This person decides that the meditative Buddhist needs to stop navel-gazing and start living a "real" life — schopenhauer1
And here, I disagree. We don't live in fascist or authoritarian governments. The Buddhist is free to do what they choose is best for them. And, since they feel no pain or adversity, then what they're doing is productive for their own good.
I see a lot of musterbation, proceeding from that assumption that what he is doing is wrong and unjustified. — Wallows
Did you read the whole post? — schopenhauer1
The point of it is if someone feels the Buddhist needs to go through adversity, and thus exposes him to a situation of adversity, is this wrong? — schopenhauer1
Yes, it is. You are imposing you're of some fictitious entities (twisted and sadistic) will on someone that does the things they do for the very reason you don't want them to do it? Isn't the contradiction apparent enough? — Wallows
I do not get what you are asking. — schopenhauer1
I'm not asking anything. I'm merely asserting that it is wrong to say that the blissful and happy Buddhist is unjustified in their simple existence. Demanding that they experience pain and suffering is some kind of twisted logic. — Wallows
Yes, I agree it is. That is the whole point of the analogy. — schopenhauer1
If the navel-gazing Buddhist is likened to the potential child that does not need to exist (to be exposed to suffering/adversity) in the first place, then the person who comes along and figures that this navel-gazer needs to overcome adversity is like the parents procreating a new human into existence where they surely will experience adversity, and they will have to overcome it. Then, in Nietzschean fashion will claim that the point of living is to get stronger by overcoming life's challenges. This makes little sense if no one existed to need adversity in the first place. Don't take the analogy too seriously- it is simply to show the illogic of it. — schopenhauer1
In general, life is getting easier nowadays. We tend to have more psychological problems nowadays than addressing fundamental needs like water, food, and shelter. — Wallows
Who are you to judge for someone else what is "adverse" enough for them, psychological or not? — schopenhauer1
How do you know to what extent that person would want to experience adversity? — schopenhauer1
How do you know there won't be more than small adversity but perhaps the possibility of undo suffering will occur? — schopenhauer1
We're you the first to commit this error with the Buddhist living happily, and some twisted entity telling them they ought to suffer more? — Wallows
Well, I can't really say that they ought not to feel adversity. Without it I think it would be hard to achieve affective states like appreciation, compassion, and empathy. If I could I would like to be a kid again. It was such a happy time in my life. — Wallows
I don't; but, isn't that just life for you? — Wallows
The question is if it is right to procreate a new person who will experience adversity. — schopenhauer1
Isn't that a tautology. — Wallows
If life consists in adversity, and no utopia can be achieved, then there really isn't any alternative for the unborn child. — Wallows
Well, correct. That is the whole point. The child doesn't need to exist to experience adversity, period. It would be wrong to expose someone to adversity, just so they can experience overcoming it. Even if the premise was true that, "overcoming adversity makes one stronger", no one needs to be exposed to adversity in the first place. It is wrong to make someone overcome adversity when they didn't need to. — schopenhauer1
So, does that make me an antinatalist? What if we lived in a world where every problem could be solved at the whim of science? Wouldn't such a life be mundane and boring to the point of not wanting to exist anymore? Isn't the whole premise of evolution about overcoming adversity? What becomes of "life" when we eliminate all adversity? We wouldn't be talking about "life" in the ordinary sense of the term anymore. — Wallows
I am not claiming anything about how existence should be, other than that. — schopenhauer1
And, you have demonstrated with the Buddhist analogy that you don't think he or she is justified in living without any adversity. — Wallows
That person who forced the Buddhist into adversity was not doing the right thing. — schopenhauer1
So, you're creating a straw-man out of the Buddhist in that they are leading their life the way they are due to adversity? — Wallows
No you're still not getting it. The Buddhist is like the non-existent/potential child. There was no need for it to be forced into experiencing adversity when they didn't need to. — schopenhauer1
So, life is the person or entity telling the person that they need to experience life "in reality"? — Wallows
If by entity you mean the person who is forcing the Buddhist into adversity, and by life you mean the people who are procreating the potential person into existence, then yes. — schopenhauer1
So, I see we boiled down the issue. — Wallows
Then isn't that a straw-man or a simple overgeneralization to state things that way? — Wallows
I don't see how it was not boiled down from the beginning. The analogy wasn't meant to be hard to make between the two ideas of the Buddhist/adversity potential person/adversity. — schopenhauer1
Not really, the story was to illustrate the point. The point has always been, there is no need to create adversity for someone else when that person did not need to experience adversity in the first place. — schopenhauer1
We don't know that. That's a presumption. If that is how you feel about it, then so be it. — Wallows
But you can probably tell where this is going in regards to being an analogy for antinatalism. — schopenhauer1
Two thoughts come to mind.
The first: Why would anyone wish for another to experience adversity and struggle? This seems like a profoundly malevolent act, unless one believes the struggle and adversity will benefit the person. Even then, it is not up to the instigator to decide what is good or bad for another, unless one is asked specifically for their advice. — Tzeentch
The second: The instigator does not let the Buddhist suffer. The instigator merely brings about a change of circumstance and the reaction of the Buddhist is to make himself suffer. In Buddhism, all suffering is seen as a result of attachment to wordly matters. In this case, the Buddhist was attached to life and feared death and starvation. — Tzeentch
It is said Buddha once fasted for a long period of time, during which he consumed no food except that which by circumstance came to him. This naturally weakened him and when during his travels he attempted to cross a river he nearly drowned. This is when he experienced enlightenment. — Tzeentch
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