rather it’s AND — Possibility
So, you’re saying that it’s possible to BE ‘complete and whole’, wanting for nothing as an individual human animal? Do you really think that’s true? Lack is a basic quality inherent to EVERY existence. Any feeling in relation to this is based on expectations with regard to ‘individuality’. — Possibility
Lack is just an awareness that ‘individuality’ is false at any level of existence. — Possibility
I’m not looking for a way out, just a more useful description of ‘the way’, because it’s obvious that ‘comply or die’ is NOT it... — Possibility
is usually the answer to this — I like sushi
The avoidance, and consequently the attempt to fill the perceived intrinsic emptiness or call it meaninglessness, that is at the base of human existence, is at the base of all human activity. This is a simple observation, unless the person is in denial and lacks the intestinal fortitude to face facts. Indeed, schopeanhoauer has offered some good things to ponder. My question to you is: I understand he has also talked about the aesthetic experience. If you were to explain it according to your own understanding perhaps supported by some verbatim quotes from him, what's your take? Aesthetic appreciation definitely isn't "entertainment", right? What and where is the distinction? — skyblack
Works of great art (he describes his idea of great art in detail), — schopenhauer1
There is an old inside joke in Buddhism about Mahayana heaven:
Outside of the heavenly gates, crowds of bodhisattvas bowing to eachother, making a gesture with the hand, saying, "After you!"
— baker
:ok: — Possibility
The OP is asking what one should do. — I like sushi
If you have an answer then that would be a ‘good life’ of a sorts right? Is a ‘sort of good life’ better than a ‘no sort of good life’? If so and your response is it doesn’t matter because we suffer anyway, then you have not made any meaningful distinction between the two.
Yes, we die, but it's one or the other at the same time. You either comply or you die. You will die eventually, but at that point, you no longer will be or have to be complying.
/.../
You live in the situatedness of history, physics, socioeconomic reality. You can deny it, but I can deny gravity and that wouldn't mean jack shit on its truth. — schopenhauer1
How can you end suffering if all life is effectively framed as ‘suffering’ (albeit a weaker sort of ‘disgruntlement’ and/or ‘dissatisfaction’)? — I like sushi
What are his ideas of great art? — skyblack
Inward disposition, the predominance of knowing over willing, can produce this state under any circumstances. This is shown by those admirable Dutch artists who directed this purely objective perception to the most insignificant objects, and established a lasting monument of their objectivity and spiritual peace in their pictures of still life, which the aesthetic beholder does not look on without emotion; for they present to him the peaceful, still, frame of mind of the artist, free from will, which was needed to contemplate such insignificant things so objectively, to observe them so attentively, and to repeat this perception so intelligently; and as the picture enables the onlooker to participate in this state, his emotion is often increased by the contrast between it and the unquiet frame of mind, disturbed by vehement willing, in which he finds himself. In the same spirit, landscape- painters, and particularly Ruisdael, have often painted very insignificant country scenes, which produce the same effect even more agreeably.
Human form and expression are the most important objects of plastic art, and human action the most important object of poetry. Yet each thing has its own peculiar beauty, not only every organism which expresses itself in the unity of an individual being, but also everything unorganised and formless, and even every manufactured article. For all these reveal the Ideas through which the will objectifies itself at it lowest grades, they give, as it were, the deepest resounding bass-notes of nature. Gravity, rigidity, fluidity, light, and so forth, are the Ideas which express themselves in rocks, in buildings, in waters. Landscape-gardening or architecture can do no more than assist them to unfold their qualities distinctly, fully, and variously; they can only give them the opportunity of expressing themselves purely, so that they lend themselves to aesthetic contemplation and make it easier. Inferior buildings or ill-favoured localities, on the contrary, which nature has neglected or art has spoiled, perform this task in a very slight degree or not at all; yet even from them these universal, fundamental Ideas of nature cannot altogether disappear. To the careful observer they present themselves here also, and even bar buildings and the like are capable of being aesthetically considered; the Ideas of the most universal properties of their materials are still recognisable in them, only the artificial form which has been given them does not assist but hinders aesthetic contemplation. Manufactured articles also serve to express Ideas, only it is not the Idea of the manufactured article which speaks in them, but the Idea of the material to which this artificial form has been given. This may be very conveniently expressed in two words, in the language of the schoolmen, thus,—the manufactured article expresses the Idea of its forma substantialis, but not that of its forma accidentalis; the latter leads to no Idea, but only to a human conception of which it is the result. It is needless to say that by manufactured article no work of plastic art is meant. The schoolmen understand, in fact, by forma substantialis that which I call the grade of the objectification of will in a thing. We shall return immediately, when we treat of architecture, to the Idea of the material.
What the two arts we have spoken of accomplish for these lowest grades of the objectivity of will, is performed for the higher grades of vegetable nature by artistic horticulture. The landscape beauty of a scene consists, for the most part, in the multiplicity of natural objects which are present in it, and then in the fact that they are clearly separated, appear distinctly, and yet exhibit a fitting connection and alternation. These two conditions are assisted and promoted by landscape-gardening, but it has by no means such a mastery over its material as architecture, and therefore its effect is limited. The beauty with which it is concerned belongs almost exclusively to nature; it has done little for it; and, on the other hand, it can do little against unfavourable nature, and when nature works, not for it, but against it, its achievements are small.
The vegetable world offers itself everywhere for aesthetic enjoyment without the medium of art; but so far as it is an object of art, it belongs principally to landscape-painting; to the province of which all the rest of unconscious nature also belongs. In paintings of still life, and of mere architecture, ruins, interiors of churches, etc., the subjective side of aesthetic pleasure is predominant, i.e., our satisfaction does not lie principally in the direct comprehension of the represented Ideas, but rather in the subjective correlative of this comprehension, pure, will-less knowing.
If then, in accordance with what has been said, allegory in plastic and pictorial art is a mistaken effort, serving an end which is entirely foreign to art, it becomes quite unbearable when it leads so far astray that the representation of forced and violently introduced subtilties degenerates into absurdity. Such, for example, is a tortoise, to represent feminine seclusion; the downward glance of Nemesis into the drapery of her bosom, signifying that she can see into what is hidden; the explanation of Bellori that Hannibal Caracci represents voluptuousness clothed in a yellow robe, because he wishes to indicate that her lovers soon fade and become yellow as straw. If there is absolutely no connection between the representation and the conception signified by it, founded on subsumption under the concept, or association of Ideas; but the signs and the things signified are combined in a purely conventional manner, by positive, accidentally introduced laws; then I call this degenerate kind of allegory Symbolism. Thus the rose is the symbol of secrecy, the laurel is the symbol of fame, the palm is the symbol of peace, the scallop-shell is the symbol of pilgrimage, the cross is the symbol of the Christian religion. To this class also belongs all significance of mere colour, as yellow is the colour of falseness, and blue is the colour of fidelity. Such symbols may often be of use in life, but their value is foreign to art.
Allegory has an entirely different relation to poetry from that which it has to plastic and pictorial art, and although it is to be rejected in the latter, it is not only permissible, but very serviceable to the former. For in plastic and pictorial art it leads away from what is perceptibly given, the proper object of all art, to abstract thoughts; but in poetry the relation is reversed; for here what is directly given in words is the concept, and the first aim is to lead from this to the object of perception, the representation of which must be undertaken by the imagination of the hearer. If in plastic and pictorial art we are led from what is immediately given to something else, this must always be a conception, because here only the abstract cannot be given directly; but a conception must never be the source, and its communication must never be the end of a work of art. In poetry,
When now, in the particular case, such a relation is actually given, that is to say, when the composer has been able to express in the universal language of music the emotions of will which constitute the heart of an event, then the melody of the song, the music of the opera, is expressive. But the analogy discovered by the composer between the two must have proceeded from the direct knowledge of the nature of the world unknown to his reason, and must not be an imitation produced with conscious intention by means of conceptions, otherwise the music does not express the inner nature of the will itself, but merely gives an inadequate imitation of its phenomenon. All specially imitative music does this; for example, "The Seasons", by Haydn; also many passages of his "Creation", in which phenomena of the external world are directly imitated; also all battle-pieces. Such music is entirely to be rejected. — WWR Book 3 Quotes
I think part of the problem is that you're simultaneously holding onto two theories/philosophies which are mutually exclusive. Namely, one the one hand, Schopenhauerian pessimism and on the other, the Theory of Evolution. The two together make for a supertoxic mix.
From an evolutionary perspective, antinatalism is a dead end; antinatalists are evolutionary detritus, they cull themselves out of the gene pool, while evolution, and life, march on, ever on. Antinatalists who adhere to the ToE have no right to complain (or rebel). — baker
What does he mean by "gives up tracing"? He says it in the 2nd line of your quote. — skyblack
If, raised by the power of the mind, a man relinquishes the common way of looking at things, gives up tracing, under the guidance of the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, their relations to each other, the final goal of which is always a relation to his own will; if he thus ceases to consider the where, the when, the why, and the whither of things, and looks simply and solely at the what — schopenhauer1
Not really. Yes, we die, but it's one or the other at the same time. You either comply or you die. You will die eventually, but at that point, you no longer will be or have to be complying. — schopenhauer1
There is an old inside joke in Buddhism about Mahayana heaven:
Outside of the heavenly gates, crowds of bodhisattvas bowing to eachother, making a gesture with the hand, saying, "After you!"
— baker
:ok:
— Possibility
Why the :ok: ?
The joke is actually a harsh criticism of the idea of postponing one's own enlightenment in favor of others. — baker
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