What I'm getting at is that there's a difference between "I want food," which you seem to be categorically calling a "dissatisfaction," and having a negative experience in conjunction with wanting food.
In other words, someone can just want food without having an attendant value assessment of that experience, where they assign a negative or "bad" value to it. It can just be an experience without a valuation. — Terrapin Station
Then you are not taking into account how I (and Schopenhuaer) are using "negative in nature" here. — schopenhauer1
If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing. But as it is, we take no delight in existence except when we are struggling for something; and then distance and difficulties to be overcome make our goal look as though it would satisfy us — an illusion which vanishes when we reach it; or else when we are occupied with some purely intellectual interest — when in reality we have stepped forth from life to look upon it from the outside, much after the manner of spectators at a play. And even sensual pleasure itself means nothing but a struggle and aspiration, ceasing the moment its aim is attained. Whenever we are not occupied in one of these ways, but cast upon existence itself, its vain and worthless nature is brought home to us; and this is what we mean by boredom. The hankering after what is strange and uncommon — an innate and ineradicable tendency of human nature — shows how glad we are at any interruption of that natural course of affairs which is so very tedious.
If life — the craving for which is the very essence of our being — were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing. But as it is, we take no delight in existence except when we are struggling for something; and then distance and difficulties to be overcome make our goal look as though it would satisfy us — an illusion which vanishes when we reach it; or else when we are occupied with some purely intellectual interest — when in reality we have stepped forth from life to look upon it from the outside, much after the manner of spectators at a play. And even sensual pleasure itself means nothing but a struggle and aspiration, ceasing the moment its aim is attained. Whenever we are not occupied in one of these ways, but cast upon existence itself, its vain and worthless nature is brought home to us; and this is what we mean by boredom. The hankering after what is strange and uncommon — an innate and ineradicable tendency of human nature — shows how glad we are at any interruption of that natural course of affairs which is so very tedious.
Suffering, at this level, is the most important thing to take into consideration. — schopenhauer1
Anything else is having an agenda for another person. — schopenhauer1
I can understand that Schopenhauer felt that way, but why would you think that it's necessarily universal? You're not familiar with people who never feel bored, for example? — Terrapin Station
That's just your opinion. — S
No, that criticism is invalid. It's invalid because it can't apply to what I'm saying without also applying to what you're saying. You are committing the fallacy of special pleading. You say that the prevention of suffering matters. I say that the prevention of joy matters. You say to me that that's having an agenda for another person. I can then say to you that that's having an agenda for another person.
That's logic for you. — S
But to for those note meditating and eating a bowl of rice 24/7, I don't believe it. People don't get bored because they are filling the time with stuff that overcomes the baseline boredom they would feel otherwise- TPF, shopping, reading, working, etc. — schopenhauer1
Well, maybe they don't get bored because they're doing whatever, but the point I'm still trying to get at is that we can have someone who doesn't have a negative valuation of phenomenal states such as "I'm hungry." But it seems like you're saying that's irrelevant to it being a moral problem. — Terrapin Station
My opinion leads to NO suffering for a future person. — schopenhauer1
Ah no. Prevention of joy is not bad, if there is NO ONE alive to be deprived of it. Prevention of suffering is always, good whether someone for whom this is a benefit or not. That's the asymmetry. — schopenhauer1
Sure. But the problem is that that doesn't make any sense to me at all. You're categorizing desire as morally problematic regardless of anyone's opinion of it. — Terrapin Station
Do you understand why that's a misleading statement? Yes or no?
Do you understand why no reasonable conclusion can follow from it? Yes or no? — S
That's evading the point. Please don't do that. We can't move on until you address my point properly. Prevention of suffering is having an agenda for another person. You suggested that having an agenda for another person is bad in response to me, yet you yourself have an agenda for another person. — S
It is always good to prevent suffering so no whether someone exists to know this or not. — schopenhauer1
No, the other person does not exist yet. No agenda is going to be had by them. — schopenhauer1
Why didn't you answer my questions? I will ask them again.
Do you understand why that's a misleading statement? Yes or no?
Do you understand why no reasonable conclusion can follow from it? Yes or no? — S
Then that's my response also, regarding the prevention of joy. And the prevention of anger, the prevention of surprise, the prevention sympathy, the prevention of guilt, the prevention of...
You don't seem to get the logic here. — S
I did answer. I said no, and no. — schopenhauer1
Agendas are had by actual people. No people, no agenda for that person to be had. — schopenhauer1
Correct. — schopenhauer1
So as I said, that makes no sense to me at all. What makes something morally problematic regardless of anyone's opinion about the thing in question? — Terrapin Station
Something that is so structural, it is not reflected on, but runs our lives. — schopenhauer1
All these arguments that hinge on the nonexistence of potential people seem to depend on certain things being true with respect to the problem of personal identity. We are talking about persons, after all, persons existing and persons not yet existing. But what is a person? What am I? — petrichor
what is your understanding of what Schopenhauer thought that we are ultimately? What am I really? And I mean from my own perspective. And how does what I am at my foundation relate to what you are at your foundation? — petrichor
So why don't you understand it when a little child can? Do you mean to suggest that a little child is more intelligent than you are? — S
So, ignoring that entire irrelevant personal attack — S
o you not agree that a little child would understand why these kinds of statement are misleading? — S
And are you now ready to properly address my criticism about your comment to me in response to my mention about the prevention of joy that "that's having an agenda for another person"? Are you now ready to clarify what your position is? Do you accept that, as an antinatalist according to your own description of antinatalism, you have an agenda for another person? Or are you going to be inconsistent and apply a double standard? Or are you just going to keep evading the point? — S
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