I’d said:
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If you can consider the Simulation-Theory, then you won’t have any objection to my statement that there’s no reason to believe that this physical world other than the setting in an experience-story consisting of the hypothetical logical system that I’ve described.

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This suffers the same fatal flaw that the argument from illusion suffers.

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A simulation is of something other than itself. The word is nonsensical if not used in a comparative sort of way. An illusion of an oasis necessarily presupposes that there is an actual oasis. A simulation of a universe presupposes an actual universe.

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…because what’s the simulation supposed to be a mock-up of, if not a real physical world? Sure, and it’s assumed that there’s a genuinely objectively existent world in which the computer is running…or maybe an infinite regress of them, with each one turning out to be a simulation being run in the next one….
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But that objection doesn’t apply to the hypothetical life-experience story that I suggest. The fact that the experiencer often takes his/her experience to happen in an objectively, fundamentally, primarily, existent physical world doesn’t mean that there is such a world….or any physical world other than the hypothetical story-setting that’s part of that hypothetical experience-story, a complex system of inter-referring abstract implications and some mutually-consistent configuration of the truth-values of their propositions.
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Michael Ossipoff

There is a considerable difference between acknowledging that something is logically possible, that it might be physically possible…

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You’re making an un-acknowledged and unsupported assumption of an objective physical reality in addition to and different from the hypothetical logical system that I speak of. My statements assume no such thing, or anything else.
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As I’ve said, there’s no physics experiment that shows, implies or suggests that this physical world is other than a hypothetical setting in an experience-story, a hypothetical logical system such as I’ve been describing.
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What, it wouldn’t be real? I didn’t claim that it is.
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, considering it to be plausible, thinking it is likely and actually believing in it.

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You choose to believe in it (your objectively existent physical world additional to and different from what I’ve described).
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And I'm thinking here of empirical scenarios. The "simulation theory" is an empirical, not a metaphysical scenario.

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The “Simulation-Theory” is based on metaphysical assumptions.
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…but at least it acknowledges a questioning of the objective fundamental and primary existence of our physical world.
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If you can consider the Simulation-Theory, then you won’t have any objection to my statement that there’s no reason to believe that this physical world other than the setting in an experience-story consisting of the hypothetical logical system that I’ve described.
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But the story was/is there without a computer to simulate, portray, illustrate, duplicate it. The only thing that the simulating-computer and its running accomplish is the display of the simulated story for its audience.

Someone's computer, and its running of a program, can't "make" something that there already is.

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Michael Ossipoff

So, if no one else on here agrees…

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To repeat:
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1, There’s rampant disagreement here. How many people here agree with eachother about metaphysics?
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2. You’re evidently very socially-oriented, placing social-support over discussion of the topic itself. I don’t agree with those priorities.
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3. My topic (though philosophical and a subset of metaphysics) isn’t what most people here are talking about. You’re mistaking that difference with disagreement with what I’m saying. I’m not tackling the ambitious ultimate-reality topic, but have been limiting my discussion to a much more modest topic of what can be uncontroversially-said.
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2. As I’ve been saying:
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I’m not the only proponent of what I’ve been saying. I’ve named some people who agree. You’re disregarding that, when you say that there’s no agreement. There is, and it goes back at least to 1844 in Euro-American culture. (…and long before that in India.)
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As for people on this forum, litewave has said things that agree with what I’ve been saying. In fact, when I first visited this forum, I was dismayed to find that he’d posted some of it here before I did.
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Just today I ran across this quote from Jim Holt, who wrote a book of his interviews on the subject of why there’s something instead of nothing:
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Holt: I see consciousness and why-something-not-nothing as two facets of a single mystery: What is reality? Although the structure of reality [He means physical reality] is mathematical, the “stuff” of reality is consciousness. In Platonic terms, [physical] reality consists of phenomena (conscious appearances) imitating mathematical Forms. If that sounds daft, try to imagine a world devoid of consciousness--a world “as it is in itself,” one uncontaminated by sentience. All you end up with is an abstract mathematical structure. What sense does it make to say that this structure has an existence [I’ve been saying all along that I don’t claim existence or reality for it] that is robustly physical, as opposed to merely mathematical? So the problem of existence is inseparable from the problem of consciousness.

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I avoid the subject of Reality, and limit my discussion to describable metaphysics, and things uncontroversiallly-say-able. What Holt is quoted saying, above, agrees with what I’ve been saying about physical “reality”.
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Instead of emphasizing a supposed lack of agreement, more meaningful criticism and objection would require addressing the topic itself.
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…with your "one true self-evident metaphysical system" (which is not a metaphysical system at all in any conventional sense…

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Of course it isn’t, and I’ve admitted that.
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1. As Wayfarer pointed out, metaphysics is often or usually defined much more broadly than my more modest topic. I’ve already discussed and admitted that in previous posts.
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2. Strictly-speaking, I haven’t really been proposing a way that I claim things are (even at the describable-level).
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I’ve been repeatedly admitting that I can’t prove that the physical world doesn’t additionally, superfluously, unparsimoniously, unverifiably and unfalsifiably consist of more than what I’ve described it as.
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Wanting to avoid controversial statements, I’ve merely said that there’s no reason to believe that it does.
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Saying that doesn’t amount to proposing a metaphysics. It’s a more modest metaphysical statement.
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…since it relies on no speculative premises)

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Exactly! And that’s been the stated purpose of what I’ve been saying. Avoidance of assumptions, brute-facts, unsupported premises, and speculation.
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…an intention to say only uncontroversial things.
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Earlier, when I told you that I don’t want to say things that anyone would disagree with, you said that that’s because I’m not saying anything.
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What I’m saying is so modest that you said that I’m not saying anything.
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Sure. Here’s a brief summary of what I’m saying:
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There are abstract implications, and complex systems of inter-referring abstract implications about hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things.
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For these systems of implications, there are various mutually-consistent configurations of truth-values for their antecedent propositions. (Of course, in many instances, an antecedent of one implication is the consequent of another implication.)
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Among the infinity of such hypothetical systems and their mutually-consistent configurations of hypothetical proposition-truth-values, there inevitably is one that models your experience. There’s no reason to believe that your experience is other than that.
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As Faraday pointed out in 1844, there’s no physics experiment that can show, suggest or imply that the physical world is other than such a hypothetical logical system. (Holt said the same in the above quote).
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What’s that you say? That sounds like an “unfalsifiable theory”? No, we apply that criticism only to unverified theories. We don’t apply it to uncontroversially-inevitable things, that aren’t theories at all.
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My emphasis is maybe different, because I speak of that system as an experience-story, with experience primary to it, and with the physical-world being only the setting in that story. …whereas the physicists I refer to have spoken of the system from an objective point-of-view, with the physical world primary in it…as is the natural and customary point-of-view for physicists.
-------------------------------
Anyway, the apparent “disagreement” here, with what I’m saying amounts only to a difference in topics. I’m purposely talking about a much more modest and less broad topic, so as to not say things that someone would disagree with.
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..they are all wrong?

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Of course most other participants in these forums aren’t “wrong” to discuss topics different from mine. But when someone objects to what I say, then, instead of calling him “wrong”, I merely invite him to support his objection with specifics about mis-statements, wrong premises, conclusions that don’t follow, etc.
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Anyway, litewave, and various people outside this forum, have said things that agree with what I’ve been saying.
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Michael Ossipoff

no one else on here agrees — Janus

But Michael Faraday did.

And Frank Tippler and Max Tegmark partly agree.

And the many people here who believe in, or at least consider possible, the Simulation-Theory, agree with me to a greater degree than you might think.

Michael Ossipoff

So, if no one else on here agrees with your "one true self-evident metaphysical system" they are all wrong? — Janus

1. Strictly speaking, even by the less-broad way I've been using the word "metaphysics", what I've been proposing isn't really a true metaphysics, because I'm not asserting how things are. I'm merely saying that there's no reason to believe that this physical world is more than I've described.

What I've been saying could better be called a metaphysical statement, rather than a metaphysics.

I agree with those here who say that it's impossible to reliably say that things are a certain particular way, that a particular metaphysical description is the correct one. The matter is undecidable.

That's why I don't assert that it isn't true that, superflously, unparsimoniously, unverifable and unfalsifiably, your experience is (in some way) more than the hypothetical experience-story that I've described.

And likewise I don't assert that this physical world isn't more than the hypothetical setting in that hypothetical story.

I merely say that there's no reason to believe that your experience is more than that, or that this physical world is more than that.

2. Instead of calling someone "wrong" if he doesn't agree with my statement in the paragraph directly above this one, I merely invite him to share with us what's wrong with my argument for that statement. ...or why the statement is incorrect.

Isn't that better than assertions about "wrong"?

3, We often hear mutually-contradictory theories here. Can they all be right?

Michael Ossipoff

I can't see how your metaphysics could be both free of speculation, and "debatable". — Janus

Something can be valid, non-speculative, and still debatable--if someone wants to make a losing debate by taking an incorrect position.

"Debatabe" needn't mean "speculative", "undecidable" or "indeterminate". The square root of 31 is debatable by two students, one of whom is doing the problem wrong.

If it were totally unreliant on speculation, then it would self-evident to everyone and simply undebatable.

Not necessarily. In various areas (but maybe especially in philosophy), people have prejudices and prior positions that they don't easily reconsider. That makes plenty of opportunity for debates. Something can be correct, without being self-evident to people who are (maybe subconsciously) prejudicially attached to their position.

It happens all the time here, doesn't it?

Michael Ossipoff

What's the point of discussing it if you make up your own meaning for the term 'metaphysics"? — Janus

Now that Wayfarer mentioned it, I did once notice a dictionary definition of metaphysics as the discussion of Ultimate Reality. ...much more ambitious a topic than what I discuss.

You're right, that I shouldn't use a word with a definition different from its standard meaning.

So instead of "metaphysics", maybe i should say "describable, assertable, debatable metaphysics".

(...or replace that with an abbreviation of some kind).

Michael Ossipoff

Empirical beliefs cannot be premises for metaphysical speculations. — Janus

Anything that we agree on can be used as a premise.

And no, my metaphysical proposal didn't include speculation. As I said, there's no place for speculation in metaphysics (...but I admit that (as Wayfarer pointed out) my meaning for "metaphysicss" is less broad than the usual one.)

Michael Ossipoff

The only things we generally agree on "from our experience" are empirical matters. — Janus

...like the ones that I named as premises.

Michael Ossipoff

I’d said:
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That words don't describe Realiity is easily shown by the fact that no finite dictionary can non-circularly define any of its words.

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You replied:
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You have an argument to support that claim?

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No.
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I sometimes comment on the limitations of words, description, debate, assertion and proof, but I don’t debate it.
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If you believe and argue that words describe all of Reality, then you can win that argument without opposition.
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…even if one might wonder how words, none of which can even be noncircularly defined, can accurately describe Reality.
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I’d said:
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What assumption(s) do you think it [Faraday’s or my metaphysics] depends on?

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You replied:
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I don't know. I have no idea what you are trying to say in your post after the sentence quoted above.

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On the previous occasion when you said that, I invited you to specify a particular claim, conclusion, statement, sentence, phrase, word or term that you didn’t understand the meaning of, and said that, if you did so, I’d be glad to clarify it.
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But, if you don’t, or if you say that you just don’t understand anything that I say, then obviously there’s no point in my saying anything to you, and you’ve concluded this conversation.
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If it is a claim you are trying to make, though, it must rest on some premise in order to count as a claim at all

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…and that’s why, in a recent reply, one or two posts ago, I repeated the two premises of my argument for my metaphysics.
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But I repeat that I don’t assert that this physical world isn’t more than what I’ve described. I merely point out that there’s no reason to believe that it’s more than, or other than, that.
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, and no premises are true by definition.

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Mine were things that we agree on, from our experience.
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It’s good for the premise(s) of an argument to be things that are agreed-on.
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…your definition of events as "if-then propositions"...

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I don’t have time to correct mis-quotes. Usually I won’t copy or mention them.
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I realize that it can be difficult to even consider anything different from what we’ve been taught, starting in primary-school. I just want you to know that I understand about that.
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But Empiricism and Subjective-Idealism have been expressed by a number of highly-respected classic-philosophers.
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In fact, even today, there are Idealists and Non-Substantialists.
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So, let’s not try to claim that such proposals are philosophically beyond-the-pale.
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In particular, physicist Michael Faraday was and is highly-respected, with full credibility.
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Frank Tippler and Max Tegmark, too, are well-established physicists.
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(…but they’re mistaken when they say that this physical universe is or might be someone’s computer-simulation).
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…but, speaking of the “Simulation-Theory”, lots of people here believe it, advocate it, or at least consider it a possibility. It isn’t. But if you believe it or consider it, then you’re closer than you think to Faraday’s metaphysics.
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Michael Ossipoff

If by "brute-fact" you mean "unsupported axiom" that would apply to all metaphysics. — Janus

Most of metaphysics, yes. But not to the metaphysics that I propose.

The aim of any metaphysical theory is to postulate the fundamental nature of being or reality.

You're kidding, right?

That's a bit over-ambitious for metaphysics, a topic of discussion, description, debate, assertion..

You really believe that that covers all of reality?

That words don't describe Realiity is easily shown by the fact that no finite dictionary can non-circularly define any of its words.

Explain clearly for once just how your "Faraday" metaphysics doesn't depend on any assumptions.

What assumption(s) do you think it depends on?

The logical-mathematical relational-structure that Faraday referred to is just uncontroversially "there", In other words, there is it (...as I said, in the sense that we can speak of it).

In particular, the infinity of complex systems of abstract implications, with their hypothetical propositions, with their hypothetical truth-values. ...many configurations of mutually-consistent truth-values.

There's no need for an "assumption" that there are those things. There's no need for an assumption that there's one such that models the events of your experience. Uncontroversially, there is, and there is.

Maybe you believe in a brute-fact rule that says that our experience can't have that as its basis. But there's no physics experiment that says our experience is other than that relational structure that Faraday spoke of.

I can't prove that our physical world isn't more than the hypothetical setting for that hypothetical story. I only say that there' sno reason to believe that it's more than that.

Michael Ossipoff

There is no such metaphysics, since any consistent metaphysics is merely a valid elaboration of premises which cannot be demonstrated from within the system

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Sure, it would be circular if a premise for an argument for a metaphysics depended on something in the metaphysics that was being argued for.
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(if at all).

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Typically not at all, with nearly all metaphysicses.
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Nearly all metaphysicses depend on a brute-fact. Materialism is the familiar example of that.
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The metaphysics suggested by Michael Faraday’s comments, and which I’ve been advocating, from the subjective point-of-view, and with emphasis on its uncontroversial-ness, doesn’t have a brute-fact, or depend on any assumptions.
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This is analogous to the way the axioms of geometry cannot be proven geometrically except that metaphysical premises are not self-evident.

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The premises of my metaphysics are self-evident.
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1. There are abstract implications (implyings of one proposition by another—“If A were true, then B would be true.”), and complex systems of inter-referring abstract implications (at least there are those in the sense that we can speak of them). They relate hypothetical propositions about hypothetical things.
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There are infinitely-many such systems, each with many combinations of hypothetical truth values for their antecedents and consequents. Because an antecedent of one implication can be the consequent of other implications, of course many combinations of truth-values are impermissible due to inconsistency, because there’s no such thing as inconsistent facts
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2. We have the experience of being a physical biological organism in a physical world, a world that produced that organism via its physical events.
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Conclusion:
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There’s no reason to believe that the experience named in 2) is other than a system such as described in 1)
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Argument:
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Because there are infinitely-many systems such as described in 1), an infinite subset of them model an organism’s life-experience. Inevitably, among those infinitely-many systems, one of those models the events and relations of your experience, with no reason to believe that your experience is other than that.
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(But, when dealing with objections, the argument can become extended to larger discussion.)
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Michael Ossipoff

Of course it isn't possible to experimentally distinguish between metaphysicses...largely because many or most of them predict the same observations in the physical world, which is largely because many or most are contrived to agree with what we observe.

For example, suppose that there's a metaphysics that doesn't need any assumptions or brute-facts, and that what it says there metaphysically is, is something that's uncontroversially inevitable. And say that there's another metaphysics that has a brute-fact. Suppose both metaphysicses predict our physical world, as we find it.

It's undecidable whether there is what the 2nd metaphysics says there is, but what can be said is that there's no doubt about there being what the 1st one says there metaphysically is. It can also be said that the 2nd one is superfluous, and that it doesn't do well by the Principle of Parsimony, or the customary discrediting of unverifiable, unfalsifiable theories.

So there are definite things that can be uncontroversially-said about metaphysics.

I suggest that, in metaphysics, there's no place for speculation or matters-of-opinion.

For example, I don't go so far as to speculate about whether this physical universe is more than my metaphysics says it is (or whether there additionally is what Materialism says there is (whatever that is) ). I don't go so far as to express an opinion on that matter.. My metaphysics is only about what there metaphysically at least is.

Michael Ossipoff

A few things I forgot to mention:

Unless you can say for sure that there's no reason why you're in a life, then, if there is a reason, and, if at the end of this life that reason remains, then what does that suggest? Is it unreasonable to suggest that, due to that reason, you might again be in a life?

Anyway, whether there's reincarnation or not, even if there's only one life, the following can be said:

In the increasingly-deepening sleep at the end of lives (or the end of this life, if there's no reincarnation), there must eventually arrive a time when you no longer remember that there was such a thing as identity, time or events, etc. As far as you're concerned (and your subjective experience is what we're talking about here), you've entered timelessness.

Then I suggest that the temporary life (or temporary sequence of them) is only a blip in timelessness, and that (as I said in an early reply in this thread) the sleep at the end of lives is the natural, normal and usual state of affairs.

That being so then, with or without reincarnation, what happens in a life isn't as much to worry about as you think it is. It's still important, and real enough in its own context. It matters how we live. But, as a temporary blip in timelessness, it isn't the cause for worry, complaint, etc., that you think it is.

One problem here is that it's officially-decreed, and widely-accepted, that Materialism is the official default, the first presumption, assumed true unless proven false.

There being ;only one life is another assumed default first presumption, by those supposedly avoiding assumptions.

Actually, those assumptions have no more support than their alternatives. The fact that you're in a life at all is remarkable, and there's no such thing as a metaphysics that doesn't claim or suggest something remarkable or fantastic-sounding (...but, with Materialism, it's things that you're used to hearing, and have erroneously accepted as "scientific fact"..)

Materialism isn't the Ockham Parsimony winner. Far from it, with its brute-fact.

I've proposed a metaphysics that doesn't need a brute-fact or assumptions.
-----------------------------------
Actually, for some time now, some physicists have been saying that physics--quantum-mechanics in particular--has provided convincing evidence against Materialism.

Will philosophers cling to Materialism after more and more physicists have abandoned it?

Michael Ossipoff

I’m sorry about the critical ad-hominem language. It was because I didn’t think you were expressing a sincere worldview. But maybe you are, and I don’t think that disagreement should be angrily or critically expressed (a minority position here), and of course I should live up to my standards of forum-conduct.
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This is a brief preliminary reply, because the household emergency (discussed at the Ethics subforum here, under a “medical ethics” subject-line) still obtains and delays my forum-participation.
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As for absurdity, I won’t question that anymore, because with Materialism indeed comes absurdity. As I said, Absurdists are Materialists reacting to their own metaphysical belief (Materialism).
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Metaphysics is my chosen topic at these forums, because I like metaphysics, the matter of what-is (Yes, that’s called “Ontology” too.) For the purpose of this discussion, metaphysics makes all the difference in the matter why you’re in a life, and your complaint that you’re in life. ...something that you attribute to the absurd unexplained operation of a material world whose existence itself, under Materialism, is likewise an unexplained brute-fact.
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So that’s why I bring metaphysics into this topic.
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But I don’t think your pessimism would be supported even if Materialism were true.
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Reincarnation is something of a side-issue, with respect to your pessimism. I merely bring it up because you spoke of a “reprieve” at the end of this life. I argue, if you’re restless, then are you really going to accept rest at the end of this life? As I said, there’s obviously no such thing as oblivion. There’s no time when you perceive that there’s been an end to experience. Your eventual nonexistence will only be in the perception of your survivors. You shouldn’t put your hope in oblivion.
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You said:
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Why give people the tasks imposed on them by birthing them?

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I agree with AntiNatalism because the Earth is overcrowded, resulting in more resource-use, starvation, land-scarcity, and pollution of all kinds, including the kind that causes global-warming.
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But whether giving-birth causes a birth that wouldn’t have otherwise happened is a matter that Materialists and some Idealists (including me) disagree on.
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It’s the givens of life (survival, regulate comfort, regulate boredom..with emphasis on survival), through cultural means of social institutions. Its how humans function- from tribal to post-industrial societies. There is no way to avoid the impositions.

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Yes, the requirement for survival is a “given” of life. Your alleged need to fight boredom isn’t. It’s purely imaginary. Why this need for constant entertainment to fight boredom. Try letting yourself be bored. It might not be as bad as you fear. Or, as I said, just devote your effort to getting by, and doing good for others (human and otherwise). I’ve quoted and recommended two authors on “boredom” matter.
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I don't see your need for the metaphysics. What about this story you provide about having an identity metaphysically prior to conception that convinces you that it is true? What evidence do you have that this is the case?

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As I’ve said, there uncontroversially are infinitely-many complex systems of inter-referring abstract implication-facts…an infinite subset of which are life-experience possibility-stories such as yours.
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There’s no reason to believe that your experience is other than that.
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Such a story has or implies a protagonist, an experiencer, an essential complementary component of an experience-story.
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That’s why I say that you’re metaphysically-prior to your conception and birth.
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We already know the physical cause of birth, why this added metaphysical story?

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No one denies the physical account. In fact, I admit that I can’t even prove that your objectively-existent physical world doesn’t superfluously exist as an unverifiable and unfalsifiable brute-fact, alongside of, and duplicating the events and relations of the uncontroversially-inevitable logical system that I’ve described.
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The logical system isn’t “added”. It’s uncontroversially there. What’s superfluously added is the belief in a physical world that’s more than, other than, the setting in the experience-story that is the logical system that I’ve mentioned.
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I just don't see it. What evidence do you provide for reincarnation?

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No one has any memory of a previous life. There’s no evidence of that kind.
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It’s just that reincarnation is suggested by, follows reasonably from, an uncontroversial metaphysics.
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If that sounds unlikely or unbelievable, it’s less so than the at least equally-remarkable things that Materialists believe. (…but which don’t seem remarkable to you, because you’re used to them as a standard officially-annointed belief.)
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You say this life is “absurd”. …by which you mean that there’s no explanation for it (under Materialism). …but that doesn’t make you say that Materialism is a remarkable belief.
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Why is that a necessary part of a world-metaphysics?

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It isn’t. Reincarnation isn’t part of, or necessary to, my metaphysics (…which maybe I should call “Abstract-Implication Subjective Ontology (AISO), or something like that.)
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As I said above, it’s just that reincarnation is suggested by, reasonably follows form, an uncontroversial metaphysics,
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Yes, I am a materialist in the idea that everything is matter/energy inhering in time/space.

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Everything, all of Reality? But yes, that’s what Materialism believes. Materialism believes in a big, blatant brute-fact assumption.
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I don't see room for spiritual reasonings, when perfectly good explanations are had through empirical evidence.

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There’s no empirical evidence for Materialism. There’s un-denied empirical evidence for a physical world that we live in. But not for your Materialist metaphysical belief about it
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Materialists forget that their belief is, itself, a metaphysical belief, and not a privileged one.
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Strictly speaking, of course, all that you know about the physical world is from your experience. You have no empirical evidence for a physical world other than the one that is the setting that’s part of the hypothetical experience-story that I’ve described.
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Surely you’ve read about Empiricism in philosophy.
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Two gametes come together and this is the efficient cause of the new child. Nothing more is needed in that narrative.

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No one denies the physical mechanism of your conception, in the physical story. What Idealists don’t agree with is your unsupported, unfalsifiable and superfluous brute-fact belief in a physical world that is primary and fundamental, and that comprises all of Reality.
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…a belief that you, yourself, admit is absurd. (That’s how you characterize the world that you believe in.)
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More when I again have an opportunity to write.
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Michael Ossipoff






?

There is no such thing as an "if-then fact"; there are if-then propositions — Janus

Janus must be referring to the fact that, Propositional Logic is (unsurprisingly) about propositions.

Propositional logic is about the relations among propositions. It speaks of (A --> B) as a proposition that is true unless A is true and B is false.

there are if-then propositions

Of course there are. And Propositional Logic discusses them, because propositions and their inter-relations are what Propositional Logic is about.

But Janus is confusing that topic with what "implication" means.

An implication is an implying. ...an implying of one proposition by another.

That's different from a proposition about an implying of one proposition by another.

If there's an implying of B by A, that's the same as saying that A implies B, and that there's a fact that A implies B.

Depending on how someone insists on definitional-quibbling, an implication of B by A is a fact (...in keeping with a definition of a fact as relation among things (like propositions), or as the possession of a property by one or more things). ...or someone could quibblingly say that the only fact there is the fact that A implies B (...instead of calling the implication of B by A a fact).

In case someone takes the latter interpretation, I often say "implication-fact" instead of "implication.+

I say that also to distinguish what I'm referring to from an implication-proposition, in case someone thinks that's what "implication" means.

But I've clarified that by "an implication of B by A", I mean also a fact that A implies B. ...and certainly not a proposition that A implies B.

propositions are not facts.

Indeed they aren't.

I'm amazed you're still going on about this,

Yes, you brought this up some time ago, and I answered it then. You should be amazed that you're re-cycling the same already-answered objection again.

Michael Ossipoff

So then, just regard it as an unnecessary play that you, for some reason, started, and now are in,

...and now might as well go with, disregard and quiet your unnecessary worry and complaint, and let yourself enjoy (only if you'd like to), finding things that you like (only if you'd like to).

Michael Ossipoff

I suggest that Absurdism is some Materialist-Atheists' angst-ridden reaction to heir own beliefs.

...but they're right about the physical universe, and life, not having purpose or meaning. Where they're wrong is in their perceived need for life to have purpose and meaning.

Michael Ossipoff

Continuation of reply:

When we are born, we are tasked with life. That is our job. Life.

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…from an age when we didn’t know what was going on, with elder guardians (family & school) with questionable qualification and motivation, presenting and imposing their versions of that “task”. But the situation, at its worst, was largely imposed on us by those elders, and later by a societal-order in general, not by intrinsic aspects of life.
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So, as I and others have said, you’re mis-attributing to philosophical “how-things-are”, a situation that comes from the societal and individual levels.
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The metaphysical origin of a person’s life is highly relevant to the validity of your claims, but it’s time to agree to disagree about your Materialist beliefs regarding a person’s life’s origin.
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That leaves the matter of your instrumentality and forced-entertainment. In that matter, you’re asserting a doctrine that you evidently got from Arthur Schopenhauer. But the feelings that you describe are common. Most people didn’t learn them from Arthur Schopenhauer. He just officially articulated a common feeling.
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As various writers, including the two that I cited in a recent post, point out, your popularly-commonly-shared feelings about instrumentality and forced-entertainment are bizarrely, miserably, a**-backwards wrong.
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You and your respondents could, and do, go on forever arguing the matter, but no one can pry you free from your chosen doctrine. Can we agree on that too? I still say it’s serving a purpose for you, as a posturing-niche, a chosen schtick.
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For whatever reason (about which we can disagree), we find ourselves in this life, and then there’s the matter of what that life-situation is like, and how we can, should or have-to deal with it.
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Continuing what you were saying:
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This individual's drive to live (what Schopenhauer often called will-to-live), I have (not arbitrarily) split up this restless striving […if we choose restless striving] into three main categories (for at least the average human condition), and that is to say that we survive, find comfort/maintain our environment, and find ways to entertain our restless minds. These are essentially the drives for which our goals (formed by cultural/social/internal preferences) are grouped.

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Hinduism speaks of Prusharthas, often referred to in English as “life goals”. It has been suggested that Schopenhauer got his life-goal classification from them, as part of his selective cherry-picking.
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I’d suggest that “goals” is a misleading word, because it suggests goal-orientedness, which is unproductive. Maybe a better word would be “aspects of life”.
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we survive, find comfort/maintain our environment

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You list that as two “goals”, but that all seems to fit in “Artha”, the Purushartha of getting-by. Yes, that’s undeniably a requirement that life imposes on us. We can complain that we didn’t choose to be in this situation that has that requirement. I often feel that way myself, but it doesn’t philosophically hold up….as I’ve argued in previous posts here.
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and find ways to entertain our restless minds.

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That sounds like a peculiar mis-statement of the Hindu Purushartha of Kama—things that we like.
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The Hindu view is that, basically, life is play, for its own sake. Fundamentally there neither is, nor needs to be, any life-meaning other than that.
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(…though we can nevertheless get ourselves in an unnecessary harm-to-others snarl of our own making. …the subject of the Dharma Purushartha.)
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For one thing, things that you like are available options, not requirements. No one is forcing you to “entertain” yourself.
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For another thing, as I said before, of course there are things that we like, even among the Artha tasks. You don’t have to goal-orientedly pursue things that you like, because they’re everywhere, even in the getting-by tasks. …and likewise in things that one might do in regards to the Dharma (right-living) Purushartha.
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Kama, things we like, is of course the basis of that life-inclination, or will-to-life that we’ve both referred to, and thereby is the reason why you’re in a life.
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When the Purusharthas are listed, Artha, not Kama, is usually listed first. That can be justified by the fact that, though Kama is really the original basis of life, it isn’t something that has to be goal-orientedly pursued. (…said with apologies to you and Arthur Schopenhauer.)
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Next in your post, you speak of everything being “absurdity”. It’s impossible to evaluate those claims, without disclosure of your secret definition of “absurdity”.
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Some would say that what’s absurd (as defined by Merriam-Webster) is your attitude toward life. …even if you did get it from one of the philosophical classic-writers (Schopenhauer).
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Now, maybe some people don't see it that way- a majority doesn't even.

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No, I believe that most people erroneously share your feelings on those matters.
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I recognize that. It doesn't make this aesthetic understanding less true, just less known. People may not reflect much on the structure, may not see it.

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Some of us discuss structure, answering arguments about it…instead of just reciting a doctrine about it.
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I don't necessarily believe in Plato's ideas of forms but it is akin to seeing the forms of reality, versus living in its shadows perhaps.

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Come out of the shadows whenever you want to.
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Right now, you are playing the (unnecessarily) aggressive opponent to schopenhauer1 on this philosophy forum. Who knows what you really think out in the "real world" in the context of other various situations of life.

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Good point. I don’t want to promote a position at the expense of the questioning that any discussion needs. …either in this thread, or in the metaphysics threads.
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Sure, in truth, I often have feelings that are similar to your doctrinal beliefs. Some anxiety and insecurity, it seems to me, is natural and normal in life (…particularly in our societal-world, but in general too.)
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I admit that I often want to say, “I didn’t choose this!” Feeling it and making it into an unquestioned philosophical belief aren’t the same thing.
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if you asked people in a simple "yes" or "no" kind of way as to whether life is "good" or "worth it".

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Nisargadatta said that birth is a calamity, and I’m sure you’d agree with him on that. But you (at least subconsciously) chose that, wanted it, needed it, or were at least predisposed to it. Don’t blame anyone other than yourself.
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Worth what? The trouble of getting-by and dealing with the various hazards? That’s moot now, because, due to your will-to-life, you’re in it. In a meaningful sense, you chose it, and it’s pointless and unproductive to now second-guess that will-to-life that you had that brought you here. Did you make a wrong choice? Was this sequence of lives a bad idea? That’s irrelevant and moot now.
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Questioning birth, gives us a chance to step back and say, "Hold on, what exactly am I trying to do here by having this new person?. What does it mean to live life?

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It would be better to not reproduce, because doing so increases the world’s overcrowding.
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Am I giving opportunities, or a burden?
Does the person need to experience the deficits in order to overcome them that inevitably are part of life's experiences?

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That isn’t up to you. Someone who’s inclined to be born will born, even if everyone on this planet is a practicing celibate or birth-control-using Anti-Natalist.
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You aren’t causing life if you reproduce. But of course I agree that you’re contributing to Earth overcrowding.
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What is it that they are trying to do here?

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Good question. That’s my question, regarding my early life. …just on the societal-level, the combination of birth and subsequent harm by controlling-elders.
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But, philosophically, it didn’t happen because someone had sex and there happened to be a bad society.
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These get at the heart of the existential questions about why go through living in the first place."

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When this life began, you didn’t have conceptual waking-consciousness, and your subconscious will-to-life prevailed. You didn’t have an opportunity to make a conscious choice about it.
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As for the origin of this sequence of lives, you, metaphysically-prior to conception and birth, were someone who wanted, needed life. Why was that? Because, there are timelessly an infinity of life-experience possibility-stories, and yours is one of them. You can say that that will-to-life was a mistake for that prior-to-conception “you”, but, as I said, that’s moot now. The sequence of lives is started and underway. No choice now but to live with it. There’s no way back. Through is the only way out. As I said, once started, the sequence of lives will eventually resolve itself. So stop worrying about it, and allow yourself to enjoy it. No, it isn’t necessary or advisable to try to force yourself to achieve enjoyment. If it’s a bother, then don’t bother. Just concentrate your efforts on Artha and Dharma. Why not? Do you have something else to do? As I said, things that you like are there when you aren’t goal-orientedly pursuing “entertainment”.
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Just drop the unnecessary worry. See above about Kama and the nature of life as play.
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Next in your post is the part that I replied to yesterday.
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Michael Ossipoff

Clearly, the perfections of an imaginary God are nothing if such a god does not exist. — EnPassant

It has been said that only things, objects, elements of metaphysics "exist". It has been said that God isn't any of those things, and isn't a thing at all.

...unless you're a Fundamentalist.

What then is existence if it is not a property of anything but has properties?

Good question. "Existence" isn't metaphysically-defined.

It is the potential to actualise properties.

...to make properties actual? What does "actual" mean?

The definition that I've found some agreement on is:

"A physical part of, or consisting of, this physical universe."

In this respect existence must be a substance. An eternal substance that contains all possible properties and sustains all actual properties.

That just has arbitrarily-made-up sound. An unnecessary multiplication of entities, making for a crowded, assumption-heavy metaphysics.

Better to just say we don't have a definition of "exist".

Michael Ossipoff

Let me start with your last paragraph (and maybe also answer some of the other paragraphs in other than their original order):
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Why does this topic matter to you? You can easily just ignore it if you find it not worthy of discussion.

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But I clarified, at the beginning of one of my most recent replies, that I consider it worthy of discussion.
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How could those issues about goodness of, badness of, or reason for, life not matter?
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Tell me this, why are you so aggressively attacking this thread?

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I guess you could call it “attacking” whenever someone expresses disagreement, or tries to point to erroneous conclusions.
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Why is this so personal to you?

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I wouldn’t say that it’s personal to me, in the sense that it’s important to “win an argument”. Like the other people replying to you, I’m trying to help, trying to tell why your pessimism isn’t necessary.
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Also, unlike philosophical discussion that’s only of theoretical interest, your thread is about personal good-or-bad significance of things. So the topic is relevant and personal to everyone.
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These attacks on me, especially the contemptuous tone, and ad homiems thrown at me in general…

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Not at first. But, people get discouraged when you dismiss what everyone says, and only answer by repeating a doctrine. I call you on that when you do that, but I reply when you also post serious arguments.
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You mentioned sleep perchance to dream. Sleep seems the only reprieve. I don't know why you would discount it.

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I don’t discount it. In fact, I’ve been saying that the quiet and peaceful sleep at the end of lives is the timeless natural, normal and usual state-of-affairs. I’ve been saying that a worldly-life (or a sequence of them) is just a temporary blip in that timelessness.
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But I disagree with your notion of reprieve. You say that you’re restless. Then what makes you think that you’re going to accept rest, when you reach the end of this life? What makes you think that some physical event like the collapse of the body, is going to cure your restlessness and addiction to entertainment? I’m saying that, instead of just sleep, there will be “dream”, consisting of a continuation of your restless pursuit…until such time as you eventually resolve it…as you eventually will (or so it’s said). That restless pursuit doesn’t just go away, but it eventually resolves.
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Then that’s when there’s quiet, peaceful timeless rest. Very, very few people now qualify for that or subconsciously want it.
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It’s said that that’s normal, in the sense that practically none of us will be done with life at the end of this life.
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So I don’t discount the sleep at the end of lives. I merely suggest that you won’t be ready for it, won’t subconsciously want or have it, at that time during death when you don’t have conceptual waking consciousness. So the story, the striving, will continue and resume, beginning from birth again.
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This is just a brief preliminary reply. There may well be other things in your post that I can reply to.
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The other things that you say seem to imply and depend on a belief in Materialism, which I disagree with.
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I agree that we’re conceived and born with a will-to-life. But I claim that we’re already that person, with that will, and that, as that protagonist with that will-to-life, we’re metaphysically prior to conception and birth.
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So, it didn’t happen to you. You timelessly were/are, as someone predisposed to life and in a life.
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This life didn’t happen to you. It’s because of you and your predisposition to it.
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Again, this is a brief preliminary reply, and I might well find other things in your post to reply to.
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Michael Ossipoff

There is no such thing as an "if-then fact" — Janus

Incorrect.

There's such a thing as a propositions whose truth implies another proposition. When it's shown that the truth of one proposition implies the truth of another.proposition, then that implication has been shown to be a fact.

The obvious tautological syllogisms that I've posted (about Slitheytoves, etc.) here are implication-facts. They don't convey any new information, but they're nonetheless factual, even if trivially so.

A mathematical theorem that has been established to be true, has thereby been established to be an implication-fact. ...as I explained in a previous post.

; there are if-then propositions.

Of course. An implication-proposition is a proposition about an implication.

propositions are not facts.

Of course they aren't. They're just propositions.

I take "implication" to refer to a kind of fact. ...a fact that the truth of one proposition implies the truth of another proposition

Of course there can be a proposition about an implication. That would be an implication-proposition.

But, just in case someone here feels that "implication" means "implication-proposition", I say "implication-fact" to clarify that I'm referring to a fact. ...a fact that the truth of one particular proposition implies the truth another proposition.

It's not my experience, but an arbitrary add-on., an ad hoc, an 'after the fact'. — Janus

...because you've been experiencing things before this discussion started?

In an experience-story, of course you experience that story's propositions as "facts". what else would you expect?

As Faraday pointed out, all that physics experiments measure is relation.

But I haven't convincingly worded an answer to your objection, which is the same as T. Clark's initial objection. I iike my metaphysics because of its simplicity and assumption-less-ness. I posted my metaphysics here to find out what the arguments against it would be, and how they can be convincingly answered. ...and if they can.

It's true that I haven't convincingly answered your objection about your experiences not seeming "if-then".

Michael Ossipoff

There's nothing 'if-then' about my experience. You're conflating experience with possibility. — Janus

Every "fact" in your experience corresponds to, implies, and can be said as, an if-then fact.

"There's a traffic roundabout at the corner of 34th & Vine."

"If you go to the corner of 34th & Vine, you'll encounter a traffic roundabout."

Additionally, any "fact" about your experience corresponds to a proposition that is (at least part of) the antecedent of some implication-facts, and is the consequent of other implication-facts.

Conditional grammar describes the events of your experience as well as declarative indicative grammar.

What we call "facts" in our experience, correspond to hypothetical propositions that are part of the abstract implication-facts that I've mentioned.

A set of hypothetical physical quantity values, and a hypothetical relation among them (called a physical law), together comprise the antecedent of an implication fact. ....except that one of those hypothetical physical quantity-values can be taken as the consequent of that implication.



A proved mathematical theorem is an implication fact whose antecedent includes at least a system of mathematical axioms.

"Substantive" applies to propositions which refer to, or have implications for, actual experience, which merely logical propositions do not. — Janus

The complex system of inter-referring abstract implication-facts that is your life-experience possibility-story is all about your experience..

So, by your definition, it's substantive.

It's about your actual experience. In fact, it is your actual experience.

It is events and things of your physical world, in your experience, as experienced by you. It's that experience.

It goes without saying that that experience story is about your own body, as well as your surroundings as you encounter them and experience them.

"But the physical world seems so physical !"

What else would you expect, of the setting of an experience-story about the experience of being a physical being in a physical world?

As I said, there's no physics experiment that can demonstrate or suggest that your experience is other than the hypothetical experience-story that I've described.

As I always say, I can't prove that this physical world isn't, additionally, something else (whatever else you claim it is) other than the hypothetical system that I've described. ...something else that superflously, as an unverifiable & unfalsifiable brute-fact, duplicates the events and relations of the uncontroversially-inevitable hypothetical system that I describe.

Michael Ossipoff

I’d said:
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By the protagonist of a life-experience story, of course a physical world is perceived. Your experience is of being a physical being in a physical world. So, what else would you expect, than to experience a physical world that produced you, and is consistent with you.

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However, the mental is not so easily subsumed under the physical, so maybe I'm not entirely physical.

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Of course.
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The animal that each of us experiences being, is entirely physical.
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I agree that there’s more to it than that. Of course there is. You know there is.
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Experience is primary.
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Each of us is the protagonist who is complementarily-implied in a life-experience story about our experience.
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That story is for you and about your experience.
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That there are infinitely-many such stories, among the infinity of abstract facts, and inter-referring systems of them, is uncontroversially-inevitable.
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No need to ask why there’s us, why you’re in a life, or why metaphysically there’s something instead of nothing.
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In that experiencer/experienced-world complementarity, the protagonist, the experiencer, is, we’d surely agree, the more fundamental and primary part of that complementarity.
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There’s one of you, and innumerable things in your experienced-world.
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So, there’s metaphysical support for the notion that Consciousness is primary and fundamental, even at the metaphysical level.
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At any rate, a question does arise as to whether the world is physical, a combination of physical and mental, mental, or something else.

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That’s the choice that the academic philosophers offer to us, but I wouldn’t word the possibilities in that way.
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First, it depends on what is meant by “the world”.
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If it refers to this physical universe, then of course it’s undeniably physical. …even if this physical universe is quite insubstantial (in the sense of not being other than the logical system that I’ve described).
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If it refers to the metaphysical world, all that metaphysically is, all that describably, completely discussably arguably and assertably is, then there’s no reason to believe that it or its things are other than the insubstantial-ness that I’ve described.
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If it refers to Reality itself, all that is, in and beyond metaphysics, then little if anything can be said about it, but it most surely isn’t physical.
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Isn’t there a good case for saying that Consciousness, instead of just being part of (even if the main part of) a logical system about an experience of life in a physical universe, is also complementary with that larger collection of all of the (mostly unrelated and not inter-referring) abstract facts, and primary in that complentarity too? (That possible suggestion isn’t part of my metaphysics).
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Someone could say that it’s arbitrary what you call fundamental and primary, but not only our experienced-world, but also all that we know and can describe, discuss, argue and assert, is centered around us. So could we be excused for calling Consciousness fundamental in metaphysics as a whole, and not just in each person’s experience-story and the physical universe that is its setting?
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(That possible suggestion in the two previous paragraphs isn’t part of my metaphysics).
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As I’ve been saying, I make no claim that this physical world or the abstract facts I speak of are real or existent, whatever that would mean. I don’t claim that any of the antecedents of any of the abstract implication-facts that I speak of are true.
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I define “insubstantial” as not consisting of other than the complex system of abstract implication facts that I’ve spoken of. There’s no reason to believe that this physical world isn’t insubstantial.
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If anyone wants to say that this physical world is other than what I’ve described, then they should say exactly what else they’re saying that it is, and what they mean by “real”, “objectively-existent”, “substantive”, etc., if they use such a word.
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I can’t prove that the Materialist’s world, whatever exactly he means by it, doesn’t “exist” (whatever he means by that) in some unspecified way, as an unverifiable and unfalsifiable brute-fact, alongside of, and duplicating the events and relations of, the uncontroversially-inevitable logical-system that I’ve described.
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So I’m not saying that one particular metaphysics is right and all the others are wrong. …I’m saying only that there’s no reason to believe that our physical world is other than what I’ve described.
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I don’t think that metaphysics can be more certain or definite than that.
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There’s no physics experiment that could make that determination.
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But there are definite things that can be uncontroversially-said about metaphysics. …such as things that I’ve been saying.
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And some standards that apply to science apply to metaphysics too. Brute-facts, assumptions, and unverifiable, unfalsifiable propositions are suspect.
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…like those of Materialism.
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Michael Ossipoff

I agree with this; although I would say some people do take it seriously, in the sense that they are emotionally invested in reality being one imagined way or another, even though those imagined ways are not really clear conceptions of anything substantive. I made a somewhat related point in another thread; — Janus

...such as the thread in which Janus objected that I was disregarding the necessary distinction between "substantive" and "logical". I asked Janus what he meant by "substantive". Janus didn't have an answer, because he didn't know what he meant by "substantive".

So, let me help Janus out, by suggesting a few things that he might mean by "substantive":

1. "Substantive" means "Physical" or "Perceived as physical".

Then the physical world is "substantive" by definition, I don't deny that there's (in some way) a physical world. I merely point out that there's no reason to believe that it's other than a complex system of inter-referring abstract implication-facts.

2, "Substantive" means "More than, or other than, a system of inter-referring abstract implication-facts".

In that case, it isn't that I don't recognize or accept the distinction It's just that I don't agree that anything describable, arguable, or completely discussable in metaphysics is "substantive".

In fact, long before Janus made his "substantive vs logical" objection, I'd been saying the whole of the elements of metaphysics, the whole of what is describable, arguable and completely discussable is insubstantial (...in this 2nd sense.)

And, in fact, contrary to what Janus implies, there is significant disagreement among philosophers, regarding the matter of whether there's anything "substantial" among the elements of metaphysics, the metaphysically describable and arguable things.

Michael Ossipoff

I'd like to post a briefer answer to this:

There are many reasons to think experience is not primary.

1. We have bodies upon which our experiences depend.

2. Our bodies were born.

3. Human bodies evolved.

4. The universe existed prior to human experience. It's also much larger than our experience.

And so on. — Marchesk

I've been saying that your experience is a life-experience possibility-story, consisting of a complex system of inter-referring abstract implication-facts.

There's no such thing as mutually-inconsistent facts.

So, experience must be self-consistent.

Your experience is an experience of being a physical being in a physical world.

...an experience that, for consistency, would have to include a body. Evidence of previous evolution of that body is consistent with that experience, Not having a body, or evidence of no evolution would be inconsistent with your experience. ...as would evidence that there was no physical universe before you were born.

With your experience of being a physical being in a physical world, your experience of having a body, and of that body having evolved, and of there having been a physical universe before that...All those things are part of a consistence-necessitated physical mechanism consistent with there being you, a physical being in a physical universe.

By the protagonist of a life-experience story, of course a physical world is perceived. Your experience is of being a physical being in a physical world. So, what else would you expect, than to experience a physical world that produced you, and is consistent with you.

That necessity is a truism.

Michael Ossipoff

I’d asked:
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And what absurdity would that be?
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1. Exactly how do you define “absurdity”?
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2. What, specifically, do you think is absurd?
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3. In what way does it fit your definition of “absurdity”?

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Schpenhauer1 said:
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I've said it too many times for me to repeat it.

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Translation:
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Schopenhauer1 doesn’t know what he means by “absurdity”.
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You’re joking, right? What else are you doing in these threads, other than repeating. …endlessly repeating your doctrine, quite oblivious to what anyone else says. That isn’t discussion.
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There’s no such thing as “too many times for [you] to repeat [something]”.
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We've even discussed this I think. Read some of my threads.

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We all have. And yes, you’ve often used the word “absurdity” or “absurd”, without definition.
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If you mean something like, “brute-fact”, then that’s your Materialism belief talking.
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I don’t address your meta-metaphysical philosophical claim of universal badness, other than to say that such a feeling can result from your Materialism, and that, as I’ve said, you haven’t given any support for it. Yes, meta-metaphysical impressions can’t be proved, but they aren’t really assertable either. But reasons can be given for them, and you haven’t done so.
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If you really believed what you’re saying, that would be pretty bad for you, and it’s understandable that people would want to help you. But I doubt that even you believe what you say. You’re just following some particular form of “trendy”.
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I’d said;
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No, you prefer to survive. So you survive as long as it’s possible with acceptable quality-of-life, because there are things that you’d like to do.

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No, fear of pain, death, and pain of death, is pretty ingrained.

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…in you. And yes, of course a lot of people share your very common way of living.
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Making a reasonable effort to maximize our quality-of-life-acceptable lifetime is a reasonable preference, and doesn’t justify all your hand-wringing, bemoaning, drama.
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The rest of the animal kingdom doesn’t worry as you and your common majority do.
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It's default, not preference.

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As perceived by you, and the average Joe.
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I’d said:
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If you’re a miserable bundle of needs, that’s your choice.

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Nope, that's the given of being a particular human with preferences

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Ridiculous. You’re confusing preferences with needs.
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This discussion has devolved to repetition of your doctrine. Of course it had done so long before I naively joined it.
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…explaining why others have so little patience with your perpetual repetition.
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Everything that Inyenzi said in his recent reply to you was correct.
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I’d said:
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Of course no living being has complete control over its environment. Life isn’t like that. Living beings merely respond to their surroundings as they prefer or like to. Evidently you (think that you) have need for something quite different from what life is.

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You said:
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That we have needs and wants is part of the instrumentality.

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Speak for yourself. Not the instrumentality. Your instrumentality.
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The repetitive actions of survival (in a society), comfort levels, and entertainment-seeking (this need not be frivolous but anything that comes out of the restlessness).

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If that’s what you want and like, then go for it. …preferably without all the complaining.
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That's right, structural suffering. Look up about any thread that I've written.

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Yes, they’re all essentially identical.
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I've discussed this before, even with you I believe. Go back and read all of them.

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No thanks. We’ve all seen them, they’re all the same, and we all get the idea.
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I wrote about it extensively. If it’s not enough justification for you, I can't help you with any more words than I've already used.

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Don’t worry, maybe you’ll eventually be able to help some people to be as miserable as you are.
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“…more words than [you’ve] already used”? But of course there will be endlessly many more posts and words about it, won’t there.
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Michael Ossipoff is unconvinced, and I can live with that.

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I’ve naively tried to help you, but what becomes evident is that you’re playing fashion. Your existential angst is your chosen philosophical niche, your chosen schtick.
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You’re not the only person who has chosen it, but you’re certainly the most persistent and repetitive one here.
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Talking to you is quite pointless, as Inyenzi has already pointed out.
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Oh, and just one other comment about an inconsistency:
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You say that you’re restless. There’s no reason to doubt you on that.
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But you’ve suggested that you’re placing your deferred-happiness hope in something after your life-rejecting life. Deferred-happiness is always completely unrealistic, and you sometimes seem to understand that. So then, what are you expecting, with your present-rejecting attitude? Do you see the problem there?
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Shakespeare wrote, “To sleep, perchance to dream.” No one reaches oblivion. There’s no such thing as oblivion. You’re kidding yourself.
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Yes, your affairs are none of my business, but, with your miserable, rejecting, bawling-ranting-child attitude, do you really believe that your problem will be resolved and that you’ll be done and have oblivion, when it’s “…perchance to dream”?
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Michael Ossipoff

I should say something about the duration of the taper, and what the matter of concluding the taper.

How long would the it take for the taper to reach its own natural conclusion?

As I mentioned in my previous post, the time to exit the computer program is when the total number of pills taken is greater than -r/k, the asymptotic limit of the integral of the exponentially-decreasing rate-function.

Thoughout the taper, the total number of pills taken is being daily adjusted to be the equal to that integral, rounded up to the next higher integer. When that total number of pills taken eventuall is greater than -r/k, then it will forever be a fraction of a pill greater than that integral, without any more pills being taken.

Here's how long that would take, in days, if we disregard a fraction of a day, and if we disregard a fraction of a pill, in the total number of pills taken:

t = (1/k)ln(1+(k/r)(-r/k)) days.

So, to get the total tapering-time in years, just divide that by 365.25

But what if you wanted to find exactly the day number of the day on which the taper's last pill would be taken? That would be:

Ceiling((1/k)ln(1+(k/r)Floor(-r/k)))

Whichever formula you evaluate, it turns out that, if someone started with a daily dose of 3 Zoloft pills, with one pill as the smallest unit (pills aren't being split in half), then the last pill of the taper would be taken more than 10 years, nearly 11 years, after the beginning of the taper.

At that time, the exponential fuinction's dosage-rate would amount to about a pill per year. (...though it would probably be a little lower between the last pill and the 2nd-to-last pill)

Obviously that's a very ridiculously low rate, and obviously there'd be no need to carry out the taper to that low rate.

An international expert on Benzodiazepines, the class of drugess that represents the most widespread prescribed-drug addiction-problem, has suggested a dosage-rate at which most people can safely and easily quit. So of course the natural suggestion would be to carry out the exponential taper until that dose-rate is reached, and then quit.

But maybe someone is tapering from a drug for which such a recommendation hasn't been made. Or maybe the person just doesn't want to take anyone's word for it.

In that case, another possibility would be to continue the exponential taper until the time between pills or half-pills is so very ridiculously long that it feels obvious that it would be safe to quit.

(Of course it goes without saying that any quitting of the taper should be tentative and experimental, and that that quitting should be reversed, and that, at the first sign of a withdrawal symptom, the taper should be resumed from at or before the point at which it was quit.)

In fact, as ridiculous as the dose-rate might be when the taper reaches its own natural conclusion, one obvious possibiity would be to just carry it through to its natural conclusion, The total amount of the drug taken still is no more than the amount that the pre-taper rate would give you in (-1/k)*(1/365.25) years. Whether that seems like a lot depends of course on how long the habituation has been going on.

Michael Ossipoff

There are many reasons to think experience is not primary.

1. We have bodies upon which our experiences depend.

2. Our bodies were born.

3. Human bodies evolved.

4. The universe existed prior to human experience. It's also much larger than our experience.

And so on. — Marchesk

...and you know about those things...how?

Through experience? :D

1. We have bodies upon which our experiences depend.

Of course. Our experience is that of being a physical organism. ...yes, a body.

That doesn't make the body metaphysically prior to the experience. Everything that you know about the physical world is via your experience.

2. Our bodies were born.

You know that because your mother &/or father told it to you, and your school science teachers later confirmed it. You experienced being told those things, and it makes perfect sense in terms of what you know, from experience, about the physical world. ...even though you don't remember being born.

Yes, of course that birth is a fact in the physical story that is your experience, even if you don't have a memory of directly experiencing it.

Your birth is a physical event implied by the physical world that you experience, including what you've been reliably told by people who actually saw the birth (and people who certified it on paper), and what you know (from experience of one kind or another) about biology and the physical world. It's part of your experience, even if you don't remember it.

3. Human bodies evolved.

Certainly, and like the other events and scientific facts of this physical world, you know about that from your experience of being told it, and from the fact that it can be reasonably inferred from the evidence that you experience around you. It's a physical fact that is part of your experience of your world. You haven't actually seen the evolution of humans, but you've been reliably told about it, and it's convincingly-implied by what you've observed around you.. Thereby, it's part of your experience.

4. The universe existed prior to human experience.

Yes, and you know that from your experience. You have and have had the experience of scientists telling you that, and they have a nearly unanimous consensus about that. Also, maybe your own direct experience of the physical evidence you've seen confirms that conclusion.

You could have added that this physical world was there before you were here to observe it and directly experience it. You've known that ever since your parents told it to you. That, and subsequent confirmatory experiences support that conclusion.

It's [this physical universe] also much larger than our experience.

Scientists know that from their astronomical observations and from physics. You know it because you've experienced them telling you so.

I don't doubt that it's true, because what I've heard about that makes sense and sounds convincing.

As with all of the other things in your list, you know it from experience., In that way, it's part of your experience.

Basically, your argument consists of saying, "What you say can't be so because it conflicts with the doctrine that I believe. ...in which the physical world is primary.

We all, including Idealists, agree with the physical facts in your list. We just don't agree with your conclusions from them, your explanation for them, your Materialist belief in the primacy of the physical world. As I've been saying, everything that you know about the physical world, you know from your experience.

Your experience is what's basic to all of those facts that you've listed, and to this whole physical universe, its history, its extent (what's known about those things).

Presumably the universe might eventually be found to be infinite or finite. As of now that isn't known. And, If it's finite, it isn't known what its finite size is, or even what its geometry is.

That information, so far, isn't part of your experience-story.

Suppose that the universe is going to be later determined to be infinite. If so, is it infinite now, even though you haven't experienced being told it by scientists yet? Sure, in the sense that, when you're later told that the universe is infinite, then that will strongly imply that it was also infinite in 2018.

But obviously, right now, the infinite-ness of the universe isn't an experiential fact for you, because the cosmologists don't know, and can't give you the experience of being told that the universe is infinite (even if they're later going to find that out and tell you).

The argument expressed in your posting is just an expression of a belief in Materialism, a belief that the physical world is metaphysically primary.

As I've often said:

I can't prove that there isn't the objectively, fundamentally existent concrete, objectively-real physical world that Materialists believe in (whatever you mean by "objectively real" or "objectively-existent")...I can't prove that it doesn't superflously exist as an unverifiable, unfalsifiable brute-fact, alongside of, and duplicating the events and relations of, the uncontroversially inevitable complex system of abstract implication facts that I've been mentioning.

(I'm the first to admit that I don't claim to know what "objectively-real" or "exist" mean. Those words aren't part of my metaphysics, which doesn't claim or assume anything about the objective reality or existence of this physical world, or of the system of inter-referring abstract implication-facts that has the events and relations of your experience.)

Michael Ossipoff

Rudolf Carnap wrote several papers in which he argued along a similar vein of Hume and Wittgenstein that ontological questions are devoid of meaning. This is because in his view, questions of fact only have meaning inside the framework the terms of the question originated. So it's perfectly reasonable to ask whether real numbers exist in mathematics, but it's meaningless to ask if they exist in the world, since the world is external to the framework of math. — Marchesk

...especially since "existence" isn't metaphysically-defined.

He also argued that questions of existence regarding the world must be empirically verifiable to be meaningful, with logic providing the tools for analyzing meaning.

Whatever that means.

Empirically, there are abstract facts and abstract objects, in the sense that we can discuss them.

Unicorns and Flying pigs? Sure, as discussable, nameable abstract objects in a story or a hypothetical discussion. (...but not if you mean "...as part of our physical world".)

Empiricism? All that we know about our physical world is from our experience. There's no reason to believe that our experience isn't primary.

There are abstract implication-facts, in the sense that they can be stated and discussed. What more "existence" should they have?

Some paradoxes and hard questions vanish when you leave-out the meaningless talk about what "exists" or "is real".

There's no need to claim existence or reality for this physical world, or for the infiniely-many abstract implication-facts, including the complex inter-referring systems of them that are experience-stories, one of which has the events and relations of your experience.

Michael Ossipoff

Right, instead of answering questions about your justification of your claims, or responding to what others say, you just repeat your unsupported doctrine.
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I agree that there is a paradox of being whereby you cannot know non-being unless being- one implies the other.

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I don’t agree that there’s such a paradox. Supposed “paradoxes” are usually the result of faulty or fallacious assumptions or premises. Evidently you perceive a “paradox”, based on your faulty premises.
No one claims that you can know non-being. So where’s the paradox? Only you believe in a “you” who was better-off in non-being.
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far as my pessimism and antinatalism, and instrumentality, etc. there is no escape from the absurdity.

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And what absurdity would that be?
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1. Exactly how do you define “absurdity”?
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2. What, specifically, do you think is absurd?
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3. In what way does it fit your definition of “absurdity”?
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Carelessly, sloppily, flinging the word “absurd” or “absurdity” around is popular and fashionable with angst-ridden Existentialists etc.
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You need to survive

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No, you prefer to survive. So you survive as long as it’s possible with acceptable quality-of-life, because there are things that you’d like to do.
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Your “needs” are a belief-invention.
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(Yes, liked things often have requirements for other things and conditions. But it comes down to likes, not needs.)
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If you’re a miserable bundle of needs, that’s your choice.
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The restlessness does not go away by enlightened fiat (some Buddhist mind-game).

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Not everyone shares your restlessness. As someone else recently pointed out in this thread, you attribute your regrettable attitudes and approach to life to everyone, and you mistake your self-manufactured misery for a broad philosophical badness.
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For you, your doctrine is a foregone conclusion, making it impossible to talk to you. It’s obvious that you’re clinging to it because you like to.
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As for Buddhism, it has been suggested that Arthur Schopenhauer got the position you quote, from a selective cherry-picking from Buddhism.
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The misery is also not self-created.

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I acknowledge that that’s the doctrine that you’ve uncritically adopted.
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Our societal world is full of hardship, adversity and societal wrong, and no one denies that. There are people who make themselves miserable by their attitude, and no one denies that either. But, as I and others have been pointing out to you, you want to make that hardship, adversity, societal wrong, and attitudinal misery into an alleged philosophical broad universal state-of-affairs. …but you offer no support for that doctrinal contention.
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If anything, the world discloses how much you don't have much control.

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Of course no living being has complete control over its environment. Life isn’t like that. Living beings merely respond to their surroundings as they prefer or like to. Evidently you (think that you) have need for something quite different from what life is.
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The thrownness of ourselves into the given is real, not manifested through pessimistic prose.

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That alleged “thrownness” is an artifact of your metaphysics. First you uncritically swallow Materialism’s brute-fact, and then you wonder why it’s like that, and complain that it has wronged you.
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In my early-life background-conditions, there’s plenty that I can complain about. Societal wrong, sure. But you want to make it into a belief in a broad philosophically universal badness, without giving any kind of support or justification for your position.
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Inyenzi was spot-on, in his assessment of your philosophical complaining, and your determination to elevate the misery that you cause yourself, and the adversity presented to you by the other inhabitants of the Land-Of-The-Lost, to a philosophical state-of-affairs instead of a local personal and societal problem.

If you genuinely want to solve your problem, then work on it, and listen to people; talk to more people.
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Indeed, your idea of reincarnation is the ultra-version of the givenness if it be true.

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The only “givenness” for this life is you and your predispositions.
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The eternal return, over and over…

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No, I didn’t say that the return is eternal. Neither I, nor Buddhism, nor Hinduism says it’s eternal.
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For everyone, there’s an eventual end-of-lives, arriving when the individual is life-completed and life-style-perfected.
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For someone who was consistent with a societal world like ours here, that completion and perfection typically could be expected to involve a very many lives.
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…of the given world

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…given by the person that you were, as the protagonist of your hypothetical life-experience-story.
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As I said, you experienced being born into a world that was consistent with the person that you were.
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…because experience is self-consistent.
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, and our absurd habits within it.

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Then give up some of your absurd habits.
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Michael Ossipoff

I wasn’t done replying to this thread, or, in general, to Schopenhaur1’s Anti-Natalist and pessimistic comments. Those comments surely speak for others too, who have those sentiments. They raise interesting and relevant general questions. Topics like this seem, to me, to be what philosophy is for, when they’re about strong feelings instead of just opinions, feelings about bad and good, in regards to our finding ourselves in this life.
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Where to start?
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Pessimism:
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What I’ve heard from followers of Arthur Schopenhauer sounds like it’s partly from Buddhism. They take what Buddhism says about how some people manage to make themselves suffer. But they conveniently leave out the Noble Truth about the avoidability of that suffering, and the suggestion about that avoidance of something unnecessary.
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Schaupernhaurism: Selective cherry-picking Buddhism?
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I’m not a Buddhist, and I don’t claim to understand Buddhism. But I don’t have any trouble understanding the simple, valuable and helpful message of Kentucky Buddhist Ken Keyes.
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You needn’t have addictions, needs and wants. You have likes.
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How complicated is that?
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As I’ve been saying, your instrumentality is indeed a great source of misery. So don’t live that way.
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You should read Eckhart Tolle. Preferably his first very popular book, “The Power of Now”.
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Tolle says that instrumentality is insane. He’s right.
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Don’t keep making yourself miserable by being an entertainment-addict.
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I know that you believe that your position is the logical one (as if logic could have anything to do with this broad meta-metaphysical matter), and that the rest of us are just expressing wishful thinking. But, even claims that go beyond metaphysics should be accompanied by some sort of reason…even if proof or disproof aren’t possible. Anyway, just as meta-metaphysical claims can’t be disproved, so they also aren’t really assertable.
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You’ve adopted positions taken by Arthur Schopenhauer, and taken them as gospel. But that isn’t “logic”; it’s doctrine. And it’s unsupported doctrine.
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I just wanted to make those few brief comments about that.
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Antinatalism:
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The notion that Antinatalist celibacy or birth-control can prevent any births is naïve Materialism. Sure, it can prevent births in this country and on this planet, and I don’t deny the desirability of that. But it can’t prevent any births.
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(But, admittedly, I wouldn’t want a victim of this societal-world to be an offspring of mine. But maybes that’s just selfish on my part. …an instance of NIMBY?)
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As has often been pointed out in these threads, there’s no such thing as someone who has isn’t, and never been, conceived.
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Whether you subscribe to Materialism, or to my metaphysics of Eliminative Ontic Structural Subjective Idealism (Any suggestion of a shorter name?), if there were never “you” conceived, then there is/was no “you” who was better off and who had something better than birth, had that conception and birth not happened.
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Sure, we agree that, at the end-of-lives there will come a time when there’s no knowledge of such things as worldly-life, identity, individuality, time, events, concerns, problems, lack, menace, strife, etc. We agree that that’s pretty good.
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It’s the time when you approach the Nothing that is where you came from, (Of course there’s no such thing as a being actually reaching Nothing.)
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…the Nothing that is the quiescent background behind the life-experience stories. …and is the normal, natural state. Lives (whether one or a sequence of many) are a blip in that timelessness.
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But, as I said, Nothing is only approached in that sleep at the end of lives.
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The matter of whether we have one life or a sequence of many is just a quibble, in regards to this topic.
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Above I’ve mentioned the end-of-lives. What about before? What were you when you weren’t conceived? As I said, there was no such thing, by my account, or by Materialism’s account.
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You’ve heard Materialism’s account. Mine says that there timelessly is a life-experience possibility-story about your experience, complementarily including or implying you, its protagonist. That’s why you’re in a life, and that's the "you" that's in a life. So though there was/is no you that wasn’t/isn’t in a life, you’re metaphysically-prior to this life and the world that is its setting.
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It doesn’t matter if you agree with that metaphysics. Materialism gives a similar conclusion about the not-ever existence of a not-conceived you.
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I’ve said that the Nothing approached at the end-of-lives is the natural and normal state of affairs. Might there be anyone who could say more than that, about Nothing as an origin or original state for us? I just vaguely mention it as the background to the abstract facts and experience-stories, which is approached at the end-of-lives. Maybe there is or was someone who could comment more, but that person isn’t at these forums.
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Aggrievedness or Complaint about Having Been Conceived:
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Of course this topic is closely-related to the previous ones.
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As you perceive or believe, why were you born? You complain that it happened to you, but why, in your belief or opinion, did it happen? Because someone had sex? :D Get serious.
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If you can’t suggest a reason, then I’ll suggest one: There timelessly is an experience-story whose protagonist, you, wants, needs, or is otherwise predisposed to, a life.
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In other words, I’m saying that it happened because of you. Don’t blame God. We should explain things metaphysically, within metaphysics, when possible. …and own up to what we’re responsible for.
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Of course, if you can support a claim for Materialism, then you can blame the random action of the brute-fact physical world of Materialsm. But you can’t support it. …but I suspect that it’s the naïve and unsupportable metaphysical basis behind Anti-Natalism and the gloom-& doom philosophy of pessimism that we hear from Shopenhauer-followers.
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But, aside from being born at all, why were you born in such an awful societal-world as this one? Well, for some reason, this is the world that was consistent with that “you” I spoke of above. So, again I emphasize: It’s because of you.
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I used to say that past-lives are indeterminate, in the sense that it isn’t true that you did or didn’t live before.
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But more can be said about that: I don’t believe that life in a societal-world like this would be anyone’s first life.
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Of course a newborn baby is innocent, and deserves the best of treatment. His/her past life is none of our business.
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Of course that baby is born with inclination for life, which s/he has since conception. …and which is metaphysically prior to that conception, as I said earlier.
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But would that inclination, of itself, be something that could have made a societal-world like this one be the world that’s consistent with you…if this were your first life, and if your only influence were your basic inclination for life?
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....this miserable hate-and-malice-filled land-of-the-lost?
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I suggest not. That predisposition or influence isn’t part of basic initial inclination for life.
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You’ve been through the crucible before. I don’t know what happened, but evidently some of it wasn’t very good.
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Reincarnation disclaimer: I don’t claim to have proof of reincarnation. No living person has any memory of such a thing. But reincarnation is implied by, and is at least suggested as a consequence of my uncontroversial metaphysics.
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Some people here take a pseudoscientific position that there’s a natural default presumption, and that it’s something else instead (What?). But, whatever it is, it would be just as remarkable, and is less supportable.
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I emphasize that, though reincarnation is implied by my metaphysics, it isn’t part of it.
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I mention it here only because the matter comes up in discussion of why you’re in a life in a societal-world like this one. It’s a good question, and I’ve suggested an explanation.
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Michael Ossipoff

Talk of "qualia" is unnecessary.

From the point of view of the physical story, as described by the Materialist, consciousness is the property of being a purposefully-responsive device. Experience is that device's surroundings and circumstances with respect to and in the context of its reaction to them in keeping with its purposes.

No need to speak of "qualia", "supervienience", or something "emergent".

Physicalists get themselves into a confused snarl that isn't necessary, even within their metaphysical belief.

But I don't believe in the metaphysics that makes the physical world primary.

Whatever you know about the physical world is from your experience, and there's no reason to believe that your experience isn't central and primary.

I've already discussed how there uncontroversially are infinitely many systems of inter-referring abstract implication-facts, including an infinite subset consisting of experience-stories, one of which inevitably has the events and relations of your experience, and is your experience-story. ...and that there's no reason to believe that this physical world is other than the hypothetical setting of that hypothetical story.

...a story about your experience, in which of course your experience is primary and central.

Objections to that account have consisted of complaints that it disregards the necessary distinction between logical and "substantive" facts or truth. But people making that objection never answered about what they mean by "substantive".

Michael Ossipoff


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I don't know about that. Aren't there premises that we all agree on? ...that we're each in a life in a "physical" world...and that there are abstract facts (at least in the sense that we can mention them)?

No, I suggest that our metaphysical differences originate in our ability to use terms that we conveniently forget to define, and then determinedly refuse to define. ...and our willingness to repeat assertions without answering arguments against them.

Of course it usually can't be proved that one metaphysics is true and that others are false, because pretty much all metaphysicses predict the same physical world that we observe...and usually do so by unparsimonious, unfalsifiable unverifiable contrivance.

But it can be shown that a metaphysics is unmparismonious, unverifiable and unfalsifiable, dependent on assumptions or a brute-fact.

....or that one isn't.

Much of the argument and difference here consists of repetition of claims that aren't supported when questioned.

As someone asked in an OP earlier, of what value is metaphysics without consistent, well-specified and consistent definitions? Some people here get angry when asked to define a term by which they feel they support their position.

...a term like "substantial", "real", "existent", "actual", etc.

Michael Ossipoff

Obviously, with the countless logical proofs of the existence of God, I'm in the heavy minority here, but what makes you think that the origin of all of existence can be meaningfully understood by such a method? — John Doe

It's a matter outside of the applicability of logic, proof and words.

Michael Ossipoff

shouldn't the question be whether the universe was created? why do you presume it was created? Perhaps it has always been or is a eternal recurring process of sorts? — Arne

This physical universe's physical history and physical mechanism, or even metaphysical origin, have nothing to do with the matter of meta-metaphysical origins, which is the "creation" that the OP is referring to. Speaking for myself, I say that the word "creation" is unduly anthropomorphic.

Religion is meta-metaphysical, and is quite outside the applicability of physics, cosmology, or metaphysics.

Michael Ossipoff

By purpose.

Among the infinity of systems of inter-referring abstract-facts, and among the infinite subset of those that are life-experience possibility-stories, there's a life-experience possibility-story about the experience of someone just like you...you, in fact.

This physical universe is the setting for that hypothetical life-experience story.

That's the metaphysical explanation. We needn't get into matters beyond metaphysics..matters that aren't really discussable, describable, assertable or provable anyway.

You brought God into the discussion, and you must know that that's a meta-metaphysical matter, not subect to description, complete discussion, assertion, or proof.

Many agree with your impression that there's good intent behind what is. ...a meta-metaphysical matter.

I've read that Aristotle said that Good is the basis of what is.

Michael Ossipoff

I'd like to correct a program-bug in the pseudode-program that I posted.

Where I said:

"Exit if d < 1"

I should have said:

Exit if S > -r/k

-r/k is the asymptotic limit, approached but never quite reached, of the integral of the exponentially-decreasing rate-function.

When S exceeds that, that's when the taper is completed.

Michael Ossipoff

There’s no place for speculation in metaphysics. …though, at this forum, such speculation is popular.
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I’ve covered metaphysics here.
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By “metaphysics”, I mean the topic of what-there-is that is discussable, describable, arguable, assertable.
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Other than that, the matter of what-is, I refer to as “meta-metaphysics”. So, as I mean “meta-metaphysics”, of course little can be said about it, and what little can be said can’t be asserted or proved and can’t be called description.
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Those are two different "what-is" topics.
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The question of Being - that there is something rather than nothing - is a special question that cannot be approached conventionally through the use of profane instruments or observation tout court.

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Whether there’s metaphysically something instead of nothing depends on what you mean by “something”.
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As Materialists mean “something”, there’s no reason to believe that there’s discussably, describably and assertably anything.
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Our physical world and your life are real in their own context…only. There’s no metaphysical objectively real and existent solid rock at the basis of it, holding it up. There’s no reason to believe that it’s other than only a hypothetical story.
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People here seem to have a hard time with that. …hence all the pointless metaphysical speculation here, mostly to try to somehow save Materialism.
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That the universe came from nothing, or creation ex nihilo, is prima facie, absurd.

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…unless the physical universe still is nothing , by the materialist’s meaning of “something”. ...nothing but a system of inter-referring abstract facts. There’s no reason, no evidence, to believe otherwise.
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There’s no need to ask why, metaphysically, there’s something instead of nothing. As most people mean “something”, there metaphysically isn’t anything.
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That the universe "came" into being seems to imply, from the semantics, that it came from or entered into somewhere or something that existed before. Before there was light, there was darkness - but this darkness is not "nothing". There must have already been something, a "firstness", "primary being", or some such eternal substance that holds up the rest of the architecture of existence as the foundations hold up a building, or the canvas displays the paint.

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If you’re talking about what’s discussable, describable and assertable,--in other words if you’re talking about metaphysics--then no, there’s no reason to believe in some objectively-existent metaphysical basis for our “physical” world.
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First there is the "there is". It is not a being but Being itself, an infinite, eternal, all-encompassing and penetrating reality. We know this because we ourselves are fundamentally an emanation from this mysterious primordiality.

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In metaphysics? No.
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Otherwise? Yes, many feel that there is—but it isn’t a topic for assertion or proof.
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Words don’t describe or discuss all of Reality.
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When we ask, did the universe come from nothing?, I have to wonder if we aren't confusing words.

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Yes.
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Precisely, nothing cannot be positively defined, for otherwise it would be something. The "nothing" is the primal Being, the darkness surrounding the light. Creation and annihilation are akin to dawn and dusk. Take away all the light, all the beings, and there is still the ominous Being, hiding and lurking in the background; that eternal ennui of awareness without content, endless striving.

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Not everyone would agree that Reality is eternal ennui and endless striving. :D
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In my mystical and esoteric moments I am drawn to the idea that what we call the world is a temporary dream in an endless sleep; that consciousness is an insomnia in a population of dreamers, or a momentary divorce from the unconscious deep.

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Of course there’s something to that. Sleep is more natural, the natural and usual “state-of-affairs”. What we have, experience and are in sleep is more fundamental.
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A life, or (probably more accurately) a sequence of lives, an appearance with such things as identity, events, time, and striving, is a blip in timeless sleep.
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Why is there that blip? First, of course, it isn’t, really.

It needn’t be called “real”. But, because there are abstract facts, there are hypothetical experience-stories. And you and your experience are one such hypothetical experience-story. Real? Not really, but seemingly real enough to you its protagonist. Real in its own context.
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The idealist/panpsychist undertones are clear.

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Idealism, yes.
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Yes, Materialism doesn’t hold up. It’s proponents always angrily, sputteringly, leave discussions when asked to define some of their terms or justify some of their claims.
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Panpsychism could qualify as one way of expressing a meta-metaphysical feeling, one shared by many people, that Reality is alive and has intent.
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But Panpsychism doesn’t hold up as metaphysics, at the metaphysical level.
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The entire world could end and there would still be this original Being. Strip the world of everything, including the world itself and there still is the "there is". There is, and there always will be. If existence is a story…

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That’s exactly what physical and metaphysical existence are: …a hypothetical story.
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…, then it ends where it begins in the eternal return to this original and fundamental reality.

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…an end that is experienced at the person’s eventual end-of-lives.
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(But don’t count on that arriving at the end of this life.)
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I take that last part of the post to refer to an impression about what-is, beyond metaphysics, discussion, description , assertion, argument and proof.
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It’s an impression that many agree with.
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Michael Ossipoff