The mysterious supernatural force is the one by which you believe that you act independently of your predispositions and surroundings.

Michael Ossipoff

No.

A simulation couldn't create a possibility world or possibility story such as ours.

That's because they're already there, without a simulation.

All a simulation could create would be an opportunity for the programmers to observe such possibility stories & worlds.

Michael Ossipoff

Trying again:

You're right about philosophy of mind Physicalism, determinism, & no free will.

But if you're a metaphysical Physicalist or Materialist, then you're making unnecessary assumptions and accepting unnecessary brute facts.

Under Materialism, reincarnation is out of the question. But Materialism doesn't do well by parsimony.

Without being sure of your metaphysics, reticence is best.

Michael Ossipoff

You're right about philosophy of mind

You're right about philosophy of mind physicalism, determinism, & no free will.

But if you're a met

Mr. Wisdom:

Human utterances have something in common with falling rocks: Both result from physical causes.

(... though you're primary in the physical system that is your life experience possibility story.)

But I didn't like us to falling rocks. I likenened us to such purposefully responsive devices as Roombas, mousetraps, & thermostats.

Michael Ossipoff

Of course depends on your beliefs. Our birth in the Land of the Lost is something with which badly messed up previous lives are consistent.

Just a suggestion, to answer your question.

Feel free to disagree.

We discussed reincarnation at its thread.

Michael Ossipoff

...or maybe not consciously known to you.

Michael Ossipoff

For some reason known only to you, you wanted to do one of those things.

... obviously.

Michael Ossipoff

Your & my posts like rocks falling? You catch on fast, Wisdom!

I used Roomba analogy, but mousetrap or thermostat will do.

But no, what you write isn't inevitable "no matter what". It depends on your extrnal circumstances. (...in addition to your predispositions).

For you that makes life meaningless? Then enjoy your angst!

Fine. Don't take anyone's words seriously. ... because they're said for a reason? :)

You'd need to be a lot more specific about what you think is inconsistent.

Michael Ossipoff

I am constantly making choices throughout my day — Rich

...and those choices are governed, determined, by your predispositions, and your surroundings. And that's your experience.

You don't realize that you're more closely-related to a Roomba than you want to admit.

Michael Ossipoff

A lot of philosophers seem to believe in something like a soul, and they call it Mind, a metaphysical substance separate from matter. They're called Dualists. I often call them Spiritualists.

As Wayfarer brought out, the imagined dissection of us into body and soul, body and Mind, or body and Consciousness is artificial and cultural.

There aren't separate body-and-soul. There's just the animal.

Everything in your experience is consistent with what an animal would be expected to experience.

That position has been called "philosophy-of-mind Physicalism. (..not to be confused with metaphysical Physicalism, which I don't subscribe to.)

For brevity, I abbreviate philosophy-of-mind Physicalism as "pomp". When I say "Physicalism", without a qualifying-phrase, I mean metaphysical Physicalism.

Some here don't like it, but the scientists are right this time, about that anyway.

There's something called an Elminative Physicalist, who (if I remember correctly) takes a more extreme position, and says that the external, objective, 3rd-person point-of-view is the only valid one, and that our own 1st-person experience is fictitious. A ridiculous position, I'd say.

That view is probably common among scientists, and, in that instance, they're wrong..

Your life is a life-experience possibility-story, and it's centered on you, its Protagonist. You're its primary and essential component. So the person (or other animal) is primary in its life-experience story.

So I believe in the primacy of the person (or other animal), in their reality, which consists of a life-experience possibility-story.

People sometimes confuse a philosophy-of-mind position with a metaphysical position. It's true that, when someone states a philosophy-of-mind position, that seems to raise the question of what metaphysical position they subscribe to.

When a philosophy-of-mind position is stated, the question of "What is?" isn't far beneath.

So let me outline my suggestion about that. It would probably be called Eliminative Ontic Structural Non-Realism.

Physicists Michael Faraday (1844), Frank Tippler ('70s or '80s), and Max Tegmark (more recent) have pointed ot that experience, observation and experiment are completely consistent with the physical world consisting only of relation in mathematical/logical structure. No need for "concrete" objectively-real "stuff".

That position that that structure is all that the physical world consists of has been called Eliminative Ontic Structuralism.

Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis has been called Ontic Stuctural Realism, suggesting that Tegmark regards our external world as having its own existence, maybe the primary existence. That was my impression, too, when reading things that he's said.

That's where I disagree. As I mentioned above, I point out that your life is centered on your own experience. The relevant inter-related if-then structure is your own life-experience possibility-story, in which you're primary, and the essential component.

So, I'd replace the "Realism" with "Non-Realism".

A physical world, like ours, consists of a system of inter-referring if-then statements.

Physical laws are hypothetical "if" facts that relate some other hypothetical "if" facts called "quantity-values".

Those physical laws and some quantity-values are parts of the "if" clause of "if-then" facts. Those "if-then" facts' "then" conclusions consist of other quantity-values.

Mathematical theorems are if-then facts whose "if" clause includes (but isn't limited to) a set of axioms.

There are also abstract logical "if-then" facts.

Experience, observation and experiment are completely consistent with the physical world consisting on nothing other than that system of inter-referring "if-then"s.

Of course our experience with the details of that physical system consist largely of hearing from physicists about what they've found out by their experiments. But, in any case, statements about our physical world can still be stated as "if-then" statements.

For example, if I say that there's a traffic roundabout at the intersection of 34th & vine, that's the same as saying that if you go to 34th & Vine, you'll encounter a traffic-roundabout.

Declarative grammar is convenient, but maybe we start believing too much in our grammar. Maybe conditional grammar is what more accurately describes our physical world.

Anyway, where I differ from others who have suggested Eliminative Ontic Structuralism is that I suggest that this hypothetical system of inter-related "if-then"s, this "possibility-story", consists of your own personal life-experience possibility-story.

Hence "Eliminative Ontic Structural Non-Realism".

I call my that metaphyiscal proposal "Skepticism", because it makes no assumptions and posits no brute-facts. Complete rejection of assumptions is certainly skeptical, justifying my name for the metaphysics that I propose.

I claim that Skepticism is the parsimonious metaphysics, favored by Ockham's Principle of Parsimony.

A also claim that Skepticism qualifies as a version of Vedanta. Vedanta has several versions, of which Advaita is the most popular. Skepticism differs from Advaita, and the other usual Vedanta versions, but I claim that it shares the basic conclusions and consequences of Vedanta.

Michael Ossipoff

People make choices and then use energy to try to enact them. This is the experience of life. — Rich

I've told why that isn't your experience. But a person who is sufficiently committed to their beliefs can convince themselves of a fictitious experience.

You're committed to your anti-science, evolution-denying position, and we should just agree to disagree.

Michael Ossipoff

You science-hate is dominating you. Make peace with science.

You equate science with Nazism and everything evil. Want to try living in the pre-science Middle Ages, or the nearly-pre-science Inqujsition? You'd love that.

It is not only not obvious, it is contrary to all of my experiences. — Rich

As Schopenhaur said, "You can do what you will, but you can't willl what you will."

Or you could say:

You can't want or not want something because you want to want or not want it.

Your choices are determined by your predispositions (learned or built-in preferences, likes, dislikes), and the information available to you about your surroundings.

Rather like a Roomba.

Not only are your choices deterministic, but in fact they're deterministic from your own point of view.

You can't very well call that "free-will".

There is simply not scintilla of evidence to support determinism

...other than the fact that every choice you make is for a reason--a reason that is a pre-disposed preference of yours or a fact about your surroundings. ...and you can't choose your wants and preferences? :)

Michael Ossipoff

Isn't it obvious that, even from our own point of view, our choices are deterministic?

You choose based on your preferences, how you feel, and on the set of alternatives.

If your feelings are subconscious, and you don't know their reasons,you're still going by an assessment of the situation..

Sometimes you make some sort of intuitive, rough "game-theory" (in quotes because it usually isn't explicit, mathematical, or even conscious) assessment of a situation. Whether that game-theory assessment is intuitive or mathematical doesn't matter. You're still acting based on your predisposition, feeling, and assessment of the situation.

Even from your own point-of view, your choices are deterministic.

Compatibility? Does it make any sense to quibble about whether deterministic responses, resulting from external situations, and our predispositions, are free-will? I'd call it a meaningless question, but if a Y/N answer is needed, isn't "No" the one that seems more reasonable?

Michael Ossipoff

A right to be unhappy??

Shit, some people have an obligation to be unhappy!

:D

Michael Ossipoff

Sir2u Good job. This way you never negate any component of your velocity vector at any time. — Joseph

As others have already pointed out, the notion that that gets you back faster is a fallacy.

As has been pointed out, just propel yourself directly back toward home.

In general, if you were moving other than directly away from home, you'd want to change your velocity such that the the vector sum of your current velocity and the velocity-change, is toward home.

If you're currently moving away from home, then yes, you should just add propel yourself directly towrard home, in direct opposition to your current motion.

You're drifting through deep space traveling directly away from home base and mission command tells you to return immediately to defend an alien invasion — Joseph

Don't you mean to defend against an alien invasion? Not quite the same thing.

But you're low on fuel and you need to get there as quickly as possible. Your propulsion method is to eject mass in single chunks at high speed.

That sounds like a "mass-driver". It's basically a sort of catapult, maybe electrical or magnetic. They've been proposed for material mined from an asteroid, or a moon. Maybe they'll someday be used for that purpose.

Additionally, mass-drivers have been proposed as a way of changing the velocity of an asteroid on a collision-course with Earth--by launching pieces of the astroid from the asteroid's surface by means of a mass-driver. The obvious advantage is that it uses pieces of the asteroid's rock as reaction-mass.

But of course there could be other ways of using the asteroid's material as reaction-mass, by first pulverizing or vaporizing it, even though that requires additional energy.

Ideally, the mass-driver could just use solar energy, if pieces of the asteroid can feasibly be separated for use with the mass-driver.

But using big chunks of matter as reaction mass--I've never heard that proposed for space-travel. For one thing, big pieces can't be hurled as fast as an ion-stream. Where reaction-mass is scarce, and and is the limiting factor, and energy is plentiful, then the highest exhaust-speed available is desirable.

Ion-exhaust engines have been proposed for space vehicles for some time.

High velocity exhaust requires more energy for a given amount of impulse, but less reaction-mass. Thrust is usually low, because of the higher power-requirement per pound (or Newton, or dyne) of thrust.

Michael Ossipoff

You said:

My single 74 year old sister is available

But I thank you for the offer anyway, though I'm not interested.

But don't give up on my account. Maybe youwill be able to pimp-out your sister.

Michael Ossipoff

maybe we'll wrangle again elsewhere at some point. — Noble Dust

No, my time is too valuable to discuss anything with someone who has expressed disinterest in what I say.

(It won't mean that you've said something irrefutable)

Michael Ossipoff

Are you looking for a girl friend? — Bitter Crank

No, thanks anyway, but that's ok, I don't really need 2 girlfriends..

My single 74 year old sister is available

No thanks, I wouldn't want to marry into your family. She might let you visit the house, and that wouldn't be acceptable.

She's totally immune to anything with double meaning--sarcasm, complicated jokes, figures of speech, etc. I think it's an early sign of alzheimers.

It's a sign of taking a forum's topic and guidelines seriously.

If you don't, that's no business of mine, but I'd prefer to not hear from you.

For your sister's sake, I hope she has the good judgement to not include you among her associates. It isn't her fault whom she's related to, or what she has for a brother.

You two could go down hill together.

Evidently this forum-website doesn't have much farther downhill to go, if it permits postings such as the one that I'm replying to..

Michael Ossipoff

So how are you a physicalist then? — Noble Dust

Yeah we've already been over this.

I don't call myself a Physicalist..I'm not a metaphysical Physicalist.

But "Physicalist" is evidently used with two different meanings.

A metaphysical Physicalist (which is what I mean by "Physicalist") is someone who claims that this phsyical world is independently existent, and is the fundamental, primary Reality, the fundamental, primary Existent.. ...and is Reality itself.

But Physicalism is used with a 2nd meaning too "Philosophy-of-mind Physicalism evidently refers to the position that we're completely described by our physical definition or description, without such nonphysical separate entities as spirits, mind, or consciousness.

Though I'm not a metaphysical physicalist, I probably would be called a philosophy-of-mind Physicalist.

When I say "Physiclism", without a qualifying-phrase, I'm referring to metaphysical Physicalism.

I'll often denote philosophy-of-mind Physicalism by the abbreviation "pomp, to avoid a long phrase.

I'm confused at this point.

Well, I've been fairly explicit.

You're posting a lot of stuff in this thread, and I've kind of lost the thrust of it, as well as my own interest in it.

Well then it's a good thing that you let me know now.

I misunderstood, and thought you were interested in these subjects, and might be interested in my comments. Otherwise I wouldn't have posted comments to you. But alright, sure, there won't be any more comments to you, since you aren't interested.

But, in return, I'm not interested in hearing from people who aren't interested, so let's not hear from you agaIn, O Noble Dust.

I was responding to a very specific problem I thought I saw, and kept my comments very specifically about that (consciousness), but at this point I'm having a hard time understanding your views on any of these topics.

Then just disregard it.

Michael Ossipoff

What book was it? — Michael Ossipoff

Sorry, but it would be uncouth for me to explain. — Wosret

Oh, ok, the only good book during the '50s or '60s was porno.

Forgive me, but I must admit that I'm not good at, or interested in, the sarcasm game. I assume that people mean what they say. I have no guess about what you mean, but that's ok..

Michael Ossipoff

Noble Dust:

Regarding the timelessness at the end of lives, I should add that that stage, with no time, events, body, identity, problems, lack, incompletion, or any knowledge that there ever were or could be such things, is close on the way to what we worldly-beings could call "Nothing".

It's at the end of lives. I haven't claimed that our life-experience possibility-stories are objectively real, though I call them "actual" to us.

I suggest that that Timelessness that is arrived at before shutdown, and that full Nothing that is being approached then, has more reality than the relative world of possibility-stories.

So, during shutdown, as the former-person reaches timelessness, in close approach to Nothing, that person is approaching a state-of-affairs that's more real, natural, and basic than hir previous lives, life-experience possibility-stories, in the relative worlds.

Of course each life seems very long, and it's said that we live lots of them. But their overall duration is slight, in comparison to the Timelessness at the end of lives.

...not that any of us are even anywhere near close to that end-of-lives.

Michael Ossipoff

I forgot to answer your initial question. No, I haven't heard of Dante's four levels of meaning--Was that what he's best known for writiting about levels of? :)

Michael Ossipoff

Ever hear of Dante's four levels of meaning? — Wosret

I can understand why he would have gotten so deep into analysis

I believe it was Martin Gardner who annotated it.

Did he do it in order to ruin the humor?

I mean, there was only one good book back then

What book was it?

The Annotated Alice was annotated by Martin Gardner, and was probably published in the '60s, or maybe the '50s, at the earliest, most likely. There were probably a few good books at that time.

.
Dum dum tis.

Reword?

Michael Ossipoff

...And, knowing that, those people in future millennia probably wont revive crionic frozen bodies. ...because they'll know that it accomplishes nothing whatsoever for the patient who got hirself frozen. ...someone who died long ago, and is irretrievably gone.

Michael Ossipoff

I couldn't find this thread, till I checked the Interesting-Things heading. Hence my late reply.

I agree with what you say is true, but I also that such problems are aspects of the human condition and blaming people for being suckers in certain situations is almost like blaming animals for having to walk on four legs instead of two. — dclements

Agreed. They're just the way they they were evolved and born to be.
C

Often when we are young we can sense that the world is messed up but in order to fit in and/or maintain our sanity we cut ourselves off from some of these senses and if the powers that be rig the system to take advantage of us because we take part in a kind of group which has this negative aspect of it, I'm not sure what can be done about it.

Nothing can be done about it.

Fortunately this possibility-world is only one of infinitely-many possibility worlds. This one is the Land-Of-The-Lost. According to Eastern traditions, there are much better worlds.

Or maybe we are already partly HARDWIRED to be sheep because of an aspect of evolution which happen in the past. — dclements

Certainly.

If reincarnation exists I think it works in that whatever animals or plants that use the water, minerals, vitamins, etc are sort of "you" (just as "you are a sort of a representation of any being that used the same resources that makes up you at this particular moment) after you are no longer here — dclements

Reincarnation isn't about the re-use of material resources. It's about a continuity of experience from one life to another. That life needn't be, and presumably wouldn't usually be, in the same world as the previous one. (But it would likely at least be in a very similar one, being a continuation.)

but since there is no construct to save our memory and our mind (the main source of what makes up our conscience), I have a bit of a problem with any reincarnation that doesn't resolve this.

Correct, there is no such construct in Physicalism ("Naturalism")

If you believe in Physicalism or Naturalism, then, in your belief, there can be no reincarnation.

I've described my metaphysics at various topic-threads,.

Reincarnation is consistent with, and maybe even implied by, my metaphysics, which I call Skepticism.

Briefly, I point out that the same reason for this life of yours beginning, will remain at the end of this life. ...meaning that you'll be in another life, after this one, for the same reason that you're in this one.

In Physicalism, that wouldn't make any sense. I'm not a Physicalist.

I go into that matter more, in the Reincarnation topic-thread.

Because of this I think it is probably best for anyone/everyone to delay going off to the great beyond

No argument there. We're here for a reason, because we want or need to be in a life, and you're not done till you're done.

, even if it takes being put into an ice cube for centuries or millenniums is need be.

Certainly not.

If you strongly don't feel that you'll be done at the end of this life, then you probably won't be, and you'll probably be reincarnated. In fact, that's a certainty, according to Eastern traditions, and I tend to agree with them on that. You'll be reincarnated unless you're that very rare person who has genuinely completed hir (his/her) lives, and has, remaining, no un-discharged consequences of consequence-causing acts.

Neither you, nor I, nor probably anyone we know, fits that description of that very rare kind of person.

But Cryonics, which you've referred to, doesn't guarantee anything. When you die, and they freeze your body, and then thaw it millennia later, and repair it as good as new, that won't be you. It will be someone just like you. But you died. Reviving the body won't change that.

Michael Ossipoff

A fetus, by definition, attempts to live and grow unless impeded from doing so by external factors. — Thorongil

Yes, the infant, and therefore the fetus s/he was, could be expected, if only by natural-selection, to want life.

Michael Ossipoff

Fairness doesn't require that we're all the same one Consciousness.

You're the the central, primary and essential component of your life, because your life is an experience-story about your experience.

At center, we're identical, and that includes woodrats too. But entities can be identical to eachother without being the same entity. Leibnitz said something about identical entities being merely different instances of one entity, whatever that means. Different electrons that are identical to eachother aren't the same electron in any meaningful sense.

That isn't the only thing that Leibnitz said that I disagree with. Another example is his expression of the Hard-Problem-Of-Consciousness.

At the end of lives (or--if you don' t believe in reincarnation--at the end of this life), late during the body-shutdown at death, is when our identicalness becomes fact. At that time the question about whether we're different identical entities, or instances of one entiity becomes meaningless. ...except, for each of us, that experience originated from a different animal, and so there's no reason to call us all the same entity.

Until that, we're each different persons/animals. That's what experience says, and any claim otherwise is an assumption.

Michael Ossipoff

Except your inclusion of all "if-then" statements counters thins since many "if-then" statements can be assumptions or brute-facts — Thanatos Sand

You could write if-then facts that are brute-facts, as I myself have said.

But what I said was that Skepticism doesn't need or use assumptions, or posit brute-facts.

You can posit brute-fact "if-then"s if you want to.

I'm not positing them. My point was that Skepticism doesn't posit them. Take that as part of the definition of Skepticism.

Many or most other metaphysicses, including Physicalism ("Naturalism") do need and use assumptions, and do posit, and depend on, brute-facts.

That's the difference.

Thanatos has again descended to his full troll-ness, and it's time for me to declare this conversation concluded.

Bye, Thanatos.

Michael Ossipoff

analyzing jokes makes them not funny before — Wosret

That's why I don't think The Annotated Alice [...In Wonderland] was any good.

Michael Ossipoff

You just made Skepticism the uber-concept that can "simulate every metaphysics." That gives it all meaning and no meaning. — Thanatos Sand

I'm not quite sure what that means.

Regarding metaphysicses that (maybe via elaborate contrivance) explain this physical world:

Of course every one of them simulates all of the others, during your life, because, during your life, they're all indistinguishable from eachother.

That's all i was saying.

If people want to know what your personal use of the term Skepticism means, I suggest you write out a hard, clear definition of it.

I've defined, at great length and in great detail, the metaphysics that I call Skepticism.

I've also quoted dictionary definitions of skepticism, the common noun.

I've justified Skepticism as the name of my metaphysics, by the fact that complete rejection and avoidance of assumptions is skeptical.

If you have a specific objection to, or question about, Skepticism, feel free to say what it is.

But we've been over this many times already. Must we repeat this conversation forever?

Michael Ossipoff

I've often wondered why infants cry at birth. Wouldn't that attract predators, and therefore be maladaptive and therefore selected against?

Michael Ossipoff

You exist at the moment of conception. You're apparently trying to say that you don't exist until you're born, which is absurd. — Thorongil

Of course, you existed as a fetus before birth.

Ok, that just changes what moment is being talked about.

Before birth, you might have wondered what's going on, and why. And certainly even moreso again at the relatively sudden event of birth.

And, at birth, and maybe before it too, you might have felt an opinion about not wanting this unexplained state of affairs, about which you obviously, at any time during those times, had no choice.

But that's just hypothetical. I'm not saying for sure that you had an opinion that you didn't want what was happening. That probably isn't knowable, and there's some basis for arguing to the contrary (as suggested in my other post). Maybe you felt it to be an interesting, exciting, promising, adventure.

Michael Ossipoff

But of course every metaphysics that is contrived to somehow, in its own elaborate way, explain this physical world, can be simulated by Skepticism. ...because, during your life, those metaphysicses can't be distinguished from eachother or from Skepticism.

At the end of this life, that's the only time when the different metaphysics have different conclusions or consequences. At that time, you won't be conscious enough to know that, though. And so the indistinguishableness is never really observed to be breached.

Michael Ossipoff

Noble Dust:

I take it back. I shouldn't say that there's no such thing as bare, pure Consciousness.

There is, for everyone, at the end of lives (or, if you don't believe in reincarnation, at the end of this life), a time, during death, during body-shutdown, when you there's no time, and no knowledge that there ever was time, events, individuality, identity, a life, or a body.

At that time, of course there is what you could call bare, pure Consciousness.

I've been saying, "You are the body.", but, at that time, near shutown, at the end of lives, that can't be said.

Michael Ossipoff

Will you forget about the nightmare before the shutdown is complete? I can't guarantee it. — Michael Ossipoff

What I mean was:

Will the nightmare end before the shutdown is complete? I can't guarantee that.

You might say, "No problem, it's over after shutdown."

But you never experience "after shutdown". Only your survivors experience that time.

What do you experience?

By the time full shutdown is near, you don't experience time, and you have no idea that there ever was such a thing as time. You've reached timelessness.

Yes, the body will shut down, but you don't know that, because you have no idea that there ever was one anyway,

I suggest that, therefore, shutdown doesn't matter to you at that point, and that, for you, nothing changes due to shutdown, because you've already arrived at timelessness. The body quits, and of course your experience ends, but you don't know about that.

Now, obviously it would make a difference, whether or not your nightmare ends before shutdown. But I doubt that anyone could guarantee that it would. Will you be dominated, right to the end, by a dread sense that something really bad has happened?

Michael Ossipoff

Yes it does. — Thorongil

But couldn't you have that perception at the beginning of your life?

"I don't want to be here. How did this happen?"

As a newborn, aren't you forced?

Michael Ossipoff

"I've always had the feeling that Schopenhaur1 has about this. I always said, "I never chose to be born."

And of course it's true."— Michael Ossipoff


It's only true in the trivial sense that you didn't exist prior to being born, which is in fact a mere tautology — Thorongil

It doesn't matter, because tautologies are no less true by being tautologies.

A newborn is bewildered, and maybe frightened. All of us find ourselves here without it being obvious that we wanted to be here.

Tautology or not, of course it's true (except for the considerations that I mentioned in my previous post).

, but not in the sense that you were forced to exist.

Not entirely, for the reasons that I mentioned in my previous post.

But being forced into life doesn't require that you were a pre-existing person who was then forced into life. Being forced into life is something that can be said of the newly-existing person brought into the world.

As of the time of your conception and birth, that's when that new you was forced into life,

Listen to what a newborn has to say about that.

Michael Ossipoff

I've always had the feeling that Schopenhaur1 has about this. I always said, "I never chose to be born."

And of course it's true.

But, now, my criticism of my (now passed-on) parents isn't that they brought me into the world. It's just that they were thoroughly unqualified as parents.

I believe that not just anyone should be allowed to create and raise kids. There should be qualifications and evaluations. And removal should be a lot easier and more frequent than it is now.. Just speaking from experience.

Anyway, as Schopenhaur1 has agreed, this matter is moot, because, by some metaphysicses, including mine, not reproducing in this world doesn't really prevent any births overall, because all that's needed for a birth is the mere possibility of a world in which not everyone practices birth-control.

Anyway, of course life isn't all bad. It has really good potential. And, reluctantly, I have to admit that there's a sense in which my birth was partly because of me. A life-experience possibility-story's Protagonist is someone about whom there can be a life-experience story. That story, with a Protagonist just like me, was already always there, and it's a life-experience possibility-story only because of its Protagonist who would have to be someone inclined to be involved in life, with some inclination toward life.

According to Eastern traditions, there's such a thing as people who, by long diligent practice, in many lives, now have no strong sense of identity, or involvement in life, or stake in life, such as inclinations, needs or wants. ...and no un-discharged consequences remaining from previous consequence-producing actions. There wouldn't be another life-experience possibility-story about such a person.

Obviously, then, there could this life-experience possibility-story about me only because I'm not such a person.

So, people who are born are people who want and like life. Yes, you could say that about fighting-roosters and their the fighting that they're bred to want. But of course the difference is that that breeding is artific[ally done to them by humans.

Michael Ossipoff