It is bad for them too. I don't take much stock in self-reports at a particular time/place. Benatar did a good job indicating our psychological mechanisms for reporting "good" about "not good" things, specifically through Pollyannaism (optimism bias), adaptation (ideal/initial goals are changed to lesser goals because life doesn't meet them), comparison (if people are seen as having it worse, you must be better off).

Also, my own input is that when interviewing someone about "LIFE" there is social pressure and cues to make positive statements, not to sound too whiny or make dramatic pronouncements, or generally look like a Debbie-downer, so of course people will usually report they are better off. — schopenhauer1

I can tell you there was zero embellishment in my experiences I reported, I described them as I felt then. Also there are quite pessimistic people out there, always focusing on what they don't have rather than on what they have, comparing themselves to some famous star they see on TV rather than some poor African dudes dying of hunger in a war zone, always seeing the glass half empty rather than half full. I have had genuine lasting moments of happiness in my life, so I can't pretend they have never existed. And I have been in much better situations than where I am now, where I do tend to feel like shit quite regularly.

What I'm wondering is that if you were so convinced life is fundamentally shit and that it cannot possibly get any better, why do you continue living? What keeps you alive?

I'm struck by how Schopenhauer1 avoids mention of personal relationships(friends, family, etc). Instead the emphasis is placed on job , task and performance in relation to emotional well-being. I don't know anyone who has been able to achieve happiness over time strictly through their vocation. It's personal bonds that are key to a sense of meaning and worth. Knowing that one is loved and respected is the only thing I know of that can make the arbitrariness and unfairness of life bearable(and perhaps even irrelevant). I also notice that while you seem to reach out empathetically to him in your posts, there doesnt appear to be a lot of empathy in his responses.
I'm not Sigmund Freud, and this isn't a therapy blog, but i suspect that intimacy issues are driving the existential concerns here.

I'm struck by how Schopenhauer1 avoids mention of personal relationships(friends, family, etc). Instead the emphasis is placed on job , task and performance in relation to emotional well-being. I don't know anyone who has been able to achieve happiness over time strictly through their vocation. It's personal bonds that are key to a sense of meaning and worth. Knowing that one is loved and respected is the only thing I know of that can make the arbitrariness and unfairness of life bearable(and perhaps even irrelevant). I also notice that while you seem to reach out empathetically to him in your posts, there doesnt appear to be a lot of empathy in his responses.
I'm not Sigmund Freud, and this isn't a therapy blog, but i suspect that intimacy issues are driving the existential concerns here. — Joshs

I appreciate that @leo seems to be kind enough to try to reach out to what he probably sees as a troubled soul. At least online, he seems like a kind and nice fellow, and is quite the opposite of some more aggressively trolling types around here. Anyways, one of my major themes is that life is often worse than we realize, but we often are programmed to try to comply with it as the project of life itself is deemed as somehow necessary to continue and something to extol, when the constraints, circumstances, and fundamental structures might be quite negative for the individual. Even the fact that it is necessary to psychologically learn to adapt one's psychological state so as to accept life more easily, or in a better way, is telling. One of my other threads spoke of how birds and other animals don't know that they need to do, or evaluate what they are doing while they are doing it. We cannot do that. We evaluate our situations at almost every moment while we are doing it. This is not some Buddhist or Eastern thing where people would then respond, "we have to shut the evaluative part off while we do something".. While "flow states" exist and creative pleasures can occur, the evaluation is necessary to correct course, make deliberate actions, and generally get by, so that is not really an answer, as cognitively, it is so integrated with how we humans operate. To say otherwise, would be to throw out cliched, hollow solutions that do not really reflect what we do or rather, what we must do.

Anyways, this thread is essentially about how some types think that by "mining" existence- that is to say, by knowing/mastering all the minutia of life (minutia mongering), that we are somehow fulfilling a higher goal of some sort. Even if we say there is no higher goal to work towards, de facto by being wrapped up in the minutia, by trying to master it, we are regarding the fact that we are able to mine some understanding that can be useful for prediction/functionality from the materials/universe and so we must be doing something of value. The value comes in the output of more mining. For example, if I show you a really complex and extremely detailed math formula or proof, and then go about solving it, and then applying it to some world event that it maps to, I must be doing something of meaning because of its very complexity. I have mind the information and presented it and solved it. That in itself must mean something. The very fact of my understanding and solving the complexity or that I advanced a functionality.

What's really going on is instrumentality. The world turns, the universe expands, humans will go through repetitive tasks of survival, comfort-seeking, and entertainment seeking. We will continue to seek out the "goods of life" motivated by these there main drives. We understand that we do this though. We don't just "do" like animals. We are aware of our own circular behavior that we cannot escape. This isn't like "take a vacation or do something different" type of escape, but everything together is part of it, including the vacation and something different. That would be particularizing the general situation and throwing out pragmatic, granular "solutions" to the bigger existential issue of instrumentality/circularity in the first place.

What I'm wondering is that if you were so convinced life is fundamentally shit and that it cannot possibly get any better, why do you continue living? What keeps you alive? — leo

Good questions. By the way, as @Joshs mentioned, you seem very empathetic. Thank you for reaching out and trying to help. I appreciate that. I just want you to know, I recognize it and think that that is really good of you.

As for your questions, ending my life would provide no satisfaction, as the very ending of my life would also end the satisfaction I would have gained from ending my life. Even the thought of death is something that has to be conceptualized. Actual death is the end of conceptualization itself. Perhaps Schopenhauer said it better when he said: "Suicide may also be regarded as an experiment — a question which man puts to Nature, trying to force her to an answer. The question is this: What change will death produce in a man’s existence and in his insight into the nature of things? It is a clumsy experiment to make; for it involves the destruction of the very consciousness which puts the question and awaits the answer."

As to what keeps me alive, I think your question is really, "What gives you hope?". That is a question I do ask myself often, with no good answer. Perhaps that the next day won't be as annoying as the last? But the fact that I have to fix the problems causing the annoyance, is the problem I have in the first place. I will say, although I do see one of philosophy's main benefits as being a kind of existential therapy, I don't like to personalize it. That's why I tend to talk more in generalities. I'm not trying to avoid your questions that seem to be out of concern.

You raise interesting points. A therapeutic-emancipatory rhetoric certainly seems to dominate both religious and secular life. Derrida called that ‘metaphysics of presence’. Philosophy and the healing professions act as though negation, loss , decline , pain and suffering are accidental to what is true and primary, while they privilege betterment and certainty. Negation for them is just a means to an end, that end being fulfillment.

Even the atheists act as though somebody somewhere is keeping score and the result of all the purposeful figuring out is we get to keep what we’ve figured out and use it as a staircase to climb up to a better and better place. In fact, it isn’t life we want to continue and extol, it’s good experience. But life is every kind of experience, it will always, for everyone transition through every conceivable shade of good and bad feeling, and whether we feel like extolling it or not depends on what mood we are in.
That doesn’t mean that life is meaningless. If it were meaningless, we wouldn’t suffer. Being miserable is a very meaningful state. It implies a concept of pleasure. Pessimism is a comparison between an experienced or imagined state of well being or satisfaction and its loss or negation. A pessimist or depressive who claims never to have experienced pleasure could not then experience sadness or negativity. By the same token, pollyanna types experience as much suffeing as pessimists, but de-emphasize or repress those experiences. So pessimism, optimism and Utopianism have a lot more in common than they think.

To my mind, meaningfulness itself is a problem and a nuisance when taken as the aim of living. What people don't realize is that desiring substantial happiness and profundity out of meaning also dooms them to equally substantial misery and chaos.

The aim of knowledge is the minimization of meaning. I dont mean instrumental knowledge. I mean the kind of interpersonal knowledge that allows us to slip into the other’s perspective such as to give their actions a certain overall relataibility and intelligibility. Such relational anticipatory knowledge allows us to bypass significant anger, guilt, condemnation, astonishment when it comes to making sense of others. This is no instrumental staircase to bliss and idealized harmony. What it is is the dialing down of meaningfulness in relating to others. In achieving intimacy of relatednesss and unity,we at the same time reduce the power and substance of what we understand to affect us . This way of being with oneself and others is is directed toward a certain insignificance. It is still goal-directed, but the goals are more minor, not needing to be taken as seriously any more, just something to do. This is where Heidegger and Derrida lead me. It’s life beyond frantic joy and meaningful misery, and the replacement of such substantial affectivities by a knowing engagement of insubstantial mood textures, leading nowhere but in an endless circle of getting along barely distinguishable from non-existence.Heidegger calls it uncanny. Derrida says it is almost nothing. That’s the life for me.

Schopenhauer took misery too seriously. That's becasue he was stiil attached to the Proper. His pessimism, as is all lamenting of the misery of life, was a mourning of the loss of faith in proper foundationalism. Nietzsche shook himself free of vestigial attachment to the Proper , the serious, the mournful and the miserable.

Life for him was misery, but not proper misery, any more than it is proper joy or aggression or suffering or laughter. It is all these, sometimes all at once. He called this WIll to Power.
there is Will to instrumentality, Will to misery, Will to emancipation, Will to Utopia , Will to minutia mongering and Will to nothingness, and they are all forms of Will to Power.

I don't think any self-respecting scientist believes in inherent meaning in science without applying their spiritual outlook onto it. For some people, "greater than myself" only means "for the benefit of others in addition to myself".

The minutia is where the job gets done. Those who know how to monger minutia to get shit done, can claim they are doing the real work. Everyone else is just jabbering. Thus, the meaning of life for them is the ability to compute minutia to get shit done. This is de facto justified by our very use of the things that are the outcome from the minutia mongerers. — schopenhauer1

A good cook, painter, or martial artist might, but need not, use tools designed by engineers to facilitate the labor of these specialists. Their excellence in their respective arts does not tend to depend on a narrow range of tools, but rather transfers readily enough to any of a wide range of tools that may efficiently serve the same or similar ends, regardless of whether the tools were designed and produced by way of primitive or advanced technological practice. Moreover, these artists might, but generally do not, stoop to rigorous arithmetical calculation and rigorous experimental method in the practice of their craft. Nevertheless, they may be said to attend to minutiae, to get shit done, and to do real work, little or none of which work -- far less than the scientist's or the mathematician's -- comes down to jabbering.

Yes, I agree, but thread was about how mongering minutia about a subject matter doesn't make life more meaningful because we have "mined" this information and can use it. In other words, "Look at all this stuff we have figured out! Look how adept some of us are at building immense equations that translate to technological output! This is meaningful!".

Yes, I agree, but thread was about how mongering minutia about a subject matter doesn't make life more meaningful because we have "mined" this information and can use it. In other words, "Look at all this stuff we have figured out! Look how adept some of us are at building immense equations that translate to technological output! This is meaningful!". — schopenhauer1

Isn't it meaningful? Or how isn't it? I'm still unsure what tree you're barking up.

It seems perhaps you're aiming to correct an immoderate bias you believe you have detected among some other speakers. I happily agree, some people tend to exaggerate the value of quantitative, scientific, and technological work as compared to other sorts of work. What purpose would it serve, if our characterizations of their excesses should be disfigured by the opposite deficiency?

It seems perhaps you're aiming to correct an immoderate bias you believe you have detected among some other speakers. I happily agree, some people tend to exaggerate the value of quantitative, scientific, and technological work as compared to other sorts of work. — Cabbage Farmer

:up:

What purpose would it serve, if our characterizations of their excesses should be disfigured by the opposite deficiency? — Cabbage Farmer

In a roundabout way, this has to do with pessimism. Pessimism posits that the world has an inherently negative value due to structural and contingent sufferings. There is an absurdity in our way of being that has evolved, whereby we have a whole variety of choices- what Sartre appropriately called "radical freedom", but we choose to put weight on various focuses to keep the absurdity constrained into discrete goals.

Some of those from the intelligentsia community (specifically mathematico-scientific-technological) would argue that they are a source of positive value. Why? Though not articulated in this manner expressly, the argument is that since they have the capacity/propensity to calculate advanced mathematical concepts, and since they are able to apply them to an empirically verifiable outcome in science and technology, that this is meaningful and counteracts a negative evaluation of the world, or its intendant absurdity. Rather, they might argue, the fact that we can "mine" consistently verifiable/falsifiable information about the world, that "cashes out" in the outcome of more accurate explanation and technology, that this is inherently something of value.

Further, people might feel that simply the sheer complexity of new technologies makes them meaningful. The fact that there is so much minutia to monger to understand a process, maintain it, and further its development into more areas of minutia, is somehow inherently good. In other words, somehow, complexity of subject-matter bestows it value.

Others, who are not the actual scientific-technology communities might also look to the value of this minutia and say, "see this work that the community is doing is proof that human production is "doing something". There seems to be a forward momentum, that technology and science is showing human values. Those who can monger all the related minutia must be of most value then. Again, this is a sort of critique of a way-of-thinking. Because we can use principles of math applied to science, we have something inherently meaningful that bypasses any notions of absurdity. People need to be born to maintain this mathematical-scientific human society. By the mere fact that our "modern lives" are touched in almost every respect by math-derived scientific/technological outputs, by having more children, and putting more people into the world to push minutia around and monger it in order to survive, many people are assenting to this being something meaningful that needs to be maintained by future generations. To put it in less words- "mine more minutia and create more complexity as this is somehow inherently valuable in itself and the people who can do this best are providing the most value".

In a roundabout way, this has to do with pessimism. Pessimism posits that the world has an inherently negative value due to structural and contingent sufferings. There is an absurdity in our way of being that has evolved, whereby we have a whole variety of choices- what Sartre appropriately called "radical freedom", but we choose to put weight on various focuses to keep the absurdity constrained into discrete goals. — schopenhauer1

I've never quite understood romantic talk of "absurdity" along such lines. I might agree that each of us is more or less out of tune -- with the truth, with the facts, with his own good, with other sentient beings, and so on. Life is dukkha. Is there something more -- apart from this sort of generic conception of disharmony, misalignment, conflict, ignorance, and confusion -- to existentialist talk of "absurdity in our way of being"?

I'm even more at a loss to make sense of your talk of "values". I'm not aware of any natural science or objective standard of values; I take it axiological discourses are predominately philosophical, political, and anthropological discourses. Is it commonly maintained that philosophical pessimism "posits that the world has an inherently negative value"? I'm not aware of this formulation of pessimism. I expect philosophical pessimism may be compatible with the claim that there is no such thing as "inherent value"; that judgments or dispositions of value are relative to the priorities of those who make such judgments or have such dispositions. I see no reason to say that the world has "inherent value" in itself, or to say that any particular thing we may distinguish in the world has "inherent value" in itself. Things have value for creatures like us; a thing that is positively or negatively valuable to one creature need not be valuable to another creature; a thing that is valuable to many creatures need not be valuable in the same way for each of them. Pessimism needn't be pessimism about values, it can be pessimism about outcomes, starting points, historical tendencies, natures, conditions... relative to a set of values.

Some of those from the intelligentsia community (specifically mathematico-scientific-technological) would argue that they are a source of positive value. Why? Though not articulated in this manner expressly, the argument is that since they have the capacity/propensity to calculate advanced mathematical concepts, and since they are able to apply them to an empirically verifiable outcome in science and technology, that this is meaningful and counteracts a negative evaluation of the world, or its intendant absurdity. Rather, they might argue, the fact that we can "mine" consistently verifiable/falsifiable information about the world, that "cashes out" in the outcome of more accurate explanation and technology, that this is inherently something of value. — schopenhauer1

Again, I'm perplexed by this framework of "inherent value".

Surely no one disputes that mathematical, scientific, and technological developments can be applied to achieve both desirable and undesirable outcomes. It seems about as reasonable to expect catastrophe as to expect salvation from a global technological culture like ours. In that regard, an accumulation of scientific and technological culture is no more "inherently" good or bad than an accumulation of iron or carbon. Everything depends on how such socioeconomic "goods" are put to use.

On the other hand, I find it hard to shake the intuition that, all else equal, creatures like us tend to prefer knowledge to ignorance, and to prefer power to impotence. I suppose such intuitions give some weight to support the claim that, all else equal, creatures like us may tend to value knowledge and power positively, and to value ignorance and impotence negatively.

Shall we say knowledge and power are well used the more they tend to produce desirable outcomes, and are abused the more they tend to produce undesirable outcomes?

Perhaps we can split the difference this way: Knowledge is better than ignorance, and knowledge well used is better than knowledge abused. Power is better than impotence, and power well used is better than power abused. I expect even many of the giddiest optimists about the prospects for technological culture like ours would be disposed to agree with some such evaluation.

Beyond such ready common ground, I suspect the disputes here at issue consist primarily of conflicting expectations about the likelihood of and means toward various desirable and undesirable outcomes, and about which outcomes are desirable or undesirable. What else is at issue in these disputes, discounting the vain boasts and insults of diverse cults competing in misguided contests for esteem and self-esteem?

Further, people might feel that simply the sheer complexity of new technologies makes them meaningful. The fact that there is so much minutia to monger to understand a process, maintain it, and further its development into more areas of minutia, is somehow inherently good. In other words, somehow, complexity of subject-matter bestows it value. — schopenhauer1

A work of fiction, carpentry, or empirical investigation may be simple or complex in comparison to other works of its kind; I see no reason to suppose that in general the more complex work is the more valuable. One might argue the simplest work, achieving the greatest results in exchange for the least resources, is the most valuable.

I've never quite understood romantic talk of "absurdity" along such lines. I might agree that each of us is more or less out of tune -- with the truth, with the facts, with his own good, with other sentient beings, and so on. Life is dukkha. Is there something more -- apart from this sort of generic conception of disharmony, misalignment, conflict, ignorance, and confusion -- to existentialist talk of "absurdity in our way of being"? — Cabbage Farmer

I'm using it in a specific way, qualifying it with the concept of radical freedom. That is to say, the choices of what we do are of any range of things, but we often use a set of habits and heuristics to give ourselves constraints and focus. In this case, a constraint and focus for many inclined to the math-science-technology realm is to be adept at mastering the minutia of that particular interest. So the absurdity is the relative freedom of choice where we start as socialized individuals directed at the world before we make a decision on how to direct our thoughts and actions. That's how I am using it in this case at least. I can think of several other ways to use the term in an existentialist context.

I'm even more at a loss to make sense of your talk of "values". I'm not aware of any natural science or objective standard of values; I take it axiological discourses are predominately philosophical, political, and anthropological discourses. Is it commonly maintained that philosophical pessimism "posits that the world has an inherently negative value"? I'm not aware of this formulation of pessimism. I expect philosophical pessimism may be compatible with the claim that there is no such thing as "inherent value"; that judgments or dispositions of value are relative to the priorities of those who make such judgments or have such dispositions. I see no reason to say that the world has "inherent value" in itself, or to say that any particular thing we may distinguish in the world has "inherent value" in itself. Things have value for creatures like us; a thing that is positively or negatively valuable to one creature need not be valuable to another creature; a thing that is valuable to many creatures need not be valuable in the same way for each of them. Pessimism needn't be pessimism about values, it can be pessimism about outcomes, starting points, historical tendencies, natures, conditions... relative to a set of values. — Cabbage Farmer

You are not aware of this formulation of pessimism, but that is the essential view of pessimism, so now you know :). Pessimism is actually not compatible with the claim that the world has no inherent value. If anything, that is aligned with what we commonly call "nihilism". Pessimism does view there to be value, but that existence has some structurally negative value attached to it. Thus, earlier you mentioned something like "dukkha". Buddhism is in a way a form of philosophical pessimism, as it purports that life has inherent dissatisfaction for the individual, and that there is a kind of constant deprivation inherent in the human condition. Yes, I think pessimism can be used in many other ways, but I am specifically applying the use of it in terms of "Philosophical Pessimism" which is very specific in the Western tradition to a form of evaluating life or existence as negative for the individual. The primary philosopher for this position, is of course Schopenhauer. So it is not nihilism, nor should it be construed with other uses of pessimism. Just as if someone says, "That person has a stoic expression" does not mean that that person necessarily believes in the philosophy of Stoicism, pessimism can be ascribed to other contexts, but not actually be referring to Philosophical Pessimism.

Shall we say knowledge and power are well used the more they tend to produce desirable outcomes, and are abused the more they tend to produce undesirable outcomes?

Perhaps we can split the difference this way: Knowledge is better than ignorance, and knowledge well used is better than knowledge abused. Power is better than impotence, and power well used is better than power abused. I expect even many of the giddiest optimists about the prospects for technological culture like ours would be disposed to agree with some such evaluation.

Beyond such ready common ground, I suspect the disputes here at issue consist primarily of conflicting expectations about the likelihood of and means toward various desirable and undesirable outcomes, and about which outcomes are desirable or undesirable. What else is at issue in these disputes, discounting the vain boasts and insults of diverse cults competing in misguided contests for esteem and self-esteem? — Cabbage Farmer

I think you are closer to my point with your point about contests for esteem and self-esteem. Imagine someone who has the ability to perform advanced calculations and apply it in such a context as to make applications that are utilized by people in various technologies. There are several directions to take this. First the person who is performing these advanced calculations and detailed experiments, may have a greater sense of utility. They are the ones that are maintaining and developing technologies used by society. But also, there need not be a subjective element to the esteem given to the technology-creator. That is to say, by simply using these technologies, we are already assenting that this is indeed important to us, whether or not the actual contributor to the technology got esteem from their contributions or not.

A work of fiction, carpentry, or empirical investigation may be simple or complex in comparison to other works of its kind; I see no reason to suppose that in general the more complex work is the more valuable. One might argue the simplest work, achieving the greatest results in exchange for the least resources, is the most valuable. — Cabbage Farmer

We value complexity as it is needed to keep mining the world. Newton and Leibniz needed to develop more complex systems in order to answer certain questions. They mined more complexity that then translates to opening fields of inquiry that require more minutia-mongering- that is to say, wading in the weeds of this complexity, mastering it, and using it. Charles Boole, opened up the idea of Boolean logic, which indirectly translated into computer science. This applied to logic gates and physical circuits opens up the way for computers. This gets much more convoluted and complex as the way hardware and software that is created becomes used in various ways. So the computer programmer then has to get in the weeds of the minutia and become an expert in the complexities of the software program. The IT person must get in the complexities of the OSI internet model, networking, and general computer operation. The computer engineer has to understand the complexities of the materials, electrical components, and computer science principles to create the hardware that interacts with higher programming languages, etc. It just keeps going until much minutia is mongered. The more complexity one can monger, the more valuable one is in creating this output. Now you ask, where does this value come from? It comes from the fact that we use the outputs. Even if we did not acknowledge the person who contributed to it, we do by valuing the products of their output. Thus, we indirectly value the minutia they can monger.

Let's also look at it another way. Let's face it, if someone is positing an advanced mathematical or logical set of formulas and symbols that are being presumably calculated correctly, and correctly understood in their context, that person seems to be of more value based on their ability to master the calculations and understand such formal sets of information. That sort of formalized understanding is more sociologically deemed as valuable by many.

So, sure, other forms of outputs may achieve great results, but this thread is focusing on how many people view complexity and the mastery and mongering of it, is deemed as valuable in both a use and psychological way.

I'd like to add something to this argument. Not only is it that we think that there is some extra meaning in the fact that we get esteem from understanding complexity, and that we use the products of complex mathematical-sciences, but thirdly, that that we can comprehend the complexity itself is meaningful. Somehow the fact that we can develop all this minutia of complexity into our explanations of the world and in our technology, that this is meaningful in itself.

this is meaningful in itself. — schopenhauer1

It's amusing. Lots of other pleasures fade as we age. Our knowledge organ is reliably erect. When my mind 'eats' a book, I don't feel sluggish. Our personality expands, a swelling microcosm. For many of us (and I think you'll relate) it becomes more amusing to talk among 'oneselves' than with others who don't have much appetite for thought. I count at least 3 dudes in my skull. You may have heard of them.

It's amusing. Lots of other pleasures fade as we age. Our knowledge organ is reliably erect. When my mind 'eats' a book, I don't feel sluggish. Our personality expands, a swelling microcosm. For many of us (and I think you'll relate) it becomes more amusing to talk among 'oneselves' than with others who don't have much appetite for thought. I count at least 3 dudes in my skull. You may have heard of them. — g0d

Yes, but remember I am actually critiquing this argument of meaning in complexity, technology, and science.

Yes, but remember I am actually critiquing this argument of meaning in complexity, technology, and science. — schopenhauer1

I guess I am demystifying the use of 'meaning.' A few people might indeed build it up into something transcendent. But I think this is the exception. In the same way a few people might build science up into scientism. And someone can make that their windmill.

So maybe it's a vulnerable target but not a challenging target. Is sex or food a 'bastion of meaning'? I don't know. Depends what you mean. I see that 'all is vanity' and men die just like dogs. OK, Preacher, but what now? Laugh with Democritus perhaps. Or hang ourselves. Or do the first while it's possible and then the other when it's not.

I think I mostly see the world as you do but I can't embrace the transpersonal value judgment or the project of trying to build this negative value judgment into something more. I'm down with grim thinkers. I don't mind the grimness. I just don't believe in some essential badness or goodness of reality/experience. It's different for everyone, but also there is enough similarity to be moderately intelligible to one another.

I guess I am demystifying the use of 'meaning.' A few people might indeed build it up into something transcendent. But I think this is the exception. In the same way a few people might build science up into scientism. And someone can make that their windmill.

So maybe it's a vulnerable target but not a challenging target. Is sex or food a 'bastion of meaning'? I don't know. Depends what you mean. I see that 'all is vanity' and men die just like dogs. OK, Preacher, but what now? Laugh with Democritus perhaps. Or hang ourselves. Or do the first while it's possible and then the other when it's not. — g0d

Yes meaning here I guess is tricky- but I'm using it to mean something that is valuable. Some people that understanding the complexity of a subject must mean one is inherently providing value. That this act of understanding complex subject matter must bestow is own virtue. The technology created from the complexity must bestow virtue for the technologist, and the fact that we can comprehend such complexity itself bestows virtue.

So maybe it's a vulnerable target but not a challenging target. Is sex or food a 'bastion of meaning'? I don't know. Depends what you mean. I see that 'all is vanity' and men die just like dogs. OK, Preacher, but what now? Laugh with Democritus perhaps. Or hang ourselves. Or do the first while it's possible and then the other when it's not.

I think I mostly see the world as you do but I can't embrace the transpersonal value judgment or the project of trying to build this negative value judgment into something more. I'm down with grim thinkers. I don't mind the grimness. I just don't believe in some essential badness or goodness of reality/experience. It's different for everyone, but also there is enough similarity to be moderately intelligible to one another. — g0d

The constraints of survival are enough.

Some people that understanding the complexity of a subject must mean one is inherently providing value. — schopenhauer1

Fair enough. My theory is that any indicator of intelligence signals value. Even if the IQ is currently being 'wasted,' it's still evident in the grasp of (the wrong kind of) complexity.

The technology created from the complexity must bestow virtue for the technologist, and the fact that we can comprehend such complexity itself bestows virtue. — schopenhauer1

Fair enough. But why wouldn't we consider an inventor virtuous in some sense? We love the inventor for making something useful or pleasant. We love the composer for the music produced, etc. For those who aren't going to hang themselves, this stuff is genuinely valuable. So we value those who give us these things.

I just have ordinary valuing in mind, as in not resenting their getting paid for intellectual property rights, etc. Or having respect for someone who was clever and creative. Loving our best fellow monkeys the most is true religion, or so some thinkers have said (in other words).

The constraints of survival are enough. — schopenhauer1

Enough for what or who? We don't have to dwell on this point if you'd rather not.

Fair enough. But why wouldn't we consider an inventor virtuous in some sense? We love the inventor for making something useful or pleasant. We love the composer for the music produced, etc. For those who aren't going to hang themselves, this stuff is genuinely valuable. So we value those who give us these things.

I just have ordinary valuing in mind, as in not resenting their getting paid for intellectual property rights, etc. Or having respect for someone who was clever and creative. Loving our best fellow monkeys the most is true religion, or so some thinkers have said (in other words). — g0d

Granted. In the light of suffering, it doesn't provide a reason to bring more people into the world in and of itself. No X value does. A further consequence of the inventor himself is the minutia that is mined from it. More jobs understanding the minutia so that more stuff can be pushed around and/or produced, continually. From previously: Minutia mongering- our focus on the particular, especially as it pertains to technological mastery. Some type of people think that by "mining" existence- that is to say, by knowing/mastering all the minutia of life (minutia mongering), that we are somehow fulfilling a higher goal of some sort. Even if they say there is no higher goal to work towards, de facto by being wrapped up in the minutia, by trying to master it, they are regarding the fact that we are able to mine some understanding that can be useful for prediction/functionality from the materials/universe as being something of value. The value comes in the output of more mining. For example, if I show you a really complex and extremely detailed math formula or proof, and then go about solving it, and then applying it to some world event that it maps to, I must be doing something of meaning because of its very complexity and its use in a functional application. I have mined the information and presented it and solved it and used it in a complex tool. That in itself must mean something. The very fact of my understanding and solving the complexity or that I advanced a functionality.

Enough for what or who? We don't have to dwell on this point if you'd rather not. — g0d

The hard stop for me is foisting challenges and suffering onto a next generation. Survival itself, in any socialized context, with any buffers, or contingencies attached that you can think of, is enough to prevent any other X value. No challenge needs to be unnecessarily foisted or foisted for some third-party reason X (to experience X). To go any further and say, "But people need..." is to then beg the question and engage in circular reasoning. If you want to get into subjective post-facto justifications that a net majority of people would say life is good in some survey we can.

In other words, the minutia to the minutia mongerer may seem more of signifier of "something" that is not there. Just more minutia to focus on.

Some type of people think that by "mining" existence- that is to say, by knowing/mastering all the minutia of life (minutia mongering), that we are somehow fulfilling a higher goal of some sort. — schopenhauer1

Maybe. But no one on this forum is standing in for that position. Try to zoom out for a moment. Are you sure you aren't constructing a target out of thin air? Or what if we all already agree with you in terms of this reclusive target? I'm an atheist who thinks all value is mortal, finite, etc. Am I on your side or am I still too attached to the 'animal' value of gadgets, art, food, and sex?

For example, if I show you a really complex and extremely detailed math formula or proof, and then go about solving it, and then applying it to some world event that it maps to, I must be doing something of meaning because of its very complexity and its use in a functional application. I have mined the information and presented it and solved it and used it in a complex tool. That in itself must mean something. The very fact of my understanding and solving the complexity or that I advanced a functionality. — schopenhauer1

Wait a minute, please. If you create something useful, OK. That's value. That's interest. If you create something beautiful or cute, that's value. But complexity alone wouldn't have value in itself. Maybe if I were your father-in-law I'd think well hopefully he'll grow up and apply that IQ in the real world.

But I can also imagine crazy people with endlessly intricate fantasy systems that no one wants to look at or study. The world is full of noise. We love geeks for their ability to cut through this noise. Complexity is what we don't like. If you aren't filtering or processing it, then who cares? If your filtering/processing is potentially generalizable to something that Mr. X and Mrs. Y wants done, then it's 'meaningful' in the boring way.

The hard stop for me is foisting challenges and suffering onto a next generation. — schopenhauer1

Well I don't really take a position either way. It would be a game of 'If I were king.' People are going to do what they do. Life is short. I can't control this world. I ride my little piece of it like a bull that I know will eventually throw me off.

So I don't say 'life is good' as if I'm defending one metaphysical/scientific thesis against another. I don't claim that life is good or bad at all. I hustle like many others to protect and expand what I have. I just got a memory foam mattress. Those things are nice! I've got 2 pets and a S.O. I get paid for intellectual work. I'm in good shape. Whatever I say about Life I must say from this detailed situation which is not life in general but my life. That's why it's hard to be convincing with evaluations of life in general. You end up trying to tell depressed people that it's not that bad (which could be radically mistaken) or happy people that it's not that good (when life can indeed be paradise for long periods of time.)

Am I on your side or am I still too attached to the 'animal' value of gadgets, art, food, and sex? — g0d

It's targeted at those who think by being wrapped up in complexity, they are doing something greater. It's like Shakespeare's quote about an idiot on stage that signifies nothing. Think of the programmer wrapped up in the complexities of his language or the mathematician who can delve into the deepest of set theory proofs. The complexities of these seems to mean something here here. Think of using a complex device made by those who value complexity for a living. This use may "mean" something to some people. Think of the fact that we can delve into such complexity. This seems to "mean" something here. All I'm saying is this complexity too signifies nothing. It isn't an indicator of something more going on.

I hustle like many others to protect and expand what I have. I just got a memory foam mattress. Those things are nice! I've got 2 pets and a S.O. I get paid for intellectual work. I'm in good shape. Whatever I say about Life I must say from this detailed situation which is not life in general but my life. That's why it's hard to be convincing with evaluations of life in general. You end up trying to tell depressed people that it's not that bad (which could be radically mistaken) or happy people that it's not that good (when life can indeed be paradise for long periods of time.) — g0d

That's all fine and good, but then I will point you back to my thread about the happy slave. Foisting challenges on a new person by giving them life (which de facto requires challenges to overcome) is never right. If you answer that overcoming challenges is necessary, this would be a contradiction, as the person did not exist for anything to be necessary for. You are creating the situation out of nothing. You are then saying, "There needs to be someone who exists that then must overcome challenges". This is slightly sadistic, even if meant as gentle "doable" challenges. The point being that it is ethically never good to promote suffering or foist challenges to a new person. Just like the happy slave scenario, even if the slave/child eventually identifies with their situation, it was not right to have been given challenges and exposure to suffering in the first place. The conceit is "something needs to get done by somebody!" But nothing has to get done by anybody. Your romantic vision perhaps that there will be no one around to enjoy things and love, is just that, a romantic projection. What actually would be the case is that there would be no one deprived of anything, as there is no person to exist. You can then say, "We all agree life is better than not-life" but this doesn't make sense. Good experiences in life in and of themselves only matter relative to an actual person. However, overcoming challenges and suffering are the result of being born. Good experiences would not be missed out by an actual person, and challenges and suffering would be prevented. The hidden assumption here is that pleasure, relationships, flow-states, accomplishment need to be carried out by someone. No they don't. Nothing needs to happen for anyone. To bring up some odd socially constructed assent argument would not work either. Like zombies saying, "We the united people of peoplehood need more people to experience good things, because need more people to experience good things, because we need more people to experience good things."

All I'm saying is this complexity too signifies nothing. It isn't an indicator of something more going on. — schopenhauer1

We agree here. 'Life is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing. ' What is this nothing? An infinitesimal pinprick in the balloon that makes it all an 'absurd' brute fact for the intellect that wants a bulletproof 'why-it-all-happens.'

At the same time we are drenched in somethingness, and the 'nothing' above is just the impossible outside of this somethingness grasped intellectually?

Responding to the anti-natalism, I think of arguments for vegetarianism, reducing my carbon footprint, etc. You make some points that might persuade someone not to have children. I haven't and won't have children, so it's not an exciting issue for me. To me the 'life is great' and 'life sucks' intellectuals are both rhetoricians, sophists. Which is fine but not that exciting to me.

I will say that antinatalism was exciting when it was new to me. But there's not much to chew on once the novelty wears off.