The argument here is that panpsychism does not help. — Banno

Putting aside your own "incredulous stare" at the mere idea:
a) emergentism has no observer, just added clutter to the simples.
b) panpscyhism has the observer in the simples

Actually, it's quite sensational... — Banno

If it is all simples doing what they do, what is the new phenomena clutter that is added to this metaphysics?

Emergentism is the thesis that things doing what they do produces an observer. — Banno

Ah yes, this is not odd at all.

You know, I read that twice and still have no idea what your point is. — Banno

Third time's a charm!

Beyond that, there is no point of view that persists for things to emerge. Rather, it is some form of simples (e.g. strings, quarks, leptons, etc.) arranging themselves in various ways. — schopenhauer1

Emergence needs to take place with an observer. Otherwise it is just simples doing what they do (mereolgoical nihilism- arranging themselves in certain ways). Think Kant, or Kant-think.

When things arise, they are arising into something. When experience arises, "where" is it arising? — schopenhauer1

Everything else arises in the "where" of an observer. Whence does the observer arise?

It's a process we can say, but that is just linguistic equivocating. Making something a process doesn't banish the phenomenon to just "another phenomenon" like the formation of sand dunes. — schopenhauer1

So you you might make the move to call the phenomenon of experience a process and thus think you have done something clever. But you haven't. This changes nothing. The formation of sand dunes is also a process.. this one called experience seems just a tad different then all other processes? And what is that difference from other processes?

This process is the context for all other phenomenon to arise in the first place. — schopenhauer1

The 'joyful nihilist' is one more role we can find ourselves playing and defending, because it grabbed us in a way that other roles just didn't. — Yellow Horse

Yeah, this is more-or-less what I was trying to say. The joyful nihilist is not free of the modern superstructure. It is just one reaction or "role" to take on in reaction to it. Even then, it is more of a literary role. Rarely do people practice what they preach. Rather, they are hard at work deciding what food to buy at the market and ensuring their customers, bosses, or investors are happy. They can make fun of the situation at certain times, they can say they are "joyfully" experiencing their own micro-narrative or laughing at the absurdity, but they do care about their more "modern" interests as it has to do with their basic needs of survival, comfort, and entertainment.. That's it folks. It is the necessary condition of being human in a social and physical environment.

My point is that the sentimentality or the laughter one can find in some of these literary and pop-culture post-modern tales, does not "resolve" our own very nature (i.e. survival, comfort, entertainment) which is inextricably and inescapably tied up with the minutia-mongering (i.e. often dull, scientific driven, very detail-oriented, depersonalized, etc.) modern world. We cannot escape the modern in some micro-narrative fantasy. We are always in relation to it. You cannot watch your show or read your book without all the patents, inventions, and ideas of modern technology, science, distribution, etc.

Yet we are conscious, and rocks are not. If your point is that both emergentism and panpsychism assume some sort of hierarchy, which we might be able to do without, then we agree. — Banno

Hmm, not sure about hierarchy. In the idea that no level of experience is more privileged?

Anyways, it is more like mereological nihilism. Emergentism seems to be something that happens in epistemological contexts. Beyond that, there is no point of view that persists for things to emerge. Rather, it is some form of simples (e.g. strings, quarks, leptons, etc.) arranging themselves in various ways.

When things arise, they are arising into something. When experience arises, "where" is it arising? It's a process we can say, but that is just linguistic equivocating. Making something a process doesn't banish the phenomenon to just "another phenomenon" like the formation of sand dunes. This process is the context for all other phenomenon to arise in the first place.

there must be some level of complexity at which an unconscious thing becomes conscious. Hence, that would involve some form of emergentism. — Banno

Emergentism is as odd, prima facie, as panpsychism in the context of a metaphysical phenomenon. "Wet" is a property only at a certain epistemological level of experience- that is to say consciousness, presumably. If we are going by what we know, many properties need a strong correlation with experience in order for it to "arise". Emergence qua emergence (sans observer/experience), may be incoherent. You need a context for which something is emerging. The "jump" to the next level is the magical part. So take your pick, the magic of emergence or the magic of proto-experiential processes.

I would disagree that we are free not to be bored or uncomfortable. I think the most obvious way to demonstrate this is by pointing out that even on a bed of nails, some find it comfortable. Even in isolation, some are never bored. So to arrive at your assertion, you would need to define the words as things guaranteed to occur. Thus stripping their negation from the set of all life possibilities. — Risk

People train themselves to do this. Most socially-enculturated humans without developmental issues get bored. It's a fact. Just because certain people are able train themselves to "clear the mind" or try to adapt their comfort levels to conditions, does not mean that these are not motivations for our dissatisfactions at most times in our lives. Go to work, clean the dishes, ride your bike, hunt the animal, dance around the fire.. Take away over-inflated romantic notions or overwrought theories of motivation, it's survival, comfort, or entertainment (mainly from boredom) or a combination of two or three of them at once.

To Just Be, would to somehow be able to freeze time. So to build premises around what life is, based on such self fulfilling terminology doesn't make sense. — Risk

That's the point, it ISN'T by definition, part of our existence. We CAN'T escape it.

everything else become states you choose. — Risk

I disagree. There is a meta-narrative- survival, comfort, entertainment motivations in a cultural context. The "condemned to be free" is only within that broader framework.You are condemned to be free actually gets neutered to "You are condemned to be free within the context of cultural contingency, and the needs to survive, find comfort, and entertainment". Entertainment here is anything that provides meaning or flow states in your life. Something to keep your big brain occupied. It could be ANYTHING that is not survival or comfort-seeking. Washing the dishes, probably out of comfort-seeking. Going to work, probably out of survival needs. Buying food, survival. Going to the bathroom, mainly survival. Going mountain-climbing, entertainment need. Religious observation, entertainment-seeking. Reading philosophy, entertainment seeking. Saving someone who is injured- taking away the discomfort of seeing someone in pain. For survival to work on a societal level, it may also fall into that to teach altruism when needed. Our core dissatisfaction with being, needs an avenue in the linguistic-cultural framework of a society and with our linguistically-based brains to interact with it. However, many layers of soci-cultural avenues to carry it out, the core goes back to survival, comfort, entertainment.

While Sysphus was condemmed to push the boulder, he was not condemned to be sad whilst doing so — Risk

Yes but the boulder being pushed is the unmovable conditions. Coping mechanisms to deal with the initial conditions are all this is. It doesn't change the conditions.

I'm more interested in catharsis through complaint. We need to recognize the suffering and not try to smooth it over, deny it, sublimate it, ignore it, accept it, etc. The best way to rebel against the fate is to not create the fate for yet more people by procreation. Stop the whole madness altogether.

Just as with Arthur, I disagree with you here. You are setting the rules of engagement without any logical foundation to them. Claiming things must be so and not justifying why.
- Our wills need to survive. What is suicide but a logical contradition to this so called universal law
- comfort. What about those who seek discomfort, even enjoy pain.
Unjustified, unverified rules of engagement. — Risk

Actually Schop wrote a lot about suicide, and that it was simply the will, acting against itself, thus still using will to negate the will. It is finding comfort in non-existence.

People mostly seek discomfort for a greater sense of entertainment or for a greater sense of comfort later on. Exercise for example for health or the exercise high or to look a different less discomforting way.

Observation and experience tell me this is the best understanding of what is going on.

The freedom this perspective offers when you abondon the meta narratives and recognise choice for what it is and can be, seems only achievable through post modernist thinking.

Hence What is it good for, absolutely EVERYTHING. — Risk

No meta-narratives..but you like your electricity right? You like living in a dwelling right? That requires all the minutia-mongering of the meta-narrative of modernism. You can hack it in the wilderness but that required you to be in the meta-narrative to try to break away from it (usually unsuccessfully as even tribal societies must live in the narratives of their tribal way of life and teach the survival context of that way of life).

We seem to see the situation in basically the same way. How do some of John Gray's darker passages fit in here? He attacks the religion of progress. — Yellow Horse

Yeah I've read one or two of his books. I generally agree, though not necessarily my brand of pessimism. Still laudable. I'll check out the video.

So this is where I find the value of postmodernism. No predetermined hierarchies. No utopia. Pure choice. Historically people have needed narrow illogical frameworks to motivate themselves to restlessly strive forward. Think clergy building stability via monogamous societies. I don't think its a leap to suggest this may be a cultural characteristic, not intrinsic. And in the future we recognise the grey, ambiguous, interconnectedness of everything which will lead to fascinating new insights and innovations.

I think it has everywhere to go as it is not bounded by a systematic framework of restrictions or isolated thinking. Always looking for a critique though so please fire away! — Risk

So I think there are more concrete motivations than "pure choice". We may be condemned to be free, but we are not free not to die. We are not free not to be uncomfortable. We are not free to not be bored. I truly think every motivation can be categorized under our striving wills' need to survive, find comfort, and entertain ourselves.

In the "modern" world, we have science and technology. This is the superstructure cultural context in which we play out our will's need for survival, comfort, and entertainment. We cannot just "be" we are always "becoming". That is to say, we must race down the hill so we don't trip over ourselves. How does this play out? Getting the raise, the house, the accomplishment of some sort, get the relationship, etc. It's always trying to get the next thing. Then we have to slow down.. We always have to figure out how to find rest.. meditate, relax, enjoy the moment. We can never JUST BE. We have to speed it up or slow it down. Fill it with things or clear the mind. This just indicates life is just something to DEAL WITH. We are given this gift of dealing with, being demanded from, and demanding from others. And we call this "good". What's the matter with never being? Deep sleep? Unborn? After alive? What is it about BEING?

Anyways, sentimental notions of looking at the camera rolling the eyes, or the moments in the office that are not dull.. "Look the office is a place of meaning in the dull absurdity".. That kind of shit makes it seem like there is vindication, salvation, and the rest. They are creative stories by writers, producers, directors, and set crew.. It was their way to make money to make you feel better, on the vision they had of modern life.

Technology lulls you into thinking things are great, but we are never content, and it is just in the name of survival, comfort, and entertainment. Post-modernism micro-narratives are no more a salvation than grand narratives of success, accomplishment, everything is great, progress, innovation, etc. It's suffering all the way around, suffering in just being, and then add the suffering of any situation on top of the core strivings of the human. The absurdity of the repetition of living daily is not overcome just because we can make art based on this understanding.

One of the most pessimistic mythologies is Philipp Mainlander's idea that God was originally a unified super being that could not stand its own unity. It was essentially bored. Thus, it individuated itself in the world in a big bang so as to be able to become nothing eventually. Now there is some metaphysical pessimism :lol:.

It quite literally puts all of the power of life in your hands whilst simultaneously highlighting that all other (current) systems demand you remove some level of that responsibility and place it externally.

There are a lot of things postmodernism is not great at, most obvious being the pragmatic movement forward of society (on whatever level). However it is the single greatest defence humans have against external dangerous human thought. — Risk

Granted, there is a freeing aspect to post-modernism's dedication against meta-narratives, what I am saying is that it doesn't solve anything against the problems of modernism, because at the end of the day, as long as you use technology created from Enlightenment principles (that is to say all modern technology), and as long as society is organized in economic principles surrounding the use of the technology and its distribution, post-modernism can only provide an escapist, artistically inspired display, but nothing that brings us to a new way of life, really.

It's like hippies and going back to nature.. you need the technology to go back to nature people.

Or communes that rely on the outside for its technology to thrive.. nope you need that outside economy to thrive people.

Or whatever else is trying to get "past" modernism and its ways of life. Just won't happen. Even if they do, there is no "solution" anyways. There just is in fact, no place to move, no place to go, no such thing as a Utopia even in principle. We have minutia-mongering, technology and our escapisms of our personal dramas within it.

I like Lyotard's book, but the position sketched above has been with us much longer than the term 'postmodern,' no? What about an atheist who doesn't believe in progress? Is that enough? — Yellow Horse

I think the literary critique has been there or a long time. Look at Voltaire's Candide and other satires, or example. You can go back to Aristophanes if you really wanted. It is the specific use of irony and cynicism in backlash against meta-narratives of Enlightenment ideals (roughly starting around the late 1600s) that post-modernism is taking a stance on. Atheists, for example, can be very "modernist" in their politics, historical thinking, and views of science. Traditional Marxism is atheistic, but it believes in an unfolding historical truth of economic determinism that leads to "progress" in the form of an "end to history" which is the communistic form of political economy. You also have it in the forms of libertarianism where the "freedoms" afforded from a free-market economy bring the most prosperity and material wealth and is thus its own praise for the meta-narrative of economic market mechanisms. Secular humanists might have a similar outlook in regards to human progress through science being a key to human happiness.

In the field of history, it would critique Enlightenment's view that there is any discernible pattern one can use to characterize history. Certainly it would be contra Hegel's view, but also possible views that there were particular "eras" that have ultimate discernible causes and effects that can be deduced like a science or a through-line that is "just so".

It would apply to views of hard sciences being the suspect for any means to ultimate answers. Thus human nature would tend to be understood as having something biologically "fixed" in modernism, where post-modernism would emphasize human fluidity through language communities.Thus there would be a de-emphasis on evolutionary psychology "just so" stories, anthropologies that rely on reductionism of the human animal to a fixed pattern. Rather they would emphasize the inability to define humans in terms of biological or behavioral traits. Post-modernists would say rather that this should be looked at from the perspective of how various communities use language and how cultures are consider themselves in context of other cultures. Thus, one can argue identity politics is considered hand-in-hand with post-modernist thinking. Enlightenment has a unifying outlook and narrative generally and principles are often steeped in ideas of science, progress, etc. I kind of picture something like Star Trek as a science fiction version of modernism at least in its imagining of the Star Fleet and its mission to explore space (though various episodes might touch on post-modern points)., Post-modernism has a multiplicity and disorienting aspect in opposition to linearity of modernism. There is never one perspective only to consider.

In literature and movies, it might be found in not following linear time or space like in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House Five. It might be to reject the narrative of the happy industrialized lifestyle for the absurdities of various everyday social interactions, and the negative interpersonal aspects of maintaining such an economy in an industrialized world.

In leftist politics, a modernist might emphasize cultural unity, our sameness, and how science and technology unifies people. The post-modernist would focus on the differences, how communities have their own narratives that are often not considered by the power structures that be. It is more about power and its relation to groups. In rightist politics, a modernist would emphasize also cultural unity and economic determinism through markets. Post-modern rightists tend to be an oxymoron but, there could be methods in rightwing politics that can be considered post-modern, such as relativizing the "truth" of academic liberal "elites" which they deem as a meta-narrative.

I'll chat about other stuff, but I've no interest in the antinatalist stuff, more or less power to me. — csalisbury

I'm getting that.

As for the rest: it seems like you don't like your job - that's a common thing. Strip metaphysics and go from there. — csalisbury

I guess you figured out the source of all the problems. You seemed to have not even attempted to discuss minutia-mongering as it relates to modernism (contra post-modernism). So looks like you're just not interested in what schop1 has to say in general. You've entertained the pop-culture stuff and DFW and published works.. But schop1 neologisms = not engaging in.. I'll try to throw more well-known philosophy content your way that is not from schop1, but peer-reviewed and/or published literature stuff only ;).

I don't think arguing that no one else ought be plunked here is the best course of action, because no one considering having kids is listening. — csalisbury

Can you elaborate on this? It almost sounds like these people are beyond deliberative capabilities, not just merely ignorant.

Any pretense of 'this-is-actually-about-actually-reducing-suffering' vanishes quickly; if what we're talking about a pipe dream, then we're not meaningfully talking about reducing suffering anymore; we're very much in something else. — csalisbury

Then what are we talking about? You also know that it can be about marginal prevention of suffering. One less couple having kids, is one less possible sufferer. It doesn't have to be "If a significant amount of people don't stop, it is thus a useless, ineffective position". But I'll grant you this, it is more than the merely trying to reduce suffering. It points to meaning. Why start another life, brings in all sorts of ideas regarding purpose, "what's this all for?", absurdity, the bare-bones of existing itself. I always categorize the main motives of humans as simply survival-related. comfort-seeking, and entertainment-seeking. I also recognize its cultural context (i.e. our "modern" one post-Enlightenment, informed by the contingencies of history, and the situatedness of culture, causality, time, space, and circumstance). This "is" the bare-bones human condition. Why do we seek to reproduce this condition? I also mentioned that it is enculturating new people in a way of life. Why the compulsive "need" for enculturating more people into a way of life? It is oddly unjustified except in the "scare quotes" I have used in my previous post (i.e. not very good reasons to mess with the whole, ya know, existential status of a whole other person). We can self-reflect on every level, yet the minute we do so with procreation and its implications for negative consequences, absurdity, and the human condition, it is panned out-of-the-gate? There is something suspicious about that reflexive defense itself. It is almost as bad as people saying, "The political system is corrupt, ergo, I support this particular political corrupt person because there is no escaping the corruption". It is using the "everyone's corrupt" to support "this brand of corrupt".

I like what you've said about the irrecusable (apologies to Ray Brassier), ineluctable, sheer fact-of-the-matter of technology(modernism/capitalism/etc) - yes! You're plunked down somewhere, and the way back is barred, like a pile of pixelated concrete in a survival horror game; you have to go forward. — csalisbury

Yes, agreed. I am fascinated with minutia-mongering for example. The ways that fellow humans (including myself if forced) to focus on minute points of data, knowledge, etc. in order to create technological applications. All the steps involved in manufacturing technology, all the procedures around distributing it through distribution/logistics boggles the mind how details of details of details are focused on by various individuals.

Great example here.. and this is nothing:

An ALU is a combinational logic circuit, meaning that its outputs will change asynchronously in response to input changes. In normal operation, stable signals are applied to all of the ALU inputs and, when enough time (known as the "propagation delay") has passed for the signals to propagate through the ALU circuitry, the result of the ALU operation appears at the ALU outputs. The external circuitry connected to the ALU is responsible for ensuring the stability of ALU input signals throughout the operation, and for allowing sufficient time for the signals to propagate through the ALU before sampling the ALU result.

In general, external circuitry controls an ALU by applying signals to its inputs. Typically, the external circuitry employs sequential logic to control the ALU operation, which is paced by a clock signal of a sufficiently low frequency to ensure enough time for the ALU outputs to settle under worst-case conditions.

For example, a CPU begins an ALU addition operation by routing operands from their sources (which are usually registers) to the ALU's operand inputs, while the control unit simultaneously applies a value to the ALU's opcode input, configuring it to perform addition. At the same time, the CPU also routes the ALU result output to a destination register that will receive the sum. The ALU's input signals, which are held stable until the next clock, are allowed to propagate through the ALU and to the destination register while the CPU waits for the next clock. When the next clock arrives, the destination register stores the ALU result and, since the ALU operation has completed, the ALU inputs may be set up for the next ALU operation. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arithmetic_logic_unit

There is no post-modernizing this minutia/necessary factoid of how computation works in computer processors. Yep, it's there. It's applicable (aka "real"), it is useful to many people who don't even know the minutia that brings them the technology. That is our reality, that is what we are replicating for survival, comfort, and entertainment's sake (i.e. that is our "cultural context" I keep talking about as the milieu for how our survival/comfort/entertainment plays out).

Long story short (and please don't just quote this last sentence.. I did write a lot above), Post-modernism wants to find ironic, absurd humor to give us an escape from the actuality, the real, the dull, the boring, the minutia, of the everydayness of the modern. In this regard, it is ineffective, escapist, and doesn't change the dull reality any ounce. At best it creates insensible sentimentality to try to console, but mainly it is simply the reiteration that there is no where to go, nothing to do.

Schops never been too rah-rah about parturition, though to be fair I don’t know if that still holds. — csalisbury

Oh, I still hold the position.

Antinatalism?!? :scream: — Kenosha Kid

And why the scream?

I’ve solved the problem. After decades training with the world’s foremost doulas, midwives and practitioners of Transcendental Meditation I’ve come up with a method (patent pending) of progeneration that actually decreases suffering and I’m almost ready to license it to expectant mothers for a modest fee. — csalisbury

Ha, please give us the secret! To be fair, there is no reason not to be antinatalist, I don't know if you still hold that non-antinatalist position. Looks like you do. We've never discussed AN from the position of how it is just force converting people (by birthing them) into the ideology (of any given society). Not sure if that's post-modern, but it is certainly understanding that there is an agenda going on, new people are tools to carry out this agenda, and considerations of suffering are indifferently left in the ditch as just an unjustified but necessary byproduct of this agenda. See my recent post here:

Ironic as the child cannot by mere fact of its non-existence be asked consent, but it is assumed that it is ok to have it. Tsk.Tsk. As an ardent antinatalist, of course I think almost anything in this universe and its variations of actual and possible sufferings is not worth starting a life on someone else's behalf.

It's interesting that we use the non-identity argument for doing anything to someone else. Since that person is not here now it must be okay to do something which will affect someone (almost inevitabley negatively) in some future state, one which they indeed will exist. Of course the tune changes if we think of something, like on immediate birth into the world, the child will 99% likely to befall something terrible.. Now, be a bit more creative and extend that to a lifetime of known and unknown sufferings... Subtract romantic notions of how the "goods of life are just so worth it", "technology justifies life", "parent's pain of not getting to decide if someone else's life should be started", and "civilization needs to continue just because!" and other drivel.. and you see the argument clearly.

Oh and add in that we are so attached to the procedures and processes of a way of life, people simply want to "force convert" or force "missionize" people into the ideology of any given society's habits, norms, and institutions by way of birthing them, literally into it. — schopenhauer1

That pluralism seems a difficult burden. There was I think it was an IPCC report a few years back containing various perspectives on climate change. One was journalistic, another was social science. Climate change study is fundamentally scientific and, naturally, the social scientists didn't have a great deal of success wrangling ice flow stats into their narrative, leading the usual arrays of right-wing nutjobs to sing their usual songs of hoaxes, inconsistencies, and controversies. Clearly that is a case of non-scientific knowledge being given too much weight in postmodern approaches to what amounts to scientific reporting for governments. — Kenosha Kid

On a broader tangent, I think a lot of conservative ideas are post-modern actually. Look at the defense of Trump. Many people well say, look "Bill Clinton and Joe Biden did x,y,z.. the system itself is already corrupted" thus Trump's very transparent narcissism and divisiveness is given a pass. Really what they are saying is "If I don't like the other person's policies, then character counts. If I do agree with policies, character doesn't matter". Anyways, it is a form of relativism to say all is corrupt therefore this instance doesn't matter as well and is a dangerous way of thinking for any form of representative democracy.

Anyways, I see what you are saying that what one does with science, especially as it relates to competing forces of economics and political ideology is up for narrative grabs. However, I am talking about technology and science en totale. That is to say.. You enjoy perhaps having air conditioning, electricity, refrigeration, running water, advanced medicine, engineering of all kinds, transportation and the like. That just can't be narrated away. One has to reckon with that core reality. Post-modernism is always in relation to this core, but it never overtakes it. So it can make fun of the realities of having boring jobs to support this way-of-life (of the system that brings about this technology), it can provide absurd takes on things, but it is always apart of the very thing it looks to critique. There is no escaping it.

Postmodernism (yay, back on topic!) has been roundly rejected, and fifty percent of the reason seems to me that it criticised everything: rationalism, science, Marxism, architecture, literature. Half of its counter-criticisms are "It undermines us!" We have some sacred cows left in the field. But fuck it, dude. Let's go bowling! — Kenosha Kid

I think what I see here applies as well. I wonder your thoughts as well.

Yes one thread among many is what I'm saying as well (at least how post-modernism characterizes almost everything). My major critique is that post-modernism might be about threads about people's reaction to modernism, but modernism cannot be escaped. By modernism I mean here the very "real" through-line of technology, science, and how it touches all aspects of life (creating the personal narratives that we try to critique, find absurdity in, etc.). You need that superstructure there since pretty much the Enlightenment for the various personal threads and narratives to play out. It is all in reaction to that inescapable reality. You can critique it, accept it, optimism of progress, pessimism of minutia-mongering, the optimism of "authentic" experiences of travel and mountain climbing, and the pessimism of angst of being an autonomous individual in a much wider, often impersonal system. However, you cannot escape the modernism of technology. You can deconstruct narratives all you want, technology, science, and the minutia needed to keep this going is here to stay. — schopenhauer1

Oh, I was just saying that this: — csalisbury

It seemed you were saying more than that :smirk: .

seemed to be an example of a whole->rupture->[x?] frame.

In terms of applying the scheme on a grander scale: I think modernism/postmodernism/post-postmodernism is often discussed according to that scheme, but I think that's more a function of the human-mind imposing a particular narrative structure on history (as it always does) than a reflection of an absolute shift. Simpsons-Seinfeld-Office, for example, is one through-line, but only if you're selecting certain shows, excluding others, in order to make it all fit. I think that through-line is true enough, a real expression of something, but it's one thread among many. — csalisbury

Yes one thread among many is what I'm saying as well (at least how post-modernism characterizes almost everything). My major critique is that post-modernism might be about threads about people's reaction to modernism, but modernism cannot be escaped. By modernism I mean here the very "real" through-line of technology, science, and how it touches all aspects of life (creating the personal narratives that we try to critique, find absurdity in, etc.). You need that superstructure there since pretty much the Enlightenment for the various personal threads and narratives to play out. It is all in reaction to that inescapable reality. You can critique it, accept it, optimism of progress, pessimism of minutia-mongering, the optimism of "authentic" experiences of travel and mountain climbing, and the pessimism of angst of being an autonomous individual in a much wider, often impersonal system. However, you cannot escape the modernism of technology. You can deconstruct narratives all you want, technology, science, and the minutia needed to keep this going is here to stay.

At least with shows like arrested development, it's always sunny and seinfeld, the void is recognizable as a form of experience. With the 'sincere' ones you mentioned, the soft irony and self-referentiality, are techniques used to draw the viewer towards a false sincerity which, in the end, just covers up the emptiness of our lives in world conditioned by total connectivity and total isolation. — Aubrey Grant from YouTube comments

Watched the video (mistook you to be describing a video of DFW talking about simpsons, seinfeld, office etc.) & yeah definitely very close to what I was talking about (& the youtube comment you posted is right : re-pasting the old sitcom/ morality-tale narrative beats over ironic deconstruction of tropes is probably a little too quick and easy.) — csalisbury

Yes, I agree with that youtube comment as well and as you say is "a little too quick and easy". At the end of the day, the show is not the person watching the show. The show resolves, but YOU have not and thus I also agree that there is a sort of empathy in the Seinfeld no sentimentality versions, because it is as the commenter said (my emphasis bolded) "

At least with shows like arrested development, it's always sunny and seinfeld, the void is recognizable as a form of experience. With the 'sincere' ones you mentioned, the soft irony and self-referentiality, are techniques used to draw the viewer towards a false sincerity which, in the end, just covers up the emptiness of our lives in world conditioned by total connectivity and total isolation. — Aubrey Grant from YouTube comments

But -- I take your point, which I think is essentially drawing attention to an archetypal progression:
1)Whole->(2)Rupture

(or: [eden->exile])

From (2) Rupture there are a lot of options. For example:

(A)Return
(B)Reconstruct
(C)Toil & Curse
(D)Seek Vengeance
(E)Go Forward
(F) Toil & Joke
etc etc — csalisbury

This could be a useful/productive heuristic and analysis of the post-modern idea (i.e. Whole -> Rupture/ Eden -> Exile). However, what are you applying the terms Whole/Eden and Rupture/Exile to? Is it grand narrative/ previous "given" truth ---> to individual perspectives and then one's reaction to the grand narrative once one's grand narrative is deconstructed and neutered of its grandiosity (e.g. Ahab's life previous to the encounter with the whale..Ahab seeing his previous picture of life disrupted by the tragic loss of his leg..Ahab no longer caring about anything but revenge on the whale)?

I would say that there are many 'authentic' ways to move in the 1-2-X progression and think it just plum isn't true that 1-2-C is the only one (any of these can be either 'authentic' or 'inauthentic' including C.) — csalisbury

How does this apply to antinatalism? 1) Life is good 2) One sees that life is suffering 3) One seeks to prevent that which is suffering (what you possibly mischaracterize as C)?

Rather, I see the post-modernist as saying something like this:
1) schopenhauer1, you have this false "truth-narrative" that suffering "matters" in some way beyond one's own pain and suffering.. In other words, it is used as a basis for action.

2) schopenhauer1, this needs to be deconstructed as simply your narrative. Other people don't care about suffering like your narrative. They have other narratives that are to them more important. The only linking narrative is that everyone has a narrative.

3)schopenhauer1, therefore what are you going to do about this deconstruction of narrative? Are you going to go back to the notion that suffering is still of upmost importance as a guiding principle for action?

Perfect example of the post-modernist tendency for cynical critique, but ironically used on post-modernism itself.

I made an edit there

Pomo is a bogeyman? It's what we call people to the epistemological left of us ? — Yellow Horse

It's not taking any grand narratives seriously [see the recent post about hard work and genuine value]. It's a boogeyman as it lurks behind all sincere claims. An ironic and cynical skewer against your hard-held belief is galling. Done right, it lets everyone in on the game, rather than a tool to denigrate.

There is no metaphysical or epistemological center. Schopenhauer's Will is overrarching but is diffused in the post-modernism of 20th century Existentialism.. where the meaningless Will is neutered to just meaningless perspectives.

Be ironic toward the made-up hifalutin' nonsense, and be authentic toward the simple, fallible things of genuine value. Try for truth, try to do good, and in doing so tacitly assume through your actions like they are attainable, never impossible, but also never guaranteed. If someone thinks either is guaranteed, roll your eyes at them. But also roll your eyes at those who think either is impossible. Just get to work, realizing it might be hopeless, but try anyway.

Jim rolls his eyes at the camera over all the office bullshit, but he still does an honest day's work. — Pfhorrest

And what is genuine value? What is an honest day's work?

Ok, this might be a sin against all social media, but I am going to quote the first comment on this video's comments section in YouTube, because I actually think it is damn good, and I think you would appreciate it too.

Interesting presentation of some fairly complex stuff. But doesn't this video kind of miss Wallace's point about the ineffectiveness of irony? His main problem is not with irony/irreverence/self-referentiality itself but with the fact that where these were effective literary techniques in the 60s and 70s, by the 80s they had been completely co-opted by television and marketing strategies (also on television). The critical force of irony is hollowed out because we've been trained in the arts of thinking ironically by television. By aiming to convey sincerity (the gooey and embarrassing and frankly unfortunate but honest aspects of living) he doesn't turn away from irony but rather passes through it, to the other side, where 'lived experience' shines through again. Maybe Brief Interviews with Hideous Men is a good example: where he uses irony as a form of speaking to allow the shittiness of everyday decisions/actions gain relevance/relatability. The Office and Community may have similar objectives insofar as both are ironic and sincere. But isn't this just another example of exactly what he was originally arguing against: that television has the power to co-opt ways/modes of thinking/experiencing the world, where we always experience that world in absolute solitude, completely alone and by its mediation, always at a distance, never IN it. At least with shows like arrested development, it's always sunny and seinfeld, the void is recognizable as a form of experience. With the 'sincere' ones you mentioned, the soft irony and self-referentiality, are techniques used to draw the viewer towards a false sincerity which, in the end, just covers up the emptiness of our lives in world conditioned by total connectivity and total isolation. Pretty sure DFW just wants us all to make friends and be nice to them.
— Aubrey Grant from YouTube comments

For reference to YouTube video where comment came from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2doZROwdte4

I'ma respond, just too late for me to dig in tonight. Hit you back during my work-from-home new-systems office training tomorrow. — csalisbury

:up:

:lol: .. I am not accusing you of nicking the YouTube video.. I just instantly saw a parallel there when I saw what you wrote.. Here is the video I was referring to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2doZROwdte4

But I'm also interested in your thoughts on the other stuff I wrote about.

Whitehead's metaphysics incorporated a scientific worldview similar to Einstein's theory of relativity into the development of his philosophical system. His process philosophy argues that the fundamental elements of the universe are "occasions of experience," which can together create something as complex as a human being. This experience is not consciousness;[clarification needed] there is no mind-body duality under this system, since mind is seen as a particularly developed kind of experience. Whitehead was not a subjective idealist, and while his occasions of experience (or "actual occasions") resemble Leibniz's monads, they are described as constitutively interrelated. He embraced panentheism, with God encompassing all occasions of experience and yet still transcending them. Whitehead believed that these occasions of experience are the smallest element in the universe—even smaller than subatomic particles.[citation needed] Building off Whitehead's work, process philosopher Michel Weber argues for a pancreativism.[53] — tilda-psychist

I thin one of his most interesting ideas is how he imagines a compound individual vs. a corpuscular society:

Although the system is a monistic one, which is characterized by experience going “all the way down” to the simplest and most basic actualities, there is a duality between the types of organizational patterns to which societies of actual occasions might conform. In some instances, actual occasions will come together and give rise to a “regnant” or dominant society of occasions. The most obvious example of this is when the molecule-occasions and cell-occasions in a body produce, by means of a central nervous system, a mind or soul. This mind or soul prehends all the feeling and experience of the billions of other bodily occasions and coordinates and integrates them into higher and more complex forms of experience. The entire society that supports and includes a dominant member is, to use Hartshorne’s term, a compound individual.

Other times, however, a bodily society of occasions lacks a dominant member to organize and integrate the experiences of others. Rocks, trees, and other non-sentient objects are examples of these aggregate or corpuscular societies. In this case, the diverse experiences of the multitude of actual occasions conflict, compete, and are for the most part lost and cancel each other out. Whereas the society of occasions that comprises a compound individual is a monarchy, Whitehead describes corpuscular societies as “democracies.” This duality accounts for how, at the macroscopic phenomenal level, we experience a duality between the mental and physical despite the fundamentally and uniformly experiential nature of reality. Those things that seem to be purely physical are corpuscular societies of occasions, while those objects that seem to possess consciousness, intelligence, or subjectivity are compound individuals. — https://www.iep.utm.edu/processp/

p0m0 amounts to a relativism so radical it refutes itself, which many adherents (i.e. contemporary sophists & cliteratti) seem to celebrate as a feature (i.e. post-rational(?), post-logo/phallo-centric(???)) rather than as a bug (e.g. vicious circularity, etc). — 180 Proof

Yes, I can't see post-modernism working in anything other social situatedness, It just has nothing useful to say about "modern" themes like science, technology, material living conditions, efficient causes, etc. It has all to do with human hopes, social relations, etc.

I guess one can argue that post-modernism is realizing that the social situation is much duller, meaningless, circular, and less fulfilling as one would presume with all the technology. Technology for technology's sake, or progress seems to be unjustified fantasies. We can do technology, and do it to an expansive degree so what does this mean? The minutia mongering is needed on all levels for modern society. Yet humans are still a social creature.

:wink: Join in on the fun!

But what's important is that there's a hero in The Office - Jim's a 'good guy, even though he's a dick sometimes, but ultimately his heart is in the right place when the dust settles.' There isn't one in the other two. It's a reconstructive effort, though a questionable one. — csalisbury

Great analysis overall. I'm going to evince my own "look at the camera/eye roll" moment now and mention that I remember seeing a video about (the very epitome of literary criticism of post-modernism perhaps?) David Foster Wallace talking about this very idea that The Simpsons/ Seinfeld doesn't have as much a narrative hero (maybe an anti-hero or near-hero at best in Homer or perhaps Lisa?). They mentioned The Office as trying to "reconstruct" a sort of moralistic (sentimental?) post-modernism missing in the first two.

Either way, it is an interesting idea regarding irony/satire. When is one to be ironic and one to be authentic? Is there a good balance?

I think if there is any "truth" to the ideas of post-modernism it might be this: We are always a creature one step removed from from primary existence. A fish swims, eats, hides, follows innate behaviors, it does not self-reflect. Even an ape or a dolphin probably doesn't go much past certain very basic communications and certain cultural learning. Humans are fully linguistic, cultural, generative, and iterative. It is hard to have a thought and then not have an analysis of that thought terms of other thoughts. It's hard to have a thought in isolation of its own self-analysis. The same goes for social things like values. It would be inauthentic not to self-analyze social and personal beliefs. But at the same token one disregards all sense of authenticity if one is fully and only ironic (which might be Wallace's complaint about post-modernism).

Seinfeld is the ultimate post-modern sitcom. In a way we are living in a post-Seinfeld world. How does one take any social situation seriously really? I find it interesting with any form of satire or social criticism, that even after seeing the humor, when people go back to "living their lives" they don't actually take the lessons with them, and go back to living as if their life is not that super set of absurd circumstances as well, but a "real serious and dignified" narrative. A less obvious version of this are people who romantically think that things like "travel", "mountain climbing", "camping", and "sky diving" or (insert any modern form of trying to signal getting back to nature, going "extreme", or being an "travelling explorer") are truly some edifying thing.. None of the absurdities of shitting in a hole (whist camping without a bathroom facility around), uncomfortable sleeping, the very fact that most people are bringing all this modern equipment to be safe and comfortable in the "wilderness". You will probably lose something on that trip, get annoyed at your friend, etc. But yeah, might have some socially created "authentic" moments hanging out with friends in a different setting than a city place or someone's residence. Anyways, I digress.. but these trivialities matter in all of this...

In a way, my authentic attempts to get people to understand antinatalism can be seen as modernist.. in that it is taken so seriously, it is really believed. Suffering is to be something to be reckoned with, and the eye rolling resumes. "Stop being so serious!" would be the major response. The modernist inverse answer to my form of modernism would be "Technology, family, and shared values will triumph over your pessimism". And so we got two schools of thought.. life is a joke, don't take it seriously, or life has values that should be cherished so stop being so pessimistic..

Anyways, to shaggy dog this shit some more...I see a weird dichotomy between the "truths" of technology and the "lived experience" of humans who bring it about. There is something absurd about a coder drinking his energy drink, playing around with lines and lines of programming language, and yet there is the knowledge that microprocessors carry currents that go on and off and allow data to be stored and used to perform computations and ultimately do tasks or present information for the end user. The absurdity of living out this life.. and the "truths" we mine from technology. There is a dull centered-ness we cannot escape no matter how much the absurdity allows us to escape and laugh at ourselves.. We can laugh all we want, at the end of the day we want that technology created from the "truths" that were created from people focusing on copious amounts of minutia on very specific subjects related to things like, I don't know, the properties of semi-conductors, the mathematics of electrical currents, the set of machine code that can be compiled into programming language code, and on and on and on to the very billions of words in academic journals on all the technology, and all the companies, and the universities, and the rest. Laugh all you want about the absurdity of your day, the dull, boring truths of specific fields will haunt you to come back and need them so you can look at your phone to watch a video of someone reacting to a video of a cat doing something funny, sitting on the porcelain throne...

Here's my take: Post-modernism is a total willingness to deconstruct. Usually this leads to themes like irony or absurdity. Why? Because when you deconstruct something that is assumed to be a monolithic "thing", it is actually seen for just a convention. To be real basic here.. Take any classic sitcom (Leave it To Beaver, Fully House, The Cosby Show.. or whatever variation from countries around the world).. That is modernism.. There is a structure.. family has value.. life has lessons... things can get solved..etc. Now think of The Simpsons, Seinfeld, The Office, etc.. It deconstructs the conventions we take seriously and then sees the absurdity in it, often using irony and satire to show you how silly it is to take these conventions as serious in the first place.

Sure. Obviously if that involves another person you should probably get their consent first. — Outlander

Ironic as the child cannot by mere fact of its non-existence be asked consent, but it is assumed that it is ok to have it. Tsk.Tsk. As an ardent antinatalist, of course I think almost anything in this universe and its variations of actual and possible sufferings is not worth starting a life on someone else's behalf.

It's interesting that we use the non-identity argument for doing anything to someone else. Since that person is not here now it must be okay to do something which will affect someone (almost inevitabley negatively) in some future state, one which they indeed will exist. Of course the tune changes if we think of something, like on immediate birth into the world, the child will 99% likely to befall something terrible.. Now, be a bit more creative and extend that to a lifetime of known and unknown sufferings... Subtract romantic notions of how the "goods of life are just so worth it", "technology justifies life", "parent's pain of not getting to decide if someone else's life should be started", and "civilization needs to continue just because!" and other drivel.. and you see the argument clearly.

Oh and add in that we are so attached to the procedures and processes of a way of life, people simply want to "force convert" or force "missionize" people into the ideology of any given society's habits, norms, and institutions by way of birthing them, literally into it.

For what they're reacting against; nature is claimed to be construed as nature-under-the-aspect-of-the-norms-of-scientific-discourse, with the critical injunction that its concepts are more social construction than true. The conceptions of nature that transcendentally ground scientific discourse are emphasised as a "for us", never approximately true of an "in itself". — fdrake

Interesting, but things like the Arche-fossil and such seem like it goes to straight Kantianism, not social constructivists. Constructivists don't necessarily take on a Kantian view of time as only existing "in one's head". They may not be mutually exclusive and there may be some overlap, but certainly not entailed.

If you imagine a particularly staunch Wittgensteinian who would see something like "F=ma" and claim that it holds only within a language game rather than approximately reflecting reality under certain contexts, it's close I think. What is "empirically real" is transformed into an "empirically real for us". — fdrake

Yes, sounds like we are on the same page there on how to characterize late Wittgenstein's influence contra ideas of Speculative Realism or the "in itself". I guess my main question then is what functionally, do we gain or not gain from Speculative Realism vs. Kantianism? The scientific method works the same under both assumptions. The conclusions are the same. It is definitely a metaphysical claim of sorts, I get that. But I also don't really get the notion "Science is giving us metaphysical truths" vs. "Science is giving us human truths" other than one thinks the truths are "really real" and the other essentially assigns a mystery question mark in what is "really real". I guess what are the implications?

One interesting way of doing that, now that you're gonna speculate anyway, is to follow how models of reality work and be inspired by them; those models are now interpreted as being approximately true of the objects they concern. This invites talking about models of reality as well as models of humanity's behaviour and thoughts. — fdrake

Isn't this just normal social sciences, neurosciences, evolutionary biology and the like?

That invites a certain flatness of ontology; removing the implicit "it's about us" from the human norm centered interpretation of the models invites seeing objects as pattern generative; they do stuff in a structured way, there are models of the structure, they can be used to form perspectives on related stuff. Now you can do ontology about patterns in that context, human and inhuman - that's what I think speculative realism is. — fdrake

I just think this is normal discourse on "emergence" and such that you see all over now.. Information theories, and all that stuff. It's essentially constructing theories on scientific research. I guess it is just an attitude towards the subject at hand. What it pretty much seems to always go back to is philosophy of mind usually. I know that sounds weird that I am reducing these problems to specifically that field, but this is where all that comes to a head really. Things like ideas about panpsychism and eliminative materialism is where this pretty much plays out. I am guessing that is why the so-called Speculative Realists gravitate towards one or the other as far as I see.

Post phenomenological realism; a return to emphasising scientific content rather than human discourse. — fdrake

Can you provide the context of this? If it is a return, what was the original (I'm thinking Logical Positivism?). If it was a breaking away, then what started it and why? I'm thinking late Wittgenstein and social based philosophers?

Social philosophy done through the lens of modern social science (contra discourse analysis) that leverages neuroscience+psychology (or psychoanalysis) to link it to the part of nature which is us (contra linking discourse to the subject through phenomenology). — fdrake

As an aside, how is the subject/phenomenology not a "part of nature"? I think this is where my characterization might come in handy:

But, I thought that Realism is really just the idea that what is "out there" is what exists. What is "in here" is simply another form of what is "out there" (i.e. materialism, material monism of some sort). — schopenhauer1

.
But then here it just goes back to the usual questions of Philosophy of Mind and things like the hard question of consciousness. How can you divorce the phenomenology of the subject from the equation? How is "that" a complete view? Then we just go to our usual philosophies of Eliminative Materialism, panpsychism, etc.

({Speculative realism} is to {the various post-Kantian threads}) as ({models of the generative conditions of phenomena} are to {conditions of possibility of their conceptualisation-articulation}). Generativity vs Conceptual possibility. — fdrake

Yes, I think it is something going beyond the conditions of how our mind sees the world, and seeing the world as understood through direct analysis of the given conditions as found in our empirical studies of it. One assumes an idealism of the mind to form the reality, the other affirms an "out there" reality that the mind can comprehend to some extent, in and of itself.

However, it seems like Speculative Realism might be based on a non-existent problem.. It is aimed at certain idealist philosophers as most people take the "out there" as something that can be directly understood, and is not just how we perceive the world through our minds. It's kind of a straw man enemy created for a certain kind of Continental philosopher perhaps, to then knock down. Who besides these small contingent of post-Kantian philosophers are they addressing it for then? Not realists who already deal with realist assumptions off the bat.

I'm game.. Can anyone differentiate "Speculative Realism" from just "Realism" or even "Neo-Realism" besides that it is newer, a new neologism of sorts, and has certain characters attached to it?

Let me try to answer.. The speculative aspect is perhaps what is missing in regular "Realism". But, I thought that Realism is really just the idea that what is "out there" is what exists. What is "in here" is simply another form of what is "out there" (i.e. materialism, material monism of some sort). So, I guess Speculative Realism is more "speculative" in that it posits an ontology or metaphysics to the "out there" which is often looked on with suspicion by (more tradition?) realists who might not go beyond the materials we can gather with our senses and empirical scientific methods. So, perhaps there is an underlying claim that traditional Realists are only focusing on epistemology and not on metaphysics. This is where Speculative Realists step in and try to regain a place for metaphysics in Realism.

What? Understatement? :lol:

Are you against assisted suicide in all cases as well? Or would you allow such thing if the pain is simply too much to bear for someone and there is no possible improvement or even cure? — Malhararos92

Assisted suicide should be a valid and legal option. However, suicide in general is a different topic than not procreating. One can recommend not procreating for all, but not necessarily suicide. That is because there is a distinction between "a life worth starting" and "a life worth continuing". Once alive, though it would have been better never having been, one still has attachments, goals, fears of death/pain, that make exiting life early less of an imperative. Being anti-natal is not being pro-mortal. One does not entail the other.

Generally, the root of much normative ethics, if we are to give dignity and respect for the individual, would be around suffering. Thus agency in regards to how to handle one's own suffering would also very much be at the individual level. It's when one is creating choices for other lives that it becomes problematic. That is what procreation does. There's of course many other things involved, such as missionizing others into an ideology (that life is worth living and should be lived, not just for oneself who is already alive but for some other person, who should somehow also go through the motions and experiences of life).

Interestingly, Schopenhauer thought the basis of morality was metaphysically based. If we are all Will, compassion is thus breaking the barriers of seeing oneself as an individual Will and understanding the reality of unified monism. The act of seeing yourself in the other, is this understanding of the origin of our collective metaphysical origins (outside time and space and thus even the Principle of Sufficient Reason). I'm not sure I buy his basis, but it is an interesting and seemingly consistent one.

I also find it interesting that Schopenhauer himself was not a compassionate or ascetic person really (outside preferring to not be around other humans who he generally looked down on). But I see this is more legitimacy for his ideas as, he wasn't just creating a philosophy based on his own personality. His personality clearly would have preferred a self-interested and possibly hateful ideal of ethics.

Are you aware that schopenhauer was an antinatalist? — Malhararos92

Yes I am.

Think of the many possible disabilities, illnesses, and other great pains in life — Malhararos92

Yep.

Thats why it is immoral to bring life into this world full of suffering. — Malhararos92

Won't argue with you there. Your typical objection would be "But what about the average life that is more balanced perhaps than the ones with famine and hunger?

The other objection would be "But what of the possibility of alleviation of pain through technology and things like positive psychology?

I would say suffering takes two forms- contingent and necessary. Contingent is about circumstances. Necessary is innate. It is innately part of the human experience to strive for survival, comfort, and entertainment. This striving represents an underlying dissatisfaction at almost all times (with moments of brief repose). On top of that is contingent suffering that you describe. There are pains and harms of all stripes in the form of physical disease, disaster, discomforts and mental disorders, anguish, frustrations, and just about any negative experience.

The main counter-attack of the antinatalist is that life need not be at all. We need not be missionizers of the human experience by procreating new people into the world. Rather, no one existing means NOTHING to that no-body that exists. So no one is "missing out" on good experiences. But certainly the alternative of being born means experiencing bad ones. This could have been avoided. In other words, all necessary and contingent suffering could be avoided for a potential person by simply not actualizing them into existence. There is no downside to them not existing in terms of the non-existent person in question.

It seems that if attractiveness is promoted at all, or attended to by males, females will feel objectified, no? — Pinprick

It is probably from both sides. One feels the need to stare, gaze. The other feels the need to be gazed perhaps. As others have said, the problem only lies when one goes out of the boundaries into diminishing the other's agency or not recognizing it, etc. So I think the word "objectified" is just an odd choice of word. If it means assigning no agency to someone who is clearly a thinking person, why would one do that? If it means find something attractive then, that seems the wrong way to apply that term. I guess the point is that some people can't get past how attractive they find someone, which is not the problem of the attractive person. But, as I said as a culture the whole attractiveness thing can be diminished all together.

Possibility suggests we raise boys with the idea that breasts mean female, as in who she really is instead of someone just desirable. I don’t think that’s even possible. I think nature would find a way around it. I think women may forget that there are other things that attract us to them: hair, smiles, jawline, eyes, clothes, the way they walk, talk and laugh. We can see this from a distance, which is where it begins. — Brett

So we are again back to nature in the debate of nature vs. nurture. And I was so happy on keeping it nurture :lol: . I focused on the revealing/concealing aspect of clothing because that's what the OP focused on. So now we are down to inextricable things, reasons lost to the mists of time.. tastes, preferences, appeal, etc. It's like music or art sometimes, you don't know why but something might make you drawn to it, excited by it, fascinated by it, etc. But I'll try to make the case that part of the mystery is still based on context of how one grew up, what one links these aesthetic apprehensions to from previous environment (probably in formative years), etc. It's more of a constructive narrative based on context of one's life experiences, the broader culture, historical contingency and the intertwining of all three. I think there is still an aspect of "other" here going on, for why it is often directed at a particular sex at all. The facial features have nuanced differences that can be perceived and weighed against societal and personal historical significances (retrospectively calling it a "preference" or "attraction").

If mens’ attitudes are encultured then so too must womens’. But then the argument goes that our culture is patriarchal and favours men over women and consequently women are objectified to suit the purposes of men. But what is the purpose of men? If it was not to seek women and form relationships that produced offspring there would be no purpose to anything else.

So men stare at women and for a reason. Women, by choice or enculturation, respond. Both by varying numbers and degrees. These are the brute facts.

In the end we can change it because some women feel it objectifies all women and we find that to be not just morally wrong but a poor environment for forming long term successful relationships. But we don’t know if it will contribute to forming better relationships or stifle them. — Brett

Yes, this is possibly the crux of the issue. This is a two-way street. The significance of the revealing clothes is usually not cut-off from the significance of the response from the revealing clothes. They are inextricably intertwined and tied to cultural tropes. So if you think a trope is pernicious, or unnecessary, then to make it go away, the significance has to go away. If men stopped staring and responding to it, then it loses significance. Most likely then the only reasons to wear it is comfort or some other reason, and the women would stop putting significance on it too. It has stopped becoming a signifier. Perhaps all aspects of the revealing/concealing game would be diminished and then society would have to find other ways to promote attraction for the unfortunate effect of procreation.