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. — darthbarracuda

Again, my point is that you start from the histrionic and personal position that suffering, in any degree, is an unbearable fact. But most people just don't think that do they? Life has it ups and downs but that doesn't make life not worth living.

So yes. It may be poetic - in being histrionic. But if we want to talk realistically about the place of suffering in human conscious existence, then we need some solid backdrop against which to make some judgement.

You are failing to convince me either on phenomenological or material grounds that there is a general issue as opposed to a personal issue.

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. — darthbarracuda

So what is your argument against settling for average outcomes? Why would that be mediocre rather contented?

Again, an exaggerated notion of what you deem acceptable distorts every part of your exposition.

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. — darthbarracuda

This is silly. Things with a telos in this fashion can't get worn out unless they are used to achieve things. So you could say living and dying without properly living is certainly a waste of a life. Thus the end point of a drill's existence or a person's existence would have to be judged in terms of the negentropy created as well as the entropy spent.

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. — darthbarracuda

Your position relies on constant exaggeration. Mostly we have all those things to deal with the realities of life. To claim they are "exactly" fictions to hide death is more argument by histrionics.

Your position relies on constant exaggeration. Mostly we have all those things to deal with the realities of life. To claim they are "exactly" fictions to hide death is more argument by histrionics. — apokrisis

Once you've understood the concept of instrumentality- everything can seem as if it is only in relation to it. All other concepts are suffused with the idea of instrumentality, thus its supremacy. Its like once you see it, it does not necessarily go away, though one can distract from it. The problem with internet forums is anyone can say they do anything in "real life", but who knows- you may live in more existential despair than anyone. I wouldn't or couldn't know- All I know is the Peircean traidic-semiotic-pragmatist that is displayed here or anything else you want to convey. This could be said of anyone on any internet forum of course. As histrionic as pessimism's theme of instrumentality is, it can equally be said that your underplaying of it also says something. However, just like your themes of semiotics, the theme of instrumentality may be just as earnest and important- perhaps more so because of its "practical" common understanding.

All attention- whether on discursive thought (logic, science, math, etc.) or simply playing a game has motivations. All humans can self-reflect on their own condition- looking at things from the point of view of that which constrains our very thought (i.e. boredom and survival) and that which we find ourselves situated in (an cultural and natural environment whereby our survival and entertainment/pleasure needs play out such that we do to do to do in a perpetual cycle of striving-for-nothing). This is more paramount than understanding the form of how we came to be- as if discovering this is going to get rid of the instrumentality rather than being another avenue to keep our bored brains satisfied with some sort of complex literature, dialectic, and logical synthesizing regarding a specific topic of preference.

Whether humans are defined in terms of their genetics, anatomy and physiology, their tool-use, their brain structure, their social grouping, their linguistic-conceptual cognitive framework, or a host of other characteristics, the world we live in phenomenologically, is that of the conditions I explained above- survival, boredom, and dealing with these constrains in a certain cultural/environmental context. This is why instrumentality, and "the human condition" is paramount to that which may take our fancy as a result of this very condition which motivates us to seek our attention to other things.

And though you may posit (which if I know your philosophy of things well enough, you will), that I am focusing too much on the individual and not enough on the social relations/environment setting that creates the individual (thus, subtly indicating that human nature is completely malleable to environmental conditions), this is simply overlooking the primacy of the phenomenological experience that we go through as individual beings. Our cognition, upbringing, socialization, etc. does happen in a cultural/social context, but it is always in relation to the our individual egos coping with the environment. As much as we are shaped by the environment, and are part of it, our individual perspective does not melt away, that is to say, the human conditions of survival, boredom, and our ability to understand the instrumentality of existence still happens to an individual within the social context. The social context does not take over this individual perspective and radically alters it, but simply helps in shaping it in some respect. This does not negate the conditions of survival, boredom, and ability to understand instrumentality for the individual who must contend with these things in a particular cultural/environmental setting that that person may have been shaped by.

Again, my point is that you start from the histrionic and personal position that suffering, in any degree, is an unbearable fact. But most people just don't think that do they? Life has it ups and downs but that doesn't make life not worth living. — apokrisis

I'm not just arguing that life has its ups and downs, I'm arguing that life has far more downs than ups (and that the down are structurally apparent), and that the reason most people don't find life unbearable is because they have found methods of dealing with the pain, just as Zapffe, Freud, Becker, Nietzsche, and others have argued. All of this leads to the idea that life is something to be endured - which a lot of the survivors of Auschwitz did but that doesn't mean it was good that they went through Auschwitz. Now of course Auschwitz is an extreme example, but in fact it's a poignant one as well since it shows the extreme polarity and unbalance of pain and pleasure as well as the systematic exploitation (instrumentalizing) of the structural pain within life itself.

Affirmative existential thinking can potentially justify the continuing of a life in a purely irrational, emotional and aesthetic way (pace Nietzshce) but that does not make starting a life totally fine. Indeed the reason we have to act this way is out of desperation.

So you have structural pain manifesting as tediousness, boredom, unremarkability, daily uncomfortable experiences, and a general sense of unease on the day-to-day while also having the prospect of extreme, utterly horrible pain, pain that can only be described as torturous, pain that would make us question continuing existing at that moment and which, pace Cabrera, removes us from our ability to act ethically (as in these situations we are solely concerned with ourselves and thus may neglect others). This is not an exaggeration, it is an absolutely real prospect. What if your entire life led up to you dying in horrible pain?\ Would all the good experiences in the past have any effect on you in that circumstance? No. The pain you experienced would be so intense that you would question the very decision to bring you into existence.

Ignoring this prospect is a classic example of Pollyannism and magical thinking.

This is silly. Things with a telos in this fashion can't get worn out unless they are used to achieve things. So you could say living and dying without properly living is certainly a waste of a life. Thus the end point of a drill's existence or a person's existence would have to be judged in terms of the negentropy created as well as the entropy spent. — apokrisis

Heidegger does indeed call achievement the essence of action. Doesn't change the fact that action is inherently predisposed to inevitable destruction, not to mention that many actions are quite terrible.

Your position relies on constant exaggeration. Mostly we have all those things to deal with the realities of life. To claim they are "exactly" fictions to hide death is more argument by histrionics. — apokrisis

Unlike what you claim here, I actually have scientific data to support my views. I'm not just going to ignore an entire sector of inquiry because you personally don't like it.

Affirmative existential thinking can potentially justify the continuing of a life in a purely irrational, emotional and aesthetic way (pace Nietzshce) but that does not make starting a life totally fine. Indeed the reason we have to act this way is out of desperation. — darthbarracuda

I think we have to talk about suicide. Because we do have an emergency exit, life is not as irrational as it would otherwise be. We transcend desperation when we see the world or life as a whole that we can annihilate. We consent to suffering as if we were consumers paying to see a future that we expect to be better than our present suffering. If we generally have had pleasant lives (at least in the recent past), this is a "rational" transaction.

But, yeah, life is justified aesthetically, emotionally. I can only speak for myself, but I'm happy more often than not. I've been through the fire, though. These days (for about 10 years?) I'm grateful to have been born. So for me it's about homeostasis, maintaining this sincere gratitude. The dark visions in Ecclesiastes and Job are ultimately tools for this purpose, inoculations against "infinite" desire, a "chasing after the wind" or "cosmic closure."

Now of course Auschwitz is an extreme example, — darthbarracuda

That is why your argument is weak. You have to jump to unrepresentative extremes to make your case.

Your whole approach is flawed in trying to reduce human existence to some calculus of joy and anguish weighed on a set of scales. A life is a construction in which happiness and pain are useful signals. We need to focus on the nature of that construction - it's good or bad - rather than on the signals. This is because the signals themselves will be interpreted quite differently, depending on the kind of life being constructed.

I mean why is a rough sport like rugby so enjoyable. Why would anyone punish themselves climbing a mountain. How does suffering of this kind become the most fondly remembered aspects of a life?

Or for a more ordinary kind of basic hard work, who would have kids, a garden or a farm. These are tough gigs. Yet also what make life the most worthwhile.

Now you will just repeat your mantra that I am talking about exactly the self-delusion which you - in all your superiority - have the better sense to see through.

But bullshit my friend. Pessimism is a rationalisation for a failure to engage with existence in constructive fashion.

Unlike what you claim here, I actually have scientific data to support my views. I'm not just going to ignore an entire sector of inquiry because you personally don't like it. — darthbarracuda

You have a flawed thesis. You think the point of life is not to feel the slightest discomfort, rather than to actually live it and make something of it.

All the science stands against you there - from biology through neuroscience, sociology and psychology.

Your case hinges on a mentality you have chosen to construct - one where you have got into the negative habit of focusing on the very worst possible outcomes and treating them as the sole determinants of your existence.

It's learned helplessness dressed up as "philosophy".

That is why your argument is weak. You have to jump to unrepresentative extremes to make your case. — apokrisis

Not really, though. Extreme pain is indeed an extreme example but not because it's strange, unusual or anything like that. It's extreme because it's extremely intense. As Adorno said, how can we do poetry and metaphysics after Auschwitz?

And even if these extreme pains were unusual - does that change anything? Does the concept of unrelenting and useless torture not give you the chills or make you question the nature of the world?

And then of course there is the part of my argument that you keep missing, the parts about tediousness, boredom, unremarkability and suffocating emptiness.

Your whole approach is flawed in trying to reduce human existence to some calculus of joy and anguish weighed on a set of scales. A life is a construction in which happiness and pain are useful signals. We need to focus on the nature of that construction - it's good or bad - rather than on the signals. This is because the signals themselves will be interpreted quite differently, depending on the kind of life being constructed. — apokrisis

I don't get what your getting at here. In the end, we have all sorts of experiences, good and bad and neutral depending on what our preferences are. I'll admit that I am indeed a utilitarian consequentialist which not all pessimists were/are, but only because I think other positions are untenable.

I mean why is a rough sport like rugby so enjoyable. Why would anyone punish themselves climbing a mountain. How does suffering of this kind become the most fondly remembered aspects of a life? — apokrisis

Pain is not equivalent to suffering. As Levinas said, suffering is useless, and that's also why Ligotti called life "malignantly useless". The pain you experience while playing rugby is acceptable...however I'm sure you'll agree that the pain that happens when you break your arm playing is not.

But anyway rugby, like most sports and entertainment, is fun because it challenges us within a certain threshold of security. We fundamentally trick ourselves into believing that we are heroes for overcoming the opposition in a purely fictional setting.

Zapffe was a prolific mountaineer, who climbed mountains because he thought it was the most pointless thing to do. A real irony, but then again, the aesthetic may be the only redeeming feature of a pessimistic worldview.

Now you will just repeat your mantra that I am talking about exactly the self-delusion which you - in all your superiority - have the better sense to see through. — apokrisis

I'm not saying I'm superior. But once an illusion/concealment has been shown to be what it is, it's difficult to submerge yourself again. That's how you solve an existential crisis in the usual way, isn't it? Surround yourself with your comforts and securities and distract yourself for long enough that you eventually forget what was bothering you. Until something inevitably triggers the questioning again, usually in the form of something tragic.

You are here because countless other organisms have suffered uselessly. You are the product of their combined subjugation by the whims of the environment; a billion-year-old gladiatorial arena. None of this is worthy of praise - it is utterly useless, pointless and morally repugnant. But to come to this conclusion requires one to look past your favorite ice cream shop or the next order on Amazon.

You have a flawed thesis. You think the point of life is not to feel the slightest discomfort, rather than to actually live it and make something of it. — apokrisis

I didn't say that was the point of life. In fact I'd argue the point of life, pace Nietzsche, is to make art and express oneself by the aesthetic.

All the science stands against you there - from biology through neuroscience, sociology and psychology.

Your case hinges on a mentality you have chosen to construct - one where you have got into the negative habit of focusing on the very worst possible outcomes and treating them as the sole determinants of your existence.

It's learned helplessness dressed up as "philosophy". — apokrisis

No...it's not. Get out of your bubble and read some psychology, and none of that positive psychology bullshit. Go read Becker, go read Freud (the parts that don't involve penises), go read Zapffe, go read Heidegger, go read Adler, go read Rank, go read Fromm, go read Schopenhauer, Cioran, Ligotti, Brassier, Feltham, Darwin. They've said it better than I can, and a lot of it is free online.

Surprising as it might be, I'm generally a content person albeit with a bit of a melancholic edge. The prospect of suicide used to scare the shit out of me, but as Cioran said I have come to see it as a kind of salvation of some sort - if shit hits the fan, I'm okay with exiting.

What doesn't kill you will sometimes makes you wish it had.

Zapffe was a prolific mountaineer, who climbed mountains because he thought it was the most pointless thing to do. — darthbarracuda

Sure, he might have said it was as pointless as life. But still, he did it. And so there must have been some point to it. And thus also some point to life.

Note I'm not defending sports or climbing particularly. They are rather self-indulgent pursuits of course. The issue is instead that they show that suffering is intrinsic to having fun.

Climbing a mountain is as optional an activity as it gets. So it is not as though we have to go through the pain because life leaves us with no choice. Instead it must be the case that when modern life removes all real hardships and dangers, we - or at least a lot of us - go in active search of such risks. They make us feel more alive - being a natural part of the psychology of living.

So I am waiting for you to account for that with your narrow pessimism.

That's how you solve an existential crisis in the usual way, isn't it? Surround yourself with your comforts and securities and distract yourself for long enough that you eventually forget what was bothering you. — darthbarracuda

People usually solve their existential crises by growing up and getting stuck into life.

I agree of course that there is plenty to criticise about the way life is supposed to be lived in the modern consumer society, lost in romanticism and hedonism.

But to have that grown-up conversation, you have to be already past needy pessimism.

No...it's not. Get out of your bubble and read some psychology, and none of that positive psychology bullshit. — darthbarracuda

What do you know about psychology or positive psychology? Get out of your own bubble.

Sure, he might have said it was as pointless as life. But still, he did it. And so there must have been some point to it. And thus also some point to life.

Note I'm not defending sports or climbing particularly. They are rather self-indulgent pursuits of course. The issue is instead that they show that suffering is intrinsic to having fun. — apokrisis

No, suffering is not intrinsic to having fun, otherwise it wouldn't be suffering! Pain may be but again pain is not equivalent to suffering.

People usually solve their existential crises by growing up and getting stuck into life.

I agree of course that there is plenty to criticise about the way life is supposed to be lived in the modern consumer society, lost in romanticism and hedonism.

But to have that grown-up conversation, you have to be already past needy pessimism. — apokrisis

Growing up - yes, the process of hiding one's scars and adopting a symbolic facade to appease the crowd. Truly an impressive phenomenon...

What do you know about psychology or positive psychology? Get out of your own bubble. — apokrisis

I know a lot more than you do, apparently. Reality can be insulting but that doesn't change anything.

I didn't mean to imply that you were unhappy or anything like that. I was just reacting to "desperation." But I guess in a non-pejorative sense you are right. We abandon our hope to rationalize reality completely and then look to a (self-consciously) aesthetic justification. "I really don't need an imperishable rationalization of the real. Its apparent impossibility is even better in some ways."

As Levinas said, suffering is useless, — darthbarracuda

This is taken out of context db; Levinas is referring only to passively endured suffering. The kind of suffering that is inflicted by an active evil agent. Torture would be an example. Torture is useless and evil. The kinds of suffering that are naturally entailed by life are not useless, unless they are passively or depressively endured; otherwise they may be useful because they build character and enable transformations; they are the fires that forge genuine mettle.

You are here because countless other organisms have suffered uselessly. You are the product of their combined subjugation by the whims of the environment; a billion-year-old gladiatorial arena. None of this is worthy of praise - it is utterly useless, pointless and morally repugnant. — darthbarracuda

I couldn't help thinking that all this suffering did have a use and is worthy of praise as the cost of our presence. As to moral repugnance, I think that is lessened as one sees the devil in one's self. Part of us likes it exactly this way. So it's reframable as a disharmony in the individual soul?

I know a lot more than you do, apparently — darthbarracuda

No, suffering is not intrinsic to having fun, — darthbarracuda

And yet pain, stress and suffering can cause the release of endorphins, serotonin and adrenaline - which feel pretty good. So you are not respecting the complexity of the neuroscience.

And yet pain, stress and suffering can cause the release of endorphins, serotonin and adrenaline - which feel pretty good. So you are not respecting the complexity of the neuroscience. — apokrisis

Yet we don't go around breaking people's arms so they can feel a pulse of endorphins. Sure, maybe your emo cousin cuts herself to feel better, but is that seriously good behavior that ought to be condoned? Not all pain, in fact most pain, is not accompanied by any sort of endorphin balancing-act. It is clear that these endorphins are being used by you as an excuse for pain - i.e. the opposite (that the release of endorphins is accompanied by pain) is not how we would describe the situation.

The UN banned torture because torture is a human rights violation. It wouldn't be a violation if the endorphins released during these traumatic episodes "made up" for the pain experienced.

Eventually I think you will come to the same conclusion that I have and realize that life is not meant to be fair, balanced, or comfortable.

Eventually I think you will come to the same conclusion that I have and realize that life is not meant to be fair, balanced, or comfortable. — darthbarracuda

Right. It is instead a goal that has to be worked at.

But we seem a long way now from your original thesis that the very possibility of a nasty paper cut is sufficient reason to unwish the entirety of existence.

Right. It is instead a goal that has to be worked at. — apokrisis

Not sure what you mean by this. Why does anything need to be worked out at all? Why do we need to give people problems?

But we seem a long way now from your original thesis that the very possibility of a nasty paper cut is sufficient reason to unwish the entirety of existence. — apokrisis

That's a strawman.

Why do we need to give people problems? — darthbarracuda

Who is this "we"? Are you thinking of some malign god?

If you are going to claim your view is science-backed, it is going to have to be naturalistic. And so we can contrast two hypotheses here.

My argument is that brains evolved for problem solving. Pleasure and pain must exist to mark out the symbolised limits of that. We have to actually get feedback on whether we are getting hotter or colder in our problem solving. And nothing about such signalling is simple. For instance, a smart brain must be able to trade-off the short-term pain vs the long-term gain, and vice versa. Hence stuff like endorphins to help you keep climbing through the suffering.

Your argument is something about pain or suffering having phenomenal existence as a class of qualia. Somehow you treat situated feelings as if they were cosmic abstracta. Having thus separated them from reality, you can weigh their "existence" in isolation.

Welcome to Platonism, goodbye to realism, naturalism, science and commonsense.

For instance, a smart brain must be able to trade-off the short-term pain vs the long-term gain, and vice versa. Hence stuff like endorphins to help you keep climbing through the suffering. — apokrisis

And my argument is that this smart brain evolved this tendency in order to trick its captive self-model into continuing to exist. You seem to be implicitly favoring smartness as goodness (because survival is "obviously" good) when I'm arguing that our hyper-intellectual ability is what pins us to the ground more often than not. Our level of sophistication of consciousness does not "belong" in the environment; it has to support itself by its own flexibility. The phenomenal self-model is the brain's way of enslaving itself.

And my argument is that this smart brain evolved this tendency in order to trick its captive self-model into continuing to exist. — darthbarracuda

Good lordy. What did you say about bubbles and psychological science? Do you believe animals have to be protected in some way from their existential dread and the constant temptation of suicide?

The phenomenal self-model is the brain's way of enslaving itself. — darthbarracuda

Get back to me when you can link such lurid claims to real neuroscience.

Good lordy. What did you say about bubbles and psychological science? Do you believe animals have to be protected in some way from their existential dread and the constant temptation of suicide? — apokrisis

Well, I mean I doubt most other animals have existential crises like we do. But certainly they have instincts that keep them from doing things that would destroy them. Like Lovecraft said, the first experience was fear. We don't get to decide whether or not life is to be continued - we are forced by our more primal instincts to continue whether we like it or not.

Get back to me when you can link such lurid claims to real neuroscience. — apokrisis

LOL, go read the neurophilosopher Thomas Metzinger and his associates over at the ASSC.

Specifically read this, it's an introduction to his theories.

Well, I mean I doubt most other animals have existential crises like we do. But certainly they have instincts that keep them from doing things that would destroy them. Like Lovecraft said, the first experience was fear. We don't get to decide whether or not life is to be continued - we are forced by our more primal instincts to continue whether we like it or not. — darthbarracuda

Nope. Not getting much sense of science there. Lovecraft? :)

LOL, go read the neurophilosopher Thomas Metzinger and his associates over at the ASSC. — darthbarracuda

I've read him. I don't find him particularly insightful as he conflates the issues of biologically evolved consciousness and culturally evolved self-regulatory awareness.

Nope. Not getting much sense of science there. Lovecraft? — apokrisis

Yes, Lovecraft. He's incredibly revealing in his phenomenology. You throw around the term "science" as if it's a get-out-of-jail-free card. "nuh-uh, Lovecraft wasn't a real scientist, so none of this matters". Absurd, the reason Lovecraft is so famous is because he made such provocative observations.

I've read him. I don't find him particularly insightful as he conflates the issues of biologically evolved consciousness and culturally evolved self-regulatory awareness. — apokrisis

In any case this does not matter very much considering the main focal point - phenomenology - is still being pushed aside. Your argument is akin to telling a person who is afraid of heights that "it's just a chemical reaction" - that doesn't change anything. You're completely ignoring the phenomenon of extreme pain as well as tediousness and repetition in favor of an impersonal explanation that does nothing but ignore what I'm actually arguing about.

People like to live through other people. They like to see others persevere. They like to have children so they can re-live their own childhood (babies are aesthetic objects). They like to witness heroism. They like to escape their own lives. But they like to do this in the comfort of their own homes. They don't particularly enjoy going through hardship and pain, but they enjoy it when others do and when they "rise above", but interestingly enough they tend to forget about those who didn't and succumbed. So it's easy to dismiss all of what I'm saying here by telling me to "grow up" or "man up" but that's all it is - easy. And short-sighted as well.

Absurd, the reason Lovecraft is so famous is because he made such provocative observations. — darthbarracuda

Great. But I was trying to turn this discussion away from romantic histrionics towards science-backed naturalism.

As I said, show me that the brain isn't evolved for problem-solving. And that being so, it then follows we have to evaluate biological signals of pleasure and pain in that light.

In any case this does not matter very much considering the main focal point - phenomenology - is still being pushed aside. — darthbarracuda

Well hardly. My point is that phenomenology at the level we are discussing it is socially constructed and linguistic. That is the human condition.

The question then is whether culture is integrated with biology - whether as humans we are still essentially pragmatic problem-solvers and that is the basis for any philosophising? Or instead, there is your alternative hypothesis - the rather romantic and Freudian one - that the ego is culturally manufactured as some kind of self-deceptive bulwark against the death instinct, or some such garbled rubbish. If only we could shed the scales from our eyes and see existence as bad from the get-go, you wail - because for some it ends in torture and holocaust, even if you seem to have a life that only stretches as far as boredom, anxiety and some mild discontent.

Your argument is akin to telling a person who is afraid of heights that "it's just a chemical reaction" - that doesn't change anything. — darthbarracuda

Well again hardly. As a semiotician, I would say it is just a symbolic reaction - a state of interpretance.

It is natural to have some fear of heights if you don't want to fall. What is pathological in problem-solving terms is to become so overcome by the very idea of the possibility of falling that it takes over your entire life. Or what would be ridiculous as a philosophy would be to construct a whole ethics around the possibility that someone somewhere may fall in a really bad way, while ignoring the converse fact that mostly people manage to stand in a world that is well-organised - by a problem-solving attitude.

So it's easy to dismiss all of what I'm saying here by telling me to "grow up" or "man up" but that's all it is - easy. — darthbarracuda

Yep. It is easy. Your whole position is built on catastrophising. I'm just waiting for you to make an argument that brains are not meant for problem-solving and so require some way to tell whether they are getting hotter or colder on that score.

How can it make sense for suffering not to exist for a mind that has to be able to make its mind up?

And sure, if such a mind decides the solution to its problems is suicide, that makes sense. A rational society supports voluntary euthanasia for terminal illness.

But I return to my point - the one that supports me saying "man up". Problem solving is meant to consider all its options. So show me the bit where your philosophy is doing that. In what way is it constuctive to become so obsessed by the very worst things that can happen - especially when you personally claim your life is quite content.

As I said, show me that the brain isn't evolved for problem-solving. And that being so, it then follows we have to evaluate biological signals of pleasure and pain in that light. — apokrisis

Or, we can also look at what it's like to experience pleasure and pain. Telling a person who is being tortured that it's just a bunch of signals in their brain meant to solve problems does nothing to help them. This is quite literally Zapffe's claim: we are both over and under evolved. We have an over-developed intellect and an under-developed signal mechanism. We are held down by a crude hedonic treadmill (a very well-established scientific fact) and are inherently slaves to our needs. The mind is filled with possibilities and wishes to be free, and yet the body and environment consistently disappoint and repress.

Well hardly. My point is that phenomenology at the level we are discussing it is socially constructed and linguistic. That is the human condition. — apokrisis

There is nothing socially constructed or linguistic about torture. There is nothing socially constructed or linguistic about boredom or repetition. Telling someone that they aren't actually experiencing any "qualitative" experience a la qualia is not only asinine but insulting.

It is natural to have some fear of heights if you don't want to fall. What is pathological in problem-solving terms is to become so overcome by the very idea of the possibility of falling that it takes over your entire life. — apokrisis

And once again we have you diagnosing pessimists as being "unnatural" or "pathological", as if they are some sort of oddity in the universe. No, we are part of the universe, and therefore it stands that the universe is capable of producing these kinds of ideas.

Or what would be ridiculous as a philosophy would be to construct a whole ethics around the possibility that someone somewhere may fall in a really bad way, while ignoring the converse fact that mostly people manage to stand in a world that is well-organised - by a problem-solving attitude. — apokrisis

Why would this be ridiculous? Certainly if you fell in a really bad way, no previous pleasures will help you out. When experiencing intense pain, you are literally suffocated by the experience. Nothing else matters.

To brush this aside and claim that the suffering of others is not important is highly suspicious. As Zapffe said, no future great triumph can justify the plight of an innocent against his will.

Your whole position is built on catastrophising. I'm just waiting for you to make an argument that brains are not meant for problem-solving and so require some way to tell whether they are getting hotter or colder on that score. — apokrisis

I'm waiting for you to tell me how problem-solving has anything to do with what I'm talking about. The function of pleasure and pain differs from how they are experienced.

How can it make sense for suffering not to exist for a mind that has to be able to make its mind up? — apokrisis

Why is there a need for problem-solving in the first place? What is so great and special about life, other than the pleasure you experience? If you accept that it's pleasure that makes a life good, then you have to, on pain of contradiction, accept that it is pain that makes a life bad.

And sure, if such a mind decides the solution to its problems is suicide, that makes sense. A rational society supports voluntary euthanasia for terminal illness. — apokrisis

Yes, or for anyone who views life itself as a terminal illness.

Problem solving is meant to consider all its options. So show me the bit where your philosophy is doing that. In what way is it constuctive to become so obsessed by the very worst things that can happen - especially when you personally claim your life is quite content. — apokrisis

The rub of pessimism is that there is no way to solve this problem. Suicide doesn't solve the problem, it just eliminates it.

So please explain to me how you can simultaneously accept that the worst possible can actually happen (a tragic catastrophe) and yet somehow twist the responsibility onto me to find a solution. All you're doing is ignoring it.

You and Apo are both making strong points. Life creates suffering as well as consciousness ("false" or not) of this suffering as useless. And yet intelligence is problem solving. Diagonosing suffering as useless is itself useful as a reason to strictly avoid such suffering, where possible. We don't wait in line if we think the office will close before they'll see us, for instance. If an anticipated personal future is conceived of as a bunch of useless suffering, then euthanasia/suicide is a rational solution.

no future great triumph can justify the plight of an innocent against his will. — darthbarracuda

To me, this isn't axiomatic. One can affirm life/reality in its injustice and guilt. I read Job this way.

I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. — Job

Of course you or anyone else can hold to the impossibility of justifying coerced suffering. I won't say you're wrong. But I think it's a instrument of the problem solving brain, so I ask what's its purpose? It seems to assert implicitly "anti-thetical" or un-worldly values and point away from life's necessary guilt to the cold but innocent grave. There's an old German philosopher out there who thought humanity's consciousness would evolve so that it would willingly go extinct. It's a grand idea. But I think most people (these days, in wealthy countries) would say yes to being born again as the same person (memory wiped) and living it all again.

If an anticipated personal future is conceived of as a bunch of useless suffering, then euthanasia/suicide is a rational solution. — Hoo

Yes from the personal view, but from the metaphysical side nothing is solved.

Metaphysically speaking I doubt the universe has any moral compass whatsoever. But this also means that catastrophes can happen, i.e. a tragedy. So from the perspective of a sentient being, the universe can come across as malignant. Metaphysically speaking the entire cosmos is not good or bad, but it is the case, metaphysically speaking, that sentients exists in such a way as to be affected by the arbitrary whims of the universe. Sentients are thus metaphysical captives.

But I think most people (these days, in wealthy countries) would say yes to being born again as the same person (memory wiped) and living it all again. — Hoo

This is a major point that I had forgotten to bring up. Think about what you are experiencing right now, at this very moment. Can you honestly and indubitably tell yourself that you are happy, or that you are not suffering? Chance are that you will find that you have a general sense of unease. As soon as your tool-using brains stops using tools you start to fumble.

Apply this reasoning to pre-natal conditions. Are what you are experiencing right now worth being born for? People like to look in the future or the past contemplating what they have or might experience (part of my argument itself rests on this fact) - but in the case of birth it always tends to be about the good and never the bad, especially not the mediocrity currently being experienced in the present. It is a common and well-established psychological phenomenon (Pollyannism and magical thinking) that people's judgement of their own lives is skewed: from a pre-natal perspective, their lives would not be worth starting, and from a currently-living perspective they probably aren't worth living either but are maintained by the neurotic sense of vanity. If it is good to continue to exist, then it must be good to bring people into existence. If it's not good to bring people into existence, then it must be bad to continue to exist (for one's own sake). I accept this and the contradiction it is for me to continue to exist.

Telling a person who is being tortured that it's just a bunch of signals in their brain meant to solve problems does nothing to help them. — darthbarracuda

But treating torture as an issue that can be tackled via social institutions is pragmatic - of much more use in real life than telling the same torture victim that "yes, you are right, life is shit for everyone from the get-go, so don't think you are anything special in the fact you have electrodes attached to your gonads right at this moment."

So stop straw-manning my position.

This is quite literally Zapffe's claim: we are both over and under evolved. We have an over-developed intellect and an under-developed signal mechanism. — darthbarracuda

I can't help it if you are wedded to extreme simplicity. All I can do is point out the structural complexity of my own position. I am careful to separate the biology of the "under-developed signal mechanism" from the sociology of the "over-developed intellect" so as not to make these kinds of basic ontological blunders.

There is nothing socially constructed or linguistic about torture. There is nothing socially constructed or linguistic about boredom or repetition. Telling someone that they aren't actually experiencing any "qualitative" experience a la qualia is not only asinine but insulting. — darthbarracuda

Or instead, it means you don't understand psychology well enough to understand what is meant by social constructionism.

And once again we have you diagnosing pessimists as being "unnatural" or "pathological", as if they are some sort of oddity in the universe. No, we are part of the universe, and therefore it stands that the universe is capable of producing these kinds of ideas. — darthbarracuda

The only kind of universe that can produce these kinds of ideas is one where life has become so generally safe and easy on the whole that the self-indulgent have to pathologise the very fact of their own existence.

Why is there a need for problem-solving in the first place? What is so great and special about life, other than the pleasure you experience? If you accept that it's pleasure that makes a life good, then you have to, on pain of contradiction, accept that it is pain that makes a life bad. — darthbarracuda

Even if you want to be supremely simplistic in this fashion, that still makes it a problem to solve.

The rub of pessimism is that there is no way to solve this problem. Suicide doesn't solve the problem, it just eliminates it. — darthbarracuda

Exactly. Suicide solves something in the case of an already imminent painful death. But generally, solving the problem involves getting a life and learning to stop whining.

Pessimism is so histrionic that nothing can fix its psychic state. Time would have to be wound back to its beginning and existence itself annihilated to make things right.

Emos wondered why people laughed at them. It wasn't only the bad haircuts and wristbands meant to signal "potential cutter here".

Metaphysically speaking I doubt the universe has any moral compass whatsoever. But this also means that catastrophes can happen, i.e. a tragedy. So from the perspective of a sentient being, the universe can come across as malignant. Metaphysically speaking the entire cosmos is not good or bad, but it is the case, metaphysically speaking, that sentients exists in such a way as to be affected by the arbitrary whims of the universe. Sentients are thus metaphysical captives. — darthbarracuda

It can be malign beyond expectation and benevolent beyond expectation, terrible and wonderful. We are in the "hand" of an amoral "God" (reality that envelopes us). Or rather that's a dialectically established vision/myth I think we share and act on.. Reality/nature/god transcends/violates human intuitions of justice. And yet works of fiction like Job are new conceptualizations of justice or negative theologies that trade justice for beauty. Ever read Blood Meridian? I think there's a beast in the heart of man, the flip side of concern for that "infinitely gentle, infinitely suffering" thing in "Preludes."

On some level we are super-predators, and the religion of our blood is total war. If we give careful, pious justifications of self-extinction with one face, the other is laughing with the gods at (or participating in) the orgy and slaughter that has and asks no reason why.

Can you honestly and indubitably tell yourself that you are happy, or that you are not suffering? Chance are that you will find that you have a general sense of unease. As soon as your tool-using brains stops using tools you start to fumble. — darthbarracuda

There are aches and pains, allergies, inconveniences, occasional thoughts of the body breaking down with age, imaginations of possible terrible accidents or unpredictable violence. I see the world as a collision of narcissism and hunger in the context of threatened humiliation and scarcity. But I still find life good. It's largely about always returning to a state of creative play. Life could become shitty without warning. But there's always the emergency exit. So I live with it. Then there's Blake:

Evil is burnt up when men cease to behold it. — Blake

We get absorbed become-one-with in our finite projects (including this spiel in my case). I'm almost never not thinking/playing. Pain/threat interrupts, is dealt with. I climb back on the hobby hose. I'm pretty damned lucky, so far, really, though I paid my angst-dues in a serious way in my teens and 20s. The altruistic pose is a cage. The finder/teller-of universal-truth pose is a cage. The system of poses falls forward into its contradictions. Until it stabilizes. Then one enjoys detail work at what feels like an end of (personal) ideological history. Or that's my story. I don't need it to be everybody's, but I do like publishing it. The right kind of person will (so the fantasy goes) appreciate the shortcut and hopefully the style.

It is a common and well-established psychological phenomenon (Pollyannism and magical thinking) that people's judgement of their own lives is skewed: from a pre-natal perspective, their lives would not be worth starting, and from a currently-living perspective they probably aren't worth living either but are maintained by the neurotic sense of vanity. — darthbarracuda

But the pre-natal perspective is exactly what I brought up. I can't see how the value of life can be judged objectively. So what is our judgement skewed in relation to? Yet another skewed judgment? Respectfully, how does your position escape being skewed? It seems to rely on the assumption that the "grim" view is more realistic because it "obviously" isn't wishful thinking. But what if this grim view is wishful thinking? What if all thinking is wishful? It's still possibly just the assertion of the self as a hero of truth, darkly beautiful really. I'll grant that vanity/self-love is a big issue. But I embrace self-love and egoism self-consciously. Beyond genuine empathy, there is 'sacred' altruism (Stirner) as badge of superiority. "Give alms in secret." Neurotic vanity would, in my view, be an unstable hero myth in transition. This is spiritual pain itself, in my view. Being caught between incompatible investments/myths. I experience life as an ascent because I feel that I am improving this sculpture of the self for the self. I'm striving for a PhD. That'll feel good. Then I'll strive to write the great American novel or something. The connection to the grand and the heroic is (seems to me) inescapable. I posit it as a necessary structure. We consent to go back to our ignorant, confused state (or I do) knowing that we (I) will re-attain "self-consciousness" or my current myth-system. The dragon's gold is his mirror, his self-recognition as dragon, earned through a series of evolving "alienations" or unstable self-conceptions. (I found this in the Hegelian Stirner after cooking it up on my own w/ the help of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer and so many others.) So for me pessimism is a fascinating version of the hero myth, the black dragon. But I like the golden dragon. Maybe it's just my "truth," my "software." Of course. Of course.

But treating torture as an issue that can be tackled via social institutions is pragmatic - of much more use in real life than telling the same torture victim that "yes, you are right, life is shit for everyone from the get-go, so don't think you are anything special in the fact you have electrodes attached to your gonads right at this moment."

So stop straw-manning my position. — apokrisis

This does not change the fact that torture can occur beyond human interaction. The point is that there is a contingency factor here, in that we have the possibility that life can become unbearable. A risk factor of proportion that cannot be ignored.

Or instead, it means you don't understand psychology well enough to understand what is meant by social constructionism. — apokrisis

Or it means that I don't see the usefulness of applying social constructionism to this debate as it is not relevant. Regardless of what causes us to feel a certain way, we nevertheless do feel. Deconstructing our experiences does nothing to them, and may even disillusion us.

The only kind of universe that can produce these kinds of ideas is one where life has become so generally safe and easy on the whole that the self-indulgent have to pathologise the very fact of their own existence. — apokrisis

Or it's the life of the contemplative who are able to reflect upon the condition of humanity, the conditions that other people are too busy trying to survive to even reflect upon them. This life would be one that isn't entirely focused on mitigating anxiety and avoiding things we fear.

Even if you want to be supremely simplistic in this fashion, that still makes it a problem to solve. — apokrisis

Or to be less naively optimistic, it's a problem that cannot be solved and thus must be eliminated. A conspiracy.

But generally, solving the problem involves getting a life and learning to stop whining. — apokrisis

Ad hominem. Nobody is forcing you to participate in this debate. Nobody is on your lawn or front porch. It never ceases to amaze me how pessimism rustles people's jimmies so much if it is indeed wrong. Nobody reacts like this unless it's to an uncomfortable truth.

Pessimism is so histrionic that nothing can fix its psychic state. Time would have to be wound back to its beginning and existence itself annihilated to make things right. — apokrisis

Yes, indeed if I had the choice I don't think I would condone abiogenesis. Too much suffering for no net gain.