The encompassing of reason that necessarily cannot itself be encompassed by reasoning.What isreality? — Eremit
Undescribed reality.How should we call that which is beyond described reality?
It always already calls us (into question). How we respond either dignifies or destroys us.Should we call it?
Constraints also enable, horizons orient. Besides, reality hurts - often fatally - the careless.Should we care about it? If it's beyond our reason, beyond the world we know and world we live in, why should we care about it?
The alternative - not to care, care-less-ness - is maladaptive and, as I point out above, often hazardous.What I'm talking about is our unconsciousness as a part of our psyche, a part from w[hi]ch our consciousness (and reason) emerged. If we could equate our unconsciousness with realitybeyond, should we then care about it?
From a recent thread What is "Real"? https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/449183 here's my previous post on this topic ... Tell me what you think about (my three rabbit-holes down to not-quite-Wonderland) what I think.What are your thoughts on all this? Onunconsciousnessand realitybeyond? On their relatedness with us, as human beings, and existencein general?
What is reality? Everything that exists, that has a being. Everything that can be grasped by reason and somehow perceived. — Eremit
The real is that which hurts you badly, often fatally, when you don't respect it, and is as unavoidable as it is whatever preceeds-resists-exceeds all (of our) rational categories and techniques of control (e.g. ambiguity, transfinitude, contingency, uncertainty, randomness). The real encompasses reason (Jaspers) and itself cannot be encompassed (Spinoza / Cantor) ... like that 'void within which all atoms swirl' (Epicurus). Thus, Rosset's principle of 'indispensible yet insufficient' reason (à la Zapffe, Camus, Meillassoux-Brassier). — 180 Proof
I think that depends on whether (y/our) expectations are realistic or not (e.g. idealistic).Depressing! — TheMadFool
'Reality' isn't anthropic or even biophilic.Any way you can make it less morose? :chin: Is there a silver lining in the sense there's more to reality than needing to be in touch with it just to avoid injury and fatality?
(Local) Reality's regularities are computable and, therefore, explicable (if only approximately, non-exhaustively). Science - though inherently incomplete, probabilistic & fallibilist - is, besides music, the only magic that works.I'd like you to take a moment and look at the brighter side of reality, if there's one. What do you see?
If we could equate our unconsciousness with reality beyond, should we then care about it? — Eremit
reality beyond? — Eremit
How should we call that which is beyond described reality?
Undescribed reality. — 180 Proof
I think that depends on whether (y/our) expectations are realistic or not (e.g. idealistic). — 180 Proof
Reality' isn't anthropic or even biophilic. — 180 Proof
Sure. As per the mediocrity principle.But [reality] isn't completely anthrophobic or biophobic either, right? — TheMadFool
The Second Law of Thermodynamics: global disorder (i.e. complexity, proximity-to-maximum-equilibrium) never decreases.I suppose I'm asking, "why the constant realistic pessimistic attitude toward reality?"
Sure. As per the mediocrity principle.
I suppose I'm asking, "why the constant realistic pessimistic attitude toward reality?"
The Second Law of Thermodynamics: global disorder (i.e. complexity, proximity-to-maximum-equilibrium) never decreases. — 180 Proof
I reject "optimism". Courage is my preferred adaptive stance (rehearsed-reinforced daily via sisyphusian reflective, cognitive, ethical & existential acts of defiance). Epicurus-Epictetus, Spinoza, Zapffe-Camus, Albert Murray et al are some (varied) exemplars.Do you think there's a strategy that could make optimism a viable option? — TheMadFool
I reject "optimism". Courage is my preferred adaptive conduct (rehearsed-reinforced daily via sisyphusian reflective, cognitive, ethical & existential acts of defiance). Epicurus-Epictetus, Spinoza, Zapffe-Camus, Albert Murray et al are some (varied) exemplars. — 180 Proof
I reject "optimism". Courage is my preferred adaptive conduct — 180 Proof
Agreed. I dropped some names previously, and there are quite a few more - e.g. Galileo, Rosset, Nietzsche, Cioran, Lucretius, Diogenes of Sinope, Sextus Empiricus, d'Holbach, Darwin, Paine, Feuerbach, Peirce, Kropotkin, Gramsci, Wittgenstein, Arendt, West, et al - who teach by their varied examples courageous philosophies moreso than "philosophies of courage".The philosopher has to be capable of comprehending conditions that are largely hostile to his being. Where courage is lacking there the mind constructs fantasies, delusions of reality to make it more palatable. Where are the philosophers of courage? We don't need more abstractors, we need more courageous and tough-minded thinkers! — JerseyFlight
People having bothered with stuff like this have probably contributed to the enlightenment, the scientific process and stuff and thereby granted me a life already far longer than that for humans through history so I say - shoot!What I'm talking about is our unconsciousness as a part of our psyche, a part from witch our consciousness (and reason) emerged. If we could equate our unconsciousness with reality beyond, should we then care about it? — Eremit
Reality (...) Everything that can be grasped by reason — Eremit
reality beyond, is the ground of all existence — Eremit
e.g. this old 'anti-optimist' rant :point: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/346349The only ism that has justified itself is pessimism. — George Orwell
As I've pointed out elsewhere, I interpret these "attitudes" as risks for which we can prepare ourselves rather than outcomes independent of any actions we take; thus:three attitudes toward reality viz. 1) ]Pessimist, 2) Optimist, and 3)Realist.
[ ... ]
optimism is the belief that things in general will tend towardthe goodand pessimism, being [the] opposite, is the belief that outcomes, on balance, will usually bebad. — TheMadFool
I disagree. The pessimist, not quite a paranoid (usually), is egocentric in so far as he thinks reality is somehow biased against him; that is, he expects nature isn't 'mediocre' and that she never throws fair dice as far as (his) life is concerned. The most reasonable attitude, as you say, is that reality is indifferent to all attitudes, reasonable or not, which are merely self-serving habits-of-mind that either work (minimizing frustrations) to varying degrees or not at all.You really hit the bulls eye when you brought up entropy and the mediocrity principle - they makes pessimism the most reasonable attitude to adopt to life.
This is futility and has nothing to do with entropy, etc.... such mediocre odds we have of our plans ever succeeding.
No. Those "who wish chaos" where "plans fail pathetically" due to "higher entropic states" are also subject to the universe's free fall (so to speak) or "strange attraction" ever inexorably, towards "maximum entropy". It doesn't matter what they, "the devil" or anybody "desires", only what we/they do in spite of constant resistance from and indifference of the real.... maximum entropy figures at the top of the devil's wishlist. I daresay there are quite a number of people out there who would like nothing better than to see our most elaborate plans fail pathetically. The devil, such people form a category that desires higher entropic states and as odd as it sounds, to them success is failure.
Doesn't this mean that the devil and those who wish chaos in the world are favored by chance?
I don't think so. You've described them, Fool, as more akin to fatalists (re: futilitarians) than optimists (re: placebo/fetish-dependent deniers). Besides, chaos ain't chaos unless it cannibalizes itself first and last.In other words, the devil and people whom I've labeled anarchists are fully justified to be optimists.
I reject "optimism". Courage is my preferred adaptive conduct (rehearsed-reinforced daily via sisyphusian reflective, cognitive, ethical & existential acts of defiance). Epicurus-Epictetus, Spinoza, Zapffe-Camus, Albert Murray et al are some (varied) exemplars. — 180 Proof
Marcus Aurelius speaks clearer to me: "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way." :wink:Augustine had it approximately right. Give me strife, the αγων - the arena for contest attended by the gods - and the glorious defeat. But not too much and not right now! — tim wood
There is no future but the present.But pessimist philosophers appear to reiterate that there is no point in any kind of hope. Now we can be pedantic about the definition of hope, but if I was sure it was definitely zero, I wouldn't bother fighting for a better society — Saphsin
A less haughty, more homespun, corollary:Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present. — Albert Camus
As I've pointed out previously, my focus, or stance, is absurdist and not (merely) "pessimist". Memento mori :death: (solitaire) lucidly drives memento vivere :flower: (solidaire) - courage: sapere aude: amor fati: jouissance (Spinoza, Rosset).It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. — Mark Twain
Nothing is "beyond Reason" --- if it is allowed to roam freely, and restrained only by the long leash of Experience. Human Reason is like a dog's Nose : it's always sniffing around for things unseen. Sometimes it bumps into a Porcupine, but more often it leads to tasty "Pork". Both have real consequences.How should we call that which is beyond described reality? Should we call it? Should we care about it? If it's beyond our reason, beyond the world we know and world we live in, why should we care about it? — Eremit
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