That means that those possible future children will be treated as a means, not as an end itself. That is wrong. — Antinatalist
Statistics? Tyranny of the majority? :chin:
There's got to be an overall trend, a widely-held opinion on all matters, including antinatalism/natalism, oui? — Agent Smith
The idea is not to formulate a recommendation for ALL but for MOST! Surely, you're in the know about the Champagne glass effect! — Agent Smith
Sure, but a trend is very different from a widely-held opinion, wouldn’t you say? — Possibility
Pareto’s principle is about the distribution of quantitative value, which is only part of the picture. I find it interesting that so many people experience quite an affected relation to the graph. The basic feeling is that it should at least be more of a normal distribution - a bell curve - and that it should be someone else making the change. — Possibility
Don’t complain, just kill yourself — schopenhauer1
Don’t complain, just kill yourself is the message. — schopenhauer1
That means that those possible future children will be treated as a means, not as an end itself. That is wrong.
— Antinatalist
I completely forgot about Kant! Thanks for the reminder. As you would've already realized Kant's people as ends in themselves is at odds with another very pressing need that seems to bother us at a very deep level viz. meaning of life, which, if one really thinks about it, is simply the desire to be of some use, a synonym for means or something like that.
Moreover, people seem to find a life as but a means to such lofty ends as abolishing suffering quite fulfilling and well worth ignoring/overriding Kant's maxim, noble thought it may be. — Agent Smith
Maybe so, but those fulfilling sufferings need to be taken by a person´s own free will, not after someone is forcing her/him to the "game" of life. — Antinatalist
Because you are making that genetic (or something akin) fallacy again. Even if the world was really a big illusion as an appearance (the devils playground) the appearance persist. It doesn’t go away because one knows the situation. The “feels like” ingrained aspect remains despite its “illusory” origins. And yes, that is assuming I even buy into that metaphysics, which I don’t. But even if I did he would never say that “knowing” this (or connection, collaboration, or awareness for that mater) brings an end to the illusion. — schopenhauer1
If anything the dichotomy would between illusion of the will and denying of the will. Complete "annihilation" of the will is near impossible except for the saintly ascetic (representing a fraction of a fraction of people can actually attain this in his view and he believed only certain characters can really achieve this). — schopenhauer1
Also understand that appearance and will in his conception are one and the same appearance does not give way to bare will or is in some sort of opposition of it. Rather, the appearance is the double-aspect of will. It is its flip side. If one extirpates the appearance, one extirpates will and vice versa. — schopenhauer1
No, studying the mechanisms of sleep apnea does not make the the actual suffering to the sufferer go away. Let's go further, scientists writing papers on the systems involved in sleep apnea, will not stop a person with an extreme case from possibly getting a heart attack due to the breathing problems. That's just obviously wrong and not even worth me writing to say this. — schopenhauer1
But you did just say this.. and you are contradicting yourself.. — schopenhauer1
It is true, I cannot take a position or even evaluate vague language that contains neologisms or words used in novel ways. If you are going to say things like "complex structure" and "find ways to collaborate" and then deny that you are talking about "working together to solve problems" which I interpreted it as, and took a position against (as a solution to the problem of suffering itself)... then you have to be very precise on how you are using language like "complex structure" and "find ways to collaborate" cause that's how it sounds prima facie. — schopenhauer1
That is gaslighting BS. Telling someone who is suffering, that you are looking at it wrong, you are part of a big system, doesn't negate the suffering for the individual. You think consoling language that you are part of a bigger universe magically makes things go away? Nope. You are trivializing people's experience by trying to hijack it with this "we are part of a bigger picture" crap. It is all part of contingent suffering that is part of existing at all. — schopenhauer1
You are trying to take the pessimism out of Schopenhauer. You are trying to make Schopenhauer fit into your sanitized version. Schop thought that Will, and its appearance were negative- causing/entailed suffering. There was no working with it for any good. Existence was fundamentally not a good thing to exist at all. So "value in participating.." is misrepresenting anything he is saying. Denying will would be more like it. And again, because you choose to be vague, you aren't saying much at all when you say "participate" either. — schopenhauer1
Maybe so, but those fulfilling sufferings need to be taken by a person´s own free will, not after someone is forcing her/him to the "game" of life.
— Antinatalist
You're on target, sir/ma'am! However, who's coercing anyone to save the world? Do you think Alexander Fleming was bullied into discovering antibiotics? Are all the folks engaged in cancer research under some kind of duress? :chin: — Agent Smith
Are all the folks engaged in cancer research under some kind of duress? :chin: — Agent Smith
Maybe so, but those fulfilling sufferings need to be taken by a person´s own free will, not after someone is forcing her/him to the "game" of life.
— Antinatalist
You're on target, sir/ma'am! However, who's coercing anyone to save the world? Do you think Alexander Fleming was bullied into discovering antibiotics? Are all the folks engaged in cancer research under some kind of duress? :chin:
— Agent Smith
Maybe we are speaking about different things. By ´forcing´ in this particular point I mean reproduction. I thought it was quite clear. — Antinatalist
Metaphorically, death, discomfort, and boredom are the gun to the head. That is part of my OP about dissatisfaction. That is part of complying with the game. — schopenhauer1
In the vernacular "trend" is near synonymous with "widely-held opinion". Loose usage I'd say, but nothing to be concerned about. — Agent Smith
Sorry, I don't follow. My point was one doesn't need to aim for universality, a majority will/should suffice. We need someone to conduct a poll, pronto! You know, to settle the matter once and for all! — Agent Smith
Going back to my point. The human condition is dissatisfaction. We are constantly overcoming dissatisfaction. It is misguided/immoral to create for people a lifetime's worth of dissatisfaction-overcoming. It is immoral to give a game to someone that cannot be paused, that is de facto a play in real time or game over. We cannot retreat to the Platonic realm of a Mt. Olympus when we get tired or frustrated with the dissatisfaction. It is constant. This inescapability makes it disqualifying as moral to force onto others. None of what you said refutes that. There is nothing "there" in what you are saying. And it sounds like rhetorical tricks to hijack language and purposely be too vague so that you can't be wrong. — schopenhauer1
Well, with that attitude how do you get anything done in your life? I'm not saying we can't do better, but for some obvious reasons - most of them to do with practicality - we can't do things to perfection. At some point you're gonna have to make a decision and act whether you have all the information to do that or not. I guess what I'm getting at is that a certain margin of error is expected and we'd better to learn to live with it, oui? — Agent Smith
Agreed! And that ‘margin of error’ plays out in the human condition as suffering. — Possibility
Well, with that attitude how do you get anything done in your life? I'm not saying we can't do better, but for some obvious reasons - most of them to do with practicality - we can't do things to perfection. At some point you're gonna have to make a decision and act whether you have all the information to do that or not. I guess what I'm getting at is that a certain margin of error is expected and we'd better to learn to live with it, oui?
— Agent Smith
Agreed! And that ‘margin of error’ plays out in the human condition as suffering. — Possibility
True, hence antinatalism. Right? — Agent Smith
Maybe so, but those fulfilling sufferings need to be taken by a person´s own free will, not after someone is forcing her/him to the "game" of life.
— Antinatalist
You're on target, sir/ma'am! However, who's coercing anyone to save the world? Do you think Alexander Fleming was bullied into discovering antibiotics? Are all the folks engaged in cancer research under some kind of duress? :chin:
— Agent Smith
Maybe we are speaking about different things. By ´forcing´ in this particular point I mean reproduction. I thought it was quite clear.
— Antinatalist
I'm not sure, but your concern seems to be consent, the lack thereof, in birthing children. While it's true that there are many of us who'd have wished to remain unborn, the catch is would-be parents are in the dark about that - they didn't know if the child they're now busy bringing up would've preferred nonexistence over life. Plus those people who manage to do well in life are likely to say "yes" to life.
As you might've already realized, starting a family then requires you to accurately predict the future (of your children), something notoriously difficult to do! Some of us then resort to what is essentially a gamble - we have children, hoping they'll have a good life and we do our best (grooming, educating, assisting, etc. them) to give them a decent chance at success, knowing all the while that life may throw them a curve ball with catastrophic consequences. The sentiment is noble (a person could enjoy life) but also ignoble (we're basically gambling with someone's life).
Frankly, I have a feeling that people hardly think so deeply about bringing other peeps into existence! They should, right? — Agent Smith
the ultimate goal of any being should be to ‘do things to perfection’. — Possibility
Again, you’re assuming that the world as will must be denied, but Schopenhauer is talking about individual will as the illusion - the world as will is reality as it exists in itself, the world as representation exists relative to the notion of an individual. — Possibility
On this I must first remark, that the conception of nothing is essentially relative, and always refers to a definite something which it negatives. This quality has been attributed (by Kant) merely to the nihil privativum, which is indicated by - as opposed to +, which -, from an opposite point of view, might become +, and in opposition to this nihil privativum the nihil negativum has been set up, which would in every reference be nothing, and as an example of this the logical contradiction which does away with itself has been given. But more closely considered, no absolute nothing, no proper nihil negativum is even thinkable; but everything of this kind, when considered from a higher standpoint or subsumed under a wider concept, is always merely a nihil privativum. Every nothing is thought as such only in relation to something, and presupposes this relation, and thus also this something. Even a logical contradiction is only a relative nothing. It is no thought of the reason, but it is not on that account an absolute nothing; for it is a combination of words; it is an example of the unthinkable, which is necessary in logic in order to prove the laws of thought. Therefore if for this end such an example is sought, we will stick to the nonsense as the positive which we are in search of, and pass over the sense as the negative. Thus every nihil negativum, if subordinated to a higher concept, will appear as a mere nihil privativum or relative nothing, which can, moreover, always exchange signs with what it negatives, so that that would then be thought as negation, and it itself as assertion. This also agrees with the result of the difficult dialectical investigation of the meaning of nothing which Plato gives in the “Sophist” (pp. 277-287): Την του ἑτερου φυσιν αποδειξαντες ουσαν τε, και κατακεκερματισμενην επι παντα τα οντα προς αλληλα, το προς το ον ἑκαστου μοριου αυτης αντιτιθεμενον, ετολμησαμεν ειπειν, ὡς αυτο τουτο εστιν οντως το μη ον (Cum enim ostenderemus, alterius ipsius naturam esse perque omnia entia divisam atque dispersam in vicem; tunc partem ejus oppositam ei, quod cujusque ens est, esse ipsum revera non ens asseruimus).
That which is generally received as positive, which we call the real, and the negation of which the concept nothing in its most general significance expresses, is just the world as idea, which I have shown to be the objectivity and mirror of the will. Moreover, we ourselves are just this will and this world, and to them belongs the idea in general, as one aspect of them. The form of the idea is space and time, therefore for this point of view all that is real must be in some place and at some time.Denial, abolition, conversion of the will, is also the abolition and the vanishing of the world, its mirror. If we no longer perceive it in this mirror, we ask in vain where it has gone, and then, because it has no longer any where and when, complain that it has vanished into nothing.
A reversed point of view, if it were possible for us, would reverse the signs and show the real for us as nothing, and that nothing as the real. But as long as we ourselves are the will to live, this last—nothing as the real—can only be known and signified by us negatively, because the old saying of Empedocles, that like can only be known by like, deprives us here of all knowledge, as, conversely, upon it finally rests the possibility of all our actual knowledge, i.e., the world as idea; for the world is the self-knowledge of the will.
If, however, it should be absolutely insisted upon that in some way or other a positive knowledge should be attained of that which philosophy can only express negatively as the denial of the will, there would be nothing for it but to refer to that state which all those who have attained to complete denial of the will have experienced, and which has been variously denoted by the names ecstasy, rapture, illumination, union with God, and so forth; a state, however, which cannot properly be called knowledge, because it has not the form of subject and object, and is, moreover, only attainable in one's own experience and cannot be further communicated.
We, however, who consistently occupy the standpoint of philosophy, must be satisfied here with negative knowledge, content to have reached the utmost limit of the positive. We have recognised the inmost nature of the world as will, and all its phenomena as only the objectivity of will; and we have followed this objectivity from the unconscious working of obscure forces of Nature up to the completely conscious action of man. Therefore we shall by no means evade the consequence, that with the free denial, the surrender of the will, all those phenomena are also abolished; that constant strain and effort without end and without rest at all the grades of objectivity, in which and through which the world consists; the multifarious forms succeeding each other in gradation; the whole manifestation of the will; and, finally, also the universal forms of this manifestation, time and space, and also its last fundamental form, subject and object; all are abolished. No will: no idea, no world.
Before us there is certainly only nothingness. But that which resists this passing into nothing, our nature, is indeed just the will to live, which we ourselves are as it is our world. That we abhor annihilation so greatly, is simply another expression of the fact that we so strenuously will life, and are nothing but this will, and know nothing besides it. But if we turn our glance from our own needy and embarrassed condition to those who have overcome the world, in whom the will, having attained to perfect self-knowledge, found itself again in all, and then freely denied itself, and who then merely wait to see the last trace of it vanish with the body which it animates; then, instead of the restless striving and effort, instead of the constant transition from wish to fruition, and from joy to sorrow, instead of the never-satisfied and never-dying hope which constitutes the life of the man who wills, we shall see that peace which is above all reason, that perfect calm of the spirit, that deep rest, that inviolable confidence and serenity, the mere reflection of which in the countenance, as Raphael and Correggio have represented it, is an entire and certain gospel; only knowledge remains, the will has vanished. We look with deep and painful longing upon this state, beside which the misery and wretchedness of our own is brought out clearly by the contrast. Yet this is the only consideration which can afford us lasting consolation, when, on the one hand, we have recognised incurable suffering and endless misery as essential to the manifestation of will, the world; and, on the other hand, see the world pass away with the abolition of will, and retain before us only empty nothingness.Thus, in this way, by contemplation of the life and conduct of saints, whom it is certainly rarely granted us to meet with in our own experience, but who are brought before our eyes by their written history, and, with the stamp of inner truth, by art, we must banish the dark impression of that nothingness which we discern behind all virtue and holiness as their final goal, and which we fear as children fear the dark; we must not even evade it like the Indians, through myths and meaningless words, such as reabsorption in Brahma or the Nirvana of the Buddhists. Rather do we freely acknowledge that what remains after the entire abolition of will is for all those who are still full of will certainly nothing; but, conversely, to those in whom the will has turned and has denied itself, this our world, which is so real, with all its suns and milky-ways—is nothing.[28] — WWR Book 4
The baseline of the human condition can be described as ‘dissatisfaction’ by those for whom ‘individual will’ is considered the ultimate goal of being. The resulting conclusion that deliberately creating any such being is ‘immoral’ makes sense only in the context of ‘individual will’ as ABSOLUTE. Except that this ‘individual will’ is an illusion. There is no ‘will’ that we can call our own, no satisfaction or perfection to be attained as a self-sustaining identity in relation to the world. — Possibility
↪Antinatalist Believe you me, we'll never make any progress just bandying words about as long as we have no means of getting childrens' consent with regard to being born in this world, in these times.
It's clear as crystal that the best-case scenario is to be able to get a child's prenatal permission. Hold on! Last I checked, children don't get to make decisions until they're 18+, legal guardians (parents, elder siblings, etc.) speak for them until autonomy at 18 is attained, oui? If so, isn't it odd that antinatalists demand that consent is a sine qua non for bringing children into this world? A fortiori, pre-birth, children are less able to make decisions. — Agent Smith
However, the problem doesn't go away, does it? Even if we're supposed to think for unborn children, we can't ignore the suffering that stares us in the face every single day of our lives, ja? — Agent Smith
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