Am I do see you as an oracle, proclaiming the truths of reality? Of course I believe what I think is reasonable. — darthbarracuda

Yep. You believe that what you think is what is reasonable. The simplicity of the circular argument.

LOL. I listen to the science. Sue me. — apokrisis

Oh c'mon apo, what does that even mean? That's like religions using "Natural Law" to justify their religion. How do you "divine" Natural Law would be the first question. Your appeal to the majority as science is rather weak.

1) That is all your argument stands on. Argumentum ad populum.
2) You constantly make the is/ought fallacy. Here, maybe brush up on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem
3) You constantly make the appeal to nature fallacy. Here, maybe brush up on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature
4) You constantly abuse the word "nature" and conflate human decisions with appeals to nature in a 1-1 ratio as if human decisions were instinctual rather than multicausational

LOL. I listen to the science. Sue me. — apokrisis

It's not that you're listening to what science is saying more than it's that you're interpreting certain cherry-picked scientific theories in a particular way and claiming this interpretation is what necessarily holds when this interpretation is exactly what's in question. This modern scientific Taoism of yours may be aesthetically pleasing but it certainly doesn't provide the theodicy we're looking for.

How do you "divine" Natural Law would be the first question. — schopenhauer1

As I agreed with Darth, in the end there is a choice. Either you go with the subjectivity being expressed by all you anti-natalists - where your personal preferences are treated as a self-evident moral ought - or you are prepared to follow the natural philosophy route that became the pragmatic scientific method.

So mine is the evidence-demanding approach that stands against your subjective articles of faith. :)

And yours also is the one that frames things in terms of laws - natural or otherwise. I keep telling you how my position is a natural philosophy one in that it depends on constraints and freedoms. Mine is the systems logic which has that inherent balance.

Either you go with the subjectivity being expressed by all you anti-natalists - where your personal preferences are treated as a self-evident moral ought - or you are prepared to follow the natural philosophy route that became the pragmatic scientific method. — apokrisis

Yet the choice to commit to the "pragmatic route" must also be subjectively motivated, no? As I said before, there are multiple perspectives on procreation. I'm fine with you going the pragmatic route, so long as you recognize that this isn't a moral avenue. Your decision to pursue the "scientific" route here is not a God-given decree but probably something to do with your character and background.

So mine is the evidence-demanding approach that stands against your subjective articles of faith. :) — apokrisis

But again this is a false dichotomy, your favorite straw man between romanticism and science. I dislike how you claim to speak for all scientists on matters outside of the domain of science.

Why did you erase your mention of terror management theory?

I thought it funny that you again wheel out a theory about the extremes that people will go to to avoid confronting an end to their lives when you are so busy trying to claim folk would universally be happier never to have been born.

I didn't think it relevant, and thought you'd straw man it anyway.

I thought it funny that you again wheel out a theory about the extremes that people will go to to avoid confronting an end to their lives when you are so busy trying to claim folk would universally be happier never to have been born. — apokrisis

Well, they wouldn't actually be happier since they wouldn't be alive. But yeah I think if people were a little more observant and candid about their own lives to themselves, birthday parties wouldn't be so common. Actually things like birthdays parties are effective ways of reinforcing the "life is good" mantra that is so ball-numbingly repetitive.

Yet the choice to commit to the "pragmatic route" must also be subjectively motivated, no? — darthbarracuda

Pragmatism is about collectively demonstrated truths - what a community of rational inquirers would believe in the end.

So it both accepts the subjectivity of phenomenality, and it then sets out the method that can achieve the most objectivity in the light of that constraint.

I'm fine with you going the pragmatic route, so long as you recognize that this isn't a moral avenue. — darthbarracuda

But why should I accept your dualism? You can propose it. I simply show its incoherence.

Your decision to pursue the "scientific" route here is not a God-given decree but probably something to do with your character and background. — darthbarracuda

Sure. I hope it has everything to do with my character and background. God certainly had nothing to do with it.

I dislike how you claim to speak for all scientists on matters outside of the domain of science. — darthbarracuda

Yet you are fine telling all natalists how they are simply irrational in their delusions about life having a value for them.

I didn't think it relevant, and thought you'd straw man it anyway. — darthbarracuda

There must be a fallacy which is the fallacy of posters hoping to win debates by claiming every possible fallacy that springs to mind once all their other arguments have disintegrated.

But why should I accept your dualism? You can propose it. I simply show its incoherence. — apokrisis

You don't have to, but then we wouldn't have much to talk about, then. None of this pragmatism talk looks anything like ethics or value theory to me at all.

So yes, if we go your pragmatism route then many ethical categories don't make sense. I'm saying that's an argument against your pragmatism, and a very powerful one too given your apparent inability to shrug off what you claim is romantic nonsense.

Yet you are fine telling all natalists how they are simply irrational in their delusions about life having a value for them. — apokrisis

There's no equivalency here. On either end we are using science to help support our views. I'm being more honest, though, when I say science merely supports my views instead of claiming that science just is my view. I don't use science as a trump card like that.

And I'm sure you are aware that disagreement abounds in science, so much so that broad sweeping claims about "positive psychology" being the only relevant authority cannot possibly be taken for granted, since there are competing scientific theories that are contradictory to the nauseating feel-good paradigm leaking around the psychology departments.

There must be a fallacy which is the fallacy of posters hoping to win debates by claiming every possible fallacy that springs to mind once all their other arguments have disintegrated. — apokrisis

Yeah, I think it has something to do with making false dichotomies...

So yes, if we go your pragmatism route then many ethical categories don't make sense. I'm saying that's an argument against your pragmatism, and a very powerful one too given your apparent inability to shrug off what you claim is romantic nonsense. — darthbarracuda

In the end, I'm not religious. I don't believe in transcendent being. Naturalism is the position that there is only nature and its immanent meaning.

So there is a stark choice when it comes to metaphysics. You can be like me, or be like you.

But I can show you my workings-out. I can point to the pragmatist metaphysics and their resulting history of successful empirical inquiry.

God is dead. He never lived. Moral dilemmas can only find a grounding context in Nature itself. Get used to it. ;)

So there is a stark choice when it comes to metaphysics. You can be like me, or be like you. — apokrisis

A dualism??? :gasp:

God is dead. He never lived. Moral dilemmas can only find a grounding context in Nature itself. Get used to it. ;) — apokrisis

Bullshit, God lived in the hearts of countless human beings over the course of millennia. God was said to have grounded morality, and the death of God is typically seen as a threat to this morality. But really I would argue that God didn't ground morality so much as he limited it. Morality already existed without God. When God is real, humans have a limited responsibility and don't have to ask too many questions - the big guy will figure out the details, and in the end everything will be alright and make sense (theodicy).

When God is dead, humans are confronted with a vast sense of moral responsibility, being the sole reservoirs with any moral sense in the universe. No God to help, no God to alleviate this burden. The post-modern moral view isn't necessarily relativism, but can rather be a sense of infinite responsibility and a radical devaluing of existence. I'm saying the only way life continues is by its responsive devaluing of philosophy, just as Nietzsche articulated. Life can only continue if we stop thinking so much.

God didn't ground morality so much as he limited it. — darthbarracuda

A constraint??? :gasp:

When God is dead, humans are confronted with a vast sense of moral responsibility, being the sole reservoirs with any moral sense in the universe. — darthbarracuda

Alternatively, there is Naturalism. Wave goodbye to the Big Daddy in the sky, say hello Mama Nature.

Why wouldn't we want to understand life and mind, hence even morality, as natural phenomena? What good argument do you have on that?

Why is nature such a dirty word to antinatalists? How has it become the ulitimate source of their intellectual discomforts?

A constraint??? :gasp: — apokrisis

Yeah a constraint might be a good word for it, although it's imposed by a supernatural rather than a natural entity.

God constrained morality, enough so that society may operate effectively (so that religion was and is an essential feature of capitalism). It was really just humans all along.

Alternatively, there is Naturalism. Wave goodbye to the Big Daddy in the sky, say hello Mama Nature. — apokrisis

Soooo ..... rejecting a mistaken impression of monotheism for an environmental chad pantheism?

Mama Nature rejected us.

Why wouldn't we want to understand life and mind, hence even morality, as natural phenomena? What good argument do you have on that? — apokrisis

Because morality is oftentimes diametrically opposed to the natural. With the advancements in the biological sciences came a renewed fervor for the problem of evil based on the sheer magnitude of suffering in the natural world.

I've said this already, secular societies inherit the problem of evil from their theological ancestors. A morality based on the natural world would be a non-morality, akin to basing morality on a deity that, by any modern standard of morality, is a twisted psycho.

You give up on your lines of argument rather easily. — apokrisis

No I haven't. You never really addressed what I said. If you can't carry a big stick, at least speak clearly and softly.

Deflection. I asked about the probability of your torturer/Stockholm syndrome applying. I asked what percentage you might actually claim as a reasonable guesstimate.

You avoided a direct answer.

I said "quite reasonable," which would imply more than 50%.

Because morality is oftentimes diametrically opposed to the natural. — darthbarracuda

Yeah. And what would Nature be diametrically opposed to here. The Artificial? The Unnatural? The Supernatural? Which of these is your chosen basis for moral imperatives? What makes them better, exactly?

A morality based on the natural world would be a non-morality, akin to basing morality on a deity that, by any modern standard of morality, is a twisted psycho. — darthbarracuda

But you are the one who seems to hate or dread the very notion of life, of existence. You want to wish it all away, regardless of what the more general wishes of folk might be.

Shouldn’t society be able to decide on the morality of its own being? Who are you to deny that?

More than 50%?!?

Oh, sure....

Yeah. And what would Nature be diametrically opposed to here. The Artificial? The Unnatural? The Supernatural? Which of these is your chosen basis for moral imperatives? What makes them better, exactly? — apokrisis

I might ask the same of your naturalism. There's a common trend in philosophical trends around the globe that see the Good as transcending the material and/or natural realm, often in a spiritual way. Morality is a system of imperatives that manifest as commands from afar and beyond. I think there is something atomically inescapable about this phenomenology, that it has not from what we consider to be the natural world around us. As I see it, if morality doesn't come from beyond the world, it certainly aims at it.

Antinatalism, in a philosophical pessimistic sense, is a spiritual position in that it tries to deny the immanent, natural world in favor of an alternate reality - typically Nothing. The world is bad, says the pessimist, but there is a good thing we can do, a right thing to do. The soteriology is to cease reproduction, and thus escape and stop the cycle of suffering. This helps form the basis of the antinatalist's rationale.

You'll never understand something like antinatalism if you refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of a moral criticism of life. Do you ever think all the suffering on Earth since day uno of its inception maybe isn't a good thing? Do you ever wonder what a God might say in his defense if asked why he made the world?

As darth says, the problem of evil and suffering doesn't go away once God is rejected thereby. Instead of God, nature is placed in the dock and cannot but suffer the same fate. If God is to be rejected because of the problem of evil and suffering, then nature must be rejected too, and for the very same reason. This is a plea not necessarily for antinatalism, which requires additional arguments, but for asceticism, whose practical outcome is identical with the goal of antinatalism. Schopenhauer saw this clearly and was perhaps the first to say as much. This is also why he is regarded as the father of antinatalism, despite what is the anachronism and difficulty in cleanly ascribing this view to him.

Now, of course, Schopenhauer's philosophy I regard as possibly leaving open a backdoor to God, who, in turn, would ground the goodness of procreation. But this is the only feasible way that I would ever change my mind. The attempts of apokrisis are therefore quite futile, since he doesn't understand that his fundamental assumption of the goodness of nature is precisely what naturalism is incapable of grounding, according to the pessimist and, tacitly, by the atheist as well, if he employs the problem of evil and suffering in his rejection of God. This claim of the pessimist is the one to dispute. Antinatalism is peripheral to it, though related.

:up:

In my experience, it's not antinatalism that makes people queasy, but its pessimistic undertones. Antinatalism reminds us of the awfulness of existence. Some form of asceticism or melancholic life seems to me to be the obvious consequence.

Apokrisis has failed to provide a convincing reason why we should see nature as fundamentally agreeable and right.

Which is why, incidentally, I generally have no time for Nietzsche. To affirm optimism in the knowledge that pessimism is true is diabolical. It is an exercise in masochism and the repression of morality.

I might ask the same of your naturalism. — darthbarracuda

Sure. And the point about it being a metaphysics of immanent being is that it is founded on its dichotomies, not founded on a transcendent negating. Nature doesn't have to be the fallen to your moral purity. It doesn't have to be the imperfect to your Platonic good. So even if good and evil were in play here - your basic argument - nature would be the separation into good and evil as the limits on being, and then some rational balance as the existence defined by those diametrically opposed limits.

But good and evil don't really feature as they are not a good candidate dichotomy for a realistic model of nature. They lack the causal complementarity that is a defining feature of a functional system - one that actually encodes a goal of some kind.

Think again about the systems view of sociology. Civilisation is not about good vs evil. It is about the complementary dynamic that is competition and co-operation. Both the extremes are "good" because together they are synergistic.

You can work away on "good and evil" to try to hone them into that kind of complementary dynamic. You can go the Hegelian route of saying evil needs to exist, so that it can be overcome. The good can't actually be good unless it was challenged and won. But again, that is just giving a nod to immanence on the way to arriving back at a transcendent aesthetic. The claim that there is only one true absolute, not instead the one irreducibly complex dynamic.

There's a common trend in philosophical trends around the globe that see the Good as transcending the material and/or natural realm, often in a spiritual way. — darthbarracuda

Exactly. And antinatalism is the heir to that. Theism based itself on the idea that our everyday world represents the fallen state. Therefore the truth of being had to be transcendent of that. Romanticism was then the reaction to Enlightenment science. It actually quite suited that new theology to believe Newton and Darwin may have dis-enchanted the material world, but the individual human spirit and its purest feelings then represented the actually transcendent. Nothing essential need change, even if God was dead.

Existentialism, pessimism and anti-natalism are the continued working out of that theology. But one that gradually turns the hopefulness of the Romantics into the tragedy of the lost souls doomed to wander in mortal guise until some final decisive act of release.

Antinatalism, in a philosophical pessimistic sense, is a spiritual position in that it tries to deny the immanent, natural world in favor of an alternate reality - typically Nothing. — darthbarracuda

Yeah. The Romantic turns around to Science and says you have proved everything is in fact nothing. Existence is random and meaningless. Therefore - as a disappointed child addressing its cold-hearted parent - I want to die! I want my revenge of taking your nothingness and demanding it right now for everyone!

Do you ever think all the suffering on Earth since day uno of its inception maybe isn't a good thing? — darthbarracuda

What are you talking about? Is the Earth tormented by the heat of its molten interior. Is it in agony with the ripping and tearing of its crust. Is the rain of asteroids an unbearable torment?

It is unbelievable how you and the other anti-natalists think hyperbole makes your philosophising anything else but comical.

How we should live life - especially right now when on the ecological brink - is a serious matter. There really ain't time to waste on this anti-natalist pissing about.

Apokrisis has failed to provide a convincing reason why we should see nature as fundamentally agreeable and right. — darthbarracuda

You mean you simply fail to see that my position - based on the immanence of self-organising systems - wouldn't even seek to make one extreme of existence fundamental. What is fundamental is the triadic thing of two complementary limits and their self-perpetuating balance.

The attempts of apokrisis are therefore quite futile, since he doesn't understand that his fundamental assumption of the goodness of nature is precisely what naturalism is incapable of grounding... — Thorongil

Again, I never said Nature is fundamentally good. It is what it is. And we get to make it what it is - for us - to an increasing extent.

Again, I never said Nature is fundamentally good. It is what it is. And we get to make it what it is - for us - to an increasing extent. — apokrisis

Nietzsche in the natural flesh...

Yeah. The Romantic turns around to Science and says you have proved everything is in fact nothing. Existence is random and meaningless. Therefore - as a disappointed child addressing its cold-hearted parent - I want to die! I want my revenge of taking your nothingness and demanding it right now for everyone! — apokrisis

Well, you didn't really address the problems I pointed out with your argument, but that's to be expected.

What this statement here shows is what I'll call a "hidden false dichotomy". You set this up as to pit Romantics vs. Science. Subtly, you are aligning the general (breeding) populous (which is somehow conflated with Science because they are not demanding nothingness) and antinatalists (conflated with Romanticism and demanding nothingness). This conflating of the general populous with Science is comically ludicrous. People's reasons for having children are multicausational, and certainly most have nothing to do with balance or competition nor is it purely instinctual in some natural balance. Rather, it is combined forces of individual preferences taken from culture, personality, personal heuristics or lack thereof, expectations, etc. etc.

So essentially, you have not gotten passed your own problem of conflating people's (often arbitrary) decisions to have children with Nature (with a capital N) and then calling it good. It's a silly house of cards you play.

And we get to make it what it is - for us - to an increasing extent. — apokrisis

No you don't.