What say you @Bitter Crank?

Well look at this article that just came out on antinatalism: https://thebigsmoke.com.au/2019/02/14/wish-youve-never-been-born-youre-bang-on-the-mark-you/

Antinatalism is essentially the philosophy that what matters most in ethics is suffering. Being born means inevitable suffering, thus by not having children, you are preventing suffering. No one is around (in the first place) to be deprived of any "goods" of life either (so win/win). What this amounts as related to politics is that someone is never born for their own sake. By having the child, you are essentially making it a sacrifice in the name of society. Why? The child has to be enculturated which de facto, makes the child interact with society. Why enculturation? Humans survive on a cultural/social basis. In other words, they survive through transmission of ideas through learning in a social setting.

What does this ultimately mean? This simply means that human societies need more people to keep it going. Highly complex forms of society (that have been shaped through forces of history), keep itself going through the work of the labor force. Thus being born essentially accounts to be enculturated to become a laborer. Thus, no political/economic system will overcome the very foundation of what it means to be born into a society. That is to say, we can never get out of the fact, that our wants and needs as individuals will create the need for other people to labor to meet those demands and needs. By being born, we de facto are forced to labor. In a social setting, we are simply units of labor. You were born to labor in some social setting.

Both come up short simply by the fact that being born itself is the first form of coercion. We are used by society from the beginning- as labor, for the most part. However, it is said to us, that by symbiotically using society for one's own desires and needs, one is really doing it for the "individual" pursuit. The first premises that any government should be based on is, "What is the purpose of people being born into this world in the first place?" If you can't answer that without coming to the conclusion that all forms of procreation are using the individual, then all else is secondary.

I think the main contributor to this ‘suffering’ or feeling ‘worse off’ is the unrealistic expectation that this ‘magical’ experience will somehow be free from associated experiences of pain, loss or humility, or will be some kind of antidote to counteract these ‘negative’ experiences. — Possibility

But do you see that you are not really countering my argument but strengthening it here? Overall, love is a bitch, if you will. Not only is love not obtained by billions of people, but this time around, you mention that it is associated with pain, loss, and humility. This is very Nietzschean of you. Strength through pain. No pain, no gain. I'm an antinatalist for the most part. That is to say, I don't see the need to procreate more people into the world who will suffer. I don't see the need for people to pump their fist in the air and try to defy the gods by suffering through life experiences as if life is one's own work of art that one embraces through the catharsis of one's own suffering. Rather, I see no need to make anyone suffer through life in the first place.

But anyways, I still think it is a telling thing about life that this seemingly basic need of the human- to at least connect with one human in a meaningful way, is so difficult in the first place. It is precisely this elusive nature of this basic need that I am examining here, and that you are also inadvertently explaining (even if you think you are actually differing with my view in some way). I actually agree with much of what you say, but the implications are perhaps different- where I am going with it regarding what it means for life itself, that is.

Also, just to add, I see romantic/pragmatic love as more basic than traveling the world or other cultural forms of entertainment. I see it as more fundamental in our psyche (on a species/animal level) as a social animal that craves deep connection with at least one other person in ways that are different than other loves that might be obtained in life (philial, agape, etc.).

After examining my past relationships, I recognised that the problem was with protective boundaries and limitations I had formed around sexual attraction since childhood. Recognising and dismantling these boundaries was scary and required not only facing some dark, painful truths, but also sharing them with someone who thought they knew me already. It was, and continues to be, well worth the effort.

So I would say that romantic/pragmatic love definitely seems more trouble than most people are willing to face these days. This is partly because we have a long way to travel from our experience of individuality, independence and profound disconnect with the universe, and partly because we can experience one side without the other and in it fail to see the deeper love that each experience of sexual attraction or life compatibility is leading us towards.

But the sum is definitely greater than its parts, and being open to experiencing that deeper sense of interconnection is worth more than any effort you can put in, more than any fear you have to face or any experience of pain, loss or humiliation - in my experience, anyway. — Possibility

Yes all well and good. Your answer regarding your personal experience with this type of love and its leading you to greater awareness of interconnectedness is fine for what it is. So it looks like we can agree that romantic/pragmatic love is a type of love that exists, and that (for the most part) an important element for most people to achieve a type of interconnectedness with at least one person that shares interests and burdens, and also physical affection. Okay, we got that far. So my 1) claim: pragmatic/romantic forms of love are a real form of social connectedness we can establish as more-or-less true. Now, how about the problems I identified with 2 and 3? I see how you sort of addressed it by mentioning our problem with being too individualistic and less open to experiences with others, but the effect is still the same. That is mainly: 2) People are qualitatively worse off who don't experience pragmatic/romantic forms of love or don't experience them for long sustainable durations of time. From these 2 things I also conclude 3) pragmatic/romantic love is a major form of suffering for those who don't experience it or who experience it and lose it or have a bad time with it leaving the person worse off. Thus, like many things in life, pragmatic/romantic love is actually a deficit for many people.

Thus, this kind of basic need for romantic/pragmatic love in the human adult, is problematic in its absence in billions of people and/or its negative effects in creating worse off situations with the drama and loss that occurs in bad relationships and breakups. Thus, it is a stochastic phenomenon which was my initial claim- and only really experienced by a smaller subset then is usually touted. This is not denying that this subset has to "work" at it, or saying that love is always a cakewalk for these "successful" types (actually making my claim stronger that even the "best" of love circumstances aren't that qualitatively or quantitatively great much of the time) but just to say that there is a subset who experience romantic/pragmatic love in more quantitative ways (longer duration of relationships or more frequent loving relationships) and in more qualitatively ways (these relationships bring positive effects in both lives and make the lives more richer or better in some way to the lovers involved). But only this subset has these experiences which are not had in any major quantitative or qualitative way by billions of other people who have a deficit of this kind of love or who have negative experiences from bad relationships and breakups.

What are some metaphysical prerequisites to becoming an antinatalist?

Atheism, right?
Nihilism, but not quite... more like a desire for nihilism
What else?

What positions are incompatible?

Theism
Agnosticism
What else? — Roke

Any position which bolsters an X goal for child rather than considering whether to create harm would be incompatible. But that doesn't necessarily have to do with one's metaphysical position.

I agree. Since this is more of an announcement, like "hey look at this", and not meant as a platform for debate, it should go in the Lounge.

I just thought it was relevant in the fact that what seems like an obscure, specifically philosophical position, has gotten a lot of attention recently around the globe. If you feel this is more suited for the lounge, I am not opposed but I do think it is relevant to this forum as it is about a philosophical position that has been debated here and also illustrates that that it does have some press. It would be equivalent if a modern Stoic group has been made some waves. I also think that would be relevant to post somewhere in this forum.

@Banno

Oh that won't work as far as my definition of moral good getting passed the open argument.

I am an anarchist who desires the voluntary end of human existence. What are these obvious drawbacks you refer to? — darthbarracuda

I explained in the other thread that being used as a source of labor is a harm to the individual. All economic systems will eventually do this by de facto needs and wants of the individual from needing to survive and the endless desires of the human psyche.

Is it good to rely on such extensive exegesis? Does this make one's moral choices more transparent or simply fog them over? — Banno

Can good just be deflated a principle of "non-harm" and "helping others" on one hand and some sort of "happiness principle" on the other? For example, why do people advocate not kicking a puppy for fun? Because it causes unnecessary harm. Why do some people say one ought to cultivate virtue, because of some perceived long-term happiness. Why do some people say to pursue pleasure? Because of some form of happiness.

Thus perhaps "the good" is a combination of the principle of non-harm (or helping others in some cases), and some sort of perceived avenue for long-term happiness on the other. That seems to answer a lot of questions as to what falls into the "good" category in the realm of ethics and morality.

So I guess my answer to get around the open-ended argument is to simply deflate it to those two main definitions. The Good simply is some prescription for non-harm/helping others and obtaining happiness.

Actually @Andrew4Handel had some good explanations but the one's I listed were:

1) By being born into a society that requires one's labor, one is de facto, being used by that society.

2) Doing any work that one would not ultimately do from original preferences (meaning, before buying into slogans, having to buy into some sort of Stoic ideology, lowered expectations, changed expectations, etc.) is a harm to an individual. — schopenhauer1

Being used as a source of labor by society and if it is work an individual would not do from original preferences, it is not following individual's ideal preference. I see lowered preference satisfaction for how one lives much of the day is a problem.

Perhaps ‘myth’ is not the right word - I think your use of ‘phenomenon’ and ‘experience’ is closer than your previous suggestion that there is ‘true romantic love’ out there that we either have and keep, or we don’t. I’m not saying the phenomenon of ‘romantic love’ doesn’t exist in subjective experience - I experience this phenomenon myself within a marriage of more than 20 years, which I guess makes me one of the lucky ones. But I think it’s false or even misleading for me to claim that I ‘have’ romantic love at any point. — Possibility

I don't believe in true romantic love. By keep I meant, that we sustain- as in a long-term relationship for many many years, not just a fling or a short-lasting relationship. I was not indicating love is some "thing" that is kept. But that the relationship itself was sustained. For example, you have a 20 year relationship. This may add some happiness or positive well-being to your life to be involved in the sustaining of this relationship that someone who does not experience this might not experience. That is what I am talking about here.

It’s a bit like the concept of energy. We know it exists because we observe or experience evidence of change. But we can’t see it, and we can’t say what it really is. So we talk about it in terms of the physical evidence it leaves behind: kinetic, thermal, etc.

In my experience, at the base of all love is the awareness that one’s unique potential and capacity for life is greater for being intertwined with another (and vice versa). This is the source of romantic as well as parental and familial love, deep friendship, tribal, community, humanity, etc. — Possibility

To mention this is to not recognize that I already addressed that the ancient Greeks have deduced a multiplicity of the forms of love (or as you put it interconnectedness). I even split up the idea of pragmatic love (being in a long term committed relationship) with specifically erotic or romantic love which has more to do with immediate sexual attraction. They can be comingled, but not necessarily. Anyways, either form- romantic or pragmatic can be something missing from many people's lives.

My claim is that 1) pragmatic/romantic forms of love are a real form of social connectedness. 2) People are qualitatively worse off who don't experience pragmatic/romantic forms of love or don't experience them for long sustainable durations of time. From these 2 things I also conclude 3) pragmatic/romantic love is a major form of suffering for those who don't experience it or who experience it and lose it or have a bad time with it leaving the person worse off. Thus, like many things in life, pragmatic/romantic love is actually a deficit for many people.

I don’t think it helps to expect anyone to show love on the basis of genetics, ideological affinity or physical attraction. Just as there are many children born to parents who fail to ‘love’ them, so many children are raised in a loving bond that has nothing to do with genetics, and also children adopted or switched at birth can form a bond just as strong or even stronger with non-biological parents.

It certainly suggests that while parental love can be enhanced by genetics, this may have more to do with awareness than any actual connection. — Possibility

You either misinterpreted what I meant or you are creating a strawman, as I never mentioned genetics as a result of bad parenting situations and foster care. I was simply stating that it is a fact that some set of people will not experience "love" from a parental figure the way others might. That was it. My argument had nothing to do with whether someone was raised by genetic parents or not.

As for romantic love, I think the parameters we set for what this type of love ‘looks’ like, and the belief that we are obliged to find one person who best fits these particular parameters, prevent us from being open to love in all its forms. Personally, I think romantic love is a myth - if we work to free the concept of love from the parameters of sexual attraction, and likewise free sexual attraction from the parameters of ‘romantic love’, we recognise that sexual attraction really has nothing to with love as an awareness or deep feeling of interconnectedness - all it does is enhance our awareness or feeling in certain circumstances. — Possibility

I'd say this is a case of "moving the goal posts". I can certainly point to a phenomenon called "romantic love" and I can identify its traits. In fact, you described the feelings associated with this phenomenon quite well. But it seems that to counter my claim, you denied the importance of romantic love all together when it seems to be a very powerful force in the human psyche.

I get the sense that we all have the capacity to love and be loved with the intensity of a mother and child bond in all circumstances. The apparent ‘distribution’ of this love perhaps comes down to the boundaries, structures and distances that have helped us to make sense of, control and feel safe in society and the universe in general. When we have the courage to dismantle these and to be aware of interconnectedness beyond them, then perhaps we may find love in unexpected places... — Possibility

Yes the Greeks had a concept of different forms of love. Agape, storge, philia, eros, etc. etc. I get that we can feel interconnected outside romantic love. However, let's not downplay the role of romantic love. It's pursuit and its lesser cousin lust, are the reasons the species continues and procreates in the first place. The human condition is a wiley mysterious thing, but it can be characterized with a kind of self-awareness- a meta-understanding of itself. We can analyze our situation as we do what we do. No other animal has such reflective abilities. One of the conditions we constantly find ourselves in is the need for need. We cannot get beyond our own restless boredom. One level up from our restless boredom is loneliness. Thus humans tend to be characterized by their restless need to "do anything" and their need to connect with others while doing something. Romantic love is a sort of the ultimate "connect with another person" in the sense that one's time, devotion, physical needs, are connected with another person. This satisfies some craving in the human psyche to get beyond loneliness. This kind of connection is deeper than even a really good friend (but not necessarily better). It is different than the reverence one pays parents or the awestruck feelings of some religious experience. In a way, it is the practical need to get through life with someone who cares for you and vice versa. Of course, one of the conceits of the human condition is no one (or any) person knows you like you know yourself, and people often have unreasonable expectations that their "partner" will know them fully when no one can know that..so best not to expect it.

Anyways, the point is that this kind of deep romantic love is not experienced or experienced in any kind of meaningful duration for millions and billions of people in the world. That is troubling that such a seemingly fundamental thing is not had by many humans. You can downplay it, change the goal posts, or whatnot, but then you are not really dealing with the problem itself, but trying to diminish it so it doesn't look like a real problem.

I guess if I were to use the different Greek concepts I would be using the two ideas of eros and pragma. Eros is that passionate love found in pop-culture. This is that immediate attraction one feels and excitement. People often confuse this with pragmatic love, which is trying to find someone who has common interests and living together as a goal. People want a combination of both but often cannot have it. This is another frustrating aspect of love. So there are many things about love that are troubling.

1) Love (pragma) is not had by millions and billions of people but it is a deep psychological need to want to have someone to live life with. Thus people are living with a lack of the is deep need.

2) People want their pragmatic love to be combined with their romantic love and that often times doesn't pan out the way they want it in their minds. This may be a case of unreasonable expectations.

3) Loving relationships often fall apart due to a variety of reasons and leave the person feeling worse off.

Love seems more trouble than its worth, but at the same time is wrapped up in the human condition.

So we observe it as ‘romantic love’ when our inner conditions strongly suggest this: sexual attraction, compatibility of genetics, interests, ideologies, life paths, etc. All of these strengthen our awareness of this interconnectedness - but it is concentrated between two actual entities. We are more convinced of this particular pocket of interconnectedness, the more physiological and psychological evidence we experience, and those around us also notice its impact on our outward demeanour and our actions. — Possibility

I think people should explore the stochastic nature of who gets love and who doesn't. One obvious way is how children can be born to parents that show little love. Some even have to be brought up in foster care for much of their life. But another one is how some people experience and keep true romantic love and others never find, or never keep romantic love for long periods of time. Thus, the somewhat random distribution of who finds love makes love partly a misery for what is denied millions and billions of people. Human life, being very indeterminate in how people's personalities and circumstances play out in the world-stage, has a lot of non-optimal outcomes for many people. This is yet another reason not to bring another person into the world. The indeterminate nature of contingent circumstances and life-decisions of an individual will often lead that individual to non-optimal circumstances (for the personal preferences of that person or objective set of preferences if one buys into that idea).

Yes I noticed this. I think Moore’s big takeaway is that morality can never be explained by other terms as there is nothing that proves the goodness of something. You can’t define goodness by explanation essentially. Or at least that’s what I took from him. Sounds like it can only be gleaned at through actions or something like that.

"...is good" is simple and unanalysable, according to Moore.

Consider a particular naturalist claim, such as that “x is good” is equivalent to “x is pleasure.” If this claim were true, Moore argued, the judgement “Pleasure is good” would be equivalent to “Pleasure is pleasure,” yet surely someone who asserts the former means to express more than that uninformative tautology. The same argument can be mounted against any other naturalist proposal: even if we have determined that something is what we desire to desire or is more evolved, the question whether it is good remains “open,” in the sense that it is not settled by the meaning of the word “good.”
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moore-moral/

Moral judgements, like all judgements, are true, or they are false. This follows from their predicate-subject form.

Moral propositions imply an action. That is, one ought act in accord with true moral propositions. — Banno

Moore thought that the concept "good" could not be defined in a subject-predicate way. In other words, good itself could not be explained with other descriptions without begging the question. What is goodness can never be a closed question for Moore. Somehow he thought we intuited it so he was a brand of intuitionist. However, he thought once we "intuited" it, we can judge the effects of actions, and this could lead to closed questions of which effects works better or which effects have more successful outcomes.

Life is harmful to every individual: it kills him, or her, me and you. — tim wood

Correct

We're creatures of nature.To live requires things. — tim wood

Correct

We barter our selves for those things, that we might live and enjoy, if we can, what we can of life. That's the contract, And you're bound by it will-you or nil-you. — tim wood

Well, this is to deny that I mentioned that DE FACTO we must rely on the economic system, or to arbitrarily repeat the point?

I suspect that the problem here is really that some people are better at getting the things than others. Maybe too much better. — tim wood

This would be beside the point. Capacity in the system doesn't matter. 1) Individuals are being used (even if de facto, they have to use the system..I didn't deny the symbiosis), 2) Doing any work that one would not do from original preferences is still a harm to the individual.

Hello Bliss, it looks like you are new to posting in the forum. My take on this is to not have children. Do not throw more people into the economic system as, by definition, they will be used by society as units of labor (less they survive sub-optimally and/or die). To me, this is a harm to the individual. Thus, the biggest harm is bringing a child into this economic system in the first place.

Selfish in thinking that the world revolves around their needs only. I guess egoistic maybe. Impatience is a large component but it is also simply not having the experience in the world, nor the synapse connections to posit a developed theory of mind (that other people have motives too and may also want stuff, etc. etc.).

That is such an oversimplification.
They can be incredibly empathetic and even more so than adults.

They are people, and as such are complex individuals with unique ideas and tendencies. — NKBJ

Granted. Children can be empathetic, but on the whole their tendencies tend to be on the "me, now" scale. Patience, self-control, etc. has to be taught over time. Kids whose tendencies weren't curbed and allowed to just manifest, for the most part, don't learn later either or have a much harder time at learning it, progressing into worse behavior over time.

Of course, my position is to spare children the drudgeries and punishment of existence by not having them in the first place, but that is a completely separate question than how to raise them once they are born.

Are children bad? — TheMadFool

Children are the hardest population to work with because of underdeveloped social reasoning. They tend to be selfish little people. The parent and other adults have to instill some boundaries and values, though it doesn't have to be done in some draconian way. In effect, children come out looking like little criminals, and you have to curb these tendencies early enough that it becomes habit, and then it is just assimilated as part of their personality. Adults are supposed to have already been through this enculturation process. Thus, where a kid hits someone over some argument, it is frowned upon, and a consequence ensues by an authority figure. But an adult hits someone over an argument, it may be grounds for assault and battery.

@Bitter Crank

The first punishment was being born into existence. :gasp:

But once born, what to do now? Certainly youth need some sort of consequence for undesirable actions. Look at schools that have no way of enforcing anything. Look at households whose "parents" (if they exist) don't know how to set boundaries.. That begets generational poverty.


But a broader point I want to make is life itself. This is more abstract, so hear me out. I see any work done that would not otherwise be chosen is punishment. But we need to do it to survive. In a way, by needing an economy, our desires and wants leads to supply and demand, which leads to constant labor. Our own desires and needs punishes each other. Just another reason being born is not good.

Sure, we can post-facto praise work, praise perserverance, try to "triangulate" and learn to love the the thing we despise, but this is all stemming the wound that existence has wrought in the first place for each individual part of the greater economy.

So yeah we need punishment and boundaries for youth.. and if we are going to have a society that keeps on keeping on (cause of our perpetual needs and wants.. survival, maintenance, entertainment), we are going to need some form of consequence for deviated actions (which will always have abuse, corruption, and misapplication built into it).. but the fact that our very needs and wants punishes each other is the part I'm trying to convey. This is often lost because it is so basic.. but yet the implications never seem to sink in about it. Birth creates the punishment cycle.

Are you familiar with the religious idea of being "in the world" but not "of the world"?

Not being "of the world" represents one separating and distinguishing one's self from "the world" (structure, work, charity, social media, all that stuff) to the extent that one is able. It means identifying what in the world "is not for me" and what in the world "is for me". Philosophers have observed that people are driven like slaves by the demands of the world--not just that you work, but that you have a weed free lawn, drive a nice car, keep the monetary value of your property up, and so on. Strivers are all about achieving maximum rewards and displaying them to best effect.

You don't have to associate yourself with all that. Do you have to work for your daily bread? So you do because you don't want to starve. But you don't have to be a striver; you don't have to be the fastest worker, the top salesman, the largest grossing real estate agent, etc. You can arrange your life to get by with as little as possible -- thus requiring the least amount of effort possible, and least possible commitment to "the system".

How well does that work? At best, I'd say "so-so". At worst it is just another existential shit pile. — Bitter Crank

Procreation is ultimately the arbiter of the existential pile, hence my focus on it. Everything else is stemming the damage done. Now comes this organism. This organism is impinged upon by the complex factors of its interaction with the environment and its own dealing-with its genetic blueprint (and epigenetic working-out-in-the-environment). The organism is impinged upon by contingencies of history and circumstances- ranging from deep mental and physical disadvantages to minor annoyances of life.

The organism is forced to keep itself alive. Language, social learning, memory, problem solving, and other cognitive functions enable the organism to be socialized into navigating the socio-economic realm that will be key to its survival.

A system is in place since the organism first evolved- the need to socially organize. This forced the individual into ever more focused cognitive tasks. At first they were hunter-gatherer based. Many societies moved to agricultural based, then industrial, then post-industrial. The specialization and focus went further and further. The organism with all its contingent disadvantages (of various distribution), interacting with others who will need production. Interacting with others who simply need. The need forces us to deal with the needs of others.. And on and on and on.

In the end it is all about our complex needs and wants forcing others to deal with those needs and wants. Why do we force others in this system? What to do once in the system? We simply try to strengthen people's resilience.

What is the framework of the "rebel" type? How does one circumnavigate the very systematic structure that creates the very ability to survive for the individual (in a society)? The longing for the spiritual and religious is just the longing for this rebellion.. It gets coopted time and again by the needs of the community to perpetuate itself (thus its natural codification). But perhaps its function is to transcend one's own very mundane material reality.

Well, then to do? What does the rebel type do? Your suggestion is live the austere life being in, but not of the world. At the end, the cynic might be right. Make a garden for food, shit in the hole in the outskirts of your little hovel (not too close to your food..but make sure to get shit from other animals to help fertilize..though your own might do). Take the seeds, grow some more, store some in the form of pickled vegetables for the hard times... Create a Robinson Crusoe economy?

One has nowhere to go, but always something to do.

Do you have any pets? If not, I might recommend getting a six week-old kitten. It would rely on you for all of its needs would grow to love you and you it. Caring for the kitty would get your mind off of yourself, and you would have a companion for 15 to 20 years. — Noah Te Stroete

Well, I guess if Schopenhauer had his cherished poodle...

And as long as it's all about me, it's the endless round of dissatisfaction and suffering you describe. — unenlightened

Is there a secular, non-christian, non-religious version of grace? Yes, and it is elusive. It's a paradox that you can not struggle to get grace. You can't force even godless grace to just appear. You can prepare yourself but you have to let grace happen to you. (At least, that's the way I understand it.) It's like love -- you can't make yourself love somebody, and you can't force somebody to love you. But what you can do is let it happen.

You have to "let go". — Bitter Crank

No doubt, giving to fellow humans out of pure compassion is something. Schopenhauer discussed it as the root of true morality. What you describe is almost exactly what Schop says about compassion. It cannot be cultivated as much as just "happens" to an individual (though his conception seems to be tied up in someone's character).

However, my comment was to the broader point- charity is within the larger framework that people even need charity. It is all a part of the material social circumstances. So what of the structure itself that creates work, that creates the need for charity. I don't see giving charity as an exercise in me displaying grace, surely you don't either. So, what exactly do we do with this whole structure, work, charity and all?

I know people who didn't, who haven't accepted the behemoth material society reality with joy. I didn't accept it with job. To paraphrase the liturgy of baptism, "...behemoth material society reality, I reject you" (instead of "Satan, I reject you").

I, and others, like you may have to put up with social crap, but we don't have to rejoice in it. You can be as nonconforming as you can manage, and have as little as you can to do with the toilet full of social crap. Granted, it isn't easy. If you have to work (for daily bread) then you are likely to be dealing with at least some social crap. But you don't have to soak in it up to your eyeballs like some people do.

Keep complaining -- it's good for people to hear dissenting voices. But for your own happiness, carve out a little niche where you can feel OK at least sometimes. — Bitter Crank

I like this. Well said. :up:

You have an idée fixe. You could dislodge it with a little effort and that might help. — Bitter Crank

But that’s the attitude change. If it’s a choice, what does it mean to choose society’s need for production? At the end of the day that’s what I’m choosing. There is no rebellion outside of the abstract notions which are just talk around the behemoth material social reality that is to be accepted with joy.

What am Insaving and why? The materialist conception seems to be the social reality. Charity is just one part of it if that’s what you’re referring to. But that is a symptom and not part of the structure.

I just don't buy into the idea that the individual must change his/her attitude. The fact that one can even "choose" to do so means that this is not the default. Not being a default means we have to "buy into" something. What is this something? Usually it is society's need for production, and for the individual to be compliant in sharing in the productive output- preferably with joy and with ever increasing results.

@Wallows@Bitter Crank@andrewk@Noah Te Stroete@unenlightened

What does one do when one is born but doesn't want to do what is required of being alive?

Sure, you can throw out some plan of action like the ole Stoic program, but in real life, the fact that this is even required, is a bummer. People are focused on minutia throughout the day that is required of them. Focused on this or that. The world requires more refined minutia-mongering as society moves from hunter-gatherers to post-industrial economies. For what little meritocracy is left is for those focused on the minute. If you know your specialty well you get to move up (if it isn't taken by nepotism already). The harder you focus your attention on an organization's little orbit of ideas and needs, that is what society wants. Production. Mind taken away from one's own thoughts.

But then what are one's own thoughts? Just the babble of a linguistic animal that cannot quiet its brain. Then Zen. Zen tries to bring one to the "Now" or is it the "Nowhere"? But why do we need that program? Like the Stoics, it is just adjusting expectations and focus. Why do we need to do this to be healthy of mind? Another requirement of living "well" they say. What if one doesn't want to do any of this, third world, second world, first world requirements? Being born is the issue.

Hi guys I'm fairly new to philosophy of language and have started to learn about the basics. Ive been introduced to Kripke and his argument that proper names are rigid desgnators in that they refer to the same individual in all possible worlds. My question is how does one make this consistent with his causal-historical theory of reference. An individual in another possible world cannot form part of a casual historical chain that Kripke alleges is necassary for a proper name to refer to that individual? — Johnono

I refer you to @Banno.

s there no room in the house of materialism to accommodate the world such as it is? — StreetlightX

This doesn't seem to answer the hard question of consciousness. We are always stuck with a thing leftover. Does a baby have raw experiences of qualia like green? Some posters here have suggested babies have no experience at all. They have taken a hard stance to ensure that experience is built from interaction with the world only. Anyway, the question is, "WHAT/WHERE is experience?" Materialists tend to explain it away, by making it a synonym- "You see, experience is just internal modelling". Then we must ask, what is internal modelling that makes it experiential? It will always beg the question. That doesn't mean, de facto, idealism is thus true, I am just giving why accounts from materialism are unsatisfactory, other than the easy problems that can be solved by observations in neuropsychology and behavioral/mental correlates of such phenomena.

The larger, causative social ills are going to require a revolution (literally, if not figuratively) to resolve. Who is going to do this? Everybody is going to do it because the problems are that big, or it isn't going to happen at all. — Bitter Crank

Here is a large crux of the situation, perhaps. What is this 8 hour work day? Who does it really benefit? This is circular reasoning. We have simply designed our lives around it, and then post-facto "called it good and necessary". Is it? What happens if we simply took two hours off the average US citizen's workday? What exactly are we doing here anyways?

But BC, you know that I think that dissatisfaction is already built into the human equation, right? Let us look at "love" or less romantically, simply seeking companions/mates. The human pursuit of mates itself causes drama galore. Humans don't make it easy on themselves, even on the best of circumstances. Somehow, a supposed key component of human social happiness is hopelessly flawed. We do it to ourselves, but we cannot help it.

Look at our material lives- run by the economic hand of doom annoyance. We create technology that must constantly be maintained, taught, re-taught, etc. etc. Medical and emergency services are under the tyranny of people's biological/health needs. People with long-term conditions need long-term help. This causes doctors and nurses to work non-stop...this causes the companies that support them to work non-stop.. and the companies that help those companies, etc. etc. Our human wants and needs, force each other's hands in a big game of "fuck you too". We force each other to be slaves to each other.. Maybe 8 hours is something we can't work past. Maybe horrible managers are what's needed to "get things done around here!" Maybe we simply can't move past the fact that we are forced to do things based on the circumstances of others- mainly their wants and needs impinging on your wants and needs. There is no good solution other than not existing or causing others not to exist.

Ultimately, BC, my two questions are:
1) Do you think society can really get past its current social state, and how?
2) Why would you not think that dissatisfaction is baked into the circumstances of the human condition, despite any external economic or social circumstances?

So, what do you think? Is there value in depression? Or do you believe it's more of a hindrance to life/philosophy? Is it necessary? — NKBJ

It is not a hindrance to philosophy. To the contrary, it helps inform it. As Camus stated, There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.

As beings with abilities to evaluate- naturally we are tend to evaluate life itself. If life seems mediocre at best then there is something telling here. The normative approach is to try to equip the depressive individual with psychological tools to "overcome" the depression. This usually involves things such as seeking better employment, finding better social outlets, or preparing for the worst, things like that.

What is the case, however is that the world is not ideal. It doesn't conform to our preferences or even our happiness- it is mainly about learning to survive, maintain comfort, and seek out some form of entertainment.

Look at survival. We must devote time to simply keeping ourselves alive. This in itself is inherently circular- we survive to survive to survive. Then look at what we must focus on to do this. We must train our minds to not wander too much and focus on minutia that is necessary for survival in a workplace.

Look at comfort maintenance. We often devote time to simply maintaining our comfort- cleaning, preening, washing, consuming. A lot of this is deemed culturally necessary.

Look at our entertainment seeking. We get lonely and want a significant other to pal around and have physical relations with. We want friends, we want games that challenge our complex mind, we want physical and psychological pleasures, etc. All these entertainment preferences are shaped by our individual personalities. The hedonic treadmill principle may dictate that, no matter how many pleasures you get, levels even out. Pleasures aren't as good as you thought, and last less than you'd like. Survival and maintenance rears its ugly head yet again and on and on.

Yeah, can one complain about the (at best) mediocrity of existence? Can one even claim that existence is a "tyranny of the mediocre"? Evolutionary psychology simply dictates that people have to find ways to mate. Look at all the frustrations and drama wrapped up in this supposedly natural phenomena. There is nothing effortless or carefree about it for humans. The animal world is full of what we would consider appalling mating techniques. We are no exception.

If the world is mediocre- full of goal-less desires that simply perpetuate itself.. if we are running around surviving, maintaining, and running on the hedonic treadmill, why would one evaluate it as "good"? Our unique self-awareness, our language abilities, our integration of motivations, emotions, and personality, creates with it the illusion that there is more than surviving, maintaining, and entertaining. We are thrown into the world with these psychological constraints, and ways of being. We must cope and deal with being self-aware creatures with these constraints.

Since monism is the claim, then yes, duality is part of the one. — TheMadFool

@csalisbury

Why would there not just be a strict dualism then? This might be the way we are using language but if there is the One and there is illusion, then there is no longer one, as the illusion still "exists" in some fashion (even if just as an illusion). Thus, the illusion has to be accounted for itself. Wherever/whatever the illusion "is"- call it mental space, mentality, experience, this is what is to explained.

Add one. But even stating with "one", simple unity, is to take an empirically induced principle. If we do not start with one, what sort of rule for counting could we produce? — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, but did Kant himself think that "one simple unity" was empirical? I think to him, numbers themselves and counting were all a priori, though possibly synthetic. Again, that's where I get confused with Kant. He doesn't demarcate enough. His examples are kind of fuzzy and taken as givens of why they are a priori sometimes.

We must be careful not to equivocate between these two senses of necessity, and I think Kant's categories may create ambiguity. His, are probably not the best that could be drawn.. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I think this exercise is kind of proving that out. The fuzziness between what counts as analytic or synthetic in the definition of gold, for example makes that seem the case.

It is necessary that a priori knowledge is necessary. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I didn't mean that Kant didn't think a priori to be necessary. I just meant that being necessary isn't a fully sufficient definition of a priori.