born, what opportunities you have, personal traits, etc) is at-its-core negative. Positive things are wholly intra-worldly and arise as a reaction to the structural negativity of life. An analogy: life is an over-cooked piece of meat, and you only slather on so much sauce because you need to mask the poor quality of your meal. Pleasure, positive experiences, these are all additions to life that are contingent and impermanent.
Excellent post. Great examples that elucidated the main point here:
Quoting darthbarracuda
I will have to gather my thoughts, but I will try to add to this and respond to @Baden as well.
And I am saying the exact opposite. I experience life as good independent of what is going on at the moment. Even when there is unhappiness and suffering. Living is fun. Interesting. There's stuff to do. Learn. People to talk to. Food to eat. We were made for this world, whether by God or evolution. The fact you don't feel that way says something about you, not something about the world.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Death is death. I'm going to die just like 90 billion people and trillions of other organisms have before. I don't have any beliefs in an afterlife, so I'm pretty sure I'll just cease to exist, I'm 66 and Clarks don't generally live past 75. So, it's coming pretty soon. I can feel it coming closer. After many years of ignoring it, I can't really do that anymore. So? No big deal. That's how it works. It's not as if it's not fair or something. I don't really want to die. I'm having a pretty good time.
What' your point? Why would that change anything?
Quoting darthbarracuda
It's funny. Getting weaker. Healing more slowly. Not being able to do things you used to be able to is really interesting. You learn important things about yourself. If you've spent your life ignoring your body, as I have, you're forced to become more self-aware. It is so satisfying to have been around long enough that when something happens you don't get all excited like other people do because you've seen it twice before. It's like you can see into the future. You know how things play out. It's fun.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Boy, I'm sorry life is so inconvenient for you and Shopenhauer1. Just don't make it some sort of principle. It's just self-indulgent.
I'd like to explore the idea of entailment darth has brought up. Systemic suffering in many ways is about entailment- what is determined by being born as the human animal. Darth brought up death, which is a classic case, but there are more. The metaphysical pessimist tries to mine experience for these systemic entailments. Some of what I have been talking about falls into these entailments:
If we're going to look into this more, how about a definition of what "entailment" means in this context. Is an entailment just an unavoidable consequence? Or do you mean something else.
That's the whole Earth. So, Earth is negative.
That's it.
Bullet 1 - you just mean life, right? Kind of begging the question. Also, I'm never bored. You're doing something wrong.
The rest - please expand. They don't seem like anything too onerous to me. Restless desires - that's what awareness and spiritual growth are for. I don't find life absurd. Funny sometimes. Circularity - do you mean things just keep happening over and over again - that's just the way things work. Contingent circumstances. Don't know what that means. Dealing with the given. Again, don't understand.
You keep repeating scripts. You haven't answered my points.
It's great you are having a good time and continue to find enjoyment in living. You, like most everyone else, do not want to die. That's what so tragic - whatever life gives us that dazzles our minds, it eventually takes away. Everything is impermanent, flux, and thus ultimately nothing. We come from nothing and go back to nothing, and nothing happens and nothing changes. Man cannot live, he cannot think, Sub specie aeternitatis. He must limit his mind - the healthy mind is one that is not aware of its incoming doom, and thus not crippled by despair.
Quoting T Clark
Yes, I imagine that is one of the pleasures of aging - a better sense of perspective. There is nothing new under the sun. The cycle continues: birth, suffering, death. It's sad, but the fact that it's unnecessary makes it absurd.
I am not thrown into despair by my "incoming doom." My life is not tragic. I don't want to die now, but I don't want to live forever. I'm sure you and I can go on like this for as long as we want. You feel the way you feel, I feel the way I feel. I can't imagine I'm going to change your mind.
I don't think my posts are even really aimed at you. I want other people who read what you are writing to hear another voice too. To you I say - Ok, you don't enjoy life. It's unnecessary. You're in despair and unable to face the certainty of your own death. I'm not trying to talk you out of that. What bothers me is that you not only judge your own life but other's too. You try to talk other people into joining your cult of despair using what you try to make sound like reason.
My son and his girlfriend are farmers and vegetarians. They don't raise animals, but have friends who raise pigs for eventual slaughter. The pigs are treated with kindness and comfort while they grow and killed as gently as possible. Laura, who loves pigs, visits them, feeds them, and plays with them, then grieves when they die.
Bullshit. The structural aspect is the dichotomy of the good and the bad, the rough and the smooth, the burdens and the transports.
So the "subtle" response you get is that you are telling a one-sided tale of unrestricted regret. There is only the bad. Even when things are good, that's when things are really, really bad, because now you have to deal with the possibility of that goodness being missing.
You have built yourself a rationale. It may have some kind of truth for you. You may just be very unlucky and stuck in a basically depressed state. But philosophically, you need to deal with the fact that your story lacks the kind of naturalism that understands life to be a mixed bag. And that is generally all right.
Then also the bit you really don't want to hear. If life is not as you would like it, then a large part of that could be because you have constructed this self-reinforcing rationale of pessimism - perhaps as a "coping" mechanism.
Pessimism is bad philosophy. Plain and simple. Fortunately there are other choices on the menu.
A mixed bag? Generally all right? Which one is it?
The question the structural pessimist asks if the value of being as such. Not the value of living now that we are here, or what could be done to make such an existence valuable. We want to know whether simply being is good or not. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle raises a similar question when he asks what the very function of being-a-man is and not specific functions a person can later assume (carpenter, philosopher, soldier, etc). This is the structural way of looking at things, an example of the ontological distinction. There is a being, and then there is the being's Being. In this case, we want to know what the value of this Being is, i.e. what the value is of a person's existence qua their very existence, and not in terms of what society they live in and what roles they play in this.
Optimists are selective and strategic in their defense of life. What they cannot defend, they blame pessimists for over-reacting to. Or they attempt to psychoanalyze pessimists as being "depressed" or "schizoid", because the existence of the pessimist is incompatible with the affirmative narrative and must be "explained away" via some evanescent category. If pessimism did not hold at least some element of truth, it would have been demolished from the get-go. Pessimism would be definitively shown to be incorrect, not simply asserted to be incorrect. Yet a look at history shows a pattern of thinking that correlates to the structural pessimist's point - life is, at its core, bad. I'm even willing to say you cannot truly understand the religious mind, or understand the essence of religion unless you at least accept that there is some truth to the proposition that life is suffering. Nor can you understand human relationships, which so often are based on sharing a burden. I do not doubt you understand either, which makes me believe you are not recognizing that you do, i.e. you have a cognitive bias (re: Pollyanna principle of rose-tinted glasses)
Instead of a mixed bag, though, I would say a more accurate picture is that you cannot have any good without the bad. The good is optional, the bad is required. You already recognize this when you say life is "generally" good - i.e. despite the fact of all the evils, life is still "worth it". But, I will maintain, when considering the life of a person, as a person, the one thing you can be absolutely sure of is that they will die. There are other things you can be sure about as well (beyond reasonable doubt):
[i]"Funeral planet, dead black asteroid
Mausoleum, this world is a tomb
Human zombies, staring blank faces
No reason to live, dead in the womb
Death shroud existence, slave for a pittance
Condemned to die before I could breathe
Millions are screaming, the dead are still living
This Earth has died yet no one has seen
Funeralopolis!
I don't care, this world means nothing
Life has no meaning, my feelings are numb
Faceless masses filed like gravestones
Sacrificed for the glory of one!
Funerary cities, flesh press factories
Corporate maggots feed on the carrion
Funeralopolis, grey morgue apocalypse
Black clouds form to block out the sun"[/i]
Dramatic, sure, but accurate.
I wrote a song about zombies when I was 17. It was pretty similar to the above far as I can remember. Started with:
"Another mindless zombie joins the crooked line..."
(Note the amusing superfluity of the word "mindless.")
Can't remember the rest. Our band was called "Morbid..." something or other. Good fun at the time.
[quote=Schopenhauer]All willing springs from lack, from deficiency, and thus from suffering. Fulfillment brings this to an end; yet for one wish that is fulfilled there remain at least ten that are denied. Further, desiring lasts a long time, demands and requests go on to infinity, fulfillment is short and meted out sparingly. But even the final satisfaction itself is only apparent; the wish fulfilled at once makes way for a new one; the former is a known delusion, the latter a delusion not as yet known. No attained object of willing can give a satisfaction that lasts and no longer declines; but it is always like the alms thrown to a beggar, which reprieves him today so that his misery may be prolonged till tomorrow. Therefore, so long as our consciousness is filled by our will [which is as long as we are will-filled living beings], so long as we are given up to the throng of desires with its constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing, we never obtain lasting happiness or peace. Essentially, it is all the same whether we pursue or flee, fear harm or aspire to enjoyment; care for the constantly demanding will, no matter in what form, continually fills and moves consciousness; but without peace and calm, true well-being is absolutely impossible. (Die Welt, vol I, p 196)[/quote]
Now, regarding the contingency of the world- we are the mired world of contingent circumstances. The world impinges on our personality/ego/character and we react according to our own heuristics/fears/judgements, working to bring ourselves to some level of comfort only to find ourselves needing more (see quote above). Much of the time we our equilibrium is thrown off- "Ugh, the neighbor brought a stench in.. better get rid of it, making me feel uneasy in my own home..".. "Shit, I'm going to be late for work.. which if I do often will get me fired which may lead to financial troubles later on or relying on others in burdensome ways".. "Oh, my car won't start.. I could not have a car and thus throw other consequences off in my life..or find something to fix".. But that's just the maintenance part (and maybe partly survival in stratified post-industrial economies).. But this works the same with our excess "free time" (boredom-fillers).. "I'm kind of lonely reading for 4 hours and then riding my bike for another 2 hours.. I wonder where I can get some new friends.."
It's all dealing with.. The churning will confronts the fateful contingencies. There are some inventory of positive "goods" (i.e. relationships, learning, aesthetic/physical pleasure, flow states, achievement) but often its fleeting, not-achieved in equal distribution (based on many contingent factors), and does not negate the underlying negative basis of existence. Darth has it here: Quoting darthbarracuda
But it is the totalizing nature of this bad- the very essence of being qua being that we need to look at straight on and not hand-wave as "depressed".
*Goes back to wallowing.*
Both for most people much of the time.
But anyway, here is my absolutely killer argument. :grin:
Pessimists are selective and strategic in their attack on life. What they cannot attack, they criticise optimists for over-valuing. Or they attempt to psychoanalyze optimists as being "elated" or "deluded", because the existence of the optimist is incompatible with their negative narrative and must be "explained away" via some evanescent category. If optimism did not hold at least some element of truth, it would have been demolished from the get-go. Optimism would be definitively shown to be incorrect, not simply asserted to be incorrect.[/quote]
I edited my post above.
You missed the point of my exposition by a full mile and a half. I'm tired of not being taken seriously, having my entire argumentative essay reduced to a single paragraph and then straw-manned, and then mocked for putting forward my honest thoughts on the matter. It's clear to me that you especially do not take this seriously and would rather screw around than provide any formal response.
How about this? I don't think it's a strawman with regard to the OP at least. If you do, tell me why:
Quoting Baden
Quoting Baden
How do you feel about this being used as an argument for antinatalism? That you find life "good" does not mean your children will find life "good", and it's not valid to generalize outward with regard to your personal attitude to these structural elements in life and assume your perspective is more valid than theirs.
I think you would disagree with this. I think you would say that your position is not only yours but also more or less "objective". I recognize that personal bias and all that can influence evaluations like these. I'm not willing to submit that this makes these evaluations entirely subjective. That's what "attitude" here means, the evaluation of a state of affairs as good or bad and subsequently adopting an appropriate orientation to the world.
What doesn't make sense to the pessimist is why someone would have a positive attitude to the world and life in general. It doesn't make sense for life to be filled with suffering, boredom, decay, etc etc and yet think life is good. Separating the two just seems to me to be an ad hoc violation of common sense. You wouldn't separate them for any ordinary intra-worldly event that had the same characteristics (say, a bad party with no food, terrible people and poor entertainment), but for some reason this separation is pulled out in defense of life. Why? Why does life get this preferential treatment?
It's a matter of probability and you can measure that empirically by interviewing people about their quality of life. Extrapolate for your child's circumstances with regard to the average conditions of similar contexts and so on. The majority of people in developed countries at least report being happy. Here's some data:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/03/these-are-the-happiest-countries-in-the-world/
Quoting darthbarracuda
If you agree with what seems a truism that it's better to feel good than to feel bad then it's better to have a positive attitude towards something (all other things being equal) than a negative one. The only case where a negative attitude trumps a positive one is in the case of prudence where it's necessary to prepare oneself for a likely negative event. I don't see philosophical pessimism as having that practical value for the most part. I'd only concede that it may be cathartic for certain personality types. Do you think it does have a practical value and/or do you deny it's better to feel good (about things) than to feel bad (about things) all else being equal?
This is an example of what someone like Cabrera, and myself, call "second-order ethics". Probability? Estimation? Determining what is right and what is wrong based on contingent, empirical situations? To a "negative ethicist", this puts the cart before the horse. This is politicized, intra-worldly ethics that is catered to the interests of particular people who exist and not to everyone, including those who do not yet exist.
Estimating the value of a person's life before creating them is a supreme act of total manipulation. The other person has no say in the matter, whatsoever. Intra-wordly, empirical reasons are used to justify something that is ontological. For the negative ethicist, taking chances and estimating probabilities only makes sense in terms of the intra-wordly, where we have to make compromises and are forced into difficult situations. In terms of something as unnecessary as procreation, though, this sort of reasoning is entirely inappropriate. This ontological distinction is crucial to understand, in my opinion, if you are to understand what the structural pessimist is saying.
Quoting Baden
I generally don't see any logical connection between pessimism and specific mental states. Sure, in the real world, certain personality types are drawn to certain ways of thinking. That doesn't disprove them, it only makes debating an uphill effort. Pessimism isn't about "feeling" bad about life. How the negative structure of life affects you is an entirely different question than whether or not life has a negative structure. The structural pessimistic point, then, is that the value of life is at least in some sense independent of an individual's evaluation of their life. This is similar to psychiatry, which sees the actual state of a person as at least somewhat different than what the patient believes their state to be (a helpful distinction when dealing with things like schizophrenia, where the person believes their delusions are real - similarly, the pessimist has in their repetoire a plenitude of psychological studies attesting to humanity's capability for self-deception).
One of the things I'm interested in is whether or not a "positive" or "affirmative" perspective on life is compatible with a pessimistic view of the world. I think it can be, at least in some forms. That pessimism is consistently misinterpreted as a view prescribing we all be depressed and mopey and suicidal is something I'm getting more and more annoyed with. I don't think it's the pessimismi that people are so bent out of shape about, it's the consequences of accepting pessimism that make people freak out like apo.
If the pessimist mantra is that "life is not worth living" or as schope affirmed earlier "life sucks and then you die" then that's a value judgment that can only be based on specific mental states (a negative psychological orientation towards life as well as a negative philosophical assessment of life). If you are saying it's possible or even desirable to uncover the structural negativity of life (the latter) without coming to the evaluative conclusion (the former) then we're not really in disagreement. You might be in disagreement with schope though.
Yes, good addition. Pain is not intra-worldly. Pain is Being. To exist as Dasein means to suffer through the terminality of Being, the condemnation to die before you're even out of the womb. The key I think is to see pleasure and positive value as reactive to this fundamental negative ontology.
What those in opposition to pessimism here need to understand is that we are not trying to eliminate pleasure, or downplay its existence. We're trying to get an accurate picture of what pleasure is without changing it. Ideally, understanding structural pessimism entails understanding how the existence of pleasure does not defeat pessimism, but rather instead the nature of pleasure itself helps contribute to the pessimistic point.
Thus I said:
Sure, it can be a summary, but then this has to be explained. As I've said, most people will just counter this with "I have good experiences, thus schop1 is wrong". The subtleties are what need to be conveyed. Dealing with, forced hand. Individual vs. the given, absurd circularity, etc. Most people focus on contingent pain. Metaphysical pessimists see the structural aspects.
No-one's arguing the toss that sometimes we're happy and sometimes we're sad. That's neither here nor there. We agree on that. But yes, pessimism posits an overall negative evaluation that relies on a negative psychological orientation that is indeed based on the structural elements of life. The reason the negative psychological orientation part is necessary in the equation is that it's possible to understand the structural negatives of life and not care all that much about them in relative terms (as I don't). So the argument that "Life is not worth living" is really an argument that "Life is not worth it (if you take a particular attitude to the structural negatives) You seem to claim that not sharing that attitude is irrational, which leaves you in the position of claiming that a negative outlook on life as a whole is more rational than a positive one. But if you accept that it is more rational to feel good if given a choice in terms of orientation towards a specific state of affairs than to feel bad (issues of prudence aside) then that argument falls apart.
Quoting darthbarracuda
...and then it becomes worth living. So, why insist that an overall enjoyable life is not worth living (or do you really see that as impossible?) Why cling to the mantra. Problematize the negatives, sure, but drop the evaluation.
I didn't say you "said" it, I said you "affirmed" it.
[quote=Caldwell]Life sucks and then you die. Do you like this summary of one's existence? [/quote]
Quoting schopenhauer1
There is where you affirmed it with the word "sure", so don't accuse me of strawmanning you while strawmanning me about strawmanning you, it all gets too meta. The fact that you want to explain it is fine, but your explanation only consisted of repeating that pessimists focus on the structural elements. As if we didn't know that. And as you continue to ignore the substance of my posts, which include questions asking for clarification on your position, I'm left to interpret you as best I can in the light of the OP and your subsequent posts.
So, yes or no, is life worth living? (All things taken into consideration would we be better off dead?)
And please no more structural etc etc. I get that part. I agree there are structural negatives.
What we agree on: There are structural negatives to life.
What we disagree on: The evaluative import of the stuctural negatives.
Why we disagree: Different psychological orientations towards the structural negatives. (One cannot evaluate something in terms of its psychological impact (life being worth it or not) without taking a psychological orientation towards it.)
To answer the question of whether life is worth living we balance our philosophical analyses with our evaluative orientations. I come up with a different answer to you. You have no rational way of invalidating my answer because you cannot invalidate my orientation.
As Darth explained:
Quoting darthbarracuda
There are an inventory of goods but they are not as purely (that is to say "positively" good) as it would first appear. They are fleeting, distributed unequally, etc. So yes there are things that would make life better than they otherwise could have been. I don't focus on suicide or cessation of life as much as the start of life where other factors do not come into play. From this purely abstract angle, we can truly evaluate life in itself. Should life be started anew for a future person? For the structural reasons I explained, no.
So I see you are splitting apart the structures identified with the psychological orientation to the structures. In other words, applying this to the antinatalist argument, you are claiming, despite the agreed upon negative structures, "The child may have a positive psychological orientation to life, and thus is worth creating". Again, due to the negative nature running in the background, it is not worth starting. However, once we are already alive- it is a consolation to achieve some of the inventory of goods previously listed. Perhaps, one can go beyond this self-interest to pursue acts that try to dampen the will- compassionate ones, or ascetic practice.. I have my doubts on whether this is metaphysically doing anything, but certainly, it may have psychological effects. Either way, it is a coping strategy.. Most importantly, all these strategies for happiness/contentment are there because of the structural ways in which we are always at a disequlibrium from the start (ergo don't create this disequlibrium to begin with).
I don't think your argument deserves to be taken seriously, not because of it's content, with which I disagree strongly, but because of your unwillingness to recognize that some people, most people, the large majority of people, don't see things that way. You complain about people mocking your argument while you ignore their input. You expect us to acknowledge the validity of your feelings while you refuse to acknowledge the validity of ours.
At bottom, this is a matter of value, not fact. It comes down to feelings, attitudes, not reason. The fact that you don't recognize that undermines the credibility of your argument. Undermine is too weak a word. It crushes the credibility of your argument. Smashes. Blows up.
Well, the point of bringing up pessimism is mostly to get people to recognize the negative structure of life, with the "ultimate" end being abstention from procreation and a milder disposition to living and interacting with others. The goal is perpetual peace.
But my children do find life good. They are generally happier, stronger, and better than I am.
Quoting darthbarracuda
As I said previously, and as you seem to acknowledge, this is a matter of value, not fact or reason. Not common sense. Many of what you identify as disadvantages of life are the things people enjoy - working, figuring things our. I'm an engineer. My entire career has been figuring out what needs to be done and then doing it. We were given minds and bodies to do all the things you complain about having to do.
One would have to be extremely careful about bringing a new life into the world. Probably a lot of the time it is done without taking into account the structural negativity and the possibility that the child will have an overall negative experience. I'll go that far. On the other hand, an overall judgment of life as a positive or negative thing in itself (an intrinsic evaluation) is always going to necessarily be based (at least in part) on our own orientation towards it (as I keep emphasizing). And it's quite easy to envision a negative orientation resulting in the reverse engineering of a negative philosophy. Philosophers have been writing their psychology into their philosophy since philosophy began. So, while I'm somewhat sympathetic to mitigating pollyannaish notions among prospective parents, the sweeping judgment of life not being worth living seems to sweep too much under its own philosophical carpet to stand stably on.
Perpetual peace, eh? Bring on the graveyards. I feel a song coming... :)
In any case, I get the basic idea. I think at least a little more humility in the presentation would help though.
But do you take my own position seriously - that structurally we would expect nature to produce a mental balance? A mixed bag would be the logical evolutionary story?
So I showed you how weak your argument is by showing it could equally well be used to argue its opposite. It becomes merely a prior evaluative frame that could make one version seem more right than the other, as @baden points out.
You and @schopenhauer1 are choosing to hang your hat on a structuralist argument. I've replied that natural structures are founded on balancing acts. They require a unity of opposites to be anything at all. So evolution must produce a mixed bag of hedonic states. We need to be adapted to our worlds. And so we need to be able to move across a wide range of emotions as appropriate, while generally seeking some kind of peaceful, neutral, mild, equanamity as the central tendency.
The issue of course is that we are social creatures, self-aware through language and social construction. So we have inherited a pretty functional psychobiology. But it was well adapted to our first million years or so of hunter/gatherer social lifestyle. And in a tearing hurry, the space of 8000 years, we have invented a succession of new lifestyles.
So yes, it may be the case that modern life is structurally shit. Folk are reared on romantic notions of their existence. Society has become a giant economic machine, out of control of a community level living. We are too self-aware in a particular way - our heads filled with the idea of being the heroes of our own unique sagas. And society has become a consumerist, planet-destroying, rat race.
There is plenty about the current state of things - the existing human structure of life and thought - that a philosopher could decry. We could do better.
So what I dispute - what I see as actually part of the problem itself - is this half-arsed pessimism you guys promote. Sure, there is structure. And sure, that structure might not be well balanced right at this time in history. But then is the answer to live a life where you have basically given up on making a personal difference? Is the best choice to make yourself more miserable, and try to make others as miserable, rather than focusing on what could be done about the situation?
Why the anti-natalist focus on not having children? Any of us who are parents will agree that it is a choice that should be carefully considered. But it also has the potential to be hugely rewarding and affirming.
Having children is one of life's big risks, big responsibilities, hence big adventures. From a personal point of view, it should be regarded in the same way as all such risk/reward opportunities, like relationships or travel or sport or enterprise or anything that requires taking a chance, plunging into life, seeing what happens.
It is only in a now over-crowded world that having children becomes some kind of collective social issue where we might talk about putting on the brakes. And as we know, the problem for "developed" nations is really the opposite already. They are breeding too little to maintain a healthy demographic balance.
But then - from the truly dispassionate view of a moral philosopher - we could say things will work out even so. Nations rise and fall. The human story will roll on and find some new steady state balance - some kind of story that also lasts a million years. And that may even be a return to hunter/gatherer level existence, 500,000 survivors scratching a living, after the big collapse.
So unless you actually believe in some transcendent/romantic ontology - humans as the chosen beings - then you have to view all this through the lens of naturalism. And nature has its natural structure - one based on a dynamical balancing act.
Life is a mixed bag because that is how nature works. That is my argument. But go on ignoring it by claiming I'm simply the mirror opposite of you - an optimist, a pollyanna, or whatever other glib counter helps to keep your own game going a little longer.
I agree.
Quoting apokrisis
One argument I have presented before and here now is that humans are out of balance with nature by their very nature. We're too intelligent, too creative, too self-aware. We understand our mortality by age five, and it scares us. I do not think this is a passing phase in human evolution - humans have made extinct some excessively large amount of species in pursuit of banal goals: money, food, sex, shelter. It has been this way since the dawn of civilization and will continue to be this way. Many have analyzed this as a symptom of capitalism, or patriarchy, or religion. The truth is, I think, more banal and more simple than any of that (although those other theories contribute). Living "in tune" with nature just isn't good enough for us. Metaphorically speaking, nature kicked us out and we're on our own.
Quoting apokrisis
Yes, parenting can be rewarding for people. The emotional bond between a parent and a child can be great. There are lots of perks with parenting, especially when the rest of society encourages you to procreate.
Yet the antinatalist argument is that, despite this relationship, procreation is still an act of supreme manipulation. Someone is brought into existence without permission. Parents want a child - so they have one. They do not think about the interests of the child right now, they're already strategically planning years in advance. Sooner or later we'll have designer babies, and people will be able to literally design what their baby looks like. Does this not seem like self-indulgence to you? Yes, children need adults to take care of them - but what makes people think they are qualified to fill this role? Doesn't that seem a little egocentric and presumptuous?
Many people are good parents, but those who procreated evidently never asked themselves whether being a (biological) parent tout court is good. The fact of the matter is that, so far as I am aware, there is not a single reason to procreate that isn't selfish. I'm not saying having a child can't be a beautiful thing for someone. But from the perspective of an ethical-minded person, procreation is unnecessary and 1.) a violation of autonomy, 2.) a disregard for someone's well-being, and 3.) technically murder. A truly good parent who loves their children before they have them (and not after-the-fact), does not have them, in my view.
Quoting apokrisis
Okay. As I told Baden, with respect to anything else, a "mixed bag" would not be acceptable. You would want something better. You'd tell the manager of the restaurant to please send out a better meal thank-you-very-muchly, this one's over-cooked. It's edible, sure, but it tastes like crap. The manager comes back with a bottle of meat sauce instead. Is that acceptable? Would you return to this restaurant?
But when it comes to "life", suddenly a mixed bag is a-okay. Why? Do you buy into the "romantic" notions of life as some great story, an incredible journey of development, a beautiful tale? No, of course you don't, this is nonsense. Life is brutal, short and bad for many creatures and it's been this way since day one. Humans fare little better in the big scheme of things. We're given a short lifespan that can barely accommodate a single great project. A common theme in science fiction is how the lifespans of other alien species dwarf our own, making shorter-lived species like us envious of longer-lived species and deeply saddened by their own short lives. It's unfair, and not in a minor way. We don't know any other alien species so we can't make this comparison in real life, but that doesn't mean we can't imagine our lives being longer. We settle for the mediocre, the "mixed bag" as you said. We don't agree with it so much as we internalize it, adjust and make the best of an unideal situation. At every moment of time, our bodies are working to keep us alive. Sooner or later the machinery breaks down, can't be repaired, and we die.
The crucial part of my argument that I do not think you responded to was the necessity of negative value and the contingency of positive value. Positive value exists insofar as it is a reaction to the negative value that is already there and will always be there. Life is terminal struggle, that's what it is. You're given a burden (mortality) and must find a way to carve out a small part of the world just for yourself so you can postpone death for as long as possible. Life may be comfortable now, but a single toothache, migraine, or kidney stone throws it into a wreck. My argument, like I said before, is that humans are too self-aware and too decadent. What you imagine: a Rousseau-esque return back to nature's harmony, is a pipe dream. My argument is that humans (but life in general as well) is seriously fucked up from any modern ethical perspective and should not continue because of this.
The banality of reality sucks. There's no redeeming aesthetic. We're cogs in the machine of entropy, and if we dip out nothing will be lost.
But if that is so, that is a sociocultural fact. We aren't born that way. We have to learn these things as skills. And so we have the possibility of making some collective choices.
That would be the central question that a naturalistic moral philosophy would be targeted at. If we are responsible for the culture that makes us, what kind of people do we really want to be, and thus what kind of cultural environment should we be producing to ensure that?
I mean, we already do have that kind of conversation. As a general rule - sample any random poster here - folk would support a romantic/individualist ideology as the ethos to promote. But then, is the outcome really functional? Does it result in a reasonable balance? As you say, does it produce people who are "too intelligent, too creative, too self-aware" for the collective good?
I think that objectively, there is something to the civilised/enlightenment mindset that is the core of the modern developed society. And also the individualist/romantic creative edge is part of that balance as well. There is the naturalistic makings of a flourishing psychosocial system in that cultural formula.
But then once we are talking therapeutics, that is why positive psychology gets it right and pessimism so wrong. If you find yourself out of balance personally, positive psychology offers a prescription to match the problem while pessimism is just an excuse to wallow in a state of learnt helplessness.
In crisis, turning towards the civilising, and away from the romantic, is the sensible way to go, just for self-preserving reasons.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Here we go. Nature kicked us out. The lament of the lonely child turning angrily on its parent. Society filled our heads with romantic ideals and now the bastard expects us to go out and live them.
But in fact society also says it wants you to live as a mature, civilised, member of the collective. So even worse, you are getting mixed messages!
Well again, this may be a commonplace confusion, but that is why a more sophisticated philosophical or therapeutic frame is so important.
We can understand the dichotomy that a flourishing natural system is based on. It relies on being able to express both poles of its fundamental being - both the competitive and the co-operative, both the private and the collective, both a civilised core and a creative individualistic fringe.
But nihilism/existentialism/pessimism/anti-natalism is just a tradition of romanticist lament. It is trying to tell the whole story based on just its one angle.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Now we get into a romantic view of humans as transcendental beings with transcendental rights. We are way off track when it comes to any properly naturalistic analysis.
So sure, use the familiar legalistic jargon. Try to persuade by rhetorical device what can't be sustained by logical argument.
A naturalistic morality does say society has super-organismic reality. So there is a level of being that transcends each of us as individuals. But also that this is a balancing act - a fair trade. We need that society for there to be the "us" - the self-aware us - that could even care about permissions and manipulations.
So we collectively get to write that script - within ecological limits. Or if we can in fact transcend those limits - in techno-optimism fashion - then we even get to rewrite that ecological script.
It is all to play for really. You just have to understand the game. And pessimism really doesn't. As philosophy, it is quite useless as a tool of human forward-planning.
Quoting darthbarracuda
If you made a bad choice in going to this restaurant, would you seek to make a better choice next time? Or would you simply never enter another restaurant in your entire life?
Rational folk would do one thing. Anti-natalists might do the other.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I can see that you need to make the negative a foundational truth and the positive a passing delusion. That is what your story hinges on. And I've responded to that how many hundreds of times now? :)
Quoting darthbarracuda
This is what keeps our conversation going. Gems like this. You seem to live in such a different world.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes, of course, this is exactly what I said. Or rather, exactly the kind of half-baked position that would be weak enough to leave your own half-baked position feel like some kind of suitable balance. Honours even.
But no. I'm expecting you to do more work here. Come up with a real counter to my real position.
Quoting apokrisis
No, it's not necessarily sociocultural or constructivist. The fear of death is given, just as the instinct to survive and procreate is innate. I think we can overcome our instinct to procreate. I don't think we can overcome our fear of death. Call this romantic nonsense all you want, the fact is that death makes what you call "romanticism" appropriate, it's what so often facilitates our affirmation of life and our projects. And death is a very bad thing, because it entails the complete and utter annihilation of someone. It is the impossibility of possibility.
Quoting apokrisis
Well, I don't want to go down the positive psychology route, I've already made it clear many times how it fails to promote what you think it promotes. It's not magic.
Quoting apokrisis
Yet I have already explained many times how your naturalism fails to address the radical ethics I am arguing for. Naturalism makes sense in-the-world, I won't argue against you on that. It makes sense to find a balance for things. But all of this assumes that we are agents that wish to continue to exist, and see existence as good or worth promoting and continuing. Fundamentally it is within our choice to end the human race. Life is not a given, but the affirmative second-order ethic (such as your naturalism) scoots over this problem and goes straight to living.
To put it succinctly: second order ethics, such as your naturalism, asks how we should live, or when we should procreate. Radical negative ethics asks whether we should live, or if we should procreate. This is a crucial point here. I need you to respond to this point if you are going to respond to me further.
Quoting apokrisis
No, these things (which you have absurdly grouped together in a broad generalization) recognizes that individuals are free. They are thrown into existence and are beings-towards-death. I'm not talking about the collective here, which you keep smuggling in. I'm talking about a person qua person and the value of this person's life as it is this and only this person's life.
Quoting apokrisis
??? Manipulation is a standard thou-shalt-not across cultures (even if it's not justly distributed). The principles of non-harm and non-manipulation effectively form the basis of modern ethics and are grounded in the dignity of the human being via their freedom and rationality (to go the Kantian route).
We've already discussed this plenty of times. I don't buy into naturalistic ethics. Human morality, while sometimes in harmony in nature, is also often diametrically opposed to it. Morality stands apart from nature. And this is crucial for a negative ethics to make sense, as you seem to be aware considering your strict opposition to any and all things "romantic" (as you call it).
Quoting apokrisis
I think you are fallaciously inferring that since morality and our sense of self are at least partly a result of social conditioning, they must be "unreal" or cannot be taken seriously on their own. I'm no fan of this sort of relativism.
With respect to pessimism being useless ... well duh. That's part of the whole deal. For instance, I'm wondering how much this exchange is actually accomplishing.
Quoting apokrisis
Hmm? Where did you show my mistake? As far as I can tell, people need before they enjoy. People begin to die before they're even out of the womb.
So either the complaint is no response, or too much response.
I get it. Nothing in this life will make you happy. :meh:
I’m not afraid of dying. No one my age I know is. You’re just projecting your weakness and fear on others. Your arrogance infuriates me.
What's to be afraid of? I joke about death all the time. The fact that it's right around the corner from me seems really funny. As I said, other people I know aren't afraid either. I have a friend. He's 80. He climbs up on ladders and fixes his roof all the time. He's in much better shape than I am at 66. He just built a sugar shack at his house in New Hampshire where he retired about 15 years ago. He has Parkinson's disease. He's not afraid.
Are people who are afraid of death weak?.... Sure, I guess so. I don't fault them. There's nothing particularly wrong with being weak. I have my own weaknesses, that just doesn't happen to be one of them. Then again, they don't generally try to foist their feelings off on other people like you do.
You lack imagination. Everyone doesn't feel the same way you do. Not just about death, but about all the other difficulties you go on about. Whether or not they are happy, most people get it. Get life. The point. You don't. That says something about you, not about life.
Yep. The best bit of advice to the young is that to have a good death, you have to start with a good life. Death-bed interviews stress people's regret at not having more adventures and not taking more time with their close relationships.
Positivity or negativity are habits of mind, so it helps to begin learning the right choice at an early stage. You become what you practice.
@darthbarracuda @apokrisis
So you bring up the idea that you think a positive attitude of the individual can justify birth for that person. The new person was still made to deal with the world. The attitude is always after-the-fact as a coping mechanism. Usually these attitudes are things that have to be learnt and developed over time. Besides the fact that many people don't have good coping mechanisms, why make people go through this game of developing defenses and coping mechanisms and learning experiences to begin with? Sometimes they are a product of inherent personal traits, but even this would have to be strengthened by repeated reinforcement. So yes, can some people have more positive attitudes? Sure. But there is no other choice in the game. Life is still forcing their hand. They cannot not do something, and when they do something it will inevitably be them vs. the given, them vs. the absurd, etc. etc. And since we are now in contingent-world, you never know what situations will eventually break that positive attitude or lower its defenses. Wrong decisions, disasters, disease (inherited or acquired), accidents, other people's actions, etc. etc.
And also, since we are in contingent world- it is a researched phenomena that in order to survive we need to repress or overestimate future (bad) experiences in order to keep going (Pollyannaism). We also tend to teach each other coping mechanisms like "comparison"... You have bad experiences now, but at least you aren't that starving kid in Africa, am I right? There is also the mechanism of adaptation.. Well, we really rather have had this outcome, but we settle for lesser circumstances, sometimes abysmally less.
But again, going back to the point of dealing with (so important in my opinion). Everything from insomnia to making a living to the very restlessness at the heart of our existence has to be contended with once born. I do not see the rightness of giving this challenge to a human, even with a possibly more inherent good attitude towards negative situations. There is no X reason why anyone needs to go through the dealing with or game of life.
The consequence of antinatalism is (no children) is no new person who deals, who suffers. The consequence of not following antiantalism is someone who for however many years does have to deal, does have to suffer. That is just what the facts of the matter are.
I'm sure you've answered this question before, but I don't remember reading that. I mean this respectfully. Do you wish you hadn't been born?
One could say that the Buddha stared into the abyss of life and death, and arrived at a philosophy that accounts for all the pains, pressures, and pleasures that either exist or one could ever imagine. As is well known, he said all life is indelibly printed with three marks: impermanence, suffering, and non-self (which might be translated as “all phenomena and beings are intertwined or co-arising”. Or maybe humorously: it takes two to tango, times a trillion).
The suffering/pain part of the equation seems to be something of a variable, as I understand it. There is always some suffering, at the very least the realization of one’s mortality and the mortality and impermanence of absolutely everything and everyone around us. But one can either turn up the burners on the suffering, or act to extinguish them. At least it is theoretically possible to do so to a large degree, despite many examples to the contrary. But maybe even the examples of pain, suffering, evil, disease, etc. show where and how someone made a difficult situation into a tragedy.
It is the third mark, non-self (or anatta) that seems to be the mysterious key, the deeply buried treasure. If impermanence is a given, as is a base-line suffering, then how can one reduce additional suffering? Is that even possible? Buddha said it is possible. He said that suffering is fed and increased by greed, hatred, and ignorance (what he called the three poisons*). Greed and hatred seem to act as a binary pair, where an increase in one leads to more of the other. And both could be said to flourish from ignorance or delusion the way that mold loves warm and moist darkness.
So then... ignorance of what? There is so much to be ignorant of! (Personally, I have lost track of all the countless things I am ignorant of. If only I had a penny for every thing I do not know, then I do not know how many billions of pennies I would have. Which would lead to even more pennies!)
If one draws a correlation between the third poison of ignorance and the third mark of existence which is “non-self”, there may be a spark of an idea, or hope, or at least some explanation. The concept of anatta seems almost beyond words. And if it isn’t, it is not defined nor explained both quickly AND thoroughly. Even so, I leave that to the masters of the Dao.
But one can meditate on the concept of anatta and expect it to shed some light in one’s mind, given enough time and effort. Ignorance of the concept non-self and the fundamental co-existence of all things is, as mentioned, not the only ignorance. But it may be a primary one, opening Pandora’s box of pandemonium.
Or such is my rudimentary understanding of Buddhism, that seemed relevant to this thread. Apologies for any errors or exaggerations. For entertainment purposes only. Not valid in NJ, UT, and PA. :monkey:
* The three poisons were represented by animals. A chicken or bird for greed. A snake for hatred. And a pig for ignorance. Which makes sense, but modern Western tendencies (and knowledge of pigs’ intelligence) wants to switch the pig to greed, and the chicken to ignorance. Because as you well know... a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, "as greedy as a pig." - Bricktop
The First Noble Truth of Buddhism is that all life is suffering. The Second Noble Truth is that suffering is caused by desire. That's not suffering the way we usually think of it. It's not events - sickness, death, loss - that make us suffer. It's our illusions.
I thought about bringing up the Buddhist concept of suffering in this thread, but I didn't think it fit. The fact that it will only ever apply to a limited number of people undermines it's effectiveness in this context. I don't think darthbaracuda and shopenhauer1 would find it worth considering. I think it's important to make the case that a normal life, even including illusion and self-deception, is worth living. Has joy.
Hey, @Posty McPostface, see this:
Quoting 0 thru 9
Ignorance of the fact that we lack an objective measure of the utility of differing coping mechanisms is what I find distressing. What coping skills does philosophical pessimism have to teach us?
I was just talking about what he said about pigs.
But yes, although some types of pessimism can be ...endearing, e.g. Eeyore, this kind rubs me the wrong way.
Pigs are pragmatic.
Yes, that is well put. Thanks. Each dish of food turns us into Goldilocks; this porridge is too hot, this porridge is too cold. Each bite brings pleasure, or its sibling pain. Umm... kalamata olives! Yummy. Ow! Bit into a pit! As the saying goes- all the same are pleasure and pain; fame and shame; honors and blame.
The ideas presented in this thread reminded me of Joseph Campbell, specifically these videos. Responding the quotes that “history is a dream from which we are trying to awaken” and “life is something that should not have been”, he may sound a little glib to some. But still, it is a television show despite the deep subject matter. Agree or disagree, good stuff nonetheless.
Quoting T Clark
Any resemblance to any avatars, either living or dead, is purely coincidental! Shoulda put that in the disclaimer. :yum:
Tao Te Ching:
[i]Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear. What does it mean that success is a dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
you position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance. What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear?
Hope and fear are both phantoms
that arise from thinking of the self.[/i]
Quoting 0 thru 9
I watched the show when it first came out and I like Bill Moyers. Campbell is a bit too....poetic? Mythological? Buddhism has always seemed to me to be the most practical, concrete of philosophies.
Practical in what sense?
Maybe "concrete" is better than "practical." It seems to me Eastern philosophies get right to the heart of things from the start then build up a simple structure on the solidest foundation. See, engineering talk. The Tao Te Ching seems like engineering to me. That's why I feel at home there.
Yes, so to speak the less moving parts the more durable a mechanical good. Analogously the less desire to entertain, the greater chance for tranquility and stable equilibria.
Though now that I think about it, that kind of idiotizes the whole issue.
So much the better for me.
Whatever works. Plug and chug as they say.
I see this "dealing with" problem one that cannot be easily dismissed. Why do we want new people to experience the "dealing with" of life? I can't think of a good response other than the namesake of this thread, "Good Experiences". I've had other threads on "human potential" being a crock. There's another potential answer that falls flat in light of the viciously absurd, repetitious nature of life. More survival, maintenance, boredom-fleeing, contingent suffering. I see nothing wrong in not creating a state of affairs where a new person deals with life, and then is retroactively supposed to cope with it. In fact, it is not just not wrong, but the best course of action (which is in this case, to simply not act).
Having said all that, I am not against (as I think I stated before) examining systemic structural negatives in life (in so far as they can be considered so) as a philosophical endeavor. And I see nothing wrong with someone deciding not to have children because of their anti-natalist beliefs. But again, it's based on a particular interpretation. And there's no common ground to leverage with the other side once both are aware of the potential negatives but disagree on their interpretation.
Ha, no phil pess? No life to complain about? :gasp: . But there would be no one to be deprived of these things either. Experiences are not something that need to be had through the vessel of a new individual. Nothingness never needed nothing.. Just because we think of some boring black hole, doesn't negate this fact that a universe without experience is simply that and is nothing sad/depressing or the like in and of itself (which we both know is a truism). It's simply the outcome of no one around to have to deal with anything (nothing wrong with that.. at least no one is being thrown into the dealing with). It's also literally unthinkable (in the literal sense).. other than retroactive projection (like thinking of death). What is it that we think more individuals need to be added to the project of Humanity Inc.?
Quoting Baden
This is with many philosophical grey zones. However, anti-natalism will lead to no start of the state of affairs where suffering takes place for a new individual. What to do about us who are already existing though? Not much to change structural suffering. And contingent harms will keep on going.. and we will keep on coping with them, and we will keep on retroactively making it "alright because it was a learning experience, or it made us better people, or at least it wasn't as bad as that kid in Africa or the person with the brain tumor, or at least you got to have something, or just pull yourself by the bootstraps and run that treadmill in 'this' proscribed way, etc because you needed to be born to learn this particular proscribed way" (vicious circle?).. Ignore, repress, anchor, etc. But don't worry! We have media to try to give us stories of inspiration and hope of people who dared to think the unthinkable and that could be YOU too!!! :shade: .
Edit: And what what does "Losing" really even mean in this regard? What race? And how does that matter? Are individual humans here to prop up some metaphysical game it is having with the universe? By being born, perhaps we have already lost.. we have fallen from the Garden. The Temptation to Exist, the Fall into Exile, the Trouble with Being Born, The Fall into Time (and other such Cioran sounding book titles).
@darthbarracuda was onto something. We are not like the rest of the universe. You can conflate humans as just another part of the whole (i.e. the naturalism of apo), but it's actually not. We are self-aware.. not only primary consciousness but secondary. We are not just DNA living out its mechanisms. We are not just animals living off mostly instinctual drives with some clever learning here and there. We have self-awareness through the processes of our brain capacities. This makes us not as balanced as we think. The possibilities of imagination are seemingly endless, but so is the understanding of our situation as living embodied beings that could have been otherwise, that endures such and such, and can understand (at least in whatever degree we can) what the situation is.
I've noticed. ;)
OK, well, we are just repeating our positions, aren't we? There's a chasm across which our shouts will never form a bridge.
One could see this on two levels, both significant in their way.
On a literal, physical, practical level perhaps the earth could benefit from anti-natalism. Just based on current circumstances and environmental conditions, it seems the earth is close to its so-called carrying capacity. Even if the earth could potentially handle say 10 billion people, current human civilization could not deal with it in any satisfactory way. The human cities, especially the largest ones, are both a marvel and a catastrophe, simultaneously. Better planning could remedy some of the pain and overcrowding, but that is easier said than done. Even without relying absolutely on the arguments of peak oil and climate change, there are major environmental and population issues arriving that are unprecedented. So some people putting the brakes on reproduction, or at least giving it skepticism and doubt, is a positive thing.
The second level has been referred to in this thread perhaps indirectly. It’s what I was getting at in my post about the Buddha’s notion of suffering and its possible cure. The idea and reality of karma, action and reaction, causes and effects. Ripples flowing out endlessly from each action, even from each thought. Thought and intention have a power as great as action often times. The Eastern concepts of extinction and avoiding re-birth and going beyond karma grasp this. To over-generalize perhaps, the Western way often is that “more is better” and “anything is better than nothing”. Not just products and money, but people, words, ideas, experiences, time, space, more of anything imaginable. Just to have a model of counterbalance to that Yang, that “unlimited growth”, is helpful.
Our paradox is this. Humans are animals. Humans are not animals. Both statements are facts. Both statements best be appreciated for the potential knowledge and action come from understanding them.
Interesting post.. Here's some thoughts.
Quoting 0 thru 9
Although I see the points made about reducing humans in order to "let the planet breathe" so-to-say, and I am nominally in agreement with this, this is more a hypothetical imperative. The ethic of saving the planet, doesn't really make sense without its human impact, and thus these are strategies to continue the human project through putting constraints on population. This to me is secondary or at least derivative of the primary goal of antinatalism which I think is to prevent all structural and contingent suffering for a future person.
Quoting 0 thru 9
No this is actually more directly related to this thread. Schopenhauer's philosophy of suffering closely parallels that of Buddhism which has been widely noted, even by Schopenhauer himself in his own writings. Schopenhauer thought there was a principle of Will which is the reality at the flipped side of our appearances based in time/space/causality and the PSR in general. Anyways, Schop thought the best course of action was to "quiet the Will" by becoming an ascetic and compassionate acts. Schop thought that at the root of things is emptiness. Behind all pursuits there is nothing to be had. He thought we could "feel" this with our experience of profound boredom. Thus, boredom is not just an epiphenomenon of humans having emotions, but telling us something about existence itself qua existence. We always have to be goal-oriented to try to get away from this negative aspect of restless boredom. This is part of the structural suffering found in his and other philosophical pessimist philosophers.
Quoting 0 thru 9
Well interesting you bring up this double-aspect. It would be nice and dandy to wrap it up and say we are just animals with a different degree of consciousness. However, that does not appear to be the case. We are animals with a wholly "Other" kind of self-awareness then even animals as intelligent as chimps and dolphins. Despite claims otherwise (and this is getting down a whole different tangent if we let it go too far requiring yet another thread on animal intelligence..) other animals do not have the comprehensive linguistic-conceptual framework that allows for almost complete cultural (conceptual/linguistic) abilities to survive. This in turn has given us other abilities, including among much else, our ability to know our existential situation in the first place. Other animals are at home in their existence, following instinctual drives or context-dependent learning. Their self-awareness is little to none. There are no "existentially depressed" animals. A bird makes its nest, finds mates, etc. based on largely pre-programmed drives with some limited context-dependent flexible learning also thrown in.
[i]"David Benatar indirectly suggests the value of basic conscious existence when he grieves our eventual annihilations, but what he doesn’t clearly acknowledge is that experience itself is a powerful, continuous good while we are alive, and might even be significant enough to outweigh many of life’s misfortunes. Leave it to a pessimist to regret the harm of losing oneself without recognizing the value of being oneself"[/I]
RTWT here:
http://www.oxonianreview.org/wp/the-vise-side-of-life/
This is Woody Allen:
“There's an old joke - Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of 'em says, "Boy, the food at this place is really terrible." The other one says, "Yeah, I know; and such small portions." Well, that's essentially how I feel about life - full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it's all over much too quickly.”
Yeah, sometimes in disagreement with Benatar. I think he has some good points regarding pessimism, but others I think he relies too heavily on hedonistic calculating which is not the pessimism I am ascribing to. I'm more Schopenhaurean in the systemic view rather than a utilitarian view.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, I see the point you are making here. That antinatalism isn’t primarily concerned with “saving the earth”. Was mentioning this to show at least one hard and fast practical benefit of antinatalism. Though I have read works that say in effect that “Gaia is trying to throw off the virus that is humanity in order to save itself”, or similar notions. And that some people are in favor of such, more for the sake of the planet and other creatures. Not that I necessarily agree with this tangential point.
However... would you consider it theoretically possible to have the earth’s population and civilization’s structure at a point where suffering was greatly diminished from where it generally is now? Such that antinatalism could be perceived as a relative strategy and position, rather than an absolute and inflexible tenet? If so, I would find the position to be more supportable. But that simply might be due to the fact that I consider absolutes to be the realm of the gods, which humans only deal with indirectly, existing as relative beings in a relative world. (More tangled tangents, sorry).
Quoting schopenhauer1
You are right that the suffering (and its causes and remedies) aspect is closer to the heart of the matter. As I mentioned in my post above, I believe that every action is important, and each thought is crucial. Even if we don’t notice any immediate effects. And that the decision whether or not to have a child might be the most critical decision a person makes, as it full of consequences. So a second practical benefit of antinatalism is to make a person seriously consider the “downside” of having offspring. Usually, if a married couple of reproductive age desire a child and have a nice home, in a safe neighborhood, and are making a comfortable living, the answer seems obvious. Obviously, the choice is completely up to them. But if this theoretical couple’s thinking does not go beyond their desire and optimal environment, they might be in for a rude awakening. But such is life, always teaching us even we have mentally checked out.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Hmm. Well... humans are mammals. All mammals are animals. I don’t mean to play word games here, without any purpose. And it’s a whole other discussion. I agree that Homo Sapiens have evolved to the most advanced intellectual level, architectural level, and arguably the most social level. (Surprisingly, even before the invention of Facebook). But an advancement, even an evolutionary one, is just that: an advantage or ability. And I would argue that believing in humans’ superiority over animals confers upon us (perhaps ironically) no advantages or abilities. In fact, it may make us believe that we are completely exempt from the laws of nature that seem to govern the animal kingdom. (By the way, discussed this in a thread about the ideas of Daniel Quinn here). To define humanity absolutely by the 5% or 18% (or whatever) genetic or cognitive difference from another primate is to unintentionally distain the majority of commonality. To ignore the foundations in order to praise the steeple. And by the way (as a comment on your point), there have been numerous instances of animals displaying the behavioral symptoms of depression, not surprisingly in captivity. Weight gain or loss, reduced activity, solitary tendencies, etc. No one can get into their mind of course but the behavior is analogous to that of humans, in this case at least. And that we “can’t get into their mind” is significant too. We just do not know for certain what their mental and spiritual experience is really like.
Anyway, more tangents. I know that comparing and contrasting humans and animals is not the topic, and I’m barking up the wrong family tree. (But hey, antinatalism presents many potential consequences!) In comparison with animals, humans are the far younger species in most cases. Native Americans called them “ancestors”.
Thanks again! :smile:
I'm not sure how this would be employed. The main theme of philosophical pessimism is that structural suffering does not go away. That might be a defining characteristic of philosophical pessimism vs. let's say a utilitarianism or simple hedonism. But, I guess if it actually did "improve things" in a contingent way, that would be a good outcome.
Quoting 0 thru 9
But the steeple is where existential awareness lies. This is why I think the depression example doesn't work here. Animals may get depressed in a way- but its context-dependent. They don't know they are depressed. There is no self-awareness. That's why I say humans are the only ones who can get existentially depressed.
Yes, second that. Thank you . :up:
:up: Wow, thanks! That’s really nice, guys. Always appreciate your thought-provoking posts, agree or disagree. Gotta go now, think I got something in my eye... :cry:
It’s not just that making a living is hard. It’s that we are forced to deal at all in the first place. There is no way around with dealing with our own existence.
https://aeon.co/essays/do-people-have-a-moral-duty-to-have-children-if-they-can
Just skimmed it. Will give it more attention later.
The author of the article at your link writes:
We’ve seen that it’s important to distinguish first-personal from third-personal morality: questions of what I should choose to do myself, versus what others can expect or demand of me. A personal decision could be private, in the sense that it should be screened off from the moral scrutiny or criticism of third parties, while leaving room to raise ethical questions from the first-personal perspective of an individual seeking moral guidance.
I've gotten the impression that Shopenhauer1 and Darthbaracuda are applying the third-personal morality standard to having children. Maybe I'm wrong about that. That would make a difference in my attitude toward their positions.
That whole article relies on faulty premises. There is a hidden understanding of the author that there is a debt individuals owe humanity. A debt owed from a birth not able to be granted. I don't consider not committing suicide assenting to a contract of owing humanity.. rather callous view if it is even held by anyone. People don't have to carry anything forward, least of all providing a baby. This is using individuals for society's end. Individual humans don't owe a vague "humanity", especially the sacrifice of delivering a new person to its doorstep. Morality goes down to the level of the individual, not abstract concepts such as Truth, Humanity, Posterity, Progress, and other slogans thrown around to justify having more individual humans.
Also not considered by the author is structural suffering altogether. Why bring new people into the world? Well, certainly no person exists before their birth, so it's not for their good. The presumption is a future person will retroactively enjoy life and thus want to have been created. However, life has a number of systemic suffering that is independent of someone's particular contingent experience.
1) Life is aggressively absurd. It is mainly repetitive acts of survival, maintenance, and dealing with our own restlessness. To do to do to do.
2) We are always dealing with our own existence. There is no choice to shut down (except perhaps sleep). There is a constant need to have to choose this or that decision or action. Again, this is related to the above survival and our restless being.
3) We are always in a state of lack. We lack the amusement of this or that, the entertainment of so and so, and the engagement of blah and blah.
4) The individual vs. the given. The individual's needs and wants bumps against the demands of the physical and social world. There is always conflict in this.
One of the main points with all this is prior to an individual's birth, there is no need for that individual to experience anything.
Another point to make about this article. Most antinatalists don't argue for any forced choice. It is like vegetarianism. While some people think it would be ethically not good to eat animals, they are not going to force this view which is too much in the grey zone of ethical consideration. Most morality works like this outside some of the big ones. So to say that antinatalism forces others or interferes in other people's lives, that would be a straw man. It is a point of view people can consider or not consider. That's it.