This seems massively too easy a question to answer so tell me what you are getting at please.

Meaning: What point are you driving at, or what underlying question/s are you looking to address/reveal? — I like sushi

Existence entails suffering.

In the sense of what Shakespeare asked by the question "to be or not to be?", do you or do you not uphold that being (to be) is bad and non-being (not to be) is good?

If you do not uphold this underlined part, how would your held onto position not contradict all moral arguments if favor of antinatalism?

If you do uphold this underlined part, how then does this upheld position not rationality endorse the obtaining a state of non-being via any action one can accomplish toward this very end? And if corporeal death is taken to equate to eternal non-being, how would suicide not be just such an action? — javra

Because I antinatalism does NOT entail suicide. You can perhaps force an argument that way, but it wouldn't be mine. I don't see there being an equivalence with preventing life and ending it, and I am sure you can think of scenarios where you would not start something but once it happens, it perhaps is not always best to end it either. But not ending it doesn't negate the former.

It's aliens. Late in the year 2025, Donald Trump, through manifest incompetence, started a nuclear war that destroyed much of the earth. Aliens have arrived to try to set about some solutions in order to change history and avoid the conflict. — Tom Storm

They don't want to be disturbed, you see, so it's less about us, more about not blowing up their home and/or terrarium :joke:

Yeah, but to be fair, congressional hearings about UFOs would seem to create the atmosphere of looking for strange stuff in the sky. I see you have a theory of “why this now”.

There does seem to be an increase in both drone activity and UAP sightings around the world, including stuff that doesn’t look or act like any man made one’s. There’s a lot of confidential stuff supposedly they have but is kept top secret. It’s always the secrecy that’s more fascinating. It’s weird as some people are saying there's a “there”there, and others deny it exists.

Here's a more sobering take:



But that's what the big government wants you to think :joke:

Good question. Everything I see is video from a person on the ground's perspective, so just lights. Some of them seem like propellor ones and others seem like fixed wing, but hard to tell just from the video footage. You can Google "New Jersey Drones" and you'll see a bunch of videos and news coverage on it.

But otherwise I haven't paid much attention. Be nice to know how big they are and how high they're flying. — tim wood

:up:

@Wayfarer @Tom Storm anything to share on it?

@Leontiskos surely you have a theory.

Of course, the more "tin foil hat" theory is that these are NHI (non-human intelligence). The idea is that they’re being produced in an ocean base where aliens reside, mimicking human drones, which is why they have colored lights that follow US FAA regulations. A neat trick, though, is that they "go dark" when helicopters try to follow them- whatever that means. Maybe they turn off their lights and evade radar detection?

There’s definitely heightened awareness of flying objects since that US congressional hearing about UAPs (formerly UFOs), where it was alleged the government is hiding its knowledge of them, including retrievals and reverse engineering programs.

Honestly, I’m not sure what to make of it. A disinformation campaign? Crazy conspiracy theorists humored by Congress? Or... it’s all real :)! The disclosure crowd claims the government is slowly preparing us by releasing bits of UAP information so we get used to the idea before they reveal the full truth.

Hey, if it sounds like Hollywood, it probably is- but I like that scenario. Way cooler than everyday stuff. Still, people insist this is happening. Yet, apart from grainy pilot videos, there’s no solid first-hand proof. Every time witnesses were asked for details, they said they could only discuss it in confidential settings, which I’m not sure were even authorized.

I originally had a video up but there was a better one that captured more. On that one, I noticed that the reporter first asked if it was "American drones", and then the press secretary stuttered, and the reporter followed up narrowing the inquiry to whether it was only "US military drones". And this allowed the press secretary to deny the more narrow question but not the broader one. I wonder if the reporters themselves were prompted not to ask, or what that was.

Concern, anxiety, worry, fear, etc. with respect to something that seems abnormal (and may or may not be) is infectious--not just on social media, but in social settings. People get wound up.

IF the drones actually are harmless commercial vehicles, I would be happier if the government had a clear grasp of how many of these things are flying around, who owns them, how are they identified, and how they are policed--if they are. I'm pretty sure the government isn't keeping track. Free enterprise is once again doing its thing and running amok.

Amok: behave uncontrollably and disruptively from the Malay word, mengamok, meaning to make a furious and desperate charge. — BC

Yep, as I replied to Hanover here:

Another theory here is that it is part of an effort to get legislation passed for more (federal?) authority to take out drones. Thus you need the hysteria to allow for the legislation. The legislation would be offered as "benign" (see you need us). However, this would (presumably?) contradict the notion that it is a government asset. OR, they would have to pin the blame on something benign/banal even if it was. That would be going down more conspiratorial routes, but eh, governments lie all the time I am presuming for "security". — schopenhauer1

I also explained above that I think it's government contractors or another government agency than the military. Notice how they don't seem to allow questions asking if it is NON-military assets? They only keep repeating the question of if it's the military. Here was the first time:

My feeling is we work so hard to maintain the right to be armed in this country, you'd think we'd be more excited to finally have a menacing target to shoot at. — Hanover

:lol:

Someone must know what they are or they'd have been shot down by now. So far, they've not done anything interesting. — Hanover

Yes, my theory is government contractors. Notice they don't seem to have people ask if they are NON-military government assets or from contractors for the government. Everyone keeps re-asking about military. Well, why don't they ask if they are NON-military government (or government contractor) assets/testing??

Another theory here is that it is part of an effort to get legislation passed for more (federal?) authority to take out drones. Thus you need the hysteria to allow for the legislation. The legislation would be offered as "benign" (see you need us). However, this would (presumably?) contradict the notion that it is a government asset. OR, they would have to pin the blame on something benign/banal even if it was. That would be going down more conspiratorial routes, but eh, governments lie all the time I am presuming for "security".

@Hanover @tim wood

Any ideas, thoughts, observations, theories?

What do you think of the federal government response as opposed to local officials? Government gaslighting or local hysteria?

Again, this increase in drones is, according to some, a global phenomenon, especially near military sites.

Military or other government agency contractors? My fascination is more the Pentagon and National Security Council’s response and the (possible) gaslighting even to congressman and local officials who are adamant these are unmanned drones and are unusual and not mass hysteria.

No definitely not this ha. They wouldn’t skirt FAA regulations for weeks and have technology that goes dark when detected.

Without going into conspiracy territory, it does make one wonder why the government is so casual about it. — BC

Yep

Even more odd is

The government's limp-dick response to this is similar to its erectile dysfunctional response to the unidentified balloon floating over the country. — BC

I was actually quite surprised about the White House responses from this. It was basically an insult to those New Jerseyans, and they seem pretty adamant that they do not want them there and that they should be downed.

Crazy people? — BC

That seems to be what the White House is implying- mass hysteria, nothing to see here. They have people taking out enemies thousands of miles away, but can't take care of a few drones in the homeland? All of it is odd.

Also, drones have been showing up in the UK over military installations as well.

I find it interesting it happened after the congressional hearings on UAP.

For some reason @BC seems like a good commentator for this one.

The meaning arises as a brain (containing neural networks trained to recognize the written language the book is written in) detects patterns in the writing which are associated by that brain with the meaning that arises. — wonderer1

I bolded and bolded/underlined the category errors. On one end you have a physical process, on the other hand another thing going on, more associated with mental process (meaning). The explanatory gap between the two, is generally the (hard) question at hand.

The observer being assumed is the slippery homuncular fallacy.

To fight, to be strong, to rule. People love to fight, to rule. — baker

That is an interesting answer, but I doubt that would consciously be the reason people procreate. The worst offenses are continuation of bloodline, to add a laborer, or to continue society. The medium, to play role as parent. The least (yet still misguided), to give the "opportunity" for the new being to experience X, Y, Z positive experiences.

Obviously, the reasons are multivarious and multicausal. An answer one day might change the next. It's hard to pin down any specific desire to a reason, but many are proffered.

Why do you call these "negative"? Based on what standards? Why those standards? — baker

Negative is as it implies: If you are at a more positive state (happy, neutral), and you experience something that brings you to a less positive state, it is negative. Not that hard.

These comparisons with animals seem to be very important to you. It's not yet clear, why, though. Some form of envy or nostalgia?
Do you think animals are better off than humans? — baker

If you read some of my posts, I think you can get what I am saying. I explain the dilemma of human consciousness as compared to other animals.

And in most cases, also quickly enough forgotten. — baker

Pollyainism is a thing.

Duplicate

Events absent any observer aren't simply non-existent, but neither are they existent, as 'an event' has to be delimited in time and space, comprising some elements and excluding others. — Wayfarer

Even this betrays a sort of biased proto-experiential view of things. As if the event itself is the knower. Not this either.

I'm not sure how emergence is understood. As I said in a previous post, at what scale does the universe take without a perspective? What are events without perspective? Indirect realism would have it that, everything is in a way "map". But what is it when everything is pure "terrain"?

This is why I keep referring to the recent essay and book on the blind spot of science. The blind spot essentially arises from the emphasis on objectivity as the sole criterion for what is real. It is the attempt to discern what truly exists by bracketing out or excluding subjective factors, arising from the division in early modern science of primary and secondary attributes, on the one hand, and mind and matter, on the other. So that looses sight of the role of the mind in the construction (Vorstellung) of what is perceived as 'external reality', along with the conviction that this alone is what is real. — Wayfarer

If I was to connect this to some modern theories, I guess one can relate back to informational theories. The divide, crudely, is between "inside" (subjective), and "outside" (objective). Scientific-pursuit in regards to consciousness, at its broadest philosophical import, is about how the "objective" can sufficiently become a persistently recursive enough set of events to "become" subjective.

To parse this out though is tricky:
"Recursive" would be doing heavy-lifting here. How does it not fall into the homuncular fallacy trap?
What is this "becoming subjective" as opposed to prior to becoming subjective?

Cells differentiate into specialized organs of sensory input and nervous system that seems to both specialize and become generalized in its processing. If Gerald Edelman is right, the neuro-processes work in a neural darwinistic fashion, not too dissimilar to how antibodies form.

The problem is always the same though. It's what Schopenhauer laid out about the first eye opening. That is to say, these materialist accounts of correlation of neuronal activity with subjective experience, presupposes the very subjective experience, and it's hard to get out of that loop, and hence, the "Hard Problem of Consciousness" is persistent and hard to shake.

You have to admire Schopenhauer's writing here. Clear, but insightful. This eye opening passage is one I have pondered a lot before, as it is one of the hardest concepts to wrap your head around. We tend to think of the world as somehow independent, but yet Schop's notion is "object has always needed a subject" -object does not precede subject. Thus, as you indicated, all collapses to a unified Will that is fundamental to all of it. There's a lot to unpack, but as far as I see the subject-for-object simply is Will. Perhaps I am mistaken, but one way his view is anti-theological (though certainly speculative and not material), is that Will is not, as far as I can tell, some "primary" force, but is simply the unified concept of the principle behind the subject-for-object. In other words, "denying the Will", is not the same as achieving "some fundamental state". Rather, it's the ultimate negation of all states (thus denial of Will not achievement of Will. Will is what one is negating, not "going back to in some fundamental state".

But the bigger philosophical point here is the naive realism that Schop decries. It is simple to fall into the notion that what is perceived is what is the case "out there", without humans. I always use the example of "scale" to make this point. At what scale would a universe be without perspective? Is it the atomic level? Is it the universal-all-at-once level? Is it the sub-atomic level? That is to say everything then seems to both collapse and encompass everything all at once. You can say that it's "relational" in some way, or "processional" in some way, but what this really "means" without a subject or a knower, is hard to imagine. And to assume otherwise, is indeed the "naive" in naive realism, I suppose.

The universe prior to life, in Schopenhauer’s terms, would be an undifferentiated striving will, not the structured cosmos we now perceive. — Wayfarer

Really good post, but one point I’d add is he did have Platonic forms in there too as “objectified Will”. From how I have interpreted it, the subject is basically the Fourfold PSR, and the forms impress upon the subject. Subject and object, however are two aspects of Will. You might have a different interpretation. Either way, what you write is a good summary of Schop’s position.

The fact that we exist is something over which we have no control, it precedes us. As such, we have no say over its meaning. — baker

Hence the need for antinatalism as an ethic.

To try to figure out why we exist or why life is worth living and to make this a matter of decision is like trying to choose one's parents. That is, it's irrational, it cannot be done. — baker

I didn't say this. That's something you asserted here for some reason, kind of an aside maybe. When I said this:

Rather, all these "goods" are not necessarily only "factual" or objective but rather normative. There is an agenda, at the cost of much suffering. But we must look at this and see what it is we are trying to do here and why we are insisting on doing it. That's why I suggested we should treat existence as a political committee would, putting a moratorium on it until we understand why we trudge forth, but do this analysis unflinchingly, without the poetic cliches. — schopenhauer1

I mean in general, the human project. What are we wanting people to "do" here? Why procreate more people here? When someone begins to answer this, the agenda reveals itself. Suffering considerations take a back seat.

The problem of "existential anxiety" only ever exists precisely in reference to religions and spiritualities, old and more recent.
It's inconceivable otherwise. — baker

Suffering (with a capital "S") is simply the label I give all this negative understanding (self-awareness). Bed bugs, diseases, emotional trauma, and cancer are often situational and contingent. That is to say, they happen under certain conditions, in certain spaces and times at certain probabilities. The likelihood of any situational negative experience is high on a daily basis. The ability to combine this into a category and label it "Suffering", is something our species is able to do. Negativity/Suffering is simply a universal for a diverse set of instances. The name or label, or even manner in which it is spoken (metaphorical, allegorical, mythological) is less relevant.

However, there is another form that you can put into the bucket- the "existential" kind. This one is felt most with the emotional feeling of boredom. It's the engine running but no clearly interesting goals. It's the baseline. It's the Pascal's "cannot sit still in an empty room" scenario. Most cultures, at least to any degree of writing, has written about it- chasing after "vanity", Buddhist notions of dissatisfaction- Dukkha, Gnostic and Platonic notions of a corrupted reality and ideal reality. It all revolves around these themes of a general existential dissatisfaction.

Other animals do indeed feel pains and are harmed, but don't have the contingent-thinking to know that "something could be different". Things happen to most other animals. They don't opine that it could have been something else. They don't have the ability to see the picture of the category of Suffering in general.

So here we are, animals that can see the big picture of Suffering. That can know that things could be different, but are currently not the ideal.

The question at issue is 'existential anxiety' and the predicament implicit in the human condition, which divergent religions and philosophies claim to or attempt to ameliorate. So does 'handling the situation' mean - ameliorating that deep sense of anxiety? — Wayfarer

Communities of catharsis, mutual understanding of our situation without flinching. If there is no escape to X metaphysical better state, then we can only help and advocate for each other in various communal ways, or, as my other thread suggested, drop out completely- withdraw and become content alone, perhaps using various known techniques to help withdraw.

However, to simply propose a higher metaphysical entity/order/reality/non-reality/no-thing-ness in order to provide the hope, is not unflinching. It's yet another bad faith. The problem with these ancient religions is that they are employed to give a de facto answer, and are "baked into" the culture so that you are always forced in affirming or denying things which are opposed to the traditions, as if they are just something that we should take seriously in the first place. Rather, we should understand the situation as if on a political committee.. Committees for existential condition. The problem is everything devolves into survival and beyond that, "What's the fckn point?". The situation as it is now, would have it such that technological consumption, and making a living is the point. It's the de facto thing we fall into as it is our mechanism of survival since the industrial revolution.. So then,

I’ve been listening the last two years to John Vervaeke’s Awakening from the Meaning Crisis. Vervaeke is professor of Cognitive Science at University of Toronto. It’s a series of 50 lectures on the basis of the sense of meaninglessness that afflicts many humans in today’s world, tracing it right back through the history of culture and civilisation, whilst still trying to stay within the bounds of natural science. I recommend a listen. — Wayfarer

Yes, I have watched most of that series. I noticed he discusses Hegel but does not have one on Schopenhauer. I think that's something revealing. False hope? Bad faith? Reinterpreting a Platonic existence or some such, what does this do, but another philosopher's coping device?

What would ameliorating anxiety be such that we aren't looking to ancient truths, but instead, hard realities of what we know (not what we is "revealed" if we just follow this ancient/sacred path).

Certainly people (modern Westerners mainly) will say relationships, experiences (usually this involves, nature, travel, "adventures"), learning, and love are the things we must focus on- as if these are ends in themselves (see my thread here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15378/a-review-and-critical-response-to-the-shortcomings-of-popular-secularist-philosophies/p1.

Rather, all these "goods" are not necessarily only "factual" or objective but rather normative. There is an agenda, at the cost of much suffering. But we must look at this and see what it is we are trying to do here and why we are insisting on doing it. That's why I suggested we should treat existence as a political committee would, putting a moratorium on it until we understand why we trudge forth, but do this analysis unflinchingly, without the poetic cliches.

I think javra is making a solid point. Nietszche foresaw the upsurge of nihilism due to the death of God - which was not, according to David Bentley Hart, a paean to the triumph of atheism, as a Dawkins would have it, but a lament over the loss of the foundational values tied to belief in God. — Wayfarer

He isn't really. You are improving upon it though, to make it a better one. One actually that I also agree with to an extent.

I also agree that antinatalism is an obviously nihilistic attitude. It’s basically ‘it would have been much better never to have been born.’ — Wayfarer

Not basically, it is that.

The fact is, we have! We have discussed many times the sense in which soteriological paths seek to transcend the inevitable suffering of existence, but antinatalism and nihilist philosophers seem have no belief in or interest in it. It seems to me they turn their back on the prospect of any genuine remediation. — Wayfarer

Obviously the antinatalist part is advocating for prevention of the suffering of existence in the first place, without need to justify it for some abstract outcome that might be hoped for.

Let me ask you this- do you see ways of practically handling the situation that is not based on ideas of a spiritual nature (karma, dharma, etc.)? If we've had conversations before, do you have an inkling of what I might say?

You might not “follow the logic” but ….

Suicide rates increased 37% between 2000-2018 in the US and is one of the leading causes of death.

If life is bad and non-being is good, this as antinatalism advocates and disseminates, then there is no surprise that many out there will come to infer that the only logical conclusion to the unpleasantries of life is to commit suicide. Even though an antinatalist will not advocate for suicide per se, the message they send via their tenuous reasoning directly works toward this effect, most especially for those who believe death to equate to non-being. — javra

This to me is a load of bullshit. So yeah I don't follow the reasoning. If you asked the suicidal person if they killed themselves because they heard the views of antinatalism, most will have not. In fact, if anything it speaks to other things that pessimists and antinatalists discuss, but not caused by antinatalism, a crucial difference.

There’s more to it than this, but you already expressed that you don’t follow the logic to it, so why bother to further address it. — javra

Because you have none. This is all veiled ad hominem.

All the same, last I checked, disseminating views that end up encouraging others out there to ponder, if not commit, self-murder is unethical. Hence the absurdity of positing such views to be in life’s best interest and hence ethical. I figure one’s “existential self-awareness” ought to make this amply clear, but apparently not. — javra

Yeah, this is a major fallacy. If someone is a free speech advocate, yet some of it is hate speech that encourages X bad action, the free speech advocate isn't directly causing or encouraging the negative consequences of "free speech", or its misuse rather. A person who is "pro gun rights" isn't for school shootings. A person who is pro-choice isn't for killing babies. These are all examples of straw mans.

So I propose you move away from this ridiculous line of reasoning and if you want to discuss the existential issues, be my guest. If you want to advocate for a Buddhist approach, or be critical of pessimism without making a strawman caricature of it by trying to conflate bad motives, edge cases, and extremes, or general cultural trends (that may be part of the same substrate but not caused by it), go ahead.

but for your trying to convince all others of this suicidally unethical absurdity — javra

WTF are you talking about? You are strolling into troll territory. You accuse my argument of emotional sentimentality. This is just a provoking sentimental provocation right there.

Why is it unethical absurdity to your sensibilities? What kind of philosophy are you advocating then that this is making you clutch your pearls that I don’t believe in Nirvana. I’ve never seen this reaction outside Abrahamic beliefs. Even Wayfarer, a long time eastern practitioner doesn’t peddle in this kind of pearl clutching or trolling, even if he believes that it is nihilism.

I was responding to the point of yours that I quoted, about how to reconcile the apparent unworldliness of the desire for transcendence, with the actuality of life as living individuals with attachments to significant others. — Wayfarer

I could ask a series of personal questions to get to a point, but you can take these instead of "you" as more of "why would one", to depersonalize it:

1) Why would you pursue romantic love and familial life in the first place and not just enlightenment?

2) What would happen if the partner (or current/final partner) you have ended up with had broken up with you before you procreated or got married? If your life had two versions, and one path was a version that was not successful at finding love, and the other one that did, is the first one as well-off as the second?

2a) If the first one is not as well-off, what are the implications?

And so again, my quote from above, the CONTINGENT circumstances glaringly more apparent:

Tell someone on here who recently fell in love that existence is suffering. The hormones alone will lead them to (internally) violently resist. They just “won” and you are going to question that? Skip a few years and babies, and more pay from work, and a bit of status in society. You end up with grandkids and half the old timer posters on here giving you their quite middlebrow-everyday man’s workaday morals of something equivalent to Aristotle’s Golden Mean. At the most, they can give you “balance” in some Tao inspired koan. But it’s all to preserve that lifestyle. They cling to it, because if that was lost, a whole despair from a loss and attachment to a lifestyle and stability has gone away. Of course these posters oppose the kind of radical pessimism and antinatalism I speak of.

Hesse's Siddhartha, discussed this in a way.. Existential themes related to exactly these kind of attachments. Detachment after attachments are made seem cruel. Successful X may also be contingent. Yet instead of never pursuing or abandoning the pursuit as vanity, if one is successful, one rarely lets go. No reason to lose love for no reason other than a silly philosophy, right?

if we all obtain this end of non-being upon our corporeal death, why not lie, cheat, and steal (or worse) as much as we can while living so as to maximize our profits till our inevitable non-being results? — javra

This is the classic theist trope about why atheists wouldn't just wantonly kill and murder and do bad things because of not believing in a god. It assumes that moral behavior is contingent on divine oversight, ignoring the fact that many atheists and secular philosophies advocate for ethical conduct based on various ethical frameworks or sensibilities such as rights, empathy, or even rational self-interest, rather than fear of punishment or promise of reward.

All life benefits by its cessation to live via the resultant obtainment of non-being - this being its sole means of being free from suffering - and so the global destruction of life and its myriad species is in fact doing all life a big favor. Nuclear weapons detonated? Even better. And if we manage to obliterate all life in the cosmos - here assuming all life in the cosmos is located on our planet Earth - then we will obtain the very cessation of life ever being birthed to begin with. Never mind then evolving over time into forms of life with greater capacity for understanding and suffering than that currently held.

All this is a bit villainous. “Evil incarnate” some might express. With a good pinch of materialism, in the colloquial sense, thrown in for flavor. — javra

Strawmanning is not a great way to argue. Violating various ethical principles to uphold another ethical principle negates it. But anyways, not believing in an idea of "non-being" doesn't lead to the desire to see nuclear destruction. Sorry, not following that logic.

Philosophy of being versus philosophy of objects/stuff seems to be about as good a distillation as you are going to get. Other posters have intimated similar themes. Both can be pursued. It's when one fetishizes one for the other, that one may be not comprehensive.

I think there is something akin to "anxiety of usefulness". For example, I suppose someone studying "Philosophy of Science" and "Logic", thinks they are contributing something more useful than people who dare to philosophize on "being" or "the human condition" or the idea of "freedom". So, I guess it's about what people are insecure/anxious about when it comes to picking up philosophical endeavors.

As others have stated as well, academic pursuits, adds its own set of anxieties.. To conform to a certain preferred set of topics, etc.

I'm not quoting this to evangalise belief but as an illustration of the way that Mahāyāna Buddhism reconciled the reality of life in the world with the higher truths of their religion. But for me, personally, it provides a satisfactory philosophical framework within which to accept the vicissitudes of existence. — Wayfarer

I'm sure this debate has been played out between Mahayana and Theravada schools, but wouldn't one just say that this is trying to reconcile one's desires with doctrine? I have no dog in this fight really, being I don't believe in the soteriology framework of either schools.