As in the written/spoken/signed words used here for example?

No.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_Without_Words

I am not sure how long I could stomach ‘living’ (afterliving or otherwise). 200 years? 500? Maybe I could stretch to 1000 but I doubt I would tolerate it that far into the future … hard to say without knowing what state I will be in or the world around me.

I would hope I never entered it and just dissipated - that is if it entailed ‘eternity’. No thank you!

An end is meaningful eternity is nothing.

You mention Rome. Does ‘Rome’ exist and in what capacity does it exist?

Does the term ‘exist’ exist? I have never held ‘exist’ in my hand (imagined or otherwise).

Basically, start by exploring what exactly/vaguely you mean by ‘exist’ before stating what does and does not ‘exist’. You will find anything you think up necessarily ‘exists’ in some way. What you cannot think of does not ‘exist’ but referring to some non-existing item makes it exist as a non-item too.

The issue is in the use of language (or rather than misuse).

If I was to answer your question more or less as I think you meant it then the probable truth would be that I would meddle a lot and be rather tyrannical and possibly murderous. Such would likely result in self-hatred and then mass murder too most likely.

After that madness and cataclysmic suicide OR madness and complete nonchalance.

This would be the me god that had powers at my fingers tips with little to no effort involved. I do genuinely believe we are all ‘gods’ though but such powers are just harder to gain and retain, that most are not willing to suffer the work involved in obtaining them and that admitting to yourself you have almost endless untapped potential generally results in self-loathing and guilt.

Note: I think humans are amazing. Not putting a downer on human existence at all :) just sayin’ … a lot of what we wish for is often just wrapped in the nonsense of what we believe others will think of us rather than what would truly drive us to live ‘better’ lives.

The OP describes my life so I guess I would just continue as normal. I am Alpha and Omega. The ‘world’ is my ‘creation’.

‘Good’ and ‘bad’ are just silly items like ‘happy’ and ‘sad’.

This is where I side with the Phenomenology of Husserl and stop worrying about such questions :D

I meant Ethics will be viewed as Phrenology is today not meta ethics.

I am deadly serious but understand that I am somewhat on the fringes. Ethics is too wrapped up in a death spiral of convoluted lies, misconceptions and band-wagoning.

No one cares what they mean by ‘ethics’ only what use they can make to impose their will on others or deflect the will of others. Pointless masturbation and ironically it is more than likely detrimental to their own being and everyone else’s.

@ToothyMaw The points in the OP are pointless.

Justification is irrelevant because claim of higher morality is immoral.

It is nothing more than pretending actions and reasons for actions are not preluded by opinions of, and impositions of, social convention.

Someone acting as they wish to act, does so genuinely, irrespective of social conventions. Non of are genuine and therefore none of have an inkling of some higher morality other than by-way-of playing for or against ideas of what is or is not ‘justified’.

I can justify killing someone but justification is just as likely an ‘excuse’ as a ‘reason’. Given that we are bound by societal mechanisms we cannot escape them and cannot ever really lay claim to some pure reason because of this.

Meta ethics has supplanted Ethics it is just that people are slow to realise this. In a few hundred years it will likely be viewed as laughable ad phrenology is.

Note: Obviously I’m not saying this from a ‘moral high ground’ :D

The only ‘right’ thing we can do is acting as we see fit rather than bending to the will of others mindlessly. In that sense we can hardly ever judge what we do as being right or wrong but we are always unable to escape from the idea that what we have done, or do, is a defining part of how we navigate through life.

Morality and ethics are social apparatus. We are not bound by pure subjectivity yet we are enchanted by the idea that we choose as an individual for ourselves and independent of others’ views.

It is a sea of hidden nuances and dead ends. I this respect it has more in common with the general outline of science being a constant riling against convention for the sake of seeking ‘better’ pathways to fuller understanding.

It is possible to communicate with more than words. It is impossible to paint a picture of ‘and’ and have anyone recognise it as ‘and’ without literally spelling the term out with ‘a-n-d’.

Yet I can state clearly that ‘and’ cannot be painted yet it is still ‘there’ in every painting when a conscious eye gazes on it. ‘And’ is necessary for consciousness even if there is no ‘worded’ term ‘and’ expressed in a common communicated language like in speech, signs or symbols used on a universal scale.

I gaze on a painting and my mind is touched by the principles of ‘and’ ‘or’ ‘why’ and even ‘of’ yet my minds tongue need never utter such delineations of conscious existence.

‘Ineffable’ I take to mean that there is a tenuous line between an experience and the ability to share said experience in any useful way worded terms that other people can easily grasp or that we can conjure up.

I agree that a high level of ability to take such experiences and shift human communication towards a slightly better way to approach such intangible experiences is precisely what great philosophers can do and many artists too.

It is tricky to fish for the exact fish you wish to catch if you have never seen it before.

If that is the rule you wish to use, yes. If not then maybe not.

Convention exists because it appears to be functional for us not because it is some underlying principle of nature or because it is not. What is might be and what might be might be what it is.

Applying abstractions to multiple singular instances and expecting to hold fast is likely stupidity veiled as something many call ‘knowledge’. Whereas ‘wisdom’ is more obsessed with not excepting such knowledge as an unquestionable effigy.

ALL truth claims are workable within set parameters.

If murder is bad - as the very meaning of murder is that of a certain kind of killing that is bad - then murder is bad.

Examples where ‘murder’ can be misconstrued as ‘good’/‘better’ does not disassociate the term from its use as something ‘bad’ in general. Given that circumstances may vary in innumerable ways when we are talking about someone’s death there is quite obviously going to be areas of contention about what is or is not considered ‘murder’. Euthanasia to some people is ‘murder’ and to others it is merely ‘assisting someone to die’.

Nuance in language and interpretations of events and circumstances does not take away from the general meaning of the term ‘murder’ being bad.

Not everyone likes the taste of strawberries but that does not mean that strawberries are considered to taste bad, yet no doubt there is someone out there who thinks something most consider to taste awful to taste bad. The experience of tasting something nice and something bad exists. The variance of experiences does not detract from the existence of such experiences.

Morality is as meaningless as ethics. There is meta ethics and we are never within its reach yet constantly craving its presumed judgement our lives even if that means said ‘craving’ is non-existent. What we do is what we do. How we interpret what we do is merely that … an interpretation of NOT a complete understanding of.

Of ‘something’. It is not a resolution just a statement that there is a ‘directedness’ … ‘towards’ something (the existent or non-existent is a mirage of a dichotomy).

Ethics is unethical and morals are immoral.

Both equally likely. Humans will always push the limits of their understanding even if it rocks the boat.

As for ‘struggling’ as opposed to ‘paradise’ … it seems that the later would not sit well with creatures that are basically defined by their struggles. I cannot recall who said it, possibly Schiller, but to paraphrase … if things do not fall apart humans will inevitably pull them apart simply to give themselves something to do.

A life without trials and tribulations is no life at all.

You must be stupid or simply trolling. I never said “unduly”.

Like I said, nothing more to discuss.

Bye bye

I can see you are a moron now. Thanks :)

Torture is not a positive term. If you cannot except that there is no room for discussion because you are not speaking the kind of English I am familiar with.

We can certainly disagree about what constitutes ‘torture’ and it is likely within that problem you have misunderstood what I was saying.

These are human terms used by humans to explain human phenomenon as if we are able to take a step back and look upon ourselves ‘passively’ and ‘objectively’ (two terms that are also part of our understanding of the human condition).

Morality is immoral in practice and ethics is unethical in practice. They are just markers we use nothing more.

Torture can be ‘right’ but it is never ‘good’ or we would not call it ‘torture’. Why is that so hard to grasp? That was my point about the OP.

You mean ‘right’ or ‘correct’? Which is ‘right’? Both. Which is ‘correct’ neither.

Probably because people with the same kind of views tend to gravitate towards each other. Point being it can be very dangerous to assume what everyone thinks and feels about a subject based on a very limited selection … in most circumstances that is (but in limited selections some rigour must be applied for there to be any reason to take it as meaningful).

I have no reason to believe most people would not wish to ignore that they are eating a dead animal. The world is currently full of brainwashed idiots and propaganda is likely at its highest point in human history too thanks to this ‘wonder’ we talk mass media.

All I know is we are all stupid and we will all die. I will continue to eat meat without an ounce of guilt and scoff at those who simply regurgitate swaddle they saw on some twitter/youtube/instagram horror show of manipulation misinformation born out of boredom and attention-seeking arm waving hysteria.

Interesting response eh? Or is it just more drivel in the ever widening cesspool of disconnected human interactions just before humans become other-than-human?

Why are you asking? My point was that ‘torture’ is not something people regard as ‘right’ or it would be called something else like ‘hugging’.

The OP stated that if ‘torture’ is bad then there must be a ‘moral truth’. Why did they say this? No idea. They just asserted it.

Torture is bad. It can also be argued that ‘bad’ things can be done for ‘good’ reasons. I am not neglecting here that torture is bas ONLY marking that there are exceptions under which a ‘bad’ act can be deemed as better than not doing said ‘bad’ act in the long run.

Show me that someone (other than a masochist or someone otherwise deranged) actively seeks out torture and I will eat my words. Torture is bad is NOT the same as saying torture is ALWAYS wrong.

Speaking for myself I do not avoid such thoughts at all. Maybe a good number of people do? I have no data to suggest most do or do not.

From personal experience, asking people, I have in the UK women are not willing to kill to eat but men never seem as fussed … maybe that is simply due to me having asked people I know rather than strangers, but I have no male friends I can think of, past or present, that would shy away from it.

Next you will be telling me ‘good’ is ‘bad’ and ‘suffering’ is a form of ‘pleasure’.

There are certain parameters under which language functions and is understood. If you refer to ‘torture’ as not being something nasty it does not mean that ‘torture’ suddenly stops being ‘nasty’ only that you have decided to pass the ‘nastiness’ on to some other term.

Think of instances where people do not starve to death anymore because the government bans ‘starvation’ as a reason for death on death certificates … can people no longer die of ‘starvation’ or has the government merely prevented the language term from being used to implicate death.

Okay … I guess murder and rape are good then because I say so. If you argue against this then you cannot possibly believe what you just claimed.

Torture is not something people seek out. It is regarded as ‘bad’ because of this (like setting yourself on fire is not something people do much).

Of course there are exceptions where under extreme circumstances one could suggest ‘torture’ was the ‘best’ course of action. We do not generally live in a world where extreme situations present themselves … or they would just be called ‘different situations’ rather than ‘extreme’ ones.

I am not at all convinced that many meat-eaters care to hunt?

I think you may have assumed this because it was correctly pointed out that humans have a long history of hunting and gathering and that we are omnivores. Even the OP asked about people going directly to the slaughterhouse rather than prancing about in a forest with a rifle.

Hunting is for the romantic and is a necessary part of managing wildlife in some situations.

I never said anything about hunting.

Since the early 90’s I have been of the opinion that if you are repulsed by the idea of killing and butchering an animal, not willing to kill butcher, then you should not eat meat.

I would happily pay extra to kill the animal I eat because I find it more upsetting not knowing how the animal I am eating died.

I do not think in many places around the world people are disconnected from the death of animals. In western societies this is likely more true given the extent to which supermarkets have taken over.

For me, and my limited span of knowledge, I would go for Phenomenology.

I am also a particular ‘fan’ of absurdism for the average person.

I have no argument with it being compatible with the conservation of energy.

As for the mind body dualism I have to reason to believe there is or is not such a thing. When it comes to that matter I am heavily in favour of the Husserlian approach where such questioning is of no real interest to me.

There is far more that we do not know that gives a window of opportunity to question the mainstream ideas with less popular ones. Long may such interactions continue! :)

@Bartricks Can you provide any example of what a non-material causation may look like to us?

If not then there is nothing here of note as we are effectively talking about something that cannot be measured or experienced. Experience requires change and change requires energy to be transferred.

A ‘non-thing’ exists as an idea of absence not as some ‘other-thing’. There is no ‘thingness’ to that which we cannot grapple with … because we cannot grapple with it because ‘it’ is not an ‘it’.

Given that these threads have been thrown into one thread (mistakenly/stupidly imo) I cannot readily see the propositions laid out.

Your definition of what is means to ‘live’ simply does not fit with my understanding of what ‘life’ is. This cannot be resolved so any disagreement is moot because they do not even start on the same footing because neither of us is willing to give up such key terms and neither see enough flexibility, in terms of being generous with these terms, to make much headway.

If we can at least agree that the conflict between our views is due to having almost entirely oppositional uses of terms like ‘life,’ ‘living’ and ‘comply’ then that is good enough for me. That is how I see it.

Antinatalism is an interesting item to explore. I wish the mods would not be so silly and lump several completely differing points together making it more than difficult to tease out what each person is trying to communicate.

Thanks for your responses :)

No, but historically and into the neat future I cannot see this coming to fruition. Perhaps it is best that we have to fight for freedoms rather than simply having them for free.

I think it makes sense to show particular care when it comes to education for children. For university level EVERYTHING should be on the table.

As for governments, in general, freedom of information should be the norm. In an ideal world there would be no need for any censorship, but obviously the real world is messy. In matter of security there is clearly a good argument for keeping certain pieces of information private.

I believe it is an error to talk about ‘consent’ for a force of nature. Not consenting to live is like not consenting that gravity keeps my feet on the ground.

The question of whether it is better to abstain from procreation may have some credit to it but even then I cannot fathom how we can say one way or another given that our scope and understanding of life is rather limited.

To argue not to have have children is an action that may or may not reduce ‘suffering’. We are in no position to say with any real authority what is ‘better’ only to make personal judgements that sit well with us as an individual among other individuals.

We do not consent to breath, nor do we think about breathing every second of the day, yet this does not necessarily mean we are forced to ‘comply’. There are certain situations where the term ‘comply’ can be readily applied but I cannot see how you can bring me to agree that ‘comply’ applies to living a life. It just does not make sense to use that term here. I can understand why you can, with some force, make it appear as wholly applicable to ‘living’ but it is just a term used loosely and no matter how hard it is forced it does not hold up for me.

I can only assume you frame ‘evil’ as ‘suffering’. If life exists therefore ‘evil’ must exist. So then, should all life be exterminated so rid the world of ‘evil’/‘suffering’ or does committing such an act (that many would label as ‘evil’) okay if the end result is the complete annihilation of ‘evil’?

I know that people overtly fond of the antinatalist idea do not wish death and extinction on the human race, but at the same time they effectively are shifting towards that result if procreation itself is regarded as propagating ‘evil’.

The ‘buddhist’ belief is more or less that it is a lie that life must contain some suffering … this is perhaps partially true but it depends exclusively on how one defines and delineates ‘suffering’ and ‘evil’.

If the base argument you are offering up is simply that people born will inevitably ‘suffer’ to some degree then I cannot disagree. I would also add that ‘suffering’ is tied into learning, change and growth so one either opts for change, learning and potential growth or they opt for oblivion and death … that is where any serious dogmatic application of antinatalism falls down.

As a means of questioning our existence it is a worthy idea to ponder on and see where our personal sense of responsibility lies.

It is not at all clear cut to everyone what the difference between ending a life, taking a life or even defining what ‘life’ is in the first place. That is why there is so much contention around items such as abortion and euthanasia.

Surely you know what I am on about now and why it is an intrinsic part of what antinatalism is bringing into question. What can we do about suffering? Yet, why not ask if we should look to eradicate suffering completely if the price paid is effectively the end of all life now and in the future? Clearly there is a wide area of middle ground that for some reason is difficult for us to realise and explore.

It is a very broad question. If you honed in on a particular instance then maybe I could offer up a more precise answer.

Who? Same answer. It depends. One-size-fits-all is a myopic approach.

Such IF questioning can be useful though. I personally would look to forming several bodies to assess information, if needed, for more specific situations. The UN could certainly be one that could provide some expertise as it had a history of trying to manage complex cultural and political interactions.

I never once said it was not an ethical idea. Do not bother quoting my words back at me just read them in the context written.

An ethical idea can be turned over without it being taken as wholly applicable to real lived lives - like with the trolly problem.

There are no real ethical arguments. They are just positions to consider and jostle with because there is no way of drawing a clear line under some item that is universally right or wrong. Antinatalism as an idea is on par with the trolley problem it is just dressed up differently.

I am pretty sure I answered well enough?

Neither nor, rather than either or. It is a sweeping statement to side with one or the other and lacks any kind of nuance. In some circumstances freedom of information makes more sense than in others.

I would say it is worse for everyone to insist on complete freedom or rigid constraints as a ‘one-size fits all’ approach to how information can be distributed and the kinds of arguments against exposing people to items others may deem inappropriate.