Nothingness vs. Experience

schopenhauer1

One of the reasons why people feel that life is worth it, is because the good experiences outweigh non-experience. Putting up an arbitrary static number, If life was 75% neutral/bad/frustrating experiences and 25% good experiences, then the 25% good experiences justifies the 75% bad experiences. Let us also say that good experiences can be objectively picked out, and can roughly fall into these categories:

1) Physical pleasure (eating, sex, intoxication, etc.).

2) Relationships (friends, romantic relationships, family, meetings, good coworkers, etc.)

3) Aesthetic pleasure (art, humor, comedy, drama, natural beauty, reading, etc.)

4) Accomplishment (solving a complex problem, building a business, achieving a level of mastery, etc.)

5) Flow states (being in the "zone", having abilities challenged at the right interest level, time doesn't pass, etc.)

6) Learning (gaining new information, acquiring new information, strengthening abilities, etc.)

The more-life proponents might say these 6 categories of "goods" are worth having more people. More people can experience these at varying levels.

Nothingness, however has none of these, but also lacks the awareness that these things exist. Nothingness can only be glimpsed at form the already-existing somethings that we are. But we can glean from our own understanding of possibility and existence, what nothing means in relation to these "goods".

One argument in defense of nothing over something is that the percentages are skewed. If the arbitrary number I picked is actually closer to the truth of the matter,something like 75% of life is not experiencing these goods, or these goods purely, but rather mixed with negatives of life (e.g. frustrations, annoyances, harms, sufferings, etc.).

However, that argument might simply be dismissed as merely one man's assertion. Someone might say MY life is closer to 75% goods or better, not the other way around! Go speak for yourself!

Then a second argument in defense of nothing, is the epistemological lack of awareness that a "thing-which-never-existed" is characterized by. That is to say- no experiencing thing, knows not what is missing anyways.

One main conclusion here is "Nothing never hurt any one (literally)". However, by being born, being something that experiences, it will always hurt someone. As has been said by me before, no use providing a new person with obstacle courses just so they can overcome them, and hope that the "goods" of life outweigh the bad. Nothing never hurt anyone.

Also, important and implicit in the more-life proponents is that people need to experience the struggle of understanding the world around them and navigating it. Why does this need to happen for new people brought into the world? Why is there presumed to be a "mission" that we bring new people into the world to understand, produce, and navigate it? I would like to know where this "mission" comes from?

Deleteduserrc

I have a hunch that looking at life as something that can be carved up into discrete experiences which are either good or bad contributes majorly to an overall despair, or at least melancholy.

schopenhauer1

↪csalisbury

What if I said I predicted this idea was going to be brought forward?

But anyways, yeah yeah the human experience is too complicated for category, but that can literally be said of anything, including language itself. As far as a rough guide though, I don’t think these six categories are half bad. Of course I authored them, so I’m biased.

Deleteduserrc

What if I said I predicted this idea was going to be brought forward? — schopenhauer1

I don't know, what if I said I predicted you were going to make a post defending nothingness instead of experience?

But, my point isn't that your categories aren't exhaustive, or don't carve up reality in the right way. I mean the entire approach of dividing life into good versus bad experiences in the first place, and then thinking about the ratio of one to the other.

javra

Here’s a premise I’d like for anyone to debunk: Nothingness*--i.e., the complete absence of being—is a chimerical abstraction of human imagination that, thereby, does not reference anything real.

* This concept, however worded, here stands in contrast to the transient nonbeing of givens within a context of underlying being/existence: As in, after breaking a mug into a thousand pieces proceeding to claim that the mug is no longer, that it now holds no being, that it is now nothing … when, in fact, all that’s happened is that its constituents have changed their structure while yet existing just as much as before.

Without the just stipulated premise being evidenced false, the longing for nothingness holds the exact same properties as the longing to arrive at the planet’s horizon. It can’t be done. Not that it’s inconceivable; it is—as evidenced by our ability to understand the concepts. It’s just that it’s metaphysically impossible and, hence, a complete falsehood.

Advice for those who will try to evidence the premise false: Address nothingness without in any way presenting it to be endowed with any form of presence—for, were it to be endowed with presence, it would be being rather than nonbeing (it would thereby hold some form of existence). An example of what not to do: do not claim that existence can turn to nothingness on grounds that existence was/is itself caused by nothingness—for this entails that nothingness is itself a causal agency, thereby entailing that nothingness is something that holds being (minimally, as a causal agency): Thereby resulting in quite the logical contradiction in regard to being.

I would like to know where this "mission" comes from? — schopenhauer1

As far as hypotheticals and their logical consequences go, one could hypothetically manage to obliterate all sapience off of the planet but, logically, the same magnitude of sapience will only re-evolve to its current state. This is because givens such as the planet and its bacteria will remain even after the destruction of all sapient life—and this because one will not have actualized a complete nothingness (via an omnipotence that also obliterates itself?). Given that nothingness is not actualized, the same magnitudes of experience-dependent pleasure and suffering will, then, again unfold among increasingly intelligent sentient beings—only so that life once again finds itself at the magnitude of relative wisdom that we as a human species are at currently. The hypothetical is analogous to a suicidal Sisyphus that always gets reborn to re-experience the same suffering … played out at a magnitude of species.

Given that actualizing nothingness is a metaphysical impossibility, I’d say that the quote-unquote mission is there because there is no other way—metaphysical or otherwise—of alleviating existential suffering at large than via increased understanding.

Deleteduserrc

Given that actualizing nothingness is a metaphysical impossibility, I’d say that the quote-unquote mission is there because there is no other way—metaphysical or otherwise—of alleviating existential suffering at large than via increased understanding. — javra

Three cheers. This is my view as well.

schopenhauer1

↪csalisbury

Just add in “mystical unquantifiable mix of the two” of you want. I’ll allow it.

javra

↪csalisbury

Thanks. :wink:

schopenhauer1

↪javra

I’m thinking at the margins, not the whole pie. It’s the decision of the individual. For example, one persons meat eating does not negate another’s veganism.

javra

I’m thinking at the margins, not the whole pie. It’s the decision of the individual. For example, one persons meat eating dies or negate another’s veganism. — schopenhauer1

Didn't sound like it, but OK. Still, how does your reply address the logic/fallacy to this argument:

As far as hypotheticals and their logical consequences go, one could hypothetically manage to obliterate all sapience off of the planet but, logically, the same magnitude of sapience will only re-evolve to its current state. This is because givens such as the planet and its bacteria will remain even after the destruction of all sapient life—and this because one will not have actualized a complete nothingness (via an omnipotence that also obliterates itself?). Given that nothingness is not actualized, the same magnitudes of experience-dependent pleasure and suffering will, then, again unfold among increasingly intelligent sentient beings—only so that life once again finds itself at the magnitude of relative wisdom that we as a human species are at currently. The hypothetical is analogous to a suicidal Sisyphus that always gets reborn to re-experience the same suffering … played out at a magnitude of species. — javra

Edit: I'm here allowing for the hypothetical that, somehow, all individuals will make that decision that your advocating for.

Deleteduserrc

Just add in “mystical unquantifiable mix of the two” of you want. I’ll allow it. — schopenhauer1

But then the first argument, based on ratios, wouldn't work.

schopenhauer1

↪javra

If they were as sentient as us and can evaluate their own condition as they were living it out, they too can decide the best course is to not procreate. The same outcome would arise from any logical species with the same range of emotional-evaluative abilities.

javra

↪schopenhauer1

And how would this alleviate an eternal return of suffering?

schopenhauer1

↪csalisbury

The crux of the argument doesn’t rely on granular unalloyed ratios. Alloyed mixed in shit is of unquantifiable ratios doesn’t erase that shit is mixed in.

Also see second argument.

schopenhauer1

↪javra

It’s simply the most logical reaction for individual actors to sufferings existence, and the realization that “no person” is never harmed. I care not so much about the extreme final outcome of all this (complete nonexistence). That is moving the target of where this matters.

javra

↪schopenhauer1

Um. You're ignoring what I re-posted and boldfaced. Where is the logical fallacy to the argument and its conclusion?

schopenhauer1

↪javra

I believe I addressed it with my last post by highlighting the fact that you are moving the goal post. I’m at the level of individual actor decisions to not bring another existence into the world, not existence of sentient beings as a whole. That would be moving the target as to where the decision lies. Hence my remark about veganism and meat eaters.

Deleteduserrc

↪schopenhauer1

Yeah, but you're still treating things in terms of purity and impurity. As far as the second, argument - I don't know why life's structured so you have to make it meaningful, but it is, and as far as I can tell there's no one who made it that way, so there's no one to ask for reasons or to argue with that it should be otherwise.

If you're born, then I think the only way forward is that way. If you're arguing for antinatalism, 99.99% of people don't have or not have children based on philosophical argument, so it doesn't matter.

(I also have an idea similar to Javra's maybe, that people aren't brought from nothing into the world, its more like a redistribution of consciousness, so antibatalism wouldn't work anyway, but I can't really argue that, at least not anytime soon.)

javra

I’m at the level of individual actor decisions to not bring another existence into the world, not existence of sentient beings as a whole. — schopenhauer1

Does this then signify that you are only semi-antinatalist? Meaning: to each their own. Isn't this the way its always been and always will be?

I guess I then fail to understand why you want others to cease the continuation of life rather than allow them/us the freedom to do what we deem rational, what we see fit. There's something in the way here.

BC

↪schopenhauer1

One of the elements of life that makes life bearable is forgetting.

Real example: A week ago we had heavy snow in Minneapolis. The local news reported that last year in the middle of April, Minneapolis received 16 inches of snow. I was here, I shoveled it, I was surprised by it, I discussed it at length with the neighbors, etc. At least, I suppose I did. In fact, I don't remember anything about a snow storm in April of 2018. Nothing. Zero. So if it imposed suffering upon me (it might have) it doesn't count now because I can't reckon it into my balance of suffering and joy. Forgetting things takes them off the balancing scale.

I am happy to report that the memory of a lot of negative experiences I have had in the past have lost substance. I know they happened, and I can remember the details. but I don't feel the negativity any more.

Now, some people seem never to forget negative experiences. Some people carry misfortunes forward into their old age from kindergarten, it seems like. They remember tons of negative things, and they are still painful. Of course I have painful memories that are still unpleasant. But they are discreet events, not an ocean of pain.

If one experienced one's assortment of painful experiences like an ocean of pain (not the mass of an ocean, just the merged droplets of the ocean) EDIT: NOT bringing into existence another person would certainly be preferable.

javra

(I also have an idea similar to Javra's maybe, that people aren't brought from nothing into the world, its more like a redistribution of consciousness, so antibatalism wouldn't work anyway, but I can't really argue that. ) — csalisbury

I'm in good company then. :grin: I often enough feel the same way, but haven't been able to find a stringent argument for it.

Deleteduserrc

I'm in good company then. :grin: I often enough feel the same way, but haven't been able to find a stringent argument for it. — javra

The best I can gesture toward is something like - experience has to have some kind of temporal element (having just been, is, moving toward) so it can't emerge at a moment. But that would need a lot of work to support, and it still feels just slightly tangential to some more central thing.

javra

↪csalisbury

Agreed. Personally, I'm one to uphold that ultimate beginnings of being are not knowable even in principle by any ego. Laugh all you want; my big thing is how on earth did life evolve out of nonlife ... metaphysically speaking. It had to have been. Yet, not being a physicalist, when poetically expressed, I gravitate toward a will and representation view of existence. How to conceive of will existing in the absence of life eludes me. (Not that I deem physicalism a better alternative.) But yes, a redistribution of consciousness is something that I sometimes ponder.

Wayfarer

I say the whole idea is motivated by the 'fear of being' - something close to what Eric Fromm meant in his 1960s book Escape from Freedom (a.k.a. Fear of Freedom). The reason is, 'being' is pretty scary! So we would like to not have to deal with it. But, as beings, we have no choice in the matter, the die is cast already. Seeking release through nothingness is precisely nihilism.

schopenhauer1

↪Wayfarer

But release by not having in first place for next generation and understanding this prevention for the already-existing is the therapy.

Joshs

Without the just stipulated premise being evidenced false, the longing for nothingness holds the exact same properties as the longing to arrive at the planet’s horizon. It can’t be done. Not that it’s inconceivable; it is—as evidenced by our ability to understand the concepts. It’s just that it’s metaphysically impossible and, hence, a complete falsehood. — javra

Heidegger, Nietzsche and various post structuralist thinkers point to the approach to nothingness within the history of Western metaphysics as being dominated by presence, truth , immediacy and plenitude. In order to maintain this privileging , whatever threatens this dominance in the from of negation, nihilism and nothingness ,must be treated as accidental and secondary. As an example, negation is only a means to a positive end for Hegelian dialectics. Post-structuralism instead identifies the nothing as a positive meaning co-defining particular contexts of experience. They wouldn't say that achieving nothingness is impossible, rather that we do it all the time, as we transition between regions of meaning. The point is that invoking nothingness, in the traditional sense, as an alternative to being is unknowingly embracing a certain kind of being. It's not that we can't get what we want when we desire the nothing, but that longing for the nihil is just as much an active engagement with meaningfulness as desiring anything else, because the nothing always manifests itself as a certain kind of substantive within meaningful contexts.

javra

It's not that we can't get what we want when we desire the nothing, but that longing for the nihil is just as much an active engagement with meaningfulness as desiring anything else, because the nothing always manifests itself as a certain kind of substantive within meaningful contexts. — Joshs

Thinking of the horizon as a spatial limit to what can be traversed also holds meaning. It’s not as metaphysical in scope as that of a complete absence of being as the negation of existence in general, but it’s meaningful all the same. This, however, does not contradict the fact that thinking of the horizon in this way is erroneous. One does not experience the end of Earth upon reaching its horizon. So thinking is an error of abstraction.

That a complete absence of being can be meaningful, as can be the yearning for it, does not make the concept accordant to what is metaphysically real. Consider that a person yearning to reach the horizon will also live a meaningful life in so yearning—this while reaching the horizon is a physical impossibility. Hence, just because a concept is meaningful does not then imply that its referent is real or, hence, obtainable. Unicorns come to mind as yet a different example of this.

There are alternative ways of thinking about being. Instead of the easily conceived dyadic categories of being and nonbeing one could, for example, present the two extremes of a complete chaos of being and a complete order of being—with existence as is residing in-between these two extremes. As to physical correlates, the very first instants of the Big Bang can be deemed a near-complete chaos of being; this while the very core of a gravitational singularity—wherein space, time, and mass no longer hold meaning (this within the very same models that predict gravitational singularities)—can be likened to a complete order of being. So the concept of a complete absence of being is in no way logically necessitated as a factual counterpart to the factual reality of being. In other words, it does not need to "always manifest" (though it is well ingrained in our western minds).

All the same, I’m not disagreeing with your analysis of what is a staple portion of historical western thought.

Inyenzi

Is it actually coherent that before our births we did not exist in any sense? As if from a 'state' of parinirvana, a mind-stream has been formed (with it's inherent sufferings that have to be dealt with) for just a single blip of a lifetime, only to have its causes disassemble and the mind-steam ceases eternally. Like some sort of cosmic blip of suffering, in between timeless noncondition.

If 'I' did not exist prior to this life, and yet from that unconditioned 'state' a lifetime, or a first person conscious experience has arisen, why therefore when I 'return' to that same 'state' (it is hard to talk about this without committing logical fallacies), would I forever remain unconditioned? When we know from that I am sitting here typing this post, conditioned states have arisen from unconditioned/non-existent/nothingness. If I die, why would I stay dead?

It is as if the antinatalist is saying, "life is dukkha - stop pulling beings from nirvana!" "Stop bringing forth experience from nonexistence!" Is this coherent? I'm not sure.

Merkwurdichliebe

So thinking is an error of abstraction. — javra

Isn't it the reverse, abstraction is an error of thinking, or are you regarding thinking as an abstraction in this case?

Consider that a person yearning to reach the horizon will also live a meaningful life in so yearning—this while reaching the horizon is a physical impossibility. Hence, just because a concept is meaningful does not then imply that its referent is real or, hence, obtainable. — javra

May I add: ... and just because a referent is unreal or unobtainable, does not necessarily imply that it is not meaningful.

There are alternative ways of thinking about being. Instead of the easily conceived dyadic categories of being and nonbeing one could, for example, present the two extremes of a complete chaos of being and a complete order of being — javra

I'm not disagreeing, I just think it relevent to point out that the dialect of order/chaos is qualitatively and categorically different than the dialectic of being/nonbeing. This, for no other reason than the former carries being through the entire dialectic, so that it is quiessentialy unaffected; whereas in the latter, being itself is negated, so that we are forced to consider the implications of an absolute negative that nullifies anything that is related to being. It is a philosophically radical consideration, but nevertheless, I believe it to be a potential source of philosophic gold. Just call me the prospector.

javra

So thinking is an error of abstraction. — javra

Isn't it the reverse, abstraction is an error of thinking, or are you regarding thinking as an abstraction in this case? — Merkwurdichliebe

Interpret that sentence within its context as conveying: “In having so thought that one can reach the horizon, one will then have engaged in an error of abstract reasoning.” Or was your reply one of dry funniness?

I just think it relevent to point out that the dialect of order/chaos is qualitatively and categorically different than the dialectic of being/nonbeing. — Merkwurdichliebe

Of course it is, but this is neither here nor there in relation to what I tried to present. I’ll try to express myself better:

The chaos/order dichotomy, or dialectic, is amicable to sufficient reasons, and thereby holds the potential to explain why particular things are or are not (one could, for example, logically obtain an absence of all things via absolute order, a state of being analogous to the core of gravitational singularities; but this would not equate to what we understand by nothingness, for being would still be). What I’ve been arguing is that, in contrast, the nothingness/existence dichotomy is not rationally necessitated, if at all rationally supported. For instance: There is no sufficient reason known to mankind as to why there is existence rather than nothingness. Given this, then neither can there be any presently known sufficient reason for why there someday will be nothingness rather than some form of existence. Reasoning not composed of valid reasons is commonly considered irrational. Again, the reality of nothingness is conceivable but, I so far think, cannot be established. This despite many treating it as an established metaphysical fact.

Merkwurdichliebe

Or was your reply one of dry funniness? — javra

I suppose there is a portion of dry funniness (perhaps satire) in everything I say. But get what your talking about .

There is no sufficient reason known to mankind as to why there is existence rather than nothingness. Given this, then neither can there be any presently known sufficient reason for why there someday will be nothingness rather than some form of existence. Reasoning not composed of valid reasons is commonly considered irrational. Again, the reality of nothingness is conceivable but, I so far think, cannot be established. This despite many treating it as an established metaphysical fact. — javra

Yes that is the problem: it is impossible to qualify nothingness. It is a more mysterious notion than God.

Nothingness vs. Experience

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