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25-01-2016
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I can't think of a good world, I just completely see no need for anything sentient to exist, I don't care for mineral kingdome, but the vulnerable stuff existing - it is a bad idea, period. No problem in non-existence. I find the very concept of 'need' repelling. Why would anyone think it's good that something needy should exist. Needy is faulty, needy is deficient, needy is dependent and vulnerable and predatory. To live in order to have food come into one end and out of another - is idiocy. And that's all we have in either human or animal world. Of course if cornered and have to choose best of the worst I'd just say make it a sufferingless world, whatever the design should be. But really just don't make anything, leave it in peace of nonexistence. This is why I love you, Irina Do you know how rare this obvious understanding is? Especially when I worked as a software engineer I had to wade through this background of Tech Worship at every meeting and on a daily work basis. That somehow being able to swipe your arm across a clerk's face to pay for something was worth all of the suffering man has endured over tens of thousands of years, and more to come. It's utter rot, but people eat it up, like chocolate-coated excrement. It was 21 C today here in south central Texas, with blue skies and a few puffy clouds. *Almost* worth the 42 C heat three months of the year, almost. But the older, beautiful, houses from the turn of the 20th century (like the small one I own) when gas heat was almost free have wood floors on pier and beam with no sub-floor and half a meter of air space under, so you are living on a bed of freezing air at night that flows through the cracks between the boards, and it is hard to stay warm because of it. But no freaking snow to deal with, four out of five winters or so. With my mix of German cold winter heritage combined with Spanish siesta heat genes, my skin is light but tans darkly and easily, so I have aversion to and affection for both hot and cold, which freaks me out sometimes. |
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26-01-2016
Thanks, Kirk! Speaking of Tech Worship, I came across some transhumanist related artcile on FB recently, something about coming closer to being able to upload our 'precious' minds into a non-decaying mechanical bodies to wait until the heat death of the Universe or whatever. Cool but living for centuries watching the same shit going on?Fine, I mean, try that, why not. Actually, if that prevents our selfish kind - who up until now have been trying to portray having kids as selfless and not some quest for vicarious immortality through reproduction - if this prevents people from having biological offsprings (as much, perhaps) - then fine, maybe a good thing. |
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27-01-2016 @Irinia Ok, I think I should probably clarify a few things. What I mean with selfhood is basicly a homunculus-self: a me-thing that sits somewhere in the head, that is the originator of actions, the thinker of thoughts, a separated divided self (a schizoid split between experiencer and experience). The way I see it this sort of self is born out of the same mechanism as thought (or abstract symbolic thinking). That doesn't mean that this is rationally justified, derived from actual knowledge. Some psychologists may call it the 'false self': https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology_of_self#Winnicott.27s_selves Though there's also much where I cannot agree with these psychologists: I wouldn't, what they call the 'true self', a self at at all. Its really just more like a momentary impersonal kind of consciousness. Furthermore I don't think that this false self actually protects the true self, or at least does a very good job at it. But I understand that it seems to be that way: The homunculus-self is very frightened, paranoid, neurotic, delusionally protective...Moreover it's not like that the false self and true self can be treated as really separated things. It's more like the impersonal self thinks it is the personal homunculus-self. Sort of a mistaken identity. But however, what I wrote here are my own conceptions that I created out of introperspection, experiences and analysis. And these sometimes don't add up with the conceptions our psychologists and philosophers of mind come up with. So I am not impressed by that. (You see I am also full of myself ) Maybe Buddhists have more sophisticated and viable conceptions about selfhood, as the spend a lot of time pondering about such stuff. But I don't know, I am not very familiar with eastern thought. Concerning the evolutionary advantageous thing: All this social interaction thing doesn't convince me at all: even ants show very complex interactions, as many other animals do. And it works out fine without any selfhood. Even very small children can perfectly socially interact, show signs of altruism (at least after some months). I don't see why this things couldn't work out instinctively and automatic. Though selfhood may provide some advantage concerning social flexibility. But an abstract notion of self, not a felt one, would be good enough for this. But I am not sure, what you are saying here. Are you suggesting that bats have selves? I speculate that selfhood originated in mechanism of symbolic processing, or a certain way this mechanism communicates (sort of the direction of information flow) with the other parts of the brain. Furthermore this sense of self gets solidified with the socialisation process. There seems to be a strong correlation with this kind of selfhood and neurotic fear, craving, aversions so on. As this things do more harm than good, the tradeoff seems to be pretty high. But on the other hand I can imagine scenarios where also mental illnesses and neurological disorders can be evolutionarily advantageous. So I don't know, that's hard to say. Even if it is so, it doesn't mean that the selfhood solution is a very good one, or the best possible one. Nature is fine with just-so solutions that just somewhat work. So I would still say that selfhood is useless, even a great suffering enhancer. I think that this is also the reason for my intuitive AN-Position: it would be, as i would purposefully inherit a severe mental illness (the human condition). An irresponsible thing to do.I will answer the pain thing, it's bothersomeness and how i think that this relates to selfhood later, when I have more time. --- > Edited 27-01-2016 15:49:00 |
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27-01-2016 @Irina About pain and stuff: Actually I do think that animals can feel similar sensation that we would call pain (and so do babies). But what I don’t buy into is the notion: pain = suffering = bad. Lessons that can be learned from the brain-damaged suggest, that there some cognitive structures that are required to make pain bothersome: http://www.philosophersmag.com/index.php/tpm-mag-articles/11-essays/105-pain. And also my own experiences with handling chronic pain revealed the the role that the mental relationship with pain plays in creating suffering. I used the some insights from the book Managing Chronic Pain: A Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy Approach Workbook: http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Chronic-Pain-Cognitive-Behavioral-Treatments/dp/0195329171 , if anyone is interested. Especially the insight, how the fixed notion that 'things must be different than they are', creates stress, enhances suffering and the subjective severity of the pain. And also how the mental labeling of the painful sensations as 'that's so horrible painful and bothersome' (or something like that), creates a vicious circle of suffering. So a clear cut analysis of this vicious circle, how this labeling creates aversion, which creates stress and how this directs the attention toward that sensation was helpful. Also to be able to see this sensation in its 'raw form', without aversion and value judgement, actually did it for me (Although this things require some practice, I don’t deny that). So what does this have to do with selfhood you may ask? Well, somehow there seems to be correlation between the homunculus-self and attachment/value-judgements of things, wanting and craving and so on. If there is a self, there's also this mental labeling (value judgements) of things as there is also a 'someone' to whom this painful sensation is referring to. This psychological dynamics creates a kind of possessive mental attachment to the pain. Sort of: “It’s my pain, and it’s so horrible”. Without that, the whole thing plays out in a different way, in a more automated instinctive way. Sure, also animals want to get away from pain or do something about it. I mean that's the whole point of pain: It’s a signal of the body to get the attention of some areas of brain saying: Dude look, there may be something wrong there, do something against it, or don’t do that again what you recently did, as this creates damage. Some social animals may also moan and cry, informing the other animals 'hey there's something wrong with me!’. But it’s not that bothersome as it’s usually for humans, without a 'someone' who's pain it is, without this mental attachment. You seem to have some problems to imagine how the pleasure-pain mechanism plays out without conceptional mental involvement, without someone to whom a pain is referring to, and may accuse me to excuse and rationalize, what your are convinced are the 'horrors of nature'. But I can only say: No I am not, I have good reasons to believe otherwise. But ok I admit it, I am more bothered by 'psychological suffering' than by physical ones. Maybe that's the real reason i don’t dig Efilism. Sure pain is not a nice thing, but I fail to see that absolutely horrifying aspect of it. Of course I have my fair share of experiences with pain: For example a mountain-climbing accident, where I broke an arm and a leg, had a fractured rib, internal bleedings... So, in this life threatening situation, I was probably so pumped with adrenalin that I didn't feel much at all.. It just started to hurt later on: I got somewhat dizzy, the relation with pain was a somewhat dissociated one, the pain started somewhat to feel alien, as something outside. Then I passed off. I lied there for several hours before someone found me. Sure that was not a nice thing, but I am able to endure such things, when I know that there's an end in sight. But however, I am sometimes baffled when someone wants to educate me about the horrors of nature and think that this is some special new insight. They sometimes sound like idealistic townspeople, grown up with anthropomorphised cartoon animals that talk about there feelings and shit. And they seem to think that in nature, things are always very dramatic, a constant eating and getting eaten. But imho they probably watched too many documentaries, where they only show the dramatic highlights. So they got a wrong impression. Most of the time, an animal life isn't very dramatic at all. Most of the time they just walk or stand around, looking dumb (Nahh ok, basically like a human life).True, existence is useless, there's no need for any sentient to exist. Must there be any use? As I try to be a better nihilist and all, I would also say that there's also no need for any sentient not to exist. The good pessimist instead, in all his holiness and goodness, thinks otherwise, as to him suffering has (negative) value and matters most. I think one of the main reason why people can never come to an agreement concerning morality, is because they hang on to different value-hierarchies. For the hedonist, pleasure matters most, other things are more secondary. For an adventures experience-hungry guy, experience of life, is what matters most. For an scientist it's the acquiring of knowledge and understanding what matters. For the pessimist it's suffering what matters most, as to him life and other things have no meaning, or stand lower in the value-hierarchy and so on. Sure, they all can up with all sorts of rationalizations (usually involves plenty of circular reasoning) why there favorite interest or obsession has meaning or value, and should have a higher status of 'meaning'. I don’t find all of them very convincing, including the idea that suffering should matter, or matters more than anything else. The meaning or value of suffering is as fabricated nonsense as the meaning of life. Sure many pessimists claim to be existential nihilists: Life has no meaning! But since they are so bothered and obsessed with suffering, in reality, to them, life and existence is something that shouldn’t be. In reality existence has negative value/meaning to them. Whereas a true existential nihilist would rather say: Existence is not even meaningless. It has nether meaning nor no meaning. So he would reject the whole category of meaning (positive or negative) towards existence. So he would be indifferent towards existence, if you know what I mean. --- > Edited 27-01-2016 22:58:10 |
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31-01-2016
Especially the insight, how the fixed notion that 'things must be different than they are', creates stress, enhances suffering and the subjective severity of the pain. And also how the mental labeling of the painful sensations as 'that's so horrible painful and bothersome' (or something like that), creates a vicious circle of suffering. What you're saying and describing later in your comment I can understand and to a limited extent have been playing with myself when I was in pain: trying to not notice it, trying to make peace with it, make it go into the background by just letting it be, stopping to fight it or feel sorry for myself wishing things were different. I think it's a part f our psychlogical wiring to try and love what we have if we can't have what we love, so to say. As you recognize, this mental gymnastics requires some exercise, just like, for example, walking on burning coal, I think. After trying my best to get used to pain I usually give up: it is eating up even more of my mental resources than simply lamenting and whining and crying which comes naturally. The pain keeps poppig up in my cnsciousness reminding me not with words but with 'actions' how horrible it is. I don't think it has much to do with self. Say you're asleep and get awakened from a sharp painful sensation. The first thing in your consciousness is not remembering that you're a persona aged #f years named #### who likes this and had such and such past and so on, the first thing in there is "Ouch! Hurt! Hurt!" And THEN comes the processing and what to do aout it and oh is that horrible indeed kind of thoughts. Again, any agonizing pain during torture: do you think a person has any time or mental resources to even remember himself while being tortured? I don't think so, at least with very sharp pain I've felt there was nothing but pain in my mind. So pain is bad and it does create suffering and it is automatic. The fact that some kinds of pain sometimes can be managed with is only one of those rare exceptions that confirm the rule, nothing more. There's not much people and other animals can agree upon in this world, but the two very primitve and basic judgements come simply as a statement of a fact: pain - bad, pleasure - good. We understood this back when we were cavemen, even monkeys understand it, and today, to try and deny this simple truth - that this is how we process these stimuli - is where I stop debating with people because if we can't agree on basic tenants then there's no point arguing any further. I took a look at that experiment and remained unconvinced. I've read about cases where people have no fear because that part of their brain is not functioning, amygdala i think it was. But what does that proove - that we can simply turn off our fear? Maybe we can with some effort but the default setting is still that we have fear, not that it is optional if only we start judging fearful things to be not so fearful. Regarding that experiment, there's a fair critique of the interpretation of the findings: "Pain asymbolics feel pain, but act as if they are indifferent to it. Nikola Grahek argues that such patients present a clear counterexample to motivationalism about pain. I argue that Grahek has mischaracterised pain asymbolia. Properly understood, asymbolics have lost a general capacity to care about their bodily integrity. Asymbolics’ indifference to pain thus does not show something about the intrinsic nature of pain; it shows something about the relationship between pains and subjects, and how that relationship might break down" http://www.colinklein.org/papers/AsymboliaWebVers.pdf Btw, there's another peculiar disorder which I don't know much about, admittedly, but you might be interested since you're the self-phobic guy Called depersonalization. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-search-self/201211/life-depersonalization I wonder if they feel pain in the same time when they perceve their body as not theirs. But haven't researched it so I'm just throwing it in for everybody who might care to investigate. I don't mean to imply that this is wha your ideal world of no-self would look like, just case in point. But it’s not that bothersome as it’s usually for humans, without a 'someone' who's pain it is, without this mental attachment. You seem to have some problems to imagine how the pleasure-pain mechanism plays out without conceptional mental involvement, without someone to whom a pain is referring to, and may accuse me to excuse and rationalize, what your are convinced are the 'horrors of nature'. You do appear to be excusing the horrors by saying that if only we hadn't evolved selves we'd be happy like the rest of the animal kingdom who don't seem to mind pain very much. I'm glad that you recognize we can't really say how bad they feel pain and thus might want to err on the side of caution. Most of the time, an animal life isn't very dramatic at all. Most of the time they just walk or stand around, looking dumb (Nahh ok, basically like a human life). Perhaps a healthy animal - yes. Eat grass unless you hear something in the bushes - then run. But there's also sickness in animal kingdom that may last for some time, there's also being eaten alive and not having one's throat crushed first, so every tear of the flesh is still being felt. There's freezing cold and dying from it. True, existence is useless, there's no need for any sentient to exist. Must there be any use? As I try to be a better nihilist and all, I would also say that there's also no need for any sentient not to exist. The good pessimist instead, in all his holiness and goodness, thinks otherwise, as to him suffering has (negative) value and matters most. Well it does to everybody, clearly even you, when you say you'd like a world without Egos, without selves, explain that that's because selves - in your opinion - are to blame for the additional unpleasant sensations, basically, for an increased suffering. You trying to 'rise above it' and sort of deny that you are this biological machine that is by design wired to dislike on a biological, physical level and put negative value on a mental level on pain and sufering is just you trying to fool yourself and perceive yourself as something more sophistiated than the organism you are. Pain rules us, we do not rule pain. You, on the other hand, are trying to convince yourself otherwise. That the world is not as dangerous as it is to a feeling creature. It's not about holiness to recognize that suffering is bad, is about facig the facts, even if they're unpleasant. For the hedonist, pleasure matters most, other things are more secondary. For an adventures experience-hungry guy, experience of life, is what matters most. For an scientist it's the acquiring of knowledge and understanding what matters. Note that in a broad sense, they're all seeking one thing - feeling good. The fact that some people are more into bodily pleasures and others - into pleasures of thrills or of recognition or creativity - doesn't change the fact that we all value feeling good as positive and bad - as negative, nobody is seeking being run over by a car every week. So while people argue about what constitutes higher pleasure, or worst suffering, they all agree that pleasure should be maximized and pain - minimized. Whereas a true existential nihilist would rather say: Existence is not even meaningless. It has nether meaning nor no meaning. So he would reject the whole category of meaning (positive or negative) towards existence. So he would be indifferent towards existence, if you know what I mean. Oh I know what you mean but I don't care if existence objectively can not be judged as anything. I only talk about what it is to sentient beings who process pleasure and pain and who do crave meaning in the current world. If you had read my blog before you would probably notice that I reiterate this very thing: I care about how we perceive the world and how animals do, and if our perception of it isn't the highest truth to the Universe which I shall never know or understand - why should that stop me from talking about how that part of the Universe that affects me personally is being experienced and judged by me? And as I've said already, some basc human truths are out there and you won't change that: pain is bad and pleasure is good. But if you don't agree with that - it's the end of our dialogue, clearly, it's a dead end then. |
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01-02-2016 @ Irina When I am mocking Pessimism here a bit, I am also somewhat mocking myself . Or a certain branch of it, or common reaction to it: The sort of whiny, suicidal, depressive Pessimism. That what Tolstoy called 'the way of the coward'. Though he later chose 'the way of retardation', Means: He became a believer, or at least tried to be one. But however, I would say that I am a Nihilist in theory, but more of a Pessimist in reality, just that you knowquote: I think it's a part f our psychlogical wiring to try and love what we have if we can't have what we love, so to say. It's not so much twisting something perceived and believed as negative into something positive, but to be able see a sensation, emotion, situation objectively without aversion. Seeing it how it how it is before our judgement so to say, and that there's no need to judge it as horribly bad (but that doesn't mean that it is something positive), using complementation and reason. Then it's easier to forget about it. But I see, that's how this thing is often understood, and that's also my criticism cognitive therapies, or how it sometimes is practiced. Some Therapist's seem to apply it in quite relativistic way, replacing one nonsense with another nonsense, that just feels better. Or they encourage them to replace their believes with some half-hearted sedative reassurances (things could be worse, others have it worse…) or to merely see the positive side of things and other crap. But in doing so, they only teach them to bullshit themselves, only making them feel better (for a while), turning them into short-term hedonists, not how to get better in the long term. At least for me, using hard nosed analysis, rationality and realism (with a sort of scientist mindset) as well as complementing reality as it is before judgement, before the conceptual-mind-overlay, is the only way it works for me when it comes to disputing problems and aversions. So I think that cognitive approaches for physical and psychological sufferings are a good a idea, but it depends how it is applied. Unfortunately, many therapists who don't know shit, apply in ways that will not work, and as such may do more harm than good. But that's the result, when they basically practice stoicism without any underlying philosophy. quote: After trying my best to get used to pain I usually give up: it is eating up even more of my mental resources than simply lamenting and whining and crying which comes naturally.. I think I know what you mean. I think that can be a common side effect of such approaches. Yes that's sort of a tricky thing, compulsively trying to get rid of something can create more suffering, creating a strong aversion about aversion and so on.... But it can also increase self-loathing in the gullible (oh noes, why i am so irrational, judgmental...just sooo not perfect). So I would also tackle problem of aversion about aversion, self-loathing issues, as well as the main problems. But more with the motivation for Truth, clear cut objective understanding, practiced in a calm manner. Usually i am done with a problem, when i genuinely can see as mere situation, so i can really give a fuck about it. quote: o pain is bad and it does create suffering and it is automatic. Not sure, some years ago I had a dental treatment under hypnosis (just out of curiosity, to see if it would work), and it did! Wasn't bothered by it at all, and makes me wonder if its works for very serve pain, and what the underlying psychological mechanics are. quote: There's not much people and other animals can agree upon in this world, but the two very primitve and basic judgements come simply as a statement of a fact: pain - bad, pleasure - good. Not sure, how you mean that. An animal lacks of the cognitive abilities to label sensations. The way I see it, it is programmed to avoid, or to do something against perceptions with certain qualia, and seek out feelings with another qualia. But we humans with our 'advanced minds' usually label certain sensation as 'bad', others at 'good', creating an suffering-stretching feedback-loop and suffering-enhancing compulsive ideas out of that. quote: Called depersonalization. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-search-self/201211/life-depersonalization As someone who got hit by a more severe depression every some years, I have my fair share of experiences with depersonalisation. I am somewhat skeptical of the idea, if thats a condition that can stand on it's own, how they seem to portray it. Seems to be more a secondary condition, or a side effect of trauma, depression, anxiety. But that's not what i am talking about. Depersonalisation is more a sort dissociated state, which makes the self feel somewhat unreal and alien, in an uncomfortable way. But you see, there's still a self there. That's very different from that true selfless way of being. But as you obviously don't get, or can't relate to that what I am saying, there probably won't a be a way to convince you about the problematic suffering-enhancing aspect of selfhood. Let's do a quick thought experiment. Imagine a perfect world: no severe suffering and fear possible, also no boredom and and so on...heaven on earth. Would you enjoy living in such world forever? Well, i wouldn't..because our mode of self-consciousness is not just a great suffering enhancer, but to me there's also something very intrinsically unsatisfying in this way of being. This makes me think, if it's really suffering that bothers me about human life. Or is it something else.. quote: Note that in a broad sense, they're all seeking one thing Well, somewhat. I see it more as a sort of truthiness. I think the differences between Schopenhauer and Nietzsche is that: Schopenhauer: Suffering is the problem. Nietzsche: the lack of meaning is the real problem. His reasoning: Give a man meaning and he will not only endure suffering, but also seek it out, if necessary. I think both of them are partly correct. The sort of hedonic motivation you seem to subscribe to, that you, for whatever reasons see as an obvious human truth, is not only conceptually problematic, but also imho empirically wrong. I mean how exactly do intellectual pleasures feel? How can i differ intellectual pleasure from intellectual pain? That doesn't sound right me. For example, philosophy and thinking matters to me and i really wished that this pondering and thinking about stuff would feel better...and I can think of plenty of stuff that i could do instead which would be much more pleasurable. Yet I don't care about that..So I would rather say that people have value-hierarchies, a hierarchical arrangement of things that matter, that have meaning to them. Sure this arrangement can also be quite dynamic, so it's doesn't stay same during a lifetime and under all circumstances. And the value of suffering would be one part of that. And believe it or not, to many people it's not number 1 in the hierarchy, most of the time. And for good reasons: given the human condition, one is pretty much fucked if he does so. Though some can not do otherwise, because of a certain temperament, can not find a higher value, are failing at nihilism where even suffering wouldn't overly matter, or because they think it's a very heroic, holy and good thing to do, or they just have a soft spot for pathetic self torment and moral pride. But however, i would rather say value-satisfaction = good, value dissatisfied = bad. If, or how much feelings or pain matters would be a mere part of that. If you disagree with that, I would like to know why. quote: pain is bad and pleasure is good. But if you don't agree with that - it's the end of our dialogue, clearly, it's a dead end then. Yeah, yeah, sure. If you're just getting tired of that, because I bore the shit out of you, you can directly tell me so. I can take it. --- > Edited 01-02-2016 17:43:22 |
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01-02-2016
But however, I would say that I am a Nihilist in theory, but more of a Pessimist in reality, just that you know Yeah I remember you saying something like you want not to care. Ok. It's not so much twisting something perceived and believed as negative into something positive, but to be able see a sensation, emotion, situation objectively without aversion. Why do people who talk about objective seeing of things so often seem to mean by objective something to the essence of 'anything but how it actually appears to us humans'? What do you think is objective as such? And why do you think we can even establish what is objective? Is objective essentially non-emotional? Why? But more importantly, again, how can you be sure you will ever be able to see things 'objectively'? But in doing so, they only teach them to bullshit themselves, only making them feel better (for a while), turning them into short-term hedonists, not how to get better in the long term. Oh don't worry, most people live their whole lives doing minimal amount of challenging views and looking at things from different angles, so when someone gives them a hint of how they can find a silver lining in their horrible predicament they just might live happily ever after telling themselves that story (until someone challenges it and they're too late covering their ears and saying 'bla-bla-bla-bluh') In so many cases people bring out problems to psychologists that makes you want to ask them: "haven't you ever thought about it before?" And they haven't! There was no tragedy, no death, no helplessness, no conflict in their world up until something happened directly to them! And it was something that has been happening all around them every freaking day and they just didn't notice, didn't think about it, didn't care. Wow. That's why - well, one of the reasons - I couldn't be a practicing therapist. Someone with more understanding and endorsing of this way of living - unexamined living, as ancient philosophers would say,- should be helping most people. And they are. Good. Evidently we're missing different standards, or different approaches guides for therapists to apply to different people: some need just a sweet pill, others - an honest journey into what's real, right, meaningful etc. Of course different schools already exist I mean we could benefit from some sort of guidelines on which personality types would benefit more from this and that type therapy. But then...psychotherapy is partly an art, not a strict science, unfortunately, so it will always depend on whether a certan practitionair understands what's best for each client. So I would also tackle problem of aversion about aversion, self-loathing issues, as well as the main problems. But more with the motivation for Truth, clear cut objective understanding, practiced in a calm manner. Usually i am done with a problem, when i genuinely can see as mere situation, so i can really give a fuck about it. It's a good personal cjoice in many cases, I make it all the time. What I don't do is make a philosophy of it. It's more of a stratey of getting thru life. But I won't go saying there's something wrong with all of us because the "Truth" lies indeed in not caring ever about anything! That is making philosophy out of a simple need to not be tormented by unpleasant sensations. There is no way of determining whether this is the objective evaluation of life and its circumstances for a human animal. That's where I think we differ. I only accept it as a personal choice, not better and not worse than any other way of making life more manageable. Hedonism works for some but not others, stoicism works for some but not others. Not sure, some years ago I had a dental treatment under hypnosis (just out of curiosity, to see if it would work), and it did! And the default state is not hypnosis, and not pain asymbolic or anything. The default wiring is that pain happens without your consent, and it is already feeling bad before you can label it anything. True that it can get worse or better to some extend by mental processing of it, by whether there's fear or hope etc, but pain and it's automatic negative effect exist in real world regardless. And it already can be very bad. The way I see it, it is programmed to avoid, or to do something against perceptions with certain qualia, and seek out feelings with another qualia. But we humans with our 'advanced minds' usually label certain sensation as 'bad', others at 'good', creating an suffering-stretching feedback-loop and suffering-enhancing compulsive ideas out of that. I see it as a natural (logical) consequence of us having a more developed brain. While an animal can be avoiding cold purely because it feel that 'in their gut' that it's what it should do, a human animal while feeling most likely a very similar physical sensation also has - on top of that - a rational process in the brain that says 'oh i better get inside the building wouldn't want to freeze because that feels bad and I don't like feeling bad, and also i've just paid my mortgage so life is too good to die just yet' :) Where we disagree is that you're saying, seemingly, that the root of all evil is evaluating something and labeling that something. I think you're giving us too much credit in our creative skills, as if saying that although our sensations aren't necessarily good or bad we're inventing out thin air a totally arbitrary and not based in reality judgement that something is bad for us because it makes us feel bad and another such wild assumption that something is good beacause it feels that way. It's almost like you're close to proclaiming reality in it's purest form to be tasteless, colorless, odorless... and that we're wrong to decide anything about it because we're always going to be wrong no matter what we label it? Then how comes when you label something to be 'just what it is' or 'not necessarily bad' this seems to appear to you as truthful evaluation of the situation. I mean, just because it contradicts your gut instinct doesn't make it a sophisticated idea. Claim everything neutral is just another value judgement. How do you know it is, unless you trust your human capacity to evaluate things with your mind. And if you do trust your mind's capacity to evaluate things, then why is judging something as negative - a mistake, while labeling it as whatever else - a cold, objective truth? But as you obviously don't get, or can't relate to that what I am saying, there probably won't a be a way to convince you about the problematic suffering-enhancing aspect of selfhood.
Also, the same capacity of ours that can create psychological suffering on tp of pure physical pain can also create hope and enthusiasm on top of that same pain, which animals might lack if they - as we've been taught in college - lack capacity to projct themselves far into the future. Do they even know the pain will end eventually? Because humans have that knowledge. Well, that's a deep topic to research about what we know what animals might know, I just find it strange that you're almost sure they're much better off than us. It might be a double-edged sword - this lacking of something. I do tend to think that the most simple organisms pobably have a much simpler processing of reality and probably simpler existence, but with us sharing 99.9 dna with monkeys and having so much similarities I think it's fair to assume they might be closer to us in how they experience life than some worms in the ground or amoebas. Other than that I don't claim to know for sure what's going on in animal world. Maybe one day science will tell us more. Let's do a quick thought experiment. Imagine a perfect world: no severe suffering and fear possible, also no boredom and and so on...heaven on earth. Would you enjoy living in such world forever? Well, i wouldn't..because our mode of self-consciousness is not just a great suffering enhancer, but to me there's also something very intrinsically unsatisfying in this way of being. This makes me think, if it's really suffering that bothers me about human life. Or is it something else.. Our current mindset is a product of evolution on this crappy planet. We don't handle problem-less world very well. We crave it, but our design is so faulty that we can't actually enjoy smoothless hedonistic thrill-lacking meaning-lacking living - the way we are wired today. To me that's a testimony to the unfortunate circumstances that shaped our psyche, not that being happy (loaded word thoug) is not good. Feeling good is good. A tautology, but your thought experiment seems to be aimed at challenging this definition. That it's good to not suffer. See what your thought exeriment really shows is that suffering is bound to appear in our psyche anyway and that suffering, again, would be bad. I mean, what do you mean when you say you wouldn't enjoy living in such a world? That you would not be happy, content, that you would be bothered by something, lacking something, in the state of unease, so....can we just say that you'd be unhappy? So what's bothering you in the end is, again, the state of being unsatisfied, unhappy, suffering? What else? Because it doesn't make sense to say, would you be happy being happy forever, does it?? That's why I insisted that we in the end do seek one and the same thing - a positive end of the dichotomy of good-bad, I like to refer to it as pleasure-pain, but it encompasses really all sorts of our human sensations mental and physical. In a related matter: The sort of hedonic motivation you seem to subscribe to, that you, for whatever reasons see as an obvious human truth, is not only conceptually problematic, but also imho empirically wrong. I mean how exactly do intellectual pleasures feel? How can i differ intellectual pleasure from intellectual pain? That doesn't sound right me. For example, philosophy and thinking matters to me and i really wished that this pondering and thinking about stuff would feel better...and I can think of plenty of stuff that i could do instead which would be much more pleasurable. Yet I don't care about that.. A mental pleasure is something that feels good inside your brain and not body, it's what a writer might feel when his book becomes a success, or when scientiss finds a cure for something, or when a hard-working man buys a car, or when philosopher gets what he perceives to be an insight to the truth, an 'aha' moment, a 'eureka'. I bet you could also see some chemical reactions accomplanying such mental activity. Fame, narcissism, pride in general - a mental pleasure. Why do we want to have a high del-esteem and not think ourselves to be worthless pieces of shit? Because it feels better to think yourself a worthy human being. Other side - mental suffering, self-loathing that you've mentioned, etc etc, no need to explain, we all know there are positive and negative psychological states, emotions. People often trade one pleasure for another pleasure. You might want to call it trading pleasure for a value, but what's standing at the core of the value in the very end? Some sort of a satisfaction from 'doing what had to be done', something that makes someone feel good, or better. At least, not something that hurts someone for no reason whatsoever, right? Value means something that brings some sort of a benefit. To whom? To people. We are the only ones talking value, worrying about it, discussing it, caring about it, if we didn't care about what's valuable we wouldn't be bringing up a question of what's valuable at all. Again, drilled down to the core a value is something that someone sees as beneficial from his point of view and desirable to him, a referable state of affairs that would make him feel satisfied, or less dissatisfied. Again the preference, the disserning of good vs not good for us, because why? Why do we care if some value isn't present? Because its absence will make us feel bad. If some value never comes to pass, so to say, but we don't even notice it - can it be even called a value? It's always with relation to our human needs that we even begin to talk value, which is implicit recognition that we have preferences due to this simple dichotomy of feels good - feels bad. Sorry for a lengthy explanation, I'm writing here for everybody who one day might read so might as well be regurgitating and sickening people to death while i'm at it This is why I like to stretch the pleasure-pain labels very far, I don't think just because the positive qualia is triggered by something immaterial it ceases to essentially be in the same category with those triggered by physical stimuli. So when a person trades one pleasure for another, as in, eating one piece of cake and not 10, even though she craves 10, she is expecting to get a mental pleasure of being regarded as beautiful, desirable by her husband who prefers skinny women. When a person goes to work even though he would rather watch movies at home is because he evaluates a pleasurable state in his brain from being seen as a successful man with a career, to be more pleasurable than that of watching movies while being looked down upon by peers and relatives. I don't think we ever choose a set of circumstances where pain outweighs the pleasure. There's always a hidden expectation of an even bigger pleasure or sometimes an avoidance of a greater suffering. A workaholic will feel lousy most of the time being a workaholic but that's how he escapes feeling even more miserable when he isn't working hard. When people point to value VS pleasure-pain equation, therefore, I simply see, figuratively speaking, some dude who gets a mental kick out of some value being brough about. You know, Lenin, saying "Aaaah! Finally, communism! Just what I wanted!" or a self-sacrificing mother saying "Look at my childen now! My life's mission is realized! I feel ecstatic!" People have been known to hide the 'returns' they get from behaving in what they perceive to be 'the right way' even from themselves so no surprise there, right? But when you follow the why and what for questions long enough you will always find in the very end a recognition that something will eventually feel good to someone. Good and not bad, that a preferable positive mental state will be established at last. Ok, that's enough on the pleasure/value thing, finally. I'm starting to lose any pleasure out of this typing as I'm thinking "what's the point, theMeme probably won't find your arguments compelling, and there's not so many people who are interested in these sort of questions anyway so the cost-benefit analysis of you writing so much is minus one tasty cake you could have eaten instead, so drop this mental pleasure chasing at once and go have that cake, girl!" Yeah, yeah, sure. If you're just getting tired of that, because I bore the shit out of you, you can directly tell me so. I can take it. No, I only meant what I meant that it's pointless trying to debate some issue unless you two agree on the basics first. If someone tells me they don't believe logic is the best or the only tool we should currently rely on, or that scientific method is not the best way of learning about the world, or that there is a difference between a sentient organism having a positive or a negative experience and that it matters - while I do - there's no going further, means we're speaking different languages from the start. That means that the only discussion we can have is the one about science, logic and subjective mental states and why they do or don't matter.Value nihilism is sort of a dead end. So nothing matters, or nothing either matters or doesn't matter, huh? Cool, what's next? Nothing. Great, nice talking to you! :)Another pointless discussion example is the one I've had about ethical animal treatment and vegetarianism. Arguments, arguments, arguments, until the person says that actually he just doesn't care about animals well-being. Well, why discussing the rest of the bullshit about how it's mother nature's law that we all eat one another and how we're all gonna die without meat if essentially, even if proven wrong on all those you're just gonna say you don't give a shit and will do as you please? Pointless, this should have been established in the beginning to save us all some time.So if you're just going to say it doesn't really matter if there is suffering or not, then what's the point in beating around the bush and talking about kinds of suffering and pain and whether we can control them and to what extend, since suffering isn't really bad necessarily, there should be no problem for you to solve to begin with.Boring? That too. For me it is boring to discuss what's painfully obvious: that our well-being matters to us. I don't know why anyone would waste time trying to 'look at things objectively', even thinking that they could possibly do that! So we humans feel water as wet. Is that not objective? Damn! I couldn't care less. Do you understand what I'm saying here? I'm not going to be trying to challenge how else the world might appear if ... I am more about how it does appear to 99.9% of people by default, and that is in the very basic level pretty simple: water - wet, fire - hot, pain - bad, pleasure - good. Variations? Sure. But basics are there and they have formed the ground of our conventional morality all aimed at improving our lives, ridding it of pain, of loss, of suffering, injustice, etc. Somebody wanting to challenge the very foundations of should we care if we're ok or not looks ridiculous to me, like a pretentious teenager trying to stand out from the crowd and rebel for the sake of rebelling. We do care and it's not going to change unless we cease being who we are and become a different kind of creatures, say, computers... |
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02-02-2016 I am someone who thinks that mankind is pretty much insane. First we are naturally vulnerable to be so. Sure, we are the geniuses in nature. But insane geniuses. Our minds are very creative in fabricating and inventing problems. Furthermore, as children people get brainwashed with a nutty dysfunctional value system: What to do, Whats good, whats bad, whats has value and what has none...Later as adults, people continue to brainwash themselves with all that learned bullshit, constantly fabricating new problems...and a great deal of human problem are actually imagined. And even the real problems can better tackled in a calm, than in our usually naturally/socially conditioned emotionalized-freaked out way.quote: What do you think is objective as such? And why do you think we can even establish what is objective? What I mean by objective in this context is not ruminating about how things may be in a sort of Kantian 'thing in it itself' way, but how they appear in our minds, before judgement and a conceptional way of putting things. Basically making a facts/value distinction. Clearly distinguishing between what also exists in the external reality (what we call facts) as interpreted by our sensory system of course, and what can only exist in our minds (values, judgement and associated emotions). Because, the thing is, that we naively think, that the badness or goodness of things is out there, that things or facts are bad/good in itself. We are quite some naive realists, at least in our everyday life. In the 'reality model' of our brains, the sensory input (or just an image in our minds), associated abstractions/concepts, judgments and emotions get molded together very quickly. The point here is to divorce this things, complementing that in slow-motion, seeing how facts or how the appear in our minds (before judgments/conceptional tackling), what the associated thoughts/judgments are, and what the resulting emotions and behavioral consequences are. Sort of a step-by-step debugging, right? The point here is that's its easier to rationally tackle a judgement, or even let go of an upsetting judgement if its clearly seen that things are not bad in itself, complementing that badness of things is not 'out there'. Realizing how a judgement has it's origins in 'cultural and social brainwashing', how there is no use for it (especially for things we cannot change or influence), or if this judgement is derived from very one sided view in a specific context. But one may experiment here, on whats work for what. The Stoics also have distancing-techniques that may help to keep things in perspective: realize how you will die anyway no matter what, complement how giant the universe is, and here a you, that little speck of dust with your ohh soo important problems.... But twisting a negative judgment into something positive, doesn't work for me at all. And its also not necessary. People may just feel better, less anxious and depressed due to the lack of 'problems'. Though a new value can appear as a side effect, usually a sort of a aesthetic or intellectual interest. Just focusing on the facts (in a 'human', wider sense, if know what i mean), see there's often a better, rational and calm way to deal with them, then a fearful, hateful, anxious or depressing way, seems to be the way to go for me. Bad news: I don't think that there is a quick fix, for being less nuts. Being less insane takes regular practice and exercise. Training the brain to be more sane and rational does indeed takes practice. If that's worth the effort, people need to decide that for themselves. For me it is. An before you are overstretching what I am saying: No, not every irrational belief or strong value judgement can't be (realistically) overcome. But a great deal of them can. Sometimes it's better to just suck it up. quote: That's why - well, one of the reasons - I couldn't be a practicing therapist. But maybe you could be a sort of Anti-Therapist: "Are you feeling too cheerful - more than you think that is appropriate? You can't stand the cognitive dissonance of being happy in a cruel world anymore? Irina Uriupina is here to help you! She will dampen your mood to an appropriate level in no time!". Maybe there's a niche for that? quote: Other than that I don't claim to know for sure what's going on in animal world. Maybe one day science will tell us more. Sure, we can't be be absolutely sure. But I think you are projecting a bit too much of our human psychology and sensibilities onto theirs, and how you imagine it is for them. Furthermore, while I agree that extreme pain sucks..and if had to endure it for many years or so I would prefer to put a bullet into my head instead. But for me it's just not that extremely horrifying- So I (naively?) assume that's also so for others and animals. So I believe you highly underestimate the suffering-enhancing dynamics that come with self-hood and certain cognitive abilities. But true, I don't have any hard facts that would would proof my point as well as you don't have one.. so what now? quote: mental pleasure is something that feels good inside your brain and not body, Don't know exactly what that means, but I know that having a desire fulfilled gives you feeling of satisfaction, and i also know the feeling of not being able to fulfill it: Frustration and Anger. So I wouldn't totally reject the hedonistic motivation thing, it does play a role..but in a more general sense, a conception of a sort of value-hierarchy would be better address this, and would better add up of whats happening in our minds in reality. So I don't think we differ much here, we may have just different ways of putting things. quote: Value nihilism is sort of a dead end. So nothing matters, or nothing either matters or doesn't matter, huh? Cool, what's next? Nothing. Great, nice talking to you! No I think you misunderstood. But ok it depends what you understand by value-nihilism: To me it's more of not paying overly importance to them, attaching to them in a fixated compulsive obsessive manner, being more flexible there. quote: and become a different kind of creatures, say, computers... Or selfless Vulcan's...? --- > Edited 02-02-2016 19:49:13 |
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04-02-2016
ok, can we take a break from line-by-line citing and replying now? think we've established a lot of things by now.
it's a tax paperwork season, drains me just to think of having to go there and see the beaurocrats and stick them with my papers that probably have a mistake there somewhere.
lol, believe it or not, i could not be an anti-therapist either, i feel to much empathy for the confused genuinely surprised stuck in their traps fuckers, even those i almost disdain as people, my instinct is to try and help everyone. but my other instinct is to get the fuck away and enjoy my life without worrying that some of my clients will have a breakdown and call and ask for a session. after all, i appreciate my solitude and not having to give out my phone number. when i was a student i think i was destined to change the world and fix every broken person i meet, including alcoholics and suicides. turns out, after i learnt more about myself and maybe even saved myself, acquiring a stable self-esteem, self-acceptance and a harmony of sorts, the need to go fixing others dissolved. i may want to when i see a needy person in front of me, but i don't have an urge to go and seek out suffering people and help them.
oh did you hear they recently established that positive thinking today might lead to a depression in the future? no causation proven yet, but correlation and speculation which i think is only logical. maybe not always depression, just a big disappointment ahead. because if you refuse to let in the fact that not everything is always for the best and sometimes life just sucks then you're not preparing yourself for the day when something horrible indeed may happen and it will have no positive aspects to be found and you'll feel yourself a complete failure for not being able to only bring about good things into your life by 'positive thinking' mind over matter woo-woo bullshit. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/positive-thinking-depression_us_56afcc16e4b0b8d7c2303e1a |
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09-02-2016 That positive thinking may lead to depression wouldn't surprise me at all. Though I can understand it's attractiveness, because it can make people feel better, at least for while, because of the hope that things will turn out good, that they get their desires fulfilled and so so on. But in the long run they often get more frustrated, demotivated and even depressed. It's just not working. And if it's not working, they only reason that it doesn't, can only be that they were just not positive enough....of course..That gap between how things are, and how things should becomes wider and wider, and increases their mental suffering. And then they feel like losers, because they just can't make this positive-thinking-magic work, and don't get what they think that they absolutely need.Though I am not saying, that people must not have ambitious goals. People can go after them in a realist and rationalist manner. I am also not a big fan of the idea that people should not want things - to me, that would be another crazy ideology. I don't think that asceticism - a denial of the will - actually will lead to much, and may increase suffering too (Sorry Schoppy!). If you ask me, having preferences is okay, but this sort of 'absolutely must have'-thinking, or that things absolutely need to be'in a certain way, otherwise its a horrible catastrophe and no good, creates problematic long-term suffering. But this sort of all-or-nothing extremist absolutist thinking, seems to be common bug in our minds. Well I think that getting a thicker skin, intentionally blocking out empathy, creating some distance for sake of being able effectively help someone, is something that can be learned. I mean doctors have to learn that too, to be able to do their work in a concentrated manner, unimpressed by the moaning, crying or screaming patient. And that goes for psychological suffering too. You may underestimate your own ability to adapt to such situations and your own psychological strength. But however, I think you could be a great therapist. And no-bullshit therapists, though they exist, imho seem to be a relative rarity. So what are you waiting for ... --- > Edited 09-02-2016 17:41:40 |
Comments to Artsybashev pessimistic quotes on life, meaning, death - 3/1/2016