First of all, yes, there is no downside to non-existence. The downside is for people that do already exist. And part of my solution for alleviating those downsides is to produce new generations. — QuixoticAgnostic

An extreme example of this kind of logic is- a sociopath gets pleasure from killing and is quite depressed when not doing so. Should he relieve his own suffering? Of course not.

Now there are certainly differences here (the parent isn't doing this in the hopes of suffering hopefully). However, the focus here is on the fact that once doing harm to another person is in the equation, then it is no longer about only how you feel. In fact, in the case of a non-existent person (that could exist though), the parents' feeling should have no consideration as it is purely now about the outcome of the future person who is the one whose whole life is affected by the decision made not by their own doing.

We aren't using the next generation, the same way I don't use the waiter to get my food. — QuixoticAgnostic

You exist. The waiter exists. Presumably the waiter does this on his own volition to get paid. The child doesn't have the choice to be born of course. However, interestingly, in a VERY indirect way, this makes my case too.. Maybe the waiter hates his job and wishes he wasn't there, but is de facto forced into it temporarily until something better might happen (if it does). The point is the waiter can't help his own survival situation due to being born. So perhaps it is more examples of being forced into situations of some harm (unwanted need to survive, let's say and the form it takes in an industrialized economy for this particular fellow).

he symbiotic relationship between us and the next generation is that we, as living beings, need continuing generations to uphold the workforce, economy, hospitals, etc. so that, up until death, we can remain living pleasurable lives, maybe in a nursing home taken care of by young caregivers. And, in return, we use the society we have built to raise the children we need and give them fulfilling lives, outweighing the bad they may experience with the good. — QuixoticAgnostic

I had a WHOLE threads about how this exact way of thinking is unethical. Please see the OPs on these threads (and discussions that follow if you want) here:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8014/coronavirus-meaning-existentialism-pessimism-and-everything/p1

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/8117/social-control-and-social-goals/p1

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7735/is-society-itself-an-ideology/p1

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7092/what-justifies-a-positive-ethics-as-opposed-to-a-negative-one/p1

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/7122/procreation-is-using-people-via-experimentation/p1

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6805/if-a-condition-of-life-is-inescapable-does-that-automatically-make-it-acceptable-and-good/p1

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/6032/ethics-subjectivity-and-forcing-workchallenges-for-other-people

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4121/reproduction-is-a-political-act

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/2415/why-we-sacrifice-individuals-in-the-name-of-culturesocial-institutions

I'm not advocating that people have children merely because they want to, and it'll make them, personally, feel good to have children. I'm making the point that it is a societal necessity to continue making children, for the good of all living people. — QuixoticAgnostic

See the OPs on all the links provided as I've actually brought this issue of society using people up very often, starting many threads on this theme. So you are touching upon issues that I am quite familiar with :).

To say no one has been deprived of pleasure doesn't make sense if you claim there's no one who's suffering (by being nonexistent). Look at it this way: nonexistence simply means that you're not alive. Being alive doesn't involve only pain; you have both pleasure and pain. Ergo, it must be that nonexistence, not being alive, involves not being in pain but also not experiencing pleasure. — TheMadFool

Again, you're missing the argument. It is in respect to the absence of a person (who could exist, let's say). In the absence of a person, suffering does not take place. This is good. In the absence of a person, pleasure/benefits do not take place. However, this is ONLY BAD if there is a person for whom this would be a deprivation.

In other words, read closely what I said earlier about absolute good:

Absence of pain is an absolute good (the state of affairs that no one actually suffers). — schopenhauer1

Benatar sees pain and pleasure as qualitatively different (asymmetrical). The state of affairs of "no pain" is ABSOLUTELY GOOD. It is good no matter what. It is always good in every situation, even one where no people exist in the universe that the state of affairs of "no pain" takes place. However, the state of affairs of "no pleasure" is INSTRUMENTALLY BAD. It is ONLY bad in cases where someone actually exists and realizes they are deprived of good. It is not bad in all states of affairs, such as in the situation where no people exist in the universe and the state of affairs of "no pleasure/benefits" takes place.

I believe, however, that the cycle of procreation is symbiotic.

We are born into this world of pain and pleasure. As living, conscious beings, we strive to avoid pain, and indulge in pleasure (note: avoiding pain is fundamental, indulging in pleasure is a byproduct). In order to minimize pain, we build society, but society can only be sustained with new generations. So it is essential that we bear new generations and then those new generations will live to experience pain and pleasure, but in a society that shields the pain from them and provides pleasure for them to indulge in.

This isn't a Ponzi scheme. We aren't using new generations merely as means to an end. It's the circle of life. — QuixoticAgnostic

But you only restated the Ponzi scheme and then said, "that's life"! Well yes, he thinks that if one generation is using the other, then we should stop doing this to the new generation. There is no downside for the next generation that doesn't exist. If you point back that the downside is that parents feel bad, then you are reiterating his exact point that the parents feel bad, and thus use the children to feel better, but inadvertently keep the suffering scheme going in the process. Thus, to be benevolant, they should put their personal feelings aside to prevent a new generation from suffering.

I know this is hard to measure and therefore suffers in terms of validity, but it makes sense to me and the term "asymmetry" can still be applied. Benetar, as previously mentioned, would claim that the lack of pleasure to an existing being is bad, but to a potential being is good. The lack of pain to an existing being AND a potential being is good in both cases. — JacobPhilosophy

One of Benatar's thought experiments is this :

There are no aliens having children on Mars to experience the joys of life. Does that make you sad, empathetic, or grief-stricken? The answer is probably no. No one intuitively seems to care whether "no one" is enjoying life. In fact a whole planet of no people enjoying life doesn't seem to bother us at all. That doesn't seem a moral obligation (that people must be born/exist to enjoy life).

If there were Martians having children on Mars and you knew they were suffering greatly, would that make you sad, empathetic, or feel bad in some way? It probably would to some degree.

There seems to be a difference in how we perceive "pleasure not happening" vs. "pain not happening" in the absence of an actual person. This leads to different conclusions for obligations to bring pleasure and prevent pain in the scenario when a parent has the potential to procreate and can prevent it.

I do understand your point, but the idea to do what is good (pleasure is good) only applies to the living. The idea to avoid what is bad (pain is bad) in Benetar's belief can apply to both life and potential life. — JacobPhilosophy

Yes, that is the main argument many people ignore or don't fully get.

So this whole thing relies on a false notion of what Benatar holds. The logic is wrong because there's a missing premise around 1 and 2 there. The premise is:

The presence of pain is bad.
The presence of pleasure is good.
The absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone.
The absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation.

Your missing mainly that last one in your calculation. THAT is the asymmetry. Absence of pain is an absolute good (the state of affairs that no one actually suffers). It is ONLY bad to not have pleasure/benefits/goods if there is somebody who exists for which this would be a deprivation.

I have..you are constantly discussing physical behaviors hoping this is eqivalent to "green" but you havent actually told me how this is green rather than just you know optical nerve sending signals to coritical nerves, etc.

Well each of those things are completely non-mysterious activities of the brain. The whole 'what it's like' awareness mystery dissolves if you break down what constitutes an experience into its component parts. Light hits my eyes, the message is relayed to my occipital cortex, several layers of inference calculation take place, a message gets sent to other parts of the brain dealing with modelling, sensation, interoception etc. Each infers a likely cause of the input by way of selecting an output to send on. Eventually some behaviour results, alters the environment and the process starts again. Where's the mystery there? — Isaac

There are a couple things off here:
1) The homunculus problem (a type of circular reasoning in philosophy of mind).

The homunculus argument is a fallacy whereby a concept is explained in terms of the concept itself, recursively, without first defining or explaining the original concept. This fallacy arises most commonly in the theory of vision. One may explain human vision by noting that light from the outside world forms an image on the retinas in the eyes and something (or someone) in the brain looks at these images as if they are images on a movie screen (this theory of vision is sometimes termed the theory of the Cartesian theater: it is most associated, nowadays, with the psychologist David Marr). The question arises as to the nature of this internal viewer. The assumption here is that there is a "little man" or "homunculus" inside the brain "looking at" the movie.

The reason why this is a fallacy may be understood by asking how the homunculus "sees" the internal movie. The obvious answer is that there is another homunculus inside the first homunculus's "head" or "brain" looking at this "movie". But that raises the question of how this homunculus sees the "outside world". To answer that seems to require positing another homunculus inside this second homunculus's head, and so forth. In other words, a situation of infinite regress is created. The problem with the homunculus argument is that it tries to account for a phenomenon in terms of the very phenomenon that it is supposed to explain.[1] — Homunculus Argument article from Wikipedia

In other word, there is "somewhere" this comes together. You can push it back, but at some point it is there and at some point it isn't. When this point happens, what is this?

At some point there is experiential processes. Why should physical processes be this? That is the question. You keep going back to physical things without getting at it.

Also, you may be making several category errors when you say "inference calculation", and "modelling".

Overall, the problem with your argument seems to be assuming the mental processes and states somewhere in there.

taking the asymmetry into account, the lack of joy or pleasure isn't inherently bad. You may disagree with this premise. — JacobPhilosophy

So JacobPhilosophy, have you heard of antinatalism? Please look at most of the threads I started. They are exactly about this idea regarding the win/win of not procreating. Obviously someone not born, doesn't get deprived of happiness not had. However, someone not born means no suffering which is always good. Please see the philosopher David Benatar's asymmetry argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Benatar

Hidden Cartesian Theater..look it up..but ill explain later..

But what does being 'aware' of something entail? That's part of what I don't seem to be able to get out of anyone. Is it just a fundamental belief for you, that there's this indescribable thing called 'being aware'? For me, I can break down my experience of, say, drinking a cup of tea, into sensations, the presumed cause, memories, desires, converting a lot of this mentally into words and 3D models. Maybe I even experience experiencing those things. But that can just be broken down into more sensations, memories, desires, words, models... I never seem to run out and end up with something fundamental, indivisible. — Isaac

Those things you describe all encompass experiential phenomena. It doesnt have to be one kind of thing. You are on the mind aspect of the the divide when referring to those things.

How do you know that what you're calling an 'experience' is, in fact, anything at all. — Isaac

So the very thing youre using to write this and refute experience yourself and do all you do in your waking life doesnt exist :roll: ? Join @bongo furys party. You both can talk about the absurd fantasy how you dont really experience anything while you are in fact experiencing. No one is writing these words either. But that last sentence is self refuting just like that argument.

What I'm struggling to understand is the distinction you're both drawing between A causes B and 'a description of of how A causes B'. What does 'a description of of how A causes B' contain that is not just more A causes B type explanations?

If I asked what causes a car to go, someone might say "give it some gas and release the clutch". If I asked how that caused the car to go, they'd say "the gas enters the chamber, explodes, causes the crankshaft to turn, which connects to the gears, which drive the axle which turns the wheels". It would still be a series of A causes B type propositions.

I could say "but how does the turning of the axle turn the wheels?". I might get something in terms of friction causing neighbouring molecules to transfer momentum.

"But how does friction cause neighbouring molecules to transfer momentum?". I might get something I probably wouldn't understand about the inter molecular forces, but nonetheless...

"But how does the-thing-I-don't-understand-about-molecular-forces cause neighbouring molecules to transfer momentum under friction?"

... And so on. — Isaac

I think this is a misreading of the problem I am suggesting with physicalist answers of causes. So physical events presumably have physical answers, and thus all the answers about gas causing the car to go are legitimate as they are all in the same realm (physical). But here is something different.

You see, it is also how radically different you consider mental states. There is a radical break between matter in various processes and arrangements and observers/internal states/feeling/awareness. To say that one just "pops out" or "emerges" of the former would be to claim to be a dualism whereby a very different realm is occurring- that of experiencing (but only under certain circumstances). So what can you do with this? Well, what happens is you keep pushing the Cartesian Theater back until you realize it was homunculus all the way down.

Simple behaviors of neurono-chemical interactions and physical properties creating states of awareness just seems to beg the question. We already know experience exists. We already know it is associated with neural/biological systems. We don't know how neuro-biological systems themselves are the same as experience.There is a gap there. No gap is present for why gas causes the car to go. More explanations can add detail, but if you were to say gas pouring into a chamber and exploding, etc. IS some sort of feely, awareness thing really.. well that indeed would be an explanatory gap. Now a physical thing is causing this internal state of awareness- a radical different state altogether. T

That is the equivalent of what is being claimed of neuro-biological processes. You see.. physical, chemical, physical chemical physical chemical, more physical chemical physical chemical. WHAM!!! EXPERIENCE!!! Something is not right there.

And then HERE is where someone chimes in and say NO it's the INFORMATION that is experiential :roll:.

And what would such an 'explanation' look like? How would you recognise that some proposition constituted an 'explanation'? I ask because such avoidance seems to dog these kinds of discussions. Some physical relationship is proposed by the (non-panpsychic) physicalist, and the 'hard problem' crowd will inevitably respond with "but that's just a description of how, not an explanation accounting for it". What I've yet to hear is a reasonable definition of what such an explanation should be like.

We can do how - neurons firing seem to cause what we experience as thoughts.

We can do why - having the experience of thoughts seems to help integrate information better than letting individual circuits act independently.

What's missing? — Isaac

I have to say, @bert1 is doing a good job laying out the problems and basically point to his arguments. The problems I see is the physicalists (presumably elimitavists/functionalists) are often switching the causes of mental states with the explanations of metaphysical equivalence of how physical states are indeed mental states. A cause implies emergence, but emergence means what exactly in this case? Everything is physical in the universe and then when we get to a certain arrangement, we have mental states? That to me seems like dualism.

It is also tricky due to what I said earlier with Pneumonon:

Me: This does make sense. Emergence is its own inexplicable alchemy. The reason is the next level is assumed in the previous one. — schopenhauer1

So properties themselves are an odd thing. As I stated:

Are properties something inhering in matter or is it presumed to have something that gives the measurements property? I mentioned the possibly arbitrary divide in Locke between primary and secondary qualities, for example. But what are properties really without experiential knowledge? Properties seem to be something that are observed, not necessarily an actual "real" thing out there. — schopenhauer1

So if you are a skeptic regarding how properties inhere in physical states, this is definitely problematic. Liquidity without an observer is just and odd thing to say. Physical states of water (e.g. arrangements of molecules qua molecules) does not seem odd to say in a non-observer world. What is this state of experience, which itself gives properties to other things?

But even if you are not a properties skeptic, however, it is odd that this type of "property" (experience), is so oddly different than all other properties. It is the one that gives states of internal feeling, experience, sense, and internal states of feeling in general.

To be candid, "Panpsychism" sounds whackdoodle to me. So I will observe to see if it's me who needs to learn something. — tim wood

Gotcha, I actually recommend starting with that SEP article on it that Banno provided. That gives a good background. Basically, most of the arguments are something to the effect that if we want to NOT posit a dualism (mind and physical let's say), then you have to bite the bullet somewhere, because even if "mind" "emerges" from the physical, the emerging from one type of realm (the physical), into a completely different kind (the subjective, internal, "feels like", qualia, mental) state needs to then be explained in non-dualist terms.

To be clear, most scientific views would not posit a dualism in the world. Everything is physically manifested in some way whether matter/energy and time/space. Thus positing a mind that is emergent from matter, though seemingly appropriate (as emergence is assumed in the physical sphere), would inappropriate as it posits a dualism at some point.

So a sophisticated panpsychist might point out that if a cognitive scientists were to say "At X time, in this part of the brain, there is an "integration" that is happening which causes the emergence of consciosness".. the part about "causing emergence" becomes its own explanatory gap that needs to be explain. What is this emergence of consciousness itself besides that of being correlated with the integration of brain states?

If reproduction makes illusionary egos pop out of the Pure source of nirvana, shouldnt we all be focusing on reaching nirvana instead of starting families? — Gregory

That's what Schopenhauer thought. I also tend to think so, but do not think you will get to any relief like Nirvana. The best you can hope for is preventing a future person from suffering. Even if you believed in some metaphysical state like Nirvana, the amount of people who supposedly get there is very limited.

Haha, StreetlightX, I have to say I was thrown a bit there. I thought he was being attacked and wasn't used to some of the personalities int he forum so was trying to help him out and then realized he was being a childish, obnoxious prick himself.

I did state my case. You clearly have nothing to say or you would have said something already. — jacksonsprat22

I am but with other posters at this point because I found something of interest.

What the hell is the point of the petty squabbling. Stop trying to be assholes or clever and state your case. Sometimes I think people just want to have fun at the expense of others and get a rise out of it rather than legitimately trying to philosophize or state an argument or discuss a subject.

Jacksonsprat22, you got to realize people are willing to engage so just ignore the dismissive comments and just continue your discussion. tim wood, I don't know what you're trying to do.

But there is an historic aspect of all this barely touched on. The ancient Greeks attributed such order as they found in nature to "mind." To go further would require some understanding of what they meant by "nature" and by "mind." But even without that we can observe that these were presuppositions of Greek thinking. That is, their presuppositions grounded there suppositions enabling them to think and theorize about both nature and mind. — tim wood

Are you saying anywhere they saw order, they thought mind was involved? Is this like matter and form?

If you want to be a panpsychist, the best way to do so is to attack emergentism as hard as you can. If you can say that emergentism isn't true, and that consciousness is real, then you can say that consciousness is fundamental. — Pneumenon

This does make sense. Emergence is its own inexplicable alchemy. The reason is the next level is assumed in the previous one.

There can also be additional forces and dimensions in the universe that we cannot detect easily. Right now, the brain is one such device which bridges the gap between mental and physical. But you could possibly also build some kind of sensor that can pick up on mental energy. Elementary particles may have a mental energy field around them which is not easy to see without sufficiently advanced tools. — bizso09

Then what is it about brain stuff that supposedly bridges this gap that other matter doesn't have? More physical stuff like axons and dendrites and bio-chemical carriers doesn't seem to get at it. quantum theory just seems like imagining there's a realm that can do anything. Quantum theory represents statistical uncertainty at a certain level. I don't know if it implies much more in terms of larger brain states or mental states.

The only problem I have here is the idea of properties. Properties then themselves need to be explained because it would seem a property itself is something observed in something else. Does a property exist "in itself"? I know that Locke had the idea of primary and secondary qualities, but that seemed possibly arbitrary. What a measurement represents might be "real" at some level, but the properties we observe that come from these measurements? I don't know. It almost assumes experience/consciousness in the picture before it explains itself.

Go back and read what I wrote. I stated my thesis. Go outside for a walk if you have excess nervous energy. — jacksonsprat22

Jackson, you seem sincere so I want to help. What Banno and the others might be saying is that you have made a claim, but you are not providing reasoning for it. They want to understand your reasoning. They are doing it in a somewhat taunting manner, but they want you to explain your position that intelligence is a component of the universe. Why is this the case? Once you have made your argument, then it can be evaluated one way or the other.

Before then, the Romans were generally quite tolerant, provided the cult of the emperor or spirit of Rome was honored and there was peace and order and taxes paid. There were certain pagan cults the Romans felt outlandish and dangerous and were banned (e.g. Druidism), but for the most part you could worship whatever god you wanted, and it wasn't unusual for a person to worship several gods, and be initiates of more than one of the "mystery religions" such as those of Isis, Magna Mater and Mithras. Some even worshipped Jesus along with other figures such as Appollonius of Tyana and traditional pagan gods such as Asclepius. — Ciceronianus the White

Good points..

This is why for a while Judeans gave Rome such a headache. Many groups did not accept images of emperors (the Caligula affair in c.40 CE). They also didn't help Pax Romana by constant riots and calls to revolt against the pagan overlords, corrupt leadership, and oppressive tax collectors. This, along with internal strife between sects, helped precipitate the Jewish Revolt against Rome in 66 CE-73 CE. After the failed revolt, Jews around the empire had to pay a poll tax until the Emperor Julian ended it in 363 CE (Fiscus Judaeicus). By-and-large though, the Jews were left alone by Pagan Rome as it was an ancient religion that was respected as such, like any other of the religions around the Empire. So you are right. As long as your religion paid tribute to Rome in some sort of way, and paid taxes, they seemed to be ok with whatever you prayed to or whatever ritual you wanted. Jews were allowed the exception to Roman images as it was well-known they didn't do so as an ancient practice of this particular group. It wasn't allowed I would imagine amongst regular pagan religions which were synchronous because that was an actual signal they didn't care about Rome.

Edit: Ironically, as long as the early Jewish-Christians were identified as Jews, they were probably more protected. As Christianity became more gentilized around the Empire, it was not seen as part of the more ancient religion and its exceptions, so was seen as subject to any other pagan sect around the Empire and would be deemed as suspicious that they weren't paying tribute to the Emperor or the State properly.

I don't think you interpreted what I meant correctly. What I meant was the hard question is not about constitutents of what makes consciousness, it is how it is we have consciousness. You are denying the very thing we are actually using to have this conversation. So you can deny experience, but then you have to tell me what this thing is we have to deny, other than the self-referential idea you have that it is an "illusion". Changing its name from "experience" to "illusion" doesn't explain anything. You have to account for the illusion itself qua illusion. In other words, if all you can say is it does not happen, but we all think it's happening. You have to say not just that it is a non-existent thing, but what this non-existing thing but what is the nature of the non-existent thing we think we are experiencing. If you cannot account for that except through moving goal posts and (possibly?) misusing language so as to sustain your argument, I don't know what to say. It is hard to discount Descartes' idea because it is a very real thing. You at least think because you are doing it now. I can be drinking a cup of coffee and tell you am not doing that, but if I am, then what I am saying is not true.

Do you need to commit to mental components? — bongo fury

No, you just experience.

So... it does matter. Fair enough, you are committed to the existence of mental images as such. — bongo fury

This is not something I have to be committed to.

that we think that, or entertain the illusion that, we have mental images does deserve explanation, yes. — bongo fury

What is this entertaining of the illusion.. You are just pushing the goal-post and playing with language by saying "entertain the illusion" rather than "illusion". Either way the phenomenon has to be explained.

The hypothesis about some internal illusion or film show? Or is "that" the disputed internal images themselves? — bongo fury

It doesn't matter because the "hypothesis" is not the "feeling of" of the images.. That "feeling of thinking of the images" is the thing to be explained. Whether you assign the causes for this feeling to some illusory thing of neurons, is a different question, though related.

I should clarify: "inner film show" I did identify with "mental images", but only to explain that I don't accept either of them as actual non-fictional things. Which is to say, again, there are no mental components to describe (appropriately or not) as a film show. — bongo fury

Your argument is as faulty as saying "I am not writing these words right now". The fact that we "think" we have illusions has to be explained. It is a fact that there appears to be mind happening. That is the illusion itself. That phenomenon is the thing to be explained.

What is the nature of non-existent fictional characters in a work of fiction? — bongo fury

Certainly not the basis or all we can see, taste, hear, feel, and imagine.

I don't deny having filed such reports most of my life. But I do insist they were all fictional: concerning non-existent images and audio, and too often also non-existent homunculi. — bongo fury

So what is the nature of this non-existent fictional images and audio and homunculi? Not the things correlated with them (neurons). If you say "illusion" you are begging the question and have exhausted this conversation.

I don't say we don't think. Unless you are saying zombies don't think? — bongo fury

The theater in the brain is reported. What are they reporting? Presumably that includes you and me. If you say you don't have anything like reportable internal events, you would be the first conscious person to do so. No one is saying the brain doesn't cause consciousness or contribute to its presence. The illusion if it is the same as neurons. Whence the illusion?

Your inner film show doesn't. — bongo fury

"What" is the inner film show? We don't think, yet here we are thinking. To clarify, let me quote what I have stated before on this issue:

Some people in both the idealist and the materialist camp (in much different fashions) want to claim that first person consciousness is an "illusion" of some sort. Is using the term "illusion" just another term for the "mind" and this "illusion" still has to be accounted for or can the concept of illusion have its cake and eat it too? In other words, can illusion really claim that the mind only "feels" like it exists, but does not really and that's the end of the story or does the "feels like" phenomena of illusion still have to be accounted for in some way? — schopenhauer1

I agree. I think people do a switcharoo and try to explain the causes of consciousness as some sort of hitherto unexplored origin and then because it is some genus of causes which is not what we originally thought, they want to then go an extra step and say the actual consciousness is therefore an illusion. If we want to bring in Wittgenstein, we can bring it there. It's not even an illusion as much as something that was not what we originally thought. They are confusing everybody by misusing the word illusion. — schopenhauer1

In other words, there is still is the "feels like" phenomena of illusion that still has to be accounted for in some way, even if we are mistaken as to its causes.

For my part, I thought they were included among your alleged "mental components"? — bongo fury

Mental components don't happen. Yet we are discussing them. You say they are fictions. Fine, the fictions themselves are something. We are reasonably discussing them. You can add stuff like language and representations etc. but these are all mental things after the fact. How is it the nerve-firings are these fictions?

The picture in the head. It doesn't happen. — bongo fury

Then why are we even talking of pictures in the head?

By saying that mental components are a fiction we get into the habit of acknowledging as a convenient aid to succesful cognition. "What was my previous brain-shiver?... Oh yes, the one selecting this or that picture." — bongo fury

"What" is this "fiction we get into the habit of acknowledging"? You are making the mistake of thinking the "illusion" refers to the cause rather than its presence in general. I have no doubt we can missatribute the causes of a phenomenon but in this case, we cannot explain away so easily its presence.

So while this is interesting, this has more to do with easy problems like cognition and the role of symbolic representation. The hard question goes beyond this and asks "How are the physical components equivalent to mental components". How is what you are saying addressing that? I don't see it.

I think largely I continue to work at my job because I am afraid of the consequences if I didn't. To a certain extent, I have to look out for myself. — darthbarracuda

That was sort of the point I was trying to make here:

Yes indeed. It happens on that granular level and also as a wider phenomena. For example, revolutions work as a sort of way to "break out" of historically-developed institutional patterns. So what happens? It sounds good but then when asked to give up their property (like house, land, capital), that doesn't seem to go down well in practice. So now you have simply force. The people with the guns will make you do it. Well, that just threw out the boundlessness with more boundaries. Then the famines, and the shortages of goods. Then a charismatic leader takes the reigns of the guys with the guns and it is just more boundaries than the previous institutions.

The problem is the comforts of life itself will lead us to this problem that cannot be solved. So therefore...

It's a form of suffering imposed on spark plugs that had not consented to be born in the first place, and having been born, have to work to keep body and soul together--though why anyone does that since we didn't want the deal in the first place, is a mystery.
— Bitter Crank

Exactly! Now you are speaking my language. The problem is intractable. It has to do with the human condition, not a specific socio-economic condition. — schopenhauer1

The system we have now relies on jobs. It doesn't discriminate on what kind. The way resources are supposed to be distributed is something like this: Most legitimate = Resources are distributed by working for pay or owning a business and using recognized currency (or living off social security that you paid for with taxes from working). Least legitimate = Resources are distributed from government or charity without working.

I don't see a society where this can be set up differently based on how we have rooted human labor for 10,000 years or so. Even communism as it was applied used currency and jobs to distribute resources. It's just it was centralized, planned, etc.

Resources have to be culled, produced and distributed. Robots are probably not the ubiquitous answer. No change will occur on this front as it would have to be a complete overhaul. An aggregate overhaul from every sector of the economy would be ridiculous to implement outside a thought experiment or conversations like "wouldn't it be cool if...". So for example, I don't think all of humanity will stop procreating. I don't even think I'll change many people's minds. But I do think it the position to not procreate is the right one, despite it's not coming to fruition. So it could be the same here in regards to work. However, interestingly, this too is solved via antinatalism. No new people means no new laborers laboring for no reason except to keep themselves alive and the system functioning.

@Bitter Crank@Banno

Yes. Humans have created bounded institutions to serve as rude speed bumps to reduce excessive boundless thinking, reacting, behaving, etc. One sees this in action all the time, where some spark plug in the organization keeps firing off one bright idea after another. Pretty soon the spark plug is managed, i.e., told to shut the fuck up. Or else! — Bitter Crank

Yes indeed. It happens on that granular level and also as a wider phenomena. For example, revolutions work as a sort of way to "break out" of historically-developed institutional patterns. So what happens? It sounds good but then when asked to give up their property (like house, land, capital), that doesn't seem to go down well in practice. So now you have simply force. The people with the guns will make you do it. Well, that just threw out the boundlessness with more boundaries. Then the famines, and the shortages of goods. Then a charismatic leader takes the reigns of the guys with the guns and it is just more boundaries than the previous institutions.

The problem is the comforts of life itself will lead us to this problem that cannot be solved. So therefore...

It's a form of suffering imposed on spark plugs that had not consented to be born in the first place, and having been born, have to work to keep body and soul together--though why anyone does that since we didn't want the deal in the first place, is a mystery. — Bitter Crank

Exactly! Now you are speaking my language. The problem is intractable. It has to do with the human condition, not a specific socio-economic condition.