This is what we want. — Paine
Excellent quote!! SO much to unpack there actually. — schopenhauer1
I want everyone from sub-Saharan Africa, to Western Europe, Mongolia, and North America to achieve the level of existential ennui on par with Cioran. In other words we need to get past the socio-economic, and acute psychological issues to the existential ones so we can all see the human condition as it is. — schopenhauer1
Same with Schopenhauer. 'I'd rather be this gloomy asshole than anyone else.' What is the perverse pleasure here? A glorious doomed rebellion against godnature or something. — plaque flag
But I do think taking seriously the pessimistic mindset is significant and not just a fun thing to toy around with. I think it leads to greater empathy (goes with commiseration). The gallows-humor is actually also part of this. — schopenhauer1
Toying around with it is the transcendence of gallowshumor. That detachment from the mortal self is the 'demonic' Will glorying in its indestructibility, seeing through the triviality of a merely personal death to the ongoing life of the species. Cosmic humor, what Blake might call perception of the infinite, is like some ironic irreverent twist on Nirvana. Golden laughter, winged feet. Easier talked about than activated of course. But traces of it are all over that Freud quote and all through Cioran. — plaque flag
The essential feature of the morality built upon the basis of Von Hartmann's philosophy is the realization that all is one and that, while every attempt to gain happiness is illusory, yet before deliverance is possible, all forms of the illusion must appear and be tried to the utmost. Even he who recognizes the vanity of life best serves the highest aims by giving himself up to the illusion, and living as eagerly as if he thought life good. It is only through the constant attempt to gain happiness that people can learn the desirability of nothingness; and when this knowledge has become universal, or at least general, deliverance will come and the world will cease. No better proof of the rational nature of the universe is needed than that afforded by the different ways in which men have hoped to find happiness and so have been led unconsciously to work for the final goal. The first of these is the hope of good in the present, the confidence in the pleasures of this world, such as was felt by the Greeks. This is followed by the Christian transference of happiness to another and better life, to which in turn succeeds the illusion that looks for happiness in progress, and dreams of a future made worth while by the achievements of science. All alike are empty promises, and known as such in the final stage, which sees all human desires as equally vain and the only good in the peace of Nirvana. — Eduard von Hartmann Wiki
Toying around with it is the transcendence of gallowshumor. — plaque flag
Glad you brought up Von Hartmann. I really want to get into him but I have no idea how. His “philosophy of the unconscious” seems like a massive tome dealing with all sorts of crap and owes a lot to Hegel. Doesn’t help that he seems very obscure by todays standards — Albero
It has been my observation that people generally only toy around with pessimism and indulge in gallows humour when they are not actually facing the gallows (metaphorically speaking, of course). — Janus
Working in the metaphysical framework of Schopenhauer, Mainländer sees the "will" as the innermost core of being, the ontological arche. However, he deviates from Schopenhauer in important respects. With Schopenhauer the will is singular, unified and beyond time and space. Schopenhauer's transcendental idealism leads him to conclude that we only have access to a certain aspect of the thing-in-itself by introspective observation of our own bodies. What we observe as will is all there is to observe, nothing more. There are no hidden aspects. Furthermore, via introspection we can only observe our individual will. This also leads Mainländer to the philosophical position of pluralism.[2]: 202 The goals he set for himself and for his system are reminiscent of ancient Greek philosophy: what is the relation between the undivided existence of the "One" and the everchanging world of becoming that we experience.
Additionally, Mainländer accentuates on the idea of salvation for all of creation. This is yet another respect in which he differentiates his philosophy from that of Schopenhauer. With Schopenhauer, the silencing of the will is a rare event. The artistic genius can achieve this state temporarily, while only a few saints have achieved total cessation throughout history. For Mainländer, the entirety of the cosmos is slowly but surely moving towards the silencing of the will to live and to (as he calls it) "redemption".
Mainländer theorized that an initial singularity dispersed and expanded into the known universe. This dispersion from a singular unity to a multitude of things offered a smooth transition between monism and pluralism. Mainländer thought that with the regression of time, all kinds of pluralism and multiplicity would revert to monism and he believed that, with his philosophy, he had managed to explain this transition from oneness to multiplicity and becoming.[16]
Death of God
Main article: God is dead
Despite his scientific means of explanation, Mainländer was not afraid to philosophize in allegorical terms. Formulating his own "myth of creation", Mainländer equated this initial singularity with God.
Mainländer reinterprets Schopenhauer's metaphysics in two important aspects. Primarily, in Mainländer's system there is no "singular will". The basic unity has broken apart into individual wills and each subject in existence possesses an individual will of his own. Because of this, Mainländer can claim that once an "individual will" is silenced and dies, it achieves absolute nothingness and not the relative nothingness we find in Schopenhauer. By recognizing death as salvation and by giving nothingness an absolute quality, Mainländer's system manages to offer "wider" means for redemption. Secondarily, Mainländer reinterprets the Schopenhauerian will-to-live as an underlying will-to-die, i.e. the will-to-live is the means towards the will-to-die.[17] — Philipp Mainlander Wiki
As far as I can tell, much of spirituality is a version of nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so. — plaque flag
I'd say it is more precisely attachment to things which makes them bad; changing the way you think may be a start, but it is not enough. — Janus
love is everything
the universal glue that binds
yet bondage is unkind
to love so let it go—
although
you held on tight
you must be ever ready
to say “goodnight” — Janus
I think we agree that there are limits to mere thought. I'm trying to sketch what I see as what many spiritual life strategies have in common as 'causi sui' autonomy projects. The body remains stubbornly foundational. The world can't be completely conquered with attitude and philosophy. — plaque flag
The philosopher must detach this beauty from the fragile and unruly flesh and convert it to an imperishable possession which time cannot steal.
I'm not claiming that this can be achieved completely or even that it's desirable. I'm just trying to sketch a particular enactment of the hero with a thousand faces. — plaque flag
Through suffering and reflection, the lover separates projection from reality, becoming less capable of intense passion. This is the form of beauty becoming detached from individual bodies and being recognizing as an idea (etymologically a [projected] image). — plaque flag
I can relate to what you say. Nobby Brown compared lifedeath with undeath or immortality. The immortal is neither alive nor dead. It's frozen. While life, in motion, is always also death.So, I don't think seeking the imperishable is the royal road to eternity, in fact quite the opposite. — Janus
Yes, the ancient idea of passion was actually related to passivity, to being helplessly affected. The more modern idea is to love whatever is your calling intensely. — Janus
I think the poem speaks to the idea that loving another should honor their individuality and freedom to the utmost. If this involves letting them go their own way, then so be it. — Janus
Spiritual disciplines and philosophy conceived in this way are not concerned with discussion and the pursuit of discursive truth so much as they are concerned with altering consciousness and experience. — Janus
As a half-civilized man with some grey hairs creeping in, I agree. But I can't help but think that only a cooling of passion makes this possible. 'I can live without you' seems implied in that admittedly mature attitude. Fair enough...but then life moves toward being a spectacle on the screen for an ego. I speak of this ambivalently. I understand the pull of radical autonomy and basically reconceiving marriage as an intense friendship that includes sex (though sex too loses some of its barbaric-mystic meaning here.) — plaque flag
So I would think that he certainly acknowledges the reality of 'the imperishable', although I'm only up to the first few chapters of the book. — Wayfarer
Schop is saying that philosophy's task is purely critical - in the Kantian sense of making us aware of the limitations of discursive reason. It 'drops you at the border', so to speak. — Wayfarer
I'm reading the Wallace bio. I think Schopenhauer recognizes two imperishables -- the demonic Will and something like Platonic forms. A strange fusion, really, but fascinating. — plaque flag
Whence the Forms from Will? And "whence" is time, space, causality? WHAT is projecting this? Mind? Then where does that fit in with Will and Representation? — schopenhauer1
Darwin and Dawkins 'naturalize' Schopenhauer. The 'Will' is an evolved set of 'irrational' motives and fears that serve the 'stupid' replication of genes. — plaque flag
I think it's funny that the atomism of Western society only focuses on economic institutions. It creates its own self-contained nihilism. If we take anything like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs at all seriously, why wouldn't society be about properly slotting people's "needs" rather than market-driven transactionism? — schopenhauer1
It is all in our heads which is somehow the Will presenting itself to itself via this weird dynamic of objectification conditioned by time, space, and causality. But WHERE is time, space, and causality coming from? — schopenhauer1
FWIW, I agree that it's not rational or righteous. There's some brutal game theory involve, probably some thermodynamics. To oversimplify, whatever form of society can out reproduce and outfight other societies will end up with the land. Individualistic capitalism proved massively productive, even with all its corruption. It doesn't matter that it has no exit strategy and assumes endless growth. — plaque flag
Well, I did start a thread called "Entropy and Enthalpy" and asked what the ethical implication is. — schopenhauer1
I leave you with a ChatGPT poem of minutia: — schopenhauer1
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.