But again, it requires application through meditation, rather than clinging to belief or doctrinal analysis and so on. — Wayfarer

Yes, I also believe, based on my own experience, that meditation or contemplation is of the highest importance, because it frees the intuitive imagination from the usual strictures of the discursive intellect.

Meditation may be understood in a narrow sense, as a formalized practice, but I think it can actually be practiced anywhere, at any time, in the midst of any activity. Of course this takes just as much discipline and practice as seated meditation does, it is certainly not merely a matter of allowing the mind to wander where it will...

So, I think much of the common understanding and symbolism which has accrued around the notions of karma and reincarnation may become a lure towards an unhealthy preoccupation with personal salvation, at least for modern Western aspirants. — John

It's definitely a Western thing, since afaik re-birth in Buddhism is more akin to the passing of a flame from one candle to the next. You obtain enlightenment not only for yourself but also for other people.

I don't have time for a more extensive reply. As I understand it the Buddhist notion is that there is no identity that is reincarnated but something like the accumulated attachments acquired throughout an entire life are passed like a flame to a single reincarnating being.

I tend to think that if there is any truth to the idea of reincarnation, it is infinitely more complex than that. So the flame may, in a spiritual sense, be passed to other human souls at every instance of action. Nothing remains but nothing is lost or wasted.

The emphasis in Buddhism is on the ideas of suffering, attachment and release, not on the ideas of purpose, love and creative redemption.

Mystery is not so much a matter of what is not yet known, but of what cannot ever be known discursively, but may be known through imagination, intuition and love.

Resuscitating this thread. What is the place of existential angst in nature? Where does it come from?

As far as I can tell, humans are the only known organisms that have the capacity to reflect upon their existence to such a degree as to confront at least the possibility of meaninglessness, nihilism, the absurd, annihilation, etc.

This notion of possibility fits well with what Zapffe wrote in his essay:

"But as he stands before imminent death, he grasps its nature also, and the cosmic import of the step to come. His creative imagination constructs new, fearful prospects behind the curtain of death, and he sees that even there is no sanctuary found. And now he can discern the outline of his biologicocosmic terms: He is the universe’s helpless captive, kept to fall into nameless possibilities.

From this moment on, he is in a state of relentless panic."

The medieval Scholastics also thought that modality was a critical aspect of the Intellect, and actually many of them went on to argue that our Imagination is what leads us away from the truth (which would be, in their eyes, their metaphysical structure and religion, somewhat begging the question - a great way to convert people, though).

Then we have Kant, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, etc who all were transcendental in their phenomenology, in that the realm of the possible created the conditions for actuality (in a top-down fashion). Especially in regards to Heidegger with his idea of "being-in-the-world": a person is not "apart" or "away" from the world, a person is inherently a "part" of the world, or a "manifestation" of the world itself. The human mind becomes no more special than a falling leaf, or a photon, or a nuclear warhead; furthermore, the failings of a human being become not just personal failures but cosmic failures as well (i.e. a catastrophe in Zapffe's terminology).

Put all these thoughts together and we get a basic idea of what could be a defining characteristic of a mind, that it is a hive for possibility-modelling. Even if these possibilities are in fact false in the naive correspondence realist theory of truth, they still hold sway for the self model that is emergent from the mind itself.

Indeed this is an important aspect of theories of cognition and rationality: the ability to think counterfactually by conceptually piecing together if-then propositions in an endless series of combinations, discarding the ones that are "problematic" and maintaining and/or rearranging those which are "useful" or "sensible".

How all this works, from the computational aspect to the semantic aspect to the metaphysical substrate aspect, is still a mystery. Perhaps finding the answer to these will give us a better understanding of what the mind's place in reality is; i.e. how the world is able to model itself, or how the world is able to create a functional, yet transparent system (i.e. "cosmic amnesia"), or how the world is able to host what Zapffe called "cosmic panic" (i.e. "cosmic insecurity").

Speaking generally here: existential angst could come from the intuitive, but as yet more or less sub-conscious, sense that you are wasting your life with distractions.

Existential angst seems to require some degree of objectivity and a desire for objectivity. Delusions can be comfortable but we inherently don't like to see them as delusions. We want objectivity. Tricking ourselves is not acceptable, even if it is comfortable.

Great theme.

People "hide" from reality, so to speak. Hence culture, art, religion, self-improvement television shows, fictional literature, etc. We try to hide under the bed sheets and make our own little world. A "reality tunnel" to use a more scientific and contemporary term. Humans seem to be the only animals that have existential crises, or are able of abstract thought so advance that philosophical/scientific discussion of the nature of abstract thought is even possible. — darthbarracuda

I think people can be said to hide from one image of reality (or myth) in another image of reality (or myth). The unmediated "real" reality seems like an empty negation to me. I understand of course that a community will speak of a shared myth as a reality and then explain others in terms of hiding from this reality in an unshared myth or fantasy. So the irreligious man is hiding from God from the perspective of the religious man and the religious man is hiding from scientific objectivity from the perspective of the irreligious man. My point is that hiding is relative to the commitment of the one who accuses someone else of hiding.

For it's quite strange to think about what the mind's place in the world is. If we weren't "meant" to know about the world (as Zapffe thought), whence do we come from? If we don't "belong" in the universe, then why the hell are we here? Zapffe (and Schopenhauer) thought that the universe was "inadequate" to satiate the human consciousness (we get bored and restless), and they both put this phenomenon in the more metaphysical way, as if it were a cosmic principle that consciousness is listless and apt to boredom. — darthbarracuda

I think Schopenhauer and Zapffe are just offering two more (relative) "fantasies" to hide in. But if all myth is adaptive (as I see it), then there's only an adaptive myth ("hiding is bad") from which to accuse it. The "bleak" existentialist view can itself be described as wishful thinking. Its complicated charm is that is appears too bleak to be an "escapist" fantasy. But it seems to be built on a heroism of intellectual courage. "I have the guts to look the Void in the eye." There's also the "assassination" of every authority in this view, so that the individual becomes a mortal god on earth (a twist on the incarnation myth). "Only the damned are grand." Boredom is the vice of kings along with contempt for anything higher. I posit that we want to feel like "kings."
We are seduced by myths that glorify us. (And this myth glorifies me as the possessor/co-creator of a glorious meta-myth.)

The point being made here is that it's quite strange that consciousness, in all its infinite depth and contradictions, is even possible in the first place. It's so strange that I think it rather impossible for it to have evolved from unconscious matter. I hesitate to say this, since I have sympathy with naturalism, but the utter ridiculousness and weirdness of consciousness makes it seem as though there is a wider metaphysical narrative going on here (Neo-Platonism or Buddhism anyone?) — darthbarracuda

I think it's strange, too. I just really don't know. But then I have a theory of explanation that suggests that maybe I can't know. It seems that we judge the postulated necessities used to explain things in terms of accurate predictions and esthetic appeal. There's something about the totality (consciously experienced) that seems to exceed any little string of concepts that are always only embedded in it. It's like trying to explain the whole in terms of a part. The "whatness" of my experience remains what it is. What can I do with an explanation, a string of words? I'd say that there's something that exceeds metaphysics, an overflow. But (damn it!) I'm just hiding in my myth, right? From the perfect and eternal truth of consciousness somehow available to that consciousness, if only it has the courage?

I don't tend to think in terms of 'delusion' but rather 'distraction', when it comes to worldviews; I think all worldviews are equally delusory, because there is no attainable demonstrably 'correct' worldview. People just tend to take for granted that the worldview they favour, perhaps the one that makes them most comfortable, or the one that is most fashionable (the same thing in a way) or the one that serves their tendency towards self-hatred and so variously on and on, is the 'correct' one.

So, all worldviews are distractions in this sense, and the desire for "objectivity" you mention is often a neurotic desire to be correct, so as not to appear the 'fool' who is 'deluded'. How much this psychological dynamic seems to drive philosophical discussion on forums never ceases to amaze me. I think it is all a distraction from what really matters. What really matters is that you come to see what will change your life and take you away from holding worldviews; this is the meaning of life and there is no formula: it is different for each one.

I think Schopenhauer and Zapffe are just offering two more fantasizes to hide in. — Hoo

Exactly!

I'm very glad someone else sees what I'm getting at. (I fixed my typo, too.) One might say that the idea of non-fantasy is a fantasy, but the distinction itself melts at this point. (It's distinction necessary to "common sense," but you see what I mean.)

I think it is all a distraction from what really matters. What really matters is that you come to see what will change your life and take you away from holding worldviews; this is the meaning of life and there is no formula: it is different for each one. — John

Yes, I agree. I don't know if we can escape having some worldview, but I think it's useful to escape the worldview that there is a single, correct worldview. Every life is different, so it's reasonable to think that every successful worldview (dialectically evolved) is going to be different. We can affirm a plurality of strong or successful worldviews and trade ideas-as-tools as different but equal "kings." It's like master-to-master, peer-to-peer or adult-to-adult (transactional analysis) communication.

Certainly I agree that we cannot, and should not even if we could, escape holding certain lived attitudes and dispositions when it comes to events and people and so on. But I think we can escape clinging to any overarching worldviews, but only if the neurotic search is no longer compelling. I think to do this is to follow our ethical instincts or intuitions. This may well open us up to a very different kind of knowledge than we could ever imagine from the customary position of common discursive polemics.

I can agree with all of that. That's more or less what I get from "all is vanity" in Ecclesiastes. "A futile chasing after the wind," etc.

So, all worldviews are distractions in this sense, and the desire for "objectivity" you mention is often a neurotic desire to be correct, so as not to appear the 'fool' who is 'deluded'. How much this psychological dynamic seems to drive philosophical discussion on forums never ceases to amaze me. I think it is all a distraction from what really matters. What really matters is that you come to see what will change your life and take you away from holding worldviews; this is the meaning of life and there is no formula: it is different for each one. — John

I see you've read Nietzsche. Interesting points.

What really matters is that you come to see what will change your life and take you away from holding worldviews — John

This is perhaps the true existential crisis - when there seems no hope of a worldview at all.

The Pessimist is taking comforting refuge in a concrete belief there is no such hope. A life can be built around that. But what if even the absence of such hope can't be known for certain? What if that is as radically unsure?

So there is another big step beyond the self-comfort of Pessimism where instead of confronting the void, we are in confrontation with the vague. ;)

Instead of "vague" I would use the term "uncertain". It's uncertain whether or not the world has meaning, or if there is any sense of justice, or if we'll get horrible hurt tomorrow. This was, as I interpret it, a key point in Zapffe's (and in fact Kierkegaard's) philosophy - the mind is a hive of possibilities and we don't have an easy way of dissolving these possibilities. Particularly with the possibility of extreme, torturous pain - how does one live, not just survive, but live when experiencing horrible physical pain?

Possibilities rear their ugly head when they are seen as threats. When the Stoic sage tells us to ignore these possibilities and carry on with life serenely, they implicitly accept the fact that they are first and foremost threats. Ignoring these threats may give us some relief, but this is inherently an act of concealment. From a purely scientific point of view, this may be no more interesting than the fact that humans depend on oxygen to live, or that water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. But from an aesthetic, ethical, and existential perspective, the nature of this phenomenon threatens the very dignity of a human, the assumption-illusions underneath affirmative ethics that make it seem more like a religion than anything else.

The idea of hope is deconstructed as well - what does it say about man if what keeps him going is a twisted sense of fear projected into vanity? We must be a sad specimen indeed if this is what keeps our spirits up, the illusions that the grass is greener on the other side. If we're honest with ourselves, we won't bias our perceptions with ideas that might be fictions, i.e. self-deception. Once again, we have a threat to our dignity, our self of autonomy, uniqueness, value and importance, concepts that are not able to be destroyed without repercussions.

In any sense, I think the idea that there is no rational ground for hope has more support than the idea that there is. The fact that we depend on self-imposed delusions is, I think, evidence of the lack of any substantial justice or importance. As Zapffe said, any constructed meaning is a pseudo-solution to the metaphysical lack of it.

To say that pessimists should suck it up is then, from the perspective of a pessimist, akin to telling a domestic abuse victim to love their spouse.

If we're honest with ourselves, we won't bias our perceptions with ideas that might be fictions, i.e. self-deception. Once again, we have a threat to our dignity, our self of autonomy, uniqueness, value and importance, concepts that are not able to be destroyed without repercussions. — darthbarracuda

Respectfully, I ask why we would we strive to be honest with ourselves? Just to be clear, I have intensely striven for self-honesty for many years, but the irony is that that same pursuit led me to question why I was so fascinated by self-honesty. Is there not a sort of heroism of the truth? I think the scientist is a sort of priest of physical objectivity, and perhaps a philosopher sometimes plays that sort of role on the level of metaphysical/ethical truth. There's a strange mixture of self-mutilation and self-exaltation in smashing one's own idols, but I wander whether any idol is ever smashed except in the name of yet another if not in the name of iconoclasm itself. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." (This is the trans-image, the non-image, the anti-image, the hole in being, etc.)

Yes, I think there is an element of heroism, as there is in practically any action we take. The number one priority of the ego is to affirm itself as an important piece in the world, as a symbol that stands out from the rest of them. Like Kierkegaard said, we quite literally constrain the world to fit our own little neighborhood, i.e. limit the contents of consciousness a la Zapffe. It's human nature just as it is human nature to breathe oxygen. Therefore a key aspect of pessimistic literature is the disillusionment with the world, the idea that there is nothing here for us, that we have been deceived this whole time.

Instead of "vague" I would use the term "uncertain" — darthbarracuda

That's fine. Just give me the technical definition that would make this an important distinction here in your view.

Is it that your claim is the crisp possibility (like your fear of torture) can't be in anyway unthought or defused once experienced? I'm dubious of that as a psychological fact. I see it as the development of a psychological habit, and habits can be forgotten or at least be unlearned in ways which eventually render them vaguer.

To say that pessimists should suck it up is then, from the perspective of a pessimist, akin to telling a domestic abuse victim to love their spouse. — darthbarracuda

I guess that the other point of view is that when you see a pessimist wallowing in learned helplessness, refusing sensible life advice because of some cosmological world view, then it is natural to lose patience.

If you want to construct a philosophy that naturalises a state which is down to your neurobiology or/and your circumstances - things you could take action on - then really the case is that the door stands open and you are refusing to leave the clutches of the very monster you have constructed

As I say, true existentialism would instead lead towards vagueness or a state of mindless neutrality - the kind of mind state that Eastern mysticism often advertises as its major benefit.

Therefore a key aspect of pessimistic literature is the disillusionment with the world, the idea that there is nothing here for us, that we have been deceived this whole time. — darthbarracuda

But it was bad metaphysics that did the deceiving - the idea that individual lives must have cosmic or divine significance.

And it is still bad metaphysics to jump to the other extreme of complaining of existence as a complete state of generalised contingency, brute fact, and cosmic insignificance.

Modern understanding confirms life and mind as special in being - in the cosmological sense - very highly developed in terms of complexity, or negentropic organisation. We are at the centre of creation in that way.

And a proper analysis of the human condition ought to respect that objective truth. Which is why the almost instinctive reply to the Pessimist is start paying more attention to the biological and social context that is actually psychologically forming you.

Stop thinking simply, start thinking in terms of reality's complexity if you want to talk accurately about what is true or right.

Like Kierkegaard said, we quite literally constrain the world to fit our own little neighborhood, i.e. limit the contents of consciousness a la Zapffe. It's human nature just as it is human nature to breathe oxygen. Therefore a key aspect of pessimistic literature is the disillusionment with the world, the idea that there is nothing here for us, that we have been deceived this whole time. — darthbarracuda

I can agree that we close off some perspectives as we embrace others. (I don't see how the world -apart-from-perspectives is useful, though, as we move away from the physical.)

I do think we can simultaneously have a sense of the" emptiness" of all things in one part of our mind and yet pursue "finite" projects. That's the wisdom I find in Ecclesiastes. We have one foot in the grave, and it's a pivot foot. So we can take every finite project lightly, and we can relate to other finite projects than our own more more tolerantly, since, after all, our project is no less empty from the ultimate foot-in-the-grave perspective than theirs.

I have suffered from the pessimistic vision before, intensely even. But it was never just intellectual. I would fall out of love with life. Then I'd fall back in love, without the least bit abandoning my (merely) intellectual position that "everything is [ultimately] empty."

But it was bad metaphysics that did the deceiving - the idea that individual lives must have cosmic or divine significance.

And it is still bad metaphysics to jump to the other extreme of complaining of existence as a complete state of generalised contingency, brute fact, and cosmic insignificance.

Modern understanding confirms life and mind as special in being - in the cosmological sense - very highly developed in terms of complexity, or negentropic organisation. We are at the centre of creation in that way.

And a proper analysis of the human condition ought to respect that objective truth. Which is why the almost instinctive reply to the Pessimist is start paying more attention to the biological and social context that is actually psychologically forming you.

Stop thinking simply, start thinking in terms of reality's complexity if you want to talk accurately about what is true or right. — apokrisis

Pessimism is generally less concerned with the lack of meaning than existentialism is. It's more of the combination of the lack of meaning + the inevitable and structurally inherent pain in life that makes life problematic. The abstract notion of the lack of meaning is actually relatively unimportant here, as we can see pessimistic ideas in the thinkers of the ancient world, during the time of luck, chance, and gods and before any serious nihilism was pursued.

You might personally find interest in Ray Brassier, who argues that scientific inquiry, instead of liberating us in the Enlightenment sense, reveals to us complete and utter nihilism. We are a species doomed to extinction. He is committed to a naturalistic metaphysics and draws heavily upon modern science to support his claims as well as the phenomenology of Heidegger and others.

Furthermore, Zapffe focuses more on the lack of cosmic justice than meaning. Accidents happen all the time for no reason. The struggle for space and resources due to a cosmic scarcity cause strife and conflict. To live is to be deprived. The universe is unable to support our dreams, and our novelty interests are merely distractions - objectively speaking there is nothing in the universe worthy of praise, as if the universe is a Spinozistic pantheistic god and whose priests are the pop-science dolts on the front page of Time magazine, proclaiming the wonder of life and universe while systematically ignoring the fundamental instrumentality of being and subsequent suffering this inflicts upon conscious beings. Life continues to continue to continue to continue to continue for absolutely no rational reason whatsoever. Hedonism is merely a distraction. An empty universe is not a tragedy. etc.

The overall point I was getting at is that Stoicism and your enlightened pragmatism and the like all are philosophies that affirm life without what I see to be a good enough justification. Your particular version focuses on the broadest holistic sense we get from physics while ignoring very real psychological phenomena, from Pollyanna-ism to the neurotic episodes to our disturbing desires and repressed memories and fears. The fact that we are having an argument about this is, I think, a point in favor of pessimism: what if you're actually right and I never agree with you and live my life in a less-than-positive state - wouldn't that be a tragedy? Is it my fault that I'm wrong? Let's not forget the Heideggerian notion of being-in-the-world: you and I and everyone else are manifestations of Being itself. The existence of pessimistic thinkers like Schopenhauer are not something to be ostracized as if they are less-than-natural manifestations of the world: instead, the world is capable of producing such miserable ideas. The world is capable of producing great suffering. And the world is oftentimes incapable of producing equally great experiences. From your perspective, these thinkers might be akin to a tumor on an organism that must be removed before it metastasizes - and yet this also means you are ignoring the ontological fact that an organism can be so flawed as to produce a tumor and instead focusing only on removing it.

Is it that your claim is the crisp possibility (like your fear of torture) can't be in anyway unthought or defused once experienced? I'm dubious of that as a psychological fact. I see it as the development of a psychological habit, and habits can be forgotten or at least be unlearned in ways which eventually render them vaguer. — apokrisis

As soon as a person is born, they are in a state of decay, or being-towards-death. When we live, we are in a state of defense even if we don't realize it. Defending against threats. And ultimately forgetting that we lose in the end.

Happiness, pleasure, and the like are thus distractions, or concealments, of our basic ontological structure. This structure is incompatible with our psyche due to an over-evolved brain. Thus our entire lives are basically one episode of neuroticism after another, which can be seen from Becker.

I'm not wrong about any of this. Maybe there's other aspects I'm forgetting about, or I'm exaggerating the importance of these claims. But they are nevertheless real aspects of reality that are inherently problematic. And I think that once these are seen, it is difficult to un-see without self-delusion.

The universe is unable to support our dreams, and our novelty interests are merely distractions - objectively speaking there is nothing in the universe worthy of praise, as if the universe is a Spinozistic pantheistic god and whose priests are the pop-science dolts on the front page of Time magazine, proclaiming the wonder of life and universe while systematically ignoring the fundamental instrumentality of being and subsequent suffering this inflicts upon conscious beings. — darthbarracuda

I think you are touching on profound issues. I can relate to everything you say. But if there is indeed a fundamental instrumentality of being (and that's how I see it), then this puts "objectively speaking" into question. How does this grim vision of objective nullity escape instrumentality? I agree that life churns out suffering. Maybe throughout history life has been more sh*tty than not. And maybe most of us are just wired to suffer more than we enjoy. But I see everything you are talking about. I've contemplated it for almost 20 years. One might say that real philosophy begins with the death of god or a vision of life's ugly futility. But I still think there's a dark thrill in this vision. Job is one of my favorite books. It offers an amoral God at the center of things. God/Nature is not on our side. This is still wishful thinking compared to the sense of a God opposed to us rather than indifferent. But perhaps this is a mirror of some lawless freedom in man's dark heart.

As I say, true existentialism would instead lead towards vagueness or a state of mindless neutrality - the kind of mind state that Eastern mysticism often advertises as its major benefit. — apokrisis

Hero-myth, mixed with righteous indignation 8-) . Everyone's cool when they seem to where the proverbial sunglasses in their quotes 8-) .

Pessimism is generally less concerned with the lack of meaning than existentialism is. It's more of the combination of the lack of meaning + the inevitable and structurally inherent pain in life that makes life problematic. The abstract notion of the lack of meaning is actually relatively unimportant here, — darthbarracuda

I accept that. But that also makes pessimism less interesting here in being less a metaphysical issue and more a practical one - unless it is actually then related to the philosophy of biology.

what if you're actually right and I never agree with you and live my life in a less-than-positive state - wouldn't that be a tragedy? — darthbarracuda

But my position is not that life is bliss. Things being less than positive is not uncommon. We all know that. However what is histrionic is to then call it all a tragedy.

As soon as a person is born, they are in a state of decay, or being-towards-death. When we live, we are in a state of defense even if we don't realize it. Defending against threats. And ultimately forgetting that we lose in the end. — darthbarracuda

But that is hardly true. We spend a long time growing before we start decaying. So again your position - to the degree it has to depend on these kinds of histrionic claims - is unconvincing.

I accept that. But that also makes pessimism less interesting here in being less a metaphysical issue and more a practical one - unless it is actually then related to the philosophy of biology. — apokrisis

It's more phenomenological and existential than philosophy of science, concerning the qualitative experiences of a sentient organism, or a mind. A conglomerate of phenomenology, existentialism, philosophy of science and philosophy of mind and perhaps some others.

The claim that consciousness is a curse is not really a philosophy of biology claim. It's definitely more poetic although this does not necessarily take away its force, and it's fundamentally sourced from a reflection on the human condition than a reflection on a specific biological feature. Although I'm sure you could get to the same conclusion regardless of what method you take, so if you're a reliabilist about the scientific method I can see you coming to the same conclusions, albeit in a longer and annoyingly tedious way. Things need not be perfectly crisp or mathematically quantifiable to be meaningful, useful, and more importantly right.

So in a sense pessimism is indeed existentialism, but it's a different kind of existentialism that makes it unique in that it does not affirm life or existence whereas the famous existentialists like Camus or Sartre did.

Whereas some pessimistic thinkers like Schopenhauer made pressing observations about an isolated phenomenon (consciousness) and tried to explain the rest of the world based on it, we need not limit ourselves this way to make pessimistic claims. But generally pessimistic claims are going to center around the objects of ethical value - sentients - and the constraints imposed on them.

Just as your pragmatism has a rich history, pessimism has a rich, albeit neglected, history, extending as far back as the Sumerians and their Epic of Gilgamesh, or with Plato's condemnation of the immanent, or the Book of Ecclesiastes, or the Gnostics, or Shakespearean theater, or the comparatively radical nature of Buddhism and its focus on ending suffering. The modern pessimist rides on these ideas while attempting to find global similarities between them all and staying within the realm of the intelligible.

Not having a grandiose or systematic metaphysics does not usually affect pessimistic works, since pessimistic metaphysics is usually in response to the immanent objectivity of phenomenological studies. Whether or not Schopenhauer's metaphysics holds water does nothing to his evaluation of the human condition, although certainly metaphysics can be used as a rejoinder as discussed below.

But my position is not that life is bliss. Things being less than positive is not uncommon. We all know that. However what is histrionic is to then call it all a tragedy. — apokrisis

I never said it had to be bliss in this case, although I might question why we ought to settle for less (the mediocre). The point is that I think generally life is far worse than mediocre and we're not willing to face this immediately accessible fact. As Ligotti said, life is malignantly useless.

But that is hardly true. We spend a long time growing before we start decaying. So again your position - to the degree it has to depend on these kinds of histrionic claims - is unconvincing. — apokrisis

It is in fact true, because at the ontological level Dasein is a being-towards-death. Heideggerian ontology implicitly places focus on possibilities more than the actualities, since Being is a process; there is never a complete thing. Actuals are quite simply an ever-tumbling series of possibilities falling over each other.

Our "telos", or end-point (not the functional point) is death. A tool's function may be to drill holes or hammer nails, but ultimately its final destination is with it breaking and being tossed out. The final destination of a star is a supernova or a white dwarf. The final destination of a human is death, regardless of all the existentially-heroic feats a human does in their life, just how a terrorist may go through many growth spurts before ultimately blowing himself up - in the end, we always knew what was coming, we were just kicking the can down the road. Claiming we grow and flourish during life does not change this fact, and claiming that death is not psychologically problematic is laughably absurd - on the contrary, death is exactly why we have culture, religion, political parties and the family unit as well as a host of other reassuring fictions, such as entertainment or pop-science.

I agree that there can sometimes be something sexy about pessimism or existentialism in general, but ultimately I think if you are more often than not preoccupied with being suave and fresh with your pessimism then you're doing it wrong. Scotsmen aside, a real pessimist does not enjoy being a pessimist. I conceive of a pessimist as someone who is systematically reducing their life-affirming biases in pursuit of the truth in a risky and fragile existence.

In regards to the compatibility between instrumentality and objectivity, I don't know. I suppose this is one of the reasons I tend to be suspicious of pessimistic metaphysics, which seem more like narratives than insight into the reality of the world (as most metaphysics for that matter tend to be - elaborate fairy tales that trick us into believing that we know something).

I agree that there can sometimes be something sexy about pessimism or existentialism in general, but ultimately I think if you are more often than not preoccupied with being suave and fresh with your pessimism then you're doing it wrong. — darthbarracuda

I guess my theory was that there was a self-exaltation beneath the more conscious self-mutilation. It's not suave in the worldly sense. It's tortured and Christian (crucified on the T of Truth) in some complicated way. It's hard to imagine a better monster to wrestle with spiritually than a monster who mocks every spiritual pretension. It's a purified version of violence, an assault on the CPU.

In regards to the compatibility between instrumentality and objectivity, I don't know. I suppose this is one of the reasons I tend to be suspicious of pessimistic metaphysics, which seem more like narratives than insight into the reality of the world (as most metaphysics for that matter tend to be - elaborate fairy tales that trick us into believing that we know something). — darthbarracuda

I agree, except that I'm not sure that there is insight that isn't just more narrative. (I trust science about physical reality, but it's still just a narrative that's earned my acting-as-if.)

I'm not too sure what you are aiming at here apo.

I don't see the situation as being such that there is no hope of a worldview at all, but that there is altogether too much ( vain) hope for an all-encompassing worldview, and altogether too many worldviews, too tightly held. So, I don't see the fact that no worldview can be the one 'correct' worldview as sufficient reason for pessimistic feelings at all, but rather as a very good reason for optimistic celebration. How impoverished would life be, how devoid of creatively individual meanings, if there were one worldview so convincing that it would necessarily and unerringly recommend itself to every intelligence?

I'm not sure what you are driving at when you say "But what if even the absence of such hope can't be known for certain? What if that is as radically unsure?". I would certainly hope that there is no such overwhelmingly convincing worldview, and when I see that all worldviews are only as good as their premises, which cannot themselves be proven or even empirically demonstrated, and how people tend to favour the worldviews that give them most comfort, I feel amply entitled to entertain such a hope. But, nor do I hope for a plethora of worldviews as I have already said, because the best result would be obtained, I think, if people altogether lost their taste for clinging to this or that worldview for dear life; and got on with more creative pursuits, feeling comfortable instead with the mystery of being.

In a way we do confront the void; if by that is meant that we confront the lack of imposed meaning; but I think that is all to the good. Unfortunately instead of using their creative faculties to imagine and intuit the meaning of their own lives, people look for received meanings that they can then impose on others as the 'one true meaning or worldview'. Of course, the severity and persistence of such impositions varies from one individual to another, and we can always avoid those who become too tedious.

As I say, we do confront the void, as the ineluctable mystery of existence; and why would we have it any other way? Should we instead wish that the question of being be a prosaic matter that can be all sown up tidily and neatly disposed of forthwith, so that we all may conform to the one great irresistible worldview that will bind us together in mediocracy until the end?

I have read a little Nietzsche, more for the literary than the philosophical substance; he was a writer of some truly great poetically imaginative prose (well, at least judging from the English translations), but to be honest I don't think he really escaped the unfortunate tendency to entertain an overarching worldview.