I didn't know we were talking about 'my' interpretations? — The Great Whatever

Unless you are quoting directly from Schopenhauer or unless you are a direct conduit as to Schopenhauer's meaning, we are.

This is explained in Book II of WWR. — The Great Whatever

No, I just want you to get at something you are missing. Will "objectifying" itself, I'd like YOUR interpretation of that notion, not explain to me as if I did not know anything about Schopenhauer.

No, the subject must be. The subject is not the organism, or any worldly object. — The Great Whatever

I agree yes, but disagree that because (emphasis mine)

Thus we see, on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent upon the first conscious being, however undeveloped it may be — Schopenhauer

And here:

But the world as idea... only appears with the opening of the first eye. Without this medium of knowledge it cannot be, and therefore it was not before it. But without that eye, that is to say, outside of knowledge, there was also no before, no time. Thus time has no beginning, but all beginning is in time. — Schopenhauer

There is no reason. You're thinking of the principle of sufficient reason as if it applied to thing in itself. From within the world, we can give reasons as to why certain biological organisms with representational capacities developed. But this entire explanation, and the world itself, is already just an objectification of will. At bottom, will has no reason for what it does. To think otherwise is to make a category error. — The Great Whatever

What are you talking about? Explain "already" and "objectification of the will".

The subject has no beginning in time, but (i) that's not because it has been around forever, but rather because the category of time doesn't apply to it, and (ii) the subject is not an animal, but the source of the representational forms. — The Great Whatever

Let's look at what Schopenhauer said shall we?:

Thus we see, on the one hand, the existence of the whole world necessarily dependent upon the first conscious being, however undeveloped it may be; on the other hand, this conscious being just as necessarily entirely dependent upon a long chain of causes and effects which have preceded it, and in which it itself appears as a small link. These two contradictory points of view, to each of which we are led with the same necessity, we might again call an antinomy in our faculty of knowledge... The necessary contradiction which at last presents itself to us here, finds its solution in the fact that, to use Kant's phraseology, time, space, and causality do not belong to the thing-in-itself, but only to its phenomena, of which they are the form; which in my language means this: The objective world, the world as idea, is not the only side of the world, but merely its outward side; and it has an entirely different side—the side of its inmost nature—its kernel—the thing-in-itself... But the world as idea... only appears with the opening of the first eye. Without this medium of knowledge it cannot be, and therefore it was not before it. But without that eye, that is to say, outside of knowledge, there was also no before, no time. Thus time has no beginning, but all beginning is in time.

Since, however, it is the most universal form of the knowable, in which all phenomena are united together through causality, time, with its infinity of past and future, is present in the beginning of knowledge. The phenomenon which fills the first present must at once be known as causally bound up with and dependent upon a sequence of phenomena which stretches infinitely into the past, and this past itself is just as truly conditioned by this first present, as conversely the present is by the past. Accordingly the past out of which the first present arises, is, like it, dependent upon the knowing subject, without which it is nothing. It necessarily happens, however, that this first present does not manifest itself as the first, that is, as having no past for its parent, but as being the beginning of time. It manifests itself rather as the consequence of the past, according to the principle of existence in time. In the same way, the phenomena which fill this first present appear as the effects of earlier phenomena which filled the past, in accordance with the law of causality. Those who like mythological interpretations may take the birth of Kronos, the youngest of the Titans, as a symbol of the moment here referred to at which time appears, though, indeed it has no beginning; for with him, since he ate his father, the crude productions of heaven and earth cease, and the races of gods and men appear upon the scene. — Schopenhauer

The organism must be present for time to be there. We agree on this. We agree that Schopenhauer conceives of Will, which we can make an analogy from by our own subjective willing. However, our disagreement is over how it is time exists at all. Why not just will and no subject/object relationship? I will not even go further and let you answer the question first and go from there, because I think that will be telling as to how this disagreement will unfold.

@csalisbury, does this make sense to you, or am I talking to myself here?

There is an atemporal present in which the subject exists, but since it is atemporal, there's no sense in which this can have been there 'since the beginning,' since beginnings exist only in time.

I really don't know what else to say about this unless you elaborate further on what your issue is. Repeating it isn't helping. — The Great Whatever

The subject is atemporal, but so is the subject/object relationship. I hope that sums it up differently. I agree, if beginnings exist only in time, then there was no beginning to the organism that has subject/object relationship. You have to make an account for the representation side of the account.

Schopenhauer is quite clear that representation is a function only of animals. — The Great Whatever

No, that I agree with, I just don't think you can say more about what Will is outside what we can analyze from the subject/object perspective, as we cannot get outside our own perspective. So you cannot say what Will is, in and of itself other than a few things like "striving" which was gleamed at only through our human subject/object perspective.

This is simply wrong. The way Schop. introduces the notion of will is through our own primitive knowledge of it through our own identity with it, via movements of our body and pleasure and pain. There is no subject/object distinction in these areas, though Schop. does say the form of time remains in some rudimentary form there (this latter point I would dispute, and admit it is my own interpretation, not his).

it is important to rememeber that Schop. thinks we are the thing in itself. For this reason we do not only glean what we can from observation, we also inhabit it. — The Great Whatever

I disagree. He we know ourselves as both subject AND object.

Yes, but that doesn't mean that the consciousness had to be there 'all along' since the beginning of time. — The Great Whatever

But it does. If consciousness is not there all along, how could it "come along" when Will has no "time" prior to the "time-in-consciousness" for there to be such a "first" or "prior to"?

In fact if the subject is the transcendental condition for time, that makes no sense. It would once again be treating time as either transcendentally real, instead of ideal, or as some kind of empirical object for the subject to be 'in.' — The Great Whatever

Just see above, same response.

Representation is only the flip side of some very small parts of will. Most will does not objectify itself, and does not partake in representation at all. Even in representing animals, pleasure and pain, which are at the core of our lives, are not representations at all but direct affections of the will. — The Great Whatever

This seems like a TGW interpretation. Using descriptions like "small" is not even applicable to such a transcendental monistic unity such as Will. The only way to describe it would be simply by analogy from analogy from the world of subject/object which is to say the world of representation. You cannot discuss Will as Will. You may only be able to talk about it as to what it is not, but not otherwise positive things other than what we can gleam from what we see from the perspective of a subject to object which is that everything is Will and it strives.

But if you agree to all of this, I can't make sense of what you mean by there always having to be an organism from the beginning of time, or why you think this is necessary. Clearly it isn't necessary in the above sense. But if you don't mean this, what do you mean? There is the atemporal standing present, but there are no 'beginnings' of that, precisely because it is atemporal.

As for representation being necessary for the will, there is just no plausible reading of the text that supports that position. — The Great Whatever

Let's look at the quote that csalisbury picked so we are both referencing the same part of Schopenhauer:

This long course of time itself, filled with innumerable changes, through which matter rose from form to form till at last the first percipient creature appeared, this whole time itself is only thinkable in the identity of a consciousness whose succession of ideas, whose form of knowing it is, and apart from which, it loses all meaning and is nothing at all. — Schop

So time itself is only thinkable in the identity of a consciousness whose succession of ideas, whose form of knowing it is, and apart from which, it loses all meaning and is nothing at all..

So this I think we interpret the same- consciousness needs to be there in the picture for time to be there.

What we do not agree on is that representation is the flip side of Will. My argument is that representation is part of Schop's reality. All might be Will, but Will cannot create representation because create implies cause. How to solve the dilemma? The representation is right along with Will, being its flip side aspect. This means the organism which it is that representation "adheres" with also needs to be part of the flip side aspect. Will is not alone, but has the partner, representation.

Like I said earlier, my prediction of your way around this is to try to "school" me on what an illusion is, and that representation is an illusion. I tried to say that illusion qua illusion still must be accounted for, as any attempt to justify it coming after Will will only beg the question. Thus, in a way (I am don't remember if he was using it in this context), csalisbury's use of the picture of one hand drawing the other drawing the other.. applies here as Will needs representation needs Will needs representation.

Reminds me of the creationists who think the world really is only 6000 years old but God/the Devil just made it look like it was 7 billion years old to test our faith/trick us. — darthbarracuda

Yes that came to my mind as well. It seems a bit too basic for Schopenhauer, but that is the only interpretation I can see. I don't see how time comes after Will, because that is presupposing that causes happen "prior" to a certain point, and that would be self-defeating if Will is timeless. My guess is that this might come down to different interpretations of the concept of illusion.

My interpretation is that you must account for the "illusion" as well. Let us say as babies, we have no experience of time, we are closer to pure Will (this is VERY hypothetical), and over time, through the environment's interaction, the illusion of time and representation takes place in our head, along with space, time, qualia (this seems very Dennett like), then you still must account for this phenomena occurring in the first place. There is a phenomena that is taking place which is an illusion of interactions with the environment. Well this phenomenal existence/representations must be accounted for.

@The Great Whatever @csalisbury

This may be a moot point at this point, but I'd like to go back to Schopenhauer's idea of time, and my interpretation of this that in order for us to see time as stretching all the way back to the big bang, we have to have an ever present organism keeping the world of representation present.

A typically Western response, of course. The moment people, wherever they are, get a chance to get out of subsistence farming and get washing machines and escape from the social tyrrany of village life, they tend to take it. That's what makes these measures not simply a measure of Westernization: they are not about what is particularly Western. — jamalrob

Hey, I am not saying that it is wrong, just questioning whether the "Western" standard is universal or not. I guess you are on the universal side: The West's way of life is correct, and Africa has to do better at meeting these standards. This is not necessarily a bad view, just one way of looking at it. Also, did you read my whole argument? I went into some lengthy historical detail there and this seems to be ignored based on your oversimplistic evaluation "A typically Western response, of course." Perhaps you can start having a more thorough dialogue by answering the questions I posed in my previous post:

Could it be, that the Westernized notion is just "the" notion, and all others would more or less have lead to this same version of economic/social relations if they just "developed" first? Is even the idea of progress and development in the fashion that we have today Western or universal? Is development of technology and the culture that surrounds the culture of technology a universal truth that the West hit upon, dragged or converted other cultures into, and should be thanked for doing so? I don't know. — schopenhauer1

It is certainly a Hegelian notion that modern thinkers like Fukuyama sort of wrote about with the end of the Soviet Union. It could be applied here as well. While the West has lived out its history more or less and are at a sort of End of History, the non-Western cultures are still playing history out until it can get to a sort of End of History as well. I am not opposed to this notion actually, so I shouldn't have said that it is "off". It is only off in that, you still must assume that the Western notion is universal in the first place. One can argue that it is not. One can argue that with the non-Western native cultures of Africa, there was an equilibrium of sorts that was at least thriving enough that the cultures were intact and societies were flourishing in their own way. One might say that technology happened in a cultural context of the Scientific Revolution and the whole historical developments that surrounded it. Sub-Saharan Africa might have been too far removed for this context to make sense in their equilibrium of communities. Thus, when this Westernized notion came into contact with the non-Western notions, it was not just a melding of two rather similar worlds, but a rupturing of the African world and a replacing with the new one. However, this replacement was not wholesale, but one in which Africa for various reasons has been put in a position of underdeveloped within the very system that has subsumed its original culture.


But, I happen to think it is rather universal. As you say, people tend towards technology. Anyways, once everyone is subsumed in the "universal" notion of progress, and has gotten to the technological resources that the West has, maybe that will hasten people's thinking of antinatalism and pessimism, as they won't be distracted by low standards of living and ignorance of procreation. Also, people cannot use non-Western countries as ways of saying that "at least you don't have to live in their situation!". I am all for the hastening of the non-West to become more Westernized and more technological as soon as possible, so we can all be on the same page to understand Philosophical Pessimism and antinatalism. Low living standards in the Westernized system are just a distraction. There is no longer an equilibrium of living a certain lifestyle there. Since they are in the Westernized system already, it is better to be in the system robustly. If life is about survival and boredom, and survival has been subsumed in a Western notion, it is best to get the resources to live the best Westernized lifestyle one can since one is already in the system.

By afropessimism, I mean the "the perception of sub-Saharan Africa as a region too riddled with problems for good governance and economic development."

Cause let's be honest, a lot of Africa is fucked up. Thanks to the first "World" war of the Europeans, the native tribes of Africa were artificially divided based upon European imperialism and not what would be best for Africa and its inhabitants. There have been brutal civil wars in many of these third world countries. Millions have died. Plagues continue to ravage the continent. — darthbarracuda

I think that the whole view of Africa is off. If we are judging Africa by Western standards, then it does not live up to the "developed" world of the West. But why are we judging it by Western standards? It simply is because the West took over the native African views on what is success for their culture. Success was defined in a context of living a certain lifestyle. Usually this had to do with subsistence farming in a certain ecological and cultural niche with various amounts of trade with surrounding villages. For thousands of years this developed, with enough sustainability to have thriving cultures. Ever since it has been subsumed into the world system, it is relegated to being underdeveloped. It seems there is a theme in sub-Saharan Africa of always getting its native culture subsumed by foreign cultures. In some of the northern sub-Saharan regions the Muslims dominated influence due to trade. This created impositions of foreign standards on native communities. Then of course, starting in the 1500's and culminating in the 1800's with the "Scramble for Africa", the West has dragged it into the world economy (with the internal help from some native African leaders who saw advantages in this I am sure), that has almost completely subsumed ancient lifestyles and standards of success.

So since one cannot reconstruct the past for a pristine pre-Westernized African continent, it is sadly about "moving development" forward following the notions that we have laid out in post-Renaissance and post-Enlightenment Western fashion. This means judging Africa from the Westernized view- least technological, least infrastructure, least access to medicine, most prone to natural and economic hardships, etc.

Could it be, that the Westernized notion is just "the" notion, and all others would more or less have lead to this same version of economic/social relations if they just "developed" first? Is even the idea of progress and development in the fashion that we have today Western or universal? Is development of technology and the culture that surrounds the culture of technology a universal truth that the West hit upon, dragged or converted other cultures into, and should be thanked for doing so? I don't know.

Look, is it any different claiming enough authority to say that life is generally good, than saying life entails too much suffering to justify bringing a life into the world?

Why do you object to me doing that? — Bitter Crank

Similar to other answers I gave, life does not have to be pure agony in order to not be very good. There is no doubt that life has to be tolerable enough for people to not commit suicide whatever chance they get. However, we are already in the situation once born and there is no pause button (sleep not really counting as one cannot choose sleep at any time for any amount of time obviously and for some getting to sleep itself becomes a burden).

Being born puts people in a framework (whether they see it or not). In this framework, life imposes on us other-imposed and self-imposed challenges to be overcome. It is now something to deal with. Why give someone these other-imposed and self-imposed challenges to deal with in the first place?

To put it all together, at the end of the day, your kind of (limited) optimism creates narratives that have in mind that people should be content living in hope of reaching ever more expanding personalized goals. Usually it is some sort of improvement regimen. If everyday, for example, we are working towards a project, this provides suitable goals for human needs to feel accomplishment, and isn't this a good thing? I don't think so. Rather, what's going is people distract, sublimate, and isolate that the world is a given, and that it is an imposition. Thus people focus on certain long-term goals or immediate pleasures only so as not to face the idea it is an imposition. There is no peace to be found in the goals. There is no going home. There is only the constraints of the world, and our own impositions pressing on us, and we have to react or endure it NO MATTER WHAT. We are constantly moving to get peace, but peace is never there. Sometimes we are more comfortable, more well-rested, more able to cope, but we are still moving for peace. Time still presses on us, the impositions do not go away. If we sublimate, isolate, distract, and the like perhaps we can live in the world of the small, where the impositions are not seen as such. This is not seeing the bigger picture.

Also, don't forget that social constraints are a product of other-imposed and self-imposed constraints as well. The need for others, although seems nostalgically "good" in itself is really just another imposition. Life is not good in itself, we must ease the burdens of others by making them less lonely, or they making us less lonely, providing us a source of entertainment, providing advice, solutions, resources, someone to care for, and sources of labor. These social relations are about easing burdens, but it is not like with each encounter the burden goes away until nothing, it is a constant need to be satisfied. Social interaction, and perhaps the motives for true ethical action are all about easing the burdens of others, which is not a consolation in itself. Again, life provides other-imposed and self-imposed imposed challenges to be overcome. It is now something to deal with. Why give someone these other-imposed and self-imposed challenges to deal with in the first place?

This is not even going over the classical examples of the amount of unwanted pains, discomforts, and situations that vary from person to person and circumstance to circumstance. I also did not go over frustrated goals. But even WITHOUT talking about presence of unwanted pains and frustrated goals, there is a lot there one can see in the bigger picture view as far as the burdens of life.

Thus, I don't deny that you also have experiences and thus some authority on the matter, but object that your claim is correct on the grounds that it is either not taking into account the bigger picture, denying it, distracting from it, or claiming to not look behind the curtain, nothing to see there. I can't say which one, but from "my authority" of living out experiences, and reflection on those experiences, I see something is at the least missing from this view or not taken into account.

That is to say, it may be marginally helpful to the individual, and no more than that. Much of what happens in life happens with utter indifference to our wills. — Bitter Crank

I don't disagree really.

They just don't think in terms of suicide. — Bitter Crank

I never claimed that most people cope using suicide ideation.

Most people endure and proclaim their endurance as their will without asserting that life is not a long suffering. They know full well that life entails suffering. But they (at least think they) are on top, not on the bottom. — Bitter Crank

I'm glad you can speak for most people. I guess all is solved. Let's all go home. Oh wait, that's not possible as life goes on. The instrumentality of existence- it's moving to stand still nature. Well, that no longer matters. It is the romantics reification. Leave it all to the sobering tales of Bitter Crank who will tell it how it really is. He will get people in line such that they will see that their romantic doughy eyed pessimism is an aberration from the normative common man who lifts himself by his own bootstraps by not even thinking of the world on a whole but looks at each occasion carefully, avoiding any such ideas. The world of the small is the world of the good according to Bitter Crank and thus if said in the most pragmatist terms possible, has the sound of common sense, and thus must be the truest sense.

I get it, the little things in life (petting a dog) and the hopes of future accomplishments (finding a unified field theory and going to Mars) should be consolation enough. Why all the doom and gloom? You make your world. If life is simply an accident from contingent circumstances from the big bang, I should be glad that I can experience at all. Is that the notions you were going for?

Antinatalism, at least as it has appeared in on-line discussion forums, seems more like an adolescent game than a serious philosophical position (though some people are serious about it). To me it begs the sarcastic question of "why don't you commit suicide if being born was that bad?" I don't think antinatalism leads to suicidal ideation, unless one were otherwise heading in that direction. — Bitter Crank

I've learned to take your trash-talking on antiantalism with stride :). Suicide ideation in this case does not mean that people are actually thinking of putting the knife to their wrist and taking a warm bath, but rather the abstract notion that you have power over your very existence.

This does bring up an interesting topic. There is a certain taking back control in suicidal ideation that has not as much to do with being non-existent as it does with YOU are the one doing it to yourself. I agree that there is some romanticism to this. Why? If we did a thought experiment where someone was about to commit suicide but at the last moment, someone else did them in and not themselves, this is not the scenario that the person had in mind. There was some sort of dignity taken away there because they were not the ones who were doing it. There is something more than the mere idea that one will no longer exist, there is a feeling of something akin to self-induced salvation involved with the ideation.

Again, this does not mean people actually go through with it, or even think about it in the particular. As you rightly state people who go so far as to plan something and going into detail are in extreme pain and/or have a mental illness. However, just the abstract ideation has a sort of soothing affect whereby one can detach oneself from the actual act and console oneself in the idea that it has gotten that bad, or at least circle back and realize the absurdity of things.

In what psychodynamic system is suicidal ideation more of a coping mechanism?

Tripe. — Bitter Crank

Pretty much @csalisbury answered the question sufficiently. It's not so much that one is going to commit suicide, but that one can commit suicide that may be a sort of consolation.

Not if it comes at the price of great suffering, or the potential thereof. Too often are pleasures remedial instead of independently worthwhile. — darthbarracuda

Agreed. Pleasures are often temporary (novelty wears off, you simply need more or something different once you get it), illusory (not as great as you thought or side effects ), and often, as you stated, something to bide the time. Even Schop wrote extensively about how to try to maximize happiness. He did not deny its existence of tell people not to be happy, but simply that it was temporary, and that we need to find a balance otherwise it will be even worse than what it could otherwise be. In other words, we can cope with existence while alive and try to find a balance, but it will never make the pervasive lack go away, simply make it more tolerable. Schopenhauer even created a work to address how to live in a world of pain and called it Counsels and Maxims. This proves that pessimists did not deny themselves or others happiness, but simply recognized happiness in a certain context.

These pleasures I think tend to get overlooked as unimportant by the severely depressed, but the reality is that although the greatest of pleasures will never outweigh the greatest of pains, they are still extremely pleasurable. — darthbarracuda

No doubt. Hope in future pleasures is another attachment. But does this translate that thus future people need to exist to be attached to the hope of future pleasures?

Just thinking about this a little more, perhaps we can have a more moderate stance of antinatalism based upon structural flaws in life without pro-mortalism. Essentially this would mean that life is not worth starting, and neither is it inherently worth continuing, but additionally neither is it worth the effort to end (in most cases at least). Like it's not good enough to start, but neither is it bad enough to end. — darthbarracuda

Then you are simply making normative pessimist distinction of the difference between a life worth starting and a life worth continuing and there is nothing wrong with that t

What I don't know about these pessimists (including Cioran) is whether or not they actually did view suicide as a legitimate option for themselves. Were they suicidal? Were they just barely living? I suspect not. I suspect they derived a certain amount of pleasure from life. Because if they were not suicidal, then their pessimism just turns into a romanticized cynicism or social criticism. A stub in the toe does not make life not worth starting nor worth ending, and the pessimists weren't focused on these little pains. They were focused on bigger, more overarching pains, pains that logically lead to a desire to end them. — darthbarracuda

I can't speak for past pessimists, but I don't think suicide is a necessary conclusion to not wanting to give life to others. A life worth starting is not the same threshold as a life worth continuing. Benatar wrote about this very thing extensively. I believe it had to do with the fact that once alive, one is attached to his own interest in continuing to exist, and thus the threshold is higher. These interests in continuing to live do not exist for any particular person in the life worth starting scenario and thus do not need to be in consideration. However, attachment to life (fear of death being one of them), does not de facto make life better to have been started in the first place.

If one follows a Schopenhauerian and anti-frustrationism approach, then lack is the driving force. What we need and want we lack. The very source of lack is life itself. Lack would not be necessary if we did not exist to lack. Some people think the problem is that we simply need to give into the need and want, thus fulfilling the lack. Schopenhaurieans, pessimists, and anti-frustrationists believe that you can take lack out of the equation by not perpetuating the source of lack.

Schop had an even rosier outlook in thinking that asceticism can possibly end lack while we are alive in some sort of rebellion against the Will's directive. He thought suicide was somehow not rebelling, but simply following the will's directive with the goal of ending one's life. The suicidal person was willing their end rather than ending the very source of one's own Willing by suffocating it in self-denial. My particular spin is that the problem(s) of existence should be brought to the forefront, we should recognize them as existing, understand each other as fellow-sufferers and have compassion for the fact that we are all in this situation. Of course, it does not get rid of anything completely.

So I'm not claiming that because people disagree with x, x is wrong. What I am claiming is that a certain kind of x is wrong just because people disagree with it because x claims something about those who disagree with it. If it claims to cover humanity as a whole, and yet fails to account for other variables (disagreement), then it's flawed. This does not apply to every position. — darthbarracuda

The aesthetic is not a given. People who disbelieve evolution for example- sometimes no matter how much evidence, they cannot accept it. That is a poor analogy because there can be said to be a corpus of literature that is empirically verified.. However, the sense is similar. Now, the patterns and such that the pessimist sees, some people can accept it, others do not. But, just because pessimism does not give an almighty epiphany when it is explained correctly, does not mean it is wrong. "Truth" does not have to be instantly believed. Physical pain and pleasure is only one element of suffering. If some people have relatively less physical pain and pleasure, there are other things to consider as well. I am not a relativist, but I also don't think that everyone has to agree with the position for it to be true either.

Pleasure and pain are felt by everyone. We can easily see how giving someone pleasure is good and giving them pain is bad. But aesthetic experiences are ultimately grounded in pleasure and pain - I enjoy looking at a piece of art, and I do not enjoy watching a lion tear out an antelope's throat on a nature show. But I can't necessarily say this about everyone. Not everyone feels ennui or angst about the human condition, it seems. And if this ennui or angst is enough BY ITSELF to make life not worth being born into, then it's enough to make someone suicidal. — darthbarracuda

First, I don't buy that not everyone AT SOME POINT does not feel ennui or angst. They may say they don't, but that's a different thing. Anyways, life's impositions, and self-impositions as I explained, are certainly things you can prevent for others, and endure while alive. Again, you still are making the assumption that life must be agonizing in order to not start, and that is simply not necessarily the case. One can endure life, but not want others to endure life.

I know for a while, the big bad classic pessimists have been the gazelle you have been wanting to take down and replace with a more suitable utilitarian theory, but I just don't think it really does the trick. People can disagree and make it

What if aesthetics is subjective? Unlike pleasure or pain, how the world affects a person aesthetically seems to be subjective. — darthbarracuda

Well, some people will just say the same about pleasure and pain, unless it's physical. Then it will be about how people look back on the pleasure and pain. But, since I sort of addressed this earlier, let me quote myself earlier.

You are caught up in the idea that if not all people are pessimists, then pessimists must be wrong by the mere fact that others are not pessimist. Like any argument, pessimists can argue their position, explain why it is correct, and let other evaluate it on their own. It is not handed down on tablets from Moses and everyone just gets it. — schopenhauer1

Can aesthetics be a justification for ethical action (or lack thereof in this case)? If aesthetics aren't bad in the pain/pleasure dichotomy sense, how can it be bad in the ethical sense? — darthbarracuda

Yes, aesthetics can be a justification. Pleasure and pain is one way of looking at things, but not the only way. Hedonistic or utilitarian calculus is but one of many ethical theories. No doubt, pleasure and pain is built into the aesthetics, but it is not the only part of it. Unwanted pains is a constraint of the world and an imposition. I call this kind of pain contingent, as it is contingent on particular circumstances, conditions, events, and so on. However, not everything is brute pleasure or pain calculating in this view.

The trouble is that I don't really think the classic pessimists thought life was merely mediocre - they thought it was bad. Like, really bad. And I don't understand how someone can think life is really bad and yet not be the least bit suicidal. — darthbarracuda

It depends on what you mean by "bad" here. I don't think the classic pessimists thought "bad" means utter agony where you simply can't take it anymore. Though this can happen in certain cases (extreme physical pain, etc.), it was the aesthetic I was speaking of earlier that sees it as bad. So what is happening is that you are speaking apples and oranges and trying to equate the two, when they are not the same. Utter agony and the aesthetic views can both be considered bad, but they are not the same thing. The threshold for pessimists is such that, since things fall into the aesthetic view, and that is evaluated as bad, it is not good to perpetuate this, though it is not agonizing enough to commit suicide over either.

I get it, I notice these patterns as well. And actually I think most people do notice these patterns, too. It's why satirical comedy is so popular. But does this recognition of patterns and its subsequent disillusionment lead to antinatalism? Do these patterns threaten the "vision" of humanity so much that we can't be allowed to continue? — darthbarracuda

I don't get this question really. I guess I will expand a bit..

Why does everything have to be utter agony to not perpetuate it? The aesthetic does not "hurt" anyone, but the understanding is that life does indeed put us in this situation.

But in this case, arguing for antinatalism by appeal to structural issues of life is inherently connected to suicide. If you don't want to participate, nobody is forcing you to. But that's the topic of this thread. — darthbarracuda

I have participated MANY times. I know you think every thread is modular, but it isn't to me. I have stated my reasons. I just don't want to go through all the reasons again. So, as you say, since I am not forced to, I am going to decline at least that part of it, as I think I answered it over and over many times.

I'm not though, considering I'm a pessimist myself. I'm just interested in what the classic pessimists like Schopenhauer thought about suicide and how they managed to have such a bleak view of existence and yet apparently not wish to die themselves. — darthbarracuda

Taking out the fear of death and pain, then for some, I imagine there is little holding them back. Otherwise, I think I sufficiently answered your question. Life is not utter agony and that is usually not the position. Rather, for the pessimist, it is a sufficient burden to not perpetuate to others, but it is a burden one can endure while one is alive, since for most it is not utter agony.

Also, in Schopenhauer's case, he said that suicide would still be "willing" one's own death. Will would be diminished by means of asceticism which is somehow not Willing but denying the Will. I rather not try to defend that position particularly, but you did ask what Schopenhauer's view of suicide is, and that was it.

So in the every day, we go along like nothing is wrong, but with the aesthetic outlook we find ourselves in a kind of nihilism. But is this nihilism alone enough to warrant no-birth? If the aesthetic does not by itself harm someone, and if most people are not in misery, then how can the aesthetic by itself lead to antinatalism? There needs to be an additional argument, that of risk and the potential for a really bad life. — darthbarracuda

Again, I don't want to get into another antinatalism argument. At this point, you can probably dig through all my previous posts and find perfectly good answers that I would use for these questions. However, I will say that your questions sort of answer itself. If you do not have this aesthetic, then no, I guess you would not see any reasons for an antinatalist position. If you do have this aesthetic, you would see reasons for an antinatalist position. You are caught up in the idea that if not all people are pessimists, then pessimists must be wrong by the mere fact that others are not pessimist. Like any argument, pessimists can argue their position, explain why it is correct, and let other evaluate it on their own. It is not handed down on tablets from Moses and everyone just gets it. Let me explain further...

Most people live in the world of the small. Everyday is just a day at work, a day to go home, a day to do this or that. There are negative moments, there are positive moments, but there is very little evaluation of it on a larger scale. If they start doing this, they may start seeing patterns, noticing certain things. The pessimist conclusion comes from seeing these patterns and understanding it in a certain way. Once they see this, their world becomes more understandable. Not everyone will see these patterns.

The reason most people don't just kill themselves doubtfully is related to anything rational anymore than the decision to kill one's self is rational. Suicide most often occurs during very emotional episodes, with the rare exception being euthanasia after prolonged illness. the decision is rarely rational.

In any creature that has arisen from an evolutionary system that promotes survivability, you'd have to assume that few would exist who don't have a strong desire to live. Our desire for self-preservation is trumped only by our desire to protect our young or those within our group. All of this is to answer the question of "why don't we all kill ourselves?" is because we are programmed not to. That's the real reason. — Hanover

Yes I agree with this. Due to evolutionary reasons we have a strong aversion to destroying our very existence. Thus, it's the ideation of suicide that becomes more of a coping mechanism, not the actual suicide.

In other words, I take your (and basically my) position to be that pleasure is contingently dependent upon structural issues.

If these structural issues aren't enough to make life worthless to continue (because of real pleasures) then why should we be against birth (if we argue the structural issues route)? It seems like the aesthetic understanding of our world is inherently connected to disillusionment (the breaking of fantasies). But is this breaking of fantasies by itself enough to warrant no-birth or even suicide? Couldn't we just say "whatever" and pursue pleasures? — darthbarracuda

The evaluation of the survival/boredom/flux dynamic is negative for pessimists. Simply because pleasure is accounted for in the system does not mean that one needs to put another human into the system in the first place to experience pleasure. But this is now moving the topic of your original question from why continue to exist to why start existence for another and that will simply lead to another antinatalist thread. I am not going to rehash arguments over again for antinatalism, but I will try to stick with where your original question was going with why we continue to exist. Anyways, it is enough to warrant no birth, but the aesthetic alone does not warrant immediate suicide. Again, we are not in utter agony.

So like I said before in the other thread, life is like cake: sometimes really good, but ultimately fattening and bad for you. You can't have cake without the fat. And so it's an aesthetic issue instead of an actual experience issue like a toothache. — darthbarracuda

Yes, but I might use a different analogy because the cake thing seems like it is about moderation. If you have just a little, it's not as bad, etc. But as far as the aesthetic vs. actual experience, I think that might be closer to the answer. The aesthetic I describe.. let's shorten it to survival/boredom/flux for the sake of brevity (still not brief I know), is a sort of inescapable understanding. One can have a pleasure and successive moments of happiness, but this understanding does not change. One does not let the aesthetic takeaway your happy experiences, but one does not find the happy experiences are all there is, and indeed fits into a larger picture of how existence operates.

But I may be misinterpreting you. You might have to explain where you say it's an aesthetic issue instead of an actual experience issue like a toothache.

I guess the bottom line here is: were you glad you were born? How can one be glad they were born and yet also believe it was not worth starting based upon objective features of life (and not other arguments like risk)? — darthbarracuda

You sort of answered your own questions. Most people fear death and the end of their personal identity. It's not like ending a bad habit, this is the very self that experiences the world in the first place. Clearly this is only a problem for us the living. Also, to end one's own very existence, is not a light decision. As I said in the other thread, not many pessimists think life is complete and utter agony where the self must be destroyed at all costs and as soon as possible. Rather, pessimists will continue to experience the happy moments when this occurs but keep in mind a certain aesthetic as well, based on personal experience, reflection, and consideration.

However, the pessimist will probably keep in mind the aesthetic I mentioned in the other thread. The world imposes on us the needs of survival and unwanted pain in a certain environmental and cultural constraints. Our individual wills impose upon ourselves the need to transform boredom into goals and pleasure. Being that we can never have true satiation, we are always in flux and never quite getting at anything in particular. It is a world to be endured. One may try to become ascetic, or simply live out the normative lifestyle but simply keeping this aesthetic in mind.

That's not an argument. It's a conclusion. If life sucks, then sure, let's not have life. The question is whether life sucks. I say it doesn't. What is obvious is that if you begin with the conclusion that life has no meaning, nihilism follows by definition. — Hanover

I think he is addressing this to pessimists (the handful on here). The argument for him is IF the premise IS that life sucks, then why don't you just kill yourself. This is kind of the knee-jerk question people ask antinatalists all the time. I gave my response above.

In one sense, a life is valuable from the very beginning and does not become more valuable by the achievements of the person. In another sense, a life becomes more valuable on the basis of the person's achievements. So, a 2 year old has accumulated more "value" than a 1 year old. A 30 year old is more valuable than a 20 year old, and 69 year olds like myself are priceless.

These "values" aren't monetary. Value here is a measurement of accumulated experience. Each day of life adds to the sum total of one's experiences. A bad experience (like having a burning marshmallow stuck to one's fingers) enriches one's life despite the pain. Good food is better than bad food (you read it here first) but bad food is better than no food (usually. There are times I've thought nothing would have been better than, say, toxic chow mein). — Bitter Crank

The problem is "value" has to be "cashed out". There is no Platonic cashing out of value. It has to be valuable to someone.

I think it's wrong though. Pessimism as described there is just another example of "finding meaning in the large." A case of saying "there is no perfect world" as a means of distracting us from our boredom or pain. It's Will coming to understand itself and then stewing in it's own juices. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Your first statement "I think it's wrong though" makes no logical sense based on the subsequent statements.
You said:

Pessimism as described there is just another example of "finding meaning in the large." — TheWillowOfDarkness

It is the larger picture, correct. But it is not "finding meaning" in the large.

A case of saying "there is no perfect world" as a means of distracting us from our boredom or pain. It's Will coming to understand itself and then stewing in it's own juices. — TheWillowOfDarkness

How is stewing in it's own juices distracting us? The very definition of stewing in your own juices is being right in the mix of the thing at hand.

The strength of pessimism is the seriousness with which it takes suffering and lack of perfection, but it is still only a moment of thought. It doesn't somehow render our moments of joy trivial and pretend. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This is either a non-sequitor or a strawman. No one said that pessimism renders moments of joy trivial and pretend. In fact, I started off saying that life is not all agony and that happiness exists.

The trick is stop thinking one must get anything particular. Just be what you are at any given time. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This sounds like vapid responses "be what you are" "stop thinking one must get anything particular". From what you are saying, you are simply taking the "find meaning in the small" approach. Concentrate on each moment. I already addressed that.

You're right, all theorizing loses its luster during the Bad Times. It's just that pessimism, unlike the other approaches you mention, has an irksome tendency to train it sights precisely on the Bad Times, as a means to speak, magisterially (or with magisterial bluntness), a general truth. It does disservice both to the actual suffering of others and to one's own actually suffering self. — csalisbury

I think you are boiling pessimism down to a trope, which is unfair. Not everything has to be done in a clever little package ala Beckett or otherwise be relegated to taking itself too seriously. Some pessimists are just blunt in their irksome tendency. Now, it doesn't mean it has to go as far as "Life's just a bunch of pain" because as you pointed out, not all moments are agony. However, almost no philosophical pessimist actually asserts this (TGW aside).

Rather, it is a sort of aesthetic outlook. Pessimism is the recognition of the instrumentality of existence. Our world imposes on us our survival needs and unwanted pain in certain environmental and cultural constraints. Our individual wills impose upon ourselves the need to transform boredom into goals and pleasures. Being that we can never have true satiation, we are always in flux and never quite getting at anything in particular.

Most other aesthetics try to do two things: find a meaning in the large or find meaning in small. For the "find meaning in the large" folks, some sort of spiritual or scientific unity somehow acts a solace if asked as an official position. But then they have to live everyday life, which is not unity but the world I described: survival, unwanted pains, transforming boredom into goals flux. For the "find meaning in the small" folks, it is looking at each event as if it was a meditative practice. As long as one focuses only on what is in front of your face, one can distract from the bigger picture. Of course, they too are still going through the same survival, unwanted pains, transforming boredom into goals flux, but as long as they go from small to small, they won't have deal with larger picture.

@The Great Whatever
Well, I see I'm being ignored.

This seems to imply that the will is a 'subject' and the representation an 'object.' But this is wrong, subject and object are both contained in representation, and will is neither. Yes, the subject and object are co-essential. But neither is essential to the will. — The Great Whatever

That is a fine reading, and I think you are right. His way of saying subject/object is kind of the most "universal" aspect of the phenomenal world.

It does, in the sense that there is plenty of will without representation (the latter only exists in highly developed organisms), but not vice-versa. — The Great Whatever

I agree with this interpretation, except I would not even say "higher". I think even the most basic level organisms may count- but that is nitpicking. The problem I have is right here- that the organism cannot just "come on the scene" because the "illusion" of representation/phenomenal/object-subject distinction then has to "appear on the scene" as well.

We have fundamentally different views about how to account for the illusion of the world of appearances. If we define Illusion as something which is almost a trick (it seems to exist but it does not "really"), then I think that the illusion itself still must be accounted for. If you say that, "It is accounted for! Will makes the illusion, duh!" then you are saying that the illusion is "later" or "after" the Will. This cannot be because after, later, secondary, or what not would mean that there was causality and clearly there is no causality in Will. The only conclusion to resolve this is to say that the illusion was there ALL ALONG WITH WILL, thus in the mind of the ever present organism. This then leads to the odd notion that there is an ever present organism that has the illusion of subject/object which, as I stated earlier just seems odd to me.

Time only functions when the organism is around, but so long as it does, it always retrojects backward to a time before that organism existed. You are confusing things and talking about time as if it were part of the thing in-itself. If you want to talk about time, you can only talk about it via representation, and in representation, time presents itself as preceding the life of the organism, always. And this suffices for the empirical reality of the fact that there was a time before the organism. — The Great Whatever

This seems simple handwaving and evading the problem purposefully or because you miss my point which I just stated above to your previous quote but will do so again here.

Yes, I understand that time is retrojected backward before the organism existed and only functions with the organism is around.

Yes time presents itself as preceding the life of organism, always.

Yes, this suffices for the empirical reality of the fact that there was a time before the organism.

HOWEVER, the organism itself still has to around for time to be retrojected. The world of time/space/causality and appearances are around only if the organism is around.

The organism is not created at some point x, because that would mean that there was time in an "absolute" sense (the reification of time you discuss) if an organism was created at a particular "x" time. Rather, the organism HAD TO ALWAYS BE AROUND because it could not have been caused. THIS is the odd conclusion. You may not think that there would be an ever present organism, but based on Schop's system, there has to be since time is ideal and not the thing-in-itself.

but if there is no implicit (I hesitate to say "pre-conceptual" but would certainly say "pre-linguistic") understanding of what you are seeing then it makes no real sense to say that you are seeing anything. — John

So, pre-linguistic babies don't see color due to not having language? I see. I think, even if that was correct as to the proper cognitive origin of sense experience, the qualia is not explained away, it is there, but via that mechanism. The qualia itself remains, just given a different take on its origins. Some people focus on the rods and cones and optic nerves.. If I replace that with your explanation or anything "x" with your explanation, it will only be an explanation. The explanation is not the experience. You cannot talk yourself out of the fact that a blue sky is presenting itself to your mind's integration of things and that this feeling of quality exists.

It happens your explanation seems to be a bit odd, since I can imagine a baby that was not taught language does, in fact, experience qualia and is not a p-zombie. Do animals not have any internal "what it's like to feel" aspect because they do not have language? The senses, one can say, works independently from the mechanism which encapsulate them into integrated concepts.

They're not part of the world of appearances, but their transcendental ground ala Kant. Everything of the world of appearances is in time and space, but time and space are not in that world. — The Great Whatever

That's fine- it doesn't change much to the fact that time/space is NOT in the world as Will and that is what matters. We can parse Schop's analysis on the the world of phenomenon and the problem still remains. Anyways, the "ground" you name is of the phenomenal- which means that which is the backdrop for world of appearances, thus is part of this side of the coin if you will, and not of the world as thing-in-itself/Will.

The will doesn't need time, space, etc. Only presentation does. The will doesn't always objectify itself as presentation. — The Great Whatever

But his whole point is that the world is Will AND Representation, and yes, the "first eye" is the world of appearance, where time began, but there was no time before this, but presentation does not just come about on the scene out of nowhere- it is there from the beginning as FLIP SIDE of Will.

Again, I think this makes the mistake of reifying causality as something applying to the thing in itself. How does the will 'make' representations? — The Great Whatever

Again, it does not apply to the thing itself, it is the FLIP SIDE of Will.

This is just not Schop's position. Presentation is secondary, as one sort of behavior the will participates in (objectifying itself). Nothing needs to 'ensure' that there are objects. Objects only exist for representing creatures. — The Great Whatever

Yes, objects need subjects and subjects need objects- Will "needs" representation, representation "needs" Will. Will does not come "prior" to Representation. Will on its own is a force, yet this force does not "create". It simply does its thing, but its thing happens to be manifesting phenomenon for its own playground of sorts. The playground is the Will, but its other aspect. Though Schop does appear to put weight on Will being primary, it has another aspect which is immediate, and that is the world of appearance. It can't work any other way. There is no time before time where Will is doing this or that such that time and space are created at sub time x. The ground of time is part of Will's other aspect of its own existence. Since he is an idealist, this other aspect is in the minds of organisms. Thus we have Schop's ever present primitive organism. Just as the Will is eternal, so too is the primitive organism, as again the first organism was NOT created at any one point in time, since there was no time before it existed.

The organism does exist in a kind of timeless present, but that's not the same as it being eternal or having always existed in the past (eternality is not timelessness) -- to think this again seems to reify time inappropriately.

And again, causation doesn't apply to the will as such, only to the forms of representation, when time and space interact. But these are only veils used to objectify the will. — The Great Whatever

You are asserting that I did not mean that it exists in a timeless present. If I did say that, then I will just agree to the language of timeless present. Again, this is the oddity that I find not convincing- the ever present organism.

As for your idea of "veils used to objectify Will", you make it seem like there is a second party hiding the Will. It is all Will, but it is just another aspect of Will. What I think Schop emphasized most was that Will is the hidden aspect that may give us an understanding of what is behind the scenes of the phenomenal. The idea that the phenomenal is actually an illusion only makes sense in the context of the idea that humans may not realize the inner aspect, and take the phenomenal for all there is.

Time doesn't really 'exist,' for Schopenhauer, since existence is 'reality' or roughly 'causality,' which presupposes time. Time isn't real in the Kantian framework in a very substantive sense -- it's ideal. — The Great Whatever

The first part of your statement seems to be a misreading of Schop to me. Existence is reality- yes. However, "roughly causality which presupposes time", One part of causality is the result of time and space's presence which happens in a fourfold root structure that he called The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason. I don't get how causality, time, and space are not manifest in world of appearance? It seems real in the sense that it is part of the world of appearances.

As for your second statement that time isn't real in the Kantian framework, yes I just said that when I said time doesn't exist in any absolute sense for Schopenhauer and that this follows Kantian's transcendental framework. So you seemed to restate what I said as if I did not agree with you.

You are thinking of the world as temporal in-itself, which Schop. denies. It's as if the organisms are 'keeping' time in place, so they had to be around since the beginning, making sure that the time before there was time didn't cause a paradox. But if you scrap all that and realize that time isn't real in the above sense, none of this is problematic. — The Great Whatever

This is also seems to be a misreading to me. I already agreed that Schop is sympathetic to Kant's transcendental idealism, and thus time is not real outside independent of mind. I get that. But I don't see how it follows that time isn't real. Will needs time/space/causality in order for the world to be Will and Representation. Otherwise, the world is just Will and not representation. You have a couple problems if you say the world is just Will and representation is not "real". Here are some problems:

1) Clearly Schop thinks that representation is fair game, and that this is an "aspect" of reality that is the flip side of Will.

2) If Will is primary and representation is an illusion or somehow subordinate or secondary, then you have to explain how it is that representation is created by Will. This is the same problem as the materialists when it comes to problems of consciousness. A materialist who does not understand the hard problem of consciousness might say- "at point x, enough neurons got together and poof the first primitive first-person, experiential consciousness came about!". At the same point, you will have the problem with your (possible?) interpretation of Schop. There is first Will (just think of this as the "neurons" in the materlist theory). You have enough Will and poof, out comes representation. That does not seem right.

So, in order to counteract this idea, we have to say that representation is not secondary, but is rather the flip side of Will that ensures that there is always an object for the subject. It was there all along. However, this conclusion leads to the odd idea that organism were there all along. In other words, the most primitive organism was ever present along with Will.

Here is the thing- you can say that representation is an illusion and Will is primary, but this is almost as bad as the fallacy of eliminative materialists that say consciousness is an illusion. The illusion, has to be accounted for. The illusion of time's existence is still something that exists- qua appearances as rel rather than absolutely real. This appearance could not be "created" or "caused" since that does not exist outside of time/space. The ever present must exist along side the time-contingent in this model. The odd conclusion is that the first organism has to always be around as it can never be caused.