I am glad that the Doors crept in, especially as Jim Morrison was inspired by Nietzsche. It was Jim who led me to Nietzsche's books in the first instance. I do agree that we are all natural creatures, or I would have never written a thread on bodies. I probably do stand more on the brink of the embracing absurdity rather than stepping into the nihilistic wasteland. I really like Kafka as well as Camus and do think that sometimes can capture certain aspects of truth which can get lost in prose writing.

Anyway, I am logging out for today, so good night.

& Rimbaud too :up:

What really boggles the mind is that two mutually contradictory points of view (pessimism & optimism) are to be found in the same environment (this world). Something smells fishy, no?

I wish someone would make the effort of gathering information that could be used to prove pessimism or optimism, neither, even both, I have no stake in it. Such a project would involve making a list of plans people make for whathaveyou and calculating the success/failure ratio of these plans. If the ratio is 1 then neither optimism nor pessimism is justifiable, if the ratio is greater than 1 then Go! Optimists! and if the ratio is less than 1, pessimists are right on the money. We could do this at the level of an individual too. Why don't you try it on yourself and check whether you should be a pessimist or an optimist or something else? Since there's a practical and sound statistical method for settling the matter, arguing about it without taking that into account is a complete waste of time unless one's intentions are of an exploratory character.

I wish someone would make the effort of gathering information that could be used to prove pessimism or optimism ... — TheMadFool

:point: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism_bias (scroll down to the section on 'pessimistic bias')

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism_bias (scroll down to the section on 'pessimistic bias') — 180 Proof

Pessimism bias is an effect in which people exaggerate the likelihood that negative things will happen to them — Wikipedia

I think a well-designed study should settle the issue once and for all.

That aside, the notion pessimism bias works only if we know that things aren't as bad as the pessimist believes. Whence this knowledge? It presupposes, along with the idea optimism bias, that both are flawed views of the world. How do the people who coined these terms know that?

Oh and I forgot to mention, thanks, as always.

:up:

Their biases long observed in experiments. Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow) got the Nobel in 2011 for his work with the late Amos Tversky on the prevalence of cognitive biases and how they adversely impact decision-making & judgment.

Their biases long observed in experiments. Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow) got the Nobel in 2011 for his work with the late Amos Tversky on the prevalence of cognitive biases and how they adversely impact decision-making & judgment. — 180 Proof

Good job Daniel, my good man. The first step to a solution is recognizing that there's a problem.

More importantly, are the findings (of the experiments) generalizable? Or given that the fortune seems to be rather fickle about whom she favors or dislikes, should we carry out invididualized experiments? Could the trade-off between statistical generalizations and individual uniqueness be misleading?

Go find out, Fool. Interesting stuff.

Only optimists commit suicide, optimists who no longer succeed at being optimists. The others, having no reason to live, why would they have any reason to die? — Emil Cioran

Go find out, Fool. Interesting stuff. — 180 Proof

Sound advice. :up:

When I woke up this morning, I read your dialogue with Proof and had mixed feelings. I do think that the study of pessimism and optimism would be an interesting area for psychological research. However, I don't think it would come up with definitive answers because that would seem to be trying to solve translate the questions of philosophy into the perspective of experimental psychology. It would show some things but not the complete picture and, I am so glad about that. I prefer libraries to laboratories.

I have read some Rimbaud and he is a very powerful writer. I also agree with the quote you gave on suicide. It does seem that suicide is often an impulse which is done in the moment of rash despair. It does seem to me that is too easy, although it is not that easy to kill oneself. Many people try and fail, sometimes with long term physical consequences, which were far worse than the original ones they had. Perhaps suicide is about people only wishing for optimism and we have to take into ourselves, as opposed to killing it, as if it is some kind of vermin.

I recently (re)discovered Buddhist meditation and I’ve had this topic on my mind for some time. As others have noted, the question as framed is already leaning in favour of usefulness and thought. We could question both as starting points. But if we take it as given, I also think some pragmatic, non-dogmatic mixture of optimism and pessimism is probably best for functioning practically in the world. We need to be mindful of negative possibilities, or we’ll be caught unawares by dangers. But we need to have some faith or hope that things will ultimately turn out well. Otherwise, it’s hard to see how we can escape paralysis of the will, inability to act out of sheer despair. Schopenhauer advocates extinguishing the will as a result of his metaphysical pessimism, and I think he’s consistent in that. It’s also interesting that Schopenhauer was from a well-to-do family and didn’t have to work for a living, unlike Kant or Hegel for example. I wonder if he would’ve reached different a view if he had had to lead a more engaged (and dependent) life out of necessity.

I want to take this question beyond the criterion of usefulness in the narrow sense though. I would argue that optimism and pessimism are valuable experiences in themselves, apart from any benefit or use. Each one expresses a fundamental truth about human existence. I would even say that a human life is incomplete if it hasn’t gone through both extremes of the spectrum and ‘conquered’ them in some fashion. Each extreme is metaphysical in its own way and opens the door to an experience that transcends ordinary reality. I agree with the folks who said that the key experience on the side of pessimism is anticipation of death (or Thanatos). One way I’ve found to reach this experience is through the Buddhist nine-point death meditation. Going through the nine points, one gradually feels the finitude of being a mortal, that uncanny feeling of the existentialists that expresses our homelessness and alienation in the world. Freud thought that the unconscious doesn’t have a concept of time, and it seems animals don’t have the experience of finitude in the way humans do. So this experience probably requires use of conceptual thought and the reality principle. I’ve heard that Buddhist monks meditate on death daily, as do Christian ones in another way. That’s not surprising, since it seems we’re wired to forget and evade thoughts of death and anything that might remind us of it, like pain, illness, trauma, failure and negative outcomes.

Eros (or life) to me is the oceanic feeling that Freud talks about, a kind of metaphysical union where boundaries dissolve and finitude is no longer felt. I think he’s right that we feel this whenever we join other living beings in larger units, like in family or religion. I think some such experience of union is necessary to hold an authentic optimistic view. The set of beliefs must have a real counterpart, so to speak. Otherwise they are just words empty of content. There must be some reason posited for why things will turn out well, and to my mind this is usually Providence. The same is true on the other side. I don’t think a person can be a pessimist without direct experience of the negative aspects of life, and ultimately death in some form. So, I would challenge not just usefulness but also thinking as the criterion in the original question. I would say that beyond the thoughts and positions that we consciously adopt we have intuitions of reality. The thoughts spring out of these intuitions, so to speak, and the only way to sustain the thoughts in the long run is to nurture the underlying intuitions.

unny thing about "positive outcomes" is all of the frozen corpses on the slopes of Mt. Everest were once optimists. :sweat: — 180 Proof

Nothing is ever for certain, but the question is which is the better strategy? How many pessimists made it to the top of the mountain?

Which is better, to die trying or to rest in the safety of your bedroom eating your Twinkies?

Their biases long observed in experiments. Daniel Kahneman (Thinking, Fast and Slow) got the Nobel in 2011 for his work with the late Amos Tversky on the prevalence of cognitive biases and how they adversely impact decision-making & judgment. — 180 Proof

For a more objective study on the advantages of a positivity bias, see: https://www.chabad.org/generic_cdo/aid/4382048/jewish/Positivity-Bias.htm

I am glad that the Doors crept in, especially as Jim Morrison was inspired by Nietzsche. — Jack Cummins

The line quoted by @180 Proof ("I'll tell you this no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn") could be considered anti-Christian (and therefore Nietzschean) in its focus on the worldly and not the heavens, but I'd deny that it's anti-religious generally. Asceticism and the denial of the significance of worldly events is not a common element respected in all religions as a virtue. I point that out because I read the Morrison quote as being very positive and very optimistic and not at all critical of religion generally and actually consistent with the religion of my youth.

↪Present awareness
Of course, we smile and things often do get worse. It is difficult to know how much is just us seeing patterns, or how much impact our subconscious wishes have upon us, for better or worse. So, you could ask to what extent does it matter whether we embrace a philosophy of pessimism or optimism, or certain psychological attitudes? Does it really matter, in determining experiences and how we interpret our experiences?
23 hours ago — Jack Cummins

If one views the glass as half empty, then one favours the past, when the glass had more to offer.
If one views the glass as half full, then one favours the future, where one may continue to enjoy the contents of the glass.
Regardless of ones attitude however, it does not change the reality of the situation or the contents of the glass. Therefore, a neutral attitude of accepting what IS, rather then being for or against a situation, may be the best way to think about reality.

The idea of 'no eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn,' does seem to blend together the whole idea of gratification with eternal punishment. So, it is an interesting combination, but it probably does capture the contradictory set of values that I feel that I, and probably many others were raised on. My own sources of inspiration were Catholicism and rock'n'roll. I am not sure that asceticism was ever discussed with me at home or at school. I think it was a bit of a taboo area of discussion. Jim Morrison discussed the unspeakable and took me into a unexplored realms. So, is it any surprise that I needed philosophy to untie all the complicated knots.

:up:

Your reply is interesting and, you are right to say that apart from our conscious positions of optimism or pessimism we have intuitions. The opposite is still within our minds as well. One aspect of the conundrum of this opposition is that we know our past, but we don't really know where we are going or what will happen next in our lives, so we are making up our own life stories on an ongoing basis. So, we can also choose the whole tone of the daily realities we create, on the basis of how we frame our past experiences.

I think you're getting at the question of freedom. I agree that we have an open future and that our decisions do make a difference. It's also true that the past has a strong hold, and often we don't really choose our future even if it may appear that way.

I am thinking about the search for freedom, but the special way we have to walk the careful and intricate path between the negative and the positive in order to survive individually and collectively. It is so easy to feel beaten up by oppressive experiences and just wish to give up. Alternatively, if people just try to think of the positive only, they may be in for some nasty shocks. Probably each of us finds what works for us, but it is likely that how we perceive the possible paths will affect the destinies we create for ourselves, even though it does seem that some people seem to have more obstacles to face than others.