You have to admit, you don't actually address my rebuttals.

However you characterize it, I have given you my response. If you would like to address it, please do.

No, I am not a utilitarian totalizer like this.

My point is, nobody in their right mind and with a proper understanding of causality would agree "life causes suffering". When we say something causes something else, we're talking about sufficient and proximate causes. By abusing language and not familiarising you with how the words are actually used, you reach idiocy. But this had never penetrated your thick skull because you're not interested in challenging your own preconceived notions. — Benkei

Well ditto. I think you are abusing language yourself here as you know perfectly well why procreation is the target:

1) If we take the deontological approach, then making this decision on another's behalf is construed as wrong. The big bang doesn't make decisions, humans do. But I obviously don't have to say that ridiculous point.

2) If we take the utilitarian approach, ALL harm that befalls a person comes from birth. Birth doesn't happen out of thin air, but out of decisions made by humans. Again, this is obvious and I don't have to say this ridiculous point.

I also mentioned (and you didn't address) that what your argument is really trying to address is the empirical question of whether each individual case of suffering in a person's life can be ameliorated and gotten rid of. Obviously I think that is near improbable to zero. Besides which, combined with the deontological approach, that might not even matter as a consideration being that you are making unnecessary risky decisions on another person's behalf in the first place- putting them in (what we know to be from empirical evidence) a lifetime's worth of enduring negative experiences and having to overcome them. I think whether or not positive experiences are involved too, doesn't negate the fact that this negative experience/overcoming "game" is being unnecessarily bestowed upon a future person (on their behalf) in the first place.

So I don’t think one’s academic credentials, or notoriety hold much particular sway when it comes to accepting one’s philosophical views. — Pinprick

I'm just suggesting there may be a bias. I think more empirical evidence might be needed.

Also, philosophy tends to be very subjective to begin with. Therefore, oftentimes what ideas one accepts depends solely on whether or not it is appealing to them. To be blunt, you and I will likely never agree on AN. Even if you become, or are, some world renowned philosopher, or if AN becomes popular, it won’t change what I value, or how I prioritize those values. Unless there’s a way to objectively determine what we should value most, I see no way of overcoming our difference of opinion. — Pinprick

No doubt.. But I think it may be an interesting study to see if the pro-natalist (or sympathizers rather) see knowing minutia on some field (math, science, electronics, physics, construction even), must mean that one must have more philosophical insight as if one can just "plumb the depths" of knowledge, one will get to some sort of philosophical insight. I guess in this way, a question arises, "Does knowing a lot about something, make one more of an expert in philosophical concepts like the human condition?"

But I am also trying to reveal that people often deem that knowing minutia in a field itself confers by some necessity, better understanding in existential matters like antinatalism.

Maybe if some high profile Hollywood types started telling everyone at the Academy Awards to be antinatalist it would gain considerable traction. — Albero

But for the "respectable folk" and not the rabble it would have to be high profile scientists, inventors, titans of industry, highly trained technicians that are experts in their field and have contributed many tangible products, innovations, and services etc. People who are deemed as accomplished in the ways of life they deem as respectable.

Do you think it's bad that we have this bias (if it's real) ? I personally don't see why it would be bad if someone who's been around the block for years says "this is how you do it" compared to someone who's been working for a month. Another thing, are you trying to say others perceive antinatalists as being lazy or lacking? I mean it's pretty darn hopeless that's for sure, but lazy? — Albero

People are HOPING the practically-accomplished person in the sciences and construction trades would be a "pragmatic-realist" (like them) and not something as "dreaded" as an antinatalist. And they hope that they would hold the generic/majority values of a procreation-sympathizer/agnostic. That kind of cognitive dissonance would make the claim more credible, because everything else they have accomplished is something they admire and has "helped" the systems in place in a way that they praise.

Are you asking that does this knowledge I have of everything onit's own make any position more credible, or is it only credible if one has all this knowledge of stuff and understands how to apply it? — Albero

Good question. What I'm trying to get at is a possible bias we have for people we perceive as having more productive capacity or insight into "how-things-work" in a way that affects us tangibly. These people are deemed (my theory goes) as having more credibility in claims of a philosophic import.

I purposely juxtaposed a highly (what most people consider) "productive" person with the (oft-considered) "odious" claim of antinatalism to make the contrast really hit home. Most people would think a "respectable productive person" would not claim such a thing, as if necessarily, they must have a positive view of existence or some other more moral majority opinion (i.e. a respectable productive citizen who wants to see X, Y, Z just like me!!).

Joe is afraid to get his hands dirty, and he's just a sissy liberal arts major or what have you. This is a little different, but I think another example is Western self-help commodifications of Buddhism, Taoism, Stoicism, or whatever. All talk that was carefully researched by someone who knows what they're doing, but no show on how to actually do anything. Praxis and experience greatly increase a person's credibility, because I can know Kant from A-Z but where does that really get me? — Albero

Yes, this is almost where I'm going with this. Let's change this up a bit...

What happens if I knew how to do all the practical trades (I can design, build, engineer a house, commercial building, and many types of structures) AND I knew about as much as an above average professor in applied and theoretical physics, as well as electrical/electronic engineering.. In fact, I have many patents, scholarly articles that have advanced tangibly the outcomes of many electronic manufacturing techniques that have affected many areas of industry, including both B2B products, and direct consumer products. Let's say I also designed and participated in constructing (along with the contractors and average worker) many buildings that are used by businesses small and large for their daily operations. Also, I have constructed several housing developments occupied by dozens of lower to upper-middle class residents residing in 1 bedroom (but spacious) apartments to 6 bedroom houses of various sizes, construction materials, architectural designs, and techniques.

NOW let us say I am also an antinatalist and think that the best option for humans (despite all my productive capacities) is to not procreate. Does my philosophy/ethic have more credibility?

Just curious, but from what I gather, the goal is to have a 80-100 hedonic range. Given this level of variability, wouldn’t the risk that one may experience low levels of pleasure (80) become the new AN cause for not procreating? If the risk of experiencing a 0 or -1 is reason enough to not procreate, then why would anything less than absolute 100 level pleasure suffice? How low would you allow the baseline to drop before you reverted back to AN? — Pinprick

Yes, I think unless paradise, not worth it. That sentence should read.. "Would not recommend: "Procreate-until-we-get-to-that-Transhumanist goal", meaning, do NOT procreate in the hopes of reaching this goal. Why? I mention in the next sentence, that most likely it cannot be achieved. But also the billions that would suffer on the possibility of a whim of a hope for this achievement.

A physicist as you described, has all these tools, but he may lack practical or theoretical knowledge how to apply physics to his version of truth. — god must be atheist

How about on matters such as ethics, politics, social theory, etc?

Took it out of this thread

Human derived systems are necessary for survival, yet the paradox is that humans can self reflect and realize that they dont like the system they need to survive, like the work-to-survive socioeconomic bit. Unlike another animal that presumably cannot evaluate their existential situation of having to survive, we can not only evaluate it, but judge it as not great. The paradox of the species that has to be indoctrinated (enculturated) to survive :lol: .

Antinatalists are simply wrong because they don't understand causality and use words like "suffering" and "cause" in a way that's not commensurate with how they are understood in law, philosophy or ethics. — Benkei

Benkei. If ALL cases of suffering stem from the state of affairs of being born, then ALL cases of suffering can be prevented by preventing that state of affairs. I don't see the problem there. You don't need to parse each individual case of suffering out to realize that all cases of suffering can be prevented for a future person by not procreating.

What you really seem to be saying is that there is a potential for each individual case to be ameliorated. This becomes an empirical question as to how well humans can really prevent suffering. David does seem to think that this is a possibility. I suspect many antinatalists, out of principle of not causing the suffering that gets to goal, would not recommend to procreate until we get to that Transhumanist goal. They would also probably be skeptical of its achievement.

I don't give a fuck. — Tom Storm

Not much of a philosophical case, but I see you have made your personal stance known.

@Albero already pretty much answered it how I would.

I have no problem with the creation of suffering as you describe it. — Tom Storm

But that is exactly the position that AN would say is not acceptable in terms of not creating unnecessary suffering on behalf of someone else. Why create unnecessary suffering on behalf of someone else then? Any answer seems to be overlooking the person that will experience this suffering for something other.

How is it that the ocean can have many waves? How is it that the sky can have many weather-events? How is it that a cloud can have many shapes? How is it that a face can have many expressions? How is that the territory can have – be described by – many maps? ... — 180 Proof

Right, but this is all world of representation. How is it that representation gets in the picture at all if all is Will? If you say "Maya" then, how did that get in the equation if all is Will?

My questions too. IIRC, it has something to do with Platonic form (or Kantian categories of reason) or some such. — 180 Proof

Yes, Platonic forms. Then how did THAT get into the equation with Will?

I act on my deeming as I suppose you act on yours. What other course do you suggest - that i act on yours and you on mine? — unenlightened

Well, the deeming is on behalf of the future person. Why not go with the minimum amount of harm? Why create the suffering/overcoming-suffering game for them?

One example is status quo bias. A benevolent superintelligence would never have created a monstrous world such as ours. Nor (presumably) would benevolent superintelligence show status quo bias. But the nature of selection pressure means that philosopher David Benatar’s plea for voluntary human extinction via antinatalism (Better Never To Have Been (2008)) is doomed to fall on deaf ears. Apocalyptic fantasies are futile too (cf. https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#dptrans).
So the problem of suffering is soluble only by biological-genetic means. — David Pearce

Hi David, I was wondering if your philosophy is more aggregate-centered, or individual-centered. It seems to me to be more aggregate-centered. Often these ethical philosophies overlook the pain and suffering of individuals to effect/affect the greatest change. One example here is that you admit that this world can be pretty monstrous, and would not be something a benevolent superintelligence would want. However, your vision of a transhumanism utopia seems something in a far off future. Presumably, from the time now until that future time, billions of people will have lived and suffered. That being said, wouldn't David Benatar and antinatalism's argument in general be the best alternative in terms of suffering prevented? Basically, if you prevent the suffering in the first place, you have cut off the suffering right from the start. And as Benatar's asymmetry shows, no "person" suffers by not being born to experience the "goods" of life. It's a win/win it seems.

The justification in this case does not amount to an argument, it is a mere dogma. but it's as near as I wish to get. Someone will press me, and I will admit that suffering is good, because suffering is part of life. And then if someone pursues the matter I will have to stray from the topic and discuss the relation of pain to suffering. My children will suffer, and they will die. We all do. I see it and say 'yes'. — unenlightened

I guess someone would question it and say, should the parent be the harbinger for someone else's suffering/overcoming-suffering game? Because YOU deem it as a good thing, should another be the recipient of your preference, especially if the consequence is a whole lifetime of unknown variations on a theme of possibilities of suffering?

Also, pessimists don't always just "hate life".. Even Schopenhauer, the ARCH pessimist, liked playing flute, plays, his poodle, and going to concerts.. It doesn't mean that his philosophy of life's suffering was thus wrong.

It's the philosophical position of pessmism that makes one hate life and wishing one would never have been. — baker

Or those who already have those intuitions gravitate to a more formalized philosophy which makes sense of the vague thoughts they have already intuited..

Yeah, no wonder one hates life and wishes to never have been ... — baker

Care to explain, keeping in mind a productive conversation rather than simply ad hom?

Humans are extraordinary and we can never assume the outcome. — Tom Storm

Then why risk.other peoples lives who have such widely varying evaluations and such possibilities of horrible experiences? Why should others assume another person should be forced to play the game of life? I find it hubristic and callous to think that as a parent you are some harbinger of suffering, so that your child can feel the redemption of that very suffering- the conditions of the suffering being created from the procreational decision. Sounds like a maniacal scheme. How about prevent the suffering in the first place?

Essentially you are saying you want to create the suffering subject so that they can be the hero of enduring that suffering.

Is there a theory of how even the losers and the underdogs can have some peace of mind and some sense that their life is worth living? — baker

Philosophical pessemism..there is suffering in the world that is inevitable. Best never to have been. Prevent future suffering and form Communities of Catharsis to allow for communal venting and sense of not being the only sufferer. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps advice and Pollyanna moralizing not allowed.

It all goes back to the hard problem of consciousness. If we say that you were you with your first experience at then begs the question as to what makes that first experience.

Btw, what's the PSR for the PSR? What's the cause for every cause? Why everything has to have a why?

The PSR applies to human judgment & conduct; however, what warrants projecting that human bias onto facts of the matter, or the world, or universe as a whole? Our psychological utility = (meta)physical law, really? — 180 Proof

My question about Schopenhauer was basically why the PSR coincides with atemporal/ acausal Will at all. Whence Maya if all is Will? How is Will playing tricks on itself in such a regimented fashion such as, space, time, PSR etc. The inevitability and persistence of the world as Representation, would conteadict that it is somehow illusory. Why then a "structured" and necessary illusion?

Now, you don't feel that way and you'd like to change things. Please don't expect to be taken seriously by those of us who try to understand and care about people other than ourselves. — T Clark

I would argue that antinatalists like @Andrew4Handel @Bartricks and myself are to a large extent caring about other people, by wanting to prevent their suffering and de facto forced sutuations. If life is not a paradise, should we be creating more beings who not only suffer, but are often self-aware of their own suffering? Even if you don't agree, there is a goal of preventing negatives, and violating dignity of the potential person, so that is "other" centered, it's just that its counterintuitive because the compassion for that potential person manifests in the advocacy for their prevention of being born.

:up: very good job pointing out the nuances of the historical context of Spinoza as to what the Sephardic community were facing. He was probably deemed a nuisance internally to some rabbis, but the the very public excommunication was more likely a performance to please Christian Dutch onlookers, lest the whole community be deemed as harboring blasphemy..With the not so distant specter of Inquisition, they didn't want to "rock the boat" in their relatively tolerant new home.

The problem is that if there is only one Will, or rather, one Absolute Subject willing from many sub-centers, how is that I am ignorant and forgetful and not omniscient? If I were identical to the one subject which wills all wills, wouldn’t I necessarily be omniscient? Would forgetfulness even be possible? Where would my memories go? How could I lose them? — TheGreatArcanum

Well, being creative here, perhaps if Will is not limited by space/time, perhaps what we think are separated entities of "wills" and objects (the flipside of Will?), is just maya or illusory. That is to say, the principle of sufficient reason, with its seeming causes of space/time, logical necessity, goal-seeking, and such is really frothy illusory foam that is really atemporal/non-spatial Will. However, even me just saying that, makes me think it begs the question as to why then is there this illusion? Why the frothy foam of reality as Representation- that is to say, as objects and individual, seemingly non-connected wills?

I also disagree with him on the essence of willing, which, by its very nature, is teleological and this not a “blind and incessant willing,” but “a purposeful, future-oriented willing.” — TheGreatArcanum

My biggest question of his metaphysics right now is how is it that Will can have many "wills"? Why is it also that there is representation in the first place, if all is ultimately Will? I guess I never really got how the "objectification" of the representational reality really manifested or coincided as a "flip side" of Will. I can describe it, but I guess I don't understand how it fits together.

BEING : In my own theorizing there is one universal principle that subsumes all others, including Consciousness : essential Existence. Among those philosophical musings, I refer to the "unit of existence" with the absolute singular term "BEING" as contrasted with the plurality of contingent "beings" and things and properties. By BEING I mean the ultimate “ground of being”, which is simply the power to exist, and the power to create beings.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html — Gnomon

What do you think of Being as opposed to Schopenhauer's Will and of Whithead's process philosophy's "occasions of experience" and such?

Try Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation.. His premise is basically the title of the four-volume work.

A good example. How do you think I would perceive your own statement? It seems antagonistic...but is it? I need to know more before I delete it, or ignore it. This, to me, is communication - not a rumble. — Don Wade

Yes, I think it may be the difference between simply criticizing and arguing in good faith. One is indeed antagonistic, and one is genuinely looking to see if there's some dialectic through measured argument. I think these below are good examples of when something is simply to antagonize and not arguing in good faith:

What have been left off the list below are the following persuasive techniques commonly used to influence others and to cause errors in reasoning: apple polishing, using propaganda techniques, ridiculing, being sarcastic, selecting terms with strong negative or positive associations, using innuendo, and weasling. All of the techniques are worth knowing about if one wants to reason well. — https://iep.utm.edu/fallacy/

So clearly I don't like what Isaacs doing here and unfortunately he mentioned me while addressing you thus not easily extricating me from the conversation I was having with you. I'm going back to ignoring his trolling ass..if you want to discuss the actual argument at hand any further go ahead but if this involves Isaac anymore, meaning he has conversations directly with me or talks to you about me, I'm not gonna bite again and feed the troll more than I have.

sorry I didn’t mean blame as in people who have kids deserve punishment, but that people who have kids are morally responsible. — Albero

No, I knew what you meant, I think my answer addresses what you intended.

He can just say that without all the theatrics though.

Which could be why we need the law. We need to start somewhere, and someone's statement might be the starting-point. We would first need; to understand what the person is saying. Yes, we may make "first-hand" judgements of a statement, but that generally doesn't mean that judgement is true. You would need additional information - but you may not get it, if you make instant judgement of what you first perceive. — Don Wade

Not sure this is as much Miller's Law, but I have recently run into problems with etiquette when debating on my own threads. One example of what think is arguing from "bad faith" is to go on a thread to try to disparage the writing of the thread in the first place. In other words, if you think a topic is stupid or beneath you, then don't even engage in it, not even to tell someone you think as much. If you truly have a disagreement, comment, question, or just want to engage in productive dialogue, that is when you participate. But to do a meta-analysis of the thread in order to tell the poster what a stupid thread it is, that is breaking the very rules by which productive conversation is to be had, as it poisons the well.