How does this differ from an animal's investigating a situation such as to uncover further details of it?
Is the difference the human awareness of self? I heard a rumor that self is just a heuristic concept used for convenience to give the illusion of subjective control. — Joshs

Fine and dandy, but only humans employ it this. You are missing the forest for the trees. The outcome is whatever the outcome is to our own selves.

So a person using the contrivance of 'self' awareness or the animal meaningfully unfolding their world in investigating an aspect of it are on a par in carrying forward the existential situation as a whole. — Joshs

No, it is qualitatively different. By adding the element of time and unfolding, you aren't going to convince me that what the animal is doing is the same type of thing a person is doing with linguistic-conceptual mind. This is conflating two different things to seem as if they are the same. One system requires a linguistic cogntive brain such that humans have, and as far as we know, the only species to do so.

That's kind of an incoherent concept. Dislike is a specific evaluative affect rendered as it is a t a given time. It is not something to be overridden,. Either it changes or its doesn't. If you want to say our attitude changes then thats a change in the specific quality of dislike. If there's no change in the specific attitude then whatever change or realization takes place isnt any kind of 'overriding", it s a change of a different sort, pertaining to other aspects of our situation tangential to our evaluation of dislike. It could be a way the dislike becomes fleshed out in a particular direction or via particular aspects or colorations or via changes in its ongoing rhythm of intensity. — Joshs

The dislike is there, but the decision to muddle through anyways by valuing something else to carry forward.

Apart from putting themselves in danger to acquire food I can think of nothing else. But it might even be possible that they just decide not to do the things they don't like or want to do. — Sir2u

I don't believe that animals even know they like or dislike something over and on top of the primary emotion they feel. So, they may enjoy a type of berry, but it's doubtful they have a representation of themselves in their head (an "I") that knows it is liking the berries. It is that secondary level of consciousness I am talking about.

But, for the sake of argument, let's say they had a level of self-representation in their minds and they do reflect like humans, certainly if birds choose not to do things they don't like, and humans do, that is an interesting thing about being humans. Why do you suppose that is? Isn't it values, habituation, and other cultural things that are making it so we can override our initial dislike? Also, notice how inefficient that is to know you don't like something, and have to use coping strategies to override it. This is unlike a bird that just gets things done and perhaps doesn't even have the ability to not like what it is doing.

Lost pets often find their families after weeks or months of traveling, sometimes to unknown places. There has to be some sort of motivation beyond momentary happiness. — Sir2u

Better tracking systems don't necessarily amount to "liking" something. Their instincts to stay with the pack and track where the pack was, is not comparable to human varieties of liking and disliking tasks.

While I lived in the USA a friend moved house from Kenner, New Orleans to the other side of the lake near Covington. About half way across the bridge the cat escaped its cage and jumped out the window. There was absolutely no stopping for any reason on the then very narrow 25 mile long bridge so they had to continue. Two weeks later the cat turns up at the new house, that she never even new existed. Following the scent might explain how she did it, but it does not explain why she did it. What possible motivation would she have had to make the trip instead of just finding a new place to eat. She must have made the decision that it was worth trying for some reason. — Sir2u

I doubt it is for the same like and dislike motivations of a human though, as amazing as that cat is in the story.

What I would consider more important is explaining the fun and unusual things they do. What motivates them to enjoy doing things? Can it be nothing more that momentary joy, that would not account for cases where the animals repeat the actions on other occasions. To repeat the action would mean that they in some way evaluated it and made a decision to do it again, this would mean that they do self reflect upon their emotions and memories. — Sir2u

Is it a choice or do animals simply follow more basic reward systems of repeating things that felt good and not doing things they disliked (unless trained otherwise). Humans on the otherhand can dislike something and then still follow through but for much more complex reasons based on a linguistic-based brain.

It's not about having freedom, it's about taking responsibility. — T Clark

Another value you are taking on :). Albeit a common one.

It implies that we need word concepts to store and preserve meanings such that we can manipulate meaning and defy the passage of time. It implies that we need a word concept for our current emotion, that we need word concepts for the reflective acts which turn back to examine our emotion word concept. — Joshs

Yep it does.

But the advantage of word concepts is not that they store and preserve, but that they express more complex and abstract meanings than those that other animals construct. — Joshs

That's what I'm driving at- not the nuances to the degree of less complex reflection. I don't see it as much as degree as you do. I certainly think it came about evolutionarily, it is a change in kind, not just degree. As much as we want to bridge that gap with other animals' minds, we can't. We are the lonely conceptually-linguistic creature. Sorry to say.

These three aspects(retention, the present and anticipation, are all simultaneously a part of the experience of the 'now' moment We reflect naturally in that what we have just experienced continues to be carried over into our current 'now'. It's not so much that in reflection wwe turn back to what we just experienced, but that what we just experienced automatically carries itself forward into our present thinking. — Joshs

I have no problem with this conception of phenomenology.

So reflection in its primordial sense is not a function of will, choice, deliberation. It is automatic, with or without word concepts. What word concepts do for us is expand our options when we reflect, and, by organizing a meaning context into a richer whole, that context remains for us to reflect on in a more consistent and continuous manner. If there is 'freedom' of the will, it is not due to the capacity for reflection, it is a function of the complexity of the concepts that our words express. If humans are freer than animals, than modern humans must be freer than neolithic humans, and adults freer than children. — Joshs

Fair enough I can agree with this. Now this thread is about the implication of conceptual complexity that we have that allows for what we can do (evaluate dislike and then overcome the dislike by narratives, strategies, coping, etc... all examples you gave which I validated, so that we agree in that regard). Other animals don't contend with their own existential evaluations. They deal with threats sure, but that's not the same thing and to say so would be to conflate two ideas. They deal with stimulus response, sure. They deal with changing conditions that trigger certain hardcoded reactions sure. They deal with problem-solving certain task, sure. They deal with complex social hierarchies (depending on the species) sure. But this existential evaluation they don't do and we do. What does that say about our species that we can do this. I see an absurdity in the fact that we even evaluate that we dislike a task and yet we still do it. I think we should explore that implication about our existential situation as a whole.

We know that those tasks have to be completed in order for the whole enterprise, which we value, to work. — T Clark

Right and that taking on the value comes from a lot of sources. It doesn't happen in a vacuum.

And even if the job you do doesn't have any particular interest or value for you, there is still value in making money to support yourself and your family. There might be value in performing your job well, supporting your coworkers, or making your customers happy. — T Clark

Again, all things we take on.. It is a choice, though subtly it becomes less so if habituated. We are freer than we think, and at the same time we are not.

So many people insist that animals don't have the capacity to register whether they enjoy what they are doing but I have never seen proof of this. That they do not reflect on enjoying themselves has not been proven or dis-proven simply because we do not know how the think. We do not understand properly how humans think still. — Sir2u

I am of the belief that most other animal species cannot reflect and evaluate whether they like or dislike their current emotional state and then, have to justify continuing doing an unpleasant task for expediency. That is not to say that they don't experience joy, anxiety, etc. in the moment, as a primary experience. I am not disputing that. Of course you have your outliers in rudimentary forms..the great apes, dolphins, that have certain self-reflective capacities, but really what I'm talking about takes a linguistic brain.

The main point though is that humans do do this. I am giving other animals the leg up here. They don't need to evaluate their like or dislike and then justify to themselves the continuation of the dissatisfying activity. We are the only animals that are aware of our situation and but muddle through. We are the animals that continue despite the understanding of an unpleasant state of affairs.

There again, maybe birds don't complain about their jobs because they actually enjoy them. Making love in the trees, eating healthy food outdoors, no schedules to keep, only having to look after the kids for a couple of months and no college bills to pay. Humans would not bitch about those working conditions. — Sir2u

Ha, birds got the better deal when you put it that way. There is a reason I have a bird as my avatar. But I would say unless this is tongue-in-cheek, this is not the case. Birds just don't have the capacity to register whether they enjoy what they are doing, and then have to override the dissatisfaction. They may experience an emotion in some way, but not self-reflection on that emotion, and certainly not related to its survival tasks. I never said they didn't have other capacities like using tools, and problem-solving. That isn't in question.

I think most people have some part of their job that don't like, so they focus on the benefits they get from it. It is not that they are buying into a narrative or performing some sort of self deception but simple that they realize that there is little most of them can do about it so they don't sweat it.

I have had many jobs starting at 17 working as a garbageman for the local council. It paid my educational expenses and because we did the job well we were respected and got lots of tips. I had nice clothes and cash to go out at weekends and party. But I really was not happy about the job, it was hard and could be messy. I left after I had a non-work related accident and sourly missed the money in my next job, sitting on a mowing machine cut miles of grass all day did not get you tips. — Sir2u

Yes I can agree with this but again, this goes to my point. We are the animal that weighs things and takes on values. We don't just "do the job of garbageman" without thinking about it. We don't do the business of surviving like other animals might. There is an evaluation, an understanding of choice, and understanding we are doing something we don't want to while we are doing it.

Values are not something we 'take on' as a purely free choice, and are inseparable from understanding. Value comes from evaluation which implies interpretation which is fundamental to any cognizing organism. — Joshs

This is conflating two separate phenomenon. Evaluating the sound of a threat is not the same as evaluating an idea.

In fact your use of the word 'value' comes from Nietzsche's notion of value system, which he recognized as common to all organisms. — Joshs

Then he is overmining the term.

Every account of the world organizes itself as a value system. Since all animals cognize, they all have values just as we do, and ambivalence, wavering , anxiety are shown by intelligent animals in situations of value conflicts. A dog's ambivalence and anxiety can be triggered by such conflicts due to the particulars of his socialization within the culture of his pack(human or dog). — Joshs

Now you are undermining. You think that humans take on values like other animals. Dogs don't have the ability to choose, or to know there is even a choice. It is much more fixed. To present it as if humans pick from a range of values at the level of a dog is a misrepresentation of human choice and a red herring at best.

Maybe what youre trying to get at by your claim that values are 'fooling ourselves' is something like the idea of cognitive dissonance or Freudian repression. These are forms of self-deception in that one part of the mind knows something that it hides from the other for adaptive reasons. — Joshs

Yes that is getting close. The idea that we are kind of fooling ourselves in order to get something unpleasant done. There is sort of a subtle resignation, self-deception, or narrative going on that this is what must be done at the time. It could be out off laziness of thinking of ways to get out of the task, even. Either way, there is a weighing of ideas, and following certain values.

Of course not all psychologists accept the model of repression, instead arguing that we dont have to assume self-decepetion in order to explain how we slog through something unpleasant. One doesn't misrepresent their values to themselves, they explicitly construe themselves as the kind of person who is tolerating unplesantness because the world is the kind of place where unpleasant situation arise often, and more importantly, I am the kind of person who is willing to tolerate the unpleasant.. Built into this valuative framework may be a kind of admittance of failure, disappointment and frustration, but that is not a self-deception, it is a kind of question mark. — Joshs

Yes yes, I have nothing against this idea. It again, doesn't go against my premise which is that we take on values in order to get through unpleasant things. It could be through a sort of deception, but it could be just explicitly taking on values. But again, this is tremendously different than the world of let's say a bird, who is hardwired to just do the task at hand. A bird or even a dog don't use values to motivate themselves in the way humans do.

We construct value systems all the time which express our puzzlement at why and how we ended up in such apparently unresolvable situations when according to our previous self-valuation we thought of ourselves as the kind of person who would not tolerate such things. Our finding ourselves persevering through distasteful experience can then be thought of as a kind of crisis in our self-construal, a recognition that the template by which we measured ourselves , and our role with respect to others(I'm the kind of person who does not settle, who has too much pride and dignity,etc), has proved to be unworkable. If we have no way of 'repairing' , that is, of reconstruing our sense of ourselves through a more robust value system that explains to ourselves our failure to live up to our expectations, then we will slog though our miserable job feeling like a confused failure. — Joshs

Again, I don't disagree, but this is agreeing with what I'm saying, not disagreeing with it. So yeah.

There is no internal dishonesty involved in such constructions of our world. The fact that they are accurate representations of the way we are attempting to understand our plight is evidenced by the possibility that we can , through further reflection and reconstrual, come to some resolution of our confusion, ambivalence and frustration. Not by pretending we suddenly like what we;re doing, but by, for example, coming to understand why we compromised our initial values, why we failed to uphold those values. Its also important to break down precisely what it is in a job that produces the sensation of unpleasantness. It may not be the job 'as a whole' but certain of parts of it, Do we then have to fool ourselves to get through those moments? How does an animal gnaw its paw off to escape from a trap? — Joshs

Yes indeed, good points. But I think you are hung up a bit too much on the self-deception part. There are other strategies too, but the point is that it is a culturo-linguistic way of knowing the situation (I dislike this), and then having strategies to override, overcome, avoid, etc. this situation. I only suggested that part of it is buying into a narrative.. some of which you laid out nicely in your examples. We are the animal that knows that we dislike a situation and also have to find ways to overcome it. It's a very weird system. Imagine a world where the human animal did not have any reflective abilities. We were just like birds, let's say. We did stuff day in and day out, the daily grind, and had no evaluation of value whatsoever (value in the sense of knowing you like or dislike something). Again, it's almost impossible to imagine because we are species with linguistic capabilities that provide choices and understanding that we are in situations we don't want to be in. It is an odd thing for an animal, but here we are.

How does it slog through this unpleasantness? By pretending gnawing its appendage off doesnt hurt so much? Obviously not. The animal's perception shifts back and forth between the pain of extricating itself and the pain of and fear of being trapped. At one moment one perception wins out and the animal stops trying to free itself,and the next moment the fear overwhelms the pain and it recommences its attempt to escape. This oscillation between anticipation of pain and reward explains many human behaviors in situations of ambivalence and unpleasantness, such as addiction. No account of self-deception is needed to explain perseverance through the unpleasant via oscillation between perception of reward and punishment, only a long memory. IF we remain at a lousy job, we know which perception has won out, but not likely completely, as I mentioned above. Reward may have just barely overcome punishment to allow for our perseverance, but often the price we pay is a crisis of personal identity that sometimes leads to explosive violence, which is ever more common these days. — Joshs

I think you are really conflating animal reward systems with something different because it is similar, but it is not the same. Instead of this idea of present tolerance for future reward being something that is a heightened degree of what other animals do, I think it is different altogether. Rather, we are a linguistic animals which really does change the game. I know it is the en vogue thing now to downplay any human differences, but I think it is providing a blindspot to some true differences that a linguistically evolved brain provides the human animal. Having this capacity means we are constantly creating reasons for making decisions. These reasons come from all sorts of places.. The "need" to get a job is a reason we give ourselves for getting an unpleasant job let's say. The fun we have on the weekend is a reason we slog through, perhaps. The unpleasantness of finding a new job maybe a reason we tell ourselves it is better to stay in the current job. It is easier to let entropy take it's course, in that regard. Also, the culture provides the matter in which the form takes. The culture already set up things so that we have "jobs" that provide "money" and that require a set of processes like "interviews" and that there is a hierarchical "structure" to an organization, etc. etc. All this is historically developed ideas that we then use as a jumping off point for our own reasonings as it is the milieu in which we make decisions in. Then on top of these structures are values we take on to some degree. The value of hard work, the value of pride in work, the value of being recognized, etc. etc. So, we can personally not like doing something, but then use the value/conceptual tools of the culture to override our personal dislike. It is just amazing that we allow ourselves to do this.

A plumber might say, ‘I don’t like the smell I experience when I’m hosing out the inside of a septic tank.’ Who would? But he might like many of the other aspects of his job - whether it’s being able to maintain clean equipment, providing a quality service to customers, a sense of pride in having a unique skill set that contributes to the community and puts food on the table. — Possibility

Right, I'm not arguing it isn't multi-dimensional, but that we take on values that can override the dislike a task. You named a few examples right there. A bird doesn't a) know it doesn't like gathering seeds (and it probably can't even register such evaluative ideas like, "dislike survival task". However, humans have a whole range of negative emotions, but we submerge ourselves in culturo-linguistic values and narratives to help us justify doing the unsatisfactory task. We have a story that we dislike, and we have a story of why we must still do the dislike.

It’s the weight he personally places on each of these ‘feelings’ towards his job and surrounding that particular task that may outweigh what he dislikes about it. He’s not fooling himself - he’s made choices in life (based on sense, feeling and reasoning) that have led him here, and while he’s aware of choices that may lead him away from a specific task he doesn’t like, he’s not willing to give up what he does like (and if you’re wondering where this example came from, watch the Australian mockumentary film ‘Kenny’ with Shane Jacobson). — Possibility

Sure, but the point is the reasoning, sensing, feeling itself is not something other animals do. It goes back to the choice and freedom of humans to employ all sorts of things to get through an unsatisfactory task. This just expands the strategies not rejects the major point.

I don’t think it’s ever as simple as bypassing a dislike by ‘fooling ourselves’ into doing it anyway. I think we make decisions in life conscious of the complex interconnectedness of those decisions with other aspects of our life. What we articulate as our reasoning often barely scratches the surface of what went on in our minds to reach that point. And a large proportion of it was based not on reasoning but on ‘feeling’, which doesn’t always translate into words. — Possibility

I can support this, except in a way all values are "fooling ourselves". If we take on values we initially don't like because other values outweigh it, and those other values are ones that the culture has been instilling in the individual all along..it's not outright deception, but it is a habituation strategy by society to get the individual primed to take on unsatisfactory tasks. However, the more obstinate individual, the rebellious ones, let's say, the one's less satisfied and who haven't fully enculturated these overriding strategies, it will be harder for them.. Something you won't have so much in the bird world. They don't need to weigh or justify anything. We live in a word of culture and choices. There is no set anything other than we don't like starving, being cold, bored, etc. and few other stuff related to physical preferences and psychological entertainment needs (not being bored). But, as far as how that manifests- we take on the values necessary to weigh why we do anything. Many times we pretend the choice was a given, when it was still a choice. It may be a de facto choice based on expectations, but the fact that it was a choice and not a programmed hard-wired behavior makes our situation constantly one of overriding dissatisfactory tasks with narratives and strategies. The animal that needs to constantly justify why it does anything.

In sum, I see Sartre's animal-human dichotomy as between automatic , instinctive causal mechanism on the one hand and human capacity for self-knowing on the other(sounds very Cartesian to me).
Contemporary cognitive science argues that behavior of intelligent animals is characterized primarily by intentionally directed, affectively organized cognition just as is human thought. The strength of human thinking lies not in the pure awareness of a self, but on the contrary, in the variability of the ways, moment to moment, humans adaptively change this contingent self. Both humans and and other animals are basically evolutionarily adaptive self-transformation machines. We simply outperfom other creatures in our speed of self-modification. But we can hardly give ourselves credit for this without first recognizing that this 'self' that we want to champion doesnt survive the modifications of thinking intact. Self is more of a temporary byproduct than commander. — Joshs

I mean, these are valid points, but I don't see how they challenge my main point here. 1) We can KNOW that we don't like doing certain things at a certain time (I acknowledge this can change with time). 2) We can get through it through employing strategies. What strategies? I mentioned them in the OP. There is enculturation into habits of thoughts (this is probably the most ingrained way to bypass dislike, to the point of the dislike being negated itself), there are narratives, and there is other conceptual ways we deal. Much of this comes from VALUES, things that only occur in a species that transmits cultural IDEAS.

Anyways, the point was not the mechanics- you may even enlighten me on some ideas there- I am fine with that. Rather, it is the implication that we can know we don't like a task, and then have to bypass that dislike by taking upon us strategies and values that sort of "fool us" into doing it anyways. We know technically we don't "have" to do it, but we somehow make ourselves do it out of conception of future consequences, or simply taking on values that we buy into.

Even without the use of formal language , animals do symbolize their experieince in that they interpret their world to themselves. This is how dolphins and certain primates can achieve all the steps you just mentioned in a rudimentary way without linguistic conceptualization. — Joshs

So when they say self-reflection, are they talking about the ability to evaluate whether they like doing a certain task and then doing it anyways because they decided to deceive themselves, provide a narrative, and other such thing? I don't think we are talking about the same thing. Just because they have some "self-reflective' capacities, doesn't mean that they can have "ennui" about their situation, or understand that they are "radically free", or any other conception. This is becoming a red herring that is diverting the point.

one reason that some animals might not reflect on their situations is that they just feel compelled to fulfil certain actions. — wax

Yes, we call that instinct- something hardwired in genetics/brain responses/behaviors. It is not abstracted into cultural concepts called "values" that are then taken on by the human via enculturation. We are often motivated by values that are enculturated into us..They are useful narratives (or deceptions) by culture to give us the impetus to work through things we don't want to. It is not a knee-jerk instinct like other animals. It is not an unthinking, unreflective phenomenon, but rather something we take on via cultural transmission and individual acceptance of cultural values.

When they see and hear their chicks, they may feel compelled to look after them, they fear something bad might happen to them, like being killed by predators, or dying from lack of food.. They might not have the ability to wonder why they feel compelled like this....a bird probably isn't aware of the theory of evolution, and so not realise how it came to be compelled to do certain things.
When it comes to looking just after itself, a bird might not be able to imagine another way of life...in the way humans can....I suppose in a lot of cases there isn't much to reflect on. — wax

Right..this whole taking umbrage to me saying other animals can't really self-reflect on their own existential situation, shouldn't be so controversial. I'm not saying they don't have other capacities, but without language and the intendant cognitive abilities, they just can't. But they do make a good foil for what we don't do.

I think a lot of people at work just focus on the future, like what they are going to do after work, at the week end, on their future holidays......they might enjoy thinking what they would do if they won the lottery as well....then also they might focus on what they do enjoy about their work situation, like interacting with other people; looking forward to their breaks...little perks like going for a cigarette.

I have found that the feeling of coming off a shift can be a real pleasure in itself...a sudden feeling of freedom. — wax

That's fine, but this describes the different techniques I'm talking about. Animals don't even think on that level, but humans have to deal with concepts like "future freedom", or "future better time than now", etc. to get through. It's interesting that we can get anything done with our knowledge that we don't like what we are doing in the present, but feel compelled to do it because we have also convinced ourselves it "needs" to get done. Survival is there in the background, but survival has been abstracted into values that we take on, not just a direct immediate feeling that is programmed.

Excellent choice. I just think of spreadsheets and traffic. It doesn't give me joy.

The best I can do, the best I can make of it, is that at this moment, this life, this dissatisfaction, this waiting, is joyful - I want to be here. Add this moment to the plus-side in your dismal calculation. — unenlightened

I don't get it.

Can other animals deliberately use mental strategies? Yes, in a rudimentary way. For instance, dogs can display compulsive or ritualized behaviour that serves the function of mental soothing, even though it doesnt represent a pragmatic action directed at an object in the world. A trained dog will wait patiently for its master even though it is becoming anxious, and may use techniques such as whining to sooth itself and in order to 'do a distasteful job'. does it know its choices? Do we? What does it mean for us to know our choices and is this something we assess all at once, in advance, as surveyors of the realm? Or do we find ourselves discovering what constitutes our choices as our circumstances unfold for us, just as other mammals do? — Joshs

Although there are some parallels, I think you are overselling it. Humans have the capacity for a full-fledged language system. This allows for all sorts of things animals just cant' do, including self-talk and self-reflection. We can start a project not wanting to do the project. We can work on the project and evaluate as we are doing it, and we can look back on a project and evaluate how we liked it. Interesting enough, we probably use differing coping strategies to adapt to all three stages in a project we are dissatisfied with. We may start the project out of fear of getting fired, for example (amongst other reasons). We may be immersed in the project while doing it (effectively trying to zone everything out), or on the opposite end, we may distract ourselves by listening to music, doing the project at a slower or faster pace than normal, underperform, overperform, etc. etc. After the project, the human brain tends to get all pollyannaish and forget its distastefulness and say, "it wasn't that bad, but I still didn't like it". And on and on it goes.

Anyways, the point is at almost any point before, during, or after the disliked task, the self-reflection is there. The point is to get through it, we have to perform all sorts of narratives, deceptions, habits, (and other techniques). Other animals naturally just do something as part of their programmed behavior. If the behavior is learned, it is a type of learning that is much more "if, then" and routine. In other words, with the correct exposure to the usual adaptive settings, they will learn that behavior no matter what. They don't have that ability for self-reflection. That is to say, they don't have the ability to make a large number of choices based on conceptual understanding of their own situation. We are the only animals that know that we make a choice, but we often make choices that are against our own initial wants and desires.

Rather, by being a cultural creature, we take on values, and ideas, and techniques that allow us to submerge our rebellious, individual wants, and yet again, perform the daily grind. You can make parallels to Freud's ID getting submerged in the superego by the ego and balancing the two, but I'd only accept that as an analogy.

So immersion may be the key. Either immersion in one's own substantive imagination, immersion in the job, or even immersion in a zen-like state of nothingness where one performs in an altered state.
Some of these are habits, some are deceptions, but the most effective are also the most difficult, involving real use of creativity to transport oneself either more deeply into the work or deeply into another realm while working at the same time(kind of like how one can drive while not remembering driving.because one is immersed in an interesting podcast). Notice how the first day of work after a vacation often doesnt seem as bad because your head is still in that other place. What a person does when they're not working can have an effect on how the job feels to them, how trapped they feel they are, how much hope they have for escape from it, where else they can allow their mind to wander to. IF all one has is the one job that is distasteful to them ,and they have no hobbies, interests, social life outside of that work, it will be particularly hellish. IF , on the other hand, they are take classes after or before work, or involved in a challenging, growth promoting and rewarding activity of some kind, this will almost certainly make its way into their thinking during work and make that work seem less onerous.
20 minutes ago — Joshs

Again, all of this comes down to the point where we have to do stuff ancillary to the work itself, to get the work done. We are the only species that contends with this and the reason is our very own self-aware nature. It is amazing we are able to get ourselves this far using these techniques.. narrative, distraction, deception, etc. I think this directly goes at Sartre's understanding that we are free but we choose to sometimes play a role and have bad faith. At work, we take the fake authority from the bossman. We do a task because we are sitting in the correct setting. We buy into the notion that the fear of losing a job is why we should care about this task now (habits of behavior and social signalling). We buy into the notion that a raise makes us care more or work harder. It's all just ways to get ourselves to do something. We don't just "do" something without self-reflection.

How many do you think are actually aware that they are doing it? — Sir2u

Perhaps some people don't self-reflect that much. I guess this is for the people who know they don't like doing the work they are doing. I refuse to believe some people don't reflect on whether they like the work they are doing. They may not communicate it perhaps. Or they are buying into a narrative, deception, or habit of mind. But that is my exact premise.

We don't need to manipulate or trick ourselves into thinking of it as something other than what it is, — Joshs

To do something in the first place (if we don't like it?). I don't think so. Give me a scenario where we start doing something we don't like WITHOUT a narrative or deception to ourselves?

One minute we can decide that we cant do this job because it is so distasteful. The next minute we can change our mind because maybe its not so bad. The next minute we can think that yes it is so bad but we need the money so that makes it tolerable. These arent just mental tricks. They go directly to the core of the changing meaning of the badness or goodness of the job. Badness or goodness is never one simple thing, it is relative to a whole host of contextual considerations. We're not lying to or tricking ourselves when reflectiion reveals to us new considerations. — Joshs

While I agree with you that our self-reflective evaluations change over time on a particular task, the question at hand is how it is we keep doing distasteful tasks. I propose that it is narratives, deceptions, and habits of mind that we buy into. I haven't heard a counter to this. To the contrary, your examples were simply examples of these little narratives, deceptions, and habits of mind we buy into.

While I cannot prove this to be false, there is not much information about it being true either. The truth is we don't know whether they are capable of reflecting upon their own lives. Have you seen the black birds that figure out how to solve problems so that they can get food. They are very inventive and appear to contemplate problems and use trial and error to solve them. Is it possible that they prefer to solve problems over just finding food out of boredom or dissatisfaction with their usual job? — Sir2u

I don't think a bird feels the ennui of a boring day, despite their abilities for problem solving which I agree are very impressive, but makes sense in the context of their survival niche.

So they tell themselves that things could be worse and that they are happy for what they have. — Sir2u

Right! There are stories, deceptions, and habits of mind. Again, it intrigues me that self-aware animals such as ourselves can overcome our own self-reflection on doing unsatisfactory tasks. Sartre wrote about authenticity and freedom. Are people giving up their authenticity by buying into a narrative that overrides their dislike for the work at hand? I'm not discounting the fact that it may even be necessary to knowingly trick ourselves into buying into the narrative that the work is necessary.

But from another point of view, just how many truly satisfying jobs are there? Would it be even possible for everyone to be able to do the job that made them happiest? — Sir2u

A very good point. Again, we are self-aware of these unhappy jobs, but we can make ourselves do it despite this. What a delightfully tragic wacky way to survive- self-awareness of our own dissatisfaction and the overcoming by buying into a narrative or deception.

I think you missed the point of the question. It is about how it is we buy into doing something we don't like doing. I know it sounds "simple", but it is actually quite complex as I see it. We "know" what we are doing is something we don't like and we are self-aware of it. However, we create stories, deceptions, or habits of mind that get us to overcome doing unsatisfactory tasks. Self-awareness brings us knowledge of dissatisfaction of the primary task at hand, but yet we find ways to overcome this.

Did you try asking people why they worked before asking this question? — Sir2u

Well the question was generally how as self-reflective creatures we can still do something we didn't like while we were doing it. I thought it an interesting phenomenon. Compare this with other animals. A bird cannot reflect on how much he is tired of gathering seeds and berries. A human can, but still trudges on. That touches on existential issues of freedom. Even the simple answer, "because I get money" is loaded with how we buy into certain socialized norms. It is not a given- If offered money, then work. It is something we have bought into as a scheme (for lack of better word) for motivation.

So it's not a common enough thing to argue that we could find a record of it anywhere? — Terrapin Station

I'm not going to scour internet sources and libraries for your question any more than you probably will. But is there a notion that people think that by not having children those children are denied the "benefit" of living? Yes, I've heard it from this forum. And no, I'm not going to do the digging for you. The whole point is that while it doesn't matter if no one benefits from life (unless that person already exists). It does matter if a person will not experience suffering.

Can you prove that people don't besides yourself? Is your evidence Tom, Dick, and Sally? Well, Joe, Bob, Suzy, and Liz beg to differ. Brian and Barry are just getting drunk. They are worthless.

I'm asking who, though. (As in I was hoping you could give some actual examples, because this seems very dubious to me.) — Terrapin Station

Oh you know Joe, Bob, Suzy, Liz, Brian, and Barry.

Okay, but no one is going to accept that they don't want to impose suffering on a nonexistent person. They'd say that the person has to exist for that to even be a consideration. — Terrapin Station

Yep, I'd agree. Someone will exist who will suffer. It is not happening to an actual person in the present. In fact suffering is occurring to nothing.

I'd agree with that, but who argues that? — Terrapin Station

There are people who argue that by not having children, are depriving people of pleasure, and they think that is a bad thing. I agree it is a misconception, but it is the case.

No one argues that the absence of harm for nonexistent people is a good thing, either. (I mean, outside of Benatar and some followers--I'm not saying literally no one on the face of the Earth. I mean, to characterize it as some common sentiment is completely unfounded.) — Terrapin Station

Well, part of the charm for me in antinatalism, is trying to convey a case that isn't immediately apparent to people. Anyways, it usually is accepted that we don't want to impose suffering on others. You can make the move that some suffering is good. I will make the move that all suffering is bad, and the attempt to force it onto a new person would be likened to sadism on behalf of another. We will be stuck in the same circle.

In making the point he was making, at least according to you, he talked about people not feeling sad for nonexistent people, as if that was significant. It's not. Because people don't think anything about nonexistent people. — Terrapin Station

But that is his point. No one cares about non-existent pleasures. That is significant if people argue that we are "depriving" something of pleasure. Clearly no one exists to be deprived of pleasure, and no one cares about the millions of possible people that could exist who could experience pleasure. Thus, absent pleasure matters not if there is no ACTUAL person for which it is a deprivation. However, that harm is absent IS a good thing, even if there is no actual person to enjoy the not being harmed. His asymmetry only applies to the procreational decision when there is an absence of an actual person, but the possibility that someone could be born based on decisions.

I don't think anyone is lamenting the absence of pleasure for non-existent people. — Terrapin Station

That's the point he was trying to make. You really don't know how to agree with someone. :roll: .

ome people are rather upset at not having kids, not being able to have kids, etc. If they'd not be allowed to have kids they'd be upset at that, too. (And people are also upset at being penalized by laws that put them at a disadvantage if they have more kids.) — Terrapin Station

Ok, a lot of people are unhappy about things that they may want to do to other people that they maybe shouldn't do.

Because most people think it's ridiculous to even talk about "persons who don't exist" as if they do. — Terrapin Station

Well, that's the point in regards to the absence of pleasure for a possible future person.

:up: . "Ideas" seem to be conceptual. Concepts are a tricky, slippery thing, but it requires parsing out information that only language provides. Humans, if not anything else, are the animals that generate conceptual thought via language use. Language may even have coevolved with our species- in other words language became a ratcheting mechanism that increased other cognitive capacities, like forms of memory, problem-solving, planning, etc. which then magnified further with cultural learning that language provides the foundation for. It is really this cultural learning that that memes are in the realm of. Bird calls and ape tool-making are two possible counterexamples you can provide, but in the case of bird calls, the birds are programmed to always mimic surrounding bird noises.. they have no other choice but to do this. That really isn't meme spreading. It isn't an idea that is accepted. Tool-making in apes only goes as far as one generation and doesn't catch on and spread, evolve, multiply, become something new. Each generation starts over. This tells me that there may be a proto-culture but that idea transmission is too weak, if existent at all. It also may be a result of simple mimicry (monkey see, monkey do) and not an accepted idea, as happens in cultural transmission.

Well I think you mean uselessly or needlessly suffer here. I do not think people would agree with the bold if that suffering resulted in a net positive. If you restrict it to needless suffering then you would not get to an antinatalist position, unless you're in a situation where you can guarantee your child will uselessly suffer [you're pregnant in a concentration camp with no foreseeable chance to escape]. — aporiap

So, one useful thing Benatar does is he distinguishes between starting a life and continuing a life. He thinks that the threshold of causing suffering differs with respect to the two categories. Starting a life, in Benatar's conception is a much higher threshold as to the amount of suffering to cause. Starting a life that will contain inevitable suffering will always be bad due to his asymmetry. Being that no actual person is losing out, and that all harm could be prevented, there is no loss to any actual person. His argument takes the negative utilitarian idea extremely seriously. That is to say, harm is what matters, not pleasure. To restate this in a normative structure- potential parents are not obligated to bring someone who experiences joy/pleasure/positive value into the world. However, potential parents are obligated to prevent inevitable harms from occurring. One of his arguments comes from intuition. We don't usually feel pangs of compassionate sadness for the aliens not born to experience pleasure in a far away barren planet. We would most likely feel compassionate sadness, on the other hand, if we learned that aliens in a far away planet were born and were suffering. Suffering seems to matter more than bringing about pleasure in the realm of ethical decision-making. When prevention of all suffering is a guarantee and no actual person loses out on pleasure, this seems a win/win scenario.

The way you're framing it makes it sound wrong. Nobody gives birth to force someone to experience adversity, this is different from the [inevitable] fact that they will face adversity. And, having the knowledge that your child will face adversity should be placed on equal value-ground as having the knowledge that your child, in existing, will experience pleasure. Else there's a double-standard. — aporiap

I actually don't know about that. Some parents are happy at the prospect that their child will go through adversity and will overcome it. This allows the parent to play the hero of guide. It also gives them something to do, some meaning, to watch a little version of themselves have to navigate the complexities of life and try to "ballast their own ship" and become socialized, and live a certain lifestyle. This overcoming adversity trope, though cherished and encouraged in most pragmatic mindsets, is actually to me like forcing an obstacle course as I said earlier. You are creating a problem for a new person to overcome it. As I've said elsewhere, to put adversity purposefully because you feel that it is good for others to experience is not right. Parents are not messianic figures bringing "happiness-through-suffering" into the world, or whatever other ridiculousness. You can never have a child for the child's sake, being that they didn't need to exist at all. Pleasures had at the expense of pain, while commonly thought of as appropriate or even morally superior, I argue are morally tainted. This whole blood-price for happiness trope is an excuse for allowing some forms of suffering, and is literally "sadistic" in that it is causing pain to others. Forcing it to to happen (by de facto inevitability of the discourse of life which always has forms of adversity built into it for the human being).

A third point I'd like to make, is that people aren't just used for a parent's X agenda, but also for societal institution's absolutely apparent agenda- that is to say, forcing more labor to be generated into the socio-economic system. People are born to be used by society to labor for its continuation. Communism and extreme socialist systems are simply transparent about this- people are here to work for society (again, something I consider a harm to be used as a source of labor). Capitalist-leaning economies tend to hide this with a thin layer of "the invisible hand". That is to say, the focus is on the consumer and demands "choices" and thus the focus seems to be that the economy is about the individual. Actually, it is not. The individual needs to produce output at some stage in the form of labor or capital investment from past accumulated wealth.. and that is what society really needs from people- more output. Also, the rich that have the investments rely on the labor of others for their system to be maintained. Thus rather than people using society to get what they want, if we pan out of this myopic view, we see the bigger picture, which is the individual is being born to produce and labor for society. That is to say, they are being used to labor.

What makes you think it is not necessary to go through? I mean, fundamentally, the sort of satisfaction and enjoyment you get from enduring through a struggle is made what it is by the suffering. If you were given a nobel prize for completely nothing, you would be missing out on something that Einstein wouldt've - the satisfaction becomes not just enhanced but partly made up of feelings of self-validation [i.e. that you really were able to do it] self-satisfaction and accomplishment. And these feelings don't simply just get forgotten, they're embedded in the entire experience which is impressed in memory and accessible in mind. — aporiap

It is not necessary for a being to be born to experience adversity, to get some positive reward from it. Rather, I believe that even if there is some overall reward that occurs (which it sometimes does not), or even if it was more generalized to experience itself is its own reward, I think that this is wrong to impose on someone. It is using someone to see them go through some X agenda that the parent wanted for the child. I don't believe in using people and making them suffer so that they can experience some X agenda.

Secondly I really am struggling to understand the antinatalist premise. An unborn baby does not feel anything. It will never will know what it feels like to not have to go through pain. — aporiap

Again, I think that the absence of pain is always good, even if there is no actual person to enjoy this. However, the absence of pleasure is not bad, unless there is an actual person for whom this absence is a deprivation.

Secondly, not every individual evaluates suffering and non-suffering like you.. it's not some objective hedonic calculus, every individual makes a determination of the worthiness of living on their own. For some [if not all, barring antinatalists, the severely depressed and the oppressed] it is even un-quantifiably valuable to live even in spite of suffering. So the underlying argument for antinatalism seems just based on an impossible speculation. — aporiap

Again, imposing a life that inevitably contains suffering is never good, whatever the person thinks or not. It is a negative utilitarian argument with some deontological elements of not using people.

And I think you are also completely discounting the fact that pleasure and value are separable concepts. Something doesn't need to be pleasurable to be a valuable or meaningful experience. I mean I find my entire college experience to have been incredibly formative and meaningful.. sure I would change certain things but I would never not go through the school because it sucked [and I did suffer] to study.. I actually, really, would chose the opportunity to go through it again because it made me. — aporiap

Sure, but this is about procreation not continuing to exist once born. Once we are born, we can make all sorts of calculative decisions. However, on the one decision to impose inevitable suffering for a future child is not good, as the suffering could have been prevented. The absence of suffering would be preferable. The absence of pleasure matters not when there is no actual person who is deprived in the first place. To impose adversity on someone else, when that did not need to occur, is not right. No one needs to be born to experience overcoming adversity.

but in that argument, is there a 'someone', before they appear to have come into this world? — wax

That kind of rebuttal doesn't phase the argument, and I usually cringe a little when someone uses it. Unlike unicorns and actually things that cannot exist outside of conception, a future person can exist being that the components and ability is there to make a future person. Thus, one can talk about how a person will be affected by life if they are born.

But people are brought into this world quite often with no sort of planning...ie unplanned pregnancy, so there seems like there will be struggle just as an outcome of the way people behave. — wax

Well true, but that is the point, to actually think through the implications of having a future person.

Secondly I really am struggling to understand the antinatalist premise. An unborn baby does not feel anything. It will never will know what it feels like to not have to go through pain. Secondly, not every individual evaluates suffering and non-suffering like you.. it's not some objective hedonic calculus, every individual makes a determination of the worthiness of living on their own. For some [if not all, barring antinatalists, the severely depressed and the oppressed] it is even un-quantifiably valuable to live even in spite of suffering. So the underlying argument for antinatalism seems just based on an impossible speculation. — aporiap

The main point is that in the procreational decision, there is an asymmetry as to the absence of an actual person in regards to an absence of suffering and pleasure. It is always good that someone did not suffer, even if there is no actual person to be around to know this or enjoy the not suffering. It is not bad (or good) if someone does not experience pleasure, unless there was an actual person who was around to be deprived.

Also, just in general, forcing someone else into existence to experience some form of adversity to get stronger is still wrong. It's like forcing someone into an obstacle course they did not ask for, and can never leave without killing themselves. Well, I guess it's okay to stay and try and do the best, but it was not necessarily good to give that obstacle course in the first place. No one needs to do anything prior to birth, being that, as you pointed out, there is no actual person before birth who needed to go through life in the first place, good, bad, or ugly. By not having the person, it is no harm, no foul.

As for suicide, why do some people seem to think that it leads to peace?
It may for some, but I do think there is always the danger that they just end up taking their struggle and suffering into a post life situation. — wax

Suicide can be painful, and there can be anxiety to actually go through with it. The fact that some people do decide to kill themselves should tell you enough about burden of what it means to be a self-reflective being such as ourselves.

As to God, I think that he is in a situation where there is no-one higher in terms of the reality of consciousness, and thinking, to refer to.
We can't really know what that is like, but maybe we could suggest the idea that his reality emerges from his own thinking and behaviour.....what he thinks then becomes part of his reality and his own reference frame of reality.

He can't for example think, 'what would it be like to think A,' without automatically thinking of A in some ways...and in this way his reality evolves....so I bring back my argument, that I made in another thread in an OP, that God has his own needs. — wax

Well Mainlander was using it as a metaphor for "being" itself. Being is trying to kill itself. It's a very German Romantic notion from the 19th century. I don't think it can or should be taken seriously. Even that gives some telos or cohesion to all we do. Even if it was a telos towards death, it's still a telos of the universe. I guess in a way via modern physics, we know that we are inevitabley headed towards a heat death but this would not indicate that a being that created the universe wanted the universe to run its course and die out so that it could stop being bored with its own being, however fantastically and cynically creative that story is.

I would guess that one of those needs is to try an attain peace, and not having any problems to work on leads away from peace and into boredom....in a state of boredom he is still capable of thoughts and actions, but what is he going to think? So his desire for peace is not being met because he as nothing to think about...some of all that might be a bit circular, but I think most of us have experienced boredom.
One way that boredom can be alleviated might be to read a book, or listen to some music, watch TV, but this is God we are talking about; in a way, he has watched all the movies, read all the books, and is fed up with the same old music....and in that context, he still goes on thinking, and any thoughts he has form the framework of his future reality............ — wax

Why are we anthropomorphosizing some creator/sustainer/destroyer god-entity anyways? Why is this entity even in the equation. But again, your idea there is very much Mainlander.. If that's what you think, then his conclusion is the best answer you got.. He is so bored, he is waiting or the universe to kill itself in a final heat death.

I do think it is possible to attain peace; like an old soldier who has lived a varied life; he has fought in wars, and survived; got back and lived an ordinary life of work etc; he has grown and matured a philosophy of life...but, there has had to be struggle in order to grow as a person, and although he might have found peace, there will be more people who are born who if they are lucky, they can grow as well, which may also mean they have to spend years of struggle. — wax

That's one of the reasons I'm an antinatalist though. Why put someone through the struggle (even for some sort of enlightenment) if they didn't have to go through it in the first place. I think our culture places to much emphasis on some damn Nietzschean notion that we must live to struggle. Either it is struggle to get something, or struggle for its own sake, and I find throwing more people into the world for either of these reasons as bad as it is purposely putting adversity/obstacles where there didn't need to be, for an idea of "someone must live so they can feel the good of struggling".

With this continual process, some people will 'make it' and some won't...and at the root of it, is boredom.

My underlying belief is that God, in all his mysterious eternal existence, always risks being bored himself....it is inescapable if he is an intelligent being. — wax

Actually, this is very close to Philipp Mainlander's idea in his Philosophy of Redemption. According to Mainlander, God was so bored with his own being, that he objectified himself from a superbeing into this physical reality in order so that he can commit suicide through the process death in the beings born into the universe. The concept of heat death wasn't around at his time, but I think he speculated about something of the death of the universe at the end of time or something of that nature. Anyways, we are participating in the god's suicide by being a part of this process. The redemption is participating in the non-existence. Of course, it is no surprise Mainlander himself committed suicide by ironically hanging himself by kicking over a stack of copies of his recently published book.

I tend to think the source of suffering is boredom.
As a species that evolved to solve complex problems, living a life without problems leads to boredom. Having a life with no problems leads to the Hobson's choice of one activity that doesn't involve solving problems, or another activity that also doesn't involve solving problems....there is another choice, and that is to cause problems...and then there will be something to do that engages the minds we have ended up with. — wax

I tend to agree with your Schopenhaurean stance about boredom. I always liked his metaphor of a pendulum swinging from the striving after a goal on one side, and the boredom on the other. Schopenhauer's metaphysical stance was that will is at the bottom of all things. Thus a restless striving after something is what we try to attain, but it is neverending. Once we get our goal, we need to move on with more complex problems to solve, goals to achieve, hope to attain. Otherwise, the baseline feeling of boredom ensues. Being a social and socialized animal, loneliness is a byproduct of being bored with having a lack of deep connection with others. Most of life is being unsatisfied, annoyance, toil, and looking for entertainment- the pendulum swing of goal-seeking and boredom, or as I frame it, "survival, comfort-seeking, entertainment-seeking". I remember someone said to me, the final conclusion to all this Schopenhauerean metaphysics would be that nothingness would be a sign of metaphysical peace, since it is the striving that causes the turmoil for the being-in-phenomenal-existence. Ultimate peace is no need for anything, but that ironically is not being whatsoever. Much of spiritual striving is to get to this state of peace.

I see there being a tension between pragmatic "this-wordliness" and trying to achieve some tranquility from this world in "otherworldly" spiritual striving. The this-worlders have solutions in changing your lifestyle- exercise more, do something that aligns with your interests in a community-setting, find a better job that fits your goals, etc. etc. The "otherwordly" is about seeing the bigger picture of life itself. It is trying to understand what is at the root of striving after this or that particular goal in the first place. It is trying to see the forest and not simply maneuvering around the trees. The problem is, if you look at it from this perspective, you just might see the futility and absurdity. One minute you are working on a spreadsheet in an office, the next you are laughing at how ridiculous human actions are. Then you realize this too is a human action- that of meta-analysis of your other actions. Then you realize that there is no escape, only going back in the fray, or coming out again for a little more meta-analysis. One can look at birth and say, "I don't want to spread the pendulum of absurdity to others". Why go through the game?

It is not the existential thinkers who are praised by most. It is the ones who spread the capital, who work the capital, who refill the labor pool for more capital, and keep the whole absurdity going. The ankle-biters who hate the cynics, existential thinkers, and the pessimists, don't like what they hear. Luckily for them, they are in the majority. The circle of capital and labor is still going strong. Most people still enjoy the trees and don't bother looking at the whole forest. The goal-seeking and boredom become habitual acts of life that squash meta-analysis of life itself. We can't have too much of that. Survival beckons, we need to make the donuts, and this somehow needs to continue for more people.

If a conscious entity doesn't have any needs, then why would they do anything? — wax

Most gods are created in the image of man, and then retroactively reversed. They say more about human desires than anything else- projected onto an entity. Thus, Yahweh reflected the ancient Hebrew need for community and ethical cohesion. Krishna reflected the human need for following caste and duty in order to sustain ancient laws. The Hindu Atman/Brahaman reflects our need to escape the noise of life into the quietude of a peaceful state.

Based on future people that will exist. Those aren't potential people. That's an important difference. A potential person doesn't exist, eg. it's nothing. That makes the comparison entirely apt. — Benkei

Not really. A unicorn can never exist in the future. A potential person is a placeholder for someone that can exist in the future. I have the components for a chair and the ability to make it.. but I may not make one. I decide not to make one. There is a potential chair, that has not be made into an actual chair. This is not complicated.

And yes, I can imagine another person existing that doesn't exist yet. But I can imagine unicorns and dragons to exist too. That doesn't mean they become moral actors because of it and something I need to take into consideration when making ethical choices. — Benkei

C'mon we've been through this. Unicorns can never exist. A potential person can. We make political, ethical, and daily decisions all the time based on future people. That's a strawman to compare future people to unicorns.

That's not true at all. Billions of actual people would be deprived of the goods (of which there are many) associated with having and raising families. — Theorem

That's on them. I liken it to being deprived of the good of making someone go through an obstacle course that they didn't ask for because it's fun to watch them have to figure it out. This is causing harm without consent.. Maybe the other person will even grow from the adversity of the obstacle course, but it isn't right. In the same token, making someone go through the adversities of life (when they didn't need to go through this in the first place) because it is enjoyable to watch them overcome adversity, isn't right.

But more to the point, I asked whether it was fair for us to make the decision on behalf of others. The no harm/no foul principle does not address the question of whether one group of people living at a specific time and place and under specific circumstances has the moral authority to decide whether life is worth living tout court. That seems like a dangerously slippery slope. — Theorem

I don't see how this gets around the asymmetry. No actual person is crying over missed opportunities, if not born. The potential for the person to exist is only potential. No one is crying over the billions of people that could be born at every minute either. I don't see the dangerous slippery slope. I don't believe in forcing anyone to agree to not force other people into existence (see the irony there). It is all about presenting an argument and having people being able to reason over the issue.