Schopenhauer's Hidden Will aka Striving

Someone asked recently:
"Why suffering matters more than joy? 

Why letting all negatives rule the morality?"

Schopenhauer might respond that lack of something and dissatisfaction seem to propel us forward. Even if some fulfillment of the initial state of lack leads to some positive outcomes, these are usually temporary. Besides, even if there is happy moments, the basic lack of something should make you wonder if there is something suspect about the whole enterprise. There is simply a movement forward, what Schopenhauer would call "Will". The ceaseless striving of things has no overall purpose except perhaps to survive or continue to move forward, which begs the question (we survive to survive to survive, endlessly striving for nothing, but to keep it going). Look at ennui- boredom. This is a state of our striving having no particular aim. You can see it turn in on itself right before your very eyes. It is the weariness of the striving brought to the foreground- not distracted from any particular pursuit. This is the time for real reflection- not when one is occupied by this or that, but when one has run out of goals and simply stares at the void head-on. If happiness is coming from a state of dissatisfaction and lack of something, what is that telling you about the true nature of happiness? If we strip off our human emotions, we can see the inner-workings of pure Will or striving.

Deterministic Nature of Social Reality and Antinatalism

Another argument for antinatalism is the deterministic nature of social reality. When most people think of human choices, they generally have a very broad range of how humans can conduct their lives. However, we are not as free as we would like to think. Societal forces move humans to really only a relatively small number of options due to the inherent dangers, unpleasantness, and opportunity costs involved in doing more radical "fringe" activities. Thus we really are "condemned" to certain fates.

Let us look at an example:

Scenario 1.) Person 1 is forced to be a middle manager at a widget company selling widget parts, and was forced to work there by an evil mastermind who has somehow manipulated, extorted, and threatened person1 into being this middle manager. Let us not get into the detail of how this can even happen as this is simply to illustrate a point. Most of us would consider this a bad situation, and immoral by the evil mastermind to force person 1 into this choice of middle manager.

Scenario 2.) Person 1 is forced to be a middle manager at a widget company selling widget parts and was not forced by an evil mastermind. Rather, this person tried to make it as a rock star and painter- his true passions but failed miserably as there was a poor economy, and no one was frankly interested in his music or art. The person went to college to be an astrophysicist, but dropped out due to too many F's- he just couldn't hack it in advanced calculus. After college, the person needed to "strike it on their own" to seek their own independence and basically not look like a bum to the other sex by staying with parents. Frankly, the parents wouldn't want their child to live off their bill anymore anyways. Person 1 needs to find a job to live on his own. He finds a "death-of-a-salesman" job with low base pay and some commission- the only thing he can find without running out of many. He finds a cheap rental in a shady area of town and works for 20 years up the sales ranks, until he makes it to middle management. Every day is a slog- he didn't know how he got to where he was, but he knew little decisions along the way, and the necessity to live, pay bills, and move forward without dying of starvation and exposure was responsible. He hates his life, he cannot move out without lowering his standard of living. He knows it is a choice, but not a real choice.

Anyways, this exercise is to show, that really being born is not much different than being forced at gunpoint by the evil mastermind. Scenario 1 might look like there are less choices for Person 1, so immoral, because it was forced, but really Scenario 2 becomes, in its own way, just as forced as scenario 1 because the reality of life de facto makes decisions go a certain way. We are forced, by the social reality of having to survive and navigate in a social world with many contingent factors, to do things that we would not want to do otherwise.

Having a child forces situations and de facto undesirable choices on a human. We are not as free as we think.

Pessimism

I think it is good to isolate the idea of pessimism from other terms that are often conflated with it such as "hard-nosed realism", "defeatism", "nihilism", and "existentialism"; these terms are related but not identical to the ideas behind philosophical pessimism itself.

In general, philosophical pessimism posits a metaphysical restlessness behind the scenes of phenomenal experience, but is felt immediately in the subject by his/her own experience of unrest. This unrest is characterized by strivings, discomfort, pain, and boredom. According to Schopenhauer, happiness is really a negative in that it is simply the temporary cessation of the "normal" state of discomfort. I think this understanding may be felt keenly by people who have independently experienced existential anguish. One doesn't have to read Schop to feel this way- he is just a Western philosopher who put it into a very concrete and systematic formulation that, to many readers, makes intuitive sense. Pessimism as a vague concept that life is "not that great" is at least as old as civilization itself and can be found as far back as Near Eastern Wisdom literature c. 3,000 BCE and is certainly seen in Eastern Philosophy. There are definitely elements of it in some Greco-Roman philosophies as well (as recognized by Schopenhauer himself).

This is not a novel concept, but perhaps, as civilization(s) allow the average person in society to free up their time and become more individualistic and keenly aware of their own existential situation, the hidden pessimistic stance that has always been there in many literary or philosophic circles moves to the forefront and becomes a natural stance that starts to make sense to a wider array of people. Antinatalism, another minority position that has been around for a long time, and succinctly articulated by Schopenhauer and other philosophical pessimists, has also started to gain traction as the natural ethical extension of the general philosophical pessimistic stance.

Panpyschism vs. Emergentism

Emergentism and pansychism are two monistic theories of mind somewhat at odds with each other. I am wondering which one makes more sense to people on this forum. Emergentism claims that mind forms from physical properties at lower levels. Somehow, a software-like program (the mind) forms from physical constituents (mainly, neurobiological phenomena). Of course the question is, how is "mind" emerging from non-mind? There is a seeming hidden dualism, whereby the subjective experience is leftover as some other new "phenomena" that is different from the properties it is emerging from.

Panpsychism takes a stance that matter has some subjective quality to it. Of course, it does not mean that matter has anything like a human consciousness, but that it simply "experiences" the world at some primitive level. This actually solves the problem quite nicely of mind-body, because one can posit irreducible minds as the basis of this subjective "what it feels like". The kicker here, is you have to swallow the notion that non-animal constituents of nature have subjective qualities. Here is a theory I have stated in a previous post, that would go along with this idea:

All panpsychism proposes that consciousness is irreducible to matter. Matter is itself some form of primitive mind. Minds that combine and communicate can form more complex minds that make a more complex whole through some sort of language (semiotics? laws of nature? etc.). These new languages that occur between irreducible minds form complex minds. Biological organisms can be considered a kind of language whereby genetics interplays in a certain way whereby there is random change (mutation) along with rule-based material language (genetic transcription, protein formation,etc.) that keeps them existing, evolving, and reproducing. The combining of biologically linguistic behavior and irreducible minds form more complex animal minds. Due to the particular nature of the language of biological processes, biological organisms can have a seemingly infinite amount of complexity compared to more primitive minds (inorganic matter). Biologically complex minds can combine even further to networks and language complex enough to bring the irreducible minds into an animal cognitive state due to the very intricate language combined with irreducible mind. An animal cognitive state that can further externalize language and thus become "self-aware" can be said to have something like a human consciousness. Our human consciousness, being based on conceptual and linguistic understanding, is a communication system that has been externalized from networks of irreducible minds in the brain and body, to irreducible minds from one brain and body to another brain and body of our species in our particular biological niche.

So, with this idea in mind, which makes more sense for a monist theory, emergentism or panpsychism? In emegentism, there is no real account of how subjectivity derives from non-subjectivity ("where" is this inner state?). In Pansychism, one has to posit that everything has a subjective quality. Which one are you willing to bite the bullet on?

Common Pessimism vs. Philosophical Pessimism

The two kinds of pessimism are common pessimism and philosophical pessimism.

Common pessimism is pretty much equivalent to the idea of defeatism. That is the classic "glass is half empty" position regarding the outcome of one's fortune or future fortunes. This is the most common type of pessimism people think about when they think of pessimism. This type is generally just saying to expect the worst, things will not be getting "better" (whatever subjective meaning we are using for better).

Philosophical pessimism is on the whole related in its negative estimation of life events, but much broader and more complex than common pessimism (defeatism). Philosophical pessimism is the position generally outlined by Arthur Schopenhauer and states that the world in some fundamental metaphysical way, is "no good". Similar to Buddhism, the idea is that when humans are born into existence, they suffer. Suffering occurs because of a pervasive restlessness in big-brained human animal. We are in constant need and want for reasons of survival, discomfort, and boredom. Boredom especially shows the negative quality that existence imposes on the human animal as it indicates that at the end of all the striving, there is simply a lack and feeling of worthlessness that leads us to go back on the "striving" merry-go-round. Schopenhauer specifically described this inner striving and restlessness as our "Will-to-live" which is constant and endless. According to his views (which have been labeled as Philosophical Pessimism by later philosophers), existence is really a seething, striving, force, or "Will" that manifests itself in representational form as the phenomena of the physical universe (see neutral monism). Schopenhauer's claim is that the Will is categorically suffering for all living beings, and is especially so for human beings. The reason for the greater suffering in Humans is the assertion that Humans, can self-reflect on their own pain as well as feel pain more acutely (in the everyday strife of living, natural disasters, emotional anguish, boredom, and the ceaseless striving for goals). It seems that having goals itself, and the need to have to work towards something is a form of suffering. It seems being disappointed if goals are not reached lead to suffering, it seems that boredom and restlessness continuing when one reaches goals, and has no task to accomplish is also suffering. In his work, Schopenhauer advocated aesthetic contemplation and compassion as two lower level ways to solve the problem of suffering. However, he wrote that the most fundamental way for the individual to end suffering is to retreat to living as a hermit or ascetic who cuts all physical relations with the world, therefore "ending the Will-to-Live". Along with this, one should not act in the supreme Will's command by procreating the will unto another individual and thus, giving into the ultimate demand of the Will-to-Live (procreating the Will and its suffering to a new individual human form).

So, with all this said, you must now try to evaluate the idea of pessimism with this understanding. If you are to examine philosophical pessimism, and its worldview, do you generally agree with this assessment of the world? I personally agree with much of the sentiment and would say it is most accurate to our situation. I cannot refute the fact that we are big-brained animals that are restless, and this restlessness leads to suffering due to our strivings and realization of worthlessness and incomprehensibility of existence through the experience of profound boredom. As stated in another post of mine: When our attention goes smoothly, we are very much "of the appearance of things" that everything is "all right" in our world. However, when our attention is not focused on a specific task, or is not consumed with something to take its mind off existence itself, boredom comes seeping in. The feeling of boredom may be analogous to Heiddger's idea of "broken tool". No longer does the world seem to run smoothly as it did in when our minds were focused or attentive to some task. Now the world itself seems to lack significance. The void of nothingness stares in our face and forces us to flee. The feeling of existential dread is that all consuming feeling that at the heart of the world there is nothingness, at the end of the day there is blankness. When we are focusing our attention we stay at the surface of things. Life makes sense.. things seem logical. Boredom breaks this barrier and shows it for what it is really. We cannot describe what the world is because there are no words. As stated before, it is ineffable. We can only describe the feeling, and that is one of existential dread.

The Harm of a Non-Ideal World

So there seems to be a hidden "tyranny" (for lack of a better term) of the sociological phenomenon of human existence. By "sociological phenomena of human existence" I mean human institutions such as government, family, economic institutions, etc.. [Let us assume for the moment that sociological phenomena like the aforementioned institutions are "real" in some way]. These are huge social realities that are absolutely integral and necessary in human life; they can never be changed by one individual, whether it is their wish to or not. They are unmovable conditions one must contend with.

Being an individual human with my own thoughts and ideals, I can never have my ideal world whereby all the sociological phenomena is set up to my personal preference. For example, I would prefer a world where there was no such thing as work in any formal sense (for a company, government, group of people etc.). In my ideal world, the institutions would be completely different or perhaps even non-existent altogether and replaced with some other ideal circumstance whereby that institution is no longer needed.

However, I live in the real world. In the real world, I must learn to cope with the challenges and conflicts of living in my non-ideal sociological reality. In order to survive and thrive, I have to "make the best of it", "change my initial outlook", and adapt and align (in at least some way) my goals with the real-world's ideals. I want the abolishment of the institution of work (or the need for it in the first place)- who doesn't want this in their ideal world, right? Of course, this silly wish is not going to happen in the real-world. Realistically, I can only make incremental changes based on my real-world situation (where I live, what I am working with psychologically, monetarily, socially, geographically, etc. etc.). I have to find my way within the system's already-existent set-up (none of them containing my ideal-world reality); I have to follow the dictates of an already-existent, historically derived social reality that I didn't ask for.

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With this understanding, when we bring people into the world (by procreation), we are using them as a means to an ends. The ideal goals of an individual, de facto, from living in a world with an already-existent sociological set-up, will never be realized. The billions of people would have billions of variations on how they would like to see the world "set-up". Since the almost infinite amount of variations on sociological set-up can never be realized for each individual, it seems to me, unethical to bring a person into the world.

Once you bring a person into the world, their ideal sociological set-up is negated for the already-existent society. Now, the child must live by the dictates of other people and either learn to accept it or live a miserable life, never happy with his/her lot.

1. Is it ok to knowingly bring children into the world if you know that a person's ideal sociological set-up can never be realized for that individual?
2. Is it ok to knowingly and purposefully bring about a child who faces challenges and conflicts with the sociological structures of the world in some sort of hope that they will thrive in the already-existent set-up?
3. Even if "most people" accept the real-world sociological institutions and learn to adapt accordingly, is it ok to procreate if there is the possibility that someone might never accept the real-world sociological institutions?
4. If the world can only be changed incrementally from within the established system, and can never be able to be arranged to the dictates of an individual's ideal sociological set-up (which is an impossibility from the get-go since billions of people have different versions of what an ideal world is), then is it ok to make a child and "force" him (directly or indirectly) to adapt to the dictates of the established system?
5. If one must struggle and experience many conflicts that are harmful and unpleasant in the real-world, in order to achive some (modified) version of happiness, then is knowingly bringing someone into this situation of strife and conflict with the real-world acceptable?

I propose that the answer is "no, it is not ok to bring a person into a situation where their ideal world can never be realized". They are now being used by family, society, economy, civilization, group, etc. to keep those institutions going. The ideal world of the individual can never be realized in light of the already-existent real-world set-up.

Bizarrely, we allow social institutions to perpetuate their own needs at the expense of the individual's. Even if a majority of people accept it and cope, there may always be people who will feel cheated of never being brought into their ideal world. The tyranny of social institutions that already-exist will rule over that individual his/her whole life. They are now the means to the already-existent social institution's ends. This is an extreme violation of the deontological ethical principle that one should try to refrain from using people for another's ends.

The Significance of Boredom and How it Leads to Existential Dread

I would like to get some thoughts and opinions on the significance of the state of boredom in our all too human lives. It is hard for me to clearly identify these somewhat vauge thoughts I am trying to convey right now, so I will try to get to the meat of it and I hope some of you can follow the line of reasoning I am getting at without being too confused as to my thesis.

Thesis: My basic thesis (which of course can easily be debated but should still be considered) is that boredom plays a central role in the human psyche. No other cognitive state is more powerful in terms of revealing certain ineffable truths than that of boredom. The ineffable truth is just that, ineffable, so cannot easily be summed up, but immediately words such as "dread", "angst", and "existential void" come to mind. The feeling of everything being envoloped in the existential void, I will use the much used word "nihilism".

(Sidenote: Certainly, I am not the only person to come up with this revelation, nor shall I be the last. I am aware of Heidegger's very thorough analysis of the significance of boredom as well, and rather than drawing inspiration from him, my line of thought can be considered paralleled with some of his and of course with much less analysis than this giant in the philosophy world. Though I may be way off target in my analysis, I will try to incorporate the parallel realizations of Heiddeger into my own independent explanations).

Support and elaboration:

Boredom is the most powerful way to get to the heart of the matter of existence (that is to say being enveloped in existential dread). However, there is a less effective route to this understanding by contemplating or concentrating on a very narrow line of thought. I will explain that below, which I will call the "weak path". Then, I will explain the "stronger route" to existential dread, which is that of boredom.

Weak path to existential dread (looking at ourselves as if we were merely apes or dustmites rather): Looking at the world from a scientific standpoint, that is to say, pretending we can downplay the subjective (inner life) of our existence and just look at the world as if it can be seen from an objective vantage point, humans are certainly specs of nothing compared to the universe itself. To be even more nihilistic, and some may say more cynical, we can consider ourselves merely "apes-with-conceptual-cognition" that go about our day to day lives in our species' niche of living. If one contemplates long enough on this idea that humans are merely apes, a certain "objectification" of what it means to be human may occur and we may see ourselves for what we truly are. No longer does the significance of our thoughts and actions seem to have any consequence, as it is merely man-ape being himself, a highly sociable ape that uses conceptual thoughts and language to survive and thrive, nothing more. H.P. Lovecraft, the horror writer tries to convey this path to dread to his readers in his stories. His overall theme is called "cosmicism" where humans are insignificant beings.. we may as well be dust mites that if obliterated, would not matter of any consequence to the universe in general.

The argument above is a weaker path to dread. The reason for this is because, though one may come to feelings of dread from this line of thought, it is very narrow as one must specifically must "think" ourselves into existential despair by "contemplating" these nihilistic ideas of our insignificance.

Strong path to existential dread (boredom, the final frontier):

Whereas the weak argument is a very conceptually driven way to get to feelings of dread and despair, and is also predicated on being in a scientific, western culture, the emotional state of deep ennui and boredom, is available to any human in any culture. The weaker argument assumes we can look at ourselves objectively, and see ourselves from the outside, as if there were no subjective "inner life". Heiddegger may have had an analogous term for this which was that of being "Present-at-hand". Of course, this is not the case that we can see ourselves objectively. We are always viewing things from our subjective "I" self. Our stream of conscious inner world. Heidegger might have referred to this as "Ready-at-hand". This subjective world is the world of daily life that we all live in. Referring back to Heidegger, it seems our inner world can be seen as what we focus our attention on. In our day to day lives, we focus our attention on certain things to get things "done" or to entertain ourselves. The hunger-gatherer may focus on hunting the buffalo, or learning a tribal dance, the Westerner may focus on playing poker, or reading the newspaper. When our attention goes smoothly, we are very much "of the appearance of things" that everything is "all right" in our world. However, when our attention is not focused on a specific task, or is not consumed with something to take its mind off existence itself, boredom comes seeping in. The feeling of boredom may be analogous to Heiddger's idea of "broken tool". No longer does the world seem to run smoothly as it did in when our minds were focused or attentive to some task. Now the world itself seems to lack significance. The void of nothingness stares in our face and forces us to flee. The feeling of existential dread is that all consuming feeling that at the heart of the world there is nothingness, at the end of the day there is blankness. When we are focusing our attention we stay at the surface of things. Life makes sense.. things seem logical. Boredom breaks this barrier and shows it for what it is really. We cannot describe what the world is because there are no words. As stated before, it is ineffable. We can only describe the feeling, and that is one of existential dread.