schopenhauer1

That's all you had to say. We are "thrown" into it. So, how is that good? Or rather, why is this good "for" somebody in the FIRST PLACE? Does this thr...

I am trying to interpret this correctly. Do you mean to say Nietzsche believed that life-denying beliefs affirm life, because you have to live to deny...

This is more than a bit vague. Again, this is vague.. with undefined concepts of "unnatural" and "maladaptive". Even if I was to take this at face val...

You are assuming that the individual cannot self-reflect on their circumstances and be critical of it. Survival is the original reason for the institu...

Are we the individual, here to carry out some Protestant Work Ethic ethos? In more general terms, are we here to maintain institutions? To consume, to...

Indeed. Is it the Protestant Work Ethic behind why we perpetuate more people, and continued institution? Is work for works sake a reason to continue? ...

I kept it neutral in the first post, but I will say that you cannot have an individual without society. Individual identity is by-and-large constructe...

I mention routine and variation because this goes into these questions. Belonging, meaning, assurance, etc. are not forever, but are experienced for a...

As long as there are those who do pair bond and it results in the continuance of the species, the argument still stands. That is a good point. Routine...

That is the deal. Your preferences, happiness, ideal set-up and outcomes, or whether you even want to be a part of it in the first place, don't mean m...

I guess this is what I am questioning. Individuals can never choose to be here, we are never fully satisfied, and all the other tropes I usually bring...

Yes, I do not disagree with you here. You need to have differential reproduction in a given population at some point in the process. However, once org...

I am not advocating for an intentional teleology. Perhaps an inadvertent tendency towards maintaining stabilization in an environment while, with each...

Once organisms stabilize their populations in a new environment based on advantageous selection, often they will optimize for stable selection. Thus, ...

Let me be clear, its not a debate on the mechanics of natural selection- which I would characterize as random genetic mutations that may lead to featu...

There is no aim, I agree, but there is an outcome of natural selection that optimizes survival and once at a level of stable reproductive rates, conti...

No, when genes start optimizing reproduction (more people surviving and reproducing, etc.) it tends to retain the optimization strategies or adapt acc...

I think my answer would be similar to what I said to unenlightened's response. I'll just copy and paste it: But the unthinking mechanism has a teleolo...

I guess my answer would be similar to what I said to unenlightened's response. I'll just copy and paste it: But the unthinking mechanism has a teleolo...

But the unthinking mechanism has a teleology of sorts, and that is to continue the project of life. It may not be designed with purpose, but it is the...

If this were true, the conclusion is essentially the same. The teleological mechanism creates more beings.

How I'm I implying it's using us? You don't think you can be a pawn in an unthinking mechanism?

If I change the title to "impersonal mechanism" would that convey the point for you and change the debate from semantics to the implications of this?

It does not matter whether the it is "motivations" or for some unthinking mechanism- it does not destroy the argument that it is doing something DUE t...

But I addressed that I was not talking about his view tout court (in full), just the idea that springs from this that we are beholden to something tha...

A game of chess, that made you think you were pawning structures, but meanwhile you were its pawn the whole time. But, this view of learning and growi...

Then you can switch purpose with a word you like better. It does not necessarily change the whole "whole" versus "individual" part.

Gravity may be too far removed for it to directly influence whether there are more humans. Natural selection and cultural bias, however, are much bett...

C'mon, you should have said setting up charitable foundations.. but you can use the long-term argument of creating future utility by getting educated ...

Pessimists focused traditionally on quieting the Will, the unrest that is the metaphysical kernel at the heart of existence. What you discuss is what ...

Yes, this becomes a political and organizational question. This involves policy, appropriations, non-profit donations, collaboration- actions that act...

One can sympathize, but most don't go out of their way to take a plane to these impoverished regions to stop it. That does not seem to happen. It's no...

This smacks a bit too much of religion- the Kingdom of God and whatnot. However, these apocalyptics were looking for redemption at the end of their ac...

Please enlighten me on my blindspot.

No, what I said in the OP is that if you notice, most people don't contribute the great things that bring major utility to society- it's only a small ...

Then you missed my point. It was actually that it does not matter that we make no great contributions. I'm simply taking that as out of the equation f...

This is just going with my theme that life is pretty much an instrumentality- we do to do to do. The grandiose inventor, eccentric genius, etc. is ano...

Thanks. Okay, but as you seem to note, this means that the 99.9% are always shut out from the real gears of technological, social, and aesthetic chang...

I don't know, yes the majority is needed in a Butterfly Effect way, meaning without them you won't have the major contributors born in the first place...

The Giants I refer to are not necessarily the famous ones with all the headlines. They could include anyone who contributed, whether they be other les...

Well, this is the problem I would like fleshed out.. How does that look for an everyday situation? Can it really be applied for the real human and not...

But to the point of the OP, can the CI be useful in everyday decisions or only "major ones" (murder, stealing, etc.). If this is the case, Kant's mora...

I am guessing because the CI was central to his philosophy, a good character was central to being better at following the dictates of the CI. If this ...

With Kant, the "Ends" seem vague to me. Besides that we are autonomous free agents in this Kingdom, what exactly are the Ends, if not the fulfillment ...

The essence of something is that which if you took it away, the identity would change to something else. Identity is usually a convention of language....

@"Bitter Crank" There are a lot of themes in Tolkien ripe for philosophical discussion- the nature of friendship is a large one. One major theme is th...

Well there we go..So we do desire not to lay in shit, and we make a choice (however habitual), not to lay in shit. But, whether out of long habit, or ...

So, I don't know if desire is the name of it, but certainly, we are in a way "slaves" in the sense that, as Sartre said, we are "condemned to be free"...

But desires are always there. There are brief moments of contentedness but then you must get up, eat some food, take a shit, and generally, ya know, w...

Indeed. The human condition in a nutshell. Indeed. Instrumentality. Why bring in more people in order to need in the first place? How do you think abs...