and you presented no argument for free will or against determinism — Augustusea

Did you choose to write that post?

haven't even presented a counter argument or an argument for free will at least — Augustusea

I've been doing that all through the thread. It's true there are some things we have no choice about, and equally true there are some things we DO have a choice about. It's the simplest thing which could be explained to a child of five. Sorry to be harsh, but you're just chanting memorized phrases and concepts at us, not actually thinking.

you don't have a choice in anything, its determinism 101 — Augustusea

Yes, determinism 101, a huge pile of bunk.

There's nothing that you did well. — ssu

Well, that's a bit of an overstatement. :-) But I would agree there is a lot we didn't do well.

Here's a funny story about Yeltsin. He stayed at the White House for a few days during his first meeting with Clinton. In the middle of the night Yeltsin was discovered, drunk as a skunk, in his underwear, out on Pennsylvania Avenue trying to hail a cab so he could go get a pizza. Best I can tell, true story.

I think the most dangerous aspect of nuclear weapons is the modern Russian doctrine of "nuclear de-escalation". I know, the West has had thoughts along similar lines. — ssu

Such a policy doesn't sound helpful for sure.

I would cast my vote for "Most Dangerous" the widely held assumption that we are safe because no current geo-political situations seems headed for nuclear war. You know, folks think they can calculate the risk by watching the news.

What this ignores is the hair trigger nature of nuclear deployments, and a long record of FUBAR screw up mistakes, some of which brought us within minutes of civilization crushing catastrophe.

One time somebody stuck a training tape in the NORAD computers and for precious minutes the entire US national security system thought they were witnessing a Russian first strike underway. The "incoming first strike" got reported all the way up the chain to the national security advisor.

In another case, a Russian satellite mistook sunlight bouncing off the clouds for the exhaust fires of ICBMs. All the Russian fail safe systems reported this was a real attack. A single launch commander put his life at risk by breaking all the rules and guessing the system was wrong. Had he instead reported it up the chain of command as a real attack, Russian leaders would have been under enormous pressure to launch immediately.

In another case, a research rocket launched from Norway was mistaken as an incoming first strike, because lower ranking Russians forgot to report this previously announced launch up the chain. The Russian generals rushed to Yeltsin, whom we shall recall was chronically drunk, and told him to launch immediately. Luckily, Yeltsin has his wits about him that day, or we'd all be dead right now.

And so on...

Point being, everything could be going great, and then out of the blue with no warning...

Game over.

If you can show that the norm is wrong in this instance, then feel free. — Philosophim

Hi there Philosophim, thanks for engaging.

Say I make claims X,Y and Z by referencing the Bible as the relevant authority. In that case it would be my burden to demonstrate that the Bible is in fact a qualified authority on the subjects of X,Y and Z.

Point being, it's not my burden to prove that the methodology you've chosen is qualified for the task to which you've applied it. It's your burden.

If you wish just to play a logic game while admitting it has no proven relevance to reality, ok, no problem.

All that said, I would agree it's entirely normal, almost universal, for folks to just assume without questioning that human reason is qualified to address any topic, no matter how large. Normal, but not very good philosophy. Imho, if your professors didn't already present you with this challenge (so far it sounds like you've not heard it before), then you should request a refund.

Thanks for the applause @Asif. Now I'll never be able to stop typing, and I can blame it all on you. :-)

Ok, time for me to back out of challenge mode and present a thesis which others can challenge.

Briefly, my argument is that the mind is just another mechanical function of the body which requires management. In no case is there a perfect permanent solution. In all cases ongoing management is required throughout our lives.

Looking at psychological suffering as a mechanical problem opens the door to mechanical solutions. Mechanical solutions are good because they are readily accessible to everyone, no fancy philosophy required. As just one example, millions of people successfully manage their depression with prescription drugs, a purely mechanical remedy. Other people choose exercise, meditation, yoga, swimming, fishing etc.

My argument is that it's not rational to declare "life equals suffering" until all these constructive remedies have been explored.

You are using rational as a vague signal that means nothing. Its a weasel word that stands for "what you believe to be right and true". — schopenhauer1

If one is physically hungry, it's more rational to go to the kitchen and make some food than it is to bemoan the chronic need to eat which nobody chose, and nobody can do anything about.

Seriously. Do the experiment. The next time you are physically hungry, don't eat anything, just write a book about how sad it is that we have to eat every day of our lives. Do that again the next day. And the next. And the next. And then come back to the thread and tell us which choice you believe to be the most rational. Eating? Or complaining?

This is what you guys are doing in regards to suffering. Not eating, just complaining. You have every right to it, but there's nothing profound or rational about it. Nor is it very kind to do so in a thread started by someone considering suicide.

It seems you've utterly failed to see the difference between "life is suffering" and "life contains suffering".

Can you introduce a flaw I missed? — Philosophim

Before diving in to the details of your argument, I would ask this. Can you prove that the rules of human reason are binding upon all of reality? So far, quick first take, my impression is that you just assume this to be true. Welcome a correction if that's not the case.

No one had a choice for this surivival, comfort, entertainment game, nor many contingent circumstances they are affected by. — schopenhauer1

I agree. Again, so what? This is very well known information. Nobody chose to be born, we all know that already.

It was best never to have been.

Ok, sure. Again, so what?

All the pessemist has now is communities of consolation with likeminded people, ones to share gripes and commiserate and find catharsis in shared griping. — schopenhauer1

As a personal choice, ok, to each their own. I'm objecting only to this CHOICE being elevated to some kind of sweeping description of the human condition. You know, there are things we can do other than gripe, should we so choose. Evidence: Not everyone is a pessimist, right?

My only real complaint is any notion that the philosophy you describe is rational. If you are willing to agree it's emotional and not rational, then I withdraw any complaint and agree to an "to each their own" perspective.

If you wish to argue that what you're describing is rational, you have a long way to go yet, imho.

You mentioned choices to not suffer, but the choice never to be put in the game of making choices to not suffer is never on the table. — schopenhauer1

Well ok, that's true. So what?

We also have no choice about needing food, needing water, needing sleep etc. We have no choice about the life long requirement to manage all these things.

Where's the news in your philosophy? What are you trying to tell us that we don't already know???

Apologies, I don't understand anything you're saying here. If you wish to clarify, still listening.

I knew there were people throughout the world who saw only "the ugly American." — Frank Apisa

Yes, anyone that we've saved from ruthless tyranny typically thanks us by calling us ugly. :-) I think we're pretty good sports about that, all in all.

I say everything is well as long as the dollar has it's status and Americans can create money that others will take. — ssu

Yea, good point, I am concerned about that. We've been financially irresponsible for a long time, and it's reasonable to predict that's going to be a big problem sooner or later. I have a plan for that though.

I'm 68.

I'll be dead.

Typical cynical selfish boomer psychology! :-)

Be advised though, I may be even more opposed to your view than the creator of this thread! — Outlander

Ok, no problem, proceed to oppose. I'm not walking away, just allowing folks to have their views, don't want to beat it to death etc.

ITS NOT A CHOICE, no one has choice, determinism prevails, but alright, take care — Augustusea

I'm hungry right now, and have the choice to go eat.

Later I'll be tired, and will have the choice to take a nap.

If I start suffering in my mind, I have the choice to do something about that too.

We have the choice to let go of the sweeping grand philosophical claims, and get practical and real. That is, rational. And we have the choice not to do that too.

The paradigm does not fail due to any aspect/property of the physical universe. — EricH

Honestly, and no offense intended, I find this kind of dodging and weaving tiresome. 50 billion threads on the Internet, including countless threads on this forum alone, have argued whether a god exists or not, yes or no.

As to what religious people think, there are billions of them and they think all kinds of things, way too many to even big to list.

Aside from simply asserting it, you have given no explanation for for the lack of success. — EricH

Already explained why. You're on your own with that one.

Third World war having been fought at the middle of the 1980's would have been utterly devastating. — ssu

And it still would be. 50 nukes dropped on the big cities of any country would collapse the food distribution system and so on.

If you haven't seen this already, perhaps this site will interest you. It shows the damage from various nukes on any particular city.

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

Such suffering is not I think the emotional state, but the diminishing of one's capabilities and person. — Philosophim

Suffering is not the diminishment you refer to, but one's relationship with that diminishment.

Suffering is not losing the leg. Suffering is the state of mind which rejects the loss.

This is good news! Nothing can be done about the lost leg, but something can be done about the state of mind which rejects the loss.

I do not have a choice, neither do you is the point, its the inevitability of our condition — Augustusea

You have the right to believe that if that's what works for you. I'm not an evangelist. I'm not going to try to shove an alternative down your throat. Should you express a wish to discuss an alternative I'm willing, but I will respect your choice until then.

suffering is not temporary to surpass, it is permanent, it is infact life itself, meaning you ultimately are just suffering with breaks,
you might feel happy now, tomorrow you will probably feel worse, there will always be that bad day, always, there is no escaping that — Augustusea

Ok then, so go with that. Your choice. I respect your right to your choice.

Suffering an inevitable part of life and existence itself, is mainly subjective, yet everyone who exists has it happen to them — Augustusea

There is no permanent solution to physical hunger. Every one ever born has to eat regularly. This need is inevitable, non-negotiable.

We also have to breath, even more regularly.

We also have to sleep, a third of our life.

We also have to use the bathroom.

We also have sexual needs.

We don't fall in to despair over these needs. We don't waste time on Schopenhauer books. We don't declare life hopeless because of such needs.

Instead, we are sensible. We manage these needs.

Suffering is no different. It's just another mechanical function of the body which requires ongoing management.

Observe if you will how fancy philosophers try to turn this common sense situation in to some kind of complex issue requiring their services. Just another pile of nonsense.

you cannot just stop thinking about depression — Augustusea

a man can never not want, unless that man no longer is

A person who feels this way might ask themselves, how much effort have they invested in seeing if that's true? If none, then that explains that.

doesn't mean the suffering won't be there.

Suffering is made of thought. Five words, which contain a path forward if you want it.

I'm not following the logic here. If you accept 1 thru 3 - and have thus accepted the fact that the sentence "God Exists" has no coherent meaning - then why are you still interested in "god topics'? — EricH

You're perhaps not following the logic because you are still stuck in the God debate. If we accept the reality of our ignorance then just as the claim "god exists" has no meaning, the statement "god doesn't exist" also has no meaning. Your position didn't just win, it is as defeated as the theist position.

If you acknowledge that you are incurably ignorant about a topic, then move on and find some new interests. — EricH

That is one option, yes, and I have no argument with anyone who chooses it. But as your own participation in such threads would seem to demonstrate, some of us don't wish to walk away. Which raises the question, now what?

My argument is that the investigation doesn't need to end just because we didn't find what we were looking for. I hope the following might help a bit.

The God debate is built upon some nearly universally agreed upon, but rarely examined, assumptions which can be inspected and challenged.

As example, one key assumption is that a god either exists or not, one or the other. When we examine most of reality, space, we see it does not comply with such a simplistic paradigm. This suggests that the question being asked may be so poor that no useful answer can emerge from it, ie. we are ignorant.

Another assumption blindly shared by both theists and atheists is that the point of the investigation should be to find an answer, some collection of symbols which accurately represent reality. Most people just accept this methodology as being the appropriate course of action without questioning it the least little bit. We can choose to question it.

Dropping an exploration we seem clearly interested in because we didn't find what we were looking for would be like Columbus giving up because he didn't find the Far East. Imagine him saying, "This isn't the Far East, so I give up, I quit, I'm going home, forget about the whole thing." And by doing so, leaving the Americas unexplored.

Rational?

I simply wanted to nip that line of "reasoning" in the bud. — EricH

You haven't succeeded in that project, though I do look forward to hearing your thoughts on other topics.

The social, political, and military chaos of the 60s dwarfs anything happening today. We got past that. We'll get past this too.

The American era will not end until the people of the world decide they'd like to be ruled by Chinese communists.

Many of you here are quite young, and thus you don't remember that at one time the Soviet Union was seen to be the invincible force which would inevitably dominate the planet blah blah blah etc etc. Didn't happen. America held them in check until they collapsed under their own dead weight.

Perhaps there's a kind of "spirituality" in embracing "the unknown" after a fashion — jorndoe

We could translate this idea in to atheist language if that helps.

Atheists believe in facing reality. The reality is that, on issues the vast scale of gods, we are ignorant. So it would be compliant with atheist culture to embrace this ignorance. It would be rational to accept this situation which we can currently do nothing about, and look for ways to benefit from it.

If a miner digs a mine looking for gold, but finds only coal, the rational miner will ask, "Where can I sell this coal?" Columbus hoped to find the Far East, but instead found the Americas. He could have turned back and given up in failure, or he could proceed to plunder the Americas.

We conducted an investigation hoping to find an answer, but instead found our ignorance. An irrational person will live in a wishful thinking fantasy by pretending that they have found an answer, while the rational person will accept the results of the investigation and work to put what has been discovered to good use. Did we find what we hoped to find? No. But we did find something. What can we do with what we have discovered?

Atheists base their world view on observation of reality. Observation of reality reveals that the overwhelmingly vast majority of reality is what we usually call nothing. Nothing is the absence of a physical something, whereas ignorance is the absence of an answer, a mental something. Both physical somethings and mental somethings are at heart just data. Ignorance bears a striking resemblance to most of reality.

Atheists believe in being rational. It is rational to worship reality, not because reality requires our worship, but because the emotional experience of worship enriches our lives. And reality is mostly nothing so we can worship nothing, both physical nothing, and it's partner mental nothing.

Many atheists will reject the word worship, the experience of worship, and emotion more generally. This is because they are still TRAPPED inside a holy war with religious culture which they aren't yet rational enough to realize they can never win, because like everyone else, they are ignorant. Rejecting positive emotions which can enrich our lives is not rational or manly, but is instead merely weak, fearful and cowardly.

There is plenty for any "spiritual" atheist to explore, discover and enjoy, should they be rational enough to surrender their fantasy knowings and embrace the overwhelming reality of nothing.

Besides, this is a far cry from the (vast) majority of religions, elaborate religious faiths that people declare in public (with a lot of social consequences), that they declare apply to all of us, heck everything for that matter — jorndoe

Agreed, but so what?

why is doing something rational — Augustusea

Well, if we actually want to suffer, then I suppose it isn't. Let's take a poll. Everybody who wants to suffer, please raise your hand! Sorry to be sarcastic, but do we really have to debate this?

yes, and its subjectiveness means one man's happiness is anothers suffering — Augustusea

Suffering is made of thought. Literally made of thought. That's what I'm referring to. So to the degree one is not thinking, suffering vanishes. And that absence of suffering does not cause suffering in another.

there is no happiness without suffering

There is truth in what you say here. There is however a third option which is neither happiness or suffering. Let's call it peace, just to apply a convenient label.

Happiness is, say, when we want something and we get it. Suffering is when we want something and don't get it. Peace is when we don't want.

Both happiness and suffering are made of thought. Thought will inevitably generate the dance between the two. And we have to think to survive, so some degree of suffering is inevitable. We agree on this.
So as human beings we can't escape suffering completely.

But we CAN manage the level of suffering.

why do things need to maximize good

Please answer as plainly as you can here.

Do you want to suffer? Yes? Or No?

If yes, then that is your right and none of anybody else's business.

If no, then a rational conversation would focus on maximizing the good.

750,000 - Total number of deaths from the Civil War

504 - Deaths per day during the Civil War

2.5 - Approximate percentage of the American population that died during the Civil War

7,000,000 - Number of Americans lost if 2.5% of the American population died in a war today

We got a ways to go yet before we reach any place that America hasn't already been, and recovered from. 150 years ago may seem like an eternity to you young folks, but a third of that time has passed just since I was your age. So, the Civil War was three life times ago, more or less.

What's happening today is that mass media is now ever present around the clock in every little corner of our lives, so the yelling that's been going on since the founding of the republic is greatly amplified.

And please don't bother mentioning situations where the murdering was done communists / socialists / fascists - these are all belief systems. E.g., Stalin did not murder millions in the name of atheism - he murdered them because he was a psychopathic killer. — EricH

But if Stalin had been a Catholic leading an explicitly Catholic regime, then you'd blame the slaughter on Catholicism. This is a very tired dodge, you can do better. No, I don't want to debate it, it doesn't rise to the level of meriting debate. Try again please.

In truth, it is great that a huge amount of the Cold War build up of nukes were indeed destroyed and both the US and Russia have now only a fraction of the number of warheads that they had. — ssu

Sadly, this is largely irrelevant as they still possess enough weapons to completely destroy modern civilization. A single nuclear submarine can destroy any country in the world. Just 50 nukes dropped on America's largest cities would destroy the food distribution system, leading to mass starvation and social and political chaos.

I recently spent about 6 months studying this subject full time. I built a website of a couple hundred pages on the subject, followed every expert on Twitter every day for months etc. I'm sorry to report that we are in truly deep doo-doo. We've been lulled to sleep by the facts you accurately report, with the gun still firmly placed inside our mouths.

Life is suffering is like an extra simplified version of what we mean which is, that the sum of all live beings consciousness equals into suffering, or in other words, if the experiences of every mind of every being are all combined, suffering would outweigh happiness by a lot, which is not a leap and is quite reasonable, so this would mean, to live is to mainly suffer, anything else is just a side,as for happiness, it always comes from suffering of one person, therefore can be argued to actually not exist in the large scheme of things for humans. — Augustusea

And my argument is, whether this is true or not, it's not rational to keep saying it over and over because that doesn't accomplish anything. What's rational is to try to do something about it.

suffering is not something we can do anything about — Augustusea

Sorry, blatantly false statement. Once it's seen that suffering is made of thought, the door is open to do something about it. You already saw this when you said failure is subjective.

perfection is impossible — Augustusea

I have already stated my agreement with this.

why would managing it matter? when a child is starving half the way across the globe — Augustusea

The child is most likely starving because most people have not bothered to try to manage their suffering, or have no idea how, and thus seek to fill the empty void in their souls with various forms of greed.

I do not see how that is not rational or illogical, to view all the good and bad in the world and weight them, — Augustusea

I don't object to such a weighing process, so long as it is subservient to a serious attempt to maximize the good and minimize the bad. I do object to such a process if it is a replacement for constructive action.

Talk about Machiavellian politics — ssu

Yup, and it all may be irrelevant given that American and Russian nukes can destroy the entire planet in about 30 minutes, and it could happen at any moment, by mistake.

The huge explosion in Lebanon seems instructive, for those willing to be instructed. So apparently they stored some highly explosive chemicals in a warehouse, and then pretty much forgot about them. So the chemicals sat there waiting patiently for somebody to screw up. And then somebody did, as somebody always does.

We're doing the exact same thing. And if we don't get our head out of our butts, it will likely have the same result, just on a vastly larger scale.

Same threat posed by the North Korean dictatorship to it's people — ssu

Yes, agreed. Psychopathic despots are a curse upon humanity. We can debate the best way to rid ourselves of them, not all options are equal for sure, but we need not apologize when we succeed in ridding the Earth of their existence.

countries that think Israel is an enemy to them will seek to have nuclear weapons to have a miltary balance with Israel. — ssu

The Gulf States have plenty of money for making nukes. They have not tried to match Israel. Because they are not afraid of Israel. Because Israel is not a psychopathic dictatorship.

Hi again Augustusea, I'm enjoying our exchanges.

Again, I'm not denying the existence of suffering, which in some cases can be quite profound. I'm just not willing to make the leap from "suffering exists" to "life is suffering" in the sweeping global sense which some wish to take it to. Life includes suffering, is not equal to, life is suffering.

Suffering is indeed made out of the conscious of living creatures — Augustusea

Yes, that is a useful fact which can be acted on. Suffering is made of thought. You made this case earlier yourself when you said that failure is subjective.

My argument is that it would be most rational to come down off the big grand sweeping dreary philosophical cloud that people like Arthur Schopenhauer inhabit, and instead focus as clearly as we can on the problem of suffering, and what we can do about it. I'm not arguing a perfect solution is available, only that any partial solution is more rational than wringing our hands, embracing defeatism, and whining about the human condition etc.

My argument is that useful solutions lie in the direction of the insight you've already had. Failure is subjective. Or to put it another way, suffering is made of thought.

By "thought" I don't mean this or that thought, opinion, attitude etc. I don't mean the content of thought. I mean the medium of thought. This medium is just another biological process of the body. It is mechanical, and thus can be managed by mechanical means. As example, people attempt this all the time through mechanical means such as alcohol and drugs etc.

There are other healthier means of thought management such as meditation. Some people go fishing, or walk in the woods, the possibilities are nearly endless.

The point here is that it's not rational to get all wound up in how sad life is etc until such means of addressing the suffering are fully explored. Arthur Schopenhauer is not rational, he's just a sad grumpy old man who is attempting to elevate his personal situation to a global sweeping statement.

I wish I had an answer to this question. And it's not merely religion. How do you talk to people who believe in these bizarre conspiracy theories, or deny global warming, etc, etc? It's very discouraging. — EricH

Agreed, but not what I was referring to. I'll try to be more clear....

1) If one is a believer, and then realizes one has no basis upon which to believe, and....

2) If one is a disbeliever, and then realizes one has no basis upon which to disbelieve, and...

3) One sees and faces one's incurable ignorance on subjects of such enormous scale, and...

4) Still is interested in god topics...

5) Then what?

Theism and atheism can both be reduced to rubble. As example, the question being asked "does god exist" can be shown to be useless by a simple examination of space, the vast majority of reality, which can not be clearly said either to exist or not-exist. A rational person who is at least a little bit serious will not expect a useful answer to arise from such a fatally flawed question.

Once theism and atheism are reduced to rubble some people will wash their hands of the entire subject and pursue other interests. Ok, that makes sense.

But what if after we've put theism and atheism in to their caskets, lowered them in to the ground, and shoveled dirt over them, we're still interested in the very largest of questions?

Then what?

Yet the bottom line is that Saddam's Iraq was utterly incapable of posing a threat after Desert Storm at any of it's neighbors. With the exclusion zones and the UN sanctions, there was no threat. — ssu

That was almost 20 years ago. Even when Saddam was alive and in power Western nations were losing interest in containing Saddam, and starting to do deals with him etc. Containment was an unsustainable mechanism. Obama was determined to avoid another mid-east war, Trump wants to bring all the troops home, American voters are fed up with the whole subject etc.

Did you notice how your claim that "there was no threat" ignores the threat Saddam continued to pose to the Iraqi people? This is the moral bankruptcy of the Iraq war critics at work. So long as they can claim Bush was wrong, bad, stupid etc they don't care what happens after that.

The Iranians are riding the edge of having a bomb. And there appears to be little we can do about it. Even Obama's treaty only delayed the inevitable. So why should we assume Saddam and his sons would never have done the same?

Where we have a meeting of the minds is that I agree that the Bush administration was utterly incompetent in it's occupation of Iraq. That seems a valid criticism to me. But it's not enough to just make that valid case over and over again while ignoring all other factors.

Pain always outweighs happiness — Augustusea

This is WAY too sweeping a statement. There are a trillion times a trillion different human situations, and it's not possible to summarize the whole thing with any simple little formula. It's entertaining to try, but not all that rational given the impossibility of ever getting to The Answer.

What's rational is to focus on that which we can improve.

Here's my specific prescription. :-)

1) Throw away the Schopenhauer books. Here's the evidence to support that advice.



Check out his face. Is that the experience you wish to have during your short time on this Earth?

2) Suffering is made of thought. Thought is just a part of your body. Learn how to better manage this part of your body.