Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2017 15:43:44 GMT
Sept 19, 2017 21:01:08 GMT @falconia said:
Sept 17, 2017 18:49:18 GMT @miccee said:
i) & iii)
I'm referring to the problem of an earlier function dictating its current function. eg: A church that has become a gothic nightclub no longer serves the role of being a church.
There would have to be a reason to take "I need suffering because it helps me survive long enough to reproduce" over "I need suffering because it makes life more interesting." In existentialist terms, I don't think there is meaning beyond what people give it. For it to be bad it must be thought of as bad, and we know this changes from person to person. Sadists believe it to be a good thing. Sounding slightly Wittgenstein-esque, concepts mean things to different people. They are interpretational.
I do not believe that most people take the absence of all suffering being bad as a priori. Some may contrast their views with it, sure, but think of all the people who watch sport. Would they believe the games would be better without suffering? What people interpret as bad varies at different times. Being the living beings we are, it is usually some event combined with a level of misery, never really the same ontological state of affairs, and never suffering in itself hanging as a platonic ideal. To isolate it as such, with it existing in each and every situation seems too artificial.
ii) "And my point is that individuals ought not to be forced to contribute to a shared goal with which they do not agree, or be collateral damage that is caused in the process of pursuing that goal."
Regarding goals, I believe there are reasonable demands and unreasonable demands. I think being forced to stay alive is an unreasonable one, however I do not think simply being born is an unreasonable one. Yes, the smaller (and it must be small or everyone would have given up already) collateral damage is worth the risk for most people because the joy of having children outweighs the negatives for them.
Even if antinatalist philosophy is employed, there may still be natural evil occurring somewhere in the universe. One of Nietzsche's (the anti-pessimist) big concepts was his eternal recurrence. If you're a strict naturalist and believe the first law of thermodynamics holds then infinity may be in play and life may just be a reoccurring event by chance alone. (That is how life on earth is believed to have started). No matter how many people or animals are sterilized, there will eventually be new "life" or floating minds in some form or another. You have to become an anime villain with omnipotence/omniscience to make it work.
If we are to take that to its logical end, it is likely better to be born in a controlled environment than being born into chaos. Schopenhauer (the big pessimist) believed that the will (beings, minds) simply manifests again at another vent which was why he did not encourage suicide but asceticism. If we go full scientism then antinatalism vanishes from the meme pool because it does not encourage survival. It is only within collapsing civilisations it will take hold and then other people (or other animals) who are not persuaded or lack the mental equipment to be persuaded will take advantage of that.
ii) I think that being born is unreasonable because it imposes demands and burdens upon the individual that they do not need, and without any benefits that the individual would have needed had they remained non-existent. And the facts are that peacefully opting out of existence is strongly proscribed, and where possible, prevented by the societies in which we live. Whether people consider it beneficial to themselves to have children is another issue (although there is scant evidence that people with children are happier than childless people, and the imperative to have children is likely to be our biology playing tricks on us so that we propagate our genetic material). The salient fact is that in doing so, they are imposing a set of burdens on someone who had no say in the matter (and will struggle to extricate themselves from those burdens if they find that sentient existence is not to their liking).
The idea of eternal recurrence is an interesting one; as an infinite universe is likely to mean the future emergence of life. Perhaps even the exact same combination of molecules which make up 'me' will repeat, and I will be reborn again, in essence. Nothing we can really do about that if it does happen, but I think that there ought to be a moral imperative to nip the situation in the bud if we can, given that the rebirth scenario is unproven. Another antinatalist on Youtube made a similar point that it may be best not to expose westerners to antinatalism full-on, because if our civilisation died out, then that may leave savage civilisations in the ascendency. It's an intriguing idea, as it might mean that the short term goal of limiting suffering may have the unintended consequence of creating greater suffering in the future. It gives me pause to think about what would be the best way of spreading antinatalism; but would not make me abandon the philosophy.