But I never claimed this was an ideal state either (that of knowing that it's not a metaphysical fact that we have to live up to some ideal state).

It seems as if the concept of "potential" in a person exists merely to comfort an individual without any accomplishments in life. It is thrown around often towards children but only seems to make an arrogant attitude while causing them to remain in a stupor. Thinking we are able to do much more is merely ingredients in the recipe for disaster.

It seems as if the concept of "potential" in a person exists merely to comfort an individual without any accomplishments in life. — Lone Wolf

But the assumption is that we are here to perform accomplishments in the first place. That is the conceit, is it not? More humans need to be here because of x, y, and z experiences, technologies, and scientific pursuits that need to be forged. For many the spiritual potential is replaced with x, y, and z experiences, technologies, and scientific pursuits. So where one has a "cap" of what the potential is (some sort of union with the godhead) the other is this potentiality of the human capacity that is (perhaps) infinitely continuing in stepwise fashion and that every (new) human should contribute to.

But I never claimed this was an ideal state either (that of knowing that it's not a metaphysical fact that we have to live up to some ideal state). — schopenhauer1

It has to be one or the other.

Either you are saying something righter than us, therefore we all need to take notice of you. Or you are saying you are just another dude making a random noise and so we don't need to take any notice.

Your anti-natalist lament has this self under-mining logic. It's been pointed out before.

But the assumption is that we are here to perform accomplishments in the first place. That is the conceit, is it not? — schopenhauer1

I wouldn't say it is conceited to want to serve others by means of accomplishments.

It has to be one or the other.

Either you are saying something righter than us, therefore we all need to take notice of you. Or you are saying you are just another dude making a random noise and so we don't need to take any notice. — apokrisis

The quote that you are referring to asked if we have to live up to an ideal state where we know such and such about ideal states. Just because I am pointing something out does not mean one has to live up to understanding it, though I suggest people do it. My suggestion of taking in reality does not need to amount to a metaphysical fact though :wink: .

Yes Sisyphus indeed. Clearly we must exist for scientific exploration and technological innovation.

I wouldn't say it is conceited to want to serve others by means of accomplishments. — Lone Wolf

No I don't mean that it is "conceited" like, self-absorbed but rather it is a conceit meaning more of a lie. It is not true.

I have not read Sisyphus's contract, but is there an option for him to just let the rock roll over him and be done with it? Can he just give up?

It seems to me most people in the world are not subject to the relentless demands of human potential. 95%, give or take a dozen, are born, might survive childhood, may not become cannon fodder, have a fairly good chance of mating, may or may not be able to feed their children well, will hope for the best, expect the worst, and then die. That's obviously a condensed version of the much longer book, but most people do just get along with living ordinary lives.

Some people, maybe as many as 5% are benighted by the expectation that they will PRODUCE something really big, great, wonderful, expensive, long lasting, profitable, or fantastically fatal. They study, they condition their lovely bodies, they excel, they work very hard, the mate, produce children, put them through the same damn thing, and then they die. They may or may not have produced so much as a fart in the windstorm. But they had high expectations.

These are the lesser sisyphi, who are condemned to carrying a 15 pound rock in a gym bag up and down a fairly small mountain for eternity. They make it to the top every time, then they have to trudge back down the way they came and do the same entirely achievable thing over again -- for eternity. Big Sisyphus at least gets to feel a bit heroic as he struggles away. Little Sisyphi just feel like chumps.

Humans have no ideal potential state to live up to. — schopenhauer1

Maybe not ideal, but the potential is still there. And some potential states are ideal from subjective point of view.

I see what you're doing there. This criticism of my argument that you and apokrisis "got right" is actually the result of misinterpreting how I am using the term "potential" in the OP. Actually, this is a tangled web that you created out of a few related but distinct terms (preferences and potential mostly). So let me try to untangle it a bit.

My main claim in this thread is that:

There is no potential to live up to. It is just repetitious survival and finding hope in entertainments of sorts. There is a notion that humans have potential for this or that experience, technological, or scientific accomplishment. Nope, nope, and nope. Humans have no ideal potential state to live up to. If this idea makes you focus on specific goals, or think about this or that goal because you don't like the thought of the repetitious, vicious absurd nature of bigger picture, that's fine, but realize that's what it is and not a metaphysical fact. If you think it is, I'd like to see proof other than that we survive through certain cognitive means which is the result of linguistic brains, etc.. — schopenhauer1

So when I use the term "potential" here, I mean that we do not need to be born in the first place in order to have a particular X experience, or contribute to technological, or scientific accomplishment. This idea of human potential actually stems from a sort of Medieval understanding of humans and their nature. According to Medieval (Western) philosophy, we have an essence (prior to existence) that can be fully manifested in life through living a certain spiritual or godly way. Thus life's mission is to realize this essence through whatever spiritual means.

In more recent/modern times, there are secular versions of this Medieval notion of manifesting our essence, but instead of spiritual, it is related to scientific/technological progress or certain experiences that humans can have. So, instead of the potential for humans to realize their spiritual nature (as the original Medieval notions believed), there is potential for humans to realize their full scientific/technological capacity. Thus by being born, a person can (and should) realize and manifest their potential to contribute to some scientific/technological endeavor. An alternative term I used is experience. So, maybe, the person is inclined to think rather than contribute their full potential to science/technology, that they can live up to their self-realized potential for some X experience (love, flow states, accomplishment, etc.).

Thus, the original spiritual idea of human potential can be easily replaced with secular notions of living up to some essence related to X experience OR figuring out scientific/technological innovations. Thus, I am using potential here in this secularized Medieval version of our "essence manifesting itself fully".

Now, what this claim is NOT saying is that there are no such thing as achieving some desired goal.

You said

Human "preferences" and "choices" become hollow if "there is no potential to live up to" — Πετροκότσυφας

You are using potential here in a completely different way than what I am referring to in the OP (the secularized Medieval notion that we are manifesting some essence of what it is to be human by contributing to scientific/technological pursuits or having X experience). Here, you are using potential as achieving something (perhaps over some other less desirable thing). I agree that this potential can and does take place, but not the former.

This criticism then becomes a bit of a non-sequitor

Everything boils down to survival, even though you denied this in the other thread where you wrote "Human behavior isn't necessarily specialized for survival". Yet, here, you write "it is just repetitious survival and finding hope in entertainments of sorts." — Πετροκότσυφας

Human behavior is not necessarily specialized for survival. I believe I was saying that in reference to programmed instincts vs. cultural learning. Much of other animal behavior consists of innately specialized instincts that we do not have. We learn much through the capacity to generate concepts and grasp ideas through cultural means. But I have always claimed though, that our three main goals are survival-related drives, maintenance/comfort-seeking goals (clean the room, put oil in the car, take a shower, etc.), and entertainment-related drives (what to do with sense of boredom and emptiness). This however, is a tripartate system that I think conveniently splits our basic will or striving into easily understood categories. These three goals, are not something we prefer to do, nor what we should prefer to do, but something THAT we do as a course of being human. It is descriptive of our human nature.. perhaps a "better" description (a metaphysical claim) than this idea of human potential that I outlined.

So what it is about accomplishments that create these little Sisyphi? Why is that more powerful than the repetitious nature and absurdity of the situation?

There is no potential to live up to. It is just repetitious survival and finding hope in entertainments of sorts. — schopenhauer1

You still have the problem that you are employing a value-laden argument to argue against value laden arguments.

If I am saying life has the point of living up to your potential - because that feels fulfilling and worthwhile - then you are saying no, that's some kind of delusion. It is just forced and repetitious survival, a vain invention of a reason to hope. So you are arguing against a positive assessment with a negative assessment.

If you were truly arguing for an essential meaninglessness to life and however we might choose to live it, then you ought to be simply neutral. However I viewed life - optimist or pessimist - shouldn't make a difference. Nature would be as indifferent to the anti-natalist as it is to everything else (in your view).

I mean aren't you striving your utmost in a repetitious and time-filling fashion to fulfil your potential as a Pessimist here? Isn't that the purpose giving meaning and direction to your life?

You kill your own argument by showing how much you care about it. It matters that you are right. If you convince others, you will have achieved something useful with your efforts. You will have proved yourself the best Pessimist you could have been.

A true Nihilist wouldn't even bother to post. :)

Stepping back to consider the actual existential situation we find ourselves in, the answer from positive psychology would be that we are indeed alienated by the "scientific" realisation that we are "cosmically insignificant". And this goes along with its polar opposite "realisation" - that in the end, only "we" can count.

What our modern expanded philosophical view of ourselves does is force us to a strongly dichotomous metaphysics where reality becomes something essenatially empty, pointless and meaningless, which then throws all the responsibility for being fulfilled and meaningful back on this "us" - this Romantic notion of the human self as a witnessing soul that stands dualistically separated from the actual world it is forced to inhabit.

But this is a faulty metaphysics. Actual science tells us that we are the products of biological and social complexity. We are parts of a whole. We are individuated selves - but individuated due to a larger evolving context. And that is an intrinsic source of any felt meaningfulness, any assessment either positive or negative.

So if we are parts of a whole - naturally embodied in a lived human context - then that is what we rationally ought to focus on if we want a co-ordinate frame with which to plot our own individual path in life.

It is crazy, irrational, to act like a dualist and try to make sense of our existence as if we are some brief guttering flame of consciousness that is illuminating a cosmically vast and empty void. That is a metaphysical framing that seems scientifically justified - given astronomy and Newton - and yet is also a huge exaggeration of our actual position.

Our actual position is better understood from natural philosophy/systems science which focuses on the way everything is an embodied part of a "living" whole. This would then say we are each a product of our biology and culture. We are not solitary sparks as dualism would have it. Therefore we should expect to find our life purpose in that actual evolutionary history, in all its fantastic complexity and essential openness.

We just aren't designed to feel personally connected to the Cosmos. Even religion - in offering an image of a connection to a larger whole - generally paints a picture of that in social terms. Everyone gathered together in a state of love in the garden of the Big Daddy in the Sky.

So an honest metaphysics would be honest to the right scientific picture of existence. And that is what positive psychology in particular would attempt. We are born to find meaning in our biological and social context. And while that is a fairly specific kind of constraint, it is also not a closed and deterministic one. Part of the realism is that the finding of meaning is an open and creative exercise - a continuing journey of adaptation.

What I am arguing is that you reject the actual complexity and naturalism of life because you accept this simplistic metaphysics of a lonely soul in an empty void. That was the shocking existential picture that Enlightenment science appeared to reveal, so setting off the opposite reaction of a Romanticist revulsion.

But that scientific reductionism and romantic existentialism are only two sides of the same coin - the two views of the one faulty metaphysics.

We know enough now about actual complexity, actual systems metaphysics, to see this framing of the situation as very flawed. And thus any philosophy that tries to found itself on it will be too.

But I have always claimed though, that our three main goals are survival-related drives, maintenance/comfort-seeking goals (clean the room, put oil in the car, take a shower, etc.), and entertainment-related drives (what to do with sense of boredom and emptiness). — schopenhauer1

Yep. Instead of talking about life having the purpose of flourishing, you need it to be all about blind and pointless survival. You need it to be the case that once the basics of "existence maintenance" are achieved, everything else can be viewed as a meaningless filling in of the time.

So you wire in your conclusions from the start.

The alternative picture is that humans - once they have sorted the more basic needs outlined by Maslow's hierarchy - then will continue on to self-actualise. That is, they will reflect the natural logic of their evolved situation and seek to flourish even further by being personally creative in some socially valued fashion.

Turning to "entertainment" to fill a psychic void is obviously the wrong thing to do - the unnatural thing.

Yes, we do have the problem that the modern consumer society has encouraged that kind of "fulfilment". But then we can't critique modern society if we simply believe it is essentially right about the human condition.

If you were truly arguing for an essential meaninglessness to life and however we might choose to live it, then you ought to be simply neutral. However I viewed life - optimist or pessimist - shouldn't make a difference. Nature would be as indifferent to the anti-natalist as it is to everything else (in your view). — apokrisis

Yet I'm not a nihilist, rather a pessimist. Nature may be indifferent, but we aren't indifferent to life as living itself requires axiological assessments, sometimes of life itself which is appropriate being that we are animals that can assign values.

You kill your own argument by showing how much you care about it. It matters that you are right. If you convince others, you will have achieved something useful with your efforts. You will have proved yourself the best Pessimist you could have been.

A true Nihilist wouldn't even bother to post. :) — apokrisis

No I am not really in this "to win". I understand I am in the minority with what people claim in public forums (though I think it is another story what people actually think from moment to moment or day to day, but that is a different thread about psychological Pollyannaiism as well as social cues people learn in regards to downplaying negative thoughts about life publicly). Though the metaphysical claim might be true, I do not hold that others MUST have this epistemological alignment themselves as a metaphysical truth. I simply present the case. Indeed it is important to me, but no one has to live up to being a perfect pessimist ideal.

Our actual position is better understood from natural philosophy/systems science which focuses on the way everything is an embodied part of a "living" whole. This would then say we are each a product of our biology and culture. We are not solitary sparks as dualism would have it. Therefore we should expect to find our life purpose in that actual evolutionary history, in all its fantastic complexity and essential openness.

We just aren't designed to feel personally connected to the Cosmos. Even religion - in offering an image of a connection to a larger whole - generally paints a picture of that in social terms. Everyone gathered together in a state of love in the garden of the Big Daddy in the Sky.

So an honest metaphysics would be honest to the right scientific picture of existence. And that is what positive psychology in particular would attempt. We are born to find meaning in our biological and social context. And while that is a fairly specific kind of constraint, it is also not a closed and deterministic one. Part of the realism is that the finding of meaning is an open and creative exercise - a continuing journey of adaptation.

What I am arguing is that you reject the actual complexity and naturalism of life because you accept this simplistic metaphysics of a lonely soul in an empty void. That was the shocking existential picture that Enlightenment science appeared to reveal, so setting off the opposite reaction of a Romanticist revulsion.

But that scientific reductionism and romantic existentialism are only two sides of the same coin - the two views of the one faulty metaphysics.

We know enough now about actual complexity, actual systems metaphysics, to see this framing of the situation as very flawed. And thus any philosophy that tries to found itself on it will be too. — apokrisis

I really didn't get much from this. I mean it looks nice as far as the words go, but as far as how systems science dissolves the fact that humans have no metaphysical telos they must live for, is lost on me. I think I know what you are trying to say. You are trying to say, "look we are part of this complex system, so we are not this insignificant nothing in a void of nothingness". It sounds like you are saying either that "we must contribute to the system which created us" or "the system will provide the tools for living a happy life", then I think you are being naively dismissive of the situation. You are so ready to frame my thoughts with your own construction of Enlightenment "isolating of humans from cosmos/god" and Romanticism's "rebellion of the individualistic human hero", you really lose the import of the argument as it is actually being made. Unless you really fully try to internalize the idea of "vicious absurdity" and the awareness of this, then it will be lost. You will simply do exactly as that which prevents us from fully experiencing it- that is to isolate it, ignore it, sublimate it, or anchor yourself in some ideal or another to live up to.

Yep. Instead of talking about life having the purpose of flourishing, you need it to be all about blind and pointless survival. You need it to be the case that once the basics of "existence maintenance" are achieved, everything else can be viewed as a meaningless filling in of the time.

So you wire in your conclusions from the start.

The alternative picture is that humans - once they have sorted the more basic needs outlined by Maslow's hierarchy - then will continue on to self-actualise. That is, they will reflect the natural logic of their evolved situation and seek to flourish even further by being personally creative in some socially valued fashion.

Turning to "entertainment" to fill a psychic void is obviously the wrong thing to do - the unnatural thing.

Yes, we do have the problem that the modern consumer society has encouraged that kind of "fulfilment". But then we can't critique modern society if we simply believe it is essentially right about the human condition. — apokrisis

What is this flourishing you speak of? It sounds a bit... Romantic! :D Also, flourishing is not permanent- there is repetitive acts of living (vicious absurdity), the hedonic treadmill phenomena of finding "novel" goods in life that can't last, being deprived of some preference or state at almost all time (deprivationalism), the emptiness behind all pursuits.

In fact, most importantly, we are never not trapped once born. It is a bind in the truest sense, that suicide is not the same as never experiencing suffering and indeed, suicide is painful and hard for any socialized average adult. This isn't an indication of "aha! see life is good" it is simply a limit on certain actions based on fears of loss of self or painful future state. We are trapped with our own survival, trapped with our own maintenance, trapped with our own pursuing of X, Y, or Z avenues to what we think to be happiness. By framing it as "opportunities", the fact that it could never not be the case, was glossed over.

But to the degree that we "misinterpreted" you, we did so, I think, because there's nothing in the OP to suggest you were merely criticizing a secular version of scholastic essentialism. On the contrary, all in it point to a commonsensical understanding of words like "potential", "goal" etc. — Πετροκότσυφας

Granted, I should have been more explicit with how I was using the term.

But, it seems to me that, the idea of human potential that is usually thrown around is the latter, not the former. Sure, many people, when questioned about the reasons of why they procreate, will come up with a whole bunch of rationalizations (some of which will resemble the essentialism that you're talking about) in order to conceal the more down to earth reasons which, more or less, amount to "I don't know, that's what we do, it's an impulse". Weather this impulse is biological, culturally constructed or something else, doesn't matter much in this context. The fact that many people resort to these rationalizations, does not mean that, in the unfolding of day to day life, it was some version of scholastic essentialism they had in mind when they were engaging in certain actions. And in most of the myriad other instances, besides procreation, where people talk about human potential, it's in the latter way that they do it. The tangible way of being able to do something with a reason and without a scholastic model, of what it means to be human, in mind. — Πετροκότσυφας

Again, I agree it should have been more explicit. Well-stated. Also, I think you are right about "I don't know, that's what we do, it's an impulse" as a rationale. That's almost scary. No depth of thought regarding existential issues.. just do something on behalf of someone else without question.

But it makes no sense to say that, when you subject everything to survival. Which is what you do, it seems to me. The last sentence of the OP is telling. Plus, I'm not sure if I get your tripartite system. What's the difference between "survival" and "maintenance" or between "goals" and "drives"? What does it mean to do something as a course of being human? Is there anything that we do that falls outside this tripartite system? — Πετροκότσυφας

I meant goals for all three and not drives. We have an impulse to make goals- some related to survival and are fully derived from the self's relation to the cultural surroundings (via the learning process/enculturation/cultural obtaining of survival needs through socio-economic means). Maintenance is that in which we maintain our environment- it is not exactly going to kill us if we don't do it, it might not even positively add to our survival, but it is a deemed necessity based on internalizing of social habits. It is also not something we do because we are bored necessarily. These are things like cleaning our surroundings, taking a shower, washing your clothes, etc. Finally, entertainment is defined as goals made from trying to flee boredom. The emptiness of existence without activity- always seeking newer and better ways to bide time.. everything from meditation, sports, watching tv, reading, to fire dancing, rock climbing, and sky diving. Behind all this is our striving nature as animals... but we are self-aware animals and in the right frame of mind can see the vicious absurdity of surviving but to survive but to survive, but to maintain to maintain to entertain to entertain. There is a vicious absurdity that is hard to overlook if one sees it clearly. So is there anything we do that falls outside the tripartate system? I guess you can say there is a sort of self-awareness aspect to each category. We can know we are doing a survival activity as opposed to simply "surviving" (much like animal might). We can know we are maintaining our environment as opposed to doing it from pure instinct or without self reflection. We can know we are fleeing boredom through entertainment goals. However, the self-awareness of our own predicament may have to do with how well we use defense mechanisms not to see the vicious absurdity- mainly through things like isolation, ignoring, anchoring, and sublimating such thoughts.

but we aren't indifferent to life as living itself requires axiological assessments, — schopenhauer1

Well yes. And through our actions we can make choices too.

So why would we make a general choice of being a pessimist rather than an optimist? That is the issue here.

You are saying there is no other sane choice but pessimism. Our optimistic pursuits lack "reality" for some reason. And it is at this point that a whole bunch of contradictions appear in your argument.

Though the metaphysical claim might be true.... — schopenhauer1

Well you just said that nature is indifferent. Hence neutral. So any valuing is ours.

Now you have to explain why we then have no choice about that valuing. Or why a positive valuing is "secretly faking it" ... as a metaphysical truth.

Bear in mind that optimism doesn't have to pretend everything is always wonderful. Just that goals are good and their satisfaction a possibility. And the naturalism I advocate is not even an optimism opposed to your pessimism. I am saying that nature does have preferences which shape us. If we want to locate meaningfulness, there is a larger story.

So whichever way your argument leads you, it winds up in a contradiction. Either pessimism is a free human choice, and so optimism is the more sane option. Or else the world is really some way, and we ought to recognise that - and at worst, the world is only indifferent on your own admission.

I can see you want to arrive at the naturalistic argument that we have evolved to be miserable. Whether by accident or design, we are just trapped in a state of being self-aware of a life that can only be dominated by suffering and pointlessness.

But while that is indeed how many people may feel, it has to be stacked up against the psychological evidence. And the evidence says there are ways out of the trap. It just doesn't have the universality you want to claim. And from there, the ethical obligation is on you to make an effort, not wallow in misery and build a philosophy around bringing everyone else down to the same level.

Indeed it is important to me, but no one has to live up to being a perfect pessimist ideal. — schopenhauer1

So why do you suffer in public and not in silence? What is the point of arguing your case so doggedly?

Is it about convincing yourself? Is it in fact evidence of how our identities are socially constructed through our interactions and so you need the Pollyannas to give sharp definition to your own choice about a worldview?

It sounds like you are saying either that "we must contribute to the system which created us" or "the system will provide the tools for living a happy life", then I think you are being naively dismissive of the situation. — schopenhauer1

If you present me as saying such naiveties, then yes, I certainly sound naively dismissive.

But that's not what I said.

You are so ready to frame my thoughts with your own construction of Enlightenment "isolating of humans from cosmos/god" and Romanticism's "rebellion of the individualistic human hero"... — schopenhauer1

Thanks for the credit. But this Enlightenment vs Romanticism is a well-advertised and self-proclaimed opposition in modern Western culture.

I mean it's been defining what's cool, and what's not, since cool got invented. ;)

Unless you really fully try to internalize the idea of "vicious absurdity" and the awareness of this, then it will be lost. — schopenhauer1

So we are back to your self-contradiction on the issue of whether you are speaking of nature or individual belief.

Why would I want to "fully internalise" an attitude that is either a) not metaphysically real, or b) not subjectively ideal?

What is this flourishing you speak of? It sounds a bit... Romantic! — schopenhauer1

I agree. But I could talk more dryly of how it would cash out in measurable and naturalistic psychological models.

It is just that given you are speaking in the language of Romanticism here, it is useful to remind that even Romanticism recognises there are alternatives to believing life is one great unflushed toilet of woe.

We are trapped with our own survival, trapped with our own maintenance, trapped with our own pursuing of X, Y, or Z avenues to what we think to be happiness. By framing it as "opportunities", the fact that it could never not be the case, was glossed over. — schopenhauer1

Trapped in being alive, hey? How utterly ghastly! Forever condemned to the hedonic treadmill.

Respectfully, the idea of "human potential" is so tainted with economic ideology that there's hardly any way of conceiving of what human potential might actually be independent of it.

It seems to me that there is such a thing as a "waste of potential" - a person, or a group of people, might be able to do something we consider great, but for some reason or another fail to. At any rate this potential seems to inherently depend on contingent circumstances, including a person or a group of people thinking there is some worth to what they are doing, i.e. their world has significance. Which is not to say it's all pointless. If you've ever been part of a group with a common goal, the world has immense significance. Being part of the crew for a theatrical production is a good example, since Camus has already been mentioned in this thread. But it seems to me that the potential is contingent upon the person choosing a project or goal.

So it seems to me that the question is not that human potential is a spook or whatever, but that there isn't any transcendent, ultimate potential to be fulfilled when a person chooses a project that gives them potential. It is as if the potential comes from nowhere but our own will, a deus ex nihilo.

So it seems to me that the question is not that human potential is a spook or whatever, but that there isn't any transcendent, ultimate potential to be fulfilled when a person chooses a project that gives them potential. It is as if the potential comes from nowhere but our own will, a deus ex nihilo. — darthbarracuda

Yes, well-stated!

Respectfully, the idea of "human potential" is so tainted with economic ideology that there's hardly any way of conceiving of what human potential might actually be independent of it. — darthbarracuda

That is a bit defeatest. The very fact that we can see we have allowed the economic machine to take over our lives is already the start of imagining what could be different. And we have plenty of folk trying to invent a better world right now.

I think they're called Millennials. :)

Just because this is something I've been busy with this week, here are a couple of good talks....

Rifkin on the general picture - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX3M8Ka9vUA

Then this lady on "animal-less meat", which should appeal to your ethics -
https://vimeo.com/229663434

It is as if the potential comes from nowhere but our own will, a deus ex nihilo. — darthbarracuda

No. That cannot work. It is unnatural.

We are social creatures and so the potential has to be socially constructed. It has to come from us collectively and pragmatically.

You are still speaking as if it can only - Romantically - come from within each of us in a personal and individual fashion. But this is about us as social creatures and what that means in terms of flourishing.

Have to pitch in here. The phrase 'human potential' is most strongly associated with the 60's 'consciousness' movement - think California, Esalen, EST, and earlier antecedents including New Thought and the New England Transcendental movement. Actually there's a book I've been meaning to read, by Jeffrey Kripal, called 'The Religion of No Religion', which centres on Esalen and various human potential teachers and movements; the title captures the ambiguous sense in which Californian and 'new age' spirituality both is, and is not, religious.

But it's basically underwritten by the belief that there is a higher self, a higher consciousness, or something of that kind, which can be approached by various means. (There's a useful minor entry in Wikipedia on higher consciousness.) And all of it is predicated on what might be called a 'spiritual anthropology' - which is the idea that ultimately the human being is not simply an evolved primate but (to use De Chardin's phrase) spirit having a human experience (which is a riff on the notion of 'spiritual experiences').

This is what lies behind the Indian notion of 'self-realisation', which was first brought to the US by the likes of Paramahansa Yogananda in the 1920's and 30's. This is the idea that the human has to realise his/her identity with the higher self which is typically occluded or blocked by identification with the sensory domain and matter generally. 'Realising the Self' in the lexicon of Advaita Vedanta, is the goal of the spiritual life and practice; which again, both is and is not somewhat similar to some ideas and themes in Western religious cultures.

Perhaps it's the case that some have been inoculated against any and all such ideas because of their religious overtones. And also because the 'secular west' corresponds in many respects with what Indian culture described as 'kali yuga', a degenerate age when everything is backwards and upside down. (I personally don't believe that this is literally the case, but it's got at least some metaphorical power.)

We are social creatures and so the potential has to be socially constructed. It has to come from us collectively and pragmatically. — apokrisis

I agree that it's not just from ourselves by ourselves and that potential is constructed socially. Even the proud hermit is only proud and only a hermit in relation to the rest of the so-called rabble. Even our selves, as Levinas, Merleau-Ponty and now cognitive science shows, find its origins in the social setting, a reflection off of other apparent selves.

What I mean to say is that in certain circumstances - as Heidegger has shown - a person themselves is struck by the fact that they are an individual and have the freedom to choose within the horizon of our mortality. Angst comes with the understanding of the "Nothing", where there is no significance and no given purpose - and Heidegger advises that we pull-ourselves-up-from-our-bootstraps, so to speak, take charge of our lives, and live authentically as purpose-driven choosers within a society of other purpose-driven choosers.

The application of one's will to one's world is, fundamentally and originatively, a trauma. The angst comes when dasein "forgets" (obscures) mortality and the Nothing but is then suddenly and violently confronted with it unaware. Each subsequent act of "authenticity" comes from a feeling of revulsion to the Nothing. This is clearly and convincingly stated in the work of the cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker, who argued that human culture is rooted in the fear of death. Culture, as Becker argues, is a "cult of heroism" in which demigod protagonists defeat death. The fear of death is also a primary motivator for procreation, as offspring are the best alternative to actual immortality.

What Schop1 here seems to be getting at here, in my opinion, is that same angst, that same Nothing. The "world" we live in is filled with different significations for tool-using, jouissance, and other pre-theoretical modes. But without dasein (for now, us), there is no signification. A tool no longer has a purpose and loses its tool identity. Not just nuts and bolts but in the big scheme of things. This lack of purpose lies in the background of our purpose-driven lives. Levinas alludes to something similar with the il y a - the "there is" - sometimes felt clearly while outside at night, the understanding that "there is" without any discernible thing seeming to be. A probing, content-less awareness. As of now, to describe it I would say it's something like feeling left-out of something. Like your friends had a great time and didn't invite you. The feeling of dread that you are not important and have been forgotten. Or perhaps even mocked.

Coincidentally, just after posting I came across a picture that reveals the il y a to me:


If we are to act, we must act as if we have the strength of gods - we must be gods, or rather, we must be possessed by gods and their beauty. We own the world, we manipulate and enjoy it. And when we can't own the world, when we can't enjoy it and when the world actually seems to be manipulating us, we look beyond the world for help. Prayer is supplication.

Schop1's thread might be interpreted as a prayer of sorts. A theological plea to be remembered and cared for and not left alone to fend for themselves. Of course, Schop1 doesn't believe in God as far as I am aware, and isn't insomuch praying but demanding we - secular society, progress, science, the new gods - offer a new eschatology, a new teleology. And one that is not only personally satisfying but also morally appropriate, so it must also be a secular theodicy.

You are still speaking as if it can only - Romantically - come from within each of us in a personal and individual fashion. But this is about us as social creatures and what that means in terms of flourishing. — apokrisis

The denial that we have individuality is, in my opinion, a way of obscuring mortality and our freedom. It's inauthentic and doesn't solve the problem as much as it simply dismisses it.

The denial that we have individuality is, in my opinion, a way of obscuring mortality and our freedom. It's inauthentic and doesn't solve the problem as much as it simply dismisses it. — darthbarracuda

What problem is there to be solved though? It is rather peculiar to me that our need for acceptance, remembrance, meaning also coincides with what is best for life to continue, more directly our genes. Is our meaning separate from that? An extension? Do we control our genes or do they control us? I am very much enthralled with the idea that we are simply just rationalizing everything in accordance to our genes. Because if we didn't have these "desires", "dreams", "teleologies" to chase we simply wouldn't have survived. It doesn't seem like our "individuality" matters at the end of the day. It still feels like a justification of our genes, not "our" actually wants and needs. Fittingly, I suppose I'll quote the namesake of the opening poster: "Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills". I don't see where individuality fits in this template or what this problem actually is.

Also: +1000000000 for mentioning Becker. Love his work. : )

So when I use the term "potential" here, I mean that we do not need to be born in the first place in order to have a particular X experience, or contribute to technological, or scientific accomplishment. — schopenhauer1

Are you saying we can do that without being born?

You are using potential here in a completely different way than what I am referring to in the OP (the secularized Medieval notion that we are manifesting some essence of what it is to be human by contributing to scientific/technological pursuits or having X experience). — schopenhauer1

If that essence is believed to exist by the people of some culture, then that essence exists as a mental construct within that culture.

We are social creatures and so the potential has to be socially constructed. It has to come from us collectively and pragmatically. — apokrisis

There's potential within both groups and individuals, although that's often potential to different things. I don't see how a culture can have potential for enlightenment in a way that individuals have; at most that'd be potential for the enlightenment of the individuals within the group. Similarly an individual doesn't have potential to form a culture to begin with.

There's potential within both groups and individuals, although that's often potential to different things — BlueBanana

That’s covered by calling us social creatures. Yes, we are biological individuals as well.

But the context is the OP and it’s Romantic suggestion that the potential would be just that of the individual.