In the physical world, 2 and tree are very different - one is visible, can be touched, smelt, tasted, and so on while the other cannot.

In the mental world, however, these dissimilarities are attenuated, some might say even completely obliterated.

Human stupidity (i.e. incorrigibly maladaptive misuses of intelligence / know-how / judgment which inadvertently do harm to oneself and/or others) is the oldest STD and is rarely treatable by culture or medication. — 180 Proof

Hey, don't give up so easy. — Pretty gal to spurned suitor

:heart: :kiss:

Nothing personal, it's just business.

Could I start a company selling good karma and buying bad (karmic) debts à la Jesus Christ? This is an already established practice albeit on a small scale in some Himalayan communities (casting a wide net here)! :chin:

As you yourself agree, no economic or academic or sociological condition that you possess can protect your offspring from random happenstance harms. Suffering is just a bad justification for the antinatalist viewpoint because suffering is too complicated on the cost/benefits analysis scale for it to be used as the main justification for antinatalism — universeness

True, but for the poor, the sick, suffering > happiness. Antinatslism is for these demographics. Another issue is the difference in weightage of suffering & happiness: :sad: $\geq$ :smile: + :smile: + :smile: +... (you get the idea).

I am not hopeless (even in brackets). One person's romance can be experienced by another as pure trauma. — universeness

That's not what I meant, but you have a point; nevertheless for the guy/gal who goes through the trauma of unfulfilled love, suicide becomes an option (vide Romeo & Juliet).

Do you really think the rich qualify as good parents merely because they are rich?
Why do so many children of the rich end up as messed up as any child of a poor person? — universeness

Précisément!

It's odd that ethics is conceived of as (a) business (transaction) - good & bad karma are like wages (+) and debts (-). Ergo, there should be a provision to declare (karmic) bankruptcy and get your debtors off your back!

I was a (hopeless) romantic too once. It didn't work out for me. Maybe I'm an exception but I wouldn't bet on it.

Sweeping generalization? I made it a point to mention the well-to-do and their right to have as many children as they wish. Only they'll never be able to ensure the happiness of their progeny to a 100%. That's gotta jolt them out of their slumber. Sometimes 99.99% just ain't enough! Life's not a joke, don't take it lightly unless you don't mind being exhumed and charged with criminal neglect of your children à la Pope Fromosus (vide Synodus Horrenda).

Indeed, the issue is complex - there are just too many unknowns i.e. any sincere attempt at an analysis is going to end in aporia (bewilderment). The next step then is obvious - what should we assume as truth? This, if you only make the effort to notice, is an ethical question.

Also, I did mention it quite clearly in my previous post that selling antinatalism to the suffering is preaching to the choir.

It's the privileged peeps we have to work on! One way is to question their guarantees of, at a minimum, aponia (freedom from suffering) to their descendants. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that won't be 100%. If worst comes to worst, I'm willing to let the rich and powerful multiply like rabbits if they so wish to. For the poor, there's no choice.

Is the child responsible for any pain/suffering/stretch-marked skin etc caused to the mother during the birth process or is it a consequence of an evolutionary process that has no inherent moral driver? — universeness

Where are the supporting documents that children chose to be born? There are none!

Why do you think violence is a necessary evil? — Joshs

Isn't it obvious? :brow:

What we wish for: Ahimsa in all its glory - the complete abolishment of violence of all kinds.

What we actually get: Violence as a necessary evil - under existing circumstances, renouncing violence is madness/stupidity/both.

The best we can do: Violence, always a last option!

I guess you don't understand my post. — 180 Proof

Maybe, but I tried to. I should be awarded points for that, oui monsieur!

How very insightful! Hats off to you.

"Distortion" is the key word here, oui? Bad karma, the severe case of the sniffles you get on the day before an important exam!

The suffering are sold on the idea of anitnatalism. It's the happy folks antinatalists havta convince. Question: Is a 99.99% surety that you can guarantee the well-being of your offspring acceptable? In some cases, nothing short of 100% will do, oui? Aut Cesar aut nihil The parents would need to be held accountable for the misery that their children go through! Only then will the full meaning of antinatalism sink in!

I like the way you think! However, you're paying a price which some may not be willing to. What that is exactly is for you to find out monsieur.

All I can say is this: It's not that simple. :grin:

Too bad, life would've been so much easier if it were, si?

Drugs are either initiators or facilitators vis-à-vis insight. In the former capacity they cause/bring about the Eureka moment! In the latter case, they - like catalysts - merely speed up the processes involved in an Aha moment!

The type of questions the OP is an example of pits our faculty of imagination against logic. Just because we can't conceive of time with/without a beginning we have no right to dismiss a sound argument that demonstrates which of the two cases obtains, oui?

incoherent — Cuthbert

Excelente!

All I can say is that you're on the mark - it's a Morton's fork.

Both time has a beginning and no it doesn't are incoherent, but the former is more coherent less incoherent than the latter. Scylla & Charybdis, choose the lesser of two evils.

On the contrary. It was said , the flaws are in the very real imperfections in oneself, language is doing what it is supposed to do. Language is a trivial matter, simply a tool. Just one link in the chain.

So, It is when one loses sight of these real imperfections within oneself, tires to conceal one's own shortcomings by the cunning use of language (weaving supporting philosophies), or any/all tools available in said edifice : always on the defense of one's fragile house. then it may serve well to do a reality check, as has been suggested in previous post. That being said,take it easy. — skyblack

I see, like the Delphic Oracle once warned her clients - the citizens of Delphi - temet nosce (know thyself).

That out of the way, as you so rightly pointed out, language is just a tool and how good/bad it is as one reflects upon its creator's (us) ingenuinity/stupidity. Let's stop shifting the blame and own up to our own (silly) follies, oui?

Hats off to you sir/ma'am, as the case may be!

Unbounded — 180 Proof

Close, but still leaves much to be desired.

Beginning present, ending present: :yawn:

Beginning present, ending absent: $\infty$

Neither beginning nor ending present i.e. both absent: Eternity [no symbol] (k/c/o Cuthbert)

Beginning absent, ending present: No concept so far. $-\infty$???

Theoretically possible... — The Dalai Lama

One shouldn't assume the flaws in language imply imperfections in reality. That would be, to my reckoning, sawing off the very branch one sits on and lectures the world. We're, in a sense, projecting our own shortcomings onto the world.

: I like that. — Merkwurdichliebe

I'm glad I made you go :lol: All comedians go to heaven!

How does an instruction instruct its own composition? I find it hard to understand how an algorithm or code or whatever used to determine the structure and components of the universe comes about simultaneously with that which it’s coding — Benj96

Good questions. All I can say, mon ami, is we've hit a wall which reason at its present level, in its present form, cannot penetrate. We need a new tool to tackle these kinda problems/issues.

I think it is eternity - without beginning and without end.

Wittgenstein in a lecture once asked his audience to imagine coming across a man who is saying, ‘…5, 1, 4, 1, 3—finished!’, and, when asked what he has been doing, replies that he has just finished reciting the complete decimal expansion of pi backwards—something that he has been doing at a steady rate for all of past eternity.
— Moore, A. W. 1990.The Infinite. — Cuthbert

:lol:

Most interesting! — Ms. Marple

Eternity = Both beginningless + Endless.

What about just beginninglessness?

As for Wittgenstein's quaint gedanken experiment, in what context did it appear? What was the point he was trying to make?

How do you deal with the pointlessness of existence? — Tate

Not everyone is bothered by the purported pointlessness of life. Even philosophers - the people who seem most concerned about points points to this, points to that, etc. - seem rather blasé about it. Perhaps the futility of the enterprise has hit home! The consensus being there ain't a point, why look for something that ain't there? That would be madness, oui monsieur?

The OP's question points to the plain and simple fact that our intution about time is such that it involves $-\infty$ (beginninglessness) and yet we don't possess a term for this idea. No, infinity ($\infty$) isn't it because it's endlessness and not beginninglessness. So $-\infty$ is only, how shall I put it?, an approximation of the concept we need to make sense of the OP's question.

bannings are the price of civilization. — 180 Proof

:up:

Like how crime is the price of capitalism.

Like how homphobia is the price of Christianity/Islam.

These are what I've dubbed The Siamese Twin Conundrum: Keep one, keep both; Lose one, lose both!

All the great epics start with those assumptions. Well, actually that's not true.

You could start a great epic with that assumption, though. Except it might all end up being for nothing. Pointless adventures. — Tate

Indeed, keeping it simple (& stupid) always helps - black & white thinking simplifies to the point where living becomes child's play. No one would/should hold that against anyone who does live a life like that - our brains can't handle the (alleged) complexity that inheres to reality. Sooner or later, analysis paralysis sets in and you'd wish that you had never encountered the words "it's not that simple" and the like.

Indeed, as I said already, established religion is always the perversion of spirituality. Jesus spoke of 'the Father', not of 'an omni-benevolent deity', and a glance at the Old Testament does not give the impression of omni-benevolence at all, but more of an arbitrary tyrannical vindictive jealous and cruel god. More like a Roman Emperor than a crucified carpenter. 'God is good' is another justification of the status quo by the powers that be. The ultimate demonstration that God is good is that he has put the white man in charge of the world. — unenlightened

You seem to be well aware of the facts. However, it's worth questioning the motives of people/critics who deny the authenticity of the Biblia Sacra and then when it suits them, quote passages from it to prove their case. Double standards any which way you look at it? You can't have the cake and eat it too, oui monsieur?

That said, you're on the right track as far as I can tell. An omnibenevolent deity is incongruent with facts as they stand. I feel sorry about that and, on behalf of those who insist God is all-good, I must tender a heart-felt apology to the world and the cosmos itself.

G'day señor!

The innocent suffer because to live is to be vulnerable. Life is a losing game - everyone dies. So rather than pretend it is not so, let us use our intelligence and social interdependence to mitigate suffering where we can, by feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, healing the sick, and sharing our common resources wherever there is need and suffering. You never know, your next life might be one of those whose suffering you did, or did not alleviate in this life. — unenlightened

Good call! Count me in! Be warned though I don't usually put my money where my mouth is. Apologies! Medici, cura te ipsum. I can't help when I myself am in need of help. I would be the laughing stock of the very cosmos. Nevertheless, I do my bit (when I can).

Inasmuch as ye do it unto the least of these my children, ye do it unto me. — Jesus

Alhamdulillah!

This is the radical karma of Buddhism, that since the self is an illusion, you yourself are the Buddha and the tyrant and the innocent sufferer, and to alleviate the suffering of another is as commonsensical as for the right hand to bandage a cut on the left — unenlightened

I'm not under any llusions as to what karma is or is not. It seems to provide a fairly good albeit unpalatable explanation for evil - recall the problem of evil, a thorn in the side of Christianity, an irresolvable inconsistency vis-à-vis an omnibebevolent deity.

Streetlight, banned?! :scream:

Karmic death spiral/debt trap.

Do evil and you're born in a condition/in circumstances that are not conducive to your well-being, this in turn makes you unable to see the light of Buddhism and you sin more. This means your next life is even worse and you sin even more...so on and so forth until you find yourself in the center of jahanam. :fear:

Your attachment to the karmic explanation stinks. What is this 'our pain' you speak of? I want my pain to end immediately. You speak of our pain by way of appropriating the pain of others and then use the notion of karma to justify your complacency about it. — unenlightened

You're on target, but in my defense I'd ask for an alternative explanation for childhood suffering. Why do innocents, sometimes, go through hell? What hypothesis do you offer? Remember PSR (the principle of sufficient reason).

This is one of the oldest tricks in religion's playbook. Tell people that they are immortal (souls) - that takes care of Thanatos. However, this is the part that really makes me all excited, tell 'em there are things worse than death - hellfire/eternal suffering - Algos is a tough nut to crack.

Depends on our circumstances, oui? Those who are happy fear Thanatos (multivitamins, weight control, walks, swimming, and so on) and those who are sad fear Algos (suicide).

Ok, so art proper is "just another thing we do" right? — Noble Dust

:blush:

How can I find ‘karma’ abhorrent’? I said those espousing ‘karma’ as a justification for people less fortunate as themselves as ‘abhorrent’.

It is especially silly when based on a steadfast belief in reincarnation from one body to another.

Where is having the cake and eating it? I don’t quite understand what you are getting at with that line? — I like sushi

We all want that justice should be served, but when justice is served, we recoil in disgust! What gives? This is our bad karma for we fail to see the light. I'm gonna get roasted for this.

It justifies it, because it justifies everything, by making justice a property of nature. And that means that any amount of exploitation is justified.The dogma of karma comforts the fortunate and privileged and blames the afflicted and exploited for their misery. It is entirely natural and commonplace for the privileged to come to believe they deserve their privilege, and karma is simply the Indian version of godswill and the white-man's burden. It fits right in with the caste system, and helps to sustain it along with rampant toxic sexism. I am not the expert, but my suspicion is that the doctrine does not come from Buddha himself, but is an accretion that probably predates him. rather like Roman cultural accretions to Christianity unconnected with the reported words or deeds of Jesus. — unenlightened

Excellent point! Gracias señor!

Karma indeed justifies exploitation by convincing people that they deserve it. However, to play the Devil's advocate, I'd say this: There's a long lead time between suffering, even of the severest kind, and the awareness of it & the will to end it! This too is karmic in essence i.e. our wish to put an end to our pain occurs only when/after our karmic IOUs have been paid off. In other words, sticking to the issue of exploitation, the need to improve our state of affairs marks the beginning of a debt-free life, karmically speaking.

To cut to the chase, the need for liberation from dukkha (dissatisfaction) of all kinds, including but not limited to exploitation, is nothing but good karma.

Hmmm, I disagree. I don't count art as being on the same level of other things we do, assuming that includes basically everything, given the triteness of your response. Maybe it's similar to other things, I don't know (provisionally), but it's not just "another activity" in my mind. — Noble Dust

I'm talking about art proper, stuff like painting, sculpting, etc., and not art in the sense found in the art of deduction or the art of experiment, etc.

I like this, but how does it apply to art? — Noble Dust

Art is just another thing we do!

Er, no. I am saying that there are reasons to do and believe things. — Bartricks

I need to take a breather! Will get back to you later. G'day.