Or maybe the widely held and tabooed assumption that life is for eating, drinking, and making merry, is not justified. — baker

I don't think that's it. Personally I don't drink, am indifferent to food and rarely go out.

I don't think that's it at all. Personally I don't drink, am indifferent to food and rarely go out. — Tom Storm

It's an idiom.
https://www.yourdictionary.com/eat-drink-and-be-merry

The afore-mentioned assumption is that people should do things that they enjoy, that they are "passionate" about, and that one's whole life can and should be filled with such things as much as possible.

And secondly, that in a normal person, this constant pursuit of pleasure (here pleasure is understood in a broad sense, it can mean eating, drinking, partying, or listening to classical music, bungee-jumping, or volunteering, etc. etc.) is 1. possible, and 2. inherently satisfying. Some (such as Schopenhauer and Early Buddhism) would say that these two points are not true.

Right, but getting to nirvana is a sort of discipline no? — schopenhauer1

If by "discipline", you mean something like a 'systematic effort', then yes.

I’m saying this is one more burden, one of the do (not do) of Buddhism.

A burden only the willing shoulder. It's kind of silly to sit next to the "burden" and gripe about it.

If there’s a delusion of self there’s being non deluded but that takes X thing that one must deal with like everything else from being born at all..hence my pessimism of even Buddhism which ironically is a kind of path forward from its own pessimistic evaluations

I don't know how to help you any longer. It seems like you're at a crossroads and decisive action is required on your part ...

I don't know how to help you any longer. It seems like you're at a crossroads and decisive action is required on your part ... — baker

Right, but that's just the thing. My gripe is that why is decisive action even needed? There is putting people in a place they are.. and then they have to deal with getting to a different place (even if it is all attachment or delusion or whatever). It is this scheme I am examining.

But you've been examining this scheme for years ... And to what effect?


I think of this:

"There are these four unconjecturables that are not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about them. Which four?

"The Buddha-range of the Buddhas[1] is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it.

"The jhana-range of a person in jhana...[2]

"The [precise working out of the] results of kamma...

"Conjecture about [the origin, etc., of] the world is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it.

"These are the four unconjecturables that are not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about them."

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.077.than.html

You're conjecturing about topics that fall into the category of "the origin of the world", and you're quite predictably, vexed by doing so.

Perhaps you're not quite vexed enough yet ...

You're conjecturing about topics that fall into the category of "the origin of the world", and you're quite predictably, vexed by doing so.

Perhaps you're not quite vexed enough yet ... — baker

Ha, I get it. But I am not a Buddhist, and actually think that Schop's attempt to point to asceticism is too optimistic, believe it or not. There is no escape.. And even if there was, my grip remains.. We are at X place, and we need to be at Y place (Enlightenment), that in itself is a situation I find troubling.. The origin I place squarely on being a human born into the world as humans develop "selves" by mere fact of our species relation with language and the environment.

It's an idiom. — baker

I know it's an idiom. I simply thought the idiom didn't sit right. People can be content or cheerful when you think they should be miserable.

The afore-mentioned assumption is that people should do things that they enjoy, that they are "passionate" about, and that one's whole life can and should be filled with such things as much as possible. — baker

As opposed to the assumption that people should do things they hate and are indifferent to. I get it. Many people would tick these boxes.

Lives are tough and people suffer. No surprise there.

Individuals are not ‘brought into existence’ from somewhere else they’d rather be.
— Possibility

I never said that! This is a straw man.. I said they were simply brought into existence. I didn't say that to imply that they existed prior to their birth, so stop. — schopenhauer1

Bring: Cause (someone or something) to come to a place. Cause someone or something to BE in a particular state or condition.

The implication in this verb is that they were in a different state or condition prior to birth. So to ‘bring into existence’ is to imply that non-existence of something is a state or condition. can you explain that?

An agent is making a choice to procreate or at the least, engage in activities that lead to procreation. Nothing more is needed here in your model. I don't have to look at neurons or quantum physics to make this claim. It has to do at the level of human behavior. To start making it otherwise, is to obfuscate. Why are you doing that? What is the point? To be clever? Do you think because it is so simple, it can't be right, that we can actually talk at the level of agents making choices in regards to procreation and evaluating whether it is good to make a decision to bring someone else into the world? — schopenhauer1

You can’t isolate ‘human behaviour’ and expect to render an accurate or objective model of ‘activities that lead to procreation’. And when you talk about ‘making a choice to engage’, what are those activities, and to what extent are they intentionally engaged? And I’ve already repeatedly explained that I’m not arguing FOR procreation as necessarily a good thing. I think there needs to be considerably more awareness of what one’s intentional engagement sets in motion, before evaluating the decision. If that occurred, then far less people would choose to procreate, and those who do would be more intentionally engaged in the process.

Experiencing suffering and harm isn't "someone's fault", but procreating people where it is known that suffering and harm occur can be construed as a choice that an agent takes. The universe did not breed me (unless you mean in the non-useful-here evolutionary sense of the term). Humans have agency and can decide not to produce more people that can and will suffer and are forced into X, Y, Z situations as a result. What I mean by that is that the situatedness of the world is already such that people have to follow this socio-culutral-physical agenda of human suvival/thriving in order to not die, despite the fact that we might want things differently. The only thing you can do to counter this is say that "It's YOUR fault for not learning to go along with the program" OR to simply say, "None of this is real, so you aren't really suffering". Both of these are false.. and yes I will say, existentially gaslighting answers to the problem I am presenting. — schopenhauer1

There is much more to procreating people than the occurrence of suffering and harm - this is your reductionist evaluation, and that’s fine, but you have no right to impose this on others as some objective morality. I’m not laying blame, and I’m not denying your experience. I’m simply saying that there is more to a conscious existence than you are describing here, and choosing not to follow a particular socio-cultural agenda does not necessarily entail premature death, pessimism or antinatalism.

Also, I am waiting to hear the profoundness of this "truth" you hold. Collaboration makes all this go away, is that it? Like procreating more people who suffer isn't bad because Collaboration? Procreating more people who suffer isn't bad because, "it's only my reality and not real"? That it too? Just a yes or no would be fine... and then a SHORT summary of why or why not in a COHERENT fashion that isn't self-referential. — schopenhauer1

No, no, and no.

Maximising awareness, connection and collaboration, in theory, makes the problem not so much ‘go away’ as cease to be considered a ‘problem’. Procreating more people (while neither good nor bad necessarily) is not an efficient way to collaborate at all, given our capacity for collaborative understanding in potentiality. The more we learn to collaborate, the less we will perceive a ‘need’ to procreate.

What is harmful is the notion that any child I bring into the world is perceived as a property of myself - to become only as aware, connected and collaborative as I find valuable or rewarding to me; or as an extension of myself - their individual value rendering my own potentially insignificant or redundant. This is how most people raise their children, despite stated intentions to ‘make the world a better place’ or ‘give them the opportunities I didn’t have’. They very soon find themselves in a power struggle with an alternative value structure (rather like you assume is going on between us). The sooner we learn, as a parent or anyone, that it’s not about power but about increasing awareness, connection and collaboration beyond our own value structures, the greater and more variable our capacity to reduce suffering overall for the child, for ourselves, and for any future interactions.

My point to this is that this has an implicit "political" goal in mind. Political not in the idea of government per se, but a sort of social agenda that other people must follow. I would say that it's find to hold a view on this or that social arrangement.. However, once procreation enters the picture, it becomes a political agenda on behalf of someone else. See, YOU want X (in this case collaboration with existence), and the individual, who is an agent, has to experience existence and thus will suffer. They not only suffer, they are forced to follow the agenda of being alive at all.. That is to say, if let's say an industrialized economy.. it more or less follows a rather predictable fashion of work for money for survival and consume stuff, get more comfortable with environment, and entertain oneself in that economic framework. Things. like that. There is obviously a lot more to say on it, but I am giving you the rudimentary here. The antinatalist/pessimist doesn't want to set agendas for others to follow. We may be alive ourselves, but we don't continue the chain. You can try to obfuscate and say that somehow "existence collaborates its way anyway", but as an agent we can individually not participate in procreating that suffering and agenda onto another person who experiences it and must follow it. I choose and promote not choosing for others to put them in these situations. Not existing hurts no one, and deprives no one. Existing hurts someone, and the collateral damage of suffering will take place. — schopenhauer1

Again with the implicit... Let me reiterate once again that I am NOT arguing FOR procreation, and I am NOT saying that we should procreate because we should collaborate. So STOP misrepresenting my position - I am getting sick of repeating myself on this point. Can you honestly not see that collaboration does not necessitate procreation? I will not condemn procreation itself as immoral, because I don’t believe it is, but nor do I advocate it as a necessarily moral act. This is a false dichotomy, an illusion limited by value structure.

In considering procreation we need to recognise that it is the extent of our own ignorance, isolation and exclusion - of which we cannot be more than vaguely aware - that WILL contribute to the suffering of a child if we choose to go ahead. I get that you consider this to be a morality issue, but here’s the thing: in the event that we choose NOT to procreate, we have not taken any step towards reducing any overall contribution to suffering in our own life. We will continue to interact in the world, distributing the same effort and attention with the same level of ignorance, isolation and exclusion as we would have had we directed it towards a child. Preventing one person in the world doesn’t reduce suffering on its own - it’s like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Antinatalism isolates and excludes a consolidated potential for suffering, which is not the same thing.

Existence even prior to the Big Bang does tend weakly towards awareness, connection and collaboration overall, but this tendency is qualitative - fundamentally unquantifiable. Every experience of suffering is a result of some ignorance, isolation or exclusion, and yet it is through this quantitative consolidation that existence is able to eventually develop an understanding of itself. Non-existence isn’t the only way to keep from hurting others. One existence intentionally maximising awareness, connection and collaboration with experiences of suffering has the potential to reduce suffering beyond what is prevented by one individual non-existence. This is the fundamentally misunderstood truth of both Buddha and Jesus.

Besides which, as is the theme of this thread, boredom I believe to be a powerful understanding of the standard human condition. That is to say, we cannot generally, sit too long and meditate on nothingness all day. We have to get up. The agenda of survival and our own dissatisfied minds makes it the case. You can try to distract from this point by bringing up some "higher truth" of "attachment" versus the action itself, but I think my point still remains. Not sure if you will make that move (usually attached to Buddhist concept of suffering) but just addressing it now in case. — schopenhauer1

A dissatisfied mind cannot force us to get up. Neither can this so-called agenda of survival. We choose to prioritise values such as survival, but the reality is that ‘survival’ for us is only ever a temporary achievement, as is a ‘satisfied’ mind. Which means they aren’t really values at all. So, what do we gain by this illusory value structure, except a sense of the ‘individual’ as infinitely valuable? Intentionally experiencing this state of ‘boredom’ without feeling that we must ‘reject some forced agenda’ to do so is precisely what Buddhist meditation is showing us about the human condition. The point is to get past this feeling that we have to get up, we have to survive - and in that state realise our own capacity to not follow any so-called ‘set agendas’. To recognise them as illusion, and seek a more accurate value structure - rationally developing a self from an understanding of the energy of affect in relation to the quality of ideas.

All I get from your philosophy is we are in the great "collaboration" scheme. That doesn't tell me much. It's like saying, "The world is made of fluctuating X". That doesn't tell me much as far as what I am discussing. String theory, for example, doesn't really tell me anything other than perhaps some scientific points about how we can interpret the makeup of the universe given the evidence and math that we have at the moment and through our historical development. — schopenhauer1

It’s not just collaboration - it’s maximising awareness, connection and collaboration which brings all of existence towards an absolute, infinite interconnectedness. But that’s effectively in paradoxical relation with absolute non-existence. This is why I persist in these frustrating discussions with you, because in many ways I find we are in a similar philosophical position - except that one of us is focused on a meta-philosophy, while the other is focused on an ethical framework. I guess I’m curious as to why it seems to you like I’m somehow denying your experience when I argue for a broader perspective.

Bring: Cause (someone or something) to come to a place. Cause someone or something to BE in a particular state or condition.

The implication in this verb is that they were in a different state or condition prior to birth. So to ‘bring into existence’ is to imply that non-existence of something is a state or condition. can you explain that? — Possibility

I think that definition works just fine. The parent causes a new person to BE in a particular state when they procreate them. So they are "bringing" them into existence. But even if you don't agree with that definition, use whatever verb you want for that phenomenon. This tangent is unnecessary, and seems like an odd red herring. Use the word "cause to exist" if you want. What's the point of wasting time on this pedantic debate though? Was it really unclear what I mean that parents are agents that cause a new person to exist by their actions?

You can’t isolate ‘human behaviour’ and expect to render an accurate or objective model of ‘activities that lead to procreation’. And when you talk about ‘making a choice to engage’, what are those activities, and to what extent are they intentionally engaged? And I’ve already repeatedly explained that I’m not arguing FOR procreation as necessarily a good thing. I think there needs to be considerably more awareness of what one’s intentional engagement sets in motion, before evaluating the decision. If that occurred, then far less people would choose to procreate, and those who do would be more intentionally engaged in the process.

Well, last I checked, sex under certain conditions or artificial means are the two main ways that "lead to procreation". How is that not something you can isolate?

As far as intentional awareness, all the best intentions and upbringing cannot prevent suffering, harm, and certainly still does not overcome the direct violation of dignity in causing someone to follow an agenda (i.e. the socio-culutral-physical agenda of human suvival/thriving in order to not die, despite the fact that we might want things differently.)

There is much more to procreating people than the occurrence of suffering and harm - this is your reductionist evaluation, and that’s fine, but you have no right to impose this on others as some objective morality. I’m not laying blame, and I’m not denying your experience. I’m simply saying that there is more to a conscious existence than you are describing here, and choosing not to follow a particular socio-cultural agenda does not necessarily entail premature death, pessimism or antinatalism.

Oh, this is rich.. So, no, that is not what I am doing. I am forcing, literally NOTHING onto ANYONE. Not procreating forces nothing on no one. Nor am I advocating my philosophy through force. HOWEVER, this isn't the case for the other side of the equation. For the pro-procreators, this definitely IS forcing someone into a situation.. In fact that's one of my major points.. Someone is always harmed in procreation and is always caused to follow the agenda, and can never have been consented de facto (I just say "forced" but you will probably be pedantic about it as a red herring). However, in the pro-procreator camp, there is always collateral damage. There is always some kind of "force" going on. Someone who is caused to deal with this or that (I'll just say the socio-cultural-survival agenda).

No, no, and no.

Maximising awareness, connection and collaboration, in theory, makes the problem not so much ‘go away’ as cease to be considered a ‘problem’. Procreating more people (while neither good nor bad necessarily) is not an efficient way to collaborate at all, given our capacity for collaborative understanding in potentiality. The more we learn to collaborate, the less we will perceive a ‘need’ to procreate.

Eh, okay.. that is sort of what I am advocating so maybe we can agree..

What is harmful is the notion that any child I bring into the world is perceived as a property of myself - to become only as aware, connected and collaborative as I find valuable or rewarding to me; or as an extension of myself - their individual value rendering my own potentially insignificant or redundant. This is how most people raise their children, despite stated intentions to ‘make the world a better place’ or ‘give them the opportunities I didn’t have’. They very soon find themselves in a power struggle with an alternative value structure (rather like you assume is going on between us). The sooner we learn, as a parent or anyone, that it’s not about power but about increasing awareness, connection and collaboration beyond our own value structures, the greater and more variable our capacity to reduce suffering overall for the child, for ourselves, and for any future interactions.

I agree a lot in the first part there, but you turn vague when you say "increasing awareness, connection, and collaboration beyond our own value structures". What has led you to those three words/concepts? Did you read it somewhere? Did it come to you in an epiphany? What is your influence there if at all?

And more importantly, what does that even mean in the context that we are discussing? I am simply saying that harm and suffering exists. So does the fact that we cannot escape the forced agenda, lest suicide. Collaborating does not take away this fact. I am not against it.. I like to read about scientific discoveries.. I like to read history. I like to listen to music.. I can talk with others about these things. I can discuss philosophy on this forum.. None of this is relevant to "dissolving" the problems away that I am discussing. You can't outwit this.

Again with the implicit... Let me reiterate once again that I am NOT arguing FOR procreation, and I am NOT saying that we should procreate because we should collaborate. So STOP misrepresenting my position - I am getting sick of repeating myself on this point. Can you honestly not see that collaboration does not necessitate procreation? I will not condemn procreation itself as immoral, because I don’t believe it is, but nor do I advocate it as a necessarily moral act. This is a false dichotomy, an illusion limited by value structure.

I can see collaboration doesn't necessitate procreation. I do not agree obviously with all you said. But I still don't get what you are going on about with this collaboration.. What's the point of saying we should collaborate? Is that like your idiosyncratic way of working together to produce something? Clearly you are making a normative statement.. And it really just sounds like the middle-class idea of entrepeneurship and so-called "constructive projects"... I mean.. Achievement by working with others.. I mean this is pretty pedestrian stuff.. It's one of many parts of existence.. I don't get your trying to reify it. People tend to allay their boredom by "connecting" with other people. Some people use this "connection" to "collaborate" on projects. And by doing so, they become more "aware" about how something works, or make something new that other people become "aware" of.. Okie dokie.. Moving on....

In considering procreation we need to recognise that it is the extent of our own ignorance, isolation and exclusion - of which we cannot be more than vaguely aware - that WILL contribute to the suffering of a child if we choose to go ahead. I get that you consider this to be a morality issue, but here’s the thing: in the event that we choose NOT to procreate, we have not taken any step towards reducing any overall contribution to suffering in our own life. We will continue to interact in the world, distributing the same effort and attention with the same level of ignorance, isolation and exclusion as we would have had we directed it towards a child. Preventing one person in the world doesn’t reduce suffering on its own - it’s like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Antinatalism isolates and excludes a consolidated potential for suffering, which is not the same thing.

You mine as well say to just be a productive citizen and look to Dudley Dooright.. Celebrate the moments of our lives.. and all the other slogans... Every day we go to work or try to survive with other humans were are doing these things.. So, the fuck, what?? It's just how we survive. Cultural knowledge gathered through humans interacting over time...

Existence even prior to the Big Bang does tend weakly towards awareness, connection and collaboration overall, but this tendency is qualitative - fundamentally unquantifiable. Every experience of suffering is a result of some ignorance, isolation or exclusion, and yet it is through this quantitative consolidation that existence is able to eventually develop an understanding of itself. Non-existence isn’t the only way to keep from hurting others. One existence intentionally maximising awareness, connection and collaboration with experiences of suffering has the potential to reduce suffering beyond what is prevented by one individual non-existence. This is the fundamentally misunderstood truth of both Buddha and Jesus.

You have no idea what happened before the Big Bang, any more than most scientists.. and certainly has nothing to do with the qualitative aspects of connection, awareness, or collaboration.. all things that can and should only be attributed to sentient beings of a certain type and complexity.

What do you mean by "awareness, connection and collaboration with experiences of suffering".. you are always speaking in vague notions.

A dissatisfied mind cannot force us to get up. Neither can this so-called agenda of survival. We choose to prioritise values such as survival, but the reality is that ‘survival’ for us is only ever a temporary achievement, as is a ‘satisfied’ mind. Which means they aren’t really values at all. So, what do we gain by this illusory value structure, except a sense of the ‘individual’ as infinitely valuable? Intentionally experiencing this state of ‘boredom’ without feeling that we must ‘reject some forced agenda’ to do so is precisely what Buddhist meditation is showing us about the human condition. The point is to get past this feeling that we have to get up, we have to survive - and in that state realise our own capacity to not follow any so-called ‘set agendas’. To recognise them as illusion, and seek a more accurate value structure - rationally developing a self from an understanding of the energy of affect in relation to the quality of ideas.

Well, if we don't get up and survive, we die.. So fine.. Let's all die by passively doing nothing and sitting. This is pretty much all this amounts to. Seeking any value structure is still DOING SOMETHING. Your philosophy does not somehow negate what I am saying about the dissatisfaction. The SEEKING is the dissatisfaction.

It’s not just collaboration - it’s maximising awareness, connection and collaboration which brings all of existence towards an absolute, infinite interconnectedness. But that’s effectively in paradoxical relation with absolute non-existence. This is why I persist in these frustrating discussions with you, because in many ways I find we are in a similar philosophical position - except that one of us is focused on a meta-philosophy, while the other is focused on an ethical framework. I guess I’m curious as to why it seems to you like I’m somehow denying your experience when I argue for a broader perspective.

I have no idea.. you seem to be saying to me that my perspective is wrong because it doesn't take into account your (really vague) ideas of collaboration, connection, and awareness. What do you MEAN? I still don't have any concrete examples. Collaborate, connection, and be aware of WHAT!! It all sounds like there is no "there" there. And somehow you will then say, "Yes that's the point.. it's very Buddhist, cause there's no there there"... and we will talk in circles.. and then to make it more concrete you will bring in some non-analogous physics terminology that is not helpful.. So really, just give me a succinct understanding of your worldview using concrete examples. You know that pretty much whatever it is you will say, I will just counter with the fact that X goal/event is the result of our dissatisfaction... If we are to stick with the premise of this thread. BEING itself would be enough! What's the POINT to keep saying collaborate, etc..? You are trying to provide this spiritual dimension.. There is no "WE" just "bits of collaboration" that want to "collaborate" to be "fulfilled".. Perhaps it's your just-so inevitability towards "collaboration".. Your view that "collaboration" is some underlying principle that I just don't get.. Maybe because there are NO CONCRETE EXAMPLES whereby I can even look at it critically. It's a value structure YOU have simply asserted... a normative goal you have placed (COLLABORATE!).. But why?

I think that definition works just fine. The parent causes a new person to BE in a particular state when they procreate them. So they are "bringing" them into existence. But even if you don't agree with that definition, use whatever verb you want for that phenomenon. This tangent is unnecessary, and seems like an odd red herring. Use the word "cause to exist" if you want. What's the point of wasting time on this pedantic debate though? Was it really unclear what I mean that parents are agents that cause a new person to exist by their actions? — schopenhauer1

I’m trying to draw your attention to the qualitative structural difference between actual and potential. It’s not that I don’t agree with the definition - I think it’s fine, too - I’m just trying to point out that this definition has more to it than you realise. Because a ‘person’ must potentially exist prior to procreation - just NOT in a particular state. And there is no definition of procreation that can avoid this distinction.

Existence is commonly assumed to be four-dimensional only - that’s the structure of language use, of the universe, of this particular state we’re in. Yet we can only be aware of this state and this language-use if our existence extends beyond four-dimensional structure. This is a fundamental logic of qualitative geometry. So it is rational to assume that a person, a consciousness, is a five-dimensional (potential) relation to BEING. And this faculty by which we render or describe a four-dimensional structure must at least logically structure this five-dimensional potentiality, from the possible existence of a six-dimensional relation.

Regardless of what we can prove empirically, the logical structure of possible existence extends, at least qualitatively, to six dimensions. It’s easy enough to ignore, but the logic is undeniable. This is the foundation of my philosophy.

So when we talk about what we ‘bring into existence’ or ‘cause to be in a particular state’, I would argue that we’re not bringing it from non-existence, or causing existence, per se. We’re manifesting a four-dimensional state of existence - from five-dimensional potentiality that includes but is not limited to our own potential existence. I don’t mind if you say ‘bring’ or ‘cause’ - so long as you recognise that what you mean by ‘existence’ in this sense is four-dimensional actuality.

Well, last I checked, sex under certain conditions or artificial means are the two main ways that "lead to procreation". How is that not something you can isolate? — schopenhauer1

‘Sex under certain conditions’ isolates human behaviour from these ‘conditions’ under which it occurs. I’m saying that when you isolate it like this, you don’t have an accurate or objective model, because both ‘sex’ and ‘certain conditions’ are highly variable in relation to each other. There is much more complexity to ‘sex under certain conditions’ than this description suggests.

As far as intentional awareness, all the best intentions and upbringing cannot prevent suffering, harm, and certainly still does not overcome the direct violation of dignity in causing someone to follow an agenda (i.e. the socio-culutral-physical agenda of human suvival/thriving in order to not die, despite the fact that we might want things differently.) — schopenhauer1

Intentional engagement with potential may not prevent all suffering and harm, but its capacity to reduce suffering and harm extends well beyond that of intentionally isolating potential. The dignity of someone’s potential is not violated by actualising it. We may ‘cause’ a potentiality to BE in a particular state of ‘following an agenda’, but once they are aware of an agenda as such (which as a parent should be our aim), we are no longer the ‘cause’ of them following it. And in case you were wondering - this is not to say that we SHOULD actualise someone’s potential - only that we are not necessarily violating someone’s dignity by doing so - so long as it is their potential we intend them to realise, not our own. Their potential remains intact, whether we engage with it or not. The only difference is in our perception of it.

Having said that, I do get what you’re saying: the potential of an individual seems infinite in relation to the sum of any random actualisation. But the potential of an individual also varies in relation to any randomly perceived potentiality. So an individual is then a relative value, which seems less infinite in itself, but only if you consider value to be linear (one-dimensional) in structure, and infinity to be quantitative. Which I obviously don’t.

Carlo Rovelli once described the universe as consisting not of objects in time, but of ‘interacting events’, or relative temporal structures. Time, he says, is not linear except in our localised experience of it. We can consider potentiality in the same way: the universe consisting not of events or living systems interacting along a single linear structure of value or potential, but rather of interacting potentialities or relative value structures.

Oh, this is rich.. So, no, that is not what I am doing. I am forcing, literally NOTHING onto ANYONE. Not procreating forces nothing on no one. Nor am I advocating my philosophy through force. HOWEVER, this isn't the case for the other side of the equation. For the pro-procreators, this definitely IS forcing someone into a situation.. In fact that's one of my major points.. Someone is always harmed in procreation and is always caused to follow the agenda, and can never have been consented de facto (I just say "forced" but you will probably be pedantic about it as a red herring). However, in the pro-procreator camp, there is always collateral damage. There is always some kind of "force" going on. Someone who is caused to deal with this or that (I'll just say the socio-cultural-survival agenda). — schopenhauer1

You are evaluating every act in relation to the apparently infinite value of a consolidated, individual potential against any attempt to actualise it as a living system, and rejecting all other possible value structures. When I describe an alternative perspective, you simply impose your own value structure on what I’ve written, and argue that “this is what you’re really saying, and it’s immoral”. Yes, impose - not necessarily on me, but on what I’ve written. You might consider it to be an equation with only two sides (yours and the wrong one), but my point is that there is more to this supposed ‘force’ than you seem willing to consider - more to causation, more to value, and more to the individual.

I agree a lot in the first part there, but you turn vague when you say "increasing awareness, connection, and collaboration beyond our own value structures". What has led you to those three words/concepts? Did you read it somewhere? Did it come to you in an epiphany? What is your influence there if at all? — schopenhauer1

The notions of awareness/ignorance, connection/isolation and collaboration/exclusion come from an exploration of ‘will’ - as the faculty by which all actions are determined and initiated - as well as the structural relations between atomic, molecular, chemical, biological, conscious and self-conscious systems. What distinguishes each of these systems from each other is directly related to qualitative dimensional geometry and these three ‘gates’ of interaction. The carbon atom, for example, demonstrates the most ideal balance between consolidated atomic stability and variable molecular awareness, connection and collaboration among all the elements. The part it plays in the evolution of the universe is no accident.

And more importantly, what does that even mean in the context that we are discussing? I am simply saying that harm and suffering exists. So does the fact that we cannot escape the forced agenda, lest suicide. Collaborating does not take away this fact. I am not against it.. I like to read about scientific discoveries.. I like to read history. I like to listen to music.. I can talk with others about these things. I can discuss philosophy on this forum.. None of this is relevant to "dissolving" the problems away that I am discussing. You can't outwit this. — schopenhauer1

I agree that harm and suffering exist. But I disagree that we cannot escape this apparently ‘forced’ agenda - there are many other options besides self-ignorant compliance or self-excluding suicide. The three gates I’ve proposed provide us with those options.

Reading and listening to music is increasing awareness. Talking with others and most discussions of philosophy are connection. Collaboration is maximising a collective efficiency of limited resources. It takes the focus off the individual and risks non-existence to build on this vague, qualitative sense of a higher dimensional level of existence. This is how atoms developed into molecules, how molecules developed into chemical systems, then into biological systems, how biological systems developed consciousness, and how conscious systems developed a self.

Ha, I get it. But I am not a Buddhist, and actually think that Schop's attempt to point to asceticism is too optimistic, believe it or not. There is no escape.. — schopenhauer1

Mere asceticism doesn't solve the problem, indeed.

And even if there was, my grip remains.. We are at X place, and we need to be at Y place (Enlightenment), that in itself is a situation I find troubling.. The origin I place squarely on being a human born into the world as humans develop "selves" by mere fact of our species relation with language and the environment.

Need, need, need, must, must, must. You have such a compulsion around all this.
Birth is compulsory, making an effort is compulsory, compulsion is compulsory ... A fullblown compulsory compulsion.


You could, perhaps, cut all this compulsory compulsion short, and conclude that existence itself is burdensome. Much like Early Buddhism or Ecclesiastes.

I know it's an idiom. I simply thought the idiom didn't sit right. People can be content or cheerful when you think they should be miserable. — Tom Storm

Which is a potential indicator that happiness cannot be found "outside".

The afore-mentioned assumption is that people should do things that they enjoy, that they are "passionate" about, and that one's whole life can and should be filled with such things as much as possible.
— baker

As opposed to the assumption that people should do things they hate and are indifferent to.

No, no such opposition. The idea is that doing things that one finds pleasurable (in the broadest sense of the word) cannot actually make one happy. Ie. that it's in the nature of doing worldly things that they cannot satisfy. (This is also the theme in Ecclesiastes, so it's not some "esoteric Eastern" notion.)

I’m simply saying that there is more to a conscious existence than you are describing here, and choosing not to follow a particular socio-cultural agenda does not necessarily entail premature death, pessimism or antinatalism. — Possibility

You'll need to spell this out. What other options are there?
In specific terms, please, not just anything that might fall under "awareness, connection, collaboration".

Reading and listening to music is increasing awareness. Talking with others and most discussions of philosophy are connection. Collaboration is maximising a collective efficiency of limited resources. — Possibility

All this is still firmly in the realm of craving, tanha. The craving for sensual pleasures, the craving for becoming, and the craving for non-becoming.

(Your project is based on what is sometimes termed "the third-and-a-half noble truth: suffering is manageable".)

You're missing that the various experessions of this qualitative variability still all function on the same platform, namely that of craving.
— baker

No, they don’t - that’s only because you assume all forms of expression are a craving, a dissatisfaction with the world. But have you considered that many expressions of qualitative variability in the human condition don’t reach your attention, specifically because they are not an expression of craving, or not requiring your interaction? Are we aware of human expressions of inclusive collaboration with the world, or are we attune only to suffering? — Possibility

I think you underestimate craving, tanha.

What attracts our attention is usually tied to our perceived potential - our capacity to interact intentionally with the world. But in moments when we are genuinely doing nothing, fully awake and alert (such as in meditation),

That's not "meditation", that's zoning out.

we are able to explore a more complete awareness of reality, inclusive of what has no need of our potential to interact. I’m not saying this is an easy state to reach, and there is certainly plenty on our radar to pull our attention back to what society says we ‘should’ be striving for. But both Buddhism and Taoism encourage an intentional stillness or emptiness that enables us to embody the quality and logic of reality, without striving. In this state, we relate to the possibility for energy to flow freely, the possibility of no suffering - and with this develop an awareness of our own creative capacity to intentionally

minimise suffering in the way we connect and collaborate.

Early Buddhism isn't interested in merely minimizing suffering. It proposes a complete cessation of suffering. This makes it a whole other category than what many other paths teach.

The more we can embody this ‘stillness’, the more we realise that there is nothing we need to be striving-for in any moment in time - only allowing for a free flow of possible energy.

That's not Early Buddhism, just to be clear, and not to misuse terminology.

No, no such opposition. The idea is that doing things that one finds pleasurable (in the broadest sense of the word) cannot actually make one happy. Ie. that it's in the nature of doing worldly things that they cannot satisfy. (This is also the theme in Ecclesiastes, so it's not some "esoteric Eastern" notion.) — baker

I've known too many people who are, for want of a better term, 'happy' doing things they find pleasurable to agree with this in its entirety. I think it's true that some people find that do not attain happiness this way, but there are some people who are always unhappy. In my view, a person is more likely to find happiness doing what they enjoy than doing what they hate doing. This is certainly my personal experience. The term 'happiness' is a problem I think because it sounds a bit trivial and Californian to me. 'Contentment' may be a better word and preferable from where I sit.

Again with the implicit... Let me reiterate once again that I am NOT arguing FOR procreation, and I am NOT saying that we should procreate because we should collaborate. So STOP misrepresenting my position - I am getting sick of repeating myself on this point. Can you honestly not see that collaboration does not necessitate procreation? I will not condemn procreation itself as immoral, because I don’t believe it is, but nor do I advocate it as a necessarily moral act. This is a false dichotomy, an illusion limited by value structure.

I can see collaboration doesn't necessitate procreation. I do not agree obviously with all you said. But I still don't get what you are going on about with this collaboration.. What's the point of saying we should collaborate? Is that like your idiosyncratic way of working together to produce something? Clearly you are making a normative statement.. And it really just sounds like the middle-class idea of entrepeneurship and so-called "constructive projects"... I mean.. Achievement by working with others.. I mean this is pretty pedestrian stuff.. It's one of many parts of existence.. I don't get your trying to reify it. People tend to allay their boredom by "connecting" with other people. Some people use this "connection" to "collaborate" on projects. And by doing so, they become more "aware" about how something works, or make something new that other people become "aware" of.. Okie dokie.. Moving on.... — schopenhauer1

I have not said that we should collaborate, although if reducing suffering is your priority, then yes, I think increasing collaboration is the most efficient method - but not at the expense of awareness or connection. This is not a normative statement, but a rational one. I’m not talking about collaborating on isolated projects, but simply a general decision to collaborate rather than exclude whenever the opportunity presents - because one option never presents without the other, despite appearances. It’s invariably painful, humbling, risky and seemingly impossible, but it’s always ultimately worthwhile (just maybe not for any particular individual).

You mine as well say to just be a productive citizen and look to Dudley Dooright.. Celebrate the moments of our lives.. and all the other slogans... Every day we go to work or try to survive with other humans were are doing these things.. So, the fuck, what?? It's just how we survive. Cultural knowledge gathered through humans interacting over time... — schopenhauer1

But that’s not what I’m saying. Why bother to survive? What does that achieve? No one survives, in the end. Stop trying to survive or be socio-culturally productive, and instead find a way to make an incremental difference in the bigger picture. Fuck the agenda - don’t try to avoid suffering (in most cases it won’t actually harm you) - stare it down and use it to change the game. Don’t just gather knowledge, but strive to understand beyond what you can know with objective certainty. Take risks - you’re going to die anyway. Find out what you’re capable of. Intentionally do nothing - stare boredom in the face and discover what motivates you at your core: is it fear or something else? So many choices, so little time...

You have no idea what happened before the Big Bang, any more than most scientists.. and certainly has nothing to do with the qualitative aspects of connection, awareness, or collaboration.. all things that can and should only be attributed to sentient beings of a certain type and complexity.

What do you mean by "awareness, connection and collaboration with experiences of suffering".. you are always speaking in vague notions. — schopenhauer1

No, I don’t know, but I do have ideas. And you can’t be certain that it has nothing to do with what I’m describing, because you don’t know, either.

Awareness is not reserved for sentient beings - that’s consciousness. The simplest quality of awareness is the vaguest indication of ‘other’. Connection, too, is not reserved for sentient beings. It’s just a relative arrangement. Molecules connect with other molecules based on their qualitative structure and energy. Lego blocks connect when you press them together in a particular arrangement. And collaboration is simply an arrangement that enables the pooling of resources. Ants collaborate, so do genetic structures. No sentience required.

Well, if we don't get up and survive, we die.. So fine.. Let's all die by passively doing nothing and sitting. This is pretty much all this amounts to. Seeking any value structure is still DOING SOMETHING. Your philosophy does not somehow negate what I am saying about the dissatisfaction. The SEEKING is the dissatisfaction. — schopenhauer1

Sure, eventually you will die. But do you have any idea how long you can sit there, doing nothing, before you do die? It’s at least a couple of days. And this feeling you get that is motivating you to get up after only a few minutes - what is that? It isn’t you dying, that’s for sure. That space between you wanting to get up and you dying because you didn’t - there is a lot to learn in there.

I’m not trying to negate anything - just suggesting a broader perspective. Seeking an alternative value structure doesn’t require us to get up. It’s not about dissatisfaction with life, but recognising inaccuracies with the help of reason.

you seem to be saying to me that my perspective is wrong because it doesn't take into account your (really vague) ideas of collaboration, connection, and awareness. What do you MEAN? I still don't have any concrete examples. Collaborate, connection, and be aware of WHAT!! It all sounds like there is no "there" there. And somehow you will then say, "Yes that's the point.. it's very Buddhist, cause there's no there there"... and we will talk in circles.. and then to make it more concrete you will bring in some non-analogous physics terminology that is not helpful.. So really, just give me a succinct understanding of your worldview using concrete examples. You know that pretty much whatever it is you will say, I will just counter with the fact that X goal/event is the result of our dissatisfaction... If we are to stick with the premise of this thread. BEING itself would be enough! What's the POINT to keep saying collaborate, etc..? You are trying to provide this spiritual dimension.. There is no "WE" just "bits of collaboration" that want to "collaborate" to be "fulfilled".. Perhaps it's your just-so inevitability towards "collaboration".. Your view that "collaboration" is some underlying principle that I just don't get.. Maybe because there are NO CONCRETE EXAMPLES whereby I can even look at it critically. It's a value structure YOU have simply asserted... a normative goal you have placed (COLLABORATE!).. But why? — schopenhauer1

In the end it doesn’t matter if I think your perspective is wrong - it’s a valid perspective - but the fact that it requires you to reject valid information from others’ experiences indicates logical inaccuracies, or at least limitations. I do mean awareness, connection and collaboration of everything - supplying concrete examples only gives you permission to ignore, isolate and exclude what is not concrete. This is what unsettles you - that I’m not fitting my philosophy into your conceptual worldview. Yes, our individual conceptualisation of BEING (which excludes qualitative or aesthetic ideas) could be consolidated into a linear structure (by isolating the quality of the individual), and then reduced (by ignoring qualitative structure) to a binary: satisfaction or dissatisfaction. But what’s the point of this reduction? How useful is it for any life that we manifest, given the inaccuracies? Or is it simply an attempt to attain satisfaction at a moralistic level?

And why should this concept of BEING be enough? Even Kant recognised the qualitative variability of our conceptual BEING in an affected relation to the aesthetic idea. Our process of conceptualisation does not accurately concretise the reality of our experience - there IS an existential dimension beyond it - whether you call it ‘spiritual’ or something else. And it is a choice you make to ignore or increase awareness of it, to isolate it as ‘spiritual’ or simply seek connection, and to exclude it as non-conceptual (no concrete examples) or find ways to collaborate with what is effectively a qualitative possibility of ‘oneness’.

Collaboration is not a goal - it’s a possibility: the absolute, paradoxical quality and energy of pure logic. I’m not saying the term is a perfect summary - it obviously loses something when isolated from its paradoxical relation, from ‘exclusion’, and from awareness/ignorance and connection/isolation, but these are the most accurate terms and relations I have found.

I’m simply saying that there is more to a conscious existence than you are describing here, and choosing not to follow a particular socio-cultural agenda does not necessarily entail premature death, pessimism or antinatalism.

You'll need to spell this out. What other options are there?
In specific terms, please, not just anything that might fall under "awareness, connection, collaboration". — baker

Oh, so many. But you’re only looking for actions so you can reduce them (in your worldview) to ‘following the socio-cultural agenda’.

There is a tendency here to isolate the ‘individual’ as some concrete concept, and then reduce everything else to a binary relation. But the individual cannot act on a singular binary relation - all it can do is embody one side or the other of a moralistic view. So apparently we’re either dissatisfied with our worldview as an individual, or we’re completely taken in by it.

Both the individual and this worldview are five-dimensional conceptualisations that vary in relation to each other - and you know that your conceptual structures are far from identical to schopenhauer1’s, even if an evaluative relation reduces to the same side of the binary. But you’re not meant to look at the concepts, just trust that the word is the same, so it must represent the same consolidation of value.

The reduction being imposed here is: x>y

That’s it. Either you’re x or you’re y, and we can quibble about the variables later. Pick a side.

What’s missing from this model, though, is the distinction between quantitative (effort) and qualitative (attention) value. If only one or the other mattered, then there would be no problem here. But the equation is true for this conceptual structure in two incongruous ways:

1. The world is more powerful than the individual.

2. The individual is more valuable than the world.

I’m not very good at logic, but even I can see that there’s something amiss here.

All this is still firmly in the realm of craving, tanha. The craving for sensual pleasures, the craving for becoming, and the craving for non-becoming.

(Your project is based on what is sometimes termed "the third-and-a-half noble truth: suffering is manageable".) — baker

I’m not saying that suffering is ‘manageable’. You’re grasping for criticisms, here. Reducing suffering is not the same as avoiding it.

Nor am I saying that awareness is just reading and listening to music. My point here was that reading and listening to music was not considered ‘collaboration’.

It’s easy enough to translate every action into craving. We cannot act without translating reason into affect, so I’m not going to deny this. But you’re just avoiding what I’m actually referring to. What do you think it is about listening to music that increases awareness? The sensual pleasure is nice, but there’s a reason that certain music resonates with higher intelligence, and why we often need to ‘develop an ear’ for more complex music. And why do you think merely listening to music is not an example of collaboration?

But in moments when we are genuinely doing nothing, fully awake and alert (such as in meditation),

That's not "meditation", that's zoning out. — baker

Fully awake and alert is not ‘zoning out’. Come on, Baker!

Early Buddhism isn't interested in merely minimizing suffering. It proposes a complete cessation of suffering. This makes it a whole other category than what many other paths teach. — baker

Buddhism explores the possibility of a complete cessation of suffering - this is not the same as saying we all should follow that path to the end. I think that would be a misinterpretation.

That's not Early Buddhism, just to be clear, and not to misuse terminology. — baker

Never claimed it was.

I’m trying to draw your attention to the qualitative structural difference between actual and potential. It’s not that I don’t agree with the definition - I think it’s fine, too - I’m just trying to point out that this definition has more to it than you realise. Because a ‘person’ must potentially exist prior to procreation - just NOT in a particular state. And there is no definition of procreation that can avoid this distinction. — Possibility

Ok, I wouldn't have a problem with the idea that for every possible coupling of two procreative people, there is a potential for a person to exist as a result. I don't think that's really a metaphysical epiphany or anything.. It should be noted that this "potential" can be talked about intelligibly in regards to antinatalism and procreation.

Existence is commonly assumed to be four-dimensional only - that’s the structure of language use, of the universe, of this particular state we’re in. Yet we can only be aware of this state and this language-use if our existence extends beyond four-dimensional structure. This is a fundamental logic of qualitative geometry. So it is rational to assume that a person, a consciousness, is a five-dimensional (potential) relation to BEING. And this faculty by which we render or describe a four-dimensional structure must at least logically structure this five-dimensional potentiality, from the possible existence of a six-dimensional relation.

I have no idea how you are using the word "dimension" here.

Regardless of what we can prove empirically, the logical structure of possible existence extends, at least qualitatively, to six dimensions. It’s easy enough to ignore, but the logic is undeniable. This is the foundation of my philosophy.

Yep, still no clue. This sounds like neologistic uses of the word dimension... What is "qualatitive geometry"? What field is that from? Is that your own thing? What are your inspirations for such things? Just reading physics and then trying to make physics qualitative? Trying to square the circle? Have you solved the mind/body problem! Well, shit, they should stop writing books and just look at your posts! This sounds vaugely Whiteheadian. Have you read any Whitehead by chance? If not, you should.

So when we talk about what we ‘bring into existence’ or ‘cause to be in a particular state’, I would argue that we’re not bringing it from non-existence, or causing existence, per se. We’re manifesting a four-dimensional state of existence - from five-dimensional potentiality that includes but is not limited to our own potential existence. I don’t mind if you say ‘bring’ or ‘cause’ - so long as you recognise that what you mean by ‘existence’ in this sense is four-dimensional actuality.

Wait, so are you just trying to say that potential things "exist" in some way? Okay, sort of get it now.. I just wasn't understanding the use of "dimension". Seems an odd metaphysical choice of words. Yes, for every set of relations, there could be contingencies that go one way or another based on circumstances. What we should NOT do (and not sure if you are yet) is anthropomorphosize this "potential" as if it has a mind and we are "Its" pawns. In other words, it seems you want the Potential.. to be Inevitable or a Story that is written by Conneting/Collaborating/Awareness.. And we are part of this.. It's all too Woo for me. and it is also too much like a modern form of Natural Reason.. We are just following the dictates of Potential writing its Story.. Thus the problems I mention (which you think are just a scheme and not really "real", but just my dichotomy), are dissolved in your steamrolling Potential. Look how that works out in your favor. Nothing is "real" except this Steamrolling Potential, that must Potentiate No Matter What!! Humans be damned! Fuck humans and their suffering and forced agenda to join the program? Steamrolling Potential needs to use us! Maybe you are closer to Schopenhauer's conception of Will.. We are manifestations of Will and can't help but be its pawn in its striving-for-nothing game! Schop may not have been a true antinatalist BECAUSE of his views of the inevitiability of Will, but that is debatable. He might have shrugged efforts of antinatalism off by saying, "The Will is going to Will despite your efforts!" But not sure.. Anyways, clearly my view is we CAN REBEL against the dictates of Will/Potential or whatever metaphysical phrase happens to fit your model for overriding principle.

Well, last I checked, sex under certain conditions or artificial means are the two main ways that "lead to procreation". How is that not something you can isolate?
— schopenhauer1

‘Sex under certain conditions’ isolates human behaviour from these ‘conditions’ under which it occurs. I’m saying that when you isolate it like this, you don’t have an accurate or objective model, because both ‘sex’ and ‘certain conditions’ are highly variable in relation to each other. There is much more complexity to ‘sex under certain conditions’ than this description suggests.

Not sure what you're getting at. Is this Steamrolling Potential again, getting its way? No matter what human agents decide Potential will get its human participants in its Story? Is that it? Please...

As far as intentional awareness, all the best intentions and upbringing cannot prevent suffering, harm, and certainly still does not overcome the direct violation of dignity in causing someone to follow an agenda (i.e. the socio-culutral-physical agenda of human suvival/thriving in order to not die, despite the fact that we might want things differently.)
— schopenhauer1

Intentional engagement with potential may not prevent all suffering and harm, but its capacity to reduce suffering and harm extends well beyond that of intentionally isolating potential. The dignity of someone’s potential is not violated by actualising it. We may ‘cause’ a potentiality to BE in a particular state of ‘following an agenda’, but once they are aware of an agenda as such (which as a parent should be our aim), we are no longer the ‘cause’ of them following it.

Absolutely false. The kid's awareness of the agenda doesn't make the parent's awareness not a factor anymore. The parents KNOWS that the child will X, Y, Z.. If you think otherwise, explain that.. But it's not.. We live in the situatedness of a socio-culturo-physical reality and humans must abide by that lest slow death by X, or suicide.. Stop playing me here... You can't outwit this fact, sorry. You would REALLY have to explain, in detail how awareness of the agenda by the kid, negates the parent's putting the child in the forced dictates of the agenda (lest suicide)? My claim stands, procreation is a POLITICAL move made on behalf of said child.

And in case you were wondering - this is not to say that we SHOULD actualise someone’s potential - only that we are not necessarily violating someone’s dignity by doing so - so long as it is their potential we intend them to realise, not our own. Their potential remains intact, whether we engage with it or not. The only difference is in our perception of it.

False again. You could never have consented to that "potential child" before you actualized them. In almost every other realm, making such a profound decision for someone of this magnitude would not result in a positive (yes go ahead and do it) action on that potential person (who would exist due to your action..) otherwise. Also, it IS forcing an agenda onto someone and all the harms and sufferings of life. That is an indignity indeed. It is not a "gift". Gifts do not come with such strings. Gifts don't come with such profound collateral damage.

Having said that, I do get what you’re saying: the potential of an individual seems infinite in relation to the sum of any random actualisation. But the potential of an individual also varies in relation to any randomly perceived potentiality. So an individual is then a relative value, which seems less infinite in itself, but only if you consider value to be linear (one-dimensional) in structure, and infinity to be quantitative. Which I obviously don’t.

Carlo Rovelli once described the universe as consisting not of objects in time, but of ‘interacting events’, or relative temporal structures. Time, he says, is not linear except in our localised experience of it. We can consider potentiality in the same way: the universe consisting not of events or living systems interacting along a single linear structure of value or potential, but rather of interacting potentialities or relative value structures.

Okay, so what does this matter to anything about procreation? You are trying to square the circle again by talking in circles around the problem.. If we can just discuss "potentiality" enough, maybe procreation can be seen as "good" or at least "not bad" because [place dimension talk here and potential talk there, etc. etc.]. To me, it's this game of Steamrolling Potentiality is going to have it's way! Next, usually you move to the idea that see.. "There is no suffering, just potential, so stop talking about suffering!" Stop it.

Oh, this is rich.. So, no, that is not what I am doing. I am forcing, literally NOTHING onto ANYONE. Not procreating forces nothing on no one. Nor am I advocating my philosophy through force. HOWEVER, this isn't the case for the other side of the equation. For the pro-procreators, this definitely IS forcing someone into a situation.. In fact that's one of my major points.. Someone is always harmed in procreation and is always caused to follow the agenda, and can never have been consented de facto (I just say "forced" but you will probably be pedantic about it as a red herring). However, in the pro-procreator camp, there is always collateral damage. There is always some kind of "force" going on. Someone who is caused to deal with this or that (I'll just say the socio-cultural-survival agenda).
— schopenhauer1

You are evaluating every act in relation to the apparently infinite value of a consolidated, individual potential against any attempt to actualise it as a living system, and rejecting all other possible value structures. When I describe an alternative perspective, you simply impose your own value structure on what I’ve written, and argue that “this is what you’re really saying, and it’s immoral”. Yes, impose - not necessarily on me, but on what I’ve written. You might consider it to be an equation with only two sides (yours and the wrong one), but my point is that there is more to this supposed ‘force’ than you seem willing to consider - more to causation, more to value, and more to the individual.

Well I'm sorry, I don't speak your jargon.. and it is a lot of self-referential jargon.. You have to admit that.. You define very little and speak in pseudo-science talk for philosophical discourse which muddies the waters.. So if I'm "imposing" something, it is the ordinary language game as it applies to the problems presented in my thread (mainly around pessimism). I am "imposing" the language of usual phenomeonological experience.. A human that is born into the world and MUST do X, Y, Z, and experiences a relatively standard Human Condition (I speak of this dissatisfaction..), and who is FORCED to follow an agenda (as there is LITERALLY no other alternative). Of the fact that humans KNOW we can want something different that is CONTRARY to the dictates of our SITUATEDNESS of the socio-culutral-physical environment that are the boundary conditions mapped out for us. I speak of people not actualizing the potential of more people, even though it's possible to not create more collateral damage that those people experience.. Things like this. I don't know how your self-referential potential steamrolling metaphysics really plays into it other than to obfuscate these very immediate points of the human experience.

I agree a lot in the first part there, but you turn vague when you say "increasing awareness, connection, and collaboration beyond our own value structures". What has led you to those three words/concepts? Did you read it somewhere? Did it come to you in an epiphany? What is your influence there if at all?
— schopenhauer1

The notions of awareness/ignorance, connection/isolation and collaboration/exclusion come from an exploration of ‘will’ - as the faculty by which all actions are determined and initiated - as well as the structural relations between atomic, molecular, chemical, biological, conscious and self-conscious systems. What distinguishes each of these systems from each other is directly related to qualitative dimensional geometry and these three ‘gates’ of interaction. The carbon atom, for example, demonstrates the most ideal balance between consolidated atomic stability and variable molecular awareness, connection and collaboration among all the elements. The part it plays in the evolution of the universe is no accident.

I know that Schopenhauer does this himself, but curious to know why you would make atoms, molecules, etc. have words used by an agent (something that chooses)? It sounds again like Woo here. Even if we take into account the randomness of quantum physics, it would be a category error to say atoms "choose" this or that". They do not "collaborate", they simply follow internal forces that are part of their essential characteristic.. Carbon atoms with valence electrons match with that hydrogen valence electron due to how atomic physics works, not because they made a choice to "collaborate". Only complex agents do that. Even ants or bees don't "collaborate".. They work together, but aren't choosing to do so.. It is part of their instinct. I see collaboration as a sort of "choosing" to work together. Certainly atoms aren't "aware", though I guess you can say they are "connecting" in a physical proximity kind of way and due to the force that accompanies electrons and their structure.

And more importantly, what does that even mean in the context that we are discussing? I am simply saying that harm and suffering exists. So does the fact that we cannot escape the forced agenda, lest suicide. Collaborating does not take away this fact. I am not against it.. I like to read about scientific discoveries.. I like to read history. I like to listen to music.. I can talk with others about these things. I can discuss philosophy on this forum.. None of this is relevant to "dissolving" the problems away that I am discussing. You can't outwit this.
— schopenhauer1

I agree that harm and suffering exist. But I disagree that we cannot escape this apparently ‘forced’ agenda - there are many other options besides self-ignorant compliance or self-excluding suicide. The three gates I’ve proposed provide us with those options.

Finally, I think we are getting to what you really are trying to say.. But it's what I expected.. Just more of this kind of therapy.. But you don't give concrete examples, so still can't even say much on it, cause you aren't saying much.. It seems my critique still applies.. This is the middle-class therapy for following the agenda, but with enthusiasm because COLLABORATE!! :D :D!! Artistic, physical, business, achievements.. This is the con of the Nietzsche and his ubermensch.. Have you read of the Eternal Return? You mine as well just say that.. It's the same thing.. This Potential talk is basically warmed-over Nietzsche in a pseudo-scientific context.. But I still say Hegel is in there too with the whole Steamrolling Potential.. that HAS to have its way.. Humans being vessels to work with Steamrolling Potential to make things HAPPEN!!! (What we don't know.. cause you are going to be vague and there is no "there" there and Buddhist talk so you don't have to to be concrete because BUDDHISM!! There is no SELF!!).. And somehow you will evade concrete answers as that is the philosophy of the people who just don't GET IT..

Reading and listening to music is increasing awareness. Talking with others and most discussions of philosophy are connection. Collaboration is maximising a collective efficiency of limited resources. It takes the focus off the individual and risks non-existence to build on this vague, qualitative sense of a higher dimensional level of existence. This is how atoms developed into molecules, how molecules developed into chemical systems, then into biological systems, how biological systems developed consciousness, and how conscious systems developed a self.

This is all bullshit to me.. You are JUSTIFYING putting more forced agendas by REITERATING a FORCED AGENDA..that is to say.. WORK TOGETHER FOR A CAUSE! So it is the warmed-over middle class philosophy that I thought it was when taking away all the obfuscation.

Need, need, need, must, must, must. You have such a compulsion around all this.
Birth is compulsory, making an effort is compulsory, compulsion is compulsory ... A fullblown compulsory compulsion.


You could, perhaps, cut all this compulsory compulsion short, and conclude that existence itself is burdensome. Much like Early Buddhism or Ecclesiastes. — baker

Indeed it is.. Existence is a burden, hence efforts to prevent it for others. Meanwhile, we just have to "deal with it" in the ways that we do. Once born, we are "stuck" in the position of making a choice at all, once we reach an age where we can self-consciously make these decisions. These are the problems Existentialists describe.. Absurdity, isolation, doing something but with no inherent reason other than taking on arbitrary reasons (e.g. it's my role, it's what is expected, it's what everyone else seems to do, etc.). This is often called "authenticity" in behavior. What choice to make when faced with life's dictates (the situatedness we are presented?).

I have not said that we should collaborate, although if reducing suffering is your priority, then yes, I think increasing collaboration is the most efficient method - but not at the expense of awareness or connection. This is not a normative statement, but a rational one. I’m not talking about collaborating on isolated projects, but simply a general decision to collaborate rather than exclude whenever the opportunity presents - because one option never presents without the other, despite appearances. It’s invariably painful, humbling, risky and seemingly impossible, but it’s always ultimately worthwhile (just maybe not for any particular individual). — Possibility

Despite your protestations, you ARE making a normative statement.. X is wortwhile.. THIS is valuable not THAT. So you are making normative statements contra yourself.

But your normative statement is odd because there is no "there" there, yet again. WHAT is ultimately worthwhile, if not for the individual? Is it like some universal game? You get X collaboration points? Is it the contributing to some grand metanarrative?

You mine as well say to just be a productive citizen and look to Dudley Dooright.. Celebrate the moments of our lives.. and all the other slogans... Every day we go to work or try to survive with other humans were are doing these things.. So, the fuck, what?? It's just how we survive. Cultural knowledge gathered through humans interacting over time...
— schopenhauer1

But that’s not what I’m saying. Why bother to survive? What does that achieve? No one survives, in the end. Stop trying to survive or be socio-culturally productive, and instead find a way to make an incremental difference in the bigger picture. Fuck the agenda - don’t try to avoid suffering (in most cases it won’t actually harm you) - stare it down and use it to change the game. Don’t just gather knowledge, but strive to understand beyond what you can know with objective certainty. Take risks - you’re going to die anyway. Find out what you’re capable of. Intentionally do nothing - stare boredom in the face and discover what motivates you at your core: is it fear or something else? So many choices, so little time...

Ok, so it is warmed-over middle-class values again. You can't say Fuck the Agenda and then say, "Do the Dew!" "Be all you can be!" and all that :lol:.

You have no idea what happened before the Big Bang, any more than most scientists.. and certainly has nothing to do with the qualitative aspects of connection, awareness, or collaboration.. all things that can and should only be attributed to sentient beings of a certain type and complexity.

What do you mean by "awareness, connection and collaboration with experiences of suffering".. you are always speaking in vague notions.
— schopenhauer1

No, I don’t know, but I do have ideas. And you can’t be certain that it has nothing to do with what I’m describing, because you don’t know, either.

Me not being certain doesn't thus make you certain. I'm sure someone can use symbolic logic to show that.

Awareness is not reserved for sentient beings - that’s consciousness. The simplest quality of awareness is the vaguest indication of ‘other’. Connection, too, is not reserved for sentient beings. It’s just a relative arrangement. Molecules connect with other molecules based on their qualitative structure and energy. Lego blocks connect when you press them together in a particular arrangement. And collaboration is simply an arrangement that enables the pooling of resources. Ants collaborate, so do genetic structures. No sentience required.

As I stated earlier, this is redefining collaborate to non-agent objects and things.

Well, if we don't get up and survive, we die.. So fine.. Let's all die by passively doing nothing and sitting. This is pretty much all this amounts to. Seeking any value structure is still DOING SOMETHING. Your philosophy does not somehow negate what I am saying about the dissatisfaction. The SEEKING is the dissatisfaction.
— schopenhauer1

Sure, eventually you will die. But do you have any idea how long you can sit there, doing nothing, before you do die? It’s at least a couple of days. And this feeling you get that is motivating you to get up after only a few minutes - what is that? It isn’t you dying, that’s for sure. That space between you wanting to get up and you dying because you didn’t - there is a lot to learn in there.

The feeling is dissatisfaction. The whole point of my thread. Some people can learn to calm this for a few hours/days.. so what.. Then they have to survive. Only very rarely do you find the ascetic who dies of voluntary starvation.. I guess it could happen, but rarely. And that being said.. there's a reason most choose not to do this! Hunger is a bitch. Restlessness too.

I’m not trying to negate anything - just suggesting a broader perspective. Seeking an alternative value structure doesn’t require us to get up. It’s not about dissatisfaction with life, but recognising inaccuracies with the help of reason.

This doesn't mean anything to me as this is stated.

you seem to be saying to me that my perspective is wrong because it doesn't take into account your (really vague) ideas of collaboration, connection, and awareness. What do you MEAN? I still don't have any concrete examples. Collaborate, connection, and be aware of WHAT!! It all sounds like there is no "there" there. And somehow you will then say, "Yes that's the point.. it's very Buddhist, cause there's no there there"... and we will talk in circles.. and then to make it more concrete you will bring in some non-analogous physics terminology that is not helpful.. So really, just give me a succinct understanding of your worldview using concrete examples. You know that pretty much whatever it is you will say, I will just counter with the fact that X goal/event is the result of our dissatisfaction... If we are to stick with the premise of this thread. BEING itself would be enough! What's the POINT to keep saying collaborate, etc..? You are trying to provide this spiritual dimension.. There is no "WE" just "bits of collaboration" that want to "collaborate" to be "fulfilled".. Perhaps it's your just-so inevitability towards "collaboration".. Your view that "collaboration" is some underlying principle that I just don't get.. Maybe because there are NO CONCRETE EXAMPLES whereby I can even look at it critically. It's a value structure YOU have simply asserted... a normative goal you have placed (COLLABORATE!).. But why?
— schopenhauer1

In the end it doesn’t matter if I think your perspective is wrong - it’s a valid perspective - but the fact that it requires you to reject valid information from others’ experiences indicates logical inaccuracies, or at least limitations. I do mean awareness, connection and collaboration of everything - supplying concrete examples only gives you permission to ignore, isolate and exclude what is not concrete. This is what unsettles you - that I’m not fitting my philosophy into your conceptual worldview. Yes, our individual conceptualisation of BEING (which excludes qualitative or aesthetic ideas) could be consolidated into a linear structure (by isolating the quality of the individual), and then reduced (by ignoring qualitative structure) to a binary: satisfaction or dissatisfaction. But what’s the point of this reduction? How useful is it for any life that we manifest, given the inaccuracies? Or is it simply an attempt to attain satisfaction at a moralistic level?

You already have a normative view by saying "How useful is it?".. You are already assuming something we MUST do (that is be useful, do something useful).. Hmm, what could this "useful" be? Is that to be more satisfied? Haha.. To create more "satisfactory" situations for others? Anyways, it doesn't matter.. That's not where I'm getting at. Rather, dissatisfaction is more of a restless feeling that one must DO anything.. Get "caught up" in something. Thus like Schopenhauer's pendulum, survival and boredom kind of do describe a large part of what is going on with human motivations.

And why should this concept of BEING be enough? Even Kant recognised the qualitative variability of our conceptual BEING in an affected relation to the aesthetic idea. Our process of conceptualisation does not accurately concretise the reality of our experience - there IS an existential dimension beyond it - whether you call it ‘spiritual’ or something else. And it is a choice you make to ignore or increase awareness of it, to isolate it as ‘spiritual’ or simply seek connection, and to exclude it as non-conceptual (no concrete examples) or find ways to collaborate with what is effectively a qualitative possibility of ‘oneness’.

Not sure what you are saying. Rather, Schopenhauer was saying that we are dissatisfied and that just "being" would be enough to prevent our NEED to move from X to Y.. To need to survive, to need to be caught up in this or that game, pleasure, pursuit, goal, etc.

Collaboration is not a goal - it’s a possibility: the absolute, paradoxical quality and energy of pure logic. I’m not saying the term is a perfect summary - it obviously loses something when isolated from its paradoxical relation, from ‘exclusion’, and from awareness/ignorance and connection/isolation, but these are the most accurate terms and relations I have found.

Don't know what you mean here. Energy of pure logic? What?? Again, obfuscation. Rather, it sounds as I described earlier.. The Steamrolling Collaboration wants its way!!

Or maybe the widely held and tabooed assumption that life is for eating, drinking, and making merry, is not justified. — baker

Why "tabooed"? It's not a forbidden subject. Most people believe they are here to enjoy all that and that this is the purpose of life! And it's not an "assumption"; it's a belief and way of life.

I don't think that's it. Personally I don't drink, am indifferent to food and rarely go out. — Tom Storm

So you don't have that "taboo", as @Baker says. :smile: Well, I don't have it either, but although I enjoy all that, I certainly don't believe that this is why we are here. In fact, I can't find any reason why we are here! :grin:

this constant pursuit of pleasure (here pleasure is understood in a broad sense, it can mean eating, drinking, partying, or listening to classical music, bungee-jumping, or volunteering, etc. etc.) is 1. possible, and 2. inherently satisfying. — baker

The pursuit of pleasure is in the nature of every living being, together with its opposite, avoiding pain. In Man, however it has a broader sense, as you say, and it includes happiness, among other things. Many philosophers suggested that experiencing pleasure and happiness meant allowing yourself to indulge and enjoy things to excess. Epicurus, however, the first philosopher --from what I know-- talking about pleasure (hedonism, from Greek "hedoné"), suggested that pleasure was found in simple living. Did he know better?

No, no such opposition. The idea is that doing things that one finds pleasurable (in the broadest sense of the word) cannot actually make one happy. Ie. that it's in the nature of doing worldly things that they cannot satisfy. (This is also the theme in Ecclesiastes, so it's not some "esoteric Eastern" notion.)
— baker

I've known too many people who are, for want of a better term, 'happy' doing things they find pleasurable to agree with this in its entirety. — Tom Storm

So what conclusion do you draw from this?

And what implications does your stance have here for the possibility of philosophically approaching the topic?

In my view, a person is more likely to find happiness doing what they enjoy than doing what they hate doing.

This is trivially true, and nobody suggested otherwise.

The term 'happiness' is a problem I think because it sounds a bit trivial and Californian to me. 'Contentment' may be a better word and preferable from where I sit.

You know what I mean. "Happiness" is a good enough word for the purpose of this discussion. Unless you have a further point to make and, perhaps, qualify your earlier statement (quoted in this post at the top)?

I have not said that we should collaborate, although if reducing suffering is your priority, then yes, I think increasing collaboration is the most efficient method - but not at the expense of awareness or connection. This is not a normative statement, but a rational one. I’m not talking about collaborating on isolated projects, but simply a general decision to collaborate rather than exclude whenever the opportunity presents - because one option never presents without the other, despite appearances. It’s invariably painful, humbling, risky and seemingly impossible, but it’s always ultimately worthwhile (just maybe not for any particular individual). — Possibility

That's like saying that the operation was successful, and who cares if the patient died!

But that’s not what I’m saying. Why bother to survive? What does that achieve? No one survives, in the end. Stop trying to survive or be socio-culturally productive, andinstead find a way to make an incremental difference in the bigger picture.

A.k.a. bhava tanha.

No, I don’t know, but I do have ideas. And you can’t be certain that it has nothing to do with what I’m describing, because you don’t know, either.

"Just like you, we also don't actually know whether God exists or not, but we'll burn you in his name anyway!"

In the end it doesn’t matter if I think your perspective is wrong - it’s a valid perspective - but the fact that it requires you to reject valid information from others’ experiences indicates logical inaccuracies, or at least limitations.

While you reject valid information from others. Why don't you see that as a matter of logical inaccuracies or at least limitations on your part?

I’m simply saying that there is more to a conscious existence than you are describing here, and choosing not to follow a particular socio-cultural agenda does not necessarily entail premature death, pessimism or antinatalism.

You'll need to spell this out. What other options are there?
In specific terms, please, not just anything that might fall under "awareness, connection, collaboration".
— baker

Oh, so many. — Possibility

Despite repeated requests, you provide no examples.

But you’re only looking for actions so you can reduce them (in your worldview) to ‘following the socio-cultural agenda’.

While you reduce whatever I (or some other posters) say in such a way that you can dismiss it.
Talk about ignorance and exclusion!

Both the individual and this worldview are five-dimensional conceptualisations that vary in relation to each other - and you know that your conceptual structures are far from identical to schopenhauer1’s, even if an evaluative relation reduces to the same side of the binary. But you’re not meant to look at the concepts, just trust that the word is the same, so it must represent the same consolidation of value.

Really, I do that? Thank heavens I have you to tell me that!

I’m not very good at logic

Then you should be more careful in how you use the term.

We are at X place, and we need to be at Y place (Enlightenment), that in itself is a situation I find troubling.. — schopenhauer1

Interesting. What if we're already where we wanna be? We're at X, we wanna be at X.

On second thought, ignore the remark.

What a boring thread.