The search for more laws of nature and technological application doesn't produce any more "meaning" than anything else. — schopenhauer1

We probably agree that there's an abyss beneath all things human. But lots of people do in fact put on various heroic costumes and lose themselves in the role. I personally like the Shakespeare costume. But Socrates is fun too. Others want to be Bezos or Elon or a hot little influencer selling overpriced makeup.

Yes. Who are you to decide for another that non-paradisical existence is thus good in itself or for that person? — schopenhauer1

I think there's a case to be made, that it's a reasonable concern. But it's like wanting world peace. I'd like people to be nicer to animals. I disagree with factory farming. But I really don't think that they (other people at large) give two squirts of the brown stuff for my perspective.

I won't let you escape that easily.. Zapffe's paradox... — schopenhauer1

Explain please.

And an animal that must provide justifications for its actions and to hold onto narrative fictions. "I got work to do" is one of those oddly revealing phrases... — schopenhauer1

I think you neglect fear of consequences. It's not just the carrot. It's the stick of being homeless, being divorced, being fired. We are thrown into needing stuff and afraid to lose access. Some do off themselves. Even Kant is surprisingly tolerant of a serious suicide attempt (as I found out recently.)

It was the Shakers. — schopenhauer1

Ah. And certain gnostics too ? I'm very fascinated by groups who swim against the basic cultural programming. Breed and gather coins. Breed and gather coins. Breed and gather coins.

That's 'true' counterculture. The rest is what ? Am I myself a purveyor of exquisite but difficult pleasures for discerning consumers with the proper training ?

Explain please. — green flag

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Messiah

I think you neglect fear of consequences. It's not just the carrot. It's the stick of being homeless, being divorced, being fired. We are thrown into needing stuff and afraid to lose access. Some do off themselves. Even Kant is surprisingly tolerant of a serious suicide attempt (as I found out recently.) — green flag

But other animals can't/don't say/think/conceptualize
I need stuff or I die. They just do and survive. And there we are a being who has "reasons".

I reread it quite recently. Can you specify ?

I reread it quite recently. Can you specify ? — green flag

Look at the part about the paradox...

They just do and survive. And there we are a being who has "reasons". — schopenhauer1

Yes. In us, Darwinian evolution got to take a look at itself. We manage to understand most of our genesis...though a brute fact remains and seemingly must remain.

Yes. In us, Darwinian evolution got to take a look at itself. — green flag

:smirk:

Zapffe views the human condition as tragically overdeveloped, calling it "a biological paradox, an abomination, an absurdity, an exaggeration of disastrous nature.

Oh, yes. I thought you meant something else.
***
What a piece of work is a man, How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, In form and moving how express and admirable, In action how like an Angel, In apprehension how like a god, The beauty of the world, The paragon of animals. And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
***
We are glorious and disgusting and beautiful and obscene. Undecidable terrorwonderspill.

I wonder when we finally get hip to collective ennui...Perhaps the AI will give us time.
Modern projects- science and technology, economic blue, pink, and white collar
Old school projects- farming, hunting, gathering, gardening

It don't matter. Touch metal. Touch grass. Your mind has the thought "touch metal' and "touch grass", thus it is already removed. It's a placebo. Not in the present, but the virtual world representing the present. "I must dig the ditch and plant the seed". "I must push the number and calculate the formula".

I wonder when we finally get hip to collective ennui...Perhaps the AI will give us time. — schopenhauer1

Hard to say how AI will change things. If genes and memes play a role, you can expect those who get too bored or sad to replicate to be filtered out. 'Questioning to the very end' 'must' remain marginal. A 'crazy' philosopher like me is a sterile mutation. But much of it was luck. I probably would not have pushed for an abortion, even knowing what I know, because I irrationally love that theoretical unborn child, as 'stupid' in this way as any elephant or dog.

Sartre's vision of the radically free ghost is of the god we are programmed to try to become. Antinatalism especially points out how cruel it is to throw a soul into existence. The impossible goal is to become unthrown, to get back to the garden that never was.

The impossible goal is to become unthrown, to get back to the garden that never was. — green flag

And thus the juxtaposition with the projects (project?) of the enterprise(s). You can't go back, you can only go forward. Going forward is engaging with the systems that be, the "throwneness" of the structures and maintaining them endlessly and repeatedly. To have personal fictions that somehow must align with the structures to survive, comfort-seek, and entertain. Thus, "I have work to do." Can you think of a personal narrative that aligns as perfectly with the existing structures? Talk about distraction, ignoring, anchoring, and sublimating :lol:.

We would simply BE. — schopenhauer1

Simply BE. Excellent advice.

Talk about distraction, ignoring, anchoring, and sublimating :lol:. — schopenhauer1

Of course, friend. But I've basically been saying the whole time that you and I are mere confectioners, purveyors of Dangerous Thoughts, ye old poison cure special, gets ye high as the shine of the moon, puts ye up above the groundlings as they grind.

Yes, life is irrational and unjustified. I've heard the voice from the whirlwind, same as Job. God is too beautiful and terrible and disgusting for human eyes. It ain't what the nice folk said it was.

Is it better not to be at all ? I don't pretend to know. But it's safe to predict that I can't go on I'll go on.

You can't go back, you can only go forward. — schopenhauer1

It's almost tautological. The designs that didn't go mostly blindly forward (by feeding and breeding) just faded away. What would we expect to be left after millions of years ? Durable patterns, 'motivated' (acting in order to) to persist, or the other kind? The kind that mostly felt the horror in all things and eschewed self-assertion and reproduction ?

I'm not saying hooray or boo. I'm just saying that the world seems to be one way rather than another.

I can't go on I'll go on. — green flag

You will, we will, because (as The Preacher in Ecclesiastes says), "Anyone who is among the living has hope--even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!"

You will, we will, because (as The Preacher in Ecclesiastes says), "Anyone who is among the living has hope--even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!" — BC

:up:

It is hard indeed to kill that fucking bird !

But, to be complete, I have known a few people to actually kill themself, one in an extremely dramatic way.

Simply BE. Excellent advice. — BC

But one we can't follow, by definition of our human operation, hence my OP.

We can decide to. It isn't easy, but it is possible.

This unique characteristic of human cognition has been the subject of much discussion among philosophers and academics. — schopenhauer1

True. Our awareness of our capabilities and options are seemingly more advanced than the basic instincts of other animals. The realm of human thinking - reflected by the complexity of our language - is not likely accesible to other species. Which are more restrained to basic emotions like fear of death, joy of eating and sex and aggression against competitors. Of course we can also do these things. But we have another layer on top of this layer cake of awareness and capability.

This is a tragic break in nature — schopenhauer1

Yes the "missing link" or "original sin" where humans depart from the rest of nature. We don't have the "just do it and don't ask questions" gene despite Nike's motto haha. Put on some shoes and just do it - such is life.

It is both what sets our mind apart but also throws us off in a desperate search for a "why?" - a reason to do anything at all.

This we are obsessed with an origin story. Be it religious or scientific. We want to know what makes us tick. And the best place we reason as the source us the beginning of it all.

Nature lives in a self fulfilling argument. A circular notion. Be born, mature, have sex, propagate your young. Why? Coz existence. This is how existing works.

Humans developed linear argument in contrast to the self satisfying argument, the cycles and frequencies underlying evolution, time and life. We unravelled the circle and took the line as straight from A to B. But that takes away an original reason. A beginning. A first cause. And so we write our narratives and motivations, we work to inspire ourselves to keep progressing ever since.

But one we can't follow, by definition of our human operation, hence my OP. — schopenhauer1

Well. We can. Some people can go through life uneducated, not curious, never questioning, like other animals do, and they are content/happy.

What drives our demand for reason instead of "simply be" is a need for control. Because control can prevent you from suffering as you can understand, anticipate and mitigate those effects on you.
Also we are in an "arms race" with one another - the weapon? Knowledge. Awareness. And that comes from the doubt that it will be used wisely or benevolently.

So if one is unsure if the smart kid is good or bad, then they had better become smarter themselves. Assume control of the narrative. Eat or face the possibility you may be eaten.

In an ideal world, a paradise, we have a benevolent God. As such a god would take away our inherent need to be smarter or more omniscient than them knowing that they act as a parent, with our best interests at heart.

And that, is the underlying fact that causes religions to come into being. Trust. Trust or a hope or optimism that the universe/mother nature isn't out to get you, out for blood.

Ideology is thus a cornerstone of a peaceful society. Democracy is our answer to balance that we see in nature. Equality. Imbalance always starts with someone behaving as a malevolent God. Arrogant, self interested and lacking empathy or desire to cooperate with others.

We must always use our knowledge to combat immorality not propagate it (propaganda) . Otherwise no one can ever "simply be". Which is a human right (food, water, habitat, medicine, love and entertainment. All of these things are what it is to simply be happy).

We can decide to. It isn't easy, but it is possible. — BC

I think that's my whole point though. We don't have access to being (I'll just equate it to "The Tao" for now). If we have to "get there" and it "isn't easy", then something is seriously wrong here, hence Zapffe's paradox:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Messiah

True. Our awareness of our capabilities and options are seemingly more advanced than the basic instincts of other animals. The realm of human thinking - reflected by the complexity of our language - is not likely accesible to other species. Which are more restrained to basic emotions like fear of death, joy of eating and sex and aggression against competitors. Of course we can also do these things. But we have another layer on top of this layer cake of awareness and capability. — Benj96

Exactly.

What drives our demand for reason instead of "simply be" is a need for control. Because control can prevent you from suffering as you can understand, anticipate and mitigate those effects on you.
Also we are in an "arms race" with one another - the weapon? Knowledge. Awareness. And that comes from the doubt that it will be used wisely or benevolently.

So if one is unsure if the smart kid is good or bad, then they had better become smarter themselves. Assume control of the narrative. Eat or face the possibility you may be eaten.

In an ideal world, a paradise, we have a benevolent God. As such a god would take away our inherent need to be smarter or more omniscient than them knowing that they act as a parent, with our best interests at heart.

And that, is the underlying fact that causes religions to come into being. Trust. Trust or a hope or optimism that the universe/mother nature isn't out to get you, out for blood.

Ideology is thus a cornerstone of a peaceful society. Democracy is our answer to balance that we see in nature. Equality. Imbalance always starts with someone behaving as a malevolent God. Arrogant, self interested and lacking empathy or desire to cooperate with others.

We must always use our knowledge to combat immorality not propagate it (propaganda) . Otherwise no one can ever "simply be". Which is a human right (food, water, habitat, medicine, love and entertainment. All of these things are what it is to simply be happy). — Benj96

No no, your end goal "simply be" description there is off. That is not what I meant. Think more like your first paragraph of what the animal's way-of-being is. All of that last paragraph is not that. You are just creating a narrative (of a scientific humanism variation it looks to be).

Humans developed linear argument in contrast to the self satisfying argument, the cycles and frequencies underlying evolution, time and life. We unravelled the circle and took the line as straight from A to B. But that takes away an original reason. A beginning. A first cause. And so we write our narratives and motivations, we work to inspire ourselves to keep progressing ever since. — Benj96

Yes.. "Personality", "Preference", "Anxiety" seems to fit some basic "causes" that we often provide narratives (reasons) for. And all of these layers.. Reasons > Causes underlying (Personality, preference, anxiety) and their various intermixing of them are part of Zapffe's paradox of our break from the rest of nature:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Messiah

No no, your end goal "simply be" description there is off. That is not what I meant. — schopenhauer1

It may not be what you meant/are searching for/expecting but that doesn't neccesarily mean the description is "off".

It just means that the premises you hold as a basis for expectation of a certain result didn't lead to the same outcome as the outcome/result I provided.

One of us is likely more correct than the other. But we are inherently biased towards the belief that we are correct and the other is wrong.

All i was arguing for is the use of knowledge for moral means. To combat the abuse of knowledge for immoral means. I don't see how this can be "off" but wait patiently for your rebuttal as to why this is not the case.

All i was arguing for is the use of knowledge for moral means. To combat the abuse of knowledge for immoral means. I don't see how this can be "off" but wait patiently for your rebuttal as to why this is not the case. — Benj96

It's off the topic of human operation I was proposing in the OP. The "break" I was referring to with the rest of nature. It wasn't necessarily about morality or a justification for A or B.

Look at the back-and-forth I was having with @green flag for more context of what I am looking for.