Yep, that's obvious. Anything to add?

So what it's like to be a process is, well, what it's like to be human. All humans have, or are, these characteristics and faculties which are constantly interacting and changing, in constant flux. The point of Buddhist practice is to become aware of its transient nature instead of being fixated on it or identifying with it. And Buddhist philosophy extends this process view to everything - there is said to be no unchanging element of any kind. The tendency to try and seize on some element of experience as permanent and stable is a source of frustration. — Wayfarer

That’s a good summation of a core Buddhist belief. Here’s a question. Granted I don’t really believe it in terms of illusion, but I’m just trying to keep it in your framework: what makes humans have this experience/illusion of having a self, and a rock does not? Both are presumably processes?

I don’t know. That can be part of this inquiry. It’s used a lot in philosophy.

Here are some starting points: Process philosophy argues that the language of development and change are more appropriate descriptors of reality than the language of static being. This tradition has roots in the West in the pre-Socratic Heraclitus, who likened the structure of reality to the element of fire, as change is reality and stability is illusion. Heraclitus is famous for the aphorism that one can never step in the same river twice. (Cite: https://www.iep.utm.edu/processp/)

Basically it is a series of events happening at once and integrated, and can happen over time.

You're right. I think we should be in the know about all forms of deception, especially self-deception as it's harder to realize and avoid.

But...

After we come to realize that we're fooling ourselves what are we to do?

Imagine x realizes life is an illusion. That's a good thing to know. However, x is alive and must still live his life. His realization doesn't suddenly transport him into a different world.

After realizing a game is corrupted why can't I continue playing it? — TheMadFool

You must keep playing it. The funny part is that we are not determined on our goals and actions yet each and every time we do anything, we must play this confidence trick.

I'm suspicious of a philosophy that reports to follow "nature" through "reason". There's a lot of "well, of course, "reason" (aka the philosopher's preference for what is deemed reasonable sounding) dictates this or that action, and "reason" is part of nature. You see, there is little justification above its own dictates.

We though, we have destinies to fulfill. — All sight

I don't get what you're getting at really. What destinies to fill?

We aren't actually required to fill all moments with the search for becoming story meanings. No law of nature prevents us from taking a break from the becoming story meaning, turning to face the void, and then exploring that realm. — Jake

So what does exploring that realm mean?

So apparently you agree that this inflated notion of having to make fiat-like goals to rule your own life is merely a modern socially constructed “freedom”. Great. It wasn’t a straw man then, was it? — apokrisis

No, the straw man was saying that the tribe automatically is some collective hive-mind or some such. Rather, I proposed alternative reasons for a more group-like mentality including social conditioning which has tried to tamp down individualistic tendencies or perhaps that they have not "discovered" the extent of individual freedoms of choice, the way some societies didn't "discover" the applications of science to technology.

So they don't believe in universals? Also, if people have slightly different appearances and experiences, does that mean there are as many realities as people's experiences?

So, meaninglessness is good, ethically speaking. It liberates us from being mere tools in a grand scheme devised by God or something else. We're free to choose our destinies and that is, for me, better than having something like a divine purpose.

It's not self-deception. It's wisdom. — TheMadFool

Interesting points. The implication is that motivation is not really given, it is more-or-less self-conjured..perhaps with help from social conditioning as prompts as to what to conjure. However, it is an added fuel in the equation that no other animals need do. It is a little mind game where we make goals, and believe we should be following those goals.

The Schopenhauer religion is just another story being used to push away the scary void. Perhaps this story could be useful if it encourages us to turn and face the void, which would of course include saying goodbye to the Schopenhauer religion. — Jake

But what are your assumptions here about facing the void and the like?

It's called satisfying an instinct. People naturally move towards a source of food, like the refrigerator. — Caldwell

That's the deception- that anything is other than what we put weight on in our goals.

Nah. It takes very little to do what we do most of the time. We move towards the door when we hear knocking without thinking of meaning or value. — Caldwell

That is simply cultural conditioning. We still choose in a way to give sway to it. The consequences of not though, perhaps keep us just following the condition.

So, you are willing to allow that hope is evolutionary, but in the same breath brush off our coping mechanism as something we invented? Honestly, Schop. Why do you do this? I know you from before. Early onset of imbecility is not part of your condition. — Caldwell

Why the need for ad hominem? I was just suggesting it could also be something that is sort of a byproduct rather than an adaptation. It is hard to tell with human behavior what is exactly what. It is not the same as simple reflexes, for example.

To say that is the RESPONSIBILITY, all shouty like, is already to take a very historically conditioned view of the human story. Check out your cultural anthropology and you will find that traditional tribal cultures don't tend to think they have some responsibility to make a personal choice about the life goals they will pursue. — apokrisis

This is a strawman. There can be several reasons for how these tribes operate. One can be that it has taken years of structures to think more like a group. For example, I remember learning that when a Bushmen hunter is actually one to kill the prey, the rest of the band downplays the achievement by emphasizing how inconsequential the kill was, and how the group did it, and not just him. That means they are quite aware of the tendency for pride and arrogance, have structures in place to downplay this trait.

Also, it may be that tribal societies perhaps haven't "discovered" the extent of human individuality and freedoms of choice. For example, technology and science were "discovered" invented in other cultures. We speak in terms of "advancement" when it comes to this, but perhaps, this can be applied to other things like, the extent of human individual choice.

At the end of the day, modern man has it that he/she makes choices on what to pursue. Sure, I do not discount the cultural background this takes place in, but it is still individuals creating fiat-like values for goals.

Social construction is about the informational constraints that shape the individual psychology. So it is not about society making you decide anything, it is about society being the meaningful framework within which any personal autonomy is exercised. — apokrisis

I mean c'mon apokrisis. Yes, I am well aware that we may have choices, but those choices are structured within our social setting. But again, WHO is making the choices within that social setting. You keep moving the goal post from who makes the decision, to what the decisions are about.

A larger purpose in life is the social purposes to be found all around us. Society is the organismic level of organisation here. It is the locus of the kind of meanings that are necessary to social creatures living a social lifestyle. — apokrisis

You miss my point. Chimps and dolphins are social creatures too. However, they don't necessarily have to purposely set goals for themselves. Yes we are embedded in a social setting. But it is the RESPONSIBILITY of the individual to make decisions, to choose, to conjure goals to pursue. It is not given that what choice has to be made. This is the radical freedom Sartre discusses. Certainly, I acknowledge that there are core foundations- the pendulum swing of survival (mediated by culture), and boredom. The actual goal-setting to flee from these is conjured by fiat, at will, by the individual though.

But as a departure point for moral philosophy, that is the reality from which to start a discussion. It is not unnatural to be behaving like socially constrained creatures if it is social constraint that is constructing us as the particular creatures we are in the first place. — apokrisis

Unfortunately, you discount the choice nature of individual humans within their social structure- even the choice to want to do nothing in particular.

Why is this any more interesting than being in a constant state of needing access to food? — Jake

My guess is once we have our basic needs worked out, our minds need to fill the void of something to do.

I am not disputing that. What I am questioning is what support you have for the belief that everybody is deceiving themself. I don't think the average animal-loving vet student has an opinion, or cares, whether their goal is given or created. They just want to achieve it. The same goes for short-term mundane goals like 'I want to go for a bike ride'.

I want to go ride my bike now for half an hour or so. And I will. Do you believe I am deceiving myself? How so? — andrewk

It's the implication, not the origin that I care about. The implication is that we arouse in ourselves a state of WANTING to follow a goal. We CONJURE the goal from fiat. We use goals to fill the void. Nature abhors a vacuum and so do humans. It's not that we move along unwittingly. Rather, we want to make something up to move us along.

Now we can imagine cutting ourselves off from our fellow humanity so entirely that we become your atomistic individual, alone in its cosmic sea of burden and futility. Indeed, there is whole genre of culture where you can learn to take precisely that attitude. You can find "yourself" among the like-minded by sharing the right texts and manuals.

But at the end of the day, you can't escape the reality that being socially constructed comes first. If you want to construct some absolute kind of psychological individualism, that is going to come after the fact. And considered sanely, what could be the point? — apokrisis

So when a person makes a decision and choose to do something, what do you call that? That is society making the decision?

I'd like to think it's more nuanced phenomenologically. Rather, the substrate of all motivations are boredom and survival (mediated through cultural landscape). However, how we then go ahead and motivate ourselves to flee these two extremes is the radical freedom part. So its both.

Yes as I said in the OP: Beyond the aversion to discomforts like hunger, heat/cold, and no shelter, we are in a constant state of having to believe that any move or decision is one even worth making.

Whether it is culturally derived or not is irrelevant as far as mattering is concerned. You never choose mattering. Think about it phenomenologically. — bloodninja

I contend that we do choose mattering. We choose to care. I will say that the baseline factors on our choices are the pendulum swing of de facto conditions of survival (culturally-based), and boredom. This makes us choose something that matters, perhaps.

That psychological self is always a biological or social construction. It arises embedded in a living context that determines its nature. — apokrisis

So when we make decisions, we are making it on a species level? I don't compute. Sure, the goals are linguistic, thus derived socially via linguistic construction of meaning. However, who actually MAKES the choice? It is not the species, but the individual, who may be doing it in the backdrop of linguistically derived decision-making abilities.

But the irony is that that image of the human condition is itself a social construction - a product of a particular time in the development of the theories of physics, coupled to the romantic reaction that image of nature engendered. — apokrisis

But how are the individuals not responsible for choices of motivation? At the end of the day, no matter how much social programming is at play, and I HAVE acknowledged the power of this in the thread (read back to the first few posts), it is still the individual who takes upon whatever role or goal to work towards.

My opinion is that a young person who loves animals, dreams of being a vet and studies really hard to qualify to enter the vet degree at uni, then works really hard in the aim of getting into a really good vet practice, is not deceiving themself at all. They dearly want something, and they strive to achieve that something. — andrewk

Again, the motivation is not given, it is created. It need not be a long-term goal. It can be very mundane goals.

This mattering is basic and is not chosen. — bloodninja

Is it? It may be culturally-derived. The role of father, and caring about a particular preference, but ultimately it is a choice. There is no if/then behavior like a bird might have. There are plenty of examples of fathers who chose not to play that role.

The difference between human beings and other animals in relation to this matter, is not that we place value on goals, but that we identify value, and we name it. So all the animals you describe in their activities act accordingly because they place value on the various things and so carry out those acts because they value them. Human beings recognize this as holding "values", and name it as such. Some of us, like you, want to create an artificial separation between human beings acting because they value something, and animals acting because they value something. That is self-deception. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think you are playing with terms here. If we delineate the term goal properly, this issue goes away. A goal, in the way I'm using it, is one where it is indeed something we identify and name. Animals have perhaps ends that it is achieving, but it is unidentified by the animal itself, and not intentional. It doesn't know it is following goals. Basically, it didn't CHOOSE its goals. It just follows its own directives. If there is a choice, it would be so binary as to be improper to conflate with human goals which are linguistically based and with a much higher degree of freedom of choice.

interesting discussion. Just wondering how it is possible to choose preferences? I feel it is more accurate to articulate preferences as something we are thrown into by way of our moods and our self-understanding. — bloodninja

I'll give you that. I just feel in the mood for chocolate ice cream, for example. I'm proposing that we let things that are pleasing to us drive our motives, but it is still a choice to choose what is pleasing. It is the excuse leftover for why we are motivated, but we still choose to go for preferences. A more radical position is, that even preferences that seem pleasing to us, are something that we simply instilled in ourselves that we like due to habit. But that is a much more complicated position with a lot of psychological research to present in order to support it, I'm guessing.

How can that be a deception? It is not a proposition, and only propositions can be deceptions. People either value things because they can't help but do so or they choose to value them. Either way, there is no proposition, so no scope for a deception.

Are you suggesting that people tell themselves they value a particular goal, when they don't really? That would be a self-deception, but how could we ever guess whether somebody was doing that? — andrewk

The deception is believing the goals are anything but self-imposed. Sure, sometimes we are hyper aware of our own choice to be motivated in the first place, but often we go through the motions, letting our (also self-imposed) preferences drive us along. We don't have to do anything. A bird cannot say that.

For a start, how did you come to the conclusion that beyond satisfying our hunger and the need for proper temperature and shelter, that human actions are nothing more than self-deception or pretending to do something meaningful? That we have a propensity for 'hope', or an urge to explore what's beyond, or even philosophize could be very well be on par with satisfying our biological need for food.

I refuse to believe that human efforts and activities are, at best, a bullshit refinery that runs twenty-four hours a day to keep our mind at peace. — Caldwell

But look at what we can do. We can even have ideations of suicide. We can look at life and say, "I do not have to do anything. I can sit here and starve to death". What motivates us to do anything in the first place? Well, we usually have to have, at the last, a short-term/temporary goal in mind, and move towards that. Where does this goal originate? Well, that is where we put our fiat-value on something, to make us feel the impulse to move towards it. Further, this derives from preferences that we have cultivated over time. Hope is in the equation, perhaps for evolutionary reasons. It could just be a coping mechanism we happened to have developed in order to keep the goal-factory moving along. Unlike other animals, that simply move along, we move along in terms of goals. Some people are less aware of the very self-imposed nature of most of our goals... in other words, they believe they are THE goals that they are driven by, rather than what they have imposed on themselves as motivating factors. The deception would be to forget this fiat-like way we GENERATE goals.

Since meaning is subjective, how can one lie about it?

In any case, I doubt that many people do say to themselves that there is something more meaningful to their goals than the value they place upon them. I can't know what other people say in their heads, but it seems to me that would be a strange thing to say. — andrewk

It's that they place value on goals in the first place. Nothing is really determined. We don't have to be motivated by anything, but we CHOOSE to. we conjure goals to work towards, but unlike other animals, we have no determined reason to work towards anything. A bird cannot help but do its thing, we can.

Au contraire. Given the endless and thankless effort which birds must expend on their instinctive egg-hatching natalism and olympic level migrations twice a year just to lay more eggs and exhaust themselves feeding another batch of ungrateful chicks -- I'd say they have maximum reasons for self-deception. Those songs they sing? All lies. Bright colors? Deceptions. Mating for life? A hoax.

Are worms really worth getting up early for? Another lie. — Bitter Crank

But it doesn't have the ability to know otherwise. THAT is the difference. We know we don't have to conjure up meaning, but we do. Or perhaps, we cannot help it, but we know our situation, including that we can't help it. As I wrote to andrewk: It's that they place value on goals in the first place. Nothing is really determined. We don't have to be motivated by anything, but we CHOOSE to. we conjure goals to work towards, but unlike other animals, we have no determined reason to work towards anything. A bird cannot help but do its thing, we can. We choose to conjure up motivation.

Your post assumes that everyone else feels the same way. They might not; it might be a matter of perspective. — Wayfarer

The fact that we need perspective at all is telling.

I don't think Freud is entirely wrong. Many of our motivations are primitive and not necessarily known by or acknowledged by our conscious self reflection. Much of our behavior and many of our decisions are driven by emotional needs and only later rationalized by internal dialogue. It is not so much self deceit as it is a form of self ignorance. — prothero

I agree. Much of what we do is out of emotions like boredom and loneliness (akin to boredom). Only after the fact, we justify with something like, "to pursue higher goals of accomplishment and esteem".

It’s not about lying to yourself about feelings. Its lying to yourself that there’s anything more meaningful to pursue other than the value we conjure upon a goal.

Look at the bird example in my first post. What is the difference between what motivates a bird and a human?

The deception is that there is any determined reason we are doing anything. Rather we conjure preferences and build goals around this to impose stability on a dissatisfied initial state

You don't need motivation for things you actually want to do, you need demotivation for those things, and motivation for things that you don't want to do. Which does indeed require a lot of self-deception, a lot of fear and weakness. — All sight

But this gets to the heart of what I'm talking about. Even the preferences we have for the things we "like" comes from somewhere. I mentioned the monkey mind in my last post. We are enculturated to cultivate our preferences so we have something to work towards in the first place.

You bring up a good point though. That is to say, daily, we are always putting some sort of deception of meaning on what we do.

To be free of feeling, then, is to be free of this enslavement, to no longer care, and no longer care that one does not care. Indifference is the "highest" form of consciousness because the subject is quite literally free of the world itself. They have "woken up" from the nightmare. — darthbarracuda

Good points. The problem is the subject's relation to the world "demands" certain things by subtle social programming. Survival is had by the subject's relations to an organization that provides the means for goods and services. This engenders a sort of "de facto" preference for at least doing enough to stay employed. On the other end, boredom is the feeling of the restless monkey mind. Preference for any non-negative interaction with the world is then undertaken. Thus the pendulum between survival and boredom creates its own demands that "get our preferences worked out". Thus, while there are no intrinsic goods and bads, there is strong social programming to have preferences for what is perceived as socially acceptable ways to maintain work and entertainment options.

There is nothing logical about comparing non-existence to existence, sorry. There is no thing that is non-existence; there is no person that does not exist, and therefore there is no person who is better off not existing. There is no condition of non-existence to be preferred to existence. You're using language which has meaning only in terms of who and what exists; not otherwise. — Ciceronianus the White

On the surface, it may seem this way, but that is incorrect. The decision is made by an existing person who is comparing something-that-does-not-exist to something-that-might exist. It is simply comparing two possible states of affairs. It is logical to talk in real-world possibilities. So therefore, the point you make is moot or a rhetorical exercise.

In arguing against an absolute claim (we should not have children, ever), I'm not required to adopt an absolute position contrary to it (we should have children, always). I may instead claim that we may sometimes have children, and in other cases we should not That's my position. It's a decision to made by thoughtful consideration of circumstances, one's duties and obligations, on a case-by-case basis. — Ciceronianus the White

That's a false dichotomy. Rather, the question is, is it good/right/fair to create a new person in the first place, under any circumstance. You say that under some circumstances, it is good/right/fair or at least permissible to create new people. I have delineated the problems of creating new people, but you seem to downplay or overlook them. I also try to emphasize that there is a difference in ethical logic when it comes to considering someone who is not YET born with the ethical logic of ALREADY being born. The logic for ALREADY being born would be weighing goods and bads against a backdrop of already existing alternatives. This is more complex, and nuanced. The not YET born scenario is weighing options against never existing and simplifies the logic into stark binary/digital logic. However, what questions and state of affairs are relevant is what matters when looking at the logic. Let us call not yet existing logic, L1. Let us call already existing logic, L2. Things that you downplay or do not consider that I think are of the utmost importance:

Structural suffering (burdens of living already baked into existence):
1) We are always lacking something. Creating a state of affairs where a new being NEEDS and WANTS is creating a state of affairs of undo burden when this burden did not have to exist IN THE FIRST PLACE.

1a) Related to this more abstract lack, is the more concrete examples of survival and underlying restlessness that characterizes the human affair. For survival, the myriad of tasks that become a given for the new person to take on, is already an undo burden put on something that did not have to face this. The only options being acceptance and suicide, though seemingly a harsh contrast, when boiled down to its components, is the choice that is presented to a person. This stark choice, and the undo burden placed upon the individual, when juxtaposed to the choice of never being born, makes sense not to place on an individual.

Thus against the logic of L1, structural suffering creates a reason to not procreate under any circumstances, being that this is always in the equation. It is more refined, more abstract reasoning, and though it is less immediate in its impact on the human, when comparing a state of affairs without lack to one with lack, this makes sense. You do not need people to exist in the first place for this to be true either. It is true even without observers to point this out.

Contingent suffering (burdens of living dependent on circumstances of time and place):
We encounter the myriad of circumstantial suffering in varying degrees. This includes the painful situations based on time and place. It could be any negative encounters that we daily face in our interactions with the world and ourselves. You may say that it can be predicted which people will have less contingent pain than others based on circumstances, but this is not really true. People are too independent for there to be this kind of 1:1 ratio of pre-birth conditions (good parents, good environment, etc.) and the myriad of circumstances that cause suffering for the future individual. Different circumstances, chance, genetic factors, can alter the actual contingent harms that a person faces in their daily lives. Related to structural suffering, contingent suffering puts an undo burden on the individual that did not have to be there in the first place. Again, L1 logic changes things.

Hidden political teleology:
In a previous thread, I mentioned that having children is THE ultimate political statement. It is a vote "YAY" for existence/society. By procreating an individual, you are saying that there is some THING the child MUST experience. Using the logic of L1, what exactly MUST be experienced. This is a quasi-religious point of view if you think about it. The "gauntlet" of life is something that individuals must face. There is some reason existing make sense. However, there is no justification for why experience needs to be had in the first place. Against the backdrop of L1, not existing is better off when considering the structural and continent harms. Further, if we take structural suffering seriously (which I get it, you don't), since not existing means not being in a state of affairs, it is ALWAYS better off. Even considering contingent suffering, you are SUBJECTING an individual to life's contingent circumstances of harm against the backdrop of not subjecting anyone to this. Again, L1 wins out. The parental will to see a circumstances whereby a new person must DEAL and be SUBJECTED to existence is a POLITICAL statement, and as such, needs justification that this is being done to a new person. What is the reasoning though, when we examine it? Do we have some sort of mission to make sure people are brought into the world? That just becomes self-justifying.

Also don't forget, more productivity and markets brings more variety. People generally forgo a lot of stuff for just the right pair of such and such.

Granted, yet states with command economies run far short as well- think Eastern Europe by the 1980s. The problem is focus on productivity doesn't necessarily resolve a lot of human-based needs like wanting decision-making power, ownership of one's own labor, not being at the whim of what boss will be the kindest. Work days that are flexible, etc. etc. But again, the problem is work itself. Marx probably saw it as an end in itself if in what he considered its "unalienated form". I do not see it as an end in itself. It is a burden that we put on each other based on our needs and wants. It bothers me someone would need to be "born" so they can "experience" the "intrinsic goodness" of work, whether "unalienated" or not. The problem is our very needs that we have in the first place. It is a metaphysical problem that is not answered via economic system changes.

and clearly wanted production to be tailored for need, desire and communal access rather than profit and privation — fdrake

And what of the tropes that market economies bring about more efficient avenues for increased productivity?