And therefore, the good life cannot possibly involve the pursuit of such pleasures which can cause or be associated with bad things :)

Yes, but if it is impossible to have the pleasure without the pain, then does it not follow that that specific pleasure is also bad, in-so-far as it brings pain? Hence a good life cannot possibly involve the pursuit of such pleasures which also bring pain.

If pleasures bring pain with them, then they are not bad insofar as they are pleasant, but insofar as pain is bad. Thus it is still the pain which is bad, not the pleasure, though pleasure may be an effiicient cause of bad things. — The Great Whatever

Agreed, but where do we go from here? You're not using pleasure as commonly used. The activity of taking the pill is called pleasurable in everyday discourse, even though it also brings pain in the long term.

I don't see how you can claim this unless you think pleasure is either always good or always not good. After all, the features of it relevant to its goodness are always the same qua pleasure. It is good in virtue of being pleasant, and pleasure is of course always pleasant. So it seems to me to take this position you must claim that being pleasant is never a good thing. Which is what the Stoic says, but this is not true. — The Great Whatever

I have suspended judgement on Stoicism at the moment, to permit an investigation into this. Do not take my agreements as final. However, pleasure, as meaning is use, is used in quite a few different ways, and it refers to quite a few different things. There need to be more distinctions applied. I could see a quasi-Stoic agree with what qualifies as virtuous pleasure, but not what is most often thought as pleasure by the common lot of mankind for example.

Are dissatisfaction and unhappiness kinds of pain? If not, then what are they? If they are, then ex hypothesi haven't you stipulated by your very example that you are not unsatisfied or unhappy? — The Great Whatever

Yes to the first question. However - here lies the problem. Some distinctions need to be made about pleasure, because, as it can clearly be seen, some pleasures inevitably bring pain along with them. (like taking and living on the pill) Hence only some pleasures are good (those which never bring pain). Am I getting something wrong?

But insofar as pleasure is good, there is no extrinsic reason for its being good. It is not 'good because of...' and nothing can be added to it other than pleasure itself to make it any better (as with pain). — The Great Whatever

Well said, only insofar as it is good, which is admitting that pleasure is not always good :)

Second, your consideration that this is not good is a mere extrinsic opinion, while the pleasure itself is good on its own terms, and so external opinions as to whether it is good don't matter to it (since nothing external can 'make it bad'). — The Great Whatever

But if I myself lived such a life I would be unsatisfied, and unhappy. Why is that?

Interesting. I can see this working for pain. You can't ask "So what? What's bad about that?" to someone who says they're in pain. The very asking of the question is impossible.

But, the same cannot be said about pleasure. If someone says they're having great pleasure, I can proceed to ask "So what? What's great about that?". There will be no acceptable answer to me, if I don't already consider pleasure to be intrinsically good. I might think that you're wasting your time, as pleasure itself is empty - neither good, nor bad - as such it is to be expected that you will not be able to answer in any way as pleasure itself is a dead-end for you. Notice that this underlies that "the good" is more than just simple pleasure. Maybe it's pleasure associated/derived from virtue. Maybe virtuous pleasure. But certainly pleasure alone is not sufficient to qualify as good.

For example, if someone could be given a pill to feel intense happiness and pleasure all the time - and they decided to take it - and then proceeded to sit on the couch for their whole life - I would not consider them to be living a good life.

I think I agree with Schopenhauer that non-ideality can be likened to an always "becoming". There is in a certain sense a "lack" which presupposes the world. There are annoying things, painful things, frustrating things, and a need for things which we "lack" for no better term (desire/goals/survival). Opposed to this would be "being". Being and not becoming is a strange concept as you note, because it is not the condition of our world. A completely ideal world would be one of being and not becoming. This is probably the elusive state that Buddhists and ascetics are trying for (not to say they are getting it or will come closer to it, or even be able to attain it in principle). — schopenhauer1

But you forget that any concept of ideality already presupposes the logical structure of this world - becoming. Hence, a world of being is incoherent and cannot be ideal. I cannot even imagine such a world, much less find it ideal.

You say this world is non-ideal. This implies you have a standard of ideality, you know what would be ideal. But how can you have such a standard? All standards are necessarily prisoners of this world, because they presuppose the world, or at least it's logical structure. To me a world with no suffering is an abomination: absolutely incoherent and incomprehensible. No world that is anything like what we understand by world can be like that. To me, an ideal world must have the potential for suffering always present. The only reason why I enjoy few moments in life is because of all the other moments I don't enjoy. The only reason I enjoy when people are nice to me is because there's always the possibility of them not being nice. And i cannot even conceive of a world in which everyone was nice and I was happy about it. As Schopenhauer put it, if that was the case, I would start wars, violence, divisions, aggression etc. myself

Excellent post!

From a social point of view, heterosexual relationships are constructed such that from a woman's point of view, a man is fungible and reducible to what he provides for her; but the man, in order to keep the relationship going, because the women provides nothing materially for him, has to be given a spiritual significance to make her attractive. So the women cannot be fungible, but must be intrinsically valuable while the man is disposable. Hence the man aspires to the woman, not vice-versa, and love originates in men towards women, not vice-versa. — The Great Whatever

As much as I think you display elements of pathology sometimes, I think you have stumbled on something true and greatly important. So for that, my congratulations. Indeed, love is more often than not a tool of control over men that women wield. In modern society, because man has been deprived of all weapons that he has by nature, it is not uncommon to see even fine specimen of men become the slaves of women. Notice that a man can be the most handsome, the strongest physically, the most charismatic, but if he refuses to be enslaved, if he refuses to let down his dignity - women will give him a very hard time. Long ago, men like Julius Caesar and Napoleon had a very easy time with women, because they were enabled to use the means that Nature has provided them in their conquests. But in modern society - they would be loners.

I'm not saying you're blind to the obvious, I'm saying that the above defense of Stoicism seemed to operate on the premise that what is good in some sense depends on what you think is good, and so what is helpful will depend on what philosophy you adopt. But I am denying this. — The Great Whatever

No, just like you, Stoicism operates on the principle that virtue is the only good REGARDLESS of what you think. If you think differently, then you are simply wrong.

And yes, Stoicism says pleasure and pain aren't inherently good or bad, but this is wrong. Pleasure and pain are the only things that are good or bad on their own terms — The Great Whatever

Prove it.

Rather, I am saying it is natural to feel grief and loss to someone you care about and that a life where one is indifferent to every passion, especially ones that have to do with things or people one cares about quite strongly, may be not worth living- even if in order to follow the dictates of Reason — schopenhauer1

What does it mean for something to be "natural"? Is it just that most people do it?

To live a life without much passion at all is a very stultifying life- one I compare to being stoned all the time — schopenhauer1

The Stoic doesn't live a life without passion - insofar as it's impossible to avoid passion. What is your idea of a good life?

In fact, it might not be a life worth living as you are habituating your brain to essentially filter out the natural feelings that go along with being attached or caring about something or someone. — schopenhauer1

But it's not doing this though... I have explained over and over again that Stoicism is not about not feeling, or escaping your negative feelings. It's more about being indifferent to their presence or absence, and not letting them overcome your reason.

You are making so many category errors, I don't know where to start. In the whole cohabitation scenario that you present here, you are assuming if you stop having an emotional attachment to someone, that must mean that you have no obligations of fairness to that person. Where did you infer that from what I said? — schopenhauer1

You said:

Rather than duty, it is the emotion of attachment one feels for a loved one. One doesn't love out of the duty to love (simply because they are your family) but because you have an attachment to that person — schopenhauer1

So on what are your "obligations of fairness" based? On duty perhaps? It seems to me that if your moral obligation to be upset and to grieve at the loss of a loved one is based on emotion, equally your moral obligation to your wife must be based on emotion - if it isn't, then on what is it? You don't have much choice left...

Similarly, if someone is attached to a project of some sort- something they care much about and worked super long on, to have it disregarded or lost would be probably bring about normal feelings of loss and frustration. To simply disregard to maintain a character of indifference, seems to disregard the fact that we care about things. Loss, frustration, etc. means at least we care and the idea of not caring for some abstract duty you call Reason seems odd and not a very great world. — schopenhauer1

Yes, but Stoicism doesn't mean that you won't have the feelings of loss and frustration. It just means you'll deal with them differently than your average person. And again, you assume without ever justifying that caring about something necessitates grief/sadness upon its loss.

Rather than duty, it is the emotion of attachment one feels for a loved one. One doesn't love out of the duty to love (simply because they are your family) but because you have an attachment to that person. — schopenhauer1

Oh, so love then should be found on the fickleness of human emotion? I shall love my wife because I have a temporal attachment to her... if that emotional attachment vanishes one day, then I should kick her out of the house, and not care for her for another second. See, views such as this are the source of much suffering and immorality in the world, as it gives human beings the moral freedom to do whatever the fuck they want, regardless of other people.

Again, you are talking nonsense and attacking a strawman. If you read Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, you will see the effort spent showing gratitude for his family, his teachers, etc. No stoic teacher has behaved the way you describe, and you are just being intellectually dishonest in your attempted ridicule of stoicism.

I couldn't honestly tell you except it seems intuitively wrong not to FEEL some some sense of loss for family or people that you loved. The nature of this is going to be different for everyone but it would be APPROPRIATE at the BEGINNING to feel the hurt of loss as part of the caring and attachment you had with those people. — schopenhauer1

What does feeling hurt have to do with the fact of moving beyond it? The Stoic response does not prevent one from having a day each year to commemorate the loss of one's family, or to remember gratefully one's ancestors and what they have taught one, quite the contrary, Stoicism makes this a moral duty. So this idea of "indifference" that you're spewing is total anathema to the Stoic, as it goes against the notion of moral virtue. The difference between the Stoic and your average person is that whereas your average person focuses on their selfish desires (the negative, losing something they want to have), the Stoic focuses on the selfless, and positive (the importance of the loved one in their life, and one's duty towards the loved one and what they have done for one), realising that the Universe is not there to fulfill their selfish whims but rather they are there to fulfill the demands of universal Reason.

This is what I particularly have a problem with. No, that is correct there is nothing you can "DO", but not focusing on the such a personal tragedy of the past seems cold at best. Quickly moving forward is ALMOST as bad as not grieving at all. Grieving means there was a sentimental attachment. It is recognizing one cares about something. Even if it does mitigate the pain (if that can really happen by quickly moving forward after the bereavement), there is something to me, wrong with having such little care for things in a rush to move on to the next thing. — schopenhauer1

Why must I suffer to prove my attachment and love for something? Why do you assume that if I don't torture myself, then it means that I have not loved my family? It seems that you are saying that I have a moral duty to suffer for no reason other than to prove my love. That somehow, if I don't prove my love, then it doesn't exist.

STRAW MAN!

Person 1: "Your family passed away and is gone".
Stoic: "Oh, I am indifferent to the situation"
Person 1: Your girlfriend left you
Stoic: "Oh did she? Oh well, I am indifferent to the situation"
Person 1: "No one cares about you"
Stoic: "Oh really? I am indifferent to the situation" — schopenhauer1

Much rather:

Person: "Your family passed away and is gone"
Stoic: "As much as that grieves me, there is nothing that I can do to bring them back. Their existence is now outside of my control, and as saddened as I feel, to maintain my moral worth, I must pursue the good things that are still left in this world: my character, my desires, and helping my fellow human beings. There is nothing to be achieved from focusing on the tragedies of the past"

It's okay. I'm so smart and magnanimous that any time someone insults me I immediately intuit the psychological shortcoming that caused them to do so and forgive it. — The Great Whatever

Man, and they say I'm arrogant. This is beyond arrogance, this is a pathological case already...

I don't think so. Chronological time is clock time as measured, not lived or phenomenological time. The idea that chronological time exists beyond the measuring of it, is just that; an idea. — John

Then if that's clock time, what is physical time?

I don't think it is that simple. I remember learning the idea that the Universe is finite but unbounded - it has a finite size, but you could never reach the edge. So you could likewise argue, 'how absurd that the Universe has finite size' on the basis that if has a finite size, you must be able to reach the edge of it. But in practice, no matter how far you travel you will never reach an edge - the size of the Universe will always appear the same from any point in it. — Wayfarer

I don't think you know what you're saying. This would be the case if space is finite and geometrically "spherical". So likewise it would be the case for time: it would have to be cyclical, and then it would have no beginning and no end.

But isn't the idea of 'a beginning' analogous to the question 'what came before the BB? To which the answer was, there was no 'before'. The notion of 'before' implies a temporal sequence, and so there was no 'before' because time itself originated here. Same with 'beginning' - the very idea of 'beginning' implies a time prior to the commencement of the event in question. But time itself began from this point - there was no 'before', no 'prior to', no time in which anything could have happened, or space to locate it. It is literally inconceivable. — Wayfarer

This only applies to physical time. Don't forget that for physicists time is that which you can measure by a clock; in this case an atomic clock. If you can't measure it, there's no time for them.

No, that would be phenomenological or lived time. — John

Which is exactly what I am referring to by chronological time.

But isn't the idea of 'a beginning' analogous to the question 'what came before the BB? To which the answer was, there was no 'before'. The notion of 'before' implies a temporal sequence, and so there was no 'before' because time itself originated here. Same with 'beginning' - the very idea of 'beginning' implies a time prior to the commencement of the event in question. But time itself began from this point - there was no 'before', no 'prior to', no time in which anything could have happened, or space to locate it. It is literally inconceivable. — Wayfarer

Hence the difference between chronological time (which philosophers talk about) and physical time (which physicists claim began to exist at the Big Bang)

I find the idea that the Big Bang Theory should be rejected on a priori grounds to be ridiculous in the extreme. — John

Please explain to me how the idea of a beginning to existence is any bit less absurd than the idea of square circles. Because by the "Big Bang", I am referring to whatever theory claims a beginning to existence. If existence had a beginning, it follows that it must have a reason why it began when it began and not sooner or later. But such a reason is incoherent. Therefore existence could not have a beginning. Neither could chronological time go infinitely back, because if it did, we would never get to the present. Therefore existence must be eternal, and cyclical.

SO the question is, will scientists even give such ideas a fair hearing? Or will they refuse to contemplate them as a matter of principle? And, would such refusal be scientific? — Wayfarer

I think the problem is that they are giving such ideas a more than fair hearing. In my opinion, the Big Bang should be a priori ruled out. A beginning of existence makes absolutely no sense, and is just as irrational as the existence of square circles.

A better way to phrase it would be, which is scientifically thought to be the equivalent of all that exists. Which is only to say, the Universe is the limit to our scientific observation. We cannot comment about existence outside our Universe with science because it is currently not accessible to observation or empirical measurement so is outside the domain of science. Other traditions might have their own interpretations of the Big Bang and what we can say beyond our Universe, but we should be concerned with and only with the scientific view here. — Soylent

Good - then it follows that the scientist should not believe that the limits of scientific observation is equivalent with the limits of the world. In other words, a priori and metaphysical investigation can reveal something more from the structure of the world.

I don't follow, if there is empirical evidence of an event that resembles what we call the Big Bang, leaving aside the "existence itself has a beginning" part you've tagged onto it, why should we a priori reject that model? — Soylent

No you should only reject models which imply that existence itself has a beginning. As far as I am aware, the Big Bang model as traditionally understood does imply a beginning to the Universe, which is traditionally thought to be the equivalent of all that exists.

Is the Big Bang nonsense or is the interpretation of the Big Bang you've imported to the scientific understanding of the Big Bang nonsense? As far as I know, scientists are very comfortable with saying our knowledge of the cosmological genesis of the universe is limited to fractions of a second after some massive event. The inference of a Big Bang is useful for explanatory purposes, but ultimately outside the domain of science, for now. — Soylent

No, but I'm saying the Big Bang should a priori be excluded as a model. It is absurd to say that existence itself has a beginning.

This is most clearly false. Some matters are logical or philosophical absurdities, and hence should not be employed by science as preferable models. Instead, a criteria for choosing scientific theories and models for given empirical data should also be logical and philosophical consistency. As such, for example, Big Bang is nonsense.

I think a much more productive discussion whose potential lies hidden is that of Stoicism against that of Buddhism. There are many family resemblances amongst the two, however Buddhism does seem to have a more this-worldy pessimistic attitude combined with a more other-worldly open attitude. Thus I argue that while Buddhism may reduce suffering, it may also promote a retreat from this world, thereby somewhat diminishing flourishing. Stoicism on the contrary encourages a return to the day to day problems of life combined with a different attitude which gives more strength and power.

As such, while I can easily imagine an athletic champion being a stoic, I can barely imagine him being a buddhist. Of course there are exceptions (thinking of the Japanese samurais here, or chinese martial artists). But it seems to me that Buddhism does require the pursuit of enlightenment (transcending this world) as opposed to flourishing within the world. What do you think @darthbarracuda?

Here's an exercise for you: look for one claim in the wall of text you posted that can be falsified by reasonable argument, or even one that says anything other than 'I'm right, you're wrong.' I'll wait. — The Great Whatever

Which "wall of text"?

Presumably this would be because one desires an outcome that would only happen if one does something. These desires are more important than the potential suffering that may come about with it. — darthbarracuda

Fact is, desires, in and of themselves, do not care about the suffering involved. Say I love and desire a woman: I do not care about the suffering involved in conquering her heart. Only in light of other considerations (other desires) do I care about the suffering involved. The Stoic therapy of desires involves both a limitation of desire so that no desire is pursued at the detriment of others (and no morally wrong desires exist), and a way of pursuing desire realistically, relentlessly and with confidence.

Having the energy is also highly dependent on your beliefs. If you believe you can, you generally have the energy. But you have to push yourself every single time. Your will must grow and grow and grow.

No they are just willing to state what they see. — schopenhauer1

Yeah so you can say "it would be better never to be born" and then adopt a stoic attitude. I see nothing inconceivable about that. It would be better never to be born. But that is impossible. Hence next best thing is to be a stoic...

Certainly a better response than wallowing my friend :p

I think pessimism has a better handle on the situation and we do make best of it, no matter what system. — schopenhauer1

I disagree. It is not whatever system because whoever for example is saddened and affected by events/circumstances outside of their control is doing something that is absolutely irrational. Why? Because there is no reason to be sad, as it changes nothing. So clearly there are better and worse ways to cope with the facts of existence, which may be the one's of the pessimist.