He doesn't. Objects are demanded by the nature of language. — Banno

So are you making his argument for him? Where is this stated? Oh, right see.. "Where one cannot speak one must be silent.."

It's implicitly (it seems to me) a take from Russell's conception of logical atomism where he at least explains it further as something deriving from sense data, and I guess linking it to a broader empirical tradition.

I don't mind that he says "objects".. There are plenty of philosophies that use "objects" as their starting point and metaphysics, it's just the fact that it is not explained as to why objects.. You seem to have to "read into it" which is prone to bias and error on the reader's part (if he even had a reason to use objects other than he got it from a prior philosopher he worked with like Russell).

I guess I'm trying to understand this game. Are we trying to understand early Witt's ideas (good, bad, or ugly) QUA early Witt, or understand his ideas as they were critiqued by later Witt? I'm not sure, but I think Tate, Foolso4, and Bongo Fury are working on the game of early Witt qua early Witt.

EDIT: Whenever you are conscious, it's now isn't it? Is that how it is for you? That's how it is for me. — bert1

It comes down to even, "What is an event?".. Whitehead had a lot to say on that, as you probably know.

hy should it not just be that we use the word in this way? Why, indeed, must there be a something to which "red" refers? Not all words are nouns. — Banno

I do get that you are mixing PI and Tractatus in your analysis, but is it appropriate to use later Witt here to give exegesis on Tractatus when he did not have that in mind yet when writing Tract? I am not saying you are wrong (that he did not mean that red was a thought), but he didn't mean yet that it was about the use of the word. That part is being smuggled in from later Witt.

The asymmetry would say lack of freedom is not a bad thing. But freedom is being prevented?

Responsibility is often a bad thing, and the asymmetry would say that this lack of responsibility is good. But responsibility is being prevented?

This prevention is more paternalistic than letting the experiment play out. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Remember, this is about a rule.
The rule is:
1. Don't assume that you should create unnecessary impositions on others on conditions like:
a. the parameters of choices in the world one must choose from and encounter
b. the amount of harm that is acceptable
c. the risks of unforeseeable harms someone might encounter

2. By not acting on these assumptions for another person, no negative takes place.
2a By going ahead and acting on the assumption, a negative takes place,
2c Don't let the negative take place.

So I guess my formulation is a bit different because it is more about creating the negative situation or not creating the negative situation.

By not acting on the assumption, no negative takes place (see 2).

You can call that "good" if you want. No positive takes place, but where is the moral impetus for positives not taking place, if there is no one to be deprived?

The fact is no negative took place (2c). Call it whatever you want.

Ok. So, for example, which past persons and which situations imposes on you? — NOS4A2

Do you know how procreation works? Do I need a diagram?

I just don’t understand how one can impose on someone in the future. Which past people or situation imposes on you? — NOS4A2

Huh? Are you asking how simple cause and effect works? Like a past action can have consequences on someone in the future? In this case, a past action can have a consequence on someone in the future (even if they were not around in the past when the action took place that would affect them at a future time). This isn't that hard.

t is the price of life that we all must pay, — unenlightened

You make it seem like it's an inevitability to make people pay this price :brow:

no one ever gets a choice because it is not a marketplace, and no choice is possible prior to existence.I did not choose to bring into existence an ungrateful miserablist, but I don't get a choice about who I procreate either. — unenlightened

Right, but why are you assuming you should be making those choices for someone just BECAUSE there is no choice that can be made by a person to begin with? This is the aggressive assumption in question. Why should one person decide what the acceptable parameters of choices and harms should be for another person, ever? Forget convention, ideas of "common sense" or historical practices, just think about the actual notion itself. You think I don't understand these conventional ways of thinking? I get it.. I am questioning it.. And that's the part that bristles certain people the wrong way.. Lay down the prejudices of against the gadfly for now (plenty of time to give me the hemlock), and just look at the case without using indignity for (this idea) not following common precedent.

So my wishes are nothing personal; I want suffering and dying to continue in general and indefinitely, because the joy and beauty of life is not separate from suffering and death. The antinatalists will get their wish in time and my wishes will be frustrated, which is only fair. Such is life eh? — unenlightened

How do you think that antinatalists will get their wishes?

How does someone impose on a future person without having to travel through time? — NOS4A2

Why is an action's you do presently not matter just because the consequence will be in the future? Would you create an unjust situation in order for the conditions for injustice to come about? That makes no sense.. You must put an "actual person" in harms way so that you can have a referent to "not harm".. Error.

I'm here to suffer, I love it, — Manuel

Your right to say/think/feel that.

everybody else does too. — Manuel

Though your right to say it, to act upon it and presume this is or should be the case is the exact damage I speak of coming from a place of aggressive paternalism.

If not, things would be very boring, very quickly. — Manuel

I don't get to put someone in harms way because I'm bored nor put them in harms way because I think that they should like it (even if they don't). YOU should not be making those assumptions for others.

Schopenhauer pointed out, not an exact quote, that even if we did manage to create a utopia for a while, we would soon be bored and begin acting improperly. — Manuel

Indeed, but that is more proof of the inherent suffering of the world.

Yet he lived his life, unlike, say Mainländer. He was a real anti-natalist. — Manuel

Well, I don't want to be engaged in True Scotsman fallacy. But at any rate, he did not advocate promortalism, and nor is this argument about that.

Even assuming this approach would be feasible in the first place*, this skips the fact that no person has the wisdom, knowledge and capacity necessary to put their vision of their happy child into reality. The life of a person is simply too complicated, and the influence of the parents, while significant, too limited to take control of all the outcomes. — Tzeentch

A good point.

It's not just a choice on behalf of another, it is a gamble with that person's life. — Tzeentch

That too.

The fact that we actually don't exist before we're born complicates the problem for the simple reason that there's no one who gains/loses — Agent Smith

Then we are already at odds because you are bringing it back to utilitarian calculations and not deontological considerations. Rule-based if you want to translate it.

Clearly, it's comparing apples to oranges then, oui? We couldn't argue that not being born is beneficial — Agent Smith

It's about the state of affairs being good that the outcome was not bad as Benatar explains.

If so how are we going to make the case for antinatalism - it's good for...no one! — Agent Smith

For some reason I have to make it a stark situation for people to see the problem clearly...
A lady is planning to give birth to a kid in a lava pit. She thinks it's a good idea (some crazy religious notion let's say).. The baby is not "born" yet (and let's keep "born" ambiguous as to what stage that is).. You can prevent the lady from giving birth in a lava pit. The baby is not a person yet. Would you prevent the lady from doing so if you could? Let's say that no baby was born because you convinced her to not give birth in a lava pit. That is good, even though there is no baby as a referent that is a benefit of that good. Had that baby been born, what we do definitely know is that would be bad (for an actual baby born into a burning lava pit).

One counterargument against antinatalism revolves around this point, oui? A nonexistent person doesn't have moral worth e.g. no one would be arrested for murdering Frodo because Frodo is fiction. — Agent Smith

And yet again, I will have to keep pointing to future conditionals which are possibilities in the world and future conditionals which can never happen.

Paternalism refers to restricting the freedom and responsibilities of others for their own good. It is more suitable for anti-natalists, that want to restrict all of the freedoms and responsibilities the unborn would have, for their own good. Pro-natalists are throwing caution to the wind, opening up the freedom and responsibilities, and any harm that comes with it. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I'm not so sure though. Because antinatalists are not doing anything to "any one", there are no restrictions taking place (nor freedoms for that matter). As everything with the asymmetry, the damage (collateral, intended or otherwise) goes one way. That is to say, only the person born would be restricted.. And I do mean to use it in a sense of restricting, because at the end of the day, the "choices" in life are actually rather limited based on contingent circumstances and de facto realities of cultural and physical space and time. Reality presents only so many things, and it is those things that are assumed the person born must deal with/endure etc.

My position on this is clear. We must, for the sake of simplicity, assume that we exist prior to our birth on earth as humans (to nullify the asymmetry that gums up the works) Nonexistence pre-birth unnecessarily complicates the calculations, sensu amplo. — Agent Smith

You can't nullify the asymmetry though as the argument rests on precisely the idea of imposing on others. You are talking utilitarian language game and I am talking deontology language game.

E = W% × H + L% × -P — Agent Smith

Nice equation though.

Can you make an equation whereby it is ever okay to make impositions on others when it wasn't necessary to ameliorate greater with lesser harms? When would that be permissible? The parent is the one doing the equation.. That's the problem.. It can NEVER be the person it is affecting. Why should such significant and profound calculations be done on someone else's behalf when it wasn't necessary to do so?

Yes. I'm not sure why Wittgenstein bugs you. If you're a Schopenhauer/Tolstoy/Kierkegaard fan, it seems to me you'd at least be curious about what's going on with the Tractacus. — Tate

Haha, so eluding my whole point. If what he is writing is nonsense, then why not write nonsense on metaphysics.. It's all nonsense. If because it ties to "objects" is nonsense.. Then let's explain the metaphysics further. Why no reference to what he is trying to refer to here?

Not exactly. He's making fun of Schopenhauer in some respects: the stuff about the subject being the limit of the world.

You should be laughing at the end. It's awesome. — Tate

Right, but then why take it seriously? If he intended for you to take it seriously then his nonsense is supposed to be genuine nonsense. Since its ALL nonsense, why not go full hog and justify his ontology with a metaphysics akin to Kant or Schopenhauer? Why start by ASSUMING objects?

In other words, you (he) cannot squirm out of liability of defending his claim simply by calling it nonsense if you (he) wants to discuss it as if it has some truth-value. Otherwise, why discuss it? Are you saying, it's like discussing a fiction or poetry? If so, why aren't you analyzing other fiction poetry? Clearly you think there is something philosophically appealing about this that separates it out from other "fictions".

And I think I do understand the connection with Schopenhauer's understanding of the world as representation and if he was doing so, he should explicitly try to do so.. Schopenhauer himself did so with his ideas of the Fourfold Root of the Principles of Sufficient Reason.. basically laying out in detailed terms how it is that the world of phenomenon is rooted in this fourfold root and thus limited to that. I think that Witt should have been more explicit if he was doing that connection though, but instead he starts off with "objects" a kind of middling ontology with no basis other than if one looks up the vague connection with Russel's idea of objects.. which then presupposes more than is necessary on the reader in a philosophical work. Certainly, I don't think he thought of his own writings as a prank. He wanted it to be taken seriously and as philosophy, not as a shaggy dog writing piece that leads you nowhere.

So it’s one long troll?
I don’t think he was that deliberate about it. I think it’s more like “it’s all nonsense but this is the most accurate of nonsense” (in other words not really nonsense like the others are nonsense).

You have to read the whole thing to get it. This book is a demonstration of philosophical nonsense. For a purpose. — Tate

I think it was his genuine theory and he didn’t want to contradict himself so had to claim it as nonsense. I don’t think he wrote it to show what nonsense looks like. There is a difference.

He does not claim that we cannot name them, but he does not name them. — Fooloso4

Even the claim of objects unnamed is a claim to be justified. I keep having to repeat this quote:

I can predict a sort of response whereby you mention that he was demonstrating his own values whereby philosophy cannot speak of things that can't be pictured.. But BECAUSE it is the very basis for which the picture theory "hangs" (get what I did there).. it MUST be discussed otherwise, Witty garners himself right by way of never having to prove anything outside of what he himself is claiming. How convenient that works.. "I make a claim, but it would be 'nonsense' to refute its very basis". Again, real convenient. — schopenhauer1

The problem, as I see it, is not the claim that there are simples but naming them. If we cannot name them we cannot give an analysis of elementary propositions. The following is then nonsense: — Fooloso4

What does he or you mean by we cannot name them. What is it mean to name in this game?

I would say rather, if we cannot demonstrate them, we cannot…

In the absence of a cogent argument against simples does this need to be defended? Can simples be denied without also denying complexes? — Fooloso4

So we can make ontological claims without defense in philosophy now? Yes, any ontological claim can be denied and not just taken as fact. That is what needs to be defended.

Why are there objects and relations without justification? He is exempt because he said something about nonsense? See my above quote used several times.

We are in agreement regarding his a priori assumptions. The idea of something fundamental, however, is as old as western philosophy itself. It persists in modern science. That is not to say it is correct, but do we know it is incorrect? What are the alternatives? — Fooloso4

I’m not against the idea of something fundamental but rather that Witty isn’t doing anything to defend his claim. Just assuming it with no further explanation. Objects, next. Isn’t enough. Not in philosophy when making claims about the works.

play the ball and not the man. — Down The Rabbit Hole

:clap:

The larger problem is not the ontological assumptions but the linguistic ones, that is, the elemental names that name the elemental objects and combine to form propositions. More precisely, the ontological is the linguistic - what is said and thought about what is. When all is said and done, what stands outside the limits of what can be said, what shows itself experientially remains. The problems of life, the aesthetic and ethical. — Fooloso4

Does his failure to prove the assumption that there are elemental building blocks mean that it is wrong? — Fooloso4

It means it is a sort of lame-duck theory. If he is trying to explain something about the world, then he better be prepared to explain the very foundation of his edifice.

I'm going to also answer with what I said to Banno earlier:

But this is the stuff of philosophy proper, not to be glossed over. His argument ONLY works if you believe the ontological framework. If anyone else just "started" and didn't explain why they started there, they would be called out. I don't see why he should get a pass.

I can predict a sort of response whereby you mention that he was demonstrating his own values whereby philosophy cannot speak of things that can't be pictured.. But BECAUSE it is the very basis for which the picture theory "hangs" (get what I did there).. it MUST be discussed otherwise, Witty garners himself right by way of never having to prove anything outside of what he himself is claiming. How convenient that works.. "I make a claim, but it would be 'nonsense' to refute its very basis". Again, real convenient. — schopenhauer1

Right, that's what he is trying to claim, but his claim rests on a sort of existence that takes for granted "objects" and with it allusions like "scientific conceptions", but none of that is discussed. It would be prone to attack (which I would probably do on it), but it is worse than that.. He doesn't even posit anything. He just starts with this assumptions and hopes you fall for it.. Again, I will point you back to here:

But this is the stuff of philosophy proper, not to be glossed over. His argument ONLY works if you believe the ontological framework. If anyone else just "started" and didn't explain why they started there, they would be called out. I don't see why he should get a pass.

No that's not how that works Witty.. You POSITED something of the WORLD (objects)... — schopenhauer1

I mean, the SEP says the Tractacus was influenced by Schopenhauer. It also says that contemporary scholarship rejects the sharp divide between the Tractacus and the PI.

Interesting stuff. — Tate

He doesn't make any explicit connections, so again, why are you doing more legwork than himself? Schopenhauer's writing is clear and ties his thinking to all sorts of other sources explicitly, right there, in the text.

If the odds are in favor of a pleasurable existence, the person who decides to play the game of life wins :party: . If the opposite, the player loses :cry: !

We need to know the values of p, h, w% and l% to come to a definitive conclusion monsieur.

Please note, my math's a bit rusty and so cum grano salis please. Sorry if this was a waste of your valuable time. Not intended. Beginner here! — Agent Smith

So, "Who" loses if they are not born? Paying attention to "Who", the actual referent?

Also, "Who" is the beneficiary of the "greater number of people for greater happiness"? Besides the individuals that have happiness, why does the aggregation matter? It's a third-party equation that doesn't benefit from the pooling of happiness. Happiness is simply obtained by individuals.. No other entity becomes "greater" as a result of more happy people.. Ethics obtains at the level of person, not abstract equation of aggregation.

No but I’m serious. Look at the question again. Also this utilitarian calculus… “Who” benefits from greater blah blah?

Slippery slope
Cherry picking
Hasty generalizations

We must fear leftists because some crazy minority might agree with Stalin or Mao. :roll:

Yet he mentions none of them, not even a “See Russell. See Schopenhauer. See Kant for the foundations of what I mean by object”. Objects are just assumed. Not even an “IFF objects are the basis for the world”..Why are you doing more work than him at his own argument?

The game of life is worth playing only if r > f! — Agent Smith

What’s the price paid for a non actualized happy life? And now the price paid for the other? Who bears the collateral damage?

I know what you will say, but it shall remain erroneous — DA671

Those two shouldn't go together, so the first clause is not supported by the second :wink: .

An act that doesn't violate existing interests and reduce one's well-being doesn't appear to be a harm/imposition, but that's not a particularly popular view, so I wouldn't mind one not accepting it. However, if impositions are a reality, then so are the benefits. — DA671

Are you a troll? I am not addressing you and we have been through all of this. If you can't predict what I am going to say by now, so be it.

Utilitarian becomes a guise for backing ones preferences. Oh... not THOSE conclusions.. but just THESE conclusions.

Even more striking is how people don't understand the Benatarian asymmetry. Imposition only happens to those who are born (collateral damage only works one way.. by being born).

They also don't understand basic language use of future conditionals (something is a possible state of affairs in the real world versus things that can never be a state of affairs, like meeting a leperchaun).

They also don't understand cause and effect (these conditions lead to that harm).

Funny, how in all other parts of basic conversation, they would most likely understand these concepts.

I'm not going to let you get away that easily :wink:.

So your argument is, if the Tractatus is wrong, then it is wrong. — Banno

The Tractatus is wrong if it fails to prove the very foundation it stands on. It never even set out to do that. It's more that he never proves himself right, as he skips the foundation, assumes it, and goes from there. And if you're going to rebut with the whole

he was demonstrating his own values whereby philosophy cannot speak of things that can't be pictured.. — schopenhauer1

I will answer again:

But BECAUSE it is the very basis for which the picture theory "hangs" (get what I did there).. it MUST be discussed otherwise, Witty garners himself right by way of never having to prove anything outside of what he himself is claiming. How convenient that works.. "I make a claim, but it would be 'nonsense' to refute its very basis". Again, real convenient. — schopenhauer1

As for your points 1-3, you are making exactly the point made in the tractatus, that names cannot be specified, that words and explanations must come to an end, that the ladder must be thrown away.

You are agreeing with Wittgenstein. — Banno

Names cannot be specified? What do you mean about that? He specified that atomic facts are objects.

I make a claim:
Reality is the Will.

You say, "Prove it!"

I say, "Words can never get to what the foundation is, so don't worry about it. Let's discuss the conclusions that might arise if we take this very foundational claim as a basis.".

No, if that's the case, why should I take his claim as true? Why can't I see the world as really "Will and representation"? Why can't I believe the world is some sort of variety of processes that cannot be individually defined like a point in space-time?

I am not a fan of taking a really good post and ignoring most of its contents to then state somewhat vague things like:

As for your points 1-3, you are making exactly the point made in the tractatus, that names cannot be specified, that words and explanations must come to an end, that the ladder must be thrown away. — Banno

Can you attach any of that to my actual points? If it's too much then so be it. A conversation has to have two willing participants otherwise one person is doing most of the legwork. I can see why you like Wittgenstein if that's the case :razz:

Kill yourself and/or don’t have kids. Stop forcing your therapy onto others. — Xtrix

Right, so that's a conclusion from your um, ethical reasoning :roll:? Part of the harm actually of putting someone into existence so actually adds to the AN point. Antinatalists are at least not imposing their belief. They simply try to make arguments to convince. Natalists, by default always impose. As I said earlier about impositions:

Yes it is. Certainly the larger argument might be something like, "We are not obligated to create happy people (if that person isn't there to be deprived), but it seems we are obliged to not create unhappy people (who may indeed actually exist)".

However, it's not even that claim I was discussing, but more about the nature of imposing life on another and when it's justified. Pro-natalists think that life can be imposed as long as X criteria of choices is involved and X criteria of harm is involved. In other words, they recognize that there is an "acceptable" amount of harm that someone else will suffer.

For the antinatalist, both of these claims are misguided. By its very nature, presuming for another that "these range of choices are good" is wrong. I call this moralistic misguided thinking "aggressive paternalism". It presumes one knows what is meaningful, best, or good for another, when in fact they may be ignorant themselves (if these are somehow "objectively" true), or simply, wrong (if they are relatively true and that person being affected just doesn't agree).

Also for antinatalists, presuming that it is permissible to allow the conditions for X criteria of harm is also presumptuous for another. Again, it is aggressively paternalistic to assume that X types of harm are acceptable for other people to suffer. These are flawed and misguided notions that someone else should arbitrarily, by their own reckoning, be the arbiter of what is acceptable in the range of choices or the range of harms that others should encounter. The sad thing is, there is no alternative for those who would disagree.. Only suicide and cajoling that, "This life isn't that bad!" and all the cultural pressures of thousands of years of optimism bias.

Also don't forget, there is unforeseeable harm as well as expected harm for the future person that would be born. The parents might have thought that only X amount of harm would take place, but there are other (perhaps more serious) harms that can befall a person that they didn't even expect and is regrettable. I'll call this a "known unknown". We know that there is unforeseeable harms for future people, so even though we don't know the specifics, we can understand a vague idea of it, and we know that it is a frequent occurrence. — schopenhauer1

A lot of the basis for your current argument with DA671 is deontology versus consequentialism (seemingly here of the utilitarian variety). DA671 is only using consequences and population statistics as a criterion for moral behavior. In this view, a little bit of murder justifies a greater outcome to "someone doing the moral calculation it seems?", etc. and relies heavily on the netted population's view on life at any given moment for whether an act is deemed ethically good or bad (so cannibalism is good as long as 58% of the population thinks so.. same with slavery, etc.).

I would argue that "innocent persons not deserving harm" can translate well enough to what I argue when I say "unnecessary harms".. No harm is justified whereby there was no need to ameliorate a greater harm with a lesser harm (as is the case with birth in which case inflicting inevitable harm would be wholly unnecessary to inflict for that person being affected by the outcome of procreation).

Why shouldn't we do both, with care? If Wittgenstein agrees with us that there are problems with the Tractatus, let's acknowledge that. — Banno

Ok, I wanted to make sure I was playing by the rules of this language game.

We do not get to the meaning of a word by setting out its definition using other words, because we would then never step outside that circularity. We can get to the meaning of words by using them.

Explaining a rule suffers a similar circularity. We can state the rule in ever more detail, finding ourselves in a circle or a regress. But there is a way of understanding a rule that is seen in implementing it, not in analysing it.

This is only superficially "starting in the middle". — Banno

So in Tractatus, Witt explains (pretty commonsensically) that true propositions about the world are ones where only facts of the world are stated. Facts are actual states of affairs of objects and their relations to other objects. If you want to make a picayunish point about how I'm using facts and states of affairs, be my guest, but now we are getting to pedantic-ville and not my point. My point is, behind all of these Zarathustrian-stated assumptions is a metaphysics of the world as objects. It is this claim that I am saying that reveals something about his philosophical conception. The Tractatus falls apart if the world is not objects and their relations. Atomic facts are simply "turtles all the way down", as what is truly being pictured is nowhere to be found (empty set, error, not even on the scene). Why? Because to prove this claim, something other than mere stating of asserted propositions must be accomplished (which is all he is doing).

So thus far we have this as what is the case with Tractatus:
1. Witty is making propositions.
2. His propositions rely on claims outside of the propositions (objects- presumably somewhere in space and time).
2a, Therefore, his claim (of objects) must be demonstrated beyond referencing the mere propositions themselves that entail the very claim being posited.
3. A claim that is beyond the propositions that entail them must be demonstrated.
3a. What counts as being demonstrated can be a number of things including scientific explanation through experimentation or results of empirical studies, arguments that show X, Y, Z about a feature of reality that cannot be disproven easily, etc. etc.
3b. Witty provides none of these for the basis of his propositions (objects).
3c. Therefore, Witty fails to prove the very claims that are the basis of his propositions. He has not done the legwork for a foundation of his claims that are necessary because of 2- his very propositions rely on claims outside of the propositions.

We can get to the meaning of words by using them. — Banno

Fine and dandy, but now we are mixing up our language games. Are we going to explain early Witty by way of later Witty or are we going to take early Witty at face value when it was written?

So again I repeat the question above in a rephrased way: Why should *I* believe (or "think" or "conclude") that life should be completely and totally absent from harm? And why is harm the focus? — Xtrix

You seem to ignore my arguments.