What needs to be defined therefore is what precisely do we mean by existence? ... And what is morality?  — Ray Liikanen

Read on through the rest of this thread, particularly page 2 (re: my proposals for "existence" and "morality" in the context of (how I understand) Western philosophy).

Do you cause unnecessary harm? — schopenhauer1

This question addresses the subject of moral concern: actually living, present persons, n o t possible, future persons (which is AN's category mistake).

AN's "asymmetry argument" is based on a misconception of ethics ... which your trolling is too lazy to pick-up on or too disingenuous to acknowledge my references elsewhere in this thread (as well as on @schophenhauer1's other "AN" threads), so STFU, STFD and maybe you'll learn something, kid.

Explain what? Your "bad metaphysics" post speaks for itself.

... 'religious' has not been defined in a concrete, understandable, verifiable manner. — Ray Liikanen

Apparently, you've not read this thread from the beginning. A little more than semantic quibbles is going on here. Besides, definitions are not "verifiable" (unless they are tautologies). :roll:

...since classical-scale systems (e.g. brains-sensoriums) cannot directly interact with planck-scale systems (re: decoherence).
— 180 Proof

How do you characterize ontically and empirically the physicist and its experimental_inferential connection to planck-scale phenomena? — ucarr

My layman's best guess: only the interaction of the measuring-apparatus and "planck-scale phenomena" is manifestly ontic – quanta (e.g. photons) "perturbing" quanta – and the physicist's readings of her measurements (thereby making inferences) are empirical.

QM tells us the observer perturbs what s/he observes. — ucarr

If by "observer" you mean measurement and by "observes" you mean measures, then I think you're correct here about QM. Afaik, "sentience" itself cannot "perturb" quanta since classical-scale systems (e.g. brains-sensoriums) cannot directly interact with planck-scale systems. That way leads to the dark side (imo, p0m0 / Berkeleyan nonsense :sparkle:).

Yes, as e.g. Spinoza points out, human knowledge of unbounded (infinite) reality is necessarily perspectival and therefore bounded (finite). Basic epistemic mereology (re: maps < terrain), no? Also consider the ancient method of exhaustion. I think your "strategic incompleteness" overstates the case and incoherently conflates teleology with formalism with empiricism.

My core principle is that there is always a dialectical balance in anything that could matter. A trade-off. And trade-offs ought to be optimised in a win-win fashion. That is the answer that is worth seeking. My approach leads me to pragmatism. We do the best we can by reasoning. We should always expect a complementary balance to exist in nature. Complementary balances is after all how nature can even exist. — apokrisis

:100: :fire:

Who could care about AN concerns? They are ridiculous given that there is plenty enough of pragmatic importance to be getting on with in our already extant lives.

A fashion statement and not a philosophical conundrum. — apokrisis

:up: :up:

ANists hysterically confuse 'preventing possible lives' with 'preventing (and reducing) harm to / suffering of actual lives'.

As to false hopes: one needs to go into this: false hopes about what? — Constance

"Life after death.". "Resurrection." "Past lives." "Reincarnation." "Release from the Wheel of Rebirth." Etc

bad metaphysics. This is a straw person

Your accusation of "bad metaphysics" is clearly a projection and non sequitur.

27August24

The Criminal Clown is running like a raped ape but he still can't hide ...

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4850566-superseding-indictment-trump-election-subversion-case/

Roevember is coming! :victory: :cool:

Its overpromising and underdelivering is itself metaphysics, that is, beyond verification and falsification. — Constance

:roll:

Well, ime, metaphysics – making sense in the most general way of the whole of reality – is conceptual (i.e. presuppositional > descriptive), not theoretical (i.e. propositoonal > explanatory). Besides, metaphysics does not entail the 'false hopes' which are the basis and motivators of religion.

Christian metaphysics is not at all egoic ...

All Christian sects preach that every person has an "eternal soul" (i.e. "I AM" = EGO sum (re: "imago dei")) that will be either "saved" or "damned", no? Iirc from my Jesuitical education, each follower of Christ seeks only the "eternal salvation" of his "eternal soul" ... in the world to come". Augustinian / Kierkeegardian subjectivity (i.e. "leap of faith") metaphysically screams "ME ME ME". :pray: :eyes:

what is essentially religious about our existence

Humans' denial of death via myths / symbols of 'immortality' (e.g. scapegoating, redemption / propitiation sacrifice, martyrdom, "teleological suspension of the ethical", etc) as I've pointed out on this thread ...

(page 1)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/904100

(re: religion – more broadly from another thread)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/676697

Today in Trumpenfreude ...

NASDAQ (DJT :rofl:)

16August24 – $23.06 per share
(NASDAQ 17,631.72)

Loser The Clown's pump-n-dump scam is down 40% in five months. Not bad for an OG grifter who even 3x BANKRUPTED A CASINO. — 180 Proof

26August24 – $21.72 per share :down:
(NASDAQ 17,725.77) :up:

:up: :up:

Religion's answer: know that your ego is nothing. There is a Reality that is/does without your ego. And that's your salvation from su[ff]ering. — ENOAH

This story (myth) is not "salvation" because, in fact, one's "suffering" (i.e. frustrations, fears, pains, losses, traumas, dysfunctions) ceases only with one's death. The world's oldest confidence game ritually over-promises and under-delivers: false hope. Besides, most historical religions preach that every person has an 'eternal soul' – imo, there isn't any notion that's more of an ego-fetish than this.

In general, idealism may be about a realm beyond the physical. — Jack Cummins

I think "in general, idealism" asserts that "the physical" is only an idea and not real (i.e. mind-independent). Maybe you mean platonism or cartesian dualism? :chin:

???

You would have a point if natalism and antinatalism were symmetrical- but they’re not. — schopenhauer1

They are not because "natalism" is not an ideology or doctrine or dogma –"unlike antinatalism. Natality is a biological function that animals can prevent or terminate. Having been born does not in any way entail procreating. Thus, "antinatalism". (i.e. natality : antinatalism :: mortality : denialism¹)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denialism [1]

Plato and Kant basically say that "all is maya" too by arguing "appearances are not reals" and "phenomena and not things-in-themselves", respectively, so I think in this context the specific dichotomy you draw, Jack, between Western and Eastern metaphysics is exaggerated. Also, the doctrine of "maya" is self-refuting insofar as it is "maya" as well like (existential? ontological? moral?) nihilism.

RFK is just another gaping hole in DJT's 'stay-out-of-jail' boat imo. :smirk:

Here's the crux:

Testimonial evidence only explains a subjective interpretation of a situation. And people's subjective interpretation of things is no indication of its truth as an objective reality, only the truth in that is what people feel. There are plenty of people who feel there is a God, but is that objectively true? No. — Philosophim

:100: :up:

@Jack Cummins

And, besides, what existential-pragmatic-ethical difference does it make, Jack, if metaphysically (according to some ancient tradition) "all is maya" — 180 Proof

Really? — Baden

Just a speculation, more hope than worry.

24August24

Orangeutan-see, Orangeutan-do: batshit RFK, Jr replaces fake-redneck JD Vance as VP canditate in MAGA-GOP bait-n-switch (instigated by Kelly Ann Conway) in the days or weeks to come. Will this trumpster fire blow up into a flaming hellscape by Kamala's September 10th debate beatdown? TBD.

Roevember is coming! :victory: :cool:

:lol:

:rofl: Oh Dunning-Kruger ...

So we agree: in sum, your "panENdeistic G*d" is an empty name (cipher) for mysterium tremendum (i.e. "Enformer"-of-the-gaps) that does not testably explain anything. :smirk:

We now understand the "How" of Nature much better, but not the "Why".

This is because (A) "why" (i.e. goal, purpose) only pertains to intentional agency – an unwarranted, anthropomorphic assumption – and therefore does not pertain to "Nature" itself (re: teleological / transcendental illusion (i.e. a metacognitive bias aka "pure reason")); and (B) the only answer to the foundational/ultimate "why of Nature" that does not beg the question (i.e. infinitely regress) is There Is No Why of Nature. :fire:

Well, Spinozists like me don't "believe in Spinoza's God" or that "everything is God" either because (A) only natura naturans (e.g. laws of nature) are real and (B) everything else, or natura naturata, is not real (i.e. merely exists transiently ... like breath on a mirror or footprints in beach sand at low tide or the shapes of clouds). The characters (& plot devices) in the Bible/Quran also are not divine – do not "reveal God"; they are just superstitious fictions (according to Spinoza).

"Real courage", as you say, would be to quit your "maliciously useless" life asap instead of cowardly whining on and on that you (we) "should never have been born". A coward's "coping mechanism" is living by the resentful hypocrisy of this kind of defeatist pessimism. Like daoists & epicureans, pyrrhonians & spinozists, pragmatists & absurdists..., otoh, my coping mechanism for 'radical indifference' begins and ends with defiance – memento mori :death:, memento vivere :flower:.

So, for all us dead men & women walking, to each his or her own: your cowardice (i.e. futility of preaching "nonexistence") OR our courage (i.e. agency despite existence), your defeatist pessimism (re: ideality) OR our defiant pessimism (re: reality): no doubt for many, maybe most, an involuntary – unreasonable – decision. :fire:

I don't see the relevance to the OP or to my reply to it. I didn't exoress a "belief" so much as a conceptual description / interpretation of [/i]your[/i] "what I believe about myself" in the context of the post from which its quoted.

???

God is already there is Scripture. — BitconnectCarlos

Yes, like the plot device of "Manwë" in The Silmarillion (or "Sauron" in LotR). :smirk:

The idealist's existence cannot be dependent on her idealism. — Fooloso4

True, but @Sam26 (the Jedi) might be a solipsist ..

Existence swings on the hinge of consciousness. It requires no justification. It just is. It’s the presuppositional axiom of existence. — Sam26

Existence itself is absolutely presupposed, and therefore requires no justification; also, it's self-contradictory to assume that 'IS possibly is not'. Existence "just is" the hinge on which all existing swings. Your inversion, Sam, assumes an unwarranted 'dualism' that is both incoherent and unparsimonious. Spinozism had refuted 'Cartesian duality' over three centuries ago.and Berkeley's 'subjective idealism' is clearly question-begging (see Kant's critique).

I do believe we are individuals that are part of the core mind, i.e., we are individuals that are connected with the core ... The core consciousness is constantly creating experiences for the innumerable conscious beings that are associated with the core mind ... the essence of who we are cannot be harmed ....

This :sparkle: "core mind, core consciousness" :sparkle: reminds me very much of the sage woo--woo of an ancient Jedi Master:

For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.  You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. 

*

Deceive you, eyes can. In the Force, very different each of you is.

*

Death is a natural part of life, rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force.

*

Twilight is upon me, and soon night must fall. that is the way of things. The way of the Force. — Sayings of Yoda

In sum: "NDEs" = temporary FORCE GHOSTS. :sweat:

I agree: not "malignantly indifferent", just reasonably indifferent to MALIGNANT USELESSNESS – courage – like e.g. (non-academic) epicureans, stoics, spinozists & absurdists. :fire:

Absurdism is a response, similar to existentialism, but it doesn't see the problem for what it is. — schopenhauer1

Apparently, as your 'dogmatic ontophobic idealism' shows, you do not grok absurdism as expressed by (e.g.) PW Zapffe, A. Camus, C. Rosset ... Instead, schop, you fetishize the lyrical "antinatal" musings of a minor horror novelist and latter-day disciple of a haute bourgeois, misanthropic, dyspeptic pessimist (who also happens to be a great neo-kantian philosopher).

Suppose you somehow became convinced that Christianity is false. — Art48

Raised & educated by strict Roman Catholics, I'd reach this conclusion by senior year in my Jesuit high school (though my apostasy had begun two years earlier).

Suppose you came to believe that Jesus was just a man. How would you proceed?

In the late 1970s I'd critically compared his purported teachings to that of others like Socrates, Epicurus, Buddha, Laozi, Kongzi ... who were also "just men" and had found Yeshua ben Yosef far less compelling.

What would you do?

I'd become a freethinker and naturalist / anti-supernaturalist; then had for years studied comparative religion and religious histories on my own; all the while growing more secular, even irreligious, from apostate to weak athiest to strong atheist by the mid 1990s to antitheist (with strong speculative affinities for pandeism) about two decades ago.

Make a choice and explain why.
1. This is ridiculous. Christianity IS true and that’s all there is to it. I’m not doing this silly thought experiment. Count me out. (No further explanation needed.)
2. I would become an atheist.
3. I would search for a God that isn’t false.
4. None of the above. I would do something else.

Well, as sketched above, my path had been from 4 through 3 to 2. :halo:

I wouldn't know, mister sad sack, because I'm not very sociable anymore and yet, absurdist bluesman that I am, for decades I've been growing more cheerful with age. Memento mori et memento vivere. :death: :flower:

That's the basis of my "Communities for Catharsis" and "fellow-sufferers of compassion" notion. — schopenhauer1

And yet consistent with your (Ligotti's) defeatist premises that's still a MALIGNANTLY USELESS "notion", no? :smirk:

... if one is feeling isolated, lonely, and the only one suffering, it may be best to communicate this in a communal way with others feeling the same way. — "schopenhauer1

Yeah, of course, because (like in cults, asylums, prisons, marriages) misery does love company. :mask:

Of course, as previously noted, this presupposes a considerable reduction in population. That's not something I advocate - that's something I predict. — Vera Mont

:up: :up:

"Utopia?"

a post-scarcity, philanthropic AGI-managed (automated), sprawl-free municipality (arcology) — 180 Proof

Likewise, we don't know what G*D is, — Gnomon

On the contrary, g/G is an empty name that

only what it does:

pacifies the superstitious. :pray:

a hypothetical explanation for the existence of [ ... ]

If this "hypothetical explanation" is testable, then cite such a test or what one might be in principle; however, if it is not testable, then there is not any reason to consider g/G an "explanation" for anything at all.

:smirk:

:up: