Well, then it's not just negatives that can't be proved. For example, all of science is not proved in the sense of math proofs and symbolic logic proofs are proved.

Those are completely abstract and are not open to the kinds of revision scientific conlcusions must be.

IOW most positive conclusions we work with are not provable in that sense. Is that the sense you meant?

And then it would also hold that you cannot prove that we cannot prove a negative without contradicting your claim.

Or another way to put this...why would causal chains suddenly need subjective experience. Billiard balls move when hit. yes, animals are more complicated, but it's got a complicated chain of causes.

No, it isn't — Pattern-chaser

At the risk of taking a joke seriously - since you'd be conceding your position is not provable - it is possible to prove a negative. At least in the sense of proof outside of math and symbolic logic.

The world did not end yesterday.
You are not dead [slap]

These impolve empirical demonstration. If we are not allow any empirical proofs (which yes, in the mathematical sense are not proofs), I think there can be deductions that prove negatives.

And a lot of positive assertions can be transformed into negative formulations.

Yes, there are areas of scripture that can be taken as metaphorical, such as the length of time the earth has been here. But you can't take everything in scripture as metaphorical whilst maintaining to be a theist in any meaningful sense of the word, and this is not a common position. — S

Right, I meant that one would take the idea that there is a God literally, and that one can have a relationship with that God, and that the commandments will be of aid in being a Good person, say, and that Jesus' teaching are also an aid in both being good and being close to God and perhaps adding in taking the parts about Heaven literally. IOW the core theist positions. I actually think this is fairly common.

If you're one of those "It's all a metaphor" theists, then a) you're not really a theist in any meaningful sense, and b) you're not who I was referring to, and therefore beside the point I was making. — S

I am saying that things like the length of time the earth has been here and the universe has been here, iow areas of scripture where religion contradicts theory, are taken as metaphorical. But one still believes there is a God and that there was some guy, for example, Jesus, whose teachings can help one be a good person, come closer to God and so on.

In contrast, for some Pagans, nature is capricious, arbitrary, and imprecise. No science, then, in any modern sense is possible. The best that can be done is an effort to describe nature qualitatively - and imprecisely. — tim wood

Pretty much any pagan recognizes that there are patterns in nature since they all used patterns, tool use, and passed down and found knowledge of nature, empirically based, to survive, thrive, make and so on.

If you are a theist in one of these religions who took much of the scriptures as metaphorical attempts to describe spiritual values and processes, this could be compatible with science. And then if you were not bound to scripture, it could also be compatible. IOW consider these culture bound and historically bound texts, but still ones with facets of truth. And then if one is not in one of the Abrahamic religions and none of one's beliefs contradict scientific models.

Time dilation is the effect gravity has on devices that measure time - gravity effects matter, it has no effect on actual time. — gater

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_time_dilation

If reality has different times in relation to the distance from the gravitational source, then time is different. There is no other time than the time that reality is following. From a physicalists perspective you are falsely making time transcendent.

I haven't proposed any limits or that we have "reached" any limits. We can develop ever more elaborate models that we may think are "closer to reality", but how would we really know? — Janus

Physicists seem to think there are ways to confirm or at least add evidence there are parallel universes. Cosmologists in general don't see themselves as simply making up models that cannot be tested.IOW our knowledge could continue to expand and not just be
They see cosmology and physics as expanding the models over time, and including empirical suport I do agree more with the idea that it would be hard for us to be certain we were finished.
That there was nothing beyond what we have modeled and confirmed.

Even if we knew that our models do reflect reality (whatever we might think that means) how could we ever know how comprehensive they are? — Janus

Sure, it seems, from my limited perspective, that there would always be a chance there was something beyond all we have modeled. Like even if we confirm empirically Tegelmarks's Level 4 Multiverses in fact exist, perhaps there's even more we still don't know. Though I find speculating about what we cannot know or will never know, well, speculative....:razz:

If we look back in the history of science the idea that there are other galaxies, which we have pretty darn well confirmed, which provides part of a greater model, etc., would have been beyond the speculations, even, of most people. And if someone explained to an early Enlightenment scientist about the Big Bang, they might have been skeptical we could ever gather any evidence of things that happened billions of years ago. IOW what seems like we might or might not even glimpse, might become clearer as time goes on.

But I am more aligned with your point about being sure we have the final, now we know that there's nothing beyond these/this. I just think that up to that, we might get much more than glimpses, models we can be very confident in, if not even visting other parts of the new larger whole.

Perhaps it would be better to accept that the nature of the real cannot be captured, but only glimpsed, in thought; which should not be all that surprising when you think about it. — Janus

Though what do we do with this. Does this idea of yours preclude getting more information/comign to a closer model of reality? If it does't then how do we use the idea? How would one know you are correct, that we have reached the limit already`? How do know what future evidence will or will not refine about our knowledge and models?

So, why do people (I can't really speak for others here apart from myself) go to psychologists and psychiatrists? To feel happy, I surmise, or at the very least, to feel less unhappy (although, usually that realization is achieved after some substantial therapy) — Wallows

I think suffering is certainly a motive,but there is something else. To be unified. To work well with oneself. To play well together. To be able to express yourself, to not sit in guilt and shame. To be out of one's own way. Yes, in general, I think this is less unhappy and happy, but I actually think the happy goal is a bad heuristic. I think it is better to find out how you want to live and what is in the way in yourself. (with the phychologist. Practicle obstacles and strategies can be learned about in other ways.)

Now, given that there is a universe, is it more likely that there is just one and only one, or that there's more than one? — tim wood

It depends on whether you would call the sum of all that exists anywhere the universe or, if there are different pockets, you decide to call these more than one universe. If it is a multiverse, then is that one universe with many separate 'part?. IOW one could defininition away the idea of universes, that is, in the plural.

Oh no, more agreement. Yes, different things would demand different degrees of justification.

Because you're always talking about yourself, and your feelings, and your state of mind, and your worries, and your insecurities. — S

Which means that it is philosophy interest grounded in real life experiences. That's not problematic per se.

I can throw labels too.
— Wallows

Good for you. Go ahead. Do you think that would bother me? Just the other day I was called a psychopath, piece of shit with nothing to teach. On the contrary, I find it highly amusing. — S

The point of saying I can throw lables is not simply a thread to call names back, it is pointing out how facile it is. Anyone can do it. The fact that you are immune to feedback is not necessarily a positive thing. At least not for a social mammal. It might take years for the problems with that to really kick in.

How did it manifest in? I take meds for my psychotic disorder. Do you think these are related? — Wallows

It might be a side effect of the meds. This is not me saying go off them, but find the full list of side effects and adverse reactions. Read them all, see if any of them relate to what you are and are not experiencing.

It's good, then, never to lose sight that science probably will never answer ultimate, final questions. And it's a sign, imo, of maturity to give up spending too much energy on them. — tim wood

That would be a bit of an insult to cosmologists, then.

I think you might have misunderstood me. — Virgo Avalytikh

Could be. I reread it and it's seems more ambigous now.

What I have said is that levelling a barrage of critiques against the status quo presupposes a political philosophy — Virgo Avalytikh

It would certainly presuppose values, but not necessarily a fully thought out system. He may have one. I don't know. I guess I would still take the word 'barrage' to imply it wasn't ok to criticise so much if you haven't made clear what your political philosophy is, how your proposed system would work (better, presumably). Like it might be ok if one leveled a smaller number, but if one is going to be systematically or continually critical, then one has this other obligation.

The result is that, in my view, Chomsky does an awful lot of preaching to the converted. — Virgo Avalytikh

I am not sure how putting forward critiques in the absence of a set of principles is more preaching to the converted than not doing this. Those principles will likely be at least as polarized politically and appealing, in his case, to part of the Left and certainly not the right.

For example, Chomsky often points out the way news judgment is inconsistantly applied to the behavior of Allies, the West, The US, Israel, and countries that are communist or Muslim or whatever. This can include or be using the values presented by the West and showing it is not being applied fairly. Here no need to provide an alternative is present. If he adds to this that we should have the following structures as priorities in society - equal distribution of wealth or whatever - that seems just as much preaching to the choir.

If we move into critiques that are aimed at economics and capitalism directly, again it seems to me no more polarizing or preaching to the choir to present critiques without also presenting anarcho-syndicalism. For example someone on the right or in the center might read why Chomsky says and think, damn, I did not realize things were like this, while at the same time not wanting to shift to anarcho-syndicalism. I think critique without the alternate system actually allows more swing room for opponents and fence sitters. They can more easily concede points. I mean this in practical terms, or perhaps better put psychological terms.

I also think there are separate issues, in every instance.

In the life project of a philosopher, well, perhaps it makes sense to also present a system, if one has one fully fleshed out.

On the other hand, if it is something that is new,then on some level their should be humility about how it would actually look. As a society moved towards his version of anarcho-syndicalism there is going to be a lot of intermediate stages which will teach us and supporters problems and challenges and consquences they did not forsee. This might tweak or radically change the actual form of the 'solution' or the solution.

It's not unreasonable to hold him to the same standard as many of the political philosophers he critiques, — Virgo Avalytikh

This was in response to someone else, but I think it is relevent. Of course it is not unreasonable to hold his solutions to the same standard as the solutions or systems he is critical of. But these are in the end separate issues. IOW perhaps much of his criticism is correct but his solution is terrible - I have often though this was true of some of Marx's analyses. Still, his criticism stands on its own. They need not be hinged. If he puts forward a system as better, well, certainly we are all free to criticize that system. In fact I can't imagine that not happening with great vigor, in the future and in the past. But the poverty of his solution does not eradicate the use of his criticism. Unless we truly have the best of all possible systems and this can be known. Then the response to him can be, yes, but your points don't matter nothing could be done about that and no system could be better. Those are the inevitable lesser evils of capitalism.

Solution. Simple!! Get rid of the "T." — T Clark

Totally agree. And I have gotten so much shit over the years for saying the T should be taken out. First, because it implies that there are two criteria for knowledge 'justification and truth. When in fact, there is no second process after evaluating the justification where we then look to see it is true. If we have evidence of a black swan, then the justification that there are lots of white ones is poor justification. When we evaluate the justification we will look for counerexamples and lack of logic, but we cannot determine now if in the long run what we consider true today will be true tomorrow. Adding the true is confused.

Critiquing the status quo - even voluminously or insightfully - is a relatively trivial undertaking. — Virgo Avalytikh

If the critique is good, then it is very useful. If it is not, then it is not.

It seems to me you are ruling out the value of critique in the absence of a clearly outlined alternative. A bit like when people say you can't complain unless you have a solution.

I think this is not a good position. First, some people might be better at seeing problems. They have one skill but not the other. I see no reason for them to suppress this skill. We have often have different roles in organizations. Red teams can be very valuable, for example. Decomposers in nature.

Second, there can also be a set of steps to any process of change. Let's say you think something is wrong in society. First you may have to convince a significant portion of society that that something is problematic. Once you have a significant agreement on this, solutions are more easily found and accepted. Now you have many minds in many portions of society ready to look and change and consider.

They will not look at alternative and potential solutions in the same way before there is a significant group in agreement that change would be good, if there was a viable alternative.

It's cart before the horse to debate solutions when in fact most people don't think there is a problem or assume that this must be the best option because they are not seeing the problems.

If one wants to say his critique has no merit or little or no merit, then a set of arguments demonstrating this are appropriate. But it seems to me that the OP implicity asserts that regardless of whether his critique is valid or not, it is wrong to present critique unless one has an alternative. I think that is a bad restriction on all of us.

Again, my answer to this is that if pro-natalists are right, suffering will ensue for someone else- will be created wholesale for someone else. If antitnatalists are right, no new person will suffer anything. There is no "risk" in the antinatalist outcome, other then no people existing. But, what does that matter to anyone, literally? — schopenhauer1

It matters to people existing now. It might mean something that no sentient life continues. You have your values and you are universalizing and objectivizing them. You focus only on suffering as the only potential loss/risk. If you are wrong about all this - and yes, I understand that you cannot see how - your project could do lots of harm. You are assuming things like 'there is no God' 'there is no value in sentient beings per se' 'people's current interests in the future of the species are wrongheaded and need not be considered' 'the urge to procreate causes not harm if it is inhibited' 'reincarnation is not the case, there are no souls in line, so to speak ' 'precreation is natural and good' and likely many other values, some rather mundane, others involving belief systems other than yours. Now, with some bird's eye view, I could say 'Hey, perhaps you are right.' but even if I go to that bird's eye view, I MUST ABSOLUTELY note that you as a fallible human might be wrong. Since that is a possibility, you are taking a risk.

But your position is founded on the idea that no risks can be taken that might cause damage or suffering without the direct consent.

Now you may say that these other values and beliefs have the onus of proof.

But no they don't. Because there is a risk, as far as you know, that you are doing damage and harm with your position, the spreading of it.

You cannot seem to acknowledge this risk. And that risk is present regardless of whether other people mount perfect argument that these other values are the correct ones.

You want perfection and perfection in not causing harm. But that is out of your reach in situ.

It is another fundmentalism, in the broad sense, you are presenting, which presumes infallibility on your part, since no one should risk. But you are risking.

There's nowhere to go from here between us since you cannot admit to this basic fact that it is possible you are wrong, and if you are, and you are effective, even with a few people, but certainly as a movement that might be widely effective, then you will cause some or incredible harm. Just because you can't see how, is part of your inablity to imagine, even, that you could possibly be wrong and missing something. That's a risk I take when I go out of my house, and that act might even lead, unintentionally to the suffering of a child - I watched a bike accident where the child ran out and the women braked and had done nothing wrong. Of course, if she'd been walking, there would be less chance things like that would happen.

We all take risks, even you, that your actions will cause harm. In this case because of your spreading an idea. In everyone's case, mundanely.

But you allow yourself this while expecting others to never in any way risk non-consensual harm to others. We must adhere to your values or we are immoral.

It's just another religion, presumably without a deity.

Acknowledging the possibility for unforeseen events does not render a belief which keeps them in mind unjustified and/or fallacious — creativesoul

No, it doesn't (me agreeing). Another word for them we could use are heuristics, which are rarely infallible, but that's ok since heuristics save us treating all situations invidually and as potential anomalies.

I'd have to reread the Hume to be intelligent about his position.

Fair enough. I wasn't saying you shouldn't ask for arguments, and in a sense I am chiding both sides (I realize there are nuances in these sides and invidual variations) for, in these discussions, acting as if some kind of verbal demonstration should be possible if there is a God and believing can be rational. So, I wasn't say 'bad Janus'. Nor did I think you denied that there were practices. It just seemed like an assumption, perhaps on both your parts, that changing people's minds or a person changing their mind would be based on exchanges of rational arguments. I think that is a very, very limited and ineffective method, even for mundane learning experiences or changing one's mind, let alone when one's ontology is being challenged. I think without the experiential and without interest in actually learning experientially it is a fairly doomed process. Now of course that process might be interesting and there is nothing wrong, if both parties are interested, in giving it the old college try. But I think it should be in the context that 1) it is an extremely limited process 2) it's a small part of all sorts of learning, which tends to include the experiential. So the discussion would be held with this in the air and less conclusions would be drawn from inability to change anyone's mind.

It's not just word play. It has significant consequences. If you call something a mystery, you treat it differently than if it were just unknown. — T Clark

In the context of me saying we have no idea what the mechanism is, I am happy to have someone from the 'we know a lot about it' camp couch it as unknown. I would think however that people probably react in a variety of ways to both what is or what we consider unknown and to what we consider mysterious. Mysterious it seems to me adds in that there is a surprising element to the phenomenon. I don't think that's ridiculous if one is coming from a physicalist viewpoint.

If you want to mix your personal mysteries in with science and philosophy, that's fine, but it undermines the credibility of your argument. — T Clark

He's not mixing in his personal mysteries, he is saying that it strikes him as mysterious. Which is probably true, unless is lying or quite bad at introspection. Mysterious and unknown both cover situations where our limited knowledge encounters something that seems real. One focuses on the epistemological absence, they other add feelings having to do with how the not known thing strikes us given our paradigms. This doesn't take away from any of his arguments.

Never existing and suicide are not the same. In fact, that is another pro-antinatalist argument. Either live out life, or kill yourself is pretty damn callous. — schopenhauer1

I didn't say live your life or kill yourself. I just note, again, that people want to continue living, including anti-natalists.

.If you don't like life, figure out how to cope — schopenhauer1

That's not how I react to people, professionally or regular every day interpersonally. I don't tell pregant women coming to term that they are being immoral. I presume you don't either.

Also, it makes no logical sense to CREATE people from NOTHING just so they can HAVE goals that they DIDN'T NEED in the first place — schopenhauer1

I don't think that sentence make much sense, but I think that is a line of not reasoning well that Terrapin is handling well. In any case I am not an advocate that the not born need anything or that parents should have goals for them.

Putting an agenda like "long term goals and achievement" above considerations of preventing ALL harm (with no cost to the future child), makes no sense is using the child for an agenda. They have to have XYZ experiences because someone else projected this to be what has to happen for them. — schopenhauer1

I didn't put it on them. I see that others who are alive will suffer their lives and now seemingly pointless if you win, so to speak. You think they shouldn't look the future and bring anyone new into it. So you think their feelings are part so wrong view. However they will suffer and it will be experiened by them as harm. And this would be, if antinatalists were successful, an effect of your polemic, and one which might be, since you are fallible humans, based on values that are not prioritized correctly or the wrong ones, or based on some incorrect reasonsing, or based on false metaphysics.

But you take that risk because you are pretty dman sure you are right.

Which is what everyone does regarding their values.

You however seem to think you are taking no risks of causing harm on those who did not ask for it.

I think that is very confused. It would have to mean you assume you cannot possibly be mistaken and so risks are being taken. I don't know where this idea of your infallibility comes from. But we've covered this ground.

We have an idea of various animals that might have it. Again, it's unknown, not mysterious. — T Clark

I can live with unknown as the adjective.

This statement is false. The damage doesn't have to be for someone else. The damage is for the person who wants to procreate but doesn't because they're pressured or forced not to. — Terrapin Station

And then the damage on the broader level if anti-natalism became the norm or the rule. From their perspective the end of the human race is fine, and perhaps the end of all life. That fits their single criterion of no harm can be risked for another, no life with suffering unless it is chose. Nothing else could possibly outweigh or counter that. It is the only risk. Other values about life and living and interests and participating in long term goals and achievement and the current suffering this would create in the last humans, mean nothing to them. They are of no value. Their value is, apparantly, the objective value that supercedes all other values, despite the vast majority contradicting this value in the way they choose to live despite suffering, despite the anti-natalists who find life not worth living but keep doing it. I know, I know, they don't want to hurt their relatives and loved ones. How conveniently empathetic all of a sudden.

We need both. — Bitter Crank

Amen. But even more: we are both. Getting rid of negative emotions, so called, is a bit like saying, get rid of the negative organs (like the spleen and gall bladder are negative, let's operate). Or this brain half needs to go. Or language needs to get rid of nouns. ATP is a bad chemical. Or hopping over is good, but no one should duck.

I disagree. Again, it's nothing mysterious. It's only not fully understood. — T Clark

The mechanism is not understood at all. We do not know what creatures have and which do not. There is a growing number of scientists that think plants have it or may have it. We can't measure it, though we can measure behavior and reactions and things, and not suprisingly we grant consciousness first to things like us. In fact this bias was so strong that up until the 70s it was taboo in professional contexts to assume other animals had it and were not just machines. We don't know which matter has it, though we can track reactions like memory and response to some degree, but again these are functions of the conscious matter not consciousness itself. The word 'mysterious' is floppy and hard to nail down, but it seems mysterious from the persepctive of materialism that begins with dead matter banging around and forming connections and since this is presumed to be not conscious and still the building blocks of all other matter. Now, sure, it could be an emergent property. But we don't know where it emerges, though we can look at effects on response and behavior in life forms like us, but whether this means there is no consciousness below that in simpler matter, we have no way of knowing. Yes, people hit on the head go unconscious, though is this a lack of certain functions, like memory and response, rather than the end of awareness? Deep dreamless sleep one can be conscious during, after meditation practice. I've experienced this with some regularity. Is this me shoving consciousness into that state. Or is this my ego connecting to a consciousness that persists but which I do not usually remember? Mysterious is a word that includes the already placed paradigm of the person using it or experiencing it or not. So it depends on that. I think it should be mysterious to physicalists, so far. Maybe it won't be in a few years or in a hundred years, maybe not.

A belief that is not a proposition would be something like an expectation. Sort of like a sense that there is a natural law that one never has articulated. But I think any belief would have a propositional counterpart. One could put it in a proposition. In fact with troublesome beliefs that the person in question has not formulated in an proposition, I think it is a good thing to try to 'put it into words' because that makes it easier to notice, to notice the effects of it, to test it, to challenge it, to begin the process of no longer having it. For example.

Yes, of course we all know by now, O would-be Guru, that anyone who disagrees with you, or even has the temerity to ask you to present and justify the reasoning supporting your claims, has failed to understand. — Janus

For me it seems odd that these sorts of things could be worked out by assessing claims on paper or on screen. Of course both theists and atheists seem to think this or it seems implicit since they engage in arguments like this as if it could be resolved with way. And by way, I mean primarily non-experiential verbal interchanges. Rather than say experience based practices and immersion. Of course people do this 'in the East' also, argue things, but in the East, say with many versions of Hinduism, the idea of practice and experience is central to understanding. Is there interest? Well, practice for a while, engage and experience, see if you have continued interest and perhaps the experiences lead to a sense of what people mean and your own beliefs. Or not.

But here in the West it seems like 'if God is the case' then it should be demonstrable online via words. Or if you are rational to believe, this should be demonstrable. I think there are pretty mundance things that don't work like this. That you could learn how to ride a bike, falling in love, synaesthesia on pot, how intimacy can be achieved, how to improve your golf swing...

I mean I get that these examples are not where there is a big ontological controversy. My point is not, see those are the same. My point is about learning, changing minds.

It is as if experience has nothing to do with such things.

1. what are the basic things that u need to know in order to become an idea machine? — regel

get better at analogies, take a look at an overview of Synectics, for example, then actually force some friends to try that with you. Read widely, generally. Teach English as a Second Language and ask professionals a billion questions.

2. what is the philosophy behind discovery/invention? — regel

Be curious and fail a lot. Compete with yourself for the most bad ideas in one week. Start askign yourself for bad solutions and solutions based on faulty assumptions.

3. how to compound interest your intellect and make quantum leaps from things you already know? — regel

Break habits, learn a new language, take a hallcunigon (and spell it like that). Try out something you are sure cannot be true, like astrology or seances, but only go to someone who is highly recommended by not famous.

5. how to use 100% of your brain? — regel

Ah, that's happening all the time. The body is extremely parsimonious. It's how you use it not how much of the dang thing.

6. what are the mistakes that makes your mind less
efficient in processing data and learning? how to process data faster?
how to recognize patterns faster?
how to think ? how to make your mind really clear? (methods of
thinking) — regel

Don't worry about this. Trying to prevent is a mistake. Most amazing thinkers did things other thinkers thought were bad patterns.

7. how to build an infrastructure for efficient and fast research? (technology tools that helps learning and research
and other ideas) — regel

The internet. But better yet contact people. Don't think about this. Just connect ot people and ideas. Start now, stop planning. email a genius right now, don't even keep readingme.´ I said stop readingme. Come back later. Go email them now.

8. how to develop photographic memory? — regel

Stop thinking like that. Get out and contact things and people you haven't. And meditate. Far in, far out.

9. what can open my mind and expand my consciousness to gain access to infinite possibilities?
(sharpening the senses and becoming sensitive, how to intentionally connect the two hemispheres of the mind? connecting to other minds maybe?) — regel

Just get out and do stuff, then make sure you can really relax, call it meditation to sound fancy. Shut off the midn, stimulate the mind.

10. how to touch the key to genius and to flowing with the course of nature? (metaphysical secrets) — regel

Find your own nature. Don't think of yourself i the 3rd person. Get out and do shit. Try stuff and fail a lot.

And there's nothing more annoying then someone who comments that we'll survive either way. Survival? — S

I wasn't setting the bar. I was saying what I said, which was that the continued catastrophic predictions from both sides about something so incredibly complicated, especially in the long run, is not helping. I don't think people know as much as they claim about the consequences, yet there are so many experts, speaking with great certainty about a really quite unique situation. And there seems to be no difference between long and short term predictions and neither side will admit any possible differences or that there may be positive points on the other side. I see this pattern, as a Yank, in a wide range of issues over here also. No one can admit any point for the other team's position or even that there might be something positive there. Everything is clear and no one on 'my team' has motives other than the stated ones. No concerns on the other side are valid because the other team is, say, globalaists or racists. Or that any position they have might not be so cut and dry. And this affects how the other side is viewed: as stupid, evil and/or crazy. It's actually pretty common on the internet in philosophy forums for that matter - though this one is a bit better - where concessions around even small points are avoided at all costs. It seems to be the Zeitgeist. To think in binary terms and to demonize. To me that ain't working so well. I'd like to set that bar higher. And oddly that brings out sarcasm in others.

I believe it is responding with understated incredulity to something that seemed to imply that the person did not go.

Did you not do X.

Like, did you not hear me when I said.

Which translates to 'what the heck, why weren't you listening, but I htink you were and so I think you are just trying to irritate me or not take responsibility....'

It's not a logical binary to 'did you do X'

It carries extra verbal messages.

How? — Wallows

I peeked at the other thread. Depression is a very complex phenomenon, and if we take the example of the Buddhists, we are talking about decades of discipline. Leonard Cohen, a famous Buddhist, never really managed to Buddhism away his depression.

But depression or a depressive pattern is not an emotion. It is a pattern with cognitive (thinky mind stuff) and emotional and interpersonal and location and work and family pattern, with varying forms for different people.

To see how complicated this is I truly recommend this book...

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/163286830X/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

We often are told to think of depression as something inside us. But it is obvious to most people not connection to pharma/psychiatry that depression is connected to our connections. The book will not give you the direct specific answer you need, but it might get you to respect the dissatisfaction you have, see some general directions to start improving things, and to stop pathologizing yourself, if you are.

The pharma model for depression and 'wrong feelings' in general is philosophically bankrupt.

No. Yes.

What do you mean by "disidentify with them"? — Wallows

They are not you. You train yourself to watch them as if they were something other than you. They do this with thoughts also and any phenomena. In fact we all do this now and then. I lost control of my anger. Not,I got so pissed off I showed other people that facet of me. Heck people take a lot of pills to get rid of their anger, but not so many ask for amputations and organ removal.

I think the key juncture here is that in Buddhism, they can tell themselves they are accepting emotions. IOW they notice a feeling of anger and remain equanimous in relation to it. But that anger is being diconnected from expression, action, even the subtle changing the expression of the face or tone of voice. It's just another cloud in the perceptual field.

That's a disidentifcation and a cutting off of a natural flow.

Now you have made me sad. :razz:

But, why? Doesn't the Buddhist have a point here? I mean, there's always some bigger fish out there. Not to sound depressive or anything, just a fact of life I suppose. — Wallows

NOt sure what you mean by bigger fish.

I don't know. I never got the Greek and now the inherited modern obsession with the Olympics or sport or whatnot. I usually just wallow about and eat and sleep. — Wallows

Then that's what you like. I mean, I am certainly not going to tell someone else they should want tumult and passion and competition sometimes. If that doesn't interest you, then it doesn't.

I am responding mainly to the idea that we, as in everyone, should want equanimity and all that entails.

This seems backward. First, one has to understand one's self to be able to engender any sort of non-trivial change. Yes? — Wallows

I agree, but in many New Age, Stoic, Buddhist environs you will be instructed to accept as an observer whatever is happening. They may or may not accept emotions, but on in the sense that they watch them, rather than letting them express, and disidentify with them.

Because science tracks physical interactions and presumes that most of these have no 'inner dimension'. What would give rise to something so different in kind from the mere jumbling of matter? If you starting from tendencies toward reductionism, thinking in terms of matter, that at some point matter starts having this inner experiencing is remarkable. If you start from phenomenology or a panpsychic perspective where consciousness is fundamental, then less so. So the defaults determine how odd something seems.

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the person of true equalimity accepts hunger, thirst, extreme heat or cold, until he dies of starvation, dehydration, or exposure. — god must be atheist

Well, if they actually lost the ability to prefer or even notice any difference in experience. IOW they got no feedback at all about pain and unpleasance, then they would be handicapped and perhaps to death. But in real life they are not ignoring pleasure and pain, just not reacting to it emotionally as much as they can. So they calmly put on an extra layer, whereas someone else might blurt out 'Holy shit, that's fucking cold and run back to the house to get a better jacket.

What I am trying to say is that it is an unproven, and possibly false assumption that equanimity is a state of happiness, and we can only accept that it is, if that is one of our basic premises. — god must be atheist

I don't think most stoics and others argue that it is happiness, even happiness is something they want to be equanimous about also. I do think they think it reduces suffering, which is not quite the same thing. And also that it makes one more rational, which I doubt. Obviously in some situations it is good to remain calm, but I think that can happen anyway if one accepts ones emotions. The emotions include fear and fear can make one calm, oddly enough, if your body realizes that noise and freaking out will likely kill or harm you.

All the above I fully accept. With complete equanimity. In fact, I wish I had thought of saying it, and now I am sad because I had not. — god must be atheist

Steal it.