I am quite certain that OCD is real and can be disabling, but an interesting aspect of most mental illnesses is that most of the features of MI are manifested in mild form by people who are not, by any definition, mentally disturbed. OCD is a good example. Take your spoon: you have to decide what to do with it. I've had to pause to think about it -- is the spoon I measured baking powder with still clean, or not? The answer is an irrational "no". How about the tops of canned food; after using the can opener on them, some of the juice gets on top of the can, then runs back into the can. Oh oh, is that still clean? — Bitter Crank

Yes, this is a good observation. Much of the OCD symptoms are a spectrum, and even non MI people, might have a touch of it on the very weak part of the spectrum. It is these uncertainties that seem to be the birthing places for the more pronounced and actual MI manifestations.

I am annoyed at church events when someone collects the unused silverware from the tables and wants to put it back in the drawers. NO! NO! Look, it's been handled at least twice (putting it on the table, taking it off) and who the hell knows how many more times. Just run it through the wash. Same with glasses. Here comes somebody carrying glasses with their fingers inside the glasses saying they are clean. The machine is doing the washing, and it doesn't care if it has a few more to clean. I just follow the rule of "once touched, into the washing machine". — Bitter Crank

Right so the uncertainty ground is already fertile in a "well-adjusted" mind let alone one prone to OCD. These uncertanties could be the start of OCD tendencies, though that's just a theory.

We make irrational exceptions to our cleanliness rules. We may worry if someone's hands were washed before slicing a loaf of bread, but aren't worried enough about cleanliness to prevent us from having sex with a stranger.

Point is, despite what we may think we are, we are pretty irrational, frequently given to thoughts and behaviors which do not pass muster as "rational", "reasonable", or "sensible". — Bitter Crank

Agreed. So what to do about them?

I dont understand this definition. A perspective and perceiving seem to be completely unrelated things to you. That isn't how I understand perception at all. — Harry Hindu

Ugh, I meant to convey that perspective of the universe without a mind, means what in terms of the scale of the universe? At what scale does the universe subsist? But there is no scale, so "what" is subsisting?

Now you are going to say something about properties. Properties are inherent parts of something. So the parts are what makes the scale? But I thought it was mind.

It matters already, right now, whether or not our planet will be full of human life fifty years from now, one hundred years from now, two hundred years from now, and so on. And if most people now wouldn't opt to never have lived if possible, then it's reasonable to infer that a new generation of people would also not opt to have never been born if possible, so it's not wrong, it's actually good. Good is better than both neutral and bad, as I've told you before. And a planet devoid of life is neutral at best. — S

It only matters to prevent suffering. Having good only matters to those already born. All the people alive who report that they experience something "good" doesn't take away the logic of the asymmetry prior to birth. The one time all harm is prevented is all the matters. Anything else is forcing an agenda so another lives it out. It is no wonder society crams so many types of thinking from high on down.. To perpetuate itself, have compliant workers, you need Nietzschean mentality.

And you keep switching up your justifications in a logically inconsistent manner. If there's no person prior to conception, then there's no one to be forced. You yourself just said "no forcing", but then you illogically try to challenge me as though there's a person prior to conception that would somehow be forced into existence. — S

No, you are mischaracterizing the argument. What I mean is once born, that person is forced. Prior to this, no one is forced.

That doesn't outweigh the overall value of the lives of many people. Given that the nonsense ideal of living without that is not a possible alternative, the only other alternative is lifelessness, which is not better than the lives that the people themselves value. They would not opt to never have lived if given the option, and it is immoral to dismiss their own conclusion as you are doing. — S

None of that would matter prior to birth. No forcing, no deprivation. You can't force someone to play a game you think they will like at some point (and maybe not at others) and then say "See, aren't you glad I forced this on you?!". What is the harm of not being born to the person not being born? NOTHING.

I asked you how you're defining "perspective" first. In order to proceed, you'd have to answer that question first. It is part of your title and the OP of this thread. — Harry Hindu

Perspective is the state of the universe without a human perceiving it. In this case the scale.. All strings all the way down.. the whole universe all at once.

Okay, but then you're denying that people can be hungry, for example, without having an "unpleasant" phenomenal assessment of it. Is that right? — Terrapin Station

So desiring is like a wound that is never clotted by simply fulfilling a desire. Physiological pain (pain being by its nature unpleasant) attend many of these lacks. But it will persist again even after temporary satiation. Can one revel in the unpleasantness of starving? Sure. Perhaps certain masochistic types. So, if the masochists don't get what they desire?

Sure. And on the big picture, the uniform principle has it that lacking or desiring things is bad regardless of how anyone feels about it beacuse? — Terrapin Station

Insatiable and unfulfilled desires are painful by their very nature. That we are lacking something at almost all times, and the fact that fulfilling some of these lacks is only temporarily satisfying is a negative in and of itself.

When they ask you why you feel it's morally bad regardless of how they feel about it, it wouldn't do any good to keep explaining that you feel it's morally bad, that you characterize it as something negative, etc. They want to know your motivation for the characterization. — Terrapin Station

It's looking at the big picture and seeing a uniform principle. Not everyone will see that. Gravity affects you, but you do not have to understand how it works, for example.

Are you saying the universe doesnt exist, or has no properties (which is the same as saying that it doesn't exist), independent of our perspective? How are you defining "perspective"?

Like I said, perspectives don't exist independent of some sensory system. You don't need to have a perspective of something for it to exist. You do need a perspective for you to know it exists. Perspectives are a type of knowledge, which sensory information processors possess. — Harry Hindu

Right, at what level of scale is the universe operating? I can say we are all strings, but we don't operate on the string level. Molecules, atoms, waves, etc. If there is not a universal level of operation, what sense can there be made of a universe in and of itself?

You mention properties. Please give me your theory of properties and maybe we can proceed from there.

Please see this thread for more elaborate ideas on it:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/5981/schopenhauers-deprivationalism

I'm not sure what tips a habit (checking to make sure the stove is off, the car is locked...) into a compulsion; I suppose it is stress. We experience stress when many aspects of our lives start becoming unhinged. Too much chaos; too many unpredictable events happening; disturbing events popping up all over the place. Establishing a secure zone (one's apartment) by multiple checks to make sure everything is OK when one leaves relieves stress a bit, so the checking becomes fixed. — Bitter Crank

I think stress is a huge factor, but more in the fact that it magnifies the compulsive affects that are already there in the OCD person. For example, a job interview would most likely increase the symptoms as now there is something at stake and things have to be done a certain way to ensure it. But, the initial compulsion might come from uncertainty. So let us say that the OCD person took the spoon from the drawer and used it to scoop sugar in a cup of coffee.. He did not stir the coffee with the spoon. There is no residual sugar on the spoon either (maybe microscopic grain or two). The person used the handle of the spoon but did not touch the spoon part itself. The person deems 50/50 to put back or in the washing machine. He puts it in washing machine. He goes to other room. Now he obsesses that was the wrong move. The right move was the drawer. But maybe it was too used.. But either way, the logic is long gone, and now it is simply an angsty residual feeling. The idea of the spoon being put in "wrong" place is all prevading and hours go by with this feeling. Finally, the person moves the spoon. It didn't work and tries another combination..wash the spoon manually then use again, then wash again, then put in drawer. You can see how this initial feeling of uncertainty started the whole thing, even if that was long ago not the issue at stake anymore but what to do with the "wrong decision" that was made.

Okay, but presumably you agree with him. So WHY do you feel it's wrong? (If why you feel it's wrong is identical to why Schopenhauer feels it's wrong for some reason, you can just report that, but in that case, why does Schopenhauer feel it's wrong?)

I'm presuming that you're not just parroting Schopenhauer's views without critically thinking about them very much. — Terrapin Station

I don't necessarily think there is an all-pervading Will, though I think there are some interesting ideas that could be useful from it. I do think the ideas on deprivation ring true and do believe it to be the background of life.

Do you agree that the Disneyland example is an example of a misleading proposition? Why is it misleading? Obviously because the part about dragging children along the ground by horse for miles and miles is deliberately not mentioned, right? — S

I find it ironic that you use this example, as I think this is more something that natalists would use... "Oh life is justifiable because it has Disneyland moments".. misleading the fact that much of life isn't.. And I do believe many people misjudge this, and to do so for other people, is morally problematic. I've discussed the fallacy of simple "self-reports" on life being "good" or "wanting to live". I"ve also explained in detail how starting a life and continuing a life are two different things.

But more to my point. The logic is that preventing "goods" do not matter unless an ACTUAL person exists to be deprived. Preventing "harm" is ALWAYS good, even if there is no actual person to be benefited from this prevention. Procreating, despite this fact is putting an agenda to be lived out by another person above the prevention of suffering. Forcing someone to live out an agenda is morally problematic. Analogies were used of games you like that you think others MUST play by forcing them into playing it, etc. It doesn't matter if people eventually identify with the game or not. That is wrong to force them into the game in the first place. No one is forced into anything, nor deprived of anything in the antinatalist outcome.

I think it might have even been useful if they were out of balance. They were the one who checked the sentries, the nets, the cave opening many times. They were mostly a pain in the ass, but once in a while they saved the whole tribe. — Coben

Good point. But that's not the whole experience of OCD. It's when one is caught in an aggressive loop that this now has no positive impact for the individual. There's people who take the phrase literally, "step on a crack and break your mother's back". You think that's balanced? They persistently find a pattern to "undo" the stepping on the crack as this might cause future harm for someone. Living with this anxiety of "changing the world" is too stressful to overcome the compulsion to go back and "not" step on the cracks in the right pattern.

So we don't have to keep going over this. — Terrapin Station

Oh good, thank you.

Let's just get to WHY one would have a view that something is morally problematic even though someone doesn't have a problem with it. — Terrapin Station

One thing weird about the "systematic" view schopenhauer is endorsing is that it implies that the preferred state would be to just sit like a lump and not want to do anything--as if that's some ideal for some reason. — Terrapin Station

Oh yeah, that's also pretty insane. Nietzsche was right on this point, and Schopenhauer was wrong. Ironically, a life without everything that Schopenhauer would call suffering wouldn't be worth living. But in reality, life with suffering is worth living in the majority of cases. — S

So all of this is wrong about Schopenhauer's view. Schopenhauer's ideal would probably be something like Nirvana- a complete lack of lack. I've said this before about Schop- his world would be one with absolutely nothing or absolutely everything. There would be no deprived states. All being or all nothing. There is no becoming or flux. Thus, a world "worth living" in a Nietzschean "suffering makes things worth it" isn't even in the radar of this kind of holistic metaphysics. That's intra-worldly affairs, and Schop's metaphysics is the "world" itself.

What I'm saying is that it makes no sense to me that you'd be saying that something is morally problematic even though an individual has no issues about it. They don't at all mind any of the states in question, etc.

You explained that it's because it's "Something that is so structural, it is not reflected on, but runs our lives." Well, that's true of things like physics, our autonomic nervous systems, etc., too. So why wouldn't those be morally problematic on your view? That's not a commentary about conventional linguistic frameworks. So conventional linguistic frameworks that we'd use have nothing to do with the issue. — Terrapin Station

The fact that we are in a deprived state = suffering. It matters not what people evaluate about this or that actual experience. In this model, it is acknowledged that we are always in a sense becoming and never fully being. Becoming has a quality of not fully satisfied.

Again, why does the guy grab something from the fridge? Why isn't he satisfied without doing so? Is it something related to a deficiency in hunger, thirst, comfort, entertainment?

Well, one is about human nature, too, unless you think we're somehow "outside of physics." — Terrapin Station

Right, so talking about string theory to get my car fixed would also be appropriate? I did say "per se" because I knew you were going to bring up that red herring.

Re going to the fridge, I already said because they're hungry, but I pointed out that they might not have any negative phenomenal assessment of that at all, and you pointed out that you weren't talking about that anyway--you're saying something that's independent of any individual's assessment of their states. — Terrapin Station

Right, hunger.. Let's start there. In the Schopenhauer view, the "negative" state is that which is not at some sort of satiation- to be deprived.

Clever..but you forgot the one where the guy gets stoned to death (and not the drug kind).

I know you got sidetracked, but I was interested in your response to this:

"Wouldn't, say, physics fit that description--something structural, it's not reflected upon, but it runs our lives. So would you say that physics is morally problematic? " — Terrapin Station

The problem is they aren't commensurable per se. One is about the scientific laws of the universe, one is about human nature. You never answered, why is someone going to the fridge from the couch? I know funny question.

Ah a rare look at Terrapin Station in the flesh.

So then why did you make that comment to me in the first place? I'm not having an agenda for another person by making the valid point that you try to hide the full picture by never mentioning all of the other hugely important things that, by implication, you're in favour of preventing? This raises a serious question of motivation: do you want to mislead or not? Because I've raised this problem with you numerous times and yet you continue to do it? What does that suggest? — S

I am not misleading anyone. Creating the conditions for suffering for another being "ok" because you have an agenda for them (that includes things like "joy") is morally problematic. That is the position. The agenda to "prevent suffering" does not deprive any actual person of anything, including joy. By being born, that person is living a lifetime's worth of another's agenda for them.

Another red herring. — S

No it directly addresses your error. The logic you are presenting has mischaracterized the argument.

Prevention of suffering (and anything else, including joy) = No person who is alive to be deprived of joy, and no actual person who is living out another person's agenda..even if that agenda included included for them to experience "joy". But again, that only matters if the person was alive. If the person is not born, no actual person is forced into an agenda.

that's hardly my fault for bringing you to that embarrassing realisation. — S

Oh you're so clever :roll:.

Your original claim to me was that the prevention of suffering matters, and that anything else would be having an agenda for another person. Logically, included in that "anything else" would be the prevention of joy. That also matters. If prevention of joy is having an agenda for another person, then prevention of suffering is having an agenda for another person. And if prevention of suffering isn't having an agenda for another person because there is no person, then prevention of joy isn't having an agenda for another person because there is no person.

It isn't clear to me whether or not you understand this problem because you haven't been addressing it directly, which means that the problem will continue to persist unresolved.

Whether you realise it or not, you have been forced into a dilemma and must choose from limited options. Not included in those options is having your cake and eating it. Your current tactic seems to be to appear as though you're addressing what I'm saying without actually doing so. — S

I just see your "problem" as almost nonsensical, so unresolved would not even apply. It doesn't matter that the parent has an agenda per se, it is the fact that someone else will be LIVING OUT the parent's (society's?) agenda(s).

It's just a hypothesis, but if you read the verbs they mention one can see how they might benefit the group. — Coben

Oh, I really like that one! That is an interesting idea to explore- is OCD a maladaptive version of what might have been beneficial in the adaptionary setting in more limited capacities. It's an overabundance of traits that if balanced, were necessary for survival. Someone with a tendency for precision, counting, hoarding could have been useful. This trait taken too far and in the wrong setting can be deleterious to the person who has this trait.

So, ignoring that entire irrelevant personal attack — S

And how is that not a case of the pot calling the kettle black? What do you think I have to do for just about every post you make which usually has some insulting personal attack in there somewhere. Oh, I found another one, right here!

o you not agree that a little child would understand why these kinds of statement are misleading? — S

And are you now ready to properly address my criticism about your comment to me in response to my mention about the prevention of joy that "that's having an agenda for another person"? Are you now ready to clarify what your position is? Do you accept that, as an antinatalist according to your own description of antinatalism, you have an agenda for another person? Or are you going to be inconsistent and apply a double standard? Or are you just going to keep evading the point? — S

Ok, this is what I perceive to be your main issue right now in this argument, no?

A person has to exist for there to be an agenda. By not having a new person, there is no person, and ergo no agenda that this person is to be following. My agenda is to prevent someone else from being forced into an agenda, and by not having a new person who actually will be forced into an agenda, my agenda has not made an agenda for someone else.

So why don't you understand it when a little child can? Do you mean to suggest that a little child is more intelligent than you are? — S

Why do you keep thinking insulting people is a good debate tactic. It just shows more of who you really are. It still doesn't matter if you are going to use the excuse that this is an anonymous forum, so it's okay to be this rude. I have not done the same to you. Why would you treat others, even people you are debating in such a demeaning fashion? It isn't effective in getting your point across. It honestly just makes you look like an asshole. You know, a whole philosophy book was written about assholes. There's some real philosophical questions about assholes- are people themselves assholes or do they just act like assholes? Can there be both? Are you just an asshole, or do you just act like one on internet forums?

Honestly, I shouldn't debate you any further until you cleanup your asshole act. I don't think you argue in good faith. You have to see the other position's side before you move on. Right now you are just showing you like going on ego-trips. It is in a perverse way, fun to prove you wrong, but it is at the expense of allowing you to act like a total asshole, so I don't know how I feel by keeping indulging this.

All these arguments that hinge on the nonexistence of potential people seem to depend on certain things being true with respect to the problem of personal identity. We are talking about persons, after all, persons existing and persons not yet existing. But what is a person? What am I? — petrichor

Does it matter if the person is conceived, gestated, born, aware, self-aware? At whatever stage you pick the formation of a "person" all the antinatalist arguments apply from that moment forward. It was just that the previous steps needed to take place for that to occur.

what is your understanding of what Schopenhauer thought that we are ultimately? What am I really? And I mean from my own perspective. And how does what I am at my foundation relate to what you are at your foundation? — petrichor

That's an interesting question. Metaphysically, Schopenhauer thought everything, including you and I, are manifestations of the principle of Will, which is like a force that has no end goal but strives forward. All beings are manifestation of Will and create this world of appearances and plays out the Will's striving in various forms. However, due to the fact that Will is an endless force, this brings suffering for animal manifestations because of the endless, striving nature of our pursuits, goals, and survival. The illusion is satisfaction will be attained by any pursuit. But they aren't.

I maybe a poor neurotic anxious, suffering, alone and sad in the 20th century but a great pioneering visionary in the 22nd century. — TheMadFool

Ha, I would say we must separate personality-types from idiosyncratic and self-evaluated negative patterns. Someone like a Tesla for example was a bit "out there" with his ideas.. but a lot of them were spot on true for how electricity can be harnessed. That perhaps is a personality-related thing. However, he also seemed to have an actual neurotic disorder of OCD. He counted things in three, he was germaphobic. These are like mental baggage that impeded perhaps his abilities socially, and certainly took up mental space. I would guess even Tesla would not have wanted to deal with them.

Can you link to something that supports this idea? I think this would actually support my thesis. If a pattern that causes suffering in one culture leads on to a position of authority in another culture, then ti makes parallels between what I have been calling collective neuroses and neurosis as traditionallly defined more likely.

I am skeptical that medicine men are sufferers of OCD, however. — Coben

No I can't. This was just an idea I had. Do tribal people suffer neuroses like OCD? If so, is it just treated differently by those people?

People who have very rigid habits can make it work for them. They get to work on time, they get their work done. They get to the gym on time, they swim a mile, they bike 100 miles. They sleep well. — Bitter Crank

Sometimes this can get quite severe..Think people like Howard Hughes. Let's take OCD again.. Imagine that every you did X arbitrary (but overvalued) triggering event, you felt Y (psychosomatic) affect. So every time you mistakenly hit something with your left hand, the whole rest of the day you felt mentally impaired, like you cannot access your own memory or cognitive capacities to reason. Your whole mind seems to slow down. However, if you immediately hit the object with your right hand, your brain goes back to functioning normally. Let's say this triggering event happens frequently throughout the day. This will become mentally taxing for that person.

People on the outside, might not even realize what's going on. Even if the person was to explain it to others or even a therapist, the experience would be so alien to them, it would be hard to find a solution that properly fits the internal world of the patient. The therapist would have no idea what it really feels like to go through the angst of having a diminished mental capacity based on some triggering event. They might say to just let the feeling ride out without compusling but then the person is "stuck" in that mode for the whole day.. possibly not wearing off and impeding the immediate tasks at hand. These are the reasons neurosis is quite tricky. It is the alieness of the idiosyncratic, internal feeling of the sufferer and the inability for others to really understand this world and thus to help them. They don't even really understand what's going on internally. There is a disconnect of the world of the OCD afflicted person and the people that are observing and listening to them on the outside. And, since each OCD sufferer might have a different manifestation, it is even that much harder as the nuances of each world is different. This is probably why people with more traditional forms of OCD would be more easily treated- people with religious scrupulosity, people who wash their hands a certain number of times, etc. The more individualized, different, and delusional the obsession/symptom, the more isolating, and harder to understand and treat from those on the outside.

Uh, a plank scale doesnt have a perspective. Senses exist on our scale, so perspectives only exist on our scale. That isn't to say that the properties of objects don't exist independent of perspectives.

Why would we perceive what we call "differences and similarities in scale" if the objects don't have some inherent properties that are different or similar? — Harry Hindu

Well, I see this as an interesting thing to ponder if there is no scale of the universe. If one were to step out of the human or animal perspective the universe takes the perspective of.... Nothing.. fine but you see we are used to human scales of being. Like a physical object that seems to be solid but at a sub-atomic scale is mostly empty. Well, is that not another scale? Or the scale of the whole universe all at once. Is that not a scale? If string theory was true, there is a scale of vibrating strings. These are fathomable in imagination but in reality totally alien. Either way, we are prejudiced with a human type scale. That isn't THE scale or THE ONLY scale.

No, they are just natural, although that is exceptional in a Totality that can't have anything outside of it, such as an absolute time or yardstick, forcing everything to be relative and relational to everything. — PoeticUniverse

What is the scale of the universe with no point of view? We only know it from the human scale.

What scale is anything without objects that have scalable properties? I dont get this subject/object distinction. Subjects are objects themselves with scalable properties. — Harry Hindu

That's the point. What is the scale of the universe with no point of view? You only imagine your human perspective of large and small.. not the actual point of view of a plank scale or whole universe or anything else for that matter.

Dealing with mild OCD isn't that difficult; more entrenched and severe OCD can be difficult to overcome. — Bitter Crank

Yeah, I think checking the stove a few times is one thing- it's when it gets irrational. Checking the stove a couple times is still tied to some rational outcome because the stove may actually cause damage if left on. What about if someone parks a car, but the tire has to be "just right" when it is parked. It is perfectly in the space, but the tire itself has to be a quarter inch to the right. If it isn't, the afflicted person will think about it all day. They cannot think about anything else. Then they go and move it, but each time, they are not hitting the "right" for tire placement. Either the person gives up and deals with the obsession internally, or they keep compulsing and manifest it externally. They may stop the compulsion but then they deal with the internal negative state. They give in and do the compulsion, they are are feeding the feedback loop and associating the ending of the negative feeling with the compulsion. Again, these are afflictions which are not as noticeable but cause considerable disruption.

Speaking for my self, I have experienced neurosis (depression, anxiety) and have had a fairly high level of neuroticism. For the last 8 years, I have experienced a sharp shift away from neuroticism. I have become less irritable, more tolerant, less anxious, more contented. I have felt much less depressed and anxious, but whether that is a result of declining neuroticism or effective medication, isn't clear. — Bitter Crank

Yes, I understand the distinction. I am talking about neurosis not a neurotic personality.

So as I said, that makes no sense to me at all. What makes something morally problematic regardless of anyone's opinion about the thing in question? — Terrapin Station

Something that is so structural, it is not reflected on, but runs our lives.

The lower end of the scale as the Planck size is absolute. A practical high end for stuff is the size just above which would collapse into a black hole. — PoeticUniverse

Yes, but what scale is anything without any subject? You think there is some disembodied human making the scales subsist?

But that is scale relative to us. What is the scale of anything without anything relative to it. Is there absolute scale?

Why didn't you answer my questions? I will ask them again.

Do you understand why that's a misleading statement? Yes or no?

Do you understand why no reasonable conclusion can follow from it? Yes or no? — S

I did answer. I said no, and no. I explained why.

Then that's my response also, regarding the prevention of joy. And the prevention of anger, the prevention of surprise, the prevention sympathy, the prevention of guilt, the prevention of...

You don't seem to get the logic here. — S

Agendas are had by actual people. No people, no agenda for that person to be had.

Well...in general, we comprehend what is outside our perceptual scale via intellectual intuition. Consider the apparent retrograde motion of the planets. If you study a model of the solar system closely (especially a dynamic one), then imagine yourself on earth and looking at Mars, for example, suddenly the retrograde motion becomes evident for what it is, a larger slower orbit around a common gravitational centre. So you could say that knowledge is the lens whereby we see the really small and the really big.... — Pantagruel

Do you think that imagined scale means anything outside our imagined perception?