We have no organ at all for knowledge, for truth: we know (or believe or imagine) precisely as much as may be useful in the interest of the human herd, the species: and even what is here called usefulness is in the end only a belief, something imagined and perhaps precisely that most fatal piece of stupidity by which we shall one day perish. — Tom Storm

I don't know if that was actually devised by Nietzsche, but it definitely appears characteristic of him. As you'll know, most of Beyond Good and Evil's opening paragraphs were dedicated to repudiating the motives of Western Philosophers as being expedient, and indeed cowardly (since they were, at least in part, unwilling to justify why truths were preferable to untruths - a property he termed the Will to Truth). It's a key insight, since it sheds light on what we're best at - believing and acting exactly as we need to in order to achieve sustenance, before convincing ourselves that we're aiming at a higher ideal.

I'm a critic of his, if anything.

I wouldn't care so much if they had anything useful to say, though. — Xtrix

We shouldn't seek to devolve into an infinite regress of quotations.

Those who are "fans" won't be swayed anyway. Likewise for Peterson's following.
— Xtrix — Xtrix

I'm not a follower of his, only someone who is familiar with his doctrines.

They shouldn't be contextualized together, because they use entirely contrasting areas of knowledge to construct their arguments.

How do you recognize it as self-indulgence if the individual is blind to the effects of good or bad? — SteveMinjares

One of the markers of self-indulgence in this regard, perhaps, is losing a sight of one's ends while being immersed in their means. For instance, if one were to begin rationalizing hedonistic impulses, or detracting from the welfare of those around them whilst doing so, that might be a time to halt.

Either way, I think some differentiating signifier (between what's good and what isn't) needs to be present.

If the individual self impose a denial to the effects just to continue justifying indulgence. How do you recognize? — SteveMinjares

I'm not sure. If one is self-imposing an ignorance, then they by definition won't recognize a self-indulgence.

Is it better to be ignorant or not? — SteveMinjares

There's an entire realm of thought dedicated to this question, and I don't think I'm nearly educated enough to begin to contemplate it, let alone answer it.

It's a personal misgiving to think this fraud is "profound." What is claimed without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. A rather thorough, accurate article is all you deserve -- and you're lucky you got that. Please go read more Maps of Meaning and be happy with it, I don't care. — Xtrix

This is indicative of Hitchens' razor.

Peterson’s reading of writers like Nietzsche isnt wildly outside the mainstream , it’s simply on the conservative end of that spectrum, which I think explains a lot of the hostility he gets from the left. To readers like me, Nietzsche is offering an exciting and profound worldview that is still ahead of its time 140 years later, so its a bit depressing to say the least when he is reduced to a mouthpiece for 19th century liberalism. — Joshs

Exactly. He has one edifice of interpretations, that is rigid, well-structured and thoroughly developed over two or three decades. Naturally, one caveat is that a number of his assertions on Nietzsche aren't actually tenable or universally agreeable, because he aligns them with his beliefs; but that's a price that anyone pays when listening to a critique.

Insofar as Dostoevsky, Nietzsche and Jung's ideas are concerned, he's a messenger, as opposed to an originator. That's why it's preferable for one to first read any texts by quintessential philosophers and academics, instead of characterizing them by virtue of how other individuals construe them.

Is rationalizing existence beneficial to the quality of life to community and the individual?

Or is it a form of self-indulgence that can lead to other forms of self mutilation and mutilation of community? — SteveMinjares

That is, in all likelihood, dependent on how it's undertaken. Most individuals are oriented differently; some live their lives without rationalizing, and others can't live without it. Of course, if it devolves into a form of self-indulgence at any stage, it should be discontinued.

What this means is the brain now thinks that the other organ systems are there to serve it. When this happens, the brain refuses to acknowledge its true purpose as nothing more than a conductor for the orchestra of organ systems that our bodies are made of and the rest, as you know, is history - the search for the meaning of life, a rationale for existence, is simply the brain attempting a coup d'etat, rather unsuccessfuly given the fact that the tentative consensus seems to be that life is meaningless. — TheMadFool

That's an intriguing hypothesis. Most of these additive functions (meta-functions of survival, in a way) perhaps evolved after the human race mastered its own survival, to the extent that directing any other biological resources towards that end was merely decorative.

It doesn't make sense to invite secondary sources for the determination of one's stances on primary sources.

Exalted, no. That I have standards, yes. If you call asking for something beyond truisms "exalted," that's your issue. I asked for what exactly the "work" is. You, like all those taken in by Peterson's superficiality, can't point to any. I suppose "cleaning your room" is one piece of that profound work? — Xtrix

Have you read Maps of Meaning? Have you seen his lectures of Existentialist Psychology? Are you acquainted with his contentions to New Atheism?

Both are pseudo-intellectual charlatans. A lot of posturing, a lot of appeals to the masses, a lot of truisms dressed up, lots of italics, and absolutely no real work whatsoever. Not one thing they say can be disproved— by design. — Xtrix

Most philosophical assertions are fallible in one form or another, and they are no exception; they've been contended on many accounts. Posturing is quintessential of every academic.

What? — Bartricks

Well, let's see if we can quote you in replying.

Like I say, I'd be more worth my while explaining it to my cat. — Bartricks

You want me to prove God? — Bartricks

Dunning and Kruger. Your expertise? — Bartricks

I think you're declaiming a metaphysical proof of a transcendental entity that has historically eluded natural philosophers, scientists and thinkers, and then criticising a detractor for being uninformed.

Please be careful, while scaling down that mountain of sanctimony. It's fairly high.

Zizek and Peterson. This is what we spend our time reading? Good heavens. — Xtrix

JP, albeit first a professor, has spent the entirety of his career either in creating self-help advice or disseminating mythological interpretations (encompassing evolutionary biology, cognitive/social psychology and even metaphysics). He's definitely laid forth a substantive, and profound set of arguments that underpin the utility of theistic beliefs, pinpointing how entrenched they are in the recesses of Western Civilizations. He's not infallible; there are assertions of his that I believe are overly abstract, or without a concrete and practical realization.

Zizeck, on the other hand, is an academic philosopher - and while several individuals interpret him as being solely a Marxist, he's made amazing contributions towards Hegelianism (and certain psychoanalytic fields). Again, he has thousands of critics, many of whom label him a polemicist (and perhaps he is), but he's been crucial in the sustenance and teaching of Hegelian values.

Exactly. JP's a brilliant thinker, but he can be reductive in his interpretations. It doesn't help that he's evasive in pinpointing what God even entails for him, which is why his conceptualizations (literally) span across psychological, biological and metaphysical domains. It's nearly implausible to be consistent on that scale, and successfully refute an atheistic synthesis of moral being. And lastly, there emerging a nihilistic catastrophe in the aftermath of God's death isn't actually an argument for God's existence (I think you'll agree).

If one were to momentarily discount Anti-theistic arguments altogether, there is a meaning attached to metaphorical parables, scriptures, and myths, all of whom consolidate each other, into organized belief. Nevertheless, I don't concur with the narrative's misapprehensions of Secular Atheism. Stalinism and Maoism shouldn't be ascribed in entirety to Godlessness, and any saccharine mode of existence shouldn't be ascribed to its contrary (Godliness) either. Moral values and virtues don't have to stem from faith; deriving them from first principles is tedious, but nonetheless far more tenable. This is because they distil ethics insulated from a codified and often authoritarian system of thought.

I might not be replying to this thread anymore.

So far as I can tell, what you were using that thicket of words to try and do was to ask was why, if God exists, would it be reasonable to conclude that this world is a prison. — Bartricks

Not quite. I was asking why you thought the world was equivalent to a prison, as an a priori truth (independent of any theistic or non-theistic constraints).

Well, I explained why our lives here can safely be taken to serve some kind of a purpose if God exists. Because you don't know an argument from your elbow, here it is all nicely laid out:

1. If God exists, no ignorance or suffering would occur in a life without it serving some purpose
2. Our lives here contain much ignorance and suffering
3. Therefore, if God exists our lives here serve some purpose — Bartricks

1 is once again not a rationale; it's a supposition, which you may have acknowledged to be a premise. Why would suffering be absent without a purpose, if God was existent? It's not self-evident. It's only if you presuppose an omnibenevolent being, with a specific set of moral virtues, one of whom is ennoblement through suffering, that one can arrive at that conclusion. God, as a term, might be reductive here; that's one contention.

1, 2 and 3 are likely complementary to one another, if that matter is resolved.

1. If God exists, God would not suffer innocent people to live lives containing much ignorance and suffering
2. Our lives here contain much ignorance and suffering
3. Therefore, if God exists we are not innocent. — Bartricks

1 is predicated on an idiosyncratic understanding of God, and his/her motives, if an anthropomorphism is even appropriate.

The same goes for any other purpose. Namely, the purpose either seems inconsistent with being moral, or seems inefficiently realized in this world. Thus, retribution is left as the only plausible contender - extremely plausible given that we already know that our lives do have a purpose and that we are not innocent. — Bartricks

If an objective is inefficiently realized, then why would an omnipotent entity refrain from intervening? And what does 'retribution' entail, precisely? If you're referring to a literal variant of retribution, shouldn't it imply an egalitarian result (equivalently imprisoning and tyrannizing everyone)? Isn't this inconsistent with how the world's socioeconomic order is organized, for instance?

If you've attempted to answer the cardinal question (why the world is a prison), then from what I can infer, you've invoked a retributive objective as a means to doing so.

They 'are' arguments, it is just that you lack the comprehension skills to see this. — Bartricks

Of course.

What? So, I make an argument - two arguments, in fact - and your response is to dismiss the entire project of using reasoned argument to find out about the world. Excellent. What you actually mean is that you want to believe whatever the hell you want and if anyone dares to use reason to arrive at a different view, then reasoned argument is to be dismissed. — Bartricks

They aren't argument that are commensurate with your assertions. You're eliciting
tangential ideas, and implicitly restating statements of contention. You've not once explicated why the world is a prison; only having used propositions of it being rife with malevolence and connivance. Why is it a prison, though? Incarceration implies isolation, abject and unfettered suffering, being bereft of one's elementary liberties and existing in a downtrodden fashion. You can use practical examples that underpin those traits.

Well then why did he make it such that people CAN procreate in the first place? Him being omnipotent could’ve made it otherwise. Why is he giving us criminals the ability to bring in more people?
— khaled

Why wouldn't he? No harm is done. They, by procreating, make themselves deserving of another lifetime in the prison. Good - that's what they deserve - and further accommodation is provided for other criminals (two birds, one stone). And those who listen to reason and decide instead either not to bring what they suppose to be innocent people into an ignorant and dangerous world, or - realizing this is a prison and that everyone here is getting what they deserve - decides not to be presumptuous and to set themselves up as a vigilante decides instead just to take their licks - will no doubt do well at their parole hearing, for they will have freely shown themselves not to be a self-indulgent busy-body git. — Bartricks

'No harm is done'? If no harm is done, then why is this a transgression? This analogy's not likely to be valid, and its representations of a presumed God are equivalent to that of a tyrant (albeit that's not unforeseeable). How can an entity be omniscient if it allows for any lapses, or omnibenevolent despite passively witnessing suffering?

If you abnegate Empirical constructs, and leap to a omniscient entity without an underlying genesis, you will reaffirm your faith in any God.

In exactly what way consciousness emerged via evolution is a mystery, but we can be fairly certain about what had to obtain in order for it to be possible. Initially, electrical properties in aggregates of tissue such as the brain needed to be robust enough that a stable supervenience of electromagnetic field (EMF) was created by systematic electrical fluxing. — Enrique

EMF refers to an electromotive force; are you denoting the emergence of one, or merely abbreviating an Electromagnetic Field?

Quantum features of biochemistry have likely been refined evolutionarily so that mechanisms by which relative nonlocality affects organisms, mechanisms of EMF/matter interfacing, mechanisms targeting particular environmental stimuli via functionally tailored pigments along with further classes of molecules and cellular tissues, and mechanisms for translation of stimulus into representational memory all became increasingly coordinated until an arrangement involving what we call ‘intentionality’ emerged, a mind with executive functions of deliberative interpretation and strategizing, beyond mere reflex-centric memory conjoined to stimulus/response. — Enrique

How are you substantiating, if at all, these assertions? Relative Nonlocality is not a notion pertinent to evolutionary concepts. I'm not educated enough to meaningfully apprehend your statements on representational memory, though.

Wait, don't we all have one? Electing to underpin your being with a rationale(s) is voluntary, isn't it?

Deciphering wasn't perhaps a wise choice, then.
There doesn't have to a priori exist a 'larger meaning'; one can conjure it on their own.

Imagine waking up blind. You'd be in the same sheer panic as the day you were born. When you first saw the light. This is because of a sudden loss of sense. Your ratio.

But perhaps you mean the difference between active and passive rationalization. I try to balance ugly truths with pretty much anything pleasant. Some times it works better than others. But life can be beautiful. And it certainly will get better than this pandemic. :) — TaySan

Let's hope it does.

We've traversed great distances, but it's almost as though our lives are analogous to scaling a metaphorical hill that's increasingly uphill.

Philosophy is supposed to be love of wisdom.
Wisdom should have something vitally to do with how one goes about one's daily life, 24/7. — baker

That's an agreeable statement. Don't you think, however, that deciphering a larger meaning can aid the living of one's life?

You're welcome. Its amazing how little traction I can get with these ideas considering its a #$!&ing scientific revolution. Sometimes it seems that I'm more likely to end up in traction thinking about this stuff. — Enrique

I'm not denigrating them, but do you really believe that your ideas are constitutive of a scientific revolution? They're novel, certainly. I don't know if they have any veracity (admittedly, some of the terms and interrelations you've perpetuated are outside my understanding). To assert, nevertheless, that they're transformative - in comparison to the death of Classical Mechanics at the hand of Special Relativity, or Dirac's Equation foretelling the existence of Antimatter - is a bold, and perhaps even unfounded statement.

Consciousness thus transcends principles belonging to the four dimensional substrate of motion called spacetime. Spacetime-based concepts model certain macroscopic phenomena such as light and extremely large mass, but consciousness and quantum entanglement might surpass the parameters of these models according to 19th and early 20th century science. — Enrique

For instance, isn't this quintessential of the Quantum Mind, which is partly pseudoscientific? Where are the methodological relationships, interweaving the two? It's unprincipled.

Aryamoy Mitra is right. The analogy is supposed to elucidate the idea of a measured spatial difference between two things being, on the one hand, the effect of an expansion of the framework used to measure distances, and, on the other, being the effect of the motion of things measured within that framework. The effect only becomes noticeable at relatively large distances, which is why it will be difficult to see the changes in the expansion of small dots on a balloon, but relatively easy to see the gaps between them increasing. — jkg20

Thank you, very much, for corroborating. I've been promulgating this for ages, albeit with an increasing self-doubt. At the very least, I now know I'm not laying forth a particularly naive concept.

Thanks for these criticisms; I can't really rebut them.

As I've iterated to Tom Storm, there are a plethora of misgivings against premeditating one's self-reflections; one needs to 'live' more vividly and less intermittently than they need to (or are able to) 'rationalize living'.

I wouldn't accept that it is painful or arduous. I wouldn't accept that there are only uncomfortable or affirming ones. Plenty of ideas are simply there without particular value. And sometimes the value only emerges with time. — Tom Storm

Several ideas reside without a particular value (or an ambivalent one), but when introspecting - isn't one bound to ascribe qualitative attributes to them? If one doesn't, wouldn't they cease to advance any intelligible line of reasoning, since they'd abnegate all precedence orders? For example, when construing their own value hierarchies, wouldn't an individual be inclined to discover - or even conjure - propensities to previously unknown values, before favoring them?

Sure, so? Are you simply trying to say that getting to the bottom of things is impossible with a time limit so at some point you have to act? I agree that time is limited and that action is preferable over analysis paralysis. — Tom Storm

Yes, that is precisely what I mean. If one is being thoroughly analytic, they might not be able to act - invariably - with sufficiently generated, thorough conclusions. Being overly analytic does bear that logistical constraint, which is why rationalizations can be impractical (on occassion).

Not sure what you mean by this. Do you mean that actions decided upon give the exercise its meaning? If so that's not particularly surprising. — Tom Storm

Whatever statement (or appraisal/conclusion) a singular rationalization results in, may or may not entail an act - but if a conclusion doesn't even exist, then the underlying attempt at rationalization will have been rendered meaningless. That's what I mean. You're right; it may be a truism.

Is all this because you are anxious not to fuck up in life and mean to ponder all proposed steps before taking them?

I am personally not a fan of analysis and it seems to be a particular trap of the fearful. When things go wrong you will know. You often know before they go wrong. Just get on with it and you will find in action all that you need. Mistakes are a part of life and often the best part. There are happy accidents and there are mistakes you learn from. Reflection occasionally is useful but don't over do it. If you have mental health issues or problematic substance misuse then counselling or a support group will be a better path. — Tom Storm

I concur entirely with your assertions; serendipity, novelty and chaotic uncertainty is necessary. Personally, I don't believe that fixating on propositional chains of reasoning is of a tremendous utility, either; I do believe, nonetheless, that being analytic to a substantive extent is necessary - both in the practical attainments of one's life, and in deriving/extracting meanings from it. I'm sure that there are multiplicities of epistemic philosophies that are non-analytic, and equally incentivizing; being systematically reflective, nevertheless, may be both time-efficient (again, if the constraints discussed above are in principle discounted) and self-reinforcing.

In order to give a better reply to what your asking, I'd have to know a little bit more about what you mean when you say "rationalizing one's existence". Would this imply passing judgments on oneself, or does it imply trying to give adequate reasons for having done X or y? Or is it something in between, or is something else? — Manuel

Thanks, for your cogently written answer.

Insofar as 'rationalizing one's existence' is concerned, here's the definition I conveyed to TheMadFool. Do apprise me if you concur with it; I'm aware that conventionally, the term is used in a different context (this was pinpointed afterwards).

By rationalizing their life, I'm implying that an individual seek and locate an underlying rationale, or a set of rationales that can engender, justify and/or demonstrate the proposition that their life is meaningful - therefore according them reason to continually exist, or an affirmation to their own being. For example, if one were a hedonist - they might instantly invoke that premise, to strive towards a life of mitigating sentient suffering, or maximizing the converse.

Now, in order to attain a conclusion - they might (prospectively) commence with justifying individual behaviors (as you've cited), acts and sentiments - and then integrating them, if plausible, into a larger mode of being.

In most instances, this would imply passing judgments on oneself, since introspection will inevitably lead to some form of self-appraisal. If possible, it might also entail drawing forth reasons for separate actions - both before, and after engaging in them.

I don't think we need be that severe on ourselves. We really, really have to get red of the idea of "role models", Gandhi, King, etc., etc. Such people did acts of supreme good and helped many people reach a more just society, but they had significant negative aspects about them. I'm not suggesting that you should not find a person or persons you admire, but keep in mind we're all human. — Manuel

Exactly. So perhaps, by refuting infallible idols altogether - one might be less critical of themselves while self-rationalizing, which can consequently lower the strain of having to confront one's inadequacies. Is that what you're suggesting?

To me rationalization is where a belief-seeking agent selects the conceptual framework which best supports the information. Why pick the arduous and painful paradigm when there are in principle an infinite number of hypotheses that can support any given observation? — Zophie

If one is consolidating every hypothesis with an equal sincerity, in order to explicate a specific truth, then they will - after an inevitable length of time, chance across a disconcerting one. Many of them may even be veracious in contradistinction to other, far more palatable alternatives.

Seek a fairer game. Most are rigged with traps for honest people. — Zophie

That's a profound tenet, but it's also amenable to being evaluated. For example, in order to rationalize that motive, one may have to axiomatize a greater precedence to honesty, over falsity. If one seeks to rationalize it any further, they'll find themselves in the quandary of having to reverse-trace where that precedence stems from - which might engender introspective, but nonetheless upsetting statements (eg: an empiricist and atheist reverse-tracing a moral construct, to an unchallenged doctrinal belief).

I don't quite get what you mean by rationalizing. To my knowledge, that term carries a negative connotation viz. the tendency to attribute one's actions to reasons that are better, therefore more easily accepted by our egos, than the real, usually embarrassing, reasons for them.

This kind of rationalizing takes place, as I'm led to believe, at the subconscious level, under our radar and therefore goes unnoticed. It makes one feel good so I don't get how rationalizing can be "arduous and painful". — TheMadFool

Admittedly, the term bears the negative connotation you've discussed - and it wasn't at the forefront of my mind, whilst creating this thread. Nonetheless, here's what I was suggesting:

By rationalizing their life, I'm implying that an individual seek and locate an underlying rationale, or a set of rationales that can engender, justify and/or demonstrate the proposition that their life is meaningful - therefore according them reason to continually exist, or an affirmation to their own being. For example, if one were a hedonist - they might instantly invoke that premise, to strive towards a life of mitigating sentient suffering, or maximizing the converse.

What I'm positing, is that if this process were undertaken in a manner that wasn't perfunctory - with sustained chains of reasoning - it'd almost certainly be arduous (since one might discover about themselves, or their being truths they'd rather not), and without an unequivocal end.

Don't know what you mean by "rationalizing." If you refer to seeking an explanation or justification of your existence, I don't think you examine your life by doing so. Your life is what you do and what happens to you as a living part of the universe, and it's quite possible to examine that without pondering why you exist. — Ciceronianus the White

Do read my reply to TheMadFool's inquiry, if that elucidates what the intended implications of the term were, under this thread. One can examine their life without being pensive over its necessity, but refraining from any contemplation in that regard is antithetical to all philosophy - isn't it? Why assess the structural or metaphysical underpinnings of your life, if you aren't trying to decipher or extract a meaning from it? One can synthesize an epistemic conclusion from the former, but hardly apprehend a motive without the latter.

That's true. If you're habituated to necessary encroachments, you're far likelier to remain passive or be incapacitated, when unnecessary ones are introduced.

Your reply is useful, but one problem which I see is the theoretical one and the practical one. Most of us have read George Orwell. However, to what extent would it all be so different if it were to become an actual reality? — Jack Cummins

That's a tough counter-argument. I can lay forth an example, of where one might differentiate between the three:

By Democracy, I'm referring to a state with a representative government. If one political enterprise usurps another and precludes an electoral mechanism, that constitutes a subversion of democracy. One will no longer be able to determine the fate of their governance, or even partake in the determination.

One might, however, witness a subversion of Secularism without one of Democracy; ie. an electoral mechanism remains (in a slightly corrupt fashion), but a predominant political enterprise compels an adherence to faith-derived doctrines. Admittedly, the two will oftentimes facilitate one another.

Encroachments on personal liberties, however, don't have be foreshadowed by either of the above; they can be minuscule, mild and only tentative; nonetheless, since a state enforces them - they can be apprehended, on occasion, as being totalitarian.

Of course, if either one of these rears its head - it's likely the others will too. It's only that their resolutions might necessitate distinctive approaches.

Another footnote, if you'd be interested:

Since totalitarianism unearths itself in a multiplicity of ways, one might consider categorizing its manifestations under three, distinctive themes (they might entail others);

A) Direct/Indirect Subversions of Democracy
B) Direct/Indirect Subversions of Secularism
C) Direct/Indirect Encroachments on Personal Liberties

When two (or more) of these exist in complementarity - under the purview of an institution, with a hegemony over its underlying state - a re-democratization is bound to be arduous.

I haven't formally or informally formulated the format that the form of the formal totalitarianism will form. — god must be atheist

Paradigm-shattering.

Pandemic constraints have contributed, but the world has been degenerating into a freedom-less state for a few years, now. Freedoms in movement are one facet, but totalitarian governments detract from many more (I think you'd agree). Personally, I'm hard-pressed to find multiple (if any) overseeing governments (in the East or the West) that consecrate free speech, free movement and a freedom of religion simultaneously - without indictment or persecution.

Again, the assertion I imparted with regards to the UK, was based on (perceived) comparisons with other countries. I'm not a UK citizen, so I can't actually remark on the exact state of the society. You'd be far more equipped, in that respect.