haha. No. If you don't get it, far be it from me...

Before I respond to this with anything substantial, please do something other than hit-and-run - WHY is it nonsense? Give me an example that exceeds the global birthrate, which could reduce suffering in any meaningful way?

Sorry, but I don't think there is a "human craving for justification on matters of life and death." I think some humans crave that, but it's foolish to do so, and I know of nothing which makes it a necessary human characteristic, i.e. a part of being human. And like it or not, humans are as much a part of nature as any other animal. — Ciceronianus

Yes, I knew those were the things you would bring up as your responses.

1) I would just replace "matters of life and death" (although when it comes time for those, it will be different perhaps), with rather the "excess" of consciousness concept. You will try to question this as not meaning anything. Deny that that is a thing. But it covers a certain "way of being" whereby we are "unstuck from time" if you will. The inability to truly live in the moment more than it being a case of X deliberative function (work ethic, flow state, cultural feature of believing in the idea of monetary incentive, meditation, etc.).

2) Humans are part of nature, but they are also very much not like the rest of the animal kingdom, and not in a "yes, and a dog isn't a cat" way, but see 1.

than hit-and-run — AmadeusD

He loves to do that kind of posting.. I call it "drive by", but funny you had a similar term. Make a quick post with the most argumentative point and then get out and not respond for a while.

I've stated and clarified my position. My apologies if it's still not clear enough. You antinatalists seem to worry yourselves about what you can't change or control and thereby make yourselves more miserable than you need to be, then spread that self-inflicted, pointless misery in order to have company. You wish were never born, or 'that is a better to never have been born', and yet, like other antinatalists, you're very much still here – apparently, surprise surprise, you'd rather suffer than 'not to be' – oh, but that's self-refuting, ain't it? Well anyway, good luck with all that, Amadeus – tediously spoon-feeding ain't my jam, so I'm off to find a more substantive topic to chew on.

Ive had his position explained to me, and respect it. If i've said something dumb, it must be super-challenging to address it after several years of doing it for other people.
It's unhelpful for me, but he has his reasons :)

I've stated and clarified my position. My apologies if it's still not clear enough. You antinatalists seem to worry yourselves about what you can't change or control and thereby make yourselves more miserable than you need to be, then spread that self-inflicted, pointless misery in order to have company. You wish were never born, or 'that is a better to never have been born', and yet, like other antinatalists, you're very much still here – apparently, surprise surprise, you'd rather suffer than 'not to be' – oh, but that's self-refuting, ain't it? Well anyway, good luck with all that, Amadeus – tediously spoon-feeding ain't my jam, so I'm off to find a more substantive topic to chew on. — 180 Proof

You did not. And no surprise. "you anti-natalists" LOL.
You do not understand anti-natalism.

And while I respect your position (above) your incredible need to condescend is suspicious in the highest, given you haven't accurate portrayed the anti-natalist position.

Ive had his position explained to me, and respect it. If i've said something dumb, it must be super-challenging to address it after several years of doing it for other people.
It's unhelpful for me, but he has his reasons — AmadeusD

Well, perhaps you are similar, so be it.

Not at all. It irks me a lot - But its not his circus if i say something stupid.

But its not his circus if i say something stupid. — AmadeusD

I've noticed he does it in other posts. It's not just him, though. There are posters that make an argumentative or provacative point and just leave. Kind of throw the bomb and turn your back sort of thing.

Yeah, it's not great :( I want to learn!!

Sure, go into a political thread, copy and paste a news article that supports your side and don't say anything.

*slinks away*

*slinks away* — AmadeusD

:wink:

'Humans are not the only animals capable of slow and thoughtful deliberation.' Orca hunting, corvid theory of mind, are other examples that demonstrate complex deliberative thought.

The more general point I am making is that you and Ligotti are in my view mistakenly describing action driven by the 'emotional' as somehow inaccurate and wrong. What is the case for that? It seems to me to privilege an imagined 'rationality' that in action can't be separated from emotion: the two are intertwined. — mcdoodle

Just wondering- do you think there is a difference between an orca hunting in deliberative ways, or even playing games like toss the the human into the sea, and human levels of deliberation? I did not say that other animals can't deliberate, but that our being is of an existential one, whereby deliberation is our primary modus operendi. I can starve myself as an ascetic because of some religious reason. I can kill myself because of depression or simply because life is meaningless. I can decide to jump on one foot whilst singing "la cucaracha" whilst standing on the edge of the Empire State building in my underwear.

It's not just degrees of freedom either. It is the self-reflective capacities to reflect on reflecting on the reflecting. Some animals can eat, drink, take a walk sleep and do it all their lives without much else. They don't need much else. They don't need to force themselves to get caught up in whatever it is to "be". Humans need salves for their being. They can't stand it. It does divide us from the rest of creation. We are aware that we are aware that we are aware, and that does make us a different kind of creature. We know of the excess. We can feel it. We need to fill it.. And if we don't we need to deliberatively choose to not fill it. We know we cannot idle away, unless we choose to. We know we need to find something interesting, unless we choose not to. But choose we must. We know that we must choose too.

[quoteTao Te Ching]Heaven and earth are ruthless;
They see the ten thousand things as dummies.
The wise are ruthless;
They see the people as dummies.

The space between heaven and earth is like a bellows.
The shape changes but not the form;
The more it moves, the more it yields.
More words count less.
Hold fast to the center.[/quote]

Dummies caught between heaven and earth are not entitled to make universal judgements. The cunning of Geist is to use your suffering and your despair to hold you to its purpose. One fantasy fights another.

Hold fast to the center — unenlightened

The cunning of Geist is to use your suffering and your despair to hold you to its purpose. One fantasy fights another. — unenlightened

But it just gave you a judgement- "Hold fast to the center". The supposed neutrality of the "wizened words" of the Tao Te Ching, at the end of the day, is an advice column for radical neutrality. It's still a choice to listen to it, take it in, read it, or whatever. And that choice is a choice made from the deliberative nature of our species. This divides us from the rest of creation which simply exists. We don't need to "catch the winds as like a kite" and try to get things going with fits and starts towards this or that reason, incentive, or outcome. Other animals don't need to figure out the best way to be, they just are.

I doubt anyone would claim we're the same as other animals in all respects, but our differences don't make us any less natural, nor do they doom us to crave what we cannot have and do not need. We don't have to be like the other animals or the lilies of the field to avoid ruminating obsessively on the fact that our existence isn't sanctioned by the universe or justified by it in some sense. We need only accept what is the case. If we speak of poetry we need only "cast a cold eye" on life and death, and pass by as Yeats put it in his poem Under Ben Bulben and his gravestone. I suspect Zigotti is simply projecting his own disappointment in the cosmos on the rest of humanity.

I doubt anyone would claim we're the same as other animals in all respects, but our differences don't make us any less natural — Ciceronianus

This is totally besides the point, red herring on my argument. Of course humans are "natural". It's like making a point when someone says that it's good to eat "natural foods" and you say that "chemicals are natural because they are made of atoms". You are really taking that original point out of context for a cynical red herring ploy. I would then say, "Knock it off and get to the actual heart of the debate".

The point has more to do with what you admitted here:

I doubt anyone would claim we're the same as other animals in all respects, — Ciceronianus

And so just stick to that and don't try to be cute about it by hedging on the word "natural", which we all know humans are in the strictest sense of "made of natural stuff, evolved naturally".

We don't have to be like the other animals or the lilies of the field to avoid ruminating obsessively on the fact that our existence isn't sanctioned by the universe or justified by it in some sense. — Ciceronianus

And that isn't the argument either. No one is saying that the "universe needs to sanction our existence". Rather the point is that we are not like the rest of existence and this leads to a unique circumstance and shifts our mode of being- one of deliberative means, and self-reflection.

If we speak of poetry we need only "cast a cold eye" on life and death, and pass by as Yeats put it in his poem Under Ben Bulben and his gravestone. — Ciceronianus

You notice how you are pleading a case here, "We need only...". You say it as if it is a given, but then proscribe it as a claim one should endorse. But here you demonstrate how humans mode of being is different, as you decry against such claims.

No one is saying that the "universe needs to sanction our existence". Rather the point is that we are not like the rest of existence and this leads to a unique circumstance and shifts our mode of being- one of deliberative means, and self-reflection. — schopenhauer1

I'm uncertain how to describe the view that "we are not like the rest of existence" without understanding it to be a claim that we're separate from it, or excluded or isolated from it. Would you prefer to say that we're abnormal? That would include being unnatural, I think, especially when we're comparing ourselves with the rest of nature.

Assuming you mean "abnormal" or "unnatural" in that sense, while it's true those words are sometimes used in reference to monsters and freaks, I don't see why our abnormality would in that case condemn us to the state of misery which seems to be referred to in this thread.

I find this take in existence interesting. It reminds me of the "blind idiot god": Humanity has found it's god, it's creator, only to discover that it's like a terrible monster, a blind idiot with neither desires nor goals that just shambles forwards mercilessly.

In that sense we can view humans as an "excess". Humans are the product of a runaway process of increased mental capacity, which randomly gave us consciousness. Less some crowning achievement and more some weird freak.

I think it's useful to keep such a perspective in your "arsenal", so to speak. The idea that life is not "about" anything and that there's no reason to assume your existence is built around happiness as some general state can be liberating.

I want to learn!! — AmadeusD

So do I but I can't learn anything from time-wasting questions like yours which a close, or careful, reading of my posts make unnecessary. Lazy (shallow) responses get old quick – especially semantic muddles & word salads. Disagreements are great only when they are substantive and thereby facilitate reciprocal learning.

So do I but I can't learn anything from time-wasting questions like yours which a close, or careful, reading of my posts make unnecessary. Lazy (shallow) responses get old quick – especially semantic muddles & word salads. Disagreements are great only when they are substantive and thereby facilitate reciprocal learning. — 180 Proof

Your attitude betrays a lack of self-awareness. I don't have time for that - So it seems were in agreement, regardless

Take care mate :)

:sweat: Projection (i.e. confession) ... okay.

I promise to never reach your level betise-ness.

I find this take in existence interesting. It reminds me of the "blind idiot god": Humanity has found it's god, it's creator, only to discover that it's like a terrible monster, a blind idiot with neither desires nor goals that just shambles forwards mercilessly.

In that sense we can view humans as an "excess". Humans are the product of a runaway process of increased mental capacity, which randomly gave us consciousness. Less some crowning achievement and more some weird freak. — Echarmion

:up:

Yes, you are now picking up the main themes of the OP. I think this is close to the conclusion of Ligotti in "Nightmare of Being".

I think it's useful to keep such a perspective in your "arsenal", so to speak. The idea that life is not "about" anything and that there's no reason to assume your existence is built around happiness as some general state can be liberating. — Echarmion

It's not necessarily that its not built on happiness, though that is certainly the case.

Assuming you mean "abnormal" or "unnatural" in that sense, while it's true those words are sometimes used in reference to monsters and freaks, I don't see why our abnormality would in that case condemn us to the state of misery which seems to be referred to in this thread. — Ciceronianus

As Ray Brassier wrote in the Foreward to Conspiracy:

We know what verdict is reserved for those foolhardy enough to dissent
from the common conviction according to which “being alive is all right,”
to borrow an insistent phrase from the volume at hand. Disputants of the
normative buoyancy of our race can expect to be chastised for their
ingratitude, upbraided for their cowardice, patronized for their
shallowness. Where self-love provides the indubitable index of psychic
health, its default can only ever be seen as a symptom of psychic debility.
Philosophy, which once disdained opinion, becomes craven when the
opinion in question is whether or not being alive is all right. Suitably
ennobled by the epithet “tragic,” the approbation of life is immunized
against the charge of complacency and those who denigrate it condemned
as ingrates.
“Optimism”; “pessimism”: Thomas Ligotti takes the measure of these
discredited words, stripping them of the patina of familiarity that has
robbed them of their pertinence, and restoring to them some of their
original substance. The optimist fixes the exchange rate between joy and
woe, thereby determining the value of life. The pessimist, who refuses the
principle of exchange and the injunction to keep investing in the future no
matter how worthless life’s currency in the present, is stigmatized as an
unreliable investor.
The Conspiracy against the Human Race sets out what is perhaps the
most sustained challenge yet to the intellectual blackmail that would
oblige us to be eternally grateful for a “gift” we never invited. Being alive
is not all right: this simple not encapsulates the temerity of thinking better
than any platitude about the tragic nobility of a life characterized by a
surfeit of suffering, frustration, and self-deceit. There is no nature worth
revering or rejoining; there is no self to be re-enthroned as captain of its
own fate; there is no future worth working towards or hoping for. Life, in
Ligotti’s outsized stamp of disapproval, is MALIGNANTLY USELESS.
No doubt, critics will try to indict Ligotti of bad faith by claiming that the
writing of this book is itself driven by the imperatives of the life that he
seeks to excoriate. But the charge is trumped-up, since Ligotti explicitly
avows the impossibility for the living to successfully evade life’s grip.
This admission leaves the cogency of his diagnosis intact, for as Ligotti
knows full well, if living is lying, then even telling the truth about life’s
lie will be a sublimated lie.
9
Such sublimation is as close to truth-telling as Ligotti’s exacting nihilism
will allow. Unencumbered by the cringing deference towards social utility
that straightjackets most professional philosophers, Ligotti’s unsparing
dissection of the sophisms spun by life’s apologists proves him to be a
more acute pathologist of the human condition than any sanctimonious
philanthrope. — CATHR - Foreward

I've never been known for my buoyancy. I'm not the most cheerful of individuals. I don't look on life as a gift. But, I think that our lives are largely what our thoughts make it (sorry about paraphrasing Marcus Aurelius).

This point of view seems based on the assumption that we humans are special. We're not. We're instead just another kind of creature in a vast universe, not special but different from others in some respects. I don't see this recognition as a defense mechanism; it's merely what is the case.

Just wondering- do you think there is a difference between an orca hunting in deliberative ways, or even playing games like toss the the human into the sea, and human levels of deliberation? I did not say that other animals can't deliberate, but that our being is of an existential one, whereby deliberation is our primary modus operendi. — schopenhauer1

Humans need s[e]lves for their being. They can't stand it. It does divide us from the rest of creation. We are aware that we are aware that we are aware, and that does make us a different kind of creature. — schopenhauer1

These are propositions I don't accept. The myth of our difference from other animals, especially the intelligent ones, is intertwined with our use and killing of them: it's important for us that they be Other. In the 20th century humans killed around 3 million whales for food and oil, mostly. So far we are still largely mystified by whale communication, though we utilise dolphin intelligence for military purposes.

Orcas hunt as a pod or group, their deliberation is mutual like much of ours, and I don't see the difference between their group activity and ours in the ways you're advocating or implying. There are many anecdotal stories of whale and dolphin suffering, especially in human captivity. We are ignorant of what it is like to be a dolphin or whale, so I don't see the basis for our claim to existential difference: their communication systems are so far largely impenetrable to us, though projects are currently under way to try to remedy our ignorance.

I think you'll find that Ray Brassier supports your pessimism, but disagrees with your differentiation between humans and other animals in the way you propose.

So an interesting idea is to FIRST be charitable to the idea and then see what you can glean from it. But you are categorically not interested, and instead seem to focus on the wrong things, not sure if intentionally or not, but it certainly shuts down dialogue. If you are open to actually creating an interesting dialogue about that which you comment, let me know.

s post is a good example of not necessarily agreeing fully but at least taking up the subject and playing with ideas of it. It seems @mcdoodle is going to do the same approach I'm afraid. As if this argument is about animal intelligence and not about existential differences in animal modes of life is the relevant issue. Is there anyway both of you can learn to figure out how to make a productive understanding of where I'm going besides focusing on red herrings and categorically dismissing ideas which are only partially presented as of now (being I can't copy/paste the WHOLE novel).

shuts down dialogue. If you are open to actually creating an interesting dialogue about that which you comment, let me know. — schopenhauer1

You're free to elucidate why you think humans are special, and lend some credibility to the OP passages. Doesn't seem to appear anywhere - and i think dismissing the objections in teh same fashion might be an issue?

You're free to elucidate why you think humans are special, and lend some credibility to the OP passages. Doesn't seem to appear anywhere - and i think dismissing the objections in teh same fashion might be an issue? — AmadeusD

Bad faith bashing is not welcome either. If you don't understand from what I have stated for why humans are "different" (not necessarily "special"), then I'm not sure what to say. I've already tried to analyze what the "psychogensis" was saying, but people want to focus on animal intelligence (facepalm).

It would be equivalent of the peasants in a Monty Python sketch hearing the wrong things and giving their misinterpretations in an exaggerated cockney accent.

Alright, guv'nor! 'Ow can 'umans be different from other bleed'n animals, yeah? I mean, look at them orcas, they can go on and 'unt in bleedin' pods, ain't they? It's like, "Cor blimey, mate, we got whales doin' group 'untin', and 'ere we are, 'umans, scratchin' our 'eads tryin' to figure out what makes us so bleedin' special!" It's a proper laugh, it is!