Nature shows that with the growth of intelligence comes increased capacity for pain, and it is only with the highest degree of intelligence that suffering reaches its supreme point.

I know this Schopenhauer quote well. But does it stand up to scrutiny? Is there an evidential basis for it? A priori I would have thought it more likely that the opposite holds: that intelligence enables a greater understanding of one's pain, which might in turn mitigate its emotional effects. Over the centuries, many generals and industrialists have justified the sufferings of their soldiery and workforces with this sort of view - as humans have in inflicting pain on the animals they kill for food and pleasure.

I think you again, strongly discount what Ligotti lays out here. — schopenhauer1

Well, I should read some more Ligotti, I agree. I am reflecting mainly on my own arc through life. When I was younger, Sartre and Camus excited me; and now I am older I am still 'committed' to a residue of existentialism. Indeed I continue to think that the sort of discourse we all engage in here on a forum like this is an important kind of commitment, to rational debate amid the rise of unreasoners.

But the notion that humans face a special kind of suffering leaves me cold. People eat another chicken for dinner that has been, out of sight, tortured throughout its short helpless life and, between chews, talk to each other about their profound suffering. They exchange messages on phones made by forced labour that they don't worry about, using rare metals whose mining causes great individual suffering and political strife where it is mined. They talk about wars in other places that their leaders are financing and arming where children die daily. If there is a calculus of suffering, the older I've got, the less I've come to count a generalised human anguish as important - though I still, myself, feel it - paradox remains.

I know this Schopenhauer quote well. But does it stand up to scrutiny? Is there an evidential basis for it? A priori I would have thought it more likely that the opposite holds: that intelligence enables a greater understanding of one's pain, which might in turn mitigate its emotional effects. Over the centuries, many generals and industrialists have justified the sufferings of their soldiery and workforces with this sort of view - as humans have in inflicting pain on the animals they kill for food and pleasure. — mcdoodle

I'm sure @Tom Storm can present his interpretation, but it seems that with the added faculties in humans, there is more heightened awareness and an increase in phenomena of the complexities and challenges of life with all sorts of issues related to societal, personal, and existential struggles related to "being a person with self-awareness of oneself in the world with other people". So there is an added emotional component and awareness of that component on top of the immediate "pain" or "suffering" that might be felt by other animals.

With this comes more deep analysis which leads to stress and anxiety regarding one's immediate situation, how one handled things in the past, and how one is to handle future pain. Animals seem to be more in the present. The deliberative aspect being less self-aware (in the human sense). So while there might be "planning", it doesn't manifest in the self-conscious and degrees of self-knowledge as humans. This brings about its angst.

Existential and value-laden problems such as the meaning, purpose, ideas of responsibility, indecision, knowing one's mortality, and choosing one's morality, brings with it a heavy dose of anxiety and suffering.

Knowing one has desires that are unfulfilled, and the possibility of dwelling on that, or knowing one has missed those goals, or worrying one might not obtain them, or added personal and social pressures of being a self-aware animal.

There are a whole plethora of uniquely human aspects to suffering that other animals seem to not have to contend with. Even just physical pain- the fact that on top of the pain is our awareness of the pain.. Our internalization of our situation as we are going through it. "I want this to stop", "Why is this happening to me?". "This sucks!".

I hopefully do not have to exhaust every aspect for how human ability for self-awareness can lead to greater suffering. With greater amounts of complexity brings greater amounts of emotional baggage- boredom, tedium, sadness, and yes, even happiness. The extremes become heightened as one hangs onto an idea of past, present, and future, and a self, and one's own ideas of one's preferences, and society, and ones psyche in the world at large.

The idea that we have a greater capacity to mitigate pain doesn't seem to negate the fact that we wouldn't need to mitigate the pain if we didn't have this awareness in the first place, so it seems to cancel out, or be a red herring to the problem at hand. It brings up notions too of if it is better not to suffer than to have to suffer and figure out ways around suffering that exists in the first place.

But the notion that humans face a special kind of suffering leaves me cold. People eat another chicken for dinner that has been, out of sight, tortured throughout its short helpless life and, between chews, talk to each other about their profound suffering. They exchange messages on phones made by forced labour that they don't worry about, using rare metals whose mining causes great individual suffering and political strife where it is mined. They talk about wars in other places that their leaders are financing and arming where children die daily. If there is a calculus of suffering, the older I've got, the less I've come to count a generalised human anguish as important - though I still, myself, feel it - paradox remains. — mcdoodle

I mean, that whole paragraph provides great examples of the ways that humans uniquely suffer.

I know this Schopenhauer quote well. But does it stand up to scrutiny? Is there an evidential basis for it? A priori I would have thought it more likely that the opposite holds: that intelligence enables a greater understanding of one's pain, which might in turn mitigate its emotional effects — mcdoodle

No idea if it stands up. It's one of those observations that can't really be tested empirically. I think you're right that the opposite may also be true. I'm not sure of the evidence for this either.

I suspect that a sophisticated or intelligent mind conjures all sorts of ways to magnify suffering, worry about things which may not happen, speculative anxieties galore; and is probably less likely to gain succor from off the rack solutions (folk mythologies, religions) which may appease a less sophisticated mind. But I recognize this is all pretty woolly. I do know my friend John (who is a Catholic priest) is fond of saying that the minds of the simple faithful are always more at ease about the state of the world than those of the more deeply read and considered Catholic. Setting aside some implicit elitism in this, I guess the simple are often certain, while the more nuanced thinkers may be more prone to doubt and festering - the building blocks of suffering and pain. Thoughts?

intelligence enables a greater understanding of one's pain, which might in turn mitigate its emotional effects — mcdoodle

I think this requires an addition of a strong will. Intelligence doesn't equate to a strong will, or control of ones faculties. As @Tom Storm notes, the opposite is as likely, i think. It seems, more often than not, that particularly intelligent people with low skill tend to be extremely depressed.

@Ciceronianus@Echarmion @Tom Storm

Among the unpleasantries of human existence is the abashment we
suffer when we feel our lives to be destitute of meaning with respect to
who we are, what we do, and the general way
39
we believe things to be in the universe. If one doubts that felt meanings
are imperative to our developing or maintaining a state of good feeling,
just lay your eyes on the staggering number of books and therapies for a
market of individuals who suffer from a deficiency of meaning, either in
a limited and localized variant (“I am satisfied that my life has meaning
because I received an ‘A’ on my calculus exam”) or one that is
macrocosmic in scope (“I am satisfied that my life has meaning because
God loves me”). Few are the readers of Norman Vincent Peale’s The
Power of Positive Thinking (1952) who do not feel dissatisfied with who
they are, what they do, and the general way they believe things to be in
the universe. Millions of copies of Peale’s book and its imitations have
been sold; and they are not purchased by readers well satisfied with the
number or intensity of felt meanings in their lives and thus with their
place on the ladder of “subjective well being,” in the vernacular of
positive psychology, a movement that came into its own in the early
years of the twenty-first century with a spate of books about how almost
anyone could lead happily meaningful lives.6 Martin Seligman, the
architect of positive psychology, defines his brainchild as “the science of
what makes life worth living” and synopsized its principles in Authentic
Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your
Potential for Lasting Fulfillment (2002).
There is nothing new, of course, about people searching for a happily
meaningful life in a book. With the exception of sacred texts, possibly
the most successful self-help manual of all time is Emile Coué’s Self
Mastery through Conscious Autosuggestion (1922). Coué was an
advocate of self-hypnosis, and there is little doubt that he had an
authentically philanthropic desire to help others lead more salutary lives.
On his lecture tours, he was greeted by celebrities and dignitaries around
the world. Hordes turned out for his funeral in 1926.
40
Coué is best known for urging believers in his method to repeat the
following sentence: “Day by day, in every way, I am getting better and
better.” How could his readers not feel that their lives had meaning, or
were proceeding toward meaningfulness, by hypnotizing themselves
with these words day by day? While being alive is all right for the
world’s general population, some of us need to get it in writing that this
is so.
Every other creature in the world is insensate to meaning. But those of
us on the high ground of evolution are replete with this unnatural need
which any comprehensive encyclopedia of philosophy treats under the
heading LIFE, THE MEANING OF.In its quest for a sense of meaning,
humanity has given countless answers to questions that were never
posed to it. But though our appetite for meaning may be appeased for a
time, we are deceived if we think it is ever gone for good. Years may
pass during which we are unmolested by LIFE, THE MEANING OF.
Some days we wake up and innocently say, “It’s good to be alive.”
Broken down, this exclamation means that we are experiencing an acute
sense of well-being. If everyone were in such elevated spirits all the
time, the topic of LIFE, THE MEANING OF would never enter our
minds or our philosophical reference books. But an ungrounded
jubilation—or even a neutral reading on the monitor of our moods—
must lapse, either intermittently or for the rest of our natural lives. Our
consciousness, having snoozed awhile in the garden of incuriosity, is
pricked by some thorn or other, perhaps DEATH, THE MEANING OF,
or spontaneously modulates to a minor key due to the vagaries of our
brain chemistry, the weather, or for causes not confirmable.Then the
hunger returns for LIFE, THE MEANING OF, the emptiness must be
filled again, the pursuit resumed. (There is more on meaning in the
section Unpersons contained in the next chapter, “Who Goes There?”)
41
Perhaps we might gain some perspective on our earthly term if we
stopped thinking of ourselves as beings who enact a “life.” This word is
loaded with connotations to which it has no right. Instead, we should
substitute “existence” for “life” and forget about how well or badly we
enact it. None of us “has a life” in the narrative-biographical way we
think of these words. What we have are so many years of existence. It
would not occur to us to say that any man or woman is in the “prime of
existence.” Speaking of “existence” rather than “life” unclothes the latter
word of its mystique. Who would ever claim that “existence is all right,
especially when you consider the alternative”? — CATR- Ligotti

@Tom Storm @Ciceronianus @Echarmion

What do you think of Ligotti's analysis of the pessimist? I actually think this is more a critique of the optimist, but indirectly. He acknowledges and dispatches the well known canards and epithets of the optimistic response.

Pessimism I
Along with every other tendentious mindset, pessimism may be
construed as a fluke of temperament, a shifty word that will just have to
do until a better one comes along. Without the temperament that was
given to them in large portion, pessimists would not see existence as
basically undesirable. Optimists may have fugitive doubts about the
basic desirability of existence, but pessimists never doubt that existence
is basically undesirable. If you interrupted them in the middle of an
ecstatic moment, which pessimists do have, and asked if existence is
basically undesirable, they would reply “Of course” before returning to
their ecstasy. Why they should answer in this way is a closed book. The
conclusions to which temperament lead an individual, whether or not
they are conclusions refractory to those of world society, are simply not
subject to analysis.
Composed of the same dross as all mortals, the pessimist cleaves to
whatever seems to validate his thoughts and emotions. Scarce among us
are those who not only want to think they are right, but also expect
others to affirm their least notion as unassailable. Pessimists are no
exception. But they are few and do not show up on the radar of our race.
Immune to the blandishments of religions, countries, families, and
everything else that puts both average and above-average citizens in the
limelight, pessimists are sideliners in both history and the media.
Without belief in gods or ghosts, unmotivated by a comprehensive
delusion, they could never plant a bomb, plan a revolution, or shed blood
for a cause.
Identical with religions that ask of their believers more than they can
possibly make good on, pessimism is a set of ideals that none can follow
to the letter. Those who indict a pessimist of either pathology or
intellectual recalcitrance are only faking their competence to explain
what cannot be explained: the mystery of
44
why individuals are the way they are. To some extent, however, why
some individuals are the way they are is not a full-fledged mystery.
There are traits that run in families—legacies lurking in the genes of one
generation that may profit or impair those of another. Philosophical
pessimism has been called a maladaptation by those who are concerned
with such things. This call seems indisputably correct. The possibility
must be considered, then, that there is a genetic marker for philosophical
pessimism that nature has all but deselected from our race so that we
may keep on living as we have all these years. Allowing for the theory
that pessimism is weakly hereditary, and is getting weaker all the time
because it is maladaptive, the genes that make up the fiber of ordinary
folk may someday celebrate an everlasting triumph over those of the
congenitally pessimistic, ridding nature of all worry that its protocol of
survival and reproduction for its most conscious species will be
challenged—unless Zapffe is right and consciousness itself is
maladaptive, making philosophical pessimism the correct call despite its
unpopularity among those who think, or say they think, that being alive
is all right. But psycho-biographers do not often take what is adaptive or
maladaptive for our species into account when writing of a chosen
member of the questionably dying breed of pessimists. To them, their
subject’s temperament has a twofold inception: (1) life stories of
tribulation, even though the pessimistic caste has no sorrows exclusive to
it; (2) intractable wrongheadedness, a charge that pessimists could turn
against optimists if the argumentum ad populum were not the world’s
favorite fallacy.
The major part of our species seems able to undergo any trauma without
significantly re-examining its household mantras, including “everything
happens for a reason,” “the show must go on,” “accept the things you
cannot change,” and any other adage that gets people to keep their chins
up. But pess-
45
imists cannot give themselves over to this program, and its catchwords
stick in their throats. To them, the Creation is objectionable and useless
on principle—the worst possible dispatch of bad news.It seems so bad,
so wrong, that, should such authority be unwisely placed into their
hands, they would make it a prosecutable malfeasance to produce a
being who might turn out to be a pessimist.
Disenfranchised by nature, pessimists feel that they have been
impressed into this world by the reproductive liberty of positive thinkers
who are ever-thoughtful of the future. At whatever point in time one is
situated, the future always looks better than the present, just as the
present looks better than the past. No one today would write, as did the
British essayist Thomas De Quincey in the early nineteenth century: “A
quarter of man’s misery is toothache.” Knowing what we know of the
progress toward the alleviation of human misery throughout history, who
would damn their children to have a piteous toothache in the early
nineteenth century, or in times before it, back to the days when Homo
sapiens with toothaches scrounged to feed themselves and shivered in
the cold? To the regret of pessimists, our primitive ancestors could not
see that theirs was not a time in which to produce children.
So at what time was it that people knew enough to say, “This is the
time in which to produce children”? When did we think that enough
progress had been made toward the alleviation of human misery that
children could be produced without our being torn by a crisis of
conscience? The easy years of the Pharaohs and Western antiquity? The
lazy days of the Dark Ages? The palmy decades of the Industrial
Revolution as well as the other industry-driven periods that followed?
The breakthrough era in which advancements in dentistry allayed
humanity of one-quarter of its misery?
But few or none have ever had a crisis of conscience about
46
producing children, because all children have been born at the
best possible time in human history, or at least the one in which the most
progress toward the alleviation of human misery has been made, which
is always the time in which we live and have lived. While we have
always looked back on previous times and thought that their progress
toward the alleviation of human misery was not enough for us to want to
live then, we do not know any better than the earliest Homo
sapiens about what progress toward the alleviation of human misery will
be made in the future, reasonably presuming that such progress will be
made. And even though we may speculate about that progress, we feel
no resentment about not being able to take advantage of it, or not many
of us do. Nor will those of the future resent not living in the world of
their future because even greater progress toward the alleviation of
human misery will by then have been made in medicine, social
conditions, political arrangements, and other areas that are almost
universally regarded as domains in which human life could be better.
Will there ever be an end of the line in our progress toward the
alleviation of human misery when people can honestly say, “This is
without doubt the time produce children”? And will that really be the
time? No one would say, or even want to think that theirs is a time in
which people will look back on them from the future and thank their
stars that they did not live in such a barbaric age that had made so little
progress toward the alleviation of human misery and still produced
children. As if anyone ever cared or will ever care, this is what the
pessimist would say: “There has never been and never will be a time in
which to produce children. Now will forever be a bad time for doing
that.” Moreover, the pessimist would advise each of us not to look too
far into the future or we will see the reproachful faces of the unborn
looking back at us from the radiant mist of their nonexistence. — Ligotti- CATHR

Perhaps @Count Timothy von Icarus would like to join the discussion.. There's always an open invitation to @BC and

@Wayfarer might be interested.

I tend to interpret "pessimist" and "optimist" according to their more common, less philosophical, meanings. I think I can be called a pessimist because I don't expect a good, or the best, result in practical matters of the world, nor do I expect the best of people in such matters. Years of practicing law and seeing the mess we can make of matters and each other may have contributed to the development of that point of view. But this is a view of people and what to expect of them. It's not something which constitutes a view of the greater world. I'm not "pessimistic" regarding the world; I don't think it will act in its own self-interest, or is lazy, or malicious, or inclined to act badly--those are human attributes.

Optimists may have fugitive doubts about the
basic desirability of existence, but pessimists never doubt that existence
is basically undesirable. — Ligotti- CATHR

I don't see any more reason to think that there is an objective fact of the matter as to the desireability of existence, than there is an objective fact of the matter as to the desireability of anchovy pizza.

Can you provide some reason to think that the idea of there being an objective fact of the matter is something to be taken seriously?

FWIW, I took a look at my Kindle copy of CATHR and saw that I got 26% of the way before losing interest.

It's not something which constitutes a view of the greater world. I'm not "pessimistic" regarding the world; I don't think it will act in its own self-interest, or is lazy, or malicious, or inclined to act badly--those are human attributes. — Ciceronianus

So you bring up a good point, but by way of misinterpreting Pessimism. I have made this point often, Pessimism "proper" IS indeed a philosophical stance. It's right on my profile if you care to look. It is the idea that there is indeed negative values in the world (like suffering), and that it is not worth it. Even making the value judgement, "There is no value" is a judgement of value. What someone declares, and how one lives is often different.. "I don't suffer" and then feeling immense pain and anguish are two often contradicting things that a suffering-denialist would have to square. But I am getting too far afield...

Philosophical Pessimism is the view that the world suffering is immensely inherent to life, and would therefore be something not preferable. It is not simply a temperament that "things will go badly in the future". That would be the bastardized "common" pessimism.

I'm pretty sure you are interested in Stoicism. What if someone says "I am a Stoic because I hide my emotions". You would say, "That is a misunderstanding of Stoicism. Stoicism is a whole philosophy and worldview, not the bastardized common version of "Not showing emotion". The same goes for Romantic.. "I am a Romantic".. could mean the aesthetic movement of the 19th century for artistic escapism, nature, and emotion, or it could mean someone really likes watching romantic comedies. To mix the two up would be intentional for rhetorical purposes in a debate to deny Pessimism its proper place in philosophy, or it is simply ignorance of the difference. Which is it for you? Or am I missing what you have done here in your mixing the two?

I don't know if I have much to add. I read Grimscribe as part of a book club a while back and I really liked it. I've had people explain "Conspiracy Against the Human Race," to me before, but I've never read it.

From the overview I got, it the ideas sounded somewhat similar to those of R. Scott Bakker, who is another fantasy/horror author I really love.

That said, I love the fiction, not all of the broader philosophy. It seems to me like it all hinges on the claim that the world is indeed meaningless, and even more the claim that freedom is illusory. I don't think there are good reasons to believe these claims.

For example, there seems to be serious problems with epiphenomenalism. If epiphenomenalism were true, there would be absolutely no reason for our perceptions to correspond to reality. This being the case, there would also be absolutely no reason to believe what our perceptions tell us about the inevitability of death, how we are controlled by hormones, etc. — i.e., no reason to believe that epiphenomenalism describes reality in the first place.

Without these claims re "meaning and freedom," the rest of the pessimismtic claims seem unsupportable.

The idea that all thought contravening the conclusions is an elaborate "coping mechanism," rubs me the wrong way. It's possible to rebut literally any position on the basis of such "arguments from psychoanalysis." Marxists have a similar way for explaining any disagreement with their theses.

You could just as well say that people embrace pessimism because they are glum depressives who need an excuse for being sad— it's a "coping mechanism."

The "meaninglessness" of existence question is an interesting one though. I like Nagel's article on this "absurdity," https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/The%2520Absurd%2520-%2520Thomas%2520Nagel.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjp9ZDVx4WEAxUDkmoFHTYOBywQFnoECBoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1CdbUWlHJRrzwgiaCWZH1N

At least Nagel asks the right question, which is: "what would make life meaningful?"

If we lived for 10,000 years? If we were the ruler of a galactic empire for five million years? If the entire universe only contained our solar system? If the entire universe consisted of one small town and we were one of its 80 residents? If our body grew to the size of a billion galaxies?

People often bring up the scale of the universe when they say life "obviously lacks meaning," but why exactly should fudging around the length of our lives or our size relative to everything else that exists have anything to do with meaning? It's a weird idea when you think about it.

I don't see any more reason to think that there is an objective fact of the matter as to the desireability of existence, than there is an objective fact of the matter as to the desireability of anchovy pizza. — wonderer1

Why that itself is a value judgement. Humans are indeed strewn with value judgements- I would argue that is how we even go about our normal daily routines. You place value in something (goals/reasons), and then you set about with narratives and routines and habits and efforts and actions to make them happen.

Surely if you can make a judgement on anchovy pizza, you can make a judgement about life. Surely, if you can make a judgement that it was worth answering this post on an online philosophy forum, you can make judgements on life. Those judgements will be made, it's how you will make them. So I think the idea of "objective fact" is irrelevant, it is a human concern, and that is all that matters.

FWIW, I took a look at my Kindle copy of CATHR and saw that I got 26% of the way before losing interest. — wonderer1

Ok.

That said, I love the fiction, not all of the broader philosophy. It seems to me like it all hinges on the claim that the world is indeed meaningless, and even more the claim that freedom is illusory. I don't think there are good reasons to believe these claims. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think that is the end of his argument though. His ideas are circular and spiral-like. Read the passage above to understand what I am saying. He will criticize pessimism, but in doing so, make scathing critiques of pessimism's interlocutor.. as he is doing in that passage (and ones I quoted before it). I'd actually like to see what you think of his style there, what he is doing with his prose, and how it intersects with the lesser critique (of pessimism by way of interlocutor), and greater critique (searing cynicism of optimism, hacking at its arguments from the backdoor).

Without these claims the rest of the pessimismtic claims collapse. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think so at all. A worldview on consciousness would have nothing one way or another to say about the value of living/existence.

If we lived for 10,000 years? If we were the ruler of a galactic empire for five million years? If the entire universe only contained our solar system? If the entire universe consisted of one small town and we were one of its 80 residents? If our body grew to the size of a billion galaxies?

People often bring up the scale of the universe when they say life "obviously lacks meaning," but why exactly should fudging around the length of our lives or our size relative to everything else that exists have anything to do with meaning? It's a weird idea when you think about it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how in depth Ligotti goes in answering and addressing these philosophers.. I would have to look if he has Nagel in there, but he addresses similar ideas/philosophies nonetheless. He is delightfully/playfully anti-optimism but with acknowledgements of the canards thrown at the Pessimist.

People often bring up the scale of the universe when they say life "obviously lacks meaning," but why exactly should fudging around the length of our lives or our size relative to everything else that exists have anything to do with meaning? It's a weird idea when you think about it. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yeah, that's not Ligotti though.

Surely if you can make a judgement on anchovy pizza, you can make a judgement about life. — schopenhauer1

Sure, I place positive or negative values on things routinely, but I also recognize that the way I do so is idiosyncratic aspect of the way I am and not some general fact about human existence. I don't see how you think it can be justified to generalize about the subject as you seem to.

Like I said, I might not be very helpful :rofl: . The whole scale thing is just something I've seen thrown out in favor of pessimism quite often. I used to think it had a great deal of merit and use it myself. And then one day it struck me that it is actually one of the sillier philosophical arguments out there.

Sure, I place positive or negative values on things routinely, but I also recognize that the way I do so is idiosyncratic aspect of the way I am and not some fact about about human existence. I don't see how you think it can be justified to generalize about the subject as you seem to. — wonderer1

Oh, I would just say to re-read what Ligotti says at exactly this kind of critique.. and I'll add this addition. So re-read and then add this part too:

But as to a direct answer from myself, life's goodness, whether to keep living, whether to reproduce gets to the heart of the human project itself... One can still be alive, but see it as negative in value.. whatever the current psychological state of the moment is. There are several ways that "generally" this is so, and it's not just the individual's temperament. It is the structural way that we face suffering, both Eastern and common views of suffering, as well as the de facto impositions of human life. And indeed, human life is something qualitatively different, in how our consciousness is self-reflective and our understanding of suffering, our dialogue with it and ourselves, our self-understanding, not just that we straight up "suffer". All these make for a value judgement leading to the Pessimist's stance towards life.

Like I said, I might not be very helpful :rofl: . The whole scale thing is just something I've seen thrown out in favor of pessimism quite often. I used to think it had a great deal of merit and use it myself. And then one day it struck me that it is actually one of the sillier philosophical arguments out there. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I can see that. Those seem like quite irrelevant arguments for Pessimism. Pessimism to me, is always about the "internal".. the "human condition" component. Contending with suffering and knowing one suffers. Deliberation itself- authenticity means we are always tacitly saying "yes" if we still choose to move forward and live. The "yes" doesn't mean "no rebellion" against this condition. The rebellious stance is where the Pessimist lives, but not by way of Camus or Nietzsche (say YES to the situation that one is thrown into), but by way of Schopenhauer, "Screw the whole project! Let it end by way of acknowledgement of what is going on."

What do you think of Ligotti's analysis of the pessimist? I actually think this is more a critique of the optimist, but indirectly. — schopenhauer1

Yes, he's really tacking both.

Can't find much to disagree with. I think a lot of folk are afraid of pessimism and work hard to deny their own tendencies in this area just in case it makes things even worse. Whistling in the dark is a popular human reaction.

Will there ever be an end of the line in our progress toward the
alleviation of human misery when people can honestly say, “This is
without doubt the time produce children”? — Ligotti- CATHR

This raises another question for me. Is life worth living even if suffering is almost eliminated? Let's say there are no wars and there is economic and political equality and medicine can cure most diseases. What then? I think one still has to face the question is living worth all the work and effort? All the psychological exertion. I've had a fortunate life (so far) with minimal suffering, but if I had the choice would I want to do it all again or not be born at all? I suspect I would choose the latter. I think this may well be dispositional as Ligotti suggests. I have always been reluctant to universalise my own tendencies and acknowledge how many people who have suffered intensely still 'love life' and cherish their time.

Can't find much to disagree with. I think a lot of folk are afraid of pessimism and work hard to deny their own tendencies in this area just in case it makes things even worse. Whistling in the dark is a popular human reaction. — Tom Storm

Good analysis! I think this whole book (being a "non-fiction" work of "horror) is grappling with EXACTLY this fear of pessimism you are bringing up.. He will continue to hammer this point home in various angles. It is cool that you picked up on precisely this tendency. It is more a critique of the optimist by way of the optimist's critique of the pessimist, which I find delightfully interesting in its nuance. That's my take at least. Whatever you think of pessimism, his searing criticisms are hard to completely critique, as he already incorporates the critique and spits it back out.

This raises another question for me. Is life worth living even if suffering is almost eliminated? Let's say there are no wars and there is economic and political equality and medicine can cure most diseases. What then? I think one still has to face the question is living worth all the work and effort? All the psychological exertion. I've had a fortunate life (so far) with minimal suffering, but if I had the choice would I want to do it all again or not be born at all? I suspect I would choose the latter. I think this may well be dispositional as Ligotti suggests. I have always been reluctant to universalise my own tendencies and acknowledge how many people who have suffered intensely still 'love life' and cherish their time. — Tom Storm

Yep all good questions. This is precisely the kind of thing that I think is most important to ask. It may well be dispositional, but is there a case that overrides simple disposition? Schopenhauer's case is that you can't eradicate Suffering as it is part-and-parcel of the human condition- in fact more acutely so found in the human condition more than any other animals, because of self-understanding. This is generally the Philosophical Pessimist's case. The mere fact we are asking this question belies and underbelly of doubt about if all is well and ends well.

I'll provide some more quotes to this effect, but I think Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is the closest to a "model" for the modern man's (supposed) antidote to such generalized ideas on "EXISTENCE". That is to say, whatever your beliefs this way or that, it is about peak experiences that make it worth it.. One must provide safety, security, social bonds, physical needs, and then at the top is supposedly "self-actualization", which I gather to be "peak experiences". One is being true to one's values (Nietzschean-esque).. I imagine the world-travelling, hobbyist, sports-enthusiast, mountain-climbing, civic duty participating, citizen, supposedly reveling in the balance between skill, challenge, preference, and aptitude.. The perfect balancer of personal interests and social interests.. Flow states are had readily and easily. One is able to express one's talents, etc.

I'll provide some more quotes to this effect, but I think Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is the closest to a "model" for the modern man's (supposed) antidote to such generalized ideas on "EXISTENCE". That is to say, whatever your beliefs this way or that, it is about peak experiences that make it worth it.. One must provide safety, security, social bonds, physical needs, and then at the top is supposedly "self-actualization", which I gather to be "peak experiences". One is being true to one's values (Nietzschean-esque).. I imagine the world-travelling, hobbyist, sports-enthusiast, mountain-climbing, civic duty participating, citizen, supposedly reveling in the balance between skill, challenge, preference, and aptitude.. The perfect balancer of personal interests and social interests.. Flow states are had readily and easily. One is able to express one's talents, etc. — schopenhauer1

What you write here has often interested me. I am a person with limited interests and no hobbies. I find most activities boring - from travel to sport. I am not a 'suck the marrow out of life' style person. I am happy to sit in a room and read or listen to music or just potter about. I have no interest in setting challenges and consider the vulgar Nietzschean-esquee pretentions to be the opposite of my own inclinations. I am quite happy to loiter around the foothills of Maslow and avoid the peaks. I like predictability and quiet. Now I say this as someone who had some wild times when younger - booze, women, lawlessness - which ultimately got tired. I think hobbies and sport and travel are all distractions from meaninglessness. We used to have religion for this and now it's Instagram and TikTok. I don't think it makes much difference.

I have no interest in setting challenges and consider the vulgar Nietzschean-esquee pretentions to be the opposite of my own inclinations. — Tom Storm

Good word here...

I am quite happy to loiter around the foothills of Maslow and avoid the peaks. — Tom Storm

That sounds very Ligotti-esque itself, which is a good thing :smile:.

I think hobbies and sport and travel are all distractions from meaninglessness. We used to have religion for this and now it's Instagram and TikTok. I don't think it makes much difference. — Tom Storm

I don't have much to add because I wholeheartedly agree here. Modern man has made it about as you said "sucking the marrow out of life" by accumulating (and projecting) being at the peak of something (well, when everyone isn't as you say "distracting themselves with social media"). That is to say, if you notice, everyone wants to project the same intense experiences... TRAVEL (the more exotic the better, so better have some obscure African/Asian/South American destination there too), OUTDOORS (better show pictures at X landmark and showed you really struggled to get there in an arduous hike), EVENTS (concerts, political rallies, whatever), EXTREME stuff (fast X.. cars, trains, planes, rides, adventure stuff), or simply playing games (electronic or analog) markers like this. I can try to tie this in to the commodification of human experience, but I am not really trying to do that. Rather, I am just showcasing the struggle for humans to come up with modern ways to inject meaning. Thus, sporting, games, hobbies, travel, and various experiences become the default for modern man to hang their hat on. But, as you said, it doesn't make a difference. As I stated this represents:

and then at the top is supposedly "self-actualization", which I gather to be "peak experiences". One is being true to one's values (Nietzschean-esque).. I imagine the world-travelling, hobbyist, sports-enthusiast, mountain-climbing, civic duty participating, citizen, supposedly reveling in the balance between skill, challenge, preference, and aptitude.. The perfect balancer of personal interests and social interests.. Flow states are had readily and easily. One is able to express one's talents, etc. — schopenhauer1

They are all doing what Zapffe explained (ignoring, isolating, anchoring, and sublimating).

As adumbrated above, Zapffe arrived at two central determinations
regarding humanity’s “biological predicament.” The first was that
consciousness had overreached the point of being a sufferable property
of our species, and to minimize this problem we must minimize our
consciousness. From the many and various ways this may be done [schop1 note: acknowledgement this is simply a model, not exhaustive],
Zapffe chose to hone in on four principal strategies.
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(1) ISOLATION. So that we may live without going into a free-fall of
trepidation, we isolate the dire facts of being alive by relegating them to a
remote compartment of our minds. They are the lunatic family members in the
attic whose existence we deny in a conspiracy of silence.
(2) ANCHORING. To stabilize our lives in the tempestuous waters of chaos,
we conspire to anchor them in metaphysical and institutional “verities”—God,
Morality, Natural Law, Country, Family—that inebriate us with a sense of
being official, authentic, and safe in our beds.
(3) DISTRACTION. To keep our minds unreflective of a world of horrors,
we distract them with a world of trifling or momentous trash. The most operant
method for furthering the conspiracy, it is in continuous employ and demands
only that people keep their eyes on the ball—or their television sets,
their government’s foreign policy, their science projects, their careers, their
place in society or the universe, etc.
(4) SUBLIMATION. That we might annul a paralyzing stage fright at what
may happen to even the soundest bodies and minds, we sublimate our fears by
making an open display of them. In the Zapffean sense, sublimation is the
rarest technique utilized for conspiring against the human race. Putting into
play both deviousness and skill, this is what thinkers and artistic types do when
they recycle the most demoralizing and unnerving aspects of life as works in
which the worst fortunes of humanity are presented in a stylized and removed
manner as entertainment. In so many words, these thinkers and artistic types
confect products that provide an escape from our suffering by a bogus
simulation of it—a tragic drama or philosophical woolgathering, for instance.
Zapffe uses “The Last Messiah” to showcase how a literary-philosophical
composition cannot perturb its creator or anyone else with the severity of trueto-life horrors but only provide a pale representation of these horrors, just as a
King Lear’s weep-
32
ing for his dead daughter Cordelia cannot rend its audience with the throes of
the real thing.
By watchful practice of the above connivances, we may keep ourselves
from scrutinizing too assiduously the startling and dreadful mishaps that
may befall us. — Ligotti- CATHR

but if I had the choice would I want to do it all again or not be born at all? I suspect I would choose the latter. — Tom Storm

That's interesting...I. on the other hand, would always choose to do it all again. I've had hard times, but my underlying disposition is one of loving being alive.

It seems to me that this difference of disposition speaks to there being no fact of the matter as to whether life is worth living.

It seems to me that this difference of disposition speaks to there being no fact of the matter as to whether life is worth living. — Janus

I remember seeing an interview with Gore Vidal (who had an extraordinary life), he said that there were plenty of golden moments over his long and successful life (he was round 70 then) but he would never want relive a single one of them. I found this fascinating and immediately understood.

I found this fascinating and immediately understood. — Tom Storm

:up:

To mix the two up would be intentional for rhetorical purposes in a debate to deny Pessimism its proper place in philosophy, or it is simply ignorance of the difference. Which is it for you? Or am I missing what you have done here in your mixing the two? — schopenhauer1

I didn't think I was mixing them. I merely say that "pessimism" as I understand it, as I would use it in a sentence, isn't "philosophical pessimism" as I understand it. One can anticipate negative outcomes, or think that "the worst" will more likely happen than not, without making a general judgment regarding life or the world. I don't question whether there's such a thing as "philosophical pessimism."

I found this fascinating and immediately understood. — Tom Storm

I don't get it, and would want to ask questions in order to have a better sense of where Vidal was coming from. It seems to me to be a matter disposition.

There are things I have done that I deeply regret, and I wouldn't want to 'do it all over again'. However, I think I'm just biologically disposed to appreciate the long strange trip humanity is on.