Zapffe's view is that humans are born with an overdeveloped skill (understanding, self-knowledge) which does not fit into nature's design. The human craving for justification on matters such as life and death cannot be satisfied, hence humanity has a need that nature cannot satisfy. The tragedy, following this theory, is that humans spend all their time trying not to be human. The human being, therefore, is a paradox. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wessel_Zapffe#Philosophical_work
Zapffe views the human condition as tragically overdeveloped, calling it "a biological paradox, an abomination, an absurdity, an exaggeration of disastrous nature."[1] Zapffe viewed the world as beyond humanity's need for meaning, unable to provide any of the answers to the fundamental existential questions.
The tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by over-evolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus it is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The mutations must be considered blind, they work, are thrown forth, without any contact of interest with their environment. In depressive states, the mind may be seen in the image of such an antler, in all its fantastic splendour pinning its bearer to the ground.
— Peter Wessel Zapffe, The Last Messiah — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Messiah
“Better to be an animal than a man, an insect than an animal, a plant than an insect, and so on.
Salvation? Whatever diminishes the kingdom of consciousness and compromises its supremacy.” — E.M. Cioran
Knowledge is the plague of life, and consciousness, an open wound in its heart. — E.M. Cioran
Consciousness is nature's nightmare. — E.M. Cioran
Consciousness is much more than the thorn, it is the dagger in the flesh — E.M Cioran
“For the rest of the earth’s organisms, existence is relatively uncomplicated. Their lives are about three things: survival, reproduction, death—and nothing else. But we know too much to content ourselves with surviving, reproducing, dying—and nothing else. We know we are alive and know we will die. We also know we will suffer during our lives before suffering—slowly or quickly—as we draw near to death. This is the knowledge we “enjoy” as the most intelligent organisms to gush from the womb of nature. And being so, we feel shortchanged if there is nothing else for us than to survive, reproduce, and die. We want there to be more to it than that, or to think there is. This is the tragedy: Consciousness has forced us into the paradoxical position of striving to be unself-conscious of what we are—hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones.” — Thomas Ligotti, Conspiracy Against the Human Race
No other life forms know they are alive, and neither do they know they will die. This is our curse alone. Without this hex upon our heads, we would never have withdrawn as far as we have from the natural—so far and for such a time that it is a relief to say what we have been trying with our all not to say: We have long since been denizens of the natural world. Everywhere around us are natural habitats, but within us is the shiver of startling and dreadful things. Simply put: We are not from here. If we vanished tomorrow, no organism on this planet would miss us. Nothing in nature needs us. — Thomas Ligotti, Conspiracy Against the Human Race
As a fact, we cannot give suffering precedence in either our individual or collective lives. We have to get on with things, and those who give precedence to suffering will be left behind. They fetter us with their sniveling. We have someplace to go and must believe we can get there, wherever that may be. And to conceive that there is a 'brotherhood of suffering between everything alive' would disable us from getting anywhere. We are preoccupied with the good life, and step by step are working toward a better life. What we do, as a conscious species, is set markers for ourselves. Once we reach one marker, we advance to the next — as if we were playing a board game we think will never end, despite the fact that it will, like it or not. And if you are too conscious of not liking it, then you may conceive of yourself as a biological paradox that cannot live with its consciousness and cannot live without it. And in so living and not living, you take your place with the undead and the human puppet. — Thomas Ligotti, Conspiracy Against the Human Race
We are only chance visitants to this jungle of blind mutations. The natural world existed when we did not, and it will continue to exist long after we are gone. The supernatural crept into life only when the door of consciousness was opened in our heads. The moment we stepped through that door, we walked out on nature. Say what we will about it and deny it till we die--we are blighted by our knowing what is too much to know and too secret to tell one another if we are to stride along our streets, work at our jobs, and sleep in our beds. It is the knowledge of a race of beings that is only passing through this shoddy cosmos. — Thomas Ligotti, Conspiracy Against the Human Race
But all this contributes to increase the measures of suffering in human life out of all proportion to its pleasures; and the pains of life are made much worse for man by the fact that death is something very real to him. The brute flies from death instinctively without really knowing what it is, and therefore without ever contemplating it in the way natural to a man, who has this prospect always before his eyes. So that even if only a few brutes die a natural death, and most of them live only just long enough to transmit their species, and then, if not earlier, become the prey of some other animal,—whilst man, on the other hand, manages to make so-called natural death the rule, to which, however, there are a good many exceptions,—the advantage is on the side of the brute, for the reason stated above. But the fact is that man attains the natural term of years just as seldom as the brute; because the unnatural way in which he lives, and the strain of work and emotion, lead to a degeneration of the race; and so his goal is not often reached.
The brute is much more content with mere existence than man; the plant is wholly so; and man finds satisfaction in it just in proportion as he is dull and obtuse. Accordingly, the life of the brute carries less of sorrow with it, but also less of joy, when compared with the life of man; and while this may be traced, on the one side, to freedom from the torment of care and anxiety, it is also due to the fact that hope, in any real sense, is unknown to the brute. It is thus deprived of any share in that which gives us the most and best of our joys and pleasures, the mental anticipation of a happy future, and the inspiriting play of phantasy, both of which we owe to our power of imagination. If the brute is free from care, it is also, in this sense, without hope; in either case, because its consciousness is limited to the present moment, to what it can actually see before it. The brute is an embodiment of present impulses, and hence what elements of fear and hope exist in its nature—and they do not go very far—arise only in relation to objects that lie before it and within reach of those impulses: whereas a man's range of vision embraces the whole of his life, and extends far into the past and future.
Following upon this, there is one respect in which brutes show real wisdom when compared with us—I mean, their quiet, placid enjoyment of the present moment. The tranquillity of mind which this seems to give them often puts us to shame for the many times we allow our thoughts and our cares to make us restless and discontented. And, in fact, those pleasures of hope and anticipation which I have been mentioning are not to be had for nothing. The delight which a man has in hoping for and looking forward to some special satisfaction is a part of the real pleasure attaching to it enjoyed in advance. This is afterwards deducted; for the more we look forward to anything, the less satisfaction we find in it when it comes. But the brute's enjoyment is not anticipated, and therefore, suffers no deduction; so that the actual pleasure of the moment comes to it whole and unimpaired. In the same way, too, evil presses upon the brute only with its own intrinsic weight; whereas with us the fear of its coming often makes its burden ten times more grievous. — Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Suffering of the World
Zapffe's view is that humans are born with an overdeveloped skill (understanding, self-knowledge) which does not fit into nature's design. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wessel_Zapffe#Philosophical_work
Right. Which is why the solution to the problem is out-of-scope for naturalism. — Wayfarer
It is each person's individual deliberative situation. — schopenhauer1
the ascetic consciousness can be said symbolically to return Adam and Eve to Paradise, for it is the very quest for knowledge (i.e., the will to apply the principle of individuation to experience) that the ascetic overcomes. This amounts to a self-overcoming at the universal level, where not only physical desires are overcome, but where humanly-inherent epistemological dispositions are overcome as well.
Liberty is a kind of burden in some ways, because so much is left up to the individual. I think that's why people used to join the army or become monks - it removes that burden. — Wayfarer
the ascetic consciousness can be said symbolically to return Adam and Eve to Paradise, for it is the very quest for knowledge (i.e., the will to apply the principle of individuation to experience) that the ascetic overcomes. This amounts to a self-overcoming at the universal level, where not only physical desires are overcome, but where humanly-inherent epistemological dispositions are overcome as well.
There's also something in Eric Fromm's notion of 'the fear of freedom'. Liberty is a kind of burden in some ways, because so much is left up to the individual. I think that's why people used to join the army or become monks - it removes that burden. But ultimately the burden is that of self-hood, and that is inextricably part of the human condition. The philosophy of individualism actually excerbates that in some respects. That was also central to Durkheim's analysis of 'anomie' and Weber's 'spirit of capitalism'. — Wayfarer
Your position assumes the inability of man to move into a state of acceptance of his life. That seems very sad to me. It also turns a blind eye to those that have achieved balance in their lives. We do not "have it bad" at all. — Book273
I say that they are aware of these things, they have simply found balance, something that we, generally, have yet to find.
We are hardly the higher being. — Book273
don’t think other animals “find” balance. Not in the way humans must do. Because of this inability, we are miserable aberrations from the rest of nature. The origins are the same. I’m not claiming metaphysical difference, but a resultant consequence of how we evolved. If I claimed bats can do things birds can’t and vice versa, you would probably not have a problem. Humans are different as well obviously, and the individual heuristic based self-talk justifications and decisions we make to survive, and our own ability to know this situation puts us on our own miserably outcast ship, part of nature but not at home in the same way. — schopenhauer1
A prefrontal lobotomy works too.
(Consciousness, not living itself, is the problem.) — 180 Proof
I don’t think other animals “find” balance. Not in the way humans must do. — schopenhauer1
Interestingly, this then becomes a vicious cycle whereby your sub-optimal condition is the individuals “inability” to make the right “judgement call” or decision. — schopenhauer1
A prefrontal lobotomy works too. — 180 Proof
an animal that doesn’t have linguistic based, conceptual, heuristic self-talk cognition. — schopenhauer1
So with most other animals, instincts/drives often take the place of heuristics to come to a decision — schopenhauer1
What the crucial difference is is that we are social animals with spoken and written language. Our intellect in limited areas (but sadly not in philosophy) has grown exponentially over the generations due to cultural (mostly scientific and technical) advances that are retained and built upon. Isolated from culture, we would be less adapt than almost all animals. In fact, without our technological meddling with global environment, we might be one of the most vulnerable of all species. — magritte
All the burden is on our thought-processes, how we deliberate and interact with the socio-physical environment. This leads to that much more psychological stress. This situation is almost maladaptive to an extent. — schopenhauer1
Following upon this, there is one respect in which brutes show real wisdom when compared with us — Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Suffering of the World
The whole foundation on which our existence rests is the present—the ever-fleeting present. It lies, then, in the very nature of our existence to take the form of constant motion, and to offer no possibility of our ever attaining the rest for which we are always striving. We are like a man running downhill, who cannot keep on his legs unless he runs on, and will inevitably fall if he stops; or, again, like a pole balanced on the tip of one's finger; or like a planet, which would fall into its sun the moment it ceased to hurry forward on its way. Unrest is the mark of existence.
In a world where all is unstable, and nought can endure, but is swept onwards at once in the hurrying whirlpool of change; where a man, if he is to keep erect at all, must always be advancing and moving, like an acrobat on a rope—in such a world, happiness is inconceivable. How can it dwell where, as Plato says, continual Becoming and never Being is the sole form of existence? In the first place, a man never is happy, but spends his whole life in striving after something which he thinks will make him so; he seldom attains his goal, and when he does, it is only to be disappointed; he is mostly shipwrecked in the end, and comes into harbor with masts and rigging gone. And then, it is all one whether he has been happy or miserable; for his life was never anything more than a present moment always vanishing; and now it is over. — Arthur Schopenhauer- The Vanity of Existence
Zapffe's view is that humans are born with an overdeveloped skill (understanding, self-knowledge) which does not fit into nature's design. The human craving for justification on matters such as life and death cannot be satisfied, hence humanity has a need that nature cannot satisfy. The tragedy, following this theory, is that humans spend all their time trying not to be human. The human being, therefore, is a paradox. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wessel_Zapffe#Philosophical_work
Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night. — baker
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