It's the tension between being evolved with a (for all practical purposes) "boundless" set of thoughts, reactions, behaviors, etc. yet an institutionalized, historically-developed, bounded set of institutional structures. The boundless thoughts can never quite go beyond the bounded institutions.

On a related note regarding your remarks on Illusionism- I have similar thoughts on it. To say "consciousness is an illusion" is to not explain the illusion itself (what it is, and how it is equivalent to bio-chemical or physical states). An illusion is still itself a phenomenon- one that needs to be explained. I have a whole thread on this idea here if you are interested and want to contribute:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/318/is-mind-is-an-illusion-a-legitimate-position-in-philosophy-of-mind/p1

I guess communication is the transmission of information from one point to another. As Shannon wrote - the next sentence after the one I quoted - the problem of communication "is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point... The system must be designed to operate for each possible selection, not just the one which will actually be chosen since this is unknown at the time of design".

What is transmitted is information insofar as it is univocal from one end to the other: that it is the same message that gets from A to B, regardless if that message is total junk. — StreetlightX

That seems a bit redundant, like he is repeating what communication is with information. So information is then something like the success of communication? In other words, it's the fidelity of the message being received matching what was sent?

Information can be entirely meaningless, utterly devoid of significance, sheer gibberish - it would nonetheless be information. The OP is no doubt trying to milk semantics from information. But it's a mostly dead end. — StreetlightX

Just a clarification question here: What would be the difference then between the definition of communication and information in this conception? I don't even necessarily disagree, but just wondering what your thought is on that.

By not making a life I am preventing its suffering. It’s like saying if I did not make a sandwich I prevented anyone from eating it. — NOS4A2

That is a bad analogy. Preventing people, prevents suffering. Not making a sandwich doesn't prevent anyone from eating.

Someone can come along and say, with equal force, that by preventing life we are preventing joy and love and laughter. But really what we’re talking about is preventing life, period. No suffering, no laughter, no joy, no love, no loss, no death, but life. This is because life is not a one-to-one ratio with suffering, but is much more. — NOS4A2

Well, this is nuanced. Philosophical pessimists would actually refute that and say human nature is inherently suffering. But besides that, you are still not getting the asymmetry argument. If not born, NO ACTUAL person suffers the "loss" of no happiness. However, NO ACTUAL person suffers, which is ALWAYS good, whether someone is actually alive to know this. Before you even answer, see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Benatar

I have a problem with the ethical angle. One cannot claim he is preventing suffering by preventing life because it is impossible to prevent suffering in the not-yet-living, and for the same reason it is impossible to prevent the suffering of the dead—they do not exist. Exactly whose suffering did they prevent? One cannot find them on any plane of existence.

There are many valid reasons why one would not want to have children, but to prevent the suffering of the unborn has to be the worst of them. — NOS4A2

This argument is ridiculous. You don't need a person to actually exist to prevent an actual person from suffering. Let's say that instead of the more generalized suffering, it is known that a future person would 99% be guaranteed to be suffering from some chronic genetic-related condition if born. The genetic tests actually prove this would be so. You would still say that one cannot meaningfully talk about a future person's outcomes from this, and preventing it? Feck off.

As long as there are fertile people who can potentially procreate, of course you can talk about future outcomes and preventing them as related to birth.

Wow! I would really like to see the original posts and comments there too! Thank you so much for summarizing them, please may I know the links too? — ernestm

I'm glad they were of interest.

Im a little tired, Im going to need to rest a while, and consider your writing properly then. Im just writing to say thank you very much! Wow :) — ernestm

Sure, here are the original threads they came from:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/71045

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/369750

So I think this is close to the history.. I posted two pretty plausible (more historical-minded) theories a couple times on this forum. They are both very similar (themes on a variation really and probably some combination of both).

Theory 1:
My earlier point was that it is best to reconstruct the original person of Jesus (Joshua), his very early followers, etc. by using a variety of historical and archaeological sources that provide a most likely scenario. It seems that John the Baptist started/continued some sort of Essenic interpretation of Torah law- with much emphasis against the political structure (anti-Herodian for John/ anti-Temple Establishment for Jesus). Jesus was known as some sort of miracle-worker (not uncommon at the time except the idea that his services were free and made him possibly more well known.. see Honi the Circle Drawer, Hanina Ben Dosa, and other of this time).. He goes to Jerusalem in an anti-Temple Establishment tirade at the center of the Establishment. This pissed off the authorities and had him crucified for trying to foment dissent and probably claiming kingship (Messiah title).

His immediate followers were led by his family, specifically his brother James (Jacob). This group thought Jesus was not actually dead because he was too righteous. Paul becomes an interloper who reinterprets the group and their not-quite-dead messiah. He introduces ideas of mystery cults- the idea of a god that dies for sins. He also elevates Jesus to more than a righteous guy (who was believed not-quite-dead by his followers), into a literal Son of God. He introduces shades of Gnosticism and views Jesus' life and death as a complete replacement of the Torah itself. This is Gnostic in the idea that the Torah represents the old (the "physical", the "demiurge", the lesser) and the new way is the "real" path ("the spiritual", Jesus' death and resurrection is greater vehicle). These irreconcilable and monumental changes in theology brought him in conflict with the original John-Jesus-James Movement. Paul, along with his followers, go and form their own communities, either under James' nose (without his knowledge) or simply without even having his consent. His ideas mostly resonated within the Gentile communities throughout the Greco-Roman world. These Pauline communities are what will eventually become "Christianity". This Pauline Christianity will eventually create many of its own schisms, that will eventually coalesce to become dominated by Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox.

The John-Jesus-James Movement, some possible subsect of Essenic Judaism (with anti-Establishment, Messianic message), becomes more obscure in the Jewish community as the Temple is destroyed by 70 CE. With the Bar Kochba Rebellion in 132-136 CE, this group becomes even more of an outcast in synogogues in the Levant as their dead messiah seems less efficacious than Bar Kochba, a general and messianic claimant who was actually beating the Romans.. The group probably lived on in the fringes of Jewish society, known as the "Ebionim" or "Ebionites" much later (meaning the "poor ones", possibly a name the original Jesus Movement called themselves).

Theme 2:
What was probably the case was Jesus fit very firmly in his cultural context of 1st century Judea. Based on his sayings and his outward focus, he was probably a radical or reformist Pharisee (focused on the margins of society and intent behind the law). He had his own opinions on Mosaic law (as there was no INTERPRETATION of the law codified yet in anything like a Talmud, at least for the Pharisee sect). Also, he was probably an apocalyptic Pharisee which made him unusual as most Pharisees were "wait and see". They knew too much focus on End of Times would get people killed by Roman authority. Thus by going to the "Lost Sheep of Israel" and getting them to be what he thought was better Jews, he thought the hastening of the Kingdom of God would occur. He probably incorporated that part from the same ideas as John the Baptist who came right before him. When he went to Jerusalem, he probably thought the Kingdom of God was literally going to start happening, and he was going to do some miraculous event. I have a feeling, the most historical lines in the whole New Testament was, "My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?" If not whitewashed, that actually indicates that he really thought hew as going to get something done to change things and this didn't happen. Pontius Pilate (noted by Josephus and Roman historians as overly ruthless, even for Rome) had him crucified, like almost every other Jewish claimant to be the Jewish king. Oh, it didn't help it happened on Passover, the very holiday that Rome looks for Jewish "freedom fighters" and messianic claimants because it was a holiday revolving around liberation from a foreign culture (mythological Exodus story).. Rome knew this and acted swiftly. At that time, the High Priests and the Temple priests in general were in the pockets of Rome and were essentially their lackeys, helping them keep "order". This all makes sense. Jews that were of the radical Pharisee sort, Apocalyptic types, One -off Messiah claimants, Essenes, and Zealots would be not looked upon kindly if they acted up against Rome or Temple Priestly authority.

Anyways, a couple decades later, Paul's ideas of the death/resurrection of Jesus set the stage for Replacement Theology.. whereby the "new" Israel were believers in Jesus. Interestingly, early Gentile Christianity represented by people like Marcion wanted to completely detach from the "Old Testament" as he thought it might even be a separate god. However, in Roman society, ancient cultures were deemed more legitimate than "new age" innovations. Thus, early gentile Christians realized that to spread the theology of Paul (Jesus died for your sins), they NEEDED to attach the idea to a culture that was more ancient (Judean/Jewish culture) to have it seen as more legitimate amongst the converts around the Mediterranean. So, this is what the early "Church Fathers" did and succeeded in converting most gentiles to the new religion by the year 400 CE. Thus, the original Jewish Jesus sect died out basically in those first couple centuries. The Pauline gentile variant spread. With the idea of Replacement Theology, Jews were considered to be stubbornly "wrong" in interpreting their own religion. They needed to be persecuted to be corrected. Then of course the whitewashing of Jesus' death so that they are deemed as "Christ-killers" etc. This made Judaism even more insular as it needed to protect itself from interference and persecution. The rest is history. That hatred permeated in various forms throughout history up until the 20th and 21st century. So in the end it is the very basis of Christianity (Replacement Theology) to "kill" the original copywriters and "correct" that culture's own ideas about its mythological history. Again, that's crazy.

FWIW - Qualia, as I see it, refers to qualitative potential information or value, in much the same way that probability refers to quantitative potential information. This is information the brain pieces together to make predictions about our interaction with the world - given that the brain doesn’t interact directly with the world, but rather as an allocation of energy (potential) and attention (value) to the various parts of the organism in relation to these predictions. Consciousness would then be the five-dimensional conceptual predictive ‘map’ we each continually reconstruct about ourselves in relation to the world, as a relational structure of both qualitative and quantitative potential information relative to its differentiation from the ongoing sensory event of the organism in 4D spacetime. — Possibility

Ok, but then where does this valuative element come from? It's still not answering the hard question of why value at all. What I mean is, how are brain states or physical states equivalent to value? If they are not equivalent, how do you account for this dualism?

I seriously doubt that our brains relay information accurately. To me, this is not only a hard problem, but an impossible problem. How do you prove that the chemicals in your brain accurately relay what reality is back to you?

In actuality we could be a transfer of information that is abstract and alien to our senses. You could live in an intricate video game and pick apart all the ins and outs of your reality without ever realizing that the whole thing was a cartridge in a system. — neonspectraltoast

So this isn't quite the hard problem though. The hard problem is basically, "How are physical states (like brain states) equivalent to mental states (like qualia or cognition)?"

Actually that is an excellent article and he raises exactly issues that I'm talking about. I have heard of IIT and Tononi and Koch's attempt at using it to solve the problem of consciousness. Although probably the most thorough theory using information, information itself just might not be able to get at it.

As I said, but perhaps somewhat ambiguously: 'When people convince other people of the truth of their lies, their (The other peoples) model of the world becomes distorted with the inevitable consequence of alienation from the world. If their world does not make sense, they will feel alienated. — A Seagull

I can see this in a sort of mass media sense. For example, Trump says "fake news" and this distorts his follower's trust of media. Then news itself just becomes suspect. Widely accepted facts are ignored, and then that leaves any subjective idea on the subject be viewed as legitimate. One day you can say this. The next you can say that and you can be right on both all at once, somehow. So I can see people being alienated from sources of information and what to do about any X affairs. No one is trustworthy. All politicians lie roughly the same. Everything is nothing. Nothing is everything. It all becomes a kaleidoscope that confuses and disorients people. Meanwhile any long-term goals are lost in the chaos.

Here's a question:

Does "information" at all solve anything related to the hard question of consciousness? Specifically, I am thinking of qualia. I am still seeing the hard question alluding this as well. There is still an unexplained element of how information explains how color and smell are the same as its physical constituents that cause it. There is a bifurcation there that seems to always elude. You can talk meaningfully about information in terms of physical (neural signals, bio-chemistry, physics) and psychological (the color red can indicate certain things- blood, ripe fruit, red is not green, but close to orange, etc.). However, it does not necessarily close the explanatory gap between the two (Ah, so information means X = Y!). Nope.

Lets say I argue that the laws of nature impede on the autonomy of the being and probably involve some inevitable degree of suffering. Why do you confine your position only to humans? I wouldn't be surprised if chimpanzees and other forms of primates have some rudimentary society/"public face" that they need to put on. — BitconnectCarlos

I would agree that they suffer. However, similar to humans not forcing the view on other humans, the same goes for chimps and other animals. There is also the doubling aspect of not only suffering, but understanding our own suffering, "knowing" it via self-reflection and our unique recursive abilities of our mind (we know that we know that we know). If chimps know they are being used as public entities, then they are more than welcome to come to the best conclusion (antinatalism). I suspect they won't- not because they have some other conclusion, but because they do not have the ability to come up with those conclusions in the first place. I am concerned with beings that can self-reflect and form discursive, abstract conceptual thought.

Another related theme here is what I call "minutia-mongering". By being brought into the world as a public entity, one is forced into the minutia-mongering business. You may not know a lot about electrical components, voltages, amps, electronic principles, processor chips, atomic charge, etc. but you certainly use the technology that does. Once born, one is dealing with the products of, and participating in a minor aspect of the minutia-mongering business. More people = more people dealing with the minutia-mongering world. There is no escaping it really. One can try to be blissfully ignorant of it, being produced and consumed none-the-less and we have to keep it going. Produce, consume, monger the minutia.

I always thought Terrence Deacon's ideas on information were interesting.

At the bottom level is the natural world, which Deacon characterizes by its subjection to the second law of thermodynamics. When entropy (the Boltzmann kind) reaches its maximum, the equilibrium condition is pure formless disorder. Although there is matter in motion, it is the motion we call heat and nothing interesting is happening. Equilibrium has no meaningful differences, so Deacon calls this the homeodynamics level, using the root homeo-, meaning "the same." There are no meaningful differences here.

At the second level, form (showing differences) emerges. Deacon identifies a number of processes that are negentropic, reducing the entropy locally by doing work against and despite the first level's thermodynamics. This requires constraints, says Deacon, like the piston in a heat engine that constrains the expansion of a hot gas to a single direction, allowing the formless heat to produce directed motion.

Atomic constraints such as the quantum-mechanical bonding of water molecules allow snow crystals to self-organize into spectacular forms, producing order from disorder. Deacon dubs this second level morphodynamic. He sees the emerging forms as differences against the background of unformed sameness. His morphodynamic examples include, besides crystals, whirlpools, Bénard convection cells, basalt columns, and soil polygons, all of which apparently violate the first-level tendency toward equilibrium and disorder in the universe. These are processes that information philosophy calls ergodic.

Herbert Feigl and Charles Sanders Peirce may have been the origin of Bateson's famous idea of a "difference that makes a difference."On Deacon's third level, "a difference that makes a difference" (cf. Gregory Bateson and Donald MacKay) emerges as a purposeful process we can identify as protolife. The quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger saw the secret of life in an aperiodic crystal, and this is the basis for Deacon's third level. He ponders the role of ATP (adenosine triphosphate) monomers in energy transfer and their role in polymers like RNA and DNA, where the nucleotide arrangements can store information about constraints. He asks whether the order of nucleotides might create adjacent sites that enhance the closeness of certain molecules and thus increase their rate of interaction. This would constitute information in an organism that makes a difference in the external environment, an autocatalytic capability to recruit needed resources. Such a capability might have been a precursor to the genetic code.
Deacon crafts an ingenious model for a minimal "autogenic" system that has a teleonomic (purposeful) character, with properties that might be discovered some day to have existed in forms of protolife. His simplest "autogen" combines an autocatalytic capability with a self-assembly property like that in lipid membranes, which could act to conserve the catalyzing resources inside a protocell.

Autocatalysis and self-assembly are his examples of morphodynamic processes that combine to produce his third-level, teleodynamics. Note that Deacon's simplest autogen need not replicate immediately. Like the near-life of a virus, it lacks a metabolic cycle and does not maintain its "species" with regular reproduction. But insofar as it stores information, it has a primitive ability to break into parts that could later produce similar wholes in the right environment. And the teleonomic information might suffer accidental changes that produce a kind of natural selection.

Deacon introduces a second triad he calls Shannon-Boltzmann-Darwin (Claude, Ludwig, and Charles). He describes it on his Web site www. teleodynamics.com . I would rearrange the first two stages to match his homeodynamic-morphodynamic-teleodynamic triad. This would put Boltzmann first (matter and energy in motion, but both conserved, merely transformed by morphodynamics). A second Shannon stage then adds information (Deacon sees clearly that information is neither matter nor energy); for example, knowledge in an organism's "mind" about the external constraints that its actions can influence.

This stored information about constraints enables the proto-organism in the third stage to act in the world as an agent that can do useful work, that can evaluate its options, and that can be pragmatic (more shades of Peirce) and normative. Thus Deacon's model introduces value into the universe— good and bad (from the organism's perspective). It also achieves his goal of explaining the emergence of perhaps the most significant aspect of the mind: that it is normative and has goals. This is the ancient telos or purpose. — https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/scientists/deacon/

My only suggestion for a 'solution' - if there is one - (and worth no more than 2p I expect), is that people at least try to speak the truth. And for other people not to believe the lies. When people lie and convince other people of the truth of their lies, their model of the world becomes distorted with the inevitable consequence of alienation from the world.

And everyone lies, from politicians to sales people and including moralists, theologians and even philosophers. — A Seagull

Interesting point. So how do you particularly think the lying promotes alienation?

Sometimes. Some (most?) people don’t mind being led by an authority figure, perhaps regardless of his/her corruption. Authority provides answers, guidance, and comfort, and doesn’t require thinking for yourself. Also, the “truth” or validity of the authority figures claims need not be accurate or correct, because, again, the majority of the masses simply accept whatever position without thinking. — Pinprick

So one of my questions is whether any socio-economic system is good for the individual, since the individual is essentially used as labor by said system.

isn’t true. You’ve eliminated the game itself, so you can’t even play it. — Pinprick

That's the point. There is nothing to "play". Just prevent suffering, period. If there's no one to prevent suffering anymore, then so what?

Our "disagreement" is with the attitude more than it is with the facts. You seemingly really, really don't like the system of production & consumption that exists within any society.... to the point where you seemingly want to stop people from being born. I don't know what to say to that. — BitconnectCarlos

I claimed it is using people for a third-party entity- namely the production/consumption functions of a system. Whether growth happens doesn't matter, it is still the entity itself that is growing, perpetuating itself, so that would be circular response.

I could challenge you on whether society actually has a goal. I fully accept that economics plays a large part in life, but to say that THE single goal of society is production and consumption is taking things a little far IMO. People have goals. Communities might have goals. A culture could certainly have a goal. A religion could have a goal - these goals are found in authoritative documents. As far as I know there are no authoratitive documents concerning western society, which is already extremely broad. Sure we have laws... but in terms of day-to-day life? Let me know here if I'm missing something. — BitconnectCarlos

All of it is imbued in the economy or in relation to it- even illegal, underground activity.

Have you ever considered that someone finding a job they love could lead to the fulfillment of the human being? — BitconnectCarlos

That's the hope of social controls for the social goals :).

Why do you describe someone loving their work as just them being inculcated by society instead of fulfilling some form of self actualization? — BitconnectCarlos

I wonder if Maslow's chart fits right into those goals...

My brother for instance has his own small business. He's his own boss, and he makes objects out of clay on a pottery wheel. He likes what he does. Apparently by your description though he's just a mindless worker bee who's been inculcated by the system into liking his work. Clearly he doesn't have any agency. — BitconnectCarlos

No, but certainly he's able to integrate it in the broader goals. As far as social goals are concerned, that's all the criteria needs to be. Can he produce? Can he consume? But even that seems to be relegated to a minority. There are billions of jobs in the world. Not everyone is self-actualizing in them (not that I think that a legitimate idea really). A good majority just need to live because ya know, survival, comfort, entertainment is the human conditon.

A lot of our "disagreement" comes down to how you describe actions or individuals. It's like we both see a beautiful garden and I say "think of the billions of insects which have died in here and the flowers which were forced to grow by the laws of nature." — BitconnectCarlos

Yes, there is that too. Accepting it or not.

I have paid attention to your arguments I just don't think our "disagreement" is over anything factual....it just seems to be over attitude which I wouldn't call a real disagreement. If I'm angry over some state of affairs and you're not are we really in a genuine, philosophical argument? It's not an ad hom either but I don't want to get sidetracked. — BitconnectCarlos

It's not angry or not angry. It's "is" this the state of affairs or not?

Oh, the terror....a child will probably have to get a job someday. He will be targeted with advertisements and treated like a mere consumers by society! Lets ensure that he never gets born. — BitconnectCarlos

It's not so much advertisements or consumerism, the kind you hear all the time (like Black Friday shoppers or something like that). It is the system itself- the very fact that we are made public entities of production and consumption. I also think this will happen in any society- including hunting-gathering. It is just that the production/consumption of the public entity looks very different, obviously.

Some people like their jobs and this is too broad in any case and doesn't account for every single human on Earth. You think someone who's financially independent and has retired needs to constantly blow off steam? How about the people who actually like their jobs? You portray humanity like everybody is a miserable worker bee. Plenty of people don't need to blow off steam. — BitconnectCarlos

There are some thorny problems with this. First off, the goal is to align people with production and consumption. So if someone "likes" their job, they have thoroughly integrated their interests with the goals of society. That is indeed part of the goals being posited, right? The point is, whether the person identifies, accepts, or is elated by the system, they have been inculcated so as to be a laborer in it- keeping a third-party entity going and developing attitudes to best do this (including being a happy worker bee, if you would like to characterize it that way).

The point is to not overlook this fact that the person is going to be a laborer for the public entity and that this involves social controls to meet the goals. Overlooking this fact in the "hopes of happiness" for the future child, is actually not respecting the child. It is in a way using them as a public entity to add to the demands of the system in place. Preventing birth bypasses using people in such a manner.

I am intrigued by the idea of "communal pessimism". Perhaps COVID will initiate a communal philosophical pessimism of sorts where we agree that our own very natures as humans (through our dissatisfaction state), and through Nature itself (via things like devastating pandemics and disasters), we can all agree that this is not worth the enterprise and happily prevent future progeny and generations from experiencing it. Why keep the absurdity going?

Are we really even having an argument? You basically just have a jaded attitude which you justify to yourself on a cognitive level with the idea that "well, everyone's done this stuff nothing is novel...." You act like you've already done everything a billion times. Have you ever even had an experience that you considered meaningful? — BitconnectCarlos

Ad hom and you haven't paid attention to my arguments. That's the point of me posting other quotes. I've made my points pretty clear and you are slightly rewording them to try to again to put on the hard-nosed realist shtick. It's a sort of rhetorical tactic.

I've never denied "meaningful/happy" moments. I am however, claiming that society's goals are being perpetuated through the inculcation of people. It cannot be avoided, and it certainly should give pause to know you will be creating a new individual to simply be used as such for labor and production and perpetuating consumption, production, repeat...The "because meaningful/happy moments trumps any other considerations" argument doesn't take into mind that perhaps these happy/meaningful moments are just

Another example of what I'm saying is looking at reporting on economic activity. To the public- businesses, managers, customers, researchers, reporters, etc. we are all just points of labor or consumption or labor or consumption statistics. Perhaps the ruse is that private life is nothing more but about distractions and blowing off steam in the confines of more labor and consumption in order to enter back into the fray of the labor market.

Your doing crossword puzzles, reading that novel, taking that vacation, going to bars and restaurants, going to that concert, travelling the world are all just ways to distract and blow of steam (and are just elaborate forms of consumption) so that you can go back to thinking about your daily consumption for living and laboring. If this is what we are once born into a society, why not just bypass making new units of labor and consumption and people who have to blow off steam to go back to labor and consumption?

And this goes back to the idea of the absurd. We are here to produce, consume, blow off steam (which amounts to more production and consumption), and repeat. I'm not saying there is a better way than what we have. I'm just saying it is an absurd repetition that is kept perpetuated over and over. We produce and consume and produce and consume so we can produce and consume.. What's the point? Why are we trying to make new people, shape them into more consumption and production? Besides the fact that this is using people, it is silly. Those that don't mind using people, might say that people's efforts towards consumption and production brings technology. And then I would just say, what's the point of science and technology in and of itself? Because you like reading about it and discussing it on a forum? It "benefits man" is only relative as the more technology we have, the more ways we find to produce and consume it, thus simply reiterating the cycle. — schopenhauer1

And again, to keep reiterating the point of the thread, to go ahead and procreate more people is to feed the necessary human system that needs more people in a population to be inculcated on an individual scale in enough quantities to be able to form the habits to produce and consume to keep the round-and-round absurdity going on an aggregate scale. Why be cosponsors of this kind of absurd perpetuation at the cost of making a new sufferer (a person who can experience suffering) in the first place? — schopenhauer1

Even if you were convinced you were right on this one, why do you care enough to spread your ideas? Isn't it just repeating the cycle? — BitconnectCarlos

Ad hom.. I am interested in the conclusions and implications of philosophical pessimism and antinatalism and clearly I like engaging in the ideas of said philosophy. We went over why we have dialogue. It's also irrelevant to the ideas themselves...

So again, I asked in the OP:

3) Are society's goals at odds with the interests/rights of the individual?

This last question obviously has a lot to do with antinatalism. If parent's unwittingly (by their supposed "own" desires) want children, those children will become public entities (they will be used by the community as laborers at the least). Any general thoughts on these ideas and questions? — schopenhauer1

So that's all it's doing? We're just feeding more people to be ground up by the machine called society?
Because that's the whole of human experience, right?

Go on an international trip. Go explore some ancient ruins. Go take some mushrooms in the woods somewhere. Go to a rave. Go take a jog on a beautiful day in a beautiful park. Fall in love. — BitconnectCarlos

And I've answered this type of argument before too:

No, not quite boredom, unless existential boredom. It's more like this:
1) The sun goes up and down, round and round.
2) You go to bed and get up again and again.
3) You eat and shit over and over.
4) You read your book, watch your movie, do your exercise, talk to your friend, again, again, again
5) You make it a point to travel to "new" (to you) places again and again and again
6) You seek out relationships over and over and over
7) You go to work each day again and again and again
8) You do stuff for maintenance like laundry, dishes, over and over
9) You take that millionth walk/run around the block or on your treadmill

It doesn't matter how many "novel" things you do to stay ahead of the curb, it's all repetitive actions to fulfill our primal motivations of survival, comfort-seeking, entertainment. But this is just repetitive actions that fill time and provide the absurdity I talk about. It's all been done to the umpteenth time by billions and billions of people over and over. There is no need to keep repeating the repetition again and again and again... — schopenhauer1

Sure, I can accept that increased production and consumption is the upshot of these "social controls" or "social goals"... whichever one we want to call them. I think another upshot would probably be the happiness of the individual. I wouldn't be surprised if people with stable jobs and a partner + kids had better mental health than single, unemployed individuals. I think to view the upshot only in terms of economics is basically what Marx did. — BitconnectCarlos

So I already answered this as well:

What are we trying to do here by having more people have to keep the round-and-round going? I just don't except answers that we are doing it for personal reasons. People are almost always public entities as well. Humans are part of a society and as such, will be needed as a public entity as such. Procreating a new person is simply feeding more people to the round-and-round socio-political-economic system. In a sense that is using them as know this beforehand, yet we do it. This means we indeed want more people to keep the system going. But this is just a vicious absurdity of perpetuation. Keep it going to keep it going to keep it going.. Who cares if people suffer and have negative experiences in the process. — schopenhauer1

I'm not really arguing with the explicit intention of discrediting antinatalism. I engaged this thread to talk about society, not antinatalism. I think I've already talked about antinatalism with you anyway. Earlier I think you accused me engaging in bad faith and you would be right in one sense - I would be engaging in bad faith if I explicitly sought to argue with you on antinatalism, which I have no intention of changing stances on. Don't waste your time with me here if your intention is to change minds. I would engage you on society/social issues which I'm a little more open to and of course other topics. Regardless, the point of discourse isn't just to change minds; It can also be to flush out ideas and see if we can poke holes in some. I usually don't engage people with the explicit intention of changing their mind. I want to see if my ideas have problems or if maybe they have an interesting take on something that I can incorporate into my own ideas or explore further. I think that's much more productive.

Right now, I wouldn't really consider antinatalism one of my candidate ideas. I don't think my refusal to seriously engage this subject makes me a "bad guy" or "close minded" either. If it does, then if I were to engage you on any given topic you'd be required to be open to changing your mind about it which I think is practical absurdity. Nobody should be seriously open to changing their mind about literally everything. — BitconnectCarlos

I don't have the delusion that I'm going to necessarily change minds. I engage in discourse for similar reasons of flushing out ideas, honing them, or making a case and defending it if need be.

As mentioned, I don't really feel like getting into a discussion about antinatalism. Do you have anything to add concerning my answers to your questions on society? — BitconnectCarlos

I did..

Right.. and the that is actually more social controls. The outcomes of those goals is more production and consumption. It is the aggregate.. The individuals don't matter as much when we are talking about a society.. as long as enough individuals are following the social controls that have proven to lead to certain outcomes.. A manager and worker who inculcates the values of production will be all that matters here for large-scale goals. — schopenhauer1

I implied that your example of "goals" actually might fit under the social control factors that lead to certain outcomes.. mainly production and consumption.

3. The whole economic bread and circuses was just that, an illusion. This system is as fragile as it's ever been. The economic system is for the elites' GDP, not ours. — h060tu

I have said just recently:

to go ahead and procreate more people is to feed the necessary human system that needs more people in a population to be inculcated on an individual scale in enough quantities to be able to form the habits to produce and consume to keep the round-and-round absurdity going on an aggregate scale. Why be cosponsors of this kind of absurd perpetuation at the cost of making a new sufferer (a person who can experience suffering) in the first place?

2) It's certainly an aspect of real-world inflation. But you don't get taught that in the textbooks. — h060tu

Right, it's "only" costs of labor and capital to produce more of the goods. Hehe.

And you can think "well, we ought to strive to eliminate all suffering and since I guess suffering is just part of the human condition then I guess we need to eliminate humans" but this is dogmatic thinking, in my opinion. While most humans generally strive to eliminate suffering - it does seem to be a common moral intuition - taking the elimination of suffering as the sole moral standard to me just seems arbitrary and dogmatic. It seems more sensible to me to say that it's one value among many. There are even lines of thinking that take a more lackadaisical attitude towards the subject of suffering. If that was the sole goal of morality couldn't we just go around painless executing people who were suffering? — BitconnectCarlos

It's a misnomer or misconception to think that antinatalists or philosophical pessimism's only stance is anti-suffering. I would imagine most antinatalists would put in high regard consent when it comes to things like radically changing another person's whole existential state of being, once already born. So that would be a straw man you are building to assume that is the case. Suffering certainly is the core of the argument, but it doesn't just end there.

And you admitted at least that suffering is part of the human condition. I am in agreement. Most pessimistic literature, and philosophies like Buddhism recognize this aspect of the inherent dissatisfaction of the human animal- amplified with self-reflection and existential knowing.

But I wonder, in the decision to have a child, any consideration that is not about "the state of unknown and known suffering in the world", it seems very suspect. Even such common reasons as the "happiness of the child" as that happiness doesn't come "free" as it were. It comes at the price of all the negatives, including aspects of suffering including things like the general dissatisfaction of human nature along with reasons posed by this thread such as being used as a laborer that is feeding the round-and-round socio-economic-political entities (examples of what I call necessary suffering). Also, the price is the obvious contingent harms you mentioned with disease, pain, mental illness, and just about any negative experience.

To go ahead and then procreate a new person anyway, despite these negatives (explained above as necessary..baked in, and contingent..likely suffering) I think is overlooking the person that is being created for some cause outside that person. Considering the suffering of the future person above other considerations (such as simply having someone who will have to navigate life or even perceived hope for "happiness" of the person) is actually respecting the future person. Not considering the suffering is overlooking that person- even in cases where "happiness of the future person" is the outcome desired (because again, of the cost of such happiness).

What's interesting is, no future person needs to go through the gauntlet of a life with suffering to achieve some moments of happiness, if that person wasn't created in the first place. By having a new person, you are creating that need for the need to be happy. You can simply bypass the need by not having someone who needs to pursue that need. Certainly preventing a future "sufferer" (not just small instances of suffering but a being with potential to suffer and suffer greatly), would be more important than creating a condition where someone will have to suffer, navigate life, experience known and unknown amounts of harm, in order to fulfill the original goal of trying to attain happiness. Believe me, no non-existing entity X will care or be deprived, if "they" don't exist to be happy. Happiness is only instrumental because an actual person has to exist to be deprived of happiness. Suffering seems absolute- it is always good if suffering can be prevented, whether an actual person knows that suffering was prevented or not. Thus preventing suffering is always good. Preventing happiness only matters if a person already exists to be the locus of such a matter. Thus there is an asymmetry. Please check out this argument more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Benatar

And again, to keep reiterating the point of the thread, to go ahead and procreate more people is to feed the necessary human system that needs more people in a population to be inculcated on an individual scale in enough quantities to be able to form the habits to produce and consume to keep the round-and-round absurdity going on an aggregate scale. Why be cosponsors of this kind of absurd perpetuation at the cost of making a new sufferer (a person who can experience suffering) in the first place?

If we're talking what I'd consider mainstream American society - and keep in mind America is extremely diverse - I would have to say the main messages are graduate high school, find a stable job, and get married/have kids. I should mention that these are largely middle class values. The poor and the rich are sort of in their own little worlds. — BitconnectCarlos

Right.. and the that is actually more social controls. The outcomes of those goals is more production and consumption. It is the aggregate.. The individuals don't matter as much when we are talking about a society.. as long as enough individuals are following the social controls that have proven to lead to certain outcomes.. A manager and worker who inculcates the values of production will be all that matters here for large-scale goals.

Keeping up with the Jones', for one (the natural human tendency to compete.) Also the pressure to not disappoint your parents or friends. At least those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head although there are probably more. — BitconnectCarlos

Yep that's certainly part of it. But what I find interesting is also the "don't think about it too much" mentality either. If everyone saw the round and round of production and consumption, well that's an existential crisis. A few outliers doing this means statistically nothing. I don't even know what a large population of people in existential crisis is. Interestingly, I think the coronavirus pandemic is actually bringing more feelings of looking at oneself and society. As we debate things like numbers of people dying versus economic stability, we realize we are but just a very insignificant data point, in a much larger system that goes round and round, possibly dying from horrible pandemics in a very real way. Is life worth it? I don't know, but I wouldn't doubt that is more of a question before the virus.

They may be or they may not be. It's iffy in my mind to talk about the individual's struggle with some abstract "western society." It makes much more sense to me to talk about an individual's struggle with an actual existing community. Some small towns in the US are known for being more close minded or rigid than others. Towns and communities call certainly impress values on individuals, and I think that deserves more attention than an abstraction we can western society. Personally, I've lived in rural Texas and consumerism/commercialism you tend to be stressing just isn't that present there. The pressures are different. — BitconnectCarlos

Certainly being inculcated into being a good laborer is something that could be said to be against the individual if we look at the decision to procreate. Knowing that this is going to happen, and that we are not like other animals, we self-reflect on our situation, then it is possible that we can look at our situation and see that we are in this situation of an round-and-round economic data point.

What are we trying to do here by having more people have to keep the round-and-round going? I just don't except answers that we are doing it for personal reasons. People are almost always public entities as well. Humans are part of a society and as such, will be needed as a public entity as such. Procreating a new person is simply feeding more people to the round-and-round socio-political-economic system. In a sense that is using them as know this beforehand, yet we do it. This means we indeed want more people to keep the system going. But this is just a vicious absurdity of perpetuation. Keep it going to keep it going to keep it going.. Who cares if people suffer and have negative experiences in the process.

What if the very acknowledgement of our condition is what is needed? What if we just need to realise that we are not anymore special than the cat or insect or bird? What if our very thinking ability, which is unique to only us, is making us the biggest sufferers? It does sometimes seem like a cruel joke. What if man's ability to come up with a theory such as antinatalism is what is flawed in our brains? What does this evolution amount to if all it has brought is more suffering? No matter how "successful" a man becomes I can say with certainty that he's suffering more than the chimpanzee. — Zeus

Yes, well-put. Through the mechanisms of evolution, there is a species who can recognize itself regarding its own motives, and ponder why it does anything at all. That is an oddity. We can see that we are like in many ways that rock orbiting around and around. We don't just "do", we "know we do".

But here is the thing, despite our potential to acknowledge our position we still run society as if we don't know. Produce, consume, produce, consume. Need, want, need, want. Survival, maintenance, entertainment, survival, maintenance, entertainment. If we know or potentially can know what we know about this absurd repetition (not unlike the moon's orbit). We can romanticize the condition in something like Camus or Nietzsche, but c'mon. That's nice literature-sounding stuff, but how about real life? Real life is dulling it with more things to distract, etc. We are aware that we don't have to entertain ourselves, and we don't have to go to work, but we certainly will. We need to survive, maintain, and entertain. We putter, we zone out, we look for escape, we create more drama, etc.

Anyways, going back to this thread- certainly social controls are put into place to prevent people from seeing the absurd nature of the repetition. In order for people to survive, maintain, and entertain, which itself is absurd, it needs to push those efforts into a public forum through the labor and consumption markets which is that absurdity enlarged. The bigger cog of the economic needs turns from the smaller cogs of the individual needs. But it all goes back to that moon analogy. All doing the same thing. The moon gets to just orbit though. In order to do the same thing, we have to do a lot more.

Certainly, the managers need someone to manage. People need to survive and work to get money. Owners want customers. People want stuff to buy. This creates the system of people knowingly being free giving up their freedom. But it cannot be any other way. Our demands demand it.

"All services in western culture are ultimately concerned with making people better producers and consumers above all else whether the service providers recognize this or not." - This claim takes one facet of life (production & consumption) and elevates it above all the rest. That's why I cited my sex example. I wasn't intending on actually arguing it, I was citing it as a parallel to this type of claim. — BitconnectCarlos

Ok, so what else do you think are the goals of the society? I did keep the questions open-ended in my OP. However, I will probably continue the case that largely, indeed consuming and producing is what we want. Managers need people to manage. Customers need people to buy from. Owners need capital and customers. I am not saying this doesn't come from something outside of consuming and producing, because it does (pretty much our individual demands that spring from desires for survival, boredom, and entertainment). But anyways, please provide what you think is the plethora of goals society wants from us (or the few goals it wants, or no goals if you wants.) And also answer the second question of the the social controls used to meet those goals. And don't forget the third question about if it is at odds with individual interests.

@Baden .
So should we give shit to Plato for being so narrowly focused on the idea of the Ideas? Should we give shit to Aristotle only zeroing in on Virtues? Should we give shit to Schopenhauer because his focus was on Will or Frege and Wittgenstein with their dogged focus on language use or mathematics? I mean, if someone's philosophy has a theme, that may be due to consistency and building a philosophy on that core consistency.

I think there is a difference between being consistent in philosophy and then defending a political figure, no matter what he does. I haven't read NOS4A2's posts enough, but it seems like he is simply defending Trump at all costs. Perhaps he really does think anything Trump does is good. One can argue that this is arguing in bad faith as, no matter how bad Trump does, he will never admit that this is bad because he will always point to other politicians who screw up but in much different ways, and is perhaps not even relative to the fact that Trump screwed up. There are other ways people troll. I know posters on here enough to know where they are coming from. Anyone who has been on this forum long enough, if they JUST see one argument from a recent thread from a frequent poster (like myself), and do not take any previous arguments made into consideration (and they have seen the previous threads), that would be trolling. They are purposely too narrowly focusing on the one current argument when they (possibly) know all the other arguments that have been made besides the current one that they are (purposely?) too narrowly focusing on.

It's just the case that the poster is currently using a new argument or a variation when clearly they addressed the objections in previous ones. It could be the case that the interlocutor sincerely doesn't know the objections were addressed previously, or it could also be the case that the person knows the previous arguments but are going to go through with posing the objections anyways as if there were never previous defenses made in other threads.

Anyways, the point is, I don't know if it is fair to lump me in the camp that you are doing, Baden.

I could say that people go out and get wealth and consume to heighten their sexual prospects even if they don't realize it. See, once I start making claims about things which aren't really provable it becomes difficult to have a discussion or an argument with me. — BitconnectCarlos

Proof? Look how much consumption and production is expected and reinforced. You see, it's not that hard to see evidence of it.

I'm not going to let you characterize me as the spouter of assertions while you go ahead and try to make your own arguments look like hard-nosed realism. I call bullshit on your approach. Arguing out of bad faith as you are not accepting evidence. Education, the market system itself, marketing, the government, attitudes of the working/middle class, media, and almost everything can provide evidence. If you need me to pull articles to see this, then you definitely are arguing from bad faith.

But, "be-ing" doesn't mean just sitting there and doing nothing. You see, you can "be" at all times. Doesn't it make perfect sense? If one is not "be-ing", isn't one, simply, lost? — Zeus

I mean that we are always needing and wanting or the most part. Always becoming never being.

I don't know how I would be able to disprove this statement if I were to try to attack it. There are plenty of therapists and religious leaders who are not materialistic. I think if you were to ask these professions in a survey whether their goal was ultimately to produce better consumers and producers the overwhelming majority would say no. But then you could just say "well it's still true, but they don't recognize it."

I can accept that economics and wealth plays a very significant role in our society. But so does sex. So does physical appearance. — BitconnectCarlos

Yes, that is the invisible hand at work. The pastor and therapist "thinks" they are doing X, but really it is to provide function Y. Similarly, drinking 8 beers may be due to thinking you will get plastered and have a good time, but it functions to blow off steam so you can get back to work and produce and consume your daily living items.

I can accept that economics and wealth plays a very significant role in our society. But so does sex. So does physical appearance. — BitconnectCarlos

Sex and being with a partner just leads to outlets to find entertainment and satisfaction in order to get back to work and produce. Physical appearance plays its own functions towards this effort. A non-lonely person will work better. The pursuit of a relationship boosts the economy in many ways. But most importantly, sex can lead to procreation which means making more people who can produce and consume. Society's goals and social controls is the name of the thread.

"Man's feeling of homelessness, of alienation has been intensified in the midst of a bureaucratized, impersonal mass society. He has come to feel himself an outsider even within his own human society. He is terribly alienated: a stranger to God, to nature, and to the gigantic social apparatus that supplies his material wants.But the worst and final form of alienation, toward which indeed the others tend, is man's alienation from his own self. In a society that requires of man only that he perform competently his own particular social function, man becomes identified with this function, and the rest of his being is allowed to subsist as best it can - usually to be dropped below the surface of consciousness and forgotten." — Zeus

Good quote, Zeus. The only addendum here I have to add is this quote implies that there is some solution or salvation to be had. "If only we designed society like X, we can get out of this". Of course, my position is it is the very nature of being a living human that will necessarily be dissatisfied. However, that quote is still valuable and true, it's just that the caveat is that human nature will be dissatisfied in any system. The system itself will inevitably use humans because our dissatisfaction brings about the demands of others, and we will once again bring about functional roles which will become the goals of the society to maintain and perpetuate in habits and in producing more people to enact these habits.

Maybe if you asked a businessman that would be what he says is the goal of society. If you asked a pastor or some other religious leader he'd probably give a different answer if you asked him about our social goals. If you asked a therapist or mental health expert he'd probably frame the issue in his own way.

Yes, if you have children they'll be subject to people's expectations. — BitconnectCarlos

So part of my premise is occupations like pastors and therapists are Western society's way of making people feel well-adjusted (or feel meaning enough) to keep producing and consuming. It doesn't matter if the way to get there is through making people feel that it is self-oriented, the outcome is the same. Better consumers and producers. Same with the goals of education of course (not to say that is always achieved.. thinking of failed schools).

All human action is motivated.
All motives are goals.
Humans are always active.
Humans always have goals.

Utterly reasonable nonsense that comes from the philosopher-child's constant demand for reasons.

"Why do you eat chips Mummy?"
" Well dear, it's so I get fat and ugly, and Daddy doesn't make me have more irritating children like you."

The sad truth is that Mummy doesn't want to get fat at all, she just likes eating chips and has no goal, she's not even hungry. — unenlightened

I'm not trying to say I agree with the premise all motives are goals. In this case it is boredom eating. That is a reason in itself- boredom. You were perhaps responding to Athena's argument.

Anyways, my point was the dissatisfaction that occurs at almost all times. You mentioned that your mere presence suffices. My counter-argument was that if that's the case you wouldn't "want" for anything. You wouldn't be bored, you wouldn't plan anything, you wouldn't need anything. But of course, that's almost never the case. That isn't to say that on very few occasions we can't just sit there and "be" without needing anything, but I was saying that it is rarer than what you seemed to imply in your post.

Life itself forces us to have demands on others and them on us. This forces us have to consume and produce. What's the point of putting anyone in this absurd situation? Any reason you give would be looking passed the person you are affecting... if you say to continue the concept of democracy, technology, morality, or any X thing, you have bypassed any good reason to have that particular person. You are using the new person born for some cause. You are also being an unwitting agent of society's goals to make more producers and consumers.. Why be a part of this?