A person who feels this way might ask themselves, how much effort have they invested in seeing if that's true? If none, then that explains that. — Hippyhead

Determinism is clear, a man cannot want what he wants.

Suffering is made of thought. Five words, which contain a path forward if you want it. — Hippyhead

suffering is not temporary to surpass, it is permanent, it is infact life itself, meaning you ultimately are just suffering with breaks,
you might feel happy now, tomorrow you will probably feel worse, there will always be that bad day, always, there is no escaping that

nah it just tastes good, and honestly I would classify living as group 1 carcinogen

pain is a part of suffering

I would disagree somewhat I think not only the close future but the long term one are all full of suffering, I'd say it is not something to embrace, it is something already in the living condition and always will be, it can only be masked never truly removed, hence it is not a tool, it is us.
meaning, it is not something good to embrace for me at least, because it is not something embraceable

I lean towards those things as being objectively bad. — Philosophim

why is it objectively bad in this instance?

the mind or consciousness is a process, the brain occupies space, the electrochemical signals do, consciousness is just a result or outcome of such, it doesn't need to occupy space

Well, if we actually want to suffer, then I suppose it isn't. Let's take a poll. Everybody who wants to suffer, please raise your hand! Sorry to be sarcastic, but do we really have to debate this? — Hippyhead

argumentum ad populum in this case, I wouldn't follow

Suffering is made of thought. Literally made of thought. That's what I'm referring to. So to the degree one is not thinking, suffering vanishes. And that absence of suffering does not cause suffering in another. — Hippyhead

you cannot just stop thinking about depression? or not think about your dad beating you right there and then, this imaginary idealism is just that, trying to live in an imaginary world for an abstract cause of maximizing good.

There is truth in what you say here. There is however a third option which is neither happiness or suffering. Let's call it peace, just to apply a convenient label. — Hippyhead

Death basically is the only state with neither

Happiness is, say, when we want something and we get it. Suffering is when we want something and don't get it. Peace is when we don't want. — Hippyhead

a man can never not want, unless that man no longer is

Both happiness and suffering are made of thought. Thought will inevitably generate the dance between the two. And we have to think to survive, so some degree of suffering is inevitable. We agree on this.
So as human beings we can't escape suffering completely.

But we CAN manage the level of suffering. — Hippyhead

you can only trick yourself and cover the suffering with a mask, doesn't mean the suffering won't be there.

Do you want to suffer? Yes? Or No?

If yes, then that is your right and none of anybody else's business.

If no, then a rational conversation would focus on maximizing the good. — Hippyhead

A False dichotomy, neither, why do I need to want any of them,
and why is suffering bad? just because we regard it as so?

its the death of the Idea of freedom itself, the death of the ways of the enlightenment,
America isn't free, or a good country, but it stood for such, it was a corrupt symbol for freedom, and sadly it was the only, and when the American era ends, another shall begin, full of totalitarianism, and Slavery.
the world's shadow would be cast on freedom, as the world itself loses its meaning, and everything around it starts to decay.
does this mean America dying is good or bad? it's both.

And my argument is, whether this is true or not, it's not rational to keep saying it over and over because that doesn't accomplish anything. What's rational is to try to do something about it. — Hippyhead

why is doing something rational?

Sorry, blatantly false statement. Once it's seen that suffering is made of thought, the door is open to do something about it. You already saw this when you said failure is subjective. — Hippyhead

yes, and its subjectiveness means one man's happiness is anothers suffering, that's ultimately inevitable, there is no happiness without suffering, hence its just a layer, a mask upon suffering, a tool in which the irrational wille zum leben utilizes to keep you here, to reproduce.

The child is most likely starving because most people have not bothered to try to manage their suffering, or have no idea how, and thus seek to fill the empty void in their souls with various forms of greed. — Hippyhead

Hate, and greed, are the main tools of this will, they inevitably cause the child to suffer, even if there were no children starving, a new problem will arise, everyone in the big picture will utlimately be suffering

I don't object to such a weighing process, so long as it is subservient to a serious attempt to maximize the good and minimize the bad. I do object to such a process if it is a replacement for constructive action. — Hippyhead

why do things need to maximize good? why do so?

Hi again Augustusea, I'm enjoying our exchanges. — Hippyhead

Moi aussi mon amie.

Again, I'm not denying the existence of suffering, which in some cases can be quite profound. I'm just not willing to make the leap from "suffering exists" to "life is suffering" in the sweeping global sense which some wish to take it to. Life includes suffering, is not equal to, life is suffering. — Hippyhead

Life is suffering is like an extra simplified version of what we mean which is, that the sum of all live beings consciousness equals into suffering, or in other words, if the experiences of every mind of every being are all combined, suffering would outweigh happiness by a lot, which is not a leap and is quite reasonable, so this would mean, to live is to mainly suffer, anything else is just a side,
as for happiness, it always comes from suffering of one person, therefore can be argued to actually not exist in the large scheme of things for humans.

My argument is that it would be most rational to come down off the big grand sweeping dreary philosophical cloud that people like Arthur Schopenhauer inhabit, and instead focus as clearly as we can on the problem of suffering, and what we can do about it. I'm not arguing a perfect solution is available, only that any partial solution is more rational than wringing our hands, embracing defeatism, and whining about the human condition etc. — Hippyhead

suffering is not something we can do anything about, you can stop a certain amount of suffering, but you would never be able to achieve a perfect, perfection is impossible,
anywho point is,
truly, you can never actually remove suffering without creating new suffering, basically its either negative or zero, never positive, which can be proven, more then happiness which gets cancelled out

My argument is that useful solutions lie in the direction of the insight you've already had. Failure is subjective. Or to put it another way, suffering is made of thought. — Hippyhead

that is correct, and it is impossible to stop pain, suffering or failure, as long as they are so,
one mans "happiness" is anothers suffering.

There are other healthier means of thought management such as meditation. Some people go fishing, or walk in the woods, the possibilities are nearly endless. — Hippyhead

why would managing it matter? when a child is starving half the way across the globe

The point here is that it's not rational to get all wound up in how sad life is etc until such means of addressing the suffering are fully explored. Arthur Schopenhauer is not rational, he's just a sad grumpy old man who is attempting to elevate his personal situation to a global sweeping statement. — Hippyhead

I do not see how that is not rational or illogical, to view all the good and bad in the world and weight them,
well he wasnt as grumpy, Mrs. Schopenhauer kept him some company as his neighbors called it

Veganism means one does not wish to use animal products at all, but not all animal products require the killing and hurting of animals. So by what you've said it seems you're not primarily interested in veganism — Tzeentch

well logical veganism lets dub it

Would you consider it immoral for a hunter to kill an old, sickly member of a herd of animals in order for a young one to survive? This happens commonly to avoid healthy wildlife from starving. Let us also assume the hunter is skilled, and is able to ensure a painless death. — Tzeentch

I personally (am not a vegan) would say its moral as it is a prevention of pain for both.

..because morality is made by humans, for humans. Its not made by living creatures for living creatures, its not made by humans for living creatures. Its a human thing, for humans. — DingoJones

why? who said so? and why?

would skinning a cat live be moral in this case? would torturing any none human be moral?

and what makes us different from animals other then our moral judgement (which not all of us even have)

killing and hurting animals

Remember, I said morality is made by humans, for humans. Babies are humans. — DingoJones

and my point was that your argument of them not being moral agents does not entirely fall upon all humans,
and even then they are living creatures what would make us be moral to humans and not them?

it wasn't a complete betrayal, since I believe we were given more special treatment then any other nation, more support and aid,
but when they put King Faisal I in power after a referendum, they didn't assign it as the arab iraqi kingdom, but they attempted to create a unique iraqi identity which still lasts to this day

the current nation in its current form was actually made in 1920 by the British and Arab revolutionaries, it was based upon secular, multicultural, and modern values,
modern iraqi with its current religious backgrounds, borders and people, started in the 900s, it was called wadi al rafidain (mesopatamia), or Iraq (its a very very old name coming from Babylonian times)

Religious, Sunni Shia,
currently its moving towards islamist and secular

what about human infants, they're not moral agents as they do not understand or comprehend such concepts? should we we not be moral to them?

ok so it started just before the mongol invasion, some sunni islamic scholars starting takfiring shiites (takfiring is basically calling them infidels)
and from there it started a little, and then post mongols, came the persian invasions, the persians were shiite, and adopted some very sectarian policies, and that all went on until the ottomans took over, then post ottoman, the ressurection of sectarianism came after the fall of the monarchy in 1958, because baathist took over and some were against shiites, then you had saddam and iran come and fuck it beyond belief

Iraq never included jordan, iraq is mainly the land between the two rivers, thats it for its actual borders

and no, because there was never a greater israel who included iraq,
and there was a caliphate once, but its a different one and under it iraq had close to the current borders

anywho I see that the continuation of this specific line of debate as unproductive and so I will not continue on this specifically but anything else I will

borders weren't very different
anywho, I mean ones who think Iraq should be in their potential future state, and such wouldn't be classified as history

Seems to me that the national boarders were intentionally designed by the League of Nations to keep Iraq unstable. I don't see any way to reverse the disaster caused by the Mandate for Mesopotamia. Perhaps a redrawing of boarders would help - I'm interested in your view on that. It didn't go well for Pakistan and Bangladesh, at least to start with. — Banno

I would disagree, the problem with Iraq isn't the borders but the acceptance and education, multiculturalism can be quite successful, in iraq the conditions for such success weren't present, so we ended up here,
back in the abbasid times the borders were close to their current form, but there werent sectarianism or issues, its a recently developed thing

thats not history thats future wannabes,
but technically iraq was under an islamic caliphate, and the center of one,
and was neighboring to israel

nice we're getting into metaphilosophy,

Philosophy is a study or questioning, of everything really,
and its only tool is logic and reason,
that I think is the definition of philosophy,

Philosophy is also the attempt to reason, and being open to reason. Where reason is rejected, unless on grounds of better reason, or ignored or dismissed out-of-hand, that is not philosophy. Indeed it is anti-philosophy and an enemy of philosophy, practitioners anti-philosophers and enemies of philosophy — tim wood

isn't anti philosophy a philosophy in itself?

the answer is not impossible quite the contrary,
you have an evil of millions of lives being taken, torture, mental and physical pain, all combined through all of history, what is comparable or even close to this amount of pain? but in happiness? having children? only for them to go through the same pains? or getting promoted? supporting a system of untold economic slavery and possibly contributing to war through the taxes you pay, what is there of happiness that is not actually just pain hidden under layers?
you're saying its impossible and instead we should focus on improvement? isn't this an argumentum ad ignoratiam?

1) Schopenhauer, is someone who I admire his works but do not fully agree with, in my very short time on this earth, I've seen the worst it has to offer, so my face would be worse then his if I were to reach that age

2)Suffering is indeed made out of the conscious of living creatures, as it is dependent on their existence,
but if I think happy lovey dovy stuff all day, that doesn't mean some women is not getting raped, or some child is not dying, it means that I just have chose to close my eyes to reality in favor of the mask of happiness which would be ultimately irrelevant.

how come that is the rational thing?
Pain always outweighs happiness, if you could name on instance where this isn't the case then I'd be happy to change my mind

minutia-mongering as @schopenhauer1 called it,
as for suffering, tell me, what is this good thing that happened that can be argued to be equivalent to the bad that is the Beirut explosion for example?
also removal of bad thing (such as vaccines) doesn't equal a good thing, it just means that a bad thing has been removed
Nature is inherently full of suffering, as the suffering outweigh any actual good, and I would argue good is only a mask infront of the suffering, since ultimately every good comes at the cost of some sort of suffering.

how can you fight the deterministic and pessimistic nature of existence? what can you do to stop that or even change it in the slightest when looking at the big picture?
if it wasn't well communicated I was only talking about the situation only philosophically, there is nothing a person can do except be angry at it,
as for how to be angry at it is something for him to decide

I don't believe so, it still falls within the physical realm
a conscious mind is a process, not an object for it to be disproven like so, just like a cake mixer being turned on is a process with electricity passing through it, all still falls under the physical realm.

Thanks!
I find the view of yours very coherent, and I would agree with,
but for OP I think his problem mainly doesn't stem from pessimism itself, but what he ought to do about it, I think he has not realized there isn't anything to do actually, other then look cold and angry at existence beating its you down, you can't do anything else, even suicide is not actually suicide, its existence always murdering you in this case, so it could be accounted as rebellion to give that angry look, or it could be counted as the only thing you could actually do about it.

I am not quite good at the emotions department, but I as a pessimist can maybe help philosophically,
Pessimism doesn't inevitably lead to suicide, it doesn't actually lead to anything, its left for you to determine it,
now another thing most pessimist tend to forget is determinism, and that you aren't actually committing suicide, life and existence are inherently the ones that killed you using your own hands,
which makes it have zero difference compared to normal death,


now lastly, pessimism doesn't entail sitting down doing nothing all day or ending your life, it only entails one thing, everything is meaningless, worthless, you could still be a very accomplished pessimist who believes in pessimism yet just works because why the hell not?
also the definition of failure is relative, a few thousand years ago you being 38 would have been a great accomplishment, failure doesn't actually exist in some sense, its purely subjective.

you should try to do things for the sake of doing rather then just indulging in pessimism, this is ironic coming from me, but the rule is do as I say not as I do

S: Schopenhauer, Camus, and Aristotle

A: Kant, Zhangzhou, Buddha and Confusious

B: Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Mill

C: Aurelius, Epicurus and Avicenna

D: Ibn al Haytham, Rawls, Locke and Marx

E: Hume and Hegel

F: Michel Aflaq, Plato, and Ghazali

but that's quite irrelevant,
point is under Classical Abrahamic religious standards, Omniscience causes a contradiction or a problem, but person seems to claim it doesn't without any logical backing, I deduced its dogmatism,
but I asked here trying to see if there is something I am ignorant of

I don't think it exposes a fatal flaw in his beliefs, just a fatal flaw in his definitions. — Philosophim

it is quite fatal for Islamic beliefs, as they are very dependent on the Idea of judgment,
determinism quite kills that Idea, even under compatibilism, it would just mean his god is evil, which would defy god's omnibenevolence, thus making such god illogical, or contradictory to have the same traits at the same time.

"As knowledgeable as a being can be." You can site the fact that God genuinely does not know what a person will do before they do it, as why would God bother telling people to act a certain way? — Philosophim

as for here, God knows everything under islamic definitions, even texts point out how he knows how you will die before you are born, but he still claims this illogical contradictory position, of both free will and gods omniscience

Iran is more diverse that is correct, how is it any better now? I dont understand that point,

what I listed above doesnt make iraq any better or superior, it just is what makes it different,

and no the relevant history is that of the people, it goes far beyond that

Practically similar according to Ottoman structuring,
Iraq is more diverse then saudi or jorden,
not entirely arabic speaking either,
has a bigger sunni shia divide then syria
and Iraq has the oldest history and the most different amount of identities out of all of them,
a very multicultural and multi ethnic place

you realize these baath parties were seperate and had quite different approaches and were undeclared enemies?
every country is unique, thats a true term, it doesn't entail nationalism
1920 the borders of iraq were the same as they are now.

cannot differentiate bad philosophy from good philosophy.

there exists no such thing as bad philosophy, except plato's of course

Iraq is actually the same borders from 100 years ago technically, but anywho
why would what you heard from other individuals matter in this argument? it doesn't add, decrease or make any point valid or invalid,
I think yes Iraq is unique in history and is quite different to all of those, as they are also different to each other

conclude that death is not inherently bad, but also that life is worth living; These two premises are contradictory in my opinion. If something (life) is worth keeping, then surely the removal of said thing is inherently negative

Isn't this a false dilemma you're committing here?
for example life ought to be lived is a good statement, but that doesn't necessarily entail death being a bad state, there is nothing to entail so,

but as for my opinion, I believe the "a person ought to live but death isn't bad" statement comes from a place of both the wille zum leben and the rational mind, since there is nothing that inherently makes living an ought except the irrational force of the wille zum leben in my belief.