Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you for sharing this! I’ve wrestled with existential questions my whole life. This is one of the best explanations for our existence that I’ve seen. Simple, and meaningful. I also love that this explanation also gives you a framework to live by. Meaning and purpose are arbitrary, but that’s really the value in them. You choose to make your life valuable. Would you really want it any other way?
So glad it helped! Before that course, existential despair was nearly constant, from 10 years old through my 20s, and for much the same reasons for me as for the article writer. What is this world, where adults talk about high-minded principles but then act reprehensibly in the shadows? What are principles even for, then? Why are we here? Why am I here? Anyone?
Dabrowski’s theory and existential depression (2020)
151–160 of 161 posts
Re: Dabrowski’s theory and existential depression (2020)
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I'm cool with that. There is no meaning to any of this chaos, but I make an effort to make my life feel meaningful, and that's all that matters. Like clay, on its own has no purpose, but you can fashion it into bricks and build something with it.
Chaos is an interesting word to use. Underneath all the chaos is so much order. Dare I say the universe is mechanistic in its working. The earth orbits in an orderly fashion, set at a distance from the sun that is just right to sustain life. The moon makes its transit, and with us all the planets here move in their own ordered fashion. Or I suppose we could go smaller. Your body moves and goes, replicating one of the…
Re: Dabrowski’s theory and existential depression (2020)
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
So glad it helped! Before that course, existential despair was nearly constant, from 10 years old through my 20s, and for much the same reasons for me as for the article writer. What is this world, where adults talk about high-minded principles but then act reprehensibly in the shadows? What are principles even for, then? Why are we here? Why am I here? Anyone?
Would you mind sharing that course? I’ve very interested in learning more.
I haven't ever been able to verify my particular understanding of their worldview, but I understand that it changed quite a bit after Christianity got a foothold. All that about rebirth and renewal after Ragnarok was a later addition. Or, my lecturer could have been mistaken, but I doubt it.
I wish I could be more helpful, but he did mention Tolkien as a Norse scholar quite a lot.
Re: Dabrowski’s theory and existential depression (2020)
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would you mind sharing that course? I’ve very interested in learning more.
It was 20 years ago, and the lecturer was a Vietnam Vet in his spry 60s, named Robert Milgram. I just looked at the faculty list and he is no longer there. It was a "Medieval English Literature" course that started with a long-assed tangent about the "Germanic peoples" and the Vikings, and all of that about Ragnarok and the Norse worldview was delivered by lecture over the course of several weeks. I haven't ever been…
Re: Dabrowski’s theory and existential depression (2020)
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chaos is an interesting word to use. Underneath all the chaos is so much order. Dare I say the universe is mechanistic in its working. The earth orbits in an orderly fashion, set at a distance from the sun that is just right to sustain life. The moon makes its transit, and with us all the planets here move in their own ordered fashion. Or I suppose we could go smaller. Your body moves and goes, replicating one of the…
I'm starting to see that chaos and entropy are metaphors that we who have experienced existential despair are using to describe something else that may not be clear to those who have not. Not sure, but people keep getting distracted by those terms, but it seems to be missing the point. Upstream post may well have said there is no meaning to all this order . Paying attention to the underlying order doesn't address the…
This resonates (for lack of a better term) with me so much.
I recommend reading the book of Ecclesiastes. The author's frequent refrain is "'Vanity of vanities', says the Preacher, 'all is vanity.'"
You're right, chaos is a useless word. I've often tried to describe it as emptiness or worthlessness or a lack of intrinsic (self-contained) value. That is the efforts of my life are motes of dust in the history of the universe. The affect I have is empty, gone, "dust in the wind" as one artist puts it.
I guess looking at a well organized array of widgets does not exude meaning. Those, too, are meaningless without context. I mentioned in another comment that the universe itself does not contain the context into which it was created and that context -- I believe -- is where the true meaning and value of everything arises.
A tool is useless without the mechanic to use it. Clay is formless, void (meaningless) without a craftsman to shape it, fire it, and put it to use.
Re: Dabrowski’s theory and existential depression (2020)
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
> establishing yourself with multiple ideas of who you are so that the loss of one thing does not bring the whole thing down. I wrote down the facets of this exact process here [1], which I call my Autological Manifesto. All the aspects of being that define a self-studying, constantly evolving algorithm. [1] https://hypertele.fi/a7084542272f4c89 > I am an evolving whole of components, each and all of them replaceable…
As a head's up: the convention is not to put Mensa membership in your CV, dude, unless you're somehow an officer or there is something more to it. Go ahead and ask: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/2584723/
Re: Dabrowski’s theory and existential depression (2020)
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a head's up: the convention is not to put Mensa membership in your CV, dude, unless you're somehow an officer or there is something more to it. Go ahead and ask: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/2584723/
Cute, trying to control information by convention. Doubt any laws are broken.
Re: Dabrowski’s theory and existential depression (2020)
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There is only one piece of advice I dare give atheists: intentionally have faith in something. I mean that makes sense that you would do that. If you can get an atheist to accept the premise that faith is somehow necessary, then you have validated your own worldview. To me, faith is not some noble stance in the face of uncertainty. It is a metaphorical shrug in the face of cognitive dissonance. The correct spiritua…
Don't get me wrong, I do not give advice unsolicited. Faithful or not it is just a bad idea. I dare give advice when asked. The end of my last comment could have been better built. I never stated that faith was necessary, only useful and empowering. It is not a purely religious concept. It is one of those things that cannot be conveyed through words, the same way I cannot convey the color red or wetness without the r…
We all ostensibly can verify the pronouncements of scientists ourselves, and this is a difference between religion and science, but how many actually do that? We trust that all of the books and scientists are correct about, oh, the age of the Universe and the speed of light, but very few of us have verified these ourselves. We are content to accept them on faith
> Why is that religion dead though, why did people stop believing?
For the same reason that religion is being supplanted by science today. Its story and adoption offers an immediate improvement to individuals' lives. Christianity offered an improvement to the lives of Vikings, for various reasons. No more intramural slaughter allowed, for one. It also offered a literal break from the relentless pressure of dead ancestors, for another (I didn't discuss that part of Norse mythology, but if you behaved like a coward, all of your ancestors would be thrown out of Valhalla for the shame of bearing you). The Norse religion was adopted before that because it offered improvement in the lives of its adherents over whatever had existed earlier. Most likely by honing them into truly fierce, zero-fucks-given badasses.
Re: Dabrowski’s theory and existential depression (2020)
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't get me wrong, I do not give advice unsolicited. Faithful or not it is just a bad idea. I dare give advice when asked. The end of my last comment could have been better built. I never stated that faith was necessary, only useful and empowering. It is not a purely religious concept. It is one of those things that cannot be conveyed through words, the same way I cannot convey the color red or wetness without the r…
Fair enough. To the annoyance and solid resistance of most atheists, I assert that Science occupies the same archetype as Religion in our society and psychology, even for devout atheists. They often respond that Science is True and Religion is not. Which makes me giggle: most Believers believe their religion is True, so that's an argument the devout of all stripes would make. The truth (or not) of which though is irr…
Yet it cannot fully replace religion because it does not offer a way of living, a common set of values, a story to tell. What it offers is a method to gain the truth. Truth is not intrinsically good.
We need a method to gain the "good"/an ideal. I claim by personal experience and observation of history that Christianity leads to the perpetuation of the group and the individual. Arguably survival is good but insufficient which brings back to existential depression. Not only does a complete religion (i.e. unlike the incomplete religion of science) lead to survival but also to striving for what will make you thrive, beat existential depression. i.e. A "complete religion" gives a compass and a North star, a goal worth pursuing, a definition of good, a desirable ending to the story of one's life. A complete religion teaches you to reach the "good" and what "good" is.
Of course, one can take the path of "there is no God", whatever that means, and believe that everything always was, that there is no cause. That is human. I have been reading the Odyssey lately and gods are everywhere yet humans care only when it is to their benefit. The whole book would not exist if Agamemnon would have freed the daughter of a priest of Apollo when the priest asked for her with a ransom.
My definition of god is: higher power. What does higher power even mean? I would suggest the 4 fundamental forces are just some angels doing what God says. I cannot prove it and no one can disprove it. I lose nothing and gain a definition of good. All that is required is faith in some story.
In a not quite related note: The bit about the pressure from dead ancestors is very interesting. I like perpetuating some stories while not having faith them in order to promote imagination, art and action. This is one of them.
Re: Dabrowski’s theory and existential depression (2020)
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Calling out reasoning as fallacious is not as powerful as you think it is.
To me rationality is a pretty important normativity, not that I am after it for power. But since you seem to precisely know what I think, exactly how powerful should I feel about it?
1. Appeal to Authority
An appeal to authority can be a good sign that someone does not actually know what they are talking about and are regurgitating the words of some pundit. However, the progression of human knowledge at the rate we enjoy it today entirely depends on specialists of their particular field deferring to the knowledge of an authority outside of their field. And laypeople have basically no criteria to use to select which authority will tell them what they “know” except for perceived credibility of the authority (see “Ad Hominem”). A simple example is the roundness of the earth. Can most people derive from first principles an empirical method that would allow them to witness first hand the curvature of the earth? No. Most people must take the word of scientists and mathematicians this for this at face value (at least, they did until airplanes and photography were invented). In the scheme of things, though, it's relatively simple to demonstrate that the earth is round; other things are not so simple. The sum total of human knowledge is built upon a hierarchy expertise and authority where each higher layer depends on the correctness (or correct-enough-ness) of the layers below, the vast, vast majority of which individuals at the top layers cannot verify even a little bit, let alone 100% (Hierarchy might not be the correct model here but it's a simple short hand). When two non-experts in a field are arguing about something, practically speaking, they are either depending on the knowledge of a multitude of authorities or they are talking out of their asses. 99.9% of discussions regarding any given topic online could probably be said to fall into one of those two categories.
2. Ad Hominem
As being able to trust in the authority of experts is such an important aspect of confidence in your conferred knowledge of something, you must consider the reputation of that authority when choosing what to believe. As such, if you do not have the expertise to personally establish on a factual basis that what someone is saying is wrong, you can only consider the credibility you perceive them to have (or become an expert yourself, which is simply not a scalable approach). If someone is telling you that a salesman has a reputation of selling faulty products, it is not fallacious reasoning to use their lack of credibility to inform your decision not to buy whatever they are selling, despite your inability to personally examine the quality of the product for sale. Or, I should say, it is considered fallacious but is actually not flawed reasoning by any useful metric.
The above “fallacies” are rooted in, essentially, tools that we must use to make decisions at a reasonable pace. Pointing out that someone has used one of these tools isn’t particularly productive when they are a necessity. I’m sure there are more like this, but none come to mind at the moment. There are more “fallacies” still that are just plain abused, for example, the Slippery Slope. People misunderstand this one, unfortunately. They see a slippery slope argument and think “Aha! That’s a fallacy! You are wrong!” I’d call this the fallacy fallacy but that would be saying that their only mistake is to ignore the substance of the discounted argument. The problem is, there actually ARE slippery slopes! It’s an exercise in taking a process to its natural conclusion given that several steps naturally follow. The fallacy only occurs when the slope isn’t actually that slippery or the steps don’t naturally follow.
There are, of course, fallacies that practically always result in flawed reasoning, such as Circular Reasoning. Some of these I think it’s safe to just call them out as totally garbage.
In summary, some arguments are mis-identified as fallacious, often the Appeal to Authority, Ad Hominem (and to a lesser extent the Slippery Slope, among others), because their inclusion on the list of fallacies makes people think reasoning that relies on them can never be sound. This belief could not be further from the truth.