But the problem with this view is that it is your own subjective view based on how you experience life, and not one shared by everyone. The same thing can be interpreted in different ways. The same glass can be seen as half-empty or as half-full. The same obstacle can be seen as a source of suffering or as a challenge to overcome to reach something better. These people don't see life as a non-stop treadmill full of suffering, they see it as a source of joy. — leo

I noticed you didn't quite address my argument but moved it to one that I wasn't quite making. What I said was that forcing an obstacle course or relentless treadmill onto someone is always, objectively a bad thing, whether one eventually identifies with it or not. Creating situations of challenge, stress, and harm for someone else, even if they eventually find joy from the adversity or despite it, is wrong to do to someone else. It is not a no harm, no foul situation, as you might object. This is especially true in the case of procreation as there was no one in the first place that was around to need to be challenged, or find the joy in adversity. This was a point I was trying to make with @Bitter Crank too.

Some people love that treadmill, they are glad to be alive, their hardships make their joys even stronger. And then they have the amazing experience of sex with someone they love, then the amazing experience of being pregnant and preparing to welcome their baby to the world, then the amazing experience of having that baby and taking care of it and having fun with it and enjoying moments with it and helping it grow so it can become a great and happy and beautiful man or woman, and then they look back at their life and they are glad to have lived it. — leo

Forcing someone into an obstacle course or a challenge is objectively bad, even if the participant eventually identifies with the challenges forced upon him. Forcing someone on a non-stop treadmill, forced to work, deal with adversity, and unmitigated suffering, or die a slow death by starvation or a fast death by suicide, does not seem right, morally speaking.

The problem people think they see with antinatalism it is so radically different than the notions that are often accepted. Life must be good to give to another person. But, just because an idea is radically different than what is accepted, doesn't make it wrong. Sometimes, it is exactly what is needed to shake people out of their stupor with what is really going on.

Could you elaborate more on this catharsis/therapy idea? — Inyenzi

We cannot be unborn, but we can prevent others from being born. We can rebel against the cruelty of the treadmill that is life, by simply not putting more people in the treadmill. Simply the act of rebellion against a cruel system can be its own cathartic act- like fighting against tyranny where one sees it.

For most people, "navigating it the best we can", includes finding a partner, getting married, starting a family. Existing as part of a community. Because navigating the gauntlet of life alone means facing near insurmountable obstacles - we find it easier and more meaningful to navigate these obstacles together. And so partnerships are created, babies are born, and more therefore are born, tasked with maintaining biological/social/existential homeostasis. The child is just as a much a result of life's sufferings, as a requisite condition for their apprehension at all. — Inyenzi

Perhaps so, but look what that is saying. Children are born as a result of our own sufferings, to have the torch passed. Why should we keep letting the next generation be the salve for facing our own near insurmountable obstacles? Is it really logical to pass more near obstacles and challenges to a new generation because we need a way to cope with our own? The sacrifice for a higher cause then, would not let one's own aloneness and obstacles to become the catalyst for causing yet more people to face obstacles.

Perhaps sex is biological- pleasure feels good. But we have a lot of biological drives we can respond to through self-awareness, learning, and changing norms to fit a new understanding.

I'd like to go back to the treadmill idea. When bringing a child into this world, they are going to be on the perpetual treadmill or get flung into the wall. There is no escape from the treadmill of survival. Why put someone through that?

Is it actually coherent that before our births we did not exist in any sense? As if from a 'state' of parinirvana, a mind-stream has been formed (with it's inherent sufferings that have to be dealt with) for just a single blip of a lifetime, only to have its causes disassemble and the mind-steam ceases eternally. Like some sort of cosmic blip of suffering, in between timeless noncondition. — Inyenzi

Actually, that's not too far off :D.

If 'I' did not exist prior to this life, and yet from that unconditioned 'state' a lifetime, or a first person conscious experience has arisen, why therefore when I 'return' to that same 'state' (it is hard to talk about this without committing logical fallacies), would I forever remain unconditioned? When we know from that I am sitting here typing this post, conditioned states have arisen from unconditioned/non-existent/nothingness. If I die, why would I stay dead?

It is as if the antinatalist is saying, "life is dukkha - stop pulling beings from nirvana!" "Stop bringing forth experience from nonexistence!" Is this coherent? I'm not sure. — Inyenzi

Human life comes from deliberate acts. If people deliberately, prevented birth, people would not be born. This is more about possibilities. One person born, does not negate the fact that ten others could have been born but were not. That one person's consciousness does not bear the burdens of the ten people that were not born.

The point is that invoking nothingness, in the traditional sense, as an alternative to being is unknowingly embracing a certain kind of being. It's not that we can't get what we want when we desire the nothing, but that longing for the nihil is just as much an active engagement with meaningfulness as desiring anything else, because the nothing always manifests itself as a certain kind of substantive within meaningful contexts. — Joshs

Yes, that is actually similar to my answer when people ask me, "What's the point worrying about future people, when you are already born?". The answer is that the catharsis had in identifying with the not-born, provides the meaningful context, the existential therapy for which there is some relief for the already-born.

You bring up some good points about our ability to forget past pain. David Benatar talked about this phenomenon in his book Better Never to Have Been. He called it Pollyannaism- the ability to see past harmful events in a less harmful light. He thought this was a bad thing though because we are constantly misestimating how much pain we have experienced. So it is like constant amnesia in our objectivity in assessing what is really going on.

I'd like to bring up another point, and that is the fast moving treadmill metaphor I used with csalisbury. That is to say, life is like a fast moving treadmill that we cannot get off of without getting flung into the wall. Life forces us to make transactions and labor, but it seems as if people say, "Well it's just inevitable. We have to just try to navigate it the best we can". But where is this have to get into the equation, as if there was no choice? We certainly can't take a break from the laboring and the keeping oneself alive altogether. It is something we can't get out of. A bad obstacle course or maze that we have to navigate, and cannot be escaped.

Does this then signify that you are only semi-antinatalist? Meaning: to each their own. Isn't this the way its always been and always will be?

I guess I then fail to understand why you want others to cease the continuation of life rather than allow them/us the freedom to do what we deem rational, what we see fit. There's something in the way here. — javra

Well, I do believe in the freedom of people to do what they believe on this matter. However, what I'm saying is similar to what I said to csalisbury. That is to say, one person procreating does not negate the fact that another did not. A person doing a bad act does not negate that others did the good act. See my post to csalisbury.

If you're born, then I think the only way forward is that way. If you're arguing for antinatalism, 99.99% of people don't have or not have children based on philosophical argument, so it doesn't matter. — csalisbury

True, but as I stated, "Nothingness never hurt anyone". Why "disturb" this by creating a new being of experience?

Also related, you must admit that life is a bit like being on a fast moving treadmill that will fling you off into the wall if you stop running. That is to say, once born, you are then forced into the transactions and labor to at the least, keep yourself alive. You cannot get off that treadmill. There is just do it or die. This is a bit unreasonable to do to someone else. Yet we know this is the way things are, but put more people on this treadmill. Offhand justifications are something to the effect of "Oh well, they shouldn't mind. They'll just have to navigate it best they can". But what is with this inevitability? The inevitability is put in the equation as if there was no other choice.

(I also have an idea similar to Javra's maybe, that people aren't brought from nothing into the world, its more like a redistribution of consciousness, so antibatalism wouldn't work anyway, but I can't really argue that, at least not anytime soon.) — csalisbury

I see where you are coming from, and Schopenhauer might have had a similar idea actually. But I'm still going to say that it isn't the whole of consciousness but the margins of decisions. That particular possible person was not born. That another person was born from another set of people does not negate this fact. If someone does a bad act, does that negate the fact that another person did not engage in a bad act?

But release by not having in first place for next generation and understanding this prevention for the already-existing is the therapy.

I believe I addressed it with my last post by highlighting the fact that you are moving the goal post. I’m at the level of individual actor decisions to not bring another existence into the world, not existence of sentient beings as a whole. That would be moving the target as to where the decision lies. Hence my remark about veganism and meat eaters.

It’s simply the most logical reaction for individual actors to sufferings existence, and the realization that “no person” is never harmed. I care not so much about the extreme final outcome of all this (complete nonexistence). That is moving the target of where this matters.

The crux of the argument doesn’t rely on granular unalloyed ratios. Alloyed mixed in shit is of unquantifiable ratios doesn’t erase that shit is mixed in.

Also see second argument.

If they were as sentient as us and can evaluate their own condition as they were living it out, they too can decide the best course is to not procreate. The same outcome would arise from any logical species with the same range of emotional-evaluative abilities.

I’m thinking at the margins, not the whole pie. It’s the decision of the individual. For example, one persons meat eating does not negate another’s veganism.

Just add in “mystical unquantifiable mix of the two” of you want. I’ll allow it.

What if I said I predicted this idea was going to be brought forward?

But anyways, yeah yeah the human experience is too complicated for category, but that can literally be said of anything, including language itself. As far as a rough guide though, I don’t think these six categories are half bad. Of course I authored them, so I’m biased.

What I'm wondering is that if you were so convinced life is fundamentally shit and that it cannot possibly get any better, why do you continue living? What keeps you alive? — leo

Good questions. By the way, as @Joshs mentioned, you seem very empathetic. Thank you for reaching out and trying to help. I appreciate that. I just want you to know, I recognize it and think that that is really good of you.

As for your questions, ending my life would provide no satisfaction, as the very ending of my life would also end the satisfaction I would have gained from ending my life. Even the thought of death is something that has to be conceptualized. Actual death is the end of conceptualization itself. Perhaps Schopenhauer said it better when he said: "Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment — a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to an answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man’s existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer."

As to what keeps me alive, I think your question is really, "What gives you hope?". That is a question I do ask myself often, with no good answer. Perhaps that the next day won't be as annoying as the last? But the fact that I have to fix the problems causing the annoyance, is the problem I have in the first place. I will say, although I do see one of philosophy's main benefits as being a kind of existential therapy, I don't like to personalize it. That's why I tend to talk more in generalities. I'm not trying to avoid your questions that seem to be out of concern.

I'm struck by how Schopenhauer1 avoids mention of personal relationships(friends, family, etc). Instead the emphasis is placed on job , task and performance in relation to emotional well-being. I don't know anyone who has been able to achieve happiness over time strictly through their vocation. It's personal bonds that are key to a sense of meaning and worth. Knowing that one is loved and respected is the only thing I know of that can make the arbitrariness and unfairness of life bearable(and perhaps even irrelevant). I also notice that while you seem to reach out empathetically to him in your posts, there doesnt appear to be a lot of empathy in his responses.
I'm not Sigmund Freud, and this isn't a therapy blog, but i suspect that intimacy issues are driving the existential concerns here. — Joshs

I appreciate that @leo seems to be kind enough to try to reach out to what he probably sees as a troubled soul. At least online, he seems like a kind and nice fellow, and is quite the opposite of some more aggressively trolling types around here. Anyways, one of my major themes is that life is often worse than we realize, but we often are programmed to try to comply with it as the project of life itself is deemed as somehow necessary to continue and something to extol, when the constraints, circumstances, and fundamental structures might be quite negative for the individual. Even the fact that it is necessary to psychologically learn to adapt one's psychological state so as to accept life more easily, or in a better way, is telling. One of my other threads spoke of how birds and other animals don't know that they need to do, or evaluate what they are doing while they are doing it. We cannot do that. We evaluate our situations at almost every moment while we are doing it. This is not some Buddhist or Eastern thing where people would then respond, "we have to shut the evaluative part off while we do something".. While "flow states" exist and creative pleasures can occur, the evaluation is necessary to correct course, make deliberate actions, and generally get by, so that is not really an answer, as cognitively, it is so integrated with how we humans operate. To say otherwise, would be to throw out cliched, hollow solutions that do not really reflect what we do or rather, what we must do.

Anyways, this thread is essentially about how some types think that by "mining" existence- that is to say, by knowing/mastering all the minutia of life (minutia mongering), that we are somehow fulfilling a higher goal of some sort. Even if we say there is no higher goal to work towards, de facto by being wrapped up in the minutia, by trying to master it, we are regarding the fact that we are able to mine some understanding that can be useful for prediction/functionality from the materials/universe and so we must be doing something of value. The value comes in the output of more mining. For example, if I show you a really complex and extremely detailed math formula or proof, and then go about solving it, and then applying it to some world event that it maps to, I must be doing something of meaning because of its very complexity. I have mind the information and presented it and solved it. That in itself must mean something. The very fact of my understanding and solving the complexity or that I advanced a functionality.

What's really going on is instrumentality. The world turns, the universe expands, humans will go through repetitive tasks of survival, comfort-seeking, and entertainment seeking. We will continue to seek out the "goods of life" motivated by these there main drives. We understand that we do this though. We don't just "do" like animals. We are aware of our own circular behavior that we cannot escape. This isn't like "take a vacation or do something different" type of escape, but everything together is part of it, including the vacation and something different. That would be particularizing the general situation and throwing out pragmatic, granular "solutions" to the bigger existential issue of instrumentality/circularity in the first place.

And these unavoidable constraints of existence cannot be what makes life really bad, because many people find their life worth living. — leo

It is bad for them too. I don't take much stock in self-reports at a particular time/place. Benatar did a good job indicating our psychological mechanisms for reporting "good" about "not good" things, specifically through Pollyannaism (optimism bias), adaptation (ideal/initial goals are changed to lesser goals because life doesn't meet them), comparison (if people are seen as having it worse, you must be better off).

Also, my own input is that when interviewing someone about "LIFE" there is social pressure and cues to make positive statements, not to sound too whiny or make dramatic pronouncements, or generally look like a Debbie-downer, so of course people will usually report they are better off. Also, indirectly, people who report "life is good" are interconnected with, and rely upon the labor, life-experiences, and hardships of those who do not agree. Further, things change. What people thought was good when generalized or with time might not seem so anymore.

But the real solution lies not in staying constantly deep in nature, or in ingesting that substance constantly, it lies in overcoming the fear for good. I am still afraid to face my fears, it isn't easy for me to talk about my fear of people, it wasn't easy for me to come and read what you might have answered to my previous post, what if he rejected me, what if he said that what I say is bullshit. I believe that one day I will succeed, to the point where the fear will be gone for good, where I will see the world for good without this filter that destroys life. I don't want to perpetuate the badness, I want to help you feel better, to help you enjoy life. Maybe because you remind me a bit of myself. — leo

I don't think there is a "solution" beyond recognizing the problem and perhaps simply not having more people- to not create a new person who must then overcome pain/adversity for a lifetime.

The implication is that "experts" in any field, by simply "revealing" complexities, are "revealing" some depth to the universe. The FACT of this depth itself means there must be "something" to it. Thus, by "expertising" people think they are substantiating something. The expertise electrician, the expertise logician, the expertise, mathematician, the expertise technician, it doesn't matter. By being experts, by having a handle on complexity, they think this confidence in "mining" a particular aspect of the universe (or simply a topic to no be so dramatic), is doing something inherently meaningful. This substantiates why we are born for them. We must mine complexity, keep making more and more knowledge-bases.. They might be completely "nihilistic" in statements, but then show their actual tendency to embrace a logos by their "expertising" and "mining" tendencies.

And I think that if there was much less stress and much more joy in your life you too would see the meaning and the justification, which is why I think that what you're really looking for is joy in life, find out what prevents you from experiencing it, and then your quest for meaning and justification will be over. It is not the meaninglessness and the lack of justification that takes out the joy, it is the lack of joy that gives rise to the feeling of meaninglessness and the absence of justification. — leo

What happens if life really is bad. We tend to psychologize the badness and make it YOUR problem or MY problem. If it is your or my then it is not A problem in general. What happens if life is actually bad, but by psychologizing it, you are being complicit in perpetuating the badness by trying to correct the ones chiming up about it. Like a bad boss who doesn't want to hear complaints- shape up or ship out is the message. However, there is no improvement plan- it is just better coping techniques. Life itself can't be the problem though, right?

Also, this kind of got off tangent and became about psychological states of flow, etc. What the main point is in a nutshell is that some people think that trying to master all the minutia of some topic inherently provides some sort of worth. Thus the more complexity you understand of a subject, the more your life is justified. By knowing the complexity of a subject matter, this somehow provides you more worth. This thread is trying to disavow this notion as well. No one explicitly states this of course, but it is implied. It's not knowing the general principles of life/universe/cosmos that they think is worthy, but the fact that they know very detailed information about life/universe/cosmos.. or the millions of subtopics of those very general categories. Thus, the minutia provides the meaning. As with many of my threads, I am disarming this view as well. You are not justifying your life or life itself or being born in the first place by desperately mastering minutia either. The false hope is the infinite amounts of information that can be "mined" and that one is "revealing" by trying to master the minutia. One may feel that they are literally "mining" existence. Since existence can be mined, and that there is so much to mine, this must "mean" something.

Yes, there is minutia mongering at all levels. Remember, much of this view is simply cynical devil's advocate- trying to play the opposite view to make a point.

Let's take a step back here. The problem itself stems from being born. The individual is burdened with the responsibility of existence. Sartre called it "throwness" and Heidegger had his own name for it (I can't recall). But the cultural-historical-social-material world has been set up and played out long before us, the individual, got here, but we are to navigate and understand at least a small part its billions of webbings in order to live comfortably within it. There is a lot of talk of "flow", "creativity", and the like which has the "sound" of being some positive aspect, but to me rings hollow.

Existence is about the stress- the stress of living with others, the stress of getting by, the stress of finding comfort, the stress of finding peace, the stress of mastering minutia, the stress of labor, hell, it goes down to the very stress of our own desires as @leo stressed. It doesn't go away- robot paradise or not. Flow and creativity don't justify or compensate for the negative characteristics. If someone said birth entails all this, but you get to have flow states and creativity, I'd tell them to shove it where the sun don't shine- they can keep it. I see the hope for achieving flow states and creativity as just ANOTHER propaganda tactic thrown out there by psychologists and social scientists to make sure people are getting along well enough in society. That is complicity, not a justification for life's continuance.

Just keep minutia mongering.. get caught in the details of the trillions of interactions at all levels, and all layers. The new salvation is flow and creativity to add to the socially deemed worthy pursuit of output. Meanwhile, you were never born for yourself, nor can you be. You were always being used. But hey, the outcome of birth is that now YOU have to deal with the impinging factors of life.

Your adjectives for minutia mongering are affective terms, describing what it feels like to be involved in a kind of experiencing that we don't particularly enjoy, that is tedious, somewhat boring and unfulfilling. What exactly is it about such experiences that make them less than satisfying to us?
Is it the sheer amount of 'stuff' that is the essence of minutia mongering, or is it the inadequate way in which that 'stuff' is organized, interrelated within itself and with respect to our goals? Think about what are called 'flow' experiences. When we are immersed in such experiences, time seems to fly by, we feel the opposite of bored, we don't consider what we are doing a means to another end, but its own end. But is a flow experience characterized by a paucity of 'stuff', the escape from detail? On the contrary, in such states of being we maintain a hyper-awareness of all that goes on around us. — Joshs

I've discussed "flow" states many a-time. I KNEW someone was going to bring that up as some form of rebuttal about my idea of generalization, or to counter the idea that minutia mongering is negative. Flowing in philosophy, and flowing in technological-mathematical fields have two different outcomes. One is jabbering babble and the other "gets stuff done". One is just talk, the other takes materials, time, space, and turns it into stuff that does stuff to get other stuff done, and works with other stuff that does stuff that gets stuff done. Whether you are flowing, or painstakingly tediously making your way through a technological-mathematical problem, the outcome is that stuff is getting done. All that matters is that stuff is getting done that works and is functional, is usable, and takes the material world and does something with it, or so the people that are more "flow" in these realms might argue. I'm not discounting creativity, but creativity in solving the material-functional things that get stuff done is what counts. Next time you turn on your light, adjust the temperature, open the computer, walk on any material in your house, go to the bathroom, wash your hands, etc. etc. you'll know what I mean.

We feel desires. These desires lead us to set goals and attempt to reach them. Without any desire we wouldn't do anything and would quickly die.

Our fundamental desires have no justification, there is no justification to our desire to live other than if we didn't have it we would die quickly. — leo

Schopenhauer called this initial state "Will'.

This all led me to wonder where desires come from, if our whole existence depends on what we desire then where do our desires come from in the first place? Then I realized that we could see all our desires as evolutionary tools that were selected through competition for survival, that everything is as if we have the desires we do because they helped our ancestors/species survive in some way. As if we were machines controlled by our desires, attempting as best as we can to fulfill them, and surviving and reproducing and perpetuating the species in the process, in this grand cosmic game. — leo

Ok, I'll go with this schema. It is the burden of these desires (that lead to more minutia) that I am concerned with. Once born, you are responsible for your desiring. To live in a society to "get stuff done" we need those desires to be driven to ever more knowledge, application, capacity, and aptitude for understanding and performing minutia. The opposite of this is sleep, nirvana, being immersed in some form of oneness feeling. It is the general, not the specific. It is rest not intense mongering and tending to the minutia. Once born, we are responsible to see the minutia carried out. The bird must follow its prime directive. The human must KNOWINGLY monger its minutia, live its daily life, constantly evaluating the situation, making conscious, deliberate decisions, that are more minutia mongering. There is no end to it once born.

@Joshs @Old @TheMadFool@fdrake@Number2018@Bitter Crank@darthbarracuda
Minutia mongering in general can be different things in different realms. I'll just give some examples in various layers.. but this reaches across all disciplines with their associated layers.

- Creating a really complicated spreadsheet with various interconnecting functions and formulas to extract complex data trends

-Programming using C# to create new software functionality connected with some SQL database.

-Creating the C# language using various advanced coding layers

-Creating machine code

-Designing the circuitry, memory, and motherboard components to allow the binary code to create information from electrical impulses and turn it into translatable machine code for higher programmatic purposes

All this is intensive minutia mongering. Life itself is about immersing oneself in the details in order to obtain some goal of survival, entertainment, or comfort. At the social level, these goals are intertwined with incentives and rituals to induce production and replication of resources, people, and the culture itself.

The opposite ideal is sleep. Slumber, off, rest, the desire for nothingness. To be rid of the detail, the minutia. This impulse is like that of Nirvana, sleep, being one with the universe or godhead, etc. It is akin to the most generalized form of being. We can never achieve this stillness or oneness though. As long as we are live and conscious, we are slaves to the minutia. Suicide itself, negates the very freedom of the hope that is desired, so even that is not an escape. One alive, there is nothing we can do. There is no catharsis in the desire to be "generalized" in nothing/god/death/nirvana/sleep. There is only repetitive, minutia mongering until death do us part.

I'm not sure I understand the rest of your question. It seems you're taking issue with an idea you attribute to others, something about math, science, and technology being "meaningful" or "important". It's not at all clear to me what you're driving at.

I'm not sure how to coordinate your use of "important" with your use of "meaningful" and "grand". Are you asking whether people think pure and applied math and empirical science are "more important" than other human pursuits? Don't you expect that there are many different ways to tally up what counts as "important"? — Cabbage Farmer

The minutia is where the job gets done. Those who know how to monger minutia to get shit done, can claim they are doing the real work. Everyone else is just jabbering. Thus, the meaning of life for them is the ability to compute minutia to get shit done. This is de facto justified by our very use of the things that are the outcome from the minutia mongerers.

What do you make of that quote?

That's ok, I don't necessarily want to delve into this, but I have read a lot on this subject and understand the major historiographies of this subject. Much of Biblical/New Testament and Jewish/Christian historical scholarship focuses very much on the influence of Paul and the original nature of the Jesus Movement versus what it evolved into over time.

The gist of it is that you have to understand the Gospels in context of Second Temple Judaism (Dead Sea Scroll sect, Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, definitions of messiah, Enochic Judaism, the Maccabean revolt/Hasmonean dynasty, Herod/Herod's sons, Roman indirect and direct rule, Zealots/Sicarii, the Temple and its importance, the politics of Rome in Judea, the Mediterranean world in general, etc. etc. To take the writings only at face value is to do bad history, but makes for good religion.

I believe Jesus came across as rational and i also believe Paul came across as rational. The old testament has things to say also that would both agree with what was said about Jesus in the new testament and as well what Paul said. — James Statter

Yeah, I was just trying to say a quick statement. But, I think it is pretty clear from reading Acts, Galatians, and noting what the Ebionites said of Paul to put him in a certain light that was sort of hidden or reworked to make him seem like part of the original "gang". James didn't seem to trust him and James was universally considered the head of the group based in Jerusalem. The Ebionites or "Jewish Christians" were said to have a tradition where Paul was considered a liar and subversive to original "Way". Acts seems to indicate that the Jamesian group didn't defend the Hellenizer faction too much, and certainly seemed to not respect Paul, making him perform a nazarite ritual to prove loyalty to the Law.

Actually thats pretty much how i feel about it. I think many christian pastors in america and possibly elsewhere are so lazy to put actual relevant content in their message that they just call everything they don't like the term religion. i dont think it would hurt the christian church if more pastors got a second job. That may be unbibilical but i believe we live in desparate times. — James Statter

If it is a totalizing way of living that is supposed to come from a deity or "His" representatives, then it is a religion. This particular religion mainly stems from the rhetorical gyrations of 1st century (snake oil) salesman named Paul, schooled in Greek rhetoric and somehow convincing to some Greco-Roman communities based around the Mediterranean. You talk to Jesus' brother James, you would simply get a sub-sect of messianic, Second Temple Judaism. Much different than the Pauline variety.

I mean the meaning/purpose of a fish is to swim and swim well. A tiger must predate well and so on. What of humans? That which sets us apart from the rest of the living world is our mind, its higher faculties of logic and creativity. I believe, ergo, that cultivation and employment of these higher faculties define us. — TheMadFool

This is a bit dubious though. One of my themes is that humans don't just "do" things like "work", but we KNOW we do things like work. We are a product of our biology and culture, but we are also SELF-AWARE of this. Thus, this puts us in a weird position that anything goes as far as how we are defined. That was Sartre's main theme in radical freedom and authenticity. There is no set human nature, other than the freedom to play at things like "roles" or a "purpose". In other words, it would be circular reasoning to knowingly pursue a goal called "science/technology" as if it was our destiny, when it is something we are willfully doing in the first place! To combine this with Heidegger's "ready-at-hand", we must distinguish our ability to tinker and invent that comes as a result of necessity, vs. a purposeful/willful goal of pursuing technology. One does indeed seem to come naturally, but it cannot be something we think about as we are doing it, otherwise the natural-ness of the phenomena gets subsumed by our awareness of it, and it is no longer "natural", but a product of our personalities willing it to occur.

As for science, it looks like it's at the top of the list of mankind's creative and logical achievements. It helps us understand, therefore manipulate, our world to our advantage. Scientists and mathematicians have to be rational AND creative, sometimes, I believe, at the very frontiers of these abilities.

So, according to me, yes, there is a greater meaning/purpose in immersing oneself in math and science. — TheMadFool

I guess the big question is, WHY is it meaningful to create technologies? I've already discounted the idea you mentioned earlier, that it is our species' purpose. Any other ideas? Understanding the regularities of nature, usings specific and complicated maths to determine exact outcomes. What is it about this that makes this a bastion of meaning?

@Joshs and @old, feel free to chime in.

@Joshs
One of the many things that I guess I'm trying to say here is the importance weighted to various topics or "ways of" thought. There may be a group of people discussing a fictional book and be passionately involved in understanding it. There may be people diving into the complexities of what Schopenhauer or Camus, or Heidegger said in various terms like "Will", "absurd", and "ready-at-hand". There may be religious discussions delving into the complexity of Leviticus or Matthew, etc. etc. But these are all put by the wayside when it comes to "real" daily living.

The meaning then is not in the deep, rich laughter, reflection, faith, apprehension, discussion of these topics aforementioned, but of "getting shit done". It is precisely those most adept at solving daily problems ("getting shit done") that might say, "I am the one who gets the most meaning, as I am dealing with life at its most necessary and useful functional level. I am the one solving the problems of inventing and maintaining tools that we rely upon as a species through daily life.. That we get habituated to, and find greater thresholds of need, when the tools are working". In other words, BECAUSE of the pragmatic and useful nature of the work done by the minutia mongerer, they, by default may very well claim to hold the real "meaning". They are reveling in the very thing that keeps the circular, repetitive thing called life going, and therefore have a monopoly on what actually counts (which entails for them that it makes things meaningful). Thus, working away at an equation that solves real world problems is more "real" than the pablum of discussing a book. The present-at-hand IS the real.

To go even further, even ancient tribesman probably thought more present-at-hand. They had relations to their surroundings for sure (themes of ready at hand), but they were constantly trying to figure out how to use those surroundings to fit their needs (present at hand). This is the mode of the real indeed. The one tinkering, not the one reflecting. The one constantly stressed out about how to solve that problem to get that tool created and maintained. They will claim THIS is life. The more minutia, the better. We are here to monger minutia. All else can be tolerated, but don't be surprised if the MMs laugh derisively and roll their eyes at what doesn't count.

The notion of objectivity and reality, as derivative ways of thinking, are not necessary to explain technological invention. What objective thinking does is arbitrarily separate certain types of relational contexts, those you would call tool invention, from all others, including making music and philosophy.

you speak about the critical importance of the presence or absence of tools throughout history to particular cultures. In my own life, the development of my philosophical thinking has had an infinitely more profound effect on my life than exposure to any 'objective' technologies. That is as it should be, given that there is no way in principle to distinguish between philosophical creation and technological creation. As Heidegger says , the essence of technology is nothing technological. — Joshs

Heidegger has always been obtuse to me. What I've gleaned from his "ready" and "present" at hand along with broken tool is more-or-less summed up in this:

Ready at hand is how we relate to an object as a practical thing for us, and present at hand is simply understanding the object in a conceptual way- observing it, understanding how it works, enframing its features and distinctions, etc.

Thus objects in the world naturally seem to relate with us and us to them in a ready-at-hand way. However, we have learned to abstract objects to the point of present-at-hand more frequently and readily. Philosophy has overstepped its bounds by taking the present-at-hand as the natural stance, when in fact our existence is usually related to the world in a ready-at-hand fashion. [Let me know if that interpretation seems wrong to you. I've never had anyone explain Heidegger very well without using self-referencing neologisms which don't help. Try to avoid that if you do want to explain a better interpretation. ]

Anyways, the point in general I'm trying to make is that we are in a way a tool-being. We relate to the world via technology. Using tools are natural to us. The minutia mongerers live in the present-at-hand. Troubleshooting, surmising, deriving, synthesizing. They revel in doing this. They are in a mix of flow and halting frustration until they have solved it. Either way, whether flow or grindingly exhausting work, they produce the things that "get the job done" so the rest of us can have a seemless tool that is "ready-at-hand". Thus the minutia mongerers are the essential ones, yet again. More than anyone else. The meaning they find minutia mongering is more important than the derivative meaning we find in the fun of ready-at-hand that is a result.

By the way..to be completely upfront.. everything I'm saying right now is completely devil's advocate. I am spitefully taking the position as if I indeed think meaning is to be found in minutia mongering, and that usefulness is what counts as the real.. everything else being babble. Keep that in mind.. This is a LONG con to get to a certain point..But a long con I was upfront about, that you may not have caught :wink: .

Absolutely nothing is more real than this. And the reason is that the very claims of reality to being able to 'get things done' via its connection to the natural and the lawful already presupposes what it aims to prove. For notions like 'lawful', 'natural', 'real', all derive from the same metaphysical pre-supposositions concerning the conditions of possibility of there being such a thing as an object.

The deconstructive move of Heidegger or Derrida aims not to disprove, but argue that the very idea of 'correctness' as agreement between a subject and object of a proposition stands at the basis of the determination of objectivity and the notion of the 'real'.
Is there anything about a physical device that we understand identically , whose inner working everyone can describe identically? Are there ever two people who use a device in the identical manner? IF not, then what distinguishes such objects from texts?
And of course, I dont need to point out the profound ways in which any other cultural product, from music to the political to the philosophical, can reorganize communities. — Joshs

You mentioned Heidegger. He wrote about the broken-tool phenomenon. Humans are uniquely dependent, upon tools. Yes, we do this from habituated means, but nonetheless, this dependence is present. Let’s take a hunting-gathering society that relies on the technology of the poison from a poison dart frog. Let’s us say the dart frogs happen to migrate elsewhere or die out all of a sudden. This society was habituated to be dependent upon these frogs. They were integral to the daily supply of food. The monkeys this tribe ate were hunted in abundance and with ease with this poison. In fact, the tribe never really thought about life without supply of this vital poison tool-function. The abrupt disappearance of the missing frogs and poison supply, the world of this tribe has been severely shaken. The tribal members are scrambling, trying to figure out an alternative- maybe more ancient hunting techniques they haven't employed in generations. Life for this tribe, seemed to glide through time, without thinking about it. This is humans relying on their natural use of tools that work and provide function. When this tool is broken, the world is no longer ready-at-hand but present-at-hand. It is something which needs to be diagnosed, solved. Life moves at a grinding pace. It is something that needs to be overcome.

Now let’s look at modern societies based on Enlightenment-based scientific methodologies and their descendent technologies. Internet has now become a utility almost akin to electricity. When internet access works, the modern plugged-in human who relies on it for commerce or communication doesn’t even think of the platform upon which he relies. When a problem in the connection occurs, the world of ease comes crashing down, as the troubleshooting begins. Is this as devestating as the first scenario with the missing dart frogs? No. But does the frustration and annoyance and the feeling of helplessness ensue for many people? Yes, as the habituation to the reliance threshold on a tool becomes more engrained it becomes yet another “essential feature” if that society.

Who are the ones that increase and maintain the technological thresholds? The minutia mongerers. They are the inventors of the tool and the remedy of the broken-tool. Being that humans are a technological being and “at home” with technology, they are essential.

But what is more real than applicable principles derived from the universe’s natural regularities, that “get things done”?

You can’t do anything with Beethoven’s music besides emotional edification or inspiring more music. Is it genius? Yes. Is it talent? Yes. But it’s not real on that it’s use doesn’t provide physical functionality except in a superficial way that all things are “physical” or “functional” (like a butterfly effect). The computer engineer and the materials and structural engineer are touching on the real though. Their minutia formulas and creative innovations of the minutia on applied ways.

As text, a technology has no existence apart from the ability of its users to read and interpret it. It is just one cog in a matrix of cultural readabillty . That's why a technology cannot be a technology until a community is ready to understand it and thereby see it as useful. Technology means nothing without usefulness and usefulness is a cultural artifact. It also defines a certain conventionality and common denominator. By definition, technology can only be what it is because it exemplifies the familiar and widely understood. — Joshs

It is widely understood to use but not the minutia of creating. That is for the minutia mongerer who makes real and useful functions from the science, math, and materials.

Technology means the application of scientific principles, mixed with math, and physical materials are used in such a way as to create functional items or predictable models. At the end of the day we reach for the products of technology and science, even if we are soothed or edified l by art. Especially the minds capable of getting through minute details of mathematical complexity, they are doing the stuff that counts.

As to the question of the alleged superiority of science-math-technology over other cultural modalities with regard to securing meaning or truth or progress or objectivity or some such thing, it should be noted that changes in worldview within science and technology parallel those in all other modalities within an era. Thus we have Greek or Reconnaissance, or Enlightenment or Modernist or postmodern eras which their own art, science,philosophy, literature, political theory, united by overarching metaphors of meaning. — Joshs

Art doesn’t make the things happen, technologies do. Those who don’t mind the minutia and REVEL in it are the ones that make the technology. They are doing the work that we de facto rely on. Here’s an example:

Information and probability are dual notions; wherever you have a probability distribution you have an entropy. The connection between the two is particularly intimate for discrete random variables - like when there is a given probability of being in one of countably many eigenstates of an operator. Quantum entropy measures the degree of mixing in a state; how close it is to behaving in a singular eigenstate (unless I'm misinterpreting, I am both rusty and mostly uneducated here). Information measures are derivable from probability distributions, but the process of mapping a distribution to an entropy value is not invertible - so the two notions can't be taken as inter-definable. As in, if you have an entropy, you have a single number, which could be generated from lots of different quantum states and probability distributions.

I'm sure there are problems, but I think there are good reasons to believe that information is just as much a part of nature as wave functions. — fdrake