What do you get from asking me this question? — schopenhauer1

A special kind of satisfaction.

Have you ever tried to provide a thesis or proposition before? Why did you do that?

Yes. In order to test drive it, to see what objections to it others would raise, and as such, where the flaws and vulnerabilities of said proposition were (and what I must fix).

Why do you think people write on this forum in general?

I think a lot of it is for philotainment. Some people go drinking with their buddies to bars, some go mountainhiking, some bake cookies, and some discuss philosophy on internetz forums.

Why do philosophers publish their thoughts and have a dialogue?

Some do it because it's their only marketable skill.
Some have been doing it for a long time and they just don't know how to live otherwise.
Some do it for fun.
Some do it in an effort to achieve world domination.
And probably more.

For the sake of that illustration I take it for granted, but that is just an illustration.

Whenever it is discovered that a person with such and such characteristics experiences such and such phenomena differently that other people, our models have to be updated to reflect that. — Pfhorrest

Why on earth would anyone want to do that??

When people see a truth of some kind (at least as they see it), they tend to want others to also understand it, grapple with it, have a dialectic about it, and so on and not just have a conversation with themselves only. — schopenhauer1

And why is that? What do they get from it?

Same reason I want to decide the truth of any other claim: I want to believe only things that are true, and avoid believing things that are untrue. — Pfhorrest

You do realize how immensely impractical this is, do you? I'm sure you do.

I also doubt you practice it consistently. You aren't all that concerned about the truth about the half-life of radioactive isotopes that exist only on Triton or the vaginal system of fleas, are you?

Why look outside of Buddhism for things to help one understand Buddhism?
— baker
Because this is what language does. It is inherently interpretative. — Constance

The thing is: You're not doing your homework. I'm tired of referring you to suttas for the questions you ask. There are Buddhist answers to the questions you ask about Buddhism. But you ignore them. Forget them. Apparently, don't even think of looking to the suttas for them.

It's as if you actually aspire to keep yourself ignorant of Buddhism, so that you can keep making up your own parallel Buddhism and your own definitions of terms.

:( :( :(

I rather think that is exactly not what they hate, but instead something else, the fool who thinks he knows. — tim wood

And the patient is, of course, by default "the fool who thinks he knows".

I (or anyone else) can argue compelling reasons not on his list because they have to be compelling to me and by my standards. If he failed to find them he failed to find them is all that can be said. The fact of his good evidence argument or standard does not itself justify or recommend the conclusion he reaches for anyone else. — Pantagruel

Yet both religious apologists as well as their a(nti)religious counterparts tend to dismiss this approach, arguing that "compelling reasons by one's own standards" aren't good enough.

What do you have to say to them?

But I don't get what you are trying to imply with motivations of antinatalists. — schopenhauer1

What's so hard to understand?

What do _you_, as an antinatalist, get if other people don't have children?

There must be something in it for you, or you wouldn't argue for it. Instead, you beat around the bush like a demivierge.

Besides attraction (which is its own difficulties to explain in terms of instinct) and the desire for pleasure, can you describe what the "I want a baby" deep-rooted instinct looks like and explain how its an instinct? — schopenhauer1

They they they. Duh. Stop talking about others, and instead come forward clearly stating what's in it for you if other people don't have children.

In the end, it should be YOU who is making the decisions because nobody cares about your health like you. If you are going to defer to an expert, then you are going to treated by a physician doing the best they can, but that's not nearly good enough.

Don't leave something as important as your health to the experts because you never know when they are going to take the drill out of their black bag and... — synthesis

And yet doctors and other medical professionals routinely expect their patients to blindly trust them and obey them. They hate an informed patient.

That, my friend, is a very limiting belief because it prevents you learning anymore from what I have to offer. Everybody (both stupid and smart) has something to teach you that you do not know. — Thinking

This contradicts/undermines what you said earlier:

"believe only that which empowers you most, everything else is used to instill fear in you and doesn't serve you in any way, even if it is true." — Thinking

Ha! Good point!

It is not to say this wrong at all. But it is incomplete, — Constance

Incomplete how? Because it's a short paragraph from a glossary? Every term in that paragraph has numerous references in the suttas and in the commentaries, which have further references in suttas and commentaries.

The incompleteness is in your approach to the matter.

and ANY philosophy that can help complete it is valid regarding what Buddhism is.

Why look outside of Buddhism for things to help one understand Buddhism?

No, that's quite the opposite. Consider for example recognizing neurodiversity, as in, the non-defectiveness of autistic (etc) experience patterns. Things that please and calm many neurotypical people can be very distressing and displeasing to neurodivergent people. The position you assumed I was arguing would be to call whatever pleases "normal" (neurotypical) people good, and neurodivergent people defective for not finding that good. But what I'm actually advocating is that we say it's good to act one way toward a neurotypical person (the way that they find pleasant and calming), but bad to act that same way toward a neurodivergent person (because they'll find it distressing and displeasing). — Pfhorrest

This doesn't solve anything, it just shifts the whole burden on the neurotypical vs. neurodivergent distinction, taking it for granted and taking for granted that said distnction can always be reliably established for every person at any given time. As if people would be robots with a make, model, and series number.

Regarding wether there is a faculty of discrimination, as distinct from mind/manas, I posed this question on Stack Exchange, and was told there is a term Paṭisambhidā: formed from paṭi- + saṃ- + bhid, where paṭi + saṃ should probably be understood as 'back together', and the verbal root bhid means 'to break, split, sever'. Rhys Davids and Stede propose that a literal rendering would be "resolving continuous breaking up", and gloss this as 'analysis, analytic insight, discriminating knowledge'; moreover, they associate it with the idea of 'logical analysis' (Pali-English Dictionary, p. 400.2). Bhikkhu Nyanatiloka similarly renders the term as 'analytical knowledge', but also as 'discrimination' (Buddhist Dictionary, p. 137). Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli voices a divergent view in a note to his translation of in Buddhaghosa's Visuddhimagga, XIV.8, where he renders paṭisambhidā as 'discrimination': — Wayfarer

Cultivation in accordance with the Buddha's teachings leads to a particular and irreversible ability to discern Dhamma. Without this cultivation, a person cannot rightfully be said to be able to choose between Dhamma and adhamma (because they can't tell the difference).

It's similar to the difference between an ordinary person and a trained gymnast: both have a body, both can do some physical exercises, yet the gymnast can do exercises that the ordinary person can't (and can't even conceive how to do them). It's not the case that one would have a body and the other wouldn't; nor that one would have physical prowess and the other one wouldn't.

If virtue would somehow be something that is baked into the fabric of the universe, so that it would operate by laws similar to those in physics, then there'd be no problem. So, for example, if you did X, you'd feel good, and if you did Y, you'd feel crappy. But it doesn't work that way.
— baker

It's because we can choose. Not only can choose, but have to choose. — Wayfarer

It seems that for the psychologically normal person, morality is never a matter of choice -- such a person "just knows what the right thing to do" is (for such a person, the issue is only whether they are able to do it).

But beyond that, I don't understand where you're going with the way you replied.

I feel like there is no conversation about how antinatalism is based on the assertion that suffering is equivalent to an objective "bad." Why would suffering, a mental state for an individual, be bad for the universe at whole? — FlaccidDoor

The existence of suffering is, for some people, proof that there is something fatally wrong with the universe.

The mistake you're making at the most fundamental level is assuming that it is people who produce other people, with nothing else required. When actually so much that needs to take place in order for a human to be born is outside of the prospective parents' control (from the ability of the man's body to produce viable sperm to things such as the drinking water not containing pesticides that could abort the fetus).
And it's precisely because so many things are outside of people's control when it comes to reproduction that they can't take full and meaningful responsibility for it.

I've also struggled to see the distinction between identity theory and some reductionist theories. What's the difference between saying "The mind is the brain" and "The mind reduces to the brain"? So any help there would be appreciated. — khaled

I'd refer to the emic-etic distinction.

When talking about the mind, we talk about the emic.
When talking about the brain, we talk about the etic.

Pffft!

There is only one good reason to believe in God, as far as I can see, and it goes like this:

"(A small child thinks to himself): My parents feed me, clothe me, keep me warm and clean. And safe. So I trust them. So, I also trust whatever they tell me about anything, including what they say about "God"."

Obviously, this reason is not available to just anyone, one has to be born and raised into those particular epistemic circumstances.

obviously the problem is that of the Christians. — god must be atheist

They don't consider it their problem, wherefore the following

They are damned any way. So if you think that's not a problem, then you got a problem.

is moot.

Motive is essential to establishing whether an act committed is a crime or not.

Yes, but this sort of parochialism ought to be seen for what it is: a rejection of the other. — Olivier5

Philosophy, ie. love of wisdom entails rejecting foolishness and lowliness.
Sometimes, this seems to work out in less than democratic ways ...

What is a Christian to do? Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. — god must be atheist

Well, and whose problem is that?

The presumed, claimed, or factual actions, qualities etc. of God are a factor in deciding whether to believe such a God exists. — Pfhorrest

??
That's a bit of strange religious epistemology ...

Why do you want to "decide whether God exists or not"?

This is a problem for those who want to advocate that god exists for sure. And an even bigger problem for those who want to convince others that their description of god is true, because no description of god exists, to date. — god must be atheist

And yet they don't consider it their problem.
You consider it their problem -- and that is your problem.

God, if exists, shows no qualities or attributes of himself. Those who proclaim they know god's attributes and qualities are merely liars, charlatans, dishonest persons, or at best, mislead persons.

And whose problem is that?

David, fictional or not, represents a person, someone who begged and cried to a higher power while he lost everything he knew and perhaps even more. If you experience a hardship or criminal offense toward your person today, or perhaps toward your nation, and you seek justice, you are no different. — Outlander

David believed that The Highest Power In The Universe was on his side. This is what makes him different than the ordinary person.

Are you claiming that it was a thought before it was painted
— Banno
Not before only, because. — Pantagruel

In that case, we're talking about symbols:
A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different concepts and experiences. All communication (and data processing) is achieved through the use of symbols. Symbols take the form of words, sounds, gestures, ideas, or visual images and are used to convey other ideas and beliefs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol


As in, you say "Mona Lisa", and you mean something like, "That painting that is so famous; the painting of a woman with a smile that has in Western modern culture become a synonym for "mysterious"". Ie., this is a thought.

↪baker But, if it can't be put into worlds*, then it's not a thought?

Why not? — Banno

Because that's how we define "thoughts". That's why we speak of "thoughts" and "feelings", two separate things.



*Nice typo there. :)

If you ask me, the Buddha had it right, and that was long ago, but he didn't have the theoretical tools to talk about it, to provide a phenomenological exposition on the actual descriptive features of enlightenment. — Constance

Of course he did:

paṭicca-samuppāda
Dependent co-arising; dependent origination. A map showing the way the aggregates (khandha) and sense media (āyatana) interact with ignorance (avijjā) and craving (taṇhā) to bring about stress and suffering (dukkha). As the interactions are complex, there are several versions of paṭicca-samuppāda given in the suttas. In the most common one, the map starts with ignorance. In another common one, the map starts with the interrelation between name (nāma) and form (rūpa) on the one hand, and sensory consciousness (viññāṇa) on the other. [MORE: SN 12.2, DN 15 ]

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/glossary.html#pa%E1%B9%ADicca-samupp%C4%81da

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.002.than.html



But the problem is, rather, and I don't know how to say this to you nicely, is that you lack respect for the Buddha. Yet you nevertheless keep referring to him. You are determined that you already know what enlightenment is and isn't, and anyone who doesn't match those ideas of yours, is, per you, wrong or insufficient.
I wonder why you look to the Buddha, if you clearly have no intention to take his words seriously.

Augustine was a very odd person. There's something strange about his eagerness to confess his sins and misdeeds. He seems to revel in them in a bizarre way, rather like Rousseau does. But like Rousseau he appears to think he's better and wiser than others for having been a sinner and proclaiming his sins to the world. — Ciceronianus the White

But maybe the sins they confessed openly were just the tip of the iceberg, an effort to hide their graver sins?

To illustrate my disagreement, IF language is an integral part of the construction of Being, in my interpretation of this sentence, it would imply that a human being speaking several languages is a more complete being than one who speaks only one language. But this is not the conclusion Heidegger draws. Rather for him, who to my knowledge spoke only German, perhaps with a smattering of greek, learning another language such as English or French would have been closer to a compromission with lower forms of thought than those possible in German. — Olivier5

In defense of H., such linguistic supremacism and exclusivism has been a trend in many European nations. In the light of this, learning a living foreign language (or even just a different dialect of one's language) is seen as being beneath one's dignity.

The consequent moral realist has suspended all self-doubt and anything that could induce it.
— baker
But the proof is in the pudding, a conversation about doubt, moral realism and the rest. — Constance

Not at all. It is beneath the consequent moral realist's dignity to discuss such things.
The pudding proof of consequent moral realism is precisely in its authoritarian, inapproachable stance.
It's that "this is not up for discussion" that makes the consequent moral realist who he is.

Do you think the Buddha in his phenomenological prime, had doubts?

No.
Doubt (vicikiccha) is one of the hindrances, and the Buddha has overcome all hindrances.

Oh but God gave man free will. He didn't give that to women who must submit to men. However, in Heaven, there is no free will, because our free will does not go with perfection. — Athena

IOW, you have knowledge of God? First-hand, certain knowledge of God?

The problem of theodicy exists only because people try to explain God on human terms.
— baker
What other terms are there? I would love to open up the discussion of God, and I am getting push back. — Athena

Presumably, there are God's terms.

I also get ignored. I say, "there is no discernible evidence of any of god's qualities or attributes. We know nothing about god. All we know is that it is possible for it to exist, but not necessary. So... what basis do those have who claim god is this or god is that. It exists but is not real or is real but it is super-existing. Transcends this and transcends that. These are all fantasies, based on an assumption that god must be this way or that way. Well, god does not give us any indication which way god is, so, again, WHY ARE SOME OF US SO PRESUMPTIOUS AS TO CLAIM KNOWLEDGE OF THE QUALITY OF GOD?

This is the third time I ask this question (paraphrased) and I get ignored deeply, soundly, and unanimously, by those who have made actual claims about god.

I guess the silence I encounter to my question is an answer in a way. A very telling answer. — god must be atheist

And whose problem is that?
Do you believe in God?

So the problem is that we are mistaken when we say that child sex slavery is bad, and from God’s perspective that’ must be perfectly fine, since he clearly allows it to happen? — Pfhorrest

No, the problem is that you're taking up a problem that is not yours to begin with.

If you don't believe in God, then the presumed, claimed, or factual actions, qualities etc. of God are none of your business and none of your concern.

Like I said:

The moment one introduces God to the discussion, in order to be consistent, one has to start off with taking for granted that God is omnimax and that God sets all the standards.

The problem of theodicy exists only because people try to explain God on human terms.

And again:

The problem is that you're taking up a problem that is not yours to begin with.

If you don't believe in God, then the presumed, claimed, or factual actions, qualities etc. of God are none of your business and none of your concern.

If you nevertheless stick your nose into things that are none of your business, expect trouble.

Indeed. I'm asking - couldn't you be wrong here? Couldn't it be that you don't have a thought, for which you cannot find the words? — Banno

If it can be thought, it can be put into words.

I'm trying to establish what the motivation of the AN is. Because I suspect that this would be the quickest way to undercut absolute AN.

I was responding to the claim that because there is illness, sickness, death, evil, etc, then there could be no God, because if God is omniscient, benevolent, etc, then none of these could be allowed to exist. This is a popular argument in today’s world which rests on a misconception of what the purported goodness of God actually entails (and which I describe as ‘the hotel manager theodicy’). But as those who repeat it likely have no practical experience of what ‘goodness’ entails beyond and above ‘the pleasure principle’, then there’s little use trying to explain it, as it will only result in an interminable argument from incomprehension. — Wayfarer

It just goes to show that those people are judging everything by their own standards.

But the moment one introduces God to the discussion, in order to be consistent, one has to start off with taking for granted that God is omnimax and that God sets all the standards.

The problem of theodicy exists only because people try to explain God on human terms.

These objections might all be pedantry on my part, but should philosophers try to avoid nominalizing verbs and adjectives lest they risk leading others astray? — NOS4A2

I'm not sure that changes anything.
My native language is very verb-centred. It's a language that allows for a great variety of word formation patterns; and pretty much anything can be said with a verb.

On the whole, I don't have the impression that this changes anything about the problem you talk about.
In the end, if one wishes to talk about something, one will have to use words for it -- whether it's nouns, verbs, or adjectives, or other categories of words.

How (unnecessarily) abstract or awkward a particular word (esp. a newly formed one) will seem seems to have more to do with how the particular word formation pattern by which the word was formed is experienced by fluent speakers of said language, rather than whether it's a noun, a verb, or an adjective.

For example, English, in comparison with Slavic languages, has a relatively poor fund of endings and other affixes for making new words out of existing ones. So making new words with affixes in English perhaps feels more awkward to English speakers than making new words with affixes in Slavic languages feels to Slavic speakers.


Another thing that comes to mind is that English is such a mixture of many languages with so many words that have been borrowed from other languages that words that talk about the same theme aren't necessarily also etymologically related.
Pairs such as this come to mind: Slovene "hrana - hranljiv" vs. English "food - nutritious" (as opposed to "foody" or some such). For some foreign learners, this is an awkward feature of English, and I imagine that English natives have some difficulty with that too.

What I sought validation for, was the claim that ‘if God is good, then there could be no suffering’. I call this the ‘hotel manager theodicy’ - the expectation, that if God is the ‘ideal CEO’ the nothing bad ought ever to happen. — Wayfarer

"Nothing bad" by whose standards of nothing bad?
Man's or God's?

The consequent moral realist has suspended all self-doubt and anything that could induce it.