Variation doesn't negate the limiting factors of dissatisfaction/survival. Your whole "we have so many choices" thing is not justification for the broader limiting factor. — schopenhauer1

It does negate the limitation as ‘forced’ - the limiting factors apply to life, not to our capacity to act against these factors. Dissatisfaction and survival factors can influence and obscure but not eliminate choices we are able to make that take us beyond these limits.

Right so you are doing what I said in the beginning of my response.. Just demonstrating that people will tend towards the averages, doesn't mean that THUS we have proved anything about the dictates.. It is still forcing dictates on someone. This is besides the point that once born, people will tend towards the middle of the extreme versions of lifestyle to minimize stress on themselves. — schopenhauer1

That’s not what I’m saying here at all. I’m saying that raising a child is neither as efficient nor as effective as pushing against the extremes of your own life to reduce suffering for others.

Basically, you have failed to overcome my objections raised in that earlier post a couple pages ago. You are just sounding like people need to be born so they can self-actualize and follow Maslow's Hierarchy (as predicted).. You can obfuscate by talking about limits and potential..but it amounts to about the same. Maslow also never defined what self-actualizing is.. but it amounts to what you are saying and I object to yours as his reasons for the excuse to give people "opportunities". The illusion of choices does not excuse the collateral damage and dissatisfaction/survival dictates (that tends to averages within those boundaries anyways). — schopenhauer1

No, people don’t need to be born - why do you keep bringing this up? People, once born, are wasting valuable resources if all they’re going to do is avoid dissatisfaction and survive. The fact that you didn’t choose to be born does not excuse your decision to continue wasting precious energy on complaining about it with no intention of changing your part in the system. This has NOTHING to do with self-actualisation. If you don’t consider your own life to consist of opportunities, then the MORAL action would be to give all of your resources and potential to those who will use it to its fullest, not continue to piss it away on yourself. Because it’s honestly not about your ‘self’. There is no moral value to an individual who cannot or will not choose to exist in relation to the world.

But it is enough that they think this life is "good enough" for someone else to live. — schopenhauer1

What life?

So, you would be happy to get an F (0 - 59%) on your report card? :chin: It doesn't make sense, something's off, no? — Agent Smith

Oh my god! - WHAT report card? This is apologistic nonsense. Where I come from anything above 50% is considered a ‘pass’, but that’s honestly beside the point...

First, how is the tertium quid closer to happiness?

Second, explain how my data proves your point? I don't see it, at all! — Agent Smith

Every countably infinite subset of the continuum that has an upper bound (happiness = 10) has a least upper bound (sorrow = 0). Which would make a potential midway point (neither happiness nor sorrow) = 5. A score of 5.53 would therefore be positioned closer to happiness than to sorrow. I can’t believe I’m having to explain this...

Third, expand and elaborate on triadism, it looks interesting. Also, before you dive into an exposition, can you also touch upon dualism. Do you know anything about advaita.

I can comprehend, obviously, that dualism is about two opposing cum complemenatary entities/forces. Is that all there is to dualism? If yes, I'm a little disappointed, it seems to be missing a critical quality viz. mono no aware. :yawn: — Agent Smith

Dualism is a belief/doctrine that reality is fundamentally composed of two parts. It is missing a critical quality, rendering it essentially unverifiable. You can reduce reality to pretty much any two concepts as fundamentally ‘opposing’, and there is no way to confirm or deny their accuracy as such.

Advaita, or non-dualism, basically recognises one of them as illusion, or a limited aspect of what is essentially a monism.

Triadism is a way of thinking about reality in terms of stable, self-critical systems, inclusive of the embodied thinker, who recognises himself as an interacting aspect of reality. The ideal triadic system works towards a perfect symmetry, enabling the thinker to embody any of the three aspects in order to grasp a complete and unlimited understanding of the system as a whole.

Possibility :point: P-O-T-E-N-T-I-A-L!!! — Agent Smith

Bingo!

The max score is 10. The average is 5.53. What am I missing here? Something surely! If you had a class of students sit for a test and the average score was 5.53, that means your class did badly, oui? I was trying to put things in perspective. Perhaps you'll fare better in doing that! Give it a go. — Agent Smith

They did ‘badly’ according to whom? An academic standard? What does that have to do with happiness? If the highest possible score was 10 (infinite happiness) and the lowest possible score was 0 (infinite sorrow), then anything above 5 would be, ON BALANCE, more happiness than sorrow. It’s not that complicated.

Expand and elaborate, keep in mind that we're talking about happiness and sorrow, the in-between state most likely is contentment or thereabouts. The figures that I provided were measures of happiness.

Let's work this out togther if it is at all possible.

1. Happiness
2. Sorrow
3. ? — Agent Smith

For any two distinct members of a linear continuum, there exists a third member that is strictly between these (Peirce). The third member in this case is the relative position of the thinker - closer to ‘happiness’ than to ‘sorrow’, according to your data.

Can you explain how an F on your paper is anything to smile about? — Agent Smith

This has nothing to do with an F on any imaginary paper - it has to do with your assertion that “the amount of evil, on balance, exceeds the amount of good”. According to this data, it doesn’t.

How would you go about dealing with the world if not in terms of opposites? — Agent Smith

In thinking about the world, I would recommend a triadic relation. It’s ultimately more stable and verifiable.

This describes moral judgement, which is a particularly affected, reductionist mode of thinking - among many other ways of thinking about the world.
— Possibility

How so? — Agent Smith

“The amount of evil, on balance, exceeds the amount of good.”

This assertion is based on an assumption that ALL thinking about the world is reducible to either a positive or negative relation (of the thinker) to just one quantifiable quality of the world.

The average happiness score is 5.53 out of a maximum of 10 (see here). That's like scoring just a little above 50% in an an exam. That's an F in academics.Fail! — Agent Smith

This data you provided as ‘evidence’ would suggest the opposite to your premise - that our relation to the world is, on balance, more positive than negative. So, it seems you are contradicting yourself - despite your apologist-style attempt to reframe the data.

1. If we really think about the world, our world, we must necessarily be melancholic (the amount of evil, on balance, exceeds the amount of good). — Agent Smith

This describes moral judgement, which is a particularly affected, reductionist mode of thinking - among many other ways of thinking about the world.

You simply don't have an answer for why it is justified to make someone else go through the gauntlet of life. — schopenhauer1

I’m NOT claiming that it’s justified and I’m not arguing FOR procreation. My position is non-moralistic. It is YOUR narrow view that all harm (intentional, ignorant and self-inflicted) is inherently immoral. I’m only saying the intention is NOT to force an agenda, as you claim, but to open it up to variation.

But the agenda are the dictates of life (sociocultural economic way of surviving and overcoming dissatisfaction). So no, there aren't these magical variables, just contingencies in a situatedness of the ways of living that were forced upon a new person. — schopenhauer1

‘Survival’ may be a dictate of life, but it is NOT a principle of conscious (potential) existence. At this level of awareness, the concept of ‘survival’ is only a limitation on actuality, not on perceived potential. A conscious existence is more than capable of acting in opposition to ‘survival’ - even as their potential for survival approaches a perceived upper OR lower limit - without necessarily resulting in death. Death is only actual at the moment a potential for survival reaches that limit of actuality.

That leaves a lot of room for contingency. If I take action that prevents me from being economically productive, I can sustain this action for weeks or months, and I won’t necessarily starve to death. I can live for years hand-to-mouth on a desert island or give all my time and money to the poor and depend entirely on charity. I can sit in meditation for hours on end without even coming close to death, or I can deliberately end my own life in any number of ways. I can practise raising my heart rate to its maximum and keeping it there, or holding my breath for several minutes, without necessarily compromising my survival. The more we understand about our upper and lower limits of potential and how they relate to possibility, the more varied our choices that are at least temporarily opposed to this so-called ‘agenda’.

And I can raise a child to recognise that their potential and value in relation to possibility varies well beyond any limited actuality, to the point where there is no ‘forced agenda’ to be concerned with, only upper and lower limits in actualising potential to be conscious of - apart from their own fears and desires, and the moralising judgements of onlookers or society in general. But it is FAR more efficient to simply recognise this in ourselves, and make use of what limited actuality we have in maximising our collaborative potential to reduce suffering in the world, not just minimise our own.

Because I also think that your moral indignation here is based on ignorance that is much more deliberate and harmful than that of any parent,
— Possibility

Assertion with no evidence examples to back it up or give any reasoning for the premise. — schopenhauer1

NOT an assertion - read it again. Every example of potentiality I provide you claim not to understand and dismiss as ‘saying nothing’ because you see no ‘concrete evidence’. Even though your moral judgement of parents is based on an assumption that they evidently decide to enforce a potential agenda upon a potential child - none of which you will admit even exists prior to actualisation, let alone a prior decision or any thoughts towards it. Where is the concrete evidence of a parent’s prior knowledge of either agenda or child on which to base the supposed culpability of their decision?

You would need to admit this evident potential prior to actuality in order to accuse parents of moral culpability in procreation. In acknowledging this potential as evident, you would have to also acknowledge evident potential to choose actions against the agenda (as described above), rendering it ‘not forced’.

You predict incorrectly - I’m saying that we don’t need to procreate in order to find a more satisfying way of life - and that procreation/child-rearing is in fact the most primitive and inefficient method. But it is nevertheless evidence that this ‘agenda’ is highly variable, and that as self-aware persons we are not bound by the same agenda as our parents, nor even the adjusted agenda we were born and raised into.

You make assumptions about the intentionality of every parent based on how they tend to describe their own sense of satisfaction. But of course this will appear selfish. They’re only describing the positive experiences they get out of the interaction themselves because they disagree with your claim that life sucks and that’s all there is to it. They can’t answer for the child, or for the agenda, and neither can you. And they’re not going to tell you about all the little decisions they made everyday between respecting and prioritising an open agenda for the child, and making sure the child is aware of the potential for harm that also comes with that freedom - because the agony of that experience is almost impossible to put into words, and only a parent could understand it. There is so much more to this interaction that you’re not acknowledging because it cannot been conceptualised or quantified for you. You clearly haven’t been a parent, and show no consideration for your own parents’ attempts to raise you.

I’m not here to argue for procreation - I absolutely think the ignorance of prospective parents needs to be addressed, and that the potential for alternatives to procreation should be prioritised. Because I also think that your moral indignation here is based on ignorance that is much more deliberate and harmful than that of any parent, and your pessimistic call to simply ‘gripe’ against a supposedly ‘forced agenda’ actually undermines antinatalism more than anything else.

That you are ignoring how much your awareness of individual potentiality and value factors into your arguments here continues to astound me. You switch from past to future tense as if it’s nothing, without recognising that you’re switching between actual and potential structures of a person. The potentiality of a person is NOT what you or I or their parents perceive it to be. Nor is it what the agenda or society dictates. It is what the person themselves perceives it to be - and it is more valuable as such than any iteration of being or ‘self’ that might be actualised and then judged by you according to some impossible moralistic stance of ‘zero potential harm’.

Next you will claiming pain and suffering are not ‘necessary’ whatever that means? Nah! You just go ahead and make a word salad and leave me out of it thanks. — I like sushi

necessary: (of a concept, statement, etc.) inevitably resulting from the nature of things, so that the contrary is impossible.

Humans naturally have the collaborative capacity, at least, for sufficient awareness prior to any interaction to entertain the possibility of alternatives to war.

We could argue that there should be both matriarchies and patriarchies, but that does not seem to have happened. That said, there are matriarchal systems. Jewishness, for instance, is inherited through the mother (this is a religious convention, not genetics). There are small, agriculturalist groups that I have heard were matriarchal. Mostly, though, the idea of great matriarchies ruling over splendid societies (avoiding the problems of patriarchies) is just wishful thinking on the part of some feminists, — Bitter Crank

Anyone looking for evidence of matriarchies ‘ruling over’ societies is not going to find much, because it won’t be structured as an overt power. Matriarchal systems are systems of qualitative potential, not quantitative power. You will find instead a thriving culture that transcends and subverts any overt political structures. Jewishness is an excellent example of this, as is African-American and even Australian Indigenous culture. They have withstood oppression and outright destruction by overt political structures through the qualitative strengths of their matriarchal systems.

Having said that, there is no legitimate reason for qualitative potential to be the domain of women, nor quantitative power the domain of men. The association is historical, not essential.

Wars exist. No use pretending they do not. — I like sushi

I’m aware they exist - I’m saying they aren’t necessary.

You know what, I'll give it the benefit of the doubt that you wanted me to clarify the "agenda" versus the things like "survival/boredom".. Let me clarify as I think I have too closely mixed them in these posts..

The parents are forcing AN AGENDA by having a child, because they feel that the various dictates/dealing withs of life SHOULD BE gone through/experienced by ANOTHER person.

Once born the child must follow the dictates of socioculturalpoliticaleconomic living or die (kill themselves). This is part of the agenda that parent had in mind.. some "way of life" the child would (by necessity of living as a human who must survive through sociocultural means) have to do. — schopenhauer1

I still think you are assuming this ‘agenda’ as a package deal of limited potential, which parents have in mind prior to having a child, and buy into in full recognition of what their child can and cannot do across the course of their life. But that’s a big assumption, given that you’re probably not a parent yourself.

From what I’ve learned over the years, someone often decides to procreate in order to reach beyond their own agenda. They’re not buying into a package deal, but an opportunity to interact beyond the dictates of socio-cultural, political and economic living that appear to constrain their own life. In the past, the extent to which they perceived variability in ‘the agenda’ was dependent on the diversity of their mating partnership - in much the same way as genetics work. These days, we recognise so much variability in these dictates, that parents can almost construct the details of their child’s agenda from scratch.

Procreation, combined with child-rearing, is an attempt to vary the agenda - to provide a more satisfying ‘way of life’ for future individuals. And yes, in the course of varying this agenda, parents impose upon a child certain experiences they consider to be important, and strive to protect them from others they believe to be damaging. Their best intention is to adjust and improve on the agenda they experienced themselves, and possibly even to develop in the child a capacity to be aware of and not be bound by the same agenda that binds them.

This is a primitive and ignorant solution to the problem of how to ‘vary the agenda’, but it does nevertheless make localised improvements in terms of socio-cultural, political and economic living.

I know that there is always a ‘way of life’ to DO. But if we can choose not to procreate, and we can choose the details of our child’s agenda, then we can choose many more variations to the agenda imposed on ourselves. So, while certain aspects of the agenda might appear ‘forced’, they are more accurately chosen for us, albeit in ignorance, isolation and exclusion of certain potentiality.

All this talk about ‘survival’ and ‘boredom’ are event horizons, beyond which we’re unable to observe or measure evidence of individual potential, let alone identity. And yet we can piece together our own experiences and those of others to develop an insight into the structure of potential as it approaches these lower thresholds, as well as what might happen beyond (besides inevitable death).

This is just the lower threshold of potentiality. There is an upper threshold, too. But your aim appears to be to simply negate ALL potentiality - and with it ANY capacity to choose. Hence my question: do you consider this choice whether or not to have a child - given that you believe it to be based on knowledge of an agenda as such - to be part of or beyond the agenda as imposed upon the parent?

If lines are crossed insults and violence can be a necessary deterrent whether or not we view it as an ideal place to arrive at. — I like sushi

Everything else I agree with, except this. I honestly don’t believe that ANY violence between humans as self-conscious beings is necessary. That doesn’t mean I haven’t resorted to the occasional insult or forceful hand myself - but I recognise (sometimes after the fact) that if I can’t interact without insult or violence, then there’s something about the relationship that is being ignored. Violence doesn’t solve that problem, only awareness.

Anyway, why do women hate men? Is it alos because of ‘sex’? — I like sushi

I don’t really think men hate women because of ‘sex’ - I think some will say that - and even convince themselves that it’s true - because it’s one aspect where it’s considered ‘socially acceptable’ to have no control. Women and sex are too often the dumping ground for a man’s fears and desires. He more likely hates not being able to explain or rationalise his own feelings. I think women can feel this way, too - it’s just less prevalent because most (not all) learn to talk about their feelings without needing to rationalise or ’fix’ them. It’s also possible for men to hate this social expectation that they should somehow not feel.

I think women can often hate men because of a social expectation to be responsible for keeping his fears and desires in check as well as her own. But I also think a woman can be labelled ‘man-hating’ if she refuses to consider his unclaimed fears or desires in choosing her own actions, often to the point where she starts to believe it herself, or at least finds it more authentic to just accept the label, rather than try to prove otherwise.

I think that men need to learn to recognise when they’re afraid, or when they’re attracted - and own these feelings as such, instead of projecting them as forces out of their control. And women need to learn to give men space to talk safely about their feelings of fear or attraction without assuming they intend to act on them.

‘Fighting’ doesn’t always mean physical violence though. — I like sushi

And this ambiguity of language was why I didn’t bring it up initially. When does a disagreement or argument turn into a ‘fight’? Who makes that call, and is it okay to assume another’s intentions based solely on your own perspective? Another reason to use your words.

If a woman hit me repeatedly and wouldn’t stop I would hit her back - but not full force. — I like sushi

If someone was hitting someone who was clearly stronger, I would expect the stronger person to find a way to restrain their attacker rather than retaliate. Even if it’s not full force, trading blows doesn’t stop the violence, it only escalates it. It’s a matter of intelligence and self-awareness, not dominance.

In any relationship between a man and woman if one hits the other end the relationship instantly. — I like sushi

Not going to argue with that - violence is a deal-breaker for me, and I wouldn’t expect my partner to tolerate any from me, either.

Note: Not quite sure what this has to do with reasons for men hating women (who hits who)? — I like sushi

Nothing. Baker’s response to me saying I’ve definitely been hit by more men than women was to imply that women were statistically more violent than men, because apparently it’s the women who start more domestic violence incidents - by hitting the man first. Couldn’t let that ridiculous comment slide.

it also incorrectly identifies "being hit" as "being in a fight". It's only a fight once the person being hit, starts hitting back. — Benkei

:up:

Procreation by de facto definition is forcing an agenda, because entailed in a human life is the agenda of comply or die. However, it is true that prior to this, on the parents part, the parent is choosing that this forced agenda will happen, and thus making a misguided choice, as it will result in the forced agenda actually happening. — schopenhauer1

So, by ‘de facto’, you mean that it ISN’T, it’s only perceived to be, and is assumed to be so... by you.

How does anyone know that ‘entailed in a human life is the agenda of comply or die’? How are they expected to piece this information together, if all they’re doing is complying with... hang on, how does the agenda consist of complying with the agenda? That seems circular.

So, prior to actually procreating, or actually ‘forcing an agenda’, non-parents are able to choose based on awareness of... what?

No, not procreating is not "to die", so not sure why you are inserting that. — schopenhauer1

So NOT procreating is complying with the agenda? Aren’t they the only two choices?

Because I am not defining the agenda as procreation, but survival in a sociopolitical-economic-historical situatdness and general dissatisfaction overcoming.. Call it the game of life if you will. It's a forced agenda because the parent deemed this "way-of-life" as something another person must go through. — schopenhauer1

But you ARE defining any and all instances of procreation as ‘forcing the agenda’, and you assume that a parent in so choosing, lives by their belief that the agenda must be complied with. So, is procreation something ‘beyond the agenda’ or are you standing by your assertion that:

There is nothing "beyond the agenda". — schopenhauer1

So it says objects have no intrinsic traits just relational ones? So a carbon atom isn't a carbon atom per se but the rearrangement of protons, neutrons and electrons? I have some reservations but if that's correct then I'm on board. — Shwah

:up:

Completely unfamiliar, if you need me to do some light reading I can. — Shwah

From SEP on Structural Realism:

If the continuity in scientific change is of ‘form or structure’, then perhaps we should abandon commitment to even the putative reference of theories to objects and properties, and account for the success of science in other terms. — SEP

Sure so the "logical configurations of energy" reminds me of statistical mechanics and the argument that temperature emerges from an individual state of atoms but to me that seems epistemological. I was wondering if you had a means to describe the examples you gave in an ontological manner. — Shwah

How familiar are you with Ontic Structural Realism?

Don't get your question. Forcing the agenda is creating a someone who is procreated. By their procreation, one is creating a state of affairs where that person must comply or die. — schopenhauer1

I’m trying to understand. You seemed to be differentiating temporally between the agenda being forced and someone being created. But here you are metaphorically asserting that these events are identical. I’m asking you to be clearer in your relational structure here. Try a different predicate than your vague use of IS.

If that person CANNOT choose other than to comply with the agenda, then they CANNOT choose other than to procreate, etc - or die. But then you’re saying that WE CAN (and should) choose not to procreate (ie. to die), which would follow that they, too, CAN choose not to comply. Which would demonstrate that the agenda is not forced. So... excluding any other awareness of potential... what are you arguing again?

The first is creatio ex nihilo and I find issues with that when you apply it as a full causation narrative as we can trace objects back (say where an apple just came from) without any reference to nothing. I'm not sure what benefit it brings.
Creatio ex dei seems to be similar but conceptually has advantages without a postulation of nothingness. — Shwah

Creatio ex nihilo is an expression of a lower limit to awareness. Creatio ex dei simply consolidates awareness of this limit itself as ‘something’.

Emergentism is a causation narrative that means the new object in succession has traits distinct from the prior object(s) which it emerges from. It is usually justified by statistical mechanics, among other probability-based fields. I've never seen an ontological example of emergentism just epistemological configurations. — Shwah

The emergent traits of any new object are qualitatively determined. Emergentism is related to the qualitative variability in logical configurations of energy. The structure of a carbon atom, for instance, has a much higher degree of qualitative variability in its stable configuration than a hydrogen atom. So it stands to reason that reconfigurations of carbon-based molecular structures would have a high variability of emergent traits.

Emanationism is where objects have all their meaning and ontology from an object they are a "part of". For instance apples emanate from a tree where so long as a tree exists, apples will be made according to the tree and the tree according to the environment etc.
I feel like this is the best creation/causation narrative and explains everything. This seems to imply a hierarchical foundationalism and math would be ordered like pascal's triangle which seems to make the most sense for understanding math in equations, areas etc. — Shwah

Emanationism is related to the base notion of logic, which is the possibility of absolute interconnectedness. It pays no mind, however, to the role of information/entropy. A tree with insufficient energy or information from its environment will not make apples. It connects everything through metaphor, but certainly doesn’t explain everything.

I agree with @T Clark in that causation narratives - bound as they are by temporality - are insufficient explanations for reality. But I do get your understanding of epistemology as an understanding of ‘the way we order things’. This is conceptual structure - ‘how we know things’ is a reduction of this structure to predictive certainty.

You said: — baker

In specific response to this, which is ALREADY framed as man vs woman:

I heard from a facilitator of women's self-defense classes that according to their internal study, in about 50% of the cases of violence of men against women, it was the woman who hit the man first (and things then escalated from there). — baker

A fight is a fight. In any fight, it is assumed that the one who hits first is willing to fight. Regardless of perceived or real differences in physical prowess and fighting skill.
— baker — baker

Assumed by who? By the one who got hit?

There is no logical position in a power differential. Anyone who ignores this is kidding themselves to think they’re in a fair fight. — Possibility

Once a person is created, it is that someone I am referring to. — schopenhauer1

Hang on...I thought forcing the agenda is identical to intentionally creating a person - you’re saying they are two different events? How are they differentiated?

You, the already alive person, can not cause (aka can prevent) collateral damage. — schopenhauer1

Damage to what or to whom? People cause collateral damage all the time. But it’s only immoral when said ‘damage’ is caused to someone...

You, the already alive person, can not cause (aka can prevent) collateral damage. You can also not cause a profound life decision of a forced political agenda onto someone. — schopenhauer1

Onto who now?

If someone hits a person who is physically stronger, the implication is NOT the same as a physically stronger person hitting them. This is true regardless of gender.

A fight is a fight. In any fight, it is assumed that the one who hits first is willing to fight. Regardless of perceived or real differences in physical prowess and fighting skill.

It's misleading to frame the matter as "man vs. woman". It's fighter vs. fighter, or fighter vs. non-fighter. — baker

Another example of ignoring the existing qualitative aspects of a relationship to frame one’s position as ‘logical’. There is no logical position in a power differential. Anyone who ignores this is kidding themselves to think they’re in a fair fight.

And I didn’t frame it as ‘man vs woman’. Read it again.

But again, WHAT does "potentiality" mean in this case? It usually leads back to a) Productive achievements b) Capacity for some metaphysical Enlightenment

Productive achievements can be economic production, mastery of hobbies, starting charity, contributing to the tribe, whatever..

Enlightenment can be some sort of spiritual awakening, aka Buddhist Nirvana..

I mean the third common one is relationship-building.. that might be the one you're going to use.. Friendship, connection, yadayada.. That's the one, right? There's nothing you are going to say that's going to shatter my foundation and realize what a silly person I was.. Especially not convoluted, abstract talk about potentiality and connections.. — schopenhauer1

Potentiality is not productive achievements - it’s a perception of energy, capacity, knowledge, skills, education, wealth, connections, relationships, access to resources, morality, respect, value, etc. Productive achievements, people at your party or an increasing bank account are actual, narrowly defined iterations of potentiality - just as procreation is an actual, narrowly defined iteration of this value/potential concept you refer to as ‘someone else’. We reduce more than just ‘individuals’ to actualisation, making them appear easier to define, control, destroy, etc. There’s no proof of potentiality as such - we can only infer and agree potentiality exists, or else actualise it in some way - but then we find a way to reduce our perception to that particular actuality, through ignorance, isolation or exclusion. Like we do to people.

Economic production, for instance, is evidence of economic productivity, a potential. That’s obvious. But economic productivity is a capacity to combine a knowledge of what, out of everything one might produce, would be economically valuable in this current climate, with the right combination of skills and resources to produce it. There’s nothing concrete about this. It’s a structure of potentiality, and is arguably very valuable as such - regardless of whether it is perceived in someone’s mind as manager, or on paper as a business plan. It would be naive to assume that a mere iteration of this potentiality - ie. a currently profiting production team - is the secret to continued success.

But you’ll just judge all of this productivity as ‘following the agenda’... I know. I’m not suggesting we all become economically productive. It’s just one small example of what I mean by potentiality.

What I’m saying is that we can perceive potentiality everywhere - and we have no need to actualise the large majority of it - including more people - in order to increase awareness, connection and collaboration. We just need to stop trying to reduce our perception of reality to concreteness, as if that’s all reality can be.

There is nothing "beyond the agenda". Survival, dissatisfaction_____Contingent suffering. — schopenhauer1

How can you prove this assertion? The agenda is a fundamentally illogical framework. A strawman and a scapegoat.

And then there is the concept of ‘someone’ you claim is constrained by a forced agenda into being. Is it not your argument that this someone as not-being is more valuable than being? How so, if they are not ‘beyond the agenda’?

Don't even know what you mean. Too much vague abstraction.. So the agenda is the decision that someone else must live in the socio-cultural-economic-political, historically-derived (situatedness) way of life needed for survival and satisfying dissatisfaction (boredom). There are no creative solutions around it.. Already discussed communes, tribal societies, and all the other arrangements.. And Buddhism, the "internal" arrangement of the mind, if you will. I explained how there are no escape hatches. Your vagueness surrounding the idea of "Potentiality" with no real concrete examples, just speaks to the fact that there are indeed no real solutions. Prevention rather than escape is all I'm saying. — schopenhauer1

But isn’t this ‘someone else’ you value above the agenda just another vague abstraction? How does this ‘someone else’ have so much value unactualised? Where are your concrete examples of this ‘someone else prevented’?

Can you not imagine doing the exact opposite to what you actually do? In the little experiment I did on myself, tobacco, I don't touch that stuff; in reality, I chain smoker! — Agent Smith

Okay - I see the difference now. You’re talking about entertaining a possibility. Potential choice is how you get from this ‘virtual choice’ to a new actuality.

My understanding is we make virtual choices. We imagine thus: If I select x (a choice), this is what'll happen; if I go for y (another choice), this'll happen; and so on.

That we can test every choice, simulate their effects for analysis, even the ones you don't like, must mean something, oui? If we come with preinstalled preference packages (no free will), your choice will be determined by them, obviously, but the point is virtual choices seem not to be affected by one's preference package.

Conclusion: Our virtual choices (simulations, hypotheticals) are independent of our likes and dislikes and for that reason we possess free will even if only in thought/thinking. Nonetheless, making an actual choice could be determined because the preference package we come with will play a significant role when doing so. — Agent Smith

I think this ‘preference package’ is not so much ‘preinstalled’ as based on a temporal distribution of limited attention and effort at the moment any action is determined and initiated.

Our will is potentially free, but actually determined.

I heard from a facilitator of women's self-defense classes that according to their internal study, in about 50% of the cases of violence of men against women, it was the woman who hit the man first (and things then escalated from there). — baker

Seriously? “She hit me first” - that’s the argument? What are you, five? If men would rather not be hit by people, then they should stop pretending it doesn’t hurt. If it hurt, then for fuck’s sake TELL her that it hurt. Use your words. This is not a test of bravado.

If someone hits a person who is physically stronger, the implication is NOT the same as a physically stronger person hitting them. This is true regardless of gender. If she’s emotionally destroying him with her fists, then he needs to tell her that, rather than pretend there’s no emotional attachment to destroy.

This goes back to my original argument about acknowledging the qualitative aspect of the relationship.

Oh dear...You really are only seeing what you want to see...

I say embrace the CHAOS - throw out the agenda and value the full diversity of potentiality regardless of being - it’s the only way to maximise freedom. It’s what I’ve been saying all along, and yet you just won’t see it. No imagination is my guess.

You think your griping is a ‘stance of rebellion’, but it’s a victim stance and nothing more. Minimising the variability of perceived potential through moralism is the main agent of the agenda, and you’re only contributing to it with your ‘injustice of using the child’ argument. You’re not making any impact, you’re deep in it and looking for someone else to blame for your debilitating fear of what’s beyond this agenda. And then you reframe your perspective of everyone else’s position as either on your side or opposing you in some narrow moralistic stance as if the truth according to Schop1 is all there is.

Fear of pain and unknown. Stop falling for cliched anti antinatalists arguments if “If you don’t kill your self, life must be good or you must be holding onto something”.. Antinatalism doesn’t entail promortalism. You’re better than that. I don’t deny that it is natural for people to fear death. But don’t mistake that for proof that life is thus good. Hope you aren’t making that vapid claim that even a Five year old can break apart. — schopenhauer1

Enough with the strawmen - I asked you why you don’t want to die, NOT to construct some argument for the value of being, but because it is your fear of pain and the unknown that keeps you from simply throwing out this crappy agenda - one that values BEING as the constraints of our ultimate potentiality - and finding your own way without it. The agenda plays on your fears, and you let it.

You know that there’s more to your potential than your limited being alone will ever realise. But what you don’t seem to recognise is that every time you take a chance and choose other than this agenda in interacting with others - because you can - you draw attention to everyone’s capacity to do the same. The agenda says avoid boredom at all cost - but it is in choosing to embrace boredom that we learn more about our potential regardless of productive action. The agenda says procreate - but it is in choosing not to create another limited being who must develop awareness of potentiality all over again, that we are left to focus on increasing awareness of this potentiality we already perceive as valuable beyond its limited capacity to BE.

So, what use does this unrealised value or potentiality have, if we can’t BE all of that value ourselves? We can use it to increase others’ awareness of their own potentiality and value, which ultimately increases their awareness of ours. We can refrain from judging others by their current state of being, and instead perceive their far greater potentiality as their real, valuable existence, despite how they might appear.

And this leads me to the issue I have with what you’ve been doing here. You can perceive your own individual potentiality, and lament its limitations in being, but you seem unable (or unwilling) to perceive the potentiality of others here beyond their current state of being - ie. what they’ve said. You are judging others by the being indicated in their words, and you feel justified in doing so because it satisfies your worldview that we’re all limited to being - even though you know by your own experience that you are merely limited BY being, and that your perceivable value is so much more.

So we can talk about potentiality and value, and even how it relates to antinatalism and pessimism - but if you continue to reduce your perception of my potentiality to mere being while upholding your own perspective as the highest moral value, then we are done here, because your self-righteous attitude is wearing thin...

So for example, when one says "I see that violence is bad", "I see your comments are fair". — KantDane21

Interestingly, Greek had at least three different words that we now translate into English as ‘to see’. Blepo refers to physically looking or noticing with our eyes. Theoreo refers to observing, and includes thinking and deciphering what the visual cues might mean (not necessarily correctly). Horao refers to seeing with the mind, understanding mentally or spiritually.

What is a more satisfactory agenda? Survival is necessary if you don't want to die. But I don't want to die, Survival always takes precedence unless slow suicide.. and so the agenda is followed. How can you ever get beyond that? Survival in a different way? The only thing tried like that is Communism, dictatorship/fascisms and that is just working for different masters. Communes always take place in a broader context of the bigger society (in the West's case a globalized industrialized economy). It's rearranging the chairs on the Titanic sort of thinking.

Besides which, as this whole thread is about, we are at root, always dissatisfied. Thus, changing economic arrangements doesn't negate the fact that BEING is never enough for us. In other words, it's too late for us, the already born. We can simply recognize the situation for what it is. Maybe we can be less of assholes to each other.. but we still have to be assholes to an extent because, as per your "wonderful notion" we need to "collaborate" in order so we don't die. But that means you have to do the shit that the agenda has for you to do.. The necessary things your social arrangement has provided for you to participate in....

THE AGENDA takes many political-cultural arrangements.. Tribal-Hunter-gatherer, pastoral, industrial post-modern, what have you... It doesn't matter.. The dissatisfied self-reflective human must survive yet is doomed to know it must do so, even if it doesn't like the various tasks necessary to do so.. But like a bird of prey.. our dissatisfied minds can't just be satisfied with subsisting, we must set goals that when reached only satisfy for a short time for yet more goals. And sure, pipe dreams of enlightened monks or what not aside, it's inescapable.

Just don't put more people in this inescapable/unjust situation in the first place. — schopenhauer1

Why don’t you want to die? What is so important about survival that we must strive for it? You do know that it’s ultimately a lost cause - nobody survives for very long. Take away the existing agenda, and what is it that we really achieve in surviving as long as we can? From the moment we could procreate we had a legitimate alternative to mere survival. And from the moment we could communicate abstract ideas, we had a legitimate alternative to procreation.

Back when survival or death appeared the only options, people would use it as a reason to gain compliance from others: If you don’t do this, you’ll die. Being was of the utmost importance. Then we recognised that procreation allowed us to transcend what was ultimately a limited BEING - to collaborate beyond our own BEING and achieve something together that we couldn’t manage alone: potential or value beyond our capacity to survive.

We eventually realised that BEING isn’t enough - this individual potential we perceived before us in our creation, which we strived to protect as the most important aspect of our existence, appeared to be limited by the very act of BEING.

So, is it even possible to actualise this individual’s potential within a limited capacity of BEING? Do we try to maximise BEING? ie. go back to prioritising survival, or create more variations on BEING? Or do we forget about trying to survive or to BE, and instead find a way to maximise awareness of this value and potential, without necessitating BEING any of it? And how does that even work?

Now, bear with me here - language doesn’t lend itself well to this type of discussion...

So let’s imagine for a moment that survival is NOT important. What matters is not how long we can stay alive, or even how many variations on BEING we can create. What matters is how we make use of the potential we have, within this limited BEING, to express our potentiality - not just as individuals, but as humanity. To do that, we have to let go of this supposed importance of BEING in itself.

Being is just a variable, temporal iteration of our full potentiality, as a means to increase the diverse expression of potentiality in the world. We have variable, limited resources of time, effort and attention available to us - what we do with that is ultimately not up to anyone else, despite what they might say about what we SHOULD do, or how they might treat us less valuably if we don’t. Our value is not diminished by a perception of us by others based on a current observation of being - only ignored.

This AGENDA is then just an attempt to structure potential and value as a set of norms to keep this variability of being to a minimum. Otherwise, anything goes, and chaos reigns. So long as there is only one ‘correct’ or ‘moral’ set of behaviours able to maximise our perceived potential as a human being, we will focus on this rather than on the uniqueness of our own potentiality. The problem is that the only way to minimise this variability is by prioritising inefficient aspects of BEING such as procreation, self and survival - which limit individual potential. This takes the focus off our capacity to maximise awareness of the diverse potentiality behind any iteration of being.

I am quite certain that we are _not_ "approaching the same truth from different positions of perceived value structure".

Anything that is less than the complete cessation of suffering is not relevant to my theme. You seem to be saying that the complete cessation of suffering is not possible. On this account, I'm interested in seeing what you have to offer, hence why I'm still discussing this. — baker

I’m not saying it’s not possible - I’m saying that it’s not something an individual can achieve. It’s going to take more than navel-gazing or moral imperatives.

The operation is a choice the ‘patient’ makes freely, with an understanding of the risks. A failed operation is an opportunity to improve on the next attempt. Or not. And I’m not saying ‘who cares’ at all. I’m just saying that those who consider it worth the risk have often taken more into consideration than you might be aware of yourself in judging them.
— Possibility

I used the theme of the successful operation but with a dead patient to comment on your lack of concern for the people involved, and instead your prefrence for some "bigger picture". — baker

And I’ve disputed your assumption that my discussion of a bigger picture indicates any lack of concern. I certainly wouldn’t consider a ‘successful operation’ with a dead patient to be a case of ‘preference for some bigger picture’. Rather, it’s a narrow perspective that excludes the life of the patient as an aspect of the operation.

It is craving, it's textbook craving. You bring in Buddhist references, so I assume this is the language we can use here. — baker

I’ve merely responded to what I consider to be a misapplication of Buddhist language. You’ve yet to provide an argument that might change my position on this.

I'm not a Buddhist; I'm familiar with the doctrine, though. When I see someone making egregious claims to the effect of "Early Buddhism is wrong", this catches my attention and I want to see what said person has to say, how they hold up in discussion. Whether they can offer something that is superior to what the Buddha of the suttas taught. — baker

I never claimed that Early Buddhism is wrong, only that misinterpretations abound, as in any religion that is based on a living exemplar. The truth of Buddhism is not from interpreting doctrine or written texts, but based on the path taken by Buddha himself, and what it teaches us about ourselves. I would make the same comment of Christianity. The truth of the Tao Te Ching, by comparison, is based on self-reflective interaction with the written text itself (from which subjective translations are misinterpreted).

Collaboration in its fullest sense is NOT concrete. That is the whole point. It disregards any existing sense of ‘agenda’ in favour of the possibility of working together, because two groups pulling in opposite directions achieves nothing overall except more suffering.
— Possibility

I am not against collaboration. It's almost a necessity for humans to live... In other words, before your long posts reifying it as a universal Principle par Excellance.. I knew of the importance of collaboration.. It doesn't have to be made into a universal metaphysical principle though as you are doing.. — schopenhauer1

Your limited acceptance of collaboration reflects your general perspective. You are literally pulling in the opposite direction to those you label ‘pro-procreaters’ - that is NOT collaboration. For the record, I have never claimed that collaboration was THE universal principle - if it was to be considered a principle, it would stand in necessary relation to the principle of consolidation.

I’m not just talking about collaboration to survive individually, but to dismantle the agenda that says we should be trying to survive in the first place, and determine a more satisfying way to interact with the world, together. Part of that collaboration is to increase awareness of more efficient alternatives to individual procreation, survival-at-all-cost or simply avoiding boredom. Efficiency requires pooling individual resources of time, effort and attention to develop, but it ultimately reduces pain, humility and lack/loss - the main instances of suffering.

But it seems you’re not really interested in reducing or eliminating suffering on the whole - only your own awareness of it, as an individual par excellence.

1) Collaboration is something that PEOPLE/MINDS do NOT natural phenomena. — schopenhauer1

You are only describing collaboration as an intentional act. There is no intentionality required for collaboration: when an atom shares its electron with another, they collaborate. When a sperm fertilises an egg, they collaborate. Language structure may imply conscious intentionality, but it’s present in none of these events. The process of collaboration is a shift in dimensional awareness, whereby multiple entities are able to converge towards the possibility of a more complex level of consolidation, owing simply to the variability of their individual structures.

2) Just because collaboration might bring better results, doesn't prove anything about its morality.. At best it's a management tool, which obliquely, is what baker was trying to say.. (reducing harm instead of getting rid of it completely).. — schopenhauer1

I have not made any assertions regarding the supposed morality of collaboration. At most, I have only expressed my personal preference at this level. Morality assumes that an individual’s correct actions are all that’s required to solve the problem, but I don’t agree with this. Suffering cannot be eliminated single-handedly. What you’re trying to push for is an elimination of your perceived potential for harm, rather than eliminating harm or suffering itself.

3) It is the naturalistic fallacy even if it WAS some sort of natural principle to think that it applies to self-reflective minds that can CHOOSE various options.. All it would be (going back to point 2) is a way for some hypothetical imperatives related to outcomes to be obtained.. and even so, one would have to value that which one is working towards. which itself would still beg the question of WHAT is to be obtained? There is ALWAYS an agenda here.. even if it is just to make more people who collaborate itself! — schopenhauer1

I’ve never asserted collaboration as a principle or an imperative - ALWAYS as an option. As for what can be obtained: how about a more satisfactory agenda? Just because it doesn’t appear to have been achieved before, does not render it impossible.

A system predicated on prediction and trial and error....
— Mww

Reason doesn’t always have a choice in the matter.
— Possibility

Irrelevant, insofar as ‘predicated on’ as a general methodological necessity is not the same as ‘recognition of’ a particular exception. In the case of QM, reason merely conveys that for which a certainty is impossible, under the strictest of conditions reason itself provided, in accordance with observation. Humans, as such, don’t function in the quantum domain, and I’m a big fan of staying in my own lane, so..... — Mww

I had already said that prediction and trial and error were nowhere near as efficient as reason, so I’m not sure why you still feel the need to push this point. Besides, our confidence in reason is predicated on prediction and trial and error.

Pain is a basic biological signal that our predicted distribution of effort and attention (affect) in a particular situation is currently insufficient in some area.
— Possibility

Yeah....no. Here’s me, walkin’ down a public road, mindin’ my own damn business, hummin’ Jimmy’s solo bridge in Stairway to Heaven.......punk-assed banga jumps out of the bushes, whacks me in the noggin, relieves me of my Rolex. So the pain of embarrassment I felt in the loss of my watch is the signal that I paid too little attention to making it and my wrist inseparable? Or maybe the pain of the lump on my head signals that I made too little effort in formulating an escape from a situation for which there was no antecedent reason, insofar as the situation itself was a complete surprise?

This is what I meant by guessing games. If such-and-such is true in one case, but not in another, there must be something logically underpinning them both.

Pain, or pleasure, is a basic signaling parameter. Period. All they in their various degrees do, is inform of a relative exception to a given rule, and it’s up to reason to figure out the particulars related to it. Anything else is mere anthropology or (gaspsputterchoke) empirical or clinical psychology. Of which the proper speculative metaphysician treats as the proverbial red-headed stepchild, while the “vulgar class”, as Berkeley would say, or the “vulgar understanding” as Hume would call it, think them as some major importance in the governance of the fundamental human condition. — Mww

Is that really how you would process this event? A surprise situation is one that was not predicted - this is prediction error, and all the pain you feel is simply because you were unaware of any antecedent reason for - or potential structure to - the situation, which might have enabled you to predict it, and either prevent or minimise the resulting pain. It’s not about attributing blame or dismissing it as an exception, but about being aware of information that might have drawn your attention more readily to an increased potential for the situation, as well as the options available and your own capacity to ameliorate the overall potential surrounding the situation. Then if by chance it looks like it could happen again, it won’t be so much of a surprise. Of course you could dismiss it as the punk ass banga’s fault, or a “relative exception to a given rule” (people just don’t jump out of bushes to steal Rolex watches), and learn nothing from the experience. Clearly people do - I’m not saying make a big deal of it, but ignoring or beating the red-headed stepchild it is not going to make them cease to exist.

Understanding awareness in non-conscious entities is how we improve the accuracy of relationships and interaction with our environment and the universe.
— Possibility

Surely you didn’t mean to say I can improve my relationship with a swimming pool if I only understand my diving into it doesn’t cause it any pain. Or, on the other hand, my relationship with the pool improves if I understand it appreciates me diving into it because that is one way the pool was meant to be treated. Your assertion can certainly be interpreted like that. — Mww

No, of course not. I’m talking about awareness and NOT consciousness, so all your talk about pain or appreciation is just a strawman. Read my other posts. What I’m referring to is more along the lines of recognising that the water in the pool will enable bacteria to develop in it over time (which may be harmful to me if I ingest or inhale it) unless I add chlorine at a level that is effective, but not so much that my eyes sting or my hair turns green.

I thought you were being serious lol
If you have antipathy to philosophy then pick up a logic book or a math proofs one.
In any case, you were defining it from the subject and the predicate is a stand-in for what's ontologically grasped next (e.g. I have no interest in how you understand darkness itself but whatever you do it may follow that "subject observes light in the negation that comes off as darkness" and you have an accurate path of predication that allows the subject but treats the object as separate). — Shwah

If you’re unwilling to understand beyond your own perspective, let alone beyond language’s structure of subject-predicate-object, then why bother asking? Philosophy is not limited by logic. Understanding logical structure enables philosophers to relate accurately to what lies beyond its limits.

Take another look at what you’ve written. You’ve narrowly defined darkness relative to an observation event, simply shifting to ‘light’ as the object. So you’re still bound by the subject-object distinction.

Vagueness is a non-logical quality of existence,
— Possibility

How so when it is logically defined? (as that to which the PNC fails to apply) — apokrisis

Ha! I guess it depends on your perspective - that’s not how I would have described vagueness myself (I’m an Arts major, after all), but I can see it now!

while tychism undermines its own attempt to explain or logically structure reality.
— Possibility

How so? A systems way of looking at things says that everything boils down to global constraints on local instability. Which is the tychic-synechic story.

So surely the point would be that tychism indeed doesn’t logically structure reality. Instead it is formally the “other” which is the disorderly potential that actually gives synechic continuity, or the thirdness of regulating habit, a job to do. — apokrisis

Hmm... I will admit that I went off the standard dictionary definition of tychism: “the doctrine that account must be taken of the element of chance in reasoning or explanation of the universe“, and naturally interpreted it from my position, which as you can probably guess is more qualitative than logical.

I’ve often looked at systems as introducing local constraints on a universal instability - a more creative impetus of structuring information against entropy. Looking at it now, I wouldn’t think either is more accurate than the other. All of this speaks to the interchangeability of the dichotomy.

This discussion has been very enlightening for me. Thanks!