whining thread

[Resolute]

i think i mostly meant it in a realistically negative kind of sense.

[mts]

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[Resolute]

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In the 19thC, Kierkegaard considered that angst and existential despair would appear when an inherited or borrowed world-view (often of a collective nature) proved unable to handle unexpected and extreme life-experiences. Nietzsche extended his views to suggest that the so-called Death of God – the loss of collective faith in religion and traditional morality – created a more widespread existential crisis for the philosophically aware.

 

[mts]

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[Resolute]

29 minutes ago, mts said:

Since circumstances have an affect on that (?), you could say circumstances possibly contribute to the after-affect.

no doubt that circumstances (including genes) determine how each person responds to any acquired knowledge (or anything for that matter).

[Resolute]

7 hours ago, LaLa said:

It seems to me we think about these things in quite similar ways, with some exceptions. (For instance me, I would prefer to have some more of those "delusions", although I'm a very "rational-based" person.

i can't say i blame you for this.

 

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I know several people who are very intelligent, well-educated, ... and are blessed with a positive attitude towards life; able to reflect on its tragic aspects, but still live with some kind of "positive energy" they're also spreading onto people around them. It works and it's very pleasant.

i have issue with the words "blessed" and "positive". your definition of these words is inline with society's definition. i, however, might not consider ignorance or "positivity" to be blessings. i guess i'm a nihilist, which means i believe that nothing is positive.

also, i'm almost certain that these "very intelligent" and well educated people are not truly "able to reflect on life's tragic aspects" while maintaining their positivity. i maintain that anyone who truly comprehends (even slightly) existence for what it really is cannot actually remain positive. it's almost inconceivable, unless that person is a robot.

 

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When I compare it to me, so easily irritated or angry (although only for a little while) or so often sad... I would just prefer their "delusions" (-still not agreeing with your broad "definition"). )

i'm still not clear on what you mean by my broad definition. if you can explain again your definition and your interpretation of my definition, i'd be grateful.

 

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This is again just your opinion. A little bit surprising to me, but at the same time; I know we all have topics we like to discuss and topics we just avoid. You seem to avoid this, by dismissing it as unimportant. I think this is quite important and can bring us useful insights. (Of course it can't help by removing pain or other suffering - if you told yourself "from one point of view, this is not real", it wouldn't alleviate the pain at all. But there are ways it can help to some of us, for instance when disputing about some problems.)

the reason for which i dismissed this topic as unimportant is because klingsor and i have actually posted about it innumerably; specially in this very thread (although you probably won't be able to find klingsor's posts lol). i can discuss it in more detail if you'd like, but for now i'll just go over it briefly, as i'm quite tired. the problem with relativism is that it doesn't differentiate between facts and opinions. according to it, everything is subjective. this of course is very dangerous, because then there would be no facts; and all opinions, no matter how ridiculous, would carry the same value/weight/validity. 1+1=2 would only be an opinion, and therefor just as valid as any other opinion, such as 1+1=38. absolutists say that certain things are objectively true/false, regardless of subjective realities, beliefs, views etc.. (in my version of absolutism, everything has an objective truth/falsity)

[IrmaJean]

I saw this article this morning and I found it thought provoking. I thought you might appreciate it. There are different thoughts presented here that could offer some options that might be useful to help a person feel more at ease with this belief if it is true. Maybe there is a way for you to find more peace with life that aligns with your beliefs about determinism. 

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/06/theres-no-such-thing-as-free-will/480750/?utm_source=yahoo

[Resolute]

i appreciate the sentiment, beth. but i still don't see how this is supposed to help (not that the article has brought forth anything new or groundbreaking). for me, the minimum requirement for accepting life is for it to have an objective purpose, real meaning (not me assigning meaning to meaningless crap) and actual justification. and as we already know, none of that is possible, otherwise someone would've discovered it by now.

the minimum requirement for me to tolerate life is if my circumstances were at least close to what i want them to be. that of course, is also impossible considering that i know myself and my circumstances terrifyingly well (and i know what is logically or at least practically possible, and what is not).

the article is only relevant to people who give a crap about the world as it is, which i don't. to me anything without actual meaning, purpose and justification is worthless. that means that all of existence is worthless. and for me to pretend otherwise, will not give it any value or worth.

and i won't point out some of the contradictions and inconsistencies in the article (unless you want me to).

[Resolute]

this o'brien sounds like quite an asshole lol.

[Resolute]

the absolute absence of objectivity nullifies the existence of any reference points, anywhere and everywhere.

[Resolute]

well it's saturday here, so....

[Resolute]

i've just started watching a comedy called "the carmichael show", and this amber west (who plays the girlfriend) is so damn hot.

[malign]

On 5/19/2016 at 9:07 PM, Klingsor said:

Incidentally, this is why I've abandoned my idea of starting a thread on resistance techniques to psychological intimidation because they all require some fixed sense of self and reality to successfully implement. Claiming objectivity to be a void concept nullifies these techniques.

I find this interesting.  I understand the desire for an external, "objective" standard, but ...

Instead, I thought about flipping the idea of "psychological intimidation" around.  But first, some assumptions:  that the intimidation is coming from some one or more persons;  that those persons are not in possession of some more-objective standard than you are, because none of us are;  that those persons stand to gain in some way from succeeding in their intimidation;  and in fact, the intimidation is to some extent effective, or you wouldn't need to resist it.  If I'm completely wrong about the assumptions, of course I'll be wrong about my conclusions.

Wouldn't the best defense then be the full realization, not of the weakness of your own position, but of the weakness of theirs?  On top of their lack of any objective superiority from which to attack you, there's the obvious profit motive (they're benefiting in some way) to explain why they would.  In other words, the desire to psychologically intimidate is the result not of greater strength, but of greater weakness (they need something from you that they gain by intimidation, but which you don't need to obtain from them.)

That argument is separate from one that I also find effective, which is that a "fixed sense of self" could well be seen as the most subjective thing of all, and still be effective.  But that's a different angle, and one you may not agree with me on ...

I don't know, but I'm interested in what you think.

[Resolute]

@Small, i watched "chappie" today, and it was a real letdown, unfortunately. i'm not sure why you liked it so much.

[Victimorthecrime]

Res have you seen ex machina? Also about AI robots. 

My coworker raves about Chappie but I have not seen.  

[Resolute]

34 minutes ago, Victimorthecrime said:

Res have you seen ex machina? Also about AI robots. 

i haven't seen that one, and the storyline doesn't appeal to me.

 

34 minutes ago, Victimorthecrime said:

My coworker raves about Chappie but I have not seen.  

i knew it! small is your coworker, isn't he?

[Victimorthecrime]

Lol I wish. 

I really liked Ex Machina. Good original story, good characters, great plot twist. 

[Resolute]

well said, klingsor. this part in particular:

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The problem with this approach (and the reason I abandoned the idea), however, is that the entire perspective of modern psychology is a shrine to "opinion". I have seen absolutely no evidence to the contrary, and the process I summarized above is opposed in principle to the methods of modern therapy. There is no longer any appeal to reason because the creed is dedicated to the individual ego. After all, if nobody is right, nobody can be wrong, thus, preserving these fragile, precious little "I's". The absurdity of all this is self-evident. If we disallow any acknowledgement or statement of truth a priori, then there is no point to anything. Even if we try to go halfway and claim agnosticism, in which we allow the possibility of objective truths with the proviso that we can never know these truths, or we say that truth itself is transient, it is subject to change, these both amount to the same thing - a denial of the possibility in any instance to arrive at any definitive conclusion about anything.

As an example of the practical consequences of this philosophy, let's consider this website. What is "support"? How do we define it? Is there even a definition? How do we know that "mental health" won't be "mental illness" tomorrow? How does one know one needs "support"? Why is my obsession with penis size an abnormality? Who can tell me it isn't? Why is child pornography illegal, why is it "morally" wrong? Aren't morals subject to change? What are laws? Can there be a principle of justice or morality in the absence of a true definition of "justice or morality"? 

 

[mts]

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[LaLa]

Hello, everybody, I'm just popping up here for a while to explain my absence and... a bit also "to vent".

I want you to know, Resolute and Klingsor in particular, that "even though" I disagree with you in some important points (and perhaps even thanks to this disagreement - how would one debate with someone who has the same opinions and views?), I like reading your posts and thinking about the ideas and problems you present; I find it often (/sometimes?) interesting and stimulating and provoking me to engage in the discussion, but I don't usually do it due to lack of time  . IDK; perhaps (probably?) it's better this way (also?) for you; perhaps my contribution wouldn't be bring any help or insights, just some negative emotions, feelings of being misunderstood, ...

And now "the venting part": I would have some time to discuss with you if there weren't some ... (OK, I will be "mean" now just to express my anger) idiots I have to deal with "IRL"! Well, not exactly "IRL" in the sense of "in person", luckily; I'm only communicating with them via internet: the difference is I know them in person, so there is much pressure to communicate, not to "let it be" / "to just become silent". By "idiots" I mean people who can't think enough rationally, who have no idea what a valid argument is, how to correctly understand a sentence (without imagining some absurd "hidden (?)" meanings behind it, ...), who don't know what's a fact and what's an opinion (and accuse others, for instance, of being "closed to other opinions" just because one refuses some non-sensical pseudoscience, for instance, or rely on sources fed by hateful propaganda and dismiss all one says by "you're naive because you believe what media say and refuse the truth", ...) I'm angry because they deprive me not only of my time but also of my poor attempts to live/behave healthily - I'm nervous, irritated etc. and it makes me crave more and more food and prevents me from focusing on what I'd like to (/should) do.

So, you can see here that my "relativism" isn't that general and strong as it seemed in some of my older posts  . I admit that trying to use relativism as an argument wasn't the best idea. Yet I still think that in many questions/issues, relativism IS a valid stance. Briefly; mainly (if not only) in philosophical questions (philosophy as a very broad discipline!), the "truth" and the "objective" may be sometimes, often, or even always (depends on our view) relative. It can be discussed and argued about, but it may be meaningful only when one knows what discussion is and when one have enough intellectual capacity and willingness to do it.

I haven't read enough of your posts, so my impressions aren't reliable, but I can at least tell you that discussing with you has made some sense to me, it was rather stimulating, not so irritating; what is irritating to me is that I don't have time to explain myself on this forum because I have to find ways how to explain some things to people from my life, trying to avoid making them feel offended (which I probably always fail). (Not to mention the other members of to whom I'd want to reply!...)

Take care!

[LaLa]

I've just by chance noticed this quote I took from the book The Yalom Reader: Selections From The Work Of A Master Therapist And Storyteller:

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In psychotherapy the boundary between fiction and personal history has always been unclear. It is only recently, perhaps because of Donald Spence's landmark book, Narrative Truth and Historical Truth, that therapists have become appreciative of their own narrative-constructive (as opposed to reconstructive) efforts in psychotherapy. Therapists and analysts no longer consider themselves, as Freud did, psychological archaeologists striving to excavate the real historical truth of a life: we have all become Nietzschean perspectivists. We understand that the truth changes according to the perspective of the observer and, in the case of therapy, truth's form is vastly influenced by the nature of the therapeutic relationship.

The psychotherapeutic goal has become a construction and not a reconstruction; we search to provide some plausible satisfying life narrative-even a fiction-that can provide coherence and understanding. Or consider the new research on implanted memories, which indicates that false memories may be implanted easily and that individuals are often unable to differentiate them from "real" memories of actual events. The old sure distinctions between truth and fiction grow increasingly blurred.

Nietzsche, perhaps more than any other thinker, has contributed to the blurring. He compared truth to discarded snakeskins shed as their owners grew larger and older. His perspectivistic view of truth posits that there is no truth, there is only interpretation: truth is a convenience, "truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not survive."'

I think it's a good glimpse at my concept of "relativism", so I'm sharing it  .

 

 

[LaLa]

Thanks, Klingsor. No, you've never offended me at all! (Neither has Resolute.) (I even don't know which parts of your posts would somebody consider potentially offending.)

I'm sad that your experience here has been so painful / hurtful. But I'm much more sad that your life experiences have been even more so  ...

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 reduces down to two distinct points of view: self-acceptance and self-hatred.

I don't think this is specific to the SPS forum. Many different conditions and experiences lead us to self-hatred and there are always people who succeed to move towards self-acceptance and then feel the urge to help others to achieve it too. (It was also my case. I remember very well how the self-acceptance period of time felt good and how it changed quite a lot in every-day life. Then it deteriorated (i.e. I wasn't able to maintain it) and now I'm trying to gain it back, in a better, more sustainable way, if possible.)

Sending you my best wishes...

[Resolute]

12 minutes ago, Klingsor said:

What is of the most profound curiosity is the fact that my having a small penis led me to the consideration of all of these questions of ontology. It's what happens when you "ain't gettin' any"....

for me, it was my overall unacceptable circumstances and unbearable experiences that were mostly responsible for my insistence on questioning everything (add to that my highly inquisitive and justice-driven nature).

 

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Basically, malign, everything I have posted, everything I have said proceeds in some measure from my obsession with penis size and my inferiority complex. I do not have to expend any effort to perceive myself this way; it does require an expenditure of effort and a degree of artificiality to "like me for me", therefore, it's false. 

this pretty much says it all.

[Small]

On Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 8:35 PM, Victimorthecrime said:

Lol I wish. 

I really liked Ex Machina. Good original story, good characters, great plot twist. 

Yeah I liked this one. RetroJohn did too actually. I didn't like the bearded main chara they cast though. He was sort of Irksome right?

[Small]

On Tuesday, May 24, 2016 at 6:53 PM, Resolute said:

@Small, i watched "chappie" today, and it was a real letdown, unfortunately. i'm not sure why you liked it so much.

Eh. I suppose It's like marmite. I bet you didn't like the cast right? I wouldn't have either, had I not been a fan of some of their music. I was pleasantly surprised to see them have a go at this acting business. Lol.