Letting Go of Hedonism


One cannot let go of something unless one has something better to hold on to.

Looking at the issue thus one is faced with a natural question, what then is the nature of an aesthetic contemplation, if we will care to call it that, which is free from the dependencies on external stimuli, the risk of addiction, and the desire for its continuity in time? An aesthetic contemplation which is free from the residues of “experience” (ironically) and “knowledge”? — skyblack

That would be pure art.

(Leaving off at this one sentence precisely because to say anything more would negate pure art.)

So I can reasonably assert that eating meat is NOT more healthy; as Louis believes it is. — Marvin Katz

Leaving aside that a sample of one is not representative --

Eating meat clearly is more healthy, for one's ego, if one believes that humans live to consume the planet and everything on it.

↪Judaka ↪baker ↪Philosophim
Ugh. Where to begin.

If you think the way you do here on this thread, then you have no understanding of human nature yet. — L'éléphant

Oh dear.

But you do?


"Human nature" is an ideological concept, not an empirical one, therefore, any discussion of "human nature" is necessarily going to be ideological. Ie. people making claims without backing them up with empirical evidence.

This sounds like a modernized Western rendition of Jainism. Or Quietism. Both are pernicious.
— baker

What is pernicious about it? — schopenhauer1

Even on an entirely mundane level, it's clear where they go wrong: the quietist whines and complains and is miserable, while other people are having fun. He gets nothing for all his misery, apart from a little ego satisfaction.

Ok, so I know you would like me to imbibe from the "TRUTH" of Buddhism en totale, because (like hipsters say), "I just won't get it" otherwise.. but what is the most important parts of the Pali Canon would you like me to research. I know I know, in order to really "KNOW" Buddhism, I am to become a scholar... but we are on an internet forum. I cannot expect for example, to debate someone on here by saying, "Just read WWR and all Scholarship on Schopenhauer" because that is not feasible and unfair in this platform.



As a meta-analysis of this dialogue, how do you want me to proceed? — schopenhauer1

I'm not a Buddhist nor do I advocate Buddhism. I do have some knowledge of and interest in Buddhism. When someone boldly declares that the Buddha was wrong or implies as much, I am curious as to what this person has to say. I use my knowledge of Early Buddhism to inquire of them what they have to say and test their knowledge of Buddhism.

You keep saying things like "we're in an inescapable situation" and such. I wonder where you get your certainty. I find it bewildering how a person could have such certainty.

Like I've been saying all along: Early Buddhism, the Pali Canon.

I have read it, and I am not convinced of such a state. I just don't buy it. I've read about ego-death, etc. — schopenhauer1

What in particular did you read?

This is the problem with mixing scientific concepts. — schopenhauer1

Yes.

A quick search gave this:
Examples of theorems misapplied to non-mathematical contexts

The SEP in the entry on Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems gives some examples of how they are sometimes misunderstood/misapplied.

That beings said, I explicitly showed all my cards as it were in the OP by saying that whilst admiring Schopenhauer's system, I do not particularly agree with his assessment that we can even get out of this suffering situation by even ascetic contemplation. In other words, I don't think a state of peaceful "nothingness" is a thing. "Serenity now" permanently doesn't seem like a thing to me. Rather, it is a nice romanticized idea of what people would like. A permanent state of rest, but not quite dead. Platonic peace, without the becoming of the changing flux of this world. It's a nice notion, I just don't buy it. — schopenhauer1

When asceticism is presented in such an ascetic (eh!) manner, it's no wonder it doesn't come across as promising.

Why not inform oneself about it some more, as opposed to sticking to some vague, superficial notions of it?

Quantum mechanics demonstrates that abolishing the apparently fundamental form of subject and object does not abolish the world, as Schopenhauer assumes. When we bring the ideas of Kant and Schopenhauer into the 21st century, we’re not obliged to bring their relative ignorance with us. I find it worthwhile to rework these ideas in the context of neuroscience and quantum physics, with due respect to the original. — Possibility

In that case, you've determined yourself to be a materialist.

I agree that a permanent state of peaceful ‘nothingness’ doesn’t seem achievable. This, in my view, is equivalent to death. I think that these notions of nirvana, heaven, even enlightenment and sainthood are romanticised attempts to reify or concretise a preferred fantasy, much like ‘individual will’.

In their native contexts, those terms have definitions, and they are not what you claim them to be.
For some reason, you use those terms, but insist in your idiosyncratic definitions of them. Why?

I imagine it would have been only a fraction of a fraction of people who didn’t think Columbus or Magellan were insane when they set sail, including their own crew. They didn’t need to deny this optical limitation - they simply recognised that appearances were deceiving. — Possibility

This is extraordinary. Do you have any actual historical support for this interpretation? Such a diary entries, contemporary essays, ...?

Myth of the flat Earth

The perception that we do exist as part of a broader system (not ‘bigger picture’) is not meant to be consoling. It’s meant to open our minds to this potential that has people like you so afraid you’d prefer to not exist or begrudgingly comply than acknowledge it.
/.../
No, I’m trying to explain that Schopenhauer’s pessimism was just a starting point. Philosophy is not about describing a ToE (what appears to be), but about actualising wisdom (how to live). Schop argued that our preference for and actualising of this apparent ‘individual will’ entails suffering, and that because of this we tend to evaluate a living existence as negative overall. But the world as will is neither negative nor positive, and denying this ‘individual will’, even temporarily, enables one to conceptually process the world as will more accurately, even if we’re unable to describe it precisely using language.

And once again, I’m not saying ‘value in participating’ at all, but rather value (if any) in our capacity to be aware of and participate in an otherwise non-conscious process. Stop twisting my words around, it’s getting really old.

Not that I would wish hardship upon you, but I'd love to see how you hold up under pressure. Like when having a nasty toothache and no access to a dentist for quite some time. Or chronic back pain. Poverty. Being of the wrong skin color.

Because as things stand, you've consistently sounded like someone who is relatively well off or at least like someone who is trying to sound like someone who is relatively well off. You exude that "Let them eat cake!" attitude.

Schopenhauer’s description of reality in itself as the world of ‘will’ helps to bring this underlying logical and qualitative process of any system face-to-face with our quest for an ethical system of intentionality. This is also what the Tao Te Ching aimed to do. Perhaps we can describe this underlying process AS a logical, qualitative system of intentionality, and then develop our complex value structures so that they align with this in relation to our unique situation.

I get that this would seem contrived or backwards to you - the relation of these value structures with being appear to form our self-identity. But this is what Schopenhauer argues - that this consolidation of ‘individual will’ is what got us in this mess in the first place. We tend to think that the value of humanity derives from this capacity to act individually and collectively against the ‘natural’ process of existence, but if there is value in humanity at all, then it is in our capacity to be aware of and participate in it, rather than try to survive it, dominate it, or ‘overcome’ it through procreation, as if it’s a ‘problem’. — Possibility

The Tao Te Ching was written by the upper class, for the upper class. Hence its aloof attitude toward hardship. It's easy to be aloof when someone else does the hard and dirty work.

“Don’t complain, just kill yourself” is the message that people are seeming to say. Comply or die. There is no peace even in trying to vocalize the pessimism. That’s all I’m getting. Double disrespect to the player of the game that doesn’t want to be played. It’s all fucked. — schopenhauer1

Well, if they don't have bread to eat, then they should eat cake!

They ignore or belittle anyone who proposes an alternative, and they take great pride in pointing out how every opportunity to change just appears to be more of the same. — Possibility

Because it's usually not an alternative. Like they say, "Different packaging, same shit."

Because there IS NO one-size-fits-all, ‘concrete’ solution. Because everyone’s situation is different, and changes all the time. Because any step-by-step instruction manual for life is going to be relevant to only those whose situation is identical to yours was.

These are not vague, pie-in-the-sky notions, though. They are the basic switches to change any situation, and are most effective when it appears there is nowhere to go, nothing to see, nothing to do. These three switches - ignorance/awareness, isolation/connection and exclusion/collaboration - are how we engage with the world as will; NOT the world as representation.

Language describes the world as representation, so any ‘concrete’ examples I attempt to give will just seem to be more of the same. And my efforts to get into the science that supports the metaphysics is just ignored or dismissed as ‘word salad’, so clearly that’s going over your head. I’m actually at a loss as to how else I can present this, — Possibility

No need to be at such a loss.

Your approach is one that gives priority to the attitude with which one approaches things in life.
In short, it's not about what in particular one does (as in whether one watches tv or helps in a soup kitchen), it's about how one thinks about what one is doing, how one frames it cognitively.

but I’m also getting the sense that you’re not really interested in what you claim to be asking in the OP. You don’t really WANT to know ‘what is one to do?’ because you prefer this situation of vocal pessimism - it gives you a sense of purpose to take the moral high ground against existence...

I just don't get the sense that the OP was actually asking anything.

Some interpret it this way, sure. Doesn’t mean they’re correct, just because they’re ‘insiders’. That’s like assuming Christian fundamentalists understand the bible correctly. — Possibility

For a no-selfer, you sure are hung up on individuals!

It highlights a fundamental disagreement within Buddhism, though - and there is no standard doctrine or interpretation that resolves it, as evident by the Mahāyāna vs Theravāda criticisms back and forth.

Not everyone feels the need to resolve the disagreements between the Buddhist schools.

It comes down to this question of ‘individuality’ that is at the heart of these discussions. Is there more value in attaining individual enlightenment - non-existence - or in reducing suffering across existence overall?

This is a fallacious question to begin with, born out of a wrong understanding of suffering and enlightenment.

Earlier, you said words to the effect that it is possible to conceive of suffering in such a way so that it isn't a problem. I didn't address that then, and I let you go on with your idiosyncratic understanding of the term. I wondered what you'd have to offer.

Not sure what a ‘no-self’ approach to reduction in suffering has to do with bolstering one’s ego.

It allows you to feel good about what you're doing -- whatever it is that you're doing -- and to condemn others for being so stupid not to see things your way.

Nor do I see how ‘individual’ enlightenment through ignorance, isolation and exclusion reduces anything more than the appearance of suffering in relation to the ‘individual’, who then effectively ceases to exist.

It's no surprise you don't see anything more, because from a perspective like yours, there's nothing to see.

By inventing one's own definitions of terms one runs the risk of ending up with an internally inconsistent, incoherent mess of claims.

We are all blind until the moment we attain enlightenment

Really? What is the foundation for this claim of yours?

at which point we are no longer in a position to lead. This is the dilemma we face.

This is probably a dilemma for you, given what you said earlier.

If we count it as living together without exploiting one by burdening them, perhaps it can. I am not optimistic about my project either. All I have is antinatalism as a post-facto action. The whole, "do something while we live part" is not something I am sure will be of much difference. I just proposed something for those who say, "what besides antinatalism as a result?". To be charitable to my own proposal though I can try to outline a few things that can "make a difference" if that really means much in this inescapable situation:

1) Try burdening people with less. Just as we were burdened with the dissatisfaction-overcoming of being born at all, perhaps we can try to not put too many burdens on others.. Too many demands. Too many ultimatums.. Too many musts.. Of course this is never unavoidable with the Game (lest death) so it is only to lessen, it can never be to make go away completely all demands on others, obviously.

2) Try using humor, especially shared cynical humor when doing tasks that are unpleasant.. Like making the unpleasant task known as a shared hatred amongst peers that must deal with the task.

3) Try to tread lightly.. don't be aggressive with others, dominant, etc. This is what got us here in the first place.. people aggressively pursuing their agenda.

4) Shared consolation of suffering.. complain and listen to others complaints. Be sympathetic to them and perhaps feel a sense of community in sharing the burdens and the dissatisfaction-overcoming process. — schopenhauer1

This sounds like a modernized Western rendition of Jainism. Or Quietism. Both are pernicious.

But the problem is having the problem to overcome in the first place. It is this moral disqualification of being presented with problems to overcome in the first place, that I will never let go. You can play pretend all you want that self is an illusion. Pretend at being some Eastern sage. But the reality is it is the individual dealing with these things. You can try to twist the logic in wordplay but that’s it. Whether you say it is an illusion matters not because there is still the first person protagonist getting suffocated. The obvious fact that we have to work together to solve problems doesn’t make the individual self disappear either, nor does it negate the fact that the problem existed the first place to be overcome. This misguided notion is that overcoming itself means is good when in fact it’s just the opposite. It’s people being forced to face overcoming dissatisfaction. — schopenhauer1

The Early Buddhists would probably say that this is where the existentialist insight ends, and falls short.

1. The planet and its plants and animals don't exist for humans to eat it up.

2. If one eats solely for the purpose of living, one might as well eat cardboard. Or soylent green.

A great economic war will be waged in the long run against everyone but the elite in the future...... and actual wars too, for the great reset ? — Eskander

Better to choose poverty before being forced into it.

Having some power mightn't be enough. To have enough power to be completely free from any kind of threat is rare. Even in a hypothetical situation where one has that kind of power, they may still want to be liked, to maintain relationships, to continue to access certain privileges, and are thus still unwilling to bear the possible consequences of their actions. It is still a calculation, there are other factors to consider than just what goes in one's own head.

Can we really say that humans are essentially good and merely possess the possibility of being tempted by power? That their previously moral nature can sometimes just unravel? I don't think so. We are forced by our circumstances to pick between mutually exclusive desires and power can enable a person to bypass being forced to choose self-preservation against threats they've gained immunity from. You can't see where a bird would fly until you've released it from its cage. — Judaka

Attaining a position of power shows what a person is really like. Power doesn't corrupt, it reveals.

Having some power mightn't be enough. To have enough power to be completely free from any kind of threat is rare. — Judaka

The existence of nematodes provides some consolation. Seriously. They are the real rulers of the world. Everyone is subject to them. Imagine, for example, a murderous dictator with some worms in his lungs. He's instantly less frightening.

People, however, can be able to understand what is going on, even if just a few can really recognize it for what it is. — schopenhauer1

Or simply overpower others. Understanding what is going on is overrated, for the most part.

You'd need to show that understanding really does make a difference, a relevant difference.

Too bad that in my question you don't recognize Joseph Campbell's question. He wondered how it is that one can tell whether one has indeed had a religious/spiritual experience, or whether the feel good feeling one has is simply due to having had a good meal.
— baker

But this just begs the question: what does having a good mel have to do with the qualitative nature of experience? Certainly there can be a causal relation between the two, but this says nothing about WHAT the experience IS. Looks as if you are looking some kind of reduction of experience to physical brains states, such that a brain chemistry's analysis can yield up what an experience IS. This is obviously not true; the worst kind of question begging: how does one know what brain chemistry is? Why, through brain chemistry!? — Constance

No such reductionism. Again:
You find yourself feeling good, hopeful, life seems meaningful. Question: Is this feeling because you just had a good meal, or is it evidence of your spiritual attainment?

One thing Witt did was he took value off the table for discussion by claiming to be transcendental and unspeakable. This gave analytic philosophers the license to ignore THE most salient feature of our existence: affectivity. The meaning of life is not about facts; it is about the depth and breadth of affectivity.
/.../
Heuristics! That is all this is. Sitting under that fig tree is not at all about the four noble truths.

You're giving up on analytical thinking before it has had the chance to bear fruit.

Forced Agenda we all have to play. — schopenhauer1

Life in this world is about dominance.
Antinatalists are simply losers, weaklings.

There is standard Buddhist doctrine.

no-self
— Possibility

Anatta. — Agent Smith

No, anatta is not "no self".
We've been over this.

Part of the recommendation was preventing future suffering. The other half was building collective realization of our suffering.. Like non-religious communities of realization of the pessimism... It should be talked about all over.. and communities of consolation created post haste.. Instead of (tacitly) optimistic ones of X, Y, Z "project" we should have communities recognizing our existential position. — schopenhauer1

In the past, and implicitly still now, there were whole categories of people who were not supposed to marry and/or procreate.
Soldiers and servants, monks and nuns, for example.

I think part of the problem is that we are now under the dictature of sameness, an absolute egalitarianism ("everyone is supposed to have the same basic goals in life, having children being one of them"), even though this is a historical novum.

I will die, whether I comply with the dictates or not - that’s the reality of being. Compliance/non-compliance changes the overall arrangement or relational structures of being, not the limits. — Possibility

No, it's about the limits. No matter what else you do, you're a lifeform that requires oxygen. There is no way around that. This is what living in this body is defined by, and it carries with it a number of other givens.

Our overall arrangement of being is much different now than it was a thousand years ago, because the agenda has changed.

No, the agenda has always been the same, only its external manifestation varies according to circumstances.

This only seems pessimistic if you’re hung up on the illusion of the ‘individual’, which it appears that you are.

Riiight, the good old "no man, no problem" solution to all of life's problems!

I don't view evolution quite so cut-and-dry in humans regarding procreation. Procreation becomes a choice, unlike eating food or going to the bathroom. It's something we can choose to carry on. It is simply cultural reinforcement and personal preferences that perpetuate it. — schopenhauer1

It's certainly convenient to frame it that way, it makes it easy to criticize it.

The antinatalist's particular socio-economic situatedness makes the antinatalist unfit to procreate, but it says nothing about the procreative fitness of other people or about procreation per se.

Once we introduce particular socio-economic situatedness, all notions of egalitarianism or universalism (things that would be true for all people) are off the table, and we are firmly in eugenics.

There are people who have procreated and who really do not have any compunctions about it. People who are fit to live, fit to procreate.

The kind of general antinatalism you're advocating is not compatible with the Theory of Evolution.

That depends on your interpretation. The idea of ‘getting through the gates of heaven’ seems to me a misunderstanding of enlightenment in the first place. The joke portrays an incongruity between the Buddhist notion of ‘no-self’ and a self-actualising perception of enlightenment. Given there is no consensus on this in Buddhism, I guess it depends on your perspective, doesn’t it? — Possibility

No. From what I've seen, insiders understand it immediately to be about the idea that one should "postpone" one's enlightenment in favor of "helping others".

It's a belief that the blind are nevertheless fully qualified to lead the blind and to be trusted (blindly).

Mahayana criticizes Theravada for being "selfish", for not caring about others, and only focusing on one's own development. Theravada points out the folly and the danger of the blind leading the blind.


I brought this up in reference to your proposition that we should help others, even at the expense of our own lives. It's an absurd proposition that serves no other purpose but to bolster one's ego.

But not Jainism? What is the difference here? They both say the same thing and Buddhism would not exist without the ascetic Jains. — I like sushi

??

Where did you get that??

Early Buddhism.

Is world peace possible? And what will that look like? — Vincent

How can you end suffering if all life is effectively framed as ‘suffering’ (albeit a weaker sort of ‘disgruntlement’ and/or ‘dissatisfaction’)? — I like sushi

By seeing that there are two kinds of suffering:
1. suffering that leads to more suffering,
2. suffering that leads to the end of suffering.

Yes, we die, but it's one or the other at the same time. You either comply or you die. You will die eventually, but at that point, you no longer will be or have to be complying.
/.../
You live in the situatedness of history, physics, socioeconomic reality. You can deny it, but I can deny gravity and that wouldn't mean jack shit on its truth. — schopenhauer1

I think part of the problem is that you're simultaneously holding onto two theories/philosophies which are mutually exclusive. Namely, one the one hand, Schopenhauerian pessimism and on the other, the Theory of Evolution. The two together make for a supertoxic mix.

From an evolutionary perspective, antinatalism is a dead end; antinatalists are evolutionary detritus, they cull themselves out of the gene pool, while evolution, and life, march on, ever on. Antinatalists who adhere to the ToE have no right to complain (or rebel).

The OP is asking what one should do. — I like sushi

Can you copy-paste it? I read the OP again, and don't see that question there.

If you have an answer then that would be a ‘good life’ of a sorts right? Is a ‘sort of good life’ better than a ‘no sort of good life’? If so and your response is it doesn’t matter because we suffer anyway, then you have not made any meaningful distinction between the two.

I think there is a "good life", it's just that I think it's not one directed the usual way, into consumption in the pursuit of sensual pleasures. But, rather, it is one of making an effort to end suffering (not merely reduce it).

There is an old inside joke in Buddhism about Mahayana heaven:

Outside of the heavenly gates, crowds of bodhisattvas bowing to eachother, making a gesture with the hand, saying, "After you!"
— baker

:ok: — Possibility

Why the :ok: ?

The joke is actually a harsh criticism of the idea of postponing one's own enlightenment in favor of others.

Comply or die. Anything besides immobility would be acting on it so de facto X would be acting on it, and it "owning us". — schopenhauer1

Actually, even if you were a deaf, mute, and blind tetraplegic, you could still be in compliance mode. The comply-and-die is first and foremost in the mind.


I want to say more, but I am in too much pain from complications from my injury. I'll try to get back to the forum in a few days.
So much for people easing eachother's suffering.

My latest posts with Possibility (still waiting for a response in last post), is that our dissatisfactions create for each other the de facto forced situation of having to at all comply with the agenda of a society (going to work, paying bills, anythign we do for survival and comfort and entertainment within a broader socioeconomic framework..in our society's case),

because if we don't, we will die (through slow starvation and depredation or outright suicide). — schopenhauer1

This is actually an overstatement. You're assuming a general model, an abstract notion of life -- those 75 years or so that one must somehow get through.

But you don't actually know whether this scenario applies to you, you just take for granted that it does. And perhaps in doing so, you actually make it happen.

An airplane engine could fall on your house and crush you tomorrow. An aneurysm in your brain could burst and off you are in the following hour. You could die in a hundred ways long before you reach those 75 years of age.

Again, dissatisfaction rules everything. There is no way out. Not in theory, nor in practice. — schopenhauer1

At least theoretically, there is a way out. Early Buddhism proposes it.

I imagine you can this being viewed as wanting something for nothing. Do you view a ‘good life’ as getting something for nothing perpetually without worries of ‘burdens’? — I like sushi

As for the other response you gave I will say the same thing I said to Schopenhauer fellow here … ‘no’ is not a helpful answer for me if am I to understand your position. Why no? — I like sushi

This has already been addressed earlier in the thread. E.g.

the idea is that any kind of existence is burdensome. It's about a dissatisfaction that would persist even if one had all the health, wealth, beauty, fame, family, friends, etc. in the world. — baker

But every act of ignorance, isolation or exclusion brings ongoing harm and suffering to ourselves and others that we cannot avoid, because we’re not paying attention to it. And if we value a reduction in suffering overall more than the existence of any single being (which appears to be the essential argument of antinatalism), then we should be willing to endure a little more suffering ourselves, even risk our own death, rather than choose to ignore, isolate or exclude any longer. We just need to be honest with ourselves about this - that nothing we will ever do with our existence is worth more than what we do to reduce suffering for others. And if we’re still alive, then it means we haven’t done enough. — Possibility

There is an old inside joke in Buddhism about Mahayana heaven:

Outside of the heavenly gates, crowds of bodhisattvas bowing to eachother, making a gesture with the hand, saying, "After you!"