Does the Sun care what gets tossed into it?

My autobiography.

by me of course

Your namesake would have made the distinction between essential, or natural, pursuits and artificial pursuits. Natural pursuits being those like acquiring food, water, shelter, intercourse (but that is debatably essential), artificial pursuits being those imposed and constructed by society, like money, fame, and power.

Individuality really is a myth. A great majority of the things we do, we do because we care about what others think of us. Our self-esteem is largely dependent upon the status given to us by our peers. We know from developmental psychology (such as Rank and Becker) that people are symbolic objects to others before they begin to see themselves as individuals. We are molded and shaped by others, not even by them maliciously imposing their values on us but by simply providing nurture and care for us when we are young, and come to understand that in a system of symbols, every person must play their part, represent their symbolic role. A few fit into the heroic archetype and help knit the society together.

Even Schopenhauer, the old cranky fart, secretly perused the footnotes of the newspaper for any mention of his name, and late in life found great satisfaction in the attention given to him by the public at large. For as much as Western civilization has promoted the individual, I think it more likely that "individualistic" people are really just very good at performing an act of deception - they act removed and individualistic yet pride themselves on this image. Without anyone else, there would be no real value to being an individual - a hermit is a hermit in relation to the rest of society. Our heritage (Heidegger) is rooted in the surrounding culture, heritage is literally part of who we are even if we don't like it.

This is, I think, one of the issues I have with Heidegger's "existentialism". He takes it as a given that we are social beings with an irreplaceable heritage, and in many cases promotes and values this. His authenticity is all about creating individuality within the parameters of one's social bubble, like making a circle in the sand is saying "this is mine" while simultaneously living in society as well. It's very conservative and, in my opinion, non-radical. I see his emphasis on heritage as an escape from the "nothing" - Heidegger isn't willing to see "nihilism" to it's end. He wants to save meaning and purpose by simply turning his gaze away. It's quite inauthentic. At least that's what I interpreted it as.

I think anyone who devalues getting intoxicated by alcohol or some other substance might not have experienced the things that typically motivate getting intoxicated.

Is it inauthentic? Sure, but who the fuck cares? Life hurts and alcohol helps with that.

Weltschmerz by Frederick C. Beiser

I'll pay you

Hey can someone please do my programming assignment for me

Buddhist reincarnation isn't really like re-starting anew but with the same "ego", it's more like the transferal of the flame from one candle to another candle.

I think any "religious" view of science stems from a misunderstanding of what science is and an ignorance of its methodology and limits.

The average person's knowledge of "science" comes from superficial encounters with its products, which are things that have gone through a large filtering process before they reach the front headlines or the store shelves. When most encounters with science are these positive, progressive moments, it is no wonder scientism is on the rise.

I am by no means trying to diminish science and replace it by some traditional religion. But the fact is that, when one actually does science, or when one actually reads real scientific papers, it becomes very obvious that the popular notion of science is wildly skewed. For one thing, most of the time science is incredibly boring - the science that is shown in a documentary or a magazine is only a small portion of the wider ocean of research, most of which is rather unimportant, repetitive, and disappointing.

Another thing is that scientists are human beings too, and have biases and irrational thinking patterns. Some of the research papers I personally have read were obviously bent in some direction, or the conclusions derived did not follow from the data. Science is not perfect - everyone agrees with this - but not everyone realizes just how imperfect it actually is, just how shoddy a job some scientists do. And just like before, this quality of science is obscured by a confirmation bias - nobody wants to read about the failures of science. So only the successes are filtered through - which makes science seem like some magic methodology that provides answers to everything we want to know.

A third thing, and one that I've increasingly found to be true of myself, is that scientism seems to depend on a naive Cartesian worldview, the duality between the res cogitans and the res extensa. The res cogitans acts as some kind of "unexplained explainer" - which is precisely how things like eliminative materialism crop up. And it literally makes science out to be like some sort of magic, and scientists as modern wizards and miracle workers. Even if a theory is outlandish and implausible, stamping the label "science" on it automatically makes it the next big thing. It puts science on a pedestal, and some of its crazy theories start looking like magic tricks - the magic is "because science." It sounds like it explains things but it really doesn't at all.

Finally, I think modern phenomenology has made a convincing case that there are some things that cannot be studied by the common notion of "science" but which require us to think philosophically, or to do phenomenology. The unexplained explainer, the "god's eye view", is a complete myth that is impossible to attain.

As for truth and meaning, I can only speak of my personal experience. Whilst I was searching for the truth it provided my life with meaning driven by the naïve assumption that it would all come together one day in some kind of revelatory "meaning of everything" moment. Instead, I was able to acquire so much objectivity, that I could see "everything" and it didn't have any meaning because I'd stepped so far back that, not just me, but the entire human race had shrunk into complete insignificance. The god's-eye view is not a myth any more, it's just really fucking scary and I want to come back. — daldai

So, you're a "nihilist" in the sense that there is no meaning "out there", but not a "nihilist" in the sense that there is no meaning whatsoever? Because, to be sure, the former is coherent while the latter is not.

I think it can be scary and difficult to come to terms with, but once you do manage to accept the rather futile nature of organic existence, everything makes a hell of a lot more sense.

Really, I think you should be more scared about the meaninglessness of pain, especially extreme pain, rather than just existential meaninglessness itself.

What bothers us the most probably usually isn't despair but hope.

Welcome.

The "leap of faith" is a problem for me, as I have had a sceptical, scientific approach to understanding the world for as long as I can remember. I hope we can all agree that this approach can only lead to nihilism, but for a long time I was naïve enough to equate truth with meaning. — daldai

What do you mean by "leap of faith"? Soren Kierkegaard would have seen science as requiring a leap of faith itself.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say truth does not equate to meaning. Surely the pursuit of truth is itself a form of meaning? Or do you mean to say that the pursuit of truth results in disillusionment or something like that?

There is a quote which, if memory serves, is attributed to Socrates - "all I know is that I know nothing." Well, that might have been true 2,400 years ago but with all the knowledge science has given us I now claim to know everything - in the wide sense of course. What I mean is that I can now close my eyes and see, generally, how everything fits together from a tiny fraction of a second after the big bang right up to now and, even in this age of specialization, I know I can't be the only one - that really would be absurd. — daldai

Remember also how Socrates said knowledge itself is useless?

How has science really helped you see how "everything hangs together" (the general goal of metaphysics)? Certainly it can add valuable information but it still hangs on metaphysical views itself.

Anyway, this isn't about justifying nihilism (ha!), it's about finding a way to cure it, because I no longer care about the truth and I am lonely. — daldai

Get a girlfriend.

This is not a joke, I want to cure myself of nihilism and would consider hypnotism or even brain surgery in order to become someone capable of taking a "leap of faith." — daldai

Or, alternatively, go study phenomenology and purge yourself of some of that "scientific" reductionism. 8-)

Consciousness is inescapably subjective. It will always be meaningful, it will always be becoming, it will always be revealing and obscuring. The idea of a perfect "god's eye view" of the world, impartial and unbiased to everything, is a myth.

I'm cool too with space exploration, but why would you fucking go to the moon? — Bitter Crank

Because I'd like to be able to see something like this.

I'm cool with space exploration, hell, if I had the opportunity I'd fucking go to the moon! Space colonization is what is nauseating. I'd like to be aboard a spaceship that simply watches.

Where I'm really critical of progress, is the idea that 'the next step is outer space'. It's total bollocks, in my view, and dangerous bollocks. We have a vessel, equipped to carry vast populations through space for millions of years - it's called Earth. And we have to look after the one we have, otherwise the human race won't live long enough to build any kind of 'starship'. — Wayfarer

Don't get me started on my aversion to expansion into space. It's delusional to think that we'll fare any better on another planet when we can't even take care of the one we already have.

I can just imagine it now - a McDonald's every ten miles on Mars. They don't show that in the movies!

Nobody ever seems to acknowledge it or own up to it, but a lot of thinkers, it seems obvious to me, filter everything through a faith in a perpetual improvement in the human condition with our tool that can make or fix anything, our trump card in our game against the entire universe: reason. Scientists. Feminists. Objectivists. Progressives. Transhumanists. Neoliberals. Republicans. Democrats. Libertarians. Almost all of academia in the West, dissenting postmodern theorists notwithstanding. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I agree. I'm increasingly vexed and nauseated by the large amount of different worldviews that all seem to be saying the same thing but which fail to actually fulfill their promises. Not only do each of these worldviews have to see all the other numerous competing worldviews as misguided, but they have to renounce all of history, or re-interpret history has culminating in their specific worldview. It's incredibly narcissistic and short-sighted. These movements and acolytes will never go away. If it's not x, then it'll be y that will finally save humanity. If it's not y, then it'll be z that will finally redeem our condition. After a while it just gets really annoying and pathetically delusional.

I think it likely that there is a limit to progress. I think we've made some undeniable progress in many places, medicine and hygiene being the most prominent, as well as communications and a general understanding of the world. To make progress in the way these progressives dream of is to fundamentally change the human condition - look at the transhumanists, they explicitly endorse this. If we are to escape the problems that have plagued us since the beginning of time then we might as well just accept that if it will ever happen, it'll only be through a radical change in our nature. So radical that we might not even be recognizingly human. So it won't be humans we save, but rather humans that we replace with something superior.

This is all hypothetical, of course.

What exactly is the meaning of "spirituality" in your formulation? — Reformed Nihilist

Basically just any sort of feeling of belonging in the world or serving a higher purpose that is not immediately concrete and accessible but rather overarching and "cosmic", something that permeates everything and anything. That there is some "other" order to the universe that makes it all "make sense", justifies injustices and to which the aesthetic provides access to.

It's the feeling of being almost-at-home, but not quite, as if you're approaching some big discovery and part of the deal is that it's mysterious, and that once you finally arrive it'll all make sense, including why it had to be mysterious in the first place. Most likely this understanding would seem to reside after death, in some other realm or mode of existence, and which the journey to is life.

I'd say it's a deep, primordial desire to belong and see what it "all" is about, how everything hangs together, to comprehend the necessity of every thing that exists and grasp some grand, metaphysical mosaic of meaning. It's natural and inevitable but I think it's also commonly formed from desperation. It's not just a desire but a need, a demand, that the universe be welcoming and recognize the person. Or at least "open up" to their questions.

So basically it's a feeling that one might be finally getting some answers to the questions that have haunted and plagued humanity since it first started philosophizing.

To be devoid of spirituality is to be homeless. At least that's what it seems to me.

The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy

Consent is a huge moral and legal issue yet life is not founded on it. — Andrew4Handel

Right, affirmative ethics eschews harm and manipulation of other people but fails to account for the single instance of harm and manipulation that makes the rest of harm and manipulation possible (and affirmative ethics as well).

It's unreasonable to think someone has to be consciously aware at the present state in order to qualify for respecting consent. For consent has to do with what a person would like to have done to them, which implies a future instance of that person, even if this person has no instances at the present.

If a person is born and finds they do not like existing, and wish they had never been born, it is coherent for them to say that their capacity to consent was not respected, even if it is true that, if it was respected, they would not exist in the first place. The situation can be revealed in a different way: had this person actually existed before they existed, would they have consented? So it's really actually less about the actual action of violating consent and more about avoiding a problematic situation in which someone feels as though their consent has been violated.

The same "issue" can be seemingly applied to instances of obvious wronged births, such as people born with Tay-Sach's disease. Does it really make sense to say these people are not harmed when coming into existence? Perhaps - but perhaps we can just say that those who exist with Tay-Sach's disease are harmed, and therefore to exist with Tay-Sach's disease is to be harmed.

Existence being the base conditional requirement for a harm or a manipulation does not make it less problematic. It actually makes it more problematic. And these qualms about non-existence are easily solved with some language analysis.

I identify with the darthbarracuda school of philosophy, I think - maybe. — Thinker

No, NO, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I prefer not to identify myself with any "schools" or "movements". It smells too much of dogmatic traditionalism. The map is confused for the territory, the "way things are" is not identifiable or reducible to a single person's name. "Reality" is more mysterious and withdrawn. The names of metaphysical systems, the terminology and structures, all of this makes them works of art. Even if they are ultimately right, it would still be wrong to call reality by these names.

But this indeterminacy is apparently intolerable, so people divide themselves up into different groups, all with their special idols and "masters". It goes beyond the pragmatic use of terms for ease of communication and into a realm of competition, so it's no longer about what "reality" is like but more about who can outsmart everyone else. Belonging to a group of fellow idolizers makes you feel like you're a part of something bigger, a tradition, and that you have "superpowers" of sorts - you "see" the world "differently" than the "other" people.

So let's be clear here: "reality", the "way things are", is not identical to a person's name. The world is not "Aristotelian" or "Platonic", it's not "Deleuzian" or "Schopenhauerian", it's not "Hegelian" or "Kantian", it's none of these things. Aristotle might have been right about the four causes but that doesn't make the world "Aristotelian". Schopenhauer might have been right about the "Will" but it doesn't make the world "Schopenhauerian". Labeling reality like this seems to be an affront to reality itself. It means you believe that you, or your idol, is a master of reality, and that reality answers to this.

If someone comes along and tells me "your thought is very Aristotelian!" or "you sound like a Heideggerian!" I will tell them I have no need for these labels outside of basic communication. I don't need to be a "part" of any tradition, I don't want to be a part of any tradition, and it's a mistake to identify reality with these labels, so take your names and shove off. Stop trying to make reality something that has a determinate identity, as if someone has a monopoly on reality. How nauseating it would be if the way things are is intrinsically and timelessly linked to someone's name! It's absurd!

You can, but then you're arguing for global skepticism, not agnosticism. — Michael

(Y)

I'd wonder if I really was immortal. What if there was something that could kill me? How could I ever know I really was immortal unless I were God?

My hope is that the same 'over-evolved' brain that finds despair in lack of meaning can move past this dilemma in a positive way. — CasKev

You might be interested in the work of Colin Feltham. He's a psychologist and counselor who is working in the field of depressive realism, with an emphasis on integrating the thought of Peter Zapffe.

He's certainly not one of those positive psychology people, but he is trying to find ways of coping with the human condition that isn't disingenuous or fatal. I think one of the things he critiques Zapffe on is his underappreciation of love and intimacy.

I think you are correct that most of life is a repetition of boring events. We go through the motions of life out of habit and inertia. In my own experiences, what makes life vibrant and fulfilling is usually precisely what is not the case: possibilities. Anticipation gives life its color, the expectation of a future metamorphosis keeps us going, even if this future never actually materializes.

For example, I may program and code, with a cup of coffee next to me and earbuds in, listening to some sort of space ambient music or science-fiction music. It really pulls me out of "reality" and into a different one, the world of the what-if. What if I was on a space-faring vessel, exploring some distant star cluster, away from the political bullshit on Earth, the impending environmental disaster, the rampant suffering and decay? I think people live in this world of the what-if more than actual "reality". They spend more time dreaming than acting, because dreaming doesn't come with limitations. People take drugs to escape reality. They browse social media to escape their responsibilities.

I think, even if we can formulate a coherent philosophical pessimism that denounces "life", phenomenal existence, or whatever, we'll all have "good" days, where the world seems a bit more welcoming than usual. We get seduced into loving the world even if there's that little whisper in the back of our minds reminding us of the antelope being eaten alive in the savanna, the inevitable heat death of the universe or the fact that I didn't study for my exam this coming Wednesday. And I guess I would say that this is just who we are, it's in our nature to do this. It reminds me of Werner Herzog's brief bit about the harmony of the universe, and how he loves the forest even against his better judgment.



Probably a generic rule of thumb of the cosmos would be that it cannot satisfy everyone. For every state of affairs, there's always going to be someone for whom it doesn't quite live up to expectations or requirements. The affirmative attitude marginalizes these people, making it seem as though it is their fault that they find existence to be faulty.

Part of the Heideggerian care structure is the world, which is defined as the system of purposes and meanings that organizes our activities and our identities and within which things make sense to us. There are ready-at-hand entities (equipment), that have a reference towards-which (work), which is for-the-sake-of-which (a possibility of Dasein's Being), or for-Others, etc. The angst, the anxiety, comes from the moments when we ask for what sake do we ourselves exist and do all the things we do. It's a void of meaninglessness in which the nothing "nihilates" our contextual meaning, our world. Nothing matters anymore, it's all just very ephemeral and pointless.

So you can think the statement "The triangle is a circle", or you can speak it or write it down. The collection of qualia, sounds, or ink marks on paper is consistent and exists, but it does not refer to anything. — litewave

Are you sure that they don't refer to anything? How can we coherently talk about something without having a representation of it in our minds? How can something be absent in our minds and yet still we talk about "it"?

Yes, I have read Haack and am in a lot of agreement with her. However I have found from my own reading that she calls science a loosely-organized federation of disciplines, and I can't help but wonder why, then, do we need the word "science" anyway and risk the sort of rampant scientism we have today?

If well-being and morally good are not connected, how can hedonism be a moral theory? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

It can be the axiological foundation of a consequentialist theory that would take the value of a population as more important than the value of an individual's experiences, as a population is merely a conglomeration of individual experiences, with all individuals being equal to each other.

Or you can focus more on negative experiences, and say that the pleasure that comes from killing people cannot be morally good because it causes negative feelings in others.

Like I said, rational self-interested hedonism =/= morality.

There can't be scientism if there isn't any science! >:O

The ultimate reason for why anything exists is logical consistency. What is existence anyway, if not logical consistency? — litewave

But how do you explain the fact that we can think about impossibilities? Do these acts of thinking not really exist?

So if killing people is pleasurable to a serial killer then his well-being is increased by killing people, and, therefore, his killing people is morally good? — WISDOMfromPO-MO

No, at least not necessarily. There's a difference between saying taking pleasure in killing people is good for the person doing the killing, to saying the fact that the person kills people and takes pleasure in it is morally good.

What is good for someone may not always be what is morally good.

That there is some reason why God, the universe, mind, etc cannot not exist. — Marchesk

But why does this reason exist? And why does the reason that this reason exist also exist? If something is necessarily existent - why is it necessarily existent? "Brute" facts seem more like cowardice and obscuration than genuine, honest belief.

I'm only speculating, but it seems to me that if we try to label, describe, or otherwise identify something as "brute", we have only pushed the explanation back even further. If, let's say, "mind" is "brute" - then what makes mind mind? If God is fundamentally the fundamentality of fundamentality, then what makes it the case that God is God? If the ultimate reality is, say, the Will, does it even make sense to say that the Will is "striving"? How would it be striving? How would be even come to conceptualize what this "striving" amounts to?

The only way out that I see is some form of infinite regress out of necessity (but what is necessity if not a brute fact?) We could say that the "brute fact" is ABCD, and if we try to analyze what "brute fact" amounts to, we'll end up with ABCD as well. A circular but infinite explanation. Sort of like saying everything can be divisible an infinite amount of times.

In other words, no one is reaching the conclusion that people were involved simply because the room, the furniture, etc. are there. We're reaching the conclusion because we know something about how rooms, furniture and so on are made.

With the Earth, trees, etc. there's zero evidence that anyone makes them. The evidence rather suggests that they're made entirely by natural/not-person-made phenomena. — Terrapin Station

Exactly. Just because some things are designed does not make all things designed.

Does the Academic appreciation of Hume reflect honest philosophical consideration, or is it merely determined by the Academia's leftist/atheist bias? — Agustino

Or maybe the coherency of Hume's arguments is a reason for Academia's leftist/atheist "bias"?

Premise 2. There is no scientific explanation about God.
Conclusion. There is no reason to believe in God. — some logician

This does not follow. You must show that only a "scientific" explanation is a reason to believe in something. There are other reasons for believing in God that are not "strictly scientific", like personal experience, theological demonstrations, etc. God, by definition, is usually thought to be supernatural, or "transcendent" and cannot be studied "scientifically" - to demand that God be subjected to "scientific" inquiry is to sneak in a naturalism of sorts, a naturalism that may be defensible but certainly has not been defended here.

It's also not clear what "science" even is. It's a buzzword - everyone apparently "knows" what science is, but as soon as you actually ask them what the hell science is it's never quite straightforward or clear. Probably because there is no self-evidently obvious definition of science.

I was just wondering if rationality as a tool for philosophy has ''failed'' us. Should we not try out, for example, Taoist/Zen paradoxical thinking? Why not launch an all-out attack on our sensibilities and reason? Pressurize reason and expose the all-seeing, all-comprehending mind-eye, the true seat of all understanding. — TheMadFool

How would we know the answer to this except through reason?

Should we stubbornly continue to apply (or is it misapply) reason and logic to these problems? I think it's high time we looked at new avenues, new tools to apply to these problems. — TheMadFool

...said every great philosopher, ever. ;)

The trouble with the grandiose statements of the final demise of philosophy is that it's always in bad faith - philosophy just keeps coming back, one way or another. The Greek skeptics failed to prevent metaphysical theorizing. Hume and the Scottish empiricists ended metaphysics - until Kant unintentionally revived it. The logical positivists wanted only scientific and logical claims to be meaningful, but were ultimately unsuccessful. Nowadays there's the rising tide of naive scientism, that fails to account for all the previous attempts of ending philosophy. We've been struggling with these problems for centuries, and we probably will continue to struggle for as long as the human race exists.

Heidegger said it best - as soon as we have one single interpretation that never changes, we cease to be genuine inquirers and become dogmatists. And Wittgenstein would have added that the failure to "finish" philosophy has nothing to do with the inadequacy of philosophical investigation but with the sheer complexity of philosophical questions. It shouldn't be a fault, it should be an opportunity - the stuff we're struggling with was the same stuff Plato struggled with.

Philosophy is, in my opinion, largely a socializing activity. In the past, to be a philosopher would have been similar to being a wine connoisseur or an art collector. They put in their own theories and critiqued those of their peers. Nowadays people want progress and results and forget that philosophy does not work like that. Solving a problem isn't always the goal - truth is the "goal", but what we're really doing is just having some fun and exchanging ideas. We're in no hurry and have no deadlines. "Finishing" philosophy takes all the fun away.

Yeah, I recall seeing Proof here a long while but only briefly. Shame, I would have wanted to discuss some things with him.