So a "Yay" for comply. Got it. — schopenhauer1

Not ‘yay’. Why does everything have to have either a positive or negative value?

Funny you mention "context" and provide none of it, thus making the statement hollow and meaningless unless contextualized. — schopenhauer1

It’s a statement of relational structure, not actuality. Populate it how you like, the relational structure is the same.

There is no stripping away, lest death. Give me one example of someone "stripping away" and not being dead. — schopenhauer1

Someone who walks onto a battlefield without a weapon and carries wounded soldiers to safety is neither striving for survival nor seeking to avoid discomfort.

Yet you say stuff like this:
The more information we already have about this type of situation, and the more attention, effort and time we’re able to devote to it, the less prediction error. The more mistakes we make, the more accurate our brain gets at predicting.
— Possibility

Mine as well come from an HR seminar of how to be a better worker. And this truly would be doubling down on the game. Not only accepting it, but trying to get better at it over time so as to learn and grow. And now we are back at very common notions of self-actualization like Maslow or any of the others. I got some minutia to monger. — schopenhauer1

You’re reading a whole lot more into it than is there. None of what I’ve written is describing what anyone should be doing, or how to be a ‘better’ anything. It’s simply describing a relational structure. How you feel about it or what you do with it is entirely up to you.

How you feel about it or what you do with it is entirely up to you. — Possibility

You can comply or die. It’s up to you. That’s all I’m seeing. Just better tools to comply.

Someone who walks onto a battlefield without a weapon and carries wounded soldiers to safety is neither striving for survival nor seeking to avoid discomfort. — Possibility

This doesn’t evade comply or die. It simply makes the choice starker. No middle man.

I think first you must get a handle on what I mean by “comply” before you fit your scheme within its structure.

I think first you must get a handle on what I mean by “comply” before you fit your scheme within its structure. — schopenhauer1

Your ‘structure’ is false, and I’m not the one trying to make it fit.
Forget it - I’m done with this merry-go-round.

Forget it - I’m done with this merry-go-round. — Possibility

Hey, that is the gist of the game of life too! But there's no getting off of this merry-go-round.

Ok, so I know you would like me to imbibe from the "TRUTH" of Buddhism en totale, because (like hipsters say), "I just won't get it" otherwise.. but what is the most important parts of the Pali Canon would you like me to research. I know I know, in order to really "KNOW" Buddhism, I am to become a scholar... but we are on an internet forum. I cannot expect for example, to debate someone on here by saying, "Just read WWR and all Scholarship on Schopenhauer" because that is not feasible and unfair in this platform.



As a meta-analysis of this dialogue, how do you want me to proceed? — schopenhauer1

I'm not a Buddhist nor do I advocate Buddhism. I do have some knowledge of and interest in Buddhism. When someone boldly declares that the Buddha was wrong or implies as much, I am curious as to what this person has to say. I use my knowledge of Early Buddhism to inquire of them what they have to say and test their knowledge of Buddhism.

You keep saying things like "we're in an inescapable situation" and such. I wonder where you get your certainty. I find it bewildering how a person could have such certainty.

This sounds like a modernized Western rendition of Jainism. Or Quietism. Both are pernicious.
— baker

What is pernicious about it? — schopenhauer1

Even on an entirely mundane level, it's clear where they go wrong: the quietist whines and complains and is miserable, while other people are having fun. He gets nothing for all his misery, apart from a little ego satisfaction.

I'm not a Buddhist nor do I advocate Buddhism. I do have some knowledge of and interest in Buddhism. When someone boldly declares that the Buddha was wrong or implies as much, I am curious as to what this person has to say. I use my knowledge of Early Buddhism to inquire of them what they have to say and test their knowledge of Buddhism.

You keep saying things like "we're in an inescapable situation" and such. I wonder where you get your certainty. I find it bewildering how a person could have such certainty. — baker

So you refused to tell me what to study from the Pali Canon. If you can't at least give me a few concepts without telling me to read the whole thing, that is at the least uncharitable in the context of this dialogue. As clearly you have "something" in mind from it..

But Buddhism in general has ideas of reincarnation and liberation from the birth cycle. So let's start there. Do you believe this to be the case? Now, if you want to secularize it, maybe you see this as a "metaphor" for paṭicca-samuppāda, (“dependent origination”). That is to say the 12 links which produce the cycle of samsara and that the adherent is trying to reverse through 8 fold path.

Here's the thing though:
1) I don't see any evidence that certain people have transcended suffering. This has to be taken on faith.
2) I don't even know what "enlightenment" would mean other than non-existence, which as far as the mind is concerned is death.
3) Enlightenment is ill-defined and seems to be self-referential because of its vagueness.

Ten characteristics of a Buddha
Some Buddhists meditate on (or contemplate) the Buddha as having ten characteristics (Ch./Jp. 十號). These characteristics are frequently mentioned in the Pāli Canon as well as Mahayana teachings, and are chanted daily in many Buddhist monasteries:[12]

Thus gone, thus come (Skt: tathāgata)
Worthy one (Skt: arhat)
Perfectly self-enlightened (Skt: samyak-saṃbuddha)
Perfected in knowledge and conduct (Skt: vidyā-caraṇa-saṃpanna )
Well gone (Skt: sugata)
Knower of the world (Skt: lokavida)
Unsurpassed leader of persons to be tamed (Skt: anuttara-puruṣa-damya-sārathi)
Teacher of the gods and humans (Skt: śāsta deva-manuṣyāṇaṃ)
The Enlightened One (Skt: buddha)
The Blessed One or fortunate one (Skt: bhagavat)[13] — Wikipedia on Buddhahood

And then there's duties of the Buddhas.. etc. etc. Both the goal and the metaphysics, epistemology, and the phenomenology don't seem either coherent or accurate. I have a right to disagree with Buddhism as a metaphysics as with any Western tradition I disagree with. What I don't appreciate is when because something is Eastern it must mean it bypasses ones own judgement of its logic, truth, and the like.

Even on an entirely mundane level, it's clear where they go wrong: the quietist whines and complains and is miserable, while other people are having fun. He gets nothing for all his misery, apart from a little ego satisfaction. — baker

Pessimists can have fun. It's not mutually exclusive. Rather, it is recognizing the situation for what it is, that we are put in the agenda in the first place, and not to force it as much as possible onto others. And thus, not to demand so much either because of this. Compassion due to knowledge of the shitty situation. If we are all filling in the holes of the leaky boat that we didn't ask to be on, we can commiserate on it. If everything was fun all the time with no downsides, I guess there wouldn't be a need for this conversation. But the whole point of the OP is that "fun" comes at a cost.. At least Buddhism had some truths about things like becoming and change. Things are temporary etc. There is boredom as a phenomenon of experience, as much as with physical pain, annoyances of the survival and being conditioned by the pressures of others in a socioeconomic system. In that regard Buddhism is right on the target with dependent origination. We are all enmeshed in each others wants and needs, which gives rise to ever more complex versions of suffering.

So you refused to tell me what to study from the Pali Canon. If you can't at least give me a few concepts without telling me to read the whole thing, that is at the least uncharitable in the context of this dialogue. As clearly you have "something" in mind from it.. — schopenhauer1

Again, as a meta-analysis of this dialogue:

I have no interest to convince you of anything Buddhism. I am skeptical about your certainty that we're in a hopeless situation. There are several religions, philosophies, ideologies that claim we're not in a hopeless situation (e.g. Buddhism, Christianity, Humanism, even popular consumerism). Instead of using Buddhism as a reference point for my skepticism, I could also use, say, Roman Catholicism (but I don't feel all that warmly about it, so I don't reference it much; also, there is some overlap between your arguments and Buddhism's).

Again, despite repeated requests, you have not demonstrated what the foundation of your certainty of hopelessness is.

Pessimists can have fun. — schopenhauer1

Yeah, as long as it is accompanied by – derived reflectively from – infrequent, brief episodes of 'negative phenonomenology' ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/708506

hopelessness — baker

Helplessness, Worthlessness :grimace: Ouch!

A pretty face, a noble pursuit, a puzzle, an ounce of pleasure.. we all try to submerge in these entertainments to not face the existential boredom straight on. — schopenhauer1

I don't think this is true, though I would guess it would be hard for either of us to demonstrate our position. I find professional and private interest activities to be fascinating. I don't wake up and find boredom waiting for me and decide to distract myself. I find myself with this great desire to create - I have a few forms of creative activities. At work these are more limited, but they do occur, in my free time I focus on them whenever I can. I also have social desires and so far my interest in people (in general) does not bore me. Some people do, but not people in general. You may argue that I must have so effectively sublimated my fear of boredom that I don't notice the fear is driving my interests and desires. I think I know myself much better than that, though, sure, some people don't. And there are animals who can get bored - the unwalked dog - but once they have something like the kind of life they were made for, they generally do not get bored - oh, the smells, and hey that's a new dog over there - and animals in the wild do have surplus time, heck they even play and explore. Once the old noggin gets big it's curiousity has more potential objects. We like to accomplish things, improve, relate to others. I'd have to live an incredibly long time to get bored as long as I have access to some people I like and find interesting and some media to create for myself and others. There's a life force, I think, and it wants to live and finds things interesting. Curiousity may have killed the cat, but it keeps them from boredom. And we're primates so our curiousity is much more potentially complicated and also social in ways that oxycontin deprived felines will never understand.

as long as I have access to some people I like and find interesting and some media to create for myself and others. — Bylaw

Your answer here contradicts your main point. The “need to create” is also just repackaged wording of the same thing. If you have a need that is behind mere survival or getting more comfortable, that is a form of boredom, albeit existential.

Nah, it's not. I think we evolved with side effects. We have desires, we are curious. I enjoy these things. If you don't, consider that we might be different.
Now you are reduced to telling me what I really feel. And you only responded to a little of my post. You assumption is that any need must come from boredom. But there is no foundation for that. We have our natures. You seem to see us as passive, so resting in boredom, suffering it, so choosing to distract ourselves. That is not what I experience. If free, I was never bored as a child. I was always curious, always learning, always exploring. The ones who are bored as a base I would guess are damaged, though their may have inborn tempermental traits. I don't know. Desires and curiosity do not need to be reactive to suffering. And aren't at base. They are an outward expression of life. Rather than reactions to some negative state. You're positing the negative state as primal. I am bored so I develop desires. I don't think that model fits children at all.

Read the Schopenhauer quote again by what I mean by existential boredom.