• Top Hybridization-Geneticist suggests we're a Pig-Chimp Hybrid.
    No doubt nearly all inter-order hybrids aren't survivable. Most likely nearly all pig-chimp hybrids were unsurvivable. Most likely the initial pig-chimp hybrid who was our ancestor was barely survivable. But one survivable hybrid was all it took.

    Michael Ossipoff
  • Top Hybridization-Geneticist suggests we're a Pig-Chimp Hybrid.


    Be specific. McCarthy is a world-class hybridization-geneticist. Where do you find that he's wrong?

    Michael Ossipoff

    12 Su
    1804 UTC
  • Why are women attracted to dangerous men?

    "Natural selection. Dangerous men, violent men, by harming others, can do better for themselves (and their female partner and their offspring)." — Michael Ossipoff


    How?
    Anaxagoras

    By bashing anyone who competes with them for food, or status in the group.

    "Females who get with violent men therefore have more surviving offspring," — Michael Ossipoff


    How does that fit in the hunter-gatherer model?

    Among other social hunter-gatherer species, such as chimpanzees and wolves, there's a pecking-order of status in the group, in which higher status confers preferential access to food and mating opportunity.

    Michael Ossipoff

    12 Su
    1557 UTC
  • The paradox of Death
    But I am not talking about dying, but about death in itself.Filipe

    You're talking about the time after you're dead. Your survivors will experience that time. You won't.

    From the point-of-view of your survivors, there will come a time when you're completely shut-down. But that's only from their point-of-view. You never reach that time.

    MIchael Ossipoff

    12 Sa
    1414 UTC
  • The paradox of Death


    You're quite right about regret, when we did what seemed the best at the time, Or at least, even if we knew better, there was some reason why we couldn't do better.

    But I disagree with your claim that, at death, there will come a time when we aren't. That's impossible. It's a logical impossibility and a contradiction in terms.

    How could someone ever experience a time when there's no experience?

    Obviously what arrives at death is ever-deepening sleep. Approaching nothing, sure, but it's impossible to arrive there.

    Sleep is the natural, normal, usual and rightful state-of-affairs.

    Michael Ossipoff

    12 Sa
    1411 UTC
  • Why are women attracted to dangerous men?


    Natural selection. Dangerous men, violent men, by harming others, can do better for themselves (and their female partner and their offspring).

    Females who get with violent men therefore have more surviving offspring, and so the preference for violent men increases in the population.

    If you want a good blatant example in a movie, I suggest Back To The Future.

    Michael Ossipoff

    12 Sa
    0336 UTC
  • What does the word 'natural' really mean?


    I like "Normal" and "Usual".

    Of course, in a different sense, "Natural" is useful to distinguish between manmade and not-manmade.

    Michael Ossipoff

    12 F
    1925 UTC
  • Word of God
    Why should I have access to infinite knowledge of God if I am a finite being?Joseph Walsh

    You can't

    Do you think the word of God is the truth: why or why not?

    That presupposes words from God. If there were such, they'd be true.

    The Bible isn't the word of God. God didn't write the Bible. A bunch of men wrote the Bible.

    ...distinctly fallible men who weren't above frequent forgery, and various morally-abhorrent positions and words.

    What are the ramifications of a disbelief in God?

    It implies disbelief in what one doesn't have a definition of...disbelief without an object of disbelief.

    Our "New Atheists" say that, rather than actively disbelieving, they merely don't believe. That's a perfectly reasonable position, to not believe in what they don't have reason to believe.

    But where our Atheist friends go wrong is when they evaluate others' beliefs. That's when they forget their professed absence of active disbelief.

    How do we know that God exists?

    "Exist", in an objective, noncontextual, unqualified sense, is undefined for the things of phenomenal world, the logically-interdependent things. And, even if "Exist" meant something within that realm, it wouldn't be meaningful to even try to use that word for other than that.

    For humans to debate whether God exists, is like for mice to debate whether humans chew hardwood or softwood.

    My suggestion:

    Forget the Theism vs Atheism debate. Of course it's reasonable to not believe in what one doesn't know of reason to believe. Leave it at that.

    You don't know of justification for others' beliefs? Yes. Leave it at that.

    Michael Ossipoff

    12 F
    1852 UTC
  • Four alternative calendar proposals
    Though I quit replying to S. about philosophy when he tried to deny that his circular definition of "Exist" was circular (but I should have quit replying to him before that), I will reply to this comment (moved here from a different thread):

    Some nonsense from a calendar that no one cares about.

    ...because it's just more convenient, easy, simple and un-arbitrary?

    With the South-Solstice WeekDate Calendar:

    1. Every year starts with a Monday, with the result that the relation between dates and days-of-the-week is the same for every year. ...meaning also that all calendar-years are identical, except that every 5th or 6th year has a 53rd week.

    2. There's never any question of what day-of-the-week some distant proposed appointment date is, because the day-of-the-week is part of the date.

    3, Unlike the day-of-the-month number, which changes daily, the week-number has been the same all week, and so, if it has been 12 for some days, it's still 12, because it won't change till Monday. And you know what the day-of-the-week is. Therefore, you won't need to look up today's date on a paper or digital calendar.

    4. South-Solstice WeekDate is the minimal, most un-arbitrary calendar, among all the calendars that have weeks.

    Though, through millennia of use, we know what seasonal conditions tend to go with a certain month-name, South-Solstice WeekDate gives you seasonal information even without that long familiarity.

    For example, now we're in week 12. At the end of week 13, it will be about 1/4 of a year after the South-Solstice, and therefore it will be at or near the time of the Northward-Equinox (March Equinox).

    Michael Ossipoff

    12 Tu
    1356 UTC
  • Is everything inconsequential?
    I'm just having a hard time seeing how anything in life can be judged as good or bad if there is nothing to correlate it with (in nonexistence).simmerdown

    Who says that life should be judge-able as good or bad? ...when, as you said, there's nothing to compare it to.

    For us, the fact that we're in a life is what it starts with. It isn't meaningful to try to second-guess or evaluate that fact.

    And why would it be desirable, even if possible, to compare life to nonexixtence, given that someone who has been in a life never reaches nonexistence (except from the point-of-view of his/her survivors)? For someone who has been conceived and born, there won't be nonbeing, because you'll never experience a time without experience.

    Well, let's say that overall, our lives provide us with more good than bad. Does that make continuing to live more desirable than dying?simmerdown

    Choose to end your life unnecessarily (without a good physical quality-of-life reason) (to gain exactly what?), and you'll find out. Of course you might not like what you find out, but it will be too late to undo it.

    All animals, including humans, are biologically-originated purposefully-responsive devices. Such devices are designed for life. ....designed in that way by natural selection.

    Yes, you didn't ask or choose to be born, but, like it or not, you're designed, by natural-selection, for life. You can hate that and resent it, but you can't change it.

    During death, of course waking-consciousness is soon lost. You won't remember or know about whatever philosophical arguments led you to end your life. You'll just vaguely know that something major and irreversible has happened, by your own doing. ...something that is against your built-in strong instincts, and therefore was difficult, stressful, traumatic to do. ...something that will be of distinctly doubtful value when your waking-conscious notions are gone. Humans have the ability to force themselves to do things that are difficult and against their strong instincts. Those distinctly negative feelings will continue into your absence of waking-consciousness. Another difference will be that you've ended your options, and you'll know that too. You think your existence is absurd, empty, unpleasant and undesirable now? Just wait.

    For starters, I'd suggest not reading Nihilist authors anymore.

    Michael Ossipoff

    12 M
    2211 UTC
  • To be or not to be


    understandable. It probably sounded like a quote of religious doctrine.
  • To be or not to be


    Sounds like religious/karmic superstitionemancipate

    What a very odd thing to say. That we end up with what we do is hardly limited to religion.

    Michael Ossipoff

    11 Tu
    1851 UTC
  • Is suicide by denying/turning away from the absurd realistic?


    I'll just answer briefly, because I've recently been replying about that.

    would someone contemplating the purely philosophical aspect of meaninglessness of life commit suicide? Emotional, social systemic cause, insanity--all seems to be plausible, but a suicide only triggered by the meaninglessness of life, in the purely philosophical sense doesn't seem plausible. Have people committed suicide for purely this reason?Kushal

    I don't know. I hope not. It wouldn't make any sense, and would be even more absurd than the person's conception and birth ever were.

    Michael Ossipoff

    11 Tu
    1845 UTC
  • To be or not to be


    Suicidal Nihilists are trying to game the system. They can’t undo their conception and birth. They can’t achieve nonbeing. There’s no such thing for you once you’ve been conceived and born.
    .
    They’re chasing a theoretical fiction.
    .
    Is this societal-world bad? Shit yeah. Nothing can be done to fix it. You’ll be out of, it all in good time, when it’s time. If someone tinkers, by ending their life just because they decide that they don’t like it, without genuine urgent need to, they just make it a lot worse for themselves, because what you end-up in depends on your actions.
    .
    Michael Ossipoff
    .
    11 Tu
    1828 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.


    It's easiest to understand if we add theoretical stuff to it. But it's important to remember that the theoretical stuff is just that.
    .
    I didn’t mean to add anything theoretical. In these matters, I do my best to not theorize anything. That’s why I say that my non-metaphysics isn’t a theory. …just some uncontroversial statements.
    .
    But yes of course there’s a humungous amount of theorizing going on at these forums.
    .
    I use the word “experience” much more broadly than you do. ...encompassing what you mean by those other terms.
    .
    When you say, “experience”, you’re referring to what I’d call “overthinking things”.
    .
    Buddhists and others have pointed out that when people pursue a descriptive or evaluative narrative about an experience, that isn’t the experience—it’s a fabricated substitute that’s about the experience.
    .
    You say something similar in your message, using different terms, and I agree with what you say.
    .
    I agree that that way of living isn’t authentic or desirable.
    .
    Michael Ossipoff
    .
    11 Tu
    1803 UTC
  • Being and Death
    Being dead for some is presumably an impossible state from a 1st person point of view.Nils Loc

    Yes, exactly.

    it may be that there is nothing that it is like to be deadNils Loc

    Of course.

    just as there is nothing that it is like to be asleep.Nils Loc

    I presume that you're referring to deep-sleep. But don't be so sure. Even if we don't remember anything from deep-sleep, that doesn't mean that there's no consciousness or awareness of any kind. After all, the body isn't shut-down, so who can say that there's no consciousness at all. So that has to e admitted to be a question whose answer is unknown.

    Presumably, being dead is no different than being asleep from the absent view of the one sleeping.Nils Loc

    There's no such thing as being dead. It's a contradiction in terms, a logical impossibility. You can't experience a time when there's no experience.

    Do you believe that a certain proportion of living species today, let's call them "simpler" organisms, have nothing that it is like to be alive?Nils Loc

    Of course not. Not all consciousness has to be like ours. Often what we mean by consciousness isn't well-defined, but tends to have human-chauvinism, mammal-chauvinish, animal-chauvinism, or biological-organism-chauvinism.

    So let's not jump to the conclusion that other biological-organisms don't have consciousness.

    I define "consciousness" as the property of being a purposeful-responsive device, similar enough to the speaker to give him/her the impression of "consciousness".

    Do creatures require some form of consciousness to be at all?Nils Loc

    Of course. See above.

    eing must include the sleeping being that is not the dead being, but there is no necessary discernment between states for the organism experiencing these states.Nils Loc

    There's no such thing as experiencing the state of being dead. As for deep-sleep, no one knows.

    If there is nothing it is like to be dead, will there always only ever be what is it like to be alive (the phenomena of being)?Nils Loc

    Yes. But of course it eventually won't be waking consciouisness. At the end-of-life, there will be ever deepening deep-sleep. Eventually the person won't know that there ever were, or even could be, such things as waking life, worldly-life, identity, individuality, time, events, danger, fear, loss, lack, or incompletion.

    Because there'll be no awareness or knowledge of any such thing as time or events, the person will be in timelessness. Though, as judged by an observer, that person is about to completely shut down, the dying person in timelessness won't know or care about there being shutdown or anything to shut down.

    Is this a metaphysical, lame or nonsensical inquiry?Nils Loc

    No. But, by the way, I don't believe in any metaphysics, including Materialism, because "Exist", "There is...", and "Real" are metaphysically-undefined.

    Michael Ossipoff

    11 Tu
    0406 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.


    What would be an example?

    Things like that license plate when it's in someone's field-of-vision but they don't notice it?

    Michael Ossipoff

    11 Tu
    0157 UTC
  • Seeking Thoughts on a Difficult Situation
    I could probably move there and get a much better paying job, but another friend is encouraging me to ditch all this and move to his area, (which is about a 3-day trip), which would be significantly closer to the university I will likely be attending once I am ready for law school.Waya

    I'd probably choose whichever of those 2 options is most probable to be successful.

    If both options are equally succeedable, then of course the 2nd option sounds better. But, to me, the important thing is that there be a successful solution at all, even if it isn't the best of the 2. So the success-probability would probably decide my choice between those 2 options.

    MIchael Ossipoff

    11 M
    2048 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.


    Some appearances are not of experiences per se. In other words, not everything appears as "this is an experience I'm having." Some appearances are simply of "things" like doors and sidewalks and so on.
    .
    Just speaking of conscious experience, if you notice something, you experience it. If you don’t notice it, you don’t experience it. If you notice those doors and sidewalks, that’s experience.
    .
    A car drives by, and I ask you what its license-number was. But you were reading the bumper-sticker, not paying any attention to the license-number. The car was close enough to read the number, and the license-number was in your field-of-view. But you didn’t consciously notice it at all.
    .
    You didn’t consciously experience the license-number.
    ----------------------------------
    You’re the protagonist and center of your life-experience-story. It’s entirely about your experience. That’s the sense in which I meant that experience is primary with respect to our physical world.
    .
    Are all systems of inter-referring abstract implications experience-stories? Of course not. In their own contexts, there are infinitely-many systems of inter-referring abstract facts, infinitely-many of which are far too simple to be an experience-story or physical-world-story.
    .
    Obviously, there are, in their own contexts, Tegmark’s non-subjective MUH Ontic-Structural Realism world-stories too.
    .
    Then why my emphasis on experience-stories? Simply because, as a truism, that’s obviously what we experience. A selfish life-chauvinist bias, of course.
    .
    Your experience can’t be inconsistent or contradictory without mutually inconsistent facts, an impossibility.
    .
    So what you experience must, for one thing, be consistent with your own existence with respect this physical world. For example, because your body is physical, there had to be some physical mechanism for its physical coming-into-being. Not surprisingly, then, you find that have parents, and grandparents. …and a population in which they live and were themselves generated.
    .
    Your experience of what you hear from scientists about the formation of the Earth, solar-system and galaxies, etc. is consistent with your life. People used to say that the Earth is only 6000 years old, but that turned out to not be physically-consistent with our lives, because it was found that the mechanisms theorized to be able to make life, and then humans, wouldn’t have time to operate. And, consistently, the evidence in the rocks supports an older Earth.
    .
    You’ll never find incontrovertible proof that you had no grandparents, because experience can’t be genuinely inconsistent.
    .
    Michael Ossipoff
    .
    11 M
    1942 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.


    I'll have to resume this discussion tomorrow, because there are household tasks to be done.

    Michael Ossipoff

    10 Su
    2234 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.
    Right. But in context, what does that have to do with anything?Terrapin Station

    Either you or S. was saying or implying that what we hear about the world outside of your direct observational experience means that it objectively exists (whatever that would mean).

    Specifically, I was replying to this:

    Phenomenally, many things are not of my experience. They're just doors and computer monitors and sidewalks and so on.Terrapin Station

    If you didn't mean what I thought you meant, then feel free to clarify what else you did mean.

    Michael Ossipoff

    10 Su
    2231 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.
    Reports of the work of theoretical physicists are part of your direct observational experience too.

    Are you yourself doing something theoretical? Of course. You're theorizing about a metaphysics that you can't define. — Michael Ossipoff


    I'm not sure I understand either of those comments in context.
    Terrapin Station

    1. I don't know how else to word this: You've directly observationally experienced (in a magazine, a tv show, a book of descriptive physics or astrsonomy, etc.) reports of the work of theoretical physicists.

    2. I was referring to my earlier statement that Materiaiists haven't been able to define certain terms that they use when expressing their Materialist metaphysical belief.

    ...and another earlier statement that the objectively-existent (whatever that means) "stuff" that Materialists believe in is the stuff of metaphysical theory.

    If there's a particular word, phrase, sentence term, etc. that you don't understand, then you should feel to specify it.

    Michael Ossipoff

    10 Su
    2224 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.
    The point is that to say this, I have to be doing something theoreticalTerrapin Station

    Reports of the work of theoretical physicists are part of your direct observational experience too.

    Are you yourself doing something theoretical? Of course. You're theorizing about a metaphysics that you can't define.

    Michael Ossipoff
    10 Su
    2217 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.


    That they're objective just means that they don't depend on being experienced in order to exist.
    .
    …in order to what? :D
    .
    Ok, they’re objectively existent if they exist observer-independently (objectively). You won’t get much argument on that.
    .
    We get what “objective” means, but you didn’t define objective “existence”. (…except in terms of itself).
    .
    Nothing you've said there explicitly contradicts that.
    .
    That’s right, I didn’t contradict that irrelevant truism.
    .
    Saying that experience is primary suffers from ambiguity. Primary in what sense?
    .
    As the basis for all that you know about the physical world. And no, that doesn’t prove that the physical world isn’t objectively existent, whatever that would mean.
    .
    I’ve repeatedly admitted that I can’t prove that Materialism isn’t true, as brute-fact, an unfalisifiable unverifiable metaphysical theory,
    .
    But there’s more to say than that: Your unfalsifiable proposition uses a term that you can’t define , and so it isn’t even validly-expressed.
    .
    So, if you knew what you meant, and could say it, then I can’t, at this time, prove that (whatever it is) it wouldn’t be true.
    .
    (Look, in your closed thread, we agreed to disagree about that, when I acknowledged that you believe that you know what you mean, and agreed to leaves it at that. I hope that you aren’t going to keep this up again until this thread gets closed too, for the same reason.)
    .
    What does that mean in this instance? It could mean a number of things.
    .
    See above.
    .
    That I know a whole bunch of things through experience doesn't mean that I don't know that there are rocks in other distant galaxies that I've never experienced.
    .
    The scientific reports that you’ve experienced imply that there are likely (in the context of your direct and indirect experience) to be rocks in other distant galaxies.
    .
    I’ve already said that your direct observational experience (of scientific reports, in this case) is the basis for your indirect experience of more than you’ve directly observationally experienced.
    .
    Are you going to go into another endless loop?
    .
    Michael Ossipoff
    .
    10 Su
    2208 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.


    What you know about the physical world, you know from your experience.

    From your experience, you can infer other things not directly observed by you, but implied by your experience. Ultimately, you know about the physical world from your experience.

    You've experienced articles by or about scientists who reported their discoveries of such things as electrons, quarks, radiation evidently from the Big-Bang, etc.

    If you say that there objectively are the physical world and its things, then I'll ask you what you mean by "There objectively is...".

    As I said, there are, in their own context, systems of inter-referring abstract implications about propositions about hypothetical things.

    I only said "...in their own context". I make no claim about their objective existence or reality.

    No one denies that this physical world exists in its own context.

    There's one such system of inter-referring abstract implications whose logical structural relations are those of your experience.

    If you want to claim that this physical world has a kind of existence that the setting of such a hypothetical experience-story doesn't have, then you'd need to be more specific about that.

    If you say that the difference is that this physical world is objectively real and existent, then you should be able to define those terms.

    Michael Ossipoff

    10 Su
    2140 UTC


    .
  • Reality as appearance.


    So really, I was replying to something that you hadn't said.
  • Reality as appearance.
    If you know of a opposing instance, remind me of it?Mww

    I was just referring to:

    there indeed were flaws in most forms of subjective or absolute or immaterial idealism,Mww

    Yes, it's true that you said "most" and not "all", so maybe my comment wasn't necessary.

    Michael Ossipoff

    10 Su
    1824 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.
    Maybe S. is trying to get this thread closed too, for the same reason? :D
  • Reality as appearance.
    He must define that term as well. Because I pretend not to understand what he says when he uses the word.S

    I'm not going to repeat my answer to that, which was amply given in your thread that was closed for good reason.

    Michael Ossipoff

    10 Su
    1818 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.
    What’s a po’ boy to do, huh?Mww

    Well, he could try telling us what he means by "Exist", "There is..." or "Real", when he uses those terms with (supposed) absolute, objective, context-less, unqualified meaning.

    Michael Ossipoff

    10 Su
    1808 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.
    No, that's a context.S

    :D
  • Reality as appearance.
    As I've been pointing out, the words "exist", "there is...", and "real", are rarely used non-contextuallyS

    Fine. I'm talking about when they are so used. ...as when people in this thread say that this physical world is objectively existent.

    , and they don't need to be defined in order to be understood. This is self-evident, so doesn't need an argument.

    We've been over (and over and over) that, in your previous thread that was closed.

    Michael Ossipoff

    10 Su
    1758 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.
    This is a category mistake. You are confusing the stuff behind the scenes with our sensory experience of the stuff behind the scenes.Herg

    You evidently believe in the "stuff behind the scenes", which, as I said, is the stuff of metaphysical theory.

    Michael Ossipoff

    10 Su
    1753 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.
    there indeed were flaws in most forms of subjective or absolute or immaterial idealism,Mww

    That's handwaving, unless you can name a flaw (...in subjective idealism itself, not just one version.)

    Michael Ossipoff

    10 Su
    1751 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.
    There is direct experience of a lot of different things, including objective things. So that would suggest the opposite of your conclusion.Terrapin Station

    Whatever you know about your physical surroundings is from your experience. Your experience is primary for your physical world and its "objective" things.

    Would you like to be the one who tells us what you'd mean by "objective things" or "objective existence"?

    Michael Ossipoff

    10 Su
    1741 UTC
  • Reality as appearance.


    You're right.

    As I've been pointing out, the words "Exist", "There is...", and "Real", when used with objective, absolute, unqualified, noncontextual meaning, are uindefined. People who use those words here haven't been able to say what they mean by them.

    Metaphysics and ontology are based on those words, and that's why I don't believe in a metaphysics or ontology.

    So yes, for the things of the logically-interdependent realm, there's no objecive reality or existence, because those terms are undefined and have no meaning.

    As a truism, a set or system of abstract implications (abstract if-then facts) that are sometimes about eachother, or about the same propositions, and the same hypothetical things, are an inter-referring system of abstract implications.

    Such an inter-referring system of course needn't be claimed to be existent or real.

    Inevitably, there (in its own context) is such an inter-referring logical system whose structural relations are those of your experience. It's your hypothetical experience-story. Its setting has the structural relations that are those of your surroundings.

    Undeniably, there is this physical world in its own context.

    Physicist Michael Faraday pointed out that what's observed and known about our physical world consists of logical and mathematical structural-relation, and that there' s no reason to believe that it's other than that. ...no reasons to believe in the "stuff" that the relation is about. That "stuff" is the stuff of metaphysical theory.

    Maybe that's why Nisargadatta said that, from the sage's point of view, nothing has ever happened.

    Michael Ossipoff

    10 Su
    1728 UTC
  • To be or not to be


    ”You can’t really say that hurting you is an improvement.” — Michael Ossipoff
    .
    I never said it will hurt me, I just said that it might.
    .
    …and that makes it a good idea?
    .
    you know you might not reach your goals but you wake up every day working towards them.
    .
    What goal?
    .
    You see, that’s the thing: Exactly what goal would suicide achieve? I told you the why the notion of reaching oblivion is a logical impossibility, a logical contradiction, a direct verbal contradiction in terms.
    .
    Michael Ossipoff
    .
    10 Su
    0528 UTC
  • To be or not to be


    In my analogy, video game A wasn't death caused by suicide, it was a content worry less life, the type that you speak of, the promised life promised by our parents and our schools and the life Camus promises by laughing at the absurd. The life where problems are tolerable, where at the end of the day, you and your significant other share a cup of coffee together and read books or whatever you're into, where you sense purpose and meaning. That's video game A compared to video game B of mine where everyday is a constant struggle to even get out of my room, not because I'm sad but because I'm numb.
    .
    Then of course anyone would choose A over B. No argument there.
    .
    But I was just saying that that doesn’t match your situation that we’ve been discussing.
    .
    For someone who says that nothing means anything, suicide is, ironically and suspiciously, a not-so-easy distinctly resolutely purposeful act. …the kind of thing done only to achieve something that _matters very much_.
    .
    If nothing matters, then what would motivate a not-so-easy resolutely purposeful act?
    .
    If nothing matters, then fine, you needn’t do anything. …including a hard, risky, resolutely purposeful act such as suicide. …to gain what?
    .
    It wouldn’t make any sense. It would be even more meaningless and absurd than your birth here, except, this time, then you _would_ own the absurdity, purposeless and meaningless, because it would be your doing.
    .
    And I don't wanna be depicted as a sad edgelord who fetishizes his own sadness, I'm really trying to elevate my life. By doing things that make me happy at that particular time, and breaking away from the system, I'm following through just so that I could get a glimpse of the life that you promise, but if this doesn't work either, well....
    .
    How doesn’t it work. What’s the not-work scenario?
    .
    There aren’t things that you like?
    .
    You can’t expect every moment to be enjoyable. It definitely isn’t like that.
    .
    I spoke of how there are “Shit!” moments, and how you didn’t choose to be born. Your birth was inevitable, reasonless, agentless, purposeless, meaningless, and definitely not your fault.
    .
    Because you didn’t ask for or choose it, and it wasn’t your fault, and isn’t your problem, and you needn’t take it seriously.
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    As I told Andrew4Handel, disown it.
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    It’s dealt-with, and “problems” that are dealt-with are done-with
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    No problem. There are (sometimes) things that you like.
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    I refer you to my 3 most recent replies, to Andrew4Handel, in the currently-active Antinatalist thread whose title speaks of life as the thing to unite against.
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    Michael Ossipoff
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    10 Su
    0516 UTC
  • It is life itself that we can all unite against
    Additionally:

    If you never asked or chose to be born, and it wasn't your fault, then it isn't really your problem, and you needn't take it seriously.

    Disown it.

    It's dealt with, and what's dealt-with is done-with

    Michael Ossipoff

    10 Su

    0434 UTC
  • It is life itself that we can all unite against


    ”Our time in this inevitable but temporary life is brief, so what is there to do, but to enjoy it while it lasts.” — Michael Ossipoff
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    I am not convinced by the inevitability argument.
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    There’s more than one answer to that:
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    1. If you’re a Materialist, then, according to that metaphysics that you believe in, your life wasn’t inevitable. But, in the unparsimoniously brute-fact physical universe, randomness of events was inevitable, maybe with the generation of biological life on some planet, and a randomness of resulting lives, which turns out to have resulted in your life.
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    If it’s like that, instead of your life having been inevitable, does that really give us more to productively protest?
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    Your life is still without reason, purpose, meaning or agency—an accomplished reasonless fact. What good can it do, and in fact, what can it even mean, to protest it or complain about it if it’s agentless and reasonless?
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    2. Even under Materialism, maybe there’s an infinite physically-inter-related multiverse, containing infinitely-many universes with every possible system of physical-laws, in every possible configuration and state, in which case it’s inevitable that there would happen somewhere the life that is your life.
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    3. To believe in Materialism is to believe in an unparsimonious brute-fact, an unverifiable, unfalsifiable proposition. …and, more generally, to believe in a metaphysics/ontology. I don’t believe in one, and if someone does, then ask them what they mean by context-less, unqualified, objective “Exist”, “There is…”, and “Real”.
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    In my previous reply in this thread, I quoted Faraday, and mentioned (as a truism) the logical structural relation among a system of abstract implications that are to some extent about eachother and about some of the same propositions, and about some of the same hypothetical things that the propositions are about.
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    Among the infinitely-many logical-systems that I spoke of in that previous post, it’s inevitable that they include a system in which the logical and mathematical structural-relations are those of your experience of your physical surroundings….without any claim of their objective, unqualified, context-less “real-ness” or “existence”.
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    Of course, as a truism, there are your life and surroundings in their own context, where the meaning of “There is…” is contextually limited.
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    Maybe a good briefer reply would be to just point out that, unless objective, absolute, contextless, unqualified “Exist”, “There is…”, and “Real” mean something, then your life (as a hypothetical logical system that can be called an “experience-story”) is inevitable as one of the infinitely-many hypothetical systems of inter-referring abstract implications.
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    So, all of this has been in answer to your saying that you aren’t convinced about the inevitability of your life.
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    The problem is that it is not always on our power to enjoy life. I think the optimistic position that everyone could enjoy life is part of the Just World fallacy.
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    Of course not all of life is enjoyable. That’s what I mean when I refer to our inevitable “Shit!” moments.
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    I often find myself saying (to myself, but sometimes to others) “Shit!”. …or “I’m so tired.” (…not referring to physical tiredness, but to being tired of all that happens to us.)
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    It can be because of some local hardship such as minor physical discomfort (such as being out on a freezing winter day, or stubbing a toe, etc.), or social discomfort, or anxiety or insecurity (both of which I consider normal and appropriate), or regret about past mistakes (whether recent or long-distant).
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    Absurdists emphasize the absurd drastic difference or contrast between human wants and needs, vs the things that actually have happened and continue to happen.
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    (Kentucky Buddhist Ken Keyes emphasizes that we have likes, but needn’t believe that we have needs, or even wants.)
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    I’ve learned much from the Antinatalists and Absurdists here. What they say, and what I’ve read from Absurdists confirms my own sentiments, when I say:
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    I didn’t ask or choose to be born, and I didn’t have a chance.
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    I like the Absurdist response to that fact.
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    (I don’t know all of Absurdists’ beliefs, and I well might not agree with all of them (e.g. many of them are Materialists), but they’re right about some significant things.)
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    I just found it difficult to embrace something so unjust.
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    I don't either.
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    Unjust, of course. But without agency there’s no one to blame.
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    Inevitability isn’t anyone’s fault.
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    It seems better to be a psychopath narcissist where one might only be concerned with ones own desires.
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    That’s still unnecessarily taking it seriously, taking it up, and acting it out…and digging oneself deeper in it.
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    Participating in it hardly sounds to me like something that would do oneself any good.
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    Michael Ossipoff
    .
    10 Su
    .
    0001 UTC

Michael Ossipoff

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