A blend between Pascals wager but for knowledge and Newtons Flaming laser sword (I would apologise about the classification but to classify seems to fit with your structure). Explains why PM doesn't float your boat. Appreciate you explaining.

but like a pick can unearth gold — Kenosha Kid

Gold has never seemed profound to me either!

I would say I am very similar in many regards to what you describe, particularly the grounding in phenomenology helping to justify why I seek what I seek.

Opposingly I don't find science profound at all. Science by its very nature is methodic and determinate. It's the unknown aspects of the human mind, the potential substrait indepdence of it, that i find truly profound. Kant I think talks about similar ideas, science is a tool of the human mind, it is entirely possible that science will be an inadequate tool to describe the human mind with.

key to salvaging my philosophical views from abject nihilism, — Pfhorrest

I would be really interested in understanding how, coming out of a nihilistic viewpoint, you didn't land on post modernist thinking? Nihilism to me is where one lands when they realise nothing can be concretely justified and that everything requires some level of belief. Post Modernism takes that and accepts it. Recognising it cannot be an end point in itself, but that it is most likely just that.

People train themselves to do this. Most socially-enculturated humans without developmental issues get bored. It's a fact — schopenhauer1

I completely agree that most do, but trying to equate the majority of a time period with any kind of truth context has failed miserable throughout time. Slavery being the easiest example to point to of general agreement shown over time as a naive, outdated way of thinking. Similar to what I equate your observation to.

Labelling existence as such massively over simplified principles is appealing to the meta narratives of the time, indefensible beyond just "being so" and affirming their existence. I'm not one to fall back on science and statistics but building your worldview on such ideas has never stood the test of time, in the history of world. So to believe yours are somehow different, a stretch to me.

That's the point, it ISN'T by definition, part of our existence. We CAN'T escape it — schopenhauer1

So by not escaping it and it being true by default, it surely is by definition, no? Can a triangle escape from having 3 sides?

The rest, if you accept the nihilistic determinism of your life then you are free to prescribe meaning beyond being bored or uncomfortable. I dont disagree that strife and pain are a part of life, i merely disagree that you should fight it or be disappointed by it. Accept it as part of this ryzhomatic society and culture you are forcible born into, and choose to take from it a completely subjective set of goals and opinions.

The meta narrative simply being that you are free to choose everything, your pain, your pleasure and everything in between. I'm for sure biased now into the post modern views, but i am yet to see any argument that provides any concrete basis for existing in any different way. All your assertions have no further justification than being "just so". Indefensible in a wider philsophical context. I don't deny that pragmatism requires more than just PM, but setting worldviews around anything else seems naive and outdated.

Religion as texts, are open to interpretation in many different ways using many different cultural sub-contexts. Similarly with all systems of belief it is an ambiguous set of principles that generally only excludes things, leaving the available set of principles infinite.

A set of values picked from the religious set, is no more or less authentic than those arrived at without religious precedent. Both are concluded at by the individual, through their life experience and their learning.

I'm not sure what basis you could possibly argue that they are somehow less authentic purely because there may be a seemingly large intersection with other peoples values? (hence the importance of the many I mentioned before)

How about you? What changing thinking have you experienced? — Bitter Crank

Unfortunately since I left university I've been in somewhat of an echo chamber without many others around me interested in philosophy and more specifically, what is the meaning and purpose to life.

I think the main idea that blew me away, although it ends up consuming itself, is actually structuralism.
Identifying the potential boundary of limitations and opening up the scope of what could have been missed, was something that blew even Kant's limitations of knowledge out the window for me. Simply because Kant focused on the boundary only in what was impossible to know, whereas structuralism was much more targeted at what we as society "missed". The level of responsibility it implied was something I definitely carried through the most into my life.

We may be condemned to be free, but we are not free not to die. We are not free not to be uncomfortable. We are not free to not be bored. — schopenhauer1

I don't think you can count the impossible as a choice. I think you may agree that choice would be the set of all possibilities that could be actualized in your life. Talking about choice beyond that simply doesn't make sense. If we don't set this definition, we end up talking in nonsensical terms such as choosing whether blue is a colour.

I would disagree that we are free not to be bored or uncomfortable. I think the most obvious way to demonstrate this is by pointing out that even on a bed of nails, some find it comfortable. Even in isolation, some are never bored. So to arrive at your assertion, you would need to define the words as things guaranteed to occur. Thus stripping their negation from the set of all life possibilities.

We cannot just "be" we are always "becoming". — schopenhauer1

I'm sure you would call it striving ey Schopenhauer ;)

Just as with Arthur, I disagree with you here. You are setting the rules of engagement without any logical foundation to them. Claiming things must be so and not justifying why.
- Our wills need to survive. What is suicide but a logical contradition to this so called universal law
- comfort. What about those who seek discomfort, even enjoy pain.
Unjustified, unverified rules of engagement.

It's always trying to get the next thing — schopenhauer1

Again these rules of engagement are unjust. We observe time (at least in a spatial sense) linearly. Therefore we are always, by definition, moving to the next thing. This is not a choice. To Just Be, would to somehow be able to freeze time. So to build premises around what life is, based on such self fulfilling terminology doesn't make sense.

but we are never content — schopenhauer1

And to hit the proverbial nail on the head of why Post Modernism is, to me, the only way to Be. Contentness comes from within yourself. If you give up the meta narratives and accept full responsibility, absurdity and possibility for your life, contentness and everything else become states you choose. You can define your contentness to be that encompassing moments of not being content. It is not an infinite subdivisible moment of measurability, contentness is cumulative.
I think my favourite iconography from all of philosophy was whem Camus sketches out;

While Sysphus was condemmed to push the boulder, he was not condemned to be sad whilst doing so

The freedom this perspective offers when you abondon the meta narratives and recognise choice for what it is and can be, seems only achievable through post modernist thinking.

Hence What is it good for, absolutely EVERYTHING.

My first argument against gets very semantic and situational which id be tentative to give. The more reasonable approach would be to ask if this reversion would be identical to before, or merged with the newer thought. Again providing the novelty required. Battle testing ideas with new scenarios is novel progress in my book, but I recognise this could be subjective!

Correct by definition it is unbounded. Which is the "good" I perceive from it.

Novelty as progress — Yellow Horse

I challenge you to explain any such case of progress not being novel. Real or abstract.

I'm not and apologise if you think I'm intellectually dishonest in it. I don't perceive religious dogma as an entire package. I don't believe all religious beliefs are a full package, people tend to pick and choose but based on a predetermined structure. Similarly to other sets of beliefs that don't come as full package but are chosen from a set of learned academic ideologies.

I'm attempting to highlight the death of discussion when you boil things down to a "just-so" axiom which is where Camus came from, at least in my interpretation. Atheism is one way to ensure this non suicide when it comes to religious based views but I don't think it is the only example of philosophical suicide. I would extend it to believing in any universal system. Ironically still applying to the belief that there is no universal system.

There just is in fact, no place to move, no place to go, no such thing as a Utopia even in principle. — schopenhauer1

So this is where I find the value of postmodernism. No predetermined hierarchies. No utopia. Pure choice. Historically people have needed narrow illogical frameworks to motivate themselves to restlessly strive forward. Think clergy building stability via monogamous societies. I don't think its a leap to suggest this may be a cultural characteristic, not intrinsic. And in the future we recognise the grey, ambiguous, interconnectedness of everything which will lead to fascinating new insights and innovations.

I think it has everywhere to go as it is not bounded by a systematic framework of restrictions or isolated thinking. Always looking for a critique though so please fire away!

if you authentically arrive at a common position — Kenosha Kid

The many is incredibly relevant. What I'm eluding to is that non of your ideas were arrived at independently in a different sense to those who follow religion. Unless you were somehow not exposed to academia or society as a whole, you were influenced into a set of beliefs.

You are just defining pre-packaged purely on the number of others who prescribe to it. Whereas your life view is somehow arrived at by you and you alone. I think that seems like the stretch.

The golden rule is a fantastic example of a "just-so" rule. I saw someone else put up a damming argument resolving around raising children to be Christian when you are not a Christian. The golden rule has no logical basis.

In this regard, it is ineffective, escapist, and doesn't change the dull reality any ounce. At best it creates insensible sentimentality to try to console, but mainly it is simply the reiteration that there is no where to go, nothing to do. — schopenhauer1

I find it fascinating that with such a strong grasp of postmodernist ideas, you end up at "no where to go, nothing to do" (it makes me immediately turn inwards to try and find what I missed)

The non prescriptive nature of postmodernist thinking has the potential to be freeing, as the only framework without a "system" which provides infinite options and 0 hard restrictions.

It quite literally puts all of the power of life in your hands whilst simultaneously highlighting that all other (current) systems demand you remove some level of that responsibility and place it externally.

There are a lot of things postmodernism is not great at, most obvious being the pragmatic movement forward of society (on whatever level). However it is the single greatest defence humans have against external dangerous human thought.

But it isn't that person's authentic meaning, it's an off-the-shelf, prepackaged meaning that someone else thought up. — Kenosha Kid

Your authentic self similarly would be off-the-shelf and prepackaged to many many others.

Religion offers a golden stamp of validity to many subjective notions. Whatever path you take to arrive at them and then act upon them, would be your authentic self. Equivalently for non religious belief sets.


By accepting religion, you are prescribing to a dogmatic set of rules. These can't be arrived at rationally by any other means except for them being "just so".
In this respect, it's absolutely philosophical suicide as you are killing the opportunity for further discussion and logical conclusion on these points.