Random Questions Box

Thank you for your kindness, bitch. You are very very nice now. That's how I like you.

To answer your question: as opposed to, say, raising a family -- family is an external goal, it's not merely within your head. Or trying to understand how things work -- this is also an external goal. Or building a culture or empire. You get my point.

If you don't focus on external things, if you merely focus on a bunch of chemicals inside of your brain, you will go extinct. You may live for a while, in fact, you may live for a very long time, in fact, you may even have descendants! but in the long run, all of you will all go extinct, as soon as everything that was given to you by your ancestors is wasted.

And what is your motivation for creating these things outside of yourself?

Honey, I do not create these things outside of myself MERELY to feel happy. Sure, every achievement is followed by a feeling of happiness, that's right, but that's no goal I have previously set for myself, but merely a means, a signal telling me "congratulations, you just attained the goal that you have previously set! what now?" I don't go like "jeez, I'm so bored, what should I do now!?" and then pick any goal that will shun this unbearable feeling of boredom by giving me "fun". Rather, I go through a rigorous process of decision making with the aim to see what sort of action I should take in order to best preserve myself and my type. Feelings such as sadness, anger, pain, happiness and the like are merely MEANS, that is to say, SIGNALS that I have to interpret so as to be able to more effectively command myself. Do you understand?

So what motivates me? Fear of extinction, I suppose.

Can you ever truly obtain these signs without reaching your objectives?

You can be happy without reaching any of your objectives. For example, I can shove a bunch of tablets down your throat and then you will be happy even though you achieved no objective whatsoever. This is the problem with the "happiness as an ideal": since the goal is just a chemical configuration of your brain, the ultimate life achievement would be taking a videogame-drug (i.e. a drug that induces artistic hallucinations.) Do you see the problem?

You can see the same decadent process (which I will refer to as "short-circuiting" from now on) in the arts as well. This happens when an artist decides to aim for FAME rather than for ARTISTIC QUALITY. Ever saw an artist who does not even CREATE his own work of art, but merely takes credit for it? Such a person does not derive their pleasure merely from achieving their goal, i.e. from making everyone worship them, but also -- and most importantly! -- by using their feedback as a way to deny the problems they cannot resolve in a natural, healthy, lasting way. Or you can take a look at the so-called "pick-up artists", people who first manipulate women into thinking they are "alphas" and then use their feedback (which they have previously manipulated lol) as a proof that they ARE "alphas" lol.

I just explained to you that you can. What's the problem?

Why are you so shy, honey?

I think you explained how you can create illusions of those signs, I don't think you answered my question .

Well, the simulacrum is true, said one very very old, now unfortunately dead, philosopher.

There is nothing unreal about their happiness: it is as real as any other feeling of happiness. It's just that they achieved it using an elaborate process of self-deception.

Do you think that a state of self-deceptive happiness is the same as a state of eudaimonia?

If you posit eudaimonia, i.e. specific chemical configuration of your brain, as a goal then you are NOT going to care if your happiness is self-deceptive or not, since a brain isolated from the rest of the world HAS NO CONCEPTION OF SELF-DECEPTION. The concept of self-deception acquires meaning only once you posit something outside of your brain as a goal.

Once you posit something outside of your brain as a goal, then happiness is no longer a superordinate goal, but a subordinate one.

Need is the sensation of Flux - the interpretation of an ordering (organism) experiencing (inter)activity as a perpetual pull/push, confronting this emergent unity (order).
Suffering is need left unsatisfied - multiplied by time - to the point where it begins threatening the organism.
Suffering is the interpretation of Flux pulling the organism apart.

This need creates care in the organism.
The organism must self-sustain, so as to then continue becoming as an emergent unity. The connection of the organism to the past,, projected as possibility towards the future, makes it the manifestation of this past in the present (apparent) confronted by this immediate (inter)activity we call environment, world, reality, appearance (phenomenon).

If successful in this self-sustenance the organism produces excess.
This excess can be directed towards growth, or cellular division.

In more complex unities this excess results in libidinal energies: the creative, procreative feeling of excess wanting to expand, express, explode, relieve the pressures being produced.

Two different needs:
Primary needs which feed self-maintenance.
Secondary needs which are the byproduct of the first.

The former assimilate, accumulate, appropriate...the latter expunge, explode, expand.
The pull creating the circumstances for a push.

Pleasure is the sensation of need being alleviated, reduced, to a point where it drops out of consciousness, or where it is replaced by a greater need, which takes its places in the forefront of the conscious mind's focus.

Anything else that can be said about pleasure has to do with psychology and abstraction.
Pleasure turned into an object/objective is no more than the focus on the byproduct of the alleviation of a need, rather than on the need itself.
The object/objective can become an idea(l), and like all object/objectives it is projected as a longing, a possibility/probability, as a method of orienting the organism - giving it a "towards".

If it is used as a nihilistic object/objective (ideal) then the object/objective becomes a telos, or a final destination...an absolute promising cessation, completion, finality, an end.
In other words as a rejection, antithesis, of the real, which is experienced as need/suffering.

Other than that, for me, the subject is mundane, turned into something more by those with ulterior motives, they may not be aware of themselves...because the object/objective, taken as an idea(l), defines the individual who accepts it, or uses it as an orientation projection.
The word, symbol, the individual uses to project as the object/objective that will direct its actions, that will motivate it, reveals the organisms core, defining, need.

Psychology being a organ hierarchy - just as a SuperOrganism is defined by its own institutional hierarchies - expresses itself by the hierarchies (inter)actions and internal structural dynamics.
The brain, being the hub of the nervous system, and being affected by internal and external (inter)actions interprets these internal hierarchies in relation to the external ones.
This creates the organism's personality, as the relationship of character (organ hierarchies) (inter)acting with worlds (hierarchy of unknown forces - otherness).

The projection, therefore, is the noumenon, the noetic abstraction, that relates to the phenomenon in a positive or a negative way.
The word used, and what it implies, exposes the organism's dominant organ, or the internal organ hierarchy, as this relates to the world which remains indifferent to it.

If a man writes extensively about, say, the domesticating of a population does this mean the man feels domesticated, or, could it mean he -- secure in his wildness -- simply reports on what he observes?

If a body is trapped in a roach-infested house, does that body's occupation with roaches make that body a roach?

If a man comments approvingly about the directing, control, and possession of one's self does this mean the man is a slave, or, can it mean the man -- secure in his self-possession -- simply notices the many who are slaves?

An internal 'lack' (lack of wildness, for example, lack of self-direction, for another) can surely direct a mind...an external lack (lack of wild company for the wild man, the presence of so many slaves for the self-owned) can as well.

Henry Quirk wrote:

If a man writes extensively about, say, the domesticating of a population does this mean the man feels domesticated, or, could it mean he -- secure in his wildness -- simply reports on what he observes?

Either, or both.

The threat does not immediately mean the fact.
If I see a flood coming, this does not mean I am already drowned.

Henry Quirk wrote:

If a body is trapped in a roach-infested house, does that body's occupation with roaches make that body a roach?

If one is trapped then cockroaches become his primary concern.

Henry Quirk wrote:

If a man comments approvingly about the directing, control, and possession of one's self does this mean the man is a slave, or, can it mean the man -- secure in his self-possession -- simply notices the many who are slaves?

If a man comments on the animals populating his forest, and describes them as predators and prey, is he not both threatened and describing a circumstance as a detached observer?

Indifference is power....an omniscient Being would care not.

Henry Quirk wrote:

An internal 'lack' (lack of wildness, for example, lack of self-direction, for another) can surely direct a mind...an external lack (lack of wild company for the wild man, the presence of so many slaves for the self-owned) can as well.

To seek company in a hostile environment is also a need, based no a lack.

Agreed.

Simply noting (and commenting on) what I take as a simplistic assessment in another thread.

Magnus Anderson wrote:

If you posit eudaimonia, i.e. specific chemical configuration of your brain, as a goal then you are NOT going to care if your happiness is self-deceptive or not, since a brain isolated from the rest of the world HAS NO CONCEPTION OF SELF-DECEPTION. The concept of self-deception acquires meaning only once you posit something outside of your brain as a goal.

Once you posit something outside of your brain as a goal, then happiness is no longer a superordinate goal, but a subordinate one.

The problem is in your translation of the word eudaimonia as in happiness. It is a little more complex than that.
For the purposes of brevity, it is a little more accurate to think of it as "a life worth living".

You can make a case for one to say that he can live a life worth living entirely inside of his own head, and I would agree with you that that person is decadent... a solipsist... a bit of a pig.

However, as a theory of conduct, and this is a theme that is constant in classic philosophy, you may see the argument being made in many different writings with the general idea is that the true state of eudaimonia can only be reached through a path of virtue.

Therefore eudaimonia, though it may be a feeling inside you, it is a direct reflection of a condition in the outside world.

And therefore, there is no direct correlation between hedonism and decadence.

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For the purposes of brevity, it is a little more accurate to think of [eudaimonia] as "a life worth living".

Can't you see that your answer to the question "what is the purpose of life?" is a non-answer? The purpose of life, you say, is simply to live the best possible life. But don't you see the circularity? The question is "what is the best life?" and you answer this by saying "well, the best life is . . . the best life!"

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You can make a case for one to say that he can live a life worth living entirely inside of his own head, and I would agree with you that that person is decadent... a solipsist... a bit of a pig.

Everyone agrees with that. Even completely delusional people agree that delusion is decadent, all the while, of course, thinking they are not delusional/decadent.

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However, as a theory of conduct, and this is a theme that is constant in classic philosophy, you may see the argument being made in many different writings with the general idea is that the true state of eudaimonia can only be reached through a path of virtue.

It's a sophisticated defense mechanism at work.

It goes like this: first, they think that happiness is the ultimate goal. Then, once happiness is exposed to be merely a signifier, they change their claim to something like "well, the ultimate goal is not ANY happiness, but the REAL, the HIGHER, happiness". But by discriminating between various feelings of happiness THEY DO NOT cease to be hedonists who value signifier over signified.

Magnus Anderson wrote:

Quote :

For the purposes of brevity, it is a little more accurate to think of [eudaimonia] as "a life worth living".

Can't you see that your answer to the question "what is the purpose of life?" is a non-answer? The purpose of life, you say, is simply to live the best possible life. But don't you see the circularity? The question is "what is the best life?" and you answer this by saying "well, the best life is . . . the best life!"

It is not so because what it means to live a life worth living is open.
I would assume that to you a life worth living would be one that perpetuates your kind and therefore accomplishes to meet your motivating force, which is the fear of extinction.
If you have reached the end of your life being able to witness your progeny thriving, you can say to yourself that you have reached eudaimonia.

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You can make a case for one to say that he can live a life worth living entirely inside of his own head, and I would agree with you that that person is decadent... a solipsist... a bit of a pig.

Everyone agrees with that. Even completely delusional people agree that delusion is decadent, all the while, of course, thinking they are not delusional/decadent.

Very well.

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However, as a theory of conduct, and this is a theme that is constant in classic philosophy, you may see the argument being made in many different writings with the general idea is that the true state of eudaimonia can only be reached through a path of virtue.

It's a sophisticated defense mechanism at work.

It goes like this: first, they think that happiness is the ultimate goal. Then, once happiness is exposed to be merely a signifier, they change their claim to something like "well, the ultimate goal is not ANY happiness, but the REAL, the HIGHER, happiness". But by discriminating between various feelings of happiness THEY DO NOT cease to be hedonists who value signifier over signified.

Regardless, you seem to have determined that not all hedonists are decadent, and therefore you cannot state a direct correlation between hedonism and decadence.

Once you start discriminating between higher and lower forms of happiness, there's no longer any reason to speak of happiness as a goal. The goal of life, then, becomes a state which is labeled "the highest form of happiness", a state which no longer has to be called "a state of happiness". Why is this so? Because "happiness" is a state that is ABOVE our current state and "unhappiness" is a state that is BELOW our current state, meaning that, any state can be "happiness" or "unhappiness" depending on whether one reaches it by RISING or by FALLING.

People who think in terms of higher and lower forms of happiness are almost certainly decadent in a sense that their value judgments are fucked up.

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It is not so because what it means to live a life worth living is open.

That's what I'm saying. A non-answer is an open answer, whereas all real answers are closed answers.

I mean, how can you seriously be proud of your answer if it goes something like "the goal of life is to pick any goal you want and attain it." Wow, what an answer! Thanks for telling me that!

Such answers are considered to be real, i.e. useful, answers only by decadents, by people who are TIRED OF THINKING AND LIFE and who are desperately in need to get rid of some responsibility, to relax the bow, to let go of some weights. Once the decision making process (the question "what is the wisest way to live my life?") becomes too difficult one becomes motivated to deny its value and simply let go of all the weights and go back to "anything goes".

Magnus Anderson wrote:

Once you start discriminating between higher and lower forms of happiness, there's no longer any reason to speak of happiness as a goal. The goal of life, then, becomes a state which is labeled "the highest form of happiness", a state which no longer has to be called "a state of happiness". Why is this so? Because "happiness" is a state that is ABOVE our current state and "unhappiness" is a state that is BELOW our current state, meaning that, any state can be "happiness" or "unhappiness" depending on whether one reaches it by RISING or by FALLING.

People who think in terms of higher and lower forms of happiness are almost certainly decadent in a sense that their value judgments are fucked up.

Happiness is not a good word.

Magnus Anderson wrote:

Quote :

It is not so because what it means to live a life worth living is open.

That's what I'm saying. A non-answer is an open answer, whereas all real answers are closed answers.

I mean, how can you seriously be proud of your answer if it goes something like "the goal of life is to pick any goal you want and attain it." Wow, what an answer! Thanks for telling me that!

Such answers are considered to be real, i.e. useful, answers only by decadents, by people who are TIRED OF THINKING AND LIFE and who are desperately in need to get rid of some responsibility, to relax the bow, to let go of some weights. Once the decision making process (the question "what is the wisest way to live my life?") becomes too difficult one becomes motivated to deny its value and simply let go of all the weights and go back to "anything goes".

That answer is open for the sake of brevity. The actual answer is a separate subject.
Since virtue is a condition to eudaimonia, the closed answer is that a life worth living is a life of virtue.
Then, of course, you have to define virtue.

I should not be having to write this down over here...

phoneutria wrote:

Happiness is not a good word.

Orly? So how about the word pleasure? Since "hedone" means pleasure in Greek. Is that not good enough for you either? What are you going to come up with next?

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That answer is open for the sake of brevity. The actual answer is a separate subject.
Since virtue is a condition to eudaimonia, the closed answer is that a life worth living is a life of virtue.
Then, of course, you have to define virtue.

So hedonism is a school of thought in which the best life is thought to be the life worth living lol and the life worth living is the life of virtue. Jesus fucking Christ.

Go easy on her, she's just a girl.

Start thinking of females as having a gigantic hole inside their heads and brains, empty. Girls need to be instructed in very simple language, slowly and patiently, about philosophical concepts.

You need to remember that philosophy is inherently 100% male endeavor, where females are merely along for the ride and enjoy spectating, not participating.


Not only do females have a hole between their thighs, but they have a mental vagina too which is just as vacuous if not more so.

A female receives ideas as she receives sperm, in the same fashion

Magnus Anderson wrote:

phoneutria wrote:

Happiness is not a good word.

Orly? So how about the word pleasure? Since "hedone" means pleasure in Greek. Is that not good enough for you either? What are you going to come up with next?

How about we stick with eudaimonia?

Magnus Anderson wrote:

Quote :

That answer is open for the sake of brevity. The actual answer is a separate subject.
Since virtue is a condition to eudaimonia, the closed answer is that a life worth living is a life of virtue.
Then, of course, you have to define virtue.

So hedonism is a school of thought in which the best life is thought to be the life worth living lol and the life worth living is the life of virtue. Jesus fucking Christ.

Yes.

Read this if you haven't already... in fact read it again as if you did, you forgot everything... or don't, I don't care.

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phoneutria wrote:

How about we stick with eudaimonia?

How about I stick it up your bum? Either respond properly or go fuck yourself.