Your job has nothing to do with it. You work with other people because want to get paid, and for some reason you thought that work situation was a good deal. That’s on you. — Possibility

And this is your communication problem. WHAT are you trying to say?? Say it plainly or explain neologistic terms meticulously before using them. Your moral/value recommendation is to "collaborate, connect, and be aware". Besides the obvious that we do this already to get by every day....

What are you trying to say with it? Work in charities more? Build houses for the homeless? Is that it? Is it just common notions of giving to the poor wrapped up in unnecessarily unclear language? If you say no.. then okay......WHAT??

Is it to build a humanity towards a newer realm of knowledge on science and technology? I mean that sort of already happens if you join universities, technology companies, and the like in the capacity of engineer, scientist or some other capacity like this. But you say no.... then okay... WHAT??

So you don't give examples and say that I am taking it the wrong way. Yeah, I guess that would naturally happen if you don't really explain much except self-referential terminology. And then say you can never be more than vague about it.. Then don't expect me to get what you are getting at.

It only seems that way. Nothing changes when we stand still. Standing still, doing nothing, recognising the ‘tragedy’ of our situatedness - this just enables us to get a clear sense of where we are, so we can determine the next step in the direction towards where we want to be. Because taking a step is the only way to change anything. And I get that NO step seems to be the right direction, because to step anywhere just looks as if you’re complying, even though all you’ve done is accept the situation as a starting point. Because there potentially exists a relational structure of change between this situatedness and an overall reduction in suffering, which would render a step worth taking, even though it looks like you’re just complying. — Possibility

Again with the vagueness. .What does it even mean to go in the "right" direction without using non-helpful terminology like "connection/collaboration/awareness". Give me more or you aren't saying anything communicatively useful.

Collaborating to "change anything" is not robotic or given. The "change" would have to be a value of some sort. WHAT is the value that you want to see it changed to? WHAT is "right direction"?

So if we’re going to live out dissatisfaction and suffer anyway, let’s do so in a way that is directed specifically at reducing the existing and ongoing dissatisfaction or suffering of others, long-term. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to fish and you feed him for life. And no, I don’t mean push the agenda that he needs to fish in order to ‘survive’. I mean actually spend time with the man on his terms and share a way to reduce suffering, that he can share with others to reduce suffering, and so on. — Possibility

What does this mean? Just more volunteer at charities and government and non-profit interventions? Oh wait.. that is already the case.. so basically basic stuff that we already do and just more involvement in these things we already do. It's just the progressive/humanist cause reiterated in vague terminology.

But this is more information than the mind can process alone, so it is the extent to which we are also aware of connecting and collaborating that enables us to maximise the effectiveness of being a change in suffering. — Possibility

Again, doesn't make any sense what you are saying to me. You'd have to communicate it differently. I've already guessed you just mean volunteer in organizations.. pretty standard stuff.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-class_values

I might want to see a unicorn flying through the sky, throwing rainbows everywhere - that doesn’t mean I deserve to see it. — Possibility

But that is the game.. comply or die. So you are just reiterating it.. Just because you have some options in the game, doesn't mean it was right to make people play it.

The idea that this potentiality or value I can imagine is all for me as an individual, deserved and mine alone, is a lie we’ve been led to believe against all evidence to the contrary. That’s the tragedy. The potential of human life is unavoidably intertwined with everything and everyone else, and the more we try to pull back from this, to define our selves as ‘individual’, the more we suffer from it. You can say this is a ‘burden’ if you like, but I don’t have to agree with your evaluation. These are not ‘rules’ made up by some creator ‘boss’ with the intention that we suffer. It’s the natural law of existence, and the ‘rules’ you describe are simply an interpretation, based on how we feel in relation to our situation as ‘individuals’. — Possibility

All HR spin of "You are in this for the community!". But the community doesn't make decisions and feels and thinks and does.. I, the individual does.. So even if I am not "truly" an individual in some art house, new age way (as @baker explained a few posts ago), I am the locus of the concretion of all the ways the universe impinges on me.. Working within a community and being the locus of what actually feels, thinks, does, etc. are two different things that your obfuscating language can never combine, no matter how hard you try to equate them.

Connection, even without collaboration, is better than isolation. But this approach does categorically exclude those of us who relate to being without misery. So, you and I cannot work together until I agree that ALL life is a tragedy, not just that it appears to be? — Possibility

Oh right, Linda from HR says the boss wants more collaboration.. That's why I am so unhappy.. I am not committing myself to the "cause" enough :roll:. More comply or die.. you deem this as moral somehow because HR has some collaboration videos to cram down your throat for why you should work harder with the other team members.

The way I see it, we can, instead, lean into rather than resist the interconnectedness of potential existence — Possibility

So, you and I cannot work together until I agree that ALL life is a tragedy, not just that it appears to be? — Possibility

I don't get your question. I am constantly "working together" whether I fuckn like it or not because I am existing in a world interconnected with others. So your collaboration thing is just an odd de facto truth of living as a human.. I work with people I have nothing in common with or don't particularly agree with in almost anything except getting some task done all the time. What does that have to do with the fact that I wouldn't want to do this in the first place, and including the decision for suicide? Guess its too late for that so I got to "lean in" :lol:. You must know this is like a parody of itself right?

The way I see it, we can, instead, lean into rather than resist the interconnectedness of potential existence, and realise our value/significance in relation to BEING an undefined change in suffering, rather than the illusion of an ‘individual self’. — Possibility

You're kidding right? You are literally now using the terminology of corporate buzzwords.."Lean into it"..

Identity (as in quantum non-individuality) can still be a ‘useful idealisation’ to simplify our conceptual framework and predict behaviour, but it isn’t metaphysically real. — Possibility

Say that to someone who is suffering in a huge way.. But even more so, even if I am atoms, quantum events, or neurons, it is only the subjective "self" that I feel at any conscious moment, so it means nothing to point to the "real" substrate, as that doesn't change the situation.. if I "change" from this notion, it would still be the subjective self changing and feeling it.

- it renders pessimism as relative. I don’t see how we can morally judge ALL acts of procreation based on the apparent tragedy of life, when this isn’t necessarily apparent to everyone. I don’t think my position justifies procreation, though. It simply means that I judge morality in terms of perceived intentionality, rather than the act itself. — Possibility

I don't judge procreation as necessarily immoral, but misguided, though I think it does have moral components of being callous with suffering.

But this immorality is inherent in the ‘individual’ intentionality over another being, NOT in the act itself. — Possibility

Okie dokie.

Still, the morality of procreation aside, neither of these points negate the non-individual potential, value and significance of being an undefined change in suffering. If we consider our identifying preference for the illusion as a useful idealisation, I think we can philosophically determine how to more accurately develop and structure change - eg. into a reduction of suffering overall. — Possibility

That's what work and public policy is in modern day.. Work, work work, and left-leaning politicians will cry for mitigation of externalities (environmental, racial, educational, etc.). Right-leaning will cry for business freedoms (less taxes, less government, more private ownership of resources, etc.). So at the end of the day, you are just advocating what we have now.. Comply, comply, comply. But no, you are going to make vague references to change, and potential, etc.. and start the BS all over again as if you are not saying that.

But back to what baker was saying, you can deny the dissatisfaction while living out the dissatisfaction. It's okay, that happens. Dissatisfaction is the rule of this world. We are born into it and must deal with it. As for your collaboration scheme.. as I said, it's already what is going on. You are just saying to do more of the same, but "lean into it".

Again, no. It's that any kind of seeking happiness outside cannot provide satisfaction. Whether one seeks happiness through obtaining things, relationships, or sophisticated pursuits such as art, it's all still unsatisfactory. — baker

@Possibility

What he said.

And that's Christianity for you people. — Gus Lamarch

Well, there how about atheistic gnosticism? As Schopenhauer himself advocates, take away the mythological components. What I am talking about though is simply a collective understanding of the situation. The problem is I don't think much changes from this.

The concept of "Ubermensch" is utopian indeed, however, the "path" to it is not, for, with a purpose, suffering can disappear. — Gus Lamarch

How?

From what I am getting here you are saying ‘dissatisfaction’ is ‘suffering’. We are never FULLY ‘satisfied’ so all life is ‘suffering’.

Correct summation? — I like sushi

As I said earlier:

A pretty face, a noble pursuit, a puzzle, an ounce of pleasure.. we all try to submerge in these entertainments to not face the existential boredom straight on. That would be too much to dwell in for too long. We design goals, and virtues and reasons, and entertainments, and standards to meet, and trying to contribute to "something". We cannot fall back on the default of existence- the boredom. — schopenhauer1

I would simply add Schop's insight:
If life itself were to satisfy us, we would want for nothing.. We wouldn't need to improve the situation.. we would already be there. But we are constantly struggling to do things that are related to survival, discomfort, or some other dissatisfaction. If not survival and comfort, mere existence isn't enough, thus boredom. Asceticism was Schop's goal then.. deny the will. I'm not necessarily saying that, but giving you some context.

Nietzsche argues that "since life is only suffering, let us at least try not to regret witnessing this same constant suffering for the rest of eternity". — Gus Lamarch

But this is foolish as it leads to more births, more people, more suffering. So even on the face of it, it is wrong.

It is far more honorable to face the changeless and the indifferent than to simply surrender to the damnation of existence. — Gus Lamarch

It depends on what "facing the changeless and indifferent" really means.

In your last moments of suffering, just before death takes you, at least you can remember your attempts and your struggles with suffering, and then, only then, you can be proud of trying. — Gus Lamarch

Sounds like a load of bullshit.. I'll explain why in a sec..

Nietzsche does not theorize a victory over existence, for such a fact is incapable of being realized. — Gus Lamarch

Yep, and this recognition makes it suspect to try..

You can give up - Mainländer -;
You can cry - Cioran -;
You can isolate yourself from the world - Schopenhauer -;
You can try - Nietzsche -.

While life is subjective, existence is not, so even if we try any of the above options, suffering will still remain being a thing of those who exist. — Gus Lamarch

Don't forget this one:
You can communally recognize the suffering - schopenhauer 1.

But going back to the "You can try" of Nietzsche..
If I was to force people into working for X reason (to keep my company going, profits, to keep humanity buzzing along), my greatest idea would be to make the people think that they are struggling for themselves in some magnificent Ubermensch sort of way.. All my workers trying to outdo themselves because they all think they are little ubermenschs :lol: :lol:.

See, his philosophy can be coopted so easy to manipulate and at the end, it is just a conceit of a (seemingly coked-up) 19th century philosopher.

Nietzsche — Gus Lamarch

Nietzsche was a dick. He was trying to be the anti-Schopenhauer. If Schopenhauer observed how the world was about striving after and we should thus retreat (for Schop asceticism and for Mainlander full on suicide of the self), then Nietzsche was going to come up with the Eternal Return.. That is live life over and over as if you were going to return and do it again.. In other words, try to embrace it enthusiastically (and in my spin on it, manically). Be the most gung-ho worker.. but even better be the gung-ho mountain climber or painter, or whatever.. He wanted you to try to be as much about doing in the world as possible. He wanted you to conquer, the world, and yourself by active participation. Opposite of this is Schopenhauer who wanted to retreat as the source of suffering was the eternal willing nature that must be controlled or perhaps denied altogether.

You're trying to do a gotcha instead of understanding...

The most obvious problem that follows is if EVERYTHING in waking life is ‘dissatisfaction’ then the term ‘dissatisfaction’ is fairly meaningless as no antonym for it can rightly exist.

I guess this means ‘satisfaction’ is a non-thing. — I like sushi

Dissatisfaction is akin to something that is lacking now.. even if it is lacking something "more" than the satisfaction you are currently feeling.. Clearly you aren't satisfied "enough" to simply be "satisfied" at that moment if you feel that you can improve upon the situation and then continually doing so, over, and over..

Thus..

What is the difference between ‘striving’ and ‘challenging yourself’? — I like sushi

Challenging yourself is simply one variety of the many forms of "lack". We lack in food or the pleasure of taste, so we eat. We lack in some stimulating activity so we pursue a game, or "challenging ourselves" with X. That's what I mean by all part of the same thing.

it is noticeable that if taken as something to share with others, the possibility of a resentful community emerging grows tremendously. — Gus Lamarch

And we must ask where this resentment is coming from...

And resentful people eternalize collective suffering. — Gus Lamarch

What do you mean by "eternalize collective suffering"? Resentful people would not like to make collective suffering permanent.. at least as a pessimistic therapy. They don't even want us to recognize it, lest we eternalize it and prevent more people!

"Comply or die" isn't tragic to them, it's the baseline, the bare minimum. In order to see things from their perspective, you need to forget about what secular constitutions of democratic countries and the Declaration of Human Rights say about the value of a human being, human dignity, and so on. To them, this is merely about human potential, not about actual people. In their eyes, you get no credit simply because you happen to be a human. You yet need to prove yourself to be worthy. — baker

Another point..
When you mention "actual people", this includes the actual suffering those people will bare. It is interesting that children are in a way a byproduct of something lacking in the parents' life. There is something they want, but don't have. It's like a pyramid scheme.. where now a new person is holding the bag. They are "it" now. They now must do the whole "overcoming burdens", suffering, and lack game.. But perhaps people, can simply sit with their own lack and not feel the entitled need to pass it to others to satisfy their own. Not spread the burden in the name of X (joy, possibility, humanity, family "good memories" created, religion, etc.). The worst part is using philosophies like Nietzsche's or "No pain/no gain" to justify as you say, the "unworthiness" because post-facto of birth, you somehow haven't played nor embraced the survival/lack game well enough. Comply, comply or simply die.

Both came to the same conclusion, however, Cioran, in a maniacal way, decided to laugh at the pain. — Gus Lamarch

And schopenhauer1, to communally recognize, and empathize about the situation. Collective understanding of tragedy. Consolation of shared understanding. Cioran was doing the same thing in a way because he published his work. He was sharing his thoughts.. having a dialogue with the public, held some interviews and discussed with friends.

If “just about everything” in waking life is ‘dissatisfaction’ what is not ‘dissatisfaction’? — I like sushi

Sleep. Unconscious states.. Temporary states of satiety (maybe). But some might disagree there.

"But at the bottom, the immanent philosopher sees in the entire universe only the deepest longing for absolute annihilation, and it is as if he clearly hears the call that permeates all spheres of heaven: Redemption! Redemption! Death to our life! and the comforting answer: you will all find annihilation and be redeemed!” - Philipp Mainländer, The Philosophy of Redemption — Gus Lamarch

Indeed, Mainlander seems pretty committed to promortalism, not just antinatalism. I understand where he's coming from. There is no escape from the constant dissatisfaction once it is set in motion for each individual.

We can maybe say Mainlander's prescription is for pessimists who go that route. E.M. Cioran perhaps for pessimists who exist and bare witness to existence, over and over and over. I would say I strike a middle ground between the two.. E.M. Cioran is a quiet witness.. He complains, but not on a communal level. To him, it is the silent individual bearing the self-awareness of the situation. I say bring it to the fore...

It's not that they don't recognize this task of subsisting, it's that they claim it's a matter of your choice, not of something forced on you.

In their view, when you're hungry, you _choose_ to eat. Your predicting that you will be hungry tomorrow and the day after that and so on, and therefore need to find ways to satisfy that need (by work, theft, reliance on mercy) is also something they see as a matter of your choice.
Perhaps with some arm twisting, they'd even declare that breathing is a matter of choice.

They are not alone in this view. A few more examples:

A Buddhist teacher once said in a speech words to the effect "your body is perfectly willing to die" and that it is a matter of your choice that you feed it, take care of it, etc.

Some spiritual teachers go further and say things to the effect that until you take responsibility for having been born at all, your life cannot really begin (Caroline Myss, IIRC).

In some religions, such as some schools of Hinduism and Buddhism, it is believed that one was born because one wanted to be born. Mormons, too, believe that one is born because one wanted to do so and chose it. — baker

Yep, I am aware of this view. I am glad you explicitly stated it though to understand the mentality I am debating.

"Comply or die" isn't tragic to them, it's the baseline, the bare minimum. In order to see things from their perspective, you need to forget about what secular constitutions of democratic countries and the Declaration of Human Rights say about the value of a human being, human dignity, and so on. To them, this is merely about human potential, not about actual people. In their eyes, you get no credit simply because you happen to be a human. You yet need to prove yourself to be worthy. — baker

Really good points, especially about their notion of "potential" vs. "actual" humans. It is using people in a scheme.. Of course, it doesn't matter to them that people are used in this way. And yes, it is about proving yourself worthy it seems. One can even make a Nietzsche little manipulation and make it seem as if "worthiness" is only about "worthiness to yourself", but doesn't that make it convenient on a social level? Those who internalize it and think they are doing it for themselves, would be the most easy to comply.. It is now internalized and perhaps obfuscated.. But it's all part of it.

“No” … how are they different to you?

If it is notthe right question why is it not. It is one I am asking. — I like sushi

Because just about everything in the waking life is part of the dissatisfaction. It is why we are not just being and not having to do anything else about it.

Is ‘striving’ the same as ‘challenging yourself’ in your mind? — I like sushi

No.

Are all hobbies, loves, likes and passions merely purposeful ‘distractions’ from the reality of inevitable existential angst? — I like sushi

Not even the right question.

If this is then taken into the realm of moral theory then I am assuming you and Schopenhauer are/were striving (‘suffering’) to produce a better moral theory. It kind if follows that we should not strive for a better moral theory because such is suffering and suffering is necessarily worse than not suffering (as you have stated elsewhere). — I like sushi

Suffering in his view us the motivator behind all action. We X because something is not enough now. Don’t see why you can’t gain insight into suffering while suffering. There may also be brief escapes according to Schopenhauer like viewing the sublime in art or nature or creating art or music. He thought this had to do with seeing forms and temporarily stopping the will.

But apparently I need to be discredited by any means, because everyone needs to defer to his perspective as ‘the truth’. I’m not okay with THAT. — Possibility

When you continually claim we have more efficacy than we actually do, and ignore the rules created by our situatedness in physical and social reality, I’m gonna continually call you out on it.

However even more pertinent. The fact you don’t recognize that we are all burdened with the task of subsisting at all and overcoming it, is denied by you. We can try to work together but it would be in this recognition of the tragedy and not through obfuscating misdirection of vague optimistic slogans.

But in procreation there is no existing character/identity to violate. — Possibility

This is all I need to know you are arguing in bad faith or that you don't know what you are talking about. Have you read any of my other threads? These type of non-identity arguments are ridiculous. You can justify procreating a child into any situation with this mentality. Of course you will say no, they shouldn't but then you would have no recourse because your own "no existing character" argument refuted itself. But of course, we know it would be wrong to procreate in a terrible situation. But I am saying this applies not to X1 situation but all of life, as that child will be forced to comply with the dictates of life and the contingent harms intendent within it. They will be forced into the character of a "choose your own (actually very limited) adventures. Also, I rephrase it for precious people as yourself so that you can't get around it... "The parent is causing collateral damage but can prevent it..".

But even without rephrasing it.. "The parent is violating dignity of the child.." it works. If a parent procreated a child into a really bad circumstance (think of anything) you would object.. But then you will say life is not always a bad circumstance.. and of course based on the my OP I indeed think it is.. even under the best of contingent circumstances due to the dissatisfaction part. But yes, the violation happens because the child has something PROFOUNDLY done to it, that affects it and it's inescapable and unnecessary to do and will always have inherent and contingent harms. That is a fact. once someone is born, THIS is the violation.. If you can't see that.. then you are just spitting sophistry. You can't do anything you want on behalf of what will affect SOMEONE ELSE because at point X they are technically not born yet, but in point Y they are.. Your actions matter at point Y as much as X, because X led to Y. This is common sense.. Don't try to weasel your way out of it.. Sorry, you can't.

A person’s immediate situatedness is predetermined, but highly variable and ultimately as temporary as they determine it to be. — Possibility

False.. I cannot change all of world history and physical laws to suit me.. And no, people can't change things in such easy fashion as you say... If they could.. we'd have a lot more people changing things to suit them and their preferences. And your double-entry weaseling of 'Well people just have to be aware and they'd know they can move things along collectively".. yeah just stop. You know you can't say much.. You know it's the game, and the 'awareness" is nothing more than an HR person reiterating the benefits of the policy or that the company only works well when we work as a team to achieve our goal..

To judge it ‘inescapable’ is to reduce this actualising relation with potential/value to a binary (potential = good, actual = bad), even though both are continually subject to change, and subject to our conscious determination. — Possibility

What? It's inescapable because you have to DIE to escape the situation. Comply or die...

The point is that it is a forced situation upon someone caused by predecessors.. You can't say, "But no ONE was forced'.. Yes, the very person who exists now exists because..........?????? Don't be a dummy.

The analogy holds with the tertiary character in a fiction.. Just because there are options doesn't mean that forcing them into having to do any of it was right.. You don't get to be hurt and then say people born don't get to be hurt ESPECIALLY cause your character was a fiction and this is a lifetime of inescapable harm and dictate following. Now they must survive and comply and maintain or die.. You can't get around it. You're trying your best to justify the unjustifiable. You don't even know what to say.. All you can say is "Possibility and actuality.. variability". . and none of it means anything. No one created, no forced anything cause as you say, no one exists.

Related, you should read this text:
https://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10179/14444/Antinatalism%20and%20Moral%20Particularism.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Mellaisoux is an advocate for what Kant would describe as transcendental realism - the conviction that the objective domain has an inherent or intrinsic reality. — Wayfarer

Right that is indeed what speculative realists are all about..trying to disregard Kants limits of speculating on the real, non cognitive or pan cognitive reality.

but everthing I've read about him raises red flags. — Wayfarer

Just curious, what particularly did you read that is concerning? I haven’t read much else.

Here is an interview I found on a short Google search: https://www.urbanomic.com/document/founded-on-nothing/

Explain to me what this ‘rule or formal agreement’ is that is broken, or what this ‘something sacred’ is that is treated with disrespect. Because I get that the violation is the birthing, the actual existing, but it’s unclear what an unviolated ‘new person’ is. Seems to me like this violation is committed against an unrealised concept, a perception of value. — Possibility

Right…so if I somehow plot and plan a person to materialize so I can punch him in the face, the second that person materializes, and I punch him, is the violation. Non identity no more. Also, as I’ve been stating the whole time, the parent is creating collateral damage when they could have not created this for someone else.

Another example I give often is that if a parent chooses to birth a child into a volcano, surely they can’t be doing wrong to that child that will be born in the volcano :roll:.

They’re not promised actualities at all, just ideas to which we attribute value based on quality and feeling, and then conceptualise. — Possibility

While I agree in a sense that humans conceptualize their survival as they do it, that doesn’t negate the survival. In fact it may make the situation worse. Instead of instinctual programs we must conceptualize. We can even be aware of a negative value of a task and realize it must be done despite not preferring it if we want to achieve X. We are aware of our shitty options.

I’m arguing that the entire agenda, these ideals we’ve convinced ourselves to strive towards, are a false construct. Which is not to say the potential is non-existent, only that it’s been constructed to give the illusion of definitive goals, when the reality is far more open-ended. — Possibility

But it’s not. Try not eating for a couple weeks. Try living in extreme cold or heat over long periods of time. Not to mention that “where” you put yourself is determined by outside principles like property arrangements. There are quite a few things that de facto happen due to physical, social, and historical situatedness.

Seriously, though - physical or social realities don’t determine your dignity or respect unless you buy into the agenda. They can be taken off the table, and all it changes is the distribution of time, attention and effort. — Possibility

But they do. Every possibility of action is one whereby I need to figure out how to maintain my being. Willy Wonkas Forced Game is really a limited one, and you can piecemeal it further if you want but they fall under the categories listed..if I want none of that? Death. Comply or die.

Why bother? — Possibility

Cause he’s peddling bullshit. It’s doubling down on the agenda..it’s not bypassing it cause you are doing it with more conviction or extremely.

Subjective opinion, again. Life is neither positive or negative. The fact that you NEED it to be inherently positive goes back to your sense of entitlement, and this desire for a definitive goal. ‘I never get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day’... — Possibility

Right, yet you don’t mind literally forcing people into a “choose your own adventure story” that can’t be escaped and is actually limited in options. Then you blame the person forced that how dare they question the situation. Willy Wonka lovingly forced this game for which you can comply or die. You still haven’t addressed Willy Wonka scenario..you, who got indignant at being even mentioned in a silly tertiary way as a fictional character gaslights the fact that people are literally forced into a real situation of inescapable, non-trivial, suffering and an agenda of comply or die.

Your fiction is pretend - the fact that life provides options aside from compliance is not. I have already agreed that ‘forcing someone into the world’ is worth arguing against. But I disagree with your argument that the limitations of an actual life in relation to perceived potential is a case of forcing them to ‘comply with the dictates of life’, let alone any specific agenda. What you want is the maximum value - the dignity and respect - without the life, but that’s not how value exists. — Possibility

Huh? You're making no sense with your jargon again..
Once you violate dignity of X time (birthing that new person), THAT is the violation.. That person doesn't have to exist prior to that to violate the dignity.

And yes, once a person born, it very much is a limited choice of physical and social realities.. Of life contingencies of place, circumstance, time, genetics.. Having possibilities doesn't mean all of them are actually available. And what if we don't want ANY of those possibilities.. well then fuck.. rot in place and death...But then there are just generic realities..Ones that are contingent on being human at all.. In order for X, Y must happen or you die. If you deny it, then go test it out.. For example, not wanting to do the whole survival thing is off the table, lest death, depredation in the wilderness or homeless or free riding etc.. Utopia is off the table because there is no utopia. Some people aren't going to be X because they simply want X. Willy Wonka's Forced game is a forced game of limited choices. And you simply want to deny it because it doesn't fit your brand of optimism. Sorry but that is reality lady!

You are just an apologist for the situation.. You complained about being a character in a fictional story that pretty much did you no harm.. But you did not want to be in this fictional story. Yet, here you are defending to the hilt, as much as you possibly can, a life, something which is not fictional, and cannot be escaped by simply turning a page, that is forced into survival and the rest.. And then have the audacity to say, "but there are options!"". So if I put you in a "choose your own adventure story" that means that you would be fine with it? You cannot have the option of not wanting any of the options though (lest death). And you know this. If you said, "I don't want to be in this story.. with options are not.. And I said, you cannot escape it, unless you kill yourself or embrace the story and think of the choices..

Look again at Willy Wonka's Forced Game;

Let's say I am Willy Wonka..
I have created this world and will force others to enter it... My only rule is people have the options of either working at various occupations which I have lovingly created many varieties of, free-riding (which can only be done by a few and has to be done selectively lest one get caught, it is also considered no good in this world), or living day-to-day homelessly. The last option is a suicide pill if people don't like the arrangement. Is Willy Wonka moral? I mean he is giving many options for work, and even allowing you to test your luck at homelessness and free riding. Also, hey if you don't want to be in his arrangement, you can always kill yourself! See how beneficial and good I am to all my contestants?

There are lots of ways to feel strife and anxiety in my world.. There is generalized boredom, there are pressures from coworkers, there is pressure of joblessness, there are pressures of disease, disasters, mental illness, annoyances, malicious acts, accidents, and so much more that I have built into the world..

I have also created many people who will encourage everyone to also find my world loving so as to not have too many dropouts. — schopenhauer1

Not Whitehead - don’t presume. I’m well aware that the possibility for an event is finite, but human capacity for awareness is not. — Possibility

That's just wrong prima facie.. We are not aware of what we are not aware of. We are not all knowing (infinite awareness). Lay off the stuff.

If you don’t like it, you can look for ways to change it. You cannot BE a bird, but with awareness, connection and collaboration, you can fly or perform pretty much any other action that a bird is capable of, if you choose. — Possibility

Ugh, I knew you were going to say something like that :lol:. No, I literally mean, I cannot become a bird.. Meaning, I cannot change certain physical and social realities of life. They are off the table.

Nietzsche’s Ubermensch is not a proposed actuality, but the conceptualisation of an idea - rather like your notion of maximum value apparently owed to the individual upon existence. It’s a way of thinking about the relational structure between human being/actuality and human value/potentiality. There is a common misconception that it’s linear - much like we assumed the relation between space and time to be linear. It isn’t. — Possibility

I noticed here that you didn't even deny my comparison to Nietzsche's coked out model.

What life course? How you interpret ‘don’t burden others’ is not as straight-forward as you seem to think, and your description of this situatedness as ‘a forced game/leaky boat’ is highly subjective and charged with affect. It doesn’t mean life is good OR bad, except that you choose to interpret it this way. Life is diverse and ever-changing, and so is our potential relation to it. — Possibility

Charged with affect just means I am making an evaluation.. Values have value judgements!!

Yeah that's right, life is a leaky boat of survival and dissatisfaction that has to be overcome. The whole point of the thread is that if being were positive in itself there would be no need for anything.

When we evaluate life, we reduce this perceived relation to a linear equation, with our (temporal) being on one side and our (eternal) value on the other. What is not acknowledged in this equation is that our temporal being is a four-dimensional existence, while our eternal value is a five-dimensional existence. They will never be equal, and any argument that they should be is illogical. — Possibility

Don't know, don't care.. Doesn't mean anything as this is written.

Yes, The physicists Lindie and Wheeler, essentially restate the problem in physics terms:

The moment you say that the universe exists without any observers, I cannot make any sense out of that. I cannot imagine a consistent theory of everything that ignores consciousness. A recording device cannot play the role of an observer, because who will read what is written on this recording device? In order for us to see that something happens, and say to one another that something happens, you need to have a universe, you need to have a recording device, and you need to have us. It's not enough for the information to be stored somewhere, completely inaccessible to anybody. It's necessary for somebody to look at it. You need an observer who looks at the universe. In the absence of observers, our universe is dead. — https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/does-the-universe-exist-if-were-not-looking

It seems to feed right into my question of how information itself can suffice for there to be perspective going on.

Drops of experience seems a bit ridiculous though (ala Whitehead). So does a god-like observer (ala Descartes and Berkeley). I don't necessarily see these as solutions either, though I think the question is pertinent, I don't think it entails these kind of conclusions. Even Schopenhauer's Will is suspect, though it fits so well with my pessimism. I see his Will more akin to the human/animal condition not some universal one of "internal-ness" or double-aspectedness. Though inventive, that's where I see him taking it too far. Water, water, everything is water, kind of thing.

Schopenhauer does a good job stating clearly Kant's antimonies or contradictions regarding epistemology and the word. The first eye "opened" and the world began, but we observe the world as older than the first eye opening. What is this "antecedant"?

Then there is Speculative Realism that tries to deny Kant's "Copernican Revolution", putting epistemology as the limit of metaphysics. But it's really kind of the same kind of thing Whitehead was doing. It is speculating on how objects interact, or how processes interact, or how it is somehow mathematical contingency as a sort of reification?? I don't know those theories too well.

If anyone wants to decipher this and discuss, please let me know:

In this book, Meillassoux argues that post-Kantian philosophy is dominated by what he calls "correlationism," the theory that humans cannot exist without the world nor the world without humans.[6] In Meillassoux's view, this theory allows philosophy to avoid the problem of how to describe the world as it really is independent of human knowledge. He terms this reality independent of human knowledge as the "ancestral" realm.[7] Following the commitment to mathematics of his mentor Alain Badiou, Meillassoux claims that mathematics describes the primary qualities of things as opposed to their secondary qualities shown by perception.

Meillassoux argues that in place of the agnostic scepticism about the reality of cause and effect there should be a radical certainty that there is no causality at all. Following the rejection of causality Meillassoux says that it is absolutely necessary that the laws of nature be contingent. The world is a kind of hyper-chaos in which the principle of sufficient reason is not necessary. But Meillassoux says that the principle of non-contradiction is necessary.

For these reasons, Meillassoux rejects Kant's Copernican Revolution in philosophy. Since Kant makes the world dependent on the conditions by which humans observe it, Meillassoux accuses Kant of a "Ptolemaic Counter-Revolution." Meillassoux clarified and revised some of the views published in After Finitude during his lectures at the Free University of Berlin in 2012.[8] — Quentin Meillassoux Wikipedia Article

You've lost me ( by conflating your anticipation of apokrisis' position and my own). — 180 Proof

You said:

If "perspective" is essentially identical with, or dependent on, (re: physics) locality, then every "thing" is inherently perspectival (i.e. always occupying some spatiotemporally unique point). So yes, machines, for instance, "have perspectives" (e.g. CCTV, neural net facial recognition systrm, radar array, JWST, etc). — 180 Proof

Very similar to this:

So I immediately see apokrisis and others point to "information" being the source of perspective. That is to say, where ever information is being coded and decoded, that local interaction between information components is where a perspective is taking place. But is it? How is information akin to perspective? Perspective, a point of view, seems to be attached to an observer, not an information processor. How can information processing simpliciter be the same as a full-blown observer? I think there are too many jumps and "just so" things going on here to link the two so brashly.

So if not information, where is this "perspective" in the view from nowhere? If localized interactions, "what" makes the perspective happen from these interactions? — schopenhauer1

First, you haven't said what is wrong with the response, and second it is actually a question, not an assertive response, a serious question, a problem for your apparent position which you haven't answered. — Janus

I don't know what it is. I don't necessarily think its an amorphous whatever, but I don't think it's like watching the opening sequence to Star Trek...That would truly be naive realism at its most blatent.

Serious question - Did Kant think that things-in-themselves changed? — T Clark

I think Schopenhauer might have been the best interpreter of Kant.. he said:

Kant was guided by the truth certainly felt that there lies behind every phenomenon a being-in-itself whence such phenomenon obtains its existence ... But he undertook to derive this from the given representation itself by the addition of its laws that are known to us a priori. Yet just because these are a priori, they cannot lead to something independent of, and different from, the phenomenon or representation; and so for this purpose we have to pursue an entirely different course. The inconsistencies in which Kant was involved through the faulty course taken by him in this respect were demonstrated to him by G. E. Schultze who in his ponderous and diffuse manner expounded the matter first anonymously in his Aenesidemus ... and then in his Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie. — Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena

So the 'thing in itself' is completely changeless and amorphous and any "cutting up" we do is totally arbitrary? — Janus

Any better response? The universe is just hanging out as humans conceive it, but without human conception?

I would say that non-sentient beings do not have perspective. There are no events in an a world with no sentient beings. — T Clark

No big bang, no rapid inflationary period, no galaxy formation, no changes on pre-life earth? :cry: — Janus

What he said.

If "perspective" is essentially identical with, or dependent on, (re: physics) locality, then every "thing" is inherently perspectival (i.e. always occupying some spatiotemporally unique point). So yes, machines, for instance, "have perspectives" (e.g. CCTV, neural net facial recognition systrm, radar array, JWST, etc). — 180 Proof

This type of response was predicted in my OP.. I'm skeptical of local interactions of a non-sentient kind being any platform for perspective. How would it be? Interactions = perspective? What??

So I immediately see apokrisis and others point to "information" being the source of perspective. That is to say, where ever information is being coded and decoded, that local interaction between information components is where a perspective is taking place. But is it? How is information akin to perspective? Perspective, a point of view, seems to be attached to an observer, not an information processor. How can information processing simpliciter be the same as a full-blown observer? I think there are too many jumps and "just so" things going on here to link the two so brashly.

So if not information, where is this "perspective" in the view from nowhere? If localized interactions, "what" makes the perspective happen from these interactions? — schopenhauer1

Can non-sentient things (non-animals) have perspective? If not, what is the "platform" of interactions? What is even an "event" in this non-sentient/perspective world?

I think that you are thinking of it in the wrong order. "from these interactions" seems like you are trying to derive where "understanding" (or "perspective") arises from what has been produced from the understanding itself. I can never look at a brain, which is an interpretation derived from understanding, and figure out my understanding therefrom. The best I can do is inquire recursively (i.e. reason upon itself) to understand the mechanisms of my understanding via that understanding. That's the best that can be done. — Bob Ross

I don't know, a lot of people take for granted a universe without perspective (before humans, without humans, after humans).. So your somewhat strident remark of contradictions doesn't jive with how the common view of the universe is conceived.. When asked to think of a universe without humans, we think of planets, black space, stars, etc.. When asked to think of physics we think of atoms whizzing...

Science seems to "work" in some way.. So to stridently pronounce there is a "conundrum" isn't quite the case for scientists who have no problem giving ontological pictures of reality through their measurements.. The fact that the predictions and measurements "work" in some way, seems to give us some privilege that perhaps other POVs don't have.. It seems to be tapping into "something out there". So I can see on the surface of it, science-oriented folks saying that they can describe a universe independent of perspective. It is the neo-Platonism (or Aristotleanism is it?) of not forms, but scientific principles that are foundational..

Completely unnecessary - sexist character attacks with zero substance are not welcome here.

You want to write fiction - do it somewhere else, and leave me the fuck out of it! — Possibility

Ok, sorry sorry.. I was poking fun at the optimisms of you and I like sushi.. He with his, "Guilt complex to do work", and your "collaborate awareness" scheme..

But notice, the indignity you felt, even of just your forum persona being a character in someone else's agenda (fiction). That indignity and disrespect, is like the indignity and disrespect of forcing (causing) someone into the world to comply with the dictates of life.. You can pretend moralize to me that it's different because life provides "options".. But AGAIN, it's the Willy Wonka's Forced Game again.. The options are not really options on closer inspections....

Your namesake presumably comes from metaphysics like Whiteheads.. His idea of universal possibilities for each event.. But those possibilities were finite.. The possibilities of a human animal in a physical world with certain laws and historical developments is finite.. I cannot just be a bird cause I wish it... One must only use the gauntlet allowed by circumstances of reality (both social and physical). Thus, telling someone to "collaborate more awareness and you'll be better off" is like saying to someone, "I'm forcing you into the game and you are going to double down on it if you don't like it". Because the possibilities are there, but they are again, finite. At the end of the day you sound like Nietzsche's super-coked up Ubermensch philosophy which tries to embrace the absurdity through trying to be the most extreme version of the possibility.. It's all the same game.. I'm sorry, there is no "pat" answer that lets you escape the fact of the situatedness of reality.. No Eternal Return superheroes.. No Mother Teresea gods of charity and kindness.. It's just forced game of dissatisfaction overcoming..

So for ethics, what do we do now that we are here? Surely, not much other than live out our life course. We can take away some understanding like "don't burden others" and "community recognition that we are in a forced game/leaky boat". There is some consolation in communal understanding of our situation. There is trying to alleviate undo suffering when one can. Okie dokie.. That doesn't mean thus life good.

When someone creates a home and places certain things in certain places I see this as acting as a creator in order to knock it off balance and learn how regulation in one area can be transferred into life in general. A tidy home leads us to understand something about limited control. — I like sushi

Dissatisfaction.

In terms of pure psychology I absolutely wish to get uncomfortable sometimes because the relief of comfort afterwards is quite nice to say the least. — I like sushi

Dissatisfaction.

Meaning, I think we are naturally inclined to explore and that ‘comfort’ (in too large an amount) can prevent this. Comfort and boredom have some thing some common - neither appears to be an initial state. — I like sushi

You miss my meaning. I mean “getting comfortable”. You sit, stand, itch, open window, clean your environment, etc to get more comfortable.

Note: I don’t think we strive to be comfortable at all — I like sushi

Ok, next time you shiver and try to stay warm or get cooler, adjust your chair, try to regulate any comfort, let me know.

Starting from the beginning of a human life we are inundated with sensory data and our neurons start to fade away in order to shape the brain into an efficient machine rather than waste maintenance on unused neurons. Maybe homeostasis as a regulatory device is where ‘boredom’ stems from? But homeostasis is not static obviously! — I like sushi

This stuff doesn't matter.. As self-conscious animals, our POV is not neurons regulating, but an agent who must grapple with the everyday of surviving, finding comfort, finding entertainment. We are also an animal that can dislike what they are doing yet do it anyway, KNOWING they don't like doing it, and then having to find little strategies to tolerate it. What an inefficient way of surviving.. But hey, we got music, art, and poetry (sarcasm there)..

In an industrialized, complex network of production and consumption, this is all atomized into our little "work" and "leisure" pursuits. On the other side of the spectrum, waiting for us is boredom. Boredom lays bare that existence isn't anything BUT striving-after. We strive to survive and be comfortable. Then, if we do not have any entertainment pursuits to occupy our mental space, we may get existential. "Why are we doing this repetitive upkeep, maintenance, and thrashing about?" It becomes apparent about the malignantly useless (as another author has characterized it).

A pretty face, a noble pursuit, a puzzle, an ounce of pleasure.. we all try to submerge in these entertainments to not face the existential boredom straight on. That would be too much to dwell in for too long. We design goals, and virtues and reasons, and entertainments, and standards to meet, and trying to contribute to "something". We cannot fall back on the default of existence- the boredom.

So what is one to do? If suicide isn't a real option, there is only the perpetual cycle. The illusion is that it can be broken. Schopenhauer deigned freedom by asceticism. That was a nice consolation-hope to provide, but it's simply training the mind to live with the existential striving-after more easily. That is all- a mental technique. It is not a metaphysical escape hatch. We are stuck until we are not. — schopenhauer1

I already predicted that it would mean nothing to you. Death is inevitable, so limiting your life further based on a fear of death is a waste of resources. It’s not necessarily about what benefit you might get out of life’s experiences, but about the benefit your life has on the overall value of existence. — Possibility

So how is this not using people for a scheme again? This is again, LITERALLY defining an/the agenda, that is my whole theme in our discussion. You are doubling down on the fact that procreating is forcing others into a (political) agenda.. and you have thus defined it "benefit ..to existence".. Which has not justification other than STEAMROLLING COLLABORATION MUST BE HAD! But you don't care that this forced agenda violates and disrespects the dignity of the individual that must "benefit the value of existence".. Again, the political agenda.

It’s been gathered up, partially invested in your existence, in the naive and misguided hope that you’ll do more with it than they ever could, and your reply is ‘You invested it wrong - if you’d only left it all under the mattress, it’d be worth more.’ — Possibility

Ah right, so more follow the agenda.. All that protestations earlier that it's not about the agenda goes out the window.. You are full blown HR defending the Boss now.

I’m not denying the initial situation as forced, but I disagree that any scheme - whatever we do immediately after our awareness of this initial situation - can be forced. Only our ignorance, isolation and exclusion keeps us in compliance. — Possibility

Am I in 1984? How is anything not comply or die? Again, have you read my thread on Willy Wonka's Forced Game? Limited choices are still limited choices.. And somehow, the "AWARENESS THROUGH COLLABORATION" is a the big consolation prize.. See, look how you contributed to the AGENDA.. Isn't that nice?? All it is, is lipstick on a pig.. the pig is "comply or die".. You're here.. you have to do X, Y, Z or die.

In a way, each of us is a leaking ship, loaded with precious cargo. What we do with that cargo is more important than the ship that carries it. Once we recognise that, it’s a matter of pooling our resources and building a better system that can hold ALL the cargo, not just what you can salvage of yours and your significant other’s. So, why are you all sitting there complaining about the current state of your ship? — Possibility

Utopianism. Why do people need to be on the ship? All this amounts to is more of the same.. Work to survive, maintain comfort, and entertainment pursuits.. You're just talking the best processes to do this..That isn't addressing the very problem of being on the ship in the first place. Don't think about the ship.. think about fixing the holes better! But Schop's point is that the holes are inherent.. Dissatisfaction-game is inherent.

I do believe the whole existential question is one that comes more easily to some than others. It may even be better for some to ignore it best they can because they might simply end up miserable overall? Hard to impossible to say? — I like sushi

So Schopenhauer's idea is not about "boredom" in the sense that, "Boy I got nuthin' t'do today.. Shucks g-golly".. Look at his quote again:

Human life must be some kind of mistake. The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man is a compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy; and that even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness, where nothing remains to him but abandonment to ​boredom. This is direct proof that existence has no real value in itself; for what is boredom but the feeling of the emptiness of life? If life—the craving for which is the very essence of our being—were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing. But as it is, we take no delight in existence except when we are struggling for something; and then distance and difficulties to be overcome make our goal look as though it would satisfy us—an illusion which vanishes when we reach it; or else when we are occupied with some purely intellectual interest—when in reality we have stepped forth from life to look upon it from the outside, much after the manner of spectators at a play. And even sensual pleasure itself means nothing but a struggle and aspiration, ceasing the moment its aim is attained. Whenever we are not occupied in one of these ways, but cast upon existence itself, its vain and worthless nature is brought home to us; and this is what we mean by boredom. The hankering after what is strange and uncommon—an innate and ineradicable tendency of human nature—shows how glad we are at any interruption of that natural course of affairs which is so very tedious. — Schopenhauer

From a personal perspective something that I have become more and more aware of with age is how a life of leisure is no leisure at all. I seem to have an inbuilt code that does not allow me to ‘enjoy’ leisure unless I have earned it. It can be something simple like washing the dishes or making my bed. Once this is done I can relax and do something I consider ‘leisure’. — I like sushi

Remind me to clone your "inbuilt code" and inject it in my minions when I devise an existence that requires workers to work to maintain my empire. Oh wait, that's just this existence.

What better way to motivate workers than to ensure that they internalize incentives through things like "guilt at not working for it" and "no pain/no gain". In Willy Wonka's "loving world" this is the motto! Now go out there tiger, and go get 'em! They're greeeatt!

You can be the manager at Life Corp Enterprises making sure the workers are internalizing guilt for not "getting things done".

@Possibility can be your HR head, making sure that the minions have slogans like "Awareness through collaboration!"..

Then you two can have a torrid love affair.. And you can smoke a cigarette with your Burt Reynolds mustache as she curls up next to you in bed, sheets strewn about.. and with Ayn Rand on your bedstand and Nietzsche on the dresser.. She can say, "What a great team we are..We have made such connections and collaborate so well!" And you can say, "Damn right.. Look what we have built.. If I didn't do anything I would be beside myself with angst and guilt"..

Anyways, the point of the OP was exactly this problem.. The fact that you cannot "be" is not "doing nothing". In other words, there wouldn't be "guilt of having to do something". Rather, LITERALLY, existing itself would be enough.. with no desire for needing to feel satisfied via work projects, or any other dissatisfaction one is feeling that motivates you to overcome it by doing X.

There is no problem with saying there is being outside of any perspective, or that things exist independently of any perspective; but it's obvious, by definition, that anything we say about it, including the statement that there is being outside perspective, or things existing independently of any perspective is from a perspective. — Janus

Right but obviously Idealists would chide you into "what" that is... Clearly a universe without perspective is a metaphysical mess that non-idealists might get defensive about and then conjure up old Wittgenstei and say, "STOP!!" "Thouh shalt not pass!!" :lol: :lol: Ignoring the issue doesn't make it go away.. That is simply a reflection of the philosopher and their propensities. Go make your model airplanes and watch paint dry.. I don't know.. Monger more minutia perhaps.. Construct some cool code, make some furniture? Do something you think as "practical" and just forget all this metaphysical "nonsense"..