Now, the details you are presenting may or may not change the message sent by the first paragraph. So, if that whole paragraph is not representative of this guy's theory or views or it is insufficient, then you should select one that is. Fair enough, too? — Alkis Piskas

No it was to the extent I explained it. That is to say, we evolved capacities that make us suffer more than other animals. Those capacities that helped us survived also gave us that greater awareness of suffering.

Most people want to tell the truth (not lie), respect private property (not steal) and life (not kill). In other words, most people want to be good.

It reminds me of the red herring fallacy. A hound's sense of smell (our pleasure center - our wants) is a great asset to hunters (us) - sniffing out rabbits (good) but the same keen nose can also be misled by a rotting herring carcass (bad). Put differently, a hound's nose is as attracted to rabbits as it is to putrefied red herrings. That's the nub of the most people defense conundrum - most people want good but also, unfortunately, bad.

That's what happens when you're too efficient. Evolution, instead of developing a separate morality sensor simply used the old pleasure center (the one used for sexual desires, etc.). — TheMadFool

Yes I was explaining this to another poster. What if "most people" want something that isn't good for them? You just automatically give them this? What if work, maintenance, and even entertainment are actually quite harmful to that person when compared to never existing?

Monism is simple. Dualism is a simplicity compounded by a simplicity. It is only with a trichotomous causality that you arrive at actual irreducible complexity worth talking about. — apokrisis

So you need three to tango, eh? So as a meta-meta explanation, why does this logic cohere by necessity? Then of course, what brought about this necessity? A roundabout way of saying, why something than nothing? If it starts with some monism-to-triadism, it's a kind of scientistic-neo-platonism.. descending from the unrefined, to the myriad examples of triadic structures.

They aren’t the same obviously but I think most people would rather lose a million dollars of their lifetime earnings than to have someone make it so that they have never been born at all. I don’t why this fact shouldn’t also be considered here. — TheHedoMinimalist

There are a lot of considerations here. If someone thought something harmful was actually good for them, does that change things or is purely up to someone's opinion? I bring in exhibit a) Pollyannaism b) lowering expectations, and c) adaptation to less ideal circumstances... Just because these are correcting mechanisms, does that mean employing them is good just because they are needed to get by?

The whole point of that example is that no one suffers due to lack of surprise party. It’s a surprise. They weren’t expecting it. You can’t suffer due to not having something you weren’t expecting.

Are you currently suffering due to me not gifting you 10000 dollars? No. Because you don’t expect 10000 dollars from me. But would you be happy if I gifted you 10000 dollars? Probably. — khaled

Well, no one suffers not living. I don't have any argument against giving someone money or a gift, even if they weren't expecting it. I just don't agree with giving someone a burden and then justifying it by giving them a gift.

So, would you say that it would be more wise for me to tell the billionaire in my hypothetical that I can’t speak on your behalf and risk you not receiving a million dollars because of that? — TheHedoMinimalist

So you are saying the complexities and known harms of life are the same as giving someone a million dollars?

If most people want something that has almost 0.000000001 possibility of harm and something that has demonstrable forms of known and unknown harms, you think this is analogous?

Probabilities can have a place but the application is so haughtily assumed..THATS the real argument. I’d still find something as important as bestowing a human life should be more closely analyzed.

Also, once born, its TOO LATE. At this point relative comparisons of lesser for better states come into play, so of course the negligible “lesser state” of not consenting to a million dollars is like a limit in calculus. However creating a whole life for someone else is much less negligible AND is not trading a greater harm for a lesser harm SINCE THAT PERSON DOESN'T EXIST YET TO NEED THIS TRADE OFF”. Thus it is an absolutely unnecessary cause of harm to that person.

I don't believe that the ends justify the means, but we are expected to be practical and pragmatic in a medical emergency. — Kevin Levites

Granted. But let's make this more interesting..
You are convinced most people would like the "feelings of accomplishment" or at least the "feelings of being engaged" of working.. You are a magician of sorts who can conjure people out of thin air. You use your powers and create people. You provide some options but they must choose a form of work.. You decide that "most people you create through your magical powers like doing this"... Are you in the right in creating these people who will work?

But it involves a great deal more. It seems to me the rest should be included among what it is you are preventing. — NOS4A2

I think that is my point. As long as suffering is in the package, it doesn't matter what the other part of the package is. It is already not suited to decide for someone else.

It’s true, one shouldn’t assume for another that they should live, but ought the corollary hold, one shouldn’t assume the opposite? We cannot get consent from the unborn in any case, so the idea of consent seems ridiculous, but might you wonder if in fact your future lives would prefer to be born? — NOS4A2

No actual harm is done to a person in the scenario: future lives prefer to be born but were not.
Actual harm is done with the opposite scenario.

Evil is a cause of suffering, but not all suffering is evil — Cheshire

No not really:
Evil is a cause of human suffering. There are two types of evil:

moral evil - the acts of humans which are considered to be morally wrong
natural evil - natural disasters, such as earthquakes or tsunamis
These two types of evil can work together, eg human evil can make natural evil worse. If natural evil, eg a drought brought on by lack of rainfall, causes crops to fail, the policies of a government can make the food shortages for the poorest people worse (moral evil).

Natural evil would define suffering as evil.

It is evil to suffer, even if undergone for a better outcome. In this case evil is simply defined as suffering.

Even if all suffering isn't "evil", it doesn't seem to cohere that, "We should experience suffering because it is necessary for X". That is a value statement of one's preferences.. I think of a coach or drill sergeant wanting to spread their way of life to everyone.

EVEN if I was to grant you that you need a bit of suffering to "survive better" that doesn't mean that undergoing this process itself is a good thing (maybe not evil though). It's simply a hypothetical imperative that is a kind of informal "law" for how humans in this universe must achieve certain goals.

What are you talking about? Constructivism is just the standard social science position. It’s well founded in theory and evidence. — apokrisis

Constructivism for social science is one thing.. Constructivism (or a form of it) for an answer to what experience is, metaphysically, is another. You always seem to go back to "Well what is a color?" thing. A complex cause for something is not the thing itself that is happening. The color red can be any number of descriptive phenomena, but the experience is another thing. Is causal relations the metaphysical phenomena only for you?

The belief is pernicious though as it tends to makes someone who works and suffers expect that everyone else work and suffer alongside them. Just like how older generations get mad at younger generations for demanding affordable college education ... "if I don't get a slice of the pie, nobody gets a slice of pie!!"

Once you're born, the logic of ethics changes. You are now someone who requires help. Giving someone the opportunity to work so they can take better care of themselves is a beneficent thing to do, as long as you're not taking advantage of them (which is usually the case). — darthbarracuda

Yes, I agree with all of this. Notice you said, "Once you're born, the logic of ethics changes." So why create this situation in the first place for someone who needs to work to be in a better position? I'm being rhetorical here, because your answer seems to be something akin to the Protestant idea of purification through work or at least, the "elect" "knowing" that they were "elected" by the "consequences" of the "fruits" of their labor has permeated cultural practice (even presumably in non-Protestant countries that were influenced by colonial practices). Protestant work theology was always a bit foreign to me, but I'm willing to learn more about its wrongness :). Perhaps people are simply uncreative and work gives them something to do.. like a slave who doesn't know what to do with freedom or something. Zapffe's psychological mechanisms comes rearing again (sublimation, isolation, distraction, and anchoring). We need something to "limit" our consciousness, otherwise Schopenhauer's dreaded "boredom" with existence comes seeping in.

At first reading I found that an interesting view, holding some truth in it. But only for a few seconds. Because I then thought, "Indeed humans tend to suffer much more than animals, on both the biological and emotional level (although we can't say exactly how much animals suffer). Yet, how can one bring up this "overdeveloped skill" --in fact, skills-- as a factor of lack of fitting in the nature? It's an incredibly narrow view! It disregards how these skills make him not only survive and fit better than animals but also extending their control of their environment to an extent that is not even comparable to that of the animals.

It is true that man often abuses his abilities and skills and can create more harm than good. And it also true that he often tries to explain the unexplainable and exceed himself, becomes vain and so on, mainly because of these "overdeveloped" (actually superior) skills and abilities. But these things certainly cannot be used as arguments to support this guy's (Zapfie) theory. — Alkis Piskas

From false premises/assumptions/hypothesis he draws a false conclusion: a paradox. Well, I can't see any paradox in all that. (Except maybe this one: how these "overdeveloped" skills can make somemone have such narrow views and draw such false conclusions! :) ) — Alkis Piskas

Zapffe's point was a little bit different than mine, but related. You have to read him in the full context. His was more about our general awareness of our own existence in general and our own understanding of our own suffering. Thus he thinks we use psychological mechanisms to prevent us from constantly hitting these "dead ends" in a way by sublimation (get involved in an engrossing activity), distraction, anchoring (like using ideas of "hard work", "society man", "good parent", "good citizen"), and isolation (narrowly focus on a particular thing).

However, tying it to my OP, what I'm saying is that we are (one of if not the) only animal that really understands our own suffering as we are living through it. It doesn't just passively happen to us, but we know what is going on.. We must do X, even though we don't like X, and all the while, knowing we are doing X and not liking it as we are doing it... We at almost all waking times can do something else, but have justifications with ourselves (often leaving it to one of the psychological mechanisms like anchoring in a value or other justification). We have an extra burden that other animals don't who have inbuilt mechanisms like instinctual behaviors that we don't have. I am not saying that our way of life doesn't bring about survival conditions, because obviously it does lead to that.

If something is proposed as a solution to a problem, but you have to apply or enact that solution over and over again (with no end in sight), then it's not a solution to the problem at all. It's merely a distraction from the problem and a postponing of a solution. — baker

The solution is to not start the suffering.

Permissible by whom? — baker

Permissible as one's own ethical guideline.

Jokes aside, that's why the moral rule that has the most appeal is the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would like others do unto you. Ethics isn't about what most people would want but about what you want. The underlying assumption though, ironically, is that other people are like you and Bob's your uncle!

Yet, it isn't that simple. It's not just about what most people want. We all know that! ( :wink: :wink: :wink: ) - the list of most popular and fastest growing websites will vouch for what I'm hinting at. — TheMadFool

That's another point.. What if what most people want IS NOT GOOD, but they are not aware of this?

That data is something which needs to be derived from averaging a population, otherwise we're just guessing. — Isaac

Right, but at what percentage does the minority get discounted? And what kind of phenomena does this apply more strongly? A color to a house and a human life you would think this rule would get more stringent, don't you think?

Though, I’ll grant you that the overall goodness of being born is more controversial than the goodness of receiving a million dollars. But, if the vast majority of people are happy about the fact that they are born then why wouldn’t it make sense to take that risk of an occasional child being unhappy about existence? — TheHedoMinimalist

Again, this is the same problem with the Golden Rule, not everyone wants done to them what you would want done to you or its inverse (not done to them what you would not want done).

I think it’s kinda strange to argue that we are never justified taking risks on other’s behalf because we actually take risks on other’s behalf quite often. For example, my retirement fund is being managed by some professional investors that I don’t know and they certainly don’t ask me permission for every investment decision that they make. Nonetheless, I trust that they probably know what they are doing and I don’t think it’s wrong for them to make decisions with other people’s money. Though, you should be allowed to object to their decisions and try to undo their decisions if you have the time and will to study and analyze them. — TheHedoMinimalist

I'm sure there are legal ways you have allowed that person to do that.. forms, fine print, laws, and whatnot. Certainly that person shouldn't do it without your approval otherwise. On an ethical basis, no one should just bet on your money, even if it is a sure bet. And certainly moments in life are not sure bets, but very nuanced and complicated phenomena.

I cannot conceive of living as work and suffering — NOS4A2

Living almost always involves work (at least maintenance) and certainly suffering.

I am well aware of the “having children is a bad thing” argument, but I am more interested in the OP’s argument that he can prevent work and suffering by doing something other than procreating. — NOS4A2

I am not sure what you are asking. You can prevent work and suffering by not procreating. Once born, it is an inevitable (what I call) evil or form of suffering. Certainly, an implication is you shouldn't assume for another that they should go through this and all is good because you don't mind it (at the time of the decision at least).

It does seem that ones sense of what is ethical or not is dictated by the society and culture in which you are raised and situated. Most societies frown upon murder, torture, incest and theft but not all and universal ethics does seem (in practice anyway) a difficult if not unachievable goal. — prothero

Well, I think this goes even deeper to the problem with the Golden Rule argument (What you do not want done to you, do not do to another).. There are people who would want suffering in certain contexts which others would not. Hence the rule is a bit flawed itself, though I like its attempt at succinct clarity. It doesn't work when combined with outliers or simply moral relativism in general throughout individuals and cultures.

That doesn’t follow. It doesn’t have to be the only relevant consideration. Your search for a single simple statement that sums up all of morality is half the reason you end up with AN I think. — khaled

I'm not sure I'm trying to do that. In our back-and-forths, due to you wanting me to provide a one-size-fits-all heuristic as a basis for my AN, I do end up doing that I think (see previous discussions).

What I am proposing here is that almost every circumstance where something is done on someone else's behalf there is ameliorating a lesser harm for a greater harm.. One can even argue, giving a present to someone is also doing this... surprise party, or whatever example you want to use.

However, in the case of the not-born/considering-born, it is always the case that at least for that person being born nothing needed to be ameliorated, thus, I call this act of putting in conditions of harm/suffering "unnecessary" in the sense that it is absolutely not needed for some living agent. Bringing it to the subject-at-hand in the other thread but can be generalized to any form of suffering, harm, imposition, etc.

1) Working to get better circumstance = a necessary (evil/need/thing/event)
2) Creating the conditions where someone needs to get better circumstances (aka through working) = not necessary.

schopenhauer1 constructs his identity by denying life. The other is evil. — Banno

Evil in the sense of moral evil is more to do with intent I would agree. But in terms of people suffering, I wouldn't call it "evil" for people to want progeny despite knowing generally, there is harmfulness in living. I would call it misguided and following preference over consequences. The intent is not to harm (usually), but the intent encompasses knowing of the harmfulness. I don't know how to characterize that (perhaps morally misguided), but I wouldn't call it evil.

In the usage of "natural evil", I do believe there to be a certain entailment of suffering in the regular animal "way of being" in the world. And in that sense I am using it. So a person who is not evil, can understand that there is a "natural evil" in the world, and bypass this understanding for their own preference and thus be morally misguided.

Calling something evil can be a rhetorical strategy. Homosexuality is evil. Atheism is evil. Fundamentalism is evil. So you can stop trying to make sense of it now.

See how ↪schopenhauer1 uses it in this way. — Banno

Talking about the very common historical usage of Natural Evil:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zhmhgk7/revision/1

But no, I don't consider it non-sensical. I consider it an inevitability, and due to psychological and physiological features of being an animal in this world, it is almost assuredly entailed (whether the Buddhist sense or the Western sense of unwanted harms).

In my profile I parse the two kinds of suffering thus:

Life has necessary and contingent suffering. Necessary suffering is often considered "Eastern", similar to how Buddhism defines it. That is to say it is a general dissatisfaction stemming from a general lack in what is present. Relief is temporary and unstable. If life was fully positive without this lack, it would be satisfactory without any needs or wants.

Contingent harms are the classic ones people think of. It is the physical harms, the emotional anguish, the annoyances great and small. It is the pandemics, the disasters, the daily grind of a tedious work day. It is the hunger we feel, and the pain of a stubbed toe. It is any negative harm. It is contingent as it is contextual in time/place, and situation. It is based on historical trajectories and situatedness. It is based on the "throwness" (in Existentialism terminology). It varies in individuals in varying amounts and intensity, but happens to everyone nonetheless.

Perhaps there is a possibility of some post-human/transhumanist world, but that would be something different than the nature of the setup we currently have, and I consider that as something oddly outside of consideration other than description from a far away place.

I want to see how he bridges suffering and evil in the face of insurmountable evidence. — Cheshire

This sums up the two uses in Western usage:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zhmhgk7/revision/1

Doctors inflict plenty of suffering to patients but mostly with the intention of curing them or restoring them to a state of health. Most of us would think it was evil to intentionally inflict suffering upon another sentient being unless there was some greater good which was the ultimate goal. Somehow I think all definitions will be deficient and although we might all agree certain acts are evil and other acts are not, there will be a large categories of actions carried out with agency and intention on which not everyone will agree. — prothero

We can make a distinction between "Suffering is evil" and "Making someone suffer unnecessarily is evil". Even as an ardent antinatalist, I don't think parents are being "evil" by having children, even if they know that the result of their action will be some form(s) of suffering for the future child. I am purely using the term as "Suffering is an evil", as it is a negative state which we must endure.

Right, that's why the auto-discussion that follows doesn't really get started. If life doesn't entail evil or suffering doesn't entail then the following discussion about what to or not do changes. — Cheshire

Does life on planet Earth entail some amount of suffering?

umwelt or private habits of interpretation. — apokrisis

Doesn’t this become constructivist woo just as wooey as any Cartesian subject?

Agreed!

Right, so I'm saying we shouldn't retain that bit. — Cheshire

I don’t see why not. Let’s put it this way, is it right to perform an action knowing that that action will lead to suffering for another person, and it wasn’t ameliorating an even greater suffering- you just preferred the outcome of suffering cause maybe you thought a) it’s worth the good or b) suffering itself is somehow good for that person?

Remember this decision is not for you but for someone else.

If I'm thinking all suffering isn't the result of evil, then thinking all life which includes all suffering is somehow evil would require a contradictory logic I can't produce. I'd offer a narrowing down of the term which may still show creating more life is evil, but I don't know how. — Cheshire

I am saying that if you retain that all suffering is evil, and life entails suffering, then we can prevent evil by not procreating. The key here is whether life entails some sort of evil, like suffering. If it is almost a 100% inevitability.

Of course another ethic would be something like forcing (inevitable and known) bad on other people's behalf.. which procreation is eventually doing to someone else. Do not do that which is known to bring negative states to others if one can prevent it.

Once alive, suicide is rare, and a struggle, but not because torment and anguish is rare, because getting rid of one's very being in response to it, is a hard move to make unless in extreme psychological distress. Better to prevent the inevitable anguish in the first place rather than cruelly leaving it up to suicide or some sort of suffering-relief scheme once one is already born and must deal with the suffering in the first place. But then "most people" will use the "most people defense".. see here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11469/the-most-people-defense

What I mean is, your behavior does not prevent or alleviate extant suffering. Therefor it does not prevent or alleviate suffering. — NOS4A2

That is just false. I can prevent a future suffering by not doing X. That is not a false statement. Alleviating suffering does not need to be only present suffering.

If I stand on the street and refuse to punch 100 people, I cannot say my behavior was ethical because I prevented 100 bloody noses, when in fact I did nothing at all. Again, all you’ve prevented is yourself having a child. — NOS4A2

Even more strength to the argument for antinatalism. It is simply NOT doing a simple thing.

Certainly we can say, "It is moral NOT to throw that person off the cliff", even if it is not heroic. It is simply an ethically true statement. The ease of which the ethical application of a guideline doesn't have to do with its moral import. "You can prevent suffering by doing X" should be taken as only that, and nothing more. Impactful for a whole future life prevented from suffering, it is. Heroic you can argue it isn't.

Peirce argued for the irreducible triadicity of a semiotic modelling relation and an expansion of that from a statement about epistemology to a story of ontic and cosmic generality. — apokrisis

The problem is the Cartesian monistic subject = the Peircean triadic model. If it's equivalent functionally, what does it matter? One calls it a hydrogen atom, another protons/neutrons/electrons, and another two up quarks and a down quark, two down quarks and an up quark, gluon particles, and an electron.

Perhaps we are talking about cause.. but is that ontology? Ontologically, the mind is being what the mind is being. Or in a process approach.. The process is being what the process is being. But, you see, whether being, process, or whatever, there is a "there" going on "there". and that "there" is the thing that is highlighted not just the observable phenomena related to "there".

The trouble this runs into is it equates two things. We know not all suffering can be the result of evil. It's a good starting point because it casts a wide net and captures the bulk of what we associate with evil. But, it applies to things that aren't evil and simply result in suffering. — Cheshire

Perhaps then, since life as we know it entails evil it is evil to make more of it. Then the widecast net might be correct, but it just encompasses the continuation of life, something people don't want to think about due to their preferences and such.

the consequences of your behavior and the beings they are applied to cannot be empirically observed and measured. The sum total of suffering in the world remains. You haven’t prevented, eased or done anything about it. — NOS4A2

The suffering is 100.. By adding another person, it becomes 120 let's say.. You have prevented that 20 addition that would have been suffered by someone So you HAVE done something. To ignore this fact would be to ignore future conditionals.. Then I would think you were making a playground of how we think of "could statements" to suit your argument.

To expect adulation and praise for what isn’t ethical behavior, though, is unethical behavior. I suppose that’s the man reason for my pushback. — NOS4A2

Who the hell said (mainly talking about myself) that I thought I wanted "adulation"? This has nothing to do with wanting a pat on the back or adulation. That's your interpretation somehow.

@180 Proof @darthbarracuda
I guess the question restated is, that if we know the usual manner in which we need to survive, why is a life with work something that should be bestowed for another person, on their behalf, even if there is [place positive attribute of life here]?

1.) One can say a kind of decision that affects another person negatively, and that decision was not meant to mitigate another worse outcome for that person (because no one was born to need mitigation in the first place), then that is wrong..
a) To elaborate: Work is not like a painful abscess or incredibly tortuous disease (though those are plenty good reasons right there to not bring people into the world).. Work is a daily, grinding kind of gnawing thing that needs to get done for most individuals.. So it seems more innocuous. But is it really, when it is about making the decision on behalf of another person?

2.) If no person exists, there is no experiencer of the world. Is having no experiencer of the world make any negative outcome one does on another's behalf permissible? Thus, because there would be no one to feel X, bestowing life to another (and thus having an experiencer) that will have negative event Y (torture, the grinding nature of daily work and maintenance) is permissible because ANYTHING is better than nothing?

3.) Some people think working is just a "good" in itself, and that others need to experience it.

Both 1 and 2 seem off by a longshot. 3 is a personal preference that certainly not everyone shares.. Some people think torture is something that is cleansing, doesn't mean one should make others go through torture.

@darthbarracuda
Other Schopenhauer quotes that I think are relevant here:

Thus we see already that we can never arrive at the real nature
of things from without. However much we investigate, we can
never reach anything but images and names. We are like a man
who goes round a castle seeking in vain for an entrance, and
sometimes sketching the façades. And yet this is the method that
has been followed by all philosophers before me.

The double knowledge which each of us has of the nature and
activity of his own body, and which is given in two completely
different ways, has now been clearly brought out. We shall
accordingly make further use of it as a key to the nature of
every phenomenon in nature, and shall judge of all objects which
are not our own bodies, and are consequently not given to our
consciousness in a double way but only as ideas, according to the
analogy of our own bodies, and shall therefore assume that as in
one aspect they are idea, just like our bodies, and in this respect
First Aspect. The Objectification Of The Will. 151
are analogous to them, so in another aspect, what remains of
objects when we set aside their existence as idea of the subject,
must in its inner nature be the same as that in us which we
call will. For what other kind of existence or reality should we
attribute to the rest of the material world? Whence should we take
the elements out of which we construct such a world? Besides
will and idea nothing is known to us or thinkable. If we wish to
attribute the greatest known reality to the material world which
exists immediately only in our idea, we give it the reality which
our own body has for each of us; for that is the most real thing
for every one. But if we now analyse the reality of this body and
its actions, beyond the fact that it is idea, we find nothing in it
except the will; with this its reality is exhausted. Therefore we
can nowhere find another kind of reality which we can attribute
to the material world. Thus if we hold that the material world is
something more than merely our idea, we must say that besides
being idea, that is, in itself and according to its inmost nature,
it is that which we find immediately in ourselves as will. I say
according to its inmost nature; but we must first come to know [137]
more accurately this real nature of the will, in order that we may
be able to distinguish from it what does not belong to itself, but
to its manifestation, which has many grades. Such, for example,
is the circumstance of its being accompanied by knowledge,
and the determination by motives which is conditioned by this
knowledge. As we shall see farther on, this does not belong to the
real nature of will, but merely to its distinct manifestation as an
animal or a human being. If, therefore, I say,—the force which
attracts a stone to the earth is according to its nature, in itself,
and apart from all idea, will, I shall not be supposed to express
in this proposition the insane opinion that the stone moves itself
in accordance with a known motive, merely because this is the
way in which will appears in man.28 We shall now proceed
28 We can thus by no means agree with Bacon if he (De Augm. Scient., L.
iv. in fine.) thinks that all mechanical and physical movement of bodies has
152 The World As Will And Idea (Vol. 1 of 3)
more clearly and in detail to prove, establish, and develop to its
full extent what as yet has only been provisionally and generally
explained.29
§ 20. As we have said, the will proclaims itself primarily in the
voluntary movements of our own body, as the inmost nature of
this body, as that which it is besides being object of perception,
idea. For these voluntary movements are nothing else than the
visible aspect of the individual acts of will, with which they are
directly coincident and identical, and only distinguished through
the form of knowledge into which they have passed, and in which
alone they can be known, the form of idea.

Thus, although every particular action, under the
presupposition of the definite character, necessarily follows
from the given motive, and although growth, the process of
nourishment, and all the changes of the animal body take place
according to necessarily acting causes (stimuli), yet the whole
series of actions, and consequently every individual act, and
also its condition, the whole body itself which accomplishes
it, and therefore also the process through which and in which it
exists, are nothing but the manifestation of the will, the becoming
visible, the objectification of the will. Upon this rests the perfect
suitableness of the human and animal body to the human and
animal will in general, resembling, though far surpassing, the
correspondence between an instrument made for a purpose and
the will of the maker, and on this account appearing as design,
i.e., the teleological explanation of the body. The parts of the [141]
body must, therefore, completely correspond to the principal
desires through which the will manifests itself; they must be the
visible expression of these desires. Teeth, throat, and bowels
are objectified hunger; the organs of generation are objectified
sexual desire; the grasping hand, the hurrying feet, correspond to
the more indirect desires of the will which they express. As the
human form generally corresponds to the human will generally,
so the individual bodily structure corresponds to the individually
modified will, the character of the individual, and therefore it is
throughout and in all its parts characteristic and full of expression.
It is very remarkable that Parmenides already gave expression
to this in the following verses, quoted by Aristotle (Metaph. iii.
5):—
(Ut enim cuique complexio membrorum flexibilium se habet,
ita mens hominibus adest: idem namque est, quod sapit,
membrorum natura hominibus, et omnibus et omni: quod enim
plus est, intelligentia est.)30
§ 21. Whoever has now gained from all these expositions
a knowledge in abstracto, and therefore clear and certain, of
what every one knows directly in concreto, i.e., as feeling, a
knowledge that his will is the real inner nature of his phenomenal
being, which manifests itself to him as idea, both in his actions
and in their permanent substratum, his body, and that his will
is that which is most immediate in his consciousness, though it
has not as such completely passed into the form of idea in which
[142] object and subject stand over against each other, but makes
itself known to him in a direct manner, in which he does not
quite clearly distinguish subject and object, yet is not known
as a whole to the individual himself, but only in its particular
acts,—whoever, I say, has with me gained this conviction will
find that of itself it affords him the key to the knowledge of the
inmost being of the whole of nature; for he now transfers it to
all those phenomena which are not given to him, like his own
phenomenal existence, both in direct and indirect knowledge,
but only in the latter, thus merely one-sidedly as idea alone. He
will recognise this will of which we are speaking not only in
those phenomenal existences which exactly resemble his own,
in men and animals as their inmost nature, but the course of
reflection will lead him to recognise the force which germinates
and vegetates in the plant, and indeed the force through which the
crystal is formed, that by which the magnet turns to the north pole,
the force whose shock he experiences from the contact of two
different kinds of metals, the force which appears in the elective
affinities of matter as repulsion and attraction, decomposition

The will as a thing in itself is quite different from
its phenomenal appearance, and entirely free from all the forms
of the phenomenal, into which it first passes when it manifests
160 The World As Will And Idea (Vol. 1 of 3)
itself, and which therefore only concern its objectivity, and are
foreign to the will itself. Even the most universal form of all
idea, that of being object for a subject, does not concern it;
still less the forms which are subordinate to this and which
collectively have their common expression in the principle of
sufficient reason, to which we know that time and space belong,
and consequently multiplicity also, which exists and is possible
only through these. In this last regard I shall call time and space
the principium individuationis, borrowing an expression from
[146] the old schoolmen, and I beg to draw attention to this, once
for all. For it is only through the medium of time and space
that what is one and the same, both according to its nature and
to its concept, yet appears as different, as a multiplicity of coexistent and successive phenomena. Thus time and space are the
principium individuationis, the subject of so many subtleties and
disputes among the schoolmen, which may be found collected
in Suarez (Disp. 5, Sect. 3). According to what has been
said, the will as a thing-in-itself lies outside the province of the
principle of sufficient reason in all its forms, and is consequently
completely groundless, although all its manifestations are entirely
subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason. Further, it is
free from all multiplicity, although its manifestations in time
and space are innumerable. It is itself one, though not in the
sense in which an object is one, for the unity of an object can
only be known in opposition to a possible multiplicity; nor
yet in the sense in which a concept is one, for the unity of a
concept originates only in abstraction from a multiplicity; but it
is one as that which lies outside time and space, the principium
individuationis, i.e., the possibility of multiplicity. Only when
all this has become quite clear to us through the subsequent
examination of the phenomena and different manifestations of
the will, shall we fully understand the meaning of the Kantian
doctrine that time, space and causality do not belong to the
thing-in-itself, but are only forms of knowing.

The antithesis asserts that the world can have no beginning in time and no limit in space. Allison breaks it down as follows:
1.) Assume the world has a beginning in time.
2.) The concept of a temporal beginning presupposes a preceding time before the thing exists.
3.) Therefore it is necessary to think of an empty time before the world existed.
4.) But such points of time cannot be distinguished from one another.
5.) A world cannot meaningfully be said to have come into existence at one time rather than another time if both times are empty.
6.) So we cannot meaningfully say the world came into being in time at all, therefore the world is infinite with respect to past time. — darthbarracuda

The argument here contains two suppressed premises: that the antecedent proposition (the world is a whole existing in itself, a totum syntheticum) is entailed by transcendental realism, and that transcendental realism and transcendental idealism are mutually exclusive and exhaustive positions. The negation of the antecedent entails the negation of transcendental realism, which entails the affirmation of transcendental idealism. — darthbarracuda

Schopenhauer's explanation:

On the other hand, the law of causality and the treatment and
investigation of nature which is based upon it, lead us necessarily
to the conclusion that, in time, each more highly organised state
of matter has succeeded a cruder state: so that the lower animals
existed before men, fishes before land animals, plants before
59
fishes, and the unorganised before all that is organised; that,
consequently, the original mass had to pass through a long series
of changes before the first eye could be opened. And yet, the
existence of this whole world remains ever dependent upon the
first eye that opened, even if it were that of an insect. For such an
eye is a necessary condition of the possibility of knowledge, and
the whole world exists only in and for knowledge, and without
it is not even thinkable. The world is entirely idea, and as such
demands the knowing subject as the supporter of its existence.
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. 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. [039]
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, and set it up as the counterpart
of that which we found in the first extreme of natural science.
The fourfold antinomy of Kant will be shown, in the criticism
of his philosophy appended to this volume, to be a groundless
delusion. But 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. This we shall
60 The World As Will And Idea (Vol. 1 of 3)
consider in the second book, calling it after the most immediate
of its objective manifestations—will. But the world as idea,
with which alone we are here concerned, 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
[040] 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
(«£ø½ø¬), 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.
This explanation at which we have arrived by following the
most consistent of the philosophical systems which start from the
object, materialism, has brought out clearly the inseparable and
reciprocal dependence of subject and object, and at the same time
61
the inevitable antithesis between them. And this knowledge leads
us to seek for the inner nature of the world, the thing-in-itself,
not in either of the two elements of the idea, but in something
quite distinct from it, and which is not encumbered with such a
fundamental and insoluble antithesis.

— Schopenhauer- World as Will and Representation

Why do you care what the crowd thinks? Their misery is not your problem. Let them do whatever they want and you can try to focus on the well-being of yourself and the people you care about. Is it therapeutic for you to express these thoughts? — darthbarracuda

Yes, this can be a form of self-torture. But in a way, I am practicing what I preach. Consolation regarding our lot/condition, catharsis through dialogue.

Yes, Schop by most accounts, was more content with the fame he was receiving towards the end of his life, almost a vindication after being cast aside. He seemed to be mainly characterized as an odd Kantian sidetrack from Hegel, which of course he bristled at. Not that one can really psychologize, but he may have had a kind of OCPD
https://www.healthline.com/health/obsessive-compulsive-personality-disorder

Despite his peculiarities, his insights into the striving-after nature of existence were sublime, succinct (in terms of communication style compared to his contemporaries and others before and after), and got to the heart of the big issue(s).

What the crucial difference is is that we are social animals with spoken and written language. Our intellect in limited areas (but sadly not in philosophy) has grown exponentially over the generations due to cultural (mostly scientific and technical) advances that are retained and built upon. Isolated from culture, we would be less adapt than almost all animals. In fact, without our technological meddling with global environment, we might be one of the most vulnerable of all species. — magritte

While I agree, you make it seem as if other animals have the capacity for this kind of exponential cultural expansion. They don't. As you state, we have linguistic brains that are also highly deliberative. In other words, where other animals rely on more instinctual programs, much of our decision making is volitional. We chose to do this, then do that. This doesn't mean that I am not denying that other animals can have preferences (shade over sun, this food over that), nor does it mean that humans don't have certain instincts (reflexes, tendencies, etc.). Nor am I denying many animals are capable of emotions like joy and sadness. The fact that you might think I am denying any of those things are more a reflection of your reflexive response and not looking at what I am trying to say.. However, due to our brains, we are highly deliberative and have self-reflection (not the same as the "self" test). Thus, due to our particular evolutionary path, we also have the problems I stated in the OP.

All the burden is on our thought-processes, how we deliberate and interact with the socio-physical environment. This leads to that much more psychological stress. This situation is almost maladaptive to an extent. — schopenhauer1

Following upon this, there is one respect in which brutes show real wisdom when compared with us — Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Suffering of the World

And as Schopenhauer stated, I am not downplaying animals and their being. Rather, like Schopenhauer I am admiring that they are more tranquil, more "at home". Yes, we are from nature, but we seem not at home in it. And no, thoughts of beautiful natural landscapes, and living in the woods is not what I mean here. I am not talking some Romantic Rousseauan/Thoreauean "return to nature". Rather, I am saying our very minds, how they operate, make it an impossibility. We sort of try to get at "it" with the idea of meditation, restfulness, sleep, etc. But it's not quite the same. It's not that we work-to-survive, we "know" we work-to-survive. We could do otherwise at any time, though we may not like the consequences. The very need to improve is the dissatisfaction we are feeling at the present. Time is pressing upon us and we know it, moving us forward, dissatisfied. You can give me all the optimistic bullshit you want, and that doesn't change what is the case. As Schopenhauer stated:

The whole foundation on which our existence rests is the present—the ever-fleeting present. It lies, then, in the very nature of our existence to take the form of constant motion, and to offer no possibility of our ever attaining the rest for which we are always striving. We are like a man running downhill, who cannot keep on his legs unless he runs on, and will inevitably fall if he stops; or, again, like a pole balanced on the tip of one's finger; or like a planet, which would fall into its sun the moment it ceased to hurry forward on its way. Unrest is the mark of existence.

In a world where all is unstable, and nought can endure, but is swept onwards at once in the hurrying whirlpool of change; where a man, if he is to keep erect at all, must always be advancing and moving, like an acrobat on a rope—in such a world, happiness is inconceivable. How can it dwell where, as Plato says, continual Becoming and never Being is the sole form of existence? In the first place, a man never is happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so; he seldom attains his goal, and when he does, it is only to be disappointed; he is mostly shipwrecked in the end, and comes into harbor with masts and rigging gone. And then, it is all one whether he has been happy or miserable; for his life was never anything more than a present moment always vanishing; and now it is over. — Arthur Schopenhauer- The Vanity of Existence

I think this addresses @180 Proof and @Book273

Other animals don’t self talk any more than we use echo location to find food. It is a very specific kind of internal linguistic ability. Anyways, To focus on this aspect of what I’m saying is to miss the point entirely.
If you don’t think humans have evolved certain traits different from other animals, I can’t help you. You’re now playing around with the very idea of difference. A fly is a whale is a chimp is a dog is a human. No differences.