Why boredom, especially? Wasn't he certain about fear or grief or anger or any other among of a host of feelings too?Some of Schopenhauer's best insights were his ideas about the centrality of boredom. — schopenhauer1
Boredom is just one of the many feelings a human being can be aware of at any time. Most probably Schopenhauer was "bored to death" and boredom dominated all his other feelings! :smile:
If he had lived today, he would maybe have chosen "stress" as the basic element at the heart of human condition in our times ...
But then, we can say of a lot of other things besides feelings to be at the heart of the human condition, i.e. which are more characteristic of the human condition (than boredom): Suffering, love, compassion, communication and understanding, acknowledgment and recognition, ... All these are very important needs --at the heart of the human condition-- that characterize humans, making them different from other species. — Alkis Piskas
Yet this self-hood is at the heart of being born at all.. The fact that we even need a way out is something to look at first. If a perspective change happens through some Buddhist technique, the fact is, we were in place A (not Enlightened), and we need to get to place B (Enlightened).
Also, I just don't buy it.. The self-hood thing is part of moving through the world. Most people just can't become Enlightened ascetics (if that's even a metaphysical "thing" to become).. I may want to be the best X, but doesn't mean I will achieve that.. Same with this. In a way it is aligned with a radical perspective in anthropology that sees humans very cognition as being radically different. Sapir-Whorf like.. You see, Eskimos understand snow better because they have more words for different snow... — schopenhauer1
So individuals choose to form an identity.. But that's just not true. Humans function (normally) via enculturation using socio-cultural cues aligning with a whole host of human-traits that we evolved to survive and live in the world. If anything, the desire to shed one's self-hood is simply a recognition of the disappointments of the self that must form as being a functioning human. First comes the identity and then comes the detaching from identity.. There is still a "deal with" situation of moving from attached to not attached.. So now there's that put upon the human born into the world...
Why boredom, especially? Wasn't he certain about fear or grief or anger or any other among of a host of feelings too? — Alkis Piskas
I'm sorry, I didn't. But reading other posts won't change what I think about "boredom" being at the the heart of human condition. It's too dramatic and too shallow. That's why I joked. You shouldn't take it that seriously. Here's another joke, not mine this time:Go back to some posts discussed on here for reference. — schopenhauer1
Right. There's this too.I've never quite understood what boredom actually means because the word seems to be an umbrella term what boredom actually means because the word seems to be an umbrella term — Tom Storm
Well, as I wrote to @schopenhauer1 a while ago, I have felt pathological boredom to my bones. I know well what it is. It might be connected to "stress" (I said I was feeling a big pressure inside), but not to anxiety, i.e. worry, nervousness, etc. These feelings are much higher on a "livingess" scale. Boredom --pathological one--is more like apathy. Nothing can interest you or make sense to you. It's close to death. Temporary, transient boredom is of course a totally different thing.It also seems to be related to anxiety. — Tom Storm
Nice! And true. It can be said in a million ways ...“All of man’s misfortune comes from one thing, which is not knowing how to sit quietly in a room” — Tom Storm
Boredom --pathological one--is more like apathy. Nothing can interest you or make sense to you. It's close to death. Temporary, transient boredom is of course a totally different thing. — Alkis Piskas
The world I understand is through my mediating self. It was the individual brought into existence and that suffers. You can twist that logic all you want and you ain’t gonna change that point. I might interact from it and learn information that I can process to survive in my environment and entertain, but it’s still the individual who is processing and using this information and outputting it. You can’t just skip over that. — schopenhauer1
Formal logic insists that only one of these value structures can be our ‘true’ value structure - so it seems as if we’re ‘forced’ to choose between the qualitative primacy of the individual (in which case the problem is existence), or the quantitative primacy of existence (in which case the problem is individual, personal).
— Possibility
This sounds incoherent. It sounds like you are saying what I already gathered, that it’s the individuals fault for experiencing the sufferings and harms. It also sounds like you think you can take the view from nowhere regarding your own existence. But you can’t. All choices are mediated by a person with a will, values, reasons, goals, etc that de facto are forced upon them as they are born and interacting. — schopenhauer1
Fine collaborating about pessimism then. Awareness of the forced agenda we are all a part of. Why force people into life? Any answer implicates you mam. It implicates that you too have an agenda for people.. — schopenhauer1
Then tell me your philosophy! Can you actually summarize your argument in a succinct intelligible way? Do you even grasp what I’m arguing? All I’m getting from you is that it’s the pessimists fault for not seeing some truth that I’m sure you think you have access to cause you are seeing it from some quantitative way. — schopenhauer1
Just like you're at ease enough with the idea that humans act essentially out of boredom (while not all other people are at ease with this idea), some other people are at ease enough with the idea that selfhood is a construct (while you (and many others) are not at ease with said idea). It's why some people can discuss a particular topic without such discussion causing them unease, and others cannot.
There is in some religious/spiritual traditions a warning given that one should not discuss certain religious/spiritual topics with just anyone at just any time in just any setting. This warning is given with good reason, it is intended as a measure to avoid unnecessarily upsetting people, and to avoid wasting one's time.
I haven't seen such consideration emphasized in Western philosophy, but I think it is very much in place. — baker
Right, but getting to nirvana is a sort of discipline no? I’m saying this is one more burden, one of the do (not do) of Buddhism.
If there’s a delusion of self there’s being non deluded but that takes X thing that one must deal with like everything else from being born at all..hence my pessimism of even Buddhism which ironically is a kind of path forward from its own pessimistic evaluations — schopenhauer1
Depression is a "higher" state on a livingness scale. It is a feeling of loss of hope or courage, and often being guilty and inadequate or useless. Enter the depression pills. In apathy, you have no feelings --except apathy itself, which can be barely called a feeling. (Actually, the word "apathy" comes from Greek "a-" (privative) + "pathos" (passion, feeling) => no feeling. There are no pills for that!To me that sounds like depression. — Tom Storm
In apathy, you have no feelings --except apathy itself, which can be barely called a feeling. (Actually, the word "apathy" comes from Greek "a-" (privative) + "pathos" (passion, feeling) => no feeling. There are no pills for that! — Alkis Piskas
I assume that you mean that (the existing) depression pills are useless --hence "treated and untreated". I not only agree with that but Ialso believe that they even do more harm than good.Some would say there are no pills for depression. — Tom Storm
I not only agree with that but Ialso believe that they even do more harm than good. — Alkis Piskas
I cannot consider it as a "human condition". It does not characterize human life. It's a disease. And if one is generally sane, it will pass when the causes of its occurance are lifted. — Alkis Piskas
Where in my above statements that you have quoted --or even the whole post to which they belong-- do I talk about "depression"?I cannot consider it as a "human condition". It does not characterize human life. It's a disease. And if one is generally sane, it will pass when the causes of its occurance are lifted.
— Alkis Piskas
A bit of a difference between boredom and depression — god must be atheist
who has offered us the opportunity to discuss about all these things --Thanks!-- talks about a subject, "boredom", about which, as I can see, has very little knowledge. And unfortunately, he doesn't seem to want to learn more ... — Alkis Piskas
The truth of this will be sufficiently obvious if we only remember that man is a compound of needs and necessities hard to satisfy; and that even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness, where nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom. This is direct proof that existence has no real value in itself; for what is boredom but the feeling of the emptiness of life? If life—the craving for which is the very essence of our being—were possessed of any positive intrinsic value, there would be no such thing as boredom at all: mere existence would satisfy us in itself, and we should want for nothing. But as it is, we take no delight in existence except when we are struggling for something; and then distance and difficulties to be overcome make our goal look as though it would satisfy us—an illusion which vanishes when we reach it; or else when we are occupied with some purely intellectual interest—when in reality we have stepped forth from life to look upon it from the outside, much after the manner of spectators at a play. And even sensual pleasure itself means nothing but a struggle and aspiration, ceasing the moment its aim is attained. Whenever we are not occupied in one of these ways, but cast upon existence itself, its vain and worthless nature is brought home to us; and this is what we mean by boredom. The hankering after what is strange and uncommon—an innate and ineradicable tendency of human nature—shows how glad we are at any interruption of that natural course of affairs which is so very tedious. — Schopenhauer
Individuals are not ‘brought into existence’ from somewhere else they’d rather be. — Possibility
They are ‘conceived’ in potentiality by mostly unintentional collaboration of existence. This conception manifests life via lots of small and seemingly insignificant choices or ‘willing’ collaboration, until such time as there is sufficient intentional awareness, connection and collaboration among willing aspects to construct a ‘self’ as a local consolidation of choice in potentiality. But this ‘self’ is not identical to the conception from which your life manifest in the first place. Although in language it would make sense to consider them the same ‘individual’ subject, it is this ‘flattening’ of what is a more complex potentiality for the purpose of language that leads to conflicting value structures.
Well of course it sounds incoherent - this is the conflict. And I don’t see why experiencing suffering and harm is necessarily someone’s fault. You’re looking to attribute intentionality in a moralistic structure, but you need to reconcile the conflicting value structures first - which is as easy as reconciling quantum physics with general relativity. Your solution is to exclude one in favour of the other - and then fight to deny anyone’s experience which might suggest the reality you’ve decided on might be ignoring aspects of the truth. Hmm... and yet I’m the one accused of gaslighting.
How about collaborating between pessimism and optimism? Or awareness of a broader agenda that is not forcing a consolidated ‘individual’ into a quantitatively limited, temporal existence, but rather opportunity for a potentially constructed ‘self’ to manifest actual collaboration with existence? You may choose to limit your collaboration to increasing pessimism, but your comments here have been denying my capacity to choose optimism, or to move freely between the two, simply because it doesn’t fit with your own limited perspective. So stop trying to accuse me of gaslighting.
You don’t want to hear my philosophy - you want me to tell you who I think is to blame for this situation we’re in. But I’m not laying blame. If you were interested in my philosophy at all, you would have been reading what I actually wrote, instead of reducing all my words to some moralistic stance you can argue against. If you genuinely want to hear my philosophy, then go back and re-read my posts, and then discuss those words, rather than what your mediating self feels that I’m saying.
You are right. You weren't addressing to someone in particular. I was misled by your quoting me.I don't know if I addressed anyone with my post as a response. My post was rather a reflection of my thoughts starting from the point of the quote. — god must be atheist
The distance from boredom to depression is very long. There are a lot of emotional states in between. The main of them, in order of decreasing "livingness" are: antagonism, hostility, anger, hate, anxiety, fear and grief. Next come depression and apathy, about which I talked earlier in this thread. This is not a theory. I have seen them occurring a lot of times when I was working on the subject of emotions and helping persons getting up these states.They say boredom is the forerunner to depression. — god must be atheist
This is right and it is very important as a remark for this particular topic, which treats boredom as something special. All emotions are part of the human condition! Only that the lower you are on the emotional scale, the more difficult is to work out things and esp. getting up. I'm sure you have seen that a lot of times in your environment. It has to do though with the ability and mental state of the individual. Some can regain their regular mood easier than others after this has been dropped for various reasons.A healthy person deals with boredom much like he deals with any other displeasure — god must be atheist
OK, since you look for a serious confrontation on the subject, I will point out the weaknesses and unsound points in your long quote of Schopenhauer. I do that, and put extra time on this, only because it's your topic. Otherwise, I don't even see the need for it ...
I hope that my time is not wasted! — Alkis Piskas
1) "man is a compound of needs and necessities": This is an absurd notion. Man does not consist of needs, he is not needs. He has needs. — Alkis Piskas
2) "even when they are satisfied, all he obtains is a state of painlessness": Too vague, an "empty" statement. What needs are (to be) satisfied? Some of them in particular? The more important ones? All of them (which is just impossible)? — Alkis Piskas
3) "nothing remains to him but abandonment to boredom": A totally arbitrary, skewed, biased conclusion. And more importantly, it does not reflect what actually happens in life. How often can you see such an ending, a course of action, a result? But most importantly, can anyone satisfy all his needs? Almost impossible, I think. — Alkis Piskas
4) "This is direct proof that existence has no real value in itself": Well, nothing has been proved based on the above. Then, the belief that "existence has no real value in itself" is shared by a lot of people --including myself, I am "the first" to tell that life has no purpose in itself-- but this has nothing to do with any kind of emotion. You don't have to reach despair to realize that! It' a rational conclusion, reachable by simple logic. — Alkis Piskas
Instead, I have talked about my experience on the subject of emotions, what has happened to me, but mainly to people I have worked with and help them in handling their emotions. The data from all this, paired always with critical reasoning, are more valuable than just an analysis based mainly on concepts and very little on experience. — Alkis Piskas
Boredom --pathological one--is more like apathy. Nothing can interest you or make sense to you. It's close to death. Temporary, transient boredom is of course a totally different thing.
— Alkis Piskas
To me that sounds like depression. — Tom Storm
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