If by telos you mean purpose, I'd have to know what more you mean. — schopenhauer1
As you and others have pointed out, even Sisyphus smiling at his own futility is hope. It is hope in the living out of the futility. Hope of the hopeless futility. — schopenhauer1
So no, "hope of the hopeless futility" is not hope; just listen to yourself, man. "Hope of the hopeless futility?" — Noble Dust
The hope, though, is not to push more dope, but to do something about the wretched world. — Bitter Crank
There is an aesthetic beauty in understanding this. — schopenhauer1
One might say that is its own form of hope (the escape from the hope-cycle). I think greater a — schopenhauer1
I think greater awareness of it through dialogue like this has a form of consolation involved. — schopenhauer1
There is something said about coming to the same understanding of life as another person and not deluding it down because the insight does not fit with the very hope-cycle it wish's to explain. — schopenhauer1
I never refuted that, and even said thought that was one thing pessimism can offer, a sobering but at least somewhat comforting idea that can be shared with those who are aware of the aesthetic vision it provides. — schopenhauer1
But really we are doing to do to do, entertaining to entertain, etc. — schopenhauer1
It is hope that is the opiate of the masses. — schopenhauer1
You need to define beauty as something inherently hopeless, then. Or inherently futile, or whatever. And not on Shopee's terms; on your own. — Noble Dust
It may for you, but that's a form of escapism. — Noble Dust
So, not deluding down someone else's hope-cycle? — Noble Dust
My problem here is that you're a soft-core pessimist. You can't have comfort and pessimism at the same time. — Noble Dust
If I may put this in more vulgar terms, we are fucking to fuck, as well. We are eating to eat. We are sleeping to sleep. Entertaining, by the way, is fun when it's done well. Who doesn't like making others laugh or dazzling them? We like these things. We want to repeat them. Those who don't fear hellfire (or death as eternal sleep) fear death as the loss of this opportunity to repeat the same old pleasures. They also fear the loss of the personal growth interrupted by death. Maybe this just means becoming a better philosopher, writing that great book one day. — t0m
Where does 'meaning' fit into this. Hope seems like that dopamine release from the presynaptic channel to the postsynapses, while meaning is the response one gets from that 'hope'. Or is it the other way around?
Hope without meaning seems linked to such a degree that talking about one without the other what the elephant in the room is like to not be spoken of. — Posty McPostface
Well, there is the aesthetic of seeing the "what actually is going on here", which can be said to be the instrumentality of things. I don't mean aesthetic as beauty per se, just a kind of understanding that takes place based on envisioning the structure that is going on. — schopenhauer1
But there's not much more bottom you can go other than trying to manically make into something to embrace pace Nietzsche. — schopenhauer1
Once you see the hope-cycle, it doesn't go further back. You either find comfort in it, or you don't and you move on to some hopeful this or that. — schopenhauer1
It is just part of the ethical aspect I guess. — schopenhauer1
Pessimism can provide consolation. — schopenhauer1
Yeah, even worse than Schopenhauer's negation of Will is Nietzsche's eternal recurrence. That truly is a horror. One is quiescence, the other is manic life sentence. The eternal vigilance of being. — schopenhauer1
The point again, is hope gives us the narrow focus we need to not constantly bear the world in its full instrumental nature. It provides the ship its ballast. Status may be something that we do in a society, but that is more an epiphenomenon of being a social creature and is a secondary effect, and not an underlying factor in why we continue at a fundamental level. Status is not only getting caught up in goals, but taking them seriously. — schopenhauer1
Again, this just reiterates the point. I don't disagree this is what we do. You can't see the light for too long, as you implied, it will just burn. I think the whole personal growth thing is just part of the need for need of novelty. The constant satiation needs to be satisfied indeed. — schopenhauer1
But then another goal takes its place. And another. It is not whether you achieve the goal that I'm getting at, but the insatiableness of goals, the neverending quality, and their instrumental nature. Also, its ability to narrow our focus so we don't see the absurd instrumental nature of the repetition. It's an opiate indeed. — schopenhauer1
There seems to be a typo in there; want to re-phrase? — Noble Dust
"Hopeful this or that" being more fake hope, or what? Again, where does suicide play in here? — Noble Dust
What is the problem here? Circularity, not the logical kind, is part of nature...the planets revolve around the sun, biochemistry is full of chemical cycles. In fact I think cycles, of any kind, are an ineluctable part of our reality. Why point a finger at a very fundamental characteristic of nature itself and rue over it? I think this type of thinking, pitting unrealistic expectations against ''brute facts'' of nature, can serve only as a well of pain and suffering. What we should do is seek the truth and adapt to it, which you're not doing(?)
I don't know which is more absurd, life itself or people who think its absurd because it doesn't match their expectations? — TheMadFool
Libidus DominandiBut you're missing that enjoying the cycle means the situation doesn't "ask for" negation. For 10 years now I've been a "nihilist" in recognizing nothing absolute in the world. Indeed, this negation of the world is (for me) the absolute itself. By identifying with disidentification itself, man becomes transcendence incarnate.So by no means am I afraid of understanding you here. I'm not squeamish about the futility of human existence. It's part of my persona, living with this knowledge and the distance from mortal things it provides those who can accept their mortality.
I agree with what you imply, that we "slap on terms" in order to cope with reality. But I radicalize this theory. Even the grim "truth" of futility can function as an erotic object or power play. Pessimism is sexy.
Occasionally I feel world-weary. Occasionally (especially if I get sick), I get disgusted with life. So these modes appear, and it's easy to abstractly assent to my death in such modes. But for the most part the game is too absorbing. I have projects to bring to fruition. We can call the projects an illusion or the sense of futility an illusion. We'd just be privileging one mode over the other. Both modes are real. To project a dominant abstraction is arguably to reduce the real for a moment's purpose. — t0m
We are all trapped in depression for one reason or another - some are just less aware of their depression. There are also healthy people, but they are not here. We probably never met a healthy person, because Western society has become very corrupt. We look around, and there are only blind men leading the blind. It is our historical era.As someone also trapped in paralyzing depression, my question still stands. — Noble Dust
His vision is nothing but the will to power, as I mentioned before. He has this in common with Hegel and Kojeve, both of whom did not care for truth, but for power. Man had to become God, man had to dominate, to become the transcendent.Gotta have hope. Indeed. Upgrade the opium. — schopenhauer1
It is like looking at a red vase, and suddenly seeing it yellow. This is the radical cognitive change the whole Western world is looking for, scrambling for, and unable to find it. It is not a different experience, but a different way of experiencing.A purpose has to mean something that connects to the experience of life, in all it's fullness, suffering, and nihilism. — Noble Dust
To what end? Suppose we fix the world, and it is now a heaven. What will we do then? Utopia is meaningless - cannot exist in this world, only in another world - in heaven - can we hope for such a thing.The hope, though, is not to push more dope, but to do something about the wretched world. — Bitter Crank
Which just proves that your initial 'rational' theory about life was wrong.I decided [dogmatically] to give "trying" a try, improved my circumstances, got a good "intellectual" job, blah blah blah. So life is better. — t0m
And what greater, worse and less merciless fear is there than the fear that you cannot repeat the same old pleasures ad infinitum? Indeed, Nietzsche's great eternal recurrence must have been nothing but the desire of a miser - just more life ad infinitum - the same old small pleasure, but don't take them away from me.Those who don't fear hellfire (or death as eternal sleep) fear death as the loss of this opportunity to repeat the same old pleasures. — t0m
Memory, the past, time - they are all a bondage. True freedom is the letting go of memory, of the past, of all of it, and looking at things afresh.Falling in love for the first time again, for instance. — t0m
True. Socrates.Men even die for "honor," not so much because of what others think of them, necessarily, but for fear of how they would think of themselves after cowardly submission. — t0m
It is not rest that people are searching for - it is that infinite zest of the child, the sense of possibility, the breaking out from one's conditioning, one's past, one's prison - seeing the world aright.That conception would mean we would live an Ever Vigilant Existence where we never get any (metaphysical) rest — schopenhauer1
This is world-weariness - the feeling of impossibility, of being stuck. Just imagining for a second - the horror of so many years spent in school - so much work, and one is still just at the bottom of the mountain. The horror of having to spend again so much time, and so little progress. Being at the bottom of the mountain and looking up is depressing - it makes one feel that it is impossible to climb, and so one never climbs. And inversely - once at the top, the entire climb looks to have been impossible, unimaginable - a miracle! — Agustino
I'm not entirely convinced of that. Schopenhauer is invariably referenced in these discussions, but he would maintain that salvation is possible, and I agree with him. He may have been confused or mistaken about the mechanism and precise character of salvation, but that it is possible he demonstrates to my satisfaction. If salvation is possible, then it is rational to hope for. Thus, a hopeless world is not one your namesake and inspiration proposes, at the very least. If you have moved beyond him in this regard, it is apparently in the direction of nihilism. — Thorongil
No one can really avoid it. The strain of the instrumental nature of existence would be too much without...something. It could be the weekend, the tribal ceremony, that hunt, that X entertainment, that relationship. You name it, you are hoping for something. No one is above it. Sagely words don't negate its affect on the average (read all) humans living. — schopenhauer1
I know from personal experience that you are incorrect. Giving up hope is not that difficult for me, although I'm far from perfect. Now, giving up fear, for me that's the hard part — T Clark
Do you hope to do that? — schopenhauer1
But then another goal takes its place. And another. It is not whether you achieve the goal that I'm getting at, but the insatiableness of goals, the neverending quality, and their instrumental nature. Also, its ability to narrow our focus so we don't see the absurd instrumental nature of the repetition. It's an opiate indeed. — schopenhauer1
Despair, depression, gloom, futility, darkness... all dull our capacity to feel hope. Some of this we can not help, and some of it we can. — Bitter Crank
We are all trapped in depression for one reason or another - some are just less aware of their depression. There are also healthy people, but they are not here. We probably never met a healthy person, because Western society has become very corrupt. We look around, and there are only blind men leading the blind. It is our historical era. — Agustino
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