I see language not only as expressing, but alao as informing and contributing to the construction of, our conceptualizations. — Brainglitch

Agreed..

you are faultily socialised and so have that particular problem - not the global problem - is what has to be somehow repaired.

Which is where positive psychology comes in. >:) — apokrisis

So who makes the decision about the "faultily" part? The majority? Apokrisis? Enlightenment thinking?

So culturally, that Romantic backlash is what is informing your own current socialisation some 400 years later. It is the backdrop picture on which you "self-reflect". — apokrisis

I don't know whether to point out that people had these thoughts before the 1800s, or to try to agree with you in the spirit of "who cares if it is Romantic or not.. if Romantic means a greater self-awareness.. the label really doesn't matter to me".

It seems a really big issue to me. Even in philosophy - which is suppose to have a handle on these things - folk just don't have a clue about the proper definition of "being human" in a way that speaks to what is natural. Whether you think we are special souls or meaningless machines, these are both vivid cultural myths (that are serving their own largely unreflected-upon purposes). — apokrisis

You are unfairly characterizing my ideas as "special souls" or "meaningless machines" . I disagree with both, but you do not pick up the nuance or choose to downplay it to make a characterization.

And he who disobeys us[the law] is, as we maintain, thrice wrong: first, because in disobeying us he is disobeying his parents; secondly, because we are the authors of his education; thirdly, because he has made an agreement with us that he will duly obey our commands; and he neither obeys them nor convinces us that our commands are wrong; and we do not rudely impose them, but give him the alternative of obeying or convincing us; that is what we offer and he does neither. — Cavacava

Yes, I also was reminded of Socrates' reasoning.. If the state is what reared you, and you decide to live under its conditions, you should then respect the norms and dictates of the state.. so he seems to imply. But is this really sound logic? We are born into society and can self-reflect.. though we are reared by the society and it definitely shapes us the individual.. can't we resent the situation even if we are one and part of it the same?

We owe nothing to the state, we owe everything to the universal value of human life. — Cavacava

Bringing it closer to home.. do you owe society by following the dictates of a bossman? The bossman represents the institution that you are producing for.. which in turn provides services, products, and utility for society.. .Thus do you owe him your time, resources, and labor not only because of an implicit work agreement, but some broader appeal to social norms that this is the way it is.. we mus survive in this capacity in this society? As you mention with Socrates... if you live here.. these are the norms.. don't try to circumvent that which creates the survival situation which we are in?

And ironically this is likely the main reason for your pessimism. You exist in a consumer culture that wants you to decide what colour of iPod is "you". You exist in a Romantic culture where everyone must be the star of their own existential legend. — apokrisis

There might be narcissists that think highly of their own importance, but I think most people are aware on some level how they are are simply part of their group. What you seem to downplay is EVEN THOUGH we are shaped by the group, we still have WHAT IT FEELS LIKE to be an individual.. Your own private experience that though similar are still one's own.. YOU the INDIVIDUAL are still forced into the interplay of the individual and group.. and thus one does not have to do what you seem to advocate which is take the bait of judging the terms of condition as a good thing simply because it is, and not being critical.. even if one cannot escape the circumstances. I really don't give a hoot if you think that makes me a Romantic because I believe the individual can be critical of something that cannot be changed.

So there is definitely a problem - an imbalance. And it starts with believing we are "born an individual" rather than that individuality is an acquired life skill. And that for quite natural reasons, most people may in fact feel happier "fitting in" rather than "standing out".

So fitting in should be the culturally encouraged habit of preference. And yet standing out has become the odd and unnatural desire. What, at this point in human history, could be fueling such a turn of events? ;) — apokrisis

This is not really about fitting in but being forced the responsibilities of the group.. You make it seem like we do not have self-reflection.. I mean maybe at one point, we didn't think like this.. but we are also not being constantly impinged by purely "here and now" decision making (i.e. food sources, wild animal attacks, weather patterns). If civilization also brought with it the self-reflection of how the individual fits with the group, then so that is what we have.

Related to this post, perhaps the concepts in the OP are supposed to show different levels of abstraction. At what point are abstractions real? Are bear attacks real, or is it the bear harming a human real? Or is it the bear is simply moving at a particular time and space? Context is key. Are all events ontologically equal? Are all abstractions ontologically equal?

Also perhaps the OP was trying to convey the almost absurd amount of contexts one can find themselves in. Being involved with a bear attack, being part of a foraging society, being a molecule doing its thing, they are a wide set of phenomena with so many different contexts and levels of being. Are they at all able to relate or are they a part of their own little sphere of ontological being?

I think it's the other way round. — ralfy

How so?

They're all mentioned in a work entitled "Where God went wrong" which fell through a black hole in 3016 and emerged in Peterborough in 1936 only to lay hidden beneath a discarded Ford Model T until a recent land reclamation project? As good as any other answer! — Barry Etheridge

Combine this with John's story.

Indeed, how things can be classified can change the context of how the phenomena is viewed.

They are all strings of symbols that refer to (mean) something other than the symbols themselves. What they refer to is some external process to the mind. The organization of the symbols and the establishment of the correlation of the symbols to their external process is a process of the mind. — Harry Hindu

Yes, my response is pretty much the same as brainglitch.

How about: they are all human-brain-generated conceptualizations, that is, human-brain ways of seeing things, of understanding our interactions with the world by separating out certain features and organizing them into thought-units? — Brainglitch

I like this one.. What is the underlying message here? The basic dichotomy between human experience and the "thing-in-itself"? That truth cannot be conveyed in language, but only human-biased expression that makes sense to us because it is how our minds are structured? It works us, so it works.. but we are simply self-contained conceptual machines that are not beyond our own linguistic programming?

All eight terms are collectivities (like, all the understandings of physics, all the incidences of bear attacks, all the aliens occupying high office in human governments, and the like). — Bitter Crank

Sound ecology. Actually, if the bears would eat more illegal aliens, the bears would flourish. And, BTW, bear-eaten-illegal-aliens would not be available to be counted, so less office work. Win, win, win. — Bitter Crank

Who would have thought bear attacks are the solutions to our political problems.

Bear attacks are not good for your anatomy, but you can use weapons whose existence rely on advances in chemistry and physics to protect yourself from them.

However this produces office work for the staff in the National Parks, who would rather see illegal aliens dying than the rapid decline of bears. Even though they are still wilderness areas foraging societies have also disappeared form National Parks, due to the rise of weapons technology . — John

I like the story.

They are all lesser truths which can be viewed either contexts or contents in different situations. A statistic of one being an oxymoron is an example of how content and contexts exchange identities in lesser truths. There are many lesser truths and, then, there is the One Greater Truth that without the truth nothing makes sense! — wuliheron

Can you explain this further..you may be getting it?

Some may say bread is a technology..yeast, baking and all. Also, it is composed of physical properties and chemical molecules.. So you indeed did eat some of those..

Ok, I guess I should say the concepts themselves and not the parts of speech they belong to, though that is correct. Add in any adjectives you want in front of them.. I like your suggestion of friendly in front of bear attacks.. "Oh, don't mind the grizzlies; they're just prone to your local friendly bear attack".

Given suffering and limits to growth (which impedes efforts to minimize suffering), it is generally accurate. — ralfy

The project of life makes no sense when looked at as a whole. You have to focus on micro-goals and all the benchmarks on the way.. Getting lost in goals and flow are ways to distract the brain from realizing that the project as a whole is just one day going into the next, navigating the cultural avenues of survival and finding ways to entertain our brains.. Boredom, angst ennui, and especially instrumentality, are what we get when we see the bigger picture. It is like a syntax error but on the existential level.

Good points, schopenhauer1 — Terrapin Station

Thank you.

But these aren't pessimists. Optimists and pessimists alike have experiences which leave them in extreme states of emotional upheaval, which they are expected (by themselves and/or others) to keep a lid on. We don't like it when people emote too much because it destabilizes the shaky social structure. If the shaky social structure should fall apart, then WE would have to deal with unpleasant realities, and wouldn't that be awful. People are afraid of change.

So, let me close with an annoyingly optimistic quip: Therapy means change, not adjustment. — Bitter Crank

Well, let's see what we have against the individual:

1) Individual people's wills and group's will.. Constant jockeying for power plays on when, what, where, hows, social status, social recognition, approval, respect

2) Impersonal wills... Institutions whose management and bottom-line dictate when, what, where.. ranging from oppressive dictatorships to the grind of organizational bureaucracies in liberal democracies.

3) Cultural necessities.. clean-up, maintain, tidy, consume, hygiene

4) Existential boundaries...boredom/ennui, loneliness, generalized anxiety, guilt

5) Survival boundaries..hunger, health, warmth

6) Being exposed to stressful/annoying/harmful environments and people

7) Accidents, natural disasters, nature's indifference (e.g. bear attacks, hurricanes, storms, earthquakes, etc.).

8) Diseases, illness, disabilities, including mental health issues (neurosis/psychosis/phobias/psychosomaticism/anxiety disorders/personality disorders/mood disorders)..

9) Bad/regretful decisions

10) Unfortunate circumstances

11) After-the-fact justifications that everything is either a learning experience or a tragic-comedy.

12) The good things are never as good as they seem

13) How fleeting happy things are once you experience them

14) How easy it is for novelty to wear off

15) The constant need for more experiences, including austerity experiences that are supposed to minimize excess wants (meditation, barebones living, "slumming it").

16) How easy it is to have negative human interaction, even after positive human interaction

17) Craving and striving for more entertainment and "flow" experiences

18) Instrumentality- the absurd feeling that can be experienced from apprehension of the constant need to put forth energy to pursue goals and actions in waking life. This feeling can make us question the whole human enterprise itself of maintaining mundane repetitive upkeep, maintaining institutions, and pursuing any action that eats up free time simply for the sake of being alive and having no other choice.

19) Any hostile, bitter, stressful, spiteful, resentful, disappointing experiences with interperonal relationships with close friends/family, acquaintances, and strangers

20) The classic (overused) examples of war and famine

21) The grass is always greener syndrome that makes one feel restless and never satisfied

22) The need for some to find solace in subduing natural emotions in philosophies that mitigate emotional responses (i.e. Stoicism) and generally having to retreat to some program of habit-breaking (therapy, positive psychology exercises, visualizations, meditations, retreats, self-help, etc. etc.)

The flux from the sturm and drang, why should it be? The Human Project, why continue it? Variations on themes of happiness and self-actualization seem to me a thin veneer for "I ain't got shit..". People screw and create new people out of cultural necessity in "traditional" cultures and people don't know what to do with themselves so they figure children are the answer in modern cultures. So unquestioned cultural ques and lack of existential reflection bring about a situation where new people are created which, if research is correct, bring about measurably less happy parents anyways.

Hartmann may have been onto something too regarding the future. As technology makes it so there are less jobs people actually need to do, perhaps some of those things listed become diminished while the existential boundaries become more pronounced.. Perhaps the end game is the culmination of the ennui of existence itself as we get tired of each other and our own existential condition. Granted, you do not need to buy into 19th century notions of "the Absolute", or "Unconscious" for this to make sense.

Human life labors under three illusions: (1) that happiness is possible in this life, which came to an end with the Roman Empire; (2) that life will be crowned with happiness in another world, which science is rapidly dissipating; (3) that happy social well-being, although postponed, can at last be realized on earth, a dream which will also ultimately be dissolved. Man's only hope lies in "final redemption from the misery of volition and existence into the painlessness of non-being and non-willing." No mortal may quit the task of life, but each must do his part to hasten the time when in the major portion of the human race the activity of the Unconscious shall be ruled by intelligence, and this stage reached, in the simultaneous action of many persons volition will resolve upon its own non-continuance, and thus idea and will be once more reunited in the Absolute. — Hartmann, Karl Robert Eduard Von Hartmann article from IEP website

I will quote myself from earlier in this thread:

The optimist has to contend with the idea that disturbing the "peacefulness of nonexistence" (TOTALLY A METAPHOR PEOPLE! NOT A METAPHYSICAL STANCE- AN EXPRESSION) is justified for the flux of life itself. The fact that life has negative experiences, more for some than others. The fact that life is not as easy for some than others. The fact that life has to be dealt with in certain ways that are not preferable by some. Optimism is default Darwinism. Those who have dispositions, willpower, social, physical, and mental preferences for what already exists, and likes the system survive and thrive. Those that don't die off, possibly complain a little, commit suicide and are drowned out.

The pessimist wants confirmation that their view makes sense to others. "You see this too?" they ask, but gets little consensus or attention. The optimists will then turn philosophical pessimism into someone with a pessimistic psychological disposition, as Thorongil explains earlier. There is no consensus, so the pessimist, being the minority view, must be wrong. Whether philosophical pessimism is brought on by a certain pessimistic disposition, or through thorough analysis, the fact is, most people will not agree with the pessimists' evaluation, and thus, whether it is true or not true, will be discarded. Being that philosophical pessimism is not prone to empirical evidence- the only thing that people take as real evidence, it will not be overly embraced.

You have Benatar's asymmetry which is a sort of pessimism. However, this assumes that it is good to prevent bad, and not bad to prevent good for something that does not exist yet. I think this is sound, but others might not.

You have Schopenhauer's argument that want and desire create suffering as this leads to strife in the challenges of life, strife in existential boredom, and strife in relationships to other people and our surroundings. However, people will simply deny they experience this. Whether they lie (to themselves or others) to make a point or not, they can at least publicly denounce that they feel any of this strife.

You have someone like a Hartmann, who predict that we will eventually run out of optimistic ideas in science, progress, religion, society, etc. and then realize a sort of ennui of life and die out. But this is far in the future, in completely depresses most people to even think that this will happen.

So there you have it- the pessimists will just be called wimps and be recommended 1) positive psychological thinking (make meaning out of meaninglessness) 2) anti-depressants 3) keep it to yourself and just deal with it 4) suicide.

I wrote this a while ago in a similar thread I started: "Is "mind is an illusion" a legitimate position in Philosophy of Mind?"

Here is what I wrote: Here's the thing, even if consciousness is mirage-like, this mirage "exists" in some way, even if the origins of the consciousness is somehow descriptively from something else. What's funny about Dennett's position is he seems to go into painstaking detail to say he is not committing the homunculus fallacy but then does so by saying the mind is an illusion. Why? Because the illusion has to subside somewhere. Explaining the "actual" origins of the illusion, and ways in which it "we" are fooled, means that all these tricks and mirages are happening "somewhere" and that implies that there is a projector of mind where the illusion is playing out and that is the homnuclus fallacy. The illusion itself has to be accounted for as something that "feels like" it is happening.

What did your namesake say about that? — Wayfarer

He said we are manifestations of Will and can diminish it by being a pure observer of forms in art/music, lessening our own egos with empathy with the suffering others, and diminishing our own craving with ascetic practice.

We are back into adolescent whinging then? — apokrisis

And you with faux "big-pants" adult to admonish :-} for rhetorical points? Can perhaps the overlooking of actual human emotion for calculus of group-oriented goals be adolescent?

Life's too hard to even get out bed in the morning. Everyone is always bugging you about chores you need to do. — apokrisis

And your point? Even if it was as cliched as that, what is your response other than circular arguments? Of course I do not think the argument is or should be characterized in such a way, but that won't stop you from framing it in a way that makes fun without actually addressing the argument.

The social system we have in fact requires your dissent. That is part of the pairing. There is no point giving people the power of choice if they never bloody exercise it. — apokrisis

Ok.. so we agree there for once.

But as usual, it is about balance. It would be a little crazy to remain in a position where you seem to find everything about your social circumstances a burden. If your dissent is that strong, do something more than whinge metaphysically. — apokrisis

Nah, I do not think there is much to do except whine metaphysically, so that I do.

You are ignoring the fact that an introspective level of awareness is based on the semiotic mechanism of grammatic speech. Self-consciousness is a socialised habit and not a genetic endowment. — apokrisis

Two things- We can feel harm without language, and even if we need language to feel introspective harm, how is this even addressing my point in the fact that we FEEL HARM!!!

And so all the problems of personal experience can only find their logic and their repair within that ontic framework - as positive psychology, for instance, realises. — apokrisis

The fact that we NEED positive psychology means that we must somehow work to achieve it..more stress to lay on the individual..more burden. Whey we need someone to live so they can go through your "good habits and manners" regimen is not explained other than it is the next best thing once born.. which is at that point simply a band-aid not a remedy. Since there is no remedy, why even provide the burden? Because the group "wants" it? And why abide what the "group" wants?

Pain and suffering can be more biological or more social in origin. If you have a broken leg, take these pain-killers. If you have a broken heart, find a new partner. — apokrisis

At least we are now talking about things in the world of how it "feels" to the individual, whatever the origin (social dynamics..biology etc.).

And if you are a pessimist or antinatalist, your problem is your relationship with society in general. You don't fit it, and it doesn't fit you. One of you is going to have to change. And in my systems view, in fact both sides have to be capable of mutual change as each side is the other's reflection. — apokrisis

Eh, this does not matter for the individual antinatalist though. The system, just because it is involved in your development does not mean one must like it. It is not an inevitable pairing, simply a truism that society and the individual cannot be separated.. it does not NEED to be a mutual admiration society though (no pun intended).

It is just that the majority view, the wider social scale, is most naturally going to represent "the good" - at least historically, in terms of what has worked in the past that led up to the present. — apokrisis

I mean, if the good is heaping stress on ALL individuals and various amounts of pain for MANY in the "progression" to today's society, ok.. but that is really discounting all the pain to get here. So what worked also caused stress, burden, angst, and physical/psychological harm.

It is not that hard to understand our current culture in terms of natural imperatives, is it? And from there, start arguing for changes that would improve the general lot. — apokrisis

Though some socio-economic conditions can be changed, certain human conditions will never go away- instrumentality for one. Stress and contingent circumstances are other things that will probably remain. Since you do not recognize it (at least as a member on this forum.. not necessarily as you actually live your life and reflect).. I cannot much go further because you do not even acknowledge the phenomenon.

Life is inherently stressful for the individual. It contains undeniable harms and in unknown quantities. To what extent we need to exist in order to maintain our own existence and that of the group is beyond me. Somehow people feel compelled to say that the upkeep, maintenance of one's individual life and that of the group needs to be carried out. How this is without a circular argument, I do not know. Apo would say it is the group that just "wants" it because it helps survival, but that is still question begging, an thus not justification. Instrumentality is the burden of existence bearing down on us as time moves forward- forcing us to upkeep, maintain, entertain, seek goals with no end and thus leading to the stress of simply living and being that is entailed in this. The absurdity is the self-awareness of this. The flow is the feeling of being lost in an action and thus an almost opposite end of the phenomological spectrum as the absurdity of ennui. Flow is probably more natural in one sense as we are not as out of place.. But the self-reflecting brain can see the situation as a whole and lead back to instrumentality and the absurd. We know we exist to exist to exist.

But this would require me to systematically ignore the important bits: feeling, downgrading it to some signal and nothing more. Whatever our beliefs in qualia are, you cannot deny that it at least seems as though there is qualia. The manifest image of qualia, something that isn't just plucked away as soon as we realize it is a sign or just a oozy chemical reaction in the brain, if that even makes sense. I continue to fail to see how the ontological status of pleasure and pain actually affects anything, since we already have a phenomenal experience of pleasure and pain that is as intimate as is possible. — darthbarracuda

Yes exactly.. I just brought this point up in my previous post.. he has a glaring oversight in the actual feeling of the individual. He is so caught up in the calculation that he cannot see how things are actually felt.

We can see the Good has something to do with adaptive resilience and healthy growth - real world facts that we could measure using rulers and clocks. — apokrisis

The problem is that unlike non-feeling/thinking things, humans (at the least) have subjective "what it's like" minds. The fact is, when we are born, we are subjected to harms and suffering. This is felt on an individual level despite the fact that we are shaped and shape alike our social group. In fact, the social group dynamic does nothing to mitigate individual feelings of pain and harmful phenomena. That is what your system ignores- the individual "what it's like" experience of actually feeling the pain or harm.

You try so hard to do somersaults around the naturalistic fallacy but you commit it quite squarely here:

For me, what "is" is material. And what "ought" is thus some empirical observation about the necessities of material self-organisation. — apokrisis

They become merely the same system observed over different spatiotemporal scales. — apokrisis

In the long-term, what that everything is, is then what it "ought" to be in the sense that by definition it must have struck on the fruitful balance that enables its own long-term persistence. — apokrisis

This to me amounts to a naturalistic fallacy. You are taking empirical observation of what "is" and saying this is what we "should" be aiming for. Why? It indeed is what the system might be aiming for, but that is purely descriptive and thus not even in the realm of ethics only what is going on. Does this provide an impetus for ethical action? No? Others have brought this up to you in other threads and yet you have no answer. It is simply hypothetical imperatives. As long as you admit it as not being ethical but rather simply judging what YOUR interpretation of the results of are.. then fine.. You interpret the system/process to be "X" in the long term, and thus that has been our projected aim..So you made a prediction from a model of what we have been doing, but no imperative other than suggestions for this or that. No one has to survive for this or that reason.. no one has to reduce entropy for this or that reason... no one has to....

Unfortunately you give humans too much credit for self aware insight.

No one would get morbidly obese or a hopeless alcoholic if they could freely make well-informed choices. Most folk in fact struggle to help themselves - fight their evolved urges. And then our societies build in those bad choices for some reason - selling sugar by the bag, alcohol on every street corner.

So that is why we need morality that works. We have a real problem in being natural creatures in a world where we have got good at removing natural constraints.

And you are not going to fix that problem with a faulty philosophical model of morality. — apokrisis

I guess to clarify what I was trying to say is that humans are not fixed instinctually to follow any balance. This is unlike other animals who naturally find a balance because they more or less go by instinct which becomes a default way for the organism to continue living. Humans do not "need" to find a balance because we are not necessarily fixed. We can choose a number of options including suicide. There is no need for balance seeking we have no reason to want to balance (whatever that is). Again, that would be a naturalistic fallacy. Just because we generally continue to survive does not mean we have to.. Just because the aim of the universe is entropy does not mean we have to slow our local entropy.

Your hidden assumptions are that this and that ethical guidelines are good and thus we must follow that... and thus you are being that pesky Platonist you resent.

Your ethical assumptions.. "Me like survival...survival good.." "I learn good ways for survival...this one-issue policy to stop global warming" "we follow that..everyone good".. "me ethical prophet intuiting what is good" "me Tarzan :)"

If we were thinking morally, we would have to identify then what is actually "the good" that nature had in mind originally, and how we can then re-introduce the constraints so as to arrive back at that "better" balance. — apokrisis

Here's the naturalistic fallacy again..And what is balance? Survival? Why is that most paramount? It's simply a self-fulfilling argument. Clearly, you are trying to make us like animals who simply "do" without self-awareness.. Once self-awareness becomes involved, we no longer "have" to do anything, whether that be re-introducing restraint or moving towards a "better" balance... These all become hypothetical imperatives.. prescriptions for this or that lifestyle, but none of them are justified in and of themselves, only suggestions for living this or that lifestyle.. But if that is the case it is not ethical simply a lifestyle choice.

And yet the domestication of the planet, the curve of fossil fuel exploitation, and the overall human population, ride right over all that.

You are telling me that the forest is made up of many trees. I can only nod and say yes, while reminding that you are avoiding the point. — apokrisis

I think I hit the point clearly on the head about contingencies creating new outcomes that change the projected trend and thus open up new counterfactuals.. but if YOUR point is about fossil fuel exploitation and human population, so be it. You cannot square that circle, however, by doing what Willow is suggesting you are in fact doing- making your own ethical preferences an ought by trying to divine the trend of human activities.

I see three things wrong with this:
1) Even if we are to focus on species-wide survival (which is itself flawed), you focus so narrowly on lessening fossil fuels that it is almost comical.. how about world peace, genocide, gang warfare, police brutality, domestic violence, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, economic disparity, and any other issue that affects survival? You seem to focus on one thing simply because it is related to this very impersonal idea of entropy, which is even more crazy because now you are reifying the concept of entropy into an ethical argument!?! Hell, the "general trend" (as you like to refer to) may be heading to the point where we blow ourselves up way before we die from climate change. I say it is comical not because it is a single issue, but seems like if you wanted to focus on survival, it is one out of many issues that you can choose from, all pretty pertinent.. some still remaining even if climate change was not a threat.

2) What makes survival of the species for its own sake so important? You confuse the outcome of people's general interests for an actual goal.. Most people are not living to keep the species going.. rather the species is going because people choose certain activities. You are reifying survival itself as a goal, but was never even people's actual goal if you are following your "general trend" argument. Rather, more "closer to home" reasons are given such as pleasure, entertainment, relationships, and any number of personal preferences.

3) Taking on a global issue seems more of a political policy argument than an ethical guideline. If this problem is solved, there are other ethical issues that don't go away. It is simply applied ethics.. your metaethics of "general trend" also does not say much because again, that itself has to be justified...What makes survival..and in your bizarre world.. survival "as it has generally been chugging along in the recent past" an ethical guideline? It is not- it is a preference taken from supposed projections based on what we already value... Except for demonstrating that you happen to prefer conservative views on change because (in your world) change only happens incrementally.. it really says nothing

Of course, the further notions of hierarchical constraint and propensity are then also basic - indeed more so, in explaining why the small/unpopular must exist, even merely as a fluctuation. — apokrisis

Again, just because it is resistant to change, does not mean it cannot be overcome. For example, in American history, the British had a relatively hands-off policy towards American government from 1640s-1763. Then Britain enacted a series of taxes and laws reacting to the subsequent American dissent which created the situation where Americans were forming militias, protesting in the press, petitioning England, and rioting in general.. committees of correspondence formed state legislatures which sent representatives to Edit: not Washington but Philadelphia!! and thus formed the beginnings of an American counter-government to Britain's rule. This did not take very long to go from relatively stable American colonies, to a full revolt. Much of America was opposed to this revolt however. Some say only 1/3 of Americans at the time supported completely separating from English rule. A small group dominated eventually and won out over time.

Do you not yet understand the difference between the possible and the likely? — apokrisis

Do you not yet understand the difference between projected trends and contingencies which divert these trends? Was the Mongol invasion of China and the Middle East inevitable, if Genghis Khan did not cobble together certain tribal leaders and an identity? Possibly not.. It was pretty quick the rise of the Mongols from pesky barbarians to the world's largest empire. Was the Black Plague a major contributing factor for the rise of wages contributed to the rise of a merchant class? Possibly...

If Abraham Lincoln was not elected but Stephen Douglas perhaps, would the Civil War happen the way it did? Perhaps not..

History is full of events being diverted by contingencies.. so the line of possibility of likelihood and mere possibility (whatever definition you want to give between these two concepts) becomes blurred. More importantly, because things went one way and not another, a whole variety of things were opened up and a whole variety of things were closed off.. Perhaps antinatalism becomes the trend because of such and such, and so and so event.. it is not the trend now.. but not but a handful of people in 1762 would have guessed that a counter-American government would have declared itself a completely separate country by 1776.

So it is not a problem if a system spawns local variety while tracking global continuity. It can do both at the same time. If the local variety proves to have value, then its own influence will grow such that it becomes itself an appropriate level of generalised constraint. — apokrisis

Ok, so this is exactly what I said but using your particular preference for lingo like "global/local" and "variety/constraint". It still amounts to admitting what I said has truth to it- varieties can become the dominant, even if it starts out small/unpopular.

But what actual novelty did you have in mind here? Veganism? Antinatalism? What? — apokrisis

So those are things which apokrisis does not agree with himself... and what of it these ideas?

My argument is that it is unlikely to be a winner to the degree it tries to swim against the general tide. — apokrisis

Now, you are just asserting the opposite what you admitted to briefly above- that local variants can eventually BECOME the general trend.

If it is ill-designed in terms of system fundamentals, it would be given little hope of emerging as a success. So the organic view would never say something was impossible, but it can with reason say why a possibility is vanishingly unlikely. — apokrisis

Eh, I'm sure that was said about a lot of things that no one thought would occur at the time. What it does seem to show is that you may be using your own theories of organic thinking as a way to predict outcomes that are not assured. Again, things have to start somewhere and as Schopenhauer stated: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."

I've already given that kind of argument against antinatalism. It is simple maths that even if 99 out of 100 couples decided to be childless, it only takes one couple - for whatever transmissible reasons - to start breeding and your antinatalism is toast. — apokrisis

Now, this isn't even refuting the actual claim of the antinatalist. The antinatalist's end goal (usually) is not to end human existence, but rather preventing harm. So, rather it is the other way around.. even if one person does not have a kid when they could have, one instance of harm is prevented.

Selection acts as a filter to find what works. And what works will replace what doesn't. — apokrisis

What works may be what remains, but what works best is not always the path taken. Contingencies may lead to outcomes which are useful, but not maximally useful. Not all possibilities that have become actualities are the best actualities, they are just the ones that worked out based on the contingencies at that time. While indeed a certain historical projection incrementally may lead certain outcomes to take place, those incremental changes may not have been the most optimal or effective at that time- other routes may have been cut off by events that transpired that could have been otherwise (I guess they would be considered "counterfactual" events as you like to say).

Also, not only are there incremental changes, but there are large contingencies which may effect outcomes greatly, making the counterfactual gap of what could have been much larger.

So I have no problem with starting out with your "tiny experiments". Organicism take growth/entropification as fundamental. Everything else then follows with natural logic. — apokrisis

I guess I have nothing to argue with this one. I can kind of agree with a lot of caveats from the other stuff you seem to attach to this (i.e. naturalistic fallacies and the like).

Embedded within Apo's postion is a position of not nature as it functions, but ethics that it ought to function a particular way it does at the moment. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I actually agree with you I think.

But my point refutes what you seem to be saying in regards to the idea that new ideas of morals cannot work if it is not something in the repertoire of what worked before. Perhaps it is an idea so new that it has not been tested to see if it works out for the group. Or perhaps it is not so much a new idea as much as a variation of an old idea that has not really been looked at. This has happened with ideas in the past.. They were forgotten until they became useful.. So you seem to only give credit to something AFTER it has become the dominant theme, but refute it when it is just starting out, thus making it a circular argument because even current trends started out somewhere.

So naturalism is going to talk prescriptively about what has to be the case when it comes to anything even being the case. And that starts with the impossibility of even talking about morality in the absence of a social system that works well enough to last long enough for its moral organisation to be a topic worthy of mention. — apokrisis

In order for there to be survival, there does not just have to be conservation of what has worked, but outliers that lead to a better survival equilibrium and thus become the new survival equilibrium for the group.

This is nuts as there is hardly a crying need to protect the human population from the dangers of cultish antinatalists.

With 2.5 billion people in 1950, 6.5 billion in 2005, and 9 billion by 2050, there just ain't a problem in that regard.

Antinatalism is as meaningless as a possum throwing itself under a passing truck and trailer. — apokrisis

I think you misread what I was trying to say. I'm saying that you tend to use the appeal to majority as a way to substantiate your point- because it must be "true" in its historical development of the group to be considered appealing. However, even if this is the case, I doubt many want to hear that they are solely existing to keep institutions alive simply because that is what the institution wants. Whether its true or not, the lack of autonomy that implies is as unappealing to most individuals as the fact that by preventing the creation of another person, they are preventing the harm that would be experienced by that person. Both may be true (and so I am even granting you the point for argument's sake), but both are unpopular. Thus, as I said, your point could make sense but it does so in a way that does not pass your own test which again, is an appeal to the majority.

More crazy arithmetic.

The way societies actually think is that small global changes can improve the average lot of the many. You only have to focus on shifting the mean a small degree to make a large difference for the many. — apokrisis

First of all, societies do not think.. You mean the way social conventions have developed.. Whether that's true or not, it is not really refuting my claim. Actually, it strengthens it. So even if the family down the street has 20 kids, the fact that any number (at least 1) was prevented still made a difference.

Yeah. But you hardly invented this idea yourself, did you? You are simply repeating what you heard others say. So you speak for a familiar vein of thought - the romanticism that became existentialism that has become pessimism. And you are looking around on this forum for moral support for this stance, along with seeking to "other" me so as to confirm the social validity of that way of thinking.

You can't escape the very game you pretend to reject. If you could, you wouldn't even bother coming on a forum like this to argue with someone like me. — apokrisis

I never claimed that I am some lone figure that has come up with the most innovative new idea. In fact, I usually go out of my to reference past philosophers on the points I am making. That is not to say I think every thought they had was accurate though. You are aiming your attack at the wrong target. It's not that I think the pessimistic outlook is some transcendent notion that goes beyond the group (which by the way, you apparently at least admit can be a part of the group, even if it is a minority position), but rather it is a conclusion that only a self-reflecting species such as ours can have. You fail to understand that our species' ability to self-reflect means that we not only follow the group-individual dynamics that you describe, but we can make judgements, evaluations, and conclusions on our species' activity as we are participating in them. This self-reflecting ability to understand that we are simply keeping the group going to keep it going (what I call instrumentality) and to evaluate it as absurd, is an example of this. I believe that was part of the point Zapffe was making. We have this general-processor brain capable of not only solving immediate problems but understanding our very own human condition. The very process of individual-group dynamics which shaped our human brain, also created a situation where we can see our own situation.

However, rather than staying in this angsty place, we have mechanisms to ensure we don't dwell on it much. Now, here is where I can finally start finding common ground because those mechanisms are probably a part of the group dynamics as well. We cannot get beyond our own habits at all times. Even though this is the case, we can have sustained periods of reflection, and even just a background notion while we distract ourselves and find some sort of "flow" activities to involve ourselves in, that the situation of keeping things gong for the sake of it is absurd, exhausting, and neverending, and strains us. Sure it can be no other way, but we can still recognize this situation.

Also, you seem to be underplaying the role of the uniqueness of individual experiences. Though language and give us a common understanding and natural feedback loop to strengthen certain individual/group aims, the individual point of view is still unique to each individual. I can perhaps convey in an intersubjective way a sense of what I am experiencing, but it can never be completely replicated or understood. There is an interior world which others are not privy and can never fully be privy to. There is an aloneness to each individual's ego alongside the connectedness with the group and environment.

You also do not seem to take into account contingent circumstances. This group dynamic thing you promote has to work on statistics rather than necessities. What this means is that all the learned experiences that have been collected by the group can be taught and sometimes the application of this "wisdom" works out for people but other times it does not. Circumstances can be very different for very different people. On average it has to work well for most people, but it does not have to work for everyone.

So continue with your little psychodramas if you can't respond to the substance of my post. It's all good entertainment to distract us while we wait to die, heh? — apokrisis

Finally, something I agree with.

That's the group's need clearly. It doesn't have to be the individual's. It is just likely to be the individual's as logically the group would need to be able to make that kind of individual as the way it has managed historically to persist. — apokrisis

But just as antinatalism does not sound appealing to some, telling people that they are here to keep the group going would probably not get much fanfare either. So your own claim would not pass your own "appeal to the majority" test, oddly enough.

Of course your problem there is even if only a few individuals did not want to drink the Kool aid with you, they would survive, breed, and pass on their habits of thought. All you would prove is something about your own mental quirks. The circumstances which produced a persistent social entity in the past would roll on probably better adapted for its self perpetuation in the future. — apokrisis

Whether the group persists, there would be less people that suffered that could have otherwise. The harm prevented from preventing one birth does not get nullified by someone having a child. If you saved someone from getting hurt and someone in the town over does get hurt, that other person's pain does not nullify that the person you saved did not get hurt.

Stepping back, are you thinking that existence itself must have a meaning, and so your realisation that it doesn't have a meaning is then a meaningful lack?

My argument only needs to be that meaning is what a system constructs. Goals are emergent regularities that exist because they foster their own persistence. That's the basic difference between taking the immanent view vs the transcendent view.

So in that light, a social system is free to form its own goals, it's own identity - and do so via the particular kinds of individuals it creates. That is as high as we need to shoot in finding a meaning in existence, or equally, as far as we can go in making some complaint about a lack of meaning. — apokrisis

Oh boy, I don't want to upset the sensibilities of the social system.. This is too vague to even criticize so I have to deduce what you are saying by inference. So individuals who presumably want the goals of survival and pretty much the status quo of the current society create an institution that makes more individuals that want these goals.. and the goals of status quo are the meaning..

Again, even if this was true, "knowing" that people are created by social institutions that want to ensure survival for individuals and the institution itself, does not negate the absurdity one may feel if one self-reflected on the fact that we are keeping our own individual upkeep going, the group going, and pursuing more goals simply to keep it going.. Hence the instrumentality of things. One thing you seem to do is think that describing a (purported) fact about something makes it valuable because it exists. This is where you make the category error. Humans do not just exist with no internal reflection and simply take in information and output actions... They have emotions, reactions, attitudes, etc.. Reflecting on the "fact" that we are just doing to do to do, can lead to an understanding of the absurdity of this situation. We must keep moving forward to keep moving forward as there is no other choice.

That still leaves the individual free to construct his own life meaning, or equally, construct a notion of his own cosmic meaninglessness. Maybe the individual can even start up his own small movement - like antinatalism - as a gesture that appears to imbue his existence with the meaningful lack of meaning which he seeks. That is a lack of meaning of suitably trans-social, trans-historic, cosmically-absolute scale.

This may be the case that it is not suitable for survival obviously.. but I am not sure what you are trying to say. Is it that "most" people will not agree? Most likely not, but that does not mean that it is not correct. Maybe its futile, but that does not mean it is wrong. You are making the is-ought fallacy.. just because something is a certain way, does not mean that this is what someone ought to do. This implies a hypothetical imperative that one must follow what has always been the case.

Such a moral construction - an anti-goal - can be proclaimed. On rarer occasions, it might even be acted upon. But as I say, it is unlikely to impact the collective system if that system already has up a head of steam and will simply end up reproducing via the kind of thought habits which are in fact functional in regard to its persistent being.

You can't stand in the way of natural selection anymore than natural selection can stand in the way of thermodynamics. — apokrisis

Again, I am fine with this.. So it's futile.. that doesn't mean much to me. What it does mean though is that we have no obligation to make the current aim of the group's persistence keep continuing. There is no reason to keep anything going. Because we have the ability to self-reflect to the point of not following some survival imperative, that shows that we are not necessarily bound by it. Social enculturation via historical developments may help compensate from more instinctual ways to keep the species going, we can still think beyond merely survival.

And again I say that from the point of view of pansemiotics - reality's own construction of meanings or habits of interpretance. It doesn't matter that goals don't pre-exist and are only found as whatever are the habits which permit persistence. The claim is never that meaning could have a transcendent status such as what instead exists counts as some kind of cosmic failure. — apokrisis

There is no cosmic failure.. rather we have the ability to self-reflect on the situation and have emotions, attitudes, and such on the human condition itself.. something that is not merely there to keep the group surviving.

I wonder if you see this yet? The very basis on which you want to mount your fundamental criticism doesn't even exist from my point of view. There is no standing outside existence that could count as meaningful here. — apokrisis

And like I just said, we have the ability to self-reflect on the situation and have emotions attitudes, and such on the human condition itself...something that is not merely there to keep the group surviving.

I'd just like to comment that the fact that you focused on one sentence from a very large summary and criticism of your views is pretty illustrative of your way of obfuscating and trying to dodge criticism so as to only be on the attack and not defense. I'm not even sure I should dignify you with a rebuttal of this last post seeing that you managed to skip over all the parts that were critical of your philosophy to go straight back on the attack on the very last sentence of a very long post.

Point being I think you should make a thread (I meant thread not post) on this because talk of enlightenment vs romanticism, absolutism vs relativity, etc is not exactly obvious or well-accepted in the general community.

Part of the reason everyone has so much difficulty discussing stuff with you is because you present a historical narrative of philosophy as fact, and then go on to rip on one half of this binary debate while promoting the other half, when nobody really understands the justification you have for seeing history in this way, nor why the romantic notions are just automatic dead-ends. You just assert that this is the way it is and glaze over the important details that would otherwise potentially help us understand what the hell you are even talking about. — darthbarracuda

Indeed.. Romanticism vs. Enlightenment is another of his themes mixed in with Naturalism and Semiotics.. It's like a jigsaw that you have to put together through the various criticisms. Any "positive" explanation he has to put forth (as opposed to being inserted after a criticism) makes it more exposed to its own criticism so, its best couched in terms of criticism. I'm not saying its intentional but it certainly is a result.

As I can piece his theories together (separated from the criticism) is that he believes that semiotics as propounded first by Peirce and probably a dozen or so "modern" semiotic proponents, is a field that explains nature and metaphysics. Its inherently emergent and thus from biology leads to semiotics in language leads to semiotics to society, etc. At the human ethical/value level of emergence, semiotics informs ethics/values through social/anthropological/psychological empirical research. The social level of organization can be described in semiotic terms which essentially involves some combination of group/individual sign, interpretant, object, (or more elaborate/jargony version thereof).

Anywho, despite the inherent problems of emergence (especially from biology into the linguistic realm.. shades of old mind/body problems).. Semiotics is somehow trumpeted as a continuation of the Enlightenment (with the assumption that the Enlightenment is a purposeful movement rather than a collection of varying ideas). Anyways, its at least trumpeted as part of the empirical, and thus Scientific Image (though semiotics itself does not seem empirical as much as a speculative interpretation of the scientific findings.. but I that is another issue).

Anywho, somehow now, apokrisis takes a leap into the world of values as social/individual interaction.. I have not seen as much semiotic talk in this realm, so I am not sure where that fits in, but I'm sure he might pull some semiotics articles on anthropology, sociology, and/or psychology to prove some point using semiotics as a basis. What I am sure of is that he tries to use empirical findings to try to justify what humans should strive for. So he claims entropy, being the basis of universal teleology (and in the background of the semiotic process I guess) is a big deal, and that at the self-conscious social level that we humans experience, we can actually slow down or speed up entropy, at least as it pertains to our little organizational part of the universe. So somehow this hypothetical imperative (which itself may be speculative) is deemed as a necessity rather than a preference (I don't know how though other than simple assertion based on its supposed existence). Also included in what we should strive for is flourishing, which apparently is not much else except tenets and research from the Positive Psychology movement. So apparently humans can/should know what makes them happy through research made from positive psychology research and strive for this. Again, how this hypothetical imperative is deemed as a necessity rather than a preference is not explained.

So to give a summary of nested concepts Enlightenment = Scientific Image > Semiotics > Semiotics as applied to physics/chemistry/biology > Semiotics as applied to linguistics/anthropology/sociology/psychology > All this semiotics from the social level somehow leads to a necessity in the imperative to slow entropy in our part of the universe (specifically through being less dependent on fossil fuels) and pursue the recommendations that come from findings for what makes happiness or a more self-actualized human through the research found in the Positive Psychology movement.

Addition: So the top part there was a summary of how I interpret apokrisis based on piecing together what I have seen him write. Additionally, in classic binary fashion, he juxtaposes Enlightenment with what he claims to be its opposite, Romanticism. Romanticism here seems like an accusation of Communist in the 50's for him.. wrong thought.. should report to philosophical detention..

Anwywho, unlike the Enlightenment point of view (which I attempted to explain his version above) which supposedly takes into account the individual in the context of the group/social, Romanticism supposedly does not take this into view (how he can paint someone's philosophy as not taking into account the social when that account had not actually discounted the social and thus may be misreading the other person's view is another issue). Anyways, Romanticism puts the individual experience on a pedestal (which is a base characterization and not a comprehensive understanding of most of what these Romantic proponents are saying).. and thus are limited in their narrow, merely phenomenological interpretations of personalized experience.. He also claims that the Romantics do not take into account group dynamics and how the group shapes the human. Despite the fact that he may be taking the Romantic's argument out of context to bolster a false characterization and thus a false juxtaposition with his "superior" account. Finally , this leads to several odd conclusions that he seems to make which may or may not be connected with either semiotics or group/individual dynamics:

1) Suffering of the individual is not a problem because at least partial solutions may exist, and the individual must try their best to find these solutions

Of course, why someone needs to be brought into a world where suffering exists, only to try to constantly find solutions to the suffering is not explained other than a majority of people think it is good.. And here we have a weird fallacy of the is-ought.. an odd mixing of two concepts.. If the majority agrees this is true.. somehow the group knows best and the individual must conform to this because it has collectively gathered wisdom from passed individual/group dynamics and thus cannot be changed by the mere whims and idealistic visions of an individual who does not like what is going on.

Also, individual/social dynamics aside, the fact that I am shaped by social means and that solutions may be attained, suffering for individuals is not shared. I can share my experiences through language and make a sort of empathetic understanding through intersubjectivity, but this is not the same as actually living and experiencing the pain of the individual. There may be similar experiences, but the actual pain that is being experienced is by the individual.

2) Somehow continuing the group is important.. the individual must help continue and contribute to the group in order to keep it sustained in some way..

Of course, why someone needs to keep the group going merely to keep the group going is not really explained. It is just assumed that because it is the group, it somehow is self-evident that it should continue and the individual should know his place in continuing it. Besides the fact that it is a truism that we are shaped by the group no matter what we do (even living as a hermit), it does not provide much of anything to say that we must contribute to the group for no reason other than to just continue things to continue them. My criticism of instrumentality applies here. Why humans have to continue upkeep, institutions, and goal-seeking to continue upkeep, institutions, and goal-seeking becomes absurd. We have no choice if we are alive, have a linguistic (yes thus environmentally and socially shaped) brain that must put forth energy to keep going in order to keep going in order to keep going. However, the fact that we are social and use social means to survive does not justify any position for doing this or that action.

Dylan, like all great song writers/singers, writes material and sets it to music. It's real art -- it just doesn't happen to be in one of the 5 categories the Nobel traditionally makes awards in. There have been and are many great lyricists; maybe the Nobel Foundation should add that to its award categories. — Bitter Crank

I guess you have to ask what makes poetry Nobel worthy versus just perfectly fine poetry. I am partial to his lyrics here:

My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough, what else can you show me?

And of course the first three "stanzas" of that song (poem?) are iconic:

Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying

Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying

Temptation’s page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you’d just be one more
Person crying