And this is where I will disagree with your own views Schop1 on deprivation. — darthbarracuda

Where in that quote did I mention these views? What views on deprivation do you refer?

Yes, you can certainly make a case that there is a socially constructed fear of death because there is also the precondition of a socially constructed sense of self. Culture must react in some way to the sharpness of failing to exist, after leading to a sharp notion of being a self in existence (in a soul-like fashion). — apokrisis

This is silly. Have you considered that you are deluded? Both of us have our beliefs and questioning the foundations of them is going to have to be through rational discussion and not skepticism of our honesty. — darthbarracuda

I think apokrisis is saying that all problems can be magically made to go away with social action. He does not like the idea that pessimist phenomena does not just go away. Some things are in the mix of what it means to be an animal/human etc. I believe he calls this idea dualistic because it is not "dissolved' in semiotic-pragmatist change. He also downplays the problems such that they are "really" non-problems. I don't think he addresses the problems- he only knows how to belittle them. So, if he can side step it with invective, being patronizing, etc. then he can at least try to gain rhetorical points, even if the issues are never addressed.

Your position relies on constant exaggeration. Mostly we have all those things to deal with the realities of life. To claim they are "exactly" fictions to hide death is more argument by histrionics. — apokrisis

Once you've understood the concept of instrumentality- everything can seem as if it is only in relation to it. All other concepts are suffused with the idea of instrumentality, thus its supremacy. Its like once you see it, it does not necessarily go away, though one can distract from it. The problem with internet forums is anyone can say they do anything in "real life", but who knows- you may live in more existential despair than anyone. I wouldn't or couldn't know- All I know is the Peircean traidic-semiotic-pragmatist that is displayed here or anything else you want to convey. This could be said of anyone on any internet forum of course. As histrionic as pessimism's theme of instrumentality is, it can equally be said that your underplaying of it also says something. However, just like your themes of semiotics, the theme of instrumentality may be just as earnest and important- perhaps more so because of its "practical" common understanding.

All attention- whether on discursive thought (logic, science, math, etc.) or simply playing a game has motivations. All humans can self-reflect on their own condition- looking at things from the point of view of that which constrains our very thought (i.e. boredom and survival) and that which we find ourselves situated in (an cultural and natural environment whereby our survival and entertainment/pleasure needs play out such that we do to do to do in a perpetual cycle of striving-for-nothing). This is more paramount than understanding the form of how we came to be- as if discovering this is going to get rid of the instrumentality rather than being another avenue to keep our bored brains satisfied with some sort of complex literature, dialectic, and logical synthesizing regarding a specific topic of preference.

Whether humans are defined in terms of their genetics, anatomy and physiology, their tool-use, their brain structure, their social grouping, their linguistic-conceptual cognitive framework, or a host of other characteristics, the world we live in phenomenologically, is that of the conditions I explained above- survival, boredom, and dealing with these constrains in a certain cultural/environmental context. This is why instrumentality, and "the human condition" is paramount to that which may take our fancy as a result of this very condition which motivates us to seek our attention to other things.

And though you may posit (which if I know your philosophy of things well enough, you will), that I am focusing too much on the individual and not enough on the social relations/environment setting that creates the individual (thus, subtly indicating that human nature is completely malleable to environmental conditions), this is simply overlooking the primacy of the phenomenological experience that we go through as individual beings. Our cognition, upbringing, socialization, etc. does happen in a cultural/social context, but it is always in relation to the our individual egos coping with the environment. As much as we are shaped by the environment, and are part of it, our individual perspective does not melt away, that is to say, the human conditions of survival, boredom, and our ability to understand the instrumentality of existence still happens to an individual within the social context. The social context does not take over this individual perspective and radically alters it, but simply helps in shaping it in some respect. This does not negate the conditions of survival, boredom, and ability to understand instrumentality for the individual who must contend with these things in a particular cultural/environmental setting that that person may have been shaped by.

As I say, true existentialism would instead lead towards vagueness or a state of mindless neutrality - the kind of mind state that Eastern mysticism often advertises as its major benefit. — apokrisis

Hero-myth, mixed with righteous indignation 8-) . Everyone's cool when they seem to where the proverbial sunglasses in their quotes 8-) .

I can't recall this, but did Schopenhauer claim that some aspect of the world is not a "unitary force that manifests as individuated objects in the phenomenal world of space and time"? The way you're stating it, it sounds like he wasn't claiming that (that some aspect was not a unitary force). And it sounds like per him, one of the characteristics of the world as a unitary force is striving because of a deprivation or lack of someting. In other words, that doesn't sound like a departure from the world as a unitary force. (After all, if it were a departure, then "the world is a unitary force . . ." wouldn't be quite true after all. The world would be a unitary force AND something else.)

If that's the case, then there would be no difference between that and "absolute unitary existence."

(Now, whether a claim like "the world is a unitary force (aka will)" actually makes any sense is another issue; but I'm just dealing with the logic of the concepts as presented.) — Terrapin Station

Schopenhauer said the world is ultimately Will (unitary force) but it had the flip side (illusion I guess) of representation which is the world individuated via space, time, and causality. The world of Will is a striving force. I am trying to understand what a unitary existence would be like. If everything is everything else, and there is no individuated anything, then there is no room for even striving as that would indicate some sort of movement, which means that it is not complete. However, I also mentioned that perhaps there is some metaphysical principle that striving represents that we can never really picture that "seems" like striving, but in the metaphysical sense, it is not. We only picture what we know through space and time. In this interpretation, Schopenhauer was trying to get at a metaphysical principle with an analogy of striving, but we cannot take that too literally.

The moment when you understand that you are not an island, and your happiness depends on the happiness and fulfilment of others - that your sense of self is given by, and sustained by your community, then you will love your neighbor as yourself - because you will understand that when your neighbour suffers, you suffer. — Wayfarer

Again, I bring up the idea of instrumentality. We exist in repeated acts of self-maintenance This may involve helping others. But, the repeated acts of survival and X activity (i.e. compassionate acts), comprise the instrumental nature of existing to exist to exist to exist. This absurd instrumental nature of existing to exist is what I am talking about.

You write as if none of those old Eastern sages were aware of this, but I'm sure they were. Your posts are not informed on this matter, you're essentially philosophizing on the basis of your own emotional disposition, from what I can discern. — Wayfarer

Do you want me to cry or something for not mentioning Eastern mystics? It is mostly on my experience this is true. I am someone who exists and can discern stuff myself. What I was trying to say was that these Buddhist/Eastern teachings do not get rid of the problem any more than focusing on any certain subject for long gets rid of a problem. It simply KEEPS YOUR ATTENTION.

That is what Ch'an and Zen Buddhism are based on. Why not have a read of some of Alan Watts' books, his Way of Zen is a good book in my opinion, and philosophically insightful. It's been published for decades, probably out there as a PDF. — Wayfarer

None of this addresses the issue of instrumentality. After the high of meditation, the happiness of reading a book on Zen, one must exist to exist to exist. One bears the burden of existence. The idea was brought up earlier about compassion. If taken to the extreme, we do acts of compassion to do act of compassion to do act of compassion. We do science to do science to do science. We entertain ourselves to entertain ourselves to entertain ourselves. We go to sleep, we wake up and fill the void with whatever keeps our attentions on the surface. A superstructure of laws, physical environs, and social ties already in place from 100s and thousands of years of civilization- all to keep us going for no reason.

Curiously, there is a contemporary Buddhist academic, by the name of David Loy, who says that Buddhism recognises this sense of 'lack' as the source of unease or 'dukkha' which lies at the bottom of our consciousness. Loy says that much in Western culture tries to overcome or ameliorate that sense of lack through consumerism or the pursuit of power, pleasure or wealth. But all these attempts are ultimately futile, because they can't address the real source of the feeling of lack, which is that the self has no real basis in reality, so our lives are spent trying to stablise or reify something inherently unstable and fleeting. — Wayfarer

Yeah that is essentially Schopenhauer's take on it too.

In Mahayana Buddhism, the solution to this lack is not escaping into a separate or other realm, but overcoming the 'illusion of otherness' which arises because of the constant sense of separation and the anxiety which that engenders. So it is not immersion in some undifferentiated wholeness wherein all distinctions are effaced, but in seeing through the sense of otherness that one's natural self-centerdness gives rise to. — Wayfarer

So this seems to be more metaphorical.

Experience might not even be compatible with unitary existence. — darthbarracuda

Well, asking what existence is like if there was no individuation is pretty hard to understand, so it is not something one can simply picture.

But if it's outside of time and space, then action cannot occur, and intelligibility doesn't seem to be able to exist, let alone be seen as a metaphysical specificity. — darthbarracuda

This is my point. How can anything exist with any specificity (what I called individuation)? Action and temporal relation would be non-existent. However, trying to be charitable again- perhaps we are treating Will too concretely. Schop needs to use concepts by analogy to make ideas more concrete where it may be hard to so otherwise. Words like "striving" make us think of motion or action, where in fact, the common idea of striving could be something that is only a rough association by analogy with the metaphysical version that he is trying to convey. The metaphysical version may be very different.

In reality there is likely a naturalistic explanation for why we are the way we are, without need to appeal to an anthropomorphic "something" outside space and time or poetic hypotheses of cosmic exile, and Darwin already helped dispose of the latter (under a naturalistic framework, of course). — darthbarracuda

I think his use of Platonic Ideas is problematic in the way he was using it which seemed to be to differentiate individual characters, species, and objects. It seemed oddly cobbled in the formula. However, the idea of a monism, is not out-of-hand wrong per se, it is simply disprovable by experimental means of testing (which is to say disprovable by any modern notion of what is accepted as a "hard" verifiable truth-claim about the world).

My questioning was meant to understand how everything can be said to be a unity. If everything is everything, then this seems to be saying the same as everything is nothing as there is no room for individuation.

The naturalistic view looks at the context in which a phenomenon happens and try to understand it holistically, whereas the romantic view looks at an isolated phenomenon and attempts to explain everything else by this one phenomenon. — darthbarracuda

True, his ideas came about through Kant's division of noumenal/phenomenal and thus Schop might claim that you are actually not looking at the bigger picture because you are taking the phenomenal for all that there "is". Of course, you can just shoot back "show me the proof", whereby he will simply use arguments of introspection and analogy as you said, which to the modern mind, is weak tea. However, the modern conceptions of what "consciousness" (and can be used as a stand-in, for his Will with its internal view), can be said to be weak tea too. For example, if WillowofDarkness represents modern realist conceptions of mind, then apparently, claiming that "mind is a brute fact of the world that comes about via emergence from non-mind states" is really claiming very little if anything at all.

Schopenhauer's Will becomes not so different from the traditional conception of God, albeit without any explicit benevolence. It's a higher-power force; while theists see God as purely rational and omniscient, Schopenhauer saw the Will as purely irrational and blind; while theists see God as ultimately caring, Schopenhauer saw the Will as ultimately uncaring. They are two sides of the extreme and both involve appeals to a unitary, transcendental force behind reality. — darthbarracuda

I by and large agree with this, but again, do not see anything out-of-hand wrong with grounding reality in a monism. As you mentioned with Darwinism, Schopenhauer has to make up his mind on how he is going to treat reality before the first mind appeared on the scene. I brought the idea that there has to be an ever-present organism in his conception as time could not exist before the first organism perceived it, and yet time started with the first organism. However, since the Will persists as atemporal, there could not be a time before time, and thus makes this a conundrum, as time- being the "flip-side" of Will also could not start at any prior time before time.

You cannot stop life. Even if all humans stopped reproducing and went extinct, there would remain most of the animals, which would probably flourish under the absence of humans. There would still be lots of pain and suffering, animals ripping each other to shreds over mating rights, hunting others for food, etc.; and over time, those remaining apes would probably evolve into more complex species similar to humans. — Zosito

Then they may evolve self-awareness and come to the same conclusion.

And even if you somehow managed to stop all life on earth, surely there must be life on other planets? We don't have evidence for it, but it seems to me a very plausible inference. But even if there was no life in other planets, the bacteria left over on earth would probably evolve into more and more complex organisms over time again. — Zosito

Same response.

Anti-natalist speak of some "solution" to suffering, as if they stand somehow outside of nature, judging it and coming up with ways to manipulate it. But the nature that permeates all is in them as well. — Zosito

It is not a solution to suffering wholesale. It is simply an elegant solution to prevent future suffering for at least one's own possible offspring. That is X number of possible offspring (based on cultural/biological likelihood that this could be the case) who will not suffer.

Certainly, there are two main ideas of suffering. One I call the "Western" notion- this is utilitarian notions of negative experiences. There is also what I call the "Eastern" notion of suffering- this is a much more subtle understanding but the insight of Buddhism, Ancient Greco-Roman philosophies and the like picked up on- this is the idea that "we are a constant becoming but never being". There is a dissatisfaction at the root of motives, and this can be distilled a constant need for turning basic survival needs and angst into pleasure and entertainment goals that are never satisfied. There is an existential imperative to do to do to do. Anyways, I know your inquiry was strictly on antinatalism, not necessarily the philosophy surrounding the particular stance.

If one were to be charitable to Schop's idea, perhaps we might say that Schop meant that there was a unitary principle behind all phenomena and that if one were to distill out the true "logos" behind all of reality- we would find the principle of Will and thus it is that reality is simply the principle of Will in its most abstracted state. This then, would bring up the idea of how it is a logos or principle can "be" in any real way. Perhaps then it is like Platonic Realism. This principle would be a real universal of all other universals (like the Good in Plato's conception). Will seems not just an abstracted idea then, but some sort of force here. What the nature of the metaphysical force of Will is, I do not know, but clearly something that strives without reason. A principle is simply an idea though, and so obviously giving a principle attributes like striving, does not make sense. The Good is the most complete of entities and is "real" in Plato's universe, but it is real, not just an abstraction. A similar conception could possibly be what Schop is getting at.

Can you explain why you think this way? — Ovaloid

If everything is unitary existence, presumably, there would be no individuated beings that are "becoming" (always changing, always lacking something), because everything would presumably already be whole. In order to have becoming, there as to be something to become or change into, and if everything is everything, there would be no need or logical possibility for change.

Maybe you can explain this to me, but if the world is one (as Schopenhauer argued for, a monism), how can something be lacking? Where are these "other pieces" coming from? Are they just being rearranged endlessly as the Will changes form or whatever? — darthbarracuda

Well, that is where I think Schop's metaphysics may break down and why I brought up the idea of "illusion" a while ago. Illusion, in the previous thread, was about trying to account for how consciousness can sometimes be said to not exist but be an "illusion". I claimed that even the illusion must be accounted for, and that by re-labeling the phenomena, it does not really explain it but move the goal post for yet another necessary explanation. The same can be said of this- if the world of the phenomena/representation does not "really" exist, but is an illusion, then this relabeled reality must also be accounted for as how the "illusion" exists, despite its apparent "distortion" of what is truly supposed to be going on. Going on to say that the Will is objectifying itself in space and time, really does not make sense, because now we are adding that the oneness is "doing" something, which would mean that there are various parts doing. How can a single entity "do" anything if all is one? Time and space are conjured here by fiat, and so are the objects which are individuated by it. It is like existence is supposed to come about through some slow churning of stardust into planets but at some metaphysical level.

I meant to tell you that this framework through which you see the world - this framework through which you look at, feel and perceive the world, namely "turning our boredom into pleasure and entertainment, ensuring survival", this is a modern framework. Your way of experiencing the world is therefore alien to most people who have lived until today. They didn't feel this way about the world, they didn't think about it in these terms, they didn't relate to it through these categories. It's the difference between an anxious person looking at a spider, and one who has no fear looking at the same spider. The two experiences are completely alien from each other, and very often the one having no fear can't understand the one being anxious, and the one being anxious can't understand the one having no fear. — Agustino

I just explained how this shift of framework can happen. This is a tacit agreement, but with explanation. Why would you then proceed to elaborate as if I did not address this in my last post?

Only in modern society - very important. — Agustino

Even if that was the case, it ain't going back any time soon. There can be an argument that we were too preoccupied with survival lifestyle where the paramount need was to understand how to live immersed in a particular natural setting in a tribal context. Thus, the instrumentality that was always there was just never realized. Perhaps that could be the way it was "meant to be" in terms of the setting for our original evolutionary needs, but for contingent reasons of much of humanity's cultural lifestyle shift to agriculture and thus civilization, we can thus realize this.

In a nutshell: What, if any, is the purpose/goal a human would strive towards, in living his/her life? — hunterkf5732

Humans strive-for-nothing. We are constantly turning our boredom into pleasure and entertainment goals and ensuring our survival (in whatever economic/cultural context that manifests). We are doing, to do, to do. Survival and boredom are the limits of our actions, and the prime motivator behind almost all else in human affairs.

Epicurus might say we should strive for art, relations with close friends, and philosophizing with friends.

Epictetus and Seneca might say we should strive for the Stoic virtues which would be (according to Stoics) living in accordance with Natural Reason and would (as a by-product) lead to a "happier" life

Schopenhauer would say that we should strive for non-willing being by experiencing aesthetic experiences, choosing compassionate acts which are motivated towards helping the other person a, and most importantly, ascetic contemplation and renunciation of one's willing nature.

Camus/Nietzsche might say that we should live our life as if at every moment we were to do an action again, it would be something we would choose over and over again. Life has much suffering, but we can make it a tragic-comedy of the absurd by our self-awareness of the situation.

schopenhauer1 (I) would say that we should be willing to look at boredom straight on, the striving-for-nothing core of our being, understand its implications- we are doing to keep alive and not feel existential boredom. It is all instrumental. Every action of maintenance, every action of survival, every action of entertainment. It is ok to bitch, it is good to rebel against the situation. Contra amor fati, one can feel jaded, bitter, slighted, and the like. Most philosophies, want you to subdue these feelings- as long as you somehow find something in the moment that can entertain you for that day, you may forget the instrumentality, but it always comes back. No one wants to think that while they are immersed in a moment of "flow" (being on the surface of things), or a day of entertainment (social relations/games/revelry/media/substances and the like).

Accepting that there is no inherent meaning, and living in spite of the fact. — Albert Keirkenhaur

There are two things here: 1) Deprivation and 2) Instrumental nature of existence

1) Deprivation- We are in a way, this "Will" that keeps needing and wanting. At the least, it is the nature of being an animal. This will becomes more complex with the human animal with our nuanced cognition and psychology. Some (like Schopenhauer) might say this is a principle of existence itself. Anyways, at the least you must deal with your own need for things like survival and boredom. Also, note you must deal with intrusive and external pain that is unwanted and contingent to dealing with various experiences in the world.

2.) Instrumentality- We are in a way, striving-for-nothing. This means that besides our natural fear of death, and attachment to our wants and needs (which present themselves in a specific linguistic-cultural construct), we are simply doing to do to do. We have the sun goes up and down, the world turns, space ever so perceptively expands, time moves forward, and entropy increases, you (the individual organism) produce your enthalpy to keep your system alive in the world. We have a consciousness that knows our own situation. Perhaps at some point in our species' evolution- when we were more tribal and much of our general processor brains were involved in keeping alive by understanding our environmental surroundings- perhaps it was not as much a problem. It is the case though, that humans can think beyond this, or provide for cultural circumstances which break out of this more "in the moment" mode of thought. Thus, we are more self-aware of instrumentality perhaps than any other time in history.. or at least those in more technologically "advanced" civilizations have had this self-awareness since it started from the first major agricultural societies.

You can take the acceptance or rebellious stance on this. The acceptance stance is the Camus way of somehow trying to look at our life a tragi-comedy. The rebellious stance is confronting this fact and not accepting it. Instead, one is allowed to bitch about the situation, and keep in mind how everything is related to being instrumental in nature. We are all world-sufferers, dealing with deprivation and instrumentality. If everything was resolved, there would be no need for this striving. If everything was resolved, there would be a unity which is effectively the same as non-being.

Exactly. It's state unique to any other-- it is "what it's likeness": the existence of being aware which is not captured in any description. This is the "stuff" other than just being a state of existence. It's a "what it's likeness" rather than a rock or limb. — TheWillowOfDarkness

So it's a brute fact. Cool philosophy man.

Being a "what it's likeness," which is not captured in any description, IS how the state is distinct and unique. It doesn't need to be anything else. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Really? That's it? I guess everyone can close the books on the mind. Case closed. I'm glad that was figured out in a sentence.

No... that's the strawman again. Molecules do not become the sensation of red. Certain instances of molecules generate a new state (consciousness) which is not molecules. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Right, certain things cause this "red" thing which is unique in the fact that it is a what it's like experience, something that is radically different than any other physical phenomena. If you cannot see how this is so radically different that pit is not like other physical phenomena of nature- even other very unique phenomena.

A "physical state of the world" which is experience-- mental stuff is a physical state of the world itself. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Oh, so you are saying that it is another state altogether- sounds familiar. So, instead of outright dualism, it is a hidden dualism. Gotcha.

For emergence, mental stuff is physical stuff, just not the same physical stuff as bodies and their environment (e.g. rods, cones and light). Experience is a unique existing state. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Now you are just stretching what physical stuff is. How is it that mental states have everything classically given to mental states, and relabeling it as "physical stuff" doing anything different except simply relabeling what used to be called one thing another? Fine, everything is "physical stuff" that does not dismiss the fact that the mental states are different than other other types of physical stuff in very unique ways.

The emergentist isn't one step away from saying that mental stuff is part of existence. They claim it outright. Existing experiences emerge out of non-conscious objects. The presence of experience in the world is the intention of their entire position.

Here the only thing you get wrong is the "mystical." Since experience is an existing state, there is nothing strange about it's presence as a unique object. To be more than non-concious states is what the existence of experience entails. There is no "mystery." The uniqueness of consciousness is its nature. If consciousness exists, that's what we get. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Notice I put "mystical" in quotes. Yes it exists, but I disagree that it is not strange in its uniqueness among all other existent things. No other process, semiotic or otherwise, seems to be like this process in its uniqueness- sensation, imagination, cognition, etc. This is not just unique like one process is unique from another, but it is different in its apparent nature in that it has its "what it's likeness" that is leftover and is not explained where other physical processes do not have this explanatory gap. It is in causality (or may be the ground of causality if you think that), like other physical processes, but how it is that this mental stuff exists once other processes are in play, is not explained. Why the genie? What is this "stuff" other than saying that it is a state of existence. It does not seem entailed in the physical processes themselves like almost all other processes are. All other physical processes create simply more combinations of physical stuff.. molecules become more complex molecules.. That makes sense. Molecules become the sensation of red, that does not make sense other than positing a dualism of mental stuff that is simply not explained as to why it is entailed from molecules when all other stuff is not.

It is a theory of replicators subject to variation and selection. But look - a "physical" theory of abstract objects! — tom

Yes, a theory or replicators and much much more. A very rich and informed theory. That is still physical processes. Where at the end of the explanation of physical processes (which can be millions of pages in scientific research and academic knowledge), there is no leftover thing called "experience" to be explained. The physical remains the physical. Mental can be tied to physical through causality, but how it is that there is this experiential mental leftover from the theories is not explained, and perhaps cannot be simply through research.

This means that I am taking compassion and running with it - I am probing the limits of what compassion leads to, even if this is not actually possible. If we were more compassionate individuals, then we would help more people. Since we are not helping very many people, and instead attending to our own desires, it stands that we are not as compassionate as we think we are, and since morality stems from compassion, this means we are not as moral as we think we are. — darthbarracuda

It sounds like you are making compassion this monstrous dictator. It would be compassionate for the do-gooder to realize that a life straining at every moment to do-good would be wearisome and make their life miserable and thus would need have their own suffering alleviated by only having a moderate amount of compassionate acts. Perhaps there is a golden mean by which compassion is mitigated by enough self-interested acts so that it can be sustained. If there is not, then compassion would be causing there to be more suffering for the compassionate which would defeat the cause of compassion which is alleviating suffering. Thus, it is the application of compassion which may be off here. The only reason to be burn out and be miserable in the process would be out of some principle which is probably no longer compassion as I stated earlier. If someone has a guilt complex that large, then that might not even be compassion anymore.

Also, more importantly, you may be making a non-issue into an issue. You are countering the claim that people are not as moral as they claim to be or think they are. I would argue that not many people go around saying or thinking they are super compassionate necessarily. I think some people do compassionate acts every once in a while, or what "classically" looks like compassionate acts in our society, but I doubt many people go around claiming how super-compassionate they are. Even Schopenhauer who claimed that morality is based on compassionate sentiment, I doubt would claim that he himself was compassionate. Did you have quotes from him claiming otherwise? If I recall, he seemed to think it was rare for people to live with that much compassion. I'll try to find a quote or something if needed.

Edit: I also wanted to address the idea of inefficiency. I guess this approach is utilitarian, but call it what you will.. One of my objections with Stoicism vs. Pessimism was that Stoicism had a long process of suffering-reduction through practice, discipline, etc. This whole need to overcome in the first place could simply be solved for the following generation by not having them. I described it as more elegant. You are not trapping the next guy or gal to deal with any issue that needs to be over come period. Now, for those of us who are here already, we are already trapped and thus must manage. What is the best way to manage? I always advocated recognition that we are suffering. One can call it rebellious pessimism. Let people know that this is not an inevitability and make sure that they know why it is that life needs to be played out with all its obligations for anyone. My focus is the instrumentality and people's understanding of this idea to the point where everything else, including other suffering, is put in context of this idea. The minute we focus on the details that are tangential we are doing things that Zapffe explained- distraction, isolation, anchoring, etc..

Precisely. The emergentist is the one that respects the "otherness" of consciousness. For them it is enough for mental stuff to be a unique property of the universe. — TheWillowOfDarkness

NO, my point is that they do NOT treat it is unique. They UNDERMINE it to be just another physical process. But that seems unjustified based on how unique it is compared to say, a force particle/wave or a matter particle.

Sensation, imagination, understanding, etc.,etc., why would we insist that consciousness was anything else? — TheWillowOfDarkness

No, we would not. Rather, it is fantastically different in nature than other physical processes. You are being unintentionally patronizing here by stating the obvious- that this stuff exists.

If you call recognising consciousness as a unique property expressed by some states the world "deflating it," the emergenist is certainly guilty. For them consciousness doesn't have to be anything more-- there's nothing more about to describe or explain. — TheWillowOfDarkness

And that is precisely their problem. There is more than just saying that it exists. Again, it is unique compared to other processes. If this is the case, emergentists are essentially dualists, and then they are one step away from unintentionally saying that there is this mystic mental stuff that is part of existence. No self-respecting emergentist wants that, yet ignoring mental stuff to explain only models, implicitly seems to embrace this.

It's the dualist who doesn't recognise consciousness as unique. They are always insisting it is more than the existence of sensation, imagination, understanding, etc.,etc., as if consciousness needed to be something else. — TheWillowOfDarkness

No, rather dualists are saying that sensation, imagination, understanding, etc. etc. are not the same as physical processes because the sensation of "red" is not the same as the wavelength hitting rods and cones UNLESS it IS the same (pace panpsychism). Rather dualists (which I personally do not identify with), will say that mental stuff is tied with physical stuff but is not the same. Again, I am not arguing this, just stating some of its ideas.

Dualism is reductionist. The emergentist says: "Hey, I found these unique states of the world. They are awareness, sensation, imagination and understanding, etc.,etc." How does the dualist respond? By suggesting the unique state of consciousness is not enough for consciousness, as if consciousness had to be defined by some other sort of presence. The dualist does not take the otherness of consciousness seriously. They suppose there is some way to make it disappear, to reduce it to something else, at which point we will have a "full account of consciousness." — TheWillowOfDarkness

Actually, I would argue that dualists do the opposite- they overmine consciousness as being so other, it does not fit in any physical framework. It is tied to physical processes but are not constituent in its nature of the physical processes. Again, I am not advocating dualism. However, without being a dualist, I am saying emergentists, are doing the opposite of dualists by simply overlooking how different mental processes are than physical processes. By simply saying mental processes exist, and emerge out of non-mental processes, there has to be an explanation of how this is so, and so far, from you at least, I see no explanation, just a "just so" story and moving forward with semiotics, formal causes, and all the rest.

The "mental stuff" is the existence of a conscious state. "What is it like" is searching for the being of consciousness-- not descriptions of "red," but the existence of being aware of "red." As such this has no description because any description is just words. No matter how I describe experience (even if it's in the first person), it will still only be a description. My telling of the red I saw will never be my seeing of red. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yes, so it's about as "silly" as panpsychism isn't it? There is this mental stuff which just "exists" but it emerges from non-consciousness at point X time. There is a genie that comes out of the bottle when the right combination of emergence stuff happens..What is it, then that the world is before mental stuff? That too cannot be described with any certainty except mathematical models and thus we are stuck with a genie that came out of mathematical models. It has no efficacy or about just as much cache as panpsychism.. It explains nothing and its only appeal is it seems to conform to our naive common sense version of "first non-conscious' and then "conscious". It really says little, if anything about what mental stuff is other than the strangest most unique property in the universe- one that allows for all other properties to be known, that gives sensation, that allows for thought, imagination, and the other cognitive abilities that animals have and even gives us the ability to understand all other properties is simply like a particle or a force or any other physical process. The otherness of consciousness is not taken serious. Where panpsychists might overmine this idea, emergentists deflate it.

3. Emergence means the presence of a new and different state, not that bodies are experience. Under emergence, the non-conscious never becomes the conscious.

4. Thus, the major charge leveled against emergence is false. It never entails non-conscious states turning into conscious states. Emergence is constituted new states of consciousness following states of body. — TheWillowOfDarkness

That makes no sense. I get that "emergence means the presence of a new a different state". But it does not follow that non-conscious never BECOMES conscious.. You just said that there is a presence of a new state- presumably the very thing (consciousness) that does not "become". Those are two opposing ideas. One that non-conscious does not become conscious and one where new states come from previous states.

The point of emergence is that experience is not always so. New states of consciousness appear out of previous states which are not consciousness.

If one rejects that the conscious can come out of the non-conscious, then they consider emergence impossible. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This I agree with and hence I am disagreeing with your argument.

7. Semiotic theory holds the account of emergence. New states which are consciousness appear out of those which are not. Experience's place in triad is a particular state of the world with causal relationships to different states of the world. It not always there, but when it is, it is always itself. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Right, I get this, but as you stated, I don't get how consciousness comes out of non-consciousness. I get how new states come out of new states constructed IN conscious experience. I get how physical things may even begat physical things "prior" to consciousness. I just do not get how physical things beget consciousness, which is the only thing we know which constructs the very world where things emerge in the first place. Prior to this, physical things are "being" or "doing their thing" if you will. But what is this mental "stuff" that is "what it's like to be something" otherwise known as experience?

Experiences aren't generated separate to the triad monism. They are part of it. The "hard problem" misunderstands consciousness. It thinks it something separate to the world, outside its formal cause (from a semiotic theory perspective), so it just misses the boat completely in its analysis of experiences and the world. — TheWillowOfDarkness

So where is experience IN the triad monism? If it was always there- panexperientialism. If it "comes about" how is it "semiotics doing their thing" on one side and "semiotics being experience" on the other?

Experience doesn't have a formal cause separate to the world. That's what emergence means. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I don't know what you mean here. I don't want to misinterpret you and lead down more unnecessary rabbit holes of circular arguing. Much of my problem debating you I believe is clarity. If you can, would you please bullet point the exact things you think I am positing and then answer them beneath with your objections? I think that might be a more productive way to debate as it's hard for me to follow you at times, possibly due to the phrasing and wording you use.

From a dualist perceptive (i.e. experience has a formal cause separate to the rest of the world), emergence isn't "unexplained," it's impossible. No account of consciousness works because the dualist considers it be outside and separate to the things that exist ( "body"). — TheWillowOfDarkness

No, they don't think it's "impossible". It happens all the time WHEN there is already-a mind perceiving it (i.e. bricks become buildings, tropical storms become hurricanes, any physical process over time, etc.). Now, experience, DOES appear to be different than physical processes UNLESS one posits that the physical processes ARE in someway EXPERIENTIAL.

So yes, I agree that compassion cannot be sustained on the level I was talking about earlier (where every moment of our lives is dedicated to helping others), but that is a personal failure. — darthbarracuda

Indeed we are not all saints, nor is it usually in our capacity to do so. Schop did have some ideas on character that could be used as a model here. He thought thought people had free-will in one sense, but that the free-will would happen in a context of someone's character which he thought was kind of fixed (like its own Idea). He thought some characters were likely to be more compassionate than others. I am not sure, even these people can be perfectly compassionate and thus "fail" at perfect compassion as well. So, it perhaps is just a problem of having an ideal that is never met, like a perfect circle.

Like I said before, how far away does someone have to be for them to be insignificant? If we were perfectly compassionate individuals, then we would recognize that distance doesn't have any importance here. If we hold a negative view of existence, then we are being disingenuous by continuing to live - and thus support - the affirmative lifestyle. Without trying to be cliche, we have a choice: to be active or passive, a 1 or a 0.

I don't think we have a choice if we were to fully use your wording here of "compassion". Compassion is an internal feeling that moves you. It may move you to tear up seeing or hearing about people in pain, it may make you write some thoughts to sway people, it may move you to donate, or it may move you to go out and try to actively participate in alleviating a particular suffering.

Let's say that the list I gave is some hierarchy of least to most one can do when one is moved. It seems some people "feel" moved towards different reactions to a particular X instance of suffering. Most people do not "feel" moved enough to actively participate in the alleviation of suffering. Perhaps they lack the compassion that others have. If it is laziness, then that is still effectively saying that they lacked sufficient capacity for compassion as they were not moved enough.

Can compassion be taught? Schopenhauer did not think so as he thought characters were fixed. I am not as sure one way or the other. I think you may be able to give someone a guilty complex, but I am not sure how much a guilt complex is compassion or a particular type of neuroses one cultivates to act as if one were actually compassionate. Compassion and guilt are not necessarily connected. One feeling is being driven by some sort of negative (driving away) nagging feeling that, in a way, is a selfish need to not have that feeling anymore, the other comes out of a positive sense (driving towards) of wanting to see suffering alleviated for that other person.

So, at the end of the day, no we are not saints, nor do we have the capacity to necessarily be ones. However, if you used another basis that is not compassion, you may perhaps have a point. So, it is perhaps a self-imposed duty or utilitarian formula which you are truly trying to posit: If one wants to prevent future suffering, to be consistent, one ought to prevent present suffering. So here, you are appealing to people's sense of consistency- making them put their money where their mouth is. However, this is simply a command to be followed out of a sense of consistency if it is deontological. If the basis of ethics is something of a sentiment, then of course, this is not ethical- merely rule-following.

The same for utilitarianism. If utilitarianism is correct simply because it cares most about results, then you perhaps may have a point that, motivation be damned, suffering can be alleviated if more people try to alleviate it. However, if one were truly utilitarian, and did a calculus of cost/benefit, it might actually be that helping one individual is NOT the best way to alleviate suffering. Rather, donating to organizations or being on the board of organizations that can help in a FAR GREATER capacity might be the best way. Or perhaps something even more impersonal and less-compassionate looking. It might even be the case that simply being a consumer in a capitalist economy turns out to be the greatest benefit as the taxes go into research and activities that do indeed help far more people in far more effective ways.

Not helping others at every moment of the day, and being egoistic, does not mean that one is enthralled with life. This is similar to the "if you think life is suffering, why don't you just kill yourself?" argument. Just because one does not commit suicide does not show that, indeed one must really think life is great. Rather, just like suicide, it is in most people's nature to be self-interested. Most people care enough to about their own lives to not be burned out emotionally and physically with other people's problems at all times. I accept this fact.

The problem that I see with this is that, especially coming from a pessimist such as yourself, the world is already not worth living in, so these losses of other apparently valuable things are not really that bad, since they are just distractions. This is why I had previously said having a negative outlook but continuing to live affirmatively (i.e. "leeching" off of the affirmative community) is logically contradictory. The philosophical outlook and the subsequent lifestyle are not entirely compatible. — darthbarracuda

I am not Schopenhauer, though I bare his name on here :). So, I don't identify with all his conclusions though I can sympathize where he was going with many of his thoughts. For example, I don't think we can achieve some sort of state of non-willing as he thought could happen with much ascetic practice.

I think my point earlier was that the compassion thing, when taken to its extreme conclusion (assuming anyone knows the appropriate compassionate acts to choose, who to apply it to, how to prioritize them, how to manifest them so they are actually helping and not just appearing to help, or whether helping in short-term vs. long-term and many many other considerations which makes the implementation of this trickier than one might think...) is that it leads to the same conclusion that one would get anyways, just in more stark fashion- that is to say that life is simply instrumental. So, you will never really fix the problem that is at the core of things, only the surface of them. So, anyways, if I was to use Schop, I believe he admitted most people are not driven purely by compassion. I agree with this. For various psychological and social reasons, it would be much harder to move people to act at all times out of compassion. I think it is impossible to act at all times out of compassion. You cannot will yourself to be compassionate. You may follow some abstract formula, or act out of some self-imposed duty, but that is not compassion.

Recently I have adopted a neat little personal slogan, which I think captures my intuitions about a lot of ethical issues quite well:

If you care about suffering, you will do something about it.

Of course, this is also rather vague in prescription - to what extent should you go to do something about suffering? — darthbarracuda

I think this is almost a bit of a repugnant conclusion of compassion. If everyone was busy always fixing everyone else's problem, the instrumentality of life would rear its ugly head as it would be very apparent that life is nothing more than repairing and maintaining rather than pursuing anything else. Now, I am not saying that it is wrong necessary to live in a world where every motivation would be to help others, with as much ability as possible at all times, but it would leave no room for other things, and thus the value of other things that are not ethics-related or compassion-related. This kind of world, for many, would be a world not worth living in. Therefore, much of the personal ethical compassion can be alleviated by organizations and social bodies (like government) that would work at these things, thus leaving others to pursue more than just helping others.

Of course, the irony is, that almost anything we do is instrumental- that is it is striving to strive, constantly distracting ourselves from the the fact that there is really nothing behind the repeated actions, or the repeated attempt for novel actions. So, to conclude, this scenario of compassion-only actions would simply hasten the idea that we are just maintaining ourselves to maintain. People need the distractions of entertainment and pleasure oriented goals, otherwise the futility of just living to live would be too apparent.

Whitehead was not a panpsychist, but a pan-experientialist; a distinction which Whitehead himself was at pains to emphasize. — John

I would agree he is a pan-experientialist. Pan-experientialism is related to panpsychism. But if you do not agree with that, I can use pan-experientialist. Either way, the system has "occasions of experience" baked into it from the start, not emerging from nowhere at X time.

If matter has subjectivity, then why don't animals have it? — tom

I would argue that animals do have subjectivity- they have a "what it's like aspect". It may not be self-awareness though.

So even phenomenology has an irreducible Kantian issue in thinking it can talk about the thing in itself which would be naked or primal experience. Any attempt at description is already categoric and so immediately into the obvious problems of being a model of the thing. You can't just look and check in a naively realistic way to see what is there. Already you have introduced the further theoretical constructs of this "you" and "the thing" which is being checked. — apokrisis

So, you are going to bypass this problem by ignoring it and go on to more answerable problems? Then you are not answering the question at hand. The naked primal experience is at hand. No one is saying you have to provide naked primal experience but explain it. You have not explained the dasein, you have only explained the formal structure for which it evolves. How dasein is generated from the triadic monism or what not is not explained. Even if it was, it would be an emeregence of non-dasein world into dasein world, and then you would have to explain how it is that an inner world of a subjective experience can come out of nowhere at X point in time.

In terms of the "hard problem," semiotic theory considers it either incoherent or irrelevant. Since qualia doesn't have an apparent logical structure, there's nothing to say about it with the constraints of logic. — TheWillowOfDarkness

So how then this does not answer the question at hand by bypasses it to go to an easier problem.

My objection to your argument is going the other way to what you interpreted. I'm saying your formless bits of mind and body are incoherent to the semiotic theorist. The problem is not that you've interpreted the triad as formless, it is you are saying mind and body somehow have presence outside the triad. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Yes, there is incoherence, but it is coming from the semiotics side, at least as I see it at this point. How is by positing "triad" vs. "dual" you are solving the problem? Panpsychists essentially say the dualism dissolves in the fact that matter is experiential. They have to bite the bullet regarding the idea that experience is just always there. How is the triad dissolving the problem besides simply explaining "formal cause formal cause formal cause" and using the word "illusion" every once in a while? Like elimintive materialists, but for much different reasons, they must explain the "illusion" and how this illusion even comes about from the triad.

Yeah, apokrisis introduces a Logic which is actually illogical because it is supposed to exist independently of any mind, and this Logic is what structures the world. We all know though, that logic is mind dependent. Then with a big turn around, this Logic is called "mind-like". But this claim of "mind-like", or "mindfulness", is completely unjustified because this Logic has been thoroughly separated from mind in the premise.

So intention, attention, thinking, sensation, feelings, emotions, and all these things which are normally associated with mind, and are properly "mind-like", are irrelevant to apokrisis' metaphysics. Apokrisis has assumed a nonsense form of Logic, which operates within the wold, acting to structure it, operating independently of a mind. — Metaphysician Undercover

Good points.

I would put "experience" in quote marks to show that even to talk about it is already to turn it into a measurable posited within a theoretical structure. — apokrisis

Then use "sense" or basic perception if experience is too vague or too complex a notion for your material cause.

So the main difference is that you are taking experience as a brute fact. Essentially you are being a naive realist about your phenomenological access. Qualia are real things to you.

I would take qualia as being the kinds of facts we can talk about - given a suitable structure of ideas is in place. — apokrisis

Oh come now. A baby or animal doesn't have brute fact experiences? It only becomes experience through some sort of linguistic filter? Blah.

Your approach is illogical. Either it is homuncular in requiring a self that stands outside "the realm of brute experience" to do the experiencing of the qualia. Or the qualia simply are "experiential", whatever the heck that could mean in the absence of an experiencer. — apokrisis

You simply state the problem, but it doesn't go away. Actually this is the basis of the Hard Problem of Consciousness in the first place. By stating the problem in some sort of dismissive way, the problem itself does not disappear.

My way is logical. It is the global structure of observation that shapes up the appearance of local observables. And these observables have the nature of signs. They are symbols that anchor the habits of interpretation. — apokrisis

See, this is where lose you. That literally does not make sense to me. You have to explain that better to be relevant in the conversation. As I interpret that when you say "observation that shapes.." you are committing the very fallacy of a homuncular that you accuse me of. When you say "appearance of local observables" it sounds again, like you are committing the fallacy. And then you move the topic all together to signs which does not explain the observation itself, or the appearance of local observables, which to me just seems like a fancy way to say "experience". It's as if you briefly mention the brute fact of experience as material cause but overlook this very fact in your theory by wanting to focus so much on the formal cause. By the way, I am not unsympathetic to semiosis as a way to hash out the formal causes in a modelling format, but I am noticing a trend to stick to the formal and not look at the material.

The world is vague, not specific forms of the world. Minds and bodies don't pre-exist their logical structure. Bodies and minds are two categories of caused states in the world, constituted in particular logical structure.

There are no "formless fundamental bodies and experience bits" which are shaped in logic. Such a thing makes no sense-- bodies and minds have a logical structure. They cannot be prior to that logical constraint. — TheWillowOfDarkness

You misinterpreted me. I never meant that each of the trinity of the triad is there in some formless way, but that it is indeed the material root or cause. You tend to strawman a lot there Willow.

Panpsychism doesn't say matter is mind (that would make it entirely idealism). It says any matter has mind (experience). This distinction is sort of important. It considers mind and body as distinct. All matter has some sort of experience, rather than all matter being experience. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This is a really thin distinction if any.. But I'll go along with your pseudo-distinction if that makes you feel better or to have a better grasp on the issue..

The semiotic theorist doesn't agree with this. A symbol is not a mind. The pixels on the screen might by symbolic, but they are not conscious beings. Experience might be a brute fact, but it's not a brute fact everywhere (and most critically, for the semiotic theorist, these brute facts have a logical structure; there can't be these facts without the first having the logic). — TheWillowOfDarkness

This is giving short thrift to panpsychists like (presumably) Whitehead, who clearly had a logic for his bits of "occasions of experience". Panpsychists aren't just 'free for allists'. Rather, they too probably think that the occasions of experience that are fundamental (matter/experience bits) and then are shaped by logical structures to form various types of experiential structures.