Everyone gets ‘angry’ at life though at some point. Then we usually grow up … albeit slowly and with instances of regression! :D

We reach it in death. It is not exactly like every waking hour of our lives is hellish or even close to being so.

Human beings are human beings because we are alive. We cannot help existing. Why would we want to? I certainly have no major qualms with ‘existence’ but it is certainly puzzling that I exist and attach meaning to things in my life.

‘Suffering’ is a term too easily thrown around by you I find. Why would any sane person avoid every single ounce of suffering in life? Do to so would mean you are a walking talking zombie person shuffling through life like you are already dead. This is actually something quite common to many humans but the vast majority get over it.

Would you call Schopenhauer much of a narcissist? It just seems to me that such obsession with negative thoughts often stem from a kind of narcissism as the fury/rage/disappointment is directed at the world, or life itself, rather than simply taking the world on as mere happenstance within which we are not particularly significant nor possessing any right to demand/expect reality to be other than it is.

I would not recommend eating number twos. Go for the apple or banana

I would also like to add that Truth exists in the abstract only. If we apply the idea of Truth to realms where the ruleset is obscured/unknown/open to various interpretations (like in spoken/written complex languages) Then we are extending its use beyond its origins.

If A is B then B is A. This has no Truth applied outside the abstract (eg. If a banana is an apple then an apple is a banana). You may say this is logically True, yet in reality we can state an apple is a banana and believe it only in the sense that both are fruit … and that is stretching it! For some conscious creature of limited mental capacity I see no reason why they would not equate an apple with a banana given their common attributes.

The point here is the misapplication of Truth into the world we live and inaccurate language we use to communicate.

1+1= 2 in basic arithmetic, yet in other realms of mathematics others may argue otherwise. In reality to say 1 apple and another apple make two apples is also superficially true because the “1” holds universal truth as an abstract and indistinguishable item whereas an “apple” is different to other apples always in time, space and physical constitution.

In reality we make certain leaps to overcome seemingly minute distinctions and this is highly beneficial in allowing us to navigate the world. The Truth in reality is a guide not a rule. In abstraction it is the rule.

Oh yeah! Haha! Glitch in my files … sorry ;)

It is true that I am writing on a forum.
It is true that I am human.

The latter may be ‘true or false’ to you as you may consider that I am AI or some kind.

Are you omniscient? If not then how can you make any truth claims at all?

I was simply distinguishing between something being ‘true’ and something being either ‘true or false’. The first is known the second is yet to be fully investigated.

But he said ‘true’ not ‘true or false’.

If you say something is ‘true’ then you must know it. Even if you state that something is either true or false you do so with the authority of truth not guesswork.

Truth is limited to a set system of rules and variables. IF … THEN … is the most common everyday usage. The idea of some all pervading ‘truth’ may or may not be the case … science basically progresses with the assumption that its ‘truths’ are the current ‘best truths’ not the be all and end all of knowledge.

That does not surprise me.

Just to add … if we are defining everything as a ‘game’ then does this term actually mean anything?

I think a lot of people get caught in the ideas of Wittgenstein and start believing ‘everything is game’ just because he termed the phrase ‘language game’ … he did use the term Language in a very narrow sense so it is worth taking that into account.

Note: I have previously used the theme of life being a ‘game’ before but that was rather loose.

Seems like an empty point.
You previously said that we are social so you are kind of having your cake and eating it here.

The ‘rules’ of life are unknown. Games are what make up life so it is possibly a little presumptuous to assume life is a ‘game’.

Paranormal easily. This would reignite waning religious beliefs quite a lot I imagine.

ET is a given in my mind and that of many others whereas paranormal activity is in fringe coo-coo land. The more surprising the discovery generally means the largest impact it will have on society at large (short and/or long term).

It’s very famous. A quick search … Gazzaniga.

I find conflict a key attribute of a healthy and optimistic outlook.

My fundamental outlook for over a decade now has been an amalgam of ‘pessimism’ and ‘optimism’ … I hope for everything and expect nothing!

A complete pessimist cannot fight a good fight, cannot face the impossible nor believe they can escape the cage they find themselves in. It does not matter how hard we argue that the cage is all we have and any sense of ‘escape’ is futile … we still hope, and sometimes what was once ‘impossible’ becomes common then eventually ‘mundane’. Life is full of such mundane miracles. The pessimist actively ignores that the seemingly impossible had been overcome again and again.

Nihilism is nihilism. Its foundation is based on an impossibility. It is almost like people are discomforted by comfort so need to breed hell into their lives … usually this happens when we cower from life and belittle it. I have been there. I think it is a necessary struggle for humans to go through.

A struggle is only ‘bad’ if you avoid it, ignore it and deny it all at once.

Do you read the replies? It is not an either/or choice. Both hemispheres act together even if the corpus callosum is severed or if the person lost one hemisphere in early life due to the other hemisphere taking on the role due to the plasticity of the brain.

You might be interested to know about the research done by … some guy with Italian name … haha! Sorry, gone blank. Anyway, he studied split brain patients and concluded that the two hemispheres still communicated only they did this by ‘observing’ what the person was doing - eg. By tying one hand behind the back of the patient then asking them to solve certain puzzles … often the hand tied behind knew the answer (but the person was not consciously aware of this) and tried to point out the mistakes made by the other hand.

It is very interesting how we claim authorship over our actions quickly when the outcome is positive ;)

Yes, and good to take note of it. Do not get me wrong, I admire Harris and his approach and stance in many areas but like everyone else he has shortcomings.

I still find him worth listening to from time to time and would never simply dismiss him because he has made some - what I consider - poor remarks.

And his area of expertise is NOT philosophy, ergo he is maybe a reasonable amateur philosopher (he would likely state this himself if pressed hard enough). I say this because his general take on anything is marred by the political arguments he got caught up in when he was not even arguing, just stating something blatantly true.

He is no more a ‘good philosopher’ than I was a ‘good tennis player’ in my youth. Meaning I could beat all of my friends but they were not exactly seasoned pros or semi-pros.

Funnily enough I agree that Harris is the smartest philosopher alive — invizzy

He is not a philosopher really. He is a neuroscientist with an interest in politics regarding the atheist movement (which was certainly called for in US).

Personally I think Sean Carroll does a better job of reaching out to other branches of knowledge than Harris (accepting he possesses little to no expertise openly).

But he did argue this without even realising it. That was my point.

I think he does a reasonable job of being a spokesperson for ‘science’ in general. He sure as hell is not the best philosopher in the world … that had to be one of the most crazy labels I have heard attached to him, a bit like calling Jordan Peterson a philosopher. Both of them have a narrow field of expertise that they seem to believe to be much broader (or rather their ‘fans’ seem to believe that).

A particular moment of stupidity was when he recited a cooking recipe adding religious overtones to it as an example of how you can imbue any mass of words with profane meaning and using this as an example of how such ‘meaningless’ interpretations are somehow evidence for religion being bogus.

That we can actually produce such narratives from any text shows that we have a narrative function for interpreting in the world … such a function is far from meaningless and is actually something that humans excel at and live in every single day of our lives.

It kind of baffled me how he could not see that the thing he pointed out is the most meaningful item there possibly is in human history … that is why we have history.

All said and done, I do not think he is a complete waste of time, just lacks humility sometimes and his attempts to rectify this generally fail - the exchange with Chomsky was cringeworthy.

This is why intelligence and creativity get assigned to opposite hemispheres. — apokrisis

Gibberish.

No one is ‘right’ or ‘left’ brain dominant. This is a nonsense myth that persists through uninformed pop-‘science’.

The whole left versus right brain thing is a massive over simplification. Throw it in the bin. Just some typical sensationalist ‘science’ reporting.

I have said, but I could do better. I prefer to throw out first drafts and see what does and does not hit.

The Trolley point was just stripping down to what Antinatalism is generally concerned with at its heart - to reduce ‘suffering’.

My argument is that Antinatalism has two lines of attack (1) An ’ethical’ one (2) a ’moral’ one. Both opposing each other, which is why there is an issue when it comes to unravelling an Anitnatalists points/evidence for their cause.

The position is that it is ‘wrong’ to have children.

@schopenhauer1 I would think an Antinatalist is against procreation because they are against ‘suffering’ not the other way around. It therefore follows that ‘suffering’ is the primary concern here not secondary.

I never believe any of them. As per usual the war is a proxy war and reputation of the US will continue to decline in the eyes of Europe and the opinion of Europe will continue to decline in the eyes of Russia.

The wars in the middle east have been proxy wars to prevent pipelines going down. The US and Russia have been at it ever since the end of the Cold War. It will not end well for Europe as a whole unless … well, I do not see a way out tbh. I can easily see a tactical nuke being dropped and I doubt the US would do much … other than continue doing what they have done for half a century.

Personally I think if they want to fight they should do it over the ocean between their countries rather than playing tower defence across the whole of Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

https://www.diffen.com/difference/Ethics_vs_Morals

https://www.britannica.com/story/whats-the-difference-between-morality-and-ethics

Obviously this is a VERY superficial scope as philosophers still argue today about these distinctions (if any). Undoubtedly they are necessarily connected.

When I refer to (M) I mean ‘morals’. When I refer to (E) I mean ‘ethics’. Debate over the exact differences are argued about in meta ethics. Generally speaking though the manner in which I used them is not some concocted definition, it is the general and widely accepted uses of these terms today in academia.

My main conclusion in any discussion on Antinatalism is that an Antinatalist position cannot be moral and ethical, and to argue against some perceived ‘ethic’ when the position espoused is ‘moral’ is in error too. The confusion can be tackled in meta ethics too if necessary.

I think what lies at the heart of the major disagreements we have seen on this subject on this forum relate to both those arguing for and against Antinatalism ending up arguing whilst being oblivious to the difference between ‘ethics’ and ‘morals’ - or simply dropping the ball long enough to cause confusion.

I will just deal with one question for now. I used the Trolley hypothetical based on ‘suffering’ which is one key factor in many antinatalist positions.

One quick question for you. The argument for antinatalism surely has to be an ethical or moral one? If not there is literally no grounding for it as any kind of useful argument.

Having a hard time using quotes here due stupid iPad … anyway, will look again tomorrow and see if I can do a better job of explaining the distinctions I claim lie in the Antinatalist views.

No idea where you got this from but it is not a very accurate of how the term ‘pre-science’ is used in anthropology.

What I believe to be the singular biggest difference between these is the current modern scientific view is ‘infinite’ whilst the prescientific view is ‘finite’. Meaning we have, for the most part, transitioned from a relatively recent view of the world in which the boundaries were pretty well established whereas in modernity we are in a boundless realm … ironically the latter is fairly limiting psychologically as we cannot fathom the ‘infinite’ where in the past reality was ‘finite’ and more tangible.

What you have presented is some simplistic form of Christianity versus some simplistic form of science.

@Bartricks Any comments?

@schopenhauer1 Any comments?

We are disconnected from that which sustains us. — schopenhauer1

Where I live most people simply take something apart when it breaks and fix it.

I imagine this statement is closer to the truth in some western cities.

Nice points

I am telling you flat out you are wrong. You made the OP asking about irrealism (which stems from phenomenology).

I have read Kant and Husserl so you telling me it is solipsism repeatedly, when I know it is not, makes me believe you do not really have any serious interest in this subject at all. I guess I should have figured this from the OP so my bad.

Bye

The ‘what’ is irrelevant. You can have sensory experiences that are not true to the physical world (ie. Dreams or hallucinations). Whether the experience of an apple is a hallucination, dream or lucid and conscious does not really make the experience anything other than that of an apple.

Consciousness is ‘conscious of …’. Phenomenology is not bothered about whether there is or is not an apple it is only concerned with the experience of said apple.

The ‘of what?’ question you pose was dealt with by Kant. The ‘thing in itself’ is called noumenon. There is no ‘noumenon’ though in any Positive sense only in the Negative as a limiting boundary for knowledge.

I do not have my copy of Critique of Pure Reason to give you the direct quote sadly. Maybe someone else can.

Note: Manuel above gave a simple version here:

We may postulate - sensibly in my opinion - something "behind" objects that anchors them, but this "behindness" is no more "real" than what we already experience, it's another aspect of the world, which helps us make sense of experience, as I see it. — Manuel

If you want to really get into this subject matter more intensely you will pretty much have to read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason … but that is no easy task and will take the better part of a year at least.

Are you suggesting that what you experience has nothing to do with what is ‘real’. That does not make much sense.

If you believe noumenon ‘exists’ then you have a misunderstanding of Kant. Noumenon (the ‘thing in itself’) only has negative value. Meaning it is a limitation on what we can know not some physical essence.

Knowledge without limit is not knowledge it is nothing.

Some people really struggle to get their head around this but it is quite simple.

1) We know via experience.
2) What we experience is limited.

If I have money I can buy wool, cotton and SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM.

(Viking longboat incoming …)

Bad health. You just said so.